For Their Children, Many E-Book Fans Insist on Paper - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/business/for-their-children-many-e-book-readers-insist-on-paper.html?hp

<comment><USER2> I remember very vividly some of my earliest extended reading experiences.

One day I found a whole box of old Marvel comics that someone had lovingly collected since the 40s, including first issues of entire heroes and villains! I had no idea what treasure I had unearthed. All I knew is that to an 7 year old, the combination of illustrations (even in black and white) and frame-by- frame storytelling was an incredible revelation! I spent the entire summer going through the whole box and passed them around to my siblings who loved them almost as much as I. This was the birth of my fascination with sci-fi and later fantasy stories (there was a surprising amount of mythology in Marvel comics, especially the old comics).

When I was a little older, around 9 or 10, my father bought me an entire set of thick encyclopedia books. Each one of the fifteen tomes was one inch thick or more. To a child, they initially looked intimidating as hell, though the color and texture of the covers as well as the detailed illustrations on perfectly smooth, polished paper was surprisingly attractive. At first, I would only use it to lookup something I did not know. But later, the interconnections and ease of reading was so great, that I ended up reading each book cover-to-cover! This is how I really discovered my appreciation of knowledge and how I gained strong confidence and desire in using and spending time in libraries for both work and pleasure.

Somehow, I doubt the depth of these childhood (self-)discovery and learning experiences could be easily replicated with any e-books... This is even if there were not so many distractions in modern-day life such as mobiles and the Internet.

Therefore, I am not surprised there is a move back to paper for parents.

In particular, I believe simply the tactile nature of books at the very earliest ages (say 1-7) is important. Humans are physical beings and they relate and respond most strongly to physical objects, even if it is to later discard that physicality. This instinct should be developed as early as possible when the brain development is most primitive.

In addition, a child gains the feeling of control, understands there's a difference between a thing and its representation in words and pictures directly, but that the representation itself is real and is a thing since you can hold and control it. This will then lead to a deeper understanding of the real revolution technologies provide later. Tip: it's not that you can use gestures on your iPad books! :)

<comment><USER3> This is a very narrow, romantic view of things. If a future kid finds a 40 year old e-book reader, would that be less of a find than the comics? more? Are books better because they wear and tear? I can buy a new book, then leave it outside in the sun and dew for a week, would that make it better? Why isn't a digital edition, that could also supply a kid with references to the original mythologies and books worse?

Would you like your child to learn about the world from a dated, occasionally incorrect encyclopaedia, simply because it weighs more? What is the difference between a print of a picture on paper than on a screen? Neither is an original creation. An artist can create a 100% digital image on his PC, but according to this logic, printing it in a book gives it some magical "quality". Books are not physical objects because they have pages. You're superimposing your own values, as someone who grew without computers on this era. Leafing through an old book isn't more or less enriching because of the weight, the yellowing pages and smell of old glue, but because of the discovery and learning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My daughter is 2 and every book I've purchased for her is a paper book. I also choose paper books when I'm getting a book for myself, but think it's a book my child should read in the future. I do this because I'm not sure if the ebook will be there in the future. Also, there's a higher probability of discover of the book on a bookshelf in my house instead of it being one of a thousand files on a computer somewhere.

<comment><USER5> _I do this because I'm not sure if the ebook will be there in the future._

This is why I wish ebooks were sold without DRM.

(For what it's worth, there are programs available that make it relatively easy to remove DRM from your purchased books. I use them on every book I buy for the very reasons you outlined.)

<comment><USER4> It's not just DRM. I'll be the first to admit that I'm terrible about maintaining my digital libraries. I'm slack on backups and I have files all over the place. Also, I don't put much stock in maintaining my digital library in "the cloud." I'm fairly confident that Google, Amazon, et. al. will be there in 15-20 years, but it's not a guarantee and no one knows what will actually happen with all that data once one of them does go belly up. Remember no one though Lehman Brothers would disappear in less than a week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love my Kindle, but I don't want my two year old daughter to use it.

Why? She's hard on things. If she tears a page out of a regular book, that's no big deal; if she cracks my Kindle's screen that's rather more annoying. If I had an iPad, that'd be even more worrying -- a $600 device is a bit much. I could read _to_ her from the ebook, but since she likes to read for herself I'd then have to get her child-safe copies anyway...

Also, the sort of books aimed at a two year old are pretty picture heavy. A Kindle has many strengths, but pictures are not among them.

As soon as she's onto less picture-heavy books, and I think she's trustable with such a device, I'll be letting her use one. I have no particular emotional attachment to the paper form, which I want to pass onto her.

<comment><USER7> I wouldn't worry about your Kindle's screen. I broke mine, and Amazon replaced it, even though it was completely my fault.

Although I agree about a Kindle and pictures.

<comment><USER6> It's less of an issue now that the Kindle's so much cheaper, admittedly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a yet another article reminiscing about "the old way" claiming "the new way" takes away something which was never there. There is nothing romantic about a book. There is nothing especially important to kids about print in contrast with a digital edition. It might not be a fair comparison taking a 600$, 10" monochrome ink-gray kindle reader and comparing it with a large, colourfully printed kids book, but assuming you have a device able to reproduce it, being sturdy enough to survive your average 2-years-old, what exactly is the advantage of a book? The idea that a tree died for it?

<comment><USER8> It's not a matter of romantic notions.

E-books all look and feel the same, plus they lack texture, smell and make no sound when a page is turned. They're an abstraction of the reading experience.

Everything about handling a book stimulates the senses. Books have weight, texture, colors, smells, and they make noise when pages are turned. Because they vary so wildly in size, typography and paper composition, there's an enormous variety of sensations to be had.

E-readers are great and convenient for grown-ups, because all we want is the content, but young children are at a time of their lives when they need to physically experience the world around them. Physical books are better than e-readers on that count.

<comment><USER3> ebooks have texture, color, they can make sounds, you need to interact with them to move. What you think of are toys, not books.

<comment><USER8> See, everything is a toy to a six year old. Everything they see, hear or handle shapes their development in some way. Devices like smartphones and tablets have great unique uses, like people in other comments are saying, so I'm not suggesting you ban kids from using them or anything.

But I maintain books have far more physical qualities than any tablet or e-reader. Variety, for starters. Tabs and e-readers all come in some shade of black or gray, they all present a very similar glass texture to the touch, and they only have that new gadget smell for two days. On the other hand, very few books are the same. Moving from a magazine to a hardcover to a paperback may be all the same for you and me, but for a 6 year old is an extremely important feast of sensations that informs her developing mind about the myriad materials and textures and smells the world is made of.

Why rob a child of that variety?

<comment><USER3> When 'Everything is a toy', there is no real meaning whether it's an ebook, a book, a cutting board... The question is, whether a book allows for anything special, or is removing books 'robs a child of a variety'. I think not. We can't all have every stimulus available for our children. I never experienced snow until I was 30. Some kids never see an ocean. Some live in the city, some in a more rural environment. Some have pets, some don't. Future generations will not live with paper in their household. They will not be robbed of anything.

Keep in mind, this isn't saying ebook readers are suitable for everything. No ebook reader, at the moment, can match a huge, colourfully printed kids book, not to mention their fragility and price isn't suitable for kids. The same goes for feelies, pop-up books, cards with animals, or colours or other such educational toys, and so on. Take those out of the equation, and there are no advantages for print over digital. Actually, there is no advantages for print over anything if those are taken out, since a child will just refer to them as yet another toy.

<comment><USER8>
      removing books 'robs a child of a variety'. I think not.

By definition, it does. The issue seems to be whether or not that variety matters. Trouble is, that leads to a discussion about parenting instead of tech :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think a very large portion of ebook users have Kindles or similar e-ink devices. These are great for reading text-heavy novels, things you would normally get as low-quality paperbacks anyhow. They are _horrible_ for picture books and the like--black and white, low resolution and you can only view one page at a time.

Normal screens like tablets and computers are better for picture books but have other issues--they're relatively expensive, run out of battery quickly and strain your eyesight.

Ultimately, it should come as no surprise that _picture books_ do not translate as well to ebooks as novels.

</comment><comment><USER10> For the 5-and-under crowd, ebooks simply cannot compare to the paper book experience. Color, size, the physical act of page turning, and (for the littlest ones) texture are too important.

However, my 8yo is in the process of earning his own e-reader. At this point, he's past the sparkly, fuzzy, pop-up, colorful books and on to chapter books (which are printed in simple black on cheap paper anyway), so nothing is lost. He's very responsible with electronics, and the idea of having something so grown-up has really helped him get over his reading anxiety and become an enthusiastic reader.

The portability is a big benefit for him, too... it's nice to let him easily take his reading with when he gets shipped off to his grandparents' farm on breaks from school, or we run off somewhere together.

