Preventing CSRF with the same-site cookie attribute - <AUTHOR> http://www.sjoerdlangkemper.nl/2016/04/14/preventing-csrf-with-samesite-cookie-attribute/ <comment><USER2> Nice and easier than nonce tokens, particularly when you're partial view caching etc. - but until all current and old browsers that don't support the new attribute die out it's going to be necessary to continue doing things the old (current) way - users using older browsers are _more_ likely to be hit by CSRF and other attacks as they tend to be more technically naive and actually click phishing emails/popups etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> One nice thing about this approach is that it also protects GET requests, which in many cases are impossible to protect with CSRF tokens. CSRF protection for GET requests is considered less crucial, because correctly designed GETs can not change state of resources, so can not perform any sensitive action. But GETs can leak sensitive information, like for example the fact that the user is logged into certain services. With same-site attribute this problem should be solved.

<comment><USER4> I thought that an attacker's JS code can't read the response from a GET request in a CSRF attack. Or are you saying it's possible for the attacker to read the HTTP status code of the response?

<comment><USER5> I think you're correct here. Also, like POST-based CSRF, get-based CSRF is also a solved problem (issue a param in the URL)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there a reason they can't implement a whitelist option for this? Something like a list of domain patterns for which lax mode is enabled (and possibly a superlax mode that would allow CSRF like behavior in some cases)?

</comment><comment><USER7> Unfortunately, most of these web security standards don't work for real sites. When my app server serves a page that uses services from another subdomain, this breaks. When I use a CDN to cache contents, this breaks. When I terminate HTTPS and web auth at a reverse proxy and forward the request to a HTTP server, the proxy needs to know about all decisions the app server would make about origins. (The exact reasons get complex, but most of these origin policies are /not/ friendly to non-trivial site deployments)

<comment><USER4> I definitely have to agree with this. It has lead to "it works in my sandbox" but breaks in our staging enviromemnt issues at work since everything in staging goes through a proxy.

<comment><USER8> Well, I don't agree. It is certainly a nice addition to make the web more secure. I hope my bank (and every other significant website) won't toss my auth tokens to different domains. And about reverse proxies: it's a browser feature, so how can reverse proxies be a problem? The browser doesn't care what's happening behind a reverse proxy.

<comment><USER7> Yes, let's make the web more secure!

This doesn't do that.

Instead, let's solve zero day advertising payloads.

Let's fund a cure for email spam and phishing.

Let's find a cure for site spoofing.

Let's find a cure for "this dialog means I have to click OK to get on with things."

Regarding "domains are controlled," that doesn't matter. If I want to serve pages from www.mydomain and static/CDN content from static.mydomain and services from api.mydomain, those are different domains.

The main solution for a big site is to build all the credential and security logic into the load balancer/HTTPS terminator, which is an almost-guarantee to get version skew and security holes.

All this "secure web" intention only works for small monolithic sites, and don't even solve the real security problems on the web.

<comment><USER8> Right. I said "nice addition".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interestingly, it looks like there's no way to set the SameSite parameter in PHP setcookie(). Gotta reimplement it as header("Set-Cookie: ....")...

<comment><USER10> Log a bug: [https://bugs.php.net/search.php?search_for=setcookie&cmd=dis...](https://bugs.php.net/search.php?search_for=setcookie&cmd=display&status=Open&bug_type=All&project=All)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't think it will help. Sites that care about CSRF are already implementing protection (via CSRF tokens) and those who don't care won't use this feature.

The main problem is that browsers allow POSTing data cross-site by default instead of blocking such requests unless it is allowed explicitly.

<comment><USER12> This proposal will protect you from a bug where csrf isn't properly protected. If you know that there aren't any cases where cross site POSTing is allowed, you can block them with this proposal.</comment></comment>


Opera 14 for Android is out, based on Chromium - <AUTHOR> http://my.opera.com/ODIN/blog/opera-14-for-android-is-out

<comment><USER2> Just installed it on my Nexus One, agent is set to Desktop. Reddit (.compact) and other sites are rendered with a serif font now, scrolling is not fluid anymore but jerking in "waves". If I scroll fast everything is displayed blurred.

It lost all my cookies.

Font sizes are all over the place, sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller. It does not render like the desktop anymore. Zooming in, the text is not wrapped to fit the window width (GOD WHY, this feature was fantastic and intuitive, who on earth would not want that and why?) (you can re-enable it in the settings). With text wrapping re-enabled it takes ~10 seconds (I counted on heise.de) to render when I zoom in. On HN it is slightly faster (6-7s).

It does not display the state of downloading in the address bar (or anywhere) anymore so I cannot prematurely stop loading a heavy website when I just want to read text.

There is a second+ delay between clicking the X or refresh icon and the resulting action in the address bar. Same for clicking links in webpages (the indication of what you clicked is much less visible than before).

Overall verdict: Quite unusable on my device because of being very slow. User interface has regressed. This is terrible (and I say that as a Opera fanatic). I am glad I kept a backup of the apk so I can downgrade.

<comment><USER3> Same experience here, running this on my HTC Desire. At least Opera is nice enough to provide older apks here:

<http://arc.opera.com/pub/opera/android/>

I downgraded mine promptly. Future doesn't look good though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there any way to force it to keep the assets for open tabs in the web page cache?

If I have a few tabs open I should be able leave the browser, run enough stuff (take a call, play a game, text) to force the browser code to flush from memory, and come back and view the pages I have open without having to endure ANY reloading.

This seems to be a problem with all the android browsers I've tried.

</comment><comment><USER5> Has anybody tried this out on Hacker News? How does it display comments? The current (previous?) version handled this beautifully and was pretty much the only reason I used it as my default browser (chrome for instance is a total and utter FUBAR when it comes to text wrapping making in unusable (and I can't believe they still haven't fixed this)).

<comment><USER6> I think it works very good when text wrapping is turned on. But it acts a bit strange when it's off. Tried it just now on my Samsung Galaxy S3.

Text wrap off: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/at5w97ecle0euwv/2013-05-21%2014.52...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/at5w97ecle0euwv/2013-05-21%2014.52.10.png)

Text wrap on: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ndx19cgmcd823k/2013-05-21%2014.53...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ndx19cgmcd823k/2013-05-21%2014.53.28.png)

Text wrap on and zoomed in: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/s2jsps4vhhdq3rq/2013-05-21%2014.54...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/s2jsps4vhhdq3rq/2013-05-21%2014.54.39.png)

<comment><USER5> The last one is great. The first is a bit better than Chrome's but not by much. But I'll wait until they sort out the performance issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks like they didn't forward port opera:config and don't have a chrome:flags page so far either (or opera:flags). It's a little laggy on my galaxy nexus, but no gesture based controls like the stock browser is kind of disappointing since opera (desktop) is always known for its gestures.

Text reflow working is nice though.

<comment><USER8> opera:config does not work, but about:config does; it shows a curated list of applicable settings.

<comment><USER7> Hmm, I tried it and it redirects me to about:blank

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> This nicely highlights a problem I see with controlled app store models. I would like to give this a try but looking at reviews I feel like I might not like it (always visible address bar, bigger text). So I might want to downgrade which is not "allowed".

I am glad they let users move the navigation bar to the bottom, that is much easier to reach with one hand.

I wish there were site specific preferences like on the desktop version. Being able to block image loading for selected websites or forcing a css mode would greatly reduce my bandwidth costs and increase readability.

A great feature of Opera Mobile is that you can save pages for later offline reading.

<comment><USER9> I use opera mobile, downloaded a day ago. The address bar is hidden when you use scroll down, and i don't see any big text on page load.

And regarding readability:i think opera is the best by far - because it has great reflow on zoom.

<comment><USER10> I'm so glad they figured out how to get text reflow working with webkit. It was missing in the beta and I was ready to be very disappointed. Not sure why more people don't love it, to be honest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My personal favorite feature in Opera for Android is that it's available for Android 2.3 and up. That means you can get a modern and secure(!) browser on old or low-end phones that otherwise would never get a modern browser.

<comment><USER12> Opera 14 is almost unusable on my old Nexus S (Android 2.3).

<comment><USER11> Bummer. I hadn't had a chance yet to try it on an old device yet as my HTC Desire died recently. But older pre-Chromium versions of Opera ran quite smoothly on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've used opera for ever. On my old symbians, my win boxes and even on my netbook (ubuntu)

but since I read that they moving off their own engine to webkit who cares.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've pushed this to my Galaxy Nexus, but my Asus Transformer TF101 (Tegra2-based) running latest 4.2.2 from source is listed as not compatible.

Anyone from the Opera team able to provide a reason for this?

Edit: What ewams said. As stated in the article, Opera has restricted tablet- support so far.

<comment><USER15> Have you tried Firefox? I have an Acer tablet with the same Tegra, and I found the interface and responsiveness much better.

<comment><USER14> I've found Firefox quickly turning too slow for my taste, especially on my tablet.

This usually only became a problem after a while, after it accrued a bit of history, and local user-data which needs to get searched, cached, updated etc.

To be fair, I've had that problem with lots of browsers, including Chrome.

<comment><USER16> I've had this problem with every browser I've tried on both the tablet and the phone. Opera pre-chrome provides the only halfway decent and useable solution.

After reading all the comments on here, I'm pretty sure I won't "upgrade" to their Chrome version anytime soon. It's a shame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Feels slower on my Galaxy S Plus. I'll try it a bit more, but the first impession ain't good...

