The Pinball Wizard (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.filfre.net/2013/02/01/ <comment><USER2> I played a lot of _Night Mission_ pinball on the Apple II: simply excellent.

Some of you kids might not recognize the reference in the article's title to the "Pinball Wizard" song by _The Who_ , unless you're into classic rock.

There is a computer-science themed parody of this somewhere:

See "UNIX Wizard" right at the top here: [http://persephone.cps.unizar.es/textos/unix- songs.txt](http://persephone.cps.unizar.es/textos/unix-songs.txt)

If that URL doesn't work for you, Future Visitor, just google for "ever since I was a young boy, I've hacked the arpa net" in quotes.

</comment><comment><USER3> When I clicked the link, I was hoping this was going to be a story about a pinball wizard in "The Who" sense of the word, but this was a great read!

I've always been into pinball since a young age (I imagine I was interested because of noticing my parents preference at arcades in the 80s/90s---and the shorter lines). Over the past 4 years, I've gotten into pinball in a bigger way, taking a few blocks of serious study on machines in Local Boston and Berlin bars.

I've always felt that digital pinball implementations were a kind of arcade game that had little to do with traditional pinball. While they _may_ converge with the advent of VR, I think pinball and digital pinball in the past are two different games; this has been highlighted a couple times I would tell friends about how I've been playing a lot of pinball recently and when they would join me at a bar with a machine some would be surprised I was not talking about a video game.

> Budge didn't find pinball intrinsically all that much more interesting than > he did purely electronic arcade games.

I guess my observations about pinball and digital pinball can be traced back to Budge and Raster Pinball, as from this article, it seems like _pinball_ was just another 'electronic arcade game' to Budge.

> "They were students of the game, talking about catches, and how to pass the > ball from flipper to flipper, and they really got into it."

Maybe someday I'll get to run a startup with a pinball culture ;)

[To date my pinball interest: Born 1985]

<comment><USER4> Indeed, I was, too, "tricked" into clicking but I don't regret it at all :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's the "software artists" photo shoot referenced in the article: [http://www.filfre.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/01/Anzeige_Can...](http://www.filfre.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/01/Anzeige_Can_a_computer_make_you_cry.jpg)

I miss the days when people talked about the creative potential of computers like that. It feels like modern computing has lost a lot of that optimism.

</comment><comment><USER6> This site is really great for people interesting in gaming history. Another of my favorites is The Golden Age Arcade Historian [http://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.com/](http://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.com/) although he hasn't updated since November so I wonder if he's given up on it or something happened to him.

<comment><USER7> I really enjoyed this blog too. Lots of detailed stuff on very obscure corners of the coin-op industry that have (almost) been lost to the sands of time. The series on Allied/Centuri was really awesome, especially when he uncovers how Namco created Dig Dug by pretty much stealing Centauri's _The Pit_ (oh yeah, and it was programmed by the Stamper brothers!)

I contributed some material about the 1982 Bally/Midway TRON tournament and he did a really nice job with how he handled that stuff.

I hope he comes back soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This isn't quite the correct link -- this is a link to that _day_ of posts, which happens to contain only one post. But the actual link to the post would be [http://www.filfre.net/2013/02/the-pinball- wizard/](http://www.filfre.net/2013/02/the-pinball-wizard/)

</comment><comment><USER9> And i just discovered that all of the articles can be downloaded in epub form. I guess i have some reading to do.

</comment><comment><USER7> I loved _Raster Blaster_ as a kid, and for its time it was an amazing piece of programming for the Apple ][. Budge is a personal inspiration of mine.

Although I kind of wish people would acknowledge that _Raster Blaster_ 's playfield design was directly copied from _Firepower_ , a Williams Electronics game from 1980 designed by Steve Ritchie and Eugene Jarvis.

[http://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=856&picno=19164](http://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=856&picno=19164)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for pointing this out -- I never realized it!

I have an original Firepower machine in my basement. This bit of trivia is enough to get me to make it functional again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Pinball Construction Set PC page from the Archive.org:

[https://archive.org/details/msdos_Pinball_Construction_Set_1...](https://archive.org/details/msdos_Pinball_Construction_Set_1985)

</comment><comment><USER12> Pinball on the PC is a fool's errand. The screen is too small to convey the ball motion. However, companies that are adding computer displays to pinball machines, are finding some success: [http://www.jerseyjackpinball.com/the- hobbit/](http://www.jerseyjackpinball.com/the-hobbit/)

<comment><USER13> Pinball in VR is surprisingly immersive. It's a much better simulation of playing pinball in real life, plus you can press your face to the "glass" to see the fine details of the playfield.

<comment><USER3> I imagine this is pretty cool, have you tried it?

Not being able to look at the ball/table is a key part of pinball I find missing from the digital experience, and while VR takes care of this I think I would still miss the physical experience of the controller.

I see someone made a pinball table controller to use with Oculus as soon as it came out[1]; this controller doesn't look heavy enough to have fun tilting properly, but it certainly got me excited to try some VR pinball.

[1]: [http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/1/11345624/pinsim-pinball- fx-...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/1/11345624/pinsim-pinball-fx-2-vr- machine-replica)

<comment><USER13> Yup, I've tried Pinball Fx2 on the Rift. It's certainly not the same as real- life pinball, but I enjoy being able to look around the whole table rather than the camera automatically panning where it thinks I want to look.

It's obviously not the same as a real pin; I've yet to find a PC game that simulates nudging to my satisfaction.

One interesting data point is that my 10 year old son is more interested VR pinball than either regular PC pinball or real life pinball. I think it's because of: \- the novelty of VR \- the animations on and around the table (these can be either fun or distracting) \- the tables are easy for a beginner \- the fact he's taller in VR. At an arcade he's either not tall enough or has to stand on a stool, but in VR he can look down on the table as if he's 6 feet tall.

Pinball Arcade is working on VR version, so I'm interested to see their take on it. They mentioned it in passing for their AC/DC table kickstarter (since cancelled but still under development).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Art.sy, a Genome Project for the World of Art - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/09/arts/design/artsy-is-mapping-the-world-of-art-on-the-web.html <comment><USER2> Robert Storr's criticism is pretty vacuous. Crying reductionism is so common as a criticism of scientific approaches from people in the humanities as to be almost an absurd cliché by now. Pity that he either couldn't come up with something more interesting to say or that the Times couldn't be bothered to quote him on something more substantive.

<comment><USER3> The classification of works of art is a far cry from, say, taxonomy in biology. I'd submit that there's nothing really scientific about it. But even if there were, let me just quote David Perkins summarizing Benedetto Croce (on literature, but the point is transferable):

 _The individual quality or difference of a work of art is the special locus of its value. Since taxonomies are based on features texts share, they foreground what is least interesting about them._

<comment><USER4> That's rather a lot of assumptions packed into a seemingly logical conclusion.

I think it's perfectly possible for a text to be appreciated because of the way it executes a specific topic or genre, such that its quality is not something individual or different.

Secondly I can imagine taxonomies which are not based on shared textual features, but on chronological, geographical, and genre features.

Thirdly, I don't see why a shared feature would automatically be the "least interesting". What's interesting is rather subjective and context-dependent. If for example I had a particular interest in literature coming out of the first world war, this shared feature could be at the top of my list.

<comment><USER3> It is indeed a lot of assumptions and also ignores, for example, the fact that those shared and least-interesting features are still, in many cases, what people like most about things, which would make it a good approach for a recommendation engine even though it's a bad approach for critical work. Musical and narrative genres are rife with this kind of 'subscription mentality'[1]: people who simply enjoy the genre and will like almost any entry into it.

 _> Secondly I can imagine taxonomies which are not based on shared textual features, but on chronological, geographical, and genre features._

Note that these aren't meant to be excluded by the quote, which is from a book that deals largely with the three things you mention. _Il n'y a pas de hors- texte_ and all that.

 _> Thirdly, I don't see why a shared feature would automatically be the "least interesting". What's interesting is rather subjective and context- dependent. If for example I had a particular interest in literature coming out of the first world war, this shared feature could be at the top of my list._

No doubt, but the quote is specifically concerned with literary/artistic value. Historians or critics reading through a different lens will of course have different interests and see value in different things.

Would you not agree, though, that a particular interest in literature coming out of the first world war is simply a filter for your data set, and that once you get down to specific works, it's how they differ or assert themselves against one another that is most interesting about them?

1\. I just made that phrase up; someone may have come up with a better one already. But you know the type: the inveterate sci-fi fan, the fantasy aficionado, the lover of all things zombie. These people are less concerned with the quality of a particular work than with the genre trappings it exhibits.

<comment><USER4> I think that if your theory is that the quality is in the sum total of all differences with other works, then it's not saying much. On the surface, texts are unique as snow flakes, so that's not a useful perspective. Some differences or features will surely play a larger role than others in determining quality. For the features that matter, commonalities might be more interesting than differences.

I think there might not be an effective difference between a particular interest acting like a filter, and the rest of the differences identifying a work. They appear to be different because the former is explicit and particular, but in the end our taste is conceivably described as a filter.

