The Story of Oculus Rift - <AUTHOR> http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/09/oculus-rift-mark-zuckerberg-cover-story-palmer-lucky <comment><USER2> > _Before I met them, I'd assumed that Zuckerberg and Luckey would have much > in common. They're both hackers who started valuable companies before they > turned 20, but the similarities pretty much end there._

> _..._

> _Luckey does not come from money, nor did he have access to the prep-school, > Ivy League fast track that Zuckerberg and so many of Silicon Valley's young > masters started on._

People are still surprised that poor white people and rich white people are not the same. Wealth divides far more than race in America.

What makes Palmer Luckey all the more badass is that he created a product from scratch that changed the world. Zuck cloned Friendster and leveraged the exclusivity of a "Harvard social network" to bootstrap his site.

John Carmack, also from a poor background, is the one who believed in Oculus first. He is most responsible for helping Palmer Luckey make VR happen. They're the big heros here, not the rich kid who bought it for $2 billion.

<comment><USER3> Yes, the divide between the poor and the rich is wide. Though I don't know how it compares to race. That's really subjective.

My friends make anywhere from 10 bucks an hour to over half a million every year. My wealthy friends are incredibly nice but sometimes they are awkward. Multiple rich people have asked me about the kind of boat I own. I don't have a boat. Sometimes I make my poor friends feel the same way. They are jealous that I can afford a mortgage.

I also have white co-workers and black co-workers. My white co-workers are incredibly nice but sometimes they are super awkward. They ask me questions about chopsticks and interment camps. As for my black friends, well, sometimes they deal with worse.

Bonus: Everyone's favorite astrophysicist on the challenges of being black [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inz1sdhsMCU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inz1sdhsMCU)

<comment><USER2> Neil deGrasse Tyson is obviously an amazing person. He was also born into a nurturing, educated, well off household. He received a credential costing a fortune from an elite university which served as his entrance ticket into the professional world. Poverty and elitism are what prevent there from being more like him.

<comment><USER3> Did you watch the video? He literally lists all of the problems he faced from racism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dk1&2 owner here, I've slowly soured on VR over the past year as my 'reptile brain' has come to associate the headset with motion sickness and I would say I have a pretty steely stomach. I'm an avid FPS player, spent 4 hours in the HL2 VR mod about 18 months ago with minimal sickness. But the killer for me has been the slow buildup of aversion to VR over time. I've never been more excited for a technology but I fear there are some impossible problems to solve.. Any other dev kit developers feel the same way?

<comment><USER5> You should not be playing a FPS in VR, especially on anything pre-release like the DK2. Acceleration without some kind of cockpit to ground you is one of the worst offenders, and virtually all FPS games do that by design/necessity.

This is one of my worst fears about VR adoption: gamers, especially the kind who will be on the leading edge of this stuff, want badly to play FPS games and they'll find ways to do it and they're all going to hate VR.

I'm glad Oculus is putting their "comfort ratings" front and center, and being really vocal about the principles of sickness-free VR, but I'm worried people are going to skip all the warnings and advice and ruin this for everyone.

<comment><USER4> I appreciate that and I only ever played about 8 hours of HL2 VR, I stopped when I beat the campaign and moved on to playing WarThunder for a couple months then slowly tapered off.

>>This is one of my worst fears about VR adoption: gamers, especially the kind who will be on the leading edge of this stuff, want badly to play FPS games and they'll find ways to do it and they're all going to hate VR.

Part of the promise of VR is being able to negotiate a virtual world on foot which currently has too much of a mismatch to work without sickening the user. So what are the long term solutions to this? To me they are really hard if not impossible problems.

<comment><USER5> Cloudhead's "Blink" system is one good first step [http://uploadvr.com/cloudhead-blink-vr- movement/](http://uploadvr.com/cloudhead-blink-vr-movement/) AltspaceVR has been doing something similar for a while too.

Another idea is something called redirected walking, which basically tricks you into walking in circles even though you think you're walking in a straight line.

Someday we may have electronic solutions to sim sickness -- they've discovered that by sending tiny amounts of electricity through our inner ears, they can programmatically control how you feel you're moving.

Edit: Here's a video of Palmer Luckey talking about that inner ear stuff (GVS): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CRdRc8CcGY&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CRdRc8CcGY&feature=youtu.be&t=11m5s)

<comment><USER6> I've often wondered if the feeling of acceleration/deceleration could easily be simulated with a simple tilting chair. Tilt the chair back to simulate forward acceleration (like a car speeding). Gravity pulls you 'backwards', similar to the feeling of being pressed back in the seat. Opposite for deceleration. I hereby donate this idea to the world.

<comment><USER7> That's exactly what they do in full-motion flight simulators.

<comment><USER8> Racing games as well. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-N3XDc-3QQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-N3XDc-3QQ)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > When Iribe said, Yeah, it's pretty much just about gaming, at least for now, > Zuckerberg seemed to lose interest. Facebook was not a video-game company > and over the years had moved to make games a smaller part of what users saw > when they logged on.

I've seen Mark's vision for Oculus described as the next step in connecting all of the people on the planet in a few pieces now. What interests me about this position is that it implies:

1) gaming and entertainment braodly are not the end game. Instead, the social interactions.

2) VR hardware will see broader consumer penetration in the population not yet reached by facebook than mobile phones

Not sure what I think yet.

<comment><USER10> I don't see it happening. There's no way people are going to be strapping things to their faces for social interaction.

<comment><USER11> I agree. Many people (30% apparently) prefer text messages over voice calls. I don't see 360° VR video being convenient or worth the bother for casual communication.

[http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/22/tech/mobile/americans- prefer-t...](http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/22/tech/mobile/americans-prefer-text- messages/index.html)

<comment><USER12> Our home use has really diverged away from voice calls and towards messaging and FaceTime. Where FaceTime is reserved for special occasions (kids chatting to grandparents, long distance relatives, calling home when on a business trip).

I wonder if VR as a communication tool could supplant video calling? Although it lacks the ability for a family to physically gather around a screen and communicate as a group.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's really sad to see no mention of Valve anywhere in the article. The work that was done at Valve in 2012-2013 on VR hardware and software was critical to the success of Oculus. Valve created a complete VR demo that was shown to Andreessen-Horowitz near the end of 2013, and was a deciding factor in their decision to invest, as well as Facebook's decision to buy. At that time, the best hardware created by Oculus did not have 6DOF, high-resolution tracking. It did not have low-persistance, globally-illuminated displays. It did not have proper lens distortion correction. It did not have presence. Basically, all of the hardware factors that have made modern VR exciting were discovered and developed by the team at Valve. Unfortunately, Valve was not able to capitalize or commercialize all of this work, and basically just gave it away through a very awkward interaction. Source: I worked there on VR. Of course, they are now working with HTC on the Vive, which is really great, and is going to give Oculus major competition.

[http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%2...](http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%20Days%202014.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER14> What's the killer app for the Oculus Rift? So far, there are roller coaster simulators and first person shooters. Those are fun, but the market is limited. (The roller coaster thing is fun for about half an hour, tops. The FPS market is bigger, but will only catch on if you can kill more effectively wearing the headgear.)

In the last go-round of VR, the killer app was supposed to be the Multiverse (as in "Snow Crash"). Now that Second Life is available but slowly sinking, that doesn't seem as compelling. The problem with Second Life doesn't seem to be graphics resolution, lag, or anything technical; it just isn't worth the trouble. There's an Oculus Rift client mod for Second Life, not that anybody cares. (The Second Life people should do a WebGL client; more people might try it.)

Interestingly, in the first round of VR, back in the 1980s, it was "gloves and goggles", so you could actually do something while in there. This time, the gloves seem to have disappeared. The stock controller is the XBox game controller, although there's an optional wrist-tracking controller. Full finger tracking, no.

<comment><USER15> > What's the killer app for the Oculus Rift?

Here's my guess: Feeling like you're in the same room with someone who is far away.

<comment><USER16> This is something I see mentioned a lot, and would be great (as a remote employee). However, either the people are 3D renders or wearing headsets themselves. Maybe I'm picturing it wrong though.

<comment><USER17> This is worth more than you'd think. The multiplayer demo I tried at PAX 2014 had me and a friend sitting maybe three feet from each other, and generic blank avatars in-game, but seeing him nod and nodding back myself was a hugely intimate experience. It's tough to describe, a purely emotional experience.

<comment><USER12> Do you think the experience was worth putting on a headset for? To chat with someone like that?

I ask because I wonder whether the overhead of using the device is outweighed by its value as a communications tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Here's a great post from 2014...has anything major changed in the last 18 months?

[http://assayviaessay.blogspot.com/2014/03/virtual-spaces- rea...](http://assayviaessay.blogspot.com/2014/03/virtual-spaces-real- data.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> The picture is clearly a photoshop job. Why would they do that.

