Black Holes as a cooling system for advanced civilisations? - <AUTHOR> http://weidai.com/black-holes.txt <comment><USER2> That's like saying making a star go supernova is a great way to generate energy for an advanced civilization — there are some huge leaps in logic in making sweeping assumptions of that scale. It would be like someone in the Victorian era predicting that we'll farm whales for their oil...

<comment><USER3> _It would be like someone in the Victorian era predicting that we'll farm whales for their oil..._

That actually sounds like a pretty cool idea. Would it be possible to keep whales alive on land indefinitely?

<comment><USER2> They won't be actual whales — we'll use their genetics "or something like that"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a problem with this approach: black holes evaporate, which would yield a useful-life ceiling of 10^100 years. I know I'd like my machines to work longer than that.

<comment><USER5> I think 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years would be a pretty usable amount of up time.

<comment><USER6> you're thinking like a human, I reckon 640kb of memory would be enough too ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You're going to have some major practical trade-offs with this choice of cooling system. For one thing, any data you get out of this computer when you're positioned further away from the event horizon is going to be red- shifted down to a lower data rate.

For another thing, the electrical and magnetic fields generated by your computing and data transmitting hardware are going to induce a Lorentz force on the event horizon and torque it into rotation, which in turn produces both gravitational frame dragging and dissipation. Now it's a lot hotter than if it were just a Schwarzchild black hole emitting only Hawking radiation.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke said it best "Any sufficiently advanced technology will indistinguishable from magic." I paraphrased so don't hurt me if I didn't get it word for word. I have to agree with him that any civilization that was advanced as the essay speculates, would seem like real magic to our relatively young civilization.

</comment><comment> n-ion When you cool something down to near absolute zero it can turn into a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC). <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose- Einstein_condensate> For example at 1.7×10^-7K rbidium turns into a BEC. At 10^-8K perhaps that would turn normal matter into a BEC. Then you would have to be able to get useful information out of a state of matter where every possible value exists at once, and the tool your using to read values warms the condensate past the point of being one. Hey - I think you just invented a quantum computer. Congrats.

On a site note I think lasers are the advanced cooling system of the future!

<comment><USER9> _I think lasers are the advanced cooling system of the future!_

They're the advanced cooling system of the present! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_trap>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm confused. How is radiating your heat into a black hole better than radiating your heat into space?

<comment><USER10> The theoretical limit for your thermal efficiency is going to be based on the temperature of whatever you are cooling and the temperature of the environment you exhaust the waste heat into. Minimizing the latter is what he seems to be talking about here.

 _Since these equipment cannot operate with perfect efficiency, they will need to eliminate waste heat._

Who says it has to operate at perfect efficiency? I would imagine that any slight improvement you get by incorporating a black hole into your cooling system (however the hell that would work) would be negated by the fact that a cooling system that involves a black hole is probably a bit expensive.

<comment><USER9> It might not be. Assuming you could find a black hole which is not actively engaged in swallowing something (and hence spewing out huge amounts of heat and relativistic particle jets), you could surround it with mirrors to create an internal volume with a very low photon temperature at relatively (in astronomical terms) mild expense.

Obviously a spherical shell would be unstable, but you don't need a contiguous shell to lower the internal temperature. A rotating ring (or easier, an orbiting series of small, overlapping satellites) would be stable (not in the orbital sense, but in that they wouldn't need to hold themselves up) and could use the thermal gradient between their sides to power their station-keeping. You could construct additional rings at greater distances, each with a different inclination, to cover more of the angular area.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> That's a really good idea.

Come to think of it, could black holes actually be used as an energy source? A setup like the one he describes would create a temperature gradient, and it's easy to extract power from that.

That would only make sense if this process somehow "depleted" the black hole; otherwise one could reverse entropy. IANA theoretical physicist so I don't know which mechanisms would be at work here.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if black holes might be usable as cosmic-scale batteries. Suppose your civ was preparing to settle in for long-term survival into the super distant future. You might not need high amounts of energy, just a low constant supply for incredibly long amounts of time. You could drop a good percentage of a galaxy's mass into a black hole, then use the evaporated Hawking radiation over cosmological time scales to power your civ.

Suppose that the entities living inside this civ are simulations. A second to us might be tens of thousands of years to them, because their hardware processing runs very slowly because of the low amounts of available energy.

<comment><USER12> Or for young whipper-snapper civilizations who want to live faster, you could turn that black hole + galaxy-sized mass into a really big hydro-electric plant -- that is, power your civ from the potential energy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Theres a more thorough exploration of using a black holes in a reversible Carnot Cycle here: <http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1674-1056/18/3/015> unfortunately behind a paywall.</comment>


Mouthbreathing Machiavellis Dream Of A Silicon Reich - <AUTHOR> http://thebaffler.com/blog/2014/05/mouthbreathing_machiavellis <comment><USER4> Of all the years I have been part of the HN community, I think that this is the first time something has hit the front page that truly made me go "wtf am I reading?"

<comment><USER5> In my opinion, the article is quick in lumping all kinds of groups together. Mens Rights Activists are right next to some weird Monarchy believers. As someone who follows the ideas of the former group more closely, I do not see them (except for a few fringe ones) jumping to any kind of conclusions a'la 'Monarchy!!'

I do think that what passes 'the so-called left' is in a situation where a couple of people are becoming very fearful. Because everything regarding feminism has been WAY overdone. And now actually borders on autocratic behavior.

Feminism and its very successful movement shows more and more how it is rotten to its very core. It has become an ideology that:

\- dehumanizes men

\- abuses and twists taboos for political gain of a few

\- created a new power hierarchy that is aptly described by the term 'oppression olympics'

And I think the end of feminism is a major shift that's going to happen very soon.

If you are not completely closed to reasonable arguments, I would recommend checking websites such as 'avoiceformen.com'. Again in my opinion, they have very reasonable positions on a core, if not the core issue of society - <USER2> relation between the male and female gender.

In some sense, I believe that people who go crazy nut rightwing might overcompensate for an ideology that turns out to be as destructive as their ideas - feminism.

edit: formatting

<comment><USER6> This is a good case for why MRAs are lumped in there. You're both myopic about a social dichotomy (men vs women or gifted rulers vs plebs), lack empathy for the other side of the dichotomy, and go through logical gymnastics to reach a conclusion that a power struggle must occur to benefit your side of the dichotomy. The internet is a great venue for this sort of dynamic.

<comment><USER7> I would add that the MRAs are very much of a piece with the protofascist right in a number of ways, including hearkening back to a mythical better time, wanting to "restore" that better time, a fondness for dominance and obedience, and an extraordinary ability to blame all their problems on "those people". The main difference seems to be that the MRAs want to blame women and feminists, whereas the protofacists tend to blame brown people and the left. In both cases, though, it seems to me to be about pushing for their dominance.

For those interested in the roots of MRA craziness, there's a great book called, "Why Does He Do That?" It's written by a guy who has run a program for abusive men for 15 years and is a great examination of the attitudes and behaviors that underlie abusive behavior. He doesn't mention the Internet in it at all, but over and over I was struck by the parallels between that and various aspects of Internet culture, including the MRAs and the anonymous trolls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When the Snowden/NSA revelations hit, and I realized that I'd been participating for 30 years in the willing construction of the new Panopticon, I was mighty depressed. What good the awesome tech of the world if we are using it to oppress and enslave our fellow man? "You call it entertainment - <USER3> call it a rat in the cage." If the people of the one country most free in the world can't and factually WON'T do anything about it, then .. we're screwed and must accept our fate.

But now I see that in fact, it is meant to be this way. In fact, generations of technologists have been raised to believe that their way is the most righteous (in the full sense of the word) - simply because it is supported by technological prowess. A kind of power which governs the willing and the unwilling equally.

So now I think that technology is not the answer. Social revolution is the answer, but of course all the good, old tools of social revolution have been usurped. The new Facebook religion rules us all.

So now I resolve even harder to teach the kids the old ways: freedom, liberty, equality for all.

</comment><comment><USER9> I find it kind of weird to construe Justine Tunney's opinions as somehow related to Ayn Rand. I have no idea what she is really supporting, but there is no confusing her with an Objectivist. Whatever you might think of Ayn Rand, at least she never invented a phrase like, "tyranny of the individual."

</comment><comment><USER10> Crummy article, but the real issue is that California is getting increasingly fed up with a huge chunk of the US which is simultaneously A) happy to take California's revenue and B) beat California up about it.

If you're going to ask to borrow money from your neighbor, you should at least be polite to him.

