Hacker News Reader

nseniftyon Iran-linked hackers breach FBI director's personal email

> or (currently) about $11,000 US dollars $110,000 US dollars

The bigger danger is that all obituaries will be written by an AI.

nseniftyon In the 1980s we downloaded games from the radio

There was something magical starting to type a listing that started with `10 GOSUB 10000`.

nseniftyon The inventor of the automatic rice cooker

Been making yogurt at home for years. I just heat milk to the point when it's just about to boil over. Never measured the actual temperature, but I'm pretty sure it's less than 100C. I just cool it until it's warm to touch (about 40-45C) before adding the culture (a spoonful of last day's yogurt), then leave it overnight in the oven with the pilot light on.

nseniftyon Turkish language has a gossip tense

Same in Kannada, a South Indian language. You prefix "-ante" (roughly, _it is said_) and you can disown everything you say.

nseniftyon Build a serverless ACID database with this one neat trick (atomic PutIfAbsent)

> so a web app can run SQL queries locally and all the usual SQLite stuff "just works" from the warm/javascript's point of view

Duckdb-wasm can do this.

nseniftyon Bangladesh PM Hasina has resigned and left the country, media reports say

> and people drinks cow piss to cure COVID

This is a false stereotype that has no place in HN. Yes, there are people who do that, but I bet a similar number of people per capita do that in Bangladesh too, we're not that different. It's like saying how can America be so developed if people still believe the earth is flat.

nseniftyon Pongamia trees grow where citrus once flourished

Kannada.

It is called "Honge mara" in Kannada.

nseniftyon Pongamia trees grow where citrus once flourished

Heh, I grew up in a small town in Southern India. One of the summertime activities for kids was to go shake these trees (they are everywhere), extract kernels and make a few bucks at the local markets.

They were quite bitter. And the bitterness transferred to anything you touch after handling them unless you wash your hands thoroughly. IIRC, the oil was used in the soap industry.

Having said that, isn't any kind of monoculture bad? Traditional farming always had crop rotation and/or mixed cultivation. Any "magical" and "hardy" crop is gonna ruin the soil if planted over and over for years.

nseniftyon Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

The metre is a basic checksum, but there are more elaborated systems (pathas) of chanting verses that aids in correct learning and memorization.

Some of it is described here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedic_chant#Oral_transmission

An example in action - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLdq15ptqUs

nseniftyon Brain Uses Quantum Effects, New Study Finds [video]

Perhaps the title should have been "Brain uses Quantum effects in a useful/controllable way". Sabine explains it well in the video. To use quantum effects for computation, you'd need very controlled conditions and it was thought be to not possible in the brain.

nseniftyon U-M finds students with alphabetically lower-ranked names receive lower grades

I'm Indian (in the US) and I've noticed a vast majority of my Indian friends name their kids Aanav, Aanir or Aanvi etc. some of which aren't even words in any Indian language. Now I probably know why.

nseniftyon Every model learned by gradient descent is approximately a kernel machine (2020)

> Afaik this was stated in my Intro to ML course.

Isbell?

nseniftyon Ask HN: Why did LinkedIn become what it is today?

Politics and war discussions have been increasingly common at work too. Companies have promoting ERGs in the hope of diversity and in the name of "bringing your authentic self to work", and these groups have become a hotbed of activism. I've witnessed flamewars in work channels on the topics of BLM, war in Gaza etc in the past two companies I've worked.

nseniftyon Don't use DISTINCT as a "join-fixer"

Yeah just change it to `SELECT OrderID`.

nseniftyon Analysis of the California Delete Act

"Will soon be able"

nseniftyon India suspends visas for Canadians as row escalates

Not to mention the travesty that followed in terms of bringing the perpetrators to justice. Most of them walked, owing to witnesses getting murdered in Canada under RCMP's watch.

nseniftyon India suspends visas for Canadians as row escalates

Another example of RCMP and CSISs glorious due diligence - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.H.M.B_Noor_Chowdhury

This guy killed the President of Bangladesh and most of his family (women and children included) and is now a guest of Canada and is refused extradition based on a technicality.

