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New York City Hospitals: ‘We’re Getting Pounded’ - systemvoltage https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-cases-strain-new-york-city-hospitals-were-getting-pounded-11584719908 ====== neilpanchal [http://archive.is/8liDT](http://archive.is/8liDT)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Yahoo tops Google in US traffic - zher http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57599600-93/wait-what-yahoo-tops-google-in-us-traffic/ ====== pasbesoin I "Google" less and less for search results, as they become increasingly crap. They are mostly best for "big name" items; also, the prominence of StackOverflow means that some computer technology queries still work pretty well. These days, I'm fortunate when I know specifically enough what I want that I can jump straight into Wikipedia and hopefully find an adequate page. Whatever you are and aren't doing about it, Google, whenever I search for something detailed that's not in StackOverflow, your results are increasingly crap, once again. Pages and pages full of very spammy results. Some time ago -- perhaps a few years ago or a bit more -- I became accustomed to fairly quickly paging several pages into the search results, where the heaviest, highly ranked spam would start to filter out and I could start to recognize more legitimate sources of information. These days... the spam results just go on and one. If there's quality somewhere in the search results, it's beyond the limit of my patience to continue paging forward and scanning. Not that I'm using Yahoo, in preference. That part... all I can think of is measuring by byte counts, and buttloads of banner ads. Probably not the right explanation, but... \-- P.S. Your (Google, again) elimination of the + operator in your search queries was, again anecdotally, another factor in the declining performance of your searches for me. Being able to tell the query engine that I _definitely_ don't want to see results that don't include term x frequently proved quite useful. Now... the damned thing shows me "whatever it feels like", whether I quote terms, beg,.... any other suggestions? ~~~ thisisnotatest Google engineer here. We run experiments that show ranking improvements before launching changes to how we interpret query words. I would guess that for every time you notice Google "ignoring the word you asked for," there were several times where we got you the right result even though it didn't have the exact words you asked for, and you didn't even notice. We're not perfect but we're always working on improvements. We also added "Verbatim Mode" to save you the trouble of putting "each" "query" "term" in "quotes" when you want to exactly match all your query words. ~~~ mistermann I would very much like an expandable section below the search text where I could turn very specific portions of the google magic on and off. I also wish you would remove the multitude of sites that scrape content from the original sites and SEO the hell out of it to get to the top of search results. I assume the advertising revenue is too lucrative to do so. ~~~ thisisnotatest Personally I would be a fan of giving users more "knobs" to turn in their search results. For example, we have the toggle switch to include personal results and personalized ranking, vs. showing un-personalized search results. However, it's a complicated product design problem whenever you want to add complexity to something used by a billion people. Remember that the thing that made Google so popular and iconic originally was the plain search box. ~~~ rhizome AV had a plain page, too. ------ brymaster I don't doubt that Yahoo has a shit load of traffic still, but unless Alexa/Quantcast/ComScore/Compete/Nielsen or any of these other so-called 'web traffic measurement services' have direct access to Yahoo and Google's traffic data (they don't), I'd take these all with a grain of salt. These services have never been accurate. [http://moz.com/blog/testing-accuracy-visitor-data-alexa- comp...](http://moz.com/blog/testing-accuracy-visitor-data-alexa-compete- google-trends-quantcast) ~~~ cagenut One of those things is not like the other. Go to yahoo.com, open devtools/firebug, scour the network tab for "b.scorecardresearch.com", that's comscore. These numbers are as accurate as can be. ~~~ debaserab2 The numbers for Yahoo may be accurate. What about Google and all the others on the list? When I go to Google, I see no "b.scorecardresearch" anywhere to be found on my network tab. ------ kulpreet I just finished a 10 week internship at Yahoo and while I can't say much about where the company is headed strategically, I can say that it's a super exciting time to be working there :) ~~~ asperous You mean you aren't allowed to say, or you aren't really sure? ~~~ mahmud He/she was an intern. Typically, interns are neither privy to strategy, nor are they sure of where things are headed. ~~~ reid I work at Yahoo!. Our interns attend weekly meetings where strategy is discussed. :) ~~~ mahmud Tactics you mean. Tactics change frequently, to align projections with actual results and market changes. Strategy doesn't change as often, and has a longer lifespan. If your strategy needs reviewing weekly you probably don't want to disclose it. ------ eksith I've been experimenting with DuckDuckGo and I must say, I'm finding what I'm looking for pretty quickly (minus junk results) in the first few results. Their WolframAlpha results are actually pretty good too. I hope they can move into image searching that isn't dependent on Google or Bing though. I'm still curious as to what criteria they used to differentiate Yahoo traffic under "Yahoo! Sites" though. Did they also include Flickr and other acquisitions as well? (Tumblr seems to be on its own still) ~~~ oinksoft I used DDG for a while and really wanted it to work for me, but for any non- obvious search, it simply falls on its face. It's easy to take for granted how good Google is at determining equivalent keywords based on context, or at grokking context in general. I only adopted DDG over privacy concerns, and StartPage is filling this need wonderfully. Hopefully it stays up. ~~~ eksith Ah yes, if I'm searching for something non-obvious, it does get a bit tedious. It's not like Google where I still find it after the 3 or 4th page; the results just get further and further from what I expect. DDG's biggest problem so far is "grokking context" as you put it. ~~~ oinksoft The contrast was/is starker: DDG would return pages of irrelevant crap, and Google/StartPage would have exactly what I wanted in the first 1-3 results, with usually 8 of the top ten being relevant. Google is simply leagues ahead of the competition right now in both index quality and query recognition. ~~~ pessimizer I hear this a lot, but no one ever gives me a search example that bears it out. I !g sometimes after I'm just not seeing what I want on DDG, and as often as not, the Google results are even worse. ~~~ oinksoft Sure. Just now, I wanted to make sure I was right about elements that fire the DOM "change" event for a guy in ##javascript by looking at Mozilla documentation. Unfortunately, I had DDG active in my search bar in Firefox. "mdn change" in DDG turns up nothing remotely useful, whereas the first result in StartPage (Google) is what I want, and the subsequent results are all of some interest. Google seems to understand the proximity of the name of a common DOM reference and the name of a DOM event (probably via some graph) and Bing/DDG is clueless. ------ meritt ComScore's data is absurdly inaccurate and subject to considerable bias (usually composed of less savvy internet users that have shady software installed). Anyhow. Kudos to Yahoo! ------ brandonbloom Correct me if I'm making an unwarranted leap here, but why shouldn't I read this as "More Yahoo users have spyware than Google users"? ------ dpcan I believe it. I love the Yahoo homepage. And when I'm with a group and someone mentioned something obscure... just about everyone mutters - "oh yeah, I saw that on Yahoo." Keep in mind, these are not a geeky bunch, I'm the only redditor among them. We're talking about people who use their phones for everything and the computer to browse the web or answer an email. ~~~ acchow Where do you live? I just went to Yahoo.com. I believe this is my first time. The frontpage articles are "Jennifer Aniston's vacation bikini", "Bizarre Russian beach scene", "Horned sea monster is a mystery", "Forgot something, Lindsay?", and "Tycoons giving wealth away." And that's the last time I go to yahoo.com ~~~ GFischer Sounds like linkbaity links the average guy would like to click on :) (heck, I might check out Jennifer's vacation bikini myself :) ). My GF uses Yahoo, they redesigned the webmail recently and she was quite confused (couldn't attach a file, we found that drag n' drop worked, but I didn't find the attachment option). ------ alex_c Yahoo tops Google in number of unique visitors, not (necessarily) in US traffic. The cnet article misquotes the ComScore report. ------ manojlds I think one of the reasons is that Yahoo announced that program to recirculate mail ids, and people have been visiting their long forgotten mailboxes to make sure they don't get closed. ~~~ snogglethorpe Yahoo has always had an (insane) policy of fairly eagerly _deleting all mail_ from dormant mailboxes after 6 months, so it's not surprising people don't trust them... ------ Stonewall9093 This supposedly doesn't count yahoo's recent acquisition - Tumblr - either. [http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2013/08/21/yahoo- tops-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2013/08/21/yahoo-tops-google- as-biggest-website-says-comscore-even-without-tumblr/) ------ skizm Fantasy Football begins. Seriously, that's all I use yahoo for but I use it a hell of a lot during football season. ~~~ jaynos That was my exact thought when I read this headline. My Yahoo usage from January-->Mid July is no existent. Mid-July--> December is 4-5 times per day. ------ psbp Could this possibly be the reason? [http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/52805929240/yourname-yahoo- com-...](http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/52805929240/yourname-yahoo-com-can-be- yours) I went to yahoo for the first time in 3 years because of this opportunity. ------ kevingibbon Which Yahoo! properties could potentially be bringing this amount of traffic? ~~~ joseph_cooney tumblr ~~~ dudus The article says that Tumblr is still considered a separate entity and it comes at #38 ------ Abundnce10 Correct me if I'm wrong but these numbers don't include smartphone or tablet numbers, correct? comScore's Multi-Platform numbers for July haven't been released yet (that I'm aware of). [http://www.comscore.com/Products/Audience_Analytics/Media_Me...](http://www.comscore.com/Products/Audience_Analytics/Media_Metrix_Multi- Platform) ------ ConceitedCode What constitutes "internet property"? Is this exclusively search or does this include other products such as Tumblr? ------ ChrisArchitect articles like this drive me nuts because now I've got a manager kicking ideas around like must focus on yahoo/get web properties moving in yahoo....(which shouldn't be a concern, indexed sites are indexed)...but it's so murky trying to explain or even see yourself the clear situation ------ fatjokes The reason is porn on Tumblr. People going through pages and pages of porn on Tumblr... ------ mslate This "news" is meaningless. Quality, not quantity is the name of the game. ------ zoom Because of their malware "search" toolbar still on your grandmas computer? Congrats yahoo. ------ adrianlmm Try searching this on Yahoo or ddgo and then on Google: ruby sinatra cors Google still gives me the best results. ------ philip1209 I don't think the score is credible. ------ Maro Traffic is a vanity metric. ------ chatman This is a hoax, I am certain Yahoo is gaming the ComScore metrics in their instrumentation. ------ constapop Actual comScore data: [http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2013/8/comSc...](http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2013/8/comScore_Media_Metrix_Ranks_Top_50_U.S._Web_Properties_for_July_2013) ------ gugol Probably because Yahoo is not optimized :P	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How to put a VC in the hot seat - rbedi http://tumblr.com/xdt2t38t6b ====== tptacek You stand a very good chance of looking dumb if you walk into a real VC's office and ask if they're accredited. ~~~ ceejayoz A "real VC" is unlikely to be a "relatively new investor". ~~~ tptacek If they call themselves a "venture capital firm" then there's no game theoretic win to asking if they're accredited. If they aren't, they can't invest anyways, so hot-seating them is dumb. ------ pavel_lishin _An investor invests in the jockey and not the horse. Consider an investor like the saddle. If the saddle sucks, the horse and the jockey’s groin will be sore._ This metaphor hurts my head. A saddle invests in a jockey? ~~~ jamesbkel I think the idea is that the investor is there to support a talented jockey (entrepreneur) against the turbulence of the horse (new business). Maybe this horse got outraced by another horse/jockey, but if the investor should have faith that the jockey can pick up the saddle and learn how to ride a new horse. Agreed, not the best analogy... especially because as I understand a lot more is invested in horses than jockeys (in actual competitive horse racing). But, I _think_ that's the point. ------ danboarder Read the VC's website first to answer as many of these questions as you can, and if you have remaining questions then ask those. But asking "When where you founded?" to a VC may only show you didn't do your homework. ------ jdp23 I strongly disagree with this post on two different levels. For one thing, starting out on a relationship with a potential future investor by looking for ways to put them in the hot seat doesn't feel like a success path for me. They will always be able to make things a lot hotter for you than the other way around ... so why go there? Secondly many the specific questions would go better in a post called "how to give a VC an impression that you don't bothered to prepare for meetings". When were they founded? It's on their web site. What's their background? Oh, that's on their web site too. Why haven't you done your homework? ------ TheRealReinH If by "hot seat" you mean "position from which to comfortably reject your pitch" then I think you're on to something. ------ kmfrk @pg: Please include subdomains in the link descriptions with Tumblr-hosted articles. ~~~ mikeklaas There's no subdomain - OP used a tumblr.com/XXXX shortener ~~~ kmfrk Interesting; normally, shortened URLs are converted to their 301 destination on HN, but the same does not apply to Tumblr. Hence my confusion. Thanks for pointing it out. ------ daniel-cussen Half of these are usually publicly available, and therefore homework. ------ fvryan ya i don't think any of these questions are going to put a VC in the hot seat...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
MPEG claims its new standard H.265 halves video bandwidth with no quality loss - Suraj-Sun http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/technology/56199-new-mpeg-standard-halves-video-bandwidth-with-no-quality-loss ====== pwthornton This technology could be used to cut down on files sizes, to raise video quality and to up resolution. A few thoughts: 1\. 1080p streaming video from Apple, Netflix and others looks pretty good, but it suffers from more compression artifacts when compared to Blu-ray. It simply doesn't look as good. With a more efficient compression technology, streaming video could have similar file sizes to today's H.264 video but look more like Blu-ray. 2\. I already own a laptop that does above 1080p video. When Apple release a Retina iMac or Thunderbolt display it will be around 5k. Other manufactures will be there too. 4k or so TVs and projectors are on their way. Streaming technology makes a lot more sense than a new physical format for higher resolution video. In order to realistically deliver 4k video (or 5k video like The Hobbit is being shot in) over IP, we would need better compression than H.264 3\. Files sizes could be cut down, allowing people to consume more video without going over their caps. This would also allow mobile devices to store more high quality video content for on the go. The best case scenario would be that we get a combo of all three. 4k-5k video content is still a bit way for home use, but when it does come. H.265 sounds like the way to go. In the next few years, this technology could be used to cut down on file sizes some, while also upping the quality of video. This is what we saw with Apple's 1080p video which uses high profile H.264 video, whereas Apple's 720p video is main profile H.264. Yes, the 1080p videos are bigger, but not by much. ~~~ jonknee Nitpick, but Thunderbolt supports a maximum of 20Gbits/sec which can't drive 5k. It maxes out at 10 megapixels which is about 4k. 5k is nearly 14 megapixels. [http://superuser.com/questions/441395/what-is-the-maximum- re...](http://superuser.com/questions/441395/what-is-the-maximum-resolution- that-a-thunderbolt-monitor-can-display) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Digital_Cinema_Camera_Compa...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Digital_Cinema_Camera_Company#Recording_formats_2) ~~~ alttag Doesn't that assume no compression in the transfer? Surely, if streaming compression is getting better, there's some lossless compression that can be used for display signals? ~~~ tedunangst What does your video card/monitor do when it's asked to display a frame that can't be compressed? ------ sp332 There are some details on the actual compression techniques here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#Fe...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#Features) although at first glance I don't see anything especially different from H.264 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Features> eta: For historical and comparative purposes, here's DarkShikari's evaluation of an early prototype of an encoder. <http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/360> ~~~ gillianseed Hmmm.... I'm not very versed in video encoding technology but from what I gather x264 has been adding features outside of the 'official specs' for pretty much all it's existance, and looking at the list I directly recognize things like higher bit depth and cabac from x264 settings. So I'm wondering is there some new sercet sause in h265 which makes it really much better than say x264 or is it just a new standard created around extra features which encoders like x264 already has implemented? ~~~ Jabbles H265 has some quite innovative features (over H264), for instance instead of dividing the picture into rows of macroblocks, it's divided into quadtrees, which allow the compression algorithms to make more use of spatial similarity. ~~~ agumonkey I naively wonder if it cannot be generalized to octrees. To embed the inter- frame analysis into a single 3d sliding adaptive octree. ~~~ pbhjpbhj > _embed the inter-frame analysis into a single 3d sliding adaptive octree_ // I've no idea what this means [yet] but it sounds too awesome to ignore. H266 here we come?!? ------ gmartres I participate in the GSoC and my project is an HEVC decoder for libav: <https://github.com/smarter/libav/tree/hevc> (the decoder is contained in the libavcodec/hevc* files). It currently only decodes I-frames and doesn't include the in-loop filters. Reference encoder: <http://hevc.kw.bbc.co.uk/trac> Samples: ftp://ftp.kw.bbc.co.uk/hevc/hm-8.0-anchors/bitstreams/ Latest draft of the spec: [http://phenix.it- sudparis.eu/jct/doc_end_user/current_docume...](http://phenix.it- sudparis.eu/jct/doc_end_user/current_document.php?id=6465) ------ VMG Assuming this is true across the board and not only for some edge cases, will this actually mean that video files get smaller? It seems to me that this is a case of Jevons paradox[1] where increased efficiency leads to higher consumption. Example: x264 led to 720p encoded videos with higher file size rather smaller files with lower resolution video content. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox> ~~~ porsupah I'd say that's a good possibility, for now. Consider when Apple rolled out 1080p downloads - the filesizes were only slightly larger than for the previous 720p versions, representing quite an efficiency boost. Adopting H.265 would seem to be able to chop the sizes down. However: \- tablets and phones are unlikely to be able to take advantage of H.265 until the requisite GPU support arrives. This may hold up widespread adoption for a year or two. \- for how long will the video arena remain at 1080p? I hear Sky (UK satellite broadcasting arm of the Murdoch empire) is trying to nudge toward 4K broadcasting. ~~~ jpdoctor > representing quite an efficiency boost. It's a somewhat backwards way of thinking about it. They chose the filesize and then set the dials for the encoding. They could have chosen the 720p to be smaller larger or the same size compared to 1080p. ------ peterwwillis Sweet! Half the bandwidth, double the copyright infringement. I still remember the days when downloading movies was only practical because someone had compressed them down to two 150-megabyte videos. When I got my first 'high quality' 580-megabyte copy of The Matrix, I was thrilled. Encoding used to be an art form. Now people just use whatever codec they want with default settings to get that 50GB Blu-ray movie down to a couple gigabytes and call it a day. ~~~ bradwestness Yeah, I'm mostly curious how this codec stacks up against WebM/VP8 or whatever other free codecs are out there. It'd be nice to see something take off that's less encumbered by licensing issues. ~~~ 0x09 Every generational codec announcement from MPEG manages to attain "50% improvement", so it really remains to be seen. It certainly is a more advanced codec than H.264, which itself is already rather better than VP8 in its present form. Regarding the other thing, MPEG is running two tracks for a royalty-free spec based on existing patent-free tech and on grants from H.264 patent holders (respectively) which they say they will decide on sometime this year. An option like that from MPEG might not take off but can't hurt. ~~~ josephlord I think that you probably get 50% at the generation introduction and another 50% over 10 years as the encoders are improved (and more hardware is thrown at the problem). Double track on licensing makes some sense for a profile that can be served or provided free but I expect the efficiency benefits would mean that for commercial uses you would pay. That would mean that most hardware will support both so really I think most decodes will support both. Maybe people will use the non free for mobile. ------ shmerl They surely plan to lock the industry into their new closed codec for another long time, since patents on H.264 will eventually expire. Will anyone come out with improved open codecs to counter that for the sake of open Web? ~~~ rwmj Possibly new codecs won't be needed. After all storage is increasing exponentially, and even bandwidth is going up slowly. For most users it doesn't matter if a movie fits in 600 MB or 300 MB. ~~~ shmerl Bandwidth is still far from perfect in many cases (especially on mobile). So it matters a lot. ------ colinshark I'm pretty libertarian, but for things like standards and formats, I really think the government should be stepping in and taking control. Standards, formats, and basic internet access are the new "roads" of the modern world. Commerce can flourish when we aren't fighting over them. Even for something R&D heavy like video codecs. How much money are we dumping into the NSA right now? Use some of that. ~~~ WiseWeasel Which government institution should decide on the video codec for everyone to use? How would they know when it's time to switch? I cannot see that working any better than MPEG and MPEG-LA. ~~~ bzbarsky Well, for cryptographic hashes the relevant institution in the US is NIST and they switch at a point when there start to be worries about the previous hash being subject to successful attacks sometime in the future. There's no reason in principle that the same approach, again with NIST as the relevant institurion, could not be used for video codecs. It would be better than the MPEG-LA because the patent situation could be made much simpler (e.g. automatic patent licenses would be granted to all implementors of the standard). ~~~ WiseWeasel Other countries also use video codecs. ~~~ bzbarsky Sure. Unfortunately, the UN doesn't seem to be all that interested in this sort of problem that I've seen. ------ podperson The benefit will probably go first to someone like Apple or Google who can both supply streaming content and control the software (and ideally hardware) on devices (I imagine for low-powered devices you'll want hardware decoding, so this will prevent Apple from, say, adding support to existing AppleTVs). I guess we can all complain when the iPhone 5 doesn't support it. ~~~ Jabbles Google is heavily pushing VP8, which is supposedly royalty free. I'd be incredibly impressed if Apple could make a hardware decoder/encoder for HEVC for their next iPhone (or whichever one comes after the standard is finalised), but we won't know until then :) <http://www.webmproject.org/tools/vp8-sdk/> ~~~ podperson It will be interesting to see what happens with VP8/WebM. Really it looks like Google tried to stymie Apple (which committed itself to H264) first by trying to back Adobe/Flash and then VP8 (and announcing that H264 support would be dropped from Chrome, which AFAIK it hasn't been on any platform). Thus far I don't see VP8 achieving much and Google may just end up sticking with MPEG standards. ~~~ taligent Google is a few years too late with VP8. It would have had an opportunity to take off when H.264 was in its infancy. But now there is simply no use for it. ------ ck2 So it's doing it with half the minimum block size and looking far forward (and backward) in the stream. The cpu requirements must be intense. If they cannot do it with hardware accelerated video drivers for current hardware, it sounds like it will tie up multiple cores? Maybe they like the idea of making everyone rebuy hardware. ------ brittohalloran If it's really that much better they should give themselves more credit than .001 ~~~ protomyth I do love the difference between a marketing organization and standards organization. ------ Jabbles This claim is pretty accurate. Since the standard isn't finalised yet it will be a while before the hardware is developed to make it widely used in mobile devices, as it's improbable that a software encoder could be made that uses little power. ~~~ ksec Well at least this time it will be much faster then H.264, Hardware decoder are already in the work with many things could be reused fro H.264 HP Decoding. So unless there are any major changes HEVC decoder will be coming much quicker. Some Video Decoder IP has already begin to list HEVC decode as a feature. ------ mark-r Half the bandwidth with no quality loss is a pretty bold claim. Bold enough to be unbelievable - it's not like the existing codecs are doing a horrible job. Data rates are easily measurable, so I'd guess that "no quality loss" is an exaggeration. Anybody have any data on this? ------ mistercow Hmm, still no overlapping blocks, apparently. Do other people find block artifacts less distracting than I do, and that's why nobody's trying to fix it for image and video compression? ~~~ sp332 The deblocking filter is basically overlapping blocks. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deblocking_filter> ~~~ mistercow Well, no, it's not - at least not in H.264. I have not read details yet on how it works in H.265, but in general deblocking is a completely different approach to solving block aliasing. Deblocking works (very roughly) like this: look at the edges of the blocks and see if there's a sharp edge there. Now check and see how strong of an edge there is there in the original input. Depending on these two relative edge strengths, blur the block edge. That is, if there's a strong edge in the output, but not in the input, blur a lot. If the input _does_ have a strong edge, blur less. H.264 also uses some other heuristics to decide how strong the edge filter should be, and happens to do the filtering on the encoder side as well as the decoder side, which allows for better interframe compression. So while this, in a vague mathematical sense, does provide overlapping information between blocks in a way that can be analogized to overlapping blocks, that information is far cruder than true time-domain aliasing cancellation But to answer my own previous question, the reason they don't use overlapping blocks appears to be that that the concept is very difficult to reconcile with motion compensation. ~~~ sp332 If you encode overlapping blocks, how would you render them? Just average the edges together? ~~~ mistercow Sort of, but you vary the weighting to fade the blocks into each other. Or technically speaking, what you do is you multiply the blocks by a window function before you do the Fourier related transform. If you choose the windowing function carefully, you can even set it up so that all you have to do is add the overlapping areas together. This is especially easy to understand in one dimension, which is more or less how MP3, Vorbis and AAC do it. Block boundary effects are so noticeable with audio that unless they are corrected very robustly, the quality is unacceptably choppy. The technique generalizes basically without alteration to two dimensional data, but I've never seen an image or video algorithm that used it. JPEG just ignores the blocking issue entirely, and video algorithms seem to rely exclusively on deblocking filters. As I said, I think this has to do with the fact that TDAC doesn't trivially generalize to motion compensation. ------ MattSayar >...by 2015, [video] is predicted to account for 90 percent of all network traffic. So with this new standard, are they hoping to cut that down to 45%? ~~~ seles Actually with this new standard they are hoping to cut it down to 81.8% ------ jpdoctor I'm assuming it's proprietary like the other MPEGs - Any word on how problematic the licensing will be? ~~~ wmf It's likely MPEG-LA will handle the licensing and I'd expect a similar cost structure. Newer codecs have tended to be cheaper, although at this point I suspect pennies per unit are pretty irrelevant. ------ zapt02 No "visible" quality loss. We know what that means.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Progressive Neural Networks - telotortium https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.04671 ====== telotortium See also the excellent summary by The Morning Paper: [https://blog.acolyer.org/2016/10/11/progressive-neural- netwo...](https://blog.acolyer.org/2016/10/11/progressive-neural-networks/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
'Woolly mammoth' spotted in Siberia - etomer http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4116326/Woolly-mammoth-spotted-in-Siberia.html ====== prawn Bear + fish.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What would alien code look like? - coryl Hi fellers,<p>Disclaimer: Not a programmer, but semi-technical and know a little bit about engineering concepts.<p>That said, lets be imaginative for a bit and pretend we made contact with an advanced space travelling race of alien. We have the opportunity to look their technology and programming behind it.<p>What do you think would be significantly different from the way they write their code and ours? Would they have the same logic as us? Could they use logic gates that we don't have yet? Would their computers have to be based in binary? What could they use instead?<p>Fundamentally, could their programs be translated directly into human code, like C++, or would a difference in conceptual understanding be so different that human code could not express alien logic?<p>Feel free to let your mind run with this. Would love to hear some crazy thoughts. Thanks ====== mquander " _Few of us have been to Mars. But science fiction has filled in many of the gaps. We know that the Martian civilization is immensely old. Its software technology, therefore, must be similarly antique. Obviously nothing like it exists on earth - though those of us who remember VMS might be deceived... ...Since Earth code is fifty years old, and Martian code is fifty million years old, Martian code has been evolving into a big ball of mud for a million times longer than Earth software. (And two million times longer than Windows...) ...There is only one thing to do with it: obliterate the trunk, fire the developers, and hire a whole new fscking army of Martian code-monkeys to rewrite the entire fscking thing. This is such an obvious and essential response to the big ball of mud pattern that, despite the fact that we know nothing about Mars, we can deduce that it must have happened on Mars. Probably several times. Probably several hundred. For each of these attempts but the last, of course, the result was either (a) abject failure, (b) another big ball of mud, or (c) both. But the last, by definition, succeeded. This is the crucial inference we can draw about Mars: since the Martians had 50 million years to try, in the end they must have succeeded. The result: Martian code, as we know it today. Not enormous and horrible - tiny and diamond-perfect._" No comment on what follows, but you might find it entertaining. [http://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit-functional- progra...](http://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit-functional-programming- from.html) ~~~ barrkel Warning for others following the link: that's an overly verbose post with too much unfunny humour, describing a language whose implementation - on Google code - is written in a language (Watt) the author defines in the previous post. That language, in turn, doesn't appear to be much more than a more obscure version of the lambda calculus, and about as readable. ~~~ ddewey Counter-warning: I liked it :) but I tend to like more fanciful, meandering approaches to CS topics, like Why the Lucky Stiff and Clifford Pickover. Or Lewis Carroll, for that matter. Notable concepts from the article: a "fixed-point" of language design, the idea of working backward from an aesthetic (Martian) to a language, and Kelvin versioning, in which "releases count down by integer degrees Kelvin. At absolute zero, the system can no longer be changed." It's true, though; I found the actual language the author's made (or is still making?) to be pretty opaque. ------ ars Logic gates are fundamental, and would be exactly the same. [1] They don't have to be binary, but it's a lot easier, so it's a near certainty. Plus true/false is also fundamental. So I think at a low level it'll be pretty similar. Math is usually considered to be universal, and computers are based on math, so that will all be the same. Memory access however could be totally different. Our machines are Von Neumann, but aliens could use a totally different architecture. [1] There is one gate for each combination of binary input and output. There are three inputs: 0 0, 1 1, and 0 1 (1 0 is the same thing). For each input there are two possible outputs, total 6. There are 6 gates: and, or, xor, nand, nor, nxor (xnor) Or put another way: xnor nor xor nand and nxor or ------------------------------------------- 1 1: 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 1: 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0: 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 (A gate that always returns 0 or 1 is useless, so those two don't count.) If you want logic gates that depend on position, then you have more options (16 in total, compared to the 8 I listed), and you can see them here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_connective#Table_of_bin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_connective#Table_of_binary_logical_connectives) Our computers don't use them, I suppose alien ones could, but I doubt they would. ~~~ jonsen Maybe they also invented the memristor: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=397335> The memristor is an imply gate: 0 0 \| 1 0 1 \| 1 1 0 \| 0 1 1 \| 1 ------ gdl I'm not even going to venture a guess on the lower-level similarities. It's certainly easy to say that, of course they'd use binary, it's the obvious, simple choice. But I'm not an alien and don't presume to know what they would find obvious. Their "computers" might be built by wiring a bunch of alien cow brains together until they get something that can navigate starships but can't be trusted to add two numbers together reliably. Things are made from what's handy and then grow from there, not necessarily from whatever is the most elegant or mathematically pure. One thing I would bet on is that they wouldn't code in anything resembling C++. Even now, only a handful of decades into human computing, languages are becoming increasingly high level and abstracted from the machines themselves. Assuming that our alien friends have had a few centuries / millenia to improve on things, I'd expect that they'd have progressed to much more intuitive, more automated, and less detail-oriented methods. Especially if we assume that they've developed reasonably strong AI, the very idea of "programming" could be as strange to them as someone building their own computer from wire and logic gates would be to us. ~~~ user24 actually I saw someone at the retro computer fair who'd done just that with a ZX spectrum: <http://www.zxdesign.info/> ------ gojomo They will use balanced ternary rather than binary at the lowest hardware levels: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_ternary> I first learned of balanced ternary from this article: [http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3268,y.0,no.,cont...](http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3268,y.0,no.,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx) (Beware; the balanced-ternary example values there don't seem to be rendering negative digits correctly.) ------ zephjc That's a great question. I think any advanced space-faring civilization would have no further use of programming languages as we know them, as any ship or computer system would be sentient or even sapient by their builder civilization's standards. Communicating with these artificial minds would be as difficult as communicating with the aliens themselves. We would have to overcome whatever language barriers we find before being able to do the equivalent of "programming" - I don't think there would be any language below whatever their equivalent of microcode though, nor do I think any language could express everything necessary. Well, maybe Lisp ;-) ~~~ coryl So you think they could just describe what they need, and their awesome AI computers could just whip up something just like that? If so, even the AI bots would express alien logic birthed unto them (unless we're talking about a species of AI that has evolved into its own race, but lets not go there :D). So at some point, something or someone has to put code down into some hardware. ~~~ zephjc Well I think anything that was used to describe the AI programming would have long since been lost to the ages, and the AI outgrown any known language which can describe it. ------ jeb If they are advanced enough to space travel, and they evolved from a survival mode, it would imply that their thinking organs are not designed to deal with infinite complexity. Just like us, their brains would have been evolved to deal with some primary physical stuff (like falling rocks, fire, etc). So programming will be as complex to them as it is to us. The complexities would have to be abstracted away, and if they were space travelling, the abstractions have to be reliable. So probably, by the time we meet them, they have some type of black-box elementary code particulars for many different functions that everyone needs to join together to produce machines. Probably, they would have developed some type of inform interface method, where you can specify what you want in and out and the appropriate atomic block gets delivered to you. They would have some type of global repository that harnesses the power of many different individuals working on problems to avoid any form of repetition. Currently, we interface with code through typing. This is inefficient for us, and we don't know how they will coummicate. However, for them to be capable of abstract though, they will need to create pictures in their mind. It does not seem farfetched to assume that they have much faster interfacing methods that work directly on pictures they visualise. This allows them join the atomic blocks much quicker. In effect, they will try to eliminate the manual work entirely, and only do the specifications part of things (tell it what you want), and let the computer build the rest of the things. On the other hand, perhaps they lack our sense of moral, and will work with biological computers, and not metal-based. ------ Amnon Imagine humans in prehistoric times thinking about making contact with aliens: "Will their spearheads be made of stone or a more advanced material?" If aliens will come we'll see that the questions you ask here are irrelevant, as the terms programs and programming languages will not apply to their technology -- it will be something completely different. Admittedly, programming has mathematical foundations (algorithms) so it has a good change to still be relevant. If they do have programs, then the according to the Church-Turing thesis the programs could be translated to human code, but not necessarily in a clear way. ------ zhivago Aliens exist in the same physical universe that we exist in. However we only engage directly with a small subset of the universe and in ways that have been evolutionarily useful. Aliens might well have evolved to engage in a different subset. We certainly have different subsets here on Earth -- consider colour vision for example and the effects on colour coding interpretations between humans, fish, birds, reptiles, bees, etc. Communication requires being able to predict response to stimulation. The degree of similarity with which we perceive a given stimulation will determine how well we can communicate. Computer programs can been seen as a kind of communication with a computer, and it only makes sense for programs to be written in a convenient communicative form. While it might seem obvious that aliens would use digital computers it isn't necessarily so. Analog computers might make more sense for them -- the main reason we don't use them much these days is that they're hard to reprogram -- but with nanotech or biotech it might be far more trivial. There are also quantum computers, and non-electrical computational systems. People also assume numeracy, but consider aliens without recursion which deal with numbers by subitization up to some large quantity rather than counting. ------ biotech The hardware and software would not necessarily be as distinct as it is in our technology. Alien technology might more closely resemble that of organic life, where the decision making processes are built into the physical structure of the system. Conceivably, these systems could also be designing through an evolutionary-like process, instead of the human engineering process. ~~~ rwhitman I agree.. I would think that a more highly advanced technology would start to resemble organic life. I'm no engineer, but I'd say we're still a long way off from this in most regards, am I correct? ------ rjprins I think if we encountered aliens, they will not be "biological" but mechanical and electronic. These have by far the more superior characteristics needed for space travel. The same holds for us, we are sending robots already and it will only be more and more robots in the future. Also, "artificial" AIs will be the ones doing the programming. They can be extremely more complex than humans, because their electronic brains can actually be scaled up, and new data can be much faster interpreted and shared. The code they write will be machine code, because they can compile their own abstract ideas themselves. On a low level the code will be extremely optimized. Like how an expert human programmer would optimize his 100 lines of assembly code in the 70s. Resources will not be wasted, in fact they will have way more computing power and use it very effectively at the same time. So, how would the code look like? Sadly only ones and zeroes. We would have to translate it to assembly ourselves and then extract more abstract concepts of it, for us to understand it. ~~~ weavejester _"The code they write will be machine code, because they can compile their own abstract ideas themselves."_ This doesn't seem likely. Unless this alien species is isolationist to the extreme, they'll need to communicate with others of their species. Therefore they need a language that can communicate high-level concepts, something assembly is not known to be good at doing. Or to put it another way, even though we communicate with our bodies in a very low-level way (sending neural impulses to contract or relax muscles), our language is very high level. We don't say, "Fire neuron 10212, fire neuron 39232...", we say, "Come over here, please." We don't think in terms of firing neuron either; that's a job for the low-level subconscious. In a similar way, I'd expect any artificial life form to have a language to express high level concepts, and "compile" with their subconscious. ~~~ rjprins Yes, but we were talking about writing code, not communication. ~~~ weavejester What's the difference? ------ TNO What would alien code look like? Perhaps like Piet: <http://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/piet.html> <http://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/piet/samples.html> ------ rednum As programming have mathematical foundations, I think it makes more sense to ask what alien mathematic would look like. Would their mathetmatic be isomorphic with ours? Would they have just their own versions of caluculs, set theory, topology, differential geometry, etc. with just some minor differences? As most of mathematics is based on few simple axioms (from which more complex 'things' are derived[1]) this seems quite unlikely - but on the other hand 'basic and simple' may mean something completely different to them; for example classic geometry for creatures whose vision is not main sense would kind of awkward, also they wouldn't probably think of some integrals as an area. [1] At least that is how I see mathematics right now as a math/cs student; please correct me if I am mistaken. ------ jdale27 It's not exactly an answer to your question, but if you aren't familiar with the Church-Turing thesis (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing_thesis>), you might find it interesting. ------ geuis Lets step back a little bit and look at the question of 'sentience'. So far, just as we only have one example of a planet full of life, we also only have ourselves (I am being inclusive of all life on Earth that has neuronal structures we collectively call a 'brain') to draw our references from. Whether we look at snails with 12 neurons for a brain, or a human or cetacean that have the most complex brains on earth, the biochemistry behind how they work is all rooted from the same evolutionary source. We can _hypothesize_ that on a another planet where life arises using the same kinds of naturally occurring elements (hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, etc etc), and that this life lives in a similar environment (a warm, wet, ball of rock) that we might see convergent evolution across many, many worlds that share these properties. DNA is what life here on Earth eventually settled on, but remember that the latest theories of life's beginnings on our world is that RNA probably came first. So its not 100% proof positive that DNA or its chemical equivalents are the _only_ way to make a living, complex cell. Different replicative mechanisms could create different biochemistry, even on a world that is nearly identical to Earth. The point of this is that even on a world with a different kind of replicative biochemical system, complex life could evolve similar large-scale structures. Fins for the water, legs for land, wings for air, eyes for seeing, etc, etc. So, does this hypothetical situation also extend to things like brains? If this alternate biosphere uses a chemical system very different from DNA, how does that affect the chemistry of what makes a brain? Perhaps arsenic is like seratonin or dopamine, for example. Putting aside the chemistry for a moment, does a similar physical environment that encourages things like legs, eyes, and skin encourage the development of similar brain structures to control those systems? Or, are there vastly different kinds of brain structures that can control the stuff that makes up a body? IBM has been working on simulating the neuronal columns that make up a cat brain. Mice, cats, and humans all share some variation of these columns. It makes sense because we all share common ancestors and we inherited these basic structures from them. But would we necessarily expect to see these structures in life coming from a different biochemical history? So pulling this back to the original question, how much of our mathematics and computing models correspond to how our form of intelligence has evolved? Based on the universe we can see and test, we have developed a very large and thorough mathematical knowledge-base of how the universe fits together. But it does beg the question, if another kind of sentient life discovers the same mathematics do they utilize that knowledge in the same ways that we have? Binary logic is a very efficient way to do our kind of computing. But its not the only way. Quantum computation is an easy example of a non-binary way to do computation. We've also only been doing this for a little over a century, and if we can take anything from the lessons of history its that we should never assume what or how we do something now is going to be the best way for all time. I can't and shouldn't offer a definitive answer to the question. No one on Earth can provide anything more than a strong hypothetical argument one way or another. Remember, black swans and all. What it would take to answer this would be to find that ever so elusive alien tech and stick some probes in it and start studying it. Experimental evidence is the only way to ever really prove something. I will offer a hypothetical answer though, here at the end. From everything I have learned in my life, its likely that math and physics work everywhere we can see. And we can see a long, long way away. Even if some sentients on another world with a vastly different arrangement of biochemistry and thinking-stuff (aka brain analogues) invent their types of 'computers' that work differently than ours, I think we can understand how they work. As we are demonstrating that we can simulate the physics of the universe in our Turing-complete machines (biology to nuclear explosions to air flow over a race car body), when we figure out all the nitty-gritty of how our brains work we'll simulate those too. Given the proper amount of knowledge of how a system works, such as for alien brains and alien computers, we'll be able to load them up and run them as well. So, as long as the aliens we encounter are based on the same physics we are, there shouldn't fundamentally be a problem to figuring out how their systems work. There might be a high likely-hood that we find many, many similarities at the root level of their computing technologies to our own. ------ derefr Speaking as a sci-fi author, who thinks about this quite a bit: there will be more _kinds_ of programming, but it'll all pretty much resemble what we already have. It will be faster and easier, and use (or "waste", depending on your perspective) lots more resources. It would be completely predicated on the technology, not in "alien thinking"; if given a tutorial, humans could easily program the alien computers the same way the aliens could, after struggling with concepts that are about equivalently difficult to recursion or pointer arithmetic. The kind of programs we know today (encoding static text segments using a tower of abstractions and compilers) would still continue to exist. What we today call "programming" as a whole, will be what aliens call "embedded programming"—the kind you do under severe resource-constraints, where every gate must be secure, reliable, and could be hit with hard radiation at any time. We'd easily be able to understand these programs, given an appropriate disassembler. They would likely be written mostly by constraint-solving AIs, however, not tediously by aliens, who have better things to do. Aliens would, however, check them over out of paranoia/"defense-in-depth." They would be intensely parallel: imagine how NASA shuttle software works, with several independently-contracted codebases on independent hardware voting on each decision—but multiply the scales a millionfold. Most programs, however, would not be "embedded"; they could expect to rely on a "silly" amount of resources. They would be inscrutable, mostly JIT- genetically-evolved from small "goal scripts" (which themselves would still, indeed, resemble human source code—clear and exact communication of rules and intent within a business domain survives no matter the language used.) They would rely on a "universal library" of "common sense", both in process knowledge (algorithms, protocols) and semantic knowledge (datatypes, fixtures, "facts" in the RDF sense) that would allow programmers to actually write "Do What I Mean" programs as well as could ever be achieved. There would only be a single "programming language", for the same reason that we, today, have a Unicode character encoding. All programs would be _internally_ stored in something resembling S-expressions (just a binary- encoded tree), and represented, textually or graphically (or audially or kinesthetically or experientially or somatically or telepathically...) through a bijective transformation. Every identifier in a program would be a universally-unique resource-locating ID (i.e. something that is both a UUID and a URL) allowing for importing of live code from external (network) libraries, cross-program optimization and symbolic unification, global API versioning, and removal of all "name clashes." Also, a bonus sociological perspective: there would be living software—like with carbon-based life, we would classify software into "plants" (natural resources that we care about mostly as an enabler), "animals" (feeling but unthinking goal-directed objects that we think should have some, but not all, the rights of sentients) and "people" (which would have just the same rights bio-people do.) "Animal" software would have control systems that mimic (or simply _are_ ) emotions; an alien Roomba would indeed be considered a pet. But in the converse view, the aliens would consider genetically programming carbon-based plants and animals to have symbiotic functions, just as we currently live in symbiosis with robots and machines. They might all be ultra- vegans, for the simple reason that any combination of flavor, texture, and nutritional content could be turned into the fruit of a plant (a symbiotic arrangement), and so would abhor the non-symbiosis with which we consume our own environment. ~~~ gjm11 _after struggling with concepts that are about equivalently difficult to recursion or pointer arithmetic_ I think that's a bit optimistic. Even within the realms of human programming languages, competence may require struggling with concepts that are as difficult as, say, monads or virtual destructors or Prolog cuts or abstract factory factory factory factories or call-with-current-continuation. Those are all at least one step up from recursion or pointers. I don't see any reason to expect that alien languages would be nearer in conceptual difficulty to C than to Haskell or C++ or Scheme or Prolog. ------ oakenshield Their programming languages will be frighteningly similar to Javascript: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/mendhak/2643251456/> ------ jplewicke Their programs would be single real numbers: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_computer> . ------ j_baker There are those (myself included) that would say Perl looks like it was created by aliens. ------ calibraxis I think it's unclear. We have some ability to do math, but even our specialists learn it with great difficulty. (We see something a bit similar when we try to teach other primates language or math. They can learn enough to fake some of it, with lots of difficult training.) If we want to see more examples of human cognitive limits, I hear we can look to games like chess. We play them because we're bad at them. It's very possible that there's things we can't imagine how to begin answering (even things we really care about) that another species finds trivial. Or funnier, we could have roughly similar mental powers, but our thought processes are so different that each species' insights seem entirely mystical to the other. I hear that psychologists (and following them, AI researchers) keep finding that intelligence is buried in our visual and lingusitic systems. What if these aliens have very different organs? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXQtoAyCGA&feature=PlayL...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXQtoAyCGA&feature=PlayList&p=9F536001A3C605FC&playnext_from=PL) And off-topic, might this explain "rubber-duck debugging," where we explain our problems to a rubber duck? (Because using language clarifies our thoughts.) And why we often write pictures on paper to better visualize abstract problems? (To leverage our powerful visual apparatus.)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
An Aerial Laser Display Capable of Projecting 3D Objects in Mid-Air - yiedyie http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/11/an-aerial-laser-display-capable-of-projecting-3d-objects-in-mid-air/ ====== amingilani What happens if try to pet the pretty butterfly? Can I focus the point into someone's heart and make a death ray? Come on, we're all thinking it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Why Won't Adobe Release for Linux? - ethanpil I certainly understand why Microsoft and Apple keep their best and most profitable apps proprietary to their own platforms. What I don't understand is Adobe... They already have a Unixy codebase for Mac and the argument of profitability of the work due to lack of users doesn't cut it with me. Just do a search and you will find users like myself pining for the day they release on Linux so we don't need to keep windows or macs around. I'd love to explore why with the HN community... ====== Someone Their Mac codebase likely isn’t _that_ Unixy. Also, Acrobat Reader has been available for Linux ([https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-adobe-acrobat- reader-...](https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-adobe-acrobat-reader-on- ubuntu-18-04-bionic-beaver-linux)). I guess they abandoned that because of the support load required (supporting Linux can be hard because of the proliferation of distributions with different directory layouts, font engines, etc. Most users may be on one of at most a handful distributions, but the few that aren’t can cause high support costs) ~~~ ethanpil I think much of this has been solved with systems like appimage and snap. While they are not super Linuxy or in the spirit of the community, people have come to understand why companies with a huge investment into proprietary IP like Adobe would only invest in Linux with something like these available to them. ------ PaulHoule X Windows. GUI toolkits on Linux are in bad shape. The GUI toolkits for the Mac have nothing to do with Unix. Windows has been through more widget sets than I can name, but has hidden that from the average non-observant muggle. On Linux they get some widget set to almost work, then make a new version that breaks things and repeat the cycle. Font metrics are all wrong so that text renders on top of other text but nobody seems to care. GUI toolkit developers are notorious for being unresponsive to user concerns. (e.g. a bug in GTK that prevented GTK apps from working right on a Windows X server that draws individual windows was marked as 'don't fix' because the developers think Microsoft is evil and you are too if you use Windows) On top of that, Adobe might be able to get their product to work on a particular release of Ubuntu, but Linux advocates won't be pleased with that, it has to be whatever version of whatever distro they use. Adobe right doesn't want to get involved in that s-tshow. ~~~ lovelearning While the issues you point out may be correct, the existence of popular cross- platform and cross-distro graphics software like Blender and Krita suggests that they're solvable. ------ gcbw3 DRM and copy protection. Or more correctly, lack of rootkit capabilities to enforce such. The main difference of osx/windows from linux, is that on the formers you (the end user) do not control the kernel. ~~~ ethanpil In this case, the truth is that Adobe CC has been cracked on both Mac and Windows, so whatever they are doing is pretty useless. I'm sure they can bake in something that will work on Linus and also eventually get cracked as well.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Launching Fairphone 3 - thekyle https://www.fairphone.com/en/2019/08/27/launching-fairphone-3/ ====== frittig I waited a long time for this phone. I've been looking for an easy to repair, future proofed phone for quite some time. The only problem is that the screen size is 5.65" and that is just too big for me. I may end up getting it due to all of the other features, but I don't think so. My hands are just to small. ------ throwaway-9320 Would love to get one, but it's not every time that a company actually discourages buying a new phone if your old one still works: [https://www.fairphone.com/en/2019/05/20/the-most- sustainable...](https://www.fairphone.com/en/2019/05/20/the-most-sustainable- phone-is-the-one-you-already-own/) Really appreciate what they are doing here though, simple to repair phone with a sensible price tag. ------ bradknowles Okay, so does anyone have any tips on how I can go about buying one of these? I’m not seeing any obvious store links or anything..... I might not us it as a daily driver, but I’d like to support the project, if I can. And I’d like to get some experience with a version of Android that hasn’t been loaded with crap ware. ~~~ Koshkin [https://shop.fairphone.com/en/](https://shop.fairphone.com/en/) ~~~ flukus Note that even well after the fairphone 2 release the link said pre-order and not buy now. I'm not sure if it was ever "for sale" as such or if they just did things in batches, or possibly just an oversight or translation error. ------ kop316 I was looking through the how tos, I like that they make it easy to repair. Do they give tutorials on how to compile AOSP on it, so you can make your own ROM? I couldn't find that nor how to unlock the bootloader ~~~ throwaway-9320 If Fairphone 2 is any indication on how things will go then you will have no trouble installing whatever software you want on it. Not sure about instructions on how to compile AOSP, but I don't think that it will be impossible as LineageOS has managed to support the latest version of Android on Fairphone 2. ------ m463 I think it's nice that someone is working for ethical hardware. Is it possible to run more ethical software that doesn't track you? (not google-based android) ~~~ flukus Librem 5 ([https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/](https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/)) is doing just that, a standard linux phone running standard linux apps with upstream drivers. Most of the software effort going into librem 5 could be directly applicable to this. The barrier will be any proprietary drivers in the fairphone, but there is a lot of opportunity for their efforts to be very complimentary. ~~~ bradknowles Hmm. Not Android. CPU separation from baseband. Sounds good!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