<comment><USER6> What? How is California's federal tax revenue relevant to the article? If California secedes these people will still argue that you shouldn't have a vote and the state should transition to monarchy.

<comment><USER10> These people are getting _traction_ because of all of the grief coming from the rest of the country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The author takes Peter Thiel's statements grossly out of context. My own reading of his statements and actions place him much closer to "Voluntaryist" than "Monarchist".

Given that, I can't place much stock in the rest of his assertions.

</comment><comment><USER12> Let's face it. Silicon Valley has hit the big time. The sheer size of our industry coupled with the impact it has on everyday non-technical citizens means we are a political force to be reckoned with. Monetarily speaking, we're not quite as powerful as, for instance, oil and defense, but we more than make up for that in the respect we generally afforded by the population. However, the industry's rhetoric and attitudes haven't caught up to that fact, hence these sort of blunt political statements.

<comment><USER13> I'd say SA's political influence is diminished by the fact that SA companies employ less people per unit of output than almost all other industries. Some may champion this fact as efficiency and strength, but for the most part, people = votes. So given a tech firm and an old economy firm, the old economy firm has way more clout b/c its workers have way more votes.

My thesis above is somewhat diminished by today's very loose campaign finance restrictions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think I had already read most of this article before this version was composed, because a highly similar hit piece was published at:

[http://www.vocativ.com/culture/uncategorized/dark- enlightenm...](http://www.vocativ.com/culture/uncategorized/dark- enlightenment-creepy-internet-movement-youd-better-take-seriously/)

Both the vocativ article and the baffler article are extremely superficial. Neither highlights the importance of much more serious writers than Moldbug, e.g. Steve Sailer.

</comment><comment><USER13> > 3\. Appoint [Google executive chairman] Eric Schmidt CEO of America.

F that, I say. Schmidt would be colluding with Merkel, Cameron, and Abe to keep income taxes high.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/01/technology/engineers- alleg...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/01/technology/engineers-allege- hiring-collusion-in-silicon-valley.html)

<comment><USER15> Yeah, and we've already got the TPP on the way, to keep wages low and working conditions poor, anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Phrases in this article that constitute nothing less than absolute blind misses and lapses in journalistic judgment:

"Welcome to the latest political fashion among the California Confederacy: total corporate despotism."

Well, we're two paragraphs in and you already went from critical analysis to full-blown agenda reporting.

"Some are atheists, while others affect obscure orthodox beliefs, but most are youngish white males embittered by "political correctness.""

We've moved on to sweeping generalizations.

"As best I can tell, their ideal society best resembles Blade Runner, but without all those Asian people cluttering up the streets. Neoreactionaries like to see themselves as the heroes of another sci-fi movie, in fact, sometimes boasting that they have been "redpilled," like Keanu Reeves's character in The Matrix—a movie Moldbug regards as "genius.""

And now we're in the territory of implied racism, straw-manning and caricature.

"By so doing, Moldbug has been able to an attract an audience that welcomes the usual teeth-gnashing white supremacists who haunt the web while also leaving room for a more socially acceptable assortment of "men's rights" advocates, gun nuts, transhumanist libertarians, disillusioned Occupiers and well-credentialed Silicon Valley entrepreneurs."

By the time we get here the sweeping generalizations have become the entire article and it's no longer about the material in question but an excuse for the author to broadbrush everyone he personally dislikes into a neat little category. Seems more like he was using 4chan's /pol/ section than Moldbug's blog. Please note that I'm not a Moldbug fan and I loathe Justine Tunney, for the record; but this article reeks of other issues and definitely of straw- manning those who critique mainstream journalism:

"Apart from their reverence for old-timey tyrants, they espouse a belief in "human biodiversity," which is basically racism in a lab coat. This scientific-sounding euphemism invariably refers to supposed differences in intelligence across races. It is so spurious that the Wikipedia article on human biodiversity was deleted because, in the words of one editor, it is "purely an Internet theory." Censored once again by The Cathedral, alas."

The problem here is again, the broadbrush of 'racism' \- Again, not an HBD believer - but to instantly use that label is bigoted reporting and confirmation bias and shows a lack of journalistic ethics.

Furthermore, Wikipedia draws its primary credibility from mainstream news, which primary draws its stories from small outlets or other large outlets (Reuters) and reprints them. Essentially; this is a journalist thumbing his nose and saying 'aha, behold, I'm the man, I am sponsored'.

""If you ask me to condemn [mass murderer] Anders Breivik, but adore Nelson Mandela, perhaps you have a mother you'd like to fuck," Yarvin writes."

Note that the paraphrase adds "mass murderer" to Breivik who killed 77, but not to Nelson Mandela who killed tens of thousands as part of the MK and their bombing campaigns.

"Yet the conservative press remains generally dismissive." This is an outright lie and fabrication; the conservative publications which reviewed Moldbug's work loved it.

"If the Koch brothers have proved anything, it's that no matter how crazy your ideas are, if you put serious money behind those ideas, you can seize key positions of authority and power and eventually bring large numbers of people around to your way of thinking. Moreover, the radicalism may intensify with each generation. Yesterday's Republicans and Independents are today's Libertarians. Today's Libertarians may be tomorrow's neoreactionaries, whose views flatter the prejudices of the new Silicon Valley elite."

And now we've gone to Koch and assumed insanity - this from the supposedly trustworthy folks over at The Baffler - nothing less than a farce at this point. For every Koch there is a Soros. The money pool is bipartisan.

"The formulation mirrored Moldbug's "Cathedral." Srinivasan's central theme was the notion of "exit"—as in, exit from democratic society, and entry into any number of corporate mini-states whose arrival will leave the world looking like a patchwork map of feudal Europe."

Now everyone is Moldbug; straw man complete.

This article is a great example of how supposed anti-racism quickly turns into an equally vapid form of bigotry against skeptics and that 'anti-racism' includes, like any collective, some of the most bigoted individuals in the world.

Please note that the author of all these knee-jerk reactions to supposed 'racism' is a well-dressed middle-upper class male in Corey Pein. Do we really need successful white male journalists to fight racism and hierarchy in print and label everyone who does not as 'Moldbug' or a potential member of Stormfront?

I cannot help but mourn the future of journalism as the liberal outlets take over with massive contributions and yet continually straw man Koch industries while they receive billions from Soros, Bloomberg, et al.

Why must the supposed opposition be labeled as racist, insane, etc.? Why aren't the ideas analyzed in an academic, scientific manner? Have we passed the age of rational discussion in favor of writing those who disagree with us off as lunatics, 'sympathizers' and 'oppressors' in the age of the oppression olympics?</comment>


YC W2016 Candidates Thread - <AUTHOR> I think it'd be great to get quick posts from W2016 applicants so we can give each other some feedback. Something with a simple format that includes product, founders, and traction (funding/customers). I'll start first with ours in comments -- for fairness. <comment><AUTHOR> Slidebox ([http://slidebox.co](http://slidebox.co)) -- effective photo manager for your phone / 2 developer founders / 15k+ users from MVP</comment>


The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/10/cody-wilson-ghost-gunner/ <comment><USER3> I have to agree with the initial comment on the article, this is a fear mongering piece. Anyone that has a working knowledge of firearms can put together a usable weapon using readily available parts. In fact, a trip to home depot is all you need in order to build a crude (and pretty dangerous) shotgun. I also think it goes without saying that a criminal would probably opt to spend the $1,200 required to buy this CNC device on a weapon (or weapons) that have already been assembled.

<comment><USER4> And to underscore how a usable rifle may be constructed with readily available parts, I present a personal favorite, the AK-47 built from a receiver recycled from a shovel: [http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/179192-DI...](http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/179192-DIY- Shovel-AK-photo-tsunami-warning)

<comment><USER5> I will admit that I rather wish I had the skills and knowledge necessary to do something like that. Amazing.

<comment><USER6> Easily acquired. Your new hobby awaits you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This looks awesome.

For $1,200 you could set up as a company making little things for others, earn enough to pay for the machine and then benefit from it yourself.

What I would do with such a machine is to solve the problem of bike accessories and mounts. i.e. every light has a different mount, as do GPS devices, and cameras, and bag attachments. Yet you could manufacture some common clamp, and then adaptors for each thing. Perhaps standardise around something like the GoPro bracket for an even wider market (it would allow flashes and other accessories to be mounted using existing GoPro segments).

There's so many things you can do.

And they make a gun! Who cares about guns! It's all the other stuff that make this awesome.

<comment><USER8> This isn't a general purpose CNC milling machine.

If you read the whole article, this is specifically designed to mill and drill the lower receivers of AR15, from a piece of aluminum stock called the "80 percent stock", which is a non-functional metal part that is only missing a few holes.

