3M Response to Defense Production Act Order - <AUTHOR> https://news.3m.com/press-release/company-english/3m-response-defense-production-act-order <comment><USER4> No where in the linked statement does 3M say they will not comply. They point out potential issues that the order may cause but do not say they won't comply.

<comment><USER5> I was under the impression that the law's specific purpose was to make them comply, so they don't really have a choice.

<comment><USER6> What's the actual penalty if they refuse?

<comment><USER7> [https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/15/700.74](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/15/700.74)

The maximum penalty provided by the Defense Production Act is a $10,000 fine, or one year in prison, or both.

The government may also seek an injunction from a court of appropriate jurisdiction to prohibit the continuance of any violation of, or to enforce compliance with, the Defense Production Act, this part, or an official action.

<comment><USER8> Hrm... I wonder if the government would go so far as to arrest the CEO.

<comment><USER9> It would be a nice change of pace to see. They do seem to weather a lot of legal storms better than most other Americans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Title should be "3M Response to Defense Production Act Order" and remember out there: only you can prevent title editorialization

<comment><USER11> Right. Submitted title was "3M refuses US request to cease N95 respirator exports". A moderator changed it.

Submitters who break the site guidelines by editorializing that badly eventually lose their submission rights on HN. So there's that.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > In addition, ceasing all export of respirators produced in the United States > would likely cause other countries to retaliate and do the same, as some > have already done. If that were to occur, the net number of respirators > being made available to the United States would actually decrease.

This is a very good point. We _really_ don't want China cutting us off right now.

<comment><USER12> [https://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-52092395](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52092395)

[https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3077428/ne...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3077428/netherlands- recalls-600000-face-masks-china-due-low-quality)

Some claim the masks are deliberately faulty

<comment><USER13> "Factories are skipping QC and sacrificing quality in favor of volume, and also scammers are trying to cash in on the skyrocketing demand" is _way_ more likely than "China is making deliberately faulty masks". Come on now.

<comment><USER12> You haven't seen the videos maybe? People spitting in masks (in China, purportedly) and doorknobs and elevator (in Europe, purportedly). Not a proof and not directly related but I wouldn't put it past China. It shocks me when they claim they have 0 new corona virus cases. If they're lying about something as basic as this, what else are they lying about.

<comment><USER14> There's been multiple people in the US coughing on lettuce, lick produce etc. Does that mean you wouldn't put it past America that masks exported to Canada will be laced with covid?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Forgive me but I don't feel like the article in any way actually states they refuse to honour the government's demand. What part of the article mentions that?

<comment><USER16> Government has signed an Act prohibiting 3M from exporting N95 masks from the US, what you read isn't an article it is a 3M press release stating 3M will not comply with the Act and continue to export N95 masks

<comment><USER7> > it is a 3M press release stating 3M will not comply with the Act

Where does this press release state that?

It says the literal opposite:

"We look forward to working with FEMA to implement yesterday's order."

<comment><USER16> That is corporate speak for if you don't allow 3M to export from The US to Canada then next time those 10M masks aren't coming from 3M China to the US but 3M China direct to 3M Canada.

Anyway there is a lot more information available as to what's going on with Canadian orders and 3M Canada. Put it this way Canada has ordered 65M and 3M Canada and Canada both refuse to say how many 3M is providing in that order.

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/04/03/3m-warns- of-white-house-order-to-stop-exporting-masks-to-canada-163060)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The US won't be the first or the last to do this. I mean read the article below: 68 countries already ban the export of masks.

[https://globalnews.ca/news/6769162/canada-medical- supplies-c...](https://globalnews.ca/news/6769162/canada-medical-supplies- coronavirus/)

Here the EU has banned the export of masks unless the country's government approves (which is what Trump is doing) [https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-eu-limit- exports...](https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-eu-limit-exports- medical-equipment/)

Also not mentioned Russia and Taiwan also banned all export of masks.

<comment><USER18> This is incomplete in many cases!

Eg. From Germany : [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-09/germany-f...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-09/germany- faces-backlash-from-neighbors-over-mask-export-ban)

> We're not categorically against exports but want to understand what happens, > because previously it was so that masks went not where they were most needed > but where most was paid.

They are literally handling the problems the US/Trump is causing right now.

I expect more on HN

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> So the free market fails yet again and everyone is doing proteccionism, social programs and socializing necessary goods. Nice to see what really works.

</comment><comment><USER20> > We look forward to working closely with the Administration to implement > yesterday's DPA order.

They will comply at least that's what their letter further down says

</comment><comment><USER21> Apparently, the US has the nice problem of a competing market whereby states and hospitals bid up the prices to that legally ambiguous area called "price gouging".

I presume it's much simpler to avoid being accused of gouging and selling to countries which pay prices according to supply and demand.

</comment><comment><USER22> The pulp that 3M uses to produce the n95 respirator is grown exclusively in British Columbia, CANADA and is milled by a company in Victoria, British Columbia, CANADA

<comment><USER17> I'm no expert, but I am sure the only pulp used in a N95 respirator is the box they put the 10 or 20 masks in. They can easily replace that with a bag.

<comment><USER18> Correct, you are not an expert

<comment><USER17> Here's the document on the 3M N95 8210 which is a common N95 mask: [https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1425070O/3m-particulate-...](https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1425070O/3m-particulate- respirator-8210-n95-technical-specifications.pdf)

• Straps – Thermoplastic Elastomer

• Nose Clip – Aluminum

• Nose foam - <USER2>

• Filter – Polypropylene

• Shell – Polyester

• Coverweb - <USER3>

Here's another document from Honeywell stating the main material is "flexible non-woven polypropylene fabric" [https://www.honeywell.com/en- us/newsroom/news/2020/03/n95-ma...](https://www.honeywell.com/en- us/newsroom/news/2020/03/n95-masks-explained)

Here's the link to Wikipedia and I quote "The N95 mask requires a fine mesh of synthetic polymer fibers, also known as nonwoven polypropylene fabric,[5] which is produced through a highly specialized process called melt blowing that forms the inner filtration layer that filters out hazardous particles.[6]" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N95_mask](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N95_mask)

And you are an expert? Basic Google just backed me up.

<comment><USER18> No, i am not an expert and didn't made a single statement because of that.

I don't know the answer. The only thing I do know is that a medical/surgical N95 mask is different from a standard N95 mask.

This would be reason enough to undermine your claim, according to me.

But as stated, I'm not an expert. A friend+client of mine in construction also has N95 masks and those are not valid for use in the hospital, he said.

Also basic Google backed me up :)

Ps. Thanks for trying to back up your claim with valid sources ;)!

<comment><USER17> Care to provide a basic Google source that says N95 Surgical Respirators are made from pulp?

Okay, let me provide you another source or two.

Here's the 3M 1860/1860S N95 Surgical Respirator. FDA approved for hospital use in the US (also the standard one used). Approved by Health Canada in Canada. Approved by TGA in Australia. This is the light blue one you see on the news.

      * Straps: Braided Polyisoprene
      * Staples: Steel
      * Nose Clip: Aluminium
      * Nose Foam: Polyurethane Foam
      * Filter: Polypropylene/Polyester
      * Shell: Polypropylene
      * Coverweb: Polypropylene

[https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1538979O/3m-disposable-r...](https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1538979O/3m-disposable- respirator-1860-1860s-technical-data-sheet.pdf)

Here's the 3M 1804/1804S N95 Surgical Respirator ([https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1547881O/3m-anz-psd- heal...](https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1547881O/3m-anz-psd-healthcare- respirator-and-surgical-mask-1804-s-technical-data-sheet.pdf)). Also approved by FDA for hospital use. Same with Health Canada and Australian TGA. This is the white duckbill type you see on the news.

      * Straps: Polyisoprene
      * Staples: Steel
      * Nose Clip: Aluminium
      * Filter: Polypropylene
      * Coverweb: Polypropylene

<comment><USER18> It seems to be the fibre, but I'm not enough acquainted with materials to know where or what.

The wording seems to be that is literally used in surgical masks:

[https://www.vancouverislandfreedaily.com/business/nanaimos-h...](https://www.vancouverislandfreedaily.com/business/nanaimos- harmac-mill-works-to-fill-doubled-pulp-order-for-medical-masks-and-gowns/)

> K10S pulp is made from western red cedar that produces a soft fibre that > makes it suitable for the final products made from it.

"It's been tweaked over the years to come up with the right formula that allows it to go into the medical supplies," Sampson said.

Your source indeed says: these materials are used.

But it never says they are listing all the materials that are used.

It could be that they mention it because those materials can touch the skin. I don't see anything that mentions the filtering technique/materials inside of those masks.

I also don't see how the materials are tweaked. So I don't think it's as easy to read the brochure and believe that they mention everything on it.