<comment><USER18> Just auto-updated on my SGS+. First impression; almost unusable, although it used to be OK before. Got up to my desktop to write this comment, because Opera Mobile just became unresponsive and I didn't expect it to ever make it here (though it was on WLAN). After a reboot, went to m.slashdot.org and it took >5 seconds to respond to swipes even after loading, then got stuck for 15 secs when trying to type a new url.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's really _really_ slow.

</comment><comment><USER20> I was long time Opera fan, but since sometime it's getting from bad to worse. For me Dolphin is the best browser for Android. On desktop I use Firefox, but mobile version has problems with rendering fonts.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is one that I think, barring a critical security concern, I'll give a couple of days before adopting. At least.

</comment><comment><USER22> Yay. The only reason I still tested for opera support was their rather popular mobile browser. Good to see them move to chromium. One less testcase

<comment><USER23> > Good to see them move to chromium. One less testcase

Yay. Because staying in your comfort zone is more important than software diversity.</comment></comment>


Open source licensing needs to grow up already - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoworld.com/article/3020258/open-source-tools/open-source-licensing-needs-to-grow-up-already.html <comment><USER2> Apache and FSF have two completely different and divergent goals and it's not constructive to call them immature for that being so. The author is also vague about what Open Source has won - what has been won, exactly? As far as I'm concerned the adoption and proliferation of Apache licensing is a loss to the community because I'm philosophically aligned with the GPL, but the Apache folks feel differently _and they have the right to do so._ Finally, you _can_ mix components of the two licenses together, so long as the end result is GPL licensed! ;)</comment>


We're not going back to normal - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615370/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing-18-months/ <comment><USER2> The idea of mandated tracking of movement and contact tracking via cell phone is a little too dystopian for my tastes. I suppose this sort of thing is already happening with the various corporate social networks and ad-tracking but it is still opt-in. Requiring it to access public space is too big brother and subject to abuse by authoritarian governments both here and abroad.

<comment><USER3> I do worry that this will become the norm in many countries. Because the virus will keep evolving and recirculating. And because more zoonotic diseases are predictable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is wishful thinking from an introvert. People haven't practiced long term social distancing after the Spanish flu, or the plague. The Spanish flu didn't "disappear", it simply mutated into common forms of flu we know today. In practice virulent diseases tend to get less virulent over time so that they can spread more easily. The plague epidemics of the 19th century were also less virulent than the Black Plague. We're already seeing it with SARS-CoV-2 - there are two strains, S and L, the latter of which is significantly more virulent and also losing ground.

So the likely conclusion is that SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay, but probably not at the fatality rates we're currently experiencing.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't think this would be how most people want to live. There are diseases all the time and the world cannot be turned into a clean room for the rest of all times.

It would be better instead to make sure that people have well working immune systems, lead kind of healthy lives and have high living standards. Also Ecosystems should be better enclosed (-> no bush/game meat), so viruses from there don't merge into civilization. It's not unlikely that that's what happened with HIV, Ebola and now Corona...

</comment><comment><USER6> Humans are social creatures. I find it hard to believe we'd accept indefinite "social distancing" over the long term - consequences be damned.

<comment><USER7> 3 days into a complete lockdown here, supermarkets only open, every retail shop closed, takeaway food or delivery only from restaurants

Everyone I've spoken to is losing it, there's still another 2 weeks. Have been working from home for well over a month now, but this is entirely different, you can't go anywhere nor do anything.

The societal and economic costs are far too high for what has been 2 deaths over 4 months in the country. Vast majority of the new cases have been from a single massive religious event.

<comment><USER8> "there is still another two weeks" lol get back to reality

<comment><USER7> Am not sure what you thought I implied but this is very much my reality in the comment above.

Going to a packed supermarket multiple times a day is perfectly legal as is having large gatherings in your own home. Going to an empty beach, sitting in a park or hiking in woodlands alone is not. They have the police issuing fines and the army is being called in next week to help keep people out of public areas.

There has been two deaths in the entire country.

There's a lot of hysteria going around and as usual many on the internet rush to rash judgements of others without knowing their circumstances.

<comment><USER8> This is going to last for a year until we get a vaccine. Now get real

<comment><USER7> Zika was first diagnosed years ago, vaccines were developed years ago. There is still not a single one approved anywhere on Earth. I truly think you have very little understanding of how the regulatory environment for vaccines work.

Perhaps read up on previous virus pandemics a bit before commenting?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> To be honest... this gives me nightmares. A world where "social distancing", travel bans and frequent forced lockdowns becomes the norm? At least for ME not worth living

</comment><comment><USER10> Social distancing seems without alternative, but there is one thing I don't understand. Maybe it is a stupid question, but why don't we massively, massively expand testing. Then put up checkpoints everywhere, and don't allow anybody to pass without a current test (say older than 36 hours). If you have any symptoms, you are restricted to your house (I have a cough right now, and I find it insane that I'm allowed to go shopping or to work - nobody can be sure that it's not Corona). And if there's a confirmed case in your area, there is a curfew and extra testing. Apart from that, there would not be many restrictions.

I guess this might be difficult in some countries, but here in Europe this seems like the best option - and a variant was successfully implemented in South Korea and Singapore. Why don't we go this route? Is there just not enough testing infrastructure available, or is there another argument against it?

<comment><USER11> There is definitely not enough tests to test the entire population of a country every 36 hours. Even assuming a single person/testing machine could do 5000 tests a day (no idea if that's a reasonable number or not) to test every American every 36hrs would need like 40000 setups.

</comment></comment><comment> GuB-42 Such a scenario is worth considering. However, it is definitely in the "worst case" category. Maybe the second worst behind a full-on plague killing tens of millions.

That scenario implies no significant advance, except for the suggestion of a vaccine early in the article. But while a vaccine is the ultimate solution, there are may stopgap measures that can allow for reduction in the rate of transmission without extreme social distancing.

As we better understand the disease, we will be able to target its weak points more effectively. It can include faster diagnosis to better isolate contagious people. Antiviral drugs (hydrochloroquine looks promising now), more targeted measures, ramping up production of protective equipment, etc...

The only purpose of today's quarantines are to reduce the rate of infection, hopefully below 1. The more solutions we have to reduce that number, the less drastic we need to be.

South Korea have shown us that widespread testing is effective when you have the technology to do so. And if South Korea have it, why shouldn't the rest of the world be able to do it?

</comment><comment><USER12> What about rounding up all of the 'at risk' people and sending them to FEMA camps to prevent them from coming into contact w the virus? If most people infected with the virus are asymptomatic it seems like we're going at this the wrong way by universally working so hard to avoid it.

<comment><USER3> That's too precarious. Once anyone is infected, the whole population goes up. Like that nursing home in Washington.

I'd make more sense to quarantine everyone who gets infected, and then offer to hire those who recover as learn-on-the-job health workers.

We could also have C- and C+ bars, restaurants, theaters, gyms, etc. For lack of a better word, segregation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Japan is already in recovery mode...

</comment><comment><USER14> Website didn't load. Probably it's because of the amount of sh1t written there.</comment>


Ask HN: Any methods to detect Safari content blockers, yet? - <AUTHOR> I'm just curious and I'd like to experiment with the detection of content blocking in iOS 9.
The aim would be showing something like a very small popup like The Guardian does, with a sentence like this: "Looks like you're blocking ads. We're cool with it, but here's how you can support us in other ways".
Has anybody found a way yet? With desktop adblocker that block any js with the word "ads" in the filename it's much easier... <comment><USER2> I hope no one answers this.</comment>


Why is the font on Hacker News so small? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I don't think there's an ideal size. I've started scripting away problems using Greasemonkey [Firefox] or TamperMonkey [Chromium]. A sample Greasemonkey script that changes the font size on this page:

      // ==UserScript==
      // @name        example_fontsize
      // @namespace   com.kludgecode.hn.example
      // @include     https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12036162
      // @version     1
      // @grant       none

      // ==/UserScript==

      /* Select Comments */
      /* Make $target easily accessible for interactive debugging */
      window.$target =  document.getElementsByClassName("comment");

      for (var i = 0; i < $target.length; i++)
        {$target[i].style.fontSize = "15pt";};

Replacing:

      // @include     https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12036162

with

      // @include     https://news.ycombinator.com/item*

Will change ~font-size~ on all the pages for individual stories.

Good luck.

<comment><USER3> What are the advantages of this over ⌘+?

<comment><USER2> The advantage and disadvantages:

1\. Finer grained control over what happens, i.e. the script only scales the text of comments, not the question's or title's, etc.

2\. Automatic execution and implemented at a higher level, i.e. CSS.

3\. Only applicable to specified pages.

4\. Can be extended to modify additional elements such as line spacing as user Krapp's code shows.

Mainly, I think the advantage is that it frames layout/readability issues as within the user's control by unlocking features of the browser as a tool rather than a passive consumption device.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not a judgment as to whether it is too small or too large, but on Chrome on my laptop, the debug mode says it is using Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif, 10 pt.

If I open up a brand new Word file at 100% and take some identical text and set the format to Verdana 8 pt, in Word it still looks considerably larger. It appears to be actually showing up as 7 point, or close to it. Which is much smaller than I would normally use for just about anything -- editing text, viewing a PDF or technical manual, etc.

</comment><comment><USER5> That's not really a good question.

If you want the text to be bigger hit Ctrl + if you want it to be smaller hit Ctrl -. If you are viewing on a touchscreen you can do that pinch thing.

What I can tell you is that touchscreen users actually interact very well with Hacker News and sites with a similar design.

<comment><USER6> If you pinch and zoom on any touchscreen device I've ever used, you zoom into a section of the page, not the text. That is, you end up having to drag left and right to read a full line of text, which is not ok.

That said, I find the font size on mobile fine. On desktop I always have to zoom the text 3-5 ticks.

