Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border with Hong Kong - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/AlexandreKrausz/status/1160947525442056193 <comment><USER2> This is really bad and definitely triggers memorys of the Tiananmen massacre. I'm very interested how the rest of the world is going to react to these developments considering the position of China only got stronger since the Tinanmen situation. I recognized that the reaction of e.g. Germany was considerably weaker to the HK protests than e.g. the Arab Spring protests, but I guess we just have to wait and see.

Edit: Grammar

<comment><USER3> I honestly don't think that China will do anything like that again. Because of how their economy is so intertwined with the rest of the world, they can't afford another brutal crackdown.

I am sure they will go in, but I'm also sure they have more sophisticated crowd control methods available to them.

<comment><USER4> Remember Prince Bonesaw? Saudi Arabia is a laughingstock of a country that can't do anything for itself, and yet we didn't do anything about them murdering a reporter with a green card.

<comment><USER5> Nations that are free today will not be free tomorrow. People today have been too afraid to stand up to dictators, and dictators are encroaching everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As incomes rise in China people will demand other things from the government than food, shelter and a comfortable middle class life. Hong Kong was ahead of the rest of China since they have been living pretty liberal under UK rule and were more prosperous. Whatever they do in Hong Kong now will not stop from things happening all over China at a given point.

<comment><USER7> This was the theory during the Clinton administration and, to be blunt, that theory has been wrong.

The Chinese people do not see risking growth disruption as worth what the west considers freedom. The west has fundamentally failed to make that case to them and even now western democracy is on the decline.

Please, please do not take a free China for granted. Do not think that change — that democracy and freedom — is inevitable. It's not.

<comment><USER8> Thing is that China is nearing point where it has to let creative destruction happen to grow more and it is very hard to achieve under current model.

<comment><USER9> Citation please

<comment><USER8> [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/friedman-w...](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/friedman- why-nations-fail.html) and particulary last chapter of Why Nations Fail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sigh. Hopefully we won't get a repeat of the Tiananmen square massacre. I've not seen any nations speak out about the HK protests. Unlike, say, when many expressed support for the Arab Spring.

<comment><USER11> How much money did private enterprise make from the Arab Spring? Hundred billion or so?

To pretend like it was a moral issue is insane. Most people don't care in the slightest in democratic countries. Virtually every country involved in sending troops couldn't point to it on a map nor talk about the region with any sort of knowledge. We walked in and replaced Hussein with ISIS. It will go down as 21st century Vietnam.

China has nukes. Absolutely nothing will happen regardless, just like 30 years ago. Perhaps some more outrage on twitter I guess?

<comment><USER12> > China has nukes. Absolutely nothing will happen

China has shown (again) in their treatment of Hong Kong that they don't care about past agreements. The least that anyone can do, even in the presence of nukes, is to get their business out of China, and that is already happening to some degree. And of course be welcoming to people who choose to emigrate from Hong Kong.

<comment><USER13> China was always going to annex Hong Kong eventually, this is something almost everyone with any interest in this particular situation has known for many years.

Spinning that particular situation in a reason to boycott a country (and replace it with what? India isn't exactly a paragon of virtue and neither is the US, and let us never speak of the stain that is Russia) is a strange mental place to go to.

<comment><USER14> > China was always going to annex Hong Kong eventually,

You cannot annex your own territory.

<comment><USER14> HN turned into a website where quoting facts of Wikipedia gets you downvotes. I would have never thought that this site will reach this low.

<comment><USER15> My guess is that you are quoting it and arguing that statement out of context. And within that context, what you wrote, even though it is a fact in its own right, is wrong according to the original post.

And your post are still visible. Which suggest it is only a minor downvote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I might be misinformed but it looks to me like a lot of protests in Hong Kong are state orchestrated.

The escalation in protests seemed very sharp. The ransacking of parliament appeared to have been allowed. There was no police presence at all. Almost as if they were being purposefully held back.

I might just have my tin foil hat on. I wouldn't be surprised though if Chinese groups have escalated mostly peaceful protests while police have been held back to create a situation which requires full Chinese state involvement.

<comment><USER17> From what I've read (which obviously is removed from the "ground" and has bias) China has inserted agent provocateurs, but haven't coöpted the movement to that degree. It appears to be mostly grass roots though some of the lighter moderates evaporating leaving the moderates and hard core protesters to fight on which results in heavier tactics.

<comment><USER13> Assuming that a powerful nation has not deeply owned every large-scale protest is in my experience extremely naive. Either the protest has no teeth or it's penetrated all the way to the top with either government agents or extensive surveillance. This means that action outside of what the government feels like dealing with means arrests (no matter how temporary) and that any action that is taken means that the government does not care or will use it with an ulterior agenda.

It sort of bothers me how conspiracy theorist this sounds, but I know for a fact that this is the case.

<comment><USER18> If you really know this for a fact, you should contact [https://www.nytimes.com/tips](https://www.nytimes.com/tips)

But I'm guessing by 'fact' you mean 'I'm very convinced of my own opinions'.

<comment><USER13> I don't live in the United States, I do know it for a fact and I will not sabotage my own life or those of the people I care about just because you would love to read some drama in the papers. The net result of that would be that in a month or two nobody would remember it, and lives would still be ruined.

It is almost mystifyingly selfish of you to ask this of me, especially when you souse it with your fairly hostile closing remark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "HKU poll: Only 3.1% of young Hongkongers identify as Chinese, marking 20 year low"

[https://www.hongkongfp.com/2017/06/21/hku-poll-3-1-young- hon...](https://www.hongkongfp.com/2017/06/21/hku-poll-3-1-young-hongkongers- identify-chinese-marking-20-year-low/)

Nationalism will not be tolerated.

</comment><comment><USER20> Oh man they absolutely cannot come into Hong Kong, it would be a totally stupid move. Honestly in the grand scheme of things they can afford for Hong Kong to just descend into chaos and completely collapse economically or whatever. The minute they send troops over the whole picture changes and everyone loses

<comment><USER21> > _they absolutely cannot come into Hong Kong, it would be a totally stupid > move_

Strategically, for China? Yes. Politically, for Xi? Maybe not. Remember that Xi is a dictator. Moves that boost him in the short term at China's long-term expense are on the board.

<comment><USER22> Xi is very much a dictator, but he also needs money to maintain his dictatorship. HK for all its faults and bads is still quite important to the Chinese economy.

That's why we haven't become Xinjiang, IMO.

<comment><USER20> I think hks importance is extremely arguable. Hks gdp is barely 3 percent of china's with a stalling growth rate. I've worked in both Shanghai and Hong Kong and I can say a lot of the large cities are much much nicer in China now. You also have a lot things like hackathons and events where you see lots of young creative people who really want to make things. In Hong Kong the culture is more towards looking good in a suit and networking, a side effect of the dominance of financial industry.

Personally I think that ship has long sailed and it's not particularly anyone's fault.

<comment><USER23> Let's face it. Hong Kong is effectively a backdoor. It's a great place for almost anyone rich enough to do money laundering like stuff. For example, when mainland tightened its currency exchange control, people still transfer money via HK in someway. It's sometimes disgusting

<comment><USER20> Yes I agree. That's partly why for me, despite living in Hong Kong and having worked in finance I don't really mind if some of these people get washed out in the process.

<comment><USER24> That's a horrible metaphor...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> chroem- We should have applied the same policy of containment to China, that was used against the Soviet Union. But instead we let our greed get in the way, and now we've created an (arguably) evil superpower.

<comment><USER25> How's Russia working out for us and for the Russian people these days? Or Belarus, or Poland?

<comment><USER26> It's working out fine for 'us,' mostly. Putin has exhausted his only card though, the energy card, which was used to give Russia's economy a jump; now there's no follow-up maneuver. The Russian people have of course started to take notice of that fact. Russia is an increasingly inconsequential regional power, with a relatively weak and small economy (now smaller than Canada; about to be smaller than Australia). Generally they pose zero threat to the US and Western Europe in their present form; at least so long as NATO remains intact. Their military is weak and broken, they can't afford to maintain it properly - much less upgrade it - so they've shifted to magic scary super weapon propaganda and PR desperation.

It's Belarus and Ukraine primarily at issue, not Poland.

Poland is doing great overall, they've almost entirely left Russia's orbit in terms of overt influence. Their economic output per capita is beginning to embarrass Russia, it's now 50% higher than Russia's figure (that gap will increase). Poland is starting to push into the upper tier of the middle income nations, with a real shot at leaving that group and moving into the upper economic tier in the next two decades, along with the Baltic states.

Russia can't do much to countries like Poland, the Baltics or eg Romania. They know that of course. They can and will persistently, aggressively mess with Belarus (forced union) and Ukraine (constantly seek to destabilize & split it) however. In Russia's ideal world, they keep those two nations impoverished beneath Russia's economic level, so that Russia can perpetually lord over them; then given enough time figure out a way to de facto annex all or a lot of their territory. The people running Russia - including Putin - believe that is all really Russian territory.

<comment><USER27> Poland's economy is highly subsidized by the German, French and Italian taxpayers, the only significant payers to the EU budget.

<comment><USER28> The countries you mentioned contribute to the EU budget, not Poland's economy.

<comment><USER29> Isn't that a matter of semantics.. if a Polish highway being built has a sign next to it that says it is 20% sponsored by the EU, doesn't that mean 1 out of every 5 Zloty the roadbuilder is earning comes from the EU?

