What happens when you wring out a washcloth in space [video] - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/2013/04/18/what-happens-when-you-wring-ou.html <comment><USER3> A similar phenomenon makes it dangerous to sleep without proper ventilation:

>It is important that crew accommodations be well ventilated; otherwise, astronauts can wake up oxygen-deprived and gasping for air, because a bubble of their own exhaled carbon dioxide has formed around their heads.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Cre...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Crew_activities)

<comment><USER4> My first thought on reading "crew quarters must be well ventilated" was - like, opening the windows?

Then I remembered.

Luckily I am not on safety critical work for NASA

<comment><USER5> When I read "It is important that crew accommodations be well ventilated; otherwise, astronauts can wake up ..." my mind completed with "asphyxiating in a vacuum".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I thought just watching the microphone float in front of him was interesting enough. I was totally not prepared for the awesomeness of the wrung-out washcloth.

<comment><USER7> I always wonder, if you spend a length of time in space, you must get used to being able to leave an object in mid air, go do something, and go back and pick it up later.

When astronauts come back to earth, do they have some adjusting period where they keep dropping items on the floor because they forget about gravity?

<comment><USER8> Every time I watch one of those videos, I imagine how annoying it must be to not be able to release something with zero drift.

If I'm ever allowed to be a space tourist, I suspect I'd spend hours just trying to get something to stop drifting relative to the cabin. And then play with water.

<comment><USER9> My first reaction was similar. I started thinking of all the things in life that would be easier to just go, hmm I'll stick this tool here in mid air, space, whatever, and this can go here, etc... But alas, I'll likely never get to experience it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Chris Hadfield's videos and photos from this expedition have been really interesting; his interactions with the public are great and he's answering a lot of fun questions.

<comment><USER11> yeah, his Google+ feed is amazing. all this expeditions are very expensive and serious, and meanwhile he's like "hey, lets make it fun for everybody down there who's curious. oh hai from space, here's a photo of your city and cool tricks with no gravity".

<comment><USER12> huh. let me cite a speech I heard recently (celebration of 10 years of columbus module in space).. (approximately, it's from my mind) ..

"The ISS hat two mission objectives, (I) to bring the international community together for collaboration and friendship - this has been accomplished very well, and (II) to do some meaningful science up there, which has not been accomplished at all as of yet. Thus, it's your job to invent meaningful experiments to make the ISS more than a toy." (in the direction of the present students, not the Columbus module team)

What do we learn from this? They need and want input, and they need justification for the expense. The stuff shown here is thus entirely within the official line of the ISS teams.

<comment><USER13> Well, there's a lot of science done at the ISS.

They're usually running between 100-150 "experiments" at any given time. Most of these do meaningful science. As we all should know, research and science doesn't always lead to something tangible though, but even in the cases it doesn't, it tells a lesson.

Wikipedia lists some of them, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_research_on_the_Inte...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_research_on_the_International_Space_Station), and just few weeks ago, results from the AMS (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Magnetic_Spectrometer>) provided some of the most tangible measures we have of dark matter.

<comment><USER14> RE ISS and dark matter, I just accidentally stumbled into this:

<http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=5736>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There were so many wires and electronics in the background and the water was floating everywhere! Nothing to worry?

<comment><USER16> Someone in the comments on that site posted the following video that details how they clean up spills:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hj3GnPRsJ4>

In short: Tissues of various sizes which can then be hanged somewhere and evaporate the water.

<comment><USER17> Today I learned the ISS has baby-wipes aboard it.

<comment><USER18> I was really suprised to see them in the original package. One would think they had applied some form of vacuum sealed pressured bag or something to minimize space, or had special designed wipes with material that's light weight.

I guess not everything up there is special space stuff. Some of it is just the same stuff as in the local Grocery store.

<comment><USER19> Reminds me of that famous anecdote where NASA invested a million in developing a pen that could write in zero G, while the Russians used a pencil.

<comment><USER20> A fictional anecdote, FWIW:

<http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Very cool. One quibble with the title. This is what happens in zero G, I'd love to see the behaviour in space (outside the capsule) too. Does anyone know off the top of their head the state/behaviour of water in the low temperature and low pressure of space?

My prediction for the Zero G experiment was that that it would spray in all directions. [Partial spoiler] I was wrong because I forgot about a critical behaviour of water.

<comment><USER22> The phase diagram[0] for water suggests that it will be frozen at 0 Pa and anything less than 200 K, so it will likely form small ice crystals on the cloth. Then trying to wring out the frozen cloth could prove interesting, though.

[0] <http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/phase.html>

<comment><USER23> The water won't have less than 200K when you start the experiment though (else you won't have a wet cloth but a frozen cloth), so all the water will boil off almost instantly.

<comment><USER24> It would start boiling but this very fact would _very_ quickly cool it off to freezing point: water has a very high heat of vaporization.

<comment><USER23> ~72% of the initial water would freeze as ice.

Phase #1, water cooling and boiling:

        mc dT = λv dm

        dT = λv/(mc) dm | ∫

        Tƒ - T₀ = λv/c ∫ (dm/m)
            = λv/c (ln mƒ' - ln m₀) =
            = λv/c ln (mƒ'/m₀)

        ln (mƒ'/m₀) = c/λv (Tƒ - T₀)

        mƒ'/ m₀ = exp[c/λv (Tƒ - T₀)]

        mƒ'/m₀ = exp[ 4192J/(kg K) * 1/(2257 * 10^3J/kg) * (-100K)] =
            = exp[ -4192/2257 * 10^-3 * 10^2 ] =
            = exp[ -4192/2257 * 10^-1 ] ≈
            ≈ 83%.

Phase #2, water freezing, remaining water still boiling:

        mƒ = mƒ' - <USER2>

        |Qced| = Qabs

        mƒ λc = mv λv

        mƒ = λv/λc mv

        mƒ = λv/λc (mƒ' - mƒ) = λv/λc mƒ' - λv/λc mƒ

        mƒ (1 + λv/λc) = λv/λc mƒ'

        mƒ = λc/(λc + λv) * λv/λc mƒ' =
            = λv/(λc + λv) mƒ'

        mƒ/m₀ = 2257kJ/kg * 1/(2257kJ/kg + 335kJ/kg) * 0.83 ≈
            ≈ 2257/2592 * 0.83 ≈
            ≈ 72%

<comment><USER15> Well that escalated quickly!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> A bit off topic, but I really feel like this type of "article" adds absolutely nothing to the video. I'd prefer to be linked directly to the video rather than give away a pageview to an entity that isn't even producing its own content.

<comment><USER6> I disagree. I don't typically watch a video linked on the internet unless I know what it's going to be about. The article let me evaluate the content of the video to determine that I wanted to go ahead and hit play.

<comment><USER25> With some videos, a bit of context is helpful, but I don't think it was in this case; the text didn't give us much more info than the title. I think Chris Hadfield's videos with the CSA are pretty well-known by now (I have seen several on HN, Reddit, etc.), so I think people would know what they were getting into without the article if the title had been a bit more specific. Granted, with HN's char limit, that isn't always possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I did a talk yesterday with one of those headset radio mics, and all through that video I kept thinking "I want a floating microphone next time".

No matter what you say, a floating microphone will hold the audience :-)

<comment><USER26> I wonder whether, after he returns to Earth, Cmdr Hadfield will expect things to hang in the air for him; looks habit-forming.

<comment><USER27> That, and I wonder if he will get bummed out looking at something on a really high shelf, or a cobweb up in an unreachable corner. The old muscle memory quickly telling him how much force to kick off from the floor with to get there. And then his higher brain realizing that he is stuck to the floor. Like a 3-d prisoner forever trapped in Flatland.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Upon opening this page, some Kinja registration appeared, suggesting the username Luc0895. My first name is Luc, so I'm extremely curious as to how it knew this. I'm not logged in to io9 nor another Gawker website as far as I know. Anyone else had this?

<comment><USER29> Are they using some form of integration API such as that offered by facebook or G+ for the exchange of comments and likes/+1s?

<comment><USER28> That's what I'm wondering about, I was never asked for permission to share details with io9. Perhaps a few years ago on another Gawker site, but how would they link me? I wasn't using the same IP or browser or anything.

I am logged in to Google+, so that might be it, but it only accepts cookies strictly from accounts.google.com and plus.google.com, for example api.google.com or google.com itself does not work (cookies are removed as soon as all tabs of that website are closed).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Q. What is this video about?

A. Its about: Magic. \- a cloth unravelling out of a hockey puck \- water turning to jello \- things and people suspended in air \- water flowing against gravity \- happening somewhere in space

Magical. An neat little experiment proposed by 2 highschoolers!

<comment><USER31> It still trips me out that we can get video feeds... _from space_

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Why aren't they concerned about water floating up to the electrical panels ?

How do they get dry ? Centrifuges ?

