The New Reading Environment - <AUTHOR> https://nplusonemag.com/issue-32/the-intellectual-situation/the-new-reading-environment/ <comment><USER2> This is a consequence of engaging each other over what team we're on (right/left, etc), rather than engage with messy collections of individual ideas.

But humans are hard-wired for tribalism, and hard-wires are the hardest to educate away. I'm not pining for a mystical past where all debate was intelligent and civil, but I do think the current landscape of media consumption technologies have thrown the worst aspects of our tribal habits into sharp relief.

Instead, I pine for a future where behavioral incentives align with the needs of humans, rather than with economic metrics.

</comment><comment><USER3> I really loved reading this article. Although I had to turn off my twitter brain to get there.

Here is the money quote for me:

"Were his readers not reading well enough, or did he not write it well enough? Disagreement is mostly blamed on miscommunication. The burden of clarity is now entirely on the author, which makes for dull and repetitive arguments — and a demand that certain people come to represent, unambiguously, certain arguments. One's cards must all be laid on the table, faceup, and one's position must be unified. But the rise of misreading doesn't give permission not to mean what you say."

<comment><USER4> "Readers lose patience, and the careful quoting, like snipping coupons with precision, becomes tearing — into lines, phrases, and points."

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are some interesting points. And I do agree that outrage-driven clickbaitiness has too much become the norm.

But I'm somewhat bewildered by the sense of authorial entitlement. I'm reminded of a piece by someone at Salon, maybe 15 years ago, whinging about lack of respect from readers, and resulting emotional pain. Maybe it's just that I grew up in academia, where people might gut your latest work through a seemingly innocent question during a seminar.

</comment><comment><USER6> I thought the headline was interesting enough to clickthrough, but the first paragraph didn't get to the point so I decided not to invest further time in the article. Reporting on the off chance this ties into the theme of the article I didn't read.

<comment><USER4> Nah.

It's about everything written now is becoming an op-ed and inducing outrage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You know, I spent last year subscribed to a bunch of these niche journals with the hope of broadening my intellectual intake. I tried to get a good variety - everything from Jacobin (socialist) to National Affairs (neocon). I'm not sure it was worthwhile. They're full of the same flood of opinions you get from the broader internet - in much more flowery prose.

N+1 is one of those journals and this article falls into that same category. It's an opinion piece about opinion pieces written in unnecessarily flowery and meandering prose. After reaching its conclusion my main thought was "It took you that long to say _that_?" Ironically, that very reaction is one of the things the author is railing against.

There is plenty to pick apart in our media landscape today. With perhaps the most challenging question to address being "When, if ever, is an opinion too dangerous to freedom to be given a platform?" Closely followed by "How can we improve the tenor and character of the national debate, given the constraints of media economics?"

But I really don't feel like this article succeeded in providing a coherent or cogent criticism of that landscape. Instead it just read like a flowery screed against opinions the author didn't like.

</comment><comment><USER8> I was trying to read it to write a TL;DR

> ... the rise of misreading doesn't give permission not to mean what you say

But I gave up at this point.

<comment><USER9> Why are there not more upvotes than downvotes? It's not like the quoted sentence wasn't a terrible counter-example to the resistance against the fight against layering negatives and the lack of the active voice.</comment></comment>


Software: Immaculate, fetid and grimy - <AUTHOR> http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2015/09/03/software-immaculate-fetid-and-grimy

<comment><USER2> I think the last point is the best one, and something that I'll try to keep in mind

>

        And what do you do when that awful, black day arrives? Here's a quick coping manual from those of us who have been there:

        Don't pretend it didn't happen — you screwed up, but your mother still loves you
        Don't minimize the problem, shrug it off or otherwise make light of it — this is serious business, and your colleagues take it seriously
        If someone spent time debugging your bug, thank them
        If someone was inconvenienced by your bug, apologize to them
        Take responsibility for your bug — don't bother to blame other subsystems, the inherent complexity of the software, your code reviewers, your testers, the community, etc.
        If it was caught before it was running in production, be thankful that a production user wasn't affected by it

<comment><USER3> Really? This is all second nature, stuff you should already be doing. Replace "bug" with defect and it can apply to anything.

If you find computer work is stressing you out, maybe find a better job that suits your interests?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > You may discover as you work in the subsystem that maintaining it is simply > untenable — and it may be time to consider rewriting the subsystem from > scratch. (After all, most of the subsystems that are in the first category > replaced subsystems that were in the second.) One should not come to this > decision too quickly — rewriting a subsystem from scratch is enormously > difficult and time-consuming. Still, don't rule it out _a priori_.

It's good to see this important trade-off mentioned. I've seen Spolsky's infamous allegory about Netscape [1] that "[rewriting] the code from scratch [... is] the single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make," used to browbeat people in response to their quite justified opinion that "maintaining it is simply untenable." While Spolsky does go on to nuance his statement a little bit, advocating for a careful refactoring process with lots of tests, I was happy to see the same advice formulated in a way that precludes such cherry picking here.

[1] [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I usually skip articles like this. It's like saying biology is immaculate, fetid and grimy.

No, but some of the people are. Happens in all fields.

Science is usually reduced to a list of facts. Emotions usually are not related, but if it helps you, go for it.

I half-expect these types of articles to give this tidbit of advice: talk nicely to the computer. It's your friend.

<comment><USER2> I have to conclude that you didn't make any effort whatsoever to RTFA.

        I half-expect these types of articles to give this tidbit of advice: talk
        nicely to the computer. It's your friend.

Yep, that's exactly the advice given:

        Run your change in every environment you can get your hands on, and don't be
        be content that the software seems to basically work —
        you must beat the hell out of it</comment></comment>


Tea: A Disney Original Programming Language - <AUTHOR> http://olex.openlogic.com/wazi/2012/tea-a-disney-original-programming-language/ <comment><USER2> So, the compiler is proprietary, but it requires a GNU regex library; is that not a GPL violation?

<comment><USER3> As long as they don't modify the regex library's source code, that not a GPL violation. GPL violation if they modify gnu's source but didn't share the code freely.

<comment><USER2> Aha! I have been enlightened. Suddenly, the GPL seems much more reasonable than I previously thought.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So it's a templating language?</comment>


New Zuckerberg IMs Shed Light on The Social Network - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/09/zuckerberg_ims.html

<comment><USER2> This article is really similar to the one in Business Insider, it almost uses some of the same phrasing.</comment>


Chinese-Produced Zhaoxin KX-6000 CPUs Purportedly Match Intel's Core I5-7400 - <AUTHOR> https://www.tomshardware.com/news/china-zhaoxin-kx-6000-core-i5-7400,39694.html <comment><USER2> > are said to deliver

except they are samples. Afaik not a single product shipped with those CPUs ever. They are the product of: "National IC Investment Fund (called the "Big Fund") will mainly focus on three key sectors in the coming years, including memory, SiC/GaN compound semiconductor, and IC design with its application in IoT, 5G, AI, smart vehicles, etc."

~$75 billion by 2017

[https://press.trendforce.com/node/view/3025.html](https://press.trendforce.com/node/view/3025.html)

Those are direct non-repayable cash money funds up for grabs to anyone showing something on paper. Like the electric car subsidy fraud [https://qz.com/1579568/how-much-financial-help-does-china- gi...](https://qz.com/1579568/how-much-financial-help-does-china-give-ev- maker-byd/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I was wondering why the geekbench had centerhauls in the model and it seems that the cpu is based on centaur tech company that designed Via CPUs before.</comment>


No Russian, part 2 - <AUTHOR> http://skibinsky.com/no-russian-2/

<comment><USER2> > In less than three days "No Russian" received over 100,000 views.

Well it's perfect, isn't it? A Russian-American SC venture capitalist who flat-out says that "Russia was and is a failed state". That Russians are coddled and intimidated by a domineering nanny/bully-state, that many/most Russians are unproductively employed in some placeholder position by the government (sound familiar?). That there is a suppressed creative class, while the population at large is "statistically speaking not very bright". They need to break free and find their Silicon Vallye. That SC should embrace these refugee smart people (but stay clear of the posers who aren't "creative"! They are not important). That there are a lot of possibilities for outsourcing work to Ukraine (and you'll be helping Ukraine itself, to boot!).

This has a great patriotism appeal - even the more dililussioned-by-America types can relate to the good old USA vs Russia (USSR) rivalry on some level. It has a great appeal to SC culture, seeing some smart Russian _make it_ while, had he not been given the opportunity to move to that glorious place, then he would have surely became a drunk or just suffered in silence, a member of the creative underclass with no outlet for his ideas or aspirations. And of course the plea to aim the inevitable eventual brain-drain in America's direction.

No, I'm not saying that anything that he said is _wrong_. Just that the reasons that this got popular seems pretty obvious.

<comment><AUTHOR> the article was mostly shared by Russian's themselves. I think they wanted for somebody to get this message out for them in light of recent events.

<comment> a-saleh Is there a way to see that? My google-fu is a bit rusty, but aren't there monitoring sites, that could show, where in the world the traffic is coming? :)</comment></comment></comment>


JDK now comes with an expiration date. Unknown what happens when it expires. - <AUTHOR> http://oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/7u25-relnotes-1955741.html

<comment><USER2> From the JDK 7u10 release notes [http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/7u10-relnotes-...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/7u10-relnotes-1880995.html):

The JRE relies on periodic checks with an Oracle Server to determine if it (the JRE)is still considered up-to-date with all the available security fixes (above the security baseline). In the past, if the JRE was unable to contact the Oracle Server, it continued to behave as though it is still the most recent version with regard to security, for an indefinite period.