<comment><USER30> And Alabama is heavily subsidized by New York City. So what?

<comment><USER31> Well, Poland and Alabama both have Putin's malicious attention when it comes to political interference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> When this guy says "military", we need some specificity. Is this the People's Liberation Army, or the People's Armed Police? They may look the same on the surface but they are very very different organizations with different uses and implications. Stuff I've already read suggests the PAP is in Shenzhen on standby, not the PLA.

[http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy- defence/article/212...](http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy- defence/article/2125880/china-brings-peoples-armed-police-under-control-top)

[https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-12/global-times- shows...](https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-12/global-times-shows- dramatic-video-chinese-army-preparing-hong-kong-invasion)

</comment><comment><USER33> Agitators will be sent in to commit acts that justify a military takeover. It's a familiar plot.

</comment><comment><USER34> West wasn't ready to die for Danzig in 1939 and isn't ready to die for Hong- Kong in 2019.

The result could be similar.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Die_for_Danzig%3F](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Die_for_Danzig%3F)

<comment><USER14> This is a bit far fetched. Hongkong is part of China, it has been part of it for a long time. UK rule was a blip in that and it was a 99 years lease anyways.

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

<comment><USER34> Still it makes me a little angry, we have 8 milion nice, young pro-democratic protesters in Hong-Kong facing communist tanks and we aren't even going to drop a single rocket on Beijing?

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

<comment><USER35> The constitution of Hong Kong known as the "basic law" allows for Beijing's military action. Corresponding mainland Chinese law allows for military action in Hong Kong when things seem unmanageable for the city's government. Defacing state property and paralyzing the airport seem to be Exhibit A and B?

There isn't any framework where this would be seen as illegal or illegitimate.

Even under a foreign power's "national security interests", Hong Kong is pretty much an administrative convenience to asian markets than an outlier, as China knows how to run markets these days and has little qualms about capitalist functions, so it is very unlikely that major market disruptions would happen from even the most extreme scenarios imagined here. As such "rockets on Beijing" let alone any foreign diplomatic recognition of these internal issues would be very counterproductive.

In this case for whats productive, use this analogy: think of it more like a theorist in Ohio wondering if DC is causing a false flag attempt during a period of unrest in a US state or dependent territory. That theorist is never suggesting that a neighboring or powerful country intervene, while still being passionate about the idea that the unrest is being propelled in order to justify state control. Might be true, might not, doesn't matter, but still the only outlet to express discontent than suggesting a third party drop rockets on the capital!

<comment><USER36> > There isn't any framework where this would be seen as illegal or > illegitimate.

Doing it just to effectively end "One China, two systems" would absolutely be breaking a teaty. Which is illegal.

<comment><USER37> HK's security is fundamentally derived from Chinese military power. Mainland soldiers are regularly stationed in HK. This is part of what One China means.

<comment><USER36> Yes, but if the populations want "One China, two systems" enforced and the PLA stops that by force, it's not really about the security of Hong Kong anymore. It's using the military to subjugate its population rather than protecting them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Everybody, now is the time to email your local Chinese embassy. Carrie Lam, the top HK politician. Michael Tien and Ronnie Wong, leading pro-establishment politicians.

Let them know dialogue & political solutions are needed, violence is not acceptable, and that PEOPLE ARE WATCHING AND CARE.

Your voice can make a difference to the political calculus. But time is very short. You must act now.

</comment><comment><USER39> Cooler heads will say this is a show and a first warning to HK.

<comment><USER40> Indeed. And a warning more to the HK overlords than to the protesters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm praying for those poor people, it looks like they will have their freedom taken soon.

</comment><comment><USER42> China got away with it once but escalation is in principle a sign of weak government. Compare a nation like France which mostly waited it out.

<comment><USER43> Don't think France "mostly waited it out" when there has been more injured yellow vests than HKers so far: 2 more or less connected deaths, 1 person lost lower arm, and at least 24 lost an eye, including one of the most pacific yellow vest leader Jerome Rodrigues [https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/14/europe/france-bastille-day- in...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/14/europe/france-bastille-day-injured- yellow-vests-intl/index.html)

In many ways, french police did repress protesters in a much more brutal way than HK police has done so far. Of course having PLA in the city would be a different story however...

<comment><USER44> That's a very biased take on what happened in France.

The protesters were burning cars and destroying public and private property to vast extents, besides throwing Molotov cocktails at the police.

The yellow vests went way, way beyond their right to protest.

[https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/-yellow-vest-protests- grow-v...](https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/-yellow-vest-protests-grow-violent- in-france/1327559)

[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/yellow- ve...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/yellow-vests- facebook-live)

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-47666245](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47666245)

<comment><USER45> Isn't this happening in Hong Kong as well? Destroying properties, and especially Molotov cocktails.

<comment><USER22> Just curious, where did you get these ideas?

<comment><USER46> [https://www.dimsumdaily.hk/police-officer-on-fire-after- bein...](https://www.dimsumdaily.hk/police-officer-on-fire-after-being-hit-by- molotov-cocktail-in-sham-shui-po/)

<comment><USER22> Dimsum Daily is not exactly a good source for reliable news...

There is indeed quite a lot of violence from both sides, but no, no police officer has been set on fire.

<comment><USER46> The only way to claim "no police officer has been set on fire" is providing evidences that those pictures and videos are fake. Btw, there's no such thing as "source of reliable news", unbiased media is a impossibility theory.

<comment><USER22> [https://www.google.com/search?q=Hong+Kong+police+set+on+fire](https://www.google.com/search?q=Hong+Kong+police+set+on+fire)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> The reason to send in the PLA would be to increase the level of violence, but there's no reason to risk the backlash of sending them in when the HK police can do the job too—even if the Central People's Government were to suddenly decide that live ammunition is needed, they would still be able to rely on the HK police. The deployment of troops is therefore almost certainly, as was noted in the SCMP, a statement of intent as opposed to a sign that there will be a deployment of troops.

<comment><USER48> They think the HK police might not follow orders and shoot their own neighbors, friends and family.

An army division from a different region, properly instructed (brainwashed) can do "wonders" in terms of viciousness and brutally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Hong Kong reddit has the top coverage of HK.

<comment><USER50> Live thread that I've been following: [https://old.reddit.com/live/133sixros7tu5/](https://old.reddit.com/live/133sixros7tu5/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm an ordinary HK resident, software engineer, living in Kowloon and work in HK island. I see the protesters breaking laws, damaging properties, obstructing traffic, causing the entire society to grind to halt. Their actions are not unlike mobs and they disrupt social order almost everywhere. I don't know under what circumstances mainland military can get involved, but I hope when they do, law and order can be restored in my city.

<comment><USER51> I don't want to doubt your words without reason, but can you offer any proof that you are who you say, and not someone paid to sway opinions?

<comment><USER37> You can ask me things someone like me is supposed to know, see if I pass your Turing test.

<comment><USER51> I've been thinking, but it's hard for me to come up with questions like that, not being from China/HK myself.

Let me ask you this: do you feel the protestors are trying to protect your freedoms, or give you new ones?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Politics on HN... well, was hoping to see here discussion of protesters gadgets or government tools or some sophisticated communication protocols / equipment / organisation. Something about protesters use of lasers in an attempt to block riot police at Hong Kong airport

</comment><comment><USER53> What's with the apologists in here saying the US is behind it all and copying other Chinese talking points?

</comment><comment><USER54> Actual news: [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3022479/chin...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3022479/chinese- armed-police-truck-convoy-rolls-city-near-hong-kong)

<comment><USER55> SCMP has become a CCP mouthpiece after Jack Ma bought it.

<comment><USER22> Very much untrue, CCTV, People's Daily, Global Times, now those are CCP mouthpieces.

That being said, one is not being unreasonable to suspect their level of editorial independence could be influenced.

<comment><USER55> The "whataboutism" of naming other media outlets doesn't really help your argument here.

You only just have to open the SCMP front page to find them calling military deployments in a stadium near Hong Kong "drills", citing anonymous sources that say "they are not of concern" and quoting liberally from anonymous posters on Chinese message boards spouting hate.

<comment><USER22> I just did and I couldn't find the thing you mentioned, mind to share the link?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> The title makes it sound like Shenzen is not part of China. You don't "enter" part of your own country.

<comment><USER57> If you are a military force, there absolutely is a concept of entering your own territory, going back to the Rubicon.

When a country deploys it's own troops internally, as opposed to the police, it's often a forerunner to martial law or civil war.

<comment><USER56> I would have been happy with deployed.

<comment><USER58> Enter implies attacking force, deployed does not, so deployed is not correct in the context of the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> What I don't understand is the sentiment that if the people of Hong Kong's rights are suppressed, they should just protest in a way that's tidy, quiet and convenient for the government. That's not how Sun Yat Sen rolled, for example.

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

</comment><comment><USER59> Extremely disturbing

</comment><comment><USER60> Trump just blinked this morning on his China tariffs; if that's not a green light for the Chinese military to act on Hong Kong, I don't know what is.