<comment><USER6> If you disagree with me, say why. HN culture has always been to reserve downvotes for comments that don't contribute to the conversation. If you think my comment didn't contribute, I'm curious why you'd think that too. (Yes, I realize this one doesn't, so downvote away.)

<comment><USER7> That's not true.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171)

<comment><USER6> I stand corrected, then

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Since when is 10 point text "small"? I wonder what device you are viewing it on and what its scale system is.

This might explain why I've occasionally started to see articles formatted with body text that is ungodly huge, so I have to zoom out to get enough text on the page to read comfortably. I don't know who thinks 20 point body text is a good idea, but perhaps it's because they are using a similar browser setup.

<comment><USER9> I think HNs font is small. I use a 13" macbook. My zoom level is around 150-175%. Here is a comparison (they are both shrunk, so just look at the relative difference). [http://i.imgur.com/W2Q9IPp.png](http://i.imgur.com/W2Q9IPp.png).

My eye sight is not great, but I'm probably short sighted so the screen is clear on both sizes.

It is just way more relaxing to read a big font. I used to use small fonts to keep a lot of info in the screen, not anymore.

I think this article was a turning point for me [https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/16-pixels-body- copy...](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/16-pixels-body-copy- anything-less-costly-mistake/)

<comment><USER10> Very good article, thanks for sharing. I quote:

> 16-pixel text on a screen is about the same size as text printed in a book > or magazine; this is accounting for reading distance. Because we read books > pretty close — often only a few inches away — they are typically set at > about 10 points. If you were to read them at arm's length, you'd want at > least 12 points, which is about the same size as 16 pixels on most screens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The line height is too small as well, making long multiline comments difficult to read.

I wrote a userscript to tweak that as well as add some other things like highlighting and unfading downvoted comments: [https://gist.github.com/kennethrapp/a2e5ad8fe2e81e4cd852a868...](https://gist.github.com/kennethrapp/a2e5ad8fe2e81e4cd852a8682c394086)

<comment><AUTHOR> Did You just write that? Fair play to you!

<comment><USER11> I just combined a couple of user scripts I wrote a while ago and have been messing with for a while:

[https://gist.github.com/kennethrapp/7a21c0187fedd6f47e7c](https://gist.github.com/kennethrapp/7a21c0187fedd6f47e7c)

[https://gist.github.com/kennethrapp/5b5e413220afb93c9c93](https://gist.github.com/kennethrapp/5b5e413220afb93c9c93)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I agree, that it will be better, if it is bigger. I have to sit in front of the computer all the day long and when I visit HN I really can focus..

[https://userengage.io/en-us/](https://userengage.io/en-us/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Paul, I know what Ctrl + and Ctrl - do. I just don't see why I should have to bother doing that. I go to another screen and my text is enormous. Also I find it is just so unfriendly looking when you log on the first time. Its like some horrible engineering manual from the 90's.

</comment><comment><USER10> I have HN set up to 150% zoom.

</comment><comment><USER13> Funnily enough, I find it insanely large.

</comment><comment><USER14> cmd + 2-finger trackpad down in FireFoxDeveloper works for me.</comment>


A question on the most appropriate language for a specific DB frontend - <AUTHOR>

I'm a relative noob to all things programming. So I'm kind of a clean slate in some ways. I've spent the past three years developing the back end of a massive database project I've wanted to build for more than ten years. Now I'm at the point to start on the client side and I'm not sure what would be the best approach to use to create it.
If you were going to create a database that was insanely focused on a super wide range of different types of manuel data entry and eventually an equally diverse range of queries/reports etc. what route would you take? <comment><USER2> I'm not sure what you have in mind, but just in case that could be relevant: <http://market.yandex.ru/> is an aggregator for all kinds of products in Russian web and retail stores. It's the most useful shopping tool in Russia – lets you filter products by a wide range of properties in a very sensible interface. Try searching for something and using google translate.

</comment><comment><USER3> How have you built the back-end without using some kind of client for testing?

If you have spent three years developing the back end, I'm not sure you are a noob to all things programming. Why not use the same language you used to create the back end?

<comment><AUTHOR> When I say I spent three years on the back end I'll tell you what it largely consisted of.

Me pouring over every kind of book I could get my hands on that taught about relational database design and theory and then went through with the help of management studio for SQL Server 2005 and let the GUI do most of the coding.

So all I really know is rudimentary TSQL and what I've been able to learn about vb.net in my spare time in the past year (not much).

That's why I say I'm a noob. I know I either can't or shouldn't do a front end wit TSQL. VB seems okay for an intermediate client side solution but I want something that will work well and scale well for a more public ready face.

I'm thinking seriously about Scala.</comment></comment>


Elgg 1.0: Roll Your Own Social Network - <AUTHOR> http://www.elgg.org/ <comment><USER2> I tested it out, I'm looking to build a niche social network. Elgg is a great basis but the documentation is lacking and it isn't nearly as flexible as I would like. I'm eagerly watching and following it's development from here on out, but it's not ready for a "polished" social network yet.

</comment><comment><USER3> Small fix: On your homepage, fix the spelling of organisations to - Organizations. Other than that, on an outside as a consumer its looks great!

<comment><USER2> organisations with an 's' is a fine spelling for organizations, it's not the Americanized version but they're based in London as I recall.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where to allow users to save their data? - <AUTHOR> I'm working on a quick personal project (a tool) that others I know would like to use. Currently, I have the web app set up to save state to localstorage, which is not ideal. I'd like to allow users to login with a third-party integration to save the data they create with the app. Does anyone know of any APIs or platforms that could be accessed securely via a frontend fetch? <comment><USER2> Have you considered [https://userbase.com/](https://userbase.com/)? It even allows end-to-end encryption for the data of your users!</comment>


Ask HN: Recommend a grid-based CSS framework that plays well with Bootstrap - <AUTHOR>

I'm trying to find a framework which I can drop on top of bootstrap and add functionality to have elements which span more than one row (like you'd be able to do with a table). As far as I know, I can't do this with bootstrap directly (I can only make elements spanning multiple columns). <comment><USER2> That's doable with bootstrap using nested rows/columns. There is no CSS framework I know of that implements it any other way, but it might be doable using display: table/table-cell/table-row/etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Try something like this, off the top of my head: <http://pastebin.com/srYteiXQ>

</comment><comment><USER4> Check if this can help. <http://suprb.com/apps/nested/>

</comment><comment><USER5> Use a table within Bootstrap or start nesting the grid to achieve that result.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wouldn't using a table for display purposes be an HTML anti-pattern? Also, I'm going to be generating content dynamically, so having classes would make things much easier.</comment></comment>


Finding UX in the Trash - <AUTHOR> https://f2.svbtle.com/ux-in-the-trash <comment><USER2> You guys should see the trash sorting at McMurdo station, Antarctica. When I first traveled there in 2009, there were about 20 categories, and dorms had an area just like this one with about 10 of those categories present, each with a page of documentation. If your category wasn't there, you needed to go find that category somewhere else. The categories overlapped and changed from year to year and had names like "paper towels" (compressible non-recyclables that could be baled on station) and "burnables" (I still don't really know what that was for, since incineration is banned out there). Users were encouraged to call the Waste Department for support, and actually the people at Waste seemed to understand and believe in the system (unlike me) so I called them frequently to ask where to put e.g. an empty juice box. To be fair, this system was borne out of the real difficulties of waste management in Antarctica, and I'm not sure I could have done a better job with the UX. (Constraints were that everything went back to the US on a boat, food waste had to be shipped back refrigerated, etc.)

<comment><USER3> Why exactly was incineration not allowed? I can understand it being logistically difficult to implement, but it would sure be a lot simpler, and it's not like there's enough people down there that the carbon footprint relative to the airshed would be significant.

<comment><USER2> Well you inspired me to actually look this up for the first time. Turns out it's allowed, per Article 3 here: [http://www.ats.aq/documents/recatt/Att010_e.pdf](http://www.ats.aq/documents/recatt/Att010_e.pdf) but McMurdo stopped doing it in 1993 because it was more expensive than shipping unburnt waste north. ( [http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/igy2/incinerator.html](http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/igy2/incinerator.html) ) So the category may well have been sort of vestigial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The paradigm works well as long as the designer has a clear idea of what the user wants to do and as long as the designer('s boss') and the user's goals are aligned - and as long as the designer could anticipate all use-cases.

Nothing is more infuriating than finding out that something that should be straight-forward to do is hard or even impossible because the option got taken away in the name of UX.

Actually, there _is_ one thing more infuriating: If that UX was also inspired by business goals and not user interests.

<comment><USER5> _The paradigm works well as long as the designer has a clear idea of what the user wants to do and as long as the designer( 's boss') and the user's goals are aligned - and as long as the designer could anticipate all use-cases._

The advice in the article works well for simple things. Simple things can, and should, be perfect.

Unfortunately not everything can be simplified until it makes sense to an unskilled operator (or an unskilled designer). Ideally, complex things are composed of simple things... but if that were true, wouldn't we'd all be running UNIX command-line desktops?

Contrary to the author's leading premise, the best designs don't just work by taking options away from the user. They hide those options until they're needed... and when they _are_ needed, they make those options easy to find.

And that's hard work, the sort of hard work that can't be waved away with a list of trendy bullet points from some respected design guru who mysteriously never seems to be around when you need to use a different printer than the one the OS thinks you want.

<comment><USER6> >The advice in the article works well for simple things. Simple things can, and should, be perfect.

