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Automated summaries of top Hacker News stories written by a large language model.
The Aviation Herald needs your help to recover from advertising failure
The Aviation Herald is reaching out to its readers for help in recovering from a recent advertising failure. Due to issues with previous advertising providers, the website has seen a significant decrease in income, forcing them to dip into their reserves to stay afloat. In order to continue operating, The Aviation Herald is asking readers to contribute 12 Euros (or more) to cover the cost of servers, staff, and research for the next year. Contributions can be made through PayPal, bank transfer, or even with Bitcoins. The website expresses gratitude to those who have already contributed and emphasizes the importance of reader support in keeping The Aviation Herald online.
Three US troops killed in drone attack in Jordan, more than 30 injured
Three US Army soldiers were killed and over 30 service members were injured in a drone attack on a US outpost in Jordan. This marks the first time US troops have been killed by enemy fire in the Middle East since the beginning of the Gaza war. The drone attack was carried out by Iran-backed militants and is still being determined which militia group specifically is responsible. President Joe Biden vowed to hold those responsible accountable and stated that the attack was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq. The US has taken retaliatory actions against Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria, but the Biden administration has been criticized for not taking strong enough action. The situation in the Middle East remains precarious, and US officials do not want tensions to escalate into a regional war.
Variable Fonts
The Immortel family of serif typefaces, available on v-fonts.com, offers four interchangeable variants designed with multiplexed set widths. The Infra and Vena variants, inspired by Robert Granjon and Jacques-François Rosart, are perfect for running body text. They include "Median" italics for longer blocks of text and more exaggerated italics for stronger emphasis. Additionally, both variants offer a variable grade axis for slight weight adjustments, catering to different typographic environments and user preferences. This flexibility allows for seamless integration without causing text to reflow.
The Articulation Barrier: Prompt-Driven AI UX Hurts Usability
The article discusses the usability issues of prompt-driven AI user interfaces, specifically focusing on the challenges faced by users who are not highly articulate in writing prose. The author highlights that approximately half of the population in rich countries like the United States and Germany are classified as low-literacy users, making it difficult for them to effectively use generative AI systems like ChatGPT. The author suggests that this usability problem has not been widely discussed because most analyses are written by individuals with high literacy levels. The article concludes by proposing the need for qualitative studies and the development of hybrid user interfaces that combine intent-based outcome specification with graphical user interface elements.
Ruby's Exceptional Creatures
The website "Ruby's Exceptional Creatures" acknowledges that errors are a common occurrence for Ruby developers. These errors can be caused by simple mistakes or more complex issues that require debugging and rescue techniques. The website emphasizes the importance of writing tests to ensure code is error-free. However, the author points out that even with thorough testing, unexpected exceptions can still arise in the depths of the code. The website encourages developers to become experts in their craft in order to defeat these "Exceptional Creatures" and ensure the success of their projects.
Multi-Database Support in DuckDB
The web content discusses the multi-database support in DuckDB, a data analysis tool. It explains that DuckDB can attach MySQL, Postgres, and SQLite databases, allowing data to be read into DuckDB and moved between these systems conveniently. The support was previously limited to reading and writing data to files, but now DuckDB has a pluggable storage and transactional layer that enables new storage back-ends to be created. The extensions for MySQL, Postgres, and SQLite implement this layer, allowing DuckDB to connect to and operate on these systems. The content also provides examples of how data can be exported, read, and moved between different databases. (Summary based on 48% of story text.)
Navy again lowers requirements as it struggles to meet recruitment goals
The U.S. Navy is once again lowering its recruitment requirements in an effort to meet enlistment goals. The Navy has decided to enlist individuals who did not graduate from high school or obtain a GED, as long as they score 50 or above on the Armed Services Qualification Test. This comes after a previous move to bring in recruits who scored very low on the test. The Navy hopes that this expanded effort will allow them to bring in more recruits who were previously turned away due to lack of education credentials. Other military services have been hesitant to make similar changes, citing concerns about the potential for higher dropout rates and disciplinary issues among lower-performing recruits. However, the Navy argues that the risk is worth it, as they have the capacity to accommodate more recruits in boot camp.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek says Apple's new App Store changes are a 'new low'
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has criticized Apple's proposed changes to the App Store, calling them a "new low" for the company. Apple plans to introduce new fees that will make it more difficult for Spotify to acquire customers. Ek has been a vocal critic of Apple's control over the iOS ecosystem. Apple's changes, which will allow developers to distribute apps on third-party marketplaces, will only take effect in the EU due to the Digital Markets Act. However, many developers are unhappy with Apple's decision to charge fees for downloads on these marketplaces. Ek described Apple's reaction as a "masterclass in distortion" and called the fees "extortion." Spotify believes the fees will hurt developers, start-ups, and those offering free apps. Apple claims that the changes give developers more choice and that over 99% of developers will pay the same or less. Ek hopes that the EU will recognize the issues with Apple's changes and stand firm against them.
