Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOyfZex7B3E <comment><USER2> This is amazing. The video avoids too technical language, and basically explains the whole process of reverse engineering. I think this is the best explanation of reverse engineering I've seen in a long time.

<comment><USER3> Micah Scott's toastermelt videos are another great example of reverse engineering workflow/techniques. More technical and detailed but still very accessible.

<comment><USER4> I tried looking for those videos but haven't found them yet, do you have a link?

<comment><USER5> Poster meant 'Coastermelt': [http://www.misc.name/coastermelt/](http://www.misc.name/coastermelt/)

<comment><USER3> Whoops, yeah, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow. I certainly hope someone with a lot of power over company culture at, say, Apple is watching this. And that they get inspired to think about cultural preservation.

I really think it should be a standard act of corporate responsibility and platform stewardship to make it so that work like that of Professor Abrasive's, is not the only spare key we have to current culture a few decades down the road. We as a global culture just might be really, really lost and bereft of history if that was to be the case.

I frankly think that Apple under Tim Cook is in a historically unique position of making cultural preservation of games and software feasible and something built into the whole social and legal contract of proprietary, locked down platforms. It's not like Sony is going to lead the way with the PlayStation?

I mean, to really make preservation legit, there needs to be some sort of useful official emulation and data extraction capability down the road. For all we know now, there might be terrible legislation that prohibits reverse engineering in a lot of jurisdictions.

There's of course a lot problems to solve, with all the crypto and stuff, and licensing, but someone should be on this. Especially since software distribution is becoming all ephemeral and download based! Not to mention the cloud fragmentation of personal data.

<comment><USER7> To fix it, people should stop using DRM. Or as a first step to repeal crooked corrupted laws which declared breaking DRM illegal even for legitimate purposes.

[http://www.fixthedmca.org](http://www.fixthedmca.org)

<comment><USER8> As an alternative: we could demand that, for works that are only released to the public in encrypted form, an unencrypted copy is put in independent escrow (e.g. Library of Congress) to qualify for copyright protection.

<comment><USER9> That's an interesting and compelling idea.

But that database of unencrypted copies would be the ultimate target for industrial espionage, copyright theft, and hacking. I don't think we can trust any one organization with that responsibility.

<comment><USER7> I think it has a more obvious problem. No one will be updating those copies even if they will be released once. It's simply a mess to manage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Amazing work. Also highlights how paranoid DRM proponents often are going to such lengths to cripple the hardware.

Breaking DRM is like finding a cure for insanity ;)

<comment><USER10> "Breaking DRM is like finding a cure for insanity ;)"

Well said.

<comment><USER11> Remeber those Arcade Game-Memory manufactured into the battery? You had to break the battery and (suppossedly) cut the powersupply to get to them.

Isane.

<comment><USER12> Are you thinking of Suicide Batteries?[1]

IIRC, tehy're a major hindrance to people who want to legitimately restore old arcade/pinball machines, rather than just grabbing a cracked rom.

[1] [http://www.arcadecollecting.com/dead/](http://www.arcadecollecting.com/dead/)

<comment><USER11> Yes, what a wonderfull example of corpoorate paranoia. They are out there- the enemy, the other tribesman and there psychopaths- out to get me, my fortress, my product for cheap- but i will show it to them, i shall leave no mark upon this world, for which i shall be remembered.

Ten layers of tinfoil can capture pirate-bullets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can't wait for him to start selling these! I would buy one in a hot minute. My Saturn is collecting dust and there are so many games I just can't get my hands on for my Saturn, and emulation in my experience hardly works. It's way too weird a machine.

<comment><USER14> As an Aussie he's going to be subject to the TPPs DMCA-lite restrictions on circumvention devices once it's ratified.

<comment><USER15> I live in Australia and wrote Heimdall[1], an open-source reverse engineered tool for flashing Samsung phones.

I can assure you, I am _not_ looking forward to the TPP!

[1] [https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/Heimdall](https://github.com/Benjamin- Dobell/Heimdall)

<comment><USER16> Thanks for Heimdall. Samsung really don't seem to like developers that much, and Heimdall was a godsend when I had an S3.

<comment><USER17> What's wrong with odin? Other than the moral aspects of using leaked software?

<comment><USER16> I think Odin was Windows only, there were multiple old versions floating around and how do you know what you're really running? (as Administrator, too)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm so so glad he mentions archiving in this video - I don't think enough thought has been given to the impact of DRM on museum collections in 10-50 years.

<comment><USER18> I'm going through this as a relatively new PS Vita owner. Sony decided to go with proprietary game cartridges, proprietary memory cards, and DRM'd digital distribution. Despite the quality of the games and hardware, the system didn't do well commercially and it appears Sony has lost interest in the system and it's sibling PS TV/Vita TV.

There are a lot of great games (including PS1 and PSP games) for the system, but once the hardware dies or the download servers are shut down, what is left for people who still want to play these games?

In the back of my mind I've been thinking what digital consumer rights look like. It seems like this point in history has laws that favor publishers more than consumers or the public good.

<comment><USER19> Players overwhelmingly vote with their wallets in favour of DRM. Just wait until some day Steam servers get shut off, the backlash will be massive.

<comment><USER20> I don't know any players that are in favor of DRM per se. Players are willing to accept DRM, IF it is transparent, and even more willing if it enables some perks.

There was a time when DRM was only visible when it broke your legitimately purchased game (e.g. SimCity, Diablo 3)

Now at least gamers are getting some decent perks from DRM (e.g. digital loaning, play anywhere, cross platform licensing) so it's a bit easier to stomach.

<comment><USER21> > Now at least gamers are getting some decent perks from DRM (e.g. digital > loaning, play anywhere, cross platform licensing) so it's a bit easier to > stomach.

That's because people have been vocal about that. If the companies had it their way, I'm sure the majority would want you to buy a new license for each platform and system (like how the cheap Windows licenses are - locked to your system)

<comment><USER20> Yes, I'm sure companies want to maximize sales, that is their job. And yes, people were very vocal about shitty DRM (and rightly so).

The old way of doing business was proprietary everything. (See Sony in the 80s and 90s) I'm just glad manufactures finally saw that locking things down so much increased customer anger and frustration more than it increased sales. Being a child of the 80s, I'm still surprised at stuff like using a generic USB thumb drive in an Xbox 360 and things of that nature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Great work.

These crazy reverse engineering projects kind of make me feel insecure about my own abilities, as weird as it sounds.

I wonder if I would have been able to come up with the same solution if I worked at it. My fear is that I would not, but who knows.

A lot of it is purely analytical, but there is a portion that relies on pure creativity and problem solving abilities.

I understand the process he went through as well as the technical details behind it, but following along is much easier than looking at a circuit board with a blank face, wondering where to begin.

I spent the last 2 hours last night just reading about Sega Saturn…

<comment><USER23> If it took 20 years for the reverse engineer community to get to this point I wouldn't sweat it if you don't think you could do it on your own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This appears to be where he actually dumped the ROM a few years back...

[http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/saturn-cd-block-rom- dump...](http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/saturn-cd-block-rom- dumped.52419/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Holy hell what an amazing hack. This guy must have spent hundreds of hours on this.

<comment><USER26> He mentions at one point that he's been working on it off and on for a few _years_ so definitely at least 100s if not thousands of hours.

<comment><USER27> In this [1] forum post, from yesterday, he says: "I've put thousands of hours into this project"

[1] [http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/saturn-cd-block-rom- dump...](http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/saturn-cd-block-rom- dumped.52419/page-13#post-891851)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> He mentions archival as a motivation but can we trust the rest of the hardware to last more than a few decades? Isn't emulation the real archival solution?

<comment><USER29> Yabause already exists but it's not a perfect emulator yet. So right now the best way to enjoy games as they were is still the original hardware.

<comment><USER30> SSF exists and is much better than Yabause, although it's not open source.

<comment><USER29> Non Open Source emulators are dead in the water in terms of archiving. 10 years later if the original author is not around anymore, you won't be able to rely on it nor improve on it. I wish all emulator writers understood that.

PPSSPP and Dolphin have made great progress BECAUSE they were open.

<comment><USER31> I would imagine a fair few emulator writers don't much care about maintaining the "backups" fiction, even under the classier name "archiving"

<comment><USER32> Historians in 2200 will be thanking them none the less, we lost a lot of early film lets not let that happen to this art form.

<comment><USER33> And it's not only film. Early television, audio recording, books (in special in times when copying them was costly)... The list of information we lost is enormous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Here I thought the title was describing how plastic CD media became brittle after 20 years. The hack is way more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER35> As a Sega fanboy, this makes me happy. That copy protection scheme (outer ring spiral) is quite something. I find it amusing that Sega went with yet another proprietary disc format for the Dreamcast (GD-ROM) and that system is able to load homebrew code from any CD-R / CD-RW without any modifications to the hardware.

<comment><USER36> > That copy protection scheme (outer ring spiral) is quite something.

