Tesla's Source of Cash Has Finally Been Revealed - <AUTHOR> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/teslas-secret-source-cash-finally-164120826.html <comment><USER3> So every Tesla you buy (that helps the environment), offsets a giant 12 MPG truck driven to get grocery's (and hurting the environment)? I wonder how the environmental buyers of Tesla would feel about that...

<comment><USER4> Model S owner here. I'm OK with it. Those are going to end up as stranded assets anyway (remember when people set their SUVs on fire when gas was >$4/gallon?). It also helps keep Tesla in business.

Maybe the blame should be on poor public policy? You wouldn't sit in the garage with a running internal combustion vehicle, so why do we continue to allow them to be sold?

Disclaimer: I'm currently short the US auto industry (except Tesla) as well as the US economy as a whole.

<comment><USER5> > I'm currently short the US auto industry (except Tesla)

Do you anticipate a future where Tesla succeeds but the economy doesn't? Right now Tesla's solvency is a product of SpaceX's success, and government subsidies (credits for buyers - remember how Tesla markets their prices - <USER2> credits they can sell). The _average_ new car price is about $35,000, which means for every BMW someone's buying a low-end Corolla, and I don't see them succeeding long-term on sales if they can't start building $20,000 cars.

<comment><USER4> I expect Musk to have SpaceX acquire Tesla with StarLink revenue if Tesla nears insolvency. SpaceX being private makes this easier than him taking Tesla private directly (420 funding secured aside). Kinda looking forward to a "Musk Industries" conglomerate.

Legacy automakers lack creative financing without government bailout intervention.

Edit: I can only imagine what is capable with the combined manufacturing and R&D capabilities of Tesla and SpaceX.

<comment><USER6> What kind of time frame are you putting on this? Starlink needs to ramp up, and if Tesla is going to die, it's going to be sooner rather than later.

<comment><USER4> Tesla is collecting at least $2 billion in zero emissions credits from GM and Fiat Chrysler over the next two years. China is willing to lend cheap money to them to fund Gigafactory 3. I'm not worried.

I expect StarLink serving North American users in 12-18 months, with all sats flown on flight proven boosters already paid off by paying launch customers.

<comment><USER6> OK, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The entire article seems to be theory with a clickbait headline.

<comment><USER5> According to the article, the purchasing of credits isn't a theory. There seem to be plenty of factual statements.

"General Motors Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV disclosed to the state of Delaware earlier this year that they reached agreements to buy federal greenhouse gas credits from Tesla. While the filings are light on detail, they haven't been reported on previously. They also represent the first acknowledgments from carmakers that they're turning to Tesla for help to comply with intensifying U.S. environmental regulations."

"GM's agreement to buy greenhouse gas credits was dated Feb. 25 and reported to Delaware the following day. Pat Morrissey, a GM spokesman, said the company is buying the credits as insurance against "future regulatory uncertainties.""

"Tesla has generated almost $2 billion in revenue from selling regulatory credits since 2010. "

"During a call with prospective investors in Tesla's offerings of new equity and convertible bonds earlier this month, Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn said credit sales will be a more meaningful part of Tesla's business in the coming years."</comment></comment>


Republicans Push to Expand FBI Surveillance Powers After Orlando - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-06-14/republicans-push-to-expand-fbi-surveillance-powers-after-orlando <comment><USER2> What's wrong with court oversight that the FBI wants so badly to avoid it? There are mechanisms for emergency situations.

I would like to see the FBI's argument for why this isn't simply the bureaucratic habit of accumulating as much power as possible. I expect they have one, but I haven't seen it yet.</comment>


How software developers helped end the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/30/software-developers-helped-end-ebola-epidemic-sierra-leone <comment><AUTHOR> I think society has grown accustomed to rolling its eyes upon hearing software/web developers boldly say, "Let's save (i.e. disrupt) the world with a full-stack responsively designed Web/iPhone app"...which is what I had thought this linkbaity-sounding headline was guilty of...but I'm all for the idea of programmers saving the world by focusing on _logistics_...God, how great things would be if talented programmers could be drawn into high- visibility projects, but to apply their engineering in solving the mundane, unsexy kinds of things that computers are best at alleviating -- and be _appreciated_ for it.

A lot of well-meaning hackathons I've read about that tackle problems such as world health/hunger crisises usually look at how they can better disseminate vital information, such as where the nearest shelters/hospitals are, etc., which is usually done in a beautifully designed site/app. But I suspect that's of limited use to those in the impacted zones, not because they lack phones/computers (though...that's not a _bad_ assumption)...but because an app/site is probably not much better than a printed poster...and the well- meaning developers lack access to information and real-time data that is essential for adding value to a digital versus paper product.

But focusing on payroll? I know the adage, "an army marches on its stomach" is centuries old (and similarly, the less old adage "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics")...but I don't think I would have _ever_ zeroed on that as a pain point that was both potentially fatal to the greater mission and one in which software developers could easily tackle...and I wonder how such an insight could've been reached by the head developers if they were either working remotely, or relying on a non-programming administrator to convey the medical staffs' needs?

A post-mortem on this would be great :)

<comment><USER2> The article mentions that they heavily relied on open source software. Ever developer that contributes to open source enabled their success directly or indirectly. It's worth pondering.

<comment><USER3> (Mostly) Python baby! OpenERP and Dedupe, along with OpenBR and OpenCV.

[http://idtlabs.sl/how-open-source-software-helped-end- ebola-...](http://idtlabs.sl/how-open-source-software-helped-end-ebola-in- sierra-leone-and-what-this-can-mean-for-west-africa/) [http://idtlabs.sl/idt- labs-providing-tech-solutions-for-ebol...](http://idtlabs.sl/idt-labs- providing-tech-solutions-for-ebola-response/)

<comment><USER4> For people looking for it, OpenERP is now called Odoo: [https://www.odoo.com/](https://www.odoo.com/)

We've been doing projects based on it for the past few years, and it's pretty good as a platform, despite a few shortcomings. But the best part is using PostgreSQL as the data store!

<comment><USER5> Is there any good introduction to using / working with it? I tried to check it out once, a year or two ago, and I couldn't figure out how to bite it.

<comment><USER4> If you just want to try it out, I recommend the online demo[1], plus the official user documentation[2]. If you want to develop modules on top of it, there's technical documentation[3], which also explains how to install it locally.

A tip: visit the Settings menu, and then on the Implementation widget, you have a few step-by-step wizards for setting up the database.

There also two PacktPub books, one for functional learning[4], and another for development[5], but although the latter was written by a colleague, I've never read either, as they came too late :)

[1] [https://demo.odoo.com/](https://demo.odoo.com/)

[2] [https://www.odoo.com/documentation/user/9.0/](https://www.odoo.com/documentation/user/9.0/)

[3] [https://www.odoo.com/documentation/9.0/index.html](https://www.odoo.com/documentation/9.0/index.html)

[4] [https://www.packtpub.com/big-data-and-business- intelligence/...](https://www.packtpub.com/big-data-and-business- intelligence/working-odoo)

[5] [https://www.packtpub.com/big-data-and-business- intelligence/...](https://www.packtpub.com/big-data-and-business- intelligence/odoo-development-essentials)

<comment><USER5> Thanks a lot! I'll check it out again!

<comment><USER4> No problem. Feel free to email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you have any questions or problems, I can't say I have all the answers, but I might be able to help :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The talk itself (not a final processed version, just a "dump" of the live cast)

[https://streaming.media.ccc.de/32c3/relive/7561/](https://streaming.media.ccc.de/32c3/relive/7561/)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the link, this is one of the best talks I've watched in a long time.

EDIT: WTH, some random woman out the audience accuses his talk of been racist, this is a guy who travelled into an ebola zone, used local programmers, helped bootstrap an ERP/SMS payments system during one of the worst ebole outbreaks in history in less than 6 weeks and is continuing to work with the locals to ensure the system stays in place...and she accuses him of been _racist_ , ffs!

<comment><USER8> Maybe when Tan was mentioning the challenges, like literacy rate, she interpreted his blunt description as implying that it is this way because of the race of the people who live there?

<comment><USER7> That's a hell of a reach though and makes her even stranger.

He didn't say anything over than the facts about the literacy rate, since when are pure facts without connotation racist.

I hope it wasn't that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> and for logistic -Crowdsourced Open Map Data

"2014 West Africa Ebola Response is an activation of the Humanitarian OSM Team to provide base-map data to assist the response to this disease outbreak."

[http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2014_West_Africa_Ebola_Re...](http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2014_West_Africa_Ebola_Response) ( see "Media coverage" )

\--

Donate to HOT( Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team) today : [https://donate.hotosm.org/](https://donate.hotosm.org/)

"The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team [HOT] applies the principles of open source and open data sharing for humanitarian response and economic development."

Projects: [https://hotosm.org/projects/ongoing](https://hotosm.org/projects/ongoing)

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm imagining sorting "kilograms of bank notes" in Sierra Leone during the midst of the Ebola outbreak. Yikes.

I hope they had some good physical security (but I suspect that they didn't...)

<comment><USER11> If they were freshly printed from the central bank it would be more palatable...