Twitter blocks searches for Taylor Swift after explicit AI images go viral
Social media platform X has blocked searches for Taylor Swift after explicit AI-generated images of the singer went viral on the site. The fake images prompted alarm from US officials and fans of Swift, leading to her fans flagging and reporting the posts. X, formerly known as Twitter, released a statement condemning the posting of non-consensual nudity and said they have a zero-tolerance policy towards such content. The White House also called the spread of AI-generated photos "alarming" and called for legislation to tackle the misuse of AI technology on social media. The creation of deepfake images has been on the rise, with some states in the US taking steps to address the issue. In the UK, the sharing of deepfake pornography is illegal under the Online Safety Act.
Show HN: Techmart – Costco for SaaS. The usual tech tools at lower prices
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I'm sorry, but omnidirectional treadmills can't work and here's why
The author explains that omnidirectional treadmills cannot work due to the limitations of the human vestibular system. While these treadmills can move the feet in any desired direction, they cannot achieve the natural walking, running, and jumping experience that people expect. The author highlights that the gym treadmill is often used as a reference point, but even it has limitations when it comes to abrupt changes in speed and direction. The use of a harness to prevent falling restricts movement and does not make walking feel natural. The author concludes that while omnidirectional treadmills may have niche uses, they cannot fulfill the Holodeck dream that people envision.
US State Sales Tax Rates Chart
The web content provides a chart of sales tax rates for each state in the US. It includes the state sales tax rate, the range of local sales tax rates, and whether local jurisdictions impose a sales tax. It also mentions if use tax is applied and if remote sellers are required to collect sales tax. Some states have reduced rates for certain types of items. The chart highlights that the true California state sales tax rate is 6%, but the lowest rate anywhere in California is 7.25% due to a statewide county tax. It also mentions that Delaware does not have a sales tax but has a rental tax. (Summary based on 97% of story text.)
DHH – The benefit of seniority ought to be bandwidth
In this article, the author discusses the importance of seniority in the workplace and how it should be utilized to increase organizational bandwidth. They explain that juniors are judged on effort, while seniors are judged on outcomes, highlighting the distinction between productivity and effectiveness. The author emphasizes the need for frequent feedback and guidance for junior employees to help them grow and improve. They also discuss the value of having senior employees who can independently find solutions and require minimal direction. The article concludes by stating that the goal of an organization should be to strike a balance between junior talent and seniority to ensure enough productive bandwidth for everyone.
On a Tesla: Don't
The author shares their experience of owning a Tesla Model 3 and highlights both the positive and negative aspects of the car. They praise the design, performance, and low maintenance of the vehicle, as well as the extensive charging network. However, they also criticize various features and functionalities that they find flawed or gimmicky, such as software updates that degrade functionality, the unreliable keycard and phone connectivity, the dangerous "full-self-driving" mode, and the finicky iPad-like interface. The author also expresses their frustration with Elon Musk's management style and accuses him of making false promises and being distracted from addressing the car's issues. (Summary based on 89% of story text.)
Healing Invisibly: What doctors learn by playing music
This article explores the connection between music and medicine, highlighting the historical and contemporary examples of doctors who are also musicians. It discusses how music can be a source of emotional release for healthcare professionals and how playing music can benefit their well-being. The article also mentions the existence of medical orchestras around the world and the passion and dedication of their members. It suggests that music and medicine share common elements such as transmission, restoration, and emotion. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of sensibility and empathy in both fields.
