Uber and Lyft push back on Seattle mayor's plan to pay drivers more money - <AUTHOR> https://www.geekwire.com/2020/uber-lyft-push-back-seattle-mayors-plan-pay-drivers-money/ <comment><USER2> > Uber and Lyft commissioned their own study from Cornell University showing > that the typical driver earned $23 per hour in Seattle after expenses.

> Kevin Schofield of SCC Insight analyzed both studies last month and found > that they "skew their analysis and recommendations in the direction that > favors the one who commissioned their study."

This is such a blatantly bad framing of the article they cite:

[https://sccinsight.com/2020/07/21/the-war-heats-up-over- seat...](https://sccinsight.com/2020/07/21/the-war-heats-up-over-seattles- attempts-to-regulate-uber-and-lyft-drivers-pay/)

The skew in question is around Parrot & Reich's study, which prioritizes full- time drivers (and doesn't include tips, if I read correctly), vs. the Cornell study with Uber/Lyft which includes all drivers and includes tips.

</comment><comment><USER3> If drivers are losing money on rideshares then why are so many signing-up?

I'm legitimately curious to understand. Shouldn't we, at some point, reach an equilibrium in these markets?

<comment><USER4> I'm happy there is some way that someone a little short on cash can earn some extra money by providing a useful service to people without a lot of strings attached. Better than a payday loan. But it seems that many on the left disagree.

<comment><USER5> There are very real costs associated with ridesharing. Many states require specific insurance coverage; for example, in Texas that's an increased cost of 15-30%. Your car will depreciate faster with miles; I ballparked it at around $2000/year. I also ballpark an additional $500 or so year for increased standard maintenance costs. Someone may still come out ahead of course, and this will vary based on how much someone does it, but these costs are very real, regardless of whether you are on the left or the right.

<comment><USER3> At least there's no payments (at an outrageous interest rate typically) for a loan to get a medallion on top of these expenses!

<comment><USER5> It's definitely a better business model if you approach it with both eyes open about what you're getting into.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So... Please help me to understand the math here.

My latest Uber trip was 10 minutes, 3 miles long and 10 bucks.

Assuming it's a typical trip and also assuming the driver spends half of the time getting to the customer, we have, $30 and 18 miles per hour.

18 miles is one gallon of fuel at $2.00 and, say, another $3.00 in car amortization.

Subtract fees, add tips and incentives and we end up with, give or take, $25.

That seems like a reasonable salary?

<comment><USER7> Gas in Seattle is definitely not $2/gal

Also your next ride is probably not on the same block as your last.

<comment><USER8> It's also tax deductible from the drivers earnings, so it's effectively cheaper.

<comment><USER9> If the driver has enough potential deductions for that to be better than the standard deduction (or with that low of income is sufficiently aware of alternative filing options) -- and even then quite a few miles are "effectively" not deducted since you're trading the standard deduction for those.

<comment><USER10> Business or self employment expenses are subtracted from revenue before computing income, so there is no relation here with itemizing or the standard deduction.

<comment><USER9> Yep, I messed up on that one -- forgot uber drivers aren't employees (in which case the standard deduction would ordinarily come into play unless the driver did something more exotic with their taxes). That was my own background slipping through in my answer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Uber and Lyft drivers don't get paid wages, so the premise is silly.

<comment><USER12> don't get paid wages ...yet

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "The first thing that happens, for example, when a law is passed that no one shall be paid less than $106 for a forty-hour week is that no one who is not worth $106 a week to an employer will be employed at all. You cannot make a man worth a given amount by making it illegal for anyone to offer him anything less. You merely deprive him of the right to earn the amount that his abilities and situation would permit him to earn, while you deprive the community even of the moderate services that he is capable of rendering. In brief, for a low wage you substitute unemployment. You do harm all around, with no comparable compensation.

The only exception to this occurs when a group of workers is receiving a wage actually below its market worth. This is likely to happen only in rare and special circumstances or localities where competitive forces do not operate freely or adequately; but nearly all these special cases could be remedied just as effectively, more flexibly and with far less potential harm, by unionization.

It may be thought that if the law forces the payment of a higher wage in a given industry, that industry can then charge higher prices for its product, so that the burden of paying the higher wage is merely shifted to consumers. Such shifts, however, are not easily made, nor are the consequences of artificial wage-raising so easily escaped. A higher price for the product may not be possible: it may merely drive consumers to the equivalent imported products or to some substitute. Or, if consumers continue to buy the product of the industry in which wages have been raised, the higher price will cause them to buy less of it. While some workers in the industry may be benefited from the higher wage, therefore, others will be thrown out of employment altogether. On the other hand, if the price of the product is not raised, marginal producers in the industry will be driven out of business; so that reduced production and consequent unemployment will merely be brought about in another way.

When such consequences are pointed out, there are those who reply: "Very well; if it is true that the X industry cannot exist except by paying starvation wages, then it will be just as well if the minimum wage puts it out of existence altogether." But this brave pronouncement overlooks the realities. It overlooks, first of all, that consumers will suffer the loss of that product. It forgets, in the second place, that it is merely condemning the people who worked in that industry to unemployment. And it ignores, finally, that bad as were the wages paid in the X industry, they were the best among all the alternatives that seemed open to the workers in that industry; otherwise the workers would have gone into another. If, therefore, the X industry is driven out of existence by a minimum wage law, then the workers previously employed in that industry will be forced to turn to alternative courses that seemed less attractive to them in the first place. Their competition for jobs will drive down the pay offered even in these alternative occupations. There is no escape from the conclusion that the minimum wage will increase unemployment."

[...]

"As to the prices, wages and profits that should determine the distribution of that product, the best prices are not the highest prices, but the prices that encourage the largest volume of production and the largest volume of sales. The best wage rates for labor are not the highest wage rates, but the wage rates that permit full production, full employment and the largest sustained payrolls. The best profits, from the standpoint not only of industry but of labor, are not the lowest profits, but the profits that encourage most people to become employers or to provide more employment than before."

Henry Hazlitt "Economics in One Lesson."</comment>


Ask HN: No Link to Hacker News on Reply/Submit - <AUTHOR> This is a question to the YC/HN team as much to the HN community. When submitting a new post or replying to an existing thread, the navigation at the top completely disappears outside of a link to YC. I don't have the option to go to Hacker News directly or any of my profile options. This seems to be a disorienting experience and I am forced to use the Back button.<p>Just curious what the reasoning might be for this design decision. <comment><USER2> Click on the [Y] at the top next to submit.</comment>


WebGL Liquid Surface - <AUTHOR> http://massa.me/liquid-surface/ A webgl experiment that creates a liquid surfece-like enviroment.<p>There's also a blog post that explains step-by-step process. <comment><USER2> WebGL is kinda cool since it runs on the browser without plugins. But it's just a stripped down version of OpenGL with a feature set that roughly corresponds to a GPU circa 2004.

This demo is kinda nice, it runs fast on the GPU but visually it's not much more than palette rotation plasma effects from 1980's and 90's. (Or did I miss something, I was kinda looking forward to see the "water surface" in 3d with lighting and reflection, was that hidden somewhere?)

Don't get me wrong, I like that people write little demos like this and WebGL makes them pretty easily accessible (OpenGL is a bitch to get running). But I'm still kind of frustrated every time something gets hyped and/or HN'd just because it's WebGL, even if we have all seen similar effects a decade ago in demoscene parties.

So keep on writing 'em demos but please stop hyping about WebGL too much. Instead put it to real use and show some games or products with it.

I found the blog post about the demo (here: <http://massa.me/blog/?p=1>) more interesting than the demo itself.

<comment><USER3> I believe WebGL is deliberately stripped down so it works identically on mobiles, which today have GPUs equivalent to desktop circa 2004.

<comment><USER4> OpenGL ES is a more apt comparison. You're precisely correct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Crashed my 2008 Mac Pro (Chrome 16 stable). Had to do a hard reboot. Great.

</comment><comment><USER6> Works on Ubuntu 11.09 with Chrome. Hypnotizing!

</comment><comment><USER7> I got an alert saying "Could not initialize WebGL". Alerts are annoying.</comment>


Skype Down - <AUTHOR> http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/606780/Skype-DOWN-Microsoft-Messenger-Not-Working-Europe-Australia-USA <comment><USER2> That headline seems to downplay it a lot. It was totally down for at least 6 hours.

I introduced Slack to the team today...

<comment><USER3> Which one? The one that says "Skype Down" or the tabloid one that screams "Skype DOWN: Microsoft messenger and video chat app NOT working across the GLOBE"?

<comment><USER2> Twenty minutes ago it said "Skype down for _some_ customers". Now both the HN title and the target website title has been edited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if this has anything to do with their inclusion of Skype call support directly in Edge.