The main down-side, from my perspective, is that on an ereader, I can't let him take his books to school. It's too easy to have an item like that stolen, stepped on, spilled on, dropped -- you get the idea -- in a hectic 2nd grade classroom.

</comment><comment><USER11> There are a ton of reasons one could imagine for this (not that any of these are true - just guesses): E-books for kids are generally not interactive - what's the point or advantage of getting electronic versions (which are often not cheaper, either). Also, the electronic devices still belong to the parents - kids can't take the ipad to bed with them, but they can take the books. Another issue is the bookshelf - kids can see and choose books, and parents and kids can see what they've read - a 'virtual' bookshelf isn't the same and again, isn't owned by the kid. Mainly though, it's just tradition - we might teach/parent the way we were taught/parented, or we might like the nostalgic feeling of reading a real book to our kids. Reading The Night Before Christmas, for example, is a big tradition. We got a version of the book that let us record grandpa reading it (the nook tablet now supports that feature, too).

</comment><comment><USER12> A key problem with ebooks is the lack of instant differentiation. It's all a sea of equality, no discernible difference until you in fact read it. This vs, say, my main bookcase (I've 26) instantly discerning deteriorating comic books from gold inlay leather bound classics ... and the key difference that my favorite works are in that case while lesser & disposable volumes aren't. This vs my ebook collections where everything is on what amounts to one set of racks differentiated only by retailer.

I mention this in context because my biggest concern is my children can with ease peruse a large collection of fine works worth their time and consideration just by the fact the titles are in a limited physical space, while the ebooks are mere bits in a dense sea thereof. Atoms are important for ensuring others can find them.

FWIW: one of my daughter's first words was "iPad".

<comment><USER13> Sorry if this is a bit off topic, but I'm working with some illustrators on an interactive children's book, and I'm curious how parents feel about book apps for kids.

Does the idea of a richly interactive children's book appeal to you, and if so, how much interactivity is too much? At what point does an interactive book become a game, in your opinion, and do you think video games for young children (under 6-ish) present moral or developmental issues?

<comment><USER14> An interactive book is a good thing, but you have to know whether it is for increasing the parent/child reading experience, or to hand it over to the child for self entertainment (ie, stop bugging me for 5 minutes and read this).

In the first category - having things move/animate would be more important than story telling, in the second, having a self-led easy to use system for the child to work their own way through a story is important.

> do you think video games for young children (under 6-ish) present moral or > developmental issues?

No, but if you let a young child endlessly play video games you've only got yourself to blame. Interactive books for children are to paper what illustrated is to text. There are no 'morals' in material (assuming the content is benign) ,only in the way they are allowed to access it. Developmentally, you have to bring up a child in the world it's going to live in, electronic devices are here to stay.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for your feedback. We agree with your two use cases, but we have no idea which will end up being dominant. I guess we will just have to ship it to find out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I mean, it's a simple mechanics problem right. Have you ever tried to lie down and read to your kid from an iPad, or kindle. It's not easy. Also, kids like to use books hard. Reading to them selves, kicking them around a room.

I don't think it's a market thing, i think it's a how you use them thing.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wouldn't read ebooks to my kid. I have a kindle and it is currently my preferred method of reading. I don't like reading a book as it always get damaged and it bugs me when I am left with a 600 page book taking up shelf space.

However... for a child I think it is imperative that they learn about books and libraries. There is so much technology around it is important to me that his room is free from all technology for as long as possible.

Also, for young children I think it is nice for them to be able to pick up and choose a book and not flick through some options on a single device to get to the story they want. In time this may be what my kid does.. but i'll be damned if I do anything to promote it.

</comment><comment><USER17> My son (2.5) has quit with books at his bed time and insists on iPad books ([http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-fantastic-flying- books/id...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-fantastic-flying- books/id438052647?mt=8)) and videos (mostly Pixar shorts). We also sometimes compose a Garageband track together.

The first generation iPad is plenty durable for his use. We just handed down one of our older ones when I got a iPad 2.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think it goes back to that article/rant a few weeks ago about touchscreens and similar things being a transitional technology to hold us over until our technology gives real tactile feedback instead of a flat glass surface. Tactile feedback and learning how to grip things are very important for small children to learn, so I definitely agree that paper books are best for them.

</comment><comment><USER19> Until there's password protection for the "buy now" buttons on the Kindle, there's no way I'd let a kid borrow mine.

</comment><comment><USER20> moving my question to ask all parents - is it the technology or specifically books? do your kids use your ipad/computer for other things?

I'm not a parent myself, but my nieces and nephews love the ipad. they stick to content made specifically for the device tho, they arent "e-reading" dr seuss.

<comment><USER21> I have purchased and read to children e-books on both an e-ink device and an iPad, so perhaps I can make a few comments from experience.

The main problem is that the quality of children's ebooks is very poor. Even chapter books for < 10yo (say The Magic Treehouse series) have extensive illustrations. I can't believe it is a limitation of e-PUB (after all, we seem to have graphic novels beautifully presented on the iPad), but illustrations in children's e-books are generally shoddy. Images are abominably low-res, non-zoomable and so on.

There is a popular children's series called "Geronimo Stilton". It uses not only images but imaginative typography, for example:

<http://goo.gl/Md88y>

I bought an e-PUB of one of those books - the e-publisher's solution was to treat the ENTIRE page as one low-quality image. It was awful. It also cost as much as the actual book.

Which brings us to pricing. There is no real saving in buying children's ebooks over the actual thing, and in fact with bookstore discounts the print is often cheaper.

The article makes the good point that children receive many books as gifts, and of course there is a tactile pleasure with books to the point where I wouldn't expect 100% e-book penetration, but I certainly would purchase more children's e-books if the quality was acceptable.

As for iPad-type interactive stories, they are really quite a different category. They are nice as a diversion, but their quality and quantity comes nowhere near 200 years of great children's storytelling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> There is no uniqueness to E-books because it all has the same typography. I think the publishers and providers needs to work on improving typography of E-books and work on providine e-versions of the books not just digitalized version of the printed edition.

</comment><comment><USER23> I was really disappointed to find no ebook version of Raold Dahl's books, so I bought most of them in paperback and read them to my boys. Now I'm reading them The Hobbit on my Kindle. Prior to that we used several interactive reading apps on the iPad.

</comment><comment><USER24> For me, the most basic barrier to children's e-books is that tablet screens aren't big enough yet. There's nothing like a 12" by 12" picture book to really pull you into the world of the illustrations. An iPad-sized screen just doesn't cut it.

</comment><comment><USER25> When e-readers get down to the $10 price point, I'll certainly consider buying a stack for my kids!

</comment><comment><USER26> Is it perhaps because you aren't allowed to read eBooks to your children ?

<http://www.lessig.org/content/standard/0,1902,22914,00.html>

<comment><USER27> For those that don't click, Adobe published the (public domain) book and ran screaming away from the position implied by the parent. The file had some "don't read aloud" metadata that Adobe claimed was for devices and then removed in a subsequent version.</comment></comment>


Working for free and what it taught me - <AUTHOR> http://codeofrob.com/entries/working-for-free-and-what-it-taught-me.html

<comment><USER2> While I think it's cool to do this and I am a bit envious, I would still like to add the recommendation to not dismiss money so quickly. I have some friends who think like that and it concerns me a bit.

The thing is, you are not taking into account that there might be times in the future where you could actually need some backup money. For example an illness (or simply old age) could make you unable to work for several months or even years. Not even counting other things you might want to do that money could come in useful for. In the future, you also might have a family.

I'm certainly not advocating missing out on life for fear of running out of money and running in the treadmill like crazy just out of fear. But saving money in the good times probably can't hurt.

<comment><USER3> This applies to freelancing/business but it works in this context too.

What i would say is never ever discount. Either work for exactly what you want to be paid, or work for free, dont work for a discount. Discounting has the problem of having the obligation associated with being paid, but without the satisfaction of making you feel like you're being paid what you're worth. It also sets the baseline of what the client/employer thinks you're worth, they'll have the same expectations as if you'd be getting paid your usual rate. If you work for free, usually, the expectation of delivery is far less, which gives you more freedom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In this case, free = non-profit. I think 99% of the population would work for "free" provided their expenses are paid.

<comment><USER5> I'm part of the 1% then. Sure, working is fun and all, but there are things I want to do in life besides working. Those things generally need money to pay for.

<comment><USER6> In this case - What the author wants to do in life besides working is travel and gain some rich experiences by meeting people across the world. To me - that's really freaking cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > I offered up my time for free providing my expenses were covered

Those two things do not mean the same thing.

> Experience in Tool/Language X is a stupid thing to ask for

I'm pretty sure my experience with Perl won't allow me to write useful C within two days, no matter how experienced my coworkers.

