skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is really not a "standalone and lightweight glib", this is a generic data structure library in C, and it's quite blatantly obvious they're designed for different purposes.

glib is a platform and portability library that evolved away from gtk+, with the goal being to make event driven programming simpler, both for system daemons and Gtk+ applications. Most of glib's data structures are highly unoptimized simply because they don't need to run in critical paths of whatever applications they're used in; optimizing would be mostly premature (with some caveats; GSequence was added because of the need for a higher performance list-like container , GHashTable got a lot of love a few years ago because it turned out to be awful, etc). glib is ABI stable(-ish).

klib is written for doing data analysis and serialization in C, with two releases in four years and no stability claims.

The two can co-exist quite nicely - I can easily see a glib application using klib data structures along critical paths.
"Why is it so damn difficult to write software that doesn't explode if you don't hold your tongue at the right angle?"

Hubris mostly.
I remember hearing about Germany where they were so good at conserving water, that it became a bad thing:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-s-eco-tr...

The problem was: sewage systems need excess water to work, and since Germans were so diligent about saving water...well, that was a problem. Of course, the obvious solution is just to pump some of the saved water back into the sewage system, but that requires additional infrastructure.
There's actually some evidence and theory to suggest that sex of human children is determined by their mother's stress level: http://www.economist.com/node/10130882

So it's not clear-cut even in our species!
I think if you could show that certain morals were genetic and present in the majority, rather than learned, you'd have a basis for calling those moral facts for humans.
Good question. I find it strange they didn't mention a prize this year. Last year or possibly the year before they gave away 5 Macbook Airs.
You might like to read this https://board.freedomainradio.com/page/books/universally_pre...
That's correct. While 30 cm is a revolution for satellite imagery, it's pretty common to have 5 cm aerial photos.
I work in a US urban charter school that's in danger of losing its charter because it fails financially and academically.

75% of its students are growing up without regular contact with their fathers, 25% without their mothers, and more than 10% are designated homeless (this means they've moved more than 4 times in a year; the state defines this designation).

The teachers are close with the students; we hear stories that tell us who has a really hard childhood. I can emphatically tell you that the harder the student's life is, the more misbehavior they exhibit and the more unhealthy they appear. By "appear" I mean weight, smell, visible grime, cuts and burns, these sorts of things.

Here is a list of signs of child abuse:

http://www.safehorizon.org/page/10-signs-of-child-abuse-58.h...

Here are signs you might not see as abuse when you come across them: thumb-sucking, fear of going home, body odor.

Each of those is easy to criticize or fix: "Get that thumb out of your mouth." "What do you mean you don't want to go home and watch [TV show they've mentioned]?" "[behind their backs] so-and-so stinks."

(put a ":)" after each of those criticisms to see how they could be jokes or a caring statements, depending on tone. Still, they don't go far enough in addressing the underlying problem)

Those criticisms identify the wrong signifier for their sign. The signifier is not sheer childishness (in the case of thumbsucking), but a coping mechanism for abuse.
They're things that seem to exist for people who believe in absolute morality stemming from a higher power. Let's just ignore the problem that no two people who believe in absolute morality can seem to exactly agree on what is absolutely moral and what isn't.
California Man's Ballot Proposal: Death to Gays
When I was a boy, if you wanted to talk philosophy you reasoned from first principles.

Apparently now you can just take whatever half-baked ideas you already have in your head, hold them as the truth, and wantonly criticize anyone or any system that slights those beliefs.

Also, we had to walk up hill both ways to school in the snow. /s

Turns out that living in a pluralistic, modern society makes it really hard to reason about moral truths when claimed moral facts are so tightly coupled to cultural baggage. I argue that from a practical perspective, our best bet is moral consensus.
I'm not defending the article, but you are wrong.

Stealing from others is bad if it decreases your pleasure and it is good if it increases your pleasure.

