skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This sounds like something a company that had never been at sea in the open ocean would announce in order to capitalize on the faddishness of the word "drone".

The crew on freighters is already minimalist and isn't necessary to steer the ship in flat windless seas with no weather. They are there to clean it, keep the engine running, and deal with things that happen because of weather.

Saying you are going to get rid of the crew is like saying you are going to get rid of the guys who do robot maintenance and repair at a highly automated automobile plant.
I find it kind of weird to construe Justine Tunney's opinions as somehow related to Ayn Rand. I have no idea what she is really supporting, but there is no confusing her with an Objectivist. Whatever you might think of Ayn Rand, at least she never invented a phrase like, "tyranny of the individual."
Controlling an automobile is largely a matter of reaction and responding to circumstances.

Piloting a ship is a matter of strategy. You've got a vessel of hundreds of thousands of tonnes, a half kilometer or more long, with a stopping distance measured in kilometers, to which you can add or reduce energy (velocity) and/or change course only gradually, moving through a fluid which is itself in motion, often with rapidly changing currents changing direction and speed in only a few meters, through waves exceeding 30m in height, frequently operating in total darkness with few if any route markers, or in fog so thick there's no visibility past a few meters -- you cannot see the boundaries of your vessel let alone other ships or navigational hazards.

And that's with modern navigational aids. Consider sailing vessels up through the 1800s which traveled without any artificial light stronger than an oil lantern.

As recently as 1923, seven of a squadron of fourteen US Navy vessels sailed at flank speed into well-known and charted rocks at the north end of the Santa Barbara Channel. In the Honda Point disaster, seven destroyers traveling at 20 knots (37 km/h) ran aground. Two other ships grounded but managed to work free. Twenty-three sailors were killed.

Radio navigation was available and installed but not trusted. Sailing by dead reckoning in a heavy fog, the squadron commander ordered a course change too early and lead his fleet into the rocks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Point_Disaster
The article says otherwise. Labour costs seem rather a significant percentage.

> Crew costs of $3,299 a day account for about 44 percent of total operating expenses for a large container ship, according to Moore Stephens LLP, an industry accountant and consultant.
Even Google can't cope with this on phones that they themselves (or rather their Motorola subsidiary) have manufactured. Ingress has really annoying known issues with getting the user's heading from the compass on some devices, including some Motorola ones.
I don't understand how you can expect to work less hours in a capitalist economy. Basically the whole point is to make money and if you're freeing up time that means you're more productive for other work.

If my job is to do a, b, and c and using technology I make it so I only have to spend time doing a, then an employer is going to find something for me to do. Could be busy work, could be letting someone go and giving me their job to save money.

If I don't they'll find someone else who will.

Technological advances that were suppose to help the employee work less, has only helped business run at lower operating costs.
On the wikipedia page: "Achieving an illuminance of 500 lux might be possible in a home kitchen with a single fluorescent light fixture with an output of 12000 lumens."

And I'd rather not have my living room lit at 50 lux :)

But yes, original author's point well taken - if we just want a tiny bit of light, it seems much more doable.
Between the two choices of resign or be let go, being let go is a much better choice.

Say you quit because you have good expectations of finding a new job. What if you're wrong and try for months and months and find nothing? Now you've run through your savings (you do have savings, right?), don't have a job, and you can't fall back on unemployment. What do you do then? You have to start pawning your belongings, borrowing money, and looking at fast food or gas station jobs just to get some income so you can eat and stay off the streets.

Now say you had been let go. You try looking for a job for a couple months on your own, see that your chances are worse than you thought, and apply for unemployment. Now, you're burning through your savings at a much slower rate. Perhaps unemployment will be enough that you won't even need to burn savings at all. You're still unemployed, but you're in a much better financial situation and can keep your focus on finding a job, not stressing over where your next meal will come from.
They also have a editing video software. It's currently free.

And they also organize events.
I find myself agreeing with most of what you wrote, and yet, it doesn't matter. You keep sabotaging yourselves.

Does no-one do QA? Do you not have a Steve Jobs-esque character who has taste and an eye for detail and who can look at this stuff the way your users will? Because such a person would've looked at this and Noped the fuck out of there, cancelled whatever PR you had planned, and put everyone around a table saying "we're not there and can we fix it?".

Your first hyped launch thing was a sign-up form with blurry fonts leading no where. Now you've implemented a giant janky scrollbar with easing equations calibrated for "instant turn off". The parallels to Flash really are quite similar.

You should not imitate native behaviour unless you have someone going over it with a fine toothed comb, and you shouldn't be making grand claims about the future when you cock up the present.