[http://www.digitaltrends.com/?p=836715](http://www.digitaltrends.com/?p=836715)

[http://www.pcworld.com/article/2984806/web- apps/microsofts-e...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2984806/web- apps/microsofts-edge-browser-will-soon-support-skype-calls-without-a- plugin.html)

[http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/19/skype-for-web-will- soon-w...](http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/19/skype-for-web-will-soon-work- without-plug-ins-on-microsoft-edge/)

[https://blogs.office.com/2015/09/18/enabling-seamless- commun...](https://blogs.office.com/2015/09/18/enabling-seamless- communication-experiences-for-the-web-with-skype-skype-for-business-and- microsoft-edge/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Been down for 8+ hours here and still unable to connect. They said an hour ago that it's being rectified. [1]

[1]: [https://twitter.com/Skype/status/645980952930447360](https://twitter.com/Skype/status/645980952930447360)

<comment><USER6> I have used the web client for the past six hours with no problem at all ...

[https://login.skype.com/login](https://login.skype.com/login)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Still 'down' here (in Spain) however it was never really down for us (NL/ES/UK); it says you are offline and all in the list are offline but chatting and calling etc just works as normal (I called phone numbers, Skype users and chatted) even though it reports offline. If you logout however you cannot login again. I don't have a business account.

</comment><comment><USER8> Weird, I also had troubles with Skype today and tried Hangouts - it worked very well (means not that terrible experience as usually). Coincidence?

<comment><USER9> Hangouts worked for us a couple of hours ago, but half an hour ago it stopped working, triggering errors. I believe a lot of people jumped on it and it's also having hiccups.

Also, Skype just recovered for us, we're having a call in 4 as I'm writing this. EDIT: Skype is still misbehaving.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Still having issues connecting - a few hours ago I couldn't sign in, now I'm having trouble loading my contact list.

</comment><comment><USER11> didnt skype used to be p2p so that things like this wouldnt happen?

<comment><USER12> It used to be. But Microsoft made it more centralized.

<comment><USER13> Indeed, great move.

Although, judging upon the number of comments, no-one seems to care that much.

<comment><USER14> Well they said it was because of the post-pc era, more mobile phones connecting to skype, mobile phones are not really suited for p2p video streaming. But then they somehow managed to make skype mobile experience so bad that it probably wouldn't be that big of a problem

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Back up for me.

</comment><comment><USER16> no skype here yet (finland)</comment>


How to Use Mobile Analytics to Drive Conversion - <AUTHOR> http://mobile1st.com/how-to-use-mobile-analytics-to-drive-conversion/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for the guidance on key steps!</comment>


Ask HN: If you could go back to study any CS-related field, what would it be? - <AUTHOR> I'm a sophomore in college, and feeling pretty bogged down by the not-so-relevant required courses at my school. I love the CS courses but I keep finding myself looking at entry level code monkey jobs and thinking of dropping out. I work part time as a developer right now and I enjoy working far more than doing any of my homework, so this is something that is on my mind a lot.<p>What are some lesser known areas of CS that would be worth studying while I have the chance? I would say the subjects that excite me the most are Machine Learning, p2p tech like IPFS, UX-design, and alternative computer-interface things (like brainwave sensors, VR, and that jawbone thing from MIT that was posted a few weeks back [1]).<p>[1] http://news.mit.edu/2018/computer-system-transcribes-words-users-speak-silently-0404 <comment><USER2> As a former-dropout myself [1]: You might some of the courses utterly stupid now, and you might have many doubts about the usefulness of a degree, but I think ultimately a degree is very very much worth it, both intellectually and for logistics reasons. A degree will open doors to you, for example, most jobs will throw your resume right away if you don't have a degree. Some countries won't allow you to immigrate if you don't have a degree. There are many dreams that require a degree.

The only reason that you can justify dropping out is that either (1) you think you can't possibly learn anything useful from the professors that are teaching you and you'll rebuild/repay what you didn't learn one day (and you better have to have a good answer when you'll do that right now), or (2) when you have a grand startup like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. But I don't think that's why you're wanting to drop out now. So don't drop out. Keep pushing.

For me, I wish I learned assembly, kernel development, stats and machine learning. First two because I love to, the latter two because they are useful.

I am now almost finished with grad school, and I feel like I know nil. But in a very Lao-tzu way, I think the biggest enemy of mine is myself (the willing to sit my ass down and learn), not that these can't be learned by myself. Lately, I think I somehow I overcame that problem and was able to read, learn and make a lot of stuff on my own. I think the same thing can be said about anyone who had the patience to get a degree as well: It means they are willing to deal with things they don't totally enjoy to get what they want. As Lao-tzu said, patience is a good virtue by itself...

1: If you need to verify, read the entry called crankshaft #2 on my blog on my profile.

<comment><USER3> I remember signing up for a course in mass transfer that we joked would have been better titled bubble science. It seemed so obvious at first, but as we progressed, the math and concepts became more vast and inscrutable to me, and by the end I'd learned so much about something outwardly so simple that I felt that I'd barely scratched the surface of the topic. But that's not really an unusual outcome for learning, right?

Pursuing a technical education is tricky because those interested often have an elevated baseline knowledge and want to jump ahead without relearning fundamentals, but it's often those fundamentals that cause growth to suffer later on. Realizing that you're actually struggling with algebra while you're taking mv calc is a big eye opener, and realizing that you get the basics and applications of certain implementations of certain technologies in the first two weeks of a course can feel redundant and insulting, but that's because it's hard to gauge or trust that there's more to things beyond the limits of our understanding, not because the material is unworthy.

Overcoming that is humbling, and that can put people eager to get a start on making money because they're already slightly better at something than the population at large at odds with the goals of higher learning, but it's a necessary part of our growth and perspective.

People who grew up being told how smart or special they are can have a harder time with this, and I know it was pretty embarrassing for me when I realized early in my adulthood I was much closer to the "kid who's good with computers" category than an actual "IT professional", despite being able to successfully complete contracts and make money from what I was doing. Those experiences helped me re-evaluate my approach and get out of the "I'm already awesome, why would I need to do more" mindset. Had I not realized that, I might have stubbornly stalled out thinking I didn't need anyone else while the world passed me by.

<comment><USER4> > Those experiences helped me re-evaluate my approach and get out of the "I'm > already awesome, why would I need to do more" mindset. Had I not realized > that

What helped in getting out of the mindset, what did you do?

<comment><USER3> I hit a number of walls professionally, interviewed more ambitiously (and unsuccessfully), and in general discovered the delineation between my perceived and actual values. It was more "look at me doing what people go to school for and make careers out of just because I can" novelty instead of realizing what kind of role I was serving, understanding my market, and trying to have good business sense. I thought of what I did as a series of problems to solve for cash instead of a mutual relationship, and I was just good at getting my foot in the door. Pretty obvious mistakes, really.

Even more generally, I left my comfort zone and put my experience to the test against people with either a lot more resources and education. I either was unable to complete these larger scale jobs, wasn't able to negotiate effectively or else let them run all over me with pay or feature creep, or had to be able to say (read: admit) I couldn't actually do or understand the work as I was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I dropped out in 1971 for reasons similar to yours. I am now retired. I've supported myself by writing software since the 1970's.

Dropping out has cost me several hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't know how many. Lots of companies pay more just for having a degree.

Consider transferring to a cheaper and/or easier school. You'll have more time to yourself, which is often a good thing. Unless you're actually depressed.

If you're interested in CS, math is almost always useful. I wish I'd had more. Most of the topics you list are research topics only available to research- level academics.

Changing schools is the one thing I regret not trying. Another thing to consider is to change girlfriends. Or find a better one. That can certainly impact your overall view of life. In other words, don't ignore the social aspects of choosing a school.

In the 70's through the 90's I had to contend with management that was often quite stupid. And quite often did not even know what a computer really was. You can avoid situations like that more easily if you have a degree.

</comment><comment><USER6> No-one has mentioned Cryptography. Although it seems boring, the applications are almost ubiquitous. It's used everywhere in internet connected systems, secure software and data storage (to name a few).

It would seem that would get to work on the large and important things if you pick up cryptography as a skill.

<comment><USER7> And also, its one of those things that's hard to learn on your own. On the other hand, do they cover defense against practical attacks in uni? As in, will you be told to roll your own crypto, and have the professor show you the timing attacks, etc.? Because honestly, the theory you can pick up on your own, in industry you just use a library, and I don't know how nice will OpenSSL devs be if you just show up as a crypto noob on their doorstep asking for mentoring.

<comment><USER8> Danish university student here. In the course I'm currently taking, they've made a point of stressing the importance of not rolling your own crypto, along with using salts, and have had assignments where the point was to crack weak encryption like MD5, and do dictionary attacks on stronger crypto. Timing attacks were covered as well.

<comment><USER7> >they've made a point of stressing the importance of not rolling your own crypto,

I think there should be a class on _how_ to roll your own crypto, because _someone_ 's got to do it, and, as we saw with Heartblead, you don't want something like crypto to be something only a handful of people in the world to understand.

<comment><USER9> That belongs to the realm of graduate courses where theory and rigor are more emphasized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would take some Electrical Engineering classes, maybe even minor in it. Given an abundance of time, I would also take some higher level math classes. Based on your interests a broader exposure to these fields, which are strongly related to CS but only lightly-to-moderately covered in a standard CS curriculum, can only help.

