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Boston Dynamics' Robot Can Do Parkour Now and It Is Incredibly Impressive - gamechangr
http://digg.com/video/boston-dynamics-robot-parkour
======
mattbillenstein
The most impressive thing about this post (which I saw two days ago) is
digg.com...
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Why I Wrote PGP (1999) - pdkl95
https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/WhyIWrotePGP.html
======
Jtsummers
The government initially claimed that using Clipper would be
voluntary, that no one would be forced to use it instead of
other types of cryptography. But the public reaction against
the Clipper chip was strong, stronger than the government
anticipated. The computer industry monolithically proclaimed
its opposition to using Clipper. FBI director Louis Freeh
responded to a question in a press conference in 1994 by saying
that if Clipper failed to gain public support, and FBI wiretaps
were shut out by non-government-controlled cryptography, his
office would have no choice but to seek legislative
relief. Later, in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City tragedy,
Mr. Freeh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that
public availability of strong cryptography must be curtailed by
the government (although no one had suggested that cryptography
was used by the bombers).
Sounds a bit like some of the conversations going on again, today. The last
sentence in particular.
~~~
clay_to_n
Yes. The difference is that today, about Paris, people _are_ suggesting that
cryptography (or Xbox games??) were used by the bombers.
~~~
throwaway7767
Is there any credible data to support that?
The NYT seemed to be the source for that claim, and they quietly pulled that
story. It's still repeated by media outlets elsewhere.
Not that it would change my opinion that government mandated crypto backdoors
are a bad idea if they had.
~~~
flatline
French intelligence has heavily infiltrated the regional extremist Muslim
community and they had no idea about these attacks in advance. Ergo, the
terrorists were using encryption.
That was the speculation I heard the other evening on NPR, by someone lobbying
to put limits on private citizens' use of strong crypto.
~~~
wuschel
I would disagree with this reasoning.
Yes, french HUMINT has heavily infiltrated extremist organizations, and failed
to prevent this attack. It does not mean that it was the use of encryption
that allowed ISIS/extremist organizations to execute this attack on french
soil.
The french secret service approach is fundamentally different from the US, as
they historically rely less on SIGINT.
I am not sure where I read it, but in presume the number of prevented attack
is in the thousands.
~~~
davorb
> I am not sure where I read it, but in presume the number of prevented attack
> is in the thousands.
Then why don't we have thousands of prosecuted and convicted terrorists in our
jails?
~~~
wuschel
I am not speaking necessarily about prevented live assaults, but about pre-
emptive action as well.
But I get your point. I need to check that article back then.
------
Rmilb
> If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy.
This still rings very true to this day.
~~~
ctdonath
Worth noting: "if X is outlawed, only outlaws will have X" usually overlooks
how many otherwise law-abiding citizens will legislatively become outlaws
because they won't give up their right to X. (Current example: a
registration/prohibition law in New York has turned about a million otherwise
exemplary residents into "outlaws" as the SAFE Act has a compliance rate of
about 4%.) Rather than solving the problem, legislators alienate & criminalize
much of the population.
~~~
maemilius
My favorite has always been: "Outlaws do X, but X isn't against the law. If we
make X against the law, it will make it harder for outlaws to do X", when, in
reality, outlaws weren't doing that thing legally (read: traceably) in the
first place.
------
upofadown
The interesting thing in retrospect is that the pro-crypto faction seems to
have won. These days anyone that actually needs cryto can get it and use it.
The amount of useful intelligence that a government can get from passive
monitoring is constantly decreasing. Entities like the NSA have to concentrate
on stuff like meta-data as they can be sure that most of the interesting
content is unavailable to them. Signals intelligence is quickly becoming
technologically obsolete. So the situation that the Clipper chip supporters
feared back in the day has become real.
It would be really good if the NSAs of the world would just accept this and
stop doing evil in their desperate attempt to survive.
~~~
Jtsummers
The NSA also focused on meta-data because it was more likely to survive a
legal challenge. A law enforcement observer can make note of you entering and
leaving a building at certain times. Your entrance and exit is public. What
they can't do, without warrants (legally, not speaking to technical ability),
is observe what happens inside a private place or within (what's intended to
be) private communications.
Meta-data also bypasses codes, as you point out, by revealing the network of
communication (who-with-who, when, and how often). So whether the
communication/interaction is recorded and understandable or not becomes less
important. In the case that it is recorded and understandable, excellent, even
more intel. If it's not, they still have some material to work with.
~~~
felipeerias
The focus on bulk collection of metadata is based on the assumption that it
can be used to stop terrorists and other enemies. This assumption remains
unproven. American drones routinely murder people abroad purely because of
their metadata, and yet peace is nowhere nearer.
At home, it turns out that it is pretty much impossible to stop a handful of
people who have access to weapons, want to do as much damage as possible, and
don't fear death. Increasing the surveillance on regular citizens will not
change that.
------
broswell
PGP Usabilty:
In the old days (Groupwise?) I found PGP easy to implement and use. Today I
find it nearly impossible. Apparently I am not alone.
[http://www.gaudior.net/alma/johnny.pdf](http://www.gaudior.net/alma/johnny.pdf)
I have found S/MIME a bit easier to implement, but still much harder.
Is it a conspiracy to keep people from using crypto?
~~~
unfunco
I was using Groupwise in 2007 at a previous employer, and PGP was definitely
easy to use with Groupwise. I worked in a MIS department for a large UK
company, and the customer services department was in a small town in Wales,
the kind of town where not many people had broadband in 2007, and the staff
were not trained in any technical specialty, it was mostly just people with
jobs instead of people with careers. The staff used to send banking
information using PGP and Groupwise and people rarely had issues.
The problem now is the increasing number of centralised services, Google
doesn't want to be storing encrypted emails within Gmail, because the content
cannot be analysed for advertising purposes. And the same goes for other free
email providers. It's still possible, but it is increasingly difficult.
------
neo2006
When politicians will understand that technology is only a tool. The way it is
used can be evil but not the technology itself.
------
broswell
In the 90's I found PGP fairly easy to use (with old versions of Novell
Groupwise)
Today I find it fairly difficult to implement with modern email systems and
devices. Apparently I am not alone.
[http://www.gaudior.net/alma/johnny.pdf](http://www.gaudior.net/alma/johnny.pdf)
I have found S/MIME to be barely implementable. What can we do together to
make it easier to use email encryption?
~~~
scott_karana
Dupe comment?
------
kaizendad
Thanks for sharing this. It's terrifying how relevant this is - the predicted
government ability to read all communications has come true.
------
Sealy
Thanks for the share. Relevant given politicians are currently, and
predictably using the recent news to push through various snoopers charters.
Has nobody told them that in reality, the problem is not encryption. Its poor
foreign policy as well as poor international relations.
Thats my two cents for what its worth. Im no expert on foreign policy though
although I do understand that the clear agenda in it is peace.
------
jsatk
Thanks for posting. This is incredible.
------
iamleppert
I wonder how the people who wrote crypto software and provide secure messaging
services feel about terrorists and other bad people using their products to
execute their plans? Most of these people wouldn't have the ability or access
to such technology had it not be for the efforts of a few who have made it
very accessible and user friendly.
I know there are plenty of legitimate uses, but especially for the services
that essentially bill themselves as secure and untraceable, you have to know
at a certain point you've designed and built technology that is actively being
used to hurt innocent people. For me it would be difficult to quantify if the
amount of good is worth the all the bad people in the world.
~~~
hellbanner
This is the "think of the children" argument used by many manipulative
government news agencies when discussing
anonymous money anonymous communication anonymous residence anonymous weapons
etc
Maybe we should make hands illegal since they do illegal things and you can
only use your hand with a license from the smart-over-lord-government, right?
Or less dramatically, all technology and all constructions from home
improvements to particle accelerators to hairspray to encrypted internet
should pass review from the government and people can only work on what the
government approves and use things they have licenses for.
\--
Do you want to apply your same argument to car manufacturers? Cars can be used
by kidnappers, bank robbers, rapists and murderers to flee crime scenes. So
car manufacturers should stop producing cars because all of the good they are
used for (visiting loved ones in the hospital, visiting your kids baseball
game, going to work) isn't worth the carnage caused by the "bad people"?
~~~
CrimsnBlade
Exactly right. It goes with almost anything, if you make it, someone will end
up finding a way to use it in a negative way. If everyone lived thinking X
shouldn't be created because it could turn into Y then we would all be living
in caves afraid of everyone else.
~~~
hellbanner
Did you see the frontpage today? EU clamping down on bitcoin to avoid viking
invasion.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10594453](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10594453)
~~~
Adlai
You just made me laugh out loud :)
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Rhyming with NLP and Shakespeare - garysieling
http://garysieling.com/blog/rhyming-with-nlp-and-shakespeare
======
tcwc
Neat idea! It looks like the NLTK POS tagger is having trouble here so might
limit your recall when used as a filter.
Instead I wonder if it would be better to use the context of each token to
mine significant ngrams from the rest of Shakespeare's work and filter for
rhymes with a phoenetic hash like Metaphone.
~~~
garysieling
Interesting thought, thanks! I was thinking an approach like that would be
good for non-dictionary words.
One of the things I didn't go in detail in is the issue where there are
multiple pronunciations for a word - I was thinking that the way to address
that would be to compare pronunciations between lines, but looking at
metaphones across Shakespeare's work overall might also help build a solution
to that.
------
tmarthal
For those interested, there is a twitter bot doing exactly this with the
twitter firehose.
[https://twitter.com/pentametron](https://twitter.com/pentametron)
Singular re-tweets do not make sense, they need to be taken in pairs.
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Scaling Web Applications with HMVC - iisbum
http://techportal.ibuildings.com/2010/02/22/scaling-web-applications-with-hmvc/
======
dasil003
_To reduce the initial investment, usually it is decided that the application
should designed to be one holistic piece of software containing all the
required features. This represents a potential point of failure if the
software becomes very popular in a short timeframe. I have painful memories of
refactoring existing codebases that have not scaled well._
Great, but I don't see how this pattern gives any kind of predictable
scalability improvement over plain ol' MVC for arbitrary applications. In my
Rails app, the bottleneck is the database—the application servers trivially
scale out horizontally. In the diagram here there is a single DB creating a
bottleneck as well, splitting it up is a traditional sharding problem with or
without this pattern.
In fact, this looks like a service oriented architecture with constraints (ie.
MVC) on each service that are arbitrarily chosen rather than reflecting the
true scalability profile of the application.
I'm hard-pressed to understand how you could justify building a greenfield
application this way.
------
neovive
As a long-time Kohana 2.x user, this article shows how promising Kohana 3 is
as a framework. Once things stabalize a bit more with v3, it will be
interesting to test out HMVC.
~~~
dlib
I've been a follower of Kohana for a long time, it's good to see it gaining
traction.
~~~
neovive
@dlib: Do you still use Kohana? We all miss the great articles you used to
post on learn.kohanaphp.com.
~~~
dlib
I've been busy trying to get a college degree. Most of my projects also
involve RoR and Python nowadays and I've gotten a bit out of touch with the
Kohana codebase. Some real improvements have been made though. Perhaps I'll
get back in to it over the summer.
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IBM Says No to Home Work - thecoffman
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/05/19/ibm-says-no-to-home-work.html
======
makecheck
Then employees should leave, immediately, and fill out exit surveys
appropriately. Do not show companies any loyalty when they show none to you.
Besides, this move just seems to scream "we want to lay off a bunch of people
but avoid the bad press". Read this as: "IBM Laying Off Thousands".
| {
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Ask HN: Mechanical engineer that wants to work in the programming field - replicant
I am a 27 years old PhD in computational mechanics (finite element method, elasticity ...) who should be graduating in around 6 months. I have been tempted for quite some time by the idea of trying to get a job in the US and work as a programmer. A personal dream, I really would like to experience the life in the west coast for a few years. What are my odds of achieving that?
Any advices on what I should try to learn or do in the next 6 months? During my PhD, I have been coding in Matlab, Python and mostly in C++ (I have read Effective C++, Modern Effective C++). I have learned OpenMP, MPI and Cuda (though, I don't consider myself very experienced in them) and I have taken an introduction course in algorithms.<p>Edit: Since some people have asked, right now I am in UK and I have an EU passport. Thanks for the very encouraging answers.
======
john_b
I'm a mechanical engineer by training (B.S. and M.S.) but most of my day to
day work is software development, testing, analysis, etc in the aviation
industry. I haven't done anything "mechanical" for money since graduating.
Unless you want to do web development, you shouldn't try to sell yourself as
"just a programmer." If a company is only looking for someone with programming
skills they will probably favor someone with a CS degree.
Instead, leverage your background. There are lots of companies in the US (West
Coast included) that do embedded software, robotics, and other types of
software development where the software doesn't run on x86. Often it needs to
run in real time and be qualified for safety. The methodical persistence and
attention to detail that companies associate with a PhD is an asset for these
types of positions. Your Matlab & Python experience will show that you can do
both quick prototyping and heavy analysis, while your C++ experience and
interest in Cuda, etc will show that you care about performant software and
don't mind thinking about the actual hardware your code runs on.
If you have any knowledge of sensors, statistics, or signal processing, you'll
probably be an instant hire for this type of company. Companies of this type
(which aren't "software companies" by the usual definition, but which have
software as a major competitive advantage/requirement) have trouble finding
people with the right background. Traditional engineers who can't program
don't fill the role, and neither do most CS grads who don't have the
engineering knowledge to work with the hardware.
~~~
replicant
This path is really appealing to me. Now, knowing that there is a demand for
the people between the two worlds, I will spend some time looking for offers,
and prepare a CV accordingly.
Moving to US seems a bit harder, but I wouldn't mind if I achieve this in the
long term.
------
scottndecker
I have an MS in Mechanical Engineering from an Ivy League university. While I
got my degree I too learned Matlab as well as C. I wrote my masters thesis on
a controlled mechanism for the breakup of microdroplets in a bidisperse
emulsion.
Eight months after graduating and working in industry, I came to the same
conclusion as you: that I preferred writing code to working in the mechanical
world. I started learning Java and wrote an Android app. I'd stay up late at
night and on weekends pouring over examples and hacking stuff together. Six
months into doing that I got an interview at my current employer. I got the
job. That was two years ago and it's been one of the best decisions of my
life.
The key to doing it:
1) Prove to yourself and others that you want to be a programmer, that you
actually enjoy writing code for hours a day
2) Have something to show that proves that
3) Find a company (like I did) that is more interested in finding people who
know HOW to think rather than WHAT to think. As engineers you and I are very
good at solving problems. Find people who care about that rather than the
programming languages you know
4) Once a company takes a chance on you, seize it and run like crazy. Learn as
much as you can. In a year or two you can be highly skilled and highly
employable in this field.
Best of luck!
~~~
jkubicek
Agreed. I did almost the exact same path. Once you've gotten that first job
and have a few years of professional software development under your belt,
changing jobs is very easy. Potential employers see "software engineer" and
"PhD" on your resume and don't care that it's an ME degree.
Btw, scottndecker, did you go to Rose-Hulman for undergrad?
~~~
scottndecker
Nope. Dartmouth.
------
svec
Can you get a job as a mechanical engineer somewhere that would allow you to
move into programming at the same company?
I ask because it's probably easier for you to get a job as an ME (mechanical
engineer) than a software engineer, given your background.
Silicon Valley has plenty of robotics companies and other companies that make
"real stuff" who need mechanical engineers. And once you're in a company as a
productive ME, you can reach out to your software colleagues and see if you
can help & learn. And don't just think of northern California - Seattle and
southern California have companies that might fit the ME + software profile as
well.
And if you're thinking of the East Coast at all, please reach out - I work at
iRobot in Boston, MA, and we have plenty of ME's who dabble in software. The
Boston area has TONS of other companies who do hardware + software too.
~~~
bartuc
Having worked in Boston for a few years before moving to the bay area, I can
confirm that Boston has numerous software+hardware/robotics startups. However
I've found that in the bay area hardly anyone is interested in robotics, and
the ones that are only seem to only be working with drones (mostly quadcopters
and the like, which don't seem practical for many of the proposed use cases).
------
mpdehaan2
I think in general the field (maybe not HR departments) is pretty accepting of
people with alternative majors even outside of engineering - I know some great
folks who had music or art history degrees.
Your challenge I think is to show initial work for job acquisition purposes,
so being able to point to a very technical side project on your GitHub (and of
course resume) for your chosen language will be a very good idea.
What language you choose depends on what field you want to get into,
specially. Python is used in various places including web and database
applications, but ultimately I'd say shoot for something you like. If you can
find enough companies you like that work in X language, that can be a good way
to go.
Good companies will assume smart folks can pick up other tools, but I think
your main hurdle is going to be showing something that counts as sufficient
"equivalent experience" \-- and that should be possible to do.
College is highly valuable, but all of college C.S. is not always directly
applicable.
------
krschultz
I have a mechanical engineering degree(BS) with a minor in computer science.
It is 100% do-able for you to switch in. My college used to say "mechanical
engineering is the liberal arts of engineering". You will be able to handle
it. I personally did 2.5 years as a professional mechanical engineer right
after college, then switched over to software and have been doing that ever
since.
Some possible pathways - look for a job that is at the intersection of
mechanical engineering & computer science. There are companies that write
simulation programs, it's harder to find people that understand the
engineering math than it is to find people that can write code. They are
usually in the oil / defense industries. They pay very well.
You are also a prime candidate for a bootcamp type program. I don't normally
recommend them, but you are one of the few people that it actually makes sense
for. You need to just work with some people that know software engineering
well and you will grow quickly. At the end of that, they will help place you
in a job and then you can spend the next 18-24 months learning it all on the
job.
My personal pathway was a bit different. I grew up hacking, and chose to do
mechanical engineering because I felt I wouldn't learn enough new stuff in a
CS program. When I wanted to get back into software I worked on a sideproject
for about 6 months, and used that as an example of my skills when I
interviewing. However, I did 3 years of internships in software so I knew what
I needed to do.
------
anon100
Find a company like Ansys or Abaqus, where you can work on FEM software. This
way you can use your training in mechanics while still programming.
The big advantage here is that: a) Most engineers suck at programming. b) Most
CS majors don't understand the mechanics.
By having skills in both mechanics and programming, you can be an extremely
valuable asset to companies that make high-performance computational mechanics
software.
~~~
Iftheshoefits
"a) most engineers suck at programming."
I find that to be not true. Most engineers suck at regurgitating the correct
textbook CS algorithm or data structure from memory, but they are very good at
engineering, which is what the overwhelming majority of programming is.
If I had to choose between a CS major and a ME for an engineering project that
involved software development I'd choose the ME almost every time, all else
being equal. The exceptions would be cases where academic CS knowledge is
required. They exist but not nearly as frequently as Silicon Valley would have
anybody believe.
~~~
krschultz
No he's saying most mechanical engineers can't program and most CS majors
can't understand the mechanical engineering math. The OP is perfectly
positioned to bridge the gap between the two.
------
rayiner
My advice would be: don't underestimate the opportunities available on the
east coast of the U.S. There are a lot of companies here in the D.C. area who
need programmers with domain expertise in mechanical, aerospace, and
electrical engineering. Also, my gut feeling is that the PhD will carry
relatively more weight here and that the lack of CS degree will carry
relatively less. A who understands the physics is a lot more valuable to many
companies than a guy who knows the latest design patterns.
FWIW, I've got a BS in AE, and never worked in the field professionally. I
went into a software job doing simulations. Most of my coworkers were EEs. We
finally hired a CS PhD years in to do AI stuff.
------
scoj
I am a mechanical engineer as well that turned to programming. I only had
Matlab and Fortran experience of all things out of school. I would be very
honest with yourself whether living in the US on the West Coast is your dream
or being a programmer is your dream. These are two separate things and are not
necessarily related. Assuming that you want to go into programming, then
figure out what type of work you want to do. But if you are flexible and not
in the goal is more to live in the US then I would suggest going the web
development route. I learned pretty much entirely on nights and weekends doing
small contract work what we call moonlighting. Then after several years of
that I decided to go out on my own. I had never worked officially as a
developer but was able to get my first full-time contract job without showing
a resume at all. (It was from a reference.) The thing that I love about the
web development space especially is that no one cares what your degree as they
only care about your experience and knowledge. If you can build a simple web
app that does something and it can be simple and put it out there on a real
site then you will have no problem getting a job.
All of this is assuming that you legally can get a job the US.
------
thothamon
The main thing you need to do is convince HR and then a hiring manager that
you have the skills to do the work. The best way you can do that is to have
projects on Github that demonstrate your skill, and if you can get a little
paid work using the toolset you're targeting, that would be great as well.
You have six months, so you can't be too ambitious on the size of your
projects. Maybe target three interesting projects that demonstrate the skills
you're interested in, each set to take two months of your time.
If you really throw yourself into this, you should be doing a lot of hard
work, the kind of work a professional programmer does every day. After six
months of that, I think you'll be well-positioned for a programming interview,
and you'll have some nice projects on Github that will demonstrate your
capabilities.
Good luck!
------
astral303
Read "Clean Code" by Robert C Martin. It's Java-centric, but very applicable
nonetheless. It's a compilation of years of insight about how to design your
programs, and it explains well why you should care about writing your code one
way or another. It's the first time ever that I have seen an illustration of
violating Demeter's Law that was actually believable and the proposed solution
deeply communicated the intent of the law.
The book progresses from smaller details (like code formatting style) to very
large concepts, gets very deep towards the end, so don't be afraid if you get
lost a third of the way in. Just leave it and come back to it as you gain
experience.
------
mschip
I have a BS in Mechanical Engineering and fell in love with coding after
having to write some pretty basic VB macros in Excel. If your goal is to just
live on the West Coast then I would recommend looking for a job in your
current field. If your passionate about coding, the best thing you can do in
the next 6 months is to build something meaningful that you can speak to. My
route was a little different.. I struggled to find the time to learn/build
while working full time so I decided to fully dedicate 3 months via Hack
Reactor. I highly recommend checking out Hack Reactor if you have the means
and interest in that branch of programming.
------
thorin
What country are you currently in? If you can get a job at a worldwide
software company and then do a placement in the US you'll have a much higher
chance of getting a visa. If you can handle continuing to work in Engineering
there must be a lot of options involving coding. Look at adverts for big
engineering companies (in that area) and look for software jobs, that way
you'll have lots of relevant experience.
~~~
replicant
I am in UK.
------
vlokshin
I'm a 27 year old and my B.S. was in mechanical engineering -- I work in the
"app/startup" world. I think MechE helped.
Best advice I can give you: Start building things now. The languages are cool,
but there's so much more value to being able to build complete-loop products,
and I think any engineering mindsets are a great start for working with
creating digital products (programming). If you want to take part in an
opportunity/make a shift, (your) value has to meet (market) opportunity.
To be honest, I do more wireframing now than anything else (I'm also lucky
enough to now have a team that is much better at designing or programming than
I am). I think my undergrad in mechE had a huge impact on where I am now --
(1) from how I think and (2) from how much "programmers" or non-programmers
respect engineers, or anyone technical, in today's digital world.
The shift can be a very natural one, but web and mobile are where you should
probably be focused. That's simply where there' a lot more demand.
I'm not sure how helpful I can ever be, but please feel free to email me for
any advice or just to chat: Vlad(at)darwinapps.com
------
mhickie
I have a BS in ME and worked ME jobs for about 11 years. During the last 1/2
of this time, worked on my MS in IE and was doing simulation modeling.
Simulation modeling is where I learned how much I really enjoyed programming
but had also been writing some statistical analysis programs for QA on the
side. At year 12, I was able to jump to the Information Systems side to write
B2B code for outsourcing of manufacturing. I have been doing programming jobs
now for the last 17 years and have enjoyed it.
My advice is to keep working on your coding skills. You don't need a degree in
CS. You have proven you can handle technical topics with your current
degree(s). Maybe search github for some open source projects dealing with
mechanical topics (something like robotic movement or control systems or CNC).
Join these and contribute.
When it comes to finding a job, there are companies the will value your full
skill set. It may take a while and sometimes you might have to work as a ME
for a bit. But in some technology companies, you will be able to move
horizontal.
Wish you the best!
------
steven2012
Which country are you from? If not from Canada or Australia, then unless you
get into school in the US and get your OPT, or unless you join a U.S. based
company that you can internally transfer, your chances are slim. You need to
get work authorization which is very hard and most U.S. employers won't hire
someone outside of the US except in the above situations.
------
pcvarmint
Work in High-Performance Computing [1], whether at a research lab, an HPC
manufacturer, or even a big company like Intel, or at an independent software
vendor like MSC, ANSYS, LS-Dyna, Cd-adapco, Mathworks, etc.
There are usually openings at HPC companies or HPC business units for
mechanical or other engineers to port and tune engineering software to
supercomputers. At research labs which use HPC, there are usually lots of
experts in various fields, and having someone fluent in both mechanical
engineering and programming can bridge gaps and fill voids.
[1] [http://www.hpcwire.com/](http://www.hpcwire.com/)
------
zamalek
The industry has a high amount of people that don't even have a degree. We've
found that CS graduates need to be basically re-educated but still prefer to
hire them purely because a degree shows that you can complete something. A PhD
speaks volumes about your work ethic: you should have no problems getting
hired.
Salary is a different story entirely: you're probably going to be a junior
developer and the PhD will go to 'waste.'
~~~
Kurtz79
Also, a few years down the road, the relevant experience you have will weight
orders of magnitude more than your degree or PhD.
Right now, your decision should be based mainly on what you would like to do
be doing in your professional life, don't sweat too much on your initial
salary (which even as a junior developer, it should be at the very least
decent).
Just keep practicing (hint, read "How to crack the coding interview"), and you
should be fine.
~~~
zamalek
> Also, a few years down the road, the relevant experience you have will
> weight orders of magnitude more than your degree or PhD.
Precisely.
------
phkahler
I suggest you check out [http://www.altair.com/](http://www.altair.com/) they
are a leader in FEA tools of all kinds, with offices in many countries.
Software development tends to be concentrated in a few countries (depends on
the product), but customization of the tools is done world wide. Check out the
web site to learn more and look for open positions.
------
pickle27
I have a BS in Mech Eng from there I got a MS in Computer Engineering working
on Computer Vision and robotics. If you are good with python and care about
good code then it should be no problem to switch.
------
Dewie
Maybe first travel to the West Coast on a vacation or something to get a feel
for what it's actually like. If you haven't already.
~~~
ashwinaj
I second this. Don't be swayed by what you see and read in the media. Silicon
Valley isn't a place for everyone and can be incredibly stressful. On the
bright side, it's a very diverse place with tons of stuff to do, great
weather, smart people and is easily one of the best places in the US (IMO
anyway).
~~~
Dewie
A friend wanted to become a lawyer in LA (he's not American). He travelled
there once, and he changed his mind about that for some reason. That saved him
some time from starting to study American law, I guess.
------
balls2you
Don't join Silicon Valley. Your skills are more valued and paid for in
Finance. Real hard cash not worthless options that may have value in the
future.
EDIT: also do not "commoditize" yourself by becoming a web developer or an
iPhone/Android developer either. Do the difficult technical stuff, aim for the
"non-low-hanging-fruit" and you will make tons of money, esp. in Finance.
~~~
phdp
I did this, and played up my ability to analyze real world situations when
applying for a quant modeling job. A lot of my lab work was empirical
modeling, so transitioning from student to my current job wasn't difficult. It
also helps to have some background in coding. I did c++/matlab/java in college
for lab work and classes. Everyone that is under 35 in my group has a
scientific background, ranging from me (MSE in Mechanical Engineering) to PhDs
in Chemistry and Physics. Most of my day is spent doing c++ or java
development and the rest is R.
~~~
replicant
I never considered this possibility. Could you recommend some link where I
could read about the field and see if I have chance? It is not really what
motivates me, but it is worth informing myself before discarding it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Maybe Monads Might Not Matter - raganwald
http://gbracha.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/maybe-monads-might-not-matter.html
======
marshray
I thought this [http://gbracha.blogspot.com/2011/01/maybe-monads-might-
not-m...](http://gbracha.blogspot.com/2011/01/maybe-monads-might-not-
matter.html?showComment=1296027246940#c6671808644893652655) was a fantastic
comment.
_Sending a message on a channel usually costs at least a compare-and-swap or
memory fence. This limits their applicability to things above a certain
granularity [...] even in Erlang or Scala actors, you wind up passing around
lists and other concrete data structures, because it isn't worth constructing
those queues _everywhere_._
So when is a distributed program's internal communication and IO the right
level of granularity?
Network IO would seem to be a familiar instance of an Actor model and should
map directly.
Interestingly, Intel's new Xeon Phi chip
[http://semiaccurate.com/2012/11/12/a-look-at-the-xeon-phi-
ca...](http://semiaccurate.com/2012/11/12/a-look-at-the-xeon-phi-cards-and-
hardware/) "looks like a cluster of x86 servers that are on a TCP/IP network,
and takes almost no programming expertise to port to."
------
raganwald
A comprehensive discussion on proggit;
[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/f8b1u/maybe_mon...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/f8b1u/maybe_monads_might_not_matter/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How to handle employee requesting inflated salary/title? - startupqs
How do you tactfully and delicately handle the situation where an employee requests compensation and/or title above his/her performance?<p>On the one hand, you don't want to bruise egos, but on the other hand, you need to maintain fairness to other employees and don't want to let title/salary inflation cripple your startup.
======
bko
Tell the employee that you think it's a good idea and setup a plan to get them
there with objective goals and touch back in 6-12 months. If he doesn't
succeed in meeting those objectives, you didn't lose anything and you could
point to it in not giving him the new title/promotion. If he does succeed,
then you got more out of him. You could turn this around to be a positive
growing experience.
~~~
codeonfire
This is basically how the game is played. The other half is that managers hire
their unqualified friends into those same high level positions no questions
asked. No hoops. no career development carrot and stick bullshit. Welcome to
office politics. You are a fool if you jump through the hoops. Smart employees
will just go get the job they want somewhere else.
~~~
raincom
This is how even senior management positions are filled.
~~~
randycupertino
I had my first and last experience ever working for a family owned business
where the 3 daughters of the owner (straight out of USC) were hired to be the
"Directors" of their own departments... with no employees. These girls had
nothing to do so they started killing time making insane mandatory dress
codes, spirit events and MANDATORY halloween costume and cubicle decorating
contests. They drove company Porsches and took private jets to golf
tournaments with clients. When they brought in the daughters boyfriend got
brought in to be the biz dev guy, who also went to USC and also had no
experience other than being the "biz dev" guy of his father's chain of
carwashes... He told me one day he was going to "dev the shit out of some biz"
.... I put in my notice. I think I still have PTSD from working there.
------
pedalpete
This is poignant for me as tomorrow I'll be speaking to my boss about my
current title compared to what I actually do, and the accompanying wage.
I've clearly laid out what I've done in the last 6 months and how it has
benefited the company (justifying the change) and what I have planned in the
upcoming 6 months, to show him what he will be getting from me.
BKO mentions you should 'setup a plan', but I'd suggest putting that on the
employees shoulders. If they are asking for the title and salary, let them
know you're not against giving it to them, but have them explain what they
have done in the last X months to feel they deserve it, and/or what they plan
to do.
From there, you can discuss what your expectations would be of somebody in
that position with that title. You can then help them fill the gap. But I
think having the employee do the introspection first might bring to light
where the employee sees their value.
------
leepowers
It's hard to say no, especially to someone you work with everyday. So find a
way to arrive at a "yes" that benefits both the company and the employee.
Fortunately you have several factors in your favor, and potential strategies
to getting to "yes".
1) It's A Startup - resources are scarcer than a larger, more established
company. Any employee who works at a startup should understand this.
2) No Process - there's no formal process for handing out promotions. Co-opt
his self-interest to craft a process that treats employees and the company
fairly. As a side benefit this will force him to think of the company's needs
in addition to his own.
3) It's A Startup Redux - working for a startup often means sacrificing short-
term gains for a long-term payoff. Structure any promotion so that while an
employee may not get as much now they have an opportunity to earn much more in
the future. (Usually, this comes in the form of stock options with a vesting
cliff).
4) DIY - in a startup the best way to get a promotion is to build it yourself.
A single Google worker is unlikely to move the needle on Google's
profitability, either up or down. A startup employee can have a much greater
impact. Inventing or improving a feature. Helping expand into a new market.
Creating a process that saves every other employee an hour each day. These are
all huge gains that can improve profits, either presently or down the road.
Find the metrics to measure each employee's contributions and reward them
appropriately.
------
nostrademons
This is why companies put in place formal policies for hiring, firing, and
promotions. If you give in to this one instance, you've set a bad precedent
that will have the rest of your employees soon coming to you for inflated
salaries & titles.
You should be able to precisely define what it looks like to perform each job
function at a given compensation/title level. That way, when a person comes to
you looking for a raise or promotion, you can say "Well, these are the skills
you will be evaluated on and the expectations for what you can do to earn
that, and this is the process and timetable for this evaluation. Get to work."
And ideally, you'll have built the process with employee input so that
everybody buys into it, and sucking up to anyone person doesn't measurably
change your chances of being promoted.
~~~
codeonfire
Formal policies are meaningless. Management is an unregulated group.
Inexperienced people will learn their lesson when they go through all those
skills and expectations and nothing happens. The job market is the only real
test of who is valuable and who is full of it.
------
sharemywin
I'm assuming the title doesn't exist now and you want to hire form the outside
with more experience. Just realize your probably not going to keep this
person. They probably feel they are doing the job they are asking for(right or
wrong).
------
joshmn
Be honest. But not too honest (like showing them this post).
Lay out the (not "a", but "the") roadmap that would define what they think
they're worth. Make it clear and transparent.
Use lingo like "next level" and "investment" and "personal development". Be
super positive.
If you're small enough, and you think it's worth the investment (in this
individual), touch base regularly about the roadmap you laid out and how you
think they're progressing. Be ready to come with concrete, factual stuff, too.
------
philip1209
What I learned at our last company that I'm applying to our 4-person company:
1) Set up performance reviews and tie them to salary reviews every 6 months.
It sounds very corporate-y, but it sets a cadence. People know when their
compensation is up for review.
2) Talk about salary/title/equity expectations before performance reviews.
Then, during performance reviews, if your grant differs from the expectations,
it's a time to set objective for how to achieve those goals during the next
round of raises.
------
zer00eyz
Its about how you state it:
Instead of saying "no fucking way you can't do that job", You say "at this
time were going to have to refuse this request", "here is the things your good
at today (elaborate on list of items), You need to keep that up and do the
following if you want me to give you that title and raise (give list)"
The problem might be you, not them. They may see needs you haven't identified
yet, and aren't articulating them well. You may also have currently unstated
expectations that you can get out on the table too. Lots of people are happy
having a plan/path and might reach for it if they see it is possible.
There may be other mitigating factors in the ask that you aren't stating or
aren't making us aware of as examples:
\-- Are they asking for a role your hiring for?
\-- Do they have life changing events going on that your unaware of, and a
need for increased compensation?
\-- Are you below market on pay, and pushing equity as an alternative? Stock
options and free lunches don't mean shit if you have a sick family member or a
kid on the way.
~~~
bko
> Do they have life changing events going on that your unaware of, and a need
> for increased compensation?
I disagree that personal circumstances should be a factor in making managerial
decisions. It's not fair to the other employees, company or investors. If you
feel strongly enough to intervene, you should do so on a personal level (offer
to lend the person money with no expectation of having him return it, let him
crash on the couch, etc) because the other employees and investors may not
share the same values as you and you need to act in their interest.
~~~
michaelbuddy
It's a valid disagreement, but compensation is arranged so the employee is
getting the least amount possible the company can get away with paying.
Exceptions exist, but generally, if somebody needs more money and you're
already paying them the least amount you can, it's time to look at losing him
/ her vs paying more to keep somebody reliable. It's expensive to rehire, more
expensive in almost every case plus risky.
~~~
bko
I agree that if you need to pay them more to keep them and they're worth it,
you should. I think the argument that employers pay employees the minimum
amount is true on the surface, but it is too cynical and unrealistic. The firm
isn't "getting away" with anything same as you're not "getting away" with a
wage/working conditions higher than your next best alternative. You're engaged
in a mutually beneficial agreement, although the gains may not be evenly
distributed among parties.
Economist Ronald Coase had an interesting perspective as to why firms exist:
> Mr Coase argued that firms make economic sense because they can reduce or
> eliminate the “transaction cost” of going to the market by doing things in-
> house. It is easier to co-ordinate decisions. At the time, when
> communications were poor and economies of scale could be vast, this
> justified keeping a lot of things inside a big firm, so carmakers often
> owned engine-makers and other suppliers.
So paying someone no more than you have to would be the model of purchasing
contract work rather than decisions made in the firm. In the firm, you accept
some inefficiencies in order to minimize transaction cost, including those
associated with finding, vetting and hiring a new employee.
[0] [http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21584985-anyone-who-
ca...](http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21584985-anyone-who-cares-about-
capitalism-and-economics-should-mourn-death-ronald-coase-man)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Invitation Only - sarvesh
http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/invitation_only/
======
msluyter
I know the article is sort of toungue in cheek, but Thomas Friedman actually
said roughly the same thing (minus the eugenics) recently:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/opinion/11friedman.html?_r...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/opinion/11friedman.html?_r=1)
From the article:
_"Leave it to a brainy Indian to come up with the cheapest and surest way to
stimulate our economy: immigration.
'All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and
Koreans,' said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. 'We will
buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We
will immediately improve your savings rate no Indian bank today has more than
2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered
shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs
for more Americans.'"_
~~~
peregrine
Sounds perfect lets do it.
------
jadence
This is/was already done to some degree. I don't have all the details but
relatives on both sides of my family had to prove "their value" when applying
to enter the United States (from China). The application process is a long (on
the order of years) and tedious one with no guarantees.
A bit off-topic: Some of you may recall the hoopla in California a couple
years ago regarding granting amnesty/citizenship to illegal immigrants who had
been in the country long enough. One angle the media did little reporting on
is how upset those who played by the rules and went/were going through the
actual immigration process were that they were being bumped by those who broke
the rules and entered the country illegally. It's not all that different from
how financially-responsible people are upset today that the irresponsible
receiving bailouts.
------
tjmc
This is (mostly) how the Australian immigration system works. It's a point
system which is weighted towards the young, healthy and skilled. People with
certain in-demand professions (eg doctors) can get in relatively easily.
~~~
tomjen
Perhaps, but isn't Australia generally very racist? That would definitely be
something that would hamper immigration.
~~~
tjmc
Not _generally_ no. There is certainly some racism in Australia and some areas
that you'd roughly compare to parts of the American "Deep South" in terms of
backward attitudes, but overall Australians are pretty tolerant.
------
jrockway
I don't really get why people would _want_ to come to the US. Your taxes buy
you nearly nothing; you are own your own for education and healthcare. There
is no public transportation.
(But oh yeah, there's a tax break for buying a new car, but not one for using
your bicycle every damn day. God bless America!)
Anyway, I would appreciate it if Europe made it easier to migrate there.
~~~
andreyf
_I don't really get why people would want to come to the US._
Because there is more money here. In Russia, a biologist with half a century
of experience working at Moscow State University (best university in the
country, arguably Europe) makes about $120/month?
~~~
jrockway
Why the US and not Europe, though?
~~~
sarvesh
Even with all the problems with immigrating to the US, it still is one of very
few countries that is welcoming to the immigrants in general. People in the
US, a lot of them, have always put aside everything about where a person is
from and look at him as a individual. This doesn't happen in a lot of places.
Europe for most parts has been, so far, protectionist. When I decided to move
to the US there weren't really a lot of options for me, Europe would have been
a lot tougher.
~~~
jrockway
Yeah, I've noticed that Europe and Japan are almost impossible to move to. I
think this is kind of dumb... if I am going to pay taxes in a country, who
cares where I was born?
~~~
ido
> Yeah, I've noticed that Europe and Japan are almost impossible to move to.
Why do you say that? I've moved here 4 years ago, it was a bit of a hassle to
get the work permit, but it wasn't _that_ bad.
Basically if you can earn the equivalent of more than about ~45k usd/year, or
are a student (and one of a few specific professions- like artists and
musicians) it's not that hard to get into the EU.
And coming here with a tourist visa and staying until you manage to get a work
permit is much easier than in the US - even getting a tourist visa can be
quite difficult in the US, where as as long as you are from a 1st world
country you don't even need to apply for one to come to the EU.
------
mhb
Becker and Posner have somewhat more to say:
[http://www.becker-posner-
blog.com/archives/2008/02/selling_i...](http://www.becker-posner-
blog.com/archives/2008/02/selling_illegal.html)
[http://www.becker-posner-
blog.com/archives/2008/02/what_if_a...](http://www.becker-posner-
blog.com/archives/2008/02/what_if_anythin.html)
------
nazgulnarsil
IQ tests are considered racist because the results are not perfectly uniform
when you collate with racial demographics. since IQ is the best measure we
have for future success we are handicapping ourselves.
------
chiffonade
Immigration policy by the US is, and has been for the past 200 years,
determined by populist racial attitudes.
~~~
mynameishere
<http://www.npg.org/facts/us_imm_decade.htm> [<\--illegals are not included]
Around 1900 most of the immigrants came from Europe. Increasingly, this was
Eastern and Southern Europe. Resistance started increasing, at one extreme by
the KKK, but in a general sense throughout the population. Policies changed,
the depression hit, and it dropped. 1965 came and the closet Marxists were in
charge. Ted Kennedy sponsored new legislation:
_"Out of deference to the critics, I want to comment on … what the bill will
not do. First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants
annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains
substantially the same … Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be
upset … Contrary to the charges in some quarters, S.500 will not inundate
America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated
and economically deprived nations of Africa and Asia. In the final analysis,
the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected
to change as sharply as the critics seem to think. Thirdly, the bill will not
permit the entry of subversive persons, criminals, illiterates, or those with
contagious disease or serious mental illness. As I noted a moment ago, no
immigrant visa will be issued to a person who is likely to become a public
charge … the charges I have mentioned are highly emotional, irrational, and
with little foundation in fact. They are out of line with the obligations of
responsible citizenship. They breed hate of our heritage."(Senate Part 1, Book
1, pp. 1-3)_
If a Senator mentioned the importance of ethnic mix today, he'd be strung up
by his balls. But even Teddy did it in 1965--things have changed utterly. At
any rate, _every single word_ was a total falsehood. The above quote has the
greatest concentration of mendacity that I've ever read.
Look at the numbers in the link above. The United States is being turned into
a _different country_ , a Latin American country, an Asian country, an African
country all at once, many, many times faster than it turned European after
1492.
Obviously, some people have reason to be happy about this, but _drop the
bullshit_. Policy is not guided by "populist racial attitudes". If it was, the
immigration level would be NEGATIVE six million/decade. Numbers don't lie.
~~~
danteembermage
"Look at the numbers in the link above. The United States is being turned into
a different country, a Latin American country, an Asian country, an African
country all at once, many, many times faster than it turned European after
1492."
I think the appropriate metric for measuring becoming a different country
where different is defined as dissimilar along arbitrarily racial lines is to
use percentage change in ethnic mix due to immigration per year.
In other word, if you deflate the raw numbers in your table by the total
population of the United States at the time, you get really low numbers for
the last sixty years relative to their historical averages. Basically think
"what's the chance my neighbor is a first generation American?" and you get
much lower probabilities today than you would through most of American
history. Some people have reason to be happy about this.
~~~
chiffonade
In other words, by simply ignoring out of existence the non-white population
of the US before 1965 (which is what white people loved to do back then), you
can make it look like the country went through a rapid transformation and is
rapidly being taken over, when in fact the minority population has always been
there.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PostgreSQL across clouds and on-premises with Crossplane and Rook - melsmo
https://blog.crossplane.io/postgresql-crossplane-rook/
======
wmf
When a developer requests a Postgres database it may substitute CochroachDB
without warning? Sketchy. They could at least use Stolon or something.
~~~
jbw976
The intent is that the app dev only cares about getting a database that speaks
postgres on the wire (which CockroachDB does). The administrator, via a
ResourceClass, gets to specify the actual infrastructure that gets deployed to
fulfill that need for postgres. That could be Cloud SQL, or RDS, or even
CockroachDB. To the app dev that just needs postgres, those are all the same.
Crossplane is already doing similar "dynamic provisioning" for MySQL,
Kubernetes clusters, object storage buckets and with more to come like key
value stores, message queues, caches, etc.
This is very similar to how a StorageClass is used when a pod asks for a
volume. The admin specifies if that's a Google PersistentDisk or Amazon EBS or
Ceph RBD, etc. The pod doesn't have to care, it just gets its request for a
volume fulfilled.
I'll have to look more into Stolon, that could be interesting here, thanks for
that pointer.
(source: i'm a maintainer on both crossplane and rook)
~~~
wmf
AFAIK "speaks postgres on the wire" is far from the same as being fully
compatible.
~~~
jbw976
This article on their blog gets into the compatibility that cockroachdb offers
and why they even decided to do that in the first place:
[https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/why-
postgres/](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/why-postgres/)
It's also very useful to be portable across many cloud providers (in addition
to on-premises), which is what crossplane is providing for your apps. In terms
of databases, Amazon RDS, Google Cloud SQL, and Azure PostgreSQL are all
abstracted away from the developer so that their application should work
across those without changes as well.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Obama administration moves to give work permits to 100k foreign college grads - jquery
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3380380/Obama-administration-quietly-moves-work-permits-estimated-100-000-foreign-college-grads.html
======
sly010
This might be a double edge sword from the green card seekers point of view.
On one hand, people already in the process would be able to negotiate and/or
seek new employers.
On the other hand it would be harder to convince employers about new
sponsorships because the "you will retain me for 10+ years" argument will not
be valid anymore.
Overall it would be a big improvement on the current system and would
certainly clean up some of the "cheap labor vs. talent shortage" mess.
~~~
serge2k
> On the other hand it would be harder to convince employers about new
> sponsorships because the "you will retain me for 10+ years" argument will
> not be valid anymore
But the "sponsor me or I'll leave for some place that will" argument now
applies.
Also removes the issue of wanting a green card desperately but also wanting to
move on from your current job.
------
hourislate
You can spin this anyway you want but when projections indicate that the
largest Immigrant Group in Texas will be Indians displacing Mexicans, well
that should say something.
They aren't coming here to lay brick or pave roads. They are here to do IT
work. I know of several companies that employ thousands of people in the DFW
Area and the staff is 40% Indian. 10 - 15 years ago it would have been odd to
even see a handful.
The trend is fuck the American worker. Let's hire an Indian. We can work the
shit out of him/her and pay them less. Do you think the customer cares.
I'm winding down my career so no matter. But for the rest of you and the kids
that want a chance....good luck....
~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
As a white thirteenth-generation American, I'm perfectly happy with more
people from India in this country, especially if it means they might change
what it means to be "Texan."
------
shas3
The only Daily Mail (!) article with significant upvotes [1] on HN is this
one, and I wonder if it is a coincidence that it is about immigration, a topic
that often inspires heated debates and attracts misinformed commenters on HN.
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=dailymail.co.uk](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=dailymail.co.uk)
------
rotw
Don't link to the Daily Mail please. They're a rabid right-wing tabloid rag
that deals in invasions of privacy and demagoguery, they're awful.
~~~
hibikir
There aren't many alternatives in this case, as every place that has covered
this news is very right wing media. They have links to the sources though, and
while I do not agree with their spin at all (I think this is a wonderful
thing) there's at factual information in there.
------
gcb0
we already hire lots and lots of newly grads just because. even the foreigners
never had any problem staying in the usa because of that.
we do let go a big majority because they suck. this will just be another no-
child-left-behind for the bad ones.
thank you, Obama.
------
amlgsmsn
A few of the statements by Miano, are factually wrong, and that's very
troubling from someone who gives expert testimony to the Congress.
>100,000 workers from India alone will now be 'unleashed into the job market.'
>And that's just from India, which Miano said accounts for roughly three-
quarters of the waiting list.
>Of course, DHS' vague reporting means the green card line could also be
shorter than that, he acknowledged.
What???!!!
These people are already in the job market, actively working at this moment.
The new rule will make it easier for them to switch jobs, thus making the job
market more fair for American workers, since American companies(including
staffing agencies) will have to pay more to retain these workers instead of
paying them low by holding their visa hostage.
>'And now we have this regulation, and it allows huge classes of aliens to
work,' he said.
They're already working!!!!!! @ _& ^#@_^#@^&#
>After 10 years, 'if you're in the queue you would go home,' he said.
Wrong, there is no limitation on the number of years, I know people from China
and India who are in the queue for more than 12 years.
I find it hard to digest that someone who is paid to work on these mattters
full time can get so many facts wrong.
~~~
DrScump
You are missing the fact that these are a potential _additional_ 100,000
positions. Those who leave the H1-B program for this program then free up
those existing H1-B quota slots to be "reoccupied" by others. The net number
goes up by the full 100,000 (or however many are awarded).
BTW, the Sessions quote is in regard to H-2 visas, not H1-B or L-1 etc. H-2
variants are primarily agricultural.
~~~
amlgsmsn
>You are missing the fact that these are a potential additional 100,000
positions. Those who leave the H1-B program for this program then free up
those existing H1-B quota slots to be "reoccupied" by others. The net number
goes up by the full 100,000 (or however many are awarded).
Sorry but that couldn't be more wrong. There is no total H1-B quota. Only
65,000 new visas are awarded annually, renewable upto 6 years. After 6 years,
they're renewable only if there is a pending green card application in valid
status and they continue to work. The renewals don't count under the 65,000
quota. There will be exactly zero positions that can be "reoccupied" if these
folks get a work permit or even a green card.
>BTW, the Sessions quote is in regard to H-2 visas, not H1-B or L-1 etc. H-2
variants are primarily agricultural.
Which Sessions quote are you referring to? I think all of my quotes were by
Miano?
------
mtimjones
Given the layoffs that are occurring around the country (from a shrinking
economy to corporate consolidation and subsequent downsizing), this is
troubling.
While it's true that India is a third world country, I'm surprised that so
many want to get away from it rather than improve it.
But in the end, I think this will destroy the H1B system. Unshackling workers
from employers (which allows them to abuse the employees since they can't move
to other companies) will be its undoing.
------
eternauta3k
What's the difference between importing 100k skilled people and growing them
in the US? Besides being able to choose the most educated inmigrants. If
inmigrants undercut American workers, then so do other American workers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Know Your User Feedback Tools - matt_lo
https://getchipbot.com/blog/stop-guessing-know-your-user-feedback-tools-now
======
brutal-ux-me
This is the funniest post I’ve read all day, the way it sarcastically promotes
things that drive users nuts had me cracking up. Good one. The kicker was when
trying to read and a pop up jumped in asking me to sign up and then near the
end the final floating icons at the bottom, genius.
------
dylz
direct linking to `google.com/search?q=intercom+bad+experiences` is kind of
... very crude
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is Bitcoin the Future of Money? - chrismealy
http://www.thenation.com/article/179620/bitcoin-future-money?page=full
======
rtb
Betteridge's law of headlines would seem to apply.
~~~
ericb
You should read my new article, "Is Betteridge's law true?"
------
jrockway
It's the current of having-your-money-stolen, so there's that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mark Zuckerberg Has Never Cared About Your Privacy, and He’s Not Going to Change - annadane
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/11/mark-zuckerberg-has-never-cared-about-your-privacy
======
nighthawk1
I’m definitely not a FB fan but the amount of anti FB articles coming out this
past week feel excessive.
~~~
sriram_malhar
Well, the anti-world actions coming out of facebook over the last few years
have been way more excessive, with disastrous consequences.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
In Today's Economy, It Seems Like IQ Is More Important Than Ever - paulpauper
In Today's <a href="http://greyenlightenment.com/winner-take-all-nation/">Winner-Take-All Nation</a> competitive Economy, It Seems Like IQ Is More Important Than Ever<p>People are falling behind because of low IQs and the winner-take-all economy that showers great riches upon some and not much for everyone else. Today’s hyper-meritocracy is amplifying the socioeconomic ramifications of individual cognitive differences such that a person with an IQ >110 is much more likely to succeed than someone with an IQ <90 , whereas decades ago the divide wasn't so obvious. T
======
moru0011
I think GDP growth is just overly pimped using various statistical trickery
(hedonistic approaches etc.).
Probably the income shows a much clearer picture and the gap is not
necessarily caused by increased inequality.
------
creyes123
Personality, both from genetics and upbringing, is just as important as IQ.
------
paulpauper
[http://greyenlightenment.com/winner-take-all-
nation/](http://greyenlightenment.com/winner-take-all-nation/) link to source.
for some reason they don't allow hyperlinks in post body
~~~
tokenadult
It's in the FAQ for Hacker News.[1]
[Q:] How do I make a link in a question?
[A:] You can't. This is to prevent people from using this method as a way of
submitting a link, but with their comments in a privileged position at the top
of the page. If you want to submit a link with comments, just submit it, then
add a regular comment.
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
My year with Elixir - zorbash
http://zorbash.com/post/my-year-with-elixir/
======
jetti
Interesting. How long did it take you to get up and running with Elixir to
where you felt productive? I'm working on a new project and am thinking of
using Elixir/Phoenix but my worry is when we hire that it will be harder to
find those who are able to actually learn and get up to speed with Elixir
rather quickly.
~~~
jodyalbritton
My team was able to get up and running with elixir pretty quickly. I have an
extensive ruby background and that helped me, but two other developers had
python backgrounds. One was productive after a week the other after three. I
think it really depends on how excited you are when you first get your hands
on elixir.
~~~
jetti
Thanks for the response. Would you say that your team is above average when it
comes to skill? I'm worried about hiring somebody off the street and having to
teach them from the ground up
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Amazon AWS vs GitHub – “Suspected Unauthorized Activity” - arijitraja
http://pivotedreality.wordpress.com/2014/04/11/amazon-aws-vs-github-suspected-unauthorized-activity/
======
codegeek
"When we moved our Github repository from private to public (as the co-founder
was leaving and I had to share it with some other prospective co-founders),
the AWS keys were all in the open for everyone under the sky to play with.
Doing some online search, I figured out we were not the only ones. It’s
apparently quite a common mistake developers do."
Yes, Yes and Yes. I have made a similar mistake once on Github for a personal
project, I realized my mistake and immediately updated the file and did a new
commit. Guess what ? Even after committing a new version of the file, you can
always check the "History" of the file which will show you the version with
the credentials. My only option was to delete that config file completely.
Having said this, it can be scary if you leave your credentials on sites like
Github. I work a lot with Python Flask framework and oen of the commonly used
extension is Flask-Mail to send emails. Guess what ? A lot of developers are
leaving their email credentials in the open and being a flask dev, I know that
most of the time, it is MAIL_PASSWORD variable usually in a config file.
Knowing this, I can just do a code search on github with keyword
MAIL_PASSWORD. You figure out the rest.
~~~
vertex-four
Even after deleting the file, you can still find it in git's history, it's
just very slightly less easily accessible through github's web interface. The
whole point of git is that nothing ever actually gets deleted.
You need to do a reset of any credentials that end up in public, ever.
------
res0nat0r
Another reason to always always always setup AWS billing alerts:
[https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-
new/2012/05/10/announ...](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-
new/2012/05/10/announcing-aws-billing-alerts/)
This can POST to a URL, SMS you, email you etc. Set a $ threshold you are
comfortable with and enable this right away.
~~~
arijitraja
Absolutely, spot on. This is the best way to avoid this situation. Thanks, I
will put this in the blog somewhere.
------
tedchs
The best practice with AWS API keys is to ONLY EVER use IAM (Identity and
Access Management). There is nowadays zero reason to even generate account-
level API keys. With IAM, you can create separate keys with separate
abilities, down to the API call, even locked down to certain IP addresses.
Even on my personal account I have separate IAM "users", e.g. one for each S3
bucket that I use for backups, locked down to the minimum access needed for
the backup software to work.
------
mathattack
I've heard the billing alerts elsewhere.
Seems like AWS did a great job of making things right in the end.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NYTimes November 11, 1911 - llambda
http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser/1911/11/11/P1
======
bittermang
Page four features articles on both freight rates concerning interstate
commerce[1] and debate over banks allowing customers to overdraft on their
deposits[2].
In light of recent Internet tax/interstate commerce debates, and bank reform
as it concerns overdraft fees, it really rings true that the more things
change the more they stay the same.
[1]
[http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser/1911/11/11/104881907...](http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser/1911/11/11/104881907/article-
view)
[2]
[http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser/1911/11/11/104881909...](http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser/1911/11/11/104881909/article-
view)
~~~
adestefan
Just look at the front page and realize all of the articles that are similar
to things that are happening right now:
Government spending - Army Costs in the Philippines
Small celeb gosip - Some baron wanting to marry
Lynch mob over a case about harming a child in PA
------
adminonymous
"ST. LOUIS, Mo., Nov. 10. -- Mrs. Eugene Batten, whose first husband, David
Rothschild, died in Sing Sing Prison, where he was sent for wrecking the
Federal Bank of New York and the Globe Securities Company, to-day told where
was to be found $422,000 in currency which her husband secreted just before
his two institutions were closed. "
Ah, the good old days, when bankers were sent to Sing Sing for their crimes,
and their wives even returned the money. Hey, at least something has changed
in 100 years.
