The Fastest Way to Board a Plane: Randomly? - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904233404576457930970524522.html

<comment><USER2> It would help if they'd start being stricter about carry-on luggage, so we don't have people standing in the aisles desperately trying to cram a 42-inch rolling bag (the bane of my existence) into a 38-inch overhead compartment (or however big they are).

I always use a medium-sized duffel bag and a small backpack when going "carryon-only" for a long flight. The non-rigid bag makes it easier to stow and remove, making the whole system move a hell of a lot faster. Laptop goes in backpack for safekeeping.

<comment><USER3> It would also help if people were smarter about arranging their bags in the compartments. I can't really think of a way to unambiguously describe what I'm talking about, so I drew a crappy diagram: <http://i.imgur.com/pILt1.jpg>

Note that a compartment will hold three bags side by side just fine, as long as you put them in long-way-in. One idiot putting it in horizontally is like the guy dropping a straight-piece in Tetris on its side - congrats, you just shafted everyone, and potentially delayed take-off by 10 minutes because now we have to ferry one bag from the passenger compartment into the baggage one.

<comment><USER4> Thank you! I have seen this far too many times and it drives me crazy. Also, people then get stuffy when you start to rearrange the bags properly so more can fit in there. Aaaah!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Airlines need to do 2 things to speed up the boarding process:

1\. Charge for more than one carry-on item, and do not charge for checked baggage.

2\. Get checked baggage off the plane and to passengers in a reasonable amount of time.

<comment><USER6> Reducing demand for overhead compartment space would actually seem to eliminate the entire reason people want to get on the plane as soon as possible. Apart from needing to jockey for space to store luggage (or, if in first class, get that first free glass of champagne) I don't understand why people are in such a hurry to move from a semi-comfortable waiting area to a completely uncomfortable airplane. The plane is not going to take off any sooner than scheduled, and in my experience it is pretty rare for a flight to be delayed due to slow boarding alone.

I actually have a frequent-flyer status that could get me on the plane very early in the process, but what I usually try to do instead is travel with only one carry-on bag, book an aisle seat, and wait until most everyone else in my 'zone' (presumably including the others in my row) is on the plane before I get in line.

<comment><USER3> Assuming that planes load rear-to-front, aren't you going to be stuck behind everyone in the zone that is boarding after you - that is, closer to the front of the plane?

<comment> dav-id You are also assuming that they are flying in cattle class. To me the whole point of frequent flier clubs are to spend as little time in the back of the plane as possible and use your miles to upgrade towards the front.

I totally agree that the best option is to be the last person getting onto the plane and ideally the first one off. Premium, Business, First class cabins tempt you on with their pre flight drinks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They talked about the best option but abandoned it due to a little bit of confusion:

People without big carry-on items get on first.

I wish they would have stuck with it.

</comment><comment><USER8> This and window, middle, aisle ordered boarding have an obvious fault: it will breakup groups. This will cause confusion and stress, especially for families.

<comment><USER9> _Also, people traveling together won't be assigned to different boarding groups if their reservations are "linked" in the airline's system._

<comment><USER7> You're referring to the "boarding group" system American uses. The parent comment is referring to window-middle-aisle boarding used by United.

<comment><USER9> _"This and..."_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Virgin America, which sells early boarding as part of a perks package to > customers who buy seats with extra legroom, experimented with giving early > boarding to passengers who didn't bring large bags on board. That showed > promise for speeding up boarding, but because it was unfamiliar to > customers; it slowed down some people and offset gains, a spokeswoman said.

This bothers me to no end. I fly Virgin 1-2x roundtrips a month, and I've seen this program put into place very erratically. If they wanted to see results, they should have offered that on all flights for a certain period of time, instead of only here and there and mentioning it only once after boarding priority. A lot of the time, it was only mentioned when they wanted people on a full flight to gate check their carryons, and then they forgot to mention it again before boarding the first group (after priority/families/special needs) at all.

The other half of the problem was that some people decided that "one carryon that goes under the seat in front of you" meant 1 personal item plus 1 carryon (e.g. your usual limitation). So you basically had like 5-6 idiots with the largest carryon bags possible and a ginormous purse or shopping bag getting into the line with the people with only one backpack or carrying a laptop sleeve, and these weren't people with priority boarding or special needs. The Virgin employees never said anything to them, if they even noticed the extra bags.

I wonder why it offset gains, I really do.

</comment><comment><USER11> I find it hard to believe this is anything more than a desperate attempt to add more fees and theoretically, more revenue.

<comment><USER12> For lack of better words, "Why so cynical?"

The speed of random boarding versus other viable methods is not a new result: I first heard about it years ago and I'm pretty sure it was old then.

(I emphasise viable because I'm pretty sure nothing can beat a perfectly strict back-to-front, but there's no way you're going to get that to actually happen with real customers.)

My real question is how changing boarding order affects the volume of overhead bins used. They kept emphasising that in the article, but I don't know what spacetime warping they are using.

<comment><USER13> _My real question is how changing boarding order affects the volume of overhead bins used. They kept emphasising that in the article, but I don't know what spacetime warping they are using._

It could conceivably affect the way people stuff things into the overhead bins, so that baggage fits better, in some unconscious way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sorry, I feel like I missed something. How is this different than Southwest?

<comment><USER15> Where as Southwest has open seating (no assigned seats) and boarding groups, this _has_ assigned seating, with those seats being placed into groups at random rather than by location in the plane.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you trademark your startup? - <AUTHOR> Let's suppose you've come up with a unique name for your startup.  Besides domain registering such name with .com, .net and the usual suspects, would you bother in trademarking it too?  I mean, would you fear some hostile company or individual trademarking it to build trouble?
Thanks for your advice.
Edit: Of course I've already searched HN for related threads.  The only one I've found which answers my question - very old - states trademarking is a good idea: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=141515 <comment><USER2> There are already some very good comments on this thread but I thought I would add a few based on my own experience of nearly three decades working with startups in Silicon Valley.

If you have a truly great name, and you are at an early stage, you can easily have the name poached. Since a trademark registration can prevent that risk, it can be helpful.

Under U.S. law, whenever you use a mark in commerce, you accrue common-law rights coterminus with the scope of that usage - meaning, first in time gets superior rights to others for the geographical area of first usage. However, for any mark regarded as important, it is normally inadequate to rely on common law rights and it is therefore usually much stronger to register the mark to ensure solid protection throughout the relevant domain in which you seek protection (usually, a federal trademark registration).

With a federal registration, you can do either an in-use application or an intent-to-use (ITU) application. Most early-stage startups go with ITU. In-use requires that you already have used the mark in interstate commerce. ITU imposes no such requirement. It is comparatively simple to do an ITU application and not too expensive to get the application on file and there are few technical complexities associated with it (for example, you don't need to submit specimens at the time of application). With an ITU application, you go through a 12-to-18 month process by which the USPTO determines whether the mark is registrable and whether it is available for the class of goods or services desired. If it is, and is approved, you get superior rights over all others to use the mark for that class of goods of services dating back to the date of the original application (you do have to file a Statement of Use at some point demonstrating actual use in interstate commerce but you can normally take your time about this).

As far as practical examples of the swiping problem, the founders of what is now Autodesk lost their first choice of company name years back after casually presenting it to others but not registering it. I have also had unscrupulous types try to do this with good names proposed to be used by some of our client companies (in one case, we did an ITU application that beat the poacher by a day, the poacher being a competitor who was just out to cause trouble).

Just as the ITU procedure makes it easy to register a mark without having ever used it, it also makes it very easy for someone to poach that mark at any time if it has never been registered. Therefore, until you do a registration, there is always a theoretical risk that this might happen.

To sum up:

Can an unregistered mark used by an early-stage startup be poached? Most definitely. Does it happen in practice? Very rarely. Against that context, it is up to each founding team to make a cost-benefit assessment of whether it is worth front-loading the legal expense (usually about $2K to $3K for a federal registration) to guard against that risk. The usual answer is no. But, for any really valuable name, it should be yes. From my experience, in practical terms across a range of early-stage startups, it can easily be said, however, that 90+% do not bother with such registration at the start on cost-benefit grounds.

Edit: By the way, if you do go to the trouble and expense of registering, make sure the mark is likely _registrable_ , meaning (in most cases) that is not purely descriptive of what your product or service does (this is the most common problem by which founders get frustrated, and run up a lot of expense, in early-stage trademarking).

<comment><USER3> So in short, registration (which guards you against poaching) costs $2K - $3K. Poaching of trademarks rarely ever happen. But, it's better to be safe than sorry. So you have to decide on your own whether the cost is worth it.

<comment><USER4> $2-3k? Um, sure, if you want to pay an attorney to do something that anyone can do. From uspto.gov: "The application filing fee for the TEAS form is $325 per class of goods and/or services, while the TEAS Plus is $275 per class, but has stricter filing requirements, than the regular TEAS form."

I've got several trademarks registered. Takes a few minutes to select the appropriate class and a few more to register the mark. No sense in paying an attorney and we're in agreement that it should be done. That name "insurance" can be worth a lot.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, it's really easy to do it yourself.

Two areas of possible confusion: specifying the 'Goods and Services' description and the 'Class', e.g. 'IC 042' for 'Computer services'.

Just do some searches at <http://www.uspto.gov/ebc/tess/index.html> for trademarks in the same general market as you, and copy the class they use.

