H.R.4681 - Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 - <AUTHOR> https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/4681/text <comment><USER2> What it applies to: any intelligence collection activity not otherwise authorized by court order (including FISA courts), subpoena, or similar legal process that is reasonably anticipated to result in the acquisition of a covered communication to or from a US person.

What it does: permits the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of non- public communications indefinitely, unless any parties are US persons and the communication is NOT encrypted, in which case they can only be retained for 5 years. (There are some other exemptions to this 5 year rule.)

Note that "incidentally acquired" appears only in the section title.

The main question here for me is what exactly this applies to. Is "any intelligence collection activity not otherwise authorized" blanket permission to collect anything?

<comment><USER3> In the most literal reading, the phrase "shall permit" refers to the required "procedures", which are themselves "approved by the Attorney General"... So that might be "Anything, subject to the discretion of the AG"?

Or does that actually require the AG to approve procedures which "shall permit the acquisition" of "[private] communication to or from a United States person" during "any intelligence collection activity not otherwise authorized"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yay, more fascism! Now, anything that wasn't explicitly within the law before is now within the boundary of the law, and thus is legal. This opens up all sorts of new avenues for abuse, while closing none. It also is one more statute that will need to be eventually repealed. Predictably, defenders of the bill are trying to pass it off as more oversight with their doublespeak.

I am really tired of this country and its bullshit. We've slid toward totalitarianism every single year for quite a few years running now. Voting has been useless in the many elections I have participated in. When will people wake up and demand change?

<comment><USER5> > Voting has been useless in the many elections I have participated in. When > will people wake up and demand change?

If voting is "useless" it makes it impossible to demand change since voting is how we enact change in a democracy.

<comment><USER6> What do you think the second amendment to the U.S. constitution is for?

<comment><USER5> If you think it's because they wanted to make sure the people could easily overthrow the government if/when needed then you don't understand much about the founding fathers.

The founding fathers were terrified of the people. This is why they created the electoral college - they didn't trust the general population to decide such an important decision. [They thought they had designed the system such that the college would never (or at least rarely) produce a winner and Congress would select the President]. Only the House was intended to be based on popular vote, senators were selected by state legislatures up until the 17th amendment was ratified in 1913.

If the founders didn't trust the people to select their own President or senators do you really think they trusted them with the decision of overthrowing the government?

<comment><USER7> _" In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."_

John Adams

<comment><USER5> In the context of a discussion of the 2nd amendment's [intended] purpose and how those that wrote it felt toward the people I fail to see the relevance of a quote by someone who had no part in writing our Constitution. [John Adams was in Britain during the Constitutional Convention].

<comment><USER7> I can provide more quotes but i get the sense that nothing will convince you. The ability of citizens to maintain power over the government was a critical piece of how the US constitution was developed.

Hell, just read the opinions from DC v Heller.

<comment><USER5> You're correct, quotes won't convince me. Actions (i.e. what they wrote into the Constitution) mean much more than anything they said.

And what they wrote was:

* a House of Representatives selected by the people

* a Senate selected by state legislatures

* two executives selected by Congress (with the remaining members of the executive branch _at most_ needing consent from the portion of Congress _not_ selected by the people)

* a judicial branch selected by the executive (again, requiring consent only from the Senate, who were not selected by the people)

So out of the entire government they gave the people the ability to select half of one branch. And while that one branch would select the President (and VP) it would have no voice in selecting the rest of the executive branch or any of the judicial. The ability to remove members of either the executive or judicial branch also went to the branch not selected by the people.

Sorry, but when I read the Constitution I don't see much "ability of citizens to maintain power over the government."

As for District of Columbia v. Heller the question was if the 2nd Amendment grants the right to bear arms for _lawful purposes_ \- violently overthrowing the government is most assuredly _not_ lawful, regardless of who you want to quote while doing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> SOPA was the Stop Online Piracy Act and had nothing to do with intelligence agencies collecting and storing data. The objections to SOPA were centered around the impact it would have on global DNS resolution.

This is not Reddit. I don't think we should sink to posts with grossly inaccurate titles that link to a JPG instead of to the actual bill text itself, or at least a piece of writing covering or analyzing it.

</comment><comment><USER9> So this basically removes the limitation on how long encrypted intercepted communications (simply any encrypted communication at this point) can be retained. I doubt any limits were followed in the past, but this makes it officially disturbing that one's encrypted communications could potentially be used against him any number of years down the line by any future regime, especially after technology makes cracking such encryption feasible.

<comment><USER10> When you use the word regime you already know what actions you should take.

Leave now, while you still can, don't debate the wording of acts, especially when the regime starts to pass legislation increasing barriers to entry for leaving. Last year it was $400 to get out, now it's $2400, eventually when everyone smart wants to leave they'll put up a wall.

Get another passport before everyone else wants one and you have to wait in line.

<comment><USER11> I think this is a horrible idea. Cut bait and leave all this country's wealth and might in the hands of a slightly more concentrated group of fascists?

It's funny how people tell Mexicans "stand and fight for your country, dammit" and yet others are so ready to cut and run when the going gets a little rough at home. Get out in the streets. Start educating people. We can make this country something worth believing in.

<comment><USER10> Umm... isn't the US a country of immigrants?

aka. the people who cut bait on their country to join a better one?

The US is literally founded on the idea of cutting bait and running to another country (that's better).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Relevant piece to this discussion is SEC. 309. PROCEDURES FOR THE RETENTION OF INCIDENTALLY ACQUIRED COMMUNICATIONS.

Personally, I have an issue with paragraph 3 section B as follows:

(ii) the communication is reasonably believed to constitute evidence of a crime and is retained by a law enforcement agency; (iii) the communication is enciphered or reasonably believed to have a secret meaning;

I don't know enough about this, so will someone more educated in this field tell me: am I wrong, or does the exception in ii apply to the way law enforcement currently uses State intelligence services to get around warrants? Does this change anything?

</comment><comment><USER13> maybe this is what it's referring to?

Congress 'Endorses' Warrantless Collection, Storage of U.S. Communications

[http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/12/11/congress- endo...](http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/12/11/congress-endorses- warrantless-collection-storage-of-us-communications)

</comment><comment><USER14> How about a campaign to "Vote No on H.R.4681" ?!?

</comment><comment><USER15> Parts of this thread got me all up on my hind legs afraid of fascist Big Brother of 1984 with sound recorders hidden in the walls of my bedroom, keystroke grabbing on my computer, brainwave recorders in stealth drones flying overhead at 100,000 feet capturing my thoughts, etc.

Yes, while my usual excuse has long been, and apparently been confirmed, that the US Federal Government is too incompetent to do much to me, or really even know about me (if they only knew what I really think of them!), this thread got me worried again.

So, I just followed the link to the bill. There I got the text version, in some small, light font tough to read in Firefox on my screen and with the warning that actually it was not accurate.

