The babies who nap in sub-zero temperatures - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21537988 <comment><USER3> This is very funny for someone who lives in Minnesota. My wife grew up in Taiwan, and didn't see snow for the first time until she was twenty-one years old. When we moved to Minnesota a year after we were married over in Taiwan, she then got BIG TIME acquainted with snow, as we moved in February (about twenty-eight years ago today, now that I think of it).

Our four children all pile outside in Minnesota winter weather with very minimal clothing on--indoor wear even when there is snow on the ground, and light jackets even when the temperature is well below freezing. My wife spent years being horrified at seeing her half-Taiwanese children going out lightly dressed in temperatures that were unimaginable to her when she was growing up, while I just smiled and said, "Our children are just reflecting their Norwegian ancestry." Today we've all learned to deal with the cold.

My wife and I had a very enjoyable walk to the public library (one mile out, one mile back) yesterday, and I reflected that she has proved her adaptability by living so much of her life in weather that she never experienced at all in childhood. Personally, my second stay in Taiwan (1998-2001) seems to have permanently reset my body's thermostat, so much so that I NEVER feel hot anywhere in the United States, but now feel cold from time to time during winter in Minnesota. I'm probably more adapted to Taipei's semitropical climate now. But whatever the weather trade-offs, it's a delight to be outdoors, and I encourage our children and myself to get out of the house every day, in all seasons, wherever we live. When we do that, we have the children WITH us, because we want them to experience the different sights and sounds as we are on the move. I have not tried what the interesting submitted article specifically mentions, leaving a baby carriage (pram) outdoors while the baby is immobile. That sounds a bit radical to me, but apparently it works in its cultural context.

<comment><USER4> What's the humidity like in Minnesota? When I lived in CO (very dry) it had to get very cold before it felt cold as opposed to living the south where humid 50Fs feels really cold.

<comment><USER5> I would assume that humidity in the 'land of 10000 lakes' is fairly high.

EDIT: ~76% for February: <http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/ccd/avgrh.html>

<comment><USER6> Yes, the humidity here is usually high. It makes the summers feel warmer than they otherwise would and the winters colder (though the wind definitely plays a part in the latter as well).

<comment><USER7> The summers can get miserable, but the winters are pretty dry actually because when temperatures drop so low it takes the excess moisture out of the air. It doesn't feel anything like a Seattle or London piercing cold at similar temperatures. Of course that's a bit like Phoenix residents saying "yeah, it's 115°, but it's a _dry_ heat"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "There is no bad weather, only bad clothing."

Love that. Growing up with Patagonia clothes (family works there) we had constant proof. Skiing in sub-zero temperatures was always fine for us, just put on more layers. Meanwhile everyone around us was freezing their hands off. The other secret is that gloves are always cold because the fingers are separated; wear mittens instead.

<comment><USER9> Exactly. I commute to work by bike, and though it doesn't get too cold here, it does rain a lot, so a large fraction of my rides are in the low 40s/high 30s and rain. Most people do everything they can to avoid going out it the rain, but if you wear the proper gear it's great.

<comment><USER10> I grew up in Oregon, and did a lot of riding in weather like that. With proper gear, you stay dry and warm about an hour, and then you start getting wet and cold anyway, because with enough rain, it seeps through pretty much anything. 5 degrees C and rain is way worse than snow and -5C for staying outdoors for long periods of time.

<comment><USER11> There's a saying among sailors: "Waterproof means that once the water gets in, it can't get out again."

<comment><USER12> This is the thought I have about chilly/damp weather.

If the extent of your time outside is going from one building to another then (at least until the temperature actually drops far enough to become dangerous), less clothing is better.

If it's in the mid-30s and slightly drizzling outside, but it's only a 20 minute walk to work, then a t-shirt and jeans are the way to go. The instant you step into a building you'll be warm and dry as a bone while everyone else will be damp and chilled for some time. My jacket only goes on if I perceive a hypothermia risk, and gloves only get used if I think frostbite might become a risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Swede here, 4 kids, all of them have been sleeping outside down to -15 C (at least).

1) The kids are dressed more like a astronaut, wool clothing, a isolated dungaree, stuffed inside a kind of extra isolated bag. One problem is that the kids turn to overheat if you don't undress them when going indoors.

2) Sweden is very rural, there is probably bad to sleep outside in Stockholm/Gothenburg compared to sleep outside the rest of the country.

3) Sleeping next to a street is probably a bad idea regardless temperature (the picture was taken in Copenhagen which is not in Sweden, and I didn't see any snow in the picture so no winter there)

4) Swedes are obsessed with safty but we tend not to calculate threat from other people as a safty matter. Around every kindergarten there are fencing keeping the kids inside but not to keep bad people out. That some evil person should take a child has the same threat level as if an alien should come by. There have been some cases of mentally-ill patients stabbing kids but that hasn't really changed anything.

5) There was someone in a thread calling out for Vitamin D. That's true enough but every single infant/kid in Sweden gets free Vitamin D anyway.

6) I think its a very cultural thing, my kids have slept longer outside, stuffed in that sleeping bag if its cold, than they ever do when napping inside. Swedes like to think of ourselves as very outdoor, into the wild, sports, activity and health so you as a parent are supposed to be outside a lot, if you have more kids some of them are going to be tired and take that nap, wherever you are.

</comment><comment><USER14> Note that their sub-zero is Centigrade. Without wind, -5C or 23F is generally considered a nice winter day in most snowy places.

From experience, I'd like to add that the myth of "once it's below -X it doesn't really matter" is just not true. -50F feels WAYYYY colder than -25F for example.

<comment><USER15> That's one thing that's nice about coastal Nordic cities: much warmer than you might think, certainly compared to places like Eastern Europe or inland Canada. Even in February, the average daytime temperature still gets up to 31 F in Stockholm, 36 F in Copenhagen, and 29 F in Helsinki.

<comment><USER16> That being said, I've been in Stockholm and Tallinn with temperatures between -15 and -30C in Feb. Coming from the west coast, that was an interesting endeavor.

Measured temp is one thing, wind chill is another.

<comment><USER15> For Stockholm and Copenhagen below -15 C would be very rare (but looks like Talinn is rather colder). The record low in Copenhagen is -18 C, and in Stockholm -16 C, at least as measured wherever their official weather stations are (probably near the coast). In Copenhagen, -3 to +3 are more typical; older Danish apartments' relatively poor insulation is barely capable of dealing with -10 C!

But it is indeed often quite windy.

<comment><USER17> The record low in Stockholm is -26, not -16 C. At least according to wikipedia.

<comment><USER18> Was about to say the same, Stockholm surely sometimes gets colder than -16°C. Without looking any stats, probably -16°F (which is -27°C). For Helsinki, which not much further to the north, but closer to continental Russia, the record lows are -34°C / -30°F.

And I slept outside in temperatures colder than this, my children did, and their children eventually will. It's a matter of proper clothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was raised for the first three years of my life in a mountainous region. I have been put to sleep outside on the balcony every day. My mother told me that once my grandmother visited she was panicked to find out I was MIA, to which Mother calmly replied "the snow has made a drift out of the stroller again". What is left from all that is the habit to sleep every night on wide open window (winters usually I am single ... may have some correlation) and the inability to catch cold or flu for more than a day. Getting out of the warm bed on -17 C in the room is unique and highly recommended experience.

So it is perfectly normal in lots of places in the world.

<comment><USER20> Is there a correlation between getting cold and catching a cold? I didn't think there was?

<comment><USER21> The notion that getting cold causes illness is basically discredited, and in fact the reason that people get sick more during cold seasons is because they tend to stay indoors in closer contact with other people. That supports the nordic practice of having babies spend more time outside in fresh air even when it's cold.

<comment><USER22> While the cold doesn't cause illness, it seems to have the potential to reduce immune response which can then result in more illness than if one hadn't gotten cold. From Wikipedia's page on the common cold: _While colds are caused by viruses and not cold temperatures, there is some controversy over the role of body cooling as a risk factor for the common cold; the majority of the evidence suggests that it may result in greater susceptibility to infection._

It may have been coincidental but I fell ill with colds a day or two after both times I got caught out in the cold with inadequate clothing this winter so I had to look this up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What I found most interesting about this article is that parents felt so strongly about having their kids nap outside, despite the fact that the scientific evidence presented in the article that this is actually better than napping indoors is mixed at best.

The article cites a survey of parents who say their kids nap better outdoors, (with a broken link), but surveys are far less convincing than experiments. In this case, parents should not use this survey as a reason to have their kids nap outside, because the survey is just a reflection of their own opinions. Following it would be like eating their own dog food.

As for more scientific evidence, according to the article "Paediatrician Margareta Blennow says reports from the Swedish Environmental protection agency show conflicting results."

So from the article, it doesn't appear that there is substantial scientific evidence that sleeping outdoors is any better for the children. Why do parents continue to do so anyway? I think it's just a cultural thing. I think many cultures have basically random opinions along the lines of "Doing X is better for your health". As long as X isn't actually very bad for you, people will continue to do X despite the lack of evidence that it's actually good for you.

<comment><USER24> I used to go on camping trips regularly. I always found that I woke up _exceptionally_ well-rested in a tent. I attribute that to a combination of the fresh air, the possibility of a gentle breeze, and the difference of outdoor sounds vs. a 60Hz hum in the house. And it's not about sleep length, either; I would always wake up earlier in a tent than in my bed.

