Google announces Literata, its new e-book typeface - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/google/2015/05/18/google-announces-literata-its-new-e-book-typeface/ <comment><USER3> This website is horrible. View an ugly ad with the real article bouncing on the side. Who comes up with this stuff?

</comment><comment><USER4> Here are some examples I found: [https://www.flickr.com/photos/typetogether/sets/721576524335...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/typetogether/sets/72157652433541065/)

</comment><comment><USER5> It seems nice, and has interesting points, but also kinda appears to have the same problem as e.g. Bookman has for me: it's trying so hard to be readable, moderate, and inoffensive that my eyes kind of glaze over.... the text sort of dissolves into a sea of constant grey. I think a font for text (like ebooks) needs more texture for your eyes to latch onto.

Maybe it would look better in print where the natural roughness of the paper and printing process for e.g. paperbacks adds some texture and interest... I've noticed a lot of typefaces don't look nearly as good on a high-resolution display as they do on cheap paper.

</comment><comment><USER6> It looks like it could be very readable and quite beautiful, but it's difficult to tell when you haven't seen it rendered properly - <USER2> announcements about it have just shown a greyscale-aliased image, which isn't ideal. If anyone gets a nicer rendering or finds the font itself, please link!

If anyone finds

</comment><comment><USER7> Some more info from the designers: [http://www.type- together.com/literata](http://www.type-together.com/literata)

</comment><comment><USER8> Great but ... how about introducing a decent line-breaking algorithm into ebook readers so that justification looks good?

</comment><comment><USER9> What with Kindle and other ebook readers?

</comment><comment><USER10> the text sample that they chose to show the typeface in action says it all</comment>


The Rolltop: when do you think we'll see a concept like this roll out? - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=7H0K1k54t6A

<comment><USER2> Probably never. Why would I want this? It doesn't look more portable than my iPad already is.

</comment><comment><USER3> The day OLED becomes cheap to produce and sell, and haptic feedback from flat touch-screen surfaces becomes natural and not awkward.</comment>


Facing unbearable heat, Qatar has begun to air-condition the outdoors - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/world/climate-environment/climate-change-qatar-air-conditioning-outdoors/ <comment><USER2> I had a similar reaction when I lived in Austin. I'd walk down 6th street (one of the streets with active nightlife) and bars would leave their doors open with air conditioning blasting out onto the sidewalk. I still don't understand it - it just seems so wasteful.

<comment><USER3> They probably think that open doors look welcoming, you can hear the music playing inside, which might attract people walking by, and just that if others are doing it around your bar then you should do it too unless you want to appear closed.

<comment><USER4> Cold air blowing out the doorway onto passersby is just as inviting as the music.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is it really that different(energy-wise) than heating the outdoors in winter? Like when restaurants have gas heaters next to tables so you can comfortably sit outside even in freezing temperatures - how is this different?

<comment><AUTHOR> The specific instance in Qatar's case is in providing AC to a stadium, apparently covered, if not entirely contained, and taking advantage of temperature-induced differential density to apply cooling only to where people actually are, rather than the _entire_ enclosed space.

Which might actually be more efficient than equivalent practices of conditioning _all_ interior stadium air in the US.

A difference between outdoor radiant heating (which I also find immensely wasteful) and outdoor AC is that radiant heat, erm, _radiates_ , so you're only providing a sufficiently warm blackbody, and not attempting to change the temperature of an entire space. _Surface_ temperatures (including skin) are increased by radiant heat, but _air_ temps are not: a campfire will warm your hands and face, but not all the surroundings. Since cold isn't similarly radiant, there's no equivalent mechanism.

What this translates to in terms of Joules or kWh per meter-degree of thermal variance for heating vs. cooling, I'm not sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was at Disneyland during a heat wave and I remember waiting in line for 1-2 hours to ride the Cars ride. The sun was beating down and you were cut off from refreshments (unless you gave up your place in line). The line would eventually wind through shade and misters, but your time always seemed to be too short.

I cannot tell you how little I cared about ecological use of water near those misters.

</comment><comment> m-p-3 This is as useful as trying to to throw out the water from a sinking boat, instead of attacking the root cause of fixing the leak. You're simply slowing down the inevitable if you don't act accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER7> [screaming Greta Thunberg in distance]

<comment><USER8> We've banned this account for repeatedly posting flamebait. If you haven't yet, would you mind reviewing [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and taking in the spirit of this site? It's definitely not for comments like this, or your other most recent ones.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email firstname.lastname@example.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow those rules in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Shows the shortsightedness of how we got into this mess; bringing a slingshot to a gun-fight.</comment>


One Professional Russian Troll Tells All - <AUTHOR> http://www.rferl.mobi/a/how-to-guide-russian-trolling-trolls/26919999.html <comment><USER3> It is fascinating that this article comes out in context of Broadcast Board of Governors announcing that US is losing the information war with Russia. Surprisingly it does not occur to the media that telling the truth is the best antidote to Russian propaganda. Instead, the government is complaining that "broadcasters are not always in tune with U.S. foreign policy objectives." Frankly, since I'm paying my taxes to US government, I want free and independent journalism, not the one that is driven by advertisers, corporate sponsors, or US foreign objectives. We used to have that before 1990s when just 6 major media conglomerates ate up 90% of the media companies. [http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/25/usa- broadcasting-i...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/25/usa-broadcasting- idUSL2N0WP23620150325)

<comment><USER4> > It is fascinating that this article comes out in context of Broadcast Board > of Governors announcing that US is losing the information war with Russia. > Surprisingly it does not occur to the media that telling the truth is the > best antidote to Russian propaganda.

Is it though? I know that in a business context I've often been told that I have an 'incredible ability to see both sides of a question'; that's actually a problem, because at some point one has to _decide_ for one side or another on a particular question.

Likewise, in real life there often _aren 't_ cut-and-dried issues: rather, there are two (or more!) sides, each with valid perspectives, valid grudges, and _they can 't all win_; indeed, in some cases compromise is simply impossible. And yet people must decide between them.

Indeed, the more one learns the truth about an historical conflict, the less obvious is the Right Thing to do in that situation. But what great masses of people need is a clear, obvious Right Thing. You don't win WWII by emphasising that the post-WWI plebiscites were fixed against Germany, or that Japan had some valid grievances against the U.S.

<comment><USER5> > Japan had some valid grievances against the U.S.

I'm curious what Japan's valid grievances against the Chinese, Koreans, or various Pacific island groups was...

<comment><USER6> Well, none (well I mean plenty if you want to go through thousands of years of history, but realistically, none), but modernizing largely meant copying Western ideas and that included having their own colonies and spheres of influence, just like Western powers. It's not as though that is the reason the US went to war with Japan.

<comment><USER5> > It's not as though that is the reason the US went to war with Japan.

I realize this, but WW2, for Japan, was mostly about taking over much of SE Asia and that would have happened regardless of them going to war with the US.

<comment><USER6> I think the popular American image of the wartime Japanese doesn't have much to do with that, although they certainly did brutalize the places they took over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a Russian, yep, I saw these people online, they're easy identifiable, though...

Also, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are the motherlands for hackers of all sorts, we have bots who post pro-Kremlin comments on social networks too.

My favorite example is this one: [http://apikabu.ru/img_n/2012-02_4/5c7.jpg](http://apikabu.ru/img_n/2012-02_4/5c7.jpg)

The description says "DO NOT POST COMMENTS, who post a comment will be banned", and underneath it different bot accounts post messages about how bad it is to join protests and American government controls the opposition, nonsense like that.

Don't worry about hacker news or other sites like this one — the government thinks people don't know English to be on these sites. Partially it's true, though, most people still are unaware of real situation because they don't have internet connection (they get news from television, as here it's called "ZomboTV" ("Зомбоящик"), you guys have it too, imagine if all the channels were like CNN) and most of their time they spend on trying to survive in this economic situation (google "dollar to ruble"), they have no time to protest or find true information about their government and "president" (a mafioso Putin, google "dacha consumer cooperative Ozero")

<comment><USER8> Zombotv "Зомбоящик"?? You are obviously not from Russia, nobody is using such words here, I bet you are from Ukraine

<comment><USER7> I am from Russia, Moscow to be precise. And if your friends or people around you doesn't use that word it doesn't mean nobody uses it.

<comment><USER9> Surprised this post didn't come with a link to a picture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The other side does the same. Here is the story. I have a client - <USER2> market research company, covering Russia. I made bilingual website for them. When Ukrainian conflict started, their Russian contact form was heavily abused by some pro-Ukrainian trolls, posting physical threats to company employees (UK-based, by the way). I coded check against vocabulary, but it appeared, trolls were restlessly trying to bypass my hidden rules for business conversation. It took a week of polishing vocabulary rules. And I added math captcha. In the end I won. They even wrote me a give up letter. Their IPs were mostly Polish and French.

UPD: The hosting was US-based. So they were deliberately looking for Russian forms.

<comment><USER11> It's not quite the same though? I doubt there is a facility somewhere in Ukraine where people are getting paid to peddle government propaganda on the Internet.

<comment><USER12> [http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37599.htm](http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37599.htm)

 _" Victoria Nuland Admits: US Has Invested $5 Billion In The Development of Ukrainian, 'Democratic Institutions'"._

<comment><USER13> Since 1992. I am also not sure that the described activities are within the purvey of the peace corps, doctors without borders... that the $5B paid for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sure...propaganda generated for the direct purpose of trying to influence the masses. It has been around forever and is used by everyone from governments to multinationals to mom-and-pops up the road.

However, my question is this...is a "troll" just defined as someone who disagrees with you?