I don't condone extra-judiciary killings but Canada absolutely has and continue to harbor criminals.

nseniftyon Drying Fruits (2003)

Bosch ones (at least the one I have) can even be set to 100F. I haven't actually tested how well it maintains such low temps, but I use it for proofing.

nseniftyon Study shows dementia more common in older adults with vision issues

Undiagnosed cataract is a big thing in developing countries. Vision loss from cataract is gradual so many older people don't realize they're turning blind.

nseniftyon Study shows dementia more common in older adults with vision issues

Yes, this was my dad. He went from very healthy, active and social to suddenly aloof and reserved. People from his generation in India have a thing against regular medical checkups and only visit doctors when something is wrong. The visual degradation from his cataract was so gradual and severe but he failed to notice that. After I dragging him to a GP, he got his diagnosis in 5 minutes. He had a cataract surgery the same week and he was like 10 years younger instantaneously.

nseniftyon The Dance of Śiva

Varanane = One (female) with a gifted face. God, Sanskrit names are so beautiful!

Also, apt username (the three-eyed one)

nseniftyon The Dance of Śiva

I didn't know about Shiva Sutra until today, but I just thought it was interesting they both have 47 syllables, although not identical.

nseniftyon The Dance of Śiva

> Pāṇini, during his twelve-year-long tapas (fervour, ardour) to Śiva, hears the ḍamaru beat fourteen times. Fourteen classes of syllables drop, resonant, into his fervent ears.

    a i u ṇ
    ṛ ḷ k
    e o ṅ
    ai au c
    ha ya va ra ṭ
    la ṇ
    ña ma ṅa ṇa na m
    jha bha ñ
    gha ḍha dha ṣ
    ja ba ga ḍa da ś
    kha pha cha ṭha tha ca ṭa ta v
    ka pa y
    śa ṣa sa r
    ha l

47 syllables in Shiva Sutra by Panini (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_Sutras), so similar to Japanene Iroha (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroha). Coincidence?

> It is famous because it is a perfect pangram, containing each character of the Japanese syllabary exactly once. Because of this, it is also used as an ordering for the syllabary, in the same way as the A, B, C, D... sequence of the Latin alphabet.

nseniftyon Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

Gating as late as possible was precisely the philosophy of the OMSCS program of Georgia Tech. They reduced the bar for admission and admitted as many as they could (given they didn't need to fit everyone in physical classrooms) but kept the same academic rigor.

I benefited greatly getting this program, but would have never bothered to apply by taking GRE first (in my 30s, if I may add) otherwise.

nseniftyon Tesla committed fraud by “grossly” exaggerating EV range, class action says

Because people don't tend to drive non-stop for hundreds of miles at cities (except perhaps taxis)? You also always have a charger nearby.

nseniftyon Space junk: India says object found in Australia is theirs

It is junk, but "space junk" has a very specific meaning [1] and this is not it. Pretty much all rocket launches have debris designed to fall back down into ocean, some recovered and some not. Not only that, but defunct satellites are intentionally crashed into the ocean and left there [2].

There is literally nothing special about this part other than perhaps it floated and ended up in another country.

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

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_cemetery

nseniftyon Space junk: India says object found in Australia is theirs

Is it really "space junk" if it was meant to fall back into the ocean during launch? I thought it meant the junk orbiting earth and pose a risk of orbital collisions.

nseniftyon Why don't we get our drinking water by taking salt out seawater? (2008)

Or about $0.20 per US person per day.

Given average water use per person in US is 310 liters/day (82 gallons) [1] and average electricity cost/kwh is $0.17 [2], and assuming 14 kJ/kg. 310 * (14 / 3600) * $0.17 = $0.20.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/watersense/statistics-and-facts

[2] https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/data/averageenergyprices...