Epic Games Launcher appears to collect Steam friends and play history - <AUTHOR> https://www.resetera.com/threads/developing-epic-games-launcher-appears-to-collect-your-steam-friends-play-history-epic-responds-see-op.105385/ <comment><USER2> I'll post Epic Games response in the thread here also.

———————————

We use a tracking pixel (tracking.js) for our Support-A-Creator program so we can pay creators. We also track page statistics.

The launcher sends a hardware survey (CPU, GPU, and the like) at a regular interval as outlined in our privacy policy(see the "Information We Collect or Receive" section). You can find the code here.

The UDP traffic highlighted in this post is a launcher feature for communication with the Unreal Editor. The source of the underlying system is available on github.

The majority of the launcher UI is implemented using web technology that is being rendered by Chromium (which is open source). The root certificate and cookie access mentioned above is a result of normal web browser start up.

The launcher scans your active processes to prevent updating games that are currently running. This information is not sent to Epic.

We only import your Steam friends with your explicit permission. The launcher makes an encrypted local copy of your localconfig.vdf Steam file. However information from this file is only sent to Epic if you choose to import your Steam friends, and then only hashed ids of your friends are sent and no other information from the file.

Epic is controlled by Tim Sweeney. We have lots of external shareholders, none of whom have access to customer data.

Daniel Vogel VP of Engineering Epic Games Inc.

<comment><USER3> _> The launcher makes an encrypted local copy of your localconfig.vdf Steam file._

This should not be done preemptively.

<comment><USER4> Totally agree. It is too difficult for the average consumer to find out what is does with that "local copy." Software shouldn't touch another program's file without user consent.

<comment><USER5> It's high time we started enforcing that by default at the OS level.

<comment><USER6> It's notable that you bring this up in a news story about PC gaming, which is a prime example of why this _shouldn't_ be enforced. There are huge community efforts around modding games—adding features, updating old titles, improving performance, etc etc. All of this is essential to PC gaming, and all of it becomes impossible if software is sandboxed.

<comment><USER7> You can look at macOS as an example. Using the command line I start searching through my home directory. I get a pop up saying, "Terminal wants to access your Contacts: yes/no" "Terminal wants to access your Calendar: yes/no." This is the kind of behavior I think most people would like.

An example of the bad side is that Nvidia says they cannot develop drivers for their cards because Apple hasn't allowed them to (Apple develops the drivers). I technically believe they can, but they would have to make the user jump through some very unreasonable steps (reboot into a maintenance mode and disable integrity protection).

<comment><USER6> > I technically believe they can, but they would have to make the user jump > through some very unreasonable steps (reboot into a maintenance mode and > disable integrity protection).

Just confirming this is accurate. SIP wouldn't need to be disabled completely, just the blocking of unsigned kexts. (Apple allows you to selectively enable and disable pieces of SIP).

I don't think this would be _so_ wholly unreasonable. The types of users installing third party video cards in their Macs are the types of users who should know how to do this. At the cost of their security, you could argue, but of course you still have normal Unix root restrictions to protect you there, as long as you're savvy enough to not grant such permissions to any random software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I bought Metro Exodus on Epic Games recently. It was my second experience outside of playing Fortnite on PC.

I completely understand why people do not want to pay the Steam tax, but the Epic launcher is a scummy experience. Steam is popular and has a loud following because it does not make unethical choices that annoy users. I have no issue installing multiple launchers, either, but I don't want something running on my system that operates in an unethical manor. And it's tiring how common it is for companies to operate in this way, so we, as users, have to scrutinize their behavior heavily.

For example:

1) By default, the Epic launcher appears to advertise "free games" via Windows notification (popups). I never deliberately opted in to this. When I first saw the notification, I was certain I had some sort of spyware on my system. It looked like a spammy advertisement you see in free mobile games. I don't believe even EA/ORIGIN has been gutsy enough to try something like this.

2) Epic launcher defaults to starting when Windows starts. I never explicitly opted in to this. I'm sure I "affirmed" this somehow via some kind of user agreement, but I don't ever remember seeing an explicit option.

<comment><USER9> >Steam is popular and has a loud following because it does not make unethical choices that annoy users.

I don't think that's true. I think Steam is popular because they were in the right place at the right time. Before Steam, the alternative for most games was driving to the store--that's who they were competing with. Steam has done many things to annoy users--they allow their store to be filled with absolute garbage shovelware for one.

They still thrive because of momentum. The games are there because the user base is there, the user base is there because the games are there.

<comment><USER5> It's partly first-mover advantage, but also Valve has repeatedly made moves that demonstrate their relative good will towards gamers and developers. Aside from their own (vanishingly few) games, Valve has never enforced any kind of exclusivity. You can even sell Steam keys through other vendors and Valve doesn't even get a cut. They helped launch the indie explosion in the mid oughties with their cross promotional stunts. They have so many sales, with such outrageous discounts, that many of their customers have dozens if not hundreds of games they unlikely to ever play. Said discounts set a new bar for what a sale even looks like, with '40% off' often eliciting general consensus of 'meh'. They have more tools to try and help users find games they might like than anyone. They worked with HTC to develop new VR tech, again with no exclusivity (unlike their competition). And as every Linux gamer here should recognize: they've done more to make Linux gaming a realistic option than anyone ever, and they never charged a dime for it.

As much flak as Valve gets for not curating games and letting games with questionable content slide until some internets make a fuss, Steam is actually, objectively, really great.

<comment><USER9> >Valve has never enforced any kind of exclusivity

Because they have no need to. Why deal with the backlash when they own the market?

>They have so many sales, with such outrageous discounts

How does this demonstrate goodwill towards anyone? The developers are the ones lowering the prices for those sales. And pushing down the price of games to app store level prices isn't something we should be celebrating. There's a very good argument that encouraging deep discounts hurts the industry in the long run.

>They have more tools to try and help users find games they might like than anyone.

What do you mean "than anyone". Versus itch.io and the brand new Epic store? That's not really a high bar. They could have 1 tool and that would literally be more than anyone.

>And as every Linux gamer here should recognize: they've done more to make Linux gaming a realistic option than anyone ever, and they never charged a dime for it.

They never charged a dime for it because they were trying to expand their hold over the market. This is like praising Google giving away Android. Their interest in Steam is because they were worried Microsoft was going to use the Windows store to force them off of Windows.

> Steam is actually, objectively, really great

You definitely can't say it's _objectively_ great because it could be a lot worse. A single player dominating the market is almost never great for anyone.

<comment><USER5> > Because they have no need to. Why deal with the backlash when they own the > market?

They didn't always own the market. Steam was not embraced by PC gamers when it debuted, yet Valve never asked for exclusivity agreements while it was growing and still doesn't ask for them even as new competitors emerge.

> What do you mean "than anyone".

I mean precisely that, more than literally anyone else selling games anywhere at all. The fact that no one else even bothers doesn't detract from the fact that they try.

> They never charged a dime for it because they were trying to expand their > hold over the market.

Years ago, that was a worthwhile argument. A happy alignment of interests. But now, when it is incredibly unlikely they're going to close the OS and force everyone into a walled garden? Seems wasteful of them to expend as many resources as they do on things like Proton.

> You definitely can't say it's objectively great because it could be a lot > worse.

Um... what? I can't say it is really great because hypothetically it could be worse?

> A single player dominating the market is almost never great for anyone.

I don't disagree at all with that sentiment, but lets give credit where credit is due here. Valve earned their position at the top for a variety of reasons, and notably _they aren 't trying to use that position anti-competitively_. Isn't that exactly the kind of behavior we want to acknowledge and support?

I'm not going to give Epic a free pass just because they're not Steam, especially when they pull the anti-gamer shit they pull. There's already GOG and itch.io, which I'm much happier to support if I want to support someone for not being Steam.

<comment><USER9> >They didn't always own the market.

Before they owned the market they were new and trying to win customers. Exclusivity agreements tend to happen when a previously dominant player starts to lose market share, not when a company is still in a growth phase.

>I mean precisely that, more than literally anyone else selling games anywhere at all.

That's like praising Windows PCs for having the best Antivirus software in 1997. I mean yeah you're not wrong but...

Most of Steam's competition are stores from publishers with small catalogs that don't need the kind of discovery mechanisms that Steam does. GOG is has a much smaller curated selection so they same thing applies. Itch has a large catalog, but they are so small that they can't even be considered a competitor because of the network effects in Steam's favor.

>Um... what? I can't say it is really great because hypothetically it could be worse?

That sentence should have said "just because". You can't say it's objectively great just because it could be worse.

>I'm not going to give Epic a free pass just because they're not Steam

Who wants to give them a free pass? They'd probably be worse if they had a completely dominant market position the way Steam does. I don't want anyone to be completely dominant. I want competition. Their 30% cut and refusal to filter shovelware harms the industry because for 99% of indie devs, they completely control the market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just attempted to sign up with Epic. Only my email address had already been signed up. I used the password reset and took over the account. No games just setup with a strange name and in Thailand. Now I can't buy games because of the country. I can't change country. Support wants a photo of my passport, that's not happening, to change country.

I found an article showing many email addresses had been signed up in the same way. Epic was not validating email addresses.

They've lost my business.

<comment><USER11> What is the incentive for people to pretend they own those email addresses?

<comment><USER10> No idea the only feasible possibility I've come up is to damage Epics customer relations. I don't know maybe it was just some idiot with a list of emails and script but no real game plan.

Here is the an article discussing others with the same issue [https://twinfinite.net/2019/03/psa-epic-store-doesnt- validat...](https://twinfinite.net/2019/03/psa-epic-store-doesnt-validate- email-addresses/)

Here is the last email I got from Epic:

Jan E. March 15, 2019, 11:39 +1300 | Conversation ID: #9950515 Hi (Player's Name),

Thanks for the information!

I know how important it is for you to update and change your country to your Epic account. No worries, I got your back and I'll do my very best to assist you with your request. Additionally, I know how frustrating it can be. Please know that here at Epic Games, we are serious about the player's security and we assure you that your email address is secured as long as you keep the password updated or enable 2FA.

