Comparative Advantage - <AUTHOR> http://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/Details/comparativeadvantage.html

<comment><AUTHOR> "The moral is this: To find people's comparative advantages, do not compare their absolute advantages. Compare their opportunity costs."</comment>


Exploring Solus Architecture - <AUTHOR> https://solus-project.com/2018/02/15/exploring-solus-architecture/ <comment><USER2> They are doing some really interesting work

</comment><comment> born-jre true modern distro</comment>


Introducing the PlayStation Classic - <AUTHOR> https://blog.eu.playstation.com/2018/09/19/introducing-the-playstation-classic-with-20-pre-installed-games/ <comment><USER2> While I get the whole nostalgia factor, I just don't get why they keep choosing to keep the worst part of these old systems, the stupid wired controllers! I don't think being able to sit a comfortable distance away from the tv, without wires running in the middle of the floor, would ruin anyone's trip down nostalgia lane.

I wish they hadn't put FF7 on it though, because now I'm considering getting one. That was the first game I remember deeply falling in love with, and while I have bought it and played on multiple other devices, nothing beats playing it on that cheap plastic enterprise grey wired controllers. If FF8 & 9 were to also be included, that's an easy buy for me.

There are a few games that if they don't put on it, it'll practically be a crime against humanity, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Toomba, Chrono Cross, Oddworld, and PaRappa the Rappa, to name a few. Though now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure I want to ruin my nostalgia goggles.

Hopefully Sony learned from Nintendo, and actually make enough so people don't end up buying this thing for 5-10x the retail because they just can't wait to try to relieve their childhood.

<comment><USER3> I thought the same about the controllers, plus - why is there no CD drive to play my old PSX games?

<comment><USER4> Not sure why you would expect any sort of physical media. These types of consoles are purely intended as emulation-based impulse buys.

They're meant to go from box to playing on a modern TV with extremely minimal setup, not provide a way to play original games you might already have. Completely different audience.

I'm sure the controllers are to keep the cost down, but not having analog sticks (and seemingly no way to plug in original DualShocks) is going to make this a no-go for a lot of people.

I'm sure the success of this will hinge entirely on exactly which games they can put on it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Steps to forming a company? - <AUTHOR> Hey guys, I'm leaving my firm very shortly to form a startup.
Does why have a checklist of proper ways to do things?
Ie.
1. Form Chapter C Delaware company with Clerky 2. Hire payroll company x 3. use this company for patents.
any info there? <comment><USER2> Don't do any of these things until someone wants to pay you for what you are selling.

<comment><USER3> Moreover, don't form a c Corp until someone else will pay you to do so in the form of a substantial 6+ figure investment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you want something quick and easy to spin up, just set up an LLC in your state of choice. Set up an accompanying business bank account(if you will be processing high volumes of transactions look into the per transaction fee structure). If you will need to collect tax in your state, you must of course, file with your comptroller.

If you have multiple members of your LLC, set up an operating agreement. Set up a Federal Tax Id, i.e. the Social Security Number for business, aka EIN. Consider if you want business insurance.

I think other things can fall into place. Start recording books from day 1. Easier than it sounds, and some of those things are optional. There are a lot of 10 step guides online. You can always change structure later, LLC -> S corp, or C-Corp.

Make it as frictionless as possible for yourself now to keep momentum.

</comment><comment><USER5> This doesn't answer your question directly but you will find like minded individuals and recommendations at bottom of post.. Good Luck... [https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/quitting-my- miserable...](https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/quitting-my-miserable- day-job-to-build-and-grow-a-profitable-business-973c37b03b)

</comment><comment><USER6> From "Ask HN: What are your favorite entrepreneurship resources" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15021659](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15021659) :

> _USA Small Business Administration: "10 steps to start your business." > [https://www.sba.gov/starting-business/how-start- > business/10-...](https://www.sba.gov/starting-business/how-start- > business/10-steps-starting-business) _

> _" Startup Incorporation Checklist: How to bootstrap a Delaware C-corp (or > S-corp) with employee(s) in California" > [https://github.com/leonar15/startup- > checklist](https://github.com/leonar15/startup-checklist) _

> _FounderKit has reviews for Products, Services, and Software for > founders:[https://founderkit.com](https://founderkit.com) _

... I've heard good things about Gusto for payroll, HR, and benefits through Guideline: [https://gusto.com/product/pricing](https://gusto.com/product/pricing)</comment>


On Passwords - <AUTHOR> http://jasonseifer.com/2010/03/21/on-passwords <comment><USER2> BCrypt is the way to go. I recently used the ruby-bcrypt library and its really simple to use, the docs are also good on getting you started. I did have a couple of questions though. Can I tune the :cost parameter, and not have to recalculate the existing hashes? Also, how would I handle hashing SSNs since the domain of the data is very limited, and could be easily calculated, even with high complexity bcrypt?

<comment><USER3> Yes, the cost parameter can be tuned without rehashing. This is because the cost is actually stored with the hash, so the == method of the Password object knows what cost to use to check if a password matches. Don't take my word for it, try it in irb (I just did). From the documentation:

 _In addition, bcrypt() allows you to increase the amount of work required to hash a password as computers get faster. Old passwords will still work fine, but new passwords can keep up with the times._

Obviously, old passwords would be weaker than new passwords this way. An easy solution to this problem is to check the cost of hashed password in your database when a user tries to log in. If the cost is lower than the cost you want, and the password matches, then replace the hash at higher cost using the password the user just gave you.

As for hashing SSNs, you can easily overcome the problem of a limited range of data by the usual solution: salting. Bcrypt-ruby does salting automatically, which you can observe by rehashing a password in irb multiple times, getting different results (the salt is also stored with the hash, which makes this possible). You can also add additional salt yourself if you really want to.

<comment><USER2> Still, if an attacker were to have access to the salt, I would be in the same situation. I guess I could always increase the cost by a lot, but once they've calculated all of the results, its too simple to get the SSNs.

<comment><USER3> You're right, salt just protects against rainbow tables, my mistake. Increasing the cost so that a single brute-force attack would take a few years/decades is actually fine. I don't see why it would then be "too simple to get the SSNs", given that you're using a different salt with each.

Here's another idea: Use a secret salt, similar to AWS's secret id. Make it long enough that it would pretty much impossible to brute-force (do the calculations). Does that seem like a workable solution? Of course, if the "secret" isn't secure, then well, you're in trouble, and if the secret is in your code in plaintext... Yeah, it's an uphill battle. I'm sure someone more experienced than me here can provide some solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Author of the blog post here. I posted this mainly to get feedback on the different password hashing schemes for open source software/frameworks with the added benefit of some background as to why bcrypt matters. I defer to fellow HNer tptacek's article about secure password schemes for a complete explanation on why bcrypt is the best. It's linked in the post but here it is again for reference: [http://chargen.matasano.com/chargen/2007/9/7/enough- with-the...](http://chargen.matasano.com/chargen/2007/9/7/enough-with-the- rainbow-tables-what-you-need-to-know-about-s.html).

</comment><comment><USER5> 1) Taking longer is not an indication of strength of the algorithm. Just like banging your head into a wall, multiple times isn't the best way to pass through it.

2) bcrypt does not appear to be well documented, well analyzed, or well maintained in the security community. Security through obscurity is not a good thing, as you have no idea what your exploitation window looks like.

3) If your goal is to limit the effect of rainbow tables, and not storing the password in the clear, and do not need to retrieve the original password, the ideal solution is to store a hashed password on disk and a salt for that hash. Thus your salt rotates for every password created/saved and you recovery of all passwords requires a rainbow table for every password. Not a simple task.

4) Lastly, you should make yourself familiar with the security risk of any system you use. For example, you shouldn't generally be using MD5 anymore...

<comment><USER6> "1) Taking longer is not an indication of strength of the algorithm. Just like banging your head into a wall, multiple times isn't the best way to pass through it."

You do realize that this is how _all_ modern "cryptographically secure" hash functions work, right? For that matter, so do the symmetric-key block ciphers that hashes are closely related to. All of them simply use S-boxes to obfuscate the numbers, followed by repeated "rounds" of simple bitwise primitives (bitshift, and, xor, perhaps addition modulo a power of 2). There's no _inherent_ mathematical reason why _combinations_ of these simple functions should be strong, when each function individually is weak.

This is precisely why cryptography is such a tricky field to work in.

<comment><USER5> Again, the "rounds" do not indicate execution time, thus execution time is not a good determination of how "secure" a hashing function is.

There is inherent mathematical reasons why the combinations of the functions should be strong. It's why s-boxes are accepted practice.

Agreed, cryptography is a tricky field. All the more reason to stick to systems that are carefully reviewed by experts smarter them myself and you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Or, instead of using this odd "security through wasting time" method, you could just employ a large salt to make rainbow table usage infeasible.

<comment><USER7> Down-voted for pointing out that a salted hash is a better alternative? Weird.

<comment><USER6> Suppose I have a processor that runs at 1GHz, and furthermore suppose that it has a built-in hash primitive that can hash one salt+password in a single clock cycle. Thus, I can try 1 billion passwords per second. That means I can try every item in an English dictionary in merely 0.1 milliseconds, or a very thorough password cracker's dictionary in 2 milliseconds. If a site has 1000 users, I can try the cracker's dictionary against _all_ of them in only 2 seconds. That's less time than it takes for me to browse through the list of password hashes using the scroll wheel on my mouse. For password hashing primitives, speed DOES matter. A lot.

