nexthash

Website is broken on Firefox: I was stuck on a blinking eye icon and could not advance to the article.

ROS stands for Robotic Operating System. It is a framework of different tools such as an abstraction layer, libraries, and a package manager that makes it easier to program/interface with different robotic systems/components. It basically simplifies a lot of work that you would be doing on your own. While it is extremely useful, it also has some flaws. For example, it is bloated, can be tricky to configure, and can be sometimes difficult in making it do what you want it to.

I welcome the convenience CBDC provides, but I am absolutely against the abolition of cash. You don't need to be an economist to see that having no cash is a nightmare - every transaction you make across your lifetime is tracked and can be shot down by somebody that is not you. I believe that cash should always exist as an alternative backup to any convenient electronic system. With responsibility comes authority, and taking too much authority from individuals is not healthy for a free society.

This is excellent... for Vim users. A lot of developers either are not willing or haven't gotten around to learning the complexities of Vim, and use other IDEs like JetBrains or Eclipse. This workflow won't work for them.

I find both interesting and terrifying the dual-entanglement of modern technology: how the Internet, AI, quantum computing, and satellites provide huge economic growth and utility to the world while at the same time making war deadlier and more dangerous than ever. In the Cold War era everybody sat down and said war was too dangerous to fight anymore because of nuclear proliferation, but then found ways around that by fighting proxy and economic wars in non-nuclear areas.

Cyberwarfare is a continuation of this, allowing countries to attack each other by knocking out infrastructure and spreading disinformation. I'm scared of the instability and havoc these new developments will wreak on our world. I hope leaders have the foresight to predict and manage the harm these technologies can cause, maybe with treaties banning the proliferation of dangerous cyber capability. The world failed to do this in WW1, but was somewhat successful with nukes.

Are you serious? Let me remind you that the Kim family's little regime has killed hundred of thousands of people and is under a complete economic embargo for its human rights violations. I can defame, republish, and make money off of anything that comes out of there if I choose, and there is nothing that they can do to stop me.

Sending a representative of the regime to a court in the US to pursue copyright is by itself an earth-shattering precedent, and if it happens the rep will probably be laughed out of that courtroom right into a jail cell if they don't try to defect. The point is, feed your citizens before trying to be taken seriously.

Does anybody think this might be a permanent shift? I would love it if I could have the convenience of a top-paying remote job in software development. The twitter thread voiced concerns about this trend being like a pendulum that could swing back to the dominance of in-person work, even within a year. Covid has proved that remote employment is possible, but the question remains: will companies rescind their current policies when the pandemic fades away?

The Catholic Church pivoted from being a policy maker to a spiritual leader for billions. Maybe journalism can do the same. Now that everybody has a voice and network to distribute that voice, journalism can shift from being the chief reliable information source to the role of a thought leader and promoter of the highest quality public discourse.

This is my biggest fear about the media. If they don't come clean and reclaim their integrity (this goes for both left and right outlets), the public will reject them. Discourse will move to blogs, podcasts, private networks, etc. In the process, the laws and protections for journalism will be weathered and may be abolished altogether (who needs those pompous journalists, right?). Then we'll be no better than a propaganda state, where you can be jailed or sued for publishing a perspective that offends or exposes someone.

This is obviously a worst-case scenario, but I think that to prevent anything similar from happening Americans need to step up and pressure their news outlets to do better, and for social media platforms to be choked with regulation until they start preventing manipulative shit from spreading.

A lot of people here are arguing that mainstream media had it coming for them because of bias, arrogance, pushing an agenda, etc. But I want to ask all of you: what replaces it as arbiter of truth? For all of the media's problems and imperfections, they have acted as a quasi-independent institution holding other powerful institutions and individuals in society in check. They have focused popular attention where it was needed to prevent corruption (think Watergate Scandal, Panama Papers, Edward Snowden, and many others).

Their importance to the free distribution of accurate information was such that even the government itself in the form of federal courts and law has repeatedly recognized the privilege the press has in things such as keeping sources secret. They recognized the importance of such a space in keeping America's democracy powerful. Now, the media is completely being driven to the sidelines. With the rise of personal branding, content distribution, and disinformation, this once-independent place to examine society is going under.

For all the pomposity in this piece, the question is quite relevant: what will replace the media as an arbiter of independent information and truth? For now, it seems that the news and content space is being swallowed up by the information networks of various individuals and institutions, each with the focus of pushing their own image rather than coming clean to the public. If you can't trust any of them because all their perspectives are manipulated, have we reached an end to free and independent discourse?

