HBO CEO: "...an internet-based model [for TV] is just a fad" - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/05/09/hbo-has-only-itself-to-blame-for-record-game-of-thrones-piracy/ <comment><USER3> HBO is owned by Time Warner. That's why they say these crazy things and make their content so hard for people to view. Time Warner wants to protect their cable business at all costs.

If HBO were independent you wouldn't see these stupid comments. It's in HBO's best interests to get their content seen by as many people as possible. That, however, is not in the best interest of Time Warner.

HBO Go is largely a joke. Not only does it require a cable subscription, it can't be used on the go. There is no offline caching of shows and to stream shows it requires a pretty strong connection: [http://interchangeproject.org/2012/05/10/why-is-hbo-go- not-a...](http://interchangeproject.org/2012/05/10/why-is-hbo-go-not-a-to-go- service/)

<comment><USER4> When we were subscribing I was able to use HBO Go fine on 4G (TMobile, Seattle area).

My bugaboo in this area is international football. Getting Premier League games in the states is a real pain. I'm sure there's equally entrenched interests there.

<comment><USER5> F1 in the UK is split between BBC (free[1] terrestrial) and Sky Sports (non free, satellite).

You can't just buy the sports, you have to buy a bunch of other stuff to get the sports. It's very annoying.

[1] You need a tv licence if you use a TV as a TV, even if you never make use of BBC content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am 25 years old. I have never paid for cable and I have numerous shows that I enjoy. I would GLADLY pay to watch some of my favourite shows, Game of Thrones included. However, as I currently reside in Canada, I can't even watch Hulu - Netflix Canada sucks. I have money; your show is not attainable through monetary means and I will not purchase cable. What is a fella to do?

You do not like the answer.

<comment><USER7> I don't buy bread. I have sandwiches that I would like to make, but I can't eat a whole loaf before it goes bad, so I don't buy it. I would gladly buy half a loaf, but my grocery store doesn't sell half loaves. If they won't make a half loaf to suit my needs and what I want to pay, I should just be able to steal whole loaves?

<comment><USER8> The analogy is ...

The grocery store will not sell half a loaf because they cannot figure out how to keep them fresh enough to sell them. They don't try hard to sell half a loaf and they basically tell the public to accept whole loaves as a fait accompli.

A the growing demand for half loaves meets a innovative group of people who found a way to deliver fresh half loaves to people. They sell them on the city streets -- without a license -- near the grocery store. Customers are happy again.

The grocery store finds out they have been losing revenues to the street dealers and the engineering efforts they developed for delivery are based on knowledge in the public domain. Instead of using this knowledge to serve their customers the fresh half loaves they want, they try to stop the street dealers from selling because they operate without a business license.

<comment><USER9> Yes, this is a much better analogy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As the article says and as a lot of people including me keep repeating: I would pay practically ANY amount for movies & shows I want to see. I live in the EU and you have to struggle to see shows like Game of Thrones legally (basically, fly to the US or wait forever). That's not an option. Worldwide (!) distribution at the same time (!) for an amount they make a profit on would be fine with me and I know many others. It's not about money; it's about that the world has changed; people have instant worldwide communication (via Facebook for instance) about the unfolding of, for instance, this series, yet the viewing is not worldwide. In the olden days, you didn't know about your friends in the US and what they watched, so you didn't mind waiting a year for a series to get on local tv. Hell, you probably didn't even know the series existed until it aired. As long as this is not changed, people will keep downloading as there is no alternative.

<comment><USER10> Oh, and why is there no feedback forum/something for these companies. In open discussion they could see what their real audience wants instead of staring at the falling numbers and drawing conclusions from suspected causalities!?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This would be so easy to fix if the network heads weren't so ignorant:

Make a Netflix style distribution system, allow users to subscribe a la carte to a fixed number of channels on a tiered system (i.e. I can select up to 15 channels for $29.99 a month or 30 channels for $59.99 a month), and make it all on demand. The infrastructure is there, the tech wouldn't be that hard to set up, and it would make a BOATLOAD of money for both the networks and the operators.

Honestly, it sounds like an ego game. They don't understand how these things work so they go on the defensive as opposed to learning and improving their business. Sad.

<comment><USER12> _it would make a BOATLOAD of money for both the networks and the operators._

Only if by "boatload" you mean one of those little toy boats that floats in the bathtub. Last year, NBC, the lowest rated broadcast channel, reported $4.2 billion in ad revenue (which represents a substantial decrease from the year before). At the top end, CBS reported $6.3 billion in ad revenue. (Source: [http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/2010-rebound- broadcast-t...](http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/2010-rebound-broadcast-tv- sees-2011-ad-revenue-fall/233345/.)) HBO clocked in at just over $1 billion (estimated, final numbers pending) in revenue for 2011. ([http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hbo-top-1-billion- inte...](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hbo-top-1-billion- international-176907)) In order for a la carte to generate the same amount of revenue for a single broadcast channel, at say, $2/month, NBC alone would need 175 million subscribers, while HBO would need nearly 42 million subscribers (or roughly 1/2 again its current subscriber base).

It's not an ego game, it's basic arithmetic. Internet streaming may be the future, but it won't be the present until it gets a lot more expensive.

<comment><USER13> "but it won't be the present until it gets a lot more expensive."

but the point is to make it cheaper. If this model can't be viable until its just as expensive as the cable model, then whats the point?! Gawd damn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> >>an internet-based model [for TV] is just a fad

You cannot help but laugh at such a comment. This is anecdotal evidence but increasingly I've noticed people connecting their flat screen TV to their computer and use that as their main source of media. And these are people that are not technical in the least.

</comment><comment><USER15> HBO does not need your money, they do really well selling their subscriptions. HBO's business is based on charging $200/year to subscribers in exchange for exclusive content. By offering a la carte shows at $9.99 or whatever they would be breaking the exclusivity that they sell to their real customers. The pirates' argument seems to be that HBO does not have the right to produce exclusive content for their subscribers, as if access to all entertainment is some fundamental right, it is not.

<comment><USER16> Those are all good points, but it does seem silly that they refuse to sell subscriptions to the uncabled youths for $250 a year.

<comment><USER17> The cable companies would be extremely unhappy about that, and may drop them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> You have to realize, HBO's customers are not the subscribers. HBO's customers are cable companies. The cable companies deal with the subscribers and just keep track of how much to pay HBO every month. HBO doesn't even know who the subscribers are! They don't have _any_ identification or billing information. That's why they can't sell to customers directly.

<comment><USER19> _They don't have any identification or billing information. That's why they can't sell to customers directly._

(Shrug) All they have to do is ask. It's as if they don't _want_ to be able to sell directly to their viewers.

Other publishing industries are frantic at the thought of middlemen like Apple and Amazon owning subscriber relationships. Yet HBO and Showtime seem to actively prefer it that way. I don't get it... don't they understand the risks of putting all of their eggs in the cable provider's basket?

<comment><USER18> They have no customer support desks, no personally identifiable information, no monstrous billing system. Turning from a B2B company to a B2C company is not as easy as flipping a switch!

<comment><USER19> Still doesn't explain why other publishers _want_ to be able to do this stuff while TV studios do not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cable television requires a subscription with a cable company, telecom, or DTH satellite operator.

Broadband internet requires a subscription with a cable company, telecom, or DTH satellite operator.

An "internet-based model" has no impact on the supply chain. Cable companies, telecoms, and DTH satellite providers still sit between the content providers and the consumer.

</comment><comment><USER20> > Now, it's important to note the reason for all this piracy: lack of access > to the show for people who can't afford, or choose not to purchase, a cable- > TV subscription.

