Scripting API now in public beta - <AUTHOR> https://minecraft.net/en-us/article/scripting-api-now-public-beta <comment><USER2> This kind of thing changes lives. I used to play a lot of counter strike source. One day I found a server mod called EventScripts, and suddenly I could make all kinds of crazy game modes on Python. I found I picked up this programming thing pretty naturally, and without that mod I doubt I would have even dabbled.

The feedback loop is phenomenal and is something you simply do not get with other forms of learning. I really can't think of a better method and I'm so excited the younger generation will be exposed to this.

Kudos Microsoft, I only wish it was done a bit quicker.

Edit: For anyone interested some tutorials are archived here: [https://web.archive.org/web/20140810191103/http://python.eve...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140810191103/http://python.eventscripts.com/pages/My_Second_Addon). Good times :)

<comment><USER3> Way back there used to be Metamod (which IIRC circumvented some limitation of the Half-Life engine regarding how it loaded DLLs into the game), and then AMX Mod layered on top of that, which was later replaced by AMX Mod X. This in turn used a little programming language called "Pawn". You could then write mods in Pawn, compile that to bytecode and dynamically load it into the game server. Later there was Sourcepawn. These enabled a lot of complex mods, and required relatively little knowledge about the messy details of the engines, however it was still relatively involved. First you had to setup the various base mods to get it to work, then you needed to compile your mods, restart the game server for most changes etc.

<comment><USER4> Fun fact, the creator of pawn / sourcemod was one of the guy working on the JIT compiler of spidermonkey (js engine) @ Mozilla : [https://www.bailopan.net](https://www.bailopan.net)

<comment><USER5> Lots of people that started out in game modding end up doing some really cool stuff in other software fields too. The skill and motivation are transferable, I suppose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This will get way more young kids interested in programming than all the subsidized school programs combined, by the way

<comment><USER7> I don't understand what drives parents to want their kids to become code monkeys. I would rather my kids be financially savvy and have business skills. It sure doesn't hurt to know how to code, but getting them to program in Python from age 10 does not make them entrepreneurs or creators of business opportunities, it just makes them the labor workers of tomorrow.

<comment><USER8> That's kind of like saying, "Teaching them to write just makes them the scribes and court officials of tomorrow," or, "Teaching them to add and subtract makes them the bookkeepers and tax collectors of tomorrow."

<comment><USER7> My issue is not with the _act_ of programming, just as I don't have an issue with the act of writing something on a paper.

The issue is that the parents are doing this in order to set the kids up to a career in programming, which IMO is going to be the blue collar work of their future. There is no glory in being a code monkey 10 years from now... just a decently paid blue collar worker making someone else rich.

Teach them the business skills that will enable them to properly hire and evaluate 20 programmers for their business venture, not simply be one of those 20 programmers.

<comment><USER9> Another dad told me the same thing about my middle son 15 years ago. He was guiding his own son to be a psychologist because he felt that off shoring was going to remove all of the IT jobs in the developed world.

As it turns out he was wrong, my son's enjoying a great career as a programmer, his son has left psychology and is doing some kind of creative arts) music/digital career.

I think ultimately no one really knows what the future will hold, but it seems that it can't be a bad thing having a strong familiarity with the modern day building blocks of business, i.e software.

But i totally agree about arming them with business skills as well, so they can step up to whatever the next step is.

<comment><USER10> My parents pushed me away from programming because they thought there was no future and I'd hate it. I didn't listen and it turns out they were wrong on both counts. Now I can provide for my family, live comfortably, and I love the work I do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I looked briefly but didn't see it - does Minecraft scripting have a way to save state and reset to that state instantly, how about stepping through code in real time? If not, most programs are just macros - they simply mimic user- actions, and if somewhere along the script something doesn't go as planned, it's just a mess. It's really hard teaching 10 year olds how to do anything more than the basics if every time they run the program, their entire world is messed up, and there's no way to undo the script they just ran, or understand why it went wrong.

This has been true in Minecraft for years now, it'd be great if it were addressed.

<comment><USER12> They have in-game error messages and log files, or you can attach Visual Studio's debugger.

[https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Bedrock_Beta_Script_Document...](https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Bedrock_Beta_Script_Documentation#Debugging)

<comment><USER5> Oh. Hello Windows lock-in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does anyone know of a good guide to the Minecraft versions? My daughter wants to get mods and maybe venture into scripting, but it seems confusing as to what each version is capable of. We have it on Xbox and android but it seems none of this works on those. It seemd java edition is best; except this has now been replaced by win10 edition, but that does not support most mods or so it seems. It's quite confusing so if anyone has a magic decoder ring for versions/platforms/compatability I'd really appreciate the info!

<comment><USER14> The Java edition is the only one that supports mods. Development is parallel between it and the bedrock edition. The windows 10, android, iOS, Xbox one, PS4 and switch versions all use the bedrock edition.

I would recommend starting with a premade mod pack and a YouTube series that's currently using it. Direwolf20 authors his own packs and creates videos using those packs. The twitch client allows you to install various modpacks for Minecraft, including Direwolf20's

<comment><USER15> A hearty second on Twitch. It's very easy to go down the rabbit hole in getting a mod working on your kid's computer (what 3rd party API are they using, what version, what mods do they build on, what version of Minecraft does it work with, etc.).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is very cool, and very exciting.

My niece is really into Minecraft and has a huge interest in stuff like robotics and programming, I think in no small part because of Minecraft's influence. But because she's on the Windows 10 version it's difficult for me to help her with anything. Better, more open modding tools for Bedrock means that it's easier for me to show her stuff and pique her interest towards developing more interesting customizations.

Now if only I didn't have to set up a Windows VM to run Bedrock...

<comment><USER17> There's a GitHub project which uses the Android version of Bedrock and runs it "natively" on Linux/Mac/etc. systems, works pretty well too [https://github.com/minecraft-linux/mcpelauncher- manifest/wik...](https://github.com/minecraft-linux/mcpelauncher- manifest/wiki)

While the scripting API isn't yet available for Android, I found it much faster personally than running with Parallels and the like

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very exciting, should put a fresh breath of life into Minecraft for sure.

It looks like it's only available for Bedrock edition currently. What about Java edition? Is this Microsoft making an attempt to make the Java edition obsolete?

<comment><USER19> > should put a fresh breath of life into Minecraft for sure

If you mean "new options from a different group", then yes.

If you mean "Minecraft has gotten stale and this will pep it up", then no. Minecraft has a very health and active modding community that has really been exploring new directions lately, and the non-modded Minecraft has been continuing to push new options and directions for some time.

> Is this Microsoft making an attempt to make the Java edition obsolete?

I expect they don't have to "attempt" so much as just let it decay because they'll have a lot more non-Java resources. As much as I've trashed MS in the past and as much as I thought the Minecraft buyout would be bad for Minecraft, MS has really been a decently-behaved corp citizen in software of late and developments like this mean that while they might under-support the Java Edition, they'll continue to support Minecraft in some form as we've come to expect.

<comment><USER20> Java has a massive inertia advantage in modding, which is pretty important in my opinion because modders are the largest playerbase that will stick with your game for a very, very long time. Additionally, modders have been known to stick to old versions of minecraft for a long time, so new features/tooling likely won't sway them. I expect the java edition to remain the most popular version for a very long time.

<comment><USER21> That whole system is really a mess, and I speak from experience as a modder. All the changes between MC releases makes updating an enormous pain in the butt, so there's still mods stuck at version 1.6.4 and every version in between.

I think most modders would be ecstatic at some kind of official mod support, assuming it offers at least what forge does already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Fully-fledged DnD session in Minecraft anyone?

</comment><comment><USER23> Note that release only gives you an API to some UI elements and to entities (animals, monsters). This is not yet a full Bedrock API and the number of things you can do is currently quite limited.

Nice to see a start though!

</comment><comment><USER24> Are there typescript typings anywhere? Might be a great toy to play with this Christmas and get more experience with TS.

</comment><comment><USER25> I got my start in programming basically via Minecraft. Multiplayer servers taught me DNS, ports, & bash... modding on Mac OSX & configuring a server to work with the same mod (Flan's Mod) taught me basic client-server principles... hell, even Buycraft fuelled my interest in Bitcoin and web development. I don't know if I'd even have been a serious developer at all if it wasn't for Minecraft.

And now kids have access to learning JS directly. This is 100x as powerful as learning how to web inspector pages. I look forward to watching my little cousins surpass me.

</comment><comment><USER26> Well, it definitely sounds neat, and although I really wish it weren't JavaScript, that's actually a pretty good choice based on popularity. Pity it couldn't have been TCL, Lisp, or even Scheme or Python.

I can't wait until the modding community picks this up and figures out how to integrate it. Gonna be fun times ahead, no doubt!

As an aside, this was a bit of a surprise to me:

> you can learn more about how to sign up for that beta by clicking this line > of green text

Link. _Link_. Doesn't _everyone_ know what a link is, these days?

<comment><USER27> I like your list but its missing the one language that I feel is most suited- Lua.

<comment><USER28> Do we really want kids' first experience with programming to be a language with 1-indexed arrays? That's just going to set them up for failure ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Oh this is actually really cool, especially because the lightweight nature of JS and the way this is designed means plugin experiences are more plug-and- play when you join a modded server, rather than having to have a plugin pre- installed or having a download time when joining the server.

</comment><comment><USER30> As soon as I think Minecraft is old news something like this pops up. Seems very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER31> The very first mod for this should be someone to convince Mr Crayfish to donate his Furniture Mod to the public domain (if it isnt there already) so that it can be ported to the Bedrock editions!