It would've been much more interesting to read about how he actually found his "jobs".

<comment><USER8> Your experience with pearl will probably let you learn to write decent C ahead of needing it.You know you're going to be interviewed, potentially, take a couple of weekends and learn it.

<comment><USER7> > pearl

I see what you did there.

And as Joeboy says, it would be months. I can say this with confidence because i know enough about C to know how little i know about it. Just the thought of memory management and all the complexities involved makes my skin crawl.

<comment><USER9> Maybe - I can't help but feel you're all putting C on a pedestal though - thinking you're immune from memory management issues because you're not using C seems a bit weird.

I feel confident that if I was asked to do C at one of these gigs I'd have been able to deliver something useful. Perhaps less if it was C++ because it's a bit swiss-army knife and there are a lot more "don'ts" to pick up.

<comment><USER7> I'm not really putting C on a pedestal here. :)

I'm only saying: Some skills are so radically different that you cannot transfer easily from one to the other. To give a counter example in the other direction: When i taught a former Lisp developer Perl, it took him 3 months to get to a good level, and 3 more to be on a very high level. And he's an extremely bright guy.

Then again, he had never done web apps before. Maybe the language matters a lot less if you're staying within the same problem domain.

<comment><USER9> "then they'll get on that stuff and make it happen providing they have some similar experience and you have an in-house knowledge pool for them to draw on." <\-- some similar experience is probably another way of saying that.

If you asked me tomorrow to go and start doing system programming in a language I knew well, I'd probably be screwed. Ask me to work on a database engine, compiler or web app and I'd be okay.

I'm mainly focusing that ire on the typical enterprise stuff LOB stuff, where it truely is all the same and just because you'd been writing Foo v1 for three years doesn't mean you won't be able to write Bar v300

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reading this, this is perhaps comparable to getting university education: you are losing money, but you get some interesting experiences to set you up for later. That said, in an age of free internships and similar, I hope this isn't done too often so as to give employers ideas….

</comment><comment><USER11> >People are generally okay

This really resonates with me and I've come to the same conclusion from my own, similar experiences.

Its a shame mass media has cultivated an irrational fear of outsiders into everyone.

Ironically, even the people I've met who have been so kind and generous often try to be helpful by warning me about such and such race, or part of town, or different religious people to avoid because they're dangerous for one reason or another.

</comment><comment><USER12> What is "A MBA running Debian for doing most things" ?

<comment><USER13> A MacBook Air, running Debian.</comment></comment>


Even weather forecasts aren't safe from Windows 10 upgrade prompts - chris-at http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/28/11525418/microsoft-windows-10-upgrade-prompt-storms-weather-report <comment><AUTHOR> This is one reason why i don't get how people think it is a good idea to use Windows in a productive environment.</comment>


What Can't be Solved with Money? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.asmartbear.com/

<comment><USER2> Tip for fezzi: The link is to the blog main page, which breaks HN's duplicate detection. It is better to link directly to the blog entry itself <http://blog.asmartbear.com/startup-money.html> so us lazy readers don't have to click twice.</comment>


Gary Kildall and Collegial Entrepreneurship (1997) - <AUTHOR> http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/gary-kildall-and-collegial-entrepreneurs/184410428 <comment><AUTHOR> Got interested in Gary Kidall after reading this

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12220091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12220091)

</comment><comment><USER2> A great read, thanks for digging this up.

One thing that struck me was the comment that

>>> Unlike operating systems before and since, CP/M was not the result of years of research by a team of software engineers.

To me, 1997 seems like it was still the tail end of the microcomputer era, when such things were considered possible (and some of the microcomputer-era diversity remained -- that was the era of BeOS, for example). Today, there seems to be active antipathy to solo coders in many professional settings. I feel something has been lost.

<comment><USER3> You are probably not far of in that assessment. The Amiga 1200 and 4000 had been discontinued just the year before.

Windows NT 4.0 had been out for just a year (it was the version that introduced the 9x UI to NT).

On the hardware side we had Pentium and Pro/II shipping, and also the first AMD cpu without any Intel microcode involved (K5).

<comment><USER2> In the UK, Acorn Computers were just hanging on (and working on one last RISC OS machine -- which sadly never saw the light of day). At least their CPU architecture lives on, which is more than can be said for many of their competitors.

<comment><USER3> Funny thing about the UK micros is that just about the only one i am familiar with in the Amstrad CPC, because several of my classmates got one in the second hand market.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Large imaging study confirms brain differences in ADHD - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/10505.html <comment><USER2> Interesting quote: "The different volumes of the five brain regions involved in ADHD were present whether or not people had taken medication, suggesting the differences in brain volumes are not a result of psychostimulants."

</comment><comment><USER3> Being an extremely hyperactive child (whom my mother refused to medicate and instead just disciplined me often), I always knew I was different. Not special different, just different in an annoying hard to fit in way. I find it interesting the "sides" in this debate when other studies also find entirely different brain chemistry in ADD/ADHD (whatever the flavor of the day to call it is). People with this demeanor tend to gravitate very heavily towards engineering / technology related fields and excel, although I never understood why.

The way I describe it to most people is very simple. If you give a ADD/ADHD child Ritalin, Adderol, etc, they will calm down. You give those drugs to a normal child and they get super hyperactive. Inversely, you give most people a stimulant such as caffeine and their heart beat increases and they perk up. I've always been very careful about coffee in the morning or teas as it is very much a calming downer. Sometimes I will drink a coffee to really calm my (always thinking too much) brain and let me focus, but can't do it if I'm the least bit tired as I'll be more inclined to doze off mid day.

I'm happy to see more actual science that shows this is a real thing, not something made up by an impatient child or child who had lots of trouble paying attention in school.

EDIT: Removed the first paragraph where I was thankfully wrong. Thanks geoelectric and filoeg for beating me with the cluebat, it is appreciated.

<comment><USER4> Think you're confusing what happened to Asperger's--it was redefined as a spectrum variation rather than its own thing. In fact, DSM4 didn't allow simultaneous autism and ADHD diagnoses and DSM5 does.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, I was incorrect. We were talking about a girl who has Aspergers she helps in school and I got confused.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How did this get so high up on HN? This is in no way a breakthrough.

The volume of scans and age ranges help nail down etiology, but the article and commentary here suggest that we didn't know what brain structures were involved or that ADHD is a "brain based disorder."

We've been doing MRI research on ADHD for decades[0] and independent longitudinal studies that track ADHD children into adulthood[1].

[0]: [http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.201...](http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.11101521)

[1]: [http://www.guilford.com/books/ADHD-in-Adults/Barkley- Murphy-...](http://www.guilford.com/books/ADHD-in-Adults/Barkley-Murphy- Fischer/9781609180751/authors)

</comment><comment><USER6> Okay so now an MRI brain scan will be par-for-the-course for children thought to be experiencing ADHD symptoms in advance of prescribing medication, right? Seems reasonable. Otherwise how else can one objectively note whether an ADHD "brain issue" is at fault or, uh, simple emotional adaptive recalcitrance?

<comment><USER7> That's pretty unlikely IMO. Physicians are remarkably pragmatic. Diagnostic imaging tools like CT and MRI were created in order to avoid the risk of exploratory surgery. As a byproduct, they are also useful in medical research applications like these.

From the article:

> "We hope that this will help to reduce stigma that ADHD is 'just a label' > for difficult children or caused by poor parenting."

In general, diagnostic imaging is funded to mitigate some other downstream risk. "Would the wrong treatment be harmful?" [not in this case, popular treatment is pharmeceutical - psychostimulants, pretty safe drugs]. "Would delaying diagnosis of a non-ADHD disease be harmful?" [not likely given the symptoms].

If you had an extraordinary case ("Patient is allergic to psychostimulants and alternative treatment X is expensive or risky"), this research might be used to convince the relevant parties that an MRI to rule-out ADHD is worthwhile.</comment></comment>


Leaked doc shows how big companies buy credit card data on millions of Americans - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jged4x/envestnet-yodlee-credit-card-bank-data-not-anonymous <comment><USER2> From my observations, for data vendors "anonymization" generally just involves replacing a name or credit card number with some other identifier. That's the reality and that's all they are required to do by regulators. People on both sides of the market know and leverage this. There are legitimate use cases that people are after that can only be achieved by having the ability to correlate pseudonymous entities with some kind of history. Lots of data sets would be significantly less valuable, and lots of industry standard analyses unachievable with those identifiers out of the picture. As long as there is no Personally Identifiable Information (which, no, metadata, location history, medical claims, transaction details, don't count). I would imagine that this is something regulators are aware of and that the privacy tradeoff has just been shrugged off so that the market can carry on and do its thing.

<comment><USER3> > "anonymization" generally just involves replacing a name or credit card > number with some other identifier.