Which, for the purpose of watching Game of Thrones, includes everybody who does not live in the US (and the UK for Game of Thrones, since it broadcasts on Sky the day after).

That's roughly 6.6 billion people "without cable access" for the purpose of watching GoT, even taking a third of that to account for people who have high- speed internet access and understand spoken english reasonably well you're still talking about a good 2 billion people who can see the series's hype online and have no way to watch the show legally while it is hyped and they can discuss it with other fans.

</comment><comment><USER21> An OTA broadcast-based model [for TV] was a bit stronger than a fad. What was it that made it old-fashioned and bereft of really interesting content? Oh yeah, HBO and its ilk.

It always amazes me when dictators who succeed via coup d'état think they'll live forever.

</comment><comment><USER22> Does this remind you of someone else?

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7874307/Prince- th...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7874307/Prince-the- internets-completely-over.html)

<comment><USER23> "Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr. Epstein."

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Not necessarily defending this guy (who I know nothing about) or anything, but I really hate it when somebody's paraphrase is put in quotation marks as if it's a direct quote.

"HBO co-president Eric Kessler has said he thinks the move away from traditional television to an internet-based model is just a fad that will pass – a 'temporary phenomenon' tied to the down economy. "

The only actual quote here is 'temporary phenomenon', which could have all kinds of contexts.

</comment><comment><USER25> I wish there was a way I could tell the CEO of HBO that I'm paying $16 to Netflix every month for two streaming accounts and I canceled cable.

</comment><comment><USER26> "HBO Go requires a cable subscription"

If I was an HBO shareholder I'd laugh while I sold.

<comment><USER27> HBO is bound by all kinds of license agreements to the cable providers and that is their bread and butter. They simply cannot provide Internet purchasing of their content. You don't really know what the CEO _actually_ believes because _saying_ the Internet is a fad plays directly into his market (the cable companies).

At this point in time, it might make more economic sense for HBO to ignore the Internet. Although, I certainly hope they're planning for the future. And if they are, it would still be foolish to let the cable companies know that.

<comment><USER14> >>You don't really know what the CEO actually believes because saying the Internet is a fad plays directly into his market (the cable companies).

I'm willing to bet that he actually believes this.

<comment><USER28> I just can't imagine how he could. I can understand him saying this because it makes a lot of business sense considering the company's position, but someone so involved in content delivery cannot possibly believe internet delivery is just a fad. They invested in HBO Go ahead of many of their rivals, so it seems like they actually understand the future, they are just afraid to talk about it now because the rest of the world isn't ready.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It wasn't a while ago someone from DEC made bone headed prediction -

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."

I don't understand why media companies don't get it that future is Internet. iTunes and Netflix are shining examples of that. What more evidence do they want?

Edit: Added Netflix reference

<comment><USER25> I thought that was IBM, not DEC?

<comment><USER30> That was said by Ken Olsen, CEO of DEC, in 1977- At a meeting of the World Future Society, of all places. Granted, he later said that he was referring to large computers common at that time.

<comment><USER31> My little bit of snopes'ing pulled up an interesting ass covering that Olsen made in reference to this quote, which as time goes on still sounds equally as bad:

> I did make a number of statements and still make statements that people > don't understand about computers, or delight in misquoting. A long time ago > when the common knowledge was that PCs would run our lives in every detail, > I said that if you stole something from the refrigerator at night you didn't > want to enter this into the computer so that it would . . . mess up the > computer plans for coming meals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think certain MBA types totally fail to predict disruptive business trends and that's because they never understand full implications of any thing. This is a problem with anybody who looks things only from a abstract sense.

Like many have mentioned in this thread, People said similar things about computers in the past.

This is why its so important to understand what you are dealing with, every aspect of your business sometime you need to get down to the grass root levels to understand.

Merely 'I can get this job done by hiring techies' doesn't always help all the time.

</comment><comment><USER33> Is there an upside to making a statement like this for a guy in his position? I am trying to think because the potential downside(becoming the laughing stock) in future seems huge.

</comment><comment><USER9> It seems monopolistic and anti-competitive for a content distribution company to also own a content creation company. The government should get in there and break that shit up. I think HBO would find it quite lucrative to be able to directly sell their content to their customers. When you find yourself in a situation where it's easier to download a show off of bittorrent illegally than it is to get it legitimately from the content creator directly, something is messed up.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is all I have to say: <http://www.rinkworks.com/said/predictions.shtml>

</comment><comment><USER35> HN headline is wrong. The quote is from co-president Eric Kessler, not CEO Bill Nelson. The CEO isn't even mentioned in this article.

</comment><comment><USER36> Hrm, game of thrones also is one of the most highly rated shows on Cable. [http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-04-17/news/31357061_1_t...](http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-04-17/news/31357061_1_thrones- nielsen-ratings-data-viewers) .

<comment><USER37> ... because they have drastically limited its availability for direct downloads and pursue pirates like the coming winter.

<comment><USER38> Or perhaps it's a really good show? Its on tons of "watch for free" sites

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Someone should make a website with famous declarations by high-ups in various industries. It'd be a neat historical reference.

For example: "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer at home" (Ken Olsen, Digital Equipment Corporation).

</comment><comment><USER3> This is unrelated, but this reminds me of when my wife worked at a newspaper and her boss said that "The Internet is just a fad."

That thinking has worked out real well for newspapers.

</comment><comment><USER40> The response I got on this article today was, "I've talked to HBO execs at NAB and IBC. They're simultaneously clueless and shackled to Time Warner."

How do you solve that?

</comment><comment> UK-AL Of course he would say that. The traditional industry is trying to stop legit Internet viewing.

Netflix or some other company needs to become strong and break them.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is all I have to say (full version):

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943. "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, 1949 "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957. "But what...is it good for?" -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip. "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977. "640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Attributed to Bill Gates, 1981, but believed to be an urban legend. "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876. "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." -- Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876. "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s. "While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility." -- Lee DeForest, inventor. "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible." -- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.) "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927. "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." -- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With the Wind." "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies. "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962. "Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax." -- William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, British scientist, 1899. "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" -- Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer. "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." -- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads. "It will be years -- not in my time -- before a woman will become Prime Minister." -- Margaret Thatcher, 1974.

<comment><USER41> "To Robert Fulton What, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck I pray you excuse me. I have no time to listen to such nonsense." - <USER2>

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Oh the establishment. They don't want to go out of their same ways of doing business and evolve like the rest of the people.

</comment><comment><USER43> In the game of piracy you seed or you die.

</comment><comment><USER44> ...and guitar music is on the way out.</comment>


Five free apps for secure password management - <AUTHOR> http://www.techrepublic.com/photos/five-free-apps-for-secure-password-management/6361275 <comment><USER2> Here's a link to the single page version (easier to read): [http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/five-apps/five-free-and- sec...](http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/five-apps/five-free-and-secure- password-management-apps/1381?tag=content;siu-container)</comment>


Why Gen Y won't buy what you're selling - <AUTHOR> http://xyzuniversity.com/2012/10/why-gen-y-wont-buy-what-youre-selling/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-gen-y-wont-buy-what-youre-selling

<comment><USER2> Maybe Gen Y are not the best consumers right now because they are over their head in student debt and the economy sucks :(

<comment><USER3> Exactly, gen Y isn't choosing not to buy cars primarily out of concern for the environment, it's that cars are expensive to buy, expensive to maintain, and expensive to run.

As a gen Y person myself, I've also noticed that a lot of things I might potentially afford that are marketed toward me aren't worth buying. In my opinion, all three current gen game consoles have great technology and terrible games. Why buy fashionable clothes, the clothing I have works just as well, and doesn't cost hundreds of dollars? A new car? Why take out a loan on a car whose value goes drastically down the moment I sign the paperwork?