Yeah about that, I don't get it. Is there data hidden in that spiral that acts as a checksum for the CD or something? Or is it of special material that lights up differently under certain light (like money)?

To me it doesn't look that hard to duplicate a simple spiral, but then I know nothing about it.

<comment><USER37> original Playstation used similar copy protection trick - ASCII string SCE(I/E/A) was stored in pregap pre-groove wobble between the leadin and the first track. PSX used Three-beam pickup and was able to track this wobble and extract code from radial tracking error signals. Modchips simply injected same error signal for couple of seconds after closing CD lid, enough for the CD controller to recognize it as "original".

<comment><USER16> Any idea why PS modchips used to kill the drive laser pretty quickly?

<comment><USER37> they didnt. lasers were poor to begin with, plus weaker media(cdr) probably caused extra mechanism movements (focusing)

edit: hmm, now that I think about it, its possible someone incompetent made modchip that would keep sending wooble constantly, that could cause tracking problems and tire mechanism pretty fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Same project for original Playstation [http://ps-io.com/features/](http://ps- io.com/features/) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbWW1VzeRgI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbWW1VzeRgI) . Started in ~2010

Playstation also had a trapdoor Parallel I/O port exposing raw address/data bus, it was meant for network interface, debugging(PSY-Q) and stuff(ActionReplay/GameShark). Great thing about that port is you can hang your own ROM there and console will execute it while booting, no code signing/drm crap.

Afair at the beginning PSIO patched original firmware replacing all CD routines with its own, but later in the project it was discovered a lot of games talked straight to the hardware ignoring SONY requirements for using BIOS routines. This is why current version comes with small board you need to solder inside to reroute chip select signals from the CD controller chip - PSIO emulates that chip completely. You still get data faster than CD due to no seek times. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc3rOb7Evxc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc3rOb7Evxc)

Original work from 1999 [http://web.archive.org/web/19990220052039/http://www.geociti...](http://web.archive.org/web/19990220052039/http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/6332/psx.html)

Gamecube has IDE-EXI, same thing [http://www.gc- forever.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ide-exi](http://www.gc- forever.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ide-exi)

<comment><USER16> The problem with a lot of the modchips is that the companies behind them are secretive (leading to loss of knowledge when they close) and they're just so damn expensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> TLDR (or TLDW*)?

<comment><USER39> Why is this being downvoted? I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask for a TLDR on a 30 minute video.

Anyway, the basic story is that the Saturn had copy protection in the form of physical marks on the copy protected CDs. This puts a huge barrier to entry on homebrew and the like, so a guy going by Dr Abrasive tried to reverse engineer a way around that. He first looked into a way of disabling the copy protection on the CDs to allow burned CDs to be used but that proved too difficult.

He eventually hit upon the fact that the Saturn had an external module that could be added to allow the system to play video CDs. He then built a component to take advantage of that fact and feed in his own commands through this interface thereby avoiding the copy protection entirely. This allowed content to be run from USB sticks without the need for CDs at all, lowering the barrier to entry even more. It also helps workaround mechanical failure of the CD drive which is becoming a common problem for the 20 year old hardware.

So now if you have this custom built component, you can take an off the shelf system and start running code from a USB stick without any soldering, hacking, or modification at all beyond plugging the device into the back of the console.

<comment><USER40> the most impressive part, to me, was how thoroughly he reverse engineered what looks to be a crazy complicated CPU architecture - the Saturn has _four_ of them.

Also, I love that his original motivation was to use the sound processor for mixing chiptune, and basically opening up the entire system at metal level is a happy by product.

ALSO, the fact that he decided that his first working prototype was too hands on and finding a way to piggyback the video playback expansion card to make the mod orders of magnitude less complicated to install / execute.

Super impressive stuff

<comment><USER41> Wasn't it only one of those CPU's though? He mentioned there is a CPU dedicated to disk operation and that's the one no one had been able to get a ROM dump of, which in turn enabled all the other stuff? Not trying to downplay his achievement or anything, I'm new to all this but it's easy to see that this is some truly amazing work.

<comment><USER42> 2 CPUs, 2 GPUs, and there is a separate CPU dedicated to disk operation which was (almost) completely isolated. His achievement was getting access to that disk CPU, but that access allows access to the rest of the CPUs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is by far the best showcase of an assembly code I've ever seen. Kudos for the editor.

<comment><USER44> It seems to be IDA, not sure what you meant by "the editor".

<comment><USER45> It's definitely IDA Pro. If anyone is considering how difficult this is, let me offer you my experience. It is incredibly hard and requires utmost persistence. I tried to refresh (learn more about) my knowledge of x86/x86-64 asm and decided to give a go on modifying a binary that was not produced by me. It seems to be a common exercise, so I though - how difficult can this be? Right? You follow code procedures, take note of jumps, there's even a handy visual graph of the things, take another application that can offer you to see function names and break calls... Suddenly, you're in this loop where you take notes on paper (yes), you seem to understand a part, move to the next and then you realise you didn't actually understand the part before and go back, and then you get tangled in variables and registers..

It takes a special set of skills and a mindset to do this. I recommend everyone to try that once. Just take a foreign binary, any which you know the application of, and try to modify it. Then, after you give up, take a note this was done on an unknown binary with (almost) unknown functionality. TBH, he did say he looked up a table of known functions on a wiki somewhere, but still...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> One of the YT comments is about how he is not releasing the "ROM dump". Any idea of why he isn't doing this?

<comment><USER16> From jhl in the forum thread:

>I, myself, am not going to release these ROMs. This isn't the first project where I've dumped a commercial object for some other purpose and been asked to share (see: shairport, for one), and after much thought I conclude - now, as then - that it's not the right thing for me to do in any project. There are legal and professional risks which I'm just not comfortable taking. That's not negotiable.

>But that's not to say I won't help you dump it yourself. I'll have a dump feature in the cart, and I'm sure someone will rapidly archive all the available systems.

<comment><USER47> I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see how _" I didn't steal anything; I just broke open the safe and told others how to get the money"_ would get you of the hook.

<comment><USER48> Well, it's a good thing you're not a lawyer then!

By analogy, if the original comment had been "I will not give you a copy of the copyrighted harry potter book, but I can teach you how to use a scanner if you'd like, and I'm sure someone else will scan it" would you say that teaching someone to use a scanner is illegal?

It's actually typically legal to make a backup of a copyrighted item you own for personal use if the original is damaged.

He's teaching people to do something that's typically legal, avoiding infringing copyright by redistributing himself, and commenting that it's quite likely others won't be so scrupulous; I don't see how anyone could reasonably fault him.

<comment><USER47> A scanner doesn't target a single (intellectual) property. This feature of this hack, on the other hand, would have only one use: dumping the ROM of a Sega Saturn.

I hadn't thought of the 'for personal use' defense, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Not to discount this as it's very impressive work. But replacing CD drives with SD/hard drive based solutions is becoming pretty common. For the Dreamcast there is the GDEmu[0], and the Saturn already has the Rhea and Phoebe[1] (basically the same thing, each is for slightly different models of Saturns).

The Playstation also has one, the ps-io[2]. I'm really hoping for someone to step up and do the PC Engine, Neo Geo CD, Sega CD and 3DO.

[0][https://gdemu.wordpress.com/about/](https://gdemu.wordpress.com/about/)

[1][https://gdemu.wordpress.com/installation/rhea- installation/](https://gdemu.wordpress.com/installation/rhea-installation/)

[2][http://ps-io.com/](http://ps-io.com/)

<comment><USER50> >pc engine

You might be interested in the turbo everdrive from [http://krikzz.com/](http://krikzz.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I'm glad someone else out there digs the Sega Saturn because I always felt left out being into Sega games while the rest of my friends were Nintendo kids all the way.

</comment><comment><USER52> Does Sega gain anything from not just releasing all the information?

<comment><USER53> There's zero benefit in doing anything like this.

Not to mention that all the relevant information may not exist anymore, or is in a storage facility somewhere growing mold.

<comment><USER52> > There's zero benefit in doing anything like this.

I don't know. Winning people's hearts? For the fun of it?

<comment><USER53> >I don't know. Winning people's hearts? For the fun of it?

That's true, but as long as they can still make money from their IP they won't (i.e. repackaging old source + game(s) into a VM for sale on Steam or next-gen consoles)

Some of the source code/etc may be licensed from a third party, which means that releasing it is treading through a legal minefield.

<comment><USER54> In cases like these I'm thankful for pirates. When an interesting project is about to die because all the stakeholders lost interest and there's too much legal mess to deal with to give it away, it's good if there's someone that steps in, ignores that legal mess altogether and simply dumps the product on- line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> If only the Dreamcast protection had been that good. Was really disappointed when it died :(

<comment><USER56> You certainly didnt know the history of Sega or the Dreamcast if you think it died because of piracy. ...with that thinking then the Saturn would of been an ultra success.

<comment><USER57> I knew a lot of people who owned a Dreamcast and no games.

No modchip required, no soldering, broadband penetration on the rise, filesharing was now a thing.

