I tried to hack my insomnia - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614478/i-tried-to-hack-my-insomnia-with-technology-heres-what-worked/ <comment><USER2> During a stressful part of my life recently I struggled with getting to sleep. I just couldn't stop thinking about shit that was going on.

until one night I fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV, and it occurred to me that I could just modify this behaviour to bed.

So I put a handful of old Star Trek episodes on my phone. Each night I put me earphones on (so as not to disturb my wife), turn on an episode of Star Trek, and I am asleep within the first five minutes. ... I can even repeat episodes... it doesnt even matter since Im asleep within literally 5mins.

At first the earphones were annoying, but after a week you dont even notice them.

The stress at work continues, but I sleep like a baby.

I think the familiarity of Star Trek (which I watched a lot as a kid) gives me a subconsious sense of security.

<comment><USER3> Yes, audiobooks/podcasts at night are great.

Lack of sleep ages you, makes you overweight, and susceptible to many health issues. Here's what I did to get enough sleep:

        * Make sure every monitor/portable device is using Redshift / Night Light blue light filter.
        * Set a "sleep alarm"  After which no work on a screen. Only reading books/audiobooks
        * 0.5mg of Melatonin helps sleep naturally (more gives trippy dreams)
        * AVOID sleeping pills (they're more addictive than crack)
        * Exercise 3-5 times a week
        * Get some natural sunlight during the day

<comment><USER4> 0.5 mg of melatonin? or 5.0 mg? 5 to 10 mg of melatonin is the amount in most all doses sold on Amazon. I've never seen such a light dose.

<comment><USER5> Apparently it works as effectivley at lower doses.

Someone posted this a while back, and it goes into a lot of detail: [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/E4cKD9iTWHaE7f3AJ/melatonin-...](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/E4cKD9iTWHaE7f3AJ/melatonin- much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I picked up very serious sleep problems (and seemingly permanent bags under my eyes) right around puberty and lived with it for about twenty years. Tried most of the "hacks" on this page (yes, including exercise) to no avail.

It all unexpectedly went away when I moved into my current apartment. I have huge, unblocked, east-facing windows, and every morning I'm bathed in sunlight. No more sleeping in; I'm wide awake, no arguments. Consequently, by midnight I am dead to the world.

All of this makes me a bit worried for the future, as "big unblocked east window in the bedroom" seems like a big ask for a rental. But yeah, it worked, my sleep is solved for the time being. Except for chunks of February.

<comment><USER7> I unscientifically believe that we shouldn't use an alarm clock or any kind of trigger to wake up.

My rational is: if your body has enough sleep, it'll wake up on its own.

On the flip side: it's actually very hard to sleep when your body doesn't need sleep.

On another flip side: it's easy to stay awake even though your body needs sleep.

With this, we should all sleep in a completely dark (blocked) room with no sound and etc. The "big unblocked east window in the bedroom" (unless the curtain blocks the light effectively) is a no for me.

I've read "why we sleep", and I get this conflict where:

1\. The author believes in the no-trigger-to-wake-up as well.

2\. Somehow I also get the impression that the author also believes that we should use sunlight as a trigger for waking up. We'd feel fresher. But wouldn't that cut off our sleep?

<comment><USER8> The problem with that idea is that it completely misses the fact that most of us have to get up at a specific time in order to get to work or school or whatever else we have to do.

I tried the no-trigger approach for a while, when I was between jobs and didn't have anything to do otherwise. What I found out is that my natural schedule, without manual intervention, has me going to bed at approximately 2am and waking up at around 10:30-11am. When I regained employment, it was a pretty rough transition to go back to waking up at 7am again. After going through that experience, I'd caution people about buying into the no-trigger method. Yes, your brain will naturally get you the amount of sleep that you need. However, there is no guarantee that your natural sleep cycle will mesh with the other obligations you have in your life.

<comment><USER9> Wild idea: maybe some people's sleep cycles are just inherently incompatible with society and the arbitrary schedules and obligations that a particular society and context has landed on.

And I don't say that with any joy...

<comment><USER10> Yeah i sometimes wonder about this in the context of our evolutionary history. Having some people around who naturally stay up late to tend the fire and keep a look out seems advantageous. I suppose teenagers can fill this role, but their numbers fluctuate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm in a particularly stressful time in my life (just moved, intense new job) where I've been struggling to sleep. There will be some nights where I simply don't sleep at all; just lay awake in bed all night. Of course I'm aware of all the health/safety/productivity issues associated with no sleep, and the anxiety of not sleeping just furthers my inability to fall asleep.

This is what I've been attempting to do to help with my sleep problems, with reasonable success:

      1. Lift heavy each week day.

I'm using a PPL routine with at least one big lift each day. I also trying to burn a significant amount of calories each day in the gym.

      2. Strict evening routine.

I try to go to bed within the same hour each night if I can help it.

      3. Reduce responsibilities.

One of the biggest issues for me is missing my routine. I now try to keep my weekday schedule the same (don't go out at night) so I can have plenty of wind-down time at home before bed.

      4. Wind down time.

I try to do something relaxing before going to bed that will distract my mind (like play a low intensity videogame, read about non work-related topics, etc.)

      5. Supplements.

I drink a cup of chamomile tea and take 5 mg of melatonin before I go to bed, and this seems to help (or might be a placebo)

      6. Listen to something calming and familiar while I fall asleep.

Unlike others in this thread, no Star Trek for me; I like to listen to twitch streamer ZFG speedrun Ocarina of Time. I turn the volume on my phone to the lowest setting, put the phone face-down on the bed next to me, and the audio commentary seems to be helpful background noise.

<comment><USER12> I am not sure where you live and if you are open to trying it, but weed helps ( specifically an indica heavy blend).

<comment><USER13> Indicas give me hangovers. I've found sativas work better in the long run, but you have to wait for the euphoria and energy to wear off and that can sometimes take a while.

<comment><USER14> Definitely try CBD oil if you want to avoid the psychological effects of THC. There are also CBD-heavy strains if you do like to smoke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My insomnia is a little different than the author's; I fall asleep easily but wake up three or four hours later. And when I'm up, I'm _wide_ awake.

I tried just about everything discussed here....meditation, podcasts, watching television, reading before bed but nothing really helped me consistently. I even bought a treadmill and started running every day which does help, but the thing that actually did the trick best was a few puffs of marijuana about an hour before bedtime. It was sufficient to take me "out of my head" enough to get a better night's sleep without feeling foggy the next day.

<comment><USER16> One of the problems with insomnia as a construct is that it lumps a bunch of problems together that probably don't have the same mechanisms. The _vast_ majority of insomnia treatment and advice is focused on "initial insomnia", i.e. inability to fall asleep when you first go to bed.

</comment></comment><comment> Funes- Meditating right before going to bed, given that you haven't stared at any screen for an hour prior, can help _tremendously_ with insomnia. That and intense and regular exercise, a clean diet, hydration... Healthy habits, to cut it short. Also, make sure your bedroom is dark and its temperature is cool.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've heard a couple of times of this technique by the US Army in which you relax your body starting by the face, then arms, torso, legs. Finally you picture yourself in a canoe in the middle of a lake or something similar to avoid thinking of anything. Anyone knows how effective is this?

