TLDR summary of article: Plain observation only shows 6 stars not 7 because the 7th is quite dim and close to one of the other stars. 100k years ago it would have been further away from the others. Therefore the story must have originated 100k years ago.
The person in the article doesn't seem to be in a high risk group. They state they pedaled their bicycle 5 miles to reach the scene. I get that the virus is dangerous for everyone, but I think those of us who are younger and generally more healthy should allow those in high risks groups / high exposure to get the vaccine first, regardless of whatever "leftover doses" exist or not.
Perhaps this person is in a high exposure group due to their job? I'm doubting it but I guess it is possible.
What is the chance of actually having left over doses in a densely populated area? The logistics are pretty simple with great numbers of consumers. It's another mater in a sparsely populated area.
The claim in the article, which is believable, is that many people either don't want to get the vaccine or don't show for some other reason during a single day.
For some unknown additional reason, doses within that day are supposed to be used up. There seems to be an implied expiration for doses, but a single day doesn't make much sense.
The result of both these together is that they are supposedly letting people not scheduled to get the vaccine get it on some days. The article calls them "walk-ins".
Apparently word of this has been spreading slowly, and in this case went viral and a ton of people showed up to attempt to get some small number of "leftover doses".
It seems like chaos to me and a failing of sensible procedure. I am not though a doctor or involved in the distribution process so what do I know. Perhaps there is good reason this happens.
For the Pfizer vaccine, once a vial is mixed with the diluent, there is a 6 hour window to use the 6 doses in it. Shouldn't be creating a huge amount of waste because of that, but it isn't unreasonable to expect that more than 1 vial would be prepared at a given time.
Surely it’s better to give doses to low risk groups than to throw them away. The main hurdles with vaccine rollouts seem to be logistics problem rather than scarcity of the vaccine itself
1. Google doesn't own or control "the internet". They can change Google Chrome however they want; so long as they are plenty of us who don't want whatever crap they are peddling we can and will continue to use the internet as it has existed for a long time.
2. Web browsing is not "the internet". I get that headlines are all about grabbing attention by basically stating overblown lies and then backtracking in the details, but come on now.
3. Cookies aren't going away. They are necessary for how a majority of websites with login/sessions work.
4. 3rd party cookies are crap, and they may well be limited by most popular browsers. That is fine and doesn't affect normal web users. It affects advertisers to some degree, but no more than adblockers do.
5. So long as Google is involved in it, they are going to try to keep advertising profitable for themselves. So whatever "it's good for everyone" nonsense they are peddling its just them trying to prevent the public from shutting down the crappy internet advertising that most of us internet users have hated since it began.
6. It doesn't sound like they are working to prevent fingerprinting. That is the direction things should go imo; we need to get rid of all ability to identify visitors period. There is no reason why anyone needs to know what websites I visit or why, and I think there are plenty of people who agree with my desire in that regard.
7. I'm on the side of those calling to abandon Google and their nonsense. They can't be trusted any more.
> so long as they are plenty of us who don't want whatever crap they are peddling we can and will continue to use the internet as it has existed for a long time.
This is why it worries me so much that so many people use Chrome (and the number seems to keep rising).
My main response to this article is essentially the same question. I think the article is presuming some things to come to this conclusion.
The main thing that is being presumed is the "big bang". If you proscribe to believing in the big bang, then the entirety of everything we see is an expansion from a single dense explosion of matter.
It is still a valid theory but I myself don't understand the physics of what is observed well enough to be convinced this is true. I believe that they are seeing something similar enough that it could be perhaps a "localized bang" or something like that.
The main evidence used as "proof" of the big bang is the observed data seeming to show that the everything in the universe is "dispersing" slowly. That is at least what I've heard claimed.
> ... that leads to people believing there is nothing outside the observable universe
No mainstream scientific source says this. The observable universe is purely a limit on the distance we can see - a horizon - due to the speed of light and the age of the universe.
> The main evidence used as "proof" of the big bang is the observed data seeming to show that the everything in the universe is "dispersing" slowly. That is at least what I've heard claimed.