<comment><USER12> Or, at the very least, more barrable.</comment></comment></comment>


GCC 8.1 Released - <AUTHOR> https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2018-05/msg00017.html <comment><USER2> I did not realise GCC supported Go until reading these release notes. What advantage/reason would I have for using GCC over the standard Go compiler?

<comment><USER3> Performance, GCC does more optimization passes than the reference Go compiler.

Supported platforms.

Also it does have some extension pragmas and is easier to use for something like trying to use Go baremetal.

<comment><USER4> Before you get too excited about possible performance wins, note that gccgo turns out to be much slower than gc (the standard Go compiler) on a lot of real workloads. Here's one such benchmark, taken recently, though it's admittedly a microbenchmark [0]. Dave Cheney found similar results, though quite a while ago [1].

gccgo didn't support escape analysis for quite a long time, which meant that the performance cost of the increased heap allocations absolutely dwarfed whatever performance gain you got from GCC's smarter optimizations. I _think_ it's recently gained support for escape analysis—it's actually quite difficult to find information about this, and whether you need a compiler flag to enable it, etc.—but I don't think that's going to tip the performance scales in gccgo's favor. EDIT: See below: 8.1 ships on-by-default escape analysis!

The primary motivations for gccgo, at least to my understanding, were a) having a second reference implementation that could find bugs in gc and the language specification, and b) support for esoteric platforms that will likely never make it into gc. The announcement of gccgo has more information about its motivation, though it makes some claims about performance that haven't stood the test of time [2].

[0]: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/golang- nuts/mjTmIkWKZ6...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/golang- nuts/mjTmIkWKZ6k/L840PrnAAAAJ)

[1]: [https://dave.cheney.net/2013/11/19/benchmarking- go-1-2rc5-vs...](https://dave.cheney.net/2013/11/19/benchmarking-go-1-2rc5-vs- gccgo)

[2]: [https://blog.golang.org/gccgo-in-gcc-471](https://blog.golang.org/gccgo- in-gcc-471)

<comment><USER5> Looks like they solved those issues in 8.1

        GCC 8 provides a complete implementation of the Go 1.10.1 user packages.
        The garbage collector is now fully concurrent. As before, values stored on the stack are scanned conservatively, but value stored in the heap are scanned precisely.
        Escape analysis is fully implemented and enabled by default in the Go frontend. This significantly reduces the number of heap allocations by allocating values on the stack instead.

<comment><USER6> "As before, values stored on the stack are scanned conservatively"

Why would values on the stack be garbage-collected at all? Do they mean scanning the stack for live references?

<comment><USER7> I read this as "if it is on the stack and looks like a reference when you squint your eyes, then we treat it as a reference" compared to objects on the heap where the GC seems to know the exact location of all references.

<comment><USER8> Right that's the standard conservative garbage collection. However, new results show that it's significantly worse than a precise collector (reference pending).

<comment><USER9> I'd love to see that reference, as I've not yet seen an example where this was true in practicd, but know several examples where it is definitely false (e.g. we use a modification of the Julia GC which uses consevative stack scanning to allow interop with another system, and it seems to perform very well).

<comment><USER8> Sorry for the late follow up. Hopefully you're still around to notice. Apparently there was previous HN discussion on this, but I haven't seen it (or looked for it): [https://www.excelsiorjet.com/blog/articles/conservative- gc-i...](https://www.excelsiorjet.com/blog/articles/conservative-gc-is-it- really-that-bad/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Some code that compiled successfully with older GCC versions might require > source changes, see > [http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-8/porting_to.html](http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-8/porting_to.html) > for details.

I followed the link, and almost all of the changes are C++ related. The exception is a change to the way some Fortran subroutines are called from C.

</comment><comment><USER11> Hm, I don't see any mention of D, which is what I was most excited about. I know that D has been merged into gcc, but is it not there for this release yet? Will it be in the next release?

edit: Oh well, gdc 8.1 is there in the Debian repos. I'll ask Iain Buclaw what happened. Maybe gdc will get released with the next gcc. Looks like the merge wasn't quite complete in time for 8.1. I can be patient.

<comment><USER3> Apparently the process was stalled again. Check the forums.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Cool new/improved warnings:

> The -Wrestrict option introduced in GCC 7 has been enhanced to detect many > more instances of overlapping accesses to objects via restrict-qualified > arguments to standard memory and string manipulation functions such as > memcpy and strcpy.

> The -Wold-style-cast diagnostic can now emit fix-it hints telling you when > you can use a static_cast, const_cast, or reinterpret_cast.

</comment><comment><USER2> Link to the release notes: [https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-8/changes.html](https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-8/changes.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> > signed integer overflow is now undefined by default at all optimization > levels

Now I'm all for this at -O1 and above, but having this enabled by default and -O0 [0] is just reckless. Default/-O0 should consist of only completely safe transformations like constant folding, with UB-based stuff only performed when optimizations are explicitly enabled.

[0] compare [https://godbolt.org/g/ufDu1n](https://godbolt.org/g/ufDu1n) on trunk vs the behavior on 7.3 and below

<comment><USER14> I think your complaint is reasonable, but I also can see their logic in making what's considered UB consistent for -O0 and other optimization levels. The reason is that for most use cases, I think it's pretty typical to develop and debug with -O0 and compile for release with stronger optimizations and other options basically unchanged. There's an argument that in this case, making UB consistent for -O0 might expose code that relies on UB earlier in the process, whereas before it may have been found much later (or never!).

I understand that there are some use cases where teams release binaries compiled with -O0 if they've identified that avoiding unexpected effects of aggressive optimization is more important than raw performance. But in this case, it seems like the right solution is to allow such teams to specifically opt in to allowing overflow via -fwrapv.

<comment><USER15> You can not expect any consistency with UB.

<comment><USER14> I don't disagree, and I'm not sure what about my comment would suggest that I expect consistency there. What I was arguing was that any code relying on UB is dangerous / broken, so it's a good idea to surface any underlying code issues at all optimization levels by standardizing how it's handled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I greatly appreciated the implementation of AddressSanitizer in gcc7, and am happy to see it receive more attention in gcc8. Thank you!

<comment><USER17> Just to be clear, ASan is available in GCC since 4.8:

[https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.8/changes.html](https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.8/changes.html)

<comment><USER16> Wow. I had no idea. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Has anyone had luck getting newer versions of gcc to run on a Parallella board (16-core Epiphany RISC SOC and Zynq SOC (FPGA + ARM A9))?

It still has 4.9 which isn't bad, I'd just like to use new c++ functionality.

</comment><comment><USER19> If anyone wants to try this release for C and C++ languages, I have created a Docker image based on Alpine Linux, which you may use. [https://hub.docker.com/r/infinitecoder/gcc/tags/](https://hub.docker.com/r/infinitecoder/gcc/tags/)

</comment><comment><USER20> > The C++ front-end now has experimental support for some parts of the > upcoming C++2a draft, with the -std=c++2a and -std=gnu++2a options, and the > libstdc++ library has some further C++17 and C++2a draft library features > implemented too.

Wow, did they finish C++17 support already?

<comment><USER21> When is C++ getting simple networking support in its stl? Is it this C++2a?

<comment><USER22> Yes; C++20 seems likely. See [https://isocpp.org/std/status](https://isocpp.org/std/status)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Does it break Boost libraries? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boost_(C%2B%2B_libraries)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boost_\(C%2B%2B_libraries\))

<comment><USER24> Every new version of GCC breaks some kind of Boost related stuff for us. I haven't tested, but I'm going to assume it does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Unfortunately gcc-dlang/gdc is not on this release.

</comment><comment><USER26> The start of the release notes sounds like the start of an infomercial ;)

"Are you tired of your existing compilers? Want fresh new language features and better optimizations? Make your day with the new GCC 8.1!"</comment>


George Hotz Is Giving Away Self-Driving Software - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/qa-why-exhacker-george-hotz-is-giving-away-selfdriving-software <comment><USER2> This seems like the kind of end-run around the system that tech folks tend to think is a clever life hack, only to find out that legal/regulatory bodies aren't fooled. Like trying to convince the judge that you weren't speeding because if you set your frame of reference inside the car, it was the _road_ that was speeding, backwards!

I only hope that the folks hand-rolling this onto their cars don't injure too many people in their attempt to "disrupt" cars.

<comment><USER3> This isn't some "clever trick". It is genuinely not illegal to release a bunch of code open source on github.

The Government asked him to not sell his product, so he complied with the government's request.

<comment><USER4> It is an ethically shitty move, though. The software is not properly tested. People will run it thinking it's legit and probably some will get hurt or die. The law doesn't matter.

<comment><USER5> It's ethically shitty to release open source software now? People who pull down some source from Github that has 4 commits, thinking it's legit and rely on it to drive your car are probably not too many. Those that do, are generally hard to protect from themselves in any area of life.

<comment><USER6> 7 years ago I completed a PhD developing the first control software for quadrotor drones. I mention this only to give a sense of time. Now every idiot with an arduino and a github account can crash one into my family at the park. Do you think the adoption of shitty self driving technology by unequipped amateurs will follow a different path?

<comment><USER7> The cost of both entry and failure for hacking on quadcopter vs car is orders of magnitude apart?

Unless you know something about the upcoming price of cars that you'd like to share ;).

<comment><USER6> Really?

