Larry Page's First Year As Google CEO - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/04/opinion-levy-page-first-year/

<comment><USER2> I'm not particularly happy with Page's focus on "social." Google Plus shouldn't exist.

<comment><USER3> Well, do be really honest, I don't think there is much choice in the matter. With search engines and people focusing so much on personalization google would be left far behind if it doesn't have the friends' data to recommend you some place. It is, I agree, in its nascent stage at the moment and you would never know when it might get big. But whenever it does happen, google doesn't want to find itself lost and hence the focus on "social". Without social, google is just a search engine from early 21st century; with it, one of the leaders in the dot-com world.

The facebook's valuation and ad model speaks for the importance of social. Additionally, social is the thing where a customer would keep coming back to you just like e-mail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Has the quality of writing on Wired.com always been about that of a more poorly edited Time magazine or am I just finally waking up to it?

<comment><USER5> It depends highly on the author of the specific article. The lower bound is indeed pretty low. The great articles (<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html>) are excellent.

ArsTechnica has been impressing me more and more, recently.</comment></comment>


German Startup Is a Step Closer to Making Flying Cars - <AUTHOR> http://boomvibes.com/german-start-up-is-a-step-closer-to-making-flying-cars/ <comment><USER2> It's great to finally see it flying but it is certainly not a car.

It's more like an alternative to helicopters, perhaps. Which begs the question: If the aim is to provide a taxi service, why not just do that now with small commercial helicopters?</comment>


Adobe To Pay $1M For Data Breach, Bolster Security, North Carolina AG Says - <AUTHOR> http://www.ncdoj.gov/News-and-Alerts/News-Releases-and-Advisories/Press-Releases/Adobe-to-pay-$1-million-for-data-breach,-bolster-s.aspx <comment><USER2> This data breach nonsense with slaps on the wrist is very easy to fix. Just have the government assign a dollar value to each piece of private information and allow for class action lawsuits for data breaches.

For example

Social security number $5000

Credit card number $1000

Address $500

Telephone $200

Email $100

<comment><USER3> There are lots of shady lawyers out there, and this would give them an incentive to pay hackers to increase the size of data breaches.

<comment><USER4> Indeed. Seems like a cobra effect situation: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect)

<comment><USER5> But it wouldn't be a reward. It'd be a fine paid to the government. The only real reason with malicious intent I can see from it is people intentionally hacking companies to bankrupt them or cripple them. But that just means they had weak security anyways

<comment><USER4> The OP was talking about class action lawsuits. The plaintiffs in class actions are individuals, not governments. I took that the mean the OP was talking about penalties to private actors, rather than to governments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Adobe made $1.46 billion in revenue for Q3 2016: [http://news.adobe.com/sites/adobe.newshq.businesswire.com/fi...](http://news.adobe.com/sites/adobe.newshq.businesswire.com/files/press_release/additional/AdobeQ316Earnings.pdf)

<comment><USER7> Also, increasing their security team by 1 engineer would have cost them more than $1M (assuming a salary of $100K). So from a pure economic standpoint it makes more sense for them to keep paying fines in future breaches.

<comment><USER8> How does a salary of $100,000 cost more than $1,000,000???

<comment><USER9> based on HN math I see promoted with respect to engineer costs, an employee now costs a company 9-10x their salary.

but the op might have been meaning over a 10 year period... ?

<comment><USER10> That is not remotely accurate

<comment><USER9> my sarcasm tag wasn't working.

every year I see numbers going up in discussions here, with a recent claim that a netflix engineer cost was $430k (salary + overhead). _sr_ engineers at netflix on glassdoor were touching $200k - the "cost" (wild-ass guess on part of the poster) seems a bit out of whack, and I was negatively exaggerating for effect.

But also I originally thought this was damages for a long-running practice - it wasn't. A 2013 data breach, from the article.

NC is getting a whopping $70k from this - likely many multiples of that eaten up in time/money and opportunity costs. I've seen a bit of "yay, there's precedent for paying a fine for this sort of thing" but this fine just put a price on this sort of activity. Data breach affecting someone in NC? You'll face a fine of $1.50 per account. :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am not aware of other firms that were fined by the government for their negligence w.r.t to a breach. I would applaud the NC AG for pursuing this. Despite the small amount, it sets a precedent. The second time Adobe fails, I presume their fine will ratchet up. Remember, they were using DES ECB for their passwords

</comment><comment><USER12> > A total of 52,734 North Carolina consumers were affected.

And also 152,989,508 email addresses were leaked, with sufficient information to derive the password in many cases.

I got interested in this at the time and was pretty stunned at how easily I could mine passwords: [http://olivernash.org/2014/01/03/dna-of-a-password- disaster/...](http://olivernash.org/2014/01/03/dna-of-a-password- disaster/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> The extraterritorial EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets fines of up to 4% of global annual revenue for companies not sufficiently protecting the personal data of EU citizens from May 2018 and onwards (with a cap of 20 million EUR).

The requirements for compliance are absolutely non-trivial, so I suggest that startups (and older companies) start designing compliance and privacy into their business processes and systems already today.

<comment><USER14> EUR20m isn't a cap - the fines are up to EUR20m or 4% of annual worldwide turnover, _whichever is higher_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Do they have a feed into security yet? At the time I reported the release of all the emails and I couldn't get past first line support. They kept telling me that spam wasn't their problem.

</comment><comment><USER16> That amounts to less than 2 dollars per affected customer.

Leaves corporates with very little motivation to take such breaches seriously.</comment>


FDA Dangles Golden Ticket to Spur Drugs for Neglected Diseases - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/05/16/291972744/fda-dangles-golden-ticket-to-spur-drugs-for-neglected-diseases <comment><USER3> Less charitably: the FDA is intentionally slowing drug reviews as a bargaining tool.

It seems insane that drug approvals _could_ be safely expedited by four months, at the suggested value to companies of $150-$300 MM, and this isn't done routinely. That revenue could easily pay for the extra eyeballs at FDA -- which are certainly much cheaper than the clinical trials themselves. I think if Congress were to question the FDA's workings, this could be prima facie evidence that the pace of drug reviews isn't set by hard constraints of public safety: it's slower than it could be, and agency leaders know it.

<comment><USER4> This isn't the only fast track program the FDA has. While they might not be the most flexible organization, at least they are probably thinking in terms of risk/benefit to the public rather than in terms of safe/unsafe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The FDA has probably caused more deaths in the past half century than all of the rest of the American state put together, wars and all, by slowing progress in medicine, making all sorts of avenues for research and development unprofitable, and making medicine that does exist far more expensive.

Regulators at the FDA are capricious and malign, and there are countless stories of petty revenge via increased demands for data and enormous imposed costs in time and money. This is the way things always go in the late stages of centralized, powerful bureaucracy with a side order of regulatory capture.

The only good thing I can find to say about the bureaucrats at the FDA is that they respond to regional regulatory arbitrage - to medical tourism - <USER2> loosening their grip and letting things through. Or at least they do when said treatments are so widely available elsewhere in the world that the risk of looking bad by continuing to block them in the US is worse than the risk of looking bad because one of the outcomes of a normal, low error rate in medicine gets picked up by the press. Look at simple stem cell transplants, now available in the US these last couple of years, for a good example of this in practice.

<comment><USER6> >The FDA has probably caused more deaths in the past half century than all of the rest of the American state put together, wars and all, by slowing progress in medicine, making all sorts of avenues for research and development unprofitable, and making medicine that does exist far more expensive.

As long as we're throwing around bullshit: false hope and pseudoscience has caused more unnecessary death at the hands of tricksters and con men in the past two thousand years than all wars humans have fought or ever will fight.

Having worked in biotech I was never a fan of some (or many) of the FDA's policies but I found this insulting. You have no clue how hard it is to develop any medicine that doesn't harm the first few patients you give it to, let alone one that actually reaches the market to help thousands or millions. You have no clue what it is like to be the _only_ gatekeeper between a $900 billion industry working on some of the hardest scientific problems of our time and 300 million people. Almost all of whom want their cake, to eat it _now_ , and for the calories to magically disappear from their gastrointestinal tract.

The FDA is not a product of pharmaceutical companies, it is a product of a political system made of voters like you who decide their policies based on Libertarian pamphlets, Fox News, and Reddit. A political system that allows pharmaceutical companies to selectively withhold data, that has gutted the basic scientific research institutions that allows pharma to finance billion dollar ventures, and that mercilessly punishes any mistake that it itself is supposed to catch.

You get what you vote for.

<comment><USER5> This was written by people who are much closer to your viewpoints on economic freedom than mine. They are very mild and conservative in their estimations of cost in lives. I suggest you read it:

[http://fdareview.org/harm.shtml](http://fdareview.org/harm.shtml)

The delay and large reduction in the total number of new drugs has had terrible consequences. It is difficult to estimate how many lives the post-1962 FDA controls have cost, but the number is likely to be substantial; Gieringer (1985) estimates the loss of life from delay alone to be in the hundreds of thousands (not to mention millions of patients who endured unnecessary morbidity). When we look back to the pre-1962 period, do we find anything like this tragedy? The historical record—decades of a relatively free market up to 1962—shows that voluntary institutions, the tort system, and the pre-1962 FDA succeeded in keeping unsafe drugs to a low level. The Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy, in which 107 people died, was the worst of those decades. Every life lost is important, but the grisly comparison is necessary. The number of victims of Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy and of all other drug tragedies prior to 1962 is very small compared to the death toll of the post-1962 FDA.