What's more, if I could do 1 billion MD5s per second, then I could brute force every possible 8 character base-64 password (for one user at a time) in merely 3.25 days. Even if that one user has chosen his or her individual password by pulling it straight from /dev/random. Impractical against a site with 1000 low-value users? Sure, most black hats won't want to spend 5 to 10 years of compute power on that. But that's an utterly practical attack against a single, high-value account. If you're Twitter and someone just stole your salted password hashes, you'd better ring up Ashton Kutcher in the next 24 hours and tell him to change his password _right now_.

Something truly scary: this level of computer power can be easily achieved _today_ using parallelism. I just now ran a benchmark on my personal Linux machine against 10,000 small files on a ramdisk, each of a size appropriate for salted passwords and each with unique data. According to this benchmark, my Athlon64 running at 800MHz can MD5 100,000 passwords per second using md5sum, complete with the system call overhead of opening and closing ten thousand files. Even so, my machine is only 4 orders of magnitude slower than the monster I described, and one of those orders of magnitude should be written off because my processor is years behind the times (sub-1GHz and single core). Shave off another order of magnitude due to the useless system calls, and one hundred modern $100 commodity processors could do this job _today_ , and you could probably do it for half the price or less if you used DSPs or video card GPUs. This is trivially within the range of a project like Seti@Home or Folding@Home, or a dark-hat version of the same (running on a botnet of stolen CPU cycles).

Addendum: also note, these figures imply that _one_ computer with a modern CPU can dictionary attack a salted password hash file from a 1000-user site in merely 200 seconds, i.e. about the time it takes to microwave a burrito. No need to build a botnet first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You guys r idiots. This article rulez!!!1

</comment><comment><USER9> Somehow I find it very disturbing that these bloggers put a photo of themselves on their blog. I've seen this a few times recently. Every time it happens I just have to close the tab immediately. Therefore, sorry I have nothing meaningful to say about the article. I didn't (couldn't) read it.

<comment><USER8> Whoa dude. You really need to get off the computer for a little while.</comment></comment>


Google deleted our App, how can we trust them? - <AUTHOR> Not sure how many app developers there are here but we make health apps and Google as part of its on going war against corona virus decides to delete our health app which provides no information or diagnosis on coronavirus two days ago. We had hundreds of reviews and had been working on it for over a year and just like that, it's all gone. We have a Dr (CMO) on our board and are a VC funded company. Our appeal response was 'this is strike one and just upload another bundle' even though we did nothing wrong and it was a total mistake on their end. I'm not sure how anyone can even try to build a non game business on the App Store without the worry that they will wake up and have their app deleted. <comment><USER2> What ever made you think that you could trust them?

<comment><AUTHOR> Silly us

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What steps have you actually taken? Are you certain that there is no mention of coronavirus in any of your descriptors?

<comment><AUTHOR> We can't take any steps once the app is deleted. We told them if we reupload the app it won't actually change anything.

The fact that they can delete first and destroy a business without warning should be unacceptable. It's simply a one way contract and we seem to be asking them to undo the punishment seems like we upset a parent.

<comment><USER4> 1\. The play store is a privately run system, they can delete for any reason without explanation.

2\. As a consumer, I prefer they clean up the garbage and malicious apps, install more rigorous and strict rules, become closer to how the Mac store operates.

3\. You issue could be permission related, they have become much more strict about the permissions am app can request, based on the nature of the app.

4\. It's hard to believe you did nothing wrong and that all fault lies with the other party</comment></comment></comment>


How many software developers would it take to change a lightbulb? - <AUTHOR> http://tommorris.org/posts/8786

<comment><USER2> Fucking brilliant. Nobody in the entire industry is spared.</comment>


Most Internet anonymity software leaks users' details - <AUTHOR> http://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/items/se/158459.html <comment><USER2> I can't agree with many facts in that article:

> "[VPNs are] used by around 20 per cent of European internet users they > encrypt users'"

I think it is more like 2%. I don't know anyone but me who uses a VPN. I'd even say that if I picked 100 people I know, less then 20% know what a VPN is.

Furthermore, the article makes IPv6 sound bad. If I didn't know what IPv6 and VPNs are, I might think it IPv6 is bad, too. I'm also interested in knowing which VPN softwares they tested. While I'm certain that old VPN Softwares leak IPv6 IPs, I can't say that for all VPN softwares I use: OpenVPN (on Linux and Tunnelblick on Mac) and Mac's built-in VPN software (which supports L2TP over IPsec and PPTP). It is really a shame, though, that my VPN provider does not support IPv6, yet.

The only thing that really leaks my real IP is WebRTC. Thanks to WebRTC, everyone can see my real IP address and I can't disable in google chrome. If you want to check what information your VPN is leaking, checkout: [https://ipleak.net/](https://ipleak.net/)

<comment><USER3> > I'd even say that if I picked 100 people I know, less then 20% know what a > VPN is.

I think you significantly underestimate VPN usage. Many jobs, including large public service employers, require connection to a VPN.

<comment><USER4> That's to access corporate resources, the article was specifically talking about general purpose VPN providers which people use to avoid various restrictions.

So yeah the chance that 20% of internet users in the EU use some sort of a privacy oriented VPN service is nill.

IPv6 has always had many issues, it's entire auto discovery mechanism is a big big security gap.

<comment><USER5> See [http://www.statista.com/statistics/301212/vpn-proxy-usage- ag...](http://www.statista.com/statistics/301212/vpn-proxy-usage-age/) and [http://digiday.com/publishers/vpn-hide-ip-address-distort- an...](http://digiday.com/publishers/vpn-hide-ip-address-distort-analytics/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Apparently the DNS hijacking issue is a little outdated (applies up to OpenVPN 2.0.9). At least with AirVPN it seems you can prevent IPv6 address leaking with the Network Lock feature.

[https://airvpn.org/topic/14231-ipv6-leakage-and-dns- hijackin...](https://airvpn.org/topic/14231-ipv6-leakage-and-dns- hijacking/#entry27633)

<comment><USER4> It's really doesn't matter which VPN protocol or client you use its more about how the OS responds to IPv6 router and other service discovery requests.

Some OS's will grant IPv6 priority routing, and virtually all of them will issue DNS requests on both IPv6 and IPv4 if a DNS server is also configured on the IPv6 interface.

The DNS hijacking happens because a DNS request sent over IPv6 to a DNS server doesn't have to be for a AAAA entry, you can request simple A entries with DNS6. Since the attacker is on the same network his replies to your DNS requests would usually arrive much faster unless the entry is cached so they can return anything they want and they'll get their first :)

In that link you've posted the OP basically suggests that AirVPN client (which is i assume an OpenVPN preconfigured client) will configure the IPv6 address settings on the host with either real or dummy IPv6 routes to mitigate against these attacks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Speaking of which, have there been any checks of Telegram or Tox regarding leaking and such?

<comment><USER8> Of course, Telegram is just plain awful, and rather than a leak, it is a free flow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I once posted to /r/tor (or /r/onions, I forget) that the Tor Browser Bundle leaks the current browser window size ( instead of providing a universal value) thus increasing uniqueness on tools like Panopticlick. Firefox, for the same value, provides screen resolution, not window resolution.

<comment><USER10> It seems like the Tor Browser at least pops up a message saying you should leave the window to its original size when you maximize it. It still lets you do it.</comment></comment>


Boxes 2 has been released - <AUTHOR> https://box.es/stories/boxes-news/the-journey-to-boxes-2

<comment><USER2> The design of this App is top notch. eBay is in trouble.

<comment><USER3> I've always hated eBay anyways..mainly because they use PayPal. This app has their own payment system

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great story</comment>


A natural language date and time parser for Common Lisp - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/chaitanyagupta/chronicity/tree/master

<comment><USER2> zaph0d, if you know the author please tell him to put a summary of the project in cliki, <http://www.cliki.net/chronicity>, that way automatic tools like asdf-install can see it.

<comment><USER3> Hi mahmud,

Thanks for the tip. Chronicity is now asdf-installable.

I hadn't worked with asdf-install in such a long time, that I didn't even think about making Chronicity asdf-installable. But it was nice to find out that it actually can be installed with asdf-install.

<comment><USER2> Very good Chaitanya, welcome aboard yar! :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://php.net/strtotime/>

I don't mean to be a troll, but the fact that a simple function that has been available in other languages for years is only now making it to CL is a red flag for people considering learning Lisp.

<comment><USER2> what the hell? this is not "just coming to lisp", it's something someone wrote as a personal hack. I upvoted it and commented to encourage more lispers to post here.

Erik Naggum's essay on the subject is highly referenced and cited by people developing time and date libraries for other languages and systems:

<http://naggum.no/lugm-time.html>

The premiere text on time and date algorithms IS written in Common Lisp:

[http://www.amazon.com/Calendrical-Calculations-Millennium- Ed...](http://www.amazon.com/Calendrical-Calculations-Millennium-Edward- Reingold/dp/0521777526/)

And here is a taste of what's out there;

<http://www.cliki.net/TIMER> <http://www.cliki.net/net-telent-date> <http://www.cliki.net/local-time> <http://www.cliki.net/Date-Calc> <http://www.cliki.net/cl-l10n></comment></comment>


An explanation of UTC and TAI seconds and how they relate to computer systems - <AUTHOR> http://taylanub.github.io/doc/time.html <comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this a while ago, mostly to clear up my own thoughts and document the knowledge for the future because inevitably I'll forget about the details again and again since they're so freaking complicated.

It used to be an intimidating .txt, but I just converted a few of my scratch documents to fancy HTML pages using some minimal CSS, thanks to MarkDown, pandoc, and bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com, so I thought it might be worth sharing now.

Enjoy the brain-melt!</comment>


Converting OpenBSD to PIE [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2015-pie-paper.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Slides are available here : [http://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2015-pie- slides.pdf](http://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2015-pie-slides.pdf)</comment>


A Norwegian town built a giant mirror to deflect the sun (2017) - happy-go-lucky http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170314-the-town-that-built-a-mirror-to-catch-the-sun <comment><AUTHOR> This is sort of off topic, but this valley is pretty famous actually for being a strategic place in World War II (but not widely known) because it was a crucial source of heavy water.