In 5 years how many cars will be equipped with the basal level of sensors that make these sorts of hacks possible? My guess is more people will have compatible cars in their house than qudrotors....

Cost and chance of failure is poorly (or not at all) evaluated by the kinds of dangerous beginners likely to crash their car-pilot into a bridge.

<comment><USER7> The point wasn't about the ubiquity of the feature set in cars but rather the cost of bricking one/crashing one being well beyond what it is for a quadcopter. And the point still stands.

The people who are out there with quadcopters are the same people who would be doing these hacks at home on cars; some hobbyist/tinkerer subset of nerd.

I don't share your low opinion of their threat evaluation functions either.

<comment><USER6> Fair enough. Agree to disagree then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wouldn't it better if he pivoted to self-parking?

At $700 a kit that allows car to drive by itself to garrage, open it, park would be so attractive.

Driving through parking lot seems to be way easier than fully autonomous car.

<comment><USER9> You mean finding an empty spot and parking ? interesting small scope project.

<comment><USER8> Yes. Or even let me walk out of the car at front door and let it drive to garage spot.

Pros:

\+ parking is one of the least favorite part of driving. It also eats a lot of time.

\+ low-speed makes it much easier, you can stop at any time. Also stopping and asking human for help would be acceptable.

\+ 360 sensors are superior to human vision in parking situation.

\+ parking accidents are usually minor. Self-driving car getting minor bump, scratch is much easier to swallow them someone getting killed, injured.

\+ you can implement valet parking for free. E.g. Self-driving valet that gets 30% discount would be so much welcomed in San Francisco.

<comment><USER10> Also, if you're late to work and can't find a free parking spot, you can let the car circulating until it finds one, while you can head to work.

But this would add other problems to cope.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I might be missing something, but most of the critical code seems to be binary. It only supports two car models. So unless you own those two and are willing to let no-warranty indie code which you cannot see drive you around, this is a solid no-no.

<comment><USER12> I noticed that too. [https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/master/selfdrive/v...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/master/selfdrive/visiond/visiond)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It would be interesting to have somebody who was knowledgable in the area of self driving cars to analyze his code. I mean it seems like he might benefit from a combination of learning a few things and some level of humility. I mean, Kalman filters, and even the algorithms used to lower the noise in images and radars were not invented overnight but when it comes to a car that may easily kill somebody it seems like it's worth it to be a bit cautious about learning about potential pitfalls to different algorithms and technologies. I mean build all the self driving car algorithms and cars that drive on test tracks, but if one of his cars ran over my kid, or anybody else's kid, then the price of progress is too high.

</comment><comment><USER14> Serious question. He seems to lack tact, saying Ford never did anything remotely useful in computer science. Why would his investors let him piss off their potential acquirers that way?

<comment><USER15> He basks in controversy. It greatly detracts from what he is hoping to achieve- automate humans traveling in large metal contraptions at 70mph. This is not an area for inflated egos.

<comment><USER16> "Move fast, break things"; eventual body count not withstanding, this is literally silicon valley's ethos for the last 15ish years expressed via temper tantrum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A somewhat critical point of view from a month ago on George Hotz, comma.ai, and engineering ethics for this category of software:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3Cor8E9...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3Cor8E9U1Z4J:http://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2016/11/01/thoughts- on-george-hotz-and-the-death-of-the-comma-one/)

</comment><comment><USER18> He says it's better than anything other than the Tesla, yet he ran away the moment NHTSA looked into his project. I've been around long enough to know when something smells like bs, looks like bs, and sounds like bs...it's bs.

<comment><USER19> I could imagine NHTSA was pressing him too early for his taste. I don't know Hotz personally, so I can just guess his motives, but if it was me I might react in the same way. After all, this is basically still a hobby project (although announced like a product and made by a very clever guy). Who knows if he even has the money and time to implement NHTSA's demands?

<comment><USER20> The NHTSA seemed to only request for comma.ai to push back a release date until further testing happened.

As for the money

>Well, we have Andreesen Horowitz [the VC firm], which provided $3.1 million, and we spent under $1 million to do all of this.

<comment><USER21> I am interested where's the profit behind this funding, if it's given away?

Or the funding is just to buy the person/people/team to make some innovative products or work in some other self driving car research teams?

<comment><USER22> The experience won while writing that code could be a lot more valuable than the code itself. If ever a car company was interested in building on top of what comma.ai has done so far, they would hire (or acqui-hire, that's the VC bet) the heads and have them rewrite the code together with more formal engineers.

But when nobody is buying comma.ai, nothing of that will happen. The (little, given the domain) money invested will only have been sponsorship of a romanticized take on hacker culture. Which may actually have been a contributing factor in the investment decision here, this a frugal garage operation, not a fast-burning startup with fancy offices.

Open sourcing some code can create visibility, without it we would not be talking about this today. From the investment perspective, opening this code is clearly a hail-mary-pass. There are situations when those are the best course of action and I think this is one of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I remember when we did lane image recognition in Matlab on uni, I felt like a master hacker. This was like 10 years ago.

Sure this is more advanced tech, but seriously, we should be far far further in the development of these.

I still have my tinfoil-hat hope that all these technologies are ready made and resting in a drawer, and companies are just milking the fossil fuel era as long as they can, and teasing us with this crappy progression meanwhile.

<comment><USER24> How would self-driving detract from fossil fuels? It should increase total demand for fuel.

<comment><USER25> Self-driving tech would make vehicle sharing much easier, which would in turn allow people to use vehicles properly sized for their _current_ need.

In other words, people wouldn't need a big honkin' SUV or truck most of the time, and could ride around in something smaller with just the fuel range they need for that trip.

Also, traffic might get better. If everything became automated it might even be possible to eliminate traffic lights.

<comment><USER26> There would likely be vehicle sharing benefits, but self driving cars are apt to make traffic worse. Your average 8 lane freeway will still only be able to carry 11k cars an hour assuming everyone has minimal stopping distance & is driving at 40mph for ideal throughput.

Traffic lights are also unlikely to disappear, as self driving cars do not magically get perfect traction or stopping abilities, and they will have to share the road with the other humans that exist on our streets, whether they be pedestrians, bikers, joggers, skateboarders, etc.

In contrast, a light rail alignment can move 20k people an hour. It also won't reduce traffic, but it'll slow traffic growth by reducing latent transport demand and allow cities to remain economically viable as traffic increases.

<comment><USER9> The notion of traffic will probably shift if energy becomes cheap and navigation doesn't require human attention. You don't need shortest path, and can redirect flow freely in smaller places. Unless you're in a hurry.

<comment><USER26> Unlikely, at peak times most alternate routes are already at or above capacity, energy & navigation dropping in cost will not make more road capacity suddenly appear, and the point of diminishing returns with road capacity is very low. When you try to ignore that you end up like Atlanta, which is no joy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There are countless auto manufacturers around the world. I was surprised to see the length of the list:

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

I'm sure some percentage of these are willing to move faster than the major brands we know in the US. This strategy by Cruise could help then reach these smaller companies, some of whom surely have more flexible regulatory environments. Especially for local companies.

<comment><USER28> FYI that list also contains manufacturers that went out of business a long time ago. The first one I looked at immediately said "The company [Minerva] became defunct in 1956". For some countries this is explicitly mentioned with a "defunct" headers, but not everywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> In which countries is it legal to install a DIY actuator system like this one?

</comment><comment><USER30> He is not releasing visiond binary, the main part of the project though. Can't say with certainty buy I don't doubt it was a little of a publicity stunt

<comment><USER31> > not releasing visiond binary

Nit: he did release the binary[0] he just didn't release its source, and there's a README that mentions this:

> Contact us if you'd like features added or support for your platform.

But I totally agree that it is pretty fishy to provide the source, especially in an "open-source" project...

[0] [https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/master/selfdrive/v...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/master/selfdrive/visiond/visiond)

[1] [https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/tree/master/selfdrive/v...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/tree/master/selfdrive/visiond/)

<comment><USER30> yeah, the source, my bad. The blob is available

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Am I missing something? I only see the dataset available but no source code.

<comment><USER33> As typical for this type of article, it's poorly linked.

Here's the code: [https://github.com/commaai/openpilot](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot)

<comment><USER34> Wow, this codebase is alarmingly bad. No tests. Comments like "TODO: actually make this work" all over the place. I can see why geohot is terrified of regulators.

<comment><USER35> Apropos, [https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/issues/5](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/issues/5)

bneiluj > There is no test suite. Unit tests or E2E tests.

Geohotz > Pull request please!

mgraczyk > We have unit tests which have not yet been open sourced, because we haven't yet set up automatic testing on Github. [...]

Wat.

In what world is it acceptable to elide the test suite for your product because you don't have automatic testing setup on your repository host? Are your tests in a completely separate repo... (checks the repo history) no, you've just dumped a snapshot of your development in a git repo and pushed it to github.

I really don't want to sound snide... this project has the capability to be so _cool_. It's just... well, if someone hands you what they say is a magic box that you can trust your life to and that box is manky and leaks strange fluids all over the shop (and it really isn't supposed to do that)... what would you think? Is that box magic? Will that box save your life?