<comment><USER6> I watched someone die of cancer possibly years too soon because it took Genentech an extra two years to get approval for Avastin for his condition, volunteered for a patients rights NGO, and worked in several companies heavily regulated by the FDA. I know all too well about the cost in human lives of not just the FDA but the companies who gouge customers on the cost of insurance, medical equipment, and even the basic technology needed to look closely at a cell in an academic lab.

You can talk about the economics of human lives but the reality is simple: removing the FDA won't bring on a Golden Age of medicine that will bring back the dead. Instead, the companies developing the medicine that can actually save people, companies that are now "delayed" and overburdened by regulation, will be beaten down by a market of charlatans with big marketing budgets and limited liability.

Thanks to Facebook, I know of half a dozen former classmates who have close relatives that lost years of their lives because they chose to listen to some neo naturalist instead of their oncologist. That is the alternative. It already exists and destroying the FDA would unleash the flood of crazy that it has tried, with so little actual support, to hold back for all these years.

<comment><USER7> This is not a binary issue. I don't see why we can ban alternative medicine and have some regulations, but make them more reasonable.

<comment><USER6> I wasn't arguing against constantly reviewing effectiveness and reassessing regulation, I was responding to the vilification of a consumer protection agency by someone who does not have the credentials to be deciding what "reasonable" is in this context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We'd probably be better off if every drug got a priority review. The FDA's incentives are warped: they get blamed for releasing a drug that causes harm, but receive little blame if a drug that would have prevented harm is delayed or not released.

<comment><USER9> To be fair, those kinds of stories usually play out in the financial news around drug companies, many of which have lobbyists and a team whose job it is to make sure they can get their drugs through.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why don't we spend $10M to bolster the review team and clear the queue instead of creating $150M worth of perverted incentives that the companies will inevitably recoup from the health care system? Medicaid alone will probably pay more than it would take in salaries for qualified people to process applications.

<comment><USER11> > _Why don 't we spend $10M to bolster the review team and clear the queue > instead of creating $150M worth of perverted incentives that the companies > will inevitably recoup from the health care system?_

Because:

1\. the $10 million would come out of the FDA's budget while the $150 million doesn't; and

2\. spending $10 million to clear the queue would do nothing to incentivise drug development for neglected diseases, such as leishmaniasis.

<comment><USER9> These are both good points, but it is also important to note that it is not very easy to hire people to review drugs at the FDA. They have to be pretty aware of the state-of-the-art in their field in order to be able to effectively provide guidance to the drug companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Now this is the type of thing that's fun to see, I feel like this story's gonna be mentioned in the next freakonomics or Gladwell book. Good for the FDA, they should be congratulated for doing something good. And this is good.

</comment><comment><USER13> Maybe they can create an incentive to create new antibiotics? I've heard there are few if any in the pipeline since they are not profitable to pharma companies and resistance is increasing alarmingly fast!

<comment><USER14> The GAIN Act was passed last year which provides incentives for new anti- infectives. The DISARM Act is another one being looked at that would make it easier for hospitals to use the latest and greatest antibiotics.

<comment><USER13> Ah! Good to hear they are legislating towards a bit more progress. Do you know if any pharma companies have re-entered antibiotic research since GAIN passed? I believe there's only a small handful of them left.

Not to mention creating new drugs without implementing any rational controls over their use in humans and livestock is like pouring more gas on the fire.

But I digress about leaving science to legislators....

<comment><USER14> Roche just in-licensed a new compound to restart their antibiotic franchise.

[http://www.roche.com/media/media_releases/med- cor-2013-11-04...](http://www.roche.com/media/media_releases/med- cor-2013-11-04.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In other words, it's a lever that the FDA can (will they?) use to solve an important problem: the discrepancy between drugs that bring the greatest profit and drugs that bring the greatest societal benefit. Potentially a loss of efficiency in the strictest economic sense, but also potentially a very good thing in terms of benefit to society.</comment>


Girls and Software - <AUTHOR> https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/girls-and-software <comment><USER2> > There aren't very many girls who want to hack. I imagine this has a lot to > do with the fact that girls are given fashion dolls and make-up and told to > fantasize about dating and popularity, while boys are given LEGOs and tool > sets and told to do something. I imagine it has a lot to do with the sort of > women who used to coo "but she could be so pretty if only she didn't waste > so much time with computers". I imagine it has a lot to do with how girls > are sold on ephemera—popularity, beauty and fitting in—while boys are taught > to revel in accomplishment.

Female programmer here. This really sums up my feelings and criticism on modern feminism. You can go on to YouTube and watch the old atheist community of 2010 slowly drift from logical discourse to asinine bickering--split on the subject of feminism, sometimes even a few other topics. Gender equality in tech (and any parts of the wage gap that are exclusively explained by women not being in tech) isn't something you can fix by recruiting randoms in their 20s. You don't fix sexist males by turning their reality upside down in their 40s. You need to fix this in their childhoods. I'm not saying no one past 25 can be saved. I'm saying we are blantently ignoring the most important and sustainable long-term solution: teach children at childhood (by experience, not by "talks") to be hackers, thinkers, and equals.

</comment><comment><USER3> Astonishingly good article, written with a conciseness that often escapes other writers (esp. myself).

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow. That's the best thing I've read this year!</comment>


Deprecating Scripting on macOS - <AUTHOR> https://leancrew.com/all-this/2019/06/deprecating-scripting/ <comment><USER2> I use python in my pkg installers scripts. Oh well :(</comment>


Show HN: Terraform Cloud Costs for Devs in Pull Request via .tf File Changes - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/aliscott/infracost <comment><USER2> Love the idea. I see that the Terraform parser looks like it's pretty isolated from the rest of the code. Would it be reasonably possible to generate a generic plan from something else (such as a CloudFormation changeset in my case) rather than tying it directly to Terraform?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! Thanks :) We are planning on adding other IaC tools too! I've made an issue for CF, which others would you prioritize? Cheers!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best way to find breaking articles on a particular topic? - <AUTHOR>

I've used Google News Alerts before but it's quite dated and doesn't pick up 90% of what's out there.
There has been a lot of Chrome OS posts on the site lately and I've started a site to kind of aggregate Chrome OS news... so I crave it.
But I can see that it's slowing down and I'd like to find more.
What's the best method that everyone uses to find news about a particular search term in real time? Ie. as soon as someone posts an article about Chrome OS (blogs, etc) I'd like to know about it within the next, say, 4 hours.
Any ideas?
PS. If you are interested in forwarding me links to any Chrome OS articles you run into in the forseeable future, plesae do so: email@example.com <comment><USER2> I use FeedDemon to aggregate about 600 or so blogs and forums - anytime I find an interesting site, I'll test-add it to my reader. I then set up "Watches" for the terms and just let it run.</comment>


How to Build Relationships When Researching SaaS Product Ideas - <AUTHOR> http://www.saastimes.com/research-saas-product-ideas

<comment><AUTHOR> Many of the SaaS entrepreneurs I have spoke with have mentioned that contacting prospects via cold emails or calls is very effective for getting brief customer development interviews set up.

When these conversations are positioned as interviews rather than 'research' or a 'survey' people tend to open up more about their biggest business challenges. Creating such a high fidelity connection with customers is difficult to achieve in any other way during the early days of market validation, so pick up that phone and make some calls.

Better yet, get their permission to record the calls, and then post the interview audio and transcript on your customer development blog!

This tactic has worked well for me.

</comment><comment><USER2> A word to the wise for anyone on HN thinking of following the advice in this post... Be careful not to venture into the realm of "sugging" (selling under the guise of market research).

If you're going to interview people in a market as part of your customer discovery and development process, then by all means do it. However, try to resist the urge to sell them your solution at the end of the interview.

You'll likely find that people drop their guard when you ask them for their opinions and ideas, which could lead to a business relationship at some point in the future (when they're ready). You won't even need to "sell them" per se. If you've discovered a real problem, they'll get back in touch with you.

The saying from the VC world applies in research as well - when you ask for money, you get advice, when you ask for advice, you (sometimes) get money.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is bang on. I would not advise trying to sell your solution at the end of a customer development interview, and perhaps not for weeks or even months after. If you truly solve big pain points the time will come to ask for the sale, but it's not after the first conversation.

Simply enjoy the conversation, ask them to tell you about the biggest challenges in their business, and most people will open up and give you some of the most valuable feedback you can get as an entrepreneur. It's much more valuable than sitting in your basement and running an Adwords campaign to a landing page. The depth, richness and quantity of feedback you get might surprise you. You might even consider asking your prospect if you can publish a transcript of the interview on your blog.

