iKe: a browser-based sandbox for K - <AUTHOR> http://johnearnest.github.io/ok/ike/ike.html <comment><USER2> More context/explanation, and a little livecoding demo, can be found on the github page: [https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok/tree/gh- pages/ike](https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok/tree/gh-pages/ike)

And here's another demo, showing the creation of a voronoi diagram from points. This might better illustrate how one can use iKe to iteratively develop programs: [https://i.imgur.com/7JNU2r3.gif](https://i.imgur.com/7JNU2r3.gif)

<comment><USER3> Seriously cool!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The primary page linked to would be improved it linked to any kind of documentation like what you've mentioned. I followed the link, saw a pretty much blank page and left.

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems pretty self-explanatory to me?

"A Sandbox for [language]" → text box, run button, "Choose an Example..." button

<comment><USER5> I think a link to the Readme.md might be more useful because it explains in detail what it is, why you might find it useful, and how to use it. The Readme.md contains a link to the sandbox fairly early on, but the sandbox doesn't seem to provide an easy way to get to the documentation (language info, API info, etc).

<comment><AUTHOR> k doesn't have any valuable documentation to begin with, so language info wouldn't be much better than what you could get by doing a WWW search. The best way to learn is by doing, and the examples are _really_ well commented.

<comment><USER6> > _k doesn 't have_

Yes it has.

[https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok/blob/gh- pages/docs/Manual....](https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok/blob/gh- pages/docs/Manual.md) for OK (the K interpreter in iKe)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I really like the K language after reading through the ok tutorial listed below.

I just wish there was a free and open source K engine written in C that would work on Windows or Linux. I've tried J, but I think I like K much better. Ok and Kona don't seem to be production worthy (performance or correctness I would guess). I like the concept of a tiny interpreter though with no install (kinda what Kona has for Windows, but better supported).

<comment><USER2> At the end of the day, that's the immovable object. A free, open-source, high- performance interpreter for K would get cease-and-desist-ed into oblivion by virtue of competing with the commercial implementation. That's why I made mine a toy: fun to tinker with, but not fast enough to give anybody ideas. Kinda sucks, huh?

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you seen ngn/k? It was released under the AGPL recently, and is pretty fast.

<comment><USER3> I just looked at it quickly and it appears to be more than a toy. How about Windows support? File I/O?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Every time I see one of these array-processing languages, I'm always baffled at how small you can make the code, but then am further baffled and wonder how anyone is able to read/debug it.

To people here who know APL/J/K rather well, does it become second-nature and easy to find mistakes?

<comment><USER2> Yep.

<comment><AUTHOR> I second this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There needs to be detailed comments for at least ONE of those examples! Very cool. I've looked into k and J...they look like fun toy languages.

<comment><USER2> Most of the examples have a moderate supply of comments. Here are a few I cherrypicked:

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JohnEarnest/ok/gh- pages/ik...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JohnEarnest/ok/gh- pages/ike/examples/dissolve.k) ("dissolve" effect)

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JohnEarnest/ok/gh- pages/ik...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JohnEarnest/ok/gh- pages/ike/examples/upc.k) (UPC generator)

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JohnEarnest/ok/gh- pages/ik...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JohnEarnest/ok/gh- pages/ike/examples/islands.k) (random island coasts)</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Help censored users access Tor by installing a browser addon - <AUTHOR> The addon is available for Firefox on AMO:
* https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/torproject-snowflake/
* (and for Android) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/torproject-snowflake/
And if you happen to want to install it on a Chromium based browser it is available as well on the Chrome Addon Store:
* https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/snowflake/mafpmfcccpbjnhfhjnllmmalhifmlcie
<comment>----
Thanks to a new Pluggable Transport called Snowflake you can now help censored users access the Tor network by just installing an addon. The way it works is pretty simple: censored users learn about a temporary proxy (a 'snowflake') from a broker (using domain fronting or other techniques) that they establish a connection with using WebRTC, the temporary proxy then transmits the requests to a bridge which then connects to the Tor network, the temporary proxy thus functions as a middle point between the censored user and the bridge <=> Tor network. The idea is that by getting a significantly large number of ever changing and decaying temporary proxies it will be hard for a single censor to keep track and block all of them.
As explained earlier, when you function as a snowflake proxy no exit traffic is generated at your level, you just transit traffic to a bridge which then connects to the Tor network. Hence there is no need to worry about which websites the clients are accessing through your proxy. Their visible browsing IP address will match their Tor exit node, not yours. In addition Snowflake's strength comes from having a large pool of temporary proxies, so don't forget to spread the word and have a maximum of people installing this addon!
</comment><comment>-
To learn more about Snowflake you can have a look at the following references:
* https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/Snowflake
* https://www.bamsoftware.com/papers/thesis/#chap:snowflake
* https://keroserene.net/snowflake/technical/ </comment><comment><AUTHOR> A couple of notes:

* You need WebRTC to be enabled in your browser for this to work, this is simply owing to how Snowflake works. The extension will display a warning if it detects that WebRTC isn't enabled.

* The addon tells you when a client is connecting using your proxy and how many clients you have helped circumvent censorship in the last 24h. However, right now Snowflake is only available for the __alpha __releases of the Tor Browser and then only for Linux and Mac OS, as such (see[https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-bridge-transport.ht...](https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-bridge-transport.html?transport=snowflake) ), so it shouldn't be surprising for you to pass an entire 24h without having any reported client connection.

* There are other ways to run a Snowflake proxy that are outlined here: [https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/Snowflake#...](https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/Snowflake#HowtorunaSnowflakeproxy)

</comment><comment><USER2> You can also do it by using the web page here: [https://snowflake.torproject.org/](https://snowflake.torproject.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi, just to clarify: is the problem being addressed here specifically that people (the 'censors') are blocking access to the Tor network itself? A friend and I disagree on what "censored users" means in this context.

</comment><comment><USER4> What the heck are you asking me to do?

<comment><USER5> It looks well explained with links to further information. Is there something particular you don't understand?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some good podcasts? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER3> Many of the others mentioned here, as well as...

\- Risk! ([http://risk-show.com](http://risk-show.com)) Kevin Allison's own version of The Moth, with more risque, embarrassing, or otherwise scandalous topics than you usually see on other storytelling podcasts. Generally humorous, with some intense moments.

\- Death, Sex, & Money ([http://www.wnyc.org/shows/deathsexmoney](http://www.wnyc.org/shows/deathsexmoney)) Intense real-life stories that somehow relate to death, sex, and/or money. Often interview-based, with occasional investigative elements.

\- Planet Money ([http://www.npr.org/sections/money/](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/)) Entertaining, creative stories on financial topics, in a broad sense.

\- Heavyweight ([https://gimletmedia.com/heavyweight/](https://gimletmedia.com/heavyweight/)) Jonathan Goldstein's new podcast, featuring stories from a "moment where everything changed" in someone's life.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can't say enough good things about My Brother My Brother and Me. Three super clever dudes who just riff on advice questions and posts from Yahoo Answers.

[http://www.maximumfun.org/shows/my-brother-my-brother-and- me](http://www.maximumfun.org/shows/my-brother-my-brother-and-me)

They also do a D&D game with their dad that they call The Adventure Zone which is some of the best entertainment I've found this year.

[http://www.maximumfun.org/shows/adventure- zone](http://www.maximumfun.org/shows/adventure-zone)

<comment><USER5> Kiss your dad square on the lips.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What topics are you looking for? Tech related? General interest? Sports? Science? Crime and mystery?

A couple I really enjoy:

\- Dan Carlin's Harcore History [1] An infrequent but well done pod on various history stories. Well worth the listen.

\- The West Wing Weekly [2] One of the actors from The West Wing and another guy watch and discuss and episode of the West Wing each week.

\- RadioLab [3] A good podcast with various topics of interest.

\- The Lowe Post [4] My favorite NBA podcast.

\- EconTalk [5] A longer podcast that touches on various subjects. The name is quite deceptive.

[1] [http://www.dancarlin.com](http://www.dancarlin.com)

[2] [http://thewestwingweekly.com](http://thewestwingweekly.com)

[3] [http://www.radiolab.org](http://www.radiolab.org)

[4] [http://m.espn.com/general/cast?id=10528553&src=desktop](http://m.espn.com/general/cast?id=10528553&src=desktop)

[5] [http://www.econtalk.org](http://www.econtalk.org)

<comment><USER7> +1 for Dan Carlin, his WW1 series is incredible, astounding, it should be played at school.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, _Hardcore History_ is amazing. _Wrath of the Khans_ is the HH series I enjoyed the most. _Blueprint for Armageddon_ is also good, and _Death Throes of the Republic_ had a fantastic beginning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Top Pick:

\- 99% Invisible ([http://99percentinvisible.org/](http://99percentinvisible.org/)) : Well- produced radio stories about the designed world.

Software development:

\- Hanselminutes ([http://hanselminutes.com/](http://hanselminutes.com/)) : "Fresh Air for Developers". A weekly discussion with web developer and technologist Scott Hanselman (well-known blogger, podcaster, and Microsoft employee).

Comedy:

\- Jordan, Jesse Go ([http://maximumfun.org/shows/jordan-jesse- go](http://maximumfun.org/shows/jordan-jesse-go)) : A free-form discussion- based podcast hosted by two funny dudes, Jordan Morris (@midnight) and Jesse Thorn (Bullseye, Judge John Hodgeman), that is quickly becoming my favorite podcast.

