Winston Churchill's Image Removed in UK/US Search Results? - <AUTHOR> https://support.google.com/websearch/thread/53297714 <comment><USER3> This is getting pretty ridiculous. If we're going to purge our nation's history of people who held beliefs we disagree with today, we're going to end up purging everyone.

A good example is MLK. Civil rights leader and US icon. MLK also held very anti-LGBT views, which are captured in a letter he wrote a young man who said he was attracted to men.[1]

Are we going to start tearing down his statues too? And renaming roads?

 _" Your problem is not at all an uncommon one. However, it does require careful attention. The type of feeling that you have toward boys is probably not an innate tendency, but something that has been culturally acquired....You are already on the right road toward a solution, since you honestly recognize the problem and have a desire to solve it."_

[1][https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king- papers/documents/adv...](https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king- papers/documents/advice-living-4)

<comment><USER4> This is not surprising at all. I guess people either didn't know the Chinese Cultural Revolution, or have forgotten about it. Check it out here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Red_Guards...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Red_Guards_and_the_destruction_of_the_%22Four_Olds%22) Everything that didn't fit the narrative of whatever would be destroyed with people's cheer. That's why I was wondering where the boundary is for the demand of total conformity.

<comment><USER5> > I was wondering where the boundary is

The only boundary is time as it will stop when they are able to seize power. Because these purges are a means to an end - and that end is POWER.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is insane. Just tried it and its true. Let this be a reminder that internet is not free but under control of umbrella corporations and it is naive to assume the opposite.

Is this what Orwell meant that history can be re-written when you have the full authority?

"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped."

Edit: Maybe Google will respond (again) with: Sorry it was an internal bug in the code.

<comment><USER7> "Internal bug in the code?"

"An internal bug in the code, at this time of day, only in this country, localized entirely on this photo!?"

<comment><USER8> "May I see it?" "No."

Which is a great description of proprietary software. Without transparency, you cannot trust anything it's doing.

<comment><USER9> >"May I see it?"

Given what we've seen from the likes of Cambridge Analytica, this seems like a question of national security.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The image was not removed purposefully. Images in the Knowledge Graph can update at any time. If they do, they briefly disappear. That's what seems to be happening here. We're exploring the issue more. Here's more info we posted about it: [https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1272077555860824065](https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1272077555860824065)

<comment><USER11> As a former Google engineer and someone who still holds some quantity of Google stock, I hope you publish a post-mortem about this. Even if it's something embarrassing like "someone added a picture to Wikipedia and our algorithm couldn't disambiguate it" or worse, "an internal employee went rogue and we're strengthening our procedures".

Because frankly this bug is catastrophic for Google's credibility in the UK. Nobody will believe this is some random bug or coincidence, it quite transparently is not. Even if the problem isn't directly caused by Google employees but just the engine being confused by the turmoil out on the net, that's not the simplest possible explanation and thus in the absence of other information, it's not what people will conclude.

Since Google became more publicly left-wing and committed to social justice type causes, it has to work harder to convince people it's unbiased. YouTube has been deleting videos of anyone who criticised the COVID lockdowns, including actual epidemiologists and Nobel Prize winners, and that's been widely publicised. So going into this event you're already being perceived as a part of the mainstream establishment censorship machine. And now this - <USER2> looks exactly like the people blacking out their instagram photos in solidarity with BLM.

Politicians in the UK are currently receiving enormous quantities of anger from the population about the desecration of war memorials and war heros. It's an issue that's triggered huge public feeling. Google doesn't want to get sucked into that. A rigorous technical post mortem could show people what really happened and avert a political disaster.

<comment><USER6> They decided to give a brief explaination but a post-mortem report like you ask wouldn't likely happen without involving the law. But again have governments ever fined or accussed search engines for misinformation or disinformation in the recent histoy? They have been fined probably for lack of moderation I guess, does anyone know?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I disagree with the easy dismissals of "they're doing a poor job of purging history".

I don't think they're tyring to purge history, I think they (or more specifically, staff) are making a plausibly deniable political statement that can be dismissed as a bug.

<comment><USER5> They don't need to purge history. They only need to convince the newer generation that our country is based on injustice and tyranny.

That is how they will justify their future violent revolution.

The goal is create just enough distaste for the symbols and history of the country so that fewer people will fight for it when they decide to take over.

Personally, I also subscribe to the conspiracy theory that these efforts are getting foreign help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just gonna put this here [https://duckduckgo.com/about](https://duckduckgo.com/about)

<comment><USER14> And, hey, to their credit, DDG does a fine job of returning an immediate Churchill photo. This is to be expected, since it's a bug in Google and not Bing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sigh, do people really think there's some hidden propagandist in Google that blacklisted Churchill's photo? To send what message, exactly? That they will randomly censor images until you do one single click on "Images" which will foil their evil plan?

Many years ago there was an amusing bug for a few days - when you searched for Rachel (I think) the Biblical figure, the infobox showed a happy smiling face of some office worker somewhere (named Rachel, of course). Machines work in mysterious ways, sometimes they pick up signals in totally idiotic ways. At least, nobody accused Google of a hidden conspiracy to discredit Judaism...

<comment><USER6> In response to everything we see around today that seems to make significant waves in the whole world, you can respond differently as you choose. You can choose to ignore everything and assume that the state is run by organisations that care about the "greater good". This is of course a effortless thing to do. Or you can start to re evaluate your dependence on a single centralized source of information and how there exist no measures to control that source by a publically elected body making it an extremely powerful agency for mass propaganda IF it decided to do so.

It's more than just about whether this was an honest glitch or an intentional response to adhere to ongoing anger of public so as to show support. Either way, it is necessary to think how long such powerful agencies can exist without intentionally or unintentionally contributing to Orwellian dystopia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I find it hilariously dumb that people are hyperventilating over what, at first glance, looks like a fairly obvious cache corruption bug of some kind.

The Orwellian implications of not showing Churchill's /image/ in the carousel of Prime Ministers after a search are precisely nil.

<comment><USER6> Nothing is "fairly obvious" in today's world. You can choose to ignore everything and assume that the state is run by organisations that care about the "greater good". This is of course a effortless thing to do. Or you can start to re evaluate your dependence on a single centralized source of information and how there exist no measures to control that source by a publically elected body making it an extremely powerful agency for mass propaganda IF it decided to do so.

It's more than just about whether this was an honest glitch or an intentional response to adhere to ongoing anger of public so as to show support. Either way, it is necessary to think how long such powerful agencies can exist without intentionally or unintentionally contributing to Orwellian dystopia.

<comment><USER16> This is a good example of what I find very funny.

Your comment would be an entirely appropriate reaction to, say, the well- documented evidence of YouTube's recommendation engine pushing people toward radicalization - which seems like a very dystopian thing, aligns very well with their profit motive, and if demonstrated to be accurate, effective, and intentional would be of genuine concern.

This is literally just a trifle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Among the many, many, many things that _could_ cause this:

If the specific source image Google had cached as "Churchill" got scrubbed for some reason (any reason, really, including possibly copyright issues), there's no guarantee the subsystem that vends those summary images has a backup Churchill image to vend, and it may have nothing to show until the cache is repopulated.

Meanwhile, an Image Search for his name shows as much Churchill as you want. Nothing really to worry about here. Unless we're generally commenting on how one bug can have significant impact on surface-level results (which has always been true, and that's why there's more than one search engine in the world).

</comment><comment><USER17> Please, people. If Google wanted to make a statement about imperialists and white overlordship, there are more impactful ways to do so than hiding Churchill's picture.

This is just a glitch

<comment><USER14> Exactly. Currently the statement Google makes about imperialists and white overlordship is that we probably meant _imperialism_ and white overlordship. :-D

[https://www.google.com/search?q=imperialists+and+white+overl...](https://www.google.com/search?q=imperialists+and+white+overlordship)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Someone told me a few months ago to search Google images for 'white family' vs 'black family'.

And the results were remarkable. White families turn out to be a lot more colored then black families are white.

Regardless the reasons I don't like people or programs messing with my search results. Does Google consider me a bigot and tries to change my view of the world? Will this prove to other people I must be racist because search results are personalized? Or is Google racist for being better at recognizing black than whites?

Maybe some insiders can explain?

<comment><USER11> I used to work at Google. In the old days, before it was apparently internally hijacked by social activists.

These sorts of things can occur by accident. It sounds implausible but it used to happen all the time. Thing to remember is that even after decades of work Google is not really a question answering machine. It's still, at its core, matching words and phrases to things it found on the internet.

The most famous problem was "Google-bombing" where people realised they could control the top result for obscure phrases by using links, like [is george bush an idiot]. There was one related to Jews as well that I don't remember. Some mitigations were added and it went away as a problem.

The [white families] vs [black families] thing sounds a lot like the older example of [white inventors] vs [black inventors]:

[https://external-preview.redd.it/N6gh6oArK2EWeIoaPJkoD- mDcsu...](https://external-preview.redd.it/N6gh6oArK2EWeIoaPJkoD- mDcsuJ_ShHwrt7VAGcJvU.png?auto=webp&s=b62ff16d727eb53a40124486a75ccbc541a9633c)

As you can see if you search Google Images for [white american inventors] then you get the same results today. This isn't caused by racism in the algorithm or at Google but rather the fact that you're searching in English and most English speakers on the internet are from America or western Europe i.e. white. Thus it's rare to prefix professions with "white" when describing photos because that's the assumed default. How many articles are out there discussing "white inventors", do you think? Or even "white families"? Blacks on the other hand are a minority of the population and especially rare in things like "inventing", which is a rather archaic job description and thus biases old to begin with. It's practically guaranteed that any page matching the phrase "white american inventors" is going to be primarily a discussion of race, not inventing.

