Supersharp Images from New VLT Adaptive Optics - <AUTHOR> https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1824/ <comment><USER2> This is very exciting. I'd love to see some of this make its way into amature equipment.

Technology has helped us go past what would have been though of as possible with similar optics equipment 50 years ago. For the most part, optical mirrors and lenses are the same but what we can now do with them has changed quite a bit.

For example, here is a video of Mars through a small telescope: [http://i.imgur.com/8juHPdn.gifv](http://i.imgur.com/8juHPdn.gifv)

If we take the best parts of each video frame in that video and combine them in a smart way, a process called lucky imaging, we can reduce the impact of the atmosphere: [http://i.imgur.com/CzLZTlv.png](http://i.imgur.com/CzLZTlv.png)

<comment><USER3> Uh, there is much more than that, if you feel fancy, you can reverse the distortion in each frame and "fix" the atmospheric issues given sufficient SNR. Unfortunately this is not enough for dark stars with reasonable sized optics...

See the work here and the comparison to Lucky Imaging using iirc. Avistack: [https://publikationen.uni- tuebingen.de/xmlui/handle/10900/49...](https://publikationen.uni- tuebingen.de/xmlui/handle/10900/49685)

<comment><USER2> Thank you for the link, there that is one hell of a reference. Please share more if you have any others handy.

I wonder how much of that work would be generalizable through specialized neural nets: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.00403](https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.00403)

<comment><USER3> Err, this is far from neural networks. I once tried to combine it with some thing that can do the optimization faster, so that I could make it a tree structure (as to prevent feedback form amplifying iteratively, kind of like how you need to be careful that your GAN doesn't start doing dog pictures instead of cat pictures), and run the images that compromise a tree against the best guess of it's sibling tree, as well as vice versa, before using these new estimates of the distortion to get a new best guess from all images contained by the parent of these sibling trees. Repeat until you reach the top. You can use more than one sibling to handle non-power-of-two framecounts. There is partial software on my Github, in case someone is interested I can be reached, and while working for free isn't really in my interested (other things make more fun/seem more promising), I'd be happy to start working on it again if there was a reason.

Regarding your paper, I have to remind you that Michael got nice results from upsampling the images before running his software. I actually planned on using the texture units for this, to save on bandwidth/address calculation overhead in the pending partial rewrite of my software. The GAN there also uses just a single frame, whereas this uses the properties of the distribution of the distortions when seen in the frequency domain to figure out how the distortions are most likely, and then combines the SNR from the many frames to a single image. There is research using a method very similar to Michael's with a GPU, GTX 580 or so iirc, which does >15 fps @720p in real time, with less than 2 frames latency and no more than 1 frame necessary latency if you run the GPU work queues rather empty (risking underutilisation if you don't get CPU time fast enough again). Combine with e.g. a nice Volta DGX, and something like a 400mm Schmidt camera including a field flattening lens and a CMOSIS CMV12000 (like, take the sensor out of an AXIOM beta camera, shrink the board around it to the smallest you can get, and stick it with a lens on top facing a 20 cm spherical mirror, with a corrective plate ~80cm from the mirror. This is about ~1000$ optics, 2500$ image hardware (including that necessary to get the full stream at >100 fps into the DGX), and whatever rent you pay for the DGX. Distortion free 10x slow motion with a pixel size of 14mm at 1km distance.

If you'd want to sell such a thing to non-military...

[0]: KIM, Dongmin; SRA, Suvrit; DHILLON, Inderjit S. A non-monotonic method for large-scale non-negative least squares. Optimization Methods and Software, 2013, 28. Jg., Nr. 5, S. 1012-1039. [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/622c/84cfba9781ad846105f28d...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/622c/84cfba9781ad846105f28d7bf69c5405a481.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a PhD student working with data of globular clusters from this instrument for quite some time now. I will be happy to answer your questions!

<comment><USER5> Are the images natural colour, or have they been 'enhanced' in any way? i.e. is Neptune really that blue?

<comment><USER6> I see this question a lot. I used to have an obsession with 'true color'; images felt fake otherwise. Artificial.

I'm a working scientist now, and my view has changed. I realize how limited our senses are. How much of the world--of the universe--I'd miss by restricting it to just what my eyes can see natively. Even among colors that I can see, but perhaps the signal is too faint ... I'm a lot more tolerant of color-mapped images now. I don't see them as artificial anymore, but as beautiful and transcendental. A window into a hyper-spectral world normally invisible to me. It's really something special. I wish I could share this perspective with more people.

<comment><USER7> Alex Grey studied cadavers at Harvard for years. His art tries to show the true medium, not one limited by visible light. Sort of like what Superman might see. Our bodies are emanating light in a spectrum of frequencies (Planks law.) All this light is leaving our bodies at C, whiles all the light from the universe is coming at us, our "light cone." We see the surface of bodies..but the actual substance of reality has interfering rippling waves emanating and being absorbed..not unlike a pool. So the next time someone tells you someone is ugly, remember that the visible light surface is just the beginning..

[https://m.alexgrey.com/art/paintings/soul/alex_grey_humming_...](https://m.alexgrey.com/art/paintings/soul/alex_grey_humming_bird/)

<comment><USER8> The artist of drawings for Scientific American for many years made his drawings super-real by emphasizing