For example, I am sure, as unpleasant as it may seem, that there are plenty of people who sincerely think it's good that Russia invaded Ukraine...if these people voice their support, are they "trolling"?

How are you supposed to tell the difference?

Is calling someone a "troll" just a way to try to quickly marginalize any POV they may be trying to defend or promote? And if so, isn't it just a shortcut to censorship of any ideas you may not agree with? Is that the way we want discussions to work?

These are serious questions that I, personally, have about this issue. Am I considered a "troll" for having these questions?

<comment><USER3> The problem you are describing is due to the fact that the word "troll" is a semantic stop sign [http://lesswrong.com/lw/it/semantic_stopsigns/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/it/semantic_stopsigns/)

People judge someone as a troll and immediately stop thinking about the subject matter, e.g. "Russia invaded Ukraine" is that a fact or an opinion?

<comment><USER15> I believe this is one of the main reason people try to call out the presence of trolls (particularly as government or corporate shills) on forums, especially if they do it preemptively.

If you believe that an opposing point of view is objectively wrong and mostly upheld by propagandists, you want to prevent people from actually considering "the lie" for their own safety.

Of course, doing this usually leads to an argument and tea-leaf reading session that creates a bigger distraction than the trolls (whether they exist or not) probably could have managed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For those who are using the argument that other countries do it too: No. Many US news outlets (Fox News, Newsweek, Yahoo news, etc.) often post overtly biased stories in favor of US interests. But they do it not because they are instructed, but because it makes many Americans feel good. Although it's not pretty, they do it for business reasons. You need only hang out a while on /r/worldnews before you realize that completely valid pro-Russian arguments are down voted for no reason, while 'Fuck Russia' posts are up voted. The same with stories. But this is folly, not malice.

Russian news is of an entirely different nature. They were famous for industrious propaganda during the cold war. They are now at it again in full force. The troll factories are just one facet of it, but it encompasses nearly all of Russian media.

<comment><USER16> >For those who are using the argument that other countries do it too: No.

>...valid pro-Russian arguments are down voted for no reason, while 'Fuck Russia' posts are up voted. The same with stories. But this is folly, not malice.

You can say this all you want but it's merely conjecture. You can see the exact same trends you'll find with these Russian "trolls" (shills is a better word) on almost every topic on the internet.

It is not a stretch to believe that the NSA and other organizations, private and public, are waging a public/private war of popular opinion all over the internet and media.

Remember when the NSA and DOD lied to American congress about collecting American's cell phone data and stuff? If they're willing to BLATANTLY lie to congress then what's a couple million of their hugely bloated budgets to pay an office of trolls to throw smoke screens over any topic they please?

And if you're inferring that private corporations don't offer this service...well...if that's true, I just found my next business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I saw this all over reddit when that airplane was shot down over Ukraine.

Vote brigading and shill accounts corrupted reddit long ago. These tactics have probably been in use since _before_ reddit even existed.

The internet is essentially a big propaganda machine and you can't till what is what unless you are keen and aware.

<comment><USER17> >The internet is essentially a big propaganda machine and you can't till what is what unless you are keen and aware.

Indeed.

Governments including those in the Five Eyes, Russia, China, Israel and more have been shown to have massive operations - JTRIG for one - that seek to disrupt and manipulate online discourse, create and spread false information, etc.

PR firms run rampant across social media sites, forums, etc. and disrupt and manipulate online discourse and the flow of information. Everything from the largest companies in the world to small local restaurants engage in manipulating how their company and its actions are perceived.

News entities, small and large, serve their corporate interests and promote whatever they want promoted, or rally against whatever they want rallied against.

And then people, with their inherent biases, buying into propaganda, toeing the party line, etc. do their own part in the same, whether it's in spreading purposely created disinformation that they believe to be true, trying to silence those that disagree with them and more. One of the most toxic things I've seen is the rise in very rapidly dismissing a statement that one disagrees with as being that of "trolling" or "shilling" in order to shut down the discussion.

With regards to Reddit, the fact that moderator accounts, accounts with large numbers of upvotes, etc. can be readily bought online says more than needs to be said about the bizarre behaviour on display on that site every day.

Wikipedia has been utterly bastardized.

And so it goes on.

It's a shame to see a tool that was created for sharing information being so heavily corrupted. Widespread propaganda from all sides, mass surveillance, the active actions of intelligence agencies such as the recent CIA attempt to inspire an uprising in Cuba, etc.

It has become very hard to know what to trust online now. It's sad, but not unexpected, and one can only wonder what the future holds for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ukrainian situation is a complex one and brings out the worst in people, at least in post-Soviet countries. It's not uncommon for people to have different view on this issue. I know families who fight over it, people breaking up over it, it's pretty emotional subject. So with this in mind, I don't think there is some sort of conspiratorial force at work to post pro-Kremlin position on online. I don't doubt that there are paid people who spam forums but just because someone is voicing their opinion in favor of Russian official stance it doesn't mean automatic paid shill. I've been following this conflict since 2013 and I have to say that all involved sides are offenders of "their" version of events in mass media.

<comment><USER19> I think the cause for skepticism in this circumstance was the heavy handed pro-Russian voice that seemed to dominate the conversation online over the situation in Ukraine.

That and the mountain of evidence which demonstrates how Russia makes a concerted effort to command the media narrative of a story through online comments.

<comment><USER20> Just the other day Russia announced additional cuts in their annual budget. Almost every expenditure was cut across the board, except for the military and propaganda (e.g. Russia Today received a 5 bln increase).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think the Chinese government used to do this with The Economist's forums. I think they've stopped, for some reason. I don't really read the comments there much, though; it's all garbage.

<comment><USER22> The 50 Cent Army is still at it. I think newspapers have become a lot better about filtering them out. The Globe and Mail (Canada) was absolutely overrun for a while and they still pop up now and again.

<comment><USER23> Could it be the "50 Cent Army" just got better ? They learned from their mistakes, and are becoming more subversive ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm fairly sure someone smarter and with more time than me could trace an interesting parallel between East and West policies when it comes to the internet, comparing the leaks about GCHQ[1] and this post. Perhaps an "infinite monkeys" vs "carefully targeted" approach?

Also, I may or may not be an employee who was told to come and disrupt the discussion here. So there's that too.

[1] [https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig- manipula...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig- manipulation/)

<comment><USER25> Here's a start for the US.

Incomplete list of domestic stuff: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856218](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856218) like "public opinion campaigns": [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html?pagewan...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html?pagewanted=all)

Incomplete list of international stuff: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8709976](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8709976) like using social media to kindle revolutions: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/usaid- effort-t...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/usaid-effort-to- undermine-cuban-government-with-fake-twitter-another-anti-castro- failure/2014/04/03/c0142cc0-bb75-11e3-9a05-c739f29ccb08_story.html)

Some things almost sound like science fiction, like the DoD program to predict successful overseas propaganda by observing brain scans of test subjects: [http://minerva.dtic.mil/doc/samplewp- Lieberman.pdf](http://minerva.dtic.mil/doc/samplewp-Lieberman.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The Romanian independent press publishes from time to time inquiries (sometimes undercover) about similar paid structures used by local parties (PDL, PSD...) during electoral campaigns and not only. First time I've read how they are organized and how much they get paid was like in 2009 (here the Google Translate version [https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.romanialibera.ro%2Fspecial%2Finvestigatii%2Fautodenunt --doua-saptamani-i-am-haituit-pe-internet-pe-adversarii-lui-crin- antonescu-170269&edit-text=&act=url)), but I'm sure the technique is in place since long.

</comment><comment><USER27> I find it interesting that they use a "villain" troll as a virtual strawman to knock down -- I feel like that adds a layer of subtlety that wouldn't really exist with _solely_ the pro-Russia content.

<comment><USER28> The good guys are known to use much more in-depth techniques than that, see: [https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig- manipula...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig- manipulation/)

especially: [https://prod01-cdn02.cdn.firstlook.org/wp- uploads/sites/1/20...](https://prod01-cdn02.cdn.firstlook.org/wp- uploads/sites/1/2014/02/deception_p12.png)

Based on the state of that powerpoint slide they're probably achieving fuck- all in practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Here's a link to the non-mobile version:

[http://www.rferl.org/content/how-to-guide-russian- trolling-t...](http://www.rferl.org/content/how-to-guide-russian-trolling- trolls/26919999.html)

</comment><comment><USER30> It would be foolish to think our countries don't do this. The U.S., Canada, Israel, they all have propaganda campaigns of their own.

<comment><USER31> Source? Never heard of a US, Canadian or Israelian troll factory.

<comment><USER32> Didn't Snowden release something?

[https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig- manipula...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig- manipulation/)

Way more professional.

Also Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has been around for ages.

<comment><USER33> Radio Free/Voice of America/Al Arabiya/etc are not secret projects, they are publicly acknowledged.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This seems fishy about this article: He is making 45,000 rubles ($700) for a 12 hours shift in Saint Petersburg. With his English knowledge skills alone he can easily make double that money just by working as a translator in a regular 8 hour job.

<comment><USER34> Did you read the article? He got the job purely to have the job, not for the monetary compensation. He described it as "adventurism".

<comment><USER8> Yeah sure, working two month in 12 hours shifts just for adventurism. Either he is a spy or this story is a complete joke

<comment><USER35> Its 2 on, 2 off.

2 months in 12h shifts working 4 days a week is not that bad.

<comment><USER8> 45,000 per month in Saint Petersburg is a low paying job salary, this job however requires basic computer knowledge and from what I understand english knowledge as well to post comments on western websites.

<comment><USER36> No, 45k ruble is for non-English speaking people to post on Russian municipality websites.