If you haven't seen it already, I'd highly recommend the Netflix series "The Heavy Water War" (trailer: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K3Ry2K4yNE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K3Ry2K4yNE))

<comment><USER2> What's heavy water?

<comment><USER3> Water with the deuterium isotope of hydrogen, instead of the common isotope of hydrogen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm fascinated by heliostats. Living in an apartment, I have always wanted to put up 'suncatchers' outside my windows and lead sunlight in through fibre optics to all the corridors and darker rooms. Something like this [1][2].

[1] [https://www.parans.com/products/parans-luminaire-diffused- na...](https://www.parans.com/products/parans-luminaire-diffused-natural- light-with-a-quadrant-touch/)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_tube#Optical_fiber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_tube#Optical_fiber)

<comment><USER5> Super cool. Have you looked into the price for the parans system? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

<comment><USER6> Well if you have to ask... it's probably incredibly expensive. The Wikipedia link list customers as international airports, universities, etc., and calls it 'quite expensive'. Probably out of reach for private homes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My startup has been working on a virtual skylight that produces a pretty good proxy for feeling like you are outside in the sun even if you are underground. The key invention is in collimating a large area light source so it travels in a straight line and appears to be miles away. We will be showing it at a conference in Philadelphia next week if anyone is interested. Https://Innerscene.com/products

<comment><USER8> Interesting. How do you differentiate yourself from CoeLux, which has been doing a very similar thing for a few years now?

<comment><USER7> Coelux has a nice product, compared to it ours takes up 14 times less space in the ceiling for the same viewable area, the sun is at true infinity so you can create arrays where the sun seamlessly follows you as you walk around, it has dynamic spectrum and dimmable, price is half, weighs ~10X times less so structural install shipping is easier/cheaper, more energy efficient, programmable, just to name a few...

<comment><USER8> I haven't seen either product in person, but from looking at youtube videos of both, it seems like CoeLux has a clearly defined, properly round sun, while with your product, the sun looks fuzzy and cross-shaped, like viewed through a diffraction grating [1]. Am I correct in this characterization?

[0] [https://youtu.be/EM8psaLBsr8?t=112](https://youtu.be/EM8psaLBsr8?t=112)

[1] [https://youtu.be/_GYpxeum12U?t=138](https://youtu.be/_GYpxeum12U?t=138)

<comment><USER7> Good observation. That is an older video from a prototype - take a look at this: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/7dwa7mj39rpely6/facia%20and%20mull...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/7dwa7mj39rpely6/facia%20and%20mullion.mp4?dl=0)

I'd say they are pretty similar, Coelux may be slightly less diffusive but it's beam divergence angle is pretty high so it doesn't hold up for very much distance compared to ours - you can see it spreads out into a non-rectangular shape on the wall.

<comment><USER8> Fascinating. Is it correct that with both implementations, you cannot move the virtual sun around - it's always shining from the exact same angle?

<comment><USER9> Likely, but it isn't too hard to imagine how that could be fixed for an even greater cost. I wonder how the two products work.

I'd probably shine an array of narrow-beam LEDs through a sheet of aerogel. (the aerogel disperses the blue light) If the LEDs are on long horizontal rods that can rotate, that lets the angle change. You'd need the beams focused down to about half a degree, with at least a dozen viewed in a circle of that size from the perspective of a tall person under the light.

Another way is just an RGB array, with different lenses on the different colors. The blue gets a fish-eye lens, while the green and red get focused down to about half a degree. Again there can be rods that rotate, and at least a dozen LEDs need to be in a circle of half a degree when viewed by a tall person under the light.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I grew up on the Great Plains of the US. I remember my first visit to Switzerland clearly. We get into this town in a valley with these massive mountains all around. I had this really strong sense of being confined, along with feeling like the mountains could come tumbling down on me at anytime.

It was strange, but also really odd when it felt like the sun would go down so early as it crossed behind the mountains.

<comment><USER11> I experienced serious anxiety the first time I drove through North Texas (flat as a pancake), having grown up in Colorado with the mountains ever present. It was a weird time in my life and... I was coming from Colorado, but I felt like I was going to slide right off the earth with such a flat horizon surrounding me.

<comment><USER12> I grew up in North Texas, and I still feel very weird by how flat it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In a sort of related/inverse vein, I thought the engineering at play here was pretty interesting. 96 million shade balls on a public water supply reservoir:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxPdPpi5W4o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxPdPpi5W4o)

<comment><USER14> I just find it hilarious that they do this on the tail of wanting to ban plastic everywhere.

Why yes, please take these black plastic balls, coat them in a known carcinogen, place them over drinking water, and let them bake over the sun[1].

\---

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

<comment><USER15> "The shade balls used in the Los Angeles project are made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) with carbon black additive to protect the plastic from ultraviolet radiation. Adding carbon black also prevents the formation of bromate, a suspected human carcinogen.

[...]

The black coating on the balls, called carbon black, is a petroleum derivative which is classified as a carcinogen if inhaled as dust. "

So you have balls made with a known carcinogen (if inhaled as dust) to prevent formation of another carcinogen formed in water. I'm guessing they researched the risks already and it's a net positive.

<comment><USER16> You forgot the part that the color is added in form of a masterbatch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Rjukan (the town from the article) is also a great destination for ice climbing. Lots of frozen waterfalls only a stones throw from the road.

Only a couple of hours drive from Oslo.

In case you need an excuse to visit.

<comment><USER18> Also some of Norway's most reasonable real estate prices, with detached homes starting at less than $100,000.

<comment><USER19> I used Google Translate's camera feature to translate a few estate agent window ads while I was there and genuinely assumed I must have been looking at the deposit prices given the price of everything else in Norway.

<comment><USER18> If you were anywhere else, you'd probably see the deposit price and figure it was the full price of the property :P

Actually, things are not as bad as in Seattle/SF/LA/New York, but modest things are still very expensive in our cities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There are home versions of these heliostats too, I always thought it would be a nice home improvement. You could make a new sunny room, sunnier garden, or a warmer patio.

Just googling, $2,000 gets you 1300 watts of heat. Or 115,000 lumens. (100 watt incandescent is 1600 lumens). The mirror part is about 4 feet x 4 feet.

[https://lm.solar/order/](https://lm.solar/order/)

<comment><USER21> Really neat. I can see mounting their $300 mirror on my apartment balcony to extend my "direct" sunlight a couple of hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's a neat idea but I wouldn't say "three mirrors, each measuring 17 sq m" is particularly "giant".

<comment><USER23> Depends on how you think about it, relative to the mirrors that were there before they are collosal. I do take humbrence with the author's use of the word, "deflecting". Sounds like they're trying to divert the Sun's wonderous glory away from their town. Reflecting is the word, praise the Sun.

<comment><USER24> I don't mean to be a grammar Nazi, but by "humbrence with" do you mean "umbrage at?"

In a neat coincidence "umbrage" and "umbrella" apparently share a common origin in Latin "umbra" (shade).

<comment><USER25> Please don't downvote this guy. As a non-native speaker, I learned one nice word and a bit of trivia about it. It certainly adds to the discussion, as without the explanation I wouldn't know what the GP wanted to say.

<comment><USER24> Thanks for your comment. I was disheartened to see the downvotes. I'm glad it was of some use to somebody!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The Italian town of Viganella installed mirrors in 2006 (Rjukan was in 2013).

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

</comment><comment><USER27> I've been there. It makes a few m2 in the town square slightly lighter. Neat but certainly not mind blowing.

</comment><comment><USER28> I spent part of my childhood in a similar place in far northern BC. The north- south orientation of the valley we were in prevented much winter sun from hitting the town. On top of that, there was an asbestos mine nearby and sometimes when they were blasting up at the mine site, dust would settle on the town. Once the mine closed, the town was basically erased and everyone left.

</comment><comment><USER29> Pretty sure this has had significant discussions on HN in the past, but I can't find them. Anyone?

(The purpose is just curiosity. Reposts of a story are ok after about a year, as the FAQ explains: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.))

</comment><comment><USER30> The people congregating in the sun spot in the middle of the town square remind me of this Portlandia sketch: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-ppr9LDaQE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-ppr9LDaQE)

</comment><comment><USER31> I've always wanted my own heliostat(s) as I think they'd be more useful than solar panels (at least for me) - sending concentrated sunlight and heat in through your windows.

But can't find any good design/plans for DIY or anyone selling one.

<comment><USER32> [https://lm.solar/order/](https://lm.solar/order/)

I have the vacuum mirror focusing upgrade pack.

Works really well and I roughly calculate that you get 80% of the growing power from the sun as direct light.

I use it for a part of the garden that never got light due to building and trees and was always soggy and damp. Nothing grew there very long, now I maintain native wildflowers and a butterfly garden there.

It's really cool. The heliostat follows the sun mechanically and also can tune in the focus with a vacuum system.

<comment><USER31> IMO, $2500 seems extremely expensive for focusing 1.45m2 of light, especially when you can get at least 2.5kW of solar panels for the same price.

<comment><USER33> It's a completely different technology that's solving a different problem. And sun tracking is more complex when you are reflecting onto a fixed point as opposed to simply pointing the surface (in the case of solar cells) toward the sun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Here's a cheap home version under development, funded through indiegogo. I was a backer and am hoping to receive one soon but it's been a long wait so far:

[https://solenica.com/](https://solenica.com/)

</comment><comment><USER34> I hope they don't try to steal candy from any babies!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9Ve2pzTp3Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9Ve2pzTp3Q)

</comment><comment><USER35> It's like a giant SAD lamp, only you share it with other people

</comment><comment><USER36> They should move it from house to house and make it an occasion to invite the next neighbors to dinner :)

</comment><comment><USER37> Perhaps large, light weight deflecting mirrors in orbit could help with climate change.