I guess the Polypropylene fibrids in the filter contains the K10S ( = the pulp )

An indication to support this can be found here: [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/8172035.html](http://www.freepatentsonline.com/8172035.html)

( Search for K10S in the text and read the entire surrounding text)

As stated before, I'm not an expert.

<comment><USER17> K10S pulp is definitely used in surgical masks. This is a fact and I admit it.

So far I've shown that K10S is not used in N95 respirators which is the original statement.

I've shown evidence in good faith and you have not. None of your links makes reference to N95 Respirators.

Please provide a direct reference that K10S pulp is used in N95 Respirators.

<comment><USER18> Not everything is black or white...

What you said now is not what you said before. You literally claimed it was just the bag, lol:

> I'm no expert, but I am sure the only pulp used in a N95 respirator is the > box they put the 10 or 20 masks in. They can easily replace that with a bag.

And I repeat:

> "It's been tweaked over the years to come up with the right formula that > allows it to go into the medical supplies," Sampson said

Not every company is going to put their "secret sauce" online.

Just send an email to 3M to ask the question instead of trying to guess it.

[https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/novec-us/support/contact- us/](https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/novec-us/support/contact-us/)

Google can't solve everything. As an alternative, you could ask it on StackExchange.

Then Google can pick it up for you and you can have your nice link :p

And also, you are looking for "surgical masks N95 K10S" in Google. I googled the root question and that is: where is K10S used in Polypropylene , but you don't seem to grasp/accept it.

I already explained why it would be better to look that up...

<comment><USER23> This may be the pulp connection to the Polyurethane filter. Filtering face- piece respirator having a face seal comprising a water-vapor-breathable layer Patent Assignee 3M INNOVATIVE PROPERTIES COMPANY (St. Paul, MN, US)

[http://www.freepatentsonline.com/9408424.html](http://www.freepatentsonline.com/9408424.html)

In discussing a way to take water vapour from exhaled breath away from the filter surface. If this is the case while the polyurethane is the primary material the pulp fibre is applied to it as a layer which may not appear in a spec sheet.

"In some embodiments, a face seal may consist only of a water-vapor-breathable layer and a wicking layer (that is located on the rearward side of at least a portion of the water-vapor-breathable layer), with no other layers being present. In other embodiments, other layers may be present in the face seal.

There are several general approaches to providing such a wicking layer, which approaches will be described herein in a non-limiting manner. In one approach, a fibrous wicking layer (e.g., a non-woven web, a woven or knitted fabric, and so on) can be comprised (e.g., generally, substantially, or completely) of fibers with "moderate" hydrophilicity. Materials that might be suitable for such fibers include e.g. certain nylons, polyesters, cellulose acetates, and so on. In another approach, a fibrous wicking layer can be comprised of relatively hydrophobic fibers (e.g., polyethylene, polypropylene, natural rubber, and so on), but with the web incorporating some portion of relatively hydrophilic fibers (e.g., cellulosic fibers, acrylic fibers comprising a significant amount of hydrophilic co-monomer, and so on). That is, any suitable blend of hydrophobic fibers and hydrophilic fibers can be used to arrive at the optimum balance of properties. In a variation of such approaches, a fibrous wicking layer can be comprised of relatively hydrophobic fibers but may further comprise hydrophilic particles of any suitable composition (e.g. hydrocolloids, WOOD PULP, starch particles, and so on). Conversely, a fibrous wicking layer can be comprised of relatively hydrophilic fibers but may further comprise hydrophobic particles of any suitable composition."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Going to be hard to make those 3M masks when all the pulp used to make them is produced in Canada and we stop selling it to you cause you won't sell us masks.

[https://www.vancouverislandfreedaily.com/business/nanaimos-h...](https://www.vancouverislandfreedaily.com/business/nanaimos- harmac-mill-works-to-fill-doubled-pulp-order-for-medical-masks-and-gowns/)

<comment><USER25> The US has ten times the population and ten times the economy. Canada would have ten times the pain if it decided to get into an economic war with the US and would still not get the masks it wants. The US however does have plenty of pulp production that can be diverted into whatever use is most important at the moment.

This should be a wake up call to Canada to stop being so dependent on exporting commodities. It's been this way for my entire life and has been a constant complaint in Canadian economic circles but for some reason Canada doesn't seem to want to diversify. Maybe this will change that attitude.

<comment><USER26> I don't know that this would be the case.

Pulp production is not a nameless commodity, it needs to be up to a certain spec for surgical masks, for example. Canada is the supplier for a great many US companies. Sure, the US could try to produce that speficic spec, but it would not be easy and would take precious weeks that the US cannot spare. If it could, production would just increase for respirators, but this has to be done instead because it takes too much time. And in that time, Canada will likely be able to set up production for the masks, actually. If I remember correctly 3M Canada does make filter media, so the expertise is there. It isn't rocket science either, it just takes time.

In a full scale economic war between the US and Canda, at least all Canadians will still have water and electricity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! Here we go! Can't wait to see how this plays out.

</comment><comment><USER27> Nationalize them.

<comment><USER28> Because they're right, but in a way you don't want to hear, so you want to make it so they can't say the truth that you don't like?

And what would "nationalizing" them look like, anyway? You realize that they're a multinational corporation, right? You could nationalize the US part, but you'd lose the rest of them. Even solely for purposes of the respirators, the result might not be better than what they're giving you now.

<comment><USER27> Tell that to my wife who is going in to treat COVID patients in the ICU this Sunday. I'll give you her phone number and you can leave her a voicemail explaining why exporting N95 masks while she can't get one is OK.

<comment><USER28> I said your "solution" would not help. You responded with outrage about your wife. But if your solution won't help, _then it won 't help your wife_.

The best I can do is wish her the best. I'm sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So much for friendship/partnership. I hope next time US asks Canada to participate in their never ending quests in middle east they'll get nice f.. you in return.

<comment><USER25> Canada should never participate in military action it feels is unwarranted, friends or not. If Canada has been going along with never ending quests just because the other countries involved are "friends", then it is morally bankrupt for doing so.

In the end though, Canada and every other country in the world should realize that the United States doesn't have friends, it has interests.

<comment><USER30> I'm curious whether you have noticed the incredibly serious situation in NYC and New Orleans and many other areas of the USA. At the moment they have more people infected of Covid-19 in just NYC than Canada has people infected across the whole country. Almost 1900 dead in just NYC.

Do you not feel this is serious enough of a situation that it requires all the masks this American company makes to be sent to these hot spots? Should the US not try to save its own citizens lives above trying to be friends with Canada or South America?

Why doesn't Canada manufacture it's own masks?

<comment><USER29> Same reason US does not manufacture a basillion things they import from China. But yes Canada should learn to be more strategic.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Devs in open space offices: How do you manage to focus? - <AUTHOR> Today, my team moved from a typical workplace to an open plan office style workplace. While the friction in firing up a talk with a colleague has definitely reduced, I find it very hard to focus with things constantly moving in my sight/viewport.<p>People who've managed to stay productive in such workspaces, can you toss me some advice? <comment><USER2> Big, bulky noise–canceling headphones are a must.

If you can put up a screen behind your display (posterboard works quite well for this) you can block out distracting movements around the edges of your display.

Learn to ignore people hovering behind you. If they want to interrupt you then they must actively tap you on the shoulder or something.

I found working in a totally open–plan office terrible for writing and programming, even with headphones. Semi–open plan (cubicles with decent dividers) worked as did semi–private offices with 4-6 people.

</comment><comment><USER3> I too have benefitted from noise-canceling headphones (Bose QuietComfort 25). On top of that, I use a technique called neural entrainment: an audio track with a specific repetitive beat which helps you attain a state of focus and flow. In fact, I am in the process of creating a product with neural entrainment audio tracks. If you are interested, let me know...

</comment><comment><USER4> Noise cancelling headphones and music works for a lot of people</comment>


English Hedges - <AUTHOR> https://www.britainexpress.com/History/english-hedges.htm <comment><USER2> The Enclosure Movement is worth reading about. People tend to think of the Anglo-Saxon world as having been individualistic (in theory, and oligarchic in practice) since time immemorial, but it was much more communal until relatively recently.

</comment><comment><USER3> "the familiar checkerboard pattern"

What is this referring to?

<comment><USER4> I think "patchwork" is often a better term than "checkerboard", as things are rarely straight and regular, but I guess it's referring to sights like this: [https://www.picturesofengland.com/England/tour/Aerial_Images...](https://www.picturesofengland.com/England/tour/Aerial_Images_of_England/pictures/1053537)

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly!</comment></comment></comment>


Chrome's Flash integration results in 7x faster security update - <AUTHOR> http://secbrowsing.blogspot.com/2010/08/adobe-flash-10182-first-security-update.html

<comment><USER2> Auto updates of apps is the way to go if you have to build a native app. I expect more apps to move to that direction.

At the moment the biggest problem I see is that there is not a framework for doing this, it has to be build from the scratch every time

<comment><USER3> <http://sparkle.andymatuschak.org/>

I'm not aware if there's anything similar for Windows.