</comment><comment> La-ang It's on

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm currently in Hong Kong and have been here since before the protests began. This saber-rattling has been ongoing. This is an escalation, certainly, but it is not a new message being sent to Hong Kong and it falls mostly on deaf ears. Over the past approximately two months:

\- July 2019: With the pretense of preparation for the Chinese 70th anniversary celebrations, there were reportedly 190,000 police officers in Zhanjiang. [1]

\- July 31, 2019: PLA releases a propaganda video showing military practicing riot drills. Notably it has English subtitles implying its target audience. [2]

\- August 1, 2019: Approximately 12,000 police participated in anti-riot drills in Shenzhen. [3]

\- August 13, 2019: Military hardware shown moving into Shenzhen. [4]

Everybody in Hong Kong already knows that their way of life is lost in the event that China gets involved. The Hongkonger's daily press conference said as much. [5] If either of the PLA or Shenzhen police become involved the outcome is predetermined, thus the relatively nihilistic mood. A local Hongkonger wrote this article for Dissent Magazine which also adds additional color. [6]

Responding to other comments, the fears of a Tiananmen Square type incident are likely unfounded given the prevalence of video from all of the ongoing protests. State Media Propaganda does not work when presented to a global audience. Any event of that nature would presumably be one economic gamble too far for the CCP.

 __*

[1] [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3020784/chi...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3020784/china- mobilises-190000-police-officers-70th-anniversary) [2] [https://www.scmp.com/video/hong-kong/3020985/chinese- armys-h...](https://www.scmp.com/video/hong-kong/3020985/chinese-armys-hong- kong-garrison-releases-video-showing-anti-riot-drills) [3] [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3021597/chi...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3021597/chinese- police-mass-12000-anti-riot-officers-shenzhen-drill) [4] [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3022479/chin...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3022479/chinese- armed-police-truck-convoy-rolls-city-near-hong-kong) [5] [https://twitter.com/anti_elab/status/1161064639515389952](https://twitter.com/anti_elab/status/1161064639515389952) [6] [https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/hong- kongs-f...](https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/hong-kongs-fight- for-life)

</comment><comment><USER62> looks like censorship.

</comment><comment><USER63> Strange how putrid governments find members of society happy to oppress other members of the society. Such as those soldiers happily waiting to execute orders against the freedoms of their fellow citizens.

<comment><USER64> I'm assuming you're privileged enough to have never been an enlisted soldier in a military? This isn't hordes of men clamouring to "oppress" someone. Often people are conscripted or come from such a poor background that enlistment helps their life significantly.

After the first 6 months in the military, you'll have been broken enough to have lost a lot of sense of individuality and are willing to just blindly follow orders. After your initial training, you're likely dumped into an established unit where you are at the very bottom of the totem pole. Until about 20 years ago in western militaries, you'd experience physical violence on the first day of your first posting into a "real" unit just to show you your place. I'm assuming this still happens in China. If there are soldiers in those trucks it is very likely they haven't been told a single thing about their mission.

It's very easy to live your comfortable life and talk about how evil the individual soldiers are but in reality, the troops holding the rifles on the ground are simply a tool of those higher.

<comment><USER65> Most of those troops will be from rural regions. Everything they know about the wider world is told to them by state media and their commanders.

<comment><USER66> Can we say the same of the soldiers the US sent to Iraq?

<comment><USER67> No. First, the US has considerably more media freedom, so they had at least the potential to access non-government-narrative sources. Second, the US has a volunteer army, not a conscript one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> How can I get involved?

</comment><comment><USER69> The only thing worse for an authoritarian regime than making a show of force and following up on it is to make the show of force and not follow up on it.

</comment><comment><USER70> Sadly the Chinese govt plays no games. See Tienanmen, Tibet or million+ Muslims in concentration camps.

Here they are "just restoring law and order" against vandals, a critical role of any government, so very few critics will be heard.

</comment><comment><USER44> Some major news networks are covering the event as well:

[https://www.businessinsider.com/videos-chinese-military- vehi...](https://www.businessinsider.com/videos-chinese-military-vehicles- gather-in-shenzen-hong-kong-protests-2019-8)

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/13/hong-kong-protests-china- med...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/13/hong-kong-protests-china-media-says- military-assembles-nearby.html)

P.S.: On a side note, it's quite sickening to see how much American society is divided, that even the original Twitter thread became flooded with people talking about Trump and blaming him for what is happening in Hong Kong. It is absolutely ridiculous to an outsider to see this behavior.

</comment><comment><USER71> ~~This is basically fake news, or a hoax, a very popular one. The videos are not current.~~

EDIT: It is true China is doing some military performance in SZ to scare off the protesters. But the PLA has not entered HK as that would seem unwise.

What is happening instead is Chinese police or army likely working inside the HK police force.

<comment><USER72> I actually thought that the whole "mainland infiltrates HK police" conspiracy was just PRC-phobia (which is a real problem in HK when it becomes xenophobic, sadly) but there's actually been evidence of it (albeit not much). If you're interested you can find videos of a riot policeman saying 「退後一點」 to protesters (and other weird sentences), which is _extremely_ awkward in Cantonese (instead Cantonese would be 「褪後啲」 or something, sounds totally different), especially if you're in an intense situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> Just a side note:

1\. Hong Kong, at least on paper, is ruled by a governing entity elected by Hong Kong people. Mainland party hasn't acted yet because, again, on paper, this is a Hong Kong issue. But things could get messy when Hong Kong government cries for help

2\. The protest started when a bill that many feared could be used to target and deport anti-China citizens. Hong Kong government was quick to withdrawn and eventually kill that bill but the protest got bigger regardless as they see the government is too pro-China

3\. Many protesters are now actively attacking police force even if unprovoked. Some even send threats to police officer's families whilst some caught getting cash handed to them for taking part in protests by foreigners

4\. Sentiment in mainland China is mostly against these protests as they see Hong Kong benefits financially a lot from China since its return, and Hong Kong's real issue is its ever increasing wealth gap

Getting back to the news itself, this is indeed very alarming.

<comment><USER74> The pictures we're seeing is of cops beating, rubber-shooting and tear-gassing protesters in tight spaces without obvious provocation.

<comment><USER75> Here are videos of protestors beating cops and other innocent bystanders,

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd1nW7Oa3mc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd1nW7Oa3mc)

<comment><USER76> The video looks consistent with that I've heard reported elsewhere: Protestors are not attacking people, only symbols of the Chinese government. The violence that has been perpetrated has been directed towards the protestors, e.g. the knife attack on a protestor, the fireworks shot at protestors (seen in the video) and various excesses of the police.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Whoever is behind the current protests in Hong Kong. (possibly US possibly China, perhaps it has changed). is forcing China to act in a brutal manner.

They cannot have this form of anarchy and disturbance.

Actually, the US would have acted harshly already if it was on US soil. I can't think of any protesters invading congress and not getting shot at. Stopping traffic at an airport? Yeah that is not going to happen for very long.

China must act. Any nation would act at this point.

It will come with much suffering and it is almost completely unnecessary. The protesters took it way too far. It will also make China look bad on the international stage, especially with the Us controlling the western narrative.

Perhaps still China can find an alternative approach. I hope so.

<comment><USER78> > The protesters took it way too far.

Why do you say this? HK is still a nominally free society and protest is their right

> China must act. Any nation would act at this point.

that's not a given, and why must they act against peaceful protest? Lining up para-military tanks against a civilian population is not something that most nations would do. It's clearly designed to intimidate.

> Perhaps still China can find an alternative approach. I hope so.

The alternative approach is pretty obvious to any democratic nation

<comment><USER45> > protest is their right

> act against peaceful protest

But violent protest is not a right. With Molotov cocktails being thrown around and lasers used to burn the polices' eyes, it's not "peaceful protest" anymore.

However, I'd like to point out that the shutdown of the airport is how the protest should look like. People being peaceful, so no one's getting hurt and there's no police showing up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Why aren't we talking more about the history of HK's creation, namely the Opium wars? I suspect that the majority of people that feel strongly about China's behaviour don't actually have any idea what the British did to China in the middle of the 19th century, namely: in the style of a mafia get 10s of millions of Chinese addicted to Opium and then go to war with them when China tried to put an end to the trade. It is by all today's measures what I'm sure the majority of people would call evil.

I am of course not at all advocating today's Chinese violence. I just don't understand how any of us have a leg to stand on in feeling outraged. This is the world, the so-called modern world, that, by using mobile phones and modern medicine, we've implicitly signed up for. HK is but one example of the price of modernity. What if native Americans or indigenous Australians rose up in the same way, asking for their land back? Or Indians and Africans rose up asking for their natural resources and slave labour back?

The real "crime" here is that we're so morally bankrupt and out of touch with history that all we can do is watch and tweet hashtags. Globalisation is here to stay. The quality of Western life is fundamentally dependent on Chinese labour, manufacturing and technology. We don't get to reap the benefits of that and at the same time arrogantly and unreflectively denounce their political policies. And to repeat, this is not a justification of China's recent stance on HK or any of its other foreign or domestic policies.

Perhaps we should boycott everything Chinese? Of course that is never going to happen. But we can at least help each other remember how exactly the West came to be. Though of course we don't because we're the top dogs and no one is forcing us to. Which I might argue is the true source of the outrage that most of us feel in hearing the news from HK: outrage that something is actually forcing us to reflect on our own circumstances. And what better scapegoat to deflect those difficult emotions than a quintessentially foreign, little understood far far-away culture.

<comment><USER65> >Why aren't we talking more about the history of HK's creation, namely the Opium wars?

Because the people of Hong Kong have no responsibility for the Opium Wars perhaps? I'm not sure what you are actually suggesting.