DJB's description of "anonymization" while talking[1] about his job as the man in the middle at Verizon:

>> Hashing is magic crypto pixie-dust, which takes personally identifiable information and makes it incomprehensible to the marketing department. When a marketing person looks at random letters and numbers they have no idea what it means. They can't imagine that anybody could possibly understand the information, reverse the hash, correlate the hashes, track them, save them, record them.

> lots of industry standard analyses unachievable with those identifiers out > of the picture.

Calling something "standard" doesn't mean it's ethical. If someone wants use that type of identifier, they need to get explicit _informed_ consent from everyone involved, and they need to be liable for any damages that derive from their database of identified records.

[1] [https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html...](https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html#bernstein)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The only antidote to this kind of profiteering is a cultural shift. And if starts with us, the developers who are building this tech.

Unfortunately most of us are quite powerless to stop it otherwise. As time passes I'm only more convinced that this is an evil which will inevitably be abused by governments in the near future to target dissidents. And possibly other groups - you don't need much information from spending habits and location history to trivially build a profile consisting of religious affiliation, political affiliation, sexual orientation, and general interests. This maliciousness is putting us all at risk in the name of greed.

<comment><USER5> The US learned in 2016 that information is a tool of war. Defending oneself against the encroachment of zero privacy operators is going to have to be fought with information as well. Laws have no teeth, which will continue to be the case indefinitely due to Citizen's United.

<comment><USER4> >The US learned in 2016 that information is a tool of war

Uh, people have understood the usefulness of information and information control for probably hundreds of years - at the very least since the cold war.

What do you think the CIA, KGB, CCP have been doing all this time?

I swear people just stopped thinking critically when Trump was elected. Things were broken long before 2016.

<comment><USER5> > _What do you think the CIA, KGB, CCP have been doing all this time?_

Sorry, information as the field of battle. To wit: the US lost an information war in 2016 and appears now to be occupied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yesterday, a fellow customer of one of the big US wireless telecom carriers received a spoofed call from my mobile number. He called me up thinking I had called him, and we started talking, and turns out he's a Data Broker from the East Coast (I'm on the West Coast). He was very friendly and discussed specifics for how the mobile phone anonymous token works and how it's supposedly a secure, anonymous arrangement.

I discussed with this gentleman the concerns from this article and he wasn't too happy, naturally, given my disagreement with the practice of sharing such data due to such deanonymization concerns.

As I'm a bit of an activist regarding E2EE and voyeuristically supportive of certain disliked politicians, and against the described data sharing, I have to wonder if someone chose my number to play a prank. Of course, it could simply be an odd coincidence, which is the most reasonable base assumption. Still, I wonder why my number specifically was chosen to target this individual, who said he was the victim of substantial identity theft and yet has refused to change his phone number, likely due to the complexities in doing so.

I have a habit of consistently following up on such matters, and so perhaps someone was knowingly demonstrating to me that this wireless carrier can't even stop in-network spoofed calls, aware that I would investigate it. Of course that's a bit far fetched but who knows? If the offending party was able to cover their tracks then that says something about the absurd age we are in.

At the least, and unrelated to the original article, it's clear that this major wireless carrier doesn't even have the ability to prevent spoofed calls from within their own nationwide network from numbers associated with their own customers. I called their support and pointed out that, at least conceptually, it should be trivial to build a security feature to prevent this. And presumably shaken/stirred ss7 cert authentication for did's should already cover in-network did authentication and prevent in-network spoofing. Is this a reasonable assumption? Have all the major carriers built these protocol upgrades to prevent spoofed calls?

There's the outside possibility this gentleman lied to me about his carrier, dialed back the wrong number, or lied to me about the spoofed call but I gained the sense that he was being truthful to me.

Overall it seems that the cyber world is really quite a mess, whether with data sharing malfeasance per the article, insecure wireless networks, globally enabled ransomware, and ever-increasing data in the hands of private global entities that will exist beyond our lifetimes.

<comment><USER7> SHAKEN/STIR is rolling out very, very, very slowly. Interoperability is poorly defined and carriers seem to be sharing on an ad-hoc basis.

Anyone with a prepaid credit card can spoof numbers, make calls for < $0.005/minute, just by running apt-get install asterisk with a minimal configuration.

<comment><USER8> And for anyone who wonders, here's the Wikipedia entry: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I use Google Opinion Rewards and I feel like some of their questions are meant to see if they can deanonymize identities from credit card data and a few location data point.

<comment><USER10> They push hard to track in-store visit and purchase attribution

[1] [https://support.google.com/google- ads/answer/6100636?hl=en](https://support.google.com/google- ads/answer/6100636?hl=en) [2] [https://martechtoday.com/deep-dive-online-in- store-attributi...](https://martechtoday.com/deep-dive-online-in-store- attribution-199573)

<comment><USER9> Oh yeah that can definitely be from Google Ads too, but I remember some question quite surprising. I forgot to install it on my new phone that I got in December, so I don't remember much theses questions, but it's now installed, so I'll see. I know that they asked me for receipts a few time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Incidentally, this story and practice are a partial refutation of the "if you're not paying for the product, you're the customer" trope. In the sense that very often when you _are_ paying, you're _still_ the product.

All the more so when payment data are detailed and reliable, as in the case of credit- and debit-card spending.

Effectively: if there are no practical limits on data gathering, aggregation, correlation, and sales, you are the product.

There are exceptions to this in both the free and non-free spaces. Much free software, for example, does not turn users into products. And there are cases of paid transactions (often using more anonymous mechanisms such as cash) in which privacy is preserved.

Those are becoming the exceptions however. And barring regulatory and legal changes, with both civil and criminal penalties having teeth, this will not change.

</comment><comment><USER12> >millions of Americans

I always want to ask... does this mean people living in the US or US citizens? because the meaning sounds like its limited to citizens but I'm almost positive any stats that say 'Americans' means 'people in America'.

<comment> kube-system 'American' doesn't necessarily mean citizen. It can be used to describe people simply living in the US.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_(word)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_\(word\))

[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/American](https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/American)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Guess why would Apple/Uber/even Starbucks release their own credit cards?

<comment><USER14> Heck. I thought the SB one was a joke. It's not.

[https://www.starbucks.com/starbucks-rewards/rewards- cards](https://www.starbucks.com/starbucks-rewards/rewards-cards)

TF is even going on here!? I face-palmed so hard everyone in MHT is staring.

<comment><USER15> Starbucks has one of the most seamless payment and ordering systems I use on a day-to-day basis. I'm not sure why it's surprising they would have their own credit card to make that even easier. Heck, every big box store seems to have their own card too. They cut down on the transaction fees if it's their own card, plus extra data for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Who do they sell data to ? The phrase 'selling data' always seemed handwavy to me. What products/services can you make from that data ? Forecasting ? Customer tracking ? Wouldn't deanonymization make the service illegal or is that a grey area ?

<comment><USER11> Anyone willing to pay.

Or with the technical chops to exfiltrate.

Banks and marketing organisations are a major customer. So are skip-tracers, collections agencies, and scammers (who can build impressive profiles of gullible marks based on purchasing / spending habits).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> You don't need leaks, you just need to read the marketing materials of these firms. They sell your data. They are ten times worse than what Google does in the worst fever dreams of the most tiresome DDG/Brave user on HN.

<comment><USER18> You don't think Google does a superset of this? You think they didn't start their own payment system just to get the same data for the same reasons?

<comment><USER17> Where is the phone number I can call to order a binder full of transaction data about you from Google?

<comment><USER19> Ironically, while Google buys credit card data (and likely other data), and advertisers give them data, I'm pretty sure they don't leak personal data like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Of course there's unspoken ways to reverse it, how would Facebook use it for targeting otherwise?

</comment><comment><USER21> I would assume plaid is doing worse.

</comment><comment><USER22> And leaked documents will also show how VICE exploits users by exploiting their privacy through ad trackers. Gosh I wonder what could be worst? LOL!! Lets NOT quickly forget how Mr. Joe Biden's presidential campaign has been financed through credit card companies.

<comment><USER23> >Lets NOT quickly forget how Mr. Joe Biden's presidential campaign has been financed through credit card companies.

[citation needed]</comment></comment>


AT&T to Ditch Two Year Contracts for Smartphones - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/30/att-ditch-contracts-jan-8/ <comment><USER2> My only beef with AT&T Next program is that the naming is dishonest to suggest that there are only [x] monthly payments for program AT&T Next [x]. [x] is the months required before a trade in, not the amount of installments.

AT&T Next 24: Divided into 30 installments; trade in and upgrade after 24 installments.

AT&T Next 18: Divided into 24 installments; trade in and upgrade after 18 installments.

AT&T Next 12: Divided into 20 installments; trade in and upgrade after 12 installments.