</comment><comment><USER33> TL;DW: <http://i.imgur.com/myizeus.gif>

</comment><comment><USER34> So it's the surface tension of water.

Here is what I am wondering:

Detergents break the surface tension.

What would happen if he'd add some detergent?

<comment><USER35> The water may not run up his hands? Although I would expect it still to form that water column around the towel thing. Maybe?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Just floats his mic. No mic stand required. Not sure why that blows my mind. Driving home that he'd in freaking orbit. Something I "know", but is hard to comprehend.

<comment><USER37> I was wondering when they return to Earth, do they ever just let go of things thinking it will float...? Out of habit I mean.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I've noticed in several videos that the crew member appears sweaty or shiny. Is this due to the temperature/humidity in the ISS or because the moisture doesn't evaporate the same way? I'd be interested to know if anyone has an answer.

<comment><USER39> It might (this is conjecture) also just be because they're not wearing any makeup.

Absolutely everybody you see on TV is wearing _tons_ of makeup, because cameras paired with artificial flourescent spotlight just seem to exaggerate this nasty shiny effect.

<comment><USER40> TV makeup is split into two types, 1) getting people looking good (same reason people wear makeup any time - but if you're being filmed, more people will see you, so you care more) 2) preventing the shine

While it's true that the lighting often doesn't help, the biggest problem is that the lighting can produce a lot of heat, so it's actually the lights making people sweat, not just making sweat show up more. Not sure lighting on the ISS is likely to do that, but could be wrong.

<comment><USER41> Alexandr Laveikin (cosmonaut) spent time on the Mir (Мир) spacestation in 1987. He said it was "very noisy, very hot."

(This is from 'Packing for Mars' by Mary Roach)

I guess heat conduction is difficult if your spacecraft is in a vacuum.

<comment><USER8> > I guess heat conduction is difficult if your spacecraft is in a vacuum.

Very much so. Search for "heat" in this SVG and you'll see the giant accordion radiators: [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Iss027e03...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Iss027e036656-commented-20110608.svg)

When the Space Shuttle was in orbit, it kept its giant bay doors open to expose its radiators.

If you'd like, I can dig up some extensive articlage written for hard sci-fi writers about dealing with heat for engines and for life support.

<comment><USER14> Do dig up those articles please, I'd be interested.

<comment><USER8> Here's the one with lots of basic math around the subject:

* [http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/basicdesign.php...](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/basicdesign.php#radiators)

These next two are in regards to dealing with heat in space warfare:

* [http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewarship.ph...](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewarship.php#radiators)

* [http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardefense...](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardefense.php#radiators)

<comment><USER14> Thanks! Awesome stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Does anyone else here find it amazing that NASA paid to send a fullsize wireless microphone into space. Given the cost per kilogram of sending things into space, I'm surprised they didn't go with something much smaller/lighter.

<comment><USER43> I would feel wary sending anything smaller, lest it get stuck or lost in some nook somewhere and caused problems.

Besides, part of CSA's mandate is to "advance the knowledge of space through science", and sending up cameras and microphones is well within that mandate.

<http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/about/mission.asp>

<comment><USER42> I wasn't questioning the sending up of the microphone or video camera. I was just surprised they didn't send up something smaller/lighter. I kind of imagined there there are people who are tasked with "light weighting" everything that is sent on a launch mission so long as the lightweighting doesn't compromise on the engineering integrity of what is being sent into space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Wow! Very interesting stuff but every time I see something interesting, I have more questions than answers. For example, what happens to the fluid in your body? If it floats around, won't we die???

<comment><USER45> Which fluids are you talking about specifically? I've very little knowledge of anatomy but I think most of the liquids in our body are in "closed-loop" pressurised systems, with nowhere for the fluid to "go" whilst being forced in to motion by our muscles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> That was amazing.

On a side note, and not complaining about this at all, how much did it cost to get that water to the space station? I guess that bag had maybe 300 ml?

<comment><USER47> I remember reading that water is generated as a byproduct of the hydrogen fuel cells on board. And then the water vapour is also recycled and repurified back into the system. So it's a closed water system powered by solar energy inputs.

Of course, the machinery necessary for this loop costs x billions, but the particular molecules of water used in this experiment probably came out of the internal water cycle and didn't cost to get the water there in the first place.

<comment><USER47> [http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at- nasa/2000/as...](http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at- nasa/2000/ast02nov_1/)

So there is still some loss of water even with the recycling

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Am I the only one that now wants to change careers and be an astronaut? This was wicked cool! I was definitely not expecting this result.

</comment><comment><USER49> NASA and other space agencies need more funding stat! Private space exploration is fine, but there's something to be said for placing science ahead of company interests.

Slightly off topic comment, I know, but watching zero gravity videos makes me realize how awesome space truly is and how little we know about it.

</comment><comment><USER50> What I love about Chris Hadfields updates are that he is entirely world centric. "400 thousand of us live here" in Countries on the other side of the world. Devoting time not only to Canada and the US but truly communicating the importance of "International" in the title of the ISS.

</comment><comment><USER51> That was so amazing to watch. Here's a question, and forgive me for my ignorance. What happens to all the water droplets that escaped the washcloth? Aren't they worries about the water finding their way into equipment or electronics?

</comment><comment><USER52> Did you see his wrist watch? It was fascinating. Like a living organism ...

</comment><comment><USER53> Chris is just awesome. What a good way to get everyone interested and involved in space exploration! There's so many big questions, but the little questions (like this one) are so interesting too.

</comment><comment><USER54> Chris Hadfield is becoming Internet's the most loved astronaut.

</comment><comment><USER55> Whoaa !! we should have videos upon videos for what happens when we do ___ in space :) cc : Elon Musk's spaceX

<comment><USER56> I want the blend-tec guy to become an astronaut. "Will it blend IN SPACE?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> space is amazing.

</comment><comment><USER58> Next experiment: what happens when you sneeze in space?

</comment><comment><USER59> It would be funnier (and more useful due to deflation) if the government just burned the money that is currently paying for this useless bullshit.

<comment><USER60> Riiiight. Because inspiring the new generation to think about physics (and science in general) is useless </irony></comment></comment>


Why deep neural networks don't actually think - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/shallow-thoughts-about-deep-learning/why-deep-neural-networks-dont-actually-think-b5768f751f43 <comment><USER2> This article (like most articles on this topic) doesn't define what "think" means. There's no shame in that: nobody has a good definition. But without a good definition of X, you can't make reliable conclusions about what is or isn't X.

The logic seems to be: Thinking is mysterious [true]. Neural nets aren't mysterious [true]. Therefore neural nets must not be thinking [?].

That's a fallacy. Compare: The location of the buried treasure is mysterious. The place I'm about to dig isn't mysterious. Therefore, the treasure must not be where I'm about to dig.

It's a fallacy because as soon as you find the treasure, it's location isn't mysterious any more. Mysteriousness isn't an inherent property of things, it's a statement about our own limited knowledge which changes over time.

The same will be true of thinking (for any definition of that term you might care to use). When we figure out how to make artificial systems that think, thinking will no longer be (completely) mysterious.

<comment><USER3> There is (probably) a definition of "think" where neural networks actually thing. There is also (probably) a definition of "think" where neural networks _don 't_ actually think. There are articles advocating both positions, _and neither side explicitly states their definition of "think"_. So they're really arguing about what the right definition is, but in disguise, since neither side states their definition, nor gives reasons why that definition is better than the other side's. As a result, the "discussion" is pretty much useless.</comment></comment>


200 Years of Immigration to the US Visualized - <AUTHOR> http://insightfulinteraction.com/immigration200years.html

<comment><USER2> Having never been to the US and having no short-term plans to change that, I find the data itself somewhat ... not so interesting, I guess.

But the way the data is visualized, and the way you can explore it, is _awesome_. It's like a database you can query just by moving the mouse around. Strike the "like" \- that is exactly what it is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the kind words. You know, even if you are not interested in US data, you now have the piece of knowledge in your memory installed there in the most aesthetic and gentle way, I call it 'visually transmitted knowledge' J

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How do you explain the last decade of your graph?

The totals look to drop sharply by about 70%, but looking at the data, it was pretty consistent at about 1 million a year.

In general I have a problem with applying smooth curves to data derived from histograms.

<comment><AUTHOR> The drop at the end is because official website of the Department of Homeland Security has data only till 2013, and it is only four years of data versus ten for all the other points. What is the problem with smooth curves?

<comment><USER4> neat!

the drop at the end could easily make a reader think that immigration has dropped recently. to avoid giving that misimpression, i'd recommend to multiply the last datapoints by 10/4; equivalently, think of your y-axis units as immigrants per year, rather than immigrants per 10-year bucket.

the problem with smooth curves is that they create data that doesn't exist; like someone who invents a few extra details when telling a story in order to make it more interesting. there's no clear line between editorializing, clarifying, embellishment and fabrication; even a blue dress can look white.

anyway, smooth curves obscure the limits of your data; without them it'd be more clear that we're strictly dealing with decades. for your most interested readers that clarity would be helpful.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that the drop on the graph may give impression of decrease in immigration, so thank you for your idea about scaling. I try to keep data 'as is' and give only new image of it but not new data. Scaling makes much more sense (I used it in visualization of Israel immigration because their statistic office has VERY strange approach to period slots).

