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Thanks for pointing out the spatial audio. It amazes me all the comments about price but not discussing what features these actually have. Dynamic head tracking for spatial audio could be really amazing and is not cheap to implement. These aren't just some "dumb" headphones with speakers in them. I'm really interested in trying these out on the Xbox X which has Dolby Atmos on a big screen and hearing the sounds move as you look around. Also, imagine silent discos with the DJ streaming in Atmos as you move around. Now if only there was a widely adopted open spatial audio standard instead of Atmos...


Dynamic head tracking spacial audio is available today with the Airpods Pro and it is amazing. Watching surround-sound TV with spacial audio enabled is basically indistinguishable from watching TV with a surround sound system and no headphones, to the point where I have to check to make sure the audio is playing through my headphones and not external speakers.

Downside is that it only works with iPhone, iPad and AppleTV 4k. It's such an amazing upgrade over my current setup, though, that I'm planning on upgrading to an AppleTV 4K so that I'm not limited to using spatial audio on just my iPad.


...as far as I'm aware, Spatial Audio does /not/ work on ATV4K. Could you show me where it does?


I was wrong, I was mixing up Spatial Audio with the HomePod Dolby Atmos


I believe you only get special audio with paired to an iOS device which also includes an accelerometer. So basically iPad and iPhone. Any third-party devices don’t get special audio, as far as I’m aware.


Wouldn't that require that music producers start producing music in spatial audio in the first place, no?

And what would their incentive for something like that be?


Yeah, this is crazy that Apple is only using AAC for their codec and not anything like aptX that can get down to 50ms range. I would expect Apple to do better here and even have different low latency codec specifically for voice calls.


That's not the only point. You are confusing necessary and sufficient conditions. Being able to do the thing that needs to be done at the right time is a a necessary condition for this success. It's definitely not sufficient condition as you rightly point out. You note that you use fiverr and development teams you've worked with before to deliver quickly. Without that you have nothing to deliver or it is beat in the market by the time you figure out how to make it. An influencer isn't going to magically create products for you.


Exactly. And without having made things, shared and built an audience, he would have been broadcasting into a void. Then there "influencer" would have never been part of the equation.

Is there some "luck" in that? Of course. But that bit of luck does not happen in a vacuum.


I first heard that advice referenced from Scott Adams the creator of Dilbert. Where he notes that he is not a very good artist or very funny, but combining the two with his background in business is why he was successful.

https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/car...


I respect Scott Adams for his comic, but his blog is (in my opinion) a bunch of mass-produced rhetoric-pseudo-rational ramblings¹, trading out quality for (a very large) quantity.

Scott Adams is definitely not famous because "he is an ok graphic artist and has an ok humor". He's famous because his satire was fairly unique and very sharp. I think he's very talented in the humor department; in addition to his creating invention and sharp wit, very often his strips have two punchlines - in the middle and the last panel - which take twice as much effort as a "standard" comic strip.

His drawing skill didn't/don't really matter, as a matter of fact, he wasn't particularly good at the beginning, and his style is generic and simple anyway.

It's very unlikely that somebody with "he is an ok graphic artist and has an ok humor" will get his success just because of such qualities.

¹=A very ridicolous example of whom was when he was proving that Trump will be successful because, based on his observations, leaders who were great in the long term, typically had a rough start. Can't find the post.


>I respect Scott Adams for his comic, but his blog is (in my opinion) a bunch of mass-produced rhetoric-pseudo-rational ramblings¹, trading out quality for (a very large) quantity

Not so sure about the "rhetoric-pseudo-rational ramblings". He writes his opinions and gives arguments. Nothing "pseudo" about them, though they could still be (and often are) wrong, either factually or as a reasoning.

>It's very unlikely that somebody with "he is an ok graphic artist and has an ok humor" will get his success just because of such qualities.

Well, if they also knew about business workings, and did business-related comic strips at a time when nobody else (or very few) was doing them, then they might. Humor, like drawing, is honed over time anyway.

>A very ridicolous example of whom was when he was proving that Trump will be successful because, based on his observations, leaders who were great in the long term, typically had a rough start.

Well, his prediction did pan out, when all pundits said otherwise. Could be dumb luck, but he has been lucky often enough.