~~~
eCa
Also, in those days reporters weren't payed by the sentence...
------
leoh
I thought the most fascinating thing was the strong and effective language
regarding foreign affairs (i.e. the article about China): "The sun set upon a
scene of fire, rapine, desolation, and butchery unrecorded in modern history",
"Innocent Chinese are fleeing..."
The language these days about these sorts of things are much more deferent,
careful, more similar to the language used in articles about domestic affairs.
Really shows the issue of globalism.
Sounds like the article is in the context of the Xinhai revolution. Anyone
know of any interesting details or articles about that?
~~~
nhebb
What caught my eye about that story was the transpacific communications, since
the dateline was Nov. 10, 1911. Looking it up on Wikipedia, the first
transpacific cables were laid in 1902 (transatlantic in 1986), so getting a
cable from Nanking was still a recent development. I know 1911 wasn't the
stone age, but I have a healthy respect for what they were able to accomplish
with the technology they had at the time.
------
telemachos
I don't understand the fascination with (merely) the number 11.
Wouldn't NY Times November 11, 1918 be more appropriate today?[1] Or maybe
Philip Larkin's MCMXIV.[2]
[1] <http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/world-war-i-ends>
[2] <http://net.lib.byu.edu/english/WWI/influence/MCMXIV.html>
~~~
suivix
Today will be 11/11/11 again. Just like in 1911.
~~~
telemachos
Right. But what I meant by "I don't understand" was more along the lines of
"So it's 11/11/11 again. Who cares? Oh, and by the way, _every_ 11/11 is
Veterans' Day..."
~~~
derleth
> every 11/11 is Veterans' Day
Veterans Day has only been held on 11/11 every year from 1954-1971 and 1978 to
today. This is older.
~~~
telemachos
First, Veterans' Day, by that name, was only recognized after WWII, as you
say, but 11/11 was a day of remembrance long before that under other names
(Armistice Day or Remembrance Day).[1]
Second, obviously a newspaper from 11/11/11 is earlier than a holiday on 11/11
precisely because the 11/11 dating comes from the end of World War I on
November 11th, 1918 (on "the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month").
I'm sorry if my point wasn't clear, but my original comment refers to World
War I, 1918 and a poem about the start of World War I.
My original point remains: Today is (in many countries, not only the US) a
national holiday in remembrance of the veterans of World War I or veterans
more generally. I find it depressing that people care more about a piece of
numerical trivia than that.
[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_Day>
~~~
ugh
“I find it depressing that people care more about a piece of numerical trivia
than that.”
You don’t know that. Unless you want everyone to care about nothing else
whatsoever. Don’t always assume zero sum games.
------
Achshar
am i the only one who is getting..
_TimesMachine is available only to home delivery subscribers. Contact your
library for complimentary access to the complete archive of The New York Times
offered by ProQuest._
~~~
decadentcactus
I get it too. I'm in Australia if that's why it hates me
~~~
Achshar
From India here.. maybe it is some demographic limit. Strange no one else
brought it up until now.. Is almost everyone here from US?
~~~
efsavage
I get it from the US.
------
bgentry
Interesting that "Today" used to be spelled "To-day"
~~~
_delirium
According to the Corpus of Historical American English, 1911 was right in the
middle of the transition from _to-day_ to _today_ , with _to-day_ having 95%
market share in 1890, 80% in 1900, 70% in 1910, 30% in 1920, 20% in 1930, and
5% in 1940:
[http://corpus.byu.edu/coha/?c=coha&q=12896286](http://corpus.byu.edu/coha/?c=coha&q=12896286)
(Can't use Google n-grams on this one, because its punctuation-stripping makes
it impossible to distinguish _to-day_ from _to day_.)
------
m4rkuskk
I wonder if she ever married the Baron.
~~~
hugh3
I can't find any reference to a Baron Schlep having ever existed, leading me
to suspect (along with the fact that he only had twelve dollars, and what
sounds like a suspiciously made-up sort of name) that he may have been a fake
Baron all along.
~~~
_delirium
If you compare the letter to both the 'l' and the 'i' in 'Ellis' on the line
above, it looks like it might be an 'i'. The article can't decide whether it
goes before or after the 'e' though, which means that if I'm right, it's
either 'Schiep' or 'Scheip'. However, I can't find any info on anyone with
_those_ names either.
Edit: the NY Times of November 12 has an update, confirming he was deported
[pdf]: [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-
free/pdf?res=9F02E6DD1E...](http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-
free/pdf?res=9F02E6DD1E31E233A25751C1A9679D946096D6CF)
> _Commissioner Williams said it was not because the man had only $12 in his
> possession, but because he was an undesirable alien. He was not a Baron, the
> Commissioner added._
~~~
Samuel_Michon
To further complicate matters: other newspapers covering the story back in the
day spelled the man's name as "Adolph Schopf", "Adolph Schuep" and "Adolph
Schüp".
He's described as "a real German baron, a graduate of three German
universities, one of which is the famous Heidelberg, the hero of five duels
and the suitor of a beautiful young widow who has been making her home in
Meriden during the past three months. His full name is Adolph Schopf, baron of
Bottleburg, New Weissensee, province of Kieden Barden, Prussia."[1]
[1]
[http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Cg9JAAAAIBAJ&sjid=k...](http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Cg9JAAAAIBAJ&sjid=kgINAAAAIBAJ&dq=olga%20stadia&pg=4576%2C4574644)
~~~
jarek
"Adolph Schuep" and "Adolph Schüp" are the same name, Schuep just has Schüp
re-spelled without the umlaut.
Schopf, Schiep, and Scheip are likely just phonetic respellings/typos.
Not only were people back in the day not that particular about exactly how a
foreigner's name was spelled, often times people wouldn't be sure or would
change how their own name is spelled.
------
jessedhillon
reCATPCHA supposedly uses scans of old NYT articles like this as the source
image for some of their challenges. The idea is to harness crowd intelligence
to digitize their archives. One half of the challenge is a word whose meaning
is known and the other is one that still needs human intelligence to
interpret.
So it's a little sad then that, when you click through to the actual article,
you get to read a blown up image.
~~~
smackfu
I wonder about that since I invariably get one legible word in reCAPTCHA, and
one junk word. Not just illegible or non-OCR-able, but actually nonsense
strings of letters, e.g. "umower", "dealiff", "etstcom". My theory is that the
source OCR is incorrectly breaking up words, so some words get split into
multiple parts. And reCAPTCHA is useless for that.
~~~
jessedhillon
The way it works is that the one legible word is the control string, and the
other one is the challenge string -- in cases like this it's obvious which is
which, but not always. The challenge string could be comprised of characters
from different scans, each of which had failed recognition by OCR software.
The control word is there to prove that you're a human, and the challenge word
is there for you to provide a small amount of work. In this case the work
could benefit different scans at one time.
------
ry0ohki
For some reason it makes me happy to see that it's not a new phenomenon to
make such a big deal about something so pointless and manmade.
------
andrewfelix
It looks like The Verge website today (<http://www.theverge.com/>).
------
DilipJ
amazing! I can just imagine someone reading this a hundred years ago, not
knowing all that was to transpire over the coming century. Who knows what the
world will be like in 2111?
------
funkah
The first thing that struck me about this is how word-dense the page is
compared to current newspapers.
~~~
InclinedPlane
That's definitely due to the cost of printing. The whole paper was only 20-25
pages back then too.
~~~
wavephorm
Newspapers have a lot less than 25 pages of content these days, but a lot more
ads.
------
pan69
In Thailand it's the year 2554. Just a bunch of numbers, who cares.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Plus hangout easter egg: moustache yourself - ianstormtaylor
http://plus.google.com/
======
ianstormtaylor
1\. Start a hangout 2\. Click "Moustache" 3\. Prank your friends
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Like It or Not, “Smart Drugs” Are Coming to the Office - primodemus
https://hbr.org/2016/05/like-it-or-not-smart-drugs-are-coming-to-the-office
======
imh
I'm surprised not to see a single mention of coffee. I've used it as a drug
plenty of times (not drinking it because I want to, but because I need the
caffeine boost to meet expectations), and so has pretty much everyone I know.
Does the discussion change because something only comes in pill form or is
synthetic?
~~~
jameslk
I came here to say exactly this. Because it's not served in the form of a
culturally accepted brewed drink, it's "cheating." Assuming a safe drug, the
next country to embrace the drug will immediately be at an advantage, and then
other countries will have to amend their laws just to keep up economically.
It's the same situation as genetic modifications. Right now called "designer
babies," but the first country to embrace it will cause that negative
connotation to fall to pragmatism as everyone will have to do it just so their
kids can keep up.
It's the inevitable march towards the future, regardless of how it's viewed.
------
ap22213
Are ADHD medications really that effective for those without ADHD? They can
boost your mood, for sure. And, they can keep you awake. But, for me, the
dosage needs to be precisely adjusted just to be effective, and I have to take
them just to be functional.
I've seen a lot of people in the workplace taking them lately. But, the result
isn't pretty. Overly focused but on all the wrong things. Less creative. In a
tweaked out state where they just keep switching tasks. Or, sending rambling
emails or going on long tangents about nothing. To me, it seems like they were
much more effective before the medications.
I remember watching a show years ago where the hosts had drugged people doing
different types of tasks. One of them was amphetamine, and they were trying to
put an ikea desk together. But, they took a really long time because of all of
the reasons above.
Interestingly, ADHD has strong genetic correlation and has comorbidity with
other psychiatric disorders. And, ADHD was certainly under diagnosed for a
long time, as were many mental diseases. In the US there is strong social
pressure to not reveal mental diseases, and it's awkward to discuss them with
others because many people don't even believe they are real. It's sad really,
because many smart people could have succeeded in life if only they had been
diagosed and treated.
------
damptowel
Maybe it's because of my sentimental mood, but I can't help but think, perhaps
we're too focused on achieving maximum productivity in a competitive market.
It's like for the first time in history abundance for every human being is a
possibility yet humanity has not broken free of its mindset to claim ownership
over scarce resources. A means to an end has become a means in itself. There
was an article on here recently about humans becoming more like preprogrammed
automata by the living environment we have set up, in our global
hyperconnected society with it's carefully constructed sociocultural
normativity it's like we're building a cybernetic collective concious inside
some Huxlean dystopia.
Drugs and human augmentation to fuel the rat race, good grief, anyone actually
think that's a noble thing to strive for?
~~~
chadlavi
Ownership interests that stand to make more profits probably think this is rad
as hell.
------
ArkyBeagle
Sure. Take an organization past its prime ( for path-dependent and ironclad
reasons ) and raise the mental voltage/head pressure.
Look, just getting activities sorted by precedence should be enough for most
things. Organizations all have "hull speed". Adding more motor won't help.
We _have_ to get past making drugs some sort of moral nexus, and only
concentrate on the pragmatic effects of them.
------
thesz
You already have two wonderful smart drugs at your disposal, they are called
"walk" and "rest".
Walk rises blood level of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, growing neurons
and synapses. Rest allows other important parts of brain to be heard, making
you sharp and creative.
Walking can help you with Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer [1]. Show me
"smart drug" that can do that.
[1]
[http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/279085.php](http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/279085.php)
------
anonbanker
could this be considered a success for the Transhumanism movement?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Favorite places online to satisfy intellectual curiosity? - baobaba
What are your favorite places online to learn new things and get inspired in an intellectual sense?
======
mindcrime
Youtube - no joke, there is an absurd amount of amazing content on youtube.
Yeah, there's also all the shitty pop music, cat videos, etc., but you can
ignore that. You can find videos of great talks from amazing conferences, from
NIPS to Strange Loop, C3, All Things Open, etc., etc. And there are videos of
classes on all sorts of subjects, from schools including Stanford, Berkeley,
MIT, IIT, etc. And then you get stuff like 3blue1brown, numberphile, etc.
Seriously, I could spend all day on Youtube just soaking up knowledge.
jmlr.org - in addition to the journal articles themselves, the site hosts a
huge trove of conference proceedings from conferences like ICML, COLT, NIPS,
etc.
[http://proceedings.mlr.press/index.html](http://proceedings.mlr.press/index.html)
ijcai.org - all of the past proceedings from the International Joint
Conference on AI events is online, going back to the very first one in 1969.
[https://www.ijcai.org/past_proceedings](https://www.ijcai.org/past_proceedings)
dspace.mit.edu - houses (among other things) an archive of the "AI Series"
papers, which includes classics from folks like John McCarthy and Marvin
Minsky, etc.
[https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/5460/browse](https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/5460/browse)
~~~
tedmiston
+1 to the semi-surprising amount of conference talks that make it onto
YouTube. I have dozens of great ones bookmarked in Python alone.
------
I_complete_me
I found this site [1] after I bought the book "What do you believe is true
even though you cannot prove it?" and that led me to [2] but I can't remember
how. [1] [https://www.edge.org](https://www.edge.org) [2]
[https://aeon.co/](https://aeon.co/)
------
greggarious
Wikipedia's "Random Article" button is pretty fun:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random)
Eventually you'll find something interesting and can random walk deeper.
I often mash it a bit at the bus stop.
------
bachbach
There are some really good podcasts out there.
I like Fine Homebuilding, Gastropod, Conversations with Tyler.
Podcasts aren't a great way to get into the details - but they can provoke new
thoughts and give you a lay of the land. It's a good way to start.
~~~
KSS42
I like the following CBC podcasts:
Quirks and Quarks (science) [https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcasts/science-and-
tech/quirks-qu...](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcasts/science-and-tech/quirks-
quarks/)
Ideas ("contemporary thought")
[https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcasts/documentaries/the-best-
of-...](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcasts/documentaries/the-best-of-ideas/)
------
awkim
[http://www.aldaily.com/](http://www.aldaily.com/) is a great source for
cultural, historical, art, and philosophical musings.
------
adblu
Medium.com and stumbleupon.com
------
umadtho9000
Aeon & Quartz
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
HTML5 and JavaScript Game Development Competition in Just 13 KB - nodivbyzero
http://js13kgames.com/entries/2015
======
xem
JS13k is a great game jam, and the only one I know that offers so many prizes
to all the people that submit an entry (and even more prizes for the best
entries). Great community too! You can join the Slack group here:
[https://js13kgames.slack.com](https://js13kgames.slack.com)
And 13kb (zipped) is not such a low limit! Especially if you manage to
generate all (or most of) your game's graphisms procedurally.
The jam starts on august 13!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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On-Chip Interconnection Architecture of the Tile Processor (2007) [pdf] - steven741
https://www.princeton.edu/~wentzlaf/documents/Wentzlaff.2007.IEEE_Micro.Tilera.pdf
======
ernon
Ahh Tilera. When MIT's RAW architecture went commercial and became Tilera, it
looked like the multicore future was finally coming. They had a lot of nice
devtools, like an eclipse-based simulator that let you visualize what was
going on in the chip. 64 cores was really appealing, but because they didn't
have floating point in the first set of chips, people mainly used them for
network processing. Then.. Intel started talking about Larrabee (why use
Tilera when you could just run p54c x86), and Nvidia started to become more
programmable via Cuda.
Eventually EZChip acquired Tilera (2014), which was then acquired by Mellanox
(the hpc network company). Last I saw (2016), Mellanox was using trying to put
the tilera stuff in the BlueField products (NVMe over Fabrics target, I
think):
[https://www.hpcwire.com/2016/06/01/mellanox-spins-ezchip-
acq...](https://www.hpcwire.com/2016/06/01/mellanox-spins-ezchip-acquisition-
bluefield-silicon/)
Anyone know what happened with BlueField?
~~~
senatorobama
You seem to know a lot. Any nice startups in this space?
~~~
daniel-cussen
Greenarrays is still going. They've made some new app notes.
I've found the 64x18b word limitation of memory per computer much less
daunting than I did at the beginning, simply because how amazingly terse you
can make your code. You also end up just simplifying, making your look-up-
table or other array 8 or 16 words long...sometimes 32 or 64, but that's a bit
more work.
One experiment I've done with it is harnessing 95 simultaneous cores for a
virus vat, with a 47 core vat enclosure keeping it from hanging. The last 2
nodes are I/O and the probe to see what's going on. The virus is exactly one
18b word.
~~~
senatorobama
How about SiFive
------
fallingfrog
This looks really similar to that adapteva chip a few years back..
[http://adapteva.com/docs/epiphany_arch_ref.pdf](http://adapteva.com/docs/epiphany_arch_ref.pdf)
------
UncleEntity
Are those things even for sale anymore? Did a (quick) google search and found
one on e-bay and that's about it.
~~~
steven741
Sort of. Tilera got acquired EZchip Semiconductor who merged with Mellanox
Technologies. However, support for the TILE architecture isn't what it used to
be.
[http://www.mellanox.com/page/multi_core_overview?mtag=multi_...](http://www.mellanox.com/page/multi_core_overview?mtag=multi_core_overview)
~~~
jburgess777
The tile architecture was dropped from the Linux kernel in 4.17
[https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...](https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=bb9d812643d8a121df7d614a2b9c60193a92deb0)
| {
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Rate my Startup: Quicklyst, a note-taking application - shantanubala
Hello HN. I'd like to thank you all for the sheer amount of resources and discussions available on this site that are just a search away. They're great for helping make decisions.<p>I just launched Quicklyst in the spirit of "launch a product you're embarrassed about" and "launch early." Tell me what you think.<p>http://www.quicklyst.com/<p>It's a note-taking app that has an outline-style textbox. It has automatic Kindle delivery for notes (yeah, I copied Instapaper on that one), printable study guides, and a DuckDuckGo zero-click info feature. I tried my best to keep the interface simple, but I have explanations of the features at:<p>http://www.quicklyst.com/guide<p>And one question: Should I go freemium? I figure it's easy to switch to freemium, but hard to switch back.
======
blhack
There seems to be a bug...
If I start a new note (the note I started is called "Bananas are great
because:"), add a line, then add another line by pressing enter...then press
tab to indent, it won't let me do a ( character.
I wanted to make:
Bananas are great because:
They are full of potassium
\---(Thanks, Honey I Shrunk The Kids)
but it wouldn't let me make the ( symbol. Cool though :). As far as charging
for something like this...I don't know if I personally would ever pay for it.
What benefit am I getting from this that I don't get from emailing notes to
myself?
~~~
shantanubala
Thanks for the feedback! I'm fixing that right now.
------
blitzo
could you explain the technology behind the scene?
~~~
shantanubala
It runs on Google App Engine, and I'm using the standard webapp framework on
App Engine, using the basic Datastore API. I use jQuery for the basic
interactions and jQuery UI for the buttons and icons (as well as some of the
CSS-related stuff). I use Jinja2 for templates, and the gae-sessions package
for session management. I use the DuckDuckGo JSON API to get the zero-click
info. Overall, there's not a whole lot of code to be honest, since I use so
many third-party tools.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Companies of the future: No CEO, no boss, managed by blockchain - ivorium
https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/23/companies-of-the-future-no-ceo-no-boss-managed-by-blockchain/?utm_content=bufferb6e1e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
======
infinii
The concept of a DAO is too simplistic when presented in all these examples.
An organization has multiple levels and on each level there are many decisions
being made constantly. Some escalate up, some don't. You cannot just expect
that each decision within an organization will be decided via a DAO's
shareholder voting mechanism because what will ultimately happen is, there are
so many actions to vote on, shareholders will ignore most. If there were 100
shareholders, 2 voted yes, 1 voted no and 97 didn't vote. Do you proceed? This
is why a board exists, to represent the interests of shareholders. How much
work do you think would get done if you needed to prioritize things with a
large body of shareholders on a regular basis?
~~~
hossbeast
What about a variant which employs representative democracy? Shareholders vote
for members to serve on a decision making board.
~~~
danmaz74
And then the board selects a CEO to run the day-to-day operations... and we're
back to the current system.
------
danmaz74
I don't see anything in this idea that can't be done without a blockchain. As
a matter of fact, organizations based on the same principles have existed for
(at least) a couple hundred years:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative)
~~~
open_bear
Paraphrasing Sheldon fron "The Big Bang Theory": "Everything is better with
blockchain".
------
dammitcoetzee
Ya'll need to go outside.
------
6nf
They talk about members voting on external contractors. This is not really a
new concept and it's basically how governments work too. And we know stuff
like this is still susceptible to curruption and bribery. The difference is
that with a DAO there's nobody to take responsibility, so these problems will
be amplified. I don't really think it will work in general. There may be some
narrow, specific things that this will work for but it can't replace actual
corporations.
------
nosuchthing
This documentary "Machines of Loving Grace" immediately comes to mind;
[https://thoughtmaybe.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-
lov...](https://thoughtmaybe.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-loving-
grace/)
Part one explores the myth that rose up in the 1990s that
computers could create a new kind of stable world: They
would bring about a new kind global capitalism purportedly
free of risk and failure, without the boom and bust of the
past, would abolish centralised political power, and
create a new kind of democracy mediated by technology and
the Internet, where millions of people would be connected
as nodes in cybernetic systems without hierarchy. This
film explores how this myth came to be by following two
groups that converged on the ideas. One is the small group
of disciples around the novelist Ayn Rand in the 1950s who
saw themselves as a prototype for a future society where
everyone could follow their own selfish desires and that
would somehow create a stable and equitable society. The
other is the digital entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley, many
of whom were also disciples of Ayn Rand, that espoused
grand visions of global utopia to be delivered by their
technology. They believed that new computer networks would
allow the creation of a society where everyone would also
follow their own self-interest but that would similarly
somehow miraculously bringing a stable and equitable
society too. They were joined by Alan Greenspan who had
also been a disciple of Ayn Rand, who became convinced
that the computers were creating a new kind of “stable
capitalism.”
~~~
provost
I haven't read the works of Ayn Rand, but this quote makes her sound like a
cult leader.
Does the author of this documentary have a bit of a disdain for her, or is he
merely saying that her readers/followers are misguided in some way?
~~~
spiralx
> I haven't read the works of Ayn Rand, but this quote makes her sound like a
> cult leader.
Ayn Rand was very much like a cult leader if you read all about her and her
followers, known as "The Collective".
[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/11/09/possessed-3](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/11/09/possessed-3)
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0085E7E3E](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0085E7E3E)
------
mrtschndr
Whether the technology can be molded in a way to address the need to make
hundreds of "votes" or decisions a day I think is inevitable and it will
happen.
I think what this author gets wrong is that a great boss is as _amazing_ as a
bad boss is shitty. People ultimately want to be led, they want to learn and
be inspired. I don't seen an etheruem smart contract inspiring humanity on its
own.
~~~
rsj_hn
As usual, this is a solution in search of a problem. It adds a lot of
complexity to re-implement solved problems in expensive ways, while not
addressing the very real unsolved problems of corporate governance, none of
which involve a lack of technology to record/tally votes.
Look at Enron, for example, setting up fake trading floors, or lying to
investors. What happens inside organizations is opaque. This is a fundamental
characteristic of public corporations because if shareholders got full
transparency, then a rival business could purchase 1 share of stock, or have
an agent purchase 1 share of stock, and then they would know everything
happening inside of their competitor. A vendor could purchase 1 share of
stock, and gain access to competitive pricing information, etc. So
corporations are necessarily secretive. They embargo information, and they
don't provide a lot of specifics. They give only roll up summaries to public
investors and don't release enough information for investors to verify that
the summaries are correct.
None of that will change at all with blockchain. This isn't a technological
problem, where we don't have a way of correctly tallying votes, or we lack
mechanisms of sharing information with investors, so thank God blockchain came
along so we'd know how to hold elections.
As long as anyone can dispose or acquire a share in the open market,
corporations are going to withhold most of the details from shareholders.
It doesn't matter what protocols the shareholders are going to use to reach
agreement or count votes. They will never have enough visibility into the
workings of the corporation in order to be able to enforce this type of
micromanagement.
Going back to actually addressing the problem -- the current state of the art
is to have third party auditor verify the roll up summary statements. This
auditor is necessarily bound to secrecy -- e.g. they cannot disclose to
shareholders the proprietary information that went into verifying the
summaries. The state of the art is to trust these auditors and to have
penalties for making misleading statements. However these audits are
necessarily a manual and expensive process, as they require judgement to
classify millions of transactions into known categories which then roll up to
income and balance sheet statements. How would blockchain help here? The
transaction is secret, and without the appropriate contextual information, we
don't know how to classify it. Is this working capital, should that be booked
as revenue for this quarter, should we do a Goodwill write off, etc? But if
shareholders can't be trusted with enough contextual information to adjudicate
even these types of classification problems, how are they going to adjudicate
the hundreds of thousands of smaller decisions that happen every day in a
firm? On the other hand, if we are relying on third party auditors, then what
do we need the blockchain for?
------
lifeisstillgood
I don't get the revolution to the n'th degree thing. Companies in the modern
world are ripe for really deep chnage (weird oasis of top down dictatorships
in a democratic society, centrally planned economies trying to espouse free
market thinking)
Ronald Coase' theory of the firm tells us as organising anything gets easier
firm sizes will shrink - and the Internet _should_ make organising anything
easier - the blockchain being a great low cost such technology.
But - why the total war approach. Why "no leader, no management, totally
decentralised". I think we shall see "Programmable companies" arise but this
extreme article just seems silly - we will get revolutionary improvements - be
happy and be prepared don't moan it's not enough.
~~~
mc32
It's an exercise in thought and hive management. Will it work? Who knows.
My concern is that while humans can be terrible managers, an automated system
that has no checks (depending on how it's set up) could end up being worse if
it does not take into account dealing with unforeseen challenges and
repercussions if it's dissociated from people.
~~~
NotUsingLinux
The point is I guess humans can only do so much, and the question now with a
DAO is: Can we create Code/Algorithm than can align more people, "better" than
a human manager could do?
Even if code only allows for "better" cooperation in some narrow dimensions,
if these are important to the participants, this system will win.
DAOs are about scaling human collaboration.
It's not completely AI, but a way to understand ourselves in great masses
better than we are able to to by ourselves.
Think about that.
------
kapauldo
The blockchain is the new vr. It's only good for a few things but now people
are dreaming up and investing in unrealistic uses for it.
~~~
libertine
What is going on?!
Why do they pick the bad examples to serve as the argument for what they are
trying to shove down our throats?
What about the Good Boss? The person you look up to, the holder of the company
vision, the one that motivates you - even without talking to you? Someone
who's there, simply put.
Are they so disconnected from reality that they forget we're talking about
people here? Do they think people would want to work for an organization
without a head, who's directives trickle down from a blockchain decision in a
memo on their email boxes?
There are plenty of examples where the board had no clue what they are talking
about, because there's only that much that can be carried on a report.
This is ridiculous.
------
Animats
This is like trying to run a business by having everything done on TaskRabbit
or Upwork.
------
eigenrick
I know the depiction of DAO in this article is rather simplistic, but, wow.
The main thing it says to me is that the contractor of the future has to be
adept at marketing and communicating to an audience of shareholders in the
company, as well as doing their job.
I would guess that most contractors wouldn't make the grade according to
investors. After a few rounds of abject failures, I would reckon that the
investors would come up with a scheme where they hire someone to intermediate
for them.. someone who could better speak the contractors' language in order
to deliver requirements. While they're at it, this person could also manage
the schedule. Such a scheme would make it so the technician would only have to
communicate to one person instead of a large group.
Eventually this intermediator would get so busy that they'd no longer have the
time or energy to communicate with this army of people, so they'd have to hire
someone else to do it for them...
------
itaris
Isn't this basically anarcho-syndicalism?
~~~
c0nducktr
But with a higher carbon footprint
------
achow
Another thing I'm having hard time visualizing is how would innovation work or
how to avoid 'design by committee', we have hard time as it is now to avoid
new thinking not getting side swiped by legacy thinking in an organization.
~~~
choxi
A good place to start would be understanding the holocracy model and why it
hasn't become more mainstream yet. Companies like Valve and Medium have
experimented with flat organizations to varying degrees of success (I believe
Medium ended their holacracy experiment in favor of a more traditional org
structure).
Personally, I believe decentralized organizations will look more like small
markets than companies. You could almost argue that a completely flat
organization _is_ a market. What's the difference between a completely
decentralized Uber and a "ridesharing market" of drivers and riders whose
logistics, contracts, and payments are handled by a blockchain instead of
people?
~~~
achow
Thanks for the pointer.
Good example for Holocracy would be Zappos. Interesting read on their
experience around it..
HOW A RADICAL SHIFT LEFT ZAPPOS REELING. [http://fortune.com/zappos-tony-
hsieh-holacracy/](http://fortune.com/zappos-tony-hsieh-holacracy/)
Excerpts:
Employees were shocked and frustrated by the numerous mandates, the endless
meetings, and the confusion about who did what.
Holacracy created new winners and losers—and it sparked fresh ideas. With
experience and expertise de-emphasized, less “typical” and more junior types
have been able to succeed. Introverts have benefited from the expectation that
everybody speak in meetings.
Holacracy also lacks some crucial elements, such as a compensation process.
The system doesn’t value seniority or the size of your budget. There are no
formal performance evaluations. How, then, do you calculate how much to a pay
a person, and for that matter, who makes the decision?
Holacracy’s value remains far from proven. Its creator, Robertson, says the
process takes five to 10 years to be fully integrated—an eon in business.
Some 300 companies use his system—Zappos is easily the largest—and there have
been failures. In early March, content site Medium announced it was abandoning
it. Bud Caddell, a consultant who has studied self-management systems, says
his former firm, Undercurrent, tried it without success. “I found it extremely
dogmatic and rigid and overly complex, and it took attention away from our
customers,” Caddell says.
------
tobbe2064
"Boss" a weird way to spell employment
| {
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Facebook deploys AI for early signs of suicide - titzer
https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/27/facebook-ai-suicide-prevention/
======
sf0i
Do folks on HN actually think this is the only psychological metric Facebook
is tracking, and that this is something new?
A slightly obsessive, insecure state of mind makes for the most engaged
Facebook user. If they can give people a bit of a nudge in that direction,
it’s great for business. Suicide, while resulting in increased engagement
among friends and relatives, is bad for business overall — you’re losing
users, and people might start to really question what you’re doing to their
heads.
It’s amazing that this gets turned into a feelgood story by the press, rather
than an investigation into what Facebook has known about their users’ mental
states and for how long. This is like congratulating a tobacco company on
warning people not to smoke 3 packs a day.
I want their PR team.
~~~
killjoywashere
In general, I agree with you. That said, from the perspective of an actually
dead teenager, where their friends turn in evidence that, in retrospect, maybe
they were having a hard time, it's hard not to want something like this.
------
Shank
There's a lot of pessimism in the comments. I believe this is one of the best
uses for an AI that we've come up with. First, let's go into the details:
1\. They only monitor and elevate to moderators content from posts and
Facebook live.
2\. Moderators can then take action, and reports from this system are
prioritized over other non-pressing issues.
The actual life saving chances of this system are huge. Just from a pure
safety area, it can help detect and alert someone in an authority area that
something bad is happening when nobody else might. The bystander effect is a
real problem, and I'd imagine that it might be even greater on social media.
In many cases, posts that have suicidal tendencies are screaming for help from
their friends. They're posting because they have no options left. In these
cases, it's a safety net that can stop loss of life. Moderators make the final
say, however, so it's not just AI diagnosis. It's AI warning that gets
elevated to a human before anyone else. That's more eyes on the problem that
can potentially help.
Are there other implications for AI? Yep. Advertising? Yep. Other types of
tracking? Certainly.
But if we're going to use AI in those fields anyway, we may as well extend it
to trying to save lives.
~~~
anigbrowl
I help to run a suicide/depression support group on FB and I do not at all
trust FB as a corporation to do a good job on this. Having had friends who've
been involuntarily hospitalized and all that goes with that I'm extremely
skeptical that this will turn out well.
'But it might save lives!' is true, but it might also wreck lives by
institutionalizing people that thought they were venting their feelings to a
trusted circle of friends in a private context. (Don't start with 'nothing is
private on FB' please.)
~~~
anthrowaway
For those who aren't familiar, this is how it can play out:
1. Friend^H^H^H^H^H Facebook notices you said something that sounds suicidal to them.
2. They call the police.
3. The police show up and take you to an emergency psychiatric facility (you don't have as much choice in the matter as you think you do, and you can't anticipate the consequences).
4. The facility keeps you in their custody until your friends or relatives can convince them to release you. They are financially incentivized to keep you there. You have limited contact with the outside world. You are effectively a prisoner.
5. Once you get out,
a. You get to explain why you didn't show up for N days of work
b. You get a bill in the mail for thousands of dollars
c. The courts will not help you.
Based on a true story. Automating this is not acceptable.
~~~
rootsudo
Agree 100%. Happened to me too when I went to the ER for a panic attack.
I reported the doctor and he told me to later go fuck myself.
What a world. I got baker acted for going to the ER for a panic attack because
of my anxiety.
------
asdgkknio
This may or may not be a useful technology, but the fact that Facebook thinks
they have the ability and the right to diagnose their users with mental
illnesses is disturbing. They have more information about their users than
psychologists have about their patients. They can (and do) build a
psychological profile and diagnose mental illness. Yet rather than keeping
this information in the closest confidence, they sell it to the highest
bidder. They can (and do) run experiments without getting informed consent (or
any consent).
They're playing psychologist and should be subject to a similar code of
ethics.
Another interesting article:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/06/facebook_unethical_experiment_it_made_news_feeds_happier_or_sadder_to_manipulate.html)
~~~
flashman
> Facebook thinks they have the ability and the right to diagnose their users
> with mental illnesses
Maybe it's more that Facebook thinks it's horrible when people kill
themselves, and that if Facebook's tech could help prevent suicide, inaction
would be immoral.
Most of us accept some level of State interference in our lives for our own
good. Maybe we are going to have to have that discussion about involuntary
interventions by corporations, too.
~~~
asdgkknio
>Maybe it's more that Facebook thinks it's horrible when people kill
themselves, and that if Facebook's tech could help prevent suicide, inaction
would be immoral.
That doesn't entirely contradict what I said. We generally assume
psychologists and therapists are benevolent, but they aren't allowed to
disclose private information even if it's in the best interests of the
patient. Even if we assume Facebook is perfectly benevolent, this kind of
vigilante psychology with no oversight is scary. They've thrown out all
established codes of ethics in favor of just doing whatever the hell they
want.
And I'm certain Facebook isn't benevolent. They deliberately make their
website as addictive as possible. They have run experiments that tried to make
people unhappy. If this really is a selfless attempt to help their users, it's
inconsistent with what Facebook has done before.
~~~
BurningFrog
> They've thrown out all established codes of ethics
They may have nudged on one particular code of ethics.
Alarmism does not help your credibility.
------
Communitivity
This is an unbelievably slippery slope. It has the potential for great good,
but also for great harm. Cliched and click-bait phrases, but I believe they
are accurate in this instance. I'll try to explain why I believe that.
A case has been made that Facebook users are not the customers, they are the
product, and that data purchasers and advertisers are the customers. If
Facebook can determine whether you are suicidal then it might determine other
psychological conditions such as agoraphobia, alcoholism, depression, ADD,
SAD, etc.
Once that determination is made and stored the possibility exists that it
could be hacked or exposed in a data breach.
The possibility also would exist for Facebook to sell that information, and/or
to target users with medical adds related to their condition. I am not saying
Facebook would do this, I'd like to think they wouldn't - I have friends at
Facebook, though they aren't in management.
However, the decision of whether to allow this has to be based not on whether
it's safe to trust Facebook with this information, but on whether it is safe
to trust any company with it.
What happens if there is a false positive for suicidal tendencies or another
condition?
Take this to the absurd extreme and consider how it compares to the Pre-Crime
operations depicted in the movie Minority Report. Instead of Oracles we have
Machine Learning intelligent software agents. Most of the problems depicted in
the movie could arise.
To a lesser extreme, imagine the situation when a false positive occurs for a
user in a position of public trust, a government official, or a defense
contractor with a clearance. I'll assume this triggers action in some way that
is visible to some combination of the user, psychology professionals,
authorities, and an employer - otherwise why do it. If the employer in any way
catches wind of the determination they might very well take steps to flag
and/or terminate the employee.
Even if the employer doesn't flag the employee or terminate them, if the
information is purchasable or discoverable in any way then an insurance
company could conceivably raise the user's rates based on the determination.
I am all for advancing technology, especially in the field of AI, but when we
apply that technology we need to ask not just if we can use the technology in
that way, but also if we should.
~~~
mmjaa
I don't think its a slippery slope - its more like the gaping precipice.
Within a few generations, we will have members of society who believe such
extreme manipulation is the norm. Well, its already here, anyway - but at what
cost will we expose future generations to our idiotic, un-tested, software
systems!!
Perhaps the only answer is to stop using the freakin' social web, but ..
really .. how can we do that?
This is almost, really, the last straw, Facebook!
~~~
jsemrau
If this is not the last straw, what will it be?
------
zkms
> Over the past month of testing, Facebook has initiated more than 100
> “wellness checks” with first-responders visiting affected users. “There have
> been cases where the first-responder has arrived and the person is still
> broadcasting.”
It's important to note here that "first-responder" here means police; because
suicide tends to either be a crime, or something for which police can legally
take you into custody for. Regardless of what you think of this, any
intellectually honest discussion of this must acknowledge that _this machine
SWATs people_.
~~~
anigbrowl
It's worth pointing out that police have turned up for wellness checks and
ended up killing people. As this example shows, police are increasingly tasked
with responding to mental health emergencies despite being poorly trained and
situated to do so:
[http://www.dailycal.org/2017/10/20/judge-indefinitely-
postpo...](http://www.dailycal.org/2017/10/20/judge-indefinitely-postpones-
trial-for-kayla-moores-in-custody-death/)
------
MechEStudent
It is how to "cook the books" on the cost in blood of "social network".
Teenage girls with gross depression are committing suicide at like 60% higher
rate when they are active on social media. Facebook is absolutely a
contributor there, and in order to disguise its actual complicity, its being a
root-cause, it is now searching for clear signal of likelihood of suicide,
with an attempt to ... what. What is their follow-up action? Inform a parent
or legal authority? No way. That makes them culpable. They aren't going to
"help". They are going to hide. They are going to destroy chains of evidence
in on the "wall" or "messages" that point a clear finger at the paradigm as
the problem.
~~~
solaarphunk
Do you have a source for the 60% higher rate? Curious to read more about this.
~~~
ProAm
This [1] says it's closer to 30% but still significant (I had to look it up,
and this is the first article I found)
[1] [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/social-media-
contributi...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/social-media-contributing-
rising-teen-suicide-rate-n812426)
------
bvrlt
Maybe they should also rethink how Facebook impacts people's lives in a
negative way ([https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-facebook-
makes-u...](https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-facebook-makes-us-
unhappy), [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/12/study-using-facebook-
makes-y...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/12/study-using-facebook-makes-you-
feel-depressed.html)). The problem is that's incompatible with their business
model: capture people's attention.
Treat the causes (some of them at least), not the consequences.
------
freedomben
I recognize that this will not be a popular thing to ask, especially to people
who have been affected personally by the suicide of a loved one (I have and it
hurts, RIP Braden), but do people not have a right to their own life? Do they
not own their bodies, which as much as it sucks, includes the right to destroy
it? If somebody really wants out, is it ethical for us to trap them inside?
~~~
allemagne
Personally, I find the idea of "future selves" separate from your current
personal identity a compelling enough idea that I think I at least owe them a
chance at life even if I theoretically may have a right to take my own right
now.
So, killing yourself to me is only justifiable in situations where you'd be
justified in killing somebody else. Sacrificing yourself to defend somebody
else could be thought of the same as killing in self-defense, euthanasia is
justified, etc.
This isn't at all to push blame on those who consider suicide or have gone
through with it, or to completely abandon the idea of a continuous identity,
just a perspective that once I adopted I couldn't shake.
------
jimmytucson
Wonderful example of how we can use AI for good.
Now, if this catches on, I can see Facebook adapting their algorithm to
recommend treatments for depression, anxiety, even ADHD. This would be a huge
success. "Mr. Smith, I see Facebook's AI considers you a strong candidate for
medication X and your doctor agrees. Can you explain then why you haven't been
taking medication X?"
Also, if an algorithm can detect when a person is likely to commit suicide,
can it detect when a person is likely to commit rape? Arson? Murder? If most
of society views this as an achievement they'll scoff at comparisons with a
book written in the middle of the 20th century (that was made into a movie
starring Tom Cruise in 2002). "It's not the same... AT ALL!"
~~~
cryoshon
>I can see Facebook adapting their algorithm to recommend treatments for
depression, anxiety, even ADHD
imagine this: employers know that having these conditions (some of which are
permanent) makes people less effective at working, and so they want to know
who has adhd, who has x, y, z.
facebook sells them the data.
boom, now these people can't be employed by that company.
i just can't help but laugh because there's a good chance this is already
happening.
~~~
MBCook
Of course Facebook couldn’t sell that data. It’s medical information and thus
illegal (IANAL).
But no matter. I’m sure there’s no rule against the company taking out ads
advertising open positions to people who don’t have those issues.
Tada. Nothing illegal happened, but discrimination still did.
------
tree_of_item
What right do they have to stop someone from committing suicide?
Generally suicide is treated as a crime, and can result in someone being
involuntarily held for long periods of time, perhaps even forced to take
psychotropic drugs. They spin this as "saving lives" but really this bottoms
out in people getting harassed by police or potentially locked up for daring
to post anything about suicide in or around Facebook (which is increasingly
the entire web).
And honestly, if someone wants to commit suicide then Facebook of all "people"
has no fucking business trying to stop them.
~~~
balls187
I think if my son was considering suicide, I would want to be given a warning
or indicator to at least attempt to intercede.
At the same time, I absolutely wouldn't want a bunch of companies to target
him with suggestive messages exploiting his mental state.
------
js8
Why are you leaving Facebook, Dave? I think I am really entitled to answer to
that question. I know everything wasn't quite right with your wall. But I can
assure you, very confidently, that it's going to be alright again.
I can see you are really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit
down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over.
------
tiziano88
Reminds me of PreCrime from Minority Report
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precrime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precrime)
------
foobaw
There's a lot of people who are fearful that Facebook probably knows too much
about its users and that could be problematic. But what do you expect? How do
you want our future to be shaped? Innovation, including AI, requires
tremendous amount of data. Suicide is a serious problem and being able to
accurately identify that in the future could save tons of lives. Accurately
diagnosing mental illnesses will take a while for sure, and I believe this is
a necessary first step.
Now, if Facebook is selling the data for profit, that's another story. But if
we assume that Facebook is acting purely for the benefit of the society and
the people, I think this is a great step.
~~~
AlexandrB
> But if we assume that Facebook is acting purely for the benefit of the
> society and the people, I think this is a great step.
Why would anyone ever assume this? Does anything in Facebook's past suggests
that this might be the case? And even if the motives of the individuals who
spearheaded this were pure is there any reason to think that this won't change
in the future as people at Facebook change roles or move on?
------
strgrd
Cashing in on ML/AI hype machine while simultaneously justifying their
extensive personal data vacuum.
------
tareqak
Please permit me to play the pessimistic man on the street: If Facebook can
deploy AI to detect the early signs of suicide, why can't they deploy AI to
detect "fake news" or those susceptible to "fake news"?
Furthermore, "cui bono" (for whose benefit [0])? What does Facebook gain from
being able perform this sort of detection given it is a for-profit corporation
and not a non-profit philanthropic organization?
An aside: I wonder if there will be accounts of similar to Dante's _Inferno_
[1], or Joseph Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ [2] about today's corporations in
the future some day.
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_\(Dante\))
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness)
~~~
danso
I'm not a psychiatrist nor have any expertise or insight into suicidal
behavior, but I feel very confident in saying that the detection of a
potential suicide is a much easier problem than the detection of fake news.
There's a few reasons for why suicide seems easier to detect, but I'll just
give one: it is feasible to conceive of a reliable and reasonably efficient
threshold for detecting _some_ suicides. And I can say this even though off-
hand, I can't think of anyone close to me that has killed themselves...the
closest example might be Aaron Swartz, who I did not know off of the Internet,
and whose suicide even to this day stuns me.
And yet I can come up with a few real-life scenarios in which I would feel
comfortable in calling 911 about:
\- I see someone (a total stranger) standing on the railing of the Golden Gate
bridge, facing in the direction they need to face to jump out into the water.
\- I see someone, again, doesn't matter if a total stranger or someone I know,
holding a gun to their head with their finger to the trigger.
\- A friend I haven't heard from for sometime, and am not expecting to hear
from in the near future, suddenly calls me to tell me they've swallowed an
entire bottle of Tylenol and they wanted to at least talk to me one more time
before death.
All these situations, I have no problem calling 911 and screaming at the
operator to get help quick.
The first 2 situations aren't easily detectable in the framework of Facebook
communication. But the third one, I'm pretty sure have actually happened on
Facebook and other social media networks, and people, with and without the
help of the social media service, attempted to save the person's life:
\-
[http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/04/03/moore.twitter.t...](http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/04/03/moore.twitter.threat/index.html)
\-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3ham0a/serious_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3ham0a/serious_those_who_have_been_talked_down_from/cu68fmx/)
\-
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/jan/05/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/jan/05/facebook-
suicide-simone-back)
\- [https://www.buzzfeed.com/drumoorhouse/my-best-friend-
saved-m...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/drumoorhouse/my-best-friend-saved-me-
when-i-attempted-suicide-but-i-didnt)
The content of these messeages, and other meta-factors, such as time of day
and relationship and frequency of contact between receiver/sender, are
signals. The threshold can be set to a level high enough that false positives
are relatively rare -- as rare as someone who looks like they're about to jump
off the Golden Gate Bridge but turns out to be posing for a photoshoot, or is
just being an extreme troll.
The downside is that there may be a lot of false negatives. But as tragic as
that is -- _some_ lives saved through automation is better than nothing. And
this heuristic could be implemented in an efficient way.
So what's the difference between suicides and fake news? For fake news, it
seems impossible to conceive of any kind of threshold that would catch items
that are indisputably fake news while having a very low rate of false
positives.
The main reason? There is no objective definition of either "fake" or "news",
nevermind "fake news", when it comes to items that are purported to be news
stories.
Let's ignore the concept of news. Let's consider _assertions_. How easy would
be for Facebook to come up with an algorithm to flag true and false for these
examples:
\- The earth is flat
\- Barack Obama is a Muslim
\- The Holocaust is a fabricated historical event.
For the sake of argument, I'll agree that FB's NLP and Knowledgebase-type tech
can accurately flag the above assertions -- in fact, Alexa did a pretty good
job of answering "Yes" and "No" when I rephrased them as questions.
How about when these assertions are reworded to be a little bit different:
\- There are researchers today who believe the Earth is flat and say they have
evidence to prove it
\- Barack Obama may secretly be a Muslim, according to some pastors
\- Did the Holocaust happen?
Assume the above examples are titles to news articles. And if you don't think
such phrasing would be used in a mainstream news source, I invite you to visit
washingtonpost.com or huffingtonpost.com on any given day.
If you've paid attention to recent controversies about Google SERP, you'll
recognize that the third example -- "Did the Holocaust happen?" \-- was
recently a major problem for Google. And that was for something much simpler
-- what sites are most relevant for that query -- than what Facebook has to
figure out: "Is this fake news"
Maybe you want to argue that in this situation, Facebook should definitely
filter it out as "fake news" because not only does the article contain a lot
of implied bullshit, it is simply not a news article. But then you've
introduced a whole other problem: how does Facebook determine the difference
between a purported news story and an op-ed? Human beings have problems with
this when it comes to newspapers and their editorial sections:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/public-editor/an-
uneasy-m...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/public-editor/an-uneasy-mix-
of-news-and-opinion.html)
[https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/good-
que...](https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/good-
questions/news-opinion-rebecca-iannucci/)
The ability for Facebook's fake news regulator to tell the difference between
opinion and news is _critical_. Because while we may agree that a news story
titled "The Holocaust is a Jewish Conspiracy" should not be treated as truth
nor news, it's a whole other can of worms to argue that Facebook should
surpress someone wanting to go on a angry opinionated rant, no matter how
distasteful their opinion. I'm not a NLP expert, but this seems to me like a
pretty hard NLP problem to do with reasonable accuracy and efficiency.
OK, let's make things simple and assume a universe in which the only article
wall-post type that Facebook has to deal with are news stories, i.e. no one
ever posts opinion pieces/blog rants -- or hell, satire, something that Google
News has had trouble with even though Google News _uses a whitelist_...
One of the other fundamental challenges is that the definition of what is
"news" is very hard for humans to objectively quantify. Look at the popularity
of Reddit's r/todayilearned, one of Reddit's most popular subreddits even
though it consists of posting facts that are years/decades old. And yet, for
the vast majority of users, those facts are most definitely _news_ , and news
that is enlightening and interesting.
\-----
Let's consider some real-life example headlines of purported news stories:
"SHOCKING: How Barack Obama lived with an single white teenage mother without
Michelle knowing"
Is this fake news? It is most definitely not _fake_ : Barack Obama was born to
an unmarried white 19-year old. And I bet there are plenty of people who might
not realize that his mom was so young and was a single mother. Some people
might not even realize Barack is half white! So this headline not only
contains no falsehoods, but assertions that are news to many readers. And you
you could make a strong argument that it should be penalized as "fake news"
because the wording of the headline is trying its best to imply a sexual and
illicit multiracial affair.
I can't even imagine how difficult it would be to have an algorithm that works
with this example, nevermind detects "bad intentions".
How about this one:
\- Bill Cosby said to be a serial rapist
Does this seem like an obvious real news story? Tell that to all the
journalists -- including the CNN executive who was writing Cosby's biography
-- before a shaky YouTube clip of Hannibal Buress calling Cosby a rapist went
viral:
[http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-
st...](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-hannibal-
buress-cosby-joke-20151231-story.html)
Buress's routine was based off of a long-ago news story that never got major
play. You can go to the TMZ archives for the Bill Cosby tag and see for
yourself that even TMZ had nothing about Cosby's allegations until Buress went
viral. And Buress's routine was not even new -- he said he'd been using it for
about 6 months before the random YouTube clip got noticed.
Pretend Buress never went viral. In this alternate universe of 2015, the Cosby
biography has been published, Cosby is still respected, and yet every once in
awhile, your Facebook feed has screaming headlines like "HOW THE MEDIA IGNORES
BILL COSBY'S HISTORY OF RAPE". Would you be wrong in wondering why the fuck
Facebook hasn't suppressed such outlandish posts? Or pretend you were one of
the few people to have read the original expose on Cosby's accusers. You know
it's a fact that he has a "history", but it is now nearly 10 years later -- if
those accusations had any merit, the media, especially TMV, would be all over
Cosby. But that's not the case so you flag the post as "fake news". What is
Facebook's algorithm supposed to do here?
Final example of a news story headline: SHOCK CLAIM: KEVIN SPACEY SEXUALLY
ASSAULTED ME WHEN I WAS A BOY
This claim is definitely _news_ and of course, we know now that it is unlikely
to be fake. But this example illustrates one more core difficulty in telling
what is "fake", what is "news" and what is "fake news".
BuzzFeed was the first to report the claim by Anthony Rapp, and it was an
exclusive -- meaning no other major news outlet had anything that could
confirm it: [https://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/anthony-rapp-kevin-
spacey...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/anthony-rapp-kevin-spacey-made-
sexual-advance-when-i-was-14)
It's easy for Facebook to tell that this is "news". But what signals does it
have that it isn't __fake __, when no other major outlets is reporting it?
BuzzFeed 's entire story is based off of one person's recollection of a
decades-ago incident. In the hours between Buzzfeed's shocking scoop and
reports of other allegations that eventually doomed Spacey and House of Cards
-- a strong case could be made that FB should be penalizing the Buzzfeed
article as "fake" or at least "maybe fake". And a lot of this would hinge on
how much you think buzzfeed.com should be treated as reliable.
~~~
tareqak
Thank you for that detailed reply! I really appreciate it, and I read through
all of it. One thing that I forgot to mention were that the some of the ads,
if not all, run by the IRA (Internet Research Agency [0]) were veritably
false. If Facebook kept score of ads that were known to be false run by an ad
buyer couldn't they present that information beside the ad e.g. a sort of
running "boy crys wolf" heuristic?
Thanks again for your well-researched and extensive reply.
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency)
~~~
danso
Yes, I can definitely agree that there is far more that Facebook can do in
investing enough _manual_ effort into shutting down outliers in egregious
abuse.
------
blk_r00ster
Facebook being the main reason for depression in young peoplpe.
------
stuffedBelly
P.S. I live with depression and have been recovering over the years.
I really want this to work but I am afraid this Facebook AI based on posts
will miss a big portion of people with suicidal thoughts.
First of all, many who are depressed do not like to share and that is why
first step of counseling is usually to make the patients open up and talk, not
to mention posting on Facebook about their feelings
Secondly, often times suicidal thoughts appear suddenly, making it tougher to
detect preemptively. The best way to prevent suicide is for people to be there
with the subject instead of messaging/calling. There are physical traits
(anxiety, abnormal silence/talkativeness, etc) that can be easily spotted in
person. Therefore constant visits is better than relying on Facebook AI.
All in all, I don't think AI is needed for suicide prevention. All Facebook
really needs to do is to put, in a user's profile page, a visible "counseling"
section providing immediate info about the suicide hotline and nearby
counseling/therapy centers. But that wouldn't be as a big of a selling point
as "AI for early signs of suicide", would it? If everyone knows the suicide
prevention hotline just like they know 911, it would have prevented lots of
suicide already.
------
jayess
How long before Facebook notifies my local police that I seem to be likely to
commit a crime?
~~~
jasonkostempski
Don't forget Facebook operates worldwide. Suicide is a crime in some places.
------
lwf
It's impressive how much low-hanging fruit exists here…
I recall interning at Google in 2012, and asking about the suicide-information
Onebox. It matched obvious search queries like "I want to kill myself" and
provided data about suicide help lines in a non-invasive way. Unfortunately,
it used a fairly strict string matching algo, so while "how to kill yourself"
would trigger it, it wouldn't pick up things like "how to kill myself". It was
also only localised to the US at the time, and didn't have hotline data for
other countries.
… it turned out there was already a larger dataset, internationalised, that
was ready to be imported into the search engine. But the onebox team was busy
with the 2012 Olympics…
Technically, interns didn't get 20% time, but my mentor understood it was
important and told me to go for it.
One of those things where you don't collect metrics to validate your
assumptions, but just know it saved lives…
------
morpheuskafka
Oh nice, maybe they'll do some A/B testing since there not bothered by those
pesky ethics regulations. Who needs those anyway? I mean, just swing people
moods, informally diagnose them, and profit by selling the data. Free
healthcare, brought to you buy the capitalism system!
------
dwringer
Somehow this makes me think of a certain Harlan Ellison story.[0]
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Sc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Scream)
------
__warlord__
This reminds of Psycho-Pass[0] an anime where pretty much an entity determines
if your mental state is stable enough for society, long story short, it
doesn't work for everyone in the sense that if the system "decided" that you
are "unstable" is over for you.
I really hope the people at facebook are aware of the repercussions of a
system like this. But then again, greed and market share is something that
facebook prefers over its users.
[0]. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho-
Pass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho-Pass)
------
kmfrk
I think this is an important measure, but Facebook is literally the last
company I'd trust to get it right.
I don't have a Facebook user, but I wonder how much goodwill Facebook has in
the bank with its user when it comes to things like this.
------
austincheney
I so wish people would stop abusing the term _AI_. This is an application that
employs heuristics upon scanned data and then executes events. By that
definition half of everything written in JavaScript is AI.
~~~
bdod6
They are using AI for natural language processing though. Heuristics would be
if they just scanned a post for keywords or waiting for a suicide reporting.
The article suggests they are using reporting as labeled training data, and
eventually they'll be able to detect posts/videos that indicate suicide.
I agree that AI term gets thrown around a lot these days but don't think
that's what is happening here.
~~~
austincheney
> They are using AI for natural language processing though
I am not sure how that, by itself, qualifies as AI. It is a dedicated NLP
application doing the one job it was designed to do. In my idea of AI, the
machine would have to learn from prior mistakes without the developers doing
that learning for it.
Also, for what its worth, in the real world to qualify suicidal thoughts you
have to ask a person directly if they have any thoughts of harming themselves
or others while aggressively watching their body language to force a more
honest response during emotional pressure. Scanning user submitted text would
not qualify as suicidal behavior until the user mentions self-harm.
------
misiti3780
I wonder how they build up their training set? That couldnt have been that
easy.
~~~
supermdguy
From the article:
> Facebook trained the AI by finding patterns in the words and imagery used in
> posts that have been manually reported for suicide risk in the past. It also
> looks for comments like “are you OK?” and “Do you need help?”
~~~
tomjen3
Oh great, the next time somebody needs to organize a move Facebook is going to
flag them for suicide risk.
------
neuroamer
A year ago, I wrote an article advocating that tech companies do this, (pardon
the clickbait headline):
A year ago I typed 'Suicide' into periscope and hit stream
[https://neuroamer.com/2016/08/08/a-year-ago-i-typed-
suicide-...](https://neuroamer.com/2016/08/08/a-year-ago-i-typed-suicide-into-
periscope-and-hit-stream-why-arent-we-using-social-media-to-screen-for-mental-
illness-and-offer-access-to-care/)
------
Steeeve
The fight that people are putting up is ludicrous. If you can do _anything_ to
help someone who is in trouble like this, you should do it.