To see that this is true just search Google Images for [family]. What a shock - all the photos are of white people.

Now that said, back when I was working there people would understand these things, and give Google the benefit of the doubt. They were right to do so because in my entire time there I never saw any evidence of specific biases being introduced into web search for political reasons, nor did I see any evidence the executives in charge of web search were biased. For a search engine that trust seemed important, at least at the time. These days Google has changed and now routinely brags about its extreme biases. Firing Damore was a turning point. Now people see things like those search results or Churchill disappearing and assume the worst, instead of assuming the best. Because the true explanations are usually proprietary and arcane, this is leading to a downward spiral of trust.

It's especially hard to defend Google's lack of bias these days, even knowing things like the above explanations, because they keep doing dumb stuff like publishing papers on "debiasing AI", which when read turn out to be about biasing AI towards left-wing sensibilities. For example making it believe incorrect things about gender distributions amongst the professions. Is Google search still unbiased? Well ... I search using DuckDuckGo these days by default. Just in case.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for your answer. Unfortunately not explaining these things in public feeds public distrust, and to be fair, I now look at google more suspiciously as well. Because well, things like this keep popping up, conservative employees being afraid to speak out, the collective crying session video after Trump was elected, please let everyone go back to implementing great software and products. I need a search engine I can trust is not tampered with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So it's not happening on a per-country basis.

Reports are coming from Serbia, Australia, South Africa and I can confirm Netherlands as well.

Don't over react, don't spread misinformation.

<comment><USER20> The right wing outrage machine has been triggered. This will be rolled into the QAnon conspiracy canon by EOD.

<comment><USER21> Churchill was about to leak internal Clinton emails of the pizzaria-sex trafficking ring.

<comment><USER20> "Erasing history" is the new "war on Christmas" Boogeyman. The same people who used to think Starbucks putting "Happy Holidays" on coffee cups was a manifestation of a nefarious plot by the executives to dismantle Christianity now believe that removing statues glorifying the Confederacy and racists indicates some plot by intellectuals to remove them from history books and search engines.

<comment><USER22> Please don't use HN for ideological flamewar. It is tedious and it destroys what this site is supposed to be for.

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

<comment><USER20> To my mind, I was simply explaining the reason why all the comments in the linked article and the top comment in this thread assumed that Google intentionally removed Churchill's picture despite how ludicrous that belief seems. That explanation necessarily involves mentioning the conspiracy theorists who are inclined to believe certain wacky things based on perceived attacks against their political beliefs.

Thank you for the clarification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If this is anything other than an accident this is absolutely insane.

<comment><USER23> Google and others are literally tripping over each other to virtue-signal these days. That said, this has to be a bug.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why is this flagged? This is a very interesting bug. I would love to see a post mortem on how such things happen behind the scenes. Are there relly too many morons busy pushing ideologies in the comments to actually explore this?

<comment><USER22> Yes, unfortunately the thread is a combination of (1) people jumping indignantly to the extremely unlikely conclusion that Google is censoring Churchill, and (2) people arguing angrily about Churchill and (you guessed it) Hitler. Curiosity might have a faint chance against one or the other of those but not both at the same time, so I don't think it makes sense to turn off the flags.

If more substantial information comes up about why this was happening, it might be possible to have a curious discussion. The vast majority of the time, these things turn out not to have been intentional or anything close to sinister. Internet users just like to assume otherwise because it's more outrageous and more fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Maybe Churchill invoked the "right to be forgotten" laws?

</comment><comment><USER26> Weird, I'm in Hong Kong and it doesn't show up here either. Unless I'm misunderstanding the implication is that this is somehow related to the protests? That seems like an odd way for Google to try to erase history, by just removing a picture, not the whole entry and not targeting any of the other myriad leaders people could object to, like Thatcher. It seems more likely that it's a glitch of some kind.

</comment><comment><USER27> Please, it's just his photo not showing up, google still serves his Wikipedia page just fine. This seems like an error and not censorship.

</comment><comment><USER28> Oddly I can't find him in the "people also search for" when searching for other leaders and his family

</comment><comment><USER29> This seems to be an issue with the structured information coming from Wikipedia. His picture still shows up in image searches, it's like his profile picture just got deleted or something.

If this was actually an attempt by Google to censor something then they're doing a pretty poor job at it...

<comment><USER30> I'm not sure that the point is censorship, but a signal of solidarity with far-left activists in the UK who are engaged in a campaign of vandalism against statues of historical figures they disapprove of, most prominently Winston Churchill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I have to say, it's weird to think they would do something like this intentionally _without_ coming out and saying it, since the entire point would be PR.

Does anyone have proof or confirmation that it's intentional?

</comment><comment><USER32> And now it's being flagged on HN?! What in the world is wrong with these people?

<comment><USER22> Please see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23515496](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23515496)

<comment><USER32> Thank you and my apologies for making a mountain out of a molehill. Mr Churchill's image is back where we expect it this morning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> huge if true

<comment><AUTHOR> It is true - try it out for yourself. Google "UK prime ministers" or "WW2 leaders".

<comment><USER33> it's black , also no image in the wikipedia box. (i'm in greece)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Not to worry. They still have pictures of Hitler and Stalin. Those guys must've been the good guys since their pictures are still on google.

</comment><comment><USER35> Yeah so now we're in a world where Winston Churchill is censored. But Hitler is not.

I understand it's just a picture but it's a slippery slope.

A search engine should return results based on your search query. What if the person searching wants to learn about the very subject they are trying censor.

There's a big difference between moving/removing a statue and purging all records online.</comment>


First test of rival to Einstein's gravity kills off dark matter - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2116446-first-test-of-rival-to-einsteins-gravity-kills-off-dark-matter/ <comment><USER2> Folks, the observation doesn't test Verlinde's idea, this tests a very general class of models, such as the well-known MOND scheme.

> Milgrom, however, supports the work. He also points out that according to > his own 2013 analysis of gravitational lensing data in galaxies, MOND > produces similarly impressive results as Verlinde's gravitational model does > in Brouwer's study.

(Also: [http://motls.blogspot.ca/2016/11/verlindes-de-sitter-mond- is...](http://motls.blogspot.ca/2016/11/verlindes-de-sitter-mond-is- highly.html) )

This data cannot distinguish between Verlinde and other explanations for MOND- like behavior. We've long known that MOND seems to fit a _subset_ of all observational data better the dark matter, in particular the Tully–Fisher relation

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tully%E2%80%93Fisher_relation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tully%E2%80%93Fisher_relation)

However, for the rest of the data (e.g., the CMB, large-scale structure, the bullet cluster), MOND is generally considered to give a worse fit than dark matter, or to be silent (because it's not obvious how to extend MOND to a complete cosmological theory). That's why experts think the totality of evidence supports dark matter.

Nothing has changed.

<comment><USER3> Seems like it's pretty easy to make dark matter a good fit, because you can just adjust the presumed distribution of dark matter to fit the data.

<comment><USER2> Nope, this is only an issue on galactic scales and below. On supergalactic scales, where most of our data comes from, the DM distribution is determined by theory. That includes all the stuff I mentioned: LSS, CMB, bullet cluster, etc.

<comment><USER3> So, my impression from popular articles is that physicists don't actually know what dark matter is, and have a fair number of candidate ideas. According to the theory that makes good predictions, what is dark matter made of?

<comment><USER2> Dark matter (DM) is typically modeled like electrons are modeled: as a species of massive fermion, described by a quantum field. The parameters that go into the model (both DM and the electron) are the mass of the particle, plus its various couplings to the other known particle species.

In this sense, the only difference in our knowledge of DM and electrons is the DM mass and the DM coupling constants. For the electron, these numbers are known to high precision. For DM, they could lie anywhere in a range over many orders of magnitude (although they are generally bounded from above, because we have not seen evidence of strong interactions).

At supergalactic scales, the predictions of the DM model are not very sensitive to it's mass or couplings. On galactic scales, various nonlinear processes in normal matter (such a supernovea) and possible DM interaction effects become important. Since we don't know those things, the theory has free parameters.

Folks definitely consider other DM models, e.g. bosons, but these are only considered to be favored over MOND insofar as they agree with the same observational data. In other words, the set of all theories of DM which produce the same observational predictions forms an "equivalence class"; and it's the _equivalence class_ , not a particular choice of DM mass and couplings, that is favored over MOND. This is basically what people mean when they talk about "cold dark matter", it's the CDM in the LambdaCDM model, the standard model of cosmology.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda- CDM_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda-CDM_model)

<comment><USER4> In my intro cosmology class, we modeled dark matter as a perfect fluid with some classical density field that interacted with everything else until some very short time after the Big Bang and then stopped interacting except by gravity. We set the equation of state to match that of normal matter: if you put 1 gram of dark matter in a box and slowly expand the box to double its volume, you still have 1 gram.

What makes fermionic dark matter be preferred over (massive) bosonic dark matter? I'm not sure why it should make any difference.

<comment><USER2> > I'm not sure why it should make any difference.

It doesn't (modulo theoretical prejudices against bosons). I was just picking something concrete and popular so I could talk about how it's behavior becomes uncertain on small scales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > String theorist Lubos Motl savaged Verlinde's ideas in a recent blog post: > "I wouldn't okay this wrong piece of work as an undergraduate term paper."