Regarding smooth curves, you see, the data is unchanged - you can see exact numbers in tooltips, the visualization is just new look of it, what it's supposed to be )</comment></comment></comment></comment>


IBM's Plea for Gender Parity in an Ad From 1985 - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/ibms-plea-for-gender-parity-in-an-ad-from-1985/280443/

<comment><USER2> Although it was nice to see, the Society of Women Engineers [http://societyofwomenengineers.swe.org/](http://societyofwomenengineers.swe.org/) was in full advocacy swing at that point, with strong chapters at the major engineering universities, encouraging women to go into Engineering of any stripe. IBM itself at that time would also move and/or retrain employees who had either become "too expensive" (due to service) or whose jobs had been terminated (e.g. end of contract) or outsourced.</comment>


Top-50 StarCraft 2 streamers in February 2013 + Proleague/GSL - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> The link doesn't work (it is directed to HN).

<comment><AUTHOR> Weird. Here it is re-submitted: <https://news.ycombinator.com/newest>.

<comment><AUTHOR> Derp: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5371169>.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Your Business Doesn't Need Blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://iglu.net/why-your-business-doesnt-need-blockchain/ <comment><USER2> if you go for the hype you deserve whatever</comment>


Ask HN: What are some of mankinds greatest existential threats? - <AUTHOR> Assign a probability of how likely you think it will happen over the next 50-100 years. <comment><USER2> The looming threat of nuclear war, disease, climate change or a rogue comet; in the descending order of (probability * intensity)

</comment><comment><USER3> Mankind? : )</comment>


Identifying backdoors, attack points, and surveillance mechanisms in iOS devices - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/iOS_Backdoors_Attack_Points_Surveillance_Mechanisms.pdf <comment><USER2> Mr Zdziarski gave this talk also at the HOPE conference yesterday. It's highly recommended. Slides:

[http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2014/07/iOS...](http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2014/07/iOS_Backdoors_Attack_Points_Surveillance_Mechanisms.pdf)

For the people wanting to secure their iphone, go to the end to the slide "Apple Configurator" and follow the described steps to disable your iphone from paring with anything.

<comment><USER3> I'm confused. Normally one cannot "pair" a device without entering the passcode to unlock it.

Is this not the case?

<comment><USER4> Yes, but one issue is that you could be pressured into pairing the device. Or someone can brute force the passcode to access the pairing UI.

The slides mention a way to bypass pairing, but I don't think ever mentioned how.

<comment><USER5> Apple can boot the device over USB using a custom image that doesn't require the passcode. Other people can't because it needs to be signed with Apple's key in order to run.

<comment><USER3> Got it. But if you say "don't allow pairing" they're SOL from a software perspective? I find that hard to believe... but either way, who knows really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >This is due to iOS' behavior of automatically joining networks whose name (not MAC address) it recognizes, such as "linksys" or "attwifi".

Discriminating by MAC addresses would not help at all. MAC addresses are trivial to spoof, even though they are "in hardware".

It would be cool if we had a standardized trust-on-first-use cryptographic authentication model for wireless APs, like we do with SSH right now. You connect to the AP, it sends you its pubkey, your phone says "Do you want to trust AP with key AB:CD:BE:EF...". The discriminating paranoid person can choose to make sure this is the right key hash, and the average person gets at least limited protection from later AP spoofing attacks.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I've been shocked by how easy it is to get a brand new router and set it up with the same SSID and password and every device I have auto-connects like it's the same thing. If you have the AP password, it's trivial to set up a fake second router in the same vicinity (you don't even have to touch the original one) with a stronger signal and have everyone connect through your gateway.

Of course, once you have the AP password there's a lot you can do to the network traffic _anyway_ , but it'd still be nice if the computer would pop something up and say, "The configuration of this device does not match the known configuration - do you still want to connect?"

<comment><USER8> OSX and I assume iOS does do detection of this. If you connect to an AP that was WPA2 encrypted in the past, and has the same name but no encryption now, it gives you a big scary warning and bails out.

<comment><USER9> I guess this is to combat password stealing attempts in particular, and not AP spoofing in general, since you could easily make the new AP WPA2?

<comment><USER8> If have to look it up, but I don't think the AP would get the plaintext password during the WPA2 key exchange.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The packet tracer is an interface to a tcpdump-like facility that's used for debugging. It requires you to connect the device to a Mac host. The interface is publicly documented: [https://developer.apple.com/library/Mac/qa/qa1176/_index.htm...](https://developer.apple.com/library/Mac/qa/qa1176/_index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS10001707-CH1-SECIOSPACKETTRACING)

<comment><USER11> Come on, this is a full packet dump of whatever you want. So .. why is it enabled by default, why isn't it in the developer image (only) if its so vital, and so on.

This was intentionally architected for exploit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The key takeaway for me here is that it is _much_ more difficult to access data on iOS devices if they are switched off.

So, if you are in a situation where you can expect that your device will be accessed (e.g. crossing the US border), switch it off ahead of time.

<comment><USER13> And according to new diktat, you will have to turn your phone on while crossing borders (I guess only restricted to TSA yet) [1]. So once it is on, it will let you have all the packet sniffer log dump. And on US borders, non- US citizens will be made to enter their PINs [2]. Key takeaway for me is why is phone logging so much data without there being a need for it, and even eating into data capacity.

[1]- [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/06/tsa- cellphones-...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/06/tsa-cellphones- explosives-security-flights-us-bound) [2] - [http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/02/21/the- priva...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/02/21/the-privacy- price-to-cross-the-border/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What are "close access methods"?

Would bluetooth or iBeacon or Wifi be used with that, or does it need a cable, or actual button pressing, for example?

<comment><USER15> You would have to attach a cable and, on recent iOS versions, press a button to trust the device (and I think enter the passcode - not sure - but not if the device gets shipped to Apple).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why does Apple re-enable Bluetooth everytime you update iOS?

"STOP RESISTING, WE WANT TO TRACK YOU" (iBeacon)

<comment><USER17> iBeacon is purely passive and cannot track you.

<comment><USER18> You could in theory set up a Bluetooth surveillance network though couldn't you? I really doubt that's remotely the goal for Apple but Bluetooth always on would make it possible I think.

<comment><USER19> It'd be quite a lot easier to do this with wifi, and indeed such systems exist, for monitoring people in shops etc. iOS 8 makes it substantially harder for these to work effectively (through randomised MAC addresses when looking for networks), which seems like an indication that Apple isn't interested in facilitating this sort of thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Full text: [https://pdf.yt/d/1dKWAxs03AvnYqkt](https://pdf.yt/d/1dKWAxs03AvnYqkt)

<comment><USER21> Mods, please change the article URL to this.

<comment><USER22> The URL should IMHO be [http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/?p=3441](http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/?p=3441) (primary source) or even directly [http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2014/07/iOS...](http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2014/07/iOS_Backdoors_Attack_Points_Surveillance_Mechanisms.pdf).

<comment><USER23> I agree. We changed the url to that second link from [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1742287614...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1742287614000036).

Linking directly to the pdf would go against what the author says he wants there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> For only $31.50 you can find this out.

<comment><USER6> I was able to log in with my university credentials and get free access.

<comment><USER25> Even better. For a measly 10.000 in tuition I can access the article!

<comment><USER6> I wasn't suggesting that, obviously. I was trying to be helpful and point out that students have free access.

<comment><USER22> OT: Technically, it is not free access. You (or at public institutions, the general public) paid for your access … in discussions on open access, I often learn that many researchers, scientists etc. are under the impression that they already have open access although the simply get routed around paywalls because they use IP addresses of their paying institutions.

<comment><USER6> Really? Universities don't have a bulk subscription plan or something?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I know each publisher is different, but is there a guideline amount of how much each researcher gets when they are published in such journals?

<comment><USER27> -$2000 is fairly common.

As mentioned below, authors have to pay publication fees. Most journals are for profit and closed-access, though this is starting to change somewhat. Somewhat ironically, being published in these journals is a prerequisite for how researchers actually do get paid: by grants, usually taxpayer funded.

<comment><USER26> Is it also true that some organisations also pay their employees if they publish papers, I've heard this happens in the security field.