</comment><comment><USER38> Reflect not deflect :-)

</comment><comment><USER39> Simpsons did it

</comment><comment><USER40> I live in sunny California but I still have problems with not enough sun. I used to be a cyclist and triathlete, being outside for many hours a week, and now I am doing maninly dancing. I am inside way more than I used to be. I can feel when I need more sun. Incedentally, I also had a recent physical where they measured that I had a vitamin D deficiency.

They said a lot of interesting things in this article related to the sun, so I leared some new things. At the same time I am surprised about some things they did not say.

I'm not an authority on the bodies need for sun, but I will give my non- scientifci observations. If some one finds this interesting they should do some additional research on the topic before they do anything I did, rather than just trust what I write here.

One thing that really interested me was an article I saw here on Hacker News a several months ago. It said it is well known people with higher vitamin D levels had some health bvenefits. However, one particular study found that giving vitiamin D supplements did not seem to give the same health benefits. The authors concluded from their results that people who have high vitamin D often get this from the sun, and the sun gives them a different result from just taking vitamin D supplements.

I tried going to a sun tanning salon and found that did make me feel a subtle "high", as if I had been out on a sunny day. (Your experience may very.) From what I understand it is UVB that is responsible for this, the "bad" UV. It is considered bad because your body does not shield against it and it does not cause you to tan.

General tanning salons want to give you UVA. The expensive machines limit your UVB exposure, and the cheaper ones give you more UVB (salons often have different options for beds). You want to go to the cheaper option. I used beds at tswo salons with 5% and 6% UVB, for reference. They should know the UVA/B statistics for the machines.

As far as length of time, you don't need to go that long. The point is not to get a tan necessarily. I found that i would get more tired if I stayed in too long, so there is sort of an optimal time, for me at least. (I am very pale, by the way.)

I also noticed that the sun tanning bed was not enough. It is almost as if there are two effects. I feel good from the tanning salon, but at the same time it feels like there is something missing. I also need to go outside, I assume to get visible light.

To repeat above, these are not scientific results. I find this seems to work for me, and that is good enough. I would not suggest someone trust what I say here as authoritative, but hopefully it can be an inspiration to look into this if you have similar problems.

FYI, one thing I want to look into as a result of this article is timing of getting visible light. I do know that if I wake up in pitch black I have trouble getting out of bed. I would link to get more bright light in the morning right when I wake up and see how that effects me.

</comment><comment><USER41> *reflect

Deflect means to shield an area from sun; this project is to bring sunlight into a perpetually shaded area.

<comment><USER42> _Deflect (verb) cause (something) to change direction by interposing something; turn aside from a straight course. "the bullet was deflected harmlessly into the ceiling"_

<comment><USER43> Although you are correct and GP was mistaken in their definition, `reflect` fits better here.

Definition of reflect

transitive verb 1 : to prevent passage of and cause to change direction

// a mirror reflects light

\---

Definition of deflect

transitive verb : to turn (something) aside especially from a straight course or fixed direction

// armor that deflects bullets, deflecting a question

\---

With deflect, something is simply being diverted, whereas with reflect, it's more intentionally being aimed somewhere. This is the nuance I feel innately, although at this point we're splitting hairs I think.

<comment><USER42> _Although you are correct and GP was mistaken in their definition, `reflect` fits better here._

I don't see why deflect isn't acceptable. Previously the sun was shining on the hillside below, now it's been deflected to the town square.

<comment><USER44> What I understood is just that reflect seems to fit better here, given the most common use cases for the word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> On a side note, having lived in a northern city famous for its bad weather (Dublin) I always wondered why instead of building with dark red bricks they don't coat the buildings with reflective material. And the sad part is that I bet it's not done because it's for the benefit of the neighbors on the opposite side of the street (though of course, it could be reciprocal).

</comment><comment><USER46> I think China was looking at putting up satellite solar reflectors to avoid the electrical cost of night time illumination in cities. If that tech gets cheap enough you could in theory target a town/agriculture like this to give it an effective latitude shift towards the equator.

<comment><USER47> That doesn't really pass the sniff test... distance to GEO is 36,000 km, the sun is approx. 0.5 degrees in angular size, that would mean a mirror with a diameter of 314 km in GEO. We do not have the technology for that.

2 36000 tan(0.25 deg) = 314 km

<comment><USER46> [https://en.businesstimes.cn/articles/104124/20181018/chinese...](https://en.businesstimes.cn/articles/104124/20181018/chinese- city-chengdu-orbit-massive-solar-mirror-bring-light-night.htm)</comment></comment></comment>


A 'Rebel' Without a Ph.D (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140326-a-rebel-without-a-ph-d/ <comment><USER2> "Oh, yes. I'm very proud of not having a Ph.D. I think the Ph.D. system is an abomination. It was invented as a system for educating German professors in the 19th century, and it works well under those conditions. It's good for a very small number of people who are going to spend their lives being professors. But it has become now a kind of union card that you have to have in order to have a job, whether it's being a professor or other things, and it's quite inappropriate for that. It forces people to waste years and years of their lives sort of pretending to do research for which they're not at all well-suited. In the end, they have this piece of paper which says they're qualified, but it really doesn't mean anything. The Ph.D. takes far too long and discourages women from becoming scientists, which I consider a great tragedy. So I have opposed it all my life without any success at all."

I completely agree. And I would add that it's a filter that selects status- seekers over truth-seekers, who have no reason to tolerate it.

<comment><USER3> Pray, tell us how a "truth-seeker" does highly technical research in any field without the resources and credentials of a university.

<comment><USER2> For fields that require expensive lab equipment, like physics and biology, I admit this is hard. But for fields like math and computer science, all you need is a computer and free time. A university can help you get time for research, by paying a salary so you don't have to do a non-research job, but there are other ways to handle that. A university can help you make connections and find collaborators, but it's not the only way to do that, either.

<comment><USER3> > But for fields like math and computer science, all you need is a computer > and free time.

As someone who has been on both sides, it can be hard to impossible to research mathematics without access to a university library and credentials. Math books are prohibitively expensive and go out of print swiftly. Articles are behind paywalls. Few research mathematicians in my experience respond to requests for preprints or clarification from non-academic e-mails.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The problem with his argument is that a certain set of circumstances (i.e. a world war) allowed him to enter his position without the PhD.

I'm fairly confident in saying the challenge to become a professor at a respectable university in a stem field without a PhD makes it for all intents and purposes impossible.

So while the PhD system is deeply flawed, unless he can provide an alternative then theres not much to discuss.

<comment><USER5> >So while the PhD system is deeply flawed, unless he can provide an alternative then there's not much to discuss.

Ok, how about a much simpler system of research apprenticeship? An apprentice is paid a low but livable salary, possibly with tuition remission for any necessary coursework, and probably with TA/RA duties as we have now. There are no grades and no qualifying exams. Instead, the apprentice must simply produce three publishable (ie: either published, or judged by their committee to be publishable) research papers within the committee's set time limit. Once they have accomplished this, the apprentice is promoted to be a professional researcher, given a proper professional salary and allowed to submit work as they please without an advisor's co-authorship.

This actually captures most of what we believe, deep-down, that PhD's are _actually for_ , but without the bureaucracy and indignity of treating apprentice researchers as "students" who need their school's approval more than they need to do good work.

<comment><USER6> That's exactly what a PhD already is - a research apprenticeship. They already get a low but liveable salary without having to pay tuition. I don't think many PhDs do TA/RA duties - they're too busy researching.

PhD students don't have grades or qualifying exams, and three publishable research papers is what most PhD students achieve anyway. The thesis is just these papers written up into one continuous piece and submitted to the people who will become their peers.

<comment><USER5> Where are you coming from? I've seen two systems for running postgrad degrees, and neither work as you describe.

>They already get a low but liveable salary without having to pay tuition. I don't think many PhDs do TA/RA duties - they're too busy researching.

In most places I've seen, PhD students are the _primary_ source of TA/RA labor. If we're _lucky_ , we get a base stipend and TA/RA adds to it.

>PhD students don't have grades or qualifying exams

I've never seen a PhD program with no coursework, no qualifying exams, and no grade requirements for either. Could you show me where such an arcadian academic track exists?

>and three publishable research papers is what most PhD students achieve anyway

That was my point, yes.

<comment><USER6> In the UK I think all PhD programmes work as I've described.

To begin my PhD I made contact from cold with a professor who had similar research interests to mine at the University I wanted to go to. We did an informal interview and he offered me the studentship. I didn't go through any kind of central application process, do any entrance exams or write any essays or anything.

When I started my PhD I immediately began working on my own research and writing my own papers. I never did any coursework or exams. My only assessment is a yearly review presentation and then the thesis and viva at the end. I'm not involved in any kind of group project so I'm not working for anyone else as 'cheap labour'.

I get paid by a grant from the government of around $21k a year. That's tax- free so I guess it's maybe the equivalent of $25k. I have done about 50 paid hours of TAing (demonstrating) during three years, but it was optional and I did it just to meet some new masters students really.

<comment><USER5> Wow... that's _awesome_. That's quite different from how I've seen it done in other places. I _wish_ I could get that much freedom from a studentship!

<comment><USER7> They're also only 3 years long typically. We don't hire a lot of post-docs from the UK because they are relatively less well trained due to the significantly shorter time spend in lab...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As long as "Percent faculty with terminal degree in their field" is an evaluation criterion for ranking school quality (I took those exact words from the US News and World Report rankings criteria), there is little chance that non-PhD holders will be able to become tenured faculty at research universities going forward. Let's not fool ourselves. Schools work towards higher rankings, as they are rewarded for doing so.