In an economy where I'm lucky to have a few hundred dollars after I pay my bills and eat for the month, I save most of that for the next time I get sick without health insurance, the computer breaks down, or my car stops running.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These two quotes from the article seem a bit contradictory (italics are mine):

"From cars to association memberships, jewelry, and non-light beer – _Gen Y just isn't buying_."

"Old-fashioned marketing won't reach this generation that _spends $200 billion annually_."

Hard to spend $200 billion without buying anything.

Plus, not a single citation to back up any of these claims.

<comment><USER5> Semantically, there isn't really a contradiction. I can spend €9 a month on a subscription to Spotify and in reality I didn't buy anything because no ownership of anything was transferred to me. You can disagree and say that I bought a service, but that is the point of the article -- market your stuff to Generation Y on their "terms".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a member of the Gen Y, I particularly agree with the following when shopping:

Trust their peers first and their parents second; Hates to be sold anything; Actively researches prices and reads reviews before making a purchase; Expects exceptional service, like Amazon.com which tells them which products they might like; Seeks to do business with ethical, environmental companies; and Values customization, customizing everything from their music to their jeans and soda.

This is exactly what I will do when shopping. However, finding out the root of these above habits can help us find a better solution.

The cause of these so called "Gen Y" behaviour is that everyone who has been exposed to the type of hard-selling and non-ethical advertising, inevitably feel repulsed by the bad ad men as affected by their experience of the past, from time and time again.

But the above actions are not limited to Gen Y, any shoppers who want to shop wisely in today's world will do the same.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm part of Gen Y and I just bought a new VW Golf R the other week. I also regularly buy toys, gadgets, etc. for myself or my girlfriend - who is also part of Gen Y. That being said, the first set of 6 bullet points are quite accurate of myself, but not so much my girlfriend.

I'm thinking the author has maybe generalised too much. Never mind that they didn't reference the source(accuracy) of their information.

EDIT: To be clear, by toys I'm talking about pc/console games, books, apps, etc.</comment>


List of government surveillance projects - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government_surveillance_projects

<comment><USER2> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Core](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Core)

Wow. Just wow.</comment>


Apple tax: US treasury says £11bn EU penalty could hurt foreign investment - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/apple-tax-eu-11bn-penalty-ireland-latest-news-us-treasury-foreign-investment-a7216391.html <comment><AUTHOR> This is hilarious. The best thing the US treasury can muster is that collecting proper taxes can hurt "foreign investment" by companies like Apple, who pretty much only consider Europe as a consumer region?

Yeah, okay Apple, how about you stay out of Europe then? :D</comment>


Start-up: Development of the Decentralised Currency Model - <AUTHOR>

"Having followed the history of Bitcoins and the development of cloud and grid computing as a commercial tool through IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), I begin to wonder about whether the model of a digital currency cannot be improved to give it mass market appeal in the following way: given the success of such distributed computing projects as Folding@Home and Eintsein@Home and the voracious appetite of an increasingly large industrial and commercial sector for large amounts of computing power, does Hacker News believe that a model in which commercial users pay an IaaS provider for the use of processing runtime on a distributed network of private physical PCs, the owners of which are reimbursed with a currency "minted" by the completion of commercially-generated work units and underwritten (at least initially) by a proportion of the fees paid to the middleman company, is a workable one?<p>I am not a computing professional, and as such have only a mish-mash of self-taught knowledge of programming and the hardware of distributed systems, but accepting that issues such as security and latency would have to be addressed, are there any glaring faults that people can see in the theory and, more importantly, would you sell your processing time, idle or otherwise, in such a model?" <comment><USER2> Variations of this idea have been discussed since the commercial spinouts of distributed.net back in the 1990s. One problem is that there are almost no commercial workloads that can run on your PC's idle time, mostly due to bandwidth or security constraints. Also, there are some aspects of behavioral economics such as the "crowding out" effect which make me think that some successful non-profit projects like whatever@home cannot be recreated commercially. In addition, creating a Bitcoin-like currency that is based on proof of real work is a very difficult unsolved problem.</comment>


Much Ado About IE6 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.digg.com/?p=878

<comment><USER3> While I appreciate that Digg actually took the time to do a survey of reasons why people are still using IE6, I don't think the results are really that surprising to most web developers.

However, just because users are not empowered to switch away from IE6, that doesn't mean that an IE6 upgrade reminder page is useless. It's just the "squeaky wheel" philosophy of getting things done. If enough users see enough "Upgrade Your Browser!" pages, and if enough of them complain to management often enough, then management might actually do something about it.

Let us not forget that Internet Explorer's market dominance was built on the notion that, after some time, many pages didn't work in other browsers. The only way to break that dominance will involve the same, but in reverse.

<comment><USER4> Actually, I'm a web developer and I've been looking for a larger site to do a survey exactly like this for a long time.

And as far as changing my behavior developing sites, I'll actually word it a bit differently now -- something like "please upgrade your browser, or if it's out of your control, take a moment to email your manager or IT department to ask them to upgrade your browser, as it is 8 years old and growing."

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Currently, IE6 usage accounts for 10% of Digg visitors and 5% of page views on Digg. While this is down from 13% and 8% a year ago respectively, IE6 still accounts for a fairly large portion of Digg usage."

This makes me sick. I seem to recall that when Firefox had about 5% marketshare, lots of people were saying "Why go to the trouble of supporting Firefox for only 5%?!". And then now when IE6 has 5%, they don't seem to have the same reasoning.

(Yeah, just an impression).

<comment><USER6> Just look where the money is: they didn't list stats for ad clicks but I'm willing to bet IE6 users click more than their share of ads, and Firefox users less.

<comment><USER7> That's actually an quite interesting notion. I'd like to see digg show the ad clicks for each browser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Serve them this: <http://m.digg.com/>

</comment><comment><USER9> "we're likely to stop supporting IE6 for logged in activity like digging, burying, and commenting. Users of IE6 would still be able to view pages - <USER2> not logged in. This won't happen tomorrow, but we're thinking about doing it soon."

<comment><USER10> Since a significant portion of the users were forced to use IE6 at work, the most likely response of IT managers to this action will be "Oh, so you'll be forced to spend less of your time at work interacting with digg (and other non work-related sites)? Sounds good."

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> To take it a step further digg should try to generate publicity around this and get other web apps on board.

I'd love to see a "ditch IE6 day" where thereafter I can just pretend all web browsers know how to render transparent pngs.

</comment><comment><USER12> 13% and 8% down to 10% and 5% if you stop supporting the browser now why support it previously it seems as though the 3% drop was irrelevant.

The real issue should be who is using ie 6 is it people that are loyal diggers who have no other option while at work, school, etc... or is it indeed people who refuse to upgrade or unaware that other browsers exist. It seems the former with the low percentage.

<comment><USER7> I'd hate to use a four letter acronym, so I wont.

The IE6 users is mostly people who use it on their work computers, as mention in the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Build a rendering engine in javascript. Redirect the IE6 users of the world to it.

<comment><USER14> <http://code.google.com/p/ie7-js/>

but it's terribly slow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have a client that just made the decision to upgrade all desktops to IE7. They put together a project plan that lasts 6 months. That's what we're up against.

If you want people at work to use your site you still have to consider IE6.

<comment><USER16> I'm genuinely intrigued: what kind of rough steps are there in a six month plan to upgrade to IE7? Is it mostly testing existing internal applications for compatibility?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> if reddit, myspace, facebook, twitter, and other applications i don't use also did this --- perhaps that damn thing would finally die

<comment><USER18> IMO, Facebook and Twitter could really change things if they wanted to.