</comment><comment><USER20> _> As the Oculus Rift is about to hit the market, Zuckerberg is cautious. "It'll ramp up slowly," he says. "The first smartphones … I don't know if they sold a million units in the first year. But it kind of doubles and triples each year, and you end up with something that tens of millions of people have. And now it's a real thing."_

I'm sceptical and not least because of Zuckerberg's involvement. Mark Zuckerberg reminds me most of Bill Gates and has so far displayed the same level of vision and imagination as Gates (i.e. almost none).

<comment><USER21> It fits then that Oculus partnered with Microsoft, cut out support for all operating systems except windows, cut back their source code releases and are working with Microsoft, AMD and nvidia on windows-exclusive proprietary (and as of now secret NDA'ed) APIs.

I think a world in which technology is a black box that is controlled by corporations by means of proprietary software WAS Bill Gates' vision for Microsoft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm buying a Rift as soon as it is available for shipping. I experienced about 1.5 minutes of Dk1 and was sold.

</comment><comment><USER23> It was when the DK2 first came out that I realized VR was not the slam dunk it is often portrayed as. The DK2 was bought by many people, many more than the DK1. And once all of those customers started posting feedback on the internet it became clear that motion sickness was still a huge problem. And motion sickness will not be resolved with higher frame rates or lower latency as most of us believed prior to the DK2. Oh well.

<comment><USER24> Since the above is anecdotal (or at least, not well referenced), I feel comfortable in adding a personal anecdote to the contrary.

I bought a DK2, played with it and developed some prototypes with it. I have a very wide IPD (Interpupillary Distance), which meant that I couldn't focus cleanly on the image of the DK2. I experience some mild to moderate motion sickness when I use the DK2 in most titles.

However, there are some experiences -- particularly those with a cockpit or a third person camera -- that significantly reduce or eliminate the sickness. At PAX this year, I tested both the HTC Vive (Call of the Starseed -- a Myst-like title) and the Oculus CV1 (Eve Valkyrie -- a space superiority dogfighter) with absolutely no motion sickness at all, despite some rather hectic motion in Eve. Both demos were approximately 15 minutes of VR time. The higher frame rates and resolution, along with better accommodation of my wideset eyes absolutely improved the 'presence' in the demo. It was absolutely a material change from the DK2, which I've shelved until the consumer ready hardware is available.

Additionally, DK1 and DK2 content is still generally content under development. We're still learning which experiences are good or bad in VR, and how to move the player without disturbing their equilibrium. Games like Eve Valkyrie and Call of the Starseed were both designed from the ground up with VR in mind, which also helps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Anyone know what type of desk they are using?

</comment><comment><USER26> I've watched more V.R. than most people, and I don't feel like I have brain damage," says Chris Milk, a former music-video director whose company produces and distributes short, 360-degree movies watched on a headset.

that's one of the best example of confirmation bias I have seen in a while. Chris is assuming because he doesn't feel brain damage he doesn't have it! (I have no opinion on if VR causes brain damage - just pointing out the absurdly of that quote)

<comment><USER27> This not an example of the confirmation bias at all. More like possibly biased, anecdotal evidence that might have not been verified. You can very well notice signs of your own brain damage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Our mission isn't to connect a billion people, it's to connect everyone in > the world.

I wonder whether he is aware that Oculus has been moving away from that goal for a while now. They are now a company that works with Microsoft, AMD and nvidia on Windows-exclusive APIs and have dropped support for all other operating systems.

That's why all "social" VR applications for the Oculus Rift are a joke. Sure, you can get together in VR. But only when you use windows and only with other windows users. Zuckerberg says he wants to connect everyone. Right now Oculus is working on connecting Windows users exclusively. I wonder what Zuckerberg thinks about his newly acquired company acting this way.

<comment><USER28> Not really accurate, their mobile/ Samsung solution is not windows.</comment></comment>


Car Manufacturers Want to Monitor Drivers Inside Their Cars - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tech-ces-monitoring/move-aside-backseat-driver-new-tech-at-ces-monitors-you-inside-car-idUSKCN1P219H <comment><USER2> Open the garage bay door Hal.</comment>


Amazing CSS3 3D popup book - <AUTHOR> http://2012.beercamp.com/

<comment><USER2> I worked with the guys who built this (we're a DC design studio) and can tell you that it doesn't gracefully degrade simply because it's not supposed to. As some people grasped, this was for a frontend conference where everyone would be expected to be running the latest and greatest browser. There's no guarantee it will work on your setup but when it does, it's a cool experience.

Followup on how it was built here: [http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2012/04/17/beercamp-an- ex...](http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2012/04/17/beercamp-an-experiment- with-css-3d/)

Full repo here: <https://github.com/nclud/2012.beercamp.com>

</comment><comment> jack-r-abbit While the overall graphics and the general mechanism looks decent, the actual action of turning a page if very kludgy and glitchy. I found it difficult to get the pages completely turned since the book kept rotating a bit.

<comment><USER3> What browser/OS are you using? For me in Chrome/OSX, the pages turn flawlessly.

<comment> jack-r-abbit Chromium-based RockMelt 0.16.91.something (on Win7)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So I'll get down voted for this but it needs to be said: this is very cool and is a great proof of concept for the direction things are going. However, if you're promoting a commercial product, event, etc., you could have just used flash--it would be trivialish to implement, perform better, and have no cross browser issues--although no iOS to be fair...

As it stands, how many people will hit the site, see it's not working because they have the wrong browser version, and leave?

<comment><USER5> > and have no cross browser issues--although no iOS to be fair...

I love this casual dismissal of tablet/mobile phone users as if it were a non- issue.

<comment><USER6> Umm... as if that animation even worked on iOS or Android browsers...

<comment><USER7> I can also confirm works on iOS (using iPad), has a couple of spacing glitches, however page turning animation is extremely smooth, an the actual pop-ups are exact same as on desktop, no problem and performs like a champ.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There seems to be quite a lot of Javascript in there as well :) Really nice design.

BTW: works fine in Safari 6.0 OSX

</comment><comment><USER9> This is, to use a word I never use, delightful! Great concept, whimsical design, and wonderful execution. Well done!

Now, if I could only stop flipping the pages and get back to work...

</comment><comment><USER10> works "meh" in firefox 14.01. You can browser, but it stutters and you don't see the nice pop-up effect. It just appears when the page is turned far enough.

</comment><comment><USER11> Seems like they should have some sort of fallback to users of IE can at least get _some_ information about the conference

Very neat effect though. Is this based on actual folding math or is it just a series of neat animations? Like could this be built into a sort of popup book framework?

<comment><USER12> You only need a fallback for IE if your audience uses IE

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Boo! It looks like your browser doesn't support 3D transforms."

Latest Chrome on Centos6 using a ssh socks proxy.

edit: solved thanks to <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4393135>

</comment><comment><USER14> Really cool design, I love seeing seamless in browser 3D, can't wait till this is the norm.

</comment><comment><USER15> Works smoothly on Safari 6.0 (8536.25) in Mountain Lion 10.8.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hey you polish frontend hackers! Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER17> Immediately crashes iPad Safari :-(

<comment><USER18> Not for me, ipad3 here and it worked fine

<comment><USER19> It worked for me on iOS 6. I can't speak for earlier versions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> not working in Chrome Version 21.0.1180.77 on Linux

<comment><USER21> I'm on chromium 22 on linux. Maybe you need to go to the about:flags page and enable "override software rendering list" for your browser to use the proper acceleration on the page. That's what I had to do for my old Inspiron 1545.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> doesn't work under Chrome Version 20.0.1132.57 :(

<comment><USER23> I find it interesting that this works, or doesn't. Based on these "Micro- Version" differences as well as whole version differences. What are the key differences? Is it actually chrome or some other system level difference?

Chrome Version 21.0.1180.79 works for me.

<comment><USER24> 3D transforms is nearly completely dependent on the GPU of your machine. about:gpu in Chrome will give you more information about the differences and capabilities of your machine. In some cases, old drivers are too unstable to support and so they're blacklisted by Chrome.

<comment><USER25> hm, so you have to check the GPU via JS to check if the user can handle 3D transforms?

about:gpu is nice. thanks.

<comment><USER26> The browser does to decide if it's safe to use them. JS should be able to just use feature detection.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


An Englishman who saved Japan's cherry blossoms - <AUTHOR> https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/03/the-englishman-who-saved-japans-cherry-blossoms/ <comment><USER2> Strange how this was mentioned in a Monty Don documentary about Japanese gardens that must have been on the BBC in early February.

Lovely gardens by the way.

</comment><comment><USER3> Paywall

<comment><USER4> I have no problem reading it and I do not subscribe to The Spectator.</comment></comment>


Oliver Sacks has died - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/science/oliver-sacks-dies-at-82-neurologist-and-author-explored-the-brains-quirks.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0 <comment><USER2> His last op-ed in the NY Times: [http://nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/oliver-sacks- sa...](http://nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/oliver-sacks-sabbath.html)

"And now, weak, short of breath, my once-firm muscles melted away by cancer, I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual, but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life — achieving a sense of peace within oneself. I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one's life as well, when one can feel that one's work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest."

