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Random selection is necessary to create stable meritocratic institutions

Campbell's Law (a variant of Goodhart's Law) states that the more a metric is used for social decision-making, the more it will be subject to corruption which distorts and corrupts not only the metric itself, but the very social processes it was meant to measure. Selection criteria for a position of authority are one example of such a metric. When selection criteria are opaque, it is difficult for them to become a target, preserving their utility as measures. For governance positions however, it

Show HN: VS Code extension to edit the filesystem like a text buffer

Voil View on the Visual Studio Marketplace. Youtube video showing voil features: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_L0c7rcYLs&t=5s. Edit file system like a text buffer (similar to oil.nvim). Create new files/directories by typing their names in the editor (names ending with / are treated as directories). Convert your existing text-editing skills to file system manipulation skills, as opposed of the vscode's default file explorer which requires mouse interaction or memorizing new keybinds (and

Why random selection is necessary to create stable meritocratic institutions

Campbell's Law (a variant of Goodhart's Law) states that the more a metric is used for social decision-making, the more it will be subject to corruption which distorts and corrupts not only the metric itself, but the very social processes it was meant to measure. Selection criteria for a position of authority are one example of such a metric. When selection criteria are opaque, it is difficult for them to become a target, preserving their utility as measures. For governance positions however, it

Hill Space: Neural nets that do perfect arithmetic (to 10⁻¹⁶ precision)

When understood and used properly, the constraint W = tanh(Ŵ) ⊙ σ(M̂) (introduced in NALU by Trask et al. 2018 ) creates a unique parameter topology where optimal weights for discrete operations can be calculated rather than learned . During training, they're able to converge with extreme speed and reliability towards the optimal solution. Most neural networks struggle with basic arithmetic. They approximate, they fail on extrapolation, and they're inconsistent. But what if there was a way to m

Cmdk – CD anywhere and open anything in your terminal

cmdk The ⌘-k "access anything" shortcut is awesome on Notion, Slack, etc. The terminal, by comparison, is a dinosaur: tons of repeated cd and ls and TAB just to get anywhere. This is ⌘-k for the terminal: access anything on your filesystem, from anywhere, with previews before you open: When you press enter... Directories get cd d to d to Text files get opened in vim Images and PDFs get opened in the Preview app .key files get opened in Keynote I'm extremely grateful to fzf; this project

How to turn off ACR on your TV (and why it makes such a big difference)

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular TV models utilize automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of ad surveillance technology that gathers information about everything you watch and transmits it to a centralized database. Manufacturers then use your data to identify your viewing preferences, enabling them to deliver highly targeted ads. Also: Your TV's USB port is seriously underutili

Anker Bluetooth Shower Speaker Is Selling for Pennies, Amazon Is Selling at a Loss for Prime Day

Portable Bluetooth speakers always become hot sellers as summer approaches and there’s a good reason for it: they’re built for adventure, often waterproof, and perfect for taking your music anywhere. If you’re in the market for a mini speaker that delivers on all fronts, the Soundcore Select 4 Go by Anker is a top pick. This product has been influenced by thousands of buyers with a 4.7 out of 5 rating and more than 3,000 reviews on Amazon. It’s my favorite this year and courtesy of Prime Day, y

How to turn off ACR on your TV (and why it greatly enhances your viewing experience)

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular TV models utilize automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of ad surveillance technology that gathers information about everything you watch and transmits it to a centralized database. Manufacturers then use your data to identify your viewing preferences, enabling them to deliver highly targeted ads. Also: Your TV's USB port is seriously underutili

I changed 6 settings on my Roku TV to give it an instant performance boost

Maria Diaz/ZDNET Few things ruin the joy of watching a good show more than suddenly seeing that rotating asterisk symbol or swirly icon that tells you your TV is buffering. Or maybe it's stuttering, or altogether freezing. If this is happening on your Roku TV, don't give up on it just yet. Also: How to disable ACR on your TV (and why doing so makes such a big difference) Like phones and computers, Rokus have caches that accumulate temporary data, which inevitably slows them down over time. Th

How to turn off ACR on your TV (and why it make such a big difference)

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular TV models utilize automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of ad surveillance technology that gathers information about everything you watch and transmits it to a centralized database. Manufacturers then use your data to identify your viewing preferences, enabling them to deliver highly targeted ads. Also: Your TV's USB port is seriously underutili