<comment><USER28> It doesn't happen in physics and mathematics. On the other hand you will probably be fired if you don't publish...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sun - simple weather web app for iOS devices - <AUTHOR> http://pattern.dk/sun/

<comment><USER2> Feels laggy for something ostensibly so simple.</comment>


Ask HN: What do you use for web-based product demos? - <AUTHOR>

What do you use for live, collaborative, web-based product demos?  I like the features of Adobe Connect and Web Ex, but not the price tag.  freeconferencecall.com offers voice-only conference calls, but I'd like the ability to visually and collaboratively step someone through my product.  Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> GoToMeeting trumps WebEx, I haven't tried Adobe Connect. The best thing about GoToMeeting is that it's only $49.99 a month for unlimited meetings per month. It can also record all users in the sessions, both VOIP and Phone. It can display multiple monitors (I have 5). It also has screen drawing, user manipulation, and much more. I personally find it to be a lifesaver and allows me to communicate and collaborate with our clients, and users in a whole new way. They also offer a free trial.

Note: I'm not affiliated with GoToMeeting in any way, just a very satisfied customer.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a good question and one that I have been wondering about lately too. I'm really not familiar with the products in this market. I was looking at this: [http://www.riapedia.com/2007/06/06/flash_and_php_based_acrob...](http://www.riapedia.com/2007/06/06/flash_and_php_based_acrobat_connect_competitor)

This is worth looking at too. 60.00 a month is a good price: <http://www.webex.com/smb/web-meeting.html>

</comment><comment><USER4> Adobe Connect is what we use</comment>


Ask HN: US tax prep for Canadians - <AUTHOR>

What tax preparation services do my fellow Canucks living in the US use (for filing personal income tax)? I'd really appreciate any recommendations (positive or negative).
P.S. I know this might not be appropriate for HN. I have had zero luck asking people in my social network and google/yelping hasn't been helpful. I think there are a number of canucks in the US doing tech, and thought some of u might be around here.
Thanks <comment><USER2> Iqster,

Contact me. Contact details are in my profile. I know far, far more about this topic than I need to. We do this work but we're probably way to expensive. I'll try to find someone for you to work with.

Generally . . .

Cross-border taxation is needlessly complex, mostly because of the US government. Expect to spend a LOT of money. If you get someone cheap, be suspicious. Competent, experienced cross-border tax return prep people are scarce and are priced accordingly.

And the downside risk for you (and your return preparer) is high. So you are paying your U.S. tax return preparer to be your insurance policy in case you get hit with a penalty, in addition to paying for scarce talent. Ah, the law of unintended consequences . . . .

I had two new contacts TODAY with US/Canada tax problems. All the cool kids are having tax problems these days. :-)

<comment><USER2> Let me be a little more helpful than just yelling "Scary Monsters! Beware!" :-)

Flags to wave:

1\. RRSPs? Form 8891.

2\. Still have bank/etc. accounts in Canada (including RRSPs)? Form TD F 90-22.1.

3\. Mutual funds inside those Canadian accounts? Form 8621.

4\. Own shares in a Canadian company (not public)? Form 5471. Partner in a partnership? Form 8865.

These are common foot-faults. I don't know about your particular situation. And all of these will apply whether the CRA thinks you are still a Canadian resident or whether they think you're a nonresident for Canadian tax purposes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are you considered a resident or a non-resident of Canada for tax purposes, and do you have income from Canadian sources?

<http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/nnrsdnts/ndvdls/nnrs-eng.html>

If your answer to both those questions is no - as it is in my case - you don't need to file a Canadian return, and you can use whatever tax preparation services your American friends do.

Way back in 2001, the year I moved here, I _believe_ I filed both an American and a Canadian federal tax return and on the Canadian tax return I claimed my American taxes paid as a foreign tax credit. I was a broke-ass student at the time, so using a tax-prep service wasn't an option. But I don't remember it being particularly complicated.

Keep in mind that I am not a tax accountant, the rules and regulations may have changed, and my memory is probably completely shot - so don't take my advice as gospel.</comment>


Stanford engineers help discover the trick jellyfish use to swim - <AUTHOR> http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/november/propulsion-lamprey-trick-110315.html <comment><USER2> As a Caltech alum, I am compelled to point out that Dabiri did 90% of the work on this at his former institution. Way to go Stanford PR team, I'm sure he figured it all out in a year on your dime.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just from the look of it, it appears something like: take in water through a large aperture, expel it through a small one (which is actually the same one, contracted).

<comment><USER4> Headline should read: "Jellyfish discover the trick jellyfish use to swim". It amuses me that "scientist discover such-and-such" can be contrasted with the fact that such-and-such worked out how to do it millions of years ago. We think we're so advanced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Propel your ctenophore through water with this one weird trick!"

<comment><USER6> Swimmers hate him</comment></comment>


Silicon Valley Is Holding Us Back - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@parismarx/silicon-valley-is-holding-us-back-7db61dcce3db <comment><USER2> If companies like Google are going to continue as monopolies, then they need to be regulated. Either that, or the FTC needs to break them up.</comment>


Why is only half of Mars magnetized? - grey-area http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2008/1710.html <comment><AUTHOR> Does this indicate that half of mars has useful enough magnetism to shield it from solar radiation for human habitation purposes? (I honestly don't know the answer or how to discern it from google).

<comment><USER2> The field is only 2.5% of Earth's. That's way too weak, I suspect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply. Any idea if it is even a meaningfully better neighborhood magnetically than the northern hemisphere?

<comment><USER3> To gather something that seems like a reasonable answer, you'd have to consider that while Earth's magnetic field deflects charged particles from the solar wind, the atmosphere is also an important deflector and buffer for the absorption of other forms ionizing radiation, so even if the magnetic field deflects charged particles, like free protons, free electrons and alpha particles, there's still the occasional burst of X-rays, neutrinos and the constant UV radiation and probably even some neutrons, which mostly gets caught by the air and distributed into the environment as heat.

So, the comparatively thin Martian atmosphere is probably a bigger deal than the magnetic field, generally speaking.

Anyway, to approximate how big a deal this all is, you'd have to consider the inverse square law, to account for how much weaker the intensity of the radiation is, given that Mars is farther from the sun than Earth is. If Earth is roughly one astronomical unit from the sun, Mars is about 1.52 units away. The inverse square law says that as the distance doubles, the signal strength is four times weaker, triple distance weakens strength by nine times. So, 1.52^2 is ~2.3104 times weaker intensity, which is partly a correlation to the disk of the sun being visibly smaller, farther away.

If the general, overall radiation is at least twice as weak, or more than 50% weaker on Mars, the strength of the Martian magnetic field being 98% weaker than on Earth, probably means it'd still need to be 49 times stronger than it is to effectively deflect an amount proportional to the solar wind which is deflected by Earth. This means that on the surface of Mars, 50 times the amount of solar wind still rains down into the thin atmosphere, and much of it is still probably scattered by the air as heat, instead of forming into a Martian Van Allen belt.

During solar storms, however, when solar radiation is emitted at higher levels, it could be a bigger deal. I think much of the particles falling onto Mars would simply ionize in the air overhead before reaching the surface (as static electrical effects, like lightning or aurora plasma), but flare-ups of sun weather could easily be a real problem, since they still are problems even here on Earth.

The fact that you can see a sky on Mars during the day means that the air overhead is doing some work scattering the inbound sunlight, even if the sky isn't blue. The atmosphere is about 10 kilometers thick, and air pressure is weak enough to boil water at room temperature (less than 1% of standard good- weather air pressure on earth). So, the barely-there atmosphere ensures that skin cancer and penetrating rays aren't a super big deal, because moreso than providing natural barriers itself, the Martian environment ensures people will pretty much always be in thick suits and behind thick windows and walls as a pervasive fact of life.

<comment><USER4> Thank you. I wish more textbooks read like this!

<comment><USER5> What do textbooks usually read like to you?

<comment><USER6> Like your comment ;P

<comment><USER5> I was actually interested in a serious answer, since I don't tend to need to read textbooks.

<comment><USER7> I find learning from textbooks is more difficult then learning in an open forum discussion or not confined to the strict teachings usually provided by textbooks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article says so many things are explained about _Mars_ , but now I am wondering why the same thing didn't happen to _Earth 's_ magnetic field, if there was a giant impactor, and why Mars doesn't have a large moon, if _it_ had a giant impactor.

<comment><USER9> The article explains the size differences very well.

And it mentions that mars' impactor only remelted half the surface, while earth's impactor melted the entire surface of the planet. Which is supposedly why earth's magnetic field stayed axially dipolar.

<comment><USER8> From what I've read, the size, speed, and angle of whatever hit the earth is not settled. But if we know that, as you say, half of Mars was melted, while all of Earth was melted, then that should put constraints on how the impacts differed, which is what I was curious about and is not part of the article.

<comment><USER10> Without knowing all that much, I know that Earth was much more massive than Mars even before Theia impacted. I assume with the extra energy available, it would be much more likely to melt all the crust. Also, our plate tectonics is still going on, so any evidence of a thin area of crust would be erased by now.