<comment><USER3> > my once-firm muscles melted away by cancer

A less-known side of Sacks: he held the California state record for a 600 lb squat in his younger years.

<comment><USER4> He also had a collection of every atomic element. That's no small accomplishment.

<comment><USER5> Oh wow, that's genuinely impressive. I'm guessing it wouldn't have the synthetic elements, but still -- amazing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sacks was clearly a great doctor in many ways. But he'll probably be better known, and remembered, for popularizing science and medicine in a way that we rarely see: He describes people's symptoms carefully, but also sympathetically. He treats patients using science, which is supposed to be dispassionate, but does so with what's obviously a great deal of care. And he reveals science to us, not as a cold set of rules that govern the world, but as something that provides us with an infinitely large number of wondrous, almost miraculous, combinations of events.

Sacks articulated -- perhaps not explicitly -- that science isn't merely reductionist, cold, logical, and unemotional. He loved learning new things, and was clearly overjoyed to learn, understand, and appreciate the amazing universe in which we live.

It has been many years since I read, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," but I remember loving every page. His later books aren't as famous, but his writing continued to be enchanting and inviting, even when the subjects weren't necessarily my cup of tea.

We in Western societies tend to shut down discussions of death, and what it means. The writing that Sacks produced over the last year have been some of the most poignant, chilling, and inspiring essays that he produced. It's sad that he's gone, but I'm grateful that he shared so much of his work, and his life (and ultimately death) with all of us.

<comment><USER7> > The writing that Sacks produced over the last year have been some of the > most poignant, chilling, and inspiring essays that he produced. It's sad > that he's gone, but I'm grateful that he shared so much of his work, and his > life (and ultimately death) with all of us.

I'd like to read it. Which pieces are you referring to (besides the Sabbath piece, which I've read)?

<comment><USER8> [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/oliver-sacks-on- le...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/oliver-sacks-on-learning-he- has-terminal-cancer.html)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/opinion/my-periodic- table....](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/opinion/my-periodic-table.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "My religion is nature. That's what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me." -- Oliver Sacks

Oliver now gets to take all the elements he borrowed, and that he loved so dearly, and return them back to the stars from which they came. His spirit has dissolved now into it's new form as a complex abstract of memories, ideas, and collective appreciation, where it will now live alongside nature; it's original muse and creator.

</comment><comment><USER10> [http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/opinion/my-periodic- tab...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/opinion/my-periodic- table.html?referrer=&_r=1) "Times of stress throughout my life have led me to turn, or return, to the physical sciences, a world where there is no life, but also no death."

</comment><comment><USER11> It's sad to hear that he died. I just started reading his book, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat". It's an extremely interesting book about the case stories of some of his most interesting patients. The book gives a lot of insight into the lives of patients with the strangest brain dysfunctions, and puts into perspective many of the things we take for granted, such as how we recognize facial expressions, our own body and more. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who's interested in neuroscience or even artificial intelligence.

</comment><comment><USER12> recent radiolab episode [http://www.radiolab.org/story/archives-oliver-sacks- table-el...](http://www.radiolab.org/story/archives-oliver-sacks-table- elements/)

<comment><USER13> I recommend [1] as well where radiolab basically says goodbye to him and he tells his life story. That one hit me so hard because he obviously went out with his full mental capacity, leaving an even bigger gap.

[1] [http://www.radiolab.org/story/radiolab-live-telltale- hearts-...](http://www.radiolab.org/story/radiolab-live-telltale-hearts- featuring-oliver-sacks/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> A great loss, made no less shocking for all its foreshadowing due to his illness. The knowledge he shared through his work and his books have had a lasting impact on my life and the lives of others. Would that we all leave such a legacy.

</comment><comment><USER15> It is always sad when a person curious about the world dies. He provided me with many stimulating hours of reading and for that I will miss him.

</comment><comment><USER16> And he could squat 600 lbs, when he was younger of course.

[https://media2.wnyc.org/i/620/599/l/80/1/Sacks_Lifting_dr_sq...](https://media2.wnyc.org/i/620/599/l/80/1/Sacks_Lifting_dr_squat.jpg)

That's not a trivial weight.

</comment><comment><USER17> I am sad he died but I am so glad he'd lived.

</comment><comment><USER18> His autobiography, which he read on BBC Radio Four, was fascinating. Especially hos description of his addiction to drugs and his recovery.

[1] sadly not still available. It's proba ly around from other sources. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b062jsmz](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b062jsmz)

</comment><comment><USER19> I liked this little personal piece about his desk/apartment [http://sciencefriday.com/video/11/09/2012/desktop-diaries- ol...](http://sciencefriday.com/video/11/09/2012/desktop-diaries-oliver- sacks.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> He contibuted more to literature, if it can be called that, than to neurology. His writings were akin to the breathless articles in Wired on the "AMAZING DIGITAL FUTURE".

If you want to read real neurology, as opposed to the neurology case studies for the unwashed masses that Sacks churned out, Lord Brain's Diseases of the Nervous System ( now in the 12th edition ) is a classic. [http://oxfordmedicine.com/view/10.1093/med/9780198569381.001...](http://oxfordmedicine.com/view/10.1093/med/9780198569381.001.0001/med-9780198569381)

<comment><USER21> > churned out

I think this might explain why what Sacks did was _important_ and not something simply "churned out": [https://xkcd.com/397/](https://xkcd.com/397/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I market to millennials online? - <AUTHOR> I'm a Gen-Xer trying to sell products whose target audience is people in their 20s and early 30s, who are getting married or having their first child, or who have a lot of friends who are doing so.
I'm increasingly feeling like I'm an old fogey who doesn't know where people younger than me are congregating online, or how to market to them.  I'm more of the FB generation than the Instagram/Snapchat generation, and honestly I don't even know if it's accurate that Instagram/Snapchat are where I should focus.
I would love to hear from people who are in the 20s and early 30s, or who feel like they know how to connect with them.
What's a good way to get the word out about a new product?  Will traditional online ads fall on deaf ears?  What sort of out-of-the-box strategies are likely to connect with this demographic? <comment><USER2> as much as HN hate it... "influencers" matter. It's not about what established media tries to inform me with, it's what my inner circle recommends.</comment>


Atlassian opens up Stride API early access program - <AUTHOR> https://developer.atlassian.com/blog/2017/09/apply-for-the-stride-api-early-access-program/ <comment><USER2> looking forward to this having the option for private self hosting.</comment>


Stem Cells Undo Birth Defects - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/21930/

<comment><USER2> Very interesting. I wonder if stem cells can also encourage enhancement - e.g. if injected in normal mice, do they result in increased intelligence?

<comment><USER3> Eliezer addressed a similar idea a few days ago (the relation to your question will be clear about 11 paragraphs down): [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/01/growing-up-is- hard.htm...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/01/growing-up-is-hard.html)</comment></comment>


Open Source: A license, a community or more? - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/61502 <comment><USER2> standard confusion around open and free. Free software is a philosophy, open source is a development model, and there are several different licenses depending on what ruffles your feathers.</comment>


Gaming department vs. German U-Boats in 1942 [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://paxsims.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/2017-12-10-watu-mors.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Wargaming the Atlantic War - Captain Gilbert Roberts and the Wrens of the Western Approaches Tactical Unit (WATU) could significantly reduce the losses of UK merchant fleet, caused by German U-Boat attacs. Their primary tool for studying U-boat attacks and developing countermeasures was wargames.</comment>


The simplest designs are usually the best - <AUTHOR> http://distributedbytes.timojo.com/2015/03/the-simplest-designs-are-usually-best.html <comment><USER2> "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." \-- Albert Einstein

</comment><comment><USER3> "Simple is more performant" That's just wrong. Often simple solutions become complex just by trying to address performance issues. Adding

      - more complex algorithms with better characteristics
      - parallelism & concurrency
      - caching, buffer management
      - ...

ain't gonna make your solution any simpler. The better advise is: when in doubt, choose the simplest you can get away with.

</comment><comment><USER4> Occam's Razor</comment>


Machine Learning Crash Course: The Bias-Variance Dilemma - <AUTHOR> https://ml.berkeley.edu/blog/2017/07/13/tutorial-4/ <comment><USER2> This seems to ultimately come down to an idea that folks have a hard time shaking. It is entirely possible that you cannot recover the original signal using machine learning. This is, fundamentally, what separates this field from digital sampling.

And this is not unique to machine learning, per se. [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-noncitizen- voters...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-noncitizen-voters/) has a great widget that shows that as you get more data, you do not necessarily decrease inherent noise. In fact, it stays very constant. (Granted, this is in large because machine learning has most of its roots in statistics.)