>The real "crime" here is that we're so morally bankrupt and out of touch with history that all we can do is watch and tweet hashtags.

Ok, what do you want to do?

<comment><USER79> Then who does have responsibility? Surely you're not suggesting that all is forgiven and forgotten once the perpetrators are dead?

I'm suggesting that, figuratively, if you actually knew that you lived by a volcano, the emotional shock caused by its eruption could be tempered by some foresight.

The Opium Trade and Wars were evil and at a massive scale, I just don't see how that can be spun any other way. How was this ever going to turn out any differently? Like I said the only reason we're so outraged is because we obliterated every other nation to the point that they'll never be able to rise up.

<comment><USER65> Responsibility for what? Either the people of Hong Kong are entitled to their opinions and freedoms, or they are not.

I don't see why the actions of some dead British guys from 150 years ago have anything to do with whether that it true or not?

Nobody is spinning the opium wars in any way. You are the one who brought up the topic.

<comment><USER79> Responsibility for justice. Perhaps legally nothing will ever happen, but without moral justice, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". The opinions and freedoms of the Chinese in 1842 were the same as Hong Kong's are now: to remain as they were and not become part of a different nation. So if you believe that Hong Kong deserves independence now, then you need to also believe that it deserved remaining Chinese then.

I'm not an apologist for China. For example I strongly believe in the independence of Taiwan, they've clearly demonstrated through their own efforts that they are different to the mainland. They didn't have that sentiment force upon them by guns from a foreign military might.

<comment><USER65> Justice for who, right now, and on what issue? Most of your comments are very frustratingly vague. I've no real idea what specifically you are actually criticising or advising.

>They didn't have that sentiment force upon them by guns from a foreign military might.

The current population of Hong Kong didn't have their current status imposed on them by people with guns either. Yet. They, like you and I, were simply born into a political and economic environment not of their making. I think it's reasonable for any of us to have an opinion about whether having anything forced on them by guns now is acceptable or not.

<comment><USER79> For sure I don't think I've made myself clear enough, that's all on me, I'm sorry. So just for the sake of clarity let me over simplify it.

Imagine that my long-term girlfriend who worked in a coffee shop all her life found out her boss was a murderous drug dealer. Instead of quitting she becomes the company accountant thus taking a massive pay raise that I in turn benefit from. The company doesn't directly break the law but we have some vague idea that it wouldn't be as successful as it is if it wasn't for the connections the boss has. Neither I nor my girlfriend ever did or ever will do anything morally wrong. We enjoy the freedoms the extra money gives us. One day the police find out about the boss's illegal activities and it looks like the company will have to be dissolved.

In this circumstance I completely agree that I and my girlfriend have a right to feel distressed our quality of life is about to be drastically lowered. However, considering the circumstances, I have no right to be outraged at my government for not supporting my rights to indirectly enjoy the money my girlfriend gets from a company that built its niche through mafia activities.

<comment><USER65> To counter your example. Suppose your great, great grandchildren found out about that story. How relevant do you think they would find it to their decisions about their lives, assuming they have no knowledge or anything to do with drug dealing or criminal activity themselves?

<comment><USER79> You're right, it's completely irrelevant to them. But can you honestly say that the mainland Chinese great, great children have also forgotten about it? Why not? It's because it's convenient for HK to forget whilst it was a fundamentally defining moment for China that influenced the end of the Qing dynasty, the end of over 2000 years of imperial rule and the creation of the communist-based political ideologies we see today. But by your logic everyone forgets about everything given enough time? That just strikes me as naive and a form of denial.

I still don't think you understand my point. I'm not saying that HK doesn't have a right to fight. I'm saying that they're not like Taiwan or all the other peoples that naturally came to their differentiated political stance - HK simply doesn't have history and destiny on its side, so it's always going to be that much more of a struggle.

Maybe another example will make it clearer. I have the right to protest against the bear that's attacking me, but I don't have a right to ask the world to change the fundamental nature of bears as if its a matter of geopolitics. Bears will always be bears. Bear violence has nothing to do with communism or democracy. And so it's a waste of energy to entertain that idea.

I don't like what China is doing to HK, but Britain walked into bear territory. Let's not argue about how wrong bears are, let's be sober and treat bears as bears, not as symbols of anti-democracy that might somehow appeal to diplomacy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gemini Images Point Juno Spacecraft Toward Discovery - <AUTHOR> http://www.gemini.edu/node/12679 <comment><USER2> Always fun to remember that the Great Red Spot is basically the size of our entire planet Earth. That must be one hell of a storm.

<comment><USER3> Do I remember right, that three earths could fit inside?

<comment><USER4> It's been getting smaller over time: [https://science.nasa.gov/science- news/science-at-nasa/2014/1...](https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science- at-nasa/2014/15may_grs/)

<comment><USER5> 10,250 miles is still bigger than the Earth, but not vastly bigger. We'd better hurry up if we want to squeeze the planet in there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> That is a hard-to-parse headline! While I understand a bit about the effort to map Jupiter's atmosphere, the headline led me to believe they were also tracking a separate Discovery mission.

<comment><USER6> I thought it was about old pictures taken by astronauts in the Gemini program somehow helping the Juno team. I was highly confused haha

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Say hello to HAL when you get there.</comment>


Locals – Build your own community - the-dude https://locals.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> features an affiliate program, but no price shown, just 'get started'.

I don't give up privacy and set myself up for spam unless I know pricing up front.

I can only assume the price is higher than $130 / year, which is about what it would cost to deploy a wordpress + buddypress on a DO droplet and have the same thing.

Aside from that, I've been saying for years that there is a need and market for owned instances of a community portal and ones for families. I just think the market is more like $15 / month for a group - I think if it's attempted to be a per user fee it will completely fall apart, but a charge to one in the group... that could work.

</comment><comment><USER2> I had to look up who Dave Rubin is. I can't be the only one unfamiliar with him, so if he is a big part of your marketing some additional info might be helpful.</comment>


I Was Kicked Out of the Society for Classical Studies Annual Meeting - <AUTHOR> https://quillette.com/2019/02/26/how-i-was-kicked-out-of-the-society-for-classical-studies-annual-meeting/ <comment><USER2> It seems like the article was removed, but a copy is available here: [http://archive.is/65K8o](http://archive.is/65K8o)

<comment><USER3> The submitted link is fine now.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: anybody remember this article, I can't find it  - <AUTHOR>

It was about a company that had a huge screen which would display photos and you could move them around like a Kinect (and other awesome stuff).  The screen would be cool for an event I'm planning...<p>Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> Leap Motion([https://www.leapmotion.com/](https://www.leapmotion.com/)) Myo([https://www.thalmic.com/myo/](https://www.thalmic.com/myo/)) Sorry, these are all I could think of. I know there was this startup in Silicon Valley that did something with gesture based music control and I think they got acquired by Microsoft, but I cannot recall their name right now...sorry.

<comment><AUTHOR> Neither of those are what I was thinking of, but thanks for thinking about it for a minute.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I figured it out, if anybody else cares: [http://socialprintstudio.com/](http://socialprintstudio.com/)</comment>


Graph Matching Networks for Learning the Similarity of Graph Structured Objects - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.12787 <comment><USER2> Thanks! Looks quite interesting. Hopefully better seamless GNN support in Julia's FluxML[1].

[1] [https://github.com/FluxML/Flux.jl/issues/625](https://github.com/FluxML/Flux.jl/issues/625)

</comment><comment><USER3> For context, determining if two graphs are isomorphic is NP-complete.

<comment><USER4> It is already all but known to be quasi-polynomial, thanks to László Babai: [https://www.quantamagazine.org/graph-isomorphism- vanquished-...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/graph-isomorphism-vanquished- again-20170114/)</comment></comment>


The new Apple Watch 4 face is a design crime - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90235701/the-new-apple-watch-4-face-is-a-design-crime <comment><USER2> I think the author is not familiar with watches in general. You have always been able to choose very complex and "busy" faces if you want to have easy and quick access to information.

Just do a quick images search for "high end watch complications" and you will see plenty of very expensive watches that commit the same supposed "design crime"

<comment><USER3> Yes, but the point is surely that "complications" are not what "design", as an activity, is about.

Watch complications are about showing off technical expertise (for the maker) and wealth (for the wearer). That has very little to do with the (admittedly moralistic) consensus about what good design should be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Author misses an essential point: A UI is only "too busy" if the user can't quickly find the information they are looking for. By that measure, this is a non-issue, and people will love it, specifically because they _can_ quickly get the info they are looking for without having to open an app.

</comment><comment><USER5> While cluttered and busy, yes, this shows _all_ possible complications on the watch face. You can choose a very minimal display to this and everywhere in between.

</comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of when I got rainmeter and _needed_ to display everything at all times in fancy circle graphs

</comment><comment><USER7> Thank god this piece was so short that it only wasted mere seconds of my time. If author has any semblance of a point to make, it's well hidden.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't feel this criticism is warranted. The spoken portion that went along with the unveiling of this watch face was admitting this was ridiculously trying to show all the measurements/indicators possible to make the 'ultimate sports watch'... at least, that's how I interpreted it.

</comment><comment><USER9> I can see where they're coming from. TBH though when I look at my watch with complications I want to see a specific complication (date, upcoming appointment, etc).

I'm not trying to take in every piece of information on the watch at once.

I'm guessing the author of the article doesn't own a smart watch.