> If you proscribe to believing in the big bang, then the entirety of everything we see is an expansion from a single dense explosion of matter.
This is misleading. The Big Bang is not an "explosion" of the kind we see on Earth, where some matter is pushed apart from a central point by an explosive force. If that were the case, then what we observe would be different.
Instead, what we observe has so far only been well explained by the idea that space itself is expanding. In this model, there is no center - there's no location you can point to as where the explosion happened, the expansion happened everywhere equally, it didn't radiate outward from a central point.
We have evidence of this omnidirectional expansion, in the form of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, which is radiation from the early universe that comes from all directions in the sky, because the Big Bang similarly occurred in all directions. Again, this is not what we would observe if it was similar to a traditional explosion.
> I believe that they are seeing something similar enough that it could be perhaps a "localized bang" or something like that.
If you're thinking of something more like a traditional explosion, no, that is ruled out by the observational evidence.
I didn’t downvote, but you demonstrated a very poor understanding of the big bang, and put forward equally ill-informed conclusions/suspicions based on that. It is not useful.
It’s because opinions are not equal to science and suggesting your opinion without massive corroborating evidence isn’t going to fly here. It’s the same as suggesting climate change isn’t real and COVID is just like flu... these things are made up, not researched science.
I think some read some of paragraph 2 and thought it was heading into religious beliefs or far away from the topic.
The last consensus I remember is a Big Bang, rapid expansion, and then slower expansion. There are some other theories but not as popular.
It’s a fun topic to dive into. The horizon problem, variable speeds of light, and of course string theory.
Space is infinite. I believe it goes on forever in every direction. Whether you can see whatever is out there from here in no way proves that it isn't...
Neither the title nor the summary say anything about the "observable universe". They make broad claims beyond that. The detail of the article in no way mentions that there could very well be infinite duplicates of what we see out there beyond observable distance.
Because this is an article that’s using the layman terminology. The scientists involved surely understand the difference. In fact read the Wikipedia article and you’ll see the old estimate of 2 trillion for the observable universe.
We have no proof Universe is infinite, but we can also argue that the building blocks of Universe - atoms? - cannot come in unlimited quantity. At least it sounds more reasonable that way. Unless of course we are all in a symultation and our whole Universe takes up half a sq. inch of a silicone chip.
Did you not blindly claim space is infinite? That seems the stranger assumption. If I’m standing in a forest counting all the trees I can see, I’d certainly take into account that there are some trees I can’t see, but I wouldn’t assume there exists an infinite forest of trees.
You're right. The earth is clearly flat and that is a sensible assumption if you haven't left your local area or been in space or seen a picture from space.
Or not. Flat earthers are quacks.
It is the same principle essentially. It is illogical to think "hey if I keep walking that way I'll hit a wall eventually". That is why flat earthers are quacks from the beginning.
The same principle applies to space. What quack seriously thinks that eventually there is just a wall in space or that it wraps around?
Wrapping around makes zero sense in 3-dimensional space.
If you ever played the classic game "asteroids", you might remember how everything wrapped around at the edges of the screen. A 3-torus would be like that, only in 3D.
On the other hand, one could imagine the universe as a 3-sphere, which I believe would mean it would be both locally curved and finite in volume. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-sphere
There are also other possibilities, like something analogous to a Klein bottle with an extra dimension.
There are a bunch of possibilities for "flat and finite" as well as "positively curved and finite" that I can't begin to visualize.
There is even supposedly such a (hypothetical) thing as a negatively curved, (commonly described as saddle shaped) yet finite universe.
But regardless, the current belief about the real universe is that it is at least very close to flat, but not known to be finite or infinite.
You don't need Facebook to communicate your ideas to others.
You don't need AWS either. AWS is actually a backwards development of technology in my opinion because it is anti-open source.
It is quite straightforward to lease your own server and/or build your own and colo. You can even easily setup containers on such, or a cluster of them if you desire.
You also don't need a domain name to host a site. Plain IP addresses work fine in many situations. There are plenty of "shady" countries who will let you register DNS and do whatever you want with it.