Publishing your customer development interviews (with your prospects' permission) will give you near instant content for SEO (get it transcribed with SpeechPad if you like), added value in the form of information for other prospects in the industry, and insight into how they express their pain points that you can inject back into your pitch and marketing messages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone have a link to the story they talk about (getting 100% conversion?)

<comment><USER4> [http://www.whitetailsoftware.com/2011/07/how-i- got-a-100-con...](http://www.whitetailsoftware.com/2011/07/how-i- got-a-100-conversion-rate-cold-calling-prospects-for-customer-development/)

<comment><USER3> Thanks</comment></comment></comment>


Clean up your existence - <AUTHOR> https://deseat.me/ <comment><USER2> "deseat.me would like to: View your emails messages and settings"

I like the idea, but I'm sorry, this is one permission I just can't agree to.

<comment><USER3> yeah, I had the same reaction ... I don't think that's a good idea. nice concept though...

<comment><USER4> Ya, if the code was open source and I could run locally, then I definitely would.

<comment><USER5> I've been meaning to do this forever using LastPass. If they'd integrate something similar that'd be nice and more likely to trust it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This site is scary. Think about it. You are giving them all your oauth credentials to just about every service. Your email. Your pictures. Your contacts. Your messages. Your favorites. Your history.

I am sure they are honest however hackers are not. This is a gold mine to be hacked.

<comment><USER7> They claim it only runs locally. Not sure if true, just repeating what they claimed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It should be an opensource project that people can run themselves on node or linux or whatever. They are logging in via Oauth, pulling all emails from gmail, scanning them for some keywords/patterns and then submitting removal requests to those services. It be perfect for a standalone opensource project, all someone needs to run it is their google oauth key from developer dashboard.

Otherwise we have to trust "someone" whoever it is that designed this service to not keep all the emails they pulled out of your account for processing for whatever nefarious purposes one can imagine.

I mean if I ever wanted to mass harvest peoples inboxes then this is exactly how I would approach it and hope most people just click "next" > "next" on the permissions warning that google shows, which most people would.

</comment><comment><USER9> "View your emails messages and settings"; you must be insane to think I'd give you that kind of information.

</comment><comment><USER10> The Terms of Service appear to relate to one of Wilhelm's other ventures and the Privacy Policy is practically devoid of any useful information related to privacy. The idea itself doesn't even seem possible; maybe it's possible to obtain some of the accounts, but all, doubtful.

</comment><comment><USER11> DO NOT USE. DO NOT USE.

</comment><comment><USER12> Isn't it ironic that the system asks you to "Sign-in with Google" to clear your existence(!) ?

<comment><USER13> "Trust us."

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is there an option to download all your data before deleting your accounts?

<comment><USER15> That will vary for different services. deseat.me appears s to work by detecting services you are signed up for by scanning your email, then providing you with links to the account deletion pages and help files for each one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hello Chaps, Very new to 'Hacking' and all it entails, However for my tuppence worth on this.

I've looked at ALL your posts and agree with you all entirely. This is 'Quicksand' The concept is great, BUT it is a treasure trove just waiting to be hacked.

</comment><comment><USER17> Sketch. Do not use.</comment>


Ask HN: Math books for someone who barely knows High School math? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> (Not answering the question you asked, but hopefully a useful answer nonetheless)

My son discovered he'd been faking math and not retaining and understanding it. He had excellent success using [https://brilliant.org/](https://brilliant.org/) to restart at early high school math and work forward, learning it properly. Just got an A for his second year university maths class on the strength of it.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Fundamental Mathematics" fourth edition by Wade and Taylor is the best book I am aware of for learning mathematics from scratch.</comment>


Verbal abuse on LKML - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/116960357493251979546/posts/KPLcrKLtcGo <comment><USER3> Wow - on a rare visit to Slashdot, stumbled across this incredibly insightful comment by Charliemopps[1]:

 _Ironically his argument about fake politeness is EXACTLY what he 's getting. People are pretending that his horrible behavior is acceptable just because they don't want to get on his bad side. Acting professionally is not about politeness, it's about not muddying up the conversation with information that's not useful._

[1] [http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=442916...](http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=44291653)

EDIT: Had to add one more gem from the Slashdot discussion, this one by Culture20[2]:

 _It 's not "fake politeness" to stop using abusive language, it's normal politeness._

[2] [http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=442909...](http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=44290909)

<comment><USER4> > People are pretending that his horrible behavior is acceptable just because > they don't want to get on his bad side.

Or maybe they're just willing to accept the occasional insult from a guy they respect, admire, and who has done so much good for them. _Kinda_ like how people forgive Bill Clinton for lying to them about his private shenanigans because he was a damn good president overall.

<comment><USER5> Or maybe, just maybe you can be a smart, contributing person without being a raging douche bag.

<comment><USER6> Wait, you accuse him for impoliteness but excuse yourself for calling him a 'douchebag'?

<comment><USER5> No, I call him a douchebag or to be more precise a low grade raging douchebag. High grade douchebags use their words to push correct buttons. I'm not sure what does his brand (i.e. attacking one of his contributors) does other than make people more defensive and close minded. He could have said "This commit is utter shit, because A, and B test it and do it again" and I'd be fine. What he said was "This commit and you are utter shit. Don't do it again."

I don't excuse myself for calling him that. I'm neither smart nor polite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like Rusty Russell's point of view:

[http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1525480](http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1525480)

" You have to be harsh with code: People mistake politeness for uncertainty. Whenever I said 'I prefer if you XYZ' some proportion didn't realize I meant 'Don't argue unless you have new facts: do XYZ or go away.' This wastes my time, so I started being explicit.

But be gentle with people. You've already called their baby ugly."

<comment><USER8> This is a false dichotomy. I do a lot of code review, both in my day job and for many open source projects. I've never had to verbally abuse someone to explain the changes I wanted to see in a patch.

(OSS projects I've done code review on include: Django, PyPy, Topaz, CPython, Twisted, and OpenStack)

<comment><USER9> Absolutely. There is a place for "I would prefer that XYZ". It often means "you have a convention slightly different than mine, I'd rather you change your code to fit my style but that's not a big issue". However, you can be very explicit by saying "It's a bad idea to do XYZ and here is why, this is what I suggest instead".

Bonus point if your code review system can flag a comment as "Defect" to make it more explicit. It does not need to involve four-letter words or cussing in Finnish.

<comment><USER7> I can understand not always having time to explain why something is a bad idea when you're working on very high profile code.

I think Rusty's right: you can be unequivocally harsh with the code, but not swear at or call people morons.

<comment><USER9> Even if you don't have time to explain, "This is a bad/dangerous idea" is enough to get the point across, without resorting to swear words (on the other hand "I would prefer that" is clearly not much of an incentive to change things) or being rude ("or go away" is definitely rude in my book).

<comment><USER9> Actually, now that I think of it, every time code reviews have been the occasion of heated comments (often my own, I have to say), this has been resulted in pointless drama dragging over for some time, instead of reasonable agreeing there is a problem and either sorting out the best solution between themselves or resorting to a third party to make the choice.

Angry words are a waste of time!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is my position:

Words are just a way to express something we want to communicate, and their meaning must be considered within the context they are expressed.

When Linus says something like "This piece-of-shit commit is marked for stable, but you clearly never even test-compiled it, did you?" [https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/13/132](https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/13/132) , he clearly has an insane reaction to something that at the end isn't nothing more than a normal human mistake.

But what his exaggerated reactions want to really express is "I INSANELY care about kernel quality, so I have INSANE reactions to actions that lower its value", and in this way he subliminally transmits its kernel care to the subject of the rant.

What do you think about my interpretation?

<comment><USER11> Considering the he "despises being nice" because "that's just how he is", and can't express what he _actually_ wants to say even though he was able to fucking create Linux, then I think he simply fulfills the cliché of the one- sided nerd: good with machines, bad with people, to the point of wanting people to be like machines. I can sympathize with that to a degree, but not really. Just because I share the sickness doesn't mean it's not a sickness.

<comment><USER10> I think he _succeeds_ to express what he actually wants to say, he just doesn't talk with your conscience, IMHO rightly: the emotions towards something is not a conscience matter, so it is worthless to communicate them to your conscience; it's better to talk with the part of your brain involved with emotions.

About "despises being nice" this seem to me just a trait of an egocentric personality, which is fairly common in our individualist society between overachiever people (Steve Jobs is a classic example). I don't mean it is a pleasant behaviour, but frankly as citizen of a west country I'm used to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sarah according to those who know more than me wrote "the entire USB3 stack" and then in one discussion

[http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focu...](http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focus=1525074)

thus reacted on Linus claims:

 _On Fri, 12 Jul 2013 08:22:27 -0700, Linus wrote: "Greg, the reason you get a lot of stable patches seems to be that you make it easy to act as a door-mat. Clearly at least some people say 'I know this patch isn't important enough to send to Linus, but I know Greg will silently accept it after the fact, so I'll just wait and mark it for stable'.

