jka

Here's one regulatory measure that's enforced already and seems to fit within the criteria being described: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2021/1232/oj

(agreed, it would be nice to have direct links to the enacted and proposed regulations to compare and understand the language used)

To be honest, rather than magical blessed keys held by a few orgs, I'd feel more comfortable with a slightly larger number of individual reviewers (and prosaic keys), each with some kind of visible distance metric related to the codebase they're signing artifacts for.

For example: "ah yes, a core contributor, a frequent code reviewer, and two downstream consumers of this library have signed off on the changes in this release. even if one of them is having a distracted day/week, that's good enough for our team to be comfortable upgrading it today since it's a minor version upgrade"

> Other than that, even thinking along the terms of "well they must have a reason" is a great way of introducing slippery slopes all the way to extremism.

It's possible I misunderstand what you're saying here, but I think I agree; I wasn't intending to justify managerial surveillance, only to understand and elaborate why it might be happening.

Without understanding the cause(s), the tendency of organizations will, I'd guess, instead be to patch over any problems that arise -- the process equivalent of adding warning signs instead of fixing a dangerous bridge.

The solution in an effective employment marketplace is to build organizations that avoid the root causes entirely and thus attract (effective, motivated) employees and build desire in others to work at similar workplaces -- while perhaps reducing organizational running costs at the same time as a side-effect.

As a manager, would you worry about the stability of your own job role if you didn't have insight into the productivity of your reports?

Would you worry what would happen to you and the company if one of your reports introduced a serious bug or security flaw into the software?

(note: I think these concerns can -- and should -- be addressed in other ways that don't require intrusion into employees' day-to-day activities, but I raise them because I think they're part of the reason (along with compliance, perhaps in some cases?) why these systems are introduced in the first place)

Perhaps not a coincidence that 150 is Dunbar's Number[1]?

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

Upvoted, because I strongly believe you're wrong, and that your point of view should be near the top and debated.

A company's data is like a raw set of food ingredients - they harvest that data, and collect it in one or more places.

An API is like the restaurant menu - it presents you with the ways that the data can be prepared for you, based on the skills, experience and methods that the company has available.

For some of the menu items, you may be able to make specific requests (no dairy products, for example) - whereas other menu items may be more static.

If you had the raw data yourself, and seasoned chefs, there's a chance you could prepare the meals that you really want, regardless of whether they're available in the API offered to you.

This analogy isn't perfect and isn't worth trying to apply in-detail, but for a high-level non-technical audience it could work.

(an example flaw: paging through search results is a common API operation that wouldn't really have a sensible restaurant analogy. at best, ordering profiteroles from the kitchen one at a time, each time requesting the least recently prepared one, or something like that)

Although I've used a few electric razors over the years (and much prefer using them to buying and keeping track of disposables), it's probably worth referring to a more detailed analysis of the options out there, so here's Wirecutter's writeup of recommended brands and models as of Dec 2021:

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-electric-raz...

Hmm, yep, I'd question and potentially be frustrated by some of those behaviours too.

Ultimately all you can do is choose how you wish to live your own life, and make your own consumption decisions (roughly speaking: I don't like to overconsume, and I don't like to overpay, although those are easy to say from what I think is a reasonably comfortable position -- and I'm aware they're easier to optimize for when more time is available to make the individual purchase decisions involved. that's why watching out for and reducing distractions during important purchase moments should be encouraged for everyone).

Vendors overpricing desirable products is tricky too: if they're doing that to build a business that genuinely improves people's health and outcomes, and they intend to reduce prices at scale, that seems reasonable. If it's purely predatory pricing and/or doesn't produce value for customers.. well, that's less great. Perhaps consumer protection groups, journalism, and healthy peer discussion are the best options to help respond there.

That book was a while ago, I think? I remember watching the film.

Here's one paragraph that I found particularly unpleasant from the article:

"After he was stripped naked, interrogators 'lined up' one-by-one to slam Baluchi's head into plywood - and, on occasion, concrete - walls over and over again, until they became 'fatigued,' whereupon another would take their place, in sessions lasting up to two hours. A CIA operative interviewed by the Inspector General claimed this method was 'meant more for 'sensation' than to hurt the detainee,' and 'simply made a big noise.'"

