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Automated summaries of top Hacker News stories written by a large language model.
Words Make It Obvious That Your Text Is Written by AI
The author of this Medium article discusses how to make AI-generated text sound more human. They acknowledge the usefulness of AI in writing but emphasize the importance of avoiding certain words and phrases that are common giveaways of AI-generated content. The author provides a list of seven words and phrases to edit out, such as "transformative" and "fostering," as they are overused and lack specificity. They also suggest avoiding certain patterns, such as using "think of X as" or "not only...but also." The author concludes by recommending that writers who use AI be diligent in editing to ensure the quality of their content.
ISP Suggests That Record Labels Can Sue Torrent Client Developers
In late 2022, Warner Bros. and Sony Music won a lawsuit against ISP Grande Communications, accusing the company of not doing enough to address piracy complaints from subscribers. Grande was ordered to pay $47 million in damages to the record labels. Grande has since filed an appeal, arguing that ISPs should not be held liable for pirating customers based on third-party allegations. The ISP cites a Supreme Court ruling involving social media platforms and ISIS terrorists to support its argument. Grande suggests that rightsholders can sue pirates directly or go after torrent site operators and BitTorrent client developers. The case has significant implications for ISPs and their subscribers.
23andMe faces lawsuit as hackers sell information on users with Jewish heritage
DNA testing company 23andMe is facing a lawsuit after it was revealed that users with Ashkenazi Jewish and Chinese heritage were specifically targeted in a data breach last year. The company initially disclosed the breach in October, blaming users for recycling the same username and password across multiple websites. However, it failed to mention that the hackers had specifically targeted individuals with Jewish and Chinese heritage. The hackers gained access to roughly 14,000 accounts and collected information through 23andMe's Family Tree and DNA Relatives features. The breach affected a total of 6.9 million accounts, almost half of the company's customers. The lawsuit raises questions about the scope of the issue and potential involvement of other companies.
Why You Should Be a Luddite
In this web content from www.currentaffairs.org, the author discusses the Luddite movement and its relevance to the present day. The Luddites were not against technology itself, but rather the use of technology to exploit workers and destroy their livelihoods. The author argues that the Luddites' struggle against big tech can provide valuable insights into the social impacts of new technologies today. The article highlights the Luddites' objection to machines that were used to enrich capitalists at the expense of laborers. The author also emphasizes that the Luddites were not anti-technology, but rather anti-poverty. (Summary based on 34% of story text.)
Mutative 1.0 – A New Era in Efficient Immutable Updates
Mutative 1.0 is a new JavaScript library that revolutionizes the way we handle immutable updates. It offers high performance, making it ideal for complex applications with large data structures. Mutative supports various data structures and ensures that immutable updates are not only efficient but also easy to implement. The library provides flexible configuration options, including optional freezing of immutable data and support for the JSON Patch standard. Mutative outperforms naive handcrafted reducers and even Immer, with performance that is 2-6x faster than reducers and over 10x faster than Immer. It passed all of Immer's test cases and has fewer bugs. Mutative is a paradigm shift in immutable updates and invites developers to build phenomenally fast and responsive applications.
Making a PDF that's larger than Germany
The author explores the claim that there is a maximum size for a PDF document, specifically that a single PDF can only cover about half the area of Germany. They delve into the origins of this claim and explain that it is a limitation of a particular PDF reader app, not a limitation of PDF itself. The author then goes on to explain the internal structure of a PDF document and how to edit it manually. They provide an example of a simple PDF file created by hand and discuss how to change the page size to create larger PDFs. The author concludes by mentioning the limitations of creating extremely large PDFs. (Summary based on 84% of story text.)
If your Windows username isn't English, it may cause FPS drops in CS2
According to reports from CS2 players, having a non-English Windows username may lead to FPS drops in the game. This issue seems to be caused by a bug in the game's code that struggles to handle non-English characters. Players have found a temporary workaround by changing their Windows username to English, but this is not an ideal solution. The controversy lies in the fact that the game developers have not addressed this issue yet, leaving non-English speaking players at a disadvantage. It is surprising that such a basic bug has not been fixed, considering the popularity of the game.
