Apple collecting, sharing iPhone users' precise locations - <AUTHOR> http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/06/apple-location-privacy-iphone-ipad.html

<comment><USER2> The article points to a bit of legalese which says that 'in order to provide location services, apple and their partners and licensees' etc.

In other words 'Some apps or Apple services (e.g. MobileMe) may have to figure out where you are and send that somewhere'. This should be a no-brainer.

As one commenter said, it's just scaremongering for pageviews.

<comment><USER3> This is one thing the Palm Pre got right. When you first turn on your phone, it asks if you'd like to always allow location info, or if you'd like the phone to ask each time. If you say no, any app (even the pre-installed ones) must ask every time it wants to get your current location. If you say yes, it gets out of your way and doesn't bug you unless you change it in the settings.

Of course, if you say yes, it also periodically sends data behind the scenes. Strange, but it's better than making this completely uncontrollable.

<comment><USER4> iOS asks you each time though. So Apple is erring on the side of caution, if anything.

<comment><USER3> Did not know that. In that case, what's the big deal?

<comment><USER5> From what I understand, the article is about the fact that Apple may be keeping track of the devices' position at all times, as part of the OS basically.

The prompt that asks you every time if you want to give your location is for when you're using apps.

<comment><USER6> Only once for an app if you said Yes, until you turn it off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> On an island in the middle of nowhere, my iPad (without cellular or gps) knows its precise location. No google van or wifi mapping car could have come within a mile of the wifi access point which is only on sporadically.

I presume my brother's iPhone 3gs correlated the wifi access point and his coordinates for someone when we opened the cabin this spring. This may be an "after the fact" license update.

<comment><USER8> Suggesting that Apple silently correlates and feeds back iPhone GPS data to Skyhook's access point database is speculative, at best. Occam's razor says Skyhook is using off-the-shelf hardware to identify access points at a distance, especially if your island in the middle of nowhere affords clear line of sight.

Your wifi only being on sporadically isn't dispositive either. I took an Airport Express to a hotel once for a two-day conference, and for months afterward my iPhone thought my apartment in Seattle was in downtown San Diego.

<comment><USER7> Your Occam's razor has access to a pretty nifty shelf.

I don't think you are going to find off the shelf gear to receive an Airport express through 12 inches of log, then across 1 mile of water with the surface of the water in the fresnel zone, I'm only about 10 feet above water level and the nearest land road is about 20 feet above water level. (The multiple paths from reflections off the lake create all sorts of cancellation problems.)

Even more unlikely, if they could sense my access point, they would still have to work out a vector and range to me since the nearest roads the other way are over the horizon. The road does not afford a sweep for meaningful triangulation. We are firmly in "zoom and enhance" territory now.

It doesn't have to be Apple sending data to Skyhook. I suppose any app with access to the location data and MAC address could do it. Or maybe Skyhook sent out a boat. Or perhaps someone manually sent the AP coordinates to skyhook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone who wishes not to be tracked can simply go to <http://oo.apple.com/> on their device to opt out.

More info: <http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4228>

<comment><USER3> This strikes me as a sketchy use of "opt-out": why would anyone actually want this? They're clearly hoping that most people either don't find out, or are too lazy to bother.

<comment><USER10> That's the whole point of opt out ... do something until someone really doesn't want it and then make them search to find out how to stop it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "The company says the data is anonymous and does not personally identify users."

Yeah except, you know, when a user is in the exact same location every night for ~8 hours.

</comment><comment><USER12> If Facebook, Microsoft or Adobe had such an announcement, the whole internet and HN community would have been enraged.

It seems people are more tolerant about Apple privacy issues.

Is it because the present issue is interpreted as a lesser issue?

<comment><USER13> i think it's because many people think apple actually has some sense of concern for its users privacy and security, unlike some of those other companies.

<comment><USER14> HAHAHAHA

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Anyone interested in location services should be aware this exists: <http://www.skyhookwireless.com/>

I believe this is who Apple uses for 'Location' services. It's kind of creepy (privacy-wise) but what an impressive service.

</comment><comment><USER16> If only they could find lost/stolen phones.

</comment><comment><USER17> I read this, and all I could think of was <http://xkcd.com/743></comment>


Show HN: MapReduce Implementation of Spatial Co-Location Mining Algorithm - <AUTHOR> http://shagunsodhani.in/locis/ <comment><USER2> For someone with no prior knowledge, can someone explain what this is doing?

<comment><USER3> As someone else with no prior knowledge, I'll take a crack at it.

Here's the paper: [http://shagunsodhani.in/locis/docs/paper/paper.pdf](http://shagunsodhani.in/locis/docs/paper/paper.pdf)

> Spatial association rule mining is a useful tool for discovering > correlations and interesting relationships among spatial objects. Co- > locations, or sets of spatial events which are frequently observed together > in close proximity, are particularly useful for discovering their spatial > dependencies.

> Boolean spatial events (features) describe the presence of spatial events at > different locations in geographic space. Examples of such data include > disease outbreaks, crime incidents, traffic accidents, mobile service types, > climate events, plants and species in ecology, and so on.

See figure 1 in the paper for a visual. It sounds like the purpose of this is to find sets of events that occur close to each other, physically, using MapReduce over large amounts of data.

<comment><USER4> Paper link is broken, both in your comment and on the site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi @SomewhatLikely. I have fixed it at both the place. Apologies for the confusion.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The problem with pull requests / code reviews - <AUTHOR> http://philfreo.com/blog/the-problem-with-pull-requests-code-reviews/

<comment><USER2> If you're interesting in an alternative, I highly recommend Phabricator [0], a fantastic suite of tools that came out of Facebook. It has all sorts of random modules (memegen equivalents, etc.) but it has a really great feature tracker and a really great code review tool. Addressing your particular issue, it also shows the output of git diff, but includes buttons for '20 more lines of context' at the top and bottom of the diff [1].

Also, Evan Priestly (the lead contributor) responds immediately to any sort of issue and the source is readable. My workplace hosts our own, but I think there may be a hosted version available, too.

[0] <http://phabricator.org/> [1] <http://imgur.com/BK55AKF>

<comment><USER3> Another happy user of phabricator here, i introduced it as a single alternative to the usual set of tools we were using to track bugs, doing reviews, maintain a wiki, etc... and my coworkers seems to like it too.

There are really a lot of additional modules (internal blogs, pastebin, images directory, polls and recently a web layout review tool) that are not really needed in a "traditional" setting, but the base functionalities are there and the tool can be adapted to different workflows. So, if someone is evaluating alternatives for an internal infrastructure, i'd give it a try.

Edit: And in such "traditional" workplace, you'll likely need the option _'phabricator.serious-business' = > true_ in your config file (it replaces button names with saner alternatives).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My biggest issue with pull requests was lack of syntax highlight. I managed to fix that though[1]. It would be nice to have it as a native feature though.

[1] [https://github.com/danielribeiro/github-diff- highlight#githu...](https://github.com/danielribeiro/github-diff- highlight#github-diff-highlight)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Someone pointed out that Bitbucket actually already has my "click '...' to expand" idea. Might be nicer with an animation, or if they started loading the AJAX request upon hover instead of click since it takes a while, but overall works well.

</comment><comment><USER5> At Thumbtack we use Github for our source control, but not our code review. We use rietveld -- <https://code.google.com/p/rietveld/>, which is an open source code review tool made to be similar to Google's internal code review tool, Mondrain.

It has a much better view of the diff, incorporating much more context and a side-by-side view (here is a example change I just randomly pulled from rietveld's internal rietveld: <https://codereview.appspot.com/8726052/diff/1/pom.xml>). It also has the ability to group multiple in-line comments together in chunks, so it is apparent to coworkers when one round of the code review is done and they should work on it and get it back to you. It also has tons of other great features (email integration, keyboard shortcuts for moving around the code, etc etc).

Of course, you can only use this if you control a project, and you will have to do a little integration work, but if code review is an important part of your team's workflow, I highly recommend the investment.</comment>


Retro ThinkPad: It's Alive - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/retro-thinkpad-its-alive/ <comment><USER2> I wish more companies could just work on refining their products. It seems that many new products are no better than their predecessors, and in some cases they seem worse as companies strive to differentiate themselves at the cost of functionality.

I like the sound of a new ThinkPad.

<comment> GuB-42 Laptops are mature tech and smartphone are becoming that too. We are to the point where refinement won't attract customers. That's because all companies will eventually make close enough products so that price will become the differentiating factor. And the last thing companies want is a price war.

And they want you to continue buying their stuff too. They won't have it with products that just work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I hope it will have retro-level screen quality (i.e. best in class).

(And, put those, at least as a consistent option, into the rest of your professional line, Lenovo. Really, it's become ridiculous, at this point.)

I _really_ hope there will be no component/FRU lottery. I'd rather wait for the best part than worry whether I'll get the good LCD or the one that's washed out or with banding, perceptible PWM flicker, image-burn, you name it. Rather know I'm getting the right keyboard, than worry about squish, roll, etc. affecting my typing. Etc.

<comment><USER4> I hope not. Except for a few choice models (the T4-T6 era "FlexView" IPS panels), the screens in ThinkPads have not been exceptional at all. Even the IPS choices were a total lottery.

<comment><USER3> Good point. I guess I'm influenced by the ones that were good.

Make it a damned good panel, Lenovo.

How do we interact with our machines? Display, keyboard, trackpad, Touchpoint. If those are second class, our whole experience is going to be second class.

(Speakers, I can always plug in or hook up. And I don't use the webcam much; that may differ for others.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Thinkpad line has a cult-like following like Apple products. It would help in difficult times, but the brand needs to reinvent itself like how Apple did. I would certainly love to see new products coming out with Thinkpad quality, durability, user-friendliness (the Linux crowd), and support.

