skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I have sat across from a call centre in a government office and listened to the workers running through the written version of algorithms. I've spoken to people who worked there and heard how crushing it was to know that someone was getting screwed but to be totally unable to do anything about it because the policy dictated their reaction. And I've worked with charities and listened to the other end of those phone calls; people screaming that their kids are going to be taken away because their benefits have been delayed and they can't afford to feed them.

The underlying assumption of this piece seems to be that turning decision making over to algorithms reduces positive discretion. But the humans in these situations frequently have no more discretion than the machine does, and inefficiency also has a human cost. It seems false to me to pretend that what these algorithms are doing, at least in terms of the majority of their immediate effect, is qualitatively different.

What you're losing when you encode something as an algorithm is the insight that you get from having humans in the loop. Intuition; the things that people haven't thought to measure yet. That's the weakness in any statistical technique - you need a human to lend numbers relevance; to say what is important to know the relationships of; otherwise they're just a sequence of events.

But you need to start off with a system that leverages human strengths in order for that criticism to make sense. Human judgement only has an advantage in a system designed to use the different sorts of value that it offers. If your call centre worker is not truly responsible for the outcome of the call, and if you don't regularly attempt to get feedback from them to inform policy decisions, then it makes no difference if they are replaced by a machine. They were being treated as one to begin with, and the value that they added to the organisation by virtue of being human; of having professional judgement; was being thrown away anyway.

All this does, in a lot of cases, is make existing flaws more obvious.

The exception I can think of to this is the criminal justice system, where there are examples of positive discretion. However, there are also examples of negative discretion there. There are many stupid laws on the books, and selectively enforcing those laws allows you to screw, more or less, whoever you want. It's not surprising that a system that would mechanically implement those laws would produce undesirable outputs, it's just that it's finally being applied to people who have the power to say something about it, (and, perhaps, have their concerns taken seriously enough to alter policy.)

For all that there is a loss in the case of the criminal justice system, there is also a gain: Encoding something as an algorithm makes the flaws in the process more apparent.
‘Tidal’ Is Such a Colossal Failure
Not any more. Now it just means that the public is involved in the selection of the ruling class, but the degree of this involvement is largely symbolic - see the US case with only 2 viable choices and the widespread gerrymandering.
Show HN: Craytin Art
Different foods have different effects on your metabolism, and, relevant to this article, different effects on weight. There is very strong evidence on this point. You are going to be better off eating 200 calories of protein than 200 calories of sugar. The idea that "all calories are equal" has been quite damaging to public health.
noclobber is also an option setting in zsh, and I always have it set. The little extra confirmation it requires before clobbering is actually a nice confirmation that you are doing what you intended when you did intend it, and a nice rescue in case you didn't.

It won't save you from clobbering from another machine when using scp, though, so watch out.
>So for ideal health aim somewhere between the two extremes.

This is generally good advice for everything in life.
There is a lot of wood that doesn't float, I guess the options were to put dense wood and less ballast or wood that floats and more ballast.

I think it's oak and is just saturated with water though.

Here is the "global wood density database" (an excel file): http://datadryad.org/repo/handle/10255/dryad.235 (http://datadryad.org/bitstream/handle/10255/dryad.235/Global...)

http://blog.mischel.com/2012/10/21/woods-that-sink/

The photograph is likely heavily photoshopped, the caption says it's a "composite photograph".
That could be solved by "if user has downvoted the comment they reply to, don't count upvotes for their reply when calculating thread value".
It would be possible, but not convenient: /proc/pid/fd/1. Ick. Ok, maybe the cure is worse than the disease. I'm out of clever ideas for now.
SQL injection in ESET website allows free NOD32 license
You want to censor yourself based on down vote reasons?

Even if sometimes it seems strange to receive a down vote there are many people with different opinions and even if they told you the reason it won't help you much, other than entering a time consuming debate I don't see what else you can do.

https://xkcd.com/386/

Down votes increased because hn got bigger, and it only means someone disagrees with you, why do you see it as a punishment?
The Ballmer effect.
Wow, I thought I was in the top "tabbers" with my 300 tabs or so (well, 300 at work and 300 at home), but I see I am far from that !

Nonetheless, that's why I like firefox, I can do that, not so possible with Chrome. So like other said, I really really hope that they take into account this use case.
A steal on the Tesla name. Nothing to see here, once I read washable it was kind of obvious that this is vaporware
pps: two things CLI have that may be worth the pain

- sequences: globbing, for ... in
- composition: pipes

Even using MSDOS I felt weirdly empowered when I saw this.
I really don't want to talk badly about another language or so, but append always returning a new slice and that being a simple statement about a function seems way more reasonable than for example in Python 2 having 2/3 resulting in 1.

Both of these decisions were made for simplicity.

It's maybe also comparable with "new Number()" in JavaScript not being primitive, but an Object which as a side effect is also call by reference.