And I don't see why this couldn't pertain to literary or artistic value. You seem to suggest that shared features automatically imply genre works which are typically deemed of lower value. If artistic value is said to only reside in an ineffable difference of the whole work, then to me this is just a cop out to avoid having to define what that value actually is.

<comment><USER3> _> I think that if your theory is that the quality is in the sum total of all differences with other works, then it's not saying much._

I wouldn't say that quality and value are the same thing. Oftentimes works of questionable quality are incredibly valuable because they open up new domains for other artists to develop.

 _> On the surface, texts are unique as snow flakes, so that's not a useful perspective._

This isn't true at all. In fact, most people, even trained critics, have trouble telling writers apart, let alone texts. There are exceptions, of course -- mostly the avant-garde, because you know when you're reading Joyce or Pound -- but even then the vast majority of people can't distinguish the real thing from a parody. When I was in grad school a quiz (<http://reverent.org/poetry_or_parody.html>) made its way through our poetry seminar, and it was hilarious. Two of us missed only one; the rest missed at least six! I just retook it now, three years later, and missed three, so I guess I'm losing my touch.

 _> Some differences or features will surely play a larger role than others in determining quality._

Of course, but again, quality <> value. Also I'm not sure what you're responding to with this thought. There's nothing about 'sum totals' or anything like that in the Perkins quote, and I don't think I suggested it elsewhere.

 _> For the features that matter, commonalities might be more interesting than differences._

Do you have an example? The 'might' is important here: I agree that it's possible, but I can't think of an example. Most likely I would think the commonality would be some shared trope that the text then proceeds to spin off in an entirely different direction, so that the commonality is only interesting as staging for the difference. But I can be persuaded otherwise.

 _> I think there might not be an effective difference between a particular interest acting like a filter, and the rest of the differences identifying a work. They appear to be different because the former is explicit and particular, but in the end our taste is conceivably described as a filter._

I'm not sure if this is what you meant, but I think it's an interesting point: namely, that every difference is a difference _from_ , so by shifting the context in which a work is understood, you've effectively changed what its commonalities with and differences from other works are. And that leads us down the oh-so-tricky rabbit hole of establishing contexts, e.g. via period (Romanticism), tradition (form, genre), and so on.

As far as taste being a filter, that just depends on the person. It's certainly possible to imagine tastes that can't be used as filters because they don't involve surface properties like genre trappings.

 _> You seem to suggest that shared features automatically imply genre works which are typically deemed of lower value._

I'm not suggesting either of those things. Shared features don't imply genre works (all works have shared features), and genre works aren't necessarily of lower value (they just attract certain audiences regardless of their value).

 _> If artistic value is said to only reside in an ineffable difference of the whole work_

It's neither ineffable nor anything to do with the 'whole' work. I'm sure it seems abstract, with us talking about all of art in one go here, but once you get down to specific texts and contexts any competent critic is going to talk in excruciating detail about what specifically is valuable in a given work. At least, that's the idea -- in practice most professional critics are crap.

<comment><USER4> That texts are unique is simply an objective fact. As soon as you change just one letter, you have a new text with 'difference'. I'm saying this is not a useful perspective because it only gets interesting when you can point out what kind of difference there is and why it is important, and then you end up with something that higher quality texts may have in common.

While critics may have some difficulty telling authors or texts apart because of human limitations, computers attain very high accuracies with various authorship attribution methods. This underscores my point: if you focus on differences, you will end up identifying very particular things such as a particular author or even the style of a particular work, that's just the idea taken to its extreme.

On the other hand, I believe that the quality of a work, which is one kind of value indeed, can lie in commonalities instead of differences. I don't have a concrete example, but from reading literature I do get the feeling that there is something definite that they share. I don't mean something on the level of a trope, that would be too superficial. I think it's OK to admit that we don't know, but not a good idea to preclude it from being described as part of a taxonomy because it's supposedly only about differences. There's simply too much difference in all the unique things around us for that to be informative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I still can't believe that Art.sy was around for over two years before releasing anything. That seems insane, only time will tell.

<comment><USER6> Similar to Spotify, it took us a long time to acquire legal rights to the artworks from all our gallery and institutional partners.

<comment><USER7> Must have also taken some time to get such high profile investors and advisors. Care to share your secret?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a really nice project with a very clean interface for browsing art. I've spent hours browsing different categories and links between related works. Their team has also made great contributions to open source projects.

</comment><comment><USER9> I tried it out and some of the connections are dubious to say the least, for example for the photographer Robert Frank the first related artists is Timothy H. O'Sullivan, which has very little in common with Frank. The same was found with many other artist's I am familiar with. I guess it's just starting out and will improve with time, I presume if I were to create an account I would be able to feedback into the system to fix errors.

Painting seemed to fair much better in its relationships, possibly because the artists are more cleanly defined.

</comment><comment><USER10> Simply gorgeous site design.

<comment><USER11> Yea the simplicity is really great. There is a ton of content getting displayed all at once, but it doesn't seem cluttered. You can easily browse all the information and be delighted at the same time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love the attention to detail. It feels super polished, and the simple design goes well in hand with all the art.

</comment><comment><USER13> This company was around for nearly three years before publicly launching. Seems a bit dubious.

<comment><USER14> That's because you have no idea how much non technical legwork has to go in place to build something. They had to develop personal relations with thousands of finicky galleries, then somehow convince them to try this new thing, digitizing their art. They had all sorts of fusses about the details of just about everything, every step of the way. See how Art.sy tries to prevent image scraping, for example. There's a lot more behind the scenes.</comment></comment>


1+2=800% CPU usage on Catalina Spotlight calculator - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/iimizu/how_to_hit_800_cpu_usage_on_an_mbp_add_12/ <comment><USER2> Yeah, spotlight doesn't know it's definitely being used as a calculator.

That 800% cpu is spotlight searching everything in its index for '1+2', just like it is supposed to.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was an avid calculator spotlight user; however, ever since Catalina CPU spikes have been insanely high, I have stopped using it. And most of the other users who noticed this started posting about it this year, so I am sure that there was some change that was rolled back that caused spotlight to stop recognizing when a calculation was being invoked (but I could be wrong).

<comment><USER2> Why is the assumption that it's a bug?

If your index is large, it spins up all cores, because it's parallelized in recent versions.

You know, doing what it's supposed to do.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's a bug because a) 100%+ cpu usage is ridiculous even for normal spotlight searches past the initial spotlight indexing operation and b) this definitely worked without an issue or insane cpu usage before Catalina (checked on old MBP on Sierra).

The option to use spotlight as a calculator is part of its feature set. And the fact that it still does recognize (after a lot of cpu usage) that I wanted to make a calculation does indicate that the calculator functionality is still there. It just seems to be triggering some huge operation that requires even more cpu usage than a normal spotlight search.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sidestepping Apple: the third-party tinkerers fighting for your right to repair - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/08/sidestepping-apple-the-third-party-tinkerers-fighting-for-your-right-to-repair <comment><AUTHOR> The story of the rehab lady is quite fun. She was a PhD microbiologist at home raising kids when one dropped her phone in the loo and ended up having to remove the loo and smash it to get it out and then learn micro soldering to fix it [https://youtu.be/LrILfIE9IB4?t=143](https://youtu.be/LrILfIE9IB4?t=143)</comment>


Ask HN: Has anyone read the "Focusing on the Long-term" paper from Google? [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-data/pdf/43887.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Almost every company that's out there runs some form of A/B tests to measure the success/failure of their features. Typically, A/B tests span a few weeks (2-3). Is that timeframe enough to make critical decisions? What's your take on short lived A/B tests? I found the paper interesting. Has anyone tried this/something similar outside of Google?

<comment><USER2> I think A/B testing largely depends on your sample sizes. If you have a very high traffic product, it's easier to get statistical significance in a shorter time frame.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can we hack the credit card industry? - <AUTHOR>

The credit card industry has a CLEAR problem. It sucks in every way possible (high interest, hidden fees, poor customer service, fraud). But it is clear that people NEED credit cards to help with cash flow management.<p>My question to HN is: How can we hack the credit/finance industry to make it better for consumers? <comment><USER2> Quite a few people are tackling DEBIT payments in innovative ways. Off the top of my head there's BankSimple (still in beta), ThinkComp (doing payment thru mobile along w/ their proprietary device), and another that I can't remember that does payment authorization using the audiojack from your iphone.

But if you're talking of supplanting the actual CREDIT industry itself(i.e., replaceing VISA/Mastercard), that's a pretty tough call. The industry is heavily regulated. In fact the credit card industry was borne out of regulation. It's also no small feat to deal with issues such as fraud, defaults, etc...

<comment><AUTHOR> Great reply. Square, BankSimple, and Verisign is def. doing great things from the perspective of mobile payments. I'm thinking more from the finance perspective of credit. Silicon Valley has never let regulations get in the way of creating a disruptive model that is better for people.</comment></comment>


E-mail shines in Windows 8 with radical overhaul of mail client - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2012/03/windows-8-mail-client-gets-radical-metro-makeover.ars <comment><USER2> I use linux, os x, and windows over the course of a usual week. The only team I root for is good design. I am thrilled with the direction Microsoft is taking with Metro. Hope to see much more from them that uses this approach; it's a huge step forward.</comment>


The creed of speed: Is the pace of business really getting quicker? - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21679448-pace-business-really-getting-quicker-creed-speed <comment><USER2> Brilliant article, especially in its second half. (In the first half it meanders too long through a bias that speed of investment turnover -- in assets or careers as the case may be -- is the most interesting of measures.)