</comment><comment><USER32> Kudos to Microsoft. This can also open up new opportunities for AI simulations, especially reinforcement learning. Similar to OpenAI. It should unleash a new playground for progress.

</comment><comment><USER33> Trying to write mods for Minecraft is what got me into programming as a teenager, this looks really cool!

</comment><comment><USER34> It would be interesting to see a comparison between this API and what Java mods are capable of doing.

</comment><comment><USER35> Looks like the JavaScript API is ES5. Wonder if they've any plans to support ES6+?

<comment><USER36> They're using ChakraCore, with support for ES6+. you can use all your favourite `const` and `let` and `function*` etc.

<comment><USER37> Glad to hear that!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> far too limited and around 5 years to late

[https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Mods/Forge](https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Mods/Forge)</comment>


Bitcoin August 14 Flash Crash - <AUTHOR> https://www.coinprices.io/articles/news/bitcoin-price-update-aug-14-flash-crash <comment><USER2> I am the author of this post. Let me know if you have any questions.

Essentially what happened is that Bitcoin Exchange Bitfinex allows you to trade with leverage. There were approximately $28M USD worth of leveraged orders and they were margin called as the price fell. This created a feedback loop that resulted in the flash crash.

<comment><USER3> So just to make sure I understand, when BitFinex offers leverage trading, are they betting that the price of Bitcoin won't go up as high as the folks asking for leverage think it'll go?

If not, why do people offer leveraged trading? Just for the interest? A fee?

<comment><USER4> > why do people offer leveraged trading

Bitfenix doesn't provide the leverage, they use other trades to provide it.

Those traders get hourly interest for participating.

If you have a balance and you don't want to use it, loaning it out can make some money you wouldn't otherwise get.

It is similar to loans but on a shorter window.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of the good old days of Bitcoinica: [http://i.imgur.com/TTMjGvB.png](http://i.imgur.com/TTMjGvB.png)

50% swings in minutes.

<comment><USER6> I know there were suspicions that Bitcoinica did that intentionally, and were making money by forcibly liquidating people's positions through fake price swings.

<comment><USER7> Was there any evidence?

Anecdotally, in the Bitcoin world, if someone lost money and there's a chance to allege fraud, someone will do so.

<comment><USER8> That's a good thing. Bitcoin fraud is the easiest large-scale fraud you could hope to deploy in the modern day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What do other US citizens use to trade BTC with stop orders? I've been wanting setup an account to take advantage of short crashes like this but I'm not sure what exchanges are open to US citizens. And don't say BTCe, it must have transparency.

<comment><USER10> That wouldn't be a stop, it would be a buy/limit order with a price far below (20-30%) the current market price.

<comment><USER9> Sorry, you are correct. I misspoke. Buy limits are what I want for purchases but really I want all standard order types.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Margin calls were one aspect that magnified the magnitude of the 1929 stock market crash.[1] After that, margin regulations (Regulation T) made the minimum margin rate 50% for stocks, though it appears some brokers may have been increasing margin requirements to near this level before the 1929 crash.[2]

1\. [http://stocks.fundamentalfinance.com/stock-market-crash- of-1...](http://stocks.fundamentalfinance.com/stock-market-crash-of-1929.php)

2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_call](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_call)

<comment><USER12> It's not just margin calls but leverage in general that turns downcycles into crashes, if you believe Kindleberger (and you should). [1]

1\. [http://www.amazon.com/Manias-Panics-Crashes-Financial- Invest...](http://www.amazon.com/Manias-Panics-Crashes-Financial- Investment/dp/0471467146)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If the US dollar fluctuated like this, it would cause huge problems to world economy. But if it happens to bitcoin, it's the most innovative thing to have happened to the world economy ever!

<comment><USER14> You realize Bitcoin and the USD are quite different things, right? One has its price regulated artificially by creating more of it, while the other depends solely on the whims of the free market. And besides, Bitcoin is much smaller, and therefore it fluctuates the same way startups' stock fluctuates.

So one could say this: If a startup's stock flucuates like this, it's the most normal thing in the world. But if it happens to Bitcoin, it's something we should criticize!

<comment><USER15> Have I fundamentally misunderstood bitcoins? I thought it was a crypto- currency, not a crypto-stock. If it's supposed to be a currency, then judging it in relation to how other currencies behave isn't unusual at all. If it's supposed to be a stock, why does everybody call it a currency?

<comment><USER14> If you don't see the difference between a currency that can regulate its price artificially by printing more of it and Bitcoin, then you have definitely misunderstood it.

If you don't feel comfortable comparing it with stock, then compare it with gold. Even after thousands of years, and a market capitalization of 8 trillions of dollars, it still has price fluctuations.

Bitcoin has only ~7 billions of dollars of market capitalization. It's comparable to what we call a "penny stock". Anyone with a few millions can move the price. And even with hundreds of thousands of dollars, you could move the price in one particular exchange.

If you still don't understand it, watch this video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHUPPYzzZrI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHUPPYzzZrI)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd think you'd be insane to do anything involving debt or margin with bitcoins.

<comment> j-g-faustus Can't agree with that. Betting say $1 on a highly improbable event can't really be considered "insane" by any metric I can think of - if you lose, so what, you're only out one dollar.

The risk of the event itself doesn't matter; what matters for your personal risk is how much of your personal fortune you put into it.

If losing a bet makes you homeless, it's hardly a good bet no matter how good the odds are.

Conversely, there's barely an "insane" bet in the world as long as the probability for a payoff is greater than zero (excluding e.g. Nigerian scam emails), and as long as the amounts involved are small relative to your disposable capital and the payoff expectation.

Think of it as "how many times do I need to place this bet before I win", vs "if I win, what's the payoff", vs "if I'm wrong, what's the most I could lose".

If you get those numbers right, I can't see that bitcoin margin bets are intrinsically insane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Has there been fluctuations like this due to algorithmic trading of BTC yet?

</comment><comment><USER10> This is called a liquidity trap and it's well-studied in finance circles. Basically, in order to have a well-functioning market, you need a roughly balanced number of sellers and buyers at any point.

If an external event triggers enough parties' simultaneous need to sell, it can suck all the buy orders out of the market, causing the price to fall lower and lower as the sellers have to submit ever-lower prices to find willing buyers. The event creates a positive feedback loop as sellers go lower and lower to find buyers, leading to sharp, discontinuous movements in price.

The ultimate answer to this is tons of market depth/liquidity, but absent that, exchanges have "circuit-breaker" policies in place that cause trading to halt if prices move too much, too quickly.

Ultimately, ensuring an orderly market is a massive challenge that shouldn't be taken lightly.

EDIT: Child is correct, I think liquidity traps are from macro, but same idea - not enough buyers, too many sellers.

<comment><USER18> This is not called a liquidity trap. That's a concept in macro econ, it has nothing to do with trading or (this kind of) finance.

<comment><USER19> It's usually called a liquidity spiral. Brunnermeier and Pedersen's 2009 paper [0] is the standard reference. For a quick overview, see their slides [1] or Pedersen's summary for Vox EU [2].

As Pedersen emphasizes in the Vox article, the amount and price of funding available to participants in financial markets is intimately related to macro factors. So market liquidity, through the funding linkage, can dive along with the real economy.

But liquidity can also evaporate due to endogenous factors, particularly when markets are set up so that the funding available to traders depends on the price of the asset being traded, e.g., through margin rules. That's what seems to have happened on BitFinex today. Positive feedback loops make for ill behaved markets.

0\. [http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~lpederse/papers/Mkt_Fun_Liquidit...](http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~lpederse/papers/Mkt_Fun_Liquidity.pdf) [PDF]

1\. [https://www.newyorkfed.org/registration/research/risk/peders...](https://www.newyorkfed.org/registration/research/risk/pedersen_brunnermeier_slides.pdf) [PDF]

2\. [http://www.voxeu.org/article/understanding-liquidity-risk- an...](http://www.voxeu.org/article/understanding-liquidity-risk-and-its-role- crisis)

<comment><USER8> Is the grandparent comment otherwise correct, besides the name?

<comment><USER18> Well, the original article makes a claim that this was caused by a margin call feedback loop (thanks pash for finding the right term and some analysis).

There could be other causes. It's hard to untangle whether BitFinex caused the other exchanges to drop, or if it just dropped faster due to margin but had no real effect on the other exchanges.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yes, Bitcoin price fluctuates.

Why is this on the frontpage?

<comment><USER20> I upvoted because the article provided an interesting technical explanation of the fluctuation.

<comment><USER21> The technical explanations were (1) large sell order causes price depression and (2) ensuing margin calls.

Those aren't interesting. The first is expected behavior in any low-liquidity market. The second is expected behavior if foolish investors are involved in low-liquidity markets. In other words, this was expected behavior in the bitcoin markets.

Both factors are also seen regularly in traditional stock markets.</comment></comment></comment>


200 Coffees - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jaredfriedman.com/2015/10/08/200-coffees/ <comment><USER2> > But with Starbucks in 65 countries now, the world is flatter than ever, and > it didn't feel like I would learn that much.

This is such a jaw-droppingly ignorant and unaware comment that I can't even imagine how--

> Instead I decided to stay in San Francisco

…And suddenly it all makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anybody have a source for this?

> A six year study of middle aged men showed that having more friends was the > most powerful predictor of having a long life, more important than not > smoking or getting exercise.