It certainly doesn't give the engineer in me great confidence in the quality of their system if this is quality of the piece they're proud enough to show everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Looking at that github repo, its a handful of python scripts with around 30 odd commits? Am I missing something or is this really what is the core implementation of a complex thing such as a self driving car software?

Edit: Someone else in this thread commented that the repo linked in the article isn't the right one and apparently this is where the code resides [https://github.com/commaai/openpilot](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot)

<comment><USER37> Previous discussions came to the same conclusion, with the added realization that Python has no hope of maintaining the consistent latency required by a hard-real-time task such as driving a car.

<comment><USER9> I don't know how much bandwidth and complexity is involved in processing the single cam setup, maybe with a recent core i7, the variability of python is swallowed by the cpu performance.

That said, Hotz claimed to have read state of the art papers, but it doesn't seem he meant hard real time physics/mechanics computations; probably neural net, computer vision and deep learning. Hacker way ?

<comment><USER38> _I don 't know how much bandwidth and complexity is involved_

It's not about bandwidth or complexity, it's about latency. And no, even a recent core i7 can be stalled for long enough to cause underruns in a simple audio stream.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Torn. Concerned about safety, but wanting this to be open source and not vendor locked in...

<comment><USER40> it only works on 2 cars.. that have a tech package. Might as well buy it from the vendor

<comment><USER41> Vendors who will use his tech, now, 'cause it's free and better than what they could craft. His point is to offer his services to vendors. What's available now amounts to a demo.</comment></comment></comment>


Scientists have located an algal virus that attacks human DNA - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/american-researchers-discover-stupidity-virus-283319 <comment><USER2> One of the interesting things about tap water is that it periodically suffers from algae 'blooms' (which is addressed by chlorine but the remnants of the algae persist. I've asked Dr Yolken for a copy of the paper and if they have checked that vector. Once again I find myself thinking I should get a DNA sequencer so that I could analyze my own tap water more quickly.

[1] Original paper -- [http://www.pnas.org/content/111/45/16106.abstract](http://www.pnas.org/content/111/45/16106.abstract)

<comment><USER3> When the Oxford Nanopore MinION comes out of the early access trials, you will actually be able to do this for a cost of somewhere around $1000.

<comment><USER4> Illumina already sells a $1,000-genome machine. By the way, what's happened with the ambitious SV-based Halcyon Molecular, which was supposed to deliver a $100-genome sequencer?

P.S. Halcyon has shut down 2 years ago [1].

[1] [https://gigaom.com/2012/08/19/halcyon-molecular-quietly- shut...](https://gigaom.com/2012/08/19/halcyon-molecular-quietly-shuts-down/)

<comment><USER5> Actually, Illumina's $1000-genome machine is 10 machines, and the way you get the $1000 genome cost is by running around 18000 samples thru in a year.... And when the bioinformatics folks talk about a '$1000 genome', they actually mean the cost of reagents.

<comment><USER4> This is what I meant [1]. It seems that only a few Australian companies do this for external parties for about $1,500/genome. I'm tired of waiting for the price to get down and to be offered publicly - is it possible to do personal sequencing somewhere in the US below $2,000? Is there another way? I don't mind donating my genome if there are ways to get this cheaper (or free) and do more if necessary.

[1] [http://systems.illumina.com/systems/hiseq-x-sequencing- syste...](http://systems.illumina.com/systems/hiseq-x-sequencing-system.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 92 volunteers, 43.5% were infected -> exactly 40 volunteers were infected, and 52 weren't. Then they claim to have found that the infected sample performed "10% worse" on intelligence tests.

Intellectual performance follows a gaussian distribution. If you take two random samples, one of 40 people, and one of 52 people, and you average the IQs in each sample, the probability that you will find a deviation 10% or greater one way to another is over 50%... in this particular case, to compute the probability of the null hypothesis precisely we would need the exact result distribution on the tests they used, but in any case, take these results with a pinch of salt.

<comment><USER7> I thought: E[IQ] = 100, SD[IQ] = 10 then SD (for n = 37) = (10 / sqrt(36)) =~ 2

So a 10 point deviation between groups is 5 sd's, p <.001 ?

<comment><USER8> Guys, we're programmers here not statisticians:

def test():

... n1 = numpy.average(numpy.random.normal(100,15,52))

... n2 = numpy.average(numpy.random.normal(100,15,40))

... return abs(n1-n2) / ((n1+n2)/2.0)

...

>>> vals = [test() for i in xrange(0,1000)]

>>> numOver10 = len([v for v in vals if v > .1])

>>> numOver10

2

<comment><USER9> Crucial in your code is the standard deviation of 15. Where is that coming from?

Ah, I see. Standard IQ normalizations.

<comment><USER8> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a preliminary research study and may not be replicated. Things I would want to know, after a replication study is published, is what the effect size is across more than one animal model (both mice and rats should be tried, and different strains of inbred mice with known differences in cognitive performance on mouse cognitive tasks should definitely be tried). I would also want a broader survey of human patients from more different parts of the world to see how many human beings show the same clinical sign the authors report here. And I'd want some of the human surveys to include very young participants, to see if rates of purported infection increase as human beings age. Right now, if I were to bet on this, my bet is that this result doesn't even replicate. (That's a reasonably good bet, as only about 50 percent of all scientific first findings, even those that have been published in a peer- reviewed journal, ever do replicate.)

</comment><comment><USER9> > Researchers found no connection between slower brain function and variables > such as differences in sex, education level, income, race, and even > cigarette smoking.

They have 92 observations. I don't think they have enough data to control for these sufficiently.

</comment><comment><USER11> If this is real and a cure can be developed, think about the huge free boost it gives to humanity in total since it might affect such a large amount of people. On the other hand, I'm skeptical. With such drastic effects, wouldn't the evolutionary pressure for the immune system to deal with it have been tremendous?

<comment><USER12> Since it apparently doesn't affect sexual performance much, would it?

Also it might be the case that the infection vector is something relatively new to us, something not present in the ancestral environment, like the tap water idea of ChuckMcM - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8608780](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8608780).

<comment><USER13> If it lowers intelligence and/or increases response time, it could affect survival. It's not enough to be able to reproduce, you have to live long enough to do it. So, yes, it would be subject to selection pressure.

<comment><USER14> Subject to pressure yes, annhilated by it, no. Does natural selection really affect human population anymore? Genuinely curious, because what I see is that the the people with tons of kids aren't usually the most intelligent one (anecdotal evidence, of course)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of that cat virus linked to schizophrenia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii)

<comment><USER16> It's not a virus, it's a protozoan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I suppose it would be a gross overreaction to rush out and try to get to tested for this virus?

<comment><USER18> Yes. I'm not sure how you would either, unless you have access to a genetics/microbiology lab and the expertise to cluster and interpret the data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The researchers at this lab do lots of other interesting work: [http://stanleylab.org/staff/](http://stanleylab.org/staff/)

(Or at least things that have been hot on HN lately, e.g. Toxoplasmosis)

</comment><comment><USER20> I posted this a few days ago here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8583393](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8583393)

</comment><comment><USER21> So they tested a bunch of people, and found that those of them who regularly eat algae are a little less intelligent. Well, yeah.

<comment><USER22> The Japanese regularly eat algae. Are they less intelligent?

<comment><USER23> Sweetwater algae vs saltwater algae is quite a difference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> That is absolutely terrifying. I don't want to know what applications the DOD comes up with once the vector is known...

<comment><USER25> Yeah, I will never again eat "Made in China" candy.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which board game would you play online? - <AUTHOR> Hi there, like most people in the west now I currently am confined.
Thus I would love to play risk or other board games with my friends and people online. I've been struggling to find decent quality games (I've mostly looked for a risk and it was either full of flash games or of barely playable UI sites).
Would you know good online board games to play during the confinement ? Else would you be interested if I built something ?(probably a Risk but suggestions are more than welcome) <comment><USER2> [https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/On- line_Games&redirected...](https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/On- line_Games&redirectedfrom=Online_Play#)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/9azbnw/is_there...](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/9azbnw/is_there_any_nice_online_site_to_play_boardgames/)</comment>


PG Is Not a Fan of Shark Tank - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/business-insider/mark-cuban-chris-sacca-paul-graham-twitter-feud.html <comment><USER2> SharkTank and YC are different products for different people. What is the biggest success SharkTank has had? Are they building multiple billion dollar businesses?

How many low-tech manufactured products has YC created?

I somewhat agree with Sacca, and completely see PGs point. But I think everybody is looking at things through the lens of their view of what an entrepreneur is.

ps. I hate saying I feel pg is wrong, feels like I must be making a mistake :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think part of the misunderstanding is with a virtual product you can cheaply iterate. With products that have a production cycle and physical costs associated with changes you need to sell what you have to fund next the cycle R&D.

</comment><comment><USER4> He is absolutely right. Shark Tank is a show. Startup is a business. If you are in showbiz and looking for fun you should go there. Otherwise focus on customers.

<comment><USER3> Completely disagree. 90% of the companies on shark tank would be completely un-fundable through any other process including YC. Can't see how sponge-daddy would have ever made it into YC yet alone been successful had they even went through YC. And I doubt airBNB would have worked with Shark Tank. 2 completely different worlds. Both doing very good things for entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER2> As I'm reading it, you and pashakym are making the same argument. Not sure why they are getting down voted.

