Help Kill Internet Explorer 6 - <AUTHOR> http://www.ie6update.com/

<comment><USER2> [http://almost.done21.com/2009/04/announcing-ie6-update- help-...](http://almost.done21.com/2009/04/announcing-ie6-update-help-kill- internet-explorer-6/)

^^ ie6update bars author discussing the ethics of the situation.

I'll probably add this to my blog pointing to a browser choice page like the MS Windows "web browser ballot" screen.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm posting this cause it is worth discussion. Do you think this is harmful or helpful?

Myself, I am kind of against anything that tricks our users. Something like this can also be manipulated to trick users to install malicious software which also makes me wary.

<comment><USER3> It's like those popups that are made to look like system menus. This one just doesn't happen to pump your computer full of malware.</comment></comment>


Syrup -- A whitespace-significant Lisp, in CoffeeScript, for funsies - <AUTHOR> http://syrup.tcr.io/ <comment><USER2> This is awesome. I really don't get why it did not make first page...</comment>


The Strange Inevitability of Evolution - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/20/creativity/the-strange-inevitability-of-evolution <comment><USER2> Nice article.

> However, it seems likely that the answer lies beyond biology. Karthik Raman, > a former postdoc in Wagner's lab, now at the Indian Institute of Technology > Madras, has studied much the same issues of functional equivalence of > different circuits not for genes but for electronic components that carry > out binary logic functions. By randomly rewiring circuits of 16 components > and figuring out which of them will perform particular logic operations, > Raman found that they too have this evolvable topology.8 But crucially, this > property appeared only if the circuits were complex enough—if they had too > few components, small changes destroyed their function. "The more complex > they are, the more rewiring they tolerate," says Wagner. Not only does this > open up possibilities for electronic circuit design using Darwinian > principles, but it suggests that evolvability, and the corollary of > creativity or innovability, is a fundamental feature of complex networks > like those found in biology.

This should have some applications to neural networks. If the networks are complex enough then random "mutations" should allow for the same functionality as the original network. I wonder why more AI researchers aren't looking at this kind of work. Tuning network architecture by hand seems much more tedious than using evolutionary tactics to come up with novel network architectures.</comment>


Happy ending: @N has been restored to its rightful owner - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2014/02/26/happy-ending-n-restored-rightful-owner/ <comment><USER2> It's interesting (and perhaps sad) how these days having a blog in which to complain, if needed, is one of the most foolproof ways to receive proper customer care from certain online companies.

<comment><USER3> I think it's great. It's not like companies weren't shafting people before; we're just hearing about it more. For decades, companies with money had a big communications advantage. The web has re-leveled the playing field.

<comment><USER4> >The web has re-leveled the playing field.

Can't say I agree - the original owner of @N has a huge potential reach since he's a writer for medium, and knows how to structure and write an article so that people root for him instead of Twitter.

If @N would've belonged to some Chinese kid, that kid could have written on his unknown blog in Chinese and no-one would have cared.

Edit: Mixed up nextweb.com/medium writers

<comment><USER5> The blog is meaningless, you could be a nobody. If I buy a block of cheese tomorrow, and you can see a band-aid in the package, half embedded in the cheese, half hanging out, the internet will go wild. Toss a photo on Reddit with a _cheesy_ headline, and it'll hit the frontpage, then get reposted all over the internet. Within a couple of days the company would issue an official statement, and I'd have copious amounts of free cheese.

It would be a PR nightmare, and they'd be trying to track down the location, employee, and how their scanner for foreign material didn't pick it up. Meanwhile, without the internet, I'd call, never be able to reach anyone of importance, and they'd just apologize and mail me a 50% off coupon.

The internet gives the individual a lot of power, and they can reach millions overnight thanks to social networks. It also forces the company to handle damage control ASAP, since their reputation drops a notch with every passing minute.

<comment><USER6> Let's be fair: Starting out famous is an enormous boon.

At the same time it's possible for nobodies to be heard as well, provided their message is well presented.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This isn't nearly as exciting as the story of @N, but I just had something strange happen to one of my Twitter accounts, too.

Registered "tweetcoin" handle awhile back for one of the projects I am working on, and posted on Feb 9 (my single tweet) - "Exciting things in the works" was my comment:

[https://twitter.com/tweetcoin](https://twitter.com/tweetcoin)

Tried logging in today, couldn't log in. Ended up resetting pwd using my email account, and the reset link logged me in as 'tweetcoin1' \- that's when I knew that my Twitter handle had changed from 'tweetcoin' to 'tweetcoin1'.

What's even more bizarre - another tweet appeared under that account. It was dated April 2012, and it simply said:

"This isn't your account."

<comment><USER8> That's pretty strange. Did you contact Twitter?

<comment><USER7> Not yet. I am not even mad etc.

<comment><USER9> You should probably tell them, so at least they know how often this kind of thing happens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I believe this is called a "happy @N-ding".

</comment><comment><USER11> The title is actually "Happy ending: @N has been restored to its rightful owner".

"finally" implies that Twitter was too slow in reacting to this. Please don't editorialize.

<comment><USER12>
        "finally" implies that Twitter was too slow in reacting to this

Were they not?

<comment><USER13> That's subjective.

<comment><USER14> Isn't the "happy ending" part subjective too?

<comment><USER15> "Happy ending" at least is editorializing by the article's author instead of by whoever posted the link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What I want to know is: what was the attacker thinking? A Twitter handle is something that Twitter can easily return to its rightful owner -- it's not exactly something you can steal. I could see some scenario where the attacker would use some information to extort Naoki into not telling Twitter, but that didn't appear to happen here.

<comment><USER17> Selling it

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've seen a few of these stories that assert Hiroshima lost his account. That misrepresents things a little. What actually happened is he was blackmailed into changing his username; his Twitter account, including his tweet history, followers and everything besides the single-character username, seems to have remained intact and under his control throughout the ordeal.

</comment><comment><USER19> I hope Mr.Hiroshima writes a blog post detailing what happened. I'm particularly interested in whether Twitter has implemented any changes in the way they handle high value handles/or all to prevent others who've experienced this with their Twitter account.

<comment><USER20> He did write a pretty nice article about the process of the handle being stolen[1], but I'm pretty sure that's not what you're talking about.

I, too, would like to hear about the process of actually getting the handle back. Apparently I don't read HN enough(something I thought was impossible) so this story is news to me as of this evening.

[1] [https://medium.com/cyber-security/24eb09e026dd](https://medium.com/cyber- security/24eb09e026dd)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> In case anyone wants to see the old discussion we had here on HN (before it was restored 27 days ago): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7141532](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7141532)

</comment><comment><USER22> It's nice that Twitter merged @N_IS_STOLEN with his original @N account.

<comment><USER23> You can rename your Twitter account to any unused handle. All they had to do was delete or rename the account holding @N, then he renamed his @N_IS_STOLEN account to @N. No merging was required.

<comment><USER24> Was his prior history as @N already lost at that point?

<comment><USER23> His history as @N was never lost; you can see all 15000 tweets. He voluntarily (under coercion) renamed @N to @N_IS_STOLEN. All his tweets/history stayed with his account, now named @N_IS_STOLEN. The other guy then registered or renamed an account as @N, as anyone in the world could've done at the time. On Twitter, your handle is just an editable property of your account like your profile picture or your e-mail address.

<comment><USER24> Makes sense, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It also helps having inside contacts at Google, Twitter or Facebook.

"So I rang my friend at Twitter" tends to be a common theme in these blog posts. I believe this was the case here too.

</comment><comment><USER26> Now he can sell it for $50,000

<comment><USER27> Given how it all got out in the media I think he can sell it for twice the price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does anyone know: what was the account used for in the mean time?

<comment><AUTHOR> Pretty much nothing, it sat dormant the whole time that Twitter didn't do anything. It briefly had the name of some random news site in the bio but that's it.

<comment><USER29> I was under the impression that Twitter temporarily suspended the account while they sorted things out?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Interesting. Just a couple of days ago it had some spammy seeming name, instead of not existing like it had for the previous few weeks.

</comment><comment><USER31> Thank goodness, now I can sleep easy again.

</comment><comment><USER32> I don't know this means @N!

</comment><comment><USER33> You see now this is news!

<comment><USER34> "jon18231 reclaims his right nickname, jon18230!"</comment></comment>


The man behind the V for Vendetta mask - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15359735

<comment><USER2> "V for Vendetta is a story about one person against the system"

Some may not like this analogy, but I do. For we need a story.</comment>


Ask HN: Moratorium on threads related to the culture wars and identity politics - vezzy-fnord The Hacker News guidelines permit "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity".
Now, even HN qualifies what isn't suitable for political stories: "Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." Rest assured, most such stories do not satisfy this criterion, or wear off their novelty all too quickly.
Be it the Millennials whose whining will immanentize the eschaton, the white heterosexual males and their original sin of mercantilism and colonialism, the feminists and Cultural Marxists who want to usurp Western values (whatever they are this month)... it is all grinding.
The chief complaint, of course, is that threads on this subject are devoid of any value pertaining to debate. They instead serve as hubs for signaling normative dispositions. The inevitable result of such vacuous posturing is attrition. Discussions grow ever more primordial, threads on the subject increase and these elements spill over to other threads. It is not uncommon now for technical threads to derail into aesthetic tangents (i.e. Coq). Everyone wants to be the greatest victim and the greatest receiver of sympathy. No one actually cares about the utility or disutility of people. They only care that everyone know how righteous they are.
Many of you will object on the basis of free speech. But there is no free speech on private property. Certainly, the property owner may implicitly consent to ideological dissemination on their property. They may even explicitly have easement or other contract permitting nonpossessory use that includes the right to disseminate ideology, or otherwise, speech. The property owner's rights ultimately override yours, and so you have no right to demand anything (neither do I, obviously). As such, the owner exercises all final discretion.
Note that I do not expect any such moratorium to actually take place. I merely wanted to counterbalance things by expressing a dissenting view. <comment><AUTHOR> What makes you think your view is dissenting? It sounds quite aligned with everything you hear from the HN cabal.