Not related to the subject of the post, but for anyone interested OP seems to run a stock portfolio tracker for dividend investors, which he mentioned briefly (his blog mostly concerns his investing endeavors). It seemed pretty cool to me and is in need of support, so I'll leave the link here:

https://www.digrin.com/

How is this relevant at all? The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been grinding on for a arduously long time, and both sides have committed atrocities [1]. War is war, and war is brutal. It is always a universal human tragedy when two groups of people resort to such violence against each other.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maraga_massacre

I think the #1 reason blockchain doesn't work is very simple - the technology is broken beyond fixability. This article is two years old, but the same variations of these excuses always come up when the crypto ideologues are grilled on why their utopiaic vision hasn't come about, for all of blockchain's existence. Blockchain is awful for most things compared to a centralized or distributed database: it is inefficient, untrustworthy due to decentralization, a huge resource hog, and morbidly complex to implement.

The only good use cases that come to mind is if there is some particular reason for you to evade the conventional and easier systems of communication and storage. The lesson is: you should evaluate technology on its merits, not its politics. Three classic sources on the blockchain question immediately come to mind:

http://doyouneedablockchain.com/

https://imgur.com/a/RlUj9Ed

My personal favorite:

https://twitter.com/vgcerf/status/1019987651301081089

This is unreal... I thought these kinds of things would've been fixed in 2000 with the ILOVEYOU virus [1]. But apparently Excel VBA allows you to manipulate the registry, access Windows APIs, drop files onto the system, and manipulate/access Outlook to run macros across all of your mail and more. Does Microsoft really expect the average office worker to not fall for an urgent-looking, highly-realistic spreadsheet asking him to enable everything? If this is really what I think this is it's an obvious security disaster for the whole Windows ecosystem.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILOVEYOU

An interesting way to approach the documentation issue discussed in this article is 'wiki bankruptcy': when a wiki goes stale, simply tell all devs to save what they think is important before deleting the whole thing outright. Then, they can recreate those pages into a new wiki. Read more about it here:

https://critter.blog/2020/08/10/wiki-bankruptcy/

He also talks about using this 'bankruptcy' philosophy in other aspects of life, which I thought was intriguing:

https://critter.blog/2020/09/24/declare-bankruptcy-and-dont-...

I feel that there will always be a place for the university - the original need, to connect students with teachers, is a powerful one. The question is in what form this need is met, and it will determine which universities live or die. We have proven that to some extent computing infrastructure is able to shoulder some of the heavy load of education and instruction. Therefore, I predict that in-person universities will become places of human connection and specific, personalized learning.

The basic building blocks, such as libraries and lecture halls, will be significantly transformed into collaborative, social, and study spaces better suited to the needs of connected students. In-university research might be supplanted with cross-university collaboration in shared labs and spaces, with traditional office needs largely being met by computers. The university probably isn't going away any time soon, but I feel like the relationships inside of it are going to be significantly rewired.

This whole series of events went down with such a stink. My ordinary perception of the NYT is that of a beacon of journalism. They publish hundreds of pieces a day, and while the newspaper is left-leaning, it is also known for its high quality going back at least 100 years. My question is, does their utterly childish reaction to Scott Alexander's wish to be anonymous invalidate the whole newspaper's integrity?

Don't get me wrong, I don't completely agree with the whole 'liberal MSM' disillusionment, but does this mess point to deeper problems specific to the newspaper? I have no idea, and would appreciate it if somebody clarified this for me.

Wow, the NYT's actions on this one really made my blood boil. I don't even know how to process this... they typically put out reasonably high quality journalism that I read and enjoy on a regular basis. And then... this. They completely went beserk, like little children, with their heads firmly up their rears despite everything everyone begging them to keep Scott Alexander anonymous to preserve his profession and blog.

They lost literally hundreds of subscriptions (at least $20k worth). Yet they remained so stubborn... so closed to dialogue, and put out their little shitpiece. Can somebody reasonable explain why they would do such a thing? I don't care much for the 'liberal MSM' theories, I just wanna know what was in it for them. It makes no sense. Does it reflect on the entire newspaper to the point where I should stop reading it?

> Built to “outclass, outrun, and outlast” any car on the road, the Duesenberg Model A revolutionized the straight eight.

Still does. Frederick and August Duesenberg were automotive geniuses, with unparalleled engine designs, top speeds, and exteriors/interiors for the day. Jay Leno did an episode on an original, unrestored Duesenberg from 1931. It will help you get the feel for these incredible cars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdIKJ80ReiY

Crazy for a Gen-Z like me to think about a time when the latest computer developments and chatter was transmitted in actual paper magazines, development was done on bare-metal or very close to it, and the finished product was boxed and plucked off shelves the way new iPhones are today [1]. Speaks to a more exciting era where everything was a novelty and evolving (from chips to systems to software), compared to today's relatively stale web and computing platforms (Windows, Mac, Android, Google, Facebook) that practically everybody takes for granted.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/sRGxoKy.jpg

For context, the workers here have been pushing for this for a while. Amazon has put up every scummy obstacle it could in their path: hiring spies and anti-union consultants, firing outspoken organizers, trying to delay the vote, holding daily indoctrination meetings, and even attempting to make the vote happen in-person despite there being a pandemic. For those of you on here saying unionization kills innovation, destroys jobs, oppresses workers, etc, let me say this.

