skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The only problem I have with Uber is they get away with not having to compete on a level playing field.

I live in Sydney Australia and catch a fair few taxis.

That taxi diver I use has to pay many $100,000.00 to buy a taxi plate just to work (or work for someone who has bought such a plate), but the same Uber driver does not have such an overhead.

Also, that taxi has to pay insurance in case I'm injured while I'm in their cab, another cost the Uber driver does not have to cover with an insurance policy.

So government has to decide, does it want to eliminate those costs and make it a level playing field, making it an effective free for all.

But why politicians will never do that is because the first crash with the resulting insurance claim will bring the industry to it's knees and from that point on all hell will brake loose.

At present the politicians just don't want to make a decision because it is just a little too hard.
That would be really cool, a ride marketplace that lets you choose the driver based on rate (and or other factors). Does that exist already? If not, it should.
It's the same as any consulting arrangement, common in big companies. My current contracting client has about 20% of their IT staff in house, and the rest is consultants like me. This is done often for accounting reasons: The employee is an expense, accounting-wise. I am paid out of a project, and employed only while the projects is there, so my salary is considered a capital investment. In my specific case, I am far more expensive than their employees, but accounting wise, my expense is far more convenient. I do not work for my contracting client: I work for an intermediate company. How I get paid, what is my visa status... it's all none of their business.

The same thing happens here. No company is laying off Americans to hire H1-Bs. One company hires H1-Bs, another lays off Americans/Green card holders, and the companies just contract a price for the work. Disney can say they have no idea whatsoever of the immigration status of their contacted workforce.

Is it shady? Absolutely. Do I like it? Not a bit. But it's not against the law. If there's anyone you could claim might end up in legal trouble at some point, it's the contracting firm, not Disney. But even then, I doubt it: Body shops don't hire a citizen or permanent resident that is any good, because anyone that is good will get better money and working conditions elsewhere. They really don't get applicants.
I did! That doesn't make Uber's actions any better.

No, but it's hard to argue that their actions will screw society, if it was already the status quo.
What Disney has done is certainly reprehensible but fully legal (given the "contractor" loophole in the H1-B program).
However the backlash is focusing on the "them foreigners taking our Jobs" aspect a bit too much.

What should be troubling is the fact that someone in the Executive Suite contracted out important IT functions (such as these jobs were I am assuming).

If the CIO/CTO etc are perfectly wiling to disrupt core functions to shave off some costs - you have to wonder about the strategic abilities of these highly paid morons who cannot think past the next quarter.

That is the real outrage - whether those outsourced jobs are done by H1-Bs (or even possibly L1-Bs who are much more prone to abuse) is the minor part of the story.
What happens when increasing automation leads us to permanent structural unemployment?

How many years until Uber moves to self-driving cars and this entire article is meaningless?

The real minimum wage is $0: when you can't find a job.

I think arguing about the minimum wage is ''fighting the last war'' and not facing the real problems in the future that will force societies to evolve to survive.
Less safe? How so?
One thing I have noticed, though, is that it is a pretty reliable red flag

That's been my experience as well. In fact, towards the end of the period when I worked as an employee, this became one of my go-to tests about whether to accept a job offer.
> The crucial aspect is that this is polyfillable via JIT compilation to asm.js

So is PNaCl, with pepper.js. The difference there is that PNaCl also provided a more full-featured API, which nonetheless was harder for other browsers to support. Personally, I would have been happy to see NaCl-minus-Pepper standardized, since the sandbox would have been much easier to support than the APIs; browsers could then choose what superset of APIs to expose to that sandbox.
I, on the other hand, love the page turn buttons on my Kindle 5 and reluctant to upgrade for exactly the lack of this feature. I'm afraid I will keep stubbornly refusing to get used to swiping for turning pages. Why couldn't Amazon provide both options (swiping and clicking) for page turning, at least on some of their newer devices?
Just start loading a single script tag and ignore HTML and CSS completely. Will severely impact usability and SEO though.
He was already there.. he's continuing in the same role
OS X Exploit breaks Keychain's security
pepper.js is ahead-of-time offline compilation, which means it can't adapt to individual target runtimes.
Or simply prevent the problem.