GitHub: Account Successors - tosh https://docs.github.com/en/github/setting-up-and-managing-your-github-user-account/maintaining-ownership-continuity-of-your-user-accounts-repositories ====== Syeposxr It's good to see tech companies maturing and thinking about the needs of more diverse audiences.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google Maps Hacks - rsj_hn http://www.simonweckert.com/googlemapshacks.html ====== netsharc An interesting "red but no traffic" phenomenon is in Iceland, with roads which are next to scenery viewing points. The roads are mostly empty in this country, but everyone must've slowed down when they saw the breathtaking scenery, and would pull into the viewing point's parking spot to stop and take pictures. On Google Maps these areas were marked red. On another navigation related topic; I was using Waze in a high-traffic city, where even the alternate routes have a lot of traffic. I was thinking, it surely would be possible for Waze to look back along my route and calculate which route would have been better for me. E.g. if I drove from A via B, C, D, E towards Z, and there was an alternate route A-B-F-G-E-Z, and the route branches out at B (you can either take path B-C-D-E or path B-F-G-E), the app could find a car that was near me at point B, and went to F later on. It would then know the time I would have needed to drive from B to F. This ghost car doesn't need to go all the way to E, if it turned off at F, the app could find another car, one which at that point was at point F and later on drove to G (or better, E), and then see how much time they took. And so on for each segment of my alternate route... ~~~ jrochkind1 So I'm stuck in a traffic jam, and google maps is telling me I can take an alternate route to avoid it and save 25 minutes vs waiting in the traffic jam. Something that occurs to me as I sit in this traffic... what portion of all the other driver's around me also looking at google maps? Is Google Maps telling them to take the same alternate route as me? Are they all going to do it? If they all do it, does the alternate route (which likely can't handle as much traffic as the original route) just became as jammed as waiting in traffic? Or even worse, if they're all going to do what google maps says, would I in fact be much better off ignoring it and sticking to the original route? It's hard to tell what's imagination/selection bias, but following google maps traffic-jam-avoidance suggestions has seemed disastrous enough to me enough times that I mostly just stick to the original route now. (Of course, one could also imagine using one's own route knowledge to pick an alternate route of one's own without google maps...) I suppose google maps could be smart enough to tell half the people to go one way and half the other... I kind of doubt it is, but one could imagine a computerized route direction system which, if enough driver's had it, could actually maximize efficiency by sending different drivers different routes intentionally... I'm not holding my breath for it. ~~~ rland Well the other route presumably has a significant throughput. If 1000 car/min are in traffic, and the side-road has a 200 car/min capacity, the first 20% of people to leave the main road will experience no additional traffic. Now, let's say that the 200 car/min turns to a bottleneck of 100 car/min if it's overwhelmed 10 mins downstream of the turnoff. If google routes >200 car/min to the turnoff, there will eventually be a significant traffic jam: cars will pile up at the bottleneck, and even if waze stops routing to the turnoff at that point, the jam would still travel upwards like a pressure wave until it hits the turnoff. I'd have a hard time believing it's possible for waze to know beforehand what those throughputs are, so some situations like this must occur. ~~~ alistairSH These situations absolutely occur. Something like this happened to me in Alexandria, VA, trying to cross the Woodrow Wilson bridge into MD. I-495 was slow across the bridge. Waze re-directed me off the interstate into residential side streets, along with thousands of other travelers. The side- streets were every bit as jammed as the highway. It took me 3 hours to disentangle myself from that mess. Was it faster than staying on the highway? No idea, but 3 hours to cover 5 miles is terrible - the app should have just said "You're fucked, go home and try again tomorrow." instead of constantly telling me "oh hey, try this other side street, it'll save you 45 minutes!" ~~~ danesparza I would pay good money for the "go home and try again tomorrow" feature. Especially if it was narrated by my favorite celebrity. Like Cookie Monster. ~~~ thrownblown You can get cookie monster's voice on Waze... ~~~ danesparza Oh, I'm aware. Thanks though. ;-) ------ nudgeee I used to work for a mapping & navigation company that offered a traffic API service. It worked by using anonymized cell phone data to predict traffic patterns. I once heard a story that during peak hour, every five minutes or so the jams on a highway would magically disappear then reappear. After some head scratching, turns out there is a train track inbetween the lanes of the highway full of high speed commuters that would cancel out the stationary car commuters. ~~~ onionisafruit How did you fix that? I’ve been wondering how google and the others differentiate between cars on the free vs express lanes. ~~~ labcomputer You can measure peak acceleration--cars accelerate much faster than buses or trains--or whether you're connected to headphones (not a head-unit). Use of headphones by drivers is illegal in most places. As for express vs. regular lanes, express-lane cars will have much different distributions than regular-lane cars. Use something like KNN where the distance metric is a weighted sum of Kolmogorov-Smirnov distance between speed distributions and K-S between acceleration distributions (each vehicle is one unit with a distribution of speeds and accelerations). ~~~ andrewzah > or whether you're connected to headphones I’m pretty sure this is rarely enforced in most states in the US. My father frequently drives across the US and always takes his calls with earbuds because the speakers aren’t very good. I do it with one earbud in because I find the quality of speaker audio terrible, forcing me to concentrate harder on it to discern what’s being said. ~~~ brewdad Single ear devices are usually legal where earbuds in both ears is not. Maintaining situational awareness seems to be the rule. If course, I'm essentially deaf in on ear, so being legal isn't any safer. I tend to use the car speakers or simply refuse all incoming calls while driving. ~~~ reroute1 > simply refuse all incoming calls while driving Definitely the best course of action. Even just talking on the phone is very distracting. No way someone can have a full conversation going and still be giving the same attention to driving. ------ wh1t3n01s3 A similar problem happens during unusual big snowfalls in the country or in the mountains. The primary roads turn red because the cars are going really slow cz there is 50cm of snow. So maps redirects you to secondary roads, where there is nobody and even more snow. ~~~ OmarShehata We got hit by a surprise blizzard once (driving from North Dakota to Minnesota, where it went from no trace of snow to blizzard in about 20 minutes of driving). Our car couldn't really make it up any road that wasn't well plowed. I was trying to navigate to a hotel because I knew we couldn't make it back in this weather, but all the closest hotels weren't on main roads. I was desperately trying to figure out a way to tell Google "prefer main roads" so we could find a hotel that was several miles further away if that meant sticking to safer roads. I thought a lot about how a feature like that could save lives in an emergency. Does this already exist anywhere? ~~~ dingaling > Does this already exist anywhere? Of course, any basic offline routing application that doesn't have live traffic feed. Something like Osmand for example. It's an interesting example of over-optimisation causing unforeseen effects. Perhaps better to rely on naive basic routing combined with external traffic condition prompts instead. ~~~ gambiting I wonder if you could quickly save offline maps for the area you're in and then kill the GSM connection. So you could still navigate but without traffic information. ~~~ robbiep Yes you can do this with google maps - have been able for a couple of years. Hit the hamburger then ‘offline maps’ and it will download your geographic region. Great for international travel as it will still pathfind ------ AlexandrB Navigation apps have mostly settled into a comfortable state of "good enough" mediocrity. In addition to the "red but no traffic" problems highlighted by others I find turn by turn directions are incredibly annoying while driving in areas I'm intimately familiar with and there's no way to say "I know what I'm doing when I'm in this area" or "pause giving me voice directions for 10 minutes". Additionally: * I can't compare multiple modes of transportation on the same map. E.g. driving vs. walking vs. transit. * There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns, especially onto busy streets. * Multi-destination route optimization is not available. E.g. I need to go to the mall, the grocery store, and the bank, what's the sequence of destinations and route that minimizes travel time.[1] Edit: [1] I realize this is describing the travelling salesman problem, but for small (<=4) _n_ it should not be too difficult while still being useful in practice. ~~~ herenorthere >There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns, especially onto busy streets. Woah, I've never heard anyone else mention this problem. It sounds strange having it said "out loud" because I thought it was just a weird personal quirk/irritation of mine. I have always wished there was a route option of "easy mode driving," or "no pressure route." Often the "quickest" route google maps shows me is one that has some sort of difficult turn across multiple lanes going the other direction into a "suicide lane" or what have you. Either that, of some sort of merging is necessary where you're basically at the mercy of other drivers letting you in (especially tough if you're not an aggressive driver like myself). Honestly, some maneuvers give me a lot of anxiety, like when I'm on a very busy two lane road (no middle lane) and google is telling me to turn left, so I have to sit there with my blinker on feeling terrible for pissing off all the drivers that are now pilling up behind me, while I anxiously wait for an opening. Unless Im late for something important, I'd gladly go 5 minutes or more out of my way not to experience that kind of driving pressure/social anxiety. I have a moderate anxiety disorder so I know this might not be normal. But you're absolutely right! I suppose it does in fact boil down to just having a route option with "no left turns" \-- I had never thought of it that way. That's such a simple way to solve 95% of the problem. \---- Edit: a left turn lane, with a green left turn light is totally fine. Edit 2: For the handful of caring but misguided people scrutinizing my aversion for left turns: >Federal data have shown that 53.1 percent of crossing-path crashes involve left turns, but only 5.7 percent involve right turns. sauce: 2001 - Analysis of Crossing Path Crashes - NHTSA ~~~ deathhand Fed ex avoids left turns - [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2014/04/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2014/04/09/the- case-for-almost-never-turning-left-while-driving/?arc404=true) ~~~ OnlineGladiator It's also a serious consideration for companies working on self-driving cars, as unprotected left turns are extremely difficult for the robots. ~~~ ufmace Not too surprising if we think about it. At a significant number of unprotected lefts at busy intersections, you basically have to semi- aggressively pull out in front of oncoming traffic and rely on them to slow down for you in order to get through in a reasonable time. It's tough to automate that in a safe way. Especially if it involves fuzzy value judgements about whether those cars seem like they'll probably slow down for you. ------ WilTimSon Wow, I never actually stopped to think about the way Google determines traffic but it seems so obvious now. This is a very simple but cool trick, I'd expect to see something like this in an action movie where people need to reroute an important car to a particular street. Anyone have any idea how often this data is updated? So if the guy runs through a street with a cart and it turns red, when will it show up as clear? ~~~ ody4242 I guess an important piece (conveniently left out of this story) is that it does not work if there are other cars on the road, as these cars quickly invalidate the data coming from the slow cart. ~~~ matz1 But wouldn't that other car be classified as error? ~~~ matmo I don't know what the tipping point is, but it'd probably take more than one. I've commuted through backed up/stopped/solid red sections on a motorcycle where I just get to lane-split and cruise through, and it'd still stay red. ~~~ mayniac I think Google uses phone sensors to tell motorbikes apart form cars. Pretty simple tech: cars don't lean. Which makes it all the more infuriating that Google Maps still has huge flaws when it comes to motorbike navigation. ~~~ c0restraint > I think Google uses phone sensors to tell motorbikes apart form cars While they could, I doubt they do... do you have evidence of this? ~~~ shric not the GP, and I don't how it's done, but my Google Maps timeline does distinguish between motorcycling and car trips, however its reliability is questionable. It has often mis-categorised my motorcycle trips as car trips, but rarely if ever the reverse. I would guess (unsubstantiated) that it classifies a motorcycle trip as being unexpectedly fast through many traffic jams. ~~~ dwild They are pretty good to identify public transit from cars too. ------ maxtollenaar Google maps and other navigational apps could potentially flood residential routes that weren't supposed to handle traffic. People have done different measures to combat this. One anecdote is: "And in 2016, in Takoma Park, Maryland, residents went to great lengths to prevent Waze drivers from flooding their roads during a bridge reconstruction project. A Takoma Park man reportedly started reporting phantom wrecks and traffic jams on his street before Waze banned him" ref: [https://www.usnews.com/news/national- news/articles/2018-05-0...](https://www.usnews.com/news/national- news/articles/2018-05-07/why-some-cities-have-had-enough-of-waze) ------ nateburke This is a hack in an older, juvenile sense of the word, the sense that found cars on top of MIT buildings and football fans holding up cards that spell "we suck" in aggregate. I might be getting older but "hack" these days seems to just mean "go to work" or even "go to work on the weekend". ~~~ capableweb > older, juvenile sense of the word Eh, alright. What's then the "hack" definition that is younger and more adult? In my mind, hack has always been the same. Clever thing that does what you want. That's it. ~~~ konceptz Didn’t look it up for source but I thought hacking was coined by model train enthusiasts, “hacking” together train sets. ------ mindfulhack This video is a bit of a seminal moment for me. It's made me realise the information and tools we rely on and assume are true are actually just systematic fabrications produced by self-serving corporations, and are not necessarily the truth whatsoever. What does this mean for Google Search? (We had this discussion the other day: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22139421](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22139421)) ~~~ stevenhuang What a predictably cynical interpretation. Your immediate reaction to the application of imperfect models to the real world need not be one of distrust as if slighted but rather simple acknowledgment that this is just the best we can currently do. ~~~ mindfulhack You have a point. Perhaps it's Google users' fault as much as anyone else's, to form such trusting emotional bonds to the Google service in the first place. However: 1\. Google doesn't do anything to educate their users about this reality. 2\. If corporations like Google really wanted to do "the best we can currently do", they'd try harder but instead they just do "the best we need to do to make billions of dollars from collecting people's data." Case in point, turns out Yandex image search is better than Google's. Google won't try harder if no one knows there's something better. ~~~ dwild > Google really wanted to do "the best we can currently do", they'd try harder Trying harder what? Trying harder to avoid showing traffic when someone with 99 phones in a cart wheel is walking in the street? They are doing the best they can, the kind of traffic they are showing is quite close to reality in pretty much any situation. ------ sunflowerfly This happens a lot when driving around on smaller highways in rural areas here in the US. We even joke when we see red on the map; is it a real slowdown or did the one driver with Google Maps slow down to pass a tractor? ------ jpindar The author has a twitter thread about this: [https://twitter.com/simon_deliver/status/1223569659645112320](https://twitter.com/simon_deliver/status/1223569659645112320) ------ stiray Has anyone tried using Maps? I don't think it solves the left turn problem, but I am extremly unhappy with google maps interface and pushing of ads. After a bit of searching I have found Maps and never turned back. Well, I hope it comes handy to someone else too... [https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.maps/](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.maps/) ~~~ dddw tried, didn't work. I use osmand, altough it works fine for regular navigation, it's kinda slow and eats all my batteries. i'm givin nokia maps (here maps) a second chance ------ rosybox That 10px font size is not accessible. I can't read what's there without zooming in. It looked like decorative text or legal disclosures for a contest or something. Did the site's creator find that the ideal text size to use? ~~~ mihaaly Never mind, there is no real content in the text just empty phrases. ------ flarg I'm sure I've seen a related effect where a clear road is red until I drive down it and it then turns green ~~~ copperx Much better than the more common scenario of driving to work with an all green route and then finding that traffic is at a standstill. And then seconds later Google Maps marks the road as red. This happens so much that I don't trust all green routes to work anymore. ------ philshem This gives a new meaning to the maxim "You are not stuck in traffic. You are traffic." ~~~ copperx "I'm sorry boss, I'm going to be late because I'm traffic." ------ unfundiert I'm stunned how fast Google Maps detects traffic jams. I assume all those smartphones are running car navigation and as traffic detection works by trusting the clients I fear there's no chance to avoid this kind of exploit. Nevertheless it would be interesting to know what's the ratio of correct / malicious clients to fool the system. That migt highly depend on whether Google implemented any detection of faulty clients. ~~~ asutekku Google maps runs also a lot of the time on background so no active navigation is required. I wonder if the introduction of background location activity notifications in iOS 13 decreased the amount of traffic data gathered from iPhone users. ~~~ CrazyCatDog I want one app to track my position at all times. I use google because I’m unaware of another—and I figure they have optimized the energy consumption of doing so. Then again, would be thrilled if someone could recommend an alternate way of doing this on iOS (preferably native). PS this function allowed me to time stamp my location which proved incredibly helpful in a FOFA request with state patrol—got me out of a ticket that should never have been issued! ~~~ mattivc I use an app called Arc for this: [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/arc-app- location-activity/id10...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/arc-app-location- activity/id1063151918) I am pretty happy with it, so i can recommend giving it a try. ~~~ CrazyCatDog EXACTLY what I was looking for, thank you! ------ joantune From my last experience circa 1/2 years ago, you just need to be the only one on the road. About that time I was driving up at odd hours on a highway, when I noticed a yellow stretch on google maps coming up. Turns out the highway was mostly empty, and the only other vehicle in the road was a truck, which is limited to a fraction of the top speed. ------ duxup I always wondered about that. I don't think enough people use Google maps in my area for it to be consistent much of the time. Lots of random (not on map) or way out of date slowdows. The reporting feature doesn't seem to do much. Granted otherwise it is a great app, and I don't pretend to have the solutions to the wonkyness, just wonky at times when it comes to identifying traffic issues. ~~~ Frost1x In many locations your Uber/Lyft drivers are farming a lot of fairly reliable data for Google Maps (and Waze). ~~~ duxup That would make sense as far as the area's I'm thinking of are along the burgs outer ring roads so I don't think there is nearly as much outer ring Uber action. ------ timthorn The A14 north of Cambridge has recently been rerouted, and towards the end of the project - but months before it opened - Bing maps showed green traffic across countryside where the construction workers were moving along the new road. ------ nateburke I am wondering what the minimal monthly data plan cost would be to have this working continuously on your street. In a suburb, surely 20 phones would be enough, no? At $30/ month maybe somewhere between 500 and 600 per month? ~~~ beefield I guess you do not need a data plan. Or even phones. Just spin up n android emulators and spoof them with the gps data you want? (Disclaimer: I fully expect that to break multiple TOS clauses so I take no responsibility whatsoever if anyone tries this one.) ~~~ copperx It's a bit naive to think that Google doesn't have a filtering rule that says "only consider real phones with a true GPS signal". ~~~ beefield This may be a bit naive question, but how does Google know that the virtual phone is not a real phone and the signal is not true? In a way that is not spoofable? ~~~ jtsiskin They can likely consider only 1 device per IP address. Unless the region is blanketed in strong public WiFi ~~~ beefield I thought NAT was widespread with mobile providers making that difficult? ------ k2xl Seems like someone who is malicious could spin up a bunch of VMs, spoof their gps as slow moving across various streets to simulate traffic jams. Even sophisticated spoofing would have hard time detecting this. You could even do the inverse, simulate no traffic but have virtual cars go through streets faster than usual even if there is a traffic jam! Would we have some major impacts in the economy of an area if major highways are simulated at high traffic earlier/later than usual over the course of many days? Could affect local city transportation budgets to build or not build roads/new streets if they base their data solely on analytics coming from Google. Bots have become more and more sophisticated, so niche types of manipulation is harder to detect, and for something like GPS you can't really prompt a RECAPTCHA before routes are used. Cell phone tower data probably doesn't suffer from this risk as much, since you have to pay for cellular data and spoofing data to cell towers is probably more difficult. ------ alien1993 Would it be possible to do this by using the Android emulator and simulate its position? ------ maitredusoi I am happy to realize that it is Artistically possible to disrupt Google Map ------ EGreg We hacked Google's maps to make a web-based "GPS" system, like the navigation on the phone. It's not perfect, but it allows us to do things like have the driver share their geolocation in the Web browser, without putting it in the background, and without downloading any native apps. I'd say very little in the Qbix Platform is hacked together, but this is one of those things. It's not in the core, we have it in the Travel plugin. You can see it here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Q7IzVv1VU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Q7IzVv1VU) Here's a list of all the features: [https://qbix.com/features.pdf](https://qbix.com/features.pdf) Here is the overview of the whole open source platform in case you're curious: [https://qbix.com/platform](https://qbix.com/platform) ------ chairmanwow1 Why is his face blurred in the photos, but not in the video (or the video thumbnail for that matter)? ------ MattGrommes I can't wait until some rich neighbors get together to buy a bunch of phones to use this to keep people off "their" streets. I'm sure there will be some startup selling this service in parts of the Bay Area in no time. ------ vool This paper (2013) might be of interest "We demonstrate in practice how hackers can take control of navigation systems and, in the case of a wide distribution of floating car data, can actively control the traffic flow." [https://media.blackhat.com/eu-13/briefings/Jeske/bh- eu-13-fl...](https://media.blackhat.com/eu-13/briefings/Jeske/bh- eu-13-floating-car-data-jeske-wp.pdf) ------ shric I'd love a motorcycle mode aka "ignore traffic", in states/jurisdictions where lane filtering/splitting is allowed. I don't want to have to go offline to avoid it taking into account current traffic. ~~~ t413 +1 agreed– just a toggles for 'disable traffic optimization' and 'prefer 2+ lane roads' would do the trick. I'm definitely adding a pretty bad outlier to real-time traffic data about stopped traffic.. Very similar to what this cute hack is doing. ------ H8crilA This is really no different than spammy SEO in web documents. One can only imagine the accuracy of virtual Android simulators running fake GPS and Google Maps if there was money to be made on fooling the traffic analysis. ------ matchagaucho Sounds like a good interview question for Google. _" Given GPS and cell tower location data, how do you prevent a false positive traffic jam when 99 phones are all within 1M of each other?"_ ------ Santosh83 Why can't the phones determine their proximity to each other and report it to Maps, which would then presumably figure out that they're too close to represent separate vehicles? ~~~ asdfasgasdgasdg Just a guess: there's little economic incentive to perform this attack, and it would also be pretty expensive to perform regularly. So detecting and preventing it has not been a priority up to now. If people started doing it regularly, I'm sure countermeasures would be put in place. ~~~ vongomben Why expensive? If you compare it with other forms of rioting and strike I think is still cheap. Ghost digital crowd. BTW I wonder if you really need 99 different data Sims cards or rather have a smartphone hotspotting every 5. ~~~ asdfasgasdgasdg Expensive in time compared to benefit accrued/harm done. At a minimum you have to spend a person's time on it, both in the gathering of a bunch of used phones, the setting up of many phone lines, and the actual work of walking on the street. A small street seeming busy on Google Maps doesn't really matter that much. Especially, if the street is not actually busy, since that's kind of an indicator that people don't really want to use it anyway. So the amount of traffic you'd potentially divert is similarly small. This seems really obvious to me, so if it doesn't seem that way to you, maybe we just have different priors. I can't explain it any better than this, though. ~~~ wtracy It doesn't strike me as particularly expensive compared to getting thirty-plus bicyclists to go down the street in a block like the Critical Mass activists do. ~~~ asdfasgasdgasdg Critical mass tends to target busy city streets, partly perhaps with the goal of causing actual congestion. I daresay it wouldn't serve as much of a protest if the entire goal were making Google maps look worse. ------ kehphin Does anyone else get a bit of unexpected joy when they drive through a section of ‘red’ road without any actual traffic? It makes me feel like I saved a bit of time in my life. ------ newtonapple I drove through North Lake Tahoe one time on a weekday around midnight, and Google Maps was showing all red as I was driving up the mountain... I was super confused as there were no cars around me and it was not snowing either. What I later realized was that all the trucks were parked alongside the freeway taking breaks... I never realized that you could basically trick Google Maps by using a bunch of cellphones. Very neat! ------ speedgoose I wonder whether Google Maps takes into account the various ways of transportation, such as bicycles, public transports, or electric cars driving on the bus lines. ~~~ blfr Yes, if you look in your Google Maps timeline it can even often guess which mode of transportation you used. ~~~ judge2020 Might be via the phone sensors more then GPS travel insights - [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coremotion/cmmotio...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coremotion/cmmotionactivity) ------ scarejunba I imagine that if this is widespread they'll be able to use spam-filtering style stuff to get data from reliable accounts like mine (lots of reviews, location history on for decades, etc.) to override this stuff. An interesting reminder that all crowdsourced data does suffer from operating in an adversarial space. Wikipedia to Traffic. ------ threatofrain I expect Google to start weighing user data by some notion of account credibility. It’s a problem that extends beyond maps. ~~~ tomaskafka They can start with reviews, where this is much more important and commonly misused thing - and they still don't care. At all. So, nope :). ------ ChuckMcM This is a pretty cool hack. I can see neighborhood watch groups using it to keep Waze from routing people down their streets during rush hour. It is also a nice demonstration of how people who understand automation can "work the system" in ways that people who don't understand automation cannot. ------ mercwear Simple yet interesting experiment and the type of content that keeps me coming back to HN. Nice work OP. ------ jasoneckert I never thought it'd be possible, but this blog post made me actually want to buy 99 smartphones. ------ brenden2 Cool, could use something like this to keep traffic off my street until all the devices are banned. ~~~ chapium Imagine a cyclist using this to reduce traffic being routed to roads they are travelling on. ------ oxfordmale I wonder if there are other non-ethical commercial purposes for this. For example, could shops use it to inflate their footfall and make them look busier than they are ? Can you think of any other areas where this hack could be used for non-ethical purposes ? ~~~ robkop Not sure exactly how rideshare prices are calculated but say you're picking someone up on a street -- you could potentially make a fake traffic jam on the street so that the app would calculate a longer route and hence pay you more. ------ fludlight Check out the rest of this artist’s portfolio, some of them are quite good. [http://www.simonweckert.com/work.html](http://www.simonweckert.com/work.html) ------ hosanex Please thing I never understood was there app insisting on this is still the fastest route. As if it's supposed to be anything else when you searched for the fastest route to start with. ~~~ kaikai Traffic could have started after you began your journey, making another route without traffic faster. ------ maxerickson How does the cellular network location sharing work? Would it be possible to use 1 radio to spoof multiple devices there, or is there going to be enough security to prevent that? ------ a3n Jammers! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Your_Funeral](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Your_Funeral) ------ dghughes Geez, those second-hand phones look nicer than what I am using now :( edit: And why wouldn't a bus with 50 people all with smartphones have the same effect? ~~~ great_kraken The people on the bus wouldn't be in car navigation mode of Google Maps. ~~~ dghughes I don't think everyone has to be using car navigation mode. The traffic in my small town is shown on Google Traffic and I doubt locals here need navigation to get back to their home 5km away. ------ Jamwinner Went back to using maps, with a quick glance at traffic cameras in problem spots, it gets me there faster, and with _less distraction_. ------ antidamage Just one hack. Not really worthy of the plural. ------ aussieguy1234 Hostile residents who don't like car traffic through their neighbourhoods might do this to keep cars out of their streets. ------ irrlichthn Very cool hack. Thought about that this could be possible several times now, nice that someone actually did and succeeded :) ------ londons_explore Do the phones have to be open and navigating somewhere,or is it enough for them to just be idle on the home screen? ~~~ myself248 My understanding is this: If it was only phones running Maps, they wouldn't get much data. Phones running Maps are actively using the GPS, so they provide more precise data. Those sitting idle just get tower location, which helps fill in some vague flow information but doesn't do much for specific street or momentary speed. ~~~ allannienhuis > Those sitting idle just get tower location Do you have links or google keyword hints to more information about that? Is that OS specific? ~~~ londons_explore The GPS hardware is pretty power hungry, so is normally only switched on rarely for short bursts unless the user is actively navigating. You can see that with `adb logcat` on an android phone. ------ Nition > Google’s map service has fundamentally changed our understanding of what a > map is ... and how they look aesthetically. Paper maps used to look like a diagrammatic network of streets, with pale background and yellow for main roads, and our fundamental understanding of what a map is, was that it was a tool for navigation. Now with Google Maps, maps look like ??? and our fundamental understanding of what a map is, is ???. ~~~ jmpeax Google Maps is not a tool for navigation, it is a tool to sell advertising to businesses. The same way a pig farm is not a b&b for pigs. ------ xxxxxxxx Police roadblocks to test for drugs and alcohol (aka booze bus) also show up as red on google maps. ------ n-gauge Cool trick - I wonder how much of the cell tower's capacity he is hogging too? ~~~ sudhirj No more than two buses, it's only a 100 phones. ------ z3t4 Another fun thing you can do is to write messages to those who study hot maps. ------ art_loving_nerd To me, this is not so much about Google Maps or even "hacking" a computer system, but rather about how and how much computer information systems shape our view of reality, and how fake news may be created simply by naive and/or buggy software. It's just that in this case the big gap between view and reality can easily be shown by some photos or a simple video, while in case of search engines or recommendation systems, or advertising, it is much harder to show. To me this is kind of a "the emperor is naked" moment for surveillance capitalism, and even more so, as it is that simple. ------ yjl001 very good article. Thanks for sharing this. ------ shubidubi it's not a bug, it's a feature. ------ lonelappde Google/Android fights this sort of abuse by making short lifetimes for smartphones, so adversary can't accumulate many working secondhand phones, or Google can detect and filter them by obsolete OS version :-D	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Mueller team zeroes in on encrypted apps as witness turn in phones - uptown https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/mueller-team-zeroes-in-on-encrypted-apps-as-witness-turn-in-phones.html ====== Latteland I guess this is going to be a standard thing, not just trying to get your own phone under court order, but asking all your associates for theirs. People you send messages too, even if they are encrypted, can be supoena-ed or just requested (off topic, supoena, that's very hard word to spell). This raises a question for me. If you use signal, and your phone dies, then you lose your messages (unless you backed them up). I have lost my signal messages a couple of times when this happens. What if you set signal to delete all messages once a week or something. Is that illegal? At Microsoft when they added the "message retention policy" which imho was really the "we'll periodically delete your old messages so the govt can't sue us to see what people were sending email about", somehow that wasn't illegal, perhaps because it wasn't aimed at hiding anything in particular. But would that apply for my own world? What about my burglar alarm queue, my car's gps history? The mind boggles. So if I have chrome set to delete my cookies every day, or signal set to delete my messages or stuff like this, is that illegal? I'm not committing any crime as far as I know, but suppose that I was accused of something, I guess it could be suspicious? This feels like this falls into that category of everyone is doing 10 things a day that they don't realize could be illegal.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
AskHN: What browser and browser plugins do you use? - vaksel I was wondering what everyone else is using? ====== jackowayed Firefox with: * NoScript (really makes browsing more secure) * Twitterfox (a pretty nice FF twitter client) * All-in-One Gestures (Mouse gestures a la opera) * Web Developer (EXTREMELY useful for web developing. Allows you to easily disable js, css, cookies, images; resize your browser to 800x600 or 1024x768; Outline various types of elements; view generated source (so including anything JS changed; and many other great features, which are sometimes useful in browsing as well as developing) * Webmail Notifier (I have 3 gmail accounts I have to check, and this alerts me when any of them have new email, checking every n minutes. Also allows me to easily switch which I'm logged into) * Yubnub as my default search engine for the search box (go to <http://yubnub.org/> it easily allows you to use many different sources with simple commands [like "yt rick roll" to search youtube for a rick roll video]) * Adblock with the Filterset.G Updater (blocks a huge % of ads! When I use other computers, I realize that sites that I never knew had any ads on them do.) ------ Jasber Every day surfing Safari WebDev using Firefox. Firebug is just too useful to not use. I've only ever installed 2 plugins for Safari: http://www.inquisitorx.com/safari/index_en.php - Search as you type http://hetima.com/safari/stand-e.html - Enable all types of options in Safari ------ spydez Firefox with: * Adblock Plus * BugMeNot * Download Statusbar * Firebug * Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer * Full Screen Homestar Runner * Gmail Notifier * NoScript * TabMixPlus * Web Developer * Compact Menu 2 (on non-Mac computers) Also, several keyword search type bookmarks, so I can get rid of the search bar and use the location bar for everything. * g <foo> - google search * w <foo> - wikipedia search * y - quick shortcut to news.yc * cpp <foo> - google search that begins with "C++" * etc. ------ thomasswift normal use: safari with flash 10 web dev: firefox with firebug, live HTTP headers, web developer, tamper data ------ jws A quick peek at user agent strings on a link in a comment shows something like: 50% Firefox ( 50% windows, 25% linux, 20% mac, 5% openbsd) 25% Safari (100% mac) 10% Chrome 10% IE ( 60% IE6, 30% IE7, One brave soul IE8) 5% Opera 1% Minefield 1% iPhone Sample size is only 177, and it is only people that cared enough to read into one particular comment and then look further, so it may not be representative. ------ markessien SearchStatus for info on site credibility, delicious so I can quickly store the pages, FoxyClocks so I can see what time my China, India and U.S counterparts have, Web Developer, Proxy Switcher. I used to use greasemonkey for some gmail tweaks, but the gmail labs thing added most of them, so don't need that anymore. ------ apgwoz at (work\|home-debian:) (firefox\|iceweasel) with firebug, tamper data, greasemonkey and tor button. at home-powerbook: safari, firefox to test/debug javascript stuff ------ ruslan I'm feeling happy with what I got by default, i.e IE6 with no plugins :-). PS: Our stats on Google Analytics show that 62% of visitors from US do use FireFox. It's quite surprising to me. ------ redorb currently I am testing minefield every other day, but the lack of plugins is frustrating but I understand why... ------ andylei browse and dev with safari i like safari's developer's tools better than firebug ------ hs swiftweasel + firebug	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Where did the upvote count go? - knowingathing I'm not sure if there is A/B test going on right now, or if there has been a permanent change and I missed the memo. But I can't see an upvote count anymore on comments. Any ideas why? ====== gus_massa The upvotes of the comments of other users is hidden since a few years (5? I can't remember the date, and I can't find the anouncemente.) The upvotes of your comments should be visible to you. ------ caymanjim I don't recall ever seeing an upvote count on other peoples' comments; only my own. ------ knowingathing OK I must be confusing it with something else. Sorry about that!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
China shuts Apple's film and book services - tommoor http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36110425 ====== pink_dinner ..and this is the country that Zuckerberg idolizes.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Wiith: San Francisco iOS Beta Testers Neeeded - jeffhod https://twitter.com/wiithapp/status/558517601425309696 ====== drstewart I'd like to see a bit more than (literally) 3 words on the site saying what it is and why I should use it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What is the best /starter motorcycle for bay area commute? - neduma Hi there,<p>Currently, I'm commuting between Cupertino to San Mateo on I280 and am planning to get motorcycle to commute instead of car. Please share thoughts and experiences.<p>Many thanks. ====== marssaxman I've been commuting to work via motorcycle for six or seven years now, though I'm in Seattle not the Bay Area. Here is my generic advice: Don't buy a shiny new bike to start on. You WILL lay it down and scratch the paint up - everyone does. But you'll stand it back up again and keep riding, because laying a bike down is not that big a deal. No matter what you're intending to end up on, start with some fairly inexpensive ten-or-more-year-old Japanese bike, preferably a Honda. You want something simple and reliable, not something you have to tinker with, and a machine whose maintenance is cheap and easy, because it's all going to be unfamiliar. The standard wisdom is that a beginner should start out on a small bike, 250cc or so. This is because small bikes are lighter, which makes them easier to handle, and because newbies often get in trouble by yanking on the throttle when something startles them, so you want to have less engine going crazy when you do that. If you're going to be riding I-280 every day, though, I think you'll find that the low power of a 250cc bike will make life a little bit scary. Part of what keeps you safe on a motorcycle is the fact that you are faster and nimbler than everyone else around you. Cars rely on metal frames and bumpers and airbags for safety, but motorcycles rely on getting the hell out of the way. You'll probably want a 500cc-600cc bike to start with, so you have the option of flying away at 80 mph when you need to. My current bike is a Honda Nighthawk 750 and I think it is probably the best commuter bike ever made. It is not exciting, but it is sturdy, reliable, and handles freeways with no problem. (Top speed is roughly 100 mph.) I've taken it on long weekend trips, too, and while it's not the most comfortable cruiser ever, it is certainly up to the job. But mostly I just go back and forth to work, and it just keeps on ticking, and life is pretty darn good. I'm not sure how it would work as a starter bike - it's a little on the heavy side - but if you're a tall guy it might work. I get about 40 mpg. It is possible to do better, but I am a relatively aggressive rider. ~~~ dmfdmf > You'll probably want a 500cc-600cc bike to start with, so you have the > option of flying away at 80 mph when you need to. Its a little confusing but cc's can be a bit deceiving. Some 600cc motors put out 100+ horsepower and would be a death ride for a new rider. Some 650cc twins are mild manner and put out only 70-80 HP and are more manageable. If freeway riding is planned then he would need around 50+ HP to do so safely. The Suzuki GS500 or the Kawasaki 500 EX are usually recommended as good beginner bikes with enough power for freeway use. The 250cc bikes put out about 35-40 HP and can go freeway speeds but not much left for evasive actions. ------ DanBC No answer to your question but I'd love a Puch Maxi style moped. They're not popular in the UK; and they're expensive; and you need to pass some tests. An electric Puch maxi would be amazing. My biking history: Started with a handme down Yamaha Passola, then a handme down puch-maxi-clone, then an abandoned converted Honda 75cc, and then I went to a moto guzzi v50mkIII (a 500cc motorbike) with a sidecar. At the time you could ride that with L plates without having to take a test. Looking back now it was a stupid thing for me to do. ------ dmfdmf Is this to save gas or so you can lane split and save time during your commute? Have you ever ridden a moto before? ~~~ neduma >> Save gas or lane split to save time Save gas. mostly. >> Ever ridden moto before? No. But got motorcycle driver license last week. ~~~ dmfdmf Riding is a lot of fun but I don't really recommend it for commuting, especially for a rookie on I280. Furthermore, I don't think it will really save you all that much in gas unless your car gets 10 MPG. Any decent car built within the last 10 years gets 20+ MPG on the freeway and your average bike might only be double that, especially if its a smaller bike that will be wide open throttle at freeway speeds. Get a different car or drive slower on the freeway at 55-60 MPH in the right lane during your commute is probably a better risk to reward strategy -- as I am sure you know and it is true -- motorcycles are dangerous and maybe more so today with all the distracted drivers. I rode in college and recently got my M1 so I can do some recreational riding but have not bought a bike yet, haven't found the time to clean the garage. I recommend you sign up and hang out on BARF (bay area riders forum) and pickup the knowledge you need to learn and to ride safely. [http://www.bayarearidersforum.com/forums/](http://www.bayarearidersforum.com/forums/) ~~~ neduma Thanks for the advise & link.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Roboto, build and deliver your iOS and Android apps - phillipcaudell http://roboto.build ====== phillipcaudell Hey all! I've been working on Roboto for some time now after leaving my full time job as an app developer and designer. One particular pain point was getting beta builds to our testers and deploying to the App Store. We worked in a team, so creating builds would require checking out each other's changes, ensuring we had the right profiles on our machines, and so on. Yuck. You might be thinking "you need to use CI - Jenkins!", and we tried it. I was at an agency with multiple apps on the go every few months, and getting Jenkins set up and working in a way we wanted was a massive pain in the ass. It was a hot mess of plugins, hacks and external services such as TestFlight and HockeyApp. Other services that offered an alternative — such as Travis and CircleCI — would require access to your private source code, signing identifies, etc. Paying someone else to compile your code made little sense to us, as we had perfectly capable Macs of our own. Roboto is built so that we manage the bits you'd want us to manage: hosting of the IPA and APK packages, installation pages, emails, web interface, users, etc. You then run the "Roboto Worker" on a Mac of your choice, which does all the compilation and source code management locally. The upside of this is we never see your private data, and your builds can make full use of your hardware — no sharing with other developers We have big plans for Roboto. What you see today is just the beginning. Whilst I think sharing future plans publicly can sometimes set people up for heartbreak (scrapped features, delays, etc), here's a couple of things already in the works: \- Unit test support. \- iTunes Connect and Play Store management (metadata, screenshots, etc) \- Full build support for Android. So that's a bit about why Roboto exists. I'm really looking forward to seeing what you guys think! Happy to answer any questions you guys and gals have. Thanks! tl;dr: It's an out the box CI tool for mobile apps, TRY IT FREE TODAY. ~~~ notduncansmith Thanks for posting this, it looks like a cool service! I'd suggest mentioning somewhere on the landing page both the tl;dr from your comment, and the fact that you're a CI/deployment tool rather than a build system. I wasn't clear on whether this was some sort of mobile development framework or what. ~~~ phillipcaudell Cheers for the feedback - I'll look at tweaking the copy. I've had a sinking feeling it wasn't as crystal clear as it could be (too close to it). ------ andrewrice Looks great! On a side note, your web design made me smile. Subtly reminds me of the old Trapper Keeper designs of the 90s: [http://i.imgur.com/dGF57ff.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/dGF57ff.jpg)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Designers as Pawns and Useful Idiots - dwynings http://www.andyrutledge.com/designers-as-pawns-and-useful-idiots.php ====== ricardobeat I fully agree that non-paid design competitions like the one mentioned should be banned and avoided by every professional - but unfortunately that's not what the post's about... All the Lenin, propaganda, bolsheviks, Marxism references are bordering on pejorative, he even goes the length to say that public schools are "non- Constitutional government agencies". Yeah, let's save health and education for those who can afford it, that will make things much better. ~~~ true_religion People who think that federalized public education and healthcare is unconstitutional would have no legalistic disagreements with those same programs implemented on the state level. Let's face it---federal control of education has been an utter failure: substandardized testing, unfunded mandates, federal rules on what can and can't be taught in sex ed, and even inflated college prices due to the over- prevalence of student loans. In short, what are you fighting for? Good education or federalized education? Because if its the former, you might actually find yourself on the side of those you seem to dislike now. ~~~ ricardobeat I'm not north-american. Where I live, state, municipal and federal public schools mostly differ on the funding source. Many federal schools are known for their excellence. Federal universities here are also doing great, and are the best in the country. But does it really matter? All government levels should work together. ------ hartror What? This idea by Obama's campaign folks is pretty transparent. Plenty of people donate time, money or expertise to politicians that they support. All political parties make overt requests for donations, whether in pure cash or other forms. The link color on the blog seems to suggest the author's political opinions and reasons for writing the post. This is apart from all the rhetoric contained within the content itself. ------ clownz0r How dare we give someone the chance to volunteer their time for something? From now on, I say we force everyone to require monetary compensation for all time spent on any projects, even if it's something to which they want to donate their time. ------ rblackwater It mentions that "the top %1 pay more than %40 of taxes," but I am pretty sure I've read that they make far more than %40 of all profits. [citation needed] of course.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Will I have more success as a Full Stack or front/back end developer? - lookingfj I am a mid level full Stack Developer. I enjoy working on all areas of the Stack, but I have started to try to move towards the more senior rank and I am wondering if being a specialist in one particular area will make me more employable/valuable. An alternative I'm thinking of is just to spend time working on my JavaScript(react, node) skill set and presenting myself as a JavaScript full Stack Developer. I'd love to hear everyone's opinions and experiences. ====== stephenr ... I can't help but notice that you keep capitalising stack. Beyond that, there used to be another term for "full stack developer" \- jack of all trades, master of none. Having some knowledge of the layers above/below you is definitely beneficial but I would suggest picking an area and increasing your skills and experience there.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Life after Parse – 3 awesome alternatives - weitingliu https://www.codementor.io/development-process/tutorial/what-to-do-after-parse-shuts-down ====== parseopensource Parse Open Source Community in Slack bit.ly/1SxTVIi ;) ------ mignev Awesome article!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
People interview people - Halil http://www.peopleized.com/ New website where people interview each other to promote their websites and blogs. ====== romlet This is a great site for getting exposure online. It lets people interview others about their projects online, be they bloggers or otherwise! It has been a huge hit since its recent release. ~~~ mossiwo Great site, awesome idea!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Optimizing .: Details of Vectorization and Metaprogramming - leephillips http://www.juliabloggers.com/optimizing-details-of-vectorization-and-metaprogramming/?utm_source=ReviveOldPost&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ReviveOldPost ====== davidacoder It is worth pointing out that this blog post is old, from January. Julia 0.5 adds a phenomenal new feature, the dot syntax [1], that automatically fuses vectorized expressions. I believe that feature was added quite a while after this blog post was written. Currently the dot syntax works for all functions, except for operators like .+, but in julia 0.6 it will work across the board. At that point, an expression like A.B.*C will automatically be translated into the de-vectorized loop version that the author identifies as the fasted way to implement something like that, without the need for any macros or other special tricks. [1] [http://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/manual/functions/#dot- sy...](http://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/manual/functions/#dot-syntax-for- vectorizing-functions) ------ zackmorris Found this comparison of Julia, MATLAB, R, Python and C/C++: [http://docs.julialang.org/en/release-0.5/manual/noteworthy-d...](http://docs.julialang.org/en/release-0.5/manual/noteworthy- differences/) At the highest level, Julia operates on all of the elements of a matrix for each operation, is 1-based, assigns by reference, is case-sensitive, has the range operator (:) like python, but doesn't allow negative indices to read from the end. Now for some get off my lawn: In terms of learnability from easiest to hardest, I would rank them: Python MATLAB Julia R I'm still hoping for a pure functional language that operates on matrices and doesn't introduce a lot of non-imperative operators and terminology. For example closures with immutable data gets us a fair part of the way to Clojure, without the learning curve. For the most part I've given up on ever learning Erlang, Haskell, Scala, etc even though I know Scheme. Maybe F#, I dunno. I feel that Rust is one level of abstraction beneath my pain threshold. Swift is too micromanagy when it comes to nulls. Javascript has abandoned its scripting roots to regress back towards C++ and its new syntactic sugar isn't helping things. I really want to like Go but worry it will be superseded by a truly concurrent language running on video cards with automagic error handling. I've given up on CUDA and OpenCL due to their roots in OpenGL, because their metaphors are too cumbersome compared to MATLAB. C++ and PHP are still my most loved and hated languages because they do everything wrong but excel at things like performance and laziness. In the end, these are my primary goals. ~~~ iamed2 What puts MATLAB ahead of Julia, in your opinion? ~~~ dysfunctor I was curious about that as well. I've known folks who were genuinely discouraged and exhausted from working with matlab, and are now happy toiling in python. I've not converted them to the Julia side yet, but I will! Julia is definitely harder to learn than python, but it's far and away worth the effort, and its only ever going to get easier. There's merit in having to push your mind a bit when learning a new skill. Struggling has certainly helped me concrete my skillset. I remember my first time reading sicp, and it was very difficult and foreign to me at the time, but after sticking it out I realized what a huge effect it has had on my work, my ability to push myself to learn new things, and how I think about programming problems to an extent. Julia feels like a modern, less academic scheme in a lot of ways, and I see all these people so much more intelligent than me that are making it into an even stronger language and I just get this sense of pride about it all. So yeah, matlab sucks. ------ eveningcoffee My takeaway from this was that Julia has @nobounds option to remove bound checking. ~~~ iamed2 It's quite nice, and works for user-defined collections as well: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XorFlvQEiI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XorFlvQEiI) ------ viraptor > the difference between your “high-performance code” and your prototype code > is @devec So is there a reason @devec is not applied by default? ~~~ iamed2 See davidacoder's post at the top; it does that now, essentially.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
1 Year of GitHub Streak - sahat Greetings HN community,<p>A year ago, during my senior year in college I have decided to write code every single day as a way to improve my coding skills. Today, I am happy to say that I've made it to 365 days without breaking a streak.<p>Was it worth it? Yes, definitely! Without doing this, neither Hackathon Starter nor Satellizer.js projects would exist on GitHub today.<p>https://github.com/sahat ====== duketon Hi Sahat! Neat coincidence seeing this post. A few weeks ago I stumbled upon your tutorial for the tv show tracker application, and I went through it line by line. After that I decided to make my own web application and your tutorial was 100% what gave me the foundation and concepts to do that. So thanks for the great write up, and ever since starting the project I've pushed every day! Only 11 days, but I hope I can get 365 as well. ------ BadCode This is awesome! but I want to ask, did this, at any point of time, felt like sacrificing free time that could have been used for other fun activities? ~~~ sahat That's an excellent question. Doing this did not, at any point in time, feel like I was sacrificing my time for other fun activities. I enjoy coding the point of addiction sometimes. On contrary, I felt the opposite most of the time - "I should be writing code right now instead of playing video games or socializing on weekends." But that will differ from person to person. Certainly not everyone will enjoy programming 24/7. ------ nicolasd Congratulations! I also thought about this. I just want to code for me, to get better - without any pressure of clients or coworkers who can help me. How did you get started with this routine? What was the hardest part / what was your daily goal (amount of commits/hours)? thanks for sharing :) ------ zallarak Wow! Your open source work is great. Congratulations. A great example of how maintaining good habits changes the game. ------ jasonchi Great! I think GitHub should create a rank of streak. :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Steve Yegge - where are you? - kleiba Do you know that feeling when your favorite TV show gets canceled after 7 seasons? You've grown attached to the characters and their lives and you actually feel loss... That's how I feel about Steve Yegge's blog posts. He apparently made his threats true and stopped blogging. Does anyone share that feeling, and more importantly, does anyone have any insights whether there may be a chance for his blog to get revived? ====== deepu_k I miss his posts too. But Steve yegge occurred to me like a character who sticks to his decisions(which are usually made after a lot of thought). So i doubt if we can revive his blogging, but if someone manages to do that kudos... i miss his blogs. ------ vault_ What bugs me is that his last post from about a year ago says that there are still three more. I've found all of his writings very interesting, and am kind of sad that there probably won't be any more. ------ thegoleffect I think that he blogs internally a lot @ Google. But he might have quit that too, IDK.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask YC: A good IDE for Python programming? - wr1472 I am trying to get into python programming for the OLPC, and would like to know what a good IDE for it would be? I am an experienced developer so learning the language or OO is not a hurdle (although functional programming will be new but not difficult).<p>My other question is an environment one - the OLPC isn't geared up for full blown dev yet so I plan to develop on an Ubuntu VM and then package up an activity and deploy onto Sugar VM and then OLPC. I'm aware that Sugar Activities need to use custom python libraries but I don't know how I would approach getting those libraries into Ubuntu and whether it would work?<p>Currently looking at wing IDE as an option, I use eclipse a lot and have tried the Jython plug in. I'd like something with code completion and ease of use so not looking for suggestions around Vi or Emacs! ====== astrec Try Komodo - quite a good package. PyDev is good if you're already an eclipse user. I hear good things about Kate. I'm an Emacs user myself - the power is addictive. ~~~ gaius 'Nother vote for Komodo. ~~~ wr1472 thanks I'll look up Komodo. ------ pdubroy I've done some OLPC development. It's fairly easy to get the environment set up on Ubuntu, and then you can use whatever dev tools you want: <http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_on_Ubuntu_Linux> Getting Komodo to autocomplete on the Sugar libraries might be non-trivial though. ------ kngspook To just answer the headline question, my preferred IDE for Python is TextMate. But it sounds like that's not really going to suit your needs in this case...I'm not familiar with OLPC, but vim (or maybe emacs? it's larger) might be easily usable across all the various platforms it sounds like you're using. ------ pdubroy Also, if you're familiar with GDB, you might find that PDB gets the job done for debugging Python. It uses many of the same commands as GDB.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
