skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Bidirectional path tracing doesn't do anything clever to "try to connect" paths from light sources and cameras. The approach is just

- Trace random paths from light sources until they terminate (usually decided with Russian roulette).

- Trace random paths from the camera (usually N per pixel, or you can use more paths in noisy areas) until they terminate.

- Try to connect each point in a camera path with each point in a light path, using a simple line test. If it succeeds, that color is added to the pixel from which the camera path originated.

At least that's my understanding; I've only implemented simpler algorithms and read a bit about bidirectional path tracing.

> If we are calculating on a per pixel basis, that means bundling multiple paths together to figure out what the weighted return will look like. How can this all be computed with any kind of efficiency without cheating?

Right, we still need to consider many paths per pixel to get a high quality image. But it converges faster than most other Monte Carlo techniques.
'Socrates' Mirrors the Platonic Touch of Rossellini (1971)
Only unsolved air piracy in American aviation history
They can tell the scent of premium packets
People at /r/conspiracy were talking about it being fake as well. They're killing babies and selling their livers, so don't expect too much from this gang, or the government for whom depopulation is non-negotiable.
I was raised by parents who strictly limited my computer time to one hour a day. I spent most of it playing games, so perhaps their concern was justified. But I loved the computer, so, so much. And of course, I would do anything to sneak around the limits: wait until my parents went to sleep, binge while they were away, etc.

It created a rather ugly tension between us; very adversarial. Upon later reflection, I realized that the root of it was that my parents had never made an effort to understand what compelled me to "veg out" in front of that screen as much as possible. They never asked me what a particular game was about, why I liked it, whether I was any good at it... in fact, I turned out to be exceptional at a number of games, winning amateur competitions and the like -- but I never shared those achievements with my parents, for fear that they would berate me for wasting my time developing useless skills.

My dad tried to teach me Java and Ruby, but gave up when they didn't seem to stick. He didn't notice all the time I spent "programming" games of my own in RPG Maker 2000. (I did wind up pursuing programming seriously in college.)

I guess my point is: before you limit something, make an honest effort to understand it first. Maybe play a round or two of that game with your child. Maybe ask them what sort of YouTube videos they like to watch (my younger cousins watch endless hours of other people playing games, which I still struggle to understand...). As I matured, I was able to forgive my parents; they did what they did out of love. I just wish it hadn't taken me so long to realize that.
Women's World Chess Championship
Here's a list of providers accepting BTC: http://cryto.net/~joepie91/bitcoinvps.html
Exactly - I don't understand why even computer literate people have trouble understanding that computers aren't "an" activity, they're a gateway to millions of them, limited by your imagination.

My parents also limited the time I could spend on a computer... and I ended up writing programs on paper while I waited for the next day :P
If it were as easy for a person to secure a pilot license and start flying people for cheap as it is to secure a drivers license and start driving people I would nope out of this before you can say the "s" in "safety." The second an amateur pilot gets their license for a company like this and accidentally crashes the plane is when the whole potential for this industry goes underwater.
10yoAfghan girl wins landmark case after being raped by mullah inside his mosque
This is what I came here to write, I think you're spot on.

There's a similar criticism of Hemingway's works[1]: that his prose is stagnant and unchanging. But the fact of the matter is, his books are phenomenal. I still think about many of them often, and they have had a profound impact on my life. I feel much the same way about Murakami. Yes, his protagonists are often similar (say, if one compares the descriptions of solitude in home life in Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which I'm reading now), and many follow similar themes, but regardless his books (and short stories) are a delight to read. They are full of beautiful thoughts and writing that, though similar, often build on and compliment one another.

Just my 2c.

[1] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/18/hemingway-s...
I am quite happy with my freelancing but thanks :)
The film is available on YouTube with optional machine-translated subtitles, https://youtube.com/watch?v=TOE9BjCHaws
The reason the airlines have little competition is because it takes lots of money to run an airline and keep up with all of the regulations. Which is a good thing. With the thousands of flights going on every day, accidents are pretty minimal.

But it also shows that the more government regulation an industry has, the less competition we will see, because only huge corporations can survive.
Awesome, your project and flywheel[0] were the inspiration for a lot of the design[1]!

How do you handle path (Map and List) conditions? I've got an open issue[2] and an idea but I suspect you'd have concrete examples if you've already run into it.

[0]: https://github.com/mathcamp/flywheel
[1]: and of course SQLAlchemy, which must always be considered
[2]: https://github.com/numberoverzero/bloop/issues/18
There's https://www.anonymousspeech.com, which I believe was used by the creator of bitcoin to register bitcoin.org
This is something that I had been thinking would greatly benefit the arXiv for a long time.