You may need to learn to shout at people."

Seriously, guys? Is this what we need in order to get improve -stable? Linus Torvalds is advocating for physical intimidation and violence. Ingo Molnar and Linus are advocating for verbal abuse.

Not _fucking_ cool. Violence, whether it be physical intimidation, verbal threats or verbal abuse is not acceptable. Keep it professional on the mailing lists.

Let's discuss this at Kernel Summit where we can at least yell at each other in person. Yeah, just try yelling at me about this. I'll roar right back, louder, for all the people who lose their voice when they get yelled at by top maintainers. I won't be the nice girl anymore._

I think she's definitely right. Keep it professional. The implementation of any piece of something can be stupid. It's often not because we want to make it that way, or because it's stupid as it is, it's stupid _in a given context._ Somebody like Linus is somebody who must handle at that level. There bluntness can help. Still it's about the context, not about what people who produce work are or aren't.

Just don't call people stupid, don't intimidate, threat or abuse them personally.

<comment><USER13> Linus' reply:

      Because if you want me to "act professional", I can tell you that I'm
      not interested. I'm sitting in my home office wearign a bathrobe. The
      same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, I'm *also* not going to
      buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and
      backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because
      THAT is what "acting professionally" results in: people resort to all
      kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their
      normal urges in unnatural ways.

[http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focu...](http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focus=58317)

<comment><USER8> Everyone should wear a tie from time to time, it's fun!

In all seriousness, this line of reasoning is pretty fallacious, Linus has somehow jumped from "not actively abusing anyone" to the conclusion that this inevitably leads to backstabbing and passive aggressiveness.

He provides no evidence to support this claim, and I think many of us who work in reasonable office environments know that this is just simply not the case. Don't let Linus's stature cloud the fact that he's making unsubstantiated claims and just expecting you to go along with them.

<comment><USER14> Linus just says that he doesn't want to "act professional". Remember that he may still feel that it is a hobby for him to work on Linux. He started it in his spare time and, even if he is technically payed to work on it by the Linux Foundation, he has the right to do whatever he wants with this project, including still considering it is a hobby. Would you like someone to tell you how you should speek with your friends outside work? By the way, people sending him patches are not his coworkers, except perhaps Greg KH. He can see them as friends or strangers or even as business people wanting to sell him stuff. You cannot compare his situation with the situation of people who "work in reasonable office environments".

<comment><USER8> Until my current job almost all my open source work was in my volunteer free time as well. Whether his fellow contributors are coworkers, friends, or just strangers who happen to know how to program, the abuse isn't acceptable.

<comment><USER14> Almost all my open source work was in my volunteer free time as well. And I try to be very polite and nice to others in my open source work as well as in my regular work and on forums.

But I don't try to impose my standards, or any work place standard, upon others.

Why do you think there is any abuse?

If you see 2 guys in the street, one insulting the other one, how do you know there is any abuse?

Couldn't they be very good friends that have been talking to each other like that since years? In this case, is there any abuse?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Complete discussion here: [http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focu...](http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focus%3D58062)

<comment><USER15> Start of the verbal abuse discussion: [http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focu...](http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focus=1525074)

<comment><USER16> I'm not familiar with LKML or any of the developers, but Sarah is very impressive in this thread. Every time someone else tries to shift the topic, she brings the conversation back on course. She's right about a minimum standard of civility being crucial in email. Even if no one on the list is personally affected by the language (a big if for a large list), a single vitriolic email can poison the atmosphere for days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's interesting that this story has just been heavily flagged. Into sank from 3rd position to 45th in five minutes: [http://hnrankings.info/6050443/](http://hnrankings.info/6050443/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Wtf, now we fight the way Linus is dictating things around ?

Next, we'll be down to having respect for colleagues and maintain civility in all cases.

<comment><USER18> In some ways, Linus is not wrong. Fake civility and fake respect do not usually help anyone.

This does not mean you run around screaming at people, usually, that gets you fired.

However, these folks have formed their own community, and set the rules of conduct for it. If she wants to try to change those, great. But this should be a discussion for members of that community, not one of trying to get the world writ large to come down on them. (At least from where I sit, she is trying to do the latter, rather than the former. Maybe i'm misreading it though)

Essentially, she wants the community to change not because the community wants to, but because everyone else outside the community wants them to.

This seems, without thinking very hard, quite wrong.

She always retains the option of starting her own community, etc.

Note that even the law recognizes the issues here in the US. Generally, small non-governmental groups can't be forced to open up membership or to avoid discrimination. So the local old boys club generally can't be forced to accept women, for example.

<comment><USER11> _In some ways, Linus is not wrong. Fake civility and fake respect do not usually help anyone._

That's still a strawman, and not a valid response to anything she actually said.

 _But this should be a discussion for members of that community, not one of trying to get the world writ large to come down on them. (At least from where I sit, she is trying to do the latter, rather than the former. Maybe i 'm misreading it though)_

Have you read the actual mailing list discussion? She's rather patient, polite and constructive, while Linus spouts mostly BS like the above strawman. So how do you come up with that "agenda" of hers?

If you can't talk _with_ some people, the next best thing is to find people with brains to talk _about_ those people. There is nothing wrong with that, it should be encouraged.

 _Essentially, she wants the community to change not because the community wants to, but because everyone else outside the community wants them to.

This seems, without thinking very hard, quite wrong._

Then try thinking, it could go a little something like this: maybe, just maybe, she's the first mentally grown up person to stroll deep enough into that mailing list to ever raise the point. This is not wrong, just awkward, and "that's just the way I am" is a response fit for a 5 year old.

<comment><USER18> "That's still a strawman, and not a valid response to anything she actually said."

Actually, this was Linus's response to what she said, and as I said, he's not wrong. She wanted people to stop spouting verbal abuse and treat everyone civilly. Linus's response was that this is essentially fake civility and fake professionalism, and as I said, he's not wrong.

"Have you read the actual mailing list discussion? She's rather patient, polite and constructive, while Linus spouts mostly BS like the above strawman. So how do you come up with that "agenda" of hers?"

1\. Yes, I have.

2\. Because she posted on G+ asking for the support of others outside of the community to support her?

The very first line of the post says:

      Please speak up, either here on Google+ by resharing this
      post, or commenting on this post with words of support.  If
      you dare, you can also reply to my lkml email.

I'm not sure how you read it another way? It deliberately tries to invoke people who _do not participate in LKML_

"Then try thinking, it could go a little something like this: maybe, just maybe, she's the first mentally grown up person to stroll deep enough into that mailing list to ever raise the point. This is not wrong, just awkward, and "that's just the way I am" is a response fit for a 5 year old."

No, actually, she isn't. I've been on various versions of LKML since 1998, and she is definitely not the first mentally grown up person to complain. Posting to G+ to get the general support of others not on LKML to go yell at LKML seems, as I said, quite wrong.

Maybe you'd care to explain why you believe Linus is wrong, rather than saying it's a response for a 5 year old? People have the right to build and associate with the communities they like. She doesn't like his community. How is trying to get random people on G+ to complain about it anything but the response of a 5 year old?

BTW, your tone does not come across as very civil or professional.

<comment><USER11> _2\. Because she posted on G+ asking for the support of others outside of the community to support her? [..] I 'm not sure how you read it another way? It deliberately tries to invoke people who do not participate in LKML_

As I said, after she tried to reason _with_ them, _on_ that list. You know, opposed to copying and pasting lots of flamewars she just came across and blogging about it.

 _No, actually, she isn 't. I've been on various versions of LKML since 1998, and she is definitely not the first mentally grown up person to complain. _

That just makes it worse, you know. So they're a lost cause then.

 _Maybe you 'd care to explain why you believe Linus is wrong, rather than saying it's a response for a 5 year old?_

"That's just how I am" is shallow unreflected bullshit no matter the context. In context, he's deluded if he thinks he couldn't be just as blunt and firm without making such an ass of himself. He talks about "playing the victim card" right after playing the "that's just how I am card", I'm sorry, but this is _so_ fucking stupid that I'd rather just laugh at it, and anyone defending it. You can make up your narrative for that and think it proves whatever; I just can't be arsed.

 _BTW, your tone does not come across as very civil or professional._

Because I implied brainlessness? Aww. Well, that last line comes across as passive-aggressive and vague, and I suggest if you want to say something or think you have a point there, just make it. Did I claim I am better? To the contrary, that's why I don't buy the antics of Linus. Even if I did claim I was very civil and professional while not actually being that, it would detract zero from what I said.

<comment><USER18> "As I said, after she tried to reason with them, on that list. You know, opposed to copying and pasting lots of flamewars she just came across and blogging about it. "

This doesn't really change my point that it's honestly, nobody else's business what a given community decides to set for it's rules, unless that community is somehow impinging on other people's rights.

Here, it isn't. They keep to themselves. So yes, in some sense, if she can't get people in the community to agree, she should take her ball and go home. Appealing to mass authority in an attempt to generate pressure is not cool.

If i want to form a group of assholes that write software, that's on me. If you want to participate in my group of assholes, that's on you.