If you have grand ideas about bike accessories and other metal objects, you can buy a proper CNC mill which is a bit more expensive than this. Or pay for CNC machining service at your local machine shop. It's not super expensive.

<comment><USER9> [http://Othermachine.co/](http://Othermachine.co/)

It is a tiny cnc mill. I have one and I love it. I mostly make wooden arty thinks, but I did successfully mill an aluminum car part for some friends.

<comment><USER10> I've been thinking about getting into milling (wood, or freaky candles) for a while now, but I can't tell if my lack of familiarity with CAD software is going to mean I stink at it forever. How hard was it to get into? Do you have special training from a trade or anything, or did you just pick this up as a hobby?

<comment><USER9> No training except for googling stuff and pestering their customer service folks.

I learned openscad from the tutorials. I use meshcam to generate tool paths. Mostly I use python to generate the source art and just cut that out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The main reason this allows you to build an AR-style rifle is that US firearms law focuses on receivers (per U.S.C. Section 921(a)(3), which are in many cases quite easy to manufacture. For instance, many Kalashnikov receivers are made of stamped sheet metal.

The pressure-bearing parts, like the barrel or the bolt, are much harder to manufacture, at least for rifles. Most European countries will therefore regulate these, but they won't necessarily regulate ancillary parts like receivers or stocks. AFAIK, a full-auto AR receiver, which is highly regulated in the US, is treated as nothing more than a chunk of metal under UK law (as long as you don't illegally assemble it with a barrel and other parts).

[I was wrong; according to the 9th report of the Firearms Consultative Comity, Annex D, receivers are controlled as "component parts"]

<comment><USER12> Plus the way the law is structured in the UK, you cannot out-clever it. It is a "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck."-type of law.

So for example, a farmer (without a firearm licence) tired of people stealing created a trap, a thick cardboard tube, hung on a string pointed at the doorway, set to ignite and shoot shrapnel when the door was opened.

The farmer winds up forgetting about his trap and sets it off injuring himself. He was charged with having an illegal firearm because even though it was something he built himself, it was still similar enough to a gun to be considered one.

<comment><USER13> > Plus the way the law is structured in the UK, you cannot out-clever it.

Funny, that. The US has a similar on the books with regard to drugs - <USER2> Federal Analog Act -[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Analog_Act](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Analog_Act) \- if some compound is "chemically similar" to a schedule I or II drug, then it can be treated as if it were also on those schedules.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There is a potential here for there to be a change similar to the 18th century. Suddenly, non-governmental forces or fledgling governments can quickly equip a lightly armed force. For the last 1-2 centuries you needed a manufacturing infrastructure under your control, but a 3-D printer device like this (if I am understanding the article correctly, and perhaps I am not).

In the 18th century, relatively low-cost and reliable rifles became available, and this fundamentally changed the balance between established governments and small armed groups. This changed contributed to the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the downfall of the Mughal Empire (where small regional rebellions suddenly became more viable and central control began to break down).

This period eventually ended in the 19th century, when is debatable, but once you had a gatling gun, a professional heavily armed force could mow down lightly armed forces without large casualties.

Chances are this development will be the final word (and certainly it has not had a huge impact yet, so maybe my speculation is premature), eventually there will become some expensive but exceptionally effective weapon only large governments can afford or supply, but 3-D printers making guns could have serious effects on the course of politics and warfare within the next few decades.

As the old curse goes, may you live in interesting times...

<comment><USER15> >eventually there will become some expensive but exceptionally effective weapon only large governments can afford or supply

This already exists. Ubiquitous air presence via unmanned drones armed with air-to-ground rockets, missiles, or guided bombs.

Sometimes I feel like libertarians and NRA types seriously believe that they (a bunch of angry right-wing hunters or whatever) could actually throw off what they feel are the chains of oppression emanating from Washington, if only they could be sufficiently organized and motivated to rise up together.

Any _serious_ armed rebellion in the United States would be deftly crushed. I'm not convinced that a peaceful/political rebellion would not be crushed also.

The System exists to perpetuate itself.

<comment><USER16> You're assuming we'd play by some set of rules that would allow these drones to make enough of a difference.

<comment><USER15> You're kidding, right?

<comment><USER16> Not in the least. E.g. there are those who are making concrete plans to kill large, Blue cities wholesale [http://www.bob-owens.com/2014/02/i-swear-you- write-one-littl...](http://www.bob-owens.com/2014/02/i-swear-you-write-one- little-post-on-how-to-bring-down-the-electrical-grid-and-you-never-hear-end- of-it/)

For the Drone Menace, well, the people who make, maintain, supply, operate and fly them have to sleep somewhere, sometime. The US has never fought a war where it didn't have a safe and secure far rear area, modulo the Civil War at times, and for the South at the end. No drone can detect someone carrying a concealed firearm, or a small anti-personal IED.

For more, check out this book written after the brutal suppression of the 1956 Hungarian revolution by a Swiss officer at the behest of the nation's Non- commissioned Officer's Association : [http://www.amazon.com/Total-Resistance- H-Von-Dach/dp/0873640...](http://www.amazon.com/Total-Resistance-H-Von- Dach/dp/0873640217/)

If our betters try this sort of stunt, they'll experience _Total Resistance_ , alright.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Mother Jones did a story on this a while ago, and I was under the impression that if you had a drill press it would be enough to get an 80% receiver usable.

Either way, I'm glad Defense Distributed is moving the ball forward on this issue.

Edit to add: This company makes plastic ones that a drill, chisel, and Dremel are enough to finish, no CNC machine necessary. [http://www.ammoland.com/2014/02/ep80-ar15-rifle-lower-at- hom...](http://www.ammoland.com/2014/02/ep80-ar15-rifle-lower-at-home-with- common-tools/#axzz3EuOmGCCg)

</comment><comment><USER18> > ill your own lower receiver at home, however, and you can order the rest of > the parts from online gun shops, creating a semi-automatic weapon with no > serial number, obtained with no background check, no waiting period

Besides the 6 months it takes to learn to make one that won't blow up in your face when you pull the trigger?

Alarmist drivel.

<comment><USER19> I agree the article is alarmist drivel, but you greatly overestimate the difficulty of assembling a lower. Furthermore, there is pretty much no way to misassemble one in a way that would cause an explosion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm very much a libertarian, pro-gun kind of guy and I'm glad this project project exists, but I do have to say I'm reluctant about it. There isn't really anything (that I can see) that can stop this movement. I abhor gun registries and most restrictions on firearms but I'm glad that there is at least a small hurdle to acquiring a firearm (purchase permits). Hopefully the trend towards more and more CCW holders increases as responsible people carrying guns will be a big line of defense against crazy people. See: [http://www.reddit.com/r/dgu](http://www.reddit.com/r/dgu) for a sampling of recent defensive gun uses, it is a very common occurance.

<comment><USER19> I don't know what a purchase permit is. In Washington, Oregon, and Idaho guns are cash and carry.

<comment><USER21> Michigan use to require a purchase permit for pistols. You had to go to the Michigan State Police, take a little quiz, and they would issue you a purchase permit. The permit had an expiration date. You bought the pistol with the permit and then had to take the pistol back to the police station for a safety check.

<comment><USER19> I'm glad I haven't lived with these shenanigans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is this thing really a $1200 CNC-mill? What are the dimensions it takes? Also, materials, aluminium only?

This thing could be really nice for hobby projects (not gun related, that is).

<comment><USER8> No, it is not a general purpose CNC mill. It is specifically designed for the task of making the receiver parts from almost ready but non-functional gun pieces ("80% receivers").

It might be adaptable something else but it wasn't designed for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The author has no understanding of CNC machines and didn't do his homework. This is all completely wrong:

"Like any computer-numerically-controlled (or CNC) mill, the one-foot-cubed black box uses a drill bit mounted on a head that moves in three dimensions to automatically carve digitally-modeled shapes into polymer, wood or aluminum."

CNCs use drill bits for drilling, but not cutting. They use a carbide router bit. Look like a drill bit, but isn't. His machine might use a drill bit, but it's not the norm and "any CNC" doesn't.

CNC routers, or mills, divide into those that cut steel and those that cut everything else, not "polymer, wood or aluminum". From this article, I can't tell nearly as much as I'd like to about this machine, and I do this for a living.

</comment><comment><USER24> Don't even need a CNC machine (or any hi tech device) to build lethal automatic weapons: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FinRqCocwGE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FinRqCocwGE)

Craftsmanship, experience and raw materials only are needed.