</comment><comment><USER3> > _But another way of thinking about firms is that they are time > transformers..._

This seemed to be the main thrust of the article. Does anyone know if this idea originated elsewhere, or was it an idea of the Economist?</comment>


Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/09/hong-kong-mourns-way-life-china-cracks-down-dissent/ <comment><USER2> What has happened to Hong Kong is a strong _canary-in-the-coal-mine_ indicator for other Chinese territorial disputes [i].

With Hong Kong it was somewhat inevitable but I can't help but imagine how different it would be if the US and EU/Britain (as leads) would have strongly denounced their approach. I suspect in a decade from now the West will be lamenting how Hong Kong was the right opportunity to stifle China's ambition.

[i] [https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/territorial- disputes](https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/territorial-disputes)

<comment><USER3> > I can't help but imagine how different it would be if the US and EU/Britain > (as leads) would have strongly denounced their approach.

What? What could the US have done beyond what we did other than all out war? The US response to this was very harsh.

We undid 50 years of diplomacy with China, and have started building a sortof SEA equivalent to NATO.

Chinese/American relations have probably never been as unfriendly as they are right now, and Hong Kong is a major part of that. Seriously I don't know what the next step would be that wasn't a de facto, weapons-hot war.

<comment><USER4> I think the dissonance over the US not doing enough is that if the US pulled these moves a decade or two ago, China would have blinked. China not blinking doesn't mean the US isn't doing enough. It means we're living in a world where China doesn't blink anymore. America's absolute influence might still be the same, but its relative influence has fallen.

<comment><USER5> Right or wrong, I suggest you and others go back to interviews of Kissinger about why he pushed to open the world to China the way the US did. It was essentially do it on our terms now or theirs for ever after. Not that it was right, but it is informative.

<comment><USER6> Couldn't find it can you share a link ?

<comment><USER5> Personally I watched an old episode of "Firing Line" on amazon prime with him and Ariana Huffington on it. Ariana was arguing against trade with China.

Edit-might be this one: [https://youtu.be/U4bBftiRo2Q](https://youtu.be/U4bBftiRo2Q)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The rest of the world needs to wake up and realize that China is not messing around. There will be a long list of Hong Kong's if we continue to look the other way to authoritarian regimes.

<comment><USER8> In the last decade : \- Russia annexed Crimea; \- Turkey took control of most of the Syrian land across its borders; \- Israel continuously colonised bits of Palestinian land; \- China is now taking political control of Hong Kong; \- UAE forces tool over the Socotra Islands;

The West's reactions so far have been ranging from ineffectual economic sanctions to completely ignoring it. I would expect similar "annexations" by nationalist/totalitarian states to continue in the future.

<comment><USER4> Because none of those annexations haven't affected "core" territories of the west or their "core" population. The west definitely did not ignore 9/11.

Some people are more "western" than others. More specifically, the ones that can vote to mobilize the "western" military. Spill their blood and get demolished. Spill the blood of their worshipers and suddenly their own blood is too valuable to waste.

<comment><USER9> 9/11 was an used as an excuse for pre-planned actions again unrelated entities. The US made huge efforts to _avoid_ responding to the actual attackers for almost a decade.

Iraq was not a threat to the "core".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been boycotting Chinese goods whenever possible (it helps that I don't really buy electronics) because of Hong Kong. I regret not having started back when our professor urged us to do so roughly a decade ago. One time, we had officials from Chinese universities visit ours and he made sure to have big "free Tibet" patches on his jacket and backpack while always hanging around said officials. He was quite the character.

<comment><USER11> Free Tibet to go back to feudalism? You do know that Tibet and Taiwan wasn't any better for the poorer part of the people. Hong Kong is one of the most expensive places to live. The protesters are part of the privileged and are just fighting to keep them. Didn't hear them complaining back then in the asian banking crisis when China bailed them out with the money from exploited chinese workers.

<comment><USER12> > Didn't hear them complaining back then in the asian banking crisis when > China bailed them out with the money from exploited chinese workers

China "bailing out" Hong Kong is a common myth popularized by the CCP [0].

China refused to interfere with Hong Kong during the 1998 financial crisis, according to former Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa [1].

The Monetary Authority head did not acknowledge any help from China back then [2].

[0] [https://medium.com/@lineposthk/%E5%AF%92%E6%9F%8F-%E4%B8%AD%...](https://medium.com/@lineposthk/%E5%AF%92%E6%9F%8F-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E6%9B%BE%E5%8B%95%E7%94%A8%E5%A4%96%E5%8C%AF%E5%84%B2%E5%82%99%E6%95%91%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF-4fb1723292cd) (in Chinese)

[1] [https://www.scmp.com/news/hong- kong/politics/article/2101761...](https://www.scmp.com/news/hong- kong/politics/article/2101761/beijing-refused-step-during-1998-hong-kong- financial-crisis)

[2] [https://hk.finance.yahoo.com/news/%E4%BB%BB%E5%BF%97%E5%89%9...](https://hk.finance.yahoo.com/news/%E4%BB%BB%E5%BF%97%E5%89%9B-98-%E5%B9%B4%E6%BC%94%E8%AA%AA-%E6%B2%92%E8%AA%AA%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E6%95%91%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF-081319406.html) (in Chinese)

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the sources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I suspect we will see China attempt to invade Taiwan sooner rather than later now.

In particular I've suspected for awhile that China desperately wants to "own" Taiwan Semiconductor ($TSM) since they've been trying to build up their own domestic chip business for awhile and $TSM is the gold standard in chip manufacturing.

<comment><USER4> Any invasion of Taiwan will just leave TSMC a smoking husk, either from PLA jets or from self-destruct switches. Invading won't help in terms of owning TSMC's facilities and technology.

<comment><USER13> huh? by invade i mean they want to own Taiwan, not destroy it.

<comment><USER14> How do you expect an invasion to happen without a lot of destruction? Maybe you should read this: [https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a- war-wi...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-with- china/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> From a simpletons perspective, I don't understand why we get to have a say of how a country reclaims its former territory. Especially from Westerners(not even land connected) who have no claim whatsoever. Why do we have a negative outlook on our former empires colonizing the world while at the same time doing everything possible to retain profits/power from these bad things we shouldn't be doing? Very hypocritical to simpletons. Someone is shutting off our outpost, ofcourse we won't let it go without kicking and screaming to get everyones attention to what?

<comment><USER16> The universal declaration of human rights declares the right to self determination. I don't think it's hypocritical for the United States to preach principles of human rights.

<comment><USER17> The right of self determination is only theoretical because in law it's always overridden by the right of territorial integrity.

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

But just imagine how crazy it would be if every place could declare itself independent. Would states count? What about cities?

<comment><USER18> Why would it be crazy? Local autonomy is a very important concept. That's why many regions want more of it. (Eg. Catalonia in Spain, Scotland in the UK, and HK in China.)

There's also the tradition of cities being "free" as in they were not feudal land.

Of course self-determination doesn't mean complete total independence. Sometimes cities/regions/states lack the ability to control their currency supply (see the problem with in the Eurozone due to the differing interests of Germany and Greece), but inclusive institutions should maximize the ability of the member to work within the institutional framework to have its problem addressed. And that's why democracy is such an institution, and in theory other institutions built on democracy have this ability too. Of course it needs many things for it to work well. (For example empathy of the other members.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Greg Egan wrote a novel called Quarantine (which I liked quite a bit) that introduced New Hong Kong, a mega city built in Australia ahead of the British return of Hong Kong.

<comment><USER20> Was the city called Sydney?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Does anyone here have an informed opinion on what will happen to Taiwan?

<comment><USER22> Did an MBA in Hong Kong, just finished earlier this year. A lot of my classmates are mainland Chinese. Bunch of them would regularly talk with each other and say that military action was the only way to resolve the situation, China needs to send its military to Taiwan and overrun the Taiwanese defenses quickly. Baffles my mind that they're so ready to default to war.

Some other mainland Chinese people are more nuanced in their thoughts. I have no idea about population percentages for opinions. But this a world-class top 20 MBA school, and had one undergraduate student die while protesting (fell off a building). Bunch of these classmates are educated with masters degrees from American universities. If they default to war, I'm a bit concerned, I'd expect them to see more nuance in the world. For them, it's not really war of course, as Taiwan was always theirs in the first place in their eyes. Any foreign interference in the matter is a slap in the face of Chinese sovereignty, was the same for Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is a difficult situation because the entire world agrees that Hong Kong belongs to China. Taiwan is difficult in that most of the world has agreed that Taiwan belongs to China, that is the crux of the One China policy that China forces all countries to agree to if they want to have diplomatic and trade relations with China. If you break with the One China policy, you break diplomatic and trade relations with China. Don't see most countries willing to take that step. Big game of chicken.

For what it's worth, the Chinese government's official stance is that military action is a last resort option only if diplomatic negotiations fail.