<comment><USER8> its still an underpaid position for somebody who knows basic computers in Saint Petersburg

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> RFERL. Enough said.

<comment><USER28> lol. Nice catch.

 _RFE /RL is supervised by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an agency overseeing all U.S. federal government international broadcasting services._

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

 _And so we enter the wilderness of mirrors..._

(FWIW the radio in my kitchen is set to the BBC world service, which is funded exclusively by the foreign office...)

<comment><USER19> You have to separate the medium and the message. Does the RFE/RL have self- interest in disclosing a story that is critical of Russia? Probably.

Are the facts of the story in dispute because Radio Free Europe happened to publish the interview? This I'm not so sure of.

Also writing a comment like this in the context of the linked article fills me with a sense of dread. Am I merely emulating the villain troll perspective by refuting your claim and (seemingly) suiting my biases? Will it be possible to have discussions in the future without a subtext of having some covert motive?

<comment><USER28> How do you think I feel? The first thing I did in this thread was link to an image!

(For the record, I agree with your view. If you want to feel even more confused about the issue, check out this video concerning Vladislav Surkov: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcy8uLjRHPM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcy8uLjRHPM))

We should start a pool on who and what is being funded by the russian govt.

        UKIP        10/1
        Pussy Riot  8/1
        Adam Curtis 9/2
        Uber        12/1

any takers?

<comment><USER19> Yeah that segment is incredibly insightful. Tactics of deliberate misinformation and confusion reek of 1950s/1960s Cold War sentiment (on both sides).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> If it is written, people believe it.

I think a general education in reasoning, criticism and logic, that would happen along with the typical primary/secondary courses( math, english ) would help not just in this case, but also in many other areas.

</comment><comment><USER39> Set up a straw man, then knock it down with graphics (pathos, "I've seen it") and links (logos, "it's researched, and true"). Oh and ethos too, because it's a response to a villain with "arguments", rather than being an unprovoked attack.

Simple and beautiful. Just don't think it's only happening in Russia.

</comment><comment><USER40> How is this different from Israel or China? Genuine question.

<comment><USER19> There is no difference procedure-wise. In execution however, Israel and China aren't invading foreign nations and using the online peanut gallery to try and sway public opinion on the matter.

Maybe you could make a case for Palestine or the Senkaku Islands dispute but I don't think those examples would hold muster for a multitude of reasons.

<comment><USER41> > Israel and China aren't invading foreign nations

err Tibet ? hmm Palestine ?

<comment><USER19> No one disputes that those are occupations (well except for China and Israel respectively) but in the context of propagandizing online comments to create a false popular opinion on the matter, Tibet and Palestine are different than Ukraine.

<comment><USER41> > Israel and China aren't invading foreign nations

Noone?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Things are a lot more sophisticated nowadays.

Back in ancient times, around the beginnings of Eternal September, we had Serdar Argic. He used to piss off half of Usenet with his repetitive denials of the Armenian Genocide.[1]

We also had Canter and Siegel (who I affectionately referred to as Cancer and Slime). They were the first massive commercial Usenet spammers.[2]

Ahh, good times. Such humble beginnings for the Information Superhighway.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serdar_Argic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serdar_Argic) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Sieg...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Siegel)

</comment><comment><USER43> This is eerily close to what two of the main characters in Ender's Game are doing in order to change events. Internet, the blogosphere, comments, trolls, it was all predicted with quite a bit of detail in that book from 1985.

<comment><USER44> If I recall, that was a hilarious optimistic view of things, where there was high level/scholarly debate online and people were persuaded by great rhetoric.. quite a departure from the race to the bottom, cesspool of online commentary as it exists today.

<comment><USER43> I agree. Also the impact today doesn't turn out to be _that_ big as described in the book (although that might be because we haven't yet had someone like the Wiggins family?). But still, the mechanism itself was all there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This particular operation is relatively crude. However, consider what it would take to build a better operation. I always think about this when I am reading Wikipedia on any contested subject where an organization with a PR arm is in play.

There was a report of a similar operation in the US a few years ago (I lost the link, can't find it, no PDF), where this kind of thing was done as a paid service for political groups within the US. The author of that article had worked there as part of some "pro-Isreal" group. It was better than this Russian op - there was a relatively deeper briefing of the material at hand.

</comment><comment><USER46> I have been following politics since "Arab Spring" and I have always experienced the online propaganda.

Pro-Putin propagandist: 1\. Sides with Iran/Assad 2\. Bash U.S/NATO 3\. Claim USG is supporting terrorists and CIA is training them. 4\. Claim "Arab Spring" is a conspiracy to destabilize the Middle East. 5\. Claim 9/11 was an inside job. 6\. Everything bad happens is a conspiracy by USG to attack the Democratic Putin. (lol)

If you want a look, check the comments of Reddit or Youtube topics about Ukrine, Syria, Russian/Middle East related, etc...

</comment><comment><USER47> It's all about propaganda. Looks like not much has changed in Russian government ideology over the last 25 years.

<comment><USER48> Doesn't every well financed institution do similar things? I thought that was the substance of public relations: getting your side of the story out there. It even happens on a small scale e.g. Yelp reviews.

<comment><USER49> No, every well financed institution does not hire people to role play hundreds of sockpuppets to create a false impression of support for its message.

<comment><USER50> Actually the US has an entire (metaphorical) army of think tanks and other propaganda outlets which do exactly that.

The sockpuppets tend to be more influential than drive-by commenters though. Some of them actually pretend to be respectable journalists and opinion- formers. The Church Committee in the 1970s blew the lid on this.

Operation Mockingbird is a famous historical example:

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

The National Endowment for Democracy is more recent:

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

Given history, it would take someone with more faith in open government than I have to believe there are no equivalent online operations today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> The guy's english is too good to be from that region. Probably a script by the Americans and their allies.

<comment><USER11> The original story in Russian, here [http://www.svoboda.org/content/article/26913247.html](http://www.svoboda.org/content/article/26913247.html) This is a translation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Could this be a good marketing tactic to acquire users for consumer facing products?

<comment><USER10> Absolutely. Compare this to effects of positive or negative reviews on Amazon. I say - hire Russian troll if you are on the mass-market with review-based reputation on product descriptions. Imagine you have +100 positive reviews overnight. For a hundred bucks its a bargain!

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Funnily enough, I saw many comment trolls defending Toyota during the "rapid acceleration" fiasco. I believe this is a very commonplace thing for both governments and businesses with image problems.

</comment><comment><USER54> they seemed to have increased salaries during last year - i guess in response to falling ruble - various Russian sources were putting it at ~30K a year ago :)

Not surprising that the major amount of propaganda is directed onto domestic sites. And, yes, clear visible double standards applied by the major powers in the world do make that propaganda work much more successful.

</comment><comment><USER55> Truly fascinating. They should make these services for hire, there are some brands that would kill for this kind of content farm.

<comment><USER6> Ah yes, until now no one has had the idea to abuse comment forms and Web forums to promote products and services. You could become rich with this unique idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I'll wait for RT to write a retort and just ignore both of these government mouth pieces.

</comment><comment><USER57> _Patiently waiting for villain troll, link troll and picture troll to work this thread._

<comment><USER58> That part freaked me out because that was one of the ways I thought I could tell authentic from propaganda. I thought people in power didn't know how to blend in naturally to forums and their comments always stood out, but it looks like they do get it. Now I'm worried that my propaganda/astroturfing indicators don't work as well as I thought they did.

<comment><USER59> The article covers it quite well. The trolls generally don't really know what they're talking about and often don't make sense.

So if you ignore the nonsensical people you will ignore the trolls too. It's a pretty good rule to follow anyway.

<comment><USER60> At least in Guardian comments they make no sense, are intensely rude, and tend not to reply to comments. As you say it makes them very easy to spot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I wonder if fox news has the same setup?

</comment><comment><USER62> The USSR/CCCP lives on.</comment>


TechStars founder David Cohen on why his startup bootcamp is expanding to Boston - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/02/17/techstars-entrepreneurship-boot-camp-comes-to-boston-an-interview-with-co-founder-david-cohen/

<comment><USER2> Great news. More programs like this, the better the startup climate around the local area and the industry as a whole.

Anyone have an idea if YC, TS, LaunchBox, etc type sessions exist here in NYC? I'd be very interested in working with someone to make it happen. Feel free to drop me a line.</comment>


Open Letter on "confidential" dealings in Facebook [GDPR] case - <AUTHOR> https://noyb.eu/en/open-letter <comment><USER2> Once again the rules are for the smaller dogs to abide, while the big mean ones can continue to bite you.

</comment><comment><USER3> What gives Ireland the right to preempt every other European country in GDPR enforcement? That's a horrific conflict of interest.

<comment><USER4> Isn't Facebook's European HQ in Ireland for tax purposes?</comment></comment>


Theil–Sen Estimator - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theil–Sen_estimator <comment><USER2> I used this recently to try to get a more robust slope estimation on a small microcontroller with a noisy sensor! And was pretty surprised to discover it after having done this kind of stuff for a long time. Very cool technique!</comment>


Dying at the Right Time - <AUTHOR> https://philosophynow.org/issues/76/Dying_At_The_Right_Time <comment><USER2> The article focuses on the question of a "good death".

Nope. No. No such thing. There is no "good death". The self-sacrificing death? Nope. Might be noble, altruistic, but it's not good. Death in general? Awful. Truly tragic that it's necessary at all. That a person might acquire a lifetime of knowledge, experience, memories, and then it's gone.