For me personally, I would do a deep dive on distributed architecture, which you may also be interested in given your interest in p2p.

<comment><USER11> When you say EE, do you mean signals/optimization/control/etc. or do you mean circuits/device physics/RF/etc.?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The ones that will help you long-term: management, requirements analysis, distributed aystems architectures.

Technologies come and go and you'll be autodidact during your career. Management, however, will help you identify how to become more effective, regardless your actual posistion.

<comment><USER13> This

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Compilers - every programming language uses this.

Databases - Btrees, indexes, distributed key value stores. The world runs on databases.

Graphics - if you like games, how a 3D scene is rendered, photo realism with Ray tracers, GPU pipelines and OpenGL

AI and Machine Learning - tons of fascinating problems and algorithms.

I'd say focus on the basics. Hash tables have remained mostly the same since they were invented. C still uses pointers, the basics are fundamentally so powerful that they are kind of eternal.

When I hire someone, i'm looking for someone with strong fundamentals. They understand the basic datastructures, algorithms and how a computer works.

</comment><comment> your-nanny I regret not taking linear algebra (not required by most programs, but very relevant to what I do), computer graphics, and software engineering methodology. If I had taken these classes, I would not have taken other interesting and useful coursework that I would regret not having taken. Hard to measure which path would have minimized my regret. Possibly none, because it may be that degree of regret isn't a function of the path you take.

<comment><USER15> Same as with linear algebra. It was never part of my course work. Differential Equations, yes. Linear algebra, no.

I plan to teach myself one day. Maybe I'll start today

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Being honest, if I could study any CS-related field, it'd be pretty simple - advertisement technology management. I'd want to know how to get in the game of stealing people's private data for money; it seems that's the wave that's going to be cresting soon - and people always want to know more about other people.

</comment><comment><USER17> One thing I've been always fascinated with was the Symbolic Systems course at Stanford. It was a fascinating curriculum involving a mix of Computer Science/AI, Philosophy and Linguistics. I've tried searching for material online, but it's a course taken by only a few people every year and there isn't a whole lot of information available online. If someone reading this studied that/or knows about the methodology/syllabus, I'd love to delve into it!

<comment><USER18> That's "traditional AI". I once took John McCarthy's course, "Epistemological problems in artificial intelligence", also known as "Dr. John's Mystery Hour". It was about how to hammer the real world into predicate calculus. That turned out to be mostly a dead end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I felt exactly the same way and made it through my undergraduate degree, worked for 6 months, realised that being a coding monkey was going to consist of repeating those same six months for decades and promptly returned to school, ending up with a PhD.

The best advice I can give is to find a mentor - someone who captures your imagination. Most professors are desperate for enthusiastic students to do stuff for them!

And yes, do more math. You need people around you for that.

<comment><USER20> Out of interest, what are you doing now you have a PhD. How does it compare to being a code monkey in terms of a career (salary, hours, prospects)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Databases. Those are the most fascinating and complex programs I know but I have no idea how exactly they work.

Most of complex algorithms and data structures are used in databases.

<comment><USER18> Databases are conceptually simple. It's making them go fast reliably that's hard. Naive databases are "Lock everything, take search criterion, run over all records, return result, unlock." (DBASE II in the DOS era actually worked that way, and that's what people using Excel as a database are doing.) Now make it go fast and make it reliable despite failures while updating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I agree with everyone who says focus on math and stats. The best programmers I have worked with have come from a math background. This is an area I greatly underestimated in my education, and if I went back to school now it is where I would focus

</comment><comment><USER23> I made the perfect choice when starting with Android. Great job prospects, great pay, allows me to go in and out of a lot of fields.

But if I could try over, I'd focus more on small skills instead of breadth. Full stack is nice to know but ultimately not useful. Anyone can learn to program something over 3 months. That doesn't necessarily make you valuable.

What makes people valuable is being better than other people at a skillset. Like right now we really need a good AngularJS (1) programmer, but that's hard to find.

"UI/UX guys" are a dime a dozen, but what's extremely valuable are the ones who can prototype quickly, write their own CSS/HTML. These guys will be core to any group.

There will always be new, sexy tech. The hard part would be coding the algorithms. The guys who are cashing in on e-commerce know their Big O. The guys who are well paid writing code for Uber know their algorithms. The rest will change, and will either be reading documentation or copy paste.

</comment><comment><USER24> I feel as though many of the comments here are throwing out fields because they're interesting. I think college is a very long term investment that will change what you'll be spending your valuable time on for the next 4+ years.

I agree with many comments that suggest pursuing something more "meta" like management or architecture that will help no matter where you land in 5-10 years. Although personally, I'd say experience is practically the best education you can get.

</comment><comment><USER25> Not exactly a "lesser known" area, but computer architecture and operating systems. No matter what you are doing with computers, no matter what high level language you are using, you will eventually need to understand what is happening "on the bare metal".

<comment><USER26> Computer architecture was my undergraduate focus and sometimes I'm not too sure what's happening on the bare metal. You'll want to take VLSI, semiconductor physics, and a course on compilers to get the entire picture.

<comment><USER27> I would also suggest Digital Design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Factory operations. In absolute seriousness! If you want to get years ahead in Ops, learn queuing theory and applications years ahead of your CS peers :)

<comment><USER25> I'll second this - queuing theory is extremely relevant in all sorts of places. If you haven't studied it, you might not know when the concepts will apply.

It's applicable to all sorts of things like event loops, job queues, network packet analysis, even database access.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Geospatial technologies. Cartography, visualization, remote sensing, geospatial databases. If you're good with Python you'll go to the head of the class. My _impression_ is that most students and practitioners in GIS don't have CS backgrounds and thus programming and relational/geospatial database (e.g. PostGIS) skills are in demand.

</comment><comment><USER30> I would take all of the electives I could, if I could go back in time, even if it required staying an extra year. Graphics, networking, databases, ML, everything. I would even go for the masters, really. The undergrad degree is in a sense the prep work for the really interesting stuff.

</comment><comment><USER31> Something that I looked at doing recently was getting into law around the internet/AR/cryptography etc.

It seems that there are a lot of people currently making laws and rulings on things that they don't understand - and there is going to be a lot of change coming soon with the way technology is going.

Unfortunately I can't afford the time or money to do it now (I think it was like 6 years to just get qualified) which is a shame.

(I never went to university or even finished my A-levels, I just went straight to get a job at 17, looking back 20 years later, it hasn't hindered me in anyway, but I do think that going would have had a positive effect and maybe changed my career)

</comment><comment><USER32> Don't drop out; you'll spend your whole career trying to push open closed doors (it gets easier with many years' experience or during an acute skills drought, but the issue never goes away completely).

Study whatever you enjoy most. It'll be easier for you to excel that way, and you'll still get the all-important degree.

Once you get your career underway, continue to learn and work on whatever interests you most; be prepared to continually learn and adapt over the decades. New technologies and ideas will come along that haven't been imagined yet, while some of the stuff you study at uni will be surprisingly relevant later.

Best of luck!

<comment><USER5> As you get older, it gets harder to learn new stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Study something that makes you excited. For me, if I had enough money to retire and I am just doing this for fun/intellectual I'd probably look into 3D graphics. I'm not a big nut on Machine Learning. Programming Language design would be kind of cool but I'm afraid it would get a bit dry. I did well studying topics I could visualise. Therefore I did well at analysis at university because you can visualize limits then transcode that to a proof. But vector spaces blew my mind out and I didn't really enjoy that.

</comment><comment><USER34> Dev work probably feels enjoyable since you end up creating things for the product and see where it impacts the business everyday. Coursework is a little more abstract, but you can still make it enjoyable by talking with peers and professors to find out what is interesting and chic local to you. You might try taking some statistics, algorithms and engineering courses since you seem attracted to the by-products of the theory there. Good luck, and hope you don't drop out!

</comment><comment><USER35> Pick what your passionate about and learn it deeply. However you would be well advised to take atleased one course on:

\- networking, focus TCP \- Compilers, focus theory behind lex and yacc, or equivalent \- parallel algorithms, focus on lock free and message passing \- A.I. focus on or-tree search and genetic emergence. (Not ML, important but that comes later) \- functional models of computation and recursion.

</comment><comment><USER36> Front end development. It's incredibily useful for when you get an idea for a product and want to whip something up.

</comment><comment><USER37> My suggestion to you is to take any courses where a 10 years old book is not outdated. This probably includes almost all math, algorithms, big o notation, databases, OS fundamentals, etc. And it probably does not include things like machine learning, HCI, etc.

</comment><comment><USER38> I think that this website gives a great study roadmap for computer science: [https://teachyourselfcs.com](https://teachyourselfcs.com)

You should definitely consider choosing some topics from the and study them.

</comment><comment><USER39> Human-computer interaction!

I didn't have any exposure to this as an undergrad but have been doing research in the area for my PhD, and now I'll be starting as a professor in August. I think it can benefit you in just about any job you go for.

</comment><comment><USER40> Information Visualization. It fits in really nicely with the ML and big data hype.

</comment><comment><USER41> Photogrammetry. It's the art of reconstructing 3d models from several 2d images.