Edit:

I mean, sometimes a story slips through, and a subthread happens, but generally it feels like there's a big hard clamp on that. Maybe I'm projecting.

</comment><comment><USER2> (completely off topic)

>But there is no free speech on private property.

You are right. But you know what drive proponents of free speech batty? When people don't understand the philosophical underpinnings of why we advocate for free speech. And this happens all the time on HN. Hopefully, this is because of all the non-U.S. visitors that come to this site. For those, a little explanation. We come from a culture of free speech. We think it is good, and we are the descendants of people who thought it was good. We were taught that it was good from when we were small children. Our experiences are that busybodies and tyrants are the ones who push for censorship and work in the shadows. And those are some of the reasons why freedom of speech is enshrined in our constitution. We do not think: because it is in the constitution, therefore it is good. So to us, it is not like deciding to drive on the left or the right side of the street. Each being perfectly reasonable, and which ever way they do it where you live is an accident of fate. And we do not think that free speech is only reserved for political topics, or when talking to governmental officials.

When someone starts to mention legal technicalities of free speech, it makes me want to barf on their shoes, because they are completely missing the point. We grew up with it as a minimum expectation of decency. A fundamental human right. Slaves and servants don't have the luxury of free speech. Demand more of yourself and your fellow citizens.

</soap-box>

</comment><comment><USER3> The best thing you can do is not call for some overarching policy banning whatever annoys you (politics, culture war, lame memes) but simply downvote, make constructive comments about how this is a waste of time, or just ignore those submissions.

This sort of thing tends to ebb and flow with election cycles, especially for U.S. based commenters. It's going to get more annoying as the next year goes on, but for whatever reason people feel the need to share their opinions on this more during important elections (whether the majority of people consider it worth reading or not).

IMO, silent tolerance (up to a point) is more discouraging than engaging with the nonsense as it gives them nothing to push back against. I'm also reminded of this post of an IRC chat room where (apparently) one person is arguing with themselves in an otherwise empty room about some kind of political point. While you may want to believe you are engaging with a worthwhile opponent, you could be talking to that person, and you just don't know it.

</comment><comment><USER4> They already apply penalties to things like this that they view as "insubstantive". This helps keep it off the front page. It also sometimes penalizes more thoughtful items that defy the sterotype and are aimed at trying to get a real discussion going.

The system works as is. We don't need a sweeping moratorium. That would go bad places.

Flag or downvote and move on. Give more of your energy to engaging constructively with items you see more value in, less to the things you find tedious. Your desire to completely ban something so you don't have to make any effort to mentally filter out certain types of things is the kind of position that goes very unhealthy places.

</comment><comment><USER5> I agree with your sentiment, though I feel you could have been a bit more terse. However, I agree with SamReidHughes, is this really that much of a problem?

Also, "The chief complaint..."? Are you representing more than your own opinion here?</comment>


Show HN: Side.to – Sell your side project and unused domains - <AUTHOR> https://side.to <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone!

I've been working on [https://side.to](https://side.to) which is a marketplace for selling side projects and unused/inactive domains for the past few months now. This started off as an alternative to Flippa but for smaller projects. It's currently in public beta (so it's not 100% perfect just yet). I did a full writeup of it on Medium if you'd like to give it a read: [https://link.medium.com/2nNiagScL4](https://link.medium.com/2nNiagScL4)

\- 100% free to list \- No success fees for projects that sell for under $50 and for domains that sell for under $10 ([http://side.to/fees](http://side.to/fees)) \- We handle payments onsite and use Stripe! \- Instant payouts to sellers \- Synced with [http://sideprojects.net](http://sideprojects.net) (our parent site)

There's no BS: no listing fees, no fees to unlock access to important features, etc.

Listings are manually reviewed for quality assurance.

I'm also aware that there are other platforms out there that do what we're trying to do but I've disagreed with how they execute it. I don't believe in having an upfront cost to list a project in addition to high success fees and I also don't agree with requiring users to pay to unlock certain features before they can actually make a sale. It just poses a high risk of losing money in the case that the project doesn't sell. With our platform, there's no upfront costs posing no risks to sellers.

Keep in mind that what is being sold on our site are side projects and unused/inactive domains, so we currently have a price cap at $2000 and $100 respectively.

Let me know what you think and if you have any questions!

Also feel free to follow me on twitter! [https://twitter.com/sakofchit](https://twitter.com/sakofchit) :)</comment>


The Huge Premium Intel Is Charging for Skylake Xeons - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextplatform.com/2017/09/01/huge-premium-intel-charging-skylake-xeons/ <comment><USER2> Q: Why is Intel charging so much?

A: Because enough people pay.

Q: Why do people pay so much? Why do they pay a high premium for top performance?

A: Because, considering all factors, it's worth that much for them. For many it's too much but for many others it's ok.

Q: But it's the same silicon!

A: Manufacturing cost plays little role when the price is not dictated by a race to the bottom between different manufactures. Instead, marketing, market segmentation and customer value are the cost determining factors.

<comment><USER3> That's really not what the article is about at all. It's talking about the history of the tech industry and associating this kind of price motion with "peak" revenue for given hardware products.

Your same answer would apply to IBM's mainframes in 1990 and Sun's servers in 2001 too, and the point of the article is to associate Intel's current position with those products, which clearly reached peaks at those moments.

Personally I don't really buy it completely either, but quipping "because the market!" as an answer is missing the point. The article is about what that market desire _means_ for future revenue.

<comment><USER4> One thing missing from the comparison to IBM and Sun is that precisely because those companies made things so expensive people _started_ looking for alternatives.

The ES/9000's were really good machines for the time. Had IBM not raped people on those, companies might have stuck with them for a little longer. The AS/400 was priced more reasonably and people _loved_ those. You couldn't get someone with an AS/400 to move to a Unix workstation if you used a nuclear bomb.

As for Sun in 2001, the problem was that they were so absurdly overpriced and underpowered that commodity x86 simply blew it away. If I didn't have direct knowledge of the dysfunction that was Sun at the time, you would have thought they were taking kickbacks from Oracle, Cadence, Synopsys, etc. to limit performance. (Explanation: Oracle, Cadence, Synopsys, etc. all had very expensive software packages that were licensed per processor core per year and effectively only ran on Sparc. So, the lower the performance of the processor, the more cores you needed and the more expensive your license to Oracle, et al.)

<comment><USER5> "raped" is not an appropriate word to use in the context of this discussion. Please try to be more considerate.

<comment><USER6> "I bought an IBM/Sun server and the salesman ripped my face off". Should adequately describe server pricing strategies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In an interesting (to me at least) move intel instead of competing on price when AMD put out a competitive offering they decided to keep prices the same more or less or increase them by adding value. Faster AVX units, more cores, more SKUs (not sure about that last one). And while intel has margins to maintain AMD has put features into their chips for years. For example AES has been shipping in most every desktop and server CPU while only some intel ones get it. Most AMD chips can do VT-D etc while the same feature is relegated to higher end chips generally on intel.

<comment><USER8> I could be wrong but I assume that there's enough inertia in the high-end business-to-business side of things (the part that matters for high-end server processors) that they probably can keep milking that cow for a few years more.

People who have only been buying Intel CPU in the last decade won't jump ship immediately. Nobody gets fired for buying Intel CPUs, at least until very recently. You know you won't have compatibility issues etc...

Of course within the next few years Intel will have to react somehow, either by outperforming AMD significantly to justify the premium or by slashing prices.

<comment><USER9> I suspect anyone ordering top-bin CPU skus by the pallet-load has an ongoing program for evaluating performance-normalized TCO of at least a few candidate platforms based around a few candidate processors.

<comment><USER10> Heck, why has Google been investing heavily in OpenPOWER? I bet it's as much as keeping the option there and making it as attractive as possible: gives them a far stronger negotiating position with Intel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Most markets feel comfortable and safe with Intel.

AMD will have to go through the tough adoption curve of early adopters to mature markets and while this happens Intel has relatively free reign with their pricing and value.

Markets with long established leaders have the additional burden of too many vested interests, misinformation and dirty tricks. However if AMD continues to deliver the naysayers will eventually lose credibility.

<comment><USER12> AMD fans like to separate RTG from AMD, but anecdotally, I just got a Vega 64 GPU and it's horrible. Loud, constant crashes, my desktop freezes when a video starts playing, etc.

Stuff like that makes me unwilling to go with AMD when I have a choice. I view them as offering competitive performance on paper but completely falling short when it comes to reliability.

<comment><USER13> On another hand, in the cpu space, I went to top of the line Intel CPU overheating and throttling, to 8 core Ryzen, doing 45 celsius at 100 percent load and almost 4ghz across 8 cores.

Stuff like Intel unable to perform below 80 degrees on 4 cores, makes people switch _with ease_.

<comment><USER12> The top of the line Intel CPU comparable to an 8 core Ryzen CPU is probably the 7700k, which has a higher absolute power draw "ceiling", but also has better performance and higher clocks to match.

