New Hardware from PINE64 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.hackster.io/new-hardware-from-pine64-a7c95e26684d <comment><USER2> Just as a word of warning, I bought the old PineBook64 and it was dreadful. I could accept the speed limitations of a $99 laptop - but the hardware was inadequate. The trackpad couldn't tell the difference between scrolling and zooming. The keyboard regularly skipped keypresses. Firmware updates were promised, but never arrived.

There was also very little software support. The occasional community build of of Ubuntu or Android. Neither of which received much in the way of bug fixes or development.

I appreciate it was designed as a "tinkering" machine - but it's hard to tinker when the basics don't work.

Devices like this live and die by their community. If you don't have lots of committed people working on supporting a platform it quickly withers and dies.

I like the look of the "pro" model. But if it receives the same lack of attention as their earlier hardware, it won't be worth buying.

<comment><USER3> > The trackpad couldn't tell the difference between scrolling and zooming. The > keyboard regularly skipped keypresses. Firmware updates were promised, but > never arrived.

Only when people run into things like that, they get appreciation for people making decent low-end hardware.

I say, it is twice as hard to design a decent $300 laptop that a decent $1000 laptop.

Supply chain for low-end parts is a total Wild West (or East if you want.) If you want 100k top-tier panels from Samsung, you sign the contact and go away having a good sleep. If you want 100k of ok quality and moderately priced panels, you are up for a lot of sleepless nights picking them up from random distributors, through all of manufacturing run.

For touchpads that don't go on standalone modules, calibration is also case by case. Some times, it simply doesn't work - you plastic is too thick, it's dielectric value is off. Ideally, you have a specialist company making a custom made module for you, with Synaptics blessing, but for budget stuff, you your only option is to calibrate it yourself using SDKs leaked to Chinese FTPs

And stuff like keyboards - there are no dedicated keyboard module makers these days, your chassis maker is doing that nowadays. You are up for a lot of trial and error on that, and if you want any custom switches, god save you.

Ideally, if you are a budget maker, you want to spin as many models on a single "chassis" as possible to cover RnD expenses. This is the only way big ODMs like Quanta and Clevo or brands like Asus can make cheap and moderately good stuff.

Trying to be small and differentiated differentiated is the hardest thing to do for a budget OEM.

Checkout a brand called Chuwi - it's a miracle how they can make five different chassis a year, and do it profitably, while being an e-commerce-only brand.

<comment><USER4> Indeed. Casio is one of my favorite brands in electronics because they have been so reliable about doing cost reduction without compromising the core device functions. For example, when they do a high end keyboard, which seems to happen about twice a decade, the key features are soon brought back down to their low end models, meaning that at any given moment their offering is most likely biased towards the cheapest of the range, with a bit of price differentiation on features.

Casio is a well-established brand and gets the benefits of scale, but that only makes some parts of the job easier. They still have to carve out market share one product at a time, like everyone else, and they don't do it through the expensive flagship pieces.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are there _fast_ desktop ARM machines? Can I spend $500, not $50, to get something with 16-32GB of RAM and a ton of CPU cores?

I am with Linus on this "server ARM revolution won't happen". I've had to fix an ARM incompatibility that QEMU didn't emulate (related to hardware timers). Pine64 wasn't in stock. I got RPI, but compilation on that toy machine was soooo slooow that I literally forgot about the whole project before it finished compiling.

<comment><USER6> The ROCKPro64 is not super fast, but it is a pretty big step up from the Pi. 2 big cores and 4 little cores with 4GB RAM for $80. ~2800 geekbench multicore, Pi 3 is ~1400.

[https://www.pine64.org/?product=rockpro64-4gb-single- board-c...](https://www.pine64.org/?product=rockpro64-4gb-single-board- computer)

About $1000 will get you a Snapdragon 845 devkit with 6GB RAM which is again quite a bit faster. 4 big cores and 4 little cores. ~8500 geekbench.

[https://www.intrinsyc.com/snapdragon-embedded-development- ki...](https://www.intrinsyc.com/snapdragon-embedded-development- kits/open-q-845-development-kit/)

$6400 will get you a 96 core ARM server.

[https://system76.com/servers/starling](https://system76.com/servers/starling)

<comment><USER7> $269 (+ $70-100 shipping) will get you a MACCHIATObin (+ a 4GB DIMM), a mini- ITX board with four A72 cores, PCIe and FOSS firmware ([https://github.com/MarvellEmbeddedProcessors/edk2-open- platf...](https://github.com/MarvellEmbeddedProcessors/edk2-open- platform/commits/marvell-armada-wip) or even just mainline TianoCore) capable of running a graphics card before the OS (thanks to qemu).

[https://www.solid- run.com/product/SRM8040S00D04GE008S00CH/](https://www.solid- run.com/product/SRM8040S00D04GE008S00CH/)

$300 for a tiny Kirin 970 board with 6GB RAM.

[https://www.96boards.org/product/hikey970/](https://www.96boards.org/product/hikey970/)

$1200 will get you a Developerbox, 24 A53 cores, also PCIe and FOSS firmware.

[https://www.96boards.org/product/developerbox/](https://www.96boards.org/product/developerbox/)

£2255 will get you a 32-core Ampere eMAG workstation

[https://store.avantek.co.uk/ampere-emag-64bit-arm- workstatio...](https://store.avantek.co.uk/ampere-emag-64bit-arm- workstation.html)

You can also order a system from Ampere directly, no public prices but they might be offering 16-core systems for less.

[https://developer.amperecomputing.com/resources/](https://developer.amperecomputing.com/resources/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Direct link to announcement this post seems to take most info from: [https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=7093&pid=43850#p...](https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=7093&pid=43850#pid43850)

</comment><comment><USER9> I have a RockPro64 4GB version & I have been very pleased! Lots of OSs available & easy to flash with their provided installer software. Used it mainly as a home web server runnibg Ubuntu 18.04 so far, but I have some other ideas to tinker with in the future.

Been really happy to have it around! Nice to see the company continue to deliver new products. I might pick up one of those camera cubes. Bravo Pine64!

</comment><comment><USER10> Back then I was interested in the $90 Pinebook and finally opted against it, mainly because the driver support seemed problematic. The new Pinebook Pro according to the article will have a RK3399: Arm Cortex-A72 + quad-core Cortex-A53 + Mali T860 MP4 GPU. Can someone here judge based on the specs how driver support of that laptop will be like? Does the Mali gpu have a proper free (kernel-included?) linux driver? I did not find the answers to that.

<comment><USER11> [https://wiki.debian.org/MaliGraphics](https://wiki.debian.org/MaliGraphics)

RM produce designs for a GPU called 'Mali'. This is incorporated in many SoCs and thus devices. It is used in a number of devices that can run Debian.

There are three major revisions of Mali GPUs: Utgard, Midgard, and Bifrost. See wikipedia page for reference.

Partial free drivers were developed for Utgard but were abandoned (lima). Work on Utgard has continued by a new set of developers (lima). Free drivers for Midgard and Bifrost are under active development but are not yet ready for Debian users (panfrost).

Proprietary drivers are also available from the vendor for each Mali version. Since 2016, the binary drivers put out by ARM have been redistributable and thus can be packaged for non-free. GPLed kernel shim drivers are also released by ARM, which is eligible for Debian contrib. As of March 2017, these have been packaged in Debian for Midgard devices; see MaliMidgard. Upstream proprietary drivers are available from The ARM developer site

<comment><USER10> Thanks. But that's bad:

> _ARM dropped support for X in their releases after r16 (Jan 2017). This is a > massive pain as that 's what we all still use. Only wayland, fbdev and > android are supported after that._

If that's not misleading and there would be no proper X support the laptop is a no-starter for me. On the other hand, panfrost is in mesa now and [https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Panfrost...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Panfrost- Performance-Fast) sounds promising. Maybe that free driver will be ready till then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Think the Pine guys are doing what the Raspberry peeps should have done long ago: releasing products with 3-4GB of RAM. This way consumer facing devices are not constantly disk trashing for swap disk when browsing the web.

<comment><USER13> RAM is, relatively speaking, one of the most expensive components of an SBC.

Raspberry Pi _could_ have offered 4GB+ of it, and they could also have quadrupled the price.

As much as I'd love a Pi with 4GB+ of RAM, is quite obvious why the $35 computer doesn't have it.

<comment><USER14> > Raspberry Pi _could_ have offered 4GB+ of it, and they could also have > quadrupled the price.

Raspberry Pi's SoC does not support more RAM than the 1 GiB that it now has. This is as far as I am aware considered a serious problem by the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

I don't know by what they thus plan to replace the SoC in the future.

<comment><USER13> This is what I was alluding to. There was an interview recently with Eben, where he explained that the SoC needs an upgrade to give them more (faster) peripherals and the ability to add more RAM. I can't find the source at the moment.

As I understand it the SoC in the Pi was some older IP that was licensed to them (RPF/Eben) for free (or close to) by Broadcom.

The RPF will have to sink so significant cost into a new SoC (and I choose to believe that this is already happening, as we speak).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I recently bought an Orange Pi 3 which is roughly similar to Pine H64. Easy enough to setup and runs Pi Hole and Kodi just fine, unfortunately no way to run RetroPie at the moment.

These boards are kind of hamstrung by lack of Mali support from what I can tell. If you want a cheap single use server board they are great but they don't compare to Raspberry Pi's community and support ecosystem.

<comment><USER16> I bought an Orange Pi 1+ H6 for the high-end Mali GPU. The board was dead on arrival, as in, it never pulled any current from the power supply. It was plain as day to see this on my bench top power supply. The support I received was horrible. They kept demanding the same "troubleshooting" steps over and over and for me to upload YouTube videos showing me doing the steps. It clearly was DOA. I threw it in the garbage and swore off Orange Pi forever.