<comment><USER3> I agree, but I can't think of a much better name? Next 24/30 seems more honest, but more confusing at the same time. Especially because now you have Next 18/24 (the 24 overlaps in two plans).

That said, I'm on a Next plan and the sales people have been super clear about this. So I haven't had the experience of them sneaking it in.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, it's not like they hide it on the sales page, which says:

AT&T Next℠ 18

$0 down with 24 monthly installments. Trade in at 18 months.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I still have an old AT&T contract with unlimited data. I don't really use that much data relatively speaking, so last time I was up for renewal I tried several times to see if I could get a cheaper plan from AT&T, and no matter what I did it was always more expensive than just keeping my current unlimited data plan because they've raised prices on everything else.

So when this iteration of the contract is up, if my only options are going to be something more expensive, and they're not going to subsidize my phone anymore, then that rather lowers the chance that I'd stick with AT&T.

<comment><USER6> From what I've seen, wireless carriers don't care too much about retaining existing customers and focus mostly on acquiring new ones.

Probably a different story with larger business customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm running the AT&T plan for my family right now and the math worked out such that we would pay almost the exact same amount whether we bought a new iPhone up front or bought it subsidized with a 2 year contract (because of the monthly price difference between Bring Your Own Phone and a subsidized phone).

So I'm not seeing how this is much different for the customer, except that it's more straightforward to understand the pricing model (buy phone up front vs. paying in monthly installments).

<comment><USER8> What's the difference on month 25 if you don't upgrade? That's always been annoying to me about contract prices: your phone bill didn't go down when your contract was up and presumably your phone was paid off.

<comment><USER7> This was the nasty part for me. I had to explicitly contact AT&T customer service and ask them to change my account from a contract plan to a Bring Your Own Phone plan once the contract expired in order to bring the bill down on month 25.

I figured most customers wouldn't notice to take advantage of this which is why I think a clearer separation between phone payments and cell service payments is a good thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yeah this pretty much guarantees that I'll just switch to the iPhone Upgrade Program. I get my upgrade same-day, and my Apple Store always makes it right.

<comment><USER10> Currently the iPhone Upgrade Program is more expensive than almost any network's Next/Jump!/etc program, by at least $10/month.

The 16 GB 6S is $388.92/year on Apple's plan, $260.04/year on AT&T's Next, and impossible to calculate on T-Mobile's JOD (since T-Mobile don't provide a calculator and can adjust trade-in values on a whim).

If you have the money to spare, the Apple program is the most hassle free, just also the most expensive.

<comment><USER11> > If you have the money to spare, the Apple program is the most hassle free, > just also the most expensive.

Next upgrade, I will either be buying outright or using the Apple plan. AT&T Next was a disaster for me.

When you purchase an AT&T Next upgrade via Apple, an email is sent from Apple with forms and instructions for returning your old phone. For one of my phones, I received this documentation. For the other, it was nowhere to be found. The link on Apple's site to resend the email didn't do anything.

First I talked to Apple. They said talk to AT&T. People at AT&T didn't even know why I was trying to return my phone. Basically, they didn't even know what AT&T Next is. I finally got someone at Apple who immediately said "don't talk to AT&T; we'll take care of this." And he tried. Even though the email comes from Apple, it hits a backend AT&T system. And it was AT&T's system that was stuck. All said and done, it took me a month to get my form, just so I could actually send the phone back.

And then one of my fears was realized. Not having received the phone in a timely manner, AT&T charged my account for not sending it back. That took another month to resolve.

I wasted hours and hours trying to fix this and it was one of the worst consumer experiences of my life.

<comment><USER12> Having said that - that actually sounds more like an Apple issue.

I was able to trade my girlfriend's iPhone in on the Next plan at a Best Buy Mobile store without any issue. All the documentation and return was handled in store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> They've already tricked everyone into dropping the better plan with free upgrades ever 2 years in exchange for a hike in data service fees... best marketing snowjob ever. Plus, with their "pay the phone off a month at a time" crap almost everyone opts for they still effectively have contracts.

<comment><USER14> I got a nice upgrade in service and a discount in cost when I made that switch. And I get to buy my phones outright so I don't have to worry about convincing AT&T to unlock them. Seems like a total win to me. I've always been dissatisfied with carriers selling phones on contract, and I'm glad to see that this whole model is dying. With the Next plan you so criticize, people still have the option of paying for their phone gradually, but now it's genuinely a choice.

<comment><USER15> Are the fees for the phone and the service separate, such that, say, I can get a new $600 phone with minimum advertised $25/month payments over two years, but I could pay it off in 3 months at $200/month, and from then on out just pay for service?

<comment><USER16> I know Verizon lets you do this - you can pay off the phone by itself at any time.

<comment><USER15> Looks like that's probably true for all of them now. I have Sprint and after posting my question I looked up Sprint's "Easy Pay" option, which is exactly this. For some reason I thought it was a rebranding of the current subsidized model where your phone and service payments were locked together.

<comment><USER14> A phone company providing reasonable options and not screwing you over at every opportunity is rather weird, and I didn't believe it at first either.

<comment><USER16> Agreed - there's probably a business reason for it. Perhaps the fact that it's now a bog-standard financing arrangement forces them to allow it to be paid off separately?

<comment><USER15> Here's an idea: What if they studied customer behavior and found that when the traditional 2-year contract is up people started shopping around with other providers to see if they could get a better deal, and an unacceptable number were then lost as customers? I'm betting this happened quite a bit, actually.

With the new system when the two years are up (assuming the phone wasn't paid off before then) the customer automatically sees a nice little drop in their bill, which may make them feel more positive about staying with the company, or upgrading their phone again with the thought of "I was already paying that extra amount before anyway".

Just a thought, but I wonder what kind of research has gone into this sort of thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sadly you don't get a discount on your plans even if you don't get a subsidized phone.

<comment><USER3> You do get a discount. But they are getting rid of the subsidized phones (which honestly, for many/most people turned out to be a bad idea after the introduction of Next).

<comment><USER18> My 2-year AT&T contract just ended (and I kept service), but my monthly price is still the same. Should my monthly price have gone down?

<comment><USER3> Switch to a mobile share plan. The subsidized plan never gets cheaper. One reason they were bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wait, will this nullify existing plans? Should I rush to get an upgrade on my device by signing up for a 2 year contract just to have the contract nullified on the 8th leaving me with a new device and no contract?

<comment><USER20> That's typically not how these things work. You are bound to contracts you sign -- and the contract would indeed stipulate a 2-year agreement of some sort. Possibly, the contract could allow changes in a way that you can enter the new 'iphone upgrade peogram' agreement... but it's probably to AT&T's benefit, not yours. Point being, you can't win this game that easy. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wonder if this will lead to people preferring lower priced SKU's once they better understand the full cost of the Phone they are using.

<comment><USER22> I think many people will not only start to look harder at lower-priced phones, but they will consider going longer between upgrades, and become more interested in second-hand phones.

The biggest thing going on here, in my opinion, is that there is now a decoupling between "device" and "plan" in the consumer's mind where there was previously a very strong coupling. Savvy users have been able to buy a phone somewhere besides an AT&T store for a long time, but up until now it's never been a normal/default choice compared to going into an AT&T store, buying a phone there and signing a bunch of stuff that involves contracts and plan changes and fees. The default expectation now is that I should be able to plug a SIM into a phone and start using it without having to consult anyone, make account changes, pay fees or other BS.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, my brother and sister-in-law are saving up for a new house. When their phones reached the end of their Next plan after two years, it was effortless to just keep using them at a now reduced cost, instead of shelling out $30/month more each just to get the shiny new phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Cool. Now I can switch to the Apple plan, get the AppleCare, and jump carriers whenever the mood takes me.</comment>


Ask HN: Who would like to be my cofounder? - <AUTHOR> Hi all, I'm actively looking for a co-founder to join my team, my startup is a service to meet new people, the difference with others is that i created a new moderation system so the quality of the people in my app is better than the rest of apps the main problem to resolve is the 90% of users in apps to meet people are scammers, spammers, fake accounts, stalkers and rude people so the users are happy using my app because with my new moderation sytem they can know who are good people and who are bad people and my moderation system can detect and delete and block the bad people automatically, that is my competitive advantage
traction :
50K+ sent messages by day
1.5M+ sent messages by month
150K+ downloads
50k+ monthly active users
app : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=schan.main i am looking for a cofounder with experience getting investment and experience growing the user base with marketing strategies
if you are interested or you know someone who you believe could be interested in being part of my team please send me a message here in the forum or my email email@example.com thanks.... <comment><USER2> what are you going to sell? Ads? Membership? What is your income stream?

