Ask HN: How to warn developers not to use certain libraries? - <AUTHOR> There are several libraries that I know that are complete garbage and claim otherwise in README - from performance "lies", being completely broken to APIs that change completely every X months. My experience was horrible and I would like to save some time for others if I can, because rewrite hurts way too much.
I was considering opening the issues on these repos but some of them auto close them after a week of inactivity (that's part of the issue, you come to the repo see 20 open issues and 1000 closed you think it's good, but 80% of them were closed because maintainer did not reply). Couple of years ago I was so frustrated by one of the libs I wanted to open a PR and just change the README completely to represent the real state of it... I couldn't be bothered at the end, because I know it wouldn't be accepted - it doesn't sell so well.
We need something like libexp.com where people describe their experience with certain libraries. Is there something like that?
Examples:
- Silly performance comparisons - comparing trivial rendering and claiming your lib is 1000% faster than everything else
- Being completely broken: if statement didn't work in one of the libs I used (not joking)
- Being completely broken: shows features as working, but it's so shallowly tested that if you don't exactly use their examples it is not gonna work
- APIs that change way too often because developers don't know what they want and then completely abandoning last versions which work fine but are not idiomatic to their thinking
All of these had 1000+ stars on GitHub. I'm sad for thousands of developer hours wasted on them. <comment><USER2> Have a Github Rating App. Here is your next +$1b idea Microsoft is buying. Unless people fake recommendations too lol.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess it would be useful. Not sure if $1B+ range. I don't care if people fake it as long as there are some real experiences that do not get hidden.</comment></comment>


DSPL: Dataset Publishing Language - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/apis/publicdata/

<comment><USER2> Awesome, this is a great start. I'd love to see how they'd handle multiple definitions of concepts (for example, a "profit" column could be gross or net) and various localization issues with data in other languages.</comment>


Twitter Outage Moves Into Day 2  - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/07/twitter-outage-moves-into-day-2/ <comment><USER2> It seems that Twitter _still_ havent got their scaling sorted.</comment>


The End of Big Law - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052970203946904574300610126062746.html#mod=todays_us_opinion

<comment><USER2> This seems like a bit of under-generalizing to me. Big law firms are taking it on the chin, but it's because they are big, fat and inefficient. It doesn't have anything to do with "Big law". It just has to do with "Big." In a drought the lumbering carnivores starve first.</comment>


The Camel's Back Broke: 1984 Days of Bad PR for Apple - <AUTHOR> http://www.osnews.com/story/21918/The_Camel_s_Back_Broke_1984_Days_of_Bad_PR_for_Apple

<comment><USER2> This article makes no sense. Microsoft never releases an OS? (What are Vista and Windows 7?) Apple is prefectly good except for the evil AT&T not letting iPhone users use Google Voice? (What about all the other apps Apple blocks that have nothing to do with making phone calls or using data?) Before the iPhone you couldn't install apps on your phone? (Hello, Windows Mobile and Blackberry, you guys apparently didn't exist until after Apple invented you.) What?

Anyway, if you don't like Apple's business practices, don't do business with them. They are not going to change. Change is in _your_ hands. There are plenty of other smartphone OSes that will show you your email, twitter, and Google Maps. (Not many fart apps on the other platforms, though, I admit.)

If you are a developer, it's clear that nobody is making money off iPhone apps, so there is no real reason to keep clinging to the platform. The gravy train has come to an end -- the iPhone is not especially amazing for users, and it's not especially amazing for developers.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1984 days is more than five years. That's three years longer than the iPhone has even been _out_ , and an absolute eternity in internet time. Is the current Apple situation obnoxious? Sure. Is that worth whining about for five years straight? No.

<comment><USER4> You didn't read the whole article:

 _He also realizes that if Apple proves to be intransigent, and nobody joins his revolution, there's no way he'll bother to keep this up for 1,984 days, but it's just such a perfect number to use, and instead he'll keep it up for a few months then give up in disgust and ultimately sell his iPhone when his AT &T contract runs out._

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe it's time to take the whole Ritalin and stop breaking them in half.

</comment><comment><USER6> When two big companies have lucrative contracts between them like this, it's not generally easy for one to throw the other under a bus.</comment>


Show HN: The easiest way to build content-based mobile app (real native android) - <AUTHOR> https://doypp.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Maker here. We built this because we really want to make the mobile technology accessible for everyone. While we developers do have countless tools doing this and that, it is still not a snap to ship and maintain an online service. Not to mention how expensive and how painful it is for non developers who want to extend their service/workflow to the mobile.

We try to create a tool that provides a complete end-to-end solution, with highly customisable data, robust, modifiable at anytime even after launch, and accessible to everyone. The project is recently launched, we are in the early stage, any feedbacks are greatly appreciated.</comment>


Show HN: Emono – Your own mobile game in 30 days - <AUTHOR> Http://emono.co <comment><USER2> FAQ says Jibly[1] is the studio behind Emono. Interesting concept but there are no games on Google Play under Emono and only one under Jibly[2].

[1] [http://jibly.com/](http://jibly.com/) [2] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Jibly](https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Jibly)

</comment><comment><USER3> Seriously, you're sending a 33 megabyte gif on your landing page? If I hit that on mobile I'd be so pissed off. Use a gifv or something maybe?

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems like the quality of these games will be.. terrible. And most likely not what the customer wants.

Do you have any examples?</comment>


Nonnegative matrix factorization - <AUTHOR> https://blog.acolyer.org/2019/02/18/the-why-and-how-of-nonnegative-matrix-factorization/ <comment><USER2> Timely! We just added a super-efficient implementation of Online Non-negative Matrix Factorization to Gensim.

Jupyter notebook tutorial:

[https://github.com/RaRe- Technologies/gensim/blob/nmf_speedup...](https://github.com/RaRe- Technologies/gensim/blob/nmf_speedups/docs/notebooks/nmf_tutorial.ipynb)

What's unique about this implementation is that it's streamed, i.e. can process arbitrary amounts of data in _constant RAM_. It's also heavily optimized for sparse inputs (~text corpora, not just dense images), just like the optimized sparse SVD, LDA, FastText etc in Gensim.

<comment><USER3> Just want to say thanks for existing, gensim!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting.

The problem of finding a low-rank-approximation (in Frobenius norm) to a given matrix is well understood and solved in reasonable time (truncated SVD, as stated in this article).

However, the particular characteristic of this NMF approach seems to be that we require W, H >= 0 (and that's what makes it harder), but it's not clear why, what purpose it serves. The original paper linked [1] mentions that it makes interpretation easier (the vectors of W can be interpreted as facial features, or a form of "eigenface"), but it's not clear to me why you can't take a vector with negative elements after norming to [0,1].

Final note: The article contains quite a few paragraphs from the paper more or less verbatim.

[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.5226](https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.5226)

<comment><USER5> For example: you measure concentrations of `p` gases at `n` different places. You collect the results in a matrix A where A_ij is the concentration (a value between 0 and 1) of gas `i` at station `j`.

Now you factorize A ≈ B * C in the sense that ||A - B * C|| is small in your favourite matrix norm. Here B is of size `p × k` with normalized columns and C is `k × n` and of course k is very small.

Then the columns of B form an approximate basis for the column space of A -- so B compresses the data of A well.

Now, if also B is element-wise positive, you _might_ interpret the columns as concentrations (values between 0 and 1 due to normalization). And you could plot them.

It's not mathematical, but it's also not a crazy interpretation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> NMF works great for unsupervised audio source separation, e.g. [1]. See [2][3] for a good overview of the field.

[1] [http://librosa.github.io/librosa/generated/librosa.decompose...](http://librosa.github.io/librosa/generated/librosa.decompose.decompose.html)

[2] [https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01631185/document](https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01631185/document)

[3] [https://sci-hub.tw/10.1002/9781119279860.ch8](https://sci- hub.tw/10.1002/9781119279860.ch8)

<comment><USER7> If you're interested in this stuff a team i'm in proximity to are working on such problems.

[http://www.flucoma.org](http://www.flucoma.org)

[https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/publications/stationarytransient-a...](https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/publications/stationarytransient- audio-separation-using-convolutional-autoenco)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> NMF (and matrix factorization techniques more generally) are a really underrated machine learning technique. If you have a decent intuition for linear algebra, matrix factorizations are straightforward to understand, fairly easy to interpret, and can work wonders in applications far beyond recommender systems.

As the blog post mentions, NMF has a potential applications to text mining, which I've tried out here on Reddit posts: [https://eigenfoo.xyz/reddit- clusters/](https://eigenfoo.xyz/reddit-clusters/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Can anyone here provide an intuitive explanation for why you'd prefer NMF over SVD or Truncated SVD? It seems to be simply another way of accomplishing something very similar, but with this non-negativity constraint. But it's not obvious to me why that would be useful, or produce a better factorization. Can anyone shed any light on that?

My sense from reading about it and understanding what's going on to the extent that I do, is that it's simply an alternative factorization. And there's no real reason to prefer one to the other, but since they are similar but non- equivalent you can try both and see which one works better.