I switched to a Rock 960 and had a much better experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really really love the idea of this Pinebook Pro but find this Pine64 ecosystem a risk. I would love it if I could buy this with an RPi heart. At least then I'd know I could easily run fullHD video on the GPU, I would for certain get a nice modern Ubuntu Mate desktop that is reasonably nice speed- wise. I'm pretty sure I could do most of the things I do on my 800 dollar laptop on a Pi3. The Pine64 eco-system makes me very weary though and it is again echoed here in the comments.

<comment><USER18> I do a fair amount with SBCs for my home automation, and various projects (always flashed with Dietpi where possible). I've got Raspberry Pis, NanoPi Neos, Odroids, and the one regretful purchase, a Rock64 by Pine.

The hardware support was abysmal from day one; the only recourse was a message board where suggestions from the makers included using a magnifying glass to look for bad surface mount welds on resistors.

Dietpi later came out with an image for the Rock64 (those folks really walk on water in my eyes), which has saved my Rock from the bin (all the officially supported linux builds were rife with crashes), and I'm currently using it as a massively overpowered nginx server (because I don't trust the hardware for anything else at this point).

tl;dr - I would not buy something from Pine64 again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Re the new Rock64

>The new version will add Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) support

_Integrated_ PoE? I've been waiting a looong time for a reasonably-priced SBC to offer this. Anyone know if that's the case?

</comment><comment><USER20> The phone looks interesting. Although the realist in me questions why it would be successful over all the other Linux phone efforts.

I _hope_ it's successful though.

<comment><USER21> These look really cool, I had no idea the PINE project was so diverse in its hardware projects.

Especially the $20 "naked" digital camera core ("The Cube") looks like it might trigger loads of cool projects. I guess it runs Linux, since it's pretty high-specced and has rich I/O. Power over Ethernet support suggests fixed installations is a niche (like security cameras, smart homes, automation and so on), but it might also be useful for visual effects. Cool stuff.

I think this:

 _Over the last year or two we've seen the Raspberry Pi form factor starting to become a defacto standard for single-board computers, much like Adafruit's Feather has for micro-controllers_

was a bit surprising, Feather is cool but surely it's an attempt to establish _another_ standard, since Arduino already _is_ the standard for microcontrollers? It was a bit weird that Arduino wasn't mentioned, there.

Looking forward to seeing when these become possible to order.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have the original Pine64 in a case with all the addons, remote, etc. I played with it for a bit thinking to use it as a Kodi box. It's been sitting on my project tablet since then. It is going on the eBay item pile soon. It was just not quite fast enough to keep up with how I wanted to use it. At this price point however it was a cheap experiment. I will likely order a the newer model and try it out. They current Kodi box for the man cave TV is an Intel compute stick (i5) (windows 10 because I am to lazy to figure out how to get Linux on it). It drives a 4K TV. It has steam installed for older games. Speaking of which it was funny as I was playing the Mater of Orion remake on the system. At larger sizes of galaxy it was painfully slow. I also have a much older (~5 years) 6 core AMD FX. Tried it on that system and it was much faster. Looking at activity monitor it seems it was one of the few games (from a few years ago) that take advantage of multi core chips.

</comment><comment><USER23> Anybody know of any SBCs* with good low power modes enough to run for a few days on a 4000 mAh battery?

Phones have been able to do this for years, but I can't find any modern Linux SBCs with real lower power CPU modes to last for days.

* ideally 1+GHz with 4GB RAM and on-board lipo charging circuit

<comment><USER24> The recently released Linux 5.0 kernel supports energy-aware scheduling, which should help out with this: [https://lwn.net/Articles/749900/](https://lwn.net/Articles/749900/)

<comment><USER25> Finding a recent board that can run mainline kernels may be a challenge.

<comment><USER26> Indeed, that's what makes the raspberry pi so hard to beat, even though I'm just a hobbyist using it as a tinker toy.

If something major breaks software-wise you can be pretty sure that the rPi community is large enough to produce a fix within hours.

OTOH if you'd like a new kernel for that fancy $65 big.LITTLE 4GB dualchannel ECC Gigabit PCIe SBC then you're at the mercy of your vendor who considers 4.4 LTS ought to be good enough and already reassigned the entire dev team to work on a future hardware release. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Y'know, I'd _really_ like someone to produce a proper Linux tablet 7/8 inch that was affordable and wasn't 1/2inch thick. I can dream I guess...

</comment><comment><USER28> Biggest deal in my opinion is 2 dedicated USB2 _hosts_, in addition to a USB3 host. The raspberry pi multiplexes (i.e. uses a 4 way USB hub) it's ports. If I remember correctly the Ethernet is also multiplexed on the same bus. This makes connecting multie cameras and streaming over Ethernet a problem.

</comment><comment><USER29> Had to wait a long time to get a Build-to-order email for the old pinebook after I sign up. Maybe I sign up today I'll get a pinebook pro before it stops being cool.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think I might just found the replacement for my 2015 MBP.

<comment><USER30> I'm curious what you're doing where a $200 laptop replaces your (presumably) $1300+ MacBook Pro.

<comment><USER31> I'm considering ordering the pinebook as a replacement for my rMBP too.

For me, CPU power and RAM are not that important, I don't need MacOS (any unix system will do for me) and I don't play games (or at least none that would require a powerful GPU).

The pinebook offers 4k60 over USB-C (my MPB only does 4k30 over hdmi, and the mDP ports on the early rMBP have a design flaw that makes them unusable for 4k monitors). The 10Ah battery in combination with the low-power hardware should give very good battery life.

What I'm looking for in a laptop is a metal case, decent keyboard and upgradability. The pinebook seems to offer just that. At a low enough pricepoint not to be disappointed if it has some flaws. (Any flaw on a 3000 euro macbook would make me mad, and it has many).

<comment><USER32> > mDP ports on the early rMBP have a design flaw that makes them unusable for > 4k monitors

what is the context on this? I have a 2015 MBPr hooked up to two 4k monitors on my desk right now, and I am not having any issues...

I would also worry about the GFX ability to actually output 4k/60 for anything other than a terminal (The ARM Mali-T860MP4 GPU doesn't look like it is going to be able to deal with 4k video for example)

<comment><USER31> The early (first?) retina macbook pro's (sold from mid 2012 till 2013) have a design flaw on the motherboard, this causes external 4k displays to show noise, weird colors, lose sync or not turn on at all. Apple 'solved' this by not listing the 2012 macbook pro on the supported device list for 4k monitors [0] (this list appeared in 2015)

It seems like a signal timing issue on the early motherboards. The macbook negotiates 60Hz with the monitor, but as soon as the monitor switches to 60Hz it loses sync. If you install linux you can work around this issue by forcing the output to 30Hz.

The issue was solved in the following motherboard revision, somewhere in 2013. So that's why your MBP plays nice with your monitors.

[0] [https://support.apple.com/nl-nl/HT206587](https://support.apple.com/nl- nl/HT206587)

(btw, I was not complaining that my almost-7-year-old 2012 device does not work with modern 4k displays. I was just trying to explain why a 200USD pinebook would be an upgrade over my 2012 macbook.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Very tempted to buy the Pinebook Pro - if the battery life delivers, could be a great machine to tinker with that can still run my daily workflow.

</comment><comment><USER34> It's great that we have access cheap and open hardware projects like these! This new product line up is exciting.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm really interested in the Pinebook64 Pro. What retailers are selling them or when can I pre-order?</comment>


Modern Times: A Space Odyssey [video] - driftsumi-e http://vimeo.com/17631561

<comment> driftsumi-e From the video description:

"Made with no money, just a little time and a lot of passion."

Complete accuracy of that claim aside, the behind-the-scenes video (<http://vimeo.com/17761334>) is a good reminder of what ingenuity and passion can do.</comment>


LaTeX in the cloud with Sage - <AUTHOR> http://sagemath.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/latex-in-cloud.html

<comment><USER2> This looks useful to me. And compared with the difficulties of getting LaTeX to build on an iPad, it's a quite acceptable next best thing.

ETA: the author's discussion of TeX logfile parsing is particularly useful to me at the moment.</comment>


5 all-time domain expirations in Internet's history - <AUTHOR> http://whoapi.com/blog/1582/5-all-time-domain-expirations-in-internets-history/

<comment><USER2> I find this an interesting challenge: I tried to think of whether there is any way to turn this into a profitable _and_ ethical business opportunity, but couldn't. Can anybody?

By ethical I mean you don't try to drop catch the domains and sell them back (that's illegal I believe, even if you only ask for a small payment?).

Presumably you can't be a good Samaritan that monitors and makes an effort to contact sites that are near to losing their domains -- they'd have no incentive to pay you anything because there is no existing relationship, and they can renew the domain without your involvement.

Alternatively, as soon as you attempt to build a model that establishes such a relationship, your model is doomed to fail for the same reason you want your business to exist: if the company owning the domain can't keep on top of paying the domain, why would they keep on top of paying you? If they had the foresight to pay you, wouldn't they have the foresight to ensure the domain renewals get handled?

Is there a workable model? Or perhaps I'm overly critical; maybe there really is value in a business that double-checks things like this for you, maybe you could cold-email business and sell such a service?

</comment><comment><USER3> In December of 2009, Americanas.com, the e-shop counterpart of Lojas Americanas (one of Brazil's largest retail stores), forgot to renew their domain.

www.americanas.com.br still worked, but the shop is actually called Americanas.com, and losing the domain the company is named after is a bit of a problem.

</comment><comment><USER4> That title makes no sense at all. Perhaps they meant "5 all-time worst domain expirations"?

<comment><USER5> HN automatically strips certain words from titles. Sometimes it messes up the titles a bit. The word here was probably "Top".

<comment><USER6> But, it looks like the title's the same on the actual site.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Run VSCode on iPhone and iPad - <AUTHOR> https://vseditor.app/ <comment><USER2> FYI - you can host this yourself in a docker container using [https://github.com/cdr/code-server](https://github.com/cdr/code-server) .