There is no good death. The only judgements here are between adjectives like bad, worse, tragic, awful, etc. Never good.</comment>


Where to sell a website that makes $4,000/month - <AUTHOR> I am looking to sell a website that makes an average of $4,000 per month since I am really busy with a bricks and mortar business and need the funds to expand it. The revenue is from ads, if anyone is interested or has some tips for me drop me a mail to email@example.com <comment><USER2> [https://flippa.com/](https://flippa.com/)

& alternative to flippa [http://alternativeto.net/software/flippa/](http://alternativeto.net/software/flippa/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I recall [https://flippa.com/](https://flippa.com/) being pretty popular to do this type of thing.

What's the URL? Maybe someone here would be interested in taking it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have no experience in these maters but I'm fond of FE International [0].

[0] [https://feinternational.com/](https://feinternational.com/)</comment>


Motor City Mapping – Interactive map of Detroit blight - <AUTHOR> http://www.motorcitymapping.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> Spent some time Saturday with the designers of the blight software at the Code For America Detroit Brigade civic hack day. What they're doing is a strong example where software can help to transform a city and make a difference in peoples lives.

Detroit may lack the funds to completely wipe out blight in a few years but they're using the money they do have to attack it in a systematic way.

If you check out the interactive map you will see that not all of the city is blighted. I grew up in Rosedale and that neighborhood is still hanging in there and with a little bit of help could thrive. There are a lot of neighborhoods like that in the city. But the view most outsiders have of Detroit is the worst neighborhoods. Tearing down the worst blight may help change outsiders image of Detroit.</comment>


Gimp 2.10.10 released - <AUTHOR> https://www.gimp.org/news/2019/04/07/gimp-2-10-10-released/ <comment><USER2> Gimp is a fantastic tool. I'm a developer who occasionally has to do some light graphics work and since I've started using it (~10 years ago?) have never missed Photoshop.

It'd be interesting to hear from Photoshop power users, who've made the switch, what they miss and what Gimp does better.

For those who didn't make it past the highlight list, here's the donation/support link: [https://www.gimp.org/donating/](https://www.gimp.org/donating/) I just made a small donation and encourage others who use Gimp regularly to do the same.

<comment><USER3> Gimp _is_ a fantastic tool for developers. It does well the tasks that can be automated or thought about in terms of algorithms (rotate all images, resize, stretch levels to 0-255, etc.). Great product! Kudos to its developers.

It is, however, a lame duck to photographers (and I think many other artists) when compared with Photoshop. Those who want a _visual_ interface to drag sliders around, instanly see how things would _look_ and edit based on tight coupling with that _visual_ perception still choose Photoshop. I have seen many, many artists try Gimp only to go back. Maybe Gimp does not need to be that tool for artists, but if it does its developer community needs to be more engaged with photography crowd.

As a data point: current Adobe licensing model is almost universally hated. If there were a viable option many users would migrate. I would (and I am just a hobbyist). And it is not for lack of trying -- they do try Gimp (and Liminar, and Affinity and such). But the fact that they curse Adobe but still use Photoshop tells you a lot about the fact that Gimp just does not cut it for them. My 2c.

<comment><USER4> I agree. I used to be a professional photographer and videographer. I switched jobs, but I still keep my gear around. One piece of virtual gear that I don't keep around is anything Adobe. Whereas before, I could buy an actual product and use it when I need it, now it would have to become a subscription I constantly turn on and off when I want to do a small, sometimes pro-bono, photo or video shoot.

Affinity Photo is a pretty good alternative. Familiar interface and features, and a one-time affordable purchase. Not entirely sure what an equivalent might be for video.

<comment><USER5> I still use Photoshop and Illustrator (because for my money there's nothing comparable, and I'll pay for them because of it) but for video I've moved almost entirely over to DaVinci Resolve. BlackMagic's free version is really complete and (possibly because it started life mostly as a color grading application) I find that the way it presents options and tools works better with the way I like to do things.

The Studio version's pretty cheap, too, if you want to upgrade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would like to point out, that GIMP made a huge progress in recent years :)

I am the author of [https://www.Photopea.com](https://www.Photopea.com), which is the image editor with the second best support for GIMP files (XCF) after the GIMP itself :) In the latest GIMP releases, I really appreciate Editable Text Layers and the support for DEFLATE data compression, which makes XCF files even smaller.

I created a document with a white background layer and a simple text layer both as PSD and XCF, and then ZIPped it:

XCF: 8.25 kB unzipped, 4.03 kB zipped

PSD: 81.10 kB unzipped, 7.96 kB zipped

<comment><USER7> Photopea is amazing, it actually replaced Gimp for me. Only thing I am missing is ability to close many tabs (e.g. close all except this one). Amazing project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Tons of awesome stuff, especially around GEGL, but this one is truly fantastic:

> This includes support for CMYK ICC profiles in babl (at this point, through > LCMS2), direct CMYK support as part of relevant GEGL functions and core > operations, and support for reading/writing CMYK data in TIFF and JPEG > files. While not done yet, this work goes towards adding first-class CMYK > support to GIMP.

GIMP's poorer CMYK handling was one of about three reasons it didn't take pride of center in a small graphic design shop (attached to a professional printer) I joined as an undergrad.

<comment><USER9> It's sad to see Gimp giving in to the CMYK myth. I suppose it was simply too difficult to educate all the users who were somehow convinced of the need to work in CMYK space.

Some of us remember when Microsoft Word document formatting would get all messed up if you moved the document to a computer with a different model of printer. The trouble was that documents were expressed in terms of specific printing hardware. Using CMYK has a very similar problem. You can't get a generic CMYK that just magically works directly on every printer, and even if such a thing existed you still wouldn't be able to see it on your screen. The black is also a problem; a 4-color space is overspecified. You'd really need CMY.

The actual CMYK needed is only known to the printer driver or even just internal to the printer. You'll need to convert. Since you are converting anyway, there is no need to start from a color space as awkward as CMYK.

There are really just two things of use beyond RGB, gamut mapping/alerting and spot colors.

Gamut mapping distorts your color space to fit the output device. Alerting is an alternative, for example by making out-of-gamut colors flash on the screen to tell you that they are not going to be printed correctly. Both of these are deeply problematic, because they require knowledge of the specific printer that will be used. That includes the paper color, the ink currently installed, the hardware model, the driver, and maybe even the intended viewing light.

Spot colors are for crazy kinds of ink that need to be handled separately. The ink might have sparkles, UV fluorescence, magnetism, and so on. These kinds of inks don't normally get treated as part of the colorspace. They shouldn't be affected by operations like adjusting saturation. The way these inks are displayed on the screen may be quite unrelated to how they actually look. You should be able to configure an on-screen appearance with any desired color or filter effect or even with flashing.

<comment><USER8> > The actual CMYK needed is only known to the printer driver or even just > internal to the printer. You'll need to convert. Since you are converting > anyway, there is no need to start from a color space as awkward as CMYK.

Note that this rarely applies to professional printers - as there is no "driver" as such. It's a several stage process, which relies heavily on the person involved. The 4 colours are mostly for cost reasons, otherwise you have to resort to spot colours.

The Pantone colourset is well-defined, and transfers to process printing well, but it is CMYK.

The average person has no need of it, but the professional will find it essential.

<comment><USER9> Pantone is not CMYK and can not even be represented by CMYK. From Wikipedia: _" However, most of the Pantone system's 1,114 spot colors cannot be simulated with CMYK but with 13 base pigments (14 including black) mixed in specified amounts."_

Every printer has something equivalent to a driver. It may be called something else. It may be a special printer program to run, or even a web service on the printing hardware that will accept jobs. All sorts of crazy variation is possible, and it doesn't matter. At some point in the process, there is a mechanism to convert from device-independent colors to device-specific colors. There is no good reason for the device-independent colors to be CMYK, and plenty of reasons to avoid CMYK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice to see G'MIC's smart colorize algorithm making its way into core GIMP. The research team worked with David Revoy, the character designer of several Blender open movies (such as Sintel or Spring), so I've heard a lot about it from him. He's written a few blog posts (e.g. [1]) and videos on how to use the Krita and GIMP implementations of the feature.

[1] [https://www.davidrevoy.com/article324/smart-coloring- preview...](https://www.davidrevoy.com/article324/smart-coloring-preview-of-a- new-gmic-filter)

<comment><USER11> Fore those interested, here is the link to the paper introducing the algorithm: [https://hal.archives- ouvertes.fr/hal-01891876/document](https://hal.archives- ouvertes.fr/hal-01891876/document)

It has a lot of nice illustrations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This release contains my first ever contribution to the project! It's a small one, but I still feel proud of it as a novice developer!

</comment><comment><USER13> GIMP 2.10 felt like a big step-up in quality-of-life changes for me, I really recommend giving it a go if you've got an older version (Ubuntu 18.04 has 2.8)

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm having a hard time moving to GIMP. But I really want to love it.

I've used Photoshop for almost 2 decades and recently moved over to Ubuntu. I always struggle with shortcuts and generally 'how it works'. Simply opening a file, doing some cropping or resizing and saving it as a different file type causes me headaches because I still think too much in Photoshop concepts.

How do I get out of this?

<comment><USER15> Once of the biggest hang-ups people seem to run into is the concept of layers. In photoshop layers are abstract and infinite. In gimp they are explicit and finite. In gimp a layer has size, that may or may not match the image size. They can be scaled, resized, cropped, etc independent of any such transforms to the image itself.

Differences in workflow themselves are usually not hard to overcome. It's the conceptual paradigm the lies beneath the workflow that people have to wrap their heads around in order to understand _why_ a workflow is different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> As someone who has used Gimp on/off since the pre 1.0 days ie. when it was a Motif (Lesstif?) app, it certainly has come a long way.