<comment><USER4> I found a related article on New York Times but not a exact research paper. [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/health/03aging.html?pagewa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/health/03aging.html?pagewanted=all)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Connections are important. It affects us mentally and emotionally. I am not that surprised that having more friends will result in a longer life span.</comment>


The China Bubble's Coming -- But Not the One You Think - <AUTHOR> http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/07/23/the_china_bubbles_coming_but_not_the_one_you_think One exit few have considered is for the PRC (China) to adopt dollars as their external currency.  It would seem to strengthen their faith in the dollar while actually not changing the fact the central government still controls the exchange rate into and (crucially) out of yuan.
No I don't think it is likely as it would seem like an abrogation of national sovereignty.  But it would probably work long enough for the PRC to sell a significant number of dollars.
Just thinking outside the bamboo box here. <comment><USER2> This article is full of naive propaganda bits (state-owned roads destroying state-owned schools), but it has one important observation.

China has been keeping its currency pegged to the dollar and lived off US consumption. Now US will not be consuming much for a long time, so China has nowhere to sell their goods to. Unemployment and riots are at hand, it seems.

Of course, that's wrong. China can and will continue growing, but this time the engine of growth will be their own consumer market. Which is huge. There are already more internet users in China than people in the US.

When renminbi will start appreciating vs. other currencies, the population will start feeling richer and will consumer more, import more and borrow more. Today they already have shortages of consumer goods on the mainland, such as cars, even though dozen of producers are struggling to keep up with demand.

China, in other words, is where Japan was in the 60s and early 70s (maker of transistor radios and cheap scooters, export-oriented mostly). And it will go on to become what Japan was in the 80s, only with 1 billion population.

<comment><USER3> Sorry,

The article is correct in stating that internal consumer demand is not a proportionately large part of China's economy. The two largest, disproportionately largest, sectors of China's economy are real estate and exports.

Further, China's recovery program is not oriented towards increasing the relative size of this sector of the economy but rather, as the article says, increasing the amount of internal capital investment through forced bank loans.

<comment><USER2> There is no point in arguing with the statements of today's facts. Such statements are also not very interesting, since they are common knowledge. What is interesting, is the dynamics and the direction of the change.

In all emerging market economies that managed to stabilize their currencies and make them appreciate (Latin America in the 90s) this has led to domestic consumer booms and reduction of current accounts surpluses (or running up deficits). China has not gone this route yet, but this is a massive reserve of growth. I am sure their leaders understand this. Of course, to focus on domestic market instead of exports, it represents a major policy change. But fundamentals increasingly point at this scenario, so we may reasonably assume that this is what will eventually happen.

I also do not buy the 'forced loans' concept. Throughout last years of rapid growth Chinese authorities have been in fact imposing artificial caps on domestic credit growth, since they don't have developed domestic debt market, and therefore lack effective tools to sterilize their dollar interventions. Immediately after financial crisis, the Chinese have removed many of those lending restrictions, as part of their 'stimulus'. Now, because of the developing stock market bubble in domestic Chinese stocks, the authorities are bringing the lending restrictions back.

I think the idea of 'forced loans' came from the same area as fables of state- planned road running through schools and kindergartens (but not through villas of state officials). It is so heavily mixed up with ideological propaganda and clichés, that it does not really deserve a serious discussion.

<comment><USER3> Hmm,

The fact that state imposes cap when it wishes should make it more likely that the state can also impose loan levels when it wishes. Moreover, I have read a number of news items

 _I think the idea of 'forced loans' came from the same area as fables of state-planned road running through schools and kindergartens_

Uh, the point was not about exactly which projects the Chinese state choose to impose but that the Chinese can impose project and solely and only on bureaucratic initiative, even those projects involve considerable hardship on people. A well-known example of this is the Three Gorges Damn - up to a million people are thought to have been displaced by this initiative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Why is China doing this? It doesn't have the kind of social safety net one sees in the developed world, so it needs to keep its economy going at any cost. Millions of people have migrated to its cities, and now they're hungry and unemployed. People without food or work tend to riot. To keep that from happening, the government is more than willing to artificially stimulate the economy, in the hopes of buying time until the global system stabilizes. It's literally forcing banks to lend -- which will create a huge pile of horrible loans on top of the ones they've originated over the last decade."

There are a lot of news reports that confirm fear of general unrest on the part of the Chinese leadership. Here is a recent New York Times article on the subject:

<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/world/asia/18xinjiang.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> China has a long history of revolution when the rulers "lose the mandate of Heaven." It has happened many times.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius#Politics>

<comment><USER5> I hope this was a joke. Concepts like a "mandate of Heaven" are completely irrelevant in modern China. Also as a side note, China really hasn't had disproportionately more "revolutions" than any other nation with such a long history.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did not say China has disproportionately more revolutions.

I'm interested why you believe that modern China will not repeat 4000 years of history. It is not an accident that "history repeats itself" is a well worn phrase. I see no reason why it should not apply to modern China any less than the modern China of 1980's (Deng), 1960's (Cultural Revolution), 1950's (Communists), 1910's (Nationalists), or earlier.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_China> <\- tiny sample.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't help but think while reading this that the writer is looking at bubbles from the point of view of someone without a coherent theory to explain the origin of bubbles and why busts happen. The Chinese economy has been based on saving and investment not inflation and malinvestment like the United States has been for the better part of almost 20 years now.

The Chinese economy will suffer as a result of the business cycle in the United States but they've resisted calls to borrow and spend recklessly as those in Washington would have them do. The notion that bubbles are caused by growth on its own is a terribly flawed notion. Even the Federal Reserve admits that their own loose monetary policy contributed to our present woes.

The Chinese for now are committed to the dollar but when they aren't that spells bad news for us and good news for them. When they realize that they can spend that money at home on the goods they make at home I feel like the party is going to be over for the United States. We're seeing the beginning of the end of the American empire now and the ascent of China and for now at least the ascent of China is based on sound fiscal policy just as the United States during its formative years was.

I see a good but maybe rocky future for China in the short term and a good future for China in the medium and long term.

<comment><USER7> Bubbles are driven by poor investments. Which is obvious in the dot com days, but you see the same thing with other bubbles. EX: The real source of the US housing bubble was people buying up all those overvalued loans which let banks make even more of them. Which drives people to build and buy more houses than people actually need.

The problem with bubbles is the economy recovers to a more efficient system where the greatist fool is now broke, which is less comfortable than the mid bubble / pre burst days. China like Japan is going to over invest in infrastructure / housing and have the same issues.

<comment><USER8> There's one fundamental difference between China and Japan: Japan doesn't have more land upon which to build, which is what drove much of their housing craze (even our hottest markets were never even close to the Japan bubble)

China is much closer to the US when it comes to infrastructure: they need a lot for such a big country. Whether they spend it wisely will be the issue.

<comment><USER9> China's population density is far higher in key regions: <http://www.demographia.com/db-intlua-area2000.htm>

That was more than three years ago - it will be slightly lower in Japan now, and higher in those Chinese regions.

> There's one fundamental difference between China and Japan

Another that people seem to keep forgetting is that the Japanese people are largely a single people and had something approaching a functional parliamentary system during their rise. The Chinese are trying to maintain centralised planning for the largest show on earth, and their social systems are unhealthy.

<comment><USER10> From afar it may seem like central planning is the name of the game in China. On the ground, its highly regional; whith districts inside regions doing their own thing. There are high level "mandates" of sorts and a few central programs that reach deep but its hard for any program to keep control for any length of time. Mostly China is regionally run and managed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article is quite a bit short of right. China doesn't need to dump US $ to stimulate internal demand. They do have to convert some into yuan to buy things that absolutely positively can only be traded in yuan. But a whole lot of other things can be purchased in dollars. This does depress the prices of dollars with respect to oil or steel or what ever is being bought but that's not nearly as inflationary as dumping the dollar for the yuan or some other currency.

Further more, if it weren't for the US, China would already be running a net deficit. That's how strong and big the internal demand is in China. That doesn't mean their economy can't overheat, but it does mean that even in a recession they would still be a BIG consumer.

And lastly China is successfully and very slowly reducing it's US dollar exposure.

<comment><USER12> `And lastly China is successfully and very slowly reducing it's US dollar exposure.`

What's the basis for this claim? How are they doing it?

<comment><USER3> Excellent point.

If "slowly reducing its dollar exposure" means selling dollars in the morning and buying more in the afternoon, then it might be true but ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "They also cannot force corporations and consumers to spend. Since China isn't a democracy, it doesn't suffer these problems."

This article is full of stupid statements like the above. A democracy can do whatever the voters tell it to do, including telling banks to make loans or not make them, including dissolving corporate structures, including redefining corporate person-hood. There are _some_ limits imposed by the constitution, but even those can be dealt with.

China may or may not have economic failure on the scale the U.S. is dealing with. At the moment its really hard to say. This article contains little to prove the author's thesis.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is an outside the bamboo box idea - PRC (China) adopts the dollar for its external currency while keeping the yuan. This allows them to appear to support the dollar while retaining control over the flow of (yuan) currency in and, crucially, out of the country. They might be able to sell T-bills in this environment.

Won't happen of course as it would be perceived as a loss of sovereign power but remains an interesting speculation.

<comment><USER3> Sorry but this is not a new idea but close what China did for twenty years. For most of the PRC's history, Chinese currency was usable only in China with exchange rates closely controlled. Even today the currency is not fully convertible. Starting in the nineties, this situation worked well for them until things got so unbalanced that we have ... well, the situation that we have today.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe you missed my point which was that people do not speculate that the Renminbi might be replaced by the US dollar. And that this might happen because it would retain the currency controls presently afforded by the yuan being distinct from the external currency (RMB).