I'm coming to your town... - shakeandbake https://medium.com/p/f1ab9d707046 ====== beat What's the product? That would help me decide whether it's worth it. If it's a hot backup mechanism for a graph db, I'd be interested. If it's a better kind of grape jelly, not so much. ~~~ calitalieh Although I love grape jelly... Its a better way for startups to offer a calling experience to their prospects and customers (sales and service.) Obviously, not all startups need/want to speak with customers (i.e. mobile games) but for the ones who do, their is this fear of doing so efficiently, elegantly. That's what Drumbi does. A few lines of code on your site (like setting up chat) and we orchestrate the data and voice session together. Happy to give you a demo if you simply go to Drumbi.com and click on the "contact us" button. Thanks for asking. ~~~ calitalieh But more to the point, I also like to share/learn from other startups folks. Its a long, lonely slog at times so community helps make it better. My email is shervin at drumbi dot com. Cheers.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Electric Car may be entering its “cell phone” period - mblakele http://ideas.4brad.com/electric-car-may-be-entering-its-cell-phone-period ====== vlehto Good electric car battery standard would solve almost all of the problems of electric cars. 1\. The battery is where most development happens and where it's most needed. So you don't have to worry about your car getting too old too fast. Just get fresh battery. 2\. Range: just swap the battery if you run out of juice. They could be rented like gas bottles are at service station. 3\. Battery charge lifespan. 4\. Potentially emerging fuel cells. They are just a way to burn something into electricity. Why do you care what kind of black box feeds you car some current? How could this be done? Build robots at service stations that lift a battery pack into the bottom of the car. Good place could be where the spare wheel currently goes. Bottom of the trunk. You could steal mechanical locking from intermodal containers, just scale it down. And electric connectors could be upscale speakon connectors stolen from pro audio. ~~~ m-i-l Tesla did have battery swap stations where the battery would be swapped in around 90 seconds (less time than it takes to fill up a tank)[0]. However, uptake was apparently very small so focus was shifted to building the network of supercharger stations[1]. [0] [https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/battery-swap-pilot- program](https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/battery-swap-pilot-program) [1] [http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/10/tesla-battery- swap/](http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/10/tesla-battery-swap/) ~~~ andygates The more interesting question, then, becomes "why didn't you swap your battery?" to drivers who charged instead. ~~~ greglindahl You had to swap back to your own battery on the way home. When I drive SF/LA, I go down on I5 (passing the swap station) and come back up the coast. If Teslas had leased batteries it would be easier, but they do not. ------ lectrick 1) The Tesla just surpassed the Leaf as the most popular electric car (yes, even with the price difference). 2) Electric car perks are everywhere and rarely mentioned. Free charging, way better parking, fielding questions from curious onlookers, more cargo space, no noise, no warmup, no oil changes, etc.) 3) In the winter months in areas of the world with real seasons (read: not San Francisco area), cabin heating will detract significantly from your range on a long 20 degree F drive. Talking 25% less maximum range or so. You can mitigate it somewhat by using seat heat instead but I've found that passengers REALLY do not want to go that route (or worse, they want BOTH lol). ~~~ mhandley Why don't electric cars come with a tiny kerosene cabin heater as standard? A small heater would take up little space or weight, could be easily refueled at home so not need a detour to a petrol station, and be much more cost effective than adding extra batteries just to provide cabin heat. Sure, it's not zero- emission, but the efficiency of a kerosene heater can be pretty good (much better than an internal combustion engine) and it might go a long way to increase the usefulness on cold days. ~~~ coldpie No one would be silly enough to cart around a tank of highly explosive liquid in their vehicle. ~~~ pljns I look forward to hearing my grandkids saying this in disbelief, to which I respond, "No, really, we carted around a massive tank of highly flammable liquid. To make matters worse, we actually steered vehicles ourselves." ------ m-i-l The potential for depreciation was a powerful deterrent for me. Assuming 20% depreciation a year, then a £65K Tesla would be "costing" over £1000 a month just in depreciation alone. However, the Tesla Model S has apparently so far had lower depreciation than any other car in the UK[0], according to CAP Black Book ("the industry benchmark for used car values"[1]). Presumably this is in large part due to its relative scarcity (still a 2 month lead time for a new one, so an instantly-available second hand one becomes more attractive). Quite how long that situation holds remains to be seen. [0] [http://evobsession.com/cap-black-book-teslas-retain-value- be...](http://evobsession.com/cap-black-book-teslas-retain-value-better-car- market/) [1] [http://www.cap.co.uk/en/products-and-services/black- book/](http://www.cap.co.uk/en/products-and-services/black-book/) EDIT: The 20% depreciation was a rough estimate based on the Resale Value Guarantee if you buy on finance. Using figures of £64,600 cash price, £72,477 if bought on finance, and £37,584 Guaranteed Minimum Future Value after 3 years, then the actual "worst case" depreciation would be around 18% per year over 3 years. ~~~ hcho I don't think lead time is relevant here. Built to spec lead times are generally much longer for upmarket ICE cars. ------ vessenes I have exactly these dynamics with my 2013 Nissan Leaf. I leased it, assuming depreciation would be brutal on it. And it was, in fact, Nissan just offered me $5,000 credit to buy it off them, meaning I got to finance far less of the depreciation than I should have, and some corporate arm is going to take the writeoff for me. I was going to buy it, but the technology is changing so quickly, it seems almost pointless. On the other hand, what is the minimum a low mileage four year old electric car would be worth, even if its range is not up to industry standards? It's hard to imagine it would be worth less than $6k. If it is, the electric car depreciation will drive other used car values down. Nissan is offering lease extensions, typically the stupidest possible way to pay for driving a car, but in this case, I think it's probably a good idea. The internal pressure to innovate against GM and Tesla means they are going to be aggressively obsoleting these older cars. ------ jstanley > There is a $7500 federal tax rebate on a new electric car, so the moment you > drive it off the lot, its blue book value drops an additional $7500. But isn't that fine because you got the $7500 anyway? ~~~ eloisant Maybe, but when you buy your car it's important to realize that these $7,500 are not just free money, they have a direct impact on your car resell value. So if you buy a leaf that starts at $30,000, get rebates to $20,000, you must remember that since anyone can get it new for $20,000 that's the actual "new" value to take before you apply depreciation. In other words you're not really buying a $30k car for $20k, you're buying a $20k car. ~~~ komodo So it follows that right before the rebate ends is the best time to buy? ~~~ MagnumOpus Correct. But only if the reason why the rebate is ending is a breakthrough in technology that will cut the price of a new one by more than the rebate in 2-3 -- which is in a sense what happened with solar subsidies in a lot of places. ------ eoinmurray92 Since people would start to want to buy cars more frequently because of the constant increate in performance/features (which the article is saying will be faster than the current state of motor innovation), would the car manufacturers be able to offer lower-cost models that would be bought every 3/4 years. They could recoup the money from cheaper cars from the faster purchase cycle. Or else move to a leasing model (this is becoming more popular with people I know in the UK, Ireland). ~~~ forgetsusername > _would the car manufacturers be able to offer lower-cost models that would > be bought every 3 /4 years._ I think people buying new cars every 3 or 4 years is already the status quo, regardless of cost. That's the average lease/finance period (though financing duration is increasing). ~~~ bsder > I think people buying new cars every 3 or 4 years is already the status quo, > regardless of cost. That's the average lease/finance period (though > financing duration is increasing). Not where I come from. Most of the folks I know are sitting on 8+ year old cars. Leasing is useless in the US at this point because you are on the hook for the full price of the car if you get in an accident and total it. ------ RegW Assuming that the article is correct and that adoption is being hampered by concerns about secondhand values, rebates and diminishing relative performance, then leasing would seem to offer the best option. You can always then turn in you existing model for a better one after a couple of years. However, this doesn't seem that green. You might not be pushing clouds of particulates into the air around your home, but there is still the power consumed in manufacturing a new car for you every 2 years. Perhaps, the Riversimple model would also work for electric cars. They sell you mobility as a service - and the motivation to keep you moving efficiently remains with them. In theory this should force them to keep the vehicle upgradable. [http://riversimple.com/how-the-business- works/](http://riversimple.com/how-the-business-works/) The comparison with phones is interesting. We are starting to get phones with batteries that can't be changed. Do we now just plan to throw them away every 2 years, or are we actually losing interest and need to be forced to upgrade? ~~~ SixSigma But when you lease, at the end the vehicles are refurbed and sold on. And if they aren't then they will be almost totally recycled nowadays. ------ JohnDoe365 Current oil prices make electronic cars a total personal economic loss. ~~~ beisner Perhaps at face value, and only at this exact moment in time. It would be interesting to see examine both the hidden and extrinsic costs of both sorts of vehicles. I believe that maintenance/performance of electric cars ends up being less in lifetime costs than combustion - that's a relatively well- studied area, and narrows the amortized gap between electric and combustion. What hasn't been studied much, and may be interesting to examine, are the extrinsic costs of both types of cars. Take health expenses for instance - does owning a combustion vehicle have an effect on an owner's health, vs electric ownership? Would this effect be reflected in higher healthcare costs later on? At the macro level, if emissions were reduced dramatically by mass replacement by electric vehicles, would aggregate healthcare costs decrease as well? ------ mattiemass I've read fairly similar takes comparing EVs to the digital camera. I'm very interested to see what ends up happening, but my guess is the car market will be quite unique. I do think the author is overestimating the importance of peripheral functions of cars. ~~~ brbsix By peripheral do you mean things like entertainment systems and apps? If so I agree. However the author specifically emphasized the importance of the computer and it's associated software. I've got to think that entails things like autonomous (or assisted) driving capability as seen in the recent Tesla updates as well as things like improved accident avoidance, "hailing" features, or self-maintenance. I can certainly see how these software improvements would be compelling. ------ SixSigma Them child miners had better get digging cobalt faster ! [https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/01/Child- labour-...](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/01/Child-labour- behind-smart-phone-and-electric-car-batteries/) ------ benten10 Here's a question I've always wanted to ask someone about electric cars: Why don't the companies make cars with detachable batteries, and basically do a battery 'swap' in the charging stations, so that the charging time becomes very little, if people want to? ~~~ brbsix I guess people didn't care. [http://fortune.com/2015/06/10/teslas-battery-swap-is- dead/](http://fortune.com/2015/06/10/teslas-battery-swap-is-dead/) ------ glossyscr As the long as the charging is not way faster I do not see mass adoption. If you're using cars just in the city then charging is no issue but for long distance travel it is one. Only way is to own at least two cars but this can't be the solution. ~~~ forgetsusername > _If you 're using cars just in the city then charging is no issue but for > long distance travel it is one._ Yeah, I'm also curious how this pans out. Generally, people traveling long distances on the Tesla SC network route say, "No big deal, I stop for 20 minutes to stretch, charge, and away I go." But what does that scenario look like when there are millions of EVs on the road? Imagine it took 20 minutes to fill up with fuel? The lines would be horrendous. Travel during prime vacation time and they already are on some routes. ~~~ rhino369 Presumably the number of quick charge locations will grow if electric cars become normal. They won't be free (even tesla is walking back that free forever promise). States could let companies lease spots at rest stops. ------ spo81rty Most people buy a car every three years. Sounds similar to how often people switch cell phones. I don't think electric cars change much in regards to people always wanting something different or the shiny new model. The awesome thing about the Tesla is all the over the air updates. Other car makers want you to buy the new model to get the new features. I worked in the car biz for a long time. ~~~ JonnieCache _> Most people buy a car every three years._ This is shocking to me. Are you in the US? I'm pretty sure it's more like 10 years here in the UK. ~~~ ghaff Pretty much the only people who own cars for just 3 years are those who are leasing. The average car on the road is over 11 years old in the US and average length of ownership for new cars is over 6 years. [1] [1] [http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/07/29/Here-s-Why- American...](http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/07/29/Here-s-Why-Americans- Are-Keeping-Their-Cars-Longer-Ever)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Whoever built the Boston Marathon bombs is still on the loose (2018) - AndrewBissell https://www.newsweek.com/2018/01/19/boston-marathon-bomb-maker-loose-776742.html ====== azeotropic There was a lot of strange stuff going on with the FBI in the Tsarnaev case. Agents from the Boston FBI office traveled to Florida and shot Ibragim Todashev and then couldn’t get their story straight about whether he attacked FBI agents with a broom or a samurai sword or a table. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibragim_Todashev](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibragim_Todashev) ------ tyingq Here is a CNN story from 2015 making a case that they had help with the bombs: [https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/05/us/boston-marathon-bombing- tr...](https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/05/us/boston-marathon-bombing-trial- help/index.html) It doesn't speculate who helped them. Some details, though. Like their claim that they used directions from the Al Queda Inspire magazine. Some details on parts like Christmas lights and RC car parts, etc. ------ souprock Nope. My father-in-law met the Tsarnaev brothers. They were out shopping for electric switches. My father-in-law worked in an electric supply store that didn't stock the right type of switch, so he directed them to a store that would have the needed part. He later recognized them, leading to the store video being seized as evidence and helping to track them down. Feeling of guilt over helping the Tsarnaev brothers gnawed at him, worsening the bad lifestyle choices that led to his death before he could testify. I don't think they'd go shopping for a switch if they didn't intend to build the device. There might have been a local co-conspirator such as Tamerlan Tsarnaev's wife. Wikipedia says: Her web history included searches for "If your husband becomes a shahid, what are the rewards for you?" and "the rewards for the wife of Mujahedeen." ------ close04 > [District Attorney] Blodgett gave no explanation > The FBI declined to answer It's a sad state of affairs when authorities see no reason to even bother with any kind of justification for what is obviously a much deeper issue. This is one of the very things that set democracies apart - accountability towards the people. ~~~ netsharc In the London terrorist knife attack a few days ago, the killer had a fake bomb vest on, he was already neutralised but police shot him when he showed them the fake vest. There'll be an investigation whether this shooting was justified. It probably is, because they probably thought the vest was real and he was about to trigger the detonator, but I'm glad there's still scrutiny of lethal police action. ------ mindslight It's awfully hard to believe an article that is dead set on sensationalizing and demonizing everyday materials: > _metallic BBs, electrical wires, batteries, cellphone parts, circuit boards_ > _hobby fuse and wires, batteries, dismantled cellphones, fire starters_ > _Thermite ... recipe for chlorine gas_ > _plastic zip ties like the ones used by police when they are making large- > scale arrests_ > _knives, decorative swords, a loaded 9 mm pistol and a large, fully loaded > Russian bolt action rifle, along with several hundred rounds of high-caliber > ammunition._ > _machete, steel wool, a Duraflame log, coffee grinders and shards of metal > shavings_ Who _doesn 't_ have most of these " _ominous materials_ ", for basic every day civil purposes? And if someone needs a written recipe for chlorine gas, I doubt their ability to make _bread_ without burning down the kitchen. Sure, the article also contains details that do indicate the making of bombs (although once again, playing with explosives can be just good clean fun), and more importantly actual connection to the crimes. It's just not good that the majority of their narrative is built on innuendo and further marginalizing their audience with ominous fear. ~~~ AndrewBissell Having a few of these things, in isolation, would be no cause for alarm. It's all of them taken together and stashed away in a bedroom, along with the bizarre behavior of both Morley and the FBI, which makes it seem very suspicious. ~~~ mindslight Your comment is basically continuing the innuendo train. All of these things, taken together, are perfectly reasonable to have, period. It sounds like his "bedroom" was his only personal space away from his mother, so once again nothing notable. And "stashed" is yet another baseless pejorative. I do agree there are other pertinent details that are the actual cause for concern, especially regarding the FBI. But why not stick to those rather than illustrating some scary sounding but ultimately innocuous motif around the suspect? I'm thinking the dynamic is that the journalist has no idea what the real world is actually like (eg associating "wires" with movie bombs, rather than realizing they're in literally every electric device), but has been trained to embellish their writing with descriptive words, and so they've resorted to crafting a narrative of fear of general odds and ends. Perhaps they should have visited the witchcraft victims' memorial one town south to remind themselves what such fearmongering leads to. ~~~ linksnapzz I think if you have all of those things, in toto, in your basement all where they belong, it's normal. Those specific things, hidden in your bedroom, are enough to make your parents ask questions. If he was a homemade pyrotechnics enthusiast, it'd be perfectly normal. Was he? Also, LOL at the bag of perlite. It's almost as if someone told him to go to the hardware store to buy fertilizer for a "fertilizer bomb", and this guy gets a bag of chemically inert soil amendment instead. ~~~ mindslight I'd say that many of those things, by themselves, are enough for parents to ask questions. Questions like "do I think my son is mature enough to have firearms under my roof" and "are these flammable things stored responsibly" ? But personal judgment and implied criminality are entirely different beasts. Thanks for mentioning the perlite, I missed had that. I love how it's presented uncritically - sounds like thermite! I wonder if he had some deadly diatomaceous earth as well? Maybe I'm just taking it too seriously and the whole article is actually meant to be a comic. ------ mabbo Not that it's even close to relevant to the story, but wow, suddenly my childhood wish that my first name, Morley, was more well known has come true. Be careful what you wish for... ~~~ esotericn Did you know that you own a chain of famous chicken shops in South London? You even have merchandise! [https://www.morleyslondon.com/collections/all](https://www.morleyslondon.com/collections/all) ~~~ internobody Also the name of the fictional cigarettes used frequently by CSM on the X-Files ------ fergie Interesting story, but why would the FBI protect Morley? What would be their motive? ~~~ save_ferris No idea, but based on the way they returned the evidence to local authorities and claiming they couldn't find anything makes me wonder if they committed a serious breach of protocol at some point (i.e. an FBI agent or informant gave the suspect live bomb-making materials constituting entrapment, etc.) ~~~ pjc50 Yes, this sounds like the most likely explanation - they were already involved in some way, and admitting it would be far worse than merely not catching the bomber. Wasn't there something like this with Mexican gunrunning? And isn't there already a record of the FBI effectively creating suspects by "recruiting" them as terrorists? ~~~ paulcole Yep, here’s a case of the FBI recruiting a “terrorist” for the publicity of stopping an attack on a holiday: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Portland_car_bomb_plot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Portland_car_bomb_plot) ------ aaron695 Random fact - The FBI put out a version of Inspire which had the 'How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom' which had some sort of malware or corruption when it came out. From memory when viewing it became corrupt specifically during the 'How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom'. I assumed in a unpatched system it'd overflow or something. Never seen the sandy hook crew try and link this, but there could be a fair argument the FBI supplied the instructions of 'How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom' to a lot of people, and perhaps even the bombers doing this honey pot. ------ ncmncm Lead-paint, tobacco, and anti-personnel mine manufacturing executives live out their lives and retire peacefully with no danger of arrest or prosecution. ~~~ Jamwinner I get your drift on mines, and tobacco after 1960 is pretty clear even if users were mostly aware, but lead was the best additive for oil base paints out there, and few issues exist if you don't actively eat it. It is still used in much paint worldwide, and in mast art paints. Even abspestos is still being produced, and to a small extent, sold in the usa. Both are still only illegal to use in certain circumstances, although nearly defacto banned thanks to very successful civil mesotheiloma and lead exposure litigation. ~~~ ncmncm Lead dust gets into the air. It is directly responsible for thousands upon thousands of murders. The decline in violent crime is a direct result of decreasing childhood exposure. ~~~ webninja Maybe that’s why so many murders happen in Michigan? The lead in their Flint River contaminated their water supply and this type of poisoning gives people trouble with their brain. ~~~ maxerickson The lead was not in the source water or the main water supply. The chemistry of the water supply was not properly maintained and the water dissolved lead from the pipes supplying the homes. The main source of the lead was the supply lines between the water mains and the homes. ------ Merrill The Boston Bombings and the CIA Connection. Graham Fuller and Uncle Ruslan Tsarnaev - [https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-boston-bombings-and-the- ci...](https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-boston-bombings-and-the-cia- connection-graham-fuller-and-uncle-ruslan-tsarnaev/5335416) ~~~ danw1979 the above article on globalresearch.ca was posted a couple of times here and it appears to veer off into batshit conspiratorial nonsense about fake blood and injuries towards the end. pinch of salt required whilst reading. see also [https://www.wired.com/2013/04/boston-marathon- conspiracies/](https://www.wired.com/2013/04/boston-marathon-conspiracies/) ~~~ Merrill True, but I think that the uncle's connections in Washington enabled the brother's and their family's entry to the US. After that it is simply another case of maladaptation to their new situation, conversion to extremism, the deed, and then clean-up of a potentially embarrassing situation. It's basically "blowback" from the covert operations to use Islamic extremism against the USSR and Russia. ~~~ acqq > uncle's connections in Washington The uncle, then still Tsarnaev, lived by his father in law in Maryland and while living there incorporated there "the Congress of Chechen International Organizations". See my other post here. > It's basically "blowback" from the covert operations to use Islamic > extremism against the USSR and Russia. That's how one part of the whole story can be interpreted. One of the most interesting titles from The Washington Post I've read was: "The Taliban indoctrinates kids with jihadist textbooks paid for by the U.S." (2014) [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/08...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/08/the- taliban-indoctrinates-kids-with-jihadist-textbooks-paid-for-by-the-u-s/) "As The Washington Post reported in 2002, the United States had spent _millions of dollars_ beginning in the 1980s to produce and disseminate anti- Soviet textbooks for Afghan schoolchildren. The books encouraged a jihadist outlook, which was useful propaganda at the time for a Washington driven by the imperatives of the Cold War." ------ beowulfey I would guess the FBI has sophisticated means of tracking purchases and probably had their eyes on him for that reason. It’s possible he really did have a mental breakdown and bought all that after reading too much redpill post-attacks. Who knows. ------ 1337biz This is from 2018. Since then have there been any substantial new developments? ~~~ aethanol Couldn't find much, but looks like the author is releasing a second book in April: [https://twitter.com/MicheleMcPhee/status/1201618338746519552...](https://twitter.com/MicheleMcPhee/status/1201618338746519552?s=20) ------ bhouston I think we found the next popular crime podcast. :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Mysterious Quantum Dropletons Form Inside Semiconductors Shot With Lasers - joseflavio http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/02/quantum-droplets-dropleton-lasers-semiconductors/?cid=19181234 ====== quarterwave The article doesn't explicitly say whether it is bulk Gallium Arsenide, or a quantum-well structure based on a sandwich of Gallium Arsenide and its crystalline alloys. Bizarre excitonic behavior in a quantum-well doesn't surprise me much, however in bulk it would be a remarkable phenomenon. Also, droplets in physics (whether in the water, or in the nucleus) exhibit 'surface tension' effects - basically energy dynamics between volume and surface area. If that was the case here it would make this phenomenon very interesting indeed.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Should E-cigarettes be allowed in the office? - ReaperOfCode The best article I can find is a bit outdated. Is there more progressive thinking in tech on this subject ? http://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2016/02/07/the-truth-about-wasting-time-at-work/#7f73c8571285<p>My thinking is if someone doesn't have to get up for smoke breaks they could be more productive. ====== Piskvorrr Never mind the health aspects: should burning incense sticks be allowed in the office? No general answer - if all your cow-orkers love the smell, I guess there's no issue. Otherwise, I see no difference from "should I eat my durian for lunch in the office?" or any other smell-related activities. (I prefer that smelly and noisy activities, such as lunch, private calls or smoke breaks, happen outside the workspace; but that's indeed my preference - YMMV) ------ jacalata An office that is worried about the productivity loss of smoke breaks is run by idiots. ~~~ ReaperOfCode Please explain ? If you think about it, if someone goes away from their desk for 5mins (conservative estimate) 10 times a day (given not everyone goes that often) that is almost 10% of their day "wasted". It's also relevant to more than just productivity, e.g. a receptionist leaving the phones unattended. ~~~ herbst 10 times a day? O.o I dont know where i read that, but isnt it assumed that we (IT specialists) are productive about 60% of our work time? ~~~ ReaperOfCode Agreed realistically there will always things that limit your productive time, and that's normal, although management will try to push against that. The question is from a company policy point of view. E.g. new policy "Employees are allowed 3 smoke breaks a day , or they may use an e-sig at their desk." ~~~ seren There are studies around showing that even a few minutes walk can increase creativity _. So it is actually possible that smokers that are going out to smoke are actually more creative that their sitting counterparts. _ Here for example : [http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/30/want-to-be- more-cre...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/30/want-to-be-more- creative-take-a-walk/) but there are likely more serious link around. ------ manadagr If E-cigarettes produce smoke or perfume or any vapour then no as it could be uncomfortable for colleagues with asthma. ~~~ collyw I hear that the juice is made up of similar stuff to what asthma inhalers contain (before the flavours are added). ------ sportanova As long as it doesn't include "vaping" i'd be fine with it ~~~ ReaperOfCode the distinction between simply using an e-cigarette and "vaping" can be drawn by arbitrarily measuring the amount of smoke ? that complicates things a bit.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why I'm Furious with Silicon Valley - thinkcomp http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/Why-Im-Furious-with-Silicon-Valley ====== pedalpete This seems very un-Valley-like from my understanding. What would the VCs and Angels benefit from the new laws? if anything, I suspect many would be against the new law as they have already invested in Square and other similar ventures (there is a SimpleBank or something like that). Also, if this is a California law and Aaron (poster on Quora) is so dedicated to his idea, why not move the company elsewhere? If so many people move to the valley to pursue their ideas, this could be a strange example of the need to move elsewhere to pursue his. The whole 'furious with Silicon Valley' just doesn't make sense to me. Furious with California State Legislature, sure. If he's angry at the Valley because he didn't get an investment and the reason was these new laws, I don't know that his anger is aimed at the right people. Hopefully he moves the company somewhere that he can operate and shows everybody who he feels has scorned him the mistake they made. ~~~ thinkcomp I'm Aaron. It's irrelevant where your company is headquartered. Without a license, you cannot do business with any individual in California, period. Therefore, this affects many companies outside of California, not just mine. One would expect politicians to make sometimes less-than-ideal decisions. One would not expect top-tier investors to ignore real innovation in favor of useless fluff. Nonetheless, that's what is happening in the Valley and it has been for years. ~~~ thaumaturgy I sympathize with you as much as anyone can who's not in your exact situation. The new law stinks, and unfortunately, a lot of finance-related startups aren't affected by it because they've already come up with workarounds for this kind of thing. (BankSimple, for example, just provides a software interface; funds are managed through a regular banking institution.) However, I'd like to second the notion of taking your ball and going elsewhere, even if it means opening up some kind of satellite office. Why not another country? Chile, for example, has been getting lots of press lately for being startup friendly. They'd probably love to have your product down there. Yes, it's a smaller, more limited market, but so what? You'd have the opportunity to get in to an untapped market with a product that already works. You could keep pumping the product into the U.S. press in the meantime with an angle that editors will love to run because it'll sell copies faster than hotcakes: U.S. innovation is moving to other countries because of stifling laws. (Regardless of your opinion of that point of view, the fact is that it's one that sells magazines and other print publications right now.) In all seriousness, in your situation, it's what I'd do. In Go parlance, right now you're trying to defend from a weak position. Give up that territory now, before you're any more invested in it, and focus on building a strong position elsewhere on the board, and then attacking from there. And you could still continue U.S. operations on other products and projects. You, personally, wouldn't need to relocate. With your track record, you'd be a shoe-in for Startup Chile, which would mean you'd get access to a small amount of capital ($40k IIRC) and all kinds of help during their next application round. As far as the Valley goes -- well, fuck 'em. The scene in the Valley is entirely self-interested; if its revenues aren't directly affected by something, it just doesn't care. Getting pissed off at the situation, while certainly understandable, won't help you to think more clearly about it. Consider all your other options, even ones you would ordinarily dismiss.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Chinese websites defaced by Anonymous - ra5cal http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17623939 ====== adnam Subtle. I'm sure that many Chinese Internet users are saying: "thank you for shutting off access to this website I want to access, and providing me with this useful and interesting information, in a totally non-patronizing way". ~~~ kentosi Worse, as stated in the article, is that the message is in English, which many people won't even be able to read. ~~~ devy There is a Chinese phrase in the BBC article's screenshot. But that's irrelevant to whatever Anonymous's intensions. ------ est I am chinese and none of these sites made any sense to me. looks like anons just hacked a bunch of spam sites, low profile and irrelevant. ------ tokenadult Some background on the situation in China, a commentary article "Chinese leaders cling to an illusion of stability" [http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/146187235.ht...](http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/146187235.html) by Joel Brinkley, Hearst Visiting Professional in Residence in the Department of Communication at Stanford University. ~~~ laic What this article described is very true. The communists party ordered the creation of an organization called "Stability Office" in every level of the government and state-run corporations, responsible for suppressing all kinds of protests and muting or jailing dissidents. The "Stability Office" has the power to mobilize all kinds of resources including police, state security, military to achieve its goals. Its annual budget is never released but is believed to be even bigger than the annual military expense. ------ devy It's not surprising to see a dozen Chinese government websites were on top of the list at Pastebin. In fact, 90% of the sites whose webmasters were not security-aware: pirated Windows with IIS installed a few crappy ASP pages slapped together. Despite their "righteous" self-claim, hacking those amateur sites are really uncalled for and they are still a bunch of criminals no different. It will NOT change the fact that government will continue do censorships and more countries will follow shoes to do more of them. It's sad but true. FYI, a lot of the blocking & filtering are done on the Internet backbone routers made by Cisco. Worst yet, Tor is not effective any more as seen on yesterday's HN here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3793320> ~~~ noarchy I would have rather seen the hacking done from within China, with messages in readable, relevant Chinese. It probably would have been far more powerful as a statement. Under those circumstances, I'd find it hard to call it criminal; it would be civil disobedience. ------ guelo Damn, they couldn't spend a few minutes to look up Chinese language information? ~~~ zbuc Seriously, almost 500 sites hacked and they didn't do it in a language their users would be able to read. Massive waste. ~~~ mhurron Allow me to introduce you to the phrase 'For the lulz.' I doubt most people operating under the Anonymous banner are all that different than the general population and just don't give a damn about what happens in China, or anywhere outside their back yard for that matter. But lulz, that's just awesome. ------ kristofferR This is actually pretty "smart". Reaching out to ordinary Chinese is incredibly hard due to the heavy censorship. Hacking a bunch of sites and displaying a message is the most effective way of spreading a message to a lot of ordinary middle class Chinese people I can think of. It's not like you can put up big banners everywhere. ------ mkwayisi Unnecessary.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Spoof UK Government’s Brexit Propaganda - Borlands https://ledbydonkeys.com/ ====== guilhas If they keep pushing a EU defense union, and northern Ireland backstop without an exit clause, the best deal is still 'no deal' on WTO terms.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
apple ml : Learning with Privacy at Scale [pdf] - tuxguy https://machinelearning.apple.com/docs/learning-with-privacy-at-scale/appledifferentialprivacysystem.pdf ====== tuxguy blog post : [https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/12/06/learning- with-p...](https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/12/06/learning-with-privacy- at-scale.html) ------ btian Why does Apple not credit individuals who worked on the project?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
NCombinator - pitdesi http://ncombinator.com/ ====== jack-r-abbit Isn't it bad form to SPAM this place with duplicate submissions? Original Post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3955265> ~~~ railsjedi We didnt post the second one. Someone else did because the first one got banned. ~~~ ColinWright No, it didn't get banned. Check your facts - it's still there, currently in position 110 (as I write) ~~~ railsjedi lol, sure. it goes from #1 to #110 in 1min? It's ok. Don't worry, be happy! ~~~ ColinWright It is current known behavior. If an item gets five or six flags it will plummet. I've done experiments, I know this to be a fact. It doesn't require any intervention by moderators or anything else. The severity of the hit on ranking was introduced some time ago - I can probably track it down if you like - but I doubt you'd take my word for it. And if you'd care to check my posting history you'll find that I've spoken out against this several times, but you're clearly not interested in facts or evidence, you're clearly just annoyed that your posting has fallen off the front page. And yes, this comment is snarky, and no, I'm not going to edit it to be milder. I'm annoyed at your tone when all I'm trying to do is share with you with the knowledge I have accrued over many experiments on the topic. ~~~ Dylan16807 I don't really see why the distinction matters. Somebody pushed a button and it got shoved multiple pages back, votes [mostly] discarded from consideration. Whether it's 'community' or moderators seems minor. ~~~ jack-r-abbit I think maybe the only distinction that mattered was that being flagged to the point of getting pushed 4 pages in is not the same as being banned. ~~~ jQueryIsAwesome For all practical reasons it is the same, almost no one goes to the 4 page; most people just check the front page and maybe the "new" page. ~~~ jack-r-abbit heh... I kind of just assumed everyone consumed HN through a feed reader. I almost never go to the home page. ------ zinssmeister Surprised I didn't see a twitter link on their site, in case anyone else was looking: <http://twitter.com/ncombinator> ~~~ jack-r-abbit I'm surprised you didn't see it either... since it is there. In the Details block, bottom... all there Twitter stuff. :) I'd link you to it but the site doesn't have any sort of deep-linking into that single long page. ~~~ wittjeff Usability feedback: I completely missed the fact that there was a Details block until you mentioned it. Why? I don't know. Maybe I was assuming that their info was in one floating block as with LaunchRock.com. ~~~ jack-r-abbit right. I have a bunch of usability feedback I could give if I thought it would matter. Some of it may be personal preference but... ack... that loooooong single page with no navigation is... well... special. ------ rattray This seems interesting, I left my email. Gotta say, though, really turned off by the ninja stuff (and 300 picture). No, I don't wage covert warfare in feudal Japan. I do, however, enjoy shipping great code as fast as possible. ~~~ hkmurakami When I saw the name (NCombinator) and the Ninjas, I was all but convinced that this was a tongue and cheek, well designed humor page. Alas... ~~~ railsjedi We figured we'd err on the side of humor. Rather that than take ourselves too seriously. Startups are damn hard. A support network needs to be fun, not a drag. ~~~ saiko-chriskun I loved the page, don't listen to these fools :P ~~~ hkmurakami Is the page well designed? Exceedingly so. I was quite impressed myself. Are the ninja references distracting, if not outright disenfranchising for a good fraction of Ncombinator's audience? I am asserting that unfortunately, this is the case. ------ dkrich Heh, as a developer with business credentials as well, I find it somewhat ridiculous that it takes such a hostile tone towards business people towards the end. You do realize that 1) many businesses are needed for which designers/developers are a small part of the product and 2) sales and marketing are usually vital for growing businesses? I was somewhat interested until I read that and got the impression that this seems like a glorified meetup group for web dev enthusiasts. I already know how to code. I am more interested in connecting with people who compliment me. ~~~ railsjedi Good feedback. I'll tone down the rhetoric. I'm absolutely not opposed to business guys. Just teams entirely composed of business guys "looking for a technical cofounder". Right now it is a glorified meetup and support network. But it's also a "pact". Join and ship every week. Formalizing that and bringing together people who can uphold it is something I greatly desire and that's why I want NCombinator to exist and be successful. We're very open to suggestions on how to make it better though. Had to start somewhere. ~~~ seivan I like the "hostility" towards business guys in an early stage startup where delivering a product is key. If they can't build it, they have nothing to do there, not early on anyway. A single developer who can design > business guy. Keep it up! "2) sales and marketing are usually vital for growing businesses?" sounds more like hostility against developers, as in marketing is some obscure dark magic? ------ tweiss Good idea, but I see one big problem: market of lemons, i.e. the really good teams will concentrate on getting into YC or Techstars and only the mediocre teams and ideas will participate in NCombinator. But since there are plenty of good teams & ideas that get rejected by YC, there should be plenty of fish left. I like the direction in which NCombinator is heading, a big part of the value that YC adds is in the support network and mentors. We need something like this in Berlin too! ------ jeremyarussell Watch as it gets back to how many points it had awhile ago. Curious though how this would violate any terms of service. ------ gte910h Seems a bit trademark infringy. ~~~ railsjedi But... they start with totally different letters :) Just kidding. The name is going to change, but the idea will remain intact. ------ stcredzero I like the idea of hyper lightweight goals and structure. _Are you a cargo cult?_ I think they should take on as one of their goals not to avoid being a cargo cult, but to simply be self aware if they are one. Just for the paradox. ------ philipp-spiess What happend to the old post? ~~~ railsjedi We got booted. Apparently YC is not amused with our idea. ~~~ mindcrime That sucks. I can't see why YC would get all up in arms over this. Not like you guys are really competing with them or belittling them or anything. This strikes me as a great thing for people who don't get into YC or who can't participate in YC for one reason or another... ~~~ coopdog I'd say they're pretty great competition The teams who finish will probably have an mvp, maybe a pivot or two, hopefully some user traction. That might be enough to get to VC's in this climate. Or even just bootstrap and own the company 100% It's also far more likely that the good teams will get sniffed out by angels at this early stage rather than giving pg a bite at the apple Having said that you're right, I think pg will want to be close to these kind of things rather than futilely trying to kill them ------ ArekDymalski I think it's not nice to refer to Y-Combinator as "that other thing" and then advertising here. ------ ojr probably a good place to build a twitter presence #forwhatitsworth ------ flavien_bessede Censorship is probably due to the NCombinator name. ------ infocaptor Nice idea, applied for it. I am 2 weeks away from launching so excited to see this version. I think it is really a good idea because it does provide a venue for startups to help each other. The other day I attended a Tie roundtable at CMU and the feedback and advise experienced people were giving was really good. ------ joshua_abe Hmm.. Censorship. Nice. ~~~ rapind Jumping to conclusions. Nice.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Diabetes is actually five separate diseases, research suggests - ValentineC http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43246261 ====== kencausey Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16499376](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16499376)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
An In-Depth Look at the User Experience of iPhone Safari - pdubroy http://dubroy.com/blog/an-in-depth-look-at-the-user-experience-of-iphone-safari/ ====== pdubroy With the announcement of the iPad, and the claim that it's "the best browsing experience you've ever had", I thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at what makes the web browsing experience on the iPhone so great. Especially since the iPad version of Safari seems to resemble the iPhone version much more than the desktop one. ------ danger Great, timely article!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Stop Chopping Yourself to Pieces - jseip http://blog.asmartbear.com/stop-chopping-to-pieces.html ====== mrcactu5 The best ideas, new ideas, come in a flash when you’re not working. still is news	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Scientific Concepts We All Ought to Know - betolink https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2017/03/scientific-concepts-know/ ====== nercht12 The idea of "entropy" always seemed to me as a misrepresentation of the actual underlying principle, given a half-dozen other names in scientific literature. Everything reaches the lowest equilibrium state. It's like pouring water into a glass: eventually, all the waves will be gone and it will all settle into the lowest state on the ground. That doesn't really say anything about "order" at all - from the perspective of the atoms, all the "order" is still there. The "messy" vs "useful" analogy also is poor since you can use more energy to make a completely useless contraption (a "messy state") and construct it in a way such that it degrades into a useful one (a bit of a contrived Rube- Goldberg, but still...). Heck, does throwing water into the air and letting it fall into a pond make it "orderly" against the Second Law? That's what the analogies imply. The more analogies that try to compare the Second Law to common experiences like a dirty room, etc., the less people get an idea of what Joules per Kelvin is supposed to mean when they finally meet it in their chemistry book.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bilingual brains: Variety makes you mentally fit - anishkothari http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2014/10/johnson-bilingual-brains ====== hawkice There's also evidence that we are less susceptible to biases when given hypothetical scenarios in foreign languages. I am considering keeping my todo list in a foreign language, in case that helps me prioritize e.g. sales, where things like loss aversion might stifle it. [http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/04/18/095679761143...](http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/04/18/0956797611432178) ~~~ nrinaudo I've tried that, and it does not really work. Turns out I'm just as averse to paperwork in English as I am in French. It can also have a significant downside: I've tried maintaining a todo list in a language that I'm not very good at, only to realise that looking up highly specific vocabulary was such a chore that after a while, I'd unconsciously skip writing some entries that looked too complicated to translate. Have a go, it might work out better for you, but this particular experiment was a failure as far as I'm concerned. ------ melling My "nights and weekends" project for the past few years has been writing iOS language learning apps. The niche that I'm looking to fill is to create enough "games/drills" to help alleviate the incredible repetition needed to learn another language. Anyway, I'm looking for suggestions so I can find my niche in a really crowed market... [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-spanish- lite/id388918463?...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-spanish- lite/id388918463?mt=8) I'd really appreciate any ideas or suggestions. ~~~ xiaoma As someone who spent years studying and teaching languages, my single biggest advice is to remember that _learning a language is not simply a matter of learning words_. Don't fall into the trap of throwing a dictionary full of words into an SRS and hoping for the best. Focus on input, not production. Include phonetic training. Make the user distinguish between each minimal pair in the language, possibly even every single syllable in the language. This is simple, but rarely done. Include an extensive reading component. This is a monumental task that could be broken into many apps or many short stories that are in app purchases. Good luck! I'm really, really hoping to see something better than the very low bar hit by existing apps! ~~~ vegedor >Make the user distinguish between each minimal pair in the language, possibly even every single syllable in the language I have so much trouble spelling words like definately^W definitely, because they sound the same to me ;) ~~~ xiaoma Memorizing how to spell a word like "definitely" would be one of the worst possible uses of a language learner's time. What I was suggesting was aural training—learn to distinguish words such as "his" and "he's", to hear the differences between bat, bet, bit, bot, but, bait, beet, bite, boat, and boot, etc... Various idiosyncrasies of an orthographic system are far less important than being able to hear difference between the sounds of a language. ------ ajani I am somewhat amused by the multiple studies and articles on Bilingualism. Simply because I happen to be just one of the many pentalingual (if that's a term) people I know. My entire family speaks five languages. English, Hindi, Marathi, Kutcchi and Gujarati. Kutcchi and Gujarati are what I was born into. The rest are mandatory through school here (Mumbai, India). So anyone who went to school is at least trilingual. In fact most students are fluent in at least 3 languages by the time they are 6 or so. If there is any good at all in being bilingual, what does it mean to be trilingual? Let alone pentalingual? Does the law of diminishing returns apply? ~~~ maga Aside from English, they're all closely related languages (Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati). I wouldn't really expect knowing related languages to give the same payoff as say knowing languages from different groups or families of languages. ~~~ ajani Let's take three families of languages: ((Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese), (Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati), (English, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Latin)) Are you saying that knowing one from each set is more beneficial than knowing three from any one set? ~~~ maga I wouldn't group them like that, English/German/Dutch are Germanic languages, while French/Italian/Latin are Romance. Japanese also a bit removed from Mandarin/Cantonese. But, yes, I would argue that knowing unrelated languages broadens ones perspective far more than knowing similar ones. ~~~ ajani Interesting. I was looking at: [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/IndoEurop...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/IndoEuropeanTree.svg) There are subdivisions like Germanic and Romance in the language family which do seem sufficiently far apart. However, there are quite a few subdivisions that seem very closely related. I wonder if there is a way to draw entirely new subdivisions based on benefits of knowing languages from each subdivision. Also, intuitively, what you say about knowing unrelated languages makes sense. I am curious however, if you had some deeper insight or knowledge into why (if true) this might be? ------ erokar I wonder to what extent using several programming languages has the same effect. If the hypothesis about language switching as an inhibitory mental exercise is correct, then polyglot programming should have some of the same benefits. ~~~ josu I don't think it applies. Being bilingual means thinking in two different languages. I'm talking about your inner voice. As far as I know, people don't think in Python or C. I would say that a programming language is like math. You can use it as a plugin in your language, but you still need the main program which is your language. ~~~ emgeee I might not be so much about the language but about the paradigm. Certainly going from Java to C++ might not be that different but through in something like Haskell and you almost have to entirely rethink your solution. ~~~ josu One thing is setting your logic to follow a certain way of thinking, and a completely different thing is the language you are using to think. Furthermore, programming languages are written in English. A real language cannot be written in another language. I'm not a linguist nor a programmer, but I'm trilingual, and I have scripted at a basic level. And honestly, although I see the resemblance, I don't think that programming languages and real languages work the same way. ~~~ blalabro I'm trilingual (Spanish,French,German) and program fluently in at least 3 languages (Python, Javascript, PHP). Things in common: You build an idea in the air and shoot it in the language. Happens to me a lot in German where I don't have a vocabulary as wide as Spanish on English that the brain will have to build a sentence maybe 30% longer but it will eventually bring out something that does the job. When I'm coding I just know the program needs to do certain thing. Python is very straightforward while with PHP usually I need to build some auxiliary function (same as German , not that the word doesn't exist but I don't have it in my Head at the moment). Also, very obscure concepts like "Dativ" conjugation do exist in spanish but since it looks the same as "Genitiv" and "Akkusativ" , nobody pays to much attention. However when you are speaking German you'd better understand that as you need them to correctly build a sentence of the fly. An example analogy with coding would be generic data structures like arrays in PHP but in Python are more rich like Lists, Dictionaries and Tuples(IMHO) ~~~ estebank You're not trilingual, as you also speak English :) ------ prteja11 I wonder if knowing (and using) a third language or even a fourth will reduce the dementia/ increase the positive effects even further. ~~~ corylehey also makes me kind of wonder if there is any benefit of only knowing one language ~~~ sho_hn I dimly recall reading an article on a study that tried to compare the performance of monolingual and bilingual people. From what I remember the bilingual individuals tended to have an edge in the more complex tasks, but monolinguals were significantly faster at some basic operations like sorting lists of words or finding a word in an unsorted list. ~~~ mastre_ The last part makes sense, it's similar to a game where they introduce more and more unfamiliar symbols to you as you progress to higher levels, the more unknowns you have to deal with the more you slow down. Eventually, if/when you learn them well you get most of the speed back. I guess most people learning 2nd languages don't learn them well enough to know the 2nd language really well; technically, if you know both languages equally well, the speed penalty/overhead will be minimal, similar to expanding one's vocabulary in the same language (as long as you don't exceed some threshold of mental capacity). ~~~ sho_hn I'm not sure that's it. I need to preface this by saying that I'm working from really dim memories here, but from what I recall they were using a definition of 'bilingual' that people who learn a second language after a certain age don't fit, and the tested bilinguals should feel at home in both languages. Rather, it seems that having more than one language active in the brain concurrently (which requires them to be similarly well developed and in regular use) requires the brain to do more active selection work. I'm not sure this actually makes sense or is just my reading of it, but basically it can't jump to one thing immediately, but has to eliminate the alternatives first. This gives the bilingual brain an edge in tasks that benefit from being well- trained to do that step (and seems to help stave off dementia, where inhibitory control goes out the window, which is a necessity for this selection process to happen), but slows it down in other tasks that would benefit from not having to do the extra work. In other words, if you're asked to sort or bin a list of English words, it seems to help if your brain doesn't have to wade through a soup made of multiple languages. But if you're asked to do something that exercises similar muscles as wading through this kind of soup (maybe "process strained analogies"? - I kid), it gives you a different sort of edge. ------ sytelus I want to be careful about these sort of research. Too many times I've seen these kind of "research" is often funded by commercial entities that teach foreign languages. It's like what PG had described in his "Submarine" essay. There is a big industry to teach foreign languages to toddlers and even new born. There is quite a bit of reputable research to back up positive effects however no one seems to be doing research on if there are any negative effects. This is like every research starts with a hypothesis like there are either positive effects or nothing . But on the other hand there are proven facts that toddlers/babies learn only certain number of words in a given period. This implies kids at that age have limited capacity to memorize and recall things. So wouldn't that imply that bilingual training at that age would halve that capacity? Could bilingual babies have less volculbary in each language and late start in figuring out deeper nitty gritty of grammar? Is it possible that bilingual training at early age exchanges depth for a breadth? ~~~ blackkettle What you say about research being partially corrupted by agendas is generally true and applies to pretty much every area of science to varying degrees. The claim that second language acquisition is defined solely by this is, however completely false. It is a large and well-researched academic discipline and there exists plenty of research regarding negative effects. Here is a pretty decent summary, with a very compact abstract: Bilingualism: The good, the bad, and the indifferent [http://www.yumingschool.org/wp- content/uploads/2011/07/Bilin...](http://www.yumingschool.org/wp- content/uploads/2011/07/Bilingualism.