</comment><comment><USER10> The face reminds me of my 4 year old cousins coloring back. It's an explosion of incoherent colors.

</comment><comment><USER11> Next model will use rotating variable length strings in place of the hands.</comment>


SpaceX makes aerospace history with successful landing of a used rocket - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/30/15117096/spacex-launch-reusable-rocket-success-falcon-9-landing <comment><USER2> Thank you for making progress for humanity. Being useful haha.

edit: damn I could imagine something like a long assembly line, one building is a massive x-ray machine, rocket slides into it like a sub-sandwich going into a Quizno's oven, parts get pulled out, replaced with robotic arms, refueled, payload attached, stands up, boom back into space! haha

</comment><comment><USER3> Napkin-math ...

Long-term, Falcon9 exists to fund Spacex' R&D for Mars. Until now, Musk has said <5% of Spacex budget goes to ITS dev. I expect that to change now.

1st stage costs $40m, targeting 10 flights = $4m/flight, amortised. Add another 2-3 million for refurbishment, storage, etc., and reusing the 1st stages should save Spacex ~$33m.

Shotwell, however, has stated that customers will receive up to 30% discount. On a $62m flight, that's a savings of <$19m ...

giving Spacex an _extra_ $12-15m pure profit on every flight ... which I hope/expect to get channeled into ITS dev.

Spacex is already the cheapest in the industry, and they now have a 3-5 year head-start in reusability, they simply don't need to lower their prices more.

</comment><comment><USER4> Does the mean the amount of space vehicles (satellite, space stations, transport space crafts etc) will explode in next few years? I wonder if there any infrastructure to support this.

</comment><comment><USER5> It would be awesome if much more capital was assigned to the space industry. Imagine a whole ecosystem of space companies both competing and cooperating.

</comment><comment><USER6> Exciting! I'd like to see the faces of all those people arrogantly writing off SpaceX and Elon Musk. He isn't just a flamboyant marketing man, just doing stuff NASA did 40 years ago or whatever sour comments I've seen directed towards the achievements of SpaceX.

It is very inspiring to see a man with a dream reach this far, despite being ridiculed for years. It wasn't supposed to be possible, but he did it anyway. From now on one can always point to Elon Musk if somebody tries to put you down and say something can't be done.

Of course most are not anywhere near the talent and focus of Elon Musk, but it proves what people often seem to discount that startups can make a dent and challenge the big established players.

I see the same when people discuss Tesla. People are very quick to write off Tesla believing it is only a matter of time before Diamler Benz, Audi, Toyota, etc knock them down with a superior electric alternative.

Personally I think we will see in both space launch and the car industry an iPhone moment, where long time established players eventually get destroyed or made irrelevant.

It has nothing to do with difference in talent, but when you work in an established company you know very well how slow it can be for a company to change their ways in fundamental ways. The change in priorities, strategy and mindset will come too late for many of the players.

<comment><USER7> Almost feels like, the Elon Musk cult is like a religion for the generation Y.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Blue Origin has reused their Shepard rocket 4(?) times. Their rockect has not gone into deep space.

<comment><USER9> These are not really comparable. The Shepard rocket is sub-orbital and achieves something like 1/5 or less of the same speed as the Falcon 9.

<comment><USER10> It's also not carrying a giant payload and 2nd stage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How do they know how many times they can re-use the rocket? Do they xray it for cracks every 5 flights?

<comment><USER8> Blue Origins rockets are rated 100 usages. Same as space shuttle.

<comment><USER12> Blue Origin hasn't flown to orbit yet - they have a sub-orbital rocket, and future plans for more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I heard that Musk said that the next goal is to get Falcon 9 total turnaround time to under 24 hours.

That's a direct dress rehearsal for the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITS_launch_vehicle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITS_launch_vehicle) plan, where it takes off and returns directly to its pad, where it's refueled and 2nd stage loaded on top, for immediate turnaround.

We're living in the fuckin' future.

<comment><USER14> It's kind of weird to think that it would be so reliable that it wouldn't even need serious inspection before flying again!

But I guess other vehicles like cars and trucks are in that category (they don't typically receive an in-depth safety inspection before and after each trip), so maybe rockets can get there too...

<comment><USER15> I had an in-flight emergency (kind of) today while doing a cross country flight with a friend who is a PPL. We lost the alternator and lucky for us the weather was really good, sans high winds. That means we had no instruments and no comms.... except the back up handheld radio and our cell phones. No harm, no foul and we landed safely...

I say that to say this; I would hope they are just really fast at inspections. There is a real reason to get them right. Failures happen, even to super analog tech.

<comment><USER16> I think its important to note that while you shoot for reusability, if the vehicle fails where it can complete is primary objective (but not return to pad), that's not a show stopper; SpaceX has an entire warehouse full of returned cores now. For ICT, same deal. Hope for the best, but if your core has a critical failure and must burn a bit longer to achieve orbit, thereby losing boostback and sacrificing itself, you start rolling out the next core to the pad as soon as telemetry tells you (if you're on the clock with colonists waiting in orbit for fuel before breaking orbit).

This is not without precedent; a Falcon 9 core previously had a failure of an engine in flight, and the vehicle recalculated the burn time on the fly to continue on with the primary mission.

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/that-smooth- spacex-l...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/that-smooth-spacex- launch-turns-out-one-of-the-engines-exploded/)

<comment><USER17> Ultimately, it may be better to abort in such cases, and land with payload (assuming there's enough propellant left to do so), or even discard the payload. As re-usability becomes more commonplace, the cost of the first stage booster will dwarf the cost per launch, and we'll probably see space launches for increasingly lower value cargo.

<comment><USER16> The dynamic loads of a fully loaded Falcon 9 preclude an abort once it's off the pad; you are committed.

I'm not an aerospace engineer, but if one wants to comment, I'd be happy to be corrected. It already requires ideal conditions for stages to separate successfully.

<comment><USER17> I realise this comment is now over a week old, but could you clarify what you meant? I don't know the specifics of the Falcon 9, but the only tolerance problem I see is in the strength of the landing legs, supporting the weight of the payload when landed (any excess propellants can be burnt off). Obviously you could make them bigger at the cost of lift mass.

<comment><USER16> The weight distribution of a fully fueled and payload-carrying Falcon 9 prohibits it from attempting any sort of boostback burn back to the landing pad if an abort is needed. It would tear the vehicle apart.

It would be similar to a a fully loaded semi truck trying to turn on a dime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The obvious question: how much cheaper should this make it, per pound, to put something in orbit?

<comment><USER19> Not much, because SpaceX is currently the cheapest launch provider in its category (except perhaps the Russians). And their capacity is maxed out. If anything they should put the price _up_.

<comment><USER20> I don't think that's the question.

You're speaking of what they charge.

I'm curious (and fwiw I'm not the OP, so I have no idea if they were asking this... :) what it _costs_.

Put another way, I wonder what this does to their margins?

<comment> Tuna-Fish Depends on how many times they can re-use a core.

The upper limit comes from the fact that they are currently only reusing the first stage, and that the first stage core is ~75% of the cost of a launch.

So, if they can use a core n times, they get a % discount:

        2 38%
        3 50%
        4 56%
        5 60%
       10 68%

They are planning on additional future reuse, the next portion is probably recovering the fairings.

<comment><USER21> I wonder if a thrice-used rocket will prove to be less reliable than a brand- new rocket due to fatigue, or more reliable than a brand-new rocket because it's proven itself to not be a lemon.

This development is great. So much fun to watch.

<comment><USER22> There will probably be a bathtub curve, like with pretty much every complex system known to man.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


HN as a credible source in Wikipedia? - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zynga#cite_note-68 <comment><USER2> As evanrmurphy says, the citation is only there to link to the relevant HN thread; it's not implying that HN is (or isn't) a credible or reliable source. There's currently 57 external links to HN from the en.wikipedia.org domain,[1] though not of all them are used as citations.

Wikipedia's Verifiability policy indirectly comments on sites like HN here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SPS#Self- published_so...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SPS#Self- published_sources) (and the section directly below, "Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves"). So for example, a comment pg made on HN would be something that would be an acceptable citation since his work in the field has been published in numerous reliable sources in the past.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LinkSearch...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LinkSearch&target=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com&limit=500&offset=0)

</comment><comment><USER3> That citation is confirming their claim from the first sentence of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zynga#Intellectual_property> that Zynga was indeed criticized on Hacker News.

I'm not sure that's the same as calling HN a credible source, because they're not vouching for anything said here. In any case, it's interesting and I've never seen it before on Wikipedia. :)</comment>


Solve 50 problems in 50 days - <AUTHOR> http://50problems50days.com/

<comment><USER2> My name is Peter Smart. I am the creator of this project.

Thanks for all your constructive thoughts and comments so far. I am 23 and this was a university project that has generated a lot of interest. Apologies it's so slow right now - apparently that the HN effect.

Thanks for your thoughts on the site design. The site has won Site of the Day at Design Taxi and Awwwards. This was really unexpected as I agree there is still more to be done in terms of making the site as intuitive as possible.

However, the most important thing isn't the site design. It's the premise. What can design do - if anything?

I took a risk and set out into the unknown to answer that question. Some days I failed, some days I succeeded. The most important thing is that I dared to try (and when I failed - got up and tried again). It was an incredible experience so I hope you continue to enjoy it.