<comment><USER2> This looks good but does it support background updating like Chrome?

I am not aware of a win or a Linux (I mostly work on Linux) solution either

<comment><USER4> > I am not aware of a win or a Linux (I mostly work on Linux) solution either.

I'm trying to say this without sounding snarky, but why the heck would you need this on an operating system that already gives you apt-get, pacman, yum, portmaster, or what have you?

As for Windows, apparently there's a WinSparkle now: <http://winsparkle.org/>

Also the WiX people have been working on something along these lines, but I don't know how mature that project is or if it's even still a project any more.

EDIT: Looks like Google's made a separate open-source project of its update framework, Omaha, which is apparently how Chrome gets its updates. So I guess you can get Chrome-style auto updates in your own applications now. Don't know if Google's nifty binary diff compression algorithm is included.

<http://code.google.com/p/omaha/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cool stuff</comment>


The "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" Mentality - <AUTHOR> http://www.invalidcast.com/post/The-if-it-isnt-broken-dont-fix-it-mentality.aspx <comment><USER2> Article completely misses the actual _point_ of the old "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" maxim: _if you try to fix it, you might screw it up_.

When you hear people saying "if it ain't broke..." it means they're concerned about accidentally making matters worse, not that they're lazy or insufficiently concerned with "continuous improvement".

<comment><USER3> I agree. About a year ago we hired a new person at work and he immediately started looking for ways to improve anything and everything. The problem is, nearly everything we had that wasn't optimal, was still actually "good enough" for our needs and usually included some complexity that wasn't obvious at first glance. He ignored our "if it's not broken, don't fix it" advice and every single time he tried to improve something he ended up breaking it or making it worse.

Sometimes a simple but sub-optimal solution that gets the job done well enough and reliably is better than an optimized solution that includes downtime and requires extra maintenance. I don't think the person offering the advice to leave things alone is always the naïve one.

<comment><USER4> If you back your case against change with real arguments (like "There will be massive downtime." and "Extra maintenance will be necessary.") you certainly aren't naïve. But you are very naïve indeed if all you ever say to anyone proposing any change to working systems is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

<comment><USER5> Agreed. In reality, there's a balance to be made between the cost of maintaining the status quo (in the event that the status quo sucks) and the cost of making changes.

One thing that really frustrated me when I started my career is that the cost of making changes turns out to be non-trivial. If you're shipping software to customers then making changes to the software involves a lot of work planning testing, packaging and so on. Maybe that's one of the reasons why hosting web apps is so much easier than selling shrink-wrapped software in a box.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the phrase comes in handy when the way to improve something is not so linear. For example selecction of team members on a startup.

Your startup is doing well but one guy aint pulling his weight. Do you sack him? There is actually studies that one bad guy on a team makes the overall team good.

Also, there was some stuff on here about basketball players who don't seem contribute anything but the team winning rate decreases when they aren't there. So, sometimes the maxim is good when you can't pinpoint where your victory is coming from.

<comment><USER7> _There is actually studies that one bad guy on a team makes the overall team good_

Can you cite one? This would be very counterintuitive if true.

 _Also, there was some stuff on here about basketball players who don't seem contribute anything but the team winning rate decreases when they aren't there._

That would imply either that they are contributing something or that their replacement is even worse. If they are contributing something, identifying what so it can be focused on and improved is of great value in a highly competitive arena. If the replacement is even worse, then a better replacement should be found.

 _So, sometimes the maxim is good when you can't pinpoint where your victory is coming from._

In cases like that, there is often great value in spending the time and thought to figure out. To Quote Sun Tzu, "If you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle"

<comment><USER6> I can't find the exact paper that cites it(Anyone who have heard of this plz chime in). But, I can cite you apollo syndrome which basically is putting the best and the brightest on a team with the assumption they will do well. [http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/med/research/hsri/emergencycar...](http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/med/research/hsri/emergencycare/research/sdo/csi2/education/education- delivery/handouts/apollo_syndrome.pdf)

Also, other example of where if it ain't broken don't fix it is Founder CEO. Founder CEO tend to perform better than Professional CEO even though they have less experience and knowledge. [http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/enabletech/2010/04/28/ugc- foun...](http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/enabletech/2010/04/28/ugc-founding-vs- professional-ceo-performance-analysis/)

Somethings are counter-intuitive. Although it is possible with some research to get to heart of things, doing so might be prohibitive in terms of cost and time.

<comment><USER7> _Founder CEO tend to perform better than Professional CEO even though they have less experience and knowledge._

That is a very different situation. Founder/CEO's often have 2 major advantages over Professional CEOs. The first is that the Founder is more motivated. The second is that the Founder often knows their field very well, whereas professional CEOs are often leadership experts holding MBAs. Especially in the early stages, knowing the field and being able to do much of the work personally can be more valuable than the skills that an MBA business expert brings to bear.

<comment><USER6> But still there is a need by some VC to optimize this.

In Ben Horowitz blog he says:

"When my partner Marc wrote his post describing our firm, the most controversial component of our investment strategy was our preference for founding CEOs. The conventional wisdom says a startup CEO should make way for a professional CEO once the company has achieved product-market fit. In this post, I describe why we prefer to fund companies whose founder will run the company as its CEO."

<http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/28/why-we-prefer-founding-ceos/> Dated: 04/28/10

To you and me this is clear cut but for some VC the wisdom would say to get a Professional. The first thing that came to my mind when I read it was why change a good thing?

I didn't have any data for backing keeping the founding CEO but without data I think the maxim serves as a good heuristic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You adopt two attitudes towards "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" in two similar ways:

1) Don't try to fix it or you might break it! 2) If it ain't broke then you can still try to improve it.

The reality is that there is a balancing act between the two. On the one hand, a process or system might be so delicate that any attempt to improve it will be difficult and dangerous.

On the other hand is the attitude that the author of the article takes: it's dangerous to become satisfied with the current state of affairs just because it's difficult to make changes. I like the fact that he mentions Toyota. The concept of continuous improvement immediately makes me think of Japanese companies and I'm sure we can think of many that became very successful by employing the following ideas:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen>

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes, the problem is that fixing stuff can (and does) create regressions.

So what REALLY HELPS is -- Fix ONE thing at a time.

Usually, when I'm writing code or fixing something, I put in a couple of unrelated improvements. There's a pretty good chance the unrelated improvements will break something.

Breaking the unrelated improvements into their own separate self-contained step is usually all it takes.

</comment><comment><USER9> The biggest problem I've had with this maxim in the past is the definition of "Broke".

It is too subjective.

There is a world of difference between "a bit broke" and "totally broke" even for the simplest of systems.

</comment><comment><USER10> even if it isn't fixed, don't break it!</comment>


Intel disables Hardware Lock Elision on all current CPUs - <AUTHOR> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=c2955f270a84762343000f103e0640d29c7a96f3 <comment><USER2> The title "Intel disables hardware lock elision on all current CPUs" seems too broad. Intel is disabling the backward ISA compatible implicit HLE capability --I can't remember exactly how it worked without looking it up, but IIRC it was a hack that leveraged existing cache coherency and ISA semantics to permit optimized spin-lock implementations that _without_ _feature_ _detection_ _still_ _worked_ _correctly_ on older chips.

Explicit TSX instructions are now merely opt-out, where previously they couldn't be disabled by the kernel. The posted patch doesn't seem to disable it but simply adds some of the bits needed to do so.

EDIT: Okay, I guess it _is_ disabling Hardware Lock Elision (HLE), proper. But "hardware lock elision", lower case, implies all TSX-based lock elision code will stop being optimized. AFAIU RSX (explicit TSX) is usually only used for lock elision, anyhow; it's more of a microcode and speculation hack than a generic transactional memory feature, so the dividends quickly become elusive for anything beyond lock elision.

<comment><AUTHOR> > The other TSX sub-feature, Hardware Lock Elision (HLE), is unconditionally > disabled by the new microcode but still enumerated as present by > CPUID(EAX=7).EBX{bit4}, unless disabled by IA32_TSX_CTRL_MSR[1] - > TSX_CTRL_CPUID_CLEAR.

Disabling HLE makes the code still works because of the backward ISA compatibility... but you still lose the performance benefits of HLE.

Also, disabling it but still keeping it shown in CPUID...

<comment> the-dude Is anything know about how much performance will be lost?

<comment><USER3> [https://twitter.com/damageboy/status/1194751035136450560?s=1...](https://twitter.com/damageboy/status/1194751035136450560?s=19)

Up to 20% for Array.Sort

<comment><USER4> Why would Array.Sort have locking in need of elision?

[I'm reminded of the old Java "Vector" or "StringBuffer" that put a lock around every operation "because thread safety is good" which had high cost for single threaded usage. But this is likely not what this is about.]