-The-good-the-bad-and-the- indifferent.pdf) > The present paper summarizes research showing that bilingualism affects > linguistic and cognitive performance across the lifespan. The effect on > linguistic performance is generally seen as a deficit in which bilingual > children control a smaller vocabulary than their monolingual peers and > bilingual adults perform more poorly on rapid lexical retrieval tasks. The > effect on cognitive performance is to enhance executive functioning and to > protect against the decline of executive control in aging. These effects > interact to produce a complex pattern regarding the effect of bilingualism > on memory performance. Memory tasks based primarily on verbal recall are > performed more poorly by bilinguals but memory tasks based primarily on > executive control are performed better by bilinguals. Speculations regarding > the mechanism responsible for these effects are described. ------ trumbitta2 Anedoctal evidence: I'm 37, italian, always been good at speaking english (since I was 7). In the past few years, my command of english improved so much that I started forgetting words both in italian _and_ in english. /facepalm ~~~ grokys Ha, I'm English and I've been living in Italy for two years (so my Italian is still not exactly incredible) and I'm starting to find the same! I wonder if this happens because the two languages can be very similar at times and at other times very different. Would things be a lot different if I were learning, for example, Japanese I wonder? ------ a8da6b0c91d I've been around a lot of people who were raised bilingual in English and an oriental language and most of them complained that it was too hard. They felt that at the high school and college level it's not possible to fully develop advanced vocabulary and usage in both languages. You can risk coming across as non-native or stupid in both languages. I think a lot of this stuff about bilingualism is biased toward people learning two related indo-european languages, which isn't that hard. ~~~ PeterWhittaker Perhaps it depends on the languages. I was raised in English; French was added starting at 5. Today, at 49, I am fluently and idiomatically bilingual in English, French, and various idiomatic variations on both common to the provinces in which I've lived (I can switch from stock-standard English to various idiomatic dialects and accents, as many of you can, e.g., formal English Vs the street or town English you spoke growing up, from those used here in Ontario to lilting dialects and accents of Nova Scotia; I can do the same with a few Quebec Joual dialects.) With a couple of days in Paris, I am taken for a native. Same thing in New Orleans or Chicago (I have to be very careful about not drifting into local accents, I just sort of go there.) So it is possible to be perfectly bilingual - but it requires early exposure to the second language and an ear (which can be developed - you have to stop listening to specifics, to particulars, and listen holistically, letting the language flow over you so that you understand the intent without understanding individual words - practice that for a while, and the words come). I also speak passable remedial Spanish and have learned and forgotten a whole lot of Turkish, Arabic, German, and Greek. After a while, your inner voice switches to non-linguistic (which I think might mean it returns to what it was before you had language, i.e., as a child). I used to think mostly in English, but nowadays I think in, well, viscera. I then have to find the words that most closely match the viscera. For simple things, that happens quickly. For complex things or subtle differences, it can take time, during which I sputter. About 6 months ago I ask a friend's daughter whether this had happened to her yet (she was raised in French, added English much later, then some Spanish, and finally did intensive German prior to heading o'er the pond for her M.Eng). Her eyes went wide and she shrieked "OUI! OUI! Exactement!" She turned to her mother: "M'man! Il comprend exactement qu'est ce qui m'arrive!" (Yes, yes, exactly! Mom! He understands exactly what is happening to me!) She'd been going through the same thing and didn't know it had ever happened to anyone else. It's a truly strange thing, mind blowing - and mind expanding. Sometimes, I can sort of disconnect from language. It frees my mind in a most powerful way. It's tricky to get there, though, and sometimes even harder to get back. ~~~ dkarapetyan I don't think this has anything to do with learning languages. This kind of processing is also very common among mathematicians, physicists and programmers. More generally it is probably more common than you think especially among people whose default mode of thinking is not linguistic.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours - sassyboy https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/air-india-express-737-hits-ils-damages-wall-on-departure-flies-for-4-hours-before-diverting/ ====== justboxing Just saw the pics of the damage on the twitter thread linked-to in the article. See below. [https://twitter.com/shukla_tarun/status/1050595274869993474](https://twitter.com/shukla_tarun/status/1050595274869993474) Looks quite severe. I'm impressed the plane flew for 3 hours without getting destablized and crashing.... Air India has the worst safety reputation in India, and several accidents / incidents. I flew Spice Jet a few times over the last few weeks when I was there visiting. Spice Jet is like India's Virgin America. Service was excellent and I did not experience any issues while flying. ~~~ nitinreddy88 The most surprising part is, trichy to mumbai takes hardly 1hr flight time. What caused them to take 4hrs? In 4hrs, they could have landed in Dubai itself easily Being Indian, I agree with statement about AirIndia. I would never fly in AirIndia even if the ticket price is too low, laughably they usually cost way above than any other competitors. ~~~ jayalpha "Being Indian, I agree with statement about AirIndia. I would never fly in AirIndia even if the ticket price is too low, laughably they usually cost way above than any other competitors." Since I have flown with Air India, would you mind being more specific? Are the statistics? My flights were okay. Okay, zero status miles credited at Star Alliance and a bit stingy with alcohol on board. But food and service was good, plane looked well maintained. Please tell me more. ~~~ distant_hat I used to be a government employee and was required to fly Air India so I flew it a fair bit. Personally, the flying bit was not that different from others. Their website was a nightmare to book on, usually I found them generous with alcohol on international flights, but sample size is small here. Their miles were hard to use, too many conditions. Staff was a bit low on professionalism. Saw a couple of fights between flight attendants. ~~~ dsfyu404ed > Saw a couple of fights between flight attendants. In flight entertainment. ------ rhn_mk1 I hate articles introducing three-letter-mysteries and leaving the readers in confusion. To add insult to injury, none of the comments seem to acknowledge that the topic is impentrable. What is the mysterious ILS that was hit? Even after reading the Wikipedia article, I only have a vague idea - seems to be a radar system, both on ground and in the air. Did the plane hit a radar tower? ~~~ danaliv Others have noted that ILS stands for Instrument Landing System. It’s a system used for landing airplanes when you can’t see the runway, typically getting you down to 200 feet, but with special training and equipment you can get down to 100 or even zero (autoland). ILS is the world standard for getting airplanes onto runways in bad weather. The ground portion of an ILS consists of two antenna arrays, one at the end of the runway called the localizer, and one just off to the side called the glideslope. These arrays produce two fan-shaped signals that vary left-to- right and up-and-down in such a way that an aircraft can determine its location relative to the runway with remarkable precision. The localizer signal provides lateral guidance to the runway centerline, while the glideslope provides vertical guidance down to the touchdown zone, usually on a 3° glidepath. One or both of these arrays is what this airplane ran into. The system is passive, in that the signals are simply broadcast from the ground continuously, aren’t unique to a particular aircraft, and there is no return or response from aircraft. The ground antennas simply “shout into the void” as it were, and aircraft receivers determine their location based purely on the shape of the signals at the aircraft’s location in space. For illustration here is a localizer antenna (though note that the airplane in this picture is “backwards,” i.e. the localizer for a given runway is at the far end of the runway, though it is possible to “fly the backcourse” and land with one at the near end): [https://image.slidesharecdn.com/instrumentlandingsystemils-1...](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/instrumentlandingsystemils-140507064050-phpapp01/95/instrument- landing-system-ils-6-638.jpg?cb=1399444891) And here is a glideslope antenna: [https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8f/56/b3/8f56b3b52fb9b81c84f7...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8f/56/b3/8f56b3b52fb9b81c84f7f883cbc3d301.jpg) ~~~ avip Another one of these comments that make this forum always a joy to read. Thanks for the detailed walkthrough. ------ 14 I have been trying to go over how this could happen. The damage to the wall seems so severe that I would image even over the sound of the engine the pilot would hear and notice that they had hit a wall. Flying the plane at this point would be risking their life. The first thing that came to my mind was the only reason a pilot would risk his life is if his life was already at risk and if he had been drinking when he hit the wall he would face many year in jail I assume for putting lives at risk. In a panic says to himself the plane is damaged but I know it can still fly and takes off without a plan really but perhaps just to let the alcohol he had leave his system. I hate to speculate here on HN. This is just crazy to me and I really look forward to hearing more details as to how his happened. ~~~ captain_perl After V1, the accelerate-stop distance, the pilot is committed to continue flying. The cargo area of most airliners is not pressurized, so the gash is not an immediate problem. In a case like this, the pilots would want to climb to several thousand feet and evaluate the situation before landing. Looks like the pilot did a great job once it was realized the airplane was damaged of remaining calm and flying the airplane. ~~~ sandworm101 Cargo is definitely pressurized. Not heated/aced, but pressurezed the same as the rest of the cabin. Everying from the skin inwards is under 5000ish feet of pressure. ~~~ Johnny555 It's heated above freezing too as far as I know, I've never had anything in my luggage freeze. ~~~ sandworm101 Heated in that the air becomes warmer as it is compressed. But not the additionally-heated air provided the main cabin. Even so, at low air density even -30 would take a while to cool the large mass of bags. ------ nutcracker46 Who wants to wager that the pilots did an aviation version of the five stages of grief, with some help from passenger / flight attendant reports? FO: Tower said we hit something, may have damage. Capt: Just close, we'll be okay. FA: We heard a thump, and so did the passengers. CA: Just a noise, we'll be okay. Dispatch on ACARS: You hit the localizer and wall past the far end, you morons. Descend, lower your cabin diff pressure, and GTF to Mumbai. CA: How do we explain this? FO: Ask the passengers for newspapes, we must find new jobs.. ~~~ FabHK Not inconceivable that they decided to keep flying to overwrite the CVR (assuming it was the old 120 minute type). Given the apparent structural damage, that was a risky decision. ------ mbell Unless I'm misinterpreting the satellite image its ~150m from the end of the runway to that wall[0] and it also looks a bit downhill from the runway to the wall[1]. I don't see how this could happen without the pilots noticing; they would have been skimming the ground well past the end of the runway. [0] [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tiruchirapalli+Internation...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tiruchirapalli+International+Airport+TRZ/@10.7652872,78.705696,232m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x3baa8b30609d9727:0xa2f4f10a6d8add6c!8m2!3d10.7603678!4d78.7088693) [1] [https://twitter.com/shukla_tarun/status/1050581391828836352](https://twitter.com/shukla_tarun/status/1050581391828836352) ~~~ kijin Perhaps they were slightly airborne, like 0.5m above the ground, but ground- based instruments recorded the plane as still being "on the ground" (i.e. same altitude as the runway) because of the downhill slope? If they really were on the ground, the pilots would have continued to feel the vibration of the wheels against the ground, a very clear indication that they aren't flying. I'm even more surprised that the plane could land on its own wheels despite the huge gash in the fuselage. Do landing gears retract so quickly, or was the wall simply not wide enough? ~~~ sokoloff I have no first-hand information, but I think this is going to turn out to be a reduced thrust takeoff with the crew being unaware of that (meaning they screwed up). Airliners have enough power to lose an engine at a decision speed (V1) while still on the runway and _on the one remaining engine_ continue to accelerate on the runway to rotation and eventually liftoff speed and still clear obstacles. There is no mention of an engine loss causing this issue (and surely the airplane wouldn't launch for FL360 with one engine INOP), so this almost has to be a mis-set takeoff thrust accident as, with both engines set for proper takeoff thrust, it's rare to use more than 2/3 of the runway and the initial climb is brisk due to the large excess of power a turbojet engine has at sea level. ------ nmstoker Question for professional pilots here: does this feel like normal behaviour for a pilot? From my limited experience of pilots, this seems entirely unlike the kind of behaviour you'd expect - they're usually conservative when it comes to safety or is that just the projected image to reassure the public?! ~~~ unionemployee Unfortunately don’t have time for a long post at the moment, but as an airline pilot and instructor/check pilot, I can say that extreme incompetence exists in the airline world, especially in Africa, India, SE Asia. There could be some very good reasons that they chose to continue, and often I learn those reasons when the facts are released, discovering that a good decision was made. I’ll be following the investigation, but this one seems somewhat alarming to me. Here’s another of mind-blowing incompetence, also from India - [https://www.ajc.com/news/national/airliner-forced-land- after...](https://www.ajc.com/news/national/airliner-forced-land-after-pilots- accidentally-leave-landing-gear-down-for-entire- flight/YCu3nXWUl3367aYfQHffMJ/). Also, more automated, single-pilot/ground operated or pilotless aircraft can’t come soon enough. ~~~ ksec \--I can say that extreme incompetence exists in the airline world, especially in Africa, India, SE Asia including Hong Kong? ~~~ FabHK Cathay has a pretty good reputation, I believe. The HK civil aviation authorities, so-so, but all right. Struggling to get the expensive new ATC center to work. (Note that HK is considered part of East Asia.) ~~~ FabHK Self-reply to add: See here for some news articles on the ATC centre: [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=HK+atc+site%3Ascmp.com](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=HK+atc+site%3Ascmp.com) ------ userbinator The AVherald article: [http://avherald.com/h?article=4bedd321&opt=0](http://avherald.com/h?article=4bedd321&opt=0) As some of the others have mentioned, the reason the plane survived is likely because that was not a pressurised area. If it had breached the pressure vessel they would've noticed it very quickly (lack of pressurisation). ~~~ InTheArena Not really - If there had a been a gash in pressurization, they would have caught it on the way up. The 737 is a _tank_. It has more or less the same wing load as a F-16. It takes a lot to shake around - it's every bit the 1950s build 707 chassis, and like the old 50s lathe - it can take a hit and keep going. ~~~ wahern Plenty of 737's have had explosive depressurization with injuries or fatalities, most recently this year [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us- canada-43818752](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43818752) and one of the most famous incidents (in the U.S.) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243) Both were from fatigue, but fatigue doesn't have to be a gradual thing; it could come from a single hit that causes the pressure vessel to fail at altitude. See the whole list here [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontrolled_decompression#Not...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontrolled_decompression#Notable_decompression_accidents_and_incidents) ~~~ TylerE The difference is that happens _at altitude_. When the plane has just taken off there is no pressure differential. There’s no energy TO explode. ~~~ wahern Damage can be less severe than an actual puncture of the pressure vessel. Damage can _weaken_ the pressure vessel such that it only fails (possibly explosively) once under pressure. ------ gefh Impressive resilience by the airframe. Good job Boeing. ~~~ yborg Yes, I'd say this incident makes for a good Boeing ad - "Even a brick wall can't stop a 737 from flying a route!" ~~~ p1mrx That seems mildly irresponsible. "Eh, I don't need to pull up, it's a Boeing." ------ basicplus2 Lets hope they scrap that aircraft.. i could not find a reference but i remember an incident where an aircraft only scraped its backend on take off and repairs were made, but years later the aircraft was lost with everyone on board after cracks propagated up and around and the aircraft lost its whole tale section ~~~ aaronmdjones Those incidents (CAL611, JAL123) only happened because the repair was completed _improperly_ to begin with and subsequently _missed_ by every inspection. There's no reason the aircraft can't be properly repaired, and be as strong as it was when it was delivered. The Boeing Structural Repair Manual is very precise. It was just ignored. ~~~ AdrianB1 The problem here is that the plane climbed risking catastrophic depressurization - you cannot repair in flight, you need to land first for that. ~~~ azernik GP was proposing scrapping the aircraft, which is _not_ necessary for ground repairs. ------ outside1234 Yet another reason not to fly Air India, just in case you needed another beyond price, on-time performance, service, and cleanliness. ------ nutcracker46 It wouldn't be the first time a crew errs in calculating their takeoff performance and uses too low a thrust or flap setting. Everyone on that plane is lucky to be alive, as others have died after similar takeoffs. ~~~ dorfsmay Too low a thrust? I thought that on airliners pilots input runway length, altitude and wind strength and direction, and the computer optimized the thrust accordingly? ~~~ dingaling Yes, the autothrottle commands the thrust as calculated for a Flex take-off. But it's only correct if the input parameters are correct. There was a Sunwing 737 which bent the runway lights at Belfast in 2017 because the pilots had entered the wrong temperature variable: [https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/temperature- error...](https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/temperature-error-behind- sunwing-737s-near-overrun-441346/) ------ sorenjan Can we take a moment and reflect on the fact that all of this data is freely available to anyone? I can sit in front of my computer, or anywhere with my phone, and follow planes around the world with an accuracy of a few meters, and replay the data at a later date. The various flight trackers all use thousands of receivers around the world, and most of them probably use the same kind of SDR chip that was originally designed for USB TV and radio receivers. [http://rtlsdr.org/#history_and_discovery_of_rtlsdr](http://rtlsdr.org/#history_and_discovery_of_rtlsdr) ------ smaili If anything this is great free advertisement for Boeing's quality. ~~~ sjg007 As a pilot once told me: "If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going" ~~~ mprev Brand loyalty is an amazingly powerful thing. I wonder if anyone says, “I won’t be there Gus if it isn’t an Airbus”. ~~~ jackweirdy Time’s a plenty in an a320 ------ decasia The obvious mystery is why you would keep flying for so long after an incident like this... ~~~ burfog A good reason would be fuel weight on possibly damaged landing gear. Also, the airport wasn't good anymore. They had just destroyed the Instrument Landing System at the end of the runway. Nobody should land there. ~~~ djsumdog A lot of pilots don't use ILS and use a visual approach. That was one of the issues with the SF airport, as the left runway was closed, the lights were off and the pilot lined up with the taxi way. ~~~ deathanatos > _the lights were off_ While it is true that the normal lighting was off (because it wasn't a valid runway at the time), there was a lighted, flashing X to indicate that fact. Along with the fact that the taxiway was not illuminated as a runway, _and_ the pilots were notified about the runway closure… [https://ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/DCA17IA148.aspx](https://ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/DCA17IA148.aspx) ------ worldexplorer I thought they track things like small vibrations in plane body due to such incidents. How would they detect Bird strike([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strike](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strike)) if hitting wall go unnoticed? Don't airports have sensors and cameras for such situations to alert Air traffic control immediately? ------ irrational It wasn't clear from the article. What kind of wall did they hit? ~~~ cycrutchfield It's in the linked Twitter thread. It was a brick wall. [https://twitter.com/shukla_tarun/status/1050581391828836352](https://twitter.com/shukla_tarun/status/1050581391828836352) ~~~ ams6110 Well a single layer, unreinforced brick wall isn't really that strong, especially near the top edge. It's perhaps plausible they didn't feel anything or at least nothing very alarming. I mean, the gear presumably still retracted properly and deployed later for landing, so it wasn't damaged too badly. ~~~ djsumdog Yea I'm interested in seeing what the passengers say. If they just heard a bump or didn't suspect a thing, the plane may have just graised it and the pilots didn't notice. If the passengers heard a noticeable sound or reported concerns and were dismissed, that's grounds for negligence. ------ sn41 Honest question: why aren't pilots forced to take alcohol tests before flights? There was some JetBlue incident about 10 years ago, IIRC. ~~~ toomuchtodo Are forced alcohol tests given anywhere? ~~~ sn41 Not that I know of. Mandatory drug testing in sports is now common. When operating heavy machinery, and when a lot of lives are at stake, I feel some safety procedures are called for. ------ nitinreddy88 Its mystery how plane survived such a huge impact Airport perimeter damage: [https://mobile.twitter.com/ANI/status/1050582092688629760](https://mobile.twitter.com/ANI/status/1050582092688629760) ~~~ usrusr The landing gear is built to withstand hitting a concrete runway with a 737, whereas a thin brick wall can be brought down with just a hammer. It's like rock-paper-scissors: wheels beat wall, ILS antenna beats fuselage skin. ------ jnsaff2 A similar incident that happened with a bigger plane that completed a 13h flight: [http://avherald.com/h?article=48c78b3a](http://avherald.com/h?article=48c78b3a) ------ YetAnotherNick It looks like the plane couldn't properly take off(likely overloaded), and it's not just an overrun. See the speed graph in the post, and the fact that the gears were retracted that low. ~~~ FabHK I don’t think we have enough information to make that statement yet. Could be they forgot to set flaps, could be they miscalculated TO speeds, could be they misconfigured auto throttle... As usual, need to wait for investigation and report. ~~~ YetAnotherNick Now we have that: [http://www.ptinews.com/news/10109087_Air-India-Express- plane...](http://www.ptinews.com/news/10109087_Air-India-Express-plane- possibly-overloaded--officials.html) ------ gandutraveler Why is there a brick wall so close to runaway? ~~~ TheOtherHobbes Because most pilots can fly professionally enough not to hit it. ~~~ lolc There are failures modes a pilot has no chance of resolving. ~~~ jimktrains2 There are worse places to take off/land. Midway (MDW) has very little distance from the runway to houses and highway. Princess Juliana International Airport on Sint Maarten (SXM) has very little distance from the end of the runway to the ocean. Gibraltar International Airport (GIB) is also basically on the water. Overrunning the runway is often considered avoidable from my limited understanding. Planes are flight worthy under _a lot_ of issues. Even single engine failure or engine fire after V1 (the speed at which you can't abort/reject takeoff without overrunning the runway) isn't cause to abort/reject takeoff. With landing, the plane needs to touch down early enough and at the correct speed to stay on the runway. Overrunning the runway is never considered a "good" thing. Rejected takeoffs that shouldn't have been and bad landings are often causes of death. They're expected to not happen. ------ nirav72 Air India, an old antiquated government subsidized airline that should die. ~~~ SOLAR_FIELDS The government has actually been trying to kill it for years but no one wants it: [https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/31/investing/air-india- privati...](https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/31/investing/air-india- privatization-fails/index.html) ~~~ guiriduro This might provide the government the opportunity to shutter it for good.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How do you use your RPi? - yitchelle With the doubling of the RAM in RPi4 [0] with not much increase in the pricing, I am getting quite keen to get one, but I wouldn't know what to do with it.<p>So what are you using your RPi for these days?<p>[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22434208 ====== h2odragon We have 3 TVs, all driven by RasPis running LibreELEC, reading media files served off another RasPi file/web server. I have another on my desk with environment sensors, for logging barometric pressure; it has an arduino mega living on it to drive switches and whatever else I find handy to drive on the desk. That system has become my linux host for doing things like grabbing disk images and other stuff I'd rather not tie my main computer down with. I have thrown them down for temporary jobs like driving 3d printers and running webcams as needed. I set up a retroPi MAME emulator for my daughter, but let's face it PacMan doesn't compete with Minecraft so she never got much use of it. ------ davidro I have a few.. the only one that is actually doing anything is a [https://pi- hole.net/](https://pi-hole.net/). Another will likely end up as a media server running Jellyfin (open source alternative to Plex) ------ mister_hn In the past as Retropie console, not sits in a drawer	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Math as Code - dpeck https://github.com/Jam3/math-as-code/blob/master/README.md ====== kevmo314 Julia allows you to be a little closer to the math and use a lot of the math symbols directly. For example, you can write `if 6 ∈ A` ([https://docs.julialang.org/en/release-0.4/stdlib/collections...](https://docs.julialang.org/en/release-0.4/stdlib/collections/)), and you can use greek symbols for variable names. Probably more useful for mathematicians implementing their papers than the other way around, but I find it kind of a nifty language feature and makes it easier to verify that your program matches the math. ~~~ pvdebbe JS allows unicode symbols too. ~~~ yorwba Most languages with first-class support for Unicode strings do. But usually they don't let you define custom operators. Haskell has this feature. While it is easily abused, it lets you write functions like: a ∈ [] = False a ∈ (x:xs) = a == x \|\| a ∈ xs (some might consider this abuse) ------ auvrw i like the direction of this writeup a lot an am trying to go for a more symbolic style in my notes [https://github.com/ransomw/samizdat](https://github.com/ransomw/samizdat)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Fake online stores reveal gamblers' shadow banking system - rbanffy http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-gambling-usa-dummies-idUKKBN19D13E ====== michaelbuckbee This sounds somewhat similar to the polite fiction of Japanese Pachinko parlors [1]. "Taniguchi swapped the tray of thousands of winning silver balls for a receipt, which in turn was swappable for alcohol, toys or other prizes. To get money, you need to ask for the “special prize” tokens. These are plastic gold- coloured tokens that can be swapped for cash -- but not within the pachinko parlour. Instead, they are cashed in at TUC shops that are always located nearby and exist as a legal loophole enabling you to win money in a country that technically forbids gambling." 1 - [http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20120815-the-big-business- of...](http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20120815-the-big-business-of-japans- pachinko-parlours) ~~~ the_cat_kittles great travel story. it misses something that i felt in _spades_ whenever i popped my head into a pachinko parlor: it is incredibly depressing. ive never seen slots in vegas but i imagine its similar. theres something incredibly reductive about sitting there watching balls bounce randomly and slowly losing money. especially knowing that people are hopelessly addicted to it. but, i get it. we are all capable of succumbing to things like this. the void is utterly palpable in those places. ~~~ balabaster Wow, I've been in about a dozen casinos in my life. I hated every minute I was in them. I had pre-budgeted a specific amount and when it was gone, it was gone. I could never really place my finger on what it was I disliked about them except that the games bored me. But it was so much more than that. I failed to connect the dots until exactly the moment I read your comment. There _is_ a void, an abyss of loneliness and sorrow. Many of the people there are empty. Lost. An air of depression, desperation hangs in the air. It's like they've lost the will to live and this is their last hope at redemption that fades with every token they drop into the machines. As an empath, this emptiness, this void that you describe being so palpable. That cuts to the very core of how it makes me feel when I enter them and why I spend the entire time longing for the door. It's like the Dementor's Kiss for me. Thank you! Sincerely! ~~~ csa Take 20x the min bet (e.g., $200 to a $10 table) to a craps table, bet the pass line, get free drinks, and cheer like crazy for the shooter. This is a relatively low variance and no skill way to have fun at a casino. The craps table are usually where the fun people are. A few general comments: \- Your expected value on a $10 bet is -$0.15. You get maybe 25-30 bets an hour at a full table. It's a very cheap game to play. \- Tables are active at different times in different casinos. Evenings are often the best time. Weekends can be good, but sometimes more crowded and/or higher minimums. \- Stakes can matter in some casinos. The difference of clientele at a $5 min table and a $10 min table can be noticeable. Casinos with a wider range of min bets will also have wider range of atmospheres. Pick your poison. \- Remember that you are responsible for your bet and collecting your winnings (i.e., pulling it in). Dealers sometimes make mistakes, and sometimes people grab the wrong bet (intentionally or unintentionally). This is usually not an issue, just stay on top of it at a busy table. \- Bring some $1 or $5 chips to tip the dealers and the cocktail waitresses. Good tipping usually gets you better service. ~~~ balabaster I know there are loads of people that _do_ find enjoyment in Casinos. So I know my perspective isn't the only one by a _long_ shot. A friend of mine used to be a professional gambler. He stuck to the poker tables... I guess he must've played medium stakes. He did pretty well because you're playing against the other players, so even though the house wins overall, if you're a decent poker player, you can walk away with more than you started every night, and he did and the house still wins. The odds work far more favourably when you're betting against other players rather than the house. He started off without much money in the bank, but he was pretty quickly pulling in enough to cover his rent, bills and never seemed to want for much. It always seemed to me if the game itself could've held my attention longer than 15 minutes, it would've been a pretty easy way to augment my income. The truth is though, after 15 minutes I'm bored with that. ~~~ laumars > _if you 're a decent poker player, you can walk away with more than you > started every night,_ This is a huge exaggeration from what my poker playing friends have told me. One notable individual being a professional poker player of several years and who has wins in national tournaments as well. So he really knows his game. We've often talked about the odds of winning and how sustainable it is as an income. The figure he gives me is around 20% - that is you can only expect to cash in around 20% of the competitions you enter. Which means you can often go months without seeing a return. However it's not just him I've seen give that figure, other players I've spoken to have echoed a similar statement. ~~~ phil21 I also know a WSOP final table player, and what you say is true of tournament play. Think of that more like the lottery for professional poker players. The celebrities do that a couple times a year, and the grinders hope to make enough for buy-in and "make it big". It's the least mathematically interesting way to "make a living" playing poker there is. Where you grind out your living is the daily cash games. Yes, if you are making a living off of Poker it's basically a job. That means boring play for little hourly money most days of your life. After a few months, I imagine this feels more or less identical to an actual job. I've watched "pros" grind out their day to day life, and it really doesn't seem that compelling. Better than working fast food, but on average seems to pay about the same and be roughly the same intellectual stimulation. 4 screens with 6 tables on each playing video poker every day doesn't sound that great to me. ~~~ chx > Better than working fast food, but on average seems to pay about the same There are quite a few people who play from places where living costs are low(er) like Costa Rica or Mexico or, for that matter, Hungary and make -- compared to the locals -- an astonishing amount of money. Istvan Ratkai, who wrote a few successful text adventure games in the eighties have been one of the most well known Hungarian video poker players. He said he played about 3-4 hours a day and made 50-70% more than the minimal wage -- the full time minimal wage, that is. He had an ordinary programmer job as well so this as a secondary was quite a nice haul. ------ ChuckMcM As I've mentioned before I first encountered transaction hiding in World of Warcraft. There were 'grey'[1] items in the Auction House with a buy it now price of 500 gold (which at the time was extreme). I could not figure out who would buy a twill vest for 500g until it was explained that you went to a web site, paid them some cash for gold, told them your character name, and then put up for auction a grey item that was priced at how much gold you had purchased. One of the vendors 'agents' would then go into the auction house and buy it. You ended up with your gold and as far as the game was concerned it was a straight up, if unusual, transaction between players. [1] Item descriptions were colored, grey was "trash" and meant to be sold to vendor for cash, "green" were somewhat nicer/rare, then "blue" for very rare, and "purple" for epically rare, and "goldenrod" for legendary. ~~~ splonk Around 10 years ago before the rise of bitcoin, WoW gold was the de facto illicit currency of the internet, since there was a reasonably robust market for it. Things like batches of stolen credit cards would routinely be bought and sold in prices delineated in WoW gold. According to a Blizzard employee one of my coworkers talked to, their chargeback rates were significantly higher than even porn sites (15+%, IIRC), to the point that it was somewhat surprising that their payment processor was still doing business with them. It's unclear to me if those accounts were primarily used to generate mules to facilitate these transactions, gold farming, or something else. ~~~ wcummings Could be that people were buying WoW gold with stolen cards and trying to "fence" it before the chargeback. ~~~ splonk I don't believe you could buy gold directly from Blizzard at the time. ~~~ hamstercat Indeed you couldn't. Technically you still can't, but now you can buy a game token with cash and then sell that to other players on the auction house for gold. ------ deckar01 Customer support gave up the con on a phone call? I imagine with a little more effort they could have been indistinguishable from a legitimate business. ~~~ dragonwriter > Customer support gave up the con on a phone call? They kind of have to, since the whole purpose of the support number seems to be to reassure people who know they paid “MyIllegalPokerSite.com” but see a charge on their bill from “MyTotallyLegitFabricStore.com” that the charge corresponds to their payment to the poker site, and that they shouldn't contest the charges as fraudulent with their card issuer. ~~~ draw_down Yeah. This scheme makes it seem easy to issue a chargeback though, gamblers can just tell their credit card co "I have no idea who FabricFactory.com is". I wonder how/if they prevent gambling customers from doing that. ~~~ dragonwriter From the article, they told the reporter that they handled virtually all online gambling transactions; they might just accept a certain level of it and then blacklist the customer. (They might even let a customer suggesting that they might issue a chargeback know that that is the consequence.) ~~~ ljf It is also very hard to withdraw money from illegal gambling sites. It can be done, but is often a slow drawn out process, to get you as close as possible to the date that you can't cancel. Also don't forget that these are dodgy people who have your home address... And know you've been breaking the law - likely with also some tax issues too on the winnings. ~~~ willstrafach I believe they usually have a 90-day waiting period for withdrawals if you load via credit card (instead of Western Union or BTC), helping them ensure the user does not perform a chargeback. ------ downandout I noticed one of these payment processing fronts when I looked at my card transactions after making a PartyPoker deposit back in ~2006. In this case, it was a site called Gygon.com. If you visited their website, you would have thought it was an online lamp store with many broken features. I later learned that GYGON stood for "get your game on". ------ djhworld I feel really stupid, can someone explain to me what people are allegedly doing here? My understanding is a Poker company (for example) puts all transactions from US customers through these fake stores. Then the organisation running the fake stores reimburses the Poker company outside of the US and takes a small slice for the service? ~~~ mongmong I would think this is primarily to hide gambling activities so it doesn't affect your credit score. If you're applying for a loan or credit card your bank statements can be assessed and if it finds transactions to known gambling sites or ATM withdrawals from known gambling venues or hotels then that will affect your credit rating badly. ~~~ querulous [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_Internet_Gambling_E...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_Internet_Gambling_Enforcement_Act_of_2006) ------ MrFoof PBS Frontline covered this in their February 9th, 2016 episode, "The Fantasy Sports Gamble" ([http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/fantasy-sports- gamble...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/fantasy-sports-gamble/)) Zip to around 18:15 in the video. _" After I set up the account, I couldn't quite figure out how to deposit money. That's when I got a phone call on my cell phone and a guy walked me through how to put money on the book. Took my credit card right over the phone. Then he assured me there wouldn't be anything on my credit card statement that said BetOnline."_ What would show up on the statement was MoserSafety. Which was a front website. If you called the contact information, they confirmed they had no safety goggles, gloves, hard hats, etc. to actually sell you. It was a shell. In fact, they confirmed on the phone that the number called was a, _" third party payment processing support service."_ Some time later, the site no longer existed. ------ weego Only about a decade behind on covering this. ------ sofaofthedamned Some usenet indexers and pay-for-join torrent sites use similar fronts to be able to accept PayPal. ~~~ kchoudhu They usually ship you the item. You can pay extra to not receive it, which always struck me as odd... ~~~ peterlk If you're using a stolen credit card or fake address or whatever and you don't want to create any waves, not shipping the item is a value-add. ~~~ willstrafach If you're using a stolen credit card, the cardholder will definitely issue a chargeback. ~~~ CamperBob2 And then people wonder why PayPal is such a pain in the ass to do business with... ~~~ jeltz And this is why everyone should start requiring 3D Secure. On sites with 3D Secure support I need to use an app to authorize transactions, so if this was the norm online credit card fraud would be a much smaller problem. ~~~ joshmn 3DS is mostly a joke for anyone who _really_ wants to use your credit card. I won't go into details publicly, but I will say that having an app to authorize transactions is a step-up from the good 'ol "enter your PIN" ~~~ jeltz If all physical stores required chip and PIN and all online stores required 3D Secures then my credit card number, expiry date, and CVV would no longer be sensitive information meaning someone would need to either steal my physical credit card and my PIN or the secret key stored in my phone plus the PIN for the app. This means I would not need to worry about websites stealing my card info. ~~~ joshmn 3DS doesn't process your card, it simply validates a transaction. ------ blowski The linked article is also very interesting [http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-consett- companies-s...](http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-consett-companies- specialrepo-idUKKBN13I144) ------ e40 Still online: [https://www.myfabricfactory.com/index.php](https://www.myfabricfactory.com/index.php) ------ johnnyg I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here. Do we need enforcement here or do we need to change policy? ------ joshschreuder This is quite common with torrent site donations too, where you are directed to a webstore selling 'merch' that is actually your donation to the site in question. ------ ajmarsh Nice, maybe I can start playing online poker again here in the US. Just have to figure out a way to send me my winnings that are not bolts of fabric. ~~~ lazerpants Just use cryptocurrency. Or VPN into a state that allows it. ~~~ ljf New Jersey (at least) doesn't just rely on ip now, and need a companion app or similar. ~~~ lazerpants Oh wow, I just looked it up and yes, they use a shockingly sophisticated system for this now [0]. I suspect you could still defeat it, but crypto is absolutely the easier option. Funny though, my friends who use Draft Kings were able to just VPN into NJ from NY to use it. [0] [https://www.dailydot.com/business/new-jersey-online- gambling...](https://www.dailydot.com/business/new-jersey-online-gambling- fence-new-york-manhattan/) ------ benologist How could a platform detect this kind of "transaction laundering"? ------ pdelbarba "Reuters examination has found" => we called the help desk and they said "yea, we don't sell anything, we're a front you dummy" ~~~ dmurray It's a weakness in the system, because the help desk employees have to be trained to tell people "yes I know it says MyFabricFactory on your credit card bill, but that was actually your deposit to our gambling website" because they get that call all the time and they need to be able to put the customers at ease rather than have them call Visa to dispute the transaction. ------ strathmeyer Ok who here hasn't ordered "something" from Europe that showed up on your credit card to some ecommerce site selling overpriced ipods? Let this be a lesson to you kids, try anything unscrupulous and the feds will catch up to you in a couple of decades. ~~~ dsfyu404ed I ordered a pump typically used in dialysis machines for a project that happened to require a pump of that nature. It came from some former Soviet republic and had been opened and examined by customs in a handful of countries (as evidenced by layers of cut tape and identifying tape and stickers placed on it when it was deemed passable). I wonder if after the first customs official inspected it all the subsequent countries decided if it was good enough to be of interest to the prior country they had better open it up and take a look as well. I'm not sure if stuff like that is highly regulated but I was able to just buy it on eBay and it got to me no problem so it was pretty painless. Based on purchases a friend of mine alleges one of his friends had made the really shady "somethings" go through .onion sites using bitcoin.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How to get meetings with people too busy to see you - ibrahimcesar http://steveblank.com/2013/08/12/how-to-get-meetings-with-people-too-busy-to-see-you/ ====== edw519 For my inbox: Turn-offs: - obviously sent to many others - obviously boilerplate - buzzwordy - uses the word "coffee" - no apparent direction or desired outcome - previously insulted me on-line Turn-ons: - already know them - already respect them - referred by someone I know or respect - mentions something I said or wrote - kind words without sounding contrived - mentions something I'm irresistably curious about and most importantly: - builds or expands upon something I said, wrote, or am passionate about ~~~ DannyBee Listen asshole, Can we meet for coffee next week? I'd like to discuss our shared synergies around online advertising. I believe you could be a huge value-add to our preliminary discussions. ~~~ pm Upvoted for beating me to the punch, and I'm leaving a reply before someone unrelated to the intended recipient doesn't get the humour and takes offence to your strong wording. ------ Peroni What's in it for me? Answer that question for the person you are selling to, pitching to, requesting a meeting with, etc and your chances of success increase dramatically. This isn't new wisdom, it's arguably one of the oldest tenets of sales. Humans, by nature, are selfish beings. The majority expect a return for any effort put in on their behalf. ~~~ fsckin This is where 'social engineering' comes in super duper handy. 'Interview' them for a 'publication' and pepper them with fluff as well as the questions you really want to ask. ~~~ liotier Most people with a few year's experience have long been inoculated against that - usually after having given a couple of pseudo-interviews and later understanding they have been played like a banjo... ------ jseliger _But who is offering to teach me something I don’t know._ If I had to guess, I would also say that Blank does something like what I learned to do: look for people who are already proactively engaged in something. I wrote a similar essay called "How to get your professors' attention, along with coaching and mentoring" ([http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/how-to-get-your- pro...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/how-to-get-your- professors%E2%80%99-attention-or-how-to-get-the-coaching-and-mentorship-you- need/)) that described how I began to filter requests by looking at whether the people making the request had some skin in the game, or have done something to show investment and the ability to be helped. Most people appear to learn how to do this through trial and error, but it's also useful to codify them. ------ apunic Not too bad advice but the key lies somewhere else: 0\. Stop chasing the one investor or selected perceived important people but rather get a sense who might be important 1\. First and most important: ACHIEVE something, create something unique, build strong traction, DO something where others raise their eyebrows, get people impressed, everyone! 2\. This is now what most people don't get: you do not network by just going to networking events or by mingling with other people, no: your achievements will be your networking vehicle -- you network by achieving stuff -- you don't have t ask for meetings anymore, people will approach you. Or you have just to talk about your achievements (to everyone) and the rest comes by itself. And when you want ask for a meeting, don't -- just tell your achievements and the other party will ask to grab a coffee together. So, create or work towards a situation where others approach you some day. Really, the key is to work on achievements and nothing else. It's definitely not enough to tell the other party "in exchange [...] what we learned about" this and that, you have to achieve something, tell them where you succeeded! They don't want another boring conversation with a flimsy excuse. Imagine some developer who wants to work for your startup and approaches you and tells you about what he learned about some random technical topic -- this would lead to an awkward situation where you just want to escape the conversation with a needy guy. Instead imagine the same guy telling you that he build the first Sinatra-like framework for Openresty/Lua that blows Go and the JVM together and he would love to show it to you since you need some high performance web framework devs. Big difference. Sidenote: everybody is important and will bring you one step further on your journey, not only VCs or angels. Most underrated target: other entrepreneurs, in particular those which are on the same level like you or a bit ahead because they are most willing to share thoughts or meet up and because they are your real peers (this is what I totally missed when I started). ------ osetinsky As odd as it may sound, we think this process should work much like online dating: what can you say to pique a stranger's interest and encourage them to meet with you? We're borrowing from online dating to create a community of professionals open to receiving coffee meeting requests. No one is guaranteeing that they'll meet with other members who reach out to them, or that they'll even respond. But by joining, everyone implicitly communicates an openness to at least receiving meeting requests from people outside their network. This is already proving powerful: www.treatin.gs ------ tomrod There is a bit of irony here in that the advice article on how to get people's attention waits until 2/3 into the article to practice their own advice of _teaching us something we don't know._ I don't know Steve Blank; are all his articles like this? ~~~ larrys I worked with Steve in the 90's. Can't comment on the rest of his articles but you have a good point. Not whether it is relevant in this particular case or not (people will most likely read the entire piece because it's short and it's by Steve Blank) but as a general rule in any writing such as this you have to draw people in, make them curious, and make them want to read the entire piece you have written. You can't rely that without the correct first paragraph or sentence that they won't bail on you before you get to your conclusion or are able to make your point. I guess a good headline might also take care of this. "How to get meetings" is just a so so headline. It's like "how to make more money from your clients". Sounds bland. Personally as far as this statement which Steve made: "“I’d like to have coffee to bounce an idea off of you and in exchange I’ll tell you all about what we learned about xx.”" I would have flipped and restated "I'd like to tell you what we learned about xx if I can have a small amount of your time to get your thoughts on yy". In other words leading with the benefit at the start of the sentence. Saying "I'd like to have coffee" as the first part of the sentence might act like a trigger that makes the person not even read the rest of the sentence or the email. You have to grab people's attention when you have it. ~~~ tomrod Thanks for your response! I agree with your point, and see why one would want a hook to draw people in. To me, this begs the question as to whether we should focus on adding so much content to make a blog post when a twitter-length blurb followed by short anecdote or commentary would be sufficient. ------ hawkharris I thought Steve's post was insightful and well written. The article would be even better if the author made two small improvements to spelling and grammar: 1\. "1960's" should be written as "1960s." It's incorrect to use an apostrophe. 2\. Semicolons should separate complete, related sentences, not fragments such as "an hour from Stanford on the coast, but that hasn't helped." I'm taking a moment to offer this feedback because I know that all good writers can benefit from constructive criticism. I look forward to reading more of the author's insightful posts. ~~~ moogabi I believe I have used the apostrophe when writing 1960s, etc. Good to know the rule, even though I'll need to get used to no apostrophe looking right. Does the same rule apply when abbreviating 1960s as 60s. In this case, would an apostrophe go before the 6, thus '60s? ~~~ yebyen Apostrophe has two uses as far as I know... one is for elision ('60s indicates that "19" has been elided or omitted) and possession (The 1910s' greatest author was Franz Kafka) The "grocer's apostrophe" or "grocers' apostrophe" is what's incorrectly added to the plural form like what you're describing, the short answer is yes. '60s not 60's. ~~~ btilly Single quotes have another use. Which is to mark off quotations inside of quotations. Technically speaking you use single quotes there, but not apostrophes. However I mention it because the quotation mark that you used is a single quote. ~~~ yebyen Thanks. My keyboard only has one apostrophe/single quote key, as I suspect most do, but I have been learning to use the compose key and I appreciate little details like that. ------ praptak Summary: _" Silicon Valley has a “pay-it-forward” culture where we try to help each other without asking for anything in return."_ _" So I’ve come up with is a method to sort out who I take meetings with."_ _" I now prioritize meetings with a new filter: Who is offering me something in return."_ By the way, I agree with the advice provided, it's just the way the author gets to the point is a bit too winding for my simple mind :-) ~~~ akg_67 Not being in SV, I am jealous of "pay-it-forward" culture of SV. Seattle doesn't seem to have same culture. Actually, even remotely by phone, I had better success with SV people giving me some time for discussion compared to Seattle people. Personally, I take any meeting/concall request from entrepreneurs as long as I have relevant domain knowledge and I know I can add something positive to the conversation. I invariably learn more from such discussion specially when I rehash the discussion in my mind afterward. ------ pacifi30 I recently got introduced to a long time entrepreneur who sold his latest company recently by a friend. At the end of our coffee meeting when we were about to leave, he asked me if I know what is WIIFY to which I said no. He smiled at me and said that when you are running a business, its a most important thing that you have to think about(What's in it for you) and it actually applies to everything from getting users to sign up or getting some investors to speak to you. On a side note, he also told me that people like him also get interested in knowing the failures you had in running your business and how you recovered from it. I guess at the end, it's a matter of persistence and may be some luck that your pitch will arouse interest in someone's mind and they will say yes to meet you. Until then keep building your product and learn as you go. Shamless plug : I am building a dating platform for working professionals :) www.jointruffle.com ------ beefxq You don't want to meet those people anyways, seek the path of least resistance, you'll come out further in life. ------ mathattack 90% of networking requests come with purely selfish intent. I recall the ONE time that someone showed up to a meeting with a book that he heard would interest me. Of course I went out of my way to assist. Give first then get...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Follow up to Ask HN thread: Growing a side project - lunaru https://betterthansure.com/answer-hn-growing-a-side-project-30f17f6a10da ====== sharemywin which thread was it? found it in the article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12720636](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12720636)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Sudoku solver in 1-line of CoffeeScript (with explanation) - pathikrit https://gist.github.com/3863614 suggestions to make it shorter/cleaner welcome ====== lvh Can we stop calling things like these 1-liners? Most languages can have arbitrary programs reduced to one line. That doesn't mean it's legible or a good idea. It's a _concise_ , possibly even elegant (although that's an opinion) Sudoku solver in Coffeescript. Isn't that good enough? ------ kjp This is not an one-liner by any means. By this definition the entire linux kernel can probably be compressed into one very long line too. ~~~ beatgammit The only sortof unique thing about coffee-script is the lack of semi-colons. They just abused the comma operator though. ------ power From a quick glance it looks to only check conflicts at the box level, not row and column. This is the first CoffeeScript I've seen, it's nice and concise. ~~~ pathikrit `g in [s[x][i], s[i][y], box i]` - the first 2 arguments check in row and column level and third in box level ~~~ power Thanks for clarifying. If you've the time, could you tell me how I should read: non_conflicting = (g) -> ![0...9].some (i) -> g in [s[x][i], s[i][y], box i] ~~~ pathikrit [0...9].some (i) -> g in [s[x][i], s[i][y], box i] returns true iff it finds some i in [0,9) such that given a guess g, g equals either s[x][i] or s[i][y] or box i or in other words it finds a conflict in either a row or column or box for g assuming it g is at s[x][y] The ! at the start negates it - so the whole method non_conflicting returns true iff g does not conflict with any i. If Arrays in JavaScript had an "all" reducer it could be written like this: non_conflicting = (g) -> [0...9].all (i) -> g not in [s[x][i], s[i][y], box i]	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Created chessvision.ai CV/ML app to analyze chess positions on any website/video - pkacprzak https://chessvision.ai ====== pkacprzak Reddit discussion here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/b826h5/created_chess...](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/b826h5/created_chessvisionai_a_computer_visionmachine/ejvelvg/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