I think Intel's value based on performance isn't good compared to Ryzen, but the product isn't inherently flawed, and that combined with AMD's shaky history is enough to keep myself, and lots of people I know from switching. (Right now stories of RMAs for the Risen GCC crash bug taking ages are popping up)

<comment><USER14> 7700k seems kinda overpriced. Why not pay $40 more for the i7-7800X and get 50% more cores and double the memory bandwidth/channels?

<comment><USER12> Plenty of reasons:

Higher base clock on the 7700k, biggest reason for entertainment alongside:

Higher OC potential (back in the 4790k days 5Ghz on air was something else, for the 7700k not getting 5Ghz is considered "losing the silicon lottery")

Cheapest 7800X motherboard is 100$ more than cheapest 7700k motherboards (which are still quite good) because X299 is a HEDT platform

Most entertainment machines won't benefit from quad channel over dual channel in a meaningful way.

The 7700k is generally regarded as the fastest gaming CPU available, that's why so many benchmarks use it. I'm pretty sure AMD used it to showcase Vega because even if it becomes a bottleneck, no other CPU on the market can be "less of a bottneck"

And I'll add, this is all with my entertainment/gaming hat on.

For a dev machine where I'd expect to work with compiled languages or compiling OSes I'd definitely go with more cores.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> With the concentration of server buying by AWS I am surprised Intel believes it can get away with this. AWS has the expertise and the incentive to push for supporting a competitor that offers a superior value.

<comment><USER16> I'd bet that the cloud-scale customers like AWS negotiate pricing that has very little to do with the published list price of these CPUs.

<comment><USER17> And I think this is possibly one reason for the pricing. When a >50% (guessing, any better numbers?) of new chip sales volume comes from a few hyperscale buyers with individually negotiated contracts, you're far more flexible with what you do for the remainder.

Heck, Intel might even not really have the production volume on all SKUs to sell to non-hyperscale! And if that's true, then why would they do anything other than milk the few customers it deigns to sell to?

<comment><USER18> That could be one reason why it's priced so high: because they wouldn't be able to make enough to meet demand otherwise. They can price it extremely high to keep demand under control, and negotiate special pricing with a few selected customers that they really care about pleasing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Server CPUs are way too cheap compared to the remaining parts of the server. Paying 10% more in exchange for software compatibility is a steal.

<comment><USER20> What software compatibility issue?

<comment><USER21> Not the OP, but maybe he's talking about the kernel panic that some users are getting during heavy-duty compilation workloads.

[https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/hardware/processors- me...](https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/hardware/processors- memory/955368-some-ryzen-linux-users-are-facing-issues-with-heavy-compilation- loads/page7)

<comment><USER22> Newer steppings of Ryzen have a fix applied, and AMD is allowing people to RMA those processors affected. Threadripper is unaffected by the bug.

Source: [https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=new- ryze...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=new-ryzen- fixed&num=1)

<comment><USER23> AMD has never stated that there is a fix for this. If you look at the link you posted, this is Larabel making this claim on the basis that he hasn't seen any _forum posts_ noting this problem on samples manufactured after week 25. Quote:

> AMD has not provided an official public explanation of the fundamental > problem, but from those in our forums and elsewhere, it appears to affect > Ryzen CPUs manufactured prior to week 25.

This problem only affects a minority of chips in the first place (likely a litho flaw in the cache section), it's probable that Larabel's second CPU just didn't happen to be one of the ones with problems. And Week 25 ends June 25, i.e. stock for these date ranges has hardly even made it through packaging/distribution to end users let alone been extensively tested yet.

Larabel is jumping the gun on insufficient evidence and people are racing to make the claim that AMD has fixed this, when that's far from the case. AMD certainly hasn't made any statements to this effect.

AMD is RMA'ing afflicted units, which is really all that can be done until they get a new stepping out. But I've seen no evidence that this is actually _fixed_.

<comment><USER24> > This problem only affects a minority of chips in the first place (likely a > litho flaw in the cache section)

What are you basing this on? I've seen no good reporting on this* but the AMD Community segfault thread ([https://community.amd.com/message/2796982](https://community.amd.com/message/2796982)) seems to suggest that almost all Ryzen CPUs manufactured before the end of June (which I assume is most of the current stock) are affected. Very few people load their Ryzens sufficiently to hit this bug, but a large number of those who attempt it seem to get the segfault.

* I would like to know the percentage of processors with the bug, percentage of review units with the bug (I would be very interested in this), and maybe some long-term testing of "bug free" processors etc.

<comment><USER25> It may be ridiculous, but I'm not spending a million dollars on CPUs with information gleamed from a forum post.

<comment><USER24> It's not ridiculous, but there's pratically no more information about it. No major tech sites have covered it, beyond Phoronix. AMD haven't acknowledged it, beyond stating that "a performance marginality problem exclusive to certain workloads on Linux" exists, which is factually incorrect as it also seems to occur on other operating systems.

I'm not spending hundreds of euro on a processor without knowing something more concrete about this issue. If you budget is really ~million dollars, do you have additional information about this that you can share?

<comment><USER25> My ~$400 CPU budget went toward a Skylake i7 a couple of years ago, I'm afraid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I have been thinking about whether GitLab should buy the M versions that can do 1.5TB of RAM per socket with 128GB 3DS LR-DIMMs. They will probably not use them immediately though. Of course, I think the price gap between 64GB LR- DIMMs and 32GB RDIMMs are falling.

<comment><USER27> I thought Gitlab went back on the idea of using their own hardware anyway?

<comment><USER28> They can't even manage the managed servers, it has issues too many times

<comment><USER27> I'm painfully aware of that. :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Basically off-topic, but this might be one of the few places someone might know: does anyone know which of the quad-core 8th generation Intel CPUs that are about to come out in laptops support TSX-NI? I can't find this information on their site.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is a very good overview of bad anti-consumer practices Intel has done throughout the last 30 years: [https://youtu.be/osSMJRyxG0k](https://youtu.be/osSMJRyxG0k)

</comment><comment><USER31> Simple, buy AMD

<comment><USER32> Not so simple when you want to buy server quality motherboards.

<comment><USER33> Do these not count?

[https://www.supermicro.com/products/nfo/AMD_SP3.cfm](https://www.supermicro.com/products/nfo/AMD_SP3.cfm)

<comment><USER34> The other issue is buying the chips themselves, they're only available to OEM partners right now AFAICT (not listed on Newegg or anywhere else I'd expect to be able to buy retail boxed server CPUs).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Use Nginx access_log to save user input - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/montymole/nginx-access-loggin

<comment><USER2> Interesting idea to just quickly collect data from a simple form, although I'd worry about things like encodings for more complex cases.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the career trajectory like of Program Manager after DARPA stint? - <AUTHOR> Hello everyone,
We all know DARPA is one awesome organization that is pushing the boundaries of technology & engineering, and to achieve this, it relies on Program Managers who are hungry for opportunities to test limits and are at the top of their fields.
So my question is, what do Program Managers, after serving their 5 year term with DARPA, normally do? Do they set up their own business revolving around the technlogy they helped foster whilst at DARPA, or do they create a career path of their own?
I'm very curious to know this. Any suggestions would be highly appreciated. It would be GREAT if some former/ current Program Manager with DARPA answers this & offers his first hand insights & perspectives.
Thanks in advance :) <comment><USER2> Those that are at the top of their game and technical normally go to work for the CIA, NSA, DIA, Pentagon, INSCOM, USSOCOM, top government contractors (Leidos, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, CSRA, Booz Allen Hamilton, SAIC, etc.) or go to a top regular commercial company like Apple, Google, Facebook or Microsoft that are heavy into research into future technology and implementing prototypes or real world products.

They normally end up with their own team if they were a top technical PM and receive funding for programs they get to create at their new job.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you heard of any PM who later switched to a purely technical role, like maybe Technology Architect?

<comment><USER2> Nope, they are normally pretty high up in the org chart due to them brining so much to the table when they onboard to where there are no longer any pure technical roles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a great question. I don't know the exact answer but have worked with some. I've seen many stay at darpa more than 5 years. I've also seen them jump to PM positions in DoD and NIST.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for letting me know about PM's switching to DoD & NIST :)</comment></comment>


Twitter Account Suspension - <AUTHOR>

My Twitter account was suspended last night because I was notifying people who've had interactions with @skippy (the peanut butter brand) about their practice of selling high value peanut oil from peanut butter manufacture and replacing it with unhealthy and environmentally unsound palm oil.  I'll admit that I was posting a lot with the #boycottskippy hashtag, and a url to an anti-palm-oil website (with which I am not affiliated, even as a donor).  So my question is, should my account have been suspended for this behavior, or could this be a case of a publicly owned Twitter protecting potential sponsors? <comment><USER2> Are you a paying Twitter customer?

Is Skippy?

I know what I would do if I was Twitter.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am pretty sure I was caught by an automated jerk filter. Twitter reinstated my account. I wrote about it here: [http://plntxt1.tumblr.com/post/76531090124/twitter- suspended...](http://plntxt1.tumblr.com/post/76531090124/twitter-suspended-me- for-being-a-jerk)</comment></comment>


On Google's Web, the User is #1, Google is #0 - <AUTHOR> http://remiel.info/post/40766424/on-googles-web-the-user-is-1-google-is-0

<comment><USER2> Yahoo got the tools to index Flash files as well, they just haven't implemented them yet. Getting there first doesn't make Google evil, but painting Google as an evil monopoly might get your blog some easy traffic.

Earlier story:

[http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/adobe-flash-google- yahoo-...](http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/adobe-flash-google-yahoo-search)

<comment><USER3> I think his point is that only Yahoo and Google get the tools, and he's singling out Google as having the clout that's required to force Adobe to make them available for all the search engines. Because they're big and they're big on Net Neutrality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't get it, didn't they open source the player? In which case anyone could write their own indexer.