</comment><comment><USER10> I like this thread "A parellel between LSA and pLSA" [https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/40723/a-parellel-b...](https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/40723/a-parellel- between-lsa-and-plsa) showing differences between PCA matrix factorization, some naive non-negative matrix factorization (with L2 cost function) and pLSA (log-loss cost function).

The later is a precursor to Latent Dirichlet Allocation, one of the key models for topic modeling.

</comment><comment><USER11> How is this significantly different than Principal Component Analysis (PCA)? The image processing examples essentially do what a Karhunen-Loeve Transform (KLT) does or a set of Eignenfaces.

<comment><USER5> Well... the nonnegative matrix factorization builds a basis for the column space where all entries of the basis vectors are positive. This might be meaningful if the entries are thought of as some positive quantity like weight or energy.

In the SVD the basis vectors for the column space consist of entries that are not necessarily positive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> BTW, if you're interested in a code-first walkthru of NMF at a higher level, we cover it in this Jupyter notebook and video: [https://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/fastai/numerical- linear-...](https://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/fastai/numerical-linear- algebra/blob/master/nbs/2.%20Topic%20Modeling%20with%20NMF%20and%20SVD.ipynb)

</comment><comment><USER13> One point that I don't find raised much in the NMF literature is how rotational ambiguity (non-uniqueness) is dealt with systematically - is the exploration of factor rotations just not necessary?

<comment><USER14> From my understanding the vectors don't really matter so much. We care more about the subspace they span (because we want to project our data into it). So any rotation is as fine as any other.

<comment><USER14> On further thought I think this is wrong. Large rotations can cause coefficients to become negative, so there are constraints.</comment></comment></comment>


We Love Trailing Whitespaces - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/discourse/core/pull/12

<comment><USER2> I can't believe people think they need a dedicated project to remove trailing whitespace from source files. Let's wait and see if it appears at the Apple store for $39.95.

What happened to the time-honored Unix tradition of creating your own filters crafted from bits of trivial, specialized code? Or, in this case, applying existing tools like sed?</comment>


Ask HN: What can a hacker do about gun violence? - <AUTHOR>

The recent news about shootings makes me wonder whether there is anything I can do to help the situation. Maybe it's naive to think that we can use the web to mitigate this problem. But this is a smart group - someone's got to have some ideas for how we can improve our society with the tools we have. Would anyone like to throw out some suggestions that some of us could work on? <comment><USER2> You're asking a loaded question by conflating violence and possession and/or use of firearms, as if the firearms are part of the motivation for the violence.

Violence decreases with less unwanted births, a higher general level of education, and the evenly-applied rule (and understanding) of law. Put your time and money to work on those fronts and you will see a material decrease in violence.

If you live in a place with high gun-ownership, you aren't going to effect change by trying to ban the guns. Advocating firearms safety education would be a good place to start, and believe it or not the NRA is probably your best hope for bringing a culture of firearms safety into your community.

<comment><USER3> It's bizarre from the outside to here non-americans take availability of weapons as a non-factor.

There's plenty of room to argue about rights or the difficulty of actually reducing access to weapons. Saying that low hanging fruit is really gun safety, hotlines, preventative mental health etc. etc. etc.

BTW, I come form a country that probably has one of the highest rate of adults who can use & have access to an automatic rifle in the world. There aren't many incidents of this kind. I know that availability isn't everything.

Most killings are not conducted by the super resourceful, premeditated unstoppable type of people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Gun owners are more at risk for suicides than homicides (by quite a large margin). The media covers these, although in reality they happen far less than we would think (see recency effect).

<comment><USER5> Sorry, but I really need to see some data backing this claim up, as well as the causality you're implying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think hackers need to hack a new social response to mass shooting incidents. Currently there is saturation news coverage of such incidents, and much speculation of what "drove" the shooter to kill many people, often just before the shooter kills himself. Maybe video game designers need to build in scenes in the games where a mass murderer has survivors desecrate his grave and curse him as a cowardly loser, rather than seeming to glorify mass violence. Maybe news media coverage of such incidents needs to be more subdued. (I've read that news outlets are encouraged NOT to report suicide clusters, to avoid triggering copy-cat clusters of suicides in other places.) Lots of people own guns and never use them in any harmful way, and a sufficiently crazy person can use a car or a common household chemical to kill multiple people. There needs to be a social consensus that (this will sound very harsh) the murder- suicide perpetrator should just eliminate the middleman and kill himself without harming innocent bystanders. The more mass murder can be held up to shame and disgust rather than amazement, the better.

</comment><comment><USER7> I believe the problem has to do with anger. The kind of deep-seated anger that festers and drives people to do things they would not normally do. So how do you reduce that anger? It's simple. The best way is maintain a relationship with the Holy Spirit. Doing so will allow healing to take place which will lessen that anger. There might be other ways such as exercise, yoga, meditation etc, but these are not nearly as effective as maintaining that relationship. This can be done by going to church, being a good person, minimizing things that drive the spirit away such as pornography. I know this may not be a popular viewpoint amongst people who prefer not to believe in God but for the vast majority of the world's population, this is sound and effective advice.</comment>


Android Developers Blog: Introducing Renderscript - <AUTHOR> http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/02/introducing-renderscript.html <comment><USER2> I feel these days, we as developers are on a death race for high-performance on every consumer device with all these extensions, new languages. And it does impose a problem to library writers: how can I make my library reliable and fast on as many platforms as possible? To me, it seems quite impossible. Admittedly, the situation now may be better if we comparing with 20 years ago. But 20 years ago, we don't have these complex libraries/frameworks to port over.

Don't get me wrong, I love to learn new technologies and am excited about all kinds of new new new things. But to maintain every "different" version of the same algorithm is quite exhausting.</comment>


Google App Engine (GAE) will no longer have a standard free tier - <AUTHOR> https://techtudor.blogspot.com/2019/11/google-app-engine-gae-will-no-longer.html <comment><USER2> This title seems materially false.

[https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/gcp-free- tier](https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/gcp-free-tier)

Cloud Build has 120 minute build minutes per day allowed under the "Always Free" tier.

GCP has changed the service to require your account to be _capable_ of being billed — for excess usage and to prevent fraud. So if the complaint here is "GAE no longer lets you run code without having a credit card on file", that is correct^, but that's not what the title says.

^ Credit card, bank account, or any other "you have a valid financial services account" validation — Google is using the financial networks as a way to offload identity verification costs onto the banking sector:

> _Google uses your credit card_ [and/or bank account] _information for the > following purposes: To verify your identity. To distinguish actual customers > from robots._

</comment><comment><USER3> So App Engine now relies on Cloud Build which also has a free tier. Unless I'm missing something this doesn't seem like a big deal?

<comment><AUTHOR> But how can it be in free-tier if it requires credit card billing?

<comment><USER2> If you get a free night at a hotel, you'll still be required to put down a credit card or equivalent room deposit.

Is that, then, truly a "free night"?

Most would say yes, since they're not planning to cause damages or use room service or minibar, and so they don't expect to be charged anything as a result of their "free night".

Some would say no, since they're planning to throw a raging party and trash the place, and don't want any risk of being charged money for that outcome. The credit card in both of these scenarios is used for risk prevention, not for revenue.

"Free tier" is a statement of how much you can expect to be charged if you stay within its boundaries, not a statement of your right to participate without accepting the risk of financial penalty if you choose to act outside those boundaries.

(A few would say no, since the principle of "free" means that any conversation about "money" is inappropriate — no matter how much risk that places on others. Other reasons surely exist too.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yeah as long as gcp doesn't has a clear budget protection, I will not add my credit card to it as a private person.

</comment><comment><USER5> This seems overly dramatic calling it the last proper free tier. Cloud Run has a free tier is mostly comparable.

</comment><comment><USER6> It sucks that a free option is gone, but companies are not in an obligation to provide free stuff for developers forever.

They never claimed that they are doing a public service. The only reason it's free is they hope you'll get used to it and pay for bigger stuff later on.

It's OK to be sad, but it's not OK to be morally outrageous.

No ethical dilemma or "ever hungry crony capitalism machine" here.

</comment><comment><USER7> Just a drop a credit card into the Billing account and be done with it?

<comment><USER8> This will work for many people (including me), but here is a thread where someone complains about how it doesn't work in a classroom where students aren't allowed to enter credit card numbers:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/google- appengine/j...](https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/google- appengine/je8glguX_Yg)

<comment><USER9> I agree with the OP in that link.

I don't have a credit card and don't plan to have one. I chose GAE because it's the only one which does not need credit card. I can compromise with the GAE heavy limitations because of that.

Because of this I might as well just choose AWS.</comment></comment></comment>


AMD Radeon RX Vega Unveiled - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/11680/radeon-rx-vega-unveiled-amd-announecs-499-rx-vega-64-399-rx-vega-56-launching-in-august <comment><AUTHOR> The RX Vega 56 part has 50% higher SP compute per watt than the RX 580 and 570 (50 SP GFLOP/watt), and is only $399 MSRP, so the miners will probably be buying them up.

However, AMD is apparently going to bundle most of them with games and hardware discounts initially, so that may reduce the miner buy up.

Overall, the GPUs have about the same SP compute per watt as the GTX 1080 and 1080ti, but have bother higher compute perf and power consumption. Games perf (at least until drivers mature) is probably more like the 1070 and 1080.

