Jack Dorsey Has No Clue What He Wants - <AUTHOR> https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jack-dorsey-twitter-interview_us_5c3e2601e4b01c93e00e2a00?gmf <comment> core-questions What a typically trash article from Huff Po. Is it really Jack Dorsey's job to shut down conservative and right wing discourse? Is he obligated in some sense to use the Huff Po factbook as his personal bible and deplatform anyone who dares have a different perspective?

Shutting down actual abuse / bullying is one thing, but enforcing restrictions on free speech that aren't legally required is not something these companies should do, nor are they going to be successful at changing minds, shaping dialogue, or improving the state of affairs by doing this.</comment>


Teaching Geometry in Alabama - <AUTHOR> http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/05/jefferson_county_geometry_teac.html

<comment><USER2> At first I thought it was gonna be something like "Ah'm sorry, sir, but 'round these parts a circle is exactly 3 times as long 'round as it is 'crost. 10 cubits wide, and 30 cubits 'round, that's wut the Good Lord said, an' if you try an' teach our kids otherwise, that's grounds for revokin' yer teachin' certificate for denyin' the Word of God."

It actually turned out to be horrifyingly worse...

</comment><comment><USER3> Is the title of this post meant to suggest that such is typical of Alabama?</comment>


Why We'll Never Meet Aliens - <AUTHOR> http://paultyma.blogspot.com/2013/04/why-well-never-meet-aliens.html <comment><USER2> The idea that advanced aliens wouldn't bother talking to us / visiting us if they could because we're too primitive is obviously wrong.

We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves.

And it's obvious that if _we_ could travel around the galaxy and we detected life forms on another planet, we would obviously go visit them and check them out.

The issue is that, for it to have any hope of ever visiting or communicating with us the intelligent life would have to be in our own galaxy. Which is a lot less likely (going down from billions of billions to just billions of stars.)

Even then the task is far from trivial. But I think it's a certainty that if intelligent life does exist in our galaxy which is more advanced than ourselves, it will obviously try to contact us.

Also based purely on what we know about life on earth intelligent life which is capable of developing technology is exceedingly rare when compared to life in general. It's not necessarily required that any planet which gives rise to life ever eventually develops intelligent life. If not for the extinction of the dinosaurs we'd never exist. So personally I tend to think it's most likely there are other planets with life in the Milky Way, but possibly none with intelligent life. And even less likely for it to be more advanced than us.

<comment><USER3> > We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own > planet who are far less advanced than ourselves.

Actually, as far as our interactions with other life forms go, we either ignore them (intestinal bacteria), keep them away (diseases), exterminate them (pests), or harvest and devour them (farming), or kill them for sport (hunting). The utterly insignificant fraction that become objects of our affection are those that are extremely close to us on the evolutionary scale. This wouldn't be the case with a civilization advanced enough to visit. Not even close.

If someone somewhere discovered a new breed of cockroach, would you care?

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't, but I can assure you there are lots of scientists on this planet who would care.

Your examples involve creatures that we already know about and have interacted with and "integrated" into our lives (one way or another).

But I suppose the counter-example is "it depends who finds us" -- if it's an intergalactic scientific exploration team of aliens, they'll probably be as nice as can be. If it's an intergalactic mining company, maybe not so much.

The equivalent here would be the contrast between a scientific expedition to explore new species in the Amazon Rainforest (i.e. people who would be benign and take an interest in new species) vs. a bulldozing crew out to find more land in those same rainforests ("Oh look, a bird. Ok boys chop down that tree").

<comment><USER5> Comparing a few (not "lots of" as you claim) specialists scattered around societies around the world is not a good representation of civilizations around the universe (or at least, we can't assume it to be).

As human as it is, most exploration has been grounded in financial and egotistical needs, not scientific exploration. Maybe the civilization is just as curious as we would be and thus would come for selfless reasons, but that's a pretty big assumption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> On top of all that, we're forgetting that aliens might not just be very distant from us in space, but also in time. Implied in the Drake equation is also the percent of technologically advanced intelligent life-bearing planets in the universe, but technologically advanced intelligent life-bearing planets that happen to have hit some technological threshold within the right time frame to contact _us_. Once you start thinking of it that way, the probabilities get freakishly small. A couple small evolutionary events and a parallel Earth could have achieved sentient space-faring intelligence of some sort a billion years ago. If they came to check us out we wouldn't be here. Likewise, a couple mass extinction events on another parallel Earth could keep space-faring intelligence on the back burner for another 2 billion years.

</comment><comment><USER7> Never is a strong term.

But on the whole, not a viable collection of answers to the Fermi Paradox, even with the usual qualification that it is most likely a machine phase civilization that would come knocking rather than its biological ancestors. All it takes is one faction within one species to decide on self-replicating probes that can recreate its own biosphere at each stopover, and the whole galaxy will be visited in a time that is very short compared to its lifespan.

That species will be us unless the Great Filter makes itself known sometime within the next century or two; I haven't seen any compelling suggestions as to what it might be at this point, however.

Further, the article fails to consider the value of data, which I think is the most likely trade good for any sort of interstellar commerce. I think one could make good information-theoretic and game theory arguments as to why you really have to send an intelligent data extractor/compiler of some sort to a very remote source in order to maximize the rate at which you can obtain the data that's most valuable to you.

</comment><comment><USER8> > The bottom line is that if an alien race is capable of getting here, all the > other technology they've requisitely developed in the meantime would make > the trip unnecessary at best - and more than likely, simply meaningless.

This argument is structurally similar to the argument that God exists because God is perfect, and a necessary attribute of perfection is existence. It begs the question.

Personally I think the real reason we'll never meet aliens is that such travel is physically impossible.

<comment><USER9> "This argument is structurally similar to the argument that God exists because God is perfect, and a necessary attribute of perfection is existence. It begs the question."

No it doesn't. The hypothetical alien race remains hypothetical throughout the argument. Not so with the Ontological Proof.

<comment><USER8> What is each speaker trying to prove?

1) the idea that God exists

2) the idea that aliens will never come visit us

Both start their proof with an assertion that contains within its concept the very conclusion that they are trying to prove.

Both attempt to leverage an opinion that is personally held ("I think God is perfect", "I think alien science will obviate the need to visit") into an objective statement that applies universally ("God exists","aliens will never come visit").

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Another day, another instance of someone saying "Stephen Hawkings" or "Jony Ives".

The biggest impediment in my mind to alien contact is time. Intelligent life could have evolved any time in the past 13 billion years or any time in the next googol years. The probability that we would cross temporal paths in our few thousand years of viable existence seems low.

<comment><USER11> Thing is, we don't actually know what the half life of an intelligent species is. Civilisations? Yes, in the case of ours, but simply taking our species as the sample could get us a number that could be magnitudes off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well, most of the people in this comment thread haven't been reading good- enough science fiction, including Paul.

First, go read Accelerando by Charles Stross:

[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog- static/fiction/accelera...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog- static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando.html)

And for the bits you don't understand, you can also check out the woefully incomplete but still helpful technical companion:

[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Accelerando_Technical_Companio...](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Accelerando_Technical_Companion)

Then you'll want to read up in general on molecular nanotechnology. K. Eric Drexler has updated Engines of Creation, and its also free online:

<http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=503>

So if we get visited by "aliens" there's an even chance it will be some runaway Von Neumann replicator seeds shot out from a nearby solar system, bent on converting our entire solar system to computronium. Or if we're lucky, some relatively benevolent replicator seeds merely intent on cataloging all the myriad of life that has arisen around the galaxy without actually intending to destroy said life.

There is just about zero chance than any recognizably biological (I prefer the term "squishy") life coming to visit us, just because sending any sizable chunk of matter across interstellar distances at any reasonable speed so so damn expensive, even for Kardashev type 2 civilizations.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale>

</comment><comment><USER13> This article seems to gloss over the hypothesis that aliens evolved under evolutionary pressure, and are thus likely to want to reproduce and expand. So no matter how advanced they may become technologically, they might still want our resources and our planet, simply because they're reproducing themselves at an exponential rate--especially if they've solved the immortality problem, which is likely. Even with advanced birth control, aliens may still want to have cute alien babies. They could chose to simulate their lives in a computer instead, likely it's cheaper to acquire a real planet than simulate one.

<comment><USER14> >>This article seems to gloss over the hypothesis that aliens evolved under evolutionary pressure, and are thus likely to want to reproduce and expand.

Remember though that we've already seen that people in rich nations are not driven to reproduce and expand like bunnies. Is there some evolutionary pressure on you that drives you fuck woman and have children with them? Is the impulse so strong that you cannot help yourself? We can have as much sex as we want, but without the children because of birth control. Why would it be any different for Aliens?

<comment><USER15> > people in rich nations are not driven to reproduce

It may be true for many, even most. But you would need to expand it to _all_. Otherwise those who do want to reproduce and spread will continue to do it.

Also, we may be in a lull. There may be some gene that either makes people not want to reproduce, or makes people really want to reproduce. That gene is about to experience a whole boatload of selective pressure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> We do a lot of crazy crap in the name of invisible gods. What's to say an alien race wouldn't get it in their heads that it's their sacred duty to their chosen deity to fill every planet in the universe with their greatness, exterminating all the impure in the process?