More explicitly, with ML, you are building probabilistic models. This is contrasted to most models folks are used to which are analytic models. That is, you run the calculations for an object moving across the field, and you get something within the measurement bounds that you expected. With a probabilistic model, you get something that is within the bounds of being in line with previous data you have collected.

(None of this is to say this is a bad article. Just a bias to keep in mind as you are reading it. Hopefully, it helps you challenge it.)

<comment><USER3> If it helps anyone, the FiveThirtyEight article describes a scenario where people take a survey about immigration status and voting. Most legal citizens will correctly identify themselves, but some will accidentally check the wrong box and say they are an illegal immigrant. If you have a billion citizens and 10 illegal immigrants truly taking the survey, and people check the wrong box 1 in 1000 times, your "percentage of illegal immigrants who vote" statistic will be about the same as for citizens (because almost all reported illegals will be citizens). Collecting more data won't help.

It's a very good article, though in the context of deciding how many variables should be in a model of some complex phenomenon, this example is a little tougher to wrap your head around. It's not quite a predictive model, but there were some variables left out. A naive model I suppose is "this data is generated by infallible respondents", whereas a better model would incorporate that error rate. There isn't as much of a question about which pieces of information are relevant, though, like you might encounter when trying to predict future drug use from household income, race, age, number of books read as a child, number of pets, and so on.

<comment><USER4> Doesn't this make the assumption that "illegal immigrants" won't check the wrong box, intentionally or by accident?

<comment><USER5> citizens labeled illegals: 1,000,000

illegals labeled citizens: 0.01

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here are parts 1, 2 & 3:

Introduction, Regression/Classification, Cost Functions, and Gradient Descent:

[https://ml.berkeley.edu/blog/2016/11/06/tutorial-1/](https://ml.berkeley.edu/blog/2016/11/06/tutorial-1/)

Perceptrons, Logistic Regression, and SVMs:

[https://ml.berkeley.edu/blog/2016/12/24/tutorial-2/](https://ml.berkeley.edu/blog/2016/12/24/tutorial-2/)

Neural networks & Backpropagation:

[https://ml.berkeley.edu/blog/2017/02/04/tutorial-3/](https://ml.berkeley.edu/blog/2017/02/04/tutorial-3/)

</comment><comment><USER7> The whole problem of overfitting or underfitting exists because you're not trying to understand the underlying model, but you're trying to "cheat" by inventing some formula that happens to work in most cases.

<comment><USER8> Yes, this is both uninteresting and true. The whole field of ML exists precisely because many things are too complex to model directly.

<comment><USER9> too complex for humans to create the models unassisted?

<comment><USER10> Definitely.

Look at the ImageNet ICVLR competition. Hand-built models can't approach SoTA results built with CNNs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, the discussion on the Fukushima civil engineering decision was pretty interesting. However, I find it surprising that the engineers simply overlooked the linearity of the law and used a nonlinear model. I wonder if there were any economic / other incentives at play, and the model shown was just used to justify the decision?

Regardless, that post was a great read.

<comment><USER12> In my opinion, the real problem in that case was not the overfitting, but that they _extrapolated_ from that data. They didn't have anything above Magnitude 8. ([https://ml.berkeley.edu/blog/assets/tutorials/4/earthquake-f...](https://ml.berkeley.edu/blog/assets/tutorials/4/earthquake- fit-analysis.png))

You should never, ever extrapolate. It doesn't matter what your model is, it won't work.

On a side note, it could be that there is a breakpoint at Magnitude 7.25, where the slope of the line _really_ changes, and a segmented linear regression is appropriate ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_regression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_regression)). But we would need more data to be sure, anyway.

<comment><USER13> Not extrapolating isn't really an option in cases like this. You have to give _some_ prediction for earthquakes of magnitude 9. Ultimately you must make a decision on whether to design for such an event.

But a sensible thing to do would be to draw _many_ samples from the posterior distribution, instead of just using the maximum likelyhood estimate. That way the prediction accurately represents the uncertainty resulting from not having any data above magnitude 8 as well as, perhaps, your background knowledge that earthquakes of magnitude 15 never happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've always liked this visualization of the Bias-Variance tradeoff: [http://www.eggie5.com/110-bias-variance- tradeoff](http://www.eggie5.com/110-bias-variance-tradeoff)

<comment><USER15> That's OK as a visualisation of what bias and variance _are_ , but it's a bad visualisation of the bias-variance _tradeoff_ , because in that image there is no tradeoff - it shows a case where bias and variance are independent of one another. An illustration like this one genuinely confused me when I was first introduced to bias and variance: I couldn't understand why the lecturer was claiming there is a tradeoff while showing a picture of a case where there is no tradeoff. I eventually figured out what was going on, but I think I would have got it quicker if it had been explained more like the linked post, and less like that diagram.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> like many things in science and engineering, (and life in general) it comes down to this: what is signal, what is noise?

most of the time there is no a priori way of determining this

you come to the problem with your own assumptions (or you inherit them) and that guides you (or misguides you)

</comment><comment><USER17> One good way to solve the bias-variance problem is to use Gaussian processes (GPs). With GPs you build a probabilistic model of the covariance structure of your data. Locally complex, high variance models produce poor objective scores, so hyperparameter optimization favors "simpler" models.

Even better, you can put priors on the parameters of your model and give it the full Bayesian treatment via MCMC. This avoids overfitting, and gives you information about how strongly your data specifies the model.

</comment><comment><USER18> Welch Labs has a great 15-part series, where they gradually build up a decision tree model that counts the number of fingers in an image. Part 9 in the series explains the bias-variance spectrum really well: [https://youtu.be/yLwZEuybaqE?list=PLiaHhY2iBX9ihLasvE8BKnS2X...](https://youtu.be/yLwZEuybaqE?list=PLiaHhY2iBX9ihLasvE8BKnS2Xg8AhY6iV)

</comment><comment><USER19> Statistics is the science of making decisions under uncertainty.

It is far too frequently misunderstood as the science of making certainty from uncertainty.

</comment><comment><USER20> Brilliant post; Thank you;

</comment><comment><USER21> wow nice. Then I have things to do on my flight now.</comment>


Backpage.com's Vicious Battle with the Feds - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/inside-backpage-vicious-battle-feds/ <comment><USER2> "Since March 2018, federal prosecutors have seized more than $100 million in cash, real estate, and other assets from Lacey and Larkin. The strategy is simple: No money? No lawyers. QED.

The asset freezes raise all kinds of thorny constitutional questions. Generally speaking, federal prosecutors are permitted to freeze a defendant's assets based on probable cause alone, even before the defendant has a chance to challenge the government's case in court. But regular forfeiture rules do not apply in cases involving forums for speech—newspapers, films, books, magazines, websites. The US Supreme Court has decreed that when the government seizes these expressive materials, or the proceeds derived from them, it must immediately hold an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the seizure is valid.

But the Backpage defendants have a problem: So far, they can't get a court to hear their claims. Since last summer, the Justice Department appears to have been playing a clever shell game. They've brought cases against the Backpage defendants in two federal districts—civil seizures in Los Angeles, criminal matters in Phoenix—and they're making the defendants spend what money they have left chasing Uncle Sam from place to place. So far, judges in both districts have agreed with the government's suggestion that they should defer to each other, effectively denying the defendants a forum to challenge the asset freezes. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will hear arguments in the case in July."

This kind of tactic definitely rubs me the wrong way. I am not saying that backpage should exist.

But I don't buy into ends justify the means arguments for the way the government is going about it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't understand the thru-line of this Wired story. It effectively concedes the government's case: Backpage built a system that coached users to post trafficking ads without setting off its controls. If you posted an ad containing "lolita," "rape," "fresh," or "little girl" (the article's examples), the system would _alert the user_ so they could use different terms, and then _accept their new ad_.

There's lots not to like about SESTA, but the Backpage people weren't (AFAIK) charged under SESTA.

Why am I meant to care about the Backpage owner's colorful history? Isn't the important thing I actually need to know to understand what happened here buried towards the bottom of this story, in a couple paragraphs discussing what they were actually charged with? Agree or disagree with the prosecution, but _that 's the story_.

I feel like people on message boards are sold on a narrative about how child sex trafficking never happens, which is easy when it's an abstraction. But it does happen.

A middle aged man I briefly worked with, and that a friend of mine worked _for_ \--- Peter Privateeer, the former CEO of a company called Reflex Security --- just finished serving 12 years in prison for buying a 14 year old girl. The pimp who sold her had been holding her at gunpoint and forcing her to "service" his customers. Where did the pimp meet the CEO? On Backpage. The girl cost $600.

The ads for teenaged children Backpage was handling were real. Not all of them, I'm sure. But it was really happening. And Backpage _helped it happen_.

Should a safe online market for sex workers exist? Perhaps. But we should be able to at least agree that the people who operate it should take their responsibility as a steward of the public safety seriously. That's not Backpage. Backpage did did at least as much to set back the cause of safeguarding sex workers than any misguided lawmaker.