Heck, don't drop support for IE6. Just show a banner on the top of the page which says something to the effect of "Hey! You're using outdated software. Would you like to upgrade?". Millions of non-geeks use Facebook/Twitter everyday. Even if 1% of them upgraded, it would make a hell of a difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> how many users is the 5%?

</comment><comment><USER20> In my university, they still use IE6 everywhere. If a website asked me to upgrade I can not because we can not install anything on the machines. However, the machines do have firefox, so I tend to use that, but it does not come spontaneously to many people to look for firefox, while ie is right there on the desktop.

As for the article, I did find it insightful in as far as I did not know before why people continue using ie6. I thought the idea to ask them upgrade was quite a logical one. However, although it might work in forcing my university to upgrade, I am not too sure as I suppose the IT department has a lot on its plate and perhaps upgrading their browser is not as important as say upgrading the online learning environment.

<comment><USER18> Upgrading the browser is not too tedious a task. In fact, if your IT department had left Windows Update turned on, they'd have at least IE7 by now.

Of course, they can't leave WinUpdate on because they did not legally purchase Windows :p

<comment><USER21> this is a great point made by someone that has never worked in IT..

Nevermind the fact that nearly all proprietary software on a system may or may not function correctly with the release of a service pack or a new browser, testing should always be done before hand which is why auto updates are turned OFF.

on the IE6 front i completely agree, i have a redirect page setup with a link to IE 7 for our company website.. IE7 isnt the newest and greatest thing by any means but its a whole lot better than its predecessor.</comment></comment></comment>


Martin Fowler: Only developers can defeat mass surveillance - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/10/developers_its_your_job_to_defeat_mass_surveillance_say_software_gurus

<comment><USER2> Do people seriously think that an adversary with a virtually limitless budget like the NSA can be "defeated"? You can make their life a lot harder. You can slow them down with good passwords and excellent crypto, assuming your hardware or software crypto isn't backdoored, but unless you have infinite sums of cash to spend on defense, you can't beat them if you in specific are targeted.

Using tor and lots more crypto is solid advice, but don't pretend you can "beat them".</comment>


If you get a PhD, make it an economics PhD  - <AUTHOR> http://theweek.com/article/index/255209/if-you-get-a-phd-make-it-an-economics-phd

<comment><USER2> I think the author forgot to mention you must love economics. People get their PhD in the field they love, they don't do it for money or job prospects.

I am one of the dreaded lab PhDs and simply love my life because I love biology. I also have jobs lined up when I graduate because I did well. I did well because I loved my work which enabled me do a lot of work.

The thought of myself getting an economics PhD seems horrifying because I have no interest in it. But hey, if you love economics...

</comment><comment><USER3> >Compare this to a lab science PhD, in which you basically do the project your advisor tells you to do, and you succeed or fail in part based on whether your advisor chooses a project that works out

This is a complete crock of shit.

A situation like this only happens if you let it happen. If you are active as a grad student in directing your training then you'll have all the freedom you could ask for.

</comment><comment><USER4> Of the billionaires on Forbes top 100, only 1 has a Ph.D. By contrast, a couple are high school drop-outs and a fair number are college drop-outs. Source: [http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100505134335AA...](http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100505134335AA3c0zy)

Tuition is rising faster than inflation. After 4 years of college, 5 years of grad school, and another 5 years of post-doc work, a Ph.D. could easily accumulate hundreds of thousands of dollars of student debt.

So if making money is your main goal in life, skip the Ph.D.</comment>


T-Mobile Galaxy S2 with Android 4.0 is the first with IPv6 support - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/130875-t-mobile-galaxy-s2-with-android-4-0-is-the-first-with-ipv6-support

<comment><USER2> First _branded_ phone on T-Mobile with IPv6.

Also, the HTC One S has been available on T-Mo for a few days now; it's running ICS and should thus support IPv6. Wouldn't that make it the first branded IPv6-capable phone?

Edit: As noted below, the software on the One S does indeed not support IPv6 as of now.

<comment><USER3> The One S may have an IPv6-hating baseband; apparently this is a very common reason why phones cannot be upgraded to support v6 in software.

<comment><USER2> It seems the hardware is willing, but some proprietary software part is weak: [https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!msg/tmoipv6beta...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!msg/tmoipv6beta/UZI9ib52U6M/dDF91rXcfWMJ)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wait, you can switch between IPv4 & IPv6 APNs? Do you get NAT-ted IPv4 in the IPv6 one at all?

<comment><USER5> The data connection only supports one protocol at a time, so it's IPv6-only. T-Mobile provides a NAT64/DNS64 gateway which generates an IPv6 address for every domain you query.

This works in most cases, unless you have an app that doesn't understand IPv6, or a site that uses raw IPv4 literals instead of DNS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> confirmed working with galaxy nexus too

</comment><comment><USER7> because iOS hasn't had this for years.

<comment><USER8> IPv6 over WLAN is no problem, that can be entirely done on the application processor. Everything mobile however has to go through the baseband processor, an extra subsystem with propietary software doing propietary protocols. Communicaton between baseband and application processor is very limited, and to this day happens mostly over a serial line speaking as AT modem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't see how IPv6 on mobile data helps anyone but law enforcement and your mobile provider. Keeping smartphones behind a NAT (that can still speak IPv6 to the outside world if it were inclined to do so) and avoiding the baseband turmoil seems like a winning strategy.

<comment><USER9> You realize that v6 with a public IP vs v4 behind NAT on mobile data makes no difference for law enforcement, right? Carrier NAT keeps a record of who was using what ports when so they can trace it out.

<comment><USER8> And who exactly keeps remote ports in his apache log?</comment></comment></comment>


Joe Rohan – Dr. Rhonda Patrick - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/4_ZJ8YDOX6g <comment><AUTHOR> I always learn something new when I listen to Dr. Patrick. This YouTube video includes discussion of the COVID-19 virus (i.e. SARS-CoV-2), immune system, vitamin D, etc.</comment>


Certificates, Reputation, and the Blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@medialab/certificates-reputation-and-the-blockchain-aee03622426f#.6nxoub5y0 <comment><USER2> This appears to be a re-creation of X509 and certificate transparency, but with a custom format in place of X509 and the block chain in place of CT.

The problem is that the existing infrastructure, though a little ugly in places, is very well thought out and has a vast ecosystem.

I can (and often do) simply plug in a USB stick that stores my private keys and then sign a PDF in such a way that the document is timestamped, signed, and bundled in such a way that clever tricks like swapping out an external font to change what a message says don't work.

The certificate has a verified identity in it, so I can accrue reputation under my own legal name if I want to, or I can create a self signed cert and use a pseudonym.

The CT logs are a blockchain-esque structure for logging of all created certificates, except searchable, and actually designed for certificates. It gives the same advantages as the blockchain does in this design, and then a whole lot more.

X509 is ugly, but still better than "append a signature after some lines of text", and it has the advantage of being widely supported with libraries in most major languages and frameworks. Usefully, web browsers know how to create a self signed cert and upload it to a server for signing, meaning the process of MIT issuing a university certificate can be easily automated.

Most of the problems of the existing PKI boil down to lack of UI polish. They aren't something you can fix just by throwing a block chain at it.

<comment><USER3> What is "CT"?

<comment><USER4> Certificate Transparency, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_Transparency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_Transparency)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Discussing this with friends, we pondered the advantages of university degrees being cryptographically signed. If universities were created today, the idea that they would only use paper (or a scan) to certify a degree is laughable.