<comment><USER6> It _used to_ have a cult-like following. I'm know some still exist, but everyone I know who would have quit a job over not being able to use a Thinkpad has long since moved on. Including myself. Those that remain are the types who will use 10 year old laptops willingly.

Lenovo ruined the Thinkpad brand entirely. I'm hopeful for this old school return of a "quality tank of a laptop with a real keyboard" but we'll see. Recent track record tells me this won't be super interesting.

If I could get a modern-spec Thinkpad with a Macbook pro quality screen and the old school Thinkpad keyboard I'd be on board in a hot minute.

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty disappointed with the specs on most Lenovo laptops anymore. Why does everyone put junk ULV processors in laptops nowadays? I'd die for a slightly thicker laptop that had good specs at a price that's more reasonable. No joke, you'd be much better with a used 2012 MBP than nearly any recent Thinkpad. I have an X1 Carbon that is just pathetic. With Apple going the direction it is, I really wish there was an alternative.

<comment><USER8> _> Why does everyone put junk ULV processors in laptops nowadays?_

Because nowadays they are up to usual tasks while allowing long battery life and light, compact devices.

If you want more than a U processor, the T470p and the P51/71 are for you (Core i7-7820HQ or even Xeon E3-1535M v6 possible).

<comment><USER7> I understand that _most people_ aren't going to need big processors. But truth be told, I had a lot of trouble finding something that even had a remotely good processor that didn't start over $1200. It feels like a lot of laptops marketed toward professionals are now coming with ULV, and that makes it hard to find laptops that are actually suitable for my heavy usage. (I since switched to a desktop because of this exact problem.)

But, now that you pointed it out, the T470p looks excellent. Browsing their site, I would've never found this, or at least I certainly didn't a while back when I was in the market.

<comment><USER8> _> Browsing their site, I would've never found this_

I don't blame you, the Lenovo website is utter crap in almost every respect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would love an affordable and lightweight 13" ThinkPad like laptop (or any brand as long as it's good and reliable) where I can install an up and coming Linux distro like ElementaryOS after my old MacBook Air dies.

No, I am not going to buy those costly alternatives Apple has lined up after it's obvious they are killing Air (even though there might be a new one coming with almost just one tiny tweak).

But then again, Lenovo pretty much destryoed the ThinkPad brand and is on the path to do the same to the Moto range with their substandard quality and even worse service.

</comment><comment><USER10> Can't wait for this laptop. I just hope they make enough of them and we don't have a fiasco similar to that of nintendo.

</comment><comment><USER11> I am glad to hear that they didn't stop working on this.</comment>


A wild idea  - <AUTHOR> http://justdazzle.me Hi All, I had challenged myself to come up with an idea for a site where I can come up with an interesting give away. Unfortunately I had a low budget of of $10 per month and wanted to make the best use of it.<p>So here is what I launched 2 weeks ago. Let me know your thoughts...
I'm looking for feedback on is the idea attractive enough? I checked out the powerball rules and what I do is perfectly legal. <comment><USER2> Unique at the very least -- and looks fairly well executed.</comment>


Two Arms and a Head (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.2arms1head.com/ <comment><USER3> Interesting to read his ride report leading up to the accident. [https://advrider.com/f/threads/seattle-to-argentina-on-a- klr...](https://advrider.com/f/threads/seattle-to-argentina-on-a- klr650.136505/)

<comment><USER4> wow, thanks for linking this. He certainly had a way with words, and was extraordinarily lucid. Now I want to be an adventurer too.

edit: great, now I've been reading this thread for more than an hour - <USER2> like the book was posted without his parents' permission at around page 40, with a post by his mom on page 41 expressing her desire for the book to not be shared unless they wish to share it. On page 55, many posters of the thread advocate for reading the book, and they share their thoughts on it.

on page 66, in 2013, his mom writes that the book being out was "very difficult for me, I have since accepted that there is no such thing as keeping that kind of power covert." That's good to hear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is his Social Security Death Index record, in case anyone is skeptical: [https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/3693/?name=clayt...](https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/3693/?name=clayton_Schwartz&birth=1975-9-20&birth_x=0-0-0&name_x=1_1)

It's paywalled, but from the summary, the name, birth and death dates, and location all match.

<comment><USER6> I'm quite glad to see this, to be honest. I've seen a few skeptical comments about this essay in the past, and never seen a refutation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _If I could, I would put all of these horrible thoughts in a box, seal it forever, then go out and live life. I would run in the sun, enjoy my freedom, and revel in myself. But that's the point. I cannot go out and live life because this is not life. So instead I speak to you from the place I now occupy, between life and death._

My relationship to the internet and to writing, in a nutshell.

It's quite long. I don't know if I will manage to read the whole thing. I'm less impaired than I used to be and I'm not sure how much I want to revisit what that feels like. It still feels plenty awful now, even with how much progress I've made.

I probably could work at the right job these days. But I will never be fully able bodied.

When you can't do what you want, you do what you can, even if you don't really like it. _We all need an occupation,_ so to speak.

</comment><comment><USER8> [http://claytonschwartz.blogspot.com/2008/11/final-words- upon...](http://claytonschwartz.blogspot.com/2008/11/final-words-upon-suicide- reflection-on.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> The page now appears to be 403/Forbidden.

IA WBM: [https://web.archive.org/web/20110107100235/http://www.2arms1...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110107100235/http://www.2arms1head.com/)</comment>


Ask HN: The acquisition value of a codebase - <AUTHOR>

I'm just wondering what value a clean and well designed code base has on an acquisition.  I'm sure it varies by technology, product, team size, and acquisition value, but how important is clear well documented and tested code in an acquisition?<p>aka: when do you put effort into cleaning up the scrappy mvp rather than iterating on new product ideas and user tests. <comment><USER2> It depends what the buyer wants. A clean code base is generally not the first thing I would look at when buying a company. Fundamentals are much more important such as revenue.

Focus on improving your fundamentals. You put effort into cleaning up the scrappy mvp when it starts to hinder your efforts to improve those fundamentals.</comment>


Show HN: Lerna: A tool for managing large JavaScript projects - <AUTHOR> https://lernajs.io/ <comment><USER2> Woah. That's an awesome problem you've chosen to tackle. Can't wait to check this out properly.</comment>


Assessing Cardiovascular Risk Factors with Computer Vision - <AUTHOR> https://research.googleblog.com/2018/02/assessing-cardiovascular-risk-factors.html <comment><USER2> Great anecdote from Jeff Dean's twitter [1] about how they thought to try this experiment, given that doctors didn't know such a thing was possible:

"Funny story. We had a new team member joining, and @lhpeng suggested an orientation project for them of "Why don't you just try predicting age and gender from the images?" to get them familiar with our software setup, thinking age might be accurate within a couple of decades,and gender would be no better than chance. They went away and worked on this and came back with results that were much more accurate than expected, leading to more investigation about what else could be predicted."

[1]: [https://twitter.com/JeffDean/status/965720435290791936](https://twitter.com/JeffDean/status/965720435290791936)

<comment><USER3> Something to keep in mind the next time someone assures you that 'gaydar' is pseudoscience and totally impossible and any paper must be datamining - everything is correlated. We are routinely surprised what can be extracted from data, and anyone telling you a priori what cannot be done is pushing their politics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just want to point out a few things that didn't get covered in the other thread:

\- The standard CV risk calculators that we actually use in medicine don't do a tremendous job at discriminating risk. The AUC for the pooled risk equations tends to be around 0.74. As a refresher, AUC can be interpreted as the probability that someone with CVD has a risk score that is higher than someone without.

\- This deep learning model had an AUC of about 0.7, similar to the pooled risk equation which was about 0.72

\- Adding this deep learning model to the pooled risk equation did not change the AUC (0.72 -> 0.72). There may have been recategorization, but we can't tell from the paper as published.

\- The pooled risk equations in this study did _not_ have the second most important component: the lipid profile. (Age is the most important risk factor.) That absence hamstrings the baseline model compared to the deep learning model. We aren't seeing the standard pooled risk equations here.

\- As my PI argues on Twitter, you could see this deep learning model as a very good age predictor.

\- The fact that the model is paying "attention" to blood vessels and other structures that are relevant to humans is a promising sign.

<comment><USER5> > paying "attention" to blood vessels and other structures that are relevant > to humans

Why is that necessarily a good thing? The point of machine learning is to unveil relationships that we may or may not have thought of. For all we know there's a structure we've never looked at that provides better correlates with disease, and if a model pays attention to that it would be an equally promising sign.

I understand that in medical research it would be best to have a physiologically relevant correlate that is being recognized by the model, but it doesn't mean that we should completely disregard the other pixels that a model could find important either.

<comment><USER4> I agree with you. It's a double edged sword. It's good because if you want to put something like this into clinical use, physicians are going to be skeptical if it's not interpetable. It's bad because, if humans have already identified the relevant structural relationships, there is less likely to be a big breakthrough. Nevertheless, one could imagine a model identifying features that humans wouldn't consider even within the structures that we already know about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "our algorithm could distinguish the retinal images of a smoker from that of a non-smoker 71% of the time."

Wonder if smoking would decrease if people could see the change over time

<comment><USER7> Probably not. They already know the outcomes and don't seem to care.

However 71% seems like a very low number... Does that mean that in 7 out of 10 cases the system guesses correctly if the patient is smoker or not? That's not really impressive IMHO. What am I missing?

<comment><USER8> what is impressive is that humans cannot do it

<comment><USER9> They can get to 50% with a coin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It feels like we're approaching the time where a home diagnostic kit could be economically employed to check health status and screen for a host of diseases. You'd receive sample containers at home for blood, saliva, urine, breath. Premium package includes cheap stethoscope, retinoscope, EEG attachments for your smartphone. Samples are couriered to the test lab and the data analysed by AI software with the results available online both to you and your GP if desired.

