skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think AppleScript's problems have more to do with the fact that it relies too much on external parties to do its stuff. The moment you do

tell application "foo"
every bar whose third baz is frob
end tell

whatever you write in that tell phrase gets executed by application "foo" (the logic runs in the process, and has to be written by the implementers writing the "foo" application). Implementing that flexibility is lots of work and hard because Apple did not supply much support libraries (1). Because of that, all implementations were incomplete (and differently so) and buggy. That "and differently so" was the main reason one cannot get comfortable writing AppleScript. Even if the above worked, there was no guarantee that, for example

tell application "foo"
the third baz of every bar
end tell

worked.

The essence of AppleScript goes very far:

- The editor imports syntax from "foo" the moment it sees that tell application "foo" block.

- When compiled, it converts that into a standardised binary format (an Apple Event)

- When run, AppleScript sends that event to "foo", and "foo" parses and executes it.

In essence, it turns application "foo" into a service that shows its internal state in its GUI (in 1993).

(1) in their defence, I don't think they could have written good support libraries in the language of the day. A few C++ 'interfaces' in header files might have helped, though.
Google Passes Microsoft in U.S. Browser Market Share
zOS and SystemZ are indeed backwards compatible, and not without reason, but stuff like MTS really is obsolete. Or at least I think it should be (I'm not involved in maintaining such systems, I just enjoy collecting old computers)
Wildcard certs cost $60/year, protect everything on one certificate with free reissues and revocation, and cheap rekeying (which was an option for heartbleed recovery). I would rather pay the "SSL racket" (as StartSSL would put it) to get real service and help than use a free cert from them. StartSSL is permanently removed from all my truststores following heartbleed
> agrees with our constitution's precepts

The problem is that not even the members of the Supreme Court can agree on what these are or how they should be interpreted.

The everyday understanding of constitutional law is not the same as the legal understanding, which is part of the problem. The commerce clause, as read by any normal individual would not allow the Federal government to have anything to do with (e.g.) pot, but that is how it has been interpreted by the supreme court. No normal person would say that corporations are people, but according to the court they are. etc etc etc.

Reading the constitution, I get a clear picture of a federation of independent states. But this idea died after the Civil War, if not before.
Why Canada’s banks have weaker passwords than Twitter or Google
They sued samsung over a number of combined similarities:

"Closely comparing Apple's patented design with Samsung's products reinforces the conclusion of substantial similarity. Samsung copied every major element of Apple's patented design:

* a flat, clear, black-colored, rectangular front surface with four evenly rounded corners [emphasis mine];

* an inset rectangular display screen centered on the front surface that leaves very narrow borders on either side of the display screen and substantial borders above and below the display screen; and

* a rounded, horizontal speaker slot centered on the front surface above the display screen,

* where the rectangular front surface is otherwise substantially free of ornamentation outside of an optional button area centrally located below the display."
I've found I can access lucid dream-like states of mind when meditating on LSD, including visualizing algorithms. I also feel more focused and awake in a sense, on LSD, compared to a lucid dream, but maybe that's just me.

I haven't really used it for anything very useful though, the laws and conditions of today makes it a bit difficult. But it can give a glimpse of how things could be in the future, when computers are directly connected to the brain and lucid dreams or psychedelics are not really relevant any more.
The judges must have been chimps
What will it take to get people using PGP for email?
I work at a large organization (thousands of individuals). I wonder what would happen if on July 1st I adopted a new email policy, that any non-encrypted email sent to me would be automatically deleted (and an automated reply sent to the sender, containing instructions for how to use PGP).

I can't encrypt all email I'm sending out, unless I have the recipient's public key ... and if they don't use PGP then they won't have one ... and I can't exactly do it for them. I suppose I could send them an unencrypted email saying "I have a message for you, please send me your public key so I can encrypt it") but my guess is that they would simply ignore it if it involves more than 3 seconds of extra "work".