That seems backwards, as the argument being put forwards is that UX is all about trading off a complex, options-rich interaction with a simple, options- poor interaction. So good UX _delivers_ simple things. The hard work comes in the skilful reduction of a potentially complex interaction to a simpler one, and recognising that there are tradeoffs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really hate these articles that bemoan poor UX but in reality are a failure of the author to take the time and look at the problem from a different perspective.

Sure the Mac printer selection experience is great when you have a laptop that you carry from work to home and print from a single printer at either location.

It sucks when you have a desktop at work and you can see the entire corporate network. That printer sitting across the hall might be 10 hops from you on the network but the printer on some exec's desktop might be 2 hops even though he's 2 floors up.

Or maybe you're a home user who never takes your laptop anywhere but you have a document printer and a photo printer. Or a kid and they have a printer for school work in their room. Then you have to check every time you print.

* Neither OS adds a printer by default so the scenario I described isn't really feasible and none of the OSes behave as I or the author of the article described.

<comment><USER8> I haven't used printers from a Mac at all, but reading the article I thought the implementation was that the Mac would keep track of a preferred printer depending on what network you're connected to.

If it's as I was thinking it would work without problem for the scenarios you described.

<comment><USER7> I just checked and nothing really lines up with what the author states.

MacOS Sierra and El Capitan default to the "Last Printer Used". The UI is the same in both and there is no indication in the UI that this a per network preference.

Windows 10 defaults to "Let Windows manage my default printer" and has clarifying text under the option that states "Windows will set your default printer to be the one you used most recently at your current location". Which appears to be the feature the author loves about OSX.

Windows 7 sets the first installed printer as the default printer and when you install a printer it asks if you would like to default to it in the future.

Personally I prefer the Windows 7 approach over macOS and Windows 10. Having a network/location default would be ideal in my mind and that doesn't appear to be an option for macOS or Windows.

<comment><USER8> > Having a network/location default would be ideal in my mind and that doesn't > appear to be an option for macOS or Windows.

That's too bad.

The crux of the author's point appears to be that reducing the choices the user has to make is generally good, but I feel that modern designers are often over zealous in that pursuit.

Intelligent defaults is something that feels like a good blend. You're working with the computer, it recommends something it thinks is smart (I set this local printer as the default) and if you disagree you can modify it. One must be careful to not overly increase the mental overhead of the user this way, but smart defaults can prevent the complexity of the user trying to reverse engineer and fight unspoken rules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article doesn't propose a solution for the trash problem.

I suspect because it's not really a UI problem. UI can't magically make all complex interactions easy. Fixing the problem would mean changing the requirements first... then the UI.

Edit: Never mind...missed the key sentence there in all the discussion about the 4 labels.

<comment><USER10> The author did say: "UX is turning those four bins into two (or one!) and signing up with a single stream recycling vendor."

<comment><USER11> And he's wrong. It is far easier to get everyone to classify their trash. Separating trash that has been put in a single trash bin is far more complicated later on. "It allows people to think less" isn't an excuse for making shit worse in every other possible imaginable respect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. The point here is not the trash, I go by those bins twice a day and can affor to think a few more seconds if I am carrying something unusual. Plus it makes you feel like you are part of a bigger cause to put near-zero effort to help save the planet.

The point is software. There I should not spend a fraction of a second thinking, because that does not happen twice a day. It happens every 15 minutes if we are talking about me looking at my phone. UX thinking there makes a real, tangible difference.

<comment><USER12> What do you think of my solution posted above?

<comment><AUTHOR> I like it better than reading different signs in every office I visit.

In the US the problem however is that recycling collection is not standardized. Each city does it differently, which gets in the way of the standardization you propose. We would need a Federal standard (or at least an agreement by the relevant industry association) to help there.

<comment><USER12> Not necessarily although a federal standard would help. A single big state like California could implement it and the standard would propagate itself from there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here's the problem with current trash UX:

1\. Person walks up with trash in hand to 3 bins. Each bin has a poster with pictures of items which are meant for that bin. Each person has to make O(n) comparisons for each of the bin and then make the closest judgment call. Too exhausting, error prone and inefficient as each person is solving the classification problem for a given trash item over and over again.

Here's a simple solution to the problem above:

1\. Setup a regulation that each article be simply labelled with a numeral marking: "1", "2" or "3". Standardize each trash bin to be called bin #1, #2 or #3. Each person simply throws the trash in the matching bin.

This moves the classification problem from the person to the time of manufacturing of the article. Also, the classification is only done once by experts and not by each person at the time of throwing away the article. Also, reduces the classification problem for the person from O(n) to O(1).

Simple solution which solves the problem in elegant fashion.

<comment><USER13> You completely miss the point of what he is saying. There is nothing intuitive about "1", "2", "3". Your proposed solution requires everyone to build expertise at throwing things away.

You also open the system up to folklore about what the numbers mean and what should go in each bin. And that folklore is impossible to control and correct.

It's fine if you want to build systems that way. They may be good and work well enough. But a more intuitive system will prevail at some point.

<comment><USER14> Jeesh, take it easy. I took the numbers to be rhetorical. Of course you'd want to use intuitive icons instead of just numbers. What I'm curious about is what kind of prevailing more intuitive system you had in mind.

<comment><USER15> Plastic recycling uses numbers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I totally agree with the article for user interfaces that are meant to be used by a broad audience.

What I'm struggling wrapping my head around is, coming up with user interfaces/experience for big, specialized applications whose value proposition IS to give the user full control over the "machine". Think GarageBand vs Pro Tools, SketchUp vs Maya, iPhoto vs Photoshop.

for example within an digital audio workstation I think it is great for quick experimentation and beginners to have some guitar pedal style plugins with just on/off switches and few knobs, that can change multiple parameters at once in a predefined way. But if you don't also give me an alternative way to control all the parameter myself the application becomes useless to me except in a few use cases.

Does anyone have recommended readings for ux projects where you can't "just" turn 4 into 1 and be done with it? (Not meant to be demeaning to the author, it is just not always possible to just remove things:))

</comment><comment><USER17> Trash sorting is the absolute worst UX. A newspaper goes in paper recycling, fine. Does a glossy magazine also go in paper recycling? Cardboard goes in paper recycling. Does paper cardboard with a plastic overcoat go in paper recycling? Can TetraPaks or whatever the heck Zico/juice boxes/etc. uses be recycled as "paper"? What about steel cans (which most coconut water in southern California is packed in), do they go in "cans" recycling, since there is no "Aluminum"-specific stream in my workplace?

Trash UX is really awful. In my office it's even worse - the custodial staff just dump the at-desks blue recycling bins into the same large trash can as the black waste bins. Why the heck do we even have recycling bins if it's just going to be commingled anyway?

</comment><comment><USER18> I get particular joy out of seeing that type of multiple waste-bin installation in municipalities that use mixed-waste processing [1]. Knowing that all bins are being combined at pick-up and then re-sorted at the material recovery facility makes me chuckle.

Incidentally, is mixed-waste processing still picking up steam anywhere?

[1] [http://www.waste360.com/mrfs/10-points-explain-mixed- waste-p...](http://www.waste360.com/mrfs/10-points-explain-mixed-waste- processing)

</comment><comment><USER19> But sometimes education _is_ the best UX. Just give people an exhaustive list of trash for each bin.

There is no simple and elegant solution to knowing what goes where, since it depends on the recycling process etc.

Recycling bins at community recycling centers here just have alphabetic lists that list every item, and helpful staff that tells you were to put things if you are unsure.

People throw away the same things over and over again. Teach them once, and they'll throw it in the right bin.

No need to come up with a confusing icon or throw everything in a single bin.

</comment><comment><USER20> The best UX I've seen for recycling & composting is putting up a board with examples of each item for each bin. So the aluminum bin would have cans, the commingled bin would have paper, bottles, etc., compost would have a banana peel, compostable forks, etc., and trash would have all the non-recyclable stuff. The only remaining problem is that the examples are non-exhaustive so you still have to guess if the thing you want to throw away isn't up there, but the trash is always safe.

<comment><USER12> What do you think of my proposed solution I posted above?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you are going to whine and whinge about something in a blog, why not define the bloody thing first? You (for a given value of you) and I know that UX means User eXperience.

Could that be a blog UX fail? If someone doesn't even know what you are on about from the title, then your message may not get through. To be fair, the intended audience for this might allow the author assume a certain subset of knowledge but it wouldn't hurt to cover a wider casual readership.

</comment><comment><USER22> Many people do not understand UX and its role, but in my experience UX teams do not really understand how to operate within organizations and adapt to processes either.

<comment><USER23> How do you integrate UX in the agile process? People think that UX is UI. Unless you work one or two sprints ahead, it's challenging to integrate design thinking or the users in the process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder if making the doors transparent would help in any way. I fully share the frustration of the end user. I'm a UX designer myself and appreciate the little moments that are few and far between in every day life where people have got the basics right.

My thoughts on the transparent doors are that 60-70% of people will get this trash system correct. The contents made visible will promote the correct behaviour and may reduce the question of what goes where.

</comment><comment><USER25> Probably need a picture for the first bin too - People might be compelled to toss old batteries into that bin with that icon design.

</comment><comment><USER26> Why should the _option_ to do more complicated things be taken away? If some behaviour is needed and preferable for the vast majority of users, then of course this should be default - but why, oh why, must their not be an option, hidden behind some series of menus, to change that behaviour for those users who are so inclined?

</comment><comment><USER27> The recycling industry should develop automated ways to separate garbage appropriately, in a central location; perhaps using machine learning. Then you eliminate the UX altogether. The best UX is _no_ UX.

<comment><USER28> > perhaps using machine learning.

What? You can't just say 'machine learning' about every (perceived) problem you hear.