E.g. this is the 37 Signals Basecamp trademark: [http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4001:f1...](http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4001:f1miab.2.4)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In the US, "common law" trademarks are automatic when you begin using the name. However, it's a very limited scope of protection and often times can be geographically limited.

For example, if I started a service like AirBnB and all my initial customers were in Boston, then I could wind up being locked into only operating in Boston (under my chosen name) if another company later registered the name.

For consumer web-only startups, you might be able to get by with just a domain name, but it's a risk that in my mind isn't worth the cost savings. Yes, a domain name registration and accompanying web site can be used as proof of use in commerce, but it's not a guarantee and it doesn't help very much with geographical restriction.

You'd be surprised how often people wind up with conflicting names. For a few hundred dollars you can ensure that a huge headache down the road doesn't happen. It's cheaper to get the registration at the start than to litigate later or have to change your name.

<comment><USER7> Since you're an IP lawyer, would you recommend that people starting out file their own trademark applications? It seems daunting to me, and I would be concerned about going through the whole process and winding up with a trademark that didn't appropriately protect me. Is that a legitimate concern, or should I not worry about that and file for a trademark myself?

Edit: Any tips or resources for people who have never filed a trademark before?

<comment><USER6> Generally speaking, trademark applications aren't difficult. If you're a detail-oriented person and don't mind doing some reading, you can absolutely do it yourself.

The main advantage to hiring an attorney is that if you run into an opposition or if the examiner has an issue with your application, an attorney may be better able to persuade the office that the opposer is without grounds.

Start with a TESS search on the USPTO's site for live applications. Read up on the US and International Classes that you might want to use and decide which are applicable. If you run into similar names in your desired class, it might be worth talking to an attorney about whether your mark is likely to be allowable. Pay close attention to the specimen requirements if you're doing an in-use application as compared to an ITU. A defective specimen that doesn't establish the elements for use as an identifier of the goods or services can be problematic.

You might also see if your IP attorney is willing to walk you through the process the first time and then just answer questions on an as-needed basis. You could also work out the application on paper and just ask an attorney to look it over and use that form to fill in the information needed to file electronically.

<comment><USER7> Great! Thanks for the info. That's very useful.

<comment><USER6> If you do decide to go the self-filed route, make sure to read up on the categories of names in terms of whether your mark is protectable. (generic, descriptive =bad; arbitrary, fanciful =good)

There's' plenty of good information here:

<http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/degrees.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I spent some time (and money) discussing this issue with a trademark lawyer. A brief summary of what I learned is:

\- Even if you don't own a U.S. Trademark for your mark, you still have some limited protection against others using your mark if you can prove you started using it first.

\- Filing a trademark is always a good idea. It would cost several thousands of dollars, however to have a lawyer do it correctly. Yes, you can technically do it yourself, but after talking with a lawyer about all the technicalities related to trademarks, I would never trust myself to do it. Maybe others who have done it without a lawyer can give their advice.

\- Registered domain names are only tangentially related to trademark rights.

Unless you have tons of cash to burn and have already launched and have good traction, I wouldn't worry about filing a US trademark application yet. What you NEED to do right now though, is search through the currently filed marks and make sure that you don't conflict with any existing ones. If there are any that you have concerns about, discuss the issue with a trademark lawyer and they'll let you know if you should worry about it. It's even better to have the lawyer search through the marks though, because they know what specifically to look for with conflicting marks.

I wouldn't worry about a big company actively trying to screw you over by filing a trademark for your company. What I would worry about is unknowingly stepping on a big company's existing trademark.

IANAL though. Hope this helps. If you have any doubts at all, talk to a lawyer. It may cost a couple hundred bucks for a consultation, but you'll learn a lot from picking their brain. Well worth the money.

</comment><comment><USER8> You get a trademark automatically in Europe - it's an unregistered right like copyright, I'm going to assume you're in the USA though (please remember you're speaking to a global audience). You can register a trademark and you get greater protection and make suing people easier if you do so.

Trademarks are indicators of the origin of goods/services. If someone uses your trademark to pretend to be you then they're "passing off" their goods/services as yours and you can sue. If someone uses your _registered_ trademark then they're tortuously infringing and your burden of proof is lowered.

However, suppose your TM is lelele and you sell software. Your trademark doesn't stop me from using "lelele" to sell tshirts, farm equipment, cars, hamburgers, stationary, etc., using that name. I can't use your logo, that's often copyright infringement too, but the name is fair game as there is no chance for confusion between us.

Someone else can fill in the US/Canadian/OAPI/ARIPO/etc. situations.

As for hostile registration of your mark; I suspect it would be cheaper to register it in the first place than defend against someone elses application on the basis of your unregistered marks.

IANA-IP|TM-L

</comment><comment><USER9> Hi Lelele,

The first thing I would do is check your name is in fact unique. Just because you registered the name icoke.com, .net, .org, etc... doesn't mean you own a trademark (common or otherwise) and doesn't mean you aren't infringing on someone else's trademark.

The next step would be to weigh the cost/benefit of going through the trademark process. It's not very costly, but is time consuming.

Is your startup up and running? Filing for a trademark for a service or product that doesn't exist yet adds more complexity and cost to the process.

While I wouldn't suggest running to your nearest trademark attorney or god forbid LegalZoom, I would reach out the lawyers you do know and ask them about it.

(Disclaimer: None of the above is legal advice or forms an attorney client relationship. The statements above are only for informational purposes and should be used at your own risk.)

</comment><comment><USER10> I would definitely, but registering a trademark with madrid protocol protection can sum up to a high cost if you cover a number of countries.

edit:

here are the prices (just checked with local/national IP office, those are the prices):

fees: <http://www.wipo.int/madrid/en/fees/sched.html>

and then additional fees for each individual country: [http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/madridgazette/en/remark...](http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/madridgazette/en/remarks/ind_taxes.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Compared to all the other issues facing a startup, I don't see it as high priority.

Name matters when it is your only differentiator against a small ecosystem and you and the competition are otherwise quite similar (in appearance). But as a startup, a great name is only going to get you a little bit of buzz. Like a band name, there are a lot of bands with great names with horrible music, or no marketing.

If you have the time or money to delegate the task, it doesn't hurt. But it should be low on the list of priorities for early stage.

<comment><USER6> That's a valid rationale in terms of an offensive filing. But you should think defensively as well. Does the perceived priority change if your name is similar to that of another company who has obtained a registration? What happens if they sue you? Will the cost of just responding to the suit be more than the registration would have been in the first place?

Just some more factors to think about =D

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> YES! I can't tell you how expensive it is to have to change your name or fight a trademark suit after the fact. Trademarks can cost as low as $750 all-in. they are easy to file, take about 6-9 months to work through the process, and when you're done, you're guaranteed that you won't have to change your brand.

I've been on the receiving end of trademark objections and it's not pretty... and the cost of defense FAR outweighs the cost of trademark... even if you win.

</comment><comment><USER13> Yes. Turn the question around, why wouldn't you file for a trademark? There is some good info on the USPTO side about when you can use the ® symbol, and how until you get the trademark you can use the TM trademark to stake your claim! <http://bit.ly/bBHIZP>

</comment><comment><USER14> Yes, do it. It's pretty inexpensive (1000 € for the whole Europe).

</comment><comment><USER15> Only if it is a common word so that you can remove it from the english lexicon.

So , in school, teachers can tell their students, We are not allowed to use these words, because Apple may bring litigation against the school district."

It is a pea-chamber, not a peapod.</comment>


NSA spying: France 'will not tolerate' threat to security - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33253639 <comment><USER2> I don't remember so much excitement and fury when it became known that the NSA was spying on us common folk. "Espionnage? Against le prolétariat? Who gives une merde?" But suddenly it turns out that the Americans were not only spying on the unwashed masses, but also our unwashed elite, and it's midnight meetings at the Elysée and general outrage all round.

<comment><USER3> To be honest it really should be part of the NSA remit to spy on as many world leaders as possible (friend or foe) I expect GCHQ & whatever the French equivalent is to be doing exactly the same.

I'd be very surprised if GCHQ weren't at least trying to spy on the US president and NSA weren't doing the same to the UK prime minister whenever possible. I'd guess security committee members would also be spied upon as well.

I don't know how far they would go though in terms of breaking and entering to plant bugs etc but they've only got to make look it's a hostile powers work to get away with it.

It's probably only the difficulty of the denials if they get caught that would affect the likelihood of five eyes members spying on each other.

Given the French supposedly bugged Concorde it's seems a bit rich of them to complain.

<comment><USER4> When the US president invites allies to the white-house, I would assume there to be quite of an outcry if guests were found to plant bugs on phones and network switches. I would expect headlines to include "human lives are put at risk" and "we expect invited allies to behave according to national treaties" in all of the large news papers.

I would not expect to see a shrug and a "owell, thats what spying is for, right?".

<comment><USER5> > I would not expect to see a shrug and a "owell, thats what spying is for, > right?".

The French secret service is infamous for its espionage. They have even been accused of bugging hotel rooms and airline flights to gain classified US information.

[http://articles.philly.com/1992-10-24/news/25999062_1_aerosp...](http://articles.philly.com/1992-10-24/news/25999062_1_aerospace- industry-air-france-dgse) [http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/14/news/14iht- spy_.html](http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/14/news/14iht-spy_.html)

And until Snowden, the collective reaction was indeed "meh." Well, Germany did call France the 'evil empire' of industrial espionage, but nobody cared. Apparently the US only ever confidentially complained when it became too overt.