I find this rudeness and pedantry in academia infuriating. There's no justification for this level of nastiness -- not in private, public, peer review, or science as a whole. Seeking out the unknown and creative explanations thereof is the hallmark of good science; check your ego at the door. I know nothing about him... but in my book, Lubos Motl can go pound sand.

<comment><USER6> > I find this rudeness and pedantry in academia infuriating.

So you'd rather people quietly knife you in review? Because that's what happens if you penalize people for public rudeness. Personally, I'd rather have a loud critique to my face than a polite one behind my back or, even worse, no engagement at all.

I don't need your politeness or friendship when I'm putting forth some new theory. I need accurate, engaged criticism and the number of people who will do that is vanishingly small. And a lot of the ones who will do that have social issues almost by definition.

<comment><USER7> Accurate, engaged criticism is great, that stuff belongs everywhere.

"I wouldn't okay this wrong piece of work as an undergraduate term paper" is not accurate, engaged criticism, it's mean-spiritedness under a veneer of toughness.

It's easy and fun to be rude and insulting, and when you can get away with it because of the subculture you're writing within, why not, right? Because being a dick is being a dick no matter who or where you are, that's why, and being a dick doesn't advance anything beyond your own momentary joy.

Every industry, every field, everywhere, will be better off once people get past being dicks just for fun, and give accurate, engaged criticism while maintaining civility.

<comment><USER8> _Every industry, every field, everywhere, will be better off once people get past being dicks just for fun, and give accurate, engaged criticism while maintaining civility._

I disagree. The blunt people (who come off as "dicks" to the outsiders) are like a community's immune system. They protect the community against the sort of people who take accurate engaged criticism, make one or two changes to fix specific issues, and then resubmit their work, wasting the community's time and resources, driving off the people who are making _good-faith_ efforts to help the community. They're not being dicks "just for fun". They're protecting the time and attention of other community members by saying bluntly what many other people are often thinking.

Communities that have too many of these people become closed and ossified. Communities that have none of these people evaporate, as the core contributors just walk away and find better things to do than deal with people who are more interested in getting fame and attention for themselves than making good-faith efforts to advance the project of the community. The trick is to find a good balance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd be kind of bummed to lose dark matter as a concept. I want to hold onto the idea that it's just as rich as our matter, with its own quantum chromodynamics and an equivalent to the electromagnetic force, leading to a "shadow" universe with their own planets, life, etc. that exists side by side us, trying to figure out why their gravity measurements are just slightly off...

<comment><USER10> You can also have the idea that there are one-way interactions between the normal-matter universe and the dark-matter universe.

It isn't too difficult to formulate a mathematical system where two subsets are completely identical when considered in isolation, but when interacting, one subset operates as if the other doesn't exist, while the other is easily perturbed by any values in the mirror subset. I'm not sure if you can do it without at least one dimensional basis unit that squares to zero, though.

Imagine, if you will, that there are dark-matter people. We have no evidence whatsoever that they exist, any they are constantly annoyed by all the real- matter people that wander between their dark-couches and dark-televisions, and the real-matter bicyclists that pedal through their dark-bedrooms at the worst possible times.

<comment><USER9> Wouldn't there be some sort of energy exchange for this to happen? Wouldn't we notice that there's an unexplained loss of energy whenever we do anything?

Or did I just invent a crappy layman-author's explanation of where inertia comes from?

<comment><USER10> Conservation of energy/mass is a rule for the known universe. If we knew all the rules for the dark part of the universe, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

Anyway, the way the math works out, it is impossible for a known-universe person to even measure the effects the known-universe has on the dark- universe. The numbers can't come back to the known-universe without an additional input from it, and they would be explainable with another hypothesis that did not include a dark-universe. It way be that all effects we observe to be random are actually perfectly predictable to a dark-universe observer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Please change the submission title. It is downright misleading. This test did not "kill off" dark matter. To do so would imply overwhelming evidence against the concept of dark matter as a whole. Instead, this theory, which eliminates the need for dark matter in certain situations, has passed its first test. The sentence "... test ... kills off dark matter" is simply false.

<comment><USER12> Moreover, it's not even a complete "theory" in the sense that it's still not known if it can even repeat the results of the General Relativity.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13197595](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13197595)

<comment><USER13> It's not complete for other reasons, several of which are detailed in Verlinde's paper itself; however, it wholly reproduces GR in the EFT limit by design. Indeed, Verlinde starts with standard dS as his unremovable background on which he puts strings. What in GR we would consider perturbations of dS and IR corrections of GR (at ~ galactic scales) emerge from the behaviour of the strings and how they form long-distance entanglements.

However, it's not outrageously wrong, and it is noteworthy that an accomplished string theorist has decided to tackle gravity in a universe like ours rather than leaning on AdS/CFT arguments.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the correction and clarification.

For others who, like me, aren't in the field, the "EFT" mentioned is explained, for example, here:

[https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0311082](https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0311082)

"The problems of quantizing gravity within the experimentally accessible situations are similar to those which arise in a host of other non- gravitational applications throughout physics. As such, the size of quantum corrections can be safely estimated and are extremely small. The theoretical framework which allows this quantification is the formalism of effective field theories."

dS is "de Sitter space": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Sitter_space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Sitter_space)

I'd also appreciate a link to the explanation of "What in GR we would consider perturbations of dS and IR corrections."

<comment><USER13> > I'd also appreciate a link to the explanation of "What in GR we would > consider perturbations of dS and IR corrections."

Here's a quick overview of perturbation theory then an example of how one might apply it in GR.

[https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Perturbation_theory](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Perturbation_theory)

[http://theory.physics.helsinki.fi/~inf/Lectures/Lecture2.pdf](http://theory.physics.helsinki.fi/~inf/Lectures/Lecture2.pdf)

IR is "infrared", low-energy physics, as opposed to UV, "ultraviolet", high- energy physics. In this context, UV means strong gravity where quantum effects are expected to be important. Galaxy-galaxy gravitational lensing (which is the subject of the Brouwer et al. paper that's the subject of the newscientist article linked at the top) is purely a weak gravity problem[1], so is in the IR limit of General Relativity. If you want different results from standard General Relativity you can add corrections by hand in a variety of ways; in the galaxy-galaxy lensing case they would be in the infrared.

[1] strong gravity is hidden behind the event horizons of the black holes of the galaxies and, arguendo, if we could see the strong gravity near the black hole centres, it would not be relevant by virtue of being drowned out by all the stars, gas, dust and other matter.

ETA: This is nice and terse, too: [https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Non- exact_solutions_in_general_r...](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Non- exact_solutions_in_general_relativity)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Physicist here. Please do not put too much stock in this paper.

Some of the folks on this paper are good scientists, but this appears to be more about looking for funding than good science.

Their paper on the Arxiv is about building some math to make gravity look like dark matter. But this has been done 1000 times before with no success. They have no physical basis for their math; there is no reality behind it. I do not expect this to get them the Nobel Prize.

</comment><comment><USER15> 'Kills off dark matter" is probably overstating the case, but I love this theory because it ties together a lot of big ideas.

Verlinde's paper is here: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.02269](https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.02269)

<comment><USER16> What about the Bullet Cluster[0]? How does his idea address that?

His idea deserves some study but a title will "Kills off dark matter" is very infuriating

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

<comment><USER17> If you read the Wikipedia article, it points out what MOND advocates say about the Bullet Cluster: they try to handwave it away. It's likely that Verlinde's theory needs a similar solution. Unfortunately for handwaving, over time, the number of weird dark-matter-related observations is growing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> You may find the top answer to this SE question helpful (asked 5 years ago, though): [http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/6561/are- modified...](http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/6561/are-modified- theories-of-gravity-credible). Especially I think the following comment is spot on:

"Galaxy rotation curves are not very good tests for GR itself, since there are so many parameters about mass distribution in a galaxy which are simply not nearly as precisely understood as GR itself"

<comment><USER19> That says MOND is a non-theory, so now I'm even more confused since this theory "builds on" MOND.

<comment><USER20> Now I'm confused. What is a non-theory? O.o

Theories by definition, may not be correct. It's still a theory.

How does one become a non-theorist? I suppose by non-theorizing.

<comment><USER19> One way is to propose something that's mathematically equivalent to existing theory. If you have no testable predictions then you're not really doing science. You're doing philosophy.

I'm not sure if that's the objection here. They might also be calling it too vague to be a theory, or something else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > _Now, a team of astronomers studying the distribution of matter in more than > 30,000 galaxies say their observations can be explained by an alternative > theory that does away with dark matter. If this "modified gravity" is > correct, it would up-end hundreds of years of fundamental physics._

No, it would reshape the "top" of these theories. The base would remain the same.

</comment><comment><USER22> Can someone explain in layman's terms what really is dark matter and why there's so much obsession around it? If we can't observe it and we are only relying on inferences to explain it's effects, that seems like pretty weak set of legs.

Obviously I'm missing the academic discipline to appreciate this topic but nevertheless, I'm curious about our understanding of the very fabric and mechanisms of our reality and the universe.

<comment><USER14> "Dark Matter" is a phrase we use to describe a hole in our understanding of the universe. To put it simply, when we look out into space, at very large scales like galaxies, everything is just too heavy. It _appears_ as if there is a LOT more matter out there than we can see. Things are orbiting faster than they should be, like galaxies are heavier than makes good sense..