</comment><comment><USER5> Google is just using a 0-based array indexing system.</comment>


Driver caught using cell phone jamming device - <AUTHOR> http://www.myfoxny.com/story/25392761/driver-caught-using-cell-phone-jamming-device <comment><USER2> My guess would be driving around with a relatively short-range jammer actually increases the odds of being hit by a distracted driver. Rather than people driving near you being distracted by conversations on their phones, they're going to be even more distracted because their call just got dropped, prompting them to look at the display waiting for the bars to come back so they can re-dial.

<comment><USER3> I agree. Most people aren't smart enough to put down their phone even to save their own life. The guy has good intentions but some people just can't be saved.

<comment><USER4> Not to mention it's plain stupid.

What if there's actually a legitimate need to use a cell phone like a big car accident.

Or all the data connectivity some devices need for navigation.

If you want to jam signals jam it on your farm/house but keep it out of public range.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the last things I'd want is lots of drivers near me to be even more distracted saying "Hello? Hello?" into their phone and repeatedly looking at it to see if they're still connected or still have a signal.

Also, good luck if you're in an accident as no-one nearby can call the emergency services.

<comment><USER6> I would add someone going around blocking emergency radios to that last things list.

[http://tbo.com/news/business/fcc-seffner-man-was-using- cell-...](http://tbo.com/news/business/fcc-seffner-man-was-using-cell-phone- jammer-20140429/)

"When Hillsborough County Sheriffs deputies stopped the SUV, their own two-way radios were jammed."

<comment><USER7> By default I assume law enforcement is exaggerating for effect, but lot of emergency radios are on 800Mhz, AT&T (as one example) uses 850Mhz, so it wouldn't be hard to imagine a radio transmitter that cuts a wide swath (e. g., jammer) and interferes with other radios.

<comment><USER8> Do you not understand how jammers work? They are not narrow-band devices.

<comment><USER9> This depends on the jammer. They range from jam-almost-everything, to jamming only specific wavelengths (configurable or not), to jamming only specific protocols (which is more technically a DOS attack, but still functions like jamming).

Assuming the driver was using a wavebubble, it's likely that it would jam police radios as well (depending on configuration).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Certainly a terrible idea on every level, but I can't help but sympathize with the intent.

Too much of the public simply aren't responsible about driving and there doesn't seem to be any good way to identify and prevent or penalize them for it.

<comment><USER11> I can't.

There are accidents where even seconds matter and the effects of the jamming can mean the difference between life and death or even simply a shift in the a victim's odds. Or consider emergency services whose radios were affected: maybe paramedics were radioing in status updates to a hospital, or perhaps police officers were in the middle of receiving an Amber alert. Or, imagine that he's injured in an accident himself. He, and anyone else potentially injured in such an accident, are potentially at risk because people can't notify 911. If he's lucky, he's able to turn it off. If he's unlucky, and is incapacitated or otherwise unable to turn it off, well, that's quite the problem now, isn't it?

I hate dreaming up hypotheticals, but this story practically demands it. His actions were no less selfish than someone else's texting while driving.

<comment><USER12> A friend of mine used to rant about cellphones in theaters, and thought theaters should install jammers (as in, he was actually surprised that none had done this yet). The fact is, they're a primary communication device for many people. Who knows when you might receive a call that you _have_ to take (for certain jobs or with situations concerning family or friends), or when you _need_ to make a phone call (see the Aurora shooting or the recent one in FL for violent examples, but even a heart attack or some other medical emergency). Jammers just aren't a good idea for 99.999% of the situations people suggest using them.

<comment><USER13> Somehow, back before cell phones were invented, we all miraculously managed to live our lives without having constant access to a telephone. If you needed to call someone, you stepped away from whatever you were doing and called them. If Aunt Mabel had a heart attack, you'd find out about it, just not 500ms after it happened. If someone wasn't happy with how you filled out your TPS report at work, you'd go into the office in the morning and fix it.

<comment><USER14> The problem is we are dismantling our land line network. So if you don't have cell phone there might not by any phone in the building that works. Next what about emergency workers? They need to be able to be contacted. Or what about people on call for their jobs? All of these things could be blocked by jammers and the idea that we survived once without it unconvincing we survived once without vacancies and antibiotics too.

<comment><USER15> Huh? Where are "we" dismantling our landline network?

<comment><USER16> Are you being deliberately obtuse?

Every payphone I've ever seen in my lifetime has been removed.

<comment><USER15> Payphones are endpoints, the network is much more than that. Except for the few examples listed in another answer, most of the infrastructure is still intact, i.e. you can get a landline in your home if you want one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> About 20 years ago, an electrical engineer friend of mine had built himself a small (~10 GHz, IIRC?) transmitter about the size of a garage door opener. It had a single red button on it that, when pressed, emitted a signal in one of the frequency bands that radar detectors picked up.

As a teenager, it was amusing to watch another car go zipping past us on the highway and then see their brake lights come on right after Nathan would hit the button.

</comment><comment><USER18> My mom's SUV was totaled by a woman who was on her iPad while driving. I really don't think we'll be fixing the idiots-on-the-road epidemic anytime soon.

<comment><USER19> The solution is not only logical, but also an answer to lots of other problems: ditch the car-centric culture and move these people out from their cars to buses, trains, trams, bicycles and other forms of sustainable transport. It's not that hard, takes some time getting used to, but will do good to all of us.

<comment><USER20> Here's another non-obvious solution to the problem:

Start making sure that insurance companies have no payouts if the driver's phone was on X amount of time before the accident. That way they pay for their own damage, and the damage done to everyone around them. Regardless if they were "at fault" using conventional reasoning.

How about another one: Require all vehicles to install cell phone tethers that have the driver's registered sim card in it. Disable it during the drive. Mandate it's installation, and penalize people that break it, even more so if they were in an accident.

Almost ALL problems have a technical/legislative solution for them. The only real problem is that no one has either the resolve, balls, lawyers, political backing, or money to implement/require those technical/legislative solutions. So all we get are half-asses solutions with selective (and sometimes biased) enforcement by the police/courts.

<comment><USER21> "Almost ALL problems have a technical/legislative solution for them"

Still waiting to hear practical solutions, because the ones you gave thus far don't cut it in the real world, IMO.

I like using my phone (responsibly, in a dashboard mount) as a network- connected mapping/GPS device. If I'm heading to an event with a guest and running late, I like being able to ask a passenger to quickly use my phone to call ahead and let them know, etc, etc.

I'm all for attempts to keep people off their phones while they are driving (even when using a hands-free system, because there is quite a bit of evidence that just removing the button-pushing part doesn't help), but there are a lot of perfectly valid use cases that would be destroyed by either of your solutions.

<comment><USER22> > Still waiting to hear practical solutions, because the ones you gave thus > far don't cut it in the real world, IMO.

That's because the real world is developing self driving cars, and they are relatively boring: there is no revenge in that, and they won't save the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I got to play with these in Afghanistan. They were installed in our SUVs but they were so huge and unwieldy. I'd be interested in seeing what setup he had. Unless the traffic was very dense and slow, I'd imagine him just forcing calls to be dropped as he passed by which doesn't really seem helpful. Restaurants/theaters/anywhere-there-be-tweens, yeah bring it on in those locales!

<comment><USER24> They're (cellular frequency jammers) down to the size of a cigarette pack, and can run off 12V aux power in your car. Range isn't terribly great (~100ft).

Examples: [http://www.phonejammer.com/home.php?cat=249](http://www.phonejammer.com/home.php?cat=249)

Mods: I posted the link (which was the first google result for "cell phone jammer") just to show what the size and cost was. If it needs to be removed, please feel free to remove my comment in its entirety.

<comment><USER25> A friend has one of these compact models from China, and it works just as you'd expect. It will completely kill any and all cell phone connections (or WiFi, or Bluetooth) within a large room. Apparently it can run for several hours on battery, or the length of a long movie.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Any solution that tries to pry people from their amazing magic boxes is going to fail. They're too damn good and only getting better. We just need self- driving cars and VR(/AR).

<comment><USER27> There's also a lot of room for improvement on the UI-side of things. Ideally, drivers shouldn't need to touch their phones to access the data or service they want; everything I want to do in the car ought to be voice-accessible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does anyone here work for a wireless service provider? It would be interesting to hear how major sources of interference are identified and dealt with.

<comment><USER29> Causing interference is generally covered by regulation, and the FCC enforces it. See some examples for violation of amateur radio misuse: [http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/AmateurActions/Welcome.html](http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/AmateurActions/Welcome.html)

edit: I don't work for a wireless service provider, but I'm into amateur radio.

<comment><USER7> And to follow up on what TallGuyShort says, they most likely triangulate just as for amateur radio when looking for transmissions that violate regulations.

Or, come to think of it, if you know the transmitter goes down I-4 everyday, just sit by the side of the road with a receiver and watch signal strength. I-4 can be pretty crowded, but it shouldn't be hard to narrow it down as the signal gets stronger then starts to tail off.

<comment><USER30> I learned from another HN comment that the correct word for this is trilaterate, not triangulate.

<comment><USER29> No it isn't - in this case triangulation is the correct technique. Trilateration is when you measure distances. For instance, locating the epicenter of an earthquake is done by comparing the time at which various waves arrive, and making calculations based on the known speeds of those waves. Doing that with the speed of light at terrestrial distances is very tough and will be prone to inaccuracies and large errors. Instead, you measure the angles at which the signal is strongest, and that is triangulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've dreamed of doing this for a decade, even found some sources in the U.K. to purchase a few and looked up schematics for building wideband jammers.