<comment><USER23> Taiwan is in 'China' in the same way as both North Korea and South Korea are in Korea.

The difference is that the People's Republic of China (what 'China' usually refers to) has decided that the Republic of China has ceased to exist in 1949 (Taiwan is the last remaining territory controlled by the Republic of China) and that they are strong enough to largely 'enforce' this policy on the world stage.

So, of course for Chinese this is a domestic issue.

The West cares because the PRC is an adversary and Taiwan has a strategic location on maritime routes to East Asia.

<comment><USER22> Yes, but my point is that most of the world, including the US, has agreed to acknowledge the One China policy as correct in order to access China on a diplomatic and trade basis. Hence why it's not so easy to resolve.

<comment><USER23> The PRC controls 99% of China (that's about the ratio between the PRC and Taiwan). There was not really a choice there.

As a European I don't really see what there is to resolve. I can just hope that things stay peaceful.

<comment><USER9> The desired resolution is that China becomes a free country.

When the Nazis occupied France, the world didn't say "oh that's an internal German domestic issue"

<comment><USER22> The difference being that the world never agreed to the idea that France was a part of Germany. The world has for the most part agreed that Taiwan is a part of China. It is what it is. Whatever people's personal feelings might be, that is what most of the world has agreed to at an international diplomatic level. Only insignificant countries like Paraguay have decided to consider Taiwan an independent nation state.

<comment><USER23> Taiwan is factually an independent state and in practice recognised as such by everyone, including the PRC. "Nation state" has a different meaning and that's not really the case for Taiwan.

There's a lot of propaganda like for HK, which is popular with the Western public who is naive and not well informed (as all public)

<comment><USER22> We can go back and forth about this, but political feelings aside, although Taiwan acts like an independent state and has its own government, no important independent state treats it like an independent state, including the US. Donald Trump is the first president in four decades to even send a cabinet- level official to Taiwan when Alex Azar went to visit last month. It is what it is. Whether you like it or not, no important country has official diplomatic relations with Taiwan because they've all agreed to the One China policy. It is partially because of this One China policy that Taiwan's economy has deteriorated so much, they are not on equal footing with other countries in being able to develop trade agreements with other nations. China has them boxed in.

<comment><USER24> > no important independent state treats it like an independent state,

Yes and no. Few countries officially treat Taiwan as an independent state but most country unofficially treat it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> [https://archive.is/Rsirg](https://archive.is/Rsirg)

</comment><comment><USER26> I wonder how long before services like Facebook is banned in HK under the new Security law. One interesting thing to see is whether Facebook would comply with censorship requests to appease the PRC. If not, could this be the single largest decline in users for Facebook?

</comment><comment><USER27> Truly sad. When HK was handed back to China in 1999, did we know this is inevitable?

<comment><USER28> Considering China's relationship with Taiwan, I would say yes, we absolutely knew that China would not allow a Chinese territory to be outside of thr CCP's control indefinitely. If anything, I am surprised it took them this long to decide the rest of the world would simply watch and do nothing of importance about it.

<comment><USER29> It's not about geopolitics, it's about economics.

China has been extremely pragmatic and results-oriented. When Hong Kong was the most economically successful part of China, they were happy to leave it be and learn some lessons from it. Now the rest of China has largely caught up and it's time for them to make HK more like Shenzhen, rather than the other way around.

<comment><USER30> Giving that Shanghai stock market trades more than HK, that argument doesn't hold up. China didn't need HK. They did not want a western-aligned population of 7M people within 40km of its borders and instead decided to deal with them with a heavy hand.

I think China played their hand too soon and the west is waking up to it.

<comment><USER29> "Shanghai stock market trades more than HK" is a strange rebuttal to my argument. You presumably mean that's true now, rather than 20 years ago when China decided to go with "one country, two systems" \- which is exactly my argument, that Hong Kong is no longer the needed as a moneymaker. Either way, overall stock exchange volume is not a very standard measure of economic activity - at the very least you'd want to weight it per capita.

Of course China is motivated to have Hong Kong aligned with it rather than flirting with the West. Whether the West is "waking up to it" is not so clear to me. The HK riots were a big deal in the Western media for a while but now we've moved on.

<comment><USER31> A lot of mainlanders still prefer to trade on the HK market because the inside trader rules are much more strict and actually enforced (for now?). If you trade on the Shanghai stock market, you need to learn how to follow in the wakes of whales, it isn't for the feint of heart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think we all agree that none of us would want to live under CCP.

So the real question is what or who is going to stop them from expanding? Asians have a higher IQ, they have the human numbers and natural resources.

The only thing I can imagine stopping them is that they will be composed of too many regions that want to split. But as long as they can maintain a strong grip, I don't think anything can split off.

There is no world power that can or wants to face them head on, and it will only get worse when they grow bigger (which they will).

Maybe I'm pessimistic, or maybe just realistic?

</comment><comment><USER33> I was taught to prepare for globalization in most of my business classes in college. The world was now flat so you must prepare. We must be willing to compete and allow free trade as the internet (specifically the www) has opened the entire world up.

But what's really happened is that the internet has given new powers to governments to regulate and control the people. While I would love to talk about how big and bad the CCP is (they are both of those adjectives and many more) I would be in remiss if I didn't look at my own country (US) and see that we have been guilty of creating false narratives on free trade.

It's sad to me that we lack Political leadership in our country. That's one thing that China does not lack. Both governments are propagated by lies. But the difference is that the Chinese people have suffered greatly and now (on average) are suffering less. So they may be willing (as a whole) to turn a blind eye to situations like HK and what's happening to the Uighur people.

<comment><USER34> > what's happening to the Uighur people.

Let's call it what it is; genocide [1].

[1] - [https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/chinas-forced- steri...](https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/chinas-forced- sterilization-uighur-women-cultural-genocide)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The problem for Xi with respect HK and Taiwan is that plenty of mainland tourists will visit and learn from the locals how much they prefer democracy. These values will then seep back into the mainland and the CCP wants to maintain the fiction that democracy doesn't work for Chinese culture. Letting HK continue on for 30 more years might become uncontrable in China.

<comment><USER36> Doubtful. Most Chinese students who studied abroad only end up more nationalistic. [https://supchina.com/2018/01/18/caught-in-a-crossfire- chines...](https://supchina.com/2018/01/18/caught-in-a-crossfire-chinese- students-abroad-and-the-battle-for-their-hearts/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> What would be wrong with One Country, One System?

</comment><comment><USER38> This "way of life" was unsustainable anyway, because of the property prices and the de facto feudal system with the tycoons on top. You can rage at the red flag all you want, but ideology has nothing to do with it. HK life was almost unbearable before all this.

<comment><USER9> Is China any more sustainable?

<comment><USER38> Yes, because e.g. it invests in infrastructure on an unprecedented scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> "Way of life"? Way to trivialize their loss of freedom and autonomy and _habeas corpus_.

<comment><USER40> Have no idea why you think the phrase "way of life" trivializes their losses. If anything I feel it emphasizes how these losses are not just some abstract concept but will concretely affect the everyday lives of Hong Kong's citizens.

<comment><USER39> Oppression is just as much a "way of life" as autonomy. Calling it that makes them of equal value as ways to live.

<comment><USER41> Why are you being pedantic? What's your end goal here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> The circumstances of Britain's original forced takeover and colonization of Hong Kong in the Opium Wars are the greater evil to me. Righting that wrong after so long was always going to be painful.

By analogy: a violent drug-dealer shoots you, robs you, and then kidnaps your child at gunpoint. Years later, you manage to have the child returned, but in the interim they have been taught by their captor to hate you and resist rejoining their family. What do you do?

<comment><USER43> The people of Hong Kong aren't to blame for the original injustice, so why are they the ones being victimised?

<comment><USER4> That's true, the people of HK were raised to believe in British values on conquered land then abandoned there when Britain couldn't hold it any longer. Britain should have repatriated them all instead of putting them through this mess. Even POWs are treated better than their home country denying any involvement or responsibility when their overseas outpost gets captured.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I don't know about you, but I see echoes of the US view in Vietnam that we were saving the country from some unspeakable evil that was expanding dangerously year by year. When we were 8000 miles away, looking at things just as symbols and not knowing whether that meant good or bad for the people actually living it day to day.

That got us into some trouble, I seem to recall.

Is this not similar? I worry this has a certain path written on it, with our good intentions paving the way.

<comment><USER20> I mean have you been to Hong Kong? Have you ever spoken to people there about how they feel about mainland China? I heard a lot of not good things from the people I spoke with there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Isn't that an uber-wealthy city with the biggest concentration of billionaires? With so much wealth you 'd think they 'd have a say on what china wants to do with them. But maybe they just go along?

<comment><USER46> > Isn't that an uber-wealthy city with the biggest concentration of > billionaires? With so much wealth you 'd think they 'd have a say on what > china wants to do with them. But maybe they just go along?

Why would the CCP defer to the wealthy when they already have far more power than they do?

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Love how when the same restrictions are imposed in the USA, everyone starts talking about "doing the right thing"

<comment><USER43> Not everyone on HN is from the US, so I don't see how your point is relevant.