I disagree with the statement that "it's in the spec, but that's bad" mainly because a huge number bugs happen out of a lack of understanding in a language and intuitive is usually that language X doesn't work like the first language you really learned.

The whole concept of Go is to have a small, simple spec that you can actually know. Compare Go's specification with other languages (maybe other than Scheme).

Complex specifications often root in way more complex problems. A common problem is for example C++ code, which already is complex being ported to Java, where you end up having side effects from stuff like NUL-delimited strings suddenly not being not delimited and so on.

I relatively frequently stumble across code that show a complete misunderstanding of a language. It's really common and often leads to strange work around that manifest the view of programmers not completely understanding the language they are using. Removing hundreds of lines of work around code and pointing out a mistake made usually looks quite impressive.

However I do not want to deny that specifications should try to avoid such behavior. I do not deny the fact that this isn't optimal, but neither are so many other things (see float). What I think is important is to actually acknowledge that things are not optimal and therefor there should be ways to get around them. append is really nice, because with that one bit of knowledge you end up with one single simple rule on how to program.

The problem that sometimes occurs is that you have rules about a language that go like "If you stumble across this problem the way to solve it depends on ...". So you actually have more side cases.

Also that simple append is maybe something that probably should be warned about cause it is really, really likely an error. This is another reason I think simple, general statements that have such side effects are good, or at least better than needing to know a lot about a language.

What I want to point out with that is that I think that one should judge a language after how it works out for one after one year of seriously working with it on a day by day basis. I really don't think this will end up as a practical issue. Finding something that is different in any language and might be confusing for people not confident in a language is really easy, but can also give you a completely wrong impression.

This is true for Python, Java, JavaScript, C++, ... On the other hand it mostly happens when there is a hype about a language, which totally makes sense. It's also got to point out that this new language is also not the golden shot, because it stops especially inexperienced programmers from following every new hype coming up.
I recommend The Natural Way to Draw by Kimon Nicolaïdes. This book sets out some extensive lesson plans, but you can tailor them to your own time allowances.
This is the article I remeber. It's a bit older too. I prefer the prolog solution!

https://technology.amis.nl/2009/10/13/oracle-rdbms-11gr2-sol...
Humans can already learn echolocation [1]. Still, there are many possibilities for machine-assisted perception/translation. I think the post correctly identifies finding good ways to aurally represent the information to be one of the challenges.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kish
That would be really nice. It could prevent accidental downvotes, when implemented in a certain way.
You're assuming that HN isn't keeping track of how often you downvote (or any patterns). Without knowing the set up, it's difficult to infer much. Of course, revealing that info might lead to gaming the system.
Interesting New Intel CPUs Coming Soon
I have the opposite experience. I tend to lose weight when I do 30 mins - 1 hour of cardio per day.
I'm also a very heavy tab user but I refuse to call it a mental disorder. It is simply an aspect of a workflow among another dime dozen. Web page hoarding may be a disorder though, but in this case it'll be disorder regardless of you're piling them on tabs, bookmarks or Pocket.
> chinese

Everyone in Thailand seems to have it switched on too
How do you find a friend to study and write code with you?
This is great work that seems immediately useful to areas like conservation and art.

The images were heavily homoginised which was good for continuity but perhaps obscures details.

Using the timelapses as a scrubbable index to the original images would be a cool tool.
Using algorithms for support decision making and and putting a bad UI barrier between the users and the managers are two different things.

Anyway, public administrations should indeed make publish how their algorithms work in order to ensure they are reflecting the official policies.
> Cardio alone with no change to diet will not help you lose weight but will help you live longer.

Technically, cardio with no change in diet will make you lose weight (unless you're a medical miracle that disobey the laws of thermodynamics). The problem is, of course, that people who do cardio usually also eat more (a "reward" after the run?).

Also, I'm not sure you can build muscle with a keto diet - you build muscle by using muscle (i.e. lifting weights). In general, having more muscle is very healthy, especially as we get older.
I had the same experience though I have to admit that some things in Firefox are better these days, like checking where an event comes from, going really deep into objects, referencing other objects, comparing rather big objects.

The only thing I really miss is a view WebSocket frames. In many other cases I ended up preferring Firefox Dev Tools which I think while a bit harder to get into are more powerful.

But that might really relate to what precisely one is doing. I am not a web designer.
This is off-topic, please read the submit guidelines:
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The FBI are liars and their informants are liars.

The real secret the security services are trying to hide is their complete ineffectiveness, total waste of money and hijacking for political and public manipulation.

I really don't believe any of this piddling feargeddon media manipulation nonsense - spies are jerks.

Reprinting propaganda does not count as journalism or news.
I also like the Android power management stuff in the background: https://gist.github.com/peterjmag/eecf0de4bafa19482dd5

I don't know the context of the scene (haven't seen the movie yet), but maybe the WakeLock API is a not-so-subtle reference to the robot's sentience? Or perhaps she just runs Android. =)
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting.