Maybe there is some matter out there that is "dark", so we just can't see it. That would be a solution. Or maybe the laws of gravity we wrote down are bad at large scales. No one knows. Trust no one who tells you they know the answer: if they did they would have a Nobel Prize.

<comment><USER23> Where "Dark" literally means: does not interact in any way with light

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The title overstates the results of research work. From the article: "Now, a team of astronomers studying the distribution of matter in more than 30,000 galaxies say their observations can be explained by an alternative theory that does away with dark matter."

Suggest "Astronomers studying galaxy mass distribution say their observations can be explained without dark matter."

</comment><comment><USER25> What would be the next test? Clusters or that dark matter dwarf galaxy causing ripples in our Milky Way?

<comment><USER14> The "next test" would be to look at more galaxies. They did not actually try to apply their theory too many real world observations. The goal of this paper is to get funding to try and apply their new theory to a huge number of galactic measurements. Until they do THAT, no one in the physics community is going to listen to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26>
      "But then if you mathematically factor in the fact that
      Verlinde's prediction doesn't have any free parameters,
      whereas the dark matter prediction does, then you find
      Verlinde's model is actually performing slightly better."

What? How does this work?

<comment><USER27> From the discussion section of Verlinde's paper[1]:

> _We have shown that the emergent laws of gravity, when one takes into > account the volume law contribution to the entropy, start to deviate from > the familiar gravitational laws precisely in those situations where the > observations tell us they do. We have only made use of the natural constants > of nature, and provided reasonably straightforward arguments and > calculations to derive the scales and the behavior of the observed > phenomena._ [..]

> _In our view this undercuts the common assumption that the laws of gravity > should stay as they are, and hence it removes the rationale of the dark > matter hypothesis. Once there is a conceptual reason for a new phase of the > gravitational force, which is governed by different laws, and this is > combined with a confirmation of its quantitative behavior, the weight of the > evidence tips in the other direction._

[1]: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.02269](https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.02269)

<comment><USER26> That's just Occam's razor, though. The phrasing made it sound like they had a quantitative argument for why fewer free parameters made it "perform" better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The central equation in this paper is 4.40. It doesn't seem to account for some galaxies recently discovered that are almost entirely dark matter.

</comment><comment><USER29> Totally OT: I read "Einsteins graffitti" and could watch my own brain trying to make sense of the sentence. And fail.

</comment><comment><USER30> Juuuust gonna leave this here...

[http://xkcd.com/1758/](http://xkcd.com/1758/)

<comment><USER31> This is different because it's an experiment for this theory.

<comment><USER2> It's not different because this experiment can't discriminate between Verlinde's ideas and long-known alternatives to dark matter.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13197214](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13197214)</comment></comment></comment>


UX, Usability, and Material Design - <AUTHOR> http://www.prolificidea.com/material/index.html

<comment><USER2> that's an awkward design for usability slides.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the intention was just to demo some aspects of material.</comment></comment>


Tesla's success in Europe catches industry off guard - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/business/tesla-europe-success.html <comment><USER2> Car purchase includes a huge amount of 'non rational actor' decision making. I like old jaguars. Walnut burr, doors that go "thunk" -in every sense (fuel economy, NCAP, reliability) they are irrational purchase: I still love them. And the Citroen DS19.

EVs are in a segment with high discretionary spend. Choices in discretionary spending are notoriously bound up in non-rational choices: I could invest in diamonds, or snort it as coke, or fly to the bahamas in a helicopter is totally different lifestyle choices to "I need to get to Walmart at 3am for diapers, and I cannot afford to pay for more than basic AirConditioning"

When EVs are in the segment of rational-decision bound purchases, when they are "boring" I will deem them to have succeeded.

As long as the competition is Fiskar, not VW, and Not the Ioniq, or other Japanese low-end EV, its not baked yet.

The low-end EV have to get about 50% more efficiency and drop price about 30%. There really is a sweet spot in most people's disposable income and on-road costs and range anxiety (also a highly irrational place btw) which is just around the corner:

under $20,000 in any local economy over 300km range in real-life chargeable for usable amounts (10%? 20%?) in under 15min

<comment><USER3> I think a lot of Tesla is simply that they're not the other guys. They're giving people what they want. The dinosaurs have been refusing to innovate in many areas, screwing customers with exploitive dealer networks, dragging their feet on features when it's demanded of them, or just plain making everything miserable about cars for decades. The dinosars deserve to get their ass handed to them until they wake up and serve customers.

<comment><USER4> I think a big part of Tesla is plain old dishonesty, or American bragging, if you want to call it that way.

Consumers want autonomous self-driving cars. So Tesla creates marketing videos and then calls their glorified lane assistance and distance keeping assistant an "autopilot".

And now, Tesla buyers are frustrated that the software isn't ready yet, or dying due to bugs in said software.

But Tesla gets to dodge legal responsibility by writing into the fine print of their EULA that the so-called "autopilot" isn't actually meant to be used like what autopilot means to most people.

If anything, Tesla has amazing marketing.

<comment><USER5> I ride in Teslas when that's what the Uber driver drives. Maybe other cars have the same wow experience, but I don't get picked up in a Porsche or Jaguar. But the wow experience of a Tesla vs a Benz is unquestionable.

I don't mind it being called marketing. But I'd call it overall experience design. Or magic. You really feel it!

<comment><USER4> Pretty much all the Uber Black trips that I took were traditional BMW like the ones that taxis in Germany use.

I agree that's boring.

But it only is boring because BMW has such a crushing market share that the occasional non-BMW car feels like a breath of fresh air. Tesla feeling nice due to their low market share is, however, the opposite of what this article argues for.

<comment><USER6> Sidenote: taxis in Germany are typically Mercedes, rarely BMW

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know if it's just me, but I find most non Tesla electric cars to be incredibly ugly. If BMW made an electric 3 class sedan with > 350 miles of range for a reasonable price, I think that would be hugely successful. Instead they made the i3.

The VW ID.3 looks like it would have the same problem. I know this is very subjective, but why not make a car that looks more like their already successful models?

<comment><USER8> I'm the opposite, I find Teslas to be (externally) ugly. In general I find any large sedan to be ugly. I don't get the sedan form factor, it seems to waste a lot of space. I've always owned hatchbacks because I like the way they look and they seem much more practical to me how I can bend the seats and carry a ton of stuff in the back (which I take advantage of at least once a month).

<comment><USER9> >I'm the opposite, I find Teslas to be (externally) ugly.

I'm 100% with you. The X is one of the most awkward looking SUV's ever made, and the 3 looks awkward past the C pillar. In my opinion their best looking vehicle is the S because it looks correctly proportioned, and also because it has the semblance of a grille, even though it's just black plastic and doesn't actually function as a ICE car's grille.

<comment><USER10> Similar thoughts on the Model S. And I find the Model S facelift much worse than the original design due to the "look, it's not a grill design", where they don't have a grill, but they have an awkwardly shaped flat spot anyways. Porsche Panamera is a much better example of a grilleless design.

As for the upcoming Roadster, that looks smashing. Too bad it's massively expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find it a very strange coincidence that the recent law in France to update the tax incentives against CO2 emitters and towards EV placed a new, previously nonexistent limit precisely right below the base Tesla price, excluding everything above (and thus every Tesla car) from the incentive.

As it turns out, local EV cars such as the Renault Zoe are below the threshold, not the least because you buy the car but rent the battery, so the price appears much lower to the consumer, and the price of the battery is magically not factored in against the threshold.

<comment><USER12> France is well known for lawmaking to help companies with french values outcompete rivals.

Airbus wanted to build a new freeway through a protected forest to deliver planes on, but EU rules prevented it. Instead they built the road and put a thin surface of gravel on top so they could claim it was a "forest track", and it became legal.

<comment><USER13> Do you think any other countries are different?

<comment><USER12> Some countries have far more rigid rules with less interpretation flexibility, which allows less flexibility for favouring some companies over others.

Other countries are just bad at getting anything done, for local or foreign companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This title is highly misleading. Tesla isn't incredibly successful 'in Europe'. It's very successful in VERY few European countries (Netherlands, Norway). And it's due to local incentives mostly. You aren't going to be blown away by a number of Teslas in Italy or Greece or Poland or France. But when you walk through Amsterdam - yes, there are a ton of Teslas parked everywhere.

<comment><USER15> Very much this. I think I've seen a single-figure number of Teslas here in the UK, ever. (I presume there are more in London but I don't live there...)

<comment><USER16> I was just in London for a week not too long ago. I saw about the same number of Teslas as I did pick up trucks, which is to say hardly any at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The same thing is happening to traditional automobile manufacturers now as what happened to the likes of Kodak and Xerox when the digital revolution came. They'll deny that the change is happening until it's way too late, and then become obsolete. Even when any outsider can look at the industry and say it's obvious that the future is electric and any manufacturer that hasn't already seriously dived into making EVs is being stupid.

And yet, here we are ...

<comment><USER18> GM has announced what, 22 EVs in the next couple years? I don't think they're in any danger of becoming obsolete due to Tesla. If anything, Tesla should be getting worried. When competition heats up people will start caring more about reliability, features, and looks.

<comment><USER19> Did GM announce a charging network? Most people may be able to charge at home, but they also want peace of mind the 1 time a year they travel on a road trip.

I picked Tesla for my next EV because of the charging stations. Level 2 and even CHAdeMO and CCS are just too slow, and there's not enough of the latter two.