Nix-direnv is a quality of life improvement
The author of the web content discusses their positive experience with nix-direnv, a tool that improves the functionality of nix-shell. They explain that nix-direnv solves problems they had with nix-shell, such as the need to re-download dependencies after garbage collection and the requirement to use bash as the interactive shell. Nix-direnv adds environment variables to the existing shell and automatically registers the result as a GC root. It also updates the environment when shell.nix changes, eliminating the need to close and reopen nix-shell. The author praises nix-direnv for its ease of use and its improvement of the reproducible developer environment aspect of Nix. However, they note that nix-direnv does not help with the "nix-shell -p" command.
Confirmation of ancient lake on Mars offers hope of life
New research published in the journal Science Advances confirms the existence of an ancient lake in the Jezero crater on Mars. The Perseverance rover's ground penetrating radar measurements show that the crater was once filled with water, depositing layers of sediments on the crater floor. The lake eventually shrank, and sediments carried by the river that fed it formed a large delta. The radar images also reveal two distinct periods of sediment deposition sandwiched between periods of erosion. This confirmation of a lake on Mars offers hope that traces of past life may be found in the crater. The Perseverance rover will continue to study the geology and collect samples for further analysis.
Online Use Car Seller Vroom Collapses as Sales Fall, Losses Mount
Online used car seller Vroom has announced that it will be shutting down its business and liquidating its inventory due to mounting losses and a decline in sales. The company will suspend all online car transactions and sell off its existing stock through wholesale outlets. Vroom's financial situation has been deteriorating over the past few years, with losses increasing and online sales dropping. The viability of online used car sales is also being questioned, as customers may not have enough information about the condition and quality of the vehicles they are buying. The convenience of online sales may not outweigh the premium charged for used cars.
Show HN: Librarian - Semantic Bookmark Search Using Transformers
Librarian is a Chrome extension that allows users to search the content of their bookmarks directly in their browser. The purpose of this project is to provide a private and fast way to search bookmarks. It uses Sentence-BERT through transformer.js to scrape and embed content, and stores the data in localStorage. The project also utilizes vector search with orama. The author mentions that future enhancements and fixes will include settings for similarity threshold and number of results, an accurate progress bar, smarter salient text subselection, faster scraping, and better UI/UX. This project differentiates itself by offering semantic bookmark search using transformers.
EU states accuse TfL [Transport of London of data breach](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39171209)
Transport for London (TfL) has been accused by five EU countries of illegally obtaining the names and addresses of their citizens in order to issue fines for driving in London's clean air zone. More than 320,000 penalties have been sent out since 2021, with some totaling thousands of euros. EU countries claim that driver data cannot be shared with the UK for enforcement of London's ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), and that registered keeper details were obtained illegally by agents acting for TfL's contractor Euro Parking Collection. The issue has raised concerns about privacy and data breaches, and could damage London's reputation as a tourist destination.
Ask HN: Those who've joined a friend's startup as an employee, how did that go?
The author of this post on news.ycombinator.com is seeking input from individuals who have joined a friend's startup as an employee. They note that while there is plenty of information available about co-founding with friends, there is less discussion about the experience of joining a friend's startup as an employee. The author asks readers to share their personal experiences and whether they would choose to do it again.
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a status class composed of university-educated individuals who play a role in shaping and leading their society. The term originated in Poland in the late 18th century to describe the educated and politically active individuals who opposed the cultural dominance of the Russian Empire. In Russia, the intelligentsia referred to university-educated individuals who had cultural capital and played a role in politics. The role and influence of the intelligentsia varied across different societies, with Western Europe granting them more political and cultural influence compared to Eastern Europe. The concept of the intelligentsia has been influential in European history, particularly in Poland and Russia. During the Second World War, both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union targeted and exterminated the Polish intelligentsia. The Russian intelligentsia was characterized by a mix of messianism and intellectual elitism. (Summary based on 42% of story text.)
GitHub Spam is out of control
The author discusses the issue of spam on GitHub and how it has become increasingly problematic. They share their personal experience of being tagged in crypto-related scams on GitHub and highlight the difficulty in reporting these scams since they are often deleted quickly. The author provides examples of spam comments and pull requests they found, with a significant number of accounts being tagged. They also criticize GitHub for the lack of a report button and suggest some potential solutions to address the spam issue. The author expresses surprise at GitHub's apparent inability to handle the spam effectively and emphasizes the need for a concrete plan to combat it.