<comment><USER48> As a counterpoint, I have never been made to realize the US origin of HN as in recent times. The "hacker" in the name is gradually being swallowed by the "news"-mainly US</comment></comment></comment>


Erik Meijer and Gilad Bracha: Dart, Monads, Continuations, and More (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Erik-Meijer-and-Gilad-Bracha-Dart-Monads-Continuations-and-More <comment><AUTHOR> My favorite quote (around 48 minutes):

"A big thing in the functional programming language community is 'we have mathematical like notation.' This is one of the worst ideas ever. Mathematical notation doesn't scale."</comment>


Ask HN: How do you keep track of new libraries/projects - <AUTHOR>

I've been developing with Ruby for several years, and sometimes I fall in the trap of thinking that I know what the right tool for the job is, especially when we're talking about plugins and libraries. Yet everyday I stumble across new libraries that are better and are already followed by hundreds of persons that I didn't ever hear about.
Now I'm wondering how you hackers keep track of new libraries and projects. I'm particularly interested in Ruby and Rails projects but I think the discussion would benefit from a more general approach. Do you subscribe to some rss? Some aggregator like rubyflow.com? I'm curious to hear what you do. <comment><USER2> In general I look daily on sites like HN and bookmark everything that looks interesting.
 Then if I need some tool for something important, I always Google if there is something new in this area, just to make sure I don't miss it.
 When I was developing websites with RoR I was very active at the RoR mailing list(Ruby on Rails: Talk). Mostly helping out other people, but following lots of discussions and reading answers, when I found a question interesting, that I couldn't answer myself.
 So for example, when we got into serious trouble with full text search with Ferret, I knew already, that many others had changed to Sphinx and no problems with it. Took me one day to change the project and make the search work as expected.
 And of course on that mailing list you can ask others, very experienced RoR developers about specific tools they use for certain areas. But mostly somebody who wrote something new, announced this already there, mostly starting a discussion about pros and contras of his solution.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm a contributor to the Changelog: <http://thechangelog.com/>

We use a couple of different things to hear about new stuff, but it's largely just keeping our ears open and bookmarking things.</comment>


Snapchat usage triples among teens in the last year - <AUTHOR> http://survata.com/survey-dashboard/shared/5JM962YV

<comment><USER2> Only 300 teenage respondents? That's not enough to ensure such a conclusion, especially when considering percentages of the whole.

According to the raw data download, there are 365 data points, but 104 answered "I don't use any of these" which are stated to be excluded, so the actual amount of teenage respondents is 261?

<comment><USER3> You defininately need more than 300. Also you need to make sure you have people from different areas.

One school may be very facebook heavy while another may mainly use twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nevermind teens. I'm 42. I use it with my adult siblings, cousins and friends. It's a delightful way to stay in touch. Sometimes it's a picture of my breakfast, or the weather outside, or our pets, or whatever other amusing moment is going on in our day that we'd laugh about if we were together. The ephemeral nature of the pictures and the ability to scribble on them is just delightful fun.

<comment><USER5> This is exactly what makes Snapchat fun and addictive. It takes all the friction out of taking photos and boils it right down. With Instagram, you spend a lot of time taking the right photo, the right lighting, the right filter, the right caption, etc. All of this is gone with Snapchat, because you know it'll be gone. People are happy to share slightly embarrassing stuff, like a mouthful of burger or no makeup.

Selecting who receives is easier, too, because you can uncheck some people. Instagram doesn't have that option, I'd need to create a new list with Facebook, and group texting is a lot more work.

<comment><USER6> I agree with all your points re: taking the friction out of the equation. However, I think it's more to do with the fact that you share with individuals rather than to a feed that makes the difference. Not so much the fact that it will sort of vanish after it gets viewed (less so now that they can get replayed)

When you share to a feed you'e sending it out for everyone to see. You want to know that people saw it and with services like Instagram and Facebook this is done via commenting and Liking/Favoriting.

With Snapchat you fire and forget. No one needs to like the picture in order for you to feel any sort of satisfaction. The only indicator you get is that it was viewed at all - and with the sort of content that gets sent over Snapchat, that's really all the information you need anyways.

TL;DR: I think the "choose indiciduals to send to" model is more important than the "they get erased" aspect. Of course, the vanishing part of it is what got Snapchat to become popular in the first place so it would be wrong to say they would have seen the same amount of success without that feature. However, at this point, I don't think that is what makes users keep using the service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Of course it did.

What's more appealing, a socially acceptable method for your girlfriend to send nude photos of herself to your phone that are then removed (allegedly).

OR Facebook, which is just reaching popularity with your parents...

<comment><USER6> No need for "allegedly". It is now a feature that Snapchats can be replayed. Users are able to pick one Snap per day that they want to replay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> it has all the benefits of social media (instant, low-friction communication) and none of the privacy concerns of faceboob, g+, etc.

unless of course we discover one day that snapchat messages all live on in some secret db ...

<comment><USER9> Considering that all un-viewed Snapchat's have to be stored, there's no need for a secret db. I've heard a rumor that snaps are stored in memecache and they are running in to scaling pains with the amount of un-viewed pictures stored in memory.

<comment><USER10> I wonder if they drop unread pictures after a certain length of time? it would seem sensible and fit with the ephemeral nature of the mesdages

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm still not sure if there's a way to justify the lofty valuations for Snapchat that were discussed recently. Can anyone actually explain that well?

</comment><comment><USER12> A</comment>


Ask HN: How popular is TypeScript on the back-end? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> It maybe me but I have noticed lots of python ruby folks moving to typescript/node.js combo. Provides better performance and a very good gradual type system. Downside is that you have to do everything async

</comment><comment><USER3> I haven't written non-TypeScript JavaScript backends in years. I'd say it's pretty popular.</comment>


Arctic sea ice reaches second lowest minimum in satellite record - <AUTHOR> http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2019/09/arctic-sea-ice-reaches-second-lowest-minimum-in-satellite-record/ <comment><USER2> In a few words how can I convert a climate-change denier to a believer? and vice versa...

I just want see what the short, compelling arguments of either side are.

<comment><USER3> "What evidence would you need to see to be convinced that climate change is indeed happening and is a threat to humanity?"

<comment><USER4> "What proof do you have that humans are _causing_ the climate to change, a climate which has been changing ever since the formation of the Earth 4.5 billion years ago? And what proof do you have that homo sapiens - who have only been on this planet for roughly 200 thousand years, of which have only been embarking in Industry for around 200 of those - can have any effect whatsoever in somehow stopping the climate from changing? Lastly, what definitive proof is there that the trace gas CO2, comprising of 0.04% of the Earth's atmosphere - of which humans are respnsible for a mere 0.01% of that - is the primary temperature control knob of this planet?"

The CO2/CAGW/Climate Change alarmism Emperor has no clothes!

<comment><USER3> Wow. Just to be clear, I'm not putting the burden of proof on you. I accept that the burden is on the side arguing that anthropogenic climate change is real.

I'm simply asking you what standard of proof you would require. What _would_ convince you?

EDIT: for anyone else wondering about the "0.04%" factoid thrown out, this article is a pretty good explanation of how the greenhouse effect works and how a trace gas can have a noticeable affect on global temperature: [https://www.sciencealert.com/co2-is-only-a-tiny-part-of- our-...](https://www.sciencealert.com/co2-is-only-a-tiny-part-of-our- atmosphere-but-it-has-a-huge-influence-here-s-why)

<comment><USER4> Yes, let's hear the real story about CO2 shall we?

[https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/05/01/a-story-of- co2-data-m...](https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/05/01/a-story-of-co2-data- manipulation/)

<comment><USER3> Sigh...why is it so hard for you to answer this question?

In a world where you are _convinced by the evidence_ that anthropogenic climate change is real and poses a grave threat to humanity over the next century, what does that evidence look like?

I'm not _remotely_ qualified to read your long article and try and either debunk it or determine that yes, it does indeed have real scientific merit despite its disagreement with the overwhelming consensus by experts in the relevant fields. Nor do I particularly feel the need to. I lump anthropogenic climate change in with evolution: I don't have the expertise to evaluate the evidence myself but it seems like virtually everyone who does is on one side of the argument. That's good enough for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> What's even more worrying is that almost all "old" ice is gone. Extent only measures ocean area with at least 15% ice.

[https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4750](https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4750)

Scary times ahead!

</comment><comment><USER5> A platform for Earth defense from asteroids ranks higher on my list. You couldn't believe what that would do to the environment.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why was this flagged?

</comment><comment><USER7> Looks like there's little to nothing we can do to stop the effects of climate change these days. Might as well just give up and accept the inevitable, a lot less stressful that way.

<comment><USER8> As much as I want to disagree with you, I too have this bleak feeling of inevitable doom. As individuals there is nothing we can do, all the personal changes are dwarfed by the overwhelming magnitude of the problems ahead. In my younger years I would have thought that while the problems seem insurmountable, we as global society will find a solution. The older I get I am convinced that there is almost no political solution that won't be opposed by either big money or irrational nationalism blocking any kind of global solution.

 _sigh_

<comment><USER9> I would posit that at least _some_ of your feelings are due to the nature of information dissemination by today's highly connected, revenue-driven media. Saying everything is fine, or at least not terrible, has never brought as many eyeballs to a story as claiming the sky is falling.