How would you like to work 8-hours days under constant scrutiny and pressure to pack as many boxes as you can, without official employee status (you're most likely a temp), having to pee in bottles because taking a bathroom break could get you flagged or even fired, and having to run a huge distance and scarf down your food within 30 minutes to prevent Amazon from firing you? At the end of the day I can imagine your back and arms are going to be sore from the incessant and demanding labor.

This is the definition of backbreaking. If Amazon is not going to make things better (and they definitely don't care to, they like their pennies), only organized pressure from you and your buddies through a union can. You literally have nowhere else to turn to.

I recommend you get ublock origin, it works wonders with these kinds of websites. I tested it here - all the sidebars and content breaks with ads gone, all the popups gone, and I experienced faster loading/response times. Browsing the web has felt like a breeze ever since I've got it, and it even allows you to disable JS and target any obtrusive content/features you find.

It is a shame that this only supports Chrome/Chromium. As I'm not willing to take the performance and privacy hits, I won't bother with this application until the necessary technical fixes are made. No matter how small of a group we are, Firefox/Safari users should be taken into consideration and could be the best advocates for your animation service.

The academic process at a research university from student to researcher to professor is cutthroat. There are so many obstacles in the way: classes designed to weed you out, GPA requirements, the grad school application process, financial instability as a PHD candidate, difficult job opportunities after the doctorate, fighting for funding and tenure, and more. Major reform is needed to progress science, because the current system is a failure pipeline that hurts both researchers and the university (which is shooting itself in the foot).

Woah! I love this retro-inspired type of design. It feels so fun and appealing, as if geocities was reincarnated. I wouldn't even bat an eye at the $50 lifetime hosting option. I've been watching this new trend away from "clean" UI for a while, and see so much potential for a new wave of quirky services and digital gardens on the internet away from FAANG walled gardens.

To that end, here's some cool libraries and resources to get you started. What's awesome is that since we are in 2021 this design language can be married with the power of modern web frameworks to make something extraordinary.

https://thesephist.github.io/blocks.css/

https://jdan.github.io/98.css/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DigitalGardens/

Yeah, Python has been the wonder child of the programming world for as long as I can remember. People have very strong beliefs on the subject - I remember how everybody went up in arms over the walrus operator (a := b) issue. I hope that all parties involved appreciate Python's position and longevity, while approaching the task of maintaining it with respect. I personally do not expect Google or any other Big Tech to be running roughshod over such a treasure anytime soon.

Haha, you mean that you are watching me. I do not represent Google. Don't worry, you don't have to fear any Google psych-ops trying to brainwash you into accepting its contributions to Python: Google is probably too big to care about such things. If caught any such behavior would probably cause a massive stink. And dude, there is literally only one free browser left: Firefox.

All other browsers are derivatives of Chromium at this point or have barely any users, made even worse by the way Google executed EEE on web standards with DRM extensions. It takes enormous resources to write a battle-tested browser viable for the web. It is far easier for someone to write a script interpreter for their own uses. HN is written in Arc Lisp, for example.

Obliged :-)

https://digital-pottery.glitch.me/?-1,-171,-30,0,-30,-32,-49...

A lot of people here are accusing Google of embrace, extend, and extinguish, but you have to realize that the incentives here are different from Big Tech's point of view. I'd first like to point out Python is a programming language, not an internet standard or file format. It gets its utility merely from the ability to develop in it, even without an established ecosystem or network effect. The barrier to jump in, or fork off and start over is far lower compared to a browser or file format.

So what's in it for Big Tech? Well, in a situation where controlling the technology or suppressing it is difficult due to the low costs of starting over, it is in their best interest to promote the ecosystem rather than control it. When they put in the time, money, and engineers to make it better the return on investment can be massive, because of the help they get from the community to grow, maintain, and keep compatible this core component at less cost than if they did it themselves.

The incentives align and benefit everyone, especially if there is a fair governance system mediating between all parties involved. The biggest threat to an open source project is therefore not Big Tech collaboration, but project abandonment and lack of maintenance. I hope this makes everyone a little more optimistic about the direction of open source, especially as companies realize the real value it can have for all involved.

> Zuckerberg said he had come to believe that a C.E.O. shouldn’t have complete control over the limits of our political discourse. “Maybe there are some calls that just aren’t good for the company to make by itself,” he told me.

Yet another PR move on Zuckerberg's part, he is still 100% holding onto his power at Facebook. Facebook simply cannot change, because the incentives for running that kind of service don't align with instituting actual good moderation on the site. I doubt anybody is under the illusion that this so-called "oversight board" will have any impact on disinformation spread and arbitrary removals, or do anything serious in terms of policy due to the impact that would have on Zuckerberg's position.

I feel like it is more of a sockpuppet created to keep as much of the blame away from Zuckerberg and his company while attempting to defuse the risk of actually meaningful regulatory protections against disinformation. As long as there is an incentive model where advertisers pay for attention and Facebook delivers it through outrage, nothing will change.