<comment><USER11> also it's interesting that the crust of the moon have differences between far and near side. I read somewhere that this could be explained very easily with a low speed impact of a second small moon when the moon was very young.

<comment><USER8> There was a recent paper proposing that the near side of the moon looks melted because the surface of the Earth was temporarily about as bright as the sun for a while after the impact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Both Earth and Mars hit by giant impactors on a __sliding __trajectory? Seems fishy!

<comment> orbital-decay A direct impact is actually less probable than a sliding hit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder how can half a planet be low-lying without reconsidering the zero of such measurements?

Same thing for high half. Maybe just agree that Mars is located one mile further, high half direction?

<comment><USER14> center of mass != geometric center

</comment></comment><comment> Iwan-Zotow Y'all know how it happens - unclear specs, lousy pay, outsourcing to India

</comment><comment><USER15> At first I thought this said "monetized". Which, I think, is an interesting comment on the state of the world, or at least my perceptions of them.

</comment><comment><USER16> My theory is that the martians built their anti magnetic machine and buried it deep near the Martian core. They themselves live in deep underground colonies near mines where they can find precious metals and water.</comment>


First confirmed "mechanical doping" in pro cycling, app scans for motors - <AUTHOR> https://www.cxmagazine.com/motor-mechanical-doping-femke-van-den-driessche-suspected-2016-cyclocross-world-championships-update <comment><AUTHOR> Allegations of mechanical doping have been flung around for a while now [0], this is the first confirmed case of a pro cyclist using a small electronic motor hidden inside the bike's frame to assist in pedaling.

Cycling's governing body – the UCI – has an app that reportedly scans frames for electronic motors [1].

[0]: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early- lead/wp/2015/07/23...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early- lead/wp/2015/07/23/forget-doping-greg-lemond-thinks-tour-de-france-riders- could-be-cheating-with-tiny-motors/)

[1]: [http://www.demorgen.be/sport/uci-onderzoekt-verdachte-wk- fie...](http://www.demorgen.be/sport/uci-onderzoekt-verdachte-wk-fiets-van- femke-van-den-driessche-b878fcd0/)</comment>


London Is Gonna Be Pissed, But We Prefer Berlin for Startups - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/22/witn-london-is-gonna-be-pissed-but-we-prefer-berlin-for-startups-tctv/ <comment><USER3> I live in Berlin. It's a pretty good place to work on a startup - <USER2> transportation, excellent & cheap infrastructure and cheap apartments/office space. Also, a lot of universities with cheap students to work.

Another advantage is that a lot of european young people go to berlin, for example from france, U.K, holland, poland and so on. It's a city that draws the young upwardly mobile crowd, rather than the working class. So there is the sense of a diversity of ideas, and many different people doing different things. It's a city that does not feel very "german", it feels very european.

Berlin is not so great for people looking to work in the tech industry because there is no concentration of tech companies. But for self-starters, it's quite conducive.

I doubt that Berlin will really become the mecca for technology though, because I do not think it's easy to learn the german language, and in the end, Berlin is in Germany, and Germany is not very multi-cultural. London feels much free-er, English laws are much more conducive to small companies, and people already speak english.

Berlin imposes berlin on you, you have to kind of be the berlin type to like berlin, but I get the feeling, you can just be yourself in London.

<comment><USER4> Great to hear, I'm moving to Berlin in Autumn.

Does anyone know where to find startup/programming/tech events in the berlin area? Which mailing lists to follow etc?

<comment><USER5> The c-base (<http://c-base.org>) has several programming related events:

\- Android round table every last Wednesday \- Lisp round table on Thursday \- Wifi hackers every Wednesday

You can "follow" their calendar: <http://www.c-base.org/calender/termine.ics>

<comment><USER6> And even if you can't attend any of those events. Dont visit Berlin without the c-base. Its a really awesome place to hang out. Same goes for the Tacheles. [1]

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunsthaus_Tacheles>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't agree at all, having lived 4 years in Germany. Certainly it's cheap, dirty cheap compared to London; certainly it has a good, creative vibe; certainly it's a awesome city. But that's all.

Facts I learnt in 4 years in Germany:

\- it's very difficult to conduct business in Germany (with German customers) if you aren't fluent in German. And while people correctly says it's not difficult to pick up some German, proficiency requires at least 9 months of full time study

\- taxes are prohibitive

\- setting up a Gmbh it's expensive, and requires a lot of paperwork. The mini, entrepreneur-friendly UG (aka mini-Gmbh) it's a laughable joke, just political propaganda with so many limitations (number of founders, need to save 25% of profits to build the reserve fund, ...) that's hardly usable for a startup

\- tax authorities are, as a matter of fact, going after (I'd like to say, persecuting) contractors, especially those coming from abroad or working for foreign companies. I have a dozen of stories of people asked to pay undue VAT, or asked to provide proofs that _their employer_ are conducting business legitimately in Germany, asked to explain why some months they didn't earn any salary, ...

<comment><USER8> When my business partner told me about the cost and effort in setting up a GMBH I was shocked. In London, we got our Ltd company registered with Companies House for well under 100GBP in about 3 hours. We were registered the same day we submitted our application.

I like Berlin, but I wouldn't incorporate over there and the winters in that part of the world are too cold for me!

<comment><USER9> You can use British Limiteds in Germany as well. It's all part of EU goodness.

<comment><USER7> That's true, you can.

On the other side, tax authorities actively try to punish foreign companies operating in Germany with taxes like the Außensteuergesetz (AStG); applicability varies from country to country, from case to case, and in my experience if you ask two accountants whether your Ltd is subject to AStG, you'll get 2 opposite answers.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for mentioning the Außensteuergesetz. I wonder how they square that with EU competition rules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Berlin is awesome, beautiful, lovely -- in the summer, for tourists / temporary guests / foreigners. BUT... being an ex-local -- in the cold season (that lasts 8-9 months out of 12 per year) and for locally-registered sole traders or companies or employees, it's not THAT outstanding. Since I do the "lifestyle business" thing for now, as a German citizen I chose to de-register with the tax authorities and from other registers and stay out of the country except for 2-4 lovely summer months (just arrived back a few weeks back) where I stay here as a long-term "tourist" in holiday flats.

Need to socialize with Hacker types? In any place with at least 100k population, you'll find a few. And how many do you need really? My hometown Potsdam had enough of them to have a fun social life. I happily geeked out and co-worked with Hacker Newsers on Malaysian islands. If Berlin really does attract "more of them", how much value does that really add if 1-5 cool people is all that's needed?

It's a groovy place for sure for Indie hackers and creative types. But my "company" is registered elsewhere: the authorities here just simply get in the way too much, obstruct your core business with mindless pointless bureaucracy and take WAY too large a cut of your turnovers. I understand when locals or citizens who get together to form a company register it here and suffer through taxes, forms and labour regulations simply because they, their co- founders, employees and clients were born here or are locals too. But US/UK startup founders moving to Germany to set up their company here? I don't see it. Spend your first 3-6 months pre-incorporation product building here on a Ramen basis on a tourist visa, sure, OK. But don't set up shop here unless you have to. If you want to head offshore from the US or the UK, then either Chile or Asia could prove much more worthwhile. And I cannot reiterate enough: geeks and more specifically talented enthusiastic hackers -- they're really everywhere on the planet, not just in SF, Berlin and London. You'll find them wherever you go, as soon as you figure out how and where to look.

<comment><USER11> Where are you incorporated?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not sure what the cost of living is like in Berlin but here in London it's astronomical.

People might have some degree of infrastructure to build a start up down here (especially around the Old Street area) and there's plenty of office space but the problems lie in the fact that if you want to employ young graduates (or people with a few years of experience) you're going to struggle to pay them without adequate investment.

A 1 bedroom property down here will cost you roughly £1200 a month + bills (£1300 - £1400 in total) and then travel in zones 1 and 2 will cost you £106 a month for a travelcard

If you're going to pay a youngster £30k a year then they're going to be forking out 70-80% of their income on accommodation which is absurd.

<comment><USER13> Most 20 something professional in London live in flatshares, typically paying between £400-£800/month.

I had a large 2 bed flat on Commercial Road towards the aldgate side for around £1200/month.

<comment><USER12> I live in a houseshare with a bunch of strangers at £675 a month.

Where I used to live I had my own place, but ever since moving down here I've had to 'downgrade' to living with people you don't really like or don't really speak to.

The fact that us young folk have to bunk up with others to make living down here affordable is an indictment of the property market in London and the UK.

<comment><USER13> I actually prefer living with friends from living alone, it has it's disadvantages, but it also has lots of social advantages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Who decided that the number of hipsters in a concentrated area correlate with successful tech companies?

These 'cool', 'creative' pockets within cities such as San Francisco, London and Berlin that the article suggest as a vital ingredient for developing the perfect startup environment are merely the result of artists after cheap spaces to work, exhibit and live.

After time, cool-hunters follow, prices go up, locals are pushed out, companies move in.

