gooddelta

This slop is exactly what ChatGPT spits out when it's leading you down the hole of AI psychosis.

This is an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Consider what a nuclear disaster (like Chernobyl) costs: the total price of that disaster is however many statistical lives are lost (look up "value of a statistical life" if you don't know what I'm talking about) plus the total current and future potential economic value of the land on which the disaster occurred. That number is insanely high.

The cost of a commercial airplane crash can also be extremely high (for example, if it ends up hitting tower filled with people) – but typically, it doesn't completely decimate the value of the land upon which the accident occurs and all surrounding natural resources. Those resources are recoverable. That's why we can (by comparison) YOLO with an aircraft, but not with a nuclear reactor.

I do think nuclear power is safe; I don't think we should relax safety standards to deploy it – the rigor is required for a reason.

I've been noticing an uptick in these dumb attempts to convince the public that a little radiation is good for us. Just like PTFE, right? It's all about small doses.

Works in Progress (this "publication") is owned by Stripe, who seem to have an agenda they're trying to push, lately.

ITT: People who don't understand safety-critical systems telling people how to write safety-critical systems.

The most popular answer in this thread is "you can only write safe C++" which is bullshit. The language that you use will likely be dictated by the toolchain you're forced to use to meet whatever standard your org has adopted. For example, if you're in the automotive realm and following something like ISO-26262, you'll only be able to use a qualified toolchain that's compatible with your safety MCU – so you'll likely be limited to C or C++, and then FURTHER limited by MISRA standards to a subset of those languages. There is no version of Rust that may be used for safety-critical systems, currently – despite the fact that it's arguably a better language, the rigorous verification/documentation work hasn't been done yet. If you're looking for an alternative to C or C++ for use in safety-critical domains, look at Ada.

You will likely not find any example of an open source codebase for safety critical systems. Rigorously-developed safety-critical systems cost millions of dollars to produce, document, run through V&V, etc. They don't tend to get released as OSS.

For the rest of the folks in this thread: type safety, memory safety, etc. are awesome features – but having a language with these features doesn't allow you to build a safety-critical system. It doesn't even begin to. If you're curious, you can start to look at the roadmap for the Ferrocene project – the company behind it is working with the folks from AdaCore (AFAICR?) to make a version of Rust for safety-critical systems a reality (one that I'm very much looking forward to!)

I apologize if it appears I've stepped out of line, or if this thread has been difficult for you to moderate; that wasn't the intention.

If you go back to my first comment on this post, it seems reasonably clear that my message is not particularly contentious – I'm simply suggesting that people apply some amount of ethical rigor to their work. Sadly, that message was heavily twisted in all sorts of ways that somehow fit within this site's guidelines.

Ethics and politics are indivisible from the act of creating software. It clearly stands to reason that software is fractal of the beliefs of the people that create it. By placing intellectual curiosity on a pedestal above morals and ethics, HN has managed to drive away some of the most talented and credible people in the industry from this site – and to promulgate a culture of no accountability for what we do, or fail to do.

I've fought year-long battles that have come close to costing me my job, just so I could prevent inaccuracies in systems that likely process your credit score. I've consciously killed projects that would disadvantage entire groups of people, no matter how technically cool or interesting they were. In much the same way that I'm not willing to negligently let someone die, I'm also unwilling to be part of the next Manhattan project – but it's becoming clear to me that I'm in the minority of the Hacker News readership that feels that way, or has ever even considered the impact of their work.

Over the past ten years, the attitude of this community has single-handedly convinced me that the end of our world will be because somebody could, so they did. If we can create "deep fakes" on demand, we will. If we can patrol the border with some hastily slapped-together CV and ML, we will. If we can use deep learning to decide who will go to prison, we will. All under the guise of intellectual curiosity.

I honestly believed tech was a good thing at one point in my career – now I spend most of my time building systems to protect people from my peers.

I know I can't delete my account here yet – I've tried. But I've never felt more disconnected from a community I'm supposed to be a part of.

Did I say "regulating speech"? No. If we're going to try to have a cogent conversation, please stop putting words in my mouth.