That -is- new, but unlikely for the reason I gave.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nitpick:

 _Since China isn't a democracy, it doesn't suffer these problems._

Liberty and democracy aren't the same thing. If anything, a more democratic country would be _more_ able to coerce banks in (something resembling) the public interest than a country with a more aggressively limited government.

</comment><comment><USER14> "put simply, mean reversion is a bitch"

Sometimes someone says something so asinine that it saves you the trouble of having to consider their other arguments. Assuming a Gaussian where none exists is a pretty amusing mistake to make considering the events of the past couple of years.

<comment><USER4> Distributions can have means without being Gaussian distributions.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Your experience with startup advisors - <AUTHOR>

My co-founder and I have been working on a startup for the last 6 months, and we are getting pretty close opening it up to a small group of users for the first round of feedback.
Both founders are technical and hands on, but neither has experience launching consumer web applications, and neither has the name or established following outside our immediate social circle to bootstrap a user base or a sizable following.
What we do have, however, are personal connections to some well-established entrepreneurs in this space who could be a great asset for our startup going forward, primarily in terms of introductions and advice.
What has been your experience turning a personal acquaintance  into an advisor? What in your opinion would be an appropriate relationship "structure" with such an advisor, i.e. what are the typical terms? Should it be more formal or informal? I know it depends on how well you know the person, so I am just trying to get an overall sense for what I should expect and some obvious no-no's.
Looking forward to your comments. Thank you. <comment><USER2> I would try and keep it informal - just establish a relationship and call to ask advice from time to time. Setting up the paperwork for something formal with shares changing hands is just another hassle you'd be better off not dealing with.

If they _do_ want equity as compensation, then tell them they're welcome to invest in your company, take their money, and treat it like any other angel investment. Angels are expected to automatically provide advice and introductions - that's part of the package.</comment>


FBI to launch nationwide facial recognition service - <AUTHOR> http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20111007_6100.php?oref=topstory <comment><USER2> Oh this will end well. Nah it will never be abused or have mission creep.

Now the TSA will have a database to use on everyone while they wait in line for a bus, train or plane.

You protested at OWS? No flying for you. Oh you false match a felon? No flying for you either.

I wonder when they will just start grabbing people left and right off the street to do iris scans like the military does to the locals in Iraq and Afghanistan.

<comment><USER3> IMO, that's super myopic. When intelligence agencies do something visible to the American public that causes any sort of discussion, it forces what they are doing (which is usually supposed to be secret) into the spotlight, which makes them generally more accountable. They do not like to do their job with people looking over their shoulder; they typically avoid this wherever possible. Besides that:

* Even on a very good day, the government is demonstrably bad at deploying new technology, especially at scale.

* Especially when that scale involves training any personnel at all.

* Especially when people are wary of that technology anyway.

* Especially when they are deploying suspicious technology in a visible arena.

* Especially when this technology will be observing US persons.

It doesn't look like it from the outside, but there is a lot of politics and bureaucracy in deploying a system like this, not just internally, but also from places like politicians.

In my experience, people who have never been around an organization like the FBI seem to have a naive view of what is possible. My recommendation is to critically evaluate anything that anyone tells you about what goes on in such places.

<comment><USER4> I think that's being a little too naive. Let's face it. The trend is turning USA into a police state. How isn't that not clear by now? Every other day they add new stuff like this, or breach more privacy or expand TSA in other areas, and so on.

<comment><USER3> FUD, [edit:] IMHO. [not trying to be a dick.]

The TSA is not an intelligence organization. Its job is not to secretly develop intelligence. It does not have the same problem of needing to not be accountable to the public as, say, the FBI or the NSA.

Second, that claim is a lot stronger than you're pretending it is. If you're going to throw around a term like "police state", you will need a lot more proof than hand-wavy "every day they add new stuff like this". Everything in your argument is attributable to selection bias, and if you're going to level a convincing point, you will need to do more than appeal to the fact that people seem to _want_ to believe this stuff. TBH when you say that, it makes me wonder if you really know what a police state even is.

Third, my point is not that there is no abuse or that the government is incapable of doing bad things, it's that we should be evaluating pie-in-the- sky predictions with actual evidence. "We are becoming a police state, DUH" is not evidence. And neither is the ridiculous claim that tomorrow the OWS people will be barred from flying.

<comment><USER5> The TSA maintains a secret watchlist and black list. The fact that this list seems to be arbitrary and disconnected from intelligence agencies doesn't make it better.

<comment><USER3> I totally agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The only surprising thing about this is that it took so long for them to do it. I'd actually assumed that they were already doing this.

<comment><USER7> At the state level, there are some states that have already implemented facial recognition. I can tell you that even at the state level, integration was not easy. At a federal level, IAFIS is not limited by capability, but by sheer size of the database and the number of requests -- this only for fingerprint packets (I don't remember if they process palm data, but palm data definitely increases packet size significantly).

The point is, sometimes we are mesmerized by prototypes and applications at a small scale, but when you increase the scale, development, integration, and deployment challenges (edit: and costs) increase exponentially.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Less concerned about privacy. More concerned about what this sort of thing means to juries.

A lot of forensic "evidence" is not actually completely conclusive, but people seem to have a built-in notion of how solid, say, fingerprint and DNA analysis are. It's sometimes very hard to convince a jury that these things are not necessarily incriminating, which is very bad because on a surprisingly often basis they are not strong enough to warrant conviction.

Facial recognition is also not completely foolproof, and while I applaud the idea that we should leverage technology to catch criminals who would otherwise go free, I personally am not willing to do so at the cost of innocent convictions. I recommend proceeding down this path cautiously.

<comment><USER8> On the other hand, "CSI" has made juries expect hard scientific evidence of the sort presented on the show, which rarely if ever actually happens in real life. It's possible that juries will refuse to convict without a positive identification by this new system - which, like all projects, will probably be riddled with bugs, and be useless for awhile.

On the gripping hand, you've got your false positives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Do you ever wonder why it is that as a nation, or a species, we have nothing more creative to do with our monetary and intellectual resources than to use them for the creation of weapons of war, or to create new means of imprisonment?

Can't we do better?

<comment><USER10> I wish we could, but the problem is there will always be new forms of criminals that need to be imprisoned and wars that need to be fought.

What I want to know is why we need to have rapists, murderers, and criminals? Can't we do better as a species?

<comment><USER11> > wars that need to be fought

No war needs to be fought.

<comment><USER12> No war? What would you have done if you were a leader of a European country at the onset of WWII? Just let Hitler come in and take everything? Or were you just referring to modern wars?

<comment><USER9> Invoking Godwin's law so early? Hitler's rise to power probably could have been prevented had the EU existed earlier, or had Ford's german subsidiary not built Hitler's armaments.

<comment><USER12> haha yes so sorry but it seemed like the best example.

Well of course if you have power to change history you could avoid any war, but that doesn't seem like it answers my question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A few years ago I signed up for a NEXUS pass[1] and was background checked, fingerprinted, photographed, and had my iris scans taken. I can only assume that my information had to have been transferred to other databases such as this as well.

[1] [http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/trusted_traveler/nexus_pro...](http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/trusted_traveler/nexus_prog/)

<comment><USER14> And soon you might be eligible to come up as a false-positive for all kinds of FBI lookups!

<comment><USER15> One step closer to Brazil.

If law enforcement didn't hold such blind faith in technology I'd be encouraged by this development. Instead you're likely to get nabbed for the crime of simply looking like a criminal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I thought it was called "facebook"[1].

[1] [http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program- dramatic...](http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically- cut-agencys-cos,19753/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Facebook's massive identity database with linked photos would be useful for this service.

<comment><USER8> I wonder how difficult it would be to write an app that subtly distorts facial features in photographs, and pass every photo I upload through it.

Is there a point where I would be recognizable to friends and family, and yet make algorithms choke?

And if there is, I wonder what would happen when my grandchildren are looking through old photoalbums, and wondering why Grandpa looks a little weird in all of his photos.

<comment><USER18> Then they will arrest you for interfering with a law enforcement officer. Not that it will stick, but by the time you get it cleared up you are $100k in the hole from legal expenses and a message has been sent to anyone else thinking of doing the same.

<comment><USER8> I'd love to see which specific officer would be named in the warrant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "if you don't come to the attention of law enforcement you don't have anything to fear from these systems.", Thomas Bush.

What utter crap. Everyone comes to the attention of law enforcement or some other govt. data collection agency. I was once booked into jail for driving without a license. I had one, just another state. My son was put in a mental hospital and booked into jail for assaulting an officer, because he had a violent reaction to a general anesthetic and the dentist called the police. Ever had a driver's license or a passport? Maybe they'll even collect student ids; protect the children and all that.

</comment><comment><USER20> They should use a Facebook api to power their facial recognition search with the social information behind each face. Wouldn't that be powerful?

</comment><comment><USER21> Does anyone have another source for this information?

</comment><comment><USER22> A billion dollar budget and 15 minute query times? What happened to the government having mindblowingly awesome tech?