Presently, when you do a scientific work, the article goes to a referee who then sends you back their comments which you account for before resubmitting. Sometimes you get an excellent referee who really knows his stuff and gives reasonable comments for improvements. Sometimes you get a guy who really just can't be bothered who gives minimal comments leading you to wonder if they've even read it. Sometimes you get an opposing group, which frequently leads to untenable comments and prompts submission to a different journal.

This is the only feedback you will ever get outside of your coauthors except the citation count. In my opinion it would be amazing to have some big named authors who have read your paper drop off advice, what they liked what they didn't like, etc. At most universities in most groups you do "journal club" once a week where you discuss others' papers and produce this exact feedback, but there's no forum to post it in, so it just stays in the journal club.

However, just as abuse on arXiv led to the transformation to an invitation only site (I forget if you need an invite or just a university sponsored email; see also vixra.com), the community on a site like this _should require your real identity_.

It could be devastating to a young researcher to have their work publicly shamed by an anonymous commenter who has it out for their research group. But if the comments are linked to real identities, I think the community will police itself... Although there are frequently unofficial "response to... " articles on the arXiv, they are publicly attached to other research groups, and you will sometimes see "response to response to ..." letters.

It's interesting to see these sort of 2010 things popping up amongst our 1990s bastion websites like arxiv and ADS and such (see researchgate, the facebook of scientists). But frequently they kind of seem to fall victim to the same downfalls of their non-scientific counterparts ("cite" is the equivalent of "like" on researchgate to improve your "profile impact" metric so you frequently get people acting needy about "citation requests" even though we have our own metrics like Hirsch Indeces to measure scientific productiveness in an objective way).

TLDR;
I worry that a comment based website could host troll-like behavior which could be especially harmful when the whole premise is people's professional work. This is one of the few places on the internet where I think real names must be required and institutional affiliation should be provided (as is the case with arXiv). As it is I signed up with a BS name and email in 5 seconds and can immediately start trashing this paper on quantum physics that I know nothing about.
The article of course references both AirBnB and Uber, two companies who in many instances outright violated the law in their respective industries. I wonder how many people would feel comfortable with an Uber for Flying if the pilots were not commercially licensed. Just more outdated regulations put into place by an industry with significant lobbying budgets and political connections right?
Yes. It has been said that without the Rule of Law there is only the Law of the Jungle.
While a worthy goal, the defining feature of the sharing economy is "sharing" of a resource that a significant part of the population owns. It's disingenuous to compare air travel to either hospitality or taxis, because
1. Planes are owned almost completely by companies
2. The infrastructure to use planes, i.e. airports, is not open to the public, unlike roads and homes
I've had some success doing the meta programming in python, which generates .cpp (since the preprocessor does some expansion, it's not C++) files that I include from and .h file which I include in C code. It's harder to go the other way. It lets you basically modify only the python source and then have the same names for structs (classes in python) in both languages.

But then I realized it was all pretty complicated. So I started using ctypes instead. That way I only wrote it once in a header file. The only real limitation when using cpython was that I could only include a maximum of one other struct in each struct, so sometimes the C header files were a bit strangely written.
PP has been "under attack" in the non-digital sense for a couple of weeks now.

(edited to add) Really? This is the fourth time you've submitted this story?
Not necessarily from a webpage.

Web browsers support [1] what's called the WebSocket API [2], which allows browsers to create socket connections to a socket server.

But many programming languages also provide a library to create socket connections on the server. This is what most reddit bots would be doing, as demonstrated in the rockets-client [3], which uses a Node.js websocket library called 'ws'.

So it's incredibly flexible. You could wrap a UI around it in the browser, or use it server-side with any mainstream programming language that supports websockets.

[1] http://caniuse.com/#feat=websockets
[2] http://www.websocket.org/aboutwebsocket.html
[3] https://github.com/rtheunissen/rockets-client
The article is pretty light on the exact mechanical execution of what "Uber of air travel" means. I'm also under the impression that unlike taxi and hotels, airlines actually operate with razor-thin marhin. And unless one has an innovation that can actually lower the fundamental operating/ logistics cost (eg. Southwest), skirting around the law won't be of much used here.
Agree that those two benefits alone are super, may I also add:

3. The MVI framework, it's a great way to structure apps, much beyond the lifecycle methods React throws at ya.

4. The driver architecture, which shows forward thinking. It's ready to render to DOM or any other target or sink with any backend.

It's also the right way to think about engineering. Not just with the component mindset but more importantly, with Human-Computer Interaction being the main driver, which reveals the flow and structure of an app if you follow it through.
Disclaimer, I'm part Panamanian, that being said, I find this highly suspicious. A lot of my Nicaraguan friends are also highly doubtful this will ever take off. The big problems for Nicaragua with this are:

- Horrible ecological impact (fisheries in Caribbean are already [1]

- Many think this is an excuse for the politicians to get cushy land/resort deals along the proposed route and near the entrances to the canal [2]

- Some think it is really never going to materialize, but Chinese owned resorts will pop up on each end.