In order to change the country on your account I will need you to reply with an image of one of the following items with your name and address visible:

 _Passport_ Personal identification *Recent rent or mortgage statement

Any other personal information should be blacked out.

I'll be looking forward to hearing from you soon.

<comment><USER12> Are you required to prove your Country on sign up? I think not. So why all of the rigmarole to change it? I'm guess for legal reasons.

<comment><USER13> It's because games can be cheaper in countries where the economy is weaker. $60 in USA is a standard price, but that's outrageous in Thailand, and here Epic might charge the equivalent of $30. They do not want people shopping around for the cheapest country to purchase games from.

A passport is somewhat ridiculous, as is the lack of initial email verification, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The fact that they even mess with files outside their directory means any answer they give is ingenuous.

Some other steam games have much worse behavior. The EULA you had to accept for Square Enix games was so horrible that I have games purchased on my system that I will not play. I should probably ask steam for a refund.

If you want an interesting book to read, I recommend Dan Ariely's "The honest truth about dishonesty".

In particular, license agreements seem to work like disclosure he mentions. The way it works is that there is a veneer of justification that allows for all sorts of unethical behavior.

<comment><USER15> Oh dear, I have a bunch bought(mostly due to nostalgia, haven't played them on steam)

Can you give an example and the shennanigans it does?

<comment><USER14> I remember the last time I tried launching a square enix game I got to the accept dialog and read the terms and conditons.

Since then I think they have reworded their privacy policy.

It used said they could collect basically every interaction you ever had with their games, information on your system unrelated to the game, and when agreeing it was binding, irrevocable and forever.

the current policy is here, and it is still amazing:

[https://www.square-enix- games.com/en_US/documents/privacy](https://www.square-enix- games.com/en_US/documents/privacy)

read the first section - they basically collect everything they can and can share it with everybody.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Note that the original reddit thread[1] is pretty suspect and alarmist. The OP is clearly inexperienced with the process inspection tools they are playing around with. They complain about the launcher using minified JS, opening dlls, and checking root certificates among other things all of which are very normal things for a desktop application to do.

[1][https://www.reddit.com/r/PhoenixPoint/comments/b0rxdq/epic_g...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PhoenixPoint/comments/b0rxdq/epic_game_store_spyware_tracking_and_you/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Skip the clickbaity title drama and read Epic's response, which is included a little bit lower down on the top post, before forming an opinion.

<comment><USER18> The title isn't clickbait and is the most fair phrasing possible for this situation. (the Epic response provides more sensible context for the allegations)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't see what's wrong with this if they asked for permission first. I gave access to Epic Games to collect info on who my steam friends are so I could play Apex with them.

<comment><USER20> Confusing Epic launcher for Origin? Or Fortnite for Apex?

<comment><USER19> Ah I did confuse Origin Launcher for Epic. Thanks for addressing that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't know if it was in response to this debacle, but Epic Games have published a public roadmap for the Epic Games launcher on Trello:

[https://trello.com/b/GXLc34hk/epic-games-store- roadmap](https://trello.com/b/GXLc34hk/epic-games-store-roadmap)

</comment><comment><USER22> On a related note, Steam could (should?) also encrypt that data on disk, using a key derived from your Steam account ID (not your Steam password, because you may need to change the password), so that no other process can snoop on your Steam profile without your explicit consent to begin with.

<comment><USER23> The simple fact of the matter is, this shouldn't even be necessary.

An application shouldn't be sniffing the user's private data from another app without explicit permission.

This is literally the sort of thing a piece of malware would do, grab your data and upload it to the botnet...

<comment><USER22> I agree. But it doesn't hurt to put up preemptive defense. In fact, the OS should also isolate and encrypt per-app profiles. And when one app wants to access data that belongs to another app, it should ask the user's permission. I don't know if any of the major desktop OSes (including Linus distros) already provide this kind of mechanism, and that it's just the app developers not bothering to use the mechanisms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why I'm not surprised some people are already defending or at least minimizing this?

I certainly don't want one program snooping data from other installed programs without my explicit permission.

And this explains how Galyonkin knew how much of the Fortnite players had Steam installed and, specifically, were using it on a regular basis.

</comment><comment><USER25> There's also this annoying problem with the launcher multicasting stuff on network constantly.

[https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/forums/bug- reports/battle...](https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/forums/bug- reports/battle-royale-aa/455395-aggressive-multicasting)

</comment><comment><USER26> I mean, they're owned by Tencent and have zero experience with this outside of Fortnite. Pretty much what I expected to happen (not this specific gaffe but in general).

About what I expected. Say what you want about Steam but they made most of their most dumbass mistakes years ago and learned from them.

</comment><comment><USER27> Any explanation on why the links for the source code on Github are dead, and the repositories are gone?

</comment><comment><USER28> Even if you didn't install it, one of your steam friends probably did which included you with it :O

</comment><comment><USER29> Jokes on them, I don't have any friends.

</comment><comment><USER30> It would be Epic, if it was true.</comment>


Send Vimeo videos to your Apple TV from the command line - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/eric/flickvimeo

<comment><USER2> awesome, trying it tonight!</comment>


Apple's Pro Display XDR with Nano-Texture Can Only Be Cleaned with Special Cloth - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2019/12/10/apple-pro-display-xdr-cleaning-cloth/ <comment><USER2> The real question is, how much will a replacement special cloth cost? I'm guessing $49.99</comment>


Kiribati's Entire Population is Being Moved to Fiji - <AUTHOR> http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/03/kiribatis-entire-population-being-moved-fiji/

<comment><USER2> Do places like New York or Los Angeles see increases in sea levels? Is there any definitive source of sea level measurements that can be referenced to add credibility to these claims?</comment>


Scientists use an Atomic Clock to measure the height of a mountain - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/an-atomic-clock-is-used-to-measure-not-time-but-the-height-of-mountains/2018/02/23/5a845166-11c3-11e8-9570-29c9830535e5_story.html <comment><AUTHOR> The paper on it can be found at [1]

[1] "Geodesy and metrology with a transportable optical clock" [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-017-0042-3](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-017-0042-3)</comment>


Ray Tracing Essentials, Part 1: Basics of Ray Tracing - <AUTHOR> https://news.developer.nvidia.com/ray-tracing-essentials-part-1-basics-of-ray-tracing/ <comment><USER2> On the topic of Ray tracing books:

I'm currently at chapter 9 of The Ray Tracer Challenge and I have to say it's a wonderful book and the stellar reviews are well deserved.

It handholds you all the way and that is such a breath of fresh air for someone like me, who's not a math guy, nor do I instantly 'get' modern graphics APIs, since there is a lot of prerequisite knowledge encoded in those APIs.

I also like to understand things from first principles and it helps when those principles are explained in a straightforward, even somewhat humorous way and I get to see results right away.

Learning practical things would be so much easier if the other books on my shelf had the same approach.

It's already in the top 3 of my favorite books, along with Nature of Code.

<comment><USER3> I had a really fun time going through the ray tracer challenge recently! It really is an amazing introduction to ray tracing

I've since moved on to the pbr book[0] and finding myself getting much more lost in the math. I'm doing my best to brush up and/or learn all of it, but it's a bit daunting.

It's really telling how reassuring the tests are in the RTC. Right now I can re-implement something from the pbr-book, but I can't really say if I got it right other than by doing a render (and even then, it can be hard to tell).

My plan is to at least go through and write my own tests by doing the math by hand and trying to verify my implementations.

I really wish there were some intermediary book between the two.

[0] [http://www.pbr-book.org/](http://www.pbr-book.org/)

<comment><USER2> I wholeheartedly agree with you. The tests do help a lot.

Funnily enough, I own PBR too (it's in my reading queue), and, having skimmed through it, it seems math heavy. I think I'll leave it for last. My current queue is:

\- RTC (for fun),

\- 3d Math primer for Graphics and Game Dev by Dunn (to solidify the math part)

\- Foundations of Game Engine Dev - Mathematics, by Lengyel (because when it comes to math, overkill is underrated)

\- CGPP (to get the basics down)

... not sure about the order for my other books, but then...

\- OpenGL SuperBible (second time around, sadly)

\- Real-Time Rendering

\- PBR

For the math books, I was thinking to do the same thing as you: do the math by hand, and then translate them into tests.

<comment><USER4> > \- OpenGL SuperBible (second time around, sadly)

I tried using the SuperBible in order to learn OpenGL a few years back, but it always seems to be a bit too dense for my taste. Since OpenGL itself is an API specification and usually you would learn the basics of 3D graphics before delving into it, I recommend using the fantastic Learn OpenGL site ([https://learnopengl.com](https://learnopengl.com)). It goes through the basics of OpenGL from ground-up and touches on more advanced techniques, such as shadow mapping and deferred shading. It is a fantastic site and a great resource for learning the API.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the advice, I'll give it a try!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Peter Shirely's Ray Tracing in One Weekend series ([https://raytracing.github.io/](https://raytracing.github.io/)) is a great way to learn enough about ray tracing to implement it yourself.

<comment><USER6> It is a great project for learning a new language. I used it to practice Rust.

You get to implement vectors, with basic operations on them, this gives you a chance to practice some abstractions. It's also good to create some unit tests to ensure your vector operations are correct. There's also good reason to parallelize your code and perform benchmarks. Abstractions, unit tests, parallelism, benchmarks, you have an excuse to try them all.

<comment><USER7> Oh, that's a great idea! The main reason I still haven't learned Rust is I didn't have a project to use with it, but this tutorial is something else I've wanted to do, so it's a perfect match.

<comment><USER8> I love seeing this book listed. I picked it up 4ish years ago while learning Rust. I was converting the code to Rust and I found a small bug[1] because I could not convert the code as it was. Peter was amazingly responsive and encouraging. I highly recommend this and the second second book.

[1] [https://github.com/RayTracing/raytracing.github.io/blob/7e2a...](https://github.com/RayTracing/raytracing.github.io/blob/7e2a8a10746f6de3e08f216d7a47baf059d46d77/books/RayTracingInOneWeekend.html#L1504)

<comment><USER7> Oh cool, congrats on finding the bug!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> From the example in this video I'm not quite sure how you get anti-aliasing for free in sub-pixel sampling. I understand it in general, but in this example the light is being reflected on a diffuse surface. Assumedly where the diffused ray goes has a large random component, so sub-pixel sampling provides very little, if any, benefit. Is my take in this correct?