</comment><comment><USER11> I would be interested to know to what extent the prediction of cardiovascular risk goes beyond a linear combination of the other factors such as hypertension, diabetes, age. I.e. if we just prediction these variables with the network then run a linear regression is it less accurate? This would give some indication as to whether there is additional independent information that is useful in the retinal imaging.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Given the retinal image of one patient who (up to 5 years) later experienced > a major CV event (such as a heart attack) and the image of another patient > who did not, our algorithm could pick out the patient who had the CV event > 70% of the time.

To put that in perspective, in this study, a random choice would be right 50% of the time.

So this is interesting, but would it be useful diagnostic tool?

<comment><USER13> To be truely useful as a diagnostic in major decision-making, it needs to be 90-95%+ accurate.

But unfortunately there isn't anything close to this yet.

High blood pressure, for example, probably more accurate than the retinal image technique here. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25632496](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25632496)

The major goal here would be to screen for people to go for a more advanced test, like an MRI. But even _that_ wouldn't hit the 90-95% level of predictor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> See also this discussion from a few hours prior (with a more prosaic but less informative title thanks to the Washington Post): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16414263](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16414263)</comment>


Ask HN: Get started with software consulting business on side? - <AUTHOR>

I'm wondering if people can give me some information on how they started out doing software consulting for companies on the side while having a f/t job?<p>Thanks <comment><USER2> Referrals... I had a friend at another company who needed help with databases and web servers, back in the late '90s. That got me started. I them got introduced to some other smaller web / advertising agencies that refer me backend work. I also cold emailed some people, got some work that way.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would seriously talk with a lawyer and make sure you know your legal exposure completely. I know friends who really regretted consulting part time while working full time.

I'm sure there are many who have done it with no problems, but be assured that the legal complications COULD BE real.

<comment><USER2> Curious what happened to make them regret it. I've been doing it for years.

<comment><AUTHOR> Want to answer my q?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is no magic formula. Find clients who will write you checks. That is often more work than the work because consultants are a last resort for most businesses [and for those that seem eager, it is sometimes because they don't plan on paying]. That said, existing consultants are often a good place to start because subcontracting out work balances fluctuations in workloads without a hire/fire cycle.

God luck.</comment>


Qualcomm Buys Atheros For $3.1 Billion - <AUTHOR> http://ces.crunchgear.com/2011/01/qualcomm-buys-atheros-for-3-1-billion/

<comment><USER3> The real question is, what is this going to do for future Atheros chipsets and open source drivers? Atheros has always been the chipset to use for Wifi on open source operating systems because it was generally well supported, and provided features the competition couldn't.

I really hope that Qualcomm doesn't change anything in that regard.

<comment><USER4> Atheros never supported the development of the open source drivers until ath9k/802.11n. The reason they are so robust is because Atheros chipsets are one of, if not the, most common WiFi chipset in use. Atheros was also one of the first to market with 802.11G chips and madwifi was one of the first to support 802.11G on Linux.

<comment><USER3> But they could also make it immensely harder to do so, look at prism 54, which require binary blobs to work right, and even then have random failures, or the ralink stuff. It is nowhere near as good as the Atheros stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought Wifi was a commodity market now. So I'm a little surprised to see Qualcomm buying into a commodity market. What does Atheros have that Qualcomm can't license cheaply from elsewhere and use it's own relationships to sell? This seems like Atheros quitting when they're at the top (smart move by them).

Is Qualcomm _really_ interested in supplying to the smallish market for $30 wifi routers and network cards? I haven't ever seen an Atheros-powered laptop, which is a much larger market.

I used always looked for Atheros-powered wifi desktop cards because of their Linux support, but nowadays it seems like several chipsets are well-supported.

<comment><USER6> Wouldn't it be better for Qualcomm to supply its own WiFi/Bluetooh integrated SoC like say TI? With Atheros they can do that, no?

<comment><USER7> But if that is the main (or only) goal, why spend $3 billion to buy the company when you could license or buy IP for much less?

<comment><USER6> I am not certain it is more beneficial to buy/license IP in all cases. Plus they are getting IP/Human Resources/Revenues from Atheros perpetually - <USER2> do sell fair amount.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A Tax Calculator for India - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kartickvad/Tax-Calculator <comment><USER2> There is a software/framework/library named OpenFisca[1] that helps you turn law (for taxes) in software. They modeled some countries like Senegal, Tunisia or France. I know that they also use it to build easy to use web interfaces or to create visualization and better understand how a tax applies to a population. You can take a look at their documentation[2] too.

[1] [https://openfisca.org/en/](https://openfisca.org/en/) [2] [https://openfisca.org/doc/index.html](https://openfisca.org/doc/index.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I built this command-line tax calculator as a side project.

This script determines:

\- When you're made an offer for a given CTC, how much will you take home every month?

\- If you want a certain amount of take-home pay every month, what CTC should you ask for? This is for Indians.

This script handles:

\- Differing tax treatments for employees and consultants. The latter are eligible for presumptive taxation under section 44AD.

\- Health and education cess

\- Surcharge

\- GST

\- PF and pension

\- Section 80C investments

\- Professional tax

<comment><USER3> For the non-Indians in the audience, what is "CTC"?

<comment><USER4> Cost To Company

When I was in India a number of years ago, this term got thrown around a lot. I had no idea what it meant.

It basically means what is the total cost to a company for hiring you. Not just the salary they pay you but other costs like insurance, stock options, other benefits etc.,

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Excel sheet [http://www.ynithya.com/taxcalc/](http://www.ynithya.com/taxcalc/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I started freelancing and did something similar for the UK, wanna start a collection of tax calculators per country?

</comment><comment><USER7> In a similar vein, I developed a search engine for sales taxes in Canada (works for all provinces and territories). It was a much, much bigger undertaking than I initially thought, but here it is: [http://isittaxed.ca/](http://isittaxed.ca/)

I am considering open sourcing this project so that there could be a search engine like this for other countries.

<comment><USER8> useful only in countries where the full price is not displayed upfront ?

<comment><USER7> Correct. In Canada, you only see the retail price. The Canadian consumer still needs to know if the item is taxable and what tax(es) that might be. It's an issue for people on a tight budget.

I edited my first comment from "every" to "other". Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The french government provides a similar tool, from what I've understood of the indian model. It is of course open source.

[https://mycompanyinfrance.fr/social- security/salaried](https://mycompanyinfrance.fr/social-security/salaried)

</comment><comment><USER10> This is awesome! I have similar thing in google docs file. Also with addition for home loan repayment schedule.

One suggestion: could you separate the code and tax slab configuration, different files.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback and suggestions. Since this is my side project, I can't spend too much time on it. Can you send me a pull request?

Actually, separating out the things should be modified from things that shouldn't would be a significant improvement. Like:

# Section 1: Configuration: Change this as appropriate:

FOO =

BAR =

# Section 2: Logic: Don't change this:

...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thanks. I'll try to make a spreadsheet out of this when I find time. I've got quite a few non programmers who'd benefit from something like this.

</comment><comment><USER12> You should host it somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is nice, I was actually looking for something like this.</comment>


OpenStack spins out its Zuul open source CI/CD platform - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/21/openstack-spins-out-its-zuul-open-source-ci-cd-platform/ <comment><USER2> Zuul is one of the few ci/cd solutions which can run tests on a project after merging to master, but before pushing that merge to a public repo. I really like that and miss the option in other places. You can often simulate the behaviour with custom scripts, but it's not as nice approach and can't support concurrent builds.</comment>


Why Not To Do a Startup - Dave McClure - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/why-not-to-do-a-startup

<comment><USER2> Thank you. This is a convenient caricature of everything the valley stands for. It should come in handy in pointless HN arguments. Reason #484893 not to move to San Francisco: people will assume that you think like this guy does.

<comment><USER3> Which of his points offend you? I found myself agreeing with many of the slides, and they seem to map pretty well to successful startups.

<comment><USER2> To put it bluntly: this slide deck is a recipe for being an investor's bitch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is meaningless. There are no right or wrong reasons to be anything, no less an entrepreneur. It can be freestyle. Just one of the great things about it. If McClure is trying to lay out traits he seeks in people he invests in, that's a different story.

I see way too much conjecture of this sort around here. Starting a business, especially a software business in this day and age, _does not have to be a thought experiment_. Getting version 1 out the door should cost almost nothing but a few weekends. Just friggin' do it or stop talking about it. Your biggest successes are apt to be those you didn't anticipate.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't care how awesome or successful this guy is; his slides are impossible to go through.

Great stuff too. Don't do a start up if: (1) you love your kids or (2) you love your spouse.

<comment><USER6> What does that mean? I love my wife and 4 kids and have 2 startups (one old one new). One _is_ doing great, the other _is going to_ do great.

<comment><USER2> I think that's his point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> to clarify: i was speaking up here in Seattle for Startup Day, and i was asked to do a talk on "Why Do a Startup".

i wasn't feeling in a particularly positive mood, and in fact i hate when people do the duplicitous inspirational talk about startups & entrepreneurship... which is usually hard & full of fail.

i thought a more realistic look at the downside of entrepreneurship would be useful, so i offered some experiences from my own early startup consulting business in the late 90's, which was a lot of stress & hassle for not much return (small exit, <$1M).

i think people who realistically look at the downside of entrepreneurship are more prepared for the journey, and if they still choose the path they at least know the risks.

(note: there are many lightweight forms of prototyping and startup entrepreneurship that don't have these risks, but in this case i was emphasizing the typical experience).