That is objective.
I'm not familiar with the wood theory of the downfall of the Soviet Union. Link? I figured it was their centrally planned economy.

Yeah, so China has most rare earth metals. Are you advocating imperialism and occupation? Do we have evidence that they are managing their resource in an abusive way? (After a bit of reading, it appears that China does have large export restrictions. That market inefficiency is being solved by smuggling. :D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_industry_in_China#Hi... )
"Alert: Public Schools Teach Nihilism!"

http://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/tag/justin-p-mcbrayer...
Didn't you know that the Earth was once proven flat? /snark

I think it's an example of Poe's Law.
It's amazing a professor of philosophy seems to understand this less than elementary school kids. There is a surprising shallowness to this article.

I left this article applauding the school and son, and questioning the author.
I would guess it's an area ripe for start ups in each new state where it is legalized/decriminalized.
All water is fresh at one time...also, water tends to evaporate and come back as rain or snow, but it might go into the ocean where salinity is high and makes it uneconomical to extract back into something drinkable.

And that is the problem: with the glaciers melting off, more fresh water winds up in the ocean, and we have to run energy-intensive desalination processes to get it back.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick

Facts are observations that persist no matter how much you wish otherwise. - me, just now.
Is a game theory theorem a mathematical fact?

If it has moral implications, is it a moral fact?
A very compelling argument !
How is that objective? Why is something bad if it decreases your pleasure?
If only there was someone to restore balance to the universe ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jh4Mpgbi4A

:-D
Geotagging 100M Twitter accounts, independent of location-sharing preferences [pdf]
Show HN: Flight search engine that pieces together two roundtrips to save money
Sure, it’s a mistake to treat facts and beliefs as disjoint. But moral relativism is the only honest position—we do not know what’s morally right, nor do we know whether right things even exist, nor can we necessarily prove these things even though we believe them. So we pragmatically follow evidence and try to treat people decently in an ad-hoc fashion.

More to the point, if a teacher teaches kids any specific absolute moral system, many of their parents will be upset with it. So the school system only allows teachers to teach what is essentially agnosticism—the absence of a moral position.

The examples from the article can all be dismissed by simple descriptivism:

> If it’s not true that it’s wrong to murder a cartoonist with whom one disagrees, then how can we be outraged?

A person can be outraged for any reason they want. It happens that this kind of thing outrages a lot of people.

> If there are no truths about what is good or valuable or right, how can we prosecute people for crimes against humanity?

We can, and do, do so arbitrarily. It happens that a lot of people agree on what “crimes against humanity” entail.

> If it’s not true that all humans are created equal, then why vote for any political system that doesn’t benefit you over others?

Humans are occasionally altruistic for some reason.

Isn’t it more interesting to investigate the reasons for why so many humans believe these things than to endlessly conduct the same debates about truth, provability, and knowledge?
I disagree. Think about the implications of using an app v. pen + paper. I assume the device would need to remain unlocked, have notifications turned off (e.g. email), and the screen isn't currently synched with a projector among other assumptions. Are these reasonable? If so, can you elaborate on what you're envisioning for both scenarios (app v. pen)?
I suspect that, if asked to enumerate moral facts, the author would describe his opinions.
The sun will rise tomorrow is an opinion/speculation. The sun rose today is a fact.
Had a similar experience at a previous job. Some of our clients couldn't tell the difference between the sofware we made for them, windows, the network, the email client or almost anything.

I think in their minds it was all just in one big bucket labeled "Computer Stuff", and when the computer done a bad, they call the computer people. Because they were using our software all day, we must have been at the top of their minds when the network would go down or Outlook would fail to launch.
Looking for POST account/create, and.. Nope. APIs can only do so much in the face of regulation. :)
>Fact: Something that is true about a subject and can be tested or proven.
Opinion: What someone thinks, feels, or believes.
Hoping that this set of definitions was a one-off mistake ...