If you believe your own claims, then why does your page work terribly on my brand new laptop, never mind the 4 year old one it just replaced?
Wait, are you saying that cargo ships aren't unmanned already?
One of the amazing things I've learned as a manager is how much you can get out of asking people what they want.

Many people haven't really thought about it and so you end up going on a fun journey helping them figure it out. Usually, you discover over time that there are a lot of things more important than money. Being the manager that helped them figure out what they really want (and hopefully get closer to it) builds awesome loyalty and motivation on the job.

Once you have the minimum amount to live comfortably (which in places like SF is actually a non-trivial amount), I've found raises and bonuses have only very short-term happiness that wears off in a week or two. It's feeling fulfillment in your job and making progress on your long term goals that really brings career happiness.
I'm curious to know what is creating that margin reduction

Chinese clones and cheap 'good enough' action cameras(mobius) from the bottom, Sony Action Cam from the top.

If you need top of the line action camera Sony is a really strong contender, not only do they offer great picture quality, but also in a friendlier form factor.
These people are getting traction because of all of the grief coming from the rest of the country.
We have always been at war with the Bahamas.
I can't figure out what that one is supposed to mean!
Linux Sucks (Video)
The New Yorker prints weekly every Monday. This week's issue (available in print today) is dated May 26th.
Would you care to comment on what tools are popular for disassembling these ROMs? I think it's a pretty neat hobby, anywhere suggested to read more about it?
What kinds of things do you like to do to take really good care of them?
I don't know, I think the answer is to figure out what motivates you.

It took until the point that I was so irritated at my station in life that I finally had to just stir myself into action. I couldn't handle the crap pay I was receiving, and watch people who were clearly not at my level (or so I believed) surpassing me in basic life accomplishments without major effort, like making enough money to pay for the gas I used commuting to/from work. So for me, anger and frustration worked pretty well.

I also got heavily involved in some very physically demanding martial arts and really learned what my limits were, mentally and physically. I think it helped me both work off the anger and get some perspective in a constructive way while I started planning how I was going to get out of my rut. I also was incredibly physically fit during that time too, which wasn't bad. One thing I learned, I really need a coach barking at me to do my crunches, or get back in the ring or run another lap or whatever. So one solution I learned is to optimize my life so I have a motivating person keeping me moving forward.

In my case, I found a wife who's been incredible. I'm more afraid of her than I am of failing. So having an ever present challenger has helped push me along.

But ultimately, you have to use your smarts to figure it out yourself.
http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2013/10/18/paul-elam-of-a-voic...

Regardless of your thoughts on feminism, describing the content on avoiceformen as being 'very reasonable' is absurd.
Do you manage anyone? How do you remember that?
That explains all the errors in his initial articles.
For those who are wondering what MetaFilter is, it's a meta-filtered internet space, a well-moderated community where people can talk about things on the internet, without making it all about themselves.

The About page is a good place to learn more about the site: http://www.metafilter.com/about.mefi
Excellent response. Thank you.
$5 billion on $375 billion is a 1.3% savings, with considerable technological, social, political, and other risks.

Seems that there's an argument toward more automation, but a full adoption of the technology to the extent described in the article strikes me as unlikely, and could well have downside costs well in excess of the claimed benefits.
I've always been stunned how few tech companies and startups do 1 on 1s. It's the single, easiest way to surface a lot of this. As long as you don't completely ignore what's brought up in them, you'll get in front of a lot of trouble.

@abdinoor - what tactics do you use to get in front of these issues?
"What about the captain? Out at sea a ship can basically go on a kind of autopilot today."

There is for sure a certain feel to boating. Although I have never obviously operated a boat of this size I have owned smaller boats and depending on sea conditions there is judgement in play that can't be offset by technology and especially an actual human with seat of the pants feel and judgement. That said it might be possible if the operator was literally in some kind of simulator and able to sense things in a similar way (although you wouldn't have smell or the feel of the air).

This idea though might cut it's teeth in a smaller area perhaps some kind of shuttle between two close ports as opposed to the open ocean or something like a water conveyor by ship.
"Good managers realize they have to be managers and can't do an effective job of engineering..."

I can't agree with this strongly enough. When I was a manager (I've since gone back to being a developer), trying to do engineering work at the same time was probably my biggest weakness.