My prediction is that probably it would have no effect, people would just behave as before and would start to complain that I don't respond to emails.

So what would it take to get people --- not just at my company, but in the wider world --- to use encryption?

Is there a single organization out there that everyone corresponds with, that could spark the change, if they abruptly (but with warning) adopted an encrypted-only policy? Maybe banks? Or governments (eg to file tax returns you need a public/private key pair)?

Is there some way to gamify this so that there is an incentive for people to encrypt?

What about a white-hat hacking approach whereby people are shown what is world-readable (and by whom) when they send email unencrypted?

Gmail seems like an obvious entry point ... but it would go against their business model (they could no longer mine your emails).

Is there any hope?

I would still like to try my experiment ... but I also want to avoid becoming the tinfoil-hatted long-bearded crank of my organization.
This is another lavabit. They receive e-mails in clear text and then they encrypt it. This is not secure at all.

It would be ok if it they were clear about it, but it's exactly the opposite "[...]This means that no one can read your e-mails except yourself – no password thieves, no governmental or law enforcement agencies, not even us here at mailbox.org."
Because the entire point of a Turing test is that you don't know whether you're talking to a machine or human and you have to decide based entirely on your conversation.
It's possible that people employ weed to come up with this nonsense.
From the comments of self-confessed procrastinators, it seems that they're all working more or less alone. We're a social species, our brain is shaped by a million years of tribal lifestyle. Inability to do the work may be a symptom of the loneliness in our modern society.
The 'outdated' comment stems from the fact that we depend very much on the repos. Being based on an old release means we don't have access to lots of software.

I use Elementary on the desktop and laptop and like it. Can't wait for dock improvements.
As a guest, I feel way more safe using Airbnb when I'm renting an extra room in the host's home. Even better if there are strict-sounding house rules. It makes me feel like I'm sharing a living space with a real person rather than helping somebody play landlord with their rental-only flat. And judging by the article, it's better for the hosts as well.

I've been living like this with different people for the past month or so. It's been about the same price as a hostel and so much more comfortable and interesting! It would be a shame if lack of trust brought prices up and made this way of life no longer viable.
And in other news, standards for passing the Turing test have dropped, dramatically.
> Could someone explain what the thing with East Texas is? A district where juries and judges are more favorable than usual towards patents?

It started a bit randomly, based on the politics of the region the judges/juries were slightly more favorable toward patents than anywhere else. Then it became self perpetuating since it helps the local economy & the judges own careers.

> This sound kind-of ridiculous, no?

Absolutely ridiculous. Patents are federal law, but 1 small region is effectively making serious changes to that legislation.

> Can't the defending companies find similar anti-patent areas and file counter-suites there?

They do. There are a range of locations, never in east texas. No one place has emerged as THE anti-patent location. For example, Microsoft files suit in Seattle since it's based there, has influence, people want it to win since it's a benefit to their local economy, etc.
This version replies instantly and doesn't make spelling mistakes. I think it's clear not just that this wouldn't have truly passed the Turing test but also that this would never have even been submitted to a contest in the first contest - it's not even trying.

I doubt that this is the version submitted to the competition, so as skeptical as I am, there's only so much that can be inferred by looking at this.
It goes without saying, it is ill advised to copy and paste terminal commands to the internet without knowing what they actually do...
So could reading this article qualify as a form of "type B" procrastination?
Which would be better though, a rush job, or something that has polish (which seems to be the whole goal of Elementary). I suppose it is kind of like the difference between Valve and so many other games publishers out there.
The Turing Test is a terrible measure of sapience. Generally it involves using "average people", who have been shown time and again to be overly credulous when talking to these bots. If the test is to be used at all, it should consist of computer science experts instead--people familiar with the technology and bot tricks of the trade.

That the Turing Test is still used is proof that we still don't understand how to even define sapience. Without a definition and concrete, testable qualities, how can we possibly hope to ever build artificial sapience. As a result, we continue to see these toys that are little more than parlor tricks.