Thank you

<comment><AUTHOR> suscriptions and ads</comment></comment>


Electronics robust enough for Venus - <AUTHOR> http://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.5.7345/full/ <comment><USER3> Nice to see this area is still evolving, my PhD was in SiC-related tech, specifically how would you power a device embedded in a hostile environment so I was researching SiC-based photovoltaics, temperature response of piezoelectrics, high-temperature DC-DC converters and a very light touch effort on high-temperature storage.

As soon as you start heating electronics up to these sorts of temperatures the things we already take for granted become problematic. As highlighted already, solder joints become a huge pain, wire bonds pop off, even just building the test rigs to test these devices is usually a pretty interesting problem - <USER2> built a high-temperature photovoltaic characterization rig and a high- temperature vibration rig, which was involved enough but the true monster was the gas-sensor characterisation lab which had evolved over many years that could do gas, high pressure and temperature up to 700 degC (I think).

All good fun, if someone is looking at a PhD in electronics I would recommend this area if even vaguely interested as it's a good mix of practical and theory and when you can't even bank on your solder joints holding, let alone a dielectric surviving then it makes for some interesting problems away from the pure electronics.

</comment><comment><USER4> I recall a story from a Russian aerospace engineer describing a Russian unmanned probe to Venus. They mounted a camera and arm to the probe to take pictures and to measure the chemical composition of the planet's surface. He said the camera cover popped off at the appropriate moment to land exactly where the arm hit the ground. They got a very good measurement of the camera cap's chemical composition. I'll see if I can dig up a link.

Found it... actually the arm was to measure the compress-ability of the Venusian soil

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_14#Landing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_14#Landing)

<comment><USER5> Actually, the camera was embedded deep inside the probe's pressure vessel. The aperture on the probe's surface was glazed with a quartz window, and the image projected through a long periscope arrangement to the sensor inside.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wonderfully the paper is available: [http://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4973429](http://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4973429) consider swapping the link for this one.

Reading through the paper I have to admit those are some really impressive numbers. A typical soldering station might run at 343C (650F) while Venus is 460C (860F) hotter than a reflow oven to be sure.

<comment><USER7> To clarify for anyone as dim as I - Venus is 460C (860F) and is hotter to be sure than a typical soldering station, which runs at around 340C (or 650F) - it's not the case that Venus is 460C hotter than a reflow oven.

<comment><USER8> This is where a grammar enthusiast might extol the virtues of the em dash.

> _...while Venus is 460C (860F)--hotter than a reflow oven, to be sure._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interestingly, with a few hundred gates you can produce the circuitry needed to digitize data from a seismometer (one of the main reasons you'd want a long-duration lander on Venus), do some basic forward error correction, and transmit to a relay satellite. You'd have basically no memory, since memory is extremely expensive energy-wise and consumes a lot of gates, so you would just transmit the data as it is received. Just a few hundred gates is not unreasonable to make out of these relatively primitive high temperature circuits. A full computer with memory is not feasible, but neither is it required to accomplish the mission. Here is a paper describing a Venus mission operating entirely at high temperature using the kinds of digital circuits I described:

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272522839_Venus_hig...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272522839_Venus_high_temperature_atmospheric_dropsonde_and_extreme- environment_seismometer_HADES)

</comment><comment><USER10> The thing that struck me was the Glenn Extreme Environments Rig (GEER), ([https://geer.grc.nasa.gov/geer-overview/overview-of- geer/](https://geer.grc.nasa.gov/geer-overview/overview-of-geer/)). That thing is a beast! Operating 24 days with 470 C and 1400 psia gas mixture (including acids) sounds like an amazing feat.

<comment><USER9> I think I have some pictures of it that I took while I was an intern there. It's basically an autoclave with fancy gases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Electronics aren't the only problem for a Venus probe. You also need some way to power the thing. One interesting possibility is that lithium will combust in a carbon dioxide atmosphere, and it is also, conveniently, liquid at Venus surface temperature.

[http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160705-the-toughest- spaces...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160705-the-toughest-spaceship- weve-ever-built)

<comment><USER12> Idea: put a good insulator under the surface of the probe to keep as much of it as cool as possible (first making sure it cools off in space). Ship it with a thermoelectric generator. I'm not sure how much useful power you'd get from the spacy-cool - Venus hell temperature gradient, so maybe it's a stupid idea.

<comment><USER13> > first making sure it cools off in space

Heat dissipation is actually a gigantic problem in space: you can only radiate heat away (and try to reflectively shield against the sun) since you're in hard vacuum which is a fantastic insulator.

<comment><USER8> Basically, you need a sun-facing shield that is perfectly reflective, and diamond fins with a perfectly black surface coating, forever in its shadow.

An effective radiator is an equally effective absorber, so management of light and shadow is critical.

But it's still sort of moot when you consider atmospheric friction on the way down.

You're not going to get much power out of the gradient. Even if you cooled an object in space to near absolute zero, space probes must necessarily be low mass to get into orbit from Earth. The low mass of the whole object, and the low heat capacity of most space-grade building materials combines to make it a really awful cold sink. You would essentially need to harvest water and ammonia from somewhere outside of a gravity well, use your radiator to cool it off as much as possible, and then drop it in the heat well. That's an awful lot of trouble to go to for the amount of power you will then get out of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Finally! We need more info about Venus. Mars is a boring desert. Venus has more action. So when do we see a Venus rover?

<comment><USER15> Certainly not any time soon. A rover has a lot of complicated moving parts that will have to be exposed to work properly, and will almost certainly fail after a short time on the surface. All of the sensors will also have to be exposed, and the interface between the sensors and the enclosure will be vulnerable. A lander may work for some time, but a rover would be very difficult. Venus is a very, very harsh place.

<comment><USER14> So is the drilling end of an oil well, but there are sensors and motors for that.[1] "The heavy duty motor range is designed to withstand temperatures over 240°C at pressures up to 1,733 atmospheres. They can withstand vibrations to 25 Grms, impacts to 100 G." A 2005 study indicates how to get motors to run at up to 500°C, which is above what's needed for Venus.[2]

Power systems for a Venus lander have been studied by NASA.[2] Sodium-sulfur batteries, which need to be hot to work at all, were considered.

[1] [http://www.maxonmotorusa.com/maxon/view/application/Brushles...](http://www.maxonmotorusa.com/maxon/view/application/Brushless- DC-motors-for-down-hole-and-directional-drilling) [2] [https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/201400...](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20140017762.pdf) [2] [http://www.firstmarkaerospace.com/pdf/vhtmotors.pdf](http://www.firstmarkaerospace.com/pdf/vhtmotors.pdf)

<comment><USER13> > The heavy duty motor range is designed to withstand temperatures over 240°C

Venus is twice that, and the atmosphere is highly corrosive, though I guess you get the benefit of lower pressure (~90 atm).

<comment> gene-h NASA has successfully tested electric motors at venusian ambient conditions[0]. Also, the atmosphere isn't corrosive at the surface. It's much too hot for sulfuric acid there.

[0][http://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/ntb/tech...](http://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/ntb/tech- briefs/mechanics-and-machinery/2241)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The is intense. I've often thought about the Russian Venus lander. In the same vein I occasionally think about what could survive deep within the Earth. Of course I then immediately get tripped up wondering if any useful satellite could be made to work within the Sun, and that's where I realize I should just think about something else.

<comment><USER17> In _The Killing Star_ by Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski, one group of survivors orbits a ship around the Sun, just below the chromosphere. There's also a story about "distilling antihydrogen" near the Sun, in Vernor Vinge's _Marooned in Realtime_.

<comment><USER13> David Brin's Uplift series had mechanised lifeforms "floating" on the sun to collect matter, and IIRC Sundiver has life forms floating in the chromosphere.

<comment><USER18> As I recall, Sundiver used a laser to beam away the accumulated heat into space faster than it was absorbed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A closely related subject is radiation. If you want to explore Jupiter, Saturn, or Fukushima you have some new challenges.

In the latter case, they're talking only a few hours of lifetime for ROV's going into the 500+ Sv/hr environment. I bet the military has a bunch of research on rad-hard equipment they're not keen to share.

[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/fukushima- reactor-s...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/fukushima-reactor- shows-highest-radiation-level-initial-meltdown-180962050/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Some sources claim that in the 1980s USSR already developed instruments that were capable of operating at surface environment of Venus as part of their Venera program. From [1]:

While never deployed, a seismometer and thermopile battery were developed and tested, capable of operating indefinitely on the surface of Venus.

[1] [http://mentallandscape.com/V_Venera11.htm](http://mentallandscape.com/V_Venera11.htm)

</comment><comment><USER21> Could some genetic engineered plants survive the upper layers of the atmosphere if they where able to fly/float?

