Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46604625 <comment><USER3> I just told this story on HN, but my car window was smashed on 10/13/18 and the theives got my wallet and house keys.

They used my credit card at foot locker (~$500), The Store Manager confirmed two guys made the purchase and corporate said they would turn over the video if police just ask.

A month later the bank fraud dept informed me someone was trying to cash a fake check ($1,600) against my account at an ATM using my ID (stolen from the car) and they ATM video shows the guy and the would turn it over to police if they requested it.

I even emailed the detective with chain and all he had to do was reply all, but the detective refuses ("we don't look into these things"). Meanwhile these people have my address and key (even though I rekeyed) they may be lurking and try to come in, and I should be entitled to know what these people look like.

I was attacked on HN for suggesting this but I'll suggest it again, since the author of this post already had video of these theives, there needs to be a platform to post these videos for the public to crowdsource the identity of these people.

I know there are not police resources to pursue every amazon purchase, but in my case it was grand theft and it's ongoing, and likely to escalate, but the police are unwilling to do anything to help (but be damn sure they'd look into it if they were the victims).

<comment><USER4> _there needs to be a platform to post these videos for the public to crowdsource the identity of these people._

And then what? Will the platform also have a portal that will let people en masse vex the local PD with messages containing links to the video until the precinct assigns an officer to the case?

What happens next? Is there going to be a timer or some kind of SLA on the platform that notifies people in the crowd "Sergeant Jones still hasn't found the bastard who stole from the Smith family down on the corner"?

Crowdsourcing criminal investigation, even a passive element of it like identifying mugs from home security footage seems like a rabbit hole I'm not sure we're prepared to go down (it also scares the bajeezus out of me because the general population, sorry to say this, aren't the rational actors I want involved in trying to identify perps so casually through 'platforms').

<comment><USER3> >What happens next?

Well let me tell you of another event that occurred to me in 08/17.

I was kidnapped at gunpoint from a gas station, forced to drive my attacker with a gun on my for 30 minutes, eventually after getting off the highway I jumped out of my own car in gear, escaped and called the police.

First words out of the sergeants mouth responding, "cut the shit what really happened." Despite my insistence I'm an officer of the court myself (attorney at Law) that there will be video from the gas station to prove my version of events, I was even told, "we aren't even sure if you own a car and if you are just calling police for a free ride."

In that case, in 24 hours I located my car and the gunman and called the police and had him arrested. That's not to say I did this voluntarily, luckily the gunman connected my WiFi only iPad to the internet and I got the location, of course I called the police first, who told me "they heard about my 'story' yesterday, and wouldn't be going to the address until I drove to the station and showed them the Apple email". I did just that and after keeping me in the parking lot for an hour and laughing at me 2 officers came out to me (this station was closed on Sunday) and took down the address, drive away and called my cellphone and told me go home they don't see my car. Unsatisfied I went to the address myself, found my car and the gunman, called the police yet again and they finally came and arrested him.

He bonded out Monday at 8AM. He has since been rearrested, bonded out yet again, rearrested yet again for violation of his bond vis—Avis his GPS tracker I insisted on.

His trial is still ongoing. Someone stole my keys and ID, I should be entitled to know what they look like when 2 videos are available, crimes against me are ongoing, and the cost of the officers time (since you are so concerned about their $150/hour rates...which seem entirely made up, no offense) is a 1 minute reply to an email I forwarded him from foot locker loss prevention.

Edit: I forgot my conclusion, which is, people who engage in these activities in many cases will even have friends and family who turn them in (i.e. the unibomber). But even if they don't a public platform would be very helpful in deterring these activities, which is the ultimate goal.

<comment><USER5> Jesus this reads like it's from some super corrupt 3rd country, not the US.

<comment><USER6> Get out of your bubble?

I used to think the USA was a "safe" place. Maybe it is compared to Somalia but it isn't compared to Japan or Singapore. Once I got used to the safety of these places I never feel safe in the USA anymore.

I used just take it for granted there were bad parts of town and that even in the good parts of town I should be leery of people, avoid dark alleys etc. Don't walk alone at night, etc. Then I lived in these other places where that concept mostly doesn't exist.

As a concrete example it's common sense in the USA if I get a 3rd party car stereo I should get a removable car stereo and always take it out or hide it. I had 5 of them stolen and my car once and just took it all as "sucks but that's that way life is, my fault for forgetting to take the stereo out or not buying a lojack". But it's not the way life is. It's the way we've let it become.

There's lots of other examples and AFAIK most of it is cultural. An example, find a dropped wallet. In USA/Europe a large percentage of people have the attitude "score for me! found free money!" Not sure if that percentage is 20% or 80% but in Japan (and I think Singapore) the more common response is "OMG, someone is really going to be in a tough spot. I'd better try to get this back to them if possible". In the USA even if people had that attitude they might rationalize that the police won't care and it might be true the police don't care which is just another symptom of the same problem.

I have no clues how to spread the nicer culture to the West. It seems the opposite "me me me" culture is impossible to fight.

PS: these kinds of posts always illicit irrelevant responses of the problems in Japan and Singapore. I'm not saying Japan and Singapore are perfection. I'm only pointing out this one area where they do better.

<comment><USER7> > Get out of your bubble?

Swipes like that break the HN guidelines. Can you please edit them out of what you post here? Your comment would be better without that sentence, and maybe also the patronizing bit at the end ("these kinds of posts always illicit irrelevant responses").

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER4> I'm going to disagree with this being a "swipe" because at the root of it is a critical cautionary tale that I think we should be sharing _more_ of on HN:

What you (the global "you") experience in the world and the results of your interaction are not a template, and other people's experiences may sometimes preclude them from truly realizing, appreciating and unpacking why people in other social groups might see interactions with the constabulary (keeping in context with this comment thread) or other systems of society a bit differently.

As a matter of personal perspective, the suggestion to break one's bubble isn't a swipe, but a request to entertain the thought that one's preconceived notions about a given affair might change with the knowledge that their experiences are not universal and exposure to a different angle.

Maybe the curt nature of the suggestion doesn't meet some arbitrary ideal of discussion, but that doesn't invalidate the root point of the suggestion.

<comment><USER7> That all makes sense. I called it a swipe because it was a personal ("your") pejorative ("bubble"). It's not necessary to do that—posts get better without it—and it routinely has negative side effects.

<comment><USER4> _I called it a swipe because it was a personal ( "your") pejorative ("bubble")_

Matter of perspective, no, Dan? Would it have been less of a pejorative to borrow a phrase from the latest incantation of our discussions of race and culture in the US to say "check your privilege?"

Granted this isn't the place for a protracted discussion on dialogue here, I just find the strong reaction to what is a very important clarion call to evaluate ones own biases and experiences against a spectrum of biases and experiences shared by every other human being, however curt or brief, taking it the point of calling it a "pejorative" an interesting reaction-IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you're concerned about package thieves, just buy an outdoor cabinet and put it next to your door with a note asking that packages be placed in it. I use an Ikea Josef:

[https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage- furniture/outdoo...](https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage- furniture/outdoor-organising/josef-cabinet-in-outdoor-dark-grey-art-00168990/)

You don't even need a lock for it. If you can get the deliverymen to consistently place packages in it, the thieves will have no idea if there's actually a package at your door to steal or not _without actually attempting a theft_. For extra deterrence, you can install a motion activated camera next to it. The idea is to reduce the thieves' expectation of reward while increasing their expectation of getting caught.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, we had a package stolen off our porch, so we did that. It's a bench with a liftable top. The plan was to put a padlock on it. All of our packages are addressed to:

      Shaftway
      Place in Bench - Code 1234
      24601 Where I Live St.
      My City, ST, ZipZipZip

We order a lot of stuff, and probably average 3 deliveries per day. In the last 3 months we've had exactly one package placed in the bench. And we never even got around to putting the padlock on it. All a delivery person has to do is lift the lid. Delivery people don't care. I probably wouldn't either if I were one. I'm not going to read the boxes I'm delivering for instructions; I'm just going to leave it on the porch like I do with 99.99% of other boxes.