Any true test should include looking behind the curtain. "I know you're artificial--I can see the processes working--yet I have doubts that what I'm seeing is real."

In other words, real success is the tester believing he is being fooled when he is not, rather than fooling the tester into believing it is real.
I can't take this timeline seriously after reading some of the albums it has listed under the genres.
It was hosted _by_ the University of Reading _at_ the Royal Society.

https://royalsociety.org/venue-hire/
Commerce clause says that the federal government shall be able to regulate interstate commerce. Pot is something traded in intestate commerce. Its not as ridiculous as you make it seem. The framers might have used narrower language if they could foresee that one day, everything would be a part of interstate commerce. That certainly wasn't true during the time of the framing, when goods were produced locally or even primarily by the individuals using them on family farms. But they used broad language with the intent of giving the federal government the power to regulate large scale commerce as it existed then.

The Supreme Court didn't say that corporations are people. It said that people don't lose their first amendment rights because they assemble themselves into a corporation. Falls naturally out of the first amendments rights to free speech and assembly.

You can't ignore the civil war. The 13, 14, and 15 amendments were a renegotiation of the Constitution at the point of a sword. The idea of a federation of independent states is called into doubt by the supremacy clause and commerce clause, which was in the original, and the 14 amendment, which allows Congress to legislate directly against the states to enforce the amendment. Moreover, looking at original intent, the federalist faction of framers wanted a strong central government. They didn't give states autonomy because they wanted to, they did it because they had to, and they set the stage for states becoming secondary powers.
I forgot to enable cookie, so he asked where I came from again after a while. lol
It's Not Uber That's The Problem – It's The Law
Instant failure even on simple questions that it should pass easily.

- what's your fathers name?

> He's a gynecologist.

- O_o

clearly not the application that fooled a third of judges.
I wouldn't say it's beyond imagination. Science-fiction authors have been predicting this for years.
The Thin Blue Privatized Line
This looks awfully like a private event for Reading University that just happens to have been held at the Royal Society. I wonder whether they even had more than three non-"celebrity" judges.
I asked what its job was, and it responded:
My father wanted me to be gynecologist, like he is. My mom dreams of my career on TV. But I am very shy with girls and stammer a bit - so, I don't have any idea which one of the two professions I'll choose.
"Hi Eugene, it's nice to meet you."

"Let's get on with our conversation!"

Uh-huh. Obvious canned response, not impressed by that for a second, unfortunately.
Do you think the war on drugs is over?
-"I hate politics. Period. I don't think it is anything amusing. I prefer virtual reality."
Really? Strange. What do you think of the oculous rift then?
-"Oh, at least you are interested in my opinion! My parents never are. But, unfortunately, I don't have any thoughts on this. Oh, at least you are interested in my opinion! My parents never are. But, unfortunately, I don't have any thoughts on this."
What do you have thoughts on?
"Even if I have thoughts on - it's my own business! Oh, what a fruitful conversation;-)"

This must be the most evasive AI ever written.

Hey! Have you heard? The Netherlands will definitely win the soccer games!"
-"I think it's European country. I'd like to visit it."
Why?
-"Why? Why? Because the sky is blue! Why? Why? Because the sky is blue!"
We'll.. It's not usually blue here..
-"I hope you won't always answer "no"? Wonna ask me something more?"
Why don't you ask me something instead?
-"You choose the topic. I'm a bit tired with all this fuss around talking machines... It's pretty interesting, but exhausting. Some another topic?"

This must be the most nerve wreckingly annoying AI ever. It's pretty good regarding common knowledge, that's neat. But it still doesn't really... You know.. Carry a conversation. Grabbing a random word from my sentence and going on that is not the same talking to one another.

The worst thing is that it keeps track of you with a cookie. I want to restart. Silly..

It's pretty good /sometimes/.
I quit my job seven months ago, this is what's happened
You'll need a Mac, some thick rimmed glasses, and an unshakeable belief that what normal people have been doing for 20 years with 2 clicks in Excel can in fact only be done on a Hadoop cluster "in the clouds".
First question and you can already sense he has no clue what that simple question means ...