[https://medium.com/s/story/combat-tested-training-unwind- and...](https://medium.com/s/story/combat-tested-training-unwind-and-sleep- anywhere-in-120-seconds-27d5307b7606)

<comment><USER18> I find its not that effective if not paired with the 8 hours of marching in heavy gear :|

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> 2 new tricks to add here (that work magic for me at least)

\- child pose for about 10 minutes with the head/forehead resting on a pillow

\- forced yawning, but without needing to actually make a sound, (and without needing to open the mouth wide). Hard to explain, there's some oral/neck musculature that is not triggered voluntarily that I've been experimenting on which becomes somewhat easier to control with exercise. I'd start with lots of yawning first

</comment><comment><USER20> things that definitely made a difference for me:

a) only dim lights after sunset (reflect for a moment on how unnatural it is, after million or years of modern human evolution, that we all of a sudden have light after sundown. (especially blue light screens, seriously, use apps) ; this disrupts your circadian rhythms and melatonin cycles, so it's a big deal.

b) black out shades. don't underestimate - I've monitored my sleep +2 years with multiple fitness trackers, and noticed a clear positive difference in restlessness levels. it also cured my problem of waking up in the middle of the night to pee believe it or not.

c) air tight wax ear plugs ; sounds will wake you up and you often won't know why. a motorcycle, someone closes a door etc.

d) chilly room. I find ~70F is great. again going back to evo history, it's always been chillier at night.

e) habit x 10. go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time. be unplugged for at least an hour before sleep and relax for a bit when you wake up. follow point a) after sundown. your sleep drive will take over. this might take months to get there, especially if you're a high cortisol individual, but biology will take over if you let it.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've been using the Dreem headband for a year and a half and there are enough factual errors about it in this piece to make me distrust the rest of it.

Firstly, it doesn't require leaving your smartphone on all night as she writes. Once started, it's autonomous (it even reportedly shuts down its onboard WiFi/BT, probably for power saving reasons but also to alleviate any fears about having an RF emitter so close to your head for 8 hours)

Secondly, getting an accurate hypnogram (detailed sleep phases) on a consumer EEG device is a huge deal in itself (she doesn't seem to understand the point), but this one goes even further by promising to actively enhance slow wave/deep sleep through precisely timed audio stimulations (white noise pulses). The research in this area is apparently the starting point of the company.

Thirdly, the app does include the kind of CBT program she praises at the end of the article. I find the combination of this with a device that provides an accurate sleep log to be a potentially more efficient combination than CBT alone.

One area where I do have reservations with this class of devices is privacy : not only do you have your exact sleep/wake times + hundreds of MBs of your EEG data uploaded to their servers every morning, the latest version apparently has a built-in microphone !

It's reserved for future use (an obvious application is snoring / sleep apnea detection) and reportedly not activated yet, but of course it's closed source firmware and you have to take their word for it, and even if you trust their intentions (I do, and there's always GDPR), you also have to trust their security as well.

Disclaimer : I have no stake or direct interest in Dreem, but I'm very familiar with their product and even interviewed with them at one point.

<comment><USER22> I use sleep for android which has my sleep/wake times, heart rate, and I use the mic to record sleep talking. Doesn't really bother my privacy. If they want my insane ramblings from when I'm asleep that's fine with me. I sleep talk a lot and none of it makes any sense but it's good for a laugh. One of my favorites was talking about "the most beautiful sweater" for about 30 seconds

<comment><USER23> What is the app called you are using? Is it Sleep as Android? Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Yeah, I suffered from insomnia for most of my life. I didn't really realize it was an issue until I was about 20-21. I think it took falling asleep at the wheel and rear ending someone, crashing on my bicycle multiple times from not being able to stay awake (going downhill at 20+mph btw), and a plethora of other stupid events for me to realize maybe I should seek help finally. I think it's pretty amazing to see what I accomplished on so little but, ultimately, it's sad because I know I could've done way more with better sleep.

And it was 100% stress related. Taking pills, trying breathing exercises, and everything else didn't fix it. It could make me slightly better than doing nothing but it was never fixed.

I have a rhythm now I follow that works better. But, really, I never found a "solution". I just got into a less stressful life. (Finally having a girlfriend, high(er) paying job, etc. was the "trick" \- aka solve what causes my stressors)

</comment><comment><USER25> I had so much trouble with insomnia a few years back - I remember not being able to get sleep for at least 3-5 days straight on multiple different occasions. I thought I was going to die at least two of those times it happened.

These days my ability to fall asleep feels like a superpower (because - 1. I know just how absurdly many people out there are functioning on less than optimal sleep on a daily basis, and 2. I know I'm not the only one who has had trouble with falling asleep).

These are the bits of advice I have:

1\. I've woken or havent been able to fall asleep because I was hungry. Always try to have eaten at least one satiating meal a day. Also make sure you're not dehydrated or have to pee.

2\. Don't ever worry or intentionally think that you have to fall asleep. The stress, the cortisol, and the excitement(when you start falling asleep) will keep you awake. Going one night without sleep is not the end of the world. At worst you were really really relaxed in a nice cozy bed for 8 hours, so take comfort in that time.

3\. This one is the most important: think about your brain like its some sort of muscle. If it's engaged its sort of 'flexing', and its very hard to fall asleep if its flexing. If I just 'unflex' my mind the way I would let go of my grip, the next thing I usually notice is that its morning and my alarm clock is waking me up.

Other than these things, everything else I've seen had little affect on my abilities to sleep when I had insomnia - working out until exhaustion out didn't work, neither did weed, neither did alcohol, and neither did induced food coma, reading a book, watching tv, counting sheep. And when I learned again how to fall asleep, I haven't had a problem with blue light, I haven't had a problem with caffeine, I didn't even have a problem with a lot of noise. These things help or hurt your ability to sleep but it doesn't ultimately determine whether or not you do.

</comment><comment><USER26> Unlike many members of my family who can fall asleep regardless of the circumstances, I need to feel sleepy/tired to sleep. I'm fairly fit, so getting to that state with a job that involves me sitting at a desk can be a challenge.

When I do sleep, I sleep pretty well, but getting to that state can be tough. I simply have to do some physical work each day to tire my body - otherwise, sleeping is near impossible. The gym is often not enough (and if I go in the evening, it actually wakes me up). I find I need to do something moderately strenuous and mundane, like carrying a few groceries for a mile or two, or maybe sweeping + mopping a few floors round the house or perhaps some DIY.

Also, if I'm unable to sleep, rather than trying to sleep, I find it's better to get up and do some work, even if means being in front of a screen. That knocks me out eventually!

</comment><comment><USER27> How has no one mentioned medical marijuana?

<comment><USER28> It's well established that cannabis interferes with rem sleep, so it's an option, but not a good one.

<comment><USER12> That's only with the high THC strains, you need a low THC and high CBD strain.

<comment><USER29> This is the only thing that works for me and I'm not drowsy when I wake up

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> You can't sleep when there are enemies nearby. Didn't you play Skyrim, Minecraft, Fallout...

Or more seriously you have messed up bloodwork. Get your blood checked. Vitamin D is necessary during day. Seeing the morning light and end of day sun set can actually help.

Or you didn't exercise enough. Various military organisations have sorted out sleep: they can get you tired enough to sleep vertical. Often while still marching.

</comment><comment><USER31> I find that I have always have trouble sleeping, but then when I took up a practice of strong-determination-sitting (meditation+) I would fall asleep during the meditation! and I would also notice that my mind-activity was several noticeable clicks lower after a 20 minute sit.

It has to be tried to be believed (IMO)

</comment><comment><USER32> >ctrl+F "exercise"

>0 results

None of the stuff they talk about in the article helped me kick my insomnia/DSPS.

Only exercise helped.