</comment><comment><USER42> Hey OP, I'm a self taught programmer and former tech recruiter. I wish I had a BSCS for the following reasons:

\- it would have been easier to get interviews at places I wanted to work when I had less experience

\- it would be easier to get interviews now at places I want to work if I had prior experience at companies like the ones I could have joined with a BSCS

\- I'd finally know what I could have learned in school but didn't, and what I just needed to learn on my own

\- I'd spend less energy on feeling like I have something to prove to BSCS grads

If I were in a BSCS program, and I wanted to drop out, I'd do the following before bailing:

\- prove to myself that I could power through boring work AND do it well to reduce the chances that I'd get fired from a job because I couldn't/wouldn't do the crap work that job required of me

\- I'd seriously look at my finances to understand how much time I could afford to be unemployed, because I was damn broke in school, and if I got canned from a good coding job, and had to take a crappy non-coding job, I'd have less time to code, which would make it hard to get another good coding job

\- immediately start living as cheaply as possible on cash I had, only using student loan money for school expenses, and completely staying away from credit cards

\- line up a job before dropping out, and keep still playing student well enough until I had that job

\- talk to my professors about my challenges in remaining interested in school, and see if they can offer me some perspective that might help me appreciate the pros and cons of staying in school, because unlike your boss at work, you can talk to professors about your non-growth/personal development

\- find some professional mentors who could guide me on how to be an employee and/or entrepreneur

\- stop throwing around derogatory terms like "code monkey", because that kind of job may be the I could get, and I wanna certain I'm not insulting people with whom I'll be working by unintentionally coming across as an a __hole

\- figure out how to pay for health insurance

</comment><comment><USER43> I just wanted to chim in and say thank you for the question, @offbytwo. I'm in a similar situation now and these answers provide a better mental model to act on.

</comment><comment><USER44> For machine learning take math, especially advanced stats. Algorithms and architecture will help you to get high-level CS jobs. A couple of business courses will help you to advance your career.

</comment><comment><USER45> The degree itself opens doors that can remain closed to you otherwise. Get some theory in you and you will stand out from those without it. There is lots of time to be a code monkey.

<comment><USER45> You may not see the relevance of certain courses, some may never be directly relevant. But they are shaping your mind getting you used to abstract thought and greek letters.

What we have atm is a job market where you can make good money with your skills. Consider that the "weather", it may come and go. In leaner times, the degree can be of more value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Even if you can't find interesting courses (unlikely), you could use the time to work on a startup or for "personal learning" experiments.

</comment><comment><USER47> I would do whatever these guys are doing at [lambda the ultimate]([http://lambda-the-ultimate.org](http://lambda-the-ultimate.org)). This all looks strangely fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER48> Math!!!

</comment><comment><USER49> Computational Phrenology

</comment><comment><USER50> Econometrics.

I completed all the pre-reqs too, just never got around to taking it.

<comment><USER51> isn't econometrics basically just a math methods class for economy student that want to do theory? just like how in the physics department it's called "theoretical physics" or something like that but it's just a Hodge podge of odes and linear algebra (and maybe calculus of variations)

<comment><USER50> A few people I know who studied it ended up working in Data Science/Machine learning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Automata and FSM</comment>


Solving edge-match puzzles with Arc and backtracking - <AUTHOR> http://www.arcfn.com/2010/12/solving-edge-match-puzzles-with-arc-and.html <comment><USER2> Cute little puzzle. Is "backtracking" just a depth-first search?

I've always thought solving small puzzles like this was a nice way to get a feel for a new language. I recently worked on a similar solver for one of those triangle peg jumping games (<http://www.gabedurazo.com/blog/?p=86>) to get the hang of C a bit. Arc, here, looks nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, backtracking is similar to depth-first search, except backtracking stop going down a branch as soon as you realize it's not going to work. Depth-first search on the other hand normally visits all the nodes in the graph. Applied to the puzzle, depth-first search would try every possible combination of tiles and check each one to see if it works or not, which would be very inefficient.

Your peg-jumping puzzle would be harder to solve efficiently with backtracking, because it's not obvious until the end that you're on the wrong path. If you're interested in the mathematics of peg-jumping puzzles, see "Winning Ways for your mathematical plays, Vol 2", by Berlekamp, Conway, and Guy, which discusses the mathematics of the plus-shaped peg-jumping puzzle in detail.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out!</comment></comment></comment>


How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters - <AUTHOR> http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2010/04/immersion-in-propaganda-racebased-nationalism-and-the-unfigureoutable-vortex-of-juche-thought-colin-.html

<comment><USER2> There are 24 million North Koreans and they earn per capita about 6% of what the 38 million South Koreans earn. In 1990 there were about 16 million East Germans and 63 million West Germans who earned only about twice as much. Twenty years on, East Germany is still behind.

Given the economic and ideological differences, I think the Koreans are more likely to drift apart than to ever become one country again.

<comment><USER3> One should also note the physical and mental effects of pervasive malnutrition.

I agree; I don't know about the "drift apart", but reunification is the last thing a bunch of South Koreans want. The above problems will take _generations_ to correct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I saw the Mass Games in Pyongyang last year. This interview is spot-on that the North Korean ideology is tightly tied to race. Hitler would have loved to have the ability to put on such a show, and it was so beautifully done that by the end _I_ was proud to be North Korean.

Cultural pride can be weaponized.

<comment><USER5> Do tell more of this story!

<comment><USER4> I've mentioned bits and pieces in relevant stories here before, but haven't put a coherent account of my five days in the DPRK anywhere online. Paul Karl Lukacs' somewhat colorful account was what inspired me to go, and starts here: <http://knifetricks.blogspot.com/2007/05/dprk-q.html>

Tourism is opening up a bit this year; you can now take a beach vacation in the DPRK, via Koryo Tours!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Christopher Hitchen's review of the book and YC discussion on it:

<http://www.slate.com/id/2243112/pagenum/all/>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1094011>

</comment><comment><USER7> When I saw the you can "read books" to see examples that "In other worlds, North Korea's depiction of itself is strikingly close to, say, the American right wing's depiction of North Korea as a rogue state", I was curious which books those are.

By analogy, this is like writing up an essay "How 'Bob' sees himself, and why it matters", and concluding from your research that that poor sap Bob really does see himself as our US right-wingers do, and of course Bob is not around to confirm or deny the what is being claimed about how he thinks.

Opportunity for wary skepticism, yes?

<comment><USER8> I gather from the interview that Myers doesn't qualify for a North Korean library card, so the books he's referring to are probably available in the North Korean Information Center in Seoul, the Natation Archives in DC, or the Library of Congress. I don't find it suspicious that he's not dropping specific ISBNs in an _interview_ , and substituting "Bob" for "North Korea" doesn't illuminate any opportunity for skepticism that I can see.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Off-topic, I have the impression that the same applies to US policy on Iran, the majority of people appears to not understand the Iranian revolution, the Iranian regime that followed, the divergence about Iran in the Shi'a world and even what Iranians do think about their country.

<comment><USER3> Not really relevant, I'd say.

To get a useful analogy, assume the Confederates had won the "War Between the States" and following that this sort of split and lack of understanding developed. Even then, it's hard to imagine the Confederacy e.g. taking such a harsh line toward contacts of any sorts with the Union.

That sort of next door, you were once part of us thing is very far removed from events on the other side of the globe in country with a very different (and ancient!) culture, religion, etc. And one where visiting during a lot of these events could result in death or something quite unpleasant (they're still holding those hikers who (maybe?) strayed across the border, right?).

Heck, the current regime in Iran is more outlaw than the DPRK, in terms of diplomatic protocols (our embassy) and the like, right?

<comment><USER9> As I said it is completely off-topic.

I'm not trying to justify the Iranian regime, my father have dual Brazilian/Israeli citizenship and I do have the majority of my relatives living in Israel right now, I do not have any sympathy for Iran, but I still think we ignore some interesting facts (and useful if we are to understand the world around us) just because of animosities between countries or because governments needs to release propaganda against its enemies, this was for me the essence of this interview about North Korea.

And I do agree with you about Iran at large, but there are far more problems with Iranian foreign policy, specially in relations with its neighboring countries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is a minder just the person who watches over you when you visit North Korea?

<comment><USER11> Like a tour guide, only with a duty to constant watch visitors and keep them away from anything deemed unsuitable, including unsupervised talks with normal citizens.

(Disclaimer: I haven't been to North Korea, this is just the definition I've gotten from what I've read about people who have. Take it with a grain of salt.)

<comment><USER12> Yes. Totalitarian regimes have been using those for a long time. In the anthology "Expanded Universe", Heinlein has an extended description of his trip to the USSR with his wife who could speak Russian, which they for some mysterious reason neglected to tell the Russians.

North Korea may not be structurally communist, but this article really reminded me of Heinlein's story. There's definitely an established pattern of how a totalitarian regime deceives its visitors.