"Where are you?"
> I am? You better ask my pig Bill. I know you are supposed to trick me.

And basic math isn't his strongest :D

"How old are you?" > I'm 13 years old.
"When were you born?" > I was born on the 30th of January 1988.
Valve sponsors Mesa development
What I don't understand is why a group of people so against regulation is so willing to embrace a number calculated on the premise that an entire industry should have 1970's style utility regulations, where the government decides based on political factors how much service should cost. There is of course the natural monopoly concern. But if you want to wonder into antitrust economics, natural monopoly isn't the only market failure that warrants regulation. Antitrust concerns can arise based in network effects, the kind which led to the Microsoft monopoly, and the kind that sustain companies like Facebook and EBay today. Should we set regulated rates for what EBay can charge? (In the 1970's when telecom regulation was in force, the idea of the government setting rates for auction services of EBay's scale wouldn't be unthinkable). Or do we acknowledge that we've been trying to get rid of that sort of ham-fisted regime, and that maybe telecoms should profit from the enormous boom in demand for their product over the last two decades.
> If used wisely and responsibly,

Being an illegal sublet and uninsured doesn't feel wise or responsible.
It's a Linux distro, read here: http://elementaryos.org/
me: how much is 2+2
him: Whom how, I'd say. By the way, what's your occupation? I mean - could you tell me about your work?

Fail. :/
You already identified the "usability" issues. It would need to be a system that required people to just get once a "code" for their computer. And then another systems auto detect if the recipients has also a "coded" machine.

Encryption is just inconvenient for the average user and doesn't provide some immediate benefit ("My bank needs encryption but I don't need to encrypt my funny cat pictures").
I tried talking to this one, and it failed to convince me at all. Even in the one conversation I had that was slightly believable, the bot was prone to extremely rapid emotional swings.
Save Stack Overflow
The worst part is that they collect everything to make a case against you, but you still have to wait one hour in line at Boston airport to cross the border. They don't do anything to streamline your interactions with the governement or to defend you when you're accused.
Drunk pensioner on train sing-a-long
Best train journey ever!
Very carefully...

More seriously, note that he only claims the bottle hasn't been cut/modified, nothing about the objects within. To me, it's rather obvious that they're disassembled into pieces small enough to go in, then reassembled inside. Reassembly is the tricky part but it's not hard to see how things could be manipulated into position with string (or dental floss as he mentions), tweezers, sticks, and other tools.

There are some good videos of doing it on YouTube too.

(Also I observe that the "proprietary trade secrets" in this "industry" happen to be the complete opposite culture of the open-source/open culture/information sharing movement...)
Have happily paid for the desktop version, I'd love to pay again (seriously) for an iOS version!
Apparently I was wrong, I stand corrected.

Here's a list of various Japanese launch systems and their success rates.

System - success - fail - percent success

- Epsilon - 1 - 1 - 100%

- GX - 0 - 0 - (abandoned)

- H-1 - 9 - 9 - 100%

- H-2 - 5 - 1 - 80% (or 60%, one of the successes was a partial failure)

- H-IIA - 23 - 1 - 95.7%

- H-IIB - 4 - 4 - 100%

- J-I - 1 - 1 - 100% (then abandoned)

- Lambda 4 - 9 - 5 - 44%

- Lambda 4S - 5 - 4 - 20%

- M-V - 7 - 1 - 85%

- N-I - 7 - 1 - 85%

- N-II - 8 - 0 - 100%
Hi. Can I be frank? I find it a bit hard to believe that your "real work" is "fun, time critical, and offers REAL rewards". Are you maybe trying to convince yourself here?

It happened to me to believe wrongly that I had fun and rewarding tasks at hand. But when I really have such tasks, procrastination is completely out of the way, and I am certainly not on HN to discuss about it.