<comment><USER8> "Life is pain! Anyone who says different is trying to sell you something." Wesley to the Princess in "Princess Bride"

"The truth is, start-up-land is littered with mavericks, iconoclasts, drops- outs and misfits."

Matt Maroon had a good post on this topic at <http://mattmaroon.com/2008/03/19/why-not-to-do-a-startup/> HN discussion at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=140602>

I blogged about this at [http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2008/12/04/we-dont- encourage-in...](http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2008/12/04/we-dont-encourage- individuals-to-form-a-startup/) and Matt Maroon also offered advice in <http://mattmaroon.com/2008/12/08/a-little-better-advice/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is pure entertainment. If you got something out of this you probably haven't read much of anything else.

<comment><USER10> Yup, clearly a self-parody, starting with the self-mocking title. Making a point, or several, I think.

<comment><USER2> It's tongue and cheek, but that doesn't make it a parody. Against the notion that it's satire: the fact that it doesn't make sense as satire (see slides #1, #3, #5, and #11).

</comment></comment></comment><comment> T-R Articles with a negative tone seem to be on the rise lately. Maybe it's just me, but in the past I always got a more positive vibe, more like "If you want to start a startup, don't procrastinate and work hard", rather than "we try not to hire wimps" and "if you procrastinate, don't start a startup". Who is the intended audience? Has there been a recent surge in founders who don't get things done that might be dissuaded by that kind of thing? Is it a feel-good "we're not like that" kind of thing?

</comment><comment><USER11> Notice the Bin 38 logo at the bottom left corner of the title slide. A Bin 38 meeting is what kicked off "AngelGate": [http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/so- a-blogger-walks-into-a-b...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/so-a-blogger- walks-into-a-bar/)

</comment><comment><USER12> the points that were trying to be conveyed are a bit jumbled. i guess you had to be there.

</comment><comment><USER13> I saw the name Dave McClure and put on my sun glasses before clicking play. Totally necessary.

<comment><USER14> if you turn on Lady Gaga too you'll get the full effect</comment></comment>


Lifefaker.com – Life isn't perfect. Your profile should be - <AUTHOR> http://lifefaker.com <comment><USER2> "Why has my girlfriend turned into a boyfriend? There was a common issue that has since been fixed where boyfriend photos were accidentally posted instead of girlfriends. We have since corrected the issue and removed all posts made in error." \- Made my day

</comment><comment><USER3> This is beautiful.</comment>


Ask HN: When do you think Amazon will enter the food delivery business - <AUTHOR> Or should they? <comment><USER2> It already has. You can have food delivered from Whole Foods which is owned by Amazon.

<comment><USER3> Sure, but... what if I want food from Sprouts? Or just from some generic place, without paying Whole Foods prices? Amazon would like some of that action, too. They know we're not all going to buy from Whole Foods just because Amazon will deliver it.

<comment><USER4> > Amazon would like some of that action, too.

Why would they? Is food delivery a profitable business? I get the impression that all the current food delivery businesses are losing money and are being financed by VC investments.

And even if it is a profitable business, is that a business that Amazon would want to invest in building up, compared to all the other things that they could potentially invest in (e.g., growing AWS)?</comment></comment></comment>


The Four Finns Who Pioneered the Graphical Browser - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/national/2009/03/03/the-greatest-internet-pioneers-you-never-heard-of-the-story-of-erwise-and-four-finns-who-showed-the-way-to-the-web-browser/

<comment><USER2> Two years later...

WWW-Talk Marc Andreessen (email@example.com) Thu, 25 Feb 93 21:09:02 -0800

"I'd like to propose a new, optional HTML tag:

IMG

Required argument is SRC="url".

This names a bitmap or pixmap file for the browser to attempt to pull over the network and interpret as an image, to be embedded in the text at the point of the tag's occurrence."

[http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www- talk.1993q1/0182.ht...](http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www- talk.1993q1/0182.html)

<comment><USER3> And thus was born the beginnings of Internet porn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Recent past of Finnish sci&tech includes a bewildering amount of similar cases of wasted potential.

Telecommunication is the worst area. Its mega-successes, such as SMS can be described as lucky mistakes, while several very potent innovations have gone to waste in state telco's (TeliaSonera) and cell manufacturers.

If a product reached the market, it was often too premature, such as 1999 Benefon Esc GPS-phone (5 years premature), or its launch marketing failed badly.

I believe Finland produces second most patents per capita. But lack of funding (esp. in 1-5M range) and lack of marketing/commercialization skills destroys the ample potential. Finns are generally seen as a "country of engineers". This might be the key to understanding why recent extraordinary successes like Skype (Sweden/Estonia) have appeared in neighboring countries. Finland has succeeded lately in open source sw (Linux, MySQL), not much else.

I would place a lot of the blaim of not identifying these candidates to the Finnish VC industry. It has been dominated by lazy state controlled institutions. They haven't been greedy(?) enough to invest in big plays. Only safe bets or dumping money to major players such as Nokia.

</comment><comment><USER5> Another story that shows it isn't the idea, it's the execution. As they say in the article, it was tough to get any funding in Finland at the time, but that's probably faint consolation now. Who knows what might have happened if they had actually released it and kept working on it in their spare time.

<comment><USER6> Academics in Europe have an addiction to grants/funding (and that's as much their fuel as coffee). I've met a few academic people who were astonished that I'd work on software for free, for sale or glory.

There's also a perception that you need a PhD to commercialise your ideas and run a business.

Footnote: I'm from the UK.</comment></comment>


Joe Armstrong - On Erlang, OO, Concurrency, Shared State and the Future (Channel 9 interview) - <AUTHOR> http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=351659

<comment><USER2> interesting how he gets flustered when asked if he is trying to model the real world, doesn't the real world have side effects? Don't people perceive the world as having all kinds of interacting state?

Of course it does. We would be crazy to try to re-implement the world the way nature does it. DNA is the worst spaghetti code ever created. Side-effect free concurrency does not have to be the most natural or intuitive way to model things- it should be an attempt at finding the best way.</comment>


PyPy 7.3.0 Released - <AUTHOR> https://morepypy.blogspot.com/2019/12/pypy-730-released.html <comment><USER2> Does anyone have a good understanding of why PyPy did not supplant CPython? I'm not familiar with it, but from reading their website, they claim it's better at pretty much everything. So the question naturally arises, "if you're so smart, why aren't you rich"?

<comment><USER3> too many libraries don't work with pypy. The last time I checked, psycopg2 doesn't work. Completely a deal breaker for me.

<comment><USER4> Just out of idle curiosity: Why don't they work?

<comment><USER5> PyPy doesn't completely implement Python C API (which anyway is specified only by the CPython implementation, not in any formal manner).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Leonard Cohen Makes It Darker - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/leonard-cohen-makes-it-darker <comment><USER3> First off, I've always been a huge fan of Cohen.

But the opening paragraph made me bristle slightly: "He got by on a three- thousand-dollar grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. This was 1960..."

I'm assuming that's Canadian dollars. So he was living abroad doing what he loved, and presumably not breaking much of a sweat.

No less than ten years later, in the same country, my parents were struggling to bring up two children on my father's wage which was half that amount - <USER2> for a 40-hour week of very dangerous, manual work.

Now obviously people aspire to successful, creative careers, and most people don't begrudge them that, especially if they bring a great deal of joy to others. But I notice there is a phenomenon quite common in journalism, esp. regarding artistic figures, a great many of whom were actually born into relatively privileged circumstances, and a number of whom, especially during the sixties, wanted to display their bohemian credentials by living in somewhat spartan conditions. Strangely, however, they can always afford an air fare (decades before budgets airlines), and often inherit a house here or there, and always able to afford recreational drugs.

The image of the impoverished poet has long had journalistic appeal, but it is often a lie. They were actually in a very privileged position compared to 99% of people.

<comment><USER4> I don't see the need to bristle when the rest of that paragraph dispells any notion of an "impoverished poet": "Cohen, whose family was both prominent and cultivated, had an ironical view of himself. He was a bohemian with a cushion whose first purchases in London were an Olivetti typewriter and a blue raincoat at Burberry."

<comment><USER5> This blue raincoat? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohk3DP5fMCg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohk3DP5fMCg)

<comment><USER6> Indeed. From Wikipedia:

In the liner notes to 1975's The Best of Leonard Cohen, which includes the song, he mentions that the famous blue raincoat to which he refers actually belonged to him, and not someone else:

I had a good raincoat then, a Burberry I got in London in 1959. Elizabeth thought I looked like a spider in it. That was probably why she wouldn't go to Greece with me. It hung more heroically when I took out the lining, and achieved glory when the frayed sleeves were repaired with a little leather. Things were clear. I knew how to dress in those days. It was stolen from Marianne's loft in New York City sometime during the early seventies. I wasn't wearing it very much toward the end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Leonard Cohen is absolutely one of the best (Canadian!) artists of the last century. Seriously; if you have the time, do what you can to discover his music. Songs of Leonard Cohen, Various Positions, and of course I'm Your Man are all must listen albums.

<comment><USER8> Those looking to try Cohen for the first time (or wanting to rediscover him) should listen to _Live in London (2009)_ , which IMHO is one of the best live albums ever. Great songs and some witty banter in between.

[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2p8je2](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2p8je2)

<comment><USER4> My access point was catching Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 on PBS late one night. I'd recommend it as an intro to his earlier material.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was fortunate enough to see him live quite a few times during his touring between 2008 and 2012, and I have never seen better live music in my life. In his late 70s he would give a 3+ hour performance full of energy and enthusiasm, it was truly incredible to see.