So France screaming about US spying is rather like the pot calling the kettle black. It's done for political reasons, not because the French government really believes it's wrong.

<comment><USER6> Your articles are 25 years old though.

<comment><USER5> > Your articles are 25 years old though

Yes. Do you have any reason to think things have changed?

This is a game that's been played by every nation against every nation for six thousand years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is so meta: "US Intercepts of France Complaining About US Intercepts of France"

[https://wikileaks.org/nsa- france/intercepts/#intercept1](https://wikileaks.org/nsa- france/intercepts/#intercept1)

</comment><comment><USER8> Not saying that it excuses any of the actions, nor am I trying to be inflammatory, but I have a serious question.

Does anything really think that France, or Germany, or any other nations is not doing the exact same thing to the US? All governments spy on each other, even allies. That is how its been for probably the entirety of human history, and probably will be for foreseeable future.

<comment><USER9> Well yes of course they are. But what you're not supposed to do is get caught at it.

<comment><USER8> Ok, very valid point. But if everyone is doing it to everyone else and everyone knows it, then what does 'getting caught' actually do? Why bother feigning outrage at it?

<comment><USER10> It makes for good headlines and boils up the drums of nationalism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> They'll huff and puff about this for a little while to give the illusion of surprise and indignation, but after the dust has settled and any offences have been swept under the rug, it'll be back to business of taking orders from the NSA while hoping their dirt stays hidden and no challenges to their legitimacy are posed. Same as Germany.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33106044](http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-33106044)

</comment><comment><USER12> I assume Hollande knew about this. The French will pretend to be upset, and the US will pretend that it has never happened. End of the story.

<comment><USER13> I find it amusing that you are opposing on one side a population and on another a country.

So let me rephrase it for you : France will pretend to be upset ... It's part of the game.

As a french, I just don't give a s __US spying our officials, I 'm much more worried any foreign secret service achieving it. It just shows how much our defense and digital security is weak. If I'm angry, it's towards our own services which can't prevent this kind of stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Original source: [https://wikileaks.org/nsa- france/](https://wikileaks.org/nsa-france/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Yes, yes, it's not very gentlemanly to read each other's mail. We know, Mr. Stimson.

And the world will go on, with diplomats and heads of state spied on, like they have been for the past 60 years, because that is how the Great Game works these days.

</comment><comment><USER16> The French (allegedly) write malware as well. Their group is known as Animal Farm.

[https://securelist.com/blog/research/69114/animals-in-the- ap...](https://securelist.com/blog/research/69114/animals-in-the-apt-farm/)

</comment><comment><USER17> > The fact is that the French and US intelligence services enjoy a degree of > cooperation and interdependence that no government in Paris would ever dream > of jeopardising.

Well, but France isn't one of the Five Eyes. I can't imagine that the French have intercepts from President Obama. But from what I've read, it's conceivable that Israel does.

Given that information is power, who's in charge?

<comment><USER18> Wouldn't you like to know.

<comment><USER17> It would amuse me.

But otherwise, it arguably wouldn't matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Which translates as "will tolerate", because what could they possibly do about it? The DGSE aren't exactly clean themselves.

</comment><comment><USER20> France Pays Lip Service To Protecting Against US Surveillance.

Just like Merkel earlier, yet at the same time telling her prosecutors to stop investigating the US surveillance.

<comment><USER21> Also Germany was spying on France: [https://euobserver.com/defence/128524](https://euobserver.com/defence/128524)

It's pretty much a bunch of people spying on each other.</comment></comment>


Using Dropbox as your database backup space - <AUTHOR> http://virendra.me/post/51254875516/using-dropbox-as-your-database-backup-space <comment><USER2> Dropbox is easy to use and is very popular among students and small businesses. An alternative that caters primarily to businesses would be Box.</comment>


The Link Between Jazz and Physics - <AUTHOR> http://www.openculture.com/2016/07/the-secret-link-between-jazz-and-physics-how-einstein-coltrane-shared-improvisation-and-intuition-in-common.html <comment><USER2> Not sure how much rigorous examination this kind of connection can really hold up using modern science, tools, resources, etc, but as far as intuition goes, this seems like a natural fit.

In graduate school, I did work through some published educational experiments that, in short, concluded having music time in the average school week was an improvement in nearly all other study fields, and particularly pronounced in Math of all things. Even compared to an alternate test group with _extra_ Math time, the Music group did better than that one. The control group got neither and showed no improvement, if I remember it correctly.

The relationships between long-form, technical musical proficiency and abstract, logical thinking should be complimentary I think. Lots of the same mental pathways I'd imagine. One guy I knew from finance - a real genius in the synthetics / derivatives arena - had originally gone to University on a full-ride music scholarship. Jazz saxophone and piano I think. After having an, um, trippy experience, he discovered a new-found love of Math and switched majors almost immediately, with great success. Anecdote, sure, but that's how we can make connections for such obtuse notions.

<comment><USER3> Many employers will tell you that music grads make excellent employees. It's usually easier for a music grad to learn coding to an undergrad standard than vice versa.

But I'm underwhelmed by these kind of fluffy semi-literary linkups between otherwise beautiful things.

No matter what science people tell you, music is _not_ math. It's much more complex than that. :)

<comment><USER4> _No matter what science people tell you, music is not math. It 's much more complex than that. :)_

After three semesters of majoring in music, I made things easier for myself as a student and switched to computer science, with a hefty dose of math on the side. (I also thought that might be better for employment prospects; I think I was right.)

I've continued to pursue music as well, but wow, those classes are intense.

<comment><USER5> I had a similar thing happen, where I had this insane aspiration of dual majoring in computer science and engineering and music. After doing marching band my first semester, which was 6+ hours of work a week ignoring games, and seeing how hard the music majors were working, I realized how difficult that'd be.

I still do the occasional ensemble, but the time you need to commit to those courses are insane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thought I'd just leave this here. Cracked me up. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTYzYpb1MY0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTYzYpb1MY0)

On Einstein - [https://www.quora.com/How-did-Einsteins-musical-practice- inf...](https://www.quora.com/How-did-Einsteins-musical-practice-inform-his- scientific-work)

<comment><USER2> That second link has a lot of really cool quotes and reference points for Einstein and music!

> _Thus Albert directly attributes the Theory of Relativity to his study of > music and how it allowed him to access his intuitive thinking. He once said > that "the highest form of musicality in the realm of thought" (Paul Schilpp, > 1979) as a way to explain to "mathematical" students that thought in its > highest form is not mathematical but musical._

This is the quote I've been needing for so long - it's hard to put into words, but I've gotten into XX arguments with people that "Math is the universal language" is wrong and it should be "Music is the universal language." Math is a form of notation. Music is a form of communication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This reminds me of one of the best music lessons I ever received. It was from one of the guitarists of a moderately well-known band from the CBGB's era of American music. He linked the Circle of Fifths (a basic musical concept of western harmony) to both its underlying mathematics and the more esoteric side of Christian theology. Consonance and dissonance became our relationship between Heaven and Hell. Intervallic relationships could be measured both mathematically and theologically, and both tied directly to our intellectual and emotional response to the music.

It's a short and obvious step from the mathematics of harmony to the structure of Kabbalah, and from Kabbalah to theology.

</comment><comment><USER8> I followed all the links in this article and watched Alexander's TEDx talk. The only "link" I could find is a rather loose one, mentioned at the end of the TEDx talk[1]. A cyclic ('big bounce') cosmology is proposed as a solution to the fine-tuning problem, and this is likened to a jazz soloist trying different things over a repeated chord progression.

The associated paper[2] doesn't mention jazz or music.

Perhaps a tighter crossover between physics and music lies in the use of Grassmann algebra to study both scattering amplitudes[3] and musical scales[4][5].

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9_ZzY99-6U&t=14m5s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9_ZzY99-6U&t=14m5s)

[2] [http://arxiv.org/pdf/1507.00727.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1507.00727.pdf)

[3] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.5605](https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.5605)

[4] [http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Regular+temperament](http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Regular+temperament)

[5] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Ward_Smith#Music_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Ward_Smith#Music_theory)

</comment><comment><USER9> Shhh! What are you doing?!? It's a SECRET LINK!!!</comment>


Airbus has unveiled a bird-like conceptual airliner design - <AUTHOR> https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/news/en/2019/07/airbus-conceptual-airliner-to-inspire-new-generation-engineers.html <comment><USER2> Christ, that's ridiculous. I love it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Actually a pretty smart design; raptors' spread primaries provide considerable extra lift. It probably can't be built as depicted without some pretty impressive materials science work and maybe a novel discovery or two, but that's okay; it isn't intended to be built as depicted in the first place. I'll be interested to see if anything comes out of it over the next couple of decades.

</comment><comment><USER4> 1\. Wingtips — many dissimilar winglets will create different wingtip vortices. Are few smaller vortices better than one big?

2\. The centre of gravity seem to be off

3\. Yaw control - I believe it will have to be synthesized by fly by wire, as there are no prominent rudder

4\. Wingspar???

5\. Chassis — gonna be behind the centre of mass? It still looks to me way to narrow for a plane with such long wing.

6\. High wing design — should have lots of cargo space at expense of passenger fuselage volume

7\. Quad engine? — why not 2?

<comment><USER5> > Quad engine? — why not 2?

Because thrust is proportional to mass flow times delta v. But power is proportional to mass flow times delta v squared. So the way to increase efficiency is to increase the mass flow as much as possible. A limiting factor is the prop/fan diameter <\--> ground clearance. See the 737 MAX. But more prop/fans means more engines. And the complexity costs that come with that. Hence the popularity of two engine airliners.