I have no problem believing the equivalent of the Daleks or the Ori might one day demonstrate a variant of the replicator hypothesis at our expense.

Why must they have a coherent logical basis for all their behavior? We certainly don't.

<comment><USER17> Right, or a coherent logical basis that _we_ would understand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> the largest logical fallacy among many that this article suffers from is that alien species would necessarily need to be technologically advanced to reach us. This probably comes from another flawed line of thought that aliens need to be like us in some way (hence requiring things like figuring out how to survive radiation, last for long periods without food and so on). This doesnt really make sense since on earth itself there are species that can do things we humans couldnt do (cockroaches can cope with tremendous amounts of radiation for example, and bacteria that live near geysers etc - thrive at extremely high temperatures). So why isn't it possible that an alien species that just about figures out how to ride a rock in space and doesnt really need all the advancement that we need to survive - comes floating by planet earth and decides to check us out sometimes?! Don't back up a lack of imagination with flawed logic ;)

<comment><USER19> I agree. There are complex organisms on Earth that can froze and defroze themselves and continue to live.

What if one of those evolve to inteligence on a low gravity planet. It would be much easier to travel through space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> How can we say definitively (or with any certainty) that there are relatively advanced life forms everywhere, such that they are a dime a dozen? How do we know that interstellar travelers wouldn't find us rare and interesting?

Curiosity more than anything is what drives our need to know. I think that's what would drive such visitors. In fact, _because_ they would be more technologically advanced and would likely have solved resource problems, etc., they would naturally have time to spend exploring and answering questions.

Finally, we can assume such explorers are more advanced than we, but not necessarily by orders of magnitude. I think people have a tendancy to attribute god-like qualities to them because they have solved some problems that we have not.

But, the idea of splitting an atom was outlandish until a handful of dudes, inspired by another dude's theory did it in a relatively short span. Similar with other breakthroughs. At any given time, a single discovery can advance our knowledge far beyond what we thought possible, and even moreso with the accelerating pace of technology.

And, BTW, many of our own "resource problems" are completely solvable and should not exist. For instance, we have an obesity problem in the U.S. while millions starve elsewhere (and in the U.S.). It seems that our biggest obstacles are a product of human nature. If anything, an alien species' appearance might be indicative of an advancement in philosophy or organizational behavior (ex. hive mentality vs. individual) moreso than a far superior intelligence.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is just a bunch of idle speculation.

We can't speculate on the motives of aliens at all. Look at how hard it is to discern the motives of other humans, and now tell me you're going to discern the motives of something biologically completely unlike us? You can't assume they're rational motives either. Why should aliens be incapable of something like religion, egotism, mass delusion, or hedonic desires?

As far as the feasibility of star travel: it's hard, but not impossible. The thing that makes it hard really isn't the propulsion problem. You can go to the stars using technology contemporary with the Beatles white album:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_\(nuclear_propulsion\))

A thermonuclear Orion could achieve around 10% the speed of light... according to figures computed using 60s assumptions of vehicle mass. With very lightweight materials and more efficient thermonuclear charges higher fractions are certainly achievable. (Though the acceleration would be rough!)

What you can't do with 60s-70s tech is survive the trip. The biological, structural, psychological, and engineering robustness challenges outweigh the challenge of propelling yourself at meaningful fractions of the speed of light. But those are all things that will yield to incremental progress.

(BTW: the same is true for Mars. The Apollo rig could have, with very minor modifications, sent astronauts to Mars. They would have been dead when they got there. The life support tech to keep a human in a can alive that long did not exist. Propulsion isn't the hardest problem.)

The fact is that we simply don't know. We don't even know if there is other _complex_ life in our galaxy, let alone what it might be capable of or what it might do.

<comment><USER21> > You can't assume they're rational motives either. Why should aliens be > incapable of something like religion, egotism, mass delusion, or hedonic > desires?

I think the question would be if irrationality, egoism, delusion, and hedonism allows (or prevents) a species to advanced to FTL travel.

They might also have an idea that the only life that should exist in this universe is theirs. Or they might believe that connecting with all other sentient beings is a primary goal in existence. Or they might be incredibly altruistic and want to help and benefit all others.

Though the author's other points are all valid... There is no reason to invade this planet for its resources when a few asteroids in their own solar system contains everything they need.

<comment><USER20> People always thought that, but I don't find what's happening here encouraging. It seems perfectly possible to compartmentalize to such a degree that one can excel at engineering while maintaining alarmingly irrational beliefs in other areas. I've known some brilliant engineers who were seven day / 6000 year creationists, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Aliens would indeed not travel to us for earth's ressources. But our earth is special by the existence of life. If life emergence is a random process, the forms it can take may be as well. There would be alot to learn and gain from a direct access to it. Science and knowlege is the ultimate ressource any ciilization will run after, after energy and other limiting facors have been mastered.

Another frequent mistake is that ET would travel direct from home to earth. As far as we know FTL is impossible. So it makes better sense to travel by small hops from one solar system to the next one. It could be more a ant like colonization process. This would imply that ET visiting earth would irst build one or more bases in our solar system and visit earth from there.

</comment><comment><USER23> I found an online posting of a secondary school textbook reprint of Arthur C. Clarke's essay "We'll Never Conquer Space,"

[http://www.olivenri.com/conquer_space_files/Conquer_space.pd...](http://www.olivenri.com/conquer_space_files/Conquer_space.pdf)

which lays out just how vast outer space is, and how time (with travel being strictly limited by the speed of light) as much as distance limits the feasibility of voyages between stars, especially back-and-forth voyages between stars.

A blogger on a planetarium website

[http://www.armaghplanet.com/blog/why-we-will-never- conquer-s...](http://www.armaghplanet.com/blog/why-we-will-never-conquer- space.html)

and the maker of a Prezi based on Clarke's essay

<http://prezi.com/uxc2owcv5ekp/well-never-conquer-space/>

both emphasize that traveling to a nearby star is already a huge task.

The probable density in the universe of intelligent living things (the "aliens" of the title of the submitted blog post) among all the many stars is low. All those aliens run into the same hard physical laws we run into if they attempt to make a voyage to another star. To the most relevant correct approximation, our probability of meeting interstellar voyagers is even lower than our probability of being interstellar voyagers, and our probability of being interstellar voyagers during the lifetime of anyone now reading Hacker News is nil. Remember, we have not even visited Mars, not even on the proposed one-way trip,

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5390730>

and humankind has delayed in traveling to Mars far beyond my imagining (I thought that the trip would be made in 1980s, and even dreamed of being on the landing crew) because humankind has higher priorities and better claims on our shared resources. So the submitted blog post title is correct, even if you quibble about the blogger's reasoning (as I do). We won't meet the aliens, because the aliens won't make a trip here before we all die.

</comment><comment><USER24> Since we haven't met aliens yet, and interstellar travel would take ridiculous amounts of time and energy, I don't think any of us alive will meet aliens. It's like saying none of us will experience an ice age. Even if they do happen regularly, it happens regularly on geologic time scales, so it isn't going to happen in your life span. There might be so many stars out there that aliens are bound to happen, but crossing stars takes so much time and energy it isn't going to happen often.

</comment><comment><USER25> The question is not "why would they want to visit us", but "why are they not here", aka The Fermi Paradox: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox>

Every issue related to the existence of aliens must answer that paradox first. My favorite interpretation: we are the most advanced civilization in the galaxy.

"Why would they want to visit us?" - this can have trivial answers: the same reasons why we study ants today.

<comment><USER26> I like this one the most: "It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself"

There could simply be a technological ceiling. Once civilization reaches the ceiling, it hits it's head on the ceiling, and falls down the stairs either destroying itself or at very least losing most the progress.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I liked the article but not the misleading title. A title like "Alien movies have so many implausible ideas" would have been more accurate and not get people so stuck on the one idea implied by the title.

Of all the implausible ideas in sci fi movies and books, the one which always rubbed me most wrong is not mentioned: How military encounters would play out. Consider:

Most naval battles in space are modeled after 2 dimensional naval war fare. Not only is space 3D, but there is no reason to suppose technology geared around combating vessels floating in water has any relevance to space combat.

However, the most important variable determining the outcome of first encounters with (quite possibly) hostile alien races has nothing to do with the military gear and tactics. It has to do with relative technology level. Greg Bear's "Anvil of the Stars" which looks at it from this angle and here are some notes I distilled:

In most sci fi movies and books, there are World-War-II-Naval-like space battles with weapons/ships/shields at near parity. I have always thought this to be highly implausible, and I thought the most interesting aspect of this book was to consider three possible battle situations in space:

1) Your ship encounters a ship at a vastly higher tech level. If they detect you before you detect them, you are dead. Period. Your only possibility to win such a battle is to detect them first and destroy them instantly - and your chances of being able to do that are slim.

2) Your ship encounters a ship at a vastly lower tech level. Using the logic above, all that matters is you being able to detect them before they detect you. The technologies of stealth, electronic counter measures, detection, etc. are therefore all extremely vital in order to never be defeated by aliens with a lower tech level.