Pete

<comment><USER3> Consider adding some of what you just said to your site's 'about' page? It provides really good context. It also will make the audience more forgiving :)

The basic premise of your site - 50 problems in 50 days, is interesting. But the navigation is not suitable. When I first load the site on my screen (1366 x 768) it shows the map with problems 29 and 30 centered. The first 20 or so problems are completely cut off. So it starts off confusing.

Make the grid view the default instead of the map view. Its more user- friendly.

The Narrative button is mislabeled. Call it quotes?

Your site's heading is "Solve 50 problems in 50 days". Reading that I expected to find 50 problems and 50 solutions. As I explored, it became clear that you offer some solutions, but in other cases you share insights about problems (using sweater to hold hot bowls). Which is fine. Its valid to examine the way we look at problems and solutions. But its not the same as you designing a bowl that can be held with bare hands when hot. So maybe get rid of the "solve" part?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> From his site: _Design is at it's best when its simple - when people understand it intuitively. Design that tells great stories cuts through the clutter and finds a special place in the hearts and minds of those who listen._

I found the site to be unintuitive, cluttered and lacked the full narrative. He should redesign because he seems talented and I'm still curious about the 50 problems.

<comment><USER4> It's also completely unusable on mobile. I tried to visit it from my Android ICS device while having the morning coffee and gave up _very_ quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this a joke or something?

Day 20: _This padlock was too small for my locker. I'll wrap a metal cable around it and lock the cable._

Day 24: _Wet socks. I stuck a towel under the door. It failed._

Is this really representative of what "designers" do? Just looks like jury- rigging to me. Slap some duct-tape on it and get on with your life.

<comment><USER6> Some of the problems that aren't completely trivial are very hard. These aren't "solved" - instead, there are just very preliminary sketches of potential solutions, which other people have already progressed far further with. For example:

\- Day 1: Communicating with someone by voice is hard if you lack a shared languages. The proposed solution is "Integrating voice translation into Skype". This isn't a solution so much as it is a problem, with Voice Recognition and Machine Translation as sub-problems. But it is already done reasonably well by the Google Translate iOS app.

\- Day 45: People forget PINs. There's been a lot of work on graphical/gestural passwords (see <http://www.acsac.org/2005/papers/89.pdf>), on the memorability and security of passwords in general (<https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-500.pdf>) and customer chosen PINs in particular ([https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~jcb82/doc/BPA12-FC- banking_pin_sec...](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~jcb82/doc/BPA12-FC- banking_pin_security.pdf)), and on a physical device to replace all passwords/PINs (<https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~fms27/papers/2011-Stajano- pico.pdf>).

Others seem slightly odd:

\- Day 39: Personalize post-card by covering up a large portion of the image with a scratch off map. Since the front of a post-card is exposed in transit, wouldn't more be scratched off? And is the recipient is expected to be able to interpret a small section of map for an area they may have never visited themselves? An alternative solution is to mount an integrated camera and printer at a scenic location, so users can easily print a postcard that includes them (Post-Me: <http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/news/stories/2010/design_show/>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Folks are apparently down on this. Why in the world? It's awesome!

How cool to spend 50 days digging into people's problems, travelling, and putting it all out there. I'd bet anything that his 50 days of travel have led to more advancement, opportunity and insight than almost any other use of 50 days.

Be happy and supportive for someone who is breaking convention and being prolific!

<comment><USER8> A puppet account on HN? Can't be, can it?

<comment><USER9> Not everybody with whom you disagree is a puppet.

<comment><USER8> You don't have to be a separate person to be someone's puppet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "I'm on an adventure - to explore the limits of design's ability to solve social problems, big and small."

Cool. On the other hand I am on an adventure to explore the limits of my brain's ability to solve problems, mostly small. Even solving _one_ medium- sized problem very well would set me financially for my whole life. I am working on this not for 50 days but my whole life... :)

</comment><comment><USER11> I know that this is a bit snarky, but I can't help feeling, "Solve 50 problems in 50 days with design" is not a million miles away from "Solve 50 problems in 50 days with great hair"

</comment><comment><USER12> This is an interesting take. Applying the simple ideals of Kaizen[1] to our daily lives.

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

</comment><comment><USER13> Problem and Solution number 42 is a genius way to help the less fortunate. I do hope that the more metropolitan cities adopt that in their transit systems.

<comment><USER14> I was blown away at the simplicity and effectiveness of that solution in particular. It needs to be made known and implemented on a larger scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is awesome, sure most of the solutions have extra hurdles to overcome but that's not the point, it reminds me to keep my eyes open and remember things that I accept as unchanging might not be as rigid as I assume.

Very inspiring.

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow - people on HN are unforgiving. The site design is great. Yes, it is dog slow at the moment, but otherwise it is fun and beautifully made with some nice mapping etc.

People seem to be criticising it on UI terms (it's confusing/hard to use) but I think it works because the site isn't trying to market a product (like most HN sites) but tell a story, so it is not unreasonable to expect/encourage the user to explore.

Basically, I think it is more interesting even if it is harder to use.

</comment><comment><USER17> I liked some of the problems, but really I'm much more interested in the guy's experience. There doesn't seem to be a story, a real narrative I can follow here :-(

<comment><USER2> If you ever want to find out more (and some of the crazy things that happened), just drop me a line. Always happy to chat

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love this site, it's pretty slow under load but some of the solutions are great in their simplicity.

</comment><comment><USER19> I am sure with some configuration the site will look gorgeous! Looks good on my iPad currently.

</comment><comment><USER20> Have a couple of kids and you can learn to solve 150 problems in 50 days.

</comment><comment><USER21> The design looks beautiful, but it is really difficult to navigate.

</comment><comment><USER22> Solution for the problem #47 perfectly suits Google glasses.

</comment><comment><USER23> Overengineering 50 solutions in 50 days.

</comment><comment><USER24> Wow, that looks gorgeous!

</comment><comment><USER25> interesting map dataviz

</comment><comment><USER26> crashes chrome

</comment><comment><USER27> Don't totally get it but good luck. Site looks good.

</comment><comment><USER28> Problem # 51: His site design</comment>


Bash Handbook - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/denysdovhan/bash-handbook <comment><USER2> Does anyone know what a "Node Packaged Manuscript" is?

<comment><USER3> I can't be the only person not super happy about node being forced on you all the time.

Granted, this looks like a labor of love, and the developer has the right to do whatever the hell they want with it, but I am willing to bet that the people that care about bash and bash scripting and the people that use node, have a not enormous overlap.

<comment><USER4> If you can recommend any bash package I will share it there also. I write a lot on js, so actually it will be easy to write npm package and share it. Besides, if you know how to made similar packages (I mean console utility) for other package managers, such as pip, gem or whatever else, I'll be very glad to merge and share it.

BTW, Homebrew package will be soon.</comment></comment></comment>


CNCF Serverless Whitepaper v1.0 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cncf/wg-serverless/tree/master/whitepaper <comment><USER2> I've worked on a PaaS and currently work on a FaaS. This whitepaper is thorough and quite fair. I have a few nitpicks by they're minor in comparison to the bulk of it.

Personally I think of FaaSes as having more in common with PaaSes than anything else, so I'm motivated to reuse existing technologies where possible.

Particularly, I expect the FaaS I work on (Project Riff) will eventually use buildpacks as the onramp. It helps that I work across the aisle from the Cloud Foundry Buildpacks team.

Kudos to the WG.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you 100%. It's the same old thing with barely any changes. There is truly nothing new under the sun and we keep reinventing the same things.

I like to think this industry is full of smart people, but it always makes me surprised how willing are we to drink the kool aid.

Guess being smart and having a herd mentality are not mutually exclusive. (Perhaps they are actually correlated? :P - Ie. my professor advised me to use the Linux Distro my friend uses, because then I get ask for help from someone.)

<comment><USER2> There isn't anything new, but it's also worth remembering Mark Twain's quip: history doesn't repeat itself, but sometimes, it rhymes.

FaaSes do add some twists on CGI. In CGI the short-livedness is the _process_ , in a FaaS it's the _container_. A CGI program can get away with relying on local modifications to a file system in a shared environment. FaaSes somewhat point away from that.

There's also the speed of scaling. Insofar as FaaSes rely on lower layers to insulate the layer between process and machine, it becomes plausible to grab a number of machines relatively quickly. There's a cold start cost, to be sure, but the cold start on "launch this container" is probably better than "install this software and then launch it".

<comment><USER4> I don't disagree that FaaS and CGI are wildly different but I'm not sure I understand your distinction between containers and processes. Containers are processes decorated with networking namespaces, control groups, and chroot.

<comment><USER2> The thing I'm driving at is that containers create much stronger isolation than shared hosting does.

Both are processes, but the administrative overhead is lower when you can contain the blast radius with namespaces and cgroups. The illusion of isolation is much more complete to the containerised process than for an uncontainerised one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I noticed this non-exhaustive list has left out StdLib [1], an all-in-one API development, provisioning, and FaaS platform with tens of thousands of developers. (Disclaimer: am founder :))

We don't work directly with the CNCF because we're a four person team; we don't have the bandwidth to engage in committees. We innovate as best we can with our platform and deliver value directly to customers.

The reason you, as a developer and reader of Hacker News, should know about us is because we're consensus building with some of your favorite companies and we're the easiest way to manage your entire API: from development (we have a local dev story) to deployment, documentation, automatically generated SDKs for your customers, custom docs pages and more.

