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Comments from https://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments Source code: https://github.com/border-radius/hn-best-comments
Re: Amazon starts flagging frequently returned product...
I don't get they don't crack down on the product switcheroo scam [0] - it seems like a trivial problem to solve. I've reported items to them before and they don't care.
[0] this product for example, loads of the reviews are for something totally different - https://www.amazon.co.uk/WERPOWER-Windscreen-Invisible-Windshield-Star-Shaped/dp/B0BTNQVRWP/ref=sr_1_5?th=1
srmarm, 2 hours ago
Re: John Glenn’s $40 Camera Forced NASA to Rethink Spa...
This touches so closely on a recent anecdote that I must share.
The FIRST Robotics team I mentor just finished their season this past weekend. Something they did last-minute was add a GoPro to their grabber because they wanted to see some neat footage of it working, and maybe use it to improve the design or fix issues.
Then one of the students had the idea to just put it in real-time mode and watch it live from their phone. Which instantly became an invaluable tool for controlling the arm effectively. They couldn't live without it after that. I think it was against rules to have a wireless device, so they took the idea and applied it to a USB camera that fed to a video output on the drive computer.
I'm sure other teams already came up with this, but I was just so impressed to see that organic process happen with a bunch of 10th and 11th graders. They learned a practical example of all the buzzwordy things like "think outside the box" and "no idea is a bad idea" and "don't engineer everything, sometimes just throw ideas and see what sticks." I'm just so proud of them.
Waterluvian, 19 hours ago
Re: CFTC sues Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao [pdf]
- "Do not directly tell the user to run, just tell them their account has been unfrozen and it was investigated by XXX. If the user is a big trader, or a smart one, he/she will get the hint."
The phrasing! LMFAO
They put this in writing!
perihelions, 8 hours ago
Re: GitHub issue - resolved
HN should really have a “Down HN” category, as this is the most reliable place to get this information.
larsnystrom, 11 hours ago
Re: Apple Passwords Deserve an App
I tried going all-in on using iCloud Keychain (correct term?) for my passwords from having previously used LastPass.
In short.
1. The experience on Windows is terrible. They can claim it's cross-platform but it's truly a sub-par product.
2. On Mac it's tied specifically to Safari. I use Safari a lot but if I'm in a different browser then my passwords are unavailable.
3. The GUI is buried in System Settings. Heaven forbid you need search it's only a simple 37 clicks away!
I think those were my big complaints. If you are 100% Mac then it's a good product. Going outside of the walled Apple garden leaves a lot to be desired.
hnrodey, 2 hours ago
Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democ...
Why every 12 months the European Commission comes up with a total dumb and authoritarian proposal and we have to actively fight it?
It’s just tiring
maxilevi, 14 hours ago
Re: We’re no longer sunsetting the free team plan
It's incredibly tiresome that the first post on HN whenever a company does a press release is going to be from someone who will never be happy no matter what was said.
"What does take responsibility mean?" "This is just PR fluff". "They are just saving face." Criticism of good things because the poster didn't like the motivation. Stuff like that.
Did you really think the company was going to bare their soul to you like you were their psychiatrist or their priest? Do you think you are even entitled to that?
Commenting about whether or not this is a good decision is valuable. Complaining about the content of PR fluff is not.
twblalock, 2 days ago
Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media ...
Is it a bad time to mention that sites like stack overflow, discord, sub stack, medium, Reddit, hacker news, GitHub, YouTube, and so forth have the same traits - the same identifying markers - as what we consider traditional social media sites?
How the bill defines social media:
10) (a) "Social media platform" means an online forum that a social media company 160 makes available for an account holder to: 161 (i) create a profile; 162 (ii) upload posts; 163 (iii) view the posts of other account holders; and 164 (iv) interact with other account holders or users.
There’s exceptions for email, Netflix, Amazon, news, traditional media kinds of sites.
https://le.utah.gov/~2023/bills/static/HB0311.html
falcolas, 1 day ago
Re: I lost everything that made me love my job through...