So I took the HTML version. Soon, much of the text was off the right side my screen with no horizontal scroll bars. Gee, is there some CSS keyword to suppress the scroll bars? My Web pages have both horizontal and vertical scroll bars, and I entered nothing about scroll bars and just took defaults.

So, I told Firefox to reduce screen magnification until all the text characters fit my screen, and then all I had were characters about the size of two pixels each with each line of text just some broken horizontal line totally impossible to read. Great work Congress: You found yet another way to implement the now famous Pelosi "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it"!

So, third try, I took the PDF version. Okay, magnifying to 185%, I got something readable.

Looking at the table of contents for the really deep, down, fascist dirty stuff, right away (Adobe Acrobat has a search feature!), I found:

"H. R. 4681—5

SEC. 302. RESTRICTION ON CONDUCT OF INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES.

The authorization of appropriations by this Act shall not be deemed to constitute authority for the conduct of any intelligence activity which is not otherwise authorized by the Constitution or the laws of the United States."

Okay, sounds not so bad. Maybe they just put that in there so that it could be removed in a _conference committee_ with all that really deep, dirty, fascist stuff elsewhere now enabled? They are really smart enough to be that tricky? Naaaaw ...! Congress? The US Congress I have long watched? Naaaaw.

So, from that paragraph, apparently this bill doesn't authorize even more microphones in the walls of my bedroom, more keystroke captures, more grabbing of my PGP private key (once I start using PGP), my software to find some 50,000 or so (don't want to be too exact here!) decimal digit prime numbers, assuming I don't encounter a prime gap, etc.!

Ah, I should not have said that and, instead, should have let the NSA know that, really, I've long been doing my super hush-hush communications via the subspace radio flip phone I got from Captain Kirk! Once he was parked on my front lawn for three weeks, but no one but me noticed because he was using a Romulan cloaking device.

Maybe I'm too easily fooled, but, lazy me, I'm back down off my hind legs now no longer afraid of being subject to "rectal feeding", etc.

I mean, were my thoughts that former NSA head Michael Hayden looked too much like Elmer Fudd a reason for me to have 1 trillion exabytes of data kept on me in some flat building covering 25% of, what is it, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, Utah, somewhere out there? So, was _that_ the reason HP worked out how to store one bit per oxygen ion, just so that the NSA could store what I really thought of them? Naaaaw!

Joking aside, the section I quoted does seem to say that the bill doesn't make things worse.

</comment><comment><USER16> This post was murdered on reddit already. This is no SOPA 2 in any way shape or form nor is it really any sort of new authority at all. It just places boundaries on retention of collection communications. It's a smallish curb on existing authority.

<comment><USER17> From Congressman Justin Amash:

> Supporters of Sec. 309 claim that the provision actually reins in the > executive branch's power to retain Americans' private communications. It is > true that Sec. 309 includes exceedingly weak limits on the executive's > retention of Americans' communications. With many exceptions, the provision > requires the executive to dispose of Americans' communications within five > years of acquiring them—although, as HPSCI admits, the executive branch > already follows procedures along these lines.

> In exchange for the data retention requirements that the executive already > follows, Sec. 309 provides a novel statutory basis for the executive > branch's capture and use of Americans' private communications. The Senate > inserted the provision into the intelligence reauthorization bill late last > night. That is no way for Congress to address the sensitive, private > information of our constituents—especially when we are asked to expand our > government's surveillance powers.

Reddit is one of the most manipulated, banal social platforms on the internet. Need I remind you that JTRIG is tasked with manipulating public discourse in a professional capacity?

<comment><USER16> That pretty much says what I said which is still in no way related to SOPA. The notion that adding these admittedly weak conditions on data retentions can somehow be construed as a backdoor authorization of those retentions seems like a huge stretch. Calling it SOPA 2 is pretty meaningless. You want to talk about "manipulated" this headline was crafted to inspire outrage out of something obscure and probably meaningless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> SOPA 2.0? I don't see how the linked language has anything to do with what SOPA was - this has to do with retention policies for incidentally acquired communications during intelligence gathering activities - specifically putting limits on how long such communications may be retained.

<comment><USER19> I think the confusion is if "acquisition" in "shall permit the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of covered communications" includes spying. I don't think it does.

<comment><USER18> I don't think so either. The impression I get is that this covers retention policies for communications incidentally acquired during intelligence operations. A (perhaps poor) example might be, a raid on safehouse that yields hard drive that contains email records, where some of those emails are unrelated communications with a US citizen - it sounds like records like that would now be destroyed after 5 years if there is no specified need to keep them. Sound right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wait, why couldn't you simply link to the bill or the petition linked to in the imgur post?

<comment><USER18> Yeah, that's really annoying - text is here: [https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house- bill/4681...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house- bill/4681/text)

<comment><USER21> Thanks, we changed it from [http://imgur.com/gallery/h47E4Bj](http://imgur.com/gallery/h47E4Bj) and updated the title.</comment></comment></comment>


An Early Retirement - <AUTHOR> http://blog.watsi.org/post/77866208338/an-early-retirement <comment><USER2> I'm assuming the company in question is Blue Cross Blue Shield. This kind of sucks, but looking at their logo[0], I would have to agree that they're uncomfortably close, if they are deemed to be in similar enough markets.

The only question is whether Watsi and BCBS operate within similar enough markets for their use to be considered infringement - I'm less sure of that.

On a related note, this is why early-stage startups shouldn't get too attached to their branding, product name, and/or company name. You're better off focusing your efforts on your product itself.

And don't waste money (as an _early_ startup) on filing for trademark protection - because US trademark law respects common law use (ie, if you used it first, you are protected, even if you didn't file for protection)[1]. Registering your trademark does nothing if someone else (with more expensive lawyers) was using it first and can demonstrate that use.

And even if they accept your registration, that doesn't mean that it will hold up. Just like patents, the USPTO leaves this up to courts to decide. You could easily register something like the Coca-Cola[2] logo and they could accept it, but that doesn't prevent Coca-Cola from litigating against you and winning. They have no great way to check for conflicts, and they err on the side of issuing the trademark (and collecting your fee) so that the courts can be the final arbiters[3].

(Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice).

[0] [https://encrypted.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=blue%20cross%...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=blue%20cross%20blue%20shield&tbs=imgo:1)

[1] This is the opposite of the way that patent law works.

[2] In reality, probably not Coca-Cola _per se_ , because it's popular enough that anybody reading your application would notice it, but a trademark that's very similar to an existing logo.

[3] If you're wondering, no, they won't refund your fee if your trademark is deemed invalid.

<comment><USER3> I assumed the same company as you. However, I fall on the other side of the analysis, that Watsi is 1. not interfering with any trademarks registered by BCBS (all BCBS registered marks, which I found in TESS, are word/design marks, which means the blue cross on its own is not protected, it is only protected when it is accompanied by the word mark); and 2. otherwise not causing any confusion in the markplace (for example who is going to donate to Watsi under the belief they were donating to BCBS, there is a test of the reasonable consumer and BCBS would have to prove actual confusion in the marketplace...good luck on that).

