Show HN: Perceptron – Artificial Neural Network Builder - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/casparwylie/Perceptron <comment><USER2> Isn't the name "perceptron" going to be a little confusing in this context?

<comment><USER3> That was my first thought as well

<comment><AUTHOR> Why exactly?

<comment><USER2> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilayer_perceptron](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilayer_perceptron)

<comment><AUTHOR> ...Hence why I've called my "feedforward artificial neural network model that maps sets of input data onto a set of appropriate outputs" builder Perceptron...

<comment><USER2> This would be like calling a linear model builder "Regression"

<comment><AUTHOR> No need to take the name so literally though - it's rare names are taken literally at all!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I respect the choice not to use a framework. I keep flirting with the idea of posting some of my trained char-rnn models online, in hopes people find them amusing and possibly share theirs in turn. Trained RNN models aren't small, but they're not huge either. 20-30mb generally. In other words it wouldn't be prohibitive to accumulate a collection of trained, GNU models, if the outputs would be useful and interesting to people.

Out of curiosity how are you serializing the output models? Are the files memory-mapped bytecode, or does the training encode a nice, clean data structure?

<comment><AUTHOR> when you say output models are you referring to the optimized ANNs, or the organisation of output neurons?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very nice idea.

What is the objective function (loss function) that `back_propagate` is optimizing exactly? I'm new to the world of NN, so really excited to see NN code that works from first principles. Reminds me of [https://github.com/mnielsen/neural-networks-and-deep- learnin...](https://github.com/mnielsen/neural-networks-and-deep-learning)

Perhaps a little more detail about the math behind the code would be in order? I'd be happy to help out.

Another cool direction would be to convert the python code to cython and see how much faster it will run...

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers for feed back. The cost/error function is simply the 1/2(a-y)^2 ...(I think its called the square cost function). I wrote all the code myself (no libs) so people like yourself can see all steps required to train an ANN. I was thinking of getting things working for GPU, which should even make cython look slow. All depends on how much attention I get. Right now it's still got quite a few bugs, and in general is under done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For didactic purposes there's also:

\- [http://www.ra.cs.uni-tuebingen.de/software/JavaNNS/](http://www.ra.cs.uni- tuebingen.de/software/JavaNNS/)

\- [http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/](http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/)

<comment><AUTHOR> These are most likely more matured than Perceptron at the moment. More work to do!

<comment><USER6> Yes. But mature projects also have larger codebases and many knobs to play with. That can make it hard to serve as introductory stuff. Focused projects have their purpose too... like what Minix is to Linux. So it's fine.

Other software to play with neural networks can be R and Scilab, not to mention others like: Tensorflow, Torch, Theano, Pandas, Scikit-learn, Caffee and many others. All of them free, great communities and videos can be found in YouTube with nice intros.

Another way to learn can be just grab Python and Numpy and roll your own multilayer perceptron with backpropagation, then play with other concepts.

Jupyter notebooks are also a great way to explore what's out there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This looks great, but I think that it would be even better if there was some way of bootstrapping it to existing libraries, say for example keras. I don't know how easy this would be, but I believe that it would definitely be very useful. Even without this capability, it looks like a great learning tool!

<comment><AUTHOR> great to hear! The reason I don't use libraries is because I want the code, in itself, to be educational. So people can read the code and see what algorithms are being used for every step. This project is less about trying to compete with amazing performance, and more of an educational play ground.

<comment><USER8> Thanks so much for this! I'm just getting started with ML and deep learning so anything with visuals and "knobs"/"dials" with real-time feedback to visually show relationships of changes and their effects is a huge eye opener!

<comment><AUTHOR> Really happy to hear it's living up to its purpose.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


No Tech Co-founder, No Cry - video by You Chews to find co-founder - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSTHYb4Ij8Y

<comment><USER2> That's awesome. I like the cheekiness as well. Well done.

I wonder if it will work. I guess it might at least get them some attention.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very cool, makes me think all job adverts should be done to a Bob Marley song ;-)

Hope you get some great responses.</comment>


We need internet that isn't owned by big telecom - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/j5djd7/motherboard-and-vice-are-building-a-community-internet-network-to-protect-net-neutrality <comment><USER2> The real snag in net neutrality, and "saving the internet" in general is not in getting a bunch of pop-up isps. The real crux of the problem has always been in peering relationships. It's not that hard to start a wISP. It's not that hard to even lease telco copper or fiber and run a local wired ISP.

Right up until your local customer wants to access Google, or Netflix, or something in Japan or Europe, or anything that isn't one of your local customers. Then you have to find peers who respect NN. And you have to build some connection to those peers.

Peering is expensive. A little ISP running out of a local data center has to find some other little ISP nearby and they have to build a connection between their data centers.

Building a worldwide network of such ISPs is very expensive. Sooner or later, the two little guys combine with each other, then with two others. And then you get exactly what we had in the '90s, which leads to what we had in the '00s. Unless you get very luck and get some superpower that builds out the infrastructure without losing sight of all that is good and right in the world, you end up where we are today.

Oh, and you have to get the masses to understand the issues and penalize cheaters. Good luck with that.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure small ISPs are a viable business model like it was in 10-20 years ago, but if you want to build a small regional ISP, I don't think peering relationships are going to be the problem, you can simply purchase transit bandwidth from the big guys. To do that cost effectively you do need to be renting rack space at a carrier hotel though.

The really hard part is the layer-2 last-mile infrastructure to end users. For the most part this means dealing with the local incumbent telco (leasing copper/fiber/DSL/ATM backhaul) or building your own wireless infrastructure. Except in rare circumstance I think the regulatory environment is going make it infeasible to build out your own physical infrastructure to compete with the telco or with the local cable franchise.

Google Fiber was an attempt to roll out a new last-mile infrastructure and it hasn't faired well. It isn't going to be easy to disrupt the last-mile infrastructure market.

<comment><USER2> I visited a location this week where there were 2-4 houses per mile along country roads. The residents had a choice of ISPs. The house I visited had dialtone from a VOIP service.

Yes, it costs money to build out last-mile infrastructure. But even in very low density areas, it can pay off. Recurring revenues of $50-100/month per customer can in fact pay for the initial investment. Especially if the investment was a wifi tower. It's the kind of thing one motivated local can pull off.

Building a worldwide network of peers who all respect NN is much much more difficult. Even if you could set up some organization like EFF to define some "Bill of Rights" and then certify conformant ISPs with a cool logo of approval, customers will not choose ISPs based on that logo. Average American consumers will not demand NN.

So your local ISP--even a well-intentioned one--will do as you suggest: "Simply purchase transit bandwidth from the big guys." There ends NN.

<comment><USER4> A relative of mine lives in a rural area of Washington State, USA. He has fiber internet through ToledoTel...

[http://www.toledotel.com/our- services/internet/](http://www.toledotel.com/our-services/internet/)

...it's expensive, but he has it. Every time I hear someone say we can't have blazing fast Internet in San Francisco, it's never phrased as a question like "would you be willing to pay $MONTHLY_PRICE for 1gps fiber?" So far, I've only heard "Building fiber in San Francisco isn't possible because of $UNAMBITIOUS_EXCUSE."

<comment><USER5> That stuff was all part of the Obama era stimulus bills. Many folks with the ability to lay fiber did so with substantial capitalization from the Feds. Many municipal governments and counties built fiber rings as well.

The result was mostly institutional connectivity. Rural prisons, hospitals, government, factories, and schools got connected. But local franchise agreements make the last mile pretty much impossible.

<comment><USER3> Huh. ToledoTel _is_ the telco it its service area. It isn't competing with the local telco. I don't think this is an example of municipal networking.

<comment><USER5> Sorry for the confusion in my response. I didn't mean to imply that.

Rural telcos had access to this money for sure.

Municipal government really benefited as well — for its own purposes, not municipal broadband.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> An Internet that is completely decentralized and independent of gatekeepers is the only long-term hope that I can see, and it's a very remote hope at that.

There are too many powerful, vested interests in controlling people and their communication to let that happen. The only reason the Internet was ever as free as it was that it slipped under the radar of those very interests and wasn't taken seriously enough at first. So its users had a decade or two of relative freedom that's now steadily being chipped away.

<comment><USER7> Trouble is nobody's yet figured out how to build a completely decentralized internet that is anywhere near as good as the regular internet.

Mostly because wireless technologies still don't scale that far, which means wires in the ground, which means gatekeepers on the other end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> MuniFiber.com. Towns are slowly rolling their own fiber to the home. This is one answer to breaking cable monopolies.

edit:

Apologies, muninetworks.org is the true website. I've been reading way too much about FTTH obviously and partially substituted the website name :)

<comment><USER9> Was interested in learning more, I think the correct website is [https://muninetworks.org/content/fiber-optic- network](https://muninetworks.org/content/fiber-optic-network)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> In 2019 SpaceX should start deploying their satellite constellation...

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

<comment><USER11> Round trip to a satellite will never rival fiber. Especially the way modern web apps are built inefficiently

<comment><USER12> > SpaceX expects its own latencies to be between 25 and 35ms [0]

There is a huge difference in latency between existing satellite internet services and what spacex is looking to launch.

[0]: [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2016/11/space...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2016/11/spacex-plans-worldwide-satellite-internet-with-low-latency- gigabit-speed/)

<comment><USER11> It sounda similar to fiber latency. Ive never thought about this before but the amount of time for a round trip to a leo satellite, shouldnt that be in the range of 10 m/s. (1200 km / 300,000 km/ s) = 4 m/s x 2 i wonder whats the complete breakdown, is most of it inter satellite optical communication? Does this offset the additional 8 ms because its a simplified topology?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like their fire to get this done.

however , the ISP market is a market hated by its cutomer base for decades. So you got to ask why hasnt this been done before at a reasonable scale or more often?