I recently set this up on a server running from my home (only accessible via WireGuard) precisely so I can code anywhere from my iPhone. Combined with a folding bluetooth keyboard (because typing code on an iPhone screen is terrible), it's turning out to be a pretty useful portable dev environment.

<comment><USER3> I went the same route but it was too buggy and slow for me, I found screen sharing to be better using Jump Desktop.

<comment><USER2> My experience has been the opposite; it's significantly faster than any screen sharing I've ever used, and I've not encountered any bugs so far. I suppose there are a lot of factors at play (connection speed, server specs, phone specs, etc), so YMMV.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is neat. I'd love to be able to code in an iPad.

Related, I found GitPod a while back, it offers a VSCode experience and also manages running services for you.

[https://www.gitpod.io/](https://www.gitpod.io/)

<comment><USER5> What keeps you from using Visual Studio Codespaces?

<comment><USER6> Gitpod has been around for a while longer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > The app uses code-server, a browser version of Visual Studio Code hosted by > me so there is nothing to setup.

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice! I recently ditched my older 15" MacBook Pro for a MacBook Air and configured the VS Code Remote Container plugin to run against a $20/mo Digital Ocean server and it's been mostly good so far!

I was so tired of my MacBook Pro's fans being constantly on and always needing to be plugged in with dev servers and VS Code extensions running. Github Workspaces look promising too, looks like the same work.

<comment><USER9> I did the same. It's been a huge game changer for productivity for me. We have a docker heavy stack that can easily chug 6gb of RAM, and that's even before considering all the Docker bugs with high CPU usage on Mac when using bind mounts. Now, my computer is silent, and my dev environment is running 24/7 so I can instantly context switch into it without my laptop heating up or needing to close programs or anything like that. It really has increased my productivity substantially.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> $2.99 a month for a web view around the existing open source online vscode? No thanks.

</comment><comment><USER11> This seems like the author of the service has complete access to your code.

</comment><comment><USER12> Great effort. But here's why I will not be buying it:

1\. Source code is EVERYTHING. Especially when it comes to my clients'.

2\. $2.99/mo? Really? I understand that you have a server running where my code is stored (scary), but $2.99/month is insane.

The app could have been a wrapper or a render which allows my own code-server IP to be entered and your customizations kick in. That, would have made it much more valuable than me paying for a open source project as well as to have my proprietary information stored in your server.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is not my project, just something I found while looking for similar alternatives. I agree with your points though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This looks awesome!

</comment><comment><USER14> No Android :( ?</comment>


ITable - Amazing new multi-touch table that's better than Surface - <AUTHOR> http://multi-touch-screen.net/

<comment><USER2> That background looks an awful lot like ubuntu's.</comment>


Strange Plants of Socotra Island - <AUTHOR> http://www.binscorner.com/pages/s/strange-plants-of-socotra-island.html?z=10

<comment><USER2> Here's an exact duplicate of this article on another spammy aggregator from five years ago:

[http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/most-alien- looking-p...](http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/most-alien-looking- place-on-earth.html)

I don't really have a point.

edit: I do have a point. This is a "mirror" of the OP's site, now that its server has crashed. And if this one crashes too, just search "blooming elephant leg" for another dozen "mirrors". (Best viewed with AdBlock, Ghostery).

<comment><USER3> Socotra gets posted on reddit a lot too, though I have never seen this walled city.

I asked my family for Dragon's Blood Tree seeds for Xmas last year and they seem to have not taken me seriously =(

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sadly it is not advisable for tourists to visit Socotra, as access is only through Yemen.</comment>


Russia, Glenn Beck agree: Google fomenting actual revolutions - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/russia-glenn-beck-agree-google-fomenting-actual-revolutions.ars

<comment><USER2> I'm just gonna throw this out there.

Glenn Beck is a fucking crackpot.

Other crazy shit Glenn Beck has said:

"I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today." –on why people who lost their homes in forest fires in California had it coming, "The Glenn Beck Program," Oct. 22, 2007

"Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization...And you must silence all dissenting voices. That's what Hitler did. That's what Al Gore, the U.N., and everybody on the global warming bandwagon [are doing]." –"The Glenn Beck Program," May 1, 2007

Edit: I can't comment on whether Vladimir Putin's is a Crackpot.

<comment><USER3> He's so frustrating to me as a libertarian. He sometimes says things I agree with so I want to believe he's not a complete lunatic but then he wears those glasses and starts writing on a chalkboard...

He did a show on one of my favorite books (The Road to Serfdom) and got people buying it which I think is a good thing.

I've only seen his show from clips on the Daily Show though. I have no interest in wasting my life watching his show.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is about defending crony capitalism. The patrons of the radical right make lots of money cooperating with authoritarian regimes in oil-rich countries, so lapdogs like Beck do what they can to move popular opinion in their favor.

<comment><USER5> Do you believe the radical left is on your side?

<comment><USER4> Who is this radical left you speak of? Do you mean Comedy Central? I don't think that there is a left-wing analogue of the radical right with anything approaching the same level of organization, funding or popular impact.

I would think that as Americans we would all be on the side of people overthrowing repressive, autocratic, even murderous regimes. It saddens me that Beck et al are not.

<comment><USER5> I'm for the overthrow of repressive, autocratic and murderous regimes as long as there is some hope of replacing it with something better. I'm not sure that's the case in Egypt but I hope it is. Egypt will not be better off if the muslim brotherhood takes over and institute sharia law.

<comment><USER6> Just to be clear - unless there is a certain better replacement the murderous regimes should be left in power?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What I just can't wrap my head around is this: I thought that the whole point of Beck et. al. was the we should give more freedoms to Companies (and business). So why is it a problem when a company decides to start influencing people?

<comment><USER8> The "whole point" is to sell advertising and books. Having a coherent set of ideas is not necessary.</comment></comment>


Android App Recommendation - <AUTHOR> looking for some android apps similir to shareit and vidmate <comment><AUTHOR> [https://get-shareit.com](https://get-shareit.com) [https://get- vidmateapk.com](https://get-vidmateapk.com)

</comment><comment><USER2> TrebleShot and NewPipe. Both are available on Fdroid.</comment>


Bitcoin iOS app open sourced - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/udibr/bitcoinApp

<comment><USER2> Looks pretty nice: [https://github.com/udibr/bitcoinApp/blob/master/BitCoin/Scre...](https://github.com/udibr/bitcoinApp/blob/master/BitCoin/Screenshot%202011.04.18%2011.00.07.png)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> it seems like they're also doing some sort of ad hoc distribution for those without dev tools: [https://testflightapp.com/join/25bf5108ebf60dd935baa57f36856...](https://testflightapp.com/join/25bf5108ebf60dd935baa57f36856aee- OTkzNQ/)

<comment><USER3> Testflight is generally limited to 100 people/devices (as that's the limit Apple gives a developer account)

<comment><USER4> 100 Per Developer, and now it's open source, meaning any developer can package it distribute it via this method.

<comment><USER3> you will need more than a single testflight link for that distribution scheme to work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have also created one bitcoin iPhone app which Apple rejected: <https://github.com/kangasbros/BitcoinWatch-iPhone>

It is a just very simple app for following mtgox USD rate/market depth/last trades.

<comment><USER6> Why did they reject it?

<comment><USER5> Not useful enough/simple apps which act just as a frontend to a web site are rejected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Has anyone put it on a Cydia repo yet?

</comment><comment><USER8> Will there be an Android version?

<comment><AUTHOR> there's bitcoiner: <https://market.android.com/details?id=net.lwi.bitcoiner>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Mostly useless, because it will run only on jailbroken iDevices.

<comment><USER10> Which is about 10% of all iDevices, so not particularly useless. (And, as others gave said, that doesn't even include the developers who can sign and install it for themselves, as well.)

<comment><USER11> For those interested in Bitcoin right now (mostly geeks) i'd say the % of jailbroken iDevices is much higher, i'd throw 80% out as a guess.

<comment><USER4> 80% is a gross overestimation.

<comment><USER2> Most people interested in Bitcoins right now are geeks and the majority of geeks should have jailbroken their iPhones.

80% of the whole iPhone user mass is a gross overestimation, but I don't think that it's an overestimation to say that 80% of huge geeks have jailbroken their iPhones.

<comment><USER12> A lot of my friends are "geeks", and none of them have a jailbroken iPhone. In fact, the only person I know who has a jailbroken iPhone is a regular teenager, and that's because he refuses to pay for apps.

<comment><USER13> How many of your friends use Bitcoins?

<comment><USER12> Zero.

<comment><USER13> Right, so your data point is not really relevant to the conversation. The implication was that anyone interested in bitcoin would probably have a jailbroken phone, and since none of your friends are interested in bitcoin, whether or not they have a jailbroken iphone is not particularly relevant. The original context was:

 _For those interested in Bitcoin right now (mostly geeks) I'd say the percentage of jailbroken iDevices is much higher, i'd throw 80% out as a guess._

I think we can all agree that this is reasonable.

<comment><USER4> I use bitcoin and I don't jailbreak my iPhone.

<comment><USER14> I use bitcoin and I jailbreak my iPhone.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: RssPercolator – A .NET library for downloading and filtering RSS feeds - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/olviko/RssPercolator

<comment><AUTHOR> If you like Yahoo Pipes as a concept this library is for you ;-)

      - RSS and Atom feed formats
      - Asynchronous multi-feed download
      - Multiple sources and multiple destinations
      - Feed filters (string match, wildcards, and Regex</comment>


What it takes - <AUTHOR> https://thinkfitcode.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/what-it-takes/

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this article for the people who read my fitness blog, but I believe it has sound tips for entrepreneurs as well. Thanks for reading!</comment>


A Five-Step Process for Planning a Rewrite of a Legacy Project - <AUTHOR> https://exceptionnotfound.net/a-five-step-process-for-planning-a-rewrite-of-a-legacy-project/ <comment><USER2> Some good points if you _have_ to do a rewrite, but:

> we developers see a crazy mishmash of old requirements, dead code, unpaid > technical debt, and ersatz business logic. We developers see a chance to > make things better...