It troubles me for a few reasons:

- It seems unlikely that decision-makers approving 'enhanced' interrogation would be aware of the methods used -- because as illustrated here, they're a disgrace -- and so it implies that the site operated without accountability

- It's documented[1] that no useful intelligence was gathered as a result of these actions

- It's (presumably?) taxpayer funds that pay for this, so there should be transparency so that citizens can debate and decide whether they support it

- It seems to imply an organizational structure that allows -- or provides for -- some people without any moral or sympathetic core to be employed in the (largely senseless) hurt of other human beings

To me, those aren't behaviours that should be acceptable in a 21st century organization, regardless of location. So that's what I don't like about the article -- but I do appreciate the ability to read it.

(from reading more about the publisher, it may indeed have some problems - whether financial censorship makes sense probably depends on the weight of evidence and reasoning behind that)

[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/mar/14/cia-black-site-d...

Well, personal opinion: I don't think it's clear that the UK Civil Service has been more of a blocker to Brexit than they would've been for any other earth-shattering policy change.

Part of the social contract of joining that sector is, I expect, that staff will be working across successive governments and policy changes, and yes, people are going to have some personal connections to day-to-day events, but the professionalism and processes of the institutions involved are intended to minimize and overcome those biases (and apply correction when they aren't, with supporting evidence and investigation).

That said, identification of weaknesses and opportunities for structural improvements are welcome. "Wait a hundred years" is always an option, although if there are shorter-term risks then I'll always be listening for those.

Within the U.S. today, do you feel that the most economically-advantaged social groups are increasing or decreasing their meat and beef consumption? And any reasons why if so? (diet, health, politics, ...)

You can see the EU a little bit like a microservice mesh standard; once your microservice is integrated, data flows, resource sharing, statistics/observability, and so on become easier in various ways, although you may have to adapt to common standards.

In legal and practical terms, the UK is still currently strongly compatible with the EU, despite Brexit. Another way to look at the situation: the UK is currently in an early fork stage of the codebase, and remains more-or-less compatible.

The biggest opportunity from Brexit -- which, strangely, may not only be available to the UK, but also to keen observers within the EU -- is the chance to introduce some local code changes without all the usual code review stages and interface negotiations.

Will everything that the UK does as a result create improvements? No: plenty of these attempted changes will fail -- some badly -- and hopefully we'll all learn from those mistakes. But there will certainly also be policy and procedural changes that result in unquestionable improvements that are re-usable elsewhere.

(disclaimer/context: I believe that Brexit was a mistake in economic and political terms, but that the UK could eventually rejoin the EU if-and/or-when the upsides are clearer to people, and that it's an opportunity to learn)

I don't like the content of articles like this one: https://web.archive.org/web/20220427155557/https://www.mintp...

...and I agree that the site may have (apparent or otherwise) biases. But the content reads true to me. I've seen and heard of previous examples of attempts to suppress and shut down publications or talking points that do indeed later turn out to have been accurate.

I don't know if this is exactly the kind of thing you're looking for, but there are a few sites that aggregate open source project tasks tagged as "good first issue" / "help wanted" - for example these two (that confusingly have very similar names):

- https://goodfirstissues.com/

- http://goodfirstissue.com/

Having discovered some of the talks from this conference today: it features some great content and ideas. A link for the curious: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=hytradboi.com

Maybe I'm behind the times, but it's really impressive that it's possible for a single person to arrange, organize and host an entire conference in 2022 with ticketing, chat, downloadable talks and captioning. I suppose having pre-recorded talks help a lot in terms of infrastructure management/monitoring. Even so, it feels like a powerful level of "technology assist". Kudos to Jamie for the event and writeup.

I'd bet it's because the filtering vendor (Allot) sells a simple interface to the customer (Vodafone) that mostly consists of allowlist/blocklist entries manually added by support agents when someone complains.

There's probably a policy to dictate what content should be filtered, but in practice: a ticket is filed to block a site, someone looks at the ticket, in all likelihood it is added to the blocklist, and then probably ends up there forever until complaints are raised.