Didnt even google fiber run into epic hurdles due to monopolistic regulations setup by the telcom oligarch?

if Google fiber struggled how is a small startup going to be able to play?

I'm skeptical in the success of this , but i will be folowing and possibly get involved and hope they succeed.

<comment><USER14> It's not just monopolistic regulations. Outside of dense urban areas there is not much room for competition among ISPs. At some point it is never going to be profitable to compete; and in some places it will never be profitable to even build the infrastructure in the first place. The only reason DSL is widely available is that phone companies were forced to build the copper network even in unprofitable places, so adding DSL service was not too hard for them.

If we really want a market-based approach we need infrastructure sharing rules. Prior to 2003 we had lots of competition in the DSL market; after the sharing rules were eliminated competition vanished almost overnight and we wound up with the monopoly situation we face today. Infrastructure sharing requirements have worked very well in France, where fiber optic service is more widely available and costs consumers less.

<comment><USER15> > At some point it is never going to be profitable to compete; and in some > places it will never be profitable to even build the infrastructure in the > first place.

If there are no regulations here's how it goes: first ISPs compete in urban areas, this is very profitable with traditional active fiber to the building and ethernet to each apartment. It takes like $50 CAPEX per customer. But at some point as competition increases margins get lower and certain ISPs start looking into rural areas where they can have no real competition, i.e. DSL or radio is not a competition to fiber. New ISPs emerge too as people see an opportunity to profit from temporary geographical monopoly. So they start building in rural areas, enjoying huge margins. Today they'd use something like GPON, which is very cheap compared to the old days. It goes on until at some point the hard part becomes finding areas from where they can profit the most and where there is no real competition. This is when some start competing with other ISPs in rural areas. But as margins start to shrink in some areas due to competition they prioritize investment into areas competition unlikely to reach. There will be far away neglected areas still, but here's a twist, since there is a lot of competition people who are willing to pay will be able to find a whole bunch of ISPs willing to build fiber or at least radio links with them. In other words - it's always profitable, regulations really is the only problem.

Forcing to share infrastructure is also not necessary. It helps only if monopolies share it with everyone, not small players. With no regulations market solves this pretty well.

<comment><USER2> As a little experiment, I picked a random dot in the middle of Nevada-- northern Nevada, far away from Las Vegas.

I landed on this house: <deleted out of respect for the owner>.

This looks pretty rural to me.

Then I went to their telco and the first thing on the homepage was a link to check for fiber availability.

Fiber is available for this home.

You might have to rethink your plan for competition. I'm guessing the result won't be too different for Mississippi, Texas, Ohio, etc.

EDIT: I tried again and landed in Batesville, AR. It seems there are three Fiber ISPs here.

Edited for courtesy to individual property owners.

<comment><USER16> It almost seems like semi-rural areas are a better place to start, as they're less regulated (no "cable monopoly", no NIMBYs) and the properties are too far away to have the options of Cable/DSL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> All major infrastructure such as roads, power, communications etc needs to be owned and run by government upon which is then a level playing field on which free enterprise can then compete.

When you have any major infrastructure essential to running a business in private hands you no longer have a democracy or free enterprise.

<comment><USER18> On a related note, can't a digital platform such as iOS or Android be viewed as major infrastructure? How about Google's search?

<comment><USER19> Main difference between digital platforms and government owned utilities it that utilities require access to land. No one is stopping you from rolling out your own digital platform, while there is no practical way to get any land to lay your own gas pipeline. Therefore the answer to your question is "no, Google search cannot be considered public infrastructure, and one for the reasons is that it does not require any public land to operate".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What is sad is the internet used to be run by the small time guys. I bought my internet off a guy down the street in the 90s who had a rack of servers and routers in a closet. The future we want is the past we had.

</comment><comment><USER21> One thing I've wondered, if the big regional monopoly ISPs actually violate our net neutrality on a large enough scale, can enough new ISPs pop-up who have net neutrality in their company charter (or otherwise are non-profits) to keep the old internet alive? Can municipalities drop existing exclusive contacts citing "loss of net neutrality" as a material change? How will regressive districts take it when other states are keeping NN and prospering? If net neutrality can be restored from the bottom up, has anyone explored strategies and methods to protect ourselves from regional monopoly ISPs and how it will actually roll out over time and regionally? How will the top resist a bottom up change?

<comment><USER22> No. Because people love cheap and free stuff. Non NN ISPs will be cheaper and consumers couldn't care less as long as they get their Netflix, which the will.

<comment><USER23> A global internet does not need to be consumer oriented.

<comment><USER22> The Internet that serves consumers does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > internet infrastructure that is locally owned and operated and is dedicated > to serving the people who connect to it

In theory our public transit is "locally owned and operated and is dedicated to serving the people" rather than shareholders. Yet public transit is almost uniformly awful in the US. If you live in San Francisco, do you really want your internet run by the same people who run the Muni?

<comment><USER21> You can show them Chattanooga as a case study where the results were optimal.

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ezpk77/chattanoog...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ezpk77/chattanooga- gigabit-fiber-network)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2013/09/17...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2013/09/17/how-chattanooga-beat-google-fiber-by-half-a-decade/)

[https://www.thedailybeast.com/chattanooga-has-its-own- broadb...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/chattanooga-has-its-own-broadbandwhy- doesnt-every-city)

<comment><USER24> But are the odds in your favor? I live in the DC area. What are the odds that the public ISP is going to be run better than WMATA, where trains are catching fire on a regular basis? Or the roads, which are chock full of potholes. Or the water system, where the system is full of lead pipe? Or the sewer system that dumps untreated sewage into the local rivers after heavy rains?

<comment><USER21> The difficulty in an ISP is going to be about initial funding and being sued by regional monopolies. An ISP, specifically one that does not require additional hardware/software to organize and power tiered net neutrality violations logic, has orders of magnitudes less moving parts and disruptive needs for real estate/infrastructure. Maintainence labor could be simplified by training existing city electrical teams to work on both wire sets. We're talking about something with a lot less toes to step on. The failure scenarios for an ISP are so miniscule they make public transportation look like Chernobyl. Does a public ISP need to be ran better than those other things? There's just so much less to mess up and the consequences are just so much smaller and less permanent. Even if the mayor explicitly sells you out to the NSA or acquires someone's browsing history abusively or somehow the internet is out for a day, that's pretty much nothing compared to lead water, out of service rail line, environmental disaster, etc..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Maybe someone can make a FSOC (freespace optical communications) kit that is cheap and safe and we can install them on our rooftops and start beaming our packets all over ourselves.

[http://ronja.twibright.com/](http://ronja.twibright.com/)

I'm sure someone will explain how they believe that is stupid, dangerous and impossible.

</comment><comment><USER26> I am hoping Elon Musk could rescue us from this. Hopefully with satellite based internet using SpaceX rockets.

</comment><comment><USER27> Other related acts:

[https://www.mail- email@example.com/ms...](https://www.mail- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg09156.html)

</comment><comment><USER28> And we need food that isn't grown by big farming. And we need news that isn't reported by big journalism. And we need entertainment that isn't produced by big Hollywood. And we need government that isn't...wait, we need big government. Never mind.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is where a new startup isp needs to pair with Artemis networks can create a next gen wireless network that puts these big telecoms to shame.

</comment><comment><USER30> Those of you who have seen me post over the years know that I am passionate about this topic. I wind up linking to my own project to provide more info but let me know if that's bad form on HN.

In 2011 I started a company to decentralize facebook. I thought there was no reason that signals needed to go through server farms in California just to organize a local dinner, have a local marketplace, classes, dating, or a host of other things. I wanted to build a platform like Wordpress that communities could host and then install social apps the same way they install wordpress plugins.

The developer model would be pretty cool, too: no gatekeepers to kick you out of the app store or revoke your API keys while they compete with you. Instead, you sell your apps to entire communities. Over time we built apps like:

      Group rides (uber for friends)
      Group activities
      Group chat
      Collaborative docs
      Marketplace
      Pitching in for a gift

As time went on, I realized that eventually communities will have their own mesh networks and we would have built the social software they would need to run on them! Right now, they don't really have software uilt to run on the local networks, they still need to connect to centralized services on the global internet.

We asked some guys to build router firmware for us, so that we can have local software run on the wifi networks of cruise ships, classrooms etc. It is great for taking attendance for example, as phones automatically connect to the wifi and the cookie does the attendance bit.

You can literally have a superfast social network for a university or company or whatever, and signals go over the internet only when they have to.

If you want more in depth info I give a talk about it here: [https://youtu.be/WzMm7-j7yIY](https://youtu.be/WzMm7-j7yIY)

And we blogged about the details here: [https://qbix.com/blog/index.php/2017/08/centralization- and-o...](https://qbix.com/blog/index.php/2017/08/centralization-and-open- source/)

Now we went one step further and made a spinoff company, Intercoin Inc to allow communities to issue and democratically manage their own local currency! ([https://intercoin.org](https://intercoin.org))

IPFS and SAFE a great fit for an even further future where no elites control anything. But that's a little further on.