3) There is a possibility that you encounter an enemy close enough to your own tech level that the battle could last more than a split second. It is only in these instances that all the other things often written in other science fiction stories might matter - amount and type of shielding, weapons systems, quality of personnel, etc. But such battles are very unlikely, because technological progress is so fast. Consider what it would be like for any of today's industrialized nations with a substantial military to combat the most powerful nation on earth from 200 years ago - there would be no contest at all. The universe has been around for billions of years, so the chance of two races encountering each other that are within a few hundred years of each others' technology level is very low.

The above logic also applies to planetary defense as well, though with even more emphasis on not being detected.

</comment><comment><USER28> This article assumes a lot:

* The aliens who possess the technological ability to reach Earth are the ones who built it and evolved alongside it. Who's to say they didn't take it by force?

* FTL is something that must be developed through technology. (i.e. discounting the possibility of naturally occurring wormholes)

* The aliens have no inherent desire for exploration

Yes, I've watched too much Sci-fi :)

<comment><USER28> ...also, if you're traveling FTL, then time travel isn't that much of a stretch. So, ya.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Interestingly enough, this argument seems self defeating. Let's think what he's saying:

a) Aliens who can get across space to us would be far in advance of us in all dimensions of technology.

b) They would also be far smarter than us because technological evolution would act much more than biological and therefore give them machine-brain interfaces.

c) With their great science they would be able to know what we're like (so far below them) and have no need to come here.

except as far as I can see, c) is overruled by b)

If aliens have got so far by technological evolution and use machines to augument their bodies and minds, they're not really that far in advance of us - they just have better tools. They wouldn't see us in that case as insects - rather as cripples who just need a wheelchair. If they used their science to augument our bodies and minds in the same way as they do with their own, we'd be perfectly able to have conversations with them.

</comment><comment> alan-crowe They might not be trying to explore physical space, they might be trying to explore chemical space. Chemical space? [http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2013/04/18/a_short_pept...](http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2013/04/18/a_short_peptide_and_a_small_molecule.php)

Consider the question of whether there is any alternative biochemical basis for life. It is quite likely that even an alien super-intelligence finds the question impossible. Sure, it can invent synthetic biologys that are variations on its own biochemistry, but is there anything genuinely different out there? Given the size of chemical space it is probably easier to travel ten thousand light years to the nearest planet with life on it and look to see if its basis is the same or different.

</comment><comment><USER30> This article is full of misconceptions. Let's address a few of the most egregious ones.

>there are billions of stars and planets in our galaxy and billions of galaxies. Humans are rather bad at fully understanding such large numbers.

There's no obstacle to working with large numbers once you understand powers and logarithms (i.e. pre-calc). Very smart people have looked at the Drake equation and it yields a very wide range of values [1].

>Christopher Columbus first landing on North America (not a good event for native Americans)

The main reason Europeans were able to take over America was disease. The Aztec effort to kick out the Spanish was hampered by smallpox [2], and colonization of North America had to wait for over a century before the native population was sufficiently depleted by disease to stop offering resistance. [3] Needless to say, disease worked unintentionally and because both sides were the same species.

> So, screw it, all movie alien races invented artificial gravity.

Or, you know, maybe they built ships with rotating crew habitats that simulate gravity by centrifugal force. (I belive _2001_ does a pretty good job of showing the concept.)

> If getting humans to another star system is a 100 on some "technology > ability scale", we're a 2 which is not comparatively far ahead of say, > poodles - who are probably at a 1.

First off, poodles are at a zero. Second, if 10% of world GDP was dedicated to building an interstellar, multi-generation ark, we pretty much have the technology to do it right now. The technological problem is to reduce the cost to the point where the political will to do it can be summoned (probably around 0.01% of GDP).

>Maybe they want to trade with us. Well, yeah, right. If you've gotten this far it's obvious we have no tech that would interest them.

[4]

>How many years before we have a brain interface to Google? You'd know everything.

We already have Google in our pockets. But instantly finding any quote by Darwin doesn't mean I understand the theory of evolution.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation#Range_of_values>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuitl%C3%A1huac>

[3] See timeline in [http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before- Colum...](http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before- Columbus/dp/1400032059/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366998666&sr=8-1&keywords=1491)

[4] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage>

<comment> old-gregg And this is the top rated comment? None of these "misconceptions" have much to do with the main point OP is making: we think too small, and we pick the wrong analogies and frameworks when we discuss an alien visit.

If anything, your post is yet another manifestation of this. It simply doesn't matter what happened to native americans, when the entire Columbus story does not apply.

And what do your comments about googles in pockets and drake equation have to do with anything? Do you have anything to say about _actual point_ the OP is making?

Ugh...

<comment><USER31> My biggest quibble with the OP is that you can never say that there are no black swans out there just because you've never seen one. No matter how advanced the aliens might be, they wouldn't be able to predict everything they would find here based on theory alone. What if their theory didn't include something they hadn't yet encountered? They would have to see for themselves by some means that, if quantum limits are what we think, could not all be remotely viewed from light years away.

<comment><USER5> We're not talking about the lottery here, we're not talking about the probability that you will be hit by a bus or the chance you have of starting a company and making it big.

We are talking about the vastness of an entire GALAXY and a level of technological advancement that comes with consequences that no one can even begin to imagine let alone predict. The entirety of human science fiction doesn't even scratch the surface as to what is possible (and due to our own biases and the need to entertain a television audience/readership is probably far more tame and boring than what is really out there) at those levels.

You're talking about quantum limits but you have to realize, to make the vast majority of science fiction watchable/readable, you have to almost entirely throw out our knowledge of modern physics. For example, every real world attempt at theorizing FTL travel has lead either to needing ridiculous amounts of energy (equivalent to the mass of Jupiter for the original Alcubierre drive which would be about a billion billion billion kilograms each of matter and antimatter) or particles with properties which we have NEVER come close to seeing (and by never, I mean not a shred of experimental evidence or even a suggestion that it exists outside of a theoretical framework). If an alien race has FTL, it's knowledge of the universe is well above ours and any attempts we can make to predict the limits of their technology is useless. For all we know, FTL travel might be as difficult as building your own solar system from scratch.

In order for us to have an alien visit that is even close to any imagined encounter in science fiction, many things that we can't speculate on would have to work out. We're not talking one black swan, we're talking about an unknowable number of factors and events that would have to work out just right.

It's might be possible (we don't even know if FTL is possible), just like it might be possible for wild pigs to evolve to fly without any artificial intervention in a few thousand years, but it's so unlikely that it's worth putting into the "Just not going to happen pile," all the while working to prove yourself wrong :)

<comment><USER18> this argument - just as that of the OP fails in its assumption that some alien species would need FTL To get here. maybe theyre just a species that lives for millenia in earth years - and can manage without gravity or limited gravity. You just dont know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Most of the comments here make an assumption that aliens would have similar motivations as ourselves.

Is there a chance that another intelligent lifeform would share ANY mental or emotional similarities with us? This assumes that they even have mental or emotional capabilities in the first place.

An alien intelligence could express itself collectively like an advanced ant colony or they could communicate in ways so different than us that we would each appear like brute beasts to each other.

If a giant amoeba colony that developed intelligence by acting as individual neurons in a collective brain we wouldn't even know unless its actions betrayed higher level planning and thinking. This would require that its motivations were at least marginally similar to our own.

<comment><USER15> I have no problem believing that, if there is alien life, that many of them are quite different.

I do have a problem believing that there is lots of alien life and _all_ of them will come to this guy's "it makes sense to me so it must make sense to advanced aliens" conclusions to say home.

<comment><USER32> Agreed. The problem with reasoning about potentially unreasonable (at least to us) lifeforms is self-evident.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations>

92.35% of human population is religious, in every religion there are gods that can be easily associated with aliens.

Looking at some religios beliefs the coming of gods means all kind of things, some religions interpret them as the end of the world, the return of christ etc.

Aliens showing up will have a big impact on people beliefs, most of us will be very scared, many will believe the end of the world version and panic.

The social impact of alien existence on our current society is huge and if advanced aliens really discovered us then they sure know this and wait for our society to get more mature to be ready to meet them.

</comment><comment><USER34> Of all the many reasons why our view of alien visitation is radically off- target, that the trip would be meaningless probably doesn't even make the cut. It's hard to imagine an advanced species would have advanced without curiosity.

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't buy the idea that they wouldn't need to come here, because their statistical models, based on remote observations of conditions, would be able to predict everything they would find.

I think we've learned enough about complexity and sensitive dependence on initial (and later) conditions to say that, unless we're wrong about complexity, the outcome of all these historical accidents wouldn't be predictable. They would still have to observe, meaning explore, to see what ended up actually happening around the universe and, in addition, they would never know for sure if they had already found all the Black Swans out there.

</comment><comment><USER35> The film and even more so the book Solaris describes an alien intelligence that is far more interesting than the anthropomorphic forms that humans fantasize about.

