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2023-07-07

Nearly all of Evernote's remaining staff has been laid off

  • Evernote, a popular note-taking app, has laid off a significant portion of its staff.
  • The company has been facing financial difficulties and has been struggling to compete with other note-taking apps.
  • This news is important because it suggests that Evernote may be in trouble and users of the app may need to consider alternative options.

Industry Reactions

  • Evernote has laid off a significant portion of its remaining staff after being taken over by Bending Spoons, raising concerns about the company's ability to fund new features.
  • Users express frustration with Evernote's struggle to convert free users to paying customers and highlight the importance of simplicity, reliability, and portability in a note-taking app.
  • Alternative note-taking apps like Obsidian and OneNote are mentioned as successful competitors to Evernote, and users discuss the risks and downsides of VC-funded startups.

GPT-4 API General Availability

  • OpenAI has announced the general availability of the GPT-4 API, their most capable model, to all paying API customers. This highly requested API provides developers with access to innovative products leveraging GPT-4.
  • OpenAI has also introduced the Chat Completions API, which has proven to be powerful and flexible for a broad range of completion tasks. It accounts for 97% of API usage and offers better results with a structured prompt interface.
  • Older models in the Completions API will be deprecated and replaced with new models starting on January 4, 2024. Developers using these older models will need to upgrade their integration to ensure continued access to the API.

Industry Reactions

  • OpenAI has released the GPT-4 API, which is now available for all paid users.
  • ChatGPT models like gpt-3.5-turbo and text-davinci-003 will eventually be deprecated in favor of the GPT-4 API.
  • GPT-4 offers improved performance and capabilities over previous versions, with developers praising its quality jump in various domains.

Godot 4.1

  • Godot 4.1 is a new update that brings smoother performance, improved AI navigation avoidance, and the ability to detach code editors.
  • Over 900 bugs from the previous version have been fixed, making the engine more reliable overall.
  • The update also introduces experimental multithreading for scenes, allowing for better utilization of modern hardware.

Industry Reactions

  • Godot 4.1 has been released and includes major bug fixes.
  • Users praise the lightweight, fast, and easy-to-learn nature of Godot 4.0, especially for indie game development.
  • Web exports in Godot 4.1 still have limitations, with issues on certain browsers like Chrome on macOS, but the team is working on resolving them.
  • Some users have experienced slow loading times for web games in Godot 4.0 on macOS Chrome, while others report fast load times.
  • Users recommend GD Quest and Heartbeast tutorials for learning Godot.
  • People mention the suitability of Godot for VR development and cross-platform app development.
  • The popularity of Godot is increasing due to its lightweight design and community support.
  • The GDScript language in Godot is easy to learn and use compared to Unity's C# and Unreal Engine's C++.
  • Users praise the documentation and integrated IDE in Godot.
  • Comparisons are made between Godot and other game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine.
  • Concerns are raised about future monetization and maintainership of Godot, but the open-source nature and ownership structure mitigate these concerns.
  • Love2D is mentioned as an alternative game engine with a simpler design using Lua and SDL2.

Air France denied my delay compensation, so I challenged them and won

  • Airlines operating in Europe are required by law to get passengers to their final destination within a specific timeframe, and passengers are entitled to compensation if this is not met.
  • Air France denied the author's claim for compensation after a delayed flight, but the author challenged this and won their case with the help of the Portuguese Civil Aviation Authority.
  • This post serves as a tutorial on how to handle an airline dispute and provides valuable information on passenger rights and how to navigate the claims process.

Industry Reactions

  • A passenger challenged Air France for denying their delay compensation and ultimately won, highlighting the challenges passengers face when trying to claim compensation from airlines and the importance of persistence in pursuing their rights.
  • Other users in the forum shared similar experiences with airlines denying compensation claims and the difficulty in navigating the process, suggesting the use of third-party services or submitting complaints to regulatory bodies to help resolve disputes.
  • European passengers have more rights and compensation options for flight delays and cancellations compared to passengers in the U.S., and may need to resort to legal means, such as small claims courts, to enforce their rights and seek compensation.

France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone

  • A bill has been passed in France that allows the police to remotely activate the cameras, microphones, and GPS of suspects' phones in order to spy on them.
  • The bill also covers other devices like laptops, cars, and connected devices, and can be used to record sound and images of individuals suspected of terror offenses, delinquency, and organized crime.
  • The bill has raised concerns over infringements of fundamental liberties, but lawmakers argue that it will only be used in a limited number of cases, with approval from a judge and strict duration limits.