One of the things that held it back (for me) for a long time was the lack of 16/32-bit colour processing, which it didn't get until the 2.9 (development builds) in 2015:

[https://petapixel.com/2015/11/29/gimp- version-2-9-2-brings-1...](https://petapixel.com/2015/11/29/gimp- version-2-9-2-brings-1632-bit-support-and-more/)

And of course this didn't make it into stable builds until around a year ago. I am very pleased with 2.10 overall, and these days I only start up Photoshop if there is something I can't do in Gimp 2.10.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is it easy to for someone to transition from Photoshop to, yet?

Or is there any easy-to-underatand transition guides?

<comment><USER18> I was a Photoshop user from the late 90's until about 3-4 years ago. It was a slow transition to FOSS tools, because there was never a concerted effort to switch to FOSS, it just happened because I like the tools better, and it's easier to not have to deal with licensing.

Photoshop is a bit a of jack of all trades, and the FOSS tools are usually more targeted. So Gimp may have all that you need, but that depends on what you use Photoshop for. I would look at the capabilities of not only Gimp, but Krita (for digital painting), Darktable if you want a more specialized tool than Gimp for photo manipulation, Inkscape for vector editing, Libresprite for pixel art (which is a fork of Aseprite, which went from open to closed source).

As far as being easy to transition to, I would say that it's a bit easier now than it has been in the past, but they make no effort to be a Photoshop clone. The biggest hurdle is re-training your muscle memory. I would suggest to do what I did, and do a project here and there using Gimp, and eventually the muscle memory problem will not be such a hurdle.

<comment><USER10> Just for clarification, Aseprite is "source-available": you're free to browse [1], clone and build the source for your own usage as long as you don't redistribute your build. There's even a tutorial for it. Official builds, of course, are paid.

[1] [https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite](https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite)

<comment><USER19> Being able to distribute your builds and improvements is one of the essential freedoms of Free Software.

<comment><USER10> Aseprite is not free software. But it is not "closed-source" either, hence my clarification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Love gimp and have used it forever, but not sure what they did with arbitrary rotation in the 2.10 branch, it's a bit of a mess. It used to be easy to fix photos with non-level horizons.

Now, every time I need to select the higher interpolation quality, preview results (huh), and put in my own guidelines manually since the builtin rotation guides are on the image itself (and rotate with it) instead of perpendicular to the window (wtf). Bass-ackwards?

Wonder if that was fixed, or perhaps I'm doing something wrong?

<comment><USER21> Have you tried straightening with Measure Tool? Just create a line along the horizon, then press "Straighten" and voila. Another option is corrective rotation with Guides set to "Number of lines" with a sufficiently large number.

<comment><USER20> Interesting. The number of (non-manual) guides is meaningless to me however, since the are attached to the image instead of the window.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anyone know if editing large images is less sluggish now than it was in the previous iteration of 2.10? I'm still using 2.8 because of that.</comment>


Want a public profile for your pets? Check mine. - <AUTHOR> http://organimal.com/public?user=lilymax

<comment><USER2> Perhaps petowners can use this site when animals are lost?

I would explore that angle.</comment>


Show HN: My Darwin Award for Epic-Failed Startups - <AUTHOR> https://blog.standuply.com/my-darwin-award-for-epic-failed-startups-e5492f0e6eb7 <comment><AUTHOR> I asked about failed startups back then - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15088851](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15088851)

Later, I composed a list of most epic-fails =)</comment>


Broadcom Offers $105B for Qualcomm in Landmark Deal - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-06/broadcom-offers-130-billion-for-qualcomm-in-landmark-tech-deal <comment><USER2> Any reasonable antitrust regulation should kill it: [https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and- economics/2172555...](https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and- economics/21725552-new-research-suggests-too-little-competition-deters- investment-americas)

Unfortunately they let those mergers happen: [https://www.economist.com/news/business/21679810-frenzy- deal...](https://www.economist.com/news/business/21679810-frenzy-deals- awakening-americas-antitrust-regulators-pushing-limits)

Shareholders benefit at the expense of everybody else (customers, employees, ...). Classical capital vs. labour dillema.

<comment><USER3> This is probably why Broadcom is pulling it's HQ move from Singapore to the US stunt right now. It buys favor with Trump, who appears to operate entirely based on favor and image rather than the rule of law.

<comment><USER4> Side effect of too much executive power. It's problematic that this is even possible.

<comment><USER5> The alternatives in the US are the judicial and legislative branches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's mighty weird to think of Broadcom as capable of buying Qualcomm. It'll be interesting to see if RISC-V activity increases after a merger like this. NXP has been a member, Qualcomm has been a member..

I don't think this really fundamentally changes the availability devices, or their leverage on the market (aside from Qualcomm's maneuvering becoming part of Broadcom's activities). I don't see why people in here are calling for regulatory involvement. This does not form any more of a monopoly than there already has been (on part of Qualcomm being basically being the sole enabler of LTE).

<comment><USER7> I'm glad you mentioned RISC-V. Even if that doesn't displace ARM or x86, it means every company can have their own CPU designs (RISC-V makes CPUs a commodity). That means the only remaining IP blocks of high value are graphics and wireless. Every other part of a SoC is either available or easy enough to develop in-house. Got that? Graphics IP will keep a company profitable for the next 5-10 years, and both these companies have basic graphics capability. Wireless will keep pretty much THESE TWO companies profitable for the next 20 years. Their merger would result in just one company that could build a complete phone on a chip without licensing much - if anything - from outside.

<comment><USER8> ARM basically made CPUs a commodity and Apple is still killing it by designing their own best-in-class version so I wouldn't be so sure about RISC-V.

<comment><USER6> Apple refuses to sell their designs on the commodity market, so they can basically be ignored as a CPU/SoC vendor. Also, for what it's worth, Apple's CPU designs are not strictly "better" than the competition, they really just have a different target. Other vendors have more focus on dynamic and idle power, Apple seems to care a lot about single-core top line throughput.

That said, if you look at the way applications for Watch OS are submitted, you'll note that the submission format is LLVM bitcode, not machine code. This seems like an obvious and direct statement that they are willing to drop ARM at any moment for the Apple Watch. Something similar could (probably) be done for iOS.

<comment><USER9> > Other vendors have more focus on dynamic and idle power, Apple seems to care > a lot about single-core top line throughput.

If that's true, it's actually _more_ embarrassing for the other vendors, since iPhones get comparable battery life to Android phones with batteries half the size.

<comment><USER10> Apples and oranges. The Apple phones get better battery life because of stricter app store inclusion rules and native binary builds for all targets instead of generic automated ports.

Plus the rest of the materials BoM on the phones probably cherry picks parts that are very efficient and tuned to work well with each other.

Why aren't Androids in this same boat? My guess is that it's because Samsung wants to release 10 different Galaxy phones a year to have something new and shiny in every product segment instead of focusing on one REALLY polished design and leaving last year's model for their mid/low end.

<comment><USER11> > Apple phones get better battery life because of stricter app store inclusion > rules and native binary builds for all targets instead of generic automated > ports.

Apple does just as well in comparisons that only measure the first party browser.

Apple wins in battery life because they sell $900+ phones and invest large sums in engineering specialized chips while Qualcomm doesn't sell phones, they sell chips to customers whose main concern is price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What a crazy turn of events. After all this M&A activity, Avago, a virtually unknown company, might end up owning Broadcom, Qualcomm, NXP and Freescale.

How is this even possible? Who is financing these guys?

<comment><AUTHOR> How is Avago virtually unknown?

They derive from HP and Agilent Technologies, along with LSI. Pieced together originally by KKR & Silver Lake. Realistically it's a half century old entity. They then moved the corporation official seat to Singapore for various strategic reasons.

<comment><USER12> Calling Avago "virtually unknown" might have been too dismissive from my part.

But lets consider 2013. Avago had a revenue of $2.5bn, respectable, but that's not much when compared with Qualcomm's $24.9bn, less than Broadcom's $8.3bn, NXP's $4.8bn, and Freescale's $4.1bn.

In fact it seems that at least when it came to revenues, Avago was the smallest company on that list.

<comment><USER13> Pretty cool to see those revenue numbers. I assumed Avago would have been bigger revenue wise than NXP and Freescale (even with assuming you're using 2016 not 2013 revenue for them)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interesting. All this consolidation in chip makers is going to hurt downstream device manufacturers. Apple and Samsung must be racing to make all the chips themselves before the Broadcom-Qualcomm giant can put the squeeze on them.

By the way, Broadcom's market cap is only $112B, so this must be either a highly leveraged buyout, or more of a merger in practice.

<comment><USER15> Apple is already making their own WiFi and Bluetooth Chip. And this will have happen whether these chips maker were consolidating or not. As a matter of fact, arguably it is because Apple making their own chips, the most luxurious piece of market is gone, and they will have to consolidate to survive.

<comment><USER16> Apple would still have to pay Qualcomm, Nokia, Ericsson and other wireless patent holders whether they make their own chips or not. While Qualcomm's chip sales (QCT) isn't small, most of their profit comes from licensing (QTL).

<comment><USER17> Apple is working hard to pay the minimum amount possible to Qualcomm through lawsuits and exploring shopping more parts from Intel. It remains to be seen how that will pan out, but it has certainly caused enough analysts to price down their stock considerably lately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> When you look at the iPhone X teardown [1], you can see a number of custom Apple chips. And then you scroll down and see the Broadcom and Qualcomm chips that implement mostly the radio stack. What's to say those won't be Apple chips in the future?