"I used a pin to unlock the cable connected to the Apple Vision Pro battery"
In a surprising turn of events, a Twitter user has claimed to have successfully unlocked the cable connected to the Apple Vision Pro battery using just a pin. The user shared a video demonstrating the process, which has sparked controversy among Apple enthusiasts. While some are skeptical about the authenticity of the claim, others are intrigued by the potential implications. This unexpected method of unlocking the cable has left many wondering about the security measures in place for Apple devices. It remains to be seen whether Apple will address this issue and provide a solution.
ACLU Sues Ronald McDonald House for Refusing to House Assault Convicts
The ACLU, NYCLU, and LAC are suing Ronald McDonald House Charities for refusing to provide discounted housing to individuals with felony assault convictions. They argue that this policy violates the Fair Housing Act and New York human rights law. The lawsuit is on behalf of Juan Mieles, whose application to stay at a Ronald McDonald House was rejected due to his criminal history. The complaint argues that blanket bans on people with criminal convictions are illegal under the federal Fair Housing Act and cites regulatory guidance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Critics argue that the disparate impact standard leaves housing providers uncertain about what policies may be considered illegal.
Human error in high-biocontainment labs: a likely pandemic threat
The article discusses the potential threat of human error in high-biocontainment labs, specifically BSL3 and BSL4 labs, which could lead to the release of dangerous pathogens into the community. The author highlights incidents of potential exposures to pathogens in these labs and emphasizes the risk of a worldwide pandemic if a highly pathogenic avian influenza virus were to be released. The article presents statistical data showing that human error is the main cause of potential exposures in these labs. It also discusses the importance of understanding human error in calculating the probability of a pathogen being released and the need for better training and procedures to prevent such incidents. The article also mentions the issue of incomplete inactivation of pathogens, which is another route for potential release from labs. The author concludes that state-of-the-art lab design alone cannot prevent releases and that the probability of a release is significant. (Summary based on 76% of story text.)
Attention ArXiv users: Re-implemented RSS
ArXiv has made improvements to its RSS feed to provide users with more accurate results. The new version of the RSS feed runs in the cloud and has a new base URL of rss.arxiv.org. The feed now includes a status page at /feed/status and is updated at midnight (Eastern US time). Users can request multiple categories and there is a limit of 2000 items. The categorization and order of new, cross, replace, and replace-cross now match the listings. Additionally, an author list is now provided for each paper. The RSS output now complies with the RSS 2.0 specification, with RSS 0.91 and 1.0 no longer supported. Atom format is still supported.
China overtakes Japan in auto exports with boost from EVs
In a surprising turn of events, China has surpassed Japan to become the world's largest exporter of automobiles. This achievement can be attributed to the strong overseas sales of electric vehicles (EVs). According to the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, Japan exported 4.42 million vehicles in 2023, a 16% increase from the previous year. However, this fell short of China's impressive 4.91 million vehicle exports, which saw a staggering 58% growth compared to the previous year. This shift in the global automotive market highlights China's growing dominance in the EV sector and its ability to compete with established players like Japan.
Directed energy: The focus on laser weapons intensifies
The focus on laser weapons is intensifying as nations around the world invest in the development and deployment of directed energy weapons (DEWs). The United States has already begun deploying early laser weapons on naval destroyers, while other countries like the UK, Israel, China, Russia, and more are investing in their own DEW programs. DEWs, which include lasers and other electromagnetic spectrum weapons, offer increased accuracy, speed, and flexibility compared to traditional munitions. They can be used to engage fast-moving targets, disrupt electronic systems, and counter the proliferation of unmanned systems. However, there are still technical, financial, policy, and doctrinal barriers to their successful deployment.
DeepSeek Coder: Let the Code Write Itself
DeepSeek Coder is a collection of code language models that have been trained on a combination of code and natural language data. The models are available in various sizes and have been pre-trained on a large code corpus. They have also been fine-tuned with instruction data to improve their performance. DeepSeek Coder is capable of code completion and infilling at the project level and supports over 80 programming languages. It is considered to be a state-of-the-art open code model and is available for free for both research and commercial use.
Croatian Wikipedia takeover was enabled by "lack of bureaucratic openness"
The Croatian Wikipedia was taken over by far-right nationalists due to a "lack of bureaucratic openness and rules constraining administrator behavior," according to a paper titled "Governance Capture in a Self-Governing Community." The paper compares the Croatian Wikipedia with the Serbian, Bosnian, and Serbo-Croatian Wikipedias, which managed to avoid nationalist takeover. The researchers found that weak policies and norms, particularly around blocking and the integrity of bureaucrats, allowed the takeover to happen. The study also highlights the importance of perceived value as a target and institutional formalization in preventing such takeovers. The paper is the first academic work to examine how influence operations target and engage with peer production communities like Wikipedia. (Summary based on 72% of story text.)