<comment><USER4> Thank you for stating this so clearly. Something always seemed off to me about the argument that punishing Backpage was going to backfire because all it would do drive exploitation and child abuse more underground. This claim would have merit if Backpage hadn't been explicitly enabling a market for this terrible stuff via those keyword suggestions. I'm not going to shed any tears for the poor site owners having to face penalties for this.

<comment><USER5> At least according to the article it was a keyword ban, not keyword suggestions. To my reading the intent of the ban is to (1) avoid the appearance of carrying advertisements of sex with children and (2) discourage such advertisements.

The critical view is that this is intended to help child traffickers write clandestine ads so they can continue using the platform however that seems unlikely. The problem with any keyword-based filter is false-positives such as kink content. Such filters operating opaquely and dropping bans in other contexts such as banking and copyright draw deserved criticism. We should be no less critical here.

<comment><USER4> I need to dig up my original source, but my understanding from when this news first broke has been that the implementation was somewhat less innocent than a simple keyword ban and involved some kind of suggestions or workarounds for banned keywords. I'll try to find something concrete to back this up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Someone must not have hired a lobbying team and lined some pockets in Washington.

Also the crooked US justice system, you don't have the right to defend yourself using your own money:

> The asset freezes raise all kinds of thorny constitutional questions. > Generally speaking, federal prosecutors are permitted to freeze a > defendant's assets based on probable cause alone, even before the defendant > has a chance to challenge the government's case in court. But regular > forfeiture rules do not apply in cases involving forums for > speech—newspapers, films, books, magazines, websites. The US Supreme Court > has decreed that when the government seizes these expressive materials, or > the proceeds derived from them, it must immediately hold an evidentiary > hearing to determine whether the seizure is valid.

> But the Backpage defendants have a problem: So far, they can't get a court > to hear their claims. Since last summer, the Justice Department appears to > have been playing a clever shell game. They've brought cases against the > Backpage defendants in two federal districts—civil seizures in Los Angeles, > criminal matters in Phoenix—and they're making the defendants spend what > money they have left chasing Uncle Sam from place to place. So far, judges > in both districts have agreed with the government's suggestion that they > should defer to each other, effectively denying the defendants a forum to > challenge the asset freezes. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit > will hear arguments in the case in July...

</comment><comment><USER7> Well, if you take away a website were bad things happen, all the bad guys will magically disappear...right?

I enjoyed the article, a good read. I hate the topic; government overreach.

</comment><comment><USER8> Anyone who sits down and reads the Senate report (not mentioned in the article until about 75% of the way though) and is still on the side of Backpage.com is probably a monster.

The report makes no allegation not directly derived from internal company policies, documents, emails, and sworn employee testimony.

Backpage.com was an active participant in human trafficking.

<comment><USER9> The only thing that is supporting the human trafficking "industry" (let's face it.. it's organized and it's filling a demand in the market) is having that kind of work made illegal. It forces the demand and supply into the black market.

There is and always has been a demand and (willing and consenting) supply for those services. The best you can do is to put in a framework in which they can do so legally and safely. It's not going to knock out all trafficking. But when you have a superior service that's legal, safe and reliable. You're going to lose the financial benefit of running it on the black market. (Also you'll end up having an entire framework to deal with crimes related to the work [i.e. abuse, violence related, etc])

<comment><USER10> So the solution to trafficked 14 year olds is to legalize 14 year old prostitutes?

<comment><USER11> No. Is there a good reason we don't have a well regulated set of laws and enforcement for legal sex work for people 18 (or 21) and up?

<comment><USER10> Because legalizing sex work has empirically not reduced the amount of sex trafficking / nonconsensual sex work that occurs. That's what happened in Amsterdam and why they reduced the size of their brothel economy.

<comment><USER12> Take as an axiom that you cannot meaningfully reduce the demand for prostitution.

Given that axiom, I find it very hard to believe that legal sex work which is closely monitored for any signs of human trafficking would have the same amount of that associated with it as illegal prostitution which is impossible to monitor meaningfully. I suspect the amount of sex trafficking associated with illegal prostitution is grossly underestimated.

<comment><USER10> You absolutely can reduce the demand for anything by making it more costly. Prostitution is far more prevalent where it less costly in dollars and punishment (e.g. Canada vs USA) You can't just assert a falsehood as axiomatic.

<comment><USER12> > You absolutely can reduce the demand for anything by making it more costly. > Prostitution is far more prevalent where it less costly in dollars and > punishment (e.g. Canada vs USA) You can't just assert a falsehood as > axiomatic.

 _Meaningfully_ reduce. The only meaningful reduction is to near zero, the point where human trafficking becomes impossible to profit from. That doesn't seem to be the case even in the USA.

<comment><USER10> The only meaningful reduction is to near zero? Reducing human trafficking by 50% is not a meaningful reduction?

<comment><USER12> Reducing prostitution by 50% wouldn't reduce human trafficking the same amount, but thanks for equivocating!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For those who are interested, this reply all goes into the effects of backpage's closure on sex workers.

[https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/o2ho97/119-no- more-s...](https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/o2ho97/119-no-more-safe- harbor)

<comment><USER14> I've listened to the episode before, but after reading the Wired article and seeing the comments here, the Reply All episode now feels very one sided. I don't remember them mentioning the underage aspect.

<comment><USER13> Yeah but I also don't think the question "is Carl Ferrer a scumbag?" and "was the closing of Backpage good for sex workers and at risk youth" have to have the same answer.

The wired article talks about culpability and most focuses on the first question where as the reply all seemed to exclusively focus on the second.

<comment><USER14> There are two parts to your second question.

Was Backpage good for _adult_ sex workers. Yes. Also, I don't think prostitution between consenting adults should be illegal.

Did Backpage facilitate child trafficking- Yes. Anything that makes that harder is a win. Backpage _should_ have worked with police to help catch the adults who were selling kids for sex.

I haven't heard about any of the well known porn sites getting in trouble for kiddy porn. So obviously it is possible to run an adult oriented site without exploiting kids.

<comment><USER13> From the little I've researched into it, it seems like there is more teen prostitution that is due to coercion from circumstance as opposed to force. Basically kids who ran away from or don't have a home and are trying to survive as opposed to trafficking at gun point.(which has been incredibly hard to find numbers for). And it seems like backpage made it safer for the former and but increased the risk of the latter.

Here's the wikipedia page that goes into some details.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_trafficking_in_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_trafficking_in_the_United_States#Commercial_sexual_exploitation_of_children)

<comment><USER14> I left off something Backpage should have both helped police catch adults pumping out kids _and_ worked with agencies to help the kids who were involved with prostitution whether they were forced or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >"I could make arrests off Craigslist 24 hours a day, but to what end? ... "

Well, enforcing the law is actually the job of law enforcement. It sounds like the ultimate goal is to keep the bad stuff where the general public can't see it.</comment>


Microsoft Andromeda and Centaurus: Does size really matter for a new Surface? - <AUTHOR> https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-andromeda-does-size-matter <comment><USER2> UWP was truly the worst of both worlds.

First you have to use asynchronous I/O which means you can't easily port Win32 apps to UWP.

Second you have to use Win32 which means if you don't know Win32 you have to learn Win32 + asynchronous I/O.

No wonder Microsoft told people to just write client-side web applications if they want to write UWP apps which is also dumb. If people wanted to write web applications they could just make web applications and be crossplatform.

I know reporters like to string along Microsoft and Intel because they are afraid they won't get any review samples or interviews if they tell the truth but had reviewers not gone along with the lies Microsoft and Intel might have been prevented from some of the own goals they have scored in the past ten years.

(e.g. every time a new intel integrated graphics comes out, arstechnica will say "finally intel integrated graphics don't suck"... they'll say it the next time too. intel thought they could destroy NVIDIA and ATI and capture more money out of each PC sale but instead the GFX card companies were saved by deep learning and cryptocurrencies. In the meantime, phones had better graphics than the integrated GFX from intels so people had one less reason to buy a PC. Systematicaly Intel has tried to squeeze every 1/10 of a penny out of their customers and ecosystem rather than delivering as much value as they can to their customers. Hyperscalers are pissed and Intel might have to drop out of the server market by 2022 once they have a choice between AMD and ARM)

I hope it is not too late for Microsoft to give up on "Windows Lite"; it seems like they are obsessed with the idea that people like Windows because it is a great OS. Actually people like Windows because it has great applications and driver support. Take that away and you might as well have AmigaOS or BeOS or something.

I won't get my hopes up because there is two things about those people:

They don't listen.

They won't listen.</comment>


Ethical Adblocking - <AUTHOR> http://noscope.com/2015/09/ethical-adblocking/ <comment><USER3> There was a time when the industry could have prevented the rise of widespread adblocking with "ethical advertising", which wasn't user-hostile, risky, creepy, intrusive, tracking, bandwidth and power heavy and didn't trash the UX of the sites. But, they didn't.