Not saying the sky is or isn't falling, just that we have so much ready access to so many sources of information, each with a vested interest in getting you to come view their content - and what better way than highlighting the doom and gloom? - that there is the real situation of bad news overload. That, in turn, makes things seem worse than they are.

It's no wonder the suicide rates are increasing.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you send a self-driving car to pick up your kid? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious to know people's thoughts on this. Given a fully legal self-driving car, would you be comfortable sending it to drop off and pick up your kids from school/soccer practice/etc?<p>What security or safety features would you want to see on the car in order to feel okay with this? <comment><USER2> There would probably be different standards for cars that you own vs. the equivalent of a cab or an Uber/Lyft type deal. I'd think the main fear wouldn't be that the car itself was unsafe to travel in (if they reach the point of becoming mainstream transportation), but that a car under someone else's control could be used nefariously. So I'd guess you'd want a fairly robust tracking/accountability system.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> To me, picking up the kid is the tough part. How do you ensure that the kid finds and gets in the right car? That's a lot of burden to put on whatever adult is supervising the activity.

</comment><comment><USER3> I personally could not do it. Even the system is fully functional and error- free; it can still be hacked. Maybe someone would like to kidnap my child, hack the car and unlock the doors, or simply just make it go somewhere else.

I would sleep better if there is someone who I can count on with my child's safety.

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe not today but within a few years. Once they have demonstrably proven to be safer than humans I would do it.

<comment> ng-user This is the answer whether most choose to admit it or not.

Years ago folks would never consider the option of summoning a stranger (not a taxi, a stranger in their own vehicle) to come pick them up at their home and drop them off where they were going. However, today everyone living in any substantial metropolis does it in a heartbeat. Why? It's time-efficient, we've got well-established services that hold "some sort" of accountability and it's the most convenient option in most cities.

Today almost no one would be willing to say "Yeah I'll take a self-driving car to the airport" because the process has yet to be proven successful. After all, it's _only_ 2017... give it 10 years and we'll see what the majority are doing. It's about what people do not what they say they will do. Actions speak louder than words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I believe that if I had a self-driving car, the more likely scenario I would encounter is one where I'd have to send my kid to go pick up my self-driving car (and bring it back manually.)

Perhaps when the technology has really proven itself over millions and millions of trips, I'd consider your scenario.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would do it once other people have done it for years with no bad experiences. There's not a lot of safety features needed. School bus drivers tend to be poorly educated and a little creepy, but there has been no history of kidnapping a child.

</comment><comment><USER7> text your kid a code that the car can validate. for example a qr code or UUID and a camera attached to the car. also a camera to take a picture of your kid before and after he/she gets in the car.

</comment><comment><USER8> No, nor would I let my kids play, walk, or bike along roads where they are allowed.

What safety feature? A licensed, sober, employed school bus driver.</comment>


In California, giant Stratolaunch jet flies for first time - <AUTHOR> https://techxplore.com/news/2019-04-california-giant-stratolaunch-jet-flies.html <comment><USER3> There are several advantages for airplanes as first stages. Less air drag on the higher altitude and more efficient engines, as they are optimized for smaller external air pressure. The speed of aircraft adds to the speed of the rocket. Another plus is that with aircraft you don't need to build a launch pad, the rocket is just released in mid-air. Yet another benefit is that aircraft can fly to a more preferable point for the launch - for example, the point where it is convenient to drop the first stage of the rocket, or the point closer to the equator so the satellite won't need to spend as much fuel to change the orbital plane. The airplane first stage can potentially fly to very different launch point, in many different countries, which can make logistics simpler. Those advantages all add up economically.

<comment><USER4> I've a detailed comment that addresses several of the points you're making at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19660163](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19660163)

Is it true, strictly speaking, that you may use less propellant in the expendable stage due to air-drop? Sure. Although to be clear when talking about engine efficiency, it's really about being able to run a larger area ratio nozzle and getting a higher mission-averaged Isp. But ultimately when you consider all the "puts and takes" in launch system economics, those considerations are small potatoes (price out bulk LO2, and your choice of fuel). People (even university professors make this mistake) get so focused on minimizing propellant use that they fail to realize that complexity and dry weight are orders of magnitude more important.

The only serious advantages to air-launch are the logistical ones you noted. Also note that for U.S.-based systems, the idea that you will be able to fly down to equatorial latitudes requires you have the range to carry the laden launch system (and top-off to contend with LOX boil-off) pretty far. Strato certainly doesn't have these kinds of legs. Virgin will probably be able to get more out of their system, but it's not going to scale significantly higher.

<comment><USER5> I agree that for traditional launch systems it doesn't make that much sense -- particularly in light of the recent development of reusable (or at least, partially reusable) rockets.

That being said, I think the math changes somewhat for smaller launchers. The smaller the rocket, the worse the losses to the atmosphere get, and the more advantageous it is to escape atmospheric resistance in the soupy low atmosphere. So I think where air-launch systems could really shine, is by enabling low-cost launch of very small payloads.

I am, however, not entirely convinced that a sufficient market for those kinds of _dedicated_ launch services will emerge (as opposed to hitching a ride in spare fairing space of a separate launch). I could see this going either way; as much as I'd like to see easier space access for eg. university-funded nanosats, I'm not sure the timing will be right for something like Stratolaunch, because the new private aerospace (SpaceX, Blue Origin, etc) is focused so intensely on pushing down the cost of larger-scale rocketry, to a point where that same market would be better served by bulk launches using some kind of standardized dispenser.

<comment><USER4> > That being said, I think the math changes somewhat for smaller launchers.

Do you have any analysis you can point to to substantiate this? I suspect any such analysis is heavily predicated on assumptions, such as whether or not the small launcher is designed around existing engines/motors.

I don't think there is a compelling case to be made that operating an air- launch carrier aircraft in addition to the costs associated with the remaining rocket stages works out economically^.

Orbital was not able to get compelling economics out of Pegasus. To be fair, they were doubly-hamstrung by their use of a carrier aircraft airframe operated by vanishingly few (L-1011) as well as the Pegasus using expensive solid rocket motors (here's another non-intuitive reality of rockets - <USER2> motors are very expensive unless you buy in bulk).

^The most compelling test of economic viability of air-launch for small systems will come with Virgin Orbit/VOX space that is using a carrier aircraft airframe which is still in significant commercial use (quite a few 747 air freighters) as well as modern-yet-relatively low complexity LOX/RP liquid rocket propulsion. And if they want to say double their payload capability, they will not be able to do that with the 747. Maybe at the extremely low-end, GOLauncher will also be similar.

<comment><USER5> > Do you have any analysis you can point to to substantiate this?

Unfortunately I don't, no. I thought about running such an analysis as part of my grad studies (this was quite a while ago; I've switched careers since then) but I didn't get much farther than filling up a napkin before I decided I was already stretched too thin in my coursework.

Ultimately the premise is based on cubed-vs-squared relationships in rocketry (both in terms of aerodynamic forces and structural ones, though through a neat trick of math the _mass_ of your fuel tanks actually scales linearly with their volume [1]). Like most other things in engineering, there are also economies of scale at play (for example, avionics mass consumes a smaller mass fraction of larger rockets), but my hunch -- and this is, as you say, fairly unsubstantiated -- is that the aerodynamic effects alone are sufficient. Cubed-vs-squared in aerodynamics is really just incredibly punishing. At 35kft (Stratolaunch's altitude) it's not as good as at 100kft or so (like you might expect with a weather balloon), but it's still a pretty big difference [2] -- basically allowing you to halve the radius of your rocket compared to an equivalent aero loss at sea level.

To take this to a really absurd level, I can imagine a 100kg rocket -- large by amateur model rocket standards, but beyond tiny compared to consumer rocketry -- with sufficient mass ratio to make it to orbit in a vacuum, but I can't possibly imagine the same rocket making it from the earth's surface.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_vessel#Design](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_vessel#Design)

[2] [https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/standard-atmosphere- d_604...](https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/standard-atmosphere-d_604.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm puzzled by what added benefit being 10km up in the air and going at 300-400kmph gives over regular rocket launches since speed and altitude are a very small fraction of what's required to orbit.

The article says it will be less affected by weather windows but (1) would a normal LEO commercial launch be so highly time bound to find this of value? (2) if weather was bad for a rocket launch on surface, would you fly a heavily laden giant plane into it?

Leads me to wonder if the real customers of this is the military who do value very short turnaround launches.

<comment><USER7> Pegasus launches occur at closer to 900km/h.

It takes a Falcon 9 about a minute and roughly 150,000kg of propellant to get to 10km altitude, at which point it's going to be travelling closer to 1200km/h. If you can move that part of the mission to a carrier, you can substantially reduce the size and fuel capacity of the stage or maybe even entirely skip a staging operation (edit: not skip, carrier becomes first stage, thanks DenisM!).

Back to the Falcon 9 at mid-first stage, from 10km to stage separation you're running on motors that had to be built to operate at sea level. This means that they are 'underexpanded' for operating at 10km altitude and are therefore not as efficient as they could be. If you know your engines will always start off at 10km, you can build bigger expansion nozzles and improve the overall efficiency.