<comment><USER10> > average 3 deliveries per day

Wow. I really wonder what the environmental impact is of just one household doing this. I think I order something once every.. two months maybe? Three? And if I could get the desired electronics in a local store, I probably would.

Edit: To reply to the three initial comments at once, I see your point. I was thinking "but it's not just about the last mile, it's about getting that package all the way from China or where ever it comes from"... but of course, if I buy it in a store, it still had to come from china. Someone driving to your home all day seems terrible at first impression, but even without grouping the deliveries, I guess it might not be much worse than someone who gets groceries by car. I'd be interested to hear about research that looked into the topic.

<comment><USER11> Compared to someone who leaves their home by car once per day to get routine items, it's arguably a lot better since that delivery truck makes hundreds of deliveries per round trip.

Compared to someone who is super frugal, list driven, plans ahead, has one trip a month to get necessities, and grows their food in their yard, sure, it's more impactful.

Perspective always matters.

<comment><USER12> >Compared to someone who is super frugal, list driven, plans ahead, has one trip a month to get necessities, and grows their food in their yard, sure, it's more impactful.

That's being disingenuous. There are plenty of more moderate options which are perfectly viable for the vast majority of households, like planning a small amount know advance and getting essentials twice a week, or integrating it into other trips (commuting, school runs, coffee runs, walks).

<comment><USER13> >topic being environmental impact

>coffee runs

Can't you just brew coffee yourself if you care about the enviromental impact?

<comment><USER12> Absolutely, but my point was simply that people are already leaving their houses for necessity/pleasure, and if they need a daily trip to a shop they should combine their trips, regardless of the reason for said trip

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This needs careful consideration if you ever decide to do it. Depending on the local criminal culture they could exact revenge. Then also know where you live and can do a lot worse things than taking a package. Police might later be involved but it might not be worth it. You are dealing with people who have no qualms stealing so it's not too crazy to expect other rash and illegal acts from them.

I can also see some intrepid crooks suing for glitter damaging their eyesight permanently or some other bullshit claim. Some attorney or DA might decide to get free publicity and see if they can swing a "injured by booby trap" case.

<comment><USER15> I learned from Nextdoor, that a neighbor of mine put cat litter in an amazon box, and later found out her car's driver side window busted in and the litter dumped on the seat. I now just have packages sent to lockers and UPS/FedEX access points, and I know a few who have packages delivered to their office.

The crappy part is that she captured clear detail of both events but police couldn't be bothered. Nest and Ring have been doing their part to fight back, allowing people to publicly post and set up neighborhood watches against porch pirates et al, but there's still a ways to go before security camera footage can be sent to the PD and automatically identify the offender via facial analysis.

<comment><USER16> That is a real shame. If the police are not going to mediate property disputes between people, they take a lot of risk those disputes will escalate into violence. Perhaps really-good passive defense is enough (e.g. package lock boxes) but I also hope the police understand the deeper reasoning around their position and role.

<comment><USER17> Having lived in a "3rd world" country, I know the police there is useless, but it's interesting how things like resource issues (not enough manpower) is slowly turning living standards of rich countries like the US and UK towards "3rd world" levels.

<comment><USER18> Robbers and burglers basically have immunity now because the police is busy with... I'm not sure what.

<comment><USER19> Most departments are understaffed. Turns out all the negative press against police is having long term impacts on how many kids want to grow up and become a police officer.

Also property crimes always take a backseat to more violent crimes.

<comment><USER20> Also, the background check process is _intense_ , (and deals with the exact same understaffing problems) and it turns out that most people aren't willing to wait for nine months to get vetted for an entry-level job.

<comment><USER21> It's insane that police officer is an entry level job, no wonder you have so many issues with the police in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm honestly really shocked by how casually people seem to steal these parcels, like what the hell?

<comment><USER23> As a European, I'm surprised that the postal services in the US just leave the packages outside, rather than ringing the doorbell and/or delivering it to a neighbor.

Over here in The Netherlands, pickup points are common (my local groceries store is one), you can choose your delivery time (also in the evening) and they will deliver it to a neighbor when I'm not home.

Why not avoid this whole problem with any of these options?

<comment><USER24> Nobody's home during the day. What neighbor? How do you know which neighbor will be home, or which neighbor to trust? When 90% of your package recipients are not home, you spend 3x as much time per package delivery.

Carriers offload responsibility by allowing the sender or receiver to opt-out of signature/package acceptance, so why would they care?

Just one data point, but I've been having packages delivered to my home my entire life and never had a single one go missing. Seems like a really high cost to prevent something unlikely.

On the other hand, I had never had a home or vehicle broken into until someone smashed my car window last night at the movie theater. So, there's a first time for everything.

<comment><USER25> This is also the norm in the UK.

If you're not in they try and leave the package with a neighbour. If that doesn't work, they'll try again, and if you're not there again, try for for a neighbour again. If that fails for a second time, they leave it at a nearby depot for you to pick it up.

I've never heard of a package being stolen here in the UK.

<comment> King-Aaron America: "It's a real problem! There is no solution!"

Overseas viewer: "This literally never happens here. Try solution (a), (b), or maybe (c) and see if that helps?"

America: "Yep there is no solution in the entire universe"

Substitute "package theft" for: Gun crime / public healthcare / public education / insert social issue here

<comment><USER24> I agree with all of your points except for the package theft one.

The package theft "solutions" proposed really are insanely inconvenient and unworkable* in most suburban environments. I've seen all of the reasons listed many places here, so I won't bother rehashing them. If I'm at work on Tuesday, for example, a redelivery attempt on Wednesday doesn't really help, does it?

* unworkable in the sense that they're less efficient than the alternative of just allowing the rare package theft to occur

<comment> King-Aaron My local Caltex/7-11/Fuel Stations all do package holding here in Aus, I honestly had similar thoughts until they started doing it. In the last 12 - <USER2> months I'd say I've had completely seamless package delivery because of it.

<comment><USER24> Thinking about it a bit, I bet one reason package holding isn't more popular in the US is the (very Australia-like) combination of suburbs, and people driving to work.

Assuming your employer allows it, it's convenient to have packages sent to work, AND if you drove a personal car to work, it's easy to drive your own package home. This equation gets flipped if you use transit or live in a multi-unit building where it might get easier to just hold it "downstairs".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The video is well worth your time. The device works very well, and the fart spray has a purpose, in that it encourages the thief to ditch the package as soon as possible, enabling him to recover and reload it.

<comment><USER27> Presumably the last thief never disposed of the package and was therefore the only one to discover the cameras. I wonder what they were thinking, and if they'll come across the video. Wouldn't be surprised if so, it was on the front page of Reddit yesterday.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> In the Netherlands, when I order a package and no one's at home when it's delivered, it either gets delivered to my neighbors or to the post office, with a note of where to pick it up. It's never left at my door AFAIK.

How is this not an option in the US?

<comment><USER29> Generally because people don't want it. Shipping used to be a lot stricter about signatures, etc, but people usually aren't home when the packages get delivered, and package theft isn't a significant enough problem to make the extra security worth the inconvenience.

<comment><USER30> > package theft isn't a significant enough problem

This guy had his package stolen many times in a short space of time. Seems like the problem is pretty bad?

<comment><USER31> The United States is big, with many different areas that have different levels of crime. Sometimes with affluent areas in walking distance of destitute areas, which is a whole other problem. One location being robbed repeatedly is not surprising, and not significant. If it were, Amazon would be requiring signatures instead of just sending you another one when something goes missing.

<comment><USER32> Amazon requiring signatures wouldn't much help in _preventing_ the problem. They'd just get a signature from the thief "just returning home" in the front yard, find out later that it wasn't a match, and then... nothing, really. They'd know the buyer wasn't liable, I guess? Doesn't do anything for them, loss-prevention-wise; they still owe the buyer the thing they ordered.