<comment><USER3> "If you are in showbiz and looking for fun you should go there." Makes it sounds like the businesses on shark tank aren't real businesses. I would argue that any business were you made out better then if you worked for someone else is a win.

<comment><USER4> This is my personal opinion. This show might (only might) bring you a few users. However, I think it's a huge distraction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> PG is so insufferable in text form. I've listened to his live speeches and it's like an entirely different person. Maybe chalk it up to the limits of tone over text, but it's a consistent pattern.</comment>


German news article about TempleOS - <AUTHOR> http://www.golem.de/news/templeos-goettlicher-hardcore-1508-115081.html

<comment><USER2> Is it a good idea to start linking content in other languages? It's a way of fracturing the community, somewhat. Do we want this?

edit: Could the downvoters please provide an opinion and not just a downvote?

<comment><USER3> [Spanish speaker here, to be more precise es-ar.]

I can read technical articles in probably in 5 languages, but I prefer that the posts are in English. (Sometimes the technical terms get mangled in the translations to Spanish, and the only way to read the article is to mentally untranslate it to English.)

I think that post in other languages are ok if they have some information that is not available in English, in particular if they are the original source and they don't have an official translation. (And they are interesting, of course.) [1]

I submitted one or two articles in Spanish without too much success, but I always add the Google autotranslation link as a comment.

I remember a few articles in other languages that got popular. An old article about drawing Homer Simpson in CSS (in Spanish), a recent article about a strange keyboard (in Japanese) and a few about government surveillance in German and ¿Norwegian?.

[1] For example, an article about the difference between the <br /> tag and the <p> </p> tag in another language is not a good candidate, because there is a lot of information about this in English. (Unless it discusses the low level details of the implementation in different browsers and how the vertical space interacts with the vertical space of other tags.)</comment></comment>


Kubernetes CRI-O tutorial - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kelseyhightower/cri-o-tutorial <comment><USER2> Could this all be inside a kubelet process? It seems like more moving parts to manage.</comment>


Grandpa Had a Pension. This Generation Has Cryptocurrency - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/style/what-is-cryptocurrency.amp.html <comment><USER2> dupe [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14925135](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14925135)

</comment><comment><USER3> So much hype for a crypto lately. Crypto is not a solution, it is a simple, violent and uncertain option.

If you want to bet your pension on Crypto cool, but diverse your packages. Bet amount you can lose (let say 10% of your fund). At worst you will have a more humble life when you are old.

<comment><USER4> Violent? Do you mean volatile?

<comment><USER3> I would say violent, but volatile as well. Violent in the meaning of the market lack of regulation causes it to be potent on to manipulators and power houses with tools to wipe out market value in a blink of an eye, attack targets and act when they could quickly benefit.

<comment><USER4> So not violent at all except in your unique definition of violent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Traditional pensions are much less volatile. Cryptos might be dangerous as pensions.

<comment><USER6> Wayyy more dangerous than pensions. I love the idea of BTC as retirement fund, and that's kinda how I treat it now -- throwing money occasionally into it and hoping it's a nice sum in 20 years. But at least I know it's likely gone.

<comment><USER7> Really ? I think you vastly overestimate the security of pensions.

There's 2 factors. Firstly, inflation. Inflation targets are 2% per year, and despite the last few years, we've generally been above that level. At 3,2% inflation, real money halves every 20 years (government calculators assume 7.5%). So if you're promised, say $60k per year at age 20, what you're actually being promised at 65 is a little under 1/4th of that, or $15k per year, and by the time you die at 85 or so, about 1/8th of that amount.

Secondly, at this point loads of people in Greece [2], Austria, Poland, and various American states (most famously [1]) have seen ridiculous reductions in pensions, to the rate of having their pensions reduced by something like 75%, sometimes more.

Given how well pensions are funded, this has to happen to a lot of pensions in the near future (public, and private alike). There's 2 options: either the pension funds themselves go insolvent, and you're screwed, or your pension is inflated away (most likely option) and the amount stays the same but it's not worth much anymore.

Some reading for the interested:

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2016/08/05/who- will-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2016/08/05/who-will-bail- out-insolvent-union-pension-funds/#59bccdbf4354)

[2] [https://www.ft.com/content/f6be12b2-f3ae-11e6-8758-687615182...](https://www.ft.com/content/f6be12b2-f3ae-11e6-8758-6876151821a6)

There has not been any state I know of that has always kept it's pension promises, even in the short time they have existed (mostly since WWII). The US hasn't. No European state has (I checked 5 northern European ones, the Netherlands hasn't, France hasn't, Belgium hasn't, the UK (let's just shut up about the UK, it's just sad), Germany hasn't. Now just so we're clear: what I mean by this is that, for instance, they retroactively changed (lowered) the pensions they originally promised to public sector workers in their contract (happened to my father). If any private employer did this is would be fraud and theft, but of course governments see no issues.

If you are <40 today, I would say the odds of you actually seeing your pension are about 50/50 at best, less if you're in Europe. And I'm talking about that 1/4th inflated away amount of the amount you were promised, not more.

<comment><USER6> The odds of BTC yielding anything in 20 years are hard to quantify, but I think 50/50 sounds about right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What a strange article and outlook by the subjects. I cannot fathom the insanity or genius of cashing out and putting everything in a second tier cryptocurrency!

</comment><comment><USER9> right.. pensions invest in bonds and insurance products (=slow steady returns... allegedly). Crypto (which I do invest in), is a highly volatile and speculative instrument which may gain or lose value quickly. It's not the type of thing I would invest my 401K in, but with a little bit of money, it's possible to hold it and see what happens. I think the advantage is of this (for the avg retail investor like me) is that it's brand new and wall street hasn't completely sucked the value (volatility?) out of the instrument (yet) so it may be possible to make a little extra with it (assuming it continues to be make progress into the financial infrastructure).</comment>


No One Peer-Reviews Scientific Software - <AUTHOR> http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/10436.html <comment><USER2> I work in a fairly large scientific collaboration. Our data sets are on the scale of a few hundred terabytes per year. So, there's a lot of software to convert from the bits that stream out of the detectors to something that end users (grad students) can analyze.

We have a software group devoted to maintaining the core code. Our code has a nightly autobuild for development code and libraries are released every couple months.

The code is based on the ROOT package (about one million lines of code) maintained by folks at CERN and is well established within the community and elsewhere. Our libraries probably come to about a million more lines of code, which is maintained scrupulously by our collaboration.

Now neither of these sets of code actually do any analysis, they just make it so that the data is usable. In my analysis, there is probably ~10k lines of code to do the analysis and make the figures. In total, there's probably 500k or more lines of analysis code that is not officially maintained.

That doesn't include all of the code loaded onto FPGAs and custom chips reading out the detectors or the code in the trigger system. Nor does it include code written into various simulators used to determine "expected" response of the detectors.

So for peer review to look at code at the level suggested, people would have to look over literally millions of lines of code. To even be able to make it run, a user would have to set up an environment that would take between a few days and a week.

Instead, when I go to publish something, I lay out both my method and how I verified that it works. Reviewers then check that my method is sound and that my verification looks right. They have to trust that I implemented the method as I said I did.

In my collaboration, there is actually an internal review process that verifies code runs and for which a much longer private note must be written to explain all of the details of the analysis. However, there is still a high level of trust that everything was implemented as stated. This review does not qualify as "peer" review because it's conducted by people who will be listed as authors.

While I agree that more review is better than less, I hope this comment illustrates why software peer review is not a reasonable expectation.

<comment><USER3> The code I wrote for my simulations is not that big, but it's certainly big enough to be complicated and buggy. And it's GPL and available on my website.

And while I certainly don't expect any of my referees to go over the code line-by-line, one of the rationales I had for GPLing the code was to make it _possible_ for someone to replicate my study. One of the basic tenets about publishing research is that articles should contain all the information needed to reproduce the results. This is not possible for simulation papers unless the source code is public (or maybe a binary is provided, but that has many pitfalls by itself).

Results generated with proprietary codes could just as well be hokus-pokus in my mind. It's not clear how it adds to the field unless others can reproduce and build on the results. And with reasonably complicated codes, it's not realistic to think that someone will implement their own version (though that is of course the absolute best thing).

So while I don't necessarily think scientific software should be peer reviewed, I'm very hesitant about results obtained with proprietary software.

<comment><USER4> What's your view on the mountains of scientific code that depend on proprietary math kernels and in some cases proprietary compiler platforms?

<comment><USER3> As you may guess, I'm unhappy about it. In astronomy, almost everyone uses IDL, which is a proprietary, closed-source language. (It also sucks, but that's beside the point.) I think this is bad, because it locks practically the entire research field into a closed platform. (Though GDL is working to be a replacement. I don't know how conformant it is, though.)

Still, I think this is less of a problem than the high-level scientific code. Most of the low-level functionality is pretty simple and (hopefully) much better tested than most scientific codes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I did my Ph.D. in a field requiring complex computer simulations. This article, like most climate "skeptic" critiques, is a logical fallacy writ large. A kernel of truth, surrounded by massive layers of exaggeration and misinterpretation of fact.