Free speech != the right to a platform, which is synonymous with saying that, just because you have a voice doesn't mean your message has immediate merit, or that it is the truth, or that people have to give your voice equal weight to others, or that people have to listen to you.

Dude, nobody is arguing that we should ban digital communications at all. Take off the tinfoil hat, chicken little. What I'm suggesting is that if we are going to make PLATFORMS available (i.e. WhatsApp) that are capable of amplifying and making individual communications instantaneous, we mightttt need some more thought, collectively, about how to combat fucked up human nature. Like, just a pinch of consideration for the fact that the notion of free speech didn't evolve during a time in which any asshole could pull a thought out of their ass, hit send, anonymously, and reach a thousand people.

EDIT: Sorry, I realize that I was speaking condescendingly here. I'm just trying to get the point across that asking us to actually solve the hard problem of platforms before unleashing them on the world shouldn't be too big a burden to bear. Some (myself included) would argue that our entire society is destabilizing because of the lack of ingenuity in solving this problem. It gets frustrating.

Printing creates a barrier to entry. You have to have enough conviction in your idea and determination to actually write the statement, lay it out, and print and distribute it. You don't just type "oh shit closeparen should be hanged lmao," hit send, and reach 100 people.

Printing creates a barrier to entry. You have to have enough conviction in your idea, and the determination to actually write the statement, lay it out, and print and distribute it. You don't just type "oh shit lxrbst should be hanged lmao," hit send, and reach 100 people.

You're basically describing why journalism is important, and still has an important place in our society.

Speed and reach, my friend. Lynchings happened in the US a while ago, but they weren't a universal phenomenon. A platform with the speed and reach of WhatsApp makes disinformation more potent.

Nowhere in my post did I suggest human beings shouldn't be allowed to freely communicate – what I'm suggesting is that maybe we haven't built the right tools to enable that safely, and instead, we're exacerbating the "broken human beings" side of this issue.

You're not wrong – part of the blame obviously lies there.

But even if it is simply enabling and perpetuating an existing problem, why haven't we asked ourselves why technology isn't addressing the issue? How is this future we've created any better? Because it's faster? Because the UI is nicer?

It's rare to see startup culture produce anything that I would call true innovation. Maybe I just have a higher bar than most folks. That could be what I'm arguing here, and that doesn't change the fact that you have a point – I just believe we have to do better.

That's partially true – but end-to-end encryption is different than zero-knowledge. I design the latter.

Although LifeHacker isn't a great source, they do a good job of pulling more credible sources together into this article: https://lifehacker.com/stop-using-whatsapp-if-you-care-about...

Yeah, definitely no advertising, particularly overseas, that could have contributed to WhatsApp's growth. No features added like large groups that could be used to spread disinformation. WhatsApp chats are used to influence advertising, so that goes out the window. This happened because WhatsApp provided the means for it to happen – and you can speculate all day long about whether some other app would have made it possible, and whether it would have happened, but what you're saying is speculation, and what I'm citing are facts.

None of it was intentionally malicious – but not considering the moral, ethical, political ramifications of how your product will be used is negligent. This is negligence, not malice.

Platforms aren't neutral.

The platform is what spread those lies – without the platform, those lies wouldn't have had the reach they did.

That's the entire problem with this industry – we make the assumption that someone less ethical than us will come along and build the shitty product anyway, and use that as justification to do something we likely shouldn't.

Blaming WhatsApp is misplaced, in some sense – the blame lies with startup culture, and with each of us that choose to make that excuse.

I know this is going to be an inconvenient reminder for many folks, but: if you play any part in bringing software (or technology in general) into the world, you have an obligation to consider the moral, ethical, and political ramifications of what you are building at every single step of the way.

What happened in that village wasn't an accident – it was the result of careful "growth-hacking", design, product work, and engineering. It just didn't work as intended.

There is no such thing as a neutral line of code, feature, notification, design, business, or product. Full stop.