So, now, the ad industry trying to talk to the rest of the world about the ethics of blocking ads is like the drunk uncle who puked on last year's Thanksgiving Turkey talking to the family about the "ethics" of not inviting him this year. Sure, it's a sad situation, but you probably should've thought about that before you puked on the turkey.

If the ad guys spend a few years ensuring that advertisting is safe, lightweight, unobtrusive, non-creepy, and fast, maybe we'll invite you back to the party someday, and start to consider web advertising less of a threat-to- be-blocked.

But for now, we're not taking that risk. Sorry guys, but you've earned it.

<comment><USER4> > _If the ad guys spend a few years ensuring that advertisting is safe, > lightweight, unobtrusive, non-creepy, and fast,..._

Isn't that the point Gruber was making his Deck ads? Or do you not think those qualify?

There is no monolithic "ad industry" ... it's a bunch of people and companies with different methods and objectives and values.

<comment><USER3> This is a perfect case for disruption. Make a company whose ads are _so_ unobtrusive, _so_ free of tracking, _so_ non-creepy, and _so_ fast that I would actually want to unblock them specifically. Gruber's on that, which is great, but 99% of the rest of the ad industry is full of everything wrong with it, and there's no guarantees Gruber's service won't start running malware tomorrow.

If there's a door open to a room that's filled with 9900 assholes and 100 decent people, even though it's not fair to the 100, it's still a good idea to shut the door. Similarly, right now, the best bet is to set your adblockers in the least permissive way possible.

EDIT: Also, with regards to the decentralized "ad industry", look at what happened in the spam/commercial email industry. The bad companies have been chased out, and the good ones are well regulated. That was many disparate groups, but along with improvements in spam blocking, they've proved themselves ready to sit at the adults table. Advertisers now have a chance to do the same, and Adblock will help us keep them honest.

<comment><USER5> I'm not certain such a company would be successful.

I think the number of users willing to _unblock_ ads that are already being blocked will be in the minority - and more than likely any such "ethical" advertising would be blacklisted as soon as possible. An ad blocker that does allow so-called "ethical" ads by design would probably be considered spyware.

<comment><USER3> Well, that's the thing: Nobody actually _likes_ ads. At best, people like what ads _allow_ (e.g. free content, services, etc), but they're a necessary evil even there. If given the choice between two universes, one involving ads and one not, which were equal in all other respects, there would be no line to get into the ad-ful one.

And I think the ad industry is going to need to give up on tracking as a concept. No matter how they do it, it's basically the same concept as the massive data collection the NSA is working towards which everybody hates, except ad companies don't even have the illusion of protective and pure motives.

<comment><USER4> I don't really agree with that.

The people who truly want zero ads are, I think, in the minority. If I'm reading a blog about Django and it's got an ad with a discount code for DjangoCon, I actually want to see that ad -- and not just because it supports the blog.

The other day I put an item in my cart on an ecommerce site and forgot about it until I saw a "retargeted" ad reminding me to complete my purchase. I wanted to complete the purchase, I just forgot. I want that ad.

For some non-tech examples: consider how many people would opt for an ad-free Superbowl or an ad-free fashion magazine. Some would, but certainly not everyone. Many people _like_ those ads.

I think people hate ads that are not relevant to them. Third party tracking cookies have many problems, but they're one way to help make ads more relevant.

(Disclaimer: I'm cofounder of an ad-supported B2B news organization)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really don't get this moral argument at all. Websites don't have the right to use 5x my already severely limited mobile bandwidth on pure crap that I don't need. They have the right to put trackers and crap ads on their page, sure - but I also have the right to block them.

* TV channels have the right to put annoying ads in, but I have the right to mute them, look away, change the channel, skip them if previously recorded, etc.

* Movies have the right to insert pre-roll ads and previews, but I have the right to skip them or come to a movie 15 minutes later than listed showtime to ensure I miss them.

* Newspapers and magazines have the right to put ads in, but I have the right to cut them out or fold the page over so I don't have to look at them while reading the article.

No amount of these shaky moral arguments are going to make me change my mind about intrusive advertising and tracking. There is no contract or promise between me and the website that I am visiting that I will be captive to their ads or behavior tracking, implied or otherwise - just like in any other other media format. People absolutely have the right to block them, and they absolutely have the right to install software that helps improve their privacy.

<comment><USER7> That's because you're talking about "rights" not "morals".

I have the right to call you an asshole but it wouldn't be moral. Mods have the right to ban everyone with ideas they don't like but it wouldn't be moral.

You do have the right to demand something from someone for free. You do have the right to go to every store in the city and empty every "take a penny leave a penny" tray. But having the right to do it and it being moral are very, very different things.

<comment><USER6> But I am not making any demands at all. Publishers are offering their content for free, and I sometimes take them up on their offer and read it. It's an offer that started with the publisher, not a demand that came from me.

Are you saying it is moral for publishers to track my usage behavior, and to force me to watch any ad they want me to?

<comment><USER8> > Publishers are offering their content for free

No, they are offering their content in the expectation that they will be rewarded for producing it, via ads. It isn't free.

Are you saying it's moral for you to read their content but circumvent their business model?

<comment><USER6> > There is no contract or promise between me and the website that I am > visiting that I will be captive to their ads or behavior tracking, implied > or otherwise

If you ask any website without a paywall, they will almost ALL tell you their content is free. Some even advertise and market that enthusiastically. A visit still helps them - it is still counted in server-side stats (which is used to sell ads), and I am exposed to their brand, which is a large part of what marketing is all about. There are also other forms of advertising which are not blocked - things like sponsored posts, guest posts, mailing list opt-in forms, referral links, etc.

You also conveniently ignored my question on whether or not forcing me to watch an ad or forcing me to accept behavior tracking is moral on their part. This is not a one-sided equation.

<comment><USER9> "If you ask any website without a paywall, they will almost ALL tell you their content is free. "

Come on. No they don't, vlucas. They say "welcome, enjoy, support our sponsors." They do _not_ say "it's free; do whatever you want with our content now that the packets have been transferred."

<comment><USER6> They do indeed say the content is free. Of _course_ they are not going to say "do whatever you want with our content". That's not what I said or implied at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Once the adblocker is installed, once web-ads have been poisoned by years of > bad practices, ads aren't coming back.

That's really the crux of the matter. Advertisers and the sites using them had a chance to show us that they could do this in a responsible manner that took user experience into consideration. They demonstrated that they would engage in as much user-hostile advertising as they could get away with. So my ad- blocker went from having a carefully curated whitelist to a blanket banning with no exceptions. They had their chance and they blew it.

<comment><USER11> If I was a responsible advertiser over the last 20 years, I had absolutely no chance to prevent irresponsible people from becoming member of the group you refer to as "advertisers" \-- and, at least in the US, if I tried I would probably run afoul of anti-trust or other laws -- so it does not make much sense to say that I "had my chance".

There are good arguments for ad blockers, but treating a collection of independent market participants as if they were a single person or a coherent group able to enforce norms on its members is not one.

I guess you could argue that Google and Facebook controlled enough of the market that if they acted in concert, they could have prevented the current situation, but they certainly would have faced strident accusations from advertisers of anti-competitive behavior and would have attracted the interest of regulators. (And if that is your argument, you should say so.)

ADDED. Over the 20 years since the start of advertising on the internet, the actors with the best chance to have headed off the current situation were the maintainers of the popular web browsers, but saying that they had their chance does not help shift the moral high ground from responsible advertisers to users of ad blockers.

<comment><USER10> From my perspective as a user, it doesn't matter. If the ad networks and their customers are unable to enforce standards on their advertisers, then I have no choice but to block them. Making it my responsibility is not an option.

Its not possible to enforce compliance with some sort of ethical standards industry-wide, but it is possible to at least encourage it, especially if you are a large player like Facebook or Google. From my perspective, they don't even appear to be trying.

> I guess you could argue that Google and Facebook controlled enough of the > market that if they acted in concert, they could have prevented the current > situation, but they certainly would have faced strident accusations from > advertisers of anti-competitive behavior and would have attracted the > interest of regulators. (And if that is your argument, you should say so.)

Its not clear to me that this is the case. Simply enforcing standards on ads is not the same as limiting competition. Its an issue of a corporation deciding to not carry your content because it does not pass some presumably published and neutral guidelines. At the very least, it is not as clear-cut as you are making it sound.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _" I think if your Safari Content Blocker blocks The Deck by default, it's > wrong. I dare you to defend it._"

Hilarious. Okay:

I decide what comes up my pipe, into my house, and appears on my screen; opt- _in_. If you have a problem with me "free-loading", then put your content behind a paywall and I'll decide if it's worth my money.

<comment><USER13> Let's assume the market isn't in a place where most sites can put up paywalls, since users will just turn to free alternatives. This is debatable, but not my point.