I think the phenomenon is worthy of more in-depth scientific experimentation, but I wouldn't ignore my own experience; even with no control group and a sample size of one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> My baby loves the cold (must be because she was born in Chicago in winter...) The thing that frightens me about the article isn't the leaving the baby outside in the cold, but the leaving the baby out where it could be stolen...

<comment><USER26> My relatives keep mentioning the possibility of my son being stolen, which seems absurd to me. I was very curious what the real odds of your child being stolen by a stranger in the US are.

EDIT: The post motivated me to do some quick Googling... one article I found said there are roughly 40 children abducted by strangers or slight acquaintances in the US annually which would make your child "700 times more likely to get into Harvard than to be the victim of such an abduction".

<comment><USER27> Here are some statistics about it: [http://www.ncmec.org/en_US/documents/InfantAbductionStats.pd...](http://www.ncmec.org/en_US/documents/InfantAbductionStats.pdf)

The kid is probably more likely to be struck by lightning while you're walking around in the park on an overcast day than being abducted by strangers.

But parents of newborns are rarely sensible about their risk assessment, and obsess over amazingly unlikely scenarios while forgetting about the plausible and common ones.

<comment><USER25> Risk analysis isn't just about probability. It's about the cost of prevention relative to the probability of a bad outcome multiplied by the cost of a bad outcome. Parents worry about children because the cost of losing a child is ruinously high to a parent. Meanwhile, little preventative measures like not leaving them outside are cheaper than putting them in little baby Faraday cages on cloudy days. Hence why parents worry about child abduction and not lightning strikes.

<comment><USER28> Yes, but they aren't so careful about things like drowning or road safety. I'm not certain about the actual risks (digging through the data is kind of depressing), but in general people tend to over or under estimate risks based on a few factors: malice, familiarity, how dramatic it seems. A crazed gunman is scary. Not looking in your mirror when backing out of the driveway isn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Funny to read this since me and my girlfriend do the same with our baby in Quebec city, Canada.

Its all about good cloths and making sure the hands, feet and head stay warm.

You would be amaze by the quality of cloths and stroller our baby has to face the ever changing Quebec temperature, she got a cold baby sleeping bags, a bear fur cover, and many different cloths, ...

<comment><USER30> We used to take our kid out in the cold when he a had a cough (Alberta). The cold air definitely helps with breathing.

BTW, quick English tip: you should use "clothes" instead of "cloths" for 'vêtements'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Seems hard to imagine it's beneficial for the kids other than in situations where there are fewer germs outside but as cultural idiosyncracies go it makes a lot more sense to me than the fear of sleeping with a running fan in Korea.

In Germany there's an obsession with stale air in rooms, during the day you "auslueft" the room but when you're in the room you close the windows and doors to prevent uncomfortable or even unhealthy drafts.

Irrational health beliefs are very stubborn, like many Germans my mom and her sisters believe that sitting on a cold surface can lead to bladder infections, here in the US nobody seems to know about this.

<comment><USER32> > _or even unhealthy drafts._

I'm pretty sure there is no such thing. (unfortunately, most people I know not only believe in it, but are also afraid of such drafts; the result is that, for example, I find it uncomfortable to work in any office because of stale air most of them accumulate throughout the day).

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I can't believe there's not a single mention of Vitamin D in this article. People with normal levels of Vitamin D are healthier than people who are deficient. There's really no mystery there. I'm sure it's even more important for developing babies. The health effects of getting some sun > negative effects of being cold for a while. Or cold thermogenesis could actually have beneficial effects [1].

[1]: [http://www.jackkruse.com/cold-thermogenesis-6-the-ancient- pa...](http://www.jackkruse.com/cold-thermogenesis-6-the-ancient-pathway/)

</comment><comment><USER34> Leaving kids to nap outside a coffee shop in winter...I'd love to see the horror on people's faces in the US. Makes perfect sense to me, and I do this outside my house from time to time (secluded backyard of course), but I'm pretty sure child protective services would be hauling me off before I finished my latte.

<comment><USER35> My brother in law is from Denmark and he told me about this practice many years ago as a way of relating to me just how neurotic and afraid parents are in America.

I asked him why he moved here, and he said "America is where you get rich". I often meditate on whether he made a Faustian bargain or not.

I spend a lot of time trying to understand the country I was born in. What's the right approach to this place? Is this a community or a marketplace? Newt Gingrich says marketplace, and that seems to be the opinion of the owners in this country.

Is this place so far gone that a reasonable man will try to extract as many resources and expatriate his money and his family to Norther Europe?

Hunter S. Thompson called America a Kingdom of Fear and then shot himself. Al Giordano tried to help through activism but concluded this country is psychopathic and moved to S. America.

N. Europe beats the US on almost every quality of life metric. The towns, cities and trains in Europe I see on travel shows just look prettier than the sprawling pattern of chain restaurants and gas stations I see here. Sprawl bothers me on a very base and fundamental level.

I overpay for crappy broadband and healthcare and my neighbors are irrationally afraid and half our tax dollars fund a bloated war machine. For the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of the world, things kind of suck here.

I've moved to some of the best cities this country has to offer and I found them lacking. In Austin and Boulder my girlfriend would be repeatedly harassed by schizophrenics let loose on the streets.

I spent an hour conversing with a mentally unstable tattooed skin head in Austin armed with a claw hammer for protection from other homeless. If he is to be believed, and he seemed sincere, the police bound and gagged him to a chair and beat him for an hour while denying him his anti psychotics.

The homeless in Austin know not to ask for much. In Boulder a street kid with dreads will sneer if you give him any less than a $5. The wretched of Austin just ask for quarters. They feel lucky that they aren't scheduled for lethal injection on felony murder charges.

I was in Austin when the state executed a homeless kid that not even the prosecutor thought killed anyone. Four homeless kids take LSD. One snaps and kills two others. Texas executes the one kid that didn't hurt anyone on felony muder charges. The actual murderer was given a life sentence because he took a plea.

The only silver lining I can take from all this is that because things suck and the US is a huge unified market, it is a great country to innovate and solve people's problems with technology.

I used to spend a lot of thought time getting political or philosophical about my complaints above, I have come to realize if we are to be saved, our salvation will only come through technological innovation.

<comment><USER36> The cure for what ails you is travel.

<comment><USER35> My father travelled around the world in the early 80's and concluded that there is no place like the US and came home.

One of my questions is have things changed? Has the rest of the world improved and the US declined in the last thirty years?

You are right, I will have to go and find out for myself.

<comment><USER37> Actually, I believe is to be the case. As late as the early to mid-90s, I'd say there was no place like the US of A (even though the Nordic countries were very nice also then, they were behind on certain aspects). Today US has noticeably declined (compared to some world benchmark, at least) while some countries have clearly progressed - the Nordic countries very much so. Visit the new Old World, with open and honest eyes (not every single thing is perfect, or even better than US, I'm talking broad strokes), engage the people and hear their opinions (they will have many, because the US is still dear to a lot of people from Europe who would very much like to see US step up its game as a true world leader in all areas - everyone wants a role model, and it's sad to see the hero waste his life away).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> As for born in Siberia my first thought was "Isn't it normal for every child to have a nap in -35C or so?" It was rather normal for our schools back there to be closed once or twice per winter because of extreme cold, but kids where just playing hockey on the school grounds instead =)

</comment><comment><USER39> I can personally attest to the fact that sleeping outside is not as ridiculous as it might seem at first. As a skinny, 80-90lb Boy Scout in Alaska, I camped outside overnight many times every winter, in temperatures that got down to -30F. It was cold, sure, but a little preparation and it's fine.

The most annoying part about sleeping outside isn't the fact that _you_ are cold, it's that everything around you is - we had to keep our water bottles in our sleeping bags at night so we could make oatmeal in the morning.

</comment><comment><USER40> Didn't know about the napping. at the pre-school we have in Ottawa, children go outside to play everyday unless it's colder than -15C.

<comment><USER41> I'm in Ottawa too and our daughter will often nap in her stroller at temperatures of -10C or more while we're out for a walk. I probably wouldn't specifically stick her outside for a nap but in general the cold (or indeed sleeping in the cold) is no big deal for kids as long as they're dressed well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> This reminds me of a funny behavior I noticed when I visited Iceland - <USER2> would simply leave their kids outside in a pram when they went into a cafe or a restaurant. Struck me as something you would never see in the States but I guess other places just have higher levels of trust.

Here's a blog with a little info on the practice: [http://reykjavikdailyphoto.blogspot.com/2008/10/could-not- be...](http://reykjavikdailyphoto.blogspot.com/2008/10/could-not-be-more- icelandic.html)

</comment><comment><USER43> Normal stuff in Finland, I have been sleeping outside when I was baby, so was my wife and our children sleep.

<comment><USER44> Same her, and enjoyed it in the Finnish army as well (except for the survival camp without any blankets). Sleeping outside just makes you a lot more rested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I was baptized during a pretty bad cold snap in Trysil in Eastern Norway. The outside temperature was -40C/-40F, and the caretakers were able to heat the church up to 5 degrees Celcius inside. I've been told that I slept in the stroller outside, even though my parents did check on me quite often. Was also supposedly wearing an incredible amount of clothes.

</comment><comment><USER46> The same sentiment exists in Russia.

<comment><USER47> Napping on balconies is indeed popular. But few people would leave a stroller with a baby on the street in a Russian city.

<comment><USER46> True... I was referring to the concept of babies sleeping in the cold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Sounds like pretty sloppy, old wives, random cultural reasoning to me (for example in other countries people think being cold gives one a cold).