London, particularly the East, is full of areas such as this.

<comment><USER15> Presumably the same things that makes an area attractive to artist and hipsters makes it attractive to start-ups: Cheap spaces to work and live. At least if you are bootstrapping, that is a big deal.

<comment><USER16> I come to the startup world as someone who's also a musician - and music will always be my first love - and I don't think the two worlds are necessarily that far apart. Obviously not everyone wants to hang out at cool gigs and art galleries, but generally startups are started by people who are younger and more energetic and like to hang out in those areas where the artists are. In my experience those areas are normally the fun parts of town.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> To summarize: Berlin has a lot of weird people and it is cheap to live there. Therefore, it will the next startup capital of Europe.

Hmmm... Sounds like the author had a good time in Berlin and wanted to say something nice. Don't think I will pack my bags just yet though.

<comment><USER18> Berlin reminded me a lot of Seattle/Portland while I was there three years ago. I can see a start up culture happening there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Uhm...

"Berlin feels like a European Portland or an Austin or a Boulder"

Austin: 785'000 people. Portland: 570'000 people. Boulder: 94'000 people.

Berlin: 3.4 million people.

We must be doing something wrong here in Europe.

<comment><USER20> I grew up in Berlin, starting a few months after I was born up until the summer between the fifth and sixth grades. When we moved back to the states, I was completely shocked at how the cities felt, because they didn't feel anything like Berlin. Since Berlin was the only city I really knew well, I had naively assumed that all cities were like Berlin; it took me a while to realize that Berlin was the exception, not the normal case.

But there _were_ places in America that reminded me of Berlin: places right on the line between "large town" and "small city." Not exactly like Berlin, but a very similar feel.

Of course, all of this was from the perspective of an eleven/twelve-year-old, so I could have been missing a lot of stuff that an adult would have noticed. Also, for almost the entire time I lived there, the wall was up and I would imagine that things have changed significantly since then. We left after the wall came down but not long enough after for things to have changed significantly yet--the summer before official re-unification, IIRC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> As someone who just dipped their toe into the startup scene, the number of networking groups in the city is amazing. But it seemed very chaotic. the entire time, I was trying to figure out who I should talk to, and where to find them.

Its a great place to try and start something though. The creativity, along with the cheapness of this city is fantastic.

<comment><USER22> I'd love to find a nice overview of Berlin networking groups. Can you recommend one? I've just entered Berlin as a (not that young anymore) startup.

<comment><USER21> Getting an over view was the problem. The groups seemed to be isolated from each other, with their own agenda our theme. Maybe that's how it usually is. To start with, maybe check "Silicon Allee". I think that is one of the biggest. They meet once a month in mitte.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This sounds right. Berlin, unlike London, has the right vibe for doing creative work. In London nowadays it feels like the three choices for your role in life are "banker", "football hooligan" or "curry shop owner".

It's also, though it's not mentioned in the article, _much_ cheaper -- I think you'll pay about one third as much for your apartment in Berlin as you would in London.

<comment><USER24> It still makes more money than the rest of England put together and has the largest GDP in Europe, not bad for a bunch of curry shop owners.

<comment><USER13> Also it's impossible to get a decent curry in Berlin ;-)

<comment><USER25> Try Assam on Spreewaldplatz. It's cheap, too!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> We've been planning to move to Berlin this autumn with my girlfriend. The last barrier I need to cross is to find a programming job from there. I've sent several applications and some of the companies have already answered. I think I'm a good programmer and I hope I'll find a job.

Berlin seems to be the perfect place for a couple like us. There's cheap and excellent food, cheap and beautiful apartments, lots and lots of culture, lots of DIY attitude and so many abandoned warehouses for underground raves... :)

</comment><comment><USER27> We just held our European Founder Institute bootcamp in Berlin end of March. We had an amazing time: 100 founders from all over Europe, mix with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and lock the building for 48 hours.

The only reason I never talked about it is that there are no words to describe how great it was.

EDIT: link to event: <http://www.founderinstitute.com/posts/297>

</comment><comment><USER28> After living in Munich - the self proclaimed (former) IT capital of Germany - for over 10 years I'm planning to move to Berlin, too.

For several years I've tried to build a community around Ruby/Rails but looks like people don't care and all the cool stuff is made in Berlin anyway...

<comment><USER6> Cool. HN posters from Munich! When a US friend visited last summer and asked here nobody replied. Wanna meet for coffee? I live right next to the LMU.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I actually agree with Sarah/Paul. OK, London will still be THE European centra for startups because the VCs, successful companies and a lot of great people from all over the world + the English language.

But...

Berlin has a great international atmosphere, a lot of talented people and people really love startups. But the most important thing is that startup people actually moving to Berlin from all over the world to start their startups or to join others.

When people want to move to a city because of the startup scene there... that's a sign of that something great is happening there.

</comment><comment><USER30> I've never stopped reading something faster than I did after I got to "'Feels like' is an important disclaimer here." and glanced up to see that it was written by Sarah Lacy.

Dear Sarah: don't worry, I think that London will not be that pissed.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is just vein. London and Berlin are both great cities, both conducive to urban living and both offering what you need to run a startup.

</comment><comment><USER32> What's lacking in Berlin is technology. There are a lot of interesting startups when it comes to commerce or media but not many who can you impress you with their technology. And it lacks the investors that will invest in a high risk technology venture.

</comment><comment><USER33> To what degree is the tech scene in Berlin international? My German isn't bad, but I'm definitely not fluent. Are there so many internationals that tech meetups etc. are usually in English, or is German still dominant?

<comment><USER34> Sign up for the Berlin StartupDigest - about 90% of the events are in English (ruby UG, up.front.ug, ...) and most of the time, there's at least one person presenting in English that can't speak a single word of German. Of course, ze Germans will converse in German amongst themselves afterwards but choose English whenever it's a mixed crowd. Very easy to get by, imo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The usual needlessly controversial headline from TechCrunch. In my opinion it really undermines the content which is actually quite interesting.

</comment><comment><USER13> As much as I love Berlin as a city, Germany's legal system is very much focused on protecting employees rather than helping small businesses. Starting a business and dealing with employment law is much easier in the UK than it is in Germany.

Beyond that Berlin does have the developer talent pool nor the access to finance that London does.

<comment><USER36> Actually this doesn't apply to very small companies as far as I am aware. Don't just take my word for it, but I believe companies up to ~7 employees are treated differently..

<comment><USER37> A former employer of mine stretched that even further by employing interns and freelacers, so he had about two dozen people employed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would love to know which form they will choose or have chosen. A UK inc. or a German GMBH or mini-GMBH?

</comment><comment><USER38> What? An European San Francisco? I'm off in the bus to Berlin! Taking my laptop with me, see you there. And summer is coming! Yahoo!

<comment><USER6> Other than in SFO, there will be a really nasty winter afterwards. At least in Munich we get powder to ski!</comment></comment>


Goodbye to an old friend: 1-800-GOOG-411 [duplicate] - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/goodbye-to-old-friend-1-800-goog-411.html

<comment><USER2> Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1772609>

<comment><AUTHOR> Curious why it wasn't picked up by the submission script.

Mods could you please mark this dead?

<comment><USER2> The querystring is different. The matcher here will let any URL through even if it ends in a non-relevant character (like a trailing slash).

Not much you can really do about it to be honest - I submit through the bookmarklet and end up submitting a fair number of dupes as well.</comment></comment></comment>


Homeland Security spent $430M on radios its employees don't know how to use - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/homeland-security-spent-430m-on-radios-its-employees-dont-know-how-to-use/ <comment><USER2> Radio programming is almost always local to and customized for the department or agency or location, and the channel names and tags seemingly always vary.

Even in a system that's been architected with specific channel layouts, there's almost always some weirdness somewhere, and some differences, and some number of radios always seems to arrive mis-programmed and needs a trip back to the radio shop, and this if the folks receiving the batch of radios are paying attention and can afford the reprogramming. Not all do, or can, either.

Not all radio shops pay attention to what they're doing here, and even the good shops can be using radio service software most charitably described as atrocious.

And yes, anyone that thinks you can have _everybody_ on one of the mutual aid frequencies is headed for trouble. The pile-ups are always massive. Add in encryption and tone squelch (CTCSS, PL) and you might be stomping on the other agencies without knowing it.

In a typical organization, you'd want your dispatcher(s) or communications officer(s) or (if not delegated) one of the senior officers on the shared channels.

Modern radios can be surprisingly complex tools, and the FCC migration to trunked radios and digital trunked radios, and adding inter-operations features (gazillions of channels, etc) and digital communications and deadspots, and the over-the-air rekeying and reprogramming, emergency button(s), and the seemingly obligatory remote kill can all combine to makes your average high-end radios hairy.

Certainly various radio users don't regularly train with and aren't familiar with the "odd-ball" channels; the "national" and mutual aide frequencies can have different names, or weird local oddities, and many of the end-user folks are often trained to stay off the other channels.

