Why green olives come in jars, but black ones come in cans - <AUTHOR> https://www.marketplace.org/2014/05/05/business/ive-always-wondered/why-green-olives-come-jars-black-ones-come-cans <comment><USER2> Maybe it is a local (US) thing, here in Italy/Europe you can find black olives in glass jars just fine, a few examples:

[http://www.polli.it/prodotti/olive/olive-nere- denocciolate-v...](http://www.polli.it/prodotti/olive/olive-nere-denocciolate- vasetto/)

[http://shop.oliosalvagno.it/vasetto-olive-nere-in- salamoia-g...](http://shop.oliosalvagno.it/vasetto-olive-nere-in-salamoia- gr-280-salvagno.html)

[https://pietrasantaaltosalento.it/it/home/19-olive-nere- in-s...](https://pietrasantaaltosalento.it/it/home/19-olive-nere-in- salamoia.html)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, in Germany you can find both kinds in glasses, cans, or plastic pouches. However, I think most black olives here are simply green ones, colored with iron. I found it hard to find real black olives in my supermarket unfortunately.

Also, I think the botulism issue is prevented by having an acidic environment.

<comment><USER4> Similar situation in Finland (except olives in plastic pouches I have yet to see).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As others have noted, the article doesn't seem to answer the question it poses. What's missing is more detail around the process of producing green and black olives.

Watch the end of the embedded video:

[https://youtu.be/xKWBJkaoRjM?t=1m7s](https://youtu.be/xKWBJkaoRjM?t=1m7s)

Black olives enter the canning facility unripe and green. Bubbling air blackens them.

This part of the process isn't mentioned at all in the article, and it's hard to know whether this was the process being used by Freda Ehmann, or whether/how this oxygen treatment resulted in the botulism cases.

All in all, not the best in technical reporting.

<comment><USER6> If you read into this more, it's actually the lye solution which artificially ripens the olive. That Youtube video doesn't go into the lye process other than the chart that you can see on the wall while going over the 7 day process. My guess is they don't really want to be verbal that lye is used (sounds a little gross to me).

However, the gap between why black olives are prone to botulism and green olives are not prone is not covered. I wish that was expanded on.

<comment><USER7> Olives are slightly acidic by nature and the lye neutralizes that? Neutral environment, plus heat, plus low oxygen makes for Hollywoods funny faces.

<comment><USER6> ah that seems likely! Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> This may give a "better" explanation (though still unsubstantiated):

[http://enquirer.com/editions/2001/06/25/tem_ask_a_stupid.htm...](http://enquirer.com/editions/2001/06/25/tem_ask_a_stupid.html)

[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2885/why-is-it- that...](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2885/why-is-it-that-green- olives-come-in-glass-jars-but-black-olives-come-in-cans)

[http://lacrossetribune.com/tomahjournal/lifestyles/ask- your-...](http://lacrossetribune.com/tomahjournal/lifestyles/ask-your-science- teacher-green-vs-black- olives/article_6ae0713b-280e-5fe0-8c48-335f7cb2028e.html)

It seems more like it has become a tradition of some kind in California.

More here:

[http://oliveoilsindia.com/California- Olives.htm](http://oliveoilsindia.com/California-Olives.htm)

it only applies to artificially made ripe olives.

<comment><USER2> Addition:

... and seemingly this "high temperature" sterilization (which is still within 110-120 degree Celsius, so perfectly doable in glass containers) adds acrylamide:

[https://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publication/?...](https://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publication/?seqNo115=322472)

in almost unbelievable amounts:

[http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/jf5022829](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/jf5022829)

Heck! 410 micrograms/Kg vs. 1.4 (Greek Olives) and 0 (Spanish Olives)!

[http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=260](http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=260)

>What About Acrylamide and Olives?

Research on olives and their acrylamide content has shown some inconsistency over the past several years and this inconsistency has sparked controversy in the public press about olives and their health risk with respect to acrylamide. In data assembled by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), we've seen more than a dozen different kinds of olives, including Spanish, Greek, Kalamata, Nolellata, Sicilian, d'Abruzzo, and Gaeta, and di Cerignola that were determined to contain no detectable level of acrylamide. Yet we have also seen FDA data showing levels of acrylamide as high as 1,925 ppb in some canned, nationally distributed brands of black pitted olives. Based on this data, we suspect that these higher acrylamide levels in select canned black olives were related to specific handling, storage, processing (especially preservation and darkening methods), and heating steps that favored formation of acrylamide. It's also important to note here that we are not aware of any data showing problematic levels of acrylamide in any extra virgin olive oils available in the marketplace.

At present, we are not aware of any foolproof method that consumers can use to avoid purchase of canned black olives that contain unwanted amounts of acrylamide. Since the FDA data has shown no detectable levels of acrylamide in numerous samples of important olives packed in brine, those olives may be worth considering as options that may help avoid unwanted acrylamide. As stated previously, extra virgin olive oil is another form of this nutrient- rich food that, to our knowledge, has not been shown in research to contain unwanted amounts of acrylamide.

<comment><USER8> I won't pass judgement on whether 410 micrograms/kg is an "unbelievable" amount, but I will just mention that it is 410 parts per billion, or less than 1 ppm.

<comment><USER2> Neither do I, but it is 400% the "traditional" olive contents, let's call it "substantial increase".

The last cited article reports however that as much as 1,925 ppb have been found in some specific canned olives.

<comment><USER9> For comparison, the FDA sampled a bunch of foods for acrylamide posted the values here:

[https://www.fda.gov/food/foodborneillnesscontaminants/chemic...](https://www.fda.gov/food/foodborneillnesscontaminants/chemicalcontaminants/ucm053549.htm)

<comment><USER10> Jesus, there is one Popeye's location that is apparently, just, like, going out of its way to add acrylamide to its french fry oil or something.

This whole data set is oddly fascinating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was surprised to read that the reason isn't that green olives are typically used to make martinis. It seems to me that having a jar of olives on a bar would make for a better appearance than a can. Also, green olives are typically stuffed with pimentos or garlic or blue cheese, and so being able to see them might help sell them, whereas black olives are used for things other canned vegetables are used for, ie salads, casseroles, etc.

</comment><comment><USER12> Maybe my reading comprehension is shot but I didn't get a very clear answer to the question at hand.

<comment><USER2> Nahh, the explanation is there, alright, though nothing supports the "240 degrees" theory (I have to presume they would be Fahrenheit degrees, i.e. 116-120 Celsius, and of course glass can bear that alright):

>The whole industry switched to a new standard for the ripe California olive.

"It has to be heated to 240 degrees. And only a can would tolerate that, physically—you couldn't do that with a glass jar."

Eventually, California olives came back. In cans.

Even if it was 240 Celsius (which I doubt), glass can bear it just fine.

<comment><USER13> > _of course glass can bear that alright_

Perhaps not in the 1920s though.

<comment><USER14> The setting point of jam is 105°C, so only very slightly cooler.

If I remember correctly from making jam with my mother, it's important to pour the really hot jam into the heated jars to ensure everything stays sterile -- so the jam going into the jars is around 105°C.

<comment><USER15> That's correct, but I've seen so many recipes on the internet that let the jam cool so the jars don't crack. That's ok for making a small amount to eat quickly, but for proper preservation you really need to do it hot.

<comment><USER14> It helps that my mother trained as a professional cook. That jam kept well for years.

I also remember it very clearly, as jam-making was by far the most dangerous cooking we ever did together. I could probably chart my maturity based on how much I was allowed to help, starting from washing the jars and putting them in the oven to sterilize, all the way to doing the whole process while she watched.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> We need olives expert from HN - is this just USA (California) thing? I don't believe that black olives in Europe are actually artificially dyed with iron gluconate. My impression is that in Europe black olives are riped olives picked in late autumn or winter. Anyone to confirm?

<comment><USER17> Not an olive expert, but in Croatia (and probably the rest of Europe - Mediterranean) AFAIK green olives are picked in autumn, and black ones, that is full ripe ones, are picked in November and December. Those olives are used for the production of olive oil and they give the oil it's distinct golden colour... honestly, colouring olives sounds awful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you're in a rush, it was because jarred ripe olives caused a botulism outbreak, and only cans could tolerate the 240 degrees necessary to make them safe for consumption.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm missing something here. The article doesn't explain whether black color is the result of artificial ripening or not, and why it creates a risk of botulism (while green olives don't have it).

<comment><USER20> Botulinum spores need * Low Oxygen * Low Salt * Low Acid

Green Olives are only processed by being in a high salt solution that also contains some vinegar.(Or are lacto-fermented to create the acid.) Essentially they are brine-pickles.

Black Olives are soaked in Lye(very alkaline) until they are uniformly soaked, then put into a acid solution that helps develop their color(They are dark normally, but not uniformly black). The brine is lower in salt also. In order to make it safe for canning, they pressure can it to get to hotter than 240(I've always heard 250, but the article says 240).

Until the advent of modern polymer lined cans, salt would corrode the metal at the concentrations in green olives. So I doubt its a Black = metal can thing so much as...

* Automating pressure canning is easier/cheaper in metal. * Green Olives High salt, High acid, would corrode the metal. * Black Olives Lower salt, lower acid, could be metal canned.

<comment><USER19> Thanks for the explanation!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Are Kalamata olives not black? These are almost always sold in jars. I guess according to Eataly black is only the California ripe olive. I imagine the salami and olive expert who works at Eataly isn't going to comment on Greek olives. He's still wrong. The article should be about California ripes, not all black olives.

<comment><USER22> Kalamata olives are left to ripen to a deep purple (not black) on the tree, and are cured like other olives (brine or oil). California olives start green, and the curing process turns them black. See [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKWBJkaoRjM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKWBJkaoRjM)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Throwing my antipodean hat into the ring to add to the growing chorus of "black olives come in jars".

</comment><comment><USER24> You can just got to the international section or to stores which sell more international food, specifically Mediterranean or Middle Eastern. There are lots of varieties of olive, different sizes, packaged differently and so on.

</comment><comment><USER25> I live in the Czech Republic and I can find both in glass jars.

</comment><comment><USER26> So _all_ black olives in the US are artificially ripened?