There will be times when there's an emergency (real or imagined) where your upper management wants you to come up with a fix for something right away, and you'll be tempted to drop everything you're doing as a manager and put out the fire. (One rationalization for this might be that you don't want to break the flow of your developers, who are working on important stuff of their own.) Resist this temptation. Not only will your management work remain undone, but if the people on your team don't get experience dealing with emergencies in parts of the code that they don't know much about, you'll be stuck doing this stuff forever and they won't learn these skills. Learn how to delegate, and learn how to set the expectations of your own managers so that they don't assume that every problem can be fixed instantly.
US Indictment of Chinese Hackers
Largest users Ive encountered are motorcyclists and a number of RC flyers I know use them also.
I have a Contour strapped to my Monster, good for recording track days and the daily commute (for insurance).
How To Use VinAudit Free Vin Scanner
Yeah, that is kinda the point of having transatlantic cables in the first place :)
I have yet to have a really great writing or note taking experience on a tablet. It always feels laggy and just a bit off. Sure, it might work, but it does't have the right "feel".

Sadly, the best devices to do handwriting and notes seem to be the PDAs of old. Maybe they were worse so we didn't notice as much, I don't know. It just feels like we are in some kind of stylus uncanny valley.
Have you tried a real wacom-style stylus before? With pressure sensitivity, etc.? Adonit doesn't come close imo.
Uh... I'm too young for that, unfortunately. But as I get it that first they wrote the implementation(s), then - seeing it's reasonably good - documented the results for everyone to discuss and use.

The point is, they had an idea, hacked the software (without any standards, at that point, as I understand, this was the case with IRC which had RFCed only 10 years after the birth), then willingly shared the knowledge.
I think Laravel is a great framework. I just don't understand why the creator has to claim his ownership of the trademark "Laravel" on every page / documentation of the framework or anything that mentions the name. I mean Laravel is awesome, sure, but it's not some innovative piece of technology, like say the Linux kernel is. It is just another PHP framework with pretty features.
3D Bundling and the CLUG
We have something very similar at Balanced called Rump (routing umpire). It's written in python has a pretty cool rule based engine and a swappable backend.

It currently uses ZK and Chef, but it would be pretty interesting to use something like Etcd/Consul since no one wants to maintain a ZK cluster.

If there are individuals who want to hack on it, shoot me a msg on twitter and I'll see what I can do to speed up the process to open source it.
This page has a link to an Excel spreadsheet that calculates optimum speed as a function of fuel price and other factors: http://www.intertanko.com/Members-Information/benchmark/Opti...
A ship's power system is more complex than just one engine. Then add on the auxiliary systems (water filtration, sewer treatment, HVAC, etc) on top of that.Yes, much of it is automated, but what happens if a gasket leaks due to poor maintenance and suddenly you have to operate some part of the system manually?

That's why there's someone always on watch in the engine room.

Adding an automated backup to every system would be a considerable cost, and even then a manual option would be required and some-times relied upon.

(Former ship engineer.)
I was shocked to read that some of the abductions occurred inside Japan. I had no idea this was happening.
Thailand's army declares martial law
Hey- thats nearly the exact same amount of time since I've used MooTools.

For my uses, jQuery's popularity eventually won out, but now I congratulate myself on being jQuery free.

Hopefully we can leave these massive and monolithic JS libraries in the past now that we have sane client-side modules with Browserify.
You'd trade one risk for another: piracy via boarding by piracy via hacking, as described in the article.

That might be by exploiting vulnerabilities in the communications and navigation systems, or could be as simple as jamming communications and disabling the vessel by other means. Or hacking the upstream waybill system to direct contents to the port or destination of your preference (already a hacking option with containerized freight). Social engineering (password / token disclosure, bribery) is another option.
Is it because you never saw glass footage (poorly focused almost choppy 720p with extremely poor dynamic range)? or read about battery life?

if anything this is their competition

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pivothead-smart

http://pivothead.com/ seems to be down at the moment, but company is real and has real products.
From a few years ago but I found this quite interesting. This guy earned $2.5 million per month in prison. He probably had no idea:

"Sentenced to a 40-month federal prison term in 2009 for his role in a tax evasion conspiracy involving offshore American accounts, former Swiss banker Bradley Birkenfeld elicited sympathetic comments from some observers who said the hefty sentence was likely to discourage other whistleblowers from cooperating with the government."

"But the former UBS AG employee's situation has recently taken a significant turn for the better. Now 47 and out of prison, he is to receive a $104 million Internal Revenue Service whistleblower award for his work in helping the feds pursue over $5 billion in unpaid taxes on unreported assets at Zurich-based UBS and other offshore banks"

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/ex-banker_birkenfeld_...
That's it! From this thread on the 6502 forums, FADD and FSUB work without having to complement the sign bit but FMUL isn't so lucky: http://forum.6502.org/viewtopic.php?t=508

Nice find!
My experience has also been that managers at the "average company" these days are pretty much expected to both manage and be a fully productive individual contributor. Realistically, this means that they spend about 80% of their time working to hit their own goals, which directly point at them, and 20% of their time (at best) really working to enable their team to succeed, which can always be deflected from direct responsibility to some degree. Since most managers' managers are also in the same boat, they can't tell when someone is shooting their own team members for self-preservation because they are too busy to have any sense for the morale and culture they've created.