Ultimately it was the very serious approach the FCC takes that stopped me from really exploring it, even for fun. Everthing I'd read indicated that you'd be caught and fast, so I'm sort of surprised it took two years, even if it was on a highway.

But lord I still might push it whenever I'm at the grocery store and someone's doing a remote, live shopping list with their wife down every aisle.

<comment><USER32> Why is a husband and wife talking to each other in a grocery store so vexing? Is it only if one is remote, or have you also looked into the ramifications of muzzling fellow shoppers? Is it that you prefer to hear both sides of stranger's conversations?

I ask in a flippant way, just to highlight the incongruence, but I'm sincerely curious.

<comment><USER33> I think the image here in this person's mind is of someone bumbling around an isle, not looking where they're going (2 people tend to look around more and be more cogniscent of their environment, especially when the sounds they're listening to are coming from the environment (human voice, 3 feet away) and not a small box a few inches away)... and then occasionally yelling, "WHAT?!!?" into the phone when they can't hear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> There are a few more details in the FCC's official "Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture," which was released yesterday:

      On June 14, 2013, agents from the Tampa Office tested the seized cell phone
      jammer and confirmed that it was capable of jamming cellular and PCS
      communications in at least three frequency bands: 821-968 MHz, 1800-2006 MHz,
      and 2091-2180 MHz.

— [http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2014...](http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2014/db0429/FCC-14-55A1.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER35> The real surprise here is that MetroPCS noticed the lack of service.

As someone who has used Cricket [they bundle Sprint and MetroPCS together] ... they couldn't care less about spotty reception within their given coverage map.

</comment><comment><USER36> Note from Europe: fairly soon all cars will be _required_ to include a mobile system with GPS that will automatically call the emergency services if the car is involved in an accident. This system is called "eCall".

[http://www.heero- pilot.eu/ressource/static/files/2013_12_09_...](http://www.heero- pilot.eu/ressource/static/files/2013_12_09_ecall-implementation-for-psaps.pdf)

It's not just humans that need to make emergency phone calls without being jammed.

</comment><comment><USER37> "Agents from the FCC used direction finding techniques to find that strong wideband emissions were coming out of a blue Toyota Highlander SUV driven by Humphreys."

This I find interesting and am curious what devices they had to obtain in order to accomplish this.

I used to work for a telco that, to this day, continues to have this very issue with _someone_ in a remote rural location. By the time the NOC can inform local law enforcement the jammer has left the area, seemingly impossible to track.

<comment><USER38> Tracking radio signals with two spectrum analyzers, two Yagi type directional antennas is pretty trivial. If you know the probable location set up two (or more for a faster fix) people with gps units and their hand held antennas. Tell them the frequency and they can read back their headings (you know their position from GPS). After about 3 minutes of this you have the transmitter location to a precision of less than 12" if it isn't moving.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Does anyone know if it is illegal for the military to operate these within the United States? I'm not sure they're in use, but I did notice that an unreasonably high percentage of my phone calls were (perhaps coincidentally) dropped when I was on I-395 near the Pentagon.

</comment><comment><USER40> Does anyone know if it would be legal to use something like this if it was sufficiently clear with big signs?

I'm thinking movie theaters or coffee shops that have huge signs "Your cell phone will not work in there. If you don't agree, don't come in", etc.

<comment><USER7> Putting a sign up is not the equivalent to an FCC license. And if you're going to transmit radio waves, you'll need an FCC license (yes, there are exceptions and I'm vastly simplifying for this specific topic). Good luck with getting the FCC to grant you that license.

That's not to say that a movie theater or coffee shop couldn't passively attenuate cell phone signals with metallic paint or other equivalents to a giant Faraday cage. But ensuring that you're not being an ass with your radio transmissions is the FCC's specific task.

<comment><USER41> If you could ensure that the interference didn't extend pass your own property, I don't think there should be a problem. That's probably not how the FCC works though.

<comment><USER42> This is like trying to exert control over the airspace (e.g. for airplanes) on your property. It is completely unworkable.

<comment><USER41> I don't see why it's like that at all. Am I not allowed to create a small faraday cage in my garage, and inside that test out a cell phone jamming device? Why does it matter if there's literally no measurable effect on the surrounding property?

<comment><USER42> I'm not a lawyer but I do read FCC regs for fun...

A passive faraday cage on your own property that's not open to the public probably isn't an issue. As far as size goes you would be subject to local building codes of course.

Once you get into active jamming however that requires you to transmit and to transmit you need a license from the FCC. The right to transmit anywhere in the US is under the FCC's jurisdiction and doesn't have anything to do with the landowner. It may seem strange to divorce airwave rights from property rights but it's not that different from water rights or mineral rights or airspace rights, which have a long legal history of being divorced from landowner rights.

When you open your faraday cage to the public it gets a little tricky too, because if a "licensee" has the legal right to be somewhere according to you and the legal right to transmit or receive according to the FCC then you can't really legally prevent them from doing both at the same time. This idea, which is called the "OTARD rule" in some situations, is interpreted to force landlords to allow tenants to install WiFi and satellite equipment on rented property for example.

There probably is an FCC rule that would prevent stores or movie theaters or similar public places from jamming via a Faraday cage, but since actively jamming is cheaper I am not aware of any actual instances of this type. So in that sense it's a test case, but I'm reasonably certain which way it would go.

<comment><USER41> > It may seem strange to divorce airwave rights from property rights but it's > not that different from water rights or mineral rights or airspace rights

It seems very much different to me, because all of those things have very obvious externalities for your neighbors. My example, where you build a faraday cage and test a signal jammer inside that cage, has no externalities (assuming a hypothetical perfect faraday cage). There would be no measurable signal an inch outside the faraday cage, and certainly none at your neighbor's property.

<comment><USER42> Well like I said, I don't think anybody's coming after you for building a faraday cage for yourself.

If you do it in a movie theater though, it presents a safety issue, and that's a negative externality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> If you don't like people driving and talking on their cell phones while driving near you then there is on easy solution. It is hard to find many good tech jobs near the radio observatory though, so this option might not be good for the HN crowd. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Radio_Qu...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Radio_Quiet_Zone)

</comment><comment><USER44> My opinion is probably in the minority on this issue, but I think cell phones should be disabled by default near vehicles(Except for emergency services). As a stick-driver and motorcyclist, I see way too many distracted drivers. People will miss lights, swerve, and worse because of their cell phones.

The one thing that will help reverse this trend will be self-driving cars.

<comment><USER45> This completely ignores everyone considerate enough to car pool. One of the major advantages is being able to read emails, check news, etc. If you can't do anything on your phone, it kind of wrecks one of the major perks.

<comment><USER44> A very valid point. I wonder what people did before all of these wonderful gadgets. Enjoy the scenery?

<comment><USER46> Read books, papers, do some noting/writing work if the ride is smooth.

That's actually another good argument for self-driving cars. The used-to-be- driver doesn't have to waste his/her time anymore during commute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I wonder if he was jamming or doing something else

There has recently been a crackdown in China on people driving around with a device that can hack and spam cellphones.

I think the way it works is by spoofing a basestation.

It's range is short and it has to be kept on the move to avoid detection so the scammers drive it around busy areas all day.

I'll try to find more info if anyone is interested.

</comment><comment><USER48> I can understand the desire. But at the same time, I use Spotify while I'm driving and it would be really annoying to me that a crazy spacebat with a jammer blocked my tunes. But as is pointed out already, I feel certain this would actually increase distracted driving.

</comment><comment><USER49> On a related note, anyone know why cinemas don't have some form of shielding/Faraday caging to prevent people from making calls? You could shield just the movie halls themselves, so people can still make emergency calls from the lobbies.

<comment><USER50> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7676514](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7676514)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Great way to prevent people you drive around from calling 911...

</comment><comment><USER52> "A Florida man..." \-- should be disclosed in the article title (kinda how the link domain is shown).

</comment><comment><USER53> If only the police was that determined to also find and punish the irresponsible drivers.

</comment><comment><USER3> I appreciate this guy's intent but he doesn't need to do this. Texting while driving is the leading cause of death for teens. The problem is fixing itself.

<comment><USER46> If only they killed/permanently injured _just themselves_ , not innocent people...

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> My impression that the biggest domestic market for these is hotel operators, who secret them around the premises to force their customers to be gouged by the hotel phone.

EDIT: reference: [http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/07/business/07jamming.html?_r...](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/07/business/07jamming.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all)

There is disagreement about whether this actually happens in the US; seems to be more evidence for it in the UK.

<comment><USER55> I know of a dentist who has one to stop patients using their phones. As someone who works in a hospital, I can see his point. People answer their phones in the middle of procedures. Some even make calls during them.

<comment><USER56> Did he ever consider asking his patients to stop?

<comment><USER55> I don't know, but we have several signs and yet I have still needed to ask patients to stop. It probably happens once or twice a month. Not quite as frequent is those who try to video their procedure. While I get irritated, I'd get more bothered by not being able to make or receive calls myself if a jammer was installed. A good compromise is to have patients seated near an MRI Faraday cage - it works just as well and doesn't break laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I don't know if you noticed this but in my area most of retail stores have terrible cellphone reception. I'm assuming they put cell jammers in their store too

<comment><USER58> There are building materials that naturally block/reflect/absorb mobile frequencies which is perfectly legal.

That is different from transmitting a signal to jam which is highly illegal.

<comment><USER59> One other trick is to advertise as a cell and accept connections, then just black-hole them.

