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chenning

32 karma · joined December 2, 2015

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chenning··on Linus Torvalds comments on the Russian Linux maintainers being delisted
This isn't punishment. This is negative reinforcement. This applies to an ongoing unwanted behavior.
chenning··on Ask HN: I want to learn to use the terminal, where do I start
When you say "terminal" I think what you really mean is a "shell" which runs within the Terminal. Googling for "bash", "shell scripting", "beginner" and "hello world" are likely to lead you to more useful content.

Also, as much as it's helpful to write code, it's also helpful to read code and try to understand what it's doing. Ask lots of questions.

chenning··on A deep dive into an NSO zero-click iMessage exploit: Remote Code Execution
Well this was like learning aliens exist.
chenning··on macOS is hazardous for digital/analog I/O
They're using Matlab because it's well known within the target community. Also, Psychtoolbox has been around for a long time and has been subject to studies that look specifically at precision.
chenning··on macOS is hazardous for digital/analog I/O
Interesting. I'm wondering if the PsychoPy devs have noticed this.
chenning··on 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?
It's about preventing deaths and making people feel safe traveling.
chenning··on Uber prices seem to increase when phone battery is low
I wonder if anyone has looked into the relationship between time-of-day and battery level? Could it be the case that phone batteries are typically lower across the board at certain times of day? If most people aren't charging their phone during business hours, perhaps it's likely that batteries are typically lower around rush (surge) hour. A correlation doesn't imply causality sort of thing.
chenning··on I hope work from home continues
Working from home definitely has advantages, but I've been absorbing costs e.g., heating, cooling, electricity just to name a few. I think if given the option I would prefer a majority WFH situation, but these other costs do affect one's total compensation.
chenning··on 'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast by walker
"Just say it's the warm air and the cold air and bending light and stuff. They'll buy it."
chenning··on 'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast by walker
That settles it. We're living in a simulation.
chenning··on Microsoft says it found malicious software in its systems
https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.02700
chenning··on Mark Zuckerberg Is an Arbiter of Truth–Whether He Likes It or Not
We already have plenty of curated news outlets. It's entirely possible we will simply end up with another one.
chenning··on How scientists across three continents produced an Ebola vaccine
I don't care so much about the story, it was the level of detail you doled out about your patient, where it was, what year, etc.
chenning··on How scientists across three continents produced an Ebola vaccine
Call me crazy, but I felt like this story was perhaps a little too specific.
chenning··on If this project is dead, just tell us
Painful lessons, yes. Instant gratification versus long-term planning. I think this applies to more than just software.
chenning··on If this project is dead, just tell us
I thought he was apologizing for his use of personal attacks, profanity, insults, and generally what he describes as a lack of empathy. Things like that. His hardliner attitude hasn't changed.
chenning··on If this project is dead, just tell us
You know who else handled conflict in a way that wasn't always understood? Linus Torvalds. I think there's a theme here. Why is it that successful project maintainers sometimes lose their patience with the community? Remember when GvR left the Python community? I think one of his final public statements was, "Now that PEP 572 is done, I don’t ever want to have to fight so hard for a PEP and find that so many people despise my decisions."
chenning··on Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet
I'm not saying you're wrong, but there certainly is evidence out there that suggests Google in fact does respect user privacy. For example, activity.google.com. They are also pretty up front about their privacy policy, how they use cookies, data retention policy, and so forth on policies.google.com. There is a lot of information there.

There's a case to be made that Google is trying to do the right thing.

chenning··on Google Kills Cloud Print
I saw it as a counterpoint to AirPrint. I'd like to know what changed that made Google think they don't really need this anymore. Maybe they think WiFi Direct is going to be the future?
chenning··on Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B
I haven't had a chance to really think this all the way through, but I have a few thoughts. Google seems to have more trouble absorbing companies that have many more parallels with what they're already doing. Makes sense. At the time Google acquired Android, they weren't really invested in mobile operating systems as far as I know. So Android was a pretty easy integration. The same was true for Motorola and I suppose to a lesser extent HTC. Those two companies were building hardware which Google wasn't as involved in at the time. Those companies were also doing the lowest level stuff i.e., hardware and operating systems. But Fitbit, Dropcam, and Nest are different. They have parallel efforts all the way down. They have their own hardware, operating system, authentication, and they have a non-trivial customer base. Bringing these all under one roof seems a lot more difficult. Even logging into Nest with your Google account took quite a few years. Google also has Android, ChromeOS, and Fuschia. I can't imagine that they now want Fitbit OS to deal with. Or maybe this is just a trivial detail to them i.e., they could just rewrite Fitbit OS over the weekend.
chenning··on Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say
The more I think about it, the differences between Amazon and Walmart are much smaller than I once thought. They're both platforms upon which sellers can sell goods. One of the bigger differences seems to be quality assurance. More specifically, to what degree is each company burdened with that important responsibility?