In the Netherlands, similar visa have a minimum salary requirement. As a result, we have tech workers from all over the planet, but no herds of cheap labour from India. The Indians that are here are well paid experts.

If knowledge migrant visa are abused to import cheap labour, the problem is clearly in the word "cheap".
Some people would "consensually" trade both their kidneys for a hot meal. A company offering this deal would be exploiting the inability of these people to properly assess risk, and would be acting unethically.
Anyone else read the article with the nagging voice saying:

"Oh crap, we got caught trying to really bend the H1B program and have irked our main customer base. We'd better say that we are undoing it then put a policy in place to more slowly drive out everyone making more than minimum wage by using bad reviews and implementing impossible goals. No one will notice if we do it slowly."
>no valid reason other than it undermines the rents that incumbent firms and bureacrats are generating from anti-consumer regulations

It would appear as though you've answered your own question. Politics is not required to be sane or rational.
No, they rent the taxi, so they are customers of the taxi company.
This is a fantastic article and is another great example to pile on as to why Zed Shaw is the king of programming teaching.

One area I struggle with in tutoring is how to inspire/invoke/detect disciplined motivation. What I mean is, whenever I sit down to show someone something, I'm constantly questioning myself "wait, do they actually want to learn this level of detail, or am I just giving too much information that's going in one ear and out the other?" If someone is definitely motivated to learn that's great (and really inspiring for me as a teacher to do better at explaining things precisely).

If this nomenclature were more understood, I would like to say something like "Sorry, what you're trying to do is more of an early/junior task, and right now you need to stick with the Beginning basics". I just don't know how to phrase that without sounding condescending.
How to program phones to be motion remote controllers
Cost is half of it. The other half was very resistant. I am told that when my office started going digital in the late 80's there was a lot of turmoil and it split the organization. That attributed greatly to a period where we had 3 presidents for a year. Digitization won of course.
and ignore the din of people on the internet who claim to effortlessly, expertly jump among 10 languages as part of their day-to-day.

The problem with this isn't whether or not that claim is true, but rather that (as you say) its not the right thing for a beginner. Its perfectly fine (desirable, even, IMHO) for an intermediate-to-expert programmer to know many (different) languages and use a few of them regularly (although perhaps outside of JS and whatever you use on the backend, probably daily is a bit much maybe), but this is all distraction for a beginner. Beginners should focus on learning programming concepts, not on learning programming languages (but one language is a requirement, otherwise you can't learn by doing!) Although, Zeds point about learning the basics of four languages still holds - you can do that and then focus on one.
I think the "known to the state of california to cause cancer" warnings are on so many things that they are effectively meaningless. So that's probably an example of a required warning that has little effect.
It also works if the target has installed an exploitable app, or one that can be trojaned via an included component. That sort of thing has happened in the past even from "reputable" software vendors (c.f. Lenovo/Superfish or the Sony rootkit), so pretending that it can't happen on App Store seems naive to me.

No, this isn't a remote root, but it's pretty severe and not something that should be downplayed with italics.
> I don’t think that Microsoft is shedding its most popular executives.

And perhaps some "ding, dong, the witch is dead" from Redmond over those that are departing?
Fast-forward a few years, and imagine if a browser engine were nothing more than a WebAssembly engine and a "default" HTML/CSS implementation. You could replace that engine with anything you like written in WebAssembly, doing all its own rendering and input using the lower-level APIs provided by WebAssembly. So, every browser gets the latest rendering and elements, or at the very least polyfills via WebAssembly rather than JavaScript.
it's a virtual machine, but it needs to interop with the rest of the web. at some point this probably means support for garbage collected heaps, but it doesn't mean it's a pervasively-GCd VM like Java. Think more like how WebKit, Gecko and Blink have lots of GC infrastructure in their native, un-GCd code.
Shame too, since he goes on about a deep "revelation" about nature after finding out the fractal is not straight.
Wow, 'Holds thousands of books' is now technical details. How do we stop this trend of dumbing down the specs?
Yeah, it's a new and interesting situation. And I'm sure Uber will appeal. But assuming this turns out to be final...