Asking random people on G+ to whine at me for being an asshole in that group is just childish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's all about "constructive criticism".

We all know Linus is right most of the time. But I think his abusive tone isn't constructive and won't motivate people to do a better job.

Edit:

 _" Adopting the most effective style of criticism should be tempered by the cultural context, the recipient's personality, and nature of the relationship between provider and recipient."_

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_criticism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_criticism)

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't agree with verbal abuse, but correct me if I'm wrong is this really classified as that? [http://marc.info/?l=linux- acpi&m=136157944603147&w=2](http://marc.info/?l=linux- acpi&m=136157944603147&w=2)

The only reason I can see that being abuse is swearing. Swearing shouldn't be seen as offensive. It's just a good way of expressing certain points.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've been wondering, when Linus expresses his anger at different people on mailing lists, does he mean it? When he calls someone a fucking idiot and tells them to shut the fuck up, does he really want to offend the _person_ or his _actions /code_? I feel like it's the latter, i.e. when you are called a moron, you probably did something stupid. On the other hand, once you understand this, doesn't it devalue all the harsh words, i.e. "moron is new horrible"? For words to be insulting they have to be used sparingly, right?

I am not a subscriber of LKML, so I am not sure, but I think that Linus understands this and doesn't abuse/insult anyone too often, or it will not be too effective. Otherwise, everyone would consider him a dick instead of a blunt and straightforward person, wouldn't they?

</comment><comment><USER6> I share Lucas De Marchi's perspective:

        I see lots of strong words in LKML. So much that in some other lists there's the say "hey, this isn't LKML and this behavior is not appreciated here".

        However in this case I don't see it. Linus and Greg were in no way calling out for violence, but instead making joke about it.

        What I am seeing more often than I'd like is people losing the ability to joke at ourselves. For me over reaction is as disturbing as the strong words.  Go to the link you pointed out here, read it again. Knowing the people who wrote them can't you imagine their troll face?

Honestly, she's just stirring the community into aggression mode and I'm not overly fond of what may follow.

<comment><USER12> Can you please explain how is a pledge for not using personal abuses "stirring into aggression mode?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> We should be allowed to insult each other. In general. But here is the thing - if should be non discriminatory. The bullshit and idiocy should be called on spot without taking into consideration the race, gender,age, color and attitude towards my little pony of the offender.

So as long as Linus treats everyone as a inferior retard until proven otherwise it is ok with me.

I think racism and sexism (and lots of other isms that split people on us and the others) don't have place in a society but I will fight very hard for the right of the people to express misanthropy.

TL DR: As long as Linus insults everybody it is ok.

<comment><USER11> In the words of Linus, that's bullshit, and you're stupid for even suggesting it. If hating a subset of something is bad, then how is hating the whole better? Because it's more "fair"? It's also a lot more destructive, and misanthropy could be argued to include all -isms you could name, and then some.

Here's a thought, misanthropy is always projected self-hate, delusions of grandeur are just inferiority complexes, and Linus could use a shrink. Who doesn't, right? So I'm not judging. But if you're for calling a spade a spade, let's call a spade a spade.

<comment><USER23> > But if you're for calling a spade a spade, let's call a spade a spade.

it's bad enough with the sexist comments in here, perhaps we could avoid the racist ones as well?

See what I did there? how is that different from what Sarah Sharp did?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> this issue comes up every couple of years - these guys write linux, you can't make them do anything. they are untouchable and will do/say whatever the hell they want. linus especially - is a grown ass man and does this _in person_ too, as is his prerogative. anyone see his github speech? he stands up in front of 300 people and calls them all idiots.

<comment><USER13> Sarah Sharp is part of the people who "write linux" \- she's the xHCI driver maintainer at Intel.

<comment><USER24> if alan cox couldn't get linus to change, how the hell does she think she will?

i honestly don't get it.

<comment><USER25> I'm not sure how many people it would take for Linus to change his ways, but I'd guess that it'd take some kind of intervention, and that seems exceptionally unlikely.

When Linus refuses to change, which he has and will continue to do, I'm not sure what the next step is to squash his sometimes impolite manner. Surely you can't ban Linus from the LKML or convince the Linux Foundation to remove him. For better or worse, Linus and his rants are here to stay. This #kernelhackers #abuse thing is entertaining to watch, but nobody should seriously expect a change here.

I suppose it's FOSS, so people who agree with Sarah's position could form their own separate fork and mailing list. More likely though is that every time Linus posts another rant about how poor of a job somebody did, they'll reply with some kind of shaming of his impoliteness, which Linus will simply ignore and nothing will change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> <offtopic> The mailing list threads she mentions both speak about a fix that creates regression and linus getting angry at it. Which makes me wonder : with that philosophy, i'm pretty sure the linux kernel code is filled with hooks to keep the old behavior in some cases and use the new one in new cases (you sometimes have to break things).

Is there any plan of having a non-backward compatible linux kernel one day, or just to start deprecating features ?

</comment><comment><USER27> Can't really understand the discussion. Is Linus going to change they way he talks because some people vote for it? Yeah... don't think so.

</comment><comment><USER28> Does she read Hacker News?! Why on Earth would she like LKML to be some kind of politically correct cesspool like this forum?

<comment><USER29> What is it with people and binary arguments? She isn't asking for LKML to be turned into a politically correct cesspool.

Not being an asshole does NOT have to equal being politically correct. She's advocating clarity WITHOUT verbal abuse. That's SO easy to do: if you filter out the f-bombs that are directed at people as well as the STFU's and you're there.

There is so much in between verbal abuse and killing each other with kindness, it's not even funny. I find it sad that even Torvalds thinks in black and white like that. And then he hides behind "that's just who I am". Whatever. Very mature. I wouldn't even consider becoming a Linux kernel maintainer, much like I would quit my job the day my boss decides to treat his employees this way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I don't appreciate the language he uses and, in general, I can't condone verbal abuse. If you hear a "but" coming, there are a couple questions that I can't answer, since I don't know Linus (personally) and I don't know what the relationship between Linus and the maintainers in the two examples are. These may be unpopular questions, but perhaps someone who knows can answer.

1) I hear plenty of foul and seemingly abusive language happen between friends. Are the examples given seem more abusive because we assume the parties are merely acquaintances? I also didn't take the time to follow the e-mail threads to see how the conversation started.

2) I remember once when I was 17 or 18, I heard someone swearing through a sentence (that should have been a good point in the conversation) and immediately thought they were a dullard. Then I realized that people might have the same perception of me and I quit swearing almost immediately. It doesn't really matter whether you find the curse words acceptable, the reality is that I can still verbally abuse someone using perfect grammar and "tenpenny" words. If the banter is not good-natured banter, how do you define verbal abuse?

3) Are Linus' responses to these e-mails simply indicative of the passion that's also let him lead the creation and fostering of Linux over the last 20 years? Would someone without that passion (whether using foul language or not) have succeeded in such a broad endeavor?

4) Are the supposed victims of the described abuse speaking out about this? I would assume that if they were truly offended, they would have told at least a few people, but I haven't seen any indication that they were offended. Linux isn't some dictatorial regime - have people "left the empire" (quit kernel development) because of this behavior?

5) Are the threads containing harsh criticisms balanced by e-mails pointing out how brilliantly someone solved an issue? It's more acceptable to rant about a mistake if you also rave over something extraordinary.

6) Has Linus ever lambasted himself publicly over his own mistakes? I tend to think any code I wrote over six months ago is pretty crappy (it's a perfectionist thing).

I can't condone verbal abuse, though I've seen similar abuse in person and in a professional environment, but I also can't say this is abuse without knowing the complete context. I tend to think personal attacks are out of place, but commentary on the technology can be as pleasant or harsh as necessary.

Linus: If you happen to read this, first I'd like to thank you for the work you've done. In some ways, I've grown my career as a side-effect of your work. Second, I'd like to say that following the mailing list _would_ in fact be more pleasurable if the place didn't feel like walking through a ghetto.

</comment><comment><USER23> So, can anyone tell me what Sarah Sharp has contributed to the kernel?

<comment><USER31>
      What role do you play in the community and/or what
      subsystem(s) do you work on?

_I 'm the Linux kernel xHCI driver maintainer. I own Linux USB 3.0 support, and I send my patches up to Greg Kroah-Hartman, who is the USB subsystem maintainer._

      Where do you get your paycheck?

_I work in Intel 's Open Source Technology Center, along with a bunch of other cool Linux kernel developers._

\-- Sourced from [https://www.linux.com/news/special-feature/linux- developers/...](https://www.linux.com/news/special-feature/linux- developers/593966-30-linux-kernel-developers-in-30-weeks-sarah-sharp)

<comment><USER23> Well, in the meritocracy that is LKML, she has a leg to stand on. I'll make sure to send her a "thank-you" for USB 3.0 support. Thanks for answering my question, btw. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Oh the dhhraaaama!