<comment><USER10> When you shoot a ray from camera perspective, you've already chosen which pixel it's going to contribute to. "Platonic" pixels are infinitesimally small.

In reality, pixels on the screen and camera sensor have an area. If you choose a random position on that area, you get anti-aliasing "for free" because there's going to be variation in the direction of rays that contribute to the same pixel.

<comment><USER11> You actually don't get anti-aliasing for free on camera sensors. Many cameras put a low-pass filter in front of the sensor specifically to avoid the problem of aliasing. More recently, high-end cameras have been omitting the filter in order to improve resolution. This occasionally does result in aliasing (called moiré by photographers) when taking pictures of fine-structured repeating patterns, however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting video. I didn't get how the Ray casting process formulates the final picture in the eye.

<comment><USER13> There's a point in space that represents the lens of the observer's eye, and a rectangle in space that represents the viewport. This rectangle is divided into pixel-equivalent square areas. For each area, a sampling of one or more rays is drawn from the lens point through the bounds of the area, until it encounters a surface of the scene. At that point, the material rules of the surface might generate another ray for specular reflection, a cone for diffuse reflection, another ray for refraction, and also add the emissive light value from that material. If the specular or diffuse reflections encounter a light source or ambient light, they add some of that light to the pixel-equivalent.

The diffuse cones send out a sampling of rays and attenuate the light from the light source, based on how many of those rays hit it, instead of some other object.

Instead of drawing light onto the scene and calculating how much passes through the viewport to the lens, ray-tracing cheats by working backwards, because photons traveling backward in time follow exactly the same rules as those traveling forward in time. Every photon that can travel backwards in time from the eye to hit a light source must have emanated from a light source with exactly the right direction and polarization to enter the eye. So the only photons calculated are the ones that contribute to the scene as viewed by the eye.

<comment><USER12> Thanks. I think I got most of what you described.

If I understand it correctly:

1) a point / pixel in the scene (as viewed by the eye) sends out a cone of rays, and the final color of this pixel is a combination of what those rays hit. This is the ray casting process, the reverse of light traveling.

2) the overall picture of the scene is the combination of pixels each calculated by the above ray casting process.

Am I right?

<comment><USER13> Yes. The problem with working backwards is that some optical calculations have probability elements. A photon that hits a half-silvered mirror has a 50% chance of (specular) reflecting and a 50% chance of transmitting.

So for ray-tracing, you calculate along both paths and give 50% weight to each. Every time a ray hits a triangle in the scene, the material properties determine how the various components sum up to determine the color of the pixel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Video is really well done. Will be looking for the next one.

</comment><comment><USER15> slightly tangential question: does someone know of resources that i might be able to use for plotting mesh surfaces f.e. z = f(x, y) ? all online resources seem to point to howto use surface plots in either matplotlib or gnuplot or some variant thereof. thank you kindly !

</comment><comment><USER16> Dear NVidia, While I and many others appreciate the quality of your video, in an age where people are distributing ray-tracing code on business cards, there's not a ton of value in producing even more "Basics" or "Essentials" of ray tracing educational material.

What would provide most of us with interest in ray tracing real value is expanding on the territory covered by the PBRT book, making the material it covers more accessible, and covering the changes to the state of the art which have occurred in the decade since it was written (particularly the elements that the RTX hardware enables; real-time mixing of ray tracing and rasterization rendering).

Thanks!

<comment><USER17> Something like Ray Tracing Gems book they published last year? Or maybe CFP for Ray Tracing Gems II book they have right now?

<comment><USER16> Sweet. Didn't see these come out. Thanks for the heads up.

<comment><USER17> There are previous GPU gems available for free as well: [https://developer.nvidia.com/gpugems/gpugems/contributors](https://developer.nvidia.com/gpugems/gpugems/contributors)

<comment><USER18> And the very first one of the NVidia series, "The Cg Tutorial" is also available.

[https://developer.download.nvidia.com/CgTutorial/cg_tutorial...](https://developer.download.nvidia.com/CgTutorial/cg_tutorial_chapter01.html)

Granted, Cg is now just a curiousity in the context of shading languages, it is nevertheless interesting to read.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nicholas Carr on deep reading and digital thinking - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2020/7/1/21308153/the-ezra-klein-show-the-shallows-twitter-facebook-attention-deep-reading-thinking <comment><USER2> His book, _The Shallows_ , is an incredible journey into the human/technology relationship. As much as we create and change technology, it likewise changes us.

Worth a read for anyone in tech.

[https://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing- Brains/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing- Brains/dp/0393339750)

<comment><USER3> How does it hold up almost 10 years later? The internet has changed a lot in that time. I recently became interested in reading this, but I was wondering if I'd be missing out on anything more recent.

<comment><USER4> From the article: "His book, a finalist for the Pulitzer that year, was dismissed by many, including me. Ten years on, I regret that dismissal. Reading it now, The Shallows is outrageously prescient, offering a framework and language for ideas and experiences I've been struggling to define for a decade."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One thing that surprised me about this pandemic is how vulnerable people are to misinformation and conspiracy theories on social media. For many people their idea of authority or "credentials" directly correlate with the strength of the source's social media profile (much like the impact factor of peer- reviewed articles only it feeds on itself). I don't know if they are simply looking for a theory to fit their current preconceptions or information that affirms their sense of self but it's really phenomenal. I honestly had no idea how many people I know could take these crazy conspiracies so seriously.

<comment><USER6> What are you on about? While I don't really disagree with what you wrote, this article and interview has nothing to do conspiracy theories and their propagation through social media.

<comment><USER5> Guilty as charged but I thought it was a reasonable jump to speculate on how there might be a cumulative effect of being in the "shallows" where critical thinking skills are atrophied and people are susceptible to misinformation. I did read the article but I was under the impression that HN doesn't restrict comments to the specifics of the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >"But we also lost something. One thing we lost is a lot of our visual acuity in reading nature and reading the world. If you look at older cultures that aren't text-based, you see incredible abilities to, for instance, navigate by all sorts of natural signs. This acuity in reading the world, which also requires a lot of the visual cortex, we lost some of that simply because we had to reprogram our brain to become good readers."

Or because larger numbers of people lived in cities and used craft skills to get money to live rather than hunting and gathering?

<comment><USER8> Good point. And what if, from an evolutionary point of view, this new way of acquiring information is actually better in the long term?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's ironic to read an article about how it's a shame the internet is so full of distractions, when that article has multiple inline video advertisements.</comment>


Muscle dysmorphia: One in 10 men in gyms believed to have 'bigorexia' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/34307044/muscle-dysmorphia-one-in-10-men-in-gyms-believed-to-have-bigorexia <comment><USER2> Great, another anxiety disorder being labeled with a sensationalist name.

It's amazing that some think this might be genetics or chemical imbalances. It's not. I'm not an expert or accredited something or other so what do I know.

It's just another example of double standards and unreasonable expectations being forced on people.</comment>


We're in for 2 Months - <AUTHOR> https://foobuzz.github.io/covid19/ <comment><USER3> Two months seems like the minimum. The really hard problem is that even if you reduce spread to near zero, it's almost guaranteed that cases will continue to spread among the essential workers who are still active during the lockdown. As long as that's the case, the end of the lockdown will result in the cycle starting over.

It seems to me that what we're really doing with the lockdown is buying the time to "mobilize," in the military sense, our healthcare system. If we had the testing capacity to test everyone and contain only the sick, this would be less serious. If we had 10x as many ventilators, and 100x as much protective equipment, this would be less dangerous. If we had an effective treatment (like a Tamiflu for Covid), then this would be less dangerous. Etc.

It seems to me unlikely that we will be locked down less than 2-3 months. But after that, I doubt the public will be willing to endure another global lockdown of this magnitude. Thus I think everything we're doing now is really about delaying the inevitable long enough for us to get a coherent response in place.

To the extent that anyone is a "winner" in a pandemic, it certainly appears to be Taiwan and South Korea, who responded fast enough to the first wave to keep it from requiring an authoritarian response (or, at least thus far).

<comment><USER4> The worst part of this to me is that we could have used the time that China bought with their lockdown to mobilize ourselves. Instead, we didn't.

Also, the US's lockdown seems liable to be more porous than China's.

<comment><USER5> Having this level of foresight and the guts to risk millions of unemployed workers for a "maybe scenario" is rare. If you were running the country, or were the governor of a coastal state like NY/CA, at what precise date would you have started ramping up ventilator&mask production?

Would you have instituted a statewide lockdown when there were 1-2 cases in California?

Would you be willing to trade certain unemployment and economic unproductivity for 2+ months, in exchange for the possibility that you _might_ end up like Italy instead of Taiwan/South Korea? The last datapoint we had was SARS-Cov-1, which ended up not becoming a huge pandemic. Of course, the disease characteristics for SARS-Cov-2 are different, but without the benefit of hindsight, was the decision really that clear?

Incompetent US administration aside, the financial markets - which can be thought of as an expensive forecasting computer - certainly did not price in what would happen, so I'm not sure we can expect policymakers to arrive at far-superior decision making.

Considering that China is not completely out of the woods yet either, and the US/Italy lags about 1 month behind them in pandemic progression, how would you advise the US act now, with the knowledge of what China is doing?

<comment><USER4> I'm not talking about locking down early, I'm talking about starting a crash program to produce masks and tests, organizing a national system to redirect resources like masks and ventilators, etc. If we had the testing capacity we have now a month ago, we would be in a much better position.

We didn't know how much it was spreading in the US because we weren't testing cases that didn't have a nexus to China/SK. So we had no idea what the spread was like and there was no data to go on to inform decisions to lock down. Seattle only got there early because some local flu researchers disobeyed their own IRB rules and tested cases for the virus without approval.

California seems to have gotten the lockdown about as early as was practical and has done much better than NYC, so they're actually doing well, all things considered.

<comment><USER5> _I 'm talking about starting a crash program to produce masks and tests, organizing a national system to redirect resources like masks and ventilators, etc._

Pretend for a second that you're Andrew Cuomo on January 1, 2020. What information would you have to justify this crash program?