<comment><USER33> Exercise doesn't really work for everyone. I found when I used to have trouble sleeping, heavy lifting made my sleep 10x worse (and still messes with my sleep now when I try it every now and then). Light to moderate exercise tended to improve my sleep, but the improvement was fairly minor. CBT-I and getting some bright light in the morning, on the other hand, were complete game changers for me. I've gone from sleeping maybe 5 - 6.5 hours of poor sleep a night (waking up multiple times, early waking), to normally 7 - 8 hours of good quality sleep and the improvement has been consistent for the past few years now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Everyone is different, but for me strength training wakes me up, while cardio helps me sleep. What surprises me sometimes is how much cardio I need for good sleep. In one particularly high pressure week, I had to row (erg) 7-10km per a day to sleep well.

<comment><USER35> I'm similar. Without intense exercise, my brain is at high revs all day and I can't keep it under control to fall asleep. I need to knock myself out with exhaustion.

I used to run 50km per week or so and still feel like I could use more. Restless legs, active mind, fidgeting, etc. These days I'm running much less, but I'm lost without it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Not really on topic, but I'm trying to find some way to get EMG (muscle) readings preferably without using glue (which I suspect can become messy) or disposable electrodes (which can become costly). What is the best way to do this?

</comment><comment><USER37> Great tips overall, thank you all. I might add getting familiar with CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia). I was struggling for months with sleep and this was a life saviour.

</comment><comment><USER38> I recommend people look into oleamide for insomnia

</comment><comment><USER39> Just googled to see if 'sleeptech' is a thing. And yes, it is. This is where we spend 1/3 of our lives after all.

</comment><comment><USER12> What about marijuana? An indica strain should put you on your back in no time.

<comment><USER40> just because it lays you out...doesn't mean it provides proper (read: good) sleep.

<comment><USER19> It has the opposite effect on me whatever the strain. It gets me energized and personally I would totally avoid id before sleep. However, seems to do wonders for some.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> vitamin D deficiency. [https://youtu.be/74F22bjBmqE](https://youtu.be/74F22bjBmqE)

<comment><USER42> also magnesium supplements - I had some nervous system/restless leg issues and finally diagnosed as deficient in it, cured insomnia that was ongoing for months - just wanted to throw this out there

<comment><USER43> Thanks for the heads up. I do have restless legs and insomnia, let's try that magnesium. Is there a recommended dosage?

<comment><USER44> I take 800mg Magnesium Glycinate to sleep. Works really well and I wake up with no fog.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Life is not a computer you can hack. I bet we barely understand 1% of how our system works and trying to hack it means one is not even aware of their ignorance.

<comment><USER46> We have all sorts of hacks. You just need to be careful and may get unintended side effects.

(Steroid creams to fix skin conditions, caffeine for energy, alcohol for relaxation and fun, anti-inflammatories, antihistamines, the list goes on.)

<comment><USER45> >may get unintended side effects.

Oh, if one sees the enormity of complexity body & mind has - one can be sure he can not foresee all side effects. I like that you gave examples like caffeine which messes up your nervous system or alcohol which destroys your conscious attention and lever, among other things :)

<comment><USER47> And I like how you passed up the other examples. Are you also advocating against medical drugs or vaccines? They fit the "hack your body" description to a tee.

<comment><USER45> I used the ones which have clear undesirable side effects, others might have it as well just that we don't know about them.

>Are you also advocating against medical drugs or vaccines?

I am only advocating about being conscious of how much we don't know. If medical drug or vaccine saves lives - I have no problem with it, still most likely we don't know all the side effects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Or you know, you could go to the gym and start exercising? Try to stay awake after a heavy day of lifting.

<comment><USER49> In my experience, it depends on which sport you do and when you do it during the day. I used to play squash during the evening around 8pm and on these days I would fall asleep very late, like around 2am. This was mostly due, I think, to my heart rate still being quite high (I could feel it), and slowing down very slowly until it reached a reasonable level at which I could get asleep. This is something that other friends playing squash in the evening reported as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Insomnia is a fake idea invented to promote the industrial work cycle.

If you go to sleep when you're so tired, as opposed to when the societal clock says you should, you won't have any trouble sleeping.

<comment><USER51> > If you go to sleep when you're so tired, as opposed to when the societal > clock says you should, you won't have any trouble sleeping.

Great PMA, but you're absolutely wrong.

I did that last night, got tired and went to bed around 10pm. And then I woke up at 1am. Now that it's approaching 6, I'm getting tired. But this happens to me occasionally and I know from past experience that my two options are:

1) Go back to bed at around 7, wake up at 8 or 9, and feel awful all day

2) Power through, and feel awful all day.

Maybe I'll be tired enough tonight that I'll catch up on this morning's loss. But given past experience, I'll probably get 2-4 hours of sleep a night for the next week. When I say "wake up" I mean that I'm alert and can't get sleepy -- I can stay in bed and be bored for hours, and sleep won't come no matter how tired I feel.

<comment><USER52> > I did that last night, got tired and went to bed around 10pm. And then I > woke up at 1am. Now that it's approaching 6, I'm getting tired. But this > happens to me occasionally and I know from past experience that my two > options are:

This is how your sleep schedule is naturally designed to work. Sleep for a bit, wake up, sleep again.

<comment><USER51> Nope. I typically wake up for a few minutes at a time and get a full night's sleep. Every few months, I have a bout of insomnia that reduces me to a couple of hours of sleep for a while. Believe it or not, I know what my normal is better than you.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Changing Redis master-slave replication terms with something else - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/antirez/redis/issues/5335 <comment><USER2> Every master has a slave, otherwise they aren't a master. Unix tools have concept of killing a process including child processes. Gendered connectors are also sexist.

This insanity has no end.

<comment><USER2> Which part of what I wrote was incorrect?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How about 'top' and 'bottom'?

<comment><AUTHOR> My standing suggestion is Dominatrix and Gimp - should be PC enough for everyone

<comment><USER4> LOL! This is excellent! XD</comment></comment></comment>


Electric motor design claims remarkable improvements - <AUTHOR> https://newatlas.com/linear-labs-hunstable-electric-motor/60974/ <comment><USER2> Don't get me wrong, I saw the title and was excited. I want this to be real.

I want to believe.

But way too many keyword drops. Disruptive is what red flagged me the most.

Way too many promises.

Only lab results and "experts" commenting that it should work in theory.

But no prototype?

Even though it's a different motor they don't "believe" it's going to cost more to make than traditional motors?

Only 3d renders?

I think there was a medical company that did something similar with blood testing. Didn't really work out for them.

<comment><USER3> Electric motors are remarkably good already. Even if it doubled the power for half the weight you still need lug along all those batteries.

<comment><USER4> Right, look at the size of the motor versus the size of the batteries in an electric car. Efficiency is already well over 90%, too.

If you managed to create an idealized electric motor that was 100% efficient, had no limits on power, torque, or RPM, weighed nothing, took up no space, and cost nothing, it would be a nice improvement but I don't think even this would revolutionize electric cars. Batteries are the key.

<comment><USER5> While motor efficiency is 90%, drivetrain is less than that because of gearbox. This motor claims to remove this inefficiency.

<comment><USER4> Tesla claims that their drive unit (which includes the motor, inverter, and gearbox) efficiency on their latest models is 93%.

<comment><USER6> Average or peak?

Making something that performs well at freeway speeds, yet also is efficient when manuvering round a parking lot is hard.

Most companies just hope you don't care about only getting 5% efficiency round the parking lot, because that isn't a large fraction of your energy budget, even when it's so inefficient.