<comment><USER27> No, only the "California Ripe" variety

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hmmm. I almost always buy black olives packed in jars.

</comment><comment><USER29> I find the account of the epidemiology investigation very intriguing with the whole seating chart and all. Cool stuff.

</comment><comment><USER30> I've literally never seen a "can" of olives, is that normal in some weird part of the world?

</comment><comment><USER31> The article is not about olives, rather about those black things that Californians eat on pizza and some salads. They neither look like nor taste like olives. :p</comment>


Aaron Swartz funeral, partner Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman  - <AUTHOR> http://www.wbez.org/news/culture/after-aaron-104940 <comment><USER2> Both these pieces - one from Quinn Norton and now on Taren just breaks my heart. :-(

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree; these two were the toughest.

However, Taren's remarks at the funeral were more enlightening than heartbreaking. I ended up thinking of Aaron's work in a more enlightened way than I had in the past. The heartbreaking part was seeing Ada come up to Taren after her remarks and hug her.

(I didn't really know Aaron--I met him when he was two or three; what I know of him is what he published online and what others have said about him.)</comment></comment>


Amazon Sues New York Over Internet Tax - <AUTHOR> http://www.internetnews.com/government/article.php/3744476/Amazon+Sues+New+York+Over+Internet+Tax.htm

<comment> patrickg-zill Good for Amazon.</comment>


A better way to solve the housing crisis – tax land, not development - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-manville-monkonnen-linkage-fee-20170719-story.html <comment><USER2> When there are 6x more empty homes than homeless, I suspect the crisis is not one of supply in this country.

A couple of points. The average home buyer stays in their home ~13 years as of 2013 and that number was trending lower,

[https://chicagoagentmagazine.com/2013/01/07/nahb-study- avera...](https://chicagoagentmagazine.com/2013/01/07/nahb-study-average- homeowner-to-stay-in-home-for-13-years/)

Now look at a 30 year amortization schedule

[https://www.basicfinancialtips.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/0...](https://www.basicfinancialtips.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/05/Mortgage-Amortization.gif)

Notice anything? Right, not even at 50% principal until around year 19.

Why is housing so expensive? Americans are giving all that money to the banks. And after 13 years? They jump off the treadmill, go back to the start, and throw more money away. And this is best case, assuming no second mortgages, interest only loans, and all the other scams Americans are so gullible to fall into.

<comment><AUTHOR> In some areas, homes are left empty.

In others, there is a much greater housing demand than supply.

In both cases, increasing the cost of leaving housing idle would seem to be an improvement over the present situation.

It's occurred to me that the problem of housing and wages are twinned, and that some sort of land-tax / land-reform, paired with an income regime (employer of last resort, UBI, living wage, probably a mix of all of the above) is necessary.

Without housing reform, increased wages are withdrawn via rents.

Without wage reform, housing supply remains beyond the effective demand of those who are unhoused / insufficiently housed, and/or are subject to highly variable income.

See: [https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6nxi42/rent_an...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6nxi42/rent_and_wages/)</comment></comment>


The Top 100 Startups in LA - <AUTHOR> http://www.symmetry50.com/blog/2014/12/17/the-top-100-startups-in-la

<comment><USER3> So disappointing. I was expecting robots, bitcoin, cloning, gene therapy, integrated circuit design, space travel, face recognition. Instead it's senior care, making rental payments, social this-and-that, dog walkers, and a lot of companies simply selling on the web stuff you used to buy in a store like furniture and clothes.

Possibly the only business that sounds like it's breaking new ground is uBeam ("beams power through the air to wirelessly charge electronic devices"). I scanned quickly, so maybe there are more.

Certainly great fortunes have been made by simply selling on the web stuff you used to buy in a store (Amazon for example). It might be the economic reality, but I still can't help but feel sad that the top 100 startups--and all the creative energy and capital--are overwhelmingly prosaic and ordinary small business.

<comment><USER4> It's a good point. I feel like we should start making distinctions between Tech startups (i.e. companies using technology as a core raison d'être - <USER2> Microsofts, Apples, Googles, Facebooks, Yahoos of the world) and tech-enabled companies (the Amazons, Ubers, Airbnbs, the numerous food delivery or washing businesses etc - basically just replacing an old ordering tech (the phone/catalog) with a new one (a website/mobile app)).</comment></comment>


Show HN: MAZTR: Instant Online Audio Mastering - <AUTHOR> https://www.maztr.com/ <comment><USER2> I notice a lot of distortion in the 'mastered' version example on their page? Just sounds like it has 'loudness' turned on then the volume up too loud?</comment>


Ask HN: Should we rename our startup? - <AUTHOR>

Hi guys, we just launched a new service called Sfalma (the greek word for error, remember σ from math?) We though it was a bizarre word that could work but it seems that is very difficult for people to remember or even spell it. What do you think? <comment><USER2> I'd vote yes, change it. Something catchy and easy to remember (and spell) is a must. It looks like BugEaterApp.com is available! :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends on your demographics. My mom would hate it, dad would mistype it, I don't know how to pronounce it. It's not related or associated with anything in the daily life, and there is a disconnect between the spelling, pronunciation, and meaning for the layman. Only works for math, history and language buffs. That's a tiny corner.

</comment><comment><USER4> I had a similar problem for an HCI project where we used a Greek word as the name and we got reamed in our reviews for the name being "unusable." I'd say change it -- it doesn't evoke any connotations for the user nor is it easily pronounceable.

</comment><comment><USER5> The f could presumably be confused with a ph when telling it to someone. Otherwise, it's simple enough so I'd have thought it'd be at least easy to remember. But if you've had a couple of problems then it might be worth exploring other options.

</comment><comment><USER6> Try an experiment: tell some people it's called "Sfalma" and tell other people it's called "The Bug Eater" and see which group is more likely to create an account within 2 weeks. I'd guess that obscure names aren't good, but you never know.

</comment><comment><USER7> Keep it... the name says little. Sfalma will give you little google competition which on the long run may be important. Finally, basecamp uses the url basecamphq.com ... who would imagine that something like this would work.

</comment><comment><USER8> The 'sf' combination is very rare in the English language (look up the dictionary), so difficult for people to remember how to spell it and therefore how to find it.

Change it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Forget about the name, are you getting traction? Are users happy? That's what matters. You're just distracting yourself.

<comment><AUTHOR> we have some users but not at the rate we would like. We tell people about the service but it seems they forget the name in 2 minutes. Of course online conversion is much more important than word of mouth

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Change it. Definitely.

</comment><comment><USER11> How about bugfollow or errorsniffer? Like either of those?

</comment><comment><USER12> change it. people need to be able to spell it correctly in google. the downside is that you must find another name as unique (in search terms) as this.

</comment><comment><USER13> I like sfalma, google was/is difficult to spell too...

<comment><AUTHOR> it is a phonetic problem, people read s+f as 'sv' so they cannot type it

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I vote change it.

</comment><comment> e-diva Sfalma rocks.

</comment><comment><USER15> Keep it.</comment>


Europe's Wile E. Coyote Moment - <AUTHOR> http://intellectual-detox.com/europes-crisis/ <comment><USER2> The first two or three few paragraphs of this article is something that _everybody_ needs to understand. The US debt is just another form of money, and is completely risk free because the US government is monetarily sovereign.

The same does not hold for Eurozone governments, hence the debt crisis. In fact, Eurozone governments are more akin to US state governments, and the debt-to-GDP ratios of US states are _much_ lower than those of Eurozone members. The debt crisis should not have been a surprise to anyone, and the fact that it was shows how little the monetary system is understood even by most economists.

That said, I disagree with the last statement made in the article. There is in fact a very good reason for governments to go into debt at least under current institutional arrangements. (Monetarily sovereign) government debt is just another form of money, and in fact money is a debt of the government (via the central bank, which is really just a branch of the executive when push comes to shove). And the private sector really likes holding on to money.

Private entities that are economically successful like to collect those shiny numbers in their bank accounts, and hence they accumulate monetary assets without spending them. They have lots of income, but spend only a part of that income. This means they effectively act as a money sink. The money that is kept out of circulation needs to be refilled somehow, and government is the only entity that can do so.

So there are really three options: 1) Accept that, under current institutional arrangements, the private sector accumulating monetary assets means that the government has to go into debt; and accept that this is not a bad thing.

2) Change the institutional arrangement so that the government can just finance its deficit by creating money outright (and use taxes to control inflation).

3) Raise taxes on wealth to the extent that the accumulation of assets in the private sector simply is not possible anymore.

Personally, I believe 1) and 2) are the best options. 2) has the added benefits that it eliminates interest payments by the government; I consider this a benefit, because those interest payments tend to be a hidden subsidy of the rich.

<comment><USER3> > and is completely risk free because the US government is monetarily > sovereign.

So what? Ctrl+P is cheap, but that's besides the point. The reason USA is not Ctrl+P-iing now, but is borrowing instead should at least serve as a hint.

My point: If it is OK to Ctrl+P at later date as the Is-Safe-To-Borrow propaganda wants us to believe why is not safe to Ctrl+P now? Why borrow when you can print?

So, no. No such thing as free cookies or risk-free debt. At least this side of the Jupiter orbit.

Yes, it would be a different endgame, as the one for Greece, but this is not the same as risk-free.

<comment><USER2> _The reason USA is not Ctrl+P-iing now, but is borrowing instead should at least serve as a hint._

Actually, the US _is_ Ctrl+P-ing now. That's what QE is all about: from the perspective of the private sector, QE is equivalent to the government creating money out of thin air to pay back the debt. This is only obfuscated a bit by the fact that treasury and central bank have separate balances.

 _Why borrow when you can print?_

My guess is a combination of (a) most people are afraid of change (case in point: you), (b) the people owning treasury bonds effectively get a hidden subsidy via the interest paid by government, and (c) the problem is framed in such a way that most people never even question the existing institutional arrangement - and when they do, they tend to do it in terribly uninformed ways.

 _No such thing as risk-free debt._

Please explain under which conditions the US government would become unable to fulfill the promises implied by its debt.

<comment><USER3> I agree with a lot of what you said above. I just don't think it changes the general picture that much.

> Please explain under which conditions the US government would become unable > to fulfill the promises implied by its debt.