Interesting Bits of Postgres Grammar

I’ve been working on Squawk for a while, it’s a linter for PostgreSQL, and it now uses a handmade parser. So let’s explore some interesting bits from the Postgres grammar. Custom Operators Very few operators are defined in the grammar itself and lots of Postgres features rely on custom operators. For example, Postgres uses <-> for comparing geometric types, along with a whole host of others: ## , @-@ , # , @> , <@> , &< , &> , |>> , |<< , <^ , >^ , ?- , ?| , ?|| , ~= . Note: custom operator

Scroll snapping, state queries, monster hunter, and gamification

In this (long) part of the customizable select series, it’s all about gamification. In this article, I’d like to highlight one of my demos, where I aimed to recreate a piece of UI found in the Monster Hunter games. To re-create this behavior, I had to think in terms of keyboard navigation first. This demo requires quite a lot of CSS, as well as some scripting, and in the end, I do want to highlight some accessibility concerns. This is an experiment on how far we can take it when styling select e

This Bluetooth Waterproof Speaker by Anker Is Practically Free on Amazon, and It’s No Joke

It’s always convenient to have a tiny Bluetooth speaker handy whether you want to hear music in the shower, take it outdoors during summer activities or take it on a bicycle ride or boat trip. Anker is a trusted brand of portable electronics and the Soundcore Select 4 Go speaker receives rave reviews (4.7/5 on over 2,000 reviews) from users for sound quality. The great news is that the Soundcore Select 4 Go speaker is now available on Amazon for $19, an amazing deal considering it originally re

Storage Prices Are Going Nuts, Grab a New Samsung MicroSD Card With Adapter for Early Prime Day

Storage prices, to put it politely, have been all over the place lately. You could get motion sickness watching them rise and fall and rise again, and there’s of course the ever-present threat of tariffs that would suddenly balloon the prices of storage and many other tech goods. So when the roller-coaster of storage pricing rolls downward, it’s smart to grab some while you can. Now’s a good time, if Amazon’s 36% off deal on the Samsung EVO Select MicroSD memory card and adapter is any indicatio

How to turn off ACR on your TV (and what your TV stops tracking when you do)

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular TV models utilize automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of ad surveillance technology that gathers information about everything you watch and transmits it to a centralized database. Manufacturers then use your data to identify your viewing preferences, enabling them to deliver highly targeted ads. Also: 184 million passwords for Google, Microsof

I changed 6 settings on my Roku TV to instantly improve the performance

Maria Diaz/ZDNET Few things ruin the joy of watching a good show more than suddenly seeing that rotating asterisk symbol or swirly icon that tells you your TV is buffering. Or maybe it's stuttering, or altogether freezing. If this is happening on your Roku TV, don't give up on it just yet. Also: How to disable ACR on your TV (and why doing so makes such a big difference) Like phones and computers, Rokus have caches that accumulate temporary data, which inevitably slows them down over time. Th

How to disable ACR on your TV (and why doing so makes such a big difference)

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular TV models utilize automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of ad surveillance technology that gathers information about everything you watch and transmits it to a centralized database. Manufacturers then use your data to identify your viewing preferences, enabling them to deliver highly targeted ads. Also: Don't cancel Netflix yet: I used these sec

Kwikset’s newest smart lock gets almost everything right

Legacy lock maker Kwikset has been producing innovative smart locks since 2013, when it released the first touch-to-open lock, the Kwikset Kevo. The company followed that up with the launch of one of the first key-free locks in 2016, one of the earliest Apple HomeKit locks, and one of the first fingerprint-only locks. Kwikset has not shied away from new tech. Its latest model, the Halo Select ($279.99), is one of the first full-replacement Matter-over-Thread smart locks. I’ve tested almost ever

Snapchat adds a new subscription tier for Lenses

Snapchat has added a new layer to its paid offerings. The Lens+ subscription combines the existing Snapchat+ monthly plan with more access to "hundreds of Lenses and AR experiences that let you play, create, and share Snaps with friends in whole new ways." The plan will cost $9 a month. At the start, the subscription will feature Lenses made by the company or by select creators. New augmented reality experiences will be added each week. Creators will be granted the option to build and monetize

Customizable HTML Select

Una Kravets Styling form controls like the <select> element has been reported as a top developer pain point for years, and we've been working on a solution. While this work is complex and has taken a long time to get right, we're getting very close to landing this feature. A customizable version of the select element is officially in Stage 2 in the WHATWG, with strong cross-browser interest and a prototype for you to test out from Chrome Canary 130. Try it out and give us your feedback Check