I completely understand the Saturn's botched launch and limited number of retail outlets, but the Dreamcast had the best launch of all time up to that point and broke sales records.

I'm not convinced piracy is not in fact the cause of the Dreamcast's demise.

I really did love the Dreamcast, built in modem and the second-screen VMU.

If you don't think piracy killed it, what do you think killed it? The PS2?

<comment><USER58> No EA Games, when Madden was huge; no DVD player, and the PS2 hype cycle was perfectly timed and had an even better launch. Wikipedia sales numbers for the PS2 and Dreamcast say the PS2 sold 10.6M by March 31, 2001, whereas the Dreamcast was dead by then and only sold 9.13M. Sega also had troubled finances as a result of the Saturn.

<comment><USER57> the 2K Sports series negated the need for EA and sold so well that EA sought out an exclusivity contract with the NFL so that 2K would be killed?

The DVD drive after the ps2 was released probably would be a huge factor though, if the dreamcast wasn't in fact already dead which it was.

I'm sure some business school guys have written papers on this, I should find them. Would be interesting to read all the opinions on Sega's near death and exiting the hardware business.

<comment><USER55> I actually preferred the 2k football games so EA getting exclusivity there was annoying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> How is the Saturn's protection so much more effective than more modern systems?

<comment><USER60> I'm guessing it was state of the art at the time it was released, but wouldn't hold up nearly as well in a mass market console these days.

<comment><USER59> Then why did it take 20 years?

<comment><USER61> It's not a mass-market console anymore with little interest or incentive to break it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> haha awesome

I applaud crazy fuckers like you. The world needs more of you.

Well done sir.

</comment><comment><USER63> I was just thinking about the Saturn at a nerd memorabilia store, as this was the one system I saved my money up to buy at 11 years old. What an utter disappointment of a system (in terms of games), but what a great hack. Makes Dreamcast hacking look like Lego Logo.

<comment><USER56> The Saturn had great games what are you talking about? Maybe it didnt have all those game your schoolmate was playing on his Playstation but does take away from some of the great games it did have

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I am not good with electronics tbh but why it is not possible to mitm the connection between CD drive and motherboard? As far as I see from 'swap disk' technique outer protection track is not changing depending on game

<comment><USER65> you can, but the drives are starting to fail now.

<comment><USER64> I meant mitm on CD rom side, as the protection track unique, could be simpler approach (which later you can remove optic drive with SD or usb)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Possibly stupid question: why didn't some enterprising person figure out how to produce CD-Rs with the copy protection wobble track? Is the market too small vs the cost of required equipment? Would it have been illegal?

<comment><USER66> I found this when looking for more info on the "wobble": [http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/saturn-copy- protection-a...](http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/saturn-copy-protection- and-cdrs-the-conclusive-end.50295/)

"I hope this lays the matter to rest, and prevents anyone from wasting more time on it (like my day burning useless discs). I'm sure someone will wave their hands around and say that custom burner firmware could do the job, but good luck finding a burner with a programmable DSP in the pregroove tracking loop and managing to modify it to do the job."

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Echoing what others have said, I never knew about just how amazing the engineering on the Saturn was in terms of incredibly tight timing.

<comment><USER52> Was that a good thing?

<comment><USER42> Arguably it can be better than blocking threads, which can waste precious time for synchronization. But if you design your code with precise timings, you can ensure that the different processors will complete their work and communicate their data at a precise time, thus saving code and time.

Harder to program of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> It may interest folks to know that all Sega Saturn games have their audio encoded as plain old CD audio tracks. You can put your Sega Saturn disc into any old CD player and play all of the music tracks.

You can also rip a sega saturn CD in your computer. I particularly enjoy the music from Sega Rally Championship and Virtua Fighter 2.

<comment><USER69> Many, but certainly not all. Redbook audio (along with tons of grainy low resolution FMV) was more common in the earlier days of the CD-ROM, when creators were trying to justify the format, but hadn't figured out more interesting ways to make use of the space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Anyone know what program he is using to view the dumps?

<comment><USER71> IDA Pro.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> wow! THIS is what hacking looks like. these days the term seems to have been muddled and interchanged with "programming". True art of reverse engineering something you don't have a full manual for (and can't ask StackOverflow).

</comment><comment><USER73> What a legend. This video is absolutely inspiring.

</comment><comment><USER74> Only 20 years to go and Denuvo is done for.

<comment><USER16> [http://www.pcgamesn.com/rise-of-the-tomb-raider/denuvo- drm-c...](http://www.pcgamesn.com/rise-of-the-tomb-raider/denuvo-drm-crack- torrent)

These days my interest in game cracking is mainly for archival purposes. (are you going to be able to play this game in 50 years?)

<comment><USER74> I follow /r/crackstatus but it is far from being really done. This said I think all things equal piracy is a good thing for the gaming industry and without it I would not have been a gamer who now have more than 300 games in Steam and many more in GoG and Blizzard games too Back in the day I wasn't rich and even if I had money I couldn't buy games because I had no access to them living in a third World Country, but piracy made me a gamer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> All that effort from Sega but I remember modchips being available to run pirated Saturn games when I had it.

</comment><comment><USER76> Awesome video. Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER77> So the system "just works" without the game disc. Mind blowing!!</comment>


Man behind fatal Call of Duty 'swatting' gets 20-year prison sentence - <AUTHOR> https://www.polygon.com/2019/3/29/18287168/call-of-duty-swatting-death-prison-sentence <comment> Joe-Z Well, I guess if you're in the US it is perfectly reasonable to expect police (even "special tactics" teams) to just immediately shoot people on the sole base of a phone call and thus all of the responsibility lies on the caller.

Remember kids: Don't use emergency services, they might get someone killed.

<comment><USER2> I think it's reasonable anywhere to expect an emergency call to result in prejudice, whether that's police being apprehensive with regard to a suspected dangerous person, or firefighters being willing to break into a building they believe someone to be unconscious in. Treating all emergency calls as false until proven otherwise would put lives in danger, be it emergency responders or the public.

The danger that hoaxes inherently present, and that ignoring potential hoaxes also presents, means that hoaxers must be deterred.

<comment> Joe-Z Your comment is of course much more reasonable than mine. I too would expect police to show up or SWAT kick in a door if a terrorism threat was called on someone. Blaming the murder of an innocent person on the hoaxer however seems perverse.

This guy is sentenced to 20 years in prison for what he probably perceived as a 'prank call' at the time. That's insane!

<comment><USER3> If his idea of a harmless prank involves subjecting someone to that kind of danger then I'm not so sure. Another fun prank: kidnap someone and hang them on a cliff over a lethal fall, with a 80% chance they'll survive.

<comment><USER4> I rather doubt even 0.1% of swattings result in deaths, how can you compare that to a 80% chance of survival?

<comment> daniel-cussen Citation needed. Without going any further SWAT--of what I've read, this was back in 2011--shoots all dogs on sight, as soon as it enters the building, as standard operating procedure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > He also pleaded guilty to charges brought in the District of Columbia and > California's Central District related to hoax bomb threats. Those charges > allege Barriss placed bomb calls to headquarters of the FBI and Federal > Communications Commission, and to high schools, universities, shopping malls > and TV stations to emergency numbers in 16 other states and Canada. In the > California case, Barriss pleaded guilty to 46 counts.

[https://www.polygon.com/2018/11/15/18096749/call-of-duty- swa...](https://www.polygon.com/2018/11/15/18096749/call-of-duty-swatting- tyler-barriss-guilty)

"Barriss pleaded guilty to 46 counts" and who knows how many others not presented in court. Surprised he wasn't banned access to electronic devices and phones.

</comment><comment><USER2> It's interesting that the charge was not simply first degree murder. Although there may not have been an intention to kill, the victim was killed as the result of an inherently dangerous crime, which may invoke the felony murder rule.

The fact that he pleaded guilty suggests to me that the collection of lesser charges were part of a plea bargain, with prosecutors not confident about pioneering swatting as a murder case.

<comment><USER6> > It's interesting that the charge was not simply first degree murder

Murder (including felony murder) itself (except in special contexts and locations that don't apply here) is not a federal crime. This was a federal prosecution.

<comment><USER2> Murder is a federal crime: [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1111#a](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1111#a) Federal murder may be prosecuted separately and in addition to state murder, without double jeopardy applying. The same is true for military jurisdiction.

The only issue is whether there is federal jurisdiction over the murder. As the crime resulting in the killing was deemed to be within federal jurisdiction, that would seem to imply such a murder was within federal jurisdiction.

<comment><USER6> You need to reread your own citation. Murder is defined in subsection (a) of your cite, but the actual federally prosecutable crime is in subsection (b), and is only when a murder is committed "Within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States", itself defined at 18 USC § 7 [0]. The offense here did not occur in the special maritime and territorial jursidiction of the United States.

[0] [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/7](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/7)

<comment><USER2> My understanding is that (b) only defines punishment for where federal jurisdiction uniquely applies, and does not limit the jurisdiction to specific locations. Particularly federal murder is applied to the murder of federal officials everywhere.