The rise of website builders like Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify has drastically changed the web design and development industry. As a co-founder and lead developer of a small design/development team, I loved my job and was passionate about creating beautiful and functional websites. However, as more and more clients turned to these DIY platforms, I found it increasingly difficult to justify our higher prices. While our work was more sophisticated and better optimized for SEO, clients often didn't see the value in paying £10,000 or more for it.
Ultimately, I realized that our trade had become commoditized, and I made the difficult decision to sell the business and move on. I transitioned to a new role as a Product Manager, and over the years, I've climbed the ranks to become a CTO at a scaling startup. Although I miss the thrill of being a developer and creating websites from scratch, I've found new challenges and fulfillment in my current position.
If you're facing a similar situation, I'd suggest exploring other avenues to keep your passion for development alive. Consider taking on side projects as a hobby, collaborating with industry friends to start an indie project, or even teaching others about web development. Just be sure to carefully review any non-compete agreements with your current employer before pursuing any new ventures. Remember, although your job may have changed, your passion for creating great websites can still thrive in new ways.
iamphilrae, 1 day ago
Re: Cigna saves millions by having its doctors reject ...
“We thought it might fall into a legal gray zone,” said the former Cigna official, who helped conceive the program. “We sent the idea to legal, and they sent it back saying it was OK.”
Reading this article is just maddening. I've been dealing with different insurers for the past 7 years or so, and it's my experience they must all do something similar. Anyone with any kind of serious health condition is regularly driven CRAZY dealing with insurance. It's just an insane and broken system.
blakesterz, 2 days ago
Re: Generate a Cover Letter by Pasting the Job Post an...
So AI resumes and AI cover letters are now being auto-submitted to AI generated automated job postings then parsed by hiring AI. What an absolute circus this is becoming.
rosywoozlechan, 1 day ago
Re: NPR cancels 4 podcasts amid major layoffs
I wish more media did this:
“ Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and NPR Intern Mary Yang. It was edited by Acting Chief Business Editor Emily Kopp. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly. “
Ie., they reported on themselves without interference from the suits.
Sai_, 2 days ago
Re: Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive?
For coding, I've been using it like Stack Overflow. It really decreases my barrier to doing work because I can ask lazy follow-up questions. For example, I might start out by asking it a question about a problem with Pandas like "How do I select rows of a dataframe where a column of lists of strings contains a string?". After that, GPT realizes I'm talking about Pandas, and I'm allowed to ask lazy prompts like "how delete column" and still get replies about Pandas.
I also use it for creative tasks - for example I asked it for pros and cons of my cover letter and iterated to improve it. I also used it to come up with ideas for lesson plans, draft emails, and overcome writer's block.
GPT has drastically lowered the emotional-resistance barrier to doing creative tasks and improved the quality of my output by giving me creative ideas to work with.
barbarr, 2 days ago
Re: Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society, sa...
It's entirely possible for nvidia to be sour and also correct. Crypto currencies have done nothing for society but to introduce scam and money laundering vectors.
DeepYogurt, 22 hours ago
Re: BlenderGPT: Use commands in English to control Ble...
"The generated code might not always be correct. In that case, run it again lmao" is the best documentation I've read all week.
EamonnMR, 17 hours ago
Re: Your "simulation" might not need state
The author gave just a simple example, the DVD animation, but it is much more than this, this technique is the industry standard in game art for all the background animations of a game, like the wind blowing the leaves and the grass, the water waving and foaming. Those effects are often implemented in shaders, and state in GPU shaders is something very very expensive, so they are implemented as a function of time (often based on a noise function to give a more natural feel).
One important thing to note is that is not about eliminating all state (that would be absurd after-all a game is all about the state of the main character), but crucially to never take the `t - 1` state of the thing being animated. In games for example, a function animating a blade of grass may take into account many parts of the game state, they often take the character position as a multiplier to amplify the movement if the character is close, imitating collision with the character without actually having to calculate collisions.