Here is what I would like to see eventually replace the Web: [https://github.com/Qbix/architecture/wiki/Internet-2.0](https://github.com/Qbix/architecture/wiki/Internet-2.0)

<comment><USER31> I'll provide my two cents, in the case of group activities. It seems awfully convenient to have a single site (e.g., meetup) for, say, if I'm traveling to a new city and looking for something to do.

It'd seem like an unnecessary barrier to entry to have to find the locally hosted instance of every particular problem, every location I go.

Knowing I can use Yelp or Groupon etc to find local restaurants or deals anywhere is actually pretty helpful.

To get to the core of your premise:

> I thought there was no reason that signals needed to go through server farms > in California just to organize a local dinner, have a local marketplace, > classes, dating, or a host of other things.

You might think there is no reason for this; but users of these services aren't concerned with this problem. If your selling point is "Hey, don't you hate how this one big corporation has a monopoly on <marketplace> <group activities> etc?", you're going to hear crickets. This isn't a customer problem.

<comment><USER30> Our customers are the directors of organizations and on average communities pay us tens of thousands of $ each to put an app for their members in the store.

For example a university realizes that if they give an app to their students while they are still actively studying there, as alumni they will be part of a social network across the country where they can get job and business opportunities, date or just meet someone for an activity. They are more likely to donate and participate when the university posts their own events.

As for the users - you're right. A user doesn't necessarily want to have one app for each community. That's why the process should be seamless.

Ideally, an app should be usable across many communities. So think for example of Meetup.com as an app on our platform. It would be on the app store and you'd automatically see meetups across all the communities where you are a member.

We go way further btw, with authentication and friend discovery: [https://github.com/Qbix/auth](https://github.com/Qbix/auth)

It has to be absolutely seamless, private and integrate with existing websites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> We need a handcrafted, vegan, artisan internet operated by SF hipsters. Most definitely.

</comment><comment><USER33> I just loaded this article on my mobile device. An ad on the website triggered with auto playing audio that stopped background media playback of my device. I class these type of ads as a type of vermin, and generally avoid any website that contains them. Why should I trust an organisation that chooses to run user hostile ads on their site line this to make a better internet?

<comment><USER34> This is a literal ad hominem fallacy. Whether someone is honest or good doesn't have any bearing on any individual statement's veracity. A statement is true or false regardless of who says it. Additionally the article was written by an author who is not responsible for the advertisements, or really any actions of this establishment which are entirely outside of their control.

All being said, yeah that sounds horrible, and you probably shouldn't trust them as they are a for profit, but that's not an argument as to whether they are wrong or not.

<comment><USER35> > This is a literal ad hominem fallacy.

This is rather a problem with the author who is benefiting from the ad-driven Internet while preaching for something else. It's like a weapons reseller advocating for peace.

<comment><USER14> Is there some non-ad-driven web ecosystem that I somehow missed? Just because the web currently depends on ads to pay for things does not mean that it is an OK situation or that we should tolerate every intrusion by advertisers.

<comment><USER35> > non-ad-driven web ecosystem that I somehow missed?

Yes there is. Patreon and similar systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I've noticed that when Trump detaches a thing from government control (Paris agreement, net neutrality), the populace and media go full on chicken little sky is falling.

Then as the dust settles, people start having conversations like this one. Private and corporate entities, wealthy individuals, organizations, step up and attempt to fill the gap.

So. Isn't that the whole point? That society as a whole is better suited to solve these problems than the largest centralized node on the network?

Edit: K I'll just absorb downvotes for having an opinion which doesn't actively oppose trump in one particular case.

<comment><USER20> You have it exactly backwards, By privatizing, Trump will increase the size of the government. After the USSR collapsed and Chicago style economists pilfered the place, the size of the government went up! You ended up with more bureaucrats than ever. Why? Because when you add markets to things that didn't have markets, you add regulators and all sorts of other score keeping to make sure the markets function.

It is far more efficient not to use markets in most cases. When the Federal government privatized the internet in the late 90s, the regulatory system went up! Also of course corporations love regulations when it benefits them. Don't forget most regulations are written and pushed by the industry that is being regulated.

<comment><USER37> Surely you're the one getting this backwards somehow? You're talking about privatisation, but the OP discusses deregulation.

You don't mean to say that deregulation leads to more regulation, do you?

EDIT: Also, your thesis that using markets is inefficient due to more regulation, it sounds rather that you mean to say that more regulation is inefficient. How is this a failure of the market and not the state?

<comment><USER20> Deregulation often leads to more regulation. By allowing a whole class of actions to happen, you will find exceptions will start popping up and laws will be written to patch market failings.

If you allow X, you will find overtime it will turn into 100 different 'Allow X but' rules.

Example, Cable companies can now charge more for Netflix, then netflix lobbies and gets a new regulation 'Can charge more for traffic Except by accredited content providers'.

On and on exceptions will be lobbied and won and eventually you end up with more regulations and a larger government administering those regulations.

Net neutrality is a far more efficient regulation.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rock, Paper, Scissors + Dynamite & Water balloon on Azure - <AUTHOR> http://www.rockpaperazure.com/aboutchallenge.aspx

<comment><USER2> This is silly for several reasons, most notably the fact that dynamite blows up scissors. A friend and I added dynamite and pencil to RPS a few years back and worked out they dynamics. Dynamite is your thumb sticking out and pencil is your index finger sticking out. Scissors beats dynamite (cuts fuse) and paper. Dynamite beats rock and pencils (blows up stack of pencils). Rock beats scissors and pencil (smashes the lead). Pencil beats paper and scissors (pokes and you drop scissors). Paper beats dynamite (smothers fuse) and rock.</comment>


Mathematician Measures the Repulsive Force Within Polynomials - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-math-measures-the-repulsive-force-within-polynomials-20200514/ <comment><USER2> The title reads like a joke, but apparently it's not

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, this is an absolutely lovely presentation of that result. Huge props to Hartnett for writing this piece! It's a perfect mix of intuitive and well- explained without being too hand-wavy and it's quite an interesting subject, too.

Again, big props to Hartnett (and Dimitrov, of course)!

</comment><comment><USER4> Off-topic but can someone recommend me a software for drawing diagrams as shown in this article? Something easier to use than matplotlib, TikZ?

<comment><USER5> Use R:

> plot(polyroot(c(1,-1,1,-1,1,-1)))

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know how this idea of repulsive forces in root spacing might relate to filter analysis?

<comment><USER3> What do you mean by filter analysis? As in classical linear filtering? (as in, you're finding the roots of the transfer function?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not to shit on all of your middlebrow dismissals but mathematicians are known to steal language from other fields as metaphors for mathematical phenomena. Sometimes these metaphors are very rigorous and precise and sometimes they're fast and loose. Here, look, I found all these papers which use "repulsion" as a mathematical metaphor for distances between zeroes, eigenvalues, and other special values of a geometric object:

Random matrices: tail bounds for gaps between eigenvalues

Gaps (or spacings) between consecutive eigenvalues are a central topic in random matrix theory. The goal of this paper is to study the tail distribution of these gaps in various random matrix models. We give the first repulsion bound for random matrices with discrete entries and the first super-polynomial bound on the probability that a random graph has simple spectrum, along with several applications."

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1504.00396](https://arxiv.org/abs/1504.00396)

Real roots of random polynomials: expectation and repulsion

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1409.4128](https://arxiv.org/abs/1409.4128)

Zero repulsion in families of elliptic curve L-functions and an observation of Miller

[https://academic.oup.com/blms/article- abstract/45/1/80/29767...](https://academic.oup.com/blms/article- abstract/45/1/80/297678)

Integral Points on Elliptic Curves and the Bombieri-Pila Bounds

Let C be an affine, plane, algebraic curve of degree d with integer coefficients. In 1989, Bombieri and Pila showed that if one takes a box with sides of length N then C can obtain no more than O_{d,\epsilon}(N^{1/d+\epsilon}) integer points within the box. Importantly, the implied constant makes no reference to the coefficients of the curve. Examples of certain rational curves show that this bound is tight but it has long been thought that when restricted to non-rational curves an improvement should be possible whilst maintaining the uniformity of the bound. In this paper we consider this problem restricted to elliptic curves and show that for a large family of these curves the Bombieri-Pila bounds can be improved. The techniques involved include repulsion of integer points, the theory of heights and the large sieve. As an application we prove a uniform bound for the number of rational points of bounded height on a general del Pezzo surface of degree 1.

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1301.4116](https://arxiv.org/abs/1301.4116)

<comment><USER3> Absolutely agreed—it's a little funny to see dismissals of the article (which, as I mentioned elsewhere in the thread is actually quite good), even though, as a mathematician [0] we use these analogies (and sometimes really the whole idea) all the time.

To add to your list (for less number-theory specific topics):

\- Lyapunov functions? Energy in physics (just a mathematical surrogate)

\- Exponential families? Canonical ensemble in physics

\- Convex duality? Lagrange duality in classical mechanics

and the list continues.

\-----

[0] And, admittedly, a member of a physics lab, even though I don't really do any physics.

<comment><USER7> Yea! And here's a metaphor to... baking!! The moment this metaphor clicked for me reading a musty textbook with yellowing pages was delightful, I can go back to that moment just by thinking about it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milnor%E2%80%93Thurston_kneadi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milnor%E2%80%93Thurston_kneading_theory)

<comment><USER3> I love it! I had heard of some of these results in relation to Persi Diaconis's work ( _e.g._ , [0]). I'm curious, what is the textbook? Would love to take a quick glance at it at least! :)

EDIT: I also really like the fact that even the original paper mentioned in the quanta article references other (quite pictorially fun) things, such as the aptly named Hedgehog spaces [1] (see Theorem 3, for example).