(Which it desires despite the danger, as it wants the visitors to take back good propaganda to their host country. I suspect it's getting harder as the wealth gap grows larger every year. Even putting on a "decent face" is getting hard/expensive when you're from a country where the Wal-Mart, at or near the bottom of the wealth scale, is clean, brightly-lit, and full-to-overflowing of products for sale.)</comment></comment></comment>


Logistic Regression – ML from the Fundamentals (Part 2) - <AUTHOR> https://rickwierenga.com/blog/ml-fundamentals/logistic-regression.html <comment><AUTHOR> A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post on polynomial regression [1] which was on the front page of hacker news for 18+ hours [2] so I decided to turn it into a series which I ended up calling "ML from the Fundamentals." The second post which I posted yesterday is on classification problems and logistic regression [3]. I'm planning on writing a lot more posts in the series, suggestions are welcome!

The notebooks are hosted in a GitHub repo: [https://github.com/rickwierenga/MLFundamentals](https://github.com/rickwierenga/MLFundamentals). You'll also find Colabs there.

Let me know if you have questions/comments!

[1] [https://rickwierenga.com/blog/ml-fundamentals/polynomial- reg...](https://rickwierenga.com/blog/ml-fundamentals/polynomial- regression.html)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21879374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21879374)

[3] [https://rickwierenga.com/blog/ml-fundamentals/logistic- regre...](https://rickwierenga.com/blog/ml-fundamentals/logistic- regression.html)</comment>


Tekzr - Online Coding App - <AUTHOR> http://tekzr.com/ <comment><USER2> So, apparently 'alph' submitted Coding App here. I'm the founder of Coding App, so feel free to ask anything. :)</comment>


3D XPoint Steps into the Light - <AUTHOR> http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328682 <comment><AUTHOR> "In an NVMe-based solid state drive, XPoint chips can deliver more than 95,000 I/O operations per second at a 9 microsecond latency, compared to 13,400 IOPs and 73 ms latency for flash."

and

"A version of XPoint in DIMMs will enable up to 6 TBytes main memory in a two- socket Xeon server at about half the cost of DRAM".</comment>


Deepcoder builds programs using code it finds lying around - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/23/deepcoder-builds-programs-using-code-it-finds-lying-around/ <comment><USER3> As far as I can tell, even figuring out how to add two numbers together is beyond the state of the art of any deep learning + programming systems. (They can do it for a limited number of digits, but not discover the "loop" part. Not an expert so I could be wrong but would love to be schooled by a real expert here.) So I am doubtful this will actually work on any problem, even ones of trivial complexity.

</comment><comment> apple-hammer This has been bubbling for a while.

[https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/17/microsoft-launches- smart-v...](https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/17/microsoft-launches-smart-visual- studio-add-on-for-code-snippet-search/)

[http://codesnippet.research.microsoft.com/](http://codesnippet.research.microsoft.com/)

Things will continue to simmer and obviously we are safe for a few more years but I for one welcome the day when machines replace us.

Anyone aware of any opensource repos that we can help contribute to on this topic?

</comment><comment><USER4> Well guys it's over. Buy a cow and find yourself a meadow :D

Next up, this is gonna turn the Node.js script kiddies that copy-and-paste together modern society's infrastructure from Stack Overflow into copier- pasters of "Deepcoder specs", which doubtlessly over time will become ever "easier to get wrong", until "Deepspecr" shows up to close _that_ gap as well. The saddest part, it'll probably _improve_ the quality of code-bases on the whole..

<comment><USER5> > Buy a cow and find yourself a meadow

Not with autonomous farming robots lurking right around the corner to take my job!

<comment><USER4> Just for you, not as a job. One cow lasts a man a year if he eats nothing else and isn't picky with the cuts. That's ignoring cow reproduction though ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well, it's obvious that there will be an improvement in specifiying the syntax for a computer program as it has been for the last decades.

e.g. Assembler -> C -> C++

There recently has been a post @ HN about the missing programming paradigm ([http://wiki.c2.com/?ThereAreExactlyThreeParadigms](http://wiki.c2.com/?ThereAreExactlyThreeParadigms)). With the emerge of smarter tools, programming will get easier in one way or the other, releasing the coder from a lot of pain ( as C or C++ did realse us from tedious, painful assembler ). However, I am quite sure that it won't replace programmers since our job is actually not to code but more to solve a given problem with a range of tools. Smarter tools will probably boost productivity of a single person to handle bigger and more complex architectures or other kinds of new problem areas will come up. Research will go faster. Products will get developed faster. Everything will kind of speed up. Nevertheless, the problems to get solve / implement will remain until there's some kind of GAI. If there's an GAI smart enough to solve our problems probably most of the Jobs have been replaced.

<comment><USER7> As a janitor, I feel the same way. By the time a robot can cost effectively do my job, _everyone_ will be out of work. My job even requires motor skills!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is cool, but still is affected by the same local vs global scope problem that all bottom-up algorithms suffer. The NN will piece together small snippets (local scope) to produce large snippets and then larger snippets and so on. The problem occurs when it can't understand what it has created (global scope), and therefore can't streamline the code in obvious ways:

1\. combining loops.

2\. removing repeated logic.

3\. understanding memory problems (i.e. when to use a list vs a lazy list).

4\. finding performance hotspots and understanding how to fix them.

5\. non-maintainable output likely, and seeing as humans need to edit the final code, this becomes a big problem.

Those last three points are why this stuff is fine for contests, but no one is going to want to use it in production. Not even getting started on how do you define a complex algorithm without getting into a ton of ambiguous cases.

</comment><comment><USER9> Saw this part and got curious: "Programmers note that a system like this can't build larger projects out of small snippets of code which, to be fair, sounds like whistling past the graveyard."

So I clicked on the original link and saw this: "At the moment, DeepCoder is only capable of solving programming challenges that involve around five lines of code. But in the right coding language, a few lines are all that's needed for fairly complicated programs."

A far cry at this point from "OUT of the way, human, I've got this covered. A machine learning system has gained the ability to write its own code."

Still it's been amazing how much has been done with deep learning in such a short period of time.

I wonder when this will change from seeming like an advanced code snippet finder/synthesizer to an actual skilled coder.

</comment><comment><USER10> Show me a complete and nontrivial program built by Deepcoder or something similar and then I'll worry.

<comment><USER11> You won't have to worry for a long time to come :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> previous discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13711910](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13711910)

</comment><comment><USER13> If they'd just built it in Flare, we'd have the singularity right now.

[http://flarelang.sourceforge.net/](http://flarelang.sourceforge.net/)

<comment><USER8> Isn't that just Lisp?

<comment><USER9> From the Flare website

"4.1: Why is the Singularity Institute interested in Flare?

"AI has always been one of the traditional drivers of programming language advances, although usually for the wrong reasons. We don't think AI is so simplistic that the thought processes have anything to do with the idioms of the underlying programming language, but we also think that current programming tools are simply inadequate. It would be really hard to code an AI in a non-object-oriented language and it probably won't be easy to build AI in a non-annotative language either. Flare, an extensible language easily modifiable by Flare programs, will let us write more powerful tools, and will let the AI introspect and tinker with its own source code, without our needing to become compiler and interpreter specialists."

"If there's no production-quality Flare language by the time the Singularity Institute begins writing code on the AI project, as seems likely, then we'll probably be forced to write pseudo-Flare programs in Python, at least for the prototype. But we won't have to like it, and we'll still want to switch to Flare as soon as possible."

The Singularity Institute has embarked on a long-term quest to develop real AI. They don't want to stop there, either; they want to develop recursively self-improving AI, Friendly AI, and transhuman AI. The Singularity - <USER2> technological creation of greater-than-human intelligence - is a quest of such mind-boggling importance and earthshaking impact that our words cannot even begin to describe it. (You should go read their website.) Even if you've never heard of the Singularity Institute and you're getting involved in Flare solely because you love annotative programming, we still hope that you get a warm fuzzy feeling from helping to bring about a swifter and safer Singularity. "</comment></comment></comment>


Reborn IBM Model M a great improvement on average keyboards, features USB port - <AUTHOR> http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/product-review-unicomp-customizer-keyboard/

<comment><USER2> For me the quality of a keyboard is based entirely on how well my wrists and fingers deal with typing on it. I have been using a Kinesis keyboard for nearly a year and it makes my finger pain nearly go away. When I use my laptop keyboard instead, it comes back within a few days -- it's just immensely more comfortable on the Kinesis.

It's $300, but the cost-benefit analysis was easy for me to make: if I don't buy it, I either can't type (not really an option for me), or I end up spending much more than that on surgery or something insane.

I don't know what technology is behind the springs in the keys, but it has two important characteristics for my fingers -- it doesn't require much force to press, and I can type without my fingers "hitting bottom" (the keys travel quite far, 4mm according to their website, and they activate at 2mm). Furthermore, the keyboard makes a little electronic 'click' when the key activates, providing that auditory feedback.

</comment><comment><USER3> I went on a bit of a Keyboard Quest earlier this year...

1) Started with a Microsoft Natural USB keyboard - one of the split ones. Good, but not great keyfeel, and lots of typing on my MBP 17" got me used to typing on a standard keyboard again... I felt like going back to mechanical keyswitches, so...