Just look at the underground pirate community. None of this weak censorship by silencing Facebook posts is stopping them. Piracy will continue to the end of time, because if you have a bit of tech skill there is very little that can silence a person on the modern internet.
And yes, p2p ( without internet ) file sharing is alive and well. Those in draconian environments engage in it. Swapping 12tb drives is quite effective in sharing data.
Own microchips? Yeah we are heading that way. Hence the popularity of Risc-V and various "open hardware". Typically it is sufficient to use your own software stack on existing hardware though.
SV execs can't do shit about public opinion or the underground community.
The free exchange of information is alive and well. It just doesn't live on Facebook or Parler or any of that crap.
You do not need even electricity. People lived without power for thousands of generations and some still live like that.
It still would not be fine if there was a class of outcasts defined by execs of power distribution companies on whim.
The "you do not need" standard is a tricky one. Modern civilization is built around a lot of network-like structures. Getting kicked off them is a kind of punishment. We generally have some mechanisms that try to prevent capriciousness in punishment.
Would you rather do a year in San Quentin or be completely deplatformed by Big Tech forever? I would probably choose the former. Being prevented, for example, to send any e-mail to anyone with Gmail.com address is a serious problem.
I would be delighted to be banned from all technology for eternity. I would wear the ban like a badge of honor and devote my life to the advancement of something more noble such as mathematics.
If you are the kind of talent that can make significant contributions alone, that is a viable (and enviable) way of life.
But if you need to co-operate, that is really hard to do without tech. I used to do some work in algebra 20 years ago and mathematicians were one of the first branches to network extensively. It happens all too often that the other person who is interested and knowledgeable about the same arcane problem lives several time zones away.
I only got a single question wrong on the math portion of the SAT, and frankly SAT math is extremely easy. I just wasn't taking it seriously enough.
I took Calculus my first semester and scored over 98 on every test. No one else in the class scored above 80 on any of the tests. The teacher was dumbfounded.
I, of course, have a degree in mathematics... Undergrad math was... boring.
The only reason I didn't continue down the path of high level math is because it isn't profitable. It is also hell on the mind. Few understand that but it is very easy to get lost in a world of math if you are good enough at it. It consumes your entire mind. It is somewhat beautiful in that way, but doesn't lead to one become very balanced as an individual.
Cooperation is for pussies. Those who make the biggest difference in history are those who give zero shits about anyone else and devote their lives to furthering what they pursue. Very few teams can hold a candle to a dedicated prodigy.
There are these things called books. There are tons of them. They hold far more useful information that can be absorbed very rapidly compared to talking to people. Communicating with people live is... slow... tedious... and unrewarding.
>You don't need Facebook to communicate your ideas to others.
Interesting, that is the same point conservative judge Robert Bork used to make, and while not the only reason why he was rejected for the Supreme Court, it was certainly a factor. Weird how someone like Bork, who used to be considered on the far fringe of conservativism, is now part of mainstream liberal orthodoxy.
Why in the holy fuck do any of you give a single shit about Musk's opinions on software engineering? He isn't a software engineer.
It's astounding to me that anyone considers Musk's opinion about software as having any value.
To help stave off the inevitable downvotes you idiots are sure to give me, I'll also address the point itself.
Most mobile devices do not gain a routable public IP address, so some third party server is required to establish a connection between users of a mobile service.
I agree that allowing anyone to run such servers provides more redundancy, but then they would not have control of their own service. Most creators of software want to remain in control of their baby so to speak.
The main reason services go down is not because of lack of computation power but lack of ability to have so many simultaneous network connections.
I think Musk is wrong that the problem is "the servers are doing too much".
He is absolutely a software engineer. The guy used to sleep under his desk after he was exhausted from writing code all day building his first products. I urge you to read any of the biographies written about him if you care but otherwise please save the withering hate (and language).
Sure, but so long as anyone cares to continue this silly debate I'm happy to oblige them. My hate is stronger than whatever silly arguments you all seem to be able to come up with to prove Musk is great.