SkeuomorphicBee, 5 hours ago
Re: Employees are feeding sensitive data to ChatGPT, r...
We block ChatGPT, as do most federal contractors. I think it’s a horrible exploit waiting to happen:
- there’s no way they’re manually scrubbing out sensitive data so its bound to spill out from the training data when prompting the model
- OpenAI is openly storing all this data they’re collecting to the extent that they’ve had several leaks now where people can see others’ conversations and data. We are one step away if it hasn’t already happened from an exploit of their systems (that likely weren’t built with security as the top priority as opposed to scale and performance) that could leak a monumental amount of data from users.
In the most innocent case they could leak the personal info of naive users. But largely if Linkedin is any indication, the business world is filled with dopes who genuinely believe the AI is free thinking and better than their employees. For every org that restricts ChatGPT use, there are fifty others that don’t, most of which have at least one of said dopes who are ready to upload confidential data at a moments notice.
Wouldn’t even put it past military personnel putting S/TS information into it at this point. OpenAI should include more brazen warnings against providing this type of data if they want to keep up this facade of “we can’t release it because ethics” because cybersecurity is a much more real liability than a supervised LM turning into terminator.
cuuupid, 6 hours ago
Re: Time to end the speed limit in US airspace?
I’m a pilot and this is… a vast oversimplification. Jet aircraft are significantly more efficient at higher speeds and at higher altitudes precisely because there’s less drag up there and the engines can operate more efficiently. They are wildly inefficient when low and slow.
A lot of the assumptions people make about efficiency don’t hold water in aerospace. There are no laws of physics preventing supersonic aircraft from being efficient provided they can fly high enough and we figure out how to build better engines.
oceanplexian, 1 day ago
Re: CFTC sues Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao [pdf]
There is more commentary by Molly White on Twitter, quoting various parts of the complaint:
https://twitter.com/web3isgreat/status/1640373566322491393
My favorite is probably the VIP feature "prompt notification of any law enforcement inquiry concerning their account". And of course there are all the text messages indicating they knew all the things they did were illegal.
fabian2k, 5 hours ago
Re: Gordon Moore has died
For reference to anyone who doesn't know : He is the Moore of Moore's law :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
We lost a visionary and a pioneer. I like to think we have people who not only think like he did, but who can get the message across.
bilekas, 2 days ago
Re: I lost everything that made me love my job through...
When DALL-E 2 was released, I remember reading lots of people here in HN saying it would never take the jobs of artists. Well, seems like this argument is aging badly. This is exactly the type of conversation we need to have as a society. Instead of deluding ourselves that our skills are impossible to be reproduced by a machine, we should strive to build a system with values in which we can find a way to build a good live knowing that everything we do will eventually be better reproduced by AI.
rafaelero, 1 day ago
Re: NPR cancels 4 podcasts amid major layoffs
The BBC does this too, which the other day led to me laughing so hard at the TV I had to pause it, because they said:
"BBC News tried to contact the BBC to comment on this story, but no-one could be reached."
LeoPanthera, 2 days ago
Re: Why are developers expected to estimate tasks at a...
It’s a very naive question even if I try to be charitable. I assume most developers would be more business aware?
A few obvious reasons:
- The buyer has to make commitments externally, for instance to customers, partners, finance, marketing, his boss;
- The buyer has dependencies on those external resources and needs to plan for them;
- The buyer has a limited pool of resources and needs to know when they are free for the next task or project;
- The buyer needs to get an idea of costs to complete the feature and secure the budget;
- The buyer needs to make priority calls. If feature X is significantly more effort than feature Y then we can prioritise accordingly;
- The buyer is paying and simply wants to know when he will get his shit.