Vega 56 SP compute perf/watt is the same as the GTX 1080 (50 SP GFLOP/watt).

Vega 64 SP compute perf/watt is slightly below the GTX 1080ti (42.9 vs 44 SP GFLOP/watt).

</comment><comment><USER2> This seems very underwhelming, performance seems to be about the same as the Geforce 10 cards... at not much cheaper and higher power consumption.

What's the draw here? The "pleasure" of running AMD's crappy drivers?

<comment><USER3> At least on Linux, out of the box support with open source drivers (Linux, DRM, LLVM, Mesa) is a big advantage.</comment></comment>


Is a Serial-Killer Gang Murdering Young Men Across the U.S.? - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/is-a-serial-killer-gang-murdering-young-men-across-the-us <comment><USER2> No.

<comment><USER3> Agreed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >They also have a host of detractors, from the FBI—which looked at the deaths in 2008 and concluded the vast majority appeared to be accidental drownings—to the Center for Homicide Research—which looked at 40 of the cases and concluded the same—to the various police departments and medical examiners that handled each case and steadfastly refuse to change their conclusions.

This whole article sets of my conspiracy theory alarm. So you have a bunch of young men who are being murdered across multiple cities and multiple professionals at multiple levels of government are completely blind to it? And what is the payoff. It's not like these are drug related murders where there is a lot of money at stake? This article just doesn't add up for me.

<comment><USER5> "Facts" like this really set off the BS-alarm:

>It was a good distance away, about 10 miles, but the investigators have discovered that the smiley-face graffiti usually appears on the first man-made structure visible from where a body is found

EDIT: Want to add that I'm not disputing that there may have been foul play, just that there's some nationwide conspiracy involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Similar drowned young men cases in Europe recently.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're really interested in peeling back the layers of these stories, you're going to have to watch and read all the material published by David Paulides. Type "Missing 411" in your favorite search engine and watch him on the Youtube.

He is a long-time LEO and his books are incredibly well researched. They're not on Amazon and only available on his website.

Let me just say that this is some VERY strange sh%$t!

<comment><USER7> For anyone curious, David Paulides has been shilling his book on the internet in the grossest imaginable ways for at least a few years now. There are threads banned on 4chan's /x/ board because they're part of this spam. 4chan.

If the guy sincerely felt these alleged "conspiracies" were so significant, he wouldn't do everything in his power to restrict access to the information and then sell it like an infomercial.

<comment><USER3> His books aren't cheap and I'm thinking he makes his living and supports his research from their sale.

I'm also thinking you have not read any of his books and really have nothing to say about his research or the circumstances of all the missing people that he is reporting on.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I also haven't read The Secret to learn the Law of Attraction or how important it is, but I can still identify an obnoxious and dishonest marketing campaign when I see it, and it's still an indicator of how seriously I should regard his "research" to the extent he's claiming some public benefit.

<comment><USER3> I've not seen any indication of any "obnoxious and dishonest marketing campaign" on his part. All I know is that in his books he presents what I feel is very credible research and offers no conclusions.

The missing persons cases he examines are truly remarkable. I don't expect to persuade you of this, but I am responding to you for the possible benefit of anyone else who may be reading these remarks.

<comment><USER7> And I'll also inform anyone else who may be reading that a simple google search will reveal the guy is a profit-motivated wacko with no credibility who sells paperbacks for 80 dollars.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Java [audio] - <AUTHOR> https://www.pluralsight.com/resource-center/podcasts/029-25-years-of-java <comment><USER2> Title is actually "25 years of Java".</comment>


People overwhelmingly trust social media photos more than stock - <AUTHOR> https://www.scop.io/blog/ugc-in-marketing-will-make-you-soar/ <comment><USER2> Currently, maybe.

So, what will happen is that stock photos will morph and start becoming more like social media photos.

I don't see any material business loss happening to the stock photo industry over this.

</comment><comment><USER3> People trust UGC photos -- says the company selling UGC photos.</comment>


Technically, California Law Says Daylight Time Starts Last Sunday in April - <AUTHOR> https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB807 <comment><USER2> Federal preemption. Uniform Time Act of 1966. States can opt out of Daylight Savings Time, but can't do it differently.

<comment><USER3> Well that's downright reasonable. Bravo, 1966 federal lawmakers.

<comment><USER4> It's like they were actually trying back then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The link shows current law in the red strikethrough type. (This particular bill, AB807, seeks to eliminate Daylight Time altogether, statewide).

I couldn't find a plain, direct reference using the broken search tools on the California Legislature official site.

Because the Daylight Saving Time Act was originally passed as an Initiative Statute (by voter petition), the Legislature can't change it without it going back before the voters in a statewide election and gaining at least a simple majority of Yes votes.

<comment><USER5> Yes it repeals the act, but it also adds a new section to the CA state code that reimplents DST there

<comment><AUTHOR> It _would_ do as you wrote, if it passes, is signed by the governor, _and_ is approved by voters.

I don't know why they don't just do a clean revocation bill to fix the anachronism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is it a crime to not acknowledge daylight savings time? I mean it's a law so it must be... What happens if I as a person or a city or a major corporation ignore it? Do I get a fine?

If not and everyone hates it, why not just ignore it.

Without trying to sound like a crazy person, when and where did the federal government get the power to set the time? I'm genuinely curious as I know from history class time used to be a far more local construct varying for city to city.

Update: found [1] with a little bit of searching. Really interesting.

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

<comment><USER7> counties in state of indiana did not always follow standard time of the state

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

<comment><USER8> Oh growing up this was fun. My neighbor school district was right on the DST / Not DST line. So half the year the entire school district was in the same time zone. Half the year they were an hour apart.

Thankfully this was mostly straightened out in the last 5 years. NW and SW corners go central, the rest go Eastern. Seems mostly more sane. I still think it would be a small benefit for the entire state to go Eastern, but I do understand why the counties very close to Chicago want to stay on the same time zone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's confusing. Once when I and my wife were tourists in USA, we experienced the switch to Daylight Time three times.

First in New York City where we missed our train. Then another time in Arizona. We suddenly discovered a Sunday that time was off but luckily it was of no importance. Then a last time again at home in Switzerland, where we missed again an appointment.

I am not sure about Arizona. Is it really true that states might have different daylight times?

<comment><USER10> Arizona doesn't observe daylight savings.

<comment><USER11> It's actually called "Daylight Saving Time", but it's a common mistake.

<comment><USER12> There's a funny thing about "mistakes" in language. The more common they are, the less they're mistakes.

<comment><USER13> In which region is it common to call in Daylight Time? In New York I always hear it referred to as Daylight Savings Time.

<comment><USER12> "Daylight Time"? Nowhere that I've been. Mackal said that Arizona doesn't observe "daylight savings", and Osiris corrected them with "Daylight Saving Time". That's the difference that I was referring to. I hear "daylight savings" quite often.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> More and more lately, I think about how any future intelligent life will be looking back at how we live now and will do so with increasing disbelief the more and more they learn about us.</comment>


Virtual particles aren't particles (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/virtual-particles-what-are-they/

<comment><USER2> The "virtual" particles are intended to avoid the "action at a distance" issue with fields. The virtual particles are place-holders for calculations.

They came about from looking at the philosophical problem of "What is a field"? A field between two interacting electrons changes the electrons trajectory.

OK... but what does it mean for the electrons to "interact"? Saying "there's a field" is just a circular argument.

The better response is "they exchange a photon". OK, but is the photon real? No... it's just a place-holder to make calculations easier.

Do two electrons _actually_ exchange virtual photons? No one really knows... All we can say is that the theoretical calculations match the experimental ones. What that _means_ is a question for philosophers. :)

<comment><USER3> Is it a question for philosophers, though? Or is it just a current limitation of our model that we don't understand? They are obviously "communicating" somehow. The mechanism is simply unknown.

<comment><USER4> Virtual particles are an artefact of the calculation method usually used, perturbation theory, and the Feynmann diagrams that produces. They needn't exist with other methods.

<comment><USER5> Why is physics is not an artifact of the calculation method used?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is an amazing article that's made a lot of things much clearer for me. To stop thinking of particles as "things" and start thinking of them as certain configurations of a field. Perhaps it makes sense to think of them as configurations that the mathematics ensures are somehow stable.

And then virtual particles and other interactions make a lot more sense. They are just other configurations.

My new understanding might not be correct but this article has certainly opened my eyes and suddenly a lot of previous things make a lot more sense!

<comment><USER7> Strassler has a lot of articles of this kind on his site, highly recommended. Check the articles menu on his homepage. There's a nice series on dark matter.

There's also this page with various links: [http://profmattstrassler.com/about/about-this-site-and- how-t...](http://profmattstrassler.com/about/about-this-site-and-how-to-use- it/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Something that I found rather interesting but still don't quite understand is the effect of the Uncertainty Principle in a vacuum. Apparently the Uncertainty Principle affects not only particles, but fields as well (which in my mind is possibly due to the mass/energy equivalence?). This manifests as disturbances, which is what causes these virtual particles to "appear" in a vacuum.

</comment><comment><USER9> thanks. Human language seems to be an impediment to understanding here due to previous definitions of terms. Sometimes, it is better to create a completely new term than overload an old already-understood term.