\- Spontaneanation ([http://www.earwolf.com/show/spontaneanation-with-paul-f- tomp...](http://www.earwolf.com/show/spontaneanation-with-paul-f-tompkins/)) : A free-form improv comedy podcast hosted by the great Paul F. Tompkins.

\- The Dead Author's Podcast ([http://thedeadauthorspodcast.libsyn.com/](http://thedeadauthorspodcast.libsyn.com/)) : A live show in which H.G. Wells (Paul F. Tompkins) brings another deceased author (played by another comedian) to the present day for a discussion loosely based on the author's work. (This show is now defunct, but there are 50 good episodes)

Notable mention:

\- Reply All ([https://gimletmedia.com/reply- all/](https://gimletmedia.com/reply-all/)) : A well-produced, interesting, and often funny show in which the hosts investigate stories about or originating from the internet.

</comment><comment><USER10> EconTalk is the one podcast I don't miss each week.

London School of Economics generously podcasts its events. It leads its peers by doing so. This talk remains a favorite: [http://www.lse.ac.uk/website- archive/newsAndMedia/videoAndAu...](http://www.lse.ac.uk/website- archive/newsAndMedia/videoAndAudio/channels/publicLecturesAndEvents/player.aspx?id=3149)

The storytelling podcasts are a pleasure: Snap judgment, the moth, radiolab, StoryCorps.

</comment><comment><USER11> For the leftists and/or generally disillusioned - [https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house](https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap- house)

See: [http://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/what- wi...](http://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/what-will-become- of-the-dirtbag-left)

<comment><USER12> Chapo was one of my favorite things to have this year. Can recommend the premium content as well.

A good primer is their first episode after November's election: Episode 58 - We Live in The Zone Now [https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap- house/episode-58-we-live-i...](https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap- house/episode-58-we-live-in-the-zone-now-111216)

Another great starting point is their episode where they first take on the writings of pundit Ross Douthat: Episode 3 - Freeway Ross Douthat Sailboat Dope (3/27/16) by Chapo Trap House [https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap- house/episode-3-freeway-ro...](https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap- house/episode-3-freeway-ross-douthat-sailboat-dope)

<comment><USER11> I think the Adam Curtis interview, though the obvious choice, is a really good listen even if you don't think you fit the typical listener's mold: [https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-65-no- future...](https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-65-no-future-feat- adam-curtis-121216)

The Ross Douthat episodes are great, and the "Chapo Traphouse Book Club" at its finest. But nothing can top the Ralph Douthat Twitter account: [https://twitter.com/ralphdouthat?lang=en](https://twitter.com/ralphdouthat?lang=en)

<comment><USER13> Thanks for pointing out the Curtis interview.

If you cannot handle the ~3 hour running time of Hypernormalisation, Curtis was able to concisely summarise the message in the interview. I don't quite know how to feel about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> FWIW, I'd highly recommend 'Waking Up' podcast by Sam Harris. He has this rare combination of eloquence and substance. The specific episodes I liked are with the following guests:

David Deutsch[1][2]; Paul Bloom[3] -- he has two other episodes, too; Stuart Russell[4]; David Chalmers[5]; William MacAskill[6]; and Douglas Murray[7].

[1] [https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/surviving-the- cosmos](https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/surviving-the-cosmos)

[2] [https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/52-finding-our-way-in- th...](https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/52-finding-our-way-in-the-cosmos)

[3] [https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/56-abusing-dolores-a- con...](https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/56-abusing-dolores-a-conversation- with-paul-bloom)

[4] [https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/the-dawn-of- artificial-](https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/the-dawn-of-artificial-) intelligence

[5] [https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/david- chalmers](https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/david-chalmers)

[6] [https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/being-good-and-doing- goo...](https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/being-good-and-doing-good-a- conversation-with-william-macaskill)

[7] [https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/on-the-maintenance-of- ci...](https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/on-the-maintenance-of-civilization)

</comment><comment><USER15> +1 for the No Agenda podcast, by John C. Dvorak and Adam C. Curry.

They watch the news (so you don't have to!) and each week they de-construct the biggest stories from around the world, revealing the truths behind - <USER2> the motivations for - the news that's given to consumers.

<comment><USER16> This is by far the best podcast Ive personally enjoyed besides maybe Waking Up with Sam Harris. The "old friends" chemistry the hosts have cannot be understated. In the morning!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like the Tim Ferris show: [http://fourhourworkweek.com/podcast/](http://fourhourworkweek.com/podcast/)

He's a great interviewer and has very interesting guests.

<comment><USER18> Though you're right that he's a decent interviewer and does have interesting guests, I'm going to reluctantly give a vote against Tim Ferris. It's hard for me to put my finger on exactly why I don't like him. It's like he's a modern- day snake-oil salesman, but that doesn't fully capture what's off about him. It's the name-dropping, the self-aggrandizement, the uncritical support for every new thing that's sciency, seemingly just so he can lay claim to being on the forefront. He just rubs me the wrong way.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, I am put off by his zen shtick too.It bothered me a little since so many people I respect swear by the altar of Tim Ferris™ and I decided to listen to some of his stuff but I couldn't shake off the snake-oil salesman vibe.He just comes off as a relentless self-promoting machine whose main 'product' is himself and his public image.I assume it's a taste thing and his stuff might be useful for other people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> BBC Radio Four has a bunch.

 _In Our Time_ : [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl)

The A-Z of topics shows how broad it is: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl/topics](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl/topics)

 _Inside the Ethics Committee_ : [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007xbtd](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007xbtd)

> Joan Bakewell is joined by a panel of experts to wrestle with the ethics > arising from a real-life medical case.

 _In Business_ : [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006s609](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006s609)

> Series of programmes about the whole world of work, public and private, from > vast corporations to modest volunteers

 _The Bottom Line_ : [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006sz6t](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006sz6t)

They take a bunch of people in business and have a group chat about stuff.

 _The Reunion_ : [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007x9vc](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007x9vc)

> Series which reunites a group of people intimately involved in a moment of > modern history

</comment><comment><USER21> Anything Merlin Mann works for me :

\- back to work [http://5by5.tv/b2w](http://5by5.tv/b2w)

\- roderick on the line [http://www.merlinmann.com/roderick/](http://www.merlinmann.com/roderick/)

\- you look nice today [http://youlooknicetoday.com/](http://youlooknicetoday.com/)

</comment><comment><USER22> [http://noagendashow.com](http://noagendashow.com) award winning media assassination. Best news podcast. No advertising, fully listener supported (value for value).

<comment><USER16> ITM

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think Cortex ([https://www.relay.fm/cortex](https://www.relay.fm/cortex)) is particularly interesting. The hosts are Myke Hurley (makes podcasts) and CGP Grey (makes YouTube videos) and they mostly talk about the unique challenges of and strategies for creating stuff as a living, and also Apple products.

</comment><comment><USER24> I enjoy Sam Harris, [https://www.samharris.org/podcast](https://www.samharris.org/podcast) .

</comment><comment><USER25> If you're into this sort of thing "The History of Rome" by Mike Duncan is an excellent podcast. It's a complete chronological history of Rome that Mike Duncan does a great job of keeping interesting.

</comment><comment><USER26> We Had A Good Life

Two brothers who tell us stories about current events, interesting history and their lives.

[http://www.wehadagoodlife.com/](http://www.wehadagoodlife.com/)

A good intro to their style is The Thickening video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdvpMYwlKn8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdvpMYwlKn8)

</comment><comment><USER27> Recently, I caught Beautiful Anonymous. Comedian Chris Gethard talks to anonymous phone callers for 1 hour. Some interesting stuff pops up on the lives for Americans.

[http://www.earwolf.com/show/beautiful- anonymous/](http://www.earwolf.com/show/beautiful-anonymous/)

</comment><comment><USER28> I always recommend The History of Rome and the Revolutions podcasts by Mike Duncan. Really incredibly interesting history podcasts.

I also have been really enjoying the History of English podcast as a neat hybrid linguistics / history podcast hybrid.

</comment><comment><USER29> [http://planetary.org/multimedia/planetary- radio/](http://planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/)

[http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/](http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/)

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p002w557/episodes/downloads](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p002w557/episodes/downloads)

[http://embedded.fm/](http://embedded.fm/)

</comment><comment><USER13> The Amp Hour - Chris Gammel and David Jones from the eevblog talk to interesting guests about electronics

Reconcilable Differences - As it says on the tin: John Siracusa and Merlin Mann try to figure out exactly how they got this way.

Omega Tau - Interviews with people who know things about science and engineering, lots of interesting aviation related content, but also the only podcast I know of where there are interviews with people who make or work with instruments like mass spectrometers, electron microscopes, lasers, synchrotrons, XFELs.

</comment><comment><USER30> I enjoy "Programming Throw-down" [http://www.programmingthrowdown.com/](http://www.programmingthrowdown.com/)

</comment><comment><USER31> Exponent: fantastic analysis and discussion of tech, society, trends, strategy. One of my favorites.

[http://exponent.fm](http://exponent.fm)

</comment><comment><USER32> BBC Documentaries, Intelegence Squared, Big Ideas by ABC's RN, Freakonomics, Selected Shorts, Guardian Live, The history hour, From Our Own Correspondant

</comment><comment><USER33> Conversations with Tyler (Cowen)

</comment><comment><USER34> On The Media: [http://www.wnyc.org/shows/otm](http://www.wnyc.org/shows/otm)

</comment><comment><USER35> uhh yeah dude. the only comedy podcast worth listening to.