<comment><USER8> You're not skipping staging, your carrier is your (reuseable) first stage.

<comment><USER9> And, I presume, much much more efficient

<comment><USER10> Why is it much more efficient? Doesn't it still have to carry the same mass up to the same altitude and velocity?

<comment><USER11> If you accelerate your car 0-60MPH in 3 seconds vs. 30 seconds, which uses less energy?

<comment><USER12> Assuming you're talking about energy transferred through the drive wheels, I'd think the 3 second case would use less energy since less goes in to moving air.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Scott Manley walks through why this isn't helpful yet since they have nothing useful to launch in delightful detail (complete with Kerbal simulations): [https://youtu.be/yw84qJIGZeo](https://youtu.be/yw84qJIGZeo)

<comment><USER14> That's not a good summary. Yes, the plane is not very valuable in the short term (~4 years) because the only viable existing air-launched rocket is the pegasus, which is old and can be more cheaply launched on the smaller planes for which it was designed. But as Manley emphasizes, the whole stratolaunch plan is predicated on developing a new air-launched rocket, and we just don't know what the specs on that will be.

<comment><USER4> > the whole stratolaunch plan is predicated on developing a new air-launched > rocket, and we just don't know what the specs on that will be

Neither will Stratolaunch, any time soon:

[https://spacenews.com/stratolaunch-abandons-launch- vehicle-p...](https://spacenews.com/stratolaunch-abandons-launch-vehicle- program/)

<comment><USER15> Can confirm. The whole group working on that effort has been laid off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> How did they prevent the two fuselages from torquing the wing apart? Seems like keeping both "sub-planes" from ripping the middle wing apart would be challenging.

<comment><USER17> This was my first thought as well. But then I remembered that modern twin- engine commercial jets can fly with one engine down in an emergency. Not an aircraft engineer, but I suspect the structure is strong enough to handle normal torques during turning.

<comment><USER18> The complications with flying a twin engine during a single engine failure have more to do with flight characteristics than structural.

Ie, does the rudder have enough authority to stop a spin or does the engine provide enough thrust to maintain level flight.

<comment><USER16> The stratolaunch looks to have 2 rudders making things even more exciting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Isn't it amazing how you can tell a Burt Rutan design just by looking at it?

</comment><comment><USER20> This is such a cool concept, I really wish these guys would succeed. Though last time I heard they gave up developing their own rocket (as a second stage to space). Anyone who's in the loop, does Stratolaunch currently have any potential rockets lined up?

<comment><USER21> Article states that they're going to use Northrop Grumman's Pegasus XL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I know there's a lot of skepticism about whether the plane has any likely long-term use and whether it can be successful commercially at all. I find it spellbinding to watch it fly. I'm so glad Paul Allen funded its creation.

</comment><comment><USER23> I get the distinct impression Stratolaunch wasn't happy with the post-landing roll:

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZBj3FCdYS80](https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZBj3FCdYS80)

(At 3m20s.)

<comment><USER24> I think its just fighting a bit of crosswind.

<comment><USER23> The edit cut away immediately, to onlooker shots. It's an interesting flight phase, and pretty clearly one Stratolaunch did not care to feature.

Several other onlookers did catch the roll, and the aircraft slewed markedly, with several cameramen commenting on this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If they're launching Pegasus XLs I wonder if they're on Northup Grumman's future acquisitions radar.

Their competition, Virgin Orbit has it's own subsidiary Vox Space that makes the launch vehicle.

<comment><USER26> It looks like intended rocket has changed a few times:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratolaunch_Systems#Launch_ro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratolaunch_Systems#Launch_rocket)

But did eventually settle to the Pegasus XL: [https://spacenews.com/stratolaunch-abandons-launch- vehicle-p...](https://spacenews.com/stratolaunch-abandons-launch-vehicle- program/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is anyone looking at catapults yet? Seems that would be a great technology to pour billions into. Maybe that is why Musk is proposing Hyperloop? Get the engineering done for high speed trains, then scale it up. Way up.

The Startram project estimated $60 billion for a catapult that could launch people. [http://www.startram.com/](http://www.startram.com/)

<comment><USER8> How much acceleration can you endure? 3g is typical for a rocket launch, 9g is almost deadly. Accelerating to 6000mps at 3g will require 6000^2/(2 _3_ g) = 600 kilometers of track, and it will take 200 seconds. That's a huge track, which has to be exactly linear or the payload will destroy it.

Then there is also the fact that the payload will be exiting the catapult at the sea-level, thus facing the full atmosphere at 6000mps. Which is to say the payload will be instantly incinerated unless some kind of magic is invented akin to supercavitation. By contrast rockets do not even reach supersonic 300mps until 10k altitude, thus never encounter this sort of problem. Maybe you could build this 600km track thing in the Himalaya, but that much and that high in the mountains isn't going to be cheap.

You can tell I though a lot about the same thing that you did. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> As cool as it looks, this airplane seems promised to go the way of the Hercules H4: fly once then stay in a museum forever. This recent podcast from mainenginecutoff speaks about Stratolaunch [1]

[1] [https://mainenginecutoff.com/podcast/108](https://mainenginecutoff.com/podcast/108)

</comment><comment><USER29> I wonder why this type of specific purpose airplane needs human in the cockpit? Why can't it be remote controlled?

<comment><USER30> I suspect this huge, complex aircraft with it's very expensive, highly explosive cargo isn't as straight forward as flying a drone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm curious what the emergency landing options are for this thing. It looks like there would be limited places it could land with that wingspan and landing gear spread.

Edit: Curious, not critical. Maybe it can land in a lot of places, just reacting to the size.

<comment><USER31> Since its purpose is to launch rockets, I assume it lands where it takes off, and might never stray far away.

<comment><USER26> That's the sort of thing I'm interested in. Like, for example...how far away are you once you get this huge thing high enough to launch.

I'm not trying to criticize it, I'm just curious how dangerous a typical mission will be.

<comment><USER32> It doesn't have to fly in one direction, it can do s-turns while climbing, or circle.

I think clearly payload launch is the risky part. What are the kinds of launch failures? Rocket engine failure can be uncontained and spectacular.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hope they take inspiration from these folks and do a simultaneous takeoff with a smaller plane, in opposite directions:

[https://youtu.be/R5P70XtI4zQ?t=39](https://youtu.be/R5P70XtI4zQ?t=39)

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder how fast it would disintegrate in a case of asymmetric stabilizer runoff.

<comment> orbital-decay I guess this thing has a pretty sophisticated control system to keep it stable, similar to modern combat aircraft. I also wonder if they have any fuel dumping procedures for an aborted launch; landing with a non-empty launch vehicle still on board seems quite scary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I hope that center wrong is unbelievably strong to handle the tortional forces that two separate horizontal stabilizers on lengthy lever arms might exhibit in acute turbulence.

<comment><USER35> That flimsy tail design bothered me as well. Even if the center wing and wing roots are incredibly strong, there's little reason to place them under stresses that could be alleviated with a single-stabilizer tail design, as other commenters have pointed out. The fact that they did not do this suggests this aircraft is designed to launch millions in contributions into the designers' pockets, and not so much rockets into space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Does anyone have a cost comparison between different launch systems?

</comment><comment><USER37> Kind of a threadbare article. Not a word on why dual fuselages are desirable? Why it needs to have the world's longest wingspan? Like I'm supposed to just know all that from my aeronautics background? What if I flunked that course?

<comment><USER38> You need a large space open to attach the rocket to, and it has to be at the center of lift. You can't have one fuselage and put the rocket to the side, because then the balance would change drastically when you add the rocket, and you can't put the rocket under/in the fuselage because it's very large.

<comment><USER37> Thanks... it's the simple things!</comment></comment></comment>


Newly discovered Mac malware uses "fileless" technique to remain stealthy - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/12/north-koreas-lazarus-hackers-up-their-game-with-fileless-mac-malware/ <comment><USER2> Yet another virus for OSX that you have to manually download a DMG and install to be vulnerable to. Not to be obnoxious, but I'm still waiting for a Windows- style virus that can proliferate with no action on the user's behalf. That would be legitimate cause for concern.

<comment><USER3> Malware that can proliferate on Windows boxes without user action almost always requires some remote code execution vulnerability (or some security misconfiguration issue) to be exploited first. This is true for macOS as well. That cycle is usually:

Exploit vuln -> download malware payload -> execute malware

<comment><USER4> I think that was GP's point as well. That fully hands-free RCE process just doesn't seem to happen as often on OSX as on windows. Whether that's because of market share, software differences, or something else remains open for debate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Newly discovered Mac malware uses "fileless" technique to remain stealthy

...

> The malware isn't entirely fileless. The first stage poses as a > cryptocurrency app with the file name UnionCryptoTrader.dmg

Come on...

<comment><USER6> It's explained in the article and in more detail in the longer analysis it links

[https://objective-see.com/blog/blog_0x51.html](https://objective- see.com/blog/blog_0x51.html)

The 'fileless' part is about getting the executable payload that does the actual malwarin' into memory without touching the filesystem.

<comment><USER7> Except for the part about moving a launch script into /Library/LaunchDaemons to achieve persistence.