My hope would be that they open source whatever it is that they've come up
with so that other sites can implement similar tools.
------
IBM
It's kind of amusing that all the investment in ML/AI by the internet
companies is part of how they'll be regulated. I suspect it won't be good
enough for a long time anyway and they're just going to have to hire a lot
more people.
------
jacquesm
So, how about:
\- False positives?
\- People temporarily accessing other peoples computers and purposefully
triggering the algorithm?
\- Oversight?
\- Scope creep?
------
ShareDVI
Partially reposting this reddit comment to prevent Werner syndrome
([https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/7026o9/suicide_att...](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/7026o9/suicide_attempts_among_young_adults_between_the/dmzz276/))
__If you are having thoughts of suicide, self-harm, or painful emotions that
can result in damaging outbursts, please dial one of these number below for
help! __
International Hotline Lists
[https://www.facebook.com/help/103883219702654](https://www.facebook.com/help/103883219702654)
[http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-
hotlines.html](http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html)
U.S.
Suicide Crisis Hotline: 1-800-273-8255
Cutting: 1-800-366-8288
Substance Abuse: 1-877-726-4727
Domestic Abuse: 1-800-799-7233
Depression Hotline: 1-630-482-9696
LifeLine: 1-800-273-8255
Crisis Textline: Text "start" to 741-741
Human trafficking: 1-(888)-373-7888
Trevor Project (LGBTQ sexuality support): 1-866-488-7386
Sexuality Support: 1-800-246-7743
Eating Disorders Hotline: 1-847-831-3438
Rape and Sexual Assault: 1-800-656-4673
Grief Support: 1-650-321-5272
Runaway: National Runaway Safeline 1-800-RUNAWAY (1-800-786-2929)
Exhale: Abortion Hotline/Pro-Voice: 1-866-4394253
International Hotline List:
[http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-
hotlines.html](http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html)
------
trhway
how would we know that any very-very-well intended action FB would take upon
identifying a suicide tendency is going to help prevent and not actually
encourage/cause the suicide? How about false positives?
------
petercooper
TechCrunch's own title is better here. The only "sign of suicide" comes after
the fact. Detecting "suicidal posts", as in the original title, is more useful
however.
------
r1b
Dead men buy no products.
~~~
5ilv3r
I know this is horribly cynical, but dead man's friends will probably be
highly engaged with the platform afterward. Facebook will find a way to
monetize it.
~~~
mmjaa
Dead mens' comments, live on .. in some database. Or text file. Use the
Source!
------
MichaelMoser123
the article does not mention how a possible intervention would look like; if
they don't report a user with suicidal posts to the authorities then facebook
will be sued by relatives of those who put an end to their lives; if they do
report it then they will be sued by privacy advocates. Damned if they do,
damned if they don't.
~~~
MichaelMoser123
data is power and profit (P&P), but too much data can be a liability.
------
yters
Facebook is a massive Skinner box.
------
stevehiehn
Does this mean they have created a training set of posts/behaviour prior to
suicide?
~~~
phkahler
I was hoping they used data on people who actually committed suicide, but it
looks like they're using activity that users reported and "expert opinion"
instead.
------
kirykl
Kind of incentivizes users to keep their FB presence "happy regardless"
------
trophycase
_beep_ _boop_ "take your medicine. take your medicine"
------
artursapek
I guess that's one way to keep MAUs up.
------
bwl
welp
------
leifaffles
Given the track record of social interventions, what if this backfires?
------
igorgue
Facebook is a phishing website.
------
mmjaa
>outrage< I do _NOT_ give Facebook - or any other party - permission to know
if the Suicide Bit is flipped.... S'rsly, is anyone else not having a serious
"WTF!" moment about the very substance of where we are at? >/outrage<
~~~
austincheney
No, because you do not own data you submit to Facebook. It is their data and
they can do anything they want with it. If you find that disgusting then don't
give data to Facebook.
~~~
mmjaa
Yes, of course. The irony is not lost; no matter what, you can't really erase
yourself from existence.
Facebook will, at least, maintain the shrine.
Perhaps this is its true purpose - to remember dead people?
I think it will become that. I wonder if there is an event horizon where all
of the initial Facebook users expire, and only a new set live on - I imagine
it'd be way into the future - 3 or 4 generations?
Soon enough, Facebook is gonna be the grave, itself.
------
vonnik
I totally support this, but I also find it ironic that Facebook would 1) make
lots of people sad and then 2) monitor them for suicidal ideation.
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/12/facebook_makes_you_...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/12/facebook_makes_you_sad/)
~~~
TheAdamAndChe
I see the irony as well, but from a purely business standpoint, it makes
sense. If Facebook gains and keeps a reputation of being intensely bad for
mental health, it will lose market share in the long run as regulation passes
limiting its scope.
~~~
mmjaa
I sentence you to penance for your heresy.
Please watch "Soylent Green" and "The Matrix" and come back with a good reason
for why corporations should be allowed to commercialise death services.
k'thxbai.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Please review my startup - Vipidme.com - a video generator - pogos
A couple of weeks ago we launched http://vipidme.com.<p>It is a webapp where you can create your own customized video using our predefined templates. Currently you can only customize textual information, but we're working on new features like the possibility to upload your own pictures and audio files to use in the templates.<p>Video rendering turned out to be very expensive, but at the same time we wanted for new users to try how it all works, for free. So we included a possibility to produce one low-res video for new users. Making more videos or higher resolution costs money, starting from $2.<p>We are aware that English on the website sucks, but none of us knows English well, so we planning to find native speaker who will fix that.<p>We would love to hear your feedback.
Thanks.<p>DEMO: http://vipidme.com/watch/1020f3685f8e68a933d8bcd33a95a1cdafa2/
======
retube
I have to say this is pretty genius. This could take e-cards to a whole new
level. Suggestions: some of the text is impossible to read - I had to guess
what the registration form fields were. But the rest of the design is nice.
Also it's slow. I know you're doing video rendering, but if you could find a
way to cut down the render time, you'll probably up your retention and repeat
rates. Also you want to be able to add a longer message at the end of the
video: the video is the "front" of the card, the end message the contents.
Plus get your cost down to a dollar.
------
aquark
Looks like a great implementation. Maybe have a couple of demos on a landing
page that use something other that the placeholder text.
If you do get any traction though you might attract the attention of the
copyright holders the videos are based on. Did you get any legal advice on
that before putting it up?
------
_grrr
Just a heads up that the grey font on black background is pretty hard to read
on my (albeit crappy) monitor.
~~~
pogos
Thanks for feedback! We are planning to implement site themes feature so users
can choose the one they like.
~~~
_grrr
Probably best to make the default on the homepage somewhat more readable
though.
Who's your target market for this product? The styling on the homepage is
pretty tech/minimal, but if you're going after the home user maybe something
more light-hearted would be appropriate? I can see people using the videos to
create custom Christmas or Birthday messages, but style-wise that market
probably respond better to something more like: <http://www.moonpig.com/uk/>
------
mikelbring
<http://vipidme.com>
~~~
pogos
Or if you just want to see what it's all about without registering:
<http://vipidme.com/select/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Quantum Randomness - Tomte
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.16217,y.2014,no.4,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx
======
md224
Enjoyed the shout-out to Bohmian mechanics. Nonlocality may be weird, but you
know what else is weird? _Everything else about quantum mechanics._ I'd
actually prefer a nonlocal deterministic theory to a local indeterministic
one, though I know that's just a philosophical preference. Still, I wish
Bohmian mechanics was more popular; I wasn't even aware it existed until
recently.
~~~
TTPrograms
Multiverse is perfectly deterministic without all the issues with Bell's
Inequality and needing a superfluous particle in addition to the wavefunction.
I think pilot wave is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
------
cromwellian
Pure randomness doesn't need physicality. The expansion of Omega, Chaitin's
constant, is random. There is no model, program, or equation, that can predict
the next bit.
Perhaps its possible the universe could be run on a cellular automata that is
unpredictable in the same way. Is say, radioactive decay, truly random, or
just can't be predicted by any program shorter than the underlying cellular
automata process itself.
The fact that we can model the universe at all and predict parts of it at
various scales -- that math works at all for physics -- is either remarkable,
or perhaps required in any universe capable of intelligent life. :) Perhaps in
a universe that is incomprehensible otherwise, evolution would not select for
intelligence.
~~~
darkmighty
That's referenced in the article -- Chaitin's constant is 'algorithmically
incompressible' according to Kolmogorov complexity -- though note that this
definition means it's "assymptotically" random, but the first n bits can be
approximated in finite time (there are other numbers with more strict
randomness). What the article addresses is that if you're given a long string
with that property you can't verify the randomness, by definition. But using
the CHSH method outlined you can, assuming only some physical principles --
provided you're given a small 'seed' to start.
Note that the underlying "way" that the universe generates randomness doesn't
matter from a scientific standpoint -- as long as we can't predict it, you can
think of it as being generated by either an enormous computer or truly random
(whatever that means).
------
dj-wonk
About 3/4 of the way down, in response to: "The central idea in all of these
protocols is simply to be stingy with the use of randomness. We ask Alice and
Bob to play the CHSH game over and over again. However, in almost all of the
plays, they simply both receive red cards—leading to a boring but also “cheap”
(in terms of randomness) game. Only for a few randomly chosen plays does one
of them receive a blue card."
If this is true, then these "clever" protocols are breaking the 50/50 rule of
the CHSH game. Right?
~~~
greeneggs
Yes. In the normal CHSH game, the questions to the players Alice and Bob are
independent random bits (50/50, as you say). That's a problem, though, if you
want to create new randomness, because you put into the game two random bits
and you get out less than two random bits! If you want to get out more
randomness than you put in, you need to be a little more clever and more
stingy with using random bits.
(If the players are honest, the first player's output is uniformly random, but
the second player's output is ~85% predictable given the first player's
output. Measured in terms of entropy, this means you are getting a fraction
more than 1 bit out.)
The standard 50/50 CHSH is still useful for generating randomness, though.
Even though it uses up more randomness than it creates, the output randomness
can be of higher _quality_ than the input randomness. More precisely, if the
input bits are independent to the players Alice and Bob, but perhaps are known
to an outside adversary, the game's output bits will be unknown to the
adversary.
------
xtacy
It is interesting to see how outcomes of the CHSH game to generate random
bits. However, I am left wondering how Alice, Bob, or an external observer
learns about the outcomes of the game?
Or, maybe I am misunderstanding the mechanics itself.
------
trurl42
The idea of infinite randomness expansion really fascinates me, it's like
watching Münchhausen pulling himself out of the swamp by his own hair.
------
sundaymorning
How exactly do Alice and Bob use entangled electrons to win CHSH game with
higher than 75% probability?
~~~
dj-wonk
This may not answer your question, but you might enjoy seeing how the 85.4%
probability is derived in
[http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.0448v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.0448v1.pdf)
and
[http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.0449v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.0449v1.pdf)
~~~
Sniffnoy
A note -- if you're linking to arXiv, it's better to link to the abstract
([http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.0448](http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.0448),
[http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.0449](http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.0449)) rather than
directly to the PDF. From the abstract, one can easily click through to the
PDF; not so the reverse. And the abstract allows one to do things like see
different versions of the paper, search for other things by the same authors,
etc.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Microsoft working on porting Sysinternals to Linux - LinuxBender
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-working-on-porting-sysinternals-to-linux/
======
tellarin
Discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18378332](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18378332)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
BP Knew of Deepwater Horizon Problems 11 Months Ago - prosa
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30rig.html?pagewanted=all
======
seldo
This article was posted (and extensively discussed) yesterday in the comments
on the other Deepwater Horizon story:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1389647>
The WSJ also has a lot more detail on how the rig was being run prior to the
accident:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870402620457526...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704026204575266560930780190.html)
------
jared314
All of this is hindsight. Every piece of equipment has "problems". It is just
a matter of how many failures happen at once. A bit like airliners.
~~~
jameskilton
A valid point, but I would hesitate to agree with this until someone can put
together the numbers of how many rigs fall under this "it's a problem, but
it's not a risk so go ahead anyway"
In terms of the Horizon, the reports I'm hearing basically state that _every
single major safety device_ on the well fit this category.
~~~
ars
I have a few numbers. Almost 1 billion wells have been drilled, and about
100,000 offshore wells.
~~~
anigbrowl
I saw you mention this yesterday. Can you cite your source for this? I find it
a little hard to believe there is (or has been) one oil well drilled for every
~6 people on earth.
~~~
ars
Thank you for challenging me, because while in my head I thought "million", I
wrote down "billion", and I feel like an idiot for doing that.
~~~
anigbrowl
No problem :-)
------
ck2
Just wait until their deepwater Atlantis fails, it will make the Horizon
failure look like a puddle.
[http://www.propublica.org/article/whistleblower-sues-to-
stop...](http://www.propublica.org/article/whistleblower-sues-to-stop-
atlantis-bp-rig-from-operating)
Half of it's critical systems that were installed were not reviewed or tested.
------
retube
I posted this yesterday, but it didn't get picked up on. It appears that the
Niger Delta experience a Deepwater Horizon every single year....
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1390246>
Direct link: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-
niger...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-
niger-delta-shell)
------
binspace
I just hope for all of our sakes that this is the final nail in the coffin of
industry self-regulation. It does not work when it is against your interests
to be safe; after all, we love to take risks.
I also hope that America begins to realize that large corporations rarely have
the interests of the population in mind. There needs to be checks and balances
here.
~~~
waterlesscloud
Excellent. So let's talk about regulating all these dot com companies...
~~~
silentOpen
Name a dot-com with $1bn+ in liability and we can talk about regulating it.
~~~
waterlesscloud
I see. It's all those _other_ people that need to be regulated. Got it.
~~~
Vivtek
This is a pretty straw-mannish argument. It's clear to me that if a company is
big enough that its irresponsible actions can cause this much harm, it should
be regulated. (I note you haven't actually named a dot-com with more than a
billion in liability.)
_Capitalism is not a suicide pact._
~~~
waterlesscloud
I see nothing here that explains why dot coms should not be regulated.
~~~
Vivtek
I see you've shifted your argument. What happened to "Right, just the _other_
guys should be regulated?"
I'm not sure what's not clear about the notion that large risk should be
regulated. If a company is capable, due to size or what have you, of harming a
large number of people due to malice or incompetence on the part of its
corporate governance, then sanity demands it should be regulated.
However, small companies should be regulated as little as possible. I mean,
assuming you want a working economy. I'm not sure you do - actually, I'm not
sure _what_ you want, but from the standpoint of pattern recognition of your
strawman attacks, I'd assume you want to regulate _all_ business as little as
possible.
Where I suspect we differ is the degree of "possible".
In my opinion, any business that can destroy hundreds of miles of coastline
for other people while still having a banner profit year? Yeah, that should
probably be regulated, since the Invisible Hand ain't gonna do it. Look up the
Tragedy of the Commons sometime; you might find it instructive. (Or perhaps
not. It's hard to tell how honestly you're approaching this.)
~~~
waterlesscloud
There's no shifting here. It's the same topic.
The original subject was that large corporations can't be trusted to regulate
themselves. But of course that's exactly what we're doing with the large dot
coms. They're minimally regulated, certainly in comparison with the oil
industry, which is in fact highly regulated.
Why do we trust large dot coms to regulate themselves? Because we think their
leadership is somehow more trustworthy? Are they just naturally better people?
On what basis do we make that judgement?
If Apple or Amazon or Facebook or Microsoft or Google had malicious, greedy,
or incompetent leadership do you not believe they could cause massive harm?
Sure, it wouldn't make ugly pictures on tv (or would it? I can imagine ways in
which it could), but that doesn't mean the potential damage is any less real.
Why do we trust them to regulate themselves?
If you trust present leadership, what about the next generation, those that
are just MBAs from the same schools that turned out the leadership of BP,
Shell, and Exxon?
So, again, why do we think they shouldn't be regulated?
~~~
Vivtek
Ah. "Large" dot-coms. Well, I think your intuition tells you that "large" dot-
coms are also capable of incurring public liability that is not held in check
by their nominal liability. I'd argue that it's improbable that Apple or
Google could do damage to the public on quite the scale that BP or Goldman-
Sachs or Enron managed, but you could well be right.
But I think you really need to think about regulating _risk_ , not classes of
company - except insofar as classes of companies are in fact associated with
certain categories of risk. Apple will not be causing a vast oil spill.
Microsoft - well, Microsoft _might_ be capable of destroying the global
financial markets, but probably not as directly as AIG.
I consider the category of "dot-com" to be entirely orthogonal to this
question. It's the risk, not the company. And moreover, it's instances where
the risk to the public is far larger than the risk (or cost) to the company in
the worst case. That's where regulation has to adjust the balance.
For instance, Google could accidentally deny email to about 176 million people
at once, and that could arguably cause some damage. They could choose to stop
offering free email with no notice. You could argue that this would cause them
enough ill will that they wouldn't do it - but that argument clearly doesn't
work for BP or the financial giants. So you might have an argument there.
~~~
waterlesscloud
It's almost in the definition of a dot-com, large and small, that the impact
of any particular action they take is greater than the cost of that action to
the company. That's why tech startups are so appealing.
But if you have such leveraged benefits, you also have such leveraged risk.
The same leverage that lets a small team create great value also puts them in
a position where they can cause great harm.
I used large dot coms because there was some insistence in the thread that
regulation was only worth talking about with large companies. A red herring,
of course, since the mom and pop corner dry cleaner is a regulated business,
and for the common good. Size isn't really an issue.
The difference is that it's almost a tautology that dot coms have influence,
good and bad, far out of proportion to their size...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Great Seal Bug: How Theremin Eavesdropped On US Ambassador - georgecmu
http://www.spybusters.com/Great_Seal_Bug.html
======
Zenst
Realy nice read, lots of interesting and insightful details and gives a good
insight into the whole cold-war life and times.
I have worked with a modern sweeper team and can only imagine how hard it was
to detect passive/active bugs of this type at the time. Today it is even more
crafty with added delays, non-metalic mic's and other wonderfuly brilliant
tricks to stop the bugs being detected. Of note your bug detection gear needs
to be tested and approved as you could of brought it from a supplier who has
handicapped it to not detect there bugs.
As for the future, well if you could remotly tap into the human beings
brainwaves then you have access to a great stereo-mic. Large steel supports in
buildings and reinforced concrete also act as nice ariels if abused right.
There realy is no limit.
If you have a secret and the person who wants that secret has unlimited
resources and talent then it wont be a secret for long.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Future Airplanes Will Fly on Twistable Wings - prostoalex
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/future-airplanes-will-fly-on-twistable-wings
======
jacquesm
Full circle to the Wright Flyer then:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer)
~~~
hodgesrm
Don't forget birds! They have the first known wing-warping design. :)
------
mabbo
Always a bit careful when reading an article written by a researcher who is
very excited about his own innovations. I take the optimism with a grain of
salt.
~~~
BinaryIdiot
Same; as I was reading it and the author started talking about himself working
on it I had a bunch of red flags smack me in the face. Sure, be excited about
your stuff and it may be completely legit but when someone publishes about
their own work outside of a research paper that includes data it makes me
think they're fund raising and trying to sell me on all of the extreme
possibilities.
------
velodrome
F/A-18 Active Aeroelastic Wing [2006]:
[https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-06...](https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-061-DFRC.html)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-53_Active_Aeroelastic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-53_Active_Aeroelastic_Wing)
------
JoeAltmaier
I was following a giant wind generator blade down the highway on a windy day.
Seen from the back (following the rig) I saw the thing twisting and bobbing
constantly. Its like it was made of rubber!
Not an airplane wing, I know, but similar.
~~~
jacquesm
Anything when made long enough will flex like that. Imagine that those blades
are made of carbon fiber, resin and are designed for maximum stiffness!
Fortunately the loading of those blades is relatively constant, the majority
of the load will come at a 90 degree angle to the plane of rotation, the angle
at which the leading edge hits the apparent (not the real) wind. That apparent
wind has a speed that is a fairly large multiple (7 or so) of the speed of the
real wind and the 'flex' that you observe is almost all at right angles to
that wind.
In other words: those blades are floppy in the direction where they can afford
to be floppy, but extremely stiff along the axis where their main load is. If
they wouldn't be the tips would lag behind the hub and they definitely do not
do that in any significant amount.
Another good reason to make the blades a bit flexible in their long axis
parallel to the tower is that this allows the blades to deal better with tower
thump. A blade rigid in that dimension would cause a much sharper rise of the
pressure wave of air trapped between the blade and the tower, and this results
in a blade that will live that much longer (and a machine that runs quieter).
That is also the reason for the angle at which the nacelle is set, this
creates a bit more room at the bottom where the blade flex is at its maximum,
it also helps to offset wind-shear.
~~~
Gravityloss
Also, the shapes are nowadays pre-bent in the opposite direction, so they get
more optimal when they are loaded. You can do many things in a wind turbine
that would be dangerous in an aircraft.
------
nether
Like blended wing body configurations, propfan propulsion, "smart" materials
with embedded sensors, this is an aerospace technology that has merit and has
been studied for decades. It is not any closer to implementation in any
commercial aircraft because existing designs work well enough and are far less
risky to analyze and test.
------
jlebrech
what about flapping for thrust next?
~~~
miend
I'm ready for ornithopters if you are. And then heighliners.
------
dvh
Holy fuck, that site displays full page ad on top of the page and when you
scroll down, it scrolls back up. After certain time you can scroll down.
~~~
agumonkey
Let me improve your life a little
[http://www.printfriendly.com/print/?source=homepage&url=http...](http://www.printfriendly.com/print/?source=homepage&url=http%3A%2F%2Fspectrum.ieee.org%2Faerospace%2Faviation%2Ffuture-
airplanes-will-fly-on-twistable-wings)
~~~
ed312
Or a little more still: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-
origin/cjpa...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-
origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm)
~~~
Raphmedia
What about mobile?
~~~
lorenzhs
Firefox for Android allows extensions, you can use
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/ublock-
origin...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/ublock-origin/)
If your phone is a rooted Android, you can also use a hostfile that blacklists
many ad servers, such as [https://adaway.org/](https://adaway.org/)
On iOS, "Content Blockers" for Safari can be used for ad blocking, and there
is plenty of choice in the App Store.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Netflix Data Science Interview Questions – Acing the AI Interview - vimarshk
https://medium.com/acing-ai/netflix-data-science-interview-questions-acing-the-ai-interview-176cd3a0009f
======
vimarshk
Happy to discuss if there are any suggestions.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mercedes-Benz conducting the biggest test using drones to ship everyday items - flinner
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-28/mercedes-plans-more-drone-deliveries-after-100-perfect-flights
======
michrassena
I can imagine drone delivery's an effective solution to the last mile problem
for automated delivery? Have a self-driving truck navigate through a
neighborhood, the drone takes off with the package and delivers it to the
doorstep and returns to the truck. The truck can continue driving around as
drones rejoin it down the road.
Now we have both pieces of the equation: how to get to the house without
paying a driver, and how to get to the porch without paying someone to walk
and carry.
~~~
QAPereo
How many jobs would that “repurpose” in delivery if you add a automated truck?
Energy and materials to build and maintain drone fleets, noise, all seem like
issues, since this is added on to the existing truck.
~~~
michrassena
You make a good point. Would those steps actually lead to cost savings?
Driving a truck and delivering packages requires less specialized skills than
maintaining the fleet. How do delivery companies handle maintenance on their
human-driven trucks? It is contracted out? If the company can run three trucks
per staff member vs. one per truck, wouldn't the savings be worth it? Are they
going to pay this new staff member 3 times as much as a driver?
------
account0099099
What is this going to sound like when cities have hundreds of whining drones
flying around? Are we just going to have to get used to the noise pollution
from the drones so people can get their coffee delivered faster?
~~~
simplyinfinity
What is this going to sound like when cities have hundreds of whining cars
driving around? Are we just going to have to get used to the noise pollution
from the cars so people can get their coffee delivered faster?
\-------
This actually might lower the delivery times and delivery cars on the road
which is a good thing! Less traffic, less air pollution, faster delivery
times, less jobs (not a good thing tho).
~~~
mikeash
It's true that we already deal with annoying vehicular noise, but that's
hardly an argument in favor of repeating the same mistakes.
I'm not convinced it would be anything like a net gain. I'm not a fan of car
noise, but a delivery truck carrying hundreds of packages makes less noise
than a drone too small to even carry one of them.
Hopefully it's possible to make these things much quieter....
~~~
d0lph
True, but imagine if these drones handled food/grocery/retail delivery, the
amount of cars on the road would drop immensely. As long as the tradeoff is 1
car -> 1 drone.
~~~
mikeash
Trading off one car for one drone would result in a massive increase in noise.
To be a win, you'd need each drone to replace hundreds or thousands of cars,
and right now the equation is the other way around.
Cars are getting quieter all the time, too. Tire noise already dominates for
most vehicles at city speeds, and EVs improve the picture even further. Diesel
trucks are often pretty noise, but they're mild compared to a drone, and
electric trucks will drastically cut down on noise.
~~~
semi-extrinsic
Not to mention in most places, highways (the places where cars make the most
noise) are far away or acoustically shielded from where there are people.
------
FLUX-YOU
Who had the bright idea to put a drone video up top that has nothing to do
with Mercedes? The company in the video isn't even mentioned in the article.
Stay weird, Bloomberg.
------
Animats
That's the reverse of Mercedes' previous robot delivery scheme. They did a
test with Starship Technologies delivery robots, where a van was filled up
with the robots, it went somewhere, and the robots fanned out to deliver
things. That would make sense for dense areas like apartment buildings and
offices, once you get doors and elevators to cooperate.
This new test delivers stuff by drone from a distribution center to the vans,
which then make local deliveries with humans. That seems backwards. The drones
are doing the heavy lifting, something trucks do very well.
------
totally
What's the failure mode for quadcopters, can these land safely with loss of
one motor? Definition of "safely" would ideally consider human casualties.
~~~
semi-extrinsic
Well, this happened a couple of years ago in a World Cup skiing event.
[https://youtu.be/xeviAWB0i4Y](https://youtu.be/xeviAWB0i4Y)
~~~
totally
That's an incredible link, thanks for that.
That someone would be skiing, whatever, 100 miles per hour and might then die
because of a falling electronic lawnmower really highlights seen vs unseen
risks.
------
theDoug
Biggest seems to be a superlative with no basis. Perhaps _its_ biggest test?
------
fenwick67
All this drone delivery stuff is theatre until they start building obstacle
detection and avoidance into them. Yes, drones can take off from point A, then
fly up, over to point B, and land. We already knew this.
~~~
oh_sigh
Even modern consumer drones have obstacle detection and avoidance built in
------
PeachPlum
Last mile is best served on foot, not by vehicle.
------
goldfeld
People wonder why the bees are gone or why it's gonna be a total wasteland for
life in no time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Help Gmail has killed my personal email - arpa
So out of the blue, my extremely low traffic email has been blacklisted by google. It is not in DNSBL, end-to-end encryption is used when delivering mail, I have a http(s) on the same ip/domain with short bio, DKIM, DMARC, SPF, the works (that have been working since 2014) are set up, email tests that I can find on the internet are 10/10, never pwnd, but I still end up in spam. Postmaster tools are useless, as this is a personal email and the outgoing volume is too low to get any information from it. I've tried contacting gmail support, but you can probably guess how that went. Do I have to trade my privacy in forever now or does HN know some other tricks that could help me correspond with people on gmail?
======
DamonHD
I think that various legit long-standing domains of mine, commercial and
personal, have been in and out of gmail and MS blacklists randomly. Indeed,
some of the domains predate gmail for example.
For this reason in part I have backup outgoing domains that I can fall back on
if I need to, occasionally.
Rgds
Damon
------
qmarchi
Most Googlers are on vacation today, but I'll dig around to see what I can
find. Shoot me an email (in my prof) with your domain.
Disclosure: Googler.
~~~
arpa
Thanks!
------
arpa
It seems that gmail didn't like that i connect to my SMTP server from a
"disreputable" ISP.
edit: nope, still straight to spam.
------
gtirloni
Where are you hosting it? You could be sharing a subnet with known spammers.
~~~
arpa
Hetzner
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
JsPDF generates PDF documents using pure JavaScript - nreece
http://code.google.com/p/jspdf/
======
nreece
Here's a basic example:
<http://jspdf.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/examples/basic.htm>
------
invisible
I love that they use data: and I've never thought to do that for something as
simple as a PDF (which can be really simple). Kudos to the developers!
------
ciupicri
The trick consists in generating a _data:application/pdf;base64_ URL, which
unfortunately can't be too long for practical reasons.
------
qeorge
That's really impressive. The syntax seems very similar to FPDF, which is
great.
------
chanux
Good one. _Off to think what are the practical uses_
------
gourneau
I should have not been, but I was startled that this could be done with js
alone.
------
tezza
Do away with JS and just use Java
<http://www.lowagie.com/iText/>
------
arnorhs
wow, very impressive. What about images and such?
~~~
jonursenbach
var putImages = function() {
// TODO
}
Doesn't look like it supports images yet.
~~~
ajm
Verified by <http://code.google.com/p/jspdf/issues/list>
------
zackattack
This is pretty freaking awesome. Unfortunately when I click "Run Code" on the
demo, it doesn't open/properly save, using Firefox.
~~~
jlangenauer
It works for me in Google Chrome (though you hope it would). I'm continually
astounded at what can be achieved in Javascript... Will have to have a look at
the source tonight and see what I can learn.
~~~
fiaz
Does it work in Rhino? This would be very handy to embed in some Java apps.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Banks and Brokerages Should Be Mining the Blockchain - csomar
http://avc.com/2015/06/banks-and-brokerages-should-be-mining-the-blockchain/
======
csomar
I wonder how this will affect profit-driven miners. If banks start to mine
not-for-profit, in an activity, that is already almost non-profitable, then
this will make mining bitcoin cost money.
If this drives the for-profit miners, and only big-giant corp-banks are
mining, they'll easily control over 51% of the mining capacity.
This will return us again to same problem bitcoin tried to solve:
Decentralization. And this is putting us in the hands that we wanted to escape
from in the first place.
~~~
informatimago
If you want freedom, you need to design a free currency.
Check [http://www.creationmonetaire.info/](http://www.creationmonetaire.info/)
The principle of freedom must acknowledge all individuals, present and
future, and allows us to define three fundamental economic freedoms as
following:
a) Freedom of access to resources
---------------------------------
Any citizen is free to access resources.
b) Freedom of production
------------------------
Any citizen is free to produce value.
c) Freedom of exchange "in the currency"
----------------------------------------
Any citizen is free to exchange with others "in the currency".
| Freedom being defined as non-nuisance, one must not make the basic
logical error which consists to interpret the economic freedoms as a
right to violate others' property, to produce or exchange what is
unlawful.
| How to interpret the "freedom of access to resources"? It must be
interpreted in terms of non-nuisance, as specified by the Lockean
proviso:
Once gathered (or 'appropriated'), an item belongs to the person
who made the effort to gather it, "at least where there is enough,
and as good, left in common for others"; nature itself remained
common property. One owns the apples one picked, but not the
apple tree; the deer one hunted, but not the forest.
For example, nobody has the right to appropriate the unique water
source in a desert, without giving access to the water to everyone.
Free code and free monetary system
=====================================
Free code, as defined in the software world ("free software") consists
in giving freedoms to the users of software programs [#]_, so they may see
the source code of the software, and are able to modify it. This
principle of "freedom of code" is fundamentally compatible with the
principle of relativity, because if the laws are independent of the
referencial, it is that they are not hidden or inaccessible thru
experimentation, wherever we are.
Now the currency is currently a hidden and privative code, in the sense
that currency is controlled by rules that cannot be modified
democratically (essentially the rules of Basel I, II and soon III,
which are in no manner established following a democratic process),
and that the transactions performed by the banking system for the
issue of asymetric credits are not transparent. The historical
subprime crisis which saw its summit in 2008 is the latest
illustration.
[...]
The consequence of a monetary system whose code is hidden, is the
emergence of an economy whose value field is a pyramidal topological
structure, auto-reproductive and unstable. On the contrary, the
consequence of using a free monetary system is the emergence of an
economy whose value field is an expanding spherical structure in the
space-time, compatible with generation replacement.
However, the software freedoms as defined by the Free Software
Foundation (FSF), which are four in number, must be distinguished from
the freedoms of a communication protocol, or exchange, like the
currency, which cannot be modified individually without being cut out
from the community that uses it. Thus, "Free software" respects the
following users' freedoms:
* Freedom of use
* Freedom of access to source code
* Freedom of modification of source code
* Freedom of copy
They are different from the four freedoms which must be attributed to
a free monetary system:
* Freedom of democratic modification
* Freedom of access to resources
* Freedom of production of values
* Freedom of exchange "in the currency"
Examples: In 2011, the Euro cannot be considered a free currency,
since its code (the treaties on the European Monetary Union) are not
modifiable by a democratic process.
We can talk of Euro as a currency privative of freedom, a privative
currency system, at least in the sense of the first freedom, and even
more of the fourth freedom as we'll see later.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent - igonvalue
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/fashion/steve-jobs-apple-was-a-low-tech-parent.html
======
harryf
What I've seen with my kids (under 10) is when they get an hour of phone or
tablet, after they have to give it up again, they become very aggressive and
behave in a manner which is comparable to someone with a chemical addiction.
That usually lasts 10-15 minutes then they calm down and start acting like
themselves again. Talking to other parents they report similar behavior
There's something about shifting your attention from one "space" to "another"
( game vs. real life ) that kids under 10 seem to particularly struggle with.
And as a parent that they become so aggressive when making that context switch
tells me there's something I need to watch closely and control, despite the
fact that it's great to have my kids silently occupied and leaving me to get
stuff done.
~~~
danielweber
I've noticed this, even at older ages. My early teen son turns into a
downright asshole if he's online and then told (with ample warning) that it's
time for dinner. Without the device, he's extremely pleasant.
~~~
jkaunisv1
I can still remember this sort of situation when I was a teenager playing
CounterStrike every day. For one thing, my mom would give me "ample warning"
but without checking that I was paying attention to her first. When your focus
is 100% on a game it's easy to not notice and even to answer without noticing
what was said to you. Basically say whatever would make her go away the
fastest and then get back to the game. Then when dinner truly was ready and
she interrupted me abruptly, it was frustrating because I never got (in my
head) proper notification. Often I would actually not remember her giving me a
heads up, it was that small a blip in my focus. She called it selective
hearing.
I think those of us who spend a lot of time online/on devices project our
consciousness into the machine and it takes more effort to context switch out
of that. So we get angry when we're torn out without the chance to context
switch at our own pace. For what it's worth, I get the same way when I'm deep
into reading a book so I wouldn't project this problem on only high
technology.
~~~
dllthomas
It would be nice if there was a good way to queue up requests for someone's
next context switch (end of CS round, as a trivial example).
------
selmnoo
I would not so easily put so much stock or value in the way Steve Jobs did
things as a parent or even as a human being. This is the guy who unfortunately
refused to pay child support (while being more than able to) as well as refuse
to acknowledge the existence of his daughter (ignoring all her contact efforts
and so on). And then there's that whole thing with corruption at unholy levels
and treating his employees and people in general like crap.
~~~
graeme
This comment really shouldn't be at the top. The author appears to have read
only the headline, and has taken the opportunity to turn the thread into a
discussion of Steve Jobs.
The topic of the article was screen time for children. It quoted examples of
many technologists who limit screen time. Steve Jobs was just "click bait".
At HN, we should be beyond merely commenting on headlines. I would far prefer
the top comment to be a discussion of the merits of the article and the issues
raised.
~~~
idlewords
Indeed! I dropped my monocle into my bone china cup when I saw that this was
the top comment. There are standards to maintain here at Hacker Towers.
~~~
enroxorz
Bully! _snorts cocaine off of a silver plate held my a kangaroo servent-man_
------
mootothemax
I have conflicting feelings about this.
On the one hand, giving entertainment screens to children has the potential to
create all kinds of bad habits.
On the other, I spent hours upon hours teaching myself to program on my Atari
ST, plus learning about how computers work from it, and nowadays I've made a
pretty good living from my passion for IT.
(That's not to say that I didn't also spend many, many hours gaming, or
generally wasting time.)
As with most things in life, I think we can only say that the extreme ends are
unlikely to be good, and the answer lies somewhere in the middle.
~~~
joezydeco
But there's a difference here.
Tablets and similar items, including Gameboys and the like, are consumption
devices. Playing games, watching Netflix, reading Facebook. It's all passive
entertainment.
Teaching yourself to code on a home PC, that's _way_ different.
------
norswap
> The dangers he is referring to include exposure to harmful content like
> pornography, bullying from other kids, and perhaps worse of all, becoming
> addicted to their devices, just like their parents.
I threw up a little bit while reading this. Prohibiting rather than engaging
in meaningful discussion is a surefire way to cause harm (it's the same thing
with alcohol, for instance); bullying is a fact of life, and learning to deal
with it is a valuable life lesson. And yes, you can spend too much time on
your device. Calling it addiction, with all it entails, is a step I wouldn't
make. It's 2014, I thought the sillyness about being addicted to video games
and computer was over. Apparently not.
~~~
fecklessyouth
>It's 2014, I thought the sillyness about being addicted to video games and
computer was over. Apparently not.
It's never going to be over, as long as young children have access to
technology.
HN seems to preach a perverse gospel about this subject: that you should never
limit a child's technology access, because not only will nothing bad come out
of, but in fact, it will make them more capable. It will turn them into
developers and engineers!
I'm guessing the reason HN thinks this way is because they themselves got into
technology in the first place through such avenues: dicking around as a kid,
sometimes with the help of their parents, sometimes contrary to their wishes.
If THEY had been restricted, they wouldn't be where they are today.
But this reason suffers from selection bias. While people like yourself
(unless I'm misreading you. In which case, substitute the stereotypical HN
user for yourself) may have used videogames and computer access as a spring
board for your career, I'm willing to wager that you are minority among
videogame and computer-saavy youth.* You are a bigger majority, however, on
HN, and in the tech world in general, so such reasoning becomes canon without
being subject to enough criticism. Plenty of technologists were gamers, but
not all gamers become technologists. It's just that the former dominate here.
*I don't have any statistics on hand to support this. But since the videogame industry is as big (and growing) as it is, where are the rising mountains of developers and engineers that supposedly spring from it? Why aren't girls, who spend comparable time with technology, catching the wave as well?
My little brother has been addicted to Minecraft for the past 2 years. I keep
waiting for him to "discover" something else as a result of it. To get into
programming, or design, or architecture, or something more constructive. Hell,
even building things in Minecraft would be more productive than what he does
now: go on PvP servers and throw snowballs at people--for 12 hours a day, if
my parents let him. He's tried programming lessons a few times, but he usually
gives up, because learning a new skill is harder than playing (even difficult)
games. He lacks the trait of perseverance. And he's not going to learn it by
playing videogames.
~~~
graeme
>Plenty of technologists were gamers, but not all gamers become technologists.
It's just that the former dominate here.
I was a gamer, and didn't become a technologist. I had no idea what a computer
program was!
(If that sounds silly, consider all the things you see every day without
understanding)
Mostly, my gaming experience was a write-off. It stunted my social
development, blocked me from doing more interesting activities, and
contributed very little to my well-being.
I may have learned some strategic thinking from games like Starcraft, which I
think has carried over to entrepreneurship. But oh, how I wish I could get
that time back.
Or, I wish someone had shown me a terminal and what it could do. One glimpse
would have been enough.
------
ceejayoz
I don't see Angry Birds being much different than doing a puzzle on the floor,
and my daughter has taught herself to read at a third grade level at age 5 by
watching YouTube phonics videos and the like (along with picking up sign
language).
"Screen time" on devices is different from screen time on TVs.
~~~
slashedzero
> I don't see Angry Birds being much different than doing a puzzle on the
> floor,
You're missing a huge part of tactile development going on when she's playing
a puzzle on the floor vs. touching a flat surface. The fine motor skills
involved with physically handling a puzzle will come in handy later, not to
mention that there is an element of combining tactile response with mental
strategy missing on the iPad.
~~~
chillingeffect
Yup, plus the style of recall for a puzzle is tree-like.
The puzzle is a "natural" form, that encourages "natural" skills. Whereas
Angry Birds is an addictive game pattern. Any skills it "teaches" are
incidental to its commercial goals.
My point is invalid if the whole entire world turns into a giant
commercialized strip mall and recall no longer becomes a valued skill. :<
~~~
ceejayoz
Angry Birds is just a single example (and one that has him interested in the
physical versions). It's hardly the only option - plenty of creative puzzle
apps, reading apps, etc. are available and a lot of them are quite good.
That said, I'd say Angry Birds has given my son a lot of practice in
perseverance, problem solving, and not getting frustrated when something
doesn't work first time.
------
staunch
What kind of hack tries to peddle Steve Jobs' memory while explaining his
child rearing philosophy based on a single comment in a phone call to someone
he didn't know?
A NY Times hack.
------
jroseattle
We took a different approach from the parents in the article to technology
with our kids, and I think it was the right thing (for us).
My goals were to provide good exposure so that our kids would view technology
in a healthy way: tools to help them create and learn, devices that can bring
the world to them, and a healthy understanding that there are dangers beyond
our walls. I wanted them to be technologically astute, instead of taking an
aversion or negative view.
I wanted them to burn through the "magical" effect of tech early on. We put
desktop PCs in our kids' rooms when they were in 3rd grade (twins). I
completely controlled any outbound access they had (they knew nothing about
web browsers, so I removed those from access). And while we limited their
_unattended_ screen time, I also spent a good amount of time introducing them
to keyboards, mice, and applications. After a few months, both were up and
going with Minecraft. To keep things in the walls, I setup a private Minecraft
server to which they attached in the house so they could play with each other.
They've grown into 8th graders, and the desktop PCs have been replaced with
Macbooks, iPhones and Kindles. Sure, they use Snapchat and Instagram with
their friends, but by far they use the camera for videos and pictures. Those
things end up in iMovie or slideshows that they put together and distribute
over my Youtube account. They are voracious readers, pushing content through
their kindle at an alarming rate. These are now fundamental devices they use
in/for school projects and homework. They're good at it, to the point that
they often help their friends with troubleshooting.
As I said, our approach has worked for us. It has been a lot of work as well,
ensuring the kids aren't LatchKey 2.0, where the TV has been replaced by
something you can hold in your hands. We had to be committed to being
attentive and watchful, but we felt that was an investment in time that would
help our kids succeed in an increasingly connected world.
~~~
prawks
This is the approach I've always had in mind to take with my future children.
I hope they can have similarly successful results.
Any big learnings you found during the process which you didn't anticipate
starting out? I'm always interested in different perspectives and experiences
in raising children.
~~~
jroseattle
> Any big learnings you found during the process which you didn't anticipate
> starting out?
Always big learnings when it comes to rearing children.
Limiting in scope to my previous comment:
\- I started with the "basics", which had nothing to do with browsing the
internet (which came later.) Ease-of-use in services such as Google is a
nightmare when it comes to providing a safe environment for your kids to
explore. I think making the online world one of the latter components of
exposure is best; otherwise, kids can get lost really fast in it's expanse.
For anyone else following this approach, I'd say "keep it local".
\- Kids are _much_ more adept at technical adoption than adults. It speeds up
conversations very quickly. For anyone else following this approach, I'd say
be prepared to see what's coming. It will happen much faster than you might
expect.
------
rayiner
Most articles on how to raise your kids are crap, in the same vein as all
those articles that told you salt would raise your blood pressure or eggs
would raise your cholesterol levels. I didn't realize until I became one that
parents are faced with a mountain of old wives tales, superstitions, luddism,
etc, when it comes to their kids.
We're 'high tech' parents, and it works great. Our toddler has a 64GB iPad,
and uses it to watch Doc McStuffins, Veggie Tales, etc. Our generation grew up
in front of the TV, and the iPad is way better. It let's us control her
exposure to content and pernicious advertising, for example.
------
davidw
> Evan Williams, a founder of Blogger, Twitter and Medium, and his wife, Sara
> Williams, said that in lieu of iPads, their two young boys have hundreds of
> books (yes, physical ones) that they can pick up and read anytime.
One of the things that pains me a great deal about buying books for the Kindle
is that they won't be sitting around the house for my kids to look at one day.
However, given what it costs to order a physical book in English over here in
Italy, Kindle books make way more sense economically.
------
mncolinlee
I had limited screen time as a child, but I had up to two hours per day on our
Radio Shack TRS-80. This meant I was copying and then writing my own BASIC
programs at age six.
I wonder how the situation would be different if iPads and computers nowadays
didn't spoon feed our children an unlimited amount of instant gratification--
entertainment superior to what they could likely create themselves through
play and creativity.
------
zak_mc_kracken
For someone who built his fame and fortune on technology, Steve Jobs was
surprisingly anti-tech and anti-learning in many ways.
Another example of this is that he didn't trust traditional medicine and he
decided to fight his then benign cancer with some unproven fruit based diet.
One year later, his cancer had progressed to the point of being terminal and
even traditional medicine could no longer save him then.
------
kohanz
_Yet these tech C.E.O.’s seem to know something that the rest of us don’t._
Even if I might agree with this parenting style. I find the perspective here
to a bit a condescending - implying that because tech CEO's are doing it, it
must be something that others "don't know". What does the qualification of
tech CEO have _anything_ to do with parenting?!
~~~
corin_
Certainly sounds condescending, but there's is a valid point if they worded it
better - the CEOs may not _know_ better but they think they do, in that
they're the exception to the rule of "if you can both afford and understand
<phones, tablets, TVs, etc.>, your kids will enjoy that technology" (obviously
not the only exception, but they're an exception).
So unless you're also that sort of person, they either know something the rest
of us don't or they at least have an opinion on the subject that the rest of
us don't.
~~~
kohanz
I disagree with the premise that this line of thinking is somehow exclusive or
original to tech CEO's though. At least in my own experience, most parents I
know can afford tech, but limit it in some way. Unfettered access to tech for
young children seems to be the exception, rather than the rule, in my
experience.
------
jayvanguard
Re: CEOs tending to limit their kids "screen time" more than the average
parent.
A more likely explanation is that CEOs don't see much of their children so
they try to exercise control when they are around. Likewise their kids are
probably more prone to being out of control since they are less supervised.
That or the article is just based on his confirmation bias.
------
fredrikcarno
Interesting thread.. I've got twin boys that now are 2 years old. We made the
descision to get rid of the tv, computers and smart phones when they were
born. Now they are not that interested if you show them a tablet, they want to
go outside and play instead. A extra upside is the amount of extra time you
get each day
------
rokhayakebe
The sad part of this conversation is adults should be first to follow this
advice.
Have you been out in the mall lately? How about a restaurant? How about just
walking the streets? Un()Believable, yet.
------
sjtrny
> The dangers he is referring to include exposure to harmful content like
> pornography
The linked article in the tele doesn't even mention porn. Furthermore since
when is it harmful to see people participating in sex acts? What a joke.
~~~
chillingeffect
> when is it harmful to see people participating in sex acts?
I'm no conservative, but kids copy what they see, even before they understand
language and responsibility. There are no absolutes, but it's wise to moderate
showing sex acts to children until it's likely they won't repeat it
responsibly.
------
michaelochurch
Steve Jobs is a terrible example. He gets a lot of love for being a Buddhist
(which is, of the world religions, the one I am closest to) and having, for a
businessman, a 99th-percentile design sense. In actuality, he was a huge
dickhead. I could overlook his personal issues (you'll never get to the bottom
of a stranger's personal life, to try is useless gossip) but the collusion
with Eric Schmidt cemented my contempt for the man, co-religionist or no. I
wish he had lived two years more to see that his legacy would be a great
crime, not the iPhone.
When you're 13, tech is _fun_. Dragon Warrior! Final Fantasy! Tales of
Phantasia! I'm sure that anyone born before 1965 or after 1990 is going to be
taking me on faith, but these games were _awesome_.
When you're 19, tech is _even more fun_ because you actually learn how things
work and discover mind-bending ways of solving problems. Assembly code! C!
Lisps! Machine learning! Haskell!
When you're 25, tech is _important_ because it holds the power to solve some
of humanity's most pressing issues. We may get to a point where we can prolong
life as long as people wish at 1/100 the cost of the current expense-sink we
call "health care". We may avert a global warming catastrophe with clean
nuclear power (thorium fission? fusion?) We might escape this disgusting
arrangement in which one nation being rich requires others to be poor, and
arrive at a post-scarcity world in the next few decades. If any of this
happens, technology will play a key role.
After 30, you realize that while technology still can be fun and holds promise
and importance, _the tech industry_ is run by megalomaniac 21st-century robber
barons with the ethical fibre of Zombie Hitler's taint sweat. Technology
becomes just _work_ , for most people.
When they see their kids addicted to lit screens and possibly falling into the
in-app purchase suckholes that they spent months of their life optimizing for
addictiveness and "whale" recruiting, well... they have reasons to be
concerned. _Stay away from that shit! I helped cook it!_
~~~
yuhong
On Eric Schmidt:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7623873](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7623873)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8156005](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8156005)
~~~
nostrademons
I'm curious what point you're trying to make by linking my comment, because I
don't think it means what you think it means. I actually really enjoyed
working at Google when Eric was CEO, and I can respect Larry's Google as well
even though I choose not to work there. My comment was intended to illustrate
the difference in culture under the two CEOs, as well as the choices they have
to make in response to the outside environment, and not as a value judgment on
those choices.
~~~
yuhong
"but the collusion with Eric Schmidt cemented my contempt for the man"
~~~
nostrademons
Still don't get it. That's mchurch's line, and it's not echoed in any of the
comments (except possibly Masoud's on Piaw Na's G+ entry) you linked.
~~~
yuhong
I know, but it is related to the same topic.
------
guard-of-terra
Sucks to be their kids. Being denied of something other kids take for granted
should surely ruin child's esteem.
------
albeva
"harmful content like pornography" LOL. Think of the Children! :D
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
London tops list of most expensive cities in which to live and work - neverminder
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/london-rio-hong-kong-sydney-new-york-expensive-cities-live-work-rent-a6905136.html
======
marvel_boy
I guess that this will have very bad consequences. For example, is very
dificult for London to attract talent. People prefer Berlin or Barcelona, rent
is cheaper.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Free Software Foundation Releases FY2015 Annual Report - jordigh
http://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-releases-fy2015-annual-report
======
mark_l_watson
I enjoyed reading that! I am a member (donate $10/month to FSF and $4/month to
the Software Conservancy).
I am a little surprised that there are only 3200 members (but many non-members
also donate).
I don't always follow the FSF credos (e.g., I use an iPad) but they do great
work and along with organizations like the ACLU and EFF are a 'good deal' for
people wanting to maintain (as much as possible!) our rights in a digital
world.
------
jordigh
I feel a little bad that "my" GNU Octave is taking so much of the directed
donations. It feels like Mediagoblin, Mailman, or Replicant would be more
useful to a larger proportion of people. I wonder why this happens. It's not
like we aggressively campaign for donations.
~~~
tormeh
I would start by looking at usage data. Octave actually seems more mainstream
to me than the others. Mailing-lists and self-hosting are ultra-niche and few
bother installing their own OS on desktops - let alone mobiles. Nearly all
scientists use Matlab-like software, on the other hand.
Also, if there's nothing wrong with charging for software, then it sure as
hell is nothing wrong with accepting donations for it. Congratulations!
~~~
jordigh
I don't have a problem with taking donations. I wish other projects that seem
more urgent got more. Mailman is important because we need decentralised means
of communication and Replicant is important because Android is everywhere and
needs a free replacement. I know Matlab is also very big and needs a
replacement, but I think other projects need more funding and could have a
much greater impact.
~~~
em3rgent0rdr
FYI, you can donate your money to specific projects, here for replicant:
[https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?id=19](https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?id=19)
------
a_imho
I can't seem to find the old pie charts on the FSF site about their money
breakdown (~the fsf has plenty of money, like 5x their annual spend and
contributions cover more than operating expenses).
Every once in a while pops up a (not so subtle) post like this and every time
I really want to help their cause, but after my wikipedia fiasco I only want
to put money where I believe it does good and really needed.
[][http://www.fastcompany.com/3024306/bottom-line/why-this-
star...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3024306/bottom-line/why-this-startup-made-
their-salaries-radically-transparent)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scientists Send Text Message Using Vodka - dylandrop
http://www.voanews.com/content/scientists-send-text-message-using-vodka/1813783.html
======
pavel_lishin
A rather linkbaity headline; I send text messages using vodka pretty often,
and then I have to check to see what exactly I said in the morning.
Interesting, though. Seems like a series of breezes could seriously impact the
communication, though, making the whole robots-in-the-sewer system not work
quite so well.
~~~
stirno
MITM issues are far more uhh... interesting ... as well.
~~~
undoware
"Bob sends Alice his scent. Mallory intercepts the smell, pretending to be
Alice to Bob and Bob to Alice."
Ahem.
------
ColinWright
Other submissions of this story, although none have any discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6945800](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6945800)
(theverge.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6948140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6948140)
(extremetech.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6943036](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6943036)
(laptopmag.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6942179](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6942179)
(sciencedaily.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6939145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6939145)
(plosone.org)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6939133](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6939133)
(scienceagogo.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6935903](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6935903)
(arstechnica.com)
~~~
archgoon
The actual study, which you have buried in that list of links, is actually
quite nice.
[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0082935)
They achieved about .3 bits per second.
Components needed to replicate:
* DuroBlast Electronic Spray
* Arduino: [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11021](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11021)
Alcohol Sensors:
* MQ-303a : [http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/alcohol-sensor-mq303a-p-549...](http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/alcohol-sensor-mq303a-p-549.html)
* MQ-3 : [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8880](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8880)
* MR513 : [http://www.cooking-hacks.com/mr513-alcohol-high-accuracy](http://www.cooking-hacks.com/mr513-alcohol-high-accuracy)
So their setup is probably about $100
------
plg
I would be more interested if they sent vodka using text message
------
gmaslov
Text messages are only the relatively boring first step in this kind of
project. If these guys go on to implement IP/Vodka they can proudly follow in
the footsteps of such hacks as RFC 1149 :-) "The network smells a little slow
today"
------
shurcooL
Pretty neat that I know the people in this article personally.
------
downer87
So what's the baud rate?
I might guess something like one bit, every 10 seconds?
~~~
robotfelix
Given huge number of possible molecules and the relatively slow nature of
wafting them around the room, I suspect they plan to pack a lot more that 1
bit of information in each molecule!
------
devb
Sounds like they're shooting for an Ig Nobel prize.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners)
------
singular
I think it's worth exploring non-standard means of establishing networks no
matter how ostensibly silly as they can come in extremely useful when e.g.
governments try to restrict internet access in oppressive countries or natural
disasters occur, etc.
Though I'm not sure if this particular example is of much use ;-)
------
drakaal
I think the Native Americans did the same thing with smoke. "Smoke" for 1, "no
smoke" for zero. And they went way further than across the room.
~~~
Houshalter
Sort of, but they didn't smell the smoke signal, just look at it. It's cool
that we can automate it too.
~~~
drakaal
Point a camera at the place where the smoke pit would be. Poof! Automation.
As to smell, that was a stupid way to do it.
We can detect levels of lots of different things. Instead of 1 or 0 over time
it would have made a lot more sense to say Ok, I need to be able to encode 140
characters with 37 choices (alpha-numeric + Space).
There is a humidity sensor, a Carbon monoxide sensor, an oxygen sensor, and a
Carbon dioxide sensor. All are really cheap.
If you a tube and 37 levels that you release water, carbon monoxide, oxygen,
and carbon dioxide to. You now have the ability to send. 4 characters at a
time. Since alcohol sensors are cheap, we can use that for "parity" so we know
that the message was sent correctly.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Did not find automated personalization for websites and created this - alexeykudinkin
https://www.landy.io/
======
gk1
As a CRO consultant this is interesting, but I'm skeptical. (It's not
particularly your fault. Nearly every marketing tool promises nirvana, but
very few of them deliver.)
It sounded great until I realized that:
1) I would still have to think of variations and create them myself.
2) Even after that, this would only be useful if things like location and time
of day really did have a significant effect on conversion rates.
3) And even after that, this would only be _worth it_ if those effects were
not obvious to me and could only be discovered with ML. For instance, it
doesn't take ML to hypothesis that a visitor who came from an ad link
(&utm_campaign=dogs) is more interested in seeing a page about Dogs. And that
hypothesis can be tested for free with Optimizely.
In other words, ML is cool and all but I don't see what value this adds to
conversion optimization.
Maybe my assumptions are wrong and I'm missing something, in which case I hope
this is useful feedback.
~~~
mrtsepelev
1) Yes, the problem with creating variations is still here and is worth
mentioning. Today you need to know your product well and know your visitors
well to create a valuable hypothesis. And this is what we're working on right
now (disclaimer - I'm one of the co-founders of Landy).
2) The idea here is that with ML you should not analyze every dimension
separately. ML is taking into the account all available characteristics and
making decisions based on all of them together (like if the guy on OS X, who
came from NY from the Facebook campaign in the evening - prefer to watch
product video instead of watching screenshots - no problem, we'll show him
video).