As an employer Uber can set shifts for its employees and ban them from taking jobs from anywhere else while on shift.

I wonder what Uber's new privileges with respect to its workers will cost. What benefits are California employers required to pay? Paid vacation? Pay in lieu of notice for termination without cause? Employment insurance contributions? Social security contributions?

It's all going to be a moot point in the end. Transport automation is coming.
Technology is not their core competency, marketing is. All of their technology would be far less valuable without Mickey, Elsa and Cinderella plastered all over it. Their C-suite may have decided that their technology department was too expensive and the needs of the business could be adequately served by an outside firm.

Quality likely didn't factor in to the decision; so long as it was good enough to not be a roadblock for their marketing teams.
But the point of this technique is, its dead simple. Identify a gene and cut it out. Or add one.
Minor correction: The green cabs ("boro taxis") can be either called or hailed, but in either case can only make pickups in the outer boroughs (and the very northern end of Manhattan).
It's not bad work but it looks like The Register has hyped it much too far. Breakdown:

* OSX (but not iOS) apps can delete (but not read) arbitrary Keychain entries and create new ones for arbitrary applications. The creator controls the ACL. A malicious app could delete another app's Keychain entry, recreate it with itself added to the ACL, and wait for the victim app to repopulate it.

* A malicious OSX (but not iOS) application can contain helpers registered to the bundle IDs of other applications. The app installer will add those helpers to the ACLs of those other applications (but not to the ACLs of any Apple application).

* A malicious OSX (but not iOS) application can subvert Safari extensions by installing itself and camping out on a Websockets port relied on by the extension.

* A malicious iOS application can register itself as the URL handler for a URL scheme used by another application and intercept its messages.

The headline news would have to be about iOS, because even though OSX does have a sandbox now, it's still not the expectation of anyone serious about security that the platform is airtight against malware. Compared to other things malware can likely do on OSX, these seem pretty benign. The Keychain and BID things are certainly bugs, but I can see why they aren't hair-on-fire priorities.

Unfortunately, the iOS URL thing is I think extraordinarily well-known, because for many years URL schemes were practically the only interesting thing security consultants could assess about iOS apps, so limited were the IPC capabilities on the platform. There are surely plenty of apps that use URLs insecurely in the manner described by this paper, but it's a little unfair to suggest that this is a new platform weakness.
"This item will be released on June 30, 2015." - looks like a new version of the Kindle Paperwhite. To be honest I'm still not sure if that's exactly what I should be looking at, it's not like there are any particularly funny reviews or anything
Microsoft is separating applications and Windows. Is that a new thing? Does this mean Outlook and Office are no longer part of the same internal organizational structures when they used to be? I think if this is true and a new development that's going to be very good for Microsoft. I feel like Windows, while still a great workhorse OS has been like a anchor weighing Microsoft applications down on other platforms.
So is WebAssembly: you'd compile your code to a .wasm file "offline". In both cases, you compile your code to a bytecode format, which the browser then compiles (directly or via JS polyfill) to native code.
The point about price setting isn't that it must be the driver/turk. It's just that it can't be uber/amazon.
Agreed: "2015 Kindle Paperwhite" or "The New Kindle Paperwhite" would be informative titles. "Kindle Paperwhite" alone is not.
Why your app should be everywhere
This it: https://github.com/kai771/kindlepdfviewer/tree/librerator ?
I highly doubt it would ever bake in GC semantics. High-perf stuff like games are the biggest push for this kind of thing, where nobody wants a GC. One of the biggest advantages to asm.js right now is predictable performance because of no GC.