<comment><USER10> I've been to four (Oberhausen, Paris, Rotterdam, Amsterdam) and all evenings were fantastic. Highly doubt if I'll ever see a better show. It helped that the crowds were superb too!

edit: The other artists in the line-up were top-notch. My favorite part of the non-Cohen sung songs was the Webb Sisters with "Coming Back to You": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzX0Nk3sCJE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzX0Nk3sCJE)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Dylan went on driving. After a while, he told Cohen that a famous songwriter > of the day had told him, "O.K., Bob, you're Number 1, but I'm Number 2."

> Cohen smiled. "Then Dylan says to me, 'As far as I'm concerned, Leonard, > you're Number 1. I'm Number Zero.' Meaning, as I understood it at the > time—and I was not ready to dispute it—that his work was beyond measure and > my work was pretty good."

Pretty fitting after today's Nobel prize award. Cohen is definitely up there with the greatest songwriters and poets of this generation.

<comment><USER12> Is that where Steve Jobs got the idea? I know he was a huge fan of Dylan.

[http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/yarns/appl...](http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/yarns/apples- employee-no-0-2008-11/?FirstIsWorst)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a Canadian I especially love Leonard Cohen, I think it's wonderful people are learning more about him and his music, I grew up listening to it. If you're into poetry, his poems are mostly his songs, and his songs his poems, so if you don't like his voice (It's an acquired taste much like Hawksley Workman) - I highly recommend reading some of his poetry, it's quite beautiful. :)

</comment><comment><USER14> How did The New Yorker get such a well timed profile?

Did they know in advance that he would win the Nobel Prize?

<comment><USER15> It would be impressive to know that in advance, given that actually it was Bob Dylan who won it.

(But perhaps they were tipped off that it would be a singer-songwriter, and they made the wrong guess.)

<comment><USER16> As much as I love Bob Dylan, I wouldn't have been upset had Leonard Cohen been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He's written two novels, several volumes of poetry, and, of course, has made his own irreplaceable poetic contributions to American songwriting.

<comment><USER17> He would definitely deserve it. But he's Canadian so his contributions would more correctly be classified as going towards Canadian songwriting.

<comment><USER16> Haha... Valid point. I'd have to explore the intricacies of Canadian songwriting before I could confidently make the assertion, but my feeling is that Cohen's songwriting falls in line with the American tradition.

<comment><USER18> (Biased Canadian)

I'd say Cohen is entirely Canadian. He has this very self-deprecating humor that you don't really get from Americans.

<comment><USER16> I'll concede that Cohen is a Canadian songwriter. It's interesting to me, though, that he launched his music career in New York.

<comment><USER19> That's where all the good record labels and record producers were. All good Canadian musicians/actors/directors go to the US. They largely leave Canada behind without much mention of Canada during their careers besides Drake and to a lesser extent Neil Young being the exception.

Leonard's first album had amazing production by american producer John Simon (who also worked with The Band, Simon & Garfunkel, Janis Joplin), probably the best in Cohen's entire career, so he chose well deciding to work out of Columbia's studio in NYC...

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If someone told me that there would come a day when two of the first three HN posts will be about Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, I would have dismissed them as high or delusional. Turns out that I would be very wrong.

</comment><comment><USER21> Why is this on Hacker News? It is a promotional piece about the new album he's releasing, isn't it?</comment>


Curve cards suspended – FCA suspends Wirecard in the UK without notice - <AUTHOR> https://community.curve.app/t/wirecard-updates/22539 <comment><USER2> FCA statement: [https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/requirements- impose...](https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/requirements-imposed- wirecard-authorisation)

>On 26 June 2020, the FCA imposed a number of requirements on Wirecard including, that the firm:

>must not dispose of any assets or funds

>must not carry on any regulated activities

>must set out a statement on its website and communicate to customers that it is no longer permitted to conduct any regulated activities.</comment>


Real time drawing on infinite canvas - <AUTHOR> http://worlddraws.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just a little project I made a few year ago with a friend. It has lots of flaws, because it was not maintained since 2013. However, I think the idea is still awesome and the main functionality works: draw together with other people one a LARGE canvas. (No mobile support)</comment>


Google Earth Engine - o0-0o https://earthengine.google.org/#intro

<comment><AUTHOR> _The Google Earth Plugin is currently only available on Windows and Mac OS X 10.6+._

Pity. Can I use Google Earth proper somehow?

<comment><USER2> You can download full Google Earth desktop application for Linux. That's the best way to use it on any platform in my opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> does anyone else dislike the whole WebGL experience that google is using for maps, earth and also this. the performance is just laggy and terrible...in all browsers. i've switched back to classic maps and it loads instantly, zooms instantly and is overall a superior 2d experience.

<comment><USER4> Not to mention the optimized-for-touch experience, where a single click (or too short a drag) is sufficient to clear your search result. Or the over- abundance of context-sensitive animations and popups that jump around. Since the redesign, I still have no clue where they moved the permalink button.

It's not even a case of "I'm a techie, therefore I hate (it|change in general)", regular consumers uniformly say the same thing.

<comment><USER5> Looks like your URL now constantly changes to your permalink automatically.

<comment><USER6> Yes, it does. Which also means that if an errant click or touch blows away your search result, just use the back button.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So.. is this why Google was working with GIS data?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8459996](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8459996)

</comment><comment><USER8> Funny how the copyright of this page dates back to 2012.

</comment><comment><USER9> a nice n.y.d. service (not yet deprecated)

<comment><USER7> You were downvoted but this is a valid comment on Google's services -- they don't publicise their maintenance plan.</comment></comment>


A Reader's Journey. Visual Editions' Where You Are - <AUTHOR> http://where-you-are.com

<comment><USER2> I don't understand what this is but I like it whatever it is.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you pitch tech journalists? - <AUTHOR>

'Do you want a guestpost from another point of view with proven data?' That's one of mines. Yours? <comment><USER2> The best way to pitch is with a compelling angle, a story. Something that makes it interesting. Data is good but they want something more compelling. Asking them if they want a guest post from another point of view w/ proven data probably wouldn't make their original story look too good. Plus, by the time they publish their original article, they are onto a new their next story that touches on something different.</comment>


Committing Location Based Service Suicide - <AUTHOR> http://andrewhy.de/committing-location-based-service-suicide/

<comment><USER2> You are not your iPhone. You are not your tweets. You are not your checkins. Quitting a service is not suicide in any meaningful respect.

Relatedly, the construction of identity around relationship to technology is one of the dangers of spending your time with the tech crowd. If you hang around the Valley all day and TechCrunch is your only source of news, you might get the impression that this stuff _matters_. At the end of the day, its still bits.

<comment><USER3> Are phone conversations less real for being remote and digital?

<comment><USER4> In a phone conversation you are having an actual conversation. You can hear a human, the tone of the voice, hear if the other person responds immideately or hesitates. You get lots of contextual information you can't get from text alone.

And as the name implies a telephone conversation is an actual conversation. A conversation involves interaction.

With twitter you are not so much in a conversation as you yelling and hoping that gits on the internet will give you attention.

So yes, I'd say there is a difference and it lies in how the medium works, not in its implementation (i.e. digital or analog).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Criminal usage of sharing services is potentially an enormous problem. He got off lightly with realizing his disclosure risks only through stalking.

Using only a few services a criminal could potentially have access to personal information that would aid in guessing common security prompts (Facebook, etc), lists of purchases or photos of your possessions (Blippy, Facebook, Flickr, etc), and your physical location and/or travel plans (Twitter and numerous others).

I think the anonymity we perceive from the fact that our disclosure is not person to person is a cognitive misconception. Realistically, we are walking around and publicly saying these bits of information. Something about telling them to and receiving them from a computer does not make it seem that way though.

<comment><USER6> For these reasons I am always deliberately hazy about discussing my travel plans on Twitter and Facebook. I'll announce when I'm return, but never when I leave or for how long. The criminal possibilities are too great.

It's always seemed insane to me that anyone would announce their whereabouts at greater than a square kilometre's accuracy (and even then I'd be paranoid).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Privacy concerns don't affect you until they affect you.

Most of us aren't worth stalking, or even paying attention to. For most of us, regardless of our stance on privacy, the benefits of finding people to eat lunch with ([http://www.amazon.com/Never-Eat-Alone-Secrets- Relationship/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Never-Eat-Alone-Secrets- Relationship/dp/0385512058)) outweigh the risks of attracting a stalker.

It's possible that one day we'll get our 15 minutes of fame/notoriety in front of 15 people or 15 million. Then we'll stop seeking celebrity and care more about privacy. Mostly without loss, perhaps with some nostalgia for the good old times.

Don't worry people[1] will steal your privacy; you'll have to shove it down their throats.

[1] Governments and corporations are a different matter.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm actually surprised that there hasn't already been more Location Based Service-crime. In addition to stalking, it seems like robbery and theft would be rampant.

There's already been cases where thefts happened after people tweeted that they were going on vacation ([http://www.socialreflections.com/twitter- connection-to-home-...](http://www.socialreflections.com/twitter-connection- to-home-robbery/)). I wouldn't be surprised if the number of social-media related robbery increases as these services continue to gain traction.

By using services that tell people exactly where you are, you're really telling people exactly where you aren't: your home.

<comment><USER9> > _By using services that tell people exactly where you are, you're really > telling people exactly where you aren't: your home._

Craigslist has had its share of issues with people getting robbed. I don't necessarily think that Craigslist is a bad thing though.

You have the same issue with valets. You give them your keys (which probably contain the keys to your house/apartment), your insurance information is in the glove compartment (which contains your address), and they know that you're not at home because you still need to get your car out of valet.