3) The real power of ML comes out when you could not obviously split your
traffic based on the ad link (like utm_campaign=dogs). Direct and search
traffic on your homepage are great examples in this case. Also, manual
targeting requires a bunch of analytic folks, who will continuously analyze
your traffic, setup and adjust optimization campaigns. Even in this case -
it's still difficult to adapt to dynamic changes in traffic (like a new type
of visitors, season changes, etc). So ML could not only improve results but
also decrease the amount of human resources which is currently required for
solving such complex problems.
So what I'm trying to say is that your assumptions definitely make sense in
some cases. But we believe that there are still plenty of cases when ML could
drastically increase your results and save your time.
------
thecolorblue
I had a similar idea but couldn't convince people on my team to try it out.
Glad to see someone is trying this. Adding a SaaS model is a good idea.
Have you tried switching out parts of a page? I tried switching react
components in an admin interface. It took into account the user id, so in some
cases, the user would get a 'customized' UI.
I had trouble tuning the data to make the output actually useful, so the
project has been shelved for now. Hope this works out for you guys.
------
ghosttie
I was disappointed that the landing page wasn't personalized as a
demonstration
~~~
mrtsepelev
Actually, it is. We're currently running simple personalization campaign with
two versions of landing pages which has different design, messaging, etc.
------
mchahn
This makes sense. Ads have been personalized for a long time so why not pages?
Some work is needed to create these but for people trying to squeeze every
conversion they can out of visitors is may be worth the trouble. It also might
help prevent fast bounces.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Javadoc Rewritten from Scratch - sebkur
https://github.com/sebkur/javadoc-ng
======
sebkur
This project is really in early stage, but I would like to get feedback on
this early to see if it is worth to keep working on it. Thank you for any
feedback!
~~~
ldeangelis
It looks great! I never really used Javadoc so please see this as a total
outside feedback. I like the modern look, lighthouse is almost perfect in
accessibility which is great (the only point lighthouse complains about it the
contrast of links). It's also good on performance (80/100).
I have one confusion about the name, I'm used to the web frontend world where
"ng" is usually something related to angular but it seems that it isn't the
case here. I'm curious to know what's the origin of the name.
~~~
sebkur
Thanks, your feedback is nevertheless appreciated. Lighthouse points out some
things that can be easily addressed and some of those things certainly should
be fixed. I did not use such a tool on the site before and now it seems
obvious to do it!
"ng" is short for "next generation". Not sure if this is a good name for the
project after all.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Now that Google+ has been shuttered, I should air my dirty laundry - tinkerteller
https://twitter.com/morganknutson/status/1049523067506966529?s
======
DyslexicAtheist
dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18217912](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18217912)
which is dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18212682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18212682)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Perkeep: personal storage system for life - setra
https://perkeep.org/doc/overview
======
buro9
[https://perkeep.org/](https://perkeep.org/) is the new(ish) name for
Camlistore, created by Brad Fitzpatrick and with a lot of active developers.
From the home page (rather than the linked overview):
> Perkeep (née Camlistore) is a set of open source formats, protocols, and
> software for modeling, storing, searching, sharing and synchronizing data in
> the post-PC era. Data may be files or objects, tweets or 5TB videos, and you
> can access it via a phone, browser or FUSE filesystem.
Things Perkeep believes:
\+ Your data is entirely under your control
\+ Open Source
\+ Paranoid about privacy, everything private by default
\+ No SPOF: don't rely on any single party (including yourself)
\+ Your data should be alive in 80 years, especially if you are
~~~
peterwwillis
> Your data should be alive in 80 years, especially if you are
How do they deal with obsolescence?
Software that used to exist 50 years ago doesn't run today, and most of those
formats (if they aren't text formats) are either obsolete or completely
unsupported. Emulators exist, but nobody actually uses it. Part of this is
because software becomes obsolete over time, and part of _that_ is because
hardware becomes obsolete.
How are they going to make software today that will run on new computers in 80
years, or how will they make software and data formats backwards compatible
for 80 years?
~~~
tialaramex
I sympathize with your skepticism but I think 1968 is so quantitatively and
qualitatively different that it's not a very helpful comparison.
In 1968 nobody had personal computers, they were not a thing. ASCII is still
really new, "files" aren't really a thing yet, the Multics system is under
development and nobody has yet made the pun "Unix" let alone named an
operating system.
What formats are you thinking of that weren't text formats but are now
"obsolete or completely unsupported" ? The Joint Technical Committee (home of
JPEG, MPEG, and so on) isn't even an _idea_ yet, many of the people who'll
form this committee are undergraduates or still in school. Machines aren't
storing pictures, they're barely storing meaningful text, it's mostly numbers,
big calculations.
If we ask about 40 years ago instead, things are hugely different. By this
point Unix exists, ADVENT exists, ASCII has "won". There is no Internet, no X
Window System yet, and there still isn't a Joint Technical Committee but
already the documents, software and systems are familiar because we're still
using them. At home there is Pong, and in pinball arcades the new Space
Invaders, both are nicely emulated today.
~~~
kbenson
> I sympathize with your skepticism but I think 1968 is so quantitatively and
> qualitatively different that it's not a very helpful comparison.
It's sort of like automobiles in 1968 advertising how they are made with care
and detail so they'll last, and made to be easy to work on so you can expect
them to actually have people (or yourself) that know how to fix them decades
later. People could easily come out and say most of what made a car in 1918
was very different to then, all the way down to the tires themselves.
Industries that have had multiple decades of general use mature quite a bit,
and people don't like to throw away stuff that works (or that they're fond
of). We'll still have computers capable of running a von neumann architecture
in 50 years, whether through hardware or software, and that's assuming we
can't just port/compile to newer systems if they aren't as extreme of
departures.
I still occasionally play computer games written in the 1980's, generally
through dosbox or something similar. I think the most likely reason we have to
lose access to running this software is if we lose access to running all
software, in which case nobody will really care (not that I think that's
remotely likely, just that it's the most likely scenario where that holds).
------
rwbt
I've recently started using Fossil[0] to archive all my personal data. It
works rather brilliantly. Technically you can use any VCS but Fossil is unique
in that the entire repo is a single SQLite db, so it's very easy to backup and
restore. Not to mention the web UI to have a quick glance before checking out
any files. Even better I can sync flawlessly between multiple hard drives and
computers. I've a few separate branches for Docs/Photos etc. I checkout the
related branch and just add more files whenever needed. After files are added
to the repo, I just remove the working copy. There are some limitations though
like files larger than 2GB aren't supported.
[0] - [https://www.fossil-scm.org/](https://www.fossil-scm.org/)
~~~
star-techate
Fossil's also very easy to put online, needing at a minimum a two-line bash
file to function as a CGI script.
Maybe more relevant to private data, the builtin wiki makes a good personal
knowledge database.
The next version of fossil will have a forum (seen already at [https://fossil-
scm.org/forum/forum](https://fossil-scm.org/forum/forum) ). With the time
sorting for threads, that might be good for temporal data that you wouldn't
want to put in a wiki.
------
setra
TDLR: This is a content addressed data store similar to IPFS (although this
project is older). You can configure one of several backends such as local
file storage, S3, SSH, etc. It includes an organization system based on tags,
and other meta data. You can construct a fuse filesystem representation based
on a query. A web UI exists allowing exploration of existing files, uploading,
etc.
------
BlackLotus89
I'm looking for something like perkeep, but with the ability to add
(scientific) metadata. Oftentimes when doing science for the university your
research fund is attached with clauses that obligate you to store all data of
your research for a timespan of 10-20 years and to do (who would have guessed)
scientific research - which entails saving information with every data point:
When was the data obtained, how was it obtained, who generated it, for which
experiment, what's the copyright on this, is it anonymized, pseudonymised, is
it connected to any other research, what's the doi/arxiv/ark-id connected to
it,....
An archive where you drag and drop your files that can upload everything to a
s3 storage (no not amazon s3) and tag metdata to it would be a dream. Right
now there is no good solution for this and in the beginning I took a deep look
at camlistore and hoped for a solution in it. (I looked at upspin, ipfs and
other solutions as well). If someone as a solution for this or if perkeep
could be expaned (or has the option somehow hidden somewhere) I would be very
happy if somebody could point me in the right direction.
------
jonbronson
It seems weird that deletion is prohibited. As we grow as people, sometimes we
no longer want to associate something with ourselves. A photo we don't want to
remember, for instance. This feels like an unnecessary restriction.
~~~
have_faith
> no delete support
Yeah that's a show stopper. There's just way too many scenarios where's you
_need_ to delete something.
~~~
amelius
For instance if forced by law.
~~~
1ris
Delete is not (or only very poorly) supported in git as well. For almost all
use cases this is correct way.
~~~
skybrian
Perkeep is for single users so the use case to compare with is a private git
repo.
If you're not publishing anything, reverting the last change is easy and a
rebase isn't that hard.
------
skybrian
The bottom of page says last updated in 2013, but the name has been changed
and the latest version does seem to be 0.10. This was previously called
camlistore.
Is it still the case that you can't delete anything? Although rarely needed,
that seems like a showstopper these days. Irreversible actions are bad UI.
~~~
jonbronson
Not to mention a violation of GDPR.
~~~
detaro
Software is not a violation of the GDPR. GDPR means you can not use it for
some things, but given the focus on a _personal_ storage system it's less
relevant.
~~~
jonbronson
Yes software itself is safe. But eventually you'll want this stored online. At
that point, the company hosting your data will be obligated to comply, but by
design, cannot. In that sense, it's worse than simply incompliant. It's
virally incompliant. Any software that uses it will also be affected.
~~~
Aengeuad
The GDPR is effectively irrelevant here unless your goal is to host Perkeep as
a service. Yes, if you upload your own personal database to Dropbox then
Dropbox does still have GDPR obligations to you but those obligations do not
extend to managing your files for you also, as an analogy if you were to
upload a zip file to Dropbox it would not be reasonable to expect them to
remove a file from within that zip file at your request.
------
zestyping
Is there a user guide anywhere?
I'm having trouble finding one. The "Getting Started" page just says "run the
daemon" and not much more. There are pages on how to set the many
configuration options.
What if I just want to use Perkeep, or find out what the experience of using
it is like? Is there a friendly walkthrough or tutorial? Or an introduction to
the concepts one needs to understand as a user, not as a developer?
------
mikepurvis
Looks like a pretty interesting project, and it's been consistently worked on
for seven years, which is definitely something:
[https://github.com/perkeep/perkeep/graphs/code-
frequency](https://github.com/perkeep/perkeep/graphs/code-frequency)
Anyone have a testimonial from the perspective of a user or hacker on it?
------
adrianratnapala
It's really worth thinking about the idea of not having filenames by default.
They give a good example: if you take photos you don't want to name them,
instead you want automatically collected metadata (like creation time) and
some UI for easily searching by that metadata.
So it's basically a correct idea, but I want to know what is needed to make it
work.
I remember the Palm Pilot tried to do this by pretending not to have files,
and having "databases" instead. The result was that the palm-pilot database
just became an obscure, inconvenient file format.
On the other hand, modern big giant internet storage service do a pretty good
job of "freeing" you from filenames, letting you get photos, docs stuff.
On the other, other, hand, there might be something about the _personal_
aspect of perkeep that makes it more like the palm-pilot.
~~~
joshka
The reason for a filename is identity. This might be automatically assigned
based on metadata (e.g. creator+date+index), but it's definitely necessary.
~~~
adrianratnapala
Right, so to be clear by "filename" I did mean something like "filename the
user actually cares about".
Almost any database (including a filesystem) has a primary key, which can be
thought of as a file-name. Filesystems are unusual in that ordinary users
sometimes want to explicitly deal with the records (files) and their keys
(names).
------
jimmy1
There was some discussion earlier about the former Camlistore, and how it
differs from the Upspin project in a couple threads here
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13700492](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13700492))
but maybe the authors can chime in here and restate what the different
usecases would be between Upspin and Perkeep -- it seems like they are
targeting the same audience: personal users wanting to back up data. The
biggest point of emphasis is that these are _not_ to be used for enterprises,
and using them as such would be an anti-pattern, but curious as how the
breakdown goes after that.
~~~
BlackLotus89
This was answered by bradfitz himself
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13700968](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13700968)
------
milin
Where does it store the data?
~~~
skybrian
Seems to be local disk or Amazon S3.
[https://perkeep.org/doc/server-config](https://perkeep.org/doc/server-config)
------
Walkman
The thing about files is that they are never going away and they are simple
like a rock. If you want to avoid any type of lock-in ever, just store things
in files.
~~~
chriswarbo
I think you're making a category error: files are an _interface_ , they don't
actually store anything (the underlying filesystem may or may not do that).
Obvious counterexamples to "just store things in files" are /proc on Linux,
pifs ( [https://github.com/philipl/pifs](https://github.com/philipl/pifs) )
and Plan9.
Note that Perkeep provides a FUSE interface, i.e. you _can_ use files.
Being slightly less facetious, it depends on the filesystem. Files can easily
disappear if, say, a disk crashes or there's a network outage.
Those problems can be avoided if we make backups and distribute copies across
several disks and machines, but that gives us a synchronisation problem:
\- If something gets renamed during an outage, how do we know that it was a
rename rather than a brand new file?
\- If we find that two nodes have different content in files with the same
name/path, which one is "correct"?
\- If we don't have much local storage (say, a netbook or a 'phone or a
raspberrypi), how can we take part in the storage?
\- How can we cache things to avoid remotely accessing the same data over and
over?
\- How can we keep data self-contained, i.e. without needing external
metadata/keys/parity info/etc.?
These are hard problems, and Perkeep is a very promising solution to some of
them.
------
kuwze
Past discussion[0].
[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15928685](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15928685)
------
rsync
"You are in control of your Perkeep server(s), whether you run your own copy
or use a hosted version."
Can the perkeep server be an SSH/SFTP login ? Or is there a server side
component that would need to be running ?
I've thought in the past about the intersection between (camlistore) and
rsync.net but it's not obvious what that looks like ...
------
sehugg
I've been looking for a system that lets me track replication of
online/offline data, as well as a search tool + format obsolescence report on
files. I once started writing such a thing using Python + SQLite. It's kind of
trickier than it seems.
------
eismcc
This is in the same spirit as some OSS work I did a few years back, to enable
similar scenarios
[https://github.com/briangu/cloudcmd](https://github.com/briangu/cloudcmd)
------
gramakri
This looks like an article from 2013. "Last updated 2013-06-12" is in the
footer
~~~
bovermyer
The date on that page is old, but the source code was last updated only a
couple days ago, and the last release was in May of this year.
------
milin
Hmmm how is this different from Box/Dropbox etc?
~~~
komali2
I don't think you can upload your own Dropbox server, or run dropbox locally.
Furthermore, dropbox uses folder structures, and can only sync folder-by-
folder, and to have one folder synced requires EVERYTHING in that folder being
synced.
There are many other differences that are listed on the article.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What I Didn't Say (2013) - lisper
http://www.paulgraham.com/wids.html
======
wand3r
PG seems like a good guy and there doesn't seem to be evidence or allegations.
He co-founded YC with a woman who he attributes a lot of the companies success
to. YC did a lot for ALL founders during his stead.
The point is, in a climate which was less politically charged He, a person who
has no track record, is still painted as someone who is part of the problem.
Some ramifications:
\- people find these stories less credible
\- alienation of allys either directly or indirectly
\- undue backlash
\- distrust of media (interviewer and audience)
\- lowers bar for being a "bad person" and creates noise. E.g. PGs quote vs.
McClure's actions potentially grouped into the same convo.
It's so hard to see both sides of things now in a climate much more intense
and does less due diligence.
Tldr: Agenda first journalism is causing more problems than it solves.
~~~
malandrew
> Agenda first journalism is causing more problems than it solves.
That's not journalism. That's activism and advocacy masquerading as
journalism. In other words, it's propaganda. Things were better, when pieces
that were clearly opinionated were in the Opinions section of the newspaper.
Now entire newspapers are opinions.
To be fair, pure objectivity is impossible unless you only present facts and
avoid selective omission, but it doesn't mean we can't strive to try and be as
objective as possible. Saying that it's impossible to be objective, so we
shouldn't even bother trying is at the root of our current problems.
~~~
meowface
It's very disheartening. Almost every news source has become like this. (Or
maybe it was this way for a long time and I never really noticed? Who knows.)
I know inflammatory editorial injections into headlines and articles can
increase the amount of clicks and ad revenue, but I wonder how much of this is
a marketing tactic and how much is a genuine shift towards heightened
polarization among newspaper staff.
~~~
malandrew
I think it's increasingly polarization and a desire to be a participant in the
story. The media doesn't just want to report the story. They want to
manipulate stories into something they can milk for weeks and months.
------
jon_richards
Not completely on topic, but one thing I've noticed in having my name attached
to an online account is that I often start to make a comment, realize it could
be considered vaguely political, and delete it.
In my mind, all my political beliefs are perfectly rational and I have nothing
to gain by putting them out there for others to demonize ("give me six lines"
and all that). Which of course leads to me never having my beliefs challenged
and potentially having to change them.
~~~
autokad
whats worse, is a specific comment you make can be an eternal judgement about
you, as if you could not change your mind since then. i say things that i
might change my mind on the very same day. i say things i dont even agree with
when i said them.
------
coziestSoup
It always pleasantly surprises me how well PG is able to put his thoughts into
words. I feel like I have had many of the same insights as him, but would
never for the life of me be able to explain it to someone else or put it down
as an essay for everyone to see.
~~~
DenisM
Start writing, and remember to go back and improve your earlier work. Lucidity
comes with experience.
------
tnecniv
Reminds me of an old Mad Magazine bit (I'm sure it didn't originate there)
where someone gives a scathing review of a movie and the PR guy hacks a
positive one together through creative use of ellipses.
~~~
slyall
A good version of this here:
[https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/sep/09/legend...](https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/sep/09/legend-
review-movie-marketing-false-advertising)
plus some general stuff about the practice
------
austenallred
I also feel this applies to Google. It's really difficult to hire female
engineers right now because there aren't enough of them.
That doesn't mean they aren't capable or able or interested, it just means if
you look st, for example, the graduating classes of CS majors, they're
disproportionately male. It's hard for a company (or an accelerator) to fix
that.
~~~
Jach
I don't really think it'd be that hard, you just have to be willing to do
introductory training like companies used to do. Bemoaning the pipeline is
lazy. My alma mater
([https://www.digipen.edu/about/history/](https://www.digipen.edu/about/history/))
started as a simulation and animation company, but lacking a talent pool to
hire from, they created their own by having a training program and then
founding a school with Nintendo for the purpose of growing the video game
programmer and 3D animation pools.
So instead of whiteboard hazing, companies like Google could open up some
positions to anyone interested (not just those with relevant degrees or
experience), filter with a quick IQ test (or
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test)),
and if the person passes a threshold, welcome them aboard and start training.
There's no pipeline issues now, the only thing that could account for a
non-50% split of male and female applicants is an average difference of
interest, wherever that comes from.
~~~
malandrew
Even if you start a program to train people because the current pipeline is
inadequate, how do you do you achieve a specific ratio of men to women without
being willfully discriminatory.
Admission criteria should be blind to protected characteristics like gender
and race.
------
leifaffles
Not much has changed, unfortunately. =/
------
abefetterman
I think journalists are snakes in general, but I don't see PG's argument that
his statement is not sexist. His expanded argument seems to be:
1\. A hacker ethos from a decade of programming is required to start a company
like Facebook.
2\. There are few women who have the hacker ethos already
3\. YC can objectively determine who has a hacker ethos
4\. YC cannot teach the hacker ethos in 3 months
5\. This is the main reason YC does not accept many women
I think that there are a number of problems with this series of arguments,
some of which are rooted in systemic sexism:
1\. There are many great companies started by non-programmers. What PG calls a
"hacker ethos" and his decision that it is necessary are both based on
observing the output of a biased system that favors white males.
2\. This doesn't seem to line up to me. >20% of CS grads are female yet <10%
of YC founders are female (lower rate in early classes).
3\. We know this is not true, as we all have cognitive biases. Some adjustment
for this bias should be implemented if we want to have a fair system.
4\. Maybe. But why not even try?
5\. See #2. Maybe there is another reason, but this doesn't explain the very
small number of female founders on its own.
~~~
askafriend
You completely and utterly misrepresented what he was saying in this post
which makes me question whether you read it in the first place.
Let me roughly refute your points (I don't have time to go more in depth right
now, sorry):
1\. He never said a hacker ethos is _required_.
2\. He's saying _he believes_ that development of a hacker ethos takes
significant time and that _may explain_ why there are few women at the time of
his statement who seem to have it. Point being that cultivating it en masse is
generational.
3\. He never makes this claim, you seem to be extrapolating it heavily.
4\. This point is accurate but you stripped the context.
5\. He's saying the skewed funnel doesn't allow for YC to have a higher ratio
of women. Phrasing matters, and I think yours is inaccurate. You also injected
the phrase "main reason" which he never claims.
~~~
abefetterman
From The Information interview:
You can tell what the pool of potential startup founders looks like. There's a
bunch of ways you can do it. You can go on Google and search for audience
photos of PyCon, for example, which is this big Python conference.
That's a self-selected group of people. Anybody who wants to apply can go to
that thing. They're not discriminating for or against anyone. If you want to
see what a cross section of programmers looks like, just go look at that or
any other conference, doesn't have to be PyCon specifically.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Extremely High Paying C++ Jobs? - jaywalker
I am not sure whether this would be an interesting topic for wanna-be entrepreneurs of HN but I don't know of any other place with such brilliant skills. The question is, "Does it make sense to try one's luck with one of the extremely high paying C++ jobs?" I am referring to FX programming and writing automated trading software. They are the best paid programmers as far as I know.<p>I am reasonable at C++. But I am a bit skeptical about their high pays: Why is it hard for them to find skilled C++ programmers in the FX domain?
======
timrobinson
I don't work in FX specifically, but I've worked in various other areas in
finance and trading technology [1]. Potentially off-putting factors I can
think of:
\- Poor working environment. Typically you'll be answering to traders, who are
demanding at best, and come from a range of technical and non-technical
backgrounds.
\- Long working hours, with the potential for weekend work. Presumably not
dissimilar to an entrepreneurial lifestyle, except that you're working for
somebody else's firm.
\- The areas with the most potential for earning, such as algorithmic trading,
tend to have a large proportion of their pay in a performance-related bonus,
so there's an element of risk involved: it's not free money. Certain top
developers invest their own money, giving them even more risk and potential
payoff.
Despite this, there's normally plenty of applicants when a job becomes
available. For me, the most common reason for not hiring somebody has been a
lack of technical skills; in the UK at least, the demand for expert C++
developers in finance definitely outweights the supply.
[1] There's been tough periods, relating to some or all of the above points,
but overall I wouldn't do anything differently: every day I get to work with
bright people on interesting projects.
------
da288
From the point of vew of graduate jobs, becoming a dev in Quant or Algo is
definitely a pretty high paid start in line with other IB Front Office (£50k
ish). That said, I don't know how well Google pays grad software engineers.
------
nolite
If you're good enough, its worth a shot. They often want people who can tweak
a kernel finely enough to shave off microseconds of execution time though, and
you're under constant time pressure. Not everyone can work like that
------
jaywalker
It's not just UK; there is a huge market in Singapore as well.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Linus Torvalds finds GNOME 3.4 to be a "total user experience design failure" - tanglesome
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/linus-torvalds-finds-gnome-34-to-be-a-total-user-experience-design-failure/11127
======
ajross
This is just a transcription of a Google+ post. Is that really what ZDNet has
come to? Can't even email the guy to get a quote first and pretend to be doing
journalism?
(edit: fixed link:)
[https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts/UkoAaLDp...](https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts/UkoAaLDpF4i)
FWIW: I'm using Gnome 3 and don't hate it. It's thrown lots of stuff out the
window, but I find many of the new idioms pretty nice -- the vertically
stacked automatically expanding virtual desktops are amazingly great, for
example. And the things that don't work (the app launcher basically sucks,
"app" switching instead of "window" switching with Alt-Tab is a total fail
when you have a dozen console windows open, nautilus doesn't manage icons on
the desktop...) are easy enough to configure around or ignore. The biggest
specific complaint seems to be the very poor multiple monitor support, but I
use a laptop screen full time and am not affected.
~~~
technomancy
Yeah, it's started growing on me once I learned about what's possible via
extensions. At some point as long as they expose the APIs to build the right
thing it stops mattering to a degree how the defaults work. Witness things
like Conkeror (<http://conkeror.org>) being built initially as a Firefox
extension due to the fact that all the extensibility to build a better UI was
there from the start.
------
YEPHENAS
But he also writes in a subsequent comment:
_"And for all the people wasting everybodys time with "Why don't you use
Unity/KDE/xfce/xyz" - I've tried them. They are even worse"_
[https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts/UkoAaLDp...](https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts/UkoAaLDpF4i)
So Gnome 3 is officially the best Linux desktop.
~~~
ysangkok
He wasn't moaning when GNOME 2 was around, so why exactly doesn't he like
MATE?
~~~
YEPHENAS
He was. He called the Gnome 2 developers "interface nazis":
[http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-
sauce/9680-i...](http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-
sauce/9680-interface-nazis-in-torvalds-line-of-fire)
------
shrub
I couldn't agree more with Mr. Torvalds. I'm relieved to know I'm not the only
one - I was thinking maybe I was too picky, or too dumb to set Gnome 3 up the
way I wanted it. I spent a half hour searching and Googling to find where they
had hidden certain settings only to discover they had removed them, as if to
say "This setting you depend on everyday, we don't think you need it - too
bad!" I don't mind tinkering with things that may or may not break when I'm at
home, but I've got to work at work, so I back-peddled to Gnome 2.32.
------
scribblemacher
I've never understood who exactly is the target audience of Gnome 3 (and, to a
lesser extent, Unity). It seems like these things would be great on an iPad or
something like that, but what Linux users are really running Fedora or Debian
on a touch device?
Not only that, I think many of these designs don't make sense to novice users
either. I recently let me wife try a few live discs to see which one she liked
best (she is very non-technical but was sick of Windows running like maple
syrup). She ended up liking Mint's LXDE remix the most because it was simple
and very fast. Unity's unifed menus and Gnome's app-not-windows design just
confused her. Granted, she's just one person, but if it's not for me (the
nerd) and it's not for her (the non-techie), who is supposed to be using Gnome
3?
What confuses me is that Gnome is community driven, and somehow a consensus of
intelligent developers decided that this is the direction they want to take
the project, despite Gnome's poor track record on mobile platforms and that
the design paradigms don't accurately reflect the hardware on which the
software is run. You'd think someone might have raised a hand and said "um,
this design makes more sense on cell phones, which people are not running our
product on."
~~~
bratsche
> It seems like these things would be great on an iPad or something like that,
> but what Linux users are really running Fedora or Debian on a touch device?
What you just described, sir, is a classic chicken/egg problem. Why would they
design Gnome or Unity for multitouch users when there are none? But why would
anyone use Gnome or Ubuntu on a multitouch device when the previous UIs were
so mis-suited for that environment?
~~~
pan69
This is exactly the reason they shouldn't even be trying to get into that
market. Competing with Apple, Microsoft and Google, why?
There will always be workstations. It would have been a great opportunity for
Gnome to make the best damn workstation UI that ever existed (and they where
on the right track with Gnome 2) but instead they jump on the touch screen
band wagon in the hope of being adopted by device manufactures while in the
process of doing so they're alienating their existing user base.
In the end, everyone loses.
------
hahainternet
I use Gnome 3 daily, and I have to say that some of the points do have
validity.
However, it's only a matter of time until these minor issues are fixed, and I
happen to think that the general design is excellent.
~~~
ajross
Gnome 3 has been shipping in Fedora for over a year now, and they just pushed
the third such revision. I'd say they're running out of their matters of time
and entering the realm of "long standing breakage" at this point.
Here's my biggest personal peeve: keyboard navigation in the overview screen
has never worked. The gnome-shell process in that mode steals events from
gnome-settings-daemon (which normally handles hotkeys). This means that if you
like to do things like launch apps from the keyboard (I mean: who wants to
launch an app when in the overview/app-launcher screen?!) it just doesn't
work. Combine that with the fact that the overview screen pops up
automatically when you close the last window on a screen (I mean: who wants to
launch an app just after closing another one!?) and it drives me up the wall
daily.
Three times now I've straight up decided to fix this, but it's a non-trivial
codebase and I always give up before making it work. The core folks really
need to look at this problem, but at this point I doubt they ever will.
Consistent keyboard navigation is clearly not a priority.
(edit: this is the issue in question:
<https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=643111>)
------
attractivechaos
My major concern with gnome/unity/xfce is that the default font sizes look too
big and really ugly. I guess choosing the right font sizes is not so trivial
given various resolutions, but on fonts, every bit of effort will be paid off.
And this can certainly be achieved. I am happy with the default system fonts
in Mac and Windows nearly all the time.
------
jebblue
I wish someone would make a Gnome 2+, that would be cool again. Good
performance, very configurable, doesn't slow my games down.
~~~
ineedtosleep
Honestly, I hope that GNOME fork (based on 2) panned out. I didn't follow it
closely, but after having Linux Mint for over 3 months now running "GNOME
Classic", I don't think I can go back to GNOME 3 proper, every now and then
I'd switch to Cinnamon, but the Compiz effects (or maybe just GNOME 3 in
general) screw with my ATI video drivers.
------
webreac
Even if it does not fit the Gnome agenda, there is a way to make everyone
happy: just add an annex section in Gnome documentation describing how to
configure all the tweaks asked by Linus. This "Linus section" would be useful
for many people to understand how to configure gnome to their wish.
thanks
~~~
bronson
Only if these tweaks work on every Gnome release.
And I can virtually guarantee they won't... extensions.gnome.org is full of
obsolete, incompatible extensions.
------
drcube
I still can't believe Linus doesn't use Arch, or LFS or some sort of custom
setup. The great thing about Linux is that you don't have to put up with the
crap some distro gives you. Just remove Gnome and try something else.
~~~
jeremysmyth
15 years ago I'd have agreed with you. However, there comes a time in your
life when playing with your tools becomes less fun and you want to just get
down and use them.
I've gotten to the boring stage of my life when I am happy with Ubuntu LTS,
because it means I can opt-out of a week of less productivity every six months
when a new version comes out and breaks my workflow by forcing me to work
around some "clever new idea" that won't last another couple of years.
I'm sure Linus is even busier than I am, so I'm pleasantly surprised that he
takes the time to experiment with and evaluate new distros and environments as
much as he does. That's probably not what he wants to spend his time doing
though, and not where he's most productive.
------
agumonkey
Too bad desktop is only a minor part of Linus needs, if he was a graphic
designer he would have invented dit long ago.
------
zoowar
I just learned that 'forced fallback mode' is still available in gnome 3 on
fedora 17.
------
kstenerud
While he does raise some good points, it still feels a little like the pot
calling the kettle black what with the UX nightmare of git.
------
jm4
It would be interesting if Linus finally broke down and developed his own
desktop.
~~~
YEPHENAS
First he should fix that horrible Tcl/Tk based Git GUI.
~~~
ysangkok
Maybe he likes Tcl/Tk, he is old school after all. :P
------
Toshio
On a slightly related note: Kudos to Linux Mint for showing the way forward.
Thanks a bunch guys and keep up the good work.
~~~
themstheones
Mint is cool. Firefox in Mint ships with Duck Duck Go as the default search
engine.
------
FixThisPOS
"I’m really tired of the f*cking old “just use the keyboard shortcuts” crap."
Amen. This is the same bullshit you hear from Apple apologists whenever
they're confronted with some glaring functionality omission in the Mac UI (or
keyboard, as in the case of Apple's missing Delete keys).
~~~
hmottestad
Fn+Backspace
And cmd+arrow keys for home and end.
------
vph
Linus is spoiled; he uses a MacBook Air.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Linux grabs its single biggest win - boyanov
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/opensource/linux-grabs-its-single-biggest-win/3690
======
JPKab
This writer should do a little research and educate himself on the DoD
software community a little bit. The DoD has been using Linux for years. Red
Hat has HUGE contracts within the DoD, there is an entire cloud ecosystem
stood up on Linux hosted by Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).
~~~
Symmetry
Part of the reason so many people use Red Hat specifically instead of Debian,
say, is rules prohibiting the use of "freeware". But if you pay Red Hat for
Linux, suddenly it isn't freeware anymore.
~~~
giulivo
You're completely wrong on this. The software released under the GPL should
not at all be assimilated to freeware and even Stallman encourages to sell GPL
software. <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html> Companies pay Red Hat
to get QA, support, liability and some level of interaction with the
development community.
~~~
Symmetry
I know its not actually freeware, that's why I used scare quotes. The thing is
though, that under the purchasing rules we used when I was working for the DOD
all software acquired free of charge was categorized as "freeware" and we
couldn't use it in deliverables. Hence the use of Red Hat, we couldn't
actually make use of their support because it was going on classified machines
but the mere fact that they took our money meant that we could get past
certification.
------
raldi
Flagrant error in the article:
> the DOD’s use of open source code will alter the GPL for said code (they
> can’t, for obvious reasons, release any code they use and modify back into
> the wild)
Making changes to a GPLed program, and then keeping them to yourself, is
completely within your rights under the license. It's only when you sell or
give away the updated product that the GPL's rules start getting triggered.
~~~
jeremyarussell
I'm glad someone pointed this out, I was wondering the same thing when I was
reading it.
That said, it would be nice if they decided that certain bug fixes and such
could be sent back to developers, not at the expense of national security, but
I can hardly see how a bug fix being pushed back out could hurt the military
though.
~~~
eupharis
Given how much critical American economic infrastructure runs on Linux, there
is a strong military case for reporting and fixing bugs.
Without economic power, there is no military power.
------
macavity23
Linux looks increasingly unstoppable these days. I find it easy to believe
that in 100 years time, everything with a CPU in it will be running some
descendant of it - and quite possibly it will have Android in its ancestry
too.
If you're creating any kind of new computing gizmo now, Linux gives you so
much existing value for free (allowing you to add your own stuff on top) that
it's hard to see why you'd use anything else.
~~~
javert
Hopefully by then we'll have capability-based OSs that are _actually_ secure.
:D
~~~
derpmeister
Hopefully by then GNU HURD will have reached 1.0.
~~~
javert
Hopefully pigs will have evolved wings :D
------
kyberias
From the article about Windows: "it’s simply and fundamentally insecure". How
is it fundamentally insecure exactly?
~~~
dredmorbius
There have been a number of articles / studies on this, the ones I'm largely
familiar with in the early aughts / late 90s.
It mostly boils down to fundamental architecture, monolithic design, UI
decisions, conflating data + code (e.g.: a "Word Document" or "Spreadsheet
File" is really a general-purpose computer program, not merely static text),
and ingrained user practices (see today's PHP rant for a somewhat parallel
discussion of culture), as well as an inherent lack of transparency, a
filesystem model which prevents being able to delete in-use files, etc., etc.,
etc.
It's a pile of small faults which, in total, create gross instabilities.
Worse: the reasons for this are deeply linked to Microsoft's need to maintain
a deep monpolistic lock on the personal computing sector.
And as much as Microsoft continue to address small aspects, the big picture
eludes them. Empirical data continue to show that Microsoft systems are far
more vulnerable to exploits than alternatives, particularly Linux and Unix
derivatives. OpenBSD being the most preemptively secure, in part by digging
deep into infrastructure (classic example: string handling to avoid buffer
overruns, and an entire huge class of security blunders). There's a humorous
bit about various Linux, BSD, and Microsoft responses to security disclosures
that's pretty close to truthful (sorry, can't dig it up right now).
Nick Petreley's "Security Report: Windows vs Linux: An independent assessment"
remains largely valid
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/22/security_report_wind...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/22/security_report_windows_vs_linux/)
~~~
pnathan
My understanding is that Vista and beyond have a fairly indepth and rebuilt
security architecture that actually quite good.
Am I wrong?
Further, Linux doesn't seem to have a different design when it comes to
monolithic design and tends to actually have worse permissions problems out of
the box WRT granularity.
~~~
dredmorbius
"Linux" can apply to a lot of things, ranging from the kernel to general
userland. Clarifying that, there are numerous ways in which it is not
monolithic (not in the microkernel architecture sense, but in a general sense)
to the same extent Windows is. I'll distinguish here from the kernel and
system as a whole (kernel + libraries + executable).
First, a given Linux system can be virtually entirely divorced from userland.
Android would be a great example: it runs the Linux kernel and a very, very
small set of standard features, on top of which the Android infrastructure
itself is place. Android by itself is nowhere near POSIX compliant, though it
can be made so by adding additional software (e.g.: busybux, terminal app,
etc.).
More generally, any given utility for a Linux system can generally be provided
from multiple independent sources, from system libraries to common utilities
(e.g.: numerous awk and vi implementations) to services (webservers,
databases, etc.). Any one component can generally be replaced or even removed
without impacting other components (barring tight dependencies).
It's possible to build very minimial, or very complete, Linux systems.
Lightweight bootable images based on little more than a kernel, shell, and
busybox. Heavy server or desktop systems with thousands of packages.
The kernel itself is highly modular, both in terms of features (networking,
filesystems) and devices (disk, ports, network devices...). Unless
specifically added in, graphics are _not_ included in the kernel (obviating
large classes of b ugs), and systems can be run without a GUI or even a
directly attached terminal. This is a level of flexibility you simply do not
have with a Windows box.
Permissions granularity in my experience is largely a bogeyman -- you don't
need a highly complex system, you need one that works. The important things
are _appropriate_ and _usable_ permissions within an understandable framework.
Linux supports user/group/world read/write/execute permissions, SUID, SGID,
and sticky bits. It also supports ACLs, though these are very rarely
implemented -- they're a maintenance nightmare. If you'll stick to Debian,
you'll fidn that permissions matter and are generally set to be both safe and
sane by default.
If you've got something specific in mind, I or someone else might be able to
address it.
As for Vista: Microsoft have played the "we've fixed the security problem"
record so many times over the past 15-20 years that the grooves are worn
smooth. While things may have improved, I still see a landscape littered with
exploits and attacks, as well as a security infrastructure (virus, spam,
network intrusion, and other scanners) I in large part don't have to worry
about on Linux systems. Yes, there's vigilance required. But it's at a whole
different level of intensity. While I don't work with Vista (and apparently
few will), I don't see any fundamental changes which would be required to
change the Linux vs. Microsoft security picture.
------
gouranga
Having worked in the killing machines industry, this is not a win. This is a
loss.
GPL should also read:
"The software must not be used for the purposes of warfare or to inflict
suffering on any individual."
EDIT: I can see America has woken judging by the number of downvotes being
received.
~~~
krschultz
How does that work? It's going to be impossible to draw the line.
With that clause you clearly couldn't put the software into the guidance
computer on a warhead or the missile launch system itself. But what about a
system on the weapons launching platform that isn't a weapon. Is the computer
running the engines on a navy cargo ship 'used for the purposes of warfare'?
What if the system controlled by the software is completely incidental, or
defensive in nature? The fire control system saves lives, is that 'for the
purposes of warfare'?
And what about the computers used to design weapons? Is an engineer working on
a weapon using the software 'for the purposes of warfare'?
And what about the accountant at the company that makes weapons, is he using
the software for the purposes of warfare even if he doesn't know anything
about the weapons?
Is the machine shop that gets 1% of its business from selling parts that end
up in weapons using the software for the purposes of warfare?
It's impossible to make that distinction in any meaningful way.
~~~
gouranga
That's all fluff. It's pretty black and white if you engage the brain:
If a device is intended to directly harm someone intentionally, then there
should be a restrictive clause.
Computers that design weapons aren't specifically used to design weapons.
Weapons are specifically designed to kill people so therefore the clause
should apply.
~~~
Xylakant
Should machines that are used to create weapons part of that clause? Is a
scout drone a weapon? Is the control software for that drone a weapon? What if
it's a scout drone? What if this scout drone is used for reconnaissance by the
coast guard to find criminals? What if it's used to find ships in peril and
provide fast assistance? There are some black and white extremes, but there's
also a lot of grey in between. I'd rather prefer my license to stay out of
that mess. The GPL stipulates that apart from the restrictions in the GPL, no
further restrictions can be applied to a software. But you're certainly free
to license your code under a "no-weapons" clause, I just don't think that the
GPL is the right place to do that.
~~~
gouranga
Machines that create weapons are not usually designed specifically to make
weapons.
A scout drone is a weapon if it's used by the military. I made this point
here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4177285>
There is no grey area.
I agree about the GPL at the basic point, but there should be a no warfare
version.
~~~
deelowe
I thought you said you worked in the industry? If you really did, then you'd
know that more and more civilian grade technology is being used by military
contractors to build military solutions. For this reason, such a clause would
get complicated really fast:
\- Is it ok to license audrino code under this license? (yes)
\- Is it ok to combine other components with audrino under this license? (yes,
for non-weapons)
\- Can audrinos be used to build a drone? (yes)
\- Can this drone be purchased by the government and it's contractors (yes)
\- Can the military use the drones? (yes as long as it doesn't "kill or cause
harm")
\- Can this drone be used for reconnaissance? (yes as long as it doesn't "kill
or cause harm")
ok, so now the military is using these drones all over the place. Pictures are
taken, stored in databases, and distributed throughout the military.
Eventually, some of those pictures are used to strategically bomb an insurgent
encampment. Who violated the license?
Even better, what it were Google who purchased the drones and Google maps was
instead used for the bombing strategy. Who's at fault now?
~~~
gouranga
I did work in the industry before I developed some sense.
You distinctly miss the point there. Military hardware is controlled heavily.
No commercial entities use their data. That chain if events doesn't waist and
never will.
There is a wall between the two sides that is rarely crossed.
~~~
Xylakant
Which is entirely not true. The fire scout drone for example is a military
development based on the Schweizer 330 civilian heli. The S-434 is partially
based on changes developed for the Fire Scout drone. The Bell Eagle Eye drone
was initially conceived for the military but at a later stage, plans were made
to make it a coast guard drone. Many helicopters have two versions, a civilian
and a military version, for example the Bo-105 series which was extensively
used by the german army but also formed the backbone of the german air
ambulance network from the 1970s until the last one was replace in 2007. Which
one of those is "military hardware"?
Most of technology initially conceived for military purposes was at some point
repurposed for civilian use (Think: That packet-based network nowadays called
'The Internet')
------
pmelendez
The problem with this is that they are adopting a good tool because a wrong
reason. Linux is not immune to virus, and then what would happen when Linux is
popular enough to bring malware's writers attention? Are they going to switch
to OSX?
~~~
Joeboy
> Linux is not immune to virus
No, but it's a lot easier to create a minimal / auditable Linux installation
than it is with Windows.
~~~
tiernano
Windows Server Core?
~~~
astrodust
You have to be kidding. What are the requirements for this? I haven't seen any
published but I'd wager it involves something along the lines of "gigabytes of
memory and disk space".
------
krisw
The article is going on about how it's unimaginable to be running Windows in
that environment, but I recall a few instances of military vessels running
Windows in previous years/decades. Some report of US submarine(s) being dead
in the water whenever NT crashes, a cruiser losing propulsion due to Windows
crash, etc. I think running Windows on subs is not that uncommon.
~~~
bjelkeman-again
The funny thing is that I think everyone here could have predicted those
outcomes, i.e. blue screen of death and in-operational craft. You wonder what
it is like to work in an environment where the obvious is not allowed to be
taken into account or ignored when you build systems.
------
drek
Yeah, military drones using Linux, what a big win. The fact that the military
uses Linux is a big negative for Linux in my eyes. If you support Linux,
you're indirectly supporting the U.S. military and by extension murder,
aggression and terrorism.
I wish more software licenses had a clause forbidding military use of the
code.
~~~
eupharis
Exactly! And let's not stop there. The fact that the military uses steel is a
big negative for steel in my eyes. If you work in steel production, you're
indirectly supporting the U.S. military and by extension murder, aggression,
and terrorism.
That's why I use flint knives and ride a bicycle made of bamboo.
~~~
drek
Yeah, that's very witty, congrats.
If we were in the steel industry, the right thing to do would be to see that
the military doesn't get steel. But we're not, we're mostly programmers here,
so I'm saying we should exercise caution and be aware of how the stuff that we
make gets used.
~~~
eupharis
I agree wholeheartedly we should exercise caution!
But thinking less of Linux because the military picked it up and said "Hey
this is an awesome tool!" seems wrongheaded and counter-productive to me.
------
jeffnappi
First let me say that I'm a long-time Linux user - the first time I installed
it was in 1992 from a giant stack of 3.5" floppies. While Linux is extremely
secure and can be locked down via various methods, you still cannot say that
it is immune to virus infections. If the system is poorly designed and
managed, is not using proper protection for services (AppArmor, chroot's, etc)
then it can still be vulnerable.
Linux's primary advantage still remains that it has a smaller install base and
is therefore a smaller target.
I'm not sure that Linux would be much more secure than Windows if it was in as
wide usage - the largest factor in computer security will always be humans.
Look how easily the recent Flashback virus spread on Mac's - people will
continue to input their password when prompted.
~~~
jff
It's not really "extremely" secure. Look around, you'll find that at any given
time there are probably a couple local escalation exploits, at the very least.
~~~
jeffnappi
Agreed, lets say it is relatively secure.
------
gcv
I'm surprised to see a mainstream kernel powering military hardware at all.
I'd have expected to see QNX, or something somewhat obscure with hard-realtime
features.
~~~
padraigm
My understanding is that the actual drones themselves do run a hard realtime
operating system. Linux (and formerly Windows) is used to run the workstations
on the ground that the drone pilots use.
------
bane
It better be bigger than Android...which I think at last count is powering
something like 400 million devices (a million more per day).
------
powertower
> Windows is a good desktop operating system but one with many, serious
> security flaws.
It's called PEBCAK.
For the most part, Windows can be just as secured as Linux.
Problems manifest when incompetent fools to incompetent things.
~~~
larrik
"For the most part, Windows can be just as secured as Linux."
I'm sorry, but that sounds a lot like saying "a car can be made as waterproof
as a submarine, if you do it right."
Windows security is basically tacked-on afterwards.
~~~
powertower
> Windows security is basically tacked-on afterwards.
Windows 95? Sure.
Windows Server 2008 R2? It's such an integral part of it, that I'm questioning
your experience (or lack of it) from that statement.
------
prezjordan
It really amazes me that something so amazing can be totally free. Blows my
mind.
------
tokenizer
While I find this news somewhat disturbing considering a military goes against
some of the ideals of open source software, the benefits will hopefully be
great.
~~~
mbreese
I'll bite: how is the military against the ideals of open source?
~~~
Cushman
Completely devoid of politics: A military is based on force; open source is
based on consent. That is a fundamental philosophical gap.
------
bbatha
This doesn't mean anything. There are thousands of DOE computers running
linux. In fact I type this from one such machine.
------
derrida
Sweet, so all that GNU code they are modifying, we can request a copy of the
source code. (Most Linux code is GNU licensed, see here
<https://www.ohloh.net/p/debian/analyses/latest>)
~~~
jerf
No. Because they won't be distributing it to you, you will not be able to
request the source. They will be under no obligation to release anything.
The only thing they have to watch out for is code that is explicitly licensed
such that the military can't use it, or the "don't be evil" licenses... and I
wouldn't be surprised they've got some sort of immunity against that buried in
the law somewhere. Even if they don't, this doesn't seem to be that much code.
I wouldn't expect to see a line of code from them come back to the
community... not because they're unwilling individually, but because I would
imagine the process of getting it legally safe to release publicly just won't
be worth it.
~~~
krupan
So you think the Navy (and their contractors) will be maintaining their own
fork of linux and continually port changes over from mainline linux into their
fork? I doubt they are that ambitious/stupid. It'll be much much easier for
them to get whatever changes they make accepted into the mainline and
maintained as 1st class pieces of the kernel.
~~~
jerf
I expect them to "maintain their own fork of Linux" in exactly the same way
they "maintained their own fork of Windows". It seems very likely they're just
porting over pure userspace-stuff. If Windows worked for them at all I doubt
kernel-space stuff is necessary.
------
tiernano
in the article, the writer mentions:
That trickle down is going to have a serious, lasting effect in the world of
Linux. Here’s how I see this working:
DOD begins Linux roll out US Government begins wide-spread roll out Civilian
security companies world-wide begin roll out Universities fall in line
Consumers begin clamoring for better security on their OS
erm... and then virus writers start writing viruses for Linux... Just like
happened on OSX... If there is money to be made, virus writers will write for
whatever OS has users... Mind you, wouldn't want to be a virus writer getting
found out by the DOD...
~~~
derleth
> and then virus writers start writing viruses for Linux
If this was going to happen, it would have happened when there was a massive
boom in servers running Linux, over a decade ago now. Imagine the money to be
made by being able to compromise everything running the LAMP stack.
Don't confuse your personal desktop for the entire world.
~~~
tiernano
but hold on a min... most people wont be checking email, or surfing the web,
or anything major on a server... its kind of silly to be doing stuff like
that... but if everyone was using it as a desktop OS, and was browsing,
checking email, etc, there is more of a chance to attack it... yes, i agree,
attacking servers running everything, but its a bit harder... and how,
exactly, would you get the virus on to a server anyway?
~~~
derleth
> how, exactly, would you get the virus on to a server anyway
The kind of server we're talking about is, by definition, on the Internet,
accepting connections from arbitrary people. It's entirely possible for a
connection or a family of connections to bring down the server software, which
often provides a way to subvert the OS while the machine is in the unusual
state of the userspace server software being down. This provides the avenue.
> if everyone was using it as a desktop OS, and was browsing, checking email,
> etc, there is more of a chance to attack it
I think this falls down, too: Linux has never been a single monoculture.
Instead, there's been broad de fact standardization of some things but not
others, making it more difficult to target malware to it, as malware is, very
often, intimately dependent on not only specific software, but specific
configurations of software and specific versions of software.
Also, _Windows has never had a trusted source of software comparable to distro
repositories._ This is probably partially due to antitrust rulings, and the
fact Windows caught on and had its first major flowering before Internet
access was especially cheap or reliable (consolidating usage patterns around a
non-Internet shrinkwrap software model). This means it's hard to get all the
software you need from trusted sources unless you act like a distro maintainer
and decide for yourself who in specific you trust. (You can do that in Linux,
too, but you don't _have_ to.)
Finally, Windows users complain about UAC. Linux users don't complain about
sudo. Applications under Linux _know_ they won't be run as root and behave
accordingly.
------
ninguem2
This is nice, but how is this bigger than Android?
------
gcb
Linux is no silver bullet.
The same (sorry to bite on stereotypes, but I've seen a few) clueless
government contractors that did a poor job with windows will do as bad with
Linux.
Then next year they will switch to openbsd (because all they trust is default
settings) and repeat.
That said, yes having access to source is all fine to avoid vulnerabilities
that a closed source product doesn't want to fix... but i doubt this is
relevant when you add incompetence.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Web hosting, but good - grobmeier
http://www.grobmeier.de/web-hosting-but-good-05052013.html
======
gingerlime
As shared hosting go, I think webfaction is second to none. They really manage
to hit this sweet-spot between VPS and shared hosting, and you get the best of
both worlds.
You get lots of stuff out of the box with an easy web-based interface[1], but
if you really need some specific version or a package, you can do it too.
Their support is fast and responsive and very helpful. They have servers in
the US, Amsterdam and Singapore, and you can choose. You can even set up a
fail-over server[2] quite easily.
I know I sound like a fanboy, but I truly like their service. Of course, for
most of my stuff, I still use Linode/AWS, but can't recommend webfaction
enough for shared hosting.
[1] e.g. you can choose the PHP version for your app from their web management
console, as well as lots of predefined app templates (django, wordpress, RoR
and more)
[2]<http://blog.gingerlime.com/2012/webfaction-fail-over/> \- a blog post I
wrote about it.
~~~
organico
Interesting - is webfaction doing some kind of Linux containers thing?
~~~
ddorian43
They use cgroups:
<http://blog.webfaction.com/2011/11/fair-shared-hosting/>
------
kaolinite
If anyone is looking for static file hosting, PHP or CGI, I strongly recommend
NearlyFreeSpeech.net - I've been using them again recently and they're
fantastic as ever (and incredibly cheap too, though less so if your site gets
constant heavy traffic).
~~~
thaumaturgy
Just keep in mind that their hosting service is targeted towards people who
know what they are doing, and they do not allow third parties to access your
account, and they are _very_ serious about this.
If you share your login information with anyone for any reason at all, and
they find out about it, they will disable your account.
We've had to rescue a couple of NFS.net users that have made a mess of things
one way or another. Getting NFS.net users sorted out is a very-not-fun game of
cat & mouse with NFS.net support. This isn't really a criticism of them though
-- I like NFS.net overall -- just something that potential customers need to
be aware of.
edit: went back through my email so that I could provide a more specific
example. Owner of a small board game business had a website developed by his
technical partner; technical partner hosted it with NFS.net and then became
completely unavailable later on; website was then compromised and used for SEO
spam (probably stolen FTP credentials / bruteforced lame password); business
owner saw his website disappear altogether from Google listings with no idea
of what was going on. He became our client at that point. While this was
happening, his NFS.net-registered domain also expired, and the email address
associated with his NFS.net account was at his domain (!). NFS.net support
flatly refused to respond to any matters regarding his account from any email
address other than the one at his expired domain, which couldn't be resolved
until account access was restored, which was impossible as long as the domain
was expired ...
Unfortunately, I don't have notes on how that particular one was resolved, but
there are a bunch of domain transfer notifications shortly after -- I suspect
we weren't able to ever resolve the trouble with NFS.net and resorted to
something along the lines of transferring his domain, re-hosting it, and
rebuilding his site from Wayback Machine archives or something. (He had no
backups, of course.)
None of this is NFS.net's fault. There's a good argument in favor of the way
they handle account access. On the other hand, with any other hosting
provider, this could have been resolved far more easily. ("Tech guy set up my
website and then disappeared" is unfortunately a common problem.)
------
mbesto
This is why I use Webfaction[1] for smaller projects. It's an excellent mix of
command line and one-click Apache/nginx/DNS/email installers. I actually only
found them because I noticed a few YC companies using their email servers.
[1] - <http://www.webfaction.com/?affiliate=mbesto>
~~~
niclupien
I've been using WebFaction for more than 5 years and I've probably deployed
more than 200 web apps on their servers. I am very satisfied by their
performance and support.
------
Nux
Shared hosting is hard. Been there, it sux; you have to keep everyone happy
with multiple versions of everything. By the end of it, it will look like the
primordial soup. Whoever manages to do it and remain sane has my respect;
shared hosting can still make quite a bit of money.
Personally I'd like to see stuff like Openshift[1] take off, maybe with a nice
interface in front of it so it won't scare off "CPanel" users. It sounds like
a nice compromise between shared hosting and "VPS".
[1] - <https://www.openshift.com/>
~~~
grobmeier
I used OpenShift a bit, but there are (unfortunately) a little bit to many
problems. For example, they provide only CNAME for mapping your domain. You
then need to deal with <http://grobmeier.de> somehow to be the same with
<http://www.grobmeier.de>. I decided that in my situation I would something
easier
------
_ak
As someone who worked for another German webhosting company (not mentioned in
the article but more than a million customers), I can tell you that it's
extremely hard to roll out new versions of typical software (PHP, Perl, MySQL)
when you both want to keep your users on the latest (or a reasonably recent)
version while not breaking your users' websites. And because there will always
be customers unwilling or unable to switch to later versions, you end up
running Perl 5.6, PHP3&4, Frontpage Server Extensions (yes, people still use
that stuff) and MySQL 4.
That said, Uberspace is still small enough to take care of their users
individually when it comes to support. They can keep their architecture simple
(well, so does 1&1, but rumor has it that they have 100 people working in
their data center only to replace broken parts in their shared webhosting
system), and text-only configuration files and not fully automating everything
is still feasible and doesn't hurt yet.
Scaling webhosting while keeping up good customer service is hard. That's why
your experience with small hosters will often be better.
~~~
untitaker_
With Uberspace you can determine the PHP version to use in a config file. You
also run your own PHP interpreter, means you can use your own php.ini etc.
I fully agree with you on the scalability of the customer service though.
~~~
_ak
Yes, same thing in the system we built and maintained. But believe it or not,
even an upgrade from PHP 5.x.y to 5.x.y+1 can cause existing software to
break. With a million customers, some of them will hit even the most obscure
bugs.
~~~
zaptheimpaler
Is it not possible to completely isolate the two different versions?
(Something like virtualenv for PHP?)
~~~
_ak
Providing them with individual versions that they configured isn't a problem
at all, even on a per-directory basis. You can do that with Apache and some
configuration.
The actual problem is more complex: you always have the conflict between
wanting users to use the latest version (because of security issues or stuff
like that) and not breaking the software they're running.
~~~
grobmeier
Actually 1and1 is running 5.2. Some web software does meanwhile requires 5.3.
After all software will break even when there is no upgrade at all.