Perhaps it's violating the prime directive to be mentioning this, but it's a little bit of a shame to see what I think is a good article so quickly dismissed by what is essentially just bikeshedding (that isn't even justified!).

\----

[0] [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10955-011-0284-x](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10955-011-0284-x)

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

<comment><USER7> Thought about it, and it was definitely the original paper in some journal volume. I remember the pictures, and the ones I drew myself :) Found it here: [http://www-personal.umich.edu/~kochsc/MilnorThurston.pdf](http://www- personal.umich.edu/~kochsc/MilnorThurston.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Awesome, thank you!

<comment><USER7> the paper by Persi Diaconis you linked to was so fun that I want to learn about markov chain mixing now.

<comment><USER3> Oh it's an absolutely lovely overview. Honestly I would highly recommend most stuff from Diaconis, he's got a fantastic expository style (and all of his papers are quite readable!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is an interesting and important result, but framing it in terms of a "repulsive force" is beyond ridiculous. In fact, it's actively harmful. Forces are physical things and this result has nothing to do with anything physical. It's pure number theory.

<comment><USER9> This is silly, and I wish I had enough points to downvote you.

Mathematicians borrow the terminology that is most helpful for explaining an idea. such a thing cannot be seen as harmful. Readers are not infants, and should not be treated like infants. They are responsible for the conclusions they come to, especially in mathematics.

<comment><USER10> > especially in mathematics

What do you mean?

<comment><USER9> Mathematics is one of those fields where you can actually, really verify the truth or falseness of a statement, if you're willing to do the work involved.

<comment><USER10> That does not make sense within the context of the discussion.

In any science, engineering, etc. field you are responsible for the conclusions you come in your papers/projects/etc.

Even in sub-fields of those with an empirical component (if that is your angle) there are standards you have to reach to claim a discovery/success.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is your vocabulary more 'male' or 'female'?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10924923/Is-your-vocabulary-more-male-or-female.html

<comment><USER2> It's certainly more 'American' than 'English'.</comment>


Gitignore.io - New and updated gitignore templates - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gitignore.io/post/47464776169/new-and-updated-gitignore-templates

<comment><USER2> been looking around for this kinda thing.. don't know how I've missed that

<comment><AUTHOR> My marketing is terrible :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> looks like it could be really useful</comment>


Ask HN: What is the legality in private domain registration and GoDaddy? - <AUTHOR>

	I want to purchase a domain for my startup but it is owned by what I believe to be a defunct company in Toronto, Canada. They owned a company with the same name as late as around 2010 but based on internet search, it seems like their business went cold around that time. The domain has been squatted on ever since. Now my stealth startup wants to purchase this domain as it is unused and hasn't been in quite awhile, but it is privately owned with the domain whois info pointing to:
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.wildwestdomains.com Registrar URL: http://www.wildwestdomains.com Registrant Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Domains by Proxy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domains_by_Proxy) is owned by Bob Parsons (GoDaddy).
There are two things I feel leave a bad taste in my mouth.
1) People are allowed to squat on a domain indefinitely, creating no value for the domain (or society) and inhibiting others from creating value with it. By allowing private domain registration, in encourages this squatting and to me it hurts the market with an opposite effect from "free market" where instead it becomes "closed market".
2) GoDaddy seems to have a conflict of interest and charges $70 (+ commission) for their domain buy back service. In my case, all they did after I paid it was email me to tell me the seller is not interested in selling and that it is a non-refundable fee. I have called the to complain and get my $70 back as I feel like they didn't do anything that is worth $70 (and ive spent well over $1,000 in the past decade with them), but so far they won't refund me.
It seems almost fraudulent that GoDaddy can both hide a registrant's true identity and then charge money to be a middle man with them and in probably most cases they just tell you that the seller isn't interested.
What are your thoughts HN community? Does GoDaddy have a conflict of interest or a shady business practice here? Should there be a change in laws around this? What can I do? <comment><USER2> I think GoDaddy is pretty clear on what their domain service does [https://www.godaddy.com/domains/domain- broker.aspx](https://www.godaddy.com/domains/domain-broker.aspx) and what you're paying for. I agree it's too expensive but the service is to mediate and their first step, as outlined on the help page, is to reach out.

If the domain is squatted, didn't the squatter have a contact link? Their business is usually selling domain names after all. Maybe the squatter is using GoDaddy's anonymity service as a way to filter prospects not willing to pay money to reach them.

What you can try is go via GoDaddy again and increase your offer. Or another mediator, e.g. [https://sedo.com/us/buy-domains/domain- brokerage/](https://sedo.com/us/buy-domains/domain-brokerage/). If you're not willing to offer more money or the squatter doesn't want to sell then move on (choose a different name).

<comment><AUTHOR> See comment below but basically I think it's owned by a now defunct Public Relations company in Canada (probably holding onto it for namesake).

I'm not going to choose a new name based on this. What I'm really getting at is the bigger picture of people being able to sit on domains and hold them hostage indefinitely AND be able to hide their identity. When someone buys a house or a building, it is public domain and they can't hide (in theory). Why isn't this the case for domains? Why is a private company like Domains By Proxy (GoDaddy) allowed to both hide the domain AND charge you to unhide it? That is the part that seems shady and definitely unethical to me.

<comment><USER3> I'm a bit confused as to exactly what your argument is with. You seem to have two issues - one with a WHOIS privacy guard, and the other is someone owning a domain.

1) Why did you have to pay GoDaddy, and couldn't you just email firstname.lastname@example.com to ask if they wanted to sell - it probably get's forwarded to their actual registered email. I for one like WHOIS privacy guards - I don't want my name, address, and mobile phone number freely available on the internet just because I have a domain registered for personal use.

2) Your analogy to public property doesn't hold up. I can buy property, and even if you know who I am, you can't force me to sell. Maybe I do own the domain, but I'm just not using it for a website - how do you know?

 _now defunct Public Relations company in Canada (probably holding onto it for namesake)_

It might be owned by creditors now, who plan to use it later. Or plan to resell it. They're well within their rights to do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Change your startup name.

<comment><AUTHOR> I dont want to change the name honestly. We do own the .io domain for it but the name is really good and particularly fits the application. I think it's being squatted on by the owners of the now defunct company in Canada by the same name (appears to have ended ~2010)

It's definitely a risk to continue though because if it gains traction we may never be able to acquire the .com

Additionally, because of the way things are set up where anyone can just hold a domain indefinitely, basically there are barely ANY available .com domains now which sucks for people trying to create things.

<comment><USER5> This isn't domain squatting.

Squatting is a 'bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else'. That's the legal definition. But they had the domain, they put it to active use for a legitimate purpose. It's no longer in active use. But they had no idea that you would want it. There's no bad faith.

There's also a looser definition that squatting has 'the primary goal being to prevent others from buying it, and the secondary goal being, in many cases, to profit from it.' But this loose goal has a problem - _you_ are in stealth mode. Your own goal is to 'prevent others from buying it' until you leave stealth.

Plus, you do know that they aren't willing to sell, which means they aren't trying to make a profit.

Thus, this isn't domain squatting. This is 'someone has a domain that you want, but got to it first.'

You believe that a domain has to 'create value'? That's not a requirement, nor even a moral obligation. People also acquire a domain with the hope of creating a web site, only to find a few years later they never had the time for it. Or they had a company, the company went under, but they have the domain still because of the hope to start again.

Or, you know, some people have a domain name for email purposes, but don't have a web site.</comment></comment></comment>


Funding & Next Steps - <AUTHOR> http://banksimple.com/blog/2010/09/1/funding-next-steps/

<comment><USER2> Congrats on the raising the round!

Would be curious to see how you do going forward. Banks usually cut a lot of slack to customers with good deposit size. I have been able to get away with any fee with my bank. So it is the lower deposit, not so profitable customers, who pay fees.

The interest margin revenue source sounds fine, but you will be sharing revenue with your partner banks. Looks like the manage goals feature will be built further to suggest products around goals to generate revenue (Mint kind of play).

</comment><comment><USER3> Now there's a number.

TechCrunch: "I've confirmed that the round was $2.9 million, with an additional $190,000 raised last year in convertible debt (which converted to shares with this round), for a total of $3.1 million raised."

link: <http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/banksimple-3-1-million/></comment>


Will books survive? A scorecard. - <AUTHOR> http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2009/11/21/will-books-survive-a-scorecard/

<comment><USER2> A teenage perspective, where computer-based reading loses nothing and gains everything. I assume an open or hackable system, which any sensible user will take advantage of.

Readability: Change font, size, aliasing, and spacing to your liking.

Convenience: access millions of books using search

Annotation: Text editor or some kind of application.

Cost: free

Social flags: You can still tell people what you're reading. Bookshelves are nice decoration. But I bet OLED wallpaper or paint isn't too far off.

Aesthetic: A book is a brick of paper. At least CDs are shiny.

Sentimental value: Any object can have sentimental value: clothing, sports equipment, obsolete hardware.

Rarity: If text is not online, it doesn't exist.

Single Mindedness: Distraction is always a problem; learn discipline or face the consequences.

Religion: Torah didn't switch to the printing press.

<comment><USER3> > Rarity: If text is not online, it doesn't exist.

Be careful with that line of thinking. Time and again throughout the history of the digital age, data has ceased to exist precisely because it was in a digital form. Consider this remark from the US National Archives: "By the mid 1970s, when computer tapes for the 1960 census came to the attention of archivists, there remained only two machines capable of reading them. One was already in the Smithsonian. The other was in Japan!" An entire task force now exists at the National Archives (<http://www.archives.gov/era/papers/preservation.html>) to address the problem of expiring data formats (old cassettes, magnetic tape, etc).