You could be correct that the presence of multiple x's in the URL makes it more likely for support agents to think "yep, this is probably sketchy, there's no harm adding it to the blocklist" - I doubt it's the original reason though.

I mostly agree, but for the sake of argument, I do wonder how much time and emotional energy is spent developing and articulating those kind & plain responses in situations where the {requests/demands} that prompted them were unreasonable in the first place.

(if the onus moves to the demand-makers instead, then perhaps we can improve workplace cultures and find something more like the root cause(s))

Although the core topic relates to serverless technologies and scalabilities, I find the notes about personalisation a notable (and in some senses, risky) trend, too.

Update: based on this Twitter thread, it seems like much of the concern raised here could have been due to mistranslations: https://twitter.com/jrmygrdn/status/1509516246852767747

That's not a reason to dismiss the situation entirely, but the claims of Acute Radiation Sickness may have been overstated.

Re-posting this item because the original[1] is flagged/dead on HN.

Respeecher appears to be a company that offers realistic fake speech production for industries like Hollywood. They are in the process of development watermarking technology to allow their synthetic content to be identified.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30863023

This seems to tell a different story from reporting published one day earlier (2022-03-30) by Deutsche Welle: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-says-putin-agreed-to-keep-paym...

Perhaps, although the outdoor ground-level radiation should not be at a sufficient level to cause acute radiation poisoning, as I understand it.

According to Wikipedia, 237 people suffered from acute radiation sickness as a result of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster[1], mostly workers from the facility and firefighters responding to the situation.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Human_impac...

Possibly because that would be illegal (according to the quote you mention) and so they would likely lose further negotiating ground by doing so.

According to the tweet, the soldiers affected were allegedly digging trenches in the Red Forest, a highly radioactive region.

It seems strange to believe that they could've been unaware of radiation risk in the area when doing that; radioactivity warnings should be widely visible.

There were allegedly fires[1][2] in the forest recently, and there is the possibility that vehicles driving through the area kicked up radioactive dust[3].

Russian forces may be starting to withdraw[4] from the Chernobyl site.

[1] - https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/breaking-chernobyl-...

[2] - https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/forest-fire-engulfs-more-10000-hec...

[3] - https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/unprotected-russian-sol...

[4] - https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1509256718076817411

This {mirrors/supports} another item posted to HN ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30860766 ).

BNSF reported strong financial results[1] in 2021, with revenues up by 14% and profits up by 12% (both figures year-on-year).

[1] - https://www.bnsf.com/about-bnsf/financial-information/pdf/pe...

The game mechanics of Quadrilateral Cowboy (first published in 2016) are really innovative - I can't remember how many hours I lost during my first playthrough, but it was extremely engaging. It's available on a few different platforms, and the source code is available under a GPLv3 license.

A slight tangent, but it also seems that the progressive web application (PWA) technique, although briefly recommended[1] for "trial" has been removed from the radar.

[1] - https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/techniques/progressive-we...

The term to search for related to this is "convergence" - the idea that the very different computing form factors that we use today (smartphone, laptop, desktop, server, and so on) may gradually blend.

Reference: https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/device-convergence-affe...

(in a separate context, "convergence" also relates to an idea that gained traction after WWII that the ideologies of the East and West could gradually combine into something reflecting the benefits of each while removing the downsides; that's another story, though)

You have to understand that Google appears as a shiny, clean marble citadel before deciding whether to trust them or not.

The citadel provides great protection, information and solace for those who dwell and work within it, but it is extremely important to the citadel that it remains perceived in the way that I described previously: shiny, clean, marble.

Within the citadel there may be groups who enjoy scatological orgies - and that's fine, those people are extremely intelligent and are able to think in ways that allow them to organize the world's information in ways that few others are -- but in return for the privacy that the citadel provides them, they respect the external appearance of the organization: shiny, clean, marble.

What you have to ask yourself as a visitor to the citadel is: am I also willing to obey those laws, and keep my faecal carnal desires hidden until I'm wandering the dirty streets outdoors, or would I prefer to join the machine and use the cover that it provides, knowing that I may have to sacrifice my principles to do so? Or, alternatively: would I prefer to enjoy some time within the citadel but also some time on the dirty streets.

Don't mix the two. That's my read of how to consider trust and Google, currently.