At the point where the choice would be a) currency destruction (10-15% inflation), b) default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rZNS0A5...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rZNS0A55UXQJ:intellectual- detox.com/europes-crisis/)

</comment><comment><USER5> The article didn't open, but just in case, it's not only Europe that's headed off a cliff. It's the whole Western world.</comment>


Ask HN: How much would you pay for a beautiful IRC client for Mac? - <AUTHOR> (GUI-based) <comment><USER2> One man's "beautiful" is another man's "flat and bare" :)

That said - $20 feels right for this sort of thing. Gotta be light, polished and snappy though, truly exceptional. Not of an Electron variety. The fee is basically a pat on a back for the developer for a job well done.

Certainly not more, because it's a goodwill purchase. But if it's less, then it'll look like a temp side project with a limited life expectancy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haven't ever seen Electron until now. What's wrong with Electron?

<comment><USER3> Programs built with Electron are written in HTML 5 packaged by wrapping Chromium around it. People's main beef with Electron is size (of the binary) and memory usage. Since you're technically running a whole webbrowser (just with 1 "tab"), it's quite heavy. Think of a simple calculator app taking 50 MB of disk space and using 150 MB of RAM

A lot of programs these days are built using Electron, or similar techniques (packaged HTML 5 app) partly as it's a quick way to build an app that's cross platform and has a lot of functionality

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Maybe $100? I suppose it would depend on features. Honestly though, something open source where I make a recurring donation (i.e. Patreon, GitHub Sponsor) might be better, since that may mean development over a longer period of time

I'd be willing to pay for a native (not Electron) macOS app that can connect to IRCCloud[1]

[1] [https://github.com/irccloud/irccloud-tools/wiki/API- Overview](https://github.com/irccloud/irccloud-tools/wiki/API-Overview)

</comment><comment><USER4> How does this app add value? Is it that it's pretty looking or superior function in some way? I would not pay anything until I understood the benefit.

</comment><comment><USER5> There are already quite a few options but I would want to pay as little as possible (under $10 or $9.99 max)

</comment><comment><USER6> I paid 8.99 USD for Textual 7 (MacOS) a couple of months ago. You only see the price ater you install the free app (1 month free trial if I remember correctly). It has more features than I possibly use (I don't use IRC much) and isn't ugly. 19.99 USD would've been my limit.</comment>


Keegan – Personal photo coach - <AUTHOR> https://keegan.regaind.io/ <comment><USER2> So... I am a pro-photographer ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) [https://i.imgur.com/yBCXOpe.png](https://i.imgur.com/yBCXOpe.png)

<comment><USER3> Well done :p gaming AI systems is always great fun ^^

<comment><USER4> Red circle on black, 7.7:

[https://keegan.regaind.io/p/8OerASkBTWupl7srWfFYrg](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/8OerASkBTWupl7srWfFYrg)

<comment><USER4> Full red gets only 1.9 but... 82% in composition!

[https://keegan.regaind.io/p/c5Vyyn4ZRsKJ4cvS_KYHXg](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/c5Vyyn4ZRsKJ4cvS_KYHXg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _" You need to invest in some studio lighting… The pic is not very interesting… It's flawed, but you'll get there: keep working on your lighting, framing, and composition. It's only a 3.2/10."_

Uploaded the second picture of this fantastic set by a 1950's photographer from Hong Kong: [http://designyoutrust.com/2016/02/hong-kong-in- the-1950s-cap...](http://designyoutrust.com/2016/02/hong-kong-in- the-1950s-captured-by-a-teenager/)

Many of them get labeled as _#badcolors_ or _#boring_ , I guess it might be related to the lack of color features...

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the fact that the AI is developed by Regaind ([https://regaind.io/](https://regaind.io/)) must be taken into account. Their service is not intended for artsy pictures. It is rather targeted at people who have 1000 photos on their reflex from their last vacations and want to make a relevant and beautiful album of 50 photos to remember their trip, but don't want to spend two weeks comparing and selecting the right ones.

See for instance their demo here : [https://regaind.io/demo/](https://regaind.io/demo/).

<comment><USER6> In my experience, even amongst vacation snapshots, the best tend to be of the accidentally artsy variety. I suppose this algorithm would completely fail to recognize the hilarity of the mirroring sphere of a tourist's perfectly bowling-ball-bald head in front of an apse, hovering under the blob of light that is the eye of the pantheon dome on a phone snap. I know I did, (miss it) on the first few times I scrolled through the series.

Generally I feel tempted to file this site under fun with phrase generators, with some ML thrown in to make it slightly more interesting than purely random phrase generator toys. But are there really no use cases for automated checks of aesthetic conventions? Sifting through the data dump of a full day of wedding shots maybe? I know I would be tempted to start with a computer generated shortlist. Mate it with face detection so that you can cluster by subset of attendees (each combination of faces captured must be present at least once in the final set) and... well I guess they already use systems like that, it's 2016.

An entirely unrelated idea in the general area of photography, algorithms and human learning that I still miss is this: an option in manual mode that takes a full auto shot right after the manual one, exposing how good or bad the algorithms are vs the operator. Or do some cameras have something like that? Do manufacturers omit it to not expose deficiencies in their algorithms? Do they omit it to not hurt the feelings of customers when they are worse than auto mode?

<comment><USER3> This is indeed a "fun" project which showcases the technology and provides (I think) fairly relevant comments (trust me - a random generator is _much_ worse, we had terrible comments at the beginning of the project). The other technology modules you describe (face recognition etc) are indeed requirements for a semi or fully automated curation system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey there! I'm Regaind's CTO and will be happy to answer your questions :) We built this as a coaching tool aimed at helping amateurs take better photos, in the context of building a smart and flexible automatic roll curation system that goes beyond the "bad exposition/motion blur detection" that's often used. The end goal is to fluidify the use of photos by killing the last bottleneck: sorting.

<comment><USER7> I haven't seen any comments that I would classify as coaching. Instead they seem to be simple critiques.

"Overall, this image is good, but it could be great." [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/whFZsOsRRfG4sRBGCDiA7g](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/whFZsOsRRfG4sRBGCDiA7g)

"The blur and the subject together, so good. " [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/HopS2XrnSmGhXiMg6AFoLA](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/HopS2XrnSmGhXiMg6AFoLA)

"This is a solid image." [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/USKPgJgfRE- h_n7rh2QnHg](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/USKPgJgfRE-h_n7rh2QnHg)

"So simple, but so good" [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/xbQHksWyRsOPWhW3hhs6RA](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/xbQHksWyRsOPWhW3hhs6RA)

Don't get me wrong, I think this is pretty cool, but there is no real actionable feedback, so there unless you can guess as to what triggers the higher scores, there isn't much coaching, so much as "gaming" the AI.

<comment><USER3> Hey there, Coaching/advice is provided when you score much lower than that! We kinda don't take the risk of telling you "improve your composition" when the overall picture looks good and the non-standard composition may actually be what makes it work so well. Just a few examples with coaching: [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/ne5Xql3LQ4Wcp3lNTwpA3A](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/ne5Xql3LQ4Wcp3lNTwpA3A) [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/JAi7xXNsSw6CLzALqmdNpQ](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/JAi7xXNsSw6CLzALqmdNpQ) [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/RA1BIfwLTwmdo44ACxsctg](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/RA1BIfwLTwmdo44ACxsctg)

<comment><USER7> Makes sense.

My bias as an Asian American: I translate a 7.4 to a 74/100 to a C, which is not a good grade, hence a desire to see coaching to achieve a score of 9.8 and above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Definitely fun to play with. Seems to really like bokeh...

[https://keegan.regaind.io/p/sqs8Z8RgSsuaSG3gLxo0bQ](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/sqs8Z8RgSsuaSG3gLxo0bQ)

[https://keegan.regaind.io/p/dNMYqs3aSpa_x0fYMU_AhA](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/dNMYqs3aSpa_x0fYMU_AhA)

I'm not really seeing it couching me though:

[https://keegan.regaind.io/p/6QD0ycG3QTK1uM2IbIslSw](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/6QD0ycG3QTK1uM2IbIslSw)

"This landscape is good, but could be great". Not really sure what to do with that.

[https://keegan.regaind.io/p/lhCz67aBTnmI5GB9sWO4cQ](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/lhCz67aBTnmI5GB9sWO4cQ)

Seems like a low score. Again though, it's not really clear why. "Bad lighting" seems odd, because maybe I have no taste but the lighting is the reason for the shot in the first place. For reference, here's the original: [https://www.flickr.com/photos/stefandufresne/16091643487/in/...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/stefandufresne/16091643487/in/album-72157649893805028/)

So far, AFAICT, it is a big fan of single focus thing in foreground with lots of blur in the background.

Edit: I'm having trouble getting it to ever like black and white shots: [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/-NZR7e1FTJGtpMN3BPYlAg](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/-NZR7e1FTJGtpMN3BPYlAg)

Edit 2: Okay whaaaaaaatttt I'm really disagreeing with a lot here. Maybe I just think some of my shots are better than they really are, but 4.1 for this is crazy [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/y3LaI_J0R6a33eJ_fOQfew](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/y3LaI_J0R6a33eJ_fOQfew)

<comment><USER9> Indeed, my seashell-in-the-sand picture with lots of blur got a 9.2. Also most of the hall of fame is subject+blur.

Didn't try B&W yet, don't have many pictures like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Algorithm seems to really like portraits. Every one I uploaded, it scored very highly. Threw in Afghan Girl by Steve McCurry [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/yBJXfxHeTEWtvtGDxgupaA](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/yBJXfxHeTEWtvtGDxgupaA) to see what would happen.

<comment><USER11> That's been my experience as well. It must use face detection rather heavily. It also doesn't like photos with no central subject.

<comment><USER3> Actually there's absolutely _no_ face detection in there !

<comment><USER4> But it loves contrast, no? Global contrast as well as local contrast.