</comment><comment><USER33> I would think Linus has some form of light asperger, and when he calls someone "dick head" thats not aggression against a physical person but in this case to the fact that someone pushed code that does not build. He's to rational to mix up personal feelings against somebody and the quality of the code. The only way to get offended when Linus goes of in a rant is to think that he does.

Also maybe it's the fact that I'm Finnish too, but the best teachers from school I remember where those that valued perfection, and I don't think they raised their voice to abuse one, but to make a point...

I can still remember a computer teacher who went bananas every time someone used the carriage return in the middle of a paragraph, and physically broke of the key from the keyboard, just to show that It wasn't supposed to be used that way. Maybe some people got offended or scared, but to me it stuck, the importance between separating visual appearance and semantics...

<comment><USER5> And maybe, all of his swearing is a form of Tourette's syndrome. Let's not rationalize it here, I doubt either one of us holds a PhD in psychology.

<comment><USER23> Those of us that actually have Tourette's syndrome really get pissed when people confuse it with Coprolalia [1]. Seeing as we're having a nice "lets- all-be-PC" hug-fest in this thread, perhaps we can stop being insensitive to people in this case as well?

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

<comment><USER5> It was a joke. Tourette's/Coprolalia refers to having a tick like behavior that might cause swearing. It is laughable that his writing is caused by Tourette'ssyndrome /Coprolalia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> She could've presented her critique without turning it into a gender issue:

>I won't be the nice girl anymore.

<comment><USER35> I fail to see how she turned it into a gender issue with those words. She's a woman and she's entitled to the use of the correct pronoun. Do you wish she had written "I won't be the nice guy anymore"? That would have sounded ridiculous.

Please note that when she points out Linus' behaviour, it is not because she got flamed. She did not get yelled at. The whole issue has nothing to do with her sex.

 _You_ are trying to turn it into a gender issue, which it is not - <USER2> of Sarah's stances on that matter.

<comment><USER34> I don't wish that. I guess this depends on the context. Since she refers to feminism later on in the thread, it increased my confidence that gender was relevant (she commented that she is not a _crazy feminist_ ).</comment></comment></comment>


Machine Learning in Rust - <AUTHOR> http://athemathmo.github.io/2016/03/07/rusty-machine.html <comment><USER2> Any decent ML library should have support for GPU nowadays. Or is this just a proof of concept to practice a bit with Rust?

I am not that used to Rust yet but I wonder, is it easy to write generic (templated?) code which works both on GPU and on CPU?

Is there any GPU (CUDA) based ML lib in Rust? I searched a bit and found only this (and related): [https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/single-source-gpu- support/...](https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/single-source-gpu-support/898)

Or maybe this, although this is only indirect: [https://github.com/arrayfire/arrayfire- rust](https://github.com/arrayfire/arrayfire-rust)

Also, next topics for ML libs: multi-GPU, distributed computing, ...

<comment><USER3> There is Leaf[1], the Hacker's Machine Learning Framework, which has GPU (CUDA, OpenCL) support for Machine Learning in Rust.

James linked to it in the community section of his post, at the end.

[1]: [https://github.com/autumnai/leaf](https://github.com/autumnai/leaf)

<comment><USER4> Was looking at leaf yesterday, looks good. How good is openCL perf with Leaf compared to CUDA?

<comment><USER3> We would love to test that and release the performance on Deep Learning Benchmarks[1] or convnet-benchmarks[2]. But so far no convolution/NN-related OpenCl kernels are linked[3], although it might be quite easy, if the kernels exist.

[1]: [https://github.com/autumnai/deep-learning- benchmarks](https://github.com/autumnai/deep-learning-benchmarks)

[2]: [https://github.com/soumith/convnet- benchmarks](https://github.com/soumith/convnet-benchmarks)

[3]: [https://github.com/autumnai/collenchyma- nn](https://github.com/autumnai/collenchyma-nn)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is an interesting read of ML in Rust, but it jumps straight into the modeling part. One question I have is how does one get a good idea of what the data is (e.g. data visualization and simple summary statistics) in Rust? Or is this something that you do first in another language before using Rust for the ML part?

</comment><comment><USER6> This is nice, thanks, will make for a great weekend read and study.</comment>


Recursion to Iteration; or:  I wish Python had tail-call elimination - <AUTHOR> http://blog.moertel.com/posts/2013-05-11-recursive-to-iterative.html <comment><USER2> Deserves an upvote, if only for using the correct term "tail call elimination", rather than the often used "tail call optimization". It is not an optimization, as its existence can change a correct well defined program between "works" and "not works".</comment>


BBC: ISPs Should Assume Heavy VPN Users Are Pirates [Sept. 2014] - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/bbc-isps-should-assume-heavy-vpn-users-are-pirates-140908/

<comment><USER2> The problem here is that the assumption is that if you don't want someone looking at your data, you have something to hide. You could use a vpn and be doing completely legitimate things, like downloading games off of steam or uploading work to the company server (could be a big file if you're like an animator or something!). You shouldn't be compelled to let your government causally monitor all your communications.

</comment><comment><USER3> That didn't take long. I think Australia just passed some surveillance laws and said they could also be used to spy on pirates. And now BBC is eager to use that surveillance state mechanism to punish "pirates" (I assume they mean people who watch their _free_ videos from other locations, here?).</comment>


YOSVape: The world's first internet-enabled, IRC-connected vaporizer. - <AUTHOR> http://raspberryhigh.wikia.com/wiki/Raspberryhigh_Wiki

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure what rules more about this:

\- The G4 cube enclosure

\- The painstaking mechanical and electrical engineering know-how

\- The creative use of the Raspberry Pi

\- The tongue-in-cheek extolling the potential of other 'smart' appliances

Whenever I see things like refrigerators or washing machines with some Android tablet glued to it I think about what a cynical waste of technology it is. The YOSVape cements my belief that true innovation in the smart appliance world is going to come for talented, creative individuals.

</comment><comment><USER3> voted 5</comment>


How do you build the perfect local community Web site  - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2007/02/28/will-outsidein-nail-the-community-web-site-maybe/ <comment><USER2> I am just about through with Johnson's "Why Everything Bad Is Good for You" and I would like to get in on a discussion of the book. I am a senior citizen and fascinated with the arguments he proposes, mainly because I can verify the truth in them from observing the interests and "smarts" of my grandchildren and great grandchilden. I plan to read the book a second time to absorb it better. Also, I plan to watch the "Sopranos" and see how his comments apply therein.

</comment><comment><USER3> Outside.in's Steve Johnson wrote a fairly buzzed-about book about popular culture ("Why Everything Bad is Good for You"). He sounds like a bright guy with a handle on American society and the populous in general. I think he'll do great things with the new company.</comment>


Apple removes Baby Shaker iPhone game as parents outraged - <AUTHOR> http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,25374523-5014239,00.html <comment><USER2> Although I think this is tasteless and I wouldn't use it, what's the difference between that and a game like Grand Theft Auto?</comment>


Ask HN: What are the less-mentioned drawbacks of acclaimed software / libraries? - <AUTHOR> There are some projects often mentioned for their technical superiority. Eg:
    * LLVM
    * Rust
    * Qt
    * F#
    * Mac OS
And there are many more in the list.
Now, apart from non technical things (eg: license complications of Qt), what are the drawbacks of such 'acclaimed' software programs or libraries that people should know? <comment><USER2> Maybe Qt is better than GTK. Does anybody claim Qt is better than the native widgets on any platform that has native widgets?

With Rust you can write safe and fast programs but you will spend a lot of time and mental energy fighting with the compiler. Go ahead and write C/C++ but remember that your life insurance doesn't pay out if you get killed playing Russian Roulette. For many cases people are happy with managed languages such as Java, C#, Python, etc.

F# is a similar story. It has benefits, but they really aren't enough to displace other languages.

MacOS? I like APFS. On MacOS they always reserve enough space for the text on a button in the UI. Send in a ticket for a problem like that to RHAT and you will get verbal abuse before they close it. (e.g. the 'Linux Desktop' is a Potempkin village) Windows sometimes gets confused when you have a large number of monitors with different dpi plugged in but it is nothing a reboot won't fix.)

Inside the dirty secret is that there is not a big difference in how modern OS really work. They all divide interrupt handlers into a top and a bottom, they all support POSIX system calls or something that is a POSIX rip-of (e.g. look at the MS-DOS syscalls) "Microkernels" are usually huge and wracked with optimizations, in real-life Unix has become "Plan 9 in Userspace".

A really superior OS would have to remove bloat, maybe the die-area eating space heaters such as the MMU and TLB. It would probably have a different viewpoint about synchronous vs asynchronous. If it was different enough to be "superior" than old code wouldn't run, you'd have to write the whole userspace -- so you'll stick to a POSIX API.

IBM knew how to make a universal instruction set architecture in 1965, but had no vision of a general-purpose mainframe OS until academic researchers invented "VM" which let them run three or five different OS on the machine so they didn't have to pick just one.

By 1995 the POSIX API is established and it is about as universal as the 360 instruction set. It is used in my car stereo, home theater receiver, TV set, tablet, internet router, PC, server, etc.