The process of verifying a degree is complicated - each university has a different system and the costs can be far from non-zero. This discourages employers from doing the checks.

The impact is far more than just "well we hired him/her and it didn't work out" \- counterfeit degrees can be terrifying. Allen Ezell, a former FBI agent, notes that there are thousands of faked medical degrees[1]. Even in the case that the employee does a fine job, exposing a faked degree later can destroy their career from that point forward.

Yes, there are potential issues that go along with this idea (certificate revocation in the case of a compromised key, proper implementation of the system, etc) but even a flawed system would be far better than today given so very few degrees are certified by employers.

It should be as simply as attaching a link to your signed degree in your resume.

[1]: [http://freakonomics.com/2012/07/30/freakonomics-goes-to- coll...](http://freakonomics.com/2012/07/30/freakonomics-goes-to-college- part-1-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/)

<comment><USER5> Yes, this is one of the motivations to experiment. We see this is a prototype implementation to start a conversation about how we could design better certification systems in the future. It prompts lots of interesting questions (and we are concerned with implications around privacy, etc.) and hopefully others will build similar systems and we can compare notes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think reputation should be the scarce resource for preventing sybil attacks, and not computing power via proof-of-work. The latter won't even work with new (and therefore small) blockchain networks, since a 51% attack is trivial. Reputation replaces distributed consensus with probabilistic value, relative to each participant. That's actually how currencies are discounted when being converted. Wildcat money during the free banking era was heavily discounted. Currencies and debts are accepted locally and from trusted people.

<comment><USER7> What does this comment mean?

<comment><USER6> It means we should move beyond distributed consensus. Forums and voting dont need it for one

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This seems to be like PGP keysigning web-of-trust, but instead of each participant managing their own copy you pile the whole thing onto the blockchain?

The tricky thing here is key management. What happens if you (or the university) lose a key or it's compromised?

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm often annoyed by "blockchain" projects, but this is a very cool application of blockchain technology.

Does anyone know which blockchain the Media Lab is using? The actual Bitcoin one, or Namecoin, or some other one?

<comment><USER5> We are using the Bitcoin blockchain. Glad we made the cut of non-annoying blockchain projects ;-)</comment></comment>


BitTorrent Bleep Now Publicly Available Across All Major Platforms - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bittorrent.com/2015/05/12/bleep-private-messenger-now-on-all-major-platforms/ <comment><USER2> I don't trust anything released by BitTorrent. Sync was a huge let down and frankly I'm not going to waste my time on any more of their software after the ad/toolbar/bitcoin-mining infested installers they put out for uTorrent...

<comment><USER3> Care to elaborate on why Sync is a huge let down?

<comment><USER4> Sync was great until it locked all my folders and demanded $39 to start working again. Their free tier makes it sound like you get 10 shares free but I think it actually turned out to be 10 folders _including_ sub-folders within a share...

<comment><USER5> _I think it actually turned out to be 10 folders including sub-folders within a share..._

No. The documentation says it is 10 shares with any number of subfolders and that is also my experience - when the Pro trial expired, I could sync 10 shares with a large number of subfolders without any problems.

Of course, changing the number of shares from unlimited to 10 was a bait and switch move, and a scam because their website said that they wouldn't remove any functionality from the free version.

Also, it's very weird that they switched to a subscription model. You bring most of the infrastructure (bandwidth & disk space) and they bring mostly software (and some infrastructure). Why not just let people buy the software?!?

<comment><USER6> Because then you don't generate recurring revenue. Microsoft also gets this now (finally).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No mention of it being open source and after what happened with Sync I don't understand who would use this.

<comment><USER8> Wait, what happened to sync?

<comment><USER9> There was some concern about the security of the product:

[http://2014.hackitoergosum.org/bittorrentsync-security- priva...](http://2014.hackitoergosum.org/bittorrentsync-security-privacy- analysis-hackito-session-results/)

These concerns were amplified by the difficulty of auditing a closed-source product. Their argument that hashes are one-time secrets and not permanent keys is difficult to validate without access to the source.

<comment><USER10> I personally switched to Syncthing (and the Syncthing-GTK GUI) and never looked back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am particularly annoyed by the name "Whisper" for the "25 seconds only" messages: It got me to read on because I thought they interfacing with WhisperSystem's protocol for TextSecure. Because, open protocols, federation and all that. Would have been nice, right? Well, thumbs down for that.

Also, if you don't trust the other to not _want_ to log your conversation, don't send sensitive stuff. But then again people do seem to like snapchat and thelike, so I shouldn't judge too much there maybe.

<comment><USER12> I guess it's a slight reassurance, for example if I want to send a password to someone I trust, I could do it with whisper knowing if someone picks up their phone in a weeks time it will be gone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> That screenshot protection thing is kind of dumb. As they show in their website, you take 2 screenshots and there you go, name and message.

You can say you make it harder to take screenshots but you cant promise a secure way to prevent people from saving the data you send them. That's unfeasible, its promotion of false security.

</comment><comment><USER14> Apparently "all platforms" means Mac, Win, IOS and Android. Not to be snarky, but that's not even close to "all", even if we exclude esoteric ones with extremely few users.

<comment><USER15> Now available across all major app stores.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Warning: This is going to sound mean. Feel free to skip it if mean words upset you.

They claim to support "all major platforms" then completely skimp out on Linux and BSD.

Bleep isn't open source.

They claim to provide privacy, and their testimonials read:

        Software Engineering at it's finest. If you haven't read
        the blog post on this app then you need too. Once you see
        how it works your gonna want it. Most secure messaging
        I've seen yet.

That's great, now show me the source code so I can decide whether or not it's the most secure messaging _I've_ seen yet.

Publish the git repository. Make it run on GNU/Linux and *BSD.

Or get the fuck out and stop making claims you cannot back up.

        DDDD   i    t          h      TTTTT  h     i   sss
        D   D     ttttt   ccc  h        T    h        s
        D   D  i    t    c     hhh      T    hhh   i   sss
        D   D  i    t    c     h  h     T    h  h  i      s
        DDDD   i     tt   ccc  h  h     T    h  h  i   sss

          BBBB   U   U  L    L     SSSS   H  H  I  TTTTT !
          B   B  U   U  L    L    S       H  H  I    T   !
          BBBB   U   U  L    L     SSSS   HHHH  I    T   !
          B   B  U   U  L    L         S  H  H  I    T
          BBBB    UUU   LLLL LLLL  SSSS   H  H  I    T   !

<comment><USER17> Open source is the way to go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm very intrigued by Bleep, I think that attempting to leverage the bitorrent protocol in a chat platform is a unique take, that I would like to see continue to evolve.

However, I think it's important that they open the source up for this project and even potentially offer the ability for me to install and run my own server. I think until they take those steps, it will be difficult for them to gain any kind of large following.

<comment> mike-cardwell Run your own server? From my understanding there is no server involved. It is peer to peer and peers find each other by using DHT. It's closed source though, so you have to take their word on that.

<comment><USER19> it's bi bittorrent. you need a tracker.

how do you think one client can find another? i hope you don't think it was a internet wide broadcast... :)

<comment> mike-cardwell My understanding is that you don't need a tracker when using the DHT. I'm not sure what the bootstrap method is to find the initial peers to start accessing the DHT, but once you've found one peer, it's easy enough to find more. Feel free to correct me.

<comment><USER19> Thats nonsense. The clueless torrent news sites like to boast that you dont need a tracker for dht, just a 'bootstrap node'. Whick is exactly a tracker.