<comment><USER4> Normal BW portrait, 8.5:

[https://keegan.regaind.io/p/YLzqGGvuSFOv7PwLl8qC8A](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/YLzqGGvuSFOv7PwLl8qC8A)

Same image with clarity upped to 100% (horrible, IMHO), 8.6:

[https://keegan.regaind.io/p/JbMQUyfBTNuoAWveabPCwg](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/JbMQUyfBTNuoAWveabPCwg)

<comment><USER3> It does like contrast! Hm, the score change is sufficiently low to be within the error bars I'd say. I agree that the upped clarity is less beautiful, but it adds a nice touch of sharpness which Keegan likes a lot as well!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When I have time later, I might feed it some images from the Magnum (the agency) corpus and see what feedback I get.

Once upon a time, in certain newbie photo critique forums, pranksters would upload a renowned photographers image for critique... Hilarious feedback from new photographers showing off their critiquing prowess.

<comment><USER13> I tried an Ansel Adams photo - "This landscape is good, but it could be great. Let's give it a 7.5/10"

<comment><USER12> Adams was a pretty straight forward photographer, so I suspect his example might fare better than say a Winogrand or D'Agata, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm impressed with the ability to recognize different scenes and subject matters. There are achievements that include photographing waterfalls and beaches! How cool is this?

Side note: Is this bot on Facebook Messenger as well? Or did I misunderstand?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes it is, you can talk to Keegan here: [https://www.facebook.com/keeganregaind](https://www.facebook.com/keeganregaind) :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Yeah... No. Not yet.

1) It utterly fails as a coaching tool. "Your framing is 71% correct". Great. Awesome. That's maybe technically correct (the best kind!), but it's utterly unhelpful.

2) It fails at images taken to capture a mood instead of a motif. (Exactly what I'd expect from ML :)

3) It has problems with things that we usually consider iconic photos. Annie Leibovitz's picture of Mick Jagger in an elevator? Meh, 5.2. Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" gets at least a 7.6, so on par with my vacation selfies.

It's a great idea. It needs a lot of love.

<comment><USER3> A few answers :)

1) as I mentioned elsewhere, the explicit coaching happens when you submit a photo that Keegan think is bad (say score < 5).

2) Mostly true, except that it's surprisingly good at capturing the notion of good timing, which I did not expect from ML ^^

3) well, as for the Mick Jagger picture, I can see why Keegan dislikes it: it's simply not that good technically. What makes it great is that it's Mick Jagger and that he has a very deep sight (imho), which the model indeed does not capture. For the other picture, yeah, the score is not that good, but the comment is spot on (in my humble and very biased opinion) :p

Thanks for the feedback, and yeah, definitely needs more love before it's a perfect predictor! Nicely enough, classification tasks with tons of supervision still make a lot of errors too ^^ ([http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CdOxQRbWAAEUZM6.jpg](http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CdOxQRbWAAEUZM6.jpg))

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> 10/10 [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/yCcgM4AJRZ- mnsVmpPhSbA](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/yCcgM4AJRZ-mnsVmpPhSbA)

<comment><USER17> That is pretty amazing. I'm not sure why your post got flagged. Are people that afraid of the word "dicks"? Have they not heard the meme?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> 9.9/10 ([https://keegan.regaind.io/p/9KfI67VdTGin64pOzN696g](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/9KfI67VdTGin64pOzN696g)) - funny how a quick glance at the Hall of Fame and my brain can work out which of my pictures will match the preferred style in order to get a high score pretty readily.

I do wonder if it's a bit sycophantic, after all who wants to be told they're terrible all the time.

</comment><comment><USER19> To me, Keegan misses out on the art of photography and is focusing more on the "rules" of photography.

That being said, it's fun to see where photos fall in its grading system, even if I personally disagree with it.

For example, this portrait by Vivian Maier gets a 4.2 [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/9VJdlageRTusSf7Z2qDQPA](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/9VJdlageRTusSf7Z2qDQPA)

<comment><USER20> If you click the slightly hidden "get more feedback" button it shows:

Subject well framed: 100% Super sharp subject: 71% Great composition: 68% Pleasant blur: 57% Great lightning: 35% Well chosen background: 33% Interesting/original subject: 32% Good timing: 26%

So it's not very happy with half the categories but scores 9.4/10, so the score is definitely not an unweighted mean! (geometric or arithmetic).

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback! Any tip on how to make that button more salient?

<comment><USER21> It looks like a dropdown / <select> box.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Trying to figure out how to make a comparison of this to Professor Oak's photo critique in Pokemon Snap without beckoning all the HN downvotes...

"Well done!"

</comment><comment><USER23> "Great color and amazing angle. It's okay, but I want to see more; keep working on your composition! A solid 5.7/10\. Not bad, but I'm sure you can do better!"

How the heck is this feedback supposed to be useful / helpful / actionable?

</comment><comment><USER24> Uploaded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize photograph of migrants from Turkey landing on Lesbos in October after battling rough seas:

 _...This photo is alright! I give you a 7.1 /10\. That's a very decent photo for a start! Can you show me something even better?_

<comment><USER25> That's a great example of the 'third element': composition, exposure and _opportunity_.

Sometimes you can make opportunity "happen" through equipment with more reach or foreknolwedge. But sometimes things just happen and a mediocre shot is more powerful than none at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Kind of cool.

9.8, from France. [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/xbQHksWyRsOPWhW3hhs6RA](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/xbQHksWyRsOPWhW3hhs6RA)

Not really a coach though. More of a critic.

</comment><comment><USER26> Based on other people's attempts to please it, I thought it would like this close-up of a snail I took. 9.4/10 and a ribbon so I guess we know what it likes! [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/rUMLzUc5SO- aZUoZzz31Tg](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/rUMLzUc5SO-aZUoZzz31Tg)

On the other hand, it doesn't like the lighting or colors on this, and wants more bokeh. I'm willing to grant that the composition is dull, but the colors? [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/pQ9U6CiMRKWNkYVgqLZTCQ](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/pQ9U6CiMRKWNkYVgqLZTCQ)

And again it complains about lighting, which is probably the last thing I would worry about on this one: [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/-CC6phAPScux1CSYPqY24Q](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/-CC6phAPScux1CSYPqY24Q)

And this one has the same light, and cleaner composition, but it still complains- I'm not sure what it thinks would improve it. "Bad composition" is not helpful advice here. [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/6T6V3k8fRLSWMn2JT6-N4g](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/6T6V3k8fRLSWMn2JT6-N4g)

Meanwhile, it's weirdly positive about this digital monstrosity: [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/Csyd3O6pRg6vra2hqumKOQ](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/Csyd3O6pRg6vra2hqumKOQ)

</comment><comment><USER27> It's really in to bad stock photos:

[https://keegan.regaind.io/p/BpYbZznQQQObZa9BDHH7AQ](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/BpYbZznQQQObZa9BDHH7AQ)

[https://keegan.regaind.io/p/rIr8UAIxTuSxGeZg5FumbA](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/rIr8UAIxTuSxGeZg5FumbA)

[https://keegan.regaind.io/p/8duBvzXmRfGAg7DpdJQSiA](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/8duBvzXmRfGAg7DpdJQSiA)

<comment><USER3> Everyone has some bad tastes at times, no ? :) But yeah, it's not perfect yet!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> One of the issues is sometimes, it's okay to do things in a non-standard way for effect. The other issue is it seems to think the only thing that matters in photography is depth of field.

For example, this kind of generic picture of my son during the fall got an 8.2: [http://imgur.com/a/SOFE0](http://imgur.com/a/SOFE0)

Where as this other picture I took, one I think is technically superior recently got a 7.1: [http://imgur.com/a/VeEL9](http://imgur.com/a/VeEL9)

And then there was this one I took in Rome, which got a comment of "not enough blur" which is the exact opposite of what I wanted. This is a fiat in rome, the background is the entire point. rated at 6.2 [http://imgur.com/a/zLStt](http://imgur.com/a/zLStt)

Compared to this pretty generic musuem pic... that's not really interesting in any way, but managed to get an 8.2 (probably because of the blur) [http://imgur.com/a/Szc9I](http://imgur.com/a/Szc9I)

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't understand their algorithm. Take three of my photos off my Flickr page:

1) I consider this photo mediocre. Gets a 10/10, Platinum Ribbon. [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/lJ7FEb1kQt-mM1kIe- kVuw](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/lJ7FEb1kQt-mM1kIe-kVuw)

2) I consider this photo to be fantastic. Perfect reflection. Gets a 7.7/10, no ribbons. [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/KUzvRfFeRsK1Lj1selLWQw](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/KUzvRfFeRsK1Lj1selLWQw)

3) I consider this photo good but not great. Okay but not perfect reflection. Gets an 8.7/10, Reflection Ribbon. [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/zaRlMOEySFWKTZlSvWO3Rw](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/zaRlMOEySFWKTZlSvWO3Rw)

This is confusing as hell to me. I'm averaging 7.98/10 over 30 photos, which personally I think is too high. I'm not that good. But at the same time, my best photos are rated very low and my mediocre photos are rated very highly. This makes no sense.

This photo gets a 6.2/10 and is rated negatively for composition, but is actually near perfect (if I'd have a wider angle lens it might have been better). It follows the rule of 3s with reinforcing repetition throughout, including even in the perfectly captured reflections of me taking the photo itself. It's not an /interesting/ photo, but it's practically perfect composition. [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/hrbE85wGQWW3vs5w1QoGFg](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/hrbE85wGQWW3vs5w1QoGFg)

Keegan is weird.

<comment><USER3> The scores range is explained in the modal, 5 is for decent pictures, 7-8 for great ones, 9 for exceptional ones. Your average is really good, and all the scores you got are pretty good as well, congratulations! Keegan definitely makes much worse mistakes than these ^^ Ribbons are one time events that have very different thresholds for happening, if you already got a given ribbon on one picture you won't get it again even if your new picture would be an even better fit for it!

Overall aesthetics is a very subjective subject, and getting perfectly accurate scores for it on the wide variety of photos out there is still an open challenge :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Love how fast this is! Wish it could actually offer advice. Seems heavily biased towards portraits with shallow depths of fields.

<comment><USER3> Well depending on the picture it may give you very direct tips on what criteria to improve, especially on low score photos (<5).

<comment><USER30> Fair enough! Few specific issues:

\- Can't add pictures to the hall of fame after the fact.

\- Can't remove pictures from the hall of fame.