[https://www.wklaw.com/10-ways-murder-becomes-a-federal- crime...](https://www.wklaw.com/10-ways-murder-becomes-a-federal-crime/) Item 5 of this list states that the federal crime of bank robbery can be promoted to federal murder under the same section I listed. This would suggest to me that this killing could also be federal murder.

<comment><USER6> > Particularly federal murder is applied to the murder of federal officials > everywhere.

Yes, kind of; there is a separate provision for that, 18 USC § 1114, which applies the punishments in 18 USC § 1111 (for murder), 18 USC § 1112 (for manslaughter), and 18 USC § 1113 (for attempts at either murder or manslaughter) to such acts committee against federal officials independent of the jursidictional limitations in those statutes.

> Item 5 of this list states that the federal crime of bank robbery can be > promoted to federal murder under the same section I listed.

Insofar as robbery is a qualifying offense under 18 USC 1111(a), that would appear to be technically correct if the jurisdictional requirements in 18 USC 1111(b) were met, but is not actually the general felony murder rule, which does not exist in federal law, but an analog covering only enumerated offenses written directly into the 18 USC 1111(a) definition of murder and still only applicable where 18 USC 1111(b) or some other statute provides a federal punishment for murder. More importantly, for killings in the course of bank robbery more generally, there is a separate provisions making that a capital offense without reference to 18 USC § 1111, within the bank robbery law (18 USC § 2113), the killing (and hostage taking) provision is subsection (e); that's mostly how felony-murder like rules are applied in federal criminal law, by specific punishment for killing accompanying the predicate offense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And the peace officer that shot an unarmed man on his front porch... What of him? Having seen the video of the incident, it's pretty damning. I've conducted very basic house clearing training (Marine Combat Training, 1 month long), and I still wouldn't have fired until I saw a clear hostile intent. Why are our police using harsher escalation of force protocols than our military uses? Can any LE who have seen the video chime in?

</comment><comment><USER8> In other news, Man pulling a trigger gets promotion.

<comment><USER9> Do you have a source to support that claim?

<comment><USER10> It's obviously facetious by the original poster, but the sentiment stands. Anyone not recognizing the shift (or "externalization") of responsibility from the police is purposefully blind to it.</comment></comment></comment>


Gopher: A Present for Redis - <AUTHOR> http://antirez.com/news/127 <comment><USER2> This is great. As a University of Minnesota graduate I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for gopher. Even in 2010 I remember we had some old gopher documentation floating around the IT department. Here's a summary[1] of its history.

[1] [https://www.minnpost.com/business/2016/08/rise-and-fall- goph...](https://www.minnpost.com/business/2016/08/rise-and-fall-gopher- protocol/)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=494649](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=494649)

Here is the link from Feb 25, 2009

Note this number = 494649

Today = 19 247493

Nineteen (19) Million Posts etc later (mas o menos)

<comment><USER4> Very cool. He had Redis Cluster in mind then: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=495711](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=495711)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very cool! Someone should update Wikipedia and add this as a Gopher server implementation.

Perhaps soon there will also be a Revival section to add, if enough interest is generated. My curiosity has certainly been piqued!

<comment><USER6> [http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/gw?a=gopher%3A%2F%2Fgopher...](http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/gw?a=gopher%3A%2F%2Fgopherpedia.com%2F)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Perfect protocol for low-bandwidth, text-only networks like Ubiquitilink.

[https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/25/ubiquitilink-advance- means...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/25/ubiquitilink-advance-means-every- phone-is-now-a-satellite-phone/)

<comment><USER8> This might be a problem though for some people/projects: [http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:7mk...](http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:7mky7n.2.1)

I wonder how/why this happened...

<comment><USER9> looks like that search is tied to a session, what did you search for?

<comment><USER8> Sorry - "Gopher Protocol" is now a registered trademark...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Because of this post, I've spent the last few hours re-exploring gopher spaces on sdf.org. Half that time was spent reading xmanmonk's "What The...?" phlog from the start. I have no clue if they're real or just stories, but either way, they're great reads.

</comment><comment><USER11> Gopher in 2019 sounds a bit strange.. Yes, but fun, and free from all the "value-added" crud that we usually have to put up with. My gopherhole is attracting around 1000 visitors monthly.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wow that brings back memories of the old dialup modems. I remember using gopher when I first got on the Internet.

</comment><comment><USER13> Relevant xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/554/](https://xkcd.com/554/)

<comment><USER14> Relevant webcomic: [https://xkcd.com/554/](https://xkcd.com/554/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is great. Time to install a gopher client.

<comment><USER16> Time to write one! They are fun little coding projects (I've written three, one in Lua, one in Python/Tkinter, and one in Golang). A lot of the people in the shell communities I am a part of (all of which offer Gopher hosting) roll their own. The protocol is just so simple and easy to work with. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Isn't this "everything that's new is bad, let's get back to old days" rather tiresome?

Not trying to be the hater here. I'd just like to know what's so appealing about stuff where all the improvements we've had since the 80s aren't noticeable, like HiDPI displays, easy access to embedded 4k HDR video without requiring stuff like Flash or Silverlight.

<comment><USER18> those improvements are leaving a lot of population behind, low memory machines and slow internet connections are still there and old technologies are helping keeping people connected</comment></comment>


Apple and Facebook offer to freeze eggs for female employees - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/15/apple-facebook-offer-freeze-eggs-female-employees

<comment><USER2> I'm a bit surprised by the negative feedback this is receiving -- it seems like this is a nice perk that gives women more flexibility in balancing work and family.

<comment><USER3> There were a few points brought up on a panel discussion I heard this morning, the main ones being:

1) Freeze your eggs at 25, implant them at 35 or 40, and you're still pregnant at 40. You'll have a teenager when you're in your late 50s.

2) Why this, and not a year of maternity/paternity leave?</comment></comment>


Are you ready to work remotely? - <AUTHOR> https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2020/01/06/are-you-ready-to-work-remotely/ <comment><USER2> While I strongly prefer to work in the same physical space as my teammates, I've worked remotely quite a lot over the last many years.

What I've learned, above everything else, is that in order to work well when physically disconnected from the other memebers of the team, I must have my own own office space that is physically dedicated to working and no other activity.

First, in the US anyway, this seriously simplifies taking the tax deduction for the workspace.

Second, it maintains a strong mental and physical differentiation between being "at work" and being "at home". I've found this essential for my own sanity (work-life balance stuff) and to make it very clear to others in the household when I'm working and should not be disturbed unless the house is on fire.</comment>


Teenagers don't use twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/why-teenagers-dont-use-twitter-by-matthew-robson-aged-15frac12-20090715-dla6.html

<comment><USER2> A few individual examples aside I can see why this would be accurate.

Twitter is a broadcast medium. Part of what's implied in a personal broadcase medium is the idea that the people using it don't have time to speak to each individual on their list. So as a compromise they broadcast their interests in a public way. That way they can still communicate with friends, relatives, et al.

Teenagers, despite what some of them believe, have tons of time on their hands. Accordingly studies have shown most teens use one-to-one mediums like the phone or texting. They have no need for the compromise of Twitter. Facebook appeals to them because that allows them to broadcast items they couldn't otherwise share one-to-one like photos, quizzes, etc...

</comment><comment><USER3> for the last time, yes i do.

<comment><USER4> Yes, exactly, thank you. I am so sick of this story already. There's only one line you need to take away from the article: "Morgan Stanley makes no claims for the report's statistical vigour."

"Teenagers don't use twitter" is not even close to being true. It's more like, "One teenager and his friends don't use twitter", a classic case of biased sampling. To then jump to the conclusions - NO teenagers use twitter, ALL teenagers prefer text messaging - is not only idiotic, but demonstrably false.

<comment><USER5> Some data seems to back up the kid's claim ([http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/nielsen_twitter_was_fas...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/nielsen_twitter_was_fasting_growing_community_last_month.php)), which is not to say he arrived at his conclusion in an scientific way.</comment></comment></comment>


The 'Dating Market' Is Getting Worse - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/02/modern-dating-odds-economy-apps-tinder-math/606982/ <comment><USER2> So really, according to the author, something like Coffee Meets Bagel is probably the only correct approach, but gets drowned out because of the lack of instant gratification.

<comment><USER3> How about Hinge? Last I saw years ago, they had redesigned the app and positioned themselves as the anti-dating app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "It's like, 'If this doesn't go well, there are 20 other guys who look like > you in my inbox.' And I'm sure they feel the same way—that there are 20 > other girls who are willing to hang out, or whatever."

Funny how inverted the expectations and realities of dating via apps are (disclaimer: for most people).

</comment><comment><USER5> > " "Those are things like 'I want a redhead who's over 5'7",' or 'I want a > Jewish man who at least has a graduate degree.'" So they log in to a digital > marketplace and start narrowing down their options. "They shop for a partner > the way that they would shop for a camera or Bluetooth headphones,

Man, I wish parametric searching for Bluetooth headphones worked that well!

