That's one of the most nonsensical comments on all of hackernews. A Markov change could have wrote it.
What do you mean Turing complete? Obviously all 3 programs are running on a Turing complete machine. Xargs is a runner for other commands, obviously those commands can be Turing complete.
I haven't heard of anybody working on a _proof_ for the Turing completeness of xargs, and I think the only conference willing to publish it would be Sigbovik.
That's not how it works. Housing prices are not allowed to go down, because a massive chunk of Boomer equity is bound up in them. If there's ever a danger of housing prices going down, bailouts will be issued and supply tightened until the "natural" state of things is restored and they go up again.
All the shitty covenants they put in much/most of even the shittiest of wasteland around me still exist though.
There was one piece of absolute shithole land I looked at because I was in the process of building a house.
Some dead guy decided to encumber it by requiring me to build a gigantic house if I wanted live there. Reversing it would require something as onerous roughly as getting all people in a 10 mile radius to stand on one foot while reciting the entire bible from memory. Technically possible so it holds up in court as not being a perpetual covenant, but for all intent in purposes was.
You would not believe how much land boomers basically ruined forever when they mindlessly engaged in some wack covenants back around the 80s.
Every settlement reaches a level of density where they have to re-reckon with land use rules collectively — that’s one of the deep flaws in a primarily private approach to land however appealing (and definitely particularly popular in boomer heydays).
https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the... - Look at the 60 and older groupings. Those are boomers and older generations. The youngest boomers are about 60, so 15 years average remaining for them but potentially 20-30 more years of boomers as a significant percentage of the population.
Not in California unfortunately, where Prop 13 has strong tax incentives to keep retirees in their existing home until death, even if it's far larger than what they need.
In short order there will be a speech about how ADP has "very nasty people" who need to stop saying like this or there will be "serious consequences".
After that, it's not that ADP will fabricate the numbers, they'll just stop making them public, and when e.g. analysts buy them the contract will come with a term forbidding public disclosure.
And if ADP did get the wild idea to resist any government action, the law firm representing them would be targeted as well. Like we've seen this year already.
1. Claim it is Biden's economy and his job numbers.
2. Claim the lost jobs are actually indian immigrants going back.
3. Your point about ADP.
4. Threaten any media that reports these numbers.
The better talking point here is that once the data is collected, you must assume the government can get to it, always. Who actually stores it (a public or private entity) is an irrelevant implementation detail, and people pretending otherwise are being foolish.
Sure, but how is the government simply obtaining the data directly not an escalation? A subpoena at least requires an additional step and ostensible checks.
Sounds like the way they're obtaining it without a subpoena is by simply purchasing it from a commercial data broker, though. If that's true, I'd say the real problem is that a broker is willing to sell virtually anyone this data with essentially no oversight – a problem that's sadly existed for quite a while already. One of their buyers being the government isn't the first-order problem there.
I predict that years down the road, a high-quality randomized study of Walmart versus non-Walmart shoppers will show that this move had no impact whatsoever on human health. I'm happy to make this a formal wager with you if you want.
Concentrated benefits, diffuse costs. The people who benefit from subsidized insurance fight like hell to keep it, while everyone else shrugs because to them it’s just one more budget line item.
If you drive through San Francisco on I-80, every single billboard between the Bay Bridge and the 101 is for some kind of AI service (except, amusingly, the one for Yudkowsky's new book about AI doom). All of them look terrible and completely useless. There was one that said "Still using PowerPoint? Use our AI slide maker instead" with a picture of a three-eyed cat, as though to brag that their service makes unappetizing and unreliable slop.
It's total insanity; comparisons to tulip mania no longer even apply now that people are tossing around numbers like $500 billion when talking about their capex buildouts.
Yeah, a few times per year, I take a drive to SFO, and I am again struck by the absurdity. It's not just the current AI fixation. They always seemed bizarrely niche to me.
I assumed billboards were for mass consumer marketing. What tiny percentage of the people on these highways are actually in a position to act on any B2B tech marketing? I don't understand the economic choice to pay for a billboard like that. The ones along the highway that make sense to me are for iPhones and such.
> I assumed billboards were for mass consumer marketing.
My hunch is that billboards on I-80 through San Francisco are a vanity product. Their actual purpose isn't marketing, but to flatter the egos of the CEOs that own the service - they get to dominate the sky, the eyes, and the brains for thousands of tech commuters twice a day. The one thing I'm not sure about is whether or not the people paying for the billboards actually think that their sales are going to materially benefit, but I'm pretty sure the sellers are clear that they absolutely will not - and either way, I'm sure people see it as a mark of prestige to have an ad there.