It looks like Enigma dog-foods their own data infrastructure products (Concourse / Assembly?). The public data thing inspired them to build better tools for themselves and sell them. Big lesson in that: sometimes what you learn along the way will be the most valuable.

Really awesome visualization, but I didn't read the text because the columns were insanely wide on my 24" monitor. Might want to constrain the width a bit, chaps.

Cool dude -- no worries; I'll just never hire you. Passion is really hard to fake and, frankly, I don't want to work with you if you don't have it.

Really nice interface. Could be a great way to discover interesting repos!

Or you could (gasp) actually learn/use more than one language at once. Sane people don't switch from one language to another -- they use the best tool for the job, when it's needed. I probably use between four and eight different languages a week, all of which I'm proficient in. I use them for different jobs, because they (or their libs) are more or less suited toward the task at hand.

And moreover, why the fuck should anyone have to "sell" you on a language? You're not buying the damned thing; it's free. Use it, or don't. Actually, don't. We need fewer entitled-feeling developers like you, and more people who care about improving the community.

When I was in fourth grade, my teacher pulled my father aside and told him, "I think your son may have ADD or ADHD." His response: "No."

While I understand his desire to believe I was okay, I wasn't. I've had extreme difficulty focusing since I was very young -- it's impacted my school work, my career, my relationships, everything.

After dropping out of college, I began to try to understand my problem better. I bought books for behaviorally challenged kids, came up with strategies to help me focus -- but nothing really worked. After over a year of trying to avoid medication, I went to my doctor and asked for a prescription for Adderall.

It worked flawlessly.

I'm a 6' 2", 180lb male, and I take a maximum of 10mg a day, up to three days of every seven. I know it's not good for me -- for all intents and purposes, it's speed -- but it's actually helped me function "normally." I'm not addicted to it. My prescription will run out, and I'll usually wait a month or two before renewing it -- but it's nice to have it there when I need to focus.

ADHD is hard to diagnose properly, and people can get addicted to Adderall, but that's why good doctors only prescribe it as a last resort to people that have the self-control necessary to properly use it.

The fast-paced tech industry often has this effect on its devotees. People like Alex live their lives at an accelerated rate. They work hard. They make their money at a young age. They compare themselves and their lives to the people around them -- people often twice their age -- and wonder why they don't have what their elders often have: family, children, a sense of self-understanding. Alex is young; 27 years old, if I'm not mistaken. He's done more, created more, and experienced more than most people his age, including having a four-year marriage. Do you remember what four years of anything felt like when you were his age? It's an eternity. His angst at having lost it and, in part, his realization that the life he was constructing for himself was not the life he wanted, is completely justified.

He deserves immense credit for showing this level of transparency. If you haven't taken some lesson away from this post, then you need to re-read it. It's not about empathy; it's about the importance of self-discovery.

I've known the Simple folk for a long time. The complexity and inherent safety designed into their product makes every other bank look like a joke. They still have to rely on banking partners to store the money, but they've gone to great pains to make sure that things work in a consistent and fail-safe way, if not with 100% availability during their beta. The other thing to note is that, although it's perceived as a bank, it isn't one; it's a front-end. They realized that everything a bank is defined by when you remove the vault comes down to customer interaction. I'm willing to accept when things break (especially during a beta) in exchange for some making some headway in my banking experience. Without avoiding the pun: it's a very simple proposition.

Quite possibly the best thing I've seen this month. You can hammer nails using the side... Sorta.

Everybody hold the phone.. I think.. I THINK I've figured out why he's alone.

OS X has had this since Snow Leopard -- you can go to any application's help menu, and begin typing the name of a menu item, even if it's nested. Using the arrow keys, you can navigate down the list of results, and as you select each item, the menus expand to show you the location of the item with a large, blue arrow next to it. You can then either click the item next to said arrow, activating it -- or simply press enter.

Apple had this years ago; they just made a conscious decision to keep using menus.

The title of this post is one of the primary reasons 20-something "chicks" don't start companies.

I've been saying this forever. Innovation is not just in the product; it's in the concept, and the way you describe it, as well. I'll choose not to describe my ventures in terms of everyone else's.