Friday, April 29, 2022

New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: It's 2022. Where should I direct the youths to learn about programming?

Ask HN: It's 2022. Where should I direct the youths to learn about programming?
8 by slyrus | 11 comments on Hacker News.
So... Child #2 (18 yo) is interested in learning programming. Good "with computers" and proficient in level-appropriate math but didn't grow up as a hacker like his old man (I'll refrain from making him learn turtle graphics and BASIC). Where should I point the kid to learn the basics? I'm afraid that if I show him how to download (or, better yet, build) emacs, how to build SBCL, install SLIME, etc... and hand the kid copies of SICL and PCL someone will call child protective services on me. I imagine there was a time when the answer would have been java/awt, but those days seem long gone. Maybe there was a let's do it all in javascript phase, but that doesn't seem to be the answer today. So... modern starter pack? VS Code and Python? Tell him to learn Pandas/SciPy/NumPy? Are there any highly recommended online courses for learning this stuff?

‘Extremely Critical Fire Weather’ Threatens the Southwest


By BY MICHAEL LEVENSON from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/FPIdU3X

New top story on Hacker News: We fixed f-string bugs in 69 of the most popular Python repos in only 1 day

We fixed f-string bugs in 69 of the most popular Python repos in only 1 day
55 by rikatee | 63 comments on Hacker News.


Instacart Searches for a Direction as Its Pandemic Boom Fades


By BY KELLEN BROWNING AND ERIN GRIFFITH from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/MjhW5rs

New top story on Hacker News: PipeWire: Bluetooth Support Status Update

PipeWire: Bluetooth Support Status Update
17 by mfilion | 0 comments on Hacker News.


Thursday, April 28, 2022

New top story on Hacker News: Core dumps, feedback loops, and a game of telephone

Core dumps, feedback loops, and a game of telephone
15 by pdubroy | 1 comments on Hacker News.


Strikes hit central Kyiv, setting at least one building ablaze.


By BY JEFFREY GETTLEMAN AND ANDREW E. KRAMER from NYT World https://ift.tt/lPRXMwY

New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Do you find it challenging to talk to your users?

Ask HN: Do you find it challenging to talk to your users?
10 by atomiomi | 2 comments on Hacker News.
One of the problems I faced when I had my first users on [just-diary.com](http://just-diary.com) is that I didn’t have any way to talk to them. Like getting feedback on using the product, asking them questions about what they want from it, and sharing some tips on how to use some features. Does anyone have the same problem? If yes, how did you solve it?

‘Small Kindnesses’: A Collective Poem by Teenagers Around the World


By BY DANUSHA LAMÉRIS AND THE LEARNING NETWORK from NYT The Learning Network https://ift.tt/qsJEOZ5

New top story on Hacker News: Inform 7 v10.1.0 is now open-source

Inform 7 v10.1.0 is now open-source
30 by nickmain | 4 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: Near-linear speedup for CPU compute on 20-core Mac Studio

Near-linear speedup for CPU compute on 20-core Mac Studio
21 by selimnairb | 3 comments on Hacker News.


Wednesday, April 27, 2022

New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: A tool to seed your dev database with real data

Show HN: A tool to seed your dev database with real data
16 by ev0xmusic | 1 comments on Hacker News.
A bunch of developers and myself have created RepliByte - an open-source tool to seed a development database from a production database. Features: - Support data backup and restore for PostgreSQL, MySQL and MongoDB - Replace sensitive data with fake data - Works on large database (> 10GB) (read Design) - Database Subsetting: Scale down a production database to a more reasonable size - Start a local database with the prod data in a single command - On-the-fly data (de)compression (Zlib) - On-the-fly data de/encryption (AES-256) - Fully stateless (no server, no daemon) and lightweight binary - Use custom transformers My motivation: As a developer, creating a fake dataset for running tests is tedious. Plus, it does not reflect the real-world data and painful to keep updated. If you prefer to run your app tests with production data. Then RepliByte is for you as well. Available for MacOSX, Linux and Windows. > https://ift.tt/XELlxw9

Cynthia Albritton, Rock’s ‘Plaster Caster,’ Dies at 74


By BY NEIL GENZLINGER from NYT Arts https://ift.tt/IPRS83k

New top story on Hacker News: Goals of Care

Goals of Care
6 by mstats | 0 comments on Hacker News.