Full signal strength but no calls.

Edit: may be illegal in your jurisdiction if you require a license to transmit on cell frequencies.</comment></comment></comment>


MSI PS63 or MSI GS65? - <AUTHOR> I need a new laptop, and I'm searching the web to make the right choice.
And I found two Cool laptops with great specs and they are available in my country, but I'm having hard time to pick the more suitable one for my needs.
I'm working as web & mobile developer, I those are my needs for my new laptop:
1- Long battery life ( cause we have electricity issues and sometimes it struggles my work )
2- Running multiple virtual machines.
3- Sometimes I play games (but not so often).
4- High quality screen (I'm watching a lot of series and movies).
5- hoping it will serve me for the next 5 years
Firstly, I chose MSI PS63
1- it has great battery life ( UP to 16 hours)
2- GTX 1050 MAX Q GDDR5 4GB GPU
3- it has Intel Core i7-8565U ( it's not good compared to H & HQ types)
4- 16GB of ram DDR4
4- light weight & very beautiful design
5- the quality of its screen is pretty good
6- 512 SSD
but my friends told me that the type U processor is kinda weak comparing to H & HQ types, and its price kinda very high to it's specs (1800$) for the 32GB, 512SSD version. And they suggested me to take the GS65 cause its has more powerful specs and just cost me only 200$ over the PS63 price to get it.
1- battery life ( UP to 8 hours)
2- GTX 1060 MAX Q GDDR6 GB GPU
3- 16GB of ram DDR4
4- Intel Core i7-8750H CPU
5- 512 SSD
but the battery is the thing that I'm not sure about in the GS65, so guys if anyone used some laptop from the two above help me to pick.
and if some one used the GS65 battery how it was. how many hours gonna last for development usage, and thank you very much for the help, sorry for my weak English, I hope that you will understand me :) <comment><USER2> For web and mobile development, you don't really need that much GPU power. Assuming you do, I like 15" for the size of the screen, but not 17" that it becomes non-portable. GS65 also comes with 32GB RAM which I like - good for running docker, VMs and simulators. CPU I really don't care, so long above quad-core is okay, better to be above 8th Gen, which they are.

Other than RAM, I like PS63's aesthetics, far from Macbooks' build quality, but it's really good. I guess it would be a good MBA alternative. Trackpad probably not great.

I'd say RAM might not be that great of a deal if you are aware your laptop's limits. I can reach bottleneck sometimes even with 64GB RAM because how crappy some Windows platform products are. I can't believe at one point Firefox or Chrome took over 16GB+ of my system memory.

So, if portability is important, do PS63. If you need more power, GS65, it's not that heavy, but definitely a noticeable difference.</comment>


I Am Worried About My Ears - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/i-am-worried-about-my-ears?currentPage=all <comment><USER3> Two unrelated thoughts:

1) While degrading sound quality the dynamic range compression actually helps with sound damage since you can hear quiet parts of a record without turning volume to eleven. Sure, it is nice to listen sometimes to Deep Purple or Beethoven 9th with proper dynamic range but it is rather taxing on ears in the louder parts then and probably not advisable in long run.

2) It looks like every singe headphone user I've encountered listens on insanely loud volume. Whenever I listen to someones work/home setup or stand near a listener in a bus/subway etc. in exactly 100% of cases the volume is too much for me (and I use headphones for two decades already). Tl;dr - <USER2> volume down if you care about your ears.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hearing is something we take for granted but when it becomes damaged it's going to stay damaged for good. Seeing how many people today are cocooning themselves in a world of sound, I worry what the consequences are going to be in the next twenty years or so?

I suffer from mild tinnitus and one effect, that most non-sufferers don't appreciate, is that when you're hearing is damaged it doesn't mean you're hearing everything at low volume. Some sound is muffled, sure but higher frequency sounds can be much more acute. This leads to anxiety and stress in public places that other folks find hard to understand.

I am fortunate in that I can work from home or a private office, I'm not forced to spend my days in a shared work space or other noisy environment; I think I would suffer a nervous breakdown if I was?

If you're currently using loud music to cancel out the noise in your workplace, or during your commute to work, stop now and find some other way of dealing with it because damaging your hearing is not the solution.

</comment><comment><USER5> The author links to a hearing test, but I find it seriously lacking. Basically it's uncalibrated "what's the lowest volume you can hear those three tones at?" followed by a questionnaire.

There are much, much better tests readily available[0], although as always, if you have any doubts seeing a professional and using properly calibrated equipment is best.

[0]: [http://www.audiocheck.net/testtones_hearingtestaudiogram.php](http://www.audiocheck.net/testtones_hearingtestaudiogram.php)

</comment><comment><USER6> I used to rely on the New Yorker to give me thought-provoking and meaningful content. Has it really gotten this pedestrian? Our ears are pretty resilient. Yes, jamming earbuds and blasting 'Appetite for Destruction' on the regular is not a great idea and could eventually give you tinnitus or hyperacusis, but isn't that common sense at this point?

</comment><comment><USER7> Many things got mixed up here, let me try to untangle some of them:

There are many different types of hearing loss and hearing impairments. Damaged Hair-cells (actually it's the stereocilia) are only one type that happens mostly to people who are exposed to high sound pressure over a long time (or very high sound pressure over short time). Constant noise of a city is not nearly loud enough to do that physiologically.

But listening with inear headphones can and will damage your hair cells if you listen too loud regularly.

Regarding hearing tests: Forget online hearing tests - they're total bullshit. Even many of the tests done by professionals result in useless data because it's you who needs to tell them whether or not you hear a specific frequency. And the result only compares your abilities to a standard for your age (see below about individuality). Therefor the results are highly dependent on you're psyche, health, mood,...

Another mixup is sound pressure (physical volume) vs subjective loudness. High sound pressure can damage your hair cells, high loudness cannot if sound pressure is reasonably low. While the thing with loudness wars is bothersome sometimes, it's not dangerous.

Oh I forgot about frequency related hearing loss: Many people think that you can hear 20-20000Hz, but this is only a rough estimation and more importantly highly individual and age related. So it's totally possible that your same-age friend does or does not hear frequencies you do. Most people don't get past 16-17k at all. Secondly, the highest frequencies you're able to perceive get lower and lower as you get older. Many old people can't perceive frequencies higher than 8-10kHz. While they hear worse then others the critical frequency areas for speech (formants) lie way below that. Even music perception works quite fine (although it won't be that crisp anymore).

Tinnitus is another story which can have so many causes (destroyed haircells being only one), stress, tendons in the neck and some others.

So don't pull up the volume unnecessarily on your earphones and you'll be fine.

Edit: Fixed typos.

<comment><USER8> What about noise cancelling earphones? They should allow to listen to music much less loud - any adverse effect is known?

<comment><USER7> Yes as far as I know that's a pretty good reason to use noise cancelling earphones. You could still turn the volume up too high though if you didn't care about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Worry not, dear author! Being mindful of your inner-ear health is certainly a good habit, but (moderate) hearing loss is not as scary as you might think.

I have oteosclerosis with accompanying inner-ear damage after stapedectomy or -dotomy, I forgot. I lost 10-20dB on one ear, 20-40dB on the other. I am amazed how much psychoacoustics save the day. Music does feel a little different, but it is no less beatiful to listen to. In some pieces I discovered brass sections I never truly appreciated, but most songs did not change by much. More importantly, my kids and I are still able to sing together as before.

The bothersome bits about hearing loss are having to ask "could you repeat that?" a lot, not hearing quiet sounds (kid's breathing at night, oncoming cars at a distance), and being more sensitive to loud noises. But so far, music stayed beatiful.

ps: If anyone from Netflix is reading this, it would be amazing if I could set a N-second delay for subtitles so that they don't spoil the jokes for me and everyone else. Even better would be if I could view them on my cell phone while we all watch on the big screen. I don't need subtitles all the time, just occasionally, for the bits I didn't understand.

<comment><USER10> Hearing loss is one thing, but the tinnitus that often goes with it can at the worst destroy your career and your life (people do commit suicides because of it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure if it's normal, but I can flex the muscles inside my ears. When I do it I can hear the muscles trembling loudly which overpowers other sounds. It helps reduce the noise level and pain if there is a loud noise, especially when I cannot put my fingers in my ears.

<comment><USER12> Careful with this, you might be doing more than just flexing your tensor tympani muscle, you might also control the pressure inside your ear.

I can do both of these. The latter is rather dangerous in the long term, although in the short term it does reduce the perceived volume quite a bit. For some reason when I was a kid I preferred a negative pressure in my ears which deformed my eardrum. I still do and I concisely need to remind myself to reset the pressure back to normal.

<comment><USER13> Do you have any more info on this? I have unilateral deafness and am constantly increasing the pressure of my good ear throughout the day by popping it. (The way I do this is sort by blowing a quick burst of air out my nose and clicking my ear at the same time.) I have long worried it may not be healthy but I have been doing it for years and have no recorded hearing loss from it, I continue to do it because the added volume it gives me is sometimes the difference between having to ask "what?" a third time in a row.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> >In recent decades, mastering engineers have been tasked with making studio albums louder via the application of something called dynamic range compression; essentially, the volume gets turned up on the quiet bits, and turned down on the loud bits. The cumulative effect is a song that sounds bigger and punchier

The writer doesn't seem to understand loudness here. This is exactly the opposite effect of DRC (dynamic range compression). Music gets less punchier and sounds smaller, as transients are pushed down in the mix. Listening to music with less DRC is more damaging to your ears (although it sounds better), if you are comparing two tracks with equal loudness. Keeping loudness constant in this comparison is valid because we will adjust the volume knob based on the track's psychoacoustic loudness.