</comment><comment><USER10> Didn't read the article, but aren't the "holes" as encountered in semiconductor physics also virtual particles? Or is this a new concept?

<comment><USER11> That is something different, holes are quasiparticles [1], phenomena that show characteristics of and can be mathematically described like particles but are not particles but for example collections of particles or the absence of a particles in case of a holes. They really show particle like behaviour while virtual particles don't.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wouldn't "emergent particle" be a better term? The fact that it is a side effect of multiple particles doesn't make its effects less tangible. It feels like object orientation is clouding our perception.

</comment><comment><USER13> Programming analogy:

There are several ways to implement the laws of physics. Virtual particles are an implementation detail, you can factor them out of the code, but it makes it a bit more readable.</comment>


Police Use Fitbit Data to Charge 90-Year-Old Man in Stepdaughter's Killing - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/03/us/fitbit-murder-arrest.html <comment><AUTHOR> It's worth noting that there may have been enough traditional evidence (bloody clothes found at the suspect's residence) to charge and convict, and the suspect was alresdy known to be in contact with the victim. But the story's recounting of the events seems to insinuate that the Fitbit data made it much easier to focus on the suspect. I mention this because the Fitbit angle sounds like the kind of detail that might get slightly oversold because it makes law enforcement look especially clever (and it's obviously media catnip).

As these wearables become more reliable — e.g. a report of a sudden stopped heartbeat is unlikely to be a hardware failure — I wonder if society will expect companies to be more proactive in contacting the user and emergency authorities. I mean, more than what the new Apple Watch offers as (I assume) opt-in, like how credit card companies call you quickly after suspicious activity.

<comment><USER2> We can call it... DocWagon.

<comment><USER3> Would they send an extraction team to get you out of trouble, too?

<comment><USER4> I really think that's going to be a thing in the future. We can make it a thing now if anyone wants to fund me =)

Straight to cryogenic storage from there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was expecting something much more sinister (that this man had a Fitbit and they used it to track his location). This is a much more positive use of the technology, but as a layman, my first concern is that this data can be easily forged.

<comment><USER6> While I can certainly see its benefits in cases like this. It also worries me that falsely accusing someone of murder becomes ever so easier when courts start to trust these devices more and more in the future.

For example, a murdurer wanting to stick the charges on some other person could steal that persons devices (phone, fitbit, etc). Wear them while commiting the murder. Then return them, without notice if done at night or something.

The other person would then have a very hard time proving that he/she did not in fact commit to the murder, simply because courts have started to rely on these devices too much.

<comment><USER7> > For example, a murdurer wanting to stick the charges on some other person > could steal that persons devices (phone, fitbit, etc). Wear them while > commiting the murder. Then return them, without notice if done at night or > something.

A good theft-prevention measure, such as locking the device whenever it's taken off, should prevent such a scenario.

<comment><USER8> People still use "password" as their password, and IoT devices are still left open to botnets. As silly as it might be with these security lapses, we can't have a legal structure that defaultly assumes a device's data is reliable for more than opening a line of questioning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Really interesting. I'm curious as to how they knew precisely the timeframe Aeillo was with his stepdaughter.

"...it recorded her heart rate slowing rapidly, and stopping at 3:28 p.m., about five minutes before Mr. Aiello left the house, the report said."

<comment><USER10> Seems like some camera footage corroborated the fitbit data.

"the police said their investigation used a combination of video surveillance and data from Ms. Navarra's Fitbit, an Alta HR device"

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> As morbid as it might sound, I am curious what the heart rate wavefunction looks like for a murder victim. The investigators must have had some pause while seeing the plot of someones final struggle visualized as a function of 1 variable.. How does someone who is 90 have the tenacity to kill someone? Really mortifying case...

On a different note, a new product stands to be created based on this kind of morbid data + ML. We should have an open database of cardiac events and all wear devices that immediately send for help via E911/Location when an event with a morbidity p-value > C is detected. Seems like a no brainer if we care about protecting everyone optimally.

Does anyone know if a database of cardiac events exists from which to train a NN?

<comment><USER12> _> How does someone who is 90 have the tenacity to kill someone?_

Barring a new mental health issue which turned this guy murderous, he was probably not-a-nice-person earlier in life, thus already capable of (and perhaps never held responsible for) many earlier misdeeds.

So, wild guess: step-daughter declared intent to reveal his prior crimes, to mom and/or authorities. Then, step-father kills to keep his secrets.

<comment><USER13> There's a black mirror episode that closely parallels that story.

('Crocodile').

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > After they finished their questions, detectives left Mr. Aiello alone in the > interview room. He began talking to himself, the report said, saying > repeatedly, "I'm done."

annnnnnnnd I'm never speaking to police again

<comment> Tuna-Fish For a better reason, watch this great presentation on the subject, by an experienced defense lawyer and a police officer who had a lot of experience on interrogations.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE)

That really should be required viewing in every civics class.

<comment><USER15> Second. To this video. Further. Immediately declare you want to see an attorney. Nothing else ever. When you are placed into a room by the police:

0) You are video recorded. Hide your face. If possible sit under the camera. (They usually mount it on the ceiling).

1) A trick: Letting your friends/family visit you. Always refuse.

2) Giving you many servings of soft drinks and water without bathroom breaks. Refuse liquids.

3) A trick: Telling you they have more evidence than they do. "Your friend said you did this...", "We have you on film..." "Your wife said..." "It will be easier if you just..."

<comment><USER16> Do you have more information as to why?

0\. They know you're in there, don't they?

1\. OK, so don't talk to family in that room, right?

2\. Seriously? Why is that? Couldn't you just pee below the camera (if they repeatedly refuse to let you go, and you previously announce it, ...)?

3\. OK, that's common sense to me.

<comment><USER15> 0\. They know you're in there, don't they?

Heh. Yes. But, after 4 hours alone in a small room, many people roll their eyes, do exercises, scream, yell, talk to themselves.

1\. OK, so don't talk to family in that room, right?

Yes. BUT. Your family sure will within seconds start talking.

2\. Seriously? Why is that? Couldn't you just pee below the camera (if they repeatedly refuse to let you go, and you previously announce it, ...)?

Yeah. People just become agitated. Start agreeing to things, start rocking, start looking nervous, sweating, pacing around, or peeing on the floor -- it isn't a great look on camera.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Good. If the alleged killer is convicted then hopefully this evidence was a part of what led to justice.</comment>


Phantom vibration feedback system makes being shot or stabbed feel almost real  - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/games/phantom-vibration-feedback-system-will-make-being-shot-or-stabbed-feel-almost-real-20110919/

<comment><USER2> interesting, but this kind of thing is bound to take years... would the player eventually have to wear a full body suit to achieve the effect? or could a hand system stimulate effects that could effect sensation elsewhere in the body?</comment>


Ask HN: Where do you look for a remote dev work? - <AUTHOR> Do you know any good places to find full-time remote work as a software developer? Which one is best? <comment><USER2> This is an ultimate list: AngelList: [https://angel.co](https://angel.co) HN jobs: [https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs](https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs) WWR: [https://weworkremotely.com/](https://weworkremotely.com/)

Also, you can try [http://6nomads.com/](http://6nomads.com/) when tired of job boards :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to ask about your experience with 6nomads but then I noticed your nick ;) Anyway, that looks like an interesting service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> AngelList ([https://angel.co](https://angel.co)) worked for me

</comment><comment><USER4> Check out facetdev.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, only for those located in US or Canada.</comment></comment>


Agile Is Not Enough - <AUTHOR> https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/agile-is-not-enough/ <comment><USER2> This article, like many in the business press, is like a joke that never gets to the punch line.</comment>


Forget Iron Chef, How About Iron Coder? - <AUTHOR> http://www.semergence.com/2008/03/25/what-if-we-ran-an-iron-coder/ <comment><USER2> Sounds tricky. The closest thing we have is TopCoder and the ACM collegiate competitions, and ESPN isn't exactly fighting for coverage of those events -- even though they're willing to cover spelling, chess, and video game competitions.

I think the big hurdle is audience engagement. Everyone instinctually understands how one thing can taste better than another -- Iron Chef routinely pulls in celebrity judges who know almost nothing about cooking. The public does not have the same intuitive grasp of code quality.</comment>


Researchers study how birds retweet news - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200214134745.htm <comment><USER2> This is super interesting! I live in SF and recently have started getting regular visits from the local wild parrots - they stop by for snacks and rest almost every day.

I've been paying very close attention to their chatter (it's hard not to lol) and I totally see TFA playing out. They are constantly listening and reacting not only to other members of the flock in the area, but also to crows and others birds' calls.

It's super fascinating to watch - they'll all be napping or eating and will immediately stop what they're doing on a second's notice and all turn outward. Sometimes it'll be from another parrot's call, sometime from a crow's, and sometimes I can't tell what made them react (ha). They'll also fly away en masse I'm equally short notice - all in sync.

When you start to pay attention, you realize that even in a densely urban place like San Francisco, the city is totally alive with various bird calls and chatter, and the birds are fully attuned to it all.

<comment><USER3> Surely they're _feral_ parrots?