</comment><comment><USER6> Contains interesting links, but the article itself is rather poorly reasoned. For example, an individual may not really know exactly what sort of car they want, but contra the authors, that doesn't mean there's not a market in cars.

Mating is very much a market, since pretty much the start of sexual reproduction millions of years ago.

<comment> xkcd-sucks Yes, if "market" is a fundamental axiom of one's worldview -- But since that sexual reproduction is older and more widespread than trade, one could also say that markets are a form of courtship

<comment><USER6> True enough.

I found my wife via OKC, and I think I could have skipped a lot of misery if I had had this insight a lot sooner.</comment></comment></comment>


My Father André Weil (2018) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201801/rnoti-p54.pdf <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting.

Others may be interested in this short clip of Weil talking at the 46 minutes mark of "The Story of Maths" documentary: [https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ejqof](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ejqof)

A rare sight, as there isn't a lot of recording of him online.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing - that was interesting to watch

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One of my favourite stories about André Weil from the book "The Music of the Primes" written by Marcus du Sautoy:

> He wrote to his wife, Eveline, on April 7, 1940, telling her, 'My > mathematics work is proceeding beyond my wildest hopes, and I am even a bit > worried - if it is only in prison that I work so well, will I have to > arrange to spend two or three months locked up every year?'

<comment><USER4> For another silver lining, confer [https://math.mit.edu/~hrm/papers/ss.pdf](https://math.mit.edu/~hrm/papers/ss.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Super gifted people. For sure.

As a frenchman, as well as a father I feel so amazed by this way of using each hour, even each minute as a mean to learn something. France as a enlighten tradition with mathematics. Because of these patio aged people.

<comment><USER6> The reason France's math output is so stellar is because of the controversial grand école system - pretty much every great French mathematician you can name came out of one of the top 2 schools. It's very elitist (and the elitism is misplaced since the system as well as the schools are virtually unknown outside of France compared to, say, the Ivies) but it does have results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "Every moment needed to be usefully or pleasantly employed."

Personally, the 2'000 year old formulation:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Poetica_(Horace)#Key_conce...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Poetica_\(Horace\)#Key_concepts)

in which every moment should be _instructively_ or pleasantly employed (the difference between useful and enlightening being roughly equivalent to the difference between working and hacking), is preferable.

[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0065)

Edit: Incidentally, Paul Lauterbur's connection was MRI.</comment>


YouTube page load is 5x slower in Firefox and Edge than in Chrome - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/cpeterso/status/1021626510296285185 <comment><AUTHOR> YouTube page load is 5x slower in Firefox and Edge than in Chrome because YouTube's Polymer redesign relies on the deprecated Shadow DOM v0 API only implemented in Chrome

You can restore YouTube's faster pre-Polymer design with this Firefox extension: [https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/youtube- classic](https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/youtube-classic)

<comment><USER2> Firefox 63 (which is the Nightly builds) has Shadow DOM enabled. It's mostly the same as Chrome's API at the moment, but it's still pretty slow loading youtube and the extension still makes it a lot faster.</comment></comment>


Tesla Model 3 rollover crash shows its real-world safety - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2018/07/15/tesla-model-3-rollover-crash/ <comment><USER2> The Reddit thread link [https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8yy3jk/my_wife...](https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8yy3jk/my_wife_rolled_our_model_3_at_highway_speeds_she/)

Engadget article is a clumsy rewrite of this with some added padding. I too wonder how this car is on the market without having passed federal safety tests.

IIHS link [http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/tesla/model-3-4-d...](http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/tesla/model-3-4-door- sedan)

<comment><USER3> >I too wonder how this car is on the market without having passed federal safety tests.

You don't have to crash test a car to sell it. You just get in trouble for selling it if the results (either real world or lab) turn out to be unacceptable after the fact. This system of requiring compliance and then doing spot checks and enforcing after the fact seems to work fine (across many industries, not just cars).

<comment><USER2> Based on my understanding of some european cars not being allowed to be sold in the USA because of failing frontal crash tests, I was under the impression all cars had to pass local tests before being available for purchase [http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26444467/ns/business- autos/t/perfe...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26444467/ns/business- autos/t/perfectly-safe-car-just-not-us/#.W0yyp4ljNE4)

<comment><USER4> Regulations around selling foreign made cars in the US have absolutely nothing to do with safety.

<comment><USER2> It appears to be emissions restrictions rather than safety that causes import issues thanks [http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/display-speed-under- sho...](http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/display-speed-under-show-or- display-exemption-americans-can-now-import-previously)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The inside pictures are quite stunning from my perspective. The cabin is almost fully in tact with no compression inside and what looks like a totally functional main control screen. The only real crash indicators are the airbags and the cracked windshield. I'm no expert, but it seems like it did an excellent job at keeping the occupant alive by virtue of simply keeping the entire cabin healthy.

[https://m.imgur.com/a/33RUwEN](https://m.imgur.com/a/33RUwEN)

<comment><USER4> The pictures are indeed stunning but with no other _verifiable_ information (like the exact circumstances such as speed) these should be taken with a grain of salt especially on Reddit, which is considered basically Tesla's astroturf.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So is this just the gratuitous 'Musk has fucked up, better send out some PR pieces'? Because this article is basically just some guy off reddit. How would you feel walking into a showroom asking about how it fairs in crash tests and the salesmen says 'well some guy on reddit said it was fine'?

<comment><USER7> Pretty sure the sales guy would mention, you know... _actual_ crash test results. I agree this might be PR spin but the Tesla (all of them) tests quite well, well enough that they don't need to rely on "some guy on Reddit".

Edit: I realized this is specifically about the Model 3, which doesn't have official data yet. What I said is probably still accurate - what do BMW salespeople say about a new model that doesn't have data in yet? Probably: "Look how safe our other cars are!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wait.....so if official crash test results are not available yet, how on earth is this car allowed to be sold?

<comment><USER9> If you look up crash ratings, you will find it's not uncommon for new car models to be missing them. It just isn't something that is done before the first unit is sold - presumably because as other people mentioned, it has to be done independently to be useful. Of course there must be internal tests, but there's no use in publicizing them because of the conflict of interest, and I'm sure if Tesla did that, people would point out the problem.

People who are _concerned_ about Tesla unwittingly give away the fact they don't browse the IIHS web site for fun. It is educational.

If you search for the Honda Insight on said IIHS site, you will find the old one that ceased production in 2014, not the new one that just arrived at my local Honda dealer. This is not shocking if you had any interest in the subject independent of Tesla.

The NHTSA site lists the 2019 Insight, but surprise, surprise, it says it is not rated.

<comment><USER8> It does make sense, I just always thought that new models had to be crash- tested before being allowed on the market. I'm clearly wrong in this assumption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Tesla is still having problems increasing production of the Model 3. The automation didn't work as planned. Is there any hope that they can get close to 10,000 cars a week?

They are about to cross 50,000 Model 3's shipped.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla- tracker/](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/)

A few analysts seem to think that around 60,000 Model 3's a quarter will get them to profitability.

—- UPDATE

Guess I perceived as a Tesla hater. I'm not but I guess I got branded as one for asking about their production line.

I offer a fanboy blog post as evidence that I'm not a hater:

[http://h4labs.org/tesla-is-about-to-ship-its-10000th- model-3...](http://h4labs.org/tesla-is-about-to-ship-its-10000th-model-3/)

<comment><USER11> I don't think they can maintain 5,000 Model 3's a week pace without improving their process. However, ramping from 5,000 to 10,000 cars per week is simpler than getting to 5,000 per week.

Also, 5,000 is in reference to just Model 3's. "The delivery breakdown for the quarter was 18,440 Model 3's, 10,930 Model S vehicles, and 11,370 Model X SUVs." [https://electrek.co/2018/07/02/tesla-official- model-3-produc...](https://electrek.co/2018/07/02/tesla-official- model-3-production-numbers-q2/) 5,000 Model 3's per week ~= 65,000 per quarter.

<comment><USER12> We don't have the details on what's going on at Tesla.

\- Musk rushed the lines design (mistake) \- Car were still too wire friendly (mistake)

Now IF musk and his partners start to get a hold of line design and programming, and if they're able to redesign internals to meet the previous point. They might be able to get stable.</comment></comment></comment>


How many passwords can you remember? Get ready to remember more - <AUTHOR> https://techxplore.com/news/2018-12-passwords-ready.html <comment><USER2> This is why we have password managers like 1Password.

Oh, oops — was this supposed to be a secret ad for dashlane? And I messed it up?