What Gripes about Apple tell us about Computational Literacy - _delirium http://www.bogost.com/blog/flash_is_not_a_right.shtml ====== statictype _I wonder if it doesn't amount to an indictment of the state of computational literacy._ It doesn't. Developer outrage over this policy has nothing to do with having to learn a new language and everything to do with imposing artificial restrictions on the development process. If anything, developer outrage is a sign that developers value creative solutions to programming problems. ------ iamwil While there probably are some proportion of programmers that program in flash want to stay in flash because they don't want to try new things, sometimes, it's a more practical matter. Hell no I don't want to maintain 4 code bases for each of the iphone, android, palm, and blackberry platforms, especially if my app doesn't depend on anything special that one platform provides. ~~~ raganwald Two distinct responses, so two separate replies. First, the same old argument that has nothing to do with the OP: > especially if my app doesn't depend on anything special that one platform > provides. Why is it in Apple's best interests for your app to run on iPhone? What competitive advantage do they lose if your app--which doesn't depend on anything special--runs on android, palm, and blackberry but not on iphone? ~~~ jrockway _What competitive advantage do they lose if your app--which doesn't depend on anything special--runs on android, palm, and blackberry but not on iphone?_ Let's look at Macs instead. Walk into any large company, which probably spends millions of dollars a year on computers (and IT support). No Macs. Why? (Because their half-assed IE 6-only app doesn't run on Macs. Hence, they waste millions of dollars a year supporting Windows XP.) Similarly, why do the corpo-drones all have Blackberries instead of iPhones? Not because the Blackberry has an awesome UI or is cheaper -- because the app they need is Blackberry-only. ~~~ bmj _Let's look at Macs instead. Walk into any large company, which probably spends millions of dollars a year on computers (and IT support). No Macs. Why?_ Because most IT staffs are not savvy enough to support both PCs and Macs on a corporate network. IME, IT is often barely competent enough to support PCs.[1] [1] Design shops are the exception to this rule, since Macs tend to be popular with creative types ------ dgreensp This is a terrible blog post, because it makes specific claims about why developers are complaining about Apple's actions and whether they are justified in doing so, which are torn to shreds quite lucidly in the comments, at which point the author dismisses the criticisms by saying they miss the point, he was really just ranting about computational literacy. So, according to the author, he's really saying "Apple's actions, right or wrong, relevant or irrelevant, do perhaps call to mind the matter of computational literacy, and that sometimes people don't appreciate that different languages are adapted for different purposes." If you read any other meaning into the article, which I do even from the title, you are apparently attacking a straw man. I don't why it annoys me so much when someone abdicates their intellectual responsibility, but it does. ~~~ _delirium I read into it mainly that _one reason_ some developers are complaining about Apple's actions is that they don't get the idea of working on different platforms, etc., but have an "I do Flash and doing Flash is my _right_!" sort of view. Which seems right to me, even though there are clearly other reasons to dislike Apple's actions as well (like the antitrust concerns, and reduction in language experimentation). ------ jchonphoenix Your statements are flawed. Yes we program on some platforms in certain languages because we are forced to do so (due to the inability of certain languages to operate within those bounds). However, if we restrict capable languages from platforms in which they would thrive, we are effectively blocking progress. There was a time that assembler was the best language. If we restricted platforms to only asm, C would never exist. Where do you think computing would be today if Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson had shared your views and refused to challenge the de-facto standard of a platform? ------ mieses An iPad is sure to make your children computationally literate. ------ Godhelpworld I am sorry to comment harshly but this is most WTF article which i have ever read! To quote the Author """ Specifically, a large number of developers seem to think that they have the right to make software for the iPhone (or for anything else) in Flash, or in another high-level environment of their choosing. Literally, the right, not just the convenience or the opportunity. And many of them are quite churlish about the matter """ I mean come on! Some one write a translator which converts code from one language to another! And stupid tactics are being used by Apple to stop it! Does this person does not know about the Turing Completeness of programming languages??? It does not matter which programming language you use as long as it is Turing complete! The article goes on to make dubious arguments about computational creativity on different platforms which make totally no sense! ~~~ _delirium Turing-completeness of programming languages is pretty irrelevant: different languages make some kinds of things easier or harder, support some idioms and discourage others, tend towards certain kinds of programming, etc. That's why programming in Haskell, Ruby, C, and asm are not all identical in practice, even though in theory any program written in one _could_ be written in any other. And yes, they do support different kinds of computational creativity. ~~~ Godhelpworld Yeah i know they are different but when one has created a bridge between two languages, disallowing it for some non nonsensical reasons of "computational creativity" seems utterly stupid to me! ------ Godhelpworld Programming language to be used is determined by the underlying problem to be solved and not the device interface (touch, keyboard or a Mars rover!). If some app is more suited to be written in an FP language that choice is independent of device that app is being run on as long as the machine code is Turing complete!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Zuckerberg Seeks Personal Privacy, Then Removes Online Privacy Feature - talhof8 http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229364 ====== blakesterz "But as Facebook makes it more difficult for users to maintain privacy, its co-founder is taking drastic measures to protect his own. Ironic timing, isn't it?" Doesn't it seem like we're conflating 2 really different definitions of privacy here? One being online, on facebook, and the other offline, at home. This doesn't seem ironic at all, we're talking about one person's decision to do something that he thinks will make his life better vs. a corporation's decision to try and make more money. (I'm in no way defending Facebook here, just seems silly to think these 2 things are at all really related. It's like saying Ronald McDonald at a vegetable and it's ironic McDonalds just introduced a triple giant bacon burger or something) ~~~ selmnoo I see what you're getting at, and I kind of agree, but the comparison isn't altogether wrong, it's just a little stretched. Anyway, we should really make something out of the frustration we feel over getting our privacy rights trampled upon by the likes of Facebook. What can we do to bring it down? Make privacy-oriented alternative networking sites? Maybe ones that operate on a pay-model, so there isn't a grotesque incentive to violate basic rights? Or maybe tell Facebook to buckle down and change direction in favor of the common user's interests? ------ melling It would be great if we could limit the spin on HN. I had to go to the WSJ to get the fact that he bought the houses then leased them back. He got wind of a developer considering buying up nearby property, developing it then selling the location next to Zuckerberg as a "feature." It might not change your mind about any irony, but it's certainly worth mentioning. ~~~ rwmj Off topic, but is living next to Mark Zuckerberg a thing? You can ask him over aperitifs for an angel investment in your social network company, is that the thinking? ~~~ fiatmoney More indicative of "this is likely a Good Neighborhood with low crime, good schools, etc. if a man who can live anywhere lives here". ------ Sagat No matter how many times people bring up privacy issues or the "haha users are dumb fucks" quote in order to characterize Zuckerberg as evil, the fact remains that he has absurd amounts of money and power and is likely to remain that way for a very, very long time if medical science continues to advance in leaps and bounds. It's his company, and he can do what he wants. Your opinions are insignificant to him. We as a society need to start learning how to deal with this, accept our place in the food chain, and obey those more fortunate. We created Zuckerberg ourselves by collectively choosing to use Facebook to regulate our social lives; we must now accept the consequences and embrace the loss of our rights. Zuckerberg will forever win, and you will forever lose. He will own you for the entire duration of your life. You won't enjoy it, and neither will I, but it is a fact as immutable as the human condition itself. ~~~ Samuel_Michon > It's his company, and he can do what he wants. Facebook is a publicly held company. Mark Zuckerberg has less than 30% of its shares. > We created Zuckerberg ourselves by collectively choosing to use Facebook to > regulate our social lives And people will let it until they lose trust in Facebook or if an alternative comes along that serves their needs better. AOL, Friendster, and MySpace came before, they screwed up, and are insignificant now. ~~~ belandrew It's not that simple. Facebook has two classes of shares. While Zuckerberg only kept 28% of the shares, he kept 57% of the voting rights. So it's still entirely his decisions. ~~~ seiji It's amusing and tragic how the big money people figured out how to subvert the stock = ownership = voting rights equation. It feels technically legal, but actually wrong on a couple levels. Their entire premise is "We're smarter than the rest of the world and you poor people can't be trusted with the big important decisions of us billionaires." This is social media on the internet after all—the most important advancement in humanity's collective history. ------ Havoc Well he did famously say that users (are) “dumb f*#ks” for trusting him with their data. ~~~ ryanmerket Users are dumb f%#@$ for trusting ANYONE with their data. ------ pasbesoin I live close to an area where, in a previous "gilded age", business magnates acquired large tracts upon which they established estates. Over the subsequent decades, many of those were sold off and turned into -- often quite nice -- housing... well, "tracts", doesn't really fit. Nor does "sub-division"; the use of that word came later and also does not connote the upper scale nature many of these areas. (Hey, as I suddenly recall, my home is more modest and is not located in the heart of the area I'm thinking of, but _I_ live on what was formerly a substantial country estate of one of these magnates.) Anyway, my point is, the trend for several decades has been that old estates have been broken up into smaller units. Sometimes, a smaller "core" of the estate remains as an actual estate, perhaps even in the original family, but land-wise, people have "downscaled". Now... We in the U.S. appear to on the verge of having a new round of estate creation. Gilded age, indeed. ------ DigitalSea This is like comparing apples to oranges here. Two completely different forms of privacy, it was a nice attempt, but this just came across as a desperate attempt to try and write an article that didn't really make an impact. ------ RafiqM Bit of a stretch, no? I agree that any removal of privacy features isn't good, but what Zuckerberg did was stop someone else cashing in on his name/reputation. Not entirely about privacy. ~~~ bsullivan01 _but what Zuckerberg did was stop someone else cashing in on his name /reputation._ That's the official line, it may not be entirely true. Although super rich, he still has the "I wear a hoodie" shtick so he might have felt his average guy rep going down if seen as buying 4-5 houses to build a bigger one. ~~~ jack-r-abbit but he's not building a bigger one. He is leasing those newly purchased houses back to their owners. So he has paid to ensure he knows exactly who is living next door to him. ~~~ bsullivan01 but he's not building a bigger one....yet. ~~~ jack-r-abbit There is an endless list of things he has not done... yet. We should focus on what is he is doing... which is leasing the homes back to the previous owners. ------ bsullivan01 _Zuckerberg Seeks Personal Privacy, Then Removes Online Privacy Feature_ Zuckerberg Pays $30 Million For Personal Privacy, Then Removes Online Privacy Feature. The evil twins, Google and FB, got almost nothing on me because I rarely post and use them from a separate browser. ~~~ TomaszZielinski Fuzzy matching does wonders. ------ gtCameron It's a high bar to clear in today's media, but I think this might be the dumbest article I have ever read. I guess the original headline "Rich guy in big house doesn't want close neighbors" didn't generate enough Internet Outrage (tm).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Introducing Token - shea256 https://blog.tokenize.com/introducing-token-e759bedc36f6 ====== tarr11 Well, a ring is better than a watch I suppose. But the idea of charging my ring every night just so I can authenticate feels burdensome. ~~~ brad0 What's stupid is that you could build something similar that doesn't need power. Take a look at contactless bank cards. They're powered by the signal from the NFC reader. ------ jpfaraco I wonder how they are addressing the lack of standardization of NFC protocols, which has essentially prevented NFC from taking off.. ~~~ mshaps Good question. We're seeing some consolidation though. One example, we were frustrated about the idea of having to go city to city building partnerships with local transit authorities for our customers to be able to use their Token in place of their transit card. But in partnership with Mastercard we're working to standardize transit systems to use EMV as the standard open protocol instead of proprietary Mifare protocols. We've had some luck, over 80 cities will be live with this in 2017. Chicago and London were among the first. We also are BLE compatible. ------ pawal This reminds me of the Java Ring, that was almost 20 years ago.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Doug McIlroy's C++ regular expression matching library - fanf2 https://github.com/arnoldrobbins/mcilroy-regex ====== mehrdadn I still haven't found a single regex library that can do a few tasks that I find to be very critical: (1) accept the input string in pieces (i.e., lazily), (2) let you make copies of the recognition automaton in the middle of recognition so that you can run them on different suffixes, (3) tell you what characters/strings are valid suffixes of the current automaton. (Well, I would also like (4) lazily creates a DFA whenever the pattern allows it, and (5) works on non-string data, but I've given up on these since it seems to me nobody even cares about linear-time matching or non-string data.) Requirements 1-3 are extremely important when you have a trie-like data structure that is expensive to traverse (like, say, file paths on a network folder, or even a local disk sometimes) -- you don't want to expand nodes or traverse edges needlessly. However, no library that I've seen lets you do this. Has anyone else seen any? ~~~ burntsushi The reason why that doesn't exist is because it's hard, or at least, hard without sacrificing something else that is typically considered more valuable. For example, I wouldn't describe your desired operations to be _generally_ "critical." The things that are generally critical to a regular expression library are things like "accept a string and report a match," "tell where the match occurred," "extract submatch locations." A regex library may provide other niceties such as iterators over matches or routines for replacing some text with another piece of a text, but even those aren't typically _critical_ and can be implemented in user code just as effectively. With that said, yes, there are definitely specific use cases in which the operations you describe are indeed critical. A common one I've seen is in the development of a text editor, which probably does not store the file it's editing in a single contiguous block of memory, but still wants a way to search it with a regex. Supporting the streaming use case is something I'd like to work on. I don't know if I'll succeed, but I've documented my thoughts here: [https://github.com/rust-lang/regex/issues/425](https://github.com/rust- lang/regex/issues/425) \--- If you'd like to elaborate and go more in depth about the specific use cases you have, I'd love to have that data, since it would be quite useful! (I am particularly interested in supporting streaming matching. Suffix extraction and more flexible automaton construction are also interesting to me. Working on non-string data is probably outside my scope. That's too hard to bake into a general purpose regex engine.) > Requirements 1-3 are extremely important when you have a trie-like data > structure that is expensive to traverse (like, say, file paths on a network > folder, or even a local disk sometimes) -- you don't want to expand nodes or > traverse edges needlessly. I'm trying to unpack this... Is the trie data structure containing all of the file paths in memory? If so, it should be possible to build a finite automaton from a regex and then "simply" intersect it with your trie (which is, of course, itself also a finite state automaton). This is, for example, what my fst library does: [https://docs.rs/fst/0.3.0/fst/#example-case-insensitive- sear...](https://docs.rs/fst/0.3.0/fst/#example-case-insensitive-search) ~~~ mehrdadn Yeah, the fact that it's hard is partly why I haven't implemented a working one one myself. :-) Regarding streaming: I don't remember exactly when I ran into this, but a text or hex editor which you also mentioned for the other use case is a clear example (e.g. if I want to search for a pattern on my disk). I would have to think back to what the actual use case I ran into myself was; it may have been this or something else... it was quite a while ago. > Is the trie data structure containing all of the file paths in memory? Well obviously not in network example (the network aspect would be moot) but there are also times when this is the case. Thanks for linking to your library! I haven't learned Rust yet but I'll take a look at it. ------ saagarjha I guess this is supposed to be a C++ library, but the code still looks very "C-like"–that is, there are almost no C++ features. Of course, it might just be that Cfront didn't really support much, but either way, the current maintainer has a lot of work to do if they want to "review the code and try to improve the use of C++". ~~~ aap_ Quote from doug: > And finally, having followed the development of C++ from its infancy, I > wanted to try out its new template facility, so there's a bit of that in the > package, too. Arnold has discovered that not only has C++ evolved, but also > that without the discipline of -Wall to force clean code, I was rather > cavalier about casting, both explicitly and implicitly. ------ aap_ This is a very nice specimen of the clear and easy to read code that is so typical of room 1127. A great example to follow. ------ glangdale Is there a concise description of how this library works? Apparently I need to read source code to find out whether or not it's a backtracker, etc. ~~~ burntsushi Definitely does not look like a backtracker to me. One interesting thing I found is that it appears to support intersection and negation, as documented here: [https://github.com/arnoldrobbins/mcilroy- regex/blob/master/R...](https://github.com/arnoldrobbins/mcilroy- regex/blob/master/README) Running `make` will build its `grep` utility, and using `grep -A` enables the intersection and negation features. ~~~ glangdale Yes, it looks kinda interesting. Am still scratching my head at the idea that summarizing how it works isn't anywhere outside the source base. ------ beagle3 It's not every day that one sees a 26-year old commit on github.... Anything by Doug McIlroy is worth looking at. ~~~ chrstphrknwtn If git is ~15 years old, what is the original VCS likely to be for this? ~~~ zaphar Probably, nothing or maybe RCS. It looks like the history was "reconstructed" from time stamps on the file system so no VCS is a strong possibility. ~~~ jhayward Bell Labs was using source control in the 1970's. SCCS was common in System V unix. ------ rgovostes Hmm. static exef excom[128] = { vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,Ie,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv, vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv, vv,vv,vv,Ie,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv, / # / vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,Ce,Se,vv,Ee,vv,vv, / :;= / vv,vv,vv,vv,De,vv,vv,Ge,He,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,Ne,vv, / DGHN / Pe,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv,vv, / P / vv,ae,be,ce,de,vv,vv,ge,he,ie,vv,vv,le,vv,ne,vv, / a-n / pe,qe,re,se,te,vv,vv,we,xe,ye,vv,Le,vv,Re,vv,vv / p-y{} */ }; (I think it's a lookup table of sed commands.) ~~~ pouta Is this in the code? ~~~ agumonkey that's ed whole source ~~~ pouta Really? How? I can't find any references online ~~~ agumonkey I was joking	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google Researcher Exposes Flaws In Sophos Software, Slams Antivirus Industry - ssclafani http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2011/08/04/google-researcher-exposes-flaws-in-sophos-software-slams-antivirus-industry/ ====== someone13 Firstly, you can find the associated paper here: <http://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/Sophail.pdf> I actually find the technical details behind how the antivirus engine works far more fascinating than the flaws in said engine. As Tavis said, most antivirus companies don't publish details about their engines, so, flawed or not, learning how Sophos does it is interesting. ~~~ gbrindisi Me too. I am actually reasearching heuristic engines and I can assure you that there isn't a research field so mysterious and jealously protected as antivirus technologies. ------ ender7 Headline: "Google Researcher Exposes Flaws In Sophos Software, Slams Antivirus Industry" Inside: "Ormandy works by day as a security engineer at Google but said he was representing only himself at the conference and that his research had been done on his own time, _without the company’s knowledge or support._ " (my emphasis) I sense...Bullshit Title Tacked on by Asshole Managing Editor. ~~~ smackfu The interesting question is whether Ormandy would research or publish flaws in a Google product. ~~~ tshtf Um, yes? [http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2010/04/stable- upda...](http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2010/04/stable-update- security-fixes.html) [http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2011/02/stable- chan...](http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2011/02/stable-channel- update_28.html) [http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2010/09/stable- and-...](http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2010/09/stable-and-beta- channel-updates.html) ------ meow "argued that it would be unlikely that malware writers would tailor their code to exploit flaws in Sophos given that it controls only 10% of the enterprise market" It seems to be a ridiculous argument to make. This would still not rule out targeted attacks. ~~~ markbao Yeah, it's absolutely inane. Marketing front: _"The best antivirus software."_ Damage control: _"Don't worry, we're only 10%! Look at someone else, they have more market so it's more dangerous for them to have problems like these!"_ ~~~ lylejohnson It's the same argument some people use when claiming Macs are more secure than Windows machines. ~~~ scott_s I've used it in the past as an argument for why there are less exploits for Macs, which is different. That is, security is an inherent property, whereas the presence of exploits is a function of that security and interest. ------ billybob “If you examine a system’s security and it’s weakened, that system is flawed,” says Ormandy. With things like encryption schemes, definitely. But is this true for detecting malicious behavior? If you show your criteria for finding it, doesn't that tell malware writers how to avoid detection? If I'm wrong - if openly saying "there are our criteria for identifying bad behavior" won't help people avoid it - then shouldn't Google release its criteria for identifying spam sites? I don't see Ormandy advocating for that. ------ a1k0n The author of this paper seems to have a reputation for irresponsible disclosure (just google his name) and was called out on it by, you guessed it, Sophos: [http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/06/15/tavis-ormandy- ple...](http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/06/15/tavis-ormandy-pleased- website-exploits-microsoft-zeroday/) ~~~ ohashi Which is talked about in the article ~~~ a1k0n Oops, didn't see page 2.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Almost all the jobs created since 2005 are temporary - ThomPete http://qz.com/851066/almost-all-the-10-million-jobs-created-since-2005-are-temporary/ ====== ThomPete Here is how the US Department of Labor define jobs: "People are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey reference week. This includes all part-time and temporary work, as well as regular full-time, year-round employment. Individuals also are counted as employed if they have a job at which they did not work during the survey week, whether they were paid or not, because they were:" [http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm](http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm) Hopefully we will soon be able to discuss the reality of our situation and start looking at what to do about it instead of keep insisting that jobs are just jobs and that outsourcing and automation have no effect. ------ makecheck Also, “having a job” does not mean “can live”. You might still need a 2nd job, and you might depend on other family members having jobs too. We need to stop defining _employment_ as the measurement of goodness and start finding ways to define _decent quality of life_. How many people have a _decent quality of life_ regardless of their “jobs”?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
GoogolPlex – Improved Siri for iOS - tvanzyl http://betterthansiri.com ====== tvanzyl Here's the link to an Engadget article that explains a bit more about it: [http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/16/googolplex- siri/](http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/16/googolplex-siri/) Thought it was a cool idea, but if it always routes you through Safari I could see it getting quite annoying with the wait time. Siri is still slow enough that I'd rather just do things myself, it's usually faster than waiting. With GoogolPlex I might have the same issue. I'll definitely give it a try though and see. edit: wording	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Climate-change Super PAC to target "science deniers" - jdnier http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2014/0522/Climate-change-Super-PAC-targets-Republicans-who-deny-human-role-in-warming ====== jdnier Shades of Ralph Nader's "Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!"	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Greg - sama http://blog.samaltman.com/greg ====== 6stringmerc This nice summation really reminds me of a quote from _Shawshank Redemption_ which is, I must admit, not the most flattering in a business context: > _I 'm a convicted felon who provides sound financial advice - it's a nice > pet to have._ The best takeaway for Technical / SV minded folks in this posting is quite clear: The odds of success are greatly enhanced when you have a Top Flight Communicator at your disposal. An ability to "walk amongst the tribes" is very important. It's a lot like getting various human systems into harmony / unison (nerves and cardiovascular for instance). I can state from first-hand experience with Bids/RFPs for projects worth tens of thousands to billions that the most important person in the room is the Proposal Coordinator and they get the least respect and compensation out of the gate. It's realistically a horribly stressful job that is only rewarding to a very select group of people, one of which happens to be me. I've learned how to herd cats. If I wanted to be, uh, less generous in my perspective, the Machiavellian perspective is much more clear: "Manipulating people is a profitable enterprise." That's why I have a photo of Winston Wolf in my peripheral vision every day at work, because his motto makes the most sense in a world plagued by Murphy's Laws... > _My name is Winston Wolf. I solve problems._ ------ capocannoniere > Greg is a world-class recruiter (he plans every detail of interviews, > heavily researches candidate’s backgrounds, sends thoughtful and persistent > followups, and so on), and I now believe even more strongly that someone on > the founding team has to be an amazing recruiter. The early openAI team is clearly superb. What's even more impressive to me, is that the quality of the team has remained incredibly strong as the team grew to 45+ people: IMO/IOI medalists, startup founders and key contributors, world-class Phd's who could easily get tenure-track positions at top universities, etc. [1] [2] It's not uncommon for a startup to have a strong founding team. It's almost unheard of that just about every single individual of a 45+ person team is objectively exceptional.[3] Not sure how much Greg is still involved in recruiting, but either way, congrats. (No affiliation to OpenAI, besides knowing a few people there) [1] [https://openai.com/blog/team-update- january/](https://openai.com/blog/team-update-january/) [2] [https://openai.com/blog/team-update-august/](https://openai.com/blog/team- update-august/) [3] I don't know any startups in which all of the first 50 employees were truly exceptional prior to them joining the company. I guess Google, for example, might have had an incredibly strong early team, but I'm not sure they were as strong prior to them joining Google. ------ dzink Greg is humble, resourceful, and smart. That combination alone is enough to move mountains. However, what Sam's piece is missing is the "Why?". Why would someone who can do anything do YOUR thing and take any crud task it takes to finish the job, especially after they've made their fortune? Greg should give his own "Why?" about OpenAI. From what I know if 100 years from now someone looks back at this fork in the road of History, they would see two scenarios: Either a couple of big players will own the most powerful instrument in the hands of mankind, to use at their (or their highest bidder's) discretion, or mankind will jointly get to ensure the instrument has a safety handle to protect life and all things most important. For the latter, I'd bet many of the smartest people here would want to do the crud work, even if they're not cofounders. The job of the ideal co-founder is to spread a mission that matters this much to everyone who would be fit to achieve it, inspiring all employees to be as committed. Well, OpenAI powered relentlessly by Greg, has inspired thousands of volunteers and open-source contributors in addition to it's top-notch staff. ~~~ dilemma I've heard OpenAI isn't actually open source. Is it? ~~~ gavanwoolery They do have open source projects, but their mission is not to necessarily be an open source company. They want to equalize the footing in AI for everyone, and this might require some degree of secrecy so that commercial AI companies do not get an edge. At least, that is my perception, feel free to correct me. ~~~ angersock > They want to equalize the footing in AI for everyone Equal opportunity to _pay_ , or actually democratizing it so that anybody who wants to use it can reap the benefits? I'm willing to bet it's not the latter, given the reliance of AI on large training corpuses and machine time. ~~~ gavanwoolery I think its more about making the same research available to everyone, or other things that are relatively free to distribute (like code, even though, as hinted, it does not mean that everything will be open-sourced as its written). Although, you do make a good point. If only the most powerful companies can afford meaningful machine time, how democratized can AI be? ~~~ angersock > If only the most powerful companies can afford meaningful machine time, how > democratized can AI be? That's the big trick that nobody seems to give a shit about, as they scramble around to make a buck. Having the research or even the code _doesn 't really give you an advantage_. We're just trading one set of overlords for another. ------ rl3 > _Greg is a world-class recruiter (he plans every detail of interviews, > heavily researches candidate’s backgrounds, sends thoughtful and persistent > followups, and so on), and I now believe even more strongly that someone on > the founding team has to be an amazing recruiter._ I maintain a version-controlled text file of people I want to hire for my startup, should hell ever freeze over and I secure funding some day. The nice part is that doing so usually goes hand-in-hand with the product/market/technology research you conduct anyways, so the practice has a very low time investment attached to it. For the most part, you simply stumble upon desirable people during the course of seemingly unrelated research, dig into their background, and then add them to the list. On a humorous note, quite a few people on my list later ended up being hired by YC HARC. Hey Sam, what are the finer points of YC companies* trying to hire talent attached to YC projects? Can you offer any pointers? :) * _Not a YC company (yet)._ ~~~ jimmykennedy "should hell ever freeze over and I secure funding some day" Your low self-esteem is sabotaging you. ~~~ rl3 Ah, it was intended as half tongue-in-cheek. Making light of tough situations is usually for the best. Sorry for not making that more clear. My smiley face budget had already been reached by the latter portion of that post. Anything exceeding one smiley and you end up looking like you're on something, especially on HN. Heck, even just one can be suspect! ~~~ jessaustin Yes it's better to be misunderstood, than to use too many smileys. ~~~ rl3 Case in point: I'm not sure if your comment was genuine snark, or if you simply refrained from adding a smiley. It's turtles all the way down. :) ------ CPLX The moral of the story here, clearly, is that when you're one of a pair of billionaires collectively responsible for some of the most successful entrepreneurship successes in recent history, and you decide to have someone handle logistics for a new venture, make sure they're enthusiastic. ~~~ zt This is reductionist and offensive. (1) On a practical level, although I don't know Greg's personal financial situation, he was the CTO of Stripe for five years. He's rich enough not to work. He works exactly because he's enthusiastic. (2) Secondly, to say that Greg merely handles logistics for OpenAI is to willfully ignore the post as written, and the reality on the ground. Also, I'm not sure Sam is a billionaire, although well on his way. ~~~ CPLX I don't think it's offensive to point out that recruiting an enthusiastic, engaged, and talented cofounder is different for Elon Musk and Sam Altman than it is for the fledgling startup founder that is the standard reader of YC blog posts. It would have been fine if he was just telling a story about his own life, but when he said "make sure you also have someone like Greg" it became fair to point out that he seems a little bit oblivious as to context. ~~~ zt I misinterpreted your first post as being a lot more snarky than this second comment suggests, sorry about that. ------ metaphorm I disliked the article. I think sama is simultaneously over-personalizing and also losing context and perspective. Sure, maybe it is a generalizable description of virtuous qualities but it also strikes me as something different and much worse. Here's another interpretation "I sure am fortunate that I know this wealthy, well-connected person who helps me with my businesses that require knowing wealthy, well- connected people." ------ fourstar > with an average email response time of about 5 minutes to anything Why is this being praised? Can't stand the "always on" economy. It's OK to not immediately to respond to things. ~~~ wsinks Especially after he says that he didn't reply back quickly (living in a high- latency environment) ------ graycat From about 20,000 feet higher than the OP, one of the issues about PG, Sam, and YC is the combination of (1) lots of warnings about the dangers of disputes among startup co-founders and, thus, the extreme need for yet another startup co-founder, this one to play _den mother_ , peace maker, mother hen, group psychologist, Chief Cat Herder, etc. versus (2) extreme negativity about a solo founder. From another 10,000 feet up, here is a simple observation: All across the US, from the largest cities to the smallest crossroad communities, there are solo founders of successful auto repair shops, auto body shops, dentist practices, CPA practices, rental property ownership and management, pizza carryout shops, Chinese carry out shops, _Mobil Travel Guide_ five star restaurants, pediatrician practices, manufacturer representative practices, big-truck, little-truck businesses of wide variety, etc. where commonly the cash to start the business is higher than that of servers, domain name, and Internet connection of a Web site. So, solo founders do relatively well in _main street_ startups. Since co- founders are not crucial for main street business and since a Web site startup should be in most ways easier, why are co-founders crucial for Web site startups? Since co-founder disputes are so common and potentially destructive, why be so eager to have co-founders and so down on solo founders? With the above, to me, hiring a co-founder as a recruiter, office peace maker, general evangelist, smiling face, optimistic, good hand shake, meeter and greeter who knows a lot of people is a big slice of cash and equity for the usual thin budget of a startup. Or, as we often hear, the crucial work of a startup is to keep the _burn rate_ as low as possible and ASAP please the customers/users and get to earnings. In this case, an office peace maker, etc. is at best a nice to have if for free, otherwise not a must have for free, and likely too expensive if have to pay much. ------ brilliantcode Greg sounds like me. Usually gets taken advantage of by people writing articles like this. ~~~ kelvin0 That's exactly the thoughts that came to my mind. Article is big on complimenting Greg about his qualities being able to follow others, and drive a given vision handed down to him. Hopefully, this article is simply not doing the Person justice and is simply poorly thought out and comes out as a superficial 'fluff' piece. ~~~ sokoloff Different people are skilled at and like doing different things. I'm not the "big, original vision" guy. I'm the guy who pairs with the big vision guy and figures out the myriad details required to make that big vision come to fruition, figures out how to reign in the unrealistic, unachievable, or merely "sometime later" parts of the vision, so we can deliver in the near-term on the parts that are achievable. That means I often get (and win at) the second-in-command role, but I don't see that as being taken advantage of at all. I've made quite a good career of it and honestly and earnestly enjoy it. ~~~ brilliantcode The guy who made me work on an MVP for the next 3 month while he was on a vacation told me the same thing. Apparently, if you have a big enough vision, it's along the lines of "why aren't you working for my awesome ideas for free? I even gave you teeny amount of equity" ~~~ kelvin0 I think I might use that quote and print it on T-shirts. ------ Kevin_S YC at this moment is able to recruit the absolute top talent for any position they can envision. Damn that is a lot of power they wield, especially in starting these projects like Open AI and the Basic Income. I'd love to be able to invest in YC, as I think a good return at this point is one of the best bets an investor could make. ~~~ gist > YC at this moment is able to recruit the absolute top talent for any > position they can envision. Absolute top talent? I think you are blinded by the light of YC. Not everyone thinks that or even close to it. [1] [2] By way of example I am reminded when I told a young person that I was helping to look on the page of a vc/angel investor that I do work for and know (among many). I said 'look at what they are doing I can get you an easy interview at any of those companies even if they don't have an opening'. They looked (was a woman iim) and said 'no thanks looks like they are all doing strange weird stuff'. This particular person preferred a traditional and solid company I am guessing, not a shot at the moon. And there are plenty of people like that. Plenty of smart capable people in the world and not all would die to work for a YC company or YC affiliated venture. [1] Note I make money off the shot at the moon company so don't take this as some kind of sour grapes.. [2] And while most people know who Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos are (what I will call 'the aunt' test) most people have never heard of Sam, PG or YC for that matter. ~~~ lkbm > [2] And while most people know who Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos are (what I > will call 'the aunt' test) most people have never heard of Sam, PG or YC for > that matter. Sure, but most software engineers probably have. While companies need a _lot_ more than just engineers, having a leg up on engineering recruitment (especially as a very early-stage startup) seems extremely valuable. ~~~ gedrap Highly doubt it :) HN crowd is a small subset of all professional engineers. ------ zt I'm sure that many others could write much better informed or detailed additions to Sama's post. All I will say is that I worked at Stripe very briefly -- for about three months -- when the company was about thirty people (before I went on to go through YC). Greg was incredibly generous with his time in explaining and working with me as a non-engineer. I don't think he had been named CTO yet (Stripe was quite title phobic at the start) but it was clear that he was both a technical and non-technical leader of the company. He spent time to explain code and architecture to me, while also chatting through cultural norms and various organizational tensions Stripe was experiencing as it grew. I think the acculturation to Stripe that he very deliberately supported in me was critical for what (little) success I had with Standard Treasury. This is all to say that Sama’s post is spot on in my experience. Greg exhibited every one of the mentioned characteristics (except recruiting, I didn’t interacting with him on that) even when working with someone with which he didn’t have to be so generous. ------ gavanwoolery I only worked at OpenAI for a short period, but what was written here seems to mirror what I saw, FWIW. I would add in that Greg struck me as one of the sharpest people in the company, and one of the hardest working (he would often stay there late into the night, even on weekends). ------ CptJamesCook Greg Brockman: Went to MIT Went to Harvard Was CTO of a 10 billion dollar company for 5 years, starting the year it was founded Yeah, I'd take a cofounder like that. ------ pgroves But why does Greg need a cofounder? ~~~ gdb (I am Greg.) Starting something new is incredibly hard. The default is that your company never even forms, and it's on you to overcome the activation energy. I don't think I'd have the mental fortitude to stick that out alone. In contrast, there's nothing more motivating than working with great people (and it's hard to do better than Ilya, Sam, and Elon). Everyone brings their own core strengths to the table, and if you've picked well your own efforts will be multiplied. ~~~ loteck Thanks for chiming in. Would you mind giving your thoughts on an important question here? Which of your qualities specifically do you feel are actually under discussion here, and how would you recommend others build, enhance or foster those qualities if they wanted to do so? In other words, assuming someone wanted to, how would they become more "Greg?" ------ rihegher Greg remind me of Jared in the Silicon Valley TV show ------ gcheong If all startups need a Greg and there are only so many Gregs to go around, can new Gregs be deliberately created? ~~~ birken I've only worked at one startup, which was quite successful, and nobody there fit the description of Greg (unless you permute it to be so vague that everybody is Greg). Therefore, you don't need a Greg character for your startup to be successful. Clearly he is a very impressive person with very impressive results and I'm sure I'd enjoy working at a company with him, or people like him. I don't like this myth though. Startups are chaos, and pretending that as long as you have this magical person there solving all your problems that your chaos is somehow incorrect. The startup I worked for was full of normal imperfect humans who got offended, had trouble figuring out the direction of the company, were not world-class recruiters, were not always thoughtful and ran into problems big and small all the time. The company didn't die because there was a group of dedicated, imperfect people, who didn't want the company to die, not because there was one "Chief Optimist" holding it all together. If there was a "Chief Optimist" role, it was a very mobile position based on who was feeling best at that particular moment. This isn't to say you can't and shouldn't actively try to make yourself better [1], you should. But you don't need a perfectly formed person working at your startup for it to succeed. And I want to note, I'm not disputing the existence of superhuman individuals, they exist and I'm sure power a lot of amazing achievements. You just don't _need_ them to succeed, a bunch of normal people can do it too. 1: For whatever definition of better you want, in this context it would probably mean being a better startup founder ------ Diederich > Elon and I were both busy with day jobs ... Epic, lovely understatement there! ------ gormo2 What was the inspiration for the dinner that kicked off OpenAI? What made you invite Greg to it? ~~~ btkramer9 I was wondering the same thing. Found this article that sums it up pretty nicely. [https://blog.gregbrockman.com/my-path-to- openai](https://blog.gregbrockman.com/my-path-to-openai) ------ codingdave Every success DOES need a guy like Greg. But I really worry about the part where Greg was working on the effort full-time, doing it all while the other guys still worked. When it ends in success, it is a great story. When it ends without success, Greg is the guy who put all his time into it, then ends up with nothing. Greg becomes the warning story. Greg is the guy you need. Not necessarily the guy you want to be. ~~~ smacktoward There is a very, very fine line dividing "chief optimist" from "sucker." ~~~ ProAm Sounds like we need a Co-founder basic income? ~~~ noonespecial That's a fantastic idea. We could give it a special name to avoid confusion. How about "salary"? ~~~ rl3 You often hear about founder salaries being set intentionally low by VCs to keep founders hungry. While I don't dispute the power of stress and pressure to light a fire under someone's ass, I don't think it should come in the form of a person's livelihood. For example, it's not hard to imagine founder(s) that have been working for years on something with no pay, putting them far behind their traditionally- employed peers. They may even have family obligations on top of that. Proceeding to then pay them low wages in the interest of motivation isn't exactly the best idea. Granted, I do tend to agree with the ethos of having the founder being the lowest-paid employee in the company. Ideally that just ensures everyone else is paid really, really well. ~~~ noonespecial We've kind of had the hat-trick of weasely-ness going on recently. They get overworked, underpaid, and then the promise of a big payout at the end is diluted away by investors who were barely involved beyond sloshing a bunch of other people's money in their general direction. I don't like industries that institutionalize the consumption of individuals enthusiasm or altruism. We've essentially lost medicine to the latter and it sucks to see the startup scene consumed by the former. ------ satysin This _kind of_ goes with something I said a while ago [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12761258](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12761258) A good project manager[0] to keep on top of everything and pick up all the miscellaneous tasks can/will make or break a startup. [0] Well the title doesn't matter but I used PM so I will stick to that title. ------ mwetzler Nice and sweet love letter to Greg. Shared with our founders. We have a slightly alternative model: There hasn't been a consistent Greg 5+ years, but there is always a founder willing to be Greg when the previous Greg needs a break. Especially important once people start having children and go through the various ups and downs of life. ------ mirceam This might be besides the point of the post, but I'll ask anyway. @Greg, perhaps you could talk a bit about what you think makes you a productive engineer and problem-solver. What's your workflow like, how do you approach a problem, or learning a new concept, what tools do you use, etc. ------ ilaksh Cool but why doesn't he get a last name. I don't actually know who it is. ~~~ justinhensley Greg Brockman. It's in the second sentence of the post. ~~~ forbiddenlake It's still a nearly context-free headline, which is a pet peeve of mine at Hacker News. The headline should contain actual information that tells me why I care and should click. "Greg" is quite insufficient, with the only saving grace being I can see the domain name and know who Sam Altman is. ------ ttam @gdb: do you have anything to say about sama's post? and what have been the activities that you found most valuable in your life? ------ 27182818284 >high latency I wonder if that's a typo. ~~~ jrowley No, I think Sam is saying that it takes a while for Elon/Sam to reply to Greg, and even given that, Greg responds quickly. Thats a good practice because it shows you're eager/dedicated to moving forward. ------ tmaly someone like Greg is going to be hard to come by. ------ linkmotif Great piece thank you. ------ davidhariri Damn. Wish I was Greg.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
TechCrunch Hacker Identified: You Decide If We Press Charges - aresant http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/28/techcrunch-hacker-identified-you-decide-if-we-press-charges/ ====== raganwald I really feel my 48 years. What is this, The Running Man? Either leave it in the hands of the authorities or prosecute. Making a game out of it sends a very strong message that it's all about the page views whether you're hacking a site to redirect towards your sleazy affiliate trap or whether you're turning the justice system into the Circus Maximus. ~~~ dschobel Arrington is 40 so age obviously has no relationship to decency. ------ ihodes While I do think the guy should be prosecuted, I don't like how TC is turning the ordeal into another way to make money. It reminds me of public hangings. ~~~ metamemetics This guy is probably already scared shitless and crapped several pairs of pants when he realized he was under FBI investigation. I can't see how the minimal damages are worth dragging him through a lengthy trial and bankrupting him with legal fees and a felony conviction on his permenant record. ~~~ Tichy Hacking web sites is not a game. I suspect most criminals crap their pants when they get caught - should they all be let go? ~~~ metamemetics Definitely yes if the punishment for their respective crimes is not in correspondence with damage actually done. If crack cocaine carries a mandatory sentencing of 5 years in jail for less than a gram (it used to), the only moral thing to do is to let the offender go. Even if you think they deserve to be punished to some degree, you have to examine if the expected punishment is proportional to the desired punishment. He inconvenienced TC for one hour. A felony conviction would be screwing him over for the rest of his life, possibly 70+ years. I don't see any positive outcomes from that which would offset resources wasted prosecuting. ~~~ CWuestefeld Prosecute, without a doubt. In the chat transcripts, they explicitly discuss the possibility of getting caught. The perp knew the risks, and made a conscious decision to proceed. The Friend's discussion about getting paid for links reveals a pattern (albeit not in this case) of doing this for personal gain. And they also show clearly that they understand the effects of their behavior on the victims, and just don't care about it. If you want to prevent these hackers from mischief, there must be a credible threat of repercussions. Letting them go will not discourage all this guy's friends. But maybe in a similar conversation next year, when they're talking about getting caught, someone will mention "you remember last year when Xyz got caught, and he's still in jail!". ~~~ JoeAltmaier Its so pathetic, how little money they actually gained..should probably consider switching careers, knocking over convenience stores. ~~~ Tichy Stupidity is hardly an excuse. ------ barrkel The irony being, a motivator hacker could very likely hack this poll. ~~~ cowmoo Yea, write a simple Python/Perl script that interfaces with TOR and force- reset your exit nodes each time you send out a new request and randomize the time interval. There are plenty of TOR exit nodes in the world to swing the vote your way. ~~~ rlpb It's not too difficult to detect and ban votes from exit nodes. It could even be done after the fact (and still be mostly effective) if it appeared that an attack took place. ------ jacquesm When twitter was hacked TechCrunch did everything they could to expose the valuable data and they paid the hacker. Why should anyone even care if TechCrunch got hacked, it's only fair that when you condone hacking of other sites and profit from it that you just shrug it off when it happens to you. TC pressing charges because of being hacked would be completely hypocritical of them. ~~~ andrewpbrett > they paid the hacker This is not true. ~~~ jacquesm People are wondering how much they paid, not if they paid. Is Arrington on the record stating that they did not pay? Even if, they still profited tremendously from the traffic, so the point still stands. You either are ok with black hat hacks or you're not, you can't be fine with it when it is other people and press charges when it's you. edit: If've found this response: [http://techcrunch.com/2009/07/15/our-reaction-to-your- reacti...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/07/15/our-reaction-to-your-reactions-on- the-twitter-confidential-documents-post/) There is lots of handwaving there, but the issue of whether or not money changed hands is not mentioned at all, and it would have been a pretty strong point in their defense if it hadn't. The only words he uses is 'But if it lands in our inbox, we consider it fair game.", which suggests nothing preceded that, but that's speculative. ~~~ andrewpbrett People wonder about lots of things that aren't true. I unzipped those files. We did not pay for them. "Landed in our inbox" should do more than suggest that nothing preceded it. Would you say that software just "landed on your desktop" after you paid for it? Profiting from traffic and paying for stolen goods are two very different things, so I don't think the point does still stand. ~~~ jacquesm Profitting from traffic from stolen goods is pretty unethical, for me it doesn't matter if you paid for it or not. Clearly the hacker did this either to damage twitter or to profit from it, and in either case you could have done the right thing. Claiming that others would have disclosed it (which is something TC did pretty loudly) is really funny, so you effectively have already admitted that it was unethical, but because others would have done it that made it 'right'. Anything for a scoop. You could have gotten a good bit of mileage simply by reporting about the hack, instead you decided to do damage to others for your own profits. It's funny how acceptable stuff like that has become, and how you seem to be claiming some kind of moral highground here for something that is simply sleazy. Profitting from stolen goods, directly or indirectly is unethical, if you had any sense at all you'd have given twitter a warning that their files are out in the open and you'd have destroyed the data. I hope one day you'll find the tables turned, we'll see how ethical you will think this is then. And I'll be on your side in that one, just like I was solidly on twitters side in the other. Giving people a platform to do damage and to profit from that is sickening. ~~~ lena First you said "they paid". When this was questioned, you said that people wondered how much they paid, not if they paid. And now you say that it doesn't matter if they paid? ~~~ jacquesm Yep. Because either way they gained from stuff that wasn't theirs to begin with and that was taken with malicious intent. I wasn't aware that TC was on the record for not having paid, but that, as I said in my eyes makes little to no difference. I wish sincerely that TC will have a helping of their own medicine and we'll see how they react, judging by this 'poll' I don't think they'll be as gracious as twitter was. ------ NathanKP It's one thing to hack out of educational interest or as a "white hat" but this hacker's motive was just to make money. Therefore my vote would obviously be yes, he should be prosecuted. If what the hacker says in his chat log is true, and he has made money by redirecting major sites in the past then he definitely deserves it. ------ hunterclarke Don't get me wrong, I do not support hackers, but I feel like TechCrunch's game-like approach to this is a little immature. Nothing but a publicity stunt. ~~~ sdurkin They're the ones who got hacked, and they're giving the guy a chance to avoid charges, all while having fun. I understand your point, but I also get why TC's doing it. ------ vinhboy Lame. Can you at least tell us how you got hacked? I thought we are tech geeks here.... ~~~ lionhearted I'm guessing a Wordpress exploit - there were a few of them a while back. If you go to techcrunch.com/wp-admin it looks like they're running custom Wordpress. ~~~ sfall they are running off wordpress.com [http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/18/wordpress-com-outage- techcr...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/18/wordpress-com-outage-techcrunch/) ------ frisco There's usually a fine line when prosecuting 'hackers' like this. Are they just playing around to see what they can do? Do you have a substantial chance to point them in the right direction for the future if you don't take the legal route? In this case, though, it just looks like an uneducated thug of the internet that Arrington would have little hope of converting. ~~~ jacquesm If that same thug hacks facebook next week and offers the stuff he finds during the hack on an underground forum for a fee Arrington will be the first in line to pay. ~~~ astrange The reply to you from a TechCrunch employee up there ^ indicates the opposite. I tend to believe people like that, it generally works out. ------ dschobel While it's certainly up any victim to testify / support a prosecution, isn't the actual decision of whether a crime has been committed and whether to pursue prosecution up to the law enforcement agencies? Any legal types around to clarify? ~~~ metamemetics Correct. However if a "victim" is not willing to cooperate it is often not worth it for a prosecutor to invest limited resources into a case. ------ ErrantX Wow, ok that makes that evidence comletely inadmisable! :-) I hope they have some more. ------ zackattack I'd rather press charges against people who make comments on TechCrunch. Tangential note, are there any good encryption plugins for GMail/Gchat/IRC? ~~~ dinde If you're using gchat over pidgin, then the OTR plugin. ------ enjo Right in the pooper indeed.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