</comment><comment><USER25> I wish it could make this into 100% :)

[http://www.80percentarms.com/products/0-billet- ar-15-lower-r...](http://www.80percentarms.com/products/0-billet-ar-15-lower- receiver)

</comment><comment><USER26> Or I could buy ~12+ lower receivers...

<comment><USER27> Try 24. $50 seems to be the new floor for AR15 lower receivers. I've seen some as low $38 + shipping to an FFL dealer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> So... it's a CNC machining apparatus? Why are people making such a fuss about that?

</comment><comment><USER29> Or you can do what some people have done and carve an AR-15 receiver out of wood. Making your own receiver isn't really news.

</comment><comment><USER30> What does it mean to sell a machine the sole purpose of which is to exploit a "legal loophole"? Can't the machine be made illegal the minute it's available to the public?

You can't sell all the ingredients, tools and instructions to build a meth lab ( _" Breaking Bad in a Box"_!) so what's so different with a gun?

<comment><USER16> Meth is illegal, full stop. Guns are not, that "legal loophole" is referred to by others as the Constitution, which makes gun manufacturing subject to laws and regulations, but not bans in the US.

<comment><USER31> Meth is schedule II. I think "illegal, full stop" really only works for schedule I.

<comment><USER16> Oops! You're right, I was under the incorrect impression it had been put on Schedule I.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> $1200 machine that can print arbitrary metal objects and the journalist focuses on a gun? What is wrong with you people...

<comment><USER18> It's a mill. Doesn't "print", it's a subtractive process... give it a block of metal and it cuts away the pieces you don't want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I believe that there are laws in place from making the barrel at home. You can make a gun with a lot of the 3d printers as well.

<comment><USER6> There aren't. It's a long piece of hardened steel with a hole drilled in it and a groove added thereto. No laws prohibit such manufacturing (assuming USA, I haven't so extensively studied such laws of other countries).

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm pretty sure the lethal part of the equation isn't metal receivers but gun powder and bullets.

Why aren't we limiting the sale of bullets (explosives)?

edit: Chris Rock said it best: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db0Y4qIZ4PA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db0Y4qIZ4PA)

<comment><USER16> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution)

Except for some "slave states" as I've taken to calling them, you can buy ammo mail order, often with a statement of age or perhaps a photocopy of your drivers license. Powder, bullets, cases and primers by mail, although there may be limits to the amount of powder you can hold before the BATF wants a license, safe(r) storage, etc. And similarly your local fire department prefers or may demand limits.

And this stuff is stable, lasts a long time. My father has several 25 pound casks of powder he or his father bought before or after WWII that he's still reloading from, and ammo manufactured in WWII is still being used (although a lot of it has corrosive primers, requiring much more thorough cleaning).

<comment><USER34> is taxing ammunition unconstitutional?

<comment><USER16> Absolutely not: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittman%E2%80%93Robertson_Fede...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittman%E2%80%93Robertson_Federal_Aid_in_Wildlife_Restoration_Act)

~ 10% is fine (although those of us who don't hunt want more ranges built with this money, which is happening).

Amount that are clearly so much they're intended to hamper access are unconstitutional. Ones that are structured differently have been held unconstitutional: [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vo...](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=460&invol=575)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Guns scare the shit out of me.

When I grew up in Australia where there is basically no guns. I used to walk on streets even on a drunken Friday / Saturday night without fear.

I moved to the US a few years ago and since then every corner I turn, I see people and I worry.

I don't worry about getting robbed. No. I worry about a gun fight somewhere and a stray bullet hits me. I worry that someone drunk might hold me at gunpoint and at a moment of misjudgement he/she shoots me.

It is pretty hard to get killed by being punched. On the other hand, it is pretty easy to lose your mind for a second and shoot someone

I hate this project, because now the barrier to entry of owning a unregistered gun is so much lower

<comment><USER36> I see the opposite, I see a world where the predator on the street corner cannot be sure I am armed, who has to pause and think before he mugs me or another, are they armed? They have to think twice about that home invasion as well.

You vastly over exaggerate the issue here, this level or paranoia needs medical assistance.

Gun laws will not make people safer, making an already illegal act; using a gun against someone/something; even more illegal solves nothing.

We have a major problem with drugs. There is too much money in this because of the illegal nature of it. From the use and sale of drugs to prosecution, treatment, and imprisonment. The establishment has too much to lose to give it up and those in that system have too little to lose to not resort to violence.

Fix the drug laws, find good work for those who have too much idle time, and then we can work on the culture of violence that pervades many inner cities.

<comment><USER37> > They have to think twice about that home invasion as well.

As a simple supporting point, home invasions while _the tenants are currently at home_ is much higher in Canada where firearms are significantly less common. In America, burglars make sure noone is home before breaking into it. This has been correlated to gun ownership and castle doctrines.</comment></comment></comment>


Free Machine Learning eBooks (A revised list) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rasbt/pattern_classification/blob/master/resources/machine_learning_ebooks.md

<comment><AUTHOR> I went through all the resources listed in the previous submission here: [http://electronicsforu.com/electronicsforu/circuitarchives/v...](http://electronicsforu.com/electronicsforu/circuitarchives/view_article.asp?sno=1621&article_id=12580&id=12580&page=1#.U8PfhRbxWqk). However, people had legit complaints about popups and broken links. So, I went through all resources manually, double checked links, and added more information about the resources.</comment>


European Hardware Awards 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://europeanhardwareawards.eu/winners-2015/

<comment><USER2> From the title I thought there were actual European projects and companies getting the awards, but I see that's not the case.</comment>


Why the 50% tax rate matters nil to entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://www.elstensoftware.com/blog/2011/10/25/why-50-percent-tax-rate-matters-nil-entrepreneurs/

<comment><USER2> _At the time of writing, the UK tax system's personal allowance (the amount of money you can earn free of tax) is £7,475. An increase in this rate would be beneficial to entrepreneurs attempting to start a business, because it leaves more money for the entrepreneur to pay other bills, clothe their children, pay the mortgage etc._

The UK government is committed to increasing this allowance to £10,000 by the time its term expires in 2015 (it was one of the things the Lib Dems insisted on).</comment>


App Rejected By The App Store Because It Could Be Used To 'Ridicule Public Figures' - <AUTHOR> http://thecodist.com/article/my_app_rejected_by_the_app_store_because_it_could_be_used_to_39_ridicules_public_figures_39

<comment><USER2> The app is used to put one's face on extremely large denomination bills as a joke. He says he included a few presidents and other public officials as examples to play with. Apple's terms state that your app can't ridicule public figures. Fair or unfair it's what you sign on for when you develop for the iPhone. Sure, you could argue that this isn't exactly ridicule, but they also probably don't have the time for debate. They're giving these things a quick once over without much thought. Public officials on a fake $500T bill? Denied. Seems like a no brainer to me and it sounds like if he resubmitted the app without politicians' pictures there wouldn't even be an issue.

That said, I don't even know why people bother with the App Store anymore. You could spend months working on something and Apple could literally make up a reason on the spot to reject it. The very next day you'll see some stupid pull-my-finger app that someone threw together in an hour. It's been like this from day one and nothing has changed. These lame blog posts that pop up every week are not some new revelation.

If developers want real change they'll stop targeting the iPhone instead of rehashing the same arguments while continuing to support the system. What incentive does Apple have to change things?</comment>


Titivillus: The Patron Demon of Scribes (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/Introductio/Titivillus.html <comment><USER2> Eh. When email and bboards started spreading among the best educated segment of the population, I was somewhat appalled at the imperfect spelling in evidence.

Then I figured that, given how unnatural reading and writing are, people were doing OK. It was the press, at the time quite rich and bristling with proofreaders, that had raised expectations to very high levels.</comment>


Stanford engineer makes $1 million machine to decode his own genome for ~$50k - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/science/11gene.html?ref=science

<comment><USER2> Man, the Helicos PR machine is running at full speed. This headline is grossly misleading. Yes, you can decode a human genome for 50K, but if I'm not mistaken, the instrument itself is a million dollars. So, anyone decoding your genome certainly isn't going to do it at cost if they have any hope of getting a return on their instrumentation investment.

<comment><USER3> Looks like the main purpose of titles/headlines is to get people to read the article, than being accurate.

<comment><USER4> I have been noticing it too many times at too many places these days. Especially on big news network like CNN/ESPN. They will have completely misleading title for the post just to grab attention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Dr. Quake and his Heliscope Single Molecule Sequencer. Sounds like a bad movie villain!

