skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Anyone who's spent time developing on Mac or who has moved from a Linux dev environment to a Mac environment should understand the flawed nature of the open source argument here. Mac OS includes many open source tools from Apache to jabber and many others. The fact that Mac OS is a BSD derivative should indicate that the OS lends itself to open source. As an aside, control over the ecosystem doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing.
I didn't downvote you, but I found some of those statements odd. What exactly did you mean by "Europe is very conservative: Standing out might be even a downer."?

I live in Europe too, in the UK, and know it's important to talk about personal projects if you're not entering a super-corporate environment. That you choose to downplay your experience is up to you, but I wouldn't say it was sound advice for others.
There are some impressive demos from the late 90's. For example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUm8_b8fIuU
I'll probably subscribe if my work decides on Ember.js. The fact that Tom Dale is one of the instructor is a big sell for me.
this a valid concern but if that happens, significantly more people are screwed than those accessing the server via a bad tor exit
Missed stocks from London Stock Exchange (LON). Anyways, cool concept. Congrats.
yeah, and those large companies won't write "too old" in the documentation. there are a million reasons not to hire someone, including you simply found someone else you liked better. the case is pretty much unwinnable, why would anyone go through the hassle?
i think it really depends on your threat model
This is a space I spend an enormous amount of time in, so it sounded interesting.... then I didn't get it.

Honeypot logs aren't really interesting - since I don't care what happens inside them. Now, if you could embed your honeypots as a service with companies, and get them to accept data sharing, that's more interesting. If you can somehow integrate the results or share things with Team Cymru or VXShare, it becomes a lot more interesting.

But the thing is - I already get a lot of that value from cuckoosandbox - and more recently elastic-cuckooo. https://github.com/drainware/elastic-cuckoo.
Presumably they’ve got a 360º camera module that’ll be proxied through an Earth-local server, rather than actually sending movement controls to a stereo camera on the lander? If nothing else the multi-second latency would be nauseating.
Only NYSE/NASDAQ for now, but we're definitely going to be expanding out soon!
> In order to ensure the word you found in the dictionary is correct, you need to be good enough in the language. Often there will be homonymns in your native language, and you'll get the wrong word. For example you want to translate the bank of a river but end up with the place that keeps your money.

That's why you use a good dictionary that support phrases, and even give a context annotations[1]. That makes the advice a bit obsolete.

[1] http://www.dict.cc/?s=bank+of+the+river
Top Tech News You Need to Know: Pandora, Apple, Nielsen and More
Or try to, anyway.

At the time they were the only functioning solution (They may still be? I'm out of the loop now) and everything else on the market were clones of their cards.

It was almost like a hostage situation with the community, a lot of people hating on the company, while hyping up their next update.
Near as I can tell, this site is basically Google finance with a bunch of nicely color coded indicators of various components of the stock. It looks pretty, prettier than google finance. At a glance, I can easily tell whether you think I should buy or sell that stock.

This is nothing but stock market info porn. All you are doing is using web design to convince me to take seriously your opinions on whether GS or TWTR is going up or down. It's the web 2.0 version of an analyst in a nice suit. It looks cool, but no reason to believe there is real substance.

The fact of the matter is that if I'm actually going to be speculating on individual stocks (which I do, but mostly as a quant), I need a lot more info than this.

I don't want to be entirely negative, so I'm going to suggest a tool which I think might actually be handy, and could use with some nice presentation. Ask the user a little about themselves, and then suggest stocks/ETFs they can put money in to hedge their risks. E.g., if a person works in tech, suggest to them a portfolio that is disproportionately less tech heavy - that way, if their industry tanks, their retirement won't necessarily do the same. If a person expects lots of medical care later in life, suggest them a portfolio heavy on medical stocks so that if their expenses go up, their investment does too.
The mathematics generalizes to 3D quite easily, but the way the webgl pipeline is used in this case doesn't. It'd be easier I think to start from scratch. I recommend reading through the GPU Gem's article on the topic with code samples

http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGems3/gpugems3_ch30.html

although the physics is discussed, you don't need to follow it deeply to implement it
My guess is you'd write j2objc wrappers around sqlite and HTTPUrlConnection/NSURLConnection and expose API for business logic elements.

edit: here is an example: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/j2objc-discuss/8u2Si...
I have welded before and I know that you need to clean each weld with a wire brush. I just can't imagine what is created is very strong. We need some pictures and some stress tests validating it as useful.
Just playing devil's advocate:

Do you have any evidence specifically that their driver destroyed your chip, or could there be reasonable doubt that your counterfeit chip died? For a class-action suit that a lot of people seem to be talking about, you would have to have evidence that this was what did your chip in. And getting enough people (who appear to be mostly end-users) to submit the necessary evidence could be quite the task (most probably will just assume the device croaked one day and toss it out).
Sometimes you use few with a countable name. Some is for not countable. A few friends means that you know perfectly how many friends you have, if you have some friends the number of friends you have is subject to a great uncertainty from 1 to infinity. So some few is saying you have few but are uncertain or don't want to say how many, but that is not very rational. Why this reasoning? Because it can help you to avoid repeating the same error (or unidiomatic expression). The simple fact of analyzing any mistake it a way of becoming vaccinated against it.
This is a really great blog post.

I've been doing something similar (but less rigorous) over the past two years. I was obese at the start and decided to get back to my college-age weight. I have now lost 70 pounds using "calories in / calories out" as the sole consideration.

The challenge, as this blog post states, is knowing what calin and calout actually are.

I have often wondered: how do healthy weight people seemingly know how much they should eat to maintain weight? Many people can maintain a weight without meticulous logging and data collection. They seem to know how to consume the appropriate portion sizes instinctively, without having to learn the actual numbers underneath it all.

I have come to view the ability to know "how much should I eat?" as some combination of talent and skill. Some people seem to have much better intuition about this and need no training. Others, like myself, may live most of our lives without such intuition. Only through extensive data collection, observation, and analysis have I learned to approximate how much "calin" a meal will result in.