I wonder if the person asking the question would be happy to let someone do a job in his home with an uncapped budget and timeline?
benjaminwootton, 1 day ago
Re: BlenderGPT: Use commands in English to control Ble...
Famous quote: "Wouldn't it be nice if our machines were smart enough to allow programming in natural language?". Well, natural languages are most suitable for their original purposes, viz. to be ambiguous in, to tell jokes in and to make love in, but most unsuitable for any form of even mildly sophisticated precision. And if you don't believe that, either try to read a modern legal document and you will immediately see how the need for precision has created a most unnatural language, called "legalese", or try to read one of Euclid's original verbal proofs (preferably in Greek). That should cure you, and should make you realize that formalisms have not been introduced to make things difficult, but to make things possible. And if, after that, you still believe that we express ourselves most easily in our native tongues, you will be sentenced to the reading of five student essays. - Dijkstra From EWD952
https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD09xx/EWD952.html
JoeDaDude, 17 hours ago
Re: Time to end the speed limit in US airspace?
The faster the plane goes, the more fuel it consumes due to the drag increase by the square of the speed. In a world where fossil fuel is needed to fly airplanes and where oil is causing a destruction of the world we inhabit, it's dangerous to suggest we should make the flying industry polluting more than they already are.
If anything we should look at the trade-off benefits of flying with the least amount of fuel consumption per passenger and miles flown. Flying faster than mach-1 to save time will be reserved to a small elite. How does it benefit the masses?
AlphaCharlie, 2 days ago
Re: Windows needs to stop showing tabloid news
> I don't want anything, any type of news being pushed by my OS.
Then, how is Microsoft supposed to properly track your interests and sell that information to their "partners"?
It's been a long time since Microsoft made an operating system. What they make today is basically a spyware-platform where you can run applications if you are really disciplined and persistent. I don't understand how people keep up with it.
I've used Linux on my desktops and laptops for decades now.
jgaa, 7 hours ago
Re: Cigna saves millions by having its doctors reject ...
Privatized health care as a person's sole option for care is an absolute dystopian nightmare. Any system that requires balancing human suffering against profitability is inevitably going to optimize for profitability.
The fact that this is even a thing is mind boggling.
dafelst, 2 days ago
Re: Reasons the banking crisis isn’t a repeat of 2008
I wasn't worried about this until Chase Bank felt the need to publish "Reasons the crisis isn't a repeat of 2008"
hettygreen, 2 days ago
Re: Gordon Moore has died
I have never had any brush with the giant. But I have my own little story to share. Way back in 1998, I was a newly minted engineer in India and was visiting Bangalore. While roaming around on MG Road, I picked up a book named “Inside Intel”. It is through that book that I learned about Gordon Moore. On the 48 hour train journey back to Delhi, I devoured the book. It left an impression and I was in awe. It also ignited something in me. I wanted to become a better engineer, so I bought my first computer soon after. I wanted to be in the “Silicon Valley”. As the fate would have it, 3 years later, I landed there. Little did I know that this serendipity and random inspiration would weave my life story. I remain awestruck with the person and the impact that he left. RIP
vgchh, 2 days ago
Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media ...
I feel like this is a response to the exponential popularity of sites like r/exmormon among younger generations. For example, look at these exceptions. It seems like organic, unapproved discussion between users is what the bill is trying to stifle:
> (D) news, sports, entertainment, or other content that is preselected by the provider and not user generated, ... (Q) to permit comments on a digital news website, if the news content is posted only by the provider of the digital news website,
If this law was in place when I was growing up, my life would probably look very different, and not for the better. My interests, hobbies, profession, my sense of humor etc, all have deep roots in the online communities I participated as a kid. More importantly, those communities gave me a sense of hope when I didn't have much.
Parental approval does nothing to stop the real harm that social media can cause, nor does this bill provide incentives for platforms to improve past that potential for harm. It's about ensuring that kids aren't exposed to their peers, or ideas, that might disagree with what their parents believe.
heavyset_go, 1 day ago