Industry Reactions

  • France has passed a bill allowing police to remotely activate cameras and microphones on phones and other devices, raising concerns about privacy and potential abuse.
  • The technology or methods used to activate these features are not specified, but could involve malware or cooperation with device manufacturers.
  • The legislation mentions tracking the geolocation of crime suspects, extends beyond just phones, and exempts certain professions from being targeted.

Cloud Backed SQLite

  • The "Cloud Backed SQLite" (CBS) system allows databases to be stored within cloud storage accounts, allowing them to be read and written by storage clients without downloading the entire database.
  • CBS currently supports Azure Blob Storage and Google Cloud Storage, with the potential for adding support for other cloud storage systems.
  • CBS uses fixed-size blocks to store SQLite databases in the cloud, with a manifest file that describes how the blocks assemble into databases. It also provides APIs and command-line tools for uploading, downloading, and managing databases in the cloud.

Industry Reactions

  • 'Cloud Backed SQLite' allows for serving large SQLite databases in chunks and querying them with HTTP range requests.
  • A library called sql.js-httpvfs does most of the work for chunking up and uploading the database to GitHub Pages.
  • People are excited about the speed and efficiency of SQLite as a read-only database option for large datasets with no server infrastructure overhead.

Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

  • Twitter's new pricing structure has led to a restriction on the option to unroll tweets on the web, which is now only available for Premium members.
  • Users can still unroll tweets for free by visiting Twitter and replying to the tweet with "@threadreaderapp unroll."
  • The change in availability of unrolling tweets on the web is due to the new pricing structure and is aimed at encouraging users to become Premium members.

Industry Reactions

  • Meta Threads, a social networking app, has its backend built with Python 3.10.
  • The choice of language for web servers is less important compared to the performance of the database for large social networking apps.
  • There is anticipation and disappointment regarding the lack of a web interface for Threads, with hopes for a full-featured web version in the future.

LEGO Building Instructions

  • This post contains a dump of all available building instruction booklet PDFs from the LEGO website as of March 2023.
  • The PDFs include instructions for various LEGO sets such as the Colosseum, Forest Police Station, The Upside Down, and many more.
  • This is a valuable resource for LEGO enthusiasts and builders who can access step-by-step instructions for building different LEGO sets.

Industry Reactions

  • LEGO Building Instructions are now available on the Internet Archive, allowing users to access and view instructions for various LEGO sets.
  • Users on Hacker News discuss alternative websites like brickinstructions.com for more easily navigable LEGO instructions.
  • Some comments express nostalgia for LEGO sets from the past and the joy of building without instructions.

Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

  • A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction ordering the Biden administration to stop communicating with social media companies in a lawsuit filed by Missouri and Louisiana. The lawsuit alleges that the administration violated the First Amendment by colluding with social networks to suppress free speech.
  • The Biden administration argued that its communication with tech companies was aimed at countering misinformation related to elections, COVID-19, and vaccines, and that it did not exert illegal pressure on the companies. However, the judge sided with the plaintiffs and imposed limits on multiple government agencies and officials, including the White House.
  • The injunction prohibits government agencies and officials from pressuring social media companies to remove or suppress content containing protected free speech. There are some exceptions, such as posts involving criminal activity and national security threats, where the government can still communicate with social networks.

Industry Reactions

  • A court has issued a preliminary injunction in a case about social media pressure from the US Government, highlighting concerns about potential government abuse of power and censorship of free speech.
  • The ruling prohibits government agencies from pressuring social media companies to remove or censor content, sparking a debate about the balance between freedom of speech and government intervention.
  • The case raises questions about the role of social media platforms in regulating speech and the impact on democratic discourse.

n times faster than C

  • The post explores the process of optimizing a C code loop by making tweaks and measuring the resulting speedup.
  • The loop function increments or decrements a number based on characters in a string.
  • Different optimization techniques are applied, such as rearranging branches, replacing jumps with arithmetic, and avoiding conditional branches. These optimizations significantly improve the performance of the loop.

Industry Reactions

  • The post discusses a comparison between hand-written assembly and C code, showcasing the potential for assembly to be faster.
  • The optimized assembly code yields a 6x speedup compared to the original C code by using conditional arithmetic instead of jumps.
  • The post offers insights into low-level optimization techniques and demonstrates the trade-offs between code simplicity and performance.