Even the "real time" or "reliable" OS used in a spacecraft or automotive application is likely to present itself as POSIX.

MacOS uses mach to emulate POSIX and mach lets you do a bit more than POSIX, but Linux has been subdividing the 'process' concept for a long time as has Windows NT. FUSE descends into microkernel insansity ("Plan999999999999999999999 from userspace")

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone who says something has "technical superiority" is living in a fantasy world. Everything has pros and cons, and it's impossible to account for every variable upfront. You may be 99.999% done with a project only to realize that another language/framework/OS/etc. would have been better.</comment>


RIM Told to Pay $147 Million in Software Patent Dispute - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/technology/rim-told-to-pay-147-million-for-violation-of-patents.html

<comment><USER2> Patent was <http://www.google.com/patents/US6970917>

What I find most concerning about this is that the -idea- of responding to control messages sent via special e-mails was deemed worthy of $8 per unit. The end company doesn't get enough $s per unit to value individual ideas this highly. Even if I were willing to grant that this is an idea deserving of patent protection, and even if I was willing to consider $0 to go from the idea to a functioning implementation, there are definitely hundreds, probably thousands, perhaps even millions of ideas of this complexity involved in this one product. Individual devices would have to be priced like airplanes if this is deemed a reasonable price for each individual detail of how it works.

</comment><comment><USER3> ...and the pain just keeps on piling on for RIM. A lot of it was brought about by their own hubris but I must admit I am starting to feel a little sorry for RIM...

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately RIM is a great target for these patent trolls as they have enough money to pay damages, but not nearly enough to go on the offensive against these parasites.

<comment><USER5> They don't sound like patent trolls:

"The company claimed it had disclosed details of the technology to RIM during licensing discussions. After declining to take a license, the BlackBerry maker modified its software to include the patented systems, Mformation said in its complaint."

<comment><USER6> How does that mean they aren't patent trolls?

Surely the standard procedure for a patent troll is: Find company doing whatever-it-is; get in touch with them and say "We think you're using our IP; how about licensing it from us?"; talk to them; either license or sue.

However, as it happens it _doesn't_ appear that Mformation are pure patent trolls; they do actually sell software.

<comment><USER7> _After declining to take a license, the BlackBerry maker modified its software to include the patented systems, Mformation said in its complaint._

Seems to not agree with what you think happened:

 _Find company doing whatever-it-is; get in touch with them and say "We think you're using our IP; how about licensing it from us?"; talk to them; either license or sue._</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why I Don't Use the GPL - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b2wp7j8jmU

<comment><USER2> Uh, oh. He compares code to a having to share a phone number on a cell phone with anybody who asks, bad analogy, unless you can show me a phone number that adds or changes the cell phone functionality. Haven't seen that android exploit...yet.</comment>


Stanford AI Notes(All Units) - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/#folders/0B9iIKB32YOktZGExMGY2ZmQtMzY3Ni00ODZiLWI4ODUtYmZkZTdjMTgwYTQ3

<comment><USER2> These are some interesting (hand?) drawn and color notes that were posted to the news/blog section of the class site:

<http://larvecode.tumblr.com/tagged/ai-class>

</comment><comment><USER3> These are not really notes as much as they are full transcripts. I doubt how useful they would be for the purpose of studying since they would be too time- consuming to review on a regular basis. I admire the effort that was put into this, however, and am pointing this out not to criticize it but rather as hopefully a constructive warning that other materials will be needed.

I will note that it should be possible for each individual person to create actual notes from this transcript that would be more useful for studying. But it would probably be more time-efficient to undergo this effort while watching the actual videos rather than going back after the fact to create them.

<comment><AUTHOR> It does help for students whose mother language are not English, and those who are blocked by government's firewall.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I agree that these are helpful as transcripts. I was merely stating that they make poor notes.</comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Go debuts, and its prying cameras foil our shoplifting attempts - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/we-test-the-worlds-first-amazon-go-watch-you-shop-grocery-store/ <comment><AUTHOR> > Shelves are stocked with shape and color variety in mind, and they have > rigid item-placement spots. Those factors combine to make it very difficult > to put stuff where Amazon doesn't want you to. Got the wrong butter? There's > only one reasonable place to return the butter of your discontent.

I wonder if Amazon has applied this approach to their fulfillment warehouses. I imagine it'd cut down a significant amount of the overhead and help reduce the amount of "hostile workplace" complaints they've received over the years.</comment>


Show HN: try this simple service if you like online shopping (Update Domain) - <AUTHOR> https://www.shoplify.us

<comment><USER2> I must say that the first thing I think of when seeing your domain is "Shoplifting"; which isn't good.

Landing page is way too uninformative (especially the visible-portion). I don't really have a good idea what this does exactly (and I still don't after reading).

Is it basically bookmarking product pages? I sort of understand the pain-point you're trying to solve with this. I'm just not sure that people will want to sign-up with a service to organize things they may want to buy; I could be wrong.

I'd recommend having the page just open to the app itself, rather than an image and a login. Let me use it then tell me to create an account to save.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, basically it's a global whishlist that your can collect products you want buy from other E-commerce website, and you can organize them in your way. You're right, we should let user use it first instead of show some instruction and register page, we'll improve soon. Thanks your advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It wasn't simple after you wanted me to log in with a social networking credential. In fact it made our relationship quite complicated. My only regret was that I never got to see your product.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, see my above comment, we'll improve and let user try our product first and then ask them sign up. Basically this is a global wish list, and you can organize something you want buy online in here, currently. later, we'll help you tracking the price of products you added and give you some recommendation if we find them in lower price.</comment></comment>


New System Can See Through Fog Far Better Than Humans - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/this-new-system-can-see-through-fog-far-better-than-humans-180968705/?no-ist <comment><USER2> This is interesting but I would like to know how their methodology measures up against SWIR imaging which has the ability to a certain extent to see through fog / mist / smoke [1], and probably provides a better / higher resolution image.

[1] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR- sPAqDmZ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR-sPAqDmZ0)</comment>


How to Get Started with Nokogiri (by creator Aaron Patterson) - <AUTHOR> http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2010/getting-started-with-nokogiri/

<comment><USER2> i really like nokigiri and have used it extensively in the past year, though not in the past few months. if someone asks me which parsing library to use at this point i recommend it. however i have two critiques.

1\. it didn't work with jruby (it may now but wasn't working a few months ago when i was using it). 2\. the attitude toward hpricot (another ruby gem for html/xml parsing) when it was released was one of mocking disdain toward hpricot and it's creator, _why. instead of a 'hey thanks for the great html/xml parsing library, but here's one that's a little better'... it was more of a slam-down, and it was a bit much.</comment>


8 surprising facts about real Docker adoption - <AUTHOR> https://www.datadoghq.com/docker-adoption/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure which triggers me more. Graphs which don't go from 0% to 100% or graphs which show adoption and then include abandonment percentage.</comment>


An Evening with Elon Musk (at the Computer History Museum) - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerhistory.org/events/#an-evening-with-elon-musk

<comment><USER2> Working link: [http://www.computerhistory.org/events/upcoming/an-evening- wi...](http://www.computerhistory.org/events/upcoming/an-evening-with-elon- musk)

(# is prepended to 'an-' after page loads)

But, ya, it's sold out. It's pretty embarrassing to see _computer_ history.org gives "Error(s) encountered:" in bright red when tickets are sold out, and it updates the url to an invalid one after page loads.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Error(s) encountered: All events are sold out.

Bummer.</comment>


Noprocrast Enhanced: Chrome Extension - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/oadpigkkfldpmcdhgapdhfbpdankahkm

<comment><AUTHOR> I made this because I found myself getting around noprocrast by opening lots of tabs and not refreshing them. This ought to solve that problem, though it could just be another step in an arms race against myself. Hope someone else finds it useful, any suggestions much appreciated. :)

</comment><comment><USER2> I use this extension:

[https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/laankejkbhbdhmip...](https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/laankejkbhbdhmipfmgcngdelahlfoji)

which provides a noprocrast feature for the whole internet, or at least the parts that you blacklist for yourself.</comment>


Sociologists Examine Hackathons and See Exploitation - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/sociologists-examine-hackathons-and-see-exploitation/ <comment><USER2> I may not be doing software dev for a living but isn't the software development lifecycle always something that would take a long time to come to a completed state?

With that assumption, I always thought of hackathons as 'sprints', as in they are great in moderation but you should always run a marathon. If this is common knowledge then I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding by outsiders, where it appears as if the devs start and finish the software or feature at the hackathon.

My impression of hackathons is that they highlight the coder culture and improve morale and PR. I don't think any manager would consider hackathons as the primary way of getting things done, am I wrong?

<comment><USER3> "software development lifecycle always something that would take a long time to come to a completed state?"

Depends on the scale of the project, but yes. In fact, something like 70% of projects are over budget and late. FTA: "they rarely produce useful innovations that last beyond the event's 36 hours"

"common knowledge then I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding by outsiders, where it appears as if the devs start and finish"

Im an insider, and that was my understanding.