<comment><USER5> It's a different bug that requires extra padding for branching instructions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Shame. When TSX was announced in 2012, I started looking forward to a day, years down the line, when it would be ubiquitous enough that I could write code that depended on it. (At least on Macs, which don't run AMD processors.) The first processors supporting it shipped in 2013... but then in 2014 Intel abruptly disabled it in all then-shipping processors via microcode update, due to an erratum. Eventually they started shipping processors without the bug, and 4-5 years passed, a decent chunk of the time needed for ubiquity. But now the clock's reset to zero once again.

Though, apparently Intel always disabled TSX on i3 processors for product segmentation, so maybe universal support was never in the cards...

I wish more CPUs would support at least a limited version of this. Basically, I want the equivalent of atomic<shared_ptr<T>>, but lock-free. That requires reading a pointer value from memory and then incrementing a reference count stored at that pointer, as a single atomic operation. I'm pretty sure that's doable with TSX, although I haven't actually tried it.

<comment><USER7> FWIW, my understanding is that XBEGIN/XEND/XABORT are still available on the affected CPUs. Only XACQUIRE/XRELEASE are disabled. So the clock isn't really reset.

I, too, wish TSX was more ubiquitous. I'm working on a kernel, and was hoping to use TSX to greatly simplify the logic of safely reading user memory from kernelspace - catching various exception cases without going through the real exception handler.

Turns out, none of the machines I have at my disposal have TSX - not my Desktop PC nor my server machine. So, RIP that plan, I guess.

What you want is absolutely doable with TSX. The overhead might be significant though. I wouldn't be surprised if locking a mutex was faster.

<comment><USER8> You can't simplify the logic because TSX transactions may abort for any reason and make no promises of forward progress. You must implement a fallback codepath.

If you meant having an optimized codepath then that is doable. But given your writing a kernel there may be microarchitectural hazards that trigger excessive aborts.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, at first I wanted to use TSX exclusively, but I came to the same conclusion you did while digging into it more deeply.

I still think having a fast path using TSX could be useful, but since I never had a CPU with it, I never had a chance to benchmark it.

<comment><USER8> In some cases it can have a huge speedup. But it's rather tricky to get right. So far for almost all of my use cases the transaction sizes have been too large, and it almost always aborted.

The RPCS3 PS 3 emulator saw a 40% perf boost so some amazing gains are possible.

[https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RPCS3-In...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RPCS3-Intel- TSX-Support)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is [https://github.com/speed47/spectre-meltdown- checker](https://github.com/speed47/spectre-meltdown-checker) the best tool? Impressive chunk of sh.

<comment><USER10> What do you have against that script? It's a long script but it's pretty clean and readable

<comment><USER9> Oh, nothing! I think it's beyond excellent.

I ran shellcheck to see if it was bash or sh and it didnt make a peep:). My Q is just asking if there is another similar quality tool. I see how you could interperit it the other way, thanks for asking.

<comment><USER10> Oh I see now, I misinterpreted the sense of the question :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there a place where I can find how much performance my Haswell CPU has lost due to all of these 'fixes'?

<comment><USER12> Haswell doesn't have this feature

<comment><USER5> I believe Haswell _does_ have Hardware Lock Elision, but it was disabled by a microcode update.

<comment><USER8> It was disabled because it didn't work. So I guess it's in the eye of the beholder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Uh, so there's absolutely no way to avoid disabling HLE (unless you block microcode updates altogether)? Can people who paid extra for a computer whose CPU has HLE get a refund?

<comment><USER14> You can avoid it. They didn't disable it, but implemented MSR which disables it. Don't configure this MSR to disable HLE and you're good.

<comment><USER13> But it says _" Hardware Lock Elision (HLE) is unconditionally disabled by the new microcode"_?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6877452](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6877452) describes a speedup of 41% when using TSX under a specific HPC workload.

[https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RPCS3-In...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RPCS3-Intel- TSX-Support) describes a 40% speedup for an emulation workload with TSX.

Do we know what the slowdown will be for current gen CPUs for various workloads?

<comment><USER16> As far as I know the only software that really wants it is SAP HANA. The slowdown should be small, that 40% speedup on emulation is specifically on load-locked/store-conditional instructions, and the linked blog post says "non-TSX CPUs such as Ryzen [had] a noticeable improvement in performance, although not to the same extent".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> How do microcode changes actually work? My mental model of a CPU is hard baked logic paths.

<comment><USER18> Modern CPUs are more like VMs. The actual architecture is totally different from x86 and just pretending to be x86 to the outside world. X86 instructions get translated to the native instruction set of the CPU which is more or less "secret". This makes it very easy to patch issues with the CPU through microcode, as seen in this case.

<comment><USER19> I would go so far as to say that modern CPUs are emulators, not even VMs. Something like 20% of the die area is devoted to instruction decoding.

It's the only reason I'm interested in RISC-V or advanced arm stuff. Even there's a metric fuckton more effort going into the latest Intel x86_64 chip, there's a lot of silicon left on the table.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> How do the microcode upgrades get delivered? Do people have to manually install them, or do Intel have some way to force a microcode update over the Internet?

<comment><USER21> On Windows it's handled in Windows Update, and maybe there's a way to disable loading the new microcode. On Linux, it's explicitly provided to the kernel by whatever userspace you have. On Arch, for example, it's in a separate package called intel-ucode.

Some board firmware loads updated microcode when it's updated. It has to be loaded at each boot by software in order to change.

<comment><USER22> On windows you can disable / enable some of the mitigation via the registry. [https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4072698/windows- ser...](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4072698/windows-server- speculative-execution-side-channel-vulnerabilities-prot)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Read the whole thing and though it was an article, reached the Signed-off-by at the end and realized it was a commit message.

This is how a good commit message should look like! Telling what, why and how something was fixed, instead of just "fixed X".

</comment><comment><USER24> Is this related to: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21534232](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21534232)

Or do we have two bugs being fixed at the same time?

<comment><USER5> It's a somewhat unrelated bug that also had a workaround released for it recently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Does this have any affect on AMD systems?

<comment> _-___________-_ While the link is to a Linux commit message, the described change (disabling HLE) is implemented in an Intel microcode update, which of course will not have any effect on an AMD processor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is there a way to NOT get that "fix"? I don't care for security, I prefer performance. A magic kernel switch to not load new microcode? Or a switch in my distro (Debian)? Something similar to `mitigations=off` in current kernels.

</comment><comment><USER27> Each time I've seen this story today as I scrolled down the list my first though has been "Why and how did intel disable Larry Ellison on CPUs? And why didn't they do it years ago?"

Maybe it's just been a long week...

</comment><comment><USER14> They do not disable it. They only implement MSR which can allow you to disable it. If you want to stay with updated microcode and with HLE, just don't configure it as disabled.

<comment><USER8> Yes they have. The only conditionally disabled feature is xbegin/xend/xabort.

From the article:

> The other TSX sub-feature, Hardware Lock Elision (HLE), is unconditionally > disabled by the new microcode...

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What percentage of functionality has Intel already disabled on their CPUs? 25%? Soon they'll have to disable the entire CPU. It's fucking hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER29> ... in the Linux kernel.

<comment><USER13> ... in the microcode updates. Which any of your BIOS, UEFI, or OS may and likely will apply.

<comment><USER30> If you're on Linux, you may need to install a package to get µcode updates. The Arch Wiki has a particularly informative article on the subject:

[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Microcode](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Microcode)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think speculative execution is in principle incompatible with untrusted code execution. Even if CPU makers will place memory protection in front of speculative execution, and not behind as it is now, any untrusted code/bytecode can still pwn the process running it, and there is no way to work that around as such.

<comment> ben-schaaf If the only thing in the process is the untrusted code (+ interpreter) then there's nothing to pwn.

<comment><USER31> Indeed, and that's the reason why a lot of current "sandboxing" efforts are rather misguided.

There is no reason to filter syscalls from some kind of bytecode with an interpreter run with full privileges if you simply run all of that unprivileged and you already have all syscall hardened and ACLed.

But for as long as there is a remotest possibility of a process being able to get around MMU, there is no reason to do that either.</comment></comment></comment>


22 years of job creation wiped out in a day - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/01/twenty-two-years-of-job-creation-wiped-out-in-one-day.html

<comment><USER2> The crux of the article is this: "So the bottom line for me is that the venture capital business is not going to solve this problem we are in. We are going to play a role, possibly an important role, but we'll need more forms of job creation to get everyone back to work."

That, I wholeheartedly agree with. Unfortunately, it seems that it will take a while for housing prices to deflate enough and for people's wage expectation to decrease enough that utilizing American workers becomes cost effective again. Will there be enough capital around to finance the shift of production back home? Will other countries continue to underbid domestic goods? Are we in fact heading to a more "normal" level of unemployment (we have usually had a comparatively low rate, globally speaking) ?