<comment><USER9> Sure, but when only 4% of PhDs ever get a faculty position, there is a huge pool of underemployed PhDs to choose from. Why would an institution ever consider someone without regardless of rankings?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What I think this boils down to is our cultures unhealthy focus on authority. One of my favorite classes I took at uni was advanced English rhetoric, and the teacher explained that overall most people tend to have a handful of mechanisms with which they establish their credibility with the reader, in particular with establishment of authority. "I have my Ph.D in X, therefore I am knowledge about subject X."

The problem is that I see this taken to the extreme in all kinds of arguments, to the point that I would almost rather not know anything about the author or his/her authority because it colors my judgement of the material itself. Give me your facts and data and opinions and let me evaluate them for myself without having to rest on your laurels.

This also applies to government and diplomatic, and high level business actions. Currently the modus operandi seems to be that people in power say, "I've been in this industry for Y years, and have worked with P, I'm the expert and you should listen to me. Oh and all this has to be done in secret, because the public wouldn't understand it anyway."

I call bullshit on that constantly. Honestly, just try it, the next time you read a published scientific paper or any material of any weight or note, keep an eye on how much time and space is wasted on people establishing their "authority".

<comment><USER11> The problem though is that if you eliminate the markers of credentials any field of information gets flooded with many people who don't have the requisite knowledge to be talking about said field in the first place. While you could make the argument that any investigation into this bogus research would reveal that the person is unreliable, in reality, doing such an investigation is incredibly time consuming. It's much more efficient to take a Ph.D or any other specific credential as a filter and make the general assumption that someone with that credential is more likely to be correct and have valid research.

Yeah, that assumption can and has been way wrong in the past, but I would argue that the valid/invalid ratio compared against the time needed to fully investigate every bit of research any person puts out is much preferred.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> In some cases a PhD is formality. In many PhD programs you have to publish the equivalent of three peer-reviewed paper in your specialty. Getting these papers published knows you are doing something important and original and know the system. Sometimes these papers are just stapled together into a the thesis with a forward. Rebel types may forgo the title even though the meet all the qualifications.

</comment><comment><USER12> Always been a couple of prominent MIT faculty without PhDs, like the founder of the MIT computer lab and the current head of the Media Lab.

</comment><comment><USER13> Freeman Dyson was still publishing top quality articles at 88. [http://www.pnas.org/content/109/26/10409.full.pdf+html](http://www.pnas.org/content/109/26/10409.full.pdf+html)</comment>


Stephen Wolfram on a .data TLD - <AUTHOR> http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/01/a-data-top-level-internet-domain/

<comment><USER2> Wolfram's proposal sounds completely backward to me. You'd have to consider: does google.data apply to google.org or google.com? Should we have google.org.data and google.com.data?

I think the right way is to put things under the domain. So data.google.com, or google.com/data or even a META tag on a web page that tells the browser the URL for the data relevant to a particular page.

<comment><USER3> > Wolfram's proposal sounds completely backward to me. You'd have to consider: > does google.data apply to google.org or google.com? Should we have > google.org.data and google.com.data?

As for that notion, maybe we should switch to naming it such as we do for java packages :D

Google.com would be com.google.search, com.google.mail, etc :P

<comment><USER4> It has crossed TBL's mind:

"I have to say that now I regret that the syntax is so clumsy. I would like <http://www.example.com/foo/bar/baz> to be just written http:com/example/foo/bar/baz where the client would figure out that www.example.com existed and was the server to contact. But it is too late now."

<http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html#etc>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "If a human went to wolfram.data, there'd be a structured summary of what data the organization behind it wanted to expose. And if a computational system went there, it'd find just what it needs to ingest the data, and begin computing with it."

This sounds to me like a high-level description of how the web is _supposed_ to work today, only implemented using a new TLD instead of HTTP headers.

It sounds odd to me, coming from someone whose major web service sends all results -- even text and tables -- as GIF.

<comment><USER6> Good point re Accept: headers, though I think discoverable formats (such as <link rel="alternate" type="application/rdf+xml" href="data.rdf" />) are even better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Problem with this idea is that .data will encourage "data servers" but not create a "data web"

Allow me to explain.

RDF[1] was created towards solving the "data web" problem. However, the challenge has been representation and modeling "things" such that we can cross-link "data" on "web". The language to create such shared representations (Web Ontology Language[2]) is difficult to use and standardize. Nevertheless, this approach has been hugely successful in knowledge-intensive domains such as biology and health care.

On the Wild Wild Web, the microformats[3] have got wide support from Search engines and web publishers.

1\. <http://www.w3.org/RDF/>

2\. <http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-features/>

3\. [http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...](http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=146897)

<comment><USER8> Don't forget the linking open data initiative: <http://linkeddata.org/> They've been building a huge distributed data set.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Are we going to transfer hypertext? No? Then use data://google.com and define a protocol for GET PUT POST AND DELETE data over the wire using standard data formats(how about INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE and DELETE?).

The index page will give you all the discoverability and from there you can go to google.com/employees or bestbuy.com/products etc showing whatever data is public (or private provided oauth mechanisms) and what can be created,modified and deleted according to roles and security levels.

This has been tried before but the well was poisoned when they dropped SOAP in it.

<comment><USER10> _Are we going to transfer hypertext?_

I certainly hope so; linked data (of which RDF is the main implementation nowadays) is much more useful than having disconnected silos. Of course, we won't transfer _HTML_ , but that's just one implementation of hypertext.

Besides, even if we weren't, why would we replace HTTP by something that accomplishes the same? Doesn't make much sense to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> TLDs should help to identify the type of organization that has control of the domain, not some arbitrary thing about the (hypothetical) website. Why people are making this so difficult?

</comment><comment><USER12> So is .data just another way of pointing to an API? So if hacker news had an API, you would call up news.ycombinator.data all of the time? It would be awesome if this was the case, but even better if people that had .data domains came to a consensus of how to document their data, eg. www.domain.data/docs and have a common layout among websites to make it easier for programmers and scholars alike to figure out how to access the information they need.

<comment><USER13> API is more general term for programming interface whose function is not nessecarilly obtaining data. (it could also be updating or deleting data). this .data TLD as i understand would be just for obtaining data from website in structured way. for example if google had .data domain it would be something like this : you enter google.data?search=lady+gagga and it will return you page in json or some other format for results of that google search.

<comment><USER14> Yes. Also, almost all APIs are designed around small bits of user or query data, just like your example.

This seems more intended for bulk data, which is likely going to be some pregenerated chunk in the MB, GB, TB range and so less suited to the JSON API call paradigm, and more likely to involve a simple lookup to disk rather than being computed on the fly from some database.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is not this what the semantic web strived for? I don't know if a new top level domain would create enough momentum for it.

</comment><comment><USER16> > I think introducing a new .data top-level domain would give much more > prominence to the creation of the data web—and would provide the kind of > momentum that'd be needed to get good, widespread, standards for the various > kinds of data.

I'd say thats a pretty good reason for using the new TLD, technicalities aside.

</comment><comment><USER17> "And my concept for the .data domain is to provide a uniform mechanism—accessible to any organization, of any size—for exposing the underlying data."

Who would be the standards body for defining and regulating such a uniform mechanism?

<comment><USER18> and why would the people with valuable data eg FT or Bankers or Lexis Nexis do this

<comment><USER19> They could put a paywall in front of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why did OData never catch on?

<comment><USER21> Microsoft made a pretty big push for OData with their WCF Data Services. I feel like there's a pretty decent community around it too.

<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/bb931106>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is less a technical discussion than speculation on human factors. Will a special TLD inspire people to offer their services differently?

It's just a namespace, one of many possible choices. But I wouldn't discount its importance as a protocol, or an expectation. ".com" has a very important non-technical meaning.

</comment><comment><USER14> Bringing everyone's data as close to "computable" as possible is an all-round win so I hope this takes off.

A big problem is how to ETL these datasets between organizations, and I think Hadoop is a key technology there. It provides the integration point for both slurping the data out of internal databases, and transforming it into consumable form. It also allows for bringing the computations to the data, which is the only practical thing to do with truly big data.

Currently there are no solutions for transferring data between different organizations' hadoop installations. So some publishing technology that would connect hadoop's HDFS to the .data domain would be a powerful way for forward- thinking organizations to participate.

Another path towards making things easier is to focus on the cloud aspect. Transferring terabytes of data is non-trivial. But if the data is published to a cloud provider, others can access it without having to create their own copy, and it can be computed upon within the high-speed internal network of the provider. Again, bringing the computation to the data.

<comment><USER23> I read your comment several times, but I still don't understand why you think Hadoop is the key technology for data interchange between organizations. I don't mean to be harsh, but your comment is a bit like buzzword soup (hadoop, etl, cloud, bring the computation to the data).

> [Hadoop] provides the integration point for both slurping the data out of > internal databases, and transforming it into consumable form

Hadoop does no such thing. It doesn't "slurp data out of internal databases". It's just a DFS coupled with a MapReduce implementation. Perhaps you're thinking of Hive?

> Currently there are no solutions for transferring data between different > organizations' hadoop installations.

All data isn't "big data". By being myopically hadoop-focused, you're ignoring the real problem, which is data interchange. XML was supposed to be the golden standard; it's debatable how far it's achieved its initial goal.

> So some publishing technology that would connect hadoop's HDFS to the .data > domain

So basically, forsake all internal business logic, access control, and just pipe your database to the net? When you have a hammer...