<comment><USER22> "While Venus's surface is awful, its upper atmosphere is surprisingly Earthlike. 55 kilometers up, a human could survive with an oxygen mask and a protective wetsuit; the air is room temperature and the pressure is similar to that on Earth mountains. You need the wetsuit, though, to protect you from the sulfuric acid."

[https://what-if.xkcd.com/30/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/30/) (not quite a scientific source, so make what you want of it)

Maybe if your plants can deal with the acid you might be able to do it. (I am not a biologist, chemist or anything relevant to answer this question, this is just my best guess).

<comment><AUTHOR> Exploring the atmosphere of Venus has been considered. Here's an article on it [1]

[1] "NASA Study Proposes Airships, Cloud Cities for Venus Exploration" [http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/nasa- study-p...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/nasa-study- proposes-airships-cloud-cities-for-venus-exploration)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Has anyone ever bumped into similar articles about electronics longevity? Sayyy.. Could we build a simple Voyager like probe that can last 1000 years? 10000?

<comment><USER24> Given the challenges involved in making a 10,000 year clock, a 10,000 year space probe seems currently infeasible: [http://longnow.org/clock/](http://longnow.org/clock/)

Putting it in space opens up some advantages, though that comes with its own whackload of disadvantages, too. Perhaps you could stick something in permanent shade on the moon to avoid 10,000 years of thermal stress, for instance, but you've got a decent chance of something hitting you hard enough to break something over that time span, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It just blows my mind that Soviet Venera landers were sending digital (!) images back from the surface of Venus in early 80s. This would be a heck of an achievement even today some 35 years later.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, amazing achievement... there are many applications scenarios where the old vacuum tubes are still unbeatable ..</comment></comment>


Collapsing Revenue Metrics - Skyrocketing Costs = Groupon's Disaster - <AUTHOR> http://philco.squarespace.com/philcosblog/2011/6/4/collapsing-revenue-metrics-skyrocketing-costs-groupons-disas.html

<comment><USER2> 9,031,807 sales / 50,583,805 subscribers = 0.18 conversion rate. Not bad...

</comment><comment><USER3> All the media backlash against Groupon is going to make it a very entertaining IPO day.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand what is Google waiting for to make an algorithm-based sef- served Groupon. Like they changed advertisement with AdWords/AdSense. They have the brand and advertising network and hundreds of millions of users.

Perhaps Google as an organization is too asperger-like and can't understand social? I don't know. But it looks like a big opportunity being lost.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure I follow what you're saying. How can you make daily deals algorithm based? They rely on third parties (merchants) agreeing to the promotions. Anything algorithm based would have to know enough about those merchants to make coupon decisions on their behalf, and be trusted to do so. I have a hard time seeing merchants in quantity going for this.

<comment><USER6> They could use algorithms to implement a 'dating' site that matches companies to potential customers. "Hey, we can bring you 10000 university educated males who recently divorced and do not buy your stuff yet. If you offer them X, our algorithms predict 25% will buy, and 45% of them will become repeat customers."

I do not see why Google would have to include a coupon in such an offer, though. If they have the tech to do this, and, given the privacy concerns, dare to use it, they already can sell targeted ads. Coupons, IMO, only serve to attract less well-off customers, that typically are worth less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Groupon should merge with Gilt Group and offer to both ends of the market.

</comment><comment><USER8> What I would like to know is: has there been another time when a startup announced a huge deal, was subject to a deluge of negative opinion, _and it turned out that the skeptics were right_?

Let's be honest -- there's a lot of hate going around, as there tends to be _when many startups go big and experience success_.

I, for one, am skeptical about Groupon -- as are many here. But, in reading the comments, I am having a tough time separating the genuine skepticism from the generic hate. Both claim to be basing their opinions on rational, informed analysis.</comment>


Ask HN: How to mutate a start-up into ISO 27001 compliance - <AUTHOR>

How to keep start-up-like agility with all change controls, heavyweight security procedures and so on, implied by ISO 27001 compliance (requested by our main client)? <comment><USER2> ISO 27001 is actually quite flexible. The implementation details can be as 'heavy' ( or not ) as you make them. For instance change controls implies all kinds of non-agile processes that inhibit you from building software the way you do today. Change control from an ISO 27001 point of view can be as simple as stating 'when a request for a new feature comes in, we put it on a list, and discuss the impact of it'. I'm sure you would recognize this process as a SCRUM product backlog.

You can be 27001 and still be agile - we are. The biggest problem of all is training your staff to be ISO-aware (data classification, password policies etc) and making them stick to it so that you pass the audits.

</comment><comment><USER3> imo this sounds like one of those situations where you learn to say, "No." Unless there is a compelling reason to be ISO-compliant with the majority of your customers, you will end up wasting so much time on getting compliant, you won't be able to do the things the rest of your customers need. That goes for pretty much any kind of standards compliance. Only do what is required to be legal to get and retain the business you _need_.

To answer the question at hand though, I think you'd need to grow enough where you can take the risk at persuing certifications.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, we can not afford to loose our main client, and the renewal of their contract is tied to ISO 27001 compliance. Moreover, a very big company just bought a part of our shares and require us to comply to their own security policies. Both go in the same direction, and we have to go this way, whatever painful the process is. But we tech team still want to be happy go to work every morning. So I'm wondering if there is a less painful way to go there.

<comment><USER4> Is the big company going to require you to follow their existing procedures, or are you free to develop your own?

<comment><AUTHOR> We agreed we will "eventually" follow all their existing procedures, but it is really annoying because we would have to switch many of our secure Linux solutions to their required Windows environment, so this "eventually" may mean "in a very far future" for some requirements. Some other procedures are very interesting and we are happy to learn from them.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fantastical: A new calendar app for Mac launches - <AUTHOR> http://flexibits.com/fantastical

<comment><USER2> A lot of people who don't like it seem to be missing the point. When I want to create an event, I don't want to launch iCal or navigate to Google Calendar, I want to enter the event in as little time and as intuitively as possible.

Accessing the app from the menubar solves the issue of speed for me, and the natural language processing lets it all feel intuitive and (dare I say) "magical". It just understands what I'm saying.

<comment><USER2> And then when I want to actually review my day or week or month, I can pop open iCal or whatever calendar system I use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It seems beautiful. Still, I am wondering: What's the difference between Fantastical and the billion of others calendar. (And, I really don't mean it in a harsh way as I'm really sad not to be able to try it since I'm on linux).

Is it the real-time sync with gcal? Or the smart event parsing..? The prettiness of it?

<comment><USER4> I don't like iCal at all. It's too clumsy in almost every respect. The Lion update looks like a step in the wrong direction, too. The only promising feature is the natural language parsing, which IMO is an essential feature of a calendar.

I'm not sure how I feel about Fantastical, since I've only had it installed for 5 minutes. I've tried other iCal replacements like BusyCal, but they didn't seem like enough of an improvement.

There's definitely a space for simple NLP calendar input on the desktop, though.

<comment><USER5> What calendar software _do_ you like? I've been looking for a good one, but I have yet to be really happy with any.

<comment><USER4> I'm really liking Fantastical now, after a few days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use _QuickCal_ [1] together with _iCal_. Syncing with my Android works over _Google Calendar_ but adding events is way faster with _QuickCal_ and a keyboard for me [2]. I used Google's _'Quick add'_ function for a while but got annoyed about the slow development [3] and the lack of functionality. Also, nothing is as fast as a native app that you can start with a shortcut. I can even switch between calendars in no time and it will tell me if my new event conflicts with an existing one while I type.

At the moment, I find the greatest annoyance in broken syncs with Google. Its so annoying, that I tend to use local _iCal_ calendars only now. When you have a Mac Air in your pack, looking up and adding dates is often faster than with the phone anyway. Longterm though, I'm seriously thinking about going for an iPone and _MobileMe_ just to get rid of this annoyance.

 _Fantastical_ looks great and I will give the free trial a shot later. But on first sight I can't see any obvious advantage over my current setup which was only $1.

[1] <http://smellypuppy.com/quickcal-desktop/> $1 in the App Store [2] To be fair, I'm using a cheap HTC Wildfire and it feels slower every day. [3] You can't even add a reminder without using the Mouse! At least this was the case till two months ago and it seemed like the dozens of request didn't have an impact.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is not intended to be a criticism of this specific app but more articulation of the mindset that I'm sure I share with many others. I hope this is interesting to the developers.

I probably won't give this app a serious shot because calendaring is something that is so _intrinsically_ web that it's just not compelling otherwise. Immediacy and ubiquity are really the necessary ingredients. I can't install this, link my accounts, etc. I'd much rather hop on any old browser and be done with it. Google does a really good job of it. There are probably a few places to be improved, but it's definitely good. I'd like to see someone go after those things, but I'm much rather seem them done on the web.

Surely there are people who'd prefer it your way, but I figured I'd let you know where I'm coming from...