Hate is a really destructive feeling. It ruled my life for many years. There's no way to indicate this in a way that isn't patronizing over the internet but I urge you to find the root of this hate which you are now projecting on a guy you don't know much about and transform it. Meditation has been a powerful tool in my arsenal and I can recommend it but there's many other things you can do about it. There's far, far too much hate on the internet and in this world as is.
Being a CTO doesn't mean you have any value as a software engineer. Hell I was offered a role as a CTO. I turned that shit down. Babysitting others is not my forte, nor is spending my time running a business instead of learning more tech.
Am I supposed to be impressed by earning money coding at 12? I'm not. At all.
It seems to amount to "he wrote some basic and assembly language a long time ago."
I call nonsense. I've written over 3 million lines of code over my career spread across 8 different languages. If what exists of Musk's code publicly means he is a programming genius then I must be a programming god.
By the way: I also wrote code at the age of 9. I was writing assembly language at 10. Despite this, what I did when I was a kid, or even middle age, doesn't mean squat. What matters is consistently writing high quality code over your entire career. Being a manager is not being a coder. They are very different.
Also, he doesn't have knowledge of what Signal services are doing internally so his comment is simply speculation.
You seem to hate my condemnation of his coding skills, but my condemnation of his twitter comment is no worse than his own mockery of Signal; a free service serving the community.
Elon Musk, afaiac is a rich asshole who doesn't do shit to contribute. If he is so great, where is his free replacement for Signal that is far better hmm? He can certainly afford to hire some people who actually know how to code to write it for him.
You need to relax. Yes his comment is speculation, does that mean he is necessarily wrong? He is giving his first-thought analysis of what might be the problem at Signal. Is that such a crime?
The recent release of the details of Signal stack requirements is rather damning. I actually agree based on it that they are likely doing things badly.
I don't though think that Musk had that information when he made his off the cuff pronouncement. I think he just says whatever he feels like and everyone automatically assumes he is correct because of his success/riches. This is my main objection to him. Respecting someones opinion and assuming they are correct because they are rich is just plain disgusting. Society should be better than this.
I also think that someone in his position should not be mocking a company that provides a free service. It just makes him look like an ass imo. In turn it makes me think that those who upvote that shit here on Hacker News are sheep.
If he gave some reasonable explanation or details, then fine. If he used reasonable capacity planning and some sort of evidence to demonstrate that such an accusation is reasonable, fine. He didn't.
This is what happened: Musk thinks to himself "Signal is better than Whatsapp, I should recommend Signal and people will think I'm awesome." His recommendation of Signal was merely the statement of an attention whore. Signal was obviously better for so long. Anyone worth anything in security / tech knew this a long time ago.
After Musk recommended Signal, it blew up in his face because they couldn't handle the capacity increase immediately due to his recommendation. This makes Musk look bad, because he just recommended them. So what does Musk do? Musk denounces and mocks Signal.
This is why Musk is an asshole and deserves to be mocked and attacked. It is all a fucking publicity stunt to him. He doesn't give a shit about security or helping out Signal. All he cares about is acting like king of the world. Fuck him.
I certainly do see what you're saying. I think at least 40-60% of what Musk says at any given time is pure sci-fi speculation or hype around an upcoming product/company. I also find it obnoxious how his fanboys and fangirls mindlessly clap at any word he says, like some sort of Pavlovian chimps. On this we cannot agree more.
However, whatever his motivation, I think the guy is genuinely intelligent. It's tough to not admit this. His mere intuition is fair match for the experience of many seasoned engineers (if what we read about him is true). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do think he donated to the Signal foundation. At the very least he has put money where his mouth is.
Elon has been married three times and is working on number four. He's fathered seven children. I think he absolutely knows something about scaling the server side.
Somehow he also found time to invent self-driving cars and send a rocket to Mars, and car into orbit. I only have three children and I could barely manage making breakfast for them, forget about going to Mars.