<comment><USER3> IMHO, solving the problem will be much harder than that. US is highly based on a plan of idealized life through media. A typical lifestyle of the suburbs:

      * Multiple cars per family and doing heavy commuting.
      * Huge houses with high bills and maintenance.
      * Consumerism based on filling those houses and cars with non-essential disposable items.

All those millions living with that mindset apply those same rules at work. There are great exceptions, but their size is not relevant to the national bottom-line.

Now apply that to venture and you get what doesn't work. PG is on this problem _often_. Perhaps a bit too Socratic-style for my taste. (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method>)

I never understood how the economy worked in the US with so much waste. Now with this crisis I get it, it never did. US needs a culture shock urgently. (A bailout is more of the same, IMHO.)

<comment><USER2> It also isn't globally scalable -- consider the acres per person that the American lifestyle requires.

<comment><USER4> _consider the acres per person that the American lifestyle requires._

Progressively less over time. [http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR2...](http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR29.txt)

If Americans, engaged in their current lifestyles, constituted the entire 6.7 billion head population of the world, less land would be required than is required today.

<comment><USER3> That is just personal space, not the whole system to support it.

<comment><USER4> _That is just personal space_

No, it is _all_ of the required space. Most of the linked page regards farming space. Did you read it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Um, according to standard economic theory in the long-run equilibrium the unemployment rate is the rate of frictional unemployment and that is more-or- less of a constant. What we have is cyclical unemployment, which is temporary. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_types>

Look, someone who doesn't have a job will lower his/her price until he/she gets a job. If you are really on the verge of starvation you will become willing to work for $1, and someone will probably become willing to hire you for that little. Just like any other market, price will fluctuate and equilibrate supply and demand, clearing the market. It's just that in the short run there is price inflexibility, so the market temporarily goes out of whack. In the long-run wage is only determined by worker productivity (which is function of amount of capital and technology level), and anyone who wants a job can have one, though it may not be as high paying as she wants.

<comment><USER2> The price inflexibility is deeply ingrained in housing prices, and the regulation by the state. No matter how desperate you are, you cannot legally work for as little as someone in many foreign lands.

<comment><USER5> We are not even close to there yet. If that does become a problem, if min-wage causes 30%+ of the workforce to be unemployed, the government will lower it. They are stupid, but not that stupid. Besides, housing prices are also shaped by supply and demand. If unemployment becomes very high, housing prices will drop. Essentially what you are talking about _is_ short-run price inflexibility.

<comment><USER6> "They are stupid [ the government] , but not that stupid."

Don't count on it. There is something about government that attracts and concentrates stupidity. They discount reality, blank out unintended consequences, operate with stolen wealth, and shift blame AND cost for its failure onto its victims. In that environment its almost impossible not to be terminally stupid.

<comment><USER2> Stupid or negligent?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Fred is probably underestimating the number of jobs created by companies he funded. Companies always also create jobs in peripheral industries-- in their suppliers, for example, and in industries that use whatever tools they're building. The latter was particularly obvious to us at Viaweb. Lots of people based businesses on our software.

<comment><USER8> You can't inflate one number that way one without doing the same for the other. I suspect there are more peripheral jobs created per startup-job than are destroyed per manufacturing-layoff, though.

<comment><USER9> One of the beauties of startups, as labeled by pg, is that they can be begun with almost no capital but time -- because they don't require almost anything in the way of external equipment & services. They can be very self-contained, rather than interdependent; no supply chain needed, etc.

So I suspect that your suspicion is wrong.

<comment><USER8> You're thinking about the demand side (to be able to do X, you must do the following job-creating activities), but I'm talking about the supply side (once you've done X, it enables people to do the following job-creating activities). So a company like Wufoo or Weebly can make it cheaper for _other_ companies to grow, adding more jobs.

In fact, I'm certain Wufoo has helped create jobs, in the sense that I've filled out job applications built on Wufoo forms. The fact that Wufoo was chosen over other solutions means that, in at least some cases, the existence of Wufoo will lead to job applications being created that otherwise would not have been.

This is the point PG was making. He didn't talk about how Viaweb created lots of jobs because they bought a bunch of servers and had to pay their rent; he's talking about how they let other people cheaply start stores that otherwise wouldn't have started, connect to customers they otherwise wouldn't have found, sell products that otherwise would have sat on a shelf, and make wealth that otherwise would not have existed.

<comment><USER9> That may be true because Viaweb was the first, and for a long time, only thing that fit that description.

Wufoo, on the other hand, is just one of about 20-30 choices for online forms. Including, of course, paying a lackey on elance $15 to do it. (Now elance, they haven't created jobs, but they did do a lot to move labor around.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This post is way off base.

The VC industry is at the heart of creative destruction. And the job creation that results goes well beyond the jobs created in the VC companies themselves. There is a trickle down effect.

<comment><USER11> Care to explain in more detail?

<comment><USER10> The most sucessful VC companies are the most innovative. They produce a product or service more competitively than the alternative at a cheaper cost.

Companies which consume these products or services save money. As a result they can offer their products/services more competitively, which results in hiring (or at the very least fewer layoffs).

The bottom line is that innovation acts as a stimulus in times of recession. During times of expansion (when the economy is at full employment) it simply results in increased standards of living. I agree with barbie17 that the unemployment rate is more or less constant in the long term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It should at least be mentioned that an out of work wal-mart greeter is not equal to an out of work surgeon. This never seems to be brought in in the "lost x jobs" debate.

</comment><comment><USER13> >Well, what if there are no openings come this May--literally none. No job postings. No on campus interviews. No job fairs. This isn't a fantasy. It's happening right now.

Been there when I was in school in the late 70's and early 80's. it sucks but it didn't last forever (that time anyway).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> He suggests at the end that we need a lot more entrepreneurship. This is similar to what PG has been saying for a long time. PG says we need startups so hackers can reach their potential. Fred says the economy needs entrepreneurship. We've talked a lot about PG's ideas, but is Fred right?

</comment><comment><USER14> On the flip side, that is one guy that created 40 000 jobs in his career so far? that is really quite amazing. If that was me I would sleep very soundly with a smile on my face. He should just get up, and do it again.

<comment><USER15> i did not creat 40,000 jobs. i was at venture firms that financed roughly 200 companies over the past 22 years that created that many jobs. it's a big difference and i want to make sure people understand that

<comment><USER14> but there are a fair chunk of jobs that were created due to your involvement. I would feel pretty good and walk pretty tall if I was you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That's the least accurate headline ever written.

<comment><USER15> that's doubtful. it's sensational and that's not ideal. but sensational headlines are used all the time and many are at least equally inaccurate

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What about the jobs VCs destroy? VCs fire 2/3 of founding CEOs.

<comment><USER18> They're not destroying jobs, as there's still a CEO position that someone has to fill.</comment></comment>


The Most Credible Journalists on Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.thefactual.com/credible-journalists-covid-19 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi folks - Many of you are looking for the latest and most credible news on COVID-19. My startup, The Factual, analyzed 6000 journalists across 410 news sources who cover the topic and found the top-rated reporters.

The Factual's Credibility Grade is based on their evidence cited in the article (link and quote analysis), neutral tone of writing, author expertise (consistent focus on a topic and grade of previous articles on topic), site reputation (historical grades of all authors).

What's pleasantly surprising is that women dominated our ratings. Hopefully this gives them, and all the best reporters, more exposure.</comment>


Simple example of machine learning in TensorFlow - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jostmey/NakedTensor?bare <comment><USER2> I like these kind of "Hello, world!" examples for TensorFlow. As a TensorFlow beginner, I need all the references I can get. Here is what I need right now: "Hello, we meet again!". I can build a neural net model, and train (albeit, often badly) a model, but saving and restoring the trained weights so that I can run the model again is giving me fits. I am clearly missing something fundamental about how to restore a TensorFlow NN model.

For your next tutorial, may I suggest: 1) a list of do's and don'ts for constructing a savable/restorable model, and 2) a wee bit of example code.

Of course, now that I have discovered Keras I'm moving away from low-level direct TensorFlow. But I suspect I'm not the only one a bit foggy about the whole save/restore work flow.

<comment><USER3> As a person that uses TensorFlow for his day job:

I find that saving and restoring are of the weirder things with TensorFlow, you can either go all out an decide to save out all the variables, or only the ones needed for the model.

You usually don't want to save out gradients (which are also variables) since they take up a bunch of space and aren't actually that useful to restore. Now on the other, what are model variables -- do you want to save model variables + the moving averages ... or just the averages. But then when you're loading you'll have to "shadow" the moving averages to the real variables that actually run in your model.

Good news though, most of the scaffolding code you can write once and re-use it over and over again.

<comment><USER4> In Keras, it's just a simple model.save() [to a hdf5 file] and load_model(). This includes both the weights and the architecture.

Models with a few million parameters result in a file around ~50MB, which is still reasonable for modern production use cases.

<comment><USER5> Keras makes using deep learning for simple-ish use cases sooooo easy.