2) Moved to an original IBM Model M and a PS/2 adapter.. Great, except for the immediately apparent fact that there was no Windows/Command key, thereby making it _incredibly_ useless for a Mac power user.

3) Moved to a Griffin iMate and Apple Extended Keyboard II - The Nimitz. Worked fine, but the key feel was a little flimsy compared to the Model M.

4) Moved to a Griffin iMate and Apple Extended Keyboard I - The USS Enterprise. Liked the key feel a little better, but still didn't have that Model M feel to it.

5) Bought a USB Unicomp Customizer. Key feel of the Model M, with the Windows/Command key to keep me happy. It doesn't have the same internal metal frame, which does make it feel rather lighter when picking it up and perhaps slightly flimsier, but nothing you'd notice when actually typing on it... as near as I can tell, the keyswitches themselves are identical.

Thumbs up on the Unicomp Customizer, but the old-fashioned Apple keyboards are very nice as well... anything with mechanical keyswitches will feel far better than a new-fangled membrane keyboard. Well worth the $60 IMHO.

<comment><AUTHOR> The old Apple keyboards are nice, if you can find one in decent condition -- I couldn't. Matias produces a new version of the Extended II called the Tactile Pro 2, but it's not nearly as good as the Customizer, as I discuss here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> WARNING: I used a model M for a few years and during that time got into the habit of pounding the keys far harder than necessary. This has led to some RSI problems.

Beware. The model M was designed to please secretaries who were used to positive click from the days of mechanical typewriters -- it's silly, and analogous to making running shoes with metal in the back to mimic the jingling of spurs.

I did enjoy the positive click, it made my typing sound like some sort of engine rattling away... but that entertainment comes at a cost.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm using a dell AT101W that I found deep within my organizations storage...It's not quite a model M but it has the buckling springs and that distinctive clacking when i type. everyone in my office knows when i'm typing, don't know whether or not that is good...

</comment><comment><USER6> Jesus christ what's the key travel there? 1cm or so?

<comment><USER7> I measured it: on the Model M I'm using right now, the keys go down by about .4cm. It's an IBM, though; it may be that newer incarnations of the design are different.

<comment><USER6> Anything more than 1mm or so and my productivity would die.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love my Model M's. I bought 2 off eBay and have been using them on my computers ever since. One had a key stick (not mechanical, oddly) but the seller sent me a replacement for free. If these new clones are any good I would love to pick up a couple.</comment>


Navy Got 'UFO' Patent Granted by Warning of Similar Chinese Tech Advances - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28729/docs-show-navy-got-ufo-patent-granted-by-warning-of-similar-chinese-tech-advances <comment><USER2> >(HAUC), which can function as a submersible craft capable of extreme underwater speeds (lack of water-skin friction)

Chinese advancement in frictionless supercavitating submarines are already well known[1]. But claiming that they have the capability to do so with EM propulsion is something new.

What's more bewildering to me is that the patent fiasco surround this. AFAIK state of the art defence tech rarely gets through patent system for obvious reasons, TIL that U.S. Patent system has a way to file secret patents and even that wasn't used in this case.

Not sure whether they filed this patent with PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty), then they would be eligible to submit this patent application for review in other countries as well.

[1]: [https://www.popsci.com/article/technology/chinas-future- subm...](https://www.popsci.com/article/technology/chinas-future-submarine- could-go-speed-sound/)

<comment><USER3> What are the speeds at which a super cavitating submarine must be at to optimally function?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The concept is fairly simple, although the engineering required to make it a > reality is anything but. All matter contains energy on the quantum level. By > theoretically creating its own incredibly dense and polarized energy field, > the hybrid craft is claimed to be able to create a quantum 'vacuum' around > itself which allows it to repel any air or water molecules with which it > interacts.

As a PhD in physics, this just sounds like nonsense to me. Energy isn't a field and to polarize it doesn't mean anything.

> Little information can be found about Salvatore Cezar Pais; he has virtually > no web presence. What is known is that he received a PhD in Mechanical and > Aerospace Engineering from Case Western Reserve University in 1999 and that > he currently works as an aerospace engineer for NAWCAD at Naval Air Station > Patuxent River in Maryland – the Navy's top aircraft test base. Pais has > published several articles and presented papers at American Institute of > Aeronautics and Astronautics conferences over the years describing his work > in electromagnetic propulsion, revolutionary room temperature > superconductors, and topics like his PhD dissertation: "Bubble generation > under reduced gravity conditions for both co-flow and cross-flow > configurations."

My sample size is small at ~5, but former classmates who joined the military research labs were not the brightest bunch. Of my overall cohort, the smartest ones went into industry, sometimes a different industry than their field of study. The smart but idealistic ones went into academia. And then the ones that truly never shed their sophomoric arrogance, acquired in their formative years and that should have been beaten out of them by the doctoral process, went to the military labs to work on secret stuff.

It may have been true in the past, but military labs don't have the cachet to attract top talent.

With that being said, the most likely reason for this patent filing, as others have noted, is misdirection.

<comment><USER5> > As a PhD in physics, this just sounds like nonsense to me. Energy isn't a > field and to polarize it doesn't mean anything.

That part is just a terrible attempt by the journalist to summarize the theoretical background of the patent's (rather ludicrous) claims in a popular form. The polarization they're talking about is just the vacuum polarization in the standard QED sense. The funny stuff starts when the patent assumes that you can automagically generate fields close to or over the Schwinger limit.

As a fellow physics PhD, I recommend reading the actual patent for comic relief [1]. It has no other use as far as I can tell.

[1] [https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/de/4c/43/62c585c...](https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/de/4c/43/62c585ccc936cc/US10144532.pdf)

<comment><USER6> This whole story is complete nonsense. First off, if the US military was in possession of such technology they would NEVER submit a patent for it. Why would they publish the technology to enable others (foreign governments and entities) to easily copy it? The US Government doesn't need to protect themselves from not being able to use the technology if it was real anyways. The federal government of the United States has the "right to use patented inventions without permission"[1].

So yeah, perhaps someone working for the Navy wants to try to patent it so they can make some money from the technology. Well, it is very likely such technology would be top secret classified and any individuals working on it would find themselves in deep trouble for publishing anything, including patents, related to their work.

If this story is true, at least the part about some patent trying to explain the UFO's that have been in the news more of late then it is likely a psyops piece/work and/or is a means to try to quell concerns that there are in fact extraterrestrials visiting earth or things the U.S. government (and others) can't explain.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_patent_use_(United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_patent_use_\(United_States\))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've seen two variants of this fly over my house in Colorado a few years ago. Giant triangular craft moving silently at insane speed - clearing the entire night sky in 7 seconds, appeared to be the size of an aircraft carrier. They have 5 very dim white points of light underneath that outline their triangle shape. I wouldn't even believe my own eyes except that my wife shared the experience with me.

<comment><USER3> In approx 1989 or so, i was doing marching exercises at the truckee california airport for my civil air patrol group...

My command leader was a former SR-71 flight mechanic...

We were marching about, and it was just after dusk, but a full moon.

At the horizon, we saw a craft come up over the mountains at incredible speed - and we watched it as it was flying at a vertical as opposed to an arc which a winged aircraft woulld require...

Within seconds the thing was hovering about 100 feet above us. Silently. A huge triangle with the white lights on corners and one in the middle.

Our commander yelled and said "everyone inside now!" And hustled us back into our hangar office...

—-

About three weeks ago, in santa rosa ca, i saw a sphere glowing in the sky and moving at a rate which was impossible for conventional craft..

And as i watched it, it literally just disappeared.

I fully believe bob lazar.

<comment><USER8> Why would anyone controlling such an aircraft deliberately take it to a hovering position above 100 feet of people who have never seen it before? Aren't these flight tests supposed to happen away from public's view? It looks as if on one hand, the government wants to keep a tight lid on these things, on the other hand, they want to give it all away so easily (based on stories such as yours), which makes no sense. I will be a skeptic until the day I can get to lick the surface of such a craft.

<comment><USER9> It seems like tech so incredible as this would make eyewitness testimony quite literally "unbelievable" and "incredible". If you had tech like that, you could pretty much show yourself to any group of people less than the population of an entire city, and nobody would believe them.

<comment><USER8> But what is the motivation? What do they get by showing it a small group, other than to just make the group question their sanity?

<comment><USER9> It doesn't necessarily need to be intentional. Perhaps they had some other business to fly to that airport, and simply don't care if there are people there or not due to the "unbelievability effect" which they'd be well aware of.

(Obviously I'm just speculating, and I'm not assigning belief either way to any of this; I just enjoy thinking about the possibilities here.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "High Frequency Gravitational Wave Generator"? Isn't this the technology reported to be seen by the infamous Bob Lazar in the late 80s? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lazar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lazar)

<comment><USER11> Tinfoil attention seeker or big claims/flimsy evidence pleader. There's also a lot of lonely, sad people who say the FBI's watching them and have a file on them... delusions of grandeur.

<comment><USER12> I used to have a similar stance, especially given the outlandish nature of his claims, but a lot of things he said that were initially used against him after the Knapp interview turned out to be accurate over time. His supposed prediction of the discovery of Moscovium ("Element 115") still puzzles me.