What Amazon _is_ doing is much more clever: whenever possible, they're now recording the serial number of the product they ship to you. This way, if the police find it when busting a fence, they can (hopefully) get the fence's providers out of them and then actually bust _them_ , too (because now they have real physical evidence—along with testimony—that that particular person stole a particular thing.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Direct link: [https://youtu.be/xoxhDk-hwuo](https://youtu.be/xoxhDk-hwuo)

</comment><comment><USER34> I've had fantasies of much worse punishments for package thieves, like a paint gun sentinel. I'd buy this if he'd manufacture it.

<comment><USER35> While all we can do to revenge is sometimes a fantasy, I'd say be rational when you turn your fantasies to reality, you might end up paying the hospitalization for the package thieves.

<comment><USER36> Sounds like you hypothetically need something which is inherently dangerous (scorpions) but not purposefully dangerous to the person who opens it (drone scheduled to attack package owner).

As an aside, I don't know if it legal to ship scorpions.

<comment><USER37> > I don't know if it legal to ship scorpions

That's easy, simply refer to Exhibit 526.5: Restrictions on Mailing Live Scorpions [https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c5_008.htm#ep203359](https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c5_008.htm#ep203359)

<comment><USER36> How wonderful, yet disappointingly sufficient. Coincidentally, as suggested in the rules, writing "Live scorpions" will probably deter people anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I really enjoyed the this. The insane over-engineering, the well thought out details (like the 30sec fart-spray to get them to ditch the package, maximising chances of recovery), the harmless-ness of it. Loved it! :D

</comment><comment><USER39> Hmm, I'd be worried about retribution. Spread glitter in someone's car, they might come back and torch your house. Assuming they can remember where they grabbed the package from.

<comment><USER33> I'd be worried as well. Even if the criminals didn't remember where they got the package, now the video is going viral and it looks like the shows his home address on a map.

Edit: as someone pointed out it's not his address. I just re-watched the video and it's written on the map that it's not actually his house address.

<comment><USER40> I cannot believe I know this...but the location on the map is actually the McCallister's house from Home Alone, in Illinois, Mark lives in California.

I looked it up a few months ago...and I recognized the google map as soon as it popped up on the video.

[https://goo.gl/maps/1sytkJCxFqn](https://goo.gl/maps/1sytkJCxFqn)

<comment><USER41> He mentions that he used that address on the package too.

<comment><USER42> This was very well thought out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm from India and packages there are always delivered in person. The delivery person knocks your door and if you're not there, the package is either delivered to your neighbor or another delivery is attempted. Why is this practice not prevalent in the USA?

</comment><comment><USER44> What are people's thoughts on if this is staged?

Considering the views / subscriptions are the main motivation here, it might justify the expenses poured into this project – that is, it would be quite a waste if all that effort went into the build just to have no one actually take it off the porch.

If actors were used, it would explain the lack of police involvement (it's easy to say, "police weren't interested" ).

An obvious consequence of it being a production without disclosure is the copycats that this will spawn.

Edit: just to add a bit more food-for-thought in response to comments such as, "why do that to your own car?" or "why get sprayed with fart spray": what makes you believe it's their own car (could be a beater picked up for a few hundred dollars) or that the fart spray actually smells?

<comment><USER45> I've had the same thought when I first saw it. Some suspicious things: thieves talking to themselves, that lady throwing the box into her own garbage bin, zero attempt at disassembly or closer inspection of the box, no police involved.

Also GPS is just not that good for locating anything of that size in given circumstances, and it would not have worked in the parking garage.

Too many things could have gone wrong here, but they did not. The design is subpar in my opinion, for somebody who worked on a Mars rover. Custom printed board plus a bunch of smartphones, seriously?

<comment><USER46> >Too many things could have gone wrong here, but they did not. The design is subpar in my opinion, for somebody who worked on a Mars rover. Custom printed board plus a bunch of smartphones, seriously?

What would you propose? The best design is often the easiest/cheapest one, and this looks like pretty simple.

<comment><USER47> Those are very much not cheapest unless he had them lying around.

There are ready made cheap boards with identical functionality to a cellphone, few dollars a pop. And yes, they run Android.

That said, this way he can claim it had something valuable inside in case it is still taken.

<comment><USER48> What hardware hacker doesn't? I have at least 2 Android phones and one Windows phone lying around my house in various states of functionality. Hell, I've got $200 Peltier coolers and $400 peristaltic pumps in boxes somewhere sitting unused.

I don't even know what this Mark person did, but going by comments here, if I wanted to build something similar, the only thing I'd have to go out and buy would be the glitter stuff.

Don't discount the stuff us weirdos have in our basements :-)

<comment><USER49> >I don't even know what this Mark person did, but going by comments here,

Oh man, watch the video on his YouTube. It's pure comedic gold. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxhDk- hwuo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxhDk-hwuo)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Anyone else found it unsatisfactory that there was nothing about forwarding the footage of the thieves to the police?

<comment><USER51> It's in the first minute of the video. The police don't care.

<comment><USER52> Given the police's complete inaction vigilantism was inevitable.

I wonder if an industry of decoy packages will spring up, maybe "sticky" or "smelly" glitter. Or heck just go full ink bomb.

I wonder where the law stands on this? Can you really be liable if someone steals your property then causes property damage using it?

<comment><USER53> The law says booby-traps are illegal. Depending on the damage/injury you cause, you will be prosecuted. Two wrongs etc etc

<comment><USER39> Booby-trap is usually defined as "to cause bodily injury when triggered". Spreading glitter in someone's car isn't causing bodily injury. However, if the glitter caused someone to choke and die, or blinded an eye, then a crime would be committed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> This is an an awesome project... the kinda stuff I wish I had more time to hack away at...

In the video he mentions his automatic bullseye dartboard project... even more impressive than this glitter machine IMHO: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHTizZ_XcUM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHTizZ_XcUM)

Calculating a projectile's trajectory in realtime.... wouldn't even know where to start.

EDIT: dartboard code from that youtube link: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/rlmhdjoqzyumme1/darts.zip?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/rlmhdjoqzyumme1/darts.zip?dl=0)

<comment><USER55> Is there a GitHub link?

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Do you think the bomb maker could be held liable if the package were to be opened in a moving car that subsequently crashed because of glitter getting in the driver's eyes? I'd be a little nervous about doing this myself.

<comment><USER57> IANAL, but is that seriously a legal risk? The guy would have to explain he stole it.

<comment><USER58> Here in the USA, everyone is litigation crazy, so an enterprising lawyer would probably happily file a suit against the maker if someone was injured because of it.

<comment><USER41> What if I just buy something very stupid that could scare someone but I actually wanted it for myself? Or what if I actually bought the same device in the video but I wanted it for some other use or for checking out how it's made?

<comment><USER56> Intent matters. If you have a baseball bat in your car along with your glove and cleats, you have a piece of sports equipment. If you step out of your car with the bat and smash a car that cut you off in traffic, it's a weapon.

<comment><USER59> In the UK, if the police find a bat without a ball or some kind of proof it's for sports, they can consider it an offensive weapon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I appreciate this is HN so the main thread of conversation is going to naturally tend towards security and tech. How to protect your stuff with cameras and GPS trackers and what not.

Is such blatant parcel theft not indiciative of a greater societal illness? Not simply poverty and drug abuse.

I find myself trying to imagine why I'd drive through suburbs with a partner in crime and nab the odd parcel from a porch along the way. I could be looking to fence something to pay for the next high, or I could be poor as hell and looking to make ends meet. Or, maybe I might just think that the person I'm stealing from is wealthy enough to deal without it and I simply need whatever it is more than they do?

I wonder, because there's a lot you can assume about someone living in a pleasant suburb, ordering lots of Amazon packages. The likely colour of their skin, their money, maybe even their politics. And we like to use attributes like those to decide whether or not someone deserves something.

I've no idea, but I find it really difficult to explore this without trying to understand why it happens.

<comment><USER61> > not indiciative of a greater societal illness?

Pretty much been a thing since people have large enough societal groups (larger than Dunbar's number), that some anonymity is allowed. We just get to share these events via our high tech electronic networks and everyone gets to see it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I'm really surprised at how many times he was able to recover and reuse that device before it was lost for good.

It seems like during the last clip the stink spray failed to activate for some reason?

