Hacker News Reader

arethuzaon A brief history of the Bloomberg terminal

The law in the UK appears to be that is is perfectly OK to use a touch screen so long as you "stay in full control" and aren't holding the device:

https://www.gov.uk/using-mobile-phones-when-driving-the-law

NB My car has loads of features that I would expect to use while driving that can only be accessed through the touch screen.

arethuzaon A brief history of the Bloomberg terminal

My car has user interface elements that you would want to use while driving (e.g. to cancel the navigation guidance) that only become visible if you hold your hand in front of the screen....

arethuzaon Ask HN: What are you reading?

I sometimes wonder if we are living through something that looks a bit like the prologue of A Fire Upon the Deep...

arethuzaon MongoDB CEO resigns to join Meta

From experience I can say that people at level (particularly in sales) are very good at selling themselves - following through and delivering on those promises can be a very different thing.

arethuzaon Thinking fast and slow in AI: The role of metacognition (2021)

No - there were lots of other interesting things going on in the early 90s that I managed to pivot to. Never regretted not completing as I had given up any desire to work in academia by that point.

arethuzaon Thinking fast and slow in AI: The role of metacognition (2021)

McDermott's A Critique of Pure Reason pretty much captured all of the misgivings I had about "Good Old-Fashioned Artificial Intelligence", which was slightly unfortunate as I was trying to complete a PhD in that very area at the time (around 1990 or so...)

arethuzaon Starlink ground station in Poland hit by fire in suspected arson attack

Sounds very like what happened in London a couple of years back:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c04g5x1wq5vo

arethuzaon SAML: A fractal of bad design

I think I got to the canonicalization part of the relevant spec and decided that life was too short...

NB I can absolutely see why canonicalization is required... just that it was the bit where I lost interest

arethuzaon SAML: A fractal of bad design

“There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.”

C. A. R. Hoare

arethuzaon PDF Forgeries Are Surprisingly Rare (2022)

Forged and modified PDFs were definitely a problem in some commercial areas that I used to work in (this was about 15 years ago).

arethuzaon What Sun got wrong

My personal favourite UI was HyperNeWS built on Sun's NeWS.

Edit: Writing PostScript and having no discernible security probably didn't make NeWS a great fit for the world of the Internet - but it was a lot of fun.

arethuzaon What Sun got wrong

I'm sure I have a memory of someone at Sun UK telling me about how they managed to run up a £30K bar bill at an event....

arethuzaon What Sun got wrong

"It will keep coming back again and again."

It lived on in the world of Windows Terminal Services and things like Citrix - maybe still does in some places.

arethuzaon Why I didn’t sign the Fields medallists’ letter

Well, I guess at one extreme we have the Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism of the Culture and the other, at best, serfdom in the cobalt mines?

I do agree that on out current trajectory the latter does seem more likely.

arethuzaon Why I didn’t sign the Fields medallists’ letter

Maybe our AI overlords won't appreciate our tendencies to abuse and exploit each other and crack down on things like "child-staffed cobalt mines"...

Next stop the Culture!

arethuzaon EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

Dominic Cummings said that the Turkey immigration scare tactic was an important factor in the Brexit result:

https://bylinetimes.com/2021/08/12/cummings-brexit-confessio...

The warnings before Brexit were that it would increase immigration - and look what happened!

Edit: The Turkey stuff was on Cummings blog - don't know if its still there.

arethuzaon EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

"US is the beacon of democracy"

40 years ago I probably would have agreed with this statement - these days, not at all.

arethuzaon EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

Wouldn't being strongly aligned with the EU give Canada a lot more leverage in trade discussions with the US?

arethuzaon EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

Because, unlike the other superpower, they don't seem to be losing?

arethuzaon EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

Fear that Turkey would be "imminently" joining the EU was one of the scare stories used by the Brexit campaign in the UK.

arethuzaon EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

The EU covers just over 40% of the area of Europe.

arethuzaon EU Floats Canada Becoming the Bloc's First 'Associate Member'

Personally I expect NI to peacefully unify with the Republic of Ireland at some point in the next 20 years? Or maybe not - all depends on how people vote rather than fighting?

arethuzaon EU Floats Canada Becoming the Bloc's First 'Associate Member'

The political union of England and Scotland was achieved without bloodshed and largely because folks in Scotland wanted a financial bailout to cover the utterly disastrous Scottish colonial efforts in Darien.

arethuzaon EU Floats Canada Becoming the Bloc's First 'Associate Member'

The UK is a "country of countries" - with fairly significant differences between some of the component parts - maybe the EU could become something like that?

arethuzaon Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years and a $200B market-cap wipeout

Indeed, Annecy is gorgeous and pretty close to some of the largest ski areas on the planet?

arethuzaon England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C

Well, I'm an independence supporting Scot and I don't have any concerns about the actual running of the referendum - I do agree that the BBC coverage was biased but I think that is largely because they are "conservative" (note the small C) in the sense of having a bias towards preserving the status-quo. This was pretty clear from the Brexit referendum where I thought they favoured the status-quo there and, as a Remainer, I guess I was pretty happy with that!

arethuzaon England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C

I must admit I've never heard NI being called a country... wouldn't be the UK if there wasn't some horrible complication involved.

arethuzaon England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C

The UK seems fairly relaxed about constituent parts leaving (Scotland was given a referendum, NI has option to leave if they want) - which I don't believe applies to US states?