 _> Paediatrician Margareta Blennow says reports from the Swedish Environmental protection agency show conflicting results.

"In some studies they found pre-schoolers who spent many hours outside generally - not just for naps - took fewer days off than those who spent most of their time indoors," she says.

"In other studies there wasn't a difference."_

If it isn't backed by some serious data - one probably shouldn't risk one's new born child on something so tenuously supported and specifically in an area which is subject to large random statistical effects and various psychological biases.

<comment><USER49> I propose that the purported risk is tenuously supported as well ... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I live in southeast Alaska, where winter temperatures are a steady 30-34F. It's really hard to stay warm, because you're always getting wet. It's easier to stay warm when it's 20-25F, and you know you'll stay dry.

We took my two-year-old to the beach last week when it was 38F. All he wanted to do was play in the water, and he did so for half an hour without ever getting cold. He had waterproof boots and rainsuit on, but his hands were in the water for half an hour and he only asked us to hold his hands in ours a couple times. It's fun to watch him grow up here, totally acclimated to this environment.

</comment><comment><USER51> I find this fascinating. And a bit surprised they don't get some sort of frost bite but if it works, hey it works.

I'll admit though when I read it I was wondering if this was parents with cranky children trying to trigger some sort of latent hibernation reflex :-).

</comment><comment><USER52> Reminds me of the Danish couple that got arrested in NY years back - [http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/14/nyregion/toddler-left- outs...](http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/14/nyregion/toddler-left-outside- restaurant-is-returned-to-her-mother.html)

</comment><comment><USER53> OK, serious question: what about dry throats, vocal cords, etc., and the damage caused from that?

For dealing with the NYC winter, buying a humidifier changed my life. I have friends who have a "winter cough" that never goes away, because they live in a drafty apartment. When I grew up in far upstate NY, there were certain winter days below 10°F where, just being outside for 10 minutes, you could hear the effect in your scratchier voice the rest of the day.

It boggles my mind how this can be healthy from a respiratory point of view. Is there any science on this?

<comment><USER54> You get dry throat if you take cold air from outside and heat it up. This air is not dry a outside temperatures. In fact is as humid as it can be. But if you take this air and heat it up then there's much more room in the air for additional water. And water from your throat gladly evaporates to fill this room leaving you throat dry. If you spend your time in temperatures clse to outside temperatures your throat doesn't get dry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> My wife used to put our little one on the balcony when he was a few months old at around zero celsius temperature. I admit I was a bit scared by the idea. Not only that it was cold (but I could understand that good clothes help) but also that in case he was in distress or needing something, nobody was outside to hear. Eventually, I spent the nap times sitting next to him, reading a book until he wake up and nothing wrong ever happened. He always was a healthy kid and still is.

</comment><comment><USER56> I don't know if there is any relation to this idea, but some diseases that babies catch are alleviated by cold air.

For some infants with croup, cool air alleviates the symptoms.

</comment><comment><USER57> Wow this is really interesting. I read the title and honestly didn't know what to expect from the article when I clicked on it. My mind was wandering towards some kinda sci-fi setup or something.

Hooray cultural ignorance! The more you know.

</comment><comment><USER58> I see the exact opposite where I come from. My kid wants to go out and play when the temperature is close to 40c (which is normal BTW).

I think kids just adapt to the weather and we just get old!

</comment><comment><USER59> yep, a little fresh air never hurts anyone - true in Minnesota !!!

</comment><comment><USER60> Well, I am from Sweden with 2 children but I have never and would never leave one of my child sleeping unattended in a prom on the sidewalk. I reacted on the photo of the cafe.

</comment><comment><USER61> Reminder to us wacky Americans and our archaic units - this article is talking about sub zero in Celsius, which is not _quite_ as bad as sub zero in Fahrenheit.

</comment><comment><USER62> Pediatricians in Russia recommend taking babies outside for at least thirty minutes every day too, partly because the freezing temperature kills germs.

<comment><USER54> Not viruses. Just bacteria. And bacterial infections are rare and usually easily treatable with antibiotics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> TLDR: More fresh air is good for kids; the fact that it's cold outside is irrelevant if they have enough clothes. Well what do you know?

</comment><comment><USER64> What I think is particularly interesting is that anyone doing this in North America would probably be tried and convicted of child endangerment purely due to unfamiliarity and outrage at the practice.

It wouldn't matter whether someone presented evidence that it was a norm elsewhere. We are just wired that way.

</comment><comment><USER65> Next: Kids are outside in -15C wearing only jackets!

<comment><USER66> My kids routinely go outside in sub-zero temperatures with just sweaters on. I can't keep clothes on them for love nor money... every time I turn around they're missing socks and shoes. When I try and put a coat on them they're like "but we wanna be freezing"... I swear, kids are born without pain or cold receptors. Insane really.</comment></comment>


Facebook workers hobbled and "angry" after Apple blocks its internal apps - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90299478/facebook-workers-hobbled-and-angry-after-apple-blocks-its-internal-apps <comment><USER2> "That means employees can't access lunch menus... (or) catch a bus to and from work"

I have a dream that someday, somehow, we won't specifically need an iPhone to access basic textual information.

</comment><comment><USER3> This also means FB gets to taste what they cook up on a regular basis.

This is why what you do or say should be civil and heed to the fact that there are always 2 parties to any interaction, and both must be agreeable to each other or there can be no agreement.</comment>


Why Are Dead People Liking Stuff On Facebook? - <AUTHOR> http://readwrite.com/2012/12/11/why-are-dead-people-liking-stuff-on-facebook#awesm=~o9wrYYfOLKsb2E

<comment><USER2> This story is 6 months old, there is a page about the settlement here: [http://www.fraleyfacebooksettlement.com/](http://www.fraleyfacebooksettlement.com/) \- the final approval hearing is on June 28th.</comment>


How Counter-Strike spawned a $5B gambling market you've never heard of - <AUTHOR> http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/18510975/how-counter-strike-turned-teenager-compulsive-gambler?resubmitted=true <comment><USER2> I think if you have interacted much with the Steam platform, you already knew. Basically just marketing gambling and ponzi schemes to kids. Using names like Giveaways, Raffles, Unboxing etc they even make it transparent to the parent in many cases. Speaking of cases, which are the built-in buy in raffle in CSGO, they seem to have taken the idea already made standard. Most are fixed for the admins, who can easily be found flaunting rare items in various games. Valve has tried to distance themselves so far, but have recently started taking action as it was hurting their bottom line.</comment>


Introducing Skaffold: Easy and Repeatable Kubernetes Development - <AUTHOR> https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2018/03/introducing-Skaffold-Easy-and-repeatable-Kubernetes-development.html?m=1 <comment><USER2> The previous conversation: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16538090](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16538090)

Google's container teams have a lot of projects bubbling at the moment. One common theme is: images are slow. Building, shipping, updating.

Hence Skaffold, FTL, Jib, image-rebase (shhh) and I am sure there are many others I don't know about. I think most or all of them are destined to see wide application.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also see 'draft' from Microsoft which was released last year and this is patterned off of.

[https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/streamlining- kubernet...](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/streamlining-kubernetes- development-with-draft/)

<comment><USER2> There is a lot of convergent evolution in the k8s space right now. People see the same gaps and think of similar solution.

I've had a chance to see a demo by one of the Google folks responsible for Skaffold and it was pretty clear it came about to scratch an itch.</comment></comment>


Letter to a Young Haskell Enthusiast - <AUTHOR> http://comonad.com/reader/2014/letter-to-a-young-haskell-enthusiast <comment><USER2> > ou tell them that types are for fallible people, like we all are. They help > us reason and catch our mistakes, because while software has grown more > complex, we're still stuck with the same old brains. If they tell you they > don't need types to catch errors, tell them that they must be much smarter > than you, because you sure do. But even more, tell them that all the > brainpower they use to not need types could turn into even greater, bigger, > and more creative ideas if they let the compiler help them.

So true, type driven development allows me to solve problems and feel out a design space and leads me to an answer.

> This is not a language for clever people, although there are clever things > that can be done in this language.

Totally agree.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8118696](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8118696)

<comment><AUTHOR> I figured it must be on here somewhere. Just seemed like something worth resurfacing. How do you choose when to delete a resubmission like this?

<comment><USER3> Reposts are considered dupes if the story has had significant attention in the last year or so.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Full-disclosure – Administrivia: The End - <AUTHOR> http://marc.info/?l=full-disclosure&m=139522698431442&w=2 <comment><USER2> Instrumental in this message for me was this part:

 _There is no honour amongst hackers any more._

10-20 years back a term hacker had a close relation to a certain moral conduct emphasizing freedom of knowledge. Today with a mass market of startups, that was largely popularized by Hacker News, this perception has changed. A hacker now is a founder. He must be good at raising money, monetizing a product and the greatest feat of all - _exit_. There's no more moral obligations of the past. Launch at all cost - the rest is an afterthought.

There's a discrepancy between the two cultures. I think this divide is the source of the mailing-list problem and problems with freedom of information and privacy at large we have today.

<comment><USER3> I don't even know how to respond to the idea that teenagers breaking into phone switches and harassing people, buying Pantera CDs on stolen credit cards, stealing ESNs from other people's phones to make calls on someone else's bill, and rm'ing Unix boxes are somehow _more honorable_ than adults running businesses.

The "hackers" FD's moderator is talking about are the ones I'm talking about. They aren't MIT students ordering sweet and sour bitter melon.

<comment><USER4> > are somehow more honorable than adults running businesses.