Dieting, healthy living and science in general is a long-standing topic of interest on HN.
Translation: become a subservient hive mind conformist wimp.
Interesting, but seems to be very basic. I still prefer using a wm. I can use different layouts, group windows into hierarchies, display them side by side, take advantage of tiling, use workspaces and have configurable keys for each of these actions. You know, functions that a wm is built for.

And I can always switch to a different wm altogether if I'm not comfortable.
Why don't you use something like Pocket? It seems like you are the ideal use case for their software. I use it religiously.
Don't miss the fiber though. If I understood Lustig's sugar video right, fiber helps to keep the fructose in your bowels, where it feeds your gut bacteria instead of getting metabolized similarly to alcohol in your liver. That and vitamins makes eating a berry healthy, but not a candy bar.
I'm saying that there are desirable limits on how much a free society constrains voluntary behavior. Cigarettes are physiologically addictive on a separate level from psychologically addictive gambling, or psychologically addictive pornography, or psychologically addictive exercise, or psychologically addictive knitting, or psychologically addictive excessive work ethic. You can find people obsessed with any activity on Earth. It's a very rough ride trying to define a pathological level of each of those activities, and then intervene when that level is reached, with the full power of the state, against participants with no desire for an intervention.
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8887349
The author Murray Shanahan has a summary of the book’s central ideas on his website.

http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~mpsha/KeyThemes.html
Rather than something complex like this can we get the down and up vote arrows separated? Something simple like putting the arrows on opposite sides of the user's name would be fine. This will stop fat fingered people like me from accidentally down voting a post when I am reading on a mobile device.
It would be interesting to compare to Lux [https://github.com/LuxLang/lux/]
Is hypervisor memory ballooning widespread in major cloud providers these days? How does it compare to bare-metal kernel memory allocation?
Yes, it is all rolled up into the price of the device. This pricing is just for delivery to a port (CIP incoterm), so doesn't include customs clearance, duties, VAT or a retail markup.
You can use sql on hadoop...
How are you able to ship this to Germany for $1?
> Some people are simply predisposed to put on fat and retain it. Aesthetically this may not be what they wish for, and that can lead to desperate dieting and more exotic attempts at fat loss.

Can you provide references for this?

I'm not sure about this one. I've read that in reality, most people have the same resting metabolic rate, i.e. we spend roughly the same amount of calories just to live. It's very possible that there are differences in the efficiency of our digestion systems, but I find it unlikely that the differences are that great (apart from specific foods, e.g. milk). So I'd say that most of the "predisposition" is purely mental.
The deadly one for me is dairy. It's omnipresent and I've attributed its component parts to symptoms ranging from brain fog to elevated heart rate to inflamed joints. Fortunately whey seems to be an exception, so protein shakes are OK. Cut out dairy and avoid most sugars, and I have very few remaining issues. But I also admit my experience is personalized; everyone probably has foods that they aren't compatible with, but can tolerate "enough" to dismiss for a single meal - and people who never encounter long-term issues just happened to get lucky.
Looking at the greyed out comments on this post, I think it's fairly obvious why they've been downvoted.
The autonomy part becomes more attractive the longer you are self-employed. The other thing is there is no age discrimination.
This is pretty accurate, actually—votes in an Internet community just encourage the hive mind. I just say what I want and never mind my "karma" or "vote count" or whatever it is called in the community.
Anyone else notice that the code wasn't PEP8 compatible? ;)

I went ahead and fixed it:
https://gist.github.com/twiecki/7361de09b8e4c0a6248e
Hey it would impact metabolic rates if you would be body building. More muscle = more calories to feed them. In article you can see as well that weight loss was connected with slower metabolic rate.

But walking as written in article is easily filled up with couple cookies.

Other thing is I don't like term "losing weight" it is much better to lose fat and even gain weight building some muscle.
This is what makes weight loss simple in theory but difficult in practice. Many people (especially those who are new to exercising) will (a) take it easier in the period after or (b) like you said eat more. Which results in nothing changing or them even gaining weight.

And sorry I meant building muscle as well as eating a keto diet. If you do both you will lose weight very quickly.
The video on their site is terrible. It's some kind of artsy impression of what you could do with the suit. That's all fine, but it gives the impression that the suit is just some kind of band that you pull around your chest and then lights up.