To avoid this problem, a secondary mechanism, that does not rely on external communication, has been added to the JDK 7u10. From this release onwards, all JREs will contain a hard-coded expiration date. The expiration date is calculated to end after the scheduled release of the next Critical Patch Update.

This means that JREs that are unable to contact Oracle Servers for an extended period of time, will now start offering additional protection after a reasonable period, and will not continue to behave as if they were still up- to-date with security fixes.

<comment><USER3> Thank you, that was insightful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16067829/jre- expiration-d...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16067829/jre-expiration- date)

It's known what happens.

</comment><comment><USER5> Might be the Premier Support expiration date?

Oracle have a policy whereby support for product X.Y.Z.K expires 3 months after X.Y.Z.K+1 is released, or 6 months after X.Y.Z+1 is released. 15 November is 6 months from 15 May, or 3 months from 15 August; do those dates match some other JDK release (actual or planned)?

</comment><comment><USER6> JRE is actually what has the expiration date and a quick google search answers the question here:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16067829/jre- expiration-d...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16067829/jre-expiration- date)

</comment><comment><USER7> From the same page that was linked to:

LiveConnect calls from JavaScript to Java API are blocked when the Java Control Panel security slider is set to Very High level, or when the slider is at the default High level and the JRE has either expired or is below the security baseline.

</comment><comment><USER8> Please don't editorialize/comment in the title. If you need to add commentary on the link you're submitting, write a blogpost and submit that.

<comment><USER9> I don't want to open argument about the rule itself, but as a constant "noob" at life I find it frustrating when more senior members of a community make a decree like this without at least a quick few words as to "why."

It's good and noble enforce the values of a community, but it's far less meaningful to the recipient without that added bit of information.

<comment><USER8> That's fair. It's under the "Guidelines" page, link at the bottom of the page: [http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> move the system clock forward may tell you actually what could happen

<comment><USER11> It's a support expiry, not a technical expiry, no?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Unknown what happens when it expires.

It makes your fridge smell foul.</comment>


The SEC - <AUTHOR> http://blogmaverick.com/2008/11/30/the-sec-2/

<comment><USER2> It wouldn't surprise me if the SEC was a bastion of mediocrity and noncompliance. Those that would like a stronger SEC are quick to point out how severally underfunded and small it is for its supposed role.

It is an age old politic trick to speak loudly and "underfund".

<comment><USER3> It's sad that the SEC is underfunded given all the fees it collects from issuers of securities and market participants. I'm not sure about the current year, but in the past, the fees collected by the SEC were greater than its budget by over a hundred million.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While it doesn't make it false or any less news-worthy, the timing makes this feel like a rather blatant attempt to divert attention away from his own troubles with the SEC.

<comment><USER5> I disagree. If anything he's playing this the same way he played against the NBA and their officiating - by turning up the heat on himself and the matter at hand. Either he's crazy or courageous. By the way, he was right against the NBA. The officiating was corrupt for a while.

They absolutely did release the report when they did to limit the PR damage, especially given the meltdown in the market.

<comment><USER6> Is it news that a government agency is poorly run and corrupt? Look, one-third of Medicare equipment expenses are fraudulent. The executive branch gives out no-bid contracts to firms that used to employ its top members. The Pentagon has lost track of hundreds of billions of dollars, and NASA its billions.

In general, our response to a corrupt bureaucracy is to make it bigger in hopes that it will still get the job done despite the waste and graft.

It's nice that they are conducting these kinds of internal reviews. However, the FBI did one such review and determined that it had improperly used its PATRIOT Act powers 1,000 times for every time it used it properly. I don't think much changed after the report.

<comment><USER7> I'm surprised the FBI did this investigation in the first place.

But I think it may not be news, but it is important to call it out.

<comment><USER8> very important - accountability is the lifeblood of functioning society

<comment><USER9> this is the single most important thing for humanity to get right if we're going to make it. power and responsibility MUST be commensurate. the alternatives are quite literally insane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Gosh, someone under investigation by the SEC has nasty things to say about the SEC. Truly amazing. Speaking of ethics, where on the ethics scale would Mr. Cuban rate commenting publicly on the trustworthiness of the SEC in the middle of an ongoing investigation?</comment>


Breakthroughs that have unleashed AI development - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/10/future-of-artificial-intelligence/ <comment><USER2> I'd like to know from AI experts on HN. This is the third wave of AI hype in 50 years. Will this too lead to an AI winter like the last two times or are we really onto something ?

Heres an interesting AI company I've found : [http://www.celaton.com/solutions](http://www.celaton.com/solutions)

It's already begun.

<comment><USER3> This time there are applications and revenue. In the financial sector, huge amounts of revenue. In the first two "AI revolutions", the startups all went bust.

(I went through Stanford CS in 1985, just at the point that it was clear that expert systems were not going to be very useful. Much of the CS faculty back then was in denial about that.

More recently, I took a machine learning course. It was taught by someone from Black Rock Capital, not an academic.)

<comment><USER4> Interesting - can you describe the curriculum? Or highlight some of the differences of view that you perceived?

<comment><USER3> The machine learning course, given at Hacker Dojo about three years ago, was right out of Andrew Ng's videos, pre-Coursera, with his awful blackboard handwriting. Support vector machines, that sort of thing. Not enough graphics showing what all those functions are doing. Most of that stuff has a clear graphical representation, but in Ng's original course, you're supposed to imagine it.

A Stanford MSCS in the mid-1980s was heavy on mathematical logic. You could get through the whole curriculum without doing a floating point operation. I got discrete math, number theory (Knuth, vol. 2), proof of correctness, formal logic, proof of correctness, theory of programming languages, etc. Some graphics work, on a Xerox Alto. Dr. John's Mystery Hour, "Epistemological Problems in Artificial Intelligence", from John McCarthy. (He would describe a problem informally, then a miracle occurs, and it's in a predicate calculus notation where you just turn the crank to get the answer. It hadn't yet hit the logicians that getting the problem into the formalism is the hard part. Automatic symbolic math was in its infancy back then.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article says the three breakthroughs were: parallel computation, big data and better algorithms.

I think we have a tendency to simplify scientific achievements. There's this romantic notion that real progress happens through eureka moments. Each of these "breakthroughs" are made up of many separate discoveries/inventions that, when aggregated, lead to modern artificial intelligence.

So the real question is - what types of new discoveries do we need to keep advancing AI? I'm not an expert in the field, but here are my guesses:

\- Transfer learning is huge. How can we apply the data used from one problem to solve a different problem?

\- Generalized pattern matching. Can we use the same algorithm that identifies separate objects in vision to identify different noises? Can we map these problems to the same dimensions?

\- Better training sets. It takes years for a child to learn object permanence, much less speaking, listening and walking. What data sets can we feed a computer for it to learn about the real, non-virtual world around it?

\- NLP based off of learning from real world datasets. Can we give a computer data from Google Glass and let it learn edge detection and words and then applying those words to the things it sees? Perhaps progress in NLP will come teaching a computer words the way you would a child instead of hard coding definitions. If you like Wittgenstein, I'd say it's a move away from Tracatus and towards Philosophical Investigations.

</comment><comment><USER6> _The Three Breakthroughs That Have Finally Unleashed AI on the World

[...]

3\. Better algorithms_

To be honest, I find the article a bit missing because of insights like this.

</comment><comment><USER7> >OUR MOST PREMIUM AI SERVICES WILL BE ADVERTISED AS CONSCIOUSNESS-FREE

I always assumed that breakthroughs in AI would come from philosophy than computer science. We don't even know if have the capability to define the word 'consciousness'.

<comment><USER8> How much "philosophy" was necessary for us to achieve the google search?

<comment><USER7> Are you implying that google search is somehow AI?

<comment><USER8> Google search can perform human-like behavior. If two things have the same behavior, can one have "consciousness" and the other not?

<comment><USER7> >Google search can perform human-like behavior.

So can my toaster. I don't think my toaster has consciousness.

<comment><USER8> Then you're not operating scientifically. You have reasons not based on perception for believing something.

<comment><USER4> Is logic perception? Famously (I have to take them at their word) Quantum Physics describes behaviours which require the mathematician to abandon perception and manipulate the formula "blindly". Should we disbelieve them?

Also I thought science was (formally) the creation of beliefs based on falsifiable hypothesis supported by evidence? When did the news come that it's actually about excluding intuition and experience? I think quite a lot of grant applications are going to have to be rejected henceforth, but then, how shall we decide what to observe next?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article is almost content free. Maybe it was written via an AI-tool.

</comment><comment><USER10> This may be slightly OT, but is it unfair of me to assume that science reporting done by mainstream outlets is at worst so inaccurate and at best half true; to the point that when it involves subjects I know little about, I simply avoid the article entirely, and wait for a reasonably credible source to comment on the matter?

<comment><USER11> Kevin Kelly is an opponent of the most optimistic AI researchers. For him to use a title like that is a bit of a concession.

This is the closest you are going to get to something that is more-or-less accurate and that you can accept.

He is reporting that because he has to. Deep learning is not something anyone can dismiss. If Kevin Kelly thought he could downplay the massive importance of deep learning and similar technologies, or say that it wasn't AI, he would.

This is actually a fairly pessimistic article in terms of AI prediction, and yet, that title was absolutely justified.

AI is here and very powerful, and no one can deny it. People can still pretend, however, that it will never have human-like capabilities, or cannot become smarter than us (at least not in _our_ lifetimes). Give it five to ten years, human-like and beyond-human intelligence will be built, Kevin Kelly will be talking to it, and he will have to write an article about how he was wrong about everything (of course he won't admit that much).