I wonder: is there a way to teach this ability to children? Is this something that some people learn early in life, which they retain for a lifetime? Is this an avenue that researchers are exploring?
W̶̡̡̢͙̗̯̞̯̝̗͕̗̞͇̟͖̘͉͎͚͇̫͈̘̻̺̗̜̺͙͎̣̲͔̗̱̜̗̦͓̬͆̊̓͑͌͋̐͌̍̈̇͊̎̿͂̄̔̋̊͌͐͋͌̂̈́̈́̀̔̈́͘͜͜͠͝͠h̴̨̛̙̞͚͇͇̬̖̹͎̜̯͚̰̫̥̭̬̮͕̼̤̼̗͙̓̅̆̉͑̾̽̋̆̋̆̾̑̎̊̓̔̀̍̀͑̋̌̋̈́̃͘̕͘͝͝͠ͅͅơ̶̡̧̧̨̛͉͚͇͚̪̜̱̟͖̗͔̫͙͙̻̠̣͓̙̺̮͎̼̻̪̪̝̙̌̈́̐͋̾̈͑͋̑́̑̈́̽̔͒̈́̂̄̀̊̂̉̊͒̐͆̀̀͐̏͂͒͗̆͒̋͂̓̏̚͘̚͠͝͝͝ą̷̛̼̪̜̳̳̱͓̗̖̲̣͚̜̝͖͚̟̬̱̹͎̪̰͖̦̹̝̖̑̄͗̐͊̂̈́͋̾͊̄̾̌̌͊̓̂̅̊͊̒̂̄̕̚͝͝ ̶̧̧̧̛̛̛̫̝͖̩̤̫̳̳̟̟͙̟̳̣̦̥̣̳͇̼̪̯̯̪̦͙̞͈̲̺͙̯̻̪̯̮̳̓̿̀̿̈́̆́̋̑̀̂͛̈́͂͌́̾̿̊̒̆͊̍̎͛̔̅̄́̃̍̾̒̈͘̕͘̕̚͜͝͝͝ͅͅͅb̸̧̨̡̢̻̱̳͔͇̙̙̦͔̜̼͕͕͓̼̘͕̳̘̯͔̻͉͇̖͕̝̦͙̪̤̣̂͊̿̎͒̀́̅̓̍̇̐͊̔̿̀̒̈́̇̌̄́̎͘̕͠͝ͅơ̵̢̧̧̡̧̡̢̡̝̗͓̞̪̥̦̰͉͓̯̟̯̲̫̭̪̲̝͈̘̤̫͍͚̭̮̥̬͕͈̰̯̰͔̮̥̹̟̓̈̈́͆̉̔̍̾͒̄̅̑̃̇̈͆͛̈̍̿̓̑͐̒̿̅̂́̈́̄̎̈́̆͆̈́͋̇̉́̌͊̀̕͘͘͜͜͠ͅy̴̧̨̧̨̜͉̪̪̮̹̩͉̮̲̖̞̲̙̼̬̫̱͕̖̯̪̤͑̐̈́͛̏̈͑͐̈́̌̑̑̀̓̆́̈̿̆͛͗͆̅̌̀̎̀̾͂͑́͊̋̽͌̊̓̈́͘̚̚̕͝͝ͅͅͅ,̵̧̧̢̡̨̢͕̗͉̰͉̘̳͎̼̤͙̯͓͚̮̱̠̜͙̗̱͍̩̠͖̘̞͔̗̪͍̱̱̳̘̪͕̪̥͎̤̦̼̻̉̊̍͋̉̎͂̉̃̑͗̀̎͑̿͗͐̔̏̑͌̒͗̉̈́͛̅̓̾̓͋̉̈́̓̓́͊͐͘̕͘̕̚͠ ̴̨̢͔̗̠̲̖̥͓̹̻̬̝̟̼͚̝̪̺̘͖̹͎̟̱͕̙̱̤͉̺͐̈́̓́̊͑̈́́̎̓̀̅̅̋͐͂͑̒̏̔͒͒̒̾́̽̋͗̌͘̕͜͝͝͝͠͠͝ͅh̶̡̨̨̛̛̛̰̙̟̗̠͙̦̫̳̰̗͈̫̰͖̱̞̣̳̘͚̦͓͕̰͍̱͙̱̱͗̀͆̏̉̉̂̇̆̉͋̒̆̿̌̍̈́̆̌̂͂̈́̀͛͂͂̽̀͂̍͂̌̾͆͊̉͑̑͒̚͘͜͝é̵̢̢̧̡̡̫̖̯͙̭͔̫̬̝͕͇͚̹̺̖̫̣̼̙̗̼̟̲̺͖͕͇̪̱̖̩̳̋̀͐͑̓̆̄̓̍̐̐̋̒̏̈́͂̍́̓̿̐̄̾͌̄̓͋̒͒͘͘͠ͅͅr̴̨̧̨̡̢̛̼̝͎͓͍̙̲̲͍̥̻̼͙͎͎̘̼͙̜̗̰̯̤̠̦̬̜̭̳̳͔̤̯͉͖̥̗͈̟̉͋̎͆̊̊̃̆͂̑̇͊̓͂͑̅̌͐̈́̐̊͑́̑̅͐͌͊̿̓̿͆̽̚̚͝ͅë̷̡͖̙̘̠̩̣̞̞̮̟̦̲̟̮̺͈̜̠̘̪̳̲͖̣̗́̄̽̍͒̃̐́̾̓͋͗̅̈́͑̌̔̀͐̎̔́̀̈̿̅̓̉͐̿̃̾̿͒̆̃̅͆́̈́̂̇̕͜͠͠͝͝ ̵̧̡̮͍̹͓͕͇͈̣͈̹͙͔̞̖̳͕͉͎̼̖̹̤̗̠̭͍̜͍̥̯̾̅̈́̌̋̆͛͆͛̋̽͐̅͑͐̇̇̃͂̅̅͗̂̽́̇̄͊͐̐͆͘̚͘̚̕̕͘͝ͅͅw̴̧̧̢̡̡̧̛̛͙̫͍͔̟̜̦͚̘̟͍͉̱̘̘̱̺̻̜͖͉̞̬͚̝͓̫͚͖͈̘̤͉͛̂̓͛̈́͊̾͗̈́̒͌͋͌̐̉̓͛̈́̽͌̾̀̎́͗̆̿͊͘̕̚̚̕̚͜͜͜͝͝ͅe̸̡̧̨̨̡̛̬̪̯̬̣̬̰͎̞̺̘̘̪̯̥̰̫͉͎̯̫̳͚̜̼̭̫̲̰̫͓͉̜͎̳̼̻̗̦̐̌̓̋̑͛̌̓̄̊̏͆͌͛͒̌̐̄̓́̐̎̀̈́͗̔̏̆͑͌̀̑̐̒̑̏͘̚͘͜͜͝ͅ ̶̨̡̧̡̧̨͔̹̤͖͎̹̜̩͍̺̦̰͓̰̫͎̲̼̟̰̩͈̹̮̏̋̄̐̓̈́̍̌̔̊̊̒̒̊͑̓̈́́̓̓̎̈́͒̈͒͘͜͠͝͝͝ġ̷̡̡̪̞̞̟͕̗̦̞̞̩͔̺̫̝͔̹͓̙̯̫͓̺͈͎͉̳͉̝̺̘͙͍̗̤̠̰̗́͂̀͆̔́̎̆̏͆͗̿͂̑̀̇̌͗̆̅̅͌̀̂̀̀̈́̅̈̔̕͝͝͠͝ͅơ̷̢̹͓̝͕̞͕͉̮̦̠͔̮̳͉̲̝̫͖͍͚͍̻̣̹̥̜̹̦͍̰̯͚͓̼̬͔̥͔̝̞͓͙͓͉̊͌͂͆̈́̾̇̆̃̓̋̅̑̃͆͑̃̂͗̀͆͆̽̈́͒̊͘͜͜ͅͅ
Well you're right in a sense. But it modifies packets to a point where they are indistinguishable from the original connection, and tracks the incoming and outgoing interface sides as if they were discrete connections (there are at least four flows for every NAT connection).