<comment><USER4> No idea! Would it be expected for an electric motor to lose so much efficiency in that scenario, though? I though the variation was small.

Motor efficiency aside, a total "energy spent for distance moved" accounting will look bad at such low speeds, just because the car has to power non-motor systems and they use energy at the same rate no matter how fast you're moving. Peak efficiency in a Tesla is at around 25MPH.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How cooling of rotor being achieved ? Energy, power and torque density of other motor designs are limited by their cooling capacity. Reluctance motor being externally cooled, has this as a prime selling point. I think for claimed improvement, it will need external cooling which is not mentioned in article.

<comment><USER8> There's a lot not mentioned. How do they move the rotor magnets in field weakening? How do they reconfigure the coils? How do they get 20 percent more efficiency when most are already over 90-95 percent?

<comment><USER9> I think they must be claiming a 20% improvement on the 90% baseline, otherwise it doesn't make any sense.

<comment><USER10> That's still impossible. 20% of 90% is 18%.

<comment><USER11> A 20% improvent would be a 20% closer to 100% specifically 20% out of the remaining 10% so 2% overall improvement.

From 90% to 92%

<comment><USER12> 20% less energy dissipated as heat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A brief history of the evolution of designs of electric motor from the beginning to the electric motor as we know it today be by Professor Eric Laithwaite:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5mA4l6xmGs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5mA4l6xmGs)

And the explication of his linear motor for the second half.

</comment><comment><USER14> The video shows a picture of a motor about 99% similar to that of Cascadia Motion [1] based on the external appearance and cooling apparatus and not at all similar to the picture in the article.

1: [https://www.cascadiamotion.com/uploads/5/1/3/0/51309945/ss_2...](https://www.cascadiamotion.com/uploads/5/1/3/0/51309945/ss_250-090.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER15> Their site[0] has an animation of their 4-pole design and describes some advantages.

[https://www.linearlabsinc.com/why-our- motor/](https://www.linearlabsinc.com/why-our-motor/)

<comment><USER16> There are a number of goofy marketing-wank sections on there. Written by an engineer, but it's got the ring of someone _really_ stretching to sound innovative.

> As much as 30% of the typical copper needed is reduced by having all the > copper in the coil involved in energy conversion.

That's total bullshit. Here's what they're saying: in a typical motor, at least some of the copper will be outside the iron[1]. There's waste associated with that, since you only need current to be flowing exactly around the iron. However, 30% is an order of magnitude high. The stray field from that copper is almost nil, as it will massively prefer to travel through the iron, so the only real worry is that you've just got extra copper. In modern motors the windings are quite tight to the iron and the stator is long axially.

Even in poorly-wound stubby motors like those in ceiling fans[2] you won't be wasting 30%- maybe 10%. The part of the loop going side-to-side is not wasted, only the parts extending up and down away from the iron.

> The structure of the HET ensures that all of the magnetic field interactions > are fully involved in the production of torque.

They must have a gap to get in wiring to the stator, so field can escape there. It also goes straight through the magnets. Any gap develops fringing loss essentially regardless of how big it is, so their reduction in loss is small. And stray field loss is already so tiny it can be neglected.

> The unique design requires no unproductive open spaces. Only the air gap > surrounding the coil is left open.

And I wonder how tight their air gap actually is, with all those cantilevered magnets and moving parts. Probably not great. Plus, there's a ton of empty space inside the rotor. They do use the stator iron slightly more efficiently, but in normal motors that space is usually used for bolts anyway.

> Unlike existing conventional machines where torque is only present at an > optimum point as it approaches a magnetic pole, the HET has no single > optimum point but rather all positions exhibit maximum torque. > The torque > and force will exist while the coil is in the tunnel, regardless of tunnel > length.

Well that's just blatantly not true, and also the crossover point between poles is going to be very wiggly indeed. The stator is going to be stretching and compressing itself at different points and the flux has to travel from pole to pole regardless of how many coils are in the way. Their design lets them trade off between torque and speed more easily, but all the rest is nonsense.

> Another advantage is that phases can be software controlled to be grouped > into particular patterns. For example, phases A and B can be controlled to > act as a single larger pole. Likewise, C, D, E and F. Conversely other > groupings are possible with A, B, and C or D, E and F acting as single > poles.

Any high-slot motor can be run like this. It's very rarely done because the cost of adding more phases is immensely high. Doubling the number of phases can be multiple times more expensive than doubling the power. And for variable three-phase motor systems the driver is already the most expensive part. If they _need_ all those coils, that's a big problem. TBH though this bit is probably what won them investors- people may be interested in applying their simulation and controls work to conventional motors. It would be deeply challenging to add more slots to the current gold standard motor (PM- reluctance), but it could potentially lead to more high-end efficiency.

> In both of the above cases there is a radical drop in efficiency. The HET > Motor addresses this need in a completely different manner. By slightly > rotating a single side rotor, an axial magnetic component is introduced. > This weakens, as far as the coils are concerned, the total magnetic field > experienced by the coils. The degree of field weakening controls the > tradeoff between torque and speed.

> For the first time in electric machine history, as the HET Motor enters the > Constant Horsepower Region, core losses drop and overall efficiencies > actually climb! Hmm. Yeah, I could believe it. They're also introducing > slew, but that's not terrible. It also makes it easier on the driver. > However, this would be ungodly expensive.

[1]: [https://previews.123rf.com/images/kostiuchenko/kostiuchenko1...](https://previews.123rf.com/images/kostiuchenko/kostiuchenko1504/kostiuchenko150400013/39394933-stator- of-the-electric-motor-isolated-on-white-background.jpg)

[2]: [https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main- qimg-245c5636ff7753478e9348...](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main- qimg-245c5636ff7753478e9348d0c7688afb)

<comment><USER17> Hello fellow motor nerd!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Electric cars don't usually have "gearboxes" proper. They use gears, fixed ratio reductors. This is not expensive nor is it fragile nor bulky nor inefficient.

The benefits that a very high torque motor could bring are real but marginal, a few percentage points improvements on the respective metrics. They could instantly be negated by, say, the lower initial reliability of a revolutionary design.

<comment><USER19> I am genuinely curious, why aren't there transmissions for electric engines? Surely the advantage would be the same as for an IC engine. I remember hearing that Tesla tried to build a 2 speed transmission for their Roadster back in the day, but apparently it kept breaking, so they stuck with no transmission.

Are there transmissions out there for EVs, and I just haven't been paying attention? And if no, why is it so hard? Is it because of the torque?

<comment><USER16> > Surely the advantage would be the same as for an IC engine.

No. The two types of motor are fundamentally different. Combustion engines need transmissions because they produce relatively constant torque (within 50% of max torque). Electric motors on the other hand produce relatively constant _power_.

This makes total sense when you think about it. An IC engine is powered by explosions; every explosion produces roughly the same force on the piston regardless of speed. You can't get more power without more explosions because you can't cram more air in the cylinder. You can only speed up the engine.

In an electric motor, you can cram as many electrons into the wires as you want. You are only limited by how much heat is generated. Increasing speed increases heat slower than increasing torque, but you can still basically increase either as much as you want.

<comment><USER20> > Electric motors on the other hand produce relatively constant power.

Generally speaking, no. P = 2 _pi_ M*n, while the common types of motor used in electric drives (synchronous and asynchronous three phase machines) will produce nominal torque at (almost) any speed from 0 (not for asynchronous machines) to nominal speed; therefore output power is pretty much proportional to speed.

The only type of motor that comes to mind that has somewhat of a constant- power behaviour to it are series wound motors.