- Nicaragua doesn't have the infrastructure to undertake such a big engineering project (human talent, electrical, etc)

- The public hasn't had any say in this so far [2]

1. http://e360.yale.edu/feature/nicaragua_canal_a_giant_project...

2. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monito...
What Emotions Are (and Aren’t)
I assumed this would be a submarine ad article for Netjets. But it's not even that interesting.
> Suppose that x and y are small values, in a small range confined reasonably close to zero. (Say, their decimal representation is at most three or four digits.)

There's the rub! You need to justify characterizing your values in that way, which means either explicit range checks and assertions, or otherwise deriving them from something that applies that guarantee in turn. And that justification is more work than just making your code correct for every value. I mean, if x and y are both smallish, is x*y also smallish?

The "nearby cliff" is a good thing, in that it makes errors come out during testing rather than a month after you ship. Handwaving about "reasonably close to zero" is begging for trouble.

In the absence of automatic bigints, unsigned integers are easier to make correct.
Back on the envelope calculations suggest that is not profitable investment. Even with optimistic assumptions:

http://noelmaurer.typepad.com/aab/2015/01/the-nicaragua-cana...
Unmask Tor Network
> when doing arithmetic, your program is most likely not going to be handling overflows correctly anyway

Well with that attitude!
Yeah, but the rotational symmetry doesn't explain why the pi is there. (e.g. why is it squared?)

If you can explain, convincingly and geometrically, why pi is present in this formula then I would be VERY VERY interested to read.
It can be more complicated than that, though. People need down time, we need an opportunity to reflect on what we've learned instead of jumping to the next thing.
Great comment. I've passed it along to a friend in a similar situation with their kids.
99.99% of airports are public use. Not just big ones either: there are only about ~200 airports in the US serviced by airlines, but there are thousands of small airports you go can land a Cessna at mostly for free. But that's not really the problem with OP's ideas.
I don't think there are enough qualified pilots to make this work. Maybe in a future with self-flying planes? We are definitely talking 10+ years away, though.
a more active post - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9989499
How negative it's interpreted is likely related to view relevant it is and how much it detracts from the discussion. If that nitpick was a rider on a salient point, I doubt people would have downvoted.
You also bump into the question of whether you really want maintenance crews and pilots to be as cheap as economically possible. Or maybe these roles deserve some prestige and protection to ensure greater professionalism.
I didn't have this one and it covers a lot of ground. Thanks for the submission.
Obama to Unveil Dramatically Tougher Climate Plan
Use unsigned.

All of the mathematical operations are defined on unsigned int in C. This is not true of int.

Compilers are now starting to do all manner of nasty optimizations on undefined behavior. It is now only a matter of time before an signed int burns you.
Here are the guidelines for submissions if you would like to take a peek https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Small anecdote: I was living in Taiwan in 1999 and found an English translation of Pinball, 1973 in a bookshop there. It was a Kodansha imprint, for English learners I think. Anyway, I'd already read a number of Murakami books by that time (Wild Sheep Chase, Dance, Dance, Dance and Wind-up Bird Chronicle), and enjoyed them so I snapped it up. It was an ok read but far from his best (which for me, still remains Wind-up Bird Chronicle).

Later, I researched that Kodansha edition on the net and realised that it had never really been made available in English speaking countries and was fairly rare. So I put it up for sale on eBay, probably in 2000 or 2001. Thought it might attract a bit of interest but was pleasantly surprised when it attracted a lot of interest and eventually sold for something like $300. Can't remember the exact final bid but it was around that. Was happy to sell it for that and still happy now. I doubt it's appreciated in value since then but I could be wrong.

Anyway, it appears from this article that Pinball, 1973 and Hear the wind sing are now finally being published in a generally distributed edition. I'm a little bit surprised because it was my understanding that Murakami thought they were early, weaker works and wasn't particularly keen for them to get new attention.
Silicon Valley CEOs are the default movie villains of our generation
sounds very similar to tsuru:

https://tsuru.io/
Aren't they two sides of the same coin?
Don't dismiss this idea. It's easy to state the obvious that Uber for airlines would not be like Uber, because most people don't own private airplanes. But the author is asking for a more general "how can we disrupt the airline industry the way Uber disrupted taxis?"

As with any startup, first ask "what is the need you're satisfying" - Need more affordable, more convenient fast travel from point A to point B.

"What will you do to solve that need?" (get creative, this is your specialty)
Ex.1 - Offer people who purchased plane tickets but needed to cancel (and were not allowed to because of no-refund policy) a service to sell to others at the (presumably low b/c it was purchased early) price they bought it.