Gotta admit, I thought the same thing. Then I'm reminded of patent and trademark law...

<comment><USER3> What about it? Patent and trademark law are two things the typical valley "hacker" acutely oppose.

<comment><USER5> Bullshit. I haven't seen one supposed startup hacker put up a fight once the "grownups", investors, and lawyers start telling them they have to patent something.

The only Silicon Valley moral is making money.

<comment><USER4> It's curious how well your comment fits with the article this discussion is over, because I think that's the underlying problem. It's no longer about fundamentally "hacker" interests as much as it is about financial gain, influence, legalities, and gobs of other rubbish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A bit of context, maybe it will be helpful for some:

[http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/170](http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/170)

[http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/294](http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/294)

[http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/291](http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/291)

[http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/286](http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/286)

[http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/298](http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/298)

And a full email exchange: [http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/index.html#123](http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/index.html#123)

My personal favourite (in a positive way): [http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/160](http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/160)

<comment><USER7> Specifically:

[http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/298](http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/298)

It seems that one guy not only trolled the list but also he either created new identities for more trolling or managed to attract more trolls as bad as he. The guy also appears to deeply believe he's right.

It's still not fully clear to me if he is also the person thus described by the list maintainer:

"I always assumed that the turning point would be a sweeping request for large-scale deletion of information that some vendor or other had taken exception to. I never imagined that request might come from a researcher within the 'community' itself (and I use that word loosely in modern times)."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It seems ironic for the end to arrive without full disclosure of why.

<comment><USER9> Yes it would seem in the vein of the list to out the 'researcher' who is being the final asshole.

<comment><USER10> What would be the point, other than nailing that person to a post and having them exposed to various forms of Internet abuse?

As you said yourself, this is just the final straw.

<comment><USER11> That would be the point.

<comment><USER10> Are you suggesting this is a good custom and should be practised?

<comment><USER12> Sounds pretty sensible to me. Isn't the alternative that we let people who do bad stuff get away with it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can someone from the security community explain exactly what the list is? Is it a mailing list where researchers disclose exploits that have been found (after doing their best to responsibly notify the developers of the effected systems)?

<comment><USER14> Snippets from the mailing list charter[0] and listinfo[1] which simply say briefly:

        About Full-Disclosure

        Unlike bugtraq, this list serves no one except the list members themselves
        We don't believe in security by obscurity, and as far as we know, full
        disclosure is the only way to ensure that everyone, not just the insiders
        have access to the information we need to survive.

        We will try to operate this list without moderation, as we feel moderation
        is an impediment to communication.

        Any information pertaining to vulnerabilities is acceptable, for instance
        announcement and discussion thereof, exploit techniques and code, related
        tools and papers, and other useful information.

and, forebodingly:

        Politics should be avoided at all costs.

There's also the original announcement on the SuSE Linux security mailing list[2] and a follow-up by Mr Cartwright with some further rationale[3].

[0] [https://web.archive.org/web/20050306210635/http://lists.nets...](https://web.archive.org/web/20050306210635/http://lists.netsys.com/full- disclosure-charter.html)

[1] [https://web.archive.org/web/20041205194605/http://lists.nets...](https://web.archive.org/web/20041205194605/http://lists.netsys.com/mailman/listinfo/full- disclosure/)

[2] [http://marc.info/?l=suse- security&m=102639105014466&w=2](http://marc.info/?l=suse- security&m=102639105014466&w=2)

[3] [http://marc.info/?l=full- disclosure&m=102965261426089&w=2](http://marc.info/?l=full- disclosure&m=102965261426089&w=2)

<comment><USER15> Given the list's modus operandi and goals, wouldn't it work well under a format such as the blockchain? No moderation and no chance to delete what's been posted, since the decentralization means it would by then be replicated across lots of machines.

<comment><USER14> You then can't filter or delete spam, which far outweighs legitimate mail.

<comment><USER16> You need to pay BTC in order to store in the blockchain(i.e. you can't send 0.00BTC transaction to someone.) That should go pretty far in eliminating spam. Then again it might be too high a barrier for legitimate posters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sites that allow anonymous postings through tor (e.g. reddit) are the last remaining voice of freedom on the Internet.

It is unfortunate that HN is not numbered among those sites.

Edit: I was incorrect about HN. See the comment below. I am happy to learn that I was wrong.

<comment><USER18> Hi, I'm posting this through Tor. The reason I'm able to do this is because this account is more than two weeks old. I also created this account through Tor, so HN's operators should have no idea who I am.

For example, you have done an experiment below of posting comments through tor using the newly-created account "throughtor": [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=throughtor](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=throughtor)

If you turn on "showdead" in your profile, you'll see that account has a bunch of dead comments. Those comments are dead because the "throughtor" account is less than two weeks old, so HN's system automatically kills them since they're posted through tor. Once two weeks elapse, you'll be able to post comments and they won't be struck down. (Two weeks is the time it takes for the "new account" status to wear off.)

This is a spam prevention technique, and it's necessary in order to drastically reduce the amount of work moderators have to do to filter spam.

So, anyone who wants to post anonymously on HN should open up Tor Browser and create an account right now, and save it for a rainy day sometime in the future.

Remember not to use the same password as your regular HN account, because you'll give your identity away if you do. In addition to the fact that there's nothing stopping any server from logging every password across every service, HN also stores passwords as unsalted SHA-1, so two identical passwords on two different HN accounts will be stored as the same hash in the database, making it trivial to detect your real identity.

At least, unsalted SHA-1 was the case as of arc3.1, which is now several years old. Kogir probably changed it to something more sane in the meantime. But I highly doubt anyone will be able to break into HN's server running BSD anyway, so the unsalted SHA-1 isn't really a concern. This is just a reminder that every piece of information you provide is a piece of information that can be used to determine your identity.

And if you use this information to create more work for HN's operators, then I will ssh into your macbook and scare the crap out of you in the middle of the night by setting your volume to 100% and using text-to-speech. But seriously, don't be lame. It's valuable that we are permitted any anonymity at all.

<comment><USER19> We switched to bcrypt several years ago.

<comment><USER20> That's great to hear - thanks for doing so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What a shame; I just recently started taking on an interest in computer security and signed up for the list. In just the few weeks I was on there, I learned about a vulnerability in a device I had recently bought. I am cherishing the opportunity (which I haven't found time for yet) to walk through my first exploit!

As a newcomer I'm not really sure what John's referring to, though. Too bad...

<comment><USER22> I'll offer my take on his "industry that shouldn't have become an industry".

One of the biggest drivers of cash into information security hires is government regulation. Otherwise, a lot of these companies could give a shit if they lose private data.

Enter the information security specialist who has no fucking clue how to program or do anything remotely technical. They went out and got their CISSP cert, and now they provide a legal shield to the corporation or government office that hires them. Their very presence provides the security theater needed to protect their employer from being sued for not providing the necessary security.

If you are a CISSP on here, the fact that you're on this site means you are in the minority of your loser poser peers. You probably hate these posers as much as I do.

<comment><USER23> I think John's point was more wide-ranging. Even without regulation, the truth is that security has long become just another market, where vulnerabilities and skills are bought and sold for cash, like any other commodity. Security used to be an aspect of system administration; now it's just another rat race with all the trappings of commercialisation ("enterprise" products etc etc).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> He doesn't disclose much information, but it looks a bit like he (sourly) blames the industry and community for something that is very common elsewhere too: to run a public forum or mailing list, you now need not only the users' support and goodwill, but also legal counsel, a thick skin and willingness to challenge legal threats, as well as all sorts of technical means to fend of malicious activities (DoS/spam protection etc.).

What's stopping such communities from going "underground", i.e. to some darknet where anonymity and protection from some of these hassles still exists?

<comment><USER25> > What's stopping such communities from going "underground", i.e. to some > darknet where anonymity and protection from some of these hassles still > exists?

Principle? The whole point of FD was for these discussions to happen in the open.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "He who foresees calamities, suffers them twice over"

<comment><USER27> > "He who foresees calamities, suffers them twice over" \--Beilby Porteus, > Bishop of Chester and London, 1731-1809.

Not heard the quote before; thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Wow, this is sad. Hope we can get more info on what was going on.

Besides Bugtraq what mailing lists security wise do you follow?

EDIT: Or what other general means by Twitter, Websites, Databases, Blogs etc. do you recommend?

<comment><USER3> Why would you follow any mailing lists for security in 2014? The concept of a security mailing list predates Twitter, vulnerability databases, Reddit, and blogs. But we have all those things now, and they are all better than Full- Disclosure on its best days.

<comment><USER28> Yeah people keep telling me mail is dead, but its still kicking around and is very well alive. Let me edit my initial question to be email neutral though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> First thing I saw in my inbox when I got to work this morning. Sad really, the list has certainly had it's moments.

Can't help but be a little optimistic, at least the "Google Vulnerability with PoC" youtube-upload trollfest chain of emails is done flooding my inbox this month :D

</comment><comment><USER30> "... an industry that never should have become an industry."

</comment><comment><USER31> What are some other similar lists to follow?

</comment><comment><USER32> Today is a sad day. I wonder what will replace full-disclosure as the de-facto vehicle to announce vulnerabilities.

<comment> guard-of-terra Pastebin + reddit?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Would anyone mind explaining to me as a noob what kind of legal challenges public lists need to defend against these days?

Spam, trolls and politics are not new, but legal threats and DoS attacks I didn't expect to be problems.