The "alien" in Solaris is a sentient ocean that covers the surface of the planet. All kinds of structures form and dissolve on the surface. The being can communicate with visitors by accessing their minds and seems to alter reality itself to entertain their fantasies.

Whose to say that other lifeforms would be single units (like human egos), or would operate on time scales that we can even comprehend ? Or operate consciously only in 3 dimensions.

that said, there are probably more like us.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra If aliens exist we should be able to notice consequences of their existence - either accidental or intended.

Even if we miss the window of contact, galaxy should be teeming with shadows of alien civilizations if only we know where to look.

</comment><comment><USER36> > it's nearly comical to believe we're the only intelligent life in the > universe

Why the obsession with life?

If our space ships landed on a distant planet containing an advanced civilization of intelligent robots, would we shrug, say "no life here," and head home?

In fact, if you think about it, life is the _most boring_ thing we could discover. We already know a lot about life, and how life may evolve, but we know absolutely nothing about how civilizations and intelligence may come from other substrates.

I hope we don't find life, but something far weirder.

</comment><comment><USER37> I look around at a "human" species on this planet I don't understand and don't feel part of. Either I'm looking at a successful alien invasion, or I'm it.

</comment><comment><USER38> If aliens aren't coming to this planet, clearly this is a market ripe for disruption!

I'm now looking for a cofounder who will shake up the L2L (lifeform to lifeform) market with a new disruptive social media platform for unmotivated hypotetcial advanced beings to share pictures of intergalactic felines.

<comment><USER39> 'advanced' belies the sort of casual sentientism that is an embarrassment and a blight on this site, the technology industry and entrepreneurship. It's also irrational since it ignores a massive yet underserved market.

Opening line of the elevator pitch - 'It's like Google, but for goo'.

<comment><USER38> > Opening line of the elevator pitch - 'It's like Google, but for goo'.

Uh, we just pivoted to a Facebook for homogeneous omniscient beings of pure energy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> He's not addressing the idea of von neumann probes. Just a species or self- replicating probe that spreads out in all directions using all resources.

Another option is an alien race seeing us as a potential competitor for resources after millions of years more development and wanting to stop us now.

</comment><comment><USER41> Life usually makes me feel silly for using the term `never`. As a rule, I don't.

</comment><comment><USER42> "It's easy to get lost in the numbers thrown around - there are billions of stars and planets in our galaxy and billions of galaxies. Humans are rather bad at fully understanding such large numbers."

Speak for yourself.

</comment><comment><USER43> They must take into account the effects of raw aether upon sailcloth!

</comment><comment><USER44> My theory is that once a life form gets advanced enough, their brains start penetrating a hidden dimension that we know nothing about. This dimension is so much richer than "our universe", that they never come back to this one.

<comment><USER45> It may have started to happen to us already -- I'm sure there are a few people here who have gotten lost in the World of Warcraft dimension for a time.

<comment><USER44> true - now think if WOW was a trillion times more immersive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Actually, there are increasing amount of evidence that implies we are related to the aliens on a genetic level. See Sirius the documentary.

We literally are who we seek.

</comment><comment><USER47> if they are like us but more advanced, that's better. remember what happened to american indians? ;)</comment>


What It's Like Working with Steve Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://inventor-labs.com/blog/2011/10/12/what-its-really-like-working-with-steve-jobs.html <comment><USER2> Prior discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11036195](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11036195)</comment>


Snapchat murders Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKSr6h5-fCU&list=UUtinbF-Q-fVthA0qrFQTgXQ

<comment><USER2> It might be a bit biased. What do you expect when you call up 1 million followers on Snapchat, then ask them if they like Facebook?

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice video. The ability to last longer for those social platforms is a clear challenge.

Considering the system it builds to ensure retention, I would be curious to see how Snapchat would react to circumvent a loss of traction and on a larger scale of interest. Right now their platform would empty itself by design.

</comment><comment><USER4> can the bar go any lower? how can we even think a phone app only used by adolescent people will take over social networking for all mankind. I do not know a single person who uses this app and all the audience in this video are teenage girls.

</comment><comment><USER5> heres the thing about stuff that teenagers like: they only like it for like 1-2 years, and they don't really spend any money on anything either. building a business that appeals to this demographic doesn't seem like a good plan to me.</comment>


Boeing's 737 Max Bills Include $2k a Month to Park Each Grounded Jet - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-24/boeing-s-max-bills-start-with-2-000-a-month-desert-parking-tab <comment><USER2> $2k per month actually sounds pretty cheap for plane storage.</comment>


NSA and FBI warn that new Linux malware threatens national security - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/nsa-and-fbi-warn-that-new-linux-malware-threatens-national-security/ <comment><USER2> > Also included are rules that network administrators can plug in to the > _Yara_ and _Snort_ intrusion detection systems to catch and halt network > traffic passing to or from control servers or to flag obfuscated Drovorub > files or processes already running on a server.

Page 35 [https://media.defense.gov/2020/Aug/13/2002476465/-1/-1/0/CSA...](https://media.defense.gov/2020/Aug/13/2002476465/-1/-1/0/CSA_DROVORUB_RUSSIAN_GRU_MALWARE_AUG_2020.PDF)

</comment><comment><USER3> Today I learned about Volatility. I've never really looked into forensics before; it's interesting that there's an entirely separate set of tools for determining the state a system was in when the memory was dumped, defined by analogy with tools like pstree that you'd ordinarily use to examine a running system. Seems like a bit of cat-and-mouse though; as an attacker with a code running in the kernel, you'd want to politely excuse yourself from memory images. Admittedly I don't understand malware very well; there may be techincal reasons why this is not possible.

</comment><comment><USER4> Cannot imagine any security aware kernel being left with modules and eBPF support on. Nobody should do that. We disabled kernel modules in the early 90ies already.

The OracleLinux kernel with dTrace looks fine though. But Oracle

</comment><comment><USER5> >Government officials said Drovorub gets its name from strings unintentionally left behind in the code.

Imagine being a highly trained topnotch agency and being that stupid ;) ...really happy that something like that never happens at the NSA</comment>


Nobel Prize in Medicine Goes to Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/health/nobel-prize-medicine.html <comment><AUTHOR> >Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm.

The three United States-born scientists used fruit flies to isolate a gene that controls the rhythm of a living organism's daily life. Mr. Hall, Mr. Rosbash and Mr. Young were "able to peek inside our biological clock," helping make discoveries that "explain how plants, animals and humans adapt their biological rhythm so that it is synchronized with the Earth's revolutions," the Nobel prize committee said.

By examining the internal workings of fruit flies, the three helped determine that the gene they were analyzing encoded a protein that accumulated in a cell at night, and then degraded during the day.</comment>


Google App Engine Standard Will Use Google Cloud Build After November 30, 2019 - <AUTHOR> Got this email today:
Hello Google App Engine Customer, We're writing to remind you that after November 30, 2019, App Engine Standard will use Google Cloud Build during deployments to build your code into a container before running it on our platform.
Cloud Build requires all projects to be linked to a billing instrument (for example, a credit card), so please ensure your projects containing App Engine applications are linked to a billing account with a valid billing instrument. Applications without billing instruments will be unable to deploy after November 30, 2019. <comment><AUTHOR> If you are one of those early users of GAE who deployed and forgot about your app, you might want to check your account for valid billing instrument.</comment>


Why We Need a Transhumanism Movement - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zoltan-istvan/why-we-need-a-transhumani_b_9544368.html <comment><USER2> I look forward to this being possible. To have even some of your youth restored at an old age is huge.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nobody here want to be a peduncle, but it's likely we are. Get used to it.</comment>


Registrations open for new .tel domain - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/12/03/Registrations_open_for_tel_domain_1.html

<comment><USER2> It's really only for those with trademarks that can afford to pay the large initial fees every year. They know if they release it to the general public, there would a huge rush of people getting many valuable domains, and not giving the .tel operators the same revenue the big companies can afford.

Great cash for them.

</comment><comment><USER3> ohdo.tel, showand.tel, dontaskdont.tel</comment>


How to think like an entrepreneur, wherever you are - <AUTHOR> http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/08/19/guest-post-how-to-think-like-an-entrepreneur-wherever-you-are/ <comment><USER3> This is very good information, but there is a danger in just sucking up as much information as possible. Study hacks blogged about a very interesting study some time ago ([http://calnewport.com/blog/2010/01/06/the-grandmaster- in-the...](http://calnewport.com/blog/2010/01/06/the-grandmaster-in-the- corner-office-what-the-study-of-chess-experts-teaches-us-about-building-a- remarkable-life/)) in which it was found that time spend studying chess was only weakly correlated with how good you where - if you merely put in the hours, you could learn to become pretty good at chess, but the grandmasters didn't just study more or harder, they studied in a different way.

Rather than simply memorizing chess games, they read old games and tried to predict what the next move would be - which the intermediate players didn't do (or at least not very much).

So if you want to be a business grandmaster, you may have to read the businessbooks in an entirely different way from what everybody else does.

<comment><USER4> I had a chemistry teacher who used to say "Consumption does not equal comprehension" during the materials review the day before all of his tests.

His point was that memorizing notes wasn't going to help you pass; you had to actually work on solving problems in order to really learn the material.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with both of you.