Pretend that you're Andrew Cuomo on April 4, 2020. You're aware of what stage China is in. What would you do differently?

<comment><USER6> > Pretend that you're Andrew Cuomo on April 4, 2020. You're aware of what > stage China is in. What would you do differently?

I would not make cuts to Medicaid, for one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'll say it again:

We get it, we are going to have to shut down the main street economy for months, and potentially on and off for years.

OK, we aren't rioting yet.

So, elites, what's the plan to keep people from starving and being thrown out in the streets? A one time $1000 check at some point in the future isn't a plan.

People who swarm criticize anyone saying "this is crazy" need to start presenting feasible economic plans, or they are gonna see fully operational crazy in a month or so.

<comment><USER8> It's not really a one time payment though. Unemployment checks will be a much larger injection than the checks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> From economical perspective, I don' think United States can stay 'shut down' as it is now. 10 million+ jobless claims MINIMUM in past two weeks.. (since those not eligible are not counted) Gotta figure out a way to get healthy people to work. Or I mean, they could stay closed for 2-4 months but that would be quite a wild time.

<comment><USER10> What's interesting is the wage gap. Many (most) of the shut off jobs are the lower paying ones. Waiters and factory workers. Obviously some weird exceptions (pro athletes).

Many of our nations higher paying jobs are either essential (doctors, nurses), or remote friendly (developers , to some extent lawyers and real estate agents).

Even if 25% of our economy is not working, we can make near 90% of our GDP.

Which isn't ideal but it makes the lockdown perhaps less dire than it appears for the economy.

<comment><USER11> It may be true for few weeks or so, but if this continues the fallout will be widespread. Lower wage jobs is the bedrock of the whole economy. How much lawyering can you do if you have to take care of your own food prep, childcare, or - simply put - your clients start disappearing one by one because they cannot pay? How much longer you can continue to pay to the banking staff if mortgages and business loans default like house of cards? How much longer can you pay to programmers at Facebook when advertisers like restaurants, spas, hotels are not paying for advertising?...

<comment><USER12> Advertising is an _incredibly_ recession resistant industry.

Especially for FB and Goog, as they use second-price auctions, so anyone who measures their results will see performance improvement, make more money and thus (theoretically) invest more in advertising until it is no longer profitable.

They'll lose some revenue, but it won't be anything ridiculously large; and even if it is, some of the previously priced out advertisers (less profitable mobile games, for instance) will return.

Advertising is a hell of a business, especially online.

<comment><USER13> Google stock has fallen significantly since its highs. So has FB. MSFT has been doing well because of cloud and Teams.

Airlines are heavy advertisers and their industry is crushed. We'll see the next quarterly results. I bet at-least 30% revenue quarterly loss compared to last year.

The economy is very intertwined. Especially when people start defaulting on mortgages en-masse. The 2 trillion stimulation hasn't yet started sending out cheques to those who need it. Banks haven't figured out how to loan to businesses that need it.

The worst death count / day of virus is still to come.

People can may be weather one or two months, after that. Shit will really hit the fan.

<comment><USER12> Stock prices are mostly bullshit. US equities (particularly growth stocks) have been _massively_ over-valued for years, because of low interest rates and QE.

Nontheless,they have a good business model and will most likely be fine (even if they show no revenue growth, they make a _lot_ of money).

If you're suggesting 30% revenue loss relative to last year, that's probably flat to -10% revenue for each of them, which in the midst of a global pandemic is pretty good.

Like, things are going to be really bad for a whole lot of people, on that we agree.

However, i continue to believe that Goog and FB's businesses will weather the storm a lot better than most other technology companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't agree with the conclusion here. We can draw the conclusion from this that it takes two months for lockdown to work. But that doesn't mean we can start loosening lockdown restrictions after two months. There's a causal relationship between lockdown and slowing the spread: if you remove the lockdown, the spread will rise again.

Some speculation: a big part of why lockdown takes that long to work is that it seems to take that long for people to start taking things seriously enough for lockdown to work. A few weeks ago in NYC there were still people coughing on each other in public and laughing about it, and my observation of a lot of people's behavior over time is that for some people, they need someone proximal to them to die of it before they will start complying.

I don't say this judgmentally. Personally, I probably didn't take things seriously for about a week after I probably should have, and looking back at why, it wasn't because I didn't care, it was a fear reaction--one very human reaction to something scary is to downplay it or pretend it isn't happening.

</comment><comment><USER15> What I'm worried about is the number of people who will suffer as a consequence of this worldwide lockdown.

Depression, loneliness, suicide, addictive behaviours (alcohol, tobacco, recreational drugs), high stress due to varying economic factors, panic (media induced) etc ...

<comment><USER16> There have been studies of this from previous pandemics. Together with studies from the Great Recession / financial collapse the gist is there's definitely going to be an increase in mental health problems of all those sorts -- substance use, suicide, etc.

The interesting thing is that in previous situations deaths attributable to these things was offset by a decrease in deaths due to automobile accidents, workplace stress-related incidents, etc. That doesn't make it ok at all, and it's possible this time around is worse socioeconomically so things aren't offset. But it might not show up in overall trends if you just looked at general disability or death.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> On one hands tons of countries locked down after China (relative to the number of serious cases or deaths - I understand there is a debate about Chinese numbers, but I don't find it relevant here, because Italy or France _also_ did not test a lot and _also_ under-reported deaths -- basically counting only cases that were tested and died in an hospital -- in the end given the dynamic of the epidemics and other uncertainties it does not change a lot rough date predictions even if there would be 3 times more deaths)

So it even could take a few more weeks to get to the same low point again. Plus China had an extremely aggressive strategy, accumulating the measures, and even Italy did not use all of them. And France does less than Italy (non essential production has not been stopped by the government in France).

On the other hand I doubt we are going to eradicate the disease (at least not in the immediate future and not only with worldwide lockdowns), so we might want to use another lifting strategy than what they did in China (if we manage to develop means to control the spread at a very low rate)

2 months is still a reasonable approximation, given all the unknowns. But I will not even be surprised if it ends up being 3, and 4 is not out of the question.

</comment><comment><USER18> Does anyone believe the numbers that China has given?

I asked as I see everyone use them to compare against but then I see articles popping up talking about reporters who reported difference numbers just vanish over night.

<comment><USER19> since the criticisms of the Chinese numbers tend to be wild derivations from urns or anonymously sourced US propaganda, yes I am inclined to believe the numbers.

If you are seeing these articles "pop up" then you read fake news btw

<comment><USER20> Given the number of times the Chinese government has been shown to lie and actively try to hide dissenting people/information when it tells a story they don't want told... I think it's fair to start from a point of distrust. Sure, it doesn't mean they're lying about the numbers here, but they started out this whole thing by lying about it, by throwing someone (a doctor?) that did speak out in jail.

<comment><USER19> They did not throw any doctor in jail.

I don't trust the Chinese government but I think if they were lying then their opponents would be able to build a more persuasive case by now.

<comment><USER20> My apologies, I was mis-remembering. Dr. Li Wenliang was arrested, questioned, and officially reprimanded for warning about the Corona virus outbreak. Looking now, I don't see that he was actually thrown in jail.

That being said, it does still speak to the point of the Chinese government and their attempts to control the narrative. At least for me, that makes me start from a point of distrust over anything they say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The author missed inter-family infection growth during a lockdown. If you have a family of 5 people and person 1 is infected, person 2 gets infected by 1 after one week, a week later person 2 infects 3, a week later person 3 infects 4, a week later person 4 infects 5. And only then does the infection cascade stop.

This is also happening in hospitals, in nursing homes, in homeless shelters...all are also "families" for this purpose. If your "lockdown" was truly no contact between any two humans, the cascade would stop quicker. But that's not the case.

Comparing the US to China is wrong, because the US isn't doing MOST of what China did to allow the lockdown to be lifted.

</comment><comment><USER22> Haven't cases started reappearing in China? And haven't they had to restart the lockdown.

</comment><comment><USER23> "The rate of growth at a given day is the number of new cases on this day, as a percentage of the number of cases from the previous day. The rate of growth is constant for an exponential evolution, and is 0 when there is no more growth. (Mathematically, it is the derivative of the function divided by the function itself.)"

I don't think that's the curve they're talking about flattening.

I think 2 months is just the lower bound.

<comment><USER24> The curve that we must flatten is the admissions to the ICU as that's the main bottleneck if we want to limit the number of deaths.

And 2 months is probably not back to normal (international travel, etc). China is still fearing a second wave coming from the rest of the world.

<comment><USER25> I don't believe any country can eradicate the virus within its borders once it has spread sufficiently, at least without some form of herd immunity. I think China knows this and is already finding ways to blame foreigners. I think China could completely shut down its borders and still be at significant, if not inevitable, risk.

Note that I think other countries will also play the blame game. I don't plan to buy into the finger pointing as it doesn't really solve anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> As others have pointed out, this only gets thing to a steady state _while everyone is still locked down_. _All_ the countries that have loosened their lockdown restrictions had to tighten them back up after they had new "flare- ups".

We're in this for _many, many_ months. Somehow a lot of people have forgotten that "flattening the curve" greatly _lengthens_ the time period of the curve.

Also, the thesis behind flattening the curve is still that the same number of people eventually get it, and it's only once you get broad population immunity that the spread stops.

We will be fighting this with social distancing until there is a vaccine.

<comment><USER27> "We will be fighting this with social distancing until there is a vaccine."

Well, not really. We can also fight it by producing more needed medical supplies, developing better treatments and expanding hospital capacity. We aren't just trying to influence the curve, but also the line we are trying to keep the curve under. And some nations have had luck flattening the curve using testing and tracing (but the US does not seem to be interested in this approach for some reason). It's also worth considering that the level of social distancing is not fixed. There is a wide range of options between universal quarantine and business as usual.

<comment><USER21> Okay, so if I promise you you'd have a hospital bed and a ventilator for your last week on Earth, you'd go let some infected people cough in your face?

If your answer is no, you're still worried about the consequences of infection including death and permanent disability, then the public is still going to want to avoid infections even if ICU beds were completely unlimited.