If the site had an "opt-in to ads" modal (which set a cookie or something,) would you ever accept?

<comment><USER14> > since users will just turn to free alternatives

If there are completely free alternatives which are an acceptable replacement how are you going to compete in the first place?

I would _never_ accept that opt-in for an ever growing list of reasons but I'm also the person who donates to sites I like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A webcomic from twelve years ago summarized my feeling on ad tracking: [http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/07/19](http://penny- arcade.com/comic/2002/07/19)

Of course back then we called it "spyware," but apparently now it's the more consumer-friendly "interest-based acquisition and aggregation you tacitly agreed to when you decided to visit our website."

</comment><comment><USER16> I'll take Mister Gruber's dare: it's my device, it's my bandwidth, and they're my eyeballs.

<comment><USER4> I can't really speak for him, but I think "by default" is an important part of that dare. That the people who are complaining about ads are mostly not bothered by Deck ads, but Deck ads are blocked by default along with far more obnoxious ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I should be able to choose what I see on my computer, especially when I'm paying for bandwidth. But this has already been said.

What I find laughable is the author's warning at the end that essentially boils down to: If you keep blocking ads, the alternative will be much worse, so you better not block ads...or else!

"What's more likely is that web ads are going to get way worse, adblocking is going to go way up, and at some point in this arms race, after the death of many a media company, eventually some will indeed have adapted. The big question is whether you'll like the alternatives. It can be apps. It can be inside Apple's Newsstand (featuring unblockable ads). It can be inside Facebooks instant articles. It can be subversive native ads. It can be paywalls. Think in-app purchases: 'Pay $1 for this article, or pay by watching a video.'"

<comment><USER18> Unblockable ads, using Apple's Newsstand delivery vehicle?

How long will that last before Apple is kicking the content provider's arse to kingdom come?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd like to see a whitelist option happen, like AdBlock currently does - <USER2> more transparent. Ad networks/providers that have shown themselves to be trustworthy, secure, compact and not-annoying ought to be able to show me ads - plain ads that I can scroll past, nothing that pops up, or stick around while I scroll - while the egregious offenders ought to be blacklisted until they go out of business.

<comment><USER20> Well, yes, but the thing is while we care, and might want to craft a whitelist or put consideration into our choices, the majority of folks are going to search for ad blocker, choose the first one, and start enjoying the web without ads. Then they're going to wonder why they never did it on desktop? And then they're going to do it on the desktop. The genie, once out of the bottle, will not choose to return.

<comment><USER19> Oh, in my perfect world, while end-users would be able to modify the list, it would ship with one by default. 99% of users wouldn't know or care it was even there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Here's an interesting part I'm going to use to illustrate a larger point:

> whether those services are free through ads or are entirely paid.

It isn't this simple. I pay for a newspaper, I still get ads. The fact the newsstand price is too low for them to give it to me ad-free isn't really up to me; they don't offer an ad-free option, even at a higher price. Magazines are the same way. So are a lot of premium pay TV channels. So's SiriusXM.

My point is, I can't trust them to _not_ run ads. Even if I'm paying them directly, they still have the option to shove ads down my eye-holes. I can't effectively block ads anywhere but online, so that's what I do.

Everywhere else, regardless of what I pay, I still get ads.

</comment><comment><USER22> I have a feeling we have surpassed the opportunity for the industry to appeal to ethical ad blocking. I for one even think ads can play a role in society to disperse information, but hell, every time I try to both use the unintrusive white lists or even dare to totally disable blockers it triggers massive rage.

</comment><comment><USER23> Here are my thoughts from the ad industry side:

[http://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/ad-blocking- will...](http://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/ad-blocking-will-keep- growing-until-we-make-ads-better-2/)

I think there is a chance to make it better, ad blocking is not yet maintsteam and I think there is a room for a blockers that will only block "bad" ads.

<comment><USER3> This is well and good, but there's a trust issue. Last time we let you guys have free reign, you created a user-hostile hellscape of tracking and intrusive ads, and sold ads to the highest malware-pushingest bidder.

After you guys messed the whole thing up so badly the first time, why would we want to re-open the doors _at all_? "It's OK guys, this time we'll be good for realsies!" just doesn't cut it.

As much as I feel for the people involved, I just don't see a compelling reason for your industry to be given a second chance and continue existing at anywhere near its current scale.

An evolution of business models away from web advertising is what we need to bet on, rather than a pinky-swear from the people who got us into this mess in the first place.

<comment><USER23> I definitely understand that perspective - and to be clear there are good ad providers out there, we just haven't been winning the war in our own industry.

I don't think a pinky swear would work either, but I think if the browsers can enforce better standards we would be able to move forward. Of course the problem there is that the largest advertising company in the world owns the most popular browser in the world.

An ad blocker that only blocks bad advertising would be a good way to encourage this.

I wish a form of micro-payments or subscription would work, but most publishers have found little luck with this. (look at all the people here who complain about a paywalled link, or find a way around it)

<comment><USER3> "An ad blocker that only blocks bad advertising" is a great idea, but it relies on easily faked characteristics. I'd love to see an industry group which focuses on authenticating non-harmful ads in a provable way, and thus, ad blockers could load only the least-worst stuff in a trustable way. But you've still got a ways to go before you can convince me that there are "good" ads, rather than just non-bad ones.

I'd also love to see laws passed which make websites legally liable for malware served on them by ad networks, which would incentivize sites to use only good companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What ads blockers and ad companies should do is work to create an opt in whitelist, that is socially decided upon by the blockers' users.

That is, allow an opt in to use a socially decided upon whitelist, along with your personal whitelist. As users allow ads on certain sites, let them also indicate "this ad should be shown to everyone; it's not annoying/it's acceptable enough to allow". If enough users do that, allow it to be shown. If that triggers a large enough backlash amongst users, remove it from the whitelist, and prevent it from being re-added to the whitelist (though individuals can still whitelist it individually).

That way, non-obtrusive, background ads can be slowly turned on for those who opt in to allow it. If someone tries to engineer the whitelisting of an ad that people find objectionable, it will be removed by all the people re- blocking it. If a user finds the ads being allowed, in total, are too irritating, they can remove the social whitelist entirely. And those who simply want no ads need not opt in to the whitelist.

</comment><comment><USER25> There is no mention of third-party tracking in this which to me is an instant criteria for unethical treatment of your users.

</comment><comment><USER26> Ethical adblocking = Blocking all ads

</comment><comment><USER27> I block ads for one reason only: I don't want malware.. period.. the end.

The day ad companies actually have a conscience and won't sell to malware authors, is the day i'll stop blocking their ads.

</comment><comment><USER28> Ethical adblocking is all of them gone forever.

I want advertising to cease to exist.

<comment><USER3> That's one of the problems I have in this debate. "How can we have the best advertising possible?" includes the premise "We should have advertising", which is probably not true, for the very best values of society.

It's one way to monetize the world, but not the only way, I hope desperately that I see a day when ad companies are remembered like telegraph companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Caveat Emptor: I run adblocking.

Ad blocking is not unethical; in most cases there is no agreement from the provider of the website and the consumer to say that the consumer must watch the adverts, it's just not there.

It is not the adblockers fault that the websites business model is dependent on ad revenue that's the provider's decision. If the lose of web content happens because of adblocking it's still not the adblockers responsibility, there was no agreement.

<comment><USER30> Ethical ad-blocking is to block any and all ads that you don't want to receive.

Shouldn't we be discussing the limits of ethical _advertising_?

<comment><USER31> The only ethical advertising is a factual text description and a price. Computer Shopper magazine used to be full of this.

Any more advanced advertising is specifically designed to undermine human rationality. It's an act of aggression similar to forcibly drugging people.

<comment><USER28> I'd expand the scope of "good advertising" to any and all factual non- manipulative details about the product - pictures, features, tradeoff decisions made, intended use, impartial ratings, and so on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is not an ethical issue. You don't get to just send whatever information you want to my computer because you paid some underemployed 20-something 50 bucks to slap together a listicle.

If publishers want people to look at ads, then provide useful, non-obnoxious ads. I have precisely two sites whitelisted in adblock, Penny Arcade and Reddit. Both are known for screening their ads to be unobtrusive and relevant to their audience.

</comment><comment><USER33> The frontier is run by strongmen, as it gets settled, you need stronger rulers. But because there's not enough there to interest the big players back home to bring in infrastructure and big-city politics, these services wind up being provided by the mob, autonomous players far enough away from civilization to avoid the law, strong enough to enforce their vision, even on the strongmen.

As the frontier gets more and more settled, the big players gradually make their way in. Civilization is huge and it takes time to build. The big players have to work with the old strongmen because they don't have enough boots on the ground yet to enforce order.