Often carrier-grade routers will replace every aspect of a tcp/ip packet, like sequence numbers, windows, flags, source and dest ports, etc. Routers like these see everything going through them as a form of NAT; it's just some connections are modified more than others. The exception to this would be interfaces in bridge or monitor mode.

To your second point that modifying some layers is OK but modifying other layers is not: what rationale explains this double standard? What about the application layer do you find to be unique in that there's some expectation of purity? Does a proxy not modify layer 7 to cache and pass traffic? Does DNS not do the same?
It's very easy to spot, as the driver 'bricks' the chip by resetting it's PID.
Up until recently even OpenSSL's own download page was not HTTPS.
Stuff like this makes me think about how we'll live in the future. I read the book Ready Player One last year (fun fiction read) and the story is set in a world where most people live inside of a virtual world accessed via VR headsets/suits (e.g. Occulus Rift).

Seeing this makes me think of a future when we'll be doing the same and instead of looking at this in a browser, we'll actually be able to stand under a tree and watch the leaves fall.
> Why not use type annotations to accomplish this?

Type annotations are a strict subset of the "this" that AtScript seeks to accomplish.

> Do we really need another compile to JavaScript language for something that did not require changing the language syntax?

"Need" is a fuzzy term, but I think it clearly benefits from a new language with new syntax fitted for the semantics rather than trying to hide new functionality in a separate sublanguaged inside JS comments as you suggest.

> There is no reason that a similar project could not have been made via smaller modules using comment annotations.

There's no reason it couldn't be done, although there are reasons not to prefer it (noted above), and in any case preprocessing comment annotations in what is otherwise JS to generate additional JS code for runtime type checking is creating a new compile-to-JS language, its just putting the code for that new language in something that looks like JS comments, so it would still be doing exactly the thing you say shouldn't be done (or, in other words, your suggested alternative suggests that we must really need another compile to JS language to do this, since your alternative still creates such a language.)
The 8 Apps Every Business Pro Needs
Uh, in case you didn't notice, those SHA checksums are also PGP signed.

I Googled Mozilla Thunderbird and the first hit was the download page, using HTTPS. You're right SSL isn't enforced, but that's a chicken and egg problem for Firefox downloads I guess, now that TLS 1.2 is enforced and the user may be stuck with a browser not supporting that.
This is really trippy/amazing looking. I love it.
It's also important to keep in mind that the driver bricked not only counterfeits that were illegally marked with FTDI's name, but legal clones (reverse-engineered reimplementations which are not marked as being from FTDI) that had the same slight difference in behaviour from the original.
Show HN: Build activity streams with Rails and getstream.io
Is your HN title really the best place for SEO spew?
hey luisivan, we're looking for a experienced php dev in Barcelona (working from home is welcome too)
email me at my username at gmail
Thanks for the feedback.

We're trying to serve the less educated investor so we take basic fundamental analysis and automate it while making the insights more accessible to someone who is less financially literate.

It's interesting that you bring up personalization too because we're headed in that direction with customizing reports and creating recommendations based on factors like risk profile, age, and retirement plans.

We'd love to chat if you have time. You can shoot me an email at jay@capp.io
Try http://swooop.playcanvas.com/ :-)
Perhaps Twitter needs a probationary period for new accounts from suspicious IP blocks, and some content moderation at that time.