<comment><USER20> I don't think the vast majority are buying electric cars with it being their only vehicle. Aren't 80% of Tesla owners also homeowners? Likely living with a spouse, who has a non electric car for those longer road trips. And maybe a Tesla owner uses the Tesla network for road trips but I think the majority of electric owners without a network have a gas car too.

Even then, I think those buying an electric can afford air travel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> ITT: lots of Americans responding to an article about the European car/mobility market with their exclusively American experience.

<comment><USER21> I'm an American, but I live in Germany, specifically Munich, the home of BMW. Been seeing more and more Teslas around lately for sure.

While Musk has said and done some dumb things, I'm still rooting for Tesla. Beyond the fact that electric cars are cool and good, I like the fact that Tesla is shaking the industry up, especially that they don't use dealerships, which are frequently scummy and often outright predatory. That we've tolerated them exploiting the ignorant or unwise for so long is a black mark against us as a society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Leaving aside (and I know this hard) the controversy of Tesla's valuation, Elon Musk and the environmental virtues of electric cars, think what a historic success Tesla is as a car company. There have been dozen(s) of car companies started in the US since WW2 and you could argue that not one of them has been a success. The biggest Kaiser Motors, has probably been surpassed.

For decades American and Japanese manufacturers have tried to compete with European luxury brands. American companies had almost no success and Japanese very little. Lexus does well, but it never displaced German car sales the way Tesla is now. I am not a Tesla fanboy, but I do like cars. You have to respect the product.

<comment><USER23> That didn't leave the controversy behind at all, most of the controversy is far past their valuation. Tesla is only interesting as a car company to people who are willing to lower their expectations below those placed on the actual car companies.

They market themselves as environmentally friendly while representing a comedically small percent of global emissions reduction. And within the auto industry itself the increasing efficiency of ICE vehicles has reduced emissions by far more than Tesla and their electric car hype.

At the same time, they advocate infrastructure expansions to accomodate their vehicle's needs while handwaving away the emissions and environmental consequences this process would create. And every time this is mentioned people just blubber some line about the long term while covering their ears to the tide of environmentalists saying that we need change /now/.

They might conquer Europe through legislation but the only reason that's practical is because European countries are tiny so the range issue is less relevant to them. Tesla hasn't actually cleared their hurdles, they've surrendered to them.

Meanwhile, they drum up this idea that Tesla's can be more than toys for rich people even though no one blue collar who isn't already a hard fan chooses a Tesla. In fact, speaking of legislation, they're so uncompetitive that Europe has to ban ICE engines for them to gain ground.

Even you framed this as Tesla competing against luxury brands, key word being luxury. This world where they've paved the way for cheap mainstream electric vehicles is a fantasy. They've paved the way for novelty in the luxury market and since doing so have shown little aptitude beyond their ability to wield that accomplishment as a shield to deflect criticisms.

<comment><USER24> You should self reflect about how incredibly bitter you sound.

Tesla is a new successful electric car company that is helping with CO2 emission reduction. Nothing in your rant challenges this.

<comment><USER25> And how are the emissions of electric car and car battery production looking?

<comment><USER17> Over the lifetime of the vehicle, much better than an ICE vehicle.

<comment><USER25> Compared to used cars and public transit though, it doesn't nearly look as good. I like Tesla, but there is a lot more to be done before I consider their work truly environmentally friendly.

<comment><USER26> Nobody manufactures used cars. They all start as new and they all have a finite lifetime as a result of wear and collisions.

A used electric car is better for the environment than a used ICE car, but the only way to get used electric cars is to make new electric cars.

<comment><USER25> Isn't it better for society to focus on improving public transit than electric? You could say "we don't have to choose" but it seems SV already did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How much of a head start does Tesla have over traditional ICE-based auto manufacturers? It feels like a 10-year head start from my uninformed opinion. It will take a lot of work to change engineering ops, supply chains, and deal with pensions.

<comment><USER28> Not really. German car companies buy most of the parts from suppliers. Those suppliers often have decades of experience with electric motors and batteries, see Bosch. If a supplier only does ICE components, they are out and the car company will find a new supplier.

<comment><USER29> " I talk here about Tesla as an existential thread for the German automotive industry, and why that is real and backed up with facts."

[https://cleantechnica.com/2018/09/25/tesla-an- uncomfortable-...](https://cleantechnica.com/2018/09/25/tesla-an- uncomfortable-wake-up-call-for-germany-all-hands-on-deck/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Aside luxury cars, it seems like German manufacturers are also losing against French manufacturers in the electric compact car market.

Peugeot and Renault are having a decent success with their latest cars: [https://uk.motor1.com/news/401562/europe-ev-sales- january-20...](https://uk.motor1.com/news/401562/europe-ev-sales- january-2020/)

<comment><USER31> VW are on the verge of launching the ID.3, it will be interesting to see the figures in a years time.

</comment></comment><comment> w-m Tesla seems to be somewhat ahead in technology - their range is currently higher than in the Porsches/Audis/... and the software seems quite a bit more advanced.

Tesla can use this to their advantage to sell more cars while the traditional automakers play catchup. But eventually they will get closer.

And Volkswagen alone can introduce dozens of new models every year, based on their building blocks (MEB) and numerous brands. There will be cars this year from 15.000€ (VW e.Up and friends) to 150.000€ (Porsche Taycan), and a few others in between. VW alone plans to introduce 70 electric models in the coming years.

How will Tesla, who did 4 models in ten years, compete with the sheer breadth of this market? Looking at what's parked in the street, people choose lots of different types of cars, there's no one-fits-all.

<comment><USER32> > How will Tesla, who did 4 models in ten years, compete with the sheer > breadth of this market? Looking at what's parked in the street, people > choose lots of different types of cars, there's no one-fits-all.

Imagine this argument:

"How will Apple, who only has one phone model, compete with the sheer breadth of this market? Looking at what's in people's hands, people choose lots of different types of phones, there's no one-fits-all."

Yet here we are. Having so many car models is frankly exhausting.

One of my silly little hobbies is trying to spec out cars online I dream of buying and everything becomes a chore after the first 10 seconds. Options that I don't want to think about being nickel-and-dimed for, features that should come standard but require an upgrade 'package' I dont want etc.

Until they change how they think about cars, Tesla will keep beating them in the market in the price ranges Tesla competes in. And shit will hit the fan if Tesla ever figures out a way to make a much cheaper car for the mass market

<comment><USER33> Apple is currently selling six different iPhone models on its website.

<comment><USER32> Yep, but they didn't launch with all 6. In fact, they added each one after tremendous market pressure (larger phones, multiple sizes, a one-handed budget-friendly model).

Tesla might very well have 10 cars in the future but for now, buying a Tesla is an easy decision: 1\. Do I want a big sedan? Model S 2\. Do I want a big suv? Model X 3\. Do I want a smaller sedan? Model 3 4\. Do I want a smaller suv/crossover/cuv? Model Y

And just like apple, you get very similar experience across the entire lineup. Autopilot, automatic updates, etc. Not "Well, you can buy the lexus/bimmer/merc if you want a more luxurious experience but the base model is honestly just okay so you should probably get a specced out mid-tier car instead unless you have the $$ to spend on a top trim"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > One of the Model 3's big selling points is its autonomous driving software

Is it really though?

It's not something I would ever want to use in its current form (which I understand is not safe enough to leave 'unattended', as it were, so so it seems to fall into a dangerous valley where it's autonomous enough that I don't have to pay full attention but also inadvisable not to)

I'm pretty sure the main selling points are all around the electrification - superior range to other electric competitors plus the running cost benefit of electric vehicles in urban areas with pollution taxation.

</comment><comment><USER35> > But, while technically innovative, with a carbon-fiber body, the i3 is > essentially a very expensive hatchback.

Yep. When people buy high performance or luxury cars, part of the mystique is that it is the latest evolution of some sort of classic. It's going to be hard for BMW et al to position electric vehicles as belonging to any existing lineage. This puts their brand at risk unless they can figure out how to make a remarkable electric car. But nobody really knows what that would be.

<comment><USER36> This is storytelling on the part of the automakers, so let me propose 2:

1) Porsche's got 120 years of work since their first electric car [0]

2) I remember pulling the leg of some Tesla fans a long while ago (maybe when the first roadster came out) about how the "no radiator, front trunk, smooth underbody" sounded a lot like the air-cooled VWs we've all been enjoying since the 1930s.

The manufacturers will find a way...

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner- Porsche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner-Porsche)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Note luxury car market. It's all about brand, and quick acceleration times so you can show off on the road.

New is cool & electric cars have acceleration.

Also German cars companies have had their reputation tarnished with the emissions cheating scandal.

I wouldn't see the 'autopilot' feature as a big draw - you'd be mad to use that on most European roads, and you buy cars like that to _drive_

</comment><comment><USER38> Pet peeve from the first line: bemusement means confusion, not amusement.

I remember when newspapers had editors who cared about what words meant.

<comment><USER39> Bemused and nonplussed seem to have changed in meaning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I often wonder what would have happened to the American auto industry if the US Gov't had not bailed them out. Would we have multiple Tesla-like electric powered automobile companies today? Probably not. But just a thought.

<comment><USER41> Keep in mind that the government bailed Tesla out too. Tesla took a hefty government loan before the model S roll-out. (It has been repaid now). So we might have had exactly zero Tesla like electric powered car companies today.

<comment><USER42> The government did not "bail out Tesla". They lent them $465 million, and Tesla paid it all back, plus interest, ten years before it was due. [1]

The government DID paid out GM, Chrysler and Ford. I.e. it lent $80.5 billion dollars and $10 billion will never be repaid. [2] Taxpayers paid for that so those companies can keep making private profits.