A rewrite to escape technical debt is akin to burning the house down because you are tired of paying the mortgage. A rewrite to get rid of dead code is akin to...I dunno, I cant even think of an analogy. But come on, just install ReSharper, select "find issues", delete all dead code. It will take less time than writing the blog post about the rewrite project.

Rule of thumb: The forces which have caused the previous project to accumulate technical debt are still in effect, so after the rewrite reaches feature parity you will probably have exactly the same amount of technical debt. If on the other hand you introduce measures which can control and reduce technical debt, why not apply them to the current project and save the rewrite?

And you are not going to get rid of the old requirements and ersatz business logic by rewriting, which is one of the good points the article make.

<comment><USER3> > The forces which have caused the previous project to accumulate technical > debt are still in effect, so after the rewrite reaches feature parity you > will probably have exactly the same amount of technical debt.

I would expect, based on both theoretical grounds and on past experience, that the rewrite will have _more_ technical debt by the time it has reached feature parity.

Assuming your primary source of technical debt is all the little corners that get cut in order to meet a schedule, and assuming that the rewrite is being given far less time to get to a certain level of functionality than the original software took to get there, then one would expect the team to need to cut more corners to finish the rewrite. The code may be in a fancy new language, and it may be built on a more modern technology stack, but, in the mad rush to get a death march project done as quickly as possible, corners were cut.

If it feels otherwise, it may be because the project you're replacing was particularly messy. But probably it's because the design tradeoffs in the new system were made by yourself and your colleagues instead of that deranged pack of yahoos who were running things in the '00s.

<comment><USER4> > Assuming your primary source of technical debt is all the little corners > that get cut in order to meet a schedule, and assuming that the rewrite is > being given far less time to get to a certain level of functionality than > the original software took to get there, then one would expect the team to > need to cut more corners to finish the rewrite.

That's a good point, but it considers only "internal" technical debt. Legacy platforms often have "external" technical debt that you are carrying, especially when they are unsupported by the original vendor. Rewrites are often motivated by the desire to escape this external technical debt, and end up trading a reduction in external technical debt for an increase in internal technical debt.

<comment><USER3> By "external" technical debt, do you mean crufty old 3rd-party components? Why not deal with those by just swapping out that one component?

edit: Nvm, realize you're probably talking about something like migrating off of VB6, or ditching a mainframe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If it is a complex project, I usually would avoid a rewrite. There is good literature on how to approach modernization of legacy applications step-by- step. Read it, apply it. In the end the modernization is a re-write. It's just one where you don't loose features.

For webapps you can even do this while changing languages (with a router that delegates some things to the old api and others to the new api).

</comment><comment><USER6> I always found an iterative refactoring of the old code a better engineering approach: small changes that do not modify the external behavior, but end up extracting a better design. Martin Fowler expressed it clearly in a 1999 book: "Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code"

Another approach that I would advice using is studying the usage pattern of the current code base (analyze the logs over a long timespan, and/or instrument the server), in order to avoid making assumptions about how the old codebase is used.

The idea is that an old project, albeit ridden with awkward technical debt, is a project that is currently delivering business value, and - as such - it is important to have ways in your toolbox to extract meaningful information from it, filtering out the bad parts

</comment><comment><USER7> This is the most pertinent article on rewrites for me. 17 years old but very relevant.

[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you- should-...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never- do-part-i/)

<comment><USER8> Indeed. I expected an article on rewriting software to at least cite this, if not quote from it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Perhaps I'm being rude, but it seems like it was pretty small if it was completed within a year's time. Wish there were more details about the actual size of what was rewritten.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yes, but who will rewrite the rewritten code?

(Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)</comment>


Wake Word: An Algorithmic Nightmare Game - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/31/18140796/wake-word-algorithm-text-game-ai-artificial-intelligence <comment><USER2> It's possible to get into a losing state where you've sabotaged your social rating so far that you can't ride to work anymore.

It's safe to restart – they let you skip the lengthy training session the second time around.

</comment><comment><USER3> It doesn't work in my browser. Shame. I really felt like wasting some time just now.

<comment> ryan-allen What browser are you using?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What was your most interesting ending?

<comment><USER5> Rejecting the terms of service(at the medicine cabinet)

Getting to work - which would have been more impactful if I did not make it the first ending I reached

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone find all the endings?

<comment><USER7> Wrote a short list of the endings and how to get them (spoilers): [https://pastebin.com/xCdf9Yph](https://pastebin.com/xCdf9Yph)

There's a short scene that triggers once you've found every other ending.

<comment><USER6> Bigger spoiler: you can import the game data in the tw-storydata tag into [https://twinery.org/2](https://twinery.org/2)</comment></comment></comment>


Putting "Search" into Google yields a surprising result - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/search?q=search <comment><USER2> A few years back, Sergey and Larry were on NPR's Fresh Air. At one point in the interview, Terry Gross says "I tried searching for 'Google' by putting 'Google' into the search box and clicking I'm Feeling Lucky, but it didn't seem to do anything." Larry tries to explain what happened, but it seemed to go over Terry's head. At one point during the explanation I think Sergey mentioned recursion, and Terry asks "Recur-what?" To which Larry's reply was something like "Sergey is just geeking out, nevermind."

edit: maybe I'm misrembering the details a bit. From <http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/17770.htm> -

"Yah, it was a pretty interesting segment. Sergey talked about idempotence. :) The host (terry gross?) wondered why when you go to www.google.com and type in google and hit I'm Feeling Lucky, it went back to the main google page. Larry called it recursion. I could just imagine NPR listeners' heads shaking all across America. :)"

<comment><USER3> Side note: With results-as-you-type now being the default even from the Google front page, isn't "I'm feeling lucky" a totally vestigial button at this point?

<comment><USER4> Another non-cited story I've heard is an A/B test, or similar, was once done where they removed the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button from the front page, and an overwhelming number of users said they did not like the solitary search button. Having both gave the users a sense of choice, even though (as the story goes), "I'm feeling lucky" is used by only a small fraction of a percent of users.

<comment><USER5> And humorously enough, the present "I'm feeling lucky" button literally _cannot be pressed_ ... except on the initial, empty search box ... under which circumstances it leads you to ... a list old Google Doodles... Feelin' Lucky now? Guy...

<comment><USER6> Umm, I just used it and it worked fine.

List > (i am feeling lucky) = <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_%28programming_language%29>

PS: Not everyone enables scripts.

<comment><USER5> I suppose it depends on the browser and whether you use Google instant (which is on by default).

As soon as I type a letter, the "lucky" button vanishes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This makes sense to me. If you're using google to find 'search', you're probably not searching for google.

<comment><USER8> Unless you don't know what search is, and you don't know you're using search.

<comment><USER9> Good point, the first result should be to the Wikipedia article on search.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is ancient, it's been like this since before I joined Google, which was before Bing came out. I think back then Dogpile was #1 (??), then Yahoo, then MSN Live. Occasionally it comes up and people get a good chuckle out of it.

<comment><USER11> So honestly, shouldn't google show up as the top result for search? Does the fact that it doesn't prove that Google does, occasionally manually 'fudge' search results?

<comment><USER12> Well, why would google put itself as the top search result, when you are already on google search. And also, recently, there was some complaint (don't remember exactly who filed the complaint) about the anti-competitive movement of google when it comes to always showing google maps results when searching for locations. Anyhow, just my view of this.

<comment><USER13> Why would Dogpile come up as #1?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I suppose that's what $2.6 billion in annual operating losses buys you.

<comment><USER15> ouch.

<comment><USER15> I knew there would be those who negged that comment. Get a life people, get a life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's not that surprising, Google doesn't have to optimize for 'search' because they're synonymous for it.

<comment><USER17> Not only that, but if you're already on _Google_ searching for 'search', Google is clearly not what you're looking for...

<comment><USER18> You haven't seen some of my friends try to use a computer.

<comment><USER17> It's only worse when they use Chrome's omninbar to Google 'Google', then Google 'Google' on Google to get to Google

<comment><USER19> I remember once seeing a list of top X popular searches which included the term 'www.hotmail.com'. While I've no doubt it'd work, the level of understanding necessary to even attempt it is somewhat scary.

<comment><USER20> Um, I consider myself a native of computer-land and do this _all the time_. People accidentally type stuff in the wrong place. That doesn't mean they're cretins.

<comment><USER4> My father's computer uses msn.com as the homepage, which automatically grabs the focus and puts in in the search field of MSN. I'd guess that 90% of his queries on MSN are w.example.com, where the first "W"s are in the address bar where he placed his cursor, and then the actual input is queried to Bing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _"Dogpile.com makes searching the Web easy, because it has all the best search engines piled into one."_

My brain just exploded.

<comment><USER22> Don't knock it, in the late 90s every search engine sucked in its own special way. Dogpile was great back then, and IIRC that's how I first encountered Google.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, there was a brief window in the mid-90's when Dogpile was definitely in the top 2. It replaced Metacrawler as my main search for a few months, as I recall.

<comment><USER24> I used Altavista right up until I first heard of Google. Before Altavista I used Webcrawler (<http://thinkpink.com/bp/WebCrawler/History.html>).

<comment><USER25> Ahh you're bringing back memories. I was av.com (altavista) before google, and yahoo.com before that. It's easy to forget how much search engines sucked before google.

<comment><USER26> Same here!

But I remember using Altavista for a long time after switching to Google because of Babelfish (translator0 and Image Search (was it Altavista?)

Today I use DuckDuckGo a lot.