I think there is a realization that with hybrid electric designs, you can have one engine + battery driving four prop/fans. My read on the depiction is an aircraft with one engine and four props.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> And this racing stripe i feel is pretty sharp.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's interesting how a propeller design would be quieter. I always associated those types of planes with noise. Is the noise mostly from the engines and not the propeller blades themselves?

<comment><USER8> It's not just any propeller:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scimitar_propeller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scimitar_propeller)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Where's the rudder? How do they propose to control yaw without a rudder? Perhaps those long winglet-feathers can be modulated for yaw control?

<comment><USER10> The article does mention that the feathers would be active control surfaces, so yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Doesn't flap the wings though...

</comment><comment><USER12> tl;dr It's not an actual design.

"While not intended to represent an actual aircraft, Airbus' "Bird of Prey" is based on realistic ideas – providing an insight into what a future regional aircraft could look like."

"Our 'Bird of Prey' is designed to be an inspiration to young people and create a 'wow' factor that will help them consider an exciting career in the crucially-important aerospace sector," explained Martin Aston, a senior manager at Airbus.

<comment> lame-robot-hoax Martin Aston should quit his job at Airbus and get a job at Aston Martin. Martin Aston working for Aston Martin only seems fitting, right?

<comment><USER13> I don't know, it seems backwards to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Do you want ornithopters? ...because this is how you get ornithopters.

(This makes the Dune fan in me happy.)

</comment><comment><USER15> Read the title as "Airbnb has unveiled..", and got pretty nervous.</comment>


Better wound treatment for all: 'negative-pressure' wound therapy - <AUTHOR> http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/itw-haiti-0414.html

<comment><USER2> Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1269785>

Much discussion there already.</comment>


Show HN: A Punny 3D Interactive Valentine's Card - <AUTHOR> https://love.ronikdesign.com/ <comment><USER2> For those wondering where the pun is: Click the die at the bottom center of the screen.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For those curious here's the repo! [https://github.com/ronik- design/love.ronikdesign.com](https://github.com/ronik- design/love.ronikdesign.com)

This project was a blast to create. Our team's slack has been full off design and dev puns for the past week.

<comment><USER3> How did you simulate the heartbeat, I am curious to look at that code or that method. Awesome job!

<comment><USER4> Thanks! It's a simple scaling animation loop, just took a little trial and error to get the timing right. You can see the code for it here - [https://github.com/ronik- design/love.ronikdesign.com/blob/46...](https://github.com/ronik- design/love.ronikdesign.com/blob/468b8f4fd04a3ea3a5ef428639f97952adeaebf2/src/webgl/scene/Heart.js#L82-L89)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love this! We are going to broadcast this on the screen at our valentine's day event: [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fancy-date-with-javascript- tick...](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fancy-date-with-javascript- tickets-42893338129)

</comment><comment><USER5> Please Callback me. Promise?

</comment><comment><USER6> How did you come up with the text (the actual Valentines sayings)? Is it drawing from a list you made up?

<comment><USER4> Some of them came from friends, some of them we found on the Internet, and some of them we made up ourselves. There's not actually that many, you can see the full list here - [https://github.com/ronik- design/love.ronikdesign.com/blob/ma...](https://github.com/ronik- design/love.ronikdesign.com/blob/master/src/constants/messages.js)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Perfect. Will you marry me?</comment>


Explaining the discrepancy in galaxy rotational curves, without dark matter - <AUTHOR> https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/201908.0046/v1 <comment><USER2> A question I have about dark matter is how its presence has affected our sub- galactic measurements. If the galaxy is filled with a diffuse cloud of dark matter, then so is our solar system and the space around our planet. Are our instruments sensitive enough to detect its effects on the motion of bodies around the sun? Is the presence of dark matter near us something we have to account for when comparing physical constants derived from first principles or underlying theory to the values we actually measure?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is one of the explanations: [https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/ask- ethan-if-dark-matt...](https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/ask-ethan-if- dark-matter-is-everywhere-why-havent-we-detected-it-in-our-solar- system-67ca11f94b1f)</comment></comment>


Why Twitter catches on: No guilt  - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting/archives/2009/05/why_twitter_cat.html <comment><USER2> Its one of its big downsides as well IMHO. There's no real incentive to reply to tweets. It's not about discussion, it's about "Here I am! Here's what I think is important! Listen to me."

I don't think that model is sustainable for most people. Which may go some of the way to explaining the high churn rate.

<comment><USER3> "It's not about discussion" is accurate, but not because Twitter is a narcissist platform. I think it's more akin to sending UDP packets (with no guarantee of delivery to the recipients) than email (with its excessive guarantees). It's even less like mass emails when it's being used like a low- priority broadcast (like when I use Twitter to say I'm headed to a particular bar, my friends are implicitly invited, but with the need to arrange times or RSVP, etc.).

In another sense, Twitter is about delayed discussion. It can set up future conversations that bypass some of the introduction. A friend tweets that he bought a house, he closes on this date, and moves in on that date; the next time I see him we have the chance to jump into an interesting conversation about the house and the process instead of him having to repeat that information for the millionth time.

And there's something else Twitter's done that I'm not sure could have happened before. I wrote a tweet about being in the Salt Lake City airport, and a friend of mine calls me to say "Hey, me too. Let's grab a drink." We hadn't seen each other in a while and neither of us knew the other was traveling or where. That wouldn't have happened a year ago. We would have missed that chance.

(I went a little further than I expected here. But Twitter has some real use cases people are still figuring out, and they're different than email or text or IM or phone calls. People using Twitter for "Here I am! Here's what I think is important! Listen to me." are doing it wrong.)

<comment><USER2> Good points.

For me though, the chance meetup at an airport is much more likely to happen on facebook, where I think more 'real life' friends live. Since facebook changed to put the emphasis on the 'steam', I think that use case is pretty much taken care of there.

I definitely see a range of usecases for twitter, but I don't think it works well for 2 way communication.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Twitter can be seen as a slot machine.

"It was one of B.F Skinner's most important discoveries that behavior reinforced intermittently (as opposed to consistently) is the most difficult to extinguish. In other words, intermittent rewards beat predictable rewards. It's the basis of most animal training, but applies to humans as well... which is why slot machines are so appealing, and one needn't be addicted to feel it."

Read more in Kathy Sierra's post: Is Twitter TOO Good: [http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/0...](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/is_twitter_too_.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> I've sorta wanted an "enterprise twitter" for a while now. A way to broadcast quick, intra-company messages that don't rise to the level of e-mail on channels that can be subscribed/unsubscribed to. Sorta like private IRC channels, I suppose.

<comment><USER6> This might do what you want: <https://www.yammer.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think a more accurate analysis is as follows:

The reason more people update statuses (Facebook, Twitter, etc) than maintain blogs is because there is little guilt in slacking on the former.

If you fail to blog for a week you typically hate yourself. If you fail to tweet for a week you think nothing of it. People prefer things that don't make them hate themselves.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't see how updating your status on Facebook presents any more obligation than putting out a tweet on Twitter. There's certainly not so much of a difference that it would make me use one over the other.

Funny Story, every follower I have on Twitter is someone I know from the net. I tried getting some folks from my actual life on but they thought it was "a poor man's facebook"

(in fairness, I'm a lousy salesman in general so it might be my fault)

<comment><USER2> I think in general facebook_friends > twitter_friends in terms of more likely to be close real life friends etc. Which means there's more of an incentive to reply, comment, etc (Also obviously the fact facebook has comments inline, no char limit etc helps)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think it's popular because people love to promote themselves. Low level of required engagement feels secondary to me.</comment>


Reminder: Dutch HN Meetup Thursday 2011-07-28 Utrecht, The Netherlands - <AUTHOR>

Join us for a meetup of hackers and like-minded individuals in the center of Utrecht! There will be two speakers. One talk is an introduction to Scala, the other talk is a more general talk about tools & tricks of the developer trade. Language will be most likely Dutch, but if there are non-dutch speakers around we'll switch to English :) We strive to make this a recurrent event. Thanks to SETUP the event is open to all free of charge, but you do need to register, so we have an indication of the amount of people interested.<p>See for more information: http://hackersnl.nl <comment><USER2> Thanks to Bjorn for organising this, and to Peter/Bas for their interesting presentations. Looking forward to the next sessions! Oh, and a tip for anyone coming to the next session: arrive early so you get a chance to talk to people.....

</comment><comment><USER3> It's good to see activity in the Dutch hacker community. I won't be able to make it to this meetup, but I will try to make it to the next one!

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to hear! Next one will probably be in Sept instead of August due to holidays :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I got this too late, but I'll try make it to the next meetup (in sept).</comment>


5-10 top weekly coding interview problems with detailed solutions newsletter - <AUTHOR> https://www.getrevue.co/profile/hoanhan101 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi friends,

I am running a newsletter that sends out 5-10 coding interview problems with detailed solutions in Go. My goal is to build a database of top 100, most frequently appeared problems that I think are the most valuable and effective to spend time on. For each one, I am including my thoughts of process on how to approach and solve it, adding well-documented solutions with test cases, time and space complexity analysis.