Take the following hypothetical: if Google goes under sometime in the next decade, and takes all of its data with it, the thousands of volumes that have been archived by the Google Books project will persevere _only_ because university libraries around the world have copies of them on their shelves. Data continue to exist even when they're not immediately available to us at our terminals.

[And this is most certainly not the forum for this, but if I'm reading between the lines correctly you seem to be speciously implicating that Judaism was surpassed by Christianity as the predominant western religion because of its failure to embrace the printing press, but I would point out to you that a.) I own a lovely bound copy of the Tanakh, published by the JPS and available from Amazon for the low low price of $23.10, b.) the total number of adherents of Christianity had leapfrogged Judaism by at the latest the 4th century--a full millennium before Gutenberg--and would only continue to skyrocket seeing as it was the de facto faith of a sprawling political empire, and c.) Judaism is an inherently non-evangelical faith, so talk of such competitive tallying is really irrelevant anyway.]

<comment><USER4> Actually, the libraries in the google books project get digital copies, too.

It's also important to remember that university libraries very adamantly do not view themselves as archives at all and are constantly weeding out books that they view as no longer relevant to them. The only items that can be assumed to be retained by the library are those very few items that are in each library's special collections.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Keep in mind that this is about the future of ebooks, that is, those without the limitations of today's ebook readers.

Nevertheless I won't give up my physical books soon. I borrow friends' books, mark my own with all sorts of scribbles not easily reproducible on a computer, focus clearly and read much longer on paper, marvel at the wonderful construction of books, and singularly enjoy the sensation of turning page after page when reading. Yes, I'm ascribing a healthy dose of romanticism to reading physical books, but maybe it is for that reason I will be still reading dead tree editions of books when ebooks are ubiquitous, like those who view "Henry V" in the theater even though Kenneth Branaugh is available in the cinema.

</comment><comment><USER6> _They obviously don't work in physical space that way; if you want to show off your books to people who visit your home, you're going to have to get physical copies._

This is _not_ true! I can imagine Apple adding something to FrontRow that acts as a "Virtual Bookshelf." Heck, it doesn't even have to be Apple. Microsoft with that "Project Natal" tech would be able to make an awesome version of this! Just have that up all the time as a sort of screen-saver. Don't limit yourself to just a simulated screenshot of the backs of books. I can imagine something with "cover-flow" and a sidebar of related works. Also, one would have the ability to "magically" re-arrange the books according to whatever indexing/ordering scheme they wanted.

A coffee table sized "Surface" would be ideal for this sort of thing. A "slate" form-factor computer to sit on top of a conventional coffee table would be dandy as well. (Just have it display a different "cover" every 3 seconds in "screen saver" mode.)

<comment><USER5> You may be interested in the app Delicious Library: <http://delicious- monster.com/>

Edit: Also, Readernaut and Shelfari both offer the sorting features you describe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> To me it is totally clear that ebook readers will dominate. The key technology is e-ink, which is not luminescent. I believe that luminescent displays are more difficult to read and that products like sony reader and amazon kindle will get smaller, more efficient (remember, only need power to change the page, you can power this with a handleheld generator or solar cell) and eventually replace paper altogether. Also, paper requires killing all those tree things which are so convenient for breathing...

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately, the energy needed to build & power ebook readers & to generate & distribute ebooks (incl. maintaining the necessary server farms and other ICT infrastructure) doesn't grow on trees.

<comment><USER9> To be fair, it also takes a lot of energy to cut down a tree, ship it to a paper mill, boil and smash it to pulp, mold that into paper, ship the paper to a printer, ship the printed book to you...

I don't really know which will win in energy-efficiency terms. Probably depends on the lifetime of an ebook reader before it breaks or -- far more likely -- becomes obsolete and needs to be either thrown away or kept in the back of my closet until I can bring myself to throw it away. I really wish I knew how long that was.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ebooks are easier to modify and censor post publication.

Ebooks require recharging and some forms require net access.

Ebooks are more vulnerable to some forms of damage than paper books - and fire and wet damage ebooks as well as paper books.

Ebooks are searchable - this is the biggest advantage they have for scholarship.

<comment><USER11> Crippleware, drm'ed publications are a small subset of "ebooks".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For several decades a sufficiently large number of books will be sold to make enough money out of production, distribution, storage, and sale. Then BOD will take over but books will be still there.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think books will just become art objects. Illustrators rejoice!

</comment><comment><USER13> Something I don't see mentioned: Health issues. I used to have thousands of books. I eventually got rid of them all for health reasons. I currently keep as little paper and cardboard as possible in my home. So I do the majority of my reading online now, which is part of why I belong to HN.

Closely linked (at least in my mind): Environmental issues. If a single ereader can replace thousands of books, this is more sustainable for a planet with a human population in the billions.

<comment><USER14> > I used to have thousands of books. I eventually got rid of them all for > health reasons

Interesting. Would you expand on this?

<comment><USER13> I lived for 4 1/2 years in an apartment that had to be gutted and inspected by some environmental office or other prior to me moving in. Anytime I took a hot shower or boiled water on the stove, brown goo ran down the walls that smelled like cigarette tar. While living there, I ended up bedridden for about 3 1/2 months and spent about a year at death's door. I had a long history of respiratory and other health issues which had been largely blown off by doctors for most of my life. This crisis led to a cutting edge diagnosis of "atypical cystic fibrosis" (relatively mild compared to the traditional diagnosis, but still potentially deadly).

While living there, I was frequently in the ER. I went through a couple of periods where I ended up in the ER very routinely, within about 48 hours of coming off of antibiotics. Doctors told me point blank that "people like you don't get well". I had managed my condition without a diagnosis for many years (I was nearly 36 when I was diagnosed) so, in frustration with getting no real support from doctors, I began doing my own research and trying to improve on what I was already doing.

Eventually, I found that when I could feel a crisis coming on and was clearly deteriorating, washing all the curtains and throw rugs and so forth sometimes was effective in keeping me out of the ER. Eventually I concluded that if I did more washing proactively instead of waiting for a crisis, maybe I could avoid those crises altogether. This led to a period of some months where I spent all day Saturday, every Saturday in a laundromat washing about 20 loads of laundry. Yes, my health improved. But I felt like I had no life and was simply a slave to my possessions. I also began to be outraged at the idea that I had spent more money in just a few weeks on washing a throw rug than it would cost to replace it. I began cavalierly throwing out throw rugs and replacing them fairly frequently. Then I decided throw rugs were non-essential items and one could live without them. So were curtains. I began tossing out such belongings rather then spend all my time, energy and money trying to keep them clean enough to keep me out of the ER.

This led to me concluding that if all this washing could help keep me out of the ER, maybe it wasn't just my genes making me sick. Maybe it was also my possessions. I can't change my genes but I can change my relationship to my material possessions. I soon became determined to toss out anything in the apartment that was making me sick. Ultimately, I concluded that everything that had ever been in that apartment needed to go. I methodically threw it all out over the course of several years.

I initially had fantasies that I would get rid of the contaminated items and then get new things which were more spartan and low maintenance. I figured my lifestyle would look fairly conventional but with a clean, modern decor. That was not to be. To this day, I own very little. We (my sons and I -- the oldest of whom has the same diagnosis) have had repeated experiences proving to us how negatively papers impact our welfare. So we just don't go there.

I think this principle generalizes more than most people would like to believe. At one point, I snuck into an empty cubicle at work and removed 3 linear feet of papers left there (covered in dust and essentially rotting in place). I trashed some and redistributed others back to the supply room. Within 2 days of that, I stopped needing to keep Dayquil in my desk at work. But also within 2 days of that, two individuals who shared a wall with the cubicle I cleaned out stopped being ill with a chronic cough and respiratory infections, in spite of the fact that they had been steadily deteriorating and their doctors didn't know why.

<comment><USER15> This doesn't surprise me one bit. I think we all have sensitivities to various unnatural concentrations that we "politely overlook." Food and chemicals are the most obvious ones. Most paper gets treated, but it could also be intrinsic to paper being a fibrous, naturally decomposing product. I will have to let my parents know about this one, since they have zillions of books and my dad has persistent asthma.

Personally, I've been food-focused and have discovered that the occasional mild, but painful swelling I had was caused by the excessively high amounts of EFAs found in vegetable oils(the naturally occuring amount is tiny); simultaneously, most of my tired/inactive/sick feelings were the result of eating grains and beans. It took a very long time to sort through bullshit nutrition info and figure out the exact triggers, but minimizing intake of those three has been a tremendous lifestyle improvement.

<comment><USER13> I've also made a lot of dietary changes, but that wasn't relevant to the question that was asked of me. If you are interested, there is a website listed in my profile which talks more about what I've done.

The bookworm with respiratory problems/allergies is a stereotype in popular culture. I have concluded that being a bookworm helps cause those respiratory problems and it is not merely coincidental. Most paper is treated with strong chemicals, like bleach. Some books also have a lot of dyes in them (and I toured a printing company about 3 years ago -- it's quite a toxic environment and they openly acknowledge that). I react really badly to some things with heavy dye concentrations. Plus there is just the aspect of rotting, mold, mildew...etc.