<comment><USER8> I wasn't aware of stuff happening via CL. Do you have any links? _thanks in advance_

<comment><USER9> Here you go:

* [http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=5930862&page=1](http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=5930862&page=1)

* [http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/nov/21/news/chi-crai...](http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/nov/21/news/chi-craigslist-robbery-21nov21)

* [http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/11/business/fi-craigsli...](http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/11/business/fi-craigslist11)

It's the opposite of what was talked about above. They aren't using Craigslist to figure out when people won't be home, they are using it to lure people to a particular place to rob them (and make sure that they will have cash on them).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm an avid Brightkite user, and a budding Foursquare user. To me, they both serve different purposes. For one, I like Brightkite because it's an okay place to start conversations. If I really want something to go to Twitter and Facebook, and to easily geo-tag my mobile photo uploads on Flickr, Brightkite is hard to beat. That said, I don't check in everywhere I go, and my check-ins are often vague. Cities or major intersections instead of actual addresses or venues. Of course, there are exceptions.

Generally, I only check in when I want people to know where I am, and it's often an invitation to come kick it with me. And if I check in to the same coffee shop every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning, you'd bet I'd be glad to have you come up and and have a talk over a cup of joe if you "stalk" me and can predict where I'll be. Heck, I've met two people I consider great friends simply because we were checked in nearby on Brightkite and finally crossed paths.

It comes down to moderation. If you feel the need to check in every single time you move more than a few hundred feet in any given direction, you're probably OCD. Basically, I only check in if I plan on my situation becoming social.

</comment><comment><USER11> While I think the author was a bit heavy handed in his reaction (why not ask for better privacy tools or checkin a little more selectively?), the privacy + location services conversation is a pretty interesting one.

Understanding this sort of backlash is probably a pretty big deal to folks trying to build location into their applications.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've used some of these services and I've yet grokked the point. They make me feel like a baby playing with a mobile: lots of loud noises and blinky lights. MyTown is the best at this.

So is that all there is to these things? Or are they just geek mobiles?

<comment><USER13> They are ego boosters. They are narcissism enablers. That is all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "I don't like being an ego broadcaster!" he shouted loudly from the nearest rooftop. A dozen people below looked up in bewilderment, shrugged, then continued about their day.

Also, you people (yes, I said "you people"), use the word "suicide" too lightly. I wonder what is prompting people to use extreme/heavy words to describe everyday casual situations. Is it pure ego and attention driven?

<comment><USER15> Your assertion that the word suicide should carry more weight reminds me of complaints that describing a project as "stillborn" is insensitive to parents that have lost a baby, and that using the terms master/slave in technical documents is discriminatory.

<http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/master.asp>

<comment><USER10> A year or so ago, I was going to help a stranger jump-start his car. He didn't have jumper cables with him, but I keep a set in all of my motorized vehicles. I generally assume (often rightly so) that folks who don't own a pair of jumper cables do not know how to correctly utilize them. Whilst giving him the 15-second explanation on their use, he interrupted me.

"Man... why black always gotta be NEGATIVE?"

I took my jumper cables out of his hands, tossed them into the back of my car and drove off, leaving him with his hood (and his jaw) wide open. I haven't the time for crap like that.

<comment><USER16> I guess you showed him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If we're talking about checkin tedium, why not combine Android's Locale app with a script which accesses the Foursquare API? When you reach a certain GPS location, you check in automatically. This would work as long as you don't have several regular hangouts in the same general area...

</comment><comment><USER18> "Location Based Service" is a lot broader than "Location Based _Social_ {Games, Hacks, Tools}"</comment>


Ask HN: How do you deploy side projects? - <AUTHOR> What is your preferred way to deploy software for your side project? What tooling do you lose from the office that you wish you still had? <comment><USER2> I use something like AWS Elastic Beanstalk. FaaS/Heroku-like services tend to be too restrictive and no easier to use.

Why would you lose tooling outside the office? All the tooling you'd need for starting a side project is FOSS, except in unusual cases. The proprietary code at the office would likely be narrowly applicable to scaling their product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Tooling from the office that I miss is often in the visibility category. Metrics, logs, uptime monitoring/self healing, etc all come for free in my work environment but if I deploy on a digitalocean droplet then I have to figure out a lot of that myself.

I figured that people used to having lots of control might miss not being able to control some low level networking aspect for instance.

<comment><USER2> All of that stuff is pretty much out-of-the-box with AWS and Azure. I think using DO creates a lot of extra work for a single dev.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Heroku. Very little effort to kick a git repo up to a server - no messing with the system - and they have a free tier to start out on. If a project takes off, flip a switch to start paying for hosting.</comment>


Cavalry: New 2D animation tool for Windows and Mac - open-source-ux https://cavalry.scenegroup.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Reminded me of Macromedia Flash. :)

<comment><USER2> Nowadays known as Animate.</comment></comment>


Interviewing with Y Combinator or How to Not Finish Your Sentences - <AUTHOR> http://blog.outspokes.com/2009/11/24/interviewing-with-yc-or-how-to-not-finish-your-sentences/

<comment><USER2> Good to hear from someone who didn't get in. Thanks for the tips.

Keep up the good work and wish you the best.

</comment><comment><USER3> Did they tell you the specific reason you didn't get in? I'd rather know what went wrong than how to prepare.

<comment><USER4> They generally do not give specific reasons; at least not in any form that would be generally useful to anyone other than the applicant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting - I seem to remember YC having a policy of deciding "there and then", but receiving a call 12hrs later means that's not the case. Did this change or is my memory incorrect?

In any case, I wish the author and his cofounders all the best with their startup!

<comment><USER4> Your recollection is incorrect, at least for as long as I've been aware of the process. In 2007, it was as it is today. We got our call at about 10PM the night of the interview.

I've been told by some (very few) interviewees that they got a "no" immediately, but those were usually folks who had obvious reasons for getting a no. The most obvious was a group that were sophomores at MIT, and their business idea was vague at best (no business model, no idea of what kind of user would use their code, and lacking in obvious desire or plans to start the company without YC backing; it looked like a classic case of "what I did on my summer vacation", to me, and I'm not as good a judge of these things as pg and co.)...pg told them to go back to school, and re-apply later because they were a great team of smart people, but weren't really ready to start a business.

Generally, though, teams do not get an answer until the night of the interview, and that's the way it's always been, as far as I know.

<comment><USER5> Thanks, fair enough. Maybe I misinterpreted something I read - I guess a couple of hours is still a hell of a lot quicker than raising money via angels or VC, so it could be that. Or maybe it was the other way around, i.e. the founders have to decide more or less immediately whether to accept the investment at the proposed valuation?

Not that any of this technical detail is especially interesting or relevant, I suppose. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for the support guys! My co-founder Jerry wrote this but I didn't catch this HN post until today. Glad you all found it useful.</comment>


We Might First Find Life on Tidally Locked Planets - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/forget-earth_likewell-first-find-aliens-on-eyeball-planets <comment><USER3> Tidal locking isn't always 1:1. Mercury, the lone tidally locked planet in our Solar System, is locked at a 3:2 resonance. For simple thermodynamic reasons one would expect that in most cases the planets locked at an "offset" ratio are far more likely to be habitable than the ones locked at 1:1. This happens when there are outlying large planets that disrupt the orbit:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_%28planet%29#Spin.E2.80...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_%28planet%29#Spin.E2.80.93orbit_resonance)

<comment><USER4> I though Mercury was 3:2 solely because of its elliptical orbit? The fast rotation at the closest orbit continues during the long eccentric part, where it has time to make an extra half turn. Just geometry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Someone already calculated in 1950 that such planet is very unlikely to have an atmosphere. Temperature difference is about 300 degrees celsius and most gasses would either froze on cold side, or escape to space on warm side.

In best cases you get permanent hurricane (Venus)

<comment><USER4> Right, that idea that water would flow constantly across the terminator is nuts. The water would blow to the cold side and freeze there.

Also, give all that was said, probably no life there at all. Our Moon may have been instrumental in generating life. Tides and rotation meant constant motion of water on shores, combined with day/night heat/cold wet/dry. Every grain of sand on every beach was a different biochemical petri dish for billions of years, resulting ultimately in the cell.

A tide-locked no-day-night planet would likely be sterile.

<comment><USER6> > The water would blow to the cold side and freeze there.

You missed the part where the glaciers on the night side get big enough to flow despite being frozen.

<comment><USER4> Depends on how much water.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was at an astrobiology conference this week, and one of the ideas that we discussed is that life on Earth is good at finding and exploiting gradients for energy harvesting---thermal, chemical, even electrical. I'm not sure how to weight the whole "the atmosphere will freeze out" argument, but it does seem like having a constant, predictable thermal gradient, coupled with lower average high energy radiation (not much UV at sunset), should be conducive to life, all else being equal.

<comment><USER4> Conducive to existing life adapting. But what about life forming in the first place?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Tidally locked"

There, was that so hard? Extraordinary effort here to coin a neologism for something that's already an established phrase.

This is also a blogpost promoting a paper about cloud formation in tidally locked planets, which it appears someone forgot to link, inside the phrase "Gory details here".

<comment><USER9> There's also a thousand variations on the theme of tidally locked planets in science fiction: from Larry Niven's (of Ringworld fame) world Jinx which was tidally locked to a gas giant, right back to Stapledon's _Star Maker_ from 1937, which features a habitable planet tidally locked around a red dwarf.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The whole time I was reading this was "selection bias".

> _The easiest planets to find are those that orbit close to their stars._

> _Tides drive the planet's obliquity to zero, meaning that the planet's > equator is perfectly aligned with its orbit. The planet will also be > "tidally locked"_

Seems likely that the first planets we'll find life on are the planets that are easy to find.

<comment><USER11> Yeah. That's the premise of the article. Given the kind of planet that's easy to find, what sort of conditions might support life?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm surprised that tidal locking happen for a planet with liquids on the surface, except in a jury-rigged toy scenario. I'd expect that the energy would cause fluid/molden volumes to circulate. This would create motion relative to the energy source.