"How will your company make money?"
Ex.1 - take 5% cut

"What kind of people will you need to hire..."
-> this is getting more specific than necessary <-

While I would have doubts about that business model I just threw together in 5 minutes, my point real point is-- you guys are Hacker News. Some of the smartest people in the world. We could definitely figure out an Uber for airlines and disrupt that industry!

..unless someone is already working on this and is protecting their actual IP
Read it. Learn it. Live it.
Interestingly, I filled a radar a year ago about this functionality but for iOS.
Looking at the proposed map of the canal how does this work when Lake Nicaragua [1] is freshwater? Even with locks I'm guessing salt water from the sea will slowly contaminate (seep) into the lake causing big changes for the ecosystem and local population.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nicaragua
Looks cool. Thanks for the link. We'll definitely check it out.
To get an idea for a web site out the door. Not all ideas are web sites.
Sorry to be off topic here, but does this mean I can go out and but plane, then just go land it at JFK or SFO?
Not hugely likely, the lake is higher than the sea so the salt won't migrate up. The water level in the lake will likely be affected though.

The danger is ballast water held by ships, but like Panama they'll likely forbid all water discharge while in the canal.
A thread on USENET, and a post from Avi Freedman? Wow. Time warp!
> Then Slack came along. Startling to see a proprietary clone of IRC (albeit with some nice extra features, namely history)

Really? I wondered what all the hype about Slack was.

So, Slack is basically Colloquy, but for Windows morons and Linux weenies.

That's depressing.
The issue with not working is that if you have habitual activities during retirement (other than watching tv), those activities become indistinguishable from work. So you might as well just work. I'm only 28 but that's how I see it.
> Reading the comments here makes me realise how firmly embedded the "time not spent working is time wasted" attitude is.

Time spent not working is NOT time wasted. Time spent away from what I love, while not being paid IS.
How do you figure? Top tax bracket is 39.6% when taxable income is over $413,201. On the first $9225 of that you pay 10% just like everyone else.

From 1944 to 1963 the top rate was not less than 91%
From 1932 to 1981 the top rate was not less than 63%
My wife is Panamanian and having just recently traveled there I got the same impression. I was asking everyone about it and they held the same opinions to yourself.

It's also worth noting that the reason the canal was put in Panama over Nicaragua was due to earthquake activity which Panama did not have.
Shoot a ray from the camera to an object. Then 'connect' it to all light sources, by measuring the change in angle, and properties of the surface. And add up.

If the surface is refractive/reflective, recursively shoot one more ray calculating the right direction, with correctly diminished intensity and follow the same process.
"Server not found." Not a solid start to a Usenet replacement.
I've read this story before, and often think about how if people don't have examples in life these 'epiphanies' are hard to come by. Non-fictional heroes may get more attention with the access to knowledge we have nowadays, but there's still the problem of focusing in and having the possibility made real in our own minds.

My story:
- The pretty big theater I worked for had a crackerjack unix head running a windows/exchange environment like it was no big thing, all from an iBookG3. I was in the shower, at some point in the late fall. and I thought to myself 'I'd like to have a job/get paid to "fix computers"'. I sent away for Apple's Tech Training, someone's husband was starting a consulting company, and 10 years later... well, I like what I do and am lucky to have as many advances as I've had in my short career. Workstation-level sysadmin may not be highly regarded, but at least the book I wrote wasn't by hand.
If you have a pilot's license, yes. Big airports often have hefty landing fees, though, and you'll spend a lot of time waiting for your turn to take off or land, which is less of an issue at smaller general aviation airports.
Ask HN: Did porn websites just get blocked in india?
No but there are ~15k airports in the US so for every JFK (airport that has restricted air space) there are far more regional/executive airports where you could.
I have a gaggle of children, and I have noticed that my 5 year old son thinks many devices have voice control, and he views this as normal.

My 11 year old son and 8 year old always think every screen has a touch interface, but they don't use voice.

To me, it seems that there is a break in those generations. The 5 year old is voice activating his tablet, amazon fire tv, watches his parents voice command their phones driving - this is all totally normal to him and you can see he will often try a voice command on a device unfamiliar to him.

The older boys think using a PC is novel, and look at me strangely when I tell them about DOS and Windows 3.1 //// oh well...
Bruno&Dominique+Sluts+-+XTube+Porn+Video+-+FisteurPourFisteur
Do what you are interested in.
My father will be 70 next year and just went into semi-retirement (where semi-retirement = writing two books). I suspect if there hadn't been a coup in Mali, which resulted in a return to India, he would probably still be working full time. It's not about the money T this point. He's in good health, is sharp as ever, so doing something seems to make sense.