[http://uhhyeahdude.com](http://uhhyeahdude.com)

</comment><comment><USER36> Accidental Tech Podcast

[http://atp.fm](http://atp.fm)

Casual discussion about tech (especially Apple)

</comment><comment><USER37> Radiotopia would be the place to begin. Just give each show a try, and you've sampled the best available.

</comment><comment><USER38> * The Data Skeptic: a data scientist and his wife (that has no knowledge of statistics) discuss data science and skepticism;

* Dan Carlin´s "Common Sense" is pretty good if you're jonesing from "Hardcore History";

* Freakonomics is pretty decent too.

</comment><comment><USER39> Health & In General on YouTube Jay Rogen Time Ferris Bulletproof Radio Self Hack Radio

</comment><comment><USER40> \- Invisibilia

\- 99% Invisible

\- RadioLab

\- StartUp

Others: This American Life, Hidden Brain, The Weeds

</comment><comment><USER41> the infinite monkey cage by Brian Cox and the other guy

no such thing as a fish by the qi elves

in our time

</comment><comment><USER42> James Altucher Show (interviews, founders) [http://www.jamesaltucher.com/category/the-james-altucher- sho...](http://www.jamesaltucher.com/category/the-james-altucher-show/)

Software Engineering Daily (technical software topics) [https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/category/podcast/](https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/category/podcast/)

Soft Skills Engineering [https://softskills.audio/](https://softskills.audio/)

NPR: How I Built This (innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists) [http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built- this](http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this)

Developer Tea [https://developertea.com/](https://developertea.com/)

Cognicast (Clojure Ecosystem) [http://blog.cognitect.com/cognicast/](http://blog.cognitect.com/cognicast/)

Descriptive (Programmer Origin Stories) [http://descriptive.audio/](http://descriptive.audio/)

Reactive Podcast (thoughts on modern software engineering) [http://reactive.audio/](http://reactive.audio/)

Turing Incomplete (Podcast about programming)[http://turing.cool/](http://turing.cool/)

Accidental Tech Podcast (tech talk, heavy on apple stuff) [http://atp.fm/](http://atp.fm/)

The Web Platform (all things web) [http://thewebplatform.libsyn.com/](http://thewebplatform.libsyn.com/)

Freelancers Show [https://devchat.tv/freelancers](https://devchat.tv/freelancers)

5 minutes of Javascript [http://fivejs.codeschool.com/](http://fivejs.codeschool.com/)

Entreprogrammers (Programmers entrepreneurs) [http://entreprogrammers.com/](http://entreprogrammers.com/)

The Gently Mad [http://avclark.com/tgm/](http://avclark.com/tgm/)

Hansel Minutes (Life, Business and entrepreneurs) [http://www.hanselminutes.com/](http://www.hanselminutes.com/)

Lets make mistakes (Web and Designers) [http://www.muleradio.net/mistakes/](http://www.muleradio.net/mistakes/)

Node Up (Node.js) [http://nodeup.com/](http://nodeup.com/)

Javascript Jabber [http://javascriptjabber.com/](http://javascriptjabber.com/)

ShopTalkShow (web development, mostly front-end) [http://shoptalkshow.com/](http://shoptalkshow.com/)

Techzing (General Tech, Founders, Dev) [http://techzinglive.com](http://techzinglive.com)

</comment><comment><USER43> I love audio drama, these are the good ones.

Sayer | If AGI ran your space station/life. [http://geeklyinc.com/category/sayer/](http://geeklyinc.com/category/sayer/)

EOS-10 | Space Sci-fi comedy, great acting. [http://www.eos10.com/](http://www.eos10.com/)

Wolf 359 | Space Sci-fi comedy with well executed high drama. [http://www.wolf359.fm/](http://www.wolf359.fm/)

Limetown | unusual conspiracy thriller. [http://www.limetownstories.com](http://www.limetownstories.com)

Alba Salix | Fantasy comedy. [http://www.albasalix.com/](http://www.albasalix.com/)

Wooden Overcoats | Competitive undertaking. [http://www.woodenovercoats.com/](http://www.woodenovercoats.com/)

Tanis | Conspiracy mystery thriller. [http://www.tanispodcast.com/](http://www.tanispodcast.com/)

The Black Tapes | Creepy ghost stories. [http://theblacktapespodcast.com](http://theblacktapespodcast.com)

Especially Noteworthy:

Our Fair City | my favorite, a work of genius, the highest production values, actually better than the BBC.

We're Alive | entertaining zombie drama horror, terrific use of sound. [http://www.werealive.com/](http://www.werealive.com/)

Genre Specific (usually short stories):

Escape Pod | science fiction. [http://escapepod.org/](http://escapepod.org/) Pod Castle | fantasy. [http://podcastle.org/](http://podcastle.org/) Pseudo Pod | horror. [http://pseudopod.org/](http://pseudopod.org/)

I find the best new material from Radio Drama Revival

[http://www.radiodramarevival.com/](http://www.radiodramarevival.com/)

These are also good leads:

The Audio Drama Directory | [http://theaudiodramadirectory.com/sciencefiction/](http://theaudiodramadirectory.com/sciencefiction/)

The Parsec Awards | [http://www.parsecawards.com/](http://www.parsecawards.com/)

Non-fiction, most of the usual suspects.

ABC's Future Tense 99% Invisible Hardcore History Joe Rogan (guest specific) Radiolab Robots Podcast NPR's Planet Money Green Building Advisor The Building Performance podcast The Tiny Life podcast (on Tiny Homes)

I also listen to Lovecraft when I want to get to sleep (/s).

Lovecratian horror is not what most people think of when they think of horror. It is more existential.

Sebastian Orr does a great narration:

[http://www.ourfaircity.com/2011/12/the-rats-in-the-walls- pt-...](http://www.ourfaircity.com/2011/12/the-rats-in-the-walls-pt-..). [http://www.ourfaircity.com/2012/01/part- two/](http://www.ourfaircity.com/2012/01/part-two/)

Inspired by Lovecraft, A Colder War by Charlie Stross is also a favorite.

<comment><USER44> Tanis completely changed my opinion about audio drama! Got the recommendation through Reply All and I'm now on my third listen-through. It's insanely compelling and I can't get it out of my head. Gonna look into some of your recommendations here, thanks!</comment></comment>


Build a manufacturing app, save the U.S. economy - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/04/manufacturing-app/

<comment><AUTHOR> It is very true that manufacturing is a vertical that is WAY behind the times. I have a small SaaS product in the space and when I meet customers face-to- face, I'm often amazed at how far behind their systems are.

The bright side is that the last customer I visited wanted to explore having a tablet at each of his machines. It makes so much sense, but some fields are slow to change.</comment>


Why My MOOC Is Not Built on Video - <AUTHOR> https://www.class-central.com/report/why-my-mooc-is-not-built-on-video/ <comment><USER2> There are a lot of bloggers (John Sonmez is the most notable), who I have stopped following because they have shifted to video. I really don't have the time to watch a video, when I can read the same content in text form 2-3x faster, and do a Ctrl-F to find any terms of interest later when I want to review the content. It's a singularly inappropriate form of communication for technical subjects.

I imagine it has to hurt their Google rankings as well, especially when they don't include a transcript.

<comment><USER2> I'm a little surprised at the strong support this comment has driven. Haha, I usually use this account for opinions that I would think controversial.

<comment><USER3> I see this opinion voted to the top of Hacker News all the time. People seem to forget that watching something in video format is just so damn convenient, and requires little effort.

<comment><USER4> Watching a video does require little effort, but learning -- and subsequently retaining anything is where the real effort is required with technical subjects.

<comment><USER5> When you watch a video, you lose the freedom of the rate. People do not like to lose freedom.

<comment><USER6> This isn't completely true.

I frequently will download all the videos for an online course. Subsequently, when I watch them in VLC [1], I'll bump the playback to 1.25x - 1.75x.

Fwiw: for me, playback speed strongly correlates to how technical the topic is, less technical videos tends toward the 1.75x; while highly technical tends toward the 1.25x.

I'm also a big proponent of subtitles and transcripts.

[1]: [http://www.videolan.org/vlc/](http://www.videolan.org/vlc/)

<comment><USER7> I'm glad you brought this up. This has tremendously improved my experience with video lectures. For online classes, I do the same as you mentioned utilizing VLCs playback feature. Youtube's addition of playback speed has also been a huge improvement in consuming more technical content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Simply: The average person can read at ~300 words per minute, and listen at ~150 words per minute.

I'm not a big fan of video as a tool for conveying information in general. Not only can I read faster than I can listen, but I can skim and skip around as well. There are situations where video is the best way to impart certain information, but those seem to be the rare cases. I hate it when websites make me sit through a 3 minute video in order to get an answer to one simple question, or to understand "What does this thing do?"

I've never taken a MOOC course because I can't imagine having the time to watch X hours of someone talking at a camera. If this video-less trend catches on I might actually be able to benefit from online education.

<comment><USER9> I recently picked up a video series on Udemy with a 90% off coupon I found, and this is my exact problem. If I'm following along, I have to pause and rewind the video so often, and other times I'm flipping through reddit because he's dragging on about something or having technical difficulties while recording. Every time I need to rewind the video, it buffers for several seconds, or sometimes freezes and needs me to reload the tab. Never mind that I can't go back to a lesson and Ctrl+F to find something that was referenced later on.