High profile accounts could opt in to this moderation for tweets that @them or DM them.or whatever.
Show HN: TwinPics iOS memory game
No. I appreciate Google (and others) trying to make things better without breaking what works now.

Also, only Dart and AtScript are attempts to overhaul/replace JS, Angular is just a library (with versions for JS and Dart), not attempt to overhaul JS.
"The goal of AtScript is to enhance the language with these missing features without infringing upon its current capabilities."

Looks like they decided TypeScript was Not Invented Here?
Most people do not understand the scale difference from 100,000 to 1,000,000 much less billion. To hear 13 trillion may have been the largest animal gathering… mind boggling.
Will be glad to know , what you learnt from it?
Yes i do.
Check out the reason why here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRD-sQM3PFs
It'd be interesting to know how much you are paying for your data. If you're doing things legally, balance sheet data and exchange licensing for stuff like this costs 10's of thousands of dollars a year.
Actually that's fairly impressive and a great sign, but I suspect most Mac users get their games from the Mac App store while Linux gamers are more likely to know steam even exists. So I doubt it tells us very much about the actual number of games and gamers on Mac Vs Linux.
kyllo, you didn't say exactly how long you did SS for, but it's my understanding that gaining even 20lbs of muscle in 6 months is virtually impossible:

"Under the best possible circumstances (perfect diet, training, supplementation, and recovery strategies) the average male body can manufacture between 0.25 and 0.5 pounds of dry muscle tissue per week"[1]

For sure SS will get you stronger in an almost magical fashion (I'm currently doing a modified SS program) but expecting to gain 20lbs of muscle in a short period of time is unrealistic.

[1] http://www.t-nation.com/portal_includes/articles/2006/06-154...
An interactive visualization to teach about the curse of dimensionality
The tooling for this and gwt are impressive and no doubt useful to the teams at google managing cross platform code.

Just unfortunate that the starting point is Java source code (note: not bytecode, you can't use clojure or other jvm platform langs) - I just have no interest in coding in java when there are so many other better languages available all across the spectrum.
Banks are running MongoDB. The issue is not the industry, the issue is the problem they are trying to solve for in the app. I am sure banks have social applications too. Clearly, they won't be using it for financial transactions, as those probably are running on some mainframe.

Just like I hope that [your favorite social startup] does not have my user information in MongoDB. I don't want to lose my [points | badges | messages | likes | some other mundane detail that I cannot live without in my first world problem kind of way.
Hello there, GetStream.io co-founder here. I just released a ruby gem that makes it easier for RoR users to integrate activity streams (using our API service). Soon I will create a small demo app based on this (as I already did for Django and Laravel). Any feedback and suggestion is welcome!
Thanks, Tommaso
That's what I would think, but the image in the article looks more like it's two directional cameras on a tilt-and-rotate assembly. Additionally, the article mentions the need to stream two live camera feeds, suggesting it's not a single 360 camera. I'm also concerned about the latency causing nausea.
Another artistic application is this classic answer on StackOverflow regarding whether one can use a regular expression to parse HTML…wherein the author gradually slips into madness.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-...

TO͇̹̺ͅƝ̴ȳ̳ TH̘Ë͖́̉ ͠P̯͍̭O̚​N̐Y̡ H̸̡̪̯ͨ͊̽̅̾̎Ȩ̬̩̾͛ͪ̈́̀́͘ ̶̧̨̱̹̭̯ͧ̾ͬC̷̙̲̝͖ͭ̏ͥͮ͟Oͮ͏̮̪̝͍M̲̖͊̒ͪͩͬ̚̚͜Ȇ̴̟̟͙̞ͩ͌͝S̨̥̫͎̭ͯ̿̔̀ͅ
It really isn't true. It doesn't just work. I'm running Chrome 38 on a modern desktop PC and it doesn't render at a reasonable frame rate.
That's rubbish. I'm young and know SQL fairly well, it's still a very valuable skill. If you base your opinions of young developers on HN articles then that's your problem.
So, that means I shouldn't post a service/product that even if suffices the OP's question but didn't welcomed by community?

It's a matter of choice isn't it?
I know a bunch of people from the UK moved to Spain because of various reasons. They are earning less, but enjoy the other parts of life there.
We're pulling as much free data as we can but have plans to transition onto a paid data source as soon as we can.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

(funny that I kinda end up invoking Godwin law)
Laura Poitras: ‘Facebook is a gift to intelligence agencies’
> The fact of the matter is that if I'm actually going to be speculating on individual stocks (which I do, but mostly as a quant), I need a lot more info than this.