<comment><USER6> I second this - I'm really excited about Keras being integrated into the core of Tensorflow (other than the chance it might lose the Torch compatibility).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's nifty; I was looking for something like that just a few weeks ago for a work demonstration! Ended up doing [https://gist.github.com/fuglede/ad04ce38e80887ddcbeb6b81e97b...](https://gist.github.com/fuglede/ad04ce38e80887ddcbeb6b81e97bbfbc) instead.

<comment><USER8> Thank you to you and OP for both sharing these resources. Really helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wish there were more TensorFlow examples written in Go. I made the mistake of checking out TensorFlow as my first intro to ML and it flew about 10 miles over my head. Slowly learning now, but most of the documentation and tutorials are written in Python.

This blog series was also helpful on a conceptual level: [https://medium.com/emergent-future/simple-reinforcement- lear...](https://medium.com/emergent-future/simple-reinforcement-learning- with-tensorflow-part-0-q-learning-with-tables-and-neural- networks-d195264329d0#.4znc3ulur)

<comment><USER10> as a deep learning professional, the deep learning community is something like 99% Python. You'd probably better learn Python at least well enough to recreate the corresponding Go code in your mind instantly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> >>> You are one buzzword away from being a professional. Instead of fitting a line to just eight datapoints, we will now fit a line to 8-million datapoints. Welcome to big data.

LOL :) (Side-note: 8 million is still not big data)

<comment><USER12> Big Data is a reference to complexity of the data & underlying system that data represents, NOT the number of datapoints.

lol

<comment><USER13> Big data is really just a buzzword that no one knows what it really means, because everyone's definition is different

lol

<comment><USER14> I always think in terms of Munchkin: "any data that is not Big is small"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So I'm still wrapping my head around some of the math (I haven't had a math class in a handful of years)...

I get the output of the model (y_model = m*xs[i]+b), it's the y = mx + b where we know x (from the dataset) and have y be a variable.

The error is where I start to lose it, so I get the idea of the first part (ys[i]-y_model). It's basically the difference between the actual y value (from the dataset). I get that we want this number to be as small as possible as the closer to zero it is for the entire dataset that means we get closer to the line going through (or near) all the points and the closest fit will be when this total_error is nearest to zero.

What I don't get is the squaring of the difference. Is it just to make the difference a larger number so that it's a little more normalized? How do you get to the conclusion that it needs to be normalized? Same thing with the learning rate? I believe these to be correlated but I can't tell you how...

<comment><USER16> Squaring gets you guaranteed positive numbers. Remember, we are adding all the errors together to optimize the model: If we get

sum_errors_A = 4 + -3 + -1

sum_errors_B = 1 + 1 + 1

B is obviously the better model, but it has a higher error than A when comparing. If we squared all the terms and then added, B would be the stronger model.

<comment><USER15> Ah, gotcha! Makes a lot more sense now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is awesome!

I currently have a small pet project where I think some simple ML would be cool but I don't know where to start so these things are great.

Basically my use case is that I have a bunch of 64x64 images (16 colors) which I manually label as "good", "neutral" or "bad". I want to input this dataset and train the network to categorize new 64x64 images of the same type.

The closest I've found is this: [https://gist.github.com/sono- bfio/89a91da65a12175fb1169240cd...](https://gist.github.com/sono- bfio/89a91da65a12175fb1169240cde3a87b)

But it's still too hard to understand exactly how I can create my own dataset and how to set it up efficiently (the example is using 32x32 but I also want to factor in that it's only 16 colors; will that give it some performance advantages?).

<comment><USER18> [https://blog.keras.io/building-powerful-image- classification...](https://blog.keras.io/building-powerful-image- classification-models-using-very-little-data.html) is what you want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> What is the meaning of the "?bare" query string in the url? I googled around for the meaning of query strings on the github site but only found rnandom repos on github (not sure how to narrow the search). The first time I tried removing it I saw another folder named "to_do", but this is gone now so it might give a version which is cached for longer somehow?

<comment><USER19> OK, found out what a bare repository means and pretty sure that's what it refers to. Still can't find any documentation for the query string parameter and don't know how that makes sense for github's repository view page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm not sure about the rules, but shouldn't posts linking to own, personal projects be prefixed with "Show HN:"? I've seen a lot such posts lately where the poster was clearly the author as well.

<comment><USER21> No, Show HN is a different thing with its own (generally stricter) rules. You don't have to add it to things just because you happen to be the author.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think you meant bare bones.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm guessing english is not your first language, so I just wanted to point out that "bare bottom" is generally synonymous with "uncovered buttocks" ie. in the context of changing an infant's diaper.

Perhaps you were meaning to put "bare bones"? Google's definition of the latter is "reduced to or comprising only the basic or essential elements of something."

Don't want to detract from your point but I think your title is throwing some people off. I know I would be hesitant to click something at work that sounds like it could contain nudity.

<comment><USER24> I think the last example was a clASSifier, so it makes sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> "Bare bottom"? I'm not clicking on this.

<comment><USER25> Downvoted! The title might have changed now, but the original one was completely indecipherable. As far as I could tell it was genuinely some sort of image recognition algorithm for naked buttocks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Simple example? Before finishing the first paragraph, it says

"The slope and y-intercept of the line are determined using gradient descent."

What on earth does that mean? Maybe they should teach mathematics in english at universities outside of english speaking countries. German mathematics does not help here.

I wish there was a 4GL like SQL for machine learning using dynamic programming for algorithm selection and model synthesis like a dbms query planner.

PREDICT s as revenue LEARN FROM company.sales as s GROUP BY MONTH ORDER BY company.region

<comment><USER27> > _" The slope and y-intercept of the line are determined using gradient > descent."_

Slope and intercept are very standard names for the parameters of a linear regression model. Gradient descent is the name of the algorithm used.</comment></comment>


Startups Open Sourced: Stories to inspire and educate - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupsopensourced.com/

<comment><USER2> Using open source in the title doesn't seem right since you are neither talking about open source start-ups or open sourcing the book.

I don't think the word open source means what you think it means. It is a particular philosophy of writing software (or doing creative work).

Using open source in the title seems disingenuous.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've gone through a few name changes. I didn't start out calling it Startups Open Sourced, I think it started out as "Founders in School" or something close to that back in February, and then it changed to "In the Trenches" and I worried that "In the Trenches" sent an overhyped message, or set the wrong tone as this aggressive, war-story type of book. When the idea of "Startups Open Sourced" came to me, I thought it seemed appropriate, because it's like you're looking at and understanding how each of these founders work on a personal and professional level. You get inside their head and they put it all out there for you to analyze. Hiring, fundraising, finding cofounders, staying motivated, all that is talked about in depth.

As far as the process of writing the book, I'll actually 'open source' that process next weekend. I'll cover everything, from the e-mail templates I sent, to the way I recorded and transcribed the calls and edited everything.

<comment><USER3> So someone who buys a copy can redistribute it freely with changes?

<http://opensource.org/docs/osd>

<comment><AUTHOR> The 'open sourced' connotation was mostly aimed at the process of doing a startup, opening up all the complexities of that from the founders perspective and allowing others to see it and possible reuse those techniques in their own startup. Sorry if I've confused anyone on the nature of that. If I had to give it a more generic name it'd probably just be "Interviews with Startup Founders." If you want to share it with your friends, there's nothing that I can really do about that--I would just say that if you like it enough, try to purchase it.

<comment><USER3> Then quit abusing the term "open source". It has a specific meaning. The other word in the title is "Startups", would you do interviews with only established multinational companies and call it "startups"? Would you publish a cookbook and call it "startups"? Don't use "open source" unless you mean it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great content. I really enjoyed the interview with Dave Paola, the founder of djangy.com & thathigh.com. I saw his AMA on reddit a while back ([http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ev2zb/i_run_thathighco...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ev2zb/i_run_thathighcom_and_it_pays_my_rent_in_san/)) and was curious about his story. I've read Founders at Work and while it's a good read, I've been looking for interviews with more recent startups, which is exactly what this book/pdf provides. Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much for the feedback! Yeah, Dave's interview still blows my mind when I read it. Guy is a trooper!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bought a copy. Looks pretty solid. You should probably offer one free interview for download or online as a taster. Just emailed you with some more ideas.

<comment><AUTHOR> Done. <http://www.startupsopensourced.com/sample-grooveshark/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A writer is allowed to use words and common concepts in new and interesting ways - this is how new words and meanings get created. jmtame makes a good case for "Startups Open Sourced." He is providing insight into what the start up process is like. This book serves to "open source" the knowledge of starting a company, not the content.

I like the title; it's creative.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if the author realizes the irony of selling an 'open-source' book of stories ?

Just saying.

Looks interesting though. A shame I don't have much time to take this on :|

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah a little bit of irony, I hear ya =]

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I loved the Grooveshark interview. These interviews feel really personal.