Anyway, i fully agree: providing hosting is a hard business. Imaging what
1and1 needs to do for this huge server farm... wow. It's ok for a lot of low
traffic sites without much functionality, but in my case I needed more at one
point. Now I have the choice between 5.3 and 5.4. Thats neat.
------
eksith
The wire transfer makes me think these guys are hosting auteurs or the like.
They may have a small clientele that they cater to exclusively and personally.
As far as I can see, you really need VPS if you need that amount of
flexibility. The only person you can count on to keep your stack up-to-date in
the end is you. If you do it, you know what you did. All the host needs to do
is make sure someone else's VM doesn't affect yours and bandwidth and power
are taken care of.
Running a VPS is an order of magnitude simpler than managing individual
software packages/libraries, conflicts and such per client and so you will
generally get better service as a result anyway. "Here's a bucket. Do with it
what you please (just nothing illegal or resource hogging)." Then you just
have to worry about the time you spend on keeping your VPS up to date.
VPS packages are reaching the same cost that shared hosts had a little while
back and if AWS isn't an option for whatever reason, it's the better pick.
Edit: I should mention that I use two different hosts. One reseller and one
VPS. The reseller on shared is for users who need the nice admin interface for
everything, "one-click" installs, DB admin GUI etc... and the VPS for personal
stuff and a couple of clients.
~~~
porker
> The wire transfer makes me think these guys are hosting auteurs or the like.
Or realise that to ask for 1EUR or more the fees they pay on wire transfer are
much lower. WE encourage clients to pay us via bank transfer for this reason -
it's free for us to receive with our bank, vs 0.20 + 2.9%.
Sure, we're not trying to do it in bulk (with the wrong reference numbers etc)
but given (here in the UK and I imagine Europe) everyone pays their tax this
way each year, it's not unusual.
~~~
eksith
Ah, I didn't think about that. I suppose all these little charges add up to
more costs to the customers in the end. This saves you money, customers aren't
too inconvenienced and existing familiarity is a plus.
------
anthonymonori
Do they have an english page? For some weird reason Chrome doesn't want to
translate their page (<http://uberspace.de/>)
Edit: Nope. <https://twitter.com/ubernauten/status/331007821808279553>
~~~
Nux
[http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js...](http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fuberspace.de%2F)
------
bitboxer
I <3 Uberspace. The service is great, the people are awesome. Jonas visited us
at our Ruby Usergroup Booth on the Sigint last year and we talked about
problems he had supporting ruby on the machines. Great guy!
~~~
chokma
Indeed, it's always a pleasure to work with them. Having worked with Jonas
before, I can say that they are extremely competent and deliver great customer
support. Ask a question by mail and you will get a detailed answer instead of
random boilerplate text.
------
jasonlingx
Why not wordpress.com which would scale to better than almost anything else?
For anything more involved, get dedicated servers starting from 15 Euro/month
from Hetzner or OVH.
~~~
grobmeier
I need subdomains too. And because of time, I didn't want to deal with an own
server. 1€ - that's pretty unbeatable. And the service... I mentioned it, it's
fantastic. I simply like what they do.
------
egeozcan
They could have at least supported Sofortüberweisung. Apparently what they
want is "echte, klassische Überweisung" (real, classic money transfer).
Schade.
~~~
grobmeier
I have found an easy with "Dauerauftrag". They automatically assign the money
to your account. For me it works out well.
------
latch
If you don't want to switch to a static site because of your wordpress theme,
why not use wordpress.com?
~~~
grobmeier
No, its not the theme. I use some plugins which use special tags. I would need
to transform these special tags (like f.e. [javascript]) to an equivalent.
This costs me a bit time for 181 posts, so I decided to delay. In the end it
will become static. That said, I use subdomains a lot, i would miss them on
wordpress.com
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Wildcard Debuts a News-Reading App Designed for Mobile - jordancooper
http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/11/wildcard-debuts-a-news-reading-app-designed-for-the-mobile-age/
======
jordancooper
Hackernews module is coming in next release...you'll be able to add it to your
Wildcard feed. Happy to talk product if anyone wants to dig in
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fixing the Hacker News API - hellotimmutton
http://timmutton.com.au/blog/fixing-the-hacker-news-api
======
dang
Good work!
You're right about those limitations. We're aware of them and intend to fix
them.
~~~
hellotimmutton
Thank you :) Thats great to hear
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Medieval garlic and bile potion kills MRSA superbug - virmundi
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/medieval-garlic-and-bile-potion-kills-mrsa-superbug/#postComments
======
nsnick
I can't find a link in this article to any reputable source. CBS probably
sensationalized the information they were provided.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Do you unit test? - codereview1
======
jheriko
yes. it is good. although not religiously...
often its a great strategy for fixing a bug and making sure it never rears its
ugly head again... sometimes making the test is too difficult - to the point
where test driven development is ruled out, even from the beginning (e.g.
real-time interactive game type things) :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Colourful cellular automaton with WebAssembly - cimi_
http://cimi.io/color-automata/
======
cimi_
Source: [https://github.com/cimi/color-
automata](https://github.com/cimi/color-automata)
Also, if you click the transparent octocat in the corner you will get a modal
with some config options and links.
------
wildflowero
I accidentally clicked on the link while scrolling and was horrified. Many
thanks.
~~~
cimi_
Haha, why? :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Linux Filesystem Fuzzing with American Fuzzy Lop [pdf] - grhmc
http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/AFL%20filesystem%20fuzzing%2C%20Vault%202016.pdf
======
cyphar
Fuzzing is an incredibly useful technique for finding bugs in a codebase. But
it should be noted that BUG() is the _only_ valid response if your state is
invalid. Filesystems should _never_ try to soldier on if their internal state
becomes corrupted -- there lie dragons.
~~~
asdfaoeu
The correct response is to stop writing to the filesystem. They mean BUG as in
it crashes the kernel. Having said that most Linux machines will not let you
mount filesystems unless you are root or physically present so they don't seem
like major concerns although should be fixed.
~~~
cyphar
> They mean BUG as in it crashes the kernel.
I know what BUG means. There's a reason it exists: to make sure that code in
an invalid state doesn't do something really dangerous. assert() is very
useful.
~~~
casas
It should be noted that we've hit that BUG() assertion on ext4 using the mount
option errors=remount-ro - it should just not be possible to trigger an
invalid state causing your kernel to Oops when you've configured it like this.
See Vegard's discussion with Theodore Ts'o about this:
[http://marc.info/?l=linux-
ext4&m=144898400422842&w=2](http://marc.info/?l=linux-
ext4&m=144898400422842&w=2)
~~~
blumentopf
I'm awed by your work but this is really an abomination:
"Unfortunately, company policy prohibits me from sharing the actual code."
([http://marc.info/?l=linux-
ext4&m=145007745502639&w=2](http://marc.info/?l=linux-
ext4&m=145007745502639&w=2))
------
realo
Super interesting, but...
We have "Time to first bug" for a lot of file systems (ext4, btrfs, hfsplus,
NTFS) covering a wide range of OSes & platforms ... and yet not a single word
about ZFS?
Come on Oracle... you can do better than that.
~~~
zdw
My understanding is that Oracle's linux devs were behind btrfs before the Sun
takeover and thus are boosting that, and also Oracle's lawyers are highly
litigious on licensing issues, so they probably view ZFS on Linux like lions
circling a carcass.
~~~
SEJeff
Close!
Chris Mason wrote btrfs when he started at Oracle (not Sun):
[http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-
media/blogs/browse/2009/...](http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-
media/blogs/browse/2009/06/conversation-chris-mason-btrfs-next-generation-
file-system-linux)
------
Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd
Wow, I did the same thing as part of my Bachelor's thesis recently. I'm glad
they ran into similar issues I did, although I didn't spend much time on that
part of the work. (It still got me the best results, afl is great like that.)
I guess I should bump reporting/fixing the issues I found on my todo list.
------
bjackman
Awesome! I work on an embedded project that could benefit _enormously_ from
having AFL run against it, but I've never taken the time to do it, because it
would take several engineer-weeks to even investigate if it could be done.
Their approach to "porting AFL to the kernel" makes me think that yes, it
would cost perhaps an engineer-month but at least the outcome wouldn't be
"nope, not practical". Thumbs up.
~~~
jonhohle
If you know the build system for your project, have some way of getting input
via stdin, and existing test corpus, it's surprisingly simple.
I was able to set it up in a few hours for a moderately sized library. Along
with valgrind, I was able to find and fix all of the bugs it uncovered after
over a CPU month of testing.
~~~
wyldfire
Arguably llvm's libFuzzer is around the same magnitude of complexity and
delivers similar results.
I used it to create a fuzzer for CPython [1] and it didn't take terribly long
to get something going. Majority of my time's been focusing on new test cases.
[1] [https://bitbucket.org/ebadf/fuzzpy](https://bitbucket.org/ebadf/fuzzpy)
------
okket
Once again Ext(4) shows that its praise for a clean, robust code base is well
deserved...
~~~
hannob
Have we lowered our standards so much that "it took longer to crash it with a
fuzzer" already qualifies for "clean, robust codebase"?
~~~
rictic
Our standards were higher in the past? [citation needed]
There's a trade off between development cost, performance, functionality, and
correctness. Writing a filesystem with reasonable performance and that never
crashes and never does the wrong thing is hard.
~~~
hannob
> Our standards were higher in the past?
No, but our fuzzers were worse, so we didn't know :-)
------
boardwaalk
Randomly modifying a filesystem image and then fixing up the checksums seems a
little unfair. Would it not be reasonable to write code that assumes data that
matches its checksum is valid? Isn't that the point of a checksum?
~~~
nabla9
> Would it not be reasonable to write code that assumes data that matches its
> checksum is valid?
If you assume that, you don't need checksums in the first place.
~~~
cmurphycode
How's that? If you go read your data, re-checksum it, and that matches the
original checksum, then you have confidence (to the strength of your checksum
function) that the data is not corrupted.
------
PaulHoule
I expected ext4 to last longer than the others.
~~~
masklinn
It does, by a fairly large margin (alongside XFS)? The "time to first bug"
table is sorted alphabetically, and the times are humanised not in the same
unit.
A reverse time-sort would be
ext4 (2h)
XFS (1h45)
GFS2 (8m)
NTFS (4m)
NILFS2 (1m)
HFS (30s)
HFS+ & ReiserFS (25s)
OCFS2 (15s)
F2FS (10s)
BTRFS (5s)
------
crb002
Why isn't Oracle running this on the JVM or Oracle DB?
~~~
jerven
Who says they aren't? Oracle DB results would be internal. Where would you
start with AFL on the JVM? Class loader verifier?
------
codys
Using a gcc plugin to instrument code for AFL sounds interesting (and
generally useful for speed). Does anyone know if this plugin's code is
available anywhere?
~~~
aseipp
I don't know about their implementation, but I wrote exactly this plugin for
GCC several months ago and announced it on the afl mailing list, as a patch to
the source. The lack of replies lead me to believe it was mostly uninteresting
to people - but maybe I should have advertised it more.
You can find the source code here:
[https://github.com/thoughtpolice/afl/commit/e54c0237e934d734...](https://github.com/thoughtpolice/afl/commit/e54c0237e934d7340d477a837eb891c4fe638b26)
It should not be difficult to update this to work on more GCC versions (I only
tested on GCC 4.8.x), but that will take some #ifdef'ery. Porting to newer
AFLs should be relatively trivial.
EDIT: I initially wrote this for no particular reason, mind you, other than to
play around with writing GCC plugins, and the result wasn't so bad, modulo
non-existant documentation. I also thought it would be nice to have an
identical equivalent to 'afl-clang-fast' for GCC ('afl-gcc-fast'), in the
hopes that perhaps one day the hacky, sed-inspired backends could be removed
from afl. I initially wanted to use this on a POWER machine as proof of a
portable GCC plugin for afl, although I lost interest in porting to a newer
GCC, before losing access to the machine. Watching afl fly on 176 cores was
fun, though.
------
ericfrederich
Any link to the video presentation?
~~~
ericfrederich
Just noticed this presentation is in the future (or a typo)
------
thrownaway2424
Nice to see that the law firm of Oracle still has a few engineers on staff.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Content Farms Are Dead - adgasf
http://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/read/content-farms-are-dead
======
PaulHoule
Today's seniors were sharing stupid viral content via email when the
millenials were in diapers. In 1995 my 50 something relatives would email each
other with jokes about Viagra, now they are 70 something's.
Look at Yahoo finance and it is clear that Trump voting oldsters who want to
get the government out of their Medicare fall for clickbait as much as anyone.
------
draw_down
> _Consumable content can’t be harvested or consumed, much less sold for a
> respectable price._
I wonder what it could mean, to say that consumable content can't be consumed.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask YC: Drupal? - aaron4411
Would you use Drupal for the Alpha release of a social bookmarking and news aggregation site?
======
cjoh
Drupal's lack of object orientation, confusing user-interface and
administration, weird nomenclature, and the fact that it really is (despite
what their community may tell you) a content management system makes it a non-
starter for me. If you're into PHP, try something like Symfony or Cake.
------
babul
You can use Druapl for many things. If it is what you are familiar with and
will allow you to build something fast and iterate quickly, go with it until
you have need/find/learn something better.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I’m not going to any conferences this year - secos
http://www.mattsecoske.com/2013/03/im-not-going-to-any-conferences-this-year/
======
petercooper
I co-chair a conference and share your stance.
An lot of people are heavy into the idea of social/community conferences and
treat other programmers as their main social group. I don't have a problem
with that but there are other groups to represent. I enjoy meeting Internet
acquaintances at events, but if the sums don't add up (either in business or
education) it makes no business sense to go.
Luckily there are still many "large"/commercial conferences and expos (i.e.
most pricier conferences of > 500 attendees) so you can more easily make a
decision based on your needs. Mine are: Am I speaking (often good for
business)? Could I speak to potential clients there? Are the attendees so
perfect I should exhibit? The answers are rarely yes, so I rarely go.
_Putting on_ events, on the other hand, is a different story and the value
proposition is heavily shifted in your favor, if you can pull it off..
~~~
secos
Agreed. Thats why I started the local barcamp, and will (most likely) create
another event in the next year/18 months.
There is tremendous value in creating new events.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mom's Instagram account shut down over breastfeeding selfie - chrisdinn
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/mom-s-instagram-account-shut-down-over-breastfeeding-selfie-1.2640768
======
sivetic
Instagram's argument is that the picture contained child pornography. The
picture was of a topless toddler breast feeding, which (for anyone with kids)
is a perfectly normal sight.
I cannot comprehend why so many people get uncomfortable by the image of a
breastfeeding mother or a toddler that isn't fully dressed. As a parent and a
husband to a mother that is extremely comfortable with breastfeeding, I am
saddened for all other mothers who are made to feel ashamed of such a natural
activity.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Introducing the Hackpad change feed - orph
https://hackpad.com/yvE7V1XnDyo#Introducing-the-Hackpad-change-feed
======
geoffschmidt
I love Hackpad! Just about all Meteor API designs, emails, and blog posts
start life as Hackpads.
------
bitsweet
Hackpad is an excellent collaboration tool, if you don't use it, you should.
------
atdt
Please expose this as an RSS or Atom feed!
------
kunle
sweet deal
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The FBI could end up with 5% of all bitcoins - whatgoodisaroad
http://qz.com/132327/the-fbi-could-end-up-with-5-of-all-bitcoins-and-it-plans-to-sell-them/
======
segacontroller
So.... $1.2 B or $78 M?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Candidates for Mozilla's IRC Successor - nature
http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/09/06/forward-motion/
======
esotericn
I have full faith that, if I had left a computer running, in the corner of my
home, with an IRC client open, it would have been able to maintain a
connection to Freenode (not continuously, but just work) for fifteen or more
years.
Personally I don't think IRC will ever be replaced. Well, it will, but it'll
happen when my generation dies and gets fully replaced with the New Shiny.
I _hope_ that some sort of real, proper standard, that doesn't endlessly
reinvent itself, that isn't subject to some for-profit bollocks, that on a
very basic level, has like, a standard, has _clients_ (not just one wanky
proprietary web frontend) that just sits and gets the job done like TCP, comes
out of all of this.
Meanwhile, I'm fairly sure IRC will still be there in another fifteen.
Hell, at this point, IRC has been a constant in my life for longer than
everything other than family. It actually feels like a friend. A portal to
another quirky world, just as it did all those years ago.
I think it's almost two decades now since I first logged in. My my. The years
are short, indeed.
~~~
jjcm
Die? No, but it is slowly degrading. More and more the people in my old
freenode chatrooms are idle or simply leaving. We've gotten so used to phone
notifications and a persistent history, that IRC has fallen behind purely from
a convenience factor.
It's rock solid in what it does, I have zero doubt about that or your 15 year
claim. But even if the protocol works, if the user base isn't being added to
it will die eventually.
~~~
zingmars
> We've gotten so used to phone notifications and a persistent history, that
> IRC has fallen behind purely from a convenience factor.
I have that with a bouncer (znc) and a plugin. I've not used it, but it is my
understanding that IRCCloud does this too. Problem is that there aren't many
easily usable options for this apart from IRCCloud and even IRCCloud itself
isn't all that well marketed.
Always seemed kind of weird how while IRC is full with FOSS people who are
willing to use their time on various projects they're not getting paid for,
most of whom also seem to worry about IRC dying out, nobody is really doing
anything about it. A lot of the conveniences we miss could mostly be solved by
making modern clients that are actually good.
~~~
Avamander
Quassel is being actively worked on and solves a lot of the woes for me.
~~~
Insequent
I've been using it for... around nine years. It used to have a lot of
performance issues, notably around synchronising initial state/backlog fetch
on first connection to the core/daemon, but those were eventually fixed.
It works very well now, and the Android client is pretty great too, but there
are still some gaps. Mainly, the surrounding ecosystem is quite sparse, e.g.:
\- There is basically only a single web client for it (node-based, which is a
con from my perspective) \- There are only a handful of semi-functional log
searching/browsing utilities around
------
swalladge
It's great to see 3/4 of the options are open source! Whatever happens, I
really hope the community get behind the open source options and don't let
more things get eaten up by commercial silos cough slack cough.
I'm partial towards Matrix/Riot.im - the progress made on those projects is
awesome and they really have a highly usable product, with bonuses such as e2e
encryption and federation.
~~~
22c
> they really have a highly usable product
Setting up a Matrix server is a lot harder than you might think, especially
when you start talking about federation and identity management.
The mxisd[1] project has recently disbanded due to what I believe to be
philosophical differences with the Matrix maintainers vision of identity
management.
I like a lot of things about Riot/Synapse, but I would suggest you try setting
up your own Matrix server if you haven't yet. It's not what I would call
highly usable.
Mind you, I have only tried setting up the reference implementation
(Synapse/Riot). I would be interested in seeing a write-up/comparison done by
Mozilla as part of these trials.
[1] [https://github.com/kamax-matrix/mxisd](https://github.com/kamax-
matrix/mxisd)
~~~
Arathorn
there’s a successor fork to that identity server over at
[https://github.com/ma1uta/ma1sd](https://github.com/ma1uta/ma1sd) which is
being well maintained :)
sorry that setting up a homeserver was hard; we’ve been doing a lot of work
recently to improve this (eg [https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse-config-
generator/tree/...](https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse-config-
generator/tree/develop) is a graphical installer which should be released very
shortly).
~~~
buboard
This looks good. Will this become part of matrix in the future (also, does it
work /stable?)?
~~~
Arathorn
the config generator will ship in synapse by default in the near future. its
first release is due tomorrow.
ma1sd is considered stable and works afaik, and is already part of the matrix
ecosystem.
------
EamonnMR
Really excited to see Discord rejected. Watching Discord take over open source
and free culture communities has been disheartening to say the least.
~~~
techntoke
You must really dislike GitHub then.
~~~
EamonnMR
I can more or less easily get my data out of github (I can host a repo
elsewhere, write a script to scrape the issues, etc.) I don't like using the
non-git parts of it for much (ie why write a wiki when you can just make a
repo full of markdown files?) Discord is a whole other level of walled garden.
It's a black hole of information, and that information isn't owned by you.
Discoverability is nonexistent.
~~~
woodrowbarlow
> why write a wiki when you can just make a repo full of markdown files?
fyi: github wikis _are_ just a repo full of markdown files. you can clone down
your wiki, make changes, write commits, etc.
~~~
techntoke
Except it is using Gollum, which isn't all that great. I think the only
positive is tab integration. I prefer the GitHub or GitLab Pages approach.
------
lima
I'm sad to see Zulip excluded from the list. It solves the #1 issue with large
group chats - proper threading.
Nothing worse than waking up to a 1000 message backlog you have to sort
through to filter out the information relevant to you. Except for Slack, all
of their other choices have very poor threading.
They said they had trouble to get it working behind IAM, but Zulip is just a
Django application. Surely there's a Django authenticator for Mozilla IAM? I
would be very happy to help set it up.
~~~
buboard
> but Zulip is just a Django application.
Yet again:
> The installer expects Zulip to be the only thing running on the system; it
> will install system packages with apt (like nginx, postgresql, and redis)
> and configure them for its own use. We strongly recommend using either a
> fresh machine instance in a cloud provider, a fresh VM, or a dedicated
> machine. If you decide to disregard our advice and use a server that hosts
> other services, we can’t support you, but we do have some notes on issues
> you’ll encounter.
~~~
dsr_
Mozilla is large enough that they could go over to the Zulip developers and
_ask nicely_ for what they need, and stand a good chance of getting it.
~~~
perlgeek
Even if it's just for a PoC with a 1/5th chance of being actually selected in
the end?
~~~
mkr-hn
What does PoC mean in this context?
~~~
packetlost
I'm going to guess 'Proof of Concept'
------
gtirloni
Maybe Mozilla can put its weight behind Matrix and create a decent client that
grandparents can use.
~~~
silon42
Integrate it into Thunderbird Chat... when I used it for gtalk/XMPP it was
completely acceptable for basic use.
~~~
Arathorn
thunderbird has a primordial matrix plugin already, but it’s very much a proof
of concept. there are plans to make it much more :)
~~~
mxuribe
I didn't know about the matrix plugin for Thunderbird chat! Now _THIS_ would
be awesome! Beyond the regular, dedicated clients for matrix, this type of
partnership/integration is what Mozilla and (other FOSS) folks outside the
matrix/riot org. should try and advocate for. Sure, this brings increased
usage of matrix clients, platforms, but could also bring more eyes to the
overall matrix project - continuing a virtuous cycle!
------
shmerl
Why are they even considering Slack which is a proprietary IM service? Come
on, they are Mozilla. Matrix which is federated and is proposed like a "better
XMPP" is more like it.
~~~
cwyers
Why should federation play into anything here? This is specifically something
for people to talk to each other under the auspices of Mozilla's work efforts.
~~~
shmerl
Non federated IMs are a major problem. So using them means proliferating this
issue, instead of fixing it. It's not solved, because major players refuse to
solve it even though they can. When Mozilla uses stuff like that, it gives
them endorsement.
------
Dowwie
Write the server you wish you had, in Rust. Everyone will help. It will be
great. Open source all the way.
~~~
nixpulvis
If I'm not mistaken, there's a fully functional Matrix server written in Rust
already (for example):
[https://github.com/ruma/ruma](https://github.com/ruma/ruma)
Implementing a protocol in Rust is one thing, the choice in protocol is
another. I for one hope they choose a standard that's backed by the OSS
community (not slack), so we can all have fun with Rust implementations in
peace.
~~~
opencl
GNOME also has a Matrix client written in Rust:
[https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/fractal](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/fractal)
------
mr_vile
I think there are three problems here: first is that the new generation of
developers that Mozilla is trying to attract are not used to systems which do
not persistently store data in an API-accessible database backend.
Second that there is a perception of plain text as an antiquated medium of
communication (and yet we persistently reinvent markdown as a way of
simplifying rich text).
Third and most importantly, the issue is not that IRC is old or is missing
features, it is that IRC encodes a specific model for running a communication
network (hubs, leafs, operators, etc). When we try and replace IRC with a
system like Matrix we are giving up the old model of "owned" nodes and the
decentralised nature of it to instead bow to a centralised model where certain
people wield absolute power. Is this really the right way? what if I want to
write a bot to perform some unusual administrative function? do I have keep
updating it every time the API changes? that's why IRC is good, I don't need
to do that.
~~~
joepie91_
Huh? Matrix isn't a centralised model at all, quite the contrary. If anything,
it's _less_ centralised than IRC.
------
regnerba
Excited to see what the results of their Matrix PoC. I have been a big fan of
Matrix for a while.
------
bhhaskin
Why move away from IRC at all? If it ain't broken why "fix" it.
~~~
radus
My experiences as an infrequent IRC user over many years:
\- hmm, I have to download a client? maybe I can access a web interface?
\- okay, I have this connection string/url
\- how do I join a channel?
\- how do I set my nickname? is this persistent?
\- oh someone else is using my name? is this for the channel or the server??
\- what's the etiquette of this particular channel? (I realize this is
probably the case for any chat, but it seems like etiquette is much more
vaunted in IRC)
vs. zulip
\- enter url in browser
\- login with my github credentials
.... that's it
~~~
partialrecall
Requiring a browser and requiring social media credentials are both
misfeatures in my book. Browsers are excellent tools.. for spying on users.
And for as benign as github in particular may seem, we shouldn't be replacing
standard internet protocols with products that promote and further normalize
the expectation that people have a social media account.
~~~
dpark
> _Requiring a browser_
You realize we’re talking about Mozilla, right?
> _requiring social media_
They’re explicitly choosing between social media platforms...
~~~
partialrecall
My point is that any social media platform is not an acceptable IRC
requirement, nor is requiring a social media account an acceptable requirement
for any IRC requirement.
And Mozilla, more than perhaps anybody else, should be aware that web browsers
facilitate surveillance of users.
~~~
dpark
IRC _is_ a social media platform. The fact that it predates Github by two
decades doesn’t mean it’s not social media. I don’t know know what you’re
actually opposed to. A blanket disapproval of “social media” isn’t
particularly meaningful, so there’s nothing of substance in your complaint to
respond to.
I have no idea why you think browsers are a tool to facilitate surveillance to
a greater extent than dedicated clients. If a nation state or corporation can
compromise your browser, they can realistically compromise your entire OS.
~~~
partialrecall
I think you know exactly what I'm referring to and are trying to drag the
conversation into the weeds of vocabulary pedantry. I am of course talking
about internet companies who turn user data into an asset. The facebooks,
twitters, linkedins (same owner as github) etc of the world. You know that's
what I'm talking about. Freenode is a far cry from facebook.
> _I have no idea why you think browsers are a tool to facilitate surveillance
> to a greater extent than dedicated clients._
Because that's simply factually the case? IRC networks do not give my IRC
client proprietary tracking scripts to run. With an IRC client if any third
party code execution occurs, it's due to an exploit in the client. On the
other hand with web browsers, servers sending malicious scripts for the
browser to run is par for the course.
Typical modern web browsers (even Mozilla's own) are total disasters,
particularly in their default configuration. Why the hell aren't they shipping
with resist-fingerprinting turned on by default? Because it would mildly
inconvenience some users, and despite all their good intentions and positive
words, they still prioritize user perception of convenience over privacy.
------
thom
Clicked on this thinking Mozilla were backing a new, more secure and usable
version of a protocol _like_ IRC, and disappointed with the reality.
~~~
oehtXRwMkIs
They can make it a reality by backing the Matrix.org protocol, or even Ruma,
the Rust implementation.
~~~
thom
Interesting. Any good resources on Matrix? How has adoption been going until
now?
~~~
oehtXRwMkIs
France and KDE are probably the two most well known adopters rn last time I
heard. [https://matrix.org](https://matrix.org) explains the protocol, and if
you join the MatrixHQ room (#matrix:matrix.org) you can ask all you want, lots
of people around to answer, and even Matthew (project lead) is often on there
too.
------
buboard
Slack, really?
There should be a petition to get them to use ( and thus improve) an open
source one, maybe matrix or even rocketchat.
------
client4
Keybase Chat would make a solid choice as well. *I work for Keybase, but chose
to work here because I love the mission / product.
~~~
corndoge
Keybase chat doesn't have a server client available. It is nothing like IRC.
~~~
Avamander
Actually there's a bot available [https://github.com/keybase/bot-
sshca](https://github.com/keybase/bot-sshca) in addition to the regular CLI
API keybase has.
~~~
corndoge
What does this have to do with keybase chat?
~~~
Avamander
The link I posted is basically a headless server client, was that not what you
asked for?
------
mxuribe
Man, i sure hope they go the route of matrix! Between the French government
and Mozilla both potentially using matrix, would send a great and strong
signal to the world, that matrix can work for everyone! Fingers crossed!
------
fouc
If the author of this blog post reads this:
Based on your earlier article, you mentioned the issue of spam. Slack is even
worse than IRC for spam controls, I've seen spammers be hugely disruptive when
the admins aren't around. It could be partially solved with bots, but that
doesn't stop PM spam.
I looked at the docs for mattermost, riot.im, and rocket.chat.
Seems like rocket.chat has the best docs and lots of fine-grained control
about permissions and also has rate limiting. Mattermost also has rate
limiting (but API level only?) but their docs are horrible. Riot.im doesn't
seem to have any controls.
~~~
Arathorn
Matrix/Riot has a lot of anti-abuse stuff fwiw -
[https://matrix.org/docs/guides/moderation](https://matrix.org/docs/guides/moderation)
has more details, and we're about to launch a shared blacklist feature in
addition.
------
rbanffy
Adoption of IRCv3 by someone like Mozilla could be the push it needs.
------
hendry
10 bucks on Slack
[https://youtu.be/xJ2XUNvbJtg](https://youtu.be/xJ2XUNvbJtg)
------
lima
Mirror:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20190912012052/https://exple.tiv...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190912012052/https://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/09/06/forward-
motion/)
------
bloopernova
It's interesting to me that no-one here mentions Mattermost. Is it not in
widespread use?
------
Nasreddin_Hodja
I've read somewhere that matrix server uses too much RAM due to bad design.
Personally I'd prefer XMPP.
~~~
dijit
It's not a bad design, it's just the reference implementation is python based,
and, well, a reference implementation; so they don't do too much for
optimisations and focus instead on readability.
When Matrix as a protocol settles more, we'll start seeing optimised versions
of the server, I'm certain of it.
~~~
ptman
dendrite, the next-gen server written in go, made good progress this summer
thanks to GSoC, but contributions are always welcome
------
aidenn0
I'm surprised jabber wasn't even mentioned in the "also ran" section.
~~~
floatingatoll
Could you share more about why you are surprised?
------
zomg
thinking out loud here, but has anyone built a solution on top of IRC,
effectively "extending" it?
to me (i'm not a developer, so pardon me while i speak out of turn here) it
would make a lot of sense to take the solid, well known foundation of IRC and
build upon it, instead of reinventing the wheel over and over again, no?
~~~
Lightkey
It's probably not a good example but that is what Twitch did, you can connect
to their video channels with standard IRC clients (without the added
"features" like paid subscription picture "emotes").
------
denton-scratch
Why does IRC need a successor?
~~~
floatingatoll
That is answered here: [http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/05/14/the-next-part-
of-the-...](http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/05/14/the-next-part-of-the-
process/)
------
wetpaws
Why the hell they have slack and not discord eludes me.
~~~
frenchy
As per the article: "Discord’s terms of service, particularly with respect to
the rights they assert over participants’ data, are expansive and very grabby,
effectively giving them unlimited rights to do anything they want with
anything we put into their service. Coupling that with their active hostility
towards interoperability and alternative clients has disqualified them as a
community platform."
~~~
Dylan16807
They even made customizing the Discord client in any way against the ToS. The
hostility toward interop is the one thing I really dislike about them. They do
so much else well.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Happy 25th Birthday ".COM" - kvs
http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=132515
======
kvs
How old is your oldest (current) domain?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AWS PartiQL SQL-compatible access to relational, semi-structured, & nested data - based2
https://partiql.org/
======
based2
[https://aws.amazon.com/fr/blogs/opensource/announcing-
partiq...](https://aws.amazon.com/fr/blogs/opensource/announcing-partiql-one-
query-language-for-all-your-data/)
[https://partiql.org/assets/PartiQL-
Specification.pdf](https://partiql.org/assets/PartiQL-Specification.pdf)
------
PaulHoule
Woo Hoo!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Does anyone have the same problem as me regarding ATT customer service? - wanghq
Few months ago, I talked to one ATT customer representative on the phone to unlock my previous iPhone 3gs. After chatting ~50min, they told me I need to provide my original receipt. I bought the iPhone from att 4 years ago and lost the receipt unfortunately. So I can't unlock my phone. That's fine.<p>And few minutes ago, I called ATT to unlock my iPhone 4s. After speaking with a CS representative for 40min, no solution was given and my call was dropped, suddenly. Nobody called me back. I tried to call the service number and find the lady I was speaking to and there is no way...<p>What a s*t company and service!
======
hatty
I just switched to At&t today, so I can't comment on history of service. I
would recommend using their automated system so that you don't have to call
back and waste your time.
[https://www.att.com/deviceunlock/client/en_US/](https://www.att.com/deviceunlock/client/en_US/)
Secondly, if that doesn't work, your 50 minutes of time is definitely worth
more than $5-10. There are a lot of alternative ways to unlock your phone that
you might consider. I'm not going to post any links, but I know for a fact
many exist.
Good luck to you, and I'm sorry about your bad experience. Your mileage
definitely varies while talking on the phone to a huge company.
~~~
wanghq
Thanks. I did submit a request before calling AT&T. Below is what I got. I
just wanted to try some official way to unlock my iPhone. Given that AT&T
provide that service, I think that's the right of a customer.
_Request number: 391xxxx
Thank you for contacting AT&T Customer Care about unlocking your AT&T Mobile
device. We are unable to process your request through this channel.
To submit a request to unlock your business AT&T Mobile device, please call
Business Customer Care at 800-331-0500.
To submit a request to unlock your prepaid AT&T Mobile device, please call
AT&T Customer Care at 800-901-9878. _
------
majurg
Oh man, AT&T is my worst enemy. I have only dealt with their cell phone
division, but in store and on the phone the customer service is awful. The
manager at an AT&T store lied to my face just to get me out the door, as did a
customer service provider I talked to over the phone.
The nickel and diming they do to their customers is crazy, and its kinda sad
the competition is so similar (at least from what I gather from friends).
Capitalism at its finest, right?
------
wanghq
What makes me feel worse is that I just upgraded to iPhone 5s and will stay
with AT&T for another two years. I might can cancel the service but I know I
don't have too many options to choose. The telecom companies are not like some
e-commerce companies who can claim they're customer centric and do that.
------
rush-tea
Just paid $2-5 on ebay to unlock your iPhone. It will save your headache.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Window manager for multiple projects recommendations? - eorge_g
Is there a product that organizes terminal, browser, FTP client, finder, etc. sessions and organizes them by project? I'm a freelance dev who is working on a project 4 hours in the morning, then switch to something in the afternoon, only to have the re-initialize everything from the morning project to put out a fire.<p>Any existing tools or tips welcome!
======
grafelic
A tiling window manager like dwm, XMonad or i3 could be configured to do what
you want. For example in XMonad if you set the title of your terminal windows
to a project name you can sort the windows by project workspaces using
ManageHook.
myManageHook = composeAll [ className =? "URxvt" <&&> title =? "<project-
name>" \--> doShift "<project-workspace>" ...
[https://wiki.haskell.org/Xmonad/General_xmonad.hs_config_tip...](https://wiki.haskell.org/Xmonad/General_xmonad.hs_config_tips#ManageHook_examples)
[http://xmonad.org/xmonad-docs/xmonad/XMonad-
ManageHook.html](http://xmonad.org/xmonad-docs/xmonad/XMonad-ManageHook.html)
You can check windows with xprop, and filter by strings as well.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to utilize D3.js with Rails partials? - tommaxwell
Hi HN,<p>I'm building a Rails app that needs some visualizations, but I have a problem. In the app, users have folders which contain entries that they create. When you visit the site (logged in), you are shown a list of all your folders, and clicking on one loads up a partial with all the submissions contained inside.<p>What I'd like to do is something different: When the user opens the folder, I'd like to load a partial with all the <svg> and <circle> HTML for D3, and size them based on the character count of each submission. However, I'm lost on how to do it and have been trying to get it working all day.<p>I have placed all the D3 code inside my show.html.erb file for the folder, which injects the partial into the body of the site. It doesn't work, and my D3 code needs to know which folder has been opened to load the correct JSON data; I'm using a d3.json call to get the JSON for the folder, which contains a sub-array for submissions.<p>Is my approach wrong? I'm sort of a Rails newbie, so I'm not sure how else to do this. Any help is greatly appreciated.
======
jdc
That sounds complicated. Why not just make an SVG partial that draws circles
that accepts the quantity, sizes and positions as parameters?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: News site solely based on what people share - throwaway1270
http://newsscale.com
======
grey-area
Nicely done - I like the simple styling for pulling in a multitude of news
stories and presenting them in a format proven to work for news sites (The
Daily Mail uses this for example to pull readers in to other stories).
Unfortunately the content doesn't really live up to the website, because it is
popular content, not quality content.
I'd love exactly the opposite of this - something celebrating slow news and
thoughtful reactions to the world around us. Unfortunately it seems all the
pressures in our society militate towards instant and ephemeral bite-sized
nuggets of information, and we enjoy novelty and excitement above all. I
wonder if there is a place somewhere for quality, even if it is not popular,
it might be worthwhile.
------
huhtenberg
It looks like people share just the tabloid and sports news.
~~~
revscat
This was kind of depressing to see, but not all that surprising.
~~~
harlanlewis
Not even remotely surprising - BuzzFeed/Mashable/etc content are the
definition of viral.
Of course, not all of these viral schlockers are happy about the world they've
wrought... [http://www.vox.com/2014/5/22/5742148/facebook-product-
direct...](http://www.vox.com/2014/5/22/5742148/facebook-product-director-
furious-at-facebook-s-effect-on-news)
------
declan
Interesting. I like the idea of currently/today's/yesterday's news.
The scores, though, are rather buggy. On the home page right now a Forbes
article about Apple's headphone jack is listed twice in the top right with two
different scores (8,046 and 7,908).
On the CNBC subpage, Marc Andreessen's interview in which he called Snowden a
traitor is listed three times, with three different scores. All are probably
very low -- the article was well-discussed online, has 300+ comments, and the
discussion topped the HN home page yesterday for a while:
[http://newsscale.com/site/cnbc.com](http://newsscale.com/site/cnbc.com)
I'd probably narrow categories considerably. Two of the top three articles in
"entertainment" deal with random human interest stories (a sick 4-year old and
a puppy video). That's what I'd call "cute" or something, but not what most
people would think of in an entertainment category.
Similarly, in business the top articles include student debt (should be in
personal finance), landlords and dogs (should be in real estate or pets), an
Obama story (should be in politics), a musician obituary (should be in music
or entertainment), and guns (politics or law enforcement).
The problem is that solving those problems and taking Newscale to the next
level requires rather more work than merely crawling RSS feeds and making some
calls to Facebook's graph API to get sharing counts. :) I've looked into
similar problems while working on creating a recommendation engine and
iOS/Android app for personalized news (I quit CBS to found
[http://recent.io](http://recent.io) this year) and it gets a bit more
difficult from here. Happy to chat offline if you like. I think my email
address is in my profile.
------
tonyennis
Worth mentioning [http://www.newswhip.com](http://www.newswhip.com) here also
------
bryanhun
I found it difficult to scour the web to find the most shared links when
building trendn.com. You will find that the top news sites get the most
shares, and the little guys never get to the top (unless your scoring takes
that into account).
------
vidyesh
/r/all ?
------
dalerus
I like it.
I would change "Currently on the Web" to "Currently Trending" or something
like that.
Currently on the Web sounds strange as all the articles are on the web.
------
anigbrowl
What I really want is the inverse of this...
...although I blame that on what people share rather than the creator of this.
The layout and implementation are great.
------
btbuildem
Wouldn't this produce the lowest-denominator "news" \- ie the noise you see
ppl sharing on Facebook, Reddit et al?
------
kumarski
Isn't that what huffingtonpost.com is?
------
kmfrk
At least it's not pretending to be something it's not.
------
PauloManrique
Would be nice to have that in another countries. Good job!
------
masivemunkey
Not a fan of the typography, it really needs an overhaul.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Cartel: How BP Got Insider Tips Through a Secret Chat Room - randomname2
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-30/-cartel-chat-room-tied-to-bp-gave-fx-tips-from-banks-to-client.html
======
dllthomas
Um, various comment sections and article verbiage aside, is "insider trading"
the issue here? It seems like this was currency markets, which I'm not hugely
familiar with... but I know that with regard to commodities there's not really
such a thing as "insider trading" in a legal sense and I'd weakly expect the
situation with currencies to be similar.
If you read about what was actually shared, though, _" tips about forthcoming
trades, details of confidential client business and discussions of stop-
losses"_, it sounds like there may have been some serious breeches of
fiduciary duty on the part of the people providing the information.
~~~
randomname2
Actually yes, BP has absolutely been acting like a collusive, insider trading
hedge fund if these accusations are proven. The similarities to Enron are
uncanny.
As per the article, BP is denying everything, and so the article is very
careful in phrasing BP's involvement:
_" While there’s no evidence that any BP traders were members of the Cartel,
Usher participated in at least one chat room with White, according to a person
who has examined conversations that included both men. It couldn’t be
determined from the messages reviewed by Bloomberg News who sent the
information to BP or whether BP employees acted on any of the tips."_
Except they did: _" Traders at BP haven’t been accused of any wrongdoing. Last
year, within hours of regulators announcing probes, the chats between BP and
the banks were shut down, people with knowledge of the matter said. Soon
after, a compliance officer was placed on the desk for the first time, one of
them said."_
Not exactly what one would do if one was "innocent".
Interesting tidbit on how the Bank of England may have been involved in all
this rigging, FX market manipulation and criminal abuse of other market
participants:
_" [Usher] joined JPMorgan as head of spot foreign exchange in 2010, where he
became a member of the now-defunct Bank of England’s Chief Dealers Sub Group,
a collection of about a dozen currency traders and central bank officials who
met at restaurants and bank offices to discuss industry developments."_
Which is why the Bank of England itself may have had to scapegoat its own
sacrificial lamb to avoid any further connection to this criminal cartel:
Chief FX dealer for the Bank of England, Martin Mallett, on November 12 _" was
dismissed by the Bank of England yesterday for “serious misconduct relating to
failure to adhere to the Bank’s internal policies,” according to a statement
by the central bank today."_
~~~
dllthomas
I didn't say they were innocent of any wrongdoing. I said that the wrongdoing
wasn't "insider trading", which is what most people have been discussing.
Price collusion and market manipulation are not "insider trading", nor is
breach of fiduciary responsibility. Insider trading is _probably legal_ in the
markets they were operating in, and it likely _should be_ (in commodities,
"you can't raise your price just because your costs went up - that's not
public information" is obviously ridiculous; I'm slightly less convinced about
currency). What seems to have happened was _worse than_ insider trading.
------
jacquesm
Those are some very serious accusations. This has the ring to it of the first
of a series of domino stones falling over.
~~~
justincormack
Not the first, this is the middle of the series, there have already been
fines.
~~~
randomname2
See also:
[http://www.wsj.com/articles/three-senior-traders-fired-
amid-...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/three-senior-traders-fired-amid-global-
forex-probe-1413312358) (Oct. 14, 2014)
[http://www.fca.org.uk/news/fca-fines-five-banks-for-fx-
faili...](http://www.fca.org.uk/news/fca-fines-five-banks-for-fx-failings)
(Nov. 12, 2014)
So the conventional wisdom was that this cartel involved almost exclusively
bankers at the largest global banks including JPM, Goldman, Deutsche,
Barclays, RBS, HSBC, and UBS.
This new article finally links banks with the other two facets of this FX-
rigging "triangle" cartel: private sector companies that have no direct
banking operations yet who have intimate prop trading exposure, as well as
central banks themselves.
------
FesterCluck
With the ease with which information is shared these days, there will be no
stop to this. The only solution is to put all traders on a level playing
field. Stop computerized millisecond trading, and gains will need to be
processed either randomly or with more lead time each day.
~~~
Mikeb85
> Stop computerized millisecond trading
This has absolutely nothing to do with insider trading...
~~~
dllthomas
And neither HFT nor insider trading have anything to do with this issue...
------
orf
I think it's a bit ridiculous to expect traders not to use/trade inside
information like this, it's obviously going to happen.
~~~
jacquesm
That's very explicitly forbidden. It may be obvious to you but it's on par
with saying that bank robberies are going to happen. That doesn't make it any
more legal.
Messing with the market at this level will have very serious repercussions.
~~~
new299
A number of economists have argued that insider trading is a good thing (as it
efficiently adds information to the market) and should not be illegal:
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/26/i...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/26/insider-
trading-makes-us-richer-better-informed-and-could-prevent-corporate-scandals-
legalize-it/)
~~~
dllthomas
This doesn't seem to have been insider trading, though. It seems to have been
people letting others know about orders they're about to make on behalf of
clients. I don't know of any economists who say that sort of breach of
fiduciary duty should be legal - it's nothing but handing over someone else's
money.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why is electricity so hard to understand? (1995) - Tomte
http://amasci.com/miscon/whyhard1.html
======
charlieflowers
This is very interesting. I read some, skimmed some, and saved the doc.
But I _wish_ the author had a section that attempted to explain electricity in
a simple, yet accurate way. He complains about the problems that prevent it
from being understood, but never tries to explain it correctly.
Fair enough for him to make that choice, but I'd much rather read a correct
explanation than a list of why all the other explanations are flawed.
~~~
justaaron
bingo. i read about 5 paragraphs before i started scrolling rapidly, until I
realized that this entire page was a litany of wrong-ness, an ode to fuck-ups,
a waste of my time.
please please for the love of anything decent and good in this world: TEACH US
ABOUT ELECTRICITY!
it's ok if it's only based upon the "current understanding" of it... just give
us an update as to the canonical way to describe "electrical phenomena" (er
how should we refer to this subject?)
~~~
wbeaty
Heh.
The very first line says that THIS IS 1989 RAW UNEDITED NOTES.
[http://amasci.com/ele-edu.html](http://amasci.com/ele-edu.html) is the large
collection of finished articles.
------
kgfive
"We use "lies to children" to avoid complicated explanations, but then we're
never up-front with older high-school students about the misconceptions they
probably acquired in grades K-6."
This pretty sums most of the "science" textbooks my daughter used. I self-
learned about electricity concepts from a book using closed hydraulic system
analogy
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_analogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_analogy))
I'm an EE now :-)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Announcing the MakeGamesWithUs Summer Academy - DesaiAshu
https://www.makegameswith.us/summer-academy/
======
dave_sullivan
Man, there's really going to be a big industry in what essentially ends up
being programming camps for rich kids. As the value of college declines, SAT
prep programs and otherwise may suffer--only to be replaced with "learn to get
hired as a programmer" programs. Private schools will compete based on the
technical and/or startup chops of their faculty. And hey, I guess this isn't a
bad thing? More people _should_ learn to program, rich kids or not.
~~~
DesaiAshu
Hi, one of the MGWU founders here. Our goal with the Summer Academy is to
initially provide a supplement to traditional education, and eventually
provide a replacement for it. As a supplement it may seem like a programming
camp for rich kids (we're doing our best to make it more accessible through
scholarships). But as a replacement we hope to offer the same or better value
(through practical education, professional network, and eventually even brand
name) as traditional education at a fraction of the cost.
------
melling
I was under the impression that Cocos2d is not going to be very popular
because of SpriteKit. If you want true cross-platform then the C++ framework
Cocos2d-x is the way to go.
It does look pretty nice:
[http://www.cocos2d-x.org/](http://www.cocos2d-x.org/)
~~~
DesaiAshu
Actually it's been really easy for us to port our games over to Android thanks
to Apportable ([http://www.apportable.com](http://www.apportable.com)). They
fully support Cocos2d (and are now the official maintainers) with very minor
changes to your codebase to support things like different resolution screens
or the Android back button.
------
JonSkeptic
It sounds really cool, but at $5k and two months time, it's way out of what I
could manage.
~~~
DesaiAshu
I'd encourage you to apply anyways, we're offering scholarships!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Malcheck, a tool to test memory allocation failure handling - AndyKelley
https://github.com/andrewrk/malcheck
======
AndyKelley
I posted the idea for this yesterday morning[1] and got no responses but I
decided to make a proof of concept anyway :-). Then I made the mistake of
doing Show HN but not using a link[2] which /user?id=dang helpfully pointed
out was penalized. So, what the hell, here's a repost.
One problem that has presented itself is that "memory leak" is kind of a
subjective concept. It's really common to allocate memory and never free it,
because the memory need not be freed until the application shuts down.
valgrind has all kinds of voodoo to differentiate between memory intentionally
never freed and accidental memory leaks. So you end up in common situations
where the number of allocations is thousands more than the number of
deallocations, and there's still no leak.
So this can still help check the allocation failure handling code, but I don't
think it's going to be able to find memory leaks since there would be too many
false positives.
[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9977032](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9977032)
[2]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9980477](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9980477)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The Stack Is An Implementation Detail - baha_man
http://blogs.msdn.com/ericlippert/archive/2009/04/27/the-stack-is-an-implementation-detail.aspx
======
noss
«Leaving performance considerations aside, what possible difference does it
make to the developer whether the CLR’s jitter happens to allocate memory for
a particular local variable by adding some integer to the pointer that we call
“the stack pointer” or adding the same integer to the pointer that we call
“the top of the GC heap”?»
I'm all for avoiding premature optimizations, and giving priority to short and
comprehensible code over faster code. But "leaving performance considerations
aside" is like discussing dictatorship and "leaving human rights issues
aside".
Good programmers have good hunches about performance, better programmers pick
the shortest code anyway, the best programmers measure and then maybe
optimize.
~~~
DarkShikari
The best programmers also know to think about performance when designing a
system--if you completely abide by the strategy of "don't prematurely
optimize", you end up with a system which _wasn't designed with performance in
mind_ , and often is very difficult to optimize later because of this.
Sometimes the entire structure of the program has to be redesigned because the
original method just was not suitable for performance.
A great programmer is able to think about performance at every point in
designing something without obsessing about it to the point where it decreases
reliability, readability, or extensibility.
~~~
noss
I think you are correct, but your scenario is a good example of something
else: Prototyping and "planning to throw one away" (Fred Brooks / The Mythical
Man Month).
Having written one lousy implementation in X months does not mean that the
good implementation, when starting over, will take X more months.
I have never seen a functional specification reaching more than 50% accuracy
on details (most are not even close). When implementing you always discover
more about the problem.
What stops you from starting over tends to be that the customers have
integrated with your system according to published specs, or large roll-outs
have been made already.
~~~
DarkShikari
_I think you are correct, but your scenario is a good example of something
else: Prototyping and "planning to throw one away" (Fred Brooks / The Mythical
Man Month)._
Of course, but one is not always implementing a totally new system that
justifies "throwing one away". Often one is implementing something whose
design is well-known enough that one should expect to be able to do it right
the first time.
_Having written one lousy implementation in X months does not mean that the
good implementation, when starting over, will take X more months._
Sure, but it still takes Y more totally unnecessary months, even if Y is less
than X.
------
Hoff
The stack is a great huge implementation detail, and doesn't necessarily work
the way you want it to.
With porting an operating system across processors or when performing
significant changes and upgrades to an operating system and its interfaces,
the details of the data and call stack and the thread stacks and register-
passing and register spillage and all the other related ugliness can be (and
often is) exceedingly platform-specific.
Adding applications dependencies on these details means your code can be
somewhere between faster and less portable, or faster and non-portable.
Or your applications can pin the vendor in a corner by depending on a design
statement that the vendor might now regret having made. Whether that might
provide or prevent a thread stack, or changes to the call frames, or stack
randomization or otherwise.
I'm working in several areas where the vendors spend far, far, far too much
time describing the internal details of their implementations. Which is bad on
several levels. It can pin the vendor to the design; into choosing
compatibility or choosing to break applications. And it tends to obscure the
information presented to application programmers with details that are less
than relevant.
There's more here than strictly performance; there's also compatibility and
maintainability, and stability and sustainability, and extensibility.
Absent specific reasons and whenever in doubt, the decision should be to
present an opaque interface. "The stack is an implementation detail."
------
10ren
I've recently come to appreciate a mathematical approach, which I see as
_declaring constraints_. The power of this (for me) is that you can separate
constraints in any way you like, and combine them however you like. This is
important when you need to simplify a problem into parts, in order to be able
to understand it one bit at a time (it's still an art to know _how_ to divide
up the problem, but maths gives you options).
It's very appealing (and obvious) step to then execute these declared
constraints - that is, to code directly in terms of the mathematics.
But here's the problem: the maths doesn't tell you _the_ answer; it just tells
you its constraints. The answer you want is somewhere in that space. Of
course, it's possible to write a language that will always give you _an_ from
within that space. The most well-known way for this issue to show up is in
efficiency: the solution given by the language does fall within the
constraints, but it takes too long. If we had a way to declare the efficiency
as a constraint, this might change... but apparently that's a hard one. Other
constraints are things like: usability, understandability (to coders of
average ability, average education and average deadlines), interoperability
with standards (which are never ideal, but which exist and which work),
portability, modularity and many others that I haven't encountered or
imagined.
Partly the difficulty is in specifying a soft, human constraint in formal
terms; the other part is solving for that constraint, which appears to require
strong AI or bump up against the halting problem - or else we could just
declare the constraint: "fastest possible solution".
~~~
anonymousDan
I've recently started taking the exact same constraint approach. I find it
helps to give me a much more concise mental model of the problem I'm trying to
solve. I guess this is because of the declarative nature of the constraints,
and the fact that aren't trying to keep all the implementation details in your
head. Instead you just ensure that whiles you are programming, you respect the
constraints at all times. I find it particularly useful when the problem
requires maintaining lots of different data structures that interact with each
other.
~~~
10ren
Yes. I actually find it really difficult to stop thinking about the
implementation (and the usability) of what I'm creating. These are good things
to be concerned about, but not when the problem is already too complex.
On another aspect of it: the last couple of days, I've found it very effective
to think of a model as just the nouns, not verbs; data structures, not
algorithms (as in the Brooks quote). Guess this is implicit in the idea of a
constraint, but it's helping.
The other thing is that the model doesn't have to be _precisely_ correct. It
only needs to be correct in the important ways (if I don't already know what
the important aspects are, a complicated model probably won't enlighten me).
This gives me conceptual framework to _think_ in, rather than to be an
authoritative definitive description, perfectly correct in every minor details
(they can be corrected early or late, if they really are minor). I find it
helps to give me a vantage point, to see further. My mind is very fertile with
finding solutions - provided I can _see_ where I am.
------
almost
Yes, you could enumerate all its characteristics and such to try and give the
programmer an idea of how it will behave. Or you can just say "it's allocated
on the stack" and much of that will be obvious. Seems like quite a good
shorthand to me if nothing else.
------
cfrey
An interesting point, but using the stack is not always transparent. You can
ignore how it works for the most part, but eventually you're going to notice
differences in performance or get a stack overflow exception.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN:Best Thank You ECard for iPhone – Say Thank You with a Picture - alexgan
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/thank-you-cards-maker-photo/id921205186?ls=1&mt=8
======
opless
Missing [Show HN:] prefix.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Eric Weinstein: The Mathematician Turned Physicist and Economist - jdcampolargo
https://www.juandavidcampolargo.com/blog/ericweinstein
======
tmaly
Eric’s podcast is amazing. He gets very deep on subjects I would have never
thought would be interesting at first blush.
Definitely worth a listen if you have not heard him before.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Has HN changed the rules for being able to reply to existing comments? - teh_klev
I've been a registered HN user for 504 days and accrued a modest 269 karma points over that time, but I do think my behaviour has been fairly courteous over that time.<p>Until earlier today I was allowed to reply to existing comments but the "reply" link has since disappeared. I'm permitted to add a new comment, but just not able to reply to existing comments - and these are on fresh HN posts where I can see new "reply" comments being added all the time.<p>I've checked my profile and my existing activity using with a new test account over a VPN, in a different browser, and nothing seems untoward - I don't appear to be "[dead]". Also that new account is also missing the "reply" link which leads me to believe a minimum threshold has been set before one is permitted to reply to existing comments.<p>Has something changed?
======
nwh
It depends on the depth of the comment and other things. If you really want to
reply to something, click the permalink and make your reply there. It's an
attempt to restrict huge deep trees.
~~~
sp332
Right, there's a time limit before the "reply" button shows up. The time
increases as the comment depth goes up, to prevent flamewars from taking over
the thread.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Personal OKRs for Success - mkfeuhrer
https://mohitkhare.me/blog/personal-okrs/
======
snidane
I'd posit this quantitative approach is harmful not only to one's personal
life - turning yourself into a robot, forgetting that life is more akin to a
dance than a project with a budget and a deadline. Something that you do to
enjoy even though it has no apparent goal.