<comment><USER28> Some companies like to practice 'security by obscurity' to the fullest. They sometimes try to keep bugs from being disclosed by researchers using various means of ignore up to legal threats or other non disclosure contracts.

Often when things are at a really bad state its in the public interest to make sure these issues get fixed rather than brushed under the carpet. Hence it gets posted on various sec ML lists to ramp up pressure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7431569](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7431569)

</comment><comment><USER35> Sad :( This was my favorite mailing list for the past decade or so, although it's been in decline for years.

</comment><comment><USER36> Really was a great list, one of my favorite. I will miss it, sincerely.

</comment><comment><USER37> He didn't really explain the full problem so maybe I am not fully appreciating the situation here, but this seems like a pretty big overreaction for a stupid request from some a single user.

<comment><USER38> As someone who had to deal with legal troubles when running a user facing service I can say that it's not that easy if you don't have resources (or knowledge/time) to response correctly to the legal inquiries. For example, a relatively small (by internet standards) "local" forum has a somehow dedicated (it's not their full time job) 3 man legal team that answers all the legal inquiries.

If I add one of the latest in the series of my own experiences. Once upon a time someone wanted to scam me on a website deal. We figured out who it was (it was easy, he was the owner of the domain, paid for the hosting etc.) and published the details (we were not the first, he's quite a known scammer around here, we found numerous blogposts about him). He was even featured in a local newspaper. Fast forward 5 or so years and I get a Cease and Desist letter from him (or something looking like that) that the information in my blog post is not accurate and he will sue me. I quickly see that google doesen't bring much about him nowadays, in part to people not caring for their blogs/doing redesigns and in part of him sending out "scary" letters. Of course I could fight it, I had a lot of concrete (I was told court grade by some lawyer acquaintances) proofs. But was it worth my time? My effort? My psych? No. I redacted the blog post and let it be. I don't feel good about it, because that means he will try to scam people that could'we been warned from my post. But I wagered it and left it all behind.

EDIT: grammar n'stuff

<comment><USER39> The only reason legal bullying works is because so many people capitulate at the first sign of conflict.

<comment><USER40> Not sure if you've ever been involved in a suit, but the "first sign of conflict" is a critical juncture. Perhaps the most critical. And, in many cases, your decision is a function of simple math.

Once you proceed past the "first sign of conflict", you will quickly sink a lot of cash. You don't get a refund if you later decide to stop, nor any other credit. That money is gone and either you keep going until you a.) win (or lose) a protracted, costly battle; b.) bankrupt your cash, energy, or will; or c.) find an opportunity to settle and stop the bleeding. By then, the damage is done.

So, if you decide to proceed, then you are signing up for significant cost and a ride for which you have limited control. They will keep throwing stuff at you to entangle and frustrate you. If you take the suit as far as discovery, then you can get into the high 6-figure or even 7-figure range before you know it.

And, before you get to discovery, the motions, counter-motions, and other pleadings can easily get you to six figures within a few short months or less (depending on the complexity of the case).

If you are a small business, it can be a non-starter, especially when the plaintiff is a much larger (and hostile) company. I've been through it personally and I decided _not_ to "capitulate at the first sign of conflict". I was pissed, they were wrong, I wouldn't be bullied, etc. So, I fought it.

We handily beat them back on the initial injunction they were seeking. Based on the merit, we knew we'd win that easily. Still, it cost me ~$20K to actually do it. It doesn't matter how weak their case is. They can make you bleed to prove it. The standard for having the suit labeled frivolous is extraordinarily high and you almost assuredly will not recover your legal fees.

We kept fighting, using some of the foundation (research, etc.) laid during the injunction battle to reduce costs. Still, by the time, we reached the mandatory (in the state of CA) settlement conference (where we decided to settle), we were out over $100K. So, that was the price of "not capitulating at the first sign of conflict". Of course, we didn't have to concede everything they initially demanded, but that small victory felt a bit Pyrrhic.

And, none of this cost includes the time, mental energy, and stress involved. If you are running a small business, you likely don't have time/energy for it. So, beyond literally bankrupting you, it can damage your business (perhaps irreparably) in other ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> What exactly happened?

<comment><USER42> Somebody set up us the bomb!

Seriously, use 30 seconds to browse, ie [http://marc.info/?l=full- disclosure&r=1&b=201403&w=2](http://marc.info/?l=full- disclosure&r=1&b=201403&w=2)

Notice 144 posts about "Google vulnerabilities with PoC"?

<comment><USER43> That's an ugly thread with people putting each other down in every post.

<comment><USER44> Haha, that is on the more civil side of FD discussions. Many hackers have ego problems.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Curse of Xanadu? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/12/public_pensions_that_invested.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe the people in NJ should have read this: <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/xanadu.html>

before calling that project Xanadu:)</comment>


Airplanes can't get much more efficient - <AUTHOR> http://www.empiricalzeal.com/2012/10/12/can-we-build-a-more-efficient-airplane-not-really-says-physics/ <comment><USER2> This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Maybe I totally missed the point somewhere, but as far as I can tell, it's basically saying that every airplane has an optimal speed for best efficiency, and going slower makes it worse, thus you can't make planes more efficient.

This totally ignores the possibility of using different airplane designs altogether. Build something whose optimal speed is slower, and you can make the whole thing more efficient.

Probably the best single-number measure of aerodynamic efficiency is the lift- to-drag ratio. For most airliners, 787 most likely included, this ratio is in the low 20s. The best machines out there are in the 70s. Of course, they fly slow, which is a tradeoff airliners don't want to make, but it shows that there's plenty of room for improvement.

Can we build a more efficient airplane? Of course! But we may not _want_ to.

<comment><USER3> Reducing lift-to-drag ratio (for sailplanes for example) boils down to increasing the aspect ratio (the ratio between the width of the wing and the wingspan) and selecting an airfoil with a high coefficient of lift over coefficient of drag (wings generate drag through flying, and the wings which generate the most lift aren't necessarily efficient, which is why planes have flaps).

See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Drag.jpg> for the different types of drag on an aircraft (the 'pushing stuff through the air' drag is called parasitic, and the 'side-effect of lift generation' drag is induced).

The problem is that by doing this, you increase the structural mass of the wing for a given lift as you need a longer wing. There is a point on the optimisation curve between increase in efficiency from AR & the increase in structural weight from longer wings. Boeing and Airbus have teams of people who do this stuff for a living.

There are also human factors involved, like airports being set up for a maximum wingspan, and people being unlikely to choose an airline with slower flights.

<comment><USER2> I don't doubt that Boeing and Airbus have a lot of smart people. My whole point is that there are things to optimize for besides brute efficiency. I'm sure you could do a _lot_ better than a 787 in terms of gallons of fuel per passenger-mile. I'm also sure that such an airliner would never sell, because people don't want to take three days to cross the USA by airplane.

<comment><USER4> Not especially; according to MacKay (the original article's reference) they're roughly comparable now:

"To estimate the energy required to move freight by plane, per unit weight of freight, ...then [a 747's] transport cost is 0.45 g, or roughly 1.2 kWh/ton- km. This is just a little bigger than the transport cost of a truck, which is 1 kWh/ton-km....

"...This is a bit more efficient than a typical single-occupant car (12 km per litre). So travelling by plane is more energy-efficient than car if there are only one or two people in the car; and cars are more efficient if there are three or more passengers in the vehicle."

[http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/cC/page_275...](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/cC/page_275.shtml)

The original article is pretty bad; the answer to the title's question, "Can we build a more efficient airplane?" is nothing but a link to MacKay. The rest of the article entertaining lead-up fluff.

<comment><USER2> You seem to be responding to me as if I'm comparing airliners to other forms of transportation. I'm not. I'm comparing current airliners with imaginary ones that are more efficient. The article claims that we've basically hit the physical limit for airliner efficiency, while I maintain that this is nonsense, and while we may have hit a limit for efficiency _while maintaining all of the other attributes we want_ , we certainly haven't hit the limit of efficiency period.

For example, an airplane with a 40:1 L/D (done in the 70s, easy today) able to carry half its empty weight in payload (nothing too hard there) will require about 0.3kWh/mile per ton of payload to maintain level flight. Even accounting for propulsion inefficiencies, that's _way_ more efficient than the 747.

Why don't we have such airplanes? Not because it's somehow physically impossible, nor even technologically impossible, but simply because it's not worth the tradeoffs. Nobody cares about increasing the efficiency of air travel if the result is an airplane that's ten times slower than a modern airliner.

Can we build a more efficient airliner? Of course! To say "no" is to imply that modern airliners are optimized for efficiency _above all other things_ , which is pretty much ridiculous on its face. Can we build a more efficient airliner while still keeping all the _other_ stuff we want out of airliners, like a mach 0.8 cruising speed and global range? Well, that's a bit harder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Note that the measurements are often cited per passenger. Part of the spat between Boeing and Airbus over their next gen ~150 seat passenger planes (737max & A320neo)[1] is over how many passengers are used in the calculations (maximize for your own plane, minimize for the other guy). To get an idea of how the argument goes see this article starting in the "war of words" section which gives a good idea of all the factors making up the cost of flying: [http://www.aspireaviation.com/2012/07/20/boeing-737-max- ups-...](http://www.aspireaviation.com/2012/07/20/boeing-737-max-ups-the-ante- in-dogfight-with-a320neo/)

The efficiency improvements come from all over the place including dealing with wing tips (fences, winglets, "sharklets"), weight reductions (lighter materials, redesigned components) and engines (weight, gearboxes, compression ratios).