That's why I (author of the essay) added that you have to look at the case studies and ask yourself what you would have done, how that could be applied to other situations, etc. That's the only way to build reusable mental patterns (IMO - not sure if there's scientific evidence for that! except mental practice of athletes, musicians, etc...)

Too bad I had a word limit to work with :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Founders at Work is a good book of web startup case studies. Are there others?

What I really want is a place where people who run web startups post, "here's something I did to improve my product" and "here's something I did to reach my market" with specifics about their product and market. That's how I could build a mental database of "chunks".

HN is often too high-level (acquisitions, financing) or too low-level (programming techniques) and not right at that chunk level.

<comment><USER6> Mixergy often has highly actionable information based on the interviews that Andrew does. If you find interviews that are relevant to your industry/product/vertical, they can be really helpful.

<comment><USER7> Thanks. I try to model my interviews on JL's work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> thinking is one, execution is another. Reading is important, but action is crucial. I have no problems saying that I can think like entrepreneurs, and I believe you can as well, what separates winners from the rest of us is relentless execution. I used to force myself to think of 5 new startup ideas a day, at the end of the week I have to pick one idea to execute because we don't have enough time and money, what I want to say is idea is easy to come up with when it becomes your habit and once your team found a process to brainstorm, but execution really matters, we're still building our 1st startup around 1 single idea among bunch of our ideas from the portfolio. (and the idea has changed dramatically) .

Readwirteweb once wrote a post about this "the case against reading for entrepreneurs", good read, [http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/08/the- case-against-b...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/08/the-case-against- business-book.php)

<comment><AUTHOR> The "business" books RWR advised against are fluffy, not-business-at-all books like Gladwell -- and Seth Godin's, which are partially fluff, and partially excellent sources of case studies.

The guy quoted in RWR slammed case study books because they are soft-touch "how to build great companies" - but that's only SOME of them. The - <USER2> guessed it - fluffy ones.

"Don't read books that are nothing but fluff" is just not a battle cry people click on, so instead they say "don't read business books!"

Read Positioning, Spin Marketing, Pricing with Confidence, Getting to Yes, Rules for Revolutionaries, Purple Cow, etc., etc.

If you read, say, Purple Cow, or Positioning, or Pricing with Confidence, and don't come away with actionable ideas, you either have an empty head or were just running your eyes over the words and not thinking.

And read lots of biographies. They're practical storytelling - learn from me, kid - pinned down on paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I dislike reading until I have tried it once, because I'm chronically afraid that if I read about a technique to do things fast and efficiently, I'll never try anything else.

So first I try, then read about it, and see if my intuition came up with a better approach or if what I read was better. In any case, the reading will make more sense because I am constantly comparing it to what I tried.

</comment><comment><USER10> "Read. A lot. Don't cherrypick things that seem to apply to you — read it all." <\- That is why I read Hacker News.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hacker News is cherrypicking. :) Nobody here seems to read 20- to 30-year-old business books (except possibly me).

<comment><USER11> One of my favorite business books is 'Growing a Business' by Paul Hawken. It's from the 80ies, but much of his advice would look quite at home in a blog post by 37signals or some such.

<comment><USER12> Not available on B&N and Amazon as eBook. Sigh.

<comment><USER13> It's worth killing the tree for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I guess you just do. For example, entrepreneurs always seem to be looking for ideas, for change, even if they involve risk. Non-entrepreneurs in the other side are the ones that look for a "safe" job, do not appreciate change and they just want to do their job and go home after that.

It is not about thinking like an entrepreneur... it is more like living like one, you are goal/dream oriented, work a lot to get there, work from home and from anywhere, your mind never stops thinking about how to get something better, or how to create something new.

</comment><comment><USER15> Read it all is sort of bullshit, it's good to read but "read it all" even about only one subject is impossible, blogs, tweets, books, slides, presentations, gathering there is just too much to observe. If you don't cheerypick and try to read all you are being unrealistic not an entrepreneur, entrepreneurs should use time wisely.

It might be that author was trying to say "read different opinions", which makes sense. Which is way different than "read it all, don't cheerypick" advice

</comment><comment><USER16> This is nitpicky, I know, but I found it funny that the woman writer reffered to a hypothetical grandmaster as "she". I was surprised as I know chess is male-dominated.

Turns out there are 13 women grandmasters in history, and over 1,300 total grandmasters.

<comment><AUTHOR> I modeled the article after what I learned about Susan Polgar, the first woman to earn the title of Grandmaster. At least one of her sisters also earned the title after her.

She's particularly remarkable because her father believed "geniuses are made, not born" - and set out to train her himself. His methods are based on chunking, repetition, and study -- like I described. He wrote a book on it called "Bring Up Genius!"

Read:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3294892/Queen-takes- all.ht...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3294892/Queen-takes-all.html)

[http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200506/the- grandmast...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200506/the-grandmaster- experiment)

Ta-da! You're right - my use of the feminine pronoun is hilarious!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> That's an incoherent and muddled article, IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER18> Great, inspiring post. Thanks.</comment>


On Costliest U.S. Warship Ever, Navy Can't Get Munitions on Deck - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-30/flawed-elevators-on-13-billion-carrier-miss-another-deadline <comment><USER2> From the article: "The elevators aren't the only issue plaguing the ship, which has had problems with two other core systems -- the electromagnetic system to launch planes and the arresting gear to catch them when they land."

So let's see, the only the problem with this aircraft carrier is that it has trouble with airplanes taking off. And landing. And carrying, you know, bombs.

<comment><USER3> The real scandal isn't that the _Ford_ is having (lots) of problems with it's new technology. That can happen. It's not even that a decision was made to put multiple novel, unproven systems into a major warship.

The biggest scandal is that the US Navy accepted delivery of the _Ford_ and commissioned it when it was non-functional. This should be ending swathes of careers at the top of both the US Navy and Huntington Ingalls Industries.

<comment><USER4> I still have an HII access card for when I worked on the USS Chosin and USS O'Kane right underneath the Coronado bridge. I was still in the custody of the San Diego sheriff's department at the time. Many of the few hundred of us that worked there were either currently in a halfway house or ex-cons. None of us received any safety training on asbestos, yet we handled a-cloth every single day. We only had rudimentary safety equipment. Some guys would cut asbestos cloth with a hand grinder, sending fluff everywhere. Equipment marked "TOP SECRET" was covered with a simple piece of butcher paper...assuming it hadn't torn or fallen off. It was pretty much a shit show.

<comment><USER5> The United States government and "unconventional" approaches to labor for building military equipment is not new.

One of the most interesting stories to me is how the Mafia helped break some bones of laborers during WW2 to ensure the USA was victorious. They knew they couldn't operate without a free society.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmMcD96bHak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmMcD96bHak)

Lots of other ways that the Mafia helped in Italy.

[https://smile.amazon.com/Mafia-Allies-Americas-Secret- Allian...](https://smile.amazon.com/Mafia-Allies-Americas-Secret- Alliance/dp/0760324573?sa-no-redirect=1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's worth noting that problems like this are pretty normal for new weapons systems. Th V-22 Osprey is a good example here: it seemed like a disaster when it came out, but it's now got its kinks worked out and is performing really well.

<comment><USER7> If you're interested in big engineering projects and how they work culturally/politically as well as technologically, Richard Whittle's book about the V-22 Osprey is really worth reading.

_The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey_

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the recommendation! I'm in the midst of a big and culturally/politically challenging engineering project and eager to learn... so much so that I signed up for a library card and checked out the ebook from the LA Public Library!

<comment><USER9> That library card comes with tons of other benefits too. Free streaming on Kanopy, NYT membership, museum discounts / passes ([https://www.lapl.org/explorela](https://www.lapl.org/explorela)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > "I am concerned overall that the Navy is under-equipped in key areas," the > Oklahoma Republican said in a statement.

if there was any - any doubt at all - that this machine feeds itself, this hilarious statement should remove all of it

<comment><USER11> The only thing the US Navy is under-equipped for is something along the scale of the aliens from Battleship.

And just as likely to actually occur.

<comment><USER12> Nah, the Russians and anyone they've shared the tech with could easily sink a carrier or any other surface ship with hypersonic anti-ship missiles[1]. That's assuming they don't just ram into another ship on accident. The US Navy is in a very bad place now and the next war that isn't just picking on some totally helpless country will show it.

[1][https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a25684396...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a25684396/zircon- hypersonic-missile/)

<comment><USER13> Easily? Nothing involved would be easy.

<comment><USER14> Nonetheless, it seems the US Navy is still fighting the last war. Carriers are extremely vulnerable to missiles. I think fast missile boats and land based launchers probably make large warships obsolete. Tough to say for sure since that hasn't happened, but it seems likely to me.

<comment><USER13> Killing a carrier isn't like a video game where you see a carrier on screen and issue a launch command. Killing a carrier involves a chain of events; break anyone of the links and the carrier is safe.

First you have to locate the carrier. Easy to do in peacetime, in war time much more difficult. If you want to kill it with a ballistic missile, you need to locate it within a few square kilometers. This means either a radar location, or a satellite overhead.