Let me know if you're interested in the idea. Here is the link to:

\- its blog post: [https://medium.com/@hoanhan101/i-am-making-ultimate-study- gu...](https://medium.com/@hoanhan101/i-am-making-ultimate-study-guides-for- mastering-coding-interview- challenges-3f88a228441a?source=friends_link&sk=999d12c966d910736764fefbc9b8a0d3)

\- the newsletter itself: [https://www.getrevue.co/profile/hoanhan101](https://www.getrevue.co/profile/hoanhan101)

Best,

Hoanh</comment>


Using Monads in C++ to Solve Constraints: 3. The Tale of Two Monads - <AUTHOR> http://bartoszmilewski.com/2015/05/18/using-monads-in-c-to-solve-constraints-3-the-tale-of-two-monads/

<comment><USER3> For the sample _constraint satisfaction_ problem

           s e n d
         + m o r e
         </comment><comment>---
         m o n e y

how about considering it as a special case of integer linear programming for which there is an enormous literature of powerful techniques all of which are just applied math and can be coded up in Fortran, ..., C, etc. with no mention at all of functional programming or monads?

Moreover there are several highly polished software packages that implement the applied math.

For a detailed formulation as integer linear programming there is:

         Find

              d, e, m, n, o, r, s, y

         to solve

              maximize z = d + e + m + n + o + r + s + y

         subject to

              1000 * s + 100 * e + 10 * n + d + 1000 * m
              + 100 * o + 10 * r + e - 10000 * m - 1000 *
              o - 100 * n - 10 * e - y <= 0

              d, e, m, n, o, r, s, y <= 9

              d, e, m, n, o, r, s, y >= 0

         and

              d, e, m, n, o, r, s, y

         integers.

More generally, that constraint satisfaction is often just looking for a feasible solution to a linear or linear integer program is part of why ILOG and SAP used the R. Bixby optimization software C-PLEX.

Similarly if functional programming and monads can make good progress on linear and/or linear integer programming, then there are some people in parts of the applied math, operations research, and engineering communities that would be very interested.

And, of course, since integer linear programming is in NP-complete, really good work would win a Clay Math prize of $1 million.

In more detail, at

[http://www.zweigmedia.com/RealWorld/simplex.html](http://www.zweigmedia.com/RealWorld/simplex.html)

can get linear and linear integer programming on-line.

Then for the sample problem, in the format of that on-line solver asking for just linear programming and not integer linear programming, the problem formulation is

         maximize p = d + e + m + n + o + r + s + y

         subject to

         1000 s + 100 e + 10 n + 1 d + 1000 m
         + 100 o + 10 r + 1 e - 10000 m - <USER2>
         o - 100 n - 10 e - 1 y <= 0,

         d + e + m + n + o + r + s + y >= 1,

         d <= 9,

         e <= 9,

         m <= 9,

         n <= 9,

         o <= 9,

         r <= 9,

         s <= 9,

         y <= 9

Note: In the above, the on-line solver wants the first constraint to be all on one line.

Then from the on-line solver an optimal soluion is:

p = 18;

d = 9, e = 0, m = 0, n = 0, o = 0, r = 0, s = 0, y = 9

in which case this solution to the sample problem becomes just

           9
         + 9
         ---
          18

<comment><USER4> You omitted the uniqueness constraint.

<comment><USER5> And the condition that s != 0 and m != 0

<comment><USER3> Sorry I didn't see a statement of the other conditions.

Actually, from what I saw, just setting all the variables to 0 would have been a feasible solution. At least I got a solution with some of the variables not 0.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


No battery wifi devices - <AUTHOR> https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/no-batteries-wires-or-plugs-uw-team-makes-plastic-devices-that-communicate-via-wi-fi/ <comment><USER2> I'd like to repeat this point from the last time this was discussed: these no- battery devices do NOT "connect" to the WiFi protocol in any way. They simply modify the electromagnetic characteristics of existing packets/signals. This still requires some powered device to interpret these backscatter signals.

</comment><comment><USER3> Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15861123](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15861123)</comment>


New details emerge on AMD Zen - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5cffyt/newish_details_about_zen/?st=ivj74fsq&sh=adb1060e <comment><USER2> Welcome news. "All Intel, all the time, makes Jack a dull boy", to coin a phrase ...</comment>


Launch HN: Listle (YC S19) – Listen to the Best Articles on the Internet - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
We are Cristina, Maria, Radu and Alex, co-founders of Listle (https://www.listle.io). We provide audio versions of articles. Instead of sitting in front of your computer reading your favourite blogs or news articles, you can listen to them while you commute, run or cook.
While being in YC over the last three months, we've developed both the iOS and Android apps. You can find these here: https://listle.app.link/m2DbuzvEDZ.
We started this out while still being in university, back in London, a few months ago. The idea was born as a solution to the painful process of using crappy text-to-speech software to listen to articles on the commute to lectures. We used Instapaper, Pocket and open source solutions for text to speech, but none were great. We noticed that as much as technology has evolved, listening to a robotic voice for more than five minutes is still simply terrible.
The success of podcasts and audiobooks shows that people enjoy listening to content. However, most of the content out there is still in written format. Listle aims to bridge the gap between these two worlds and enable people to listen to any article on the Internet. For example, you can listen to Paul Graham's, Michael Seibel's and several other YC partners' articles. We're also actively partnering with independent authors and enabling them to distribute their content in audio, through an embedded player on their Medium page / personal blog. Find examples of what this looks like here, https://medium.com/hackernoon/wtf-is-the-blockchain-1da89ba1..., https://medium.com/the-mission/your-college-degree-is-worthl... and here, https://medium.com/skilluped/the-3-most-important-skills-to-....
Every morning we release top new audio articles from that day — curated from HN and Reddit, all read by humans. We realise people have different preferences. Because of that, we've included a "request" feature within the app. For any article that you find intriguing, you can copy / paste the link into the app and get a top-notch AI narration, instantly.
We're very excited about this and really hope you give it a try. We're eager to hear any thoughts / suggestions / requests! <comment><USER2> I use pocket audio feature all the time and the robotic sound is far from good indeed. It's hard for me to see how you scale it to every article out there but I guess focusing on a niche is good to start. Good luck and really hope this will work out.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is indeed our approach, and the reason we started out with articles posted on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Few things I would like to draw your attention to:

1\. Firefox is reporting that certain parts of the page are not being served over HTTPS.

2\. In the "My audio articles" section why do I need to enter the first paragraph of the article when I'm already submitting the link to the article?

3\. The side menu doesn't close on the mobile site when I tap the drawer again. This was the only thing I found wrong about the UI.

I hope these will help you with improvements. Congratulations on getting Listle live. I really like the simple design of the site. I'll test more functionality tomorrow (it's past midnight at my place).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for these! We'll look into the menu issue and polish the site further.

With regards to 2 and 3, I think you might be using the writers' section of the site. That is where writers can add their own articles and use Listle to create an audio version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great! I often with I could listen to articles instead of reading them.

What is your tech stack?

First Bug report:

1: There is no scroll bar

2: The Hacker News link hangs at "Loading audio articles" forever: [https://www.listle.io/app/publication/Hacker%20News](https://www.listle.io/app/publication/Hacker%20News)

3: Search seems to search the source code of the article page. Searching for "PHP" brings up a bunch of articles that do not mention PHP at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> For the search, it is possible that the word "php" appears in the first paragraph, or summary of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What about the intellectual property of those articles? How do you give credit to the author?

<comment><USER6> Every article is still owned by its author and credit is given to each of them. If you tap on the author name, it redirects you to the original post. We're currently in the process of making partnerships with several more authors. For our current writers, we offer embedded players for their Medium page / blog and in turn, host their content on Listle.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here are the clickable links:

\- app download: [https://listle.app.link/m2DbuzvEDZ](https://listle.app.link/m2DbuzvEDZ) \- examples of authors already using our player: [https://medium.com/hackernoon/wtf-is-the- blockchain-1da89ba1...](https://medium.com/hackernoon/wtf-is-the- blockchain-1da89ba19348), [https://medium.com/the-mission/your-college-degree- is-worthl...](https://medium.com/the-mission/your-college-degree-is- worthless-504d6f9e394c), [https://medium.com/skilluped/the-3-most-important- skills-to-...](https://medium.com/skilluped/the-3-most-important-skills-to- learn-now-to-thrive-in-2019-be7a29bb16bf)

</comment><comment><USER7> How are you going to handle articles that display images for infographics as necessary for comprehending the article?

Obviously that's the limitation of pure audio but I'm wondering if your process can simply tag or save an image that can then display like an audio book cover.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. We're working on a feature in our mobile player that allows users to see images in an article while the article is playing.

<comment><USER7> Adding to that I noted that you do have links to the actual articles which is good but they aren't displayed as intuitively as they could be.

I think the next phase of your ux should be an actual carbon copy of the article that I can read inside the app with the audio playing features at the bottom in an overlay. One needs to go back and forth between a web browser and your app, and it takes longer to listen than it does to read, most people will want to save time and read when they are in a position to do so. (I'm sure this is already on your docket)

one feature you might consider that would help the transition between reading and listening is to have your vertical scroll bar coincide with your track time at the bottom, so as they scroll down the article their place in the audio track moves down as well. You could even have a text cursor that appears between the actual words on the screen so they can see where their place is.

I've constructed an elaborate diagram that illustrates this

[http://imgur.com/gallery/ZBMYPXe](http://imgur.com/gallery/ZBMYPXe)

<comment><AUTHOR> wow! thanks for the amazing input. we actually also worked on a player that is like an overlay over the page. That sits in an experimental branch, which we'll continue to develop.

really nice idea with the symmetry between the vertical and horizontal scroll bars!