"consider hackathons as the primary way of getting things done"

I wouldnt, but... The problem is there are internal hackathons, and public ones. Personally, I wouldnt see an internal hackathon as _necessarily_ bad, as long as there was compensation/prizes, no pressure to participate(ie promises of promotion, or pressure to be part of the team), and the employees were given a few days before and after to rest. Still not sure I would use them. Sleep is important. I might do a regular, 40 hour week where we didnt work on the core product, everybody does what they want.

Public hackathons, are imo, a different beast. They are using the public to brainstorm, build prototypes, recruit, or market their product; for minimal costs. Sure there might be prizes, but the majority will go home empty handed, after 36-48 hours of free labor and donated ideas, with no sleep. I've seen a hackathon advertised that was just: "build our new product, maybe get a job". A friend of mine did a contract for that company, and he said they didn't even pay upon completion.

FTA:

"institutions use the allure of hackathons, with sponsors, prizes, snacks, and potential for career advancement, to get people to work for free"

"such events, in which employees may feel obligated to participate, are a form of labor control"

"everyone involved wanted something from the participants: Sponsors wanted to lay the groundwork for potential investments, hire the hackers, convince them to use particular software to build tools and apps, and boost their own reputations by offering cash, snacks and other prizes"</comment></comment>


[Apologies HN but I Must] Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Brexit (HBO) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgKHSNqxa8 <comment><USER2> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTMxfAkxfQ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTMxfAkxfQ0)

</comment><comment><USER3> June 23: Don't forget to cast your vote to leave.</comment>


Automated fact checking competition ($50k prize) - <AUTHOR> https://herox.com/factcheck <comment><USER2> When you have fact-checkers that try to claim that Trump was talking about actually putting bleach on emails, I really have a hard time any of these have to do with 'facts'. It's more like, an opinion on what was said.

Also, why the complete bias with the Trump picture? When Trump says the 'system is rigged', it's because of the blatant bias the media has toward the DNC and the recent Wikileaks that shows us that it's so much worse than any of us thought.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah I think the image is pretty biased too, but not all factchecking organisations are the same. There are different standards of neutrality in the world. A lot of the good orgs have signed up to a bunch of principles lately: [http://www.poynter.org/fact-checkers-code-of- principles/](http://www.poynter.org/fact-checkers-code-of-principles/)

And hey just because one particular story didn't make much sense doesn't mean it's not valuable overall.</comment></comment>


Shared Libraries: Understanding Dynamic Loading - <AUTHOR> http://amir.rachum.com/blog/2016/09/17/shared-libraries/ <comment><USER2> A really nice read. Thank you for your effort.

In the "Runtime Search Path: Security" section, there's:

      LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./main

But the library is in ./libs in that example.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the correction, it's fixed now.</comment></comment>


3D Audio From Ordinary Speakers (Video Demo) - <AUTHOR> http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2011/04/23/3d-audio-from-ordinary-speakers-video-demo/ <comment><USER2> Wouldn't his technique require the listener to be sitting still and have his ears in exact specified locations? Not very practical then if that's the case. I guess the system can include some sort of (visual) ear recognition and tracking logic and adjust the cross-talk filter respectively, but (a) that's pretty far off (b) still won't work for more than one listener.

Moreover...

> _The filter is designed to work with loudspeakers - not headphones_

Because regular stereo in headphones already has no cross-talk, so it is naturally 3D. And this leads to the trivial 3D stereo solution (if one really wants it) - just put the headphones on.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the most useful application of this technology(except entertainment) would be conference calls. Even with a polycom conference phone, you still have to concentrate to follow the conversation. It's even worse when people don't wait their turn to talk...

If someone can include this technology in an unobtrusive way in Skype, there's a Nobel prize waiting for them...

</comment><comment><USER4> In the late 80s-early 90s, 3D sound with stereo speakers was all the rage : Q-Sound, Roland RSS... there were several competing processing systems. Sting's "The Soul Cages" did use Q-Sound quite heavily, for anyone interested (edit: correct Sting album reference).

</comment><comment><USER5> Downloaded the 720p version (it has 128kbps AAC) to play back with a better decoder than flash and it does seem to work - I'd like to hear more demos though.

On rare occasion the old stereo-wide feature on my TV can make a sound seem like it occurred behind me (with just 2 cheap speakers) now that's something they need to research and reproduce - this demo had nothing from behind me.

</comment><comment><USER6> Great stuff. Without correct speaker positioning and well-matching HRTFs for each listener, I feel that this won't fly.

Btw: I'm thinking about creating a 3D audio game where the HRTF model is constantly refined for the player while he is playing. Does anybody know whether there has already been work done in this direction, either academically or in the indie game world?

<comment><USER7> <http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/default.aspx>

<comment><USER8> Is Creative sponsoring this? I thought they killed A3D in favor of the (inferior) EAX after they bought Aureal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This effect didn't work so well for me. 3D Audio (from stereo source) has been experimented with for years. I have heard most of them. The most believable reproduction I have heard is here, [http://www.nucleusdevelopment.com/downloads/4-654%20matches....](http://www.nucleusdevelopment.com/downloads/4-654%20matches.mp3) . It should be heard with high quality headphones. You can hear from the short demo, the replay has complete 360 degree reproductive control. You can almost feel the blowdryer in your ear, [http://www.nucleusdevelopment.com/downloads/4-654%20blowdry....](http://www.nucleusdevelopment.com/downloads/4-654%20blowdry.mp3) .

<comment><USER10> Both links are dead.

<comment><USER9> Sorry. Fixed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've just watched the video on my laptop and this 3D audio actually works! It's amazing! I'd really like to see more demos.

</comment><comment><USER12> My guess is that his "filter" is phase cancellation, which is nothing new.

<comment><USER8> As he explains in the video, phase cancellation doesn't work well when you stick your head into it. The head-related transfer function interacts with it in complex ways, so it's not easy to keep audio fidelity and spatial information at the same time. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head- related_transfer_function></comment></comment>


Checklist of legal risks in operating a social networking site - <AUTHOR> http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202462946165&Minimizing_the_Legal_Risks_of__Using_Online_Social_Networks

<comment><USER2> "This article provides a brief checklist of some of the salient legal issues that those who use social networking sites must consider..."

The article states that it is examining the risks inherent in _using_ a social networking site, not _operating_ one.</comment>


The Hard Truth About Telepresence Robots - <AUTHOR> http://singularityhub.com/2010/08/23/exclusive-head-of-robodynamics-reveals-the-hard-truth-about-telepresence-robots/

<comment><AUTHOR> Also see Streeb Greebling's discussion of this article here:

[http://streebgreebling.blogspot.com/2010/08/telerobotic- boss...](http://streebgreebling.blogspot.com/2010/08/telerobotic-bosses.html)</comment>


Today Mark Zuckerberg called Danny Sullivan - <AUTHOR> http://www.locallytype.com/2012/07/31/today-mark-zuckerberg-called-danny-sullivan/

<comment><USER2> thanks for submitting this. really made me smile, that you found it HN worthy!</comment>


Dead pixel in Google Earth - <AUTHOR> http://helmutsmits.nl/public-spaces/dead-pixel-in-google-earth Visual artise, Helmut Smits from the Netherlands burnt a 3-foot by 3-foot square into some grass to create a visual prank for Google Earth - a dead pixel on your screen.<p>No coordinates are provided though - so good luck finding it! <comment><USER2> Funny, but it brings up the question: What is the resolution of the Google Earth satellites? I had no idea. According to the Wikipedia article ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth#Resolution_and_acc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth#Resolution_and_accuracy)):

"This base imagery is 30m multispectral Landsat which is pansharpened with the 15m [panchromatic] Landsat imagery. However, Google is actively replacing this base imagery with 2.5m SPOTImage imagery"

So, it's nowhere near 80cm. But if you read on, you see

"In some areas, local government jurisdictions have submitted more finely gridded terrain models through the Map Content Partners program [44]. In March 2010, the County of Marin, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge by San Francisco, California, published a 40 cm gridded terrain surface of 1425 square km through the program."

40cm, that's nearly unbelievable!

<comment><USER3> The question "What is the resolution of the Google Earth satellites?" isn't the whole story though. About a year and a half ago there was a quite widely publicised event where Google were flying a light plane filled with cameras over Sydney to take google map pictures.

I don't know if this image of my house is a satellite or plane photo: [http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-33.904944,151.17401&z=21](http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-33.904944,151.17401&z=21) but those two white rimmed black "squares" on the roof are skylights which are pretty close to 80cm x 80cm. My guess is a single "dead pixel" on imagery at that zoom would be maybe 8 or 10cm across.

[update: make that 3 years ago... <http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/01/29/1169919256978.html> ]

<comment><USER4> No satellite image can fully capture Newtown; Sydney's very own neighborhood of hipsters and hobos, but also the most cultured and progressive. Nice neighborhood man. Wish I was still there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So, what are the geo coordinates of this lawn?

</comment><comment><USER6> funny idea, I like it</comment>