Its one simple node which address is hardcoded in the clients. So, it is a tracker, just not a full bittorrent tracker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There is no way to make a service that guarantees that messages are erased with current mobile technology that doesn't allow you to make another client that saves the message. Snapchat and the FTC had a conversation about this.

[https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2014/05/snapc...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2014/05/snapchat-settles-ftc-charges-promises-disappearing-messages- were)

</comment><comment><USER21> I would love to hear Moxie's thoughts on Bleep and whether he thinks this is secure or not...

<comment><USER22> Two benefits over TextSecure that I can see:

\- Doesn't require your mobile phone number to use it

\- Not dependant on google services on Android

Downsides:

\- Cant beat Textsecures crypto \- Not opensource

The last two points make this a no-go for me.

<comment><USER3> Another benefit is that it's P2P, which doesn't do much in terms of privacy (although Bleep's website claims that it does somehow...) but it can help with censorship - think Turkey, Iran bans of apps and services. I think even Brazil wanted to ban Whatsapp at some point.

I wouldn't consider it a top 5 priority right now, but I do hope OWS takes into consideration making Signal P2P as well in the future (perhaps with some new technologies that may appear or mature by then).

My own priorities for what I want to see in Signal/Textsecure next:

1) integrated Android app

2) desktop client (ideally web/browser-based, but if that's not too secure, I could live with a native app, too, maybe one that works only through Windows 10's store for the sandbox security and digital signing benefit, as well as for the new auth features)

3) video-chat support

<comment><USER22> Re #2: TextSecure has a web/chrome extension version in development:

[https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure- Browser](https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure-Browser)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Some things are highly valuable but just don't make sense to monetize. Bit Torrent is a great example of that.

BitTorrent Inc is evidently scrambling to find a way to monetize the core technology having raised money and promised investors it would do that.

They just laid off a %age of their staff, which indicates to me the end of the road might be nearing and Bleep maybe one of the last attempts they have to pull something off.

I love Bram, but IMHO Bit Torrent should return to being a true open source technology developed by the community.

<comment><USER24> They could potentially have sold BitTorent technology/software to companies that needs to move lots of data across multiple nodes. Instead most of them use libtorrent.

<comment><USER25> I don't think that makes sense. It is kind of like selling TCP/IP before the internet age ; network standards should be just that - an open standard that is open to all players.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One thing that is missing from the marketing copy: even if you accept a closed-source messenger and forget the whole uTorrent saga, what's the monetization model here? What costs can we expect in the future and where?

(The cynic in me thinks: Bleep 2 offers many new features, buy Bleep 2 Pro if you communicate with more than 10 contacts.)

</comment><comment><USER26> What are the limits on implementing the bittorrent protocol? A open source sync alternative seems doable (even if I had to resort to port knocking or something), maybe build it on top of owncloud and get the best of both worlds?

</comment><comment><USER27> So far I know these decentralized (supposedly) secure messaging software/protocols:

       1. Bleep
       2- Tox
       3. Ring (formerly SFLphone, DHT based authentication)

<comment><USER25> Add OTRTalk to the list:

[https://github.com/mnaamani/otrtalk](https://github.com/mnaamani/otrtalk)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What's with the super weird installation process on Windows?

Also very little information about how everything works on its website (the technical stuff, especially for security).

<comment><USER16> Security through obscurity, exhibit A.

Just kidding, we know there are too many exhibits for even Unicode to enumerate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I tried it for 5 mins,the encryption is freaky slow. Telegram is still my favorite private chat app

<comment><USER29> "Private"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> What about Telegram?

<comment><USER31> Telegram should be avoided. They do weird things with their security and ignored criticism on it. The key verification requires checking an image, so you can't do it over the phone. Plus closed source, so you're very likely entirely depending on trusting Telegram.

Their response to using AES IGM? It's along the lines of "yeah this strange mode no one uses has issues but not in the way we use it so whatever. We've got math PhDs, so trust us."

I'm no expert, but I get a really bad feeling about them, since it's the totally wrong attitude to take.

<comment><USER27> >closed source

I can't comment on the other arguments, but the client of Telegram is certainly FOSS [1]. Their service being open source is irrelevant, since you couldn't verify it anyway.

[1] [https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.telegram.messenger](https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.telegram.messenger)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Why not use Kik? Its a more popular closed source messenger.

<comment> mike-cardwell Kik is not end to end encrypted. Kik the company can access any message you send or receive.

<comment><USER33> And how do you know the same isn't true here?

<comment> mike-cardwell We don't know what the truth is. We know what we're being told though. And Kik is telling us that their messages aren't encrypted end to end, whilst bittorrent are telling us their messages are.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cray, AMD to Extend DOE's Exascale Frontier - <AUTHOR> https://www.hpcwire.com/2019/05/07/cray-amd-exascale-frontier-at-oak-ridge/ <comment><USER2> IMO the coolest thing about Summit/Sierra is that the GPUs and CPUs have a fully coherent single address space with all memory available to the GPUs by default, meaning that your stack- and malloc-allocated variables can be used directly from the GPUs.

I wonder if that will be the case on Frontier.

<comment><USER3> That's basically the entire state of mobile(minus a few weird SoCs) and many game consoles, makes for a much more convenient development platform.

<comment><USER2> I'm not familiar with mobile / APUs, but I was under the impression that it was still necessary to do clCreateBuffer (or similar). I could only find old slides ([https://developer.amd.com/wordpress/media/2013/06/1004_final...](https://developer.amd.com/wordpress/media/2013/06/1004_final.pdf)), though.

Would you mind pointing me in the right direction to learn about how to do this? (something equivalent to slide 2 of [https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/wp- content/uploads/2018/12/summit_...](https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/wp- content/uploads/2018/12/summit_workshop_UVM.pdf) but for mobile/APU)?

<comment><USER3> [https://www.khronos.org/registry/OpenGL/extensions/OES/OES_E...](https://www.khronos.org/registry/OpenGL/extensions/OES/OES_EGL_image_external.txt) is the basic entry point on most the OpenGL ES platforms, elsewhere you get into platform-specific APIs.

Mostly my point was the unified system/gpu memory is pretty common outside of the desktop space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > In a media briefing ahead of today's announcement at Oak Ridge, the partners > revealed that Frontier will span more than 100 Shasta supercomputer > cabinets, each supporting 300 kilowatts of computing.

So 30 megawatts of computing, plus cooling and other supporting services. How do you power something like this? Does ORNL have their own power station (given they have reactor(s) on site)? If power comes from an external station do they coordinate with the station operator when bringing a system like this online?

<comment><USER5> As has been noted in other comments, we do not have a power station at ORNL. We buy power from TVA at about 5.5 cents per kW hour which in part is because of the locality of the lab to TVA power plants.

TVA recently completed a 210 MW substation on ORNL's campus to better serve our needs. We do not need to coordinate with them for large runs on the machines.

<comment> W-Stool With that much gear and those kind of loads do you still have a traditional UPS / transfer switch / genset arrangement for everything in the room? If not, how do you manage short duration power outages?

<comment><USER5> Yep, we have battery-backed generators for UPS and a transfer switch at the 480-V feed that comes into the room but it is not enough to power the compute nodes. The UPS allows cluster management nodes and the parallel filesystem (which is a small cluster by itself) to ride through full outages and other PQE.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So - on a more "applies to ordinary mortals" level - the fact that they are going to use all AMD components is intriguing.

In reference to AI, NVidia has things "locked up" with CUDA, versus 2nd cousin AMD's OpenCL.

From what I understand, it is possible to recompile TensorFlow (for instance - not that ORNL will be using TF) for OpenCL - but I don't know how well it works. Personally, I've only used TF with CUDA.