As an interesting additional footnote: When my sons and I were sharing a single bedroom while living with relatives for nearly a year while I was going threw a divorce and job hunting, we stored boxes of soda and other foods in our room with us. We found that removing the cardboard boxes consistently lowered the temperature in our crowded little room by 5 degrees Fahrenheit and also lowered the humidity. Coincidentally, it also cured our problem with sometimes finding a large roach somewhere in the room. We have concluded that cardboard boxes are essentially a rotting compost heap, giving off heat and humidity like any compost heap. The temperature and "climate" in our apartment is dramatically more comfortable and stable than it has ever been now that upholstered furniture and cardboard boxes (and books and magazines) are not part of our local "ecosystem"</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bankruptcy Booms Among Older Americans - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/business/bankruptcy-older-americans.html <comment><USER2> What ever you save with your blood sweat and tears will be burned on medical expenses. Your best bet (after being diagnosed with something severe) is to convert all your last savings to cash, give it to a loved one, explain to the government you are broke, and die on the street. [1][2]

Nursing homes and hospices are designed to suck out your funds until you are dry, then dump you on state aid.

1\. [https://www.senioradvisor.com/san-jose-ca/how-much-do-san- jo...](https://www.senioradvisor.com/san-jose-ca/how-much-do-san-jose-nursing- homes-cost)

"The average annual cost to seniors nationally is $80,300 for a semi-private and $91,250 for a private room in 2015"

2\. I originally had "in a state funded hospice", but opo pointed out that medicare will strip you of your benefits due to their claw back system. You may want to look into committing a felony, for state funded care.

<comment><USER3> My plan is to intentionally OD on opiod patches if it gets to the point where I'm too sick to live independently and am burning through savings to suffer like that.

The gift route gets clawed back; the system is designed to take all your money first before subsidizing care.

<comment><USER4> There is something deeply disturbing and saddening in the honesty of your comment and sibling comments regarding this topic.

<comment><USER3> There are some lives that I simply don't consider worth living.

<comment><USER4> Nah, I get that part. The part I don't get is where did we, as a society, fail so badly for people to even consider the things that I read around this thread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I originally came across this article via[0], which contextualizes it within the broader US economy. It would seem that the word "older" in the headline is a bit misleading.

[0] [https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/08/just-stop- it-...](https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/08/just-stop-it-the- elderly-are-doing-fine/)

<comment><USER6> Appears you and MJ are right (graphs start on page 24).

[https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2017/CES- WP-17-54.pdf](https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2017/CES-WP-17-54.pdf)

<comment><USER7> "Individuals are likely to get divorced in the years before bankruptcy and then remarry. Income falls before bankruptcy and then rises after bankruptcy." In the midst of an otherwise depressing read, this is actually good news. It indicates that people stuck in a downward spiral of stress and bad financial decisions, are able to break out of that spiral by declaring bankruptcy. That is exactly what it is designed for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How can a 72-year-old retire just get his health insurance revoked? What's even the point of health insurance when it only covers the young and healthy apparently.

<comment><USER9> That does not make sense. Even if he lost his union provided healthcare insurance, the magic age for retirement in the US is 65 because after that age you are covered by Medicare.

Medicare, if you were not aware, is available to everyone who is a US citizen over the age of 65.

<comment><USER10> I'm an insurance broker. Why this man didn't sign up for Medicare and Medigap ($300 a month for complete coverage of everything) is beyond me.

Most employers often encourage seniors to go take Medicare asap. Someone failed this man, this is basic information.

<comment><USER11> > I'm an insurance broker. Why this man didn't sign up for Medicare and > Medigap ($300 a month for complete coverage of everything) is beyond me.

People screw up. People forget. Errors occur, constantly.

It _should_ be an auto-sign up with an opt-out form.

<comment><USER12> No. Medicare penalizes early sign-ups [https://www.kiplinger.com/article/insurance/T039-C000-S002-w...](https://www.kiplinger.com/article/insurance/T039-C000-S002-when- to-sign-up-for-medicare-when-to-delay.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One worrisome trend is the fact that more homeowners are retiring with large mortgages. The days of the mortgage burning party are over. Banks seem happy to do cash out refis on homeowners soon to retire.

<comment><USER14> I am appalled at the ads I see targeted to that generation for cash out refis. Why would you want to do that to your kids?

<comment><USER15> Taking things out of the economy for themselves is the decades-long operating mode of the generation this article discusses. They went to free colleges and gave their kids ludicrously expensive colleges. They bought houses at fair prices, down-zoned their towns, and forced their children to move far away. They ran government deficits instead of paying taxes. They converted regular schools to adult schools, regular libraries to senior centers, etc. The fact that they would cash out their assets and leave nothing to their kids is 100% consistent.

<comment><USER16> This is a grossly unfair reading of what has happened in the economy over the last 40 years, and how it got that way. Unfair enough to be simply a lie. Please stop with the inter-generational warfare rhetoric - we have enough things dividing us as a people, by folks who want us divided. [edit: spelling]

<comment><USER15> Why is it up to the younger generation to call off the inter-generational war? Facts are facts. 65 and older are now the least likely age group to live in poverty. Net wealth of people 65 and up has increased 50% since 1989 and fallen for all others by 25%. These outcomes are no accident. They are the direct result of an overt policy agenda, from Prop 13 to Reagan to Trump.

<comment><USER16> > _Why is it up to the younger generation to call off the inter-generational > war?_

It's up to those throwing rocks to put the rocks down.

> _Facts are facts_

Aside from ascribing some kind of universal evil intent to people simply based on when they were born, which is idiotic, those are cherry-picked facts that do not accurately sum up the economic reality of how the US got to where it is now.

For instance, why not include the fact that the older generation was responsible for the most prodigious productivity growth the world has ever seen? Or that they've overseen massive increases in longevity, decreases in morbidity and childhood mortality, huge increases in number of people achieving higher education, etc?

They overcame the enormously damaging economic situation of the 1970's, which the younger people have absolutely not a clue about, and many have suffered decades of decreasing employment and wealth as a result of economic shifts in manufacturing and resource production.

There are economic challenges in every generation. The ones facing young people today are not the same as the ones that faced their parents and grandparents. It does no one any good to try to stir up hatred at a sub-group to gain political power, which is what the generational warfare is about. Leave that for the Fascists.

<comment><USER15> > have suffered decades of decreasing employment and wealth as a result of > economic shifts in manufacturing and resource production.

It's the counterfactual basis of your argument that makes it absurd. It is undoubtedly true that this describes some people in that age cohort, but it doesn't describe it generally. They are much wealthier than both their ancestors and their descendants. While every generation faces its particular challenges, only one living generation faced those challenges by intentionally impoverishing the future.

As for the remainder of your points -- morbidity, mortality, educational attainment, and whatnot -- it is the case that the USA has underperformed all other advanced nations in these measures. You'll excuse me if I don't credit Boomers for falling behind countries like Cuba, Portugal and UAE.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Driving the surge, the study suggests, is a three-decade shift of financial > risk from government and employers to individuals, who are bearing an ever- > greater responsibility for their own financial well-being as the social > safety net shrinks.

This is going to be an increasingly serious problem over the next few decades. Expect bankruptcy filings to increase across the board, across all generations going forward.

This is my main critique of the "sharing" economy and tech darlings like Uber and Lyft, who have accelerated this anti-labor trend. What I find especially ironic here is that these services are currently only economically viable because of VCs subsidizing the costs, who themselves source a large percentage of their funding from traditional employee pension pools, etc. But of course it's all worth it because these "sharing" companies are just sooooo convenient.

<comment><USER18> With pensions and stuff there was a well defined path for people to get old and survive. What's the plan for an Uber driver when they get old? In general, society really needs to think what should happen with older people who aren't wealthy.

<comment><USER19> > What's the plan for an Uber driver when they get old?

Save a minimum of $5500/year or 10% of your annual salary. Whichever is greater (up to your cap).

<comment><USER20> I think that you forgot the /s tag.

<comment><USER19> I did not. The parent comment asked for a plan and I gave him one. How you meet the objective is up to the individual.

<comment><USER20> Do you seriously think that most Uber drivers are earning enough, net after expenses, to manage that?

<comment><USER19> It's a meaningless question. "Uber drivers" isn't well defined. How much do most Uber drivers earn? What are their living situations? Do they have multiple jobs? How many hours do Uber drivers work?

A better question would be: "do you think an Uber driver who (a) lives alone (b) in a two bedroom apartment (c) in the heart of San Francisco and (d) works 20 hours per week will be able to save $5500/year?" The answer is no. But there is a lot more to the problem than just "Uber driver".

<comment><USER20> Sure, "Uber drivers" isn't well defined.

But from what I've read, for any reasonable definition, the percentage able to save that much is arguably small. Indeed, it's arguable that most of them are losing money.

<comment><USER19> What you've read (and I've also seen though not studied in any depth) is that a statistical category of person called "Uber driver" may lose money. But the statistical category of "Uber driver" is not the same as a "person who drivers for Uber".

Consider the argument: "can an Uber driver save for retirement?" If we define Uber driver as: "works for uber exclusively for 40 hours per week". Our answer to the question might be yes or it might be no. Ultimately what matters is the _number of people_ who fall into that category every day for the rest of their lives.

If we find no people fit that category or that the people who do fit that category don't fit it for very long then we can safely say the answer to the question is irrelevant.

After all, "can unpaid interns save for retirement?" is a meaningless question. It doesn't matter. Statistical categories don't retire. And people who work as unpaid interns do not remain so for very long.

A person who drivers for Uber may just need quick, supplemental cash. Cash that may be exclusively funneled into a person's retirement account.