</comment><comment><USER6> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=754895>

</comment><comment><USER7> Pretty soon Insurance is going to cover this process... it will be a simple routine doctors visit for this info.</comment>


FOIA response on requesting your own phone metadata - <AUTHOR> http://andymboyle.s3.amazonaws.com/misc/national-security-matters/Andy-Boyle-NSA-FOIA-Request.pdf

<comment><USER2> Executive Order 13526: [http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive- order-c...](http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order- classified-national-security-information)

Title 18 USC 798: [http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2009-title18/html/USCODE...](http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2009-title18/html/USCODE-2009-title18-partI- chap37-sec798.htm)

Title 50 USC 3024: [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3024](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3024)</comment>


How one guy turned his C&C skills into millions with online poker - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/magazine/mag-27Poker-t.html <comment><USER2> If he a.) plays at stakes where he can lose over a million in a couple days and b.) bases his decision to play someone (especially another pro) on emotion and recent short term variance, it's pretty much guaranteed he will end up broke eventually unless he actually has many many millions (like possibly in the hundreds if we're talking about enough to cover the swings of heads up PLO games at those stakes with Gus Hansen).

It's hard to fathom how much variance really exists in poker. Lucky and unlucky streaks can and do last months to years for people who play thousands of hands per day. Statistics dictates that there will always be a number of outliers who, due to a combination of moving up aggressively and running hot at the right times, become millionaires in a short time and draw a lot of attention, but unless they're the real deal and sufficiently bankrolled to cover the swings, it will all go back, often as quickly as it came. Most of the famous players on TV actually fit this mold, go broke constantly, and only make consistent money due to endorsements. Among real high stakes pros (mostly math-oriented, highly self-disciplined nerds you've never heard of), a large portion of the TV stars are considered fish. I've always found it interesting how distorted the general perceptions are versus reality.

<comment><USER3> Can't agree more.

I worked for an online gambling company for several years in the analytics area. I saw young players rise meteorically, win millions (not exaggerating) and eventually go broke.

Almost everyone is human. Once losses start to mount, it's hard to play with according to the program and stay emotionally detached while your world is crumbling with every lost pot.

Never underestimate the cheaters. Most online poker players don't understand how rampant collusion is. Dumb colluders are easy to spot. Smart ones will stay undetected until someone gets greedy. Almost everyone is human. It's hard to maintain discipline.

I myself thought about playing online professionally. After I realistically evaluated my chances and my stats, it became clear that I would make more money on a guaranteed basis by being a consultant than a professional poker player. When you have a family that depends on you, stable income becomes very important.

Online gamblers live a very unfullfilling life: you are staring at several computer screens many hours each day, you don't really create anything and you have wild swings in your income. With exception of few lucky, hard working, disciplined and possibly intelligently colluding players you will not make good money in the long run.

In the short run, impossible is nothing. Play that tourney, enjoy a night in a casino. It's good fun if it's not your job.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I was a pro for about 5 years before I got good enough at programming to do that instead. For the first couple years I was awed by the easy money (it was waaaay easy back then). Before really learning, I stupidly blew about $1200 doing all the stupid gambler things (was in college so that was like... all my money).

Then I got serious about learning , put in another $200, and didn't deposit ever again. Worked that up to around $20kish, kept that as a bankroll, and played in the 5/10-30/60 range, whatever games were good. I mainly focused on limit hold 'em, shorthanded and later heads-up.

I was consistently making in the 150-200 an hour range, but I'm not very money driven and so didn't play that much. Maybe 20-30hrs per week around 6-8 months of the year. So it was easy money and gave me lots of free time, which was great, and the mechanics of the game are truly fascinating and I got very absorbed early on, but you're completely right about how boring and unrewarding it is ultimately.

After a few years I felt like a hamster on a wheel. It became a drag to play so I avoided it and tried to reduce playing to the minimum necessary--which ended up putting strain on the bankroll during bad patches. You're right: the swings are very hard to stomach day in and day out. I didn't save or manage my money at all--spent it mostly on food and travel, which I don't regret. Still, I determined that I absolutely had to do something creative and contributory rather than repetitive and predatory, went the clueless 20 year old failed start up attempt route, learned how to program along the way, and now I'm much happier with life, and though I still make a lot less per hour than those days, it seems conceivable that in a few years I could eclipse it doing something I dig.

<comment><USER4> Interesting story. There seems to be a big overlap between poker and hackers/developers. I considered going pro a few years back but couldn't justify it considering the lifestyle (I spent a month in vegas for the WSOP two years ago, it was insane) and the swings involved. Not worth it and you have better opportunities in startup land.

The poker community is also crowded with degenerate gamblers, guys who pretend to be your friends one minute and then would kill your parents for $100 the next. They are difficult to avoid and their bad habits have a tendency to rub off onto otherwise good people.

I don't mind playing semi-frequently, even on the live circuit, but I would never make it more than a passing interest and hobby.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, the culture surrounding poker is quite seedy and materialistic. I much prefer the hacker community.

It also doesn't feel great to think about where the money is coming from. Who knows if that pot you just took off a degenerate gambler is his mortgage or child support for the month. I'm not trying to accuse pros of anything unethical--people are responsible for themselves and he's going to blow that money anyway, so you might as well take it. Just the rules of the game. But still, I feel better about creating value in the world than taking it away from someone else, even if it's fair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I played quite a bit of poker and blackjack to help pay for college; Some of my "not-really-friends" friends dropped out to play professionally.

Playing 6+ simultaneous tables isn't as romantic (it's a boring way to play) or hard (there's software to help you keep track) as this article makes it out to be, when you're essentially asking the same question every hand, doing the same calculation. It gets to be mind numbing. There are few situations in poker that are truly interesting when you've played tens of thousands of hands.

I'd liken the experience less to Command and Conquer and more to mining for gold in World of Warcraft.

And that was the difference between me and the others in my circle that still play full time: Mental stamina.

Seeing the chips as points and not money is really a defense mechanism to keep you playing rationally. Where many good, but not great, online players lose it is in the grind of constantly calculating pot odds.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would badly like to sit this guy down with 'young poker hotshot' expected lifetime net worth graph, median lifetime net worth graph and 'likelihood you will go broke' worksheet, and convince him to dump $3mm into T-bills.

Oh well. I wouldn't have listened either when I was his age.

</comment><comment><USER7> I recently started blogging at <http://www.rationalpoker.com>, there's an intro post at [http://lesswrong.com/lw/4yk/verifying_rationality_via_ration...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/4yk/verifying_rationality_via_rationalpokercom/), if you're curious.

<comment><USER8> I have several self-recognized cognitive biases that make me a terrible poker player.

I hate to give up on something once I start. If I start reading a terrible book, it burns me because I feel obligated to finish. This also means its pretty tough for me to fold a hand after I've been had.

Given this bias, I've predicted that my highest EV move in poker is not to play.

(By the way, take out the extra periods from your links)

<comment><USER9> You mean you would have a hard time forcing yourself to throw away a worthless hand (in Texas hold'em) after you already committed some money to the pot? Even if, e.g., you called in late position pre-flop with a bad hand just because the pot odds required it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Its very common for high level rts players to also play poker. During the time of starcraft broodwar before starcraft 2 launched there was not much north american/european interest in the gaming scene. Professional players use to play poker by day to make money and starcraft by night to practice for their next tournament.

<comment><USER11> In fact, one of the first foreign (non-Korean) StarCraft players to move to Korea went on to become a pro poker player (Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Grospellier>)

From what I understand, many of the Korean pros get into online poker as well.

<comment><USER10> One of the most prestigious non-korean tournaments is sponsored by Pokerstrategy.

[http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=205...](http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=205550)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Semi related question: how do these guys keep their millions, from a banking and tax standpoint. Is it no longer illegal to gamble online in the us?

If I was him I'd be socking away a % monthly for saving and rainy day funds

<comment><USER13> Good question. I think it's pretty hysterical by the way, how it seems like half of the online gambling articles published in the mainstream media are about the shady underbelly of an illegal industry and the other half sort of glamorize the top winners.

To answer your question though, online poker is in a kind of legal limbo. The Unlawful Internet Gambling and Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was tacked onto the SAFE Port Act of 2006 in a midnight rush job, making it illegal for banks to facilitate transactions related to online gambling. It didn't specifically make the act of playing illegal beyond what has been on the books since the Interstate Wire Act of 1961. In theory, poker's ace up the sleeve is that it's a skill game and can't fall under the same restrictions that regulate other games of chance.

At a state level, there are states that have specifically made online poker illegal, Washington (where it's a felony) and Kentucky are two, if memory serves but I think there might be one or two more by now. Then you see other states NJ/CA/NV moving to legalize and regulate intrastate network gaming.