Moral Bankruptcy
This article discusses the issue of moral bankruptcy within the American bankruptcy system. It begins with a story about a judge in Houston who was accused of being involved in a corruption scheme with a law firm, favoring companies over small-time creditors. The article then delves into the history of bankruptcy laws in the United States, highlighting how they have evolved to favor corporations and shield wealthy individuals from the consequences of their actions. The author argues that the current bankruptcy system enables corporations to exploit their privileges and engage in unethical practices, such as abrogating union contracts and evading responsibility for environmental disasters. The article also mentions the role of influential bankruptcy judges and the competition between different districts to attract high-profile cases. Overall, the article presents a critical perspective on the American bankruptcy system and its impact on wealth inequality. (Summary based on 30% of story text.)
DNS over HTTPS is not what I thought
The author of the web content shares their experience with DNS over HTTPS (DoH) while trying to remove broken links from their blog. They explain that DoH is a new standard for accessing DNS records over an encrypted HTTPS connection. The author demonstrates how to query DNS using curl and provides examples of the response from the server. They also highlight the different status values that indicate the success or failure of a DNS query. The author then reveals that what they were using is not actually the RFC 8484 DoH, but rather an implementation based on a 2013 draft specification. They conclude by stating that they will continue using the JSON API implementation rather than the actual DoH protocol.
Show HN: Stanchion – Column-oriented tables in SQLite
Stanchion is a SQLite 3 extension that brings column-oriented storage to SQLite, which exclusively supports row-oriented tables. This extension is useful for storing and processing metric, log, and event data, timeseries data, analytical queries over many rows and a few columns, change tracking, and anchor modeling. Stanchion differentiates itself by providing compression techniques like run length and bit-packed encodings to reduce the size of stored data, making it ideal for storing large datasets. The project is currently in alpha and not recommended for production use. The readme also provides instructions on how to use Stanchion and lists upcoming features and data storage internals. (Summary based on 91% of story text.)
Ask HN: What are you favorite resources on children's education?
Title: Ask HN: What are your favorite resources on children's education?
Are you interested in delving into the world of early childhood education? If so, I'm seeking recommendations on books, podcasts, and articles that can help me expand my knowledge in this area. I'm eager to hear about any surprising, unique, or clever resources that have made a significant impact on your understanding of children's education. Please share your favorites and let's create a valuable collection of resources together.
Mark Zuckerberg apologizes to parents at online child safety hearing
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, apologized to parents at a Senate online child safety hearing for the harm caused to their children on Instagram. The hearing, titled "Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis," also included CEOs from TikTok, Discord, X, and Snap. Parents held up photos of their children as senators questioned the CEOs, and many wore blue ribbons advocating for the Kids Online Safety Act. Zuckerberg faced tough questioning about nonconsensual explicit images, drug deaths, and other issues. Meta is currently facing a federal lawsuit from multiple states alleging that Facebook and Instagram intentionally created addictive features and hid data on the platforms' harms to young users.
MobileDiffusion: Rapid text-to-image generation on-device
In this blog post, Yang Zhao and Tingbo Hou introduce MobileDiffusion, a novel approach for rapid text-to-image generation on mobile devices. They explain that while text-to-image diffusion models have shown exceptional capabilities, they are typically expensive to run and require powerful desktops or servers. MobileDiffusion, on the other hand, is specifically designed for mobile devices and can generate high-quality images in half a second using a comparably small model size of just 520M parameters. The authors discuss the challenges of optimizing inference efficiency in text-to-image diffusion models and provide a detailed examination of the model's architectural efficiency. They also highlight the use of a DiffusionGAN hybrid for one-step sampling and share the impressive results and performance measurements of MobileDiffusion on iOS and Android devices. Overall, MobileDiffusion offers a rapid and efficient solution for text-to-image generation on mobile devices.
Ask HN: Managing Myopia as a Developer
The author of this post on news.ycombinator.com is seeking advice on how to manage myopia (nearsightedness) as a developer who spends more than 8 hours a day looking at screens. They mention the challenge of being in a confined space with no views to infinity, such as small homes in Europe or offices. The author asks if there are any special lenses or techniques, like simulating distance or using a distance box, to help alleviate the strain on their eyes. They also inquire if anyone has tried a method called Endmyopia.