The plane manufacturers and engine manufacturers are constantly doing tweaks to give improvements, usually managing around 1% per year. Search for "performance improvement package" to see numerous press releases and articles.

In the future there are blended wing bodies and open rotor engines that have another leap in efficiency.

[1] The tradeoffs are very similar to what we see in the IT industry. For example the 737 is lighter and sits lower to the ground. That means it can't use larger diameter more efficient engines. And makes it more efficient for shorter routes due to less weight, but the heavier higher A320 can then be more efficient over longer routes. Every change made involves retooling and recertification so it isn't a simple decision to just do everything possible. And newer better planes effect the residual values of older planes which makes lessors potentially less likely to buy your newer planes due to economic uncertainty. There was a lot of debate and speculation about re-engining the existing models, re-winging too, fuselage material changes etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> The central argument of the article seems to be that an air plane must spend energy for drag an lift, and there's a limit to how good you can get at those.

That's all fine in the current model, but other modes of transport are thinkable. For example an airship that doesn't need to spend energy on the lift, or a ballistic transport model (think ICBM) that uses flight parabolas around the curvature of the earth.

Ok, you probably wouldn't call their "airplanes" anymore, at least not by traditional terminology.

Update: oh, and you can always try to improve the constant factors involved, like the total aerodynamic drag and weight

<comment><USER3> Given current technology, airships are slow, and suck at handling high winds. Ballistic transport would cost a lot more fuel than current methods, as you need huge amounts of energy to escape gravity.

If you are going for crazy, why not use a nuclear reactor? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_X-6>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> One gripe: The OP goes on about how energy required goes up with the cube of speed, but that's only true if the flights you're comparing take the same amount of time.

Common sense says you should compare two flights covering the same distance. The flight that's twice as fast takes half as long, so you end up with the energy required being proportional to the square of velocity.

(The power required is still proportional to the cube of speed, which is why e.g. a Bugatti Veyron costs so much.)

</comment><comment><USER8> This seems overly pessimistic to me. While doubling efficiency may be impossible 10% is far too low as an estimate without a fairly short timeframe.

Weight reduction - Reduce the weight and you can reduce the air you need to move.

There are also conceptual designs for integrated wing aircraft that if they were easier to make and could be made to work with current airports might have further real gains.

These added to the engines and other factors mentioned probably make at least a 40-50% improvement possible (although not necessarily easy or quick to achieve).

This doesn't break the concepts explained or mean that there is unlimited room for improvement but 10% is not going to be the limit by a long way.

</comment><comment><USER9> The problem with this analysis is that it doesn't take into account the fact that better wing profiles also improve performance by reducing drag, as we have seen with sailplanes in the last thirty years.

A modern sailplane can fly at higher speeds than those with thicker wing profiles with less drag, optimizing the lift. This is an approach that modern airliners could follow, optimizing the lift and reduce the drag, to save on fuel, not reducing the speed.

The engine is not the only thing that can be optimized.

<http://soaringcafe.com/2011/01/concordia-supersegler/>

</comment><comment><USER10> Not only that. Because the air density is different at different heights, there's actually an optimal speed for every possible height.

The optimal height of an aircraft, however, depends on the mass of itself and the payload.

</comment><comment><USER11> Physics says no such thing. Flagged for ridiculous headline.

</comment><comment><USER12> This Kickstarter project with a completely new, futuristic looking airplane design seems fairly confident that there is.

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/launchsynergy/synergy- ai...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/launchsynergy/synergy-aircraft- project?ref=category)

(I'll have to defer commenting to someone with knowledge of physics than me)

<comment><USER3> [http://www.fzt.haw- hamburg.de/pers/Scholz/Airport2030/Airpor...](http://www.fzt.haw- hamburg.de/pers/Scholz/Airport2030/Airport2030_PUB_DLRK_11-09-27.pdf) reckons a ~10% efficiency increase, but the wing is twice as heavy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> David MacKay's book "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" goes into a huge amount of detail about plane efficiency [http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/cC/page_269...](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/cC/page_269.shtml)

It's also a great book

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Correct, maybe that's why such articles are interesting. They challenge an assumption and or facts as known today and now it's up to someone to counter it. I really liked the way author explained the complex topic with simple sketches.

</comment><comment><USER14> flying wings like the B2 are much less stable without computer correction, but significantly more efficient.

also, the SR-71 is very efficient considering it can cruise at mach 3.2, which is a pretty insane feat.

</comment><comment><USER15> Really cool explanations.

Quote: What you find is that it really just depends on a few factors: the shape and surface of the plane, and the efficiency of its engine.

It would also depend on weight. New planes are also lighter, as article mentions (eliminated aluminum sheets and fasteners). Some other weight could be eliminated by replacing in-flight entertainment screens in every chair and wires required for them with tablets + wireless.

<comment><USER16> The explanations are textbook, but they leave out an important detail. Wings (mostly) generate lift from a difference in pressure above and below the wing while in flight. The reduced pressure above the wing basically 'sucks' it upwards. The result of this pressure difference creates a massive downward force behind the wing, which is usually what's referenced when explaining these things. Here's a paper that explains it a bit more: [http://www.pilotfriend.com/training/flight_training/aero/lif...](http://www.pilotfriend.com/training/flight_training/aero/lift.htm)

<comment><USER17> Urban legend. Wings deflect air downward. The OP even linked to the xkcd comic debunking this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's funny but usually when I read article about something being close to it's limits, in a day or two there is an article somewhere else on the web, that describes potential solution and invalidates that limit.

</comment><comment><USER19> Air travel is nearing capacity and will soon reach its peak.

High-speed rail and tubes are the future of transport.

<comment><USER20> For smaller high density countries i would agree yes. For larger more spread out countries high-speed rail systems(assuming your referring to maglev) are simply to expensive at the current time.

I have no idea what you are referring to by tubes though.

<comment><USER21> > _I have no idea what you are referring to by tubes though._

Probably a reference to Elon Musk's recent claim that he had come up with some secret technology that could dramatically improve long distance transportation, with much (much) higher speed, lower energy usage, and (much) lower cost than conventional HSR.

Unfortunately the only detail Musk would give was a very hand-wavy reference to "tubes," and a subsequent clarification that he didn't mean the usual sort of "evacuated tube transport" people have talked about for ages and ages.

Based on all the discussion I've seen, though, it seems pretty likely it's just a vague idea Musk had that he didn't bother to think through, and it will fall apart when he tries to fill in the details...</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Palatte – Handpicked Colors for Your Next Project - <AUTHOR> https://palatte.ml <comment><USER2> After selecting a color: "We've put the color on your palette" \- where can I access my "palette"?

<comment><USER3> Seems like it is the clipboard. The emoji doesn't make sense though.</comment></comment>


2 new page transitions with jQuery Mobile v1.1 - <AUTHOR> http://dev.chetankjain.net/2012/02/2-new-page-transitions-in-jquery-mobile.html

<comment><USER2> my favorite is none</comment>


Pipe StatusPage.io Activity Into HipChat - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hipchat.com/2013/12/04/integrate-statuspage-io-with-hipchat/

<comment><USER2> Awesome, really nice integration. We [https://commando.io](https://commando.io) love StatusPage.io.

<comment><USER3> Though this is unrelated to above post, I just found out about your offering, Commando.IO and it seems like a really great product with a giant stinkfoot in the middle of it.

That is, I would never trust a 3rd party service with the keypair for my servers. Most devops won't either, this is severely hurting your bottom line, and your sales rate I bet. Write a localStorage key-upload solution that has the key sent and destroyed upon request, so it is never stored on the server, merely used.

And a tip on output: showing a smart-diff of the output of various servers, in a kind of intelligent multiplexing of streams, would go a long way. Because for many commands, the output will be mostly similar, with small differences between the servers. Having a single pane, with color-coded diff, all on one page, would be brilliant.

These are non-obvious ideas that I'm offering for free, so try not to take the flak to heart.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Lexigram – combining Alexa and Kodi - <AUTHOR> https://lexigr.am <comment><AUTHOR> Years ago I developed an Alexa skill that allowed a user to use their voice as a remote control for Kodi.

The setup process was lengthy and was difficult for most people. Earlier this year I developed a webapp that would allow people to bypass all that and just enter their information into my app. However, Amazon refused to publish the skill because anything Kodi related must be promoting "piracy".

So finally, I developed a cli to make the setup as easy as possible and so Lexigram was born.

The skills are Kanzi for remote control, and Koko for streaming music.

Please let me know what you think!</comment>


You Can Explain Functional Programming Using Emojis - <AUTHOR> https://ycombinator.chibicode.com/functional-programming-emojis <comment><AUTHOR> I'm the author of this article—ask me any questions! :)

<comment><USER2> This is very interesting.

I wonder though whether it's true that this is how you can teach non- programmers functional programming because the way the emoji puzzles are evaluated is an algorithm expressed in English, but not a very simple one with all the "labels" and "numbers" etc.

I would think this more how you can teach programmers lambda-calculus.

But this is excellent. I wonder if this visual presentation of lambda calculus is your invention or is there some material that predates this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment!

> not a very simple one with all the "labels" and "numbers" etc.

I understand this concern. I did have quite a large number of non-technical people do the Japanese version of this course (I have a big following in Japan), and they seemed to actually understand it based on the feedback I got.

The course itself doesn't use any code and is not very fast-paced compared to this article: it spreads out the material covered in this article in 17 pages and takes about 2-3 hours to read.