<comment><USER63> Yeah, spray failed and because of this last guy kept the package. Probably this is why it was the last video.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> What I found interesting was that none of the people looked poor. Many of them had cars, they seemed to have nice houses, they were all well dressed.

I reckon they are just average victims of 'asperational' media and general consumerism and materialism, that is quite rampant in modern society. I reckon they just want the latest gadget, or intend to sell it in order to get another useless status symbol of some kind.

</comment><comment><USER65> I watched this video earlier today, and I've seen other videos where people's packages are stolen off their front porch. One was a super busy street where the porch was at street level and totally open for all to see. My first thought is: Why are you getting packages delivered to your house if this is an issue?

I live in a rural'ish area on a very low traffic street. I still get all my packages delivered to work. All the offices I've worked in have never had a problem with me doing this. My current office is a secure building with a metal detector and armed security. No issues.

If someone's on the road, or out of the office constantly, then have the package held at a UPS or Fedex store. Once UPS, Fedex, or USPS drop that package off on your porch, it's your responsibility.

</comment><comment><USER66> Why not use the sort of dye that banks use to protect ATMs?

<comment><USER67> Fart spray and glitter are temporary and relatively harmless. Permanent dye in someone's home are car is just being a jerk.

<comment><USER68> We sure wouldn't want to upset people stealing our belongings.

<comment><USER67> I won't deny the criminality. I'm still not going to cause them thousands of dollars in damage over it.

<comment><USER47> Use UV active dye (usually transparent otherwise) so they get shiny. Say, a package gets wet itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I recommend package drop boxes if package theft is a problem for you: [https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=17572893011](https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=17572893011)

<comment><USER70> Ironically, one of them has "assorted glitter colors"

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Nice, I posted a link to the video yesterday ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18704553](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18704553))

I really like the reactions of all the folks who picked up the package. The 'fart spray' was a really nice touch. I was also thinking that if you could aerosolize some cyanoacrylate when throwing that glitter bomb, it could make for some good times. But there is a line you don't want to cross or you'll get people into revenge mode. Glitter and farts seems pretty harmless.

</comment><comment><USER72> In our area it was an Amazon driver who was stealing packages. He would deliver his assigned packages, but then take any packages that were already left on the porch from previous deliveries.

</comment><comment><USER73> Wow the video codec just doesn't know what to do with that much glitter, does it.

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't understand why the delivery people just leave packages on porches? Why not leave somewhere safe and out of view? Or leave it with a neighbour?

<comment><USER74> As a random delivery person do you know the neighbor's relationship?

If you know both parties personally maybe you can, but that's a rarity these days for anyone outside of certain companies. Amazon's ad-hoc delivery service never sends the same person twice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> For package thieves most of the problem, at least for those at home most of the time, like me, is simply have the delivery man RING THE BELL. Why this is not common practice for all deliverers, UPS/FEDEX/AZ etc. is beyond me. If the delivery man is already at the front porch all he has to do is reach for the bell.

</comment><comment><USER76> This video has a couple scenes of people opening the package in what looks like their own house. Like the guy vacuuming up all the glitter after the fact, or the woman tossing the package in her trash can. Sure with Mark Rober had given some details about what the police did in that case.

</comment><comment><USER77> it's surprising and sad how 'average' the thieves all seem to be; i expected to see somebody down on their luck, not a guy in a lexus or with a $2000 bike in his room. im trying not to jump to conclusions about humanity. please help.

<comment><USER74> Imagine how much money you could make hawking shit you stole on eBay and how little income tax you'd pay on it.

Until you get caught.

Leasing a car isn't beyond the reach of petty criminals.

<comment><USER78> Ebay will report your sales if you reach a certain threshold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Tangent, but my son and I used Mark's video on building a pinewood derby car. He gives a list of 7-8 things to do to your car in order of effectiveness. A theme in his video is that the car doesn't have to look fancy to be fast. We implemented most of his recommendations and didn't have time to paint or decorate the car. We ended up winning and we were the most unadorned car in the pack.

TLDR: Mark is legit.

<comment><USER80> I built an aluminum forge and made some castings following one of his videos. Only about ~$50 worth of parts needed (and $100+ in safety equipment to be safe)

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> It's amazing how many people just use their cars to steal packages. If the camera angle was slightly different, it should be trivial to track them down (license plate).

I wish police would track down thieves more effectively...

</comment><comment><USER82> Parcel picking seems a huge problem in USA.

I am from India. I didnt know about this untill recent. I gifted Kindle fire stick to one friend in USA. They package was delivered and had note "Placed on Back Porch". I didnt notice that properly and then found it was picked up :P My friend didnt get it.

Thanks to amazon who bared the loss and recent one more again.

Hope govt. comes with some strict laws to fix this before it turns to huge.

</comment><comment><USER83> The fart spray was the most brilliant part of the contraption, imho. If you look at the video, you can see he pulled the trick numerous times with the same (costly) device, mainly because the thieves were disgusted by the smell and threw it out before they discovered there were four phones in the package.

</comment><comment><USER84> I'm just amazed they leave packages outside your door for everyone to see and grab.

Why don't they at least try the neighbours?

</comment><comment><USER85> Yes, he did a great job on design and construction.

But I wonder if sought legal advice before implementing. Because, as others have noted, I gather that booby traps are illegal in the US. Maybe this one is benign enough, but I rather doubt it.

Also, while it's true that thieves aren't so likely to press claims, what about parents of juvenile thieves?

<comment><USER86> I believe (someone more knowledgeable feel free to correct me) that booby traps are only illegal when they hurt/damage people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Stories like this, and other logistical issues I've personally faced (e.g., counterfeits), have pushed me back to shopping brick-and-mortar for certain things. Yes, I have physically to go to a place to shop, but for some expensive/desirable items, it's more discreet and simpler.

</comment><comment><USER88> I wonder how much time it took to get all these thieves? We get less people stealing our packages in NYC.

</comment><comment><USER76> All of the videos this guy, Mark Rober, does are worth watching. [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY1kMZp36IQSyNx_9h4mpCg](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY1kMZp36IQSyNx_9h4mpCg)

</comment><comment><USER89> Does this video seem fake/staged to anyone else? Particularly the reaction of the thief, but also that they left the phones behind, the unlikely GPS signal in the garage, he fearless approach to the crime scene. Nothing felt right.

<comment><USER90> It's definitely a possibility but:

\+ I think it's hard to guess what the reaction of a thief will be

\+ The only indication that there were phones inside appeared to be the tiny holes for the cameras

\+ It appears he had a trace of GPS signals over time so that he would be able to deduce it ended up in garage if it stopped transmitting there

I would say the "fearless approach to the crime scene" is probably the most suspect bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> It is interesting to note the various demographics: black/white, male/female, older/younger, etc. There doesn't seem to be any pattern (other than being unethical jerks) as to who steals packages.

</comment><comment><USER91> take one phone and repackage it in its old box. turn it on and throw it into a amazon box and wait. once you have their address you can slowly exact revenge via subtle methods that dont expose you. this glitter method would be like kicking a shark in my neighborhood. made a good vid tho i really enjoyed watching it. esp the fart spray parts.

</comment><comment><USER92> "Glitter: the herpes of all craft supplies. You can never get rid of it." I wish I was clever enough to have come up with that.

</comment><comment><USER93> What if somebody was driving and while it opens he has an accident and is dead and/or kills somebody? What would happen?

<comment><USER94> Driving a car while opening a package is not exactly a safe activity to do in the first place, regardless of what is in the package.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> It'd the United States. Thief will sue for damages glitter bomb caused his lungs, and win.

</comment><comment><USER96> So I guess parcel thieves should remember to open all their packages in a faraday cage nowadays?

<comment> martin-adams You'd need a portable faraday cage right. Otherwise you'd be tracked right to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> Is this even legal or safe to have a glitter "bomb," or more accurately, a spinning motor spraying glue if an accomplice opens the package within a moving car? How about just a GPS signal to notify cops. The glitter stuff and chemical spray is probably a civil liability as well.

<comment><USER98> > How about just a GPS signal to notify cops.