Two decades ago, when I was in elementary school, we were taught pretty much the exact same thing. If someone states something is a fact, demand proof.
And for children, this is good enough. When they grow up to be pedantic associate professors of philisophy, they may feel free to expand on the above definitions.
Best futsal skills and tricks ever
The OP's mistake is to characterize all "moral facts" as simple binary answers. Cheating = bad. Killing = wrong. Those are too simple. That they are labeled opinion does not imply that there aren't any not-simple moral facts.

"Cheating undermines meritocracies and is therefor frowned upon by those in control of such."

I'd say that qualifies as a moral fact and most all would call it an accurate description of a state of affairs, a fact.

"All men are created equal" is not a fact, or even an opinion imho. It is a hope, a dream of people trying to describe an ideal state of affairs. That it isn't a "fact" doesn't mean that it cannot be something to believe in and strive for.
This link [0] has an invalid SSL cert, it's only valid for [1]

0: https://fidor.de/
1: https://www.fidor.de/
The most plausible definition I can think of involves stating your metaethics (e.g. utilitarianism) and then showing evidence that there is a reliably-reached conclusion for a claim under those ethics.

Like, I don't know: "Under utilitarianism, if you are comparatively rich, it is wrong not to attempt to relieve the suffering of people in extreme poverty, because you can do so very cheaply in comparison to the happiness gain you could cause for other people as rich as you". I'd say that's a moral fact.
I am Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile!

“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.” Issac Asimov
The likelihood that human definition of life DOESN'T exist elsewhere in the universe is infinitesimally small. That's not make it a fact that life DOES exist. We just shouldn't be surprised when they arrive to probe the OP.
What's the relevance of demanding a proof? Would you think it's immoral if it was a lie? :-)
Show HN: Gaana-dl (Gaana.com songs downloader)
"Cheating undermines meritocracies and is therefor frowned upon by those in control of such."

I'd say that qualifies as a moral fact

What makes that a moral fact? What's the moral part?
Capitalism’s secret love affair with bureaucracy
"It should not be a surprise that there is rampant cheating on college campuses: If we’ve taught our students for 12 years that there is no fact of the matter as to whether cheating is wrong, we can’t very well blame them for doing so later on."

What if we say "cheating is not allowed". Can we blame them then?
Hah, all philosophical discussions can end in solipsism if you want them to. I think it’s more fun when they don’t.
> Everything is just an opinion.

Including everything you just wrote. I'm not sure why you're so down on his claims when your position is circular at best.

Is everything relative so everyone has a valid opinion? Or is everything relative so that nobody has a valid opinion? Either way, why do you care?
As someone who uses Simple every day, I'd kill for an API. Would be cool to do some analytics on my spending on top of what they already provide.
I do not care what language this is written in, and no user should care either. Stop this.
I'm...surprised.

I've done several BBQ tours on my monthly trips from Houston to Austin, and Salt Lick consistently requires a fork.

The half-dozen times I've had Franklin's BBQ, I've witnessed the brisket slab wobble like jello, and can't help but describe the moisture as butter-esque. Seriously, that stuff is so rich you can't eat it often at all.

Still, I've found that even in Texas everyone argues over which bbq is better. Some argue against any sauce, any forks, or anything to imply the meat is less than perfect. I've even had pitmasters argue that tearing at a rib bone with your teeth because the meat is dried on is "correct", and fall-off-the-bone is over/undercooking.

At the very least, Franklin's is different from Rudy's is different from Salt Lick is different from whatever.

It's all preference, but one thing you can bet on is good BBQ will have a good line :)
You can compare imagery from many of the various providers for any location in the world using https://imagehunter.apollomapping.com/

(Disclosure: I'm a contractor for Apollo Mapping, but not incentivized to help them sell images.)
Despite it being ad-hominem, I'll let it play because it helped stop my eyes from continuing to roll every time I replayed his arguments.
What is this reactionary garbage doing on HN?