I wish this kind of misinformation would die, because it's so easy to google and it's factual.

[1] [https://money.cnn.com/2013/05/22/autos/tesla-loan- repayment/...](https://money.cnn.com/2013/05/22/autos/tesla-loan- repayment/index.html)

[2] [https://www.thebalance.com/auto-industry-bailout-gm-ford- chr...](https://www.thebalance.com/auto-industry-bailout-gm-ford- chrysler-3305670)

<comment><USER43> Note that the government didn't "bail out" Ford either:

 _The Ford Motor Company didn 't need the funds since it had already cut costs. But it asked to be included so it wouldn't suffer by competing with companies who already had government subsidies._ (from your link).

I can't find anything about the $10B that won't be repaid. Do you have further details?

<comment><USER42> > _Note that the government didn 't "bail out" Ford either:_

OK sure. The government gave a private company taxpayer money that didn't need it so it's profits wouldn't suffer.

> _I can 't find anything about the $10B that won't be repaid. Do you have > further details?_

Last sentance in the first paragraph of my link says "In the end, taxpayers lost $10.2 billion." (with a footnote to [0])

[0] [https://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial- stability/TAR...](https://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial- stability/TARP-Programs/automotive-programs/pages/default.aspx)

<comment><USER43> >> Note that the government didn't "bail out" Ford either:

> OK sure. The government gave a private company taxpayer money that didn't > need it so it's profits wouldn't suffer.

Agreed. Same as Tesla (in your words: "The government did not "bail out Tesla". They lent them $465 million, and Tesla paid it all back, plus interest, ten years before it was due.")

> Last sentance in the first paragraph of my link says "In the end, taxpayers > lost $10.2 billion." (with a footnote to [0])

Thanks. Ironically that reference says "While the auto industry rescue resulted in a cost of $9.3 billion to the government". I guess maybe they are correcting for inflation?

<comment><USER42> > _Agreed. Same as Tesla (in your words: "The government did not "bail out > Tesla". They lent them $465 million, and Tesla paid it all back, plus > interest, ten years before it was due.")_

No, not the same at all. One was a loan (which was paid back plus interest), while the other was a gift that will never be paid back.

<comment><USER43> > No, not the same at all. One was a loan (which was paid back plus interest), > while the other was a gift that will never be paid back.

From your linked article:

 _On June 23, 2009, Ford received a $5.9 billion loan from the Energy Department 's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program.... Ford will repay this loan by 2022._

(Note "loan".. "repay").

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> If Tesla went bankrupt, would all the other manufacturers just stop producing / developing electric cars? Are they doing it now just out of fear of losing the market to Tesla?

If that were the case, for the sake of humanity and the environment, we should be obliged to support Tesla exclusively, otherwise we will never free ourselves from diesel / gas based pollution machines.

<comment><USER45> Sort of depends on demand. Extremely cheap petrol - which we just got courtesy of OPEC+ - and a recession - courtesy of COVID-19 - are not exactly a hot market for new vehicles, much less luxury EV vehicles.

On the bright side, this might be excellent for the environment because the best car for the environment is not a new car, it's to continue using the car you already have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Personally, I don't think the major move happening right now is from gasoline cars to EVs. The major move is from cars to no cars. Tesla will not be a great trillion dollar company in this scenario. It will be just another car manufacturer.

<comment><USER47> No cars? How do you leave a city? I could imagine a world filled with an automated uber-like service of self-driving cars, but what would replace cars for going to work in a small town?

<comment><USER31> _No cars? How do you leave a city?_

Bikes, buses, trains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Doesnt catch me off guard, europeans love modern, they love high tech, they love american brands as status symbols and they are very, very environmentally aware. Even if the Tesla isnt all that better than the really small engine's already in most cars here, it is perceived as a social statement and lifestyle. Not to mention it is unique compared to all the AUDI/VW/BMW's on the road here.

</comment><comment><USER49> Is this some kind of bloody joke? In how much of a deep sleep do you have to be to be caught "off guard" by Tesla?

</comment><comment><USER50> [https://archive.md/TULea](https://archive.md/TULea)

</comment><comment><USER51> I told my dealer 2years ago that I'm going to postpone replacing my kia cee'd diesel till electric become available in that class. We aren't there yet, but it's promising, now Kia/Hyundai do have couple of BEV models.

</comment><comment><USER52> The German car makers' arrogance and complacency cannot be overstated.

</comment><comment><USER53> Like iPhone took Nokia "off guard" in 2009, after 2 years it was a thing. These wise executives definitely deserve their big pay!

</comment><comment><USER54> I dont know whats going on with those numbers but sales in Norway and Holland are 80-90% down. They stopped with the tax benefits.

</comment><comment><USER55> IMO, Tesla needs to branch into 80% complete coachbuilder models and in a roundabout way, have a dealership in any town (or country) and shakeup the industry a little more for sh!TS and giggles.

Once their production hits its stride and has a surplus of models, they can bring oldworld craftsmanship to a modern canvas.

With the limited model lineup, who wouldn`t want a bespoke Tesla personalized just for them.

I would still pick the 7-speed dogleg manual in the Vantage S, but a personalized Tesla would be a close second.

</comment><comment><USER56> I wonder what will happen in Japan. Toyota is still pushing hydrogen fuel cells as the future and hybrids as the present.

<comment><USER57> My 2 cents, I don't know of any hydrogen fuel stations in Tokyo except for one in Odaiba which seems shut down now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Competition is gooood!

What I don't conflate with "Iphone moment" is that European car companies are not Nokias and there are no Elop style saboteurs in them. All of them are used to "fight to bitter end" mentality, even though they haven't had such a moment when they really needed to for a very long time.

</comment><comment><USER59> Sounds like "industry" is as stupid as the short sellers.

</comment><comment><USER60> I wonder whether Tesla will survive the current global economic contagion. They are essentially a luxury novelty vehicle manufacturer that relies heavily on subsidies and virtue signaling consumers of which there are a finite amount. They are the WeWork of the car industry and have interesting financials. Despite all this they have been a terrific r&d and mvp creator for potential future electric vehicle production, although there is much work to be done scaling electrical grids and vehicle recycling IMO

<comment><USER61> Now _this_ is a hot take.</comment></comment>


Show HN : DEVTROLL.CLUB WE NEED KEEP SMILING AND CODING. - <AUTHOR> http://devtroll.club

<comment><USER2> I guess it's mildly amusing someone actually bought a .club gTLD</comment>


Difficult social problems are still difficult problems - <AUTHOR> http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/36858.html <comment><USER2> Murray claims that a clause about "reverse-isms" is a cornerstone of a CoC and yet three out of the four resources she mentions as being acceptable do not have one. The only one that does is a community explicitly designed to be a safe space[0] for marginalized groups with a shared ideology. That requirement is perfectly in line with their communities goals. That does not mean it is appropriate for all groups or even all groups that are trying to promote inclusiveness. The argument about "tone policing" and other supposed deficiencies is exactly the same.

The rest of Murray's article is not actually about the actual CoC or any flaws with it.

They did hastly accept the supposed "problems" (that is, it was not a 1:1 copy of the geekfeminism CoC) and tried to fix them. People then complained because they do not believe that things specifically designed for one specific community and are not recommended by most of the experts are appropriate for a general CoC to be used for myriad different communities with far different goals than one specific wiki. TODO then decides that maybe they should actually take some time to think about things instead of circling the wagon around their kneejerk changes.

Garrett then argues that they released something broken and should have consulted the experts and that was one page document is of the same complexity as a 1,000,000 loc kernel. Well, it wasn't broken and it is in line with what most experts suggest, or at least it has not been cogently argued that it was not.

[0] I am using their own definition: [http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Safe_space](http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Safe_space)

</comment><comment><USER3> I totally agree with the point, "We need to accept that social problems are outside our realm of expertise and defer to the people who are experts."

I'm just writing a new job description, and I want to do my part to help rectify the tech industry's accidental exclusion of all sort of people. I did my best, but now I'm working hard to circulate it both to people in underrepresented groups and to experts in the hiring process.

It has been really helpful. I'm pretty well read on the topic, but I still got a lot of great substantive advice on how innocent-seeming things might put off people.</comment>


Infographic: $5,000,000 Proves Social Sharing Drives Sales - <AUTHOR> http://www.addshoppers.com/social-sharing-revenue-breakdown/

<comment><AUTHOR> Check out Google +

</comment><comment><USER2> Great infographic</comment>


Declining languages - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/trends?q=Java%2C++PHP%2C+perl%2C+C%2B%2B&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 <comment><USER2> Most languages show this decline, presumably because programmers are decreasing as a proportion of web users.

<comment><USER3> On the other hand, ruby and python remain relatively level: [http://www.google.com/trends?q=ruby%2C+python&ctab=0&...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=ruby%2C+python&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

Another interesting one, digg is falling, while reddit is steadily climbing: [http://www.google.com/trends?q=reddit%2C+digg&ctab=0&...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=reddit%2C+digg&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Fun to play with, even if it means nothing. Interesting how San Francisco is the only U.S. city in the top 10 for these searches. Check out India's huge lead -- they love them some Java!

If you add Ruby, Python, or Lisp, they just show up as straight lines along the bottom.