<comment><USER16> What you're describing[1] is only true for fixed-voltage controllers. With a real driver, all motors will behave as I described, even induction motors[2]. The only caveat is that due to saturation and hysteresis there are obvious nonlinear regions where speed or torque can't be increased. Between those two regions, all motors are capable of constant power output. Air-core motors are in theory more ideal, but good luck getting them to behave.

In fact, it's a fundamental property of motors- the power constant. There is a torque constant (rpm/volt), a torque constant (torque/amp) and a motor constant that describes the efficiency of transformation from electrical to mechanical power.

[1]: [http://raise.spd.louisville.edu/ECE252/images/L19-18.gif](http://raise.spd.louisville.edu/ECE252/images/L19-18.gif)

[2]: [http://www.eeeguide.com/speed-control-of-variable- frequency-...](http://www.eeeguide.com/speed-control-of-variable-frequency- induction-motor/)

[3]: [http://www.motioncomp.com/pdfs/Motor_Constant_Great_Equalize...](http://www.motioncomp.com/pdfs/Motor_Constant_Great_Equalizer.pdf)

<comment><USER20> You seem to misunderstand. Let's talk about an 15 kW asynchronous machine with two poles hooked up to a VFD. At nominal voltage (say 400 V) and nominal frequency (say 50 Hz) it will produce approx 50 Nm of torque to reach its nominal power (n ~ 2900 min^-1). Input current will be somewhere around 30 A. Let's say we want it to run at approx 300 min^-1, thus frequency is reduced to ~5 Hz and voltage to ~40 V. Output torque will still reach approx 50 Nm _at the same current as it did at 50 Hz_. However, output power is now approximately 1.5 kW. You _can_ boost low-end torque a little bit, but not by much (every VFD offers some parameters for this), because this requires increasing the current.

If we were to run this motor "constant power" at 300 min^-1 it would provide about 500 N*m of torque and run at a hypothetical current of 300 A -- it's quite clear that that isn't going to go well.

<comment><USER16> Sure, there are lots of ways you can make a motor that will mess that up. You can put in current-limiting fuses. Many motors cool themselves with fans, so they can dissipate lots of heat at speed and will just burn up if you try to add torque. You can make windings with insulation that breaks down at low voltage so the motor can't spin fast.

For big stationary motors that are wound for high voltage, the large number of turns means copper losses dominate and limit torque at all but the highest speeds. Nevertheless, those motors can be rewound for lower resistance, which will cause them to have more even tradeoffs at different voltages/currents. Rewinding a squirrel cage rotor is... a bit of a task, obviously, but the torque/voltage constants are always pretty interchangeable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This reads like BS.

They mention increases in efficiency like it matters when electic motors are already ~95% efficient.

They mention cogging as a problem, when everyone solved that a decade ago by using FOC drivers.

It does field weakening by physically rotating part of itself? That doesn't sound like a good idea. At all.

A single reduction gear is complex and heavy? Uh no, its probably the cheapest part of the motor

<comment><USER22> I think that those "95% efficient" motors are not 95% efficient at all speeds and loads. From what I can grasp, the variable configuration of the rotors let's them trade speed and torque without any loss in efficiency by changing the energizing patterns in the controller. The reduction gearbox is pretty simple in design but it adds one extra component to fail, and it adds weight.

I'm curious to see if they can make the controller simple (cheap, reliable, efficient) - that seems to be the next immediate challenge.

Cool project for sure, the patents have a fair bit of good information on them. They also have a functioning prototype which is good for a company at this stage. See 60 seconds in here: [https://youtu.be/yqIKZGx-06Y](https://youtu.be/yqIKZGx-06Y)

I think waiting two years to get them into a car is a bit of a miss in terms of roadmap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Feel free to educate me...

> The HET is a three-dimensional, circumferential flux, exterior

> permanent magnet electric motor with some interesting

> characteristics. For starters, it runs four rotors where other motors

> typically run one or two. The stator is fully encapsulated in a four

> sided "magnetic torque tunnel," each side having the same polarity,

> ensuring that all magnetic fields are in the direction of motion, and

> there are no unused ends on the copper coils wasting energy. All

> magnetism the system creates is thus used to create motion, and all

> four sides of the stator contribute torque to the output.

I'm not so sure about the idea that "unused ends" are "wasting energy". Simply put your finger on a small spinning motor and watch the current go up - increase the work done, increase the power usage. Typical losses in magnetic motors are:

1\. Friction - Bearings, brushes, etc

2\. Air - Typically cooling

3\. Core - Hysteresis (changing polarity is not possible instantly) and eddy current losses (unwanted current flow)

4\. Resistance - The coils themselves resist high current

Brushless motors are typically 85-90% efficient and brushed typically reach 75-80% efficiency [1]. Reducing the size a little, sure, but increasing the torque - I highly doubt for the same power input. I'm sure we will get to 95% efficiency within the next 10 years or so (with big money from the automotive industry pushing research), but it's highly unlikely we will get more than that outside of the a lab with super-cooled conductors.

Which is the other thing, increasing the amount of torque and reducing the size means greater heat generation. Any saving in size you're getting gets lost again just keeping the motor cool.

Anyway, the promises don't pass basic scrutiny, I would definitely need to see some numbers on this. It sounds like snake oil.

EDIT: Another thing - electric motors are already very efficient, you're getting more loss in other parts, such as voltage regulators, motor control circuitry, batteries (if you're using them), cooling, etc, etc. I just don't think this will translate to a massive improvement.

[1] [http://dronenodes.com/drone-motors-brushless- guide/](http://dronenodes.com/drone-motors-brushless-guide/)

<comment><USER24> I'm a total novice to electric motor design, but they mention being able to switch between simulating phases. I don't think they mean they do higher torque at lower power input. I think it means that they can transparently trade efficiency for higher torque, so they can be efficient at low torque, high speed, while also be able to deliver torque at low speed without requiring gearing.

I know how marketing departments work, if you have a product that has only one advantage over the competition, then they'll go and market your product as if it's the best at every point. I bet they've come up with this design that eliminates the need for gearing while retaining efficiency at low torque, and the rest is just marketing jabber.

<comment><USER25> I'm a lay person somewhat familiar with the terminology. I am going to be wrong on several details.

What they were talking about is phase weakening.

Think of voltage as 'electrical pressure'. Like PSI or Bar.

Think of amperage as 'volume per second' or 'amount of electrons (equivalent charge) per second'... like liters per minute.

Combine the volume per second by pressure and you get total energy per second; watts. Hence 'voltage * amps = watts'

Electric motors are also generators. When they spin they create their own 'reverse voltage', sometimes called 'Back EMF', that creates resistance in the windings of the motor.

The faster the motor spins the greater this 'back emf'. It'll increase until the 'back emf' creates enough resistance that it effectively negates the voltage coming from the power source. At that point the motor has reached it's top speed. This is why DC motors don't try to spin infinitely fast.

The strength of the motor, the torque, is directly related to the amount of amperage flowing. When the motor is at it's top speed it's generating only enough torque to overcome the resistance of the bearings and other parasitic drag. So very little actual current is flowing, especially in a very efficient motor.

Field weakening is a technique that you can use to overcome some of this limitation.

What it does is change the shape of the voltage wave. Most of the time on a oscilloscope it would show up as a sine wave or trapezoid... But if you can change the timing and peak of the wave then you can effectively weaken the magnetic field at the right time that the 'back emf' isn't as strong. Sort of flatten out the peak and make the pulse wider then it normally would be.