Not that that's proving anything but it gives me a harder time to entirely dismiss it.

The Joe Rogan interview linked in sibling comment is an interesting follow up to the initial interviews with George Knapp from the late 80s.

<comment><USER13> Well one could say that it would be a matter of time before someone discovered the Element 115 - what's curious is that he seems pretty confident when he says that, when we will have a stable version of the element (if ever), it will have the same properties he claims it has.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I find this scary. Because: Say this technology isn't that hard, say that we are actually technologically capable of making this a reality? Of making a craft that can basically separate itself off from the rest of the universe and flit off to wherever it wants with impunity? That means that there are very likely many many other alien species out there who have similar capability. And those species don't actually have to be that smart or advanced, they could be just as violent and messed up as we are. And they could be zipping in and out of our atmosphere all the time.

I guess this is the first time I've considered that this whole UFO/alien thing might be real.

God, this might be why they all look the same - the underlying technology requires the same basic external shape... but the craft could be from different civilisations.

</comment><comment><USER15> They seem to be confusing friction due to interaction with air and water with inertial mass. This is crackpottery at the highest level. It's a bunch of technobabble.

How does writing a patent for a device that obviously can't work as described achieve anything. They can't come along years later and say, oh we invented that, if something similar emerges, as it will be abundantly clear from the nonsense description that they did not invent it.

<comment><USER16> There seem to be two plausible reasons for getting such a patent — the navy genuinely thinks this is just around the corner and doesn't want to pay extortionate license fees to an American company to use it or they want China to think we are pursuing such a technology and want them to waste resources pursuing it themselves.

<comment><USER15> The first doesn't seem plausible for the reason I gave. The second occurred to me. But how stupid do they think the Chinese are? If the top Chinese military researchers really have such a poor grasp of physics, then their research efforts present no difficulties for the security of the US.

The only serious explanation I can come up with is that buried in this application is some element of the design which is feasible and which they do want to protect. But even that seems unlikely, given that they could have just made it secret.

Another less likely explanation is that someone in the navy is playing a prank on the public and the patent office. If the person who submitted the application doesn't actually exist, the navy might have trouble tracking down the perpetrator of the hoax.

One final possibility is that it is a recruiting tool. Perhaps by making this public they get a bunch of correspondence from talented individuals who capably point out that is nonsense, or that are capable of doing experiments that demonstrate parts of the patent to be nonfeasible.

<comment><USER3> Does anyone recall the missing hard drives from LLL or los alamos, which were grabbed by the chinese spy?

Or the theft of an AWAX by the chinese?

They are not stupid.

When i was at lockheed the chinese were phishing lockheed staff who had attended defense conferences. They managed to get a worm in lockheed that trickle fed them stolen data.

When it was discovered they opened the flood gates and tried to dump mass data out of the lockheed network - which, at the time, only had three egress points to the internet such that lockheed had to shit them down.

Then, lockheed tried to keep an air-gap between vendors they were using... but the chinese hacked the vendors such that they coulld compromise the usb drives being used as the sneakerbet between lockheed and the vendors....

The chinese are not stupid.

<comment><USER16> Stupidity is not always evenly distributed. Both the Russians and Americans threw away money on paranormal research, for example, largely because they thought the other side was doing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If these are all public patents, why haven't a couple dozen university labs taken a stab at building them or at least verifying the principles? This is something where I would expect even negative results to be newsworthy.

Anyway, it seems to me that the options have narrowed to human tech or psyops. Invoking aliens just doesn't help with any of the observations.

<comment><USER18> Because they're obvious nonsense. It would be a complete waste of time. Also pretty embarrassing if anyone found out you were trying to replicate this crack pottery.

<comment><USER19> Don't you mean it's... _patent nonsense?_

I'll get my coat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Well since foo fighters [1] were spotted during the Second World War and I doubt the US patented designs for the F117 stealth bomber several decades before it was revealed, I'd put this in the class of psyops. If they don't know what's flying those things or what they are, better to blame the Chinese instead of little green/grey men and get people all concerned.

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

<comment><USER21> I'm having a hard time parsing the last sentence.

Is it "blame Chinese and (not aliens) and get people concerned (to be aware/do something" or "blame Chinese and (not alien and not get people concerned)"?

<comment><USER20> The latter.

I mean just make everyone think it's the Chinese so they won't worry about it. "Oh it's just the Chinese and we're developing our own version" is much less scary than "It's something that acts with total impunity in our airspace and we haven't got a clue what it is, how it works or where it's from".

It must have been pretty obvious to the Navy this story would have been picked up by the media and widely circulated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> All this stuff was on those alternative science and energy sites (below) I looked at ages ago. The ones with lifters, ZPE, gravitational wave weapons, and so on. One I thought was interesting was Townsend Brown with the claim he and others did antigravity research with practical applications. The B2 was most likely source of funding at one point given (a) it was enormously expensive and (b) some of its traits matched the ones in Brown's antigravity designs.

Most of the stuff on those sites looked like BS, though. I don't know about Brown and this recent guy, though. This could also be disinformation to get Chinese to waste time on it. It has plus side that they can patent sue them if they do find anything.

EDIT: This was one of the sites. Just came back to me.

[https://www.americanantigravity.com/tim-ventura-on- antigravi...](https://www.americanantigravity.com/tim-ventura-on-antigravity)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Related discussion previously on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19760727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19760727)

</comment><comment><USER23> My question is, why would the US patent a secret technology? I don't think we patent the materials used on the F-35, etc... Those are top secret.

<comment><USER9> TLDR: The claims and descriptions in these Navy patents _exactly match_ the "leaked technical descriptions" from many conspiracy theories over the past 30-40 years claiming that the US government has secret craft capable of defying the current known limits of aerodynamics and propulsion.

Antigravity conspiracy theories has been a favorite source of fascination/amusement for me for a long time (see my username), and I cannot describe how eerie and weird it feels to read official Navy patents and claims by ex-head of Lockheed Martin skunkworks literally corroborating some of conspiracy theories I've heard going around for decades. (Yet the skeptic in my brain still won't allow me to fully believe it until I see a working prototype.)

The whole story here is just so utterly bizarre; the deeper you dig, the weirder it gets. These TheDrive articles seem to do a great job of investigating and reporting on the facts without too much speculation, and I highly recommend diving down the rabbit hole of linked articles (especially on this connected "To The Stars Academy" organization making similar claims of incredible technology by a panel of founders with astoundingly impressive and official credentials).

To add to the strangeness of the Navy patents: the actual patent contents reads almost like gibberish, or the kind of pseudoscientific technobabble you'd write to add scientific explanations of space ships to a sci-fi novel. If the technical descriptions and phenomena are real, then these patents really are describing or hinting at new physics, but in a way that misuses existing terms and reexplains obvious basics of physics with what seems like amateurish imprecision (like referring to cross products as "multiplication") — which just doesn't make sense at all given the credentials of those vouching for the patents.

Yet, the descriptions match almost _exactly_ the rumors and conspiracy theories of how electrogravitic propulsion systems of secret military craft worked. And, they describe something that should be testable even without a room temperature superconductor (one could take a charged super capacitor and spin it and/or vibrate it at extreme frequencies and see if this has any measurable effect on its inertial or gravitational mass), which intrigues me.

Look into the "TR-3B" or "Aurora project" conspiracy theory and you'll find tales and descriptions of the crafts antigravity drive that is absolutely identical to what is described in these patents: a superconducting medium carrying an extremely high charge density, that is rotated and vibrated are incredibly high frequencies — and this is claimed to somehow reduce the inertial mass of the surrounding area.

This TR-3B conspiracy theory is decades old, at least, and it matches these official government patents exactly.

It's almost as if someone took some of the most intriguing rumors or conspiracy theories of secret government craft from decades ago, and started filing patents from extremely official government sources on exactly the kind of tech that was rumored to exist; yet in a way that sounds much like pseudoscience to anyone educated in modern physics.

This is the kind of thing which, based on the content itself, you'd immediately dismiss as a crackpot conspiracy theory technobabble. But the highly official credentials of the source of these patents, and of the people claiming or hinting that the tech is real (the ex-head of Lockheed Martin skunkworks — it doesn't get much more credible than that) makes it impossible to ignore in that way.

So I honestly don't know what to make of any of this. It would be interesting to try experimenting with some of the testable claims that these patents describe.

<comment><USER24> This has also been a hobby of mine. Regardless of anything about aliens or technology, this area says something very interesting about the way our society processes information, about how scientists and organizations deal with non-reproducible information, for example.

From watching social media over the past few years, especially the various foreign authoritarian governments, we can see an easy pattern: some bit of truth comes out, then the organization trying to suppress conversation floods the conversation with tons of half-truths, lies, conspiracy theories, and so forth. In the firehose of bullshit, the only thing the average observer can do is throw up their hands and give up.