Training is certainly part of this, and of using the radios correctly. Conversely, you're probably not expecting the folks to be picking random channels. In the newer radio systems, you can be told (by dispatch or by your supervisor) which channel to use, or dispatch can reprogram your radio and your talk group(s) on the fly.

And as for training, every emergency services department I'm familiar with has been chafing under the political and technical and documentation requirements arriving from outside entities; blanket mandates requiring time and thought and budget for stuff that's probably never going to happen to a given individual or agency, but the obligatory training and documentation requirements pull the folks away from the stuff that they can and will be dealing with. Like dealing with their radios. And delivering whatever service the folks hired on to provide.

Yes, modern radios can be far more complex than it should be. So is the rest of the mess.

Startup ideas here? Sure. The two-way radio version of a ruggedized iPhone; a radio with a "modern" UI.

<comment><USER3> The iPhone version is called <http://Voxer.com> :)

<comment><USER2> "Ruggedized" gear is a requirement here. Emergency services radios need to be very solid, and very easy to use — you're always working on something else and quite possibly life-threatening, and the radio is a tool.

If you can drop it, slam it, whack it, rain on it or even dunk it, cover it with blood or vomit (and clean it), balance your weight on it on a stairway, use it as a wheel chock (unintentionally) and (depending on the particular users) operate it with your gloves on, then we'll talk.

For some users, you further need to allow for heavy gloves.

Or provide emergency buttons, or other features.

As great as it is, iPhone isn't close to providing this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> And this is one of the reasons I laugh when people try to tell me how the "government" organizes all of those intricate conspiracies.

<comment><USER5> It's a bit disingenuous to lump everyone in the 'government' together. It is perfectly reasonable for the NSA to be conducting a massive illegal wiretap of all digital communications for all persons on the planet creating 'profiles' for each digital communication and linking them together with a myriad of other systems AND for the DHS to not know how to communicate on their radios, let alone encrypted. You must consider the underlying competency of the group which could perpetrate a 'conspiracy' when considering the validity of that conspiracy. And the 'government' is little more than a feudal system that loosely works together sometimes.

<comment><USER4> I actually do agree with you, especially your last sentence. Certain groups in the government are very organized and they are definitely capable of some of the conspiracies that go around. The problem, in my experience, is most conspiracy theories/theorists accuse this non-existant, single entity called the "government," which is so organized and has control over everything that goes on. If you take 9/11 for example, how many different groups of the government would have to be involved to pull something like that off? I just don't see how it would be possible to have so many people keep their mouths shut, have different departments work together, while pulling off one of the most horrific attacks on the USA.

Wire-tapping and creating digital profiles on the other hand is something that I can totally see happening since nobody is really getting "hurt" and you can split up the work between different groups of people that really have no idea what they are working on. But I do not see something like that happening to satisfy some end-goal like gaining control of the public. I don't think we humans can organize that well. There are too many groups with their own interests in mind to be able to unite an entity as big as our government (or parts of it) to pull off most of the conspiracies that go around.

<comment><USER6> "how many different groups of the government would have to be involved to pull something like that off?"

Why does everyone say this? You create 'terrorists'; have them hi-jack a plane, and crash it. It really takes what, 50 people MAX, including the terrorists. One Mission Planner, however many terrorists...a few benefactors, some intelligence guru's; and that's pretty much it. Maybe a guy or two planted to interfere with birds going up to shoot down the planes but even that is a bit questionable as to 'needing'.

Everyone wants to say that oh the NYPD would have had to have been involved and the fire department would have known...noooo...they reacted as they normally would.

Not saying I really believe it was an act by my own government...or fine, _part_ of my own government; but I just wanted to point out that not everyone and there mother would have been involved...really just a few guys and gals in the grand scheme of things.

<comment><USER7> >Why does everyone say this?

Because the most popular theories about 9/11 conspiracies are never as simple as you outlined. I think a small group did plan and carry out the attack, and a part of the US government is just as capable of doing that as Al-Qaeda.

But once you start adding extra details (the buildings had explosives, the pentagon got hit by a missile, etc), the number of people you need "in on it" starts to climb. That is why so many people point out the huge headcount of the supposed conspirators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder what lucky contractor supplied those radios... Surprised there is no mention of that in the article.

<comment><USER9> Most likely it's Motorola Solutions providing the hardware, although there's probably some 8A business playing middleman to collect their guaranteed contracting dollars.

Everyone likes to bag on the big contractors, and not without reason, but if you really want to raise your blood pressure, look at the rules, laws, and entitlements regarding 8A contracting. We've had to deal with middlemen that took 10% simply to get a fax from the gov't, and pass it on to the hardware vendor (also on the GSA schedule), who then shipped directly to the gov't. 10% of a quarter million dollar order for receiving a fax, and faxing it onward, because as a small business who meets all the contracting requirements, they're guaranteed a certain amount of federal payola, simply for existing.

There was a lot of joking about forming our own businesses, BOFH style (translation: our fax machine and office is co-located at the local pub), to cash in on that gravy train.

<comment><USER10> Definition of 8A: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Business_Administration#8...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Business_Administration#8.28a.29_Business_Development_Program)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yeah, this seems like pretty typical misuse of government money. Even if these radios are an effective investment why wouldn't they spend a couple million more and train the employees responsible for using them? It's pretty ridiculous in my opinion.

<comment><USER12> Because the official who gets credit for the bullet-point on some report doesn't gain anything from the training. The incentive is only to be able to brag about having led the initiative on communication in their department.

(100% cynical conjecture; I'm sure the reality is much more nuanced)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can you imagine 123,000 people all trying to converse on one common channel? Maybe this is for the better!

<comment><USER14> > Can you imagine 123,000 people all trying to converse on one common channel?

Yeah, I can imagine AlohaNet and WiFi. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Who buys that level of new equipment/technology without user training, just silly. Whoever sold it also probably should of sold training or bundled something in beyond the manual.

Now we don't know all the facts and probably what happened was they did put a tender for the radios and training to use those radios. One way or another be it budgets or somebody doing a cheaper training bid though starting later after the radios are delivered or whatever permutation of events. They ended up with radios there users are unable to use. Why they are unable to use them again is not detailed and I can imagine many on here who would love that challenge to work out how to use a new peace of technology.

There is also the prospect that they got training and it was either not very good or clearly not targeted at the level of customer understanding.

With all that if these chaps landed planes then it would get rather dangerous too fly. Worrying thought perhaps.

<comment><USER16> I've seen two fortune 500 companies do exactly the same thing with ERP systems. The projects were over budget so they cut the user training, no one used the system beecause they didn't know how.

<comment><USER17> Really? That lacks every bit of common sense. Also, how folks (in fortune 500 companies) justify these decisions to their bosses?

<comment><USER16> Yes, it does lack common sense but they were companies (publishing,pharma, resources) where current profits are driven by investments made decades ago by investments into assets that only one firm can own. Plus one had 34 employee grades plus another 12 for execs, that the system was a major failure was invisible to the exective class.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's not exactly rocket science picking the right channel, I am more disappointed that the people we hire for DHS jobs can't figure out how to work a radio. I would bet that the radios are commodity hardware and the manuals are online.

I'm also more than a little worried that each radio costs $3500 when even milspec radios don't cost that much. I'm sure a simple FRS/GMRS radio with scrambler chip would have sufficed, and those retail at around $30 each.

<comment><USER19> How much do milspec radios cost?

I was pretty surprised to find out what "high end" walkie-talkies go for. This year at burning man, a couple of DPW girls were hanging out in our dome and one my my camp-mates started oggling their radios.

"Oh! Wow, I sell radios and those things are like $2000!" or something like that.

This is what a bunch of dirty hippies are using to talk to each other in the desert. I'd imagine what the Department of Homeland Security uses is probably even more expensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Think of all the millions of people looking for jobs in this country, there might actually be some slightly more intelligent folks to replace that 120k or so.

But I guess the only good side of this is THEY WILL NEVER HAVE TO USE THEM, it's theater.

$430000000/123000 = $3,500 per radio, which is also insane.

<comment><USER9> "The $430 million paid for radio infrastructure and maintenance as well as the actual radios."

It's not $3500 per radio.

<comment><USER20> I wonder if you could buy your own encrypted mini-cellphone network for $430M

\- given government markup, I have to assume the answer is "yes".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Your tax dollars at work. Not.

<comment><USER21> Can't wait to see the federal government run healthcare as well

<comment><USER22> Except that the government already has a health care plan. And it's pretty amazing.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-rosenbaum/why-cant-we- ha...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-rosenbaum/why-cant-we-have-health- b_b_231644.html)

Fortunately the government isn't expanding that; it's just mandating that insurance companies give health insurance to more people, and that employers do the same. They're not providing a public option.

<comment><USER23> > And it's pretty amazing.