Sorry, not sorry.</comment>


Ask HN: Cool homepage domains - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for cool homepage domain names if you have seen any ? <comment><USER2> Not sure I get what you mean by 'homepage domains' Cool urls? Cool sites? Try www.iwantmyname.com for good urls, its where I get om.gd and whi.im

</comment><comment><USER3> Try dot.tk

<http://www.dot.tk/en/index.html></comment>


Putting the Times's First Email Address to Bed - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/insider/putting-the-timess-first-email-address-to-bed.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> In the article's comments section, a notable comment from the Peter Lewis mentioned in the article:

 _John, let the record show that The Times also initially turned down my free offer of the nytimes.com domain, which I had registered. A couple of years later they decided this internet thing was perhaps more than a fad, and demanded that I transfer ownership, which I willingly did. They still haven 't reimbursed me for the registration fee :-)_

<comment><USER3> shouldn't have transferred ownership. if they weren't treating the internet seriously, then their trademark likely didn't include a provision for it either

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Quite sweet in way that in 94/95 the NYT had not a clue about mail when some businesses had been running it for well over a decade by that point.

<comment><USER5> Journalism is the art of explaining to others what you haven't really understood yourself...

<comment><USER6> Another way of saying that is that journalists are people who have questions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've always wondered why the Times' domain was nytimes.com rather than nyt.com or newyorktimes.com. nytimes.com seems like an odd mix of initials and spelling the words out.

This was a fascinating look into early internet history.

Also, it was pretty cool of Markoff to give the domain up in exchange for keeping his old email address, rather than holding the paper hostage for a bunch of money.

<comment><USER8> nyt.com does not mean anything, newyorktimes.com too long, nytimes just perfect, everybody knows what ny means.

<comment><USER9> sure it does, it means the new york times. the wall street journal uses wsj.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In case you were wondering too, if you go to the browser bar and type in nyt.com right now you are, in fact, redirected to the nytimes.com website. How about that.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why not switch to a .nyt TLD? Or .times?

<comment><USER12> Because it costs $185k, involves a bunch of work and infrastructure, and wouldn't really benefit them?

<comment><USER13> This. Also, most people just plainly do not understand the new TLDs yet; and sadly I don't think they will ever become mainstream anytime soon.

Deviate from .com .net .ca .org and most people become clueless. _Especially_ when users are sending an email, try explaining email@example.com is simply the address when a user insists there's a typo and it's missing .com or equivalent. Unfortunately adding a www. before, say on a business card, to denote it's a web address is counter-intuitive in most cases as that just lengthens the domain when typically the reason why one would get/migrate to a new TLD is to shorten it/make it easy to remember.

<comment><USER14> My personal email is me at james aust.in, and its constantly a pain to read to people, especially over the phone. I started saying it as me at "me at james austin with a dot before the in", but eventually settled on "me at james aust dot in". Only way to get it on the first try.

<comment><USER15> IMO the latter sounds clearer to me. I think I'm pretty savvy but if I listened to the former on the phone I would have to take a second to parse it and then I would read back something like the latter to you to confirm I got it right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Articles like this make me miss the old nyt. It was so comforting to have a publication you could trust, a paper of record. Those days are long gone. Nowadays, the constant, desperate obsession with controlling and manipulating the narrative is just so icky.</comment>


Lawmakers Demand Investigation into FCC Chairman Ajit Pai - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/lawmakers-demand-investigation-into-fcc-chairman-ajit-pai/ <comment><USER2> I really hope that something comes from this. However, we've been burned SO many times before...

</comment><comment><USER3> I find it odd the amount of points this has in a few hours but this is not in the front page?

If anything happens I hope the result is to encourage more competition in everything under the purview of the FCC.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ajit Pai is a spineless shill for the cable industry. I'm glad he's being investigated. He doesn't care what the public thinks and just pushes the industry agenda over and over again.

<comment><USER5> The guidelines ask us to post civilly and substantively, and comments that are more provocative than informative don't lead us to the kind of thoughtful discussion we're here for. Please try to move things in the informative direction, especially on controversial topics.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Flagged! Quick before someone opines!

<comment><USER5> Could you please stop violating the guidelines and post civilly and substantively instead? We've asked you several times and we'll ban the account if you won't.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _We contacted Chairman Pai 's office today, and a spokesperson provided this > response:_

> _Unfortunately, this request appears to be part of many Democrats ' attempt > to target one particular company because of its perceived political > views_...

Politics as usual, then. The stated reason for doing something is usually not the actual reason. I'm glad to see someone is standing up to this industry crony nonetheless, doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still doing the right thing.

<comment><USER8> Meh. This is the same administration which politicized the NFL, and continues to politicize climate science and basic reality itself. Anything you say or do that comes remotely close to holding them accountable will be decried as a political attack. Any evidence of corruption is fake news.

I'm not buying it. Pai is as slimy as they come, and everyone knows it. We are going to figure out who was responsible for stuffing the FCC public comment forum with dead people's comments no matter how much Pai screams about it. We are going to find where this blatantly corrupt man's kickbacks are coming from. That isn't politics. That's justice.

<comment><USER9> Methinks the NFL politicized itself, without realizing what potential consequences their actions would bring about.

<comment><USER10> I'm pretty sure the parent is referring to the POTUS stepping in and demanding certain behavior of both the players and owners. You'd think he had bigger problems to demand his rather limited attention.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


FTDI Letter debunking anti-counterfeiting conspiracy theory [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.mouser.com/PCN/FTDI_122757PM11062014.pdf

<comment><USER2> It is true that exactly the same commands are sent to the genuine and counterfeit components, but on genuine FTDI parts it does literally nothing. Here is a commented decompilation: [https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/525202516816842752](https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/525202516816842752)

It is very hard for me to picture any purpose this code could serve other than deliberately bricking counterfeit devices. FTDI has offered no explanation. There were some tweets (now deleted) from FTDI which didn't outright admit to it, but rhetorically asked for a better way to fight counterfeits.

USB is sort of a baroque and unpleasant protocol, and much more of a pain in the butt than RS232. But it is probably less of a pain than depending on a supplier who will deliberately damage end users' property in the field and insist they did nothing wrong, before insisting they did nothing at all in a denial that insults the reader's intelligence.

<comment><USER3> I'm going to avoid using FTDIs at any cost in my future designs. An Atmega16U2 or Atmega8U2 replacement should suffice in most cases.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I agree with your assessment of USB, unfortunately now it is so ubiquitous you can't avoid it. My biggest complaint about FTDI is their devices are just too expensive, and I just haven't found a better replacement.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't mean to be the grammar nazi, but good god have someone proofread your official press release... that was painful.</comment>


Ask HN: How do acquisition taxes work? - <AUTHOR>

I'll probably end up asking my lawyer this as well, but I thought others on HN may benefit from having this info, as I couldn't seem to find it.<p>Assuming a standard SV startup that's incorporated as a Delaware C corp and assuming that I've done my 83b election filing (http://ayrlaw.com/what-is-an-83b-election-and-when-do-i-make-it-part-1-with-graphic/), like a responsible founder, what taxes are incurred when I sell my company? My guess is that personal taxes are the main hit here, but is this considered income or capital gains? Any other considerations? <comment><USER2> Mostly, capital gains taxes. Long term or short term depending on how long you've held the asset. You may be assessed these by both the US federal government and your state of residence. (The situation is more complicated internationally... as always.) In the United States, you almost always want things structure such that income is classified as capital gains rather than ordinary income, because your effective tax rate will almost certainly be lower that way. (This is, again, almost certainly what will happen as a result of your exit. That's not totally guaranteed, though -- just like we geeks are pretty good about getting integers to behave like strings when we need them to, a good lawyer or accountant can often propose a way to structure a transaction such that it has desirable properties.)

Talk to an accountant before you found a company (goes for you and for everybody else) and talk to them again before and after the sale; there are some subtleties.

Ask about "qualified small business stock" if you're pretty sure this is not your last rodeo and you've been doing your startup for 5+ years.

An example of a good reason to talk to accountants prior to doing things: I invested a very small amount of money in a tech startup. My accountant suggested that I consider investing through a self-directed Roth IRA, which would (if the company IPOed) let me avoid paying any capital gains taxes on it or any investments made subsequently with that money (if I were willing to wait until retirement to touch the funds). In the event that retirement wasn't an option, there's a plan B: the magic words are "substantially equal periodic payments" and your accountant can explain the calculation to you.

</comment><comment><USER3> Capital gains, very situation-specific, and you are going to need an accountant.</comment>


GiveForward Spam After Abandoning Donation Form - <AUTHOR>

A few days ago, I was prepared to donate using GiveForward and had filled in a good bit of the form (including my email address), when something gave me pause. Who is GiveForward? How do they verify the authenticity of campaigns? Why are they a for-profit, but based solely on raising money for those in need and taking a cut?
I am completely familiar with social enterprise, but the combination of these questions prompted me to table the donation until I could do a little more research. I never submitted the form.
Today, I received an email from GiveForward with the subject "Would you like to make a donation?" and body as follows:
<comment>----
>Hi there,
Thank you for visiting X's fundraiser. [This fundraiser for X] is open and you can still make a donation. Any support you give would bring joy and make a world of difference for X.
Sincerely,
Adrienne & the GiveForward Team
</comment><comment>----
So, they have captured my email address without my explicit consent (i.e. a form submission) and are now using it without my permission. I never opted in or transacted with this company in any way.
I am aware that other companies have done this, but I find it a bit slimy. It's especially disheartening that these guys are supposed to be a social enterprise but resort to tactics like these, and it adds to the overall feeling that the model is a bit off. Most social enterprises are more "sophisticated" in finding ways to add social value or do something for the greater good. These guys are literally just taking donations for people in need and asking for a cut. It smacks of profiting from misery, and now...spam. </comment><comment><USER2> > I am aware that other companies have done this, but I find it a bit slimy.