</comment><comment><USER4> Here's another decline: [http://www.google.com/trends?q=google+trends&ctab=0&...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=google+trends&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

</comment><comment><USER5> I went to the Colorado Software Summit. At the presentations and nightly convocations, they were giving out as the door prizes: 'Programming Ruby' books. And the presenters/organizers gushed 'it's really cool, the next big thing. Ruby is it'. That was seven or eight years ago.

While Ruby broke out with Ruby on Rails, Java is firmly entrenched and as someone who is trying to learn Ruby/Ruby on Rails - I'm finding the learning curve painful as Ruby/Ruby on Rails is more than just a syntax or a language it's a different way of doing things. We're trying to justify a small project (business case) but even though the application we are intending to build is perfect for RoR - they are almost like why not Spring/Hibernate/Flex.

I believe many Java programmers are happy that Java is a near default language for a lot of non-startup IT/software shops - you can't learn Ruby on Rails from a 5-day bootcamp.

<comment><USER6> Good programmers will know more than one language, and if given opportunity do something different (i.e. if they worked mostly on java, they would like to switch to python, ruby or something else). Crappy programmers know only one language, and are very resistant to change, b/c it will take them eons to learn another one.

Scripting languages can be harder for crappy programmers, as you have to be extra careful, especially in large programms. While in java, editors such eclipse are very good with auto completion, generation of stubs, finding references, etc... that can make even a crappy programmer semi-productive.

Usually, big boring corp attracts only crappy programmers (if you are smart, you probably are working somewhere else), therefore Java is the default language.

Hence the resistance for change in big corps to switch from java to something else.

Even if you are smart programmer at big corp, you will find often Java is the only "allowed" programming language by your bozo CTO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That seems to include news about Java the island for the java news.

Let's create a language called "porn" and make it the most popular language ever.

</comment><comment><USER8> Some people spend way too much time worrying about which language to use. Just pick one that doesn't suck too badly for the job you need, and use it.</comment>


The ECB Is Nearly Done with Its Crisis-Era Playbook - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-06/draghi-s-ecb-is-on-the-verge-of-watershed-for-its-bond-purchases <comment><AUTHOR> If you have already passed the 10 article limit, Bloomberg lets you read more in private mode.</comment>


Apple rethinking Samsung chip partnership, say sources - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57531694-92/apple-rethinking-samsung-chip-partnership-say-sources/

<comment><USER2> An implicit assumption here seems to be that Apple is the one dumping Samsung when the opposite might actually be the case. Given production requiring equal fab-space, Samsung may have higher margins on their finished consumer products (e.g. Android handsets) than on the commodity priced components it sells to Apple. Given sufficient demand for Samsung's finished consumer products, freeing up some of the fab space currently used to supply Apple could benefit Samsung's bottom line.

The truth may also lie somewhere in between the two extremes of Apple dumping Samsung or Samsung dumping Apple. Samsung might be looking to jack up the component prices Apple pays for the above (or other) reasons, so now Apple is looking for alternative suppliers.

It will be interesting to see how TSMC's (or Intel's) component prices compare to what Apple has been paying Samsung. There may be some price fluctuations in Apple products over the next couple of years.

</comment><comment><USER3> This reminds me of Schiller's abandonment of Instagram after they ported to Android. Strange to see such an influential and successful company acting in such a childishly vindictive manner.

<comment><USER4> Apple has been running completely open-loop for a long time now. When they can abuse customers, ignore market demands, remove or downgrade key features, and _still_ sell out of a multi-million unit preorder on launch day, there is no incentive for them to even ask what their customers want, much less design for it.

We have the patent system to thank for this. If you want a smartphone that doesn't suck, you will have to give money to Apple, live with the product's shortcomings... and pray they don't alter the deal further when the next iOS version ships.

<comment><USER5> "We have the patent system to thank for this."

Are you claiming that other phones are shitty because Apple has patented all the good ideas?

<comment><USER4> Yes, because when the government grants monopoly power over abstract ideas -- something the current patent system isn't supposed to do but does anyway -- it puts its finger (if not its whole hand) on the scales of competition.

Patents don't exist to help the little guy; if they did, we'd have gotten rid of them a long time ago. An argument in defense of patents is inevitably an exercise in defending companies that make hundreds of millions in profits before they even begin to enforce those patents.

The profits should be enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This will be far far more damaging to Samsung than a $1 billion settlement from the patent settlement, as Apple has been buying several billion dollars worth of parts per year.

<comment><USER7> Uh,

It's not like Apple's been just giving Samsung billions each year. I don't know Samsung's margin on the sales but it would seem they'd be looking at loosing several hundred million in profit if they can't find another buyer for the chips. But maybe they can make up for the lost demand so other way.

<comment><USER8> Agreed, but Samsung will not likely have any trouble moving those chips, even in today's market. Apple is rightly concerned about them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hope that in-house chips work out better than in-house maps.

<comment><USER10> Apple has already been using in-house chips for the last three years or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Of course they are; they would be stupid if they did not.

If you buy a $1 soda, you think about it for about a millisecond. If you buy a $1000 laptop/phone/whatever, you think about it for at least a day. If you buy for $x billion of parts every year, you have a huge department that does nothing but rethinking the partnership. I bet Apple is rethinking its partnerships with Intel and Foxconn, too. If they can get better stuff and/or better conditions elsewhere, they will move.

Also, Samsung is both major part supplier and major competitor of Apple. Because of that, they will want to move because it would cost their competitor some economies of scale.</comment>


First potential client. Tips for the first meeting? - <AUTHOR>

Hi All.
I have a first potential client for a web development project. I was just hoping for any tips for the first meeting.
Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> It's a sales call. Your first priority is to qualify the lead. The work matching your skills is a part of it. More important is "Will I get paid, and if so, how much trouble will it be?"

In terms of preparation, write up a draft contract now so that all that is left are:

\+ Describing the scope.

\+ Describing the fee.

\+ Describing the retainer.

\+ Minor negotiations over terms and conditions.

Invoicing and payment terms are critical. How often will you invoice? How quickly must a client pay? What happens if the client abandons the project? What happens if you decide to 'fire' the client?

Payment is what separates clients from leads and tire kickers. Insist on a retainer. Insist that it is applied against the final invoice. Insist that it is enough to keep you from becoming upside down. It should work with your invoicing cycle - i.e. if it's two weeks worth of your work, then your invoicing cycle should be two weeks. If the lead wants a 30 day payment window, then your retainer should cover 30 days.

Any non-payment should be grounds for terminating the contract without prejudice. Have an interest rate for unpaid invoices that is higher than the worst credit card. You do not want to be the client's bank.

Require mutual indemnification for consequential damages.

Require mediation prior to any legal action. Arbitration is ok if the amount in dispute is over $10,000 or so. For less, don't include an arbitration clause.

I say all this so that you can give a fee immediately to close a sale - i.e. walk out of the first meeting with a retainer in hand. That's hard to do if you don't know what a proposal looks like and it's hard to write a good proposal when you are focused on closing the sale and thinking about the actual work. Preparing a proposal should just be a matter of looking at the work on offer.

A couple of other things:

\+ Know how much the project needs to pay. If you can make $21,000 in three weeks, it doesn't so much matter whether you work 200 hours in that month or 160 or 240 when you're a one man shop with one project.

\+ Be prepared to walk away. Go with your gut.

Good luck.

<comment><USER3> > \+ Be prepared to walk away. Go with your gut.

You should consider this potential client and project as merely one of many to come. You do not want every job, nor every client. It's OK to make this meeting a learning opportunity that does not work become an agreed project. There will be more in the future. Perhaps you will work with this person a year from now.

Your larger task is to figure out to have enough inquiries and potential clients so that you are able to pick and choose your clients and your jobs without regret.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If this is your first freelancing client ever, then my guess is that just getting the client, and being able to demonstrate that you were able to deliver, is probably a good first step. Your goal, in such a case, is to convince the client that you're the right person to do this job.

Remember that the client probably doesn't care about technology. So don't say "I use Ruby on Rails," even if you do. Say, "I use technologies that will let me accomplish your business needs quickly. If and when those needs change, I'll be able to adapt the software quickly, too." The client's business needs should come front and center.

Don't over-promise, which is something that we all do way too much. (I've learned to temper my optimism over the years.)

Find out what the budget is for the project, if you can. Ask what the goals are for this project. Again, don't just ask about the software goals -- what are the business goals? How will he judge the success?

Don't give a price or time estimate in the first meeting. Say that you need to go back home (or to your office, or wherever) to review things. Tell him that you'll likely have more questions before you provide him with a proposal.

And when you do offer a proposal, I've become convinced (although haven't switched to it myself) that weekly billing is the way to go. My fellow podcast panelist Curtis McHale wrote it up here: [http://curtismchale.ca/2013/05/23/weekly-pricing-for-web- dev...](http://curtismchale.ca/2013/05/23/weekly-pricing-for-web-development/)

And above all, relax and try to have fun. There are oodles of potential clients out there. If you mess it up with this one, I promise you that you'll be able to find someone else.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are awesome and supportive and the advice is great. Feeling a little more optimistic about this! Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Dont say anything stupid. Seriously!

I know of a number of people who were so excited to get there first meeting that they screwed it up by saying or doing something stupid.

Other things, dont over extend yourself.

If the project is going to be too big rethink if you should take it on. If you are seen struggling with the work, missing deadlines they are a customer lost for life. A client will come back to you in the future if you make the excuse `we cannot take this piece on due to other work` etc (a white lie never killed anyone (well hopefully it didnt)).