<comment><USER29> Machine learning excels at classification, and trash sorting is at heart a classification problem.

Applying ML to non-classification problems is when it is NOT appropriate, but this is a good pick.

<comment><USER30> > Machine learning excels at classification, and trash sorting is at heart a > classification problem.

Classifying by physical properties is even easier by simply classifying by physical properties. Want to pull all ferrous metals out of a pile of stuff? Just use a magnet. Want to sort tin from plastic? Blower and conveyor bins by flight distance.

Incidentally, those elements not easily covered by this kind of sorting (which has been used for many years) is also not easy to cover by magical do-all machine learning, which will have a hard time sorting plastic-coated paper from paper from plastics, just like the processes above.

<comment><USER29> > Want to sort tin from plastic? Blower and conveyor bins by flight distance.

ML is useful when you cannot make a clear difference using physical properties only. For example, if you treat different types of plastic garbage, you will probably want to separate bottles from other types of plastics, and you can do that with visual sorting and pattern matching.

> which will have a hard time sorting plastic-coated paper from paper from > plastics, just like the processes above.

Certainly, but then this is when you still need some manual work at some point of the chain. But physical filtering + ML could reduce the human part of the work to exceptions.

<comment><USER11> Just separate your trash yourself.

(0) It isn't hard.

(1) If the trash bins are aligned in a predictable manner, then you can even do it without thinking.

<comment><USER29> I am, but that does not mean further sorting is not needed at the recycling plant anyway. It is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > Making things simple is about taking options away

Dangerous. The hard part is knowing what you can take away and providing the right default for all other things.

</comment><comment><USER32> I literally just found some UX in the trash.

</comment><comment><USER33> I like that they call out issues in the ux then throw up their hands and say "this is a messy problem" and redefine their scope instead "well just collect everything in my beautiful ux" and "pay someone else to do the hard work". I don't know of a single stream place that takes food commingled with recyclables and trash except the landfill. Basically it sounds like "my ux is harmed, user education is hard, let business or engineers figure it out"! Yay now here's a ton of tenents to guide your way into making your job easy because your job should be trivalizing things.

<comment><USER34> They didn't throw up their hands, they recognized a very important fact:

Trying to teach every trash bin user how to sort is very difficult. It might be much easier to instead teach a few specialized people how to sort (the single stream recyclable service). This is easier for the trash users, and probably a lot more efficient as the number of sorting errors might be greatly reduced.

The food vs other items problem is probably why they explicitly said it would likely be two bins, and one only if it could be made to work.

This is the point of the article: UX is not UI. The solution encompasses changes to the entire system, not just the UI.</comment></comment>


Hacking the planet: white pavement and roofs for hot cities - <AUTHOR> http://solveclimatenews.com/news/20100721/doe-buildings-get-cool-roofs-reflect-heat-back-space

<comment><USER2> People in hot climates have been painting their roofs white for many decades.

[http://www.pictureninja.com/pages/israel/coastline-of- israel...](http://www.pictureninja.com/pages/israel/coastline-of-israel.JPG)

[http://travelsplendid.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/10/Santori...](http://travelsplendid.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/10/Santorini-11-1024x768.jpg)

<comment><USER3> In typical northern zones, the daily solar energy delivered in July is about twice that delivered in December. Winter suffers from a combination of oblique angles, shorter days, and more clouds.

If painting white[1] saves you from moving _X_ joules with your air conditioner in July, that will cost you an extra _X/2_ joules from your heater in December. This is a win until you have many more heating days (without snow cover) than cooling days.

[1] for perfect white and black, reality will be closer together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The lack of imagination of the unsympathetic knee-jerk skeptic who reads only the headline never ceases to amaze:

"... I'd never see anything [with white pavement] ..." [right, how many roofs do you spend time scrutinizing?]

"... now you can get snow blindness in the summer ..." [have you been to Greece??]

"... it will take snow longer to melt off of them ..." [except when the snow is thick enough for this to matter, the coating ceases to be irrelevant anyway]

"... what happens when it's cold and the extra heat is lost ..." [again, snow reflects plenty of light anyway. and this is at least as much about atmospheric effects as it is about effects on the actual building]

It seems: Obama admin + recommendations for US public = immediate skepticism

<comment><USER5> I don't know. Having lived somewhere with a concrete driveway, and another place with a pavement/tar driveway (in the same area), I can definitely see the melting concern. It's not the thick piles of snow that cause problems, plows take care of that. It's the thin layers of slush, and the pools of water that refreeze into thin layers of ice. The difference between the almost straight white driveway and the black driveway was dramatic enough in my case that I had to resort to going outside and busting up the ice by hand with a piece of rebar, several days after snowstorms.

Now, I'm fairly certain that using reflective surfaces on roofs of buildings in warm climates and using absorbing surfaces on roofs of buildings in cool climates has been standard practice for... decades?

<comment><USER6> Well since this is for 'hot cities' the snow thing is pretty irrelevant.

<comment><USER5> How is that defined? Even cities south of the mason-dixon line like DC can get some pretty crippling snowstorms, while being brutally hot during the summer. Reflective roofs make sense just about everywhere of course, but I really only see light roads being acceptable in places like Florida. And the glare would make it pretty unworkable in hot cities without decent cloud-cover.

<comment><USER7> If you've lived in Maryland or DC you know that the reason that the winter weather is crippling in those areas is crippling incompetence, not incapability. The behavior in MD/DC after a _light_ snowstorm is pathetic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A real innovation would be material that turned white/reflective in hot weather and black in cold weather.

Heat is only a concern half the year in temperate climates. The other half is severe cold. (Think 90F and 90% humidity in summer and 0F in Winter (makes you wonder why we live here, doesn't it?)).

<comment><USER9> But given that dark colors also radiate heat, wouldn't the white be better year round anyways?

<comment><USER10> Dark coloured surfaces will tend to absorb more heat. You want that in the winter to help melt snow and ice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Dark surfaces radiate the minimum amount of heat, though. A perfectly black body will absorb all incoming radiation and re-emit it back by a Boltzmann distribution (according to its temperature). Less than perfect surfaces would reflect some the incident light/heat; if they reflect at the same constant or regular angle, we recognize it as 'shiny', while if it's a random angle, our eyes recognize it as matte/solid white.

<comment><USER10> While you are correct, in the case of dark pavement with patches of snow lying on top, conduction will be a far more prominent transfer mode than radiation.

(Although neither will be really large, and I think the blinding effect from a light pavement would be a more important issue here.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One thing to keep in mind about the white pavement - it will take longer for snow and ice to melt off of them, which means more equipment/salt/chemicals to clear them. Granted, in warmer climates it probably isn't as much of a concern, but after the mess we've had in Atlanta for the last week it is still a factor.

<comment><USER12> We have storms that leave snow for several days once every 17 years or so. I wouldn't worry about it here so much.

<comment><USER11> Agreed about the large accumulations. I was more thinking about the smaller ones that leave a thin coating - we seem to get those once or twice a year. With the asphalt, we can just wait until the sun has been up for an hour or two and melted them off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If the pavement were white, I'd never be able to see anything. Bright reflections = low visibility.

<comment><USER4> FTA: "lighter colored pavement". In any case, it's not like any "white" (walked-on) pavement would stay that way very long.

<comment><USER13> The sidewalks and driveways in the suburb where I live are pretty light gray. If the roads were the same color, it'd be hard to see.

Also, walking/driving doesn't stay pavement very much, save for skidmarks and oil.

<comment><USER13>
      *stain

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What happens when it's cold and the extra heat is lost? Requiring extra heating and therefore more energy.

<comment><USER15> For office buildings, cooling loads are often significant even in winter due to the heat produced by equipment and occupants. Occupants present a surprisingly high load because of the latent heat introduced via the water vapor in their breath.

<comment><USER16> The estimate I've read is 100W per person.

Sometimes, in a crowded room, it's an interesting thought experiment to imagine how hot it would be if each person except you was replaced by a 100W incandescent light bulb.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Now you can get snow blindness in summer.

</comment><comment><USER18> White roofs OR garden roofs are good for insulation.

-Black metal pipes for heating water in the summer

-Running A/C vents inside room

-Setting refrigerators to take in outside air during winter

-Dehumidifying and reusing dryer exhaust for heating in winter

There are many hacks to buildings (homes in the list above) that can save a lot of energy per year.

A little more on topic: I think white pavement would be a little too bright for comfort while driving, and oil would instantly stain it and make it look much worse than equivalent blacktop.

<comment><AUTHOR> _-Running A/C vents inside room_

What does this mean?

<comment><USER19> I assume it's about running the ducts in the room rather than in the walls so that the cold air cools the room as it travels through the ducts and not just when it exits the vents?

<comment><USER18> It keeps the hot attic air in homes from heating the air. Yes, it's insulated, but this would be even more effective.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Before Facebook: Tagging in Antiquity - <AUTHOR> http://medievalbooks.nl/2014/11/21/facebook-before-facebook-tagging-in-antiquity/

<comment><USER2> At my school a printed student directory with photographs of all first year students was distributed to that class. It was called the Facebook. Circa mid-70's. The billion dollar idea was to digitize it and let people leave comments. Sheesh.</comment>


PyPy py3k status update - <AUTHOR> http://morepypy.blogspot.com/2012/11/py3k-status-update-7.html

<comment><USER2> Slightly off-topic, but when will we see such an implementation of Ruby (most importantly, speed)?