\- Re-uploading a ribbon picture doesn't work.

<comment><USER3> Well these are mostly intended, but are kind of leftover of the phase where we had no user authentication implemented. You can still delete pictures from your profile ([https://keegan.regaind.io/profile](https://keegan.regaind.io/profile)), that will remove them from Hall of Fame as well. Your ribbon shows there by the way! (ribbons are implemented as one time events which depend on your user status, and are not stored alongside the picture. maybe we could fix that)

Thanks for the report tho, I'll see what we can do for reenabling the hall of fame button after the first show!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> [http://imgur.com/a/ZwM1N](http://imgur.com/a/ZwM1N)

"Your colors are flat. OK image. You could improve your colors. This deserves a 5.5/10\. Not bad, but I'm sure you can do better!"

<comment><USER29> That's... strange. My guess is that it's saying this because of the overwhelming amount of green in the background. But taken as a whole this photo is almost a study in color. Clearly the algorithm discounts the artistic value of contrast lighting from the lamp and the differing colors of the rug and bookshelf contrasting with the greenery.

<comment><USER31> I think you are probably right. It's all CGI btw.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Uploading this photo hangs the system... [https://www.flickr.com/photos/nnbb_alf/3181106186/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/nnbb_alf/3181106186/)

<comment><USER3> weird, it worked for me: [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/jPERL_ltSqG8WwwCtVlwaA](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/jPERL_ltSqG8WwwCtVlwaA)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Ansel Adams 7.5/10 [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/uoVo3TIjR1C3P-Q49drUlA](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/uoVo3TIjR1C3P-Q49drUlA)

</comment><comment><USER32> Posted a masterpiece by Stephen Shore, Keegan didn't care for it.

 _Static composition, my eyes don 't really know where to look and the pic is not very exciting… It's flawed, but you'll get there: keep working on your composition and lighting. This is at most 3.8/10\. #messy#boring_

Here is the photo [http://www.fubiz.net/wp- content/uploads/2015/07/stephenshore...](http://www.fubiz.net/wp- content/uploads/2015/07/stephenshore-1-900x692.jpg)

<comment><USER34> I mean, is that a masterpiece? I ask as someone who is unaware of Stephen Shore and has never seen this picture before. As someone living in 2016, that looks like a random picture of a gas station someone took on a road trip. I agree with Keegan here, it's boring.

I'm sure there's some historical context or something I'm missing out on here, but that's just my take looking at the picture.

<comment><USER35> I am also unaware of Stephen Shore, and have not seen this picture before. I guess we can chalk it up to different tastes - I think this picture is amazing. It captures the feeling of the place.

<comment><USER36> How do you know what the feeling of the place is? Have you ever been to that gas station?

<comment><USER17> It doesn't matter, the point is that a feeling is captured.

Many people seem to think that photography is solely documentary, but that is only one possible aspect. You also have control over what is in and out of the picture, where objects are relative to each other, the relative tones and brightness of objects, etc., and can use that to tell a story that's not strictly true. If you've ever been composing a shot, noticed that there is a big pile of garbage in the frame, and shifted the angle slightly, you're already doing this.

<comment><USER36> Well...a feeling is captured, not the feeling.

<comment><USER17> Like all forms of art, the idea is to show the artist's feeling, not to tell you what you would personally feel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It recognizes food! [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/An6jvK- mQxOS-z8bIg8bwQ](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/An6jvK-mQxOS-z8bIg8bwQ)

</comment><comment><USER38> Yay I got a ribbon

[https://keegan.regaind.io/p/GBjTf_wVRPGsY8A7fmNw6w](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/GBjTf_wVRPGsY8A7fmNw6w)

</comment><comment><USER39> As amazing as the advancements to image recognition technology have been, I'm equally astonished of the progress corresponding language generation.

I would be interested to see a Turing test with this tool versus a real photographer analysis.

Restrict the "analysis" to 3 or 4 sentences along with a score. The participant goal would be to figure out which analysis came from the AI and which came from the photographer. Would be interesting to see the results...

<comment><USER3> Thanks ^_^ as mentioned in the about modal we received a lot of quality help to polish Keegan's language :)

<comment><USER4> Are you based in Paris? That's great!

<comment><USER3> We do! We're at Agoranov near Luco, feel free to drop by if you want to have a chat :)

<comment><USER4> I'd love to! Are you Guillaume?

Are you working on more than classification? What about automatic improvements, including not just lightning but also straightening, cropping, etc.

<comment><USER3> I'm! You can get in touch with us at hello /at/ regaind.io

You can have a look at your webpage for all that we do ([https://regaind.io](https://regaind.io)), but yeah, automatic improvement is on the list of potential things we would like to do :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> > __ _" You nailed the subject placement but that lighting is NOT working. > Your portrait could be so much better. Try improving your lighting, > background, and blur! No more than a 4.5/10, maybe less. Not so good, but > I'm sure you can do better! Try again :)"_ __

Don 't know how to do those setting changes on my phone :-) I just posted a selfie on Bart... Bart lighting isn't too flattering

</comment><comment><USER41> Tasteless and sophomoric though it may be, I decided to feed pornography to Keegan [0].

He seems to like it. 6.5/10 for a generic, raunchy shot.

The point is that pornography is probably the least-composed imaging one can find. It feels like this bot is just spitting out random compliments.

[0] [https://imgur.com/a/s5vdh](https://imgur.com/a/s5vdh) [NSFW, obvioulsy]

<comment><USER3> Well, the composition is not bad, the colors are more than decent. There's no bad motion blur, the main subject is clear (albeit gross). The score seems decent for that.

Actually, the score scaling is a very tough subject for a public thing. We received some comments saying that Keegan is wayy too harsh, it seems people expect their everyday picture to score 7-8 (we've been told it'd be a big problem in the US especially, I can't judge on that as not living there tho :/), while we feel that Keegan s generally a bit too generous for Europe standards.

<comment><USER41> Hi,

I might be a particularly tough sell since I grew up in the US but have been living in Europe for quite some time now ;)

I think what you're seeing on is AI hype in action. The marketing of Keegan suggests that it's AI should be capturing some of what is usually perceived as subjective taste (e.g. whether or not the image is "interesting"). This ends up disappointing because the AI (which is clearly an incredible technical feat) is really just capturing objective elements of composition.

Perhaps you just need to fine-tune the language so as to do some expectation management?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> On a side note, is it just me or does the character at the top of the page look ominous/creepy?

<comment><USER3> that's because Keegan can be witty and a bit harsh at times :) but yeah now that you say it I can imagine some creepy memes with him xD

<comment><USER17> Is he good friends with the Incognito guy?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Tip: you can click the "Get more feedback!" button for a detailed breakdown of scores.

</comment><comment><USER44> My daughter's cat picture got a 6.6. I know it could use some brightness, but I still love it.

[https://keegan.regaind.io/p/-HlqBiO2Qhy2xcWVeetqaA](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/-HlqBiO2Qhy2xcWVeetqaA)

</comment><comment><USER45> It likes my dog so much I got an achievement for it: [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/g4bTVKBlRlK03OADh4SXog](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/g4bTVKBlRlK03OADh4SXog)

<comment><USER3> Well done :p There are 17 hidden achievements with multiple thematic ones like this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> AI fail. [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/ij0_ZDpFR92ryOwW5O_xGA](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/ij0_ZDpFR92ryOwW5O_xGA)

</comment><comment><USER47> Shoe fetish? [https://keegan.regaind.io/p/oAGqMK24Sk6o6jRJZ6CT-A](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/oAGqMK24Sk6o6jRJZ6CT-A)

</comment><comment><USER48> I tried it with my favorite, Alex Webb. It didn't break 5/10 and received solid #mess and #boring tags on all of the photos. Fun none the less.

</comment><comment><USER49> Can't wait for the next AI winter...

</comment><comment><USER50> My test photo got classified as "not a photo". Keegan may be artificial, but certainly not "intelligent".

<comment><USER3> Judge on a single sample, do you ? :) That's a fairly strong statement based on a fairly small dataset :( But yeah, our heuristics to ignore some content (e.g. websites screenshots) sometimes trip on real pictures. There's still a lot of room for improvement :)

<comment><USER4> Judging by the tags, it recognizes this as a street sign (which is great and amazing), and yet says it's "not a photo".

A photo of a street sign is definitely a photo ;-)

[https://keegan.regaind.io/p/v5bCFkeRRYSvendxCM73yA](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/v5bCFkeRRYSvendxCM73yA)

<comment><USER3> Yeah it's super harsh with street signs or that kind of large text on pictures. The protection is there to avoid saying really silly stuff on utilities bills and other kinds of paperwork. I'll add this example to the ones we should accept.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I think the subject was hiding in my portrait due to me uploaded a landscape.

<comment><USER3> Haha do you have the link for that fail?

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I was nothing is wrong but could be more. More what?

<comment><USER3> Hey there! Do you have Keegan's URL for the picture on which you got that comment ?

<comment><USER52> Sorry, no.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Well. This is trippy.</comment>


Cryptocurrencies are collapsing - <AUTHOR> https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/ <comment><USER2> A confluence of factors:

1\. China cracking down harder: [https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/01/16/business/16reuter...](https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/01/16/business/16reuters- china-bitcoin.html?partner=IFTTT)

2\. South Korea cut off access to banks by cryptocurrency exchanges in December, and access to exchanges by foreign traders. As a result the prices in the country spiked, and the largest price aggregator CoinMarketCap removed Korean exchanges from the index because they were skewing the averages. This caused ~$150B to appear to have suddenly vanished, gapping prices down. This is when the sell-off began in earnest. Then recently the South Korean Minister of Justice said he wants to shut down exchanges, but then the PM says that would require a vote in the National Assembly on new legislation. They are consulting with Japan (who are positive on crypto) and China (who are not) to create a new regulatory framework. [http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20180116000817](http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20180116000817)

3\. Indonesia just banned cryptocurrency transactions, stating only their native currency is legal tender. [http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/01/15/bank- indonesia...](http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/01/15/bank-indonesia- police-prevent-bitcoin-transactions-in-bali.html)

4\. France's central bank has been whining about cryptocurrency for some time and finally convinced the Minister of Finance to make a public statement and authorize a draft of new regulations. [https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/905169/bitcoin- France...](https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/905169/bitcoin-France-China- South-Korea-ban-illegal-activities-Bruno-Le-Maire)

5\. A speculative theory: the Bitcoin futures contracts are about to expire, and some investors will have bet on lower BTC prices. There could be large market players deliberately pushing prices down to meet those futures bets. Or just market makers wanting to get in at a lower price point.