Probably most of the players winning smaller amounts just don't bother to declare, and the bigger players are filing Form W2-G the same as they would for offline winnings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I used to bet on sports. I've made 13k in 13 days. I've wagered 10k on a single game (numerous times). I've lost 14k in three hours. I've wagered my entire bankroll on a single day of NFL games.

And guess what? It was never about the money. Sure, I always wanted to see the number go up, but I had no intentions of withdrawing any of it. It was about being right. It was about pushing the envelope. And most importantly, it was about trying to figure something out.

I don't care if you make millions or go bust... or go back and forth between the two. As long as you leave your emotions at the door, you'll be fine. And to be honest, I was good at that (and still am). But it's probably not a life you want...

I mean, yeah, it's fun trying to solve something and seeing if you're right or wrong. But you're only doing it for yourself. You and no one else. And if that tickles your fancy, go for it - I have nothing against it. But what if you chose to share your passion for wanting to be right, for wanting to push the envelope, for wanting to figure something out...

In my eyes, it wouldn't necessarily make you a better person, it'd just be hard to call that bet a loss.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm going to make a prediction and say that this kid is flat broke in the next 2-5 years.(if it takes that long) The article seems to gloss over the sickening amounts of variance that poker can have. Just like you can run up from nothing to millions in year, you can go from living in the penthouse to sweeping the lobby over a few bad sessions. Especially at the stakes he's playing at. Ask Mike Matusow about being a pro who's borrowing money to pay bills.

<comment><USER5> It comes down to bankroll protection.

With midrange professional players, I don't think you really see those kinds of crazy swings. Once you reach a certain level, you start doing dumb things, like playing head-to-head games at ridiculous stakes against players you're equally matched with.

Which is why poker doesn't scale well. Eventually you're not going to hit a level where you don't have as clear an advantage over your opponents. Your profits will eventually end up capping out. You either need to find a new angle or start gambling like a degenerate to further advance.

Players like Matusow aren't going to scale down their stakes when their bankroll starts to shrink dramatically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> C&C = Command and Conquer (game) for other curious folk

</comment><comment><USER17> ps...check out the mathematic models/programs that play out and distill "variance", the "long term", and 'luck' in poker..It's remarkable stuff.

<comment><USER18> My first Django project was to create a simple variance simulator for poker (<http://www.evplusplus.com/poker_tools/variance_simulator/>). The amount of luck involved in poker is truly tough to comprehend.

Becoming a successful poker player not only requires you to be quite skilled, but you also need to run well at the beginning of your career.

<comment><USER19> Actually not. You didn't understand how luck works. Beeing successful in Poker is more about how you handle the bad streaks when they hit. Because they can hit often and hard. Everybody is running well from time to time.

<comment><USER18> "You didn't understand how luck works"

I have written quite a bit of poker software and played close to 700k hands of poker over the last 5 years so I understand how luck works better than most.

My point is, that if you imagine 10 hypothetical identical players (they make the same move in the same situations) with $1000 starting bankrolls, all with moderate a positive expectation of 1bb/100 hands many of those players will lose a lot at the beginning, get discouraged and give up playing poker in the first 10-20k hands they play because they ran poorly.

The people who were "lucky" and ran well at the beginning of there careers (like me) have a chance to grow a larger bankroll and will be less likely to go broke in the future as their risk-of-ruin decreases.

This is exactly what the simulator does. It takes identical players, under identical game conditions and looks at possible outcomes. You can see for yourself how wildly different the results can be for a player with a 1bb/100 win rate. (Note: the simulator of course is inherently flawed because games conditions and the mental condition of the player are not accounted for)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The prob with..every..mainstream story on (e)poker is the unflinching marketing élan of the writers, and necessity to give a (stil truly) sub- terranean slice of life immediate resonance to the audience.

Not too encroach upon anyone's character or existence, let alone the actual people in the article...

Poker is an inexorable gambit; both in lifestyle (subjectively define by 'sanity', and career (objectively define buy debt and financial bottoming out.

Poker is a fairly pure, distilled hologram of the caprice/randomness, and skill/will that resides over living and life itself, and a stripped bare interplay of emotional and psychological alchemy that everyone has, and lives with.

The greatest poker success carries little to not weight, in terms of posterity. IMO, greatest difference between poker and "other jobs".

Even aject fail in other occupational pursuits almost always carries over some tangible good productive benefit for you and your career. Whether it's contacts, savings, reputation, experience itself.

Contra poker; even after enormous success, the above benefits are a double edged sword at best, where your experience and connections (ability to get back in) are as likely to be the underpinnings of cyclical, fixed failure.

At best, it's a totoal unknown; emoyrically, it's pretty obvious.

And either way, poker is devoid of true metrics...in the same way -- IMHO -- other businesses get/should be hinged upon.

Ironic, since poker is all about a scoreboard and 'statistics'. But the living and breathing reality of metrics is a seperate (undomesticated) species from standard business metrics.

One more thing, hopefully more concrete (I'm reticent to be too specific since I know/knew a lot of the actual ppl involved),

The luck of poker, applied to people otherwise talented and able, is most profound in the beginnings of their poker experience, most often at adolescent ages where an underlying emotional caprice and aversion (or tolerance..) to risk is extremely strong.

Majority of the "long"term winners, had remarkably pain-free beginnings, when their emotional and psychological poker fortress got created. Still, many dropped out of school after losing/borrowings appreciable sums, to persevere.

Pointedly, of the latter...most were in financial umbrella's of school and family, and insulated from the psycholigical tumult n emotional traumas that define any poker career.

This got too long n fumbling, but personal experience/a vacuum of time on the treadmill/and a general interest necessitated.

<comment><USER20> The most important point that you made is that poker brings nothing to the table for a player except money. You learn little that can be monetized away from the table, and spend your time building a bankroll instead of building a business that has value other than the money it brings in.

Poker doesn't scale. The goal is to increase your hourly rate. Spend your time coding.

<comment><USER21> No. way.

Playing poker with PEOPLE, at least (not online) has enormous benefits. Learning how to read people in-depth is incredibly valuable. Also learning how to stand your ground and unflinchingly bluff (or deliberatly avoid telegraphing your hand) is also a great skill to have.

There's so much more to poker than the money. Unless you're talking only about online poker.

<comment><USER20> > Learning how to read people in-depth is incredibly valuable.

You think that playing poker teaches you how to read people past the poker table? In what context? This sounds very delusional to me. In business, if you are doing anything with a lot of money at stake (that is not illicit), then the cards are always face up if you do enough work.

> Also learning how to stand your ground and unflinchingly bluff (or > deliberatly avoid telegraphing your hand) is also a great skill to have.

You think this is a "great" skill? I think its valuable, but not as valuable as learning code or understanding how the economy works.

Also, you didn't even mention discipline or emotional control. Those are real values that poker will teach you. Bankroll management, dealing with long term variance, and getting bad beats make you either toughen up or break.

How old are you? How long have you been playing poker? I don't mean it derogatorily. I've played A LOT of poker and I've done a lot of other things. Poker has given me less skills than organizing soccer games.

<comment><USER21> I'm 24. I'm certainly not a pro, either. I'm not arguing these skills are the best skills anyone could have, I'm trying to convey that the intuition and instinct built up over time playing with people has some value, and that value isn't insignificant.

I failed to convey this, though. I totally agree with your points about disciple and emotional control. I just can't help but feel the skills I've gotten from playing poker with people are valuable. Who you play with matters a great deal, of course. I've gotten job offers based on my poker game not because I was a star or anything, but because I successfully illustrated my ability to execute strategy well. Etc. Etc. I turned down the jobs, by the way.

End of rant.

<comment><USER22> It also depends what you need to learn. Personally, as someone who avoids conflict and always second guesses my decisions, I found poker helps a little to train me out of these traits.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, there's not a ton I can say I've applied from my years gambling to other parts of my life, but this was the biggest takeaway: Shit happens; Trust the math; Don't let a big win get to your head, either.

If anything, I've learned not to get emotionally attached to day-to-day swings and try to rationally focus on the bigger picture.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Systemd sends SIGKILL imediately after SIGTERM during shutdown - <AUTHOR> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1141137

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems like this is the commit causing this: [http://cgit.freedesktop.org/systemd/systemd/commit/?id=74397](http://cgit.freedesktop.org/systemd/systemd/commit/?id=74397)

Why not just sleep for a fixed amount of time?

<comment><USER2> Because sleep is arbitrary, ugly, and slow?

At least that is one of the arguments i have seen bandied about for going systemd in the first place, a reduction in the amount of sleeps they had to put into the bootup scripts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Because kill -9'ing half the system is better?