If we compel Uber to provide a "living wage" or a retirement package, we may find that those who need quick cash go without it. And people who would have saved for retirement are now not able to.

<comment><USER20> That is indeed the vision being sold for the gig economy. And I'm sure that it can work that way for some. But for the vast majority, even short term, it's looking like a con. It's like the 10s version of multilevel marketing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I gave a talk about generational differences in the workplace this year, so had a fair amount of research about how different generations manage finance.

The charts do a good job of telling the story, but it basically goes like this: Children of the great Depression were terribly frugal, working hard to avoid a future financial hardship. Then the next generation (the one described in the article) decided they were not going to be miserly penny-pinchers like their parents. They bought everything with the belief they'd pay it off later. Now the next generations see the folloy in _their_ parents behavior, so now we have the FIRE generation, once again pinching pennies.

And so the pendulum swings back and forth. And the beat goes on.

<comment><USER22> This is a good point, in fact recently there have been a spate of articles claiming that millennials are saving too much (in cash at least) and not putting enough in the stock market:

"42% of Millennials are investing conservatively, compared with 38% of Generation X investors and 23% of baby boomers, according to the Fidelity survey." source: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreacoombes/2018/03/13/millen...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreacoombes/2018/03/13/millennials- are-good-at-saving-but-investing-not-so-much/)

But having lived through 2007-2009, it's no surprise they have a preference for cash in the bank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Link to underlying research/paper:

[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3226574](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3226574)

</comment><comment><USER24> I hate how decent people in this society just keep playing by the rules even when those rules are obviously not working for them.

<comment><USER25> What else you can do ? Either play the game or die. Thats the only choice you have rly.

You know what i hate more ? The fact that our governers make sure you wont even live long enough to make use of "any" of those retirement entitlements.

Best for them would be all of us dying right after "work age".

<comment><USER24> That's why I also hate the typical CEO/entrepreneur mindset; a lot of them think that they're helping to grow the pie and taking a small slice for themselves as a reward - In reality, the pie doesn't actually grow and each time that they take out a slice, there is less pie remaining for everyone else.

Corporate stocks are not actually growing in value, it's just the entire money supply which is being diluted for the benefit of corporations at the expense of everything else.

<comment><USER26> > In reality, the pie doesn't actually grow and each time that they take out a > slice, there is less pie remaining for everyone else.

If the pie doesn't really grow, why has the world economic output increased so much in the last 200 years?

<comment><USER24> How does one measure that? With fiat currency? By the total number of goods produced? How does the quality of output fit into this model?

If you get more of something but quality is lower then it's not necessarily progress. You might need more of that thing to get the same value out of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The chart showing bankruptcies changes per age group make it seem like its the same generation constantly filing for bankruptcy. Younger and middle aged bankruptcies have declined 50% while older bankruptcies have risen ~100%.

<comment><USER28> possible explanation: the younger generations aren't that sick yet, so they don't face massive medical bills for the most part. likewise, the younger generations don't have enough money to even approach certain sources of debt like a mortgage. (is mortgage considered a debt?)

<comment><USER29> It seems like it is technically a debt, but financially I wouldn't consider it debt until you have either failed to pay it back in the agreed upon time or are missing payments.

<comment><USER30> The word you are looking for is "secured" debt.

[https://www.lendingtree.com/glossary/secured- debt/](https://www.lendingtree.com/glossary/secured-debt/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> >The questionnaire asked filers what led them to seek bankruptcy protection... About three in five said unmanageable medical expenses played a role. A little more than two-thirds cited a drop in income.

there you have it: the US healthcare system is driving responsible people into poverty, especially when paired with stagnant or falling income.

the solution is socialized universal healthcare. we will also need to re- create the social safety net somehow in a new and vastly expanded role. to be clear, silicon valley doesn't have a role to play here, aside from paying their taxes.

<comment><USER31> > to be clear, silicon valley doesn't have a role to play here, aside from > paying their taxes

I was with you up until there....what's the thinking behind that part?

<comment><USER28> privatization won't fix the problems that privatization caused.

likewise, our society can't use software alone to solve our socioeconomic problems.

note: this is not because software is incapable of being part of the solution. far from it. but software is not about to rectify these issues without a political will to do so, which is separate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I find it baffling how people think about this. In this case, money really, really, really does represent work.

You might be complaining the state doesn't pay for the elderly to retire easily ? Ok, let's do some basic calculations to sketch that out.

Right now there's a little over 12% elderly in the US (and really more like 10% once you take out the ones still working). That number is just about to rise rapidly to 15% by 2021 or so, then a little slower to ~25% by 2050. The under 18's will likely stay constant at ~25%. That means that the government, just for elderly care and schools (NOT including health care, the military, roads and harbors and other infrastructure ...) needs half your pay. 50%. Currently it needs ~25-30% for that. This is totally independent of the actual spending, it's amount of headcount that needs to go to elderly care.

So in order to simply provide current level care, and without considering health care for elderly, or increased longevity, your take home pay, just considering elderly taxes, needs to reduce from ~75% to under 50%. Or, how this will appear from the perspective of someone who works, your taxes need to rise by half. Every tax. For California, income tax needs to rise from 40% to 60% (and it's a progressive tax, and this means the income from that tax needs to rise, so it's not just higher rates for the rich. It's mostly higher rates for the poor, not because of corruption, but because that's where the money is), average. Sales tax from 10% to 15%. And so on. A little under half that tax raise will need to happen in the next president's term (or, God forbid, Trump's second). Just so we're clear, that's a few years away.

If, as many suggest here, care needs to be increased and more broadly available ... well that costs more, of course. That means a little under half the total economic activity in the US needs to be focused exclusively on taking care of others (again, not including health care, that needs to be added on top after that).

We all know that current workers are not prepared to pay this. So why are we wining that "government will not take my elders off of me" ? It cannot do so ...

And the truly scary part is ... compared to Europe, the US is not doing too bad. Europe is a disaster waiting to happen, and will fail sooner than the US. Compared to Japan, Europe looks fine. And compared to China, Japan barely has a problem.

It's weird to realize this, but longer term things are pretty obvious: the US will open up it's borders like never before (because in the US case, that might, just might, actually fix things). The EU will ... uh ... I'd say "die", but politicians never let something die : they go to war. Against whom ? It won't be very hard at all to start a war with China in a decade, potentially sooner. It's weird but WW3 between "the EU" (Germany) and China, in 10-15 years would make sense.

<comment><USER33> Germany is not equipped to go to war any time soon. They can't even keep their current forces armed.

[https://www.dw.com/en/1-in-10-german-military-pilots-lost- he...](https://www.dw.com/en/1-in-10-german-military-pilots-lost-helicopter- licenses-for-lack-of-flight-time/a-43646369)

The political climate would need to change a lot for politicians to allow more military spending and budget cuts elsewhere. The current discussion about refugees and the unstable situation regarding Trump and the NATO might change this.

I still agree on Europe having lots of trouble in 10-15 years.</comment></comment>


Apple iPhone turns table top into full-sized invisible keyboard - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/9664362/Apple-iPhone-turns-table-top-into-full-sized-invisible-keyboard.html

<comment><USER2> It's not just constrained to Apple iPhone as title suggests,but any device with 3D accelerometer. It's just the software which is written for iOS.

</comment><comment><USER3> App is not in Cydia or anywhere yet.

</comment><comment><USER3> Where we can get it?</comment>


Put a sock in it, you dickless wonders - <AUTHOR> http://www.kernelmag.com/yiannopoulos/4115/put-a-sock-in-it-you-dickless-wonders/#hn

<comment><USER2> I would wonder if the author had been drinking, but I've been drinking (scotch, thanks for asking), and I'm just sat here going WTF at it.</comment>


Find the hidden cameras in your BnB and elsewhere - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/fast-company/how-to-find-hidden-cameras-in-your-airbnb-and-anywhere-else-d1de793f7ddc <comment> matt-attack Anyone have a recommendation for an RF scanner? Always hesitant to click on the amazon referral links in an article like this. Also an Amazon search for "rf scanner" appears to be mostly scammy advertisements for the same cheap Chinese garbage.

</comment><comment><USER2> requires sign in? nice.

<comment><USER2> [https://www.fastcompany.com/90331449/how-to-find-hidden- came...](https://www.fastcompany.com/90331449/how-to-find-hidden-cameras-in- your-airbnb-and-anywhere-else)</comment></comment>


Introducing Review Apps - <AUTHOR> https://about.gitlab.com/2016/11/22/introducing-review-apps/? <comment><AUTHOR> This was announced in 8.14 but I thought it was useful explaining how you grow into review apps.</comment>


Sun Strategy Spinner  - <AUTHOR> http://media.arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.media/sunstrategy.gif

<comment><AUTHOR> This old depiction by ars technica (2006 post) is doing rounds on many forums last couple of days.

Someone wrote: Sun's strategy for running the business -

Step 1: Spin Wheel

Step 2: Determine Strategy

Step 3: Post on Blog, Declare Victory</comment>


White House launches tool to report censorship on social media - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/15/18626785/white-house-trump-censorsip-tool-twitter-instagram-facebook-conservative-bias-social-media <comment><USER2> What justifiable reason could the WH have for trying to micromanage social media?

<comment><USER3> People who support them are being censored. So it hurts their chances in the coming election. Also in managing public opinion about impeachment.

Is that legally justifiable? IANAL, so ???</comment></comment>


Show HN: Collaborative editing with Quill - <AUTHOR> https://codepen.io/dnus/pen/OojaeN <comment><AUTHOR> The demo is built using OT (Operational Transformation) with Deltas.