<comment><USER23> Yup, that was Altavista.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Since "Google" has become its own verb, it makes sense that few people link to google.com with the word "Search".

</comment><comment><USER28> Search for 'search' on Bing and Google comes up first as well: [http://www.bing.com/search?q=search&go=&qs=n&sk=...](http://www.bing.com/search?q=search&go=&qs=n&sk=&sc=8-4&form=QBLH&filt=all)

They return the favour perhaps?

<comment><USER29> Yahoo for me too

<comment><USER30> search.com came up first for me

<comment><USER31> I have Yahoo, search.com, Videos of Search (!) and then google.

<comment><USER32> Hmmmm.... <http://dontbubble.us/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> My guess for the reason is this: <http://www.google.com/trends?q=google%2C+search>

Note the epic rise of "google" as a search, and the _decline_ of "search". "Googling" is _replacing_ "searching".

</comment><comment><USER34> Maybe it's because in recent years, much more has been written about Bing as a search engine.

</comment><comment><USER35> What's even funnier, if you click on "I'm Feeling Lucky", you are automatically transferred to Bing.

It would be nice if they would prepopulate Bing search box with search query.

<comment><USER36> The 'I'm Feeling Lucky' button just redirects you to the top result doesn't it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Wasn't it just a few weeks ago, there were complaints that Google favored its own properties in its search results? What happens to that claim now?

<comment><USER38> Just do a search for anything local and you'll see.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Some things go without saying.

That, of course, means they go without linking.

</comment><comment><USER26> Hotmail is #1 result for me when you search for "e-mail". :-)

<http://f.cl.ly/items/1X081Z0a2P1E2y2J3U0Y/email.png>

(Gmail is still #1 for "mail" though, probably because of their URL - mail.google.com)

</comment><comment><USER40> I never "search" for things. I "google" them.

</comment><comment><USER41> And the irony is, that Bing's advertising is all about how instead of 'searching', Bing is for 'deciding'. Yet they're not even on the first page for 'decide'. More SEO needed :)

</comment><comment><USER42> Incase the result gets changed, here is the search result page (Bing is #1)

<http://i.imgscalr.com/kmPbJfLoV.png>

<comment><USER43> Not that you may care, but posting photos of Google search result pages is now a dangerous thing and comes with a bunch of privacy concerns.

Search result pages are personalized based on your previous searches and location. Simply from the image we can tell where you live (even if it didn't say so explicitly in the left tool bar).

<comment><USER44> And even tells that you're on Windows (characteristic ClearType).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Pretty sure that they know about it. Just shows the google's strong position on the market - then can show bing.com as the first result and still remain the first-choice web search engine ever created.

Not sure whats up with the "feeling lucky" button as if you type something to the input box, it redirects you straight to the live search. You cannot really specify what do you want feel lucky about ;)

</comment><comment><USER46> Google Search doesn't appear at all if I do the search on Google.no. Yahoo comes first, followed by Bing and search.com. Twitter, AOL and 4shared (a file sharing site) are all on the list, and so is "Google Insights for Search".

I wonder if this reflects the relative popularity of the alternative search engines in different countries. Google's search ranking algorithms hold many mysteries.

</comment><comment><USER47> The interesting thing for me is that it returned a couple of Japanese results in the first page, with the characters "検索" highlighted. I've done a few Japanese searches from this computer before, which I guess is why it's giving me Japanese results, but I was surprised to see them translate search into Japanese and rank the results along with the English results.

</comment><comment><USER48> The most surprising thing about it for me is that it told me that someone I knew had shared bing on buzz earlier this year.

</comment><comment><USER49> This is good for Google. They don't want to appear to be a monopoly. Google needs Bing to be mildly successful.

</comment><comment><USER50> [http://www.bing.com/search?setmkt=en- US&q=search](http://www.bing.com/search?setmkt=en-US&q=search) gives you Yahoo as the first result. Google is 3rd result.

</comment><comment><USER29> By the way, I realized that I cannot click on "I'm felling lucky" anymore for any keyword since the google instant immediately fires up.. :( Used to spend quite a bit of time doing that.

</comment><comment><USER51> This one is more surprising : <http://www.google.com/search?q=search+engine>

</comment><comment><USER52> Google appears as the last result on the search page!

<comment><USER53> same here, 1st result: newyork.citysearch.com - New York, NY City Guide - Reviews and Recommendations by Citysearch

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> It also knew very well what my location is and was blatant in using this knowledge to direct me to my local citysearch, for example.

</comment><comment><USER55> I wonder why they even have the "I am lucky" or even the Google Search button as tyrping even a letter takes me to the results page.

</comment><comment><USER56> Google is first on google.com.au

<comment><USER57> Yeah, I did the search, saw google.com.au first and wasn't surprised at all.

For those interested, but not interested enough to visit the AU site the results are: 1\. www.google.com.au 2\. www.bing.com 3\. jobsearch.gov.au 4\. www.dogpile.com 5\. www.seek.com.au 6\. www.search.com 7\. www.webwombat.com.au 8\. au.altavista.com 9\. www.peoplesearch.com.au 10\. www.search.org.au

Basically a bunch of search engines, a couple of job sites and a couple of sites with search in their name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> bing.com has yahoo at the top haha. [http://www.bing.com/search?q=search&go=&qs=n&sk=...](http://www.bing.com/search?q=search&go=&qs=n&sk=&sc=8-0&form=QBLH)

</comment><comment><USER59> Google's first result is Bing.

Bing's first result is Yahoo.

Yahoo's first result is Yahoo. Way to break the cycle.

<comment><USER60> Yahoo uses Bing...

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> <http://duckduckgo.com/?q=search>

<http://gigablast.com/search?q=search>

</comment><comment><USER62> Take a look at Sponsered Ads on bing and google

</comment><comment><USER63> Maybe this is some sort of inside joke?

</comment><comment><USER64> A proof that Google is so ethical !

</comment><comment><USER65> Google _sells_ advertisements.

</comment><comment><USER66> if you type "search engine" google doen't even show up on the 1st page atleast.

</comment><comment><USER67> I can't see duckduck :(

</comment><comment><USER68> dogpile is still around? didn't know that.

</comment><comment><USER69> Oh, algorithms.

</comment><comment><USER70> On Bing, "search" goes to Yahoo.

<comment><USER71> Which (unsurprisingly, as noted by the replies) itself yields Yahoo when you search "search" [1]

[1] [http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AjCXgFY8lSKJSSw5JLdr1HSb...](http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AjCXgFY8lSKJSSw5JLdr1HSbvZx4?p=search&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-413)

<comment><USER72> Yahoo uses Bing.

<comment><USER73> But Google comes before Bing in the search results.

<comment><USER72> The point was that since Yahoo uses Bing for its search you should not expect different results from Bing (that is to say, there is not point searching 'search' on Yahoo after you did it on Bing).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Where's Altavista? :)

<comment><USER75> It kind of scares me that altavista.com still exists. It scares me even more that hotbot.com still exists.

<comment><USER76> Ha, altavista.com is just a Yahoo! search box.

<comment><USER77> Wait, isn't Yahoo! just a Bing search box?

<comment><USER78> As of a couple months ago when I asked this question in relation to duckduckgo.com: Yahoo's primary search page uses Bing, but yahoos API search features still use Yahoo's old system. At some point in the future Yahoo will move the api to use Bing as well. No idea if that time has come and gone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> ... and what does not come up as the first result for "decision"?</comment>


Hollywood Spurs Surge in Computer Science Majors - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/technology/11computing.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all Will people actually stick with it this time around, even if it blows up, or will is CS just a fad all over again? <comment><USER2> Are hollywood movies really motivating career decisions? I like Pirates of the Caribbean, but Im not about to start a career as a privateer. Im thrilled that enrollment in CS classes are finally increasing, but I temper my excitement when I hear the example Ms Fong. Some advise for all new CS students: don't pursue a degree in CS because its glamorous, but because you enjoy programming and problem solving. Life is too short to do something you do not enjoy.

<comment><USER3> "Are hollywood movies really motivating career decisions?"

You bet. When Top Gun came out, enrolment in the Navy and Air Force increased substantially. Wall Street in part fuelled the popularity in a career in finance and I'm willing to bet that Rounders was used in part to justify being a professional poker player for many people.

Also, I'm pretty sure that Blade Runner (at least subconsciously) contributed towards me going back to school and getting a masters in machine learning.</comment></comment>


Federal law enforcement documents about Aaron Swartz, released under FOIA - <AUTHOR> https://swartzfiles.com <comment><USER2> Seeing Aaron made to stand shoeless, handcuffed to a metal bar for over 23 minutes as armed men rifled through his belongings and occasionally asked him questions, I can't help but think this process is designed to be demeaning. This is no way to treat someone who's not been found guilty of committing any crime. And I'm sure this wasn't the worst of it.

If our criminal justice system had more concern for the dignity of the people that went through it, perhaps we'd see less tragedies like Aaron's.

<comment><USER3> I think if there's a lesson to be learned, one-size-fits all treatment of people is the dehumanizing factor.

If the person in the video was a 270 pound guy on his 3rd arrest for B&E and had an arrest history that included violent assault, you'd want him to be chained to a bar without shoes while he was booked.

Aaron was a slightly built kid, with no priors, on a non-violent arrest. But those kinds of details don't filter down to the booking officer, and most police stations are equipped to handle difficult "customers", that's why there's 3 inches of protective glass between the officer and Aaron. There's no special "well he looks like a nice kid" booking room.

The police in the video appeared courteous and non-aggressive. Nobody was tased, beaten or abused. Aaron was arrested and was cuffed and detained, the same as for any other person. As they went through their processing of him, they asked him politely, thanked him for compliance, assured him things would go smooth and he'd be out pretty quick. They asked him about his medication, verified what it was, asked when he needed his next dose. In terms of police treatment of a person under arrest, this is pretty nice. Of course he's going to be handcuffed, he _is_ in police custody after all.