Theirs [the pundits'] arguments then, would be even worse "pseudo-rational arguments" that Scott's: because on top of claiming rationality, facts, legitimacy, and statistics on their side and being presented with fanfare on prime time (unlike a mere personal blog), they were also proven wrong.


I'll probably regret posting this at some point because Scott Adams is smart (just not particularly aligned with my own moral compass). I don't think he is AS smart as he thinks he is but that doesn't mean he isn't smart, it just means he has a particularly large ego.

See, I predicted Trump would win as well. It seemed incredibly obvious to me despite it being the worst possible outcome I could imagine. I based my "prediction" on my time spent in the US and a gut feeling. I guessing Adams did as well, and found ways to justify it (not exactly unique to him).

Adams tends to think in terms of "persuasion" as a skill. In that sense, he probably sees the world transactionally and cynically. I have heard him debate people with a good command of the facts and a similar combination of ego and articulation. He comes off as smug, too confident, and more like a small fish in a big pond than he does when he is just writing on his blog or "destroying" someone in social media.


do you remember when he put a whole section at the end of The Dilbert Future that was basically The Secret? :D


I made the mistake of buying his Trump book on a whim.

It was terrible, couldn't get far into it.


Was it the inherent quality (or lack thereof of the book) of mere resistance to counter opinions and certainty that "this can't be any good since it's ideologically opposite" though?


No, I am genuinely interested on the opposing take, but as far as I remember he was just babbling some ridiculous thing over and over. It didn't make any intellectual sense, whether you're right-wing/left-wing, populist/liberal.


To be frank, I find his arguments a little flaky and hand-wavy, of the "self-help guru" variety, but there's usually some interesting perspective or tidbit there that I wouldn't have thought otherwise...


I think that's his point?

If he drew like that but had no interesting content, no one would read the comics.

If he wrote jokes but couldn't illustrate them at even a basic level, they wouldn't reach many people.

And to be fair he could draw the absurd out of a semi-realistic situation, but he wasn't producing a treatise on modern management and how to run a business. You could find a lot of the same observations in water cooler chats at many workplaces.

He just made that really easy to consume and then got it in front of a lot of people. Which is probably a sign that he has a half decent understanding of distribution and promotion too. Once again he may not be a genius there but he knows enough to not screw up something good.


I'm take a gander that your view about his blog is based on your pre-existing political leanings.


I mean... https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scott_Adams#Views_on_science_a...

The guy has a ton of crank views


As if RationalWiki has any business calling people cranks


Has it always been that way?

I seem to remember RationalWiki (or perhaps some other similar site?) as an occasionally snarky but generally high-quality wiki on rationality, fallacies, science vs. pseudoscience, the logical or other mistakes in arguments that have been given for quackery, etc.

Nowadays it seems like a lot of the content is just about bashing people who have expressed less-than-greatly argued opinions, with some kind of a special target drawn on conservatives.

I mean, you can also do that and not be wrong, but that's entirely different than (mostly) dispassionately documenting things, even if while doing the latter you'd be somewhat poignant.

Either the content seemed to have a different tone ~10 years ago, or I remember wrong.


The problem is that sticky issues are so rarely aligned on party lines. Like science vs pseudo science. Where are that line? The scientific method? Because as we’ve seen in recent years, our poor incentive structure for scientific advancement has given rise to bullshit study’s that grab headlines, but are flawed in major ways.

Like everything in life, complex issues that have many facets are difficult to shoehorn into a right/left box. Sites like rational wiki excel at warping issues to make them simple binary choices. Life is hard, thinking is harder, you can’t outsource your judgments of the world and expect to have a clear picture of reality.


It's come across as pretty bad since I discovered it, maybe 5 years ago.


So a link to rational wiki, a massively biased website with a far left agenda... As your response to somebody bringing up Scott’s reasoning on things.

Weak sauce. That’s added nothing to the discussion of Scott Adam’s talents, hubris, ego, or cold logic skills.


Media Bias/Fact Check labels their factual reporting as "High" despite a Left-Center bias rating:

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/rationalwiki/


+1

And as patio11 says, combining engineering with good writing skills makes it very easy to be one of the top with your combined skills

I’ve been trying to lean more into that advice the past couple months by publishing on my blog :)

Surprisingly enough, just this morning I woke up to realize someone had shared an article I wrote and it was on the HN front page!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24251068#24262190


I'm not convinced that writing and engineering are a rare, yet sought-after combination. I'm a pretty good writer; good enough that I had several professors in college asked me to use my work as examples for future classes.