It seems like _everything_ I search for these days, I find as a YouTube video. Why? I was trying to take the center console out of my truck and needed to find out what size the bolts were on the back of the driver's seat. Only results were YouTube videos. So I'm sitting in my garage streaming a five minute YouTube over my limited LTE just so I can find out it's a 17mm wrench. Most of that five minutes is the guy telling me who he is, how to subscribe, what website he's with, and why I need to watch the video that I'm already watching. Google can tell me the up-to-the-minute March Madness scores but the only way to find out what size wrench is needed for a Chevy Silverado, one of the most common trucks in the US, is a YouTube video from a guy with an accent so thick I can't understand him.

Useless. Some days I feel the world would be better off without YouTube. Until the day when we can index and search video and voice the way we can text, YouTube is nothing but entertainment to me. Stop making "educational" videos, I don't want to watch them.

<comment><USER10> 100% agree with this. What makes me really scratch my head is that I talk to people regularly who _prefer_ this! If I have to watch a video to answer my question, I'll just figure it out some other way.

<comment><USER11> It depends on context.

First-order:

* At a computer ==> Text * Commuting ==> Audio/video

Second-order depends on things like type of content, cognitive load, etc.

<comment><USER10> Agreed that commuting (for some forms of commuting) text is suboptimal. I ride on a subway so it doesn't really matter to me but I can't read blogs while driving for instance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I agree with the author's sentiment 100%.

As others have stated, the reason that video is worse than text for learning is because

A. The rate at which you can read is faster than you can listen

B. Video technology is often a hassle when you need to skip around.

C. It's cheaper to write and revise text than video.

D. Videos consume large amounts of data.

But I'm going to add another point.

E. Lecturers most often don't know what I as a student am struggling with. They may focus on things I understand easily and spend a majority of time discussing things I already know. However, if I decide to skip a portion of a video I could potentially miss a really important detail necessary for understanding the subject matter.

With a book I can skim. Important information is often marked in a certain way to make it stand out from other data. It's also organized in sections and chapters so I can easily skip around. With videos this isn't possible.

Also, what happens when all of this information is outdated? Now you have a bunch of videos with outdated and potentially false information out there and nobody will know.

My ideal alternative would be to remove lectures entirely and to have interactive labs where teachers and TAs help students complete assignments based on assigned readings. The instructor for the course would be responsible for overseeing the teaching assistants and preparing the course outline. The TAs would help guide the students in completing the assignments or mini projects. Then a couple of time a semester there would be larger projects that tie together what the students have learned.

<comment><USER13> > My ideal alternative would be to remove lectures entirely and to have > interactive labs where teachers and TAs help students complete assignments > based on assigned readings. The instructor for the course would be > responsible for overseeing the teaching assistants and preparing the course > outline. The TAs would help guide the students in completing the assignments > or mini projects. Then a couple of time a semester there would be larger > projects that tie together what the students have learned.

_yes_.

This seems so obvious to me. I am completely mystified as to why all universities seem to be ignoring it. I worry that it's just because videotaping lectures and putting them online is so much easier than actually re-evaluating the pedagogy.

<comment><USER14> I'm in a class that's doing it right now. There are problems.

Often nobody knows what's going on. You can argue that confusion is good, but it's not fun and it feels wrong. You can argue that class should be challenging and active, but this method led to a minor student revolt.

Discrimination and prejudice happen. Women are underrepresented (with respect to the ratio in the class) in the conversations that happen.

We haven't figured out the right incentive structure to make people actually do the readings yet. Sometimes people don't do them.

Personally, I love this new method. It has problems on the scale of a 60ish person class in a technical subject (nonlinear dynamics). When we're working in small groups, that helps, but whenever we try to do something as a class it devolves into an impromptu lecture (most of the time by a student).

If we want to learn this way we need to know how to scale it. It seems drastically more effective, and I think that college would be so much better if this method was normal.

<comment><USER15> One of my teachers in College managed to pull it off splendidly. The course was Algorithms. I suspect the normal format for an Algorithms course is that the teacher would write an algorithm and explain how it works and its merits/demerits etc... in short, a lecture.

What our teacher did was: 1) Write a small piece of pseudocode on board and called it a "unit" 2) Present a problem to the class. 3) Ask students to come up with solutions that used the unit (or modified it a bit. 4) Allow Students to present their solutions to the rest of the class. 5) Allow the class as a whole to debate on competing algorithms. 6) (If applicable) Reveal the name of the algorithm the class has just derived. 7) Repeat

The teacher rarely ever lectured. He just presented problems and let the class figure a way out. Occasionally he would nudge us in a direction we weren't considering, but mostly he was there just to ensure things run smoothly and that's all.

On the whole, it worked out great. Before the class I knew most people had trouble designing algorithms. At the end, even the weaker students had a pretty good grasp on the subject because the format itself encouraged everyone to contribute and thus learn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've been watching the SICP videos this weekend with the goal of making it all the way through this time (I tried watching them about a year and a half ago after taking my first programming MOOC).

What struck me this time was how much the emphasis is on practical software engineering rather than Lisp. That's what Ableson is so intensely passionate about in the video, not the theory. And so picking up the book and looking at the parallel text, I reread it in a whole new light. It was like rereading Eco's _Name of the Rose_ after 25 years and not as the piece of pop fiction I thought it was the first time.

Which brings me to my point that video is just another communication channel. It conveys particular information efficiently and other information less efficiently. Text is no different. Without the video I would never have picked up that _SICP_ and _Code Complete_ have many similarities in subject matter and one just starts with a clean slate and the other in the messy middle.

Video does not need to be fancy to be effective. See Jeffery Ullman's _Finite Automata_ on Coursera. It's PowerPoint and a small talking head and a red pen: And it's better than reading the book he wrote with Who because though dense, it's an order of magnitude less dense than the text.

On the other hand, University of Phoenix operated its online courses with NNTP and was reasonably interactive though asynchronous. It's a matter of curriculum development I suppose. Dan Grossman at University of Washington compares developing a MOOC to writing a textbook and that probably captures the domain of possibilities.

</comment><comment><USER17> I fully agree videos shouldn't be the main way of giving lectures in MOOCs. Or more accurately: I don't find videos particularly useful to me.

My experience is based on 3 programming courses from Coursera: _Functional Programming Principles in Scala_ , _Reactive Programming_ , and _Programming Languages_. In all three cases, the videos did little to improve my understanding of the material, and I preferred the slides. Unfortunately, because the videos existed, the slides were (in general) less complete; I'd rather the videos did _not_ exist and the written material was more complete instead.

Videos frustrate me because the lecturer goes too slowly or chooses to focus on the parts I find less interesting. And because it's pre-recorded, I cannot ask him/her questions. Yes, I can skip or fast-forward the video (in one course, I was so used to playing every lecture at max speed, I was surprised to find the lecturer's voice at normal speed sounded completely different :P ), but I find it so frustrating I'd rather be reading detailed text instead.

The embedded interactive quizzes are fun and motivating, but I wonder if the videos are needed at all.

<comment><USER16> I've taken two of those courses. I often typed the example code from the lectures in or took notes as I would in a brick and mortar class. This meant slowing the lectures down or pausing them or rewinding them. That's great for me...but I'm on Norvig's ten year plan.

<comment><USER17> Wouldn't reading the source material (and copying from there) be even better for Norvig's ten year plan? Note that the pace of brick and mortar classes drove me mad back in my student days :)

Also, the deadlines from Coursera and most MOOCs conspire against watching videos at normal speed. Most of us have day jobs and the only time we can read the lectures and do the exercises is a few hours a day, late at night. In that case, speed-watching and focusing only on the most interesting parts are the _only_ options, especially if you want to get full credits for the course. (Of course, you can take the more relaxed approach of simply not caring about the credits, and getting things done at whatever pace you find comfortable, and that's completely valid!)

<comment><USER16> The deadlines in a MOOC are no different than any other deadline. Cut scope, cut quality, or deathmarch are the options for meeting them. Death march is the only option for full credit. Cutting quality will let a person play the "points game" for a certificate. Cutting scope means learning whatever you learn in the frame of the class.

One of Grossman's observations is that the length of the class correlates with completion rate. The longer the class, the more likely something will come up and throw everything off schedule. Knowing that fact means the longer the course, the more likely cutting quality will be necessary to earn a certificate.

The underlying premise for skipping around to just the interesting parts is that the entirety of the subject does not interest the student. There's nothing wrong with that. But that's not really a good target audience for the design of a class. That student is already committed to partial disengagement.

My take on programming has become that watching a programming video is like watching Jimi Hendrix play the guitar. A beginner learns almost nothing applicable because they don't have the mechanical technique as a basis for informing their seeing. A virtuoso will see new techniques and ways they could do them better.

Watching Grossman type text into a box or Ullman do a proof is less informative until I had the mechanical experience of following along. We all tune out video because it is so ubiquitous. The courses on Coursera are real courses. The results of not taking notes during lectures are pretty much the same as not taking notes during a brick and mortar lecture: some geniuses will ace the test anyway and everyone else will do average, mediocre or poorly according to their nature.

<comment><USER17> Disclaimer: the following comes with a big "in my opinion" preceding it.

Um, I think no-one finds every part of any given subject interesting to the same degree. That's human nature. But also, maybe you already understand some parts and want to skip ahead to the more difficult parts. Sadly, in the excessively constrained format of video, sometimes the teacher will choose to focus on the topics you already understand, and neglects others. Such are the limitations of video format -- and indeed, of brick and mortar classes! Only the full, unabridged text gives you a (relatively) unconstrained explanation of all relevant topics. Of course, it also comes with some disadvantages: it can overwhelm the student, or present topics in the wrong order, or -- even -- focus on the "wrong" things, because after all written notes are also space- constrained. But I find it a way less constrained format anyway.