Well, it's not written that charities must be above slimy behavior. It's also not written that all organizations that call themselves charities are actually charities. It's well-established that an organization that calls itself a charity can social-engineer people into doing things they wouldn't otherwise do.

Here is the Better Business Bureau's listing for GiveForward -- in a nutshell, no serious problems:

[http://www.bbb.org/chicago/business-reviews/fund-raising- cou...](http://www.bbb.org/chicago/business-reviews/fund-raising-counselors- and-orgs/giveforward-in-chicago-il-88367699)

But I should warn you that some people adopt the name of a legitimate charity to scam people.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, they're not a charity (in the strict non-profit sense) and don't claim to be one. But, you know, when you claim to exist for social good, then you should probably expect to be held to a higher standard.

But, FWIW, I don't think GiveForward is out to overtly scam people. I just personally find their model distasteful.

The extortionate racket that is the BBB, on the other hand, is among the slimiest out there.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What bank would you recommend as an individual? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking to leave my current bank, and I'm trying to decide where I should go. Lots of large corporate banks seem pretty much the same from the outside looking in. I'm curious what banks people here use and why?<p>I'm especially eager to use a bank that emphasizes web and mobile banking experience. I suspect many here also hold that as a high priority. <comment><USER2> I'm in the US and I use Simple

</comment><comment><USER3> Which country are you in?</comment>


TheFridge network for Y Combinator Winter 2011 Applicants - <AUTHOR> http://www.frid.ge/?ginvitation=1q1gt1hv4plw8g4cg44sw8c0g

<comment><USER2> It's not 100% clear what TheFridge is to me, and I would prefer not to create an account up front unless I have a better understanding of the services it provides and the purpose of this YC "fridge".

How does this differ from the Hacker News Facebook group? And what value does a fridge provide over a group?

On the home page, it says "Just for your friends". Facebook is just for my friends. Sure, I have some people that I no longer keep in touch with, but I would not post anything on FB that I wouldn't feel comfortable with whether they are my closest friends or not. Putting content online is like peeing in a pool, once you let it out there you can't take it back.

"Safe from my mom and boss." I block content from co-workers and family members using Facebook's privacy controls.

"Share photos, videos, and status updates only with your friends." I do this with Facebook already.

Also, I don't understand what "Keeping your friends fresher" means. Doesn't really explain the service.

I tried parsing every part of the homepage to understand why I should create an account. Maybe I'm just not in the target market. Is this targeted for people that don't have Facebook? I'm sure there is some value to this service, but it might be good to put a video demo somewhere.

<comment><USER3> What purpose the YC "fridge" serves beats me too. I do, however, find the service useful. And I think "Simple Private Social Networks" says it all: it tells me that I can communicate with a specific group through an interface similar to that of FB, but keep it private.

Sure, you can add settings that make you 100 % certain that no photos you upload will ever be seen by anyone outside a specific group of people (can you, really?). Are you certain that other members of the same group will "behave"? Encapsulating it in a "fridge" gives me some level of comfort. And you can use the full FB feature set with a limited audience. You can also communicate with a group, but not add everyone in the group as a friend on FB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't mean to be cynical, but when I go to that site and see the blue color scheme with that logo, I start imagining cold, frigid, freezing, wintry...

It's just not the feelings that make me want to sign up and share memories with friends.

Hopefully I'm more of an outlier though, because competition for Facebook would be great.

</comment><comment><USER5> This web app is seriously awesome. I already see myself creating ad hoc social networks for all kinds of events. (first time I try it out, no affiliation)</comment>


Evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks (2014) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/111/24/8788.full.pdf <comment><USER2> What most people don't know is that there is an actual science behind the mechanics of manipulating mass behavior using social networks. Sentiment analysis can be used with graph analytics to infer the emotional state of certain users to trigger state transitions towards more negative emotions. [http://keg.cs.tsinghua.edu.cn/jietang/publications/2016-08-w...](http://keg.cs.tsinghua.edu.cn/jietang/publications/2016-08-wisdom- Influence-Sentiment-Emotion.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Is there a relation between sad/depressed emotional state and buying behavior?

<comment><USER4> There is definitely a correlation between pain perception and buying behavior.

This has been documented in a study done by Carnegie Mellon: [https://www.cmu.edu/homepage/practical/2007/winter/spending-...](https://www.cmu.edu/homepage/practical/2007/winter/spending- til-it-hurts.shtml) (spoiler alert: cash 'hurts more' to spend -- credit cards 'hurt much less')

I'm sure that there is a correlation between emotion and the ability to perceive / numb pain -- so there probably (at least) an indirect correlation between emotion and buying behavior.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if that will hold as people use cash less often... if you grow up only using credit cards and have no association with paper money having value, will this study no longer be true? Most adults at the time the study was done probably were still using cash for most purchases for most of their life, making that association stronger.

<comment><USER4> An excellent question. I only have anecdotal evidence to indicate that it continues to hold up. (My family and I continue to use cash for many purchases. I'm a man in my 40's)

<comment><USER5> My anecdotal evidence is the opposite... I have basically used credit cards for 95% of purchases the last 5-10 years, and cash feels like 'extra' money to me now... since it doesn't show up in my tracking systems, I don't really see where it is going... I don't have to ever look at the spend again after I buy something, so it induces less guilt... I feel like I want to get rid of the cash in my wallet, because it is 'wasted' in my wallet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> After getting burned in 2014 and then again in 2016, I'm sure Facebook has learned its lesson: never let social science researchers anywhere near the company. They don't actually do anything (effect size in this study is 0.1%, even though, as I personally checked in 2014, the filtering it used was the absolute crudest, strongest possible), but they can generate an infinite amount of bad press.

<comment><USER7> You can bet that there are a lot of social science researchers within Facebook (I know at least two), but they've learned to never ever publish the results of that research and only use it to increase revenue.

<comment><USER8> This a million times. All the public hysteria does is punish publication. The work goes on.

<comment><USER8> Hysteria around product experiments has had a big effect in education. As we all know, most online software companies conduct A/B tests to improve outcomes. IMO, education companies _should_ do a/b testing in order to optimize student outcomes. It is unethical to not run tests. But, this can be described as "psychological manipulation" and "turning children into guinea pigs" \-- and people freak. After all, there is not informed consent in A/B tests. Since educational software optimization does not actually lead to greater profit (the edu market is weird) the optimization work stops and no science is published. I find this disturbing.

[https://gizmodo.com/pearson-embedded-a-social- psychological-...](https://gizmodo.com/pearson-embedded-a-social- psychological-experiment-in-s-1825367784)

<comment><USER9> The problem is that when you run a/b tests, the changed case is often worse. If the thing being tested is a website, that might not be so bad. If the thing being tested is your education, that might be horrible.

<comment><USER10> No need to a/b test when there are tens of thousands of universities in the world all doing slightly different things. The cream rises and then is copied.

For example, FSU recently went up in rankings from a ~#50 public university to a #18 public university year over year over the past decade. Whatever changes they put into place are now being studied by other universities and if there's anything novel that they're doing, it will likely become more widespread as other universities seeking higher rankings implement new things. Or, it could be possible that the university studied the success of other universities and implemented what worked best and stopped what wasn't. You run an a/b test when there aren't already tens of thousands of other colleges and universities like yourself out there that you can study and learn from.

Of course, rankings DNE educational quality, but it's one example. Another example, that may have a better correlation with educational quality (although part of the equation is the constitution of the cohort) may be bar exam pass rates for law school grads listed by law school.

<comment><USER8> > No need to a/b test when there are tens of thousands of universities in the > world all doing slightly different things. The cream rises and then is > copied.

Why would it be any different in webtech or advertising? Why wouldn't everyone just copy the best vs gathering empirical data?

<comment><USER10> Are universities not gathering empirical data when they study the results of others' efforts at scale? Study being the key word in that scenario, it's more than just copying what they see, but understanding why it's effective, and if it would be for them.

And it may be quicker and more reliable with less risk than A/B testing in their setting. The most highly trafficked web tech companies can gather statistically significant feedback data about a change in moments. A/B testing a curriculum or educational practice could take a semester or more, and then the risks are higher — it would be a two-sided hypothesis test where the B group could not only do better, but could also do much worse, and it would reflect poorly on the institution if so. People are paying tens of thousands of dollars per seat per year for the best education they can get. Seeing how many items are in the shopping cart right on the "checkout" button doesn't really reflect poorly on Amazon, but it could help Amazon increase conversion rates by .03%, which could mean millions of dollars at their scale, and they could also complete the test fairly quickly given their volume (in a day or so?) at a 99.7% confidence interval.