</comment><comment><USER9> Can we get ePub format please ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. I'll try to get that added tonight.

<comment><USER10> Would it be possible to mail it to the fellows who have purchased the pdf copy?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'll do that. Thanks for the tip.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just purchased a copy. It would be wonderful if you could bundle it with a ePub version as well (like Hacker Monthly).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I've received several e-mails about this, I'm working on an ePub version and should have it by tomorrow or Tuesday. Send me an e-mail jmtame at gmail dot com.

Edit: just saw your other comment, I responded in that thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think you could have come up with a more appropriate title, the connection is a bit of a stretch. The content, however, looks great. I just purchased a physical copy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah it was more of a pun with an allusion/shoutout to the software/tech world, but I see that some of the HN readers don't dig it. Thanks for checking it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is this about startups which products are open source such as status.net or is it something else? Kind of confusing.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm interviewing 33 startups and they talk about how they got interested in entrepreneurship, ways they dealt with challenges such as finding cofounders, hiring, raising money, staying motivated, getting users, etc. It's the same Q&A approach as Founders at Work, but all of these guys are still in their early stages (although there are a few like Foursquare and GitHub that aren't as early stage).

<comment><USER12> So is the book open source?

edit: Got it after reading: "the book is true to its title in that it open sources the founders' personal lives and their startups".

<comment><AUTHOR> The book title is mostly referring to the idea of making the process of doing a startup as open as possible--you're getting a pretty good view into how these founders think and deal with a lot of different problems. I'm not sure why, maybe it's because I know some of the founders personally, but these interviews are definitely more honest and cadid than most interviews I've read. I have probably only seen more swearing in a book while reading Catcher in the Rye.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Game theory in practice (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21527025 <comment><USER2> > Game-theory software can even help locate a terrorist's hideout [... by > estimating] on a 100-point scale the importance a wanted man attaches to his > likes (fishing, say) and priorities (remaining hidden or [...] recruiting > suicide-bombers). Such factors determine where and how terrorists decide to > live. Game-theory software played an important role in finding Osama bin > Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, says Mr Owen

After a crescendo of unsubstantiated claims, the article finally reaches a well-known case. The claims here seem laughable. First, by all accounts, bin Laden was pretty stationary in his compound and any hot-air model of his psychology regarding fishing vs. recruiting would have been irrelevant. Second, the US government at the time would have been ecstatic to push a story about game theory finding bin Laden - it would have protected sources on the ground, the guy doing a fake vaccination campaign etc.

Regrettably, the article's agenda seems to be no more than pushing a gaggle of unsubstantiated claims that would help consultants with their magical game- theory software make money off gullible companies / governments.

<comment><USER3> > that would help consultants with their magical game-theory software make > money off gullible companies / governments

Yep. Game theory is also a great complex for generating academic papers, think tank analyses, etc.

In reality the field seems barely predictive under the best of circumstances.

<comment><USER4> Hi @arcanus, sorry approaching him here. I am an author of a paper you commented on a past thread here ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11977747](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11977747)), and we would like to share your feedback. Would you please contact me at igorsteinmacher [] gmail?

Best

</comment></comment></comment><comment> aaron-lebo It's a little frustrating how this article uses "game theory" as an abstract term that covers pretty much all of de Mesquita's analysis without really explaining _how_ it is used.

I am guessing much of de Mesquita's predictive power is less classic game theory and more of an application of his selectorate theory. [0] To oversimplify leaders stay in power through winning coalitions that are much smaller than the populace as a whole. If you can identify that small group that keeps a leader in power and analyze shifts in support within that group, you can make some interesting "predictions".

That being said BBDM while very smart is also a great marketer and he's wrong sometimes, too. [1]

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

[http://decision-making.moshe- online.com/criticism_of_bueno_d...](http://decision-making.moshe- online.com/criticism_of_bueno_de_mesquita.html#successor)

<comment><USER5> Reminds me of my mother's preferred online seer. With my skepticism, she told me to go to his site and see what he predicted. "Corruption scandal in Italian soccer league". Come on, man... pick a hard one.

But yeah, there's a lot of selection bias in these things. People remember the predictions that worked, and forget the ones that didn't. The grandaddy of these predictions: how many times has the Second Coming failed to materialise so far?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Bruce Bueno de Mesquita [...] has made some impressively accurate political > forecasts

In stories like these I always like to know how many incorrect predictions they made as well. I mean, if a squid can predict the results of a sports game, how impressive is what Bruce Bueno de Mesquita did?

<comment><USER7> A good proxy measure for the accuracy of BBdM's prediction would be how rich he got out of them. Given that BBdM's mostly concerned with macroscopic predictions about politics his claim [1] that he was right in 2/3 of his predictions, should have translated into immense wealth.

[1] Source: an old interview with him, maybe 10 years ago. I might be _wildly_ misremembering here. Sorry, no better sources.

<comment><USER8> Being correct in 2/3rds of predictions isn't enough to get rich - he could very well have gotten more things wrong than the conventional wisdom that earns $0 on average.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm always looking for interesting and practical uses for game theory.

<comment><USER10> Poker. Playing poker takes me strait back to micro classes. EV, game theory, all that.

It's also useful for describing a whole range of human interactions. Downside - when you realize people are all cynical fucks, and they all behave in a sub- optimal, selfish way.

<comment><USER11> You need game theory to realise people are shitty?

<comment><USER12> no, just to prove it

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Extremely interesting and well-written article but honestly this could use a 2011 flag ... "Technology Quarterly: Q3 2011".

</comment><comment><USER14> > a branch of mathematics called game theory, which is often used by > economists, to work out how events will unfold as people and organisations > act in what they perceive to be their best interests.

If it were really used by economists in power (e.g., in central banks or government), they would have foreseen the end of Bretton Woods, the early 80s recession, the 2000 and 2008 economic crisis, the currency race to the bottom, the strictly monotonically increasing gov't debt, the current housing price increases, ...

They might have also figured out that taxes to prevent smoking are likely to have the same effect if you apply them to employment and other productive applications.

Yet, here we are. The only question that remains is: Stupidity or malevolence?

<comment><USER15> > The only question that remains is: Stupidity or malevolence?

Stupidity. On your end. Let me address your claims one by one.

> the end of Bretton Woods

Ending Bretton Woods was voluntary. The gold standard leads to volatile inflation; look at the graph in [1]. Volatile inflation is bad because it makes transactions that take time to repay uncertain, see this video [2] for a layman explanation

> the early 80s recession, the 2000 and 2008 economic crisis

If economists at a central bank can foresee a crisis, the crisis doesn't happen. Full stop. What you are left, is, by definition, the ones people who work in regulation didn't see coming. Also note that those crises weren't foreseen by almost anyone, because of the nature of markets.

If you want to prevent crises, you need to put regulation up front that discourages the kind of short-sighted and reckless managerial and shareholder behavior that leads to those.

Hinging the stability of the economic system on the ability to catch an upcoming crisis in the making is doomed to fail, because you need a 100% accuracy (like making a system unhackable -- negative goals are much harder than positive goals).

> the currency race to the bottom

Do you mean low positive inflation, or are you buying into Donal Trump's talking points? Because if it's the former, it's intended, if it's the latter, I'm sorry to say you'll need sources to convince anyone that that's indeed something that exists.

All in all, what your post translates to is "I don't understand any of these things but I'm angry", which is not the right way to advise policy.

[1] [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/US_Infla...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/US_Inflation.png)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfM1utsEEZA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfM1utsEEZA)

<comment><USER14> > Ending Bretton Woods was voluntary.

"You can't fire me, because I quit" \- It's as voluntary as that, i.e., not. There were good reasons to have something close to a Gold standard in place but it just could not be maintained as the quantity of money in circulation increased continuously.

> If economists at a central bank can foresee a crisis, the crisis doesn't > happen.

That does not address the fact that they didn't foresee it.

> If you want to prevent crises, you need to put regulation up

Or you just don't finance crises by having a naturally determined interest rate (instead of one determined by the central bank).

> the currency race to the bottom

I mean the fact that every major central bank inflates its balance sheet in order to decrease the value of its currency and "stay competitive".

Your comment is very condescending.</comment></comment></comment>


Revenue on Medium - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-story/revenue-on-medium-5e7e6218f70c <comment><USER2> So no more boxes of ads, just integrated content and subscriptions? Obviously, this seems like a deliberate choice. It cuts out many publishers though who mostly depend on advertising for revenue</comment>


China bans individuals from registering domain names - <AUTHOR> http://www.telecompaper.com/news/article.aspx?cid=708864 <comment><USER3> How ironic is that? A country that was supposed to have been founded on (Mao's interpretation of) Marxist principles, giving power to the people over the capitalist extremes, will now refuse Internet domain to those people; _only_ businesses, those tools of capitalism, get this privilege.

<comment><USER4> I think it's clear that no Communist nation has ever succeeded in being the bastion of democratic, personal freedom that it was ever intended to be.