I am sure Watsi being who they are made an informed decision and with the advice of counsel. The sad thing is the advice was probably to the effect that while Watsi has a reasonable likelihood of prevailing on their use of the mark, BCBS has enough money to try to enforce the mark without putting a dent in their litigation budget, and Watsi's money would be better spent on Watsi's mission of helping people not in defending litigation. Nevertheless I would have felt good defending Watsi's use of the mark.

<comment><USER4> An additional note, trademark lawyers are often _obligated_ to try and sue people over trademarks, even if they'd rather not, because if they don't zealously defend their trademark, it's considered 'weakened' and that can then become evidence against them in some future case when a different party infringes.

So the blue cross people were doing what they had to do. It sure is funny though how almost every law is interpreted in a way that maximizes future legal work involved.

<comment><USER5> It's almost like most of our laws were written by a bunch of lawyers.

<comment><USER6> The requirement to protect your trademark is a good thing.

There are a fairly limited number of useful marks because companies need fairly short names. Imagine if trademarks worked like copyright and modern companies had to worry about infringing the mark of a company that hasn't traded since 1940?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow, this really made my evening :)

I just donated two hours worth of my consulting time for two fellow human beings in need somewhere else in the world and it will have serious impact. I'm in total bliss <3 nothing feels like helping others - you should try donating!

The only thing I would like to see watsi doing is to offer donations with bitcoin! Integration with bitpay is really easy too. If watsi is rails based (seems so) they would have support for bitpay out of the box with active merchant!

Go spread some love folks, it feels great!

[http://watsi.org](http://watsi.org)

Edit:

[https://bitpay.com](https://bitpay.com) (they offer immediate conversion to local currencies too!)

[https://github.com/Shopify/active_merchant/tree/13e0ab52727b...](https://github.com/Shopify/active_merchant/tree/13e0ab52727baaed5860dd093924a3662e2223ac/lib/active_merchant/billing/integrations/bit_pay)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much for donating! Appreciate the bitpay info -- will look into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I remember when looking for a new company domain feeling like this SNL comedy skit: [http://vimeo.com/82393638](http://vimeo.com/82393638)

Medical companies are ruthless here. I ran an e-commerce store that sold medical equipment, it was nearly impossible to buy any .com domain name related to the medical industry. We ended up settling with JazzMed because one of our founders liked Jazz and we figured it was a unique brand. We ran the company for about 6 months slowly getting to a point where we had roughly 10 orders a day. Needless to say, once we started ranking well in Google a health care company called Jazz Pharmaceuticals threatened legal action, even went through the trouble of sending a certified letter from their lawyer. After reviewing our options and after receiving a formal complaint to the court from the company we decided to shut down and comply with their demands which was to transfer the domain ownership to them. We just didn't have the resources to hire a lawyer and keep the company going. The sad part is that there are so many businesses in that space it's nearly impossible to create a company name that doesn't sound like an existing one.

<comment><USER9> Naming is such a problem in the medical space, there are special provisions for trademarking medicines (class 5 marks), where they can be similar as long as they are used for very different ailments and there's no risk of confusion.

It's still extremely hard, see this PDF:

[http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/archive/mdd/v05/i08/pdf/802pat...](http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/archive/mdd/v05/i08/pdf/802patents.pdf)

(Standard disclaimer - IANAL)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> So <insert big corporation here> wants watsi to stop using their logo by date X, and watsi proceeds to print that logo on t-shirts and sell that logo-laden t-shirt.

Isn't this akin to waving a stack of cash right in front of <insert big corporation here> lawyer's nose?

Is watsi's only saving grace the fact that they are not directly profiting from these t-shirt sales?

Seems kindof risky, no?

<comment><USER11> My guess is they need to get rid of the shirts soon, or else they can no longer use them.

<comment><USER12> From my understanding of the tee shirt company they are using, all these shirts are going to be custom made per the amount of orders made.

<comment><USER11> Very interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I hope they aren't planning on changing it to red. I remember in 2005, the Red Cross was going after video game companies that used a red cross on their health/medpack items in-game.

<comment><USER14> A green cross also has other meanings :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I appreciate what Watsi does, but I'm mostly buying a shirt because of the great speech Chase gave at Startup School [1]. It was of the most value to me at that event. Thanks.

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlT3UhC7NwQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlT3UhC7NwQ)

</comment><comment><USER16> Title had me worried for a moment! The whole team wanted shirts, so we loaded up -- we're going to wear that blue contraband with pride.

<comment><USER17> Same here. Ordered one and will wear it with pride.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> When you say "invited to a bonfire at Ocean Beach", that doesn't mean you're going to burn a big heap of branded trash on the beach, right? Or am I just being a spoil-sport?

<comment><AUTHOR> No trash burning, just a little party to send off our blue logo in style :)

<comment><USER19> You should burn an effigy of a man as an informal protest against "the man"...you could call him the "burning guy" or something like that..

<comment><USER20> burning cross?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Not knowing what Watsi was, this is ridiculous. Finding out they're an organization that gets donations for medical treatments, being threatened by an insurance company? Beyond ridiculous.

<comment><USER22> Health insurance companies in the United States don't exist to help people with medical problems. They exist to make as much money as possible.

<comment><USER23> Everybody's got to make a living ... even your doctor.

<comment><USER24> Big companies tend to go a little beyond just making a living. The doctor and support staff at that level are working with patients.

At a larger company, you have swathes of employees detached from the customer and focused on the numbers. I think that's probably where the empathy for customers can become unstuck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> We had the same problem with one of our logos and BCBS. We had a green '+' symbol as one of our letter 'T'. We're in the wellness industry. That was enough to get them to send a letter and it was cheaper to have a designer and developer go through and change everything (3-4 days of designer time and 1 day of developer time) than it was to have a lawyer draft up a response.

</comment><comment><USER26> AWESOME! I was running out of reasons to dislike the American health insurance industry.

</comment><comment><USER27> Well played Watsi, well played. Hope it goes viral.

</comment><comment><USER28> I ordered one not just to stick it to BCBS, but also because it's great knowing all of this is going directly to the patients at Watsi. Well played.

</comment><comment><USER29> Kudos to turning a bad situation, with a positive attitude and a sense of humor, into traffic!

</comment><comment><USER30> I wonder if a more measured reaction rather than simply caving would have done them better.

They could have had their lawyers draw up a reasoned defense, then used that to wrangle a settlement offer whereby Watsi takes a large-ish donation in return for changing their logo.

Reason being a big battle would hit the larger plaintiff much harder in terms of public opinion. A little brinksmanship could do them a world of good.

Thoughts? Any legal eagles want to weigh in on whether this be a feasible course of action?

<comment><USER31> Yours is not so much a legal question as it is a negotiation question.

I think you're probably right, but brinkmanship would be incredibly time- consuming, stressful, and distracting. They have more important things to worry about right now.