It's been recognized by my peers and managers. Not much has ever really come from it. I've been given opportunities to draft "bad news" copy to be sent to clients, and I'm the point person for editing design documentation. But none of these are really roles of prestige. If anything, I'm really seen as being the person responsible for the grunt work that people don't generally enjoy doing.


I think you are underselling yourself. As far as I can tell, at a globally distributed engineering org, clear written communication is probably more important than the code you write, because it has more impact - it has an effect on how everyone else writes their code.

It might come easily to you, but me and other people I know often draft emails and such 3-4 times, asking for proofreading from trusted friends.

Yea, the proofreading for docs and writing client copies isn't fun, but the skills to do these well help all of your written communication immensely.

Your org could be very different, but I feel like I am recognized in large part because I care about communicating, and put a lot of effort into clear emails and docs. Part of your recognition could be because you have great writing skills.


Just ask for more money for doing it then. Or push to not do it. If you end up not doing it then your saved the work. IF they pay you money, you get the prestige.


Ah, I see where you're coming from.

The benefits don't accrue as much when you're writing material you've been told to write, especially when it's not something the recipient will be happy to receive. Those can be valuable learning experiences, but it's not harvest season yet.

The value comes when you CHOOSE to compose messages meant to persuade YOUR peers and internal stake holders. Your skill with the pen gives you a voice, like a bard who can urge a crowd to action.

What words do we associate with those kinds of people?

Influence

Leadership

Writing can help get you there


It is a great combo, but you need to have a lot of personal initiative to make it work.

Here's the thing - the typical software engineer interview doesn't assess writing(or many other valuable traits that can become unusually valuable when combined with good coding ability). Almost every one I've done has been a rehash of data structu res and algorithms along with a few other technical topics. Someone who is an excellent writer and merely a good programmer is likely to be screened out. If you combine skills, you're treading a path that people don't really hire for, mainly because they can't conceive of it, and it doesn't fit into the silos.

That's fine. You need to accept that the google-style software engineering path probably isn't for you. But you do need to have more initiative. Companies that post jobs tend not to look for these combinations. However, if you have personal initiative, you can often build this role within a company (or on your own), and the career path it opens up can be very satisfying.


There may not be a test of writing abilities in a job interview itself, but applying for the job is a test of writing abilities.


But does being in the top of those combined skills command top pay?


If you're at the level where you can write a decent book on programming or something... that means guaranteed job offers for the rest of your career.

Like, I haven't seen Raymond Chen's resume, but if he calls me up tomorrow looking for a job, I'll find something for him, even if we're not hiring.

Ditto for Steve Klabnik, Carol Nichols, and some other people in the Rust community.


Engineering and writing/communication/organization is basically the definition of a tech lead. If you find me a good engineer with good communications skills, I'll get you a mid-6-figure salary no question.


I'm pretty sure it does, but I'm also pretty sure it's okay if it doesn't.


You don't need to get paid directly for those skills to be valuable.

I started brushing up on my writing skills since at the higher levels of engineering (and prob all other fields) communicating your ideas more effectively will open up way more opportunities down the line.

Some of those may have monetary rewards. But the reward can be something else as well


According to legend, a new student of Euclid’s once asked him, “What shall I get by learning these things?” In reply, Euclid beckoned his slave and told him, “Give him a coin, since he must make gain out of what he learns.”


Depends what those two or more skills are.

You might be a top flight musical basket weaver but that won't pay too well.


You make me music baskets and I’ll find a way to make it pay well.


Yeah, it was denied.

About our new discovery, Daniel J. Bernstein issues the following statement:

    "https://cr.yp.to/qmail/guarantee.html has for many years mentioned
    qmail's assumption that allocated array lengths fit comfortably into
    32 bits. I run each qmail service under softlimit -m12345678, and I
    recommend the same for other installations."
And from his "guarantee"

In May 2005, Georgi Guninski claimed that some potential 64-bit portability problems allowed a ``remote exploit in qmail-smtpd.'' This claim is denied. Nobody gives gigabytes of memory to each qmail-smtpd process, so there is no problem with qmail's assumption that allocated array lengths fit comfortably into 32 bits.