> Transferring terabytes of data is non-trivial. But if the data is published > to a cloud provider, others can access it without having to create their own > copy, and it can be computed upon within the high-speed internal network of > the provider

See AWS public datasets for exactly this, but it's still a long shot. It also ignores the problem of data freshness (i.e., once a provider uploads a dataset, they also need to keep updating it). <http://aws.amazon.com/publicdatasets/>

<comment><USER14> Let me unpack it for you then.

There is a reason XML, the semantic web, linked data failed to really change the data world, whereas hadoop did. The reason is computation.

The problem isn't data interchange formats and ideal representations, the problem is being able to compute with data. Distributed computation can then be used to solve all the other problems.

Case in point: Slurping data out of databases. Apache Sqoop leverages the primitives provided by Hadoop, in terms of partitioning and fault tolerance, to make it easier to do massive data transfers out of existing databases.

Another example of a solution coming from the hadoop perspective: Avro. It beats the pants of off XML as a data interchange format, precisely because it makes computing with the data (which is the ultimate point) easier.

Now, there is a reason I called Hadoop the integration point. It is becoming a general purpose computation system, which at the same time is also the datawarehouse for organizational data. So rather than dealing with the details of proprietary commercial systems, programmers can target applications to the open-source hadoop ecosystem, and have those solutions be reusable and customizable on a large scale.

The "publishing solution" would of course deal with access control, business logic, freshness, etc. That is exactly what I'm advocating be built.

Individual pieces of data may not be big data, but the aggregate problem still is. In fact this is exactly the Wolfram Alpha case: tons and tons of little datasets that add up to a lot of headache.

<comment><USER24> i think this is unfair to linked data. linked data could be hidden behind layers upon layers of distributed sparql queries much like how the human readable works today, with each entity playing it's part, but with hadoop you have to have like 15 different ports opened up between each box in a whole setup before you can even begin.

<comment><USER14> Hadoop is an ops and usability disaster. Yet companies large and small are adopting it because it does "something people want".

RDF and ontologies are just more data. Without computation, that data is not useful, and all the things one "could do" with it will not come to pass without a credible computational platform that people actually want to use.

So IMHO I would like to see that community focus less on standards and ontologies and RDF-as-panacea, and and more on the infrastructure needed to put the data to work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How do you embed flash ads in structured data?

Are people willing to make micropayments for access?

</comment><comment><USER26> Wolfram.com/data, data.wolfram.com etc.</comment>


DNA-Free Dining Made Easy - <AUTHOR> https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2016/06/13/dna-free-dining-made-easy/ <comment><USER2> I suppose that was a stab at the current GMO labeling debate. What I find most depressing about the whole debate, not just this attempt to be funny, is the focus on individual health as opposed to the health of the ecosystem.

When I buy organic meat that's not because I fear that meat grown using antibiotics will poison me. I know that using antibiotics to grow meat is irresponsible because it fosters antimicrobial resistance. Yet my choice to not support this process is derided as irrational, as a lifestyle choice.

When I oppose GMO that's not because I fear the tomato will be modified into a predator that jumps out of the salad to eat me. I oppose the process of drowning the fields in herbicide. (I know that in the bright GMOed future less herbicides will be necessary for some dreamy reasons but let's stay in reality please.)

It's most telling that the debate is being reduced to individual health, because that is the easiest part of it. When it comes to whole ecosystems, our predictive powers are basically zero. Here we see the people who literally cannot know what processes they are starting, we see them attacking other people for not knowing the difference between GMO and DNA. Worse, they're actually making fun of them for _wanting to know_.

<comment><USER3> I don't think it's so much about GMO as it is about all the dairy-free, gluten-free, whatever else-free diets, where people are eschewing whole food classes because it's trendy, rather than because there's a well-documented health advantage to it.

Some people _do_ have good medical reasons to engage in such diets. Lactose intolerance and celiac disease are a thing. They're just not nearly as widespread as some health food fans would have you believe, and I'm yet to see clinical evidence for the hazier "intolerances" some people use to justify those choices.

<comment><USER4> >They're just not nearly as widespread as some health food fans would have you believe,

Among adult white middle-upperclass coasties of mostly to entirely central european descent.

But America isn't just white people anymore. The doctors say lactose intolerance is around 90% for asians and 80% for american black people.

Its worth considering that American was like 90% lactose tolerant white people before the 60s immigration reforms, but now is only like 60% lactose tolerant white people, and dropping. The majority of children today are lactose intolerant to some level or another.

Like the wikipedia says "most lactose-intolerant people can tolerate a certain level of lactose in their diets without ill effects" But its very much like the Olestra debacle. You probably won't get sick from eating small amounts of undigestible oils, but you absolutely won't get sick if you don't eat them at all, and america being what it is, we have people who insist on binge eating and the digestive consequences of that can be quite gross. Better off just staying away and not eating it at all.

Conceptually, drinking the breast milk of another species on a regular basis is just weird, anyway.

<comment><USER2> > Conceptually, drinking the breast milk of another species on a regular basis > is just weird, anyway.

I don't think it's weirder than eating body tissue of other species. But maybe I'm a freak that way, I like my stolen breast milk infested with mold.

Edit: not disagreeing otherwise :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm guessing this is a not-so-subtle critique of GMO labeling. I'm not against GMOs, but anyone who is against labeling is caught up by propaganda. Everything else that goes into food is labeled - there is nothing wrong with mentioning that a food contains GMO as well.

<comment><USER6> GMO Activists...

Now: "If GMO's are so safe, then why are you afraid of labeling them?"

After labels become required: "If GMOs are so safe, then why do they need warning labels?"

<comment><USER7> They complained about cross contamination. Along comes the terminator gene, and they complain about not being able to make seeds.

<comment><USER6> The "terminator" gene effects hybrid seed. Seeds you would never want to plant anyway because they have shit performance. Terminator gene (similar to male or female sterility genes) simply make hybrid seeds cheaper to produce. You don't have to pay armies of teenagers to detassel the 4-5 rows of female plants and you don't need to mow your 1 row of male plants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> While DNA free dining is clearly a hoax, I beleive this is targeted at GMO labeling. I'd argue that DNA labelling is also fine. That ways I can know my olive oil (among other food and drink) is actually olive oil: [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/01/24/opinion/food-c...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/01/24/opinion/food- chains-extra-virgin-suicide.html)

<comment><USER9> I'm really unsure of the cry out against GMO labelling.

Like, I would happily eat GMO food. Some people wouldn't. Why force them to? They should be perfectly free to pump money into the organic industry and make ill/informed choices of what types of food to buy.

Just expand it as part of the nutrition label. Maybe some people would prefer to stay away from it for religious reasons?

I don't think it'd place any sort of unhealthy burden on the industries to write "This food may contain genetically modified organisms"

<comment><USER10> > Just expand it as part of the nutrition label.

The size of the nutritional label is not infinite. The number of potential labels is. More importantly, by labeling GMO, you're simultaneously implying that there may be something unsafe about them, and distracting from far more important information, like allergens and sugar content.

> I don't think it'd place any sort of unhealthy burden on the industries to > write "This food may contain genetically modified organisms"

Fruits and vegetables can be contaminated, for instance if they are grown or stored next to each others. For labeling purposes guidelines are set with some leeway within safe boundaries. Trying to do the same for GMO highlights the silliness of the exercise, since there are no such boundaries, because they are as safe to eat as their non-GMO counterparts.

Then there's processed foods - tracing which of the dozens of ingredients are non-GMO would be non-trivial. It is possible, of course, but why force companies to waste money for something that is of no health consequence?

And finally, there's the issue of GMO entering the food chain. It is at least possible to trace this for livestock, if you have a complete history of everything that they've ever been fed, but what about animals caught in the wild like fishes?

I'd love to have more transparency and information about the food on my plate - I want my fruits grown in areas that are not under water stress, and my vegetables grown sustainably, but let's not waste time and money trying to label things that don't need labeling in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Zika virus – this microcephalitic plague demon is almost 100% DNA.

I believe Zika is an RNA virus...

<comment><USER12> Tell it to the proteins.

<comment><USER13> I get it RNA is the messenger, right?

One-line deadpan!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I didn't detect the sarcasm at first, as a molecular geneticist this was difficult to read because it's so full of wrong and no.

<comment><USER15> Besides the commentary on health, is there anything _wrong_ in the article?

<comment><USER16> "And if you want more proof of DNA's dark dangers then look no further than the Zika virus – this microcephalitic plague demon is almost 100% DNA"

Viruses are RNA, not DNA.

<comment><USER7> Some are DNA, some are RNA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Numerous factual errors in this (obvious) parody. In fact most things that they claim are DNA free have small traces of DNA! Anybody who really cares will homogenize their food, run it through a purification column/DNA trapping column, and then eat the resulting eluent. Yum.

</comment><comment><USER18> How are there so many "Must be about GMO labeling? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯" top comments without any references to e.g.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/201...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/2016/05/27/new-study-confirms-that-80-percent-of-americans- support-mandatory-labeling-of-foods-containing-dna/)

"Last year, I wrote about an Oklahoma State University survey indicating that over 80 percent of Americans support "mandatory labels on foods containing DNA." ... Obviously, such DNA labels would be absurd. Nearly all food contains DNA..."

<comment><USER19> Well, the articles links to that survey or a very similar one, so it's not like that point was missed.

In fact, those survey results are pretty much the point of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> While I can understand that it might be fun to point out the ignorance of most people, these kind of "gotcha" surveys/polls performed by supposedly reputable groups can be pretty annoying. I'm sure most people think "Contains dihydrogen monoxide" should be put on the label too.

That said, DNA can probably make certain foods slimy, which is a texture I'm generally opposed to.