I actually sort of feel bad for Karl Marx. I mean, dude just wanted people to live happier lives and not worry about owning stuff so much. Now he's forever tied to some of the most oppressive regimes in modern history.

Idealism fail.

<comment><USER5> > I think it's clear that no Communist nation has ever succeeded in being the > bastion of democratic, personal freedom that it was ever intended to be.

Nuh-uh, no, you can't give him this sort of pass. He introduced the concept of "class struggle" and "class warfare" that took over so much of modern labor/monetary/commerce/market vocabulary, and specifically said that the transition to socialism/communism will take proletariat violence. The man has inspired as much harm and destruction as any person in history.

 _And he's not even right_ \- his labor theory of value is so completely flawed it's hard to know where to start debunking. He had it in mind that there was a "socially necessary abstract labor-time" of every action - <USER2> take a very limited view based on a very limited period in history. Take for instance, Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization. How much socially necessary abstract labor-time was that worth? Ten million units of necessary abstract labor-time? How much was creating GMail worth? How much abstract labor time is Picasso's best work worth, compared to Matisse?

Publius Syrius said back in Roman times, "Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it." - and so far, that's the only model we've found that does a decent job of handling contributions without going to totalitarianism. When you start letting third parties dictate value to people who want to buy and sell, you throw the world off equilibrium, you get black markets and create a new class of crime.

I'd implore you to please, please, please stop seeing Marx as a misguided would-be hero. Almost every bad person in history thought of themself that way. Marx's works were both incorrect from an academic standpoint, very emotionally appealing to certain kinds of people, and generally fostered violence and hostility between groups of people that do the best when they work together to create the best world together. Marx was no friend of humanity, and should be remembered as someone who had bad and violent ideas that led to millions of people oppressed and killed as part of the "proletariat revolution to overthrow the bourgeois". Marx brought this kind of thing:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_rouge>

Please, please get educated and stop whimsically giving him a nod. The man's philosophies have led to more misery than just about anyone else in history.

<comment><USER6> You're right, of course.

And yet Marx himself was not, himself, a despot or murderer. He was probably a pretty nice guy. Your description is therefore similarly incomplete. He can be both things. History is complicated, and not well served by summary arguments.

<comment><USER7> Yeah. All he did was _advocate_ violence, he didn't actually commit any. All around pal.

<comment><USER6> Thomas Jefferson did almost exactly the same thing. As did Nelson Mandela.

There's a pretty big moral space between advocating the overthrow of a government and the behavior of a Stalin or Pol Pot. Marx belongs to the former category, not the latter. But because of events that happened decades after his death, he's remembered as something he wasn't. His crime was being wrong, not evil.

<comment><USER8> > As did Nelson Mandela.

Yes, and he was imprisoned for it. But what made Mandela great is that he changed and became a reconciliation figure.

The young MK starter and ANCYL member did not deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. But the Mandela in 1991 did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Up to until a few years ago .fi domains could only be registered by a company or other organization matching the name of the domain.

I sort of liked that system. There were almost no vanity/"spam" domains in the TLD.

<comment><USER10> same for .it

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Another example where powers-that-have been are trying to stop inevitable future with restrictions and fines. The way it's done is noteworthy also: instead of targeting pornography on personal sites in particular they have banned any one person from having a personal site at all* . This is akin to chasing flies with a baseball bat.

*At lest independent sites that are not created through some service, a la Blogger, and which it would be labor-intense for the government to police one by one.

Edit: err, now I know how to italicize in HN

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't think this changes much. You've always needed a government license to run a server, so virtually everybody either already had government permission or was running their stuff out of Hong Kong.

This the new ban looks more like they're making sure that everybody with a .cn is "in the system". You can still start a website, you just need to go through one of the approved vendors for a domain name.

I'm not in China any more, so jhancock or some of the other China guys can probably tell you more.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hope this will be one of those rules that is never really going to be implemented/enforced, but if some websites are really already unavailable, that doesn't bode well...

</comment><comment><USER14> Meanwhile Godaddy opens Alipay (most popular one in China, kinda like Paypal) for the convenience of the Chinese.

</comment><comment><USER15> I didn't expect that something like this could ever happen... ok,it's China, but still unbelievable.

<comment><USER16> China executed people for being involved in a non-violent protest. And then they sent bills home to the relatives of the deceased for the cost of the bullets.

In that context, this sort of thing should not be the least surprising.

<comment><USER17> What happened if they refused to pay? I also wonder what would have happened if you showed it as a tax deductible in further sign of protest.

<comment><USER18> Taxes don't work quite the same as the U.S. Taxes in China for the most part are pay as you go. Payroll taxes work pretty much the same as U.S. but there is no 1040 to file each year.

As to the bullet billing, I do know a bit about that. Its something they still do and is mostly to make a social point. I have no idea if anyone actually pays and doubt there is punishment for not doing so. But no, its not tax deductible as your income was already taxed when you received your income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How difficult / expensive is it to set up a company in China?

</comment><comment><USER19> This is a very misleading article. The restriction is only on .CN domain names and is in line with plenty of other domain types around the world, for example .co.jp.

Here's the original source:

[http://business.globaltimes.cn/china- economy/2009-12/491515....](http://business.globaltimes.cn/china- economy/2009-12/491515.html)

<comment><USER17> So an individual is also prohibited from registering a .co.jp? It seams reasonable to me to restrict .gov.x or .edu.x, but .co.x?

<comment><USER20> Australia provides a .id.au for individuals. .com.au is reserved for "businesses". (Since no-one (outside of places like HN) has ever heard of .id.au we either use .com or register a bus. name to get the .com.au)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In a sense, this is good for the US economy, because it means that China is out of the game in terms of entrepreneurial activities on the web.

<comment><USER22> In what world are you living in that less competition is good?

<comment><USER15> And also, consider that even if at the moment China has no significant web activities outside its borders, the internet population in China is bigger than the one in the US or Europe, and every move/law that leads to less freedom in the access to the network could damage a potential market.

<comment><USER21> but they won't stop being a market; this law only makes it harder for Chinese people to create new web companies, which will make it easier for other countries to dominate the market.

<comment><USER18> no it won't. If you want to operated a server in China, you need a Chinese company to do it. If you operate your server outside China, the bandwidth will be so bad you won't be able to retain many users and you might get blocked. For the most part local Chinese have an advantage over foreign companies trying to operate an Internet business within China.

This move by China's gov to only allow companies to register a domain is most certainly just something to ease the trouble of overseeing site ownership and regulation. You may not agree with the regulations, but they aren't draconian (yet).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Silicon Valley ain't doing shit to make the world a better place - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@alexandrakane/silicon-valley-aint-doing-s-t-to-make-the-world-a-better-place-560731ec3ce7

<comment><USER2> Apple single handedly created a multi billion dollar industry, giving aspiring developers like me a big career opportunity, and people worldwide access to brilliant and standardized tools (medical field alone is chock full of them).

Singularity University is dedicated to solving long term global problems.

Many education startups (including mine) aim to change how basic subjects are taught and understood globally, increasing global ability and opportunity for everyone with access to a computer.

Furthermore, the "best/most helpful" inventions often come from people not at all _interested_ in that space - physicists with no interest in any commercial tech field discovering QM which led to the modern computer the most prominent example of this - so even if we didn't care about the world (which many of us do), the side effect of progress is that it makes more things possible for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER3> Off the top of my head, I can think of one counter-example to the title: Tesla.</comment>


Maybe we could tone down the JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://eev.ee/blog/2016/03/06/maybe-we-could-tone-down-the-javascript/ <comment><USER2> I work on a specialized React interface that's effectively a full-on IDE in the browser. It has an "outer" interface with navigation and search and history functionality, in addition to around a dozen full-fledged "tools" that you can switch between. We've replaced nearly every core HTML tag with a custom component, so that we have full control and can add capabilities exactly where we need to. It doesn't have to be served to anyone outside our office; it's loaded from a file server down the hall and run on powerful workstations. We have effectively no constraints WRT complexity and size. We go to no extra effort to compress our builds outside of sending it through a standard minifier.

The entire JS bundle clocks in at 4.9MB.

<comment><USER2> For the record: I wholly agree with the author, I'm just balking at Twitter's 40MB.

The app we build is the appiest of web apps, but whenever I'm working on something else I love seeing how far I can get with nothing but static HTML and some clever CSS. The purpose of SPAs was supposed to be that they were more responsive - only load the data instead of a new page! - but these days it's often _faster_ to load a whole new page if that page is lightweight than to change views with JS. That's insanely backwards.

<comment><USER3> 40MB was memory size, not bundle size.

<comment><USER2> Hmm... it's worded confusingly; at the bottom it says "Maybe scale it down a bit once you hit 40MB of loaded script per page."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is one problem with the author's request: Putting in the extra work sucks, and management doesn't care, so why bother?</comment>