<comment><USER12> > Give it five to ten years, human-like and beyond-human intelligence will be > built

That's probably a bit early. The Machine Intelligence Research Institute has collected various surveys of experts asked about this question. The one with the earliest estimates asked the question, "Assuming beneficial political and economic development and that no global catastrophe halts progress, by what year would you assign a 10%/50%/90% chance of the development of artificial intelligence that is roughly as good as humans (or better, perhaps unevenly) at science, mathematics, engineering and programming?" Of 19 replies, the median estimates for 10%, 50%, and 90% were 2025, 2035, and 2070, respectively."

Other surveys and research are described here: [http://intelligence.org/2013/05/15/when-will-ai-be- created/](http://intelligence.org/2013/05/15/when-will-ai-be-created/)

<comment><USER11> If you asked those same experts in 2005 if a Jeopardy computer would beat the best human Jeopardy contestants ever in 2011, what percentage of them would go on the record with the correct answer?

What is expertise today, tomorrow is passé.

<comment><USER13> Yes, it would have been hard for them to predict that anybody would decide to tackle that particular task. The question from GP is about a much broader range of tasks.

<comment><USER14> Watson understands natural language(to some extent).That's a general capability, not a specific task.

<comment><USER15> Watson was designed to answer Jeopardy questions. If Alex Trebek had used natural language to ask it anything other than a jeopardy question it would have failed spectacularly. ie, "So where are you from?".

It was definitely built for one specific task.

<comment><USER16> It was tuned for that particular task, but the core tech is much more general - the current main application for which IBM is selling the Watson platform is healthcare, which is "a bit" different from answering Jeopardy questions.

<comment><USER17> Not really. "A runny nose, a fever, body aches" "What are symptoms of flu the with 75% accuracy?"

That's dumbed down of course. It's probably more like "This much of this enzyme concentration in blood, that thing in urine" "What is a 17% chance of developing some condition in the next 5 years?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "AS AIS DEVELOP, WE MIGHT HAVE TO ENGINEER WAYS TO PREVENT CONSCIOUSNESS IN THEM—OUR MOST PREMIUM AI SERVICES WILL BE ADVERTISED AS CONSCIOUSNESS-FREE."

No. Simply, no. We don't understand consciousness well enough in our own minds to understand how to stop that mechanism happening in another mind. As of yet, we have no mechanism that produces any of the insightful, creative, general intelligence that we see in humans. Even basic biological processes like walking over uneven terrain, flight by flapping of wings and picking up novel and oddly-shaped objects that haven't been seen before are challenges that we haven't even begun to master.

The hyperbole of these articles makes it seem as if creative machine intelligence is right around the corner. What we have done is make statistical pattern matching algorithms. They aren't learning in the way that a child learns through repetition. We simply don't know how general intelligence works well enough to do this.

<comment><USER11> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBsl3HlB8VE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBsl3HlB8VE)

Insight, creativity, and general intelligence are all different and active areas of research.

There is quite a lot of progress in creativity. Google for 'creative software'.

Insight can mean many things, but Watson can now provide insights into cancer diagnosis.

Consciousness is actually fairly well understood in terms of attention, focus, and other aspects.

Artificial general intelligence is a very active field seeing quite a bit of progress.

Here is a bird that flies with flapping wings: [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bionic-bird-the-flying- ap...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bionic-bird-the-flying-app--2) (By the way, that is completely unrelated to AI).

Walking over uneven terrain, (also completely unrelated to artificial general intelligence): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVG4J29JZI0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVG4J29JZI0) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww)

Deep learning is beyond statistical pattern matching. It does involve both supervised and unsupervised learning. Deep learning is currently the most successful technique, but not the most ambitious approach in AGI.

Google for 'AGI', 'deep learning', 'sparse autoencoder', 'hierarchical hidden Markov model', 'OpenCog', 'spiking neural network', 'Hierarchical Temporal Memory'</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is an email I deleted from gmail 3 years ago still on their servers? - <AUTHOR> As mentioned I deleted an email from my gmail account and trash 3 years ago, but kept a direct link to the original before doing so and have been monitoring it. It's been 3 years and that direct link still works. The email is nowhere to be found in my gmail account. This strikes me as odd and could possibly be used as a covert communication channel that would never get detected. Example send a bunch of emails between 2 accounts. Keep all the direct links to the emails. Delete all emails in both accounts. If anyone were to log into either account they would see nothing unless you had the direct links to the individual emails. Thoughts? <comment><USER2> Basically, when you're talking OLTP write heavy applications, rule #1 is never really delete anything. Doing so becomes heinously expensive in terms of having to lock tables and update indices, so on, and so forth. This is a hard lock situation. I.e. No further transactions can be processed until such time as the deletion completes can be processed. Most systems therefore set a "deleted" flag, which causes the system to act as if the deleted thing is actually deleted, while actually just leaving the information alone.

This works great, as long as everywhere in the system actually honors it. That is not a given. If you were relying on actually being able to make that disappear, however, you're SOL.

Not sure what Google is doing in terms of data architecture/persistence mechanisms nowadays, but it sounds to me like they may just be using a deleted flag.</comment>


The Future of Search - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/future-of-search.html

<comment><USER2> Am I alone in feeling that search is just about perfect as it is?

Aside from machine translation, all of these ideas strike me as solutions without problems. The mobility thing is a problem with mobile computing in general, not search. And the thing that searches for everything you say is.. frightening.

</comment><comment><USER3> What do you think the chances are that Google will be the dominant search engine 20 years from now?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's pretty lofty to make any tech claims 20 years in advance. I will say that I have seen Google play their cards intelligently and also, more significantly, learn from their mistakes many a time. I'll conclude that I would not be too surprised if they were still at the top.</comment></comment>


Huffman Has No Immediate Plans to Sell Hipmunk (Bloomberg interview) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpF9dyMY0Vo&feature=player_embedded

<comment><USER2> Wow you guys are so old fashioned, startups are the new resume - you only really make them to get your dream job at Facebook/Google/Zynga/etc.</comment>


Dog Finder Api for Developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.dog-finder.org/api-for-developers Fetch the list of lost and found dogs ordered by distance and put the data in your web page <comment><AUTHOR> With this api you can get the list of lost and found dogs and put the fetched data where you want. For example you can add this data in your web page like a small banner. In this way every visitors could know the list of dogs of their zone</comment>


Ask HN (/Show HN?): Beta released, what next? - <AUTHOR>

Hi all - long time lurker... First time posting.
I recently launched a private beta of my weekend project (easyretirementplanning.ca if you want to provide some feedback!), and now I'm unsure of what to do next.
The folks I've had try it out had positive reviews, and a number of suggestions that I can implement over the next little while.  My question is what is next?  How do I decide whether or not to take this to the next level?
As this is a financial services application, there are significant legal & regulatory hoops I will have to jump through prior to charging for the product.  Not that I don't have the drive/interest to do so, I just don't want to put even more time behind something that may not take off.
I suppose in one sentence - "how do I determine from a private beta if I have anything even resembling product/market fit"?
Thanks!! <comment><AUTHOR> Any comments you had would be appreciated!</comment>


Ask HN: I will automate your processes for free - <AUTHOR> Share with me 1-3 processes related to the web you do regularly, which you find tedious and would like to automate.
I will only pick a handful of projects right now to allow myself to deliver the best value to them. My preference goes to use cases that tick the most boxes of these:
- Very repetitive and/or high value to you
- Well defined processes (you can write down the rules / flowchart of what you do precisely, no human judgement should be involved)
- Low in complexity
- Realistic automations - no AI or ML involved
- No internal systems (for now)
Please express your wishes (things with the highest impact) , and besides the realistic aspect, do not feel restricted to my preferences.
Example use cases:
- Synchronize Asana to Google Calendar
- Backup data from Airtable or perform some actions based on it
- Consolidate data from several sources such as your CRM, your analytics, your Medium statistics and whatnot to a single location such as a spreadsheet or even into a Rest API
- Setting up custom alerts based on tweets (if tweet from user X or contains keyword Y and has a positive sentiment send me an email)
- Setup follow up rules for emails such as: If user didn't login for 10 days send them a reminder / survey
- Create your own push notification system, and receive custom events (I can hook you up to webhooks or other systems)
- Setup a basic slackbot that triggers some API call for example, or receive messages in slack from an arbitrary source
- Watch news sources or job boards for keywords or more complex rules, and do whatever you want (receive a notification, store it in the database ..)
- Scrape a website (you'll need to bring your own captcha service if it's required)
- Automatically post for you in several platforms using one submission
Thank you for your time, hope this will lead to great collaborations :-) <comment><USER2> Convert National Vulnerability Database search results into an RSS feed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool idea. I tried to take a look but the website unfortunately seems to be down.

[https://nvd.nist.gov/](https://nvd.nist.gov/)

<comment><USER2> Yeah I know, but still really want this. Keep an eye on it when it comes back up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Out of curiosity, who would be the main demographic to use this?

And how critical / time saving would it be to them?

Edit: I setup a little watcher using that same platform on this URL. Let me know here or at firstname.lastname@example.com if you want to have access to it (via an API endpoint)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> How are you differentiating from BlockSpring and Zapier?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am differentiating by

\- Potentially having an on-premise option

\- being completely flexible with the automation, and having the ability to write just regular JS code with node modules if need be.