They're not going to just find a comfortable chair for him and ask him if he wants to share in the squadroom's latest pizza delivery while the booking officer runs out for lattes?

This is what being under arrest actually looks like.

Standing for 23 minutes is hardly cruel or unusual. He wasn't being badgered, they weren't using coercive tactics on him, they didn't even ask him any questions about his case. It was Aaron after all who admits to walking onto MIT's property without a question being asked of him!

As tragic as what happened to Aaron is, and the feelings about it that I'm sure you and I both share on the subject. Messing around with other people's property and consequently the law enforcement the might come from that is not something you want to be doing ill prepared.

Was MIT's handling poor? Was JSTORs? There's a healthy debate to be had about that. But w/r to the police and the circumstances of his arrest he _was_ treated about as humanly as the system allows for now.

In the end, Aaron took his own life. The same naïveté that caused him to look at a closed service door and think "that's a place I'm going to set a computer up and harvest hundreds of thousands of research papers, nobody will know" is also what caused him to buckle under the immense pressure of legal entanglement. He wasn't put to death, executed, beaten to death, tortured or any other horrible thing. He did something against the law and ended up in the grind of the system. The system, instead of treating him like a sensitive special snowflake like we'd like them to have, treated him like any of the other thousands of people it handles every day.

It's a shitty way to be treated, but if you want to be in a public fight for your principles, it's something you have to be mentally prepared for. If what you are doing might get you arrested, this is how the legal system works. Be prepared.

<comment><USER4> > _Aaron was a slightly built kid, with no priors, on a non-violent arrest. > But those kinds of details don 't filter down to the booking officer, and > most police stations are equipped to handle difficult "customers", that's > why there's 3 inches of protective glass between the officer and Aaron. > There's no special "well he looks like a nice kid" booking room._

You make it sound like something unavoidable. Most western countries in Europe have managed to offer a much better experience.

> _The police in the video appeared courteous and non-aggressive. Nobody was > tased, beaten or abused._

That's a pretty low bar.

<comment><USER3> Have you been arrested and booked in most Western Countries in Europe?

I've _actually_ been in police stations in a few countries (not under arrest) and they all look about the same.

What exactly, in your imagination, do you think police stations look like? A comfortable memory foam massage chair and complimentary espresso bar while a soft voice introduced them to their customized "arrest experience"?

> That's a pretty low bar.

Well, comments here seem to think that his treatment was somehow unusual or egregious when it's pretty normal and pretty nice and the things that could have turned it into a black eye for the police didn't happen. It's just nit- pickery, people looking to blame somebody other than Aaron for taking his own life.

It sucks, it's shitty, I feel bad about what happened with him, I'm pretty upset about it also, but I'm not going to get ridiculous and start pointing fingers at places where there's no pointing to be done.

<comment><USER4> > _Have you been arrested and booked in most Western Countries in Europe? I > 've actually been in police stations in a few countries (not under arrest) > and they all look about the same._

No, I've actually seen people being arrested in several Western Countries in Europe (and in the US). And have been in a couple of police stations (and many more in my home country, were we also go for bureacratic reasons, like getting some permits, passports, etc).

> _What exactly, in your imagination, do you think police stations look like? > A comfortable memory foam massage chair and complimentary espresso bar while > a soft voice introduced them to their customized "arrest experience"?_

About that memory foam massage chair. Here is a prison in Norway compared to a US prison:

[http://theday.co.uk/politics/lessons-in-law-from-world-s- mos...](http://theday.co.uk/politics/lessons-in-law-from-world-s-most-humane- prison)

Check out images from Swedish, Danish, Swiss, German etc prisons. The worst are perhaps the French ones, and even them can be better than US conditions.

Oh, and yes, some arrests involve coffee with the interoggator and soft voices. Especially for high profile persons, which would include someone like Aaron.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm very curious why they feel the need to redact the location of MIT's Office of General Counsel (see MIT Communications with US Attorney(1) [0]). That information is freely available on the OGC's website [1].

[0]: [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1355271-mit- communic...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1355271-mit- communications-with-us-attorney-1.html) [1]: [http://ogc.mit.edu/](http://ogc.mit.edu/)

<comment><USER6> It may be some blanket Personally Identifiable Information policy wherein they have to redact anything remotely related to PII, even if that information is easily obtainable from other sources.

<comment><USER3> I think this is the correct answer. They also kill the sound when they're asking him his address and phone number in the arrest video.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pardon my laziness: is there anything to be seen from these documents/media that we didn't know before? Anything surprising/interesting? If so, a quick summary and/or a link would be appreciated.

<comment><USER3> Not really, the JSTOR document gives you some behind the scenes emails on the service degradation Aaron was causing and their interactions with MIT.

If you were running a service scaled to handle a few hundred requests per minute and somebody starting downloading hundreds of thousands of things as quickly as possible, resulting servers crashing, etc....well it's the kind of email conversations you'd expect as they tried to deal with it, IP address locating, log file dumps, statistics, questions if it's like another previous case they dealt with, cutting off service to MIT, MIT asking why they did that, discussions back and forth over the license and service agreement, making the usage agreement more present for users, etc.

There's surveillance photos of the setup Aaron was using, the room it was all in and him entering and leaving the room.

There's a copy of the Swartz-JSTOR settlement agreement.

Lawyer's emails back and forth, etc.

To be honest, if you've ever been part of any kind of contractual or legal proceeding it's pretty banal stuff and appears pretty cut and dry: Aaron went where he wasn't supposed to go and did something he wasn't supposed to do, it involved 2 aggrieved parties and the local criminal code.

There's not really anything terribly unusual about any of it. If Aaron hadn't taken his own life and hadn't been as well known, it wouldn't be notable in any particular way whatsoever.

<comment><USER8> So the felony network intrusion charges and overzealous prosecution are entirely lost on you? Suicide is the only thing that made the case notable?

<comment><USER3> Felony network intrusion happens probably multiple times per day. There's absolutely _nothing_ interesting about it. To be perfectly honest, I'd probably have tried to bulk download JSTOR if I had access to a network port somewhere on a campus that allowed for unfettered access. Why not?

Would I have hidden a computer in a campus telecom room to do it for me? Probably not. Were the aggrieved parties over-the-top in the actions they took? Probably.

Suicide also doesn't make this particularly notable. People in custody and under criminal charges are going to have a bad time. Unfortunately some of them do kill themselves as a response to that stress.

In the end, Aaron, and the community around him is what makes this notable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can I do this for myself? I mean can I submit a FOIA to see documents that fed gov has on me? Not that I am an important person, but I mean in general, what does it take?

<comment><USER10> If you submit a FOIA request on yourself you will probably be denied.

FOIA Requests are only for organizations, businesses, investigations, historical events, incidents, groups, or deceased persons.

Privacy Act Requests are for yourself. You must include Form DOJ-361 or equivalent when submitting.

<comment><USER11> No. Just no. Please don't take the comment above as valid legal advice.

<comment><USER12> Did you spot a specific issue, or are you just opposed to any form of legal advice given on HN?

<comment><USER13> Well, it would be nice if they cited something, rather than just making general statements that may or may not be true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In case it's not loading for you, it looks like there's a mirror in the CoralCDN: [http://swartzfiles.com.nyud.net/](http://swartzfiles.com.nyud.net/)

</comment><comment><USER15> For those wishing to catch up on the story, I made an archive of Swartz news: [http://newslines.org/aaron-swartz/](http://newslines.org/aaron-swartz/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Did this just go up? It seems to be going down intermittently. Edit: The "zip file" link doesn't work now, although it seemed to before. Maybe they took it down to save bandwidth?</comment>


Ask HN: Why don't you have a blog? - <AUTHOR> Many Hacker News readers and contributors have the technical skills to run their own blog and post their opinions. But instead they prefer to use Twitter or other social networks. Why is this so? Is it the effort? <comment><USER2> I don't want an extremely public record of my personal opinions or thoughts today, because I know they're going to change tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER3> A long time ago, I had a personal blog and posted to it regularly. Nobody read it. I rarely got comments.

Some of my wife's friends wanted to read it, so one of them imported the RSS feed into Livejournal and I discovered it one day. Surprise, there were lots of comments on "my" LJ account and people upset I wasn't answering their questions.

That was a lesson to me that owning the place I publish content isn't as important as being where my audience is, at least if I want people to read it. At the time¸ it was Livejournal. Today, it's social media.

</comment><comment><USER4> I used to have a blog, and I miss it, but I realized long ago that no one gives a shit about anything I have to say. Still have a domain, there's nothing on it, though.

Sometimes I think I'd like to start one up again but, you know, people expect blogs to be put out by experts now - I just did it because I enjoy writing but there's no point if no one is reading, and the people who do expect more from you than you're willing or able to give.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't think I have anything particularly interesting or novel enough to say, and I don't want to add to the deluge of mediocre, self-promoting crap that the already Internet is... I hope to soon (1-2 years from now) have enough time to pursue interesting and novel side projects - I could see myself documenting them on a blog then.

</comment><comment><USER6> IME, blogs that develop a readership worth the time and effort (up to the author, really) are devoted to one topic or a narrow range of related topics. I'm sure we all know of a few. But people's time is limited, and competition for their attention is fierce.

If -who- you reach is more important than -how many- you reach, then blogs might be the right route. I'd bet that Socrates was seldom surrounded by a crowd. Blogging doesn't require many technical skills, but it does demand that what we say is valued by those we can only hope will be back ... and that they have a way to contribute.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't thank blogging is over cause it is currently the best way to explain/understand a long concept, Twitter is, in my opinion juste for quick info related to the present

I expect it to change in the futur, Medium or Quora seem to do a really good job to understand concept but in my opinion there is something meeting ?