Most likely an API will be provided for interacting with a garbage collector, but it's completely optional.
Anyone who contracts work to Cognizant knows the composition of the labor-pool. To play ignorant is beyond hilarious, esp. when your CTO is named Tilak Mandadi.
It does compete with those efforts in a sense, but ideally it is going to learn from those efforts and provide a powerful cross-browser equivalent to them instead of just trying to replace them.
Functionally that's it (didn't realise it'd been rolled into es6 modules though). Looks like what I was referring to was a third party library: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/Code_snippets/Ro...
I have no idea how Mechanical Turk works, however the end result in this situation would be the same. The independent contractor is allowed to choose the price by accepting tasks priced acceptably. the IC still "sets" the price they are willing to work for by only entering into agreements for work where they agree on the price being offered.
I submitted the page with the title "Kindle Paperwhite". I assumed that most HN readers would recognize a new Kindle model. I usually get my titles edited, so I am trying to help the mods.

Of course, "Amazon releases the Kindle Paperwhite" or "New Kindle Paperwhite preorders" would be a lot clearer.
Why, even the pizza delivery jobs quoted in the decision do not reimburse vehicle expenses.

Shifting the expense burden to employer instead of employee creates wrong incentives, e.g. one can then choose to deliver on a Hummer instead of a Prius, because maintenance/fuel is paid for by someone else.
It does look pretty good on iPad. I guess we'll just have to wait for them to figure out how to release it for their... ya know, flagship e-reader.
A key part of WebAssembly's strategy is a polyfill that runs on the client and generates appropriate JS (asm.js or otherwise).
Yeah but the night watchman isn't working for a competitor simultaneously.
They aren't very aesthetically pleasing...
You're not in the majority. A former coworker worked for a company that actually did what Uber has always claimed it does -- the app connected passengers to independent companies for a seamless experience.

What distinguished it from Uber is that the connection was made to livery companies who complied with labor law, and they therefore cannot really compete on price and struggle to gain traction.
I'm not sure what your question is asking...but what I mean is that Google Maps are ostensibly improved by analyzing how users use the app and how they seem to utilize the information...I imagine just as Google search tracks which search results you click -- and also, if you hit the Back button, and how long it took you to do that -- in order to evaluate SERP effectiveness, there must be some kind of feedback for Google Maps...? The live traffic projections, AFAIK, are a result of collecting GPS information from Android phones on the road.

Apple has been claiming that it wants to build apps that don't draw on user information, as to prioritize user privacy. Maybe they'll apply that attitude towards their Maps app.
I usually do that when I share something sensitive or extremely personal, at least for the first day I share it. It forces the conversation with me.
Google refreshes their street view every so often, so if they have a comparable fleet it should take about the same amount of time (roughly 2 years or so).
> I'm 50 alone, scared, and close to being homeless.

Would you like to elaborate?
Aren't the drivers rated? That would mean the drivers can, by driving badly or be rude, negatively affect their income. At the same time a really good driver might be able to make bit more.
I have a desktop app that has a single exception handler at the event loop. It's amazingly robust. That file you're trying to save is locked? Network location went away? Doesn't matter. It displays the error in a dialog box (so you know what went wrong) and returns the user to the app. Whatever operation they were doing, they can just try again. Any cleanup is performed automatically and the application, without really any effort, is always in a stable state.

That's how exceptions are supposed to work. The wack-a-mole attempt at ensuring you "handle" every case is wrong.

The problem, in my opinion, is that most programmers have been so brain damaged by Java that anyone exposed to that way of programming can't see how exceptions are supposed to work. Java not only makes you try/catch/declare everything but also makes you use exceptions for non-exceptional operations. A perfect storm.
As a devotee of Andy Kaufman, I am eager to do this _precisely_ because it would look ridiculous.
> I didn't do a good enough job selling my talent or showing why Im worth my rate.