Radar is problematic because it has to deal with the curvature of the earth. This is typically solved by using airborne radar. Well, carriers and their airgroups are very well versed in both detecting this surveillance and killing it. Either with aircraft, with SAMs, or with cruise missiles that target that airfields of the surveillance (ISR) aircraft.

So say that you somehow manage to get a location fix on a carrier battle group. Now you have to prep your missiles for launch which takes time. Let's say 30-60 min. The carrier can steam at over 30 knots, so now your targeting data is out of date. Again, not like push button warfare. Your ballistic missile now has to find the carrier in a roughly 1000 sq mile area. Fine, missiles are relatively cheap. So you just target each square mile with a missile and hope its internal radar can pick out the CVN.

So you launch 1000 missiles, and just like in Battleship, one of your missiles manages to be in the right spot. Now it has to deal with the SAMs protecting the CVN. Aegis is pretty good these days, so you've got to make it past them. That'll be tough. Then you have to make it past the ESSM missiles, as well as the ECM jamming suite of every ship in the carrier group. Fine, you have robust electronics.

BOOM! You've hit. But it turns out that your radar on the warhead was small, with insufficient processing power to discriminate between a carrier (especially with all the jamming going on) and an escort ship. You've sunk an LCS, or a refueler (they're big and have a big radar image), or maybe even an Arleigh Burke DDG or Tico cruiser. Sucks for those crewmates, but that's their job. Protect the carrier.

And what has this failed attack cost you? Well, ballistic missiles are cheap compared to a CVN, but not that cheap. Say $5M a piece since it makes the math easier (though the DF-21 and DF-26 will cost much much more). 1000 missiles is $5B, plus the cost of all the ISR assets used to locate the CVN.

Now if hypersonic missiles start to take off (pun intended) and become deployable weapon systems, it will make things more difficult. But that's still in the future.

<comment><USER15> >>First you have to locate the carrier. ...This means either a radar location, or a satellite overhead.

These aren't just "weather satellites". It's highly suspected they are capable of tracking carrier groups via infrared: [https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/06/05/chinese-weather- satell...](https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/06/05/chinese-weather-satellite- successfully-boosted-into-orbit/)

>> Now you have to prep your missiles for launch which takes time. Let's say 30-60 min.

China's DF-21D and DF-26 are solid-fueled and fired from mobile launchers. In a deliberate carrier-hunting attack the sensor-shooter killchain is also likely to be streamlined, even taking into the account that the Chinese still suck at Command & Control. Overall preptime and killchain delay should be negligible (<30 minutes for the Chinese).

>>> So you just target each square mile with a missile and hope its internal radar can pick out the CVN.

No. These long-range anti-carrier missiles have an almost vertical terminal trajectory and are looking down from high altitude. AN AESA's fast scanning should be able to find and fix a target with a signature as gigantic as a carrier's over a 30km-radius circle without too much difficulty. I haven't crunched the numbers on this personally, but I'll add it to my list of "radar scenarios to do the math on"...

>>>But it turns out that your radar on the warhead was small, with insufficient processing power

The DF-21 and DF-26 are both about 1.4m meters in diameter. You can stuff an AESA as good as any on a fighter into a nosecone that large.

>>>Aegis is pretty good these days.......Then you have to make it past the ESSM missiles.

Even in controlled tests we don't have that great of a pK (probability of kill aka "intercept") against high-speed ballistic missiles. The ships need to use SM-2s and SM-3s. 1x Tico + 2x Arleigh Burke are packing about 300VLS total, and that has to include Harpoons and Tomahawks. Let's assume ~250 SM-2/3s for air and missile defense. It's customary to launch 2 missiles per incoming threat (again, due to that low pK we've demonstrated) but that is still enough to stop 100 incoming (probably bigger than any realistic incoming salvo anyway). Assuming you can LAUNCH the SM-2s fast enough. Each ship would need to fire off 80+ missiles in probably 30 seconds, and I think there is a practical limit for how quickly you can fire from VLS (due to the exhausts and whatnot). It's probably something like 1-2 missiles per second, from non- adjacent cells.

>>>> Say $5M a piece since it makes the math easier (though the DF-21 and DF-26 will cost much much more). 1000 missiles is $5B, plus the cost of all the ISR assets used to locate the CVN.

I've seen estimates of $10-20M for DF-21/26\. -200(don't need 1000) x $20M = $400M -3 x $100M(??) surveillance sats = $300M -Sinking the centerpiece of your opponent's Navy, exploiting their Critical Vulnerability to defeat their Center of Gravity, AND achieve major Information Operation success (PR victory)? Priceless.

<comment><USER13> Warheads on the DF-21/26 aren't the same size as the missile diameter, especially if they're using MARV. So sensor size will drop. And the missiles won't have that much maneuverability.

Plus you're forgetting about SM6. This will eat these for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Assuming that the DF21 can even burn through the ECM that will be blasting it.

And it'll take more than one direct hit to kill a CVN. An 1100lb warhead will be similar in effect to a Harpoon. You might get lucky and have a mission kill, but if you fire 200+ missiles at a CVN you better kill it.

And if we go to war with the PRC, we won't be using one CVN. We'll be surging 2-3 CVBGs, and they'll run out of missiles. I also think that it's more likely that the PRC will be using nuclear warheads on the DF-26 in a purely defensive posture. The idea of them using as conventional weapons is too risky.

<comment><USER15> >>>>Warheads on the DF-21/26 aren't the same size as the missile diameter

For some reason finding physical radar dimensions is not easy. Even if the warhead is ~1m to the DF-21/26's 1.4m, that's still enough to stuff in one of these: [1] one of the most powerful A2A radars ever. [2]&[3] are <60cm diameter. [3] is known Chinese tech, and is therefore most within the realm of feasibility for employment.

>>>And the missiles won't have that much maneuverability

They shouldn't need much, just enough to turn a near-miss into a full miss (assuming a frag detonation and not a more difficult kinetic kill anyway). Topol-Ms are rumored to have evasive maneuver capabilities, to establish precedent.

>>>>Plus you're forgetting about SM6. This will eat these for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Nah I just lumped them in with the SM2/3\. Regardless of the actual SAM used you're going to shoot 2 of them per incoming contact. The SM6 tests listed on the Wiki all used 2 missiles per MRBM target.[6]

>>>Assuming that the DF21 can even burn through the ECM that will be blasting it.

Ummmmm, pointing insanely powerful radio emissions into the upper atmosphere in an attempt to blind a ballistic missile is a great way to broadcast your position. If anything, might be a good idea to configure several DF-21s for passive direction finding. Not sure if the DF-21s have any kind of datalink, the speeds and atmospheric conditions will make that difficult, but P-700 Granit missiles have a networked cooperative capability and those things are decades old.

>>>>An 1100lb warhead will be similar in effect to a Harpoon.

A Harpoon has a <500lb warhead [4]. 1100lbs is closer to a Tomahawk. For reference, the P-700's warhead (and it's definitely considered "carrier killer" ordnance) is ~1600lbs.

>>>You might get lucky and have a mission kill

A 500kg warhead with a vertical attack profile, if it hits, is practically a guaranteed mission kill. The CVN will lose catapults or an elevator at the least, and suffer a gigantic detonation inside its hangar at worst. Either way it's a PR victory and its entire air wing is no longer contributing to the fight.

>>>>>And if we go to war with the PRC, we won't be using one CVN. We'll be surging 2-3 CVBGs, and they'll run out of missiles.

If they run out of anti-carrier ballistic missiles they'll send drone- converted 3rd-generation aircraft, which is a great way to burn up our anti- air ordnance.[5] If anything they'll use those FIRST to exhaust our defenses, then fire the DF-21/26s, then follow up with a land-based strike package to finish the task force off. China's land-based strike aircraft all outrange the combat radius of carrier aircraft + ordnance by a significant margin. We'll run out of ordnance within the Nine Dash Line / First Island Chain before China does.

Oh, not that I ever expect a 100-missile DF-21 salvo anyway. I don't think they have anywhere near that many launchers, and our best bet would be Tomahawk strikes from submarines against the launchers early in the war.

FYI: I've spent ~5 years in the west Pacific Theater, 3 of those at a Corps- level combined arms headquarters that regularly wargames _ahem_ a "peer fight" against a fictional country with a ballooning blue water navy and an authoritarian government, if you catch my meaning. I've spent a LOT of time reading exercise AARs, intel updates, and threat briefs from the past ten years on this problem set, courtesy of the ///SECRET Intelink portal. But I'm arguing entirely from open-source info here.

