HN user
Maybe move all data centers into geostationary orbit. They would be solar powered with direct communication between each orbiting center and transmitters/receiver stations on the planet surface. With that sort of lifting capacity, it wouldn't take too long to move most data center servers into orbit. Would it be cost effective? Maybe not. But I reckon there would be some climate change benefit by moving all that heat out into space.
thus alleviating the need for the developer to release a new version through the app store review process
I'm not an native app developer but this seems like a win, right? I wonder what app store owners will make of it?
All users see the latest version of the UI at the same time on both iOS and Android
Seems very much like what you can do with a typical browser application. In the long run, I wonder if this is detrimental to the native app ecosystem. Why not just build for the browser?
it seems rather clear to me that all these things cannot and will not be resolved on the implementation level
Absolutely! This is why we need good legislation. Tech issues will never be solved by tech builders. All tech measures invariably have a tech counter-measure. We've been round this loop so many times over the last two decades. It's a Sisyphean nightmare.
It is structurally impossible to design your way out of capitalism
This is what good legislation can do for us. The only problem is it takes a lot longer to introduce good legislation than it takes to build bad tech. I'm optimistic that we're approaching the end of the bad tech era.
Short of economic changes that are completely outside the particular problem domain that these kinds of posts tackle, there is nothing at all to be done.
I reckon legislators in the EU would disagree. They are doing a lot and it's starting to work.
surgeon general moment
I get the impression that the GDPR is ushering in the surgeon general moment that you mention. It's slowly starting to improve the health of the web. The latest rulings may even finally kill the cookie banner. Hallelujah.
Not sure if you're being humorous but just in case, it means the 'making of a sigh' as in 'generating something new' rather than a 'group of people'. As a joke, it works for my generation. The older I get the more I sigh and these days it has a lot to do with cookie banners. But that's another matter.
Nice read. Firm supporter of Web Pi (3.1415). When it comes to building for the web today, I'm always amazed that "so much can be done with so little" and yet the default is the opposite - "so much is needed to deliver so little" - so irrational! Where did we go wrong? I wonder what Web Euler (2.71828) would have looked like?
Upvote for 'Oh Goodie' and the humour in general. But had to reflect on the sad reality of the following being in green!
spend 99.58% less money on health care
That is apparently a 'benefit' of living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When compared to:
die 23.88 years sooner
perhaps the health care statistic should have been in red?
Disagree. The key information is no longer than an average privacy policy (and frankly, less complex) and whereas there are millions of privacy policies (which no one ever reads), there is only one GDPR. Give it one hour of close reading and you'll see just how important and useful it is. It's worth the effort because you only need to do it once.
This kind of 'leakage' is key to personal profiling. If this ruling becomes widespread, profiling may prove much harder to do (which is a good thing).
Edit: clarification
I really like that quote. It seems like it would work just as well for programmers too: "I didn't have time to write a 100 SLOC, so I wrote 1000."
And, a high percentage of websites load as slowly as a sick turtle awaking from a long slumber.
I love that the full page makes just 2 requests (1 html file and one favicon). 20KB transferred. 1 second to load. No JavaScript, no cookies, no dependencies at all. This, to me, is the essence of 'respect your visitor'. Kudos.
More importantly, topics are thoughtfully curated to exclude sensitive categories, such as gender or race.
'Thoughtfully curated' by whom? The user or Google? This seems like it's less about privacy and more about advertising. I wonder if it would have been more honest to call it Advertising Sandbox?
Again, all I am arguing is that if you use a sequential test, you should analyze it accordingly.
I hate to be picky and negative but this doesn't seem like a justification for the use of the word 'harmful' in the title. The phrase 'considered harmful' has been used quite a bit lately and I get that it attracts attention but a title like 'Bayesian A/B Testing Considered Harmful' sounds like a group of authoritative individuals has collectively decided that it is indeed, harmful (and I was expecting a list of the reasons why). If it's just one persons opinion, wouldn't it be more accurate to say 'Why I consider Bayesian A/B Testing harmful'.
Wow. This is so useful. I'm always left a bit speechless when I come across something really useful like this. It should be a first stop for all would be entrepreneurs. Thanks.
Thanks. That was a really good explanation and covered all the bases. Makes you wonder if there's a business case for implementing a one-off payment mechanism for response time. For instance, 'free' means "we're listening but probably won't respond" while '$1' means "we're listening and will respond within a week". Just a thought.
Yep. Kind of like "we value your privacy" means "we don't give a shit about your privacy". I guess the only way to uncover a platitude is to test it. The problem with "We are listening to your feedback" is that "listening" is hard to disprove. It doesn't require any action - they're just "listening". It sounds good but doesn't mean anything useful. If, instead, it was "We will respond to your feedback within 48 hours" - well, that's testable. That sounds like a real, honest, useful commitment. Is it just too expensive to do that? Even for a billion dollar business?
Excellent idea. If they tied it to a fitness calculator it would show your life extending when you exercise and shrinking when you don't. Spend more time on the couch and watch your life get shorter. Go for a long walk and watch it grow longer. Seems like a pretty good motivator. Don't show me how many steps I've taken. Just show me how much life I have left. I would buy one!
This reminds me so much of the ACID tests[1] from the late 90's, early 2000s. I wonder if it will have a similar effect, i.e. to drive people away from Chrome in the same way it eventually drove people away from IE.
Wow - he would have been 14 years old. Also, the second comment is from Dave Winer.
Nope. You probably just had JavaScript disabled (which would be the sensible thing to do). Or maybe they haven't got round to it yet and in a few weeks all of what you mention will be implemented along with 48 tracking cookies, 4MB of JavaScript downloads (of which only 16KB is ever used) and an incomprehensible cookie banner referencing 641 privacy policies which no one will ever read!