First, the notion that anyone could "peer-review" software for correctness is obviously absurd. We know this is an impossible standard. We accept that software is a (probably buggy) model, and (in my experience) reviewers are therefore _extremely_ skeptical of results from computer models -- to the point that they're actually biased _against_ publication. And since reviewers know that they can't verify correctness, they tend to look for theoretical papers that very closely reproduce experimental results.

Second, this type of critique is pushing hard on a straw man. The implicit assumption is that each paper is a stand-alone morsel of truth, and that the peer-review process somehow _guarantees_ a paper's claims. This is not the case, and no scientist believes it to be true. It doesn't matter that peer review fails sometimes, because the system doesn't depend on it being flawless.

Science is about process, not people. Peer review is an important part of that process, but it's openly acknowledged that review has flaws. Thus, ask a scientist about any particular paper, and while s/he may be enthusiastic about the result or the theory, you'll almost never hear a scientist take the paper for granted as fact. More often than not, discussion of an interesting paper will center around designing _other_ tests that can independently reproduce the paper's result. Ultimately, you have a system where a lot of genuinely smart, skeptical people are attacking ideas from all sides until either a consensus emerges, or the idea is destroyed.

The "skeptics" have it wrong, not because they're incorrect about human nature, but because they're attacking a fictional vision of science that exists only in their minds. They imagine a world revolving around a theory that is supported by one piece of data, extrapolated by buggy computer models, and presented by corrupt individuals who (for some unknown reason) have an incentive to doctor the results in the same way. In reality, science is massively redundant and competitive, computer models are treated as ancillary data (at best), and individual corruption is exposed by the redundancy of the system. If the "skeptics" put as much effort into understanding the science they critique as they do trying to find "smoking guns" for individual researchers, they would understand this dynamic.

<comment><USER6> Then I think there is a certain disconnect between how scientists understand science and how it is presented to the public at large. It certainly doesn't help in this regard that many scientists involved in Environmental Science are also passionate political activists. Maybe it is understood by scientists that peer review has flaws, but when they appear on morning talk shows the term "peer review" is wielded as a holy sword.

Regardless of the state of the current process, how could review become anything but better from increased openness?

>"And since reviewers know that they can't verify correctness, they tend to look for theoretical papers that very closely reproduce experimental results."

This seems to be part of the problem. "We'll use this data series for the 60 years that it agrees with everybody else, then throw it out for the 40 years where it doesn't, then not show anybody the 40 years we threw out".

But then again, I'm no climate scientist. Although, one would think that no harm would be done by releasing the data, even if there were legitimate statistical reasons for truncating it.

>"Ultimately, you have a system where a lot of genuinely smart, skeptical people are attacking ideas from all sides until either a consensus emerges, or the idea is destroyed."

If you're a smart, skeptical person attacking a paper that shows global warming to be severe, Michael Mann will get you fired. Or ignore your ideas. Mann just published a paper that appears to use an inverted data series after McIntyre already correctly pointed out that it was inverted, out of pride I suppose. Fine science, that.

<comment><USER7> _It certainly doesn't help in this regard that many scientists involved in Environmental Science are also passionate political activists._

Absolutely.

I think we're going to have to have some kind of new certification system for research that affects public policy. Scientists simply can not be activists -- the conflict of interest is too great. If you find a meteor is going to strike the earth next year, you'd better be spending your time on orbital calculations and mass estimates, not on the Today show. Leave that to the politicians. Mind your knitting.

In the code arena I'll be charitable and say that mistakes were made at CRU. Public-funded science should run from a public wiki or source control system where the scientists are the only authors but the public at large are readers. Yes, I know that will drive some scientists mad compared to the current secretive system but it's time to let some daylight in, folks. You'll never, ever win an argument with an honest skeptic if you're keeping secrets. As for the dishonest ones? They're not your job. Mind your knitting.

<comment><USER5> _"Public-funded science should run from a public wiki or source control system where the scientists are the only authors but the public at large are readers."_

The IPCC report is free and public, for exactly this reason. It's quite plain from their arguments that few "skeptics" ever actually look at it.

 _"Yes, I know that will drive some scientists mad compared to the current secretive system but it's time to let some daylight in, folks. You'll never, ever win an argument with an honest skeptic if you're keeping secrets."_

Riiight. Because the politicians and lobbyists who advocate for the "skeptics" are paragons of honesty and openness. Those dirty scientists could learn a thing or two.

(I have to say...your comment is the most brazen example of black-is-white, up-is-down spin I've ever seen on HN. Bravo.)

<comment><USER8> The IPCC report is a political document. It uses results that support its position and ignores everything else. The entire book "The Deniers" is a collection of complaints by scientists that the IPCC twisted their results to support its agenda. Ironically, nearly all of the scientists still "believe" in global warming, they just think THEIR work was misused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Two myths my non-science friends understand to be true.

a) A peer reviewed paper is very close to fact.

b) Scientists are essentially free from backbiting, tribalism and empire- building. They dispassionately rely on provable data.

Modify slightly to ignore any scientist funded by the wrong people.

<comment><USER10> You may also want to add,

c) Data obtained with public money is considered non-proprietary.

I have spoken with several people who read about climate scientists seeming to hide or be reluctant to share information collected with public money interpret this as the scientist being evasive or untruthful. They are always surprised when I tell them that project scientist, particularly on large space and earth science projects, usually have proprietary access to the data for some number of years as payment for involvement in support of the project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This reminds me of one case where a person published a phylogeny, a reader felt that it was flawed, and so they went over the code together. They discovered a major bug which, when fixed, completely invalidated the results. The paper was retracted. (I can't source this, because it was a conversation I had with a postdoc and I don't remember the details)

In general, though, the fact that code isn't reviewed isn't the biggest problem with peer review. The problem is that it's simply very difficult to come up with the real problems if you're just reading a paper, even if they're lab experiments- just like you can't see the code, you can't watch them perform the experiments. With my own work, reviewers never actually pick up on what are the _actual_ problems with the research (which I know only too well.)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is an excellent find. Thanks

 _How did we let this problem develop? I think it was simply a matter of creeping normalcy._

Probably so. I know from working with various industries, such as military radio guys, that gradually their jobs became all about software. Twenty years ago you'd have one software guy and 30 engineers and now you have 30 software guys and 1 engineer. It was very late in the day when folks sat down and said "Hey! We're really a software organization now, and this stuff is really important, so we'd better start tightening things up" I imagine some types of academic research are in that same place now.

It just creeps in over many years.

Open Source Science is looking better and better.

</comment><comment><USER12> *sigh, the general public will be heartbroken when they find out that scientists are in fact regular human beings. Science has become a surrogate for their faith.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's unusual to peer review software in computer science research as well. There is no _requirement_ that you release the source or even the binary of your shiny new system, especially in time for review. I've recently reviewed a paper that had a reference to an open-source project associated with the paper on a well-known site for hosting such things, but the project was content- free.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think this article presents a brief, well written summary of an important issue from someone who clearly knows what he's talking about and I would recommend reading it.

</comment><comment><USER15> Regarding: the "NO ONE" peer reviews (as the title of the article claims) and "creeping normalcy" as was apparently implied. I can think of numerous counter-examples in the software industry to what is stated about lack of review. For instance:

1\. A company in the banking industry subjects every step of software development process to code review, plus security code review, and Q/A testing every time they release code for production.

So.. Shannon Rose wasn't talking about the banking industry or business code review. The author was talking about scientific systems. Ok.

2\. Let's take a bioinformatic knowledge-base company. The code used to search and extract information from the knowledge base, though proprietary, is subject to code review and Q/A testing. In addition the knowledge base itself vigorously Q/A tested, peer reviewed and signed off before release.

But Shannon Rose wasn't talking about bioinformatics? Really? Ok....

3\. Let's take a civil engineering company particularly, one who has been in the nuclear engineering industry (such as it has been). Structural engineering code used in nuclear power plants is constantly verified, running known engineering cases against the code base and rigorously checking the result, footnoting and explaining every detailed difference down to the nth decimal place.

But Shannon Rose wasn't talking about actual critical engineering code ... But wait. There's more.

The entire engineering software code base was open-source as are many scientific software projects. Further more, it was looked at in detail by physicists, engineers, and software engineers from within the company who weren't even working on the project. The code base was thus open to examination by engineers and scientists who use it as well as outsiders.

But, Shannon Rose wasn't talking about the nuclear engineering industry. No. This article concerns a particular set of useful but not life-threatening scientific finding that the author disagrees with - and where there are people who oppose learning and understanding what the truth is and what it means. Maybe that idea violate some persons understanding of some biblical text somewhere because somehow humans happen to be responsible mucking up a whole planet.

So, when that biblical text was written, who did peer review on that text? The interpretation?

The fact is, I can think of countless examples where people who work on scientific software, who after all believe that they are responsible for what they do, because maybe they're just that way, take extra precaution to verify their results and subject their work to review. (Because, after all, we don't want another Three Mile Island, or Y2K).

How many examples do I have to cite where there are responsible people before we can reject the idea that "no one" does peer review of any scientific software?

A footnote: the author also wrote that they think the Obama administration is "bringing martial law to the U.S." And why is this? Because the Bush administration was too incompetent to put heinous criminals on trial, we won't get to convict them.