If your question is, who would win the battle in the court of public opinion? For sure Watsi would win. No doubt in my mind.

<comment><USER32> How relevant is the court of public opinion in a matter like this? Seems like Watsi realized they had more to lose than gain.

<comment><USER33> It might actually be great publicity. Watsi is awesome, but not well known amongst the general populace (who are probably far more likely to donate to dubious organizations like the "christian children's fund").

As Chase Adam said in his startup school speech, Watsi merely has to get people to look at it's patients' pictures and read their stories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's a shame. I do think they look somewhat look a like, and there are solid reasons why it would or wouldn't cause confusion in trade.

But if the plaintiff is indeed BCBS, then Watsi would have definitely lost. Since BCBS will probably be regarded as a famous mark, and any similarity would cause an issue for Watsi.

It's unfortunate and sad nonetheless.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm guessing part of the agreement is that Watsi doesn't publicly "out" the insurance company. Well, we have lots of good writers here, some with an audience, but without any legal association to Watsi.

Let's make this _so costly_ that no mega-corporation dares to bully non- profits in this way again.

<comment><USER36> > Let's make this so costly that no mega-corporation dares to bully non- > profits in this way again.

Why?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> They have now changed

"a multi-billion dollar health insurance company threatened to take us to court for trademark infringement"

to

"a multi-billion dollar health insurance company threatened to oppose our trademark application"

Was that because of careful consideration and consulting or again because of said health insurance company?

</comment><comment><USER38> Thanks Watsi for having a sense oh humor about it. I bought a shirt because I love your mission as a whole and the post have me a much needed smile yesterday. I wish more people were light hearted like this/ took themselves less seriously faced with situations like these!

</comment><comment><USER39> The tone of this post is yet another reason to love team Watsi. Really fun for an early stage company (for-profit or non) to be spending time and money on this instead of on more interesting things like building their business.

</comment><comment><USER40> Similar industries. Very similar logo. Unfortunate, but it makes sense.

I give credit to Watsi for its response, though. This is a cool and creative way to deal with a forced change in brand.

</comment><comment><USER41> +1 for the bonfire... See you there

</comment><comment><USER42> Childish.

Oh well, sounds like money will be coming in, and free advertising, so mission success, right?

</comment><comment><USER43> Am I the only one who has serious question marks with Watsi? Portraying itself as a non-profit hocus-pocus third-world-helper, why does it have so many investors and such a big riced crew?

I can't help but think how it is non-profit, but ONLY after investors and founders are paid good sums of money. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I am just saying it is shady.

<comment><USER44> They have "investors" (which are actually just donors and potentially board members) to fund their operations. And, in fact, they an operations fund that's separate from donations made for patients. All donations being made towards patients are used exclusively for patient care.</comment></comment>


The Day That Email Changed Forever - <AUTHOR> http://www.kashflow.com/blog/the-day-that-email-changed-forever/

<comment><USER2> I like it. Know if there are any good keyboard shortcuts for navigating between the new tabs?</comment>


Ask HN: How does "ᜋᜈᜎ|ᜇᜃᜒᜆ᜔‖ᜋᜈᜒᜌ|ᜈᜄ᜔ᜄ‖᜔" (Tagalog) get rendered on OS X/iOS? - <AUTHOR> The string "ᜋ ᜈ ᜎ| ᜇᜃᜒᜆ᜔‖ ᜋ ᜈᜒᜌ| ᜋᜀᜈᜄ᜔ᜄ‖ ᜇ ᜃᜎᜄ᜔ ᜊᜒᜈᜄᜆ᜔ ᜑ‖" from the Tagalog wikipedia entry renders perfectly fine on OS X and iOS system applications (try copy  &pasting it on your device). However, when I tried to get it to render in any browser, it completely failed.
Can anyone figure out what systems font to target in order to render this string correctly?
(Tagalog is a the traditional (non-standardised) script of the Filipino language. I was looking at finding ways to render uncommon scripts in a web browser, but this filipino script seems to resist.)
Any help is appreciated! :) <comment><USER2> I'm not seeing the problem you're describing on my device. I've got a 10.5" iPad Pro with the latest version of iOS 10. Safari page text, the text field I'm typing into, the search field on springboard, notes, and a random third- party app all render the same glyphs; the only differences are minor things like font size and weight.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, thx. It seems to work on Safari for me as well. However, it doesn't seem to work for Firefox and Chrome (which I used to initially test this) using the same settings. Shouldn't the browsers all have the same font lookup behaviour given the same font-family settings?

<comment><USER3> Interestingly enough Chrome renders it just fine in the tab name/title.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, I'm noticing that as well. It seems that some OS X system fonts (San Francisco?) are used for rendering in Safari by default as well as in various UI elements (Tab heading, Search bars, ...), but not in the Chrome or FF browser itself, even if you set the font family to System UI fonts.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Run v0.7.0 – Easily manage and invoke small scripts and wrappers - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/tekwizely/run-v0-7-0-easily-manage-and-invoke-small-scripts-and-wrappers-b21 <comment><AUTHOR> Author here,

The linked dev.to post goes over recent features and bug fixes for the latest version of Run: v0.7.0

If you've been following run, I hope you'll find these updates useful.

If this your first time reading about run, and if you're at all interested in managing task runners and scripts, I hope you will give my project a try.

I am happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you,

-TekWizely</comment>


Phoenix PubSub written in Erlang - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cabol/erlbus <comment><USER2> Would be great to have both exactly once delivery as an option along with the current broadcast-to-everyone functionality there now.</comment>


Why Yammer Believes the Traditional Engineering Organizational Structure Is Dead - <AUTHOR> http://firstround.com/review/Why-Yammer-believes-the-traditional-engineering-organizational-structure-is-dead/ <comment><USER2> How is Yammer a relevant source for what an engineering org is supposed to look like? What wonderful engineering advnaces have been made there?

<comment><USER3> I echo your sentiment.

"Startups were mimicking [Yammer's] product left and right, and even the big companies were launching products to directly compete with theirs"

Said the company known as Twitter's clone.</comment></comment>


Nobody Knows What Lies Beneath New York City - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-08-10/nobody-knows-what-lies-beneath-new-york-city <comment><USER2> The title of the article seems incorrect. No one person has a complete picture of what is underground in NYC, but everything is accounted for somewhere.

One thing not addressed in the article is how that map is kept up to date. Work is constantly happening in the city and any map will decay with time. It is likely a full time job keeping the map current.</comment>


Ask HN: Ad network for AJAX sites - <AUTHOR>

I have a site where everything happens via AJAX.  Users will be on the same page for 30 minutes or so without a refresh.<p>Anyone know a good ad network that will rotate ads without needing a page reload? <comment><USER2> Why not just do it yourself? All you have to do is re-insert their Javascript. It _may_ be against the ToS of your ad network(s) but if you keep it reasonable (5-10 min) you probably won't get any flack. Maybe only reload the ads when a user does certain "big" actions?</comment>


Another ex-JP Morgan precious metals trader pleads guilty to 'spoofing' - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/20/another-ex-jp-morgan-precious-metals-trader-pleads-guilty-to-spoofing.html <comment><USER2> "Trunz, who earlier today resigned from his position as an executive director at J.P. Morgan, said he "learned to spoof from more senior traders, and spoofed with the knowledge and consent of his supervisors," according to the Department of Justice."