So you end up flowing less peak amperage, but overall more amperage. Depending on the type of motor and speed the amount of extra torque/amperage you can generate can be very significant. The trade off is reduced efficiency.

A simple motor surface mount magnet may only see a 20-30% increase in top speed and decrease in torque at the low end. A more modern interior mounted magnet (were magnets are embedded inside of steel laminates) that combines the strength of the rare earth magnets with reluctance of the magnetic field flowing through the steel.. (think of the magnets providing their own force at low end and then providing a guiding path for magnetic flux as the motor speeds up) Can see many multiples boost in top speed while still maintaining significant torque at low end. Field weakening on some motors can produce increased torque across the entire RPM range.

This is going to be very strongly taken advantage of in EVs like the Tesla Model 3.

Although in the case of most motors this field weakening is done electronically, by changing the shape of the waves sent to the motor.

This design does the same thing, but by moving the drum's magnets out of phase with the magnets on either side. So it's mechanical field weakening.

It's not a super-new concept or anything. I expect their patents have to do with the 'H' shape of the spindle and the math behind how it is supposed to work.

I don't know if mechanical field weakening really provides any real benefit over electronically controlled one.

<comment><USER23> Very interesting, thank you! Do you have more information I can read about phase weakening and BLDC control algorithms?

I ask because I happen to be designing a BLDC motor controller, I am aware of using the back EMF to measure the motor phase, but never considered it as a force slowing the motor down. As a software engineer by trade I was hoping I could perhaps dynamically switch between the two control techniques to get low-end torque and high-end speed? I was also hoping to setup the controller to optimize the various parameters for the specific motor it is controlling by measuring the back EMF.

Any help is greatly appreciated :)

<comment><USER26> Read this: [https://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2097/1507/J...](https://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2097/1507/JamesMevey2009.pdf;jsessionid=EC8BB0F5202A11CBF4AEE02B0EB2863F?sequence=1)

It's a thesis from James Mavey titled "Sensorless field oriented control of brushless permanent magney synchronous motors".

Other good resources:

[http://build-its-inprogress.blogspot.com](http://build-its- inprogress.blogspot.com)

[http://discourse.odriverobotics.com/](http://discourse.odriverobotics.com/)

[https://things-in-motion.blogspot.com](https://things-in-motion.blogspot.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> No absolute figure given, so it feels at least fishy.

I doubt that the current record of 10kw per kilogram is beatable by any significant extend.

This is limited much by limits of material science, and not electromagnetics. Those 10kw/kg motors fully utilise close to like 80% of the flux, so much bigger advancements from geometry change are unlikely.

</comment><comment><USER28> Every broken dream starts with a 3D render.

<comment><USER29> Except in love, of course.

<comment><USER28> ... of course ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> maybe not in this case, but from a history of machining, motors have made quiet and remarkable strides. original cone lathes for metalworking were driven by steam engines and a PTO driveshaft. aside from being ridiculously dangerous to operate, they had inconsistent results for tight tolerances. It wasnt unheard of for watchmakers to also find themselves as lathemakers in the early 20th century. Motor speed from PTO was largely not variable.

During WWII motor speed was controlled with a clutch and transmission system, which arguably allowed for the type of finesse and control you need to run a shaper for a large tank engine, or a mill for certain explosives of the nuclear persuasion. older machinists handbooks will still reference your 'gear' when making a cut as a feed rate suggestion. old shapers still have a gearbox and shifter.

along comes the VSM and its a game changer. The variable motor speed can control RPM maximum down to almost zero RPM. In the early 20th century, this simply was not possible. Previously if you wanted to change speed you had to park/reset the lathe and dial your tolerances back in. The way around gear speed change time was to intentionally oversize the part and take it to an automatic filer, but this wears down files and is only an option for certain manufacturers that care about the end product more than the tool wear (WWII again)

</comment><comment><USER31> This article might not be well written.

What they describe I'm pretty sure I read about something very similar to this in the 90s, and as far as I can tell, never took off; either I am right, and I indeed read about this before, or the article is describing it badly.

PR statement via CNET as the source isn't helping, either.

<comment><USER23> > I'm pretty sure I read about something very similar to this in the 90s,

Can you give more information please? I too highly doubt what they're selling here, would be interested to know what the previous efforts were.

<comment><USER32> They might be referring to something like Chorus Motors[0].

I don't know anything about electric motors, but Chorus has been around since the 90s and make similar sounding claims.

I'll quote their technology summary[0]

"The Chorus Star concept utilizes concentrated, high phase order windings which allows the beneficial use of harmonics (temporal, spatial, and overload). Consequently, a Chorus machine can achieve much higher torque densities than a traditional 3 phase motor, but with no cost penalty. Chorus Star machines are superior to three-phase machines as well as permanent-magnet machines".

They make (or are trying to make) a nose-gear mounted assembly for airplanes so you can drive a 737 around with just the APU running - not using the main engines[1]. Also they let pilots pull back from the gate without waiting for a tug on the ground. The claim is that their motor allows them to fit enough torque into the nose wheel to do the job, whereas a conventional motor couldn't do it.

[0] [http://www.chorusmotors.com/technology/exec_summary.php](http://www.chorusmotors.com/technology/exec_summary.php)

[2] [http://www.wheeltug.com/](http://www.wheeltug.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Uhm. *Halbach Cylinder" like in

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

<comment><USER16> No, doesn't look like. Halbach arrays use magnets in different directions to smoothly redirect a field; you can do the same thing with iron or soft steel. Since the field on the back side of the magnets is basically static it doesnt cost any efficiency and its much cheaper. Halbach arrays are sometimes used in motors that need to be very light, like very specialty high-acceleration brushless motors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've always wondered why no one is researching motors that use electric fields instead of magnetic?

<comment><USER20> There are electrostatic motors, it's just that they aren't particularly interesting (low power density, very high drive voltages, poor efficiency). They do have one interesting property, which is that at zero speed they can develop nominal torque without using any power (unlike say a synchronous servo).

<comment><USER34> How much of that is just a matter of more R&D though? I don't see why any of that is inherent to electrostatic?

<comment><USER20> It's mostly Coulomb's law; electrostatic force is proportional to the involved charges divided by their separation. You don't have that problem in electromagnetic motors because strong magnetic fields don't break down the rotor/stator air gap. You might turn the air gap into a dielectric oil gap, but now you have fluid friction losses which again limit how narrow that gap can be.

You'll note that this is a recurring pattern with electromagnetic vs. electrostatic implementations of roughly the same idea.

<comment><USER34> Good explanation. So it makes me wonder if we could improve on the capacitor if we could find its magnetic counterpart. Does that even make sense?

<comment><USER16> like... an inductor? Inductors and capacitors are opposite in behavior, but a series capacitor can be replaced with a parallel inductor and vice versa. In that sense they are counterparts.

It is not possible to make an inductor out of purely passive capacitive components, or vice versa. In fact the Gyrator[1] is a transistor circuit that exists specifically to act like an large inductor using capacitors, which are cheaper to build at large values. The function of a Gyrator inherently requires active power input; it isn't possible to passively convert the phase lag of a magnetic circuit into the phase lead of a capacitive circuit.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Perhaps we could just use standard steppers if we reduce real life frames per second.

But they do have torque at most frequencies compared to conventional designs, so I think this could work.</comment>


Analysis of the NHSX Contact Tracing App Data Protection Impact Assessment - <AUTHOR> https://osf.io/preprints/lawarxiv/6fvgh <comment><AUTHOR> This is a useful run through of the data protection impact assessment of the 'Isle of Wight' version of the app.