Example: [https://youtu.be/3Gmex_4hreQ?t=10](https://youtu.be/3Gmex_4hreQ?t=10) and [https://youtu.be/3Gmex_4hreQ?t=70](https://youtu.be/3Gmex_4hreQ?t=70) have roughly the same loudness. The first has less DRC and is more damaging to your hearing.

This misunderstanding breaks down half of the article's argument. The other half---that loud music is cooler than it was decades ago---is probably valid I guess.

<comment><USER15> It also isn't really compression that's being used but brick wall limiting. While many compressors can do a form of this, there are still the usual suspects that started the loudness wars-like waves L2 ultramaximizer. For the most part the egregious over limiting has fallen out of fashion but things way more compressed than they used to be. Light soft knee compression can make things sound a bit punchier since they don't affect the initial attack transient but boost volume of the remander of the sound.

<comment><USER14> Yes, I shouldn't be stealing the term _dynamic range compression_ from the article since that's inaccurate. _Hard dynamics_ would be a better term to describe overcompression, brick wall limiting, and maximizing.

Slow-attack compression certainly makes things sound punchier, but do they increase transients relative to the loudness of the track? No, I still think they can only decrease them.

Hearing is damaged by large absolute volumes of transients, with the small exception that your ears are able to become slightly temporarily desensitized around high levels of loudness. Since higher loudness causes listeners to turn down music, they will also turn down the transients, so loudness makes tracks safer.

Possibly the worst thing to do to your hearing music-wise, is to listen to uncompressed kick drums for half and hour. They might even not sound loud at all, but the pain will start kicking in before you know it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This article has somewhat of an air of the callowness of youth, or perfect health, about it.

When you're young, your body works perfectly pretty much. The first time you develop an issue with your senses for example, it is quite shocking; going from a state of perfection to imperfection, you focus on that one flaw.

As I age and more stuff is not working optimally, I have just stopped giving a shit about these sort of issues, adopting a 'even the mona lisa's fallin apart' attitude. I dont focus on the flaws, I focus on what I can still _do_. Even if I'm only physically operating at 80% of my former capacity, say, I'm still capable of accomplishing what I want to if I apply myself.

<comment><USER17> I hope I will be able to adopt this attitude some time, because right now, the imperfections really bum me out.

<comment><USER16> Im a big science geek, reading pop-sci books from all fields. One thing I came across is some work on human happiness. Apparently humans have a default state of happiness, which is, 'I'm ok but I could be doing a bit better'. All humans, from millionaires to poverty stricken, are almost always in this state, a relative gain or loss will temporarily make you more or less happy but you will quickly return to this default. As an evolutionary trait it makes sense, a successful species wont be totally depressed and suicidal, or be totally blissed out, not bothering to compete for resources and mates. Also on a physiological level your body will produce a certain amount of dopamine and serotonin and other mood chemicals.

The upshot of all this is that unless you are clinically depressed or have some serotonin production deficiency or some-such, then other ailments, hearing and vision impairment wont really affect your overall happiness. They will _initially_ but then you will get used to that state and your happiness will return to its status quo level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> When I cycle to work, I sometimes say things to honking drivers that honk for a non serious issue (out of frustration, because they don't want to let someone pass, because they think that someone is stupid, …) because I'm getting fed up with the constant noise.

Half of the drivers say something like: "well, go live in the forest then". I find it incredible that silence is ignored these days and that a noisy city is becoming the norm; it's a shame: it makes us more stressed and less relaxed.

The majority of noises could be suppressed: honkings, old train brakes, motorbikes without an exhaust, …, but people don't really seem to care (but I'm sure it impacts everybody).

<comment><USER19> What's the deal with obnoxiously loud motorcycles?

I just cannot understand the appeal of riding around on something which molests the eardrums of everyone within a 400ft radius.

<comment><USER20> It's so that car drivers can hear us and remember to look up from their phones and not kill us.

Seriously though; the noise issue divides even the motorcycle community. Advocates will tell you "loud pipes save lives" and are usually the equivalent of "car guys" that live/breath bikes. Other will tell you that the only defense is defensive riding and it's annoying.

I agree it's annoying, my bike isn't that loud, but anecdotally when I've ridden louder bikes I feel safer; riding a bicycle I feel invisible. I always hear loud bikes before I see them.

I wouldn't mind a louder bike, because I love the sound of engines; but I'd feel self-conscious riding it around my house. The sound wouldn't be a problem for my hearing because I wear custom ear plugs.

<comment><USER18> Exactly: the sound isn't a problem for you (the riders), but it's a big problem for the people that live around you.

<comment><USER20> Sure, but I'm suggesting that the lack of a sound also presents a problem for us, the riders.

I don't think riders need extremely loud exhausts to be safe, but an exhaust sound adds an element of safety that cannot be ignored. It's the same reason why all vehicles are fitted with horns, after all.

I think people might be more understanding if they rode a motorcycle in a busy city for a few months, and realised how many drivers (at least in my city, London) are far too busy looking at Facebook to drive.

Driverless cars can't come soon enough; though I'm sure that road will lead to motorcycles being made illegal anyway - but that's another story...

<comment><USER21> One of my driver's ed instructors was a rider who opposed loud pipes. His reasoning was that drivers ahead look left or right to find the sound, often drifting slightly when they do. Then the risk of the motorcycle being hit is increased anyway.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


If Facebook is a virtual nation, it's a tyrannical one - <AUTHOR> http://blog.backupify.com/2010/06/24/if-facebook-is-a-virtual-nation-its-a-tyrannical-one/ <comment><USER2> I couldn't agree more, and I think this will have to change if they're to survive for the long run and not becoe the next MySpace or GeoCities. I wrote an article about this a couple of weeks ago.

Digital Sharecropping and The Future of Social Media: [http://voltagecreative.com/articles/digital-sharecropping- so...](http://voltagecreative.com/articles/digital-sharecropping-social- media/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Agree with the point of there being no Facebook constitution or guaranteed rights, but with the line: "You're a Facebook customer, not a Facebook citizen", I thought advertisers are the customer and the 500 million fb users are the product.

<comment><USER4> Advertisers pay the corporate government of Facebookistan handsomely for privileged access to its willingly captive (the most lucrative kind of captive) population of consumers.</comment></comment>


List of Microsoft Domains - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_domains <comment><USER2> Seems very outdated.</comment>


An app that syncs your battery across devices - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.paranoidgems.potential

<comment><USER2> How does it work? Syncs in what terms?

<comment><AUTHOR> It shows battery status of all your devices at one place.</comment></comment>


Off the block - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21662595-economists-may-idolise-auctions-most-people-do-not-block?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/Offtheblock

<comment><USER3> This article focuses too much on economic theory of auctions generally, and it focuses too much on what buyers prefer. There are some fundamental flaws to eBay in particular that have doomed auctions, and these flaws affect seller behavior even more than buyer behavior.

eBay does nothing to screen buyers. Therefore there are many bidders who are not serious about buying. They bid on items, win them, and do not pay. I have had bidders win my items and then say "I don't want to buy this item, sorry." As a seller there is no practical recourse against these bidders.

This could easily be solved by requiring bidders to put down a deposit. They could be required to post their entire bid amount, but even requiring some deposit--10%, or 50%--of the bid amount would cut down on people bidding who have no intention to buy. If you win the item but don't pay, you would forfeit the deposit.

As it is, a bidder wins the auction and does not pay, and as a practical matter the seller must re-list the item. This is a hassle, and time is lost.

Sniping is another problem that is easily solved. Simply make the auction more like a live auction: each bid extends the auction time by a time period (a few minutes, a few hours, whatever) to allow additional bids. You set a reasonable bid increment so that this does not become a massive waste of time. eBay has not done this either.

As a result the auction winds up being a time sink for sellers and buyers alike, with doubtful value for price discovery. It does nothing for price discovery if some fool bids $200 for something that is worth only $150, especially when the fool is just jacking around and has no intention on paying. I will never again auction on eBay. If I have something whose value I don't know and I really want to practice price discovery, I would just post it at a high "Buy It Now" price, with a note in the listing stating that I will lower the price periodically until someone buys. But even that is a lot of trouble. eBay is just too much hassle, and the auctions are even more hassle with no benefit. It's no wonder sellers are jumping to platforms like Amazon, especially for commodity items with obvious prices.

</comment><comment><USER4> The best way to buy used products since web 1.0 has either been craigslist (local, negotiating) or ebay (online auction). But both are terribly run companies that have let their business models fail. Sadly, they're the de facto market leaders, and network effects mean they won't easily be replaced or "disrupted".

IMO this isn't a failure of auctions, it's a failure of ebay.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is old news.

A while back I was running out of space so I was selling old books and other things and thought auctions on Ebay would be a good way to get rid of the stuff since the stuff would be gone in 7 days.

Unfortunately it wasn't. Many of the auctions had no bidders, so this was not a working discovery mechanism.

One issue with eBay, the Amazon Marketplace and many other online marketplaces is that you don't get to see the bid and ask spread. That is, you might see somebody selling a book for $135 but you have no idea if anybody will buy the book at $135 or even $35 for the matter. This uncertainty creates conflict for anyone who wants to participate in the marketplace.

I did some searching on the web and found a market maker, who had me type in the numbers for my books, movies and video games and gave me a quote. I put the stuff in a box, and they paid me by e-check.

Another ebay killer is the emergency of Etsy. It used to be that you could find quirky things on Ebay that you could not get in stores, but now so many stores list inventory on Ebay and the quirky stuff is on Etsy.