\- providing some unique managed services bundled in the ecosystem

\- targeting creating entire applications with UI that leverage automation for their logic (for example a dummy todo app, that manipulates Asana and your Calendar both)</comment></comment>


Every Day 10k People Die Due to Air Pollution from Fossil Fuels - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2020/03/10/every-day-10000-people-die-due-to-air-pollution-from-fossil-fuels/ <comment><USER2> The underlying research is suggesting that air pollution is the primary cause of 1/6 deaths worldwide [1], and fossil-fuel air pollution specifically 1/15\. I'm not sure it passes the sanity check (wouldn't we have noticed sooner?). If air pollution is really responsible for 1/6 deaths then we've got a massive low-hanging fruit to greatly improve our life expectancy and quality of life that we should take advantage to remedy with gusto! But—I would like to see the counters and follow up studies with more conservatively tuned variables to see if they've over-projected by an order of magnitude or more. Regardless, we should reduce air pollution, but the science should inform our level of resource allocation and intensity. If it's really responsible for 16% of all deaths, then resources at least equal to those spent fighting comparable sources of death should be spent eliminating air pollution.

[1] 8.8 million per year in abstract: [https://academic.oup.com/cardiovascres/advance- article/doi/1...](https://academic.oup.com/cardiovascres/advance- article/doi/10.1093/cvr/cvaa025/5770885) over 55 million globally annually

</comment><comment><USER3> How many thousands get to not die because of use of fossil fuels? Just for perspective...

<comment><USER4> > Just for perspective...

How does that give you any perspective? A huge percentage of the air pollution in NYC is from the same couple dozen buildings that were grandfathered into not needing to meet air pollution laws, as well as things like construction vehicles and cruise ships, which are completely unregulated. There is almost zero relationship between the benefits from fossil fuel use and the deaths from air pollution due to fossil fuels.

<comment><USER5> Fossil fuels are responsible for a majority of our current heat and electricity generation as well as logistics for medications and emergency transportation.

We technically could transition, but doing so would be massively expensive (whether we went with nuclear or renewables), and some industries would simply not be cost effective or would be eliminated entirely.

The consequence of that cost is the stress of financial burden and a slower economy- leading to a spike in suicide and all manner of diseases that can be induced by such stress.

Alternatively, massive taxation and wealth redistribution schemes could be tried to alleviate the self-inflicted poverty, but it would require rewriting the laws and constitutions of many countries to do so effectively across the world, and there's no telling what the consequences of that would be.

<comment><USER6> You completely ignored what the person above you wrote.

<comment><USER5> Not really, I only responded to the line

> There is almost zero relationship between the benefits from fossil fuel use > and the deaths from air pollution due to fossil fuels.

You don't actually get one without the other, and understanding the cost of the alternatives is how it is "put into perspective".

The bit about NYC was largely irrelevant, imho, to the rest of the discussion, given that the issue is far larger than one city's bad policies and lack of jurisdiction over cruise ships. Also, NYC isnt going to be going without construction vehicles anytime soon.

<comment><USER4> > You don't actually get one without the other, and understanding the cost of > the alternatives is how it is "put into perspective".

The benefits of fossil fuels come from the energy output. The air pollution deaths come (mostly) from fine particulates. You could easily get the exact same set of benefits with like 99% fewer fine particulates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Forbes also just ran a piece claiming California's renewable energy push caused the recent rolling black outs . This new article seems better supported but the one on California was a pile of unsupported and even just false claims.

Like when it blamed jerry brown for being the cause of SONGS, the nuclear plant, shutting down. No mention of competitiveness or the years of repair need led or massive repair bill contributing, only jerry brown was the cause as far as the Forbes article was concerned.

But this article seems more based in reality, but coming from Forbes doesn't help it. I just find it weird they publish opposite articles without any reconciliation or quality control on at least one of them.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think talking about deaths is too binary when we are looking at air pollution, since I would imagine most of the deaths are from peope who have other conditions that air pollution is making worse, as opposed to things like car crashes where even very healthy people are killed. Looking at how much air pollution reduces life expectancy is a better measure, and is what they talk about in the study linked to by this article. According to the study:

 _Finally, we calculated to what extent LLE from ambient air pollution could be reduced by removing the avoidable anthropogenic emissions in our atmospheric model. We find that the global LLE of 2.9 (2.3–3.5) years (Table 1) could be reduced by 1.7 (1.4–2.0) years through the removal of all potentially preventable anthropogenic emissions and by 1.1 (0.9–1.2) years through the removal of fossil fuel-related emissions alone._

So they estimate air pollution from fossil fuels lowers the average life expectancy by 1 year worldwide. Pretty significant.

<comment><USER9> > So they estimate air pollution from fossil fuels lowers the average life > expectancy by 1 year worldwide. Pretty significant.

At the same time the opposite point can be made: fossil fuels have disproportionately increased life expectancy worldwide from pre-industrial levels, and made us able to sustain way more human beings on Earth.

Talking only about the negative aspects is only half of the discussion.

<comment><USER8> I think most people can agree that up until this point, burning fossil fuels have been a net positive. But as renewables get cheaper and more useful, at some point it becomes worth it to pay the cost of renewables rather than continue to have a ~1 year reduced life expectancy. So I think the most important comparison is renewables vs fossil fuels.

<comment><USER9> > But as renewables get cheaper and more useful, at some point it becomes > worth it to pay the cost of renewables rather than continue to have a ~1 > year reduced life expectancy

Why is nobody talking about nuclear though? The energy density of nuclear blows everything else out of the water, and so far it's been CO2 free for the most part and safer or at the same level of safety as renewables (btw there is no such thing as 'renewable' energy, it's an abuse of language).

<comment><USER10> Nuclear is dead because nobody is willing to pay for it. Building safe nuclear reactors is just a money thing. Disposing of waste is all about money. Decommissioning unsafe reactors is also just a matter of money.

Before you tell me that regulations are a waste of money think about the two easily preventable nuclear accidents we have already had in the past simply because the people responsible weren't willing to spend money.

Here is my advice. Build products (read reactor designs) that people are willing to buy today and you'll find lots of customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Kurtis Baute is actively protesting against pipelines by camping betwixt two trees. In the video he shares some envelope math on how many lives we'll lose from using the fuel that the finished pipeline would transport:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3hXMsJbt3c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3hXMsJbt3c)

We absolutely must stop burning fossil fuels.

<comment><USER12> Yes, but not overnight. A transition of this magnitude will take time otherwise the cure will be _much_ worse than the disease.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> We really need to ramp up on nuclear. Either by building more traditional fission power plants, figuring out fusion, or capturing more of the energy from the giant, infinite nuclear reactor in the sky.

<comment><USER14> It's too late for nuclear. If the last 30 years had seen R&D anything like wind and solar we'd be in a much better place. And the battle for public opinion is lost.

Unfortunately, there's no time left for nuclear (fission), so the best we can do is jump on the renewables bandwagon.

<comment><USER15> _Unfortunately, there 's no time left for nuclear_

People have been making that argument for at least 30 years; renewables have always been just a few years away from being cheaper than coal and obsoleting nuclear. I remain skeptical.

 _And the battle for public opinion is lost._

I also question this. Countering FUD about nuclear power seems much more feasible than the Green New Deal approach of trying to ram through trillions in spending and substantial lifestyle changes.

<comment><USER16> In Australia new renewables plus storage are already cheaper than new coal or nuclear.

Ref: "New CSIRO, AEMO study confirms wind, solar and storage beat coal, gas and nuclear" [https://reneweconomy.com.au/new-csiro-aemo-study-confirms- wi...](https://reneweconomy.com.au/new-csiro-aemo-study-confirms-wind-solar- and-storage-beat-coal-gas-and-nuclear-57530/)

<comment><USER15> _" New CSIRO, AEMO study confirms wind, solar and storage beat coal, gas and nuclear"_

I've seen stories like that for at least a decade as well. If true, then how is climate change not a solved problem? Build lots of solar and wind, decommission all coal and natural gas (and apparently nuclear), profit! Yet according to the most prominent environmentalists, we need massive new spending and regulations, and we'll have to significantly change our lifestyles and give up on the idea of economic growth.

<comment><USER10> The amount of curtailed energy produced by renewables is like a sad joke in Germany. It's not enough to deploy renewables, you also need to shut down the existing coal plants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Too bad we can't count the number of deaths which will result from each of our todays that we stall off on eliminating that death trap. Because it'll make that number into a rounding error.

</comment><comment><USER18> So we would reduce deaths by 7% by abandoning fossil fuels. Hmm, seems like a low priority by itself but I could be misjudging the significance.

<comment><USER19> 1\. No, that is huge in a vacuum. If there were a no-cost/no-tradeoff way to save 7% of deaths then it would be a huge priority.

2\. Obviously, ending use of fossil fuels is nowhere near no-cost/low- tradeoff. So abandoning fossil fuels probably would not reduce deaths by 7%. Or possibly even cause a lot more death especially in the short term. But again, if it did, that would be a huge deal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Are the vast majority of these deaths specifically from coal? I didn't see numbers split out by fossil fuel and thought that'd be interesting.

<comment><USER21> I tried looking up pollution from heating. Found one source that said PM2.5 from oil fired furnaces in New York creates 50% more PM2.5 than auto's, trucks, and buses. Also noted that even Nat Gas furnaces produce NOx.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> are they including smokers who die of COPD in those numbers?

</comment><comment><USER23> how many people are able to live due to fossil fuels?

</comment><comment><USER24> How about calculating the lives lost by manufacturing solar panels, batteries and wind turbines?