Which would work if the cops cared about it at all... Which leads to the glitter bomb being created....

<comment><USER97> My understanding is that the police do care and Amazon is working with them... and they are not using glitter or chemical scents like you advocate:

New York Times: [https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/12/11/us/ap-us- porch-t...](https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/12/11/us/ap-us-porch-thefts- sting.html)

CBS: [https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/police- department...](https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/police-department- teams-up-with-amazon-to-catch-porch-pirates-1396450883965)

<comment><USER99> > My understanding is that the police do care

Oh you sweet, summer child.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> PSA: do not piss off engineers with too much time on their hands.

</comment><comment><USER101> Why is not an option in the US to get your parcels delivered to your workplace? This is quite common practice in Germany.

<comment><USER102> People do it all the time; many US office workplaces are okay with it.

However, not everyone has an office situation like that nor should we need to live in fear of getting items delivered to our home.

</comment></comment><comment><USER103> Why glitter though? I'd choose something that is far more difficult to remove; like ink, motor oil, etc.

<comment><USER104> He's using glitter that's as fine as sand. It coats every available surface and sinks into the pores of all soft materials (such as leather car seats).

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> Do not mess with engineers

</comment><comment><USER51> i dunno, 4 free iphones is probably worth dealing with glitter and fart spray for a few minutes?

<comment><USER106> Watch the video. The phones are hidden, and the fart spray is designed to make the thief get rid of the package as quickly as possible rather than taking it apart to see what might be inside.

<comment><USER107> Even so, wouldn't it be better to use 4 cheap cameras instead of 4 expensive smartphones?

<comment><USER108> 4 cheap cameras wont have lte radios

seriously, pick up x4 $30 prepaid phones from walmart and they'll do the job perfectly

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER109> I know I'm going to get downvoted for this, but glitter is a microplastic – I hope we'll see it being used less in the future.

<comment><USER107> I want to upvote you for your concern about microplastics, but my rule is to downvote people who complain about voting.

<comment><USER110> I have the same rule.

It sounds so whiny when they start their message decrying that they'll get downvotes for something.

Its even worse when its not something they will get downvotes for.

That's when you realize that they probably get downvoted a lot because of how whiny they are, only they always blame it on some other aspect because they have no self awareness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER111> Related: [https://www.foxnews.com/politics/viral-video-shows-man- getti...](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/viral-video-shows-man-getting- shocked-trying-to-steal-electrified-trump-yard-sign)

[https://www.foxnews.com/politics/viral-video-shows-man- getti...](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/viral-video-shows-man-getting- shocked-trying-to-steal-electrified-trump-yard-sign)

</comment><comment><USER112> I'm not sure what this proves other than being a honey trap and good YouTube clickbait.

This has been done on YouTube before with people setting up unlocked bicycles attached to some strong difficult to see rope bolted to a nearby structure (e.g. fishing wire), waiting for someone to come and take it, and then laugh when the thief goes flying over the handlebars as they ride off

It's justice porn, but at the same time it makes me feel uncomfortable watching.

</comment><comment><USER113> Nice work, but I think I am not alone in hoping we get to see photos of the skunk-glittered thieves soon!

Oh -- and to the engineer who made that: you've got a billion dollar idea on your hands if you include a camera that takes video from inside the device when it's opened. I can think of at least 14 people to whom I would send one of these for Christmas, birthday, etc.

<comment><USER114> It was made by Mark Rober a former engineer at JPL who worked on the Mars Rover projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER115> I don't know what to think about this. It feels staged. I know, I know, the guy is legit, etc.. but I guess the internet made me a skeptic. People go to great lengths for making things viral. I remember various Reddit legit 'Gods of science', very popular IRL which were banned for having bot accounts upvoting their contributions so I trust nobody.

And if it's not staged, I see this as an open invite for vandalism, or worse. Those people were pissed and unscrupulous. What's stopping them from coming back and throwing a Molotov cocktail at your house or slashing your tires if you park on the street? First thing I thought about when seeing this video was:"THE GUY KNOWS WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE".

Just ask a cop if he/she thinks this is a good idea. What was initially a crime of opportunity can now escalate to something much worse.

Also, what if the thief opens the package when driving and hits someone? I could easily see a lawyer or an ambitious DA going after the guy for booby trapping a package.

Bad idea all around.</comment>


Verifying Schmidhuber's Critique of Turing Award for Bengio and Hinton and LeCun - P-NP Schmidhuber's critique contains over 200 references http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/critique-turing-award-bengio-hinton-lecun.html. I have spent more than five hours on verifying them. Now I am kind of an expert on this. It helped that I already knew several of his papers and earlier posts i.e. "Deep Learning: Our Miraculous Year 1990-1991" http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/deep-learning-miraculous-year-1990-1991.html and "Critique of Honda Prize for Dr. Hinton" http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/critique-honda-prize-hinton.html
I checked about 95% of Schmidhuber's points of criticism, especially the important ones in Sec. I, II, XIV, XVII, XVIII, XII, XIX, XXI, XVI. They seem fully justified.
Have a look at the astonishing Sec. XVII which lists eight of his direct priority disputes with Bengio and Hinton. And his advice for PhD students in the conclusion.
This is not a glorious chapter in the annals of the Turing award. <comment> P-NP PS: Here the direct link to the critique: [http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/critique-turing-award- bengio...](http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/critique-turing-award-bengio- hinton-lecun.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I think he should have taken Bengio's place.

<comment> P-NP But Hinton also republished lots of stuff first published by Schmidhuber, without citing it. See Sec. XVII (5-8), I, II. Hinton also used methods invented by other authors without citation. Same for LeCun. See Sec. XII, XIX, XXI, XVIII. One could argue that Schmidhuber should have received the full award, without sharing it with anybody, except maybe with his student Hochreiter.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not about citing others. It's about accomplishments. As far as accomplishments Schmidhuber > Bengio.

<comment> P-NP I agree. It's about accomplishments.

And let's not forget the accomplishments of the other pioneers: Lainnainmaa, the inventor of backpropagation 1970. Ivakhnenko, the inventor of the first deep learning networks that learn internal representations 1965. Fukushima, the inventor of the convolutional neural network architecture 1979. Waibel, who combined backpropagation with convolutions 1987. They are prominently mentioned in the critique in Sec. XII, XIX, XXI, XVIII, XX and others.

<comment><AUTHOR> To me the main accomplishments which led to the beginning of the current AI summer in 2012 are:

1\. Convnet (Lecun) 2\. LSTM (Schmidhuber) 3\. Scaling up the convnet to win ILSVRC (Hinton)

Strictly speaking it was just 1 and 3 which jumpstarted the revolution in computer vision, but the importance of LSTM for sequence modelling (language and speech) is hard to overestimate.

<comment> P-NP 1\. Schmidhuber's Sec. XVIII points out that the basic convnet architecture with convolutional and downsampling layers is actually due to Fukushima (1979). In 1987, NNs with convolutions were combined by Waibel with weight sharing and backpropagation, before LeCun.

3\. Sec. D and XIV say that the convnet was scaled up already in 2011 through the DanNet from Schmidhuber's lab. DanNet was the first convnet to win a computer vision contest. It also was the first convnet to achieve superhuman performance and had a "monopoly on winning CV competitions." It won 4 CV contests before Hinton's AlexNet won ILSVRC.

It's true. I checked the references.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Trend Micro Discovers New Java Zero-Day Exploit - <AUTHOR> http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/pawn-storm-update-trend-micro-discovers-new-java-zero-day-exploit/

<comment><USER2> Do I understand this correctly, that this is a browser exploit and not a server side exploit? I thought that most people did not use Java browser applets anymore.

<comment><USER3> That's the way I read it, although more detail from Trend Micro would've been nice. This vulnerability seems to relate to the browser plugin:

"The Browser Exploit Prevention feature in the Endpoint Security in Trend Micro™ Smart Protection Suite detects the exploit once the user accesses the URL that hosted it. Our Browser Exploit Prevention detects user systems against exploits targeting browsers or related plugins."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Someone should update this page:

[http://java-0day.com/](http://java-0day.com/)

</comment><comment><USER5> So there are now both Flash AND Java zero-days out. Time to be careful...