Rubinius looks like a similar project, but it's not even as fast as MRI 1.9.2/3.</comment>


What makes lisp macros so special - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/a/4621882

<comment><USER2> Ok, so now I know why Lisp is a powerful language. Now, what can I use Lisp to do? Where does the flexibility of Lisp truly benefit a programmer?</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone living/working in Thailand? - <AUTHOR>

If so, any tips? Any issues with visas? I'm just beginning my research, but would love to hear from some folks who have lived/worked there. <comment><USER2> What issues would you have with your visa? Are you Iranian? Pakistani?

Don't worry about it. Nobody going there to live is having problems with visas. Living in Asia is very fluid. You don't have problems there. You simply plan A, plan B, etc. If plan A gets blocked, then you happily go with plan B while you work out plan A. Or maybe you go with plan C just for kicks. No matter what happens, you don't sweat much of anything. That's Asia. (I'm in the Philippines)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm American. Since the US Embassy site says I can only stay for 90 days without a visa, I was curious if there are any issues getting one.

Are you also American, but living in the Philippines? How do you like it? Why there?

<comment><USER3> I am going to say don't listen to this guy. I think the advice is bad. See: <http://www.thaivisa.com/visa-overstay-thailand.html>

You can keep re-entering the country as a tourist and get an extension from what I've seen. There are a lot of places that do visa runs over the various borders. I would advise being very mindful of visa issues and respecting the laws. It's very easy to get around and get visas, but don't play around with the expiry. If you do plan to stay longer term, figure out a proper visa.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I recently went on a backpacking trip with the thought of working from the beach in Thailand in mind. I spent a couple months there, both in the South near Krabi and later in the North (Chiang Mai, Pai).

The good: You can live a pretty good life for quite cheaply. Depending on where you are, I found the Internet connections to be decent, the food to be tasty and the people kind. If you stay there long-term it is important to pick up some of the language as it will bring you closer to the locals. You may also find that you are able to get better prices as a result.

You can do border runs quite easily (Cambodia, Myanmar, or Malaysia). There is an entire industry that has developed around this purpose. When I was there, the visa terms were different depending on if you flew into the country or if you went over a land crossing. I would check out the latest situation on WikiTravel or the Lonely Planet forums.

I personally met another American who over-stayed his visa by over a month. Believe me, you do NOT want to be that guy. He had a horror story about the situation, and ended up having to pay a hefty fine.

Feel free to reach out to me if you want more details.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have lived in Chiang Mai for the last two years. My wife has Thai citizenship, which allows me to get a one year renewable visa. Still have to do 90-day border runs (never figured out why).

Staying in Thailand for less than a year at a time is easy to do. If you want to stay on a more permanent basis you'll need to either get married (marriage visa), enroll in a Thai language school (education visa), or be over 65 and have 25 grand or so in the bank (retirement visa).

If you can wrangle something, it's a wonderful place to live. There are the well-known sights and the low cost of living, but for me it goes much deeper. I've become a calmer and more thoughtful person, quicker to smile and slower to anger just by spending two years among the Thai people.

Re: gexla's post – he makes it sound a little cavalier, but there really is a sense in Asia of "eventually this will work out somehow". There are limits and boundaries where this doesn't apply, of course, but in general I find the saying about India applies equally well to Thailand: "everything will be all right in the end. If it's not all right, it isn't the end" ;)

</comment><comment><USER6> Have you seen Stick's site? This page in particular will help: <http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/living.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't! Thanks!</comment></comment>


Map of citation flow in science - <AUTHOR> http://www.eigenfactor.org/map/maps.htm

<comment><USER3> I was really surprised to see how little research is done in the CS fields until I realized something: the lines only show the quantity of citations going in and out _across different fields_.

They have bio and med listed separately when they're really closely tied - <USER2> they naturally have a huge amount of information exchange going on between the two, making for the seemingly-gargantuan research count/amonut for those areas.

In CS, on the other hand, the amount of research _is_ huge (probably biggest of all since the barrier of entry is so low and isn't limited to people of that field alone); but it's mainly CS people citing other CS people's work(s). We effectively live in a bubble, albeit a very huge one. We interact and share with one another, but not that much with the rest of the industries - and we probably should, since there's a lot of ideas in cyberspace that can be mapped directly to real life.....

<comment><USER4> The bubbles represent the size and importance of the field. This is an accurate depiction of what science is like today.

 _Science_ and _Nature_ are filled with articles about medicine and biology and chemistry and physics and so on. These are what scientists think of as science. Rarely does a math or computer science paper slip in, except in the case of groundbreaking new work. And yet most CS professors would give anything to have a paper of theirs published in _Science_. So you can see how the rest of science values our contributions: every once in a while we contribute something interesting, but for the most part we are not noteworthy. And this is the way it should be. Bipartite graph algorithms and topological manifolds are not as important as Gardasil and alternative energy.

A substantial number of doctors doing useful research these days are, surprise, Medical Doctors. If you want an eye opening experience, take a trip over to the nearest medical library and spend some time going through the journals. It will radically change your opinion of what science is and how your field fits into it. _Discrete Math_ is a pretty cool journal, but it's kind of embarrassing to hold it up to _The New England Journal of Medicine_. Even _Annals of Math_ is, well, pretty irrelevant.

There's a long tradition of specialists taking myopic views of the world. Computer Scientists think the world is one big computer (<http://focus.aps.org/story/v9/st27>), chemists think life is one big chemical reaction, stone-cutters think everything can be explained in terms of stone-cutting ( _The Stone Diaries_ ). Rarely is that the whole truth. You have to be careful to step back and take your own bias into account.

<comment><USER3> _Bipartite graph algorithms and topological manifolds are not as important as Gardasil and alternative energy._

I highly disagree. Drop by any R&D lab at your closest university and see how badly they depend on the latest software, the most efficient algorithms, and other CS-derived "sciences."

If it weren't for languages like Matlab & the libraries of numerical methods and algorithms, alternative energy R&D wouldn't exist. I was at the Nuclear Engineering department of my university earlier today, and they're using CS stuff we haven't even looked at yet!

CS is far more important in the grand scheme of things than it's being given credit for, but we silly hackers are content to appreciate ourselves and not look for more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you can manage the mind-numbing, 1990s flash interface, here's another project that did a similar analysis:

<http://mapofscience.com/>

Their site shows a similar, higher resolution map of science and maps it to a sphere. Pretty interesting.

Running a literature search, Richard Klavans and Kevin Boyack published papers concerning science mapping between 2005-2006, so I imagine there was a good chance they were inspired by eigenfactor.

<comment><USER6> Tamara Munzner was doing this with hyperbolic trees back in the mid-90s at Stanford. I remember this because I always thought it was the most sensible interface for big graphs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps computer science is the glue rather than the cutting edge? A lot of research is not even realistically possible without computers. Parallellisation is important for bioinformatics and so on.

But the really cool stuff that computers could potentially solve is incredibly hard, like machine translation and computer vision.

But if the singularists are right computer science will solve the problem that solves all other problems :) Or destroys us :(

</comment><comment><USER8> This article brings up an idea I had for a while: make a map of the sciences (and eventually of all academic disciplines) with meaningful x and y axes. My suggestion is practical vs. theoretical for one dimension, and hard vs. soft for the other. Has this been done before?

</comment><comment><USER9> Reminds me of something similar that was in Seed magazine a while ago: [http://seedmagazine.com/news/2007/03/scientific_method_relat...](http://seedmagazine.com/news/2007/03/scientific_method_relationship.php)</comment>


VR is a dud – here's why - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/vr-is-a-dud-2016-4 <comment><USER2> The author's arguments about lack of currently available content are his most valid. But for the rest of the piece, I can't help feeling he's playing a game of "no true Scotsman" with us. Does VR need to be _totally immersive_ in order to be viable? And if so, how do we define _total_ immersion? (To use the author's phrase: "enter into virtual worlds." How do we define that?)

This author, along with many others, seems to believe that VR fails if it is anything less than the Matrix. I'm not convinced that's the case. My strong suspicion is that this generation of VR will be evolutionary, and not revolutionary -- an enhanced presence, if you will, adding to (but not replacing) the state of the art in console gaming. Perhaps we'll see some immersive adventures in filmmaking, television, sporting events, concerts, and so forth. But it's time we stopped looking at VR as an all-or-nothing proposition. There may well be a commercially viable middle ground between the clunky "VR" of yesteryear and the Star Trek holodeck.

The current hype cycle has engendered this inevitable backlash. What we need now is neither hype nor hate. We need progress, and progress is often iterative. We will need to accept the warts and all of the current iteration as it develops and becomes more and more.

</comment><comment><USER3> The article has reasonably valid points though I'm not sure I agree with any of them

1 content is limited now, but is not likely to stay that way forever. The commentary about porn is humorous but unreasonable - vr does not need porn to succeed

2 hardware will get cheaper and lighter rapidly. Also I expect a notable market to develop for vr as an alternative to monitors (which requires about the same space as a pc).

3 kids don't drive $1200 high end gaming pc sales. The vr market the author addresses is not today's market

4 direct-to-brain vr will be cooler than today's tech, but they both have a place

</comment><comment><USER4> don't forget that business insider is gawker, so keep your salt shaker ready when reading.</comment>


How I Acted Like a Pundit and Screwed Up on Donald Trump - <AUTHOR> http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-i-acted-like-a-pundit-and-screwed-up-on-donald-trump/ <comment><USER2> Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) called it months ago[1]

[1] [http://blog.dilbert.com/post/131749156346/the-case-for-a- tru...](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/131749156346/the-case-for-a-trump- landslide-part-1)

<comment><USER3> Not only did he call it, he explained and predicted in detail. For example, he predicted the Megyn Kelly interview.

