Hacker News Reader

FandangoRangeron Uber Wasted $2.5B on Self-Driving Cars

I firmly believe that the literature produced which shows self-driving cars are safe or even safer, and there is scads of it now, is mainly down to the program's ability to make sure a safe following distance is observed leading to greater reaction time for braking. I know a lot of driving tests have been done in simulators which show the AI can be safer but I agree with your statement.

I also have very little confidence in the AI's ability to stop at road construction, make its way over temporary embankments and diversions placed for construction, navigating in inclement weather or adverse traction situations like a muddy drive, etc. I suppose the real goal here is for Wal-Mart and Amazon to move freight on the Interstates to begin with but I don't even see that happening any time soon. Your average Wal-Mart loading bay and parking areas are likely much more than any current AI can handle anyhow. How does the AI know the person in the mart cart isn't going to just jut out in front at the last second? Can't exactly make eye contact.

FandangoRangeron Uber Wasted $2.5B on Self-Driving Cars

And yet, as of today self-driving cars aren't nearly as good as a human even after 2-3 beers.

FandangoRangeron Uber Wasted $2.5B on Self-Driving Cars

There's just no way self-driving cars can meet the challenge with today's technology. These days the tests they are doing involve burying a wire in the road that the car can ride upon, which to me seems like covert recognition that computer vision and sensor data feeding AI is not equipped to handle the rigors of road travel quite yet.

The theoretical arguments about how self-driving cars are better than human drivers remain theoretical.

FandangoRangeron Fully documented source code for Elite on the BBC Micro

After they abandoned my platform after supporting it and promising to always support it, and after they failed to support Linux, I decided not to pay for any of the newer versions and stop playing the game. Don’t get me wrong, it looks great and is decently fun, but it feels incredibly limited to even Frontier.

FandangoRangeron What Is Rpikernelhack? (2019)

Whew this is a relief. I thought maybe Rob Pike hacked my Pi!

FandangoRangeron It used to be simpler to teach Unix

GNU is not Unix, the GNU utilities have all expanded drastically over the decades. Gnu ls has more LoC than the old Unix V6 kernel now.

BSD, on the other hand, IS Unix, and its utilities remain much smaller and leaner than the Linux ones.

FandangoRangeron Police told not to download NHS Covid-19 app

Police don't like to be spied upon.

FandangoRangeron Process accountsd making macOS Catalina 10.15.7 unusable

I stopped using Apple products a while ago but as an OS X user I was struck by the amount of what appeared to be complete garbage taking up CPU and filling logs with error messages. All of my issues were extremely common if you searched online, too. OS X needs some serious tidying up.

FandangoRangeron China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

We don't know what Equifax has. Maybe there's no proof that they have access to Facebook and Gmail and the like, but they may well have it and there's no way to know they don't. These big companies have serious trust issues to overcome and they do comply with the law in countries which DO have social credit systems.

FandangoRangeron DM41x: a modern take on the HP-41CX

Unlike the RPL series, they don't integrate with the rest of the calculator. And unlike RPN calcs like the 41 and 42, you can't program in RPN which many people find very easy to do.

TI's a fine calculator... for a middle school student.

FandangoRangeron Default window manager switched to CTWM in NetBSD-current

FreeBSD: Created by people who run OS X on their computers for Sony and Apple.

NetBSD: Created and run by people on a huge variety of computers, big in Japan.

OpenBSD: Created by its own users, fork of NetBSD, run by everybody who truly cares about security and correctness.

FandangoRangeron The long lost manual for the Zuse Z4 has been found

https://www.e-manuscripta.ch/zut/doi/10.7891/e-manuscripta-9...

Note the Vice article doesn't link to the manual directly, and the site it DOES link to has an incorrectly formatted link to the manual. Pretty sad show all around.

FandangoRangeron DM41x: a modern take on the HP-41CX

Prime doesn't really have much in common with the RPN or RPL calculators. It has a legacy RPN mode suitable for four banger operations but it doesn't integrate well with the rest of the calculator. More of an afterthought.

FandangoRangeron DM41x: a modern take on the HP-41CX

For me it just doesn't have enough on the DM-42, which I already own. Neat development though.

FandangoRangeron Google to Increase Push for Apps to Give Cut of In-App Purchases

Seems the Pinephone is selling OK and that's basically what it is. I backed the Librem 5 and my batch is supposed to start shipping in late November. Most people don't seem to care but more are starting to as time goes on. Despite assurances every privacy advocate should be wary of contact tracing.

FandangoRangeron Toward a “modern” Emacs

I think we're seeing a culture clash between people who come from a computing background where the terminal was either not used at all, or was a second class citizen, and people who come from a background where a terminal is the main way to interact with the system and the GUI is relegated to mostly showing terminals and doing the GUI-oriented tasks that can't be easily accomplished in the terminal, like pixel-image editing and drawing.

FandangoRangeron Toward a “modern” Emacs

If only there were projects that repackaged Emacs together with packages which adapt the program for people who prefer other keybindings. And failing that, maybe Emacs should include some facility for remapping key bindings?

FandangoRangeron Google to Increase Push for Apps to Give Cut of In-App Purchases

Stallman was right yet again. If people want to stop being shocked at the inevitable abuses by big tech, they should probably read his book and his blog.

FandangoRangeron Toward a “modern” Emacs

Doesn't pass the switch test.

FandangoRangeron Toward a “modern” Emacs

Emacs will never be a GUI-only editor, it was designed for a terminal and that is still a use case that many people take advantage of.

Don't worry though - if you don't like Emacs you can use any of a number of other editors.

FandangoRangeron Toward a “modern” Emacs

Is it really necessary to ascribe some negative quality of ageism to people who created and use software and then castigate them for it? Do you work for PeopleSoft? Makes your argument seem weak and flimsy, in fact arguments like yours can be dismissed out of hand.

FandangoRangeron Amazon Employee Warns Internal Groups Being Monitored for Labor Organizing

If these employees would use their own devices on their own time to organize, they would probably be much more successful.

Imagine if you worked at the FBI and you used the internal chat app to coordinate illegal activity, and then became surprised when the FBI found out about your misconduct because of messages you posted on the bureau's equipment.

FandangoRangeron Swift System Is Now Open Source

Isn't the core value of Swift in Apple's large set of libraries?

FandangoRangeron Time Zone Bugs I Ran Into

Listen blogging isn’t easy so you, the reader, are going to have to pay one way or another.

FandangoRangeron IPFS 0.7.0, the SECIO retirement edition

I’ve been using Tahoe LAFS for years for redundant storage. How is this better? I’ve seen some articles about IPFS and it seems similar.

FandangoRangeron Man dies from eating more than a bag of liquorice a day

Liquorice is not licorice in the US. Only licorice has licorice in it. Liquorice does not.

FandangoRangeron Amazon and Ring create surveillance drone that flies around inside your house

Can’t wait until Amazon and Google and Twitter drones regularly patrol the neighborhood.

FandangoRangeron Byte magazine (1984): Benchmarking Unix

The Byte benchmarks are still very useful today. They’re also old enough that it’s doubtful that compiler makers are going to accelerate them (we know Intel does this), because barely anybody uses them any more.

FandangoRangeron A device to restore vision to the blind is being prepared for clinical trials

It seems many deaf activists hate it when another deaf person gets a cochlear implant. Will this engender the same response from blind activists?

FandangoRangeron Tor Browser 10

Good thing Microsoft isn’t voluntarily in the PRISM progra-