alasarmas

It’s Grey’s law: any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws

I think you’re correct. There is a saying something like: in a crisis, all correlations go to 1. I believe it’s likely one of those things that’s okay most of the time and then, every once in a while, causes extreme and systemic problems. Therefore, Robinhood will probably do it because the incentives are aligned.

I mean, yes, my assumption is there exists an image / video normalization algorithm that can be followed by hashing the normalized value. There’s a CSAM scanning tool that exists that I believe uses a similar approach

It has been documented that human image moderators exist and that some have been deeply traumatized by their work. I have zero doubts that the datasets of content and metadata created by human image moderators are being bought and sold, literally trafficking in human suffering. Can you point to a comprehensive effort by the tech majors to create a freely-licensed dataset of violent content and metadata to prevent duplication of human suffering?

One major flaw in this approach is the one-way channel (keyboard input) prevents the password manager from knowing if it is supplying credentials to the correct recipient. Phishing attacks are relatively common and users expect a password manager to know these things, even in situations like you have described where it’s clearly impossible. I think this is why this approach hasn’t succeeded in the marketplace and FIDO2/WebAuthn support seem to be table stakes.

Tests that you write in order to contribute to a robust test suite are good.

Tests that are written to comply with a policy that requires that all components must have a unit test, and that test must be green, could be good. Often, they are just more bullshit from the bullshit factory that is piling up and drowning the product, the workers, the management, and anyone else who comes too close.

I feel that it’s still correct to call both of these things tests, because in isolation, they do the same thing. It’s the structure they’re embedded in that is different.

No, I tried probably ten or fifteen of each type over a 35 year period.

There are a bunch of factors, including tube thickness, alloy (I’m sure that when it comes to steel this matters, I think it doesn’t matter with aluminum), and frame geometry.

One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that, if you are using rim brakes, aluminum wheels are so much better than steel wheels it’s not even a conversation worth having. This is because aluminum wheels, unless they are painted, will have a nice aluminum oxide coating. This is effectively a ceramic and the coefficient of friction with rubber brake pads doesn’t change when the rims are wet, say on a rainy day. Steel rims lose all friction when wet.

Because I have been around for a while and made a lot of “experiments” (mistakes), I know some things. I’m happy to share what I know with you.

So, this may be different in the UK, but in the US a large majority of travel occurs in private cars, so omnipresence of ALPRs is close to collecting data on everybody and knowing what everybody is doing at all times.

One might assume from a game-theoretical perspective that this is no different from living in a village where essentially everyone knows everyone’s business, and the knowledge that that knowledge is mutual prevents people from acting badly with the information that they have. However, in the situation where a small minority of people have knowledge about everyone else, and not vice versa, this can give that minority unearned power over everyone else.

In practice, it doesn’t feel great. I hope this answered your question.

Steel bikes feel “better” and “springier” than aluminum bikes. Objectively, they last longer than aluminum bikes.

What exact differences in physical properties or construction leads to this, I couldn’t tell you, but you can pick up an old steel bike frame for cheap and experience it yourself. Well-made steel frames are much lighter than poorly-made ones, so I would recommend finding one of the good ones.

This isn't 1861, sectionalism isn't strong enough. One part of what's going on here is cities at odds with the countryside, another part is the internet, smartphones, ubiquitous connectivity, filter bubbles. People are physically present in the same locations but they are not eating the same bread and drinking the same water, metaphorically speaking. I recommend looking at this Wikipedia article for a possible best-case scenario: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_exchange_between_Gr...

I will guarantee that you came from a rich family, I have plenty of evidence. Your attitude is strongly correlated with the arrogance of generational wealth.

Please don’t ask me to cite sources, I know exactly what I’m talking about.

If you feel that I’m arguing in bad faith, please consider not responding and instead reflecting on why you feel the way that you do about this topic.

Paragraph 4:

    That’s the equivalent of an entire standard plastic spoon, Campen said.

I remember reading somewhere that, in times long past, if a company name was of the form “Johnson and Sons” (for example), it would be considered fraud to sell that company outside of the named family.

I personally think you’re on to something with tying companies to the reputation of specific natural persons, but I don’t think that is where we are going anytime soon.

Tree Style Tabs?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...