<comment><USER25> That's probably not the right way to go about countering the argument. Nuclear is the real baseline power option right now. Most renewables don't have the continuous output capability needed. Enhanced hydro power and nuclear build out could help to move things in a better direction relatively quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> How much has life expectancy been boosted by universal access to electricity in the Western world enabled by hydrocarbons aka fossil fuels?

<comment><USER27> Fossil fuels have boosted our quality of life so much that we have no really big industrial problems left except for getting rid of fossil fuels.</comment></comment>


Open Source and Games - <AUTHOR> http://lucumr.pocoo.org/2010/12/24/open-source-and-games/ <comment><USER2> I feel he missed a point on why code and not "assets" are open-sourced, though I'm also finding that point it hard to articulate:

Because assets are relatively separable (as compared to source code), and relatively liquid, in the sense that you can put a $$$ figure to the cost of replacing them. If you receive code without graphics, you can still represent all the game objects by solid colored squares and try out the game: then you can price out replacing them with clip art, or custom professional artwork, depending on your goals. If you receive graphics without code, then for most values of "you" you'll just give up because you can't afford the cost, time and cost/time uncertainty of reproducing the entire code base.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Users of Open Source Code_

He forgot one with relation to games: To figure out specific game mechanics and exploit them. :) That becomes more important for competitive games.

</comment><comment><USER4> Umm... Maybe the code is opened and not the art because identical code can make very different games, where identical assets will make games that can be easily mistaken for the original?</comment>


How Gravatar hurts your visitors - <AUTHOR> https://fly.io/articles/how-gravatar-hurts-your-visitors/ <comment><USER2> Some fun history, I helped run the Ars Technica forums and this problem came up _7_ years ago: [https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1122598](https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1122598)

Younger me was dismissive at first, but we ultimately fixed it. Older me thinks younger me was wrong.

<comment><USER3> what if older you is wrong about being wrong about younger you? ;)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Urbaner – Find out what is going on around you - <AUTHOR> http://urbaner.me/ <comment><USER2> I'd love a web ui. I don't have an iPhone.</comment>


Come Back, Colonialism, All Is Forgiven (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1713275,00.html <comment><USER2> Give a man a fish and he'll be satisfied for a day.

Teach a man to fish and he'll not be hungry for the rest of his life.

Force a man and his friends to catch fish for you in big fish farms for your cronies back home to enjoy, but don't teach them how to run fish farms, instead make them dependent on your farm destroying their previous way of life, create some wars and kill a couple of millions, then exit leaving behind a vacuum and you get to write smug, pseudo-provocative pieces in time magazine bemoaning the white man's burden.

<comment><USER3> While it could all be done better, it would be quite fair to say Africa is in its current predicament exclusively due to whites. Whites might have created a messed up continent with their unnatural borders, abrupt exit etc. However without colonization, Africa today would in large part still be in the iron age.

And it is not like whites invented wars. Africa was full of wars before whites came. So you can't pretend war was some sort invention brought to Africa by whites.

<comment><USER4> > However without colonization, Africa today would in large part still be in > the iron age.

I can't let this pass. This is incredibly, crazily racist.

Africa is a vast continent with hundreds of millions of people. There are more middle-class people in Africa than North America, did you know that?

<comment><USER5> I find it rather hilarious that all you can muster is 'that's racist'. It pretty much means 'I can't produce a coherent argument that counters what you said but I don't like it, so I'll call it x-ist'.

Your second point might make sense if Africa had middle class before Europeans arrived. The fact that there is civilization there after colonization doesn't in any way refute the original point.

I personally don't know whether Africa was on track to have civilization without colonialism (other people commenting that 'people around the world got there' is nonsense as most societies throughout history didn't get civilization on their own). But I detest trying to shut someone up merely because you don't find their thinking agreeable.

<comment><USER2> > But I detest trying to shut someone up

This is your imagination. Challenging someone's ideas is not shutting them up.

Especially if their ideas are as misguided, and yes, racist, as to believe the whole continent of Africa was unable to develop without the help of the white Europeans.

> I personally don't know whether Africa was on track to have civilization > without colonialism

Are you seriously suggesting that there was no civilization in Africa before colonialism ?

You know, I'm not trying to shut you up, by this point you're so far off, that it doesn't even make sense to have a conversation. Or said much more succinctly:

The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it, and ain't nobody got time for that.

<comment><USER5> What I meant was not a civilization in the abstract sense of the word but rather what we consider modernity (as brought to us by Europe).

My understanding is that Asia is widely expected to get there without Europe - but it's not clear for Africa.

In the case of America there actually were quite a few civilizations on the upswing when Europeans arrived (and killed everybody off with their diseases). I am yet to see the same said about Africa.

<comment><USER6> I think you probably watched too much whitewashed movies about the Egypt and internalized that it is an European country, don't you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> As with most historical events the truth lies somewhere between the extreme narratives. Conquests have brought suffering and suppression since the dawn of time, but it has also brought new ideas, technologies and development. While Europeans were exploited by the Romans, we also gained a lot of advantages from the Roman empire. Napoleons conquest of Europe also ultimately brought benefits like modern standards for measurement, modern set of laws and administration.

Colonial Africa is no different. It is a mixed bag. It was exploitative but it also brought development, not because European necessarily wanted to help Africans but because getting hold of resources required building ports, roads, railroad etc. They could not exploit agricultural resources without actually building farms and hiring locals. And of course there was always people with different ideas. Some wanted to help Africans and brought modern medicine e.g.

The chief error the western powers did when they left Africa was to not allow for any transition period. They left countries were whites had managed everything and no African had experience or education in managing operations from the top level. They should have given Africans education in white institutions and let them work with the white administration to learn how things were managed.

We see the same disaster in South Africa. Suddenly blacks are put in power but they have no previous experience in having power since they were never given a chance. White rule should not have ended abruptly. There should have been a gradual winding down.

<comment><USER4> If you find yourself apologizing for conquest, it's fine to just go ahead and stop there.

\---

To elaborate with less snark: No one is complaining about the good things. It's the violence and exploitation and coercion that are bad. The conquerors don't get "points" for the good stuff that they can redeem against their sins (or crimes if you prefer) to somehow balance the bad stuff out. What a strange idea!

If I stab you in the guts and then hand you a free milkshake, does that make it okay?

<comment><USER7> This is exactly how it is though - now we have a "but he was a bad guy" narrative for the Iraq invasion. That good thing offsets the other stuff a bit right? I don't agree with it, but it's there.

<comment><USER4> I would ask, "Who's 'we' in that sentence?".

If we could survey Iraqis how many would say, "Yes, I hate being invaded and occupied, but at least they got rid of that jerk Saddam."? Keeping in mind that we can't survey the dead...

Notwithstanding that awesome scene in Monty Python's "Life of Brian":

> Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, > wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public > health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

> PFJ Member: Brought peace?

> Reg: Oh, peace? SHUT UP!

The basic issue facing everyone is how do we have the good stuff, while giving the bloodshed and trauma the miss?

<comment><USER7> "We" was intended to mean everyone, but probably actually represents and small subset of the western world.I'm in New Zealand and get my news from US and UK papers (and our dross). Edit: the Monty Python sketch would perhaps apply if any of that stuff had been delivered. Are there measures by which Iraq is now better? Saddam has gone, that's good. Anything else?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


I made my own wearable computer with a Raspberry Pi, and it was almost too easy - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/7/27/16035508/diy-wearable-computer-google-glass-raspberry-pi-instructions <comment><USER2> Except for the 'wear' part, or use while wearing, or software and applications. But--small battery-powered computer usable in class with slightly more hacker aplomb than a cellphone with BT keyboard: Check.

It'll be interesting to see if anything more comes of this--the easy part is done. Personally, I would have at least opted for a one-hand chordic keyboard and a display you can use while walking.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is internet privacy so important? - <AUTHOR> I see that WebKit has a new tracking prevention policy, which made me think why it's so important for everyone to be protected from big ad companies who rely on 3rd party cookies for example. Why the huge hassle? I could get better targeted products for example, which is a good thing, but I have a feeling that this whole area is causing problems in a bigger picture, but can't identify what those are. <comment><USER2> \- tomorrow you can become billionaire and someone will share your history of porn movies to worsen your reputation.

\- after purchasing some product in physical world, you might get lots of annoying ads afterwards

\- you have small conflicts at home with your partner and suddenly when service which is tracking you hacked all your internal conflicts made public, which again might hurt your reputation

lost goes on and on

<comment><USER3> \- Businesses sell data on the purchasing history of their users. Other companies buy this data to cross reference and derive new, more useful information about people, for example to calculate their purchasing power. Online businesses buy this information to accurately determine how high they can set their price for individual customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You're looking at this from an American perspective, which is great. You're relatively free to say what you like without consequences.

But now look at a place like China. You have to have an app installed on your phone that monitors everything, some families have spies actually living with them reporting on everything[0] (like a very low tech Alexa!)

If you say the wrong thing you and your family get rounded up and killed or sent off to organ harvesting.[1]

Now imagine having an Alexa in your home that listens and reports on everything you say and do, you criticise dear leader even in a passing comment and it's bye bye to you and your family.

THAT is why internet privacy is important. And maybe it doesn't affect you so you don't care, but what if people look through your comment history, see you as a potential dissident so take you out of the equation before you even know what's happening.

None of this is hyperbole, it's all happening right now. Check out EFF.org for more.

[0] [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china- uighurs-...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-uighurs- muslim-xinjiang-weddings-minority-communist-party-a8661006.html)

[1][https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/17/china-is- harve...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/17/china-is-harvesting- organs-from-detainees-uk-tribunal-concludes)</comment>


The occurrence of autism in the population varies primarily based on genetics - <AUTHOR> https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2737582 <comment><USER2> There is some good modern medicine, but the fixation on genes handicaps certain investigators.