<comment><USER6> "market maker"? What is that and how did you find yours? I'd love to see what I could get for some stuff that is just taking up space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> EBay was wonderful, like most services it started off with normal people buying and selling their junk or stuff. Then you have sellers coming in to "make a living" on Ebay flooding the market with retail priced items. You've got buyers coming in who don't pay. These are hard problems to solve and have hurt other platforms. I have lots of stuff to sell, but I'm not sure I'd turn to EBay and have to compete with the flood of actual junk.

Pinterest has so much marketing spam now it is painful. Etsy has turned to the mass production sellers to turn up profits.

Increasing the bid when a bid is places is infuriating, if you want that stuff go to the penny bidding sites. Sniping only happens if you didn't set your bid to a level you were comfortable paying. If someone goes over that bid then you aren't out anything you weren't ready to part with.

</comment><comment><USER7> From the article:

>>Even for the snipers clever or lucky enough to make the winning bid, this process takes time and energy.

I'd be surprised if most if not all snipes were't automated. I don't think people sit round their PC with their finger on the buy button as the auction counts down.

<comment><USER8> Which raises the question: why not extend the time after the last bid that raises the price? Is this not how regular auctions function?

Another idea is: why doesn't eBay write their own bots for users to use, and call it a "bidding strategy"?

<comment><USER9> > I'd be surprised if most if not all snipes were't automated. I don't think > people sit round their PC with their finger on the buy button as the auction > counts down.

Most non-technical people, heck, even most technical people I know who use eBay regularly, don't use snipers. (Too bad for them.)

> Another idea is: why doesn't eBay write their own bots for users to use, and > call it a "bidding strategy"?

eBay takes a percentual share of the selling price, so they have an interest in high selling prices. Making sniping easier would lower selling prices. When all (or most) bidders will make bids shortly before the auction, and - <USER2> is the important part - see each others bids and respond to them, that drives up the selling price "nicely".

<comment><USER10> > eBay takes a percentual share of the selling price, so they have an interest > in high selling prices.

They could also charge for snipe bots; setting off an arms race inside their platform which they profit from. I mean, it's scummy, but so is every eBay seller at this point.

<comment><USER9> I doubt that'd work; I don't think they could make it expensive enough that they don't loose money without driving users to free sniping tools.

(It's funny that there's a fee for the auction scheduling feature when good auction scheduling _increases_ selling prices.)

<comment><USER10> Easy, just charge say 1% of the selling price to snipe. Your "pro" buyers will still flock to free tools (because they know how to use them) but occasional buyers might go for it. They also have the "Buy it now" feature which kind of does the same thing.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


AC/DC Song Made with a Markov Chain - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpEVsDN84Hc&feature=emb_logo <comment><USER2> Honestly, this doesn't read like Markov chain output. It feels more like a human writing what they think a Markov chain would do. Or maybe autogenerating a bit of it and then having the human riff on whatever nonsense the generator produced to fill in most of the song.

<comment><USER3> The creator of something similar (but with Nickelback) posted on Reddit last week and went into a bit more detail, but essentially, he created a bunch of lyrics with a markov chain, then arranged them into the structure of a song.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/gc68t3/nickelbot_nob...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/gc68t3/nickelbot_nobody_died_every_single_day_pop_rock_i/fp9gck9?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x)

<comment><USER2> I don't buy that explanation, there's clearly a ton more human involvement here than just rearranging verses.

The output is far too grammatical and maintains too much thematic consistency across filler word distance to be output by a low-order Markov chain, but is too unique compared to the (very small) corpus to be output by a high-order one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems like the author only used a Markov chain to produce the lyrics, but the rest is sung by an AC/DC impersonator. It's still quite impressive, but I'd love to see the music itself generated by GANs as well.

<comment><USER5> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJgNpm8cTE8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJgNpm8cTE8)

<comment><USER6> Hot damn, technology is catching up with humans' manual creations. Your video is reminiscent of Adriano Celentano's song "Prisencolinensinainciusol"[1]–whereby he created a song to represent what English sounds like to non-native speakers[2].

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VsmF9m_Nt8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VsmF9m_Nt8)

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If the lyrics were all generated by a Markov chain from beginning to end, there's no way that it would have a repeating chorus.

Are all the 3-word tuples actually used in other AC/DC songs? (Output this grammatical could not be generated by a Markov chain that only looks at 2-word tuples.) If not, that also seriously calls their claim into question.

I think the maker would have done well to be more upfront: "AC/DC Song Co- authored by a Computer" or something like that.

</comment><comment><USER8> Love it!! One day we can just "order" a "new" Hitchcock movie or Crichton novel?!

<comment><USER9> More than that. If you don't like the first page you can just start a fresh one.

<comment><USER8> Nice!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment> default-kramer > Also let me say that trying to sing like Brian Johnson is extremely hard.

I think he did a very good job! You can easily tell the difference side-by- side, but still, it's close enough that I thought it was deepfaked at first.

</comment><comment><USER10> would love to see a blog post about it!

</comment><comment><USER11> cooool!!!

</comment><comment><USER12> 1000x times more listenable than an actual AC/DC song.</comment>


Flv.js – An HTML5 Flash Video Player - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Bilibili/flv.js <comment><USER2> Note the distinction between two types of js driven video playback that are possible. Those which require transcoding and those who can do with just transmuxing.

HTML5 playback can only support few codecs but FLV can contain a wide variety of video and audio codecs. Flv.js does a great job of transmuxing h.264 frames in a different container, hence it only plays those flv which are h.264/aac. Transcoding can make it possible to even play HEVC or any non-standard codec on browser. This can be heavy on CPU especially hand-held devices. When using one of these in production you must understand that it is not very practical to do transcoding on the fly like this : [https://strukturag.github.io/libde265.js/](https://strukturag.github.io/libde265.js/) . _It is theoretically possible to play vp9 on an ios or a hevc on a pc but this will be impractical for low-cpu devices._

<comment><USER3> Obviously this has value as a drop-in solution for some, but given what it's doing it seems like it'd be preferable for most situations to just re-mux the videos ahead of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if something like this could ever support DRM. I'm thinking of this mainly for playing Hulu videos on Linux[0]. I consistently have issues with Flash on Ubuntu with Hulu freezing or displaying something along the lines of "Error loading DRM content"

[0] [http://www.howtogeek.com/239682/how-to-watch-hulu-on- ubuntu-...](http://www.howtogeek.com/239682/how-to-watch-hulu-on-ubuntu-and- other-linux-distributions/)

<comment><USER2> Do you also get this problem with Chrome browser? If you are using Firefox, it uses an old flash player 11.2 which does not have full support for flash drm. Google chrome for linux comes pre-packaged with pepper-flash, a chrome-only port of the latest flash player. That one should work.

<comment><USER4> Chrome did the trick, I wish I had tried that ages ago. Both Hulu and Netflix only work with Chrome on Ubuntu for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Relies on Media Source Extensions, pretty widely supported already : [http://caniuse.com/#feat=mediasource](http://caniuse.com/#feat=mediasource)

</comment><comment> yoz-y I wonder. Could something like this be packaged as an extension and thus enable javascript-powered codecs for browsers that do not have the full set? (webm for Safari comes to mind)

<comment> TD-Linux Yes, in fact it's even deployed on Wikipedia: [https://github.com/brion/ogv.js/](https://github.com/brion/ogv.js/)

<comment><USER6> Seriously, the contributions of Brion Vibber to the world are completely undersung.

However, isn't this server side and not clientside?

<comment> TD-Linux Nope, it's a clientside "polyfill of <video>", basically. Try out the demo in the page - it does all playback in Javascript and WebGL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> IIRC, before Google bought them, some of On2 Technologies' earlier VP codecs were used in Flash Player (Wikipedia says VP6 and VP7). Are they similar enough to WebM's VP8 that transcoding would be simple? (I'm guessing not.)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm wondering if Adobe couldn't just run flash through emscripten for WebAssembly. I'd be curious what problems are still there. Offscreen Canvas is coming soon which should help in some ways.

<comment><USER9> Honestly, that would make sense and make a lot of people who are still invested in Flash pretty happy. They may prefer to devote those resources toward their current technologies rather than continuing to support the dying Flash development platform, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This looks like it would have been really useful 5 years ago!

</comment><comment><USER11> Any live demos of this playing H264 or RTMP?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can click into any video in bilibili.com (flv.js authoring company's video site) and select HTML5 player(with google translate).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The million dollar question. Will it play flv with alpha channels?

</comment><comment><USER13> I imagine this is for video site's that still have a lot of flv's which they'll never reencode but want to work on devices that don't have flash player.

<comment><USER14> Maybe, but then again it says "long live FLV!" on the github page, as if they actually favor this format.

<comment><USER15> It's a play on the phrase "The king is dead, long live the king!", which means long live the successor, who is flv.js in this case.

<comment><USER14> Yes I understand the origin of the phrase.

To keep running with your great story about the king, it is not the JS library which is the successor, as you claim, it's still FLV. Which brings us back to the original question of why this was done in the first place - the reason now I don't even care to know.

<comment><USER15> I assumed it was done for historic reasons so in the future websites like archive.org could continue playing flash. (like Shumway [0]) We would lose a huge library of videos that were created in the format if we could no longer play them due to browser policies and the obsolescence of the format. In terms of video encoding, there are much better options these days that don't involve transmuxing from flash when you're already encoding in h.264, so it likely isn't so sites can continue serving Flash.

[0]: [https://github.com/mozilla/shumway](https://github.com/mozilla/shumway)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> an htm5 what?</comment>