Seems like a systemic issue and this guy is just a little fish in the sea

</comment><comment><USER3> > pleaded guilty Tuesday to criminal charges of manipulating the precious > metals markets for nine years.

> Christian Trunz, 34, of London

Started off pretty early...

</comment><comment> 1e-9 The newsworthy aspect of this article is the trader's claim that his illegal activity was sanctioned by his supervisors at a large financial institution. The fact that a spoofer was caught and punished isn't news as that happens on a daily basis.

</comment><comment><USER4> When behavior becomes so common that it is normalized. A common phenom of corporate culture, see the Boeing 737 Max thread for a good discussion of this pervasive issue with corporations/capitalism: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20552054](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20552054)

<comment><USER5> I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with spoofing. If you really mean your market order then you don't care about whether resting orders are bluffing, unless you're bluffing yourself. You'll be matched against the best available bid/ask before these can be causally removed, period.

<comment> 1e-9 It's fundamentally wrong because markets exist to facilitate the efficient exchange of assets and spoofing lowers this efficiency. More specifically, spoofing tricks others into thinking that their transaction costs will be higher or lower than reality. This causes participants to transact at unnecessarily bad prices, which damages the price discovery process and adds cost.

<comment><USER5> >More specifically, spoofing tricks others into thinking that their transaction costs will be higher or lower than reality.

How so? If you want to market buy 100 shares at time t and the "spoofed" limit order is up at time t, you will buy into the spoofed order. Only if the spoofer somehow has knowledge of your intention to buy at time t and quickly pulls the rug from under your feet at time t-t1, where t1 would have to be an unrealistically small amount of time, can they mess with you. So clearly this argument against spoofing, i.e. that it's creating a false sense of liquidity, doesn't work in an environment when the quote can flicker dozens of time per millisecond.

It's more likely that spoofing is used to, say, protect a margin position from liquidation by flashing a wall above/below it hoping to scare away other market participants. In which case it shows the latter don't really mean their move to begin with, or that they are merely trading to squeeze gains on short timeframe, which has hardly anything to do with "facilitating the efficient exchange of assets".

<comment> 1e-9 The spoofer tricks you into doing something you would otherwise not do. See my example below in my reply to baybal2.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


My CTO tells me not to use jQuery and terms it "Embarrassing" - <AUTHOR> https://hashnode.com/post/its-embarrassing-to-use-jquery-do-you-agree-cjtjwnj7w003hu5s15tvwq657 <comment><USER2> Why would a "simple landing page" require a complete library like jQuery? No need for React or Vue either. The few things that would require JS (if any) should be easily coded from scratch by any competent coder.

</comment><comment><USER3> Simple landing page? Pre-Compressed Static HTML, Basic CSS, no frameworks, no JS, no cookies. I would suggest that anything else does not qualify as a simple landing page.</comment>


Procedural Locomotion: Automating human walk cycles using machine learning - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hmoraldo/ProceduralLocomotion

<comment><USER2> (slightly) Related: [http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020583/Animation-Bootcamp- An-I...](http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020583/Animation-Bootcamp-An-Indie- Approach)

Really impressive animation generation using just a handful of keyframes and clever use of interpolation.

</comment><comment><USER3> GaitSym is an awesome piece of open source software that has been used to model how dinosaurs walked, amongst other things.

[http://www.animalsimulation.org/](http://www.animalsimulation.org/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Does not look like human walking...</comment>


Who is Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin? - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/who-is-satoshi-nakamoto-the-creator-of-bitcoin

<comment><USER2> _Satoshi could be sitting on a stash of roughly one million bitcoins, worth ~$120 million at today's exchange rate._

I just love the idea of someone creating a crypto-currency in order to amass a fortune. That's higher-level entrepreneurship, for sure.

<comment><USER3> It's at least as clever as all the other questionable shit the finance guys do to make money nowadays (HFT, CDO, etc.) I would not be surprised at all if "Satoshi" is somebody on Wall Street. (Although (s)he seems to know a lot more about crypto than your average quant.)

<comment><USER4> To be fair to the quants, you need a serious knowledge of CS for some of the algos.

That probably speaks against the probability that Satoshi is a wall street guy, though, if his coding is amateur.

<comment><USER5> I don't think finance software is typically very polished. Deadlines are the enemy of quality code and finance has some of the hardest deadlines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sometimes I can't help but think that Dread Pirate Roberts is Satoshi. He would have created Bitcoin for the ultimate goal of enabling The Silk Road:

\- Notice how Satoshi disappeared from the community in late 2010, saying he is "moving to other projects", and The Silk Road opened in February 2011, a surprisingly early Bitcoin adopter.

\- DPR, like Satoshi, has a financial background and relates to Austrian economics: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/29/collect...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/29/collected- quotations-of-the-dread-pirate-roberts-founder-of-the-drug-site-silk-road-and- radical-libertarian/)

\- Both DPR and Satoshi are known to prefer british spelling and expressions.

\- Both DPR and Satoshi have technical/cryptographic skillsets: they use TOR, PGP, etc.

\- One reason for Satoshi wanting to remain anonymous would be to hide his involvement with The Silk Road, as too much media attention on his life might uncover he is involved in an unknown/secret project.

<comment><USER7> What, are you high? :)

In all seriousness, it's an intriguing idea, and you point out some interesting parallels, but the idea of the Silk Road seems really small for someone like Satoshi Nakamoto, given that BitCoin is a work of unusual genius that potentially has world-changing power, and the Silk Road is about trafficking narcotics. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I want to think the creator of BitCoin has larger, more expansive goals in mind than getting people high or even undermining the war on drugs.

Thinking that the creator of Silk Road is also the creator of BitCoin is like answering the question, "Why hasn't the miner of the first million BitCoins spent any of his currency?" by suggesting that Satoshi accidentally erased his wallet.

Which would be hilarious. 'Fuck me,' I would imagine him saying.

<comment><USER6> Read [http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/29/collect...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/29/collected- quotations-of-the-dread-pirate-roberts-founder-of-the-drug-site-silk-road-and- radical-libertarian/) to understand the world-changing ambition that DPR has. The Silk Road is a _lot_ more than trafficking narcotics for DPR. To the point that reading his thoughts in this Forbes article is what made me think he could be Satoshi.