Oh, and check out RAND's site here:[7] It's 2 years out of date but if anything the US's relative situation has deteriorated. But it's a good quick summary of the balance of power. [1][https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_44d3OT- xI3U/SOke7iN2vaI/AAAAAAAAA...](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_44d3OT- xI3U/SOke7iN2vaI/AAAAAAAAAJs/2pgY49MFzZ4/s1600/Phazotron+JSC's+Radars-4.jpg) [2][https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_44d3OT- xI3U/SOkeIyMnjDI/AAAAAAAAA...](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_44d3OT- xI3U/SOkeIyMnjDI/AAAAAAAAAJk/nsjPL6tqDlk/s1600/Phazotron+JSC's+Radars-3.jpg) [3][https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/jf-17-block-iiis-proposed- aes...](https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/jf-17-block-iiis-proposed-aesa-radar- klj-7a.458854/page-18) [4][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpoon_(missile)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpoon_\(missile\)) [5][http://aviationintel.com/as-highlighted-on-this-site-as-a- th...](http://aviationintel.com/as-highlighted-on-this-site-as-a-threat-for- years-chinas-converted-surplus-fighter-drone-force-eyeballed-from-space/) [6][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-174_Standard_ERAM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-174_Standard_ERAM) [7][https://www.rand.org/paf/projects/us-china- scorecard.html](https://www.rand.org/paf/projects/us-china-scorecard.html)

<comment><USER13> For maneuverability of the warheads, I was focusing more on them being able to adjust to a shifting target location, not avoiding SAMs. I don't think decoys and other countermeasures to ABM defences are currently relevant to non-ICBM platforms for the near future.

I think that the bigger issue with protecting the CVBGs isn't DF-21/26 but that lack of missile magazine depth and reloading. We can't even fill most of the VLS we have now, and as you mentioned, it'd be pretty simple to degrade our AD with threats that require a response but aren't as dangerous. And since replenishment at sea for VLS is not currently practiced, ships would have to cycle through Yokosuka (assuming it's still a functioning base after whatever the PLAN does) for reloads.

And since we have relatively shortlegged "interceptors" for the CVNs, with shortlegged AAMs (as currently deployed), I wouldn't be surprised if the PLAN decides that ALCMs still have tremendous value. Hell, we don't even deploy with full airwings these days.

At least the PLAN is pretty far behind in subs. For now.

<comment><USER14> I just want to say this was a fascinating and eye opening discussion from you two. Thanks for the content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> German Engineering Yields New Warship That Isn't Fit for Sea

> "There's a whole generation of German engineers who haven't worked on a > major defense project," said Mr. Mölling, the defense expert. "It's not that > they lost this skill; they never learned it."

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/german-engineering-yields- new-w...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/german-engineering-yields-new-warship- that-isnt-fit-for-sea-1515753000?mod=rsswn)

<comment><USER17> So they would have you believe...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I can't build a little software app without going over schedule by approximately double, if I'm lucky. And if I get it wrong the consequence is my boss looks sad. These guys are building one of the largest most complex gizmos in human history. And if they get it wrong sailors die. So personally I'll cut them a little slack.

So it's probably a good thing that I'm not their project manager.

<comment><USER19> The USA built 4 to 6 carriers and their fleet per year during WW2 [1] [2]. They were complex gizmos too back at the time. Ok, the whole county was fully committed to that so it could be an unfair comparison but it shows the difference between wanting to ship a product that works on a tight schedule and trying to build the dream project. Plenty of examples on the history of IT.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex- class_aircraft_carrier](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex- class_aircraft_carrier)

[2] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence- class_aircraft_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence- class_aircraft_carrier)

<comment><USER20> I have a theory that on the rise of a civilization soon after comes the rise of career bureaucrats who proceed to strangle the civilization and this has been going on since at least the Sumerians.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The question Ive been wondering is not whether the Ford is a total dud, but were its changes even reasonable? or were they just tacked on as some misplaced future-chasing value-add.

For example, the electromagnetic launcher. Why have a launcher at all? the USSR's Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier solved the aircraft launching problem ages ago and for far cheaper. just slope the deck.

and Magnetic elevators? why? was there a specific concern or reason behind using magnets instead of tried-and-true cables? why were we redesigning doors and hatches when the old ones ostensibly performed fine?

<comment><USER22> STOBAR[1] carriers like the Kuznetsov are vastly less capable than CATOBAR[2] carriers, they're the budget option. Using a ramp rather than a catapult means that the types of aircraft you can operate are more limited and the weapons and fuel loads they can actually get into the air with are significantly reduced.

As for the new systems in the Ford class. The EMALS system replaces conventional steam powered catapults because it can be more finely tuned to individual aircraft types. This means less stress on airframes which translates to longer operational lifespans. It also allows for easier launching of a wider variety of aircraft weights.

In the case of both the catapult and the elevators, the new systems are mechanically much simpler than the old ones leading to reduced operating costs.

All of the changes mentioned exist for a good reason, the issue is that they weren't implemented competently.

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

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

<comment><USER23> People are gonna say "how hard is it to send a marine down there with a grease gun" or "how hard is it to R&R a major system every 20yr"

Wartime operations beat the shit out of things. Stopping a system so some marine with a grease gun can do preventive maintenance is a low priority and gets skipped when you have to go from bombing dirt farmers one day to fighting a peer the next. Systems like this is what you get when you're expected to be running a decade long low intensity conflict yet still be ready for a peer adversary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> One of the key tools of the 9/11 attacks were box cutters.

It's said the Russians influenced - and are still influencing (per Mueller) - our elections and (said) democratic processes with a few buckets of cash and some well placed internet misinformation.

The threat of a cyber-attacked is very real.

And we're still building multi-billion-dollar 20th century-minded war ships???

<comment><USER25> > And we're still building multi-billion-dollar 20th century-minded war > ships???

That's the thing that gets me. If the US is going to buy naval ships, at least get ones with a real purpose.

The ships that are good against 3rd world nations are something like patrol boats. Cheap, small, fast boats with a shallow draft.

The ships that are good against 1st world nations are submarines. Everything else will get sunk by ballistic missiles. One of the side effects of the second space race is that the knowledge to build medium range ballistic missiles is becoming increasingly more common.

To a certain extent, it doesn't matter what the US builds; the last time it's been challenged militarily was the Korean War. It doesn't matter... until it does. And at that point, it'll be too late.

<comment><USER26> What happened to Vietnam and Afghanistan?

<comment><USER25> > What happened to Vietnam and Afghanistan?

My understanding of Vietnam is that the US was defeated politically, not militarily. Afghanistan poses even less of a military threat than Vietnam.

<comment><USER26> And yet we're the ones walking away.

<comment><USER27> not just walking, negotiating with the Taliban ( what happened to "we don't negotitate with terrorists" )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sounds like the same problem Germans had during WW2: weapons are too advanced and as a result very easy to fuck up when they see action, expensive to make, and impossible to repair. Same with planes: all that nice anti-radar coating loses effectiveness after a just few combat sorties.

Military gear needs to be simple as a shovel, and not require a PhD to operate and repair. It also needs to be cheap and easy to manufacture (for some definition of "cheap" and "easy", given that this is an aircraft carrier), so you could make more of it if needed, reasonably quickly. None of the stuff the US military industrial complex has been producing for the past several decades fits this description even remotely.

What was wrong with the older, tried and true systems? Sure, they were slower, but nobody else in the world has anything that comes close anyway, and won't have it in the foreseeable future.

<comment><USER29> > Sure, they were slower, but nobody else in the world has anything that comes > close anyway, and won't have it in the foreseeable future.

China has a billion people combined with (thanks to spionage) modern aircraft. Give them a decade and they'll build their own aircraft carriers.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, and they could land people on the moon, too. One day. Maybe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'd like to know what the development cycle for new weapons is and how it usually works.

It's not the same but all new code I write doesn't work at some point / needs to be reworked / etc.

I guess what I'm saying is it is really hard to know what not working at this point really means.

It's so easy to walk into any situation and throw up your hands and panic when you don't know.

<comment><USER31> Decades.

The JSF (F-35) program began in 1993, the first flight was in 2000, the first time in combat was in 2018, and they're currently shaking out production bugs on the few hundred which have been built. They're slated to be operational until 2070.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The article seems to claim the issue is with fabrication tolerances. Two issues come to mind.

1) How to fabricate to those tolerances reliably? (Robots come to mind).

2) How easy is it to operate these shafts in a degraded capacity if there is physical damage to the vessel during operations?

The first issue probably should be solved by improving automated construction tech. The second issue... these things need to operate well under worst case load scenarios, not just right out of the dry-dock... and it sounds like they can't even get the ideal scenario working.

<comment><USER33> Robots do not come to mind when you are producing custom pieces.

<comment><USER32> You're thinking assembly line robots. I'm thinking more general purpose machines that are designed to move independently and automatically adjust themselves to the correct position relative to a design and perform the task. Alternatively, at least something that a set of humans can move in to place, bolt on, and have it do the above.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> No problem here really. It's best to debug the ship while it is already being used - issues come up more frequently. It's not a dangerous time in the U.S. history now - probably, safest time ever (no real enemies left since 1992 and nothing to fight for since the U.S. achieved oil independence recently). It's the best to do it in exactly the way it's done - spend another 5 years debugging the ship while it's being used in some sort of reduced capability mode, then another year to retrofit all fixes to the 2nd ship of class, and it will still be okay.