I disagree, I think this tool could have value in the stock screening process, where you look at 100s of stocks quickly to winnow it down to a few promising candidates. After that step, I agree with you a more traditional stock analysis data interface is better.
That's a good lesson for people always wanting the famous brands. FTDI chips are more expensive and not better than the other ones, they need a special driver and they are subject to counterfeiting. You take a no-name one, and you have a standard stuff.

It's a stupid USB to RS232, not a rocket control system, there should be no famous brand, it's the lowest of the commodities.

That said, I do have an FTDI USB to serial adapter (no idea of the authenticity), because I didn't know better or care, I needed to plug my MCU board to my computer and I bought the first one I found (and it's just used for debug, I never ever use serial in real life).
Tim Berners-Lee: hateful people on the web are 'staggering'
Ariel Michaeli Interview (appFigures): Pain Point to Profit, No Funding [Audio]
It was only a matter of time.

The Arduino/Maker community is extremely vocal and active.

Design Engineers (like myself) alone would never have been loud enough to initiate this reversal.

So, thank you Makers!
But that's impossible for something like a Windows driver to determine.

The only way the FTDI driver could determine if the chip counterfeit was a slight difference in how the counterfeit chips handled a certain EEPROM write. And the counterfeiters will be sure the next revision of the chip takes care of this corner case.
The general conclusion is that you haven't read much today.
Looks like they gave their navigation bar more visual weight by darkening it.

They're following the convention Facebook is using for their nav bar, which I like. There's a logo, search, and utilities. This helps because many users expect the navigation to be next to the logo. On a behavioral level it creates a sense of comfort by establishing the security of routine/familiarity. The downside/trade off is by placing the elements side by side instead of on top of each other, it reduces scanability.

A lot of drop down menu options. Amazon does a good job with information scent and progressively disclosing more information in the drop down. This keeps the page from being cluttered and helps people navigate to their goal locations quicker and easier.

I like that they have the prices for their products right out front. You don't have to read more to find out. They give the people what they want to see right away.

I could go on with analysis of the design but now seems like a good stopping point.
They might not have the ability to do that - I could quite easily see the bit of code that can tell if its fake being the same code that bricks the device. Maybe all the real ftdi chips will reject a PID of 0 (as it's invalid), while the fake ones accept it.
> Type annotations are a strict subset of the "this" that AtScript seeks to accomplish.

like?

> "Need" is a fuzzy term, but I think it clearly benefits from a new language with new syntax fitted for the semantics rather than trying to hide new functionality in a separate sublanguaged inside JS comments as you suggest.

When I used "need" I was suggesting that the syntax proposed did not have to be a mandatory part of adopting this feature. If you break this isn't smaller single purpose modules, you leave people the option of choosing your special syntax or choosing to build upon most of your work to make something that doesn't break all your existing tooling. Clojurescript and PureScript are example of a compile-to-javascript languages that needed another format. In the case of clojurescript, only another syntax will afford you the power of S-expressions. My objection with AtScript is that the new syntax could have been a completely optional interface for getting the benefits of the tooling actually doing the heavy lifting in this module.

> in any case preprocessing comment annotations in what is otherwise JS to generate additional JS code for runtime type checking is creating a new compile-to-JS language, its just putting the code for that new language in something that looks like JS comments, so it would still be doing exactly the thing you say shouldn't be done (or, in other words, your suggested alternative suggests that we must really need another compile to JS language to do this, since your alternative still creates such a language.)

Not exactly. Using comments allows my code to remain as vanilla JavaScript and therefore continues to work with all other off the shelf tooling out there. Asking me to adopt an entire new code format for what could have worked just fine as an extension of the standard format out there (i.e. vanilla javascript) is onerous and unnecessary. Requiring a new format requires me to through out my linters (eslint, jshint, jscs) and my parsers (esprima, acorn) and any tooling built on those parsers (ternjs, node-falafel, escodegen, browserify, sourcegraph, source maps tooling)
I'll down vote you for dragging reddit into this for no reason.
That's a pretty glaring omission. I imagine the prints look pretty awful, but it a neat idea. In the normal use a wire feed welder the arc (bright sparky part) would be uniform to create a bead. From what I saw in the videos they are using a "bad" welding technique that would build up the instead of penetrate the metal. They will need to replace/control the wire feeder and the voltage of the welder in order to better results.