It’s basically sifting through ore; 99% of the people who see it aren’t the target, it’s the 1% of viewers who are buyers or funders who you otherwise couldn’t directly advertise to. Same reason you see defense contractors putting up ads for weapons systems in the DC metro.
I recently upgraded from an XT-3 to an XT-5, but loved my XT-3 and would still recommend it as a good purchase if you can find a decent deal on one in good condition. Fuji’s AF is not the best in the business, so I wouldn’t recommend one if you’re planning on using it for e.g. sports photography, but apart from that the XT series has no real downsides. The physical dials for ISO+exposure+shutter speed are fantastic and Fuji’s color processing makes images that I just enjoy looking at, even if they’re not as strictly neutral and accurate as what you’d get from someone else.
Fujifilm's whole X-mount series is wonderful and while I shoot "full-frame" M mount to remain interoperable between digital and film, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have a Fujifilm X-mount series if I only shot digital based on how much fun they have been when I have borrowed/tested them. Great "enthusiast level" cameras, great glass, solid build, everything has a button/dial, does not break the bank, and I actually know more than one professional photographer that shoots them and one of them even shooting sports!
I have an XT-1 from 2015 (still working!) and recently started considering upgrading to an XT-5 but I'm a little hesitant to buy a "new" camera first released in 2023 that still retails for almost the same price as two years ago. I'm so torn between just going for it and waiting (who knows how long) for the X-T6 to come out. Perhaps I should just try to find a good deal on an X-T4.
Innovation is very slow in photography world these days, X-T5 made a big jump in MP count compared to X-T4, but resolution aside image quality is pretty much the same, and other improvements were marginal.
I still use X-T2, and it has not really aged, even when compared to my X100V. Infamous Fuji AF is where they progress slowly but steadily, so that's the primary feature that I'd look into when choosing between generations.
If it helps, I pay reasonably close attention to Fuji rumors because I'm deep in the ecosystem, and at present there appears to be no indication that an XT-6 is coming any time soon. They just released the GFX100RF and XE-5, plus there are rumors of an X-T30 III soon, and with all that in the pipeline I doubt they are also finishing up an XT-6. The -4 and -5 are still great cameras, I would just go for whichever of those you think is a better deal.
I’m guessing that Imgur happily accepted the ad revenue from UK users while it served them images. If you genuinely were “not providing services” to UK users, you wouldn’t do that.
I’m not happy with extraterritorial assertions over internet services either, but you can’t wish them away with sophistry about “we’re not providing services to them!” if you’re happy to take their money and serve them a page in exchange. That’s the definition of a business providing a service to a customer.
Do they run their own ad network, or do the ad networks take the money from advertisers and cut Imgur a check? Maybe instead of trying to enforce your standards on every little site on the internet, you should just focus on the people who actually have a direct point of contact with money coming from UK businesses. (Yes, the ad networks.)
It’s completely absurd to say that some hobbyist would have nexus in the UK because they run a Google Adwords campaign to get some occasional pocket change from their project. Pre-Internet, it would be like going after a US magazine because someone brought home a copy from the US. Websites are not global entities by default, somehow responsible for obeying laws across nearly 200 national jurisdictions and many more state/provincial/local jurisdictions, across different languages and legal customs. Completely absurd! Who do you think you are to demand such a thing?
On the other hand, I think it would be perfectly fine to say that UK domiciled ad networks cannot put their ads on sites that violate some arbitrary standard. (An anti-freedom law to be sure, but at least it’s consistent with common international conventions.) This puts the onus on the ad network, rather than the site owner, who may not know or care who is visiting or from which country.
The standard you are proposing here ultimately boils down to "you can do business in a country without being subject to its laws, as long as your commercial transactions with the customers in that country are laundered through a sufficiently convoluted network of international companies like payment processors and ad exchanges". I don't think it should be terribly surprising that states don't subscribe to this view of sovereignty and jurisdiction.
> I don't think it should be terribly surprising that states don't subscribe to this view of sovereignty and jurisdiction.
Well they will have to put up with it, as they have done over the past few decades. Or, alternatively, they can engage in aggressive China-style site blocking. Only the US has significant extraterritorial legal reach.
IMHO, this policy is a transparent effort to forcefully alter the content policy of US companies. It’s more about political influence than it is about “content safety” at home. (Unilateral site blocking, perhaps with an appeals process, would be a much more effective approach for this.) The UK will regret the consequences if they push too forcefully on this.
