HackerNews Summary (2023-05-27 06AM)

Source: Ask HN: Cause of UK e-gates outage?

Summary
Passport control e-gate system failure causes chaos at UK airports over the bank-holiday weekend. The reason for the failure is unclear due to being sensitive information.

Fact

🛂 The UK passport-control e-gates system failed causing delays and long queues at airports

🤐 The reason for the failure is considered too sensitive to disclose to the public

📅 The incident occurred over a bank-holiday weekend

🛬 All passports had to be checked manually instead of using the e-gate system

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Source: Why I use Linux instead of Windows — whoisthisjoker

Summary
After choosing the “keep my files” upgrade option for Windows 10, the start menu refused to work for the author and bugs increased so much so that a Youth Pastor of the author’s church suggested they opt for a new installation. They switched to Linux Mint and found that it increased the speed of their laptop and led them to their passion in programming.

Fact

👎 Windows presented the author with two upgrade options – wipe laptop and install Windows 10 from scratch or keep their programs and files – but after choosing to keep their files they experienced bugs.

🐧 After much frustration with Windows 10, the author switched to Linux Mint, a free operating system similar to Windows that had a software store with free programs and their laptop booted in half the time it normally would have.

💻 Tinkering with computers and using Linux Mint led the author to develop a passion for programming, which influenced them to change their major from Business Management to Information Systems.

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Source: The obvious final step

Summary
In order to avoid programmers writing out the final step of a piece of code that is obvious, people use tools such as destructors to write it automatically. However, this is a difficult technique to implement as there are issues such as throwing exceptions that are not handled well with destructors.

Fact

💻 Using destructors to handle the automatically writing of the final step in a piece of code that is obvious can be difficult to implement correctly.

👨‍💻 Destructors are primarily designed to release resources, regardless of whether previous operations were successful or not

📝 The final step in a piece of code may not always be obvious but writing it down can make the code more readable and easier to debug.

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Source: US jury says Google owes Sonos $32.5 million in smart-speaker patent case

Summary
Google must pay $32.5 million for infringing on one of smart-speaker maker Sonos’ patents in its wireless audio devices. The verdict is part of a larger intellectual property dispute between the companies, which includes multiple lawsuits in the US, Canada, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

Facts

💰 Google must pay $32.5 million in damages for infringing one of Sonos’ patents.

🔊 Sonos previously won a limited import ban on some Google devices from the US International Trade Commission.

🤝 The companies previously worked together to integrate Google’s streaming music service into Sonos products.

🚨 Google has also filed patent lawsuits against Sonos, alleging the smart-speaker maker incorporated Google’s technology into its products.

📉 Earlier this month, Santa Barbara-based Sonos lost nearly one-fifth of its market valuation after cutting its revenue forecast.

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