> the heritability of ASD was estimated to be approximately 80%, indicating > that the variation in ASD occurrence in the population is mostly owing to > inherited genetic influences, with no support for contribution from maternal > effects.

I think they're trying to say "it's not the mother's fault the kid just has bad genes."

In the real world there are non-genetic causes behind almost all of the symptomatic presentations of children medically-cursed with the diagnosis of "Autistic". One group of researchers recently published a paper about the microbiome's role in the condition [1]. My understanding is that less- desirable bacteria don't synthesize vitamins and other useful substances (biotin, etc), and make more noxious endotoxins (that overwhelm the liver), than friendlier bacteria.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3564498/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3564498/)

The type of fiber in the diet has a significant influence on the type of bacteria in the intestines. If I had an Autistic kid, I'd try to feed him/her inulin from Jerusalem Artichokes (the food with more of this prebiotic fiber than any other), and avoid all the fake foods they sell in the grocery stores. Many thickeners (carageenan, carob bean gum, etc) are cosmetic food ingredients...

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure why you are dismissing the result of probably the widest study and stating that autism is the result of not eating the right food.

<comment><USER2> There is nothing in this study that is useful, it just confirms pre-existing theories that autism is all in the genes. I think those theories are wrong and harmful.

In the real world, autism develops. If the medical profession treated the diagnosis as something other than a chronic condition that a person is going to have for the rest of their life, they might figure out how to treat it.

<comment><USER4> so you're saying that this study isn't useful because it confirms pre-existing theories? Do you believe that it is wrong because of specific issues with the experimental design or implementation or because you ideological dislike the results?

<comment><USER2> I read something semi-recently where the author explained his interpretation of the microbiome findings as a part of a cascade: an initial stressor (every case is unique) -> cultivation of the autistic microbiome -> inability to relax -> symptoms. I'm not qualified to re-explain it in my own way, so please take this as my statement that I find an alternate explanation than 'bad genes' for all cases of ASD diagnosis to be more plausible.

While Genetics are good explanations for some things, using 'bad genes' as an explanation is frequently a distraction from a person's actual problems. See my reply to your other comment about the streetlight effect.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Avoiding Alzheimer's Disease Could Be Easier Than You Think - <AUTHOR> https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/diagnosis-diet/201609/avoiding-alzheimer-s-disease-could-be-easier-you-think <comment><USER2> This article is from 2016. As compelling as arguing for a low-refined carb diet is, this all seems oversimplified. Can anyone weigh in?

<comment><USER3> It's a single article claiming a magical preventative for something that plagues a lot of people. As a rule of thumb, you're safe if you ignore those as the hogwash they usually are.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you actually read the article? Do you have any worthwhile to say in _direct response_ to the article?

<comment><USER3> The person I was responding to asked someone to weigh in because they had difficulties discerning how to evaluate the article. The rule of thumb I gave doesn't just apply to this article, it applies to all articles belonging to a set.

<comment><AUTHOR> What is it about this article (as in which particular text contained in it) that makes it belong to a set?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting to put this together with the recent story about possibly gingivitis bacteria being responsible for Alzheimers. It could be true that there is a multi-factor relationship, and yet focusing on one particular "cause" isn't going to be successful.</comment>


F the other side of the table - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupswagger.com/f-the-other-side-of-the-table

<comment><USER2> I don't think I've ever read about a founder who doesn't care about their idea or wasn't driven to make it a viable business.</comment>


Facebook Timeline Going To Make It Easier For Hackers To Get Your Other Accounts - <AUTHOR> http://thecompiler.org/index.php/tutorials/information-security/218-facebook/152-facebooks-timeline-going-to-make-it-easier-for-hackers-to-get-your-other-online-accounts#.Tn-dUlnq33M.hackernews <comment><USER2> So the point being made is that people shouldn't use passwords based on significant events/dates in their life? I suppose you could say the same about websites that ask for your mother's maiden name as a security question.</comment>


Apple News No Longer Supports RSS - <AUTHOR> https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/12/26/apple-news-no-longer-supports-rss/ <comment><USER2> The News app is such trash (even more on Mac) that I'm surprised anyone would use it even if it did support RSS.

</comment><comment><USER3> I haven't used Apple's news app in years. It just seems like another awkward, tone-deaf, mediocre content, overpriced cash-grab.</comment>


Sleep Tracking: My Oura Ring Review (After Two Years) - <AUTHOR> https://remo.org/2020/06/25/sleep-tracking-oura-ring-review/ <comment><USER2> I got my Oura ring in January. I have insomnia, so a few times a week it is giving me the red warning on restfulness and not enough REM sleep (less often not enough deep sleep).

I'm working on an EEG to get better sleep stats, and then with that data, do real-time sleep interaction/management.

I can't quite put my finger on why I like the ring so much. I don't need it anymore, I know I don't sleep well, having it tell me that isn't helpful. Yet they've done something really well.</comment>


Fractions, diagrammatically, and Fibonacci's algorithm - <AUTHOR> http://graphicallinearalgebra.net/2015/11/24/25-fractions-diagrammatically/ <comment><USER2> The "boxed set" of episodes, [http://graphicallinearalgebra.net/](http://graphicallinearalgebra.net/) will let you catch up if you are interested.</comment>


How to stay very, very dumb. It's a fact: TV sitcoms destroy your brain. - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2008/05/14/notes051408.DTL

<comment><USER2> Perhaps, but I regret the tens of hours I've spent watching, (say) Frasier or How I Met Your Mother significantly less than the minute and a half I spent reading that article.

<comment><USER3> Aren't you, then, the Poster Child for this article?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "It's a fact" makes it sound like some actual facts supporting the title would be in the article. Alas, no.

Noticing this was from sfgate.com, I suspected this was a Mark Morford piece even before clicking through. Morford is such a perfect exemplar of bien- pensant San Francisco thought, and of what passes for wit among the orthodox politically correct, that I sometimes wonder if he's real. He's like a character from 'Stuff White People Like' brought to life.

It's a fact: The number one reason why white people like not having a TV is so that they can tell you that they don't have a TV.[1]

[1] [http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/01/26/28-not-...](http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/01/26/28-not- having-a-tv/)

<comment><USER5> Seriously. I skimmed through looking for numbers, but having found nothing, I went to the HN comments section. I feel I made a good decision by not reading the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hmm, let's get this straight - Caveman had no TV, and stayed in his cave for 10 thousands of years. The Middle ages had no TV, and entertained with bloody battles, torture and witch burning.

And right now, the age of TV is the most peaceful and innovative age in a long time. Only marred by a few surly spots in the world - which are the same spots that don't have any TV!

</comment><comment><USER7> The article starts with "I hate wasting time passively watching that TV stuff", then makes a weak point admitting that wasting time on editing or reading Wikipedia is useful. Then it ends pointing in the opposite direction: "But let professionals do their job and let's just consume what there's on the market".

</comment><comment><USER8> He could just as easily named the article "As seen on TV" and then it would be cryptic and enticing, rather than sensationalist. But I guess it worked, I read the article anyway. He makes a rather roundabout way of dissing groupthink, but hey, its his blog.

</comment><comment><USER9> The article says nothing of the sort. It says that TV is a waste of time since you're not making anything new or different. The same would go for watching baseball games, going to concerts, sitting in traffic, eating at a sit-down restaurant, etc.

</comment><comment><USER10> Man, that was one really poorly written article. I do agree that tv makes people dumb, but really what a circumlocutory way to get to the point. Might as well been wiser off agreeing with the article's headline and buzzing away.

</comment><comment><USER11> Watch out boys, that article can make your genitalia shrivel up and fall off! _Wham!_

(Seriously, what the hell?)

</comment><comment><USER12> This article is better than its title would suggest, and most of it is not actually about TV or sitcoms.

</comment><comment><USER4> For a contrarian -- but reasoned -- argument, see Steven Johnson's suggestion that TV, especially in its growing complexity compared to past decades, is a brain-booster:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/magazine/24TV.html?pagewan...](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/magazine/24TV.html?pagewanted=all&position=)

As much as we may suspect TV erodes patience, initiative, focus, and a deep understanding of things, there's still the 'Flynn effect', the not-completely- understood rise in normalized IQs for as long as there's been regular testing. The ever-growing variety and complexity of 'pop' entertainment, from early radio and movies through to TV and the internet, might be a factor.

</comment><comment><USER13> Working endlessly without a break. Very, very dumb.</comment>


HN Feature Request: being able to fold comment threads - <AUTHOR>

I mostly browse the actual site and don't use 3rd party apps to read HN. More often then not, when a particularly long thread has run its course and turned into a flame-war or moot debate, I find myself scrolling away (sometimes for a while) to get to the next root comment.
I realize this isn't news to anyone, and I'm probably not the first to bring this up, but it'd certainly be convenient to be able to fold a block of comments and move on to the next with a click (much like, err, Reddit).
Just saying.
----
EDIT - I can see this feature has been discussed before: http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=fold+comment <comment><USER2> There is a google chrome extension that fixes this called Hacker News Collapsible Comments</comment>


Prvrng claims to be the world's first Universal TRNG/randomness extractor - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/avaneev/prvhash <comment><AUTHOR> PRVHASH can be also used as a very efficient general-purpose PRNG with an external entropy source injections (like how the /dev/urandom works on Unix): the 64-bit hash value can be used as a pseudo-random number, spliced into 8 output bytes each round: this was tested, and works well when 8-bit true entropy injections are done inbetween 8 to 2048 generated random bytes (delay is also obtained via entropy source). An example generator is implemented in the prvrng.h file: simply call the prvrng_test64() function. The prvrng_test32() implements the same technique, but with 32-bit hashes, for comparison purposes.

prvrng_gen64()-based generator passes PractRand 8 TB threshold, without or with only a few "unusual" evaluations. Which suggests it's the first working universal TRNG in the world. This claim requires a lot more evaluations from independent researchers.</comment>


IPad is Steve Jobs' final victory over Steve Wozniak - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2249872/ <comment><USER2> It's funny how so many people are suddenly mischaracterizing the Apple II or the nature of early personal computers.