<comment><USER10> It's useful for highlighting how useless these poll results actually are for policy making, because people have a propensity to hold opinions on things they have absolutely no knowledge of.</comment></comment>


SES: Simple Emacs Spreadsheet - <AUTHOR> https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/ses/index.html#Top <comment><USER2> I used SES when adding a matrix editor to gnu-apl-mode. When editing a matrix, it opens it as a SES document and when closing it it automatically updates the underlying variable.

You can see it in use here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP4A5CKITnM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP4A5CKITnM)

</comment><comment><USER3> These days one can use org-mode tables for quite a bit of spreadsheet stuff.

<comment><USER4> It might just be me, but i've found manipulating tables and formulae in Org to be nothing but pain. I probably don't understand enough how they work, though (i love and daily use many other Org features though). SES looks pretty fine to me, at first glance!

<comment><USER5> If you use the edit-formula mode (which you should, C-c ') you should have real-time highlighting of the affected cells of any expression you write.

I agree it's not so plain and cut like Excel, but it's not terrible either.

You can probably find more useful things (like turning coordinate grid on/off) in the Emacs manual too: [https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/org/Edit...](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/org/Editing- and-debugging-formulas.html)

<comment><USER5> Just for fun, I tried using ses-mode inside org-babel.

It didn't work for a new empty code-block, but if I pasted an existing ses- mode file into it, it did actually work.

So you can have your org-mode cake and eat it too with ses :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This looks interesting, but what I would like to see is good integration with org, org tables, and org babel.

</comment><comment><USER7> Cool! Is there anything roughly equivalent for Vim? The closest I could find is vim-table-mode: [https://github.com/dhruvasagar/vim-table- mode](https://github.com/dhruvasagar/vim-table-mode).

<comment><USER8> The closest approximation is probably gritting your teeth, installing evil- mode, and using Emacs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I found myself searching for an easy to use command line spreadsheet recently after discovering none of the GUI options have a sane dark color scheme ability. This is not what I'm looking for (as I'm not an emacs person, and I think I'd prefer something more pico-esque for the kind of simple personal finance/BOM documents I work with), but I was surprised to find this is apparently a niche that has been abandoned since the 80's. Anyone know of something I overlooked?

<comment><USER10> Do you mean something like "sc"?

<comment><USER11> Or its more active fork scim: [https://github.com/andmarti1424/scim](https://github.com/andmarti1424/scim)

<comment><USER12> Thank you! I have been using sc for years, but really, REALLY wished it had the option to undo. Glad to see it's been forked and that feature was added.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Immune to viruses in spreadsheet files."

I find this claim dubious.

<comment><USER14> Because?

<comment><USER15> Elsewhere in the manual it seems to imply that formulas can include arbitrary Emacs Lisp functions, which would make it quite easy to implement a virus as there appears to be no sandboxing. What it probably means is that viruses written for other spreadsheet implementations won't work on it.

Edit: never mind; I read further and it does do some sandboxing based on the same whitelisting principles as directory-local variable settings. Very clever.

<comment><USER16> Even still, pure interpreters are not immune to vulnerabilities. One buffer overflow or bad array lookup and you're hosed.

<comment><USER14> I must admit that I haven't heard of buffer overflows in emacs lisp.

<comment><USER17> Right. When all of the language's data structures are garbage collected and the language has no pointer types, buffer overflows become much rarer.

There are a few array-lookup operations like AREF, but they do bounds checking (at run time, when the check is easier to get right).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> That's actually really freaking cool. I was hoping that the native file format would be just a simple csv/tsv or something, but no such luck. But there _is_ an "export as tab separated" function.</comment>


Ten things you don't know about the Milky Way Galaxy - <AUTHOR> http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/03/12/ten-things-you-dont-know-about-the-milky-way-galaxy/ <comment><USER2> I like our Milky Way for the simple reason that it's the only part of our personal cosmology that has any individuality to its naming. Our planet is just the common word for dirt in one of our languages; our sun's name is Latin for star; the system around it is just named after it, and, skipping past a frame, our local galactic group is called... the Local Group. But hey, hey, if we ever get famous, they'll find us by the ol' curds and whey!

</comment><comment><USER3> Please no - this is not reddit.</comment>


U.S. Army on Twitter: "How has serving impacted you?" - abc-xyz https://twitter.com/usarmy/status/1131704927963766785 <comment><AUTHOR> Why would they ask such an open ended and seemingly "baity" question?

</comment><comment><USER2> My wife. Reserves. Two tours in Iraq. PTSD.</comment>


Watch an F-16 Save the Life of Its Unconscious Pilot - <AUTHOR> http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/watch-an-f-16-save-the-life-of-its-unconscious-pilot-1786574961 <comment><USER2> Wow.

There is a lot of wow in there. Firstly this is barely four months old and they just declassify fighter HUD details. Is this common?

Call me suspicious but wouldn't that tell people a lot about the performance of students and aircraft. Seems - useful.

Secondly, I have absolutely no idea what the stuff in the HUD means. None of it makes sense. there is a lot of damn data in that cockpit.

Thirdly - wow awesome ! Really impressive work by the computer.

Fourthly - at what point is not putting humans in the fighter a good idea? He would not have passed out if he was sitting on the ground in a metal shed.

Fifthly, and this really is out there, but coreboot was looking at disabling Intel ME. How is the hardware in these things validated to show there are no backdoors ? It seems an unsolved problem in civilian world and so is probably unsolved in the military</comment>


Netflix CEO: Broadcast TV Will Be Dead by 2030 - <AUTHOR> http://betabeat.com/2014/11/netflix-ceo-broadcast-tv-will-be-dead-by-2030/

<comment><USER2> I worked in TV a few years ago. We were fully aware that within a few years, YouTube would be a better telly than telly. And so it is.</comment>


Show HN: LOGEO, a web app based on Spanish language Twitter data - <AUTHOR> INTRODUCTION
I present my first web application, written in Python! https://www.moorelanguage.com
I've been working in translation/localization for some years. Then I started learning more about text data and decided to learn Python.
Recently, I've been working on a side project that involves data analysis of Spanish language data.
THE DATA
I have seen some analysis on Twitter data, but none in Spanish so far. Thanks to Google Dataset Search I found a nice dataset: https://bit.ly/2Cn6sKH
I started learning some libraries and exploring the data set. Then I built a web app with it.
THE APP
This is an app that allows you to explore the whole dataset on a map. Also, it leverages the dataset to implement a similarity model, to guess the city of any text you input.
You can do the following things within the app:
Enter one word. See the cities in which the word is used with the highest frequency. Click on the circles on the map to see the most similar words in each city.
[https://imgur.com/YR8x0G2]
[https://imgur.com/8gJ3qEP]
Compare two words. See the cities in which these are used with the highest frequency.
[https://imgur.com/VQHmPLY]
Click on any country name. See the most frequent or unique words for that country.
[https://imgur.com/RMAMRy4]
Find the regional origin of a text in Spanish. See which cities are the most similar to the text you entered.
[https://imgur.com/nG69gie]
[https://imgur.com/N9Lni8A]
TOOLS
I used Pandas to read and process the dataset. For text processing, I used Gensim. To plot the cities on a map, I used Folium. I used Flask to build a web app, which I host on Digital Ocean.
CONCLUSION
I enjoyed this process a lot! I am happy about it, I learned a lot and I was able to materialize my idea.
The code is in github: https://github.com/luismond/logeo
What do you think? What could I do next? <comment><USER2> Hey

Learning Python person here.... I like what you've done, and thanks for showing it (and the code). It's nice to see a project which does something that's interesting, but where the code base is small enough to actually understand, so I've found it useful to look through it and read some of the code.

For 'next', I'd have said some improvements to the UI - for instance, if it was possible to overlay one of the 'similar' to words which appear below a map in a different colour so you could see more of the difference in distribution? And maybe making the front page a series of buttons (with multiple buttons on each line) rather than the scroll-heavy list that's present at the moment.

Just meant as constructive suggestions, and also from experience I know that having someone else ask for something leads you down paths you've not thought of.. good work though!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thank you! I really appreciate you taking the time to checking it out! Yes, I am working to improve the UI, I spent most of the time working on the back end, on the actual scripts. There lies my strength, I guess. I am not a very good graphics or web designer, and I plan to work with a UI person in the future. Stay tuned, I will make this app work also for English speaking cities!</comment></comment>


Qualcomm enters server CPU market with 24-core ARM chip - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2990868/qualcomm-enters-server-cpu-market-with-24-core-arm-chip.html <comment><USER2> So, where can one buy a 64-bit ARM motherboard with ECC memory slots at a price around an Intel / AMD offering? I keep seeing these announcements but not the corresponding competition to Intel / AMD motherboards.

<comment><USER3> Nowhere, and that's the problem.

This kind of announcements have been going on and on for years, but I can't still get a motherboard where I can plug 2 SATA drives, let alone anything resembling a low-end Intel board.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Intel's real problem isn't the power efficiency of ARM CPUs, but rather the entire CPU industry becoming a high-volume, low-margin business.

Currently none except Intel (and well AMD) can make chips for the Server/Datacenter business, and they get to keep the healthy margins. If ARM gets into the Datacenter, expect Chinese manufacturers to put out slightly less efficient, but perfectly capable CPUs for a fraction of the cost. The death of the x86 cartel is a good thing for customers.

<comment><USER5> AMD is fabless they already are using other manufacturers to build their CPU's and GPU's. Intel is the only one who's currently both designs and manufactures all of their components.

As for the Chinese fabs, there aren't that many Chinese manufacturers that can produce an ARM SOC at this moment, the only one of note is MediaTek (And while they are cheap, they aren't that cheap to cause any major issues), you can't just copy a CPU easily, it's not like you can buy a full blown functional reference design from ARM that will be commercially viable you actually need to develop it yourself (especially considering that you need quite a bit of stuff in the SOC that ARM doesn't cover). If you look at the current ARM SOC's even if they are based on the same ARM architecture they are virtually nothing alike.