California governor signs bill to bring Bitcoin and other currency into fold - tilt http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/29/us-usa-california-bitcoin-idUSKBN0F402T20140629 ====== thinkcomp This bill is largely irrelevant and pro forma. There was no enforcement of the underlying statute it repeals anyway. The bigger development is what's going on with AB 2209, also sponsored by Dickinson--the only legislator I've ever seen censor public comments by refusing to accept ones he doesn't like. Here's AB 2209: [http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi- bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_2209&...](http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi- bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_2209&sess=CUR&house=B) Rather than repeal the Money Transmission Act (which also governs Bitcoin), they're adding a loophole such that money transmission is exempted from the definition of "money transmission." Here's some Public Records Act documents from the DBO, which enforces the MTA: [https://archive.org/details/california-dbo- emails](https://archive.org/details/california-dbo-emails) They call New York regulators "fools" for "rushing" to regulate Bitcoin. The upshot is that every Bitcoin startup in California is still and will still be breaking multiple laws, possibly including the MTA (which AB 129 has no effect on) and Y Combinator and other VCs are just as liable legally as any of the founders of those startups via federal law. ~~~ smtddr _> >This bill is largely irrelevant and pro forma. There was no enforcement of the underlying statute it repeals anyway._ This is true until it isn't[1]. 1\. [http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/560564-the-essence-of- fascis...](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/560564-the-essence-of-fascism-is- to-make-laws-forbidding-everything) _> >The upshot is that every Bitcoin startup in California is still and will still be breaking multiple laws, possibly including the MTA (which AB 129 has no effect on) and Y Combinator and other VCs are just as liable legally as any of the founders of those startups via federal law._ And this is exactly why I'm glad there are people who use legal reforms to chip away at situations like this. Companies & people that are operating in a form that's technically illegal but nobody enforced the law on them. One day, Coinbase or whatever starts getting really big then some back-room deal(extortion) happens where someone says _" Look, you either play ball with me or I'll start reminding powerful authority figures about Law ABC of section 123, on appendix XYZ passed 7 years ago as an amendment to a completely unrelated bill nobody was paying attention to that would shutdown your whole operation."_ I'd also like to see some kind of reform for the ridiculous situation created by IRS declaring bitcoin as property without any clear process of accounting and reporting it on your taxes. Look at this: [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tax_compliance](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tax_compliance) ...what am I suppose to do here? What this really cause is the creation of 2 kinds of people. Those overwhelmed/intimidated by IRS and just quit bitcoin altogether, then those who choose to just ignore it and thus are now breaking a law that definitely won't be uniformly enforced. Forget about the counter- argument _" Well, they choose to break the law so they need to accept the consequences"_. Those who are thinking of this I invite to read the following: [http://www.marco.org/2012/02/25/right-vs- pragmatic](http://www.marco.org/2012/02/25/right-vs-pragmatic) . It's nonsensical to expect everyone involved in buying/selling bitcoin to suddenly be able to handle the tax implications in this fashion. There was a time I was able to just create a bitcoin QRcode coupon and give it to someone without a second thought. Now it's all mixed up with property tax or something; I dunno.... nobody does. At least that Wiki entry isn't 100% sure and nobody wants to be on the receiving end of IRS's wrath. ~~~ esbranson > _Law ABC of section 123, on appendix XYZ passed 7 years ago as an amendment > to a completely unrelated bill nobody was paying attention to_ Surely you've read all 150,000 section of the California statutes, 50,000 sections of the federal statutes, 30,000 sections of the California regulations, and 30,000 of the federal regulations. I mean, its not as if the government is _purposely_ not publishing the law in an _accessible_ manner. The government spends billions of dollars to send frogs into space, so _surely_ the law must be so easy to find and read that you can download it in a standardized, machine-readable format from a multitude of sources, for free (as in freedom and as in beer).. ~~~ gknoy Is it fair to say that the laws are deliberately not published in an accessible manner? It seems more plausible that the sheer volume of the laws and amendments mean that it's hard to publish them in an accessible way. If only we could adopt a git workflow. ;) ~~~ esbranson Its often available in a standardized, machine-readable format, but inaccessible nonetheless. _E.g._ , California's laws have been available in XML since the 1990s or something, but they weren't accessible until 2009 or so.[1] Inaccessibility is obviously not a technical problem. [1] [http://maplight.org/pr_lawsuit](http://maplight.org/pr_lawsuit) ------ ForFreedom If Bitcoin is folded with other currencies then Bitcoin can have a say in the currency value unlike the govts having a say of their individual currencies. And that my friends is madness as one institution will have a say over the buying value of all the people in the world. ~~~ icebraining I understand the individual words, but I have no idea what you're trying to say. ------ kolev This isn't a bill about just Bitcoin, why is it singled-out in the title? Oh, because all the Bitcoin maniacs will keep echoing like there's no tomorrow! ~~~ kordless The only people I see getting violently insane over Bitcoin are people who are afraid of it and unable to resolve their cognitive dissonance over it. I get you don't like it - but that doesn't mean you have a right to make blaming statements over it. I for one, am not a maniac. BTW, contrary to your statement saying the bill isn't just about Bitcoin, here's the link to the brief: [http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/asm/ab_0101-0150/ab...](http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/asm/ab_0101-0150/ab_129_cfa_20140117_114927_asm_comm.html). Bitcoin is mentioned 23 times - a good reason to single it out if there ever was one. ~~~ kolev I don't mind the flies... unless they start bugging me with their annoying buzz.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Worst Internet in America - nafizh https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-worst-internet-in-america/ ====== birdman3131 I used to live in Saguache County as a kid. We left in 2000 but this article does not surprise me. it is hard to adequately get across how desolate it was up there but i'll try. We had 40 acres of land and were considered city slickers because 40 acres was enough for 1-2 cows. We were friends with people with 25k acres. The ground was sand. 10 foot down was sand. You could water plants 3 times a day and they would still run out of water. (My mom fixed this with lots of silca gel for her garden.) We lived on a county road and the postal service would not deliver mail closer that 2 miles away. We never did put up a mailbox and instead just had a PO box in Moffat which was about 8 miles of gravel roads away. Annual rainfall is less than the Sahara dessert and temps would hit -40F in the winter. Some days would see 70F difference between day and night. Walmart was 40 miles away (Alamosa in one direction and Salida in the other.) In parts there are no trees for miles. We had ~30 trees by our house. The next ones were at another house 1/4 mile away and I believe the next were 2 miles away. Our phone system used an antenna that looked like the old tv arials and was solar with a battery on it. (96/97 era.) We had that for about a year before the phone company decided they needed the system more in alaska and would lay phone line for free rather than charging us $6k to run the lines half a mile. Then they waited a year to come get out system. The battery on it would routinely run out in the middle of a call. ~~~ manmal Wow that sounds hard. Have you ever considered founding a utilities company yourself and lay those lines for you and your neighbors? I have no idea how easy or hard that would have been. ~~~ sgt101 You need access to capital to do that, and if you have access to capital you probably aren't in a place that considers 2 cows as wealthy. ~~~ Ensorceled They were "city slickers" because they _only_ had _two_ cows (or, more likely, only had enough land for two) where as everybody else had many, many more. City slicker isn't an insult that means "rich" by the way, it means from the city and hence not willing do a hard day's work, dresses too nice and is not trustworthy. ~~~ birdman3131 For us it was not really an insult. It was poking fun at us but it was not meant in a bad way. Not to say it could not be meant as one though. ~~~ Ensorceled I know what you mean, my family calls me a city slicker and that's how they intend it as well. I hope ... ------ i_feel_great That page shows the worst use of the internet in the world. 15.88 MB in size according to Firefox. And unintuitive gimmick navigation to boot. How does doing something like that help convey the message? ~~~ zkms This seems like an extraneous tetchy comment but I don't think it is. Extant slow internet connections would be a lot more usable if websites weren't full of video/audio adverts, trackers, and JS being used for stuff (displaying text/images or doing some awful and slow scrolling) that browsers do well natively. Try using the internet (beyond HN or gmail or pinboard) on a mediocre internet connection without any adblocker or noscript-equivalent. It gets nasty very fast. To be fair, this isn't a justification for not building out better last-mile links -- just like, the miserable state of residential internet connections in the US is made a lot worse by awful bloated websites. [https://danluu.com/web- bloat/](https://danluu.com/web-bloat/) and [http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm](http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm) are good reads on this. ~~~ Tenshiri I may be wrong, but wouldn't the full "suite" of privacy tools, like uBlock, Privacy Badger, etc actually speed up these connections based on this? ------ Smaug123 That page has a bad case of terrible website design. When I scroll down, I expect bits of image not to zoom in from the left. I nearly closed the page before even getting to the headline. They've also somehow made space bar not scroll as far as it does on other websites (in Safari), so every time I scroll down I spend a second searching for where I ended up. At least there's only two locations of awful design during the adventure that is scrolling. Once you reach the headline, there's only one really unintuitive bit further down the page (a map of the USA), and that bit is short. ~~~ drxzcl I could not read it on my iPad in landscape mode. Worked fine in portrait orientation. I don't know why. ~~~ macintux I switched to Reader. Looked like landscape could work if you were patient enough, but it was painful. ------ randyrand > if a household wants a download speed of 12 Mbps with an upload speed of 2 > Mbps, they can expect to pay a whopping $90. This is the worst internet in america? Wow. That is amazing! I'm incredibly impressed at how fast the worst place for internet in america is. In highschool (Class of 2011) I dealt with 5 mbps just because my parents didn't want to pay for more. It was tolerable as long as you didn't want to watch youtube in HD. Honestly, I have little sympathy for people with 12mbps. ~~~ ajmurmann As others have pointed out websites have gotten much larger for no good reason. The article we all just read is apparently over 18MB. My internet also used to be much slower than what people in that town can have. However, the internet was optimised for that. ~~~ randyrand Huge article even by today's standards. So the article would load in ~10 seconds under 12mbps, and thats assuming they don't have asynchronous progressive loading of larger images and such. - which i think they do. Not really a big inconvenience IMO. ------ EliRivers Serious question from someone who flinches at living more than ten minutes' walk from a train station and won't rent anything that doesn't have a crackerjack shower with painfully hot water and enough pressure to bruise, and an internet connection that sees less than a few minutes degraded service a year (although for speed, I actually don't demand that much - I'm happy with a couple of megabytes per second); why do people live there? That's a genuine question; not "why" as said to imply that there is no reason. There must be reasons. I just don't know what they are. Not generalities, please. I'm interested in first-hand information from people who actually live or lived there. Did you move to such a place? Why? What's the economy based on? Does it generate enough money to be self-sustaining, or does it exist through inertia? In areas with such low density of people, what jobs exist? Is it all farming or other such? How many people living there might actually like to move, but can't? ~~~ darkstar999 Farming and ranching. Case closed. Also, the rural population has quite a different culture than what you are used to. They don't _crave_ internet. Some of them likely ask the same thing about your culture. Why do you like living so close to each other? Everything is so fast and overwhelming. ~~~ EliRivers "Farming and ranching. Case closed." Is it? Are you a farmer or rancher? Why's it necessary to live so remotely? Is it not possible for a town to support farming and ranching? Is it necessary for everyone involved to live so remotely? Given the huge areas involved, living on the farm/ranch makes you local to one small part of it but still remote from all the rest, so why the need to live there? "Why do you like living so close to each other?" I don't, but it's the cost of having the things I do want. I want fast, reliable, cheap internet. I want my other utilities to be reliable as well. I want to be able to walk ten minutes to a mainline train station - it gives me a lot of opportunities very easily, needing nothing more than train fare. The density of people creates a lot of other opportunities; things that are wildly uneconomical in low-density communities become viable. Range of jobs, range of businesses for me to patronise, leisure opportunities. It's really about all those opportunities, and the people that make them. When I want to learn something, I just find a local class. If there isn't a local class, it's an hour from my door on foot and by train to central London (and I don't even live in a county adjacent to London), and there the opportunities increase by another order of magnitude. We don't (necessarily) like living close to each other; we like all the opportunities that are created by that - economic and self-development - and we like the many things that become economical in doing so (cheap, reliable utilities and infrastructure and niche businesses and all the rest that I mentioned above). ~~~ Aloha Both Farming and Ranching require a sizable amount of land to be viable. It's much more viable to live on the land you farm (or ranch on), than it is to live in town. Beyond that, cities create higher land values that tend to make farming or ranching non-viable. That said, even rural towns are very underserved in the US. ------ Andrenid I live in Melbourne, AU.. 4km from city centre, in a brand new high-rise building. I pay AUD$80/mth for 8mbps down and 0.5mbps up over shitty copper that dies every time it rains. Pings are so bad lots of services like Netflix, YouTube, etc think I can't connect and just give me "Check your internet" errors when I load, until I refresh multiple times and get it to load. Funnily enough, our rural areas have better net than us here. I own a farm in the absolute middle of nowhere (region population of around 500) and it gets solid 24/4 and some farms nearby who face a better direction for fixed wireless get 50/8 (or something like that). ~~~ protomyth My buddy outside Valley City ND (calling it a city was wildly optimistic) gets 1 gigabyte up 256mb down for USD$90. As you’ve said, it’s a bit more than a rural / urban problem. ------ mrbill My mother lives in rural Oklahoma, and her Internet connection (2-3Mbps/1Mbps for $60 a month) is a WiMax antenna on the roof of her house, pointed at another antenna on the water tower of the next town over. It's not great, but it's the only option she has other than satellite providers, and works well enough for Facebook, email, and online shopping. ~~~ jonah My parents had dial up until about 2 years ago. On a good day, they'd get 28.8, but typically it was more like 14.4 kbps! When it rained and water got in the phone lines, they got nothing at all. And yes, they'd try to get the phone company to fix the lines often to no avail. They are only 20 minutes from town but it's too far to get DSL or cable or anything like that and the terrain is too hilly for fixed wireless which did become available in their county four or five years ago. They finally broke down and got satellite internet a couple years ago but it's slow and expensive. ~~~ mrbill When Mom was stuck with using a modem, I bought her a (literal) stack of USR Courier v.Everything modems (cheap, since a lot of ISPs in Austin were ditching dialup service around that time). She had lightning hits and storms so often that I told her "if you try to dial up and the modem isn't working, just unplug it, toss it in the trash, and plug in the next one off the stack." Had to do this even with surge protection inline for both power and phone line. Only in the past couple of years have I been able to get an LTE phone signal at her house (only while standing on the porch, not inside the building) and that's from a tower a few miles away... ------ mtalantikite "For around $30 a month, New York City internet providers offer basic packages of 100 Mbps service." I'd love to know where in NYC this service exists. I currently pay $60/month for 50Mbps and often get half that speed in practice. My office Internet service is even worse, it goes out 3-5 times a day and I've had maybe a dozen techs come out to look at both spaces. They won't even let me use my own modem because it's business Internet, which they charge 3x the price for. I've looked for alternatives, but have never had any other option than over- priced terrible service from Time Warner/Spectrum for the past decade. ------ contingo The infomap "Broadband is still foreign to much of the U.S." shows high speed internet largely confined to urban areas, as the article discusses. But large swathes of North Dakota are deep green. What's the reason for that? ~~~ boomboomsubban Oil money, North Dakota is the second largest producer of oil in the US. There was no big announced project, just a large number of grants and tax cuts to promote infrastructure investment. And, from the looks of it, a depressing amount of the area without access are the reservations. ~~~ bachmeier > a depressing amount of the area without access are the reservations. I'm from North Dakota and went to high school on the Standing Rock reservation. They have their own institutions and legal system, so it's not surprising that they would have different coverage. ~~~ protomyth Standing Rock also has to deal with two state governments. ------ mtl_usr As a Canadian, this article sums up pretty well the internet situation in most of the country, even in "urban" areas. Due to the "Canada is different" mentality here, foreign, more efficient companies are forbidden from making business here, leaving the market to a few local operators that have no incentive to make the service any better. This leads to the country being years later in terms of broadband technology compared to other western countries. There is no excuse for that. Canadian tech is always pretty much a crippled version of the same product from the United States at a higher price. Even in hardware, the same MacBook is 1,799.00 $ in the US but 2,399.00 $ in Canada. Saguache County is in the same situation thanks to it's remote location, but I bet you it'll get fixed far sooner than Canada's nonsense situation in term of internet access. I hope the ambitious infrastructure plan the US has adopted will somewhat cover the installation of better rural internet access. ------ kome And that's why web developer should stop using JavaScript without reason and use pure and clean HTML, CSS and well compressed images. ------ ambrop7 Assuming the page is from America, it seems quite close to the worst considering I had to scroll through ~3 pages equivalent of weirdly horizontally scrolling images while all but the sky of the images was obscured by a cookie warning spanning 1/3 of the page (uncovering an equally large subscription request after being dismissed). ------ qq66 Most of these articles about broadband access conflate Internet access with broadband speeds. Yes, Internet access is basically a necessity in modern life. However, 25Mbps download (which is the definition used) is absolutely not. ~~~ rwallace As I understand it, while the talk is about speed, the real issue is reliability: in rural America if you try to get broadband, some of the time you'll get a few megabits per second, which is enough to get by, but a good deal of the time, your nominally broadband connection won't be delivering any data at all. ------ Tepix This is an interesting market for the upcoming broadband satellite internet by Boeing, SpaceX, etc. They will provide low latency because they are in low earth orbit. ~~~ vram22 Interesting, got any links about that? And do you know if it for the whole world or only some parts of it? ------ dispo001 I applaud the comparison with electricity. This is almost exactly how I look at it. I would compare Internet providers with utilities providing water, roads, sewage and even the post. To think at one time we had telegraph data lines that were little more than a mud battery and a pole. The wire would run up the pole, go though a relay switched by the previous pole and continue to the next pole where it would switch its own relay. The mud battery provided very little power, just enough to switch a relay but the technology was good enough to bridge almost unlimited distance. Without comparison with other services I would be tempted to argue my ISP provides really great services. Its 75 Euro for 300 Mbit and the package comes with a phone line and hundreds of channels of something called television. However, when compared honestly with similar services their service is terrible. People working there told me the entire network is ready to provide 1 Gbit to everyone and the employees don't know why they didn't make the switch. I can easily guess why, I'm not willing to pay much more than 75 Euro, 3 times the speed wont bring in 3 times the money. What it will do is reveal glitches in the network that would require fixing. If I remember correctly the people who created the ISP were very passionate about the technology but ended up selling the business. Not sure if that was related but if I was passionate about my business but couldn't upgrade because of a hunger for money I would get bored fast. Using more of this rather ignorant guess work I started to ponder how an ideal ISP should be implemented. What would it really cost? Which type of contract is best for the network rather than the user or the provider? Surprisingly, in some areas where big money hungry ISPs refused to deliver services people had to rethink and do it themselves. Like this one here! [http://www.buergerbreitbandnetz.de/fernsehen-ueber- glasfaser...](http://www.buergerbreitbandnetz.de/fernsehen-ueber-glasfaser- fuer-nur-995-e-im-monat/) The "Glasfaser – für nur 9,95 € im Monat" translates to fiber optic for 10 Euro (?!?) My German almost isn't but from reading around I gathered they needed 65% adoption but got 94%, each end user had to pay 1000 Euro in advance. 900 in the form of a lone and 100 worth of shares. To guess some numbers with that... 7 and a half years worth of 10 Euro/month does seem to add up to 900 Euro while profit made after that should increase the value of the investment. IOW, if it takes 20 years to repay the debt it would work out just fine for the investor/customer. Some quote from speedtest: "With an average Q2-Q3 2016 download speed comparable to that in Bulgaria and Moldova, Germany’s fixed broadband is slower than you might expect from Europe’s largest economy. At 40.38 Mbps, Germany ranks 29th in the world for average fixed broadband download speed and 72nd for average upload." A different page mentions: "Expect a 35€ bill on average for a broad-brand connection" Most important to keep in mind, the big ISPs refused to service the area. It makes a great proof of concept. (Assuming buergerbreitbandnetz delivers 1 Gbps) in this worse case scenario 10/35 buys 1000/40.38 times the bandwidth. Or 29% of the cost for 2476% of the service. Or the 2 figured combined their service is 8438% better than the conventional urban offering. Rural UK ISP [https://b4rn.org.uk](https://b4rn.org.uk) happened when big business "could" only provide crappy services at crazy rates. B4RN charges 30 pounds for 1 Gbps. speedtest writes: "according to the Connected Nations 2015 report from the UK’s communications regulator, Office of Communications (Ofcom), 48% of rural areas don’t have access to broadband speeds of 10Mbps or higher." Of course our germans and these brits had money to make their own ISP happen. My Spanish and my Greek are even worse than my German but from reading around, apparently Guifi is the worlds largest Mesh network in Greece that originally started in Spain. [http://guifi.net/en/what_is_guifinet](http://guifi.net/en/what_is_guifinet) Trying to make sense of this document... [https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&...](https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://guifi.net/files/20170528InformacioAddicionalDenunciaGeneralitat_Final_signed.pdf&usg=ALkJrhjuH1IO9ufyAP6zEHXxdF1Xho6Hww) ...it seems they are actively fighting a tax per meter that guberment is trying to inflict on their fiber optic cables. If I understood correctly they are mainly offended by established businesses putting their cable in before the tax was invented. It seems big business did more than seal the ground after digging in their cables. How different this is from the mundane consumer perspective where we all pay some corp as much as we can for as little as we would accept. We live in a world that is a bit like: when one asks why a carton of milk costs 200 Dollars the answer would be that if they charge 300 USD for it they wouldn't sell enough milk to justify the higher price. Our entire western society works like this (I almost called it a civilization) one delivers 12 Dollars worth of labor that is sold for 40 Dollars, etc, and eventually it becomes 1000 dollars as part of a mortgage or infinite dollars as part of someones rent. If that is the mentality or indoctrination that comes over these roads, in these letters and though this internet tube it might just be not worth having any of it. [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/4/42/20150...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/4/42/20150103143744%21Woodbridge_old_barn_raising.jpg) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1CPO4R8o5M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1CPO4R8o5M) ~~~ Tepix The German page you found is for a deal where existing customers can get IP-TV for 10€/month. The 50MBit/s plans start at 26€/month or so. ~~~ dispo001 Ah, thanks. ------ diebir Sounds doubtful. Worst Internet is not on the Navajo res (UT, AZ)? Not in Hanksville, UT or a bunch of other small towns in Southern Utah? I am not even talking about ranches in places like Robbers Roost canyon complex. Nothing in Colorado is really remote and unpopulated. Roads and people are everywhere. Maybe San Juans qualify for remote wilderness somewhat. ------ kronos29296 I would do anything for your so called worst speeds. Your worst is better than my best speeds. ------ shmerl How is SpaceX low orbit satellites ISP project progressing? ------ mrkrabo Looking at the photos, I'm surprised there's Internet connectivity at all in those places, other than 3G or maybe WiMAX. I think it's not realistic to complain about this. The costs of bringing infrastructure to a place like this are simply too high. ~~~ kalleboo We brought electricity and phone service to these places. What makes internet different? ~~~ birdman3131 Lived there once. (More info in my other reply.) They wanted 15k to bring electric lines half a mile. $6k for phone. We never did have electric outside of solar/wind/genarator. We had phone service via a device they installed that had a solar panel and an antenna that looked like this on it. [https://cdn.instructables.com/FNY/J38K/GXQPMTQV/FNYJ38KGXQPM...](https://cdn.instructables.com/FNY/J38K/GXQPMTQV/FNYJ38KGXQPMTQV.LARGE.jpg) After a year or so they decided they needed it more in Alaska and they laid the line for free. Then waited a year to collect the equipment they so desperately needed in Alaska. ~~~ kalleboo It's interesting that it's so expensive to get electric service these days. I wonder how things actually looked in the heyday of the rural electrification board. My parents live in rural Australia (similarly 40 miles to the nearest supermarket) so I have some idea but obviously it's very different geography and a different a situation - they have electric and a rotten phone line (certainly can't reach 56K), but get their internet through a rooftop antenna connecting to 3G. ~~~ rayiner Probably similar: [https://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2017/02/power-farmer- minne...](https://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2017/02/power-farmer-minnesota- and-rural-electrification-administration). The article quotes $600 per mile in 1939. That's $10,500 per mile adjusted for inflation, but the inflation metric isn't a good one here. Inflation is calculated using consumer prices. The inputs for electric (or telecom) infrastructure are mainly labor and materials, which are relatively more expensive than they were back in 1940. For example, if you scale $600 by the change in minimum wage over that time, you get $20,500, about what's quoted. ~~~ xenadu02 It is my understanding that the REA charged a flat fee per home and ate the cost to the extent it exceeded the fee. They also setup generating stations and gave loans to power companies (and later rural telephone companies). A lot of that assistance isn't available anymore.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Happy Demise of the 10X Engineer - KhalilK http://nuzzel.com/sharedstory/07302014/a16z/the_happy_demise_of_the_10x_engineer ====== marktangotango >The other layers of the stack will be abstracted away entirely and writing software will continue to look more like assembling a collection of Github- hosted libraries and APIs. Then you're constrained to the solutions others are also using, with all the preconceptions and problems associated with them. If all you're doing is putting together lego blocks as the author maintains, then that's not 10x, that's 1x. Developer productivety trends toward 1 the author maintains, and non technical people can create the next billion dollar start up, because it's all building blocks. Like plumbing according to the author. Tell that to the plumber who flooded my basement due to improperly sealing the pipes feeding the shower head. ------ greenyoda This was extensively discussed yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8109083](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8109083)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
EC considering removing Internet Explorer from Windows - hsrd7777 http://ibtimes.com/articles/20090119/considering-removing-internet-explorer-from-windows.htm In a preliminary ruling, the European Commission told Microsoft that linking Internet Explorer to its dominant Windows operating system violates EC rules. ====== RiderOfGiraffes See items <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=440276> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=437333> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=438639> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=439233>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Attacked on Twitter by Russian Catbots - Have you ever seen this before? - Jagannath http://www.chloebregman.com/2013/03/14/attack-of-the-russian-catbots/ ====== by_Seeing Play it cool. 300 cats can't be wrong. ------ wakkus there are goats as well! ------ rock_hard hahaha	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Help with picking a semi-restrictive license for a project on GitHub - heliodor Hi, I'm having a hard time finding the right license for a project of mine, so I'm hoping to get some pointers from folks here. I want to put a software project on Github. The idea is to put it on Github and have people use it as a tool in running their business. I plan to also make it available as a SaaS product, so I don't want others doing the same. The public should use it as a tool internally, not sell it as a product externally. Finally, I'm not sure what to make of redistribution rights. ====== kawera Instead of using a restrictive license you also have other options to protect your SaaS business: \- Excel in execution and price your offer to be a no-brainer when compared to running/mantaining a self-hosted version. \- Premium add-ons not available as OSS (without crippling the free version) \- Sell a self-hosted "enterprise" version that includes premium features/add- ons. \- For those that want/need to run their own OSS instance you can always offer consulting/trainning/support services.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
GoComm (YC S13) Takes On Yammer Mobile For Task Management, Event Coordination - gedmark http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/13/yc-backed-gocomm-takes-on-yammer-mobile-for-task-management-event-coordination/ ====== igul222 I organize a 1,000 person hackathon at MIT, and the entire organizing team is super-excited about using this. In hindsight, GoComm seems so simple and obvious that one wonders why nobody built it before, but I guess that's true of all the best products (Dropbox, Stripe, etc.) ~~~ adamhooper It's a no-brainer for anybody that's been in the event management space. The problem is you're so bogged down in running the events you don't have time to take a step back and innovate - which is probably true of most industries. Great team and awesome product, excited to see where they go! ------ btipling Very cool. We're using Asana and love it, but there's always room for innovation in task management. Also yclist.com is way behind all the S13 announcements, who is maintaining that list? ~~~ stephanos2k They should put the company information in a JSON file hosted on GitHub. ------ stephanos2k That's a great idea. I never organised an event but this sounds like it can come in handy. ------ mahzari Seems like a good idea from a capable team. I'd love to beta test it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Lora-based device-to-device smartphone communication for crisis scenarios [pdf] - oliver2213 https://dtn7.github.io/assets/hoechst2020lora.pdf ====== robshep Instead of a trivial use-case of existing technology it would be far more beneficial to model (1) RF subscriber characteristics and how an unmanaged network of point-to-point devices can support crisis communications when a potentially (very) large number of devices can flip over to long-range point to point. How is congestion managed and mitigated? how is available spectrum, channel space and bandwidth most effectively used? And (2) The paper mentions an upstream message board and the underlying networking features provided by DTN7 describe a range of routing protocols. If nodes are taking part in a self-organising mesh network that can route in and out to central services then the management of layer-1 & layer-2 is crucial to maintain a working network. It doesn't model any of the characteristics of the medium and any strategies for how the underlying physical characteristics can be leveraged to support a mesh. LoRa is excellent at long range, but with Long Range transmission comes a greater opportunity to interfere with other transmissions. Sure you can reach a long way so a low number of rural casualties can be serviced effectively, but what happens when you have a dense urban scenario and there are 10's/100's/1000's of nodes all hitting refresh on twitter and they are all interfering with each other and the few low-bandwidth gateway nodes are attempting to carry the traffic? ~~~ viraptor > 10's/100's/1000's of nodes all hitting refresh on twitter That's not going to happen with Lora. This it completely different scale of messaging. Your message is limited in bytes and takes multiple seconds to transmit. You can assume the messages will be significantly delayed if 100 people around are actively using it. But it's designed for a specific purpose and there's no active refreshing/polling that's going to happen. ~~~ robshep Exactly. How many people could this support? My guess it would be a small proportion of an urban population. > no active refreshing/polling Maybe not twitter specifically, but the paper mentions a centralised message board like twitter, so we can assume some sort of interactive service would be suggested. My main point is this that for such a specific bearer (bandwidth, channel plan, duty cycle, range etc) it is important to model the capabilities. I’m not sure how well this would support a crisis (notably free of central management) when there is the potential for large numbers of nodes. ------ ColanR Mostly what we need is fewer restrictions on some better radio frequencies. Legalizing encrypted Ham radio would be a good start. If there was an ecosystem of infrastructure around those frequencies, we would have no problem whatsoever building robust mesh networks with higher bandwidth that could operate uninterrupted through crisis scenarios. As it is, we've been left with scraps; and this article describes an amazing tool which shouldn't have to exist. ~~~ kitotik It’s sad that the likelihood of legal encrypted Ham is decreasing. This would be such a fun and useful platform to start spinning up services on. ~~~ ohazi We should build the services anyway. We can design radios that use spread-spectrum / low-probability-of-intercept / below-the-noise-floor techniques that can make the services both harder to identify, and (more importantly) far, far less likely to interfere with anything else on the same frequencies, which is what the FCC _actually_ cares about. If this is useful, and if people actually want to use it, they will, and then the cat will be out of the bag and we can make a case for legalization. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. They're never going to give you permission for something theoretical. People have to be using it and not willing to give it up, like uber, and then they'll go "gee, I guess we need to figure out how to make this work." ~~~ ColanR This. The original hackers didn't bother with the legality of what they did - it was interesting and awesome, and some of them went to jail for it, but it was _worth it_. I'm with you on this idea. ------ leoedin This sounds similar to this project: [https://www.meshtastic.org/](https://www.meshtastic.org/) which was featured on HN a few weeks ago. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22540066](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22540066) I think selling it as a communicator for skiing/hiking is maybe a better idea than as a disaster radio, solely because a disaster radio is never really going to be used. If it's a useful, well used system that happens to be highly resiliant, that makes it much more likely to be available when a disaster hits. ~~~ punkgeek yep - I'm one of the meshtastic devs and that was our thought as well. * use off the shelf hardware, so user can just buy a finished device from China * make it cheap * Make something useful for people in general (without disaster) - then they will have it when the disaster happens. ~~~ gh0st42 One of the paper authors here and the one mainly responsible for the rf95modem firmware. The idea was not only to provide another msg app but a platform that can easily be used for different applications. One use-case in the paper is the chat app, the dtn part is not directly connected to the chat app but also uses the LoRa modem. The modem firmware (initially developed in 2017/2018) is even more general purpose and is currently used in many different ways in different projects and prototypes. The main selling point is that one can easily connect cheap LoRa hardware to smartphones and desktop computers without microcontroller programming or providing specific device drivers. Thus, the same modem can be used for messaging as well as environmental monitoring or other IoT applications without the need to reprogram the LoRa modules. ------ fragmede This sounds quite similar to GoTenna, which was founded back in 2013 and has had multiple successful kickstarters. [https://gotenna.com/](https://gotenna.com/) ~~~ gh0st42 One of the paper's authors here. GoTenna is definitely similar in its use-case and appearance. The problem with GoTenna is similar to FireChat for offline communication: they are closed ecosystems, single purpose and cannot easily be changed to fit specific needs. If you need something consumer-grade, ready to use: go for GoTenna (or Sonnet or maybe even a Garmin InReach or Spot X). We propose different proof of concepts in the paper that are nowhere near the product quality of commercial solutions. Also, the chat application is single- hop and does not yet use a DTN underlay, at least not in the published version. But all code is open and can easily be extended. Even better, the rf95modem firmware is designed to be used as-is. Once loaded on a LoRa board anyone can implement anything over device-to-device LoRa, be it a msg app, local news broadcast, IoT monitoring. This works via AT commands over USB serial interface, local esp32 WiFi or BLE. ~~~ fragmede That's great! A known shortcoming of Gotenna is that it assumes civilization (play/app store, Internet access) in order to set it the device, which isn't totally reassuring to go off into the wilderness with (its primary use case). ------ nanomonkey Sudomesh has been working on one of these devices, disaster radio: [https://disaster.radio](https://disaster.radio) ~~~ state_less I like the solar integration. My ideal product would be a programmable LoRa transceiver integrates into a waterproof battery bank with solar, gps and a small touch screen. Should be about the size of a large handheld which could mounted on a house, tree, mast or carry it in a pocket/bag. Apps could be, SOS messages, chat and weather information. If it’s extensible (e.g. something like an app store or package manager), I’m sure folks will dream up additional uses. Sort of like a more hackable/accessible phone and long range radio. ~~~ westurner Unfortunately, the Earl tablet never made it to market: [https://blog.the- ebook-reader.com/2015/01/26/video-update-ab...](https://blog.the-ebook- reader.com/2015/01/26/video-update-about-earl-an-e-ink-survival-tablet/) Earl specs: Waterproof; Solar charging; eInk; ANT+; NFC; VHF/UHF transceiver (GMRS, PMR446, UHFCB); GPS; Sensors: Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Magnetometer, Temperature, Barometer, Humidity; AM/FM/SW/LW/WB LTE, LoRa, 5G, and Hostapd would be great Being able to plug it into a powerbank and antennas for use as a fixed or portable e.g. BATMAN mesh relay would be great ------ eqvinox So... what exactly is the crisis scenario this is modeled for? I can't come up with a reasonable situation where mobile networks are completely f*cked, yet my smartphone is still running medium- to long-term. Maybe I'm not creative enough. (The only thing that comes close is a large-scale power outage, but then after a day or two my smartphone battery is dead too. Also, the same measures to revive the smartphone [solar backup, generators, etc.] can also be used to revive the mobile network...) [Add.: what definitely makes sense is a _dedicated_ LoRa-based emergency network, which uses dedicated user agents with low power draw and long-term batteries. Just ditch the smartphone?] ------ westurner "LoRa+WiFi ClusterDuck Protocol by Project OWL for Disaster Relief" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22707267](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22707267) > _An opkg (for e.g. OpenWRT) with this mesh software would make it possible > to use WiFi /LTE routers with a LoRa transmitter/receiver connected over > e.g. USB or Mini-PCIe._ ------ tralarpa I don't understand what the contribution of this paper is. The most important thing, a scability test, is missing. You don't need 16 pages to describe a LoRa-based device-to-device messaging application. ------ pabs3 I wonder when smartphones will start to support LoRa without external hardware. ------ crtlaltdel happy to see this. as a rf tech, lora was promising when i first ran into it cira 2014/15	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
PhpMyAdmin 3.3.10 is released - thefox http://sourceforge.net/news/?group_id=23067&id=298637 ====== joelhaasnoot Nice to hear it's still being developed. Personally, I've moved on to other, better solutions that are client-side. HeidiSQL (<http://www.heidisql.com/>) works well over SSH for Windows, or Sequel Pro for Mac (<http://www.sequelpro.com>). Being able to fastly import and export data, easier query manipulation, syntax highlighting and much better table manipulation. Oh, and MySQL Workbench is a very mature product and is great for modeling and syncing. ------ whalesalad Would have been nice to link instead to the release notes for this version. I assumed that something amazing had happened since the last one, but it's nothing too mindblowing. Link to release notes: [http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmyadmin/files%2FphpMyAdmi...](http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmyadmin/files%2FphpMyAdmin%2F3.3.10%2FphpMyAdmin-3.3.10.html/view) ~~~ nbpoole Not since the last one, but it appears the one before it had a pretty decent sized vulnerability. [http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/security/PMASA-2011-2.ph...](http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/security/PMASA-2011-2.php) ------ JonnieCache I've been using Navicat, a native app for this purpose. Basically mySQL workbench but nicer to use, or that Sequel Pro thing but with more functionality. It's a very polished piece of software, and I highly recommend it. <http://www.navicat.com/> ------ powertower HeidiSQL ( <http://www.heidisql.com/> ) has interesting statistics on its home page: MySQL version usage* MySQL 5.1 44.6% MySQL 5.0 42.8% MySQL 5.5 5.1% MySQL 4.1 4.2% MySQL 4.0 2.0% MySQL 3.23 0.7% MySQL 6.0 0.3% MySQL 5.4 0.1% MySQL 5.2 0.1% MySQL 5.6 0.0% * Reported by 62028 HeidiSQL users over the last month, which have the statistics feature enabled in their preferences dialog. I have a WAMP distro called WampDeveloper that uses MySQL 5.1 and have had a few emails about why I don't use 5.5... Mostly because MySQL (and PHP) have had a really bad history of having their current "general release" versions of being beta quality. To skip the headaches, you should run 1 major version behind. The stats seem to back this up nicely. There are just about as many people using 5.5 as 4.1. P.S., HeidiSQL is written in Delphi / Pascal and is GPLv2. ------ Limes102 phpMyAdmin needs a lot of work in my opinion, it feels incredibly outdated. SequelPro is probably the best MySQL front end I have ever used.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What's the location specific job board you use? - johnwall My friend recently pointed me to a Rails job board in Austin made by the local group AustinOnRails http://lists.austinonrails.org/pipermail/jobs-austinonrails.org/2012-January/thread.html. I was wondering if HN knew about more of these hidden gems. ====== joshontheweb Not in a single place but mostly in Boulder and New York. <http://www.techstars.com/about/jobs/>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Best Way To Present Your Freelance Business - benjaminwootton As a freelancer, are you best to trade under the banner of a small branded company, or all under your own name?<p>My current preference is to brand under my own name as I fear I may fall in the cracks between people who are looking for a freelancer and people who are looking for a business if I try to appear too formal.<p>However, I'm interested in the pros and cons and what other freelancers have chosen. ====== bdunn A lot depends on the kind of clients you want. If you want to be subbed out work or hired short term by an existing development team, marketing your persona, maintaining a technical blog, and other things will definitely help. But if you're like me, you want to work directly with founders and small businesses. They tend to trust companies, they seem more... permanent (even though it costs $100 and an hour of paperwork to put one together) And it's also all about appearances. Say you attend a networking event. When you pass out a business card with "ABC Consulting" and your name followed by "President", I'm almost certain the results would be better than "Brennan Dunn, Web Developer". There are a few other benefits that come with being under a company. I've realized the need for some pretty firm processes: payment schedules, handling additional scope, etc. And I think it's easier to stick to processes when they're a _company_ thing, even if it's just you. Second, if you get more work than you can handle and need to subcontract things out under you, you'll want to manage that as a company. ------ pawelwentpawel If you brand yourself as a small company then the clients might get the feeling that you have an office. Hence, when you try to set up a meeting with them, they might be surprised. I was always telling the truth and saying that I will be the only person working on the project. However, if you don't have an actual company it might be a good idea to say that you work as a collective - a few designers/developers working together and outsourcing the work between each other.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A virtual machine in Excel - ColinWright http://hackaday.com/2014/12/25/writing-a-virtual-machine-in-excel/ ====== userbinator There's a well-known technique for solving certain types of equations by making use of circular references, and people have simulated digital logic too (e.g. [http://mypage.uniserve.ca/~jeffsch/writing/SimPage.html](http://mypage.uniserve.ca/~jeffsch/writing/SimPage.html) and [http://makeyourownchip.tripod.com/flipflop_simulator.html](http://makeyourownchip.tripod.com/flipflop_simulator.html) ), but this is something even more ambitious. I wonder if this virtual machine could be driven by using a circular reference as an "oscillator" ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_oscillator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_oscillator) ) to increment a counter, and use that to fetch and execute instructions... the amount of actual functionality needed to implement a rudimentary CPU is surprisingly small. The actual system a spreadsheet would best simulate is known as a "systolic array": [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systolic_array](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systolic_array) I don't know if it's something to do with culture but for some reason I see far more of this "lateral thinking" and clever creative solutions coming out of Europe and in particular East Europe and Russia than North America - look at the demoscene, for example. ~~~ edem I also live in Hungary and there is a saying "a Hungarian can enter the turnstile after you and leave before you" which is quite true. Everyday life here involves a lot of hacking/tinkering mostly because of the repercussions of bad decisions of our (not only past) leaders. ~~~ sz4kerto I think the correct quote is "If a Hungarian passes through a revolving door right after you he will come out before you". Many fellow Hungarians keep bringing this up because they think that it's a positive thing expressing how clever Hungarians are while in reality this is not exactly intended to flatter anyone. :) ~~~ edem Thanks for the correction. I don't think that it is either positive or negative but it is true in general. In some cases it is useful but sometimes it annoys others. ------ sz4kerto It is quite fascinating that the localized Excel function names do not have some kind of internal reference/ID so a spreadsheet's language could simply be set by the user. ~~~ Someone I think the problem with that is that Excel has a few 'almost like eval' functions. For example, SumIf takes a string like "> sin(2)". You would have to translate those strings at runtime, and may have to guess at the source language (that string might be input by the user) Even if that isn't the case, the engine cannot know whether any macro will change formulas. There, you hit the really troublesome area. VBA has a full eval ([http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/office/ff193019%28v=...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/office/ff193019%28v=office.15%29.aspx)). Even ignoring that, things can get hairy because Excel localizes numbers (is that comma a decimal point or a thousands separator?) and list separators (does one use commas or semicolons as argument separators?) I expect there are some edge cases here that makes this problem unsolvable in practice. Some people will have code that checks whether the string representation of a cell's value contains a comma to check whether it is >= 1000 (or <= -1000.00, but relatively, that is a 'minor' bug)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Housing Costs Reduce the Return to Education - kqr2 https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/07/housing-costs-reduce-return-education.html ====== perilunar To be clear, it's not house prices that are the problem—it's _land_ prices. The problem and its solution were identified by Henry George in his book _Progress and Poverty_ (1879). Seriously, look him up. It's a shame that his work is not better known. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty) ~~~ conanbatt One of the best economic history books. I was convinced 100% on this argument and have never found anyone able to criticize it ,other than "it wont be as good as he claims". Funny thing: Henry George is complaining about poverty and homelessness in California in 1895. Funny thing 2: Land Value Tax is recognized as a great tax both by right/left win economists (Kruger, Milton Friedman, etc). ~~~ SilasX Paul Birch [1] posted a long critique, preserved here: [http://buildengineer.com/www.paulbirch.net/CritiqueOfGeorgis...](http://buildengineer.com/www.paulbirch.net/CritiqueOfGeorgism.html) Key points are in section 7-8. Key paragraphs: >The form of land-use towards which the single tax pushes us is one in which the countryside is randomly dotted with perpendicular towers (tapering wastes land), 200 metre or so on a side, 2000 metre or so high, each tower a complete small town of 50,000 or so, inclusive of apartments, shops, offices, services and factories, but paying no more tax than a single suburban house. The internal economy of those towers will have some similarities to Type III market Georgism, but with the crucial distinction that no one who wishes to cease renting a unit when the current lease expires has any further liability; finding a new tenant is the responsibility of the tower owner. Most of the surrounding countryside will be abandoned or common land and thus effectively exempt from taxation. >That doesn't mean that existing towns would just disappear — there is too much already invested in them — though dereliction would tend to set in over much of the urban area over the course of a century or so as abandoned properties reverted to common ownership. ... >The problem here is that although buildings and other on-site improvements are supposed to remain purely private property, there is no easy way a landholder can remove his property without destroying it if he is outbid in the annual auction. A competing bidder might therefore risk paying considerably over the odds in the reasonable expectation of getting free use of the buildings until the following year, when the original owner may end up paying the market rental on the full property value, not merely the site value, in order to guarantee access to his own property. A sufficiently cheeky tenant could even demand rent from the property owner for allowing the property to remain on the tenant's rented land! [1] of the British Interplanetary society; found just now that he passed in 2012. ~~~ conanbatt Took a fast read at the article. Its a pity he is so angry at Georgism in his writing, and dismissive, but nevertheless he presents a case worth hearing. The indifference vote thing is a fantastic idea, so now I know I'm a Geo- Libertarian. A fatal flaw in this essay is that it mentions LVT as a single tax. It is a bit unfair because originally, when Henry george proposed it, total public spending was very low (under 10%), not the 35% of GDP that it is today. LVT can account for 5-10% of GDP, and thus in our modern times it is only applicable as a local tax. The second issue is that it talks about the disadvantages of taxing this way, or the consequences, of which there always are some, but he does not weigh it with property taxes (which exist today), or sales taxes. There are no perfect taxes, its just the "least bad tax". Granted that a state like california already has an issue with property taxes themselves as they are not collected how they should be. Nevertheless, its the best piece I found yet against LVT. ~~~ SilasX Good points, all. It is important to keep in mind the difference between the Georgist position that: 1) "LVT is a positive good and governments should try to collect the entire site value of every property." vs the more moderate one that: 2) "LVT is the least bad tax and much preferable to taxing positive economic activity like labor, investment, and exchanges." I think Birch makes a good point that LVT, like all other taxes, will cause horrible distortions _once it 's high enough_. I agree that it's hard to dispute 2), but that's a long way from the 1) promoted in _Progress and Poverty_. His other good point, I think, was that you don't actually want to tax the site value, but the site value's _net_ contribution from the other sites (i.e. subtract off the positive externalities the site throws onto others), which in practice is hard to calculate, since you only observe O(n) values (land and structure prices) but need to observe a data point for every pair of properties, O(n^2), to calculate the net improvement. ------ rayj Yes housing is not in accorandce with the construction costs. Essentially you have inflated bureaucracy and artificial supply constraints & zoning (NIMBY) trying to keep the housing prices up. Houses are just fine in Boise, ID or Albany, NY but so much cheaper than the coasts. This is really frustrating, and I don't see a politicly workable solution. So spend 50% on rent or move to Idaho... None of this is even considering that we may be able to substantially lower construction costs with prefabricated/3d printed homes/economies of scale. ~~~ AmVess Boise is the fastest growing city in the US, with attendant increase in housing cost. Prices aren't completely crazy yet, but my house is worth 65% more than what I paid for it, and is increasing by the year at too large of a rate. This was a good place to move to, now not so much. ~~~ thrav I had a feeling it was just a matter of time before Boise set a course to become the next Austin. One visit 5-6 years ago for a few days to interview at a tech company, and I thought, “Huh, Boise is pretty damn cool.” ~~~ SamReidHughes In winter, you'll think, "Boise is pretty damn cold." ~~~ enraged_camel Boise gets down to around mid-20s (F) in the winter, which isn't that cold. Humidity is also pretty low, so it tends to feel quite crisp. ~~~ seanmcdirmid Isn't Boise going to be similar to SLC in climate? I mean, no huge lake, but it seems like everything else is very similar. ------ deathhand Rent seeking behavior creates greater economic inequality and all the host of problems that come with it. The government should curtail these behaviors in laws and taxes unless we want another occupy movement or worse. ~~~ majos > unless we want another occupy movement or worse It seems like the current administration would be just fine with another Occupy movement. I mean, were they even a real problem for Obama, who had to at least make gestures of support in their direction? Unless Occupy II is spearheaded by Trump supporters, which looks...unlikely. ------ EZ-E Most people need to live in a handful of big cities to find a decent paying job. Companies also stay there because they want to have access to a large talent pool. Meanwhile there is a ton of space un rural areas where in majority, only older people are left. What would be a good solution? Massive construction? Incentives to move companies in more rural areas? I for one would love to have a high paying tech job in rural areas in my country, I dislike crowds but there are no companies there, all young people growing up here just migrate in drove to cities. ~~~ nerfhammer > What would be a good solution? Stop strangling cities by artificially limiting the housing supply there. Cities have always been the fundamental driver of human civilization. ------ AzzieElbab I wouldn't know how to begin building an argument against this. Constantly rising housing costs is a pure wealth transfer which also doubles as fake saving mechanism in case of buying ------ jpmattia The article neglects to mention: We are coming off of the lowest interest rate environment in around 400 years. As interest rates normalize, many interest- rate dependent markets are in for normalization as well. ~~~ 3pt14159 I've been saying this for years. Keynesian economics is largely correct, but underestimated asset bubbles from irrational consumers. We either need high land taxes with a redistributive basic income or we need to do away with infinite ownership at time of sale. ~~~ conanbatt First, I would strongly advice against putting a policy due to an effect that there is no consensus on its causes. Is housing expensive because of low interest rates, because of QE, because of the advance of NIMBYSM? etc Second, taxes are much easier to add than to remove: a tax thought and applied with mechanism will outlive its purpose, so if there is a downturn in house prices the tax will become a burden. Places like california also dont even charge the proper property taxes. Its most likely that increasing tax pressure in a state like CA will be increasing income taxes, which end up maybe hurting landlords by harming their prey. ------ mabynogy The problem isn't housing. The problem is the realestate market. There is no competition because the merchandises don't move. Prices goes up to infinite. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Allais](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Allais) ------ zip1234 Perhaps the headline is a bit sensationalist? Housing does appear to be a problem in the bay area though. ------ vinceguidry Owning property is an extremely democratic pathway to financial independence. And it's only gotten more and more democratic as the financial world evolves. Yes it sucks to spend the first 5 or so years of your years in an unaffordable city getting established in an industry. But it's not the worst lot in the world. You can meet your spouse there and then start a family out where it's cheap. Won't be long before everyone's working from home. Not a bad life. ~~~ k__ Why? To me it seems like the exact opposite of democracy. Wouldn't it be more democratic to let the state own it so every citizen can have a vote over this rather limited resource? ~~~ AzzieElbab This seems opposite to my understanding of democracy. Also, in my experience, state distributed housing lifted misery and corruption to some astounding levels ~~~ k__ And now we have cities that get too expensive for the people that were born there... ~~~ anonuser123456 When the value proposition no longer makes sense; move? ~~~ k__ The question is, should "the value proposition", in terms of finances, be the criteria? Should the people who are rich be the only ones who can decide where to live? ------ dbspin This 'article' adds little to the debate, merely restating the reductive idea that constraints on supply (rather than a host of factors from massive foreign investment, to wage stagnancy) is the sole explanation for the US housing crisis. It's unworthy of hacker news frankly. ------ JaceLightning Time to ban immigration. " Together immigrants and their U.S. born children account for roughly 75 percent of annual population increase in the U.S. In absolute terms, that’s an additional 2.25 million people each year. " [https://www.fairus.org/issue/population- environment/populati...](https://www.fairus.org/issue/population- environment/population-growth) ~~~ dingo_bat Immigration needs to be based on merit of the immigrant and need of the country, not as a form of charity. It's hard to believe that USA needs 2.25 million people extra every year. I wonder why the law in this regard cannot be simplified. You are allowed to immigrate to the US if: \- you will earn more than $100k. \- you have a STEM MS/PhD from an institute of repute. \- you clear a set of security checks. That should take care of most of the problems related to immigration. ~~~ jadedhacker Freedom of movement is a human right full stop. ~~~ dingo_bat I think you're being a bit unreasonable. Are you really suggesting that anybody in the world who wants to walk into the USA should be allowed to? It seems like that nullifies the existence of the nation itself. Why have a border? Why have a military to protect that border? Also, the freedom of movement is not a blanket statement. It does not, for instance, grant me permission to move into your house. ~~~ aninhumer >Are you really suggesting that anybody in the world who wants to walk into the USA should be allowed to? Maybe block known criminals and bad actors, but otherwise yes. If your argument as to why we should exclude people is based on the idea that it would make standards of living worse for people here, that's a) probably not true and b) only makes sense if you think the wellbeing of the people here is more important the wellbeing of people elsewhere. >It seems like that nullifies the existence of the nation itself. Why have a border? Not really, there'd still be a government and a system of laws that apply within the border. But beyond that, why specifically do you think it would be bad to nullify the existence of a nation? >Why have a military to protect that border? In as far as a military is necessary, it is to protect against other militaries, not non-violent civilians entering the country.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