The very first personal computers, like the Apple II, were sold as development kits to developers/hobbyists because these were the only people who would even think to buy a personal computer in 1976 and 1977. These development kits contain all of the information one would need to create software and hardware for these machines. Is that so unusual?

Fast forward one short year to 1978 and Apple hires Jef Raskin to start the "McIntosh" project. His goal is to create a $500 computing appliance that the average person could own and use. Sound familiar?

Fast forward 32 years. There is more information published about the internals of Linux, Windows, OS X, and PC architecture than most developers would ever want to know. We can write low-level drivers that run in the kernel, to high- level scripting languages. We can design a custom hardware card to slap in a PC or MacPro; we can design custom hardware that connects to an iPhone or a laptop via USB. And the iPad is arguably the closest we've come to Jef Raskin's 1978 vision of a computing appliance.

<comment><USER3> I almost entirely agree with your post, though I'll note that the Apple II was unique specifically _because_ it came pre-assembled in a plastic case and was marketed to "regular people". Still, obviously most users were hobbyists, just less "hardcore" than those who assembled their own Altairs.

<comment><USER4> and the comodore 64 was a kit?

<comment><USER5> The 64 appeared much later.

<comment><USER6> True, but the Commodore PET was released in 1977. No assembly required. Another example is the Tandy TRS-80 Model I, also released in 1977.

<comment><USER7> Also, let's not forget the grand-daddy of the out-of-the-box-experience computer appliance -- the Atari 2600. Came out in 1977 too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Woz has always about being open and modular and extensible. Jobs has always been about the opposite -- and for good reason; the early Macs were typically more stable and functioned better simply because of that lock-in.

But history has played this over and over again, and Woz always wins. Vendors work out standards; the user experience consolidates.

If you give people the freedom and trust them, they'll work it out. Or you can trust a benevolent dictator to work it out for you. Most Apple afficianados will say the most people don't want that freedom; I'm here to tell you that they do.

We don't have to debate. Let's just tune in and watch the sales of the iPad starting next month, after the faithful have all bought theirs. Woz will win. Woz _always_ wins.

<comment><USER9> > Let's just tune in and watch the sales of the iPad starting next month

We already watched the sales of the iPhone, and we saw how that went. Same type of device, same type of complaints by openness advocate, and what was the result? Are you guys going to just keep on saying this stuff until some closed Apple product fails, then say that's proof that people want openness, ignoring the litany of preceding closed devices that succeeded? I'm here to tell you that this is not a very good argument.

<comment><USER10> Android gained 5.2% of the US smartphone market between December 2009 and February 2010, while the iPhone lost 0.1% (<http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=9184>).

Of course I'm not going to declare the iPhone a failure - it's clearly done very well. But I think it's still a little early to call it a winner.

<comment><USER9> In all likelihood both will continue to be part of the mobile ecosystem for some time, or until Google gets tired of throwing money at the problem.

But as I said to another responder, the iPhone is one device on one carrier per country, and Android is many devices on all carriers. They are hardly on equal footing for a purely numerical battle for superiority, but still iPhone is winning.

<comment><USER11> Google is making real money with Android, and even if it's a loss leader it's just another medium to expand their search business. They can afford to lose the millions in Android develoment and they still come out winning.

<comment><USER9> What money do you suppose they are making? It's probably cheaper to pay Apple to maintain Google as the default search engine on the phone than to make their own. It's unlikely that a whole lot more internet searches are happening because of Android that wouldn't have happened in any other arrangement of the ecosystem, so I still don't see how Google benefits.

<comment><USER12> Yes, that's an option. But consider this: the iPhone becomes the number one smartphone out there -> Mobile Safari has the highest mobile marketshare of any web browser -> Apple controls the mobile web. What Google ultimately want is an open web so they keep making money from AdSense/AdWords.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Wozniak's design was open and decentralized in ways that still define those concepts in the computing industries. The original Apple had a hood, and as with a car, the owner could open it up and get at the guts of the machine. Although it was a fully assembled device, not a kit like earlier PC products, Apple owners were encouraged to tinker with the innards of Wozniak's machine—to soup it up, make it faster, add features. There were slots to accommodate all sorts of peripheral devices, and it was built to run a variety of software. Wozniak's ethic of openness also extended to disclosing design specifications. In a 2006 talk at Columbia University, he put the point this way: "Everything we knew, you knew." To point out that this is no longer Apple's policy is to state the obvious."

I suspect the resurrection of this vision is what will begin the fightback against Apple's closed universe vision. If I could get the same (or better) hardware, with roughly the same formfactor as the IPad with a lot of connectors and a completely hackable software stack for a decent price, that would be awesome. The only competition shaping up on the hardware front seems to be HP's slate. Maybe I should buy one and install Linux (or something else) on it when it comes out.

(If I am wrong correct me, what is a good tablet that competes with the IPad?) I would love to see something built around an ARM processor for e.g. but building hardware is a lot tougher than in Woz's days. As a thought experiment if just the hardware part of the IPod were available for say 350 $ or so it wasn't closed and were completely open like the original Apple so we could hack whatever on it, how many of us would buy one? I would. If i had the harware chops i'd build and sell this myself.

Linux is awesome but there isn't a competing (with the IPad) hardware platform to run it on. Hopefully some one will have the cojones and talent to go up against Apple soon. Remember, once Microsoft was the unstoppable juggernaut who were on track to dominate all of computing.

I hope to live to see the day of the withering of Apple.

<comment><USER14> Always Innovating's Touch Book is probably close to what you want. The hardware specs are open, there are pins for serial on the board, and it can run a variety of ARM based Linux distros (Android, Ubuntu, etc).: <http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/>

Plus the disassembly instructions are provided by the manufacturer: <http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/wiki/index.php/Top_part>

<comment><USER15> That looks very nice, except for the abysmal 1024x600 resolution. I'll give Apple credit for having the iPad resist the inexplicable war on vertical pixels.

<comment><USER16> I will trade vertical pixels for freedom _any day_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I found this quote from Wozniak in Founders at Work to be ironic.

 _"You'd go to the store and they'd just have all this stuff that you could buy to enhance the Apple II. So one of our big keys to success was that we were very open. There's a big world out there for other people to come and join us."_

<comment><USER18> But all of those were things that were left out of the Apple ][ project for various reasons: either they didn't exist yet (Disk ][ being the prime example), or were too expensive to add to the motherboard.

What exactly is lacking from modern hardware today? Not enough communications capability? Screen isn't large or hi-res enough?

The expandability has moved to software. That's the App Store. People are customizing their machines and adding capability, but they're doing it through the SDK and not the schematics.

<comment><USER19> Any restrictions on modern hardware are likely to be strategic. For instance, the reason you can't make voice calls with the ipad and that it doesn't have a camera is most likely because that would mean you no longer need an iphone.

The parts would have added another $5 to the total cost, if that. It also gives them a reason to sell you a new one a year or two down the line. Along with less anemic ram, needed for this amazing new feature called multi- tasking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> After reading this book about Commodore: [http://www.amazon.com/Edge- Spectacular-Rise-Fall-Commodore/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Edge-Spectacular- Rise-Fall- Commodore/dp/0973864907/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270671408&sr=1-3)

and a few other good accounts of the period, it really annoys me that Apple get the credit for inventing the personal computer. They were not even the most popular personal computer of the 80s (or 70s). I have a hard time finding anyone who own a Apple II but most of the people I work with were Commodore 64 owners.

<comment><USER20> The winners get to write the history -- and in the end, more people had more to do with Pagemaker, Illustrator and Photoshop (which were, in practical terms, Mac apps) than they did with the far-more-spectacular (for the time) Video Toaster and Caligari (Amiga). It's never been the machine; it's what people can do with it. If prosumer video was more accessible and lit more imaginations at the time, we'd be singing a different song today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> By these standards, hasn't Steve Jobs been notching up final victories over Woz for at least 25 years? In fact, I'm pretty sure I've read people claiming it repeatedly! As far back as the early 80s, the Mac marks the turning point where Apple became primarily focused on a self-contained, don't-touch-the-tech computing appliance. The introduction of the Mac, and the way it won out over the Apple II successors, also marks Woz's personal influence in Apple effectively coming to an end.

It's not as if this is a recent idea Apple's had. If anything, OSX's relative openness was the aberration, given their history. Despite how exciting we find the Apple II era, I tend to think of the Mac as a bigger part of their history, certainly in terms of the Mac era's influence on today's company.

<comment><USER15> _It's not as if this is a recent idea Apple's had._

No Macs ever prevented you from running and distributing whatever software you wanted. And while there wasn't a command line before OS X, there were a great deal of opportunities for hacking via extensions, ResEdit, HyperCard, etc.

<comment><USER22> That is primarily because they couldn't. But note the distinct lack of hardware expansion on early models: [ <http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Diagnostic_Port.txt> ].