<comment><USER2> Interesting - I didn't actually know the difference and after reading, I _think_ they're feral, but I'm not actually certain. There are a few different origin stories - some claim that they're descended from pets (feral), but others that they descended from imported (wild) parrots illegally brought over and sold as pets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I live across from an apple orchard, which is full of bird species getting along - or sometimes not. Pheasants, particularly, are really good at alerting us all to what's going on - so many times I've heard that horrendous squawk alter resonance ever so slightly, looked up, and noticed a marten making its rounds along the tree line .. everything gone quiet.

Then, along the same tree line, we'll often hear the birds get super chattery and obnoxious, and .. sure enough a few seconds later, along comes a red squirrel leaping from branch to branch, getting ever more miffed that its cover is blown.

Still, nothing quite beats the pheasants. They are truly the watchdogs of the neighbourhood. We've come to listen closely to their calls in spring and summer - its a drama playing right outside our window.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nuthatches are wise. Chickadees are so adorable. (Even love to say "Chickadees").

</comment><comment><USER6> Love seeing an MT university on here. Go cats.</comment>


Ask HN: Review hyperlocal Q&A site askaro.com - <AUTHOR>

I'm seeking feedback on my new startup www.askaro.com. It'a localized Q&A site, that is, questions are geolocated. Answers could include geo information as well. There is a reputation system similar to SO. I think of the site as a hyperlocal community resource, as oppose to hyperlocal news. Still in development, trying to get to "market fitness".
Runs on GAE, written in python.
Thanks <comment><USER2> Nice, I like it -- cool idea, good design, and straightforward UI.

Although it seems you might have some competition in sites like yelp...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'm not sure which direction the site will take. Hopefully not restaurant reviews but I can't really control it.

I'm also focused on the reputation system and the Q&A model as oppose to filling a database with restaurant et al candidates for review.</comment></comment>


Every Phone Looks Like The iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://flyosity.com/apple/every-phone-looks-like-the-iphone.php

<comment><USER2> Have you noticed that TVs and computer monitors have all been copying the iPhone too, even before it existed? Black rectangles just make sense for video screens.

</comment><comment><USER3> If phones are destined to become nothing more than screens, then a heads-up display in a pair of glasses is practically all you need (plus a little 'pebble' in your hand with a couple of scrolls/buttons to interface with it).</comment>


Denying Problems When We Don't Like the Solutions - <AUTHOR> https://today.duke.edu/2014/11/solutionaversion <comment><USER2> I wonder if the study is able to make a distinction between solution aversion and what could be called "proponent aversion". That is, it is normal to be skeptical of a statement when it comes from somebody we don't trust. And our level of trust can be dependent from another statement coming (or perceived to be coming) from the same source. In this case, the proposed solution to the problem.

I've concocted an example:

Statement: The rate of suicides among teenagers in the US has been growing steadily in the last two decades, to the point of constituting now a real public health emergency.

Solution 1: Naturopathic nutrition, holistic and homeopathic medicine are fundamental to ensure the well being of the young generations - courses in these subjects should be part of the standard curriculum starting from primary schools.

Solution 2: Standard psychological welfare assessment tests that can help detecting early signs of depression should be conducted at regular time intervals in schools starting from sixth grade, and counselling should be provided to those who display early symptoms of depression.

Now, I've no clue of whether the statement is true (I made it up). But I'll dismiss it readily as BS if it's followed by proposed solution 1. I'll take mental note if it's followed by proposed solution 2. I simply don't trust any statement coming from proponents of snake oil.

<comment><USER3> I wonder if we can make that distinction either.

It would be solution aversion if you denied that the rate of suicides has been growing because you perceive that the main use of citing an increasing suicide rate is to push homeopathic education.

If your aversion to certain proponents relates back to what it is they are proposing, it is not really an aversion to those proponents but to their proposals.

Maybe proponent aversion would be if you denied that the rate of suicides has been growing because Obama (or black people, "liberals" etc.) had made that claim, independent of the qualities of proposed solutions.

If someone's statements can't be trusted to be true, that doesn't rationally mean their statements are evidence of their contradictions. Even if you don't trust anything Obama says, that shouldn't normally mean that "Obama says that P" is evidence of not-P.

<comment><USER4> > _" Proponent aversion would be if you denied that the rate of suicides has > been growing because Obama ... had made that claim"_

Another example might be gun/crime statistics from the NRA vs gun/crime statistics from gun-control advocates.

There's the inherent suspicion that the statistics had been twisted to fit an agenda, because you've caught that proponent or someone from the same ideological group doing it before, and that therefore the statistics themselves are untrustworthy.

I apply a mental correction factor when dealing with a group I think lies for agenda purposes -- I figure they're spinning things maximally in their favor, so what they claim forms one end of my error bars. Sometimes my expectations regarding the size of the error bars in that field lead me to believe that it's likely the data is actually centered all the way on the other side. In that sense, their statements can imply their own contradiction in some circumstances.

<comment><USER5> Here, though, most of the raw data comes from the FBI/DOJ, so pretty much everyone accepts it (even if some number of homicides are scored as "accidents", as happened in my home town) and can easily go back to it; the same is not true for many many other domains like the climate.

But the statistics are indeed critical, or must be viewed critically. E.g. the Kellerman study that said "N times more likely to be killed with a gun in the house!!! than use it to kill an intruder" is utterly bogus from the start, because gun owners don't score kills as the only type of successful self- defense uses.

That sort of critical thought, though, isn't particularly fashionable....

<comment><USER4> even the raw data is subject to questions, two of which you point out: (1) is everything being categorized correctly, and (2) are we counting the right thing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's nice that they used examples of problems denied by supporters of more than a single political party. I think we all do that.

(Go programmers are less likely to acknowledge problems solved by generics as real, C++ programmers are less likely to acknowledge problems solved by garbage collection and boundary checking as real, Python programmers are less likely to acknowledge problems solved by static typing as real, same for Haskell programmers & lazy evaluation, etc. This is "political" in the sense, for instance, that a more popular language is tremendously more useful, so you want a language you've invested into to be popular even if it fails badly at solving a real problem; there are real benefits to denying it being a real problem if others believe it isn't real and that belief makes the language more popular.)

<comment><USER7> > It's nice that they used examples of problems denied by supporters of more > than a single political party. I think we all do that.

I disagree, the two examples (climate change and gun control) aren't that different. Both are issues of personal freedom.

I actually wish they would show some blind spots of collectivist liberal anarchists (people like Chomsky), who I feel very close political sympathies to. I am (obviously) not aware of these blind spots.

I am not sure I entirely buy the idea of "everybody has blindspots" (EHB). It seems to me that liberal democracy, the idea that everybody is entitled to their moral opinion and should have the same influence over what we consider moral, is pretty much an attempt to get rid of any blindspots. The argument EHB is akin to saying "atheists are also believers".

<comment><USER8> Do you think something like the iPhone could have been produced under a collectivist economic regime?

<comment><USER7> Generally, yes!

But it really depends on what you mean by "collectivist". Could iPhone be produced by IBM, a huge corporation with top-down command and control? It's about as likely, I would say.

I work at medium American corporation and it's not really that different from what was called "socialist" enterprise here in Czech Republic. It is certainly more efficient, but sometimes pathologically - good ideas get killed all the time. And there is not really that much less stupidity to go around.

And socialism here (I take it from your question that's what you imagine as "collectivist") certainly wasn't ideal system for liberal left, who would probably prefer some form of worker cooperatives or something like that.

Perhaps I should emphasize what I mean by "collectivist" in my previous comment. I actually refer to empathy (or less selfishness) rather than form of ownership. What I mean is understanding that other side can have a different opinion and willingness to compromise (e.g. your personal freedom) with the needs/feelings of others. It doesn't mean you have to entirely ditch the free market, for instance.

<comment><USER9> I think the parent meant it in a more general sense. Apple doesn't single- handedly produce the iPhone, it takes the coordination of millions of people, most of whom have no contact with Apple whatsoever: those who design oil drilling equipment, those who build it, those who use oil drilling equipment, those who then extract the oil, transport it, refine it, transport it, turn it into plastic bits for the iphone, transport them, put everything together, transport it. And there's a chain like that for every thing in the phone (for some items, such as CPUs the chain is far more complex). There is no top-down command and control, and I doubt it's possible. The only reason coordination on such a massive scale works is because of the price mechanism.

<comment><USER10> The Soviet Union built some fairly complex machines too, for example buran the Russian space shuttle, nuclear power plants, large airplanes, submarines etc. I don't think these are significantly less complex than an iPhone. Likely more. Now you could argue they did it less frequently or less efficient and not really benefitting the average consumer in many cases. And that would be true. But there is no denying that a top down economy did those things.

<comment> guard-of-terra Soviet Union routinely failed to sell its nuclear plants, airliners and less complex stuff.

Soviet Union was able to produce something that worked, but it was all below price-quality curve. I.e. you could buy same quality product from Western corporations for less money; or you could buy better quality product for same money. Western corporations also had better selection.

So only buyers were in communist bloc, and what USSR end up exporting is oil and gas.

And that'll happen nine times out of ten, since socialist economies are not optimal.