I feel like Bluetooth earbuds are almost in the phase where they will, at the low end of the market, completely displace wired earbuds. At my local Dollar Tree, wired earbuds (and USB-C charging cables) are now available for $1.25. Micro USB charging cables are no longer in stock, but a couple of years ago, they were $1, while USB-C charging cables were too expensive to appear at the Dollar Tree.

At that same location, Bluetooth earbuds are now available for $5, but perhaps in a couple of years they will be $1.25, or whatever the least expensive items at a “dollar store” will cost at that time.

An interesting twist on the “swing states are against the NPVIC” narrative is currently playing out in Nevada. My read of this narrative goes as follows: swing states, including Nevada, will find their importance in Presidential elections diminished, and therefore their influence and ability to garner patronage diminished, if the NPVIC comes into effect and survives legal challenges and so on.

Persuaded by this narrative (I presume), then-Governor of Nevada Steve Sisolak vetoed the NPVIC bill back in May of 2019 after it had passed both houses of the Nevada legislature.

Now, five years later, after passing through the legislature a second time, accession to the NPVIC via an amendment to the state constitution of Nevada will be a ballot question in November 2026 for voters — if it passes again in the 2025-2026 legislative session for a third time. [0]

0. https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/state/nv

The website [0] is a pretty good resource if you want to learn more. My understanding is that the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact was modeled on previous interstate compacts that were used to set up lotteries such as the Powerball lottery.

0. https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

I think some of the stars for your complex conjugates fell foul of HN formatting:

https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

You’re right. I can’t edit that comment anymore, but this link should be fixed:

https://archive.is/7kHer

I hate to get all meta (no I don’t sorry not sorry), but there is 100% a thing where every word that means (a) some important thing and (b) some less important thing ends up being a word that, for the vast majority of people, carries something like the emotional impact of definition (a) and the actual meaning of definition (b). For example, “literally” now means “figuratively”, “scan” now means “skim”, “authentic” means “expensive”, and so on. It’s basically Gresham’s Law [0] where less-consequential definitions of words drive more-consequential definitions of the same out of the marketplace.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law

Let’s take the perfect paper as an example. This “impossible” paper is the product of Science Done Right. The authors previously registered their hypotheses and methods. The data are collected in the most rigorous fashion. The analyses and the data are all available to the public, and review shows that everything is in fact perfect. The conclusions of the paper are supremely consequential.

Does rational policy immediately change based on the conclusions of this paper? I argue no! Maybe discussions start immediately, confirmation is sought, probably many additional studies with the express intent of confirming the result of the first paper are launched. However, there is no such thing as one paper that needs zero additional support from the community.

I remember reading that Singapore does this, but I don’t remember if it supposedly actually works.

What if that is not Dave’s will, but Dave’s first novel? Or the technical manual to Dave’s computer system, where the onboard help files are just a URL that points to a dead server? Knowledge preservation in the face of disaster is not a pointless effort.

Further, there is a difference between “knowing what a computer is” and “recognizing a specific manifestation of computing technology”. For example, this picture [0]. The URL is somewhat descriptive, but say you were presented with that piece of technology. Would you recognize it? Would you think that it could be important? Would you be able to get it running? For me, personally, it would be a significant effort in terms of time spent… and I certainly wouldn’t be able to recognize it just from that picture.

0. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/ZIP_Driv...

I disagree with you that “Hardware goes out of date” is, in fact, a solvable problem. The truth is, macroscopic writing, in the sense of scratching or applying pigment / dye to a surface, is a very old technology, and we know very well what the revealed points of weakness are, and in many cases, how to avoid these points of weakness. Perhaps most importantly, a minimally-trained individual can recognize the content and potentially the importance of a physical document. This is not the case with modern technologies that require a separate apparatus to be decoded and displayed. In many cases, this apparatus is not available, and it is possible that the layperson will not recognize the reel, cartridge, cassette, slide, disc, drive, wax cylinder, etc, for what it is and simply discard it. This is by far the greatest risk for data preservation.

What’s more, funding schools from local property taxes keeps the good schools in the rich communities and the bad schools in the poor communities. It prevents equality of opportunity. It is cynical, mean-spirited, and appalling.