<comment><USER5> It can take days or weeks to get a result back from AFIS (fingerprint database). 15 minutes for a national face recognition system _is_ mindblowingly awesome.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Tree.st -- building searchable social communities - <AUTHOR> http://www.tree.st

<comment><AUTHOR> any feedback?</comment>


Ask HN: Is There Any Multi Region App Engine or Kubernets? - <AUTHOR> I love deploying an app on Kubernetes, but I want to deploy it in 5 AWS region at once. I want a simple configuration which auto scales.<p>Is there any such service? <comment><USER2> You can try Capistrano</comment>


Ask HN: How do you go about finding development jobs abroad? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN.  I've been reading these boards for a while and have noticed that many user's live and work in their non-native country.
I'm 27, live in the UK, have 5 years development experience and would like to live and work in another country for a year or two whilst I'm still young (preferably Japan).
What resources are out there for people like me wanting to work abroad? Is it best to work for a large company, in my case in the UK, and hope a position opens up in an office overseas? How big is the language barrier to gain an overseas job (i'm studying Japanese but it will be a few years before I'm anywhere near competant). Thanks <comment><USER2> I got my job in Japan through the DISCO Career Forum while I was still in grad school in the US: <http://www.careerforum.net/event/?lang=E>

It's primarily oriented towards current Japanese students who are trying to return to Japan after they graduate, but there's also large numbers of foreigners who attend (with Japanese abilities of varying levels). You'll get a cross section of big companies from all industries; the investment banks are the most willing to hire developers with poor Japanese skills, but there's non-finance-sector companies who may also hire you (e.g. in my year, General Electric was one of the big sources of job offers for foreigners).</comment>


If You Want to Motivate Employees, Stop Trusting Your Instincts - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2017/02/if-you-want-to-motivate-employees-stop-trusting-your-instincts <comment><AUTHOR> I like to find examples where data-driven approach leads to success.

There are many reasons why people still do not use this approach, but two major distracting factors are:

1\. People tend to trust their instincts rather than data.

2\. Data-driven decisions sometimes might look counter intuitive.

This article about employee motivation is great example how HR process can benefit from data-driven insights.</comment>


American scientists attempt to 'create a sun on Earth' - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/picture-galleries/8134432/American-scientists-attempt-to-create-a-sun-on-Earth-using-nuclear-fusion.html <comment><USER2> I don't know... All I could see in that picture was spiderman 2 :)

Plus, I think it will take a lot more than a laser to create fusion.. Haven't they been building a fusion plant in France for the past 10 years?

<comment><USER3> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_confinement_fusion>

In 1983 I toured the Nova laser site you can see in the illustration while it was being constructed. It's very real stuff, the walls of the collision chamber were 8 feet thick to keep the (projected) neutron flux from harming people and things (transmuting ... which is why current fusion approaches almost certainly won't be practical power plants, we need aneutronic fusion (e.g. H3) for that.

As a side note, these laser systems are great for nuclear weapons simulations and 3rd generation (vectored, e.g. X-ray/gamma laser) nuclear weapons development.</comment></comment>


Apple to terminate developer account of Epic Games on August 28th - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/markgurman/status/1295432804440842242 <comment><USER2> Relevant: [https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/epic-v- apple-8-17-20-768927327...](https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/epic-v- apple-8-17-20-768927327.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24190556](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24190556) \- Main discussion here

</comment><comment><USER4> This is getting interesting. Looks like Apple wants to set an example. I'm wondering what Epic is going to do after this...

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://twitter.com/slasher/status/1295434558112960519?s=21](https://twitter.com/slasher/status/1295434558112960519?s=21)

Apparently this also applies to all apps using Unreal Engine.

<comment><USER6> If that is true, then it seems EPIC's case is made stronger by this action.

How can Apple kick off thousands (10's of thousands?) of apps, which just happened to use the development kit provided by another party Apple's involved in a lawsuit with.

<comment><USER7> Yeah the sheer level of stupidity of that move combined with it not being clear to me that "Epic cannot use our developer tools" => "we will remove/prevent updates to any third party app that has used them" makes me think Epic may be embellishing here for the benefit of the public. I think Apple may have just done the "remove their account" part and Epic is adding as many nastily implications of that as possible.

I'm extremely suspicious of basically anything factual these companies say about this whole matter; there's too much money on the line for there to be much voluntary truth telling involved.

<comment><USER8> Even if no UE-dependent games are removed now, they're all at risk because Epic would no longer be able to fix any bugs for them, or maintain the engine. And, Apple has forced maintenance on developers quite often; it's only a matter of time before some platform-breaking boundary must be crossed again, which none of the UE-dependent games would be able to manage without Epic's involvement.

<comment><USER7> Oh I agree. My suspicion is that Apple's intent was to revoke their developer account/iTunes Connect access but not attempt to enforce their inability to use XCode; there may be legal language to that effect but you've been able to install XCode and generate iOS provisioning profiles without a developer account for some time now. I can't imagine that any Apple executives think the recent anti-trust hearings went so well that they think they can get away with this sort of snipe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting. It seems both parties just wanna have an outcome and be done with it for everybody.

Games are an I interesting field, as they have many micro transactions over a long period of time, which actually add up to more than most subscriptions (which use a 15% revenue share after the first year)

</comment><comment><USER10> It's funny that every company that goes against Apple is the underdog, including Aramco (if they ever did, Ha!).

</comment><comment><USER11> Doesn't Epic ban kids when they violate the Fortnite TOS?

Epic knew what they were doing. I have no sympathy for them.

<comment><USER12> Removing the app is a logical consequence.

Terminating the whole account and restricting dev tools while they make one of the most used game engines on iOS, that's quite far reaching. Reeks of retaliation. I'm sure they will duke it out in court.</comment></comment>


The company behind the adorably doomed robot Kuri is shutting down - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/8/21/17765330/mayfield-robotics-kuri-robot-shutting-down <comment><USER2> I got a demo of Kuri at CES from one of the founders and loved it, it's kind of like a friendly Alexa on wheels. The killer feature IMO is it can send you videos of it interacting with your pets and small children over the course of the day. If you use Timehop it's the same sort of feeling.

I think something like Kuri could be successful at $200-300 price point but not the $700 preorder price they listed. I bet we'll see a low cost clone of this in the next few years.

<comment><USER3> Besides the Kuri, what else that is currently on the market the closest equivalent to an Alexa on wheels?

<comment><USER4> [https://www.anki.com/en-us/vector](https://www.anki.com/en-us/vector)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This company had a large booth at Maker Faire Bay Area this year. While the robot was cute and the tech inside impressive (full 3D SLAM!), I didn't see a market for a home robot just yet, given that people have just gotten used to devices like Alexa (and especially at their price point).

I'm not sure if they had an SDK to develop integrations on top, but if they had such an ecosystem I think I would pick up one for home use to hack upon.

A bit disappointed they had to shut down before they had a proper product.

</comment><comment><USER6> While it's clear that both Kuri and Jibo were far too expensive, I am wondering whether there is a market for a "home entertainment" robot at any price. What are they for?

<comment><AUTHOR> Home entertainment no, and even the dubious 'security' guard angle that Kuri and Jibo had which was basically just a roaming camera keeping an on your place, not compelling enough at that price.

People would pay real dollars for a home robot that did basic choirs but so far that hasn't been the focus. Maybe it's too hard of a problem to solve still, or maybe they overvalued the usefulness of an entertainment robot, or maybe it's a bit of both. I just hope this doesn't kill the dream of a truly useful home robot.

<comment><USER7> I own a roomba, and while I can't say it's great, it at least does something useful. The Alexa with wheels isn't very compelling, because the mobility aspect doesn't add anything. These robots don't even have a tray to carry drinks on. From that perspective they're less useful than a HeathKit HERO [0] or an OmniBot[1].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HERO_(robot)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HERO_\(robot\))

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

<comment><USER8> I own a roomba and I do think it's great. Why dont you like it?

<comment><USER7> I own two, and use them regularly. They're not a gimmick, but they do have lots of room for improvement.

They're very inefficient. Perhaps the 980 with the camera is better at mapping, but my 880 and an ancient 551 feel like they take hours to clean a single room. Granted, _I_ can do something else entirely while it wastes time, but it feels weird. (I simply take them from room to room and lock them in for an hour or two, and then move them. I don't want to waste all day with the bots cleaning my house, and I've learned I can't trust them not to get into trouble by themselves.)

Also, they're not the most powerful vacuums. They're fine for regular maintenance cleaning, but they can't replace a regular vacuum.

Now if only I can find a robot to dust...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Adorably doomed" implies something about its doomed status is adorable...</comment>


The Scheme  Programming Language 4th edition online - <AUTHOR> http://www.scheme.com/tspl4/

<comment><USER2> UPDATE: The on-line book was only up temporarily, to get comments from the artist. It's gone now. It'll be back up when the printed book is published.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for linking this, I was going through a previous edition. This has been an excellent resource for learning the Scheme language. It's been though learning scheme that I finally have come to understand recursion :)

I have been reading a lot about its power and ability to develop quickly in this language and am looking forward to learning it better :)

<comment><USER4> This book is a bit of a reference. If you want to learn from more entertaining books you should check out three books from another IU professor the Little Schemer, Seasoned Schemer, and when you want to move to logic programming the Reasoned Schemer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> What's new and special about this edition?

<comment><USER5> It covers R6RS.

Edit: More specifically, quoting from the book's site at MIT Press ([http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&...](http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11984)):

 _The fourth edition has been substantially revised and expanded to bring the content up to date with the current Scheme standard, the Revised6 Report on Scheme. All parts of the book were updated and three new chapters were added, covering the language's new library, exception handling, and record-definition features._</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What tech skills did you use to make organising your wedding easier? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> A spreadsheet (and stored on something you can access away from your main computer e.g. Dropbox). Seriously, keep it simple you'll probably have to pass information to people frequently and you don't want to waste extra time formatting it for them because they don't know how to use what you sent already.</comment>


Navy Files for Patent on Room-Temperature Superconductor - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-02-navy-patent-room-temperature-superconductor.html <comment><USER2> The same scientist, Salvatore Cezar Pais, also patented what reads suspiciously like an EmDrive: [https://patents.justia.com/patent/10144532](https://patents.justia.com/patent/10144532) I'm curious what any physicists here have to say.