I find taking notes to be an uninteresting artifact of "live" classes. What truly matters is that you do the exercises and understand them.

If I gave the impression that I favored the "lazy" approach, I apologize. To be honest, I think watching the videos is both the lazy approach (only reading the notes seems like the serious approach to me) AND a time-waster. You are both more efficient AND gain a better understanding of the source material if you read the written notes/book and also do the exercises.

<comment><USER16> I took Odersky's class because I wanted to learn Scala and functional programming from Odersky. I trusted his judgement as to what was important and what wasn't. I could find programming exercises and Scala tutorials using Google. There are even free Scala ebooks and I own a hard copy of _SICP_. What I can't get on my own is Odersky.

BTW, I found the format of the exercises for that class tedious and overly dependent on SBT. I walked away knowing some Scala and more functional programming but configuring the IDE to start a new very simple Scala project wasn't covered, unfortunately.

I will also add that Odersky's videos were a bit confusing because they were disconnected from the bricks and mortar class where they are also used, apparently. Curtailing the subject matter for the MOOC may make sense, but the those videos show how tempting it is to avoid the effort that editing video entails.

I think Grossman's class was much better designed. The slide based format without human body parts allows more flexibility with regard to editing. Taking body parts off the screen allows more flexible combination.

<comment><USER17> I agree Grossman's class was much better designed. I think he is a great teacher. But in my opinion it was mostly because the course's notes were very comprehensive in the case of _Programming Languages_ and somewhat poor in Odersky's courses (again: no disrespect meant for Odersky; just my opinion on the design of these online courses). With Grossman's course you can skip the videos entirely and miss nothing, whereas you cannot do that with Odersky's.

In both cases, I found the exercises very engaging and for me they were the main "thrill" of taking the course, but I understand that other people found them very frustrating -- they were very vocal on the forums -- often for the reasons you mentioned: the tools were hard to configure or confusing.

<comment><USER16> For Odersky's class, _SICP_ is available for free on line and in dead-tree form so there was plenty of background material to support the lectures [not to mention the _SICP_ video lectures].

I just found the exercises for _Functional Programming in Scala_ to be drudgery. That wasn't the case in Grossman's class. Odersky's class was full of klunky complexity - SBT, IDE's, and Scala's compiler performance and the warts of working on top of the JVM. Formatting the exercises partially completed code just added to the mess [though the partially completed code idea is a useful pedagogical approach].

On the other hand, Grossman's use of Emacs was one of the reasons I took the course. I still use Emacs. I don't still use Eclipse or ScalaIDE.

<comment><USER17> You won't like the exercises in _Reactive Programming_ then. Not only are they a confused mess that is difficult to relate to the source material, the source material itself is confusing and poorly motivated.

PS: SICP is not written either by or for Coursera, or even particularly adapted to it. If you use it as the main supporting material, what is the point of Coursera at all? In contrast, Grossman's notes were written by him and directly support his course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> In my experience, both with self-study and at university, the best way to gain and retain knowledge is by working problems. To do this you need: demonstrations of the concepts, problems, hints and solutions.

Hints and solutions can be time consuming to obtain at university (office hours) and might be impossible if you can't find instructor manuals for self- study.

Khan Academy makes the most sense to me. You work the problems until you can't, at which point you use the hints or watch the videos. Then continue.

The only lectures that were useful to me at university was the first one, where they discussed how the class would run, and the last one where they discussed the exam.

Labs and tutorials were useful if I wanted to get hints on how to work problems.

I agree with TFA. Videos should by no means be the focus. They can be very helpful demonstrations. If the goal is to be able to solve problems, that's what you should be spending the most time doing.

<comment><USER19> Not that I frequent many MOOCs, but I have not seen Khan Academy like techniques anywhere else, not even at edX. I think KA's got it right. They've got the best possible solution which will evolve things to the next level, if MOOCs are to stay afloat in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm surprised this is a surprise. I thought it was common knowledge that videos were a terrible medium for education. That was the lesson of the failed 1990's "multimedia education" push.

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't get why MOOCs are so focused on video. I think many people enjoy the relaxed experience of watching a video more than reading, but why ignore people who rather jump right into a text? A text is easier to skim search and reference than a video, and easier to keep up-to-date for the creators. However, I think the best option is a combination of text with visual and interactive content, such as graphical representation of complex ideas and manipulable formulas or code.

<comment><USER22> _A text is easier to skim search and reference than a video_

That's great when you're refreshing or referencing, but when you're learning something from scratch, text presents an easier opportunity to "skim" and miss things than video which sorta decides the speed of the treadmill for you.

I'm the author of a book and the amount of queries I get that were answered on the previous page.. I think many people just don't read every word in books they read (but I sympathize, because neither do I).

<comment><USER21> Right, you need to learn by doing and cannot just passively watch a video or read a text. To learn a topic like programming, you need to practice it. So a good format is to combine a text with small questions and coding challenges. If the user is unsure of how to solve something, it's easier to look it up in the text they read than in a video they watched. And hopefully they'll recognize that the question is asking something they can answer on their own without emailing the author. (Though once the text is online, there should be some kind of forum there to ask questions anyways.)

(PS - I'm actually looking for programming authors or bloggers who would be interested in publishing online with questions and programming challenges.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The video poison is spreading to software documentation too. I can't imagine a bigger waste of time than watching someone type code or work on a command line, yet I've gotten the request many times. For GUIs I can somewhat sympathize, especially if the software changes the layout with every release (I'm looking at you, Blender), and it really does take 1000 words to describe where to click. But typed, word-oriented communication does not benefit from videos. And unless you're Vi Hart, teaching mathematics probably isn't going to benefit from an all-video presentation either. So, kudos to the author.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'd be fine with a video-less MOOC. Just give me a textbook and tell me the chapters to study and what assignments to work on, and I'll be fine. It's difficult to do this on your own because you never know what to focus on without guidance. You're likely to waste valuable time down some unimportant or meaningless rabbit hole! Of course, I'd hope the MOOC would offer a support mechanism in case I needed help.

<comment><USER9> I was recently re-reading a textbook that I had in college and I realized just how much of the book we skipped in class when I noticed how many chapters were unfamiliar to me. I remembered how much we skipped around to put things in a more logical order and what questions we skipped in the tests as well... not sure why textbooks are often written to illogically that it takes a teacher to decipher them.

<comment><USER25> I think Tim Ferris commented on this problem once in a Google Talk where the topic of the quality of (text)books came up:

To a big part it comes down to the fact that ideas and chapters presented in books are most often structured and sequenced in a way that suits the author in writing it. Less about what would actually be the best way of presenting the material from a learner's perspective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I agree with most of this and am the developer of Presentious. We believe audio paired with slides + a transcript with full-text search is better than video 9/10 times. You can see it all in action here: [http://presentio.us/view/p1tcHs](http://presentio.us/view/p1tcHs)

I'm actively seeking feedback and testers in the education space!

</comment><comment><USER27> Recently completed MITx 600.001 which had a fair share of lectures along with a textbook. The lectures were mostly just a rehashing of what was presented in the book but there was something about watching the code run that really made a difference. I also think that having "finger exercises" after a short video explaining a concept is quite helpful. Although it seems that could easily be achieved in book format as well. The live feedback after submitting code was what helped me the most.

At the same time as this I took another course on a different website (coursera) Cloud Computing Concepts Part 1 which was entirely lecture based. The topic was extremely interesting to me and I have moved on to the next course in the series but I do find the all lecture format with quiz based homework to be less than ideal. I try to make up for the lack of a textbook by reading the documentation of concepts covered each week but often times it is hard to pick the most essential material.

The edx platform is really stunning in terms of engagement and feedback from a student perspective. It is easy to imagine a course presented on it with little to no lecture if a strong companion text was provided.

<comment><USER28> My favorite thing about the MITx MOOCs are that they have really well- designed, carefully-devised problem sets, which I think might be the most important factor of a great class.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> _In fact, as far back as 1971, Donald Bligh concluded that "there is not much difference in the effectiveness of methods to present information."_

Apart from 1971 having only nascent experience with educational videos, it's really hard to accept that the science videos of the 50s and 60s were no more effective at imparting information than a book. Seeing things move around as the presenter talks about them can really help to understand the topic.

It really depends on the topic that's being discusses - sometimes a video is better, sometimes a book is better, sometimes you absolutely have to get your hands dirty. You can read a book all you want and watch videos 'til the cows come home, but neither will make you proficient in tying a ligature.

I guess my problem with the statement is that it's absolutist. Some things are better in text, some things are better shown, some things are better done in person, not to mention other methods as well. Choose the appropriate tool for the job. And know your audience as well - the 'general public' is different to 'self-motivated autodidacts', for example.

</comment><comment><USER30> Some of the most effective compsci related MOOCs I've found are the Udacity programming MOOCs that have live coding. You can just drop right into a python REPL and try using what you just learned. We need more of this in a variety of domains.

</comment><comment><USER31> While I agree with the author on the relative uselessness of lectures/video, I wonder how much this is related to individual learning styles. I definitely observed many classmates who benefited more from lectures than I did.

</comment><comment><USER32> The thing that bothers me more is how many of these MOOCS require you to sign up to be able to watch the lectures. Sometime I would just like to watch some of the lectures and not have to bother with assignments and quizzes.