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There are multiple 'axis' to this victory business, and this one - the money angle - is only a single way of interpreting all this.

If I could choose between the two of them as human beings I'd pick Wozniak for sure, he's one of the nicest 'well to do' people that ever came out of silicon valley.

Jobs is simply still in a pissing match with Gates, and it looks like he will be able to prove some day that Apples view of the software market was even more closed than Microsofts, and potentially far more profitable.

I bought a Mac for my son a couple of years ago, I'm beginning to regret that decision. At the time it was to open his eyes to the fact that not every computer on the planet runs the same operating system and that diversity is good. Now I'm not so sure that an Apple was the right way to express that (he already had an older linux computer to play with blender on, but it was definitely past its prime).

Money is a very convenient yardstick to measure success by, but it collapses a lot of data in to a single number and it does not tell you the history of how it got there.

Clearly 'open' is never going to make as much money as 'closed', the RIAA and MPAA are all too aware of that, but longer term 'open' will always win because stuff that is special today is a commodity tomorrow.

Remember the times when each and every piece of electronics came with it's own weird set of proprietary protocols and connectors? Now it's all IP and we're better off because of that, except for the lawyers.

</comment><comment><USER23> Single page: <http://www.slate.com/id/2249872/pagenum/all/>

</comment><comment><USER24> Some sort of hacking sandbox is needed for the iPad. Something like Hypercard would be dandy. Then again, aren't web apps already available? Safari is a very good Javascript platform. Maybe an iPad version of iWeb with a "local server" and some sort of app publishing/sharing via Mobile Me?

Actually the beauty of this approach, is that a 3rd party could come out with this quickly, using App Engine or Amazon as a back end. Combine that with an iPad App that opens a special purpose browser/Ide to run them in, and I think you'd have a business.

<comment><USER25> Personally I'm getting tired of hearing about how Javascript-enabled web apps are good enough. No, they aren't.

Yeah, it's exciting that Quake2 runs in Chrome/Safari, it really is. But in 95/96 I was participating in demo-scenes, with graphics that weren't accelerated by the GPU, in 386 real-mode, and it was a lot easier and a lot more exciting (demos that got distributed by a local PC magazine, having as target more people than the people that actually tried that HTML5 Quake2 demo).

So welcome to 1997.

<comment><USER26> But of course those demos were very limited in scope, because the development techniques used to create them were impossible to scale up.

<comment><USER27> Forgive me if I'm being dense, but I'm not certain what that has to do with the point being made. Could you explain it in greater detail?

My understanding is that there are entire classes of programs where "let's put it on a website" is not a viable method. You can write many types of apps that way, certainly, but you pretty much give up anything so much as pretending to be performance. Additionally, it prevents you from doing anything particularly low-level - if you were desperate enough, you could always set up a web interface to gcc or something, but that won't help you if you want to hack on a device driver or something. Systems programmers are people too, you know. ;)

<comment><USER24> _My understanding is that there are entire classes of programs where "let's put it on a website" is not a viable method._

But if you recall what Hypercard stacks were like, then putting it on a website that's specially tailored to make it easy, combined with a local app to make things more seamless, might actually be a money making proposition.

Put the hacking open/closed politics aside. What do you think about the idea as a business?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> While the idea of Jobs vs. Woz philosophies seems basically accurate, they diverged a bit later than the author says.

Apple had no control over the software and hardware used with the original Macintosh. The author is just flat wrong on this. The serial connectors were a bit weird for the time, but that was it. There was none of the patented- connector, crypto-signed-applications, brick-the-hacked-devices tactics we see with the i* line. The Mac OS didn't even have kernel mode. You could just rewrite all of RAM with your own code and jump to address zero if you felt like it, and people did.

The Apple //c was as "closed" as the Macintosh, and I'm pretty sure Woz had something to do with that machine (you could even get a signed limited edition).

Modern Macs are made with plenty of standard parts, and the worst that happens if you mess with them is that you void the warranty--which is exactly what happens if you mess with the insides of a Dell or HP computer.

The true divergence is that Jobs now has Apple producing consumer entertainment devices in addition to computers. Obviously, the tradeoffs and rules are different for consumer entertainment devices. Whether it's an iPhone, a PS3, or the radio in my car, the manufacturer isn't interested in supporting openness and arbitrary hacking--they are expected to make a functional, attractive product that "just works", which requires maintaining some control over what goes into it.

P.S. AT&T Wireless is the result of AT&T absorbing McCaw Cellular, and separated again from AT&T years ago, so while it's fun to talk about the irony of Jobs' blue-boxing, that wasn't really quite the same company.

</comment><comment><USER29> This article is basically fluff. It is trying to turn Apple's evolving business strategies into some sort of personality conflict. One that guys like Woz probably wouldn't acknowledge is real.

From the moment they were selling real products and not kits, Apple has always wanted to control every aspect of the computing experience. For a while, at Apple, it was considered heresy to be an "Open Mac" supporter -- that is, you thought it was okay to allow third party companies to produce peripherals like disk drives or printers. It was only around '87 or so that the idea of an expandable Mac saw the light of day (the Macintosh II) and that product line slowly petered out in the 90s.

People on this thread are suggesting that the OS was hackable with a floppy disk out of some desire to be friendly to tinkerers. Don't be silly. It was that way because there was no other conceivable alternative for software distribution.

If we disregard Apple's mid-90s confusions it's been on a steady road towards the iPad since the beginning, in rhetoric if not always in reality.

</comment><comment><USER5> > Wozniak, an inveterate prankster, ran an illegal "dial-a-joke" operation

"illegal"?! I am not aware it would be illegal to run such a service at that time.

> the Macintosh was a radical innovation in its own right, being the first > mass-produced computer to feature a "mouse" and a "desktop

Lisa? Star? Although that last one was not "mass-produced", at least it came out of a factory.

<comment><USER30> At the time, you weren't allowed to hook arbitrary equipment up to the phone system -- everything had to be approved by AT&T. IIRC the hardware Woz used for his dial-a-joke setup was homebrew.

<comment><USER31> Apparently it was not homebrew; here are a couple articles saying that he rented the equipment from the phone company. So the dial-a-joke thing might have been entirely legit.

<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.09/woz.html>

<http://www.woz.org/letters/pirates/07.html>

I'm guessing that when the article describes the dial-a-joke service as illegal, it's confusing it with his blue-box antics, which occurred around the same time. According to the following article (a fun read), the blue box preceded dial-a-joke; he got the inspiration for the service from a dial-a- joke line in New York that he called while demoing blue boxes to potential customers:

[http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/the_merry_pranksters_of_mi...](http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/the_merry_pranksters_of_microcomputing.php)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> _It might overrun Sony and Microsoft in computer gaming_

I don't understand.. how?

At best, I see it appealing to a small niche gaming market, but as it stands, I can't see how it would overrun Sony or Microsoft - for example, the iPad is hugely underpowered compared to todays popular gaming machines and you would definitely need to couple it with some other input devices, like keyboard & mouse or gamepads, since multitouch alone doesn't seem all that suitable for a lot of games IMHO.

<comment><USER33> iPhone, smartphone and iPad gaming isn't going to be what console or PC gamers are going to expect. However, we're not talking about those type of people buying this device.

For example, Brickbreaker has been played by over 50 million people while COD: Modern Warfare 2 has only been played by 15 million.

These type of games (that hardcore gamers would consider silly and frivolous) are going to be the dominant games in the marketplace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> tis the nature of many products in an evolving economy to grow more capable, complex inside, more simple to use and more taken for granted.

the iPad is just one more of those things and the Woz stood in line eagerly to get his.

</comment><comment><USER35> Hmm, I'm beginning to see why they used an Apple ][+ in LOST. Jobs as the Man in Black, against Woz's Jacob. ("You have no idea how much I want to kill you.")

</comment><comment><USER36> more like Steve Jobs final step into the dark side

</comment><comment><USER37> I get this same vibe from a lot of older folks (or people who want to sound like them, all grizzled and what). True, from a hardware standpoint, Apple devices are closed. What matters today however, is that they are open devices from the perspective of a platform and web software developer.

Has everyone forgot how cellphones were black boxes before the iPhone? And lets not forget that we make stuff for _normal_ people here. Not just hackers like us. As it turns out, most folks don't want a hardware-hackable machine. They don't care enough for USB ports. The tablets being championed by MSFT in the previous decade were not much more moddable than the iPad, but I don't see anyone yelling at MSFT about that.

<comment><USER38> _Has everyone forgot how cellphones were black boxes before the iPhone?_

I must have forgotten that because it isn't true. On my P800 or Blackberry I could install any app, not just approved ones.

(Edit: I wonder if this meme about the "cell phone dark ages" comes from the millions of people who switched from dumbphones to iPhone and thus aren't personally familiar with the actual smartphone state of the art circa 2006.)

<comment><USER39> I can't speak for where you are, but here in North America (well Canada & the USA) to go from [cell phone customized for service provider] to [cell phone customized for you with apps that you selected to use] was never a simple process - perhaps easier on a blackberry but not simple.

The device makers simply didn't have enough leverage to make the process simple.

<comment><USER38> I _am_ in the USA and IIRC there was no "process" with my T-Mobile Blackberry; I could install any app I wanted directly from the Web browser. Maybe that's some kind of exception since T-Mobile is the least evil carrier.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Write your own Android Authenticator - <AUTHOR> http://udinic.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/write-your-own-android-authenticator/ <comment><USER2> Half-OT: any way to hack the integrated Facebook authenticator to allow logging in for multiple Facebook accounts? I need this for two distinct address books :(</comment>