<comment><USER11> I don't know why we're calling the USSR socialist; is it because they said they were socialist? There are plenty of dictatorial regimes that call themselves democratic republics, too. The USSR was structured like one massive corporation: Everything was owned by the government and the government bureaucracy functioned much like a corporate bureaucracy.

Libertarian socialists sometimes call states like the USSR state capitalist, because economic activity is still dictated by a top-down hierarchy allocating capital and exploiting workers.

Optimal is not the word you want to use, by the way. Not even free markets are optimal, that's why economists talk about 'market failures'.

<comment> guard-of-terra The USSR was not structured like one massive corporation. Corporation tends to seek profit; while USSR sought survival. Was bad at it, too: built millions of tanks and other military hardware that rusted without any battle, lost the cold war and tanked.

<comment><USER11> You're talking about purpose, not structure. I'll agree, the USSR's purpose was not profit, because profit does not make sense if you're trying to own everything. The USSR's goals were growth and, as a logical consequence of growth, not shrinking, i.e. survival. It failed, yes. The larger a hierarchy and its concentration of resources, leadership, and power at the pinnacle, the worse it performs. This occurs with corporations in a capitalist system as well, but since it is not a defining feature of such corporations that they must own everything, their existence is more flexible. They can merge, split, be acquired, get sold off, get refinanced, etc. In this way, the capitalists (viz. people who make their living off of property ownership) can preserve their ownership even if their power structures fail.

So the key difference between the USSR and the Liberal states in opposition to it is the notion of property. Under the USSR, all property is state property and under the Liberal states, property is the bourgeois notion of property.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've got somewhat unorthodox views on global warming that might make for a good test of this:

I fully accept that global warming is real, human-caused, and a major problem in the coming century. However, I don't believe we should limit carbon emissions. Instead, we should earmark all the money that would've gone into reducing carbon emissions (a carbon tax could be useful for this) into developing comprehensive evacuation plans for every major city, as well as a fund for rebuilding. As the effects of global warming hit (which will more likely be in the form of severe weather events than a global rise in sea levels), we migrate away from the hardest hit areas and rebuild in the areas made more hospitable by climate change.

There are two advantages of this:

The first is that many climate scientists believe that it's already too late, and a tipping point was reached around 2000 that's set in motion a catastrophic climate shift that we can't reverse now. Cutting carbon emissions now is a bit like closing the barn door after the horses have left. It won't actually fix our predicament, though it may slow it.

The second advantage is that this covers a number of contingencies _other_ than climate change. A freak hurricane sweeps up the Gulf Coast, headed for Houston or New Orleans? No problem, all of the evacuation routes have been mapped out, we've built enough roads that the population can get out (as an additional plus, this helps rush-hour traffic), and the insurance companies are ready to pay out to help the victims. Drought in California? Move to Seattle or Portland and stop buying beef and almonds. It'd help if we let the price of affected commodities (water, and the things it helps grow) float to reflect their true scarcity rather than subsidize them.

The idea is to fix the problem closer to the symptoms rather than trying to get to the source. Accept that the planet's climate _will_ change, and then work to adapt to that with minimal dislocation rather than prevent it from changing.

Thoughts? It's certainly not the party line, but it makes sense to me. And if you're currently a climate-change denier, would _this_ proposed solution make you reconsider the facts?

<comment><USER13> > Instead, we should earmark all the money that would've gone into reducing > carbon emissions (a carbon tax could be useful for this) into developing > comprehensive evacuation plans for every major city, as well as a fund for > rebuilding.

What does earmarking money into a rebuilding fund mean? Hoarding U.S. dollars in some account? There is no way to save in current U.S. dollars, ie green pieces of paper, in order to help deal with civilization level catastrophes in the future. You would have to save in terms of real goods. Saving in terms of dollars simply would result in deflation in the near term as you hoard, and inflation in the long-term when you dishoard in order to deal with the catastrophe. When the catastrophe comes, there is no difference between the government dishoarding dollars and the government printing dollars. The government has a printing press, there is no difference between taking the money (metaphorically) out of a hidden vault and between printing new dollars.

Now saving now in terms of hoarding real goods, or in building physical infrastructure, could work. But it's hard to imagine what kind of real goods would be useful in case of massive catastrophe. Most likely the wrong things would be built or hoarded. We're just too far away from the problem, and the government isn't good at making those kinds of calculations. Also, it may not be that necessary. People underestimate how much more valuable flows are than stocks. When cities have been destroyed by fire or bombing, they get rebuilt remarkably quickly, as long as the human capital is still there.

<comment><USER7> I normally don't vote in threads I comment in, but in your case I just had to upvote. Too many people don't understand that you cannot really "save" money.

But let's deliver the GP's idea a final blow: The thing you could potentially save would be cheap energy, for example in the form of carbon-based fuels. Which is incidentally what proponents of carbon-neutral energy sources are advocating, by wanting to leave them in the ground.

<comment><USER12> I'd upvoted devinhelton's post as well, because it had been at zero when I saw it and makes an important point.

But I do understand the idea, and I'll go one further. The purpose of "money" is a form of claim check on the labor of other people, one that can be spent according to the preferences of each individual. When I say "save up to fund the inevitable devastation", I mean "it is probably more efficient to redirect the labor of people into fixing the problem after it happens than it is to invest it in changing production processes to speculatively prevent it from happening." I propose one possibility for this in a sibling thread: a carbon tax used to fund an insurance subsidy and additional federal disaster planning and possible infrastructure improvements. The financial & insurance industry can handle the administration; this is after all what the financial industry is for, arranging for a store of these "claim checks" so that you still have a claim on them in the future and yet they can be used for productive work in the meantime.

The government's only role here is to rectify an externality. Carbon emissions are causing harm to people not party to their production, so redistribute this back into the economy at the point that's being harmed, and let the market do the rest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In the past I've felt that arguing "X is not a problem" is sometimes a proxy for "we should not solve X" because it's taken as axiomatic that if X _is_ a problem it _should_ be solved. (And the solution, of course, usually involves compulsory rules enforced by the government or some administrative body.)

I wonder if it goes in the other direction too: people _exaggerate_ problems and evidence if they like the proposed solution. Not even for personal gain, but for emotional reasons. (So not somebody exaggerating the threat of terrorism to consciously expand their power or sell detectors but _unconsciously_ because of patriotism or a desire to get the terrorists.)

</comment><comment><USER15> I am curious if this is hurt by people denying[1] the pain a solution would cause. A massive shift away from petrocarbon exploration would cause a great deal of unemployment (and consequently suicide, domestic violence, etc) in areas like Houston.

[1] [http://m.imgur.com/r/energy/up6yu](http://m.imgur.com/r/energy/up6yu)

<comment><USER16> And probably a great deal of employment in [location where alternatives are produced].

Nothing deserves forever, and survival of civilization in the modern world depends on adaptation, not holding fast.

<comment><USER16> > And probably a great deal of employment in [location where alternatives are > produced].

Apparently that location is ... Texas.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_juice/2015/09/tex...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_juice/2015/09/texas_electricity_goes_negative_wind_power_was_so_plentiful_one_night_that.html)

"Second, Texas has way more wind power than any other state. In 2014, wind accounted for 4.4 percent of electricity produced in the United States. Texas, which has more installed wind capacity (15,635 megawatts) than any other state and is home to nearly 10,000 turbines, got 9 percent of its electricity from wind in 2014."

<comment><USER5> Well, Texas is _big_. Big enough to run their own stable independent grid, avoiding a lot of Federal craziness. And big enough to have plenty of good places for turbines, without hardly as much NIMBY/BANANA as California, the next biggest state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was almost sure that is going to be about climate change. It reminds me of: [http://www.thenation.com/article/capitalism-vs- climate/](http://www.thenation.com/article/capitalism-vs-climate/)

Even though the article proposes something (green energy as opportunity for capitalism), I think there is a huge problem with climate change for free market proponents, and deeply inside they know it. I don't see how the issue, which is "the fossil fuels have to stay in the ground", can be dealt with free market only.

And I wish it had a solution, so we could get these people to cooperate and acknowledge that there is a climate change problem (for which there is a lot of scientific evidence).

<comment><USER17> I notice in a lot of writing about climate change that people tend to try to convince the reader that it exists, both you and the article's authors mentioned the lot of scientific evidence. It makes it sound like permanent argument mode.

It also helps us forget that there's no reliable scientific evidence and certainly no consensus about what, if any, harm climate change will do to us and if it does, whether we'll have time to adapt. Somehow the debate seems to be between "it's true and there's lots of evidence" and "it's not true and I don't believe it" but in reality we really have no idea what it will do. Maybe we don't actually have to leave all the oil in the ground afterall and a few extra degrees turns out to be not much of a problem.

<comment><USER7> > whether we'll have time to adapt

I wish you were right. Unfortunately, the very same vocal people (for example former Czech president Vaclav Klaus) who proclaimed that "adaptation is not a problem" now cry a river when there is a couple thousands refugees at the border from regions that are in war, probably due to drought, probably due to global warming.

> Maybe we don't actually have to leave all the oil in the ground afterall and > a few extra degrees turns out to be not much of a problem.