That's the position Apple is in right now with their content-blocking API. Ad blocking companies are the mob running the web content frontier towns, the ad companies are all the ruffians trying to make a quick buck. Apple is starting to build railroads and bank branches and hotels and courthouses and cultivate property developers, but the mob is still there and they have to be dealt with, otherwise the problem the mob solved is going to bite them in the ass.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'll never forget a conversation I had with one of Amazon's devs about real- time ad bidding.

When you load(possibly -ed not sure if this is still the case) a page Google says to it's advertisers "Ok, how much will you pay for an advert to be served to this id" and they had some tiny number of ms to respond based on the data they'd collected about that user.

The article author rejects that mass adoption of adblocking will cause the advertising industry to come back with a better deal that doesn't include egregious privacy invasion and that it will in fact just kill small media companies relying on advertising revenue. The two are not mutually exclusive, it's a shame that some companies will inevitably fall through the gap but as others have pointed out this _doesn 't_ create a moral obligation to you to accept the current 'deal' ad companies are offering. Don't fall for this crap, mass surveillance by advertisers must die.

</comment><comment><USER35> Nope, it's all going in a black hole, no exceptions.

</comment><comment><USER36> Charging for ads based on impressions or views keeps the costs high, the industry inflated and ad people safe in their jobs. If the ads were tied to actions (clicks, sales etc.) the costs would plummet and many ad people would lose their jobs.

It's one thing to say "Your ad was viewed 10,000 times" and another to say "Your ad got 100 clicks".

</comment><comment><USER37> There is too much crappy content (including this comment) on the web anyway. If the websites can't find another revenue stream .... too bad. I won't miss them.

</comment><comment><USER38> you can watch street performers for an hour and then leave without leaving a cent. it's perfectly legal, but not cool

</comment><comment><USER39> Ethical Adblocking? Is adblocking a moral issue now? We're going to put it up there with assisted suicide and abortion? Is it really that life or death?

<comment><USER40> I'm a stakeholder here, so let me just say that ad blocking is NOT an ethical issue: it's my hardware, and I get to decide what to run on it or not. End of story because property rights.

There's a collision coming between the Kopyright Krazies and the Anti-Ad- Blockers. They want two different things. Or maybe not, maybe there will be an alliance to eliminate control over the computers that you and I own. Anti-Ad- Blockers: your computer must run what I want it to run. Kopyright Krazies: your commputer must not run what I don't want it to run. That's a bullshit situation, by the way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This site has a problematic design.. I couldn't see anything but a logo and a searchbox on my laptop (720p-ish).

<comment> xkcd-sucks Have you tried disabling your adblocker?

<comment><USER25> She meant the initial state of the site with seems to fill the whole screen with "not the article".</comment></comment></comment>


Last roll of Kodachrome film goes through last Kodachrome lab - <AUTHOR> http://www.kansas.com/2010/07/14/1403115/last-kodachrome-roll-processed.html <comment><USER2> It's a good thing for photography that even though Kodak is fading out of film, film itself isn't quite dying. Last year at PMA there were 22 new emulsions announced and demoed, and there's still a market for even very large format film sheets (up to 12x24, that I know of). There are also new large- format cameras appearing on the market yearly, so the medium isn't dying.

Calumet ran an industry survey a few years ago, and discovered that large format film was actually a GROWING niche in the photographic industry, primarily with amateur fine art landscape photographers, and it is still common among current fine art landscape photographers.

And there are still people shooting portraits and still lifes with view cameras.

</comment><comment><USER3> Shame, but the real death was when K25 went away eight years ago. Fiddly stuff, that, with no room for error (and slow lenses need not apply) but, damn, those colours! Fall foliage may never look the same. But I guess this guy, a handful of National Geographic types and a Paul Simon tune can't stop the march of progress.

<comment><USER4> Is there a reason you cannot reproduce those colors? I'm guessing the film accentuates colors, rather than simply being more accurate than others, so with a very accurate (true-to-life) digital photo and a carefully designed 'shop filter, it should be reproducible.

<comment><USER5> Kodachrome used very different dyes than E6 (current slide film) or C41 (color negative; basically similar structure) and was sensitive to slightly different wavelengths. As a result its color gamut, as it were, is very different form either of those two, or digital (designed as it was to look like existing film). I'm not sure that a filter would be enough to "correct" for that; it could be a lot like trying to mimic infrared, which can be faked but not really replicated by anything that can't see into those wavelengths.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The headline is mildly ambiguous.

To be more precise, this is the last roll of Kodachrome which was produced. Not the last roll of Kodachrome which Dwayne's will develop.

From Dwayne's website:

Kodachrome Film Status: The last day of processing for all types of Kodachrome film will be December 30th, 2010. The last day Kodak will accept prepaid Kodachrome film in Europe is November 30th, 2010. Film that is not in our lab by noon on December 30th will not be processed.

Which is a great relief to me, because I still have 3 rolls of film I'm saving for 3 special occasions over this summer.

</comment><comment><USER7> When the history of Kodak is written, Kodachrome should get an entire chapter as an example of managerial malpractice.

Imagine: you have loyal fans, hundreds if not thousands of pro and amateur photographers who ONLY use your product, each pro shooting thousands of rolls of film per year (yes, pros go through a lot of film). Fuji tried to duplicate it but couldn't.

The entirety of the market for Kodachrome is 100% owned by Kodak, from manufacturing the film, the unique developer process, the chemicals, etc.

The film also has unique archival characteristics and other characteristics that mean almost all competitors are locked out - if you want the Kodachrome "look and feel", you have to use Kodachrome.

Fans as rabid as Mac fanbois, unique lockin, capture of nearly 100% of the value in the entire chain ... and Kodak _cancels_ the product.

</comment><comment><USER8> There is much that makes me nostalgic about film but I regret its loss as an educational tool the most. Learning photography is about learning to slow down.

A finite roll, an arduous and tactile development process all encourage patience and being methodological in a way digital photography doesn't.

<comment><USER9> In my case I learnt on digital and the freedom of digital meant I have been able to continually experiment unafraid of wasting film (and money). The learning process for me has been a mixture of reading the basics and a large amount trial and error. I started snapping away but as I have learnt what works I spend more time deciding the what, where and how (so now I am the annoying relative that takes ages to take the family photo).

<comment><USER8> I did not mean to say film is the only way to learn photography; it clearly isn't. The art transcends any tools used to perform it. I just feel nostalgic for my journey from a n00b to non-n00b and how the challenge of film contributed greatly to it. More power to you, and to anyone, who masters the art regardless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reading this took me back to the intro photography course I took back in college a decade ago. I'm told a couple years later they had switched to digital for their courses because they lost their source for reagents for their paper processor, and getting a more modern piece of equipment just wasn't cost effective.

In that semester I learned that getting a "great" image out of a digital camera still isn't as satisfying as getting an "ok" image after spending time in the darkroom, smelling all the chemistry, and fighting with color balance and exposure time.

</comment><comment><USER11> It is indeed sad. Kodachrome 200 was my favorite film. I loved the way it would go blue when overexposed and red when underexposed. I even have a panroamic photo on my wall I took at "Kodachrome Canyon". It was named because the red rocks worked well with the film. Though by then I was shooting on a Canon G1 and only used an old roll as a prop. Once I went digital I never looked back.

<comment><USER12> Presumably you should be able to setup a digital filter to apply the same effect to any source image.

<comment><USER13> The feel of the colours, perhaps, but not the dynamic range. I used to think this was film-nerd wankery, but now that I'm shooting a lot of film (particularly B&W), the difference is immense. Digital sensors have not yet come even close to the dynamic range of film.

For non-photographers: you know that shot where your friend is standing over the railing with the ocean behind him that you can never get? Where he's either pitch black with a beautiful ocean behind him, or he's properly lit and the background is pure white? Welcome to dynamic range limitation.

The popularity of HDR as an imaging technique is just one of the things that have evolved to make up for the lacklustre performance of digital sensors, especially when it comes to high-contrast landscapes.

<comment><USER11> Slide film like Kodakchrome actually captured a pretty narrow dynamic range. It was harder to get right, but it rewarded you with more "bits" in the colors.

For example, I did a test with print film and systematically tried different exposures. The whole roll looked the same. With slides, just being off a few stops would blow the shot. Also, printing on paper would lose half of the range so shooting slide and scanning would have much better digital images.

Ironically, the Canon G1 behaved a lot like slide film. The G2 was much more forgiving like print film. These days I find digital to be very forgiving and easy when I might have had trouble with film. (ex: shooting a wedding, it's easy to properly expose a dark suit next to a white dress.)

Speaking of BW print film, what are you shooting these days? I used to like Plus-x 125 for the silky tones and Tri-x 400 for the grainier contrast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There is actually still a lab or two around that process with the K-14M method (the Kodachrome process). A dear friend of mine still shoots the occasional roll of slide film (of which Kodachrome, for its warm tone, is his favorite), and he employs a "professionals' lab" that still - at least as long as they can get their hands on chemicals - develops all types of positive and slide film, and even black and white process film.</comment>