Book Bans, From Both the Left and the Right


By Unknown Author from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/iaolwcF

New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: What Happened to Pinboard (April '22 edition)?

Ask HN: What Happened to Pinboard (April '22 edition)?
47 by ihodes | 13 comments on Hacker News.
There have been threads like this before (last one in 1.5 months ago: https://ift.tt/mK9pB3g), but I'm not really sure what to do. I've emailed Maciej on 4/13/21, 12/11/21, and 4 times in the past month (a more urgent issue) with no response. Full-text search is regularly broken, archiving doesn't work sometimes, and most recently my >5yr archiving account was disabled on 4/1 with no warning or ability to re-up, so as far as I know I've lost archived bookmarks from up to a decade ago (don't remember when I turned on the service). It doesn't look like When I tried to re-up my archiving account, I selected 10 years, but was charged for 1 year (without the 10 yr discount, of course) instead. I really have enjoyed using Pinboard, and have been since at least 2011 (when the entry was created in 1pw), but this is a bummer and I'm not sure what to do. I really respect Maciej and wish him the best, and would love to keep using Pinboard. Edit: Maciej, I hear you're in Taiwan. I'd love to give you some recommendations off the beaten path!

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: Sqwok – A social chat alternative to Twitter and Reddit

Show HN: Sqwok – A social chat alternative to Twitter and Reddit
49 by holler | 14 comments on Hacker News.
I previously did a Show HN late Dec 2020: https://ift.tt/tDFujce That was a great experience and in the past year I continued to develop the site to bring it to a level of stability and maturity that I felt necessary for it to have a chance to succeed. Sqwok is all about answering the question: Can we have better open conversations on the internet? I wasn’t satisfied with the existing means of discussing topics such as culture, history, politics, and technology through threaded comments, and was simultaneously impressed with Slack bringing the IRC experience to the browser for a more general but enterprise focused audience. I wondered why not create an open Slack-like chat app for general discussion? Not gamers or enterprise but rather for people to have open, kitchen-table discussion on the matters of the day (or just for fun!). I set out to build this because I wanted to use it myself and felt that existing chat apps weren't designed for open public discourse in the way Reddit/Twitter are but for threaded comments & mostly unidirectional communication. This past year I’ve been very grateful to have a group of people continuously show up, offer support of the site and the idea, encouraging me to continue. Without those people I would have probably gave up! But alas I want to see this through and I believe now is the moment to make it happen. Since the last Show HN I’ve added: - markdown support in chat messages, post text, and user bio in profile (soon coming to full text post). - User profiles including bio, location, photo avatar, and chronological post listings. - New “who’s online” list that shows the top 10 ppl online and helps steer people to active conversations. - @mentions now work in posts, user bios, as well as chat messages. - Email notifications to be alerted when someone @mentions you. - Settings pages with ability to change password, delete account, and manage notification settings. - Upgraded image handling to support higher res photos with upcoming features allowing enhanced viewing. - Major refactor of the chat handling to stabilize it and fix many bugs with presence, locations, etc. - Many improvements to the codebase, frontend, backend, UI, tests, etc - Updated mobile web UI that drops you straight into the chat in a single view. - Ability to toggle full width chat view on desktop. - Live message counts displayed on the post list items that are updated in realtime. - Updated location handling for realtime location display. - Backend stability & aggregate analytics. Through Sqwok and particularly through the last Show HN I've met & got to know numerous people living across the entire Earth from Laos to Europe to Africa, all through a silly piece of software that for some reason seemed like the thing to work on. Truth be told there is much, much more I want to do with this. I believe now is the perfect time with the state of existing social networks and I’m hoping to find more people to support the site and help drive it to the next level. Let me know if you have any questions, Thanks!

The maker of Ray-Ban sunglasses has sued JPMorgan over $272 million in fraudulent payments.