</comment><comment><USER33> Moocs wouldn't have the same pull if they didn't do video. There are reasons why "E-Learning" never really took off before the MOOC movement.

Some part of this is that text books tend to be written as reference material, and don't come with a "first learner's cut", a path through the material which is suited for someone just starting to learn the subject.

Videos are a medium which seems to be easier to master for university instructors than really good teaching texts. Don't ask me why...

</comment><comment><USER34> It's not only MOOCs that use videos a lot. There are so many self publishers who sell videos as a bonus to an ebook. At a premium price. Nathan Barry and Brennan Dunn may be the most prominent examples for this and Barry even advices this practice in his book "Authority" \- and he is successful with this strategy. So obviously some customers perceive videos as an extra value and are ready to pay the premium price.

</comment><comment><USER35> I read faster than I listen/watch. But I absorb information more completely from video lectures. I often watch video lectures at 1.5 to 2x speed too.

</comment><comment><USER36> Some MOOC have both video and PDF slides. I remember a computer graphic corse on Coursera. The videos were obviously useful in many ways but the PDFs were better for finding the formulas when doing the tests.

</comment><comment><USER37> This reminds of the blog post by Adam Brimo, the founder of OpenLearning ([http://www.openlearning.com](http://www.openlearning.com)) - a MOOC startup heavily focused around creating communities. It's short, so I'll just post it here:

\--BEGIN POST-- Every profession and every professional engages with teaching and learning in some capacity. Yet many individuals go through university or higher education degrees and fail to learn to their full potential.

Why?

Because the learning environment is focused on content delivery. In both online and offline educational settings, the structure of teaching and learning is primarily instructional: the lecturer delivers content and the student passively receives it. Lectures and tutorials are teacher-centred and teacher-directed; the teacher possesses the knowledge and power within the learning environment. There is rarely peer-to-peer learning, nor student handover or empowerment within the learning process.

This of course incites some level of learning – if it didn't, we would all still be stuck in first-year university – but it doesn't promote that deep, conceptual understanding of a learning area that is the hallmark of rich learning.

Despite the pervasiveness of the instructional model within higher education, how people learn best isn't through passively receiving content. Rich learning occurs when students actively construct their own knowledge and understanding; when they connect new information with their own world and when they are intrinsically motivated in the process. This deep learning also happens through interaction, discussion and collaboration with others.

Think about a topic you're most excited and passionate about. Do you want to be actively involved in your own learning process? Do you want to discuss and share your experiences of the topic with your peers? Do you want to connect new knowledge with your current awareness through real world examples, to develop that deeper understanding? Do you want to be intrinsically motivated to learn? Do you want to be empowered?

Or do you want to passively listen to an expert deliver a lecture?

OpenLearning wants to change the current model of higher education, to align with how students really learn. We're about empowering students in their learning process; where learners can actively construct their own knowledge that is relevant and meaningful to them.

We provide an online learning environment that fosters deep learning, intrinsic motivation and collaboration with other students. We promote dynamic communication through fun and interactive learning communities; where students can discuss concepts, share relevant and meaningful media, and provide peer review, support and feedback in a safe and positive learning space. We are both the Learning Environment and the Student Hangout. Traditional educational models see these as mutually exclusive entities; we see them as the same thing.

Students love doing courses through our platform, because we speak in their language. Individuals and organisations love running courses through our platform, because students are engaged, intrinsically motivated and productive.

The OpenLearning philosophy promotes a lifelong love of learning that facilitates students reaching their full learning potential. \--END POST--

Full Disclosure: I work at OpenLearning.

<comment><USER38> Reminds me of the quote: "Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire." — William Butler Yeats. Sadly, very few institutions seem to understand this.</comment></comment>


Australian government shelves controversial data retention scheme - <AUTHOR> http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/government-shelves-controversial-data-retention-scheme-20130624-2oskq.html

<comment><USER2> Possibly helped by 20% of the Australian electorate taking the newly formed Wikileaks Party seriously, and there being a Federal Election in 90 days [1].

[1] [http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/roy-morgan- research/2013/0...](http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/roy-morgan- research/2013/06/11/1370907445/new-polling-shows-assanges-wikileaks-leads-new- partie)

<comment><USER3> Australia also has compulsory voting:

> Countries with compulsory voting generally hold elections on a Saturday or > Sunday as evidenced in nations such as Australia, to ensure that working > people can fulfill their duty to cast their vote. Postal and pre-poll voting > is provided to people who cannot vote on polling day, and mobile voting > booths may also be taken to old age homes and hospitals to cater for > immobilized citizens.

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

Notably, this results in election candidates adopting populist policies that more closely represent their constituents.

<comment><USER4> That they are populist I would tend to agree. Having voted in both the UK and Australia, I've concluded that compulsory voting in Australia leads to a type of popularity contest, and that the so called informal vote is viewed as either one of an error, a wasted opportunity for democratic engagement, or an act of stupidity. Certainly when counting votes, the informal votes are discarded as merit less.

In the UK the election turnout percentage is just as important a metric for measuring overall confidence in the political process as the proportion of votes gained for the candidates. Another dimension to voter attitude which is lost in the compulsory system I believe. As it shows a general vote of confidence, the entire political class is highly observant of it.

<comment><USER5> The act of deliberately not voting is an under appreciated form of protest and non-consent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "A controversial "data retention" scheme that would have _allowed_ > Australians' internet and telephone activities to be stored for up to two > years...

... in fact, the proposed scheme would have been mandatory.

[http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Hous...](http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=pjcis%2Fnsl2012%2Freport.htm)

</comment><comment><USER7> "its Prismlike scheme"

<comment><USER8> Yes, please edit the title to replace "it's" with "its". In this context "it's" means "it is". /petpeeve

<comment><USER9> If this is a pet-peeve of yours, how the hell do you manage to be a reader of this site?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why make our own system when the DSD and ASIO can just listen in thanks to the US?

</comment><comment><USER11> I have to wonder whether this is because it would have been (suddenly) unpopular, or because they found out what kind of data the NSA is able to offer to every secret service in the world ...

Also, SCNR: it's "its" (possessive), not "it's" (= it is) in the title (says the non-native speaker who firmly believes that such mistakes are contagious).

<comment><USER9> _says the non-native speaker who firmly believes that such mistakes are contagious_

In that case, you should know that the comma in your first sentence shouldn't be there. To understand why, consider this sentence with a similar form: "I have to wonder whether this is an apple, or an orange."

I know it's pedantic and doesn't add anything to the conversation, but there are lots of people in here and we wouldn't want it to catch.

<comment><USER12> Whether that comma should or not be there is actually not universally agreed. This punctuation is known as "Serial comma"[1], and some style guides require its use.

On that sentence though, I think it's different. The first part of the sentence is long enough that the comma is welcome as a natural stop (and breather) before delivering the second half.

By the way: I'm not a native speaker either.

[1] Also better known as "Oxford comma": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma)

<comment><USER9> Did you not even read the first sentence on the wiki page you linked to? Here it is:

 _In punctuation, a serial comma or series comma (also called Oxford comma and Harvard comma) is a comma placed immediately before the coordinating conjunction (usually and, or, or nor) in a series of three or more terms._

Note the last four words. _three or more terms_

 _On that sentence though, I think it 's different. The first part of the sentence is long enough that the comma is welcome as a natural stop (and breather) before delivering the second half._

Despite your feeling that commas should, be inserted randomly when we feel the sentence, has gone too long, that is not standard English. You also missed the entire, point of my comment. It has nothing to, do with commas.

<comment><USER13> Oh, God...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Too bad ... it would have been hilarious to see them attempt to announce this now, in the current political climate and the brouhaha over NSA spying going on.

</comment><comment><USER15> Reading between the lines of this article and the "at this time" weasel words, it sounds like might still be on their "things to do" list.

</comment><comment><USER16> Still can't play Left4 Dead 2.

<comment><USER17> I don't know if people are down voting because they don't get the reference, or because it's irrelevant, but this is what he's talking about:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_4_Dead_2#Australian_ban](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_4_Dead_2#Australian_ban)

Leaving those who actually played the game scratching their heads.</comment></comment>


Patterns for REST API bulk operations - <AUTHOR> http://www.l1ghtm4n.com/post/53259404576/patterns-for-rest-api-bulk-operations

<comment><USER2> HTTP PATCH is a very good way to do RESTful bulk operations

I frequently use the PATCH operation to create, update and delete in bulk, sometimes a combination of these. That is the best bulk operation I have found till date that is RESTFul and compliant across client/server.