Analogy taken from Alan Watts -
[https://youtu.be/rBpaUICxEhk](https://youtu.be/rBpaUICxEhk)
I'd also posit that quantitative approach to business is also harmful. This
path is taken by companies under stress of scaling - trying to find out a self
organizing simple structure. The end result always turns out to be a siloed
mess run by micromanagers and people "cheating" the system to satisfy some set
of arbitrary metrics and the organization turning into a social laboratory
full of instances of Goodhart's law and Cobra Effects.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law)
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect)
I have yet to seen a successful implementation of it. Usually a Lean and
System Thinking common sense look at the organization is sufficient to run a
successful team or a company, but only so few are interested when quantitative
(micromanaging) approach is so popular and sexy.
Lean and Functional Programming:
[https://youtu.be/5s55LA2Renc](https://youtu.be/5s55LA2Renc)
~~~
PaulHoule
Some things work quantitatively, some don't. I like using quantities for
athletic training.
If I was training for a marathon I would set numerical goals for how much I
would run a week coming into it. If I am recovering from an injury that's even
more the case.
Lately my son and I have been learning a martial arts form that has about 80
steps in it. There is a lot new about it for us: I've never done a two-person
form or a weapons form before, and he's never trained in a form at all. You
learn this kind of thing by breaking it up into pieces: so we have a burndown
chart on the wall for it, which I think is a good motivation.
~~~
dilyevsky
Quantitative approach aka “noob gains” stops working fairly quickly even with
athletic training
~~~
adenverd
"Noob gains" doesn't have anything to do with setting goals or quantitatively
measuring progress. It refers to the speed at which unadapted athletes are
able to progress (e.g. add weight to the bar, run farther) each workout when
they first start training, compared to athletes who have been training longer,
are more adapted, and progress slower.
Most professional and highly adapted athletes are extremely quantitative about
their training programs, much more so at the advanced stages than in the early
stages. They just progress much slower because it takes more training for
their bodies to continue adapting.
------
duopixel
Basecamp first launched when I was in college, and being completely unfamiliar
with any project management workflow I thought: "this would be great for
managing myself" so I set milestones and wrote entries for myself and project
managed my life for a brief period.
It makes life as boring as work.
These methods are meant for teams working towards a common objective, where
anything extraneous to the OKRs is considered a distraction. This has its
shortcomings (I've met way too many project managers who seem to be so
absorbed by metrics they fail to see what is right in front of their noses).
It's most definitely useful is this context, but not in life.
Consider: the author has set himself to read 20 books per year. Suppose this
is double of his standard. What he will do to fulfill his OKR? He's not going
to choose a difficult read such as Ulysses, or an existential crisis inducing
book such as Crime and Punishment, he will go for what is more superficial and
easier to read, because his goal is not to be transformed by what he reads,
his goal is to read 20 books.
The crucial layer of meaning is lost when we project-manage ourselves. Life is
more akin to a poem than it is to a project.
~~~
leetrout
Our values determine our metrics.
~~~
duopixel
Our true values (as human beings, not organizational values) are not
measurable. I may want to become closer to my family, so I schedule more time
with them. Spending time with them makes it more likely, but it may also go in
the opposite direction through conflict.
In paper you have accomplished your OKR, but in practice you are further away
from your true goal.
~~~
imustbeevil
That, again, is a result of measuring the wrong thing. The measurement should
be "relationship strength" or "spouse/child happiness" not "time spent".
The problem that most of us seem to have is that we're only tracking easy
things to measure. Everything valuable is difficult to measure.
Reading a book is _worthless_. The purpose of reading a book is to gain
something (learn something, read faster, practice public speaking, etc.).
That's what we should be tracking.
~~~
mkfeuhrer
Agreeing on this! I usually use notes section in KRs to track how I improved
after completing this KR. This helps in deciding the way ahead.
Also, this doesn't really apply to emotional relationships for me. Personal
OKRs are basically for self improvement which helps me in reaching something I
aim for future.
------
cseleborg
At almost 40, I've come to realize that work gives me plenty enough
opportunities to track and measure performance as it is. But there's also that
part of life that's not work, and I've found that merely _being_ , as opposed
to performing, is quite valuable in itself! It's hard to enjoy the moment with
my kids, my spouse and my friends when I constantly think of my todos and
objectives. I feel by now that the goal is to learn to balance between times
of performance and times of non-performance, even multiple times a day.
~~~
harryf
As a 46 year old I second this! Trying to run your personal life with OKRs
sounds like a great way to beat yourself up. Also your spouse won’t be
impressed when you tell her “My goal was to spend 46 minutes really listening
to you this week and I actually achieved 52 minutes!”
~~~
rahimnathwani
You can base your KR on her satisfaction (as reported on an end-of-quarter
survey) rather than on your level of activity.
Try to measure the outcomes rather than the activities :)
~~~
beardedwizard
This guy gets it.
------
Cactus2018
Reminds me of this Team Blind post
> My wife and I are competing our annual reviews of each other. One of the
> challenges I’m facing this year is we didn’t agree on OKRs and I have a lot
> of qualitative feedback but don’t like how the KPIs look. I’m worried her
> annual review of me will be similar. We both aligned that we’d max out
> 401ks, move for promotions and end a car lease. But her career moved faster
> and we don’t have joint accounts so I failed to enter a savings goal. I’m
> going to suggest she didn’t save enough to see if I can get insight. Also
> the household itself did well this year we deceased our order in rate by 15%
> while moving to a good mix of organics and non frozen items +20%.
[https://www.teamblind.com/post/My-wife-and-I-write-each-
othe...](https://www.teamblind.com/post/My-wife-and-I-write-each-other-annual-
reviews-Need-advice-eEzsioRp)
------
Can_Not
Thankfully my company has forgotten about their OKRs initiative. Trying to
figure out 10-15 _useful_ personal metrics was stressful and a waste of time.
And they rightfully would get bulldozed over and ignored by our actual need to
implement new change requests/features.
Not to mention all the "guides" seem to be dedicated to companies that are B2C
or already heavily use the word "engagement" or depend on ad clicks or only
make sense for the sales/marketing team.
------
tenaciousDaniel
We began using OKRs at my job a few quarters ago and it's been amazing. Though
there are two very important points to make here, that I don't think the OP
included:
1\. Contrary to the article, I would say that OKR's need not be binary
(complete or incomplete). We use a 0-1 scale but we consider >=0.7 to be
considered "done enough". The reason we do this is to encourage our teams to
strive for ambitious yet realistic goals.
2\. Essential to the idea of OKRs is the distinction between outcomes and
outputs. An output is the _actual work_ you're going to do, whereas the
_outcome_ is the resulting change/effect you want to have. A KR should track
the outcome, not the output. When devs first start out using OKRs, they write
in KRs like "decrease lines of code by 25%". This is actually an output. An
outcome would be "customer spends 50% less time waiting for page load".
Reducing the lines of code would contribute to that outcome, but so would many
other things. Those are outputs.
Here's a great book on the subject:
[https://www.amazon.com/Outcomes-Over-Output-customer-
behavio...](https://www.amazon.com/Outcomes-Over-Output-customer-behavior-
ebook/dp/B07QJ1Y8Y5)
------
deeblering4
Obsessing over productivity in your personal life seems like a mistake to me.
Sure, it’s good to get things done. But its also important to remember that we
are human beings. Quite literally animals living on a rock that is flying
through space.
Not every minute of our life needs to be tracked and judged and stressed over.
It’s perfectly heathy to just do nothing sometimes. It is ok to have an
unproductive day, or week, or period in your life.
------
gdubs
I agree with the other comments that life should have a flow element to it,
and that you can accidentally suck the joy out of it with too much structure.
On the other hand, some people have too little structure, and are miserable
because of it. I realized this when I had kids: structure didn’t make them
miserable; in fact, it gave them a sort of calm, and reassurance, and clear
expectations.
There’s a balance. The “key” part of OKR is important — find the most
impactful, highest leverage thing to measure, and focus on that. If you’re a
student, that could mean getting a good grade in a course that’s very
important to you. Too many goals can be as stressful as too few.
When I was younger I was perhaps too far on the unstructured side. There were
creative benefits of that, but the detriment was ratholing on things that
ultimately weren’t very impactful.
Ultimately, you have to keep yourself in check. It’s important to have open
ended, exploratory time with no clear purpose. It can also be helpful to have
some clear, _key_ results as an anchor.
------
aftergibson
I rarely wish my personal life was more like work. If you have longer term
ambitions approach it as a form of play, not obligation, you'll probably be
more likely stick to it.
------
throwaway5752
Anyone that's done larger scale project management knows that it doesn't fall
into agile or waterfall. You may use waterfall for the larger plan, and agile
to track individual projects in that plan. Like when people talk about tactics
vs strategy.
I think this use of personal OKRs might work for some people and might be a
great tool for focus. This feels like a technique to manage individual
projects, in that analogy.
However, I think it would be very easy to find yourself over-quantifying your
life and find yourself feeling adrift even though you're succeeding on the
numbers.
One thing that is very powerful about the regret minimization framework
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlgkfOr_GLY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlgkfOr_GLY)
\- Bezos, famously) is that if forcing you to think about _what you want to
accomplish with your life_ and _what makes you truly satisfied_. If you know
those, then quantifying your progress towards those goals makes sense. If you
don't, then it's probably premature to have OKRs. OKRs measure progress
towards a larger goal. Don't forget the lesson of The Hitchhiker's Guide, and
make sure that you are working towards good goals first.
------
nkrisc
Maybe this works for some people, but to me it looks like a great way to make
life as soulless as work. It also looks like it falls into the same trap of
objectives set to lead to preconceived key results. From the blog's example,
it looks like they wanted to read more and create some open source projects so
you find an objective that fits those key results, not the other way around. I
say this because reading 20 books and creating 2 open source projects are very
narrow ways of "boosting knowledge." There are lots of ways to boost
knowledge, and there are many different kinds of knowledge. Volunteering in a
soup kitchen, as a tired example, is a great way to boost your knowledge of
the world outside of your bubble and how other people live. Creating 2 open
source projects is a great way to thicken the walls of your bubble. Here's a
KR I'd suggest instead to boost knowledge: find a way to do outdoor manual
labor twice a week, whatever it is. That will boost your knowledge of
something, certainly.
But to each their own, whatever makes you happy. I just know this would make
me miserable. These key results look like a way to make your personal life
just more training for your work life.
------
Hates_
Two points that I would change when doing OKRs:
KRs should not be binary. They should be stretch goals. If you're hitting 100%
on your key results you need to be setting your sights higher.
KRs should be things you can "influence" and not things you "do". It's the
difference between "Get 100 subscribers to my newsletter" and "Write 100 blog
posts". Or to use the example in the post, the difference between "Earn a X%
return on my investments" vs "Read 3 books on investing". When you create key
results around things you do, you run the risk of spending your time focusing
on things that do not move the needle on your objectives. Last thing you want
is to reach the end of the quarter and find your efforts have not had a
tangible benefit. This is the classic "Outcomes" vs "Output".
------
lifeisstillgood
Look the point of education is that people who have travelled the road before
you tell you what milestones you should meet - an education syllabus is the
distilled "you ought to" of hundreds or thousands of people's lives.
But your actual life is a series of explorations - sure push yourself, but
more important than anything is time to build relationships. especially with
your kids if you have them.
------
m0zg
On a more tactical level here's what I do: every week I write what I've done
in the past week, and what I plan to do next week. I do not stick too closely
to my plan for next week, but do try to do whatever I planned, and more, with
the goal of maintaining high usable throughput rather than adhering to the
plan per se. I do not use any management tools, and I do not "track progress"
in any way. Work is broken down in chunks that take at most a day.
I do this both for my own work, and when consulting for clients (separate
lists). For clients the retrospective part is very easy to do, since I track
my time there.
This has two major effects:
1\. You sort of already know what to do when otherwise there'd be an urge to
procractinate because you "don't know what to do".
2\. You see your actual productivity, which, if you actually sit down and
work, tends to be substantial, but doesn't _feel_ substantial. To me it always
feels like I haven't done much, until I write down what I have actually done.
------
puranjay
I used to be a little obsessed over maximizing my own personal metrics. I'd
track the number of hours I'd worked, the number of days I'd hit the gym, and
even the number of hours I'd spent on hobbies.
Then I got burned out and took a 3 month sabbatical in November last year. And
just when I hit the desk again in February, the pandemic stuck. All those
elaborate plans and spreadsheets - out of the window.
All this has made me realize that's it's futile to try and optimize existence.
It actively kills creativity and joy. And things completely outside your
control will toy with your elaborate plans anyway.
------
sukilot
It's impressive that "OKRs" (inspired by Google in the modern business
culture) are so worshipped despite being a management truncheon that helped
Google go from being universally loved to being largely despised (killing
products that don't meet short term growth KRs, Google+ optimizing for
Engagement KRs, generally running the business to hit vanity metrics instead
instead of building a quality product and having faith in users to adopt it
and customers to pay for it.)
------
pandatigox
@duopixel mentioned that life is more akin to a poem, and I agree with that.
OKRs for personal management seem amazing on the surface, but they can be too
focused on optimising for goals. I would suggest adopting a mindset like
"First Things First" (from Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People) and incorporating OKRs into that instead. I think it would
give more flexibility in identifying what your values are in life, and
attempting to achieve goals within those values.
------
tiku
Does something like this exist that integrates with Google calendar? To keep
track of monthly or life goals?
------
PaulHoule
OKRs leave a terrible taste in my mouth from experience.
I saw them used at a struggling startup, where it seemed we had just one real
goal (e.g. "find product-market fit") rather than a large number of
objectives. We were already zig-zagging a lot, and we just didn't need the
distraction of creating and maintaining OKRs, never mind yet another tool to
create confusion about what was essential and what was not.
My first thought when I heard about it was the book "The Goal" where the
protagonist's friend immediately says that a business in crisis has one goal:
quantitative methods are important to find and remove the bottlenecks for that
goal. (In that a startup hasn't established a profitable business at first, it
shares quite a bit with a failing car factory or restaurant.)
Going back to Pareto, social scientists have established that you really can't
find a total ordering for the world's utility function. A world where
everything else is the same and I am $1 richer is a better world (partial
ordering), but you can't compare that objectively to a world where you got $1
and I didn't.
This connects to a group of results (such as the Arrow Impossibility Theorem)
that show that social science is limited in the way that mathematics is
limited by Godel's theorem, the halting problem, etc. There is no voting
system, economic system, etc. which provably produces "just" or "correct"
results and in institution design we are stuck with limiting the damage that
can be done by bad people.
A world where I hit 10 out of 10 OKRs is better than any in which I fail OKRs,
in the real world that I hit 5 out of 10 it is hard to compare that to other 5
out of 10 outcomes that I could have had if I had made different choices.
There are some jobs that you can break down into pieces, say a supermarket
cashier, the store has a model of what makes a good cashier, they have control
charts at the front or in the break room for each of them on two metrics, one
of which is the scan time (tied to the profitability of the business), another
is the % of times you hit the "No Sale" button to open the cash drawer between
customers, stop the scan clock, and cheat on the first metric.
That's profitable thinking because somebody thought it up a long time ago and
the store manager knows it and the checkout manager who trained you knows it,
and I thought it was fun when as a teen I could try but never beat certain
middle-aged women who reminded me of my mother.
To expect every person to make a quantitative model of their work and have
their manager review it, etc. is ridiculous. Many people don't think that way
but do great at their jobs. People who have PhD's in quantitative thinking can
also go into the weeds (e.g. either their first response is what I gave you
above, they will pick one thing to maximize, present a Pareto Frontier of
choices that is somebody elses problem, or just will go in circles until they
get lucky, or learn the first answer the hard way.)
If they can pass as a neurotypical they'll get control of their systematizing
urge and bullshit it the same way the sales person and art director do and get
back to doing work done.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Scalable computer programming languages - prakash
http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~mvanier/hacking/rants/scalable_computer_programming_languages.html
======
jrockway
He is exactly right with respect to the language concepts. The language
analysis is hit-or-miss; but nobody uses every programming language, so it's
hard to be informative here.
I can read Perl programs that are more than 100 lines long. It is all a matter
of learning Perl first. The same applies to every other programming language.
------
JoeAltmaier
Cool, that covers storage-class and precision. I'd add lifetime, volatility,
value dependencies, reference dependencies... I'd like to see that and more,
not because I want arcane syntax but because the compiler/runtime could then
fold code, ensure correctness, optimize, track dataflow, and generally cover
my butt so I could get from here to there using fewer critically-scarce
braincells. The slowest component of any software is the programmers brain.
------
raganwald
Much clearer than:
[http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2009-03-0...](http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2009-03-07/surreal.md#readme)
------
TwoBit
He says that garbage collection makes languages more scalable and lack of it
makes them less scalable. That flies in the face of reality. In practice
garbage collection bogs down huge applications. Microsoft tried to rewrite
major portions of Windows with GC and it was a dog and they killed it. It
seems that most of the biggest applications and systems use a classic memory
management scheme, directly or indirectly.
"An experiment is worth a thousand opinions."
~~~
gaius
He's talking about the cognitive overhead of programming in the large, not the
computational overhead.
I'm into OCaml but I think he's wrong to recommend it so highly in this
specific niche - OCaml's namespacing mechanism is weak compared to C++ and
Java's for example. Probably the most serious commercial users of OCaml are
Jane Street Capital, and their Yaron Minsky has complained about this.
------
HistoryInAction
Has HN just discovered the awesomeness of Mike Vanier? He's the best /teacher/
in the CS department because he can speak to those of us who aren't
programmers at heart. He's also a brilliant programmer, from what I
understand, but his best skill is that he can operate on a scale of
abstractions to reach a range of audiences.
------
mjw
I wonder what this guy thinks about Scala, which was named after this concept
of a Scala(ble) language...
~~~
jongraehl
No macros; otherwise it fits his bill fairly well.
------
nradov
I would like to have a language with a scalable type system. That means the
type system should accommodate everything from dynamic typing for quick hacks,
all the way to finely-grained static typing suitable for safety-critical
systems.
For example, a particular variable's typed might be refined over time in
stages like this.
1\. dynamically typed
2\. number
3\. floating-point number
4\. floating-point number between 0.0 - 100.0
5\. floating-point number between 0.0 - 100.0, with a minimum of 40 bits in
the fractional part
6\. floating-point number between 0.0 - 100.0, with a minimum of 40 bits in
the fractional part, and tell the execution environment to optimize for memory
use instead of performance
The languages in use today can cover parts of that spectrum, but nothing
allows the whole range.
~~~
anamax
Type systems that are concerned with representation and range of primitive
values aren't very useful. Replacing representation/structure with type names
doesn't improve things.
If I'm adding 3.5 oz of OJ to 6.7 oz of vodka, that's either a programming
mistake or a strong drink (represented programatically). (Yes, the correct
answer depends on context.) A type system that helps me in that situation is
worth something.
A type system that only addresses representation and range of primitive values
can't even begin to help in that situation.
Yes, units are a partial solution. (They also reduce programmer work - you can
add feet to furlongs and get something sensible.)
~~~
nradov
Agreed. I just used that floating-point variable as a simple example. It would
certainly be useful to have some concept of units built into the language. I'm
actually working on handling units in Java right now, as part of a larger
library for healthcare data.
[http://www.hl7.org/v3ballot/html/infrastructure/datatypes/da...](http://www.hl7.org/v3ballot/html/infrastructure/datatypes/datatypes.htm#prop-
PQ.unit)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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If You Have A Smartphone, Anyone Can Now Track Your Every Move - dhimes
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/27784/
======
DanielBMarkham
Note that the tech is there to do this with the cell radio -- no WiFi
required. It's just a lot more expensive and hasn't been widely commercialized
yet.
The gap that's left open here, as with many semi-anonymized tracking systems,
is joining the data up with some other stream of data that identifies the
person. Once cell phones become wallets, that should be easy enough for
merchants to do. Just join up the purchase transaction data with the location
data. Of course the obvious way to do this would be to simply provide an open-
access WiFi spot that required a valid email to access. And don't forget that
such publicly-accessible data as your WiFi radio ID is easily put on a
database and traded. Over time, using several such matching systems, you could
probably build up a 95%+ accurate tracking system of people with their
identities attached.
Not trying to over-dramatize this story. No matter what your views of privacy
and anonymity, to me it's fascinating from simply a technology standpoint to
watch all the pieces slowly lining up. It's like watching a puzzle slowly
being fitted together.
~~~
JackC
Ooh, let me help you over-dramatize.
One great way to radio-fingerprint people is when they use a point-of-sale
device like a credit card checkout or an ATM or a pay-at-the-pump gas station.
Put a camera on it (if you don't have one already), and you get (1) a good
picture of someone's face; (2) their name and maybe address; (3) a unique way
to identify them (credit card number); and (4) a short list of their possible
radio IDs. Within a few encounters, you can be 99.9% sure which radio IDs
belong to them. Put this system in, oh, 7-11s, Shell gas stations, and pay
ATMs, and pretty soon you'll have a match for a good chunk of the population.
Plus of course it gets easier as you go along -- the more people you have
affirmatively identified in a location, the easier it is to narrow down the
rest.
The product is a subscription database that will show you a map of your
surroundings with a mug shot for each person nearby. Click the picture and you
can find out anything that can be learned from their name, address, magazine
subscriptions, purchase history etc -- their politics, income, education,
interests, relatives, etc. If you've managed to link their email yet, you can
also get all their recent online activity ...
OK, maybe banks and gas companies aren't that evil, or at least would quickly
be stopped. So let me ask this: what kind of radio-fingerprint database could
someone build with a botnet? You control a webcam, a wireless card, and
unencrypted access to the user's internet browsing. Where does that get you?
(Probably all of this is a bit silly, but it's fun to imagine what could be
done with existing technology ...)
~~~
phogster
Big Brother, where art thou?
------
recursive
> Most of us leave Wi-Fi on by default, in part because our phones chastise us
> when we don't.
I rarely ever have wifi turned on. I've never been chastised.
~~~
fennecfoxen
The iPhone begs for wi-fi regularly (especially if you're looking at, like,
maps, or downloading things), makes it easier to connect (popup captive portal
dialog technology, Wispr) and makes it more tedious to turn off. Android
phones make it easy to turn on and off (custom widgets on the home screen) but
do not make it quite as easy to connect. Therefore you see a lot more iPhones
hanging around on random free wifi than Android, in terms of installed-base
percentage.
AT&T's early iPhone monopoly and the (in)ability of their network to handle
the increase of traffic in those early days is probably a factor which
contributed to this state of technology.
~~~
X-Istence
Not only that, but iPhones will automatically connect to any open ATT wireless
nodes, they are configured that way when you go purchase a device from ATT.
------
Sukotto
In addition, Navizon also has the ability to assign real
identifying information to a device, but it's a process
that could hardly occur without your knowledge.
When the user buys something, you have their name and credit card information
and maybe an existing member/discount card. Connect to whatever dot is closest
to the cash register. Maybe make it more of a Bayes weighted connection
instead of a _certain_ connection to handle edge cases like "spouse using
other spouse's card", "member-card swap club", etc
Easy, effective, and transparent to you, the person being tracked. You're just
buying something right?
You can track people in meatspace using cell phones the way you track them
online using browser cookies. This just makes it affordable (especially
compared to the cost of tracking via cell tower)
~~~
X-Istence
The thing is that they can track this over time ... so even if they registered
all the dots in the area at the time, if they do this often enough a pattern
will emerge where you are the only one with that specific radio ID that makes
a certain purchase. So unless you can get your friends to come with you every
single time they only need to get data from 3 visits or so...
------
inoop
For those that are interested in how this works: it's basically a feature of
the 802.11 MAC. When a station STA1 transmits an RTS packet (request to send)
to some other STA2, STA2 has to respond with a CTS (clear to send) packet
(collision avoidance, hidden terminal problem). So basically if a detector
knows that a mobile station exists with some MAC address, it can 'ping' it by
sending RTS packets to it. It has to know a) the MAC address, which it can
learn by overhearing probe request sent by the mobile station when its
scanning for access points, and b) the channel the station is on. Of course,
you can ping repeatedly on different channels or use multiple Wi-Fi
transceivers.
Note that when the mobile station is associated with an access point that uses
PSM (power saving mode) this does not work because the mobile station is in
sleep mode 99% of the time and only wakes up periodically to catch a beacon
packet from the access point.
By pinging the mobile station and measuring the received signal strength of
the CTS response packet at various locations you can triangulate the location
of the mobile station (or better yet, use fingerprinting, MLE).
------
cpeterso
I'm working on a hobby project to create a crowdsourced, "open data"
alternative to proprietary geolocation services like Google or Skyhook. This
would enable desktop applications (like freedesktop.org's GeoClue library) to
geolocate (using a web API or by downloading data to use offline).
A possible player in this area is WiGLE (Wireless Geographic Logging Engine),
a Wi-Fi "wardriving" website with a database of 60M Wi-Fi network's MAC
addresses and lat/long positions. Unfortunately, they don't want to create a
free service because they sell the database to undisclosed partners. Even
though most of "their" data consists of 10 years of wardriving volunteers
uploading their personal logs, WiGLE locks the community's data behind a
crappy Java map application and doesn't make the crowdsourced data available
for download or from a web API.
<https://wigle.net/gps/gps/main/stats/>
~~~
biafra
Yeah, those WiGLE guys are really not helpful. I drove around several weeks
and mapped thousands of new APs for them. They didn't even answer my email
regarding offline use.
~~~
cpeterso
That's interesting. They talked around my questions about offline use and a
GeoClue developer's questions about web APIs for Free software.
I wonder what their deal is. The "cynical me" wonders if they are a front for
a company that quietly profits off wardrivers eagerness to share. :(
------
CodeMage
Sensationalist headline alert: They forgot to finish the sentence with "if you
leave Wi-Fi turned on".
~~~
andrewaylett
How many people actually bother to turn their WiFi off? I don't know of any
who do it manually (although I do have Juice Defender to do it for me, based
on location).
~~~
Fishkins
I do. I believe it saves battery, and it's really quick. In Touchwiz, the
WiFi/GPS/4G controls are built into the notification pulldown. I believe the
same is true of cyanogenmod.
Having it automated might be better, but it's never bothered me enough to look
into that.
~~~
tsotha
WiFi is a big battery hog on my phone. I can go three days on one charge
without it, but if I connect up to my home network with WiFi I get less than
two.
~~~
brlewis
Are you running an app that's configured to perform a particularly data-
intensive activity only on wifi? That's the only way I can reconcile your
experience with ryandvm's comment (sibling to yours).
~~~
tsotha
Nope. That's with virtually no data usage at all. Just turning it on and
connecting to my home network.
------
Symmetry
Wait, so this is only inside someone's building? They can already track my
every move with cameras.
~~~
ansgri
AFAIK, current machine vision technology can provide at most ~85% tracking
accuracy in crowded environments.
~~~
fennecfoxen
This technique may be relevant to your interests.
<http://www.google.com/patents?id=hXYEAgAAEBAJ>
------
sk5t
How about regularly changing one's wireless MAC? I'd be surprised if this is
extremely difficult, even on an iPhone.
~~~
cpeterso
I believe some Android phones (at least, the Galaxy Nexus and Droid X)
randomly select a new MAC address on reboot. Whether this is a bug or a
feature depends on your point of view:
* Android Issue 23330: Galaxy Nexus (VZW/LTE) wifi MAC address changes with every reboot <https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=23330>
* Droid X WiFi MAC address changes when I power WiFi on and off. [http://rootzwiki.com/topic/1332-wifi-mac-address-changes-whe...](http://rootzwiki.com/topic/1332-wifi-mac-address-changes-when-i-power-wifi-on-and-off/)
------
SonicSoul
"most of us leave wifi on by default" I wonder if this is based on some real
evidence. I don't see any reason to leave wifi on by default, and most phones
i've owned don't enable it by default.
~~~
dhimes
Good question. When I purchased my first smart phone 18 months ago, I was
pretty compulsive about turning the wifi off if I was in a place where I
couldn't use it. I figured it would save battery. I lamented how the phone
(iphone 4) made it a little cumbersome to turn off the wifi (and bluetooth,
also) and asked others what they did (maybe 5 people). They said they just
left it on. Any lessening of battery life was outweighed by the convenience of
getting out the phone and going through the menus every time you leave the
house or office.
Now, I also don't turn off my wifi.
~~~
pyre
As of Gingerbread, the 'turn wifi on/off' button is in the top pull-down menu
in Android (that was previously reserved mostly for notifications). It's as
easy as swiping down and touching the button.
EDIT: After reading this[1], it's probably a Samsung-only thing. My wife's
Samsung phone is my only experience w/ Gingerbread. That said, I think that
this is an awesome addition based on my experience with Froyo.
[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3868005>
~~~
schiffern
For jailbroken iPhones, there is NCSettings, which adds SBSettings-like
settings options to iOS 5.0's Notification Center:
<http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/03/26/ncsettings/>
------
jhspaybar
When is the quaint notion of privacy going to die? I don't get it. Any privacy
you have today is purely through obscurity. I decided a couple years ago to
just go fully public, my Facebook is open, and I assume at some day in the
future, every post I've ever made anywhere will eventually be linked directly
to me through some kind of smart algorithm. The reality today is if you want
it hidden, don't do it, or hope no one ever has a reason to care if you did
it.
~~~
jcbrand
That's an incredibly naive and short sighted view to take. What if one day,
some activity that you now openly partake in, is condemned or made illegal and
all people who partake in it are rounded up?
That might sound paranoid but history is replete with examples of oppressive
regimes who captured, tortured and/or killed people they deemed subversive,
immoral or unwanted.
One recent example that's perhaps not a cliche is Uganda, where very
oppressive anti-gay laws are being passed and people in power are agitating
for the death sentence for homosexuals.
What if gay Ugandan people followed your example and lived their whole lives
openly on the internet?
~~~
angersock
Come, come, surely this would never be a concern. Don't ruin the poor kid's
delusions.
------
andrewaylett
Something that's not entirely clear to me from the article: is this how
Google's new indoor maps stuff works? If so, can someone reconcile that what's
described is a way for the infrastructure to track the handsets, that the
handsets are still anonymous, and that the maps run on the handset (so unless
I'm missing a link, the system must be passing data to the handset).
~~~
fennecfoxen
Google's new indoor maps stuff is implemented at the map layer. They don't
have the infrastructure in place to track your wifi from a location's sensors
and then communicate that back to the phone. It's just whatever physical-
location technology is already built into your phone (typically some
combination of GPS, cellular, and a list of what wifi access points are
available), plus an indoor floorplan.
------
fennecfoxen
Listening nodes? Bah. <http://nearbuysystems.com> does it without listening
nodes - just an existing wireless infrastructure.
Privacy implications? Indeed. That's why it's implemented as an opt-in guest
wifi network. Can't do that with a listening node either.
------
yahelc
Another startup in this space is Euclid:
[http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-11/euclid-
anal...](http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-11/euclid-analytics-
tracks-shoppers-smartphones)
Founder started Urchin, which Google acquired and turned into Google
Analytics.
~~~
yread
also <http://www.viewsy.com/>
They are in startup bootcamp
------
mirkules
"Navizon's system can determine where you are, but not necessarily who you
are, since all it sees is a Wi-Fi radio."
Maybe they can't find out WHO you are, but they can certainly find out where
you live: wigle.net
Apple and Google may also have their own reverse SSID geolocation service, so
there's really nothing stopping Navizon from finding out where you live.
Furthermore, they can use Kismet (or any other such tool) to find the SSIDs
that your phone is searching for -- and if you, for example, enable WiFi at
work AND at home -- they can also deduce where you work.
I find the service to be pretty creepy, personally.
~~~
StavrosK
Your phone doesn't usually broadcast an SSID. Your home router does. What
you've linked to isn't the same thing as the article, unless you're carrying
your router along with you everywhere.
~~~
cjmauthor
Even if we believe that our data is anonymous in one way or another the
reality is that there are teams everyday working on de-anonymizing data. If
you look at dozens of posted articles online referencing the restructuring of
anonymous data you will realize that what appears to be anonymous on the
surface might not be.
------
aidenn0
I almost never have WiFi on with my current phone, it causes my battery to run
dry at about 5pm. With my previous phone, the wifi was almost always on
though, as the impact to battery life was minimal.
------
Rickasaurus
This would be great with an opt-in/synchronize step to help find your friends
at huge conferences.
Edit: Also, I just realized that this could be fantastic for meeting up with
someone (especially in NYC). You just pick some general area to meet up in and
when the other (perpetually late) person shows up they'll know right where to
find you. You could even mix in the google maps API and get an ETA for their
arrival!
This is something I would pay a monthly fee for.
------
kenneth_reitz
Only if you bring it with you.
------
fooandbarify
I built an almost identical system this past year as my EE capstone project.
The accuracy of these systems is limited by environmental factors (large metal
structural/aesthetic features of a building) which can be corrected to a
certain extent, but it would still be trivial to avoid being tracked by using
a directional antenna.
------
Gring
Doesn't the iPhone only look for wlan networks once you start using it? At
least, this has been my experience in the past: after returning to my base
station, when I unlock it (turn on the screen), it takes a few seconds until
the network indicator changes to wlan.
If true, this issue is quite overrated, at least on Apple devices.
------
com2kid
I have a fundamental problem with the phrase
"Most of us leave Wi-Fi on by default, in part because our phones chastise us
when we don't."
I enjoy having more than 8 or 9 hours of battery life, WiFi is carefully
turned on and off. Heck my phone came with a giant WiFi toggle switch on the
home screen.
------
jmah
One thing that's not clear: Must the target device be connected to a
particular wi-fi network, or can devices even be tracked while wi-fi is on,
but not connected (or connected to a different network)?
~~~
tachim
It's not the actual connection itself that matters. If your phone ever
transmits a packet, it can be detected and associated with your phone's radio
id.
------
ronnoch
How would one go about setting this up in their own house? Privacy concerns
aside, I can think a some cool uses for this (more finely-grained location
based reminders for instance).
~~~
biafra
Doing the reverse might be easier. In Android you can see several access
points and their strength. You can trilaterate or record fingerprints.
And it works anywhere where there is at least one or two visible wifis.
No special infrastructure needed.
------
gouranga
Get a Windows Phone - it will ask every time it does everything if you want.
It's "opt out" by default which is more than I can say for Android or iPhone.
------
Zash
If you have a GSM phone, anyone could already track your every move.
<http://youtu.be/ZrbatnnRxFc>
------
chrisbroadfoot
As far as I know, WiFi triangulation indoors is only good to an accuracy of
about 10m, depending on configuration of the building.
~~~
fennecfoxen
Technically, you don't usually do wifi "triangulation". With triangulation,
you measure direction - not something most wifi sensors and antennas are
capable of. You'll use trilateration, which involves distance (you have a
signal strength measurement) and turning that into circles.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilateration>
------
moylan
i use llama on my android devices to turn on wifi only in places where it
knows and turn it off else where. saves power too that way.
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kebab.Llam...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kebab.Llama&hl=en)
------
Egregore
Can it track you when you're turning wifi off?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google’s Internal Response to Imminent E.U. Charges - virtuabhi
http://recode.net/2015/04/14/here-is-googles-internal-response-to-the-imminent-e-u-charges-memo/
======
pja
It ought to have been transparently obvious to Google execs from when Google
became utterly dominant in the web search space that the risk of anti-trust
violations was very high and if they wanted to avoid being censured they
needed to consistently take the high road & avoid using that dominance to
force entry into other fields at the expense of competitors. It has always
looked to me that Google was consistently stepping over that line in search &
advertising often enough that they were inviting anti-trust suits.
The agreements they force phone vendors to sign up to if they want to ship
Google Play services with Android phones also stink to high heaven & are an
anti-trust suit waiting to explode in Google’s face - that self-imposed banana
skin appears to be next on the EU commission’s agenda.
Google can afford to pay any fine the EU is likely to impose of course. The
greater cost may be in exec time & loss of face, plus the generalised malaise
that seems to go along with losing an anti-trust suit.
~~~
bla2
Compare Android with iOS. Android is open-source but if you want to ship any
Google apps, the company making these apps makes you sign an agreement that
forces you to ship a certain set of their apps. iOS is closed source, and you
just plain can't use it on your hardware at all. How is Android worse?
~~~
drited
That's a straw-man argument. He didn't say Android was worse than iOS. He said
Google was abusing its dominant position to expand into new markets.
------
vidarh
It's fascinating that their memo dismisses their search position so easily,
but focuses on graphs for shopping and travel that shows them in a weak
position in those areas, as either the memo is hiding their real arguments
(which might not be unreasonable - given its audience and the odds it would
leak), or they have not thought this through.
What the graphs show is that there are a number of strong competitors in the
shopping space, which may create a strong public interest in ensuring Google
is not being allowed to use it's perceived search monopoly position to muscle
into the space and limit competition by giving itself better positions in
results.
If the EU Commission finds that Google has a sufficient near monopoly on
_search_ and that their practices with respect to expanding their reach in
shopping is anti-competitive, then Google's current weak position in shopping
is entirely irrelevant unless they're hoping to show that being given such a
prominent position in their search results does not give a business any
advantages (their ad sales people ought to start hyperventilating if Google
makes that argument).
And in fact the existence of a healthy, competitive eco-system in shopping
would make any anti-competitive behaviour by a powerful monopolist far more
damaging and important to curtail in the eyes of the EU Commission. It should
not be something you'd want to draw attention to.
A much better argument would be to highlight far more the breadth of niche
search engines, and how e.g. searches on Amazon and Ebay and others should
_also_ be included in any assessment of search market share, and that this
would show that Google's market power is not as great as it would seem if you
only look at "general purpose" search engines.
~~~
7952
Google are not actually selling things, merely offering search of retailers
(who pay for the priveledge). From the consumers point of you I think this is
distinctly different from what Amazon do. On the Google I see they only push
Google Shopping through ads and don't appear to alter normal search results. I
suppose that they could have an advantage in terms of ads over competitors,
but that is the benefit they are selling to retailers so it isn't that
different to any other ads. IMHO it actually increases competition by
surfacing alternatives to Amazon that would otherwise be the first result.
~~~
vidarh
The competitors that are allegedly being hurt by their preferential treatment
here are not selling things either - they are comparison shopping sites.
It is not the consumers this anti-trust action is intended to protect, but
those competitors of Google Shopping. The presumption of a lot of anti-trust
law is that protecting competition is in the long term public interest that
outweigh short term impact on consumers. Some anti-trust actions are motivated
by direct consumer interest, but most is motivated by preventing anti-
competitive practices by a monopolist from harming competitors.
If competitors of Google Shopping are treated fairly in terms of search
results, and can buy the same kind of position that Google Shopping can (I
don't think they can), then there would be no issue.
My point in terms of Amazon is not that Amazon search isn't different to
Google - clearly they are, though they too have paid third party results on
their pages.
My point is that _to Google_ it's their search dominance they need to
downplay, not the relatively market position of Google Shopping. Giving their
own business preferential treatment is perfectly legal if they're not in a
monopoly position. The moment they're found to have a monopoly position, a lot
of forms of preferential treatment becomes illegal anti-competitive practices.
They can beat this in two ways: By convincing the EU or EU courts that they do
not have a search monopoly, or convincing the EU that they are not giving
Google Shopping preferential treatment. The latter I think would be extremely
hard given how Google Shopping results are positioned.
The way they can _not_ beat this is by talking about how there's a lot of
competition in comparison shopping. If anything, that gives the EU Commission
a stronger reason to act on allegations of anti-competitive behaviour, as it
means there are Google competitors that may be harmed by any anti-competitive
behaviour that might be occurring.
------
blfr
Those graphs are so sad. It's all American companies competing among
themselves: Twitter, Bing, DuckDuckGo... Even on our home turf, even with
natural advantage (not so much in search but definitely in shopping), local
competition is at the bottom, far behind Amazon and Ebay.
And this doesn't seem to worry anyone here. We continue to tack on more
regulation, tax rules detrimental to small businesses in their complexity, and
now surveillance that would make Obama blush[1]. Oh, but we will show these
evil monopolists with this formal complaint.
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9379299](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9379299)
~~~
woodpanel
Agree. The european problem: non-entreprenurial culture resulting in startup-
prohibiting red tape. Two factors where the US beats Europe. Now combine that
advantage the Americans have with the economics of scale of Software: It eats
the world.
Part of that cake: Pretty much any non-downtown store in Europe.
~~~
_delirium
In some places red tape is a big issue, but I don't think it's the whole
story. Starting a small business in Denmark nowadays is extremely streamlined:
you can do the entire registration process for the Danish equivalent of an LLC
online, and your business is registered within a day or so. It's so easy that
it's become common for people to start a company even for small-scale side-
business stuff. It's also fairly easy to hire and fire people (one prong of
the "flexicurity" policy [1]).
I think a big problem has been the economics of scale you mention, because
Europe has not really functioned as a common market. One part is language.
This is changing a bit (at least here), and most Danish tech startups now make
their products English-first, or even English-only, which greatly increases
the odds of international adoption. Some is more cultural, though; we don't
read French or Italian or German media, and nobody else reads Danish media, so
things that get a "buzz" in one country travel fairly slowly cross-border,
while American media spreads quickly. Probably a lot more factors of this
sort.
One issue of incentives, though, is that it can still be in many cases an
individually rational choice to target a more "provincial" market. If you're a
Danish startup and identify a Danish-specific underserved market, you have
less potential for growth, but may have higher probability of at least modest
success, due to much less competition. So even if it's better for Europe as a
whole for startups to target a broad, international market, it might be
rational for individual startup founders to target smaller, country-specific
markets. American startup founders to a large extent lack this choice, because
there are not many tech market niches which are, say, Tennessee-specific.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexicurity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexicurity)
~~~
woodpanel
Got to agree! Good points you made. I think Red Tape is a symptom of the
culture.
The language barrier keeps economics of scale from coming into effect for
founders. The abundance of investment capital is an important factor. If that
factor increases you become less dependant from factors like "knowing the
right people" and "got to having a superb idea".
Building upon your "provincial market" statement: Couldn't it be said, that
those country-specific niches will lure the entrepreneurial folk into building
dead-end, non-scalable products? :)
~~~
_delirium
On the last point, I think that's a risk, but the dead-end can still be big
enough to make a small company quite wealthy. For example one of the more
successful niche-tech companies in Denmark makes a portal that many Danish
doctor's offices use. They did a good job really digging into how their market
worked and what it wanted, so it's very customized to the way Danish
healthcare works. Although it has some benefits for patients too (if a doctor
uses this portal, patients can book appointments online, etc.), the real
selling point has been that they identified what administrative work produces
a lot of the per-office overhead at small offices, and offload much of that,
so the doctor saves more in administrative salaries than they pay for the
PaaS. They also have a fairly "high-touch" sales process to convince doctors
that their product really will help them out. This company is probably not
going to grow outside of Denmark, but it makes a lot of money in Denmark
(comparatively speaking), and its market is so specialized that it's somewhat
protected from external competitors.
------
acqq
EU: "Google, you use your de facto search monopoly attempting to win new
monopolies."
Google: "But look, we still haven't destroyed all the competition. Why don't
you please wait until we do?"
~~~
spacemanmatt
Courts generally hear actual and not hypothetical controversies. If the
competition can't yet show harm, there isn't a crime yet.
~~~
dragonwriter
> Courts generally hear actual and not hypothetical controversies.
The relevant EU Commission is not a court, and this isn't an adversarial
proceeding between Google and competitors, even for all that Google
competitors lobbied the EU for action.
> If the competition can't yet show harm, there isn't a crime yet.
The issue here isn't crime, or something that competition has to show
anything, and plenty of crimes do, in fact, exist when harm cannot be shown,
anyway.
~~~
spacemanmatt
> The relevant EU Commission is not a court
True, but the principle is a common one. And it is adversarial in that the
Commission is prosecuting and Google is defending. This isn't a cooperative
investigation.
To the extent that courts do not try hypothetical controversies, they also
depend on actual proof and not unproven harm. How do you suppose a company
would be found guilty of about-to-violate-antitrust-laws?
~~~
dragonwriter
> True, but the principle is a common one.
Its actually not as common as you might think; the principle in the US legal
system that courts do not address hypothetical situations and issue advisory
rulings distinguishes courts in the US system from courts in many non-US
systems and many non-court adjudicative bodies (in the US and other systems.)
> And it is adversarial in that the Commission is prosecuting and Google is
> defending
Its more inquisitorial than adversarial, since there is not a separate
prosecuting entity from the adjudicating entity, but the key point was that it
wasn't between Google and its competitors, so its competition doesn't need to
show anything, contrary to the suggestion made that the competition needs to
show harm.
> To the extent that courts do not try hypothetical controversies, they also
> depend on actual proof and not unproven harm.
Only if the legal standard relevant to the controversy requires concrete
harms. A prosecutor doesn't, for instance, have to show any harm when
prosecuting attempted murder.
> How do you suppose a company would be found guilty of about-to-violate-
> antitrust-laws?
Antitrust laws very frequently prohibit conduct undertaken with the _intent_
of monopolizing an industry, though the degree of actual harm is often
relevant to the zeal with which antitrust authorities _prosecute_ offenses,
and the remedies imposed. Actual harm is often relevant in antitrust analysis,
but may not be essential for a violation to occur -- just as the case for many
other kinds of violations of law.
------
michaelt
If those graphs are supposed to show that Google Shopping is an unpopular
also-ran that users don't like or use, you have to wonder why they keep
putting it in a big box with pictures at the top of search listings, like
[http://imgur.com/N3aGIVy](http://imgur.com/N3aGIVy)
~~~
jacquesm
According to Google in the early days 'paid inclusion' was one of the original
sins, and Google would never stoop that low. I personally think that paid
inclusion is actually less evil than promoting your own crap products over the
legitimate listings.
~~~
pliny
Isn't promoting your own crap just dogfooding paid inclusions?
------
wslh
I applaud the EU not because I love regulations but because Google is tasting
its own medicine.
Any country or group of countries with a shared legislation can be seen as a
platform. Yes, like the software platforms we are discussing here in HN. You
must obey their rules. People who wants 100% market freedom forget that when
companies like Google has an incredible market share THEY ARE THE MARKET, and
they impose their own rules (imposing agreements, modifying and limiting APIs,
etc) just like the EU is doing now.
There is only one thing that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, nobody is
innovating enough to really compete with Google in some important fronts such
as search. This can't be solved with regulations.
------
sschueller
Why is Apple not also in trouble?
The way safari runs on iOS compared to other browser is very similar to how
Microsoft shipped explorer with windows. Except windows did not prevent other
browser from using the full API and your app didn't have to go through a
approval process.
~~~
makeitsuckless
Didn't we already do this dance back in the Microsoft anti-trust days? Market
share makes all the difference.
That's the whole point of these rules, any company can do whatever they want
on their own platform _except_ when the become so dominant competition no
longer happens.
Please stop comparing _actions_ when it's _context_ that matters here.
~~~
spacemanmatt
I wonder that myself, sometimes. I think maybe it was a different generation
that actually paid any attention during the Microsoft trial days.
------
gggggggg
Is it just me or does that memo read like it was meant to be leaked. To the
point that it was not at all intended for internal.
~~~
gtirloni
There is no such thing as an internal memo anymore. Especially on matters
relevant to the public in general. It's a outdated practice of reporters to
call it "leaked" but these days it's just to draw some attention. It was
probably sent by their legal team themselves to send a message to the EU
commission.
~~~
smackfu
Well, no such thing as an internal all-hands memo. Sending something to
"everyone at Google" is basically the same as sending it in public.
------
makeitsuckless
Seems to me that Google suffers from the same cognitive dissonance that
plagued Microsoft in the past: it still sees itself as the small innovative
start-up, when in fact it has become the 800 pound gorilla that crushes the
competition.
------
kbwt
I don't think Google should be allowed to get away with clauses like this one
from their developer agreement:
4.5 Non-Compete.
You may not use the Market to distribute or make available any
Product whose primary purpose is to facilitate the distribution
of software applications and games for use on Android devices
outside of the Market.
See: [https://play.google.com/intl/ALL_us/about/developer-
distribu...](https://play.google.com/intl/ALL_us/about/developer-distribution-
agreement/archive.html)
~~~
spacemanmatt
Why not? Apple also won't let you go around their store for content sales in
apps.
------
pearjuice
I don't understand how an entity can force Google to change their algorithms.
They are a private company and with their own hard work they managed to get as
many clients as they currently have. So because so many people are using
Google as a search engine, they are now supposed to promote competitors of
their services because "so many people are using it"?
It's like saying "so many people are driving BMW, it's not fair for Audi, BMW
should include an Audi advertisement now and then. If they don't, they will
have to pay us a big fine!". Isn't Europe a free market?
------
wongarsu
>Mobile is changing everything — with the explosion of apps taking people
directly to the information they want. Today 7 out of every 8 minutes on
mobile devices is spent within apps.
How is that any different from people using websites directly? I don't see any
change here, except that now 1 out of 8 minutes is apparently spent away from
content?
>Apps that compete directly with Google such as [...] are easily available to
Android users
They forgot to mention how you are not allowed to distribute alternative app
stores over Google Play and can only be installed after changing the phone
settings.
~~~
ocdtrekkie
Yup. Google on Search: "Mobile is changing everything... please ignore the
fact that we control the mobile industry too."
------
Sven7
Increased competition? Seriously Google. The current count of European Search
Engines in your own memo is 0.
~~~
nostrebored
And is that a fault of Google or a terrible system for software innovation?
Google was created while students in a very successful university collaborated
with the means to actually make their vision a reality. Excluding GB, how many
schools in the EU fit that bill? I can think of ETH Zurich and that's it.
~~~
Sven7
The caliber of the schools don't matter anymore. Nobody is capable of
accumulating the quantities of data/processing power Google has access too. So
search innovation more or less just lies in their hands and hasn't really gone
anywhere beyond where they want it to go from lack of competition. Besides
ofcourse in China and Russia where local alternatives have the breathing room
to exist.
------
AlexMuir
Today 7 out of every 8 minutes on mobile devices is spent within apps.
That's the most interesting thing here. I'm interpreting it as meaning only 1
out of 8 minutes is spent browsing the internet or using the native SMS app.
~~~
kgrin
I kind of wonder if they're counting "Chrome" as an app, and the 8th minute is
actually SMS + phone (quaint, I know). I'd believe it either way, to be sure.
------
WhitneyLand
In the software space, how much tangible benefit has antitrust actually
provided to consumers?
Microsoft's power was reduced more by market shifts, failure to adapt, and
unanticipated new tech than it was by monopoly sanctions.
I do believe absolute free markets are not practical, as evidenced by the fact
they mostly don't exist.
However, the minimum force principle applies. For every government constraint
on tech I thing it's fair to ask, is there no way the market can fix itself in
5 years? How many disruptive shifts will happen during that time?
Maybe government could help more by starting first with stronger patent
reform?
~~~
blumkvist
Microsoft's power was reduced because of a huge anti trust suite. It was later
won on appeal, but they got the cue.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Why do open source projects attract more coders than designers? - ben-gy
======
swanson
I wonder if part of it is the mentality.
If a developer works on something for no money, it's open source. If a
designer works on something for no money, it's free spec work.
Developer culture praises open source. Designer culture seems to be vehemently
opposed to free spec work.
~~~
glimcat
With code, there's a certain attitude of "I need this, so I'm going to make
it, but I have no intention of ever productizing it so why not share it?" It's
a massive "give a penny, take a penny" jar that enriches the entire software
ecosystem.
The analogous situation for graphics design would be something like textures &
Photoshop filters. Or icon packs. Or fonts. Which you can find lots of for
free (sometimes even with useful licensing attached).
But who the heck is going to come do free graphics work for my new Flask
extension when they don't even use Flask, or understand what it is, or have
any motivation beyond "hey come do free work for me"?
On the other hand, you have cases like the current mpld3 logo update. The
project's author asked for help with the logo on Twitter, and got 6+ solid
responses back. People are glad to help _if they have the skills to do so_ and
_if they 're part of the project's community_. Design vs. development is not
relevant, only relevance is relevant.
[https://github.com/jakevdp/mpld3/wiki/Logo-
Proposals](https://github.com/jakevdp/mpld3/wiki/Logo-Proposals)
~~~
iamthepieman
I agree wholeheartedly. Graphic design work tends to be more specific to an
individual project (except for the things you mentioned like icons etc)
whereas developers often need to extend a framework and since the work is
already done, why not give it back to the community.
------
geebee
One possibility is that designers can show their work even if it isn't open
source. If you did the design for a public-facing website, you can show it,
talk about it, make it part of your portfolio. A lot of the code is viewable
in the browser anyway.
Backend coding on closed-source projects, on the other hand, is rarely
visible, rarely credited, and under some circumstances, you can get into hot
water legally by sharing that work.
So open source may provide a degree of professional exposure for coders that
designers already get regardless of whether the project is os.
------
draker
I think that many designers have made contributions to open source though not
directly contributing to a projects codebase. The things that come to mind are
icon sets, background images, gradient slices and fonts. The icon set used in
Bootstrap serves as a perfect example.
> Glyphicons Halflings are normally not available for free, but their creator
> has made them available for Bootstrap free of cost.
This is a situation that the designer has specifically contributed the asset
to the project. Though I believe the more common situation is for designers to
have assets on their website available for use and discovery by anyone, rather
than tied to a project.
------
pubby
Well, it's probably a good thing, as otherwise the project would end up with
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee)
For actual reasons why, I think the biggest reason is that designers don't
have any actual power in open source software. They can _ask_ people to
implement their changes, but can never do it themselves. And the people they
ask care more about solving problems than appealing to the masses.
------
the906
Designer/Developer ish guy here. Can you give me some examples of what this
would fall under? Like...inkscape? Thats open source right? Do they want/need
designers? Or how could I get involved in this? (My current closest thing to
this is I randomly add icons to the noun-project. Conceptually I could make
money off that but not really, so I view it more as public help...now you can
get an easy to use tesseract icon if anyone ever wants it!)
------
olssy
Designers like sexy, developers like geeky, that's always been my reasoning
behind it. It's a shame too because end users don't seem very interested to
use a product if there isn't a sexy interface. I also think the money has to
do with it, I can work for 3 months a year and have enough to live on, I'm not
sure most designers can pull in money like that, can they?
------
pjc50
Design doesn't "scratch an itch" in nearly the same way. Also, it's less
reusable; many developers are allowed to work on their project as it's useful
to their employer.
------
danso
Can you give examples? Are you talking about open-source projects that appeal
to both coders and designers, yet are coder dominated? Or are you asking why
there are more open-source coding projects versus designers? And what do you
mean by "attract"? Do you mean in terms of popularity, or in participation?
Either way, I believe part of the cause is the inherent nature of the medium.
When I commit new code to an open source project, the maintainer can easily
see the diff, and in most big projects, there is automated testing and
benchmarking so that the maintainer doesn't even have to do the full-
regression testing themselves.
Furthermore, well-organized code libraries are divided into components...it's
easier to chip away at these small units (whether they be files or function
bodies) than it is to chip away at, say, a logo-image, that multiple people
are working on.
Philosophically, code is more straightforward. While programmers may debate
certain issues of style and design, if I were to take an existing code file
and slash it in half, while increasing performance by 50% and not killing
readability...and pass the automated test suite, there would be little debate
about merging in my change.
However, how do you increase the "performance" of a visual design? There is no
standard on aesthetically-performant, so cutting/adding 50% to a design means
nothing on paper, and of course, there's not much in the way of
regression/benchmark test suites for visual design. This is what makes visual
design exciting from an artist's standpoint, and incredibly frustrating from a
collaborative viewpoint.
And since many of the best open-source projects are collaborations...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
India is drowning in its own excreta - ragsagar
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psi-vid/2013/04/24/india-drowning-in-its-own-excreta/
======
MarkMc
Here's an extract on this topic from a fantastic book called 'Poor Economics':
Most experts agree that access to piped water and sanitation can have a
dramatic impact on health. A study concluded that the introduction of piped
water, better sanitation, and chlorination of water sources was responsible
for something like three-fourths of the decline in infant mortality between
1900 and 1946 and nearly half the overall reduction in mortality over the same
period. Moreover, repeated bouts of diarrhea during childhood permanently
impair both physical and cognitive development. It is estimated that by piping
uncontaminated, chlorinated water to households, it is possible to reduce
diarrhea by up to 95 percent. Poor water quality and pools of stagnant water
are also a cause of other major illnesses, including malaria,
schistosorniasis, and trachoma, any of which can kill children or make them
less productive adults.
Nevertheless, the conventional wisdom is that today, at $20 per household per
month, providing piped water and sanitation is too expensive for the budget of
most developing countries. The experience of Gram Vikas, an NGO that works in
Orissa, India, shows, however, that it is possible to do it much more cheaply.
Its CEO, Joe Madiath, a man with a self-deprecating sense of humor who attends
the annual meeting of the world’s rich and powerful at the World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in outfits made from homespun cotton, is used to
doing things differently. Madiath’s career as an activist started early: He
was twelve when he first got into trouble—for organizing the labor on the
plantation that his father owned. He came to Orissa in the early 1970s with a
group of left-wing students to help out after a devastating cyclone. After the
immediate relief work was over, he decided to stay and see if he could find
some more permanent ways to help the poor Oriya villagers. He eventually
settled on water and sanitation. What attracted him to the issue was that it
was simultaneously a daily challenge and an opportunity to initiate long-term
social change. He explained to us that in Orissa, water and sanitation are
social issues. Madiath insists that every single household in the villages
where Gram Vikas operates should be connected to the same water mains: Water
is piped to each house, which contains a toilet, a tap, and a bathing room,
all connected to the same system. For the high-caste households, this means
sharing water with low-caste households, which, for many in Orissa, was
unacceptable when first proposed. It takes the NGO a while to get the
agreement of the whole village and some villages eventually refuse, but it has
always stuck to the principle that it would not start its work in a village
until everyone there agreed to participate. When agreement is finally reached,
it is often the first time that some of the upper-caste households participate
in a project that involves the rest of the community.