Under mitigations they list:

As recommended by Daniel J. Bernstein, qmail can be protected against all three 2005 CVEs by placing a low, configurable memory limit (a "softlimit") in the startup scripts of all qmail services.

Alternatively:

qmail can be protected against the RCE (Remote Code Execution) by configuring the file "control/databytes", which contains the maximum size of a mail message (this file does not exist by default, and qmail is therefore remotely exploitable in its default configuration).

Unfortunately, this does not protect qmail against the LPE (Local Privilege Escalation), because the file "control/databytes" is used exclusively by qmail-smtpd.

Alternatively:

- an updated version of qmail-verify will be available at https://free.acrconsulting.co.uk/email/qmail-verify.html after the Coordinated Release Date;

- the developers of notqmail (https://notqmail.org/) have written their own patches for the three 2005 CVEs and have started to systematically fix all integer overflows and signedness errors in qmail.


So the app is vulnerable by default, yet the author is claiming this doesn't matter, because he instructs how to run it in a safe way?

Correct, or am I oversimplifying/missing something?


qmail last had an official release in the late 90's. everything else is third-party forks / patches. Back in the day, I upgraded many systems from sendmail to qmail. However, that was a very long time ago... It's been over 15 years since I've done something like that.

Nowadays, the author should be telling people to install postfix.


The app is vulnerable if it runs in an unsafe environment that allows qmail to access more than 4GB (an absurdly large value when qmail was published in 1997 -- it would cost $5000 plus a rare, expensive machine to hold it).

djb's view is that the environment is the responsibility of the admin, not the program's responsibility to enforce sane defaults. This is of course debatable.

If the admin uses a recommended environment (low memory limit), there is no exploitability.


So it's not secure by default.


It is in the sense that the author did specify AFAIK the bounds within it should run, no?


Where and when? If I had installed qmail on a 64 bit machine in 2004, how would I have known that it was remotely exploitable?


Correct.


Maybe add a reference to how ElasticSearch (or some other new-pop tech) catches heck for the same?


I think you're being downvoted because other things being insecure is not relevant or an excuse.


I'll reply to myself because I cannot edit now.

I meant: my parent comment (@allover) was missing a reference to how ES is insecure by default, this community gives them heck (rightly so) and that this comparison (qmail v. ES) could have been added (ie: was missing) from his post.

For a result of: this is a qmail bug that could/should be fixed AND ES should fix theirs too.

I'm for sure (I thought obviously) not excusing either qmail or ES from being insecure by default or for their "fix" to be: "you're doing it wrong".

I don't think my karma will ever recover from this (Tiger King joke)


    -m12345678
Ah, magic numbers.


Note the go compiler is actually fairly immature compared to C++ compilers. It does not have any AVX autovectorization. Any AVX optimization is manual assembly by a library author.


Authors aren't actually incentivized to find accurate results, but rather publishable results, which typically means novel. Researchers also cite articles based on their impact, not their veracity. There are plenty of instances of retracted results continuing to be cited as if they are still accurate.

There are issues with both industrial and academic research, but I do think that industrial research is more transparent in its motivations.


Yeah, it's ingrained into the culture for lower level employees to call out people even in upper management for such minor safety violations as not using a hand rail on the stairs.

Also, I assume the complaints were for outside of any clean room environment since inside a cleanroom you are obviously wearing facial covering at all times. I do wonder about virus circulation inside a cleanroom though since there is a high volume of laminar flow and the filters are designed for particulates much larger than virus-sized.


The discussion isn't about university research money and whether that is spent productively, it's about endowments, which are nothing more than investment funds.

The question is whether it is productive to maintain large investment funds unrelated to their stated goals of education and research.

I think the OP would be happier if those endowments were drawn down on research with uncertain benefits rather than just invested in natural resource extraction companies.


Error: The value 'ZZZ' is invalid for '<high-value>'

That is an awful default error for validating the type. The program knows it failed to parse as an Int but doesn't tell you anything about that.

Error: The value 'ZZZ' is invalid for '<high-value>' of type Int

Also, the help should automatically tell you the expected types as well.

ARGUMENTS: <high-value>: Int The highest value to pick.


There's an issue open for this, so they'll probably have it pretty soon: https://github.com/apple/swift-argument-parser/issues/8


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