<comment><USER8> Have a look at descript, an podcasting app. They do this, but not just for playback. They actually let you edit the audio by editing the text transcript.

[https://www.descript.com/](https://www.descript.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sounds great. Just by the way, I started something like this (free / free of adverts) earlier this month, on a small scale, to scratch my own itch, basically: the "Tech Aloud" podcast → [https://blogs.sap.com/2019/09/18/tech- aloud-podcast-an-intro...](https://blogs.sap.com/2019/09/18/tech-aloud- podcast-an-introduction/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Neat. I've two things to say,

1\. How do you feel about AI catching up with reading? I use pocket's text to speech, or iOS's screen reader, which although robotic, seems to be improving rapidly?

2\. Do you have any plans for web version ? I've this tendency to read and listen simultaneously. I think it forces me to really focus.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

1\. AI is definitely improving in this area. We watch this space closely, but based on user feedback so far, it seems that AI voices are perceived as very monotonous, and thus it is not enjoyable to listen to them for more than 10-15 min.

2\. Listle is already available on the web at [https://www.listle.io/](https://www.listle.io/) \-- scroll down to "Sign in here" link.

We also have a chrome extension which allows you to see if a particular page / article you are on already has a human-read audio version. If it doesn't, it creates an AI powered audio for you: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/listle-request- ext...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/listle-request- extension/blfedacoclompomaiedgmlpakbjblkdi?hl=en)

<comment><USER11> FWIW, you might want to check with @dang. Lots of comments of yours were flagged and I vouched for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How is this different from Audm?

<comment><USER13> I'm curious as well. This seems strikingly similar and Audm was YC S17.

<comment><USER6> We're very much focused on on-boarding smaller writers and the content is most often evergreen, with some news, but the type that doesn't expire the next day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > enable people to listen to any article on the Internet

> ... all read by humans

This is great, but also sounds kinda pricey and hard to scale? What is the business model behind this?

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the interest. Right now, the AI request lets people listen to content from most links available online. Once we see there's demand for a particular article or domain, we create the human-read version of it too. In terms scalability, we've discovered there are a lot of people with really good voices who are interested in creating a portfolio of voice-over work. We made it very easy for them to generate and upload the audio of the articles every day, through a narrator platform. The business model will be based on a freemium subscription, with the paid version introducing premium features.

<comment><USER16> How (if at all) are the authors and publications involved in the process?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congrats! Cool project.

How many team members you have currently? How many narrators are there?

<comment><USER6> Thank you! Really appreciate this. There's currently four of us, so only the original founders. We currently have around 20 narrators.

<comment><USER18> Hi! This sounds like a great idea. I'd like to be a narrator, where can one apply?

<comment><AUTHOR> sounds goood. can you please shoot Maria an email (firstname.lastname@example.com) about this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Thanks for making it! Looking forward to trying it out</comment>


Vscodium – Free/Libre Open Source Software Binaries of VSCode - <AUTHOR> https://vscodium.com/ <comment><USER2> On Linux (Arch) how does this differ from [https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/code/](https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/code/) ?

<comment><USER3> > On Linux (Arch) how does this differ from > [https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/code/](https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/code/) > ?

to quote the README:

> binaries are licensed under the MIT license. Telemetry is disabled.</comment></comment>


Show HN: 2048 without numbers - <AUTHOR> http://prism.clay.io/

<comment><USER2> By far my favourite version of this game. I seem to be able to build up more of a 'rhythm' and, for once, it doesn't feel entirely like I'm just randomly pushing blocks around in the hope that things will work out OK. I feel like I've built up a system. Having said that, I'm still no master - I just don't think my brain is wired for this game genre.

Really weird effect: having stared at the screen intently for several minutes playing this game, then flipping to another tag, my vision seems to be 'zoomed out' ...

<comment><USER3> The zoomed out thing happened to me too... I was wondering if my resolution had changed, but I always have my resolution turned all the way up. Interesting effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I liked this one, but I also found it _much_ easier. Which makes me wonder if that was by design, I certainly hit the win condition quicker than I have on any of them.

Also it's interesting to see what people have done with the concept since the original, I imagine a few people are bored but how often do we get to see the community focussed around _one thing_?

<comment><USER5> I think it ends at 1024?

<comment><USER4> That seems about right yeah, the difficulty is half the fun.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The score is still a number. It would be interesting if the score, too, were a color.

</comment><comment><USER7> My favourite version so far. Most people are sick of all the 2048 clones but I for one enjoy seeing the creativity.

</comment><comment><USER8> So it's basically the same as the doge version ([http://doge2048.com](http://doge2048.com)), only less hilarious?

<comment><USER9> The doge version is by far the best of all the iterations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is awesome! But, for me, totally unplayable! Being colourblind I just cannot differentiate the different shades of the lighter greens and the yellows. I so wish I could play this as it looks and feels amazing.

</comment><comment><USER11> Fascinating that I did far better on this version (if the score is tallied the same) than I have on any version with the numbers. It seems that sets are much more obvious using colours than numbers and as a result I missed fewer positive moves, especially as the board filled up.

This makes a very interesting UI lesson.

<comment><USER12> And interesting UI/UX lesson would be to keep in mind colourblind people. Almost every time someone posts some graphs or stats I can't read the graph at all. I think having numbers and colours helps a lot.

<comment><USER13> Just out of curiosity, would an colorblind setting in the graphic drive help at all? What I was thinking, for example, if you are red/green colorblind, then compress all the red values to one end of the spectrum, and all the green values to the other end. Or some other remapping scheme, based on the type of colorblindness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is cool and I somehow find it less confusing than version(s) with numbers! Plus points for it working with touchscreens!

<comment> Stealth- I agree! I found this version to be _much_ easier for some reason. Possibly the brain is quicker to recognize and match the colours than when I'm forcing myself to look for numbers?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Numbers are important because you can plan out where to slide particular blocks to form "chains." It's difficult to predict the various levels of blocks with colors, whereas numbers are simply powers of two.

<comment><USER2> But the colors are just as much 'in order'

<comment><USER15> The difference in level between 2 and 8 is far more obvious than "shade of blue" and "shade of green"

<comment><USER16> For you, maybe. For others, maybe not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Cool version but it needs the "continue playing" option like the original 2048 game has once you reach the end. I finished this one on my first try.

</comment><comment><USER18> Obligatory "doesn't work in firefox" quote here.

As an aside, ever since I switched off Chrome (google is oppressive with google+) for safari/firefox a lot of newer, smaller sites have rendering issues. I guess it's the price I have to pay to be free of the beast that is Google.

<comment><USER19> Mostly works for me in firefox, the far right column of the grid does not show, but all of the functionality works. It is a little annoying that you have to click and drag instead of using the arrows, but I guess that's because it is made for touchscreens.

<comment><USER19> Tried it again and it all appears to work!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For some reason I'm able to focus a bit better on the task of building up blocks when it's just colors. At first I thought I wouldn't like it, then I got into a few games and it felt subtly better.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Source: [https://github.com/Zolmeister/prism](https://github.com/Zolmeister/prism)

</comment><comment><USER21> I was about to start working on a 'candy crush' / match 3+ 2048 and this is really similar :)

</comment><comment><USER22> You can actually sort of "hack" it by just clicking randomly very fast at the buttons. I don't know what happens technically tho.

<comment><USER23> You're simulating a swipe.

<comment><USER2> Wow - in terms of input-mechanism support, overall look, and little flourishes, this has to be the most 'complete' version I've seen. Apart from the broken styling on the 'game over' screen, that is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is nice, a much better looking version of 2048. No way I'm upvoting it though, there's been too much of this already.

</comment><comment><USER25> Obligatory color-deficiency comment goes here.

</comment><comment><USER26> This one doesn't spawn the 4's (lightest blue) 10% of the time. I think that that makes it much easier.

</comment><comment><USER27> The first of all versions that I won. For some reason I found this much easier than the number original version.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is totally unfriendly to colourblind people like me.

edit: to be clear, the game usability is unfriendly

</comment><comment><USER28> Only clone of 2048 I really enjoyed , colours are soothing to eyes

</comment><comment><USER29> The animations are to slow for me, kills the playability.

</comment><comment><USER30> this is nice. What libraries did you use to build it? It's like a cleaner version for the non-technocratic masses...

</comment><comment><USER31> I got a Prism but it said game over. Bug?

</comment><comment><USER32> doge2048.com version is also numberless

</comment><comment><USER33> This, I like.

</comment><comment><USER34> This may be unintentional, but its name is Prism.

2013 HN: Prism

2014 HN: 2048

It's like the blocks have been slid together to become one.</comment>


High performance C# web service using EvHttpSharp - <AUTHOR> http://tqdev.com/2016-high-performance-c-web-service-evhttpsharp <comment><USER2> The article about the performance, doesn't give the actual performance results. /facepalm

<comment><AUTHOR> I can tell you it does 2k vs 25k rps on my machine, but I suggest you run it on your machine.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Did I miss something or do you also see a 5-10x difference in RPS?</comment>


A container escape vulnerability in runc - <AUTHOR> https://kubernetes.io/blog/2019/02/11/runc-and-cve-2019-5736/ <comment><USER2> See also: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135701](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135701)</comment>


Online daters aim 'out of their league,' says study - <AUTHOR> http://www.france24.com/en/20180808-online-daters-aim-out-league-says-study <comment><USER2> Full text: [http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/8/eaap9815.full](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/8/eaap9815.full)</comment>


Ask HN: Is Java worth learning? - <AUTHOR> Or maybe you can suggest me some of bright-future programming languages, I just started learn programming last year. <comment><USER2> Java is worth learning because:

\- It's a popular programming language with a large and diverse install base;

\- It's commonly used in server-side backends, and in a modified but recognizable form, for Android app development;

\- It's an imperative language whose dominant paradigm is object-oriented, but Java 8 and later bring in constructs familiar from functional languages;

\- It's verbose and doesn't favor cleverness. If you think this is a drawback, avoid it.