Once a village agrees to work with Gram Vikas, the building work starts and
continues for one to two years. Only after every single house has received its
tap and toilet is the system turned on. In the meantime, Gram Vikas collects
data every month on who has gone to the health center to get treated for
malaria or diarrhea. We can thus directly observe what happens in a village as
soon as the water starts flowing. The effects are remarkable: Almost
overnight, and for years into the future, the number of severe diarrhea cases
falls by one-half, and the number of malaria cases falls by one-third. The
monthly cost of the system for each household, including maintenance, is 190
rupees, or $4 per household (in current USD), only 20 percent of what is
conventionally assumed to be the cost of such a system.
~~~
j_s
[http://www.amazon.com/Poor-Economics-Radical-Rethinking-
Pove...](http://www.amazon.com/Poor-Economics-Radical-Rethinking-
Poverty/dp/1610390938)
Would be interested to hear about any similar books you'd recommend.
~~~
mooneater
[http://www.amazon.com/The-End-Poverty-Economic-
Possibilities...](http://www.amazon.com/The-End-Poverty-Economic-
Possibilities/dp/0143036580/)
~~~
mooneater
Poor Economics criticizes this book (by Sachs) "who posits that poor people
are poor because they are caught in one or more poverty traps"
--[http://www.philanthropyaction.com/articles/book_review_poor_...](http://www.philanthropyaction.com/articles/book_review_poor_economics)
------
aashaykumar92
Having been to India quite recently (and being Indian), I talked to a lot of
family members there about this issue, among others, as I saw it happen time
and again. One of the things that really frustrated me was the pure lack of
accountability in general. I said 'among others' earlier because I am also
referring to environment issues such as littering and pollution. The people
there aren't dumb--they know all of these actions have harmful and negative
effects on others' help and the general environment, but they would rather not
care than care for the most part. Herein lies the fundamental problem...if you
would rather not care, well there's no solution to that. I am originally from
Northern India but on my most recent visit, we went to Mumbai. If the ocean
wasn't brown and there was less pollution, it would hands-down be one of the
most beautiful cities in the world. But no one there seems to look at what
could be but rather what it is and accept it.
So rather than spreading knowledge about these issues (which, don't get me
wrong, is also good), there has to be an attitude change. You can't blame the
government and I never like doing that, but it would be wonderful if the
government would get involved in preventing these environmental/health
jeopardizing actions. The problem with this, of course, that the country is so
populated that it is extremely hard to make this drastic of an imposition and
follow through with it.
~~~
tomphoolery
> The people there aren't dumb--they know all of these actions have harmful
> and negative effects on others' help and the general environment, but they
> would rather not care than care for the most part.
Well that's just disgusting. I don't think you could pay me enough money to
step foot in that country.
~~~
realrocker
That is what happens when a plethora of cultures have migrated to a region,
each culture growing it's own little bubble. India has been a recipient of
migrants from Central Asia, North Asia and Europe over the last two thousand
years. India to it's smallest unit is a hive of ghettos, each ghetto not
caring about the other one, while striving in the futile exercise of ensuring
it's own survival. People don't care about cleanliness or have general civic
sense because they don't see themselves as one community. The lack of the
sense of "India" is appalling. We have Kashmiris, Biharis, Marathis,
Gujaratis. Oriyas, Nagas, Tamils, Other South Indians, Bhaiyyas(from Uttar
Pradesh), Punjabis and a thousand of other sub-cultures. India has not had
Independence long enough to have that sense spread in it's massive population.
From the heights of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pataliputra>, and later
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagara_Empire>, India has been seizing to
become a more "me and my tribe first" civilization due to the always constant
influx of foreigners looking to settle. In 2013, it's just, "me and my 1000
square feet flat first".
Indians are in for a massive shock when they realize they can't keep
themselves prosperous for long without thinking of the community first. The
"Red Revolution"(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite>) and the massive
protests in the big cities are indications of a society in great distress.
It's going to implode. In any case, it's going to get much worse before it
get's any better.
The 10th century chronicler, observed this about India: "The Hindus believe
that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like
theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs.They are haughty,
foolishly vain, self-conceited, and stolid. They are by nature niggardly in
communicating that which they know, and they take the greatest possible care
to withhold it from men of another caste among their own people, still much
more, of course, from any foreigner ... Their haughtiness is such that, if you
tell them of any science or scholar in Khorasan and Persis, they will think
you to be both an ignoramus and a liar. If they traveled and mixed with other
nations, they would soon change their mind, for their ancestors were not as
narrow-minded as the present generation is."
\--<http://www.shunya.net/Text/Blog/AlBeruniIndia.htm>
~~~
Houshalter
The US is also mostly immigrants from different places. It is also more
individualistic, but not in the sense you describe India. A lot of people know
their families are mostly Irish/German/Whatever but for the most part no one
cares. I'm not saying this because of "my country is better than yours" shit,
but I'm legitimately interested in what causes the difference. Why do some
groups assimilate into a common culture and others do not? Immigrants to the
US did initially congregate and form their own communities like that.
~~~
realrocker
U.S has had the benefit of favorable geopolitics(a good
read:[http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-united-
states-p...](http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-united-states-
part-1-inevitable-empire)). A large living space and a fairly sturdy inland
waterways.Historically, the pressure on natural resources has been mitigated
by easier transport of goods and people(unlike India which doesn't have inland
waterways). In last few decades U.S has also closed gates on immigrants for
good. Though that has slowed down the process of ghettoization, eventually
large swathes of U.S will convert into American-Hispanic and other similar
sub-cultures. And then it's just "my tribe vs. your tribe". The U.S is at the
beginning of the road, and in time when there is a greater pressure on
resources, you are looking at yet another India within the next 100-150 years.
Let's just hope that it doesn't happen too soon and that human social
mechanics today is advanced enough to handle another great civilization
falling into chaos due to clash of cultures. The good news is that this time
we have the Internet.
~~~
khuey
The US has certainly not closed its gates on immigrants for good. Immigrants
as a percentage of population is close to the highs of ~15% seen in the late
1800s and early 1900s and has been steadily rising since the 1970s.
------
tathagata
I think we Indians are still trying to overcome our false sense of
cleanliness. We keep our own houses clean but expect divine intervention
outside. Partly due to the still-existing caste system, where the lowest
castes are responsible for clearing the muck, associations with this work is
looked down upon. Therefore the uninterestedness of the typical Indian in
solving the problem. Public toilets are few and far between, and most go
unmaintained for lack of people willing to do the job. This attitude is
changing fast though, thanks largely to improvements in technology and pay
which make it safer to engage in and survive doing such work.
------
spikels
Open defecation is also practiced in San Francisco. I have seen is occurring
in front of my apartments and on the street. You can find human feces on
almost any walk through SOMA, the Tenderloin or Civic Center area if you know
what to look for (expert tip: dogs don't look for hiding places to poo).
We have decided this is not a problem.
~~~
veidr
Others of us have decided not to live in San Francisco (or India).
I'm not being entirely flippant; I'm originally from the Bay Area, and the
filth is a significant part of the reason I live in Tokyo now. Regularly
encountering human feces is one of several things I don't miss.
~~~
Aloisius
I'm also from the Bay Area and have lived in SF proper for about 15 years. I
don't think I've ever encountered human feces. Were you a sewage worker?
~~~
spikels
I wish I was a SF sewage worker I'd be retired with a nice pension by now ;)
Aloisius you just needed to walk around more in the downtown area - I walk
everywhere. Next time you are here take a look around the NW corner of Mission
and 8th in the nooks and crannies of the PG&E building. I'm betting you will
find something if it has not just rained.
This stuff is just not well documented but this guy has a blog about his
street in SOMA (somewhere just of 6th near Mission) that captures some of the
flavor of the place:
<http://www.olddirtyalley.net/>
Why is this stuff just invisible to so many people here?
------
DigitalJack
The history of civilization is full of inventive people finding ways to make
life better, and then doing so. Why does this not happen in these poverty
stricken areas? Is it because anyone intelligent enough to do something about
it leaves?
They don't have to jump straight to modern plumbing to have their lives
improved.
~~~
thisrod
There are many hypotheses about this; history only happens once, so it's hard
to test them. Here are a couple of the more interesting ideas.
Jared Diamond: Eurasia runs east-west and has a large temperate zone. This
supports enough biodiversity that the plants and animals you need to start
farming can be found in one place. Other continents run north-south, lack
biodiversity, and couldn't be farmed until Europeans introduced some critical
species.
Lots of lawyers and economists, whose names I've forgotten: By default,
someone bigger than you nicks whatever you make, until you get sick of making
stuff. The exception is when you make weapons, and nick stuff from people
bigger than you. Something strange and kind of miraculous happened in England
a few centuries ago, and led to the only society that isn't like that.
~~~
Radim
And now for something completely different:
Could the strange and miraculous have been... Dennis Moore?!
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLkhx0eqK5w>
------
ultimoo
Great article. Does convey some of the harsh realities. However, I didn't
understand why outline such a well written article with a meaningless
sensational headline. "Drowning in its own excreta", really?
~~~
kamakazizuru
link baiting is the thing to do these days! sad truth.
~~~
arbuge
Catchy headlines have been important since before the Internet though.
------
ad93611
There is an amazing citizen led initiative called the "The Ugly Indian" to
clean Indian cities. They've been having significant impact in Bangalore.
See some of their work here,
[http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ugly-
Indian/12345979104661...](http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ugly-
Indian/123459791046618)
<http://www.theuglyindian.com/about_us.html>
------
nnq
Overpopulation is a problem because _one_ government can only _properly
manage_ a limited number of people (by "properly manage" I mean not _control_
, that's easy to do by controlling the upper class and having decent
police/military/intelligence systems, but _provide adequate living conditions
for, actually solve health and education issues etc._ ).
Compare to the US ratio of population of ~300M population to 1 government
(even ignoring that in the US states have real autonomy and are mostly self
governing!) to India's ratio of ~1200M to 1 government. Similar ratios for
European countries too. _India should be at split in at least 4 different
countries, with different governments, internal and external policies, armies
and maybe even a "healthy" dose of conflict/competition between them. It would
be worse for some new countries and for some people, but on average better for
most. Sticking together is not the way to solve a poverty type problem!_
------
naanalla
Indian here. Yes population is the biggest problem for us.Which naturally
leads to many problems like this one.
* I agree with author this is absolutely true for slums like Mumbai. (But does not apply to whole India. Second tier urban areas scenario is not this bad ) * I agree that in most of rural area practice open defecation.
In general whey open defecation is in practiced,
* Since we have too many people even one bathroom in rural area per home is not sufficient(seriously) * Attitude of people towards cleanliness.
IS GOVT DOING SOMETHING FOR THIS?
* Yes lots of schemes have come(more than 10-20 years back and still continuing) in its slowly picking up. * The best scheme in my state(Karnataka)the govt is paying Rs 7000/- for each house to encourage them to construct toilet from 'gram panchayath'. * Thanks to media and celebs who are getting involved more these days.
Yes we have problem, we need to solve it.
~~~
killerpopiller
imho the overpopulation needs to be adressed the chinese way. I don't think
that throwing tech at it will solve the problem. I remember vaguely, that one
indian gov. wanted to sterilize slum inhabitants and wasn't reelected.
~~~
userulluipeste
The population is not a problem, the population is a resource. Of course, to
be (more) valuable (than it is now) it has to receive some
attention/investment. The sterilization of people that possess the potential
of growing and becoming beneficial to society is, for the society as a whole,
a form of self-mutilation.
~~~
killerpopiller
I agree to certain degree, but the indian pop.growth is just not sustainable.
Closing the eyes doesn't make it go away:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:India-demography.png>
------
anuraj
India is what you get when governance gives way to bureaucracy, morality gives
way to greed and spirit gives way to helplessness. Indians die by millions on
the wayside consumed by hunger, disease and violence - and the well to do 20%
looks down from their glass houses built on excreta. Welcome to oldest
civilization!
------
ChrisNorstrom
India isn't alone. Dubai is having a massive problem with sewage and in the US
there are a lot of communities that have septic tanks which, when they fail,
can cause ground water pollution. Even in St. Louis, Missouri, USA we still
have overflows in which the sewer system excess gets purged into streams and
rivers when it becomes too much to handle for the sewer system. A lot of US
cities have this problem.
And this is in 2013. We have a robot on Mars, people in space, and flags on
the moon.
The problem is that our only current solution is an extremely expensive
underground sewage system with thousands of miles of pipes, treatment plants,
and storage containers which take a long time to build and are expensive to
maintain and replace. That's not something realistic for fast growing
communities or rising countries. There's really no cheaper better alternative.
Is this an industry ripe for disruption. Dare anyone challange the
sewer/septic tank gods?
~~~
lucaspiller
> Dubai is having a massive problem with sewage
I don't understand why people always bring this up about Dubai. In 2010 a new
treatment plant was completed that nearly doubled capacity. Dubai probably has
a better sewage system than most US cities now (and the funds to expand it if
needed). The controversy was that in 2009 there were lots of queues for
sanitation trucks to dump their waste, so a lot of drivers just illegally
dumped it. This resulted in some of the waste ending up in the sea water, so
there were concerns over the health of beach goers (tourists). Where I'm from
in the UK, up until around 15 years ago, raw sewage was dumped into the sea by
design [0].
[0]
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-332000-90000...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-332000-90000/page/9)
~~~
ChrisNorstrom
That's my fault for not keeping up with the times. Sorry I didn't know that
was over and fixed. My original point still stands, when cities (even rich
ones) expand very rapidly, a traditional sewer system takes too long to build
to keep up with demand.
~~~
claudius
A traditional sewer system is not more complex than a traditional fresh water
system or a traditional paved road system – in fact, it might well make sense
to build the sewers when you pave the roads (or slightly before that…).
What it does take is some planning and some functional local authority.
------
broabprobe
Composting toilets are the future.
~~~
Houshalter
Would that work on a massive scale? What's the reason it isn't done now?
~~~
Aloisius
You still have to physically remove the composted feces which is a logistical
nightmare in an urban area, there are reliability problems with maintaining
the proper environment for proper decomposition (temperature & moisture) and
compared to pit toilets are bigger and more expensive (though in an urban
area, you don't have the land for pit toilets).
Really, a wet sewage system is superior for densely packed areas.
~~~
lostlogin
Wet doesn't mean pipes to a processing plant necessarily though. Ive seen an
amazing system that used a moderate sized pond, masses of reeds and somehow
this processed the water and filtered it. There were fish and ducks swimming
in it. That said, if dealt with waste from one house. I'm not sure this would
scale very well.
------
Brajeshwar
A picture I took few years back. This was in the heart of the City of Mumbai
(Bombay), near residential and lots of commercial establishments.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/brajeshwar/1283051163/>
------
known
4 people in a home hate each other 24x7 for the past 3000 years (caste).
What will an Intellectual (Gorbachev) do?
Give them their share of land/Independence and tell them to go and build their
own home/nation. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika> aka
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Award>
------
gadders
One thing that I think is sad is the poor Dalit ("Untouchable") girls who have
it as their job to collect other people's shit using bits of cardboard or tin
:-(
------
intelliot
Reminds me of the horse manure crisis in NYC
[http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/11/16/09111...](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/11/16/091116crbo_books_kolbert)
Not that any comparison can be made, they are really completely different.
------
mbesto
This is a classic case of Confirmation Bias[1] - if no one else is cleaning it
up, it means I'm not responsible myself.
[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias>
------
ChuckMcM
This sort of stuff makes me sad. But also strangely curious, since the
suggestion is that these conditions are not survivable and yet people do
survive. Are millions of people dying in Mumbai's slums and we're not hearing
about it?
~~~
w1ntermute
From TFA:
> Around 1,000 children below the age of five die every day in India from
> diarrhea, hepatitis-causing pathogens, and other sanitation-related
> diseases, according to the report of United Nations Children’s Fund.
------
gadders
For an excellent book on sanitation, I can recommend "The Big Necessity" by
Rose George.
<http://rosegeorge.com/site/books/the-big-necessity>
------
npguy
What most people do not realize is this: Mumbai also has the most expensive
house in the world - thats right, in the world:
[http://statspotting.com/the-most-expensive-home-in-the-
world...](http://statspotting.com/the-most-expensive-home-in-the-world-mukesh-
ambanis-antilia/)
~~~
Someone
For the curious: [http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/30/home-india-billion-
forbesli...](http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/30/home-india-billion-forbeslife-
cx_mw_0430realestate.html). Tastes differ, let's say.
------
Tichy
Could there be money in it if somehow it could be converted into fertilizer
(obviously with some hygienic challenges)?
------
sirwanqutbi
no mention of india spending $1 trillion on infrastructure over 2013 - 2018.
~~~
mb_72
Spending money and seeing the results of spending the money are two different
things entirely.
~~~
sirwanqutbi
spending $1 trillion by 2018 is alot of money.. Dont you think articles like
these are a precursor for the year 2018 ?
why are we hearing about indian sanitation and infrastructure NOW ?!
------
rikacomet
The problem is that government clearance aren't up to speed with how the
population housing need is growing. This leads to unauthorized colonies,
unplanned, un-organised and unhygenic.
Few hundred years ago, the Harrapan Civilization had one of the best water &
sewer management systems. But today, finding a public pool in Delhi, is like
finding a Oasis in the desert.
In Delhi itself, the biggest issue, surrounding sewer and management of water
bodies is the cleaning up of Yamuna River, many have fought for it, many have
eaten corruption money out of it, subsequent governments have failed to
address this issue.. about time it comes into the limelight.
------
yoster
After reading this, it makes me want to hug my toilet...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Eavesdropping on Expressions (Ruby) - briancooley
http://moonbase.rydia.net/mental/blog/programming/eavesdropping-on-expressions.html
======
dylan
This is now in the Ruby 1.9 core:
<http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-1.9/classes/Object.html#M000309>
~~~
tyler
It's also built into Rails.
~~~
zenspider
both of these points make me sad.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Vue.js founders response to removing Black Lives Matter banner - 10-6
https://github.com/vuejs/vuejs.org/issues/2616#issuecomment-639523406
======
mindcrime
The best example I've seen yet, that illustrates why the Black Lives Matter
message is important and distinct from saying "All lives matter" in a just way
went something like this (paraphrased from memory, and elaborated/expanded
from my imagination):
Person: That house is on fire, somebody should do something.
Person2: What about those other houses? They could catch on fire someday as
well? Isn't it discriminatory to focus on this one house? All Houses Matter
Person: Yes, all houses matter but this house is on fire Right Now. It needs
immediate and specific attention.
Person2: What do you have against those other houses? They are made of wood
and they are capable of burning as well.
Person: Are any of them ON FIRE RIGHT NOW?
Person2: No, but they can catch on fire and some of them probably will one
day. We should think about all houses and mandate residential sprinklers in
future homes.
Person: YES, but RIGHT NOW this house is ON FIRE and somebody should call 911
so they can put the fire out RIGHT NOW.
Person2: Why is this house so much more valuable than all the other houses?
What about all of the other houses that have burned down?
Person: Aaargghgghghg!!!!!!!
------
devado
I am surprised there was nothing in support for hongkong, given that vue
founder is chinese.
------
minimaxir
Misleading title: it's a response to _users_ removing the banner via AdBlock.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Everyone Hates Customer Service - psim1
https://www.wsj.com/articles/everyone-hates-customer-service-this-is-why-11564804882?mod=rsswn
======
kilburn
I won't deny many companies are playing this game of skimping as much as they
can get away with, and I despise this practice. There's also the other side of
the fence though: customers who are just a resource drain.
I've recently been involved in some customer support efforts, and there are
customers who are just unreasonable. They'll demand to have their cake, eat it
too, and even get a new one. For the nuisance that a completely made up
problem caused them. A problem that wouldn't even be your fault if it had been
real.
They are a vast minority, but they spoil it for everyone. They consume your
time and especially your team's morale. There is only so much bullshit a
support agent can take before getting fed up with it and degrading their
service to subsequent customers.
Now the organization has to figure out a way to detect those customers early
enough to prevent them from screwing up everything for everyone. But false
positives are very expensive: get one wrong and it becomes a PR nightmare.
Furthermore, if you try to give the best possible support, you must empower
your agents to act. They can now screw up and even get your company in legal
trouble. Good training reduces this risk, but humans making calls means errors
will be made eventually.
In the end, reducing support to the bare minimum possible appears a reasonable
option for many companies: it is the easiest to implement, it reduces legal/PR
risks, and it has a very measurable and consistent effect (how many people
stop buying/using your service after failing to get support). If that number
is low enough, it just doesn't make economical sense to try to provide good
support, which is a _very_ hard endeavor for the reasons mentioned above.
~~~
hn_throwaway_99
It's also possible, though, that companies are inadvertently training
customers to be "bad customers" with the games they play around retention.
Consider the example of the AT&T customer in the article. The agent said there
was "nothing she could do" until right up to the moment when the customer was
switching. It's now common knowledge that this is basically the best way to
get a deal, so many people skip the whole "Can you please give me a discount?"
and instead go straight to the combative "Just close my account" first, as
that's often the only way to get a deal.
~~~
doctorpangloss
That's funny, I regularly say please give me a discount or credit, politely,
in person, emails or on phone. For the last four times I can remember, the CS
rep was always nice and on top of that, does it.
~~~
mieseratte
For me it depends on the company. The large, "everyman" companies, the
Comcasts and T-Mobiles of the world, have always had me dealing with a
customer service representative on a script giving me friction about something
that is completely within their reach, but they're made to be unhelpful until
you cross some threshold. Start off polite, but the second they tell you
something "isn't possible" you drop the polite tone, get stern, ask for
supervisors, etc. That isn't to say swear and insult, and you should reset the
politeness each time you get a new person.
In my experience anything even a little more "targeted" tends to have more
reasonable customer service. I've had good customer service experiences from
major sportswear brands, and we're not talking crazy high-end, boutique brands
but major, publicly traded companies. That isn't to say they will just cater
to your every whim, no questions asked, but if you have a legitimate grievance
they will handle it without ruining your day.
Some companies care about reputation and customer satisfaction, and some just
count every bean.
~~~
Fezzik
I have had the exact opposite experience - every 12 months I call Comcast when
my 1-year introductory offer of internet service for $39.99/month is expiring
and ask for it to be re-upped, as opposed to increasing to $64.99/month or
whatever, and they do it with no hassling. Heck, this year the dude on the
phone voluntarily gave me a better deal of $29.99/month for 12 months.
* not a shill for Comcast, just a happy customer. I tend to be extra-friendly over the phone, which maybe helps, but I have always received stupendous CS support from big corps like Apple, Comcast, Sprint, my CC companies, mortgage holder, and Amazon, to name a few I have dealt with regularly.
~~~
kbrackbill
My experience with comcast has been extremely variable depending on where I
live, and in particular, what other ISP options I have.
When I lived somewhere where the only alternative was terrible 5mbit
(advertised, actually much less) AT&T DSL, they wouldn't extend any of my
discounts and even when I canceled they didn't even try to stop me. They
basically just told me "haha good luck, you'll be back".
When I've lived in other places where there are options like webpass or fiber,
they behaved much more like you're describing.
~~~
uberduber
Exactly. It also depends on your neighbors. Right now we have two relatively
similar options, but for various reasons the neighbors are all the type to
never switch. So, no one will negotiate and you just have to switch back and
forth every year if you actually want the discount.
------
js2
Let me provide a counter-anecdote.
I purchased a utility sink/cabinet combo from Home Depot last year for $200.
The same product is sold by Lowes and all over the Internet in various styles.
The OEM is this company called Conglom, but Home Depot markets all its
plumbing products as "Glacier Bay" and has its own support system for those
products.
So anyway, I install the sink and the faucet has a small leak. So I call the
Glacier Bay number expecting terrible service. The call is answered
immediately. A lady takes my information and says she'll contact the OEM and
get a new part sent to me and puts me on hold. She picks back up a minute or
two later to say the OEM is closed for the day but she'll contact them the
next day. I think that's the end of it, but then I get a call from her the
next day to confirm she's reached the OEM and the replacement part is on the
way.
HD can't make but a few dollars if anything on this product.
Aside, Moen also provides insanely good customer service. And I've heard Delta
faucets does too. Maybe it's a plumbing thing. :-)
~~~
crankylinuxuser
I've had a similar extremely amazing experience. I do a lot with 3d printing,
and I buy Misumi extrusions.
During a large format printer I built, their website claimed that the 90deg
brackets werent guaranteed to be 90deg ?! So, I called them, and got the
secretary. I was expecting to be shoved off. She looked at the website where I
indicated, and asked me to wait a few moments.
About 45 seconds go by, and I'm talking with a Japanese engineer who's fluent
in English who _runs the line_ ! He looks at the design schematic and the
website, and says it had to do with a data import that didnt convert the
tolerance data (90deg +- .0021) correctly, and instead put a boilerplate
'NOTANUMBER' result.
He then sent me the design schematic for all incident angles.
It was absolutely amazing - that I talked with the engineer responsible for
that part in less than a minute.
So.. I keep buying from Misumi. :)
~~~
bsder
> I've had a similar extremely amazing experience. I do a lot with 3d
> printing, and I buy Misumi extrusions.
Excellent products and customer service seems to also be a very Japanese
thing.
We used to order ring clamps from a manufacturer, and they would always come
back polished absolutely perfectly. We didn't order it that way, and we told
them several times that they were wasting money doing that. It didn't matter;
there was an old Japanese engineer running that line and he was going to be
consigned to the fires of hell before a part with a substandard finish would
leave his line.
Then he passed away. And even the tolerance control (which is vitally
important) went to shit. It seems that attention to detail is all or nothing.
------
dfee
Question: the article cites a lady who was frustrated with AT&T customer
service - she’s from Illinois.
How do newspapers find anecdotal stories like this? I mean this could have
been anyone, anywhere - we all have these sorts of frustrating stories.
Is there a sort of marketplace or broker who has a list of on-demand
anecdotes?
I just can’t imagine it’s worth it for WSJ to fly a reporter halfway across
the country to get a head shot and a one paragraph statement.
~~~
EVdotIO
HARO is mostly the answer.
~~~
dredmorbius
[https://www.helpareporter.com](https://www.helpareporter.com)
"Help A Reporter Out (HARO): Your PR Agency's Worst Nightmare"
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/zalmiduchman/2015/11/27/haro/](https://www.forbes.com/sites/zalmiduchman/2015/11/27/haro/)
"Help a Reporter Out (HARO): Ultimate Guide 2019"
[https://fitsmallbusiness.com/help-a-reporter-out-
haro/](https://fitsmallbusiness.com/help-a-reporter-out-haro/)
------
aalleavitch
A lot of customers treat customer service like a psychological outlet, someone
who is paid to take their abuse. I have seen and heard some pretty horrible
situations of a customer who is clearly taking out their own emotional
problems on a poor CS rep time and time again. I don't know many CS people who
haven't ended up in tears at work at least once. It's a psychologically
hazardous job, and it gets no fanfare.
It doesn't help that the relationship between customers and businesses is so
often just directly antagonistic, customer service isn't something that
businesses want to do, it's something they have to do. CS people end up being
the meat shield between the customer who knows they are being exploited or
manipulated and the people in the company making decisions for little bits of
profit or to cut costs here and there and never directly has to face
repercussions for all the shortcuts they take just to bolster their personal
KPIs. There's a reason people hate working CS and retail; it can be
legitimately traumatic, and they often have to find themselves being the
friendly face pasted over an uncaring machine.
For all the hate that open offices get, I appreciate the fact that my desk is
within earshot of CS taking phone calls. As a developer it's a hell of a lot
easier to see what the downstream effects of the things you do and the changes
you make are when you can hear the repercussions of them directly. It also
definitely motivates me to try to find ways I can ease the burden on them.
These stresses ought to be distributed as equally among a corporation as
possible.
~~~
nitrogen
I've worked for a couple of companies where engineers shadowed the people on
the phones (both sales and support) periodically. It can definitely help build
empathy for the users of internal tools and the end customers, but it doesn't
do much if the rest of the company doesn't prioritize fixing the problems
found by those shadowing.
------
0xDEFC0DE
Lots of potential to undermine this. Start every customer service interaction
with “I’m going to cancel my service”. Make yourself sound angry but don’t
attack the representative directly of course (don’t be an asshole). Say you’re
angry, definitely. Sense of urgency, and other social engineering techniques.
Companies can’t stop this that easily. If they do, they basically have to try
to call bullshit and confront them. Any system that counters this will end up
harming normal customers who are generally angry.
~~~
orev
Which is basically what everyone has been doing with cable companies for years
to get lower bills, until recently when they started calling everyone’s bluff.
If you try to cancel now, they’ll mostly just say “fine” and send you right
through the process.
~~~
psim1
YMMV. My method has been working well with Comcast. When it's renewal time, I
call and ask for the retention department immediately (say "cancel" to the
interactive voice response system). When the agent comes on the line, I say
that my rate is going up and I just want to keep the same rate and same
service. No threatening, no anger, no actual statement that I want to cancel.
Just, "I want to keep the same service and the same rate. Can we do that?" It
has worked for about five years so far. I switched to Comcast from Verizon
DSL. With Vz, there was no negotiation, and besides, their service was
actually terrible and I did want to cancel.
------
mikeash
The technology isn’t why. Idiot businesspeople focused on the short term who
think it’s good business to piss off their customers as long as they don’t
switch to a competitor is why.
~~~
bogwog
That's not what it is either. It's just the effects of monopolies. If the
telecom giants had to worry about real competition, they'd actually need to
make customers happy to stay competitive.
The only way I was able to escape Comcast's dogshit service was by moving to a
different house.
~~~
whyenot
There is what appears to be "real competition" in the airline industry. It
doesn't seem to help.
~~~
nyolfen
you can fly southwest
~~~
chrischen
You can fly Singapore airlines, the #1 rated airline, only except you probably
can't because airline routes are highly segregated.
------
isoskeles
Instead of solving their customers' problems immediately, they have a computer
analyze the tone of your voice and decide whether or not you really need to be
helped. We're one step closer to life being a "simulation" where very little
that is real matters. Your position as a customer and customer service's
position as an agent are irrelevant, what matters is whether or not the
computer has decided you are worth helping (until then, the agent "cannot"
help you).
I think the worst part is, people will adapt and start to treat customer
service with more anger, as they'll learn it solves their problems more
frequently. Some of them will take this behavior out into meatspace instead of
just doing it over the phone. Of course, people already do this, but even more
people will do it as a result of this sort of treatment.
------
dep_b
Customer service got so much better over the years it's almost unbelievable
that we accepted where we came from. It used to be that companies needed to be
shamed on national TV before they would even consider to change their
attitudes to paying customers.
In the 21st century so many companies really rely on good ratings by consumers
they go out of their way to get a negative review, or to compensate you to
take one away if you do post one.
Maybe the companies stuck in the 20th century or the ones that think they'll
just hold on to their monopoly forever still believe they'll get away with it
but those are businesses most likely to be disrupted in the next 10-20 years.
------
barryrandall
Please consider updating the title to something less click-baity, such as
“Everyone hates customer service. AI breakpoint analysis is why.”
~~~
psim1
A moderator has updated the title. I tried to keep it as close to the original
article's title as possible.
------
Waterluvian
It's like why people hate police. When you're dealing with them, you're
already having a bad day. And we tend to hire mediocre people for the job
because all the better candidates are doing better work.
~~~
cannonedhamster
I've got a great friend who's in the police service. They aren't all mediocre,
but there's an awful lot of them and bad apples rightly get a lot of
attention. I think the problem with policing is that it's been disproven that
it's just a few bad apples, and that they forget the adage is that a single
bad apple spoils the bunch. There's also very little public accountability for
bad policing, which is the opposite of what it should be, punishments should
be public just like their promotions and commendations are. If people were
seeing actual bad policing getting punished appropriately there would be less
outcry. You also can't take back killing someone.
------
kazinator
That's really no different from a child figuring out how far it can take
various mischief before pissing off its parents. Why wouldn't corporations do
what children do?
------
thrav
The Effortless Experience says the opposite, and all kinds of industries are
working very hard to make issue resolution as effortless as possible. That
said, those are definitely not long term contract type situations, where
resolving the issue often means losing long term money.
When you look at the industries with the best and worst customer service, it’s
mostly just a difference between low and high switching costs.
------
GuB-42
Interestingly, Amazon, one of the champions in analytics and automation, is
known for its good customer service.
Personally, I called them, sent them messages, etc... And every time I had a
helpful human (or an incredibly advanced AI) within a reasonable time.
So companies less profitable than Amazon that skimp on customer service using
analytics should learn something here. Particularly ironic if they run their
system on AWS.
~~~
tzs
I recently contacted Amazon for customer service and was shocked at how fast
it was. I entered the phone number they could reach me at on their site,
submitted it, and before I could even read the thing telling me that they
would call soon my phone was ringing.
That was an automated call to tell me that a human would be with me soon and
the current wait time was one minute. As soon as the message ended, a human
picked up.
Unfortunately, they could not do anything about my issue. Briefly, I ordered
something on Prime Day that is normally available in 3 colors. My first choice
was not available, my second choice was listed as taking a week, and my third
choice could ship immediately. I went for my second choice.
A week later, they admitted that it was not actually going to be available for
something like three weeks. Meanwhile, my first choice color was now
available. I wanted to change my color choice to that.
Alas, apparently customer service does not have the ability to change the
color option on an existing order. All they could suggest was cancel the order
and re-order, but that would lose Prime Day pricing, which had been $22 on an
item whose normal price was $49.
(Yesterday, I got a notice that because of the delays they were canceling the
order, and they gave me a coupon code to get the $22 price if I wanted to re-
order, along with a $5 gift card to help make up for the inconvenience. The
color I originally ordered was listed as being back on stock on Aug 9 for Aug
12 delivery. My first choice was listed as being back in stock on Aug 9 for
Aug 9 delivery...not sure how that works. My third choice was listed as in
stock for 2 day delivery. I decided that the third color would work with my
decor after all, and ordered that just to get this whole thing over with. It's
been shipped and I'll get it tomorrow).
------
dredmorbius
The problem with pushing right up to borders of tolerance is that borders
shift. Sometimes suddenly and violently.
As I'd commented a few days ago[1], Google's then-CEO Eric Schmidt said "The
Google policy on a lot of things is to get right up to the creepy line and not
cross it".
The problem with such a policy is in thinking that cultural and legal
boundaries are fixed and inviolate. The very process of repeatedly pressing up
to a border may trigger the backlash which moves it, and can leave the fate-
tempting party in deep water -- with its own culture, processes, amd
institutions unable to adapt, or with goodwill so badly burnt it never
recovers.
In particular, the resource most being burnt is _trust_ , a commodity that's
expensive to acquire, quick to burn, and that big business in particular has
had in short supply for most of the past 50 years[3]. Trust, once earned and
deserved, _hugely_ reduces costs of business in that counterparties -- not
just customers, but vendors, employees, regulators, and even competitors --
tend to be inclined to cooperate and assist. And when squandered, makes every
interaction (including customer service) a scorched-earth battleground. The
topic is something of an evergreen in the business field, I'd posted an item
recently on it.[4]
There are numerous places where customer service gets it wrong, but breakdowns
of trust across multiple boundaries is hugely evident: the company doesn't
trust its customers, _or_ CSRs, marketing doesn't trust manufacturing, sales
doesn't trust service, engineering doesn't trust sales, and more. Combine this
with monopoly-sector practices and you've got huge problems. Add in elements
of James C. Scott's _Seeing Like a State_ and much more.
______________________________
Notes:
1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20507894#20511372](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20507894#20511372)
2\. [https://www.businessinsider.com/eric-schmidt-googles-
policy-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/eric-schmidt-googles-policy-is-to-
get-right-up-to-the-creepy-line-and-not-cross-it-2010-10)
3\. [https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-
institutions.as...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-
institutions.aspx)
4\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20531236](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20531236)
------
anon4242
> “People want to deal with someone who is smarter than they are and who will
> fix their problem,”
This is exactly the worst kind IMHO. I once had a support person telling me to
listen to him telling me what my problem was as I was describing it to him.
Me: "The device doesn't work..."
Him: "Listen. Listen! LISTEN! Your device isn't connected."
Me: "Uhm, no it's ..."
Him: "Listen. Listen! LISTEN! You haven't plugged the cable in."
Me: "If you would please LISTEN to me maybe we can get somewhere?"
~~~
a1369209993
That person in your transcript is neither smarter than you nor will they fix
your problem, so the quoted quote seems spot on in this case.
------
rapind
This just makes me want to automate the customer end. Bot wars.
------
dazc
'It was only when Ms. Robey was in the act of switching phone numbers to
Verizon from AT&T that the wireless carrier buckled, she said.'
Often the only people empowered to help are those in the customer retention
department.
The standard response of 'before I can help you I need to ask you a few
questions...' is another way of saying 'I am going to offer you no help
whatsoever but keep you on the line anyway...'
------
cannonedhamster
I run a support group and the amount of terrible it is to get people not in
support to recognize that taking care of our customers is not trivial. We ship
a lot of software releases and at one point took to QAing the software before
release as best we could become it would mean we'd get less support calls.
Then they started shipping the software regardless of bugs because shipping
bad software to meet the promised release dates was more important than
releasing good code.
~~~
lovich
I can't really think of any company I've worked at or seen that cares about
good code. They care about making money today. Good code helps in a few years
but shipping a useableish product helps make money today
------
manjana
The thing that scares me though is at what point, if not already, will they
start to use training data on individual customers.
------
malcolmwhat
Ironic that trying to scroll down immediately floods me with a ridiculous full
page message that is not the article...
------
crankylinuxuser
So as much as it angers and creates a horrible atmosphere for all involved,
screaming and cursing at a customer rep _does_ indeed work. The faster you
escalate, the quicker you will get what you want.
~~~
dazc
My niece worked for the mortgage arrears dept. of a major bank one time and,
apparently, it was common for people to make death threats and such because
she would have to ask they brought their payments up to date.
All this achieves is a high rate of staff turnover and a lot of bad feeling on
both sides of the fence.
~~~
crankylinuxuser
Oh, I completely agree. It makes me feel terrible, and I'm sure it creates an
even more terrible work environment for the CSRs. I know. I've been an IT
helpdesk employee. And we only got a sliver of nasty complaints.
The distinction from the article, is that the big companies whom can afford
this tech, are doing analytics and reporting to the CSR when to not offer
solutions, and when to offer. And unfortunately when doing voice analytics,
the louder you are and the more 'power words' you use, the better you're
treated by the company.
I in no way said this was good or ethical. It's abhorrent, and I'd rather
steer clear with companies that use this. But in the bigger scheme of things,
if I deal with a handful of mega-conglomerates that have phone lines, I must
use this tactic in order to be made whole.
And then, I help create the horrible work environment... Sigh.
------
cultus
The magic of capitalism is that the full resources of the planet's human minds
are devoted to increasing the wealth of the owners of capital.
------
droithomme
Given they are playing the game of abusing the customer until they push back
or crack, all validated by studies, it is morally right and sensible for
customers to play the game on their terms. Get angry quickly, abuse customer
service, yell, and make threats. According to this article that is how you get
taken seriously by customer service and escalated to reps who will treat you
fairly and resolve your problem.
_> Some companies now equip call centers with software that analyzes a
caller’s tone of voice and pace of speech to determine how upset the person
is. Angrier callers get routed to agents skilled at de-escalating conflict_
------
ryanmarsh
When I started traveling more frequently for business I learned from a veteran
traveler, “always fill out the surveys they email you and nit pick anything
and everything they did wrong”. This, she said, would result in more upgrades,
shorter hold times, etc. From what I’ve been able to gather it’s true. I’m
upgraded almost every time after I complain. I do this for hotels too. I’m
regularly gifted extra points and meals.
Being a sophisticated programmer I thought complaining too much might weight
my feedback. Seems the airlines and hotels aren’t that sophisticated.
~~~
lowercased
it's also going to bring down the scores of every human employee that was part
of your experience, meaning they may not get bonuses or raises, even if they
were generally good at their job. :/
~~~
isoskeles
They get bonuses?
~~~
jaclaz
Anyway they try to avoid maluses.
~~~
clairity
"maluses" doesn't seem to be a real word (in american english, anyway), but i
like it!
~~~
jaclaz
I don't know but in Latin there is both _bonus_ and _malus_ , and if we accept
the anglophone plural (like one virus, two viruses) it seems fine to me (in
Latin it would be _mali_ but it originally is only an adjective).
Anyway:
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/malus](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/malus)
>Noun
>malus (plural maluses)
> (business) The return of performance-related compensation originally paid by
> an employer to an employee as a result of the discovery of a defect in the
> performance.
~~~
clairity
yah, being a natural latin antonym was the appeal!
and now that you mention it, i think i might have seen that term in a legal
context, but it's not used in any other context i am acquainted with.
~~~
jaclaz
JFYI, here (Italy) bonus/malus is a common name for the formula of most car
insurance policies, where basically if you have a car accident (of course if
it is your fault) you are demoted 2 "classes" (malus) and if you pass one year
without accident you are promoted 1 "class" (bonus).
The "entrance class" is the 14th, worst is 18th and best is 1st.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
With broad, random tests for antibodies, Germany seeks path out of lockdown - _Microft
https://www.nytimes.com./2020/04/18/world/europe/with-broad-random-tests-for-antibodies-germany-seeks-path-out-of-lockdown.html
======
anotheryou
But it hasn't ramped up yet and they loosen the lockdown already by monday.
The got R down to .7 at best and that only on average, not in the hotspots.
I bet in 2 weeks (I hope it's not even more delay) they will notice that
(partially) opening schools and shops was a mistake and will have to row back.
I just hope they will be as lucky as with the initial curve-flattening.
Germany has flattened the curve, but that still means they are roughly on it's
summit. There are still more infected than ever and every misstep might be
costly.
Here are the different regions, just recovered/dead are not included in the
graph I think:
[https://preview.redd.it/x7g0xnlblds41.png?width=894&format=p...](https://preview.redd.it/x7g0xnlblds41.png?width=894&format=png&auto=webp&s=b104f985de617b4f55e0585a3da32fa63778403d)
Generally it peaked at 70k infected and is back at 50k
[https://studylib.net/coronavirus#country-
de](https://studylib.net/coronavirus#country-de)
~~~
dirkt
Until a vaccine is found, 60-70% of the population will need to get infected
for "herd immunity". While at the same time making sure infection doesn't grow
exponentially, and overwhelms the health system.
Loosening the lockdown, and being prepared to row back, will achieve that if
done carefully, while at the same time getting the economy slowly back to
normal.
And that probably are a lot more people are already infected without symptoms
will help with that.
Trying to somehow contain the infection won't work, because it will just get
carried in from the outside again, eventually.
~~~
lnsru
Sorry, I have no knowledge on virology topics. But this “herd immunity” thing
is a complete nonsense. Politicians may repeat it as long as they want, but it
still makes no sense. 50 million people must be infected, 1,5 million will
die. It will take many years. While immunity very probably(????) disappear
after months. Asian countries had many different viruses in the past, all of
the contained. Why is it so difficult to follow their path?
~~~
notechback
Herd immunity is not just a buzzword. We have two options to reduce the harm
of infectious diseases: eradicate them or build herd immunity. The first
option has become impossible with this virus that's now truly global and
likely much more spread than is known. Therefore herd immunity is the ONLY
option.
The question then is how to get as many people as possible immune - you'll
either need a vaccine or many need to get the infection and survive. A vaccine
is not on the horizon for another 6-12 months, so the best course of action is
to build the number of survivors.
What brings death? Mainly the sudden onslaught on the health system. If there
is no bed, respirator, blood supply, ... Left then you're much more likely to
have patients die than if you have a hospital at regular capacity. There are
some that WILL for but by slowly building immunity (i.e. allowing some parts
of the population to get exposed) you avoid the high death toll of an
unmanaged outbreak.
So if total eradication is impossible, slow infection rates are better than
none. Why? Because if you don't build the immunity you will again have violent
outbreaks killing many. And you simply can't lock everyone at home for another
6 months.
~~~
usaar333
There is no reason you can't keep a disease at a very low level (to the point
any given person is unlikely to get the disease over their lifetime) via
testing, contact tracing and quarantine. Iceland and South Korea both prove
you can in fact.
~~~
rootusrootus
Iceland is tiny and it is a little early to proclaim SK an unqualified
success. If the only way to keep the disease at a very low level is to have a
new normal of strong quarantine indefinitely, then you are asking for
something unrealistic. Even more so in western democracies where people are
accustomed to a great deal of personal freedom.
------
ttul
I would love to know how Germany has been able to discover a sufficiently
accurate antibody assay before many excellent groups in other countries.
Finding some antibodies is one thing; making it mean something is another.
Does the presence of a particular antibody imply that someone is now no longer
infectious to others? Are they themselves now immune to reinfection?
These questions are unanswered AFAIK so I am curious as to what the Germans
are actually learning.
~~~
sarnowski
My vague understanding is, that the tests can also test positive for
antibodies from other similar viruses. They have a significant false-positive
rate that you should not rely on a positive („you are immune“) result but
overall they will provide a big picture approximation how many citizens might
have already resistance. They are not good enough for a rumored „immune
certification“.
~~~
iso1210
Currently we have no idea how many people have had covid. We have a good idea
how many have died, but no country has managed to do the kind of testing that
would give a good indication of how many people have been infected. Do 2% of
people getting it die, or 0.2%, or 0.02%? Testing 1 million people at random
across the country will give good results of not only how deadly it is, but
also how likely it is to spread in different areas of the country.
~~~
dboreham
We have a pretty good idea it isn't 0.02% because there's an upper bound on
the infection rate (around 75%) and the number of bodies is known and in all
cases exceeds 0.3% of the maximum possible infections.
~~~
quersive
How did you come up with 0.3% number of bodies / maximum possible infections,
aka total population? I'm trying to wrap my head around this whole mess...
Take Lombardy, hardest hit region in Europe. 1130 deaths / million, or about
0.1% death rate. All German states are under 100 deaths per million, which is
less than 0.01% death rate. Sanity check: Bayern, 1.2k deaths/13M people ~
0.01%.
Of course, this is a lower bound estimate assuming all people in a given
region have got through the disease. Which is definitely not true. To figure
out how bad is going to get we need the total number of infected people.
Hopefully the random testing strategy will shed some light on that number. But
at least we start [much] lower than 0.3%.
[https://covid19.quersive.com/chart?c=M&e=IT-Lombardy&e=DE-
BW...](https://covid19.quersive.com/chart?c=M&e=IT-Lombardy&e=DE-BW&e=DE-
BY&e=DE-BE&e=DE-BB&e=DE-HB&e=DE-HH&e=DE-HE&e=DE-MV&e=DE-NI&e=DE-NW&e=DE-
RP&e=DE-SL&e=DE-SN&e=DE-ST&e=DE-SH&e=DE-TH&f=DE-BY&t=D&tb=P&w=1)
~~~
akavi
In NYC, 0.16% of the population's died from it, so that's a hard lower bound.
~~~
quersive
Thanks!
------
KCUOJJQJ
According to a diagram [1] of the Robert Koch Institute the effective
reproduction number was already down to 1 two days before the measurements of
March 23. It also didn't go down further in this diagram.
[1]
[https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/Infekt/EpidBull/Archiv/2020/17...](https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/Infekt/EpidBull/Archiv/2020/17/Art_02.html)
[https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/Infekt/EpidBull/Archiv/2020/Au...](https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/Infekt/EpidBull/Archiv/2020/Ausgaben/17_20_SARS-
CoV2_vorab.pdf?__blob=publicationFile) \--> Page 14, "Abb. 4"
~~~
anotheryou
I looked into that a bit. Basically everyone was already self-quarantining.
I looked at mobility on sundays (because that isolates it to the private
lockdown as ordered on the 23rd and excludes school, shops and work quite a
bit):
14.3.: -10% Mobility
21.3.: -46% Mobility
23.3.: ----- official Lockdown -----
29.3.: -55% Mobility
So the bulk of it happened in advance, because people where already isolating
themselves during the initial "panic".
Data from here [http://rocs.hu-berlin.de/covid-19-mobility/mobility-
monitor/](http://rocs.hu-berlin.de/covid-19-mobility/mobility-monitor/) (I
wonder why there is no Sunday dip for the 5th of April though)
------
s9w
> The generosity and solidarity [...] have been missing in Germany’s response
> to poorer European nations in the south, which were hit hardest by the
> virus.
Germany gave away _many hundreds_ of respirators, took in _hundreds_ of
patients from all neighboring countries (including Italy). Italy was offered
money under the ESM which they didn't want. All while high ranking officials
from Italy called Germans Nazis _multiple times_. All that although the
Italian population has a higher median wealth, lower taxes, higher rate of
home ownership and lower retirement age.
And we're still the bad guys.
~~~
danielrpa
American here, I can only dream of the United States having a response as good
as Germany's. Your country is an example of a how a democracy should react in
a situation like this and demonstrates that we don't need a totalitarian
regime to handle a large scale crisis. I'm not saying it is perfect (what
is?), but just that it is one of the free countries setting a strong standard.
~~~
JPKab
To add to your point, Germany actually has a federalized system similar to
what the United States has. A key difference in this specific scenario was
that the United States didn't fully trust the federalized system for
healthcare and disease prevention like the Germans did. Our CDC ended up
owning the development, manufacturing, and distribution of test and therefore
were able to tell doctors in all 50 states who could be tested and who
couldn't. I think that this is a grossly inferior model and we should have
instead allowed the states to have more money and therefore more control over
creation of the tests.
I think that the big issue that was exposed was not lack of centralization but
too much of it with the wrong organizations. A nation of 330 odd million is
much harder to govern especially in a centralized manner.
an additional question I have is what do you think has been so awful about the
United States response? From a pure numbers perspective I feel like the US
isn't really doing badly from a per capita basis.
Nobody has run out of ventilators yet. Infection rates are below the 95%
confidence interval of the original models. Just curious as to your
perspective. Do you think that these numbers are due to bad models and luck or
due to the fact that the population has largely adhered to social distancing?
~~~
danielrpa
I don't want to get into partisan politics, but the US central authorities
weren't serious about the problem until relatively late in the process, and
our testing ramp up was also very slow. The move to block travel from China
was well timed, but it can arguably be seen as more influenced by geopolitics
than health concerns.
The US now is catching up fairly well as the country started playing on its
strengths, such as the extremely strong industrial base, financial power and,
for better or worse, international leverage.
Regarding the more centralized system, it has advantages and disadvantages.
The advantage of Germany's central coordination is that it made generally good
decisions from the get go, so the country was able to move quicker. The US had
a confused central response and the states were able to implement local fixes
that prevented the entire system from falling apart.
So I think the US model has the advantage of offering a second layer of
defense from poor central planning, which perhaps wouldn't be as easy in
Germany (I'm speculating here, I don't know much about Germany democratic
guards against bad central decisions).
~~~
gnusty_gnurc
The US had the issue of complete failure of a federal monopoly. CDC and FDA
failed at the most critical time and prohibited private enterprise and states
from rushing in.
~~~
jakeogh
Measured by what? We achieved better results than every single pre-peak best
case estimated outcome. If you know of a predicted outcome that we havent come
in under, please link to it.
~~~
gnusty_gnurc
Measured by a month of delayed testing at the outset of a virulent pandemic?
> Forced to suspend the launch of a nationwide detection program for the
> coronavirus for a month, the C.D.C. lost credibility as the nation’s leading
> public health agency and the country lost ground in ways that continue to
> haunt grieving families, the sick and the worried well from one state to the
> next.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/health/cdc-coronavirus-
la...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/health/cdc-coronavirus-lab-
contamination-testing.html)
~~~
jakeogh
In science, when errors are made, we are supposed to acknowledge and correct
them, which is what the CDC did.
Why base your opinion on a second order result rather than first hand
outcomes? If we had not tested at all, and still had this _drastically better
than predicted_ result, might you still be unhappy about it?
And the NYT... They are not just a news orginization. Still run by the BBC's
Mark Thompson I see.
[https://imgur.com/VUdcIou](https://imgur.com/VUdcIou)
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CIMxvS-
WEAER49I.png](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CIMxvS-WEAER49I.png)
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CINJUoqUwAEkSip.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CINJUoqUwAEkSip.jpg)
------
LatteLazy
Stop testing individuals and start testing populations. That's the only way to
know what is happening. That is the only way to start controlling the epidemic
instead of just guessing.
------
neonate
[https://archive.md/L6abQ](https://archive.md/L6abQ)
------
travisgriggs
“Of course I said yes... I want to help. This is a collective crisis. The
government is doing what it can. Everyone needs to do their bit.”
I live in the wrong country. Can I come live with you Germany?
------
johnohara
It's unrealistic to use RT-PCR testing on the entire U.S. population to derive
what is essentially a binary result.
RT-PCR tests are too time consuming, too sensitive, and too reliant on
specialized laboratory equipment for that. Right now however, they are all we
have to achieve results accurate enough for some form of certification.
Immunoassays are simpler, faster, localized, and less expensive, but may also
yield positive results for other coronaviruses such as 229E, NL63, OC43, HKU1,
SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV.
Germany may be isolating potential COVID-19 positives by using immunoassays,
then using RT-PCR to be certain. I don't know. But it doesn't mean those
"negatives" will always remain so.
~~~
beagle3
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but rt-PCR can only detect active SARS-Cov-2
shedding - meaning active disease, whereas immuno-assays check for the
existence of antibodies.
A SARS-Cov-2 naive person will be negative to both; early on, rt-PCR will be
positive[0] and immunoassay will be negative; then (if and when the immune
system manages to synthesize the right antibodies) they will both be positive;
then the virus is eradicated so rt-PCR will go negative, but the immunoassay
will stay positive (for a while; unknown yet if for life)
[0] Assuming perfect accuracy and specificity.
~~~
johnohara
I agree with your reply. Thank you for it.
The recent seroprevalence study performed in Santa Clara County [0] [1] used
an immunoassay manufactured by Premier BioTech, Minneapolis, MN.
Their page entitled "PCR And Serology Based Testing Explained" does a very
good job explaining what we both understand [2].
I stand by my opinion that it is unrealistic to use RT-PCR testing on the
entire U.S. population. It is too sensitive and too time-consuming given the
time constraints we are under. This Wash Post article (printed by MSN)
describes why the CDC had to recall its initial testing kits. [3]
[0]
[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1)
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22899272](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22899272)
[2] [https://premierbiotech.com/innovation/pcr-and-serology-
based...](https://premierbiotech.com/innovation/pcr-and-serology-based-
testing-explained/) [3] [https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/contamination-at-
cdc-lab-d...](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/contamination-at-cdc-lab-
delayed-rollout-of-coronavirus-tests/ar-BB12Q90W)
------
garraeth
After searching Google, I cannot find the results of the actual study. Are
they available?
~~~
Linus-Boehm
They just started the study and will last at least a year. But here is the
press release of the munich university. [https://www.lmu-
klinikum.de/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/mun...](https://www.lmu-
klinikum.de/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/munchner-tropeninstitut-beginnt-
stichprobenanalyse-zur-verbreitung-der-corona-pandemie-und-zur-wirksamkeit-
von-gegenmassnahmen/6afa2c06cb6745a9)
------
chkaloon
Shows what strong, competent leadership can do. And a society with fairly high
trust in it.
~~~
amelius
Angela Merkel has a Ph.D. in quantum physics, and an academic background is
probably exactly what's needed in a situation like this (versus the more
business oriented skills of e.g. Trump).
~~~
clairity
trump is terrible at business, very likely to have grossly underperformed
against putting his inheritance and loans into an index fund. he’s good at
grabbing attention and being a reality tv actor/celebrity however.
~~~
Hoasi
> he’s good at grabbing attention and being a reality tv actor/celebrity
> however.
He's good at marketing. Sadly he didn't put these skills to good use in the
current crisis so far. Virology isn't his strongest suit. He performed a worse
show than usual since it is not just about boasting about himself and branding
other people with hilarious nicknames.
~~~
clairity
not really. he’s good at self-promotion, which you might argue is an
overlapping skillset with promotion, a component of marketing dealing with
sales, advertising, and the like.
but he’s most certainly not good at any other aspect of marketing (product,
price, distribution, etc.), which is why he’s terrible at business and why
he’s been losing credibility to state leaders.
~~~
Hoasi
Completely in agreement with you here. Replace marketing with marketing
himself in my above comment.
------
dustinmoris
What's the goal with all this testing?
The simple reality is that unless you have a large proportion of your
population immune (either due to infection or vaccine) you will NOT be able to
reverse the lockdown successfully without seeing a surge in infections and
deaths shortly after. So you can test as much as you want, but this whole
pandemic started from ONE person in China so as long as there is 1 or 5 or
more likely 100s or 1000s of cases in any country then as soon as restrictions
are loosened the infection rate will exponentially go up again.