<comment><USER8> Is it? I do most on my organization on the train from and to work. So i cannot use a fancy web app, because I am constantly switching cells and dropping in and out of 3G land.

I would say that calendaring is the canonical example for the need to sync. But web? No, not at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Practically speaking, I almost always enter calendar entries on my phone nowadays. Still, the way it parses the entry in real-time and shows the result is very smart. I expect Google Calendar to copy it immediately since they already have the natural language parsing, but it can be a bit of a shot in the dark whether it gives the right results.

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting that this is on the Mac App Store, mainly because I didn't think that Apple ever introduced a proper API to add icons in the menu bar.

</comment><comment><USER10> Very curious how the developer added the arrow to the Keychain request window? Had no idea that could be done. Anyone know how that was done?

<comment><USER11> 10.5+ has API for accessing window info for other processes. A search for "CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo" should return plenty of information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does this app have its own data store that it syncs with iCal or does it just use the built-in calendar data store? I am always much more skeptical of trusting yet another app to sync properly (no duplications, lags, etc). These apps tend to make life harder since I have to deal with their issues rather than just being a better interface to the same data.

I'd love to know.

</comment><comment><USER13> Just bought it and it looks great. However; it uses 70MB RAM which seems a bit steep for this type of program. It is not possible to move its location in the menu bar which is irritating. An alarm clock/countdown timer would also have been nice, which is really what I need on my Mac.

<comment><USER14> Your post comes off as complaining. 70 MB of RAM? I'll bet you have at least 1 GB. RAM is meant to be used. An alarm clock? Then download an alarm clock app if that's what you want. Do you want a kitchen sink too?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> FYI, if the developer is reading this, please let me delete events from the widget.

<comment><USER11> That and editing are now at the top of our list. Getting 1.0 out the door was our #1 priority :)

<comment><USER16> Editing and deletion weren't $15 / 1.0 features?

I think that I see... You should clarify on the page that this views other calendars, and does not have it's own storage. You say that it "works with your favorite calendar application", but you mean that it "augments" or "views" your favorite calendar application.

<comment><USER17> IMO, "works with your favorite calendar application" is the clearest way to express that concept.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> OK, I'll try it out. iCal is definitely too much of a pain and riddled with numerous serious bugs.

In addition to normal language entry and bug fixes, I also need cell phone sync with phones other than iPhone.

<comment><USER18> follow up to previous post: OK, this is not what I thought it would be. It's a menu bar widget that allows text entry and little else. The widget isn't resizable so it only shows a few upcoming events at a time, 1-31 days, but you have to use a slider to see most of them. There's no proper calendaring, I can't go to a date for example. Seeing what is coming up next week is clumsy enough that iCal is a better choice.

Too bad. Needs tons of work. As it is, it would be OK as a freebie, but even as such I'd probably uninstall it after a while because of it taking up menu bar space and not being very useful.

This is just my user usability and usefulness feedback. It is not a flame. Downvote it anyway if you must, that's what is done. Polite criticism and honest feedback is not tolerated on these boards, I am used to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've been looking forward to this. I'm downloading the trial right now. I'll be interested to see how good the plain-language parsing is.

<comment><USER20> Same, just installed it and it looks great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "All your events are belong to us"

Got scared when i read this. Gotta be a mistype (second headline, middle of page).

<comment><USER22> It's a reference to an old meme: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us>

<comment><USER23> I had a feeling it was some inside joke. Not sure about expressions like these. If you're not familiar with the reference, it just looks like incorrect grammar or a typo.

I do like the trend of having apps that can launch from the menu bar like Alfred, Dropbox, Growl.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have wanted this app for ages. I just bought it, it works beautifully. Thank you for building this.

</comment><comment><USER25> can't configure it to start weeks on sunday.</comment>


Has Swedish feminism gone too far? - <AUTHOR> http://www.euronews.com/2013/03/08/has-swedish-feminism-gone-too-far/

<comment><USER2> Honestly, I think it's the natural course of things for feminism to go too far. It's society finding its bounds. When too far is reached, people will revolt, and we'll go the other way again. Eventually, equilibrium will be reached. At least, that's my dumbass arm-chair anthropologist assumption of things.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have seen this _exact_ news story 4 times so far - in 1998, and every five years thereafter. Hey, recycling is good for the environment, right?</comment>


Do You Have Any Questions for Us? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.reamaze.com/2014/10/18/do-you-have-any-questions-for-us/

<comment><USER2> customer service is often overlooked and underestimated in a business. A lot of small businesses don't seem to understand enough how great customer support leads to happy customers and happy customers in turn lead to revenue.

I wish less and less companies go with the defacto 'Your support question will be handled in the next 48 hours', or 'Your ticket number is #10388737125', or many of the robotic, templatized responses that is lazily copied from somewhere. A 'Reply above this line' also gets on my nerve.

Customer support should be more personal. Unfortunately, that seems to be missing in a lot of companies' support goals. It also helps if the CS person has a sense of humor, at the right times of course.

While in interviews I do try and get a sense of how a company, product and team values their customers, asking about how they do customer support never crossed my mind. I'd be surprised if there are many people who ask that. That being said, I'll keep in mind to query whenever my next interview comes up =)</comment>


Show HN: Rubik's cube variants in different shapes and sizes using canvas 2D API - <AUTHOR> demo https://aditya-r-m.github.io/twisty-polyhedra/
article https://medium.com/@adityam.rtm/creating-3d-twisty-puzzles-u...
source https://github.com/aditya-r-m/twisty-polyhedra <comment><USER2> Sadly, it not work for me.

After click on "play" button nothing happen, look on screenshot[0]

Browser: Pale Moon 28.1.0[1]

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/0GYEa9D.png](http://i.imgur.com/0GYEa9D.png)

[1] [http://linux.palemoon.org/download/mainline/](http://linux.palemoon.org/download/mainline/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I passed the code through Google closure compiler.

Now it should work on your browser, assuming that it supports HTML5 canvas API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Pretty cool but it'd be nice to have buttons to turn the cube rather than gestures - or at least an option in the settings for it. Love it either way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Will add this feature in the TODO list :) thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How do you rotate around the vertical axis on the diamond variants?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you may be mistaking them for a different type of puzzle with diamond shape & similar look. As far as I know,there are two possible variants of similar looking Octahedron shaped puzzles: 1) Face turning octahedron (the ones I've currently defined in the project) 2) Axis turning octahedron (on which you can twist around axis)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cool demo! One thing you could do to improve this is use quaternions to handle rotation of the cube. There are some great articles on implementing quaternions out there if you search for them. For example, I noticed when you turn a cube "upside down", the dragging to the left or right (with ctrl pressed) rotates the cube the wrong way. Quaternions are a great way to solve this issue

<comment><AUTHOR> Improved it, thank you!

Note that Quaternions didn't fix the issue by themselves. I had to change the interpretation of cursor movements to use axis-angle rotation based orientation.

The fix could be deployed with or without Quaternions.</comment></comment>


The Mysterious Google "nee" - <AUTHOR> https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?service=mail&passive=true&rm=false&continue=https://mail.google.com/mail/&ss=1&scc=1&ltmpl=default&ltmplcache=2&hl=en

<comment><USER2> It's a bug. Nothing else.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> mysterious nee in the body..

<comment><USER3> its all across the world, confirmations from Boston, Baltimore and Frankfurt(germany)

ScreenCap: <http://i.imgur.com/oeNai.png></comment></comment>


James Altucher: Claudia Is Worried I Will Be Killed For Posting This - <AUTHOR> http://jamesaltucher.quora.com/Claudia-Is-Worried-I-Will-Be-Killed-For-Posting-This <comment><USER2> Apropos of nothing: One of the classic elements of successful frauds is making the mark believe that they are pulling one over on the fraudster. (Take a look at those loan terms.)

<comment><USER3> Even better is if you make the mark think they are complicit in the fraud. Then, they cover it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How is this story notable? Seems like a garden variety 419 scam to me--except for the bit where the scammer gave up the $15,000 legal fees as ante.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_scam](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_scam)

</comment><comment><USER5> How naive are people with lots of money.

They got fax of the shares supposedly worth $25mln and they got some pieces of paper with ink on them.

And that was all they needed to irreversibly transfer $10mln to unknown individual.

</comment><comment><USER6> Killed, I don't know, but now I know never to do business with James Altucher, who lets any anonymous person get their hand halfway into someone's pocket for $10million

<comment><USER7> He just referred a potential client (referred to him by a friend of a friend) to his colleague. It was the colleague's responsibility to vet the client, which they did a so-so job at. Of course everyone should be cautious of deals that are too good to be true, but I don't think James Altucher is at fault for referring a possible lead to a friend.</comment></comment>