By BY LANANH NGUYEN from NYT Business https://ift.tt/JGRKL4q

New top story on Hacker News: FrogFind: the Search Engine for Vintage Computers

FrogFind: the Search Engine for Vintage Computers
15 by tambourine_man | 3 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: We unplugged a data center to test our disaster readiness

We unplugged a data center to test our disaster readiness
105 by ianrahman | 5 comments on Hacker News.


Monday, April 25, 2022

Macron’s Win Is Also a Blow to Viktor Orban’s Nationalist Crusade


By BY STEVEN ERLANGER from NYT World https://ift.tt/natZ2AP

New top story on Hacker News: Hexells – Self-Organising System of Cells Drawing Textures [WebGL]

Hexells – Self-Organising System of Cells Drawing Textures [WebGL]
29 by sva_ | 3 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: Bricks Might Save Clicks

Bricks Might Save Clicks
9 by prostoalex | 1 comments on Hacker News.


In France, a Victory and a Warning


By Unknown Author from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/kFPj6cH

‘The Premonitions Bureau’ Recounts Crowdsourcing the Supernatural


By BY DWIGHT GARNER from NYT Books https://ift.tt/yn9TFUu

New top story on Hacker News: Multimodal Art

Multimodal Art
10 by btdmaster | 1 comments on Hacker News.


Wednesday, April 20, 2022

New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: DTL: a language and JavaScript lib to transform and manipulate data

Show HN: DTL: a language and JavaScript lib to transform and manipulate data
17 by jk0ne | 1 comments on Hacker News.
DTL is a project that began it's life as part of a another piece of software for a startup I founded a few years ago. For that project I needed a way to describe how to rewrite data in a portable way. I needed to be able to create the rules on the fly and store them in a database, I needed them to be able to describe transformations I hadn't thought about, but also needed them to be safe and predictable. Though the startup didn't survive, the language I made was so useful to me I felt I had to extract it and make it usable to everyone. DTL is the result. Though the npm module is relatively new, the language itself has been in use in production systems for years. Over the past couple of years I have been working to make it more accessible and useful to newcomers. Though it's really powerful, I tried to make it easy to use and simple to understand so that you can get up to speed quickly and use only as much as you need. To summarize: DTL is a javascript module and related CLI tools that are really handy for transforming data from one format to another. It's made to allow you to specify your transformations as data (JSON by default) which means they are easily shared from frontend to backend and vice versa, as well as making them easily stored in databases, etc. It can be used as part of your project to transform data between APIs, between the frontend and your database, etc. and can do simple mappings as well as complex calculations. It can also be used for validation and is really handy for extracting useful information from large / complex datasets (there are some great examples of this you can try on the website). The CLI tool (dtl) is like jq on sterooids, allowing you to slice, dice and remap csv, yaml, json or even plaintext data doing anything you can describe in a DTL transform. If you ever wished you could `grep` in complex data structures, today is your lucky day. :) I'd love any feedback you have and if you think of anything it doesn't have that it should, I'd love to hear that too.

Virus cases are rising in New York, but Hochul says it’s hard to predict what form the ‘bump’ might take.


By BY GRACE ASHFORD from NYT New York https://ift.tt/bOySim5

New top story on Hacker News: BCI lets completely “locked-in” man communicate

BCI lets completely “locked-in” man communicate
113 by sizzle | 65 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: Apple to roll out child safety feature that scans messages for nudity to UK

Apple to roll out child safety feature that scans messages for nudity to UK
32 by Larrikin | 9 comments on Hacker News.


Saturday, April 16, 2022

New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: 4917 Machine Code for Kids – Card Game

Show HN: 4917 Machine Code for Kids – Card Game
8 by throwaway47292 | 3 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: My website, hosted on a 386 25 MHz, 4 MiB of RAM, 38400 baud internet

Show HN: My website, hosted on a 386 25 MHz, 4 MiB of RAM, 38400 baud internet
44 by serentty | 27 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: Using SBCL Common Lisp as a Dynamic Library

Using SBCL Common Lisp as a Dynamic Library
10 by pcr910303 | 0 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: What should I bring up during salary negotiation as a junior developer?

