Hacker News Reader

60seczon Mastering the Game of Stratego with Model-Free Multiagent Reinforcement Learning

These are interesting not because you're solving for a game, but because you're potentially partially solving a category of problem.

60seczon Show HN: Get rid of Git submodules and never look back (now for GitHub users)

https://abildskov.io/2021/03/28/why-i-hate-submodules/

60seczon Show HN: Get rid of Git submodules and never look back (now for GitHub users)

> Submodules are usually good for frameworks and libraries that are more stable than your main codebase. However, those submodules under active development within the same organizations can be a pain to maintain.

Except they aren't. Libraries are better in their own code base and published as a separate artifact which is auto-versioned.

60seczon Show HN: Get rid of Git submodules and never look back (now for GitHub users)

In every respect, versioned libraries are far superior to submodules.

Every time I've encountered submodules in any work projects, I've personally replaced them with auto-incremented semver libraries (usually jars) and received copious thanks for it.

60seczon Stripe responds to the Financial Connections/Plaid kerfuffle

This. Moat harder.

60seczon Eight points for one team is two points for another team

Don't drink the koolaid. 1 point is the amount of work an average developer on the team can complete in 1 day of work (4-5 hours)

Anything else is "Fugayzi, fugazi. It's a whazy. It's a woozie. It's fairy dust."

60seczon No increased risk of brain tumours for mobile phone users, new study finds

Who even holds their phone to their head anymore? Everyone I see only uses bluetooth. Seriously, how can you understand the inverse square law and be afraid of EM?

60seczon The Uselessness of Phenylephrine

The herb ephedra (Ma Huang/Mormon Tea) contains appreciable amounts of ephedrine and is prepared as a tea in Chinese medicine as a remedy for asthma and cold congestion.

It can easily be purchased online and the ephedrine ban does not apply to it.

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/mormon-tea-ephedra-plant...

60seczon Why Retaining Walls Collapse

Had to double check the logo to understand why I was reading this article in Grady's voice.

60seczon There are no results for tank man

"tank man Tiananmen" returns none. fishy

60seczon Global cryptocurrency “market cap” exceeds “US” currency in circulation

Because the value of cryptocurrency is strongly effected by the volume of buy and sell pressure. Market cap implies that a level of liquidity which is likely not present -- it can very difficult to sell large amounts of most crypto without at least temporarily tanking the value.

60seczon FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars

Not hard to diy. Time to invest in menthol spray companies?

60seczon Amazon bans FFP2 masks for employees

Extended wearing of ffp2 or n95 will reduce vo2 max. Reduction of vo2 max may lead to increased risk of injury.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342729638_Effects_o...

60seczon Please don't upgrade Docker without asking first

Move fast and break everything. Some version spread is desirable.

60seczon More Than 6 in 10 U.S. Adults (61%) Report Weight Change Since Start of Pandemic

Exercise Activity Thermogenesis is about 5% of calories, so the least significant contribution in total calories.

Reduced NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis/walking/fidgeting) is a bigger factor by an order of magnitude.

100% of weight gain is due to net caloric surplus. The main contribution by far is eating more calories.

https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1550-2783-1...

60seczon The Sad Saga of Saturated Fat (2017)

Excess calories is the issue, not the form it takes. Net energy balance is what matters. Macros aren't "clean" or "dirty". (Trans-fats are a notable exception)

60seczon Changes to sharing and viewing news on Facebook in Australia

Exactly

> Hence, the key effect of commoditization is that the pricing power of the manufacturer or brand owner is weakened: when products become more similar from a buyer's point of view, they will tend to buy the cheapest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commoditization

60seczon Fructose reprogrammes glutamine-dependent oxidative metabolism to support LPS

Relatively high in oxylates. If you eat a lot, may contribute to kidney stones unless you cook it.

60seczon Changes to sharing and viewing news on Facebook in Australia

Laws of economics are pretty clear on this. News, especially international news, is a commodity. Government can impose monopoly ruls to try to allow distribution channels to extract more, but technology (and users) will find ways to route around this as damage to the network.

People don't want to pay for news. They don't like ads, but will tolerate them to a point, and most definitely don't want to pay for subscriptions. Laws can change behavior short term but long term the better product and platform will win.

60seczon Git Submodules: Adding, Using, Removing, Updating (2009)

Agree 100%. Submodules should be instead be implemented through auto-published library semver jars which are auto-incremented.

60seczon We don't need a string type (2013)

Can't agree more. Java in particular suffers greatly from Object toString with a weak contract and no global String interface. If String were an interface instead of an implementation than any method signature could accept multiple implementations. This allows for really effective type aliases which even support strong typing so if you have a signature with multiple String values you can use the strong types to ensure you don't transpose arguments.

60seczon Tesla spent $1.5B in clean car credits on Bitcoin

Just for clarification: How many watts does gold need?

60seczon Fitbit is now officially part of Google

The question now: how soon before my fitness tracker stops working? (Given Google's track record)

60seczon Ask HN: Why isn't email spam solved using Proof of Work yet?

Proof of burn is more efficient and harder to game. Emails are already being send from botnets, which are already used for mining.

Spam will exist as long as it is profitable. If inboxes only show email which has paid a very small cost (like .001 cents), it would quickly make spam unaffordable.

> Anecdotal reports place the retail price of spam delivery at a bit under $80 per million [22]. This cost is an order of magnitude less than what legitimate commercial mailers charge, but is still a signiﬁcant overhead; sending 350M e-mails would cost more than $25,000. Indeed, given the net revenues we estimate, retail spam delivery would only make sense if it were 20 times cheaper still.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-email-spammers-really-make...

60seczon Welcome Yari: MDN Web Docs has a new platform

It's sort of meta-defeatism when your resource is literally how to write html and your documentation avoids using it.

60seczon A Brief Goodbye to CentOS

Too bad Rocky Linux isn't called DollarLinux

60seczon “$20k per month is a paltry amount of revenue” – a guy on Hacker News

Why the fixation on revenue over margin and income?

60seczon The Argument to Tax Work-from-Home Benefits

repost: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25059505

Leave it to the bankers and the .01% to figure out how to stick it to the middle class.

60seczon As pharmaceutical execs sell shares worth millions, questions arise

These sort of sales have to be planned in advance and as long as they aren't done in a blackout period are legal.

It would be very stupid financially for them not to exercise some sales at this point.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/blackout-period....

60seczon Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

ding ding ding

Value propositions without a moat (durable competitive advantage) will be swallowed by vertical integration of their feature set.