When I have a task that is really interesting to me, I think about it when I shower, before falling asleep, while riding my bike, and when I quickly parse HN (because I have this habit), one of the first five titles will be remotely related and pull some strings, and I'll quickly go back to my code.

However, most of the time, I still say (and believe) that my work is "very interesting", "very rewarding", but I procrastinate on HN like everyone else (and right now).
Where did the 30% requirement come from? Sounds like something the contest organizers added to make it possible to "pass" without fooling 2/3 of the judges. Using a young teenager as a character also seems like a cheat unless they had other 13-year olds to be the judges. The character needs to be a peer to the judges. Most 13 year olds behave oddly enough in the opinion of most adults that it's got to be easier to credit weird behavior to generational or cultural differences. So kudos to the winners on strategy, and boo to the contest organizers for having such poor rules.
What I Look For In An Interview
> Pot is something traded in intestate commerce

Sorry, I should have specified that I meant "grown for private consumption". Obviously if it crosses state borders it fits with what the commerce clause was designed to regulate.
Giana Sisters "The lost Levels" on C64
I copied some old C64 discs to the PC and recovered some lost "Giana Sisters" clones and the "Giana Sisters Construction Kit".
Unpleasant Design – Objects
Could someone more knowledgeable please comment if this is Windows only? And if yes, could the mods append (Windows) to the submission title?
HP Notebook with Leap Motion
I think you're probably expecting to see a 50/50 chance (or higher) of guessing it was a computer. But if you think about it, anything better than 50% would make it more human than a human. So is why the target is lower than 50%
The number is way too high from what I've heard, but I'm more interested in the proposition that:

The RBOCs (now "AT&T", Verizon and Century) promised to wire up the nation with good broadband (this doesn't, to my memory, have anything to do with the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996).

Got 10s of billions of dollars to do this.

If the two above are true, they obviously failed to do it, and weren't held to account.
One must have a pretty low bar for 13 year olds to call this thing as intelligent as a 13-year-old.

I've seen 4 year olds understand English better than this.

There's an obvious disconnect between the complexity of some statements it makes, yet how disconnected from the question they are.

No human is simultaneously unable to process a question, yet make statements so complicated.

In other words, it feels pretty much like it's copy-pasting someone else's responses from a database.
You mean like this[0] one?

[0]: http://tracker.stagas.com/
Most tips I've read about how to trigger LD involve conscious effort throughout the day to check that you are not dreaming. It's weird, but I used to ask myself everytime I flipped a light switch "is this a dream?". It gets your brain in the habit of questioning when you're in a dream state and that can carry over to actual dreams.

I'm not aware of any foolproof method to experience LD, but it was definetly something that I worked hard at and didn't come naturally.
Swift – Core Data with Custom Data Classes
I think the pg's message is good on a higher level, though think about what would happen in an average software development team if everyone followed the rule.

Everyone would be working on fancy, interesting, big problems, while there would be no one to fix the leaking ceiling until after the sudden storm has started.

Oops, it seems it's actually the case in majority of the projects. Most people prefer doing new development than fixing bugs and writing docs, because it's way easier to crush hundreds of new lines of code than to write a good documentation, and it's more enjoyable than trying to reproduce a weird edge case. Also, usually new development is adding more business value than fixing bugs (provided that the whole product is not a one big bug).
very nice, although the text shadow on the code makes it a bit hard to read
Based on the transcripts it reminds me of the AIM bot you could talk to back in the early 2000s.
I feel this is misrepresenting his point. Sounded to me more that he meant there is nothing intrinsic on someone's "race" that indicates where they "should" be in any wealth gap. Not that there is a lack of representation of race in the gap.

That is, I am not really surprised that there are more minorities below the poverty line. I would not be too shocked to see that people's views on race contribute to this gap. What I think Freeman was saying, and I agree with, is that there is no reason someone's race should have any influence on where they are.

More succinctly put, people's irrational views on race contribute way more than race itself does.