Tried Vision Pro. Here's what I thought
The author of the web content tried Vision Pro and shared their thoughts on the device. They compared it to the Quest 3 and found that Vision Pro offers a similar experience, if not better. They noted that the device feels heavy and the front plate is a fingerprint magnet. The lenses and field of view are smaller than the Quest 3. The author mentioned some issues with the passthrough feature, such as color fringing and distortion. They also discussed the scale artifact and the difficulty of using eye tracking for typing and navigating. The author concluded that there is still room for improvement with Vision Pro. (Summary based on 56% of story text.)
I don't want anything your AI generates
The author of the web content expresses a strong dislike for AI-generated output, stating that it is derivative, exploitative, and untrustworthy. They argue that AI does not replace human interaction or expertise, and that relying on AI for tasks such as search, art, music recommendations, and social interactions is inferior to human input. The author also criticizes the use of AI in important tasks like attending meetings, writing emails, and screening job candidates, suggesting that it overlooks quality and importance. They express concern about the environmental impact and negative effects on job skills and public discourse caused by AI. The author concludes by stating that they do not want to be associated with AI-generated content and are skeptical of its supposed benefits.
Tell HN: GoDaddy Stole My Domain
The author of this post on news.ycombinator.com claims that GoDaddy, a popular domain registrar, stole their domain. They allege that GoDaddy did not send any notifications about the domain's expiration and, immediately after it expired, transferred the domain to their own account. The author also mentions that GoDaddy is now requiring them to hire a broker in order to purchase the domain back. Surprisingly, the domain is still pointing to the IP address of the author's website. The controversy lies in the accusation of GoDaddy's actions and the potential lack of communication regarding the domain's expiration.
Executing Cron Scripts Reliably at Scale
The article discusses the challenges Slack faced with executing cron scripts reliably at scale and the solution they developed to address these issues. The number of cron scripts and the amount of data they processed had increased over time, leading to occasional reliability issues and difficulties in maintaining and scaling the execution environment. To overcome these challenges, Slack designed a new system consisting of three main components: a Golang service called the "Scheduled Job Conductor", Slack's Job Queue, and a Vitess table for job deduplication and monitoring. This new system improved reliability, scalability, and user-friendliness, allowing Slack to continue growing in the future.
Innovating S3 Bucket Retrieval: LangChain Community S3 Loaders with OpenAI API
This article discusses the integration of MinIO, Langchain, and OpenAI's GPT-3.5 model to handle large volumes of data. MinIO is an open-source object storage system that is compatible with the Amazon S3 API and offers features like data replication and high availability. Langchain is a Python-based tool that facilitates the interaction between document loaders and AI models. In this implementation, Langchain is used to load documents from MinIO buckets, and OpenAI's GPT-3.5 model is used to summarize the documents. The article provides code examples and highlights the capabilities of AI in extracting essential information from extensive data sources. It also emphasizes the importance of using the MinIO Python SDK for data management within MinIO buckets.
Automakers Look to Neuter Maine 'Right to Repair' Bill
Automakers are attempting to weaken Maine's "Right to Repair" law under the guise of privacy concerns. The law, which was passed by an overwhelming majority of Maine residents, requires automakers to standardize on-board diagnostic systems and provide remote access to consumers and third-party repair shops. However, corporate lobbyists and lawmakers are now pushing for amendments that would water down the law and restrict access to mechanical information needed by independent repair shops. Automakers claim that the new system mandated by the law would threaten consumer privacy, despite their own history of privacy violations. This is a common tactic used by companies opposing right to repair laws.
Comcast reluctantly agrees to stop its misleading "10G Network" claims
Comcast has agreed to stop using the brand name "Xfinity 10G Network" after losing an appeal against a ruling that found the term to be misleading. The term "10G" refers to potential 10Gbps broadband connections, which are faster than standard cable network speeds. Verizon and T-Mobile challenged Comcast's advertising of 10G, claiming it was meant to counter the hype around 5G. The National Advertising Review Board (NARB) agreed with the ruling that Comcast should discontinue the use of the term 10G. However, Comcast will still use the term in other ways that are less likely to confuse consumers.
Saudi Arabia Joins BRICS
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