<comment><USER7> His passion is admirable, but his vision for himself and his site seems a little grandiose. He might have world-changing ambition but Silk Road is not a world-changing idea. BitCoin attacks the status quo at its center - our entire system of finance, which forms the nucleus of a credit-driven economy, depends on having a currency that is issued and regulated from a central authority. BitCoin is a blow to state power at its core. Silk Road is just a store, or bazaar, that takes BitCoin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > he would alternate between British and American spellings and > colloquialisms, which could mean that he was trying to mask his nationality > or that Satoshi is actually more than one person

Or he's Canadian :)

<comment><USER9> This. I sometimes alternate spellings in the same sentence accidentally.

<comment><USER10> Or really any other language - i'm German and sometime i alternate too, though i most of the time use the British spelling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Perhaps the reasons he gave are genuine - he didn't want to get stuck in the 'maintainter' role a la Linus Torvalds. He created a practical implementation of his white paper, with resounding success, and that is the end of his interest in it.

</comment><comment><USER12> What's interesting to me is why Satoshi chooses to be anonymous. Most people would want to take credit and get their turn under the spotlight.

Perhaps he can't take it because of repercussions in his physical life - perhaps he works for a central bank!

Or perhaps he's super humble and prefers to let the work speak for itself.

<comment><USER13> Some possible reasons are:

\- He's just too humble to want the fame. Gavin Andresen could then be a likely candidate.

\- Scared, maybe by what happened to Julian Assange. However, unlike WikiLeaks, it's hard to imagine what law Bitcoin breaks.

\- He wanted to make money off it and move on. That would suggest Jed McCaleb, who founded and then sold MtGox.

Other reasons?

<comment><USER14> _\- Scared, maybe by what happened to Julian Assange. However, unlike WikiLeaks, it's hard to imagine what law Bitcoin breaks._

A determined government could probably concoct something if it became determined to do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is not uncommon in crypto, Truecrypt devs are anonymous as well: "The developers of TrueCrypt have been only anonymously referred to on the site as "The TrueCrypt Foundation" since 2010,[44] though there are potentially good reasons related to privacy why they might have chosen to remain thus." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truecrypt>

</comment><comment><USER16> Anyone who is looking at mathematicians, cryptographers, or security experts is almost certainly looking in the wrong place. Everything about Bitcoin suggests the work of a cryptography amateur/enthusiast, not an expert. Perhaps a talented amateur, maybe a very smart amateur, but you are not going to find the creator of Bitcoin in a research lab (at least not circa 2008; maybe the reason he vanished off the face of the Earth was the beginning of a grad school career, which ate into his time).

Really though, it makes no difference who the creator of Bitcoin is, nor why he created it. All the matters is whether it lives up to its promises. It is secure against attacks? Do the economics make sense? Those are the questions that should be answered.

<comment><USER17> You're begging the question pretty hard here. Why are they looking in the wrong place?

<comment><USER16> I already gave the answer: Bitcoin has all the hallmarks of amateur cryptography, not the work of an expert, researcher, or professional.

<comment><USER18> What are some of the hallmarks you see?

<comment><USER16> No security definition, no threat model, a security analysis that only covers one specific attack strategy the author himself came up with, the "51% attack" being considered acceptable (despite being a polynomial time attack), no reference to the decades of related work in secure multiparty computation or digital cash, the blurred boundary between the protocol design and its implementation, etc. I discussed this in great detail a few days ago:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5735993>

<comment><USER18> Great, thanks for the reply. I'll take a look at your other comment as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I thought the latest consensus was that Satoshi was a group of people working together. It's much more likely than for it to be a single person.

<https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto>

<comment><USER20> I would think that it would be a lot less likely for a group of people to all stay silent on that matter though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Seems like it would be trivial for the various admins of mailing lists, forums, newsgroups, etc.. to just see what IP "firstname.lastname@example.com" posted under.

I am sure a select people know who/whom 'satoshi' is

I believe the reason for not wanting to be found out is 2 fold-

1: The answer could have a substantial effect on bitcoin prices, since such a large portion is held by one entity. If that entity is something other than a charismatic, reclusive japanese guy, could be weird. How would we feel if zynga == satoshi (obviously not likely)

2: Lottery syndrome. Not wanting to risk being kidnapped or begged for money from friends. If what is said is true, this guy is worth a serious amount of money now.

<comment><USER22> I'm guessing he would have bounced these through various proxies, tor nodes,whathaveyou.

<comment><USER21> Totally possible- But theres always that chance he didnt, or that he also stayed logged into whatever vpn on another account at the same time, etc..

<comment><USER23> > But theres always that chance he didnt

Check the logs yourself. He was extremely careful about using tor.

<http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/bitcoin-satoshi/>

More: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5733582>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> No one has run a search for "Satoshi Nakamoto" on all japanese goverment databases ? We might might get a subset that has some skill with math.

<comment><USER25> It's my understanding that "Satoshi Nakamoto" is pretty similar to a Japanese "John Smith".

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think the important question is: Why would we need to know, and why would we care. His/her work is done. Let Satoshi be.

<comment><USER27> Because it's a mystery involving a pseudonymous entity who might have engineered himself a fortune, which he can't cash in on without revealing his identity? Is the community being drawn into a long game at the benefit of a government or corporation? Is Satoshi someone we would otherwise know, or an otherwise unknown cypherpunk who wanted to undermine traditional economics, and whose idea just took off? Why keep his identity a secret? What's his agenda? What happens when we know?

I mean come on... this is practically a William Gibson novel already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does it matter? Clearly they prefer to stay anonymous, so how about respecting that?

</comment><comment><USER29> Ok, so what is stopping someone from copying the bitcoin model?

<comment><USER30> There are many alternative crypto-coins (most notable are Litecoin and Namecoin). The main reasons that they don't get as much attention as Bitcoin are, IMO, the fact that Bitcoin was first, and the network effects of the number of people already using Bitcoin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Satoshi is European, not Asian... <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdrSP0V-KLg>

</comment><comment><USER32> Edmond Dantes

</comment><comment><USER33> I am Satoshi!

<comment><USER33> Have you guys been born yesterday?

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8h_v_our_Q></comment></comment>


Nasa will send helicopter to Mars to test otherworldly flight - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44090509 <comment><USER3> Link to the underlying press release [0] which has slightly more info than the BBC article. There is a bit more background about the project at [1], with some key points being:

"The helicopter uses counter-rotating coaxial rotors about 1.1 m in diameter. Its payload will be a high resolution downward-looking camera for navigation, landing, and science surveying of the terrain, and a communication system to relay data to the 2020 Mars rover. The inconsistent Mars magnetic field precludes the use of a compass for navigation, so it would require a solar tracker camera integrated to JPL's visual inertial navigation system. Some additional inputs might include gyros, visual odometry, tilt sensors, altimeter, and hazard detectors. It would use solar panels to recharge its batteries."

[0] [https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/mars-helicopter-to-fly- on...](https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/mars-helicopter-to-fly-on-nasa-s- next-red-planet-rover-mission)

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

<comment><USER4> "The helicopter uses counter-rotating coaxial rotors about 1.1 m in diameter..."

Not to be little it but, in short, a drone.