I'm guessing that this superconductor concept hasn't _actually_ been reduced to a prototype. Unfortunately, per the USPTO, "[a]n applicant need not have actually reduced the invention to practice prior to filing." [https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2164.html#d0e215...](https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2164.html#d0e215531) A patent can simply describe a so-called prophetic example. "A prophetic example describes an embodiment of the invention based on predicted results rather than work actually conducted or results actually achieved." Id.

EDIT: Yep. The abstract from this 2019 paper, "Room Temperature Superconducting System for use on a Hybrid Aerospace-Undersea Craft", clearly (IMO) says the concept is as-yet unconfirmed. [https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2019-0869](https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2019-0869)

<comment><USER3> Sooo ... would this be one of those "submarine" patents?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Given that government-created documents are put in the public domain, not limited by copyright, why are government inventions different and restricted by patents?

Also, what are fair and usual terms to use a government-owned patent?

<comment><USER2> I don't know the scope or applicability of this regulation (i.e. what loopholes exist or alternative mechanisms for licensing), but "licensing of government-owned patents... will generally be royalty free, revocable and nonexclusive. They will normally be issued to all applicants and will generally contain no limitations or standards relating to the quality or testing of the products to be manufactured, sold, or distributed thereunder." [https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/34/6.3](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/34/6.3)

I don't think the [notorious] Bayh-Dole Act ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act)) applies as it seems the inventor is an actual DoD employee (Naval Air Systems Command/NAWCAD, NAS Patuxent River), not a scientist at a private institution receiving government funding.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Gent – Generate the perfect title for your LinkedIn and Twitter profile - <AUTHOR> https://g.paradite.com/ <comment><USER2> Title is misleading--it doesn't look at your profile and just generates random titles.</comment>


How to achieve 218.1% better performance when replacing strings in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://picocoder.io/how-to-replace-all-occurrences-string-in-javascript/ <comment><USER2> Split and join is worse because it allocates N junk strings, all of which have to be fully copied only to be copied again and then thrown away. This is the same problem as the "Array.push() is 945x faster than Array.concat()" post from last week: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19991339](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19991339)

As I commented on the other post, all programmers really should spend some time learning how memory, pointers, data structures, heap vs stack, etc. work. Even if you aren't writing C++ at your day job, that stuff matters.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why would anyone use split/join?

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe that's what some people use. For example deepcloning objects in JS is faster with json.parse(json.stringify())</comment></comment>


Show HN: Klavado.com – putting conversations on the map - <AUTHOR> http://klavado.com/map/madrid

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to give some background, the main use case for this site is for small groups to have discussions around places - in a similar way to how small groups will use doodle.com to discuss times. Often such discussions do not need to be private and can be valuable for other people to know about. I will add more support for private conversations soon though. I am also planning on adding a feature soon to allow people to easily create a poll of places.</comment>


A thread on how to compete with trillion dollar businesses - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/amix3k/status/1286665358053646336 <comment><USER2> The thread seems to boil down to some very basic premises: Build a good product, network it well, and create a niche. I suppose it's good to re-state these every few years.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would to hear HN input on this</comment>


Miller is like sed, awk, cut, join, and sort for name-indexed data such as CSV - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/johnkerl/miller

<comment><USER2> A similar toolkit, RecordStream, with support for many types of inputs beyond CSV: [https://github.com/benbernard/RecordStream](https://github.com/benbernard/RecordStream)

</comment><comment><USER3> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10066742](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10066742) (209 points, 1 day ago, 68 comments)</comment>


Turret – A Responsive Front-End Framework for Accessible and Semantic Websites - <AUTHOR> http://turretcss.com/ <comment><USER2> I really wish that people would stop using "Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" as the fallback fonts.. just use sans-serif (which tends to be arial in windows and helvetica in mac, or some other helvetica-like font.

If you happen to have both, Arial looks better in windows, and Helvetica looks better in mac.</comment>


How much does it cost to run your side project? - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-much-does-it-cost-to-run-your-side-project-6811b201e5 <comment><USER2> Tell HN: How to run a startup for $6 a year - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22354060](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22354060)</comment>


Ask HN: CoffeeScript or ClojureScript for writing a game in JS? - <AUTHOR>

As a side project I'm planning to write a simple game in javascript, and why not learn something new? <comment><USER2> From my experience, coffeescript won't teach you anything new and won't give you any performance improvents. In fact, it will make you scratch your head a lot and will make you do a mental js-coffee conversion each time. You might end up liking it, but I think that clojurescript is the better bet here for performance gains as well as better coding in general, since its focus on functional programming is more concrete and inherent in it. Functional programming in coffeescript is exactly the same as in js ie. GIGO

</comment><comment><USER3> If your game is at all taxing in terms of performance, you may find that neither give you enough visibility into, or control over, allocations and garbage collection.

I suspect particularly that ClojureScript (which would otherwise be my choice), with its use of persistent/immutable types and collections, might burden the GC quite heavily for a game.

CoffeeScript, IMO, offers so little over JS that it's not really worth the trouble.

<comment><USER4> CoffeeScript isn't really supposed to offer new features, just syntactic sugar. And in my opinion it excels at that.

IcedCoffeeScript, on the other hand, does introduce a few new interesting features: [http://maxtaco.github.io/coffee- script/](http://maxtaco.github.io/coffee-script/)

It's still technically sugar, but it changes the way you think about and write code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you use CoffeeScript, you might have to watch out for unexpected variables being created by the transpiler. For example, if you write a method that ends with a `while` loop, CoffeeScript will actually return an array with the evaluated results of the loop. Normally not a big deal, but when doing games in JS you need to watch out for excess memory use, since your framerate will tank if the GC runs too long/frequently.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why not Dart? or at least TypeScript?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't like their syntax, and it's a hobby project so to say. I like the pythonic syntax of coffescript, and I have lisp/FP learning on my bucket list, so I think I'll go the clojurescript way!</comment></comment>


Please Learn To Think About Abstractions - <AUTHOR> http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PleaseLearnToThinkAboutAbstractions.aspx

<comment><USER2> Perfect. And may that be the last please something something post. Please!

<comment><USER3> LOL, I hope so.</comment></comment>


Fasting-like Diet Reduces Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms - <AUTHOR> http://www.neuroscientistnews.com/clinical-updates/fasting-diet-reduces-multiple-sclerosis-symptoms <comment><USER2> What is a "fasting-like" diet? It is presumably not absolute fasting otherwise no need for the "like" qualifier.

<comment><USER3> From the paper [0]:

"Modified human fasting mimicking diet.

A single cycle of the modified fasting mimicking diet consist of Day 1 – pre- fasting followed by Day 2-8 – very low calorie diet. Day 1-prefasting consists of an 800 kcal (about 40% of normal caloric intake similar to mouse Day1 FMD) monodiet (fruit, rice, or potatoes) by preference of individuals. On the following day patients were recommended to use an oral laxative, Natrium Sulfuricum (20-40 g). FMD consisted of 100 ml vegetable broth or vegetable juice with 1 tablespoon of linseed oil 3 times daily, plus additional calorie- free liquids. The daily calorie intake was predefined with 200 – 350 kcal (10-18% of normal caloric intake similar to mouse Day 2-3 FMD). Patients were advised to drink 2-3 L of unsweetened fluids each day (water, and herbal teas) and to use an enema if tolerated. After the 7-day fasting period solid foods were stepwise reintroduced for three days, starting with a steamed apple at day 8. After the fasting and refeeding period a normocaloric, plant-based Mediterranean diet was maintained until study end."

[0] [http://www.cell.com/cell- reports/pdfExtended/S2211-1247(16)3...](http://www.cell.com/cell- reports/pdfExtended/S2211-1247\(16\)30576-9)

<comment><USER4> If this is a real effect, I wonder how many calories a persona can eat and still get the fasting effect. I have a non-24 hour circadian rhythm (although some thing still seem synchronized to light), which causes all sorts of negative effects, and I have found that eating < about 1500 kcal in a day reliably causes a significant improvement in my functioning two days later. Normally eating between 1500 and 2000 kcal most days does not cause this improvement. I am curious if what I am seeing is the same effects as would be caused by this much lowerer calorie diet or if there are tiers of fasting with different effects.

Also interesting is that I have had some severe digestive issues for years; antibiotics helped for a month or two and eating about 3000 kcal over five days has been just as helpful for a couple of weeks now and seems likely to be at least as effective as the antibiotics. However, one or two days of calorie restriction does not have that effect on me. If this fasting result holds for MS, the effect of fasting on gut bacteria could potentially be part of how it works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems pretty likely to be placebo effect, at least in the human trials which are the only parts of the paper I read. The paper cited [0] pre- registered on clinicaltrials.gov [1] -- which is great and everyone in the field should do so. However, looking at what they pre-registered, we have:

\- Two different diet treatment regimes: fasting-like for 3 months followed by Mediterranean diet (FMD), and ketogenic diet (KD).

\- Control diet was simply telling people to eat the same way as usual. So there's no real accounting for how well a placebo would do here.

\- Measurements included a 54-question survey, adverse event counts, and various lab measurements. These measurements were taken at start, 1-month, 3-month, and 6-month intervals.

The problem then is that what was report was:

\- Results of the first half of the first treatment (fasting-like for 3 months) for a subset of the measurements. What if things only worked in the second half? Or if things worked only for KD? So many implicit comparisons here.