<comment><USER3> Or it could be, gasp, perhaps bitcoin was overvalued? No, anything but that.

<comment><USER4> How would you define "overvalued"? Is it the current average price compared to a very low price three months from now? What if it recovers a few weeks after that — would that change the fact that it was once "overvalued"? Valuation is not based on nothing, in vacuum. The challenge is to understand the underlying factors. The post you replied to actually tried to shed some light.

<comment><USER5> The price of energy required to mine 1 BTC. What else? That's its inherent value.

<comment><USER6> This is just the discredited labor theory of value, applied to machines instead of humans.

<comment><USER7> In other words, I could spend an hour exerting effort and have nothing of value to show for it at the end?

<comment><USER8> That's obvious... You can work for a year and still get nothing... Because your work has no value in and of itself.

In general things are only as valuable as the _" market"_ is willing to pay for them.

<comment><USER7> > That's obvious

Sure, I was agreeing / checking my understanding was correct :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would call it more of a "market correction" than a "collapse."

<comment><USER10> Indeed, I wouldn't call a change 15K -> 13K a collapse.

<comment><USER11> according to reuters, "Bitcoin extends slide to trade down 18 percent on day at $11,191 on Bitstamp Exchange, on track for biggest one-day fall in three years" \- so, pretty significant move.

<comment><USER12> it was 1K at the start of last year so yeah this years bubble will probably burst.

<comment><USER13> I'm suspicious of growth curves that are still supra-linear when plotted in log scale...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The December 23 'collapse' so far was bigger, however there is some significant market momentum which I found easier to grasp here: [https://cryptowat.ch/](https://cryptowat.ch/)

</comment><comment> maze-le This site lists 1450 different cryptocurrencies. I wonder how many of them can be used as actual currency. Bitcoin adoption has stalled and at least one big vendor (valve/steam) dropped it because of the price instability.

<comment><USER15> Why businesses might not use Bitcoin:

1\. Bitcoin remains speculative and volatile. This will cause it to be adopted by smaller businesses that can "do things that don't scale". We won't see big businesses support mainstream crypto payments until the demand is high enough to justify the risk.

2\. Bitcoin itself is a clamped network, as such the fees are very high. You can't sell Lemonade at your stand with Bitcoin if the fees are much greater than the cost of a cup of lemonade.

Other cryptocurrencies aim to solve these problems.

<comment><USER16> 3\. Because US dollars work fine

<comment><USER17> Only if you are in/from the US with a US credit/debit card. Otherwise the fees alone should make you stop using them.

<comment><USER18> Rubbish. I live in the EU and buy stuff from the States on a semi regular basis. Shipping costs are usually the deciding factor, card fees are insignificant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Kraken came back online, and that made it easier for people to sell their cryptos?

</comment><comment><USER20> Intrinsic value of Cryptocurrency is 0. Period.

<comment><USER21> So is a piece of paper with fancy printing on it that says ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS.

Currency is an abstraction. It is a social contract to value something at a certain level. That contract is enforced at the highest levels in our county which is why it works so well.

But make no mistake, $100 can buy stuff because only because we all agree to value it at about the same level. If the government collapses, that piece of paper's only worth is how much warmth it will give you when you set it on fire.

<comment><USER20> Do you really wanna compare private company with legitimate government?

Which private company has such a power and credit backed by gigantic land & properties, all the resources from those land, super control from police, military forces?

Present value of legitimate tender is printed on it's face and legitimate government CAN force it. Never, ever confront to big brother.

Don't be childish. Grow up. If you are not humble, the market will humble you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Novice crypto question... I read a comment here about 1 month ago someone predicted a correction of BTC value to mind january because some coins would "expire" then. I'm trying to find the comment now to learn more. Anyone have any insight what I'm talking about?

<comment><USER23> Probably those futures somebody was mentioning in another comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Coinmarketcap shows prices in USD while most cryptos are trading against BTC, so what you're seeing is mainly the drop of BTC against the dollar. Coins are also dropping against BTC of course, but not all of them, you can see that in an exchange like binance

<comment><USER25> The "BTC Dominance" chart from Coinmarketcap sheds light to this: [https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/#dominance- percentage](https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/#dominance-percentage)

It actually shows that Bitcoin has lost a lot of value against altcoins since the early December top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> coinmarketcap doesn't show all the price changes that its API offers.

Here is another view on 1h, 24h and 7d price change of the top 10 coins:

[http://cryptoport.net/sample-portfolio](http://cryptoport.net/sample- portfolio)

<comment><USER14> so much better. to me coinmarketcap is just broken (see below)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> They were, but, in the last few minutes the last hour numbers have all gone green. They were definitely all red when I checked this half an hour ago.

I think the whole thing is a scam and that it is incredible the willingness of people to be scammed. Yes I see merit in a decent online currency that works like cash but securely, however, these crypto things are speculative tulip stocks in a book-keeper's window and the people that have bought into it are very much in a cult of their own devising. It is comical. When fools rush in.

<comment><USER28> Not that I think it's a scam, but lets ignore that part for a moment. This market is a swing traders dream. 40% swings means there is a ton of money to be gamed off.

<comment><USER29> Sure, but also a lot of money to be lost. And you can only lose so much before you go broke.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> How much are cryptocurrencies are used for actual exchange of goods? I.e. for actual shopping and commerce? Because it seems to me that the most prominent group of users are investors and miners; i.e. those who only buy, stack and sell crypto coins, and those who produce them. And I've read here in some past threads that it's not that easy to liquidify your crypto coins.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's amazing how many people are against crypto currencies for some odd reason. A correction is being called a collapse, this is just pathetic.

<comment><USER32> I'm against cryptos in their current form. It was better, and hopefully it will get better, but now it's a mess. Investors, buzzwords, hype, ...

<comment><USER31> It will get better, I like to draw parallels to the dotcom bubble–sooner or later we'll see a real collapse and the coins that are actually worth something will rise from the dust. Just like how Amazon and eBay did. This could take a year or three though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Market is so driven by news which has 0 credible sources it's amazing. I consider this a sales period as it's just shaking out the weak hands, the ones that are here for the quick buck. This was dubbed as "Alt coin season sales" but make no mistake, the tokens which hold no technical value will dissapear.

<comment><USER14>
       >>  the tokens which hold no technical value will disappear.

You mean ALL of them?

<comment><USER33> What makes you think <ALL> of them have no use case or real life application? It's ignorant to believe "they will all die" if you ask me.

But yes, 95% of them will slowly go away

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Just to clarify the Bloomberg article: OTC/P2P trading is not banned in China, but match-making services are more similar to a private exchanges. It's those match-making services that are now being targetted in China. It's about unlicensed trading, not about blockchain / tokens.

NEO = REGULATION

</comment><comment><USER35> I went and looked at the ETH price over the full history in log view. From that perspective today's move is a typical little jiggle.

[https://imgur.com/13J5kkC](https://imgur.com/13J5kkC)

<comment><USER36> Same with bitcoin in log view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> It seems impossible to understand the fluctuations of the market as it is now. Finding no specific article that explains what this could be due to. Should probably just stick to regular investments.

<comment><USER32> The market is so small that one or few bigger holders/investors can move with it significantly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> What a wild ride

</comment><comment><USER14> am I in a filter bubble? The OP to me shows bitcoin UP 3% whereas [https://cryptowat.ch/](https://cryptowat.ch/) shows it DOWN 15%

edit: finally, after 2h delay!

<comment><USER39> Look at the headers on the OP page. Those are the percentage for 1h, 24h, and 7d changes.

cryptowat.ch only shows the 24 hour change and that matches coinmarketcap.com's value.

<comment><USER14> Bitcoin: % 1h % 24h +0.13% +3.21%

# Name Symbol Market Cap Price Circulating Supply Volume (24h) % 1h % 24h % 7d 1 Bitcoin BTC $237,388,220,556 $14,126.10 16,804,937 $12,931,700,000 0.13%

<comment><USER39> Caching issue? I can view [https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/](https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/) even in elinks and it shows the correct data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The strange fascination with cryptocurrency price continues. I wonder if there should be a rule against posting every other price count on HN.

<comment><USER7> They get buried pretty quickly, so there's already either an explicit or implicit rule in place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Cheap coinz!</comment>


ASK HN: Tips for surveying customer interest on the cheap? - <AUTHOR>

A few friends and myself are in the beginning stages of working on a consumer oriented product.  Our target  demographic is the stay at home housewife ages 30-40.  As you can imagine, none of us fall in line at all with this demographic.
As we've been developing the idea, the phrase "I don't think our target demographic would be interested in this" is coming up quite often.  In the end though, I think we've made a lot of assumptions about a group of people we don't relate to very well.  I'd like to verify those assumptions.
What can you recommend as a cheap method for surveying customer interest in a new product? <comment><USER2> Create a simple landing page describing your service and include a sign-up field to notify people when it becomes available. Then, run an AdWords campaign on Google targeting keywords relating to your service that people may be searching for. You'll get a decent idea of interest by assessing your click through and conversion data after about a month.</comment>


Optimizing Magic Pocket for cold storage - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2019/05/how-we-optimized-magic-pocket-for-cold-storage/ <comment><USER2> > We killed the project after more than nine months of active work. As an > engineer, it is not easy to give up something you have been trying to make > work for so long. Some of the early conversations were controversial but > ultimately everyone agreed killing the project was the right decision for > Dropbox and our users.

They found the solution did not work once deployed to be tested in staging. Being able to walk away from that sunk cost is of merit.

<comment><USER3> They don't provide that much info on why Erasure coding didn't work out for them. I'm curious to see how Backblaze will handle something similar while they scale up now that they're goin to have multiple data centers (2 in US and 1 in EU).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The authors writing style in a well structured post resonates positively with me. I've read some of their technical posts but not methodically. I'm curious on what the process is at Dropbox to bring such an article to life - if this is done in isolation and left to the writers abilities or if there are feedback loops with an editor. Certainly a document I can take cues from.