> IMHO, this policy is a transparent effort to forcefully alter the content policy of US companies.
I don’t see it that way. US companies have an atrocious record wrt user privacy and security. The Europeans don’t want their citizens data being bought and sold by online providers. And that’s a reasonable demand! Either clean up your act or leave Europe & the UK. If US companies don’t want to obey UK laws, they can’t do business in the UK. It’s just like farmers can’t sell produce in the UK if they don’t meet British health standards.
Consider the inverse: imagine if another country ran a porn site which blatantly hosted underage content (CSAM). Under your view of the world, would the us govt be ethically entitled to tell the site to clean up its act or it’ll get blocked from the US? That sounds fine to me. I’d be shocked if they were even given a warning about that. But how do you square that circle? Wouldn’t that be a “transparent effort to forcefully alter the content policy of another country”?
> tell the site to clean up its act or it’ll get blocked from the US
Yes, that would be fine, as it would be here.
What I have a problem with is nations saying that a site built and hosted in a totally different country with a different set of laws and norms is “illegal” globally. Yes, I don’t like it when the US goes after people like The Pirate Bay abroad either, but that’s a result of the US being able to bully other countries for whatever reason it wants to. (That also needs to change.)
If Europe or the UK wants to protect its citizens, it should either block websites that it sees as a threat (as most of the EU does with RT) or it should come up with a scheme where ad networks with nexus in the EU must stop doing business with them. Attempting to reach across borders into the US to change US domestic norms is going to get them a well-deserved slap in the face.
> IMHO, this policy is a transparent effort to forcefully alter the content policy of US companies.
To be clear, you think the UKs data regulator, going after Imgur for not properly handling data collected from minors, which is a pretty big GDPR violation (a 7 year old law) is secretly about influencing US content policies?
I mean, maybe, but that one very convoluted approach. I’m not sure why the UK would be trying to use fines for the mishandling of data collected from minors, notably, nothing related to content on Imgur, to get Imgur to change its content policies.
The standard you’re proposing would allow Afghanistan to shut down Hacker News on the basis that it provided services to at least one Afghan and the content here violates sharia law.
As Afghanistan has recently disconnected their Internet they seem to have done exactly that within their sphere of influence (which is limited to their borders).
So you are entirely right any country can do that at any time. Most countries don't have a way to enforce it on you or your users.
Afghanistan can do that. You’re protected by Afghanistan’s lack of any realistic ability to enforce laws far outside its borders, not by some general principle of international law saying that countries can’t make laws about websites.
The great-grandparent of my comment was arguing that it’s absurd to suppose that the UK has grounds to go after a company on the basis that the company did business with its citizens on servers located outside of the UK. The UK is effectively making a claim of international jurisdiction on all transactions made by its citizens. The EU does this too with GDPR, the difference (as you noted) is that the EU has enforcement capabilities whereas the UK (like Afghanistan) doesn’t.
The UK is an intermediate case. It’s got more pull than Afghanistan and less than the EU. If Imgur still has assets in the UK (e.g. bank accounts) then the UK government can potentially take at least some action.
If Britain or Europe want a censored, state-controlled internet, they’re just going to have to block overseas traffic like Iran and China do. That is completely within their power.
I don't think this is true. I heard the exact same claim about Alexa making it easier to order diapers or whatever with one voice command: "sure, HN users don't want this, but normal people do". But I know many non-tech people who have Amazon Echo devices, and they never, ever use them to buy things. For them it's a timer-setting device only. That's why Amazon wrote off that entire division as a billion-dollar loss.
I think "people want frictionless ways to purchase products" is a PM pipe dream more than a description of reality.
> I think "people want frictionless ways to purchase products" is a PM pipe dream more than a description of reality.
I get what example you are referring to, but there are degrees here. For example the Buy Now flow really is handy; and I find I favor merchants that let me pay by scanning some kinda QR code from Apple Pay or Venmo. I definitely don't miss the friction of having to go dig out my credit card, mistype the cc#, type the wrong cvc if Amex, repeat the purchase after getting declined once and responding to a fraud text, etc.
How does Alexa ever compare with the rich experience of interacting with a store through the various senses? Its typical that technologists tend to come up with this stuff and what happens in reality is wildly off compared to what was expected.
Buying stuff means spending money. it turns out most people don't have a lot of money (something that Mr Altman would never be able to understand given his privileged background) so they want to see and experience the transactions that take place. Same reason why this agent nonsense is not going to work from an economic stand point.
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