<comment><USER6> Another month, another exploit. Flash and Java are no more insecure than usual for them. The best advice is to disable these plugins as a matter of course, whenever possible.

<comment><USER7> Disable, uninstall, or click-to-enable.

I'm in favor of everything moving to click-to-enable (which flashblock does for me, and is nice). Of course, companies like Adobe and Oracle probably don't want that as it means less people buy their products or support as they move to natively supported features.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9877941](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9877941)

</comment><comment><USER9> Java Web Start, not jdk or jre</comment>


Chinese Scientists Create Gene-Hacked Super Smart Human-Monkey Hybrids - <AUTHOR> https://futurism.com/the-byte/chinese-scientists-super-monkeys-human-brain-genes <comment><USER2> I want to make a potentially contentious point.

If you ever listen to Thiel/Weinstein talk about the current lack of growth in much of the sciences, you may be inclined to believe that we are woefully overcautious in our medical experimentation currently. The FDA does a critical job, but many believe (including myself) that it is too overoptimized for avoiding bad headlines. The balance of risk is perhaps not appropriately there.

When you look at China, there exists a number of more wild experiments. Sean Parker looked at the CRISPR twins as a "Sputnik" moment in science. While that procedure has numerous valid criticisms, how can we in the west constructively move towards accepting more risk to promote more innovation?

I believe that China has a larger appetite for more risk in science, but they may not have a culture/politics that optimizes for "Screw the established thought! I have this new crazy idea!" kind of mentality which is potentially integral for medical advancement.

How can the west promote further scientific innovation to break out of this stagnating hump? No political party is currently having this discussion. Republicans may be more likely to deregulate and get out of the way, but simultaneously want to defund the NIH and NSF (critical sources of funding for basic research). Democrats may be more willing to spend on research, but do not consider the threat that regulations can have on innovation (ex. Company tries something innovative, something goes wrong, democrats may easily mark it into the narrative of corporate greed experimenting on patients. Bernie Sanders was one of the few senators who voted against the 21st century cures act).

How can the west move forward?

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't be surprised if china finds promising research and starts applying it to humans, the chinese seem much more practical than ideological.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can we switch the link to MIT technology review?

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613277/chinese- scientists...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613277/chinese-scientists- have-put-human-brain-genes-in-monkeysand-yes-they-may-be-smarter/)

I love futurism.com's enthusiasm but they are not often too substantive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point

<comment><AUTHOR> Yodon has submitted that link here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19635814](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19635814)

I've gone ahead and upvoted it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Now all we needs is a plague that wipes out cats and dogs, and we're well on our way to _The Planet of the Apes_.

<comment><USER6> They need a mech suit so they can fight the terminators for the future of our planet. Wonder why I haven't seen that movie plot yet?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Honestly, I think that China's being a good influence on the scientific community by doing experiments like this and the CRISPR kids from last year. The west is too beholden to social conservatism and hopefully, competition will help free us from it.

</comment><comment><USER8> A good friend is a Chines ex-pat, and her sister is still in China, her sister is a gynecologist and during the one child policy days it wasn't uncommon to have the authorities bring in women who were full term and force the sister abort the baby.

As my friend would say, "My home country has absolutely no regard for human life."

The reason the twin's guy was punished is because he talked about what he was doing. I'm sure what China is doing to "undesirables" or "prisoners" is probably on par with what Mengle, and unit 731 was doing to people.

To think the Chinese are confining themselves to animal experiments would be foolish.

<comment><USER9> china bad, us good

the white man's burden continues

also i love how you're using an anecdote from a friend of a friend to somehow build credibility

<comment><USER8> Where did I say we were good, please point it out, because I missed it.

When did I say I was white, again please point it out because I missed it.

We've proven that humans as both individuals, and as a species are capable of horrible atrocities. The behavior of humans, in groups, is dictated by the people in charge. The people in charge in China have proven themselves, repeatedly, to not value human life. I used one example in my post. Do I really need to list the systemic things the group of men running China have done to other citizens of China. I didn't think so.

As a group the men running China have a much different view on human life than the _many_ of the governments around the world. What they support and encourage as a group I willing to bet, is probably beyond what most people in the world would consider acceptable. That's not to say the some parts of governments, and large companies aren't pushing the boundaries, not to mention well off individuals who are personally looking for an edge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder when they will do that to dogs ^^

<comment><USER11> Smarter dogs already exist. They're called wolves.

<comment><AUTHOR> And now I'm thinking enhancing the intelligence of wolves, already smart, would be exactly what we don't need.</comment></comment></comment>


First legal online poker site goes live in Nevada - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/01/us-gambling-online-idUSBRE94001Z20130501

<comment><USER2> SSN required to register..</comment>


Humai is reinventing the afterlife - <AUTHOR> http://humaitech.com <comment><USER2> I still think that an ai afterlife would not work for, among many other reasons, the bekenstein bound.

Unless the computer expands without end, it has a finite number of possible states, it would eventually have to repeat states, so there would be a limit to what the ai-self could experience. Not just in the sort of things it can experience, but in the number of distinct subjective times of experience.

So, even if brain uploading is possible, it would not be an end to death, only a delay of death.</comment>


Ask HN: What do you regret not doing in your 20's? - <AUTHOR>

I want to avoid regrets. <comment><USER2> Not going to music festivals and Burning Man.</comment>


Ask HN: What companies are most likely Theranos of 2020? - <AUTHOR> I have recently watched documentaries on Theranos and Fyre Festival. It was quite interesting to know that people knew that it was a fraud much earlier than it came to light.<p>What do you think are other possible "Theranos" out there? <comment><USER2> There needs to be a documentary on Juicero. They didn't lie and cheat like Theranos and Fyre Festival, Juicero just a really silly business model... Which is somehow just as scary

<comment><USER3> If anyone wants an in depth primer on their products youtuber AVE did a tear down on their machine.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp- BGQfpHQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> From my perspective I think one is WeWork - shady practices, shady CEO, custom metrics to valuate the company.

<comment><USER4> WeWork imploded in 2019 - so that proves your appraisal. Didn't have to wait for 2020.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Another interesting fraud I read about is OneCoin, they raised about 4$ billion [1] until 2019 and the creator of oneCoin disappeared. They were positioning themselves as a cryptocurrency which ended up being simple a ponzi scheme. `Cryptoqueen` podcast sheds more light on the story.

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

<comment><USER5> Most cryptocurrencies I've seen look like a scam and the majority of them end up being one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Magic Leap? Haven't heard anything from them yet.

<comment><USER7> [https://www.theinformation.com/articles/dented-reality- magic...](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/dented-reality-magic-leap- sees-slow-sales-steep-losses)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From an investment valuation point of view, any company whose shares are being traded at more than say 12 to 15 x dividend payments has people owning shares who are hoping that they will find an even bigger fool to pay for their shares than they did.

Just have a look at the SEC filings for whichever companies you are interested in and see for yourself. You won't have to look for long.

<comment><USER8> Why 15 x dividend payments? A growing company should probably be spending those on growing anyway?

<comment><USER9> Basically, 7+% dividend yield is really good because if the dividend is sound, the risk-reward ratio is better than investing in a growth company not paying a dividend. The market should be bidding up the price of the stock to bring the yield in line with typical yields. Since that isn't happening, there is a risk that the market is pricing into the stock, either that the dividend will be cut or that the company may become insolvent.

There are high yield opportunities that are safer than others, but that is the general principle to use when analyzing unusually high yields.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Quibi - they raised a billion (according to the media) before launching anything,and a video I can rotate doesn't sound like a revolutionary new form of media or art.

</comment><comment><USER5> Whichever startup the well know adage "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is [too good to be]" applies to.

</comment><comment><USER11> The Fed

</comment><comment><USER12> Airbnb.

</comment><comment><USER13> Uber.

<comment><USER14> I hope they go down in flames. Destroying-local-economies-so-you can-get-rid- of-competition-and-raise-prices-as-a-service is unacceptable.