You'll be learning a lot more in the coming weeks and we're very excited to share what we've been building and the relationships we've secured as a platform.

If anybody from the CNCF would like to reach out, I'm keith@ (our domain). Same goes for any developers or curious Hacker News readers: my Inbox is open. :)

[1] [https://stdlib.com/](https://stdlib.com/)

<comment><USER6> CNCF member company employee here. The working groups I've paid close attention to are very collaborative and open, they even preface their slide decks with a strict antitrust notice. Redpoint has an investment in and obviously some level of interest in one of their portfolio company's FaaS offering. It's kind of surprising that you prefice your comment on being "left out" while mentioning the aid of Redpoint. Has the CNCF or one of its working groups not been receptive when you or a team member has looked to contribute? How does your "censensus building" differ from what they are doing?

In any case, this thread might be a good place to call out specific differences between StdLib and those other, more established CNCF members.

<comment><USER5> I don't have any bones to pick with the CNCF: we've had opportunities to get connected and become involved, it's just not in our best interests at this point to be super proactive. There's so much surface area left to innovate upon and we have a finite amount of resources (we doubled our team size recently and will be doubling again shortly). You're doing a fantastic job, and this whitepaper is great! I'd love to add in our $0.02 in the future, but that's probably best done over e-mail: you can email me or I'm happy to reach out.

The differences in consensus building we're doing are specifically around Serverless APIs and Serverless technology as a means to lower the barrier to entry into software development as a whole. There are some moving parts here that I'm not comfortable sharing publicly yet, but they'll be announced likely by end of quarter.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone know of an alternative to Front App? - <AUTHOR> Front App is a shared inbox saas tool. It allows you to share mailboxes with your team and in a better way than Gmail or Outlook mailbox sharing, while not having the helpdesk support focus like ZenDesk.
Problem is I find the UX complicated. It's very confusing and easy to miss emails or responses. My team feel the same way.
I also think it's on the expensive side.
Anyone know of a decent alternative? <comment><USER2> I'm co-founder at Missive ([https://missiveapp.com](https://missiveapp.com)), although not 100% similar Missive will let you collaborate not only on shared inboxes but also on emails received at personal business email addresses.

Imagine if Gmail had a baby with Slack... well it would be Missive.

If you're interested, read this blog post about cool use cases: [https://missiveapp.com/blog/missives-10x-use- cases](https://missiveapp.com/blog/missives-10x-use-cases)

\+ check out some of our newly released features: [https://missiveapp.com/blog/new-features- tasks](https://missiveapp.com/blog/new-features-tasks)

Good luck with your search! :)</comment>


Ask HN: Why SaaS companies do not offer other payment methods? - <AUTHOR> Most of them do not even accept cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ether. Why is that? Is it too difficult to accept? <comment><USER2> Getting a book keeper and an accountant to want to deal with that is impossible.

That's why Stripe just gave you the converted amount.

Also all of this: [https://stripe.com/blog/ending-bitcoin- support](https://stripe.com/blog/ending-bitcoin-support)</comment>


Unofficial Overwatch Stats API - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sdwolfe32/ovrstat <comment><USER2> interesting to see that it's a clever parse from the html results of a player's career page</comment>


Making Minecraft in C and OpenGL - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O0_-1NaWnY <comment><USER2> This was fairly interesting and impressive. Good job.</comment>


Cruise's new video showing driverless car navigating very tricky traffic in SF - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJQLEETP98U <comment><USER2> This is (obviously) edited to highlight the car handling tricky situations, but I recently had a rather negative interaction with Cruise.

It was around 16th and Rhode Island in Potrero. The road opens up to a very wide two lane lane road. We came up behind the cruise car at this point, and the Cruise car slowed way down and basically rolled down the street in the middle of the road at 5 miles an hour. The driver in my car tailgated the Cruise car down the block until we got to a stop sign, and then the Cruise car stopped for way to long, and then we drove around them. We were the only car on the road and it was fairly dark.

It looked a bit like the car didn't have confidence to decisively move forward and the resulting action was to limp along. It's definitely tough to get the response right in this situation but I wasn't impressed with the mitigation strategy. You'd think the car would at least pull off to the side of the road if it didn't know what to do.

</comment><comment><USER3> Highlights:

\- recognizing double-parked vehicles and making progress past them by carefully proceeding in the oncoming (dashed yellow line) lane,

\- making challenging left turns with oncoming cars, safely recognizing unpredictable pedestrian activity but still making progress,

\- recognizing traffic cones and obeying a temporary merge right sign.

This is a fun video - it suggests they can assume some more complex and adaptable strategies.

I would like to see them deal with a flag-person directing traffic. Those folks are poorly trained in my experience and give ad hoc signals. It may come down to properly training people to consistently signal self-driving cars.

<comment><USER4> I want to see it handle double parked cars that aren't using hazards.

<comment><USER3> Yeah! I wondered that too - humans will make a complex determination is the guy in front will not be moving anytime soon when it is not the case that traffic is just stopped. It is nice though that they seem to be recognizing hazard lights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why do they always speed up videos like this? It's not real time and it does make a difference to perception, not just saving peoples time viewing the video. Tesla used the same trick.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wish there was someone at Cruise I could talk to in order to tell them to make their cars follow CVC 22100.

I frequently see their cars on Folsom street in the Mission. I've seen their cars make right hand turns without being fully in the right hand lane. There is a bike lane and a lot of bike traffic on that street. Their behavior puts cyclists at risk of getting hit with a right hook when they are going straight through an intersection.

Based on everything I've seen, I'd much rather have a human driver than Cruise so far.

[https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=22100)

</comment><comment><USER7> From personal experience and from my local Nextdoor, the worst thing is being stuck behind a Cruise car and they are constantly everywhere. Last week I heard a FedEx driver yelling "Get the f __k out of the way! " from my window.

</comment><comment><USER8> Not bad, but still plenty of "what the F are you doing" moments in there I think, and quite a few false stutters etc that would be quite annoying to other drivers.

</comment><comment><USER8> Impressive, but still plenty of "what the F are you doing" moments in there I think, and quite a few false stops/stutters etc that would be quite annoying to other drivers if not actually dangerous.

Eg there seems to be a habit of driving right up behind parked vehicles, stopping, moving out (and then hesitating in the other lane), etc, rather than just moving over to the other (clear) lane and proceeding.

</comment><comment><USER4> Let's see.

1\. Fails to yield to a car making a right turn

2\. Decides to jump into the opposing direction "lane" to try and go around a truck which starts moving and effectively cuts it off.

3\. Makes a ridiculously late left turn

They achieved the opposite of what most people want in a self driving car. Automated bad driving and assholery.

</comment><comment><USER9> If this is now their typical performance, they've come a long long way in the last 6 months.

I was stuck behind Cruise cars twice in the same week that went 2/3 of the way into an intersection and stopped until the light turned red and sat there until I honked the horn and, presumably, the safety driver took over.

<comment><USER10> I assume that if this was typical performance, they'd make a clip with even better performance from when things line up well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why do you think comments are disabled on the youtube video?

</comment><comment><USER12> If this is a true, undoctored video, future looks promising

</comment><comment><USER13> what's with all the double parked cars?

<comment><USER14> Guessing it's selective editing, to illustrate cases of the car handling challenging situations well. Either that, or the drivers are particularly selfish in San Francisco?!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> kind of an asshole driver, but very cool</comment>


Microsoft's Mesh Revealed - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/22/microsofts-mesh-revealed%e2%80%94sync-all-apps-and-all-files-to-all-devices-as-long-as-theyre-windows/ <comment><USER2> Interesting, but quite a bit late to the school of thought involving cloud computing.

While I hope that Microsoft does begin to transfer more of its services to the open web and that it begins to embrace more open standards, I also hope that those who've embraced the web as a platform early on rightly attain their deserved _first-mover_ competitive advantage.</comment>


Bear CSS - Generates CSS based on your HTML markup - <AUTHOR> http://bearcss.com/ <comment><USER2> Didn't get what it did until I saw "est" comment here on HN. There are no examples on the firstpage. I didn't have a nice .html near by so I couldn't test it.

Now that I know what it does, I don't see the point of it. Why would put every div, every html element in the CSS? I never do that.

Also the comments and the way of separating different CSS are not the way one would do at all on a project. I'm sorry but I really don't see the point of it at all, and I also don't see how you could monetize that.

PS: Also is it that revolutionary that it hits 5# on HN's frontpage?

<comment><USER3> Not everything needs to be monitised. The guys are MA students in Northern Ireland - they are promoting themselves and their skills. They will earn money from this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So I downloaded bearcss.com html, uploaded it, and got this

[http://bearcss.com/outputCSS/21f0b55b80e7773d3199e87f4d8e328...](http://bearcss.com/outputCSS/21f0b55b80e7773d3199e87f4d8e3281/)

Is it supposed to merge all inline CSS properties to a .css file?

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't know what I expected really, but something more than an empty CSS file, maybe my expectations were totally off or maybe this wasn't very impressing. Although I could see that it would be convenient to generate this for large html pages with many elements.

</comment><comment><USER6> Looking at how web is shaping up in the post-PC era, it seems that the number of bits & bytes going into css (or any asset) is very important. In such a scenario, I find it more compelling to write those assets with own hands rather than pick up and bulldoze with css resets or frameworks or even normalization.