This is a popular far right talking point, fear or "moral relativism" and the ridiculous assertion that millions of kids are being indoctrinated into it by public schools. It's horse shit.
I think you would quickly have to conclude that rape, murder, sexism and racism are genetic facts about humans; they're shared with the other animals we're descended from, and they've been part of our history forever. I think if we held this definition, morality would not be very useful as a concept.

Here's an old debate between (professor) Peter Singer and (judge) Richard Posner, where Posner holds this claim that morality is based on these "tenacious moral intuitions" and Singer argues against him: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dialogues/fe...
As I pointed out way back when,[1] Mark Shuttleworth really missed the opportunity to name an Ubuntu release the Tenacious Tardigrade.

[1] http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1295#comment-403210
You have just successfully banished the word by stripping it of any legitimate usage.

Since it was quite a useful word that will undoubtedly be missed, why not being it back with a simple redefinition. We could redefine it as "close enough to true that only a philosopher would object". Then we could continue to use the word, despite the obnoxious objections of philosophers.

Epistemology may be all very neat and interesting, but in the real world there is little place for it. We frequently need to express ideas that may not necessarily be "philosophically pure", in order to get shit done in a timely manner. Think of the concept of "fact" as foma.
The sun rose today is a fact only if you can prove it. I think you're crazy everyone knows the sun just appeared out of nowhere.

PS: Your aunt Sally called, she misses you.
It's easily resolved by properly pricing water. Tie the water price to rainfall and you've solved the entire problem. Let the market take care of it.
"It’s like creating Frankenstein and then realizing that you didn’t bolt the legs on. After you’ve hit it with lightning and given it life. While it’s attempting to walk."
It seems that philosophers rarely make use of rigorous logic even though they stand to benefit from it immensely.
Does it go from objectively bad to objectively good if you feel differently about it on different days?
The author's position is as bad as what they're trying to criticize.
> I argue that from a practical perspective, our best bet is moral consensus.

I took that as the point of the piece -- that there is no moral consensus. That even unalienable truths like, "All men are created equal" are being labelled as opinions and lumped in the same category as one's favorite color or sports team.
The author declines to demonstrate to the reader that there are moral facts.

He attempted reductiones ad absurdum fall completely flat, e.g.,

> If it’s not true that it’s wrong to murder a cartoonist with whom one disagrees, then how can we be outraged?

...As if nobody has ever been outraged on the basis of their opinions!

He also fails to even mention what a moral fact would consist of. He doesn't say whether he agrees with this definition:

> Fact: Something that is true about a subject and can be tested or proven.

But clearly if one takes this position, there are no moral facts. What would constitute moral proof?

My guess is that the author is crypto-monotheist. With a God around, you could say that a moral claim is God's will, and even if we can't prove it there is a fact of the matter. In a godless world, there is no basis on which a moral claim could be a fact.
I don't think the author of this would accept this as a fact. There could be things that intellectually we can generally agree are bad that humans might be genetically predisposed to being ok with (e.g. I don't think it would be extremely surprising if humans are predisposed towards certain forms of murder or sexual assault).
Url changed from http://qz.com/362361/wet-wipes-are-wreaking-havoc-on-our-sew..., which points to this.
I'm surprised the title hasn't been changed. The actual website says "generic lib" and at no point does it draw a direct comparison with glib. Usually these things are changed much faster.
No, facts are facts even if no one can prove it. It's just that if you can't prove it, you can't know if a certain claim (like "the sun rose today") is actually a fact or not.
Tech for the Rich in New York Luxury Tech Show
>>One and only free gaana.com tracks downloader!

Would benefit from a culturally neutral explanation of `gaana.com`.
He cares because if he's being deceived that's well immor.. uh no, ba.., not that, eh unethi.. well... he doesn't like it because reasons.
Moral 'facts' require a universal standard of morality. It's hard to come up with a truly universal standard. The best answer I've seen is: Man's life.

"Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil." -Ayn Rand [1]

[1] http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/morality.html
If you share that sentiment and want to hear some music a la Moog, Moog Cookbook [0] has a bunch of tunes on Grooveshark [1] , etc.

They were a duo that performed heavily Moog-ified alternative and classic rock tunes while wearing space suits, as a parody/tribute to the novelty "Moog records" of the late 1960s and early 1970s. [0].

I suppose one could see them as a Web 1.0 version of Daft Punk. :-)

If you have time for just one, their take [2] on Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" is probably a good intro to their oeuvre (their take [3] on Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4" is also fun with a bit of clever).

Enjoy.

P.S. A Moog Cookbook interview [4]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moog_Cookbook

[1] http://grooveshark.com/#!/search?q=moog%20cookbook

[2] http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Born+To+Be+Wild/3e7Uum?src=5

[3] http://grooveshark.com/s/25+Or+6+To+4/3Ifoax?src=5

[4] http://www.chunklet.com/index.cfm?section=article&IssueID=9&...
From the article:

"Conversely, many of the things we once “proved” turned out to be false. For example, many people once thought that the earth was flat."

I don't think this is an example of something that was ever "proved".

Nevertheless, I feel like the author's grasping for straws in his unwillingness to admit that morality is subjective and situational. He's done nothing to prove that moral values can or should be considered "facts" instead of (or in addition to, as he's advocating) opinions.
> It turns out that a huge fraction of Spark workloads fall into this model, especially since we support complex types and nested structures.

The first step of all my Spark tasks is "turn this RDD[String] into an RDD of parsed JSON", or turning CSV into case classes.

What JSON parser will dataframes be using? I presume Jackson?
None of the examples come close to moral fact. (The author wasn't claiming they all were moral fact, but he suggests without being specific that at least some of them ought to be.)

— Copying homework assignments is wrong.

A situational ethic.

— Cursing in school is inappropriate behavior.

A situational ethic.

— All men are created equal.

Objectively false.

— It is worth sacrificing some personal liberties to protect our country from terrorism.

Too vague to be either fact or opinion.

— It is wrong for people under the age of 21 to drink alcohol.

A situational ethic.

— Vegetarians are healthier than people who eat meat.

Most likely false.

— Drug dealers belong in prison.

A situational ethic.
We're trying to get most of the people together every couple of months. The recent one was indeed in Hawaii. Nice place

https://medium.com/@brianaxe/the-grid-an-unconventional-star...
Philosophers invented rigorous logic. This one sure didn't present any, though.
>why are three books in front of me in the Perl category about Swift, HTML, and PHP?

This is a big problem for more than just niche books. When I tried to find a new fiction book by browsing categories I found the same books listed in every major category, i.e. it's difficult to believe the same book ought to be listed in Sci fi, horror, self help, history, and current events.
My takeaway was that OP genuinely believes there are moral absolutes that are not the subject of consensus, they just are. Consensus attempts to build something stable from a variety of (hopefully) evidenced opinions, but it's not necessarily linked to some objective, absolute reality. He's not criticizing a lack of moral consensus, he's saying that relying on consensus as opposed to absolutes encourages amoral behavior.

I would agree with the author that children shouldn't be only taught relativism, but I hope we can forgive a lack of nuance in 2nd-grade curricula. Having wiggle room and nuance in these conversations is part of how civilization has progressed, and that's stifled by the idea that all morality is derived from some semi-knowable perfect absolute reality.
Lots of people have claimed ungodly sources of moral objectivity/universalism (usually nature, or reason, or some such).
Sorry of I misinterpreted your position, I thought that was exactly what you meant.
That's a big "if", though. For others, stealing might increase one's pleasure. This decrease v. increase of pleasure about something is what's called an "opinion".

It's not objective if it changes based on who you ask and how you observe it.
hiring a diver or two to do that is probably cheaper than the alternative ways to desalinate.