> I wonder if this visual presentation of lambda calculus is your invention

It's my invention (spent a year tweaking the details) but was inspired by things like Scratch. [https://scratch.mit.edu/](https://scratch.mit.edu/)</comment></comment></comment>


Government shutdown: Federal inmates feast as prison guards labor without pay - <AUTHOR> https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/04/federal-inmates-get-roast-beef-cornish-hens-during-govt-shutdown/2476839002/ <comment><USER2> Federal inmates know a thing or two about working without pay.

</comment><comment><USER3> The guards are welcome to swap places with the in,arts if that would make them feel better..</comment>


NASA data shows something leaking out of Uranus - <AUTHOR> https://futurism.com/the-byte/something-leaking-out-uranus <comment><USER2> Somebody was waiting their whole life to write this title.

</comment><comment><USER3> Summary: Voyager 2 magnetometer data suggest it flew through a plasmoid (giant magnetic field / plasma bubble) that would be a mechanism for Uranus to slowly lose atmosphere over billions of years.

[https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/revisiting- decades...](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/revisiting-decades-old- voyager-2-data-scientists-find-one-more-secret)

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://imgur.com/TcP8deL](https://imgur.com/TcP8deL) ;)

</comment><comment><USER5> Was this posted by Beavis or Butthead?

<comment><USER6> It's just something you wouldn't want to say in too loud in public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> tee hee</comment>


Ask HN: How to Improve Engineer Retention - <AUTHOR> In my company engineers come and go quite fast, how do you deal with retention and what can improve it? <comment><USER2> Offer more money.

<comment><USER3> Yes, as long as the only way of keeping your salary competitive is changing jobs every couple of years, employees _will_ change jobs every couple of years.

Also offer better work environments: office spaces where you can concentrate on your work and not be constantly interrupted, reasonable work hours (e.g., don't expect employees to answer e-mails after hours unless they're on call), no micromanagement, no toleration of harassing/bullying behavior, no forced participation in "fun" activities, etc.

<comment><USER2> so nothing is relevant beside money. I.e. if you pay me 1M $ a year, I will tolerate micromanagement, bullying, forced participation, etc.

There is no different between the market for tomatoes and the market for engineers.</comment></comment></comment>


Michael Dell mulls taking PC colossus private - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/04/dell_thinks_buyback/

<comment><USER2> The article is pretty slim on content. The question was whether he had considered taking Dell private at all recently, to which he simply said "Yes" and nothing more. I wouldn't be surprised if it were to happen, considering Acer just passed Dell as the world's second largest computer maker.

[http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/eyeonasia/archive...](http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/eyeonasia/archives/2009/10/acer_passes_del.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> If he did, I'd have to admire him for (at least partially) taking his own advice ("I'd... give the money back to the shareholders").</comment>


Forest Fires Are Setting Chernobyl's Radiation Free - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/08/chernobyl-fires/615067/ <comment><USER2> Firefighters seem to be the first people hurt in this type of incident when responding to fires before realizing radiation is involved (granted the Chernobyl area is a big clue nowadays)

I wonder, has it become protocol to check radiation levels during fire response?</comment>


Rubik's cube solver - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/moses-gangipogu/RUBIKS-CUBE-SOLVER.git

<comment><USER2> It's cool that you've made this. However, there are a number of issues that you might try to address. This is meant to be helpful criticism from a software developers point of view.

1\. There are no examples of how to use the code. (Add some instructions in the README.md)

2\. There is no indentation in the code (most IDEs and some text editors can do this for you)

3\. All of the code is one large file

4\. There is no documentation

5\. There are magic/unexplained numbers everywhere

6\. There are lines of code over 80 characters wide. (many of these composed of multiple short statements that could easily be put on separate lines.

7\. A lot of the code looks very repetitive and probably could be made a lot shorter with more general functions

8\. The function names are descriptive but the variable names are not (consider longer but more informative names for your variables)

If you work on most of these I think the code will be a really good piece to show off.

On the issue of the name I highly doubt that it will be a problem. There are hundreds of other projects on Github similarly named. Now if he started making the toy and selling it as a "Rubik's cube" that would be a problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm curious if the author will be forced to remove his code from GitHub, given the fact that even the use of the title "Rubik Cube" is copyrighted.

If anyone can shed some light on the fair use of a name please do. I'm especially interested if it is OK (from a legal point of view) for e.g. to write an article with code about an efficient Rubik's cube solver.

<comment><USER4> Should be. AFAIK the "nominative use" case would cover this:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the feedback ur feedback have encouraged me alot.. this was my first project ever

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> yes sure i will satify all the psr levels and update it soon and thanks for the feedback</comment>


Lensless camera creates detailed 3-D images without scanning - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2017-12-lensless-camera-d-images-scanning.html <comment><USER2> It depends on your definition of "lensless".

You know those kids' books that have the bumpy plastic coating and when you turn the book one way you see one image - look at it from a different angle and you see another image?

This is the same concept. They have a bumpy plastic coating that sends the incoming light in different directions. They do some processing on standard images to determine how the scattering works and then use that scattering pattern to reconstruct new images.

I would view the bumpy coating as a myriad of lenses that change the character of the incoming light.

We have one of those windows in our bathroom with the glass that is warped so that it breaks up the light so much that it gives you privacy. I've often thought that it would be a fun project to create a camera system that you could calibrate to decrypt that scattered image by placing a known image behind the window and pre-determining how the light waves are refracted. It's cool to see that someone implemented something similar.

<comment><USER3> I don't think you know what the word 'lens' means[0]. It has a pretty solid definition, and the objects used in the paper do not meet it. To be a lens the object has to focus or disperse light via refraction, the objects used in the paper and then referenced in the article diffuse[1] light.

Even relaxing the definition of lens to be an object designed to have particular optical properties, the diffusion filters referenced in the article weren't designed but chosen arbitrarily (they use the laminate from an ID badge at one point). That's the bulk of the reason this is valuable is because it eliminates one of the most expensive components required to accomplish the same result (the micro-array lens they reference in the article).

Now, the lenticular lens you referenced _is_ a lens because of how it operates, but the referenced in the article technique definitively does not require a lens because lenses aren't diffusers. Does that make sense?

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lens_(optics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lens_\(optics\)) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuser_(optics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuser_\(optics\))

<comment><USER2> _I don 't think you know what the word 'lens' means_

I'm not really interested in having a semantic argument about the meaning of lens, but what the heck...

 _To be a lens the object has to focus or disperse light via refraction, the objects used in the paper and then referenced in the article diffuse[1] light_

What do you think the "bumpy piece of plastic" in the article does, if not focus and disperse light using refraction? There's no separate optical effect called "diffusion" that isn't based upon dispersion. As a matter of fact, often a diffuser is referred to as a "diffuser lens":

[https://www.ylighting.com/element-lighting-accessory- lenses....](https://www.ylighting.com/element-lighting-accessory-lenses.html)

 _the diffusion filters referenced in the article weren 't designed but chosen arbitrarily_

Nothing I said indicated that the specific bumpy plastic patterns needed to be designed. See my related thoughts on decoding images seen through privacy glass. It's the same concept, except they use the refracted images to specifically select for multiple incoming light angles to create 3D images (when they're doing the 3D image part). I actually understand how they did what they did fairly well. I read the first couple of lines in the article and knew that they had implemented the same concept that I had thought about years ago.

 _Now, the lenticular lens you referenced is a lens because of how it operates, but the referenced in the article technique definitively does not require a lens because lenses aren 't diffusers. Does that make sense?_

I think maybe you're coming at this subject from photography terminology? Perhaps that's why you think there's some kind of distinction between a "lens" and a "diffuser". I'm coming at it from a physics perspective where these are really the same thing.

<comment><USER3> Semantics is important when you're trying to change the definition of a word that is rigorously defined. Your assertion that the bumpy piece of plastic in the article focus's or disperse's light is false because it does neither, it diffuses light. Focus and disperse have _very_ specific meanings in physics that are not met by an arbitrary piece of material.

If you're confident that a diffuser meets the physical definition of a lens could you point me to reference material that is from something a bit more rigorous than ylighting's webpage? I have yet to see _any_ physics source refer to a diffuser as a lens, Edmund Optics [0] is very precise in their aversion to using that term for a diffuser.

I have yet to find _any_ physics texts that indicate a diffuser is a lens. Please correct me if you have a source because ylighting looks like a commercial supplier using the same imprecise language that you were.

I am happy to stand corrected but I'm not okay with the top comment on a science article undermining scientific definitions.

[0] [https://www.edmundoptics.com/resources/application- notes/opt...](https://www.edmundoptics.com/resources/application- notes/optics/diffuser-selection-guide/)

<comment><USER2> _Semantics is important when you 're trying to change the definition of a word that is rigorously defined_

I'm not changing the meaning of "lens". First-of-all, I don't have that kind of authority. Second-of-all, the bumpy plastic is clearly being used as a lens.

The bumpy plastic is used to focus light onto the sensor array in a novel way that allows the resulting sensor image to be used to construct 2D and 3D images. A lens focuses or disperses light, normally to form an image. That's what is happening here in this device. Just because the lens shape is irregular, unplanned, and not a standard one you'd find in a camera shop doesn't mean it's not a lens.

 _reference material that is from something a bit more rigorous than ylighting 's webpage_

That was just one of many examples of references to "diffuser lens". Feel free to do some googling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Brilliant and amazing. "This is a very powerful direction for imaging, but requires designers with optical and physics expertise as well as computational knowledge." It's a little crazy to me how much can be accomplished by tackling hard problems in one domain by leveraging ideas and expertise from a seemingly unrelated[1], unexpected domain. Specialization is at the same time super important and a potential bottleneck to innovation. This fascinates me.