There's a twitter thread from the author here: [https://twitter.com/mikarv/status/1259127379471011842](https://twitter.com/mikarv/status/1259127379471011842)</comment>


What would 1 million plug-in cars do to the power grid? - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/what-would-1-million-electric-cars-do-to-power-grid.php

<comment><USER2> Most of the chargers can schedule for night time...</comment>


Quantum Mechanics: A graduate level course(PDF/190 pages) - <AUTHOR> http://papers.vidcat.org/quantum-mechanics-a-graduate-level-course-by-richard-fitzpatrick.html

<comment><USER2> Direct pdf link: [http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/qm/389.pdf](http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/qm/389.pdf)

N.B. this is a grad level course. The same author has another set of notes on QM intended for upper-division undergraduate physics majors here: [http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/qmech/qmech.pdf](http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/qmech/qmech.pdf)

He also has an intermediate level course on Thermodynamics & Statistical Mechanics here: [http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/sm1/statmech.pdf](http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/sm1/statmech.pdf)</comment>


The Tragic Death of Practically Everything - <AUTHOR> http://technologizer.com/2010/08/18/the-tragic-death-of-practically-everything/

<comment><USER2> I think it's worth noting that most of those stories are random blog sites, which are kind of allowed (expected?) to post stupid, sensationalist stuff fairly regularly. The WIRED article was a cover story on a major technology publication, and went beyond opinion and used a totally misleading graph ( [http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really- de.ht...](http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html) ). The WIRED article is a few levels above those links in terms of stupidity.

</comment><comment><USER3> Breaking News: Unnecessarily hyperbolic and speculative tech news sites are dead!

<comment><USER4> Sensationalist graphs, unfortunately, live on.

</comment></comment><comment> 66-75-63-6b The chart Wired provides is nice, but doesn't really tell the full story. It doesn't tell the story they're writing, and it doesn't give enough information to really work out what's going on.

Looking at that chart, I do not see an increase in direct services traffic, such as the facebook apps they mention in the articles. I see an increase in Video traffic, specifically, eating up the other services. This is not the same thing. We need more information, anyway: is this video direct streaming? Is it video accessed over web sites like youtube? If the latter is the case, does it really count as a separate category? Why put services and types of content on the same graph, anyway?

It also doesn't tell the whole story. I'd like to see a similar chart of total data transfer. Obviously the total amount of Internet data transfer has skyrocketed over the same period, and we already know the way the proportions work out... But for all we know, web usage is growing in absolute terms. Maybe it's not growing as fast as video-specific web traffic, but it's still growing. Besides, technology to effectively store and transmit video in place in websites is relatively new. It should be no surprise that it's piece of the Internet pie is still growing!

Overall; kind of bullshit. I like the idea that non-http services are taking over the Internet, but the numbers Wired presents don't validate that one way or the other.

<comment><USER5> I can't believe people are still arguing about this. Wired made some bullshit graph, whatever, why do we need to prove them wrong? They have their opinion, and it's not going to kill the web itself, so let's just leave it at that.

This is precisely the reason why Wired wrote that article: They knew it would get them publicity, and that's what the "X is DEAD" articles are for. Just trolling.

<comment><USER6> The problem is the graph is beyond misleading, it is false. It purports to show a decline in web traffic, when what it really shows is a decline in web traffic relative to other protocols (including video, which is a further mistake since a lot of video often comes over the web, and can't be mutually exclusive as the graph presents it.)

In absolute terms however, the web is still growing, which is why it's not just a matter of opinion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Definitely liked how it ended with vinyl alive.

</comment><comment><USER8> This has been posted before recently. The title is just something flashy to attract attention, but there is no real substance to the claim that the "web" is dead (let alone that everything is dead), it's just that the web is undergoing some logical transformations, as it evolves. Sounds to be like Wired is either becoming desperate for traffic, or it wants to become act more and more like a tabloid instead of an intelligent news source.

</comment><comment><USER9> They missed the death of blogging and Facebook, and of course the death of Microsoft.

<comment><USER10> Ummmm. Microsoft and Facebook were both in that list. So was RSS, if that might count for blogging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> People have waaay too much time on their hands :)

<comment><USER12> This really didn't add anything tangible to the discussion.</comment></comment>


Grindr Will Now Have to Sue Fuckr to Keep Controversial Tool Down - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/grindr-will-now-have-to-sue-fuckr-to-keep-controversial-tool-down-180930/ <comment><USER2> > In addition, Fuckr offers access to a trove of information about Grindr > users not freely available

> "Fuckr does not bypass any technical access control mechanism and does not > access any work copyrighted by Grindr LLC"

From a surface reading, I'm guessing that Grindr's "security" model is "trust the client", and so Fuckr can access all kinds of information just by using an undocumented API. Grindr's lawyers are claiming this circumvents access controls, and tomlandia is claiming this doesn't count as circumventing "any _technical_ access control mechanism" (emphasis mine).

This is all, of course, wild speculation on my part (I'm not aware of the history of Fuckr or how it works). But if I'm right it's a very interesting precedent.

Is accessing an undocumented API in ways the developers do not wish you to "circumventing access controls"? It has a lot of parallels to the "change the id in the url by 1 and access things you aren't supposed to" scenario. I'm not sure if that ever got a definitive ruling either.

<comment><USER3> The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is infamous got how broadly it defines "unauthorized use": basically anything other than what the designer or owner intended. So their case would be pretty solid.

<comment><USER4> But the CFAA is a criminal act, not civil. Using the DMCA for a CFAA violation seems wrong to me. You shouldn't have grounds to sue for a copyright violation when it was a possible CFAA violation, imho.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This all sounds like some horrible joke instead of serious business dilemmas.

</comment><comment><USER6> Cyberpunk at its best</comment>


A Wall Street Informant Who Double-Crossed the FBI - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-03-23/-bro-i-m-going-rogue-the-wall-street-informant-who-double-crossed-the-fbi <comment><USER2> Good article. But I don't agree with the title that he "double-crossed the FBI". According to the article he did everything they asked him, and in the end they double crossed him, and he then mounted a successful defense.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Even without promising Gentile a deal, the fact that they needed to groom him on how to lie to their own auditors (seemingly about entrapment, as well as the various breaks with protocol) speaks to a failure on their end first.

"In two years they'd spent a few hundred thousand dollars on expenses, Gentile says, including about $15,000 for his travel. The agents told him that an investigator would be asking him some questions, and they wanted to go over what to say... They advised him to say he hadn't directed any criminal activity. ("Of course I did," Gentile says.) And they said not to mention his gun."

That's not an account of a properly-handled operation with an unreliable informant. Gentile appears to be a bit round the bend, but that's not the only thing wrong here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know how Bloomberg magazine is funded? It seems to produce very high-quality articles that are provided for free (unlike WSJ which has a very aggressive paywall).

<comment><USER5> Bloomberg LP makes roughly 8 billion in revenue from selling their terminal to 300,000 subscribers (25,000 per annum).

I feel like the Bloomberg magazine is just a way to reinforce their status as the top disseminator of financial news, so that financial firms don't really think of the other options when looking for new data/terminal subscriptions, because Bloomberg is always "there".

Strange model. It's kind of like, a pretty high quality product you get for free, paid for by the people who purchase the really-really-expensive product.

<comment><USER6> > 300,000 subscribers (25,000 per annum)

Crazy, unverified statistic I heard- around 20% of those users only use that subscription for access to their AOL instant messenger clone. All trades are on it, so you've got to be on it too. Walled garden to the extreme.