Also dont look to keen and offer the world. It is easy to look too needy for the work. The best thing to do is write down on a piece of paper:

\- your hourly wage and do not shift from this. Clients will try to get the best deal possible by possibly not telling the truth about previous prices

\- The services you offer.

\- Your working process. By this i mean how you gather the information to complete the work. Some companies / clients state they have a particular way they want the data or requirements gathered. Keep to the way you gather the information and state it is the best method for you. It will help you in the long run.</comment>


Irony of a status page: status.azure.com - <AUTHOR> http://status.azure.com/

<comment><USER2> Looks fine now... On the other hand, I'm having massive problems with Azure tonight. Thankfully we are outside of business hours...

<comment><USER3> Status page works, but Websites, Storage and Visual Studio Online are all down for us (west europe). Hope it's back up when our users wake up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The status page is up but it says everything is fine. Tell that to my 5 clients with sites that are currently down...

</comment><comment><USER5> I guess the moral of the story is don't host your status page on the same infrastructure your product is on!

</comment><comment><USER6> Loaded for me, but it took like 10 seconds

</comment><comment><USER7> says: =====

We're having issues.

But we're working on it...</comment>


Ask HN: Why don't programming languages have special "commit comments"? - <AUTHOR> Upon a commit, these "commit comments" would be automatically combined into a single commit comment.
After the commit, the "commit comments" would be automatically removed from the source code.
In this way, you would not need to remember what changes you are committing in order to make up a commit comment. You just comment the code as you make the changes.
A special syntax would be used for commit comments so they are never confused with normal comments.
Note also that in the case of multiple changes being committed at once, these commit comments would give a more accurate mapping of the individual comments to the code changes they refer to. <comment><USER2> Because programming languages have no awareness of version control. Nor should they.

This is also exactly what comments for commits through VC's are for. If you are changing a large amount of code in one commit you should rethink whether or not it should be done through multiple commits instead of all at once. If your code is well commented and your commit message makes sense - the commit will explain itself.

Unless I'm not understanding what you mean.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds to me more like a use case for a commit hook than a programming language feature.

<comment><AUTHOR> If it's part of the language, then it will be supported by all relevant tools/IDEs.

<comment><USER4> Not really. A VCS doesn't care about _what_ it versions, so I doubt e.g. the git developers would ever add special support for your language to git. So the language community would have to maintain wrappers around all tooling anyways.

IMHO a language-independent style to do this would make more sense, since then the tools could be used for multiple languages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Try to adjust your work pattern to do many very tiny commits, maybe every few minutes, with a few-words-only commit message. Then, after a few hours, regroup using "git debase -i". (Of course before anything is being pushed where others can see it).

That way you don't forget what all those tiny changes have been for... And nevertheless have a coherent description of what you did at the end of the day.

When you really are working on very separate things in parallel (which you probably shouldn't), work on different branches...

<comment><USER6> I believe using the squash command while interactively rebasing to turn your legion of small commits into a single one will automatically append all of the small commit messages into the final commit message.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It can't be implemented by a language alone, since we have to integrate with a particular VCS (e.g git).

I prefer to just make commits for really tiny changes so I don't have to a lot of remembering.

I think this might not be that difficult to hack together though - 1\. Decide on a comment format thats easy to parse 2\. make a parser that goes through your source files and pulls out the comments into a file 3\. make a commit hook (or just cat the file)

</comment><comment><USER8> How big are your commits that you can't remember what all is in them? I always do a final diff to make sure that everything is production quality (no forgotten TODOs, etc), so I've just looked at everything I'm committing.

<comment><USER9> Same, I always check every line difference when I commit

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> We could debate the merits of a feature like this, but a more reasonable answer is that there simply hasn't been a demand large enough to encourage any languages to add it. Personally, it would add no value to my workflow.

</comment><comment><USER11> Division of labor. Instead of updating every programming language, VCS, IDE, etc, for a feature nobody else cares about, scratch your itch and write a script to do it.</comment>


Biotech startup wants to make new short-acting psychedelic drugs more accessible - <AUTHOR> https://sociable.co/science/biotech-short-acting-psychedelic-drugs-scalable-accessible/ <comment><USER2> Joe Rogan gets caricatured for asking people about DMT. Terence McKenna had a line for psychedelic skeptics, "Have you got ten minutes?"

This is already the most common psychedelic found in nature. It's molecularly very similar to psilocybin and very short acting. Why all the hoopla about engineering novel derivatives that don't carry the safety record of DMT?</comment>


The fourteen stages of any real software project – bert hubert (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.netherlabs.nl/articles/2008/11.1 <comment><USER2> Years ago I read another list of the stages of a software project. I can't point you at the source because it was so long ago (decades) that I only have a vague recollection of it. The first stage was "boundless optimism and enthusiasm". One of the middles stages was "grim realization". The end stage was "finding scapegoats and assigning blame".

If anyone knows the source of this list, or can elaborate on more of the steps, I would love to know.

</comment><comment><USER3> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice there is.</comment>


Ask HN: What languages of the last 20 years are here to stay? - <AUTHOR> I am curious after reading HN so much, and seeing so many language fanatics on here, what languages do you think are going to be used for the foreseeable future?<p>There are so many new ones, so which of the ones from 1999-present, so you think will gain popularity, or maintain a strong niche going forward? <comment><USER2> C# is nearly twenty years old, and is still developing at a rapid pace. As more people switch towards .NET Core, I can see more people adopting the language and framework. On the same stack, I can also see PowerShell remaining for a long time, due to its scripting power on the Windows platform. As long as Windows is around, PowerShell will stay and continue to evolve.

Alongside these, I can see Rust expanding its reach, probably not to general purpose developing, but taking over more use cases from C++.

<comment><USER3> You bring up a good point with .NET Core potentially increasing the use of C#. I would love to see new languages coming out for the CLR as well. It seems like there was a bunch in the first few years but it has dwindled to only a few non-Microsoft CLR languages with some of those no longer maintained (Boo and Nemerle).

<comment><USER2> Above anything else, I would love to see F# get more love. From my experience, it's in a weird place where .NET devs would love to use it, but either don't see the benefit of switching, or don't see how to switch.

If Microsoft were to tackle a new language, I'd love to see a systems language, especially as many industries still use Windows to build software in C++. A language that can be used alongside Rust for things like gaming would be fantastic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Javascript will be with us for a long time ( the new BASIC?)

C99: while there is much to applaud in Rust and Swift, but i doubt C will be displaced in the embedded space given the pace of embedded device development and scale of legacy libraries and investments.

Languages from Walled Gardens, even when open sourced, such as Microsoft/Unity & C#, Google & Go, Apple & Obj-C/Swift, etc., do not seem to expand far from their origins, and thus their fates seem entwined with their creator. Hard to call their futures, but i suspect the market will shift.

LLVM's intermediate language (IR) and Vulkan's SPIR-V, seem to underlie many other languages compiled outputs so i'd expect they will be with us for a long time as a validating, porting, and research standard.

<comment><USER5> Swift is an interesting one because IBM seem to be quite keen on it as a server language:

[https://developer.ibm.com/swift/](https://developer.ibm.com/swift/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I also think python is going to be around for a long long time. It has become the runaway favorite in the AI/ML space, and that space seems to be here to stay.

Even bigger for its staying power is the fact that I see it more and more as the language universities use to teach, which is obviously going to be a big boon for its popularity and staying power.

</comment><comment><USER7> PHP is 25 years old this year. Despite all the hate it gets, the core team continues to move the language forward, and it most definitely has its niche in web development.

</comment><comment><USER8> For reference, here are some of those languages: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languag...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languages#Current_trends).

Swift, Scratch, Go, and TypeScript seem like they will be around for a while.

<comment><USER9> Probably Rust too. And Scala.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really think that Elixir has a shot at staying around for a while

</comment><comment><USER11> SQL. I bet there aren't many of you who haven't had to use it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Javascript will be the most long lasting language

</comment><comment><USER13> Does modern C++ count ( c++ >= 11) ? The modern standard changed a lot of paradigms of the language, like a multi threading aware memory consistency model.

In the domain of system programming and gaming C++ is still paramount. While Rust will be an alternative in the system domain, the gaming "core" is still created with C++.

Also, compilers. Most modern compiler projects (LLVM, TVM, Tiramisu, MLIR, Lift) are written in C++, and compilers are among the most long-lived software projects.

<comment><USER14> C++ seems to becoming like Fortran. The old joke is we don't know what language physicist will be using in the future, but we know it will be called Fortran.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> LISP will still be there running like a river of molten lava inspiring future generations of language designers :-)

</comment><comment><USER16> Perl isn't as popular as it was 20 years ago, but it's still very present - and now that ruby has been around as long as perl had been, I'd venture that ruby will be a smell we find in code junk drawers for decades and decades to come.

</comment><comment><USER17> Java once they merge all the nice features from Kotlin and Scala.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe Java is more than 20 years old.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> English, Spanish, and Chinese. They'll be around forever.

</comment><comment><USER19> Swift, Elixir

<comment><AUTHOR> Elixir seems awesome

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> wow no one said Java yet!</comment>


Microsoft reveals dangerous IE bug - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/28/u-s-government-urges-caution-after-dangerous-internet-explorer-bug/

<comment><AUTHOR> Take aways:

> The bug, Microsoft reported, "may corrupt memory in a way that could allow > an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the current user > within Internet Explorer."

> It affects Internet Explorer versions 6 through 11 on a wide range of > Windows versions, with the exception of Windows Server editions from 2003 > through 2012.</comment>