Ask HN: What should I bring up during salary negotiation as a junior developer?
14 by _lgj5 | 22 comments on Hacker News.
So i am a junior software developer in a large consultant company and have my first salary negotitations soon and need some help. I was told all juniors would increase the same in a sort of collective way since some did not get the same chances when it came to projects and performance, however my boss said there was a small change they would consider giving a larger raise based on performance. I have been lucky and got a very good project, as in I could show my strengths and it's a high value customer. During the project i took a lot of initiative and responsibility, we were 3 developers working on it (2 seniors and me) and luckily one of them is my boss. The project is now being used by the customer and I am the only one maintaining the project and feeling I have taken even more responsibility than was expected. The project was fairly large consisting of 2 frontends and one backend, where I made ~80% of both the frontends and did all the database work on the backend. To be honest being told that my performance wont impact my salary is kind of a bummer considering i have to wait another year for the next possible raise. I can see myself working here for some time, but i feel like saying that would make them feel like they can pay me less as im not going to leave in the foreseeable future. The project is now also being used as a reference to sell consultants to other customers and it has also garnered attention in nationwide news. So my question to you is how should approach the salary negotiation and how should i present my case to my boss? Sorry if this is incoherent, english is not my first language. Thanks.

Friday, April 15, 2022

New top story on Hacker News: Overengineered Japanese Mechanical Pencils

Overengineered Japanese Mechanical Pencils
33 by jkellermann | 9 comments on Hacker News.


Kathy Hochul Is Standing on a Very High Glass Cliff


By BY JESSICA BENNETT from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/7y8zDrU

New top story on Hacker News: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company
93 by grogu88 | 53 comments on Hacker News.


Love Letter: A Single Mother Meets Another Single Mother


By Unknown Author from NYT Style https://ift.tt/jDgeWVU

Shin Gallery Charms and Surprises With a Motley Collection


By BY JOHN VINCLER from NYT Arts https://ift.tt/bZ1Y3OW

New top story on Hacker News: Clojure Isn’t for Me

Clojure Isn’t for Me
16 by capableweb | 2 comments on Hacker News.


Thursday, April 14, 2022

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

The World Bank is preparing to deliver $1.5 billion in aid to Ukraine.


By BY ALAN RAPPEPORT from NYT Business https://ift.tt/8kBt6cr

New top story on Hacker News: A Case of Plagarism in Machine Learning Research

A Case of Plagarism in Machine Learning Research
6 by EvgeniyZh | 0 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: The Fake Artists Problem Is Much Worse Than You Realize

The Fake Artists Problem Is Much Worse Than You Realize
36 by jger15 | 25 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

Are film critics losing sync with audiences?
68 by ingve | 143 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: Encouraging Self-Doubt

Encouraging Self-Doubt
8 by zdw | 2 comments on Hacker News.


The Pentagon will meet with major military contractors to plan aid for Ukraine.


By BY JULIAN E. BARNES from NYT World https://ift.tt/iOFqPrj

New top story on Hacker News: Big cuts coming for CNN+ after slow start

Big cuts coming for CNN+ after slow start
32 by uptown | 24 comments on Hacker News.


Monday, April 11, 2022

Despite Low Turnout, Mexico Voters Back President to Stay in Office


By BY OSCAR LOPEZ AND NATALIE KITROEFF from NYT World https://ift.tt/6xwXdiP

New top story on Hacker News: Intuit asked Mailchimp employees to pay medical costs out of pocket

Intuit asked Mailchimp employees to pay medical costs out of pocket
68 by luu | 20 comments on Hacker News.