<comment><USER5> Most probably PR-approved. In my experience, pretty much all public companies (or soo-to-go public) will have a strict PR process in place, to handle almost everything that goes out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice article, well written and a good read. Always nice to see a technical post on something many of us use daily. Extra points for them being honest about how they treat incoming files :-) "...such as perform OCR, parse content to extract search tokens, or generate web previews for Office documents..."

</comment><comment><USER6> It looks like they use something very similar to Erasure Coding in Ceph with RadosGW [1].

[1] [https://ceph.com/planet/using-erasure-coding-with- radosgw/](https://ceph.com/planet/using-erasure-coding-with-radosgw/)

<comment><USER7> They have been doing erasure coding since at least 2016 (it is mentioned in their original Magic Pocket post), just like almost all distributed storage system, so nothing really new there.

This article is about single-region storage vs. multi-region storage (and how to reduce the cost in this case). There is very little public info available about distributed storage systems in multi-region setup with significant latency between the sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Dropbox technical blog is always a very interesting read, I love that they provide so much detail into the technical background of their solution. Still was left with quite some questions when trying to understand this article though:

\- Dropbox did not want to be running a single version of the software / a single region, because they consider the risk of a single software bug / human error resulting in data loss too high. However, the alternative they choose introduces a completely new code base which will have to be battle tested. This increases the risk of a data loss bug, which would affect a smaller fraction of the data, but any significant data loss issue would be game-over for a company like Dropbox. Did they consider partitioning the system into smaller subsets (some single region, other multi-region), using staged roll- outs of new software versions? Or is there really some fundamental incompatibility between Magic Pocket and multi-region?

\- The "New Replication Model" story sounds a bit too simplified. It seems to re-introduce some issues that the single region Magic Pocket solution had already solved: the size of the IO operations becomes quite small again (fractions of the 4M block size), placement of data on the disks becomes less predictable, which could cause increasing rebuilt times when a disk fails. Also, the number of IOs to read or write an object increases significantly (2-3x in the example), which means that the observed advantages in latency go hand in hand with a 2-3x lower maximum supported load than in the Magic Pocket case, before the latency explodes due to running out of IOPS on the HDD's. The whole design seems to ask for far more IOPS than the Magic Pocket solution, which sounds like an odd match to SMR HDD's.

These issues are maybe alleviated by the fact that moving data to the cold tier happens asynchronously, and the cold data is accessed very infrequently, resulting in far less IOPS being required for the cold storage region. However, it also makes the option of combining hot and cold data on a single disk much more difficult (which for HDDs is the way to make optimal use of the limited IOPS vs. their huge capacity - I suspect Amazon / Google use this for their near-line storage solution). Moving from the 2+1 example to e.g. 4+1, to reduce cross region storage costs even more, becomes now a though call as it now goes hand in hand with an even larger increase in IOPS cost.

\- The claimed "simplicity" of deleting data in the proposed scenario is rather relative. If they are using SMR drives, deleting data and reclaiming space are complex and expensive operations. They might reduce it to a non- distributed problem (which is still a significant gain, of course), but it is far from trivial.

Probably a lot of the finer, left-out details of their cross-region system address these issues, and if not, maybe the cross region system and the single region Magic Pocket solution will converge again in a later phase.

<comment><USER8> This is Preslav from Dropbox here. All great questions! We would have absolutely loved to put all interesting details in the blog post but we need to keep the length limited in order to not overwhelm the reader. Will try to answer your questions here:

> Dropbox did not want to be running a single version of the software / a > single region, because they consider the risk of a single software bug / > human error resulting in data loss too high. However, the alternative they > choose introduces a completely new code base which will have to be battle > tested. This increases the risk of a data loss bug, which would affect a > smaller fraction of the data, but any significant data loss issue would be > game-over for a company like Dropbox. Did they consider partitioning the > system into smaller subsets (some single region, other multi-region), using > staged roll-outs of new software versions? Or is there really some > fundamental incompatibility between Magic Pocket and multi-region?

Magic Pocket already employees partitioning, staged rollouts, multiple versions, stringent operator controls, and extensive testing. This is discussed in more detail in [https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2016/07/pocket- watch/](https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2016/07/pocket-watch/)

There's no real incompatibility between Magic Pocket and multi-region, just a general trade-off in software that we're not willing to make in this case. Globally replicated state would elevate availability and durability risks. It's true that we can introduce protections to avoid this, and we do employ these protections, but it's not a silver bullet - a single system would still be vulnerable to rare "black swan" events we may not anticipate. (There is a great example of how unexpected correlation triggered a subtle bug in third party vendor software in the beginning of [https://www.infoq.com/presentations/dropbox- infrastructure.](https://www.infoq.com/presentations/dropbox-infrastructure.))

In our approach the additional codebase for cold storage is extremely small relative to the entire Magic Pocket codebase and importantly does not mutate any data in the live write path: data is written to the warm storage system and then asynchronously migrated to the cold storage system. This provides us an opportunity to hold data in both systems simultaneously during the transition and run extensive validation tests before removing data from the warm system.

We use the exact same storage zones and codebase for storing each cold storage fragment as we use for storing each block in the warm data store. It's the same system storing the data, just for a fragment instead of a block. In this respect we still have multi-zone protections since each fragment is stored in multiple zones.

> The "New Replication Model" story sounds a bit too simplified. It seems to > re-introduce some issues that the single region Magic Pocket solution had > already solved: the size of the IO operations becomes quite small again > (fractions of the 4M block size), placement of data on the disks becomes > less predictable, which could cause increasing rebuilt times when a disk > fails. Also, the number of IOs to read or write an object increases > significantly (2-3x in the example), which means that the observed > advantages in latency go hand in hand with a 2-3x lower maximum supported > load than in the Magic Pocket case, before the latency explodes due to > running out of IOPS on the HDD's. The whole design seems to ask for far more > IOPS than the Magic Pocket solution, which sounds like an odd match to SMR > HDD's. > > These issues are maybe alleviated by the fact that moving data to > the cold tier happens asynchronously, and the cold data is accessed very > infrequently, resulting in far less IOPS being required for the cold storage > region. However, it also makes the option of combining hot and cold data on > a single disk much more difficult (which for HDDs is the way to make optimal > use of the limited IOPS vs. their huge capacity - I suspect Amazon / Google > use this for their near-line storage solution). Moving from the 2+1 example > to e.g. 4+1, to reduce cross region storage costs even more, becomes now a > though call as it now goes hand in hand with an even larger increase in IOPS > cost.

Yes, the new replication model does change the average block size. There are implications on IO, metadata to file data ratio and memory to disk ratio, which we have taken into account when building the system. As you noted the issue are largely alleviated by the data being cold. Also even with SMR disks, Magic Pocket is not necessary limited by the IOs for serving live users requests but also from load from background operations, such as repairing after disk or machine failure or compaction.

> The claimed "simplicity" of deleting data in the proposed scenario is rather > relative. If they are using SMR drives, deleting data and reclaiming space > are complex and expensive operations. They might reduce it to a non- > distributed problem (which is still a significant gain, of course), but it > is far from trivial.

Yes, compaction is a complicated problem in general and claimed simplicity is relative to the other proposals discussed in the blog post. We are not changing what each Magic Pocket region needs to do internally, after we delete a fragmentation from each region, each region needs to reclaim the space separately. This is the same problem for both the warm and cold storage systems.

<comment><USER9> Thank you for taking the time to write this reply, all very interesting!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >> Maintaining a globally available data structure with these pairs of blocks came with its own set of challenges. Dropbox has unpredictable delete patterns so we needed some process to reclaim space when one of the blocks gets deleted.

I wonder what that means.

<comment><USER11> If you're storing A, B, and A+B, and then the file holding block A is deleted, what happens? You can't immediately remove A, because then you lose the redundancy for B. You'd need to somehow find a _new_ pair for B, C (maybe of another block in the same situation, where D is supposed to be deleted?), and write B+C, then delete A, A+B, D, C+D.

Pretty fiddly.</comment></comment>


RIP ROP: CET Internals in Windows 20H1 - <AUTHOR> https://windows-internals.com/cet-on-windows/ <comment><USER2> We've been through several generations of exploit mitigations starting with non-executable stacks, and, impressively, exploit developers found workarounds for each of them (although often the particular workarounds have requirements that might not be met in a particular vulnerability environment). In many cases I had the impression that the workarounds were surprising to the mitigation developers because the latter had expressed a lot of confidence that software security was about to make a huge leap and memory safety violations would rarely be exploitable anymore.

What are the prospects for finding workarounds to CET too?

(I don't mean to argue that there's no benefit to these mitigations or that some of them might not eventually finally stop whole classes of vulnerabilities. But I feel like their track record is not nearly as awesome as their inventors anticipated, so I wonder what informed opinion is on the eventual relevance or irrelevance of this one. Notably, the "RIP ROP" seems like a somewhat ambitious claim to mitigate a large amount of attack potential; how well-justified is it?)

<comment><USER3> It's not totally true that attackers have found ways _bypass_ mitigations. In many cases the attackers require entirely new capabilities, or separate vulnerabilities, to get around a mitigation. And in some cases it makes an attack _statistically_ unlikely, even if it may succeed.

Lots of mitigations _do_ suck, and are a huge waste of time and effort, but quite a few are very significant. It's very rare that a bypass is a surprised except when the mitigation is poorly thought out. Good mitigations start with a threat model.

An example is ASLR. Once in a while ASLR is pronounced 'dead' because an attacker with capabilities that ASLR does not try to defend against can bypass ASLR. For example, the attacker has arbitrary compute on the system with ASLR. No one who built ASLR was surprised by this.

<comment><USER4> It's kind of easy to say "ASLR is not resistant to infoleaks" but it's really quite another thing if the infoleak ends up coming from something like a microarchitectural sidechannel or even an undocumented proprietary processor extension, rather than "hurr durr here is a slid pointer, we hand out these out like candy".