A comparable language that's better-designed in C#. However, in many settings, it is less used.

A language which was designed with most of the same design goals as Java is Go. The two nonetheless ended up perceived as quite different.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's the most commonly used programming language, according to the TIOBE index, and its main markets, Android and servers, are still very much growing with no real programming language competitor threatening the dominant position of Java.

And even if people would suddenly stop writing new software in it, there's so many systems by now that are written in Java and need to be maintained that you'd still be able to use that Java knowledge for at least ten years.

The main selling point of Java is that it's easy to write software in it, so that means little developer time for relatively featureful and bugfree software. There's also a lot of tooling around Java.

It does not fare well in performance or resource usage, and is mainly geared towards writing big software projects.

Personally, I'd say it's definitely something you want to have in your repertoire at some point, unless you already have concrete plans on specializing into a direction where you know that it's not useful.

<comment><USER4> Kotlin is very much threatening Java's dominant position in Android development

<comment><USER5> I think most kotlin teams would want you to already know Java, the parts of kotlin that aren't basically Java under the hood are likely very easy to learn.

<comment><USER6> Not necessarily. One can pick up Kotlin as entirely new language. If you are working with old Java code, then yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Java itself is worth learning, but one thing to consider as a bonus: if you can learn java and some of the associated tooling, it also gets you access to an onramp for learning scala, clojure, kotlin, other JVM languages.

You might not use the tools immediately but the fact you can debug java stack traces using one of the more "fun" languges certainly doesn't hurt.

Another perspective: if you ever get in to data engineering it's usually a big requirement to know something java related.

</comment><comment><USER8> In my opinion, Java is not an enlightening language. In other words, learning Java will not make you a better programmer in other languages. It is only good for getting jobs.

If you do decide to learn it, make sure to use recent educational materials for Java 8+, so you learn how to use advanced features like lambda functions and unsigned integer types.

<comment><USER9> > It is only good for getting jobs.

Beginner will either want a job or write some simple apps. "enlightening" languages are worthless for them.

<comment><USER10> What? You do realize that lots of schools start entry level programming with "enlightening" languages(scheme, haskell etc)? You can write simple programs very easily with enlightening languages.

<comment><USER11> But you won't see many jobs requiring scheme or haskell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It can't hurt to learn Java. There's a huge amount of Java code out there, and there are lots of Java jobs. It has a future, though the hype wore off it a long time ago.

That said, I can't say I particularly like Java, or find it fulfilling or interesting in the same way I like elegant and clever C++, or even Python. It's had all the sharp edges filed down, making it a pedestrian and mundane language. But that's of course why a lot of companies use it; it's a known quantity which you can have a team of people work with and get a working result in a planned timeframe. On the downside, there are too many people who only ever developed with Java, and can only think about design within the constrained limits of what Java allows, i.e. basic OOP. Definitely learn more than one language so you have a wider appreciation for what's possible.

Personally, I'd recommend Python 3 as a first language to get started with today. You can rapidly get started doing interesting stuff with a minimum of fuss and vastly less unnecessary verbosity than Java. It's also less constraining with regard to design; it doesn't force the use of classes and OOP like Java, so you can experiment with different ways of doing things.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's #1 on the TIOBE index, for what that's worth.

[https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/](https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/)

I think the most certain thing I can say is that Java has a bright-present, and a not-dim near-future.

<comment><USER14> I won't put too much weight on TIOBE index (its mainly created from search engine stats). If you are looking for rankings from jobs perspective, just look at the direct job stats for languages. IEEE Specturm probably has better ranking:

[https://spectrum.ieee.org/static/interactive-the-top- program...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/static/interactive-the-top-programming- languages-2017)

<comment><USER9> Depends on the contry I guess, however for Central Europe that ranking seems just wrong. Java is likely to be #1 here. JS & PHP are much higher as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Absolutely, its the second most used language on github: [http://githut.info/](http://githut.info/)

that list is a nice guide on what you should learn in general.

Once learned compliment it by learning Scala.

<comment><USER16> Why Scala?

<comment><USER17> Java let's you do most of the work, Scala let's me produce elegant enough solutions that the complexity means I have job security. Thus, if you're learning Java for career reasons, Scala seems to be a natural compliment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think every one should learn at least 3 different types of languages (my recommendation for each below):

\- Interpreted: Current choice is Python, pretty much hands down undisputed. Personally there is a lot to dislike about Python (who doesn't like 24 byte integers?) but that's how things are.

\- Compiled (VM based): My choice here is C# instead of Java or Go because (1) C# is now available cross platform and more "free-er" than Java (2) its much more upto date in virtually every respect (3) it has great tooling and rich library to speed up the development (4) its not owned by Oracle and it doesn't ship with spammy browser toolbar to unsuspecting users (5) unlike Go, folks working on C# are not stuck in excessive minimalism. Almost exact opposite, they want C# to have good features from every other language out there with massive new releases each year. That's great - at least for me - because I've access to everything from very powerful lambdas to parallel paradigms to async features, when I need them.

\- Compiled (direct to metal): I'd like to chose Rust in future but I'm going to recommend C++ instead for now. If you are working on pretty much anything at the deep end of the computer science including OS kernels, writing your own compilers, building runtimes of variety of tools like TensorFlow, graphics engines, physics engine, embedded libraries etc - then you need to learn C++.

Having said that, if your purpose is to just get job go with Python and Java. These are #1 and #2 languages according to IEEE Spectrum in job postings:

[https://spectrum.ieee.org/static/interactive-the-top- program...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/static/interactive-the-top-programming- languages-2017)

<comment><USER9> I'd say going with more than one language will just confuse beginner. I've seen many students struggle with the language soup schools cook for them.

<comment><USER11> Yes, better to do one thing well than two poorly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As a language, for learning purposes, no not really. It is very general purpose and doesn't bring any notable concepts to the table that aren't more clearly expressed in other languages. It also has some poor library design by modern standards and can be confusing because it hasn't thrown out the old stuff along the way so the surface area is huge and it's hard for a newcomer to know what not to use.

It is worth learning the JVM as a runtime which is essential to many businesses and the maven build infrastructure as the progenitor of most modern build and dependency management systems.

If you want some suggestions from a purely learning point of view, for OO try smalltalk, for FP try haskell, for systems programming try rust, for the JVM try scala.

From a commercial point of view Java might be worth it. It's easy, reasonably well compensated, and ubiquitous enough that there will be plenty of work in Java for at least the next 30 years.

</comment><comment><USER19> It depends on what you want to do with your programming knowledge. Here are my considerations:

* If you want a steady job in a large organisation then Java will probably keep consistently employed, but probably also uninspired.

* If you want to learn some powerful programming concepts and gain solid CS foundations, then I'd suggest reading SICP and learning Scheme.

* If you just want to learn something that you can be productive in quickly then Python is a good choice.

* If you just want to tinker with web pages, etc then Javascript.

It is very hard to predict which languages will be considered great in the future. Go, Rust, Kotlin, Clojure, Erlang, Swift, etc all have their ardent fans and when you understand their reasoning you might be in a better position to make your own informed decision, but I would not suggest learning any of those as your first language.

</comment><comment><USER20> Java is worth learning. It'll take you a few days or weeks to get comfortable.

It may not be worth getting good at it, unless it's purely a way to get a job at a big company.

Brightest futures seem to be Python (for data science and AI), Rust, Elm, Kotlin, Go, maybe F#, and probably Swift.

<comment><USER21> JavaScript probably makes the same list...

<comment><USER22> Care to elaborate? I havent done any frontend stuff in a few months but it appears to be the only solution there. Even when using typescript, you still want and need to know js.

Regarding Java, i think its a good starting point if you want to hack your first web project together. You sort of see how everything works together. Before that I always recommend looking at C just to know what you are missing out on. If there is some calculation happening you can always call some C/C++ code to see if you get some speed ups by optimizing for the cache (just an interesting experiment if youve never done it before.

<comment><USER22> Woops read the wrong parent comment. Ignore me :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've spent half of my career in java so far: the terms, structures and patterns you learn and understand will accompany you through your life. But you must deep dive for every single word you encounter.

</comment><comment><USER24> Yes! But not only Java. Learn as many languages as you can covering different paradigms.

Java, C, OCaml, Haskell, Javascript, Erlang, Prolog, Lisp, Rust will all add valuable skills

</comment><comment><USER25> Java is nice for OOP. It's great for working in large groups. It's not a hacker language - too slow and heavy, but it does things well for slow and steady development.

I'd recommend learning Kotlin instead though. It does nearly everything Java does, but better. One of the few new languages that feel fun to hack with but don't feel hacky like JS.

</comment><comment><USER26> Should be an Ask HN. And I'd probably look into Rust.