The goals is to be able to let any one build their own 'Google Docs' like editor in < 10 lines of Js.

Also, currently looking at supporting Slate/Draft.js. Comments and feedback welcome.

</comment><comment><USER2> How do you manage the state if multiple people try to change the same thing at the same time?

<comment><AUTHOR> States are distributed in each users browser and are being updated by users as they modify the document. We then use operational transformation to ensure that states converge.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Hitman Simple Interactive Process Killer for Linux - <AUTHOR> https://gitlab.com/timlyo/Hitman <comment><AUTHOR> This is an early version of a little program that I've been working on for a while. I'm just posting it here for a bit of feedback and in case anyone else finds it useful.</comment>


These Vim tricks will save your life - <AUTHOR> https://www.honeybadger.io/blog/2014/01/21/vim-tips-that-will-change-your-life Feel like you're fighting your editor? Like the simple act of moving code from your head to the screen takes forever? Using Vim is a good start. But are you using it as effectively as you could be? Do you spend seconds - SECONDS! - scrolling through code? Do you manage your plugins by hand? Do you use the "mouse?" Check out these handy vim tips! <comment><USER2> Ctrl-c is NOT equivalent to ESC. Yes, it lets you switch modes but you loose out other important actions. See :help for more details.

Edit: Here's a short explanation of the options [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5030164/whats-the- differe...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5030164/whats-the-difference- between-ctrlc-and-ctrl)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, that was empty.</comment>


Have you deleted your StackOverflow account due to being unfairly treated? - <AUTHOR> It's not exactly news, new users getting harassed, downvoted without any explanation and generally feeling unwelcome in SO but I believe I've had my fair share of it already. I'm just a step from scrapping my account and all my input there (as far as I can) and close the door behind. Have you had similar experiences/grievances? <comment><USER2> Someone rage-quits SO every day. New users aren't "harassed", which implies a level of targeting that isn't really there. It's not "new users" that people are annoyed with, it's "poor questions" and "oh there's a FAQ?!" and "oh you mean I could have Googled that?" that draws peoples' ire.

I've taken multiple breaks from SO. Once because of a beef with a specific user that spiraled out of control on their side (he was ban-hammered for awhile because of it) but that's an outlier.

Search the web: all sorts of people have had similar experiences and grievances. You hear about them because they post about it. It's a tiny fraction of users.</comment>


Media Continues to Misreport US Unemployment Numbers - jules-jules https://wolfstreet.com/2020/07/23/media-continues-to-misreport-unemployment-claims-31-8-million-people-on-state-federal-unemployment-insurance-week-18-of-u-s-labor-market-collapse/ <comment><AUTHOR> > There are 160 million people in the civilian labor force, according to the > Bureau of Labor Statistics (not that this number can be trusted)

I really don't understand why people write articles using data they don't find trustworthy, yet assert that their own article is trustworthy. Garbage-in, garbage-out. I see this a lot when it comes to unemployment in particular.

What's more likely, everyone whose job it is to report on unemployment figures gets them wrong, while some rando on the internet is the only one to get it right, or the other way around?

You can go here [1] and select number of people who have been unemployed for various durations. Number of people unemployed for between 5 and 14 weeks has decreased rather dramatically in June. Granted, the figures are still absurdly high, but it does suggest that people are getting back to work.

Also, take a close look at "Unemployed for 15 Weeks & over" figures from 2010. The economy maintained ~8-9 million unemployed people for years during the great recession. So the 11 million that's being reported now is high, but they aren't so much worse than our last recession.

[1] [https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?ln](https://data.bls.gov/cgi- bin/surveymost?ln)

<comment><USER2> TLDR; Rushed journalists didn't understand complicated new reporting format at first.

He didn't say data was untrustworthy, he said the reporters were in a hurry.

Per author: Reporters have a 30 minute window between receiving the report and the expiration of embargo. The format changed because we are giving a new kind of unemployment payment. The data is complicated and the aggregate of the new PEUC+state unemployment claims number is several pages into the report.

<comment><AUTHOR> My quote is one of a few in that article where he specifically calls out the BLS data as untrustworthy as a whole. He's absolutely not _just_ taking issue with journalists.

He makes the complaint you identified, that the journalist are misreporting figures. But then he says that the labor department is intentionally misleading people. He then complains about how seasonal adjustments shouldn't be applied, when is maybe fair, but the difference is literally a rounding error between the two -- 1.4 million (seasonally adjusted) vs 1.4 million (unajusted).

He then proceeds to say that the BLS civilian labor force numbers can't be trusted. Discusses how "fraudulant claims" are inflating numbers. Then provides his own figure (sourced from BLS) is more accurate than the, "nonsense produced these days by the Bureau of Labor Statistics."

<comment><USER2> Ok. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the author. Let's take those quotes in context from the conclusion of the article:

"There are numerous factors that overstate and understate the actual number of unemployed, and we're not able to pin them all down. I mentioned seasonal adjustments as one of those factors.

But there are also fraudulent claims that overstate claims data. And then there are claims that have been denied for various reasons, often due to mismatched information from the employer that take weeks or months to sort out. And they would understate unemployment. Then there are states that still don't process all federal claims. And even states that do process them, do so inconsistently. Then there are people who don't qualify for unemployment insurance, and when they lose their work, they don't count here at all.

But give or take maybe 1 million people, the total number of unemployed still hovers around 32 million. That's the number to go by, not the fallen-off-the- cliff nonsense produced these days by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its now ludicrously distorted survey-based jobs report."

I take "there are also fraudulent claims that overstate claims data" to mean that some non-zero number of "fraudulent claims" presumably are counted in the set of all unemployment claims, and that this is one of several subtleties in the data that might contribute to marginally both under- and over-reporting.

It seems to me that BLS is just one of the reporting entities, and that the survey results they provide are regarded by the author as incomplete an unreliable self-report, but not that all of the various sources are providing unreliable data (although it's not clear exactly how it is all collated). Is that incorrect?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Article is idiotic.

1\. The federal claims are ones that would not ordinarily be accepted for State unemployment (e.g. contract workers). It would be irresponsible to compare UI claims YoY that have vastly different criteria.

2\. That being said, obviously there is increased unemployment amongst people who would ordinarily not qualify for UI.

3\. Seasonal adjustments are small, why even mention them.

4\. _None_ of this is the BLS Unemployment survey numbers from the Current Population Survey (the "headline" unemployment rate you see in the news), which is exactly that; a survey that asks people if they are unemployed/underemployed/seeking work. (Which has its own, quite separate methodologies.) [1]

[1] [https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm)

</comment><comment><USER4> Political agendas</comment>


Role of dietary restriction regimens in development of cancers in animals - <AUTHOR> http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0115147

<comment><USER2> Michael Mosley did an interesting episode for the BBC on the benefits of fasting and periodic dietary restriction: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01lxyzc/horizon-201220...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01lxyzc/horizon-20122013-3-eat- fast-and-live-longer)

<comment><USER3> FYI: BBC iPlayer videos are only viewable if you're in the UK :(</comment></comment>


ACLU Files a Lawsuit to Repeal the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2016/06/30/aclu-files-a-lawsuit-to-repeat.html <comment><USER2> More about this topic can be read at the ACLU's website. [https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/aclu-challenges- comput...](https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/aclu-challenges-computer- crimes-law-thwarting-research-discrimination-online)

I think the title could be more precise about what parts the ACLU is suing over (automated scraping of publicly available data.)</comment>


Commenting on Product Hunt - <AUTHOR> How do I get to comment and participate in discussions on product hunt? <comment><USER2> I suggest you read the FAQ:

[https://www.producthunt.com/faq](https://www.producthunt.com/faq)

That answers your question.</comment>


Nonlinearity Breeds Contempt (2013) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/C6eX6KaSBjc <comment><USER2> This does an excellent job of talking about mathematical concepts in a way that I can understand as a not-mathematically-inclined person, without devolving into meaningless baby-talk like a newspaper article. Bravo.</comment>


HackerNews Alerts for Android - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hnalert#v1

<comment><USER2> Works well so far. How is the data being pushed? Is it nust pooling?</comment>


Ask HN: Learning PHP - <AUTHOR>

Could you please share good resources for PHP video talks, great tutorials for Learning PHP. There seem to be too many tutorials on PHP but most of them are either solving a problem or serving google ads.
Unlike python/ROR there seems to be dearth of good PHP talks from experts.
Could you please share your best bookmarks for learning Good PHP, best practices, tools and tricks and video tutorials. <comment><USER2> For me, it has always been best to learn by doing. Think of something you want to build and go for it. You'll certainly make mistakes but don't worry about it; the web is pretty forgiving on a small scale. When you need general help, try asking a question on SitePoint. There's StackOverflow too, but I feel like SitePoint has more a learning environment while StackOverflow is just a place to get answers.

With every project you complete, you'll discover new and better ways to do things. Just be open about asking questions and showing your code. If you ever find yourself thinking there's a better way to something, there probably is, so go ahead and make a thread on SitePoint.

To prove I'm not making all this up (assuming this link works), this is all of the threads I've made on SitePoint in ascending order: <http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/search.php?searchid=4499370> . Added disclaimer: In October 2005 I was 14, so excuse any poor writing in those posts

<comment><USER2> Meh, vBulletin isn't going to let me get a link that works for everyone. If you have an account on SitePoint just search threads by e39m5 and sort in ascending order. Sorry about that.</comment></comment>