<comment><USER28> I don't think anyone's proposing a policy where the public will be _forbidden_ from social distancing if they want to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm confused -- or rather, think the author may be -- about what's being measured and inferred. A rate of growth of 0 still means the number of new cases is increasing. The rate of growth needs to be negative before the rate of new cases can peak, slow, and (hopefully someday) stop. Acceleration vs velocity vs position. Right?

<comment><USER30> > The rate of growth at a given day is the number of _new_ cases on this day, > as a percentage of the number of cases from the previous day.

I haven't read the whole thing, but here he's defining "rate of growth" as the number of _new_ cases. If there are 0 _new_ cases each day, then eventually the number of _total_ cases goes to zero.

<comment><USER29> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > ... stop playing the game of "in our country it's going to be different than > in China" ...

</comment><comment><USER32> From what I read, a single lockdown doesn't work, as even 1 patient is enough to destroy everything, and a lockdown can't guarantee he wouldn't exist.

A solution seems to be selective lockdowns by area backed by a huge amount of testing.

<comment><USER27> "...as even 1 patient is enough to destroy everything"

That implies we are trying to make the virus extinct, which we are not. We want the virus to spread, but at a manageable rate.

<comment><USER32> Right, my point is that a single lockdown is not enough. You have to have good monitoring and intermittent lockdowns in different areas based on that monitoring

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> What I want to know is how long after the lockdown is lifted will we know if it's going to spread again? 2 weeks?

</comment><comment><USER34> So we all lockdown and the rate goes down. It stop staying locked down won't the rate go back up? The only way the rate stays down is if we stop staying locked down is

(a) most people already caught it and are immune

(b) we develop a vaccine

(c) we develop a cure that is easily mass produced and easily distributed.

Until one of those happens we're in lockdown. No? And that means 12 to 24 months.

<comment><USER35> What were holding out for is testing capacity. Once tests are readily available, we can isolate people who catch it and all they people they've been in contact with, and the virus can be held down in quarantine while the rest of society goes on.

This strategy has worked in China and South Korea, where life is now slowly resuming, but most other countries haven't caught up with their testing numbers yet.

The reason we're all quarantined now is that there's presently no rapid reliable way to tell who needs to be quarantined and who doesn't.

<comment><USER27> "What were holding out for is testing capacity."

Really? Because I have heard of no plan at the federal or state level to implement a wide-scale test and trace program to contain the virus. This seems like a very good idea, but not one being implemented in the US.

<comment><USER36> The US is far beyond containment at this point. As are many other countries right now, as well. Only when the cases go down again due to successful measures is containment an option again, as you need enough resources to trace contacts and test every potential infection.

<comment><USER27> "Only when the cases go down again due to successful measures is containment"

We have already taken measures to contain the virus. So why aren't we preparing these needed resources for testing and tracing while the lockdowns are in effect? Two months will pass and we will be no better prepared than we are today because no government in the US is working towards this. The containment will be for nothing, just a temporary measure that will have to be repeated over and over because we aren't even trying to implement a better solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> If you're trusting China's numbers I don't know if I shoukd trust your analysis.

</comment><comment><USER38> As long as there are a few cases in the community-- and there always will be-- the end of each lockdown potentially will trigger a surge of cases, and thus a new lockdown.

I think what is really going on here is world leaders assume China is most knowledgeable about this virus, because goodness knows its labs probably have been studying it for 15 years, they don't have confidence that China is forthcoming about what it knows, and in a few nations globally the effect borders on catastrophic so it's not something to be ignored. So, governments have _copied_ the _more_ _knowledgeable_ _actor_ , which happens to be an autocratic communist government, in hopes that it's approach is the best informed and effective scientifically .

Thus, the answer to 'when do the lockdowns end' really is: when we feel more knowledgeable about the virus than the nations that resorted to placing their populations under house arrest, and therefore feel confident enough to stop following China's example.

</comment><comment><USER39> If real information about China were to leak out, my guess is it would happen through the vector of internet/social media. Chances are, some other source would need to copy + repost it before being taken down. This is what I looked for.

One such account which is purportedly doing this is [https://twitter.com/truthabtchina](https://twitter.com/truthabtchina). To summarize this, among other rumors:

        - lots more people have died that communicated (there's an estimate of ~22m due to missing cell phone contracts)
        - riots are happening between regions where lockdown occurred, and regions next to them)
        - lockdown isn't practically over in areas where resurgence of infection is happening (pending other containment approaches)

edit: I've eaten dinner with some friends from China in the past month before lockdown started, and am in frequent contact with people traveling throughout SEA. I was trying to provide and summarize a potential semi-primary source. Added some more specific #'s, info, and removed inflammatory words. Sorry - <USER2> wasn't trying to be fear-mongery. However, I am trying to accurately reflect a harsher reality

I do think it's quite reasonable to assume some areas of China are getting back to normal.

I also think it's quite unreasonable to assume info _isn't_ being censored and controlled, especially post journalist-eviction.

<comment><USER40> Do people on HN really have no friends/connections in China? People post comments like this as if it's some mysterious information black hole where we can never know what's really happening.

I communicate pretty often with people living in China and with family and living in China. Things, even close to Wuhan, are returning to normal. People are going out, eating out, socializing more.

From all of the everyday people reporting there is no obvious or visible things not being reported. By and large people in China are primarily worried about America right now.

It wouldn't shock me if there was some important information not being reported, but this conspiratorial "If real information where to leak out" is nonsense since you can very easy interact and talk with actual people living in China.

<comment><USER41> There is also the willingness of Chinese companies and individuals to ship PPE gear to the US. If the government there were really still in crisis mode, you would expect it to clamp down hard on that sort of thing.

<comment><USER39> This is a pretty good point. However, there's also the chance that they can't use the gear and that's why they're sending it: [https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=virus+t...](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=virus+test+kits+contaminated+with+virus)

However, could be this was a one-off genuine mistake (things are hectic). I'd love to know more</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Peer Review is as bad as the Peers Reviewing. That's often awful - barry-cotter https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/06/11/bla-bla-bla-peer-review-bla-bla-bla/ <comment> barry-cotter > Peer review is fine for what it is—it tells you that a paper is up to > standard in its subfield. Peer reviewers can catch missing references in the > literature review. That can be helpful! But if peer review catches anything > that the original authors didn't understand . . . well, that's just lucky. > You certainly can't expect it.

...

> 4\. All the papers that don't get retracted . . .

> One problem with the attention given to the fatally flawed papers that get > retracted is that we forget all the fatally flawed papers that aren't > retracted.

> For example, from that long paragraph above:

> – The beauty-and-sex-ratio paper: Not retracted. 58 citations. Endorsement > from Freakonomics never rescinded.

> – The ovulation-and-voting paper: Not retracted. 107 citations. Fortunately > this one never got taken seriously by the news media.

> – The gremlins paper. Not retracted: 1064 citations. Might still be > influencing some policy debates.

Etc etc etc.

> And, if we just want to look at papers published in Lancet:

> – That seriously flawed Iraq survey: Never retracted. 779 citations. Came up > in policy debates.

> – That hopeless-from-the-start paper on gun control based on an > unregularized regression with 50 data points, 25+ predictors, and a bunch of > ridiculous conclusions: OK, this one had only 75 citations and, fortunately, > it was blasted in the press when it came out. So, too bad that something > like 75 people thought this paper was worth citing (and, no, a quick glance > at the citations suggests that these are not 75 papers using this as an > example to show people how not to do policy analysis). As I wrote the other > day, the useless study is included in a meta-analysis published in JAMA—and > one of the authors of that meta-analysis is the person who said he did not > believe the Lancet paper when it came out! But now it's in the literature > now and it's not going away.</comment>


Ask HN: How should I design the filters for this car search product? - <AUTHOR> Hey everyone, I'm trying to redesign the filters on this page: https://www.zaksper.com/used-cars/uae
Quick background: We just recently launched, we're focused on the UAE market for now, we have very few users and we plan on adding more categories after a few months, like property, electronics, clothes, etc.
My options are to put the filters on the left side of the posts as shown here: https://www.cars.com/for-sale/searchresults.action/?mkId=20001&prMx=125000&rd=20&searchSource=QUICK_FORM&zc=60606
Or to put them under the the top bar like Airbnb:
https://www.airbnb.ae/s/Tokyo--Japan/homes?refinement_paths%5B%5D=%2Fhomes&query=Tokyo%2C%20Japan&adults=0&children=0&infants=0&guests=0&place_id=ChIJ51cu8IcbXWARiRtXIothAS4&click_referer=t%3ASEE_ALL%7Csid%3Ae69cf9d5-32b9-4eb4-bd61-a9de874edc65%7Cst%3AMAGAZINE_HOMES&title_type=MAGAZINE_HOMES&search_type=UNKNOWN&allow_override%5B%5D=&map_toggle=false&s_tag=4VVKdpT1
- Which design for the filters do you think is better?
- Is there some other design besides the above options, that you believe would be better for the filters? - Besides the filters, what else do you recommend that we improve?
Any feedback would be appreciated. <comment><USER2> Personally, I find Airbnb's filters a bit annoying, clunky and also they are very location focused. I think the cars.com style is better for what you are trying to achieve.</comment>


See Competing iPhone Apps Coming with One Juicer - <AUTHOR> http://onejuicer.com/

<comment><USER2> needs favicon</comment>


Revolut Boss apologises for the toxic culture in the past - <AUTHOR> https://blog.revolut.com/weve-made-mistakes-but-were-learning/ <comment><USER2> There's almost no content in this post. It mostly says, "We got better, we started doing 360s, and we're hiring a head of culture."

It doesn't even seem like it was prepped by a PR firm as I would've expected, because a PR firm probably would've made the tone sound a lot more regretful and sincere. That's actually good -- I hate obvious PR responses -- but this is still pretty strange.

If I were considering a job with Revolut, I would consider this post to be a confirmation of the article it's responding to and not much else.

> _We 've introduced new 360 performance reviews to make them more fair and > transparent._

Hopefully they took into account various studies that have shown that typical 360 reviews can damage morale and be pretty unfair.