The things we do, eh? I wonder what Wittgenstein would have made of it all.
I'm just seeing arrays everywhere. 1, 2, and 3 seems wrong to me. I reckon it should either be 1, 2, 3 or 1, 2 and 3. When a comma is followed directly by 'and' (or by 'or'), one of them just seems superfluous.
On a side note, it makes you wonder if lawyers should take a course in programming. I wonder if these two arrays would have clarified matters:
The Intent of the Contract: no overtime for the following: [ canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment, distribution ] This would have included truck drivers because it separates packing from distribution.
The Ruling: No overtime for the following: [ canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for [ shipment, distribution ] ] This excludes truck drivers because it puts distribution with packing and truck drivers don't pack! The power of arrays.
The ability to 'value a result' seems to me to be linked to consciousness. How do machines belong to that axis? Do you really think machines can value something in the same way you and I do? I would assume they can't (and may never). You could probably code an algorithm that simulates 'valuing a result', but I'm sceptical that the machine would actually value the result in the way you and I would. If it did, that would be astonishing as it would indicate (to me) that it's alive!
Yep. Totally unsubstantiated. Back of the envelope theory at best.
learn (see a pattern and repeat it)
How did your AI 'see' and is 'see a pattern and repeat it' a good enough definition of 'learn'? Surely to 'learn' also means to 'understand'. What did your AI 'understand'? I doubt your AI actually learned anything. It attained zero knowledge in the way a living thing obtains knowledge. It may have stored a result in a database but did it actually understand anything?
These are genuine questions as I have no professional knowledge of AI.
Machines don't learn. Living things learn. Machines don't understand. Living things understand. Machines 'do' algorithms. Living things 'do' use-cases.
Algorithm Definition:
A sequence of actions that yields a result.
Use-case Definition:
A sequence of actions that yields a result of value to a user.
The difference between the two is 'of value to a user'. To me, the line between algorithm and use-case is the line between unconsciousness and consciousness. That line pivots around the ability to 'value' something. I doubt we will ever see the I in AI until we build something that can value a result in the same way that you and I do.
We need new words to describe what machines do. Using 'learn' or 'understand' seems like anthropomorphism. It's weird that we glibly anthropomorphise when talking about machines but prohibit it when talking about living things. Almost all of our qualities have been inherited from other living things. It seems to me that we should always anthropomorphise when talking about living things and never anthropomorphise when talking about machines. And yet, we always seem to do the opposite.
Until we can explain how a machine can 'value' something in the same sense that humans do (or chimps or ducks or caterpillars do), we should avoid anthropomorphic words like 'learn' and 'understand' as it misdirects our efforts. However, I have no idea what else to suggest other than to try to explain how a machine can 'value' something.
IBM’s Watson was found to propose “multiple examples of unsafe and incorrect treatment recommendations.”
That won't stop until Watson has the ability to 'value' the result of what it is doing. Watson 'does' algorithms. Watson needs to 'do' use-cases. Once it can 'value' a result in the same way we do, it will correct its mistakes.
I realise this is mostly about the Lena image but to answer the question "Can data die?", I think the answer is Yes, but only if it is permanently erased or contained in a medium that is rendered verifiably and permanently inaccessible. For as long as it remains accessible, data remains 'alive'. There are technical measures that can ensure data is permanently erased or made permanently inaccessible, but both need the backing of good legislation, otherwise they will never happen. I agree with sersi that this image is a historical artefact and a case can be made that it should be treated differently but overall, legislation mandating time limits on data would be a good thing. The problem is how would you enforce such legislation? It's so easy to make copies of data and so easy to hide said copies. Perhaps the real issue is the public or commercial use of unconsented data. Putting an end to that would be a good thing. The conundrum about this particular case is that Lena, the data subject, does not consent to the use of her image but the owner of the image (presumably) does. Is this something a judge should resolve?
I think the 'terrible schema' thing is a secondary issue. The important take away for me was this:
Considering that we as an industry tend to chase off anyone who makes it to the age of 35, is it any surprise that we have a giant flock of people roaming around trying anything that'll work?
I wonder what 'lost' means to an eagle. Is it possible that it knows exactly how to get home and it's just on an extended vacation in a foreign land? Oh, to be an eagle.
It's somewhat off topic but why do you say this? Is it the 'progressive' issue or the 'web app' issue. My view is that a browser is a really good way to deliver applications - in fact, I prefer them to any other form of application. I'm not too hung up on the whole 'progressive' thing these days but a NoJS application still has it's benefits.
Where is it stored? Who is storing it?
Why do you have this in your privacy policy?
We may share Your personal information in the following situations:
With Service Providers: We may share Your personal information with Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service, to contact You.
For business transfers: We may share or transfer Your personal information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of Company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of Our business to another company.
With Affiliates: We may share Your information with Our affiliates, in which case we will require those affiliates to honor this Privacy Policy. Affiliates include Our parent company and any other subsidiaries, joint venture partners or other companies that We control or that are under common control with Us.
With business partners: We may share Your information with Our business partners to offer You certain products, services or promotions.
With other users: when You share personal information or otherwise interact in the public areas with other users, such information may be viewed by all users and may be publicly distributed outside.
Edit: Apologies if this comes across as a bit blunt. Your project looks really interesting and clearly has huge potential. Its just that personal data and how it gets used is increasingly important.
I don't think I have a need to use Tor but I have seen Gemini mentioned several times here on HN. I definitely need to look into it a bit more. Thanks for that.