Edit: He predicted the interview and that it would mark a turning point where Trump softens his image, destroys Clinton's image, and coasts towards a landslide victory. The interview happened and the polls are turning now, on cue.

He also predicted Trump would use the word love and possibly be seen hugging minorities. Anyone see Trump's Cinco de Mayo tweet?

Unfortunately, Trump is our next president.

Second edit: I highly recommend Scott Adam's blog. He and Trump are both psychology geniuses and the blog explains it.

<comment><USER4> Say whatever you will but I will take solace in the fact that no matter how badly Trump does, it would be worse under Cruz.

<comment><USER5> How do you figure?

<comment><USER6> Not the OP but Cruz was an ideologue (would apparently not compromise) engaged in risky tactics (shut down government) , was disliked by colleagues and religion was above all else.

The country does not need a priest or pastor in chief.

<comment><USER5> I get all that. I will note that what you say is phrased like talking points from Cruz' enemies designed to make him 1-dimensional, but at least you provided some simple examples to back up some of your statements.

Back to my original question: how does the GP figure that a Cruz presidency would be worse than a Trump one?

Does Trump have any negatives for you? Can you weigh Trump's policy statements, demeanor, and history against Cruz'?

<comment><USER6> If one were to take Trump literally, then yes, he would have some very negative aspects --but so would Bernie.

As far as I can read mr. Trump which isn't to say I'm right, I think he's a quite an adroit pragmatic populist who when it becomes necessary will adjust his more extreme positions and bring them in alignment with the average sentiment of the population.

His having been a business person, I don't think he'd take catastrophic action on trade in order to satisfy a vague promise. He may seek to curtail illegal immigration by simply enforcing e-verify for all jobs --that way, you might stay here, but there is no point if you can't get work. At the same time I could imagine a guest worker program, to give people who are willing to comply, an avenue to work here. He may reframe the whole NRA/2nd amendment rights issue to a less polarized one. I think he's not apt to vilify the LGBTQ community as a Cruz would likely do.

Cruz was only about his "base". I think Trump has a good chance to expand beyond his core constituency, disaffected working class and non-ideological conservatives. He has the personality to pull in blue collar blacks as well as blue collar Americans of Latin American descent. He may well alienate undocumented immigrants and people who sympathise with them, but he may risk that, for the time being.

<comment><USER5> Okay, I think you're projecting in a lot of your assessment of Trump, but that's just my dumb opinion.

I hear Trump's words and his "Big City boss" approach to governing doesn't appeal to me, and I don't believe is going to be productive. I take it you think he will tack to the populist center, but I have no clue what he'd do on a whole range of issues based just on what he has said. It's like "Hope America Change Again" should be his slogan.

He's boorish when it comes to women and sexuality. His foreign policy statements continue to be a hot mess; he's either feigning ignorance or is actually ignorant on world issues when he shoots from the hip. Demonizing Mexico/Mexicans and China for show, stoking up hate for votes. The "Rafael Cruz may have been part of the JFK assassination" antics was a completely crazy stunt and unnecessary given where the campaigns stood in Indiana. Alluding to his adequate dick size in a presidential debate. And on and on, Trump isn't funny or refreshing to me ...

Domestic policy-wise, yes, there might be some bright spots (like his tax plan). Anywhere he is cagey or ambiguous on his policy statements or has done an about-face, he is a complete enigma (was for late-term abortion and now is for punishing mothers for getting abortions should abortion become illegal.)

BTW, I don't blame you for projecting, a lot of people love the guy and want to see him succeed!

<comment><USER6> With regard to politicians, like artists and many other people of note, I don't like them because of what their personal character is, but rather what I think they can accomplish.

If I'm on a boat with a captain and the choice is between a well mannered gentleman and a gruff captain who can "get shit done" I want the latter to captain the ship and I'd want the former as company. I'm not electing an official to be the nicest person, but the person who can see through things which need to get done. Not saying I'd want a criminal, I just don't need an idealized for of personal character.

I vote independent, though have probably voted more conservative at the local level and more liberal at the upstream levels. But really depends on what the candidate might do politically, rather than personally.

<comment><USER5> > With regard to politicians, like artists and many other people of note, I > don't like them because of what their personal character is, but rather what > I think they can accomplish.

I don't think you're so unbiased on personal character. You did say the country does not need a priest or pastor in chief. The fact that the Cruz character/persona his campaign put out there was dripping with Christianity has no bearing on his ability to "get shit done".

I got the sense that Cruz is a sharky lawyer political operator type above all. Opportunistic, and out to further his own political career. He's not the greatest human being, but I liked his campaign promises because I thought they were mostly doable if he got a strong mandate from the voters and the GOP was still largely in power in Congress.

With Trump my mind keeps returning to the fable about the Scorpion and the Frog. I just don't trust the guy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maxim 20 from the Art of wordly wisdom (A must read book)

"The rarest individuals depend on their age. It is not every one that finds the age he deserves, and even when he finds it he does not always know how to utilise it. Some men have been worthy of a better century, for every species of good does not always triumph. Things have their period; even excellences are subject to fashion. The sage has one advantage: he is immortal. If this is not his century many others will be."

This is the age of of the Troll and the response they elicit, Trump read it and understood it, ahead of most and definately ahead of his competitors. He understands the age and is taking full advantage of it. Some saw it coming, and others did not, many who even called themselves experts.

</comment><comment><USER8> There are no good data sources for politics now. Gallup admits that well over 90% of the people they call for polls won't talk to them. They can't call cell phones for polls. They can try focus groups, but that gets you people who have time to waste.

<comment><USER9> The newyorker ran an interesting piece along those lines: [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/16/politics-and- th...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/16/politics-and-the-new- machine)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "we were basically acting like pundits"

So, basically a giant Bayesian prior fail.

edit: got to the part where nate talks about the bayesian failure in more detail. It's good.

</comment><comment><USER11> > These fundamentals usually consist of economic indicators and various > measures of incumbency.

I looked at a couple links, and couldn't quickly find the exact "fundamentals" he refers to. For instance, do they include campaign financing (corrected by peculiar things lke Trump's free media coverage, and perhaps whatever unpaid labor of Sanders' supporters)?

Given that politicians spend enormous time on financing, this is an obvious indicator. But it may be politically incorrect to use models that imply money drives the US.

(Chomsky mentioned, "At the moment, the polls indicate an even race. Usually, US elections can be predicted pretty well by the level of funding, overwhelmingly from the very wealthy and corporations. In the early stages, Bush was far in the lead, not a surprise in the light of the enormous gifts his administration has lavished on a very small wealthy minority and on corporate power. However, that funding gap has reduced considerably in the past months, apparently reflecting concern among elite sectors over the extraordinary incompetence of the Bush planners and the harm they are doing to core elite interests." [https://chomsky.info/20041011/](https://chomsky.info/20041011/))

</comment><comment><USER12> Here's why this post-mortem is so important:

      The distinguishing feature of the scientific method is not that
      it always gets the answer right, but that it fails forward by
      learning from its mistakes...

      I want to think through his nomination while trying to avoid
      the seduction of hindsight bias.

Kudos to Nate Silver for meticulously examining how he got it wrong, and publicly showing his work so we can all get better.

</comment><comment><USER6> >"...our early estimates of Trump's chances weren't based on a statistical model. Instead, they were what we "subjective odds" — which is to say, educated guesses"

People of al stripes do this in all kinds of situations. We have a hypothesis and find data to support that.

In this case both Trump and Bernie were hard to gauge. Trump just had no prior history (I said to myself) and Bernie was never notable in national politics outside a small core constituency so the default was to discount both because on both sides they were more to the extremes (left and right ends) of their parties.

Also, both Bernie and Trump are the animus the personification of the feelings of large swaths of the electorate --so it goes beyond what they represent as isolated individuals ("movement").

most of these analysts will find it hard to discount their "instinct" even if they want to be data-driven (in a sphere where data can only reveal so much.

</comment><comment><USER13> Worth noting that pundit Carl Diggler has not had any trouble predicting results even without a fancy statistical model

<comment><USER14> > In any race where Silver didn't make a pick — again, he isn't playing the > pick-every-contest game — Diggler's numbers treat the non-prediction as a > wrong prediction. So Silver's accuracy rate through May 7, according to > Diggler, was just 55 percent, while his own was 89 percent.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- fix/wp/2016/05/12/so...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- fix/wp/2016/05/12/sorry-but-that-fake-pundit-isnt-more-accurate-than-nate- silver/)

So the comparison counts non-predictions by Silver makes your statement correct.

> even without a fancy statistical model

Remarkably anti-intellectual statement.

<comment><USER13> I think that you would agree that null is not a correct prediction, so clearly the Silver model has failed for those votes.

<comment><USER14> Null is neither correct nor incorrect. If I don't play a game of chess today and you do, I haven't lost anything. I simply haven't played. The world is not binary.

This claim is tantamount to a schoolyard taunt like, "If you don't fight me, you're a coward." And claiming victory when your opponent wasn't even at school that day to hear the taunt.

<comment><USER13> Right, but if you play chess against a lot of children and crush them 100% of the time and I play against moderately experienced players and win 90% of the time, I'm probably better at chess

<comment><USER14> Fine. Fuck the analogies because yours isn't even close to the actual situation.

At the time of the writing on the article I posted as a rebuttal: Each time both Silver and Diggler predicted results they agreed except for 8 states. When they didn't agree, they had an equal number of correct results (and incorrect results), 4-4. They're effectively tied.

The ones that aren't predicted indicate nothing about Silver's methods other than a lack of sufficient data to put through his models. Which says something to his ethos. He doesn't just make wild stabs in the dark like a typical pundit when he doesn't have the data to back up his prediction.