I presume the rocket scientists are jealous ;)

<comment><USER5> That's what I thought too. But they've been designing this for years; so it might have started before drones got as popular as they are.

I mean, drones are just a new name for hobby aircraft. People typically associate drones with quad-copters, but people were flying tiny helicopters next to their small replica remote aircraft for decades.

I realize the FAA has official designations for what is a drone (and a lot of older hobby aircrafts may now technically be drones), but it's a word that's really come about because the field is now more accessible/affordable.

<comment><USER6> > drones are just a new name for hobby aircraft

With the minor notation that hobby aircraft are permitted in some national parks, while drones are prohibited in all. The Parks Service operates a number of model aircraft airports in some national parks.

(I'm not moaning about the perceived inequity with the "drones;" just pointing out a curiosity. I've hated drones ever since they started ruining my ability to peacefully enjoy nature.)

>it's a word that's really come about because the field is now more accessible/affordable

I think it's a word that comes about because the marketers know that douchebags will respond to pretending that they're part of some secret military high-tech spy ops program, and not flying a Chinese plastic quadcopter. "Model aircraft" is for nerds. "Drone" is for monster truck owners and wannabes.

<comment><USER7> To me what makes a drone a drone is the control system algorithm that keeps the aircraft stable. I thought "model aircraft " had to be operated by a sufficiently skilled operator to keep it from crashing. Whereas "drones " automate this skill and present a very simple, dummed down interface such as "go left, turn around, descend" etc

<comment><USER8> If only self-leveling was more common in drones. None of the drones I own have self-leveling, nor have any owned by other pilots that I know.

There are a multitude of ways to pilot quadcopters, combining the 4 different transmitter modes (Mode 1, Mode 2, Mode 3, Mode 4) with the different control modes (Acro, Rate, Horizon, etc). The lack of standardization can be maddening for beginners - it's like learning Git, Github, and DVCS, while learning to code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So if it falls on its side, something that has a probably a 50% chance of happening, can it get back up?

I always thought that for exploring another planet, you shouldn't really use something with wheels or wings.

Something different like small "jumping robots" would make a lot more sense in a place where you have literally the ability to do 0-hardware maintenance.

Instead of a single expensive flying robot, why not send a fleet of these little small jumping-robots instead, to more quickly and cheaply explore the area: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4ZZQkcNEo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4ZZQkcNEo)

<comment><USER10> Where do you get 50% from? It's got landing legs, and will be placed right- side-up to start with by the Mars 2020 rover.

<comment><USER11> All it takes is to land on the side on one rock and it's over. I would say the chance is more like 98% over the span of a few years.

<comment><USER12> Vision navigation systems are pretty effective these days - 'avoid big rocks' seems like a straightforward use case for that. And clearly the landing systems would need to account for some degree of rough terrain. The wheeled drones go through a tremendous amount of testing of the various conditions they would encounter - a flying drone would go through the same engineering rigour before it was approved for the mission.

Also, I believe most of the activity of these devices is planned out well in advance, so you could even add human review to some of that process. It could take a short flight for a few high-rez pictures, land right near (or exactly) where it took off from, send the pics back to earth for review to pick it's next landing spot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very cool. They were trying to get NASA to allow them to send it when I worked at JPL a few years ago. NASA is very nervous about anything messing up the main focus of the mission.

</comment><comment><USER14> The NASA Jet Propulsion Lab continues to excel at technology innovation in support of science.

Make bounce landing work on another planet. Make powered landing on another planet routine. Make remove vehicle operations on another planet routine. Make soft landing with a rocket sky crane routine.

</comment><comment><USER15> So why not a blimp? I did not see any mention why they did not consider this though they did mention the Soviets using balloons on Venus. Is the air too thin to support any sort of lighter than air vehicle?

<comment><USER16> It sounds like it might be feasible: the atmosphere on the surface of Mars is described as the equivalent of Earth at "100,000 feet" (30 km) but the record for a weather balloon is 53km, and balloons carrying people have gone as high as 40km.

The helicopter being proposed is "the size of a softball", though, and not the main focus of the mission. The high altitude weather balloons have been much bigger and would probably need a dedicated mission.

<comment><USER17> Why don't they test the helicopter at 100k feet then?

<comment><USER18> Not having read the article, I am sure that they already did. Nothing gets sent beyond Earth's orbit without having gone through as much testing as is humanly possible on Earth. The cost of failure on Earth is several orders of magnitude less expensive than the cost of failure elsewhere.

I would guess that sending a test helicopter along with another rover would be to do a feasibility test for larger flight-based probes in the future. Test it now with a small helicopter, and you use 10-20 pounds of payload in order to do better wind and atmospheric studies. On the other hand, if you send a probe that uses flight as its primary mode of transportation, and some unknown unknown causes it to fail, you've scrapped the entire mission.

<comment><USER16> They might not have, because it might just fall out of the sky. It's built to overcome Mars' gravity, not Earth's.

However I agree with you, they will be testing it extensively in as close to Martian conditions as they can achieve.

<comment><USER19> > _They might not have, because it might just fall out of the sky. It 's built > to overcome Mars' gravity, not Earth's._

A video has them flying that thing inside a pressure chamber without payload, so at least in this configuration it has enough power to overcome Earth's gravity. Probably wouldn't lift off on Earth with the payload, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It would be interesting to see how the helicopter handles potential dust storms which can have winds of up to 94 km/hr.[1]

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars#Effect_of_dust...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars#Effect_of_dust_storms)

<comment><USER21> Aren't they pretty mild despite this, thanks to the very low density of the atmosphere?

<comment><USER22> They are, but this is a disaster waiting to happen anyway. Extremely high RPM, no redundancy in rotors or engines, flying in an environment full of dust and particles, having to land perfectly every time (or get damaged irreversibly), all these things add up to certain failure. It's definitely very cool, but it's not going to be nearly as reliable or useful as a land-based vehicle. Besides, aerial photos have generally little value for Mars (at least for the surface area such a drone can cover) because the atmosphere is clear and you can get great imagery from space.

So unless they want to reach an otherwise impossible to climb location, I don't see the use for it.

<comment><USER23> > Besides, aerial photos have generally little value for Mars (at least for > the surface area such a drone can cover) because the atmosphere is clear and > you can get great imagery from space.

I'm not buying your blanket statement. Atmosphere is not the only limitation - optics are heavy.

<comment><USER22> >optics are heavy

It depends on the optics. Modern optics for the visual range are incredibly light.

Also, since you assume optics are heavy, why do you think putting them on a drone is a good idea? You can haul a metric ton of optics in space for years (if not decades) but that drone can probably carry a handful of kg of equipment, and not that many cameras.