<comment><USER7> People gladly pay that to be certain they are dealing with other people who have paid that, exclusively. That is, after all, the classic function of walled gardens (and private parties, clubs, etc.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > They bought Gentile a bacon cheeseburger and a Diet Coke ..

I don't even.. Is this normal in the USofA or are they just denying him sugar, while feeding him, to pacify him ?

edit: but the cheeseburger already has plenty of sugar and the coke has caffeine. idk

<comment><USER9> No. But if you want someone to cooperate with you, the carrot can work better than the stick.</comment></comment>


Fedora is adding LLVM-based compiler for D - <AUTHOR> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/D_Programming

<comment><USER2> Wow, cool! I really like D as a C++ replacement. Is the language stable enough, though? Last time I checked D 2.0 was still evolving.

</comment><comment><USER3> Excellent! Though, I have to add that if you like C++ with STL, D2 with the latest Phobos standard library is the way to go. Hopefully, we will see a stable LDC for D2 in the future.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sadly it looks like the list of features in the next Fedora ( <https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/14/FeatureList> ) is not as impressive as the list was for Fedora 12 and 13. Given that yesterday was the submission deadline, I don't think this will be as exciting a release.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is there any prepackaged LDC binary for OS X?

It's annoying having to download DMD (Digital Mars compiler) just to compile LDC.</comment>


2-second video causes headache for ABC News - <AUTHOR> http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100311/D9ECD86O0.html

<comment><USER2> In looking for a reference to NBC's rigging of a GM pickup for a fiery crash test ("the hidden rockets, the over-filled tank, the loose gas cap") I came across this in an author's archive: <http://www.walterolson.com/articles/crashtests.html>

Network malfeasance in car safety reporting would seem to go back at least to the '70s:

" _The tank with its attached hose was apparently sitting right on the front passenger seat of the doctored Audi, but the 60 Minutes cameras managed not to pick it up. It might have been for the same reason the Jeep weights were tucked away in the wheel wells, rather than being placed visibly on top. Or why the Dateline rockets were strapped out of sight underneath the truck rather than conspicuously on its side, and were detonated by remote control rather than by a visible wire. Doing it otherwise would only have gotten viewers confused._ "

</comment><comment><USER3> I was rather shocked when some of my friends went to go work with the big networks about what's staged and what's real. It's not an uncommon, for example, to interview someone with the camera on them 100% of the time, and then the interviewer re-asks the questions after the person leaves. Almost any ethical journalist will try to make sure those questions are exactly the same, but with so much in intonation, pacing, and more, it struck me as fundamentally altering the tone if not the substance story, even when the intentions of all involved were the best.

Tachometergate just takes it up a few RPM.

</comment><comment><USER4> Editorial by investigator of Audi brake "problems" asserting that Toyota issues are likely driver error:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/opinion/11schmidt.html?th&...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/opinion/11schmidt.html?th&emc=th)

<comment><USER5> I could accept that explanation for short "hops," but some of the Toyota incidents lasted for minutes/miles - surely that's long enough to realize you're on the wrong pedal?

Unfamiliarity may explain why some drivers were unable to switch off the car, though. I would not have known how myself. CHP Officer Mark Saylor was driving a rental car and might not have been familiar with the system either.

<comment><USER2> Yes, I remember reading that the "off" button in the rental car required depressing for 3 full seconds and evidently didn't have logic to recognize e.g. several quick presses in succession.

In general, if there are indeed flaws in whatever in these Toyotas and not all these incidents are operator error, there has been a serious failure in human factors design. E.g. Toyota is now programming the system so that pressing the breaks will disengage the throttle.

Of course, any one of a number of problems might pay no attention to the off button and so on of an excessively "fly by wire: design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if anyone actually thought they were looking at a tachometer in a Toyota with a jammed accelerator as the car and its occupants, convenient videographer and all, hurtled toward an uncertain fate... unlikely in my estimation.

I always assume that the junk I see on TV is either staged or a representative example.

<comment><USER7> A very respectable news program once made a story about my mum who was meeting one of her journalists for the first time, just after he'd been released from jail.

It took them over 30 minutes and at least 12 shots to film their first meeting, where he walked up some stairs and they shook hands.

The forgot to mention they'd actually met for the first time the night before and stayed at our house.

<comment><USER8> A very respectable news anchor in the US aired some memos supposedly written by a presidential candidate's superior officer in the 1970s. Upon investigation, it was discovered the memos were written in Microsoft Word using the default settings, and probably run through a fax machine or copier a few times to make them look "old". They were most definitely not typed on a 1970s era typewriter.

Once this was pointed out, it took the aforementioned newsman a week before he was forced to conclude the memos were inauthentic. The exact statement used was "fake but accurate".

The "fake but accurate" standard for journalism is problematic. Either show us the real thing, or describe to us the real thing and explain why you can't show it. Trying to slide by with carefully staged shots ends up looking really bad, and costs the organizations a ton of credibility.

<comment><USER9> I though all they had to do was write "recreation" or "dramatization" in a little note at the bottom of the picture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I totally don't understand Toyota now. Why are they complaining about this, drawing attention to the problem? ABC comes back and says "yes, we had to fake the shot, because when the accelerator is jammed down the car starts to shake dramatically and it's so terrifying that we couldn't get a good camera shot". PR fail.

Why aren't Toyota simply saying 'if a Toyota - or any other make of car - accelerates as if the accelerator was jammed, you can simply stop it with the brakes, or by putting the car into neutral, or by turning the key in the ignition'?

I wrote a blog post about this the other day: <http://justinsb.posterous.com/what-is-toyota-doing>

<comment><USER5> Saying "these are the steps" might be seen as admission that the problem is widespread or likely to affect you.

By the way, if there really is a software problem (which Toyota has denied so far) then your steps will not help. The key is a button, and the brakes and the shifter are just inputs to the computer. Your steps would help if it's just the floor mats or a malfunctioning accelerator switch.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for providing a possible explanation. A recall is also an admission that the problem is widespread, so I think that horse has bolted, but it's possibly the reason Toyota are behaving so oddly (at least in my world view).

If it is a software problem, it's certainly possible that e.g. the brake pedal might not work. I think it's likely that one of the three would work, because the code is likely to be broken into modules, and I think it unlikely that all 3 modules would be affected by one bug. Anyway, what's the harm in telling people to try the 3 step process? Right now, people think they're doomed if their car accelerates - I'm thinking that some people are panicking because of this and making bad situations a lot worse.

Take the case of the Prius driver in California the other day: he called 911, a police car was dispatched, to tell him exactly the same steps through a megaphone, and - sure enough - the car stopped. Why not tell people in advance so they don't have to make a cellphone call at 90mph?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> is there any evidence at all that this is any different from the 60 minutes hatchet job on audi in the '80s?</comment>


Writing a code coverage tool - <AUTHOR> http://ismail.badawi.io/blog/2013/05/03/writing-a-code-coverage-tool/ <comment><USER2> I think writing it with asm library is much easier. Your code gets too long for a line coverage tool.

<comment><USER3> (I wrote this article a while ago).

I'm not sure what you mean. If you're referring to the implementation, it's around three hundred lines [0], including the unfortunate problem I mention with visiting expressions, which doesn't seem like a lot.

Maybe you mean the instrumented code, but that doesn't matter -- it's meant to be generated, executed and thrown away. You would never have to look at it.

[0]: [https://github.com/isbadawi/coverage- example](https://github.com/isbadawi/coverage-example)</comment></comment>