Apart from their Uber-unethical, sexist and exploitative culture.

Or maybe drivers finally get classified as workers and form a strong union, but before self driving technology :)

<comment><USER15> Uber might lead the charge for drivers to start unionizing. Could you imagine trying to pull off what they pulled off with a powerful ride-share driver union?</comment></comment></comment>


Adderall risks: much more than you wanted to know - <AUTHOR> http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ <comment><USER2> Must have been written on Adderall it's 20 pages long...no tldr at the top unfortunately

<comment><USER3> The tl;dr is that the state of research on Adderall/Ritalin effects is "overall terrible" but risks seem to be low, with a possible increased rate in Parkinson's being the most troubling long-term effect.

The last graf seems to contain the gist of things:

> _Despite all this, I compare these risks to the risks of eating one extra > strip of bacon per day and decide that overall this is not enough for me to > stop prescribing stimulants to patients who I think might benefit from them. > These are about the standard level of side effects for a powerful medication > and I think there's a major role for these in ADHD treatment as long as > patients are well-informed about the risks they're taking._

<comment><AUTHOR> Another takeaway:

> _But "ability to concentrate" is a normally distributed trait, like IQ. We > draw a line at some point on the far left of the bell curve and tell the > people on the far side that they've "got" "the disease" of "ADHD"._

<comment><USER4> Is it called a disease, or a disability? Since IQ is mentioned, it was my understanding that one speaks of "intellectual disability" when someone has difficulty living independently due to impaired intelligence. They don't have a "disease".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Could someone please sum it up in a few sentences?

It requires adderall to process :)</comment>


"Burning the Boats" As a Convicted Felon - <AUTHOR> http://comebackasap.com/burn_the_boats/

<comment><USER2> This is a pretty moving article. Especially because the system has affected my family. I'd love to see this work!</comment>


Best way to send updates to YC for S12? - <AUTHOR>

We recently applied to YC S12. Since then, we have a few updates we would like to notify YC about. What is the most effective way to do this? <comment><USER2> email@example.com is the email address for this kind of thing. I probably wouldn't bug them unless the updates are substantial.</comment>


CRS-7 Launch Update - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/06/28/crs-7-launch-update <comment><USER2> _" Cause still unknown after several thousand engineering-hours of review. Now parsing data with a hex editor to recover final milliseconds."_

4:09 AM - 29 Jun 2015

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/615431934345216001](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/615431934345216001)

<comment><USER3> Ugh, now imagining trying to debug a really sneaky bug that costs $100 million every time it triggers...

<comment><USER4> Stupid question perhaps, but don't we have the ability to 100% simulate the rocket physics and the code it runs on in a simulation environment? Or are they just punching out code, shoving it onto rocket controllers, and testing in the real world?

I'm curious as to the QA system used here. I imagine with proper simulation this should have been catchable. I wonder if SpaceX's low cost approach means cutting certain corners and situations like these where catchable issues make it into the wild because of the difficulty of rocketry in general with the added difficulty of cheap spaceflight tacked on.

I really hope they didn't just find themselves in a STS-51-L moment where it'll take months to truly iron out the root issues. Thank goodness there was no loss of life and SpaceX's stack isn't man rated yet.

<comment><USER5> Rocket physics are actually relatively trivial and, yes, can be fully simulated (and are). Rocket _plumbing_ is always the hard part. Perhaps the threads on some connector got stripped as it was screwed together. Perhaps there was a manufacturing flaw or unexpected bit of corrosion in a particularly vital bolt. Perhaps a bit of contamination in a fuel line caused something catalytic to happen. Perhaps a bit of excess H20 condensation in a LOX valve caused an ice dam to form and the supply line to over-pressurise. These are the sort of problems which bring rockets down: really damned complicated plumbing problems.

<comment><USER4> I guess my point is, can we do a full simulation of every screw, material, plumbing, liquid dynamics, weather dynamics, etc and augment those with known fail scenarios and other fuzzy data to build out a real world KSP that predicts fails reliably? We should understand how things like corrosion and condensation work on a rocket engine. Considering the low cost of incredible amounts of CPU power, granular level simulation is possible on a certain level today if someone wanted to create it. We certainly see this kind of thing with stealth technology, where we can simulate every permutation of near every radar photon hitting the various surfaces of planes with various materials, scenarios, temperatures, etc.

I imagine this level of simulation might not be entirely feasible yet. Maybe for the lack of trying or budget. In a growth industry or one powered by both commercial and technical pressures, it may be difficult to sit down and build something like this out. From a more practical point of view, it may make sense to just let things explode than spend years running expensive simulations instead of building things, launching, and collecting paychecks.

<comment><USER6> I think a critical part of his point is that what you build and what you model are neccessarily two different things. You can totally simulate it, and then when the rocket inevitably fails, you can go "aha! This bit deviated from the simulation!" But you can't feed that forward beforehand to prevent the failure, since you can't _expect_ random acts of poor workmanship or crafting. You can only prepare and hope (and you can do that with shockingly high confidence - but rockets are more than equally shockingly complex.)

Part of what makes the idea of bringing the first stage back to the pad so important is that we so rarely get to use the same engines multiple times in the field (where all the really nasty reality checks are done). Being able to reuse stages allows us to far better model how they will perform in the future. Otherwise, we're using test beds to feed parameters into sims to inform our launches; it's good practice, but more physical evidence is always better.

<comment><USER7> This.

Engineering is what hopefully guides reality up the correct branch of a theoretically possible tree.

You can simulate most of each one of those branches. But what are you going to do with a million simulation results? How does that guide your course of action? What do you do differently?

If this was an engineering or assembly defect, the answer is always going to be "Don't do that next time." If it was a design defect, then the part wasn't simulated (unlikely) or our understanding of how it operated in this design was incomplete (more likely).

The trick with rocket science is that the design tolerances are by necessity very tight. Physics dictates this with chemical propulsion. Every part you over-engineer in a weight-increasing way decreases the weight available for payload. And there isn't very much weight there to start with...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a non-native English speaker, I find the omissions of "the" very prominent and interesting in SpaceX speech. "shortly before first stage shutdown", "resulting in loss of mission", "139 seconds into flight", "some period of time following separation", "data to determine root cause" \-- is this a general theme in engineering or journalism? I wonder what linguists have to say about this.

<comment><USER9> Not a linguist but a writer here who loves language.

I'm seeing a lot of folks dropping articles. It's also becoming quite common to eliminate pronouns at the beginning of sentences, i.e., instead of "I went down to the store" you write "Went to the store"

I use this purposefully to jar the reader. I have no idea what the underlying linguistic reasons are.

<comment><USER10> Implied pronouns, perhaps a trend from Facebook usage? On Facebook and Twitter you have an implied "I" that makes saying you did something redundant. This could transfer over to other formats of conversation.

<comment><USER11> Other languages are a bit ahead of English in that regard, but their conjugations make it clear who the subject is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Preliminary analysis suggests the vehicle experienced an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank approximately 139 seconds into flight. Telemetry indicates first stage flight was nominal and that Dragon remained healthy for some period of time following separation."

Sounds like they are trying to suggest that if there had been people in the capsule they would have survived...

<comment><USER13> Also the first stage might have survived and returned to landing if it had known about the trouble and detached earlier? Or am I misunderstanding?

<comment><USER14> If the second stage just hadn't been there then the first stage might have survived and landed. But I'm not sure there is any way to "detach early", and you'd have the problem of having too much fuel left over in the first stage. I doubt it's designed to land in those circumstances (why would it be?), so it probably couldn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just after the pressure event you see Dragon being slung off the rocket... If only it was possible to deploy the parachutes during launch we could've hypothetically saved the payload.

I wonder if the launch abort mechanism on the Dragon V2 would've been of any help here too to jettison it safely away from the rocket.

I read the rocket was around maximum dynamic pressure during the event (Or just after?) and I'm not sure if it would stand such forces of a jettison during such time.