<comment><USER23> My point is that you can't just conclude a prior that the capabilities could be matched by an orbiter. You need bigger and thus heavier optics to match the performance of a camera on the ground from orbit. The extra mass for the drone might be less than that needed for the larger optics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> You know helicopters in Mars is totally Phillip K Dick material.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_Time- Slip](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_Time-Slip)

<comment><USER25> A little more recent:

[https://youtu.be/oJGJEepIOt0?t=38](https://youtu.be/oJGJEepIOt0?t=38)

It's from _Red Planet_ (2000):

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199753/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199753/)

<comment><USER19> Even more recent: [https://youtu.be/vacjOrVqesM?list=RD7Oq- ClZ8Gbs&t=299](https://youtu.be/vacjOrVqesM?list=RD7Oq-ClZ8Gbs&t=299)

From the series Mars (2006) - [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4939064/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4939064/).

<comment><USER25> That looks like the very same heli-drone! I had not heard of the series, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Didn't see any mention on how it will be powered, are batteries even feasable?

I thought just keeping rovers warm enough to operate was quite energy consuming.

<comment><USER27> It looks like it's only going to do one brief flight, so yes, batteries probably are feasible. I'm not sure if it would require more power or less power than on Earth though since gravity is lower but so is air density for the blades to act on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Looks like a more efficient and much faster way to explore the area if they can solve the thinner atmosphere but, if their missions are autonomous and it seems that can't be modified in real time, what happens with the mars storms?

I hope that they have a software to take measures if the air pressure or the light levels change suddenly.

Couldn't the differences in temperature between shadowed and sunny areas create turbulences?

<comment><USER29> Yes to all of this but do you assume no one at NASA has thought of any of this? Weird.

<comment><USER28> Am I assuming that? Where?

This sort of "somebody should have thought about that (and fix it), so don't say it", is probably the safe way for people working in a big company that needs to fit in a hierarchy and please their boss. We aren't in this context and have a bigger margin to freely explore any idea and talk about it. To wonder about the dust storms is a valid question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Does this make any sense? Isn't Mars' atmosphere much thinner than Earth's? Wouldn't that count against using rotary wing crafts?

<comment><USER31> It's about 1% the density of earths atmosphere. The craft would have to be light and have large blades, but that doesn't seem impossible. The light atmosphere means huge blades could still spin fast without issue. It's not easy but this is NASA we're talking about. They made a sky crane to drop a Mini Cooper sized rover on Mars before.

<comment><USER32> Also gravity is about a third of Earth's, so that might help a little bit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Can't NASA test this in an artificial atmosphere low-pressure low-gravity room? Obviously there will be real-world concerns that are hard to simulate like slight damage from spacecraft landing and dust spun up when the copter takes off, but the article makes it sound like the low density is the big thing they're worried about.

<comment><USER34> Simulating dust kick-up would be easier than constructing a "low gravity" room.

<comment><USER33> It isn't too hard to simulate low gravity, all you need to do is move a large aircraft in the appropriate parabolic pattern. My understanding is that this is already how NASA trains astronauts for zero-g environments, and how weightlessness is done in space movies. Adjusting the path to match Mars gravity should not be difficult.

<comment><USER35> True, but you cannot test a small helicopter inside an aircraft, can you?

<comment><USER33> I don't see why not, a test that goes 10 feet up, 50 feet over, 10 feet down should be sufficient. The thing in the video looks like it could fit in a large cargo plane. Or, are you concerned about turbulance due to being in a closed space vs open atmosphere?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Interesting that they didn't go the multirotor route, seems like it would cut down on development, complexity, and possibly weight. Maybe single axis counter-rotor was chosen for having a slightly better area/diameter to lift generating area ratio.

</comment><comment><USER37> It will need smarts to fly and land, and land especially to save power while it awaits the next destination command. The land surveys can only see so much and if you land wrong on a even a small rock, you could get stuck top over

</comment><comment><USER38> Does anybody knows what is the autonomy of this helicopter ?

<comment><USER5> Considering the lag in communication to earth, it'd have to be fully autonomous. It needs to be able to avoid obstacles, navigate visually (that article states a compass won't work with Mars's magnetic field) and find a place to land, in direct sunlight, whenever it needs to charge its batteries.

I'm sure NASA has mapped out some waypoints, but there's no way to really control the actual flight remotely without a human in orbit.

<comment><USER39> Yea, the daily flight time (3 min) is much less than signal travel time to Earth. So the entire flight needs to be autonomous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Why not a few quadcopters like GoPro or something. I guess those are more stable and cheap.

<comment><USER41> My guess is a normal quadcopter doesn't have a big enough thrust to weight ratio in Mars' atmosphere.

<comment><USER42> Can someone check my math/physics? The atmosphere on Mars is about 1.7% as dense as on Earth, meaning that a propeller on Earth will generate 58.8x more thrust than on Mars. An aircraft on Earth will weigh 2.6x of its Mars weight. Drones probably need a thrust to weight ratio of at least 1.5 to be reasonably maneuverable. A drone that has a 1.5 thrust to weight ratio on Mars would have a thrust to weight ratio of 1.5 * 58.8 / 2.6 = 33.9. That is certainly higher than hobbyist Earth drones that I'm aware of, but not terribly hard to imagine. The craziest racing quadcopters I've seen have power to weight ratios of around 10.

<comment><USER19> They're not limited to commercial constraints of price and safety, so they can build it lighter, with larger _and_ higher-RPM propellers (to the point they would break in our atmosphere), and with less battery life. But that answers the top-level question here: you can't just ship an OTC drone to Mars and expect it to work there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Why does the BBC use "Nasa" instead of "NASA"?

<comment><USER44> >Where you would normally say the abbreviation as a string of letters - <USER2> initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces (eg FA, UNHCR, NUT). However, our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms, where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids, Farc, Eta, Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec).

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/article/art201307021...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/article/art20130702112133530)

<comment><USER45> To piggy back off this, different news outlets have their own set of rules. For example, CNET (I think) wouldn't use upper case past 4 characters Example: NASA, Nascar

<comment><USER46> Style guides also tend to ignore funky punctuation, etc. in company names. For example, it was pretty standard to drop the ! in Yahoo!. There is certainly an argument for respecting the wishes of a name's owner but it's also understandable to do otherwise for readability.

In this particular case, there are also a lot of acronyms that have entered such common usage (like radar) that capitalizing them would seem odd. And too many capped acronyms, Studly Caps, hyphenations etc. hurt readability after a while.

<comment><USER47> I always like when it's written "Yahoo!" because I read it with an alveolar click, as /jahu!/. <[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_clicks>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_clicks>)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Well Elon has already sent a car, so a helicopter was the least they could send!

</comment><comment><USER49> If this is the sort of experiment that is getting space on a rocket then I kind of wonder if NASA is out of ideas.

In other news, Hepatitis C is making a big comeback here in Denver. It's the sort of disease we used to laugh about being a "third world" problem back in the day. We don't use the term "third world" anymore, but we are becoming one nonetheless.

I can't stop thinking about what archaeologists will think about us in a thousand years, they will struggle so much to even come up with plausible theories, much less agree on them.

<comment><USER50> Are you a markov chain?</comment></comment>