People who see delays in major weapon programs as catastrophic, forget that the potential adversaries either protracted their equivalents for decades, or cancelled them altogether. F-22 looked like a mad dash to arrive to the 5th generation fighter ahead of Soviet Union, in 1991. It's been developed, all of them are built, fully learned by their crews and already start to age, and Russian 5th generation is still nowhere on the horizon - their abortion sort of project has even been discarded by the Indians as not matching their minimal requirements, and is in limbo since then. It's more or less the same with all similar projects.

<comment><USER29> > no real enemies left since 1992 and nothing to fight for since the U.S. > achieved oil independence recently

There is one big enemy on the horizon: China, which gets ever more and more aggressive. That trade war may very well escalate in a real war, with the Chinese holding an absurd amount of leverage since the US doesn't have much manufacturing at home any more.

In addition, there is Africa - which is the only market that hasn't been saturated already and only needs a bit of kickstarting. China has seen this and massively invested, and _they_ will sell to Africa and grow on that, not the US.

<comment><USER34> What's the problem with that? How does rich and prosperous China threaten U.S. security? If anything, destitute and hopeless one does - they would have nothing to lose and would push through some radical agenda for the rulers to stay in power. If China becomes richer and more influential, there is nothing bad for the U.S. in that. World isn't zero-sum.

Soviet Union was dangerous because it pushed through Communist ideas which threatened to uproot everything the Western world stands upon, starting with family and religion. China isn't going to do any of that shit, they are a super-pragmatic nation and they don't believe into any "ideas" themselves for that matter.

If their way of government threatens Western democracy i'm more on the side of them rather than Western democracy: i strongly believe that market capitalism is incompatible with (universal) electoral democracy and for them to coexist, you have to turn one of them, or both, into fakes. It's time for West to get back republican model of government back to it's roots when only responsible, tax-paying immovable properly/production asset owners voted. If Chinese pressure will nudge them to do it sooner, good for them!

<comment><USER29> > What's the problem with that?

That a superpower that basically shits on human rights has no one to tell them to fuck off?

> If China becomes richer and more influential, there is nothing bad for the > U.S. in that.

It is, because (actually right now) China holds leverage over the US. They ban exports to the US, the US economy grinds to a halt.

> Soviet Union was dangerous because it pushed through Communist ideas which > threatened to uproot everything the Western world stands upon, starting with > family and religion.

What's the problem with communism, per se? And communism has nothing against families.

> China isn't going to do any of that shit, they are a super-pragmatic nation > and they don't believe into any "ideas" themselves for that matter.

They're only putting Uyghur muslims into concentration camps and exterminating anything visible from their culture (e.g. [https://www.reuters.com/article/us- china-religion-islam/sign...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china- religion-islam/sign-of-the-times-chinas-capital-orders-arabic-muslim-symbols- taken-down-idUSKCN1UQ0JF)).

> If their way of government threatens Western democracy i'm more on the side > of them rather than Western democracy

Chinese way of government threatens not only Western democracies, it also threatens the entire concept of "human rights"!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Looks like a perfect ship for peacekeeping operations: you can't start a war with a carrier that can't launch/land jet fighters or bring bombs from the storage facility below the deck.Perfect. As always, this boils down to three main things that have been valid since day one of the humanity: stupidity, corruption and negligence.

</comment><comment><USER36> Amazingly, this seems to be a software problem.[1]

[1] [https://www.military.com/defensetech/2019/02/21/after- carrie...](https://www.military.com/defensetech/2019/02/21/after-carrier- fords-elevators-failed-navy-building-new-test-site.html)

</comment><comment><USER37> It's useful to remember, when we end up with incredibly expensive and totally ineffective weapons systems, that our military budget is more than double that of the next highest-spending nation, that it's about 3/4 of our federal discretionary spending, and the 3rd largest category of federal expenditure overall, at roughly 692 Billion dollars. We spend more on social security and health care, but _far_ less on Veterans, Transportation, Food & Agriculture, Education, International Affairs, Housing, Energy, Science, and Labor.

</comment><comment><USER38> Relevant from 2017: [https://warisboring.com/how-not-to-build-an-aircraft- carrier...](https://warisboring.com/how-not-to-build-an-aircraft-carrier/)

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://youtu.be/IKQlQlQ6_pk?t=82](https://youtu.be/IKQlQlQ6_pk?t=82)

</comment><comment><USER39> I mean, they can, just at 2/11ths planned capacity.

</comment><comment><USER40> Cost+ needs to die. These massive companies should be required to deliver on budget or bankrupt themselves trying.

</comment><comment><USER41> Gone are the days of Grace Hopper.

</comment><comment><USER42> If it works, don't fix it.

<comment><USER42> "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

It's best to have a steam catapult that works, even if not so well than an electromagnetic catapult that doesn't work at all.

Ditto for the elevators.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Usually military wants cutting edge and precision-ly made tech, that often is also very expensive...

Yet... I keep seeing stories like this coming from US, why?

What changed between the construction of A-10 and the F-117 and the F-35 for example?

<comment><USER23> A specific scenario to optimize for.

The A10 was designed to swiss cheese just enough Russian tanks and to buy the time for C5s (designed to transport main battle tanks) full of M1s (meant to kill Russian tanks) to make it to France before the Russians could steamroll Germany.

The F117 was designed to slip past and strike infiltrate Russian air defense systems so our bombers could make it to the target.

All the weapons systems of the cold war era were built to fight a specific peer adversary first and needed to fit into that portfolio. Capability to handle other tasks was pursued (especially during and after Vietnam) but at the end of the day systems had to be able to fit into a strategy in which we fight the Russians or if not they had to have some other specific and narrowly tailored purpose (e.g. AC130).

Right now the armed forces are in this weird state where they have to be able to handle anything from some rowdy poppy farmers to WW3 in no particular order of priority and that manifests itself as poorly thought out feature bloat.

<comment><USER44> You could say in some degree that not only the military needs a purpose. The deteriorating of infrastructure, the lack of vision of politicians, the increasing inequality are probably all the result of a lacking of a purpose.

<comment> vincent-toups Maybe absent the purpose, we don't need quite this much military. Its a rather frightening prospect, the other way round.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Well, at least you didn't build it to only be able to operate the F35B and no other fixed wing aircraft!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Queen_Elizabeth_(R08)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Queen_Elizabeth_\(R08\))

<comment><USER46> I see no indication that that ship can only operate the F35B. It's designed for VSTOL aircraft, so it doesn't have catapults like American carriers. This isn't new for the UK: they previously had carriers that only used the Harrier, another VSTOL jet.

This new ship can surely use the Harrier, but of course the Harrier is pretty old at this point compared to the F35B, but if they needed to, they could go back to it. Or if someone built a different VSTOL jet, they could use that too. Maybe they could also buy some V-22s from the US.

Building a carrier that only operates VSTOL aircraft is not an unreasonable thing to do. The US does it too, with their "amphibious assault ships" run by the Marines: these are basically mini aircraft carriers that are just like this ship in your link, and operate only VSTOL (F35B, V-22 Osprey) aircraft and helicopters. If it's good enough for the US Marines with their ships like this one[1], why is it a problem for the Brits?

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America- class_amphibious_assau...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America- class_amphibious_assault_ship)

<comment><USER45> The US has loads of carriers though - the UK will only have two and to have a direct link between the design of the carrier and a particular design of aircraft seems particularly risky.

<comment><USER46> 1) There's nothing stopping BAE or Eurofighter or whoever from making their own VSTOL jet.

2) A carrier with catapults is a much, much larger and more expensive ship.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Paper by Chinese Economists on Big Data and Planned Economy [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this. It's unlikely to get much discussion due to the lack of detail and the poor English (and it is hard to know the context here)...but it's interesting to see this nonetheless.</comment>


Mechanical Keyboard Guide - <AUTHOR> http://www.overclock.net/keyboards/491752-mechanical-keyboard-guide.html <comment><USER2> I switched to a Northgate Omnikey a couple years ago which is a fairly elderly but sturdy steel-frame keyboard that uses Alps mechanical switches. The tactile feedback is significantly improved over any other keyboard I've used, save possibly for the Model M. Switching to the Omnikey from the membrane keyboards I had been using put a stop to the wrist pain I was experiencing daily at work and that alone has made the premium they've commanded more than worth it.

The biggest downside that I've found (well, that others around me have found) is that it makes a fair bit more noise than the average keyboard.</comment>


Ask HN: where can I buy custom icons for use in my mobile app? - <AUTHOR>

I'm working on a recipe app, and I'd like custom art for the ingredients.  I know there are a bunch of free/paid image solutions for pre-made images online, but it's hard to find art for some more obscure ingredients.  I'm interested in figuring out how much it would cost me for a set of custom ingredients if I can provide a list of what I need. <comment><USER2> This is something that sites like 99designs are probably pretty good at.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought they just did logos, but I'll take a second look. I'll probably end up needing about 100 icons, so this may end up being too expensive for me. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Nope, anything involving drawing, they can do. Just make sure you put at least a little bit of effort into verifying that your winning bit is authentic and not stolen, because that's been a huge problem with contests I've watched there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I tried Elance and it worked surprisingly well for me, maybe I was lucky. Email me if you like and I'll give you details of the artist I'm working with and their pricing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Will do, thanks!</comment></comment>