Does this mean we might see greater/better support for OpenCL in the AI realm? Might we seem it become on-par with CUDA because of this collaboration for this HPC?

Or will things stay as-is, at least "down here" in the consumer/business realm of AI hardware and applications? Do things like this trickle down, or are things so customized and/or proprietary for the needs of HPC at ORNL (or elsewhere) that anything to do with AI on this machine will have little to no bearing outside of the lab?

Ultimately, I'd just like to see another choice (a lower cost choice!) for GPU in the world of consumer/enthusiast/hobbyist AI/DL/ML - while today's higher- end GPUs, no matter the manufacturer, tend to be fairly expensive, AMD still has an edge here that make them attractive to users (not to mention the fact that their Linux drivers are open-source, which is also a plus).

<comment><USER7> I doubt they are going to run much AI on that machine. The national labs mostly run "traditional HPC" workloads such as fluid codes that simulate (magneto)hydrodynamics in one way or another.

<comment><USER8> The DOE is responsible for the USA's nuclear arsenal so I expect a few simulations of that nature.

<comment><USER9> this system is mostly for non-classified work; not clear just how much stockpile stewardship will occur on it.

<comment><USER5> Yep, actually all of our user projects are unclassified at the OLCF.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> "greater than 1.5 exaflops" of performance will likely correspond to greater than 1 Exaflop of sustained performance on HPL (used for the top-500 ranking), making this a likely candidate for the first 'true' exascale computer.

<comment><USER10> But will it run Crysis?

<comment><USER11> This is just a few miles down the road from me. I can try to see if they will let me run it...

<comment><USER5> The call for proposals for INCITE (one of the programs we provide cycles for) is open for 2020 but this would be for Summit not Frontier this time around :)

[http://www.doeleadershipcomputing.org/proposal/call-for- prop...](http://www.doeleadershipcomputing.org/proposal/call-for-proposals/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks like Frontier will use Cray's Slingshot network. [https://www.cray.com/products/computing/slingshot](https://www.cray.com/products/computing/slingshot)

[https://www.anandtech.com/show/14302/us-dept-of-energy- annou...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/14302/us-dept-of-energy-announces- frontier-supercomputer-cray-and-amd-1-5-exaflops)

</comment><comment><USER13> What's the advantages of infinity fabric over pcie 4 for cpu/gpu?

What interconnects do these sorts of machines use? I assume even 100GbE isn't enough?

Just curious. It's interesting what exists in the "so far beyond my price range as to be ludicrous" category.

<comment><USER14> PCIe provides communication but isn't intended to provide memory coherency. There's a lot of work that goes on in figuring out which cache(s) have a copy of which cache line and figuring out how to resolve conflicting access needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if this will help the adoption of ROCm. It seems everything I read settled on CUDA.

</comment><comment><USER16> 1.5 exaflops, 30 megawatts, around 50 GFLOPs per watt? Impressive if true; that's 3x more efficient than the current top of the Green500.

<comment><USER2> It's probably not a great comparison to compare the theoretical numbers of Frontier to the achieved numbers of the green 500. The achieved flops is pretty much always considerably lower than the theoretical flops. Titan is a 27 PFLOPS machine that achieves 17.6 PFLOPS, sequoia is a 20 PFLOPS machine that achieves 17, summit is a 200 PFLOPS machine that achieves 143, ...

~ 37 GFLOPS/W is probably a better projection if we assume (out of nowhere) that the theoretical/achieved ratio of Frontier is comparable to Summit (75%). Still very impressive.

<comment><USER16> Well they don't usually hit their peak power usage either; Summit is rated at 13 MW but used less than 10 during its LINPACK run. But fair point.</comment></comment></comment>


Falcon 9 back in the hangar. No damage found, ready to fire again - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/elonmusk <comment><USER3> I'd be really surprised if there were any damage, because stress on this stage was much lower than in the normal launch. Reentry burn was so long and strong that virtually all breaking during descent was due to it, there was nearly no aerodynamic breaking, so there was nearly nothing to stress the vehicle - <USER2> during ascent, MECO was with a lot of fuel still in the tank so terminal acceleration was much lower than during normal launch.

We'll see how the stage from SES-9 launch will feel like - it will be a nearly max 'reusable' payload launch so reentry burn will have to be minimal.</comment>


Turn a PlayStation 3 Into a Linux PC  - <AUTHOR> http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/how_to/4263321.html <comment><USER2> The PS3 has always appealed to me as a cheap number-crunching Linux box. (cheap compared to any other way of getting hold of a Cell) Unfortunately, having only 256 megs of system RAM severely limits its usefulness in my opinion.

I googled around a little, and it looks like VRAM (there's another 256MB of that) is exposed as a block device, so that could conceivably be used as lightning-fast swap space. (given a suitable priority boost over the hard disk swap) If the VRAM can be accessed directly via physical memory address mapping, then it could even be used directly, given some kernel hacking, maybe using some of the NUMA API.

Well, once I come up with an excuse for needing a Cell, I'll go through with it. ;)</comment>


Show HN: Meatshields – An in-browser turn-based strategy game - <AUTHOR> A few months ago (82 days to be exact!) I posted a link on HN to my game, Meatshields. A bunch of you commented and played my game and gave me some wonderful feedback. Over the last few months I've been playing with many of you and implementing the best of everybody's suggestions.
So, thank you, HN for all your help! I feel this is an extreme overhaul I couldn't have done without your input.
Since then, I have: Dramatically improved our hosting platform (So it HOPEFULLY won't go down this time (oops.)), Added two new units, Rebalanced all existing units, Added many more maps, Improved the AI's threat-weighing algorithm, Completely redid the tutorial system, Added some real basic (and I mean BASIC) "animations", Redid the in-game UI (several times), And most importantly, HUNDREDS OF BUG FIXES.
For everybody who didn't see the original thread, Meatshields is a free, online, turn-based strategy game I made that is heavily inspired by Advance Wars. Those games took a very long time to complete in-person so I wanted to build a similar game online where players had many games going on at the same time and would log on once or twice a day to take their turns.
If anybody has any suggestions or bugs they encounter, please feel free to post them here. Otherwise, I hope everybody likes the game, and thanks again for the help!
https://meatshields.com/ <comment><USER2> One piece of feedback, make it easier to try the game before investing in a login/registration process.

I will not register to try a game. It's too much friction. I will register to continue playing a game I like.

You've hidden the 'Try Meatshields' link in tiny text below the fold -- present me with a demo experience front and center, and consider pushing the FAQ content below that. Make playing the game the hero of your website.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I actually completely agree. While it's not something I prioritized during development, perhaps it should be something I prioritize now. I tried to minimize the friction by not requiring any email verification but I realize that's something that's a deterrent to some players.

<comment><USER3> The ultracheap way to do this is just have a 2min gameplay video where you describe how a turn works.

<comment><USER4> I think a quick gameplay video is a great idea.

For something like a strategy game, it's nice to see if the game even appeals to you at all before you invest in a tutorial.

Check out Tag Pro's homepage: [http://tagpro.koalabeast.com](http://tagpro.koalabeast.com)

As someone said upstream, as a content-creator, I feel like I should just try the game someone spent many hours of their life building. But as a content- consumer, I'm irrational with my attention span for some reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Three pieces of feedback:

1\. The tutorial is really long. It would be better if it was broken up by campaigns that use what you've learned so far. I just got to the fire mage section, and am starting to lose interest.

2\. This really drove home how much sound matters. Even just some background music and simple attack sound effects would go a long way to make the game more immersive.