If some manufacturer put something unsafe into a food product, I would blame the manufacturer. Seems pretty cut and dry. On the other hand, if Walmart was stocking expired food I would blame Walmart because they should be responsible tracking inventory and maintaining a safe environment. Seems pretty cut and dry.

Why does Amazon seem different to me? More importantly, should they be seen as different?

chenning··on Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
Don't you need data aggregation to build the model though? I think that's part of the problem, but I could be wrong.
chenning··on Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
I don't think this is just a Google issue. Osterloh just happened to be the first one to come right out and say, yeah, maybe you should tell your guests.

Personally, I thought the bigger news (insult) was when he said, "Gosh, I haven't thought about this before in quite this way."

Give me a break. You knew it. I knew it. We all knew it. Maybe the right thing to do is have the device recognize there's an unknown voice in the room and announce that it's listening. That hasn't happened for some reason, but I highly doubt the reason is that no one ever thought of it.

chenning··on Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
Dumb question, but why are people so surprised by this? Can you honestly say at this point in the game that you had no idea this was happening or that this is news to you?
chenning··on Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet
Ah, right. Basically I vote for firing a primordial soup probe to this sucker.
chenning··on Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet
Is it though??? (edited, thanks)
chenning··on Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet
A very quick search suggests that earth will become uninhabitable somewhere between 500 million and 2 billion years from now. If we shot a probe to this life-friendly alien planet with some sort of primordial soup, even traveling at the speed of light it would take 4 billion earth years to get there. Do I have that right? Basically we'll never even come close to being around when it finally arrives, if it ever arrives. Has anyone ever thought about doing this? We've shot gold records out into space for aliens with turn-tables. Why haven't we tried this?
chenning··on Edward Snowden: Permanent Record
Think of everything you would have to do to avoid being surveilled today. Heck, think about everything you would have had to do even 40-50 years ago. I think the issue is not wether or not you can avoid being surveilled. I think that debate is largely settled. So the next logical question is, what are the rules governing access to that data? At what point do you need consent and from whom do you need consent? I think the fear, sadly, is that even if we come up with rules there is the challenge of how to apply them retroactively or in a backwards-compatible way. It's quite possible that we now we significant portions of the economy relying on companies having unfettered access to their data. I see parallels between this and the shift to renewable energy. Revenue from oil companies is tightly woven into the fabric of the US economy in many ways.
chenning··on Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers
That's the thing though. How subjective is "unfair working conditions" really? I ask that in all seriousness. At least in the US (my only frame of reference) there are fantastic arguments about minimum wage. Should it be raised to $15/hr? Maybe less? Maybe more? But no one is really arguing wether or not $1/day is a livable wage. I think most people with a pulse would say that $1/hr is not a livable wage. The question I was really asking is, what's Amazon's position on this? Do they ever come knocking on anyone's door demanding to see their working conditions? If they are, what does that look like? What incentives do they have to do that? Or, in the worst case, do they just sort of look the other way?
chenning··on Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers
You know, I've seen countless times when, say, Walmart or some other retailer gets caught and body slammed for stocking a product on their shelves that was known to be manufactured under substandard working conditions. It's possible that I'm just not seeing the same frequency of articles lobbed at Amazon, but there's no doubt they are guilty of the same thing on some level. Is it because Amazon found a way to sort of diffuse the responsibility, perhaps by claiming that they're just :the platform" shrug? I'm curious though, what kinds of consequences does Amazon actually face for stocking products manufactured under unfair working conditions, stolen intellectual property, and so on? I'm sure their official policy is that they don't tolerate it. Of course. But in reality, what are they actually doing about this, what incentive do they have to do anything, and how effective has it been?
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