In my personal opinion, you get a healthier culture if you either 1) have managers and let them manage or 2) admit that you require them to be individual contributors and restrict their "managing" purely to part time HR initiatives and not to actual additive management (something more like extra-curricular mentoring and not talent management, career and skills development).

I should caveat that I've had good managers, bad managers and completely mediocre managers. So I do believe that, although rare, it can be done well and it can provide value to individual contributors' careers and to the company's value. I just don't assume it's automatically the right approach at every company.
> Why are the rocks in the centre "fused together"? Gravity.

That's what fused them in the first place but they hold together on their own now. Like an asteroid - it's a big rock, gravity is not the force holding it together.

Unlike the earth which has a liquid core, as far as I know the moon is a single solid chunk of rock. So the Roche limit is not an accurate measure - you need to take into account the tensile strength of rock.

> The point you make about the tidally-locked orbit doesn't hold. Tidal forces are there whether or not the object is tidally locked.

You misunderstood me. In a rotating body the tide would cause the object to flex on every rotation, given enough time it would surely break apart from material fatigue.

But in a tidally locked body the force is applied once (a stretching force) and stays that way, so there is no fatigue - either it's strong enough or it's not.
You are comparing apples and oranges. Linux is a OS and more specifically a kernal and surface is a brand of tablet.

Yes million is pretty remarkable given most people wrote it off as DOA.
Only if they want to go where the ship is programmed to go.
Yeah, I completely agree that organizing consumer photo albums is not the biggest problem. However, what I'm trying to say is that (consciously or not) Photomatic found a viable (looking) way to work on basic research problems in computer vision. And as you mention, the technology could have much broader applications if it makes enough money and gets enough users so that is can be developed and scaled.

The drone company you're talking about faces at least 3 large problems that need solutions before they can make their first dollar of profit: 1) drone automation, 2) image processing, 3) customer education. That's going to take a lot of upfront investment. I'd go as far as to say that the photo organization app solves a proper subset of the drone farming app you describe.

All I'm saying is that I think you should hold judgement when a relatively boring application is solving some pretty hard problems under the hood. Often the application is boring because it's a low-risk vehicle to work on good problems. I'm of the opinion that a lot of really valuable technology (like valuable to humanity) is being developed under the guise of social networking and Apps. For me (for now at least), whether the apps are truly great art or revolutionary tools is a tertiary concern to making progress on and directing funding towards the more basic research problems that they're based on.
I'm possibly in the market for this, and I have a few suggestions to grow your market.

Cold calling is often done in the United States by political campaigns, political action groups, etc, to get people to vote. I'm not sure if it would go by other names, but we call it phone banking in my area. It would be great if a tool like this existed which added support for:

* Importing lists of people to call

* Support for multiple callers to pull off that list

* Connecting callers with an app that can provide them a list of #s to tap, and then fill in responses

* Step-by-step / flow-charted interaction builder with feedback options if a user has a laptop or second device in front of them. For example:

> "[Sir or madam], I'm [name] calling on behalf of [organization]
> to ask questions about the upcoming election. Do you support
> the right to marriage equality?"

Square boxes should be filled in, bold, auto-magically provided. Then it should have a prompt:

> [Yes] [No] [Refused Call]

And then it takes you to the next stage of the flow chart, asking more questions.

* Beautiful, smart, geographic data visualization. (Sadly this might actually be the hardest ask, because making geographic data look "good" is hugely domain specific.)

If these features could be implemented, you could probably sell it to political groups for quite a bit.
Here's the method to discovering the answers in Ask Metafilter comment threads:

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Example of 3) : http://ask.metafilter.com/261436/Should-my-math-student-have...

Example of 4) : http://ask.metafilter.com/261436/Should-my-math-student-have...

HTH. :)
Boy, that may work for you, but I find the Upad interface to be vastly inferior to writing directly on an active digitizer with background transcription (e.g., Onenote on a TabletPC). An iPad Mini (with equivalent battery life) that works like a Surface Pro would be the holy grail for me. I've been dreaming of such a device for better than a decade.
I think that it's implicit that you're supposed to keep the articles up to date.

OK, but then why not then update the date of the article?

Every so often I find myself reading something and start to wonder if it's still current. It's frustrating to not then find that date the article was written or last updated.

Basically, I don't see a downside for including a date, but there are assorted pitfalls for the reader if omitted.
Ships already disappear regularly on the high seas.

Some especially attentive news watchers may be aware that a large commercial airliner is though to have been lost without a trace in the recent past.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/08/world/asia/asia-piracy/index.h...