Why would the company hire you, when they can get someone almost as good as you but ready to work for low salary because they dont want to live in India and are afraid to open their mouth because then the employer would send them back to India.
This is more like a guide for how to lose all your money, and have your product design stolen, in the minimum amount of time.

I have seen too many Kickstarter projects crash and burn because they read guides like this, speed dated some factories, and then lost all their money in a bad production run, by a factory who doesn't really care about them.

Unless you work with a factory who you not only trust, but know that they have an extremely strong motivation to not steal your product, they will both screw up your product, and your design will be cloned in a matter of weeks.

Even friends I have who are Chinese, living in Hong Kong, have warned me that even for them, it is hard to find trustworthy suppliers and factories in Shenzhen.

We are going to be doing all our manufacturing and assembly here in Europe. Luckily we're making a more expensive item and we have this choice.

" But if you’re undertaking a serious endeavor and you’re looking to make mission-critical parts, you have to visit to really know the situation at your suppliers, to establish relationships with factory owners and staff, and to get a sense of their quality control standards. "
NO NO NO NO NO. Unless you are going to MOVE THERE AND LIVE THERE, then you need to absolutely forget about manufacturing there. You WILL lose.

I don't want to sound down on Shenzhen - it is where almost all our beloved electronics come from - but seriously - it is an environmental catastrophe, there is ZERO intellectual property protection, it is full of scam artists, there is a nearly insurmountable language barrier, and yes, there are in fact plenty of completely competent, worthwhile, trustwothy electronics manufacturing assembly companies in nearly every country of the world. Unless you are going truly mass-market (>200,000 pcs) then you should absolutely not even consider taking it to Shenzhen.
Right, it has to interoperate with DOM objects; however, those can be treated as "foreign" object handles owned by the browser and just referenced by WebAssembly. Those objects can't be directly in the WebAssembly "address space"; that would be unsafe. So since they have to be managed separately anyway, they can use whatever memory model the browser uses.
ECMAScript 2015 Approved
asm.js doesn't include garbage collection and they're initially targetting C/C++, so I highly doubt they're going to add GC any time soon.

The linked 'future feature' reads more to me like a mechanism to access the garbage collector already present in the browser to allow interoperability with JS and the DOM.
Thanks for the points, we are planning to give a try for our next project.
It won't disappear. I hate broken links.
Not being legally binding is perfectly fine here, isn't it? In a situation like this, you're crossing out sections because you don't want to sign the contract unless those are gone. Both "this isn't valid at all" and "this is valid minus the stuff I crossed out" are acceptable.

And I don't see this as "fly under the radar" at all. They should look at the contract they get back from you, just as you should look at the contract from them. If they don't even notice that you crossed stuff out, that's hardly your fault.
I don't the situation is analogous. Amazon would be similar to Uber if they set the price for hit tasks. But they don't the hit submitters can set their prices and there is a vibrant market driving to certain price levels. If Uber let drivers set their own prices in some manner, then Uber would be operating a market. Instead they don't operate a market, they operate a direct to consumer service. I'm not certain if their drivers should be considered contractors or employees, but neither situation would be exposed directly to the consumer unless they switched to a market model.
This thread is a duplicate of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9729762
GC support doesn't prevent having Rust-style compile-time memory management. In fact, Rust itself may add a GC at some point.
Wal-Mart Has $76B in Undisclosed Overseas Tax Havens
Understanding NPM
It's unlikely to take anything like 8 years. Much of Google's effort during that time has been refreshing images of streets they had already visited. If Google has visted a street 4 times to keep the data up to date, Apple only has to visit it once to be just as up to date (and continue to visit regularly after that to stay up to date, of course).

edit: mixmastamyk beat me to it by 1 minute, so +1 to you sir.