Furthermore, there is no way that they can do all the things they imply in the movie. Getting hit by an arrow, or feeling like drowning is going to take a lot more than just a flimsy suit with haptic feedback.
Fortunately, that definition is completely subjective, so we should all feel free to post about pretty much anything.
> "PRACTICE SMARTER, NOT HARDER"

This is key (sic).
It could be nice to have a popup menu where you can choose from the main reasons why a comment can be downvoted according to the rules, pointing to the relative FAQ entry. "Ad hominem" "Off topic" "Spammy" - this would help the newcomers and would probably be used more than having to type a reason.
This should be combined with DNSCrypt, great concept!
Two of those, embedded and real-time, Valgrind should help very little as you shouldn't be allocating anything anyway apart from statically.
This is neat.
An alternative would be to use a SOCKS 5 proxy, it can also do the DNS resolution for the client.
What are the right alt coins that your hinting at ?
Yep, it was good news!
Any idea, where you could resell the credits ?
Google's car upsets the media – 1M miles/0 accidents
"The only 'intuitive' interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned."

s/intuitive/discoverable/

GOOD GUIs are nice for discoverability, and the same is true for CLIs. There are many GUIs that are absolutely horrid, which rely on non-obvious icons or assume certain usage styles and offer no assistance if you don't have the same background assumptions as the GUI's creator.

Having used many different types of programs over the last ~30 years, I have wasted far more time with bad GUIs than I have with bad CLIs. At least with the CLI I can grep the output or documentation for what I want. I cannot grep a menu or GUI form to find some option I've forgotten the name of.

What this comes down to is that it is fairly easy to make a good GUI for simple things, and good programmers can make a nice GUI for the moderate and complex tasks. This is where discoverability is primarily useful, as it assists the inexperienced user and the dilettante.

For those of us that want to use our computer in a far more serious way, what the UNIX style CLI (shell) provides us is an interface that is still very learnable (IFF you invest in the time it takes to read the documentation!), that enables crafting commands that are simply not practical in any GUI. If you don't believe this, tell me how I can, for example:

- recursively walk an arbitrary directory tree of images at ($SRCDIR)
- except for any dirfectgory that ends in '.backup'
- finding any file that is NOT a PNG,
- convert that that file into a PNG
- but saving the new files in new directory tree ($DSTDIR),
creating any necessary parent directories

That would be a mess in any GUI. In bash + imagemagick, it would be:

for i in "${SRCDIR}/**/!(*.backup)/!(*.png) ; do
dst="${DSTDIR}${i#${SRCDIR}}"
mkdir -p "$(dirname "${dst}")"
convert "${i}" "${i%.*}.png"
done

Yes, that's ugly, but at least it is possible.
SPOILER ALERT - Don't read any further if you have not seen the movie.

I don't know if it was an Easter egg or just coincidence (I'm leaning towards the former), but one thing that stood out to me was the Japanese girl (Kyoko) getting her lower jaw knocked off. That's a trope/common theme in Japanese horror movies. It's been done in 3 different ju-on (grudge) films, 2 scissor mouth lady movies (scissor lady is an urban legend in japan, like bloody mary), and a half-dozen other anthology-type movies.
Sorry to hear that. We haven't heard that complaint before about the Whitney font, but we'll look into it.
You are showing your age when reminiscing about having a 4 digit slashdot ID :)
"Building muscle with keto style diet will help you lose the weight..."

Please say that it will help lose fat quickest, because gaining muscle will add to body weight. Fun thing is that you might change composition loosing fat and gain muscle and gain weight. So losing weight is not good term.
> If you consistently have no idea why you got downvoted, then HN might not be the place for you. Learn quickly to adapt, start lurking more, or find another community without high standards for replies. If you don't read the community guidelines [1] and then complain about negative karma you are to be avoided.

Or even just ask why your post is getting downvotes. Ignore single downvotes; they can be errors, but asking for clarification if you really don't understand why you're getting downvotes usually gets some replies.
This is only a problem because you can't modify your vote. On Reddit, you can change your vote any time before the thread is archived.
Another vote for stripe. I know of many junior web devs cutting their teeth on stripe. It's too easy.
hackernews.stackexchange.com
Building a Better DatabaseCache for Django on MySQL
We can ship 1,000 smartphones to Frankfurt's airport (FRA) for $1,104 USD, which is about a dollar per phone. Our minimum order is 1,000 smartphones, so that's not the same as being able to ship 1 device for $1.

Also, we work directly with carriers and get wholesale rates for air and sea freight to major ports. Delivery to Hamburg by sea is about $0.05 USD per device for 1,000 smartphones.
Which is the company that you are hinting at ??
It's not even just different effects on metabolism. We are continually learning about the effect that eating food A has on the metabolism of food B but not on C.

Example being diet soda (zero calories) and its effect on gut bacteria and eating behaviour.
You mean this statement?

> gaining muscles is a pretty effective way to increase your energy consumption in idle mode and thus lose weight quicker

It's not counter to what the article describes; the article is just saying that most people will also increase their energy (food) intake along with an increase in their energy consumption, resulting in no net weight loss. It's perfectly possibly that grandparent's psychology doesn't make him/her eat more as a result of more muscle.