[1] - [https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975#s182...](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975#s182886)

<comment><USER19> Broadcom and Qualcomm own significant patent portfolios covering things Apple would need to produce their own chips

<comment><USER18> This is true today but doesn't have to be in the future. Technologies change. Patents expire. There will be a 6g after 5g. I'm not sure who will own the patents on it. Most likely one of those two companies for sure, but you never know. Apple could invest the R&D and come up with something much better than we have today, and we all end up with Apple radio chips in our phones instead of Qualcomm.

<comment><USER20> Qualcom and Broadcom create prototypes even before standards are finalized so it is very difficult for an outsider to get in the game.

<comment><USER21> Apple created it's own 64-bit ARM chip before the specification was ready.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This seems like the sort of thing antitrust regulators should take a long hard look at.

</comment><comment><USER22> Avago is acting like some kind of corporate raider: the only reason they had the money to buy Broadcom was huge bank loans:

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-avago- acquisition/avago-t...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-avago- acquisition/avago-taps-five-banks-for-broadcom-acquisition-loan- idUSKBN0OL1HR20150605)

<comment><USER23> Return of the LBO?

<comment><USER24> In much more crude form.

What Hock Tan does is he gets ridiculous leverage, find near monopolist companies to buy, buys them, then quickly pays off debts by selling off almost everything from acquisition targets except for things needed to maintain that monopoly status.

Nothing smart in this scheme

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is it strange that Broadcom cut a deal to move HQ back the US at the same time it's buying a US-based company that would give it a near monopoly in the industry?

[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/92617682311707443...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/926176823117074433)

</comment><comment><USER26> Is Broadcom generally better than Qualcomm? The later is a really nasty company known for patent trolling and attacks on free codecs.

While normally this would probably mean less competition, buying out an obnoxious patent troll for patent disarmament can actually be a good thing.

<comment> maze-le For me at least, when it comes to laptops, a Broadcom-WiFi-Chipset is a critical factor in the purchase decision (as a 'DONT BUY!'). In the past Open Source drivers for 'Broadcom' were totally lacking. By now there are the brcm80211[0] drivers, wich kind of work, if you are lucky. With my last 2 laptops I wasnt so lucky, I still encountered constant disconnects and kernel- driver errors when working with them. The alternative was to use the reverse engineered 'b43'-driver wich kind of worked but never to my full satisfaction.

I don't really know about 'patent trolling' on Broadcoms side, but these driver issues were enough for me to say: never again broadcom, when you want to use it with linux.

[0]: [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/broadcom_wireless#brcm8...](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/broadcom_wireless#brcm80211)

<comment><USER26> On Linux, Intel WiFi drivers are by far the best I think. I wouldn't use anything else at least, because of the past experiences.

<comment><USER27> If you're satisfied with 802.11n then ath9k is IMHO the best. Only driver that does not require a magic firmware blob, and has all the bufferbloat reduction features.

<comment><USER28> For the record, Atheros is a subsidiary of Qualcomm.

Edit: wrong preposition

<comment><USER27> Yes, but Atheros was acquired by Qualcomm much later than the release of ath9k (2011 and 2008, respectively).

<comment><USER28> True.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The only reason Qualcomm is cheap enough for Broadcom to purchase is because of Qualcomm's disastrous SD810 chips that ruined many flagship devices in 2015. And that's all because they had to rush to the 64-bit market to chase Apple. So really, Apple is the cause of this (j/k)

</comment><comment><USER30> It's funny how people say that Qualcomm was founded by engineers, since given they way they have acted in recent years, I had always assumed that they had been founded by lawyers.

I know Broadcom is no prize, but given that Qualcomm has laid off all of their kernel engineers working on the upstream kernel, and given the "quality" of their BSP kernels I have had the displeasure to have to work with (hint: one way to tell that your drivers are not upstreamable is when your BSP kernel doesn't even _build_ on x86), speaking purely personally, it's hard for me to shed a tear for Qualcomm....

<comment><USER31> Yes, it was. If you're talking about Irwin Jacobs, Andrew Viterbi, Franklin Antonio - yes, these were/are true, hardcore engineers at heart.... that was the impetus and backbone of Qualcomm. Everything that follows is the effects, which are far less interesting than its beginnings.

<comment><USER30> At many companies, the Founders push their biases into company culture so strongly that it stays for a long time. For example, my sister (who is an accountant, although now she's a director in the Finance and Auditing department) works at a company in the insurance industry that was founded by folks in Sales --- and it shows. Previously, she worked at Motorola, and that was clearly run by engineers. HP and Digital Equipment Corporation are also companies which have their engineering founders bias engrained into corporate culture for a long time. Although HP's more recent CEO's have not been engineers (for example Fiorina was a salesperson, and look what she did to that company).

But Qualcomm certainly seems to behave as if the Lawyers dictate all of their decisions, which has made me wonder if at least one of their founders was a lawyer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Rarely is it a good thing for the market when two behemoths merge. I hope regulators pay attention and don't just rubber stamp this.

</comment><comment><USER33> My pet theory is that Apple is helping Broadcom since they apparently have a better relationship with Broadcom than Qualcomm.

<comment><USER15> Given there is Apple's money in both Western Digital and Bain Capital in the bid for Toshiba's NAND business. My guess is this take over will similarly have Apple's money in it as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Broadcom's previous aquisitions have not greatly benefited the hardware market. As a company they seem to be purchasing hardware manufacturers and the pace of advancement and quality of support then drops off a cliff for the acquired products. A good example of this is the LSI/Avago aquisition. Innovation in storage controllers had showered, the new Broadcom NVMe RAiD and HBA controllers offer very little change, and are more just a representation of existing technologies in combination.

Qualcomm had been fairly aggressive in it's developments and the overall quality of hardware in the mobile market has improved greatly because of it. Arguably, the ability of ARM to potentially unseat x86 as the supreme architecture is because of Apple and Broadcom's and rapid advancement of their chips. I don't Broadcom would offer us the same.

<comment><USER35> _just a representation of existing technologies in combination_

I don't shop in those markets, but combining existing technologies into one product can be a step in the march forward.

See the integration of the memory controller, northbridge, video codecs, and so forth into the CPU SoC. No one integration blew the doors of, but helped pave the way to the fast, low-power chips we have today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does not look good for mobile phone manufacturers if it goes through

<comment><USER36> I wonder if this would push Google to move into the smartphone SoC business, perhaps in collaboration with Intel, who already makes a NN processor in the new Pixel, an LTE modem for some recent iPhones, and obviously has CPU/GPU experience in x86 (and could probably design and fab a pretty competitive ARM core if they wanted to).

Google has the cash to do this, and their recent acquisition of HTC engineering talent suggests they are serious about pushing forwards as a high- end smartphone maker.

edit: Given more thought, I wonder if Google was already headed down this track. This mega-merger would only be additional incentive.

<comment><USER37> How'd that $13 billion Motorola buy work out for them ?

<comment><USER19> Great they mostly cared about patent portfolio the rest of Motorola was just a side bonus

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Good that samsung started making their own SOC, Mobile manufacturers should shift from qualcomm worldwide. They have almost monopoly in mobile SOC now. US and china are the only markets which require qualcomm patents to work. Mobile operators should move away from cdma. need more competition.

</comment><comment><USER39> So even _less_ competition in this space? Sounds great!

</comment><comment><USER40> This reminds me of Porsche vs. Volkswagen

</comment><comment><USER41> i only hope they end up named comcomm

</comment><comment><USER42> How's this for a new M+A regulation: make it illegal to increase the size of a patent portfolio by m+A. Not to say you couldn't keep their patents, but that the total number of patents owned by the new company couldn't be any larger than the larger of the two companies.

If the M+A causes the divestiture of even a significant number of low value patents, it could mitigate some harm.

<comment><USER43> That would likely have the unintended consequence of spinning off a lot of new non-practicing entities with a large number of low-value patents in their portfolios.

Are you _sure_ that's what you want? Those companies are more commonly known as "patent trolls".

<comment><USER42> The optimist in me says that if you make the problem bad enough, we might actually get around to fixing it. Or, maybe instead of NPEs, it will be Native American tribes.

On second thought, let's fix antitrust legislation and enforcement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Who thinks Trump knew about this when he announced Broadcom will be relocating back to the USA.

</comment><comment> dis-sys "Qualcomm is preparing to fend off the unsolicited offer, arguing it undervalues the company, people familiar with the plans have said. Qualcomm will argue that the proposal is an opportunistic move to buy the chipmaker on the cheap, the people said, and it will likely recommend that shareholders reject it."

</comment><comment><USER45> Qualcomm is feeling guilty over its anti-trust violations, just like multiple governments have found it to be. This is why its investors/board members want to get rid of it. I would hope that if Broadcom acquires them it also cleans house of Qualcomm's leaders and board.

</comment><comment><USER24> A mouse tries to swallow an elephant

</comment><comment><USER46> Even at $105B this would be a bad deal for Qualcomm and its shareholders. Long term Qualcomm will be worth probably double that offer in the next 20-25 years if current trends continue. Cashing out now would be very a short sighted move for shareholders

<comment><USER47> Doubling in 20 years is only a 3.5% rate of return. That's not great.

<comment><USER48> right now they are also paying dividend worth ~3% assuming they keep on doing this it would be 6.5% not bad..</comment></comment></comment>


Who Needs GPS? The Story of Etak's 1985 Car Navigation System - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/3047828/who-needs-gps-the-forgotten-story-of-etaks-amazing-1985-car-navigation-system <comment><USER2> I saw Etak back in its early days, and Stan Honey gave me a demo. I still have one of their rate gyro/2D level units, and a compass unit. There's a motor driving a spinning disk, which warps slightly when the unit is turned, and sensors to detect the warp. The level, for sensing which way is down, is a sealed cup of liquid with the liquid height sensed with four capacitor plates outside the cup. The liquid was proprietary, chosen to not slosh under automotive movement. The whole thing is the size of a soda can. The compass is a 2-axis magnetometer, about 2 inches square. It wasn't mounted on a window; it had to be mounted in the horizontal plane, preferably far from metal.