We can always burn it. I don't see how we lose anything by leaving it there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Another related fallacy I see all the time is dismissing a problem by inventing a terrible solution.

E.g.

Climate change is real -> "So you are saying we should just shut down all industry and go back to the dark ages"

The establishment of Israel was unethical -> "So you are saying we should just push all the Jews currently living in Israel into the sea."

Even asking a question shows a fallacy, since it implies that the existence of an adequate solution is related to the truth of the existence of the problem. A very common example is

There might be innate differences in ability/interests between men and women -> "If this was true, what would that imply? What is your end goal here"

</comment><comment><USER19> This works both ways. You may be more likely to believe something is a problem if you like the solution being offered.

</comment><comment><USER20> If "we don't like the solutions", this means that proposed measures are not "solutions", as they do not solve the problem properly. It's better to keep looking.

<comment><USER21> Sometimes a solution — or a variety of different solutions — still have a significant pain point attached to them.

Just because of that, you can't derive with absolute certainty that there's "a better solution". It might just be the nature of the problem has no solutions that everyone "likes".

<comment><USER22> With something like climate change, issue is that the pain point for the problem is time deferred. An obvious comparison would be to lead in gasoline, cookware and paint: The problems that it caused took many years to surface. Getting rid of it was both expensive and required new solutions. Thankfully, we got out ahead of that problem... I'm curious if in the current political climate that would be possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This results in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_withdrawal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_withdrawal)

<comment><USER24> I'm not seeing the connection...?

<comment><USER25> My guess: As a problem that I feel threatened by becomes a greater target for action by society, the solutions enacted by society feel like an unnecessary imposition on me--since I don't believe the problem to be real--and the (potentially) building consensus around that problem makes me feel as more of an outsider. Not feeling like a part of a society's approach to that issue may lead me to _withdraw_ from that society in a continued effort to deny the existence of that problem, which is to say not being confronted with society's narrative.

As my opinion on a problem diverges from society's, I fit less and less with that society, prompting me to withdraw from it.

<comment><USER26> > As my opinion on a problem diverges from society's, I fit less and less with > that society, prompting me to withdraw from it.

Huh. I'm finding myself experiencing this in a range of issues in recent years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think its simpler than that. No one looks at scientific evidence or anything else objectively. Everyone has pre-existing beliefs. And the nature of a belief is that you don't change it easily and it overrides everything else.

So its not that people don't like science or don't know how to think rationally. Everyone is just really good at rationalizing their pre-existing worldview.

</comment><comment><USER28> Problem denial can take the form of claiming there's nothing wrong at all. But more common seems to be the attempt to jump straight to a 'solution', without any trial and error thinking in between. Which is OFC impossible. Either way I guess it takes a certain amount of imagination to perceive problems in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER29> Not sure the climate debate is a good example, given both sides mean there are solutions they are just very different.

</comment><comment><USER30> While it sounds very reasonable as far as I can read it's one study, three experiments, less than a thousand data points total. Let's not jump to conclusions here. Usually you need quite a few studies and a paper that repeats and summarizes them before you can say you have a conclusion, right?

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra See famous "The Black Knight" scene from Monthy Python.

Question remains, what can we do about people in denial? Because many problems won't solve themself.

<comment><USER31> World Population comes to mind. Will it solve itself? It might but in countries where it doesnt the consequences will be devestating and flow over to other parts of the world for sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Time to spend some karma.

Literature like this makes me happy, because it is further evidence that the alarmists have very little material left. Mercifully we may have hit the high- water mark of this generation of misanthropic environmentalist nonsense and can now enjoy several decades of joking about it. The "Recursive Fury" paper[0] was probably the actual high-water mark, and this looks like pretty much the same tactic.

The fact remains that current proxy studies are thoroughly insufficient as p̶r̶o̶o̶f̶ evidence of any long-term trend we can expect to continue in a non- linear system as complex as the global climate.

I guess these folks think I must be unhappy about the "necessary solution" (oh hey, it turns out to be reorganizing society according to their political beliefs!) but that amounts to an elaborate and silly ad hominem, nothing more. I think I'll write more about the "psychology journal ad-hominem" because it has become annoyingly common in recent years.

The science of climate is not settled, and will not be settled in your lifetime. Get used to it.

[0][http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00...](http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00073/full)

<comment><USER33> No, you are wrong. You are clearly posting out of ignorance.

The earth climate system is not impossibly complex. The global temperature is at it's core determined by an energy balance. Visible light from the sun enters, infrared radiation leaves. Some of that infrared radiation is blocked, then temperature has to rise before the balance is restored. Simple as that, and completely uncontroversial, because proven by spectrum analysis of our neighboring planets (and the moon).

Now I know that doesn't give you hard answers to questions policymakers want, like 'will New Orleans flood from increased tropical storms? Will the Middle East and India dry out?' We don't know _that_ , and yes, that sucks.

But we _do_ know the effect of increased amounts of greenhouse gases. (And, for what it's worth, we do also know that carbon dioxide taxes work much better than an emission trading system does, as proven by e.g. Norway vs. European Union, and as proven by the fact that industry and fossil fuel companies actually prefer it).

And the fact that the top comment on HN is about climate change denial rather than the actual article is excellent proof of the study's truth.

<comment><USER34> Norway is hardly comparable to EU energy wise, mainly because they biggest energy production is hydro, which in turn comes from unique geography.

Germany little experiment with solar is already causing massive issues, ecology wise too. Factories are already saying fuck it, building their own local generators, with worse exhaust and lower efficiency.

Keep adding more nonsense costs to industry in EU. And you know what? China would pick up the slack, and they hardly give a shit about anything. Right now,overdoing this locally actually increases net pollution. I guess we get to feel good.

<comment><USER33> Norway is not comparable to mainland EU, I'm not claiming that. But Norway does have an intensive oil and gas industry which emits copious amount of CO2. Because of the CO2 tax, they have implemented the worlds first (and only) commercial carbon-capture and storage (CCS) project ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleipner_gas_field#Carbon_capt...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleipner_gas_field#Carbon_capture_and_storage_project)).

As for China stealing European industry, that's happening already, and it's really nothing a little protectionism can't help. Protectionism is bad, but so is losing jobs, and worse is acting like you are powerless when really you aren't.

<comment><USER34> We are not talking about protectionism, but not driving clean industry away with nonsensical excesses in pseudoecology (closing down the nukes is one example)

Also, Norway is just bad example, since they were literally rolling in cash. And, if most of your energy comes from hydro, a little feelgood CCS wont drive the price through the roof. Now, if you look at EU, it's mostly fossil fired or nukes. Close the nukes and force CCS on the rest - insane power costs

And don't give me solar, Germany is finding how it is failing. (Because every other day the energy prices go negative and wind/solar has right of way actual power plants go bankrupt. This in no way means they are unneeded,just that the law is broken)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon DynamoDB increased error rates - <AUTHOR> Amazon DynamoDB (N. Virginia) - 6:33 AM PDT We are investigating increased error rates for API requests in the US-EAST-1 Region. <comment><USER2> [http://status.aws.amazon.com/](http://status.aws.amazon.com/)

Currently, as of 11:32am central time, Cloudwatch, EC2, Autoscaling, DynamoDB, and Elastic Beanstalk are all experiencing issues.

</comment><comment><USER3> Things were good for a couple hours, but the problems came back around 11:10 AM PDT. It's now been happening again for an hour.

</comment><comment><USER3> We saw the problem get better around 7:13 AM PDT, but then it got bad again at 7:42 AM. Fun morning...

</comment><comment><USER4> We're seeeing this too. We had a problem on Saturday night and now this.. very bad.</comment>


X-Seed 4000 - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Seed_4000 <comment><USER2> > Some estimate that in 1995 the cost of constructing the X-Seed 4000 may be > ... between $479 billion and $1.4 trillion US 2017 dollars.

So instead of invading Afghanistan the money could have been spent building two giant replacement towers :)

If designed to withstand earthquakes and tsunamis I'm guessing it would be hard to bring them down.

(I know it's not the same... but nice to know that we could find the money to build such a thing)

<comment><USER3> Well, the jobs created for building a single structure are only temporary. With a Forever War, though, we have sustainable employment with a constant need for new hires! Think of the children!

/s

<comment><USER4> The trickle down economics affect is really quite amazing. All the PTSD counselors, student loan officers, and lobbying positions, that this generates really makes it a no brainer.

<comment><USER5> And don't forget Hollywood which makes an insane amount of money just to make you feel like you were there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "The X-Seed 4000 "is never meant to be built," says Georges Binder"

.. and this is because it will probably fail - badly - if it were to be built. Bear with me 8)

Civil Engineering is capable of creating things of wonder and also of complete disaster. For example the Millennium Bridge in London: standard materials, not a particularly fancy loading (people) but it was a bit flat and when I saw it I instantly thought about transverse loading caused by people walking. When I was a grad in Civ Eng we were drilled about the Tacoma Narrows bridge failure due to wind and about people walking in lock step (not just soldiers) on bridges. That bridge ended up with some hydraulic dampers pretty quickly.

So, this beast. Hmmm. Resonance of some sort might destroy it in some way. When you do Civ Eng our materials and knowledge generally proceed in small incremental steps to be successful.