If he knows so much about scaling he should know that, in most cases, the crappy quality of most server side code is irrelevant because it can be compensated for. If he was the amazing businessman that he pretends to be he would make a convincing criticism as to the lack of funds that led to inability to handle the load, not an immature and idiotic remark like he did.
You know why he has been married so many times? My opinion is because the guy is a fucking dick. I am married and remain married. Zero divorce? Why? I'm not a dick.
Sending a rocket to Mars is useless. Self driving cars haven't improved the world for anyone. I'll agree that the advancement in tech is good over time, and that the change in regulations is positive, but I don't think Musk is the humanitarian he is thought to be.
Paxil is an SSRI. They are ineffective in treating what is wrong with me. They also make me feel suicidal. I can't take them. The doctors who recommended SSRI in my youth have no fucking idea what is wrong with me.
The only thing I've even seen that addresses my issue is benzos but they are extremely dangerous.
I was told by multiple psychiatrists that I should be on a heavy dose of benzos for life but I don't take them because I think they are too dangerous.
A dose of benzos that is enough to knock a normal person on the floor passed out just makes me feel normal.
Hmm. Alright I'll buy that. That is at least a sensible reason why this reached front page.
It still disgusts me that we are elevating random tweets from this guy to being major news. Please can we elevate tiny ideas of people who know wtf they are talking about to an equal level?
Who is “we”? There’s thousands of HNers and someone posted his tweet for discussion.
If you hate him so much, you could’ve easily ignored this amidst the hundreds of daily HN posts. Maybe you need to take a step back and evaluate why you’re posting such long anti-Elon rants?
"Why in the holy fuck do any of you give a single shit about Musk's opinions on software engineering? He isn't a software engineer."
My thoughts exactly. I don't think he's very recent with his programming skills. Sure, he wrote code back in the day, but the industry has moved on quite a bit. Please show me I'm wrong if I am, it's always nice to learn new things.
Just look at the salary ranges for the various levels within FAANG companies. See http://levels.fyi
In both the Bay Area and Seattle if companies don't at least attempt to get close to these numbers they will not be able to get the best engineers from these areas.
Alright. I have around 20 years of experience in the industry. As far as levels go I'm between L6 and L7 Google level.
I consider anything less than $170k/yr these days to be insulting, regardless of whether they are FAANG or not. My last 3 non-FAANG position have paid that much / more.
Yes I agreed that for my experience and ability I get paid badly. It is one of the reasons I am a rather bitter and angry person.
On the other hand, I still make a lot of money compared to the majority of people. This is little consolation though after devoting so much time and effort in my life to what I do.
Hence I hate pretty much every engineer I come into contact with these days. A huge number of them make as much or more than I do, and have 1/3 the experience and knowledge.
Could someone create a replacement for DNS entirely please?
DNS does WAY more than what the typical user needs it for and services that present it are resultantly much more complex than what is needed for the 99% use case.
The 99% use case: resolve x.y.z to some IP address.
What I think should happen:
1. At each level, a public/private keypair is used to authenticate valid records for the name. Eg: .com has public/private keypair(s) to represent who can sign x.com records. .com owner only needs to publish these. Reliable sources ( ISPs etc ) can then share these.
2. The x.com records themselves would be: Mapping from x.com to IP address(s) / public key.
3. The x.com owners could then publish out their x.y.com records freely and they could be mirrored by everyone.
Unlike the current methodology, there would be far less need to trust where you get the records from. The public/private keypairs should change WAY less frequently.
Agreeably in such a widely distributed system you wouldn't have nice TTL, but that is for the better. DNS records should not be changing that frequently.
Such a new system also should be done in a fully distributed way and NOT controlled by a bunch of money grubbing bastards who make way too much money from records.
It should NOT cost $20/yr to own a record pointing x.y to a number. It's absurd and really needs to stop.
No. My point isn't to use security on top of existing DNS records. My point is to make a brand new distributed system entirely that is free for all instead of run by a bunch of greedy internet thugs.
Whether HN is an eyesore or not as is is a matter of personal opinion.
A better title I think would be "Dark mode for Hacker News" That doesn't put personal opinion/spin into the title.