I had a blog back in the day, I create it to mostly for free lead, but it take too much time to have effect and when you got it you can decrease in rank, losing all the work you made

</comment><comment><USER8> On my blog I frankly don't want/expect comments. It's intentionally a solitary space for just me. But here it's like being at an interesting party.

OTOH a blog is more SEO friendly, and a better signpost to leave for others on the broader Internet whereas these comments are temporal.

The blog is suited for longer form content with visuals, headers, and structure. The hacker news comment is suited for short and sweet insights

</comment><comment><USER9> > ...But instead they prefer to use Twitter or other social networks. Why is > this so? Is it the effort?

Discovery. Go to where your audience is.

It is much much easier on platforms such as Twitter, Medium, (Substack?) etc, not so much on your own site and blog.

You can "get to market", garner an audience and submit a post quicker on these platforms.

</comment><comment><USER10> I build apps and maintain a blog for whatever app I'm currently working on. For people that might want me to contract, I show them an app on the store I've worked on, and that works well for me. Will probably make a personal blog at some point but haven't had time.

</comment><comment><USER11> My own life is stressful enough, without the all seeing criticizing eye of a world audience.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I responded to some of the comments in my latest blog post: [https://jlelse.blog/posts/why-no-blog/](https://jlelse.blog/posts/why-no- blog/)

</comment><comment> non-entity Cant think of a good name / domain and no idea how get readers anyway.

</comment><comment><USER12> Before I gave up with my blog, many years ago, it had very few readers unless I was doing SEO bullshit or I was spending hours actively promoting it.

In the beginning the effort was fine because it was fun. I even developed it from scratch in Rails, it was the time of these "write a blog with rails in 5 minutes" articles (it took me more time to have something I liked). Blogs were also very popular and you had communities of bloggers. But when social networks replaced blogs, people stopped using RSS feeds or simply visiting blogs.

</comment><comment><USER13> I posted to a blog for a while. I didn't like the disorganized one-off isolated bits of content it produced. With enough content a word cloud could be useful but wasn't what I wanted to make.

Now I post to a personal GitBook site which is more of a personal wiki than a blog. I like the output. I wish I'd started this way from early in my online- era career. Each post aims to either be in story form, or a to-the-point how- to which I know I'll be referring to and trust.

</comment><comment><USER14> Ultimately I prefer sharing my thoughts, opinions and information with people who are part of my life, as opposed to the internet as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER15> • I don't want to admin a server.

• I don't understand what does it mean "to own a domain name", what kind of ID is it tied to.

• I'd have to write a spam-resilient js-free https-free comments system. It'd take time, it'd have to be based on PGP, and in the end nobody would use it.

So I just worship my Fediverse Instance Admin Deity instead, for now.

</comment><comment><USER16> I would rather engage in discussion rather than publish monologues.

This is why I like HN/Twitter/etc.

</comment><comment><USER17> I have a blog but I am unsure how to share & receive feedback in 2020. The online world seems to be trending towards micro-blogging, photos and videos and I worry if people take the time to read long form blog posts.

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't have a blog or Twitter or Facebook anymore and I'm fine with it. I never really got anything out of it. In fact, it was all just me complaining which doesn't do anyone any good. I'm happier not having those channels.

</comment><comment><USER19> My wordpress blog was hacked sometime after my daughter was born about two years ago. Didn't have time to update it so I had to shut it down. I'll blog again. Just don't know when ;-)

</comment><comment><USER20> It's unrealistic I'll gather a bigger readership without much effort. For comparison: I have 6 twitter followers I think...

</comment><comment><USER21> I had one, no one read it. low numbers compared to effort made me stop writing in it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Anxiety to publish

</comment><comment><USER23> Twitter _is_ a blog.

<comment><USER24> A microblogging platform</comment></comment>


List of all "Nokia Plan"-meme sites - <AUTHOR> http://nokiaplans.com/

<comment><USER2> Plan X is especially good. Try the 'Reload for more' link.

<comment><USER3> I got "Sell actual androids to motorola." . And as a milestone owner I approve this plan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apparently Plan S is to do all of them.

<comment><USER5> Yesssss that is my favorite as well....

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> hmm, I dont get it.

<comment><USER7> related to <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2219294>

I don't see this meme lasting more than, oh, the next 15 minutes?

<comment><USER8> Not quite (but almost) as long as Nokia Plan A then.</comment></comment></comment>


Russian Vending Machine Sells Fake Instagram Likes - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/russian-vending-machine-fake-instagram-likes?utm_source=mbtwitter <comment><USER2> Comical but also kind of depressing that fake likes/followers are desirable enough to sell.

<comment><USER3> It's simply business. If people use likes as a proxy to mean quality or happiness about a product then fake likes can be used as a way to bypass those hard to achieve items so that others will buy a product.

That they won't be happy afterwards is the depressing bit. It's like spam, as long as the cost of the spam is substantially lower than the profits on even a single sale it is worth it.

<comment><USER4> A perfect illustration of "what gets measured, gets done".

<comment><USER5> Or, "Once a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> well. the actual big mac also doesn't look like the one on the picture and the people in commercials enjoying products are actually paid actors. also, snowboarders, musicians, etc don't use specific brands due to personal preference, but they get paid to. this is simply "the old ways of thinking" becoming "adapted" to the internet age. quite comical to be honest.

</comment><comment><USER7> Feeding a machine for fake likes, just like the advertisers on facebook.

</comment><comment><USER8> Check fiverr.com also. Saves you the trip to Russia :-)

<comment><USER9> They got personal trainers for your social network account...

Thats just cute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how they determined the price for one like. I'd like to get money back everytime I liked a photo!

</comment><comment><USER11> Why are you calling these 'fakes'? As if most of likes were real ones.

There are whole FACTORIES of likes in China.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwXlunXn0Ws](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwXlunXn0Ws)

<comment><USER12>
        Why are you calling these 'fakes'?

Uh, because they are? Words mean things.

<comment><USER3> Well, on a technicality a 'like' is a counter in a computer somewhere and the bits to count the 'fake likes' are the same bits used to count the 'real likes'. By the time the number of likes is displayed they are to all intents and purposes indistinguishable and identical in every respect.

The failure is on Instagram in not being able to separate out the fake likes from the real ones before they increment the counter.

<comment><USER13> I'm a little confused because you argue all likes are the same and then make the distinction between fake and real likes.

<comment><USER3> It's prior and post accumulation in some counter or for display purposes. So at the moment the like is done it is possible to distinguish between fake and real but after you collapse them into a single counter you no longer can distinguish fake and real.

This is what gives the 'fake likes' their value, that they are then used by Instagram in exactly the same way as real likes. Instagram clearly fails at distinguishing the two, so you really can't fault the users for not being able to do so either. The fact that this service is available and apparently works is a pretty strong bit of evidence that _all_ likes should be distrusted but that's not how it will play out.

<comment><USER14> But is this just a dumb counter though? Instagram shows the list of people who liked a photo.

Say, if one of my friends has a picture with 5 likes from people I recognize, and another friend has a photo with 100 likes from weirdly-named accounts, I can tell which ones are fake.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Paced Email - <AUTHOR> https://www.paced.email <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, I'm Rikki Pitt, the founder of Paced Email ([https://www.paced.email](https://www.paced.email)).

Paced Email aims to help reduce distraction in your inbox. It batches up emails and newsletters into paced summaries, so you're able to concentrate more effectively. Daily, weekly and monthly intervals are currently supported.

How it works:

      - Grab your username
      - Create programmable email aliases on the fly
      - Use your aliases on sites that send you emails too frequently

At the end of each period, your real email address receives a single email containing all of the messages the alias received over that timeframe.

Examples:

      firstname.lastname@example.com
      firstname.lastname@example.com
      firstname.lastname@example.com

More ideas are on the roadmap and will feature in due course. Team support is also in the pipeline. For those that are interested in the inner workings, I've started a document about how I built it: [https://www.paced.email/docs/how-it-works](https://www.paced.email/docs/how- it-works).

The app is still in its infancy, but I'd love to hear your feedback or suggestions. Which services would you use your aliases on first?

<comment><USER2> Hi! I like the idea too, but have some difficulty understanding pricing. Specifically, what does "1 inbox, 50 monthly messages, Unlimited digests" mean? Does 1 inbox mean that my digests will be sent to one of email addresses (e.g., firstname.lastname@example.com)? How about messages? I couldn't quickly find this information on the mobile site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey there, I really ought to update that to make that a bit clearer. It's a tricky one for me to get across. The free plan doesn't have any hard limits, and I've toed-and-froed with what to place under that section in terms of "limits".

What I was trying to say was for the alias, you can get as many paced digests as it takes to receive all the emails it received in the month. Not having hard limits prevents people from not getting all their emails. My plan was to then use those "limits" as a way of encouraging users to move to the premium plan. Premium has some extra functionality around what time of the day digests are sent.

I hope that clarifies the pricing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Update: I've just made it a little clearer. I've also made a note to mention this in the docs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good and useful idea, so kudos. Still, I can't help but feel that this is at the wrong level of the stack. Ideally, my email client should be doing this, and I shouldn't need to have messages go through a middleman. Just a personal gripe and comment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed! In the meantime, this is one way of calming down the distraction in your inbox until it's fixed at a more fundamental level.

Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a very interesting idea, it blew my mind the timeframe subdomain.

I was about to ask about the technologies and I smiled when I saw that in the documentation. Great work and good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. A lot of people asked how it was developed so I decided to document it. Glad you liked it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is genius ! Congratulations for the idea and the execution. It's been a while since a tech product amazed me that much.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your kind words. I'm thinking of starting a section on the site with all the interesting ways in which people are using the service. If you have a moment, I'd love to hear how it's helping you.