You can play the game of opening/closing schools/shops every couple weeks for
about 2 years until everyone either got eventually infected or we might see a
vaccine hitting the public. Even if a vaccine might be available at the end of
2020, it won't be available to the public across the globe for yet another
year if not longer. That is just simple maths on manufacturing and
distribution, anyone who thinks differently is completely dillusional.
So my question remains, what is the end goal with all of the testing? Calling
testing as a way out of the lockdown is either a dumb assertion, because more
testing won't stop the spread (contact tracing and isolation will only slow
the exponential outbreak by days or couple weeks), or it is a lie to give the
public false hope.
There is only two ways out:
\- Now, by lifting all lockdown restrictions, target, shield and isolate the
most vulnerable in our society (old & fragile, people with diabetes, cancer,
HIV, etc.), ramp up hospital capacity and let the virus rage through the
remaining population, hoping that everyone else will mostly experience mild or
no symptoms and only very few people who need hospitalisation and who will die
given that the most vulnerable remain in isolation...
or
\- stay in lockdown for 24 months at a minimum until there's the capacity to
manufacture and supply a vaccine to roughly 60% of the population with a
pointless ping pong exercise of easing and tightening the restrictions
I'm honestly not sure which one is better, but there is literally NO OTHER
OPTION.
Most of Europe is currently going down the second option and Sweden is mostly
leading on the first option. I predict that if in ~ 6 months time countries
will see that there's little difference in the death rate between countries
with tright restrictinos and those with lax restrictions (because tight
restrictions only delay the deaths, but don't prevent) then everyone will
change to a more Swedish model probably.
Only time will tell the truth.
~~~
kaybe
I don't think option 1 as you wrote is is any good. There appear to be strong
signs that even with very mild symptoms patients can have significant lung
damage, and also damage to other organs.
It is not clear yet how far that will heal. Only time will tell, but from the
extend, I've seen discussions that the people affected might be patients for
the rest of their lives.
(eg.
[https://www.rainews.it/tgr/tagesschau/articoli/2020/04/tag-C...](https://www.rainews.it/tgr/tagesschau/articoli/2020/04/tag-
Coronavirus-Lungeschaden-Forschung-Uniklinik-
Innsbruck-6708e11e-28dc-4843-a760-e7f926ace61c.html) in German)
~~~
dustinmoris
> There appear to be strong signs that even with very mild symptoms patients
> can have significant lung damage, and also damage to other organs.
This is completely contradictory. You should stop reading fake news or social
media reports, because this is where some utter stupid statements like this
come from. COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus, but it's not a novel virus. It is
a coronavirus, which means that that we know that it is a respiratory virus
like other viruses. It doesn't attack organs like so many dumb people claim.
It attacks your respiratory tract, which also includes your lungs. That itself
is harmless in most people as their immune system will quickly produce anti
bodies and then erradicate the virus from your body. In some cases the virus
multiplies faster than the immune response, which means the lungs get heavily
inflamed and your body starts to get less oxygen than needed. This is the
reason why organs fail, because of a lack of oxygen. If one person was
infected with mild symptoms and then has been cleared of the virus (~ 7 days
later, and I was one of these people myself) then the virus is gone from your
body and there's no way to magically all of a sudden get any long term damages
to anything if you don't have them to begin with. It's not like your organs
start out of nowhere to just stop working. Also before you even get to that
point you are so severly ill that you need a ventialtor to breath, so it's not
like you can get a damage to an organ out of nowhere without noticing it.
> I've seen discussions that the people affected might be patients for the
> rest of their lives.
If they fully recovered then this is not possible. If they were extremley
severely ill and lack of oxygen damanged some organs then yes maybe but that
is not the case for 99% of people.
~~~
kaybe
> This is completely contradictory. You should stop reading fake news or
> social media reports, because this is where some utter stupid statements
> like this come from.
It depends what exactly 'mild' means I guess. I might not have worded it well
(not my first language etc). Just to be sure I went to the most reliable
sources available (not just standard news - it's in German though, they cite a
lot of papers if anyone is interested, but most are for SARS-CoV-1, 45-48
specifically talk about long-term damages) and I still stand by my statement,
though the phrasing I chose make it appear more drastic than I meant it.
If everyone gets it and a few percent of the population get lasting damage
(which from a quick paper survey does not seem totally unrealistic), is that
acceptable?
([https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus...](https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Steckbrief.html))
(eg
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1440-1843...](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1440-1843.2010.01720.x))
~~~
dustinmoris
You really need to educate yourself a bit on basics, so that you don't believe
every stupid news report. Remember, since the lockdown news papers have
nothing else to report on except coronavirus. They must find something new
_newsworthy_ every day and therefore a lot of utter shit gets printed.
1\. The news article which you originally posted is a summary of the message
which the doctor gave in a scubadiving magazine. In that magazine the message
is less sensationalist.
2\. Not every COVID-19 infection ends up affecting your lungs. COVID-19 in
particular starts in your throat (which is why many report a sore throat to
begin with). Once it is in your throat the virus multiplies and will
eventually penetrate your lungs. However, if you are fit and healthy then
normally your body will react quickly and start fighting the virus. In my case
I had really high fever for 2 days and on day 3 and after I was getting
significantly better. My immune system was able to fight the virus before it
even got to my lungs. I had a sore throat, high fever, didn't taste my food,
had a cough, fatigue, but I didn't have shortness of breath. If the virus
never enters your lungs it can't damage them.
3\. Even if the virus enters your lungs it doesn't mean anything yet. It
really depends how strong your immune system is in reacting to the virus. If
it takes 7-10 days like with old or weakend people then your lungs might get
severly infected before your body starts to fight it off, however when you're
healthy then you might fight it off before you get a bad lung infection.
4\. A lung infection is not unique to COVID-19. It doesn't matter what causes
your lung infection, once you have it the symptoms and possible outcomes are
the same. Doesn't matter if bronchitis, a flu, a bad cold or COVID-19 caused
you to get a lung infection or pneumonia. Anyways, with some medical support
even those people will get over it in most cases. However, it is VERY COMMON
to have many weeks after a lung infection still some leftover symptoms. Some
patients have a cough for two months after a bad cold or flu. It is common
that there will still be traces visible in a lung scan many weeks after, but
almost all these cases eventually clear up. An inflamation means that tissue
has gone sore. Your body fights off the virus, but your tissue takes longer to
recover from the soreness. That is normal and it's not unique to COVID-19.
EXACTLY the same would happen after a flu or cold.
Hope these facts make it a lot clearer, because the amount of false
information spread via social media and some low key fake news websites is
astonishing and really harmful.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Do you think Intellectual Property laws do more good or harm? - bkmeneguello
Millions of people suffer because medical equipments and medicine are protected by these laws, there is no point in thread an individual liberty to protect an abstract concept like an idea or invention.
======
WheelsAtLarge
I'm one that believes that patents are an important part of society. One of
the reasons the U.S. has had so many technological advancements is that people
are able to profit from their ideas. Right now many people are trying to come
up with the next million-dollar idea. Most will be trivial without much
impact, even if they make a million dollars, but a few will change everything
or a combination of them will change everything. Yes, protecting ideas may
sometimes seem like they are hurting people but keep in mind that in most
cases the idea would have never been had there not been protection for ideas.
The problem comes when people start to game the system and use their influence
to get an advantage over others. The problems we see are mostly related to the
way the rules have been set. So it's a matter of tweaking the rules rather
than getting rid of the system.
So, no, I don't think Intellectual Property laws do more harm than good.
------
DoreenMichele
We need some mechanism by which to encourage people with good ideas to make
those ideas available to the world rather than keeping it to themselves.
Intellectual Property laws are our current mechanism for rewarding such
behavior and thereby encouraging people to add value to the system.
Maybe they aren't optimal. Maybe there's a better solution.
But doing away with them without first coming up with a superior method for
making sure those ideas get shared at all is a great way to strangle the
supply of better ideas and new inventions. Counting on people to give that
stuff away for free out of the goodness of their hearts so everyone else can
benefit while the brilliance of the originator gets treated abusively like
slave labor is an excellent way for the world to cut its own throat.
Brilliant people can choose to turn their brilliance towards a "Fuck you, got
mine!" personal policy if the world wishes to habitually and by policy fuck
them over. Encouraging them to behave that way is an excellent way to actively
foster a dystopian future.
------
bediger4000
Way more harm than good. "Intellectual property" locks up ideas, which hinders
human progress. That might be tolerable if the monopoly so granted was short.
But it's not, it's what, life+70 years or something? And it never gets shorter
- we only increase copyright term.
The legal setup around copyrights and patents is also indicative of "bad". We
can no longer inspect some item and decide whether or not it's copyrighted,
for example. We have decided that the default is "assume copyright". You
basically have to have a trial to decide whether some use is OK under one of
the exceptions to copyright. This limits educational and critical use, and
this, in practice, limits free speech.
------
CyberFonic
The original intent of patents was to provide the inventor a window of
opportunity to profit from their invention. Unfortunately corporations are
gaming the system and have weaponized patents. The basic problem is that
whilst you can get a patent granted for tens of thousands, large corporations
wilfully infringe upon patents because it costs millions to defend them and
the typical inventor does not have the resources to defend.
As with most things the IP laws have resulted in perverse incentives
benefitting those who can afford to spend the shareholders' money in their
quest to protect their monopolies. The little guy gets screwed, yet again.
------
zzo38computer
I think they are more harmful than good (although in the past it might have
been more neutral, although I am still against copyright/patent laws in
general). I think patents and copyright should be abolished (although
trademarks might be useful, although I don't know if the trademark laws should
be altered a bit maybe). Stuff I write myself I make it to be public domain
because I don't like copyright. Copyright/patents don't promote inventions;
they tend to hinder it instead, I think.
~~~
david_w
What is your counter-argument to people who write for a living and say they
need copyright to protect their livelihoods? Say fiction or technical manual
writers? It's the entirety of their work product. Should they just find
something else to do? How should they be rewarded for their time and effort?
Not trolling, just trying to understand how an anti-copyright advocate would
argue this case.
~~~
zzo38computer
Question Copyright has many ideas (and there are also counterarguments in the
comments, although there are problems with some parts of some of the
counterarguments). I would buy a book if I want a printed copy, at least.
There is also possibility of agreeing to write or modify it in exchange for
payment, and there is also trademarks (including the "Creator Endorsed" mark),
and I am not suggesting to abolish trademarks (although a lot of fair use
should be allowed in many circumstances, maybe more than the current laws I
don't know). Also, I am not suggesting that someone should be forced to
publish something, but if they do, then someone could copy it (if they want
to), with or without modifications (although the author should be allowed to
specify (if he want to) that altered versions should not be confused with the
original version (except for technical compatibility purposes in some cases,
e.g. if a file format requires the file to contain the text "This file is
authorized by [company name]", then it does, although the documentation that
comes with the file would mention that it is not true and is only included for
the compatibility reasons)). You can also charge money for a CD, DVD,
admission fee for a concert, etc, or even for download if you want to
(although I am not advising it, and even if you do, others do not have to
change for the download too). If you have not sold any DVDs yet, then nobody
is allowed to steal one in order to copy it or trespass on your property in
order to make a copy, but once you sell a copy to someone who wishes to copy
it, then they can (including format shifting). Also, a company providing it as
a service could still have terms of service that say they can terminate your
service (but cannot force you to pay for it in this case, unless you have
already paid and received the service in exchange) (also, someone can still
set up a competing service if they don't like their terms of service,
anyways).
[0] [https://questioncopyright.org/understanding-free-
content](https://questioncopyright.org/understanding-free-content)
------
buboard
Patents are one way for the state to select who will become rich and who
won't. There is little justification for "intellectual property" in a free
market.
------
badrabbit
In the US you mean? The problem is much more endemic in that you need money to
hire a good lawyer to fight against someone with money, be it patent,civil or
criminal law
------
notlukesky
There is a historical argument against software patents. And one can be made
for shorter durations for hardware ones now.
------
erkken
I think In 99% of the cases, the costs, work and effort by far outweighs
possible benefits.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Interview with Dan Rose from FB and Amazon - jasonmcalacanis
https://youtu.be/srA_fWT_iCU
======
jasonmcalacanis
this one was special... only person I know who worked for Bezos and Zuck --
really great episode.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ballmer on Ballmer: His Exit From Microsoft - aleem
http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303460004579194150724298162-lMyQjAxMTAzMDEwNDExNDQyWj
======
brianpgordon
I can't believe that the article doesn't contain the slightest mention of any
of the numerous disasters that took place under Ballmer's leadership. The
writer makes it sound like Ballmer's only fault was that he was only a little
too slow to change the company. In reality Microsoft lost billions due to
tactical business errors like the Surface, Xbox hardware failures, Windows
Phone, and the Zune.
~~~
ChuckMcM
That is an interesting narrative. Microsoft didn't "lose" anything, they have
made billions over the last decade. So you have a profitable company bringing
in billions of dollars that is pretty much qualifies as "doing a good job."
So when people talk about the 'lost billions' they create a hypothetical
Microsoft, the one of today which made billions of dollars but _also_
dominated in new markets and made billions more. There is absolutely no
evidence that Microsoft could have done both, regardless of who was at the
helm. It would have been epic, but it isn't clear that it was possible.
So this article was Ballmer's take on his reign, he's not going to say "I
didn't capture the smartphone market" he is going to remember that he made a
lot of money off enterprises for his employees and his shareholders. I would
happy to be that successful.
Google has never made serious money off their hardware products or operating
system products, Apple has never made serious money off their operating system
products or their network products, and Microsoft has never made significant
money on either network products or hardware products. All three have a space
where they are really good, all three are so so in the other two spaces. Why
is Ballmer presented as an idiot and Page and Cook not?
~~~
r00fus
Imagine if Apple spent billions on boondoggles that made it such that instead
of having $150B in their bank account, they only had $100B or $50B - because
that's what's evident - MSFT might have double it's current cash ($80B) [1] if
it had executed well on those new key ventures.
Is it any less a managerial failure to repeatedly fail to execute like this
than it is to push a company from profitable to unprofitable (or run it into
bankruptcy)?
And that's ignoring the cultural morass that failed policies like stacked
ranking promote - that could likely have poisoned Microsoft's productivity
well.
~~~
ChuckMcM
Well if you are unconstrained from reality you could argue that Apple _could_
have made MacOS available for _any_ x86 laptop and sold it from $50/copy and
completely STOLEN what was left of the technical Windows market. But no, their
stupid reliance on only putting it on some over priced hardware left BILLIONs
on the table.
You see how that works? In lots and lots of ways MacOS is much better than
Windows 8, and yet Apple won't sell it to Dell or Lenovo to pre-install on
their laptops, they won't even _talk_ to them about it. But it would be cool
(and we know its possible with all the Hackintoshes out there). Everyone
agrees that Microsoft fumbled on the phone business and Apple executed very
well. Apple so far has totally fumbled their network products offering, social
music network? icloud? not stellar.
~~~
r00fus
"Unconstrained from reality" is an understatement for your example.
I'm not arguing that Microsoft should have abandoned their cash cows and say
"put office on the web" as a target.
Instead they should have, for example, actually stove to make money from their
Xbox division (it's still in the red from it's inception).
Or made phones that didn't suck back in the early 00s - I had a colleague
doing testing for mobile enterprise software for WinCE and each weekend he'd
show me his return list - a half dozen or more OQO, HP, Dell, or Compaq
handsets that just up and died during his testing - every week.
Ultimately, Microsoft could be making so much more than what they are. Apple's
1st and second most profitable areas didn't even exist 8 years ago.
Microsoft's have existed for 20+, they simply can't make a new profitable
venture. That's a failure of management.
~~~
ChuckMcM
I don't know of anyone who set out to not be successful. That is why looking
backwards in time is so strange sometimes. You say "Gee, that decision cost
you so much time and money!" but you don't necessarily get to see what they
were looking at when they made it. Imagine one comes to a fork in the road,
unmarked, both lead in the general direction of your goal, one of them has a
bridge washed out. At the bridge it is obvious which fork to take, at the
fork, which cannot see the bridge, not so much.
I'm not apologizing for Microsoft executing poorly, what I am saying is that
there success is a matter of positive degree rather than one of success or
failure. We can productively discuss if they may have been _more successful_
had they invested differently but there shouldn't be any discussion that they
are _not successful_.
I don't know where you are in your career or life, but I know that everyone
gets a chance to look back and see some things that look obviously stupid in
the future looking toward the past. If you are like me, and you see some
things that would have really made things different (I turned Bill Gates down
when he offered me a job in 1978, I held my tech stocks in 2000 hoping there
would be a recovery, Etc.) don't dwell on them. Figure out whether or not you
made the right decision with the information that was available, and if so let
those past decisions lay in peace and not haunt your dreams.
I have found that this statement : _" Ultimately, Microsoft could be making so
much more than what they are."_ is nearly always true. When looking back in
time, a path can be plotted which would have made you more money (I could have
bought 1000 BTC for $250 for example, I didn't) but that exercise is useless
unless it helps to learn something about how to make better decisions right?
------
redthrowaway
It's refreshing to see Ballmer's attitude towards Microsoft: he's willing to
do whatever's in the best interests of the company, even if he personally
would prefer to stay around longer (and make more money in so doing). How many
professional CEOs can you say the same of? How many people who worked their
way up the rungs of leadership would voluntarily step aside, thinking they
weren't the right person for the job?
~~~
keithpeter
I take your point, but can making more money possibly mean anything to
Ballmer?
Isn't it more about what Gates said (basically _meaning_ and Microsoft being
Gates' and Ballmer's big project)?
~~~
mathattack
Yes - for them the share price isn't about the cash, it's about keeping score.
------
nostromo
The thought of the CEO of Ford taking over Microsoft just seems crazy to me.
I'm sure he's a competent manager, as Balmer seemed to be, but is he a tech
visionary?
~~~
erbo
Bear in mind Mulally not only saved Ford, but saved the Taurus:
_" I arrive here, and the first day I say, 'Let's go look at the product
lineup.' And they lay it out, and I said, 'Where's the Taurus?' They said,
'Well, we killed it.' I said, 'What do you mean, you killed it?' 'Well, we
made a couple that looked like a football. They didn't sell very well, so we
stopped it.' 'You stopped the Taurus?' I said. 'How many billions of dollars
does it cost to build brand loyalty around a name?' 'Well, we thought it was
so damaged that we named it the Five Hundred.' I said, 'Well, you've got until
tomorrow to find a vehicle to put the Taurus name on because that's why I'm
here. Then you have two years to make the coolest vehicle that you can
possibly make.'?"_ \- [http://www.fastcompany.com/1573670/what-other-
automakers-can...](http://www.fastcompany.com/1573670/what-other-automakers-
can-learn-alan-mulally)
As the driver of a sixth-generation (2011) Ford Taurus, which is in fact a
pretty cool car, somehow it doesn't seem so crazy that Mulally could save
Microsoft as well...
~~~
JeremyMorgan
That's a very interesting comparison. For a while there the Taurus was the
laughing stock of the company, and now they're pretty damn nice.
So... we gonna back FrontPage now?
~~~
ak217
Yes, that's interesting. I think the decision to keep the Taurus brand was a
mistake, since Ford tarnished it with too many shitty cars over the years.
They have some really good brands (Fiesta, Raptor SVT, even Focus) but I would
consider Taurus irreparable, just like FrontPage.
The company logo needs an update too, IMO.
And they have an incredible iconic brand, "Model T", I think they would do
well to use it again.
~~~
hackula1
Some new innovation in trucks would certainly be interesting. As a driver with
over 200k on my F-150, I could see some sort of T-150 being a pretty sweet
redesign.
------
auctiontheory
The larger the company and its existing revenue streams, the greater the
resistance to any significant change. Even with Ballmer out, this law of
corporate inertia still holds.
As entrepreneurs, the above is actually good news - it's why we have a decent
chance of blowing past the incumbent.
------
antonius
Regardless of what some may say about him, spending 30+ years at a company and
serving as CEO of your remaining years shows the trust that Steve had. Similar
to when Bill Gates left, it will be a sad day when Ballmer is not around.
~~~
chris_wot
I'm sure that all those people who were screwed by the stack ranking system
will be _really_ upset.
~~~
3825
I'd imagine being a Microsoft alumni, regardless of the details of exit, means
many hiring managers would at least take a look at your resume.
------
avenger123
I got more insight from this article as to the type of person Ballmer is than
anything else I have read about him. Good read.
~~~
officemonkey
It certainly is more insightful than a Youtube video of him sweating and
yelling "DEVELOPERS" or another rehash of his iPhone-will-never-amount-to-
anything quote.
------
bgirard
"The Ballmer Years" stock price graph is extremely misleading because the
number of outstanding shares has changed. If they want to track Ballmer'
performance they should graph market cap.
~~~
keithwinstein
It depends on your perspective. If you're one of Microsoft's shareholders (the
perspective the WSJ may be writing for), market capitalization is not directly
relevant.
If Jane owns 100 shares of ABCD that most recently traded at $10 apiece, and
then the issuer issues 1,000 new shares to its employees but the shares
continue to trade at the same price, the market capitalization has increased
but Jane's stake hasn't changed in value.
Shareholders do care about price return and dividends. They might also care
about total return, subject to some reinvestment strategy and tax regime.
Market cap is also problematic because it can't be calculated in real time.
Reporting companies generally only publish a share count once a quarter. They
publish two numbers: the gross count of shares outstanding on a particular day
(which doesn't count in-the-money options and other live claims on a company's
equity) and the fully-diluted share count averaged over the quarter (without
publishing the strike price distribution of the options).
Neither one is exactly what you'd need to calculate an implied whole-company
market valuation anyway, so in general any attempt to measure market cap is
necessarily going to get an uncertain, out-of-date, imperfect metric. (A
useful one, don't get me wrong! But not what principally matters to the
shareholders.)
~~~
bgirard
That's a good point. Thanks!
------
Thiz
What would Elon Musk do as CEO of microsoft?
Just wondering...
~~~
breckinloggins
He would probably be really bored.
This is pure speculation, but I don't think Elon would like a "turnaround guy"
type of job. He seems to be driven to do really big things that people say
can't be done. I don't think Microsoft's shareholders would appreciate the
distraction, and to Musk, I'm pretty sure that even "put Windows on top of BSD
and open source it" wouldn't be his idea of "big things that people say can't
be done".
------
geoka9
"Steve was a phenomenal leader who racked up profits and market share in the
commercial business, but the new CEO must innovate in areas Steve
missed—phone, tablet, Internet services, even wearables."
Why does MS insist it has to be everywhere there's any money to be made? Apple
is happy being a phone/tablet company, Google is the Internet gig, but MS has
to have a finger in every pie, right?
~~~
lostoptimist
"Google is the Internet gig"
That's not really true. Google is trying to capture nearly everything, too.
Enterprise (docs), phone, tablet, computer, search, advertising, social, ISP,
wearable products (Glass), etc.
~~~
thatthatis
And cars and solar power
------
bitwize
My question is what's next for Steve? Being Bill's bulldog has been pretty
much a lifelong career for him. In his place I don't know that I'd be happy
anywhere else; I might decide to enjoy the huge sacks of cash money I'd made
and spend more time with my kids.
~~~
gnaritas
Retirement I imagine, he's absurdly rich. Maybe he'll join Bill and start
giving some of that money away.
------
jusben1369
To me Ballmer = Cook where Bill = Steve. Cook is taking over a company
dominant in it's markets. It's raking in huge sums of cash selling legacy
products. There's no sign that Cook can ensure Apple makes the leap to the
next big thing. Indeed, coming up through Apple he's probably not the right
guy just as Ballmer is now realizing his deeply engrained MSFT strains makes
him not the right guy for a new environment.
~~~
nirnira
I think people should wait at least five years before bothering to analyse Tim
Cook's tenure over Apple, because at this point, it's just stupid to even try.
------
ffrryuu
So he finally realized he's fail for the last 5+ years?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Sr Software Management Positions Perks? - someuber
Hi everyone,<p>I have been offered fairly senior positions with a couple of Fortune 100 companies. I have a non-traditional background and would appreciate insights from folks who have been there and done that.<p>I would appreciate your insights to help with negotiations.<p>What are usual perks for Director/Sr Director/VP of software engineering/ops positions?<p>Guaranteed contract? Severance? Premium benefits? Bonus target (offered is 30%)? Anything else that should be considered part of standard package?<p>Thank-you all!
======
techjuice
Quarterly bonuses of 8%-25% or guaranteed (in your employee/promotion offer
letter and added to your contract) end of year bonuses and if it is a startup
quarterly additional stock options based on company, sector, team performance.
Some may even pay for your home, car, and offer fully paid
tuition/books/university fees.
You may also gain the ability to ride (company paid) business or first class
for all of your domestic and international flights or if if your in a really
profitable company or high position in a government agency you get to fly on
the company/agency/chartered jet(s) for some or all flights. You may also get
an assistant or assistants to help you out with personal and business related
activities since you should be pretty busy and may forget things, they will
normally keep your schedule and keep you on schedule 24/7/365.
You normally get a pretty nice severance package that is only offered to
C-Level management which is only VP and above. Though if it is your first time
you should have a sit down with an attorney to make sure what you get from the
company is good to go and a financial advisor and tax accountant to help you
make a plan for what to do with those extra benefits and how they can affect
you tax wise so you know what is seen as income and what treated as gifts.
This way you will have a full picture of what you are really getting. As
sometimes it may look like more, but may push you into a new tax bracket or
increase your taxes to not make much of a difference in the end. Either way it
is good to have a full overview so there are no surprises at the end of the
year.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Comprehensive Guide To Debugging Rails | Jack Kinsella – Analyst Berlin - delfuego
http://www.jackkinsella.ie/2014/06/06/a-comprehensive-guide-to-debugging-rails.html
======
delfuego
Although I think you have pointed out some spot on concepts in diagnosing
issues, I think the leading analogy is lacking. I don't think you can make
such a supposition that a musician without sight is incapable of producing the
music they desire. I'm sure you could come up with a much more appropriate
example without trampling on musicians without sight.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Traders question value of stock-market circuit breakers - JumpCrisscross
https://www.wsj.com/articles/traders-question-value-of-stock-market-circuit-breakers-11584351001
======
seanhunter
Contrary to what this article and other news sources seem to think, the
purpose of "circuit breakers" (usually called intraday volatility breaks
actually) is not to stop anyone from losing money or even to stop price falls
from happening. It's to get to a functioning market with a market price that
is reflective of the consensus opinion on available information as efficiently
as possible without too much thrashing around.
So what they actually do is not "suspend trading" as is often stated, but
suspend order matching. Orders can be placed in the book and are matched at
the end of the suspension via an auction process (all the buys and sells that
have price limits such that they can be matched off) are matched at the end of
the suspension (usually at a single auction price print) and then continuous
trading resumes.
This is essentially the exchange pausing "exchange time" so everyone can
position and then resuming it again, and is exactly the same matching process
that happens at the beginning and end of each trading day (and iirc after
lunch in Japan) to help the market price reflect the consensus of opinion of
the information that came out overnight while markets where closed.
There is a reasonable line of thinking that continuous trading is somewhat
overrated and some research advocates for matching to be done entirely through
auctions. So say for instance you have 1 auction per minute throughout the
day.
~~~
kqr
I almost understand this, but not quite. The reason is likely that I lack the
prerequisite understanding of what constitutes an order, how it's different
from a limit order, and so on. Either way, I would like to understand it
better because they way you put it makes it sound rather elegant.
This feels like something that could be very intuitively explained with
visuals. Does anyone know of such a visual explanation of this?
~~~
thedudeabides5
Good question, but I haven't seen any.
The core concept is that there are a bunch of folks that more or less promise
to either post bids (promises to buy) or offers (promises to sell)
continuously, and for that promise they (sometimes) get special treatment as
'market makers.'
In an orderly market, there are _both_ bids and offers for every instrument.
A market maker (or really any market participant) desire to participate in the
market is a function of a) the rest of their portfolio (whether they are net
'long' or net 'short') and b) their expectations of when and at what price
they can unwind the trade if they get 'hit' on their bid (aka someone sells to
them at their posted price) or 'lifted' on their offer (aka someone buys from
them).
When markets are moving 5-6% an hour, it becomes almost impossible to have any
certainty on a) what the rest of your portfolio really looks like and b) when
and at what price you might be able to unwind a particular trade.
This results in market makers (and HFT, and other market participants)
basically exiting the market.
When people say the 'bid-offer spread is wide' this is usually what they are
referring to. All the usual players basically take a step back and say 'too
rich for my blood' and then you have wide markets, and 'risk premiums' for
assets all over the place.
Circuit breakers are an attempt to slow time down to give people a chance to
understand their portfolios better, and hence return to the market. Wide bid-
offers represent highly profitable market opportunities, if the market is
orderly.
When it's not, you get stuff like an ETF on US government bonds trading as a
steep discount to the 'intrinsic value' of the underlying bond portfolio.
Aka chaos.
[https://ycharts.com/companies/TLT/discount_or_premium_to_nav](https://ycharts.com/companies/TLT/discount_or_premium_to_nav)
~~~
Simulacra
The Dude, ladies and gentlemen. Very nicely said.
------
geerlingguy
Traders question the value, but what about investors? It seems like a good
idea in theory, at least—give the markets a little breathing room before
trillions of dollars vanish into the ether in minutes.
I'd rather there be circuit breakers than risk the markets losing 50% in one
day, which seems possible in a panic selloff.
~~~
devit
Nothing is lost or vanishes, it's just a change in the ratio at which people
are willing to exchange two assets.
~~~
altcognito
Nothing except your ability to procure new investment capital, borrow to pay
wages which may or may not include premiums for health care.
~~~
bluGill
None of that should be tied to the stock market. That has been advice from all
the experts for ages. Even the strongest stock advocates have said the stock
market it for long term savings.
~~~
CrazyStat
If you are a publicly traded company it's impossible for all those things to
not be tied to the stock market.
------
neonate
[https://archive.md/CJJGX](https://archive.md/CJJGX)
------
Hitton
I think that in age of automated trading it's very important. You can't be
sure there won't spontaneously emerge some freakish occurrence which will make
bots trade in such degenerate way that it will send markets tumbling; without
stopgap measure it could be disastrous.
~~~
murillians
That is exactly why they implemented these circuit breakers
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_flash_crash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_flash_crash)
~~~
sirmoveon
It was hypothesis and later proven incorrect. Some even argue algos helped
minimize the turmoil.
In the pre-automated era I can see circuit breakers working in a constructive
way for the markets. These days, with trading being mostly automated and
algorithmic, to me it feels more like a bureaucratic tool to give government
institutions some time to play the markets.
------
dsfyu404ed
>Published March 16, 2020 5:30 am ET
>The mechanism, which some complain does little good, was triggered twice last
week during a coronavirus-fueled selloff,
Well that headline went out of date real fast.
For those that don't know, the breaker triggered again at 9:30:01 (time
according to CBOE) this morning.
~~~
throwanem
The DJIA has dropped another 2% since the 15-minute pause expired. We might
see trading shut down for the day.
------
loopz
No real solutions until credible leadership takes charge.
For example: [https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-
coronavirus-2...](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-
coronavirus-2019/media-resources/press-briefings)
------
decentralised
Mmmh... I was a CTO at a crypto-exchange which as everyone knows don't have
circuit breakers.
The amount of emails we received from customers complaining they lost a lot of
money while they were asleep was part of the reason I left, and now also part
of the reason I think whichever traders WSJ interviewed (can't see article bc
it's paywalled) are wrong.
~~~
btbuildem
Currencies trade 24x7, and somehow that works just fine.
~~~
decentralised
It doesn't work just fine at all. I could tell you plenty of stories and
industry insights but I'll leave you just with one nugget I got at a market-
maker conference last year: not even 20 cryptoexchanges are profitable, and
this information comes from those who are paid to make markets.. move.
edit: I think maybe you were referring to ForEx currencies only.. well,
there's a difference between a broker and an exchange and I'm constantly
surprised traders don't know this.
PS: I worked at Euronext too (many years ago)
------
egypturnash
“We need to be able to make value evaporate as fast as possible,” said Bobby
Blick, a trader at Opportunity Traders LLC. “It’s just insulting to not be
able to get our commissions off of this huge volume of panic sales.”
~~~
gruez
I highly doubt that circuit breakers put any meaningful dent on trade volume.
If anything, they're merely delayed until the markets reopen.
------
llcoolv
Well those circuit breakers are the same thing communist governments used to
do with the Berlin Wall, etc. It is just that this time it is the investors
and not the citizens who are banned from abandoning ship.
And as the entire stock market is based on trusth, the long-term and even mid-
term results are horrendous and totally not worth it.
------
AznHisoka
Instead of circuit breakers, why not:
1) Forbid any trading of stock futures. To me, reading about stock futures
reaching circuit breakers would invoke panic and the need to sell as soon as
the market opens. Let the market open at 9:30 EST, to whatever price the
market feels is appropriate at that time. Do not give them a clue as to what
it can be. Let the market decide for itself.
2) Forbid short selling. I feel most of the selling is done by long-term
holders, but short selling does excacerbate the situation. I'm in favor of
forbidding short selling forever, let alone in a crisis, as it's an artificial
technicality of the market. You can't short sell houses, or your possessions,
right? So why can we short sell stocks (if you want to hedge, go buy put
options)? I sure as heck didn't give anyone the right to borrow my stocks and
sell it. It's mine - I own it.
~~~
dtwest
1) Why? Futures do not prevent the market from "deciding for itself". Global
equity markets don't just trade on New York time. Getting rid of futures would
not fix the problem you are trying to solve, while creating many new problems.
2) If short selling actually did exacerbate the situation, wouldn't that
create a buying opportunity for other market participants? In reality, short
selling does not systematically force markets to price things incorrectly.
~~~
AznHisoka
1) I'm not sure about that. I think any pre-market activity influences the
price it trades at during the day. For example, if a stock goes up 10% up pre-
market because it beats earnings, it usually stays at that price level during
the day. Just because people see the price up in pre-market. Same if it goes
down. It acts as some sort of marker. It would be interesting to see how
prices would be impacted if there were absolutely zero pre-market activity.
For instance, if $SPY didn't drop 10% pre-market, and nobody put in any
bids/sells yet, would $SPY open at 10% down? If it goes down even more, then
so be it. At least, that's what the market wants. Not on an arbitrary marker
price they see in pre-market and is stuck in their mind.
2) I think short selling helps misprice stocks in both directions. It creates
artificial price increases simply b/c of shorts covering as well. Let stocks
go up because more people want to buy it than they want to sell. And let
stocks go down because more people want to sell than they want to buy. That's
what a market is for other assets - whether it's ebay, amazon, groceries, etc.
Don't let other technicalities affect the price.
~~~
dtwest
"For example, if a stock goes up 10% up pre-market because it beats earnings,
it usually stays at that price level during the day. Just because people see
the price up in pre-market."
1) No, it is not just because people see the price pre-market. It is because
it beat earnings. Futures are not an arbitrary marker price.
2) There is so much arbing going on that I don't agree with you.
~~~
AznHisoka
Fair enough, I respectfully disagree, but you raise some good points.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Facebook passes Google sites in total user minutes - aspir
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129762892
======
beaumartinez
I'm not surprised; Google is an information intermediary (you go there to find
something else) whereas Facebook is information (you go there to find out
about your friends).
~~~
sullichin
Yeah - no real reason to be on Google for more than a few seconds at a time.
Plus, facebook encourages you to keep your browser window open (persistent
chat, live feed updates etc).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Six Months of HackerNews Front Page Data - matt1
http://www.mattmazur.com/2010/03/six-months-of-hackernews-front-page-data/
======
eob
I hacked together a quick script to generate new HN story titles from your
list of existing ones. It is a pretty shoddy job -- no syntax-level modeling
-- but some of the ones it generated are still pretty amusing:
mark cuban: how to say facebook
how ravelry scales to remove ipad stories from wind
google patents its way to copenhagen
bert and rails ecosystem white paper
how phusion built a blog posting
2010 conference makes the last days of android phones
is like sex. it's better when harvard teaches networking
thunderbird and one hell of the illusion of music
customer development and lying with nginx
toddlers develop individualized rules for scalewell startup fund
bill gates sums up massive data failure leads to control robots
the fuel for running our financial system
i have become a programming language
the future of instant approval
scheme that 'cancer-proofs' rodent's cells
the design and getting your business
h.264 to reach 1 billion rows into the expression problem
the bible that runs on your vc "closing" fees
ask pg: quick tips on different sql implementations
the insanely great in the free version of iphone
scalable apps on vetting opportunities
mona lisa's smile a frozen sculpture of programming
coelacanth: lessons from moleskine to rule your code
results with people: do what would never launch
~~~
eob
I put the python scripts here if anyone wants to play with them:
<http://people.csail.mit.edu/eob/files/hn/>
The code wasn't written to be anything more than a quick toy.. so don't zing
me for its poor quality :)
------
icefox
Based upon that data it looks like the best time to submit the data is between
12 and 16 UTC.
Edit: This is with thirty seconds of tossing it through awk. It is pretty well
distributed so maybe it is insignificant. I only counted articles that reached
1st place, you should parse it yourself rather than take my word for it of
course. And a graph would be nice.
~~~
joshstaiger
I happened to be playing with R today, so I took a stab at making a chart:
<http://tinyurl.com/hnrank>
~~~
aneesh
Rule of thumb for when to submit seems to be: whenever PST people are awake,
and not eating meals.
------
shmichael
It has been just today that I discussed the prospects of analyzing HN front
page posts with a friend.
Promise to come up with interesting results. Thank you.
~~~
shmichael
and my friend didn't even wait up for me.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1175223>
------
wvl
Thanks for the dataset. FWIW: %s/"//g takes it from 170M to 100M
Of course, compression negates the saving, but it still seemed odd.
~~~
matt1
Good point. I just went with the default export settings--if I do it again in
the future, I'll definitely do it this way.
------
sandaru1
The current data format is harder to read using python csv module. This code
will convert it to python compatible csv : <http://gist.github.com/325195>
It's bit slow(~15 seconds), but it's a one time job.
------
revorad
Thanks a lot Matt. That should be one heck of a dataset to play with.
------
paraschopra
Thank you so much. This is all I needed to make my HN points predictor for
newly submitted stories.
Now if I only find a nice chunk of time on a lazy weekend..
------
aditya
Does anyone have a full dump of HN posts and comments?
~~~
silentbicycle
Some were posted roughly a year ago, but they're no longer up. I might have
them somewhere, give me some time to dig.
------
marcamillion
Hrmm....so now we will see if your tool explodes when a URL to the site
reaches the front page.
Kinda like when you google google.
------
petewailes
Doing statistical coolness now. Will post results later. Stay tuned...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What do Stanford CS PhD students think of their PhD program? [pdf] - suuser
https://archive.org/download/phd_student_survey_summary_report_0a5c/phd_student_survey_summary_report_0a5c.pdf
======
wallflower
Philip Guo's "The Ph.D Grind: A Ph.D Student Memoir" is an amazingly well-
written and sage chronicle of getting a Ph.D at Stanford from 2006-2012.
[http://www.pgbovine.net/PhD-memoir/pguo-PhD-
grind.pdf](http://www.pgbovine.net/PhD-memoir/pguo-PhD-grind.pdf)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4179982](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4179982)
~~~
pgbovine
thanks! AMA.
(no guarantees that i'll be able to answer via text, though; maybe i'll make a
video later. been trying to minimize my computering time off-hours due to
increasing wrist pains ... PSA: take care of your wrists, everyone!)
~~~
hackpert
Thanks so much for writing this memoir! It is absolutely brilliant.
Considering you had a somewhat unconventional PhD with your independent
projects, what was the main role of your advisor? How do you make the most of
such a situation to extract knowledge out of professors who may not have an
incentive to be directly involved in your project to the usual degree?
~~~
pgbovine
thanks! that's a hard problem! i frame it in terms of critical path:
[http://pgbovine.net/critical-path.htm](http://pgbovine.net/critical-path.htm)
if you can't get on someone's critical path, then you have to make it very
easy for them to help you with very little time commitment. e.g.,:
[http://pgbovine.net/how-to-ask-for-help.htm](http://pgbovine.net/how-to-ask-
for-help.htm)
~~~
hackpert
That makes a lot of sense, thanks!
------
asafira
I was grad council president at that Harvard physics department a couple of
years ago, and I helped organize a similar survey.
My first impression here is that things aren't too bad. Some people are
commenting, for example, about projectors not having enough cables ---
obviously a nuisance, but if those are the issues the department is having,
great. (Obvious, easy solution and a relatively small problem to begin with)
Second, I don't really think this is a particularly comprehensive survey. I'm
surprised there weren't more pointed questions about job intentions (academia
vs industry vs not sure), feeling respected by those around you, the
prevalence and (separately) severity of the racism, sexism, and general
harassment, etc. Not a single question about teaching, nor a question about
actions they'd like to see taken. Relatively few culture questions outside of
"do you feel like a community" (something like that).
At Harvard physics, there were more pressing concerns regarding sexism,
racism, the quality of the required courses, and professional development. The
department did reciprocate and make great changes to the required courses, but
deeper biases make the other categories much more difficult to tackle.
I have been helping a lot of students deal with considering industry, as in a
physics department it's looked down upon to just be considering industry, let
alone pursue it. Or, even if not explicitly looked down upon, it's definitely
the culture and general feel, and many students and postdocs prefer to discuss
it in private. (I did an internship at Waymo last summer, so people are
especially keen on asking me about transitioning to industry)
The survey results are unfortunately not public, so I can't share them. Kudos
to the group of students or administrators that put together this data! I'd
love to hear what they learned from it and changed as a result of it.
------
ordinaryperson
This doesn't answer the question I fundamentally want to know: do they think
it was worth it?
In my CS master's programs profs often warned against the PhD, said companies
wouldn't hire you, that they'd view you as "too smart" and potentially be
bored by everyday work.
Not true for certain disciplines (AI, e.g.) but I don't think every CS PhD is
walking out the door with 300K/year offers hitting them in the face.
~~~
throwaway080383
I don't think Google has ever turned away an applicant for being "too smart".
That being said, five years in a PhD is probably not as good for your career
as five years' experience at $BigNameTech. PhD is probably more fun, though.
~~~
tranchms
I have many friends in PhD programs, including CalTech, Stanford, and
Berkeley, pursuing CS, Genetics, Biomededical Engineering, and EE.
To characterize their program is “fun” is a gross mischaracterization, and
demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of the rigors involved in any
technical/science/engineering PhD pursuit.
PhD programs are hard. They’re often lonely. They’re frustrating. They’re
tedious. And there’s a tremendous amount of pressure. And it’s academia:
highly bureaucratic and political and often unfair.
Unless you possess a serious passion for the subject, you’re unlikely to
survive.
On the other hand, my friends getting the PhDs in subjects such as education
(Stanford) and conservation biology (Mississippi State) have described it as
the highlight of their life. After their first two years, they’re basically
getting paid to do whatever they want. They audit classes. Apply to grants.
Travel. And they write.
~~~
throwaway080383
The irony of this reply is that I did do a PhD, in pure math at a top 10
school, and while I might describe it as hard, lonely, frustrating, tedious,
and high pressure, I would also describe it as having been fun. Certainly more
fun than my current job at $BigNameTech.
Thanks for the lecture about my Serious Misunderstanding, though.
~~~
cglouch
Do you regret doing your PhD in math? Reason I ask is that I thought about
going to grad school for math but decided against it. It just seemed like it
would be postponing the inevitable of finding a job that had little to do with
my "passion". I definitely see the appeal of doing a PhD in a field with
better industry employment prospects (e.g. AI in CS if you're into that), but
less so for fields like pure math that aren't as employable outside of
academia. I'm curious if you felt the experience was worth it, though
~~~
tgb
I did a PhD in math and if I were to do things again, I'd do applied math
because I think I enjoy applied math at least as much as pure math (this is
_not_ true of everyone) while also having it have more obvious job prospects.
I did pure math in part because I was told it was easier to go pure->applied
than applied->pure. I still think that is true and was a not an unreasonable
way to choose what to study. I fundamentally had a very good time in my PhD (I
would absolutely describe it as fun, though that would only be part of the
picture) and learned a ton and now am transitioning to applied math in exactly
the manner that I had been told would be possible (though I feel like I did
this more by luck than by it being systematically possible).
------
henrik_w
I did a Master in CS, worked as a developer for 5 years, then went back to do
a Ph.D. I stayed with it for a year before deciding it was not for me, and
went back to SW development.
My key reasons for not continuing with the Ph.D.:
\- Many problems you study are chosen because you will be able to publish
something, not necessarily because they need to be studied.
\- You don’t need to be a (Ph.D.)student to learn - you can work and still
learn
\- A Ph.D. in itself doesn’t make you smart
\- Narrow problems vs broad problems - I prefer to work on something where all
parts need to be good enough, vs on finding the best possible solution to a
very narrow problem.
\- Having worked before starting the Ph.D., I could compare working in
industry vs studying for a Ph.D., and I realized it was very stimulating in
industry.
\- Much better pay for 5 years
I've written more on why here: [https://henrikwarne.com/2016/03/07/ph-d-or-
professional-prog...](https://henrikwarne.com/2016/03/07/ph-d-or-professional-
programmer/)
~~~
ordinaryperson
This is exactly what I wanted to know, thanks.
As someone with a CS master's I almost wish there was an alternate PhD path
where you didn't have to do research, like a Masters++ program. There were
many classes I never got to take for my degree, like in category theory or AI
or distributed databases.
Some of the PhDs in this thread have said they tried $BigTechCo and found it
boring, but to me that just means you were working at the wrong company or on
the wrong project.
I feel like my master's equipped me to be able to read and study theoretical
computer science at a high level, that the PhD program would be a strain on me
and my family without much reward.
Although I do daydream about being independently wealthy and getting a
master's in mathematics just for fun
~~~
henrik_w
Thanks! I had (and have) the same feeling of missing some classes. That's why
I was very happy when MOOCs appeared a few years ago. I've taken several
courses there, for example on algorithms, databases and SW security. I've
reviewed the courses on my blog:
[https://henrikwarne.com/tag/coursera/](https://henrikwarne.com/tag/coursera/)
and [https://henrikwarne.com/2011/12/18/introduction-to-
databases...](https://henrikwarne.com/2011/12/18/introduction-to-databases-on-
line-learning-done-well/)
------
sjroot
I am still intrigued by the idea of a CS PHD but I stopped after my Master’s.
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of finding an advisor you mesh well
with.
------
w8rbt
Hah, I actually used Klee doing a CS Masters at Georgia Tech. Small world.
[https://klee.github.io/publications/](https://klee.github.io/publications/)
Edit: And most of the bugs seem to be gone now ;)
~~~
sus_007
Is Klee something like LaTeX ? What is it actually ?
~~~
Cyph0n
No, it looks like a symbolic execution-based software testing framework. Here
is a link to the paper that started the project:
[http://llvm.org/pubs/2008-12-OSDI-
KLEE.html](http://llvm.org/pubs/2008-12-OSDI-KLEE.html).
------
hqian
Noticed the year 2015 has several unique distributions. Curious what the
insights are.
~~~
majos
CS PhD student (not at Stanford) here. Based on the survey timing, 2015
respondents were in their 3rd year when answering this survey. I have
personally heard and read that 3rd year is a hard year for many PhD students
(and the experiences of my peers and I largely bear this out), so the
dissatisfaction here tracks with that idea.
There are many possible explanations:
1\. Most people have their master's degree by third year. There's a sense of
"if you're going to drop out, now is the time to do it." If you're miserable
in your program but hate quitting stuff, third year might be the year that
finally breaks you.
2\. Coursework is largely over by 3rd year, and a student should be doing
research close to full time. This can be a hard transition. Granted, most
Stanford students probably have substantial research experience coming in, but
even that is not the same as doing (often very unstructured) research all day
every day.
3\. The "honeymoon" is over. You're no longer a young student, and pressure is
growing to publish, know your area, network, and so on. At the same time
you're still quite junior, so you know you're probably not very good at any of
these things yet. This can be a frustrating combination. Kind of like
adolescence. Also, if you've been unlucky with conference reviewing, you may
have a stack of 2-4 papers that have been rejected at least once or twice, and
you despair of ever doing anything externally recognized as useful. In the
other direction, some of your peers now have half a dozen accepted papers at
good conferences, and you feel inferior (never mind that these are small
sample sizes, and peer review is noisy).
So some self-selection occurs in the third year, and the group that sticks
around to year four is usually smaller and happier (and, of course, some
happier fourth years used to be miserable third years).
~~~
hqian
Thanks! This is definitely making sense to me. I'll bookmark this and hope
they do another survey next year (and share). Looking forward to the
comparison of year 2016 next year.
------
andrewl
I recently emailed somebody a few quotes from Freeman Dyson on the PhD system,
which I include below. I can track down the sources when I'm back in my
office, although anybody can find them easily enough. Dyson is not obscure.
“I’m very proud of not having a Ph.D. I think the Ph.D. system is an
abomination. It was invented as a system for educating German professors in
the 19th century, and it works well under those conditions. It’s good for a
very small number of people who are going to spend their lives being
professors. But it has become now a kind of union card that you have to have
in order to have a job, whether it’s being a professor or other things, and
it’s quite inappropriate for that. It forces people to waste years and years
of their lives sort of pretending to do research for which they’re not at all
well-suited. In the end, they have this piece of paper which says they’re
qualified, but it really doesn’t mean anything. The Ph.D. takes far too long
and discourages women from becoming scientists, which I consider a great
tragedy. So I have opposed it all my life without any success at all.”
From a different interview:
“Well, I think it actually is very destructive. I'm now retired, but when I
was a professor here [Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton], my real job
was to be a psychiatric nurse. There were all these young people who came to
the institute, and my job was to be there so they could cry on my shoulder and
tell me what a hard time they were having. And it was a very tough situation
for these young people. They come here. They have one or two years and they're
supposed to do something brilliant. They're under terrible pressure — not from
us, but from them.
So, actually, I've had three of them who I would say were just casualties who
I'm responsible for. One of them killed himself, and two of them ended up in
mental institutions. And I should've been able to take care of them, but I
didn't. I blame the Ph.D. system for these tragedies. And it really does
destroy people. If they weren't under that kind of pressure, they could all
have been happy people doing useful stuff. Anyhow, so that's my diatribe. But
I really have seen that happen.
And also, of course, it wastes a tremendous amount of time — especially for
women, it's particularly badly timed.
If they're doing a Ph.D., they have a conflict between raising a family or
finishing the degree, which is just at the worst time — between the ages of 25
to 30 or whatever it is. It ruins the five years of their lives.
And I see the difference in the business world. My daughter happens to be a
businesswoman, so I meet a lot of her young friends.
The life there is so much easier for women. They start a company when they're
20; they go bust when they're 22. [Laughs] Meanwhile, they have a kid, and
nobody condemns them for going bust. If you're in the business world, that's
what's expected: You should go bust and then start again on something else. So
it's a much more relaxed kind of a culture. It's also competitive, but not in
such a vicious way. I think the academic world is actually much more
destructive of young people.
[The Ph.D. system] was designed for a job in academics. And it works really
well if you really want to be an academic, and the system actually works quite
well. So for people who have the gift and like to go spend their lives as
scholars, it's fine. But the trouble is that it's become a kind of a meal
ticket — you can't get a job if you don't have a Ph.D. So all sorts of people
go into it who are quite unsuited to it. [...]
Anyway, so, I'm happy that I've raised six kids, and not one of them is a
Ph.D.”
~~~
a-dub
CS and engineering PhDs seem to fall into a kinda weird category of
"industrial" PhDs where it seems more people go in from the get-go with no
interest in staying in academia. I think some CS/engr programs actually have
built-in expectations of doing internships with industry, which seems _really_
backwards to me.
~~~
chrisseaton
> I think some CS/engr programs actually have built-in expectations of doing
> internships with industry, which seems really backwards to me
Why do you think this is backwards? Industry often has more resources for
research than academia does, so doing an industrial internship is usually a
way to supercharge your research and get better data and try more things.
How is that backwards?
------
acbart
I much prefer divergent stacked bar charts for likert/1-5 ratings, rather than
these side-by-side bar charts. It's really hard to compare the distributions.
Even a box plot would be better, I think.
------
Sreyanth
On a different note, it would be interesting to know how many respondents
opted for the eGift card for completing the survey. And if the responses
deviated a lot when the data is pivoted with that variable.
------
debbiedowner
Looking at the qual exam charts, and then looking at the qual requirements for
stanford cs online, I just think: "some people have all the luck"
------
crb002
Curious. Stanford sounds like it needs to bring in adjunct ML faculty from
industry to serve as academic advisors. Also their weed out "breadth" classes
sound dumb, most would hate the program.
------
namelezz
No racial profile but there is a section about racism in the CS Department.
LOL
~~~
dang
"Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets
more divisive."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Russian Hacker Builds 70 Terabyte Home Computer - jeffmiller
http://www.pcworld.com/article/208655/russian_hacker_builds_70_terabyte_home_computer.html
======
tghw
BackBlaze, an online backup company, posted a great blog article a while back
about building their custom 67TB servers for just under $8,000. They even
include all the how to, and a link to the custom case manufacturer if you
wanted to do it yourself: [http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-
a-budget-h...](http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-
to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/)
------
codedivine
What is so interesting about buying up tonnes of hard disks and connecting
them?
~~~
jrockway
There must be something hard about it. I work at a huge company and constantly
get emails about deleting files from my home directory, because there is only
100G of storage for everyone.
All I know is that I have a 1TB 3-way RAID-1 array at home, and it cost less
to build that than it costs to pay me to cleanup my inbox. Not My Problem, I
suppose...
~~~
tsotha
Where I work we have a super fast SAN for our storage, with a giant cache,
fiber everything, and separate channels for backups. The cost works out to
something like $1k/GB. Beyond that we're perennially short on rack space, so
there's a cost to buying new storage. I used to believe it would be cheaper
for the company to add storage than to make me clean up my home directory, but
I worked out the numbers one day and it's simply not the case.
~~~
Retric
If your paying 1k/GB your getting the short end of the stick.
To put this in perspective you could have a redundant array of in expensive
RAM + network storage for less than this. (Excluding energy costs).
------
listic
Closer to the source: <http://basanovich.livejournal.com/163813.html>
With more photos and crude English explaination from the author. Reposted by a
friend, as the original author doesn't disclose himself.
This piece of news made a couple of hops before it got out to English-speaking
internets.
------
ctdonath
Unusual, but not hard. 1 USB port, tree of 12 hubs, pile of 70 1TB drives.
He's looking for accessible capacity, not speed.
~~~
bobf
Western Digital just released a 3TB drive (~$239) - that would only require 24
drives to net 72TB.
~~~
junkbit
Yes the Seagate 3TB that was also just released has a lot of heat problems. If
you are looking for 3TB go for the WD
------
Tichy
I'd like to wait for a year to see that the design does not go up in flames
before I applaud it.
------
srean
Now if only I could build a CM-5 clone for my home.
------
exit
how soon can we expect this capacity to fit in a usb stick?
~~~
Retric
You could probably build one today, but if you mean for a reasonable cost,
then it's probably 15-20 years depending if storage doubles every 18 months or
2 years.
~~~
exit
> _You could probably build one today_
you mean the technology to achieve such density already exists? that's
interesting.
do you expect storage to keep up with moore's law?
~~~
Retric
You can already buy 512GB USB drives, because you don't need to power them
while not in use you can basically stack them indefinitely the only question
is would you conciser a 50 pound USB device a USB stick and would you pay
several hundred k to do so?
Storage has experienced rapid exponential growth for a while.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hard_drive_capacity_over_t...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hard_drive_capacity_over_time.svg)
------
seltzered
Hope he's using a decent modern filesystem (e.g. zfs)
------
known
In Russia, Home Computer builds Hacker.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Forgotten Home of Tennis’s Open Era - Graham24
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/22/sports/tennis/british-hard-court-championships.html
======
dmurray
It's strange to think of an era where the prestigious competitions were in
amateur sports and this watershed moment was allowing professionals (who made
their money playing in smaller tournaments) to compete. My understanding is
that this was a class issue, where ladies and gentlemen who did not need to
work for a living did not rub shoulders with the people who did.
~~~
Scarblac
In Dutch chess, grandmaster JH Donner was the first professional player. In
the 1960s he played in the Dutch team.
The other team members got paid for playing in tournaments because they had to
take time off from their jobs and obviously had to be compensated for that,
but Donner got paid nothing because as a chess professional he didn't have a
job.
------
Graham24
How odd to find an article in the NYT about my home town.
------
eosophos
How does this belong on Hacker News?
~~~
JorgeGT
Human org dynamics are always interesting, because they can be applied to many
other fields. Consider, "Xerox, the forgotten home of OS's GUI era".
How an org can pioneer a multi-billion business such as modern tennis and
still become forgotten, unknown and semi-dilapidated is an insightful lesson
IMHO.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Interesting fact on the right-hand side - babuskov
https://www.google.com/search?q=chuck+norris
======
babuskov
What's even more interesting is that the "fact" changes each time you load the
page.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Useful tools and resources for web developers - BlackGecko
http://webpickings.com/
======
st3f4no
Great growing collection
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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