News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

moobsen

There is a difference between taking joy in doing what you are good at and taking pride in being better than others.

Just as a guild can be helpful to find like minded people who enjoy doing what you do and elevate the profession as a whole, but also as an institution to keep outsiders out.

I am not saying I don't understand the fears. Imagining this machine that can do everything faster and cheaper than me, making me completely obsolete is of course scary. But really to me that is all that is, imagination. At least for now.

Also, even if my job gets completely automated away, I could see myself enjoying trying to understand how that magical thinking machine works and teaching that to others. Even if it is just at the frontier of my limited understanding and not the frontier of human/machine knowledge.

> it was being the only one in your city to be able to solve a complicated math problem, it was immortalizing yourself because you discovered a proof and added to the ever expanding human knowledge

I think if that is what one builds an ego on, being better in a discipline than most others, that is a good way to go into isolation and depression. With or without AI.

As Grant lays out in parts of his video, teaching, helping others, socializing etc. will always be valuable skills and much more likely to lead towards happiness.

And while I don't know how the specialized problem solving roles in a future with an actual capable AI will look like, I am sure it will continue to be a useful and needed skill as well. Without everyone having to take on a manager role.

I just switched to a Fairphone 5 with e/OS, which is a de-googled Android (it uses microG), and am pleasantly surprised how well everything works. My banking apps work, contacts and calendar lived on nextcloud already, the learning apps I use work. The two things I have to get used to is not having google maps, but the map app on there has also worked fine for me so far. And casting to a Chromecast doesn't really work for me, but I can live without that.
This is hacker news. Hackers generally do not like authoritarianism.

If that surprises you, I recommend reading the hacker howto.

"Hackers are naturally anti-authoritarian. Anyone who can give you orders can stop you from solving whatever problem you're being fascinated by — and, given the way authoritarian minds work, will generally find some appallingly stupid reason to do so. So the authoritarian attitude has to be fought wherever you find it, lest it smother you and other hackers."

There is a difference between a hacker and a cracker, which might these days be called "tech-bro". Even if it might not be obvious to everyone.

https://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

Re:The Quiet Art of Attention on Monday October 14, 2024 @02:46AM (#41834864)
I think it is helpful to differentiate between mindfulness and concentration.*

I would associate flow more with concentration. And if there is no mindfulness together with the concentration, time will just "fly by". At least for me.

*As it is done in Buddhism, where both are separate spokes of the dharma wheel.

Re:The Mind’s Body Problem on Sunday November 14, 2021 @03:50PM (#29220531)
I share your wish, but I think that a big part of this is actually only understandable through experience.

Just like you cannot really describe an unknown taste to someone, or describe colors to a blind person, etc.

I love htop.

For me the design philosophy worked quite well. I learned so much about my system just by using it and trying to understand all of its output. And I am still learning after years of using it.

I actually like to just sit and watch it sometimes, it's fascinating to me how much a computer does at all times, even when it is idle.

Re:My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too on Tuesday October 20, 2020 @08:02AM (#24836337)
So what you are saying is today's chatbots are useless? I agree in most cases, from my limited experience.

But a chatbot which actually answers my questions would be great. I hope what we are seeing is the Through of Disillusionment[1] and soon will get support chatbots that are actually helpful.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle#/media/File:Gartner...

Re:You don’t need reproducible builds on Thursday August 06, 2020 @01:05AM (#24068265)
As much as we like to pretend to only look at the arguments itself, I think part of the reason is because Travis is a pretty well known hacker. If I or you had published it, it probably would not have made it to the front page.

Even if I disagree with his overall opinion on reproducible builds, I think he does bring forward valid arguments and I personally took something away from reading his blog post (e.g. the word bugdoor).

But to your point, I think up-voting is a sign of approval, while commenting usually is used to criticize. Why would anyone comment on something they 100% agree with?

I'd recommending digging through his website: http://bach.ai/

Depending on what interests you, maybe also look at the abstracts of his research papers?

http://bach.ai/publications/

Re:Possible dinosaur DNA has been found on Saturday April 18, 2020 @04:33AM (#22906218)
Are you referring to a movie? Which one?

Or something like this? https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.06148

I don't understand either how this got to the top of hn. I recently spent a weekend on the peninsula of Nordstrand and didn't even realize this was there... and it's nothing special in that area really. E.g. Sylt is connected to the mainland via a car train which I found much more exciting when I was younger (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autozugverkehr_Nieb%C3%BCll%E2...) [german]
Re:Privacy on Thursday September 28, 2017 @08:26AM (#15356572)
My comment wasn't meant to compare it to anything else. Their nice words just don't convince me on a technical level and I'm surprised that so many people here appear to fully trust them. If their phones were perfectly secure there would be no debate if they are willing unlock the phone for any agency or not. It would simply not be possible and there would exist no security company that is able to do so.
Re:Privacy on Thursday September 28, 2017 @06:04AM (#15355960)
> nothing can beat the sense of security with privacy Apple carries with itself now.

That is exactly it. Apple is not good at privacy, they are good at giving you the sense of it. A closed source OS, on proprietary hardware, where they don't even give you root access to your own device, will never be private. You pay them, but really they own the phone and you have to trust them.

But they are obviously very good at making you /feel/ secure and private.

Re:Curl’s backdoor threat on Tuesday September 12, 2017 @09:37AM (#15227153)
Assuming one can trust git and GitHub (and CAs), is there a technical reason why you would consider distributing code via GitHub as unsafe?
Re:Ask HN: Share Your Raspberry Pi Project on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @11:08AM (#14856796)
Currently I am building a mobile GPS beacon which a drone can follow. The goal is to create a small follow-me box without the need for a smartphone.
Yes, sorry if that was not clear. Just made me question every "4K" mentioned in the article.
"Gears of War 4 looks amazing in 4K"

Why would you put a 1.920px × 1.080px screenshot next to that?

4K = 4096 × 2160 Pixel

Re:The Lawlessness of Medicine on Monday February 22, 2016 @12:42PM (#11152644)
AFAIK, the most important law of medicine is "First, do no harm." The rest is basically the details.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_non_nocere