Other companies seem to be getting rid of them these days, like Adobe famously did.

1\. [https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee- re...](https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee- relations/pages/360degreeperformance.aspx)

2\. [https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...](https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=lrc_paper_series)

3\. [https://blog.impraise.com/360-feedback/why-adobe-got-rid- of-...](https://blog.impraise.com/360-feedback/why-adobe-got-rid-of- performance-reviews-360-feedback)

<comment><AUTHOR> Just out of curiosity, what would have convinced you to consider a job with Revolut?

<comment><USER2> I'd never consider working there for reasons that are totally unrelated to the company itself and the article about its culture.

I have my own business and don't think I'm ready to go back to being an employee yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Makes sense, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi, Data Engineer from Revolut here. Happy to answer questions on how it feels to work here, how things work, and technology stack we use.

Opinions my own.

<comment><USER3> What do you like about working at Revolut, that you hope to experience at your next company?

<comment><AUTHOR> In the context of engineering, the coolest thing is probably the absolute freedom in experimenting with new tools and technologies.</comment></comment></comment>


I trolled my IRS scammers for weeks and learned something really dark - <AUTHOR> http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/i-trolled-my-irs-scammers-for-weeks-and-learned-something-really-dark/ar-AAj5YwO?li=BBnb7Kz <comment><USER2> _I wondered if most of them were just desperate people reading scripts._

It does not matter if were they previously desperate or not. They were committing a crime. If you want to see a western side of similar scams, I would highly recommend you to watch Wolf of the Wall Street.

Unless these people were forced to do this, I do not have pity. This is not indifferent from stealing money on streets of India.

<comment><USER3> The important question is whether they knew they were committing a crime. Did all of Bernie Madoff's employees end up in jail? I'm pretty sure most of them didn't have any idea what he was doing, but feel free to correct me.

<comment><USER3> Strange that anyone would downvote this. More info on Madoff's employees:

[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/madoffs-other-victims-his- former...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/madoffs-other-victims-his-former- employees/)

Clearly not everyone was in on the "scam" in this instance. I'm not sure why people seem to think that this Indian scam was any different. It doesn't really seem to be giving the employees the benefit of the doubt.

They're told to call a person and say that this person has money owing. They're told that the IRS is their employer. There's no reason to automatically assume that all the call-centre staff are in on the scam.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Glad to see more going into this, but it's definitely not the end of this scam. My father just got hit, and they were calling him (he didn't answer because I told him not to) on Friday of last week.

This is an international scam, and multiple federal and state agencies in the US are looking into it, glad to hear other governments are too.

</comment><comment><USER5> The initial arrests are likely not the end of the matter. The call centers weren't just in India. Suspects were spread across a wide variety of other countries too, alas.

</comment><comment><USER6> This doesn't really sound like trolling. He just completed the scam without having to pay money.

<comment><USER7> He's no HoaxHotel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My phone rings everyday, at least once. Get that same mumbled message about IRS and it's from random numbers.</comment>


FBI wants public help solving encrypted notes from murder mystery - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/fbi-wants-public-help-solving-encrypted-notes <comment><USER2> I thought this could be a fun 'challenge'...

I'm inclined to believe that this is potentially ciphered in English, due to, what look to be stiking similarities between the alphabetic character frequencies of the notes:

<http://d122.com/murdermystery/freq.png>

and the frequencies of characters in English:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:English_letter_frequency_(...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:English_letter_frequency_\(alphabetic\).svg)

If anyone else wants to have a play here is my (rough) transcripts and an ODS with some frequencies:

<http://d122.com/murdermystery/1.txt>

<http://d122.com/murdermystery/2.txt>

<http://d122.com/murdermystery/freq.ods>

I'll update here if I find anything interesting. Lots of patterns repeated in this text!

<comment><USER3> Excellent. I personally love this sort of thing, though I'm rarely successful.

I was typing out the letters as I saw them, and I noticed that I interpreted many of your "S" as the number 5, but after looking at the way he wrote "S", it appears relatively consistent throughout the text.

So letter groupings became interesting: SE - 66 matches RSE - 18 matches

In the first document TFNRE appears twice.

Here's my interpretation from looking at the two documents (I really wish there were seriously high resolution scans of these docs, it'd help to sort out the asterisks which I used to represent characters I couldn't reasonably identify)

        (M*ADMKNE#R-N-STA-KNARE) (ACSM)
      *TFRNENP*NSEWPBSERCBBNSENPRSEINC
      PRSENMRSEOPREHLDWLDNCSE(TXFLFTCXLNC*E)
      AL-*RPPITXLYPPIYNCBEMEKSE*C*SEPRSE
      WLDRCBRNSE*T*SNE*TXSE-C*SLE-CITRSEWLDNCBE
      ALW*PNCBETSMEL*SERLSEVRGLSNEASNWLDNCBE
      (NOPFSENLRENCBE)NTEGDDMNSENCURER*BR**
      (TEWETFRNENC**TSENCBEI*G)
      (FIRSEPRSEONDE71NCBE)
      (CDWSEPRSEONSE74NCBE)
      (PRTSEPRSEONERDE76NCBE)
      (TFNGCMSOLEMRDELUSETOTEWLD*WLD*CBE)
      (194WLD'SNCBE)(TRFXC)

Page 2

      ALPNTEGLSE-SE ERTE
      YLSE MTSE-CTSE-WSE-FRTSE
      PNRTRSEONDRSEWLDNCBE
      *WLDXLRCMSPNEDVLDSTSMEXL
      DULMT6TUNSENCBEXC

      (*UNSARSTENMUNARSE)
      KLSE-LRSTE-TRSE-MKSEN-MRSE
      (SAE6NSESEMRCE)

      NMRCBRSNEPTE2*TEWSRCBKN*E
      **MLSE74SPRKSE29KENO*OLE17SRTRSE
      8S*LECLG*E**NUTRE*KRSEPSESHLE
      6SIMTCSEHTLSENCUTCTRSNMRE
      99.84S2UNEP2SENCRSEAOKTSENSKSEN*SE
      NSREONSEPVTSEWLDNCBE(JXORL)
      *NMSENRSEINRNTRNTRLERCBRNSENTSRCR*NE
      LSPNSENGSPSEMKSERBSENCEAVXLR
      HMCRENMRENCBE     1/2MUNDDLSE
      D-W-MIYMPL XDRX

This is the sort of problem I'd like to give to my child (as Douglass Adams states throughout his books) ... no bias or formula to work with. The "Street Smart" comment struck me a bit. When I was a kid, being "Street Smart" was a compliment used in contrast to someone who is "Book Smart". Being "Book Smart" was bad. Street Smart == Application of knowledge, Book Smart == would beat you at trivial pursuit/Jeopardy, but wouldn't know what to do with that knowledge.

EDIT: Ahh, half my comment was missing!

<comment><USER4>
        (MnD MKNE#R-N-STA-KNARE) (ACSM)
      oTFRNENPtNSEWPBSERCBBNSENPRSEINC
      PRSENMRSEOPREHLDWLDNCSE(TXFLFTCXLNC*E)
      AL-pRPPITXLYPPIYNCBEMEKSEinCdSEPRSE
      WLDRCBRNSEnToSNEnTXSE-CrSLE-CITRSEWLDNCBE
      ALWlPNCBETSMELrSERLSEVRGLSNEASNWLDNCBE
      (NOPFSENLRENCBE)NTEGDDMNSENCURERcBRne
      (TEWE TFRNE NCbrTSE NCBE InG)-
      (FIRSE PRSE ONDE 71 NCBE)-
      (CDnSE PRSE ONSE 74 NCBE)-
      (PRTSE PRSE ONER DE 75 NCBE)
      (TFNGCMSOLEMRDELUSETOTEWLDnwLDnCBE)
      (194WLD'SNCBE)(TRFXC)

      ALPNTEGLSE-SE ERTE
      YLSE MTSE-CTSE-WSE-FRTSE
      PNRTRSEONDRSEWLDNCBE
      nWLDXLRCMSPNEDVLDSTSMEXL
      DULMT6TUNSENCBEXC

      (mUNSARSTEN MU NARSE)
      KLSE-LRSTE-TRSE-MKSEN-MRSE
      (SAE6NSESEMRCE)

      NMnRCBRSNEPTE2pTEWSRCBKNsE
      86MLSE74SPRKSE29KENO*OLE17SRTRSE
      356LECLGsEouNUTRf*KRSEPSESHLE
      651MTCSEHTLSENCUTCTRSNMRE
      {99.84.52} UNEP25ENCRSEAOKTSENSKSENrSE
      NSREONSEPVTSEWLDNCBE(JXORL)
      *NMSENRSEINRNTRNTRLERCBRNSENTSRCRsNE
      LSPNSENGSPSEMKSERBSENCEAVXLR
      HMCRENMRENCBE     1/2MUNDDLSE
      D-W-MIYMPL XDRX

Here is an updated version of your work. I went through and replaced all the asterisks with the letters. The lines I replaced are in lowercase. The asterisks that remain are characters that are to scribbled to read.

The lines that Have the dash - next to them stand out heavily. As someone has stated before (I believe it was thinkalone 6), they may represent Interstates. The biggest question is what language did Ricky McCormick speak? Was he known to use any slang?

Another part that stuck out at me was the numbers 99.84.52. I would have to take a punch and say that it is a PO box combination code. I put the numbers in brackets {---} to spot easlily. But what got me was the lines before and after the numbers, 651MTCSEHTLSENCUTCTRSNMRE and UNEP25ENCRSEAOKTSENSKSENrSE It has to be an address of some sort and location. UNEP25ENCRSEAOKT. This looks possibly like an adress. I focused on that portion for a few minutes and could not bypass the feeling of an address. Where to I dont know. But thats all Ihave for now. I am going to get some sleep and dive back into it when I wake up. If you have any comments or even something to help or add, Email me when you reply so that I will know when to check. Thanks! Y! Plutoniumrings

<comment><USER5> I think the 99.84 is a radio station

<comment><USER6> My first though also, but 99.84 isnt a radio station (Im in st louis); 99.9 used to be the classical station here though; I see nothing St. Louis related in the texts, that makes much sense unfortunately

<comment><USER5> My bad, so many people are going onto other sites and just posting garbage..