<comment><USER3> My point is that ASLR makes assumptions about the attackers capabilities. All good mitigations do. If the attacker has "I can run nearly arbitrary computations on within the processes memory space", that is outside of the model that ASLR attempts to deal with.

For example, ASLR for a process that executes Javascript is probably not going to be as useful as ASLR for a process that receives network requests.

<comment><USER4> How so? As far as I understand, being able to leak an ASLR slide from JavaScript is considered to be a security bug in every browser engine, because they do not intentionally provide access to that information.

<comment><USER3> Whether the browser intends to provide that information or not, ASLR was not designed as a control against an attacker who can run near arbitrary code in the process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fedora has been implementing this for a while. It will finally be enabled in Fedora 33 later this year: [https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1802674#c3](https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1802674#c3)

Of course you'll need a TigerLake chip for it to do anything. Are those even released yet?

</comment><comment><USER6> TLDR? Why does this matter?

"As a reminder, Intel CET is a hardware-based mitigation that addresses the two types of control-flow integrity violations commonly used by exploits: forward-edge violations (indirect CALL and JMP instructions) and backward-edge violations (RET instructions). "

Why are these important

<comment><USER3> It's a mitigation for a software exploitation technique called Return Oriented Programming (ROP). The mitigation is referred to as 'Control Flow Integrity' (CFI).

[https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/article...](https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/articles/technical- look-control-flow-enforcement-technology.html)

Essentially an attacker who has the ability to exploit the first stage of a vulnerability will be able to stitch together "gadgets" from the program to build up a second stage of the exploit.

Control flow integrity, to my understanding, applies a validation or restriction of the program's call graph. This limits the attackers ability to just stitch up their own arbitrary call graph. There are 'forward edge' protections (calling a function) and 'reverse edge' protections (ret). But of course there are more ways to control the flow of a program, as this document discusses - like longjmp.

I won't try to get more detailed as I'm not an expert. Hopefully this will help you find more information.

<comment><USER7> I'll add on since this is the most informative post so far (and I've written a static binary re-writer to add shadow stack protection to an existing binary).

A shadow stack is a limited subset of the call stack that only stores return addresses. In normal operation, Every time your compiled program makes a function call, it stores the return address on the main call stack (modulo certain compiler optimizations) so that when the called function returns, your program can resume executing directly after the point at which it called the function.

With a shadow stack, when a function is called, the return address is copied to a separate "shadow" stack as well as the call stack. When the called function returns, the return address on the two stacks are compared and the program fails if they are different.

In new Intel microprocessors, the shadow stack is implemented in hardware. The numerous corner cases require software support that the article describes.

<comment><USER8> Can you provide some details on your binary rewriter to add shadow stack support? Was this a pure software approach, or was it designed to take advantage of the support in new intel microprocessors? Do you have a write up of or can you give a quick overview of your methodology? Is the source code published somewhere?

<comment><USER7> No, it was proprietary code, and it wasn't for an Intel processor. It was a pure software approach, but the particular (embedded) environment made it harder to attack the shadow stack itself.

I had a pretty cool optimization that I don't think anyone's figured out yet. Oh well. That's the downside of software-as-trade-secrets.

<comment><USER4> Can you name it, so we can find it ourselves? ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And how about performance impact? The mitigation's that have been done in software recently came with an ugly performance cost (just not as ugly as the vulnerability). Is there any speculation about what this is going to cost?

<comment><USER10> I haven't read the whole paper, but this has a section on performance and a security analysis of the hardware feature: [https://sci- hub.tw/10.1145/3337167.3337175](https://sci-hub.tw/10.1145/3337167.3337175)

CET has two parts, a forwards edge protection (indirect jumps and calls like those necessary to execute a C++ virtual function, a Go interface function, or a Rust trait function), and a backwards edge protection to protect against Return Oriented Programming (overwriting the return address to attacker chosen code).

If I recall correctly, Windows will only use the backwards edge protection, since they already have a superior technology for forwards edge protection (CFG and XFG). The backwards edge protection has an impact of 1.65% according to that paper. Forwards edge protection had no impact.

I have to say, this is well worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> An aside that I was curious about: "20H1"?

I found [https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2020/06/16/whats...](https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2020/06/16/whats- next-for-windows-10-updates/):

> _Windows 10, version 20H2 is, therefore, "20H2" because it will be released > in the second half of the 2020 calendar year._

So 20H1 is 2020 1st half then. And Windows now has biannual rolling release? Nice.

</comment><comment><USER12> Exploit devs love a good challenge. Each mitigation is another lessons learned :)

<comment><USER4> I would argue that the learning is circular, as exploit development learns from mitigations just as much as mitigation development is informed by exploits ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does anyone know when AMD will have equivalent support?

<comment><USER14> Does AMD have equivalent vulns?

<comment><USER4> This isn't an Intel or AMD thing, or even an x86_64 thing, it's an intrinsic part of any system that mixes return addresses and data on a stack.</comment></comment></comment>


Paris cracking down on short-term rentals - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/business/global/07rent.html

<comment><USER2> I've been living in Paris for a few years and bought an apartment last year. If you are the right type of person, finding an apartment is less difficult. By the right person I mean skin tone, profession, or passport. The mayors of Paris and NYC have the same problem but slightly different ideas on tackling it.

Bloomberg, a capitalist, believes that Manhattan should be a playground for the rich. The tax receipts can be put to good use to help the less fortunate by keeping them far outside the city. Delanoë is a socialist, he has the power to take a building if it is left vacant for a long period of time (10-20 years) and convert it to city housing. I've seen parking garages, disgarded mansions, and old banks converted to living quarters. There are many places like these all around the Paris and the paperwork is glacial.

The apartment owners have to be found. And for a city as old as this one this is a real task. Children grow up, move away, inherit property and neglect it for decades. All of them have to be tracked down and given the ultimatum of fixing it, selling it, or donating it to the state. That last one happens when no heirs exist. The gov't owns tons off these.

Practically, every week there is a protest going on to let the city know there is an affordable housing shortage. Like I said there are places to rent but the owners put on onerous terms to only get the best renters. A waiter wouldn't be able to easily find a place in the city, but if he has rich parents to cosign then it gets easier. Once, you sign a lease you are locked in. The owners can't force you out and eviction takes years.

To avoid this lots of owners were doing only short term leases to tourists, students and companies. Good for the owners, but extremely bad for normal renters who've had to endure one price increase after another.

I believe it's a bad idea to tell owners how to manage their properties. According to one of my real estate friends, there is plenty of places in Paris to live. The government should try looking under it's bed. It's cheaper, and easier for them to write laws telling people what to do verses redeveloping the properties sitting in their lap.</comment>


Improving advertising on the web - <AUTHOR> https://blog.chromium.org/2017/06/improving-advertising-on-web.html?m=1 <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14465546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14465546).</comment>


An independent camp for high school geeks (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://warsztatywww.pl/article/en-indie-camp-for-hs-geeks/ <comment><AUTHOR> And some general context of gifted education in Poland by Krajowy Fundusz na rzecz Dzieci (en: Polish Children's Fund): [http://crastina.se/gifted- children-in-poland-by-piotr-migdal...](http://crastina.se/gifted-children-in- poland-by-piotr-migdal/)</comment>


Aside, Google Maps, Apple Maps and GPS: Why people still love their paper maps - <AUTHOR> https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/02/07/are-paper-maps-better-than-google-maps-apple-map-gps/4647383002/ <comment><USER2> Although I use OSM regularly, I always keep up-to-date paper maps. Paper maps don't require any external services to work, after all. No electricity, internet, satellites, or third-party servers. In an emergency situation (or if you're just rambling about in the boondocks) you shouldn't count on any of those things being available.</comment>


Lineage OS - <AUTHOR> http://lineageos.org <comment> mk-lovers All hail open source</comment>


Did the Early Universe Have One Dimension? - <AUTHOR> http://www.buffalo.edu/news/12493 <comment><USER2> The gory details are apparently in these two papers. I'm not a physicist so they're pretty opaque to me.

<http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.5914>

<http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.3434>

</comment><comment><USER3> If so then Flatland was a story not so much of mathematics, but of evolution.

</comment><comment><USER4> This hypothesis makes me wonder about the following:

1\. What sort of threshold would cause the universe to develop another dimension? Could this have something to do with the concept of emergence, and discrete levels of organization? Perhaps when a given dimension (or set of dimensions) contain enough 'complexity' to start exhibiting emergent behavior, information about that emergent layer can effectively be encoded in a 'new' dimension.

2\. When such a threshold is crossed the amount of information required to describe the universe jumps dramatically. Isn't this inconsistent with what we believe to be true of the level of the velocity of entropy in complex systems?

<comment><USER5> Can you rephrase #1 without using the words "emergence", "emergent", or "complexity"? I'm having a hard time following what you're talking about.

<comment><USER6> _Complexity - The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos_ by M. Mitchell Waldrop

<comment><USER5> Amazon reviews don't give me good feelings about that book. Got any others?

<comment><USER6> I haven't, sorry. I'm almost through _Complexity_ and I can only say it works for me. It's non technical but I agree with the statement _In general, he makes the emerging nature of complexity theory accessible to the general reader_ from the Editorial Reviews. It has given me a good overview and a conceptual framework for digging deeper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If it could have been one dimensional, could it have been zero dimensional?

<comment><USER8> Is it possible to conceive of something of anything less than one dimension? If so, how? I'm thinking about the way that Carl Sagan used the tesseract to represent four dimensions.

<comment><USER7> I just imagine a pinprick of light emanating from a point. The place where light is only exiting, not entering, is a point with no dimensions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If it was pure energy and of no mass for a moment, I could imagine that there would be no gravity and therefore a possible lack of dimension?

Then hydrogen atoms form and you've got mass and then gravity.

</comment><comment><USER10> "Gravitational waves can't exist in one- or two-dimensional space. So Stojkovic and Mureika have reasoned that the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a planned international gravitational observatory, should not detect any gravitational waves emanating from the lower-dimensional epochs of the early universe."

So if it doesn't their theory is proven correct?

<comment><USER11> Only if there are no alternative explanations for the data. If this turned out to be the only viable explanation, then this theory will stand, at least pending more data that might strengthen it or show it to be in error.</comment></comment>