Eg.

curl --dump-header - -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X PATCH --data '{"objects": [{"body": "Surprise! Another post!.", "pub_date": "2012-02-16T00:46:38", "slug": "yet-another-post", "title": "Yet Another Post"}], "deleted_objects": ["[http://localhost:8000/api/v1/entry/4/"]}'](http://localhost:8000/api/v1/entry/4/"\]}') [http://localhost:8000/api/v1/entry/](http://localhost:8000/api/v1/entry/)

<comment><AUTHOR> That is definitely another way to do it. You do lose the significance of the HTTP verb, though. One reason i've come to the dedign i proposed is that a web form usually isn't creating and deleting in a single operation, so I used that to justify different entry points.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Indies can make multiplayer games too - <AUTHOR> http://www.gimbalgame.com I recently launched my project of the past two years: Gimbal, a 2D space shooter.<p>Gimbal is multiplayer because my best gaming experiences have been in multiplayer games. Multiplayer is a bit of a gamble because it requires a sturdy player base, but I think it is essential. My feature list was also ambitious (physics, custom UI, ship editor), but I just pushed my launch date back until I reached my goals. I'm very happy with the final product. Check it out! There is a free demo as well. <comment><USER2> This is a really great game. Haven't seen anything like this before.</comment>


Carla – a fully-featured audio plugin host - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/falkTX/Carla <comment><AUTHOR> While the Github text is clearer, there are videos on the official page: [https://kx.studio/Applications:Carla](https://kx.studio/Applications:Carla)</comment>


Ask HN: Any highly recommended reading for Google Analytics? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking to find a very good book, blog post, article, etc on how to get the most out of Google Analytics. Something that walks you through the step by step setup to maximize that particular feature of Google Analytics. e.g, Monetary Value to Goals, Channels and funnels, or anything else that would help identify important aspects about user behavior. <comment><USER2> [https://www.amazon.com/Web-Analytics-2-0-Accountability- Cent...](https://www.amazon.com/Web-Analytics-2-0-Accountability- Centricity/dp/0470529393)</comment>


Ever wondered how to behave in an elevator? - <AUTHOR> http://thenewsandme.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/lift-etiquette/

<comment><USER2> A diverting read, but was it something that, in the words of the guidelines:

       > gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

??

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it does. HN may be the wrong target audience but I think the article meets someones intellectual curiosity...you just really need to want to see it!

The piece also deals with an important point...if you have your own startup and you are moving into an office - just ensure you don't get one with an elevator.

Given your username I think you would appreciate this random piece but I take on board your point and I won't post these types of articles in the future.

<comment><USER2> I did appreciate it - as I say, a diverting read - but I agree that HN is the wrong audience. At least, until you tie it in with hacking or startups or investigations or something with some bite.

I occasionally post things like this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1113300>

It usually gets a comment or two such as can be found there saying that it more correctly belongs on reddit, say. My reply there sums up my attitude as to why I think it is interesting.

But I have found here on HN that if you don't make those observations explicitly, if you don't start to do some analysis that leads from the original, then people will dismiss it as "Diverting, but content-free and not appropriate."

So, can you actually apply it to this audience? Are there lessons to learn (apart from the obvious "Don't get office space that requires an elevator) ??

Just my $0.02.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great post (the T-shirt one).

I think you are right - it does belong on a Reddit type site. I find it really frustrating that there is not a hacker news type service but for creative writers. I love startups but I also like to blog but it's hard getting any people to read my content!

You are right though there is more appropriate media out there for these sort of posts but I am just not certain what they are.

I am not sure I can spin it to meet the audience but I have noticed that the Hacker News audience is generally one that is very open minded and also one that likes to be entertained. This 'entertainment' normally comes in the form of startups and all things interent but there are also users who have a sense of humour (such as yourself) who can appreciate the odd, random entertaining post (I hope).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ugh, just misanthropy. Not even amusing misanthropy imo.

When you step into anywhere public, which includes a lift you have to tolerate people, some of them do things you don't like. Sorry about that but that's what society is partly about, tolerance...

<comment><USER4> Just because I tolerate people doesn't mean that I don't believe there is a special level of Hell reserved for people who require tolerance.</comment></comment>


Photoshop 'unblur' leaves MAX audience gasping for air - <AUTHOR> http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/10/photoshop-unblur-leaves-max-audience-gasping-for-air/ <comment><USER2> If you are wondering how they might be doing it, here is one approach that I saw in a computer vision class (no idea if they are doing anything similar to this)

(slides: [http://cs.nyu.edu/~fergus/presentations/fergus_deblurring.pd...](http://cs.nyu.edu/~fergus/presentations/fergus_deblurring.pdf) (~60 MB ppt) paper: <http://cs.nyu.edu/~fergus/papers/deblur_fergus.pdf> (~10 MB pdf) )

The basic idea is that you have an unknown original image and it is convolved with an unknown blurring kernel to produce the observed image. It turns out that problem is ill-posed. You could have a bizzare original image blurred with just the right bizzare blurring kernel to produce the observed image. So to estimate both the original image and the kernel, you have to minimize the reconstruction error with respect to the observed image, while penalizing unlikely blurring kernels or original images. If one extracts enough statistics from a dataset of natural images, one can tell whether an image is likely or not by comparing that image's statistics to the corresponding statistics of your dataset of natural images. Similarly, simple blurring kernels are favored over complex ones (think "short arc of motion" vs. "tracing the letters of a word with your camera")

<comment><USER3> I assume the RedLaser barcode app uses something similar from captured video frames combined with data from the accelerometer, no?

<comment><USER4> Barcodes are designed to be easy to decode. Even blurred, the 1 or 2 dimensional frequency information is pretty well preserved. If I needed to combine data from several blurred images of a barcode I'd extract the likely values of the barcode from each image separately and then combine those.

<comment><USER3> Does it make a difference on the technique used if the image is out-of-focus versus blurred by camera motion?

<comment><USER5> So long as the motion blur is a small enough angle/translation, the difference is only in the shape of the blurring kernel. The kernel will be circular or gaussian for out of focus, while a line or arc for motion.

In one dimension, you'll be looking at a slice (more accurately, a summed projection) of the kernel. Focus = guassian, motion = square wavelet (line) or irregular (arc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's called blind deconvolution. Blind means that they have to first estimate the original convolution/blur kernel and in the second phase, apply the deconvolution. If there's acceleration sensor on the camera, you can use data from that for the blur kernel.

It's nothing new really, but algorithms for it have advanced tremendously. For example, there's some results from 2009 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqMW3OleLM4>

Teuobk on HN also made a startup/app based on this, but it seems to be down now: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2460887>

<comment><USER7> One key problem with deconvolution is it's very susceptible to noise. I'm guessing they developed a way to ramp up the coefficients so you see an increase in clarity while keeping the noise below visible levels. So much of image (and audio!) processing is about getting away with noise the person can't detect :)

On a side note: does anybody know of workable deconvolution algorithms that vary the kernel over the image? The example would be compensating for a bad lens.

<comment><USER8> > So much of image (and audio!) processing is about getting away with noise > the person can't detect :)

Adobe's noise processing algorithms in their software are something else, especially in ACR6/Lightroom 3.

I moved 'down' from a 5D2 to a Panasonic GF1 as I don't shoot pro anymore, and ISO1600 on this thing with a slightly-off exposure can be pretty noisy. Lightroom cleans it up incredibly well without losing clarity/sharpness. Before that, I'd just do all I could to keep the ISO down so I didn't 'lose' images to noise.

<comment><USER9> It's a very different kind of noise. Artifacts, is what he meant to write. Motion deconvolution done wrong tends to lead to things like ring artifacts and other things that look like the image has been really badly and inaccurately oversharpened.

The basic theory for doing this type of deblurring isn't too bad, but making it easy and automatic becomes a really difficult computer vision-related problem. Adobe has been working on this (and a lot of other pretty cool stuff) for quite a while. It'll be interesting if they ever ship it.

<comment><USER10> I'm guessing that there is a whole lot of analysis left out by loading pre- configured coesfficient files to deconvolve these images. Getting _that_ process to be relatively easy for the lay-person will be a challenge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The random anti-intellectual comments from the guys in the wheely chairs were extremely annoying and unfunny. This guy is there, showing something truly amazing, and they're all "What's an algorithm? Haha!". And they'll get away with it too.

<comment><USER12> Rainn Wilson is actually a really smart guy. He was playing the classic stupid guy being wowed by a genius card, it was an actor's way of complimenting him.

<comment><USER13> Anti-intellectualism aside, they still interrupted an amazing talk without adding any value. An actor's way of dominating the stage even when it's not your turn. A bit rude and unnecessary.

<comment><USER14> He was paid by the company to interject with quips during the demos, so any rudeness is understood by both parties. An awkward situation for all involved.

<comment><USER15> Being paid to be rude doesn't make it not rude.

<comment><USER16> He was paid to be rude to the people who were paying him to be rude? That might not make it not rude, but I can't imagine anything that would come closer.

<comment><USER17> It was rude to be rude to the people paying him to be rude because it appears to the other members of the audience who were not being paid to be rude that being rude and interrupting the talk is acceptable practice.

<comment><USER18> How about you all lighten up, yeah?

<comment><USER17> _Whoosh_

<comment><USER18> I said all, not just you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Let me load the specially constructed set of parameters specific to this image so that when I do the next step you get a really clear image.

That was a little too hand-wavy. I'm a little dubious until I see what went into that phase.

<comment><USER20> To an extent, this is already available -- for example in the Topaz Labs InFocus Photoshop plugin. There are some params to play with that make it easier to find the blur trajectory when the blur is motion-related (although if you leave it in "figure it out for yourself" mode, it gets it right often enough). InFocus (the current version) will only do linear trajectories, though -- it can't handle curves as well as this Photoshop sneak does.

The parameter preload isn't cheating -- if they're anything like the InFocus params, they're pretty obvious but somewhat tedious. They're things like telling it that you're trying to correct motion blur rather than focus blur, what level of artifacting you're willing to put up with (for forensics or text recovery, you can put up with a lot of noise in the uninteresting part of the picture), the desired hardness of recovered edges, that sort of thing. It would have just been a time-waster for the demo (and, like in the demo, InFocus allows you to save the params as a preset).

<comment><USER21> Yeah, I tried the Topaz InFocus plugin after it got a bit of buzz from the TWIP podcast. It wasn't quite as magical as the demo images on the site made it seem, and I ended up not buying it (Topaz's Denoise plugin, OTOH, is quite incredible).