I got a site with a pic of the guy

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371604/FBI-asks- cod...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371604/FBI-asks-code- breakers-help-solving-murder-Ricky-McCormick.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a nephew who has Asperger's Syndrome - severe. One of the things he loves to do is invent languages and list thousands of words as a dictionary and even write short stories with them. The image seems to have just a touch of the same feel. Significant repetition (NCBE) and limited variation of the letters (E is overrepresented). The story hints that the victim wasn't competent mentally. It mentions he could read and write; why mention that unless people would think he couldn't for some other reason?

Anyway, just a thought, probably doesn't mean anything.

<comment><USER8> "McCormick was a high school dropout, but he was able to read and write …"

As a high school dropout myself, I'm a little insulted by the implication that all high school dropouts are illiterate!

<comment><USER9> On the other hand, hopefully we don't graduate illiterates.

<comment><USER8> Well, I guess that depends on whether your standards for literacy include knowing the differences between "they're", "there", and "their".

<comment><USER10> Personally, having worked as a writer and wanting to be a novelist, my standard for literacy does include knowing the differences between "they're/there/their", "we're/were/where/wear", etc. So from what I've seen about 50% of students are graduated illiterate.

I'd also add that they should know how to use who and whom, but then that would be making our population 90% illiterate.

<comment><USER11> Whatever happened to whom? You never hear or read it anymore.

It's gone the way of will and shall, nobody seems to know or care about the difference.

"Do not ask for who the bell tolls..." -- sounds like crap, but that's the way they'd write it today.

<comment><USER12> no they wouldn't. they'd write "don't ask who the bell tolls for." which sounds fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We know that he's had this "language" since he was a child so I'm going to go out on a limb here (and introduce no small measure of my own bias) and guess its not a cerebral cipher that will easily be unraveled by simple frequency of note correlation.

I've likely got a touch of Asperger's myself and I know I have a bigger touch of synesthesia. I remember vividly during my childhood certain words being an explosion of color and texture and even having under-tones of other unrelated sounds. Even today I've got my own little "esperanto" in my mind for words and concepts that don't feel right in normal language. I use them on occasion on my unfortunate family, although its tough to say "oranger than orange with a texture like crumpled sandpaper and snow" succinctly.

Is there a way to just output the letters as a stream of phonyms? I tried "say" at the command prompt but this ends up reading the names of the letters and not their sounds. I'm going to guess this "code" is a stream-of- consciousness type thing and would be very interested in hearing it slurred out fast as basic sound.

<comment><USER14> > Is there a way to just output the letters as a stream of phonyms?

After noticing the frequency of NCBE, I focused on these three lines from the first document:

      (FLRSE PRSE ONDE 71 NCBE)
      (CDNSE PRSE ONS*E 74 NCBE)
      (PR+SE PRSE ONREDE 75 NCBE)

They seem pronounceable in a sort of pig-latin style - "Flur-say pur-say ohn- day 71 nick-bay"

> although its tough to say "oranger than orange with a texture like crumpled > sandpaper and snow" succinctly.

As a side-note, do you know of any books/novels that authentically explore with that kind of language and method of internally expressing concepts? I think it's interesting to learn how people interpret the world.

<comment><USER13> I lit on that too. I find myself adding syllables and sounds to words in my mind all the time to "smooth their edges". Some words just don't fit together without "help".

I thought maybe "Firse Perse On de 71 Nice be"

I'm perusing the thought that maybe he's taking notes on how people treated him or something.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, I think it is more phonetic shorthand than any kind of cypher. Unfortunately, it's a long shot that we'll be able to get any insight into it without knowing more about the victim's personal characteristics or habits.

<comment><USER5> are there any freeways around st louis that would go along with these numbers? If he is street smart, and the family said that in 1999....maybe is was homeless, but creative at getting what he needs.

<comment><USER15> 71,74,75 are all interstates in/around Cincinnati

<comment><USER5> AHA!....i think he was going around and looking at cars on the sheet that says NOTES, that would explain the reccurences and the circling, he was keeping the vehicles separated.....he went to go see a car and got murdered by the owner?? oh yeah i live in SOCAL, so the freeway thing was a longshot....i also believe that this man has Aspergers and Dyslexia....but they balled up his symptoms as Aspergers. One word keeps calling to me .... PSESHLE....take the first three letters PSE change them to SPE and add SHLE SPESHLE....this guy had the basics, mixed with his own different thinking style.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just goes to show how dead a language Lisp really is when even the FBI can't find someone that understands the code.

<comment><USER17> Wow, this is what gets upvotes these days. Nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> If I ever murder anybody, I'm going to leave a lot of "encrypted notes" around. It will turn out that one is a review of a restaurant and the other is just random noise.

<comment><USER19> For double bonus points, make sure you have enough entropy in your code that it "trivially" decodes to your restaurant review in one half, and the other half is just plausible-looking noise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> A better image of the text can be found on the FBI's site: [http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march/cryptanalysis_032...](http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march/cryptanalysis_032911)

</comment><comment><USER21> I kind of wonder if this is an alternative to the old "You've won a free trip, come to this location to collect your prize" used to catch criminals on the lamb.

It seems like this might be a ploy to tempt the ego of the murderer into providing the decryption of his own note. In other words, solving this puzzle may land you directly on the suspect list.

<comment><USER22> A bit of pedantry: it is "on the lam" not "on the lamb" but that is a common enough misconception that I feel pointing it out is actually productive rather than nit-picky.

<comment><USER23> Absolutely. I am not a native speaker, so I appreciate it, when people improve my knowledge of the English language.

<comment><USER24> I just read your last two comments carefully. If you hadn't mentioned it, I would have thought that you were a native speaker of English.

The lam/lamb mistake is exactly the sort of thing that even native speakers would screw up. You also have an extra comma in "appreciate it, when" but that's minor.

It's probably because you invite people to correct you that you're so good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I know that it isn't practical for the FBI to publicize the approaches that they've attempted in deciphering this, but I'm very discouraged by the prospect of spending time on what might be simply redoing a small corner of a failed effort by someone much more qualified.

<comment><USER26> I agree. I'm certainly not their ideal codebreaker but would have given it a go for fun trying to come up with some off-the-wall stuff based on what I do but the lack of disclosure is a huge turn off.

<comment><USER27> How about them not feeling charitable enough to offer any reward for something they've probably wasted many thousand man-hours on?

<comment><USER28> Yeah, but think about how many more thousands of man-hours would be wasted if there was a reward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This was super interesting to try. Even more interesting are the thoughts everyone has had. My version, parsed so I could take a look at patterns.

    				(PI)

(mndmvneaRSE-n-sta-unare) (alsm)

tf r nen pt NSE N PSER cb NSE N PRSE inc

PRSE N MRSE opreh ld-en-ld NCBE (tfxl ftexl NCBE)

al-pr ppit xly ppiy NCBE mek SE inc d RCBR NSE PRSE

WLD RCBR NSE ntog nen tx SE - crsle - cit r-SE WLD NCBE

alwlp NCBE tsme LRSE RLSE urglsneas N WLD NCBE

(mopfsen LSRE NCBE) ntegddm NSE n curer cbrnt

(te-n-et-frne NCBR tse NCBE ing)

(flr SE PRSE ON DE 71 NCBE) (cdn SE PRSE ON s DE 74 NCBE) (prt SE PRSE ON re DE 75 NCBE)

(tf nbcmspsolemrdeluse tote WLD N in ld NCBE) (194 WLD's NCBE) (trfxl)

some combinations:

tf, tfr, tfn, tfxl, ftexl, trfxl

"rcbr nse prse wld rcbr nse" (this seems poetic in structure)

ncbr, rbcr, ncbe

(se could = it, at, on, we, he, in) se, nse, nen, mrse, prse, pser, rlse, lrse, rse

I find WLD the most intriguing since there seems to be a contracted version of it also. WLD'S. Could be- can't, you'd, she'd, who'd, why'd, how's, who's, won't- as each of these form a new word when removing the contraction.

I also wished there was a much larger version available, if they truly wanted help that is. Its hard enough to read, especially when reduced in size.

The top right very hard to read. I've seen several versions of it now. I translated to "alsm" put that into google, and came up with an old google coder page for Username: alsm...@gmail.com.

</comment><comment><USER30> Really intriguing. The first page has 'p1' up in the corner, which makes me think the sequence of the pages might matter...

The whole thing reminds me of pages in my notebook where I kept all of my Windows and Adobe license codes.

<comment><USER31> Maybe he was selling pirated copies of Windows and Adobe in the street?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> [http://groups.google.com/group/sci.crypt/browse_thread/threa...](http://groups.google.com/group/sci.crypt/browse_thread/thread/a7814655b28c696c)

This person Globemaker seems to be on the right track.

</comment><comment><USER33> Maybe FBI is simply hiring ;-)

</comment><comment><USER34> This appears to share the same ciphertext characteristics as traditional prison kites.