</comment><comment><USER27> Well, in Dutch universities one of the first courses of Computer science is object oriented programming in Java. I think that says enough. :)

</comment><comment><USER28> Was on same sitch. Learned kotlin in like three days (it's similar to other languages I've written) and got java for free.

</comment><comment><USER29> No. Also: Yes.

Really? It depends. Its use is massively widespread, and will be for, at minimum, the next decade (or two). So, it is a very marketable skill. But it's not as "hot" or (for my very subjective viewpoint)"fun" to write.

So: It depends. On goals, on preferences, on _you_.

</comment><comment><USER30> Yes of course.

</comment><comment><USER31> In my opinion Java is great if you want to write big enterprise-y applications but if you just want to get something done or just learn some concepts I would suggest Python. You can do all the same things you can do with Java as a beginner and it will mostly stay out of your way. Python also doesn't require a build system like Java does. You can just write some Python in a plain old text editor and run it without too much trouble. Java on the other hand will require a build system and a full IDE.

IMO with all the other languages available Java just doesn't really offer anything special enough to warrant it's dealing with it's awkward type system and verbosity. Unless you want to do something with Java specifically like Android dev it just doesn't offer anything worth the pain. If want higher performance and the type safety that Python doesn't have I prefer Go. It's syntax is very similar to Python and it has some interesting concepts.

Whatever you choose don't choose based off hype/promises of jobs. Most companies will hire engineers who have never used the language(s) in their stack as long you can demonstrate knowledge of core programming concepts. Python's `list`, Java's `ArrayList` and Go's `slice` might have some slight differences in implementations and different warts and what have you but deep down they are arrays. If you are familiar with the data structures and algorithms core to programming you can learn to use any language to solve problems.

At the end of the day a language is just a tool. The concepts that underpin these tools are what is important. So choose a tool you enjoy using and fits the scenario. Here are some links that were helpful for me, hopefully they will be helpful for you:

Python:

\- [https://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega- tutorial...](https://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial- part-i-hello-world) \- Good tutorial written for Flask.

\- [https://docs.python.org/3/](https://docs.python.org/3/) \- Python docs, lots of good info there

\- [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.0/intro/tutorial01/](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.0/intro/tutorial01/) \- Django tutorial. Good intro to developing applications with Django, probably the most popular/common Python web framework.

Go:

\- [https://tour.golang.org/welcome/1](https://tour.golang.org/welcome/1)

\- [https://gobyexample.com/](https://gobyexample.com/)

General:

\- [https://www.codecademy.com/catalog/subject/web- development](https://www.codecademy.com/catalog/subject/web-development) \- Very basic tutorials, has Java and Python as well as others

\- [https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview- university](https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-university) \- Lots of general CS info, this is the important stuff

</comment><comment><USER32> Go will eventually take over the space Java currently occupies, so I would go that route. Java's days are numbered.

<comment><USER14> Java's days have been numbered since past 27 years.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to scale? - <AUTHOR> I'm starting a new project, a mobile app. I created a db in postgres, used Node for the backend, and I'm currently hosting everything in heroku.<p>I was just wondering if this setup is able to scale, or if only a few users (maybe a couple hundreds) will be enough to take down the service. <comment><USER2> Don't overthink it even with un-optimized code you can get far with a beefy server.

In general the rule of thumb is that by the time you have scaling problems you will already be popular enough that it will no longer be a problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is no point in speculating whether it will scale or not, take a data driven approach and load test your setup to find out.

</comment><comment><USER4>
      -EMOREINFO</comment>


MIT 6.S094: Deep Learning for Self-Driving Cars - <AUTHOR> https://selfdrivingcars.mit.edu/ <comment><USER2> There seems to be this assumption in the educational community that deep learning is the answer to automatic driving. Yet that's not how Waymo does it. They're geometry-first. Most of the control is based on "flat road here, big obstacle there", plus map data. Machine learning is only for "what's that". See the TED talk by Chris Urmson.[1]

Driving on deep learning alone will work great, most of the time. Some of the time, it will do something completely bogus. Like Tesla's self-crashing cars, which use Mobileye's system to not-recognize obstacles which block part of a lane.

Sometimes, the system will sense an obstacle and won't be able to identify it. That has to be handled safely.

[1] [https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_urmson_how_a_driverless_car_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_urmson_how_a_driverless_car_sees_the_road)

<comment><USER3> AFAIK most SDC companies are using all kinds of control inputs, whether they are based on classical Computer Vision (RANSAC, HOG, SVM), on Deep Learning with 2D convolutions, on Deep Learning with 3D convolutions and RNN (2D + time on a series of images), Deep Reinforcement Learning (lane keeping, realtime path planning/obstacle avoidance), LiDAR+Radar+Ultrasonic combo via Kalman or particle filters, GPS, IMU etc. and then mix all those signals together to figure out which ones are the most probable. And this all has to happen with super-low latency. With the latest NVidia 500W GPUs for cars we might get far better precision than what was possible with Jetson TX2. You are right Deep Learning alone won't make it reliably, as sometimes output goes completely wrong and simple filtering/averaging past few frames might not be sufficient to prevent your self-driving car becoming a self-flying car. But combining all these inputs together, maybe via another DNN, seems like the best way forward.

<comment><USER4> Yes, we are using a fusion of different types of sensor input. I have to be careful to not divulge trade secrets, but I would also add that sensory input (deep learning based or otherwise) is only the very first step in a long and complex chain of tools, algorithms etc. The media and academia are focusing almost exclusively on that step, but it's really only a small piece of the puzzle we are working on.

You are also correct on the performance issues. The DNNs you would require for the very complex decisions are currently too large to be used on automotive ECUs. But we also still have big open questions regarding provability of safety when using neural networks that need to be answered before we can use them for core decision making algorithms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> University of Montreal also has an autonomous robotics class called Duckietown (formerly at MIT). Having taken it last Fall, I can say it's pretty comprehensive. We covered a bunch of related topics from computer vision, deep learning, filtering, SLAM, with guest lectures from industry researchers and roboticists: [http://duckietown.org](http://duckietown.org)

If you're in Montreal, we're having a public demo day next week. [http://diro.umontreal.ca/departement/evenements/une- nouvelle...](http://diro.umontreal.ca/departement/evenements/une- nouvelle/news/duckietown-43516/)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is the course home page for the YouTube video discussed briefly here 2 days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16157843](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16157843)

Thread winner goes to bitL summarizing the differences between several similar courses as he also has in this discussion:

>bitL: _TL;DR: Once you finished Udacity, MIT gives you more [...] you 'd understand instantly (except for Deep Reinforcement Learning_

Apparently the chance to order this year's class t-shirt has been extended to Monday!

</comment><comment><USER7> So nowadays, even MIT is a vocational school? This just seems _too damn specific_ to not be a direct industrial request.

edit: corrected per bitL

<comment><USER8> Expect more of this as society continues to devalue degrees that don't tie directly into a lucrative professional career. College is expensive, with tuitions not anchored by a limited credit market. People will rationally turn away from fields of study that won't let them escape from their unforgivable debt.

<comment><USER7> The joke will be on society after half of this stuff gets refined down to ultimate simplicity (like bicycles), and the other half is refined to a point of "good enough" (like terminals) where no one cares anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> ...It is open to beginners and is designed for those who are new to machine learning, but it can also benefit advanced researchers in the field looking for a practical overview of deep learning methods and their application....

Someone who took this course before, is it really good for beginners? Also, the course title suggest it would deal with models for self driving cars. Description says "practical overview of DL methods and their application". How specific is the course ?

<comment><USER3> I'd say it's for intermediate level. Let's say you have already finished 1-year long Udacity self-driving car nanodegree and reached intermediate level, then these lectures will be understandable to you. If you are total beginner you are going to be lost, but if you are an MIT newbie, you might be fine with some work in your spare time. To understand some subjects like Deep Reinforcement Learning you might need some related graduate-level coursework under your belt. It's not bleeding edge though, so researchers might think the lectures are trivial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Dang looks like the class already started.

Would it be worth it to formally enroll in the class if you're trying to get into the industry?

<comment><USER11> why would someone pick a guy who did this over an MS grad from Stanford

<comment><USER12> You've posted a ton of unsubstantive comments to HN. We eventually ban accounts that do this, so would you please stop?

<comment><USER4> It's an important question, though. I see a lot of interest in MOOCs, the Udacity nanodegree etc. on the internet, but I can't see my employer/me hiring someone whose only qualifications are online courses. I know absolutely no one in my entire department who does not at least have an MS. And we are doing exactly the jobs that people who take these courses want to get hired for.

I like to do MOOC courses to get an overview of / intro to a certain topic I am interested. But once people charge a substantial amount of money for a degree, it is absolutely pertinent to question whether the degree is worth it. E.g. IMO udacity is very close to being fraudulent with the promisses they make in their advertizements of their nanodegree.

<comment><USER12> Ok, but an important question deserves a substantive comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Shameless plugin: Here is a recent presentation I did while finishing Udacity's Self-driving Car Nanodegree. It might help with some of the concepts, show you what was Udacity teaching and complement the material from MIT:

[http://bit.ly/2EOKIXy](http://bit.ly/2EOKIXy)

Have fun!

</comment><comment><USER14> Kind of disappointing to see it is about cars not _for cars_. Kitt and Lighting Mcqueen must feel kind of left out.

<comment><USER15> What about Herbie? Just because the Love Bug doesn't have blinky lights or smooth Pixar animation doesn't mean he's obsolete!

...We might want to think twice about admitting Christine though.</comment></comment>