Cheers, Rikki</comment></comment>


Our Brain Uses Statistics to Calculate Confidence, Make Decisions - <AUTHOR> http://www.neuroscientistnews.com/research-news/our-brain-uses-statistics-calculate-confidence-make-decisions <comment><USER2> > It is Kepecs' thesis that statistics - generated by the objective processing > of sensory and other data - is the ultimate language of the brain.

Every time I read stuff like this, I lose more confidence that the scientific method as currently applied, funded, and published is capable of truly conquering complex systems like the brain or nutrition.

I read article after article like this one, where a prominent researcher conducts some experiment that shows some result. But listening to that person talk about their work, it becomes clear that this has become their pet theory that they want to be capable of explaining _everything_. As if everything we know about some system will someday be shown to be reducible to one clean, beautiful idea.

Here are a few quick reasons why I find this idea to be highly implausible:

\- There are a dizzying number of documented cognitive biases in humans. If statistics is the ultimate language of the brain, our software is pretty thoroughly buggy: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases)

\- Belief motivates people to do things that have absolutely no statistical justification. For example, the time that the prophecy of a teenage girl convinced a tribe of people in present-day South Africa to kill 300,000 - 400,000 of their own cattle, leading to the starvation and death of 20,000 - 40,000 people. How does a brain built on statistics decide that this is the most rational course of action? [http://persistentfrontiers.com/xhosacattlekilling/](http://persistentfrontiers.com/xhosacattlekilling/)

EDIT: Several people are replying with some form of: "your examples can still show that the mind is inherently built on statistics if you think about it in way X." Let's do a quick experiment to see if this theory is actually falsifiable. What experiment/result would convince you that statistics is _not_ "the ultimate language of the brain?"

<comment><USER3> To quote wikipedia's article on statistics: _Statistics is the study of the collection, analysis, interpretation, presentation, and organization of data._

Isn't that more or less what human brains do?

A neural network is just a curve fitting algorithm optimized to fit a bunch of data, that is, a statistical method. NNs are, to the best of my knowledge, a fairly good analogy for what the physical computation process of the brain.

NNs are also very easy to fool. Mislabel the humans in your robot training data as 'kill', and your network will make bad decisions. Garbage in, garbage out.

If you make a probabilistic model and attach a very high confidence to the things that spirits tell little girls down by the river, then sometimes your model will suggest some terrible ideas. Humans are also notoriously bad at sampling data, but that doesn't mean it isn't what they're doing.

Your edit raises a good question, though! I can't say I have a good answer, but would be interested to hear a good idea for such an experiment.

I want to use the phenomenon the inner monologue and the act of convincing oneself of something as a counter example, but on the other hand, language is very easily generated by statistical methods, and the brain apparently will make decisions and then come up with justifications afterward. [http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/04/27/095679761664...](http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/04/27/0956797616641943.abstract)

<comment><USER4> >Isn't that more or less what human brains do?

Sure but now what are you demonstrating. "The human brain collects and interprets data". Great paper, thanks for the contribution to science.

<comment><USER5> Love it

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Slime molds also use statistics to calculate confidence, make decisions:

[http://phys.org/news/2014-01-slime- molds.html](http://phys.org/news/2014-01-slime-molds.html)

"Looking toward the future, Adamatzky is designing a hybrid device that combines a slime mold with conventional electronic computers. A year ago he received a $2.1 million GBP by the European Commission to build such a computer. Now with funding from the EU Unconventional Computation program, he is building a slime mold computer named PhyChip ([http://www.phychip.eu/)"](http://www.phychip.eu/\)")

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm half colorblind. I often tell people that I don't see colors, I see probabilities. If you ask me what color something is, I am going to make a guess and there is a probability that I am right or wrong based on many factors.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think it's like a series of aqueducts myself.

It seems obvious that the brain will resemble whatever we've got as the most complex modeling system at any given time while never being accurately represented by any of them.

<comment><USER9> But we can still benchmark the performance of the latest model and compare it to human average. There are some tasks where humans have been bested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "The work may also have wider implications. The fields of statistics and, in particular, machine learning, may have something to learn from this inner statistician. "Humans are still better than computers at solving really difficult problems," says Kepecs."

Intuitive as Statistics is simply one of the many tools we humans use to tackle difficult problems, but definitely not the only one.

<comment><USER11> But it is a little disheartening (yet also exciting) to think that when an AI is eventually developed with a human's intuition, creativity, and learning ability, we'll essentially have no advantages over them.

<comment><USER12> It might also be a pipe dream.

We might have a global maximum of tech we can achieve with our brain capacity that does not including building brain-level intelligence. Not because it's some special taboo/limit, maybe just because it's too high a barrier.

(Or e.g. at best we could replicate it with organic matter, e.g. grow brain cells, tissues etc, but then it won't be as potentially speedy/efficient as computer AI either).

<comment><USER13> I think that's why the focus is on deep learning and self improvement for AIs.

We may not be able to create an AI that's as intelligent as us, but we can create a rudimentary AI that can then make itself smarter as time goes by (and since it can be practically immortal it would have a lot of time to learn) and which can be easily duplicated later.

Downside is we probably won't know what it's actually thinking and what it will do...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Our brain, presumably, uses much simpler, primitive thresholds, like dynamic weights in a weighted sum.

As one might deduce from the facts of brain's physiology and development, especially prooning of neurons in the processe of maturation, the key is "a trained structure" to which a weighted graph is, perhaps, the most adequate model, which is shaped by highly specialized centers in the process of continuous training. At least all pattern recognition, including language and vision, presumably implemented this way.

The principle is of combination by trial and error of simplest, smallest, stable, reusable building blocks - specialized cells.

Three is no general purpose computer in a brain. It is a network of structured layers of microcontrollers.)

</comment><comment><USER15> It's interesting how the reification of statistical reasoning, that is, understanding statistics symbolically and applying it to abstract symbols is far more fraught than the implicit statistical reasoning that this article describes.

<comment><USER16> Your brain is also able to calculate the parabolic arc of a baseball someone threw to you whether or not you could ever do it on paper.

<comment><USER17> That's not quite true. When catching a ball we constantly adjust as we go so we're not perfectly calculating where it will land. We can train humans to roughly approximate where a ball will land, that's about it.

<comment><USER16> This is just a matter of precision. The fact that you can probably start adjusting in a meaningful and probably correct way while the ball is still going up is significant. Somehow that person's brain is doing a thing they may not have the symbolic knowledge to describe.

<comment><USER17> > Somehow that person's brain is doing a thing they may not have the symbolic > knowledge to describe.

And we can draw roughly correct circles but most people don't know the equation for one. I'm not sure that's particularly significant though, but I may have missed your point.

<comment><USER18> No the ability to draw circles is impressive. The amount of math and calculations being done in the brain to perform such a feat is incredible. Programming robots to do even a limited range of the things humans do, is nearly impossible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As shown by haberman's comment and a reply by yummyfajitas below, our brain clearly does not operate on pure statistics, as most people are subject to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_fallacy)

</comment><comment><USER20> I think the crowd that maintains statistical machine learning is not 'real' AI should read this study.

</comment><comment><USER21> Human brain is vulnerable to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies)

</comment><comment><USER22> In other news, the sky is blue.

I'm shocked that this is not obvious to everyone.

</comment><comment><USER23> Can prejudice be renamed to "statistical assessments"? :)

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder whether this is the same sense in which the brain also uses logic to reason about stuff, and physics to interact with the world.

</comment><comment><USER25> I would say, our brains use quick estimations of statistics to calculate confidence and rationalize decisions.

</comment><comment><USER26> Well, that's another nail in the coffin for all nonprobabilistic views of cognition.

</comment><comment><USER27> That is why I agree with Arthur Benjamin with teach statistics at school level.

</comment><comment><USER28> Ok guys, time to weigh in. Of course we aren't trying to claim that _all_ brain processing reduces to Bayes. Our claim is that we experience the statistical likelihood of our beliefs about our input data (from sense organs or from long-term memory retrieval) as a sense of confidence. If that sense is actually generated by a heuristic computation rather than a neural implementation of Bayes rule is almost irrelevant, because the end product looks identical to Bayes in the ways that matter for use of a confidence variable in computation. We work through the mathematics of how statistical confidence should appear in different projections of decision data here:

[http://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/01/01/017400.abstr...](http://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/01/01/017400.abstract)

(To appear in [http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/neco](http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/neco) in the next month or so)

By necessity, we had to study decisions that could be replicated in a lab, so no mass-killings of cows. That being said, the brain is constantly faced with a statistical analysis problem - to figure out what's really happening outside of itself. A Bayesian machine is much more useful to assign a classification to sense data and compute its likelihood, than to determine whether your elders are correct when they insist that God is going to cause a plague in 2 years if we don't burn some bovines. Point being, the brain can construct and switch between (occasionally hilarious) decision making strategies depending on context - especially in the murkier, information-impoverished realm of social decision making.

Dealing with sense and memory data is a problem common to all animals, and evolution has had millions of generations to reject suboptimal processors. Processing language and abstract symbols to reinforce tribal social cohesion or implement a political agenda is a different category of decision that is newer in evolutionary terms, and definitely buggier. I hope this helps clear what we are and aren't claiming!

As an aside (since this is the right crowd!) we open-sourced the circuit design files, firmware and APIs for the real-time stimulus generator we used here:

[https://github.com/sanworks/PulsePal](https://github.com/sanworks/PulsePal)

with documentation here:

[https://sites.google.com/site/pulsepalwiki/home](https://sites.google.com/site/pulsepalwiki/home)

and here:

[http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fneng.2014.00...](http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fneng.2014.00043/full)

This system allowed us to shut off the ongoing audio click streams within 100 microseconds of a decision button press - so we could look backwards in time at the precise evidence stream used to make each choice and confidence report, for clues about what algorithm the brain used to process the streams. The follow-up study (under review) uses this data to evaluate different models of how decision and confidence computations are implemented in real-time.</comment>