And it's not like Intel didn't had (Acer, SiS, NEC, UMC, IBM, National Semiconductors, NexGen, Transmeta, fuck the 90's to early/mid 2000's were filled with x86 knockoffs) or has competition in the x86 arena from Chinese (And non-Chinese) companies heck VIA is still making cheap X86 CPU's many of them are very low power (watt per watt until the new Core-M stuff some would actually out-perform intel in some cases) the problem is that all of them are kinda crap, and most importantly don't have a well established ecosystem (interconnect-buses, chipsets, memory controllers etc.) and outside of cheap embedded systems (or 20$ 7" "netbooks" from DealExtreme or Alibaba) you won't see them anywhere.

<comment><USER6> _the problem is that all of them are kinda crap, and most importantly don 't have a well established ecosystem_

I'd say performance was the more important factor, as most of the early non- Intel x86 were physically compatible (drop-in replacements) - and many were actually faster than Intel's CPUs, but Intel (and to some extent AMD) quickly caught up and passed them. The P6 (Pentium Pro/II/III) is when Intel really started pulling away from the rest.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_IA-32_compatibl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_IA-32_compatible_processor_manufacturers)

Note: MediaTek is Taiwanese and also fabless. Their phone SoCs are nowhere near as performant as Qualcomm's or Samsung's, and largely viewed as the low- cost "value" option.

<comment><USER5> As far as the x86 goes if you count the original 486/386 family then yeah, but ever since the Pentium only AMD could some what compete with Intel the performance arena.

I remember having to get a non-Intel 486 CPU that would plug into a daughter board that would sit in the original socket and it was some what faster than the 486DX that it replaced.

And yes I am very well that MediaTek is fabless and they cannot compete with QC as far as it comes to performance but they aren't dirt cheap either, and some of their newer SOC's are actually quite decent. They are however pretty much the only example of an established "Chinese" (Lets not get political here because people don't really differentiate between Taiwan and China when it comes to manufacturing, and most Taiwanese companies these days will actually manufacture in China because it's cheaper) ARM manufacturer I haven't seen any other one that can design their own SOC's that would actually work well and be commercially viable even for global products.

<comment><USER7> do you think Samsung can enter this market? they have Exynos for mobiles already.

<comment><USER5> The question if they want too, they'll not only have to design a CPU but an entire eco-system around it.

I personally see ARM becoming a potential player through another vector.

We already have various "open-cloud" alliances that design their own reference servers, network equipment and storage.

As ARM being a relatively easy ISA to license it wouldn't surprise me if the likes of Google and Facebook would license it them selves and then come out with their open server architecture which will include an ARM based CPU.

Facebook has released their ethernet switches and server reference designs a while ago, HP has only recently released OpenSwitch which is opensource OS for networking devices, Intel is also getting into the game with their own echo system "Intel Open Network Platform".

To me this form of market penetration seems to be much likely than a slow attempt to creep into the market and in one form or another is pretty much mandatory current datacenter users to switch to ARM en masse. Especially considering just how fragmented the ARM market is, there are allot of different ARM ISA's and even more implementations of those ISA's which aren't necessarily directly compatible.

If we take Exynos as an example then the custom ARM cores that Samsung developed caused quite a bit of software compatibility issue which is one of the reasons why Exynos devices aren't that popular in the Android development community. Heck it was even an issue for 1st party Samsung software anything that didn't run in a VM had to be compiled/redeveloped for Exynos which meant that even software like Samsung GearVR didn't work on Exynos devices initially.

Which is precisely why i think that a uniform compatible ISA and design from an investment consortium is required for ARM to work out it's kinks and take on the server market. Anything that was compiled for x86 for the past what 30 years will work on Intel's current CPU lines. Yes newer CPU's with additional features, extended instruction sets and their respective supported compilers will enable you to run you software more efficiently if you want to invest additional development resources, but if we talk about low level programming the same cannot be said for ARM in all cases which is a big issue at least as I see it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Qcom should really split into two companies. A majority of their profits come from their very high margin IP business. I don't see the point of trying to get into these low margin businesses.

<comment><USER9> After working there for a couple of years, I describe Qualcomm to outsiders as a flotilla of IP lawyers that happen to employ a handful of engineers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lol. A single x86 core probably outguns 6 of these cores. I'd rather have a quad core x86 that is actually useful and runs popular software.

<comment><AUTHOR> A large number of cores on a single chip is interesting to us programmers not just for the overall performance, but for testing software parallelization strategies.

Low per-core performance is actually a good incentive to parallelize as much as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The images of the thing held reminds me of that beast of a CPU that Sun was making at one point.

</comment><comment><USER12> Whoever gets to "1Ghz per user" in the cloud first, wins.

Reason: with the future being a socket per user over which the HTML5 interface is streamed, the user experience can be speedy if that same socket has a dedicated core too. I really want 2Ghz per user, but let's not be greedy.

<comment><USER5> 1Ghz is a meaningless number I assume you base it on current IPC performance of desktop CPU's which is completely irrelevant.

<comment><USER12> Just trying to represent time.

<comment><USER5> Still not sure what are you getting at. If your proposed system is basically a time-sharing system which thin-clients connect too then it's performance needs to be similar to what currently individual desktops would need.

If all of the processing isn't done on your system (e.g. 3rd party could like Office 365, or in your own desktop e.g. Desktop Office) then why would you need it in the first place?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I assume it will be using the new Kryo core (or whatever hey are calling it). Hopefully it will be a 14nm chip, too. Things should get interesting for ARM in the server market if that's the case.

</comment><comment><USER14> 24 cores, now compare that to AMDs pitiful attempt at ARM with 2-4 core chips. Its like AMD is actively trying to go belly up.

<comment><USER5> Qualcomm has 20-25 years of experience with designing ARM processors over AMD, for all of the reasons why AMD will belly up their attempts at getting into the ARM market isn't one of them.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Vector Video - <AUTHOR> https://theblackbox.ca/blog/vector-video/ <comment><USER2> Usually people motion interpolation: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_interpolation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_interpolation) There are some really perfect algorithms out there for this.

And they also do upscaling via a high quality sinc filter: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittaker%E2%80%93Shannon_inte...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittaker%E2%80%93Shannon_interpolation_formula)

The main issue you have is gif artifacts from the extreme color quantization. Something like this might help: [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.422...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.422.1137&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

<comment><USER3> Yes - OpenCV is a good resource for experimenting with motion interpolation as they implement a few different algorithms: [http://docs.opencv.org/2.4/modules/video/doc/motion_analysis...](http://docs.opencv.org/2.4/modules/video/doc/motion_analysis_and_object_tracking.html)

I've had the most success with the Farneback algorithm. There's even a nice CLI utility called Butterflow which wraps ffmpeg+OpenCV Farneback, and allows you to interpolate video with a one-liner on the command line: [https://github.com/dthpham/butterflow](https://github.com/dthpham/butterflow)

Here's an example of my results applying Butterflow to satellite images from Himawari - the first half is interpolated, while the second half shows the same frames uninterpolated: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8knZ2-cys6M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8knZ2-cys6M) & a compilation of a few more: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lPsA8J3U0Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lPsA8J3U0Q)

<comment> semi-extrinsic That looks amazing, Butterflow goes straight in my toolbox.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me of a little webgl demo I made a long time back:

[http://mikolalysenko.github.io/gif-3d/](http://mikolalysenko.github.io/gif-3d/)

</comment><comment><USER5> If the OP is reading this...

Try animating a large cube moving into the logo, and using the boolean subtract modifier between each mesh and this cube. Place the cube on another (invisible) layer, et voila.

You can leave your camera fixed in the same place, too.

EDIT to add: I should have mentioned, I think this is a very cool idea! I might just steal it one day ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Need to run off to work at the moment but I'll give it a shot. Wouldn't you need to move two cubes through the mesh leaving a small space to be drawn?

Steal it by all means!

<comment><USER5> Don't think so, unless I'm misunderstanding what you have.

I basically mean replacing your animated camera with the cube, but still using a [fixed] orthographic camera to look at the face of the solid as the cube cuts it away.

I tried using your scripts but Meshlab on my system really doesn't like the data and refuses to produce any output :(

<comment><AUTHOR> MeshLab is finicky, when it can't apply a filter it simply crashes. Best to import the points manually and tweak your filters in the main app. Then you can export the filter script through the filter menu. Launching from a terminal allows tracing of what exactly failed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome post, I recently made F3, which allows you to design 3D form using image sequences. Check it out: [http://www.syedrezaali.com/f3-mac- app/](http://www.syedrezaali.com/f3-mac-app/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm really into this... I have a goal of one day figuring out how to save, render and manipulate 4+ dimensional voxel graphs with unlimited depth. When I say unlimited, I mean that there could be procedural elements at any depth.

Basically, I'm talking about some kind of voxel representation that is more or less "scale invariant".

</comment><comment><USER8> What's wrong with the frame rate of the GIF animation? It looks silky smooth to me in Firefox.

<comment><AUTHOR> To be fair, it's an excellent gif. The other GIFs I was testing this against were as low as 2FPS. Being able to construct a 60 or higherFPS abstracted GIF was one of the initial goals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> SSL chain is not included... Use the proper file from LE.

<comment><USER10> OP's cert includes the Certificate Authority Information Access extension. Safari and Chrome both used this to get the full chain for me.

<comment><USER11> Chrome Version 53.0.2785.143 (64-bit) - no ssl love here. :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Bad ssl, no intermediate?</comment>