\- Comparison against the control group at 3 months, with reported p-values. Even though one of the reported measurements was the overall survey results, all of the values reported are p-values without any mention, that I can find, of multiple hypothesis testing across all measurements. This comes despite the fact that for all of the mouse results, they explicitly state they used Bonferroni correction.

\- Baseline performance which involved no placebo. How many people would have improved if simply given some bullshit diet? Or if they had simply been given a diet that was vegetarian, or something that gave them the impression it was a treatment? Especially in surveys, placebo effect is a huge thing to look out for. Their more hard metrics like lab results show a more mixed bag with WBC dropping for fasting subjects. Sure, it returns once the 3 months is over, but then the supposed quality of life scores drop; so you can't have it both ways, though their writing makes it sound that way.

I'm not saying it isn't a great result from a bio standpoint. I'm sure the Cell reviewers found the mouse model results compelling. I just don't see any way to conclude the broad sweeping title of the article from the actual content of the paper, and it's unethical to do so without strong evidence.

[0] [http://www.cell.com/cell- reports/pdfExtended/S2211-1247(16)3...](http://www.cell.com/cell- reports/pdfExtended/S2211-1247\(16\)30576-9)

[1] [https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01538355?term=NCT0153...](https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01538355?term=NCT01538355&rank=1)

<comment><USER6> There is a somewhat interesting philosophical question here. What does it mean for this result to be the 'placebo effect'?

That is, supposing it is in some sense caused by the psyche, and fasting reliably produces that effect...is there a sense in which fasting is not its cause?

Clearly for sugar pill vs drug we can measure the component which is 'placebo'. But here, since it is immeasurable...is it possible to call it a placebo effect? Or should we refer to effects derived psychologically from unique subjective experiences in another way.

<comment><USER7> >fasting reliably produces that effect

First, one study doesn't tell us that fasting "reliably" produces this effect. Secondly, if it was a placebo effect then fasting would _not_ reliably produce it. You would likely be able to produce no placebo effect by telling patients that there will very likely be no effect whatsoever on their symptoms.

>But here, since it is immeasurable...is it possible to call it a placebo effect?

If it is a placebo effect, you would probably be able to measure it by testing various other non-fasting diets. The difficulty lies in the inability to have a sham fasting diet, but you could likely mitigate that by telling patients there will likely be no effect on their symptoms from fasting.

<comment><USER8> Placebos work even when you know[1]

[1] [http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/placebos-w...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/placebos- work-even-when-you-know-10-12-23/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Swank diet and later the McDougall diet have been halting and sometimes slightly regressing MS symptoms in most cases, for decades now. The Swank diet in particular, has kept people alive with the disease for 34 years. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ5NGLM1k90](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ5NGLM1k90)

<comment> j-pb > The Swank diet in particular, has kept people alive with the disease for 34 > years.

It's not an achievement to keep people with MS alive. People with MS have an average life expectancy that is very close to that of healthy people (literature varies between a couple of months [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1069023/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1069023/) and several years, with 7 being the highest that I've seen [http://www.nationalmssociety.org/What-is-MS/MS- FAQ-s](http://www.nationalmssociety.org/What-is-MS/MS-FAQ-s)). It's the quality of life that sucks for MS patients.

Uninformed statements like these make you sound even more snake oily than you already sound.

<comment><USER10> Also a highly varied disease that can have almost no effects vs almost immediately chronic ones.

<comment> j-pb Yeah the spectrum is huge, however disease progression is also hard to predict, so a person with some very heavy relapses at onset might be relapse free for years afterwards and vice versa.

Iirc though there are some studies that showed that progression is in general more benign than initially estimated in most cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ramadan is coming :) 20+ hours fasting for 30 days :)

<comment><USER12> ~17 hrs in London in the first day.

Besides, never seen anyone loosing weight during Ramadan. Many eat from iftar to sunrise non-stop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Isn't this obvious to anyone who follows that diet <-> autoimmune disease? Also adrenal hormones increase during fasting, as can be commonly seen with high cortisol levels in those who fast.

"All disease begins in the gut," as someone wise has said in the past.

<comment><USER14> It's usually "obvious" to people who are not affected by autoimmune disease, but diet control is generally disappointingly ineffective in reality for most patients. The truth is autoimmune disease is incredibly complex and we still don't have satisfactory treatment, diet or otherwise.

<comment><USER15> Can you point to some references to back up your claim that diet control is disappointing?

It seems to me that diet has such an enormous effect on our bodies that it should do something; I would say compliance is more the issue than its effectiveness from my reading of things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What about ALS?

<comment><USER17> That's only cured by watching people splash themselves with cold water.

<comment><USER18> You're just bummed because no one _challenged_ you! /s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Food is so yesterday!

<comment><USER19> Why all the downvotes? You can't handle a joke?! So pathetic!

<comment><USER20> Jokes are usually frowned upon in Hacker News. It keeps the conversation focused and meaningful instead of derailing into chains of puns à la Reddit.

It's not that the community can't handle a joke, it's just trying to avoid the slippery slope. There are other places for more lighthearted discussion.

Mentioning downvotes is also frowned upon.

Disclaimer: I didn't downvote you, just explaining.

<comment><USER19> On the contrary - unsubstantiated, silent, cowardly downvotes turn HN into Reddit.

And my comment was both a joke and a serious statement. As with everything, you need to find the golden mean, and people today are overeating their way into chronic disease!

We don't need as much food and as quality food as we think. In fact, fasting outweighs careful food selection as you can't go wrong with fasting, but you could and eventually would by following conflicting and ever-changing dietary guidelines.

There is much wisdom in my single short sentence!

But I start to think that the audience here is incapable of reading between the lines, which is sad given the HN claims for superior intelligence. In fact, the San Fran crowd is addicted to food, and based on my personal experience here; it goes postal when you dare to say something against their questionable eating habits!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


November Workshop: Running the Pi-hole Network-wide Ad-blocker, and more - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cryptoaustralia.org.au/2017/11/02/pi-hole-network-wide-ad-blocker/ <comment><USER2> I am running Pi-Hole like system assembled myself. OpenVPN, Tor, dnscrypt- proxy[3] and dnsmasq[2] plus large lists of blocks from Steven Black hosts project[1] and firehole.

I am running this for four years now in different incarnations and it is generally smooth. It was also quite educational to assemble.

[1] [https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts)

[2] [3] dnsmasq isn't necessary as dnscypt-proxy is now able to block domains and IPs and of caching requests. I am using dnsmasq mostly for dhcp and to spread traffic among two dnscrypt-proxy clients and Google DNS.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. For the less tech savvy, is there a way to take the list on [1] and _automatically_ update the hosts file on my own machine (mac)?

<comment><USER4> Not automatically but you can use something such as Gasmask ([https://github.com/2ndalpha/gasmask](https://github.com/2ndalpha/gasmask)) to easily manage your host.

<comment><USER5> You can actually use a "Remote" hosts file with Gasmask and set the update interval in preferences. I actually just figured this out after a little bit of trouble -- my issue was that Gasmask cannot files from Github or any https site[0]. There are non-Github mirrors listed in the table at [https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts) which I have been able to use successfully.

[0]: [https://github.com/2ndalpha/gasmask/issues/90](https://github.com/2ndalpha/gasmask/issues/90)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey CryptoAUSTRALIA is here. We are answering questions in the next hour or so. Proof: [https://twitter.com/CryptoAustralia/status/92598468889577062...](https://twitter.com/CryptoAustralia/status/925984688895770624)

<comment><USER6> Why don't you add anything to the project to encrypt DNS traffic by default?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> PiHole is a fantastic system and works really well.

The only issue I have is its installer works on a bare system. I prefer to use the Pi as a multi purpose system: for home-assistent, as unifi controller and for pi-hole. It will costs you some time to get it running with all the pi- hole features (auto update and so on) operational.

<comment><USER8> Did you describe the steps you took to make it run on a such a system? I would be interested as well as long as I dont need to get another Pi :)

<comment><USER9> Install raspbian, install docker:

[https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/docker-comes-to- raspberry-p...](https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/docker-comes-to-raspberry- pi/)

Then install pi-hole inside docker:

[https://hub.docker.com/r/diginc/pi-hole/](https://hub.docker.com/r/diginc/pi- hole/)

Obviously port 53 needs to be mapped externally - port 80 inside the container you can map to something else, and then use nginx on the host to redirect to that port.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Or you just use a very basic dnsmasq installation and make use of a list like: [https://github.com/notracking/hosts- blocklists](https://github.com/notracking/hosts-blocklists) that allows you to also block full domains.

Been using this list for several months now without any issues.

Besides that, it's worth reading in to dnsmasq's configuration in more detail, in the end pi-hole is just a preconfigured dnsmasq installation with a user interface to manage hostname based blocklists.

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here, it's true. Actually, Pi-hole relies on dnsmasq to resolve, block and cache DNS requests. However, Pi-hole with its friendly web interface allows people with less technical knowledge to block ads, trackers and C2 servers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you are running LEDE on a modern router, it's easier to install and use simple-adblock.

[https://github.com/stangri/openwrt-packages/blob/simple- adbl...](https://github.com/stangri/openwrt-packages/blob/simple- adblock/net/simple-adblock/files/README.md)

</comment><comment><USER12> I ran Pi-Hole for a few weeks, and found it was more trouble than it it was worth. Because it blocks at the DNS level using (very large) DNS blacklists. It was cumbersome to temporarily whitelist domains when you hit a site that just wouldn't load properly as you had no idea which of the many domains that site was requesting were being blocked. By comparison, using an in-browser adblocker you can just disable the the adblocker and reload the page, and once done, a single click re-enables the adblocker again. Also, Pi-Hole used to be undetectable by anti-adblocker scripts, but now it isn't.