3\. The other player's turn happens so fast that I don't get a sense of what happened on it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I tried to shrink the tutorial as much as I could to just be the core gameplay elements. Nothing fancy. When I was first showing the game to people they would have a really hard time knowing what to do in a real game so I figured this was better than being totally confused when they do play :(

Sound definitely matters in the gaming experience, a part of me is torn because I hate websites that make noise when I didn't ask them to, but I suppose this is a game so people can expect it, and maybe I can have it off by default?

With the way the game is set-up currently, you only get the end result of a user's turn. One day I do hope to have a turn history or previous-turn display though.

<comment><USER6> Maybe have a pop up that asks if you want sound on or off?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My critique.... You can look me up as kefka in your system as well. I had a chance to play quite a bit over the weekend :D

1\. The tutorial could use significant tightening up. compact it to 1/4 of the text/messages/popups. Think of this as a grind, get them through fast to start playing.

2\. Allow undoing moves until the "End Turn" is done. More than a few times, I mis-clicked move on the same square a piece was, and effectively did a NO-OP. Even if it was a global-undo that reset the turn's condition would be better than nothing.

3\. For early-mid game, mages seem vastly overpowered. I was expecting a rock- paper-scissors mechanic but Mages seem to blast anything under Centaur away... Even the knight hiding in the mountains gets slaughtered.

4\. Let me hit my own units. Sometimes when a pile-on is going on, I want to off my 3hp horse to move in a Giant.

5\. Too many catapult types. There is a difference between them, but not really. Perhaps the Fire-catapult could be a area-of-effect fire bomb, including hitting your own units?

6\. Sound would be nice, but lower priority than these.

</comment><comment><USER8> I get "ERROR: Invalid email address submitted" with emails of the form:

email@example.com

The plus sign in gmail allows me to know who sent the email (or who my email was distributed by): [https://gmail.googleblog.com/2008/03/2-hidden-ways-to- get-mo...](https://gmail.googleblog.com/2008/03/2-hidden-ways-to-get-more- from-your.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Funny enough -- while fixing this, I found out that you can just sign up without an email and then immediately go to your profile page and add your email with less strict validation. Whoops. Well go ahead and use this as a workaround for now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Way too many instructions to get to play the game.

I had to click like 100 times to just get through the mandatory tutorial, and I had to enter a User Name and Display Name and come on -- simplify this stuff. Not fun.

If your user interface isn't simple enough to use without instructions, then you are building your user interface wrong.

</comment><comment><USER10> The game mentions that it can be played on a phone but i find it rather poorly adapted (not at all really) to a phone screen - tested on Mobile Safari. The game does look interesting! Please make it more pleasant to play on mobile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that's a totally valid suggestion. So far the best I've done is make the buttons significantly more usable on mobile. I would love to create a mobile- only layout or an app. I realize this a very important request for a lot of players so I will try to get something working for that soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I spent about 15 minutes going through the tutorial before getting bored and trying to find a real game, only to find I have to finish the tutorial. I get that there's a lot to explain but man that tutorial is long.

A way to solve this problem would rather than explaining everything up front add a campaign whereby you first play games against AI with only the basics unlocked, then as you advance explain what the newly unlocked thing is.

The main problem here is that you have a new match for each new feature, but walk through it step by step with tutorial messages. Just having one message at the start of each tutorial message "this is unicorn, unicorn does X" and then let the player figure it out would go a long way IMO.

</comment><comment><USER12> Interesting game. I have been looking for a web-based turn based strategy game for a while, this looks promising. Some thoughts:

1\. Let the user press Enter or Space to go to the next dialog in the tutorial.

2\. Let the user press Escape or another character to exit out of the current "move/attack" selection state.

3\. Let the user undo/go back to the start of the turn if the user hasn't pressed "end turn" yet. Very often I click move on the player's own square or move instead of attack/capture or other similar mistakes.

4\. The graphics are fine for me, but I just feel the UX in terms of actual gameplay is very unintuitive/more complicated than it could be. Maybe get a game designer to give you some feedback?

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a meta thought, generally these are submitted as a link and then context is provided in a comment. Not sure that that's a better way of doing it though. Might generate more visits.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, whoops! I had figured Show HN was more about the discussion but that's a great suggestion, since people can come comment on it anyways. Thanks for the tip!

<comment><USER14> For the discussion part, you can just write a comment in the thread itself. That what the show bit is the thing you want to show and the things you want to say go in the thread.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think I recognize some of these sprites... Borrowed them from Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup by any chance? If so you should mention it somewhere IMO. I like the game's concept, always been a fan of Advance Wars! As a suggestion, I'd add some form of sound feedback like some others have already mentioned.

</comment><comment><USER16> I saw the option to play against the AI. Have you considered letting players write their own AI?

<comment><AUTHOR> I love that idea! I've had a couple friends express interest, although I'm not sure I'm talented enough to set up a system for player-submitted AI. If the game doesn't work out, though, that's a really wonderful next-project idea :D

<comment><USER17> You could implement player-submitted AI as a web API - so they would write something in whatever language they choose, deploy it on Heroku, or now.sh, or stdlib or whatever, and then provide the URL.

When it's time to make a move, you just call their URL and process the response.

I don't think games involve a lot of data right? So you could probably make it stateless by transferring the whole game each time.

If you want a hand with this I could probably help! Just reply here, and I'll drop you an email.

<comment><AUTHOR> Huh. I hadn't even thought of players hosting their own AI! That would actually be EXTREMELY easy to implement on my end, haha. You are correct, and that's basically what the game is doing already just to my own AI server, so all I would have to do is use a pugged-in url, perform a POST call and then parse the response. What a good idea!

So I guess my to-do list now is: 1) Forgot password feature 2) B.Y.O.A.I. :)

<comment><USER17> Awesome. I'm unaffiliated with stdlib, but I think you basically can't get easier than that for hosting something like this for free. And you can probably put together a template for people really easily.

Anyway, sounds like you don't need any help - good luck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> You should probably implement a forgot password feature. Other than that it looks good!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Yeah it'd have to be only for people who have submitted their email but that's still better than nothing. Guess I know what I'm adding next!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The artwork could do with some upgrades.

If you have the budget for it, consider hiring a professional artist.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, and even that is putting it lightly ;)

I've had some friends volunteer to help but they never seem to pan out so perhaps it's time I got a professional :)</comment></comment>


LA Dodgers Technology Accelerator ($120,000 for 6% equity) - <AUTHOR> http://www.dodgersaccelerator.com/

<comment><USER2> At AWS Re:Invent last year someone from the MLB gave a great presentation[1] on technology usage in baseball and its benefits. It really opened up my eyes to a whole segment that I had never really considered.

[1] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=847HY- JATrs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=847HY-JATrs)</comment>


Hiding the web, one page at a time - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/facebook/connect-js/pull/290

<comment><USER2> We've got some pages that implement a gazillion Facebook iframes (via their JS approach, but they still iframe everything in) and, quite apart from just having to trust them on things like this, it makes everything slow as a dog. Latency is one part of this, clientside JS performance in older IEs is another (and no, dropping support has been ruled out - one of Australia's biggest media brands)

Anyone have thoughts on sandboxing to protect against things like this, or success stories re: performance optimising FB integration?

<comment><AUTHOR> Lazy load it.

It's not the thing that users will be doing when they first load you page anyways.

<comment><USER2> We do, but have found - particularly in IE variants - that performance is so haltingly slow that we may as well not bother lazyloading at all.

There are also some Flash of Unstyled Content/Unloaded JS issues - but we should probably fix this on our end. The challenge with that is Facebook have the freedom to change iframe dimensions at any point, thus breaking thousands of pages again.</comment></comment></comment>