LineageOS Android Distribution - void_nill https://lineageos.org/ ====== wongarsu LineageOS is great, my one complaint is that it is almost never available for the phones I own. You basically have to get phones according to their popularity in a certain subgroup: for example currently one HTC model and two LG models are supported, but close to everything from OnePlus. I know I can get unofficial builds, put apart from the sometimes quite severe missing features (calling or camera not or only partially working) I don't want to trust random people on a forum to provide a build of an OS without including malware. It just looks like a prime target for all the intelligence services of the world, and a nice target for hackers. With official builds there's at least some accountability somewhere to mitigate this. ~~~ gregmac > I don't want to trust random people on a forum to provide a build of an OS > without including malware Why is it some communities still work like this? With Android dev, sometimes there's even some source on GitHub, but still a forum post is the main place to find the latest version, with the actual download from some questionable- looking download site. If you're lucky they include sha hashes at least. I've installed a handful of custom ROMs on 3 or 4 devices - most recently resurrecting my old TF101 to run modern Firefox - but I don't think I've ever seen anything like an automated build for one of these. Really, many don't even post source code. Is there anyone doing this type of Android dev in a "modern" best practices way like most other open source (public git, CI, maybe issue tracker and pull requests)? Why doesn't this catch on more? ~~~ phh Becauses the cost of doing a CI of Android is astronomical. (Especially for students) For my own ROM [1] I spent days and a hundred of euros optimizing the cost of building by trying various cloud providers (fwiw my current best spot is scaleway GP instance with 600GB local SSD). As of today, I'm still at 6€ per builds (For standard ROM devs, that should be cut down to 2€ I'd say). There is simply no way I can afford a CI. (well if someone wants to give me money for that, please do!) I do my best to isolate components and have at least some kind of CI where I can, but that's hard work (And doing CI is my day job, and I consider myself rather good in it) Even android's own CI is very far from what you'd call a modern CI. They basically just build master once every hour and pray for the best, and let the build cop fix that. They do have a mechanism where they try to build CLs in batches, but "try" is the keyword. [1] [https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations/wiki](https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations/wiki) ~~~ StavrosK What's the expensive bit? Can't you rent a server and build on that? ~~~ Avamander Sure you can, for 20+€/mo if you want your builds take less than a day. That's still astronomical for the enthusiasts compared to struggling to build on their own PCs. ~~~ StavrosK Ah, I see, that's too bad. ------ Jemm Been using lineageOS 16 on my OnePlus phone for years. LineageOS has allowed me to use my perfectly fine phone much much longer than the normal upgrade cycle. And this has saved me money. More importantly my phone remains in use rather than being thrown away and a new one purchased saving about 4 phones from landfill (my guess based on a 2 year upgrade cycle). Apple with all their environmental goodness claims locks their phones down from both custom rooms and from re-use after donation. Most donated phones have an iCloud lock with no way to contact the previous owner to request an unlock, ~~~ zozbot234 > LineageOS has allowed me to use my perfectly fine phone much much longer > than the normal upgrade cycle. And this has saved me money. OnePlus actually does a pretty fine job of supporting even their "older" models. The OP3 and OP3T were running up-to-date "stock" OS's not too long ago. ~~~ OJFord The third OnePlus model is an old one now? I remember the first one coming out (and haven't kept track of how many there have been) but I honestly don't think I do anything that needs more than what the first one would give me. (I actually have a Motorola One, which is on the 'Android One' mostly-stock long-term upgrade committment, and was about £150 new 18mo ago? £100 phone or less would be plenty powerful enpugh, I just paid a bit more to know I'd get the upgrades, and thought the fingerprint reader might be useful. (It is.)) ~~~ wazoox I still have my OnePlus One as a spare phone. I can confirm the only missing feature is a fingerprint reader. Photo and video quality are fine, power is more than necessary, battery lasts long enough... ~~~ anotherevan I'm still using my OnePlus One as my phone. A fingerprint reader is really the only thing that tempts me to move. ------ giomasce LineageOS is very nice, also because it gives you the same experience of different devices. You know that it will be easy to have root, you know you won't have to learn again where every menu is, you don't expect too many surprises. I had a Fairphone 2 before and I used LineageOS on it. Then I decided to change it, got a second hand OnePlus 5, installed again LineageOS and it's just the same thing, except the phone is faster and doesn't have a few hardware bugs. I actually choose the OnePlus also because all OnePlus models seem to be well supported by LineageOS, which is probably related to the fact the OnePlus releases quite a lot of things as open source[1] (another good reason for the choice). On top of that, it seems to have a good quality/price ratio. I am quite happy of the choice. [1] [https://github.com/OnePlusOSS](https://github.com/OnePlusOSS) ~~~ aesh2Xa1 A significant aspect of the Lineage OS support on OnePlus devices is the vendor support for development. ------ datalist I have used CyanogenMod, and later LineageOS, for quite some time and was pretty pleased with it. The problem is it seems to be past its prime. It dropped support for mainstream phones more and more and is currenly limited to either very old handsets or rather exotic manufacturers. The most recent Samsung S series they support is from 2014, almost six years ago. CM and LOS were also popular on the Nexus 4 and 5, these were completely dropped as well and even the successors do not have a recent Android version at this point. All of this coupled with long delays of moving to the most recent Android version. Many phone were still on Nougat LOS, when there was already Pie. ~~~ xrisk I think that's just because stock ROMS have become good enough that we don't need custom ROMS; except for purposes like de-Googling your phone or removing stuff installed by your OEM. ~~~ aynawn Custom supported roms will continue to get security updates whereas oem roms get updates for maximum 3 years since phone release. From a security perspective, custom roms are still worth it. ~~~ izacus Except that a huge chunk of Android CVEs I've seen are related to vendor code which does not get updated in custom ROMs either. And those are the painful ones, since drivers have kernel access. The security situation on Android is really less than ideal :/ ~~~ aaron_m04 That's concerning if true. Do you have a source? ------ lol768 LineageOS was great a few years ago when I used it with my older Nexus devices, but it doesn't seem as maintained nowadays. There's no images for the newer Pixel devices and no Android 10 support, which is a huge shame. Magisk/stock is what I've been using of late. ~~~ throwaway77384 I'm running LOS 17, which is Android 10 on a Sony XPeria Z3 Compact (!!) without issues (though it requires open g apps nano for GPS to work) :) ~~~ williamvds Had a similar issue with GPS on LineageOS 16. Setting the GPS mode to 'Device only' fixed it for me. My guess is the other settings have a hidden dependency on Google Play Services, causing GPS to silently stop working if Play services isn't available. ------ bythckr I just wish that LineageOS just picks couple of devices that they can support. So, me as a "not highly technical" user can just buy that specific device. The current at [https://download.lineageos.org/](https://download.lineageos.org/) where they list every device is confusing and hard to track which is the phone most are working on. Pick one and work on it. With enough people using it, hardware makers will have a strong case to sell device that is "Lineage OS compliant" even if it's shipped with Android. Like how GrapheneOS has focused on Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. ~~~ as1mov Oh for the love of god please no. Please don't narrow down the focus on 1 or 2 high end devices and neglect the rest just because a small percentage of people can't be arsed to read the documentation. LineageOS is an hacker/enthusiast thing, it will always remain niche regardless of how easy to use you make it. ------ jumbopapa I currently use a Galaxy S8+ and it still works perfectly fine. However, it isn't compatible with LineageOS. I know that the next phone I purchase LineageOS compatibility will be a prerequisite. ------ dejawu I adore LineageOS and official support has now become my #1 factor in choosing a new phone. I've been running it on my Oneplus 5T which was already two generations behind when I bought it and there hasn't been a single day in over a year of ownership when I thought it wasn't fast or responsive enough. It's incredibly stable, there's no bloatware, and I get updates every night, which means I'm always on the latest security version. If this thing ever breaks or dies I'll probably get a Zenfone 6 (I recall Asus actually openly distributed kernel sources with the express purpose of helping out the open source ROM community) and I'm excited to see how LineageOS runs on that. ------ paulcarroty Samsung S5 and... nothing newest? Also from my past experience: LineageOS don't care about privacy, Google DNS & internet connectivity checks points to Google servers; probably the telemetry works too. About quality: very different results, highly depends from device. In mostly cases - camera apps quality is horrible 'cause vendors doesn't provide any code. ~~~ _bxg1 At some point Samsung started locking down their bootloaders I think. Device support is based on whether/how many people volunteer to own that branch, so it's based on general demand. Last I checked OnePlus made the best Lineage devices, although with all the recent China stuff you can decide whether you're comfortable with having even firmware from a Chinese company. I don't know about the DNS, but Gapps don't come preinstalled, so I'd be surprised if it sent telemetry to Google by default. Either way, I'm sure it's possible to disable/redirect those things. As for privacy in general, they offer a pretty unique feature that allows you to forcibly block granular app permissions after the fact, after granting them for the install. Because this isn't iOS it'll break some apps that don't handle it gracefully, but it's nice to have the option. But yes, if you're trying to run Android in a privacy-minded way at all, you'll be making some sacrifices. ------ bonsai80 I remember a ROM distribution similar to this, where the maintainer/company also sold used phones with it preinstalled. I thought it was LineageOS, but looking at the LineageOS site I'm definitely remembering that wrong. Does anyone know the name for what I'm describing? ~~~ callahad You may also be thinking of CopperheadOS ([https://copperhead.co/](https://copperhead.co/)). ------ gnufx Also check out /e/ for other device support and better privacy. The device list is at [https://doc.e.foundation/devices/](https://doc.e.foundation/devices/) ------ xwvvvvwx iPhone user here. Increasingly curious about Android. If I installed LineageOS on a pixel3a, how much information would be going to google by default? How easy is it to avoid google altogether? ~~~ correct_horse If you want to have a working phone, you need google apps (Google Maps, Google Play Services (used for many apps' notifications, location, analytics, etc.), Google Play Store, YouTube app). The Open Gapps project packages these nicely for use with LineageOS, but installation is janky (download a .zip file, install it using TWRP). note: despite being called "open", Open Gapps are proprietary, but packaged using open source software. Using LineageOS in this way is the sane/easy default that most LineageOS users probably choose. Using this method, you must sign in to google play services to install or update apps through the play store. Google play services includes a google analytics api, a a device registration program that generates an advertising id (so does iOS), Google also collects location data associating Wi-Fi hotspot with GPS coordinates (so does iOS). I'm not sure of the full extent of what info google collects, but it is probably substantial, and most probably happens through google play services. You could dodge this tracking by not logging in to Google Play Services and using a play store replacement like Aurora Store or Yalp (play backwards). Another option is to use microG, a derivative of LineageOS that re implements parts of google play services with open source and throws out the rest. YMMV, but I have used it and my phone worked, excepting some apps' notifications because they use google cloud messaging. I never signed in anywhere with a google account, but I did have google maps installed (I haven't found a good replacement on Android). Google probably got rather little info from me, but they did get my location sometimes. ~~~ qplex Or you could just install F-Droid. I agree that most people probably need Google Play because the apps they use aren't available anywhere else. But then again most people probably don't have the skills to install LineageOS to begin with.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Alpha 2 arrives for testing - Mitt http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Ubuntu-12-04-LTS-Alpha-2-arrives-for-testing-1427722.html ====== omh _It will also be the first version to target a 750 MB ISO image, meaning that it will no longer fit onto a standard CD_ Why are they targetting 750MB? Once you've decided to go above the capacity of a CD why restrict yourself to just a little more, rather than say 1GB (for small USB drives) or 4GB (for single layer DVDs). ~~~ lloeki On a 1GB stick that leaves 300MB room for persistence, if Ubuntu ever supports that. ~~~ keithpeter Ubuntu's live disc creator does support persistent storage. You can have an iso image and then add some of the spare space for the storage. I use this with a 4Gb usb stick myself. You can also _install_ ubuntu to a stick with 8Gb+ of storage of course. ------ RexRollman From the article: "Ubuntu 12.04 will be a Long Term Support (LTS) release that will be supported for five years on both the server edition and, for the first time, the desktop edition." I was under the impression that previous LTS releases did include the desktop version. Is this article wrong or is my memory faulty? ~~~ beza1e1 Previous desktop versions were supported for only 2,5 years. ------ ilcavero the question is, is unity usable already? will it ever? ~~~ matthijs Last month I was forced to use a netbook for a week and decided to install Ubuntu with Unity on it. I was really impressed with the user experience. I was probably just as efficient (if not more) than on my macbook! ~~~ dhimes I use this setup when I travel. It works well in an airplane seat and is more usable than an ipad for development. ------ mixmastamyk > "pre-releases of Precise Pangolin are _not_ encouraged for anyone needing a > stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even > frequent breakage". From my experience I would say the same of Ubuntu release versions. They can't be counted on for at least 3-6 months after release, and even then bugs other than security are rarely if ever fixed, (though many can be blamed on upstream of course). ------ newman314 Anyone know if this will install on ESXI 5? ~~~ jbronn Installs fine on ESXi 4 -- should be no problem on 5. ~~~ newman314 Just tried and it works mostly. However, I've run into a really strange issue with ssh. If and only if I am logged into the console, I am able to ssh from a remote machine. If I log out from the console, I get access denied. Never seen this before. Hopefully it's a bug somewhere.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bootsnap: Optimizing Ruby App Boot Time - Finbarr https://engineering.shopify.com/235340559-bootsnap-optimizing-ruby-app-boot-time ====== JohnBooty Wow! This is potentially a real gain for us. We have a big in-house, monolithic Rails app. My initial experiment was encouraging. Boot time in development mode went from ~23sec to ~16sec, and I only enabled it for the main engine that comprises about 85% of our codebase so the real gains might be larger. Looking forward to seeing what it can do in production mode - our boot times there are horrendous and it's a big deal for things like cron jobs. Thank you to all those who worked on this. ------ chrisseaton In the implementation of Ruby that I work on, TruffleRuby, we've been exploring lazy parsing, where the parser will find a method but not fully parse it until the method is called for the first time. I wonder if there's any other modifications you could make to the VM itself to improve startup time. ~~~ burke The particularly frustrating thing, when I've started thinking about optimizing boot time at a VM level, is that it's near-impossible to "understand" what loading a file actually does, since it's all just evaluated in a single namespace. It would be great if we somehow had a way to load a module-as-file without unknown side-effects, and without depending so deeply on the other contents of the global namespace. But this is basically describing a complete overhaul of most of what makes ruby ruby, so... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ ~~~ chrisseaton Yes if there were special Ruby source files that only had classes and modules at the top level, and only defined nested classes and modules and methods in those, then it would be a lot quicker to load things. ~~~ burke Yep. But even then though, what if: class A B = "c".freeze end And elsewhere: class String def freeze raise "because I can, that's why" end # or even method_added, TracePoint, ... end It feels like something should be possible here, but it's really steep uphill battle. ~~~ chrisseaton Right - that's why I said nothing but methods and nested classes - expressions in method bodies would be disallowed. And tracing and method added hooks and so on, yes. You could say it was a separate language .rb-module or something, to make it formal. ~~~ dragonwriter > Right - that's why I said nothing but methods and nested classes - > expressions in method bodies would be disallowed. I presume you mean "expressions that aren't method definitions in class bodies" (though that's a problem, because of things like attribute declarations) rather than "expressions in method bodies", since methods with no expressions in their bodies would be pointless. ------ burke I'm the primary author, can answer questions if you have any. ~~~ wolco Curious when did shopify go with Ruby/rails. If I remember when the company was initially started they were looking for php developers. Was the orginal stack built in Ruby/rails? ~~~ burke Nope, we've been Rails since before Rails was even public. I'm sure we've hired a PHP developer here and there over the years, but our core platform has always been Ruby. ~~~ ksec >Nope, we've been Rails since before Rails was even public. How is that possible? Or you mean Ruby before Rails? ~~~ burke Tobi knows DHH; apparently we started building with rails before its public release. Don't quote me on that, but I've heard it in passing a few times. ~~~ halostatue Probably before Rails 1.0, certainly. I don’t remember if Tobi was involved in the Ruby community in late 2004 when DHH introduced Rails at RubyConf 2004 (in DC), and I don’t remember him being at that conference, either. But I do remember seeing Tobi involved in ruby-talk by early 2005. But Shopify has always been a Rails shop. ------ dobs Gave this a quick shot on my own monolithic app and it cut startup time almost in half. Impressive considering how easy it was to configure! Startup time was one reason we started migrating away from Rails in a previous workplace, between frustrating startup time in development and test and occasional quirkiness of zeus and spring. Bootsnap would have been a godsend. ~~~ burke I've tossed around the idea of writing zeus again now that I actually understand the language I wrote it in. Spring is much simpler, but because of the manner in which it's loaded, it isn't capable of detecting certain types of file change, which reduces developer confidence in it. Zeus is capable of detecting any sort of invalidating file change, but is pretty buggy (or at least was historically -- the Stripe guys improved it a lot after I stopped working on it). ~~~ ischi Still fairly buggy,some terminal issues should be fixed now but reloading has race conditions still. ------ jitl This is awesome, and I'd love to use it for the command-line dev tools that I write. Unfortunately this gem requires Ruby 2.3+, but macOS built-in Ruby, which is the Ruby we target, is only 2.0.0. Does anyone know of a good solution for prebuilt, relocatable Rubies on macOS that I could easily bundle with my tool? I'm reluctant to use Homebrew or another package manager like rbenv, where I'd have to implement a non-trivial bootstrap process. Phusion's travelling-ruby project would be perfect, but it's unmaintained. I just want my CLI to boot in 0.05s without needing to change languages. Love Ruby, but getting decent perf takes a bit of effort. ~~~ guu Have you considered trying mruby? That would allow you to ship standalone binaries. [https://github.com/hone/mruby-cli](https://github.com/hone/mruby-cli) ~~~ burke I can't believe I hadn't though of this. Could be a really useful idea! ------ dismantlethesun I'm kinda shocked that Ruby boot times can be up to 25 seconds for a monolithic app. A Python project I work on has 279,124 lines of code and boots up in 2.5 seconds. Without downloading it, all I can find is Discourse had 60,000 lines of code 3 years ago [1]. Assuming as an extreme estimate they tripled their code size in 3 years, we have 180,000 LOC taking 6 seconds to boot up according to the article. Is this normal for Ruby? Is the author using a spinning disk drive rather than an SSD? [1] [https://github.com/bleonard/rails_stats](https://github.com/bleonard/rails_stats) ~~~ burke The largest culprit for slow ruby boot times is an O(n) number of syscalls over the LOAD_PATH each time `require` is called, so the number of syscalls is essentially O(n*2) to the number of gems. The load-path-caching feature of bootsnap (cf. bootscale) fixes this, and accounts for a reduction from 25 to ~9.5 seconds. The iseq/yaml caching only accounts for the last ~3.5 seconds. ~~~ lathiat Aaron Patterson did a really great talk detailing the process called "Code Is Required". He's a really great presenter both humour wise and manages to often explain relatively technical things very understandably. Highly recommend watching this (and his other stuff) you can watch it here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bDRR_zfmSk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bDRR_zfmSk) ------ Cerium Thanks for releasing this, I gave it a try. Starting benchmark time: 13.05 seconds. With load_path_cache: 10.01 seconds Sadly, with compile_cache on I'm getting an error. /vendor/bundle/ruby/2.3.0/gems/bootsnap-0.2.14/lib/bootsnap/compile_cache/iseq.rb:30:in `fetch': No space left on device (Errno::ENOSPC) Any ideas on what causes this? ~~~ burke Yep, you're probably using linux. The cache backend for compiled artifacts is filesystem extended attributes, which have a maximum size of 64MB on darwin, but as little as 4kB on some linux configurations (if they're even enabled, which they often are not). Practically speaking, the compilation caching features are not supported on linux. Eventually we'll change the cache backend or add a different one that does work on linux. ~~~ Cerium Yes. I am using Linux. Thanks for the quick response. ------ ausjke Considering PHP7, Java8/Kotlin, Go, C++17, Python3, Javascript/ES6 etc these days, how will Rudy be doing in the long run? any reason for new comers to pick up Ruby instead of the mentioned list? I just started using PHP myself. ~~~ deedubaya Avoiding a flame war, it depends on what your goals are. From a language standpoint: Ruby emphasizes developer happiness at the expense of some things, like performance/concurrency for example. From a career standpoint: There is a lot of ruby in the world today. There will be lots of applications to maintain as the years go on, which is +1 from a career perspective. Lots of people will also continue to write new ruby software, because it's effective and easy to be productive in. All the languages you mentioned + ruby are all good languages to learn for various reasons. All have their weaknesses and strengths. None of them are an effective hammer for every nail you'll encounter. ~~~ camus2 > There is a lot of ruby in the world today If you live in the west coast, certainly. Anywhere else in the world absolutely not. > Ruby emphasizes developer happiness at the expense of some things, That's a strange statement. Plenty of developers enjoy writing PHP, or C++ or even Java. Ruby doesn't make developers more happy, by no serious metrics. Ruby had its shot but wasted it because of the petulance, the arrogance, the immaturity and the toxicity of its community. > None of them are an effective hammer for every nail you'll encounter. Ruby (in fact Rails since that's really what it is all about) is clearly redundant in the era of light weight servers and thick clients. ~~~ paulddraper You are being unduly pessimistic (or maybe petulant/arrogant/toxic). Ruby is the language for the second most popular HTTP MVC framework (Rails) and the first most common popular tool (Chef). My biggest grip with Ruby are mostly that the community seems more amateurish than average. SO Ruby questions are like Javascript questions in 2008. with a lot of misinformation and the assumption that you were using jQuery (or Rails for Ruby). I'm sure there are a lot of Ruby experts that know how to program well. They just don't seem as common as say, in the Python community. ------ omarforgotpwd Might have missed something, but why not just merge these changes into Rails? ~~~ yxhuvud For starters, because it only works on mac. ------ misterbowfinger Are there plans to support JRuby? ~~~ burke No. I'm not opposed to it, but we don't use it at Shopify and I doubt the RubyVM::InstructionSequence API is compatible. Bootscale should work, and the load-path-caching feature of bootsnap should work too, if you can get the gem to install. ------ iagooar - ~~~ noir_lord > In 2017 there is really no reason to defend a monolithic architecture. I wonder if in 2019 I'll be seeing "In 2019 there is really no reason to define a micro-services architecture". The pendulum it keeps on swinging. ~~~ rhizome thin/thick clients all over again. ~~~ noir_lord Yep and others, I've been around programming long enough to have seen that come and go several times now.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bitcoin will fail without decentralized mining - dperfect https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=399313.0 ====== humbledrone One solution for this already exists: P2Pool. From the wiki page, "P2Pool is a decentralized Bitcoin mining pool that works by creating a peer-to-peer network of miner nodes." The key thing is that since it's p2p, there's no owner of the network who can use it to perform a 51% attack. P2Pool is not perfect, but it works and it shows that decentralized pools mining are possible. With some improvement, it (or something like it) could be a replacement for all centralized mining pools. [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2Pool](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2Pool) ~~~ sktrdie You obviously haven't clicked on the link. P2Pool requires too many resources (a full-node). Whereas most of current mining, ran by trusted third-party pools, can even be done off of a raspberry pi, which requires much less resources. ~~~ verroq You can just connect to a P2Pool node you know. You don't need to set up your own. Check out [http://whatisp2pool.com](http://whatisp2pool.com) if you still want to learn more. ~~~ shawabawa3 Isn't that again just recentralizing? The P2Pool nodes could be malicious ~~~ verroq Well that's what the share chain is for. Again, if you don't trust the nodes you can run your own. ------ fragsworth It's likely that if bitcoin hits some serious roadblocks and the protocol needs to change, an altcoin will have solved the problem and most people will switch. For instance, the proof-of-stake coins (peercoin, novacoin) are far more resilient to these problems. I'm curious if they can agree on, develop, and deploy a protocol change far enough in advance to prevent a mass exodus to another altcoin. ~~~ mvkel Doubtful that everyone will switch to some yet-to-be-determined altcoin. Bitcoin is open source. Nothing is preventing its flaws from being patched. That's all altcoins are anyway; Bitcoin with a patch to a perceived problem with the protocol. With a market cap of $21bn, that kind of capitalization doesn't disappear overnight, which would need to happen to counteract a massive flaw that arises from centralized mining. ------ ksrm I'm more immediately concerned about this double-spending attack that was linked to in the thread: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0) ------ memorycoin This is a problem we're trying to solve with MemoryCoin - decentralized mining by using commodity hardware and distribution. It's already possible to pool mine direct from the GUI and we're currently looking at integrating P2Pool with the client for increased decentralization. [http://memorycoin.org/manifesto/](http://memorycoin.org/manifesto/) Efforts are funded by payments made in the blockchain voted for by the shareholders (coin owners). [http://btcgeek.com/memorycoin-trying-something- brilliant/](http://btcgeek.com/memorycoin-trying-something-brilliant/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Oceans suffocating as huge dead zones quadruple since 1950, scientists warn - eculic17 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/04/oceans-suffocating-dead-zones-oxygen-starved ====== mac01021 This is good to know about, but the reporting is not great and is imprecise about many things. For example, the map portrays an enormous dead zone covering maybe 10-20% of the pacific ocean. It seems improbable to me that the entire highlighted region is devoid of life (or even fish). Is the article saying that it is? If not then what exactly are the implications of that region having O2 less than 2mg/L?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Amazon May Be Hiding Its Plans to Test New Wireless Tech - amynordrum https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/wireless/amazon-may-be-hiding-its-plans-to-test-new-wireless-tech-by-masquerading-as-a-massage-spa ====== thewizardofaus Amazon is testing 5G. The 3.5Ghz band has already been proposed by telcos in Australia. Will be implemented in the next year on certain towers. [Reference: check ACMA tower database] ~~~ timb07 Do you mean the 3.6 GHz band? The auction commenced a week ago: [https://acma.gov.au/Industry/Spectrum/Spectrum- projects/3-6-...](https://acma.gov.au/Industry/Spectrum/Spectrum- projects/3-6-GHz-band) ------ gfiorav AFAIK the only reason WiFi sticks to 2.5/5 GHz is regulation. Same for microwaves and other appliances. Those are the only two “free use” bands in the spectrogram in most countries. Operating outside of them requires expensive fees and heavy scrutiny. It will be interesting to see how they sort that out... ~~~ dboreham For completeness: there is also a 900MHz band, and 24GHz and 60GHz bands. Microwaves I assume refer to ovens, which use a frequency related to the nature of the water molecule. The 2.4GHz ISM band supposedly exists because commercial and military users didn't want to deal with interference from ovens. ~~~ TheSpiceIsLife > Microwaves I assume refer to ovens, which use a frequency related to the > nature of the water molecule. They work using Dielectric Heating. _Water, fat, and other substances in the food absorb energy from the microwaves in a process called dielectric heating._ See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#Principles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#Principles) Also: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_heating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_heating) ------ smurfysmurf Can anyone speculate on how this would be used by Amazon, if they are actually testing it? ~~~ aftbit Most unlicensed radio gear chooses between the 2.4GHz and 5GHz ISM bands. 2.4GHz offers longer range and better penetration of walls, but a lower available bandwidth (fewer/slower channels). 5GHz offers better bandwidth but lower range and less penetration. Perhaps 3.5GHz provides a happy middle ground for Amazon? Not to mention there is much less interference on that band because they don't have to put up with everyone's wifi, bluetooth, microwave ovens, etc etc. ~~~ dboreham Generally you use whatever spectrum you can get rather than having the luxury to strike beard and decide which spectrum you would prefer. When available for non-military use, 3.5GHz will be attractive because it will be empty of encumbant users. Therefore far more usable than 2.4 and 5GHz, provided the cost is reasonable. Also likely much cheaper than the other available P2MP bands (principally allocated to LTE in the US). ~~~ chrisweekly "strike beard"? ~~~ joshstrange Maybe "Stroke beard" as in " rather than having the luxury to stroke your beard and decide which spectrum you would prefer.". I'm imagining like a cartoon evil villain stroking their beard/chin.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Forbes asked readers to turn off ad blockers then immediately served malware - davidgerard http://engt.co/1PNJZqf ====== axonic I haven't whitelisted a site from ad blocking in over a year, nor will I again, this is mostly why. The only financial incentive I think we can leverage against supporters of unscrupulous advertising networks is refusing to browse their sites or view their ads. I used to make exceptions for polite site operators who aren't needlessly rude to people who choose privacy and security, after evaluating their choice of ads. Never again. It is not our responsibility to support bad business practices out of guilt, perceived value of consumed content, disabling security features "to enable content" or otherwise. Crying that their business model is failing doesn't get any sympathy from me when it has been a problem for years. Is there an ad network out there which you would trust to serve you content? ~~~ Chyzwar This is hypocritical, You still consume content. You visit websites, read content, generate traffic that cost real money in servers time. But still You refuse to pay a dime to people working hard to sell their content. It is like going to strip club, watching but not paying tips or buying drinks even requesting special service. ~~~ axonic I'll tip a stripper directly before I'll invite malvertising to infect my devices so she can get 5% of what her performance is worth is what I'm saying. I subscribe to services worth their salt. ~~~ Chyzwar Then you should not visit website you don't subscribe. Most websites do not provide a way for this kind of subscription. You statement is also a lie because the website that posted this article serves adds. I am also using ad-block but at least I am not claiming moral high ground. ~~~ axonic "I haven't whitelisted a site from ad blocking in over a year" where does that say HN isn't on my whitelist? Liar, lol.. where? I never made any statement about your morals, comparisons or claims that it was "right", I said it was the only option I see. So far I've been downvoted, called a hypocrite and a liar, by you. Run an ad based site with poor revenue or something? Haha ------ thaumasiotes > both are hard to get rid of. You know, like those gross toenail and skin > condition ad-banners found at the bottom of every cheapo blog you've ever > seen, forever burned into the "can't unsee" section of your brain. Actually, when a blog I follow switched to Disqus-with-ads, I kept seeing the same disgusting ad every time I visited any post. I liked the blog enough to file a complaint in the hopes of something being done about it. (Disqus provides a method for doing so right in the commenting UI.) And I never saw that ad again. ------ fred_is_fred Does anyone have a link to the proof from the researcher? The twitter posts and image seem to have been deleted which makes me wonder if it was retracted.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Basic Income: Bots are going to force the issue - mindstab http://www.danballard.com/?p=249 ====== Siecje We need a robot tax to pay for minimum income.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Exercises you can do at work, emailed Mon-Fri - raivo http://www.exercisesatwork.com/<p>I evolved this service over several months and since June it's in a state where I can show it to the public.<p>The service is built on Google App Engine - an interesting experience on how the restrictions of the platform make you focus on the scalability of your app.<p>Edit: wanted to add details as this might be interesting to HN.<p>The challenge was to be able to get the emails and the associated timezones AND know what the time it is right now in that particular time zone. Then, I would have to email those records that would match the time, all this in 30 seconds.<p>I ended up using MapReduce for this. Still have a haunting feeling there's an easier way for it...<p>So every hour I create a task that runs MapReduce that then cycles through the emails and checks the timezones and times in them.<p>My understanding is that Mapreduce creates sub tasks that basically make it possible to run all emails in 30 second chunks. We will see how this works as the number of emails grows.<p>I've noticed that occasionally all of my Task API is consumed by the Mapreduce library trying to start tasks.<p>The daily exercise is set by another task, once a day, and is then passed along into MapReduce.<p>Feedback welcome.<p>Edit 2: removed the <a> around the link. ====== olegious Good idea. Some criticisms about the execution: 1\. I'd like to see an example of the email. 2\. Reduce the amount of writing on the landing page. We all know why we should do exercises at work, you really don't need to sell that concept, use that space instead to sell your service- why should I give out my email? What makes you different from other similar products? A good start. ~~~ JoeCortopassi I would agree with ^this. My first thought, when reading this, was "Thats cool! I would like to find some ways to get exercise at work. But why should I sign up for a (potentially) spammy email list, when I can probably just google 'office exercises'?" ~~~ raivo Joe and olegious thanks for the feedback - good points! I will add the sample email, and a paragraph about why you should sign up. To quickly answer it here, you should sign up because an email will serve as a reminder for you to exercise. Now, I'm not sure how to explain (and be believed) that I won't spam you? ~~~ khafra Just promising not to spam and not to share user information will do a lot; you don't need complicated explanations. If you have a record or reputation with any particular community, it probably wouldn't hurt to reference that. ~~~ JoeCortopassi ^this. I wasn't trying to insinuate that you were a spammer. Just that this could be a common perception when someone goes to your site. ------ olegious Just got my first email (Pile Squats), some feedback: 1\. the stickfigure exercise illustration is a fun idea 2\. how do I know the number of reps that I need to do or how long I need to do the exercise? 3\. what will this exercise do for me (how will it help me)? 4\. what is the thought process behind recommending a specific exercise- is there a program that is being followed, will tomorrow's exercise build on today's? etc. Some of these questions (like the programming and where do the exercises come from questions) can be answered on the main site, but this needs to be done in as little words as possible (or maybe in a separate FAQ section). ~~~ raivo Thanks for taking the time to give me feedback - really appreciate it! These are all great points that I will try to utilize. ------ mike-cardwell This is a really good idea. I don't usually sign up for random newsletters, but this is different. I have just signed up. I assume you're going to place health/office related adverts in the emails, and Like/+1 links? You could perhaps add a link that people can click once they've completed a task, and maintain a running score for them or something? Turn it into a game. ~~~ raivo Eventually there will be a relevant and non-obtrusive text(?) based ad in the email. There already is a Like link there...but that needs a little tinkering to get it to behave like I envisioned. Will need to add +1 since that's getting popular. Another one I've been contemplating is to add Twitter link as well. I think your idea of turning this into a game like experience is brilliant. One thing I've noticed with emails of this nature is that after a while you start to ignore them. Letting readers keep score of the reps/tasks completed would hopefully entice them to keep opening the emails and, more importantly, keep them exercising. And thanks for signing up! ------ pkamb I signed up... but the timezone list seemed very non-standard and hard to figure out. Can't you begin with an IP lookup or something? ------ JonLim Like this idea - my office could always use more exercises to do at work. What do you use to send out the emails? ~~~ raivo I use the App Engine's Mail API to send the emails. ------ noahth Loved the idea, signed up to try it out. Why did I get the same email 4 times? ~~~ raivo If you don't mind, could you reply to those emails please - that will send them to my inbox, will need to take a look. I suspect there's an issue either with the MapReduce library processing your email more than one time or there's something with App Engine's email service (Mail API).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
“I thought I'd share this Boris Johnson story with you” - carusooneliner https://www.facebook.com/thejeremyvine/posts/since-he-is-probably-our-next-prime-minister-i-thought-id-share-this-boris-johns/2449074521979085/ ====== duxup I've been lucky enough to know some US state level politicians for quite some time, not major figures, but folks who did it most of their life (while doing other things too) and were successful at it. I often got the felling that they did that thing, and even pushed the issues they did... because they were successful at it and it fit their personality. Most were not idealists despite what they said IMO, I suspect many if pressed to change their positions did not really care about the issues outside of a couple topics at most (and due to the winds of change in US politics most actually supported surprisingly different issues over time). They were just very good at getting along with people, shaking hands, negotiating deals, had the social skills that provided them the financal and political support hey needed to keep going. In many ways it seemed to be a lifestyle that once they were successful, was also a sort of social life, and to some extent a thrill seeking event (elections are exciting) that just kept them going as people. Not to pass the buck on any moral choices they make, they're certainly responsible, but I suspect for may they just sort of fall into it, and just don't want to quit the lifestyle as it fits who they are. ~~~ gexla > Most were not idealists despite what they said IMO, I suspect many if > pressed to change their positions did not really care about the issues > outside of a couple topics at most (and due to the winds of change in US > politics most actually supported surprisingly different issues over time). They represent the views of the people who vote. Those views change over time. This is much like me doing what my employer asks for, despite my own preferences. It's not our views which are important, but rather the ability to execute for those we are working for. I think most workers don't care so much about the mission of their employers. They find a way to make their work interesting and things get done regardless. ~~~ riffraff I think this point of view is arguable. First, politicians may be considered as representative of either _only the people who voted for them_, or as _representative of everyone_. Secondly, many politicians do not really change their point of view, the change in people's opinion is expressed by voting different people. ~~~ sidkshatriya Must this be a binary choice? Both effects are at play here. Politicians will often adjust their publicity stated views to match their electorate to be more electable. As the electorates opinions change over time, the publicly stated views of the politicians also evolve. Occasionally politicians who want to bring about a certain kind of change they believe in passionately are able to shift the views of their electorate also. This happens rarely but it happens. In other words this business attracts people of all kinds: the cynical kind that just wants power regardless of policy and the kind that wants to bring about the kind of of change they think will take society to nirvana regardless of what people think. Usually each politician has both sides. It’s a continuum. ~~~ riffraff yes, I agree completely. ------ pjc50 Like Penn and Teller, it's always interesting to see a magic trick deconstructed. And it is a "trick" or a "routine", as much as anyone else's performance. It relies entirely on intelligence and the ability to think on one's feet, combined with a good memory of a stock of anecdotes that can be matched to the audience. Or at least a few stock ones that can be hammed up. The anecdotes mentioned (SHEEP and SHARK) are highly political, too, focusing on "EU regulations" and "health and safety"; mocking these is absolutely a staple of Johnsonism, and it goes down well with the soft-right and businessmen. The haplessness is a routine that Brits absolutely love, and again it takes no small skill to be professionally hapless. This was also a staple of Wogan's performances; famously, for the big Children in Need telethons, he never did any of the rehearsals but came on and delivered a charismatic and funny performance - all night. The problem is that Johnson is not applying for the job of chat show host, he's applying for PM, and this routine absolutely does not work on other EU leaders. He also appears to be entirely self-centered and amoral. Years ago having a daughter in adultery would have disqualified him ( [https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/may/21/boris- johns...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/may/21/boris-johnson- fathered-child-affair) ), but in post-Trump times nobody cares. [http://www.harrowell.org.uk/blog/2017/12/11/the-two- cultures...](http://www.harrowell.org.uk/blog/2017/12/11/the-two- cultures-2017-merit-versus-brilliance/) : explores this concept at greater length. As a Cambridge alumnus I'm absolutely familiar with brilliance as a kind of performance. For those in that culture glib effortlessness is prized. An earlier example might be Enoch Powell's showboating on his Classical Greek paper - when asked to do a translation into Greek of a poem, he did two versions as pastiches of different Greek poets and then left early. ------ philjohn The thing people need to know about Boris is that 99% of what you see in public is a carefuly crafted image of a harmless, and somewhat likeable buffoon. If you listen to the recording of where he was talking with an acquaitance about supplying him with the address of a reporter for said acquaintance to "rough up" an entirely different man emerges, one who doesn't stammer and ham things up. Boris is a very calculating man, and has fooled so many, for so long. This story paints this point very vividly. ~~~ bhouston So Boris, the Oxford man, has an "Everyman" shtick that has wide appeal. Smart man. Politicians who are so smart as to become something else are a bit scary, hard to trust if they are mostly an act. I suspect this is mostly for public consumption and he dropped this when actually working. Thus maybe it is just his interfacing with the people shtick. And then it is mostly harmless. ~~~ Bakary "There is an idea of a Boris Johnson, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there." ~~~ zwerdlds did you manage to get that doria reservation for tonight? ------ ruytlm I am reminded of a post I once read[0] on how coyotes are 'too clever by half'; smart enough to realise how to win each skirmish, but without realising they're losing the metagame. Johnson strikes me as someone who has learned to 'hack' the skirmishes (e.g. by playing the fool when giving speeches as discussed) in order to win in the short term, but who seems oblivious to (or to be willfully disregarding) the long term detrimental effect his skirmishing has on the UK. [0]: [https://www.epsilontheory.com/too-clever-by- half/](https://www.epsilontheory.com/too-clever-by-half/) ~~~ HenryBemis Great article, thank you. As for BoJo, he is smart as a fox. Trump is the same. They make 1-2 stupid things, so people call them stupid. On the back side they scheme and plan. Haters see the stupid actions and hate. They play a game of chess, sacrificing a pawn (some 'credibility' by saying something stupid), and while people are getting tired of their artificial stupidity, they march on doing their thing left alone. Someone who managed to be the mayor of London, then get in the Parliament, then managing to be in the top 2 candidates for Prime Minister, have a net worth of a couple of million (of the £€$ we know), he CANNOT be THAT stupid. He plays the game and he's winning. I don't like the man. But I don't like him because I don't like his policies, his ideas, and I don't like Brexit. But as a politician/player, he's rocking this game. People who think Boris is stupid, are completely missing it. He is like Varoufakis. He sees an opportunity and grabs it. Maybe the 'bet' will pay off, maybe it will not. But: Mayor of London --> Minister of "Foreign Affairs" \--> Prime Minister.. I call that an intelligent human being. ~~~ kristiandupont I am not sure about Boris, but I am 100% certain that the narrative about Trump playing 4D chess is bullshit. I believe that George Bush may have had a persona to some degree ([https://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/](https://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/)) because it pays off to speak like a man of the people. But everyone who's worked with Donald Trump and spoken out afterwards tell the same story about how utterly stupid he is. In Denmark, we once elected a comedian into parliament. He won on promises like "more sunshine" and "bigger christmas presents". People loved it because it was fun and a bit of a finger to the boring, smooth politicians that they usually saw. I guess you could argue that he is smart in that he was able to win the crowd, but what I take away from that is more that the crowd is fickle and will go with (and push) a trend or a fad if it looks fun or supports their anger. ~~~ coldtea > _I am not sure about Boris, but I am 100% certain that the narrative about > Trump playing 4D chess is bullshit._ Compared to the narrative that a person who could run several multi-billion dollar businesses, negotiate deals all around the world, get back from bankruptcy (even if it was with cunning and winning banking favors) and play the media to become President is stupid? ~~~ mikeymz You are missing the subtext of that narrative - Trump did none of those things. People around him and behind him are responsible. I'm not saying that is true (probably is) but it explains how a dullard with his dad's cash can achieve what he has. ~~~ coldtea All billionaires have an army of support. Even if Trump didn't handle the details, he was still on the forefront on high end deals, not sitting in the back and letting some CEOs do them (which many heirs do). Lots of dullards with dad's cash just spent it on women and booze or lose everything, Trump kept it (if he didn't increase it, considering the bankruptcies and re-emergences) and made his name a kind of brand. He is not gracious or polished (he's an American businessman after all, that's par for the course), but he does have the P.T Barnum kind of spirit (which is not exactly that of the dullard). And even if we forget the business thing (say he had zero accomplishments there). The elections thing, he did mostly by himself. He obliterated opponents and won voters (including from his own party) starting from zero, when media and pundits gave him zero chances. Could you or me? ~~~ notahacker I think the PT Barnum spirit comment is absolutely fair, but it's also true to say that PT Barnum was more unusually driven and genuinely fond of attention than a 4D chess player. As for Trump, there's a theory fashionable in some circles that his speaking style is purely performative to simplify or reframe his genuinely sharp grasp of the issues for his audience. But it's undermined by his tendency to embark upon similar rambles about how _his pilot said the airports should give airlines better equipment (?!?) and pilots are very clever and if the FAA isn 't run by a pilot it should be_ in front of the sort of apolitical business audience where there's nothing to gain from not just doing the presidential thing and appearing to listen. Sure, nobody's saying his drive isn't exceptional or that the basic strategy of seizing media attention and promoting the sort of populist policies his opponents were squeamish about didn't _work_ , but that's not the same thing as him actually being the smartest person in the room playing 4D chess to disguise it. His persona's at least as WYSIWYG as any other politician. I think Johnson might be more deliberate in his unpolished approach, but I also haven't seen any reason to believe the whimsicality and studied flustered look isn't there mainly because he genuinely does prefer anecdotes to details and struggles to give a straight answer. The counterpoint to this Johnson story of charmingly chaotic speeches is a recent video where he's asked what he does in his spare time, and he appears to be making up a hobby as he goes along in a manner which just looks _incredibly awkward_. And yet references to this hobby (making models from boxes) in an old column suggest he was actually honestly trying to explain it! Would have come across a lot better if he'd told a joke about not having any spare time and thrown in a half-remembered story about how Winston Churchill spent his time... ------ dr_dshiv This was a fun read. My take is that politicians showing up to random award ceremonies and giving a canned speech is a normal situation, though. That he can give a canned speech in a way that seems self-deprecating and authentic, in order to entertain and connect with the audience, is impressive. I can understand why someone would feel that this is a form of lying. He is an entertainer and capable of manipulating crowds. My concern is the lack of people like this who share my own politics. ~~~ magpi3 > He is an entertainer and capable of manipulating crowds. My concern is the > lack of people like this who share my own politics. The creepy part for me was not the canned speech. It was the attempt to manipulate the people at his table. The last minute arrival, the shock at finding he is the speaker, forgetting his speech at the table... I would also feel like I am watching a fraud ~~~ monk_e_boy It's all staged. The late enterence, the demands for paper and pen, leaving it on the table and 'winging' his speech. He knows it all adds to his mystique, that sheet of paper will be passed around and talked about. He knows that he has been sat on the most influential table with the most influential people. He reminds me of great improv, that he takes a bit and goes with it. Shame he's being kept of the telly at the moment. ~~~ magpi3 Except none of it is improv. It is all planned. ------ daniel75378 Isn’t this normally called a one-trick pony? Alternatively it is very much like what actors do; act. I am struggling to see a sense of professionalism, concern or leadership, unfortunately. Nice hair, though. ~~~ bubblewrap I don't think he is giving the sheep speech at EVERY occasion. Presumably he has more than one trick up his sleeve. ------ ggm The moral of the story: it's a giant con, and all of us, worldwide are the mark. ------ garypoc The only logical conclusion we can make about this post is that the writer is indeed a good storyteller! ~~~ monk_e_boy jeremy vine is a very well known journalist and radio show host ~~~ johnnycab His younger brother is less political or gloomy; an accomplished comedian and a king of one-liners. "I decided to sell my Hoover... well it was just collecting dust." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Vine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Vine) ------ fit2rule Think for yourself: what is happening underneath all these distractions by loud and obnoxious clowns? Am I possibly missing something important while all this fuss and nonsense is distracting the general public? Because, we are living in an age of cults. The mechanics of the cult process are well and truly understood by the rich and powerful at this point, and we are never going to be safe for as long as we are members, unwittingly, of a cult for which we don't know the real purpose. ------ andy_ppp In some horrendous nihilistic way we seem to get the politicians we deserve. Hopefully Boris and Trump are the end of this mess and after they screw everything we get something better, but I fear it’s just the start. It really does feel like we live in the hunger games right now. ~~~ te_chris It’s literally a certain portion of boomers and above who are these people’s main constituency. TPUSA et al can try and claim there’s a silent minority of youth for these proto-fascists, stats would disagree though. It’s the boomers mostly, whose elected political representatives have spent their whole lives running down the state, making things easy for themselves, and now they expect to retire and cost a fortune in healthcare and that younger generations are just going to go along with it. And maybe they’re right, life expectancy is helping them to keep winning elections. Not forever though. #NotAllBoomers of course, but they did keep electing the ones who’ve put us in the position we’re in today vis a vis huge upcoming tax liabilities and very low - historically - current levels of tax income. If you want some interesting reading, google generational eu sentiment in the uk, it’s the boomers who are the most anti. The greatest generation are generally positive, given they actually went through the war. ~~~ rjf72 Here [1] are some data on this exact topic. Pew broke down ideology by age. While it's true that older individuals tend to become more conservative, this is a not a new phenomena and has been observed and commented upon for centuries. Of course when young we _know_ there is no chance we could ever 'compromise' our views as the years pass. Nonetheless, life experience changes us in ways we often could never have predicted. Ok, but in spite of this there's no crystal clear correlation. In particular the split among ideology on the 65+ group that most consistently votes one way or the other (representing about 66% of the entire population) is split 50/50\. And similarly there is also much more diversity in views among younger individuals than is typically represented by e.g. social media. The one interesting correlation they did observe is one between your cohort's (by age group) voting tendencies and whom the president was when your cohort turned 18. Like you mention the Greatest generation who turned 18 under FDR lean heavily democratic. Though contradicting your hypothesis is the fact that you're presumably referencing WW2. And the Silent generation served extensively in this war. And they lean heavily republican. One interesting thing I've observed (and wrote in a post a little above in a peer to this comment chain) is there tends to be a periodic shifting of ideology, that in general just tends to be against the status quo. And Pew's data provides some really interesting insight there. For instance they broke Boomers down into three 5 year groups. The groups are divided based upon who was president when they turned 18. Those 3 presidents were Kenny/Johnson, Nixon, and Ford/Carter. The Ford/Carter combination is frustrating for data, but regardless the results we get: \- Kennedy/Johnson - lean heavily republican \- Nixon - lean heavily democrat \- Ford/Carter - lean heavily republican Not easy to classify things in a straight forward way, but interesting data nonetheless! [1] - [https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the- politic...](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the-politics-of- american-generations-how-age-affects-attitudes-and-voting-behavior/) ------ Simon_says I block all Facebook properties at the DNS level. Is there another source for this? ~~~ mooreds [https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/06/my-boris- story/](https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/06/my-boris-story/) ~~~ Simon_says Sweet. Thank you. ------ diego_moita As a non-British, I say that the idea of Boris Johnson leading Britain through Brexit sounds just like an orangutan riding a double decker bus through Piccadilly Circus: you don't want to be there, but you don't want to miss a second of this show. Sorry Italy! You're not the funniest country in Europe anymore. Britain just got their own Silvio Berlusconi. ~~~ jacquesm Boris is much worse than Silvio Berlusconi, who is - predictably - following the money and looking out for his buddies. Johnson will happily ruin the whole country for a gain in status. ~~~ rurban Certainly not for a gain of status. His speech was very well prepared to the target audience: Upper class cynicism, throw the plebs under the bus, nobody cares - the beaches do remain open. And we'll entertain ourselves in the meantime, whilst the industry will have their will. ------ arittr This is a true HN gem - thanks, really made my evening. ------ talos So he’s a comedian, and a bad one. ------ badcede [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3gabyntpWg#t=2m58s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3gabyntpWg#t=2m58s) ------ senectus1 Why do we (our society) keep electing these sorts of people? ~~~ pseudolus Because we value superficiality over depth. Always have, always will. ~~~ peterwwillis People interpret charisma as depth (or at the very least, as being capable). Nobody looks at a charismatic person and says, now there's a real idiot. Even in this story you see it. The author thought he was a genius, even after watching the insanity of a supposedly unprepared speaker trying to wing it. ~~~ kmonsen What? Isn't Trump, Boris Johnson and George W Bush charismatic people and that is what is used against them? Charismatic but a fool underneath? Maybe I'm misunderstanding your argument here. ~~~ peterwwillis People vote populist because they see themselves in that leader: "they're just like me". If the voters considered who they're voting for as idiots, that would mean the voters considered themselves idiots. Instead, people considered them "capable". Not a genius, but "able to get the job done". Charisma instills confidence, and is endearing. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton gathered large bases because of what they were saying, but not because of how they said it. Rather than instilling confidence by charisma, they had to convince people of their abilities. In a way, that's much harder. Charisma is a bit like a cheat code. You can also see this in Bill Clinton, who despite passing some dreadful legislation _and_ being scandalized, people continued to have respect for, because he was very charismatic. ------ noncoml So, he is an actor? ------ bifrost ok, thats hilarious. ~~~ mooreds Did not see that one coming. ------ Arbalest He must have recognised the seachange of populism and created a persona to suit. Reminds me of the BDG video on Polygon on how to create the perfect E3 presentation. Particularly the part about Gaffes. I suppose this was a long time coming, in marketing circles, it is agreed that "Generation X" was the first "Jaded" generation, and I feel like there's some link there. Marketing to that generation often involves taking the piss out of their own product, and it is now the generation which is right in the age group to start wielding significant power and still has a number of good working years. ~~~ Apocryphon It's been said that George W. Bush already did that decades ago, shedding his New Englander blue-blood upbringing for Texan rustic. ~~~ doesnt_know I dunno, I don't think it's very healthy that when presented with a bumbling idiot in a position of power you start to think it's a big ruse and they are actually a genius. It's best to just assume they are in fact, a bumbling idiot. ~~~ eschaton When there are actually samples of his speech before and after moving to Texas, and when he was Governor of Texas versus President of the United States, it kind of lends more credence to the claim. ~~~ jancsika There are two essential options: 1\. W "knew stuff" and chose to present himself as a Texan 2\. W "didn't know stuff" and chose to present himself as a Texan The second option is by far more likely. For one of many examples take the following clip: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdimK1onR4o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdimK1onR4o) Is there any evidence at all that W actually knew what tribal sovereignty meant yet chose to completely bumble the answer here? ------ Bakary This calls to mind the idea that our world is uniquely suited to psychopaths (or whatever the current DSM-V term is). Cities are too large for people to be held accountable as a villager would. There is too much information for scandals to have consequences. The thirst for confidence and charm is so intense that charisma or presence is by far the most useful quality a person can have. Modern life is filled with so much stress that those who cannot feel fear or empathy are highly advantaged. In the end you can have amorphous politicians who can change their identity at any moment and be hailed for it, because they provide some form of emotional value to people in a world where nothing matters anymore anyway. Looking at the new generation of entertainers on streaming or video platforms, many of them seem to have dark triad traits. ~~~ 895-grbtio Don't believe the hype. Lack of empathy is a huge handicap in life. People who are unable to imagine things from the perspective of others are often unable to correctly interpret or anticipate others' actions and responses. Managers with low EQ tend to not go very far. ~~~ seanmcdirmid Sociopathy isn’t associated with empathy impairment like psychopathy is. Sociopaths understand empathy well, and can use it like a weapon. ~~~ neonate What's your source for that? It's not how I've understood the distinction between sociopaths and psychopaths. In fact, it's not clear that there _is_ a well-defined distinction. Everybody seems to draw the line differently. ~~~ seanmcdirmid [https://www.healthyplace.com/personality- disorders/psychopat...](https://www.healthyplace.com/personality- disorders/psychopath/psychopath-vs-sociopath-what-s-the-difference) ------ DanBC > “Now, I accept,” he went on in an uncertain tone, “that as a result some > small children were eaten by a shark. But how much more pleasure did the > MAJORITY get from those beaches as a result of the boldness of the Mayor in > Jaws?” A small reminder that this is a direct cause of Grenfell, where 72 people died in a burning building. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire) ~~~ chippy could you explain your comment as I did a search on this page and saw no mention of this ~~~ DanBC Boris Johnson is claiming that red tape hinders business and that we need less of it, and sure some people are going to be harmed but that's counter-balanced by the increased prosperity of everyone else. [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/28/boris-johnson- ba...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/28/boris-johnson-backs- telegraph-campaign-cut-eu-red-tape-choking/) He was part of a government that promised a "bonfire of red tape", and that included building standards. [https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/cameron-claims- victory-i...](https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/cameron-claims-victory-in- bonfire-of-the-building-regulations/8658068.article) > In a speech to the Federation of Small Business Cameron said 100 standards > and building regulations were facing the bonfire – a move which he claimed > would save around £60 million a year for housebuilders – or £500 for each > new home built. > His announcement effectively re-iterates the government’s commitment to trim > down building regulations as part of its Housing Standards Review. Grenfell Tower showed us why those regulations exist and what happens when you get rid of them - people die. [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/15/grenfe...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/15/grenfell- tower-red-tape-safety-deregulation) From the Wikipedia article: "The national government commissioned an independent review of building regulations and fire safety, which published a report in May 2018" That report is here: [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent- revie...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of- building-regulations-and-fire-safety-final-report) There was previous criticism of UK fire regulation, that's mentioned in the Wikipedia article here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire#Criticism_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire#Criticism_of_fire_safety_regulation) ~~~ bubblewrap But did he specifically axe regulations of fire safety? Or did he mean to abandon all ALL regulations? Just because some regulations may be good, does not mean all regulations are good. ------ 0815test > Johnson excelled in English and Classics English and Classics... seriously, dude? That's good enough for working at Starbucks and McDonalds, I guess, but not for much else. Least of all for effective policymaking. ~~~ growlist Not sure if you're kidding, but Eton is one of the finest schools in the UK, probably the world, so it's a bit much to be quite so disparaging. Also I'm guessing you've never heard of CP Snow: 'The Two Cultures is the first part of an influential 1959 Rede Lecture by British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow. Its thesis was that "the intellectual life of the whole of western society" was split into two cultures – the sciences and the humanities – which was a major hindrance to solving the world's problems.' [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures) Edit: Boris was also President of the Oxford Union, assistant Editor of the Telegraph, and Editor of the Spectator, as well as two-term London mayor. Surely you must give him some credit! I suggest it would take an extraordinarily fortunate fool to be able to pull off a record like that. ~~~ machinecoffee > assistant Editor of the Telegraph > [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/24/boris-...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/24/boris- > johnson-prime-minister-tory-party-britain) Max Hastings, his boss at the time doesn't have such a great opinion of Boris. I would suggest as well that in more ordinary times, when the country has some decent leaders and is not so bitterly divided, he would have absolutely no chance of rising to the position he looks now likely to hold. But these are very strange times, and "chaos is a ladder". ~~~ growlist Max Hastings may well have an axe to grind, no? > so bitterly divided > very strange times I'm not so sure we are as bitterly divided or that the times are as strange as we are led to believe, and I think both of above have been pushed hard by those that would seek to thwart Brexit: 'the country is so divided, we must compromise (BRINO) in order to heal these divisions!' and 'look at how broken our politics is, we must revoke Article 50 in order to safely navigate these perilous waters!' ------ smangbang Who's the POTUS right now? ~~~ dang Please don't post political flamebait here. We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20281979](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20281979) and marked it off-topic. ------ sonnyblarney If this is true, the man is obviously a genius. That said, the 'act of the fool' mightn't work in operational reality, because if everyone believes he's an unprepared bumpkin, then that's the reality, and he won't be respected. His former editor at the Telegraph had some very harsh words about him, along the lines of 'he only cares about himself, he's totally unprepared, has no idea what he is doing' etc. and I'll gather that rings true. So maybe he is a populist genius, but I'm not sure how well this will bode for the current EU/Brexit crisis. ~~~ whatshisface Critically, he was doing it at random awards shows where his expertise wasn't relevant. You could probably pull this off with no risk to your reputation if you pulled together (I.e. put the "pulled together" tape in your mental Walkman) when it was expected of you. ~~~ sonnyblarney I think the point of the story was not that he was a 'good speaker' but rather, his foolhardiness is a populist act. Which implies that his kind of bumbling attitude in popular politics might very well be calculated, i.e. he's not a fool, he's brilliant. I'll buy that he's borderline genius with the populist bits, but I also believe basically everyone in international politics who say he's a clown, totally unprepared, never serious. Some of the things serious entities have to say about him are pretty bad. ~~~ whatshisface Suppose you were a calculating actor like this guy, and you wanted to insult him. Would you design the insult around his private persona, which only you and a select few were privy to, or around his public persona, so that the public will agree with the insult? If the truth doesn't matter to you, you will join in on the illusion of him being disorganized, because that's what the public already believes. ~~~ sonnyblarney The plebs don't seem to be aware that he's disorganized and unprepared or lacking in knowledge - that's beyond the things they care about it seems. Apparently, people 'like him' and his sheer popularity I think is most of the driving force behind his success. Anyone who's paying attention (small minority in reality) seems to regard him as a complete idiot, however. The Financial Times, his former editor at the Telegraph, obviously the Guardian - any serious writing about him is seriously derisive. These are harsh words [1] The thing I don't understand is what the Conservatives are thinking at this time? Are they simply looking at the polls showing him as clearly the most electable in an election? Because I can't believe that conservative MP's don't realize he's a fool as well. Maybe they think they'll be able to combine him with a solid Brexit negotiator, but I don't see that working. I just can't fathom Boris Johnson sitting down with Merkel, and whoever the new EU President is going to be, and doing anything material. [1] [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/24/boris-...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/24/boris- johnson-prime-minister-tory-party-britain) ~~~ repolfx _The Financial Times, his former editor at the Telegraph, obviously the Guardian_ I would note that all three of these are extremely anti-Brexit. Lots of people believe (rightly or wrongly) that Leave wouldn't have won without the support of Johnson and blame him personally for Brexit, which they see as an abomination. They aren't going to be even handed in their judgement of him: really, I'd say anything they write about him is going to be a smear. ~~~ sonnyblarney The Telegraph editorial position is 'Brexit' [1] [1] [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/0/heres-where- britains-...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/0/heres-where-britains- newspapers-stand-on-the-eu-referendum/) ~~~ repolfx Yes I know. But Max Hastings is a _former_ editor. ------ sittingnut politics allowed here? ~~~ Apocryphon Sounds like he hacked the societal expectations of what constitutes a speech via social engineering ~~~ hprotagonist twice, the exact same way. ~~~ mc32 Plus who knows how many more the witness wasn’t privy to. ~~~ Apocryphon And the speeches that are to come! ------ baybal2 That "sea change" in populism did not started just now. I felt since around late nineties that Western and Eastern politics are getting closer with each day, to the point of convergence. See, that "ultrapopulism" did not start with Trump and Co., it started with mainstream, centrist parties beginning to resorting to extreme political maneuvers and demagoguery at around start of millennium, with WTC attacks greatly facilitating that. Whatever slogans the modern ultrapopulists operate, could've easily be taken for something coming from Lenin, Stalin, Pol or Mao few decades ago. ------ bubblewrap Politician giving speeches at some random gathering of industry types - isn't that SUPPOSED to be entertainment? It's not as if those speeches matter in any way? I think comedians do a similar thing, practicing their act until it seems spontaneous but every punchline hits. Why should politicians do their job part of "public speaking" in a different way? So what does "for real" mean? If a comedian manages to look spontaneous, yet every word and move has been practiced hundreds of times, is he for real?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
5 key learnings after 8 years of iOS development - antonholmquist https://medium.com/@antonholmquist/5-key-learnings-after-8-years-of-ios-development-7190d8a01d09 ====== bsaul Same experience, except i would strongly advise _against_ using core data, and i would also recommend to do layout with autolayout in xib ( not storyboards) for complex views, instead of code, and use manual layout only for performance critical code. Many people don't realize they don't actually need a database. . Most app have their full set of data weight less than a megabyte, so it fits in memory without any trouble. . Querying is often never more than a call to a map on an array ( simpler to debug than a core data query, and type safe) . Atomicity with concurrent access, if you absolutely need it, is a real mess in core data. Even with core data you often end up doing everything on a single thread anyway (and most often this is the main thread). . Core data _will_ blow up in your face, either when trying to upgrade your app, or duplicate the data for backup. In ways that'll make you sweat everytime you push a new version. So my advice is to work with a dumb data structure ( structs and not classes) that you dump in a file when application goes to background (or periodically if you want to play it safe), and perform your queries manually, and load all at once at application start. And if you need parallell access to the data, work with message passing style concurrency, and have a data component that works within its own thread ( very easy to do with gcd). You'll feel like writing a bit of boilerplate code, but at least you'll understand what's going on. ~~~ antonholmquist Thanks for your reply! I don't agree that concurrency is a mess with Core Data, it has good support for this. Of course you need to be careful to get things right, but this goes for whichever technology you are using. As for upgrading the app, if you are doing anything else than a lightweight migration you need to know what you are doing, but that problem doesn't at all go away if you roll your own database layer. I believe Core Data is actually of great help in solving those pretty complex problems. ~~~ bsaul The whole managed object context paradigm is clunky. It's meant to be a system of nestable sandboxes for performing discardable operations on the database, but when you start to mix concurrency inside, it becomes intractable. Reading the documentation on concurrency and managedobject context would make any people's eyes go blank ([https://developer.apple.com/reference/coredata/nsmanagedobje...](https://developer.apple.com/reference/coredata/nsmanagedobjectcontext)). IMHO, i don't think that 80% of the people using core data understand the concept of managed object context properly. For example, i'm pretty sure everyone wonders what's going on when they try to reuse an object from a context in another and get weird behaviors. My main point isn't that one should recode a database manually, but that it's extremely rare to need that kind of system in a mobile app in the first place. Also i think that performing a set of sql query in an sqlite database is much much simpler than creating a correct process for a core data model migration. ~~~ antonholmquist Appreciate your thoughts on this! Core Data is far from trivial but can also be incredibly powerful. I actually think a lot of apps can benefit from the persistence and advanced notification system it offers. ------ jordansmithnz iOS developer for 7 years. Not sure I agree with every point. \- Storyboards are incredibly, incredibly helpful. I work on complex UI with well structured layout constraints, sometimes with dozens of constraints per view controller. That's a lot of boilerplate code that you'd need without a storyboard. Also, you can see the layout in real time as you create it. No need for a run and check workflow to get layout parameters exactly right. \- While I agree about not using external frameworks for the most part, there are some that I've found incredibly helpful. Recently I used one along the lines of 'TOCropController' from memory. Looked great, no changes needed - saved heaps of time. \- I'm a big fan of Core Data, but I've also worked on projects that it hasn't been a good fit for. I once helped move a project to a straight SQL database (reason was mostly performance related). \- While I mostly agree with going native, there are always exceptions to the rule. The native experience is always best, no doubts there. But sometimes cross platform can save a ton of time, and doesn't detract from the goal of the software. ~~~ makecheck The advantages of Storyboards or other parts of Interface Builder could have been had without the disadvantages; they just weren’t designed properly. For instance, there is no particular reason they couldn’t have a “view equivalent code” or “convert to code” or similar button allowing someone to _start_ in a visual layout environment but still see what they end up with (optionally choosing to maintain only the code). Similarly, Apple continues to be terrible about unnecessarily modifying files and creating revision-control nightmares, and this is just poor design. They could have created Storyboards in a way that works with teams and code repositories. ~~~ kennydude I prefer the way Android does things for layouts. You write XML (yeah it's XML, but it works) and Android Studio will generate a preview on the other side of the screen. ------ jumasheff It would be interesting to hear iOS dev with both React Native and native app development experience.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google bans family cafe for offensive content for posting photo of British dish - wil421 https://reclaimthenet.org/google-bans-fannys-cafe-faggots-peas/ ====== _bxg1 It's pretty understandable that they'd get flagged for the word as a result of oversimplified heuristics. However, it should also be expected that there'd be an appeals process for (inevitable) mistakes like this. But of course Google declines to put any effort into that sort of thing, so here we are. ~~~ ajross From the article it doesn't look like an appeal was even attempted, though. In fact, it doesn't even look like the journalist herself tried to get a statement from Google before publishing. Also, it's worth pointing out that the headline is wrong. The cafe wasn't "banned", Google rejected an ad purchase. I think it's very reasonable to ding Google on bad customer service where they won't provide it. But you still need to ask for that service first. ------ pwinnski The irony of banning a UK ad because a word is offensive in the US, while letting other ads for the same place which name includes a word offensive in the UK (but not the US), is delicious. The internet is American, apparently. ~~~ inflatableDodo > includes a word offensive in the UK In the UK, 'fanny' is pretty much the least offensive term for female genitals available, other than vagina, however vagina is considered a bit clinical. A friend of mine uses the term 'foo-foo' instead, which I find hysterically funny. ~~~ carlmr >A friend of mine uses the term 'foo-foo' instead, which I find hysterically funny. Are they French by any chance? The French have the word foufoune. (pronounced foo-foon) ~~~ inflatableDodo I didn't know that, thanks. That is probably where she has got it from. She's English, however her partner is French but grew up in the UK. ------ metalliqaz It's pretty clear who will win this one. Google. Even though the word isn't a pejorative in England, it will disappear because online it's status in the US is what matters. ~~~ faceplanted Faggot is still a pejorative in the UK, it's just _also_ a food. ~~~ hprotagonist And also (by way of `fascis`), a bundle of wood. Quoting etymonline.com here, _The explanation that male homosexuals were called faggots because they were burned at the stake as punishment is an etymological urban legend. Burning sometimes was a punishment meted out to homosexuals in Christian Europe (on the suggestion of the Biblical fate of Sodom and Gomorrah), but in England, where parliament had made homosexuality a capital offense in 1533, hanging was the method prescribed. Use of faggot in connection with public executions had long been obscure English historical trivia by the time the word began to be used for "male homosexual" in 20th century American slang, whereas the contemptuous slang word for "woman" (in common with the other possible sources or influences listed here) was in active use early 20c., by D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, among others._ [https://www.etymonline.com/word/faggot#etymonline_v_1077](https://www.etymonline.com/word/faggot#etymonline_v_1077) ------ Nursie For Americans.... In this case Faggots are basically big meatballs made from the cheaper cuts of meat as well as some liver. I guess think meatloaf, but in ball form. Same sort economic niche, not a poverty food but something for people on a budget. Usually served with peas and thick, brown onion gravy. Can be a pretty good, hearty meal. It's years since I've had it though, as it's not really from my region. ~~~ DanBC For some reason the HN software killed your other comment in this thread. This one: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20920071](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20920071) I vouched for it, but I have no idea if my vouches count for anything. ~~~ Nursie That's pretty ironic :) ------ GuB-42 Google algorithms could use some improvement... Searching for "faggots and peas" in Google correctly identifies the dish. Even the urban dictionary (linked by Google) describes the dish first. Looks like they went with a simple word list rather than use their own engine. Or maybe Google finds the dish itself offensive, a recurring theme with British cuisine :) ------ Digit-Al This seems odd to me. With products such as Translate Google is investing a lot of time and money into understanding context in language. (I imagine it's helpful for search as well.) It seems inconceivable that their "context engine" could misunderstand "faggots and peas" considering a Google search for that gives many valid results, and it seems unlikely that they wouldn't apply such context understanding across their product line. Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting it's not true, I'm just puzzled as to how it could happen. ~~~ scarejunba Even in a 200 person company there are often product inconsistencies. Think about how you'd build this thing in a minimal way. You wouldn't "integrate with the context-aware Translate or Search API", you'd "just build a blacklist and improve it if necessary". It's not at all unbelievable. ------ hprotagonist the scunthorpe problem will never die. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem) ------ nullc I was expecting spotted dick. ~~~ Digit-Al Ditto. ------ goatinaboat I am reminded of the conference NIPS being forced to re-brand because the word “nips” is offensive apparently. It’s not been used as a racial pejorative since the 1940s. A nip is a synonym for a wee dram, over here, if it means anything at all. Or an abbreviation of catnip perhaps. ~~~ hprotagonist and IIRC the hubbub was over "nip -> nipple" anyway. ~~~ goatinaboat Scraping the very bottom of the outrage barrel. Oops I said bottom! It worked though, the NIPS organisers rolled over straight away. Just what you want in people who might need to make an ethical stand over abuse of their work. ------ microtherion When I read the headline, my first guess was that this was about Spotted Dick. ~~~ walshemj I bet Nigella Lawson has the similar problem on her cookery sites :-) ------ iron0013 I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a site that was more transparently a propaganda operation than reclaimthenet.org ------ julienreszka I would be infuriated if something like this happened to my business. Is this real? It looks like a joke. ~~~ vmilner See also (2013) [https://metro.co.uk/2013/11/06/faggots-firm-fights-for- its-f...](https://metro.co.uk/2013/11/06/faggots-firm-fights-for-its-food-on- facebook-4176812/) ------ FearNotDaniel This reads like the kind of anti-European 'outrage' the Daily Mail has been spouting for the last 30 years or so. I suppose they have to find a new target now. Google is the new EU? ------ jrochkind1 In 2019, I have to wonder if in fact someone knew exactly what they were doing, and engineering this controversy. OK, but probably not. (Is "faggot" not actually a pejorative for gay in the UK?) But the question should at least be entertained. ~~~ ghostbrainalpha I think your original intuition might be right. I've been to Fanny's and ordered this dish. It was nothing special, and definitely not ad worthy, unless some marketing company is literally making ads out of every single thing on the menu. Edit: Apparently my pallet is wrong. The Faggots received several positive mentions on the Trip Adviser Page, so it may make sense to promote that as a featured item. [https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g186463-d33610...](https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g186463-d3361001-Reviews- Fanny_s_Rest_Stop-Newport_South_Wales_Wales.html) ------ zer0faith I'd be curious to know if this was found by a algorithm or a person. ~~~ mark-r Since we're talking about Google, it's 99.999% likely to be an algorithm.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Azure Functions (Microsoft's Version of AWS Lambda) - ch4ch4 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/functions-create-first-azure-function/ ====== LoSboccacc Interesting! Can those return arbitrary data of whatever mime? What storage and authentication options are available? ------ charlieegan3 This looks to be node only. Does this do anything AWS lambda doesn't?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Will We Ever Know What Dark Matter Is? - dnetesn http://nautil.us/issue/51/limits/will-we-ever-know-what-dark-matter-is ====== yehosef I wonder if "dark matter" might be a hint from our programmer that we're in a simulation. ~~~ krapp Wouldn't that just make our universe a poorly designed simulation? ~~~ yehosef that's assuming the programmer doesn't want us to find out - perhaps we're only supposed to figure it out once we reach a certain level of technological maturity. Sort of like looking for Pi in Contact.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ramos alarm clock - dzlobin http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2074185253/ramos-alarm-clock ====== martinkallstrom It is probably a mistake of him to let the beautiful nixie tubes and the elegant wooden finish pull so much weight in the promo video and then reveal that the final product will feature very bland LED numbers and an equally non- attractive plywood finish. He should sell the product, not the one of a kind and too expensive to manufacture prototype. ~~~ paulsammut Yup, I'm selling the Nixie Ramos also. The thing is I really want to make the Ramos alarm clock available to people, and the nixie clock costs a lot to make. That's why I'm also offering the cheaper LED model, so that more people can benefit from the Ramos alarm clock functionality. EDIT* Oh and by the way, the wood in the prototype is the same as what will be used in $160 LED Ramos, it just has a darker stain. I'm glad you like it :) ~~~ devmach @paulsammut i think you're missing one important point : ramos alarm clock doesn't/can't solve the wake-up problem ( people just have to go to the bed early and have a purpose to wake up early ) and just another alarm clock screaming at 6 o'clock in the morning isn't "sexy". If one would buy it, it would be because the nixie tube and remote control. It looks retro (=good ) but you can remote control it and it wakes you up by the "super hipster nerd" way ! I think you should remove LCD model or if you insist to keep it , give it a modern look ( aluminium case etc ). ~~~ veyron tl;dr: this addresses a fundamentally different problem, which would exist even if you went to sleep early The problem with the alarm clock is that people traditionally put the clock on a night stand or somewhere easily accessible from the bed. At that point, if you can hit snooze from the bed, you most likely will doze off. Most of the time, even if you went to sleep early, there will be some internal resistance to actually leaving the bed (it's warm :) If you put the alarm far away, then you are forced to get up, and by that point you've already fought most of the resistance to actually getting up. Problem there is that the visual clock is too far away from the bed. The real problem that this solves is decoupling the physical clock presence from the alarm silence mechanism, forcing you to physically leave the bed. Even if you get up early, you still have to overcome the desire to leave the bed. ~~~ xxqs I keep my alarm about 10 meters from my bed, and I got up and put it for 20 minutes later... about 4 or 5 times this morning. Can't remember for sure :) ------ todd3834 Buy cheap alarm clock from Amazon $5 - $10. Put it far from your bed so you have to walk over to it to turn it off. I love the look of the Ramos, especially the nixie tubes but I just don't see much of an improvement over placing the alarm clock on the other side of the room. ~~~ gallamine Pro tip: Get a outlet timer and put a bright lamp on it. The lights in my bedroom click on at the same time each morning and make it much nicer to wake up. Edit: I use this one: <http://amzn.com/B000NBCEM8> ~~~ joe42 I have one of the Philips wake-up lights[0] which gradually brightens its lamp over 30 minutes before playing some optional bird-chirping. The gradual light- up feature gives it an edge over the sharp turn-on of a lamp plugged into a timer, but I'm often lying on my side with my back to the lamp, in which case the bird-chirping wakes me instead of the light. I'm thinking of running a cord from the Philips's bulb socket to the bulb in a floor lamp which I can position _above_ my head (instead of to one side, like the Philips). [0] <http://amzn.com/B003XN4RIC> ~~~ duths I've recently connected my bedside lights (on each side of my bed) to a dimmable X10 socket. Using the programmable controller, they gradually brighten over 20 mins when all lights in the room turn on and my alarm goes off. Felt it was more fun, less intrusive, and as cheap (ish) to roll my own solution. It's a long way from the old days of a radio on full-volume static or alarm clock thrown under the middle of my bed! ------ radley Zen clocks are far more easy to wake up to: <http://www.now-zen.com/> "the acoustic chime bar is struck just once … 3-1/2 minutes later it strikes again … chime strikes become more frequent over 10 minutes … eventually striking every 5 seconds until shut off" ~~~ zargon I've been using a Now & Zen timepiece for about 5 years now. It is far more pleasant to wake up to a gentle gong than electric buzzers that shock you awake. You can adjust the strike force to control for loudness. I keep it set fairly soft. When I first got it, it would take a several gongs before it gradually woke me. Still no need for snooze though. These days I usually become aware of it on the first or second gong. ~~~ radley Yeah, I bought mine 17 years ago and still use it. ------ jmonegro It looks very nice in theory, but for me, this is a terrible idea. It looks like a great way to wake up stressed and upset. Adjusting your sleep schedule is better for your body and sanity than any complicated alarm clock systems. ------ tejaswiy A much more elegant way (I believe) is to have it in software as an Android / iOS app. There are quite a few apps that force you to solve a simple math question / puzzle. You could always put your phone somewhere away from your bed. At one point, I was working on an alarm app that had some game mechanics built into it (points for waking up on time, waking up on time for 5 days in a row, waking up before 6am etc.) and had various types of puzzles to turn off the alarm. I gave up on it because I decided it was more of a sleeping habit issue than an inability to wake up. You can't consistently sleep at 2 in the night and expect to wake up by 6 in the morning .. ~~~ javert At one point, as an alarm clock, I had a headless box under my bed that would play loud music. To turn it off, I had to ssh into it from my laptop - and the password was extremely long. Ultimately, the long password wasn't enough to "wake me up," and by then I had a smartphone, so I got an Android app that made me solve math puzzles to turn off the alarm. Ultimately ultimately, I realized that it was really a behavioral problem. Now I just get up when my alarm goes off. :) (That makes it sound like the "behavioral" solution was simple, but believe me, it was extremely far from simple. And I still think the product being advertised here is an extremely cool idea and potentially very useful.) ------ Sakes What is great about this product? If used properly, once you turn it off you have no excuse not to start your day. (brush your teeth or hop in the shower) Very cool. What sucks about it? I don't have any desire to buy it. I just don't need another alarm clock yelling at me in the morning. Plus it will only be a matter of time before I learn how to ignore it, like I have done with every alarm clock before it. What is my pain that I would like a new alarm clock to solve? I want an alarm clock that wakes me up in a natural way. I want it to pull me out of my REM cycles gradually so I am ready to get out of bed, not jarred out of bed. If you told me that you had done research on REM cycles and that it takes x amount of time to move from one level of sleep to the next. And that your product plays music softly, then increases in volume in natural increments for the human mind. If this was the problem you were solving, accompanied with the wireless kill switch, then I would be very excited about this product and would consider shelling out my hard earned money for it. I would even be okay if you couldn't solve this problem, so long as I knew that this is the problem that your alarm clock will eventually solve. I would expect the alarm clock's software to be updatable, so as you get closer and closer to perfecting waking up, my $135 alarm clock will get better at it as well. I hope this feed back is useful to you. Good luck to you. It looks cool, and it is a neat idea. ~~~ paulsammut Thanks for the feedback! I thought about this, and I wanted to do it. A really effective way to measure REMs cycles is to have an accelerometer on your bed, just how the Sleep Cycle Iphone app does it. I designed a system that would involve having a small wired puck that you put on your bed, under your pillow, that links to the Ramos. The coding and interfacing with the micro-controller is straight-forward, and it would work. The issue I had with it is that it was extra "baggage" i'm adding to the clock. I felt like to implement the puck system, it would take away from the simple straight forward, 0 installation solution that I really wanted to achieve. That wire really just like, irked me. And to make it wireless means another radio which leads to more cost to the user. And with a wireless puck you need to power it, which is again more cost to the user. I actually also made this earlier alarm clock that used a heat sensor to detect if you're still in bed. Hehe it didn't work real well though. [https://s3.amazonaws.com/ramos_alarm/Paulsammut_BHS_alarm.pd...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/ramos_alarm/Paulsammut_BHS_alarm.pdf) But still, i agree, it would be really really cool if it had that feature, but it got to the point where I started trying to add all these little things, and the whole Ramos idea started shifting. I didn't like it. And the remote panel really does the job at getting you out of bed and away from it, which is key. PS. from what I've noticed from using Ramos for a year, is that I've developed a fear to it. Like, deep down in my head i know i'm gonna have to wake up, and I usually will naturally wake up with the alarm time. again, THanks for your interest!! -paul ~~~ Sakes Wow, I can't believe you put sensors in the bed, that is awesome. You are completely correct though, an alarm clock should be next to the bed not in it. But you don't need to know what cycle your customer is in to implement a gradual wake up process. You can just assume they are in the deepest sleep, start incrementing, and eventually the alarm clock will be in sync with their current state of sleep. Again, the product looks great. ~~~ paulsammut Oh there's ramp-up mode for that! ------ bitsoda There's no two ways around being able to get up in the morning. Go to bed 7-9 hours before you wish to wake up, that's it. I'm not sure what the obsession is with over engineering alarm clocks, but the problem isn't the little gizmo on your night stand that goes beep and bloop, it's a lack of a solid sleep routine. Sure, every now and then you can will yourself out of bed if you're unrested and need to get up, but you should really be getting good sleep most nights of the week. Go to sleep earlier: the hard way is usually the easier way. ~~~ yock And I think, ideally, most people follow this pattern. Problem is, my 4-month old daughter (and, I suspect, many, many other 4-month old daughters) haven't heard of this. ~~~ bitsoda Absolutely. Once you have kids you don't sleep through a whole night for at least 18 months. Sometimes never again if you're the paranoid/caring kind. ~~~ groby_b Might be relevant to you and parent: There was something on NPR this morning, about some mom adopting French parenting ideas - and one of the things the French are supposedly good at is getting their kids to sleep through the night at 4 months or so. Might be worth looking at :) ------ lukifer This looks very cool. However, I'm looking to go a different direction: an alarm that automatically opens the room-darkening drapes and lets in sunlight, for a natural and gradual waking process. Imagine my surprise that no such product exists outside the expensive and complex home automation market. I have no experience in hardware hacking, but I might have to see what I can do with an Arduino. Still, this looks like a very cool alarm clock, especially the top-of-the-line nixie model. Good luck! ~~~ nitrogen Indeed, I wish I had the spare cash to drop on the custom model, just because those nixie tubes and wood choices are so awesome. One of the reasons I started my home automation startup was to make myself a decent alarm clock. The first thing I did with my automation controller was program my lights to ramp up smoothly in the morning. Blinds and ramping audio cues are perpetually on the TODO list, but motorized blinds are expensive and aren't all that useful during the winter, when the cloud-obscured sun doesn't come up until late and the extra light is needed most. Of course, leaving the blinds open all night isn't an option for most of us because of light pollution and possible loss of privacy. Anyway, good luck with your Arduino blinds project, and good luck to the creators of the Ramos! ------ jeromegn Having purpose in life also helps. You'll feel excited to go do your thing when you wake up. At least that's what works for me. ------ codesuela If anyone is looking for a challenge buy one of these things and build a snooze button app for this clock. ------ jerfelix With all this power and smarts built into this alarm clock, couldn't they just put in an automatic adjustment for Daylight Savings Time? I would love to have one less clock that I need to adjust two times a year. Edit: It knows the day of week. All it would need is to know what political zone you are in, and be able to predict the whims of the politicians. How hard can that be? :-) ------ edwardy20 I'm sure this will appeal to some people, but for the practical ones, Gentle Alarm for Android has all of these features. And it's only $2.86 :) [https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mobitobi.android.g...](https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mobitobi.android.gentlealarm) ------ csomar It's amazing how fast such tiny projects* can raise. I just watched the video, and then refreshed the page and the funding jumped from $1,055 to $1,700. * I mean here the actual size, and the idea (clock, ipad cover, watch...). Execution and build of the product can take a lot of time and experience. ------ blhack Holy shit $75,000? Are you kidding me? That is an astronomical amount of money. ~~~ DanBC What? Why? Hardware production has a much higher capital outlay than software production. You'd be surprised at how much tools and equipment costs. ------ jcromartie Yeah. My wife will just _love_ listening to my alarm going off for a few minutes as I stumble out into who-knows-where to find the defuse panel and remember the code. ~~~ ebiester That's what courtesy mode is for. (from reading the article.) ------ vishaldpatel I have this habit of walking all the way up to both of my alarm clocks, resetting the alarm to 20 minutes later, and then walking back to bed for a bit more sleep. ------ brunoqc There's no way I'll spend 160$ on an alarm clock with a remote control. ------ swah Nice idea, if a little unpractical. I thought (or read somewhere) about doing something similar using a bathroom scale (you have to put your weight on it for some seconds for it to turn off. ------ joelbm24 if you really want to get people up have them enter a code to defuse an actual explosive ------ dan_orange WakeMate done right! ------ gautaml If you have trouble waking up to an alarm everyday (around the same time) then you need to really re-evaluate your sleeping conditions and habits. After having to wake up everyday around 7am my internal clock has pretty much gotten used to just waking my body up around the time. Even on weekends sometimes (eek). Neat product but it's more of a novelty item than anything for me. ------ xxcode Kickstarter - such a good way to corner all the dumb money. ------ deepakprakash Great, now I can put the panel on the night table, key in the code half groggy in the morning and go back to sleep. :) Seriously, $135 for an alarm clock? ~~~ deepakprakash Why the down votes? Nobody has a sense of humour? :\|	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
HTML5 Canvas Fluid Simulation - msvan http://29a.ch/sandbox/2012/fluidcanvas/ ====== vjoel Fascinating. Is it possible to reduce the cpu utilization when idle? ------ filipedeschamps Loved the acid trip corner tip.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: I knocked my housemate's iPad on the floor. Should I tell her? - scottmcdot The iPad was resting on a coffee table, which is around 50cm (1.6 foot) high. It was connected to a speaker cable via headphone jack and when I moved the speaker, the iPad was knocked onto the floor.<p>No screen damage and the iPad works.<p>Should I tell her?<p>I am concerned that I would automatically be blamed if anything were to happen to the iPad in the future. ====== socceroos The 'right' thing to do is to tell her. This is trust building and makes you vulnerable. By doing this, you also acknowledge that you trust her to do the right thing should she encounter a problem with the iPad down the track or accidentally bumps something of yours. ------ yep-sure Mate, tell her. It will help build a stronger, trustful relationship with the person you are living with. ------ maxharris Yes, you should tell her. ------ msie Yes ------ Zekio if no visible damage, i would go with no. ------ MichaelCrawford Suppose you had to purchase her a new iPad. What would that cost? Now suppose you didnt tell her. Even were it undamaged what would that cost you? If we lose our self respect we have nothing.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Kyle Miller overcomes cerebral palsy to play in a pro event - milesf https://www.golfdigest.com/story/the-amazing-story-of-kyle-miller-overcoming-cerebral-palsy-to-play-in-a-pro-event ====== milesf His story makes my complaints about how hard software can be and building a business seem like a pathetic joke. Thanks for the inspiration, Mr Miller. Good luck on your first PGA golf tournament.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Now that Mozilla no longer updates Thunderbird, which email client should I use? - graublau ====== atesti What do you want to be done to Thundebird? There are still security updates, aren't there? If they continue to update Thunderbird, maybe they make many changes that are controversial and a step backwards? e.g. here: [http://web.archive.org/web/20110904002532/http://weblogs.moz...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110904002532/http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2011/07/primary_thunderbird.html) ""It may turn out to be very difficult to support all three layouts (classic, wide, and vertical) without making each of them diverge further from each other, which is just an extra maintenance burden." Then I propose dropping one or two of them and making the remaining one or two work as well as is humanely possible." ------ mike-cardwell I'm a long time Thunderbird user but recently started using Evolution. I've tried it a few times in the past but didn't find the interface very appealing. It seems to have come a long way recently though and is being actively developed (1). It worked out of the box with PGP. It worked out of the box with my LDAP based address book (both read _and_ write unlike Thunderbird). It also seems much faster to me. (1) <https://git.gnome.org/browse/evolution/log/> ------ nullspace Why not keep using Thunderbird? It's not like the client or the numerous extensions are suddenly going to stop working. That said, if you are on Linux, Geary (<http://www.yorba.org/projects/geary/>) is great open source email client, that's built ground up for conversation style mail. ------ ryduh I've been using Postbox, which is some kind of fork of Thunderbird, for a while now and don't hate it. ~~~ pyre "I don't hate it" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. ------ brudgers GNUemacs. ------ saiko-chriskun gmail.com ~~~ dgunn Right? I'm not sure what the allure of desktop email clients is. I could understand maybe if you found yourself offline a lot but what could you really accomplish without internet anyway? No new mail is coming in. You could compose messages but they wouldn't be sent. Just type up your message in text file and paste it into gmail once your connectivity is restored. I guess I've just really missed the point of email clients or something cause people still make them and people still use them. ~~~ jason_slack Well for me, I am going back to POP, actually. This is the only real way that I can be sure my 26+gb of 14 years of e-mail is safe. On my machine + backups. You might say that is a lot of mail, an extreme case, but when you help people, have clients, customers, sell stuff, etc all communication should be saved in case. ~~~ dgunn Do you mean safe as in from corruption/deletion? Or safe from prying eyes? If I had something digital that I really couldn't afford to lose, the first place I would turn is to Google. Same goes for security. They may have their AI bots peruse through my stuff so they can advertise to me but overall I would think data is probably safer in their hands than my own. I know that's just my opinion. But they don't have a long record of losing data/being hacked.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Does anyone want ~23,000 balls for a ball pit? One careful owner. - dunk010 http://cdn.last.fm/rj/balls.jpg ====== dunk010 All good things have to come to an end. After a year, you've done pretty much everything you can with them. This is serious, btw. ------ aristus Aw, c'mon -- what's the story? Did you upgrade to brass ones? No more room? Are they too unprofessional? Are the haunted? ------ dunk010 Serious offers considered to balls@last.fm ------ geekamongus I'll take em.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
OpenJDK 11, Tools of the Trade - vbsteven https://www.javaadvent.com/2019/12/openjdk-11-tools-trade.html ====== jerven I especially like to use jstack (well not like) but it really helps to figure out the issues when a process seems to be hanging. And you can even use it as a brute profiler, doing manual sampling and correlation.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
True random number generation (TRNG) - aredbeard Hi friends,<p>For the past little while we've been working on a saas site that simplifies the use of TRNG keys. The service provides an easy to use API backed by custom-built arrays of hardware keys. So instead of buying one of these keys off the shelf and writing software to transform the bytes into something usable, you could use our service instead.<p>It's live at http://wheelhorse.io and we'd love your feedback, comments, and suggestions! ====== arberavdullahu I am fond of your work, good job :). 1\. In-browser try it out of the API would be great, take the example of swagger [1]. 2\. The sign-in/sing-up is a bit complicated in my opinion. Why do I have to follow the link in the email to sign-in, why not a email/password login procedure? Also nit but the link the email is given with the text “Sign-in to the wheelhorse”, which may seem suspicious, I would rather prefer the original long link(like most other apps). 3\. I cannot find the price plan, I don’t want to start using it without knowing the plans. In my opinion this deserves its own page on the menu. 4\. How does your service compare to others? 5\. Not sure if this is important, but I can’t find the authors or who is behind it. [1] [https://petstore.swagger.io/#/pet/getPetById](https://petstore.swagger.io/#/pet/getPetById) ~~~ rynn9000 This is great feedback! #1 is on our backlog. hopefully we'll add this soon! #2 agree, we plan to work on this, thanks for pointing it out! #3 we're still working out the details on the pricing plan, we're hoping people will enjoy using it for free for now. Also we're open to feedback on pricing, feel free to send what you'd expect to pay for a service like this to support@wheelhorse.io #4 the major differences between wheelhorse and other random number generation services are 1/ it's going to be substantially cheaper than other services because of the way we designed the hardware that generates the random numbers, 2/ it's very fast and easy to understand and integrate with, 3/ we're open to doing custom features / deployments to meet people's specific integration needs. #5 we're still in the early stages of building this product and are more looking for feedback and early users than anything else. if you'd like details on who we are and what we're trying to do we'd love to talk to you! please send mail to support@wheelhorse.com and we can setup some time to talk on the phone or via zoom. Also I'd like to point out that we're never going to sell anybody's email address or do any other weird things with people's information. We believe in delivering value honestly and securely. ------ stockkid Nice work. 1\. What do you mean by "true random"? Aren't the bits generated by a hardware pseudo random at best? 2\. Why and how should users trust the randomness of a third party solution that they do not control or see the implementation of? ~~~ aredbeard Hey thanks for the great questions! Happy to elaborate on anything below if it's helpful. 1/ It might be easiest to define in terms of suitability for a particular application. As you probably already know there are a number of industry tests which are useful in evaluating the effectiveness of a random number generator (Diehard, NIST, etc). Our service is built on top of industrial-grade hardware that passes these tests and is suitable for use in cryptography. 2/ Great question. It's easier to reason about in the context of specific use cases. For certain applications it increases trust to outsource RNG to a neutral third party that doesn't have a stake in the outcome. ~~~ aredbeard I'll also add that we're considering open-sourcing our implementation of raw hardware bytes => data as a way to build trust and transparency in how we're generating data.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
What does the “3-2-1” backup rule mean - manlog https://bitcalm.com/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-rule-part-1/?utm_source=news.ycombinator.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hacker.321.09.04 ====== dandelion_lover I would just formulate it differently: "If you have no backup, you have no date. If you have one backup, you no backup." ~~~ manlog Nice idea;) ------ repor That like a regular practice for making backups. ~~~ manlog Practice shows, that not a lot of people know about it... ------ proyb AFAIK, no companies does these ways. ~~~ manlog We are trying to change that ------ pajerd What does it mean? ~~~ manlog Just click on the link and you'll know;) ------ indreksorry no idea	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Competing for tips: Tipjoy & TipIt.To (oh, and Paypal) - davidw http://thenextweb.org/2008/02/13/competing-for-tips-tipjoy-tipitto-oh-and-paypal/ ====== cstejerean What do they mean TipJoy doesn't pay you real money? Isn't the money real as soon as the folks that decided to tip actually "pay their bill" to TipJoy? ~~~ vegashacker They pay you in either Amazon gift cards or by donating to a charity. According to their FAQ, "if we allow our users to withdraw money from their account, then we are technically a money transfer service, which requires registration with all 50 states and with the Federal government (in compliance with the Patriot Act). All of that registration requires a very, very large amount of money which we don't yet have." ~~~ mrtron Interesting, so the Patriot act is an entry barrier for paypal? And people say politics don't impact geeks :) ~~~ pg It is a problem for a significant number of startups. But the increased difficulty of getting into the US is a worse one. ------ ivankirigin I was wondering when they would launch...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Research: an outsider's perspective - dhaivatpandya http://poincare101.herokuapp.com/post/33 ====== wtracy Making the situation even more absurd, none of that money is actually going to the people who do the research. In fact, many scientific journals charge the researchers to publish their work, then turn around and charge anyone who wants to buy a copy. Ridiculous.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
New era for KEXP: How this radio station is doing top-notch live video (2014) - miles https://www.geekwire.com/2014/kexp-live-video-stream/ ====== brodouevencode KEXP was the first time I saw the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, with Jimmy James on guitar. He's hands down one of the most talented guitarists alive today. Sample vid: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhicDUgXyNg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhicDUgXyNg)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How I cracked NQ Vault's “encryption” - ninjadoge24 https://ninjadoge24.github.io/#002-how-i-cracked-nq-vaults-encryption ====== andrebalza1 NQ Mobile is not really new to some sloppy ethics. [http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2013/10/24/nq- mobi...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2013/10/24/nq-mobile-a- massive-fraud-worth-0-muddy-waters-says-as-500m-is-wiped-out/) link to original muddywaters research: [http://www.muddywatersresearch.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/1...](http://www.muddywatersresearch.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/10/MW_NQ_10242013.pdf) ~~~ kumarm NQ Mobile buys cheap installs in under developed countries where there are no in app purchases (Or very low). The same technique is followed by several Chinese mobile companies. I don't think its well understood why these companies are buying installs and where the money is coming from. Here are the top ten Tool in India. 8 of 10 are by Chinese companies (Primarily by buying Installs. I am not saying all of them but most of them are). India and China have Conflicts. Tools is one category that require scary permissions. [http://i.imgur.com/3JGtnre.png](http://i.imgur.com/3JGtnre.png) ------ dmgbrn Hey let's actually do something about this: go to the play store and leave a 1 star review saying something like "this app doesn't encrypt anything, <non- technical explanation>". [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netqin.ps](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netqin.ps) There are already a couple of comments by people who obviously read this article, please upvote them. I mean, you have to install it but I just told it to install it on a phone that broke years ago ;-) Edit: formatting ~~~ darklajid Impossible, requires a G+ account.. So, the app might suck, but where can I rate the play store experience with a single star? ------ Potando If true, this also shows the TRUSTe privacy seal is worthless. The name implies it's undergone some kind of assessment that showed it's good for privacy when just looking at an encrypted file would immediately show the problem. TRUSTe itself is a bit vague on what they really do. [https://www.truste.com/business-products/dpm- services/#pCert](https://www.truste.com/business-products/dpm-services/#pCert) I can't find NQ in their search tool for certified companies. Perhaps it's been retracted or was never really issued? Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place [https://www.truste.com/consumer-resources/trusted- directory/](https://www.truste.com/consumer-resources/trusted-directory/) ~~~ dsacco Never trust a website just because it has a seal of approval from an organization like TRUSTe. I routinely perform code and web app audits on companies that proudly bear this seal and find security flaws that will compromise users. The seal means nothing. ------ MichaelGG It'd be nice to see the fake tech journalists/reviewers issue a retraction, or even Google Play get involved as this is rather much like fraud. And also, what does the developer even gain from using XOR? In most common frameworks, using, perhaps incorrectly, AES is about the same effort. ~~~ TillE XOR is the appropriate operation if you're using a stream cipher to generate an arbitrarily long keystream. Or a one-time pad. It also makes random access a lot simpler. Of course, you do actually need to generate that keystream and not just repeat a short key. ~~~ nullc There are very few cases where you should be doing encryption without authentication... and as soon as you're doing authentication you'll be doing more than just xoring with a stream cipher output. :) ------ CocaKoala A couple summers ago, myself and some fellow interns were considering looking at android file vault applications as a research project. We downloaded a bunch of the top rated free ones and they were all universally crap. I think the most secure one just ran the entire file through a substitution cipher. There were plenty of others that would just swap the file header with something else, or just XOR the file with some constant value. When I read this blog post, all I could think was "Yeah, looks about right". ------ iokanuon Relevant xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/937](https://xkcd.com/937) ------ mrb _" Google it up if you want to: NQ Vault. I don't wanna link it form here."_ Please do link it, if only to put your readers 1 click away from giving it bad but honest ratings. Do this also for search engines to find and associate your post with the app. Such bad software needs to be exposed. So here it is: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netqin.ps](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netqin.ps) ------ pearjuice Give a man the assumption he is safe and he will lower his guard. There is no reason to not believe the algorithm used is intentionally marketed as safe but is in fact not. From the top of my head I can think of numerous three-to-four character organizations which would benefit from people thinking they have secured their data when they in fact have not. ~~~ PhantomGremlin > I can think of numerous three-to-four character organizations which would > benefit But this encryption is _laughably_ simple. Those organizations would probably encourage at least somewhat better security. From their point of view the best possible situation is if _they_ can read the data but non-state actors can't. ------ octatoan The Play Store page basically implies that the kid is seven-timing his GF. Interesting. ------ sergers I noticed the app got updated today... Wonder what the bug fix was ------ lfx Maybe someone know better alternatives? I would like to hide/lock some images (bank passwords card images). ------ jenandre hahhaha (sadness) ------ sarciszewski Using XOR is terrible. The fact that they only apply it to the first 128 bytes of the file is even worse. ~~~ zaroth I think actually there is nothing worse than using XOR, full stop. ~~~ sirclueless XOR is not, by itself, a problem. Heck, the most secure encryption method on the entire planet, the one time pad[1], is just an XOR of some secret bytes with a plaintext. XOR is also one of two fundamental building blocks of the current state-of-the-art AES-256 encryption algorithm[2] (the other being a series of bit shifts). The problem here is deriving something so simple from the key, and only applying it to the first 128 bytes. This is unforgivably dumb, when there are perfectly serviceable encryption services available as part of open source libraries, such as the aforementioned AES-256 algorithm. [1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One- time_pad](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad) [2]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard#Th...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard#The_AddRoundKey_step) ~~~ MatthewWilkes XOR is only one implementation of one time pad, it is also commonly used with modular addition. If you do it with letters then it effectively becomes a Vigenère cipher with a long key. The one-time-pad is a special case of any number of poly-alphabetic substitution ciphers, XOR just being one that happens to be implemented on lots of silicon. Considering this is all about an app that has very short keys (a few numeric digits) it's perfectly legitimate to criticise the use of a substitution cipher as they are especially poor when used with short keys compared to real crypto libraries that will use that short key as the passphrase for a real key. ------ plantbased Hey don't diss xor. If the key is at least as long as the message and is used once, it's unbreakable. ~~~ duaneb Well, to decrypt the xor'd data you need to keep the key around. So either you a) memorize the entire one-time pad for every file, or b) you encrypt the one- time pads with AES. Now you have two encryption problems. ~~~ meowface If only there was a way of generating a pseudorandom stream of bytes with which to XOR against based on a shorter randomly generated key...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }

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