I suspect people will have to manage their expectations with this Adobe plugin/feature as well.

<comment><USER20> I've gotten some rather amazing results with InFocus myself, but it does take a lot of tweaking of sliders and so on. It was mostly recovering irreplaceable stuff, otherwise it wouldn't have been worth the bother. (Taking better pictures is always the better option when you have it.) I do prefer the output of a mild application to unsharp masking for photos that aren't actually blurry, though. And, of course, running it after DeNoise just gets you your noise back, often sharper and more noticeable than before.

I sort of expect Adobe to do better -- they've got a lot more resources to work on the problem. Maybe I'll finally find a reason to upgrade from CS3.

<comment><USER21> Curious - how badly blurred were your images?

When I tried InFocus, I used them on some shots where I blew the focus at wider apertures (now that I'm using a camera with better high ISO performance, that kind of defocus is rarely an issue, because I have the luxury of stopping down), and I couldn't get adequate results and I wasn't willing to spend a lot of time tweaking sliders.

I am totally with you on the idea of taking better pictures though. The more you can reduce your effort in post with technique, the better. A lot of stuff is unfixable in post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm more impressed with that overhead display - seems impossible?

How does it disappear at the end - or is that a virtual digital overlay?

Wait, is the entire background rear projected, like a borderless movie theater screen? Must be massive resolution ?!

<comment><USER23> I'm inclined to say much or all of the background is indeed all rear- projected. If you look at the top-right around 5:06 or 5:07, you see what looks a lot like it might be light-emitting text floating in midair. (EDIT: Correction! It's not just floating there, it scrolls left just as the camera is coming down, I missed that on the first viewing. So it's definitely not just on a physical banner.)

As for "massive resolution", slicing up a framebuffer and shooting out the components to multiple projectors wouldn't be a new idea, and I'll bet that's what was done here.

<comment><USER24> Yes, it was all projected. (also the side walls of the theatre). Some 20+ projectors pushing 300 million pixels/sec. The intro to the keynotes was pretty amazing as well, meshing the projection with light effects and live performance: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrDPgUjqTQ8&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrDPgUjqTQ8&feature=related)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Forensic police drama writers everywhere: vindicated.

This is seriously cool technology.

<comment><USER26> hahaha i was just thinking the same thing.

"zoom in on that. good. now....ENHANCE."

<comment><USER27> "... and ROTATE"

<comment><USER28> The reflection... <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxq9yj2pVWk>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Does this work with just motion blur or also with aperture blur? It seems like they are calculating the motion of the camera so perhaps just the former.

<comment><USER30> Defocus (or "aperture blur") cannot be corrected by the methods they mention in the video. However, there are other kinds of blur you can correct.

<comment><USER31> This is an interesting way of completely avoiding defocus blur: <http://www.lytro.com/picture_gallery>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> How is this different from what FocusMagic <http://www.focusmagic.com/> has been offering for over a decade?

<comment><USER33> FocusMagic handles only focus blur or linear motion blur, and either way, it requires a high level of user interaction to direct the deblurring. In effect, it is "non-blind" deconvolution.

The Adobe approach, on the other hand, handles complex (non-linear) motion blur and does so in a so-called "blind" way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Wish they applied that algorithm on the video...

<comment><USER35> Indeed. And held the camera steady. I have motion sickness now, and I'm sitting at my desk :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Been hoping for this for a while! The information is _there_ , it's just distorted. Great to see Adobe keep pushing this kind of photo editing magic forward. I bet the maths are crazy.

<comment><USER37> The information is not really there, because the phase is not captured by the sensor. All you have is the intensity of the light.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I believe the speaker mentioned this algorithm was based on the Point Spread Function[1] but modified to model the movement of the point in time. Dougherty has[2] a static PSF deconvolution implementation that is fun to play with.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_spread_function> [2] <http://www.optinav.com/Iterative-Deconvolution.htm>

</comment><comment><USER39> To me it seems the magic is in getting the blur kernel in the first place, how do you get that ?

</comment><comment><USER40> Now all Photoshop needs is an unCrash feature.

</comment><comment><USER41> Well, it KINDA looked like stuff was being unblurred, but it's really hard to tell with the camera panning around out of focus. The only part I could really be sure was actually unblurred was the phone number.

</comment><comment><USER42> Here's a relevant image: [http://inperc.com/wiki/index.php?title=A_common_view_of_digi...](http://inperc.com/wiki/index.php?title=A_common_view_of_digital_imaging).

</comment><comment><USER43> I suppose this is more of image sharpening rather than reconstruction. Is this very different from technology on cameras/phones that tries to reduce of photo blurness due to unsteady hands?

<comment><USER30> What makes you suppose that? On an abstract level, you can model blur and camera shake with a convolution kernel. You can then invert the kernel and get back the original image. As an analogy, imagine that someone gives you an audio file with an echo. You can subtract the echo with a filter. Camera shake is harder because of the extra dimension. (Of course, you only get back the exact original in the world of mathematics)

<comment><USER44> Should hopefully get easier with a dedicated asic crunching on the extra dimension gathered from future built-in gyroscopes in cameras.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> One of the tricky thrones in this method is extracting/guessing the camera motion path purely from image measurements. Better the estimate, the better the deblur kernel will be. What might be cool is if they can extract out meta- information using some kind of inertial and gyroscope-akin sensors (which are fast becoming standard in phones and cameras), which can supplement the motion path computation algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER46> So now we need blurring algorithms that cause actual information loss (I'm sure they already exist, but now there's suddenly a bigger market for them).

<comment><USER35> We always did need those algorithms. There was a paper a few years ago on decoding gaussian-blurred documents to reveal the redacted passages. The only safe way is to completely remove the original pixels, e.g. by drawing a black box over the text.

<comment><USER47> and not by just drawing that box over them in the original (textual content) pdf. You need to squash it down to images, then destroy the bits you need to. (There might be other ways, but enough Big Government Agencies have screwed it up to make it worth noting)

Is the 'decoding' paper this one: <http://dheera.net/projects/blur.php> ? The blur function is just smearing pixel values across their neighbours in blocks, so you can treat it as a hashing function, and then generate enough candidates that eventually you get something that hashes correct (or close enough)

I'm not sure how practical it'd be on data longer than a credit-card number, but it's an interesting hack nevertheless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I've read a few of the very technical responses and they are great, but, for me, the take away was the audience response. It's exactly what I look for when I write software. I want that gasp, that moment where someone realizes they can do a hard thing much easier. Where they realize that they just got a few moments of time back.

</comment><comment><USER49> Can this overcome some of the soft blurring media companies/journalists use to hide naughty bits and to protect identities?

</comment><comment><USER50> Now that is a feature I would upgrade for.

</comment><comment><USER51> Imagemagick can already use this "algorithm". See "fourier transform" applications such as:

[http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/fourier_transforms/fo...](http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/fourier_transforms/fourier.html#convolution_deconvolution))

<comment><USER33> Deconvolution is easy. The main difficulty is estimating the blur kernel in a so-called "blind" manner. That's the advance being shown off by Adobe.

<comment><USER51> Right. It wasn't clear to me in the video that Adobe is using "blind" deconvolution. I did catch a glimpse of a small black square within a pure white field (on the right side palette in the video). I'm assuming that it is a spatial domain motion blur filter - variable by which the interface tweaks the effect.

<comment><USER52> I thought that was an _output_ field, showing what motion it had estimated. Guess we'll have to wait until it's released to find out :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Is this much different than the Lytro "focus later" camera? <http://www.lytro.com/>. I don't know much about imaging, but I've been drooling over the demos I've seen online.

<comment><USER54> Completely different. This is a way to remove motion blur. Lytro is a way to move some of the focusing elements from physical to computational.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> What they should do is partner with a DSLR maker and put this in the firmware of the camera itself. Imagine one button blur correction. That'd be amazing.

<comment><USER56> I don't think DSLRs have the processing power needed to unblur the images. It took several seconds to unblur a section of an image. It'd probably be faster to upload the image to a cloud processor and have it unblur it for you.

<comment><USER21> _It'd probably be faster to upload the image to a cloud processor and have it unblur it for you._

It might be more efficient to just teach people how to use their cameras so that they can minimize _unwanted_ blurring.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Maybe they could apply this technology to Flash, so that video streaming on YouTube isn't so blurry :)

</comment><comment><USER58> My version of Photoshop had that feature for years.

1) Load image. 2) Filter -> Gaussian Blur 3) Undo

;-)

</comment><comment><USER59> So, why did the whole video look really fake? It seemed to bob around in a very predictable manner. When the first sharpening took effect, it panned and zoomed exactly in time with the appearance of the second image.

I'm not claiming the demo is fake, I'm just wondering why the video looks so strange.

<comment><USER60> I think it would be unreasonable to claim that it is fake anyway, since relevant research has been public for some time. If there's an amount of trickery involved, it's in the parameter files he loaded (they might be nontrivial/nonautomatic to produce).

<comment><USER59> Again, I'm not questioning the demo, I'm asking why the _video_ has so many very strange traits.

<comment><USER60> I know, I was referring to people who might question it (such as the posters below you), hence the "anyway".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> So who shot Kennedy?

</comment><comment><USER62> Need this for my wife. Will that camera's RAW format need to be compatible with this algorithm?

</comment><comment><USER28> ENHANCE <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxq9yj2pVWk>

<comment><USER63> It leaves out a couple of my favs:

Super Troopers: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiqkclCJsZs>

Red Dwarf: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUFkb0d1kbU></comment></comment>