The original Etak units always had the map oriented with north at the top. That was the way sailors used maps. Honey said they'd discovered that about 20% of the population could not cope with a map that wasn't aligned with the direction they were going, which is why they started rotating the map based on vehicle travel. Now everybody does that, and that's why.

<comment><USER3> > about 20% of the population could not cope with a map that wasn't aligned > with the direction they were going

That's me. I have a tough time orienting maps in my head. I still use a mnemonic for compass directions and (occasionally) use my left hand as an L to make sure I'm not screwing it up.

I don't know if there is any research into what the structural differences of brains that suffer from this might be, let alone if there is a name for it.

<comment><USER4> If you train yourself to use a static orientation however, you develop a much better "big picture" awareness of the city you drive in, eventually freeing yourself from requiring navigational assistance.

The additional cognitive load is worth it for me.

<comment><USER5> I can't imagine why you wouldn't want navigational assistance. The only time I drive without my GPS is if I'm going somewhere I go frequently, along a route I normally travel, and it's a short distance. Any place new, and I'm using GPS, and even if I'm going someplace familiar, and I'm familiar with the route, if it's a good distance away I use the GPS anyway to make sure I don't miss a turn and also, very importantly, to reroute me according to traffic conditions. I don't care how good you think your knowledge of the roads in a city are: there is no possible way that you can know that there's a traffic jam or accident along your normal route (unless you're like Paul Atreides). A traffic-aware GPS system will alert you to these things and reroute you if possible.

The thing that's valuable about having that "big picture" awareness of your city is in being able to second-guess the GPS when it gives you bad information, which is rare but it does happen because they're not perfect, or to know that the route it's chosen will only save you 10 seconds but will take you through a residential area with speedbumps instead of a larger road meant for through traffic.

<comment><USER6> > I can't imagine why you wouldn't want navigational assistance.

Here is why I look up directions in advance in almost all situations:

* GPS is a distraction to maintaining awareness while driving, motorcycling, and bicycling.

* Navigational assistance does not help you when walking, taking public transit or taxis. Using GPS while driving prevents you from learning the layout of the place you are in which transfers to navigational competence for these other modes of transportation.

* You miss fun roads when following GPS navigation.

* GPS navigation is useless when planning long bicycle and motorcycle tours. I pick waypoints and routes between them in advance.

* GPS will route you into sketchy situations (like to phantom bridges) that you could have predicted by looking at a map.

* GPS does not take weather conditions into account when routing. People have gotten into floods (easy to see when looking at rivers and topo on a map in advance), stuck in snow, and have even died in the desert: [http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/living/travel/article257...](http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/living/travel/article2573180.html)

I do not know very many competent drivers who rely on GPS navigation. I see plenty of "GPS zombies" obliviously plowing through intersections and ignoring crosswalks every day.

The most use I get out of having a GPS dash unit is on trails and off-roading in my truck or motorcycle, where there is usually no signage for forest roads and trails.

<comment><USER7> I know how to read a map. I have a good memory. I have a good sense of direction. I did a fair amount of driving before getting a smartphone/GPS. I delivered pizzas for ~3 years, and I'd look up the 1-5 houses on our paper maps at the store showing every street, nearly every house by number, most of the apartments by number, and then memorize the route. I drove cross country a couple times with basic AAA maps and printed Google Maps directions.

I'll defend using GPS on my phone to navigate. It provides a couple benefits that I really enjoy.

1\. It knows what is ahead of me before I do. Specifically traffic, where it sometimes provides useful re-routing (although I dislike Waze's re-routing). Also, Waze's user reports can be helpful to warn about debris in the road, etc.

2\. It has a consistent interface. When driving in an unfamiliar location, being able to look in one place to see if the next street is the one I need is _way_ better than trying to find & read every street sign.

3\. It has a voice interface, which I believe is safer than trying to read my handwritten notes or the printed google maps directions as a driver.

4\. I appreciate seeing the current Speed Limit, displayed by Waze.

5\. It greatly reduces the cost of missed turns. I hate seeing cars cut across multiple lanes of traffic (or even just one!) at the last minute to make their exit.

The GPS _does_ make it easier to navigate. I think that frees up more of my attention to focus on other aspects of driving: watching the cars around me, looking for pedestrians, cyclists, and other hazards. I believe that actually increases my awareness of what's going on around me.

I agree that not everyone becomes a better driver when using GPS, but I think they could.

<comment><USER5> Exactly; I agree 100%. GPS has made me a much better driver: I don't miss turns, I'm not distracted trying to find some fallen-down or turned-sideways street sign or trying to read building numbers from the street, and I'm alerted to traffic backups so I have a chance of avoiding them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Etak eventually became a part of TomTom, ensuring that its map data, some of which was first digitized back during the Navigator's development in 1984, would live on to this day."

The story of how TomTom and not Garmin ended up owning the data originally digitized at Etak is interesting. At the time, there were only two digital map companies: Tele Atlas (from which TomTom got their map data) and Navteq (from which Garmin got their map data).

From Wikipedia [1]:

"On July 23, 2007, a €2 billion offer for the company by navigation system maker TomTom was accepted by the Tele Atlas board. This was then trumped by a €2.3 billion offer from United States-based rival Garmin on October 31, 2007 initiating a bidding war for Tele Atlas. TomTom responded by upping their bid to €2.9 billion, an offer which was again approved by the board of Tele Atlas. Garmin had been expected to counterbid once again: with Tele Atlas' main global rival Navteq subject to a takeover bid from Nokia, the company had stated that it did not wish both companies to fall into the hands of rivals. However, after striking a content agreement with Navteq through the year 2015, Garmin withdrew its takeover offer, clearing the way for TomTom. On December 4, 2007, TomTom shareholders approved the takeover. The European Commissioner for Competition cleared the takeover in May 2008, and it closed in June."

TomTom (where I worked at the time) was shocked and dismayed that Garmin outbid them by €300 million on Tele Atlas, because while it made a lot of sense for TomTom to buy their own map data supplier, it would have been prohibitively complex and expensive for Garmin, who used Navteq data, to switch map data sources and retool their entire map data digestion, distribution and error correction pipelines.

TomTom was so determined to buy Tele Atlas and keep it out of Garmin's hands, that they raised their bid by €900 million.

In the meantime, Garmin renegotiated their deal with Navteq, so they didn't have to pay as much for the data, and didn't have to switch map suppliers.

The stunt that Garmin pulled of was, in my opinion, an ingenious head-fake that cost TomTom an enormous amount of money, almost a billion euros, and at the same time saved Garmin a whole lot of money by enabling them to renegotiate a better deal with Navteq, who was faced with losing their major customer if they didn't lower their prices.

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

<comment><USER9> The other really remarkable thing about that time for me (I was working for a TomTom competitor) was that Nokia also paid a whopping US$8.1 billion (€5.7 billion) for NavTeq. This was _right_ before Google ate both companies' lunch by switching to doing their own mapping for Google Maps using the Street View cars. The iPhone was announced about 6 months later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> FYI, here is a part which is still relevant today:

"the system continuously ironed out accumulated errors over time by comparing actual distances driven and turns made with road shapes on the map. Honey calls the technique "augmented dead reckoning."

That means driving through a long stretch of straight highway could begin to trip up Etak's system, since there were no turns and no distinct roads for the computer to algorithmically seize upon. If that happened, the driver could manually reposition the car cursor onto a location on the map using controls on the display."

Those things work, but they are barely "good enough". The biggest problem is, it is easy to lose your position if you are in the city -- maybe you had a few sharp turns, went around the parking cars a couple of times. And once this happens, the system is unlikely to correct itself, your only way will be to manually set position, which most people will not do.

<comment><USER2> No, Etak could recover position after you made a few turns, unless you were in a city with a very regular grid. The recent path would be matched against the map to find the best match. When Honey demoed the system to me, he drove around a vacant lot in Menlo Park to force it to lose position, and then it recovered after a few turns.

<comment><USER10> I am sure it could recover most of the time, in some places. I am not so sure it would work well in all places -- regular grid is pretty common for example in New York City.

You could actually see it in use if you used older GPS units -- back in SA time, the GPS was low precision (~100 meters), but still provided mostly accurate heading/velocitry information. Thus, many GPS navigators required mapmatching (see other thread for details). It would always fail on me in the most annoying moments, and would take quite a while to recover.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Another system from back in the days of pre-very accurate gps: The advanced snowplow program [http://www.path.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/documents/i...](http://www.path.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/documents/intel74.pdf) and from archive.org: [http://web.archive.org/web/20070112182654/http://www.path.be...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070112182654/http://www.path.berkeley.edu/PATH/Research/snowplow/)

Picture driving a snow plow in the California sierras in whiteout conditions. On one side of you is a steep cliff with no guard rails (not that guard rails would - the snow is higher than the rails).

So, they embedded magnets in the road that had data in them (the way they were organized):

> Two primary technologies are being used in the ASP: detecting the plow's > position relative to the center of the lane, to assist the operator in > steering; and detecting obstacles, for collision warning. PATH's magnetic > marker guidance system provides guidance information. This system was > developed for automated vehicle guidance and control applications. A single > magnetometer array comprised of seven magnetic sensors was installed at the > front of the snowplow. Signal processing of the magnetometers provides > lateral position measurement relative to the center of the lane, > longitudinal position relative to mileposts, and yaw angle estimate. Binary > coding of the magnetic markers when installed (north pole up vs. south pole > up) also provides information about roadway characteristics, e.g. the > direction and radius of the curves. The obstacle detection system uses a > commercially available Eaton-Vorad radar, incorporating a digital interface > developed by AHMCT in conjunction with Eaton Vorad.