<comment><USER2> Not defending them, as i find the whole systemd concept a massive train wreck. Just speculating what their justification is likely to be.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Project Lambda: Straw-Man Proposal - <AUTHOR> http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~mr/lambda/straw-man/

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is a link to some latest comments/thoughts on straw-man proposal:

[http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/lambda- dev/2009-Decem...](http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/lambda- dev/2009-December/000023.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> Can someone please explain where an anonymous function has an advantage over a named function? (Not trolling: I'm really trying to figure it out.)

<comment><USER3> One example is when you want to pass a function as param to another function.

JavaScript example: Forced to use named function:

var greaterThanFunction = function(a, b) { return a > b; };

var filteredResults = filter(biglist, greatherThanFunction);

VS:

Anonymous:

var filteredResults = filter(biglist, function(a, b) { return a > b; });

The JavaScript example above is nice, but in Clojure anonymous lambdas are even nicer:

You can do things like:

(reduce #(+ %1 %2) (range 1000))

i.e., not only do you not have to name the function, you don't even have to name the variables.

\----

Excerpt from <http://clojure.org/reader>

Anonymous function literal (#()) #(...) => (fn [args] (...)) where args are determined by the presence of argument literals taking the form %, %n or %&. % is a synonym for %1, %n designates the nth arg (1-based), and %& designates a rest arg. This is not a replacement for fn - idiomatic used would be for very short one-off mapping/filter fns and the like. #() forms cannot be nested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a quote somewhere about every sufficiently complicated program, and every sufficiently developed language, eventually trying to badly replicate Lisp.

<comment><USER5> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspunning>

"Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Am I missing something? There doesn't seem to be any way to pass a function in the function namespace as a variable without a closure.

<comment><USER7> To my knowledge, what you're talking about is still on the table if it can be worked out in a reasonably sane manner, but it's tricky.

Not that this is an excuse not to do it, but it's not straightforward even to spec out, let alone agree on and implement: Java has some painful differences between variable and function namespaces, not the least of which is that methods are polymorphically resolved whereas member variables are looked up based on declared type.

So what should happen we try to assign a function as a variable: should it be looked up based on runtime class, or declared class? Either way, there are going to be gotchas, and what you'd think might happen is not what actually happens. There's just no way to allow Java methods to become transparently interchangeable with variables in the face of inheritance, so some of Joe Java's assumptions will probably have to be broken for it to work right.

IMO it would be best to just go back and rewrite the variable namespace rules to be a little saner (is it ever _really_ necessary to shadow a superclass variable? Scala gets along fine without allowing var overriding...), but that's never going to happen, so...

This leads to other frictions, too: one issue that's been causing some friction is that nobody has yet fully worked out how to allow closures to be called using m(args) syntax instead of m.invoke(args), because of these same namespace issues. That one is on a lot of todo lists because using the things will be overly verbose if it's not done, but there's a lot of subtlety in the edge cases, so I'm not sure how it will all fall into place.

Everyone should keep in mind, though, the proposal linked on this page is a very rough draft, and is likely to be altered in many, many ways. Neal Gafter has been working pretty hard to try to bring his latest proposals (see <http://www.javac.info/> for links) closer to where the official proposal is likely to go (i.e. a simpler and slightly less powerful compromise), so more of what was in BGGA might show up in the final Java 7 spec than Mark's strawman proposal would indicate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't see the point?

<comment> brown9-2 _It's intended to be a starting point for discussions on the Project Lambda mailing list which will, hopefully, lead to the formulation of a detailed proposal and a prototype implementation._

<comment><USER8> Missed that, thanks. Might have been clearer if they had labeled it "starting point for discussion" rather than straw man.

I am not sure if redefining the whole Java language completely is really useful. Why not just switch to another language entirely.

Perhaps it would be more useful to improve support for functional languages in the Java VM. But Java itself can only get worse by piling even more syntax options on top of it.</comment></comment></comment>


Just Launched: Dollar Lean Club - <AUTHOR> http://dollarleanclub.com <comment><AUTHOR> I, a software developer who is also a national competitive bodybuilder. And my business partner, an LPT, RN, and bodybuilder decided to take an online approach to our effective in-person weekly boot-camps.

We took the 3 elements required to get in shape and made them part of a subscription system. \- Custom meal plans \- Workout programs \- Consistency through an accountability chat-bot

I would love some feedback if you have the time. Thank you for your time.

Currently on Product Hunt as well [https://www.producthunt.com/posts/dollar- lean-club](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/dollar-lean-club)</comment>


Roller Coaster Shmoller Coaster - <AUTHOR> http://avich.com/blog/2013/07/04/roller-coaster-shmoller-coaster/

<comment><USER2> Very interesting point. Stop talking and start doing :-)</comment>


Color Officially Shut Down - <AUTHOR> http://betabeat.com/2012/11/the-startup-god-of-wealth-destruction-color-officially-shut-down/

<comment><AUTHOR> What exactly was the CEO intimidating people into doing? They didn't do anything there.

<comment><USER2> There's a link [http://betabeat.com/2012/11/color-andrew-witherspoon-bill- ng...](http://betabeat.com/2012/11/color-andrew-witherspoon-bill-nguyen-glock- reprisals/)

If it's true it's pretty shocking stuff.</comment></comment>


Government Plans to Begin DNA Testing on Detained Immigrants - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/us/dna-testing-immigrants.html <comment><USER2> Let's DNA test all politicians first, and make sure those test results go into all the criminal databases. And all law enforcement personnel, too.

Then we can talk about DNA testing other groups of people.

<comment><USER3> This is similar to an idea I picked up somewhere in the past: a surveillance state is acceptable only if it's two-way. The citizens should be able to observe the observers, watch the watchmen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What private companies assist with the collection of this information?

<comment><USER5> Bode Cellmark Forensics [https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-awards-new- contract-ra...](https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-awards-new-contract- rapid-dna-testing-southwest-border-expands-pilot-program)

[https://www.bode-labs.com/contact-us](https://www.bode-labs.com/contact-us)

[https://www.bode-labs.com/about/executive-team](https://www.bode- labs.com/about/executive-team)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> With this + the UAP phenomenon, maybe there's a secret narrative along the lines of testing whether these detainees might be aliens.

Obviously what is being done with these immigrants/refugees is unconscionable but unfortunately this is the Trump administration, after all.

 _removes tinfoil hat_

<comment><USER7> If people in HK can resist the CCP, Americans could resist the evils done in their name and with their support. If they just cared enough, or weren't so myopic.

> In the facility's standard cages, there is no soap or showering for the > kids. Though 72 hours is the longest a minor can be legally confined in such > a facility, some had been there almost a month.

[..]

> As agents brought in the children she requested, Sevier said, the smell of > sweat and soiled clothing filled the room. They had not been allowed to > bathe or change since crossing the Rio Grande and turning themselves over to > officials. Sevier found that about two-thirds of the kids she examined had > symptoms of respiratory infection. The guards wore surgical masks, but the > detainees breathed the air unfiltered.

[..]

> At Ursula, however, the children Sevier examined—like the panting 2-year- > old—were "totally fearful, but then entirely subdued," she told me. She > could read the fear in their faces, but they were perfectly submissive to > her authority. "I can only explain it by trauma, because that is such an > unusual behavior," she said. Sevier had brought along Mickey Mouse toys to > break the ice, and the kids seem to enjoy playing with them. Yet none > resisted, she said, when she took them away at the end of the exam. "At some > point," Sevier mused, "you're broken and you stop fighting."

\-- [https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/07/border-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/07/border- patrols-oversight-sick-migrant-children/593224/)

I saw the above on HN, where it had few points and no comments.

> "They're not death camps—not yet," she said. "But the death camps that have > existed throughout history often don't start that way. They start being > places where people who are targeted because of their race or status are put > into isolated places and denied due process. The characterization is > accurate."

\-- [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3kxqqw/the-jews- organizin...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3kxqqw/the-jews-organizing- against-ice-to-stop-concentration-camps)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Well this is downright evil.

</comment><comment><USER9> Presumably to prevent trafficking in minors like this:

[https://www.westernjournal.com/border-patrol-busts- illegal-i...](https://www.westernjournal.com/border-patrol-busts-illegal- immigrant-allegedly-paid-130-rent-8-year-old-pose-son/)

<comment><USER5> This seems like an extremely poor quality news source, and a presumption has little evidentiary value.

<comment><USER9> Interesting statement. I have a source, and you have what?