It might be possible to use this same kind of circulation effect to have a self-contained space-craft. It would consume solar energy, and then strategically pump volumes of fluid from one end to the other, to deliberately change its momentum.

<comment><USER13> Pumping fluid wouldn't give long term motion to the planet (can't travel further than it's own length). That would violate momentum conservation no matter how it's powered. You need to give it momentum to make it move, and then you just get a solar sail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't know enough about tides and atmospheres to say whether or not this sort of arrangement would be _more_ conducive towards generating life.

However, there's plenty of evidence that our rotating Earth gives a lot of benefits. There's the jet stream, which helps to spread moisture, there's the tides themselves, which helped create thriving transition zones between aquatic and terrestrial life (tide pools, etc.)

I'm also thinking of Jared Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel. In our own case of planet Earth, we had pretty big geographic obstacles that both enabled and prevented the spread of certain forms of life (Deer can easily migrate within the larger temperate zones, enabling their species to spread easily. Viruses can't easily cross oceans, making it unlikely that they wipe out an entire species.)

</comment><comment><USER15> Aside from the obvious problems with keeping an atmosphere, can tidally locked planets have a magnetosphere?

<comment><USER16> Sure, that comes from a molten core IIRC.

<comment><USER9> A spinning liquid metallic outer core, with a certain composition, but yes (we think.) Even Earth's magnetosphere isn't fully understood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if the earth would be tidally locked without having bumped into the moon at some point.

</comment><comment><USER18> I imagine Game of Thrones is set on such a planet :)

<comment><USER19> Surely there are day and night scenes in the same place?

<comment><USER18> True. So a little tilt then, enough so the sun sets just below the horizon - <USER2> day and night in the habitable zone. But when "winter comes" the tilt gets out of whack for a while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A couple problems - when there's even a tiny wobble the goldilocks zone will alternate from extreme freezing to extreme heat. The other problem is that the atmosphere will eventually fully condense on the cold side of the planet.

<comment><USER4> Further, early cells depended on an ocean environment (algae) to protect their fragile forms. No ocean on these weird planets.

<comment><USER10> What about the icy eyeballs, where the substellar point is the center of a large ocean?

<comment><USER4> There, no land, no beach. Just deep water.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Manga Shouldn't Pretend to Be High Art - <AUTHOR> https://frieze.com/article/why-manga-shouldnt-pretend-be-high-art <comment><USER2> An overview of a museum exhibit of manga, the (after reading the article, I'd say clickbaity) title isn't addressed until the very end of the article:

>Critics will lament that such a disposable medium does not belong in an esteemed, if controversial, museum. Yet if you wish to remotely understand a place and time (and those who lived there), it is unwise to dispose of disposable things. They tell us a great deal. The temptation is to respond to derision or faint praise with claims that manga can rise to the level of great art, providing stunning examples such as the neo-Piranesi atmosphere of Tsutomu Nihei's Blame! (1996-2003) or Moto Hagio's exquisitely florid ongoing work, which reaches deeper into human souls than most of the practitioners of Art Nouveau or the Pre-Raphaelites ever did. This is to play the wrong game however; one that constricts while pretending to elevate. Manga doesn't need to be high art. Manga is manga. It has different ways of being appraised. It has different functions, strengths and rules to fine art, as this exhibition studiously shows.

This passage pretends to say something while, I'd argue, saying nothing at all. It exists to justify the title of the article.</comment>


Ask HN: What to do with a Google Home if you don't trust Google? - <AUTHOR> I've stated on HN that I would never put a Google Home in my house because I don't trust Google. So, naturally I won one at the office Christmas party. I thought about giving it away, but that just helps Google do things I personally find unethical. So, what useful things can I do with this device that don't involve allowing Google to spy on my family and friends? <comment><USER2> There are a number of humorous things as Daffy Duck would say, "I can only do this trick once." Guarantee it is running some flavor of open operating system and it's a matter of time a maker rips one apart and turns it into something useful...so maybe just top shelf it for now...your decision not to use it is currently wise...

</comment><comment><USER3> You could put it in a sealed box with a speaker and play audio into it, perhaps a feed of random tweets with "OK Google" prepended and run through a voice synthesizer. Add some entropy to their data.

</comment><comment><USER4> You could sell it on Craigslist and donate the proceeds to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Not sure how to prevent it from being used for its intended purpose unless you destroy it.</comment>


Intel Has Also Relicensed Their FSP Binaries: A Big Win to Coreboot, LinuxBoot - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-Better-FSP-License <comment><USER2> Anyone know what's the motivation behind Intel having the FSP closed source? It seems like it would be useless to you without an Intel chipset on your motherboard, so it's not like Intel won't be able to make money if they're open source.</comment>


More founders reject VC money - <AUTHOR> http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130227/TECHNOLOGY/130229888 <comment><USER2> This is sort of true, but what it misses is that money and power are only loosely coupled. The real story is that VCs have decreasing power over the companies they fund, regardless of the deal size. For example, it is now the norm among YC startups for the founders to retain board control even past the series A round (which itself is increasingly a de facto series B).

Curiously, one reason this is happening is that VCs are realizing that they didn't need as much power over founders as they had. All the returns come from the big winners, and the big winners don't need to be told what to do.

VCs may well make higher returns with less power.

<comment><USER3> Do you sense this is a philosophy that is taking hold with most VCs currently?

<comment><USER2> Like most trends among VCs it has started at the top. The top west coast firms are the most willing to concede power to founders. Lower-tier firms, and firms in other places, are less willing to, largely because in this as in other respects they're always a few years behind.

I say largely because lower-tier firms have a different and less trusting relationship with companies they fund. They assume that if a company had to resort to raising money from them, it won't be one of the big successes. They are the hotel where the TV is bolted down so the guests don't steal it.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. I like the analogy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My cofounder refused the idea of seeking accelerators (even YC, at least for now) for more or less that reason. He (and the seed investors) agreed that the company will do what we wish only.

We are now happily seeking investments that are bigger than an angel, but smaller than VC, specially from private individuals, in a way to not be pressured into the classic VC model (ie: not having to exit, or return the VC investment in 5 years and so on)

</comment><comment><USER5> "Everyone says it's cheaper to build and launch things, but it still costs the same to market it worldwide and get customers," said Bob Greene, managing partner of Contour Venture Partners and chairman of the New York Venture Capital Association.

I would say that the cost of reaching customers is rapidly decreasing. The popularity of various distribution platforms (Facebook, Search, Adwords, App Store, LinkedIn, Email, etc..) are allowing customers to be reached more efficiently.

<comment><USER6> Yea, that quote read like a blatant "we are still important!" cry.

My startup bootstrapped to over 100k users all from Twitter and inbound marketing. We spend $0 on marketing. That's real.

<comment><USER7> Have you written this up (bootstrapped to 100k users) in more detail on your blog or elsewhere? Please provide a url (and if you have not, please write it up and share on HN).

<comment><USER6> Not yet, but I should. Thanks for reminding me!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How do folks see crowd-funding platforms like Kickstarter having a longer-term impact here?

The promise of sustainable incubation without ceding control seems real using this model, but it might add overhead in areas where fledgling "companies" or projects might not have the time or bandwidth to steer.

Plus, I suppose, there's the question of the VC's rolodex vs. the "networking effect" of the crowd.

Arts organizations seem to rely on this model fairly regularly, but as much as one might want to be idealistic in suggesting that it is about "maintaining aesthetic independence" from monetary influences (big donors, government grants, "selling out" to the market), the drying up of funding in traditional areas is a prime motivator here as well.

<comment><USER9> KS makes a huge amount of sense in that it's both a publicity channel as well as a funding mechanism. If you can successfully handle a KS initiative to create a meaningful investment "round" and then deliver on some product (with adequate margins) or MVC design that the funders receive well, you will both have some working capital and social proof in one go.

That said, it seems like a daunting challenge for technical-oriented folks - this is exactly where a paired business/technical co-founders model should be very useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The biggest weakness I find of the VC funded route, is it's accidental "Let's get more money so we can build more product" effect. It can delay the all important moment of asking someone give you money for your product's created value. I once worked at a 1 year old company with ~$2 Million in the bank and a fledging product in production. Our board wanted to raise more money to hire more engineers. We didn't need more engineers. We needed a product people wanted to use.

</comment><comment><USER11> Fundraising 101 is don't fundraise. Any investor worth his salt says don't raise money unless you have to. You need some damned good reasons to give up your equity/control. I don't get why this is a big deal. This article should have focused more on the changing VC model then illustrate the basics of bootstrapping.

</comment><comment><USER12> What power do investors have if they don't have board control? All the percentage equity stuff seems irrelevant.

<comment><USER13> There are many ways to have influence. A few, for example

\- They can limit the company's ability to raise future funds

\- They can convert equity to debt if it's convertible. If the company can't pay back the debt they can gain more control

\- They can have rights to control hiring and firing

\- They may have voting rights with the equity

\- They have a voice with the public, press, customers, hiring candidates

\- They have rights as minority shareholders

\- Various clawback and other provisions may raise or lower their equity stakes, giving them more or less control

\- They have access to information they wouldn't have otherwise

Besides contractual and legal rights, they have relationships with management. Presumably they can just talk to management and influence them that way.

Also, power can also be used to act in concert with the company, which is augmented by their inside information and made more credible by their shared interest. They can

\- Recommend candidates for hiring

\- Recommend clients

\- Inform about competition

\- Advise

\- Reinvest

\- Recommend other investors

Etc etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think that entrepreneurs should build to ship to customers rather than to court VCs.