And somehow this mistake is Obama's fault. If McCain had won it would presumably be his fault instead. Because one president couldn't be responsible enough to begin with. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was actually put under military tribunal and allegedly "confessed." Who did peer review on the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

Answer: No one. There was a document written up. No one signed it.

No. This article is not about science, or software. It claims instead there is this general widespread failure by people who work and review in scientific software. That claim is irresponsible on its own. It's follow-up conclusion that this "completely irresponsible" software review can be regulated by so- called "responsible" politicians (such as those who brought us Abu Ghraib, torture, and the possible untriability of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) can "clean up" peer review is beyond hogwash.

Peer review certainly is an issue and always requires addressing. But I think this author should take their overactive bile somewhere else. </rant>

</comment><comment><USER4> Also these climate models are likely calculated on Intel hardware: a company notorious for floating-point bugs. Even if we verify the software is correct, unless we see the RTL that describes the logic behind these chips, it's all just hocus-pocus as far as I'm concerned.

<comment><USER16> You can't verify software is correct, it can always fail at time t+1.

Basic configuration testing on PPC or other architectures would highlight a lot of the error-sensitive paths in the math libraries.</comment></comment>


Crafting Icons - <AUTHOR> http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/8/4/crafting-icons?utm_campaign=iOS%2BDev%2BWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_source=iOS_Dev_Weekly_Issue_210 <comment><USER2> These are all beautiful illustrations, but they don't feel iconic to me. Granted, there is a spectrum when it comes to detail, but isn't the purpose of an icon to distill an idea to its visual essence?

<comment><USER3> Glyphs and symbols are more likely what you're talking about. They are often referred to as icons in the tech field so I get the confusion with nomenclature.

Icons are mostly represented as visually interesting identifying artifacts about your product. That's why we call app icons _icons_.

The "icons" within the interface of that app, things that might tell you a menu is present or that a group of users is online, are symbols. Glyphs often conform to content. A good example of a glyph is an emoji or dingbats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The art of icon design is steadily being lost with each passing year."[citation needed]

<comment><USER5> Why do you need a citation, if you have two eyes? Just look at iOS or OS X included icons, or Windows 10 icons, or the App Store top 100 apps. Most icons are a flat background and some boring bland logo outline. We are in the dark ages of software-related design.

<comment><USER6> From what I understand of icon design, the goal is to make something that's instantly recognizable when glanced over. Your mind shouldn't have to interpret colors, light sources, shading, depth, etc. just to recognize a brand/app's icon. The Twitter and Apple icons are _instantly_ recognizable no matter how small they are or how fast you glance over them. Facebook and Google have their icons as just letters with one specific color and typeface, and when you see that color + typeface together _anywhere_ you instantly recognize what brand it is for.

Flat icons may not take as much effort to make (which is debatable... in some cases, they take even _more_ thought to create since you have to think about every little line and curve) but they do get their point across a lot faster and more effective than a fancy, shaded, intricate icon with tiny little details. In my opinion, if you can't easily draw an icon on a piece of paper in a few minutes, it's not a very good icon- it's more of a picture or a drawing.

<comment><USER5> The human brain doesn't have any problem interpreting non-flat icons, as it doesn't have any problem with real world objects. We didn't have that problem you're saying before the flat design trend. Also icons should be aesthetically pleasing. When I see a iOS 6 homescreen, I see something beautiful. Can't say the same about iOS today.

And I'm going to stop here, because people are going to downvote the hell out of me. Design can be something very divisive.

<comment><USER7> What does "design can be something very divisive" tell you about "why do you need a citation, if you have two eyes" and the original quote that started this thread?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What a clever title. I would even go as far as calling it icon rendering.

A good icon, just like a good logo, causes a small visual play in the back of one's mind. For that to happen, a lot of design time is spent in exploration, sketching perceptual cons, cross-pollenations and optimizations.

I respect Eli, but I'd hate to see this part of icon design survive, while genuine creativity vanes.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's like watching magic. Granted the effect is enhanced by the accelerated speed of the videos, but, wow. I wonder how long it takes to learn Illustrator/Sketch/etc well enough to be able to create art like this (e.g. watching the tire tread get put on the taxi - what voodoo was that?).

<comment><USER10> What, mapping a pattern to a cylinder? I feel like there should be a better way to capture light and shadow on the surfaces than drawing each bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A little meta comment: It would be nice if HN remove automatically tracking informations from links (Here "?utm_campaign=iOS ...")

<comment><USER12> I love it because it puts garbage in that intrusive tracking analysis.

<comment><USER13> We could generate more garbage...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I like this site because it's not flat.</comment>


Superconducting Optoelectronic Neurons I: General Principles - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.01929 <comment><USER2> This is part one of five. Here are the other 4:

Superconducting Optoelectronic Neurons II: Receiver Circuits: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.02599](https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.02599)

Superconducting Optoelectronic Neurons III: Synaptic Plasticity: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.01937](https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.01937)

Superconducting Optoelectronic Neurons IV: Transmitter Circuits: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.01941](https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.01941)

Superconducting Optoelectronic Neurons V: Networks and Scaling: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.01942](https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.01942)

It's so ambitious and so questionable at the same time. I'd classify it as hard science fiction, like a really good Orion's Arm entry, if the authors weren't from NIST.

Final two discussion paragraphs from paper V:

 _While it may be difficult to build systems larger than 10 billion neurons in the near term, such a system is not physically limited. Like the brain, such limits will be incurred due to the velocity of signal propagation. From Fig. 6(c) we know that networks as large as data centers can sustain coherent oscillations at 1 MHz. Such a facility would house 10^8 300 mm wafers if they were stacked 100 deep. This would result in 100 trillion neurons per data center across modules interconnected with another power law distribution._

 _Networks need not oscillate at 1 MHz, and if they supported system-wide activity at 1 kHz—faster than any oscillation of the human brain—the neuronal pool could occupy a significant fraction of the earth's surface and employ quintillions of neurons. We do not wish to cover earth in such devices, but asteroids provide ample, uncontroversial real estate. The materials for this hardware are abundant on M-type and S-type asteroids [76–80]. It appears possible for an asteroid belt to form the nodes and light to form the edges of a solar-system scale intelligent network. Asteroids can be separated by billions of meters, so light-speed communication delays may be several seconds or longer. For cognitive systems oscillating up to 20 MHz, such delays would cause individual modules to operate as separate cognitive systems, much like a society of humans._

Apart from the breathtaking scale of speculation -- which one could admittedly also find to good effect in older papers about e.g. nuclear power -- there is a more concrete question. What's the all-in energy cost-per-operation vs. conventional hardware, CMOS devices operating above room temperature? Operating at liquid helium temperatures dramatically shrinks the on-chip power demand, and then the cryocooler dramatically re-inflates it. Lab scale production of liquid helium takes ~570 watts of wall-plug power to produce 1 watt of cooling near 4.2 K [1]. At the wall plug, cryogenic cooling systems included, how does this design compare to existing hardware on power and speed for neural network training or inference? AFAICT, the authors do not attempt to estimate such a figure of merit.

[1] Basics of low-temperature refrigeration: [https://cds.cern.ch/record/1974048/files/arXiv:1501.07392.pd...](https://cds.cern.ch/record/1974048/files/arXiv:1501.07392.pdf)

<comment><USER2> I answered more of my questions about energy costs: in part II Appendix C the authors explore the energy of a synaptic firing event. The on-chip energy expended: 41 attojoules. (Though in part V the authors conclude that their earlier Part II analysis was probably flawed, and the circuits probably need 4 times as much current.) That 41 attojoules on-chip translates to about 24 femtojoules of whole-system energy consumption. That in turn compares favorably to the ~10 picojoules (10000 femtojoule) of energy required to perform a single precision floating point arithmetic operation on CMOS hardware. But this "neuromorphic" design is not easy to compare to contemporary hardware on complete tasks, because it's more analog than digital. And it's not clear that it can easily interoperate with existing artificial neural networks built on digital logic, either for training or inference. A low level "direct" comparison may be effectively impossible. Instead we'd have to ask questions like "how many joules per face recognized?" for complete facial recognition systems, admitting that GPU-based ANNs and superconducting optoelectronic ANNs would have very different internal structures.

Finally, I'll note that these designs rely on large numbers of Josephson junctions. From my quick Wiki-skim it appears that nobody has ever built large scale integrated circuits from Josephson junctions. It doesn't look like there have even been serious Western attempts at it after the 1980s. That's not to say that large scale fabrication of circuits incorporating Josephson junctions is folly, but it looks like it requires a lot of basic R&D effort before somebody can build one of these superconducting optoelectronic chips, much less a whole wafer full of interconnected copies.

<comment><USER3> I don't think a star-system sized computational network is supposed to be used for the mere face recognition that my phone can already do. So the metric may be comparing apples to oranges.