<comment><USER6> That's the scaffolding, basically. A launch script in itself is not malicious and the idea is this would be less noticeable to automated or manual scans.

<comment><USER8> >An executable file in itself is not malicious

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure who you're quoting but it's not me. Easiest way to get a more detailed explanation is to read the linked technical analysis. The idea is to obfuscate and make detection harder by not-placing the actual final payload on the filesystem. Staging more-malicious things through things that look less- malicious is pretty much what makes malware mal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> TLDR: this probably doesn't affect you if you're not on crypto exchanges.

Check if you're affected:

        ls /Library/LaunchDaemons/vip.unioncrypto.plist
        ls /Library/UnionCrypto/unioncryptoupdater

<comment><USER10> So, there are files?

<comment><USER9> Yeah it seems like there are. I guess to a layman user there don't appear to be, because they're in hidden directories?

But also how many layman users are going to crypto exchanges on a mac?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not exactly fileless. There's a persistent component that remains on-disk (disguised as a cryptocurrency app), and when the OS launches it after boot it contacts a server to download the malicious, in-memory payload.

</comment><comment><USER12> The curious thing here is I noticed this in my News app on my iPhone, I went to read more, but I had a message saying the story had been removed.

Yet here it is; still on Ars Technica.

Am I to infer that Apple censured this story in their News App?

Its not appearing as a story in the Ars Technica channel, even thought it was recently posted.

Does this then suggest that this is a hot issue for Apple?

<comment><USER13> Much more critical stories of Apple than this one have been published on the News app. It's 100% a bug. Can you imagine the PR disaster if it turned out Apple was actively censoring negative stories about itself?

<comment><USER12> A bug?

So how many stories don't get through. Is it that tricky to get a feed of stories and match them up with items appearing in the newsfeed?

If its not going through you go back and check to see where the story is lost. I've done this on websites I was supporting, finding that people copying and pasting from PDF seem to have picked up a number of unicode control characters that hadn't been rinsed out when stored in SQL, and caused the web API to splutter.

This was for item records clients were paying for so dropping records looks a bit naff.

Enough of me though, dare I say it News has just one job, to show news.</comment></comment></comment>


Copycattery (and why it won't serve you) - <AUTHOR> http://pjrvs.com/copycats/

<comment><AUTHOR> I welcome comments here or on twitter (@pjrvs), since I don't use comments on my own site.</comment>


Trip Hawkins on Apple and Steve Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.edge-online.com/features/trip-hawkins-apple-and-steve-jobs

<comment><AUTHOR> Trip Hawkins, the founder of Electronic Arts, worked at Apple long ago.

It's a fun interview with him - here's a choice quote about how Apple broke the rules in the early days:

Honestly, the first time [Apple] went to the CES show, we didn't have anything to show other than a really crippled little Asteroids-type game with the Star Wars name on it. It was hilarious because, in those days, people just rampantly trampled both copyright and trademark laws - and really, that was what we were doing to show off the machine. A guy from 20th Century Fox came up to me, gave me a business card, and said: "Yeah, you're going to have to stop doing that." [Laughs]</comment>


Teaching a Computer to Understand Japanese - <AUTHOR> http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2009/12/teaching-computer-to-understand.html

<comment><USER2> The Google NLP team congratulate themselves so hard for handling studied-to- death Japanese text processing problems like Shift-JIS vs Unicode, half-width vs. full width kana, word boundary detection, and multiple readings for kanji? I wonder if they're ever going to try working on the languages of Ethiopia/Eritrea and their _seventy_ different encodings for Ge'ez, crazy morphology, and almost complete lack of English bitexts ...

<http://www.punchdown.org/rvb/papers/EriPaper3C.html></comment>


Grimoire wiki – Grimoire: a book of magic spells and invocations - <AUTHOR> https://www.grimoire.org/ <comment><USER2> This is my site! thank you for posting it here :)</comment>


Shenzhen Documentary: From Copycat Manufacturing to "Silicon Valley of Hardware" - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/video/shenzhen-full-documentary <comment><AUTHOR> "Most people don't realize that, at least 26% of a technology from Silicon Valley actually come from Shenzhen." [0]

[0] 45:15</comment>


The biggest known RegEx? - <AUTHOR> http://www.ex-parrot.com/~pdw/Mail-RFC822-Address.html <comment><USER2> That is one nasty looking RegEx.

Email address verification has become a bit easier recently, thanks to unicode support (IDNA [1]) and new TLDs.

Basically, you need to accept:

 _almost-anything@almost-anything_

[1] [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3490](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3490)

<comment><USER3> +1</comment></comment>


Y Combinator and Paul Graham are bad for the world (Part 1) - <AUTHOR> https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/y-combinator-and-paul-graham-are-bad-for-the-world-part-1/ <comment><USER2> Fascinating read. Thank you for this. Reminds me of a piece Jamie Zawinski did a few years ago[0][1] regarding a similar issue relating to VC's and "your one and only youth." [2]

[0]: [https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nscpdorm.html](https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nscpdorm.html)

[1]: [https://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/11/watch-a-vc-use-my-name- to-s...](https://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/11/watch-a-vc-use-my-name-to-sell-a- con/)

[2]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q7FTjhvZ7Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q7FTjhvZ7Y)

<comment><USER2> (if anyone is interested, OPs post was flagged for a few hours then subsequently unflagged. take this as you will.)

<comment><USER3> The post was flagged by users and vouched for by other users. I think a moderator unkilled it at one point, but other than that no one here has touched it (or read it).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Regardless of whether this is right or wrong it's a good reminder that you should always apply critical thinking and skepticism to everything you read or hear, even if it's from people that you respect like Paul Graham. Everyone is human and our flaws are many.

</comment><comment><USER5> Upvoted for contrarianism. Lost a point for focusing on personalities though.

</comment><comment><USER6> My main thought as someone who was an early stage employee at some high tech startups in the Silicon Valley in the 1990's, is that to the extent there is some truth in the poster's "three class society" of investors, founders, and mere employee engineers and I think there is, this was often true in the 1990's and is nothing new invented by Y-Combinator or other newer firms.

Often in a successful startup (most failed) in the 1990's, the venture capitalists or other investors seemed to walk away with the lion's share of the money from the acquisition or IPO, the founders and perhaps a few other key insiders would make several millions, and the "run of the mill" engineers would get a few hundred thousand dollars if they actually lasted the four year vesting period of the stock options. Many seemed to leave or be pushed out before the four year vesting period.

I would draw a distinction between a typical successful startup that might be acquired or IPO for about one hundred million dollars and what today would be called a "unicorn," a rare super-successful startup that might sell for a billion or more. In a unicorn, some early stage "run of the mill" engineers or for that matter janitors can sometimes come away with millions, set for life, but this is not typical of successful startups then or now.

</comment><comment><USER7> The way I see it is that YCombinator provides a service: Advice and access to relatively small amounts of money. It is taking a cut too. This service is in competition with other ways of doing things. And at the moment it is successful so people opting and paying at times dearly for it still go for it again and again.

It is easy to criticizes a solution and blame the solution for the forces that shaped it. In the past where there was no YC if and only if you got funding maybe you ended up with a larger cut. Maybe, maybe not. Often professional third party capital came later. Also there were less standard processes and a more asymmetric information so probably the outliers were larger. There is a surviver bias when looking back.

YC deals in part with other peoples money (OPM) and that in general lead to attracting players strongly financially motivated with less technical skills and putting them at the top. Building a technical business from scratch requires technical investment on the ground level and leaves more equity for the technical guys.

So why has the route to get early funding through YC become so popular? I believe a factor is the general problem in the society of capital formation in the middle income layer of the society. In the past students left the university without debt - today they and their parents often are under water. Getting access to the initial capital has become harder and access to financing through third parties thus more important.

It will be interesting what Kickstarter does to the YC business. I guess YC has to compete more strongly on the services side.</comment>


The shared evolution of the Tasmanian tiger and the wolf - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-09-evolution-tasmanian-tiger-wolf.html <comment><USER2> _So-called 'junk DNA' may actually be the primary driver of diversity in animals and could be the key to understanding convergent evolution_

This deserves a comment I don't feel capable of writing right now.

Anyone want to try responding to that?

<comment><USER3> Junk DNA do not encode information (that we know of as of now) but seem to have the role that pragmas/annotations/compiler directives have in code.

Edit: for clarity

Or maybe I am thinking of epigenetics...

<comment><USER4> My understanding is: Initially it got it's name ("junk DNA") because it is not encoding proteins. But in the mean time we have long found out that it is nonetheless encoding vital information, like transcription factors, promotors, etc.! Hence, it's usually called non coding DNA now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A little morbid - but if you are in the area (central London) I suggest a visit to the Grant Museum: [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/grant-museum- zoology](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/grant-museum-zoology)

They have a pickled Tasmanian tiger there, plus a complete skeleton. I've always been very interested in these creatures and this, sadly, is as close as you can get to one now.

It is a tiny museum, but well worth a visit - and if you ask nicely there are quite a few things that they will get out the cases for you to inspect. Be sure to chat to the team there, they have some amazing knowledge on the items.</comment>