</comment><comment><USER15> Welcome to the post-VC era.</comment>


Memes are a myth - <AUTHOR> http://ideas.aeon.co/viewpoints/jonathan-goodman-on-are-there-transmissible-entities-called-memes-that-mutate-and-evolve-like-genes-and-can-change-what-we-believe-and-how-we-think <comment><USER2> This essay is... confused. (Or maybe I'm the one who's confused; I admit I have no training in philosophy.)

Goodman juggles vastly different concepts of what a "meme" is without consistently distinguishing between them. He seems to dismiss memetics as an abstract model based on a lack of evidence for memes as physical entities, which, depending on how it's constructed, seems like either fringe absurdity ( _an idea particle_ ) or a logical conclusion of materialism. And his question of whether an idea or its proponent "wins" is a poorly-defined non-sequitur.

The original question is bad, in my opinion. Assuming you acknowledge the existence of ideas, a better question would be "is meme theory a useful or accurate model of how ideas behave?"

<comment><USER3> _> Assuming you acknowledge the existence of ideas, a better question would be "is meme theory a useful or accurate model of how ideas behave?"_

Yes, exactly. It's like complaining that gravity isn't "real" because nobody's touched it. That may be so, but it's real _enough_ in that we can observe its effects and use those observations to make accurate predictions about the behavior of objects in space. If meme theory can do the same for the behavior of ideas in social groups, it's real enough too.

<comment><USER4> " _If meme theory can do the same for the behavior of ideas in social groups, it 's real enough too._"

I have not followed meme theory: Can it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The author claims that memes aren't "real", they're just an idea; yet ideas are exactly what memes are all about! The more attempts are made to justify the claim, the more clearly the evidence for memes piles up: ie. that memetics is a clear example of a meme!

Some deliciously irony:

> Since its introduction almost 40 years ago, the term has taken root in > science, language, and popular culture.

> Should we take the existence of memes on scientific faith, or countenance > the parsimonious explanation that ideas are just ideas that we use for > better or for worse?

> There is no reason to invent a language or a science, or insert some > entirely fictitious evolutionary notion, every time we have a question that > seems unanswerable.

> It sounds nice, and perhaps the meme is a useful analogy—but it is just an > analogy.

Dennet's favourite examples of memes are words. They're clearly "physically real", in that we can capture them with a microphone or a pen. We're nowhere near able to measure the neurological effect of a word on a brain, but we certainly know that the effect is there, since hearing words (eg. instructions) can alter our behaviour.

<comment><USER6> More irony: the author is attempting to proliferate the meme that "memes are a myth" \- presumably to defend some sacred belief system that memetic analysis undermines.

<comment><USER7> Memetic analysis would not undermine it, it would explain it ;) But I guess explanation kills the magic. In any case, I agree with you, 'deniers' of memetics tend to be more spiritual/religious. Again, memetics would explain the denial as well: making/breaking neural patterns is no easy task.

<comment><USER6> > I guess explanation kills the magic.

Once belief systems are understood as evolving memetic complexes that compete for niches in the ecology of the noosphere - well, it does tend to unweave the rainbow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The author does not understand the notion of falsifiability.

It is not necessary that we have the technology to discover the physical manifestation of memes _right now_ for them to be a valid scientific hypothesis, only that in principle we can someday conduct tests that may potentially refute the hypothesis. This does not mean that memes do definitely exist. It just means that the proposal for their existence is scientific and rational, pending further investigation.

On the other hand, the notion of faith in God is, by definition, not a falsifiable theory; no experiments can ever be done, even in principle, to disprove faith, since it is by definition an extra-rational concept that proposes you should accept its veracity without evidence, and indeed _despite_ any evidence that it may not be true. This is an anti-scientific theory.

The two proposals are thus fundamentally different in terms of how they -- on their own terms -- suggest you should evaluate their veracity. One is scientific (that is, falsifiable); the other is not.

<comment><USER7> However, once we have the turbo-charged MRI that can map memes (assuming memes are neural patterns), then we could also 'explain' faith; since it seems faith is also a meme, no?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> But memetics isn't comparable to the Higgs particle. Richard Dawkins didn't make an assertion which he then tried to prove about the composition of anything, or indeed how the spread of ideas worked -- he simply made the observation that ideas can spread and change over time in a naturally selective way.

In its original and vague context Dawkins isn't so much proposing a mechanism of idea evolution and transfer but simply a different way of looking at what we already know about ideas along the lines of 'in some cases, ideas can change like genetic code' rather than the response author's 'culture evolves according to analogous laws to genetic natural selection.'. Serious interpretation and extrapolation of what is essentially a cute analogy across the whole of culture is inevitably going to be ridiculous without proper evidence.

In that sense I agree with the author. Nobody knows if this works beyond being a toy idea, but "memes are a myth"? I'd disagree -- 'memes' offer a worthwhile analogy and a useful contribution to our lexicon, especially in the internet age where ideas are freer than ever. Sure, I couldn't say 'X is an idea that acts exactly by the mechanism of memetics', but I can say 'X seems to act like a meme' and I think that's useful.

</comment><comment><USER10> People are always trying to find something physical that corresponds to something that only exists in the noosphere.

Just because its not physical doesn't mean its not real. The realm of ideas is real. It has real effects on our lives.

A person't effect on the world doesn't go away when he or she leaves the room or dies. It continues as long what they did continues to to have an effect, which might only be until the sun supernovas.

I think the idea of everlasting soul is an approximation of the impression that object permanence creates in our minds. Its incorrect, I think, but should not be a surprise, given the way our minds, IMHO.

<comment><USER6> > something that only exists in the noosphere

I hear what you are saying, but the working assumption is that thoughts, memories, beliefs and memes all have physical neural correlates.

<comment><USER10> obviously. Your ideas are recorded on something.

What I meant was people think there is some energy floating around. Or that a soul leaves at death and continues on somewhere else. That is not how we continue to have an effect in the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's hard to argue about this without some idea about what the original author considers "real"/"not a myth".

If he considers genes to be "real" in comparison (which I cannot totally infer from this piece of writing; but he does seem to put a lot of stock in the identification of a physical mechanism for projecting the idea of genetics onto, in DNA), there's a pretty straightforward map-vs-territory argument to reduce that (and pretty much everything else) to equivalence.

All of thought and semantics are imperfect metaphors. The question "are memes real" is exactly equivalent to "are genes real" is exactly equivalent to "is math real" is exactly equivalent to "are trees real" is exactly equivalent to "is anything in our understanding of reality real".

Short of a physical "theory of everything", the only description of physical reality that is "real" is the total enumeration of all of physical reality.

</comment><comment><USER12> > So how is belief in the existence of memes different from believing in G-d, > or Shiva, or Odin?

Writing God with a - is certainly a meme.

<comment><USER7> Separation of believe(faith) and science is also a meme.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't think the _The Selfish Gene_ was never intended to be a literal explanation of how evolution works. It was intended to be a novel way of looking at evolution; a new way of explaining how it works in a way that might stick with people. That's why it was a popularly published book, not a scientific paper.

Genes are not actually selfish; they can't be. It's an obvious anthropomorphism, which is more useful as a metaphor than a rigorous theory.

As the book progresses, Dawkins takes this idea into further and further flights of speculation, seeing how well it might apply to any aspect of human society and experience. I haven't read the book in a while, but my memory is that this section of the book is home to some hilariously dated notions of "biology that needs explaining," like why women like to cook and clean the house, and men prefer to get drunk and cheat on their wives. (I'm exaggerating but not by much).

It is in this section of the book--already fairly far out on the limb of speculations--where he introduces the concept of the meme. So it's never been on very solid ground, scientifically.

In terms of its physical manifestation, that is a problem for information in general. A copy of the Bible, and a copy of the Bible in which the letters have been rearranged randomly, is indistinguishable by any physical test short of a human being reading it.

</comment><comment><USER14> So the clickbait title is pulled back in the first sentence, then reasserted through the rest of the article?

This looks to be another philosopher airing out a personal grudge against science in general and Richard Dawkins in particular.

</comment><comment><USER15> I hope the irony of the title was intentional.

</comment><comment><USER7> God is a meme.

<comment><USER16> On a slight tangent, I wonder if those who generally support or don't dispute state monitoring of all communications, transactions, movements etc. are more likely to be religious? If you already assume that you're being watched 24/7 by the allmighty, perhaps the concept of the state doing it isn't so bad.

Conversely, those who aren't religious or have thrown out the idea of a God altogether are more likely to be against such a thing because the state replaces the mythical behavioral control mechanism with a real all-seeing eye.

If true (and I have nothing to prove it is) then the God meme would certainly be helpful to the state.

<comment><USER17> _Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful._ \- Seneca

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Haha this is awesome</comment>


Ask HN: Can I use convolutional neural networks to clasify videos on a CPU - <AUTHOR> Is there any way that I can use conv nets to classify videos on a CPU. I do not have GPUs but I want to classify videos. <comment><USER2> There's a table with runtime comparisons for a convnet here: [https://github.com/ryanjay0/miles-deep/](https://github.com/ryanjay0/miles- deep/) (GPU CuDNN: 15s, GPU: 19s, CPU: 159s)

(Also written w/ Caffe: [https://github.com/yahoo/open_nsfw](https://github.com/yahoo/open_nsfw))

</comment><comment><USER3> You can, but it will be very slow.</comment>


New College of Florida - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_college_of_florida Recently, there have been many submissions that critique the cost and structure of higher education. As such, I think many of you will find this college interesting. I attend it and would be happy to answer any questions you have about it. <comment><AUTHOR> Recently, there have been many submissions that critique the cost and structure of higher education. As such, I think many of you will find this college interesting. It does not have grades and charges 6k for in-state tuition. I attend it and would be happy to answer any questions that you have about it.</comment>