Tove Ditlevsen’s Fiction Is Bleak and Claustrophobic — Mostly in a Good Way


By BY DWIGHT GARNER from NYT Books https://ift.tt/STyd4XP

New top story on Hacker News: Interstellar object exploded over Earth in 2014, declassified govmt data reveal

Interstellar object exploded over Earth in 2014, declassified govmt data reveal
17 by DemiGuru | 2 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: Multiplayer Demo Built with Elixir

Show HN: Multiplayer Demo Built with Elixir
41 by wenbo | 2 comments on Hacker News.
Hey HN, I’m an engineer at Supabase [0] and one of the creators of this demo. My team and I have been working hard to bring developers the next version of Supabase Realtime. The current version of Realtime [1] is a Change Data Capture (CDC) server for a PostgreSQL database that broadcasts changes via WebSockets to authorized subscribers. It’s written in Elixir/Phoenix. The server utilizes PostgreSQL’s logical replication functionality, which writes database changes to Write-Ahead Logging (WAL) segment files, and a replication slot, responsible for managing and retaining WAL files. Database changes are polled from WAL by the server using PostgreSQL’s replication function pg_logical_slot_get_changes and changes converted to JSON objects using the wal2json [2] extension by setting it as the output plugin. Security is enforced through two checks - each check ensures only authorized client subscribers are sent database changes. The first check validates a JWT that is sent by clients subscribing to database changes. This JWT must contain an existing database role and optional claims, both of which can be referenced in Row Level Security (RLS) policies. Every valid client subscription is then inserted into the realtime.subscription table with an assigned UUID, database role, and claims. The second check calls the realtime.apply_rls SQL function from Write Ahead Log Realtime Unified Security (WALRUS) utility lib [3]. This function takes the database changes, executes a prepared statement to verify if the database role and claims have SELECT permissions on the changes, and outputs an array of authorized UUIDs. Then, the server finds all the subscribers whose UUIDs are in that array and broadcasts the changes to them. The next version of Supabase Realtime will offer three features: Broadcast, Presence, and Extensions. Broadcast, our Pub/Sub offering, can be used to pass ephemeral data from client to client such as cursor movements. This runs on a distributed cluster of nodes built on top of Phoenix PubSub + Channels. Presence, can be used for tracking online/offline users and their state. This is built into Phoenix, and uses replicated state across a cluster using an Observe-Remove-Set-Without-Tombstones (ORSWOT) CRDT [4] which prefers adds over removes when resolving conflicts. Extensions, are a way for the community to add additional functionality to take advantage of the WebSocket infrastructure. We have converted the existing Change Data Capture system to an extension that supports connecting to multiple customer databases (multi-tenancy). Other possible extensions include listening to other databases like MySQL and getting stock market events server-side [5], then broadcasting them to connected clients. This demo is built using a Supabase project, Supabase Realtime, and Next.js and deployed on 20 Fly [6] nodes located around the world. You can find an introduction and walkthrough of the demo here [5]. Supabase Realtime is entirely open source and you can find the demo code here [7]. Once we have stabilized the release we will add it to the self-hosted offering [8]. This demo is a way to highlight the upcoming features and gather feedback/ideas. Feel free to ask me anything and let me know what you think! [0] https://supabase.com [1] https://ift.tt/AZF5HfN [2] https://ift.tt/nXetGsa [3] https://ift.tt/uSMWDyF [4] https://ift.tt/608qPmw... [5] https://ift.tt/4stGIyb... [6] https://fly.io [7] https://ift.tt/kgjpYSb [8] https://ift.tt/XhfViQN

New top story on Hacker News: -h –Help -help Help –? –?

-h –Help -help Help –? –?
28 by todsacerdoti | 35 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: Security Comics

Security Comics
16 by segudev | 0 comments on Hacker News.


Monday, April 4, 2022

New top story on Hacker News: Digital models preserve game show history

Digital models preserve game show history
7 by rcarmo | 1 comments on Hacker News.


Atrocities in Bucha could complicate Russia-Ukraine talks.


By BY IVAN NECHEPURENKO from NYT World https://ift.tt/oUWKsyv

World War II, Ukraine and the Future of Conflict


By BY JOSEF JOFFE from NYT Books https://ift.tt/yKuOs0l

A Century of the BBC, a ‘Quasi-Mystical’ Part of England’s Psyche


By BY DWIGHT GARNER from NYT Books https://ift.tt/x5rH2mP

Jury Selection Begins in Sentencing Trial for Parkland Gunman


By BY PATRICIA MAZZEI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/oJvq9Rp

Biden Calls Putin a War Criminal After Images from Bucha Surface


By BY THE NEW YORK TIMES from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/4f8byio