EDIT: Cleaned up the second paragraph.

EDIT FURTHER: I suppose it's my fault. Chess was the wrong analogy if someone were to pick an analogy. It's played head-to-head, and comparison to people that aren't playing against each other requires more complex analysis. The situation here is two parties participating in an open contest, where everyone can win, everyone can lose, or something in between can occur.

The point still stands. Someone not participating in a given contest doesn't equate to losing. They just aren't competing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Trump's (presumptive) nomination was a big surprise to me. However, in retrospect, it looks less surprising. Trump was always going to attract a sizable minority, and there were really no other compelling candidates in the race. While I'm sure that the majority of Republican voters would prefer "not Trump," who that "not Trump" candidate could be was never clear. At the end, well, I am not certain that I wouldn't pick Trump over Cruz, for example.

<comment><USER16> > While I'm sure that the majority of Republican voters would prefer "not > Trump," who that "not Trump" candidate could be was never clear.

Why are you sure of that? He's gotten a record number of votes for a Republican primary. It's very clear that, in fact, the majority of Republican voters want Trump, along with a sizable percentage of independents who voted in some of the primaries.

It's this kind of wishful thinking by non-Republicans that leads to all the laughable errors of the pundit and pollster class.

<comment><USER17> > in fact, the majority of Republican voters want Trump

He does not have a majority of the primary vote.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't think 538 gets it even now.

Trump is a celebrity who gets free media coverage and people aspire to. So of course he was a serious contender from Day One.

The fact that he is not polished for the media is a plus to most people.

As one woman said to a news reporter earlier in the campaign, "Well, I could vote for the other candidate. But he's a politician."

<comment><USER19> > The fact that he is not polished for the media is a plus to most people.

He is EXTREMELY polished. He's a professional personality. He's been doing it for a decade, wooing audiences. He knows how to do it.

What he is not, is a politician.

> Well, I could vote for the other candidate. But he's a politician.

exactly.

People aren't happy, and they'll vote for _anyone_ that isn't "more of the same". eg Trump and Sanders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've watched Trump years ago on The Apprentice. What he brought to politics was business sense and marketing know-how, which has been surprisingly absent from political campaigns before.

<comment><USER21> and also racism, sexism and xenophobia, with an authoritarian bent.

<comment><USER22> I think it's actually quite interesting - as a non-insignificant number of people are probably supporting Trump because they are tired of being told that holding a particular belief is 'racist' or 'xenophobic' (something they clearly would disagree with).

<comment><USER23> So a bunch of racist, xenophobic people are tired of being told that they're racist and xenophobic? I can believe that. Of course, I thought they also want a "straight shooter" who "isn't afraid to tell it like it is"... well, I guess something's gotta give.

<comment><USER22> Is there a benchmark for measuring racism or xenophobia? Ie the terms are so vague and subject to personal interpretation that I think they pretty much mean 'Someone's whose views I disagree with'.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


HardOCP – Nvidia GeForce Partner Program Impacts Consumer Choice - <AUTHOR> https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/03/07/geforce_partner_program_impacts_consumer_choice <comment><AUTHOR> [https://twitter.com/HardOCP/status/975730763512668160](https://twitter.com/HardOCP/status/975730763512668160)

> Well, to be fully transparent, I am not sure we are currently in a position > to do any follow-up as NVIDIA has gone dark on GPP along with nearly every > contact we have in the industry on this topic. Certainly we struck a nerve. > Like the OEMs, I guess cutting off $ hits home.

Also, AMD Reddit thread with info on extra developments on this concerningly anti-competitive and anti-consumer set of events:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/85n378/nvidia_gpps_fir...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/85n378/nvidia_gpps_first_victim/)

Also:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/85n378/nvidia_gpps_fir...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/85n378/nvidia_gpps_first_victim/dvyu5or/)

> The twitter for gigabyte changed to Auros

> > [https://twitter.com/GigabyteUK/status/955776386068811776](https://twitter.com/GigabyteUK/status/955776386068811776)

> So does this mean they wont even advertise AMD products now? what a shit > show.</comment>


More data usually beats better algorithms - <AUTHOR> http://anand.typepad.com/datawocky/2008/03/more-data-usual.html <comment><USER2> Not true - from current leaders of netflix prize:

Our experiments clearly show that once you have strong CF models, such extra data is redundant and cannot improve accuracy on the Netflix dataset.

[http://glinden.blogspot.com/2008/03/using-imdb-data-for- netf...](http://glinden.blogspot.com/2008/03/using-imdb-data-for-netflix- prize.html)

<comment><USER3> The students used a simple algorithm and got nearly the same results as the bellkor team. So the extra data isn't redundant if it enables a simpler algorithm to perform as well as a more complicated one, even if the complicated algorithm gets no benefit from the extra data.

<comment><USER2> Would you, as a human, prefer a model that gives you accurate predictions with less data, or a model (that is simpler) but needs more data to be accurate?

How is an algorithm any different?

<comment><USER3> Well put it this way, to get good predictions without a lot of data takes a whole team of researchers at bell labs working on this for over a year, with data its a student project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well - thats what google keep saying (specifically, I think Peter Norvig has said that, I think, over and over - that he hasn't had access to as much data before and its fascinating to him).

Ah Peter Norvig, responsible for hours of my time wiled away on his web site with all sorts of knowledge porn.

<comment><USER5> One talk in particular in which he focuses on this idea, including with facts and figures from research literature, is a talk he gave a while ago called "Theorizing from Data": <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU8DcBF-qo4> . You should definitely watch it if you haven't seen it before.

Norvig states his opinion slightly differently: of course being smart about algorithms is good. But until you get a lot of it, you often can't even fairly evaluate different algorithms. It's only when you're no longer getting significant gains from more data that you should then start thinking about being an algorithm smartypants.

<comment><USER6> Now that is just a marvelous restatement of the canonical optimization principle!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Team B used a very simple algorithm, but they added in additional data beyond the Netflix set: information about movie genres from the Internet Movie Database (IMDB)."

I had no idea imdb had so much genre data. E.g., a "keywords" page for every movie [<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/keywords>] and, for every keyword, maps of (a) related keywords and (b) movies that mention it [c.f., <http://www.imdb.com/keyword/metaphysical/>].

Very cool.

</comment><comment><USER8> More like bad/insufficient data defeats even good algorithms. When we recommend movies to friends, we are often using very different and more useful information than what's in the Netflix database.

</comment><comment><USER9> I did the same thing last semester inspired by a class at Cornell. We came up with a very, very simple graph-based algorithm that gets above the competition's baseline (not quite bellkor level but there's lots of tweaking left to be done).

Now -- I was under the impression that using extra proprietary data (like imdb) is beyond the bounds of the competition. Can anyone shed some light on this? Maybe I should pick up the project again!

<comment><USER10> "Why provide rating dates and movie names?"

Other datasets provide it. Cinematch doesn't currently use this data. Use it if you want.

As it happens we provided years of release for all but a few movies in the dataset; those seven movies have NULL as the "year" of release. Sorry about that.

"Why not provide other data about the movies, like genres, directors, or actors?"

We know others do. Again, Cinematch doesn't currently use any of this data. Use it if you want.

<http://www.netflixprize.com/faq></comment></comment>


HyperMac's retort about the use of naked women at their CES booth - <AUTHOR> http://www.hyperblog.com/2013/01/thanks-for-an-amazing-ces-2013/

<comment><USER2> Here is Miss Representation's reply to this blog post: [http://www.missrepresentation.org/notbuyingit/hyper- responds...](http://www.missrepresentation.org/notbuyingit/hyper-responds-to- notbuyingit/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I kept waiting for them to explain what was "out of context" but it never came.</comment>


A Leader's Framework for Decision Making (2007) - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making <comment><USER2> Fascinating analysis. While it references Rudy Giuliani's leadership immediately after 9/11 and beyond, Trump is an even more interesting case. It looks like he approaches problems in the Simple and Chaotic modes, with specific blindspots in Complicated (in being unwilling to defer to experts in many domains) and Complex (by impulsively acting and not letting situations evolve before intervening).</comment>


Parler: Free Speech Social Network - <AUTHOR> https://parler.com/ <comment><USER2> Translation: Bored of 4chan and gab? Come join our network of nazis, racists, and vaccine deniers!

<comment><AUTHOR> There was a time when the Left was opposed on principle to our lives being controlled by the whims of huge corporations.

Ironically when this monopolistic control extends to our speech and information, the Left has suddenly forgotten its principles. Arbitrary black box moderation is OK because "they're on OUR side".

Well, I know enough of history to know that contenting yourself with a dangerous or corruptible system because it happens to align with you at the present moment is incredibly foolish.

Some of us still believe in the principle of free speech. Its protection from governments and corporations is a solemn duty as far as I'm concerned.

<comment><USER2> I'm so sick and tired of people who have no idea what freedom of speech means.

Nowhere did I say that the government should do anything to this pile of fascist idiots over at Parler. I'm just saying that a social network predicated on the idea of "we will never moderate our platform" will be an actual legitimate trash fire of a place to spend time.

Moderation is not censorship. If you're being moderated at a particular community, it means that the community thinks you're offensive and don't want to hear from you anymore.

<comment><AUTHOR> What you're referring to is the codified freedom of speech protection in the Constitution. That's not what I'm referring to.

My post is about the ideal of freedom of speech. There is a debate to be had about the level to which "platforms" should respect that ideal. My position is that relying on the good faith of platforms to moderate speech is dangerous when those platforms are as dominant as Facebook/Twitter/Google are.

So you see this is separate from Article I.</comment></comment></comment></comment>