[https://tucson.com/news/local/feds-in-southern-arizona- turn-...](https://tucson.com/news/local/feds-in-southern-arizona-turn- attention-to-family-fraud- at/article_ff63b096-8381-5233-b7a5-e2be066163c3.html#tracking-source=home-top- story)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is your company's policy for Docker Hub? - <AUTHOR> What is your company's policy regarding downloading images from Docker Hub and other related container registries (e.g. Google Container Registry)?  Does your corporate proxy allow you to download anything?  Do you need to get approval from a group/committee for each download?<p>At the company I work we have not opened up Docker Hub and are looking at the best way to manage and also provide security. <comment><USER2> I would manage a private registry.

It's no different than trusting code in a 3pp library. I'd vet the code before running it. In some cases, you are giving the running container root access to your computer. Take a look at the Dirty Cow to exploit that allows you to break out of the container and control the host.

[https://blog.paranoidsoftware.com/dirty-cow- cve-2016-5195-do...](https://blog.paranoidsoftware.com/dirty-cow- cve-2016-5195-docker-container-escape/)

You never know what people will put into their images. I built a tool to help reverse engineer images to find files people put in their images here.

[https://github.com/P3GLEG/Whaler](https://github.com/P3GLEG/Whaler)

I have found so much weird stuff that people build into the containers. I wouldn't trust them implicitly because it's a packaged black box.

<comment><USER3> Whaler looks great. As I understand it, it gives us a Dockerfile for a given image.

Do you know if it's possible to reverse engineer the entire source code of my app from the Docker image?

<comment><USER2> It depends on the language it was compiled in. It'll help you retrieve the binary, but you need to use the right tool to get the source code from it. It's not different than download an app on your host machine. It just make it easier for you to see what people put in an image. Android/Java is a language you can get the entire source from excluding if they obfuscate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It certainly depends how your company views its risks and how docker fits into their "threat model" - you're running someone else's code on your secure internal networks, so it should be treated like external/unauthorised software.

It's not unheard of for Docker images to be backdoored or tampered with, just look at last month - [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2018/06/backd...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2018/06/backdoored-images-downloaded-5-million-times-finally- removed-from-docker-hub/)

If they're trivial images, maybe mirror them internally and walk through their internals if that doesn't consume too much time.

</comment><comment><USER5> We run a private registry. Everything on it has to be home made on top of centOS.

<comment><USER6> Everything on your private registry requires a CentOS base image? What about public images? If you wanted to run elasticsearch or nginx, would your company policy be to build a custom nginx or elasticsearch container image?

<comment><USER5> Exactly we don't use public images, build everything on top of CentOS in house.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you essentially reverse-engineering popular images like mysql/mysql? Are you not running vendor products that might reference public images?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Adios Corona – Practical information to fight the pandemic - <AUTHOR> https://en.adioscorona.org <comment><AUTHOR> Hey! I have been building this website with a small team of biologists to provide useful and clear information on the practical actions we need to take to diminish the spread of the pandemic.

We are continually adding content and are translating it into several languages. If you can volunteer to help or have experience with this subject PLEASE reach out!</comment>


Conway's Game of Life in One Line of APL (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://catpad.net/michael/apl/ <comment><USER2> In one line of J (both APL and J were created by Kenneth E. Iverson)

life=: (3 3 (+/ e. 3+0,4&{)@,;._3 ])@(0,0,~0,.0,.~])

Given a life instance, the next generation can be found by:

1\. adding extra empty cells, surrounding the life instance,

2\. tessellating the result, finding every overlapping 3 by 3 subinstance,

3\. totaling the number of live cells in each subinstance,

4\. treating a subinstance as a live cell iff that total is a member of the sequence 3,x where x is 3 if the center cell was previously dead, and 4 if the center cell was previously alive (that said, note that 4 is also the index of the center cell, with the sub instance arranged as a flat list).

<comment><USER3> <rant on>

Please, people, stop using, promoting or even placing J on the same footing as APL. It is an absolute abomination of a language. It's ONLY motivation was that doing non-ASCII characters was really difficult way-back-when. That's it. And in creating J they absolutely butchered the very principles Iverson and others were vocal and passionate about promoting and teaching.

I learned APL about thirty years ago. Yes, we had computers thirty years ago. I learned it from what I'll call "first generation APL'ers". It's like saying "the first inner circle who started to dabble in Linux as soon as Linus made is public". The first disciples of Iverson, if you will. So, I am two levels away from Iverson. I met him multiple times at conferences, seminars and APL university meets. Him and other APL pioneers like Ray Polivka, Sandra Pakin, James Brown, Adrian Smith and Paul Berry. All of these people wrote books about APL and taught it.

Big deal, right? Well, yeah. Because I was in the room, a very small room, with maybe 200 people, if not 100, when this paper was presented by Iverson himself (in fact, I have a picture with him at the event):

[http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~jzhu/csc326/readings/iverson.pd...](http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~jzhu/csc326/readings/iverson.pdf)

Notation as a Tool of Thought was an incredible eye opening paradigm for me back then. I sat there listening to this presentation that pulled together all had learned about APL during the prior year or two of using it. And it was revelation. Notation made the power of the APL concept that much more than the ideas of easy array manipulation. It brought computational problem solving to a level of expression matching mathematical notation. This was way ahead of it's time and I felt privileged to be among the first generation of people using it.

Yet, there was a problem. Machines of the time made it difficult to work with non-ASCII character sets. We had to use specialized terminals (IBM and Tektronix made some).

When the IBM PC came out we had to literally burn a custom character set ROM for the graphics card and replace the line drawing characters with APL characters. That was great, but it sure didn't make for easily opening up APL to the masses. You had to be very, very interested in APL to not only buy an expensive APL interpreter but also engage in swapping chips out of your computer. The language was definitely ahead of it's time. In some cases you had to buy very specific hardware or it would not work.

As PC's exploded and portables like the early Compaq's came out it became more and more difficult to deal with the character set.

And so, I remember going to APL conferences where the concept of transliterating the language started to surface. The idea being to use a set of ASCII characters to represent APL characters and, therefore, enable this franken-APL to be accessible without hardware mods to your computer.

This was incredibly short-sighted. Many of us knew it was a matter of time before graphical display of symbols (like math and music notation) would be easy.

Eventually this evolved into J. A notation that completely abandoned the paper that earned Iverson the ACM Turing Award. It's APL without perhaps the most powerful thing about APL. It looks like a terminal shitting characters because it is operating at the wrong baud rate. Iverson made a huge mistake with J and he abandoned EVERYTHING he was so right to champion years earlier.

If we are ever going to go in that direction again (I think we have to, in some form) we need to understand that notation, more than almost anything else, was the key.

Computational problem solving needs to evolve beyond a state where the best we can do is type English words into a text editor and into something that is far more expressive. For that you need a notation, not an abomination like J.

<rant off>

<comment><USER4> I use both J and Dyalog APL. It is my understanding that Arthur Whitney, Roger Hui and Ken Iverson himself worked on J. The goal was not just to address the difficulty of using non-ASCII character, but to add funtional programming, hook and fork, easier tacit programming and fix certain other issues that even Ken Iverson himself acknowledged [1][2].

PS: I use Dyalog APL because I do personally like the once-alien-to-me characters!

[1] [http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APLPersonalView.htm](http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APLPersonalView.htm) [2] [http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/autobio.htm](http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/autobio.htm)

<comment><USER5> > to add funtional programming, hook and fork, easier tacit programming and > fix certain other issues that even Ken Iverson himself acknowledged

Whitney and Iverson disagreed about a lot of these things - e.g. Whitney prefers scan and fold to go left-to-right, rather than Iverson's right-to- left. Iverson is consistent with the rest of the language, Whitney is not (though much more practical). Also, Iverson added hook and fork; Whitney preferred the much simpler multi-monadic or dyadic-multi-monadic juxtaposition.

I don't remember where I read this, but I do remember reading Iverson conceding that Whitney's practical approach is probably a better idea than his own pure approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For an infinitely more relaxing experience of life in APL, may I recommend: [http://youtu.be/a9xAKttWgP4](http://youtu.be/a9xAKttWgP4)

I've watched it many times but I still expect him to mention happy little trees :)

</comment><comment><USER7> Having dealt with APL in the past, I've always been a bit skeptical of the "Blub Paradox" and other forms of Lisp triumphalism. APL is clearly far more powerful that any other language in some respects and far more limited in others.

On that note - [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?JoelMosesOnAplAndLisp](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?JoelMosesOnAplAndLisp)

</comment><comment><USER8> I have discovered a truly remarkable non nested-array solution which this margin is too small to contain.</comment>