No it's not. It's the most horrible thing I've ever experienced.

You have Part A, B, D, with an option for C. Then for D you need to go to a 3rd part to actually get the coverage, and for A and B you can pay for Gap coverage, from yet another 3rd party.

Or switch to C and cancel all the rest. Except of course for when you don't cancel them and instead combine it with some of them.

Then there is PACE which replaces part D, except when it doesn't and you need both of them. And depending on your income you might actually need PACENET with a different set of rules.

Medicare is an incomprehensible MESS. There are people who's entire job is simply to understand Medicare and help people with it.

And I'm sure I've missed a whole slew of other programs.

In contrast private insurance: Pay your premium to one company. Done.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why I'm helping startup founders - <AUTHOR> http://joel.is/post/28198804700/why-im-helping-startup-founders <comment><USER3> You are actually hurting startup founders by farting out this HN-optimized fluff of platitudes and having your co-founder vote it up. Please stop it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment:

      > You are actually hurting startup founders by farting
      > out this HN-optimized fluff of platitudes and having
      > your co-founder vote it up. Please stop it.
      > -- notbitter

As you might imagine, I don't agree with it. More, I don't actually understand what you're really trying to say. I gather you don't like it, and I do understand that some people will have different opinions to mine, but if you don't explain clearly then I really don't have a chance to learn from you.

So, if you don't mind, could you expand on your comment and make your arguments clearer?

I'm also interested in what seems to be some sort of accusation. In particular, you say:

      > ... having your co-founder vote it up.

I didn't write it, and I am not a co-founder of the person who did, so I'd be interested to learn who you think is a co-founder of whom. Otherwise this smells of an accusation of dishonesty.

I look forward to your reply.

Oh, and I just thought I'd add, I haven't downvoted you, not least because I can't. HN doesn't allow downvoting of replies to one's own submissions or comments

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your passive-aggressive reply. My comment was directed at the author, not at you. I don't know what if any connection you have to the author.

However, you should note the content-free enthusiastic comment by LeonW, posted right after you submitted the article, in which he does not mention that he is the author's co-founder. You might also have noticed that many articles from this blog are similar: a catchy headline, a bunch of vague inspirational words on an uncontroversial subject, a token link to the conversion funnel, and a surprisingly high rank on the HN front page.

If you aren't even slightly suspicious that this article is 99% conversion fodder and maybe 1% altruism, I am not going to be able to explain it to you.

<comment><AUTHOR>
      > Thanks for your passive-aggressive reply.

Hmm. My reply was absolutely genuine. You appear to be ascribing to me motives that don't exist. I honestly wanted to know the reasoning or beliefs underlying your comment, because I honestly didn't understand why you were calling it a "fluff of platitudes". I honestly wanted to know why you believe that this item is "actually hurting startup founders." That's why I asked for more information, and in particular, I asked for more details of why you said what you said, before I made any kind of judgement about your motives.

So thank you for your reply, I have found it interesting and enlightening. And believe it or not, I'm being genuine when I say that.

      > My comment was directed at the author, not at you.

That wasn't clear. It often appears to me on HN that people direct comments at the submitter of an item, rather than at the author. After all, the author might not read HN. Thank you for your clarification.

      > I don't know what if any connection you have to the author.

For reference, none.

      > However, you should note the content-free enthusiastic comment
      > by LeonW, posted right after you submitted the article, in which
      > he does not mention that he is the author's co-founder.

Noted. Personally, I've always pretty much ignored content-free, enthusiastic comments, or even down-voted and in some cases flagged them. I do that without wondering whether people have connections, or are co-founders, or whatever, simply because I tend to act on the content (or lack thereof) rather than perceived, inferred, or supposed connections or motives. That's just me - <USER2> don't look for conspiracies.

      > You might also have noticed that many articles from this blog are
      > similar: a catchy headline, a bunch of vague inspirational words
      > on an uncontroversial subject, a token link to the conversion
      > funnel, and a surprisingly high rank on the HN front page.

So, you obviously think the high rank is undeserved. Fair enough - why do you think that might be the case? I know that there is a reasonably effective voting-ring detector on HN (at times possibly too aggressive) so it doesn't seem likely to me that it's just the author getting lots of cronies to upvote it. Do you think the HN audience is insufficiently critical?

One reason I ask is this: for a slightly different context, I could've written this article and I would have meant every word of it. I'm active in certain circles, and I frequently mentor and give time and advice with absolutely no expectation of return or reward. The reason? Pretty much exactly as listed in this item. That's why it resonated with me, and that's why I submitted it - I'd like to see more people give back to their communities, whatever communities they may be.

As it happens I do get benefits in return, largely in line with those listed in the item. It's not why I do it, it's not why I did it in the first place, and it's not why I'll continue to do it. In truth, I think it's important on some level, and I think it's right.

      > If you aren't even slightly suspicious that this article is
      > 99% conversion fodder and maybe 1% altruism, I am not going
      > to be able to explain it to you.

Well, I read things to gain insight, learn stuff, and with any luck, to become better at what I choose to do. Sometimes I find real truths in unlikely places.

But here's one thing I've found. For me, evaluating things critically for what they are, and not for where I think they come from, or why I think they've been produced, and independently of any real or assumed motives on the part of the author, works for me. After all, the overwhelming majority of material on the web has some motivation behind it, and I deal with that by treating everything on its merits.

It's taken me some time to compose this reply. I hope you find it an interesting insight into a point of view other than your own. No doubt we won't agree, but I've learned something from you, and I hope this affords you the same opportunity.

<comment><USER3> If you avoid the questions "why was this written" and "how did it get from the author to my eyeballs" you will never develop a working bullshit detector.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I agree with the sentiment of trying to help other people _especially when you are small_. I find these kinds of posts the most interesting, since they apply the most directly to my situations.

Reading about scaling to millions or closing a big deal is interesting, but reading about "boots on the ground" this is how I got my first 100 customers is actionable information.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is a great post, Ziglar's "You will get everything you want in life by helping others get what they want" comes to mind. Simply taking time out every day to help others on a consistent basis can go very far, the fact that this will prepare you to be one of the best startup advisors or angel investors comes without doubt, great inspiration!

</comment><comment><USER6> Fantastic article Joel - I shot you an email.

</comment><comment><USER7> notbitter is right, this stuff is cancer.</comment>


Sorry, but Working from Home Is Overrated - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/technology/working-from-home.html <comment><USER2> I spent several years doing freelance editorial work rom home. It was a mixed blessing. Some of that mix had to do with freelancing and not having a steady paycheck or benefits, which is a different set of issues. But I can deal with being home and working. My current employer is telling us to get ready for it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Going to regret writing this article in light of evidence on entire basis of the topic including 1. Viral illness and 2. Working from home and creativity.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is the just the speedbump into the 32 hour work week.

</comment><comment><USER5> I didn't read the article because it's behind a paywall but going off the title, I 100% agree. I work at a FANG company and have been told to stay home. I get so damn stir crazy sitting at home all day. Not to mention I have zero dedicated space to actually work. I can't wait for my office to open back up.

<comment><USER6> > Not to mention I have zero dedicated space to actually work.

This is key for me. I can work from home without a problem. I've even started and run entire companies from home. However, I absolutely must have a room which is entirely devoted to work. It's an important psychological thing -- when I'm in the room, I'm "at work" and when I'm not, I'm "off work".

This also provides an important clue to others in the house about when I can and cannot be disturbed.

Without a dedicated space, I cannot work from home with any significant degree of productivity -- and I'll quickly burn out.</comment></comment>


The real reason Google's clicks are flat - <AUTHOR> http://www.skrenta.com/2008/02/the_real_reason_googles_clicks.html

<comment><USER2> As an advertiser or investor I'd be much much more concerned that 6% of the online population generates 50% of the clicks: <http://www.smvgroup.com/news_popup_flash.asp?pr=1643>

<comment><USER3> _6% of the online population generates 50% of the clicks_

... and the 6% are non-representative of internet users as a whole. This finding deserves to be better known. Why don't you post it in its own right?

Edit: I can't find anything about this besides the press release and blogs that quote the press release. Why haven't they released the actual study? Also, the study was limited to "display ads" - does this mean banner ads as opposed to Adwords/Adsense?

<comment><USER4> This finding and the study that it comes from has come up 3 times in last couple months. I'm surprised it isn't mentioned even more than that!

<comment><USER2> It seemed to be all but ignored when the Google clicks data was released last week.

One blog (I forget which) made a very good point that the market will self- correct for the lower amount of clicks.

Since the clicking area is now smaller and more targeted, one could make a relatively safe assumption that less click throughs are accidental and/or from deceptive web design. All things equal, this should drive up the price per click enough to offset the lower total amount of clicks.

But that only deals with the "click through" problem not the "who clicks through" problem.

<comment><USER4> Um, that was the source article!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Any evidence for this?</comment>