<comment><USER16> WRT max-Q its a meme that won't go away because the most "interesting" thing on the public PR timelines before the incident was max-q. However dynamic pressure drops off extremely quickly due to altitude (low air pressure) and max-Q was a good while before the incident, so it wasn't a direct issue. It could obviously be an indirect issue if something started to buckle a minute previous or shook loose and for whatever reason a minute later it burst, perhaps as pressure built up or something.

The other meme is there are or have been rockets or overall systems with flight profiles and designs that have unsurvivable portions of the flight. Or only extremely theoretically survivable. Think of the old shuttle system, for example. A RTLS abort was theoretically survivable, but lets be realistic here... However the space-x guys are extremely proud that they designed an overall system that has no unsurvivable by design flight portions, and also very proud that they did a test flight with a separation near max-q specifically to prove it would work just fine even at max-q...

One interesting problem with a structural failure at that speed is it could be hard computationally to tell the difference between some irrelevant pogo-ing or vibration vs 50 ms later half the rocket is flying sideways, at which point it might be unsurvivable. Bad car analogy is I can jump out of an airplane with a parachute at 100 MPH and all turns out just fine, but randomly getting tossed out of a 100 MPH car isn't going to likely end very well even if under ideal conditions its no big deal.

<comment><USER17> > the space-x guys are ... very proud that they did a test flight with a > separation near max-q specifically to prove it would work just fine even at > max-q…

The in-flight abort test for Dragon v2 is scheduled to occur later this year. It hasn't occurred yet. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_V2#Flight_testing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_V2#Flight_testing)

Also note that Dragon v2 was not on this mission and won't fly to space for a while. This was a Dragon v1 mission. Dragon v1 is unmanned and has no launch abort capability.

<comment><USER16> You are completely correct that they haven't flown it. When I wrote that, I must have been thinking about the successful pad abort a couple months ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My thoughts on this. Overpressure in the LOX tank could be due to 1) failure to vent properly or 2) something heating it up.

Option 1 is based on the fact that it's constantly evaporating and needs to vent. This seems really unlikely given that it passed all test on the pad 2 minutes before. It also sounds like this was likely ruled out based on Elon's tweet about a "counter intuitive cause".

Option 2 sounds like fire or flames due to fuel leakage or something, but then realize that this is the second stage and all the action is going on 100 or more feet down in the first stage. They also have a camera on the 2nd stage engine which was shown shortly before the incident and nothing was going on in there. I wonder what the in-tank camera showed.

It seem that to get the extra energy into the tank, something must have fired up early. But if there's one thing Spacex seems to have a lot of it's data. Aside from a breech letting external air in (like the last shuttle accident), how do you get enough added energy into a tank to build pressure to the breaking point? In 2 minutes.

<comment><USER19> There are plenty of other scenarios...

The IDA is the heaviest thing they have ever carried in the trunk, AFAIK. Maybe its mounting bracket failed and it impacted the top of the second stage, buckling the LOX tank. A suddenly induced crack allowed some LOX to escape (the initial 'puff'), and the suddenly reduced pressure allowed the rest of the LOX to boil off and the tank to BLEVE, causing the catastrophic failure of the second stage.

Obviously this is a completely theoretical scenario, but it's one of many I could dream up...

EDIT: While is is a fairly technical discussion, I realize I got a little heavy handed with the acronyms there...

      IDA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Docking_Adapter
      LOX: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_oxygen
      BLEVE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_liquid_expanding_vapor_explosion

<comment><USER20> Interpreting Musk's tweet about 'counter-intuitive' meaning BLEVE would make sense to me.

<comment><USER19> Hmm... perhaps, but that seems pretty 'intuitive' to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> For those who are also having issues loading the site: Nothing that wasn't already released via Twitter or yesterday's press conference.

</comment><comment><USER22> ... and people think debugging pure software problems are hard.</comment>


What are the most stressful places in Boston? We're about to find out - <AUTHOR> http://www.betaboston.com/news/2015/10/29/citywide-study-will-map-the-effect-of-stress-on-the-brain/?p1=Main_Headline <comment><USER2> It's got to be that part of the Big Dig where you go underground and all the GPS signals cut out, and you also have to make a poorly labeled exit, right? Or maybe circling round and round Logan, and winding back up downtown by the aquarium because you missed the turn?

<comment><USER3> There are so many colleges in Boston, though - probably MIT is the most stressful place in the Boston area :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My most stressful place in boston:

[https://email@example.com,-71.0704279,3a,75y,2...](https://email@example.com,-71.0704279,3a,75y,283.5h,86t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sdi7mN99qZKUNKt2aOpHrHg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

You are in a maze of twisty little roads, all alike. Pick the wrong one and it can easily cost you 20-30 minutes during rush hour.

<comment><USER5> Clearly you didn't read the sign: [http://i.imgur.com/7fyY4rN.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/7fyY4rN.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> #1 answer should be, 'in a car'.

\--Boston resident

</comment><comment><USER7> Boston born, raised, now professional. Best city I've seen, although Amsterdam is a close second. If you like software and despise San Francisco (as I do), Boston has the 2nd most VC investment in the world, and is #2 globally for software development. And Boston focuses traditionally on B2B rather than vague B2C stuff which is rife in SF.

Go Boston!

<comment><USER8> Plus it's well positioned to benefit from global warming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The most stressful place is Boston is anywhere in Boston.

<comment><USER5> Ha ha, very funny (California native here, been living in Boston for 8 years—it's a fantastic city).</comment></comment>


What Would I Do Without Programming? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.slickedit.com/2008/05/what-would-i-do-without-programming/

<comment><USER2> _Programming work is so readily available it's ridiculous. A quick search on monster.com or dice.com will show that there's a constant need for decent programmers. I say decent because you don't even have to be a top shelf developer to enjoy this kind of programmer's market. Most companies are looking for a programmer that can just get a job done._

This sounds a bit like solving the pharmaceutical chemist's problem by pointing out that there are lab tech positions available in a lot of places.</comment>


Operation Shady RAT. Over 70+ global companies, govs and non-profit hacked [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/white-papers/wp-operation-shady-rat.pdf

<comment><USER2> I stumbled about articles in big German media about this, however nothing on Hacker News and other "non-institutional" sources about hacking! How comes? Is it some propaganda using the media to create a new enemy and prepare a new cyber war? Are there any details what exploits have been used to achieve this?

I would like to know more about it from hacker fellows.</comment>


New mobile Web Google Maps highlights sorry state of native iOS app - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/05/new-mobile-web-google-maps-highlights-sorry-state-of-native-ios-app.ars <comment><USER2> Does Apple only update the included apps as part of an iOS update? The Android maps app (amongst others from Google) is in the store so it's on its own, more web-like, update schedule. Some of the changes are quite radical improvements (thinking particularly of the Youtube app which I use a lot) but I don't think I've ever seen this difference of approach mentioned in any of the many tech blogs bemoaning fragmentation and lack of updates for Android which seem to focus only on the core OS as if Android followed the same update process as Apple's iPhone.</comment>


Ask HN: What could be the entry to cloud career for self taught learner? - <AUTHOR> If someone is who self learner who is interested to get job in cloud field what he should do? How about doing some certificates from cloud provider(Amazon,Google or Microsoft)? <comment><USER3> The Associate level certs and Amazon free tier?

It'd really help to know a programming language: Python, Ruby, Java, etc. - <USER2> least one of those.

Have a strong Linux background or pursue one. That takes longer than this proprietary cloud stuff that's one or another vendor's view of the world that you conform to.</comment>


There's now an 'Uber just for women - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/apps/news/a790459/theres-now-an-uber-just-for-women-chariot-for-women-taxi-service/ <comment><USER2> Legitimate question: is this actually legal? On the surface, it appears to violate anti-discrimination laws with regard to hiring. I'm not sure if these apply to contractors, but I would think so.

<comment><USER3> Exactly what I wondered. Not just in hiring, but in who they accept patronage from. If you have to bake a cake for a gay couple do you also have to let men ride in your car-sharing service? Not sure how that works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe I am missing something here...

"founder of the new car service Michael Pelletz"

"The company's website states: "As a women-owned company,""

Is the founder not the owner?</comment>