Although very good at what it does (almost too good in fact) it is a blunt instrument that may or may not suit your needs.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been running it at home for about a month and I find it no less cumbersome to a browser plugin. The whitelists are permanent, and if you think it's blocking something, you can look at the block list log & whitelist. As a last resort you can also disable it temporarily.

<comment><USER13> You meant to write "no more cumbersome" right?

<comment><USER14> Unlikely, there's a subtle difference in the connotations of 'no more' and 'no less' in this context.

'No less' is implying they're both bad. It is a subtly ambivalent statement.

<comment><USER15> Using the phrase 'no less' implies that the former could be _more_ cumbersome than the latter though, which I think was the opposite of his point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I use a Pi pretty much exclusively for this purpose and it works very well. Fairly transparent to me in terms of performance (DNS doesn't feel slower at least to me). Glad to see ads blocked across the network, including on mobile devices (including in-app ads). Easy admin panel for whitelisting/blacklisting/updating and you can also do that via command line too

<comment><USER17> It might well be faster, as it caches requests locally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Desktops are easier to deal with, but I installed Pi-hole with the hope of solving the issue on my Android phone. I've had it running for some months now and while it works it's certainly not a perfect solution. Even with it running, YouTube ads still run rampant. For me, video ads and especially YouTube ads are the most intrusive and annoying.

<comment><USER19> Anyone make a Youtube proxy-thingy that youtube-dl's the file, then serves it through a light HMTL video interface?

</comment></comment><comment> cup-of-tea This looks good and something that I might set up soon. But why is it called "pi-hole"? Is it specific to Raspberry Pi in any way? I'm not going to run it on a RPi because I have other machines online anyway, so is there something better that I can use for this purpose?

<comment><USER20> It can install on most Debian-based systems pretty easily. I had it running on a VPS for a few months before running it on a Pi on my LAN.

Just be aware that running an open resolver on the Internet's can make you a source for a DNS amplification attack. I ended up just using a firewall rule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> used a pi-hole for a while. It was great!

then one day power went out, and my sd was corrupted.

(I know, I should have had a backup. I want the internetz to work when I return home in the evening, not to flash-try-format-reinstalldebian etc)

btw, I tried using pihole on a VPS and everything was perfect

</comment><comment><USER22> Make sure your router is set up with a secondary DNS server if you do this. I made that mistake and took my server (which is where I host this) down for maintenance while everyone was home. I could NOT get into my router config fast enough!

</comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if as people get on the NBN (ill-fated fibre (now copper) broadband project) whether the Pi will be a bottleneck. I can download at ~90 megabit on a good day - that's about 3 times faster than my Pi 3 can handle.

<comment><USER24> That is less than 12MB of transfer per day. Pi should handle it fine.

<comment><USER25> Pretty sure that "90 megabits" means "per second", not "per day".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > but we'll be focusing on getting it working on a small, ARM-based computing > device called a Raspberry Pi (RPi), which costs about $100.

?? do rpi's cost an absurd amount in australia or something?

<comment><USER27> For people who don't have spare micro sd cards, spare usb cables, spare 1+Amp capable usb power supplies, and who're maybe less prepared to have a bare RasPi board powered up and running sitting on their table - $100AUD is about the right expectation to set, yeah.

(I've always got all of that, and I still get grumpy when people talk about the "$5 Pi Zero" \- I've never been able to get a bare Pi Zero in my hand for anything less that about $13US which is close to $20AUD...)

<comment><USER9> I've come to the conclusion that unless you need space - one of those low end servers with the manufacturers rebate is usually a better buy for most people than a Pi (HP Gen8/10 Dell T20 etc).

<comment><USER27> For me - a Pi is mostly about battery powered portable projects, and GPIO.

If I don't need either of those, a 2nd hand office grade pc can usually be had for the same price as a Pi3 around here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is it possible to run it on a VPS somewhere and make Android points its DNS setting to it? There are lots of stupid ad in the apps that can use some blocking.

<comment><USER29> I have running it there ... [http://adsorb.me/](http://adsorb.me/) I didnt finish the web yet, but you can use this DNS

<comment><USER20> Be careful of open DNS servers being used in amplification attacks. My previous internet-based Pi-hole server got flagged for this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Pi-Hole is awesome. It took not much effort to get it running on a small default Debian 9 vm. The project is well supported as well. The devs are very responsive on reddit.

Once a client asked if it were possible to block all internet ads in their infrastructure. 20 minutes later i had a pi-hole up and running quite well.

I would like a better chronometer script though :)

</comment><comment><USER31> Are there any writeups on MITM SSL (installing custom trusted root), ideally showing how to whitelist parts of YouTube?

</comment><comment><USER32> How does such a system deal with TLS?

<comment><USER33> It works at the DNS level, i.e. DNS requests to ad network domains are blocked. It is not able to block first party tracking requests like ad blocking browser extensions can.

<comment><USER25> As a general rule of thumb, I consider DNS-level blocking like pi-hole a defense-in-depth strategy only. It's great for situations where you cannot install a regular blocker plugin (e.g. IoT, or webpages inside applications instead of in a browser), but if you can, you absolutely want to use a dedicated tracking blocker in addition to pi-hole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> "we'll be focusing on getting it working on a small, ARM-based computing device called a Raspberry Pi (RPi), which costs about $100" holy fuck that made me laugh I realize it might australian but it came off to me as satire haha.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm wondering if one day we can have a device between the computer and the monitor that eliminates ads based pixels only.

The advantage is that you can eliminate any ad, also if it is embedded in the content, and not served from an ad-server.

</comment><comment><USER36> What do you do when you need to look at ads, or you have false positive?

<comment><USER20> There is a "temporary defeat" button in Pi-hole that turns it off completely for n minutes. I use it surprisingly frequently when I'm shopping for something.

Google ads can be extremely useful when you're looking for something generic. But I am happy to have Pi-hole block them 95% of the time.

I do wish I could completely turn off 'admin' in Pi-hole since I run it on my LAN. Then I'd probably bookmark the "disaable for 1 hour button".

Which is probably possible anyway, just haven't dug into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Does it matter which Pi you run it on? I'm slightly concerned about slowing things down.

</comment><comment><USER38> I ran an ad blocker on my router, simpler and cheaper</comment>


Neural Photo Editing with Introspective Adversarial Networks - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDELBFSeqQs <comment><USER2> Very impressive! It reminds me of this image generation and editing work via Generative Adversarial Networks [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c4z6YsBGQ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c4z6YsBGQ0) ([https://github.com/junyanz/iGAN](https://github.com/junyanz/iGAN)) posted before. Seems lots of efforts in this direction.

</comment><comment><USER3> Code repository: [https://github.com/ajbrock/Neural-Photo- Editor](https://github.com/ajbrock/Neural-Photo-Editor)</comment>


MyDef – a layer on top of your programming language - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hzhou/MyDef <comment><USER2> So someone invented read macros?</comment>


You're The Expert, Can You Or Can You Not Do This? - <AUTHOR> http://9gag.tv/p/KW4dN/the-expert-short-comedy-sketch-lauris-beinerts-alexei-berezin-the-meeting

<comment><USER2>
        - What's stopping us?
        - Geometry.
        - Just ignore it.</comment>


Data Science for Startups: Business Intelligence - <AUTHOR> https://towardsdatascience.com/data-science-for-startups-business-intelligence-f4a2ba728e75 <comment><USER2> > the next step is being able to answer all sorts of questions about product > health within your organization. A novice data scientist might think that > this type of work is outside the role of a data scientist, but identifying > key metrics for product health is one of the core facets of the role.

This strikes me as disingenuous word play. Whether or not the identification of key metrics is important, it's fair to ask whether it ought to be part of the job duties for a data scientist, and your answer to that question probably reveals more about your personal inclinations than about what is optimal for a given business.

Personally, my experience has been that most of the metrics and ad hoc reports that product- or business-minded managers ask for are junk wastes of time which, at best, create new surface area for fueling political debates about what's important, allowing different managers and cliques in the company to duke it out over whose priorities should be favored. Dressing them up as sexy data-driven "insights" is just one more tool for politics.

When the words "data scientist" come to mean "ad hoc business report jockey" then it seems like you might as well dissolve the question, because in that company, they've already chosen what they want out of data science-- arbitrary and whimsical political fodder.

In other companies, data scientists are actual statisticians. It can be really hard for business people to let go of the keys to the car, but a well-trained statistician knows that you have to devise you experiments or your proposed models based on whatever inference goals you have, which would be business goals in many cases. By taking a generic statistical perspective, you will home in on the metrics and model diagnostics that carry _actual_ meaning for decision making, and many times you'll just pragmatically ignore all the business junk (not always, because some of it rests on useful principles, but a lot of it really is junk).

Anyway, it's such a loaded topic. It all depends on the private mental model someone has in their brain when they hear "data science."

Some people start thinking about rigorous statistical models, trade-offs between a frequentist test or a Bayesian setup, whether or not a machine learning model is appropriate, what kind of diagnostic would make sense for a special regression model... these people need to be given freedom to make choices that are statistically rigorous, and trusted that they understand the inference goals in terms of business priorities for the company (probably even better than the business people do).

Other people hear "data science" and they think of a sharp-featured 20-something wearing a sweater vest parachuting in the business meeting with a sexy slide deck on their Macbook, ready to spin whatever story is needed. These people ... should not be in charge of anything.</comment>