<comment><USER2> Perhaps. But this design needs to perform well on some relatively mundane terrestrial applications before it scales up to stellar megaproject size.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What to do with my life?(study) - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
Within 2 months I need to decide what I'm going to study for the next 3.5 years and probably be doing the rest of my life. I want to choose programming, but it gives me that overwhelming feeling of never be able to understand it or keep up with the speed it's going.
How do I know, if I  am able to be a good programmer?
I already did a "programming" education but it was so easy, that afterwards, I didn't had the feeling I learned something or was ready to work as a programmer. The education I did is a lower education than the one I'm going to do, but I don't want  the feeling  afterwards that I'm not a programmer again ,because where I live this is normal the last education which you have before you start working.
So, what should I do, to find out if I'm cut out for being a programmer? And maybe other tips or things I should know before trying to start a career as a programmer?
And what about this: http://www.halfsigma.com/2007/03/why_a_career_in.html
I got a bit scared reading it, but how true is it?
Kind regards,
Gup
P.S. A question for Dutch people: Which school do you recommend? (HBO) <comment><USER2> You can't really know until you do something. Two months probably isn't enough time to _know_ before school if you'll be a good programmer.

If you're interested in something, you'll probably be pretty good at it. Not necessarily a star, but more than good enough. So choose what's interesting to you.

DO NOT assume that you'll be doing any one thing for the rest of your life. You won't. And if that's the case, your decision is not as monumental or scary as you think.</comment>


IndieWeb: Owning Your Data and Being the Change You Want to See in the Web - <AUTHOR> https://www.jvt.me/posts/2019/10/20/indieweb-talk/ <comment><AUTHOR> Incidentally, a month ago at ACM DocEng I've used the first page being listed on indieweb.org's list of sites in danger of being shut down [1] as running example for a workshop on parsing and preserving HTML sites using SGML [2].

[1]: [https://indieweb.org/site-deaths](https://indieweb.org/site-deaths)

[2]: [http://sgmljs.net/docs/parsing-html-tutorial/parsing-html- tu...](http://sgmljs.net/docs/parsing-html-tutorial/parsing-html- tutorial.html)</comment>


Why Americans Are Moving Less: New Jobs Aren't Worth It  - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2014/04/why-americans-are-moving-less-new-jobs-arent-worth-it/8973/ <comment><USER2> The rapid rise in dual-income households goes unnoticed, despite being inordinately important to this question. Intergenerational caretaking (of parents/grandparents, or of children/grandchildren) goes unnoticed. Overall labor participation (an inverse first-choice proxy for Actual Real-Life Unemployment) isn't broken out as a term. The incredible rise in housing prices relative to stagnant or falling early-career wages (and the fact that much of the country is paying off their housing at the lower prices of mortgages made decades in the past) isn't broken out as a term.

<comment><USER3> "The authors explore several competing explanations to the joint declines in residential and labor market mobility, including _changes within the housing market_ , the decline in higher paying manufacturing jobs, the polarization of the job market, and the _rise of dual-career households_ , but find little empirical support for them."

<comment><USER4> This intuitively is flawed. If you offer me more money in a place with expensive housing, the decision is based on the joint NPV(x|y) wher x is an income vector and y is a cost vector. Likewise, a single job offer is going to be only 1/2 of the x vector. On its faces, a new job offer for a two income household stream would be 1/2 as implactful as under a 1 income scenario. That is not even counting doing the joint probability of x=xa+xb when xb has to change because xa'=/=xa. These variables are also non-observable, so without actually reading the study its implausible to consider them well accounted for IMHO.

Similarly, there is a lot of technical overhead when dealing with housing costs in relation to work opportunities. Each opportunity has to be considered in relation to the balance sheet, not the income stream. Most 100k jobs lose 30k to taxes and 30k to expenses each year (at a minimum) netting 30k of savings. But many US metro's where 100K jobs are prevealent have homes with average prices edging north of 10x 100k. So, that is 30 years of net saving--a hugely consequential trajectory for a NAV calculation. So, if you have assets invested in a hot housing market, it will take more than just a good job offer in another area to get you to move. because moving reduces your exposure to a market that is equally if not more consequential to your NAV than your Job. Unlike the stock market, you can't just keep the same portfolio of residential RE as you move about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> we've recently hired 2 well paid tech workers to work 100% remotely. 10 (5?) years ago they would have had to move. now they don't. in fact, it never even came up. we only wanted one thing - their skills and experience.

also, more people are commuting via plane or long drive from monday-thursday. companies in wealthier areas can easily cover airfare and hotel for the difference in the price of living - it can be very cheap if you purchase everything ahead of time, like < $2k/month or $24k/year which could easily cover the difference in pay and expenses from, let's say, new york to western pennsylvania or LA to Oregon (on a $150k salary vs. $200k salary that's still a $26k/year savings - no brainer). it happens more with consultants but it also happens with very senior employees i.e. VP level and above.

i don't mean this to be facetious at all but i think the general development and adoption of easy and effective (this stuff didn't actually work until a few years ago!) audio and video conferencing in the past few years makes this all possible. a face to face conversation can be had over the weekend if your'e the boss, or any time during the week if you're a parent.

<comment><USER6> what is your company? am looking for remote data scientist position

<comment><USER7> I thought data scientists had to be in San Francisco by virtue of them being statisticians elsewhere :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder how it breaks down by age, years experience, or industry. As a programmer, when I was younger and less experienced, I could hop from job to job from region to region and get pretty nice bumps in salary each time. My last two job changes however have come with pretty much no change (probably negative when you consider cost of living). As you get more experienced, you definitely run into a salary ceiling, and it no longer becomes worth uprooting your family and moving every four years.

</comment><comment><USER9> The incentives in unemployment benefits mitigate against relocation: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/unemployment- benefits...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/unemployment-benefits- should-encourage-geographic- mobility/2013/04/12/c84880be-a382-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_story.html)

<comment><USER10> Can this be extrapolated into what the employment landscape would look like with a minimum income for all? If unemployment benefits mitigate against relocation, would minimum income mitigate against even seeking a job?

One acquaintance I have suggests removing people from her stack of applicants would be a good thing - those remaining would probably have more of a tendency to be the kind of reliable employee she seeks.

<comment><USER11> I think most serious economists would agree that unemployment benefits of any sort mitigate against seeking jobs.

I don't mean this in an ideological "if you don't agree you're not serious" sense, I actually think I've seen a very similar question in a paper titled something like _Where is there Consensus among American Economists? A survey of 40 Propositions_ \- there are several dangerously-similarly-titled papers though and I don't have the tools or motivation to look them up right now. (JSTOR etc). It's pretty well-predicted by theory and I believe that there exist studies that back it up a little.

Of course the real question, as most in economics, isn't an all-or-nothing proposition, but a marginal one: _How much_ unemployment benefit maximizes the utility experienced by society? Would spending more of our national resources on these benefits, or spending less, help or hinder our current situation?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yet another article about a broad negative economic trend that completely skips the entire software industry. We truly are blessed.

Developers are moving less because it's becoming easier to work remotely. So sure, go nuts and move your head office to Pittsburgh. We can telecommute there as quickly as we can to Palo Alto.

Paradoxically for me, this means I've actually been moving _more_ lately. With no fixed office to tie me down, I'm free to explore the boundaries of "remote."

</comment><comment><USER13> As someone who is moving states to take advantage of a major career opportunity, I'm interested to see what others here feel about this study.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you in a committed relationship? If so, does your SO have a job or are they able to relocate easily too?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Frankly, I'm glad to hear it. When I lived in the US, I counted a number of times where I'd go visit some friends or colleagues at their place, only to discover they lived cold, segregated lives, because "they're always moving and never had time to unpack" .. its a matter of comfort, I guess, but I was never comfortable hanging with my American' friends homes after they'd just moved - and they sure moved around a lot, 6 months on average ..

</comment><comment><USER15> Watch remote working become the next big trend.

Cost of living is also a factor since relocating to a more expensive area is no longer generally worth unless the new salary is way higher. Kids and home ownership would make it very unlikely I would relocate to somewhere likely SF even for double my current income.

</comment><comment><USER16> When I was a kid I never knew of anyone who drove more than one town away for work. Now, I only know a few people that actually work in the same town they live. I think the willingness to commute plays a role in this too.

</comment><comment><USER17> Maybe attractive jobs are more evenly distributed than before, or maybe attractive jobs/areas have already attracted most of what they need and so don't signal as loudly.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some good paid technical security/programming magazines? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Pretty rare for me to read magazines these days. Most of the time I read the newsgroups.

<comment><AUTHOR> can you recommend a few?</comment></comment>


Stolen iPhone Adventures (Another Reason To Love Steve Jobs) - <AUTHOR>

Katy McCaffrey was in a Disney Cruise in April. She lost her iPhone. Month later, a guy - a Disney ship crew - is sending photos of him and his friends to the original iPhone owner's photostream.
https://www.facebook.com/katy.mccaffrey.7
Now, internet vengeance is on! <comment><USER2> NO internet is on a vengeance! Have you watched the show Touch on Fox. Your phone have become a hope for everybody! He should get a prize.</comment>


Cheney Defends PRISM - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/16/cheney-defends-us-surveillance-programs-says-snowden-traitor-obama-lacks/

<comment><USER2> How come I'm not surprised?</comment>


This film will kill people - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/films/free-solo/ <comment><AUTHOR> The directors claim to have wrestled with the ethical problems of making such a film, but in the end _their own glory_ mattered more to them than the inevitable deaths their work will inspire.

</comment><comment><USER2> Actual title is "Free Solo the Movie", not "This film will kill people".</comment>