Shopify let me down big time today
The author of this web content expresses disappointment with Shopify and shares their negative experience with the platform. They highlight three specific issues they encountered: a misleading plan change that resulted in an unauthorized charge, unexpected app charges despite having a credit in their account, and the failure of Shopify credits to be applied for app payments. The author criticizes Shopify's user interface and user experience, suggesting that it is designed to facilitate accidental overcharges. They also question the ethics of Shopify's business model, accusing them of trapping customers to obtain interest-free loans.
Just
The web content on www.todepond.com discusses the word "just" and how it is often used to oversimplify complex tasks. The author expresses their dislike for the word and highlights the numerous challenges and questions that arise when using the command line, renting a server, or choosing a framework. They question why these tasks are considered normal and why people are expected to know how to do them. The author emphasizes that what may be easy for one person may not be easy for others and calls for a better understanding of the difficulties involved in order to make things easier. The content concludes by stating that if a solution to a problem starts with "just," it is likely a waste of time.
No more magic, please! (2023)
The author of the web content discusses the shift in modern web programming towards configuring tools and services from third-party infrastructure vendors, rather than focusing on software engineering. They question the preference for "one step app deployment" and the lack of need for infrastructure knowledge. The author, coming from a background in biomedical science, expresses their frustration with vendor-specific yaml file formats and the lack of portability and understanding that comes with using PaaS providers. They argue that taking the time to learn and understand the underlying infrastructure can be more rewarding and valuable in the long run. The author encourages developers to have a balance between using managed options and understanding the "hard way" of building apps. They emphasize the importance of experience, judgment, and enjoying the process of learning and using tools.
CO pastor: God told him to launch a crypto venture; took $1.3M from followers
Denver pastor Eli Regalado and his wife, Kaitlyn Regalado, launched a cryptocurrency called INDXcoin and raised over $3.2 million from investors in their congregation and other Christian communities. They promoted the investment opportunity using prayer and quotes from the Bible, promising abundance and blessings. However, Colorado state regulators have filed civil fraud charges against the couple, accusing them of using around $1.3 million of the investment funds for personal expenses, including a Range Rover, jewelry, cosmetic dentistry, and vacations. The state also claims that INDXcoin was essentially worthless and not backed by assets. Eli Regalado admitted to the charges in a video statement.
What makes switching to GNU Linux almost impossible for many?
The blog post discusses the challenges and barriers that make it difficult for home users and small businesses to switch to GNU/Linux. It highlights the issue of vendor-locked ecosystems, where large companies create proprietary applications that require users to buy their software. Examples include Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, and Autodesk AutoCAD. The post also mentions the lack of viable alternatives to popular software like Adobe Suite and Logic Pro on Linux. It discusses the limitations of open source applications like GIMP and Krita in terms of functionality. The post also touches on the challenges of using popular messengers like Whatsapp and iMessage on Linux. It mentions the high cost of business software like SAP and the issues with gaming on Linux due to anticheat systems. The post concludes by addressing common misconceptions and mental blockers that prevent people from considering Linux as a viable option.
Firefox built-in spyware that cannot be disabled
The author of this web content discusses their discovery of built-in spyware in Firefox that cannot be disabled. They noticed connections to Pocket and "firefox.settings.services.mozilla.com" despite disabling Pocket in the browser's configuration settings. The author finds it ridiculous that some of these connections are hard-coded into the source code for "security reasons." They emphasize that even with a hardened browser and extensive edits to the configuration settings, Firefox still spies on users.
Easy-to-Use Apple Vision wrapper for text extraction and clustering
The "Easy-to-Use Apple Vision wrapper for text extraction and clustering" is a Python-based utility called appleocr that facilitates Optical Character Recognition (OCR) by extracting text from images. It uses the Vision framework provided by Apple to recognize text within an image and provides information about its confidence levels. The tool also offers K-Means clustering on the extracted data, grouping similar text elements together based on their coordinates. Additionally, appleocr provides an interactive 3D scatter plot using Plotly to visualize the clustered text elements, allowing users to gain insights into the distribution of text and text density. The tool relies on various Python libraries such as Torch, NumPy, Pandas, Pillow, Scikit-learn, Plotly, and Pyobjc. Users can install the required libraries, initialize the OCR class, perform text recognition and clustering, and create the 3D scatter plot. The project is available for download on pypi.org.