<comment><USER35> what makes you say that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> If you replace the "N"s with and asterisk and "E"s with a slash you get something that looks like this:

      (M*D MK*\#R-*-STA-K*AR\) (ACSM)
      oTFR*\*Pt*S\WPBS\RCBB*S\*PRS\I*C
      PRS\*MRS\OPR\HLDWLD*CS\(TXFLFTCXL*C*\)
      AL-pRPPITXLYPPIY*CB\M\KS\i*CdS\PRS\
      WLDRCBR*S\*ToS*\*TXS\-CrSL\-CITRS\WLD*CB\
      ALWlP*CB\TSM\LrS\RLS\VRGLS*\AS*WLD*CB\
      (*OPFS\*LR\*CB\)*T\GDDM*S\*CUR\RcBR*\
      (T\W\ TFR*\ *CbrTS\ *CB\ I*G)-
        (FIRS\ PRS\ O*D\ 71 *CB\)-
        (CD*S\ PRS\ O*S\ 74 *CB\)-
        (PRTS\ PRS\ O*\R D\ 75 *CB\)
      (TF*GCMSOL\MRD\LUS\TOT\WLD*wLD*CB\)
      (194WLD'S*CB\)(TRFXC)

      ALP*T\GLS\-S\ \RT\
      YLS\ MTS\-CTS\-WS\-FRTS\
      P*RTRS\O*DRS\WLD*CB\
      *WLDXLRCMSP*\DVLDSTSM\XL
      DULMT6TU*S\*CB\XC

      (mU*SARST\* MU *ARS\)
      KLS\-LRST\-TRS\-MKS\*-MRS\
      (SA\6*S\S\MRC\)

      *M*RCBRS*\PT\2pT\WSRCBK*s\
      86MLS\74SPRKS\29K\*O*OL\17SRTRS\
      356L\CLGs\ou*UTRf*KRS\PS\SHL\
      651MTCS\HTLS\*CUTCTRS*MR\
      {99.84.52} U*\P25\*CRS\AOKTS\*SKS\*rS\
      *SR\O*S\PVTS\WLD*CB\(JXORL)
      **MS\*RS\I*R*TR*TRL\RCBR*S\*TSRCRs*\
      LSP*S\*GSPS\MKS\RBS\*C\AVXLR
      HMCR\*MR\*CB\     1/2MU*DDLS\
      D-W-MIYMPL XDRX

<comment><USER36> "(T\W\ TFR*\" Seems like shorthand for "Tuesday\Wednesday\Thursday-Friday"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> someone might have broken the code: <http://i.imgur.com/UOgD2.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER38> It looks like a personal shorthand to me.

</comment><comment><USER36> "(FIRSE PRSE ONDE 71 NCBE)- (CDnSE PRSE ONSE 74 NCBE)- (PRTSE PRSE ONER DE 75 NCBE)"

First Person I saw on the 71 bus? Second Person I saw on the 74 bus? Third Person I saw on the 75 bus?

When I saw those lines spelled out like that, I read them as above. Just kinda made sense. Looking at the rest.

</comment><comment><USER39> >One has to wonder though, if the FBI can't figure this out, who can?

This is frustrating. Why would we assume the best people possible all work for the FBI? Is there nothing else the best people could be doing? We already know that everyone isn't hiring the top 1%

<comment><USER5> Please dont put the FBI on a pedestal

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> When i first attempt a cyrptoquote I stick with familiar terms, vowels in particular and repeating letter such as "RCNNBSE" could be "tallest" because of the repeating NN...then work off of that. Put enough familiar words and letters for "RCNNBSE" together and try to decipher. It sounds like he(she) is describing a location. either but landmarks or directional bearing 71 NCBE, 74 NCBE, 75 NCBE... 71 west (east perhaps) 74 west (east perhaps) 75 west (east perhaps)

194 WLD'S NCBE 194 west

</comment><comment><USER41> It is just a key for an encrypted ebook.

When you start to download an Adobe PDF a small file with the extension .acsm is first downloaded. This is used by Adobe Digital Editions to send the activation ID to the delivery server which will use that ID to generate an encrypted PDF/ePub eBook, which is then downloaded to your PC.

Write the code in a file and save it as 'foo.acsm' Login to the dead guys account and download his encrypted adobe ebook.

</comment><comment><USER42> one of those notes appears to be in lisp

</comment><comment><USER43> Has anyone else noticed that there seem to be no Q's or Z's in the text? That leads me to believe that the code is somehow related to the telephone dial (or keypad). There are a couple of characters that look slightly like Q's, but which I think are R's and there is one character on the NOTES page that looks like a Z, but which I think is a 2, since it comes after the string of numbers.

</comment><comment><USER44> How do they know the notes compromise clues in the case? They could be pages of a shopping list, for all we know.

<comment><USER45> True, but even a shopping list could reveal information that narrows down where the killer lives or shops or something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Anybody have a copy of the legible characters so each of us doesn't need to transcribe the same text?

<comment><USER47> That's assuming that a copy of the legible characters wouldn't lose any of the original information -- the way words are written could matter.

<comment><USER3> Precisely my thinking. It would have been helpful if there were higher resolution scans of these images.

I had difficulties reconciling 5's and S's, or the various ways in which the letter "B" was written (it really looked like there were two "B"'s in the document, though that would be difficult to tell even with higher-res photos as anything handwritten is subject to whatever surface it was written on).

<comment><USER5> I noticed that too, he has a fast b and a slow b, and he was right handed ( if the smudge is his hand)...I think the page with NOTES on the top was two days and the second paper was the third day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This guy seems to have done a pretty comprehensive analysis:

[http://groups.google.com/group/sci.crypt/msg/9d801bc10df8b58...](http://groups.google.com/group/sci.crypt/msg/9d801bc10df8b584)

</comment><comment><USER49> Interesting: [http://groups.google.com/group/sci.crypt/browse_thread/threa...](http://groups.google.com/group/sci.crypt/browse_thread/thread/a7814655b28c696c)

</comment><comment><USER50> heres a queston:

Who added the computer j in the paranthasis at the top of page one and the paranthasis themselves in this section do not appear to be the orginial writers in either style nor weight.

I would go futher to say that someone has "worked" on this document.

</comment><comment><USER51> Looks like LISP to me. Or just the rantings of someone out of touch with reality.

<comment><USER52> Might as well be Perl code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Reminds me of the movie 'Spider' - maybe it's just nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER5> Im new, and i have been looking into the decoding of this code, i cant say why....but i cant stop thinking about this.

</comment><comment><USER41> D-W-M14 is a gun

</comment><comment><USER54> I'm guessing ROT13

</comment><comment><USER55> it's a trap

</comment><comment><USER56> Richard Feynman totally would have cracked that one!</comment>


What do you think? Is TechCrunch dead? - <AUTHOR>

Their founder has left, their best writers have left, and their traffic is down. In addition, startups have recently reported that they get little to no boost after being featured in a TechCrunch writeup. So wdyt? Is TechCrunch dead? <comment><USER2> Who cares? It has no impact on your life, or startup.

<comment><USER3> Because it's interesting, and people are interested in current events. It's why people pay attention to miners trapped in Chile for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Startups have never got a big boost from being written up in TechCrunch, the advantage of Techcrunch has always been that it gets you infront of key players (investors, acquirers, potential employees, etc.)</comment>


Reelsurfer Lands $880K, Launches Orrick Startup Reel Contest - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/17/video-mashup-pro-reelsurfer-lands-880k-from-yc-executive-producer-of-the-hangover/

<comment><USER2> > Don't let its simplicity or niche use case fool you, ReelSurfer has a lot of > potential in its ability to transform everyday consumers into video > creators, curators and mashup artists.

Most consumers usually need some sort of motivation (i.e. impressing people) to create something.

What kind of rewards will Reelsurfer give these creators in order to motivate them?

<comment><USER3> viewcount would seem to me to be a tried and true motivator, especially for creators, no?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can this be used to edit together custom porn clips?

<comment><USER5> Presumably. If you can create a mashup on startup advice for the contest from the audio track on porn clips. I suspect you would have a good shot at winning the contest.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Docshare.io – Instant Document Tracking and Read Notifications - <AUTHOR> https://docshare.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, This is Piyush from Docshare.io

Docshare is an instant document tracking tool which will notify you via email whenever someone visits your document. And You will get insights like: >> Overall Time spent on document. >> Location/IP: Know the exact location of the viewer. >> Email id (if enabled): Every time viewer will be asked to enter email to view your document.

Happy Docsharing!</comment>


Hawaiian Volcano Observatory: Kīlauea – Current Maps - <AUTHOR> https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/multimedia_maps.html <comment><USER2> There's a live video feed from a residence about a half a mile from fissures 20 and 17:

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

</comment><comment><USER3> Some of my favorite videos from the ongoing eruption, of methane burning out of the cracks in the roads:

[https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vsc/movies/movie_173961.html](https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vsc/movies/movie_173961.html)

the big flow that recently reached the ocean:

[https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vsc/movies/movie_173953.html](https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vsc/movies/movie_173953.html)

<comment><USER4> I've been wondering: who owns the new land created by the flow entering the ocean (minuscule amount though it probably is)?

<comment><USER5> Short answer: the state of Hawaii does.

Longer answer: the matter was decided in State by Kobayashi v. Zimring in 1977 (Supreme Court of Hawaii). They found that there was no applicable common law precedent, since land created by eruptions that impacts private title is _very_ rare. The only precedent they found in Hawaii dates to 1877 (before Hawaii was US territory!) and it's not clear how to generalize it (note that Hawaiian land was the property of the King at the time). The closest thing is accretion by riverbanks and the like, which everyone in the case agreed wasn't particularly relevant. The court basically said "we're making completely new law here, so we can do whatever we want" and chose granting the land to the public interest as the proper solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Tangent: USGS is an incredible resource for those interested in the geosciences. Their website has grown a lot in the past few years, before which it was already replete with tons of great stuff!

Seems like a cool place to work

<comment><USER7> They also have a ton of APIs available [0]. Way more than I figured, I just assumed because the earthquake monitoring app I check out every now and again uses USGS data but there's a lot here! Glad you brought this up or I never would have searched for it.

[0] - [https://www.usgs.gov/products/data-and- tools/apis](https://www.usgs.gov/products/data-and-tools/apis)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Do you think Leilani Estates will meet the same fate as Kalapana? Seems like the fissure 20 became a new volcanic vent in the middle of the settlement.

I wish I could be there right now with a filming permit; last time I was filming there the flow was underwhelming, ceasing ocean entry and even Pu`u`o`o's lava lake was not very active.

Does anyone know what is the permit situation regarding drones these days?

</comment><comment><USER9> Would love to see a timelapse of those thermal maps! I wonder if there are enough images of them over time to create a smooth-ish animation?

</comment><comment><USER8> Another nice video (channel):

[https://vimeo.com/271418485](https://vimeo.com/271418485)

</comment><comment><USER10> Are there any good accessible spots to watch lava flow - especially entering the ocean? Looks like Kona airport is still open!

<comment><USER11> You can probably rent a boat to go see the ocean entry, I think hiking to the spot is probably not all that safe.

<comment><USER12> I'd rather watch from the safe distance of YouTube if you're going to walk there on land or something.</comment></comment></comment>