In that sense Bear CSS seems quite a good approach because then probably we're playing just with 'relevant css' of only elements/markup we're actually using in the app. Will definitely give it a try.

<comment><USER7> _> number of bits & bytes going into css (or any asset) is very important._

Not to mention a logical hierarchy and grouping based on the content of the site as opposed to what this tool supplies. Eg. LISTS, TYPOGRAPHY etc. ([http://bearcss.com/outputCSS/60f6411ee02d14afff6dcc17b1be21d...](http://bearcss.com/outputCSS/60f6411ee02d14afff6dcc17b1be21db/about.css))

Considering you're going to need to re-arrange the order of all these class/id names, you probably aren't going to save much time with this tool.

Having said that it is kind of neat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Pretty cool. I'd love to see a version that output a LESS file with nested classes.

<comment><USER9> <https://gist.github.com/1710335>

Run it in the browser console, much quicker than uploading...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> After a first glimpse: multiple classes per node (or things like _class=" "_ ) are handled incorrectly and DOM hierarchy is ignored altogether ( _ul li ul_ anyone?). I wouldn't recommend this tool to anyone, sorry.

<comment><USER11> Sadly, I have to agree with you. It's not ready yet at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This could be handy for something like starting a template from scratch for a CMS.

However it needs more work. Multiple classes are broken.

.post-5 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-products post {

}

Also, it misses a trick by not using heierarchy for definitions the way anybody who writes css as part of their job would.

I'd like to see it as a tool that gives you every definition you need, and then you can strip out what you don't want afterwards.

I can't see myself using it on a bespoke project, as I tend to write html and css simultaneously.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've got nothing against the ever expanding array of web frameworks and such. However, I find it harder and harder to get a good overview and make a decision, and as such I tend to just default to using whatever framework I already know. I sometimes feel that I'm missing out on great things.

Someone should create a repository which lists all web development frameworks/utilities/tools/libraries/doodads/etc and has some kind of popularity mechanism. Right now, my only way of knowing what's used (and works) in the trenches is going by comments on HN.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a neat idea for creating themes or CSS skins.

Imagine if it only included HTML elements with an ID or a class. It's produce something that could then be edited to ADD to the current CSS, instead of replace it.

If we wanted to export all the styles in play for a HTML page, i.e. all the computed styles, I'm sure there's a way of hacking Firebug to export what it thinks is the CSS.

Incidentally, I didn't get it to work with a HTML page saved from the internet - it uploads it then tells me it's a HTTP error.

</comment><comment><USER13> There are two significant problems with this:

1\. The output CSS contains invalid or unnecessary code. Multiple classes on an elements are incorrectly handled, some form inputs (checkout and radio) are incorrectly referenced, and reference-only IDs are included.

2\. The idea is flawed. Writing CSS and creating reusable components is not the same as filling in values for every element, class, and id found in your HTML.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is a fantastic project, but I can't help but feel that it's a bit late to the party. Five years ago this would have been especially helpful. The trend now is towards css compilers like LESS or SASS, or using bootstrap css frameworks where you name your html elements based on the framework conventions.

I still think there's a place for this. I think they've got a ways to go before it's ready though.

<comment><USER15> I built (in less than a couple of hours) a proof of concept prototype that generates LESS files

<http://zena.appspot.com/orso>

obviously there is a huge amount of room for improvement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting idea, but even if it worked properly, I don't think I'd ever use it—I always write HTML and CSS in tandem when coding up pages.

Is there anyone who prefers to write _all_ of the HTML before starting the CSS? If so, I'd be interested in hearing about your workflow.

<comment><USER17> I've done this.

The reason being I had to copy text from a Word doc into a long-form landing page. HTML from Word sucks and I never found a converter I liked because of my compelling need for decent formatting.

So I would copy entire chunks of copy from Word into Dreamweaver and then create my markup based on paragraph, headings and so on. I even made an extension for Dreamweaver that would convert special characters into their HTML entity equivalents.

Once I had the copy in HTML I would then start designing with CSS and any images required.

I did it this way because once I got past the drudgery of creating the markup for the copy the design part was interesting, challenging and fun. Plus it felt faster that way as opposed to inserting and designing in chunks.

But for websites my preference is the same, HTML and CSS in tandem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Some hierarchy for like div > h1 or ul > li etc would be nice. I just used the source of the page in and copied it to an html file but it basically just generated blocks under the correct labeling (ex: Typography has h1, h2, h3). It was more or less empty?

</comment><comment><USER19> I was a bit disappointed that this balloon didn't pop when getting to the bear's paw... ;-)

</comment><comment><USER20> Any examples for which this might come in handy?

</comment><comment><USER21> LESS or other new CSS formats would be awesome.

</comment><comment><USER22> Doesn't primercss.com do the same? Its available since more than year now.

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't understand the use case. Care to educate me?

</comment><comment><USER24> Badly needs a demo.

</comment><comment><USER25> Beautifully designed and illustrated. Great job.

</comment><comment><USER26> is it just me or it is not working? i keep getting an "IO Error" after upload.</comment>


MIT has us on our way to pre-programable matter - <AUTHOR> http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/smart-robotic-sand-0402.html

<comment><USER2> I can't wait for the day I can scoop some of this sand into a lunchbox, shake it up, and then reach in and pull out a fully formed mechanical part</comment>


Gaming like it's 1979 - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/07/ion-icade-hands-on-gaming-on-the-ipad-like-its-1979-video/ <comment><USER2> It's great to see how ThinkGeek uses April Fool's day as a way to gauge customer interest. They did this before with their Tauntaun sleeping bags which they produced/sold after a lot of positive feedback to their April 1st joke.

<comment><USER3> I think that has been a great deal in the past, but these days it seems frustratingly obvious that the April Fools Day posts are sometimes little more than market research. It seems to take some of the humor out of it.

Also- While the orig. idea was by ThinkGeek, the production isn't by them for this product, it's a third-party.

<comment><USER4> I worked under the same corporate umbrella as the thinkgeek guys before :) If I'm not mistaken, all of their production is outsourced. In this case, though I think the design is partially outsourced, too, since it's a little more complex than a guitar shirt with the bluetooth and all.

I don't really think the April fools stuff is being explicitly used as test marketing, btw, though I think it's a neat side effect. Those guys just really like April fools stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting how much money there is to be made mining the disposable incomes of adults nostalgic for the pleasures of childhood.

<comment><USER6> Tell me about it. My wife recently discovered that her mom kept the family's Fairchild Channel F system 2 and she is now scouring the net for games. She even had me teach her how to solder so she could fix the old controllers.

<comment><USER7> Wow. Where can I find a woman who not only enjoys gaming but can solder.

<comment><USER8> bd had to make his own, i.e. teach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love how it's considered this great awesome thing that you "can" spend lots of money on BUTTONS for the damn thing.</comment>


The Distribution of Library Book Circulation Is Not a Power Law - <AUTHOR> http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/744.html <comment><USER2> Many, _many_ things aren't a power law, but are widely reported to be due to sloppy statistics and a deep misunderstanding of regression on log-transformed data.

The problem is this: people frequently log-transform empirical counts of things (like library book circulation) and then fit a line to the distribution. Since the line generally fits very well, with very high (but ultimately meaningless) R-squared values, they rush off to write a paper.

I could cite at least a dozen very "important" papers that gush over power law relationships in this or that. Instead, I'll let Cosma Shalizi's excellent blog post on the topic do the talking and citing: <http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/491.html>

It's an excellent read for anyone reaching for a log-transform.

EDIT: I didn't realize that Cosma was the author of the linked piece. The other blog post by him I link here is also highly recommended.

<comment><USER3> Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker.

<comment><USER2> It's not just that -- if the tail of the distribution doesn't seem to fit, you can just call it a "power-law with a cutoff", "exponential tail", "multiple scaling regimes", "piecewise linear" or some other cruft. Physicists, particularly, are egregious abusers of this. Like Agent Mulder, they want to believe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like Cosma's (the author of this piece) point on another of his blog-posts on this topic of whether you've found a power law distribution[1]:

Ask yourself whether you really care. Maybe you don't. A lot of the time, we think, all that's genuine important is that the tail is heavy, and it doesn't really matter whether it decays linearly in the log of the variable (power law) or quadratically (log-normal) or something else.

But I don't know why I would expect the distribution of library books to be a power law: physical books are inherently limited in how many people can hold them. And the number of books at my school library that are permanently checked out always is rather high. There's a strict upper bound on the max- circulation of a book, so you don't get those super-high values for a few books required to make a power law work. Besides, do you care that it is log- normal and not power? I think the lesson is stop calling things "power law" when you mean "fat-tailed".

Fat-tailed is a good enough description in most use-cases anyway.

\-- [1] <http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/491.html>

</comment><comment><USER5> Note that you've got a cutoff because a library book can only circulate to one patron at a time (and libraries will rarely buy 10+ copies of a bestseller)

You very well may have a power law in the range before that, but all systems that show power laws practically have finite size and other cutoffs.

95% of academic work on power laws is bunk. Ask your average professor or graduate student whose name is on a power law paper what a "statistical estimator" is and you'll get a blank look.

</comment><comment><USER6> "Zipf, Power-laws, and Pareto - a ranking tutorial"

[http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/idl/papers/ranking/ranking.ht...](http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/idl/papers/ranking/ranking.html)</comment>