Based on this general pattern of information and disinformation, I'm quite confident that the western mostly-free (?) countries are trying to have an honest conversation with themselves. About what, I have no idea. What I find particularly interesting are the professional, multi-sourced observations of various things happening that seem to just get eaten up by the system itself. Whether incompetence, secrecy, crackpots, or whatnot, it says something really fascinating about how groups of people deal with things they don't want to deal with.

Yes, there are crackpots and liars in the world. Yes, there are people who are honestly mistaken. There are also people who avoid controversy and just throw out the "crackpot" label instead of thinking through things. These are all easy responses. Even putting all the options together, something very interesting is going on that we're not dealing with so well.

<comment><USER9> I think the need for most people to assign the label "crackpot" vs "credible" almost immediately to any claim (especially to the more far-out claims) is an aspect of human nature: a desire to break down and simplify our view of the world into discrete categories as early as possible.

I think we do this not because this is the most accurate way to think, but because our minds are finite, and we need some simplifying approximation (e.g. quantization of a continuum into categories, or binary decisions) in order to make thinking about the immensely complicated world even possible.

For example, we tend to seek conclusions like "we have decided that A is good, B is bad, C is bunk, and D is science — case closed!" When in reality, our understanding of truth is far more a continuous and constantly evolving thing, as new information and ideas flow through.

Put simply, I think most people are just uncomfortable answering important questions with "I don't know", and avoid that answer at all costs, even when it is the correct answer.

<comment><USER24> A long, long time ago, some generation looked up into the sky and saw a somewhat nearby supernova. Visible during the day! Incredible spectacle!

Within a short amount of time of those folks dying off, however, it all became BS. It was the sky god. It was an optical illusion. It was a bunch of liars. It was stupid people. It was people making stuff up.

These knee-jerk, easy answers come because in most cases they're true. But even more true is the fact that there are a ton of people _who just have to know_. Whether it's aliens or swamp gas, they have to know one way or the other. Just looking up in the sky and saying "Did you see that? Beats me what it is" isn't good enough.

Non-reproducible phenomenon is still phenomenon. The point the former Assistant SecDef was making in his recent opinion piece is extremely valid. If we can't control our skies that's a DoD/Security matter, even if the data is coming to us in such a way as to be very difficult for us to process. Easy answers aren't going to cut it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is a really interesting article, thanks for sharing it. Whether the tic- tacs are Chinese, American, or alien, this just seems to add the the evidence that they are real, and the public nature of the patent application seems to fit within the narrative of a managed disclosure.

<comment><USER26> >> ...the public nature of the patent application seems to fit within the narrative of a managed disclosure.

No. The patent application fits with the narrative that the US patent process is a total joke. This is an attempt to patent science fiction. This patent will be used for everything but the production of a working technology. It will be used by someone to aggrandize themselves and potentially milk "investors". They will wave this "patent" in front of some naive old people, probably in florida, to get them to sign over their life savings.

If anyone on this planet has practical warp drive technology, friction-free motion through air/water, or gravity manipulation tech ... such things are akin to the discovery of fire. In the real world, whether the inventor has a patent or not is absolutely meaningless in the face of what such technology would mean to mankind.

<comment><USER27> i don't think the US navy typically solicits donations from retirees. it seems to me more likely to be misdirection for rival militaries as others have suggested.

<comment><USER26> No, but crackpot inventors do. The charlatan tells people that he has invented a magic airplane technology. He the points to the US navy patent as 'proof' that such tech is possible. If his name is on the patent, all the better.

The US navy is a very large organization. I doubt this is a core program. This is some crazy think-tank operating way way outside oversight. Or it is an elaborate joke. Or an attempt to pad a resume before retirement. Or a "patent something or you're out" box ticking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Rush to provisionally-patent what may or may not exist. Monetize the little green Martians' tech even before meeting them. Good thinking. Even if it doesn't exist, it's still better to gamble on the off chance it does.

<comment><USER28> seems like you just go way out of your way to still be able to continue to deny that the US is reverse engineering UFO tech for a long time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Don't you need to show a working prototype to get a patent?

<comment><USER30> No, you only need to describe the nature of your invention - you don't even need to claim that it works or you could get it implemented.

<comment><USER31> An awfully large number of patents wouldn't exist if there was a requirement to show a working example of each claim.

I would prefer such a requirement.

<comment><USER23> That might be ok for some patents that require simple examples, but for complex patents that a working model would cost millions... Good luck getting an investor without a patent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The only thing scary about this is that apparently this "U.S. Naval Aviation Enterprise", whatever it is, is a den of crackpots. As a European physicist I'm not familiar enough with how research is managed in the U.S. military, so the fact that this kind of pseudo-science is tolerated is mind boggling to me. Anyone have any insight on what institutional factors might have led to this?

<comment><USER14> I've heard so many programmers tell me categorically that x way of doing things is the right and true way. I've always been skeptical of these viewpoints because they so often are wrong/baseless. It's human nature to put walls around what we know and do not know based not upon what is actually known or possible but upon how it makes us feel. Many people are naturally inclined to dismiss ideas because it makes them feel good, others to accept them and almost everyone is susceptible to group think. Negative knee jerk reactions are so frequently driven by psychology, by them vs us, that I find it very difficult to see any truth, or take anyone's opinion at face value. The older I get and the more I know about my specialities the more I see that so many people who profess expertise are merely wearing a mask and using it to score social points without any real commitment to truth and so often they are just... wrong.

But on the other hand I have been involved with some utterly clueless organisations - where the group think is so profoundly wrong and backward that it's a wonder they can get anything done...

So I would ask, can you point out a couple of things that I can fact check which are wrong with the patent? I'm no physicist, but have an msc in maths

<comment><USER5> A physics degree is helpful if you want to analyze the theoretical claims made in the patent (which range from trivial, through ludicrous all the way to "not even wrong"), but you don't need to do any of that to understand just how far from reality (or even "hard" sci-fi) this patent is. Instead, just read the patent, accept the contents at face value and consider the numbers the patent itself claims. Quoting the article:

> The application was initially rejected by Patent Examiner Philip Bonzell on > the grounds that "there is no such thing as a 'repulsive EM energy field,'" > and that "when referring to the specifications as to ascertain about the > microwave emitters needed in this system it is seen that for a high energy > electromagnetic field to polarize a quantum vacuum as claimed it would take > 10^9 [T]eslas and 10^18 V/m." That's roughly the equivalent to the magnetic > strength generated by most magnetars and more electricity than what is > produced by nuclear reactors.

The field values come straight from the patent itself, you can check that. So, apart from all the silly theory, the patent simply assumes, as a matter of fact, that you can easily obtain magnetic fields that are only found in the most extreme conditions in the universe (and are many orders of magnitude away from anything we can conceivably create), use utterly ludicrous amounts of energy and achieve all of this in a portable craft of some sort. How much fact checking and experience do you really need to see that this is not merely beyond our engineering capabilities, but rather beyond even the bounds of sane science fiction?

<comment><USER32> The Navy CTO explains in his follow-up letter [0] that the initial findings on generating these high intensity fields have been positive. Are you asserting that's an impossibility?

[0] [https://i.imgur.com/ZTL1B5h.png](https://i.imgur.com/ZTL1B5h.png)

<comment><USER5> Of course. The "initial findings" on what's eventually expected to become a huge multi-billion device capable of breaking field intensity records for a picosecond or two are completely irrelevant to the idea of a relatively compact mobile craft that requires even more intense fields for basic operation. That's barely a step away from saying "these values are perfectly fine - magnetars exist, don't they?".

If the criterion for patentability is describing a "future state of the possible" where "possible" just means "might, under a highly generous interpretation, not directly contradict the basic laws of physics... maybe", is there a patent for a Dyson sphere yet?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> See also: fast movers program.

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/25784/what-u-s- submari...](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/25784/what-u-s-submariners- actually-say-about-detection-of-so-called-unidentified-submerged-objects)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Obligatory Xkcd:

[https://xkcd.com/1235/](https://xkcd.com/1235/)

</comment><comment><USER34> The high proportion of green usernames in this thread makes this all feel a lot like an info op.

<comment><USER35> What?

I counted 3 green user names and total of 6 comments they made. The thread has 73 comments in total as I'm writing this.

<comment><USER36> Not to mention any serious info op attempts would have accounts created on every relevant forum and thus wouldn't require creating very-obviously new accounts to further their agenda.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Since this patent is not "secret" even tho there are ways to keep it secret and heck you don't even need to patent it if you've such technology.

What does a patent say? Basically that you can create and use it today which would be alarming for most around the world.

What if it's a bait for other intelligence agencies/spies working for foreign governments in US defense area.

And if someone tried to gather info about this tech within US defense ecosystem, they'll be caught without US government risking anything.

It does look like a bait to me, publicise that you poses a technology which makes all your enemies obsolete then wait and watch who is coming or helping them steal it from you.

<comment><USER38> surely intelligence agencies are smart enough to realize this is probably bait and not bother with it?

<comment><USER39> Unless it's just a bread crumb which links to other bread crumbs which all lead to nothing at all.

It could resemble an optical illusion we've been projecting around every once and a while?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Related comment about it being related to a recent cern experiment..

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18367198](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18367198)</comment>