With that being said, I'm sure that smaller scale or faster turnaround time A/B tests are being ran at Uni's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There were a lot of threads about the Facebook experiment. I believe these are all related:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7959829](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7959829)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7957372](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7957372)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8357736](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8357736)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8378743](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8378743)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7956470](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7956470)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7980743](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7980743)

</comment><comment><USER12> It's disappointing that so many comments are deriding the results of this study. I think this study is actually underestimating the effect of social contagion through social media, not just for emotional states but political views as well.

While I think this type of social contagion happens through all forms of media, social media is highly individualist so I think the effect is slightly different. I don't think it's a coincidence that the explosion of identity politics over the past ten years lines up with rise of social media. This individualism is especially obvious with post-modernist leftists - just think of how many Twitter bios start off with listing someone's gender identity, mental illnesses, ethnicity, etc. Leftist social media is more of a subculture than an actual political movement, with no discussion or debate before ideas are treated as wrongthink.

</comment><comment><USER13> Periodically I've read articles / research that helps remind me that our physical bodies are the product of evolution that only recently began enjoying the fruits of a technological society.

This article helped me recognize that our emotional states are also the product of that same evolutionary process. Only a few decades ago it was unheard of that people would be regularly conversing with others all over the globe from the comfort of their homes (or even more recently on their phones). Yet humans have been living on this planet and evolving to deal with the (mostly harsh) realities of life on earth for hundreds of thousands of years.

</comment><comment><USER14> Blaming this on social networks is overdue, in my point of view. What about TV, books, music, arts, ideologies, religions? Yes, they play a part as massive as the social networks and were used (and studied) as a media for contagion.

Then, it remains the question that what's different from an emotion that helps or harms people. Social networks acts in this way as a decentralised marketing tool, and totally vulnerable to non-organic manipulation.

<comment><USER15> The difference is that social networks can see in real time how users react and what works.

<comment><USER10> There's always been a feedback loop and new innovations to tighten it.

~100 years ago Macy's started a radio show that enabled them to quickly put out new messaging to their (mostly female) audience and see how it affected shopping behaviour pretty much "instantly" when compared to their previous paradigm of running newspaper ads. They also saved $100,000/yr doing so — the equivalent of ~$1M/year in today's currency — demonstrating how radio had significantly tightened their feedback loop when compared to newspaper.

An artist can accomplish the same at a live show. With the artist seeing the response of a live audience (their focus group, in a way) while trying different things in real-time. This is how quite a few musical trends started.

TV, books, music, arts have all had cash flows that are responsive to decisions.

<comment><USER16> The person you're replying to still has a point, that you probably reinforced with the example of Macy's: the time constants of a given feedback loop can and do influence greatly the necessary input (the money they saved) to get to a similar or better state (what you mention as tightening the feedback loop).

The current world brings it down to a really small reaction time (i.e. the system can change dynamically within 1s, give or take an order of magnitude). I believe there is still room for even faster feedback loops (say, when a google-glass-like device reads in real-time a person's biometrics and feeds that to a system that optimizes what the user is interacting with), and I would not be surprised if Facebook already had considered that since they deal with VR devices (Oculus).

<comment><USER10> Right on :)

But I guess what I'm getting at is, this isn't anything new. The media has always been an effective social engineering tool, whether or not the social engineers at the time were aware of it. And the last few instances where faster feedback loops via more effective media helped one company get ahead didn't spark the end of the world. Not unless newspapers were the beginning of the end. And then radio. And then video. And then TV. And then netflix and social media. And then the screens that we'll put on behind our eyelids so that we can watch our favorite shows without opening our eyes, or whatever facebook is cooking up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think this is pretty normal human behavior. If someone says to you "My father died yesterday," your response wouldn't be "Wow! The weather is great today!"

</comment><comment><USER18> Contagion implies the user has no control once "infected", whereas in reality we all have the ability to 1) not be uncontrollably reactive, 2) close the tab & 3) thinking a little critically about the information being presented. I'm not saying the research is wrong, but I am saying that people can be a bit lazy about their mind.

<comment><USER19> > Contagion implies the user has no control once "infected"

No, it doesn't. Regular physical contagions leave the victim agency in treatments, lifestyle habits that improve/worsen prognosis, etc., much as you describe for the proposed emotional contagion. And are often worse in practice than they would be in a world of ideal people because people make suboptimal use of their agency, just as you describe is the case for the proposed emotional contagion.

So, I'd say the metaphor is reasonable.

<comment><USER18> Fair.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Past coverage (though using the abstract at the time):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7956470](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7956470)

I think this is one of the most important, period-defining papers of the past ten years, and it seems like a shame how few people have read it.

<comment><USER20> Maybe people have read it but don't think renaming "ideas" and "empathy" to "emotional contagion" is particularly groundbreaking or constructive.

<comment><AUTHOR> The value of the paper is that it's where Facebook first started getting creative: a _massive_ ( _N_ =689,00!), barely-consented-to (successful) attempt to sway the emotional states of _hundreds of thousands of people._

That's both groundbreaking _and_ constructive, if constructive in a way that harms people who don't have Facebook stock.

It set the stage for _so much_ of what's happening today. Acting like it's just another boring paper is baffling.

<comment><USER6> > barely-consented-to (successful) attempt to sway the emotional states of > hundreds of thousands of people

If you read the newspaper, watch TV, or read articles online, I have some bad news for you.

<comment><USER21> You miss a crucial part - none of this are individually tailored to you. Social media is the first form of media that can deliver an individually customized payload.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I found the Editorial Expression of Concern on the last page of the post more interesting than the paper itself (the results might have been surprising in 2014, but in 2020 it reflects the mainstream view).

</comment><comment><USER23> /msg Dave SCP-[REDACTED] is out again, can someone notify MTF-^$ to get on a disinformation campaign and cleanup?

</comment><comment><USER24> This is a crappy psychology study where none of the researchers is a psychologist. PNAS is a big name in medical science (?), but an unimportant journal in psychology.

There's no serious psychology journal going to publish this kind of stuff. Why? The first problem is measurement. What is the reliability of using positive/negative words to determine positive/negative emotional state? 70%? 80%?

The effect size of this study is 0.001, which would be way way way smaller than the measurement error. LOL. What a laughable "study".

<comment><USER25> Completely agree with you that the study is trash, however ...

>but an unimportant journal in psychology.

This is untrue. It's comically untrue.

I was doing my PhD in cogsci when this came out and everybody was surprised that PNAS would publish such a bad study, given that we were more used to seeing things like this: [https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/106/5/1672.full.pdf](https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/106/5/1672.full.pdf) and this [https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/112/2/619.full.pdf](https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/112/2/619.full.pdf).

PNAS has an _excellent_ reputation in psychology, especially in the psychophysics and EEG/MEG crowd.

<comment><USER26> Adam Kramer has a PhD in psychology, for what it's worth.

<comment><USER24> Thanks. Good to know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Humans can be easily influenced! Who knew!!! Next they'll tell us not to lick metal poles when it's cold out</comment>


Show HN: Visualizing the transmission between you and base stations - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chonyy/handoff-visualizer <comment><USER2> Hi Chony,

I really like your work. Myself I worked at France Telecom R&D and wrote a Wi- Fi simulator at the time. But I retired and abandoned my little project.

[https://github.com/JPLeRouzic/IEEE-802.11-simulator](https://github.com/JPLeRouzic/IEEE-802.11-simulator)

How do you see your project evolving? People in standardization bodies would be very interested by your project.

JP

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to see you like it! I have taken a quick look at your project, I think we both share similar purpose, to make it simple and understandable. I will definitely take more time to take a deeper look and do some research. I believe this will be able to evolve my project. Thanks for your appreciation. Best regards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is really cool. Was this just something you wanted to do, to scratch an itch, for work etc?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question! This is just something I want to do. But it didn't just randomly pop up in my mind. I'm a student, and I have taken the course about wireless network last semester. I got a project assignment to write a little simulation in Python, and here is the link [https://github.com/chonyy/handoff- simulator](https://github.com/chonyy/handoff-simulator).

I found it interesting while I'm building the little simulation in Python. And i think "What if I can visualize this simulation? It would be really cool!" So, I just built it during my holiday :)

Please do be aware there are difference between the visualizer and the simulator. The parameters in the simulator project is closer to our real world, so i have tuned some of it in this visualizer to make it more pleasing to the eyes.

<comment><USER4> Why not write all in Js then you don't need a server side? Plus much simpler code

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course! The reason is that this visualizer is actually my first reactJS project. I used this visualizer idea as an opportunity to practice my reactJS skill. However, I appreciate your advice! I will try to remake one in pure vanilla js, it will also be a good practice for myself.

<comment><USER4> Actually I would not recommend vanilla Js. Just typescript

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why can't I move the base stations?

<comment><AUTHOR> I like the idea! Will do! This is actually a really good advice, I will start working on it immediately. Thanks a lot!</comment></comment>