[1]Not that physics expertise in imagery is unrelated, but I feel like it's being used in very non-traditional ways here.

</comment><comment><USER5> Here's the research paper: [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9cff/c0c80b1ae3c1b773b761f3...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9cff/c0c80b1ae3c1b773b761f37c66e58890639e.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is really neat, it seems to me like they use a see through material of some sort that scatters light randomly as a filter in front of the camera. They then move around a small light and use that to figure out the pattern that the light is scattered in by the material?

<comment><USER7> > They then move around a small light

...or wave around a checkerboard pattern of known size to make calibration faster perhaps?

<comment><USER8> Maybe, but they might need absolute positions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can someone explain why they can't apply the same reconstruction technique to the data that would be captured without a diffuser; i.e. why the diffuser is required?

<comment><USER10> It's a good question and I think strikes at the heart of the idea.

A lens transforms a family of rays to a pixel location. Given knowledge of that pixel's intensity there is a degenerate solution for the original ray (in terms of it's location and direction at some plane). This degeneracy is one thing that leads to blurry photos.

The micro lens camera referenced in the article spreads this family over more pixels in a known, analytic way to make the solution more unique. In principle it suffers from the same degeneracy but each micro lens limits the possible location of rays so if any of the pixels under it are hit then the general location is set and the exact pixel in the group determines the direction.

The diffuser works similarly but spreads direction and position location over many pixels and in a random way (seeded by the material and it's precise placement). While this spread can not be calculated it can be discovered through calibration with known point sources.

In both these latter cases one inverts this analytic or calibrated ray->pixel matrix and applies that to the measured pixels to reconstruct the rays that have likely caused the measurement.

In the case of the diffuse "lens", the required matrix inversion can be computationally expensive at best and impossible at worse. However, the methods of compressed sensing (in particular L1 regularization) allow an approximate inversion to be done in a relatively fast manner.

<comment><USER9> Ok, thank you. As I understand what you have written, the diffuser does as its name suggests, and spreads light rays over more pixels than they would otherwise have struck, making it easier to construct the pixel -> ray function.

As a matter of interest, do you think it would still be possible to apply the technique without the diffuser, presumably obtaining a lower-fidelity reconstruction, by leaning more heavily on the regularisation?

<comment><USER11> Without the diffuser, the only information you have is roughly "a light ray hit the sensor at location (x, y)". You can't derive from that information what direction the photon hit the sensor from.

This technique gives you "a light ray hit the sensor at locations (x1, y1) through (xn, yn)". You can deconvolve that list to get an approximate vector the ray hit the diffuser at.

Obviously there's a lot of calculation involved to apply this deconvolution over the entire image at once, but it's the same thing light field cameras have been doing for a while. The innovative bit here is working with a random diffuser, rather than a very precise lens configuration.

<comment><USER9> Ah yes, of course, I see what you mean. Presumably there is some minimal number of pixels required to stand any chance of resolving the orientation of a particular bundle of light rays (I would imagine 3)?

Also, would it be true to say that the more pixels you manage to spread a given ray bundle over, the better the reconstruction, and that the main trade- off is between the accuracy and the density of the reconstructed ray bundles, for a fixed number of pixels?

<comment><USER11> I have to admit you're moving past my level of knowledge on the topic. Both of your suppositions seem likely correct, but my understanding of the calculation technique involved is superficial at best.

<comment><USER9> Ok no worries - thanks for helping me to understand what's going on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This makes the Holographic_imager a reality, hooray!

[1] [http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Holographic_imager](http://memory- alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Holographic_imager)

To me this is the most major breakthrough I've heard in the recent years, which can and will hopefully affect everything. Using the extra CMOS Chip on your flagship smartphone will allow for taking 3D and soon Holographic pictures!

How Amazing! I remember there was an AI trained to turn 2D pictures into 3D [2], combining that with the NPU Chip on smartphones can truly make this happens very soon.

[2] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4904298/The-A...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4904298/The- AI-turn-selfie-3D-image.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> The Research article (PDF): [https://www.osapublishing.org/DirectPDFAccess/3ADDF00A-E071-...](https://www.osapublishing.org/DirectPDFAccess/3ADDF00A-E071-C39B-B3DA82E301EA25C6_380297/optica-5-1-1.pdf?da=1&id=380297&seq=0)

</comment><comment><USER14> I especially like the applications in cheap and compact 3D sensing and brain neural interfaces. Very exciting!

</comment><comment><USER15> This could also be used to analyze some material used as the diffuser.

The 'shape' of the caustics captured by the sensor with a given electromagnetic 'lightsource' can probably yield some interesting information regarding the diffuser. Kinda like an spectrograph works.

</comment><comment><USER16> For a moment I thought they could manage to have something _like_ the ESPER machine in Blade Runner.

<comment><USER17> Lytro's light-field cameras can do this. [https://vimeo.com/102302646](https://vimeo.com/102302646)

<comment><USER16> Yes, I know, thanks, but at the end of the day the Lytro nice technology allows for focus and depth of field correction (besides some slight shift in pespective), but once the "wow" effect has faded away (I mean for "plain" photography), that's it.

For cinema, VR and CGI it is simply great of course.

<comment><USER17> Based on the movie, I'm not sure what features you want besides "move slightly to the right".

<comment><USER16> In the movie, from a plain photography, the ESPER machine manages, somehow, to enter into a reflection, and then expand in the reflection, seeing things that are "not there" in the original image, in practice in the fiction the whole 3d space (even what is on the side of the door) is navigable and viewable:

[http://thelegalgeeks.com/2017/06/28/admissibility-of- zhoras-...](http://thelegalgeeks.com/2017/06/28/admissibility-of-zhoras-photo- in-blade-runner/)

What I mean can be better appreciated in this reconstruction:

[https://typesetinthefuture.com/2016/06/19/bladerunner/](https://typesetinthefuture.com/2016/06/19/bladerunner/)

[https://typesetinthefuture.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/blade...](https://typesetinthefuture.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/bladerunner_esper_room_layout_full.png)

[https://vimeo.com/169392777](https://vimeo.com/169392777)

<comment><USER18> I think this is close to the Blaredunner camera tech you want: [http://web.media.mit.edu/~raskar/cornar/](http://web.media.mit.edu/~raskar/cornar/)

<comment><USER16> >I think this is close to the Blaredunner camera tech you want: [http://web.media.mit.edu/~raskar/cornar/](http://web.media.mit.edu/~raskar/cornar/)

Yes, that's it, never heard about Femto-Photography, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Reminds me of insect eyes.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if unscrewing the lens on a cheap USB camera could lead to some interesting pictures.

Any lensless camera Open Source project around?

EDIT: A library, not the camera itself

<comment><USER2> You still need the diffraction grating-like piece in front of the sensor array.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Would it be possible to run this system in reverse, and make a holographic display?

</comment><comment><USER21> TL;DR: this is an approach that simplifies the production of light field cameras (cameras that measure both color and angle of incoming light beams): instead of building a grid of microscopic lenses, you use a "random" piece of opaque plastic like scotch tape, and figure out how it modifies incoming light using a calibration phase.

<comment><USER22> Here is a similar approach using water droplets instead of a diffuse film, but they don't go as far as performing 3D reconstruction from the light field and the ray directions are not calibrated by a calibration pattern but by inferring a 3D model of the droplets: [https://light.cs.uni- bonn.de/4d-imaging-through-spray-on-opt...](https://light.cs.uni- bonn.de/4d-imaging-through-spray-on-optics/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Article and especially the title are of pretty low quality. Assuming the voxels are surface voxels, how is it even theoretically possible to turn 1 million pixels into 100 million voxels? This means you get 100x the xy resolution AND depth information out of this process. I'm sceptical of that claim.

As crusso already mentioned lenses and scanning are essential parts of image capture, a lens being needed to direct the light to the sensor somehow and scanning to actually read out the image. "Using diffuse foils to replace microlens arrays" would probably be a more fitting and still teasing headline. Or "Diffuse foils can replace microlens arrays for 3D imaging", perhaps.

Article aide, the research seems very sound and very cool. It demonstrates another case of extracting high quality information from low quality sensors - something I think we'll be seeing a lot more of. Another previously precisely manufactured piece of hardware is being replaced by a software-supported low- quality part through optimizations that in their spirit remind me of the Google Pixel's camera and that drone that can fly (steer) with one rotor.

<comment><USER23> We already have commercial systems which do this. See PhaseFocus for example ([http://www.phasefocus.com/technology-virtual- lens/](http://www.phasefocus.com/technology-virtual-lens/)). This uses proprietary deconvolution algorithms to reconstruct a 3D volume from diffraction patterns in unfocussed (or partially focussed) 2D planes. See also X-ray crystallography, which samples in Fourier space and uses a computed transform to reconstruct the 3D image.

This new microlens technology is very neat, but the processing problem has been solved for several different applications for several years now. Reconstructing a 3D volume is absolutely possible, and while this new development will undoubtedly require new algorithms to work, it's already got a sound basis in existing technology in use today.</comment></comment>


You're not irrational, you're just quantum probabilistic - <AUTHOR> http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-09/osu-yni091415.php <comment><AUTHOR> Greatly improved predictions across very diverse cognitive psychology experiments. For the actual papers see ([http://www.thedocc.com/publications-2/](http://www.thedocc.com/publications-2/)).</comment>