"Buildings & Data" might as well be smoking crack with their design. They do admit as much. You should see what I've got on the drawing board.

<comment><USER7> I think you are overly pessimistic. I haven't looked at the actual drawings but if they reflect the picture the sides appear to be built as inverse parabolas. This would transfer all of the vertical weight into a horizontal force at the foundation. If the base of the building was deep enough, you could counter balance an arbitrary height. Essentially creating an unnatural cinder cone equivalent. Internally the sides would be pressing inward and distribute lateral forces around the circle. It should be at least as stable as an equivalent volcano which typically has a much more variable material structure.

Construction would be very interesting and challenging to pull off, each 'floor' at the bottom would have a tremendous amount of overhang.

<comment><USER6> Day old thread but I can't resist 8)

The basic ideas are sound as you say but there is a huge difference between basic ideas and practical reality. I doubt anyone has looked into the localized stability of say 240m^3 chunks of a volcano's structure. That's the size of a flat of 10x10x2.4m.

This thing is a termite mound scaled up to human size and is absolutely terrifying to me. How would it deal with say an earthquake? I mentioned resonance as the curse of Civ Eng earlier and this thing is absolutely huge - who can predict what weird oscillations might occur due to wind loadings and counter them? Do you engineer it for a 1 in 100 year or 1 in 10000 year event? Given climate change, do we even know what a 1 in 10000 year event even _is_ any more?

You may have heard about a fire in a tower block in London recently. The Grenfell tower disaster (amongst many others) show that whilst we are capable of building huge structures, economics and base stupidity will strike. That was a few 100 people of which 80 odd died. This beast would house up to 1,000,000 people.

I am pessimistic because we have plenty of history to look at and this thing is too big to fail, yet we are unable to do the basics yet. Grenfell should not have happened and neither should many other tower block disasters.

The floor plan of this thing is 36km^2 who knows what weird effects might happen in a building that covers that area. It would be a right bugger to discover that you really should have put say huge rubber washers into each joint to damp vibrations afterwards. Heck, 6km is enough to have to worry about the earth's curvature. This is God, (sorry, $DEITY) sized engineering. Try and hold an image in your mind of a 36km^2, 4km high space frame with cells of say 20x10x2.4, pin joint all elements. Reduce the structure to lines. Now bend and twist it. My mental model wobbles like a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blancmange](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blancmange) but some of the loads will be absolutely huge and I can't be arsed to quantify them: I know. Try perturbing say one corner and watch it propagate.

Capability is not the same as responsibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I actually remember seeing this on some future predicting TV episode back in 1996. I remember seeing 20-story orb network connected by rail transport in a triangle pyramid formation. Each orb was like a city zone e.g. commerce, industry, residential, etc. By 1996 standards, this thing seemed ridiculous and large. I mocked it at the age of 11. And my father yelled at me for being so ... pessimistic. Back then, the show said it would be built by 2005 in the middle of the waters. Always wondered what happened to this building and this plan.

</comment><comment><USER9> > Though it has not actually been built, it is the tallest design to have been > completely specced out.

specced? feels weird to see that word in what should be an authoritative source. Always makes me a bit cautious about Wikipedia when I see that choice of wording...

<comment><USER10> When you get to the edges / infrequently-traficked parts of Wikipedia you see a lot of writing like that. I'd take it for what it seems to be: non- authoritative, opinionated, or incomplete. Maybe just plain made up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For the price of the largest building in the world, you could possibly build the Enterprise [1].

[http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/cost- mass/](http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/cost-mass/)

<comment><USER12> Does that include R&D for Warp drive, transporters, etc?

<comment><USER13> Not in their plan, they're talking pure constant acceleration for solar system wide exploring :)

<comment><USER14> With what fuel/engines exactly? we can build the enterprise right now if we wanted too, but we have no way to fuel or power it.

<comment><USER11> Regular old fission power and ion engines.

<comment><USER14> Ion thrusters will not produce enough thrust to move something that big within a single lifetime. Fission will in essence be a steam power plant on that ship since RTGs do not provide sufficient power.

Ion thrusters still need fuel, so you need to store gas, to move something that big it would be one heck of a gas tank, and which point thermal nuclear propulsion might be a better choice if you are mad enough to have a full nuclear reactor in space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This reminds me or the ARCOs from Sim City 2000.

</comment><comment><USER16> Seems like you watched Real Life Lore today as well.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKKtcRg6YU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKKtcRg6YU)

</comment><comment><USER17> Some light similarity to: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel)

<comment><USER18> I would say the precedent is more to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Land) \- nothing about the Tower of Babel was meant to house anyone or be self- contained, it was merely a ladder to the heavens.

<comment><USER19> It's not canon, but in Ted Chiang's short story about the tower of Babel. The tower was perpetually in construction, so a whole society eventually flourished in the tower.

Some people never even left the tower because it took too long to get down from the place they were born.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> 4000m is pretty well within the range of altitude-induced hypoxia.

<comment><USER21> you'd assume the insides of the building is pressurized!

<comment><USER22> Unless the floors are airtight from each other, pressurizing the top floors would make the bottom floors be more than ground level pressure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Figure a space elevator might originate from a structure like this?

I mean, it doesn't look _completely_ retarded. Just kind of absurd.

</comment><comment><USER24> It would be really neat to see one of these mega city designs built in my lifetime.

<comment><USER25> It's hard to see how it could ever be worth building - not just in terms of positive ROI (though of course that's a factor), but in terms of why you're doing it at all. If you want to build a city from scratch, why would you build this thing instead of just starting it in e.g. the plains of Nebraska or something?

Even in land-scarce Japan, if they wanted to start a city from scratch it would be easier by orders of magnitude to just clear-cut a forest somewhere first.

This thing is cool, but there's just no reason why it has to exist. There's plenty of land left on Earth to use first.

<comment><USER26> There might be one reason: all the land on Earth is owned by a nation or protected by treaty.

Perhaps a city in international waters could be built without anyone's permission, and outside any nation's jurisdiction.

Does anyone with expertise know if this is true or not?

<comment><USER27> How many non-nations have 1.4 trillion dollars hanging around to build such a thing? Even if Apple and Exxon convinced their shareholders to liquidate their companies and put all the resulting money into building this thing, they'd still be half a trillion short.

<comment><USER26> I didn't say it was practical or likely. I wondered why would anyone build away from land, and this was the only thing I could think of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Where would one find the full technical documents for this?

</comment><comment><USER29> That's a good way to get rid of Kim Jong Un: show him this thing, say he can't build it, and pretend you're building it. That's what Reagan did to the USSR with the Strategic Defense Initiative (AKA satellites with friggin' lasers attached to their heads).

<comment><USER30> That has already happened: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryugyong_Hotel](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryugyong_Hotel)

The North Koreans have been trying to build this hotel for 30 years. It was a response to the Singapore Swissotel which was the tallest hotel in the world and built by a South Korean company.

<comment><USER29> Hence my comment. North Koreans seem to have a thing for the grandiose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I love that 1-bit image at the bottom. Reminds me of the Atari logo.

</comment><comment><USER32> Does it need to be that wide or is that just a design decision?

<comment><USER33> I'm not 100% sure, but it sure looks like the shape is designed to result in equal strain/deformation throughout the structure.

Imagine the structure is sliced into horizontal layers. Each layer needs to support its own weight as well as the the weight of all the layers above it. Similar to the exponential effects of the rocket equation, this results in a rapidly growing mass requirement as the structure increases in height.

Some other towers actually have a similar shape, but with different constants at work due to their smaller height. Look at the profile of the CN tower: it also grows exponentially along its height.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The most inefficient use of space ever conceived

<comment><USER35> That's a very odd statement. This sort of thing is very efficient in terms of land use, energy use, and transportation costs. If anything, one might consider it too efficient in terms of required control -- having a sanitation worker strike would be absolutely disastrous for a million people at once. It needs much more attention paid to means of governance and politics than a regular city of a million people, because everyone is living in the same building.

It's not very good at growing food or producing energy, but those are not things that we expect cities to do today.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Puzzle Box - <AUTHOR> https://puzzle-box.detour.nyc <comment><AUTHOR> A simple little puzzle site I was inspired to create this past weekend. Hope you enjoy it!

</comment><comment><USER2> How does this work? I tried and tried but got nowhere!

<comment><AUTHOR> The goal of the game is to progress, by any means necessary. You'll need to "hack" your way forward. Think outside the box, the browser is your playground.</comment></comment>


How Google Remade the Computer Science Researcher - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/04/google-john-wilkes-new-hackers/

<comment><USER3> It is a fascinating article, but one also has to consider the timing - <USER2> is a huge pile of ill will heaped upon Google these days (due partly to the Reader shutdown) and a well-placed articled in WIRED to please the geeks out there smells like a PR effort on the part of Google to claw back some of its good name.</comment>


Intel was aware of the chip vulnerability when its CEO sold off $24M - <AUTHOR> http://uk.businessinsider.com/intel-ceo-krzanich-sold-shares-after-company-was-informed-of-chip-flaw-2018-1 <comment><AUTHOR> Dup, original here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16067322](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16067322)

</comment><comment><USER2> He has to be let go and charged criminally no?</comment>