</comment><comment><USER12> There was also Honda's Gyrocator a few years earlier:

[http://world.honda.com/history/challenge/1981navigationsyste...](http://world.honda.com/history/challenge/1981navigationsystem/page04.html)

<comment><USER13> I remember Alpine electronics had something very similar. I wonder if it was a joint effort?

<comment><USER12> It was.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interesting to read about alternative, non-centralized, forms of navigation. I wish modern cars which already have all the necessary sensors would use this method as a fallback, since GPS reception is not always available.

<comment><USER15> Vehicle speed and steering position are available through OBDII. And inexpensive Bluetooth OBDII interfaces are available. But I don't think that navigation app developers have done anything to take advantage of that data for dead reckoning input.

[http://www.plxdevices.com/category-s/195.htm](http://www.plxdevices.com/category-s/195.htm)

<comment><USER16> Telenav implemented ODBII in their OpenStreetCam software:

[http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenStreetCam](http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenStreetCam)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Stan Honey is a legend in sailing as well as in technology.

He's won the Jules Verne trophy as navigator, fastest round the world (48 days). He's won the Volvo. PacCup with Nolan Bushnell. Rolex Yachtsman of the year (his wife Sally has won twice). He did the NFL line effects, same for NASCAR and NHL. He did the Americas Cup effects. He did Sailmail. Multiple patents.

And he's an incredibly nice guy. Dennis Connor is the best American yachtsman, but Honey ain't far behind.

<comment><USER18> So he's responsible for those annoying digital ads on the glass during NHL broadcasts? Yuck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > That "heading-up" technique reminded Honey of ancient Polynesian navigation > concepts that he had read about during his studies of navigation in previous > years. The ancient mariners of that region navigated the seas by relying on > a series of environmental cues, such as the positions of islands around > them, combined with a mental perception of themselves in the center of the > conceptual navigational space in their heads. With that in mind, Honey > decided to call his new company Etak, which is a Polynesian term for moving > navigational reference points.

Ah yes, the Polynesian stick charts:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11522372](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11522372)

</comment><comment><USER20> A little side note Stan Honey is also the person who spearheaded the virtual 'yellow line' visible on every NFL game.

<comment><USER21> This is stated in the article.

<comment><USER20> Yes, but not until the very end(which is why I called it a side note). I'm assuming this article follows the journalistic inverted pyramid paradigm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Surprised no one has mentioned its similarity to a Pip Boy:

[https://b.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagec...](https://b.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/inline- small/inline/2015/06/3047828-inline-newetak-screen3.jpg)

And a Fallout Pip Boy for reference: [https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/120/images/16096-1...](https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/120/images/16096-1-1334124058.jpg)

<comment><USER23> The Fallout similarities struck me too - in that universe technology diverged well before the micro-processor stage, with some of our current technology reimagined with a 1950s spin. This gadget fits the bill superbly!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Regarding dead reckoning - [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10833087/MoD- crea...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10833087/MoD-creates- coldest-object-in-the-universe-to-trump-GPS.html) seems very interesting.

If anyone has any up to date information or papers on this approach, I'd be very interested.

(It seems to be also known as a quantum compass)

</comment><comment><USER25> Bushnell is one of my all-time heroes. He struck the motherlode with Atari, and then parlayed that success into a bunch of different ventures that were way ahead of their time, most of which failed spectacularly, none of which failed spectacularly enough to dissuade him from pressing on to the next thing.

I truly believe he is as much a visionary as Steve Jobs ever was, the difference being that Jobs had the patience to wait for technology to catch up to his vision, whereas Bushnell did his level best to invent it.

</comment><comment><USER26> The way it kept the positioning looks really complicated, why not reuse one of the old LORAN technologies? By that time it should have been already demilitarized and transmitters were probably a lot less expensive to build.

</comment><comment><USER27> I would love to see a video of this thing in action. Never heard about this system before.

<comment><USER12> very good video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHCCjlSWbHE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHCCjlSWbHE)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This seems a great story of technical ingenuity without top notch business execution. Would like to see an analysis on how the business should or could have been developed.

</comment><comment><USER29> Pretty amazing that they did all this before the current generation of MEMS sensors.</comment>


Yahoo said to be mulling investment in, or acquisition of, Tumblr - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/16/yahoo-mulling-1-billion-tumblr-acquisition/

<comment><USER2> Yahoo doesn't seem to do too well with its acquisitions. The startups seem to shut down or flatline.

Tumblr is hip and all but what makes it that valuable? is there something I am missing?

<comment><USER3> Pageviews. Lots of them.

Of course, Tumblr has no revenue, but when has that ever mattered in acquisitions? :)

<comment><USER4> But are there _really_ a lot of _pageviews_? Not from the site owners'point of view. On my Tumblr, I've had posts that get thousands of "likes" and reblogs, yet the Google Analytics counter reads maybe a 100 pageviews in that time period. This is of course because my posts were engaged by users on the dashboard.

The upshot of the dashboard dynamic is that users, at least in my case, dont have much of an incentive to create beautiful permanent sites...just like i dont generally care what my Twitter profile page looks like. The dashboard dynamic also affects the content I put out...I haven't done a scientific analysis, but I would wager that my vertically oriented photos are almost always "liked" more than my landscape-oriented photos...not because they are better, but because vertical photos dominate the dashboard screen area.

And so unless the dashboard is a gold mine of ad revenue, it's hard to see how this will improve Yahoo's bottom line without some extremely clever engineering and design...but not only that, Tumblr's social interaction model is not as addictive as it is on Twitter and Gacebook...less interactions means less data.

This isn't a knock on the Tumblr team...I would love it if they're able to continue the service with a big pocketed owner...the service really changed the way I think about blogging and content workflow...so props to them for making a beloved product

<comment><USER5> > _but not only that, Tumblr's social interaction model is not as addictive as > it is on Twitter and Gacebook...less interactions means less data._

I think the tags people use on their posts could go a long way to serving relevant ad content in dashboard or outside of it. Also from looking around on some blogs on tumblr,I see that people seem to mostly focus on a core group of topics they're generally interested which I can see going a long way with serving relevant ads.

Engineering wise, since blogs are so customizable that may have some challenges, but I can see an automatic "ad-injector" take the same format as the posts on a persons feed (that can't be edited in the style editor), and insert itself (based on w/e factors such as how many posts, page views, type of content,etc). From talking with a recruiter last summer, that may be something much more fun for devs to tackle than trying to redo their backend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So, opportunity to add advertisements?

</comment><comment><USER7> Shut down all the things</comment>


Are Your "Secret Questions" Too Easily Answered? - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/web/22662/page1/ <comment><USER2> Link to a simgle page version:

[http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.asp...](http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=22662&channel=web&section=)

</comment><comment><USER3> The "secret question" process is a relic of a time long gone when information about individuals was not so readily available. It is made worse by things like social networking. A few careless settings in one's Facebook profile, and anyone who joins the group for your home town can see your profile. From there, practically ANY security question is available: pet names, high school, mother's maiden name, town where you grew up, etc... All linked to an email address.

</comment><comment><USER4> you can do as i do:

for password hint: "none"

first elementary school: "root mean square"

favorite food: "spiraling out of control"

if it's important, like a bank site, there's a way to unlock your account if you did ever lose your password. i see this as using features they didn't know that they had; specifically: "disable password hints" and "disable password alternatives"

</comment><comment><USER5> A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.</comment>


Measuring Software Reuse and Deleting Code (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://weblogs.java.net/blog/kcpeppe/archive/2014/04/02/measuring-software-reuse-and-deleting-code

<comment><USER2> Come up with a metric and someone will try to game it

\- By outright lying

\- By collusion (e.g., the classic dev / QA agreement where someone makes bugs, someone finds them, and someone quickly fixes them, or by not reporting bugs through the bug system so they remain under the radar)

\- Tweaking the code to meet the metric but not the spirit (adding many do- nothing layers to a system to artificially puff up code coverage percentage is a classic)

\- Staging checkins (break a check-in into many sub-checkins, to appear more productive in the "check-in count" graph)

Also: Schedule padding (probably since the first construction contract, thousands of years ago), secretly trimming features or leaving them as demoware, renaming bugs as unfinished features (to be completed in "version 1.1"). The list is as old as organized work.

<comment><USER3> The problem isn't metrics _per se_. It's tying them to reward and punishment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another interesting thing to measure is how much time developers spend editiing each file. A friend of mine did excatly that by installing a logger in the IDE of all members of a team of developers. Turns out large classes are in fact evil!

We wrote a blog about it: [http://fagblogg.mesan.no/how-bad-is-smelly- code/](http://fagblogg.mesan.no/how-bad-is-smelly-code/)

<comment><USER5> While I intuitively agree with the conclusion there, this analysis definitely doesn't prove it...

Of course more time was spent editing files with more lines of code. In fact, if your entire application was all contained in one file, I am willing to predict that you'd (shockingly) find that all of your time was spent editing that very same file!

<comment><USER6> I agree and have to add that really interesting finding would be non-linear dependence between file LOC and editing time.

It also looks like they aren't get rid of outliers.

<comment><USER7> The outlier had nonlinear dependence. It was the file that proved the point. Why do you want to remove it from consideration?

<comment><USER6> They found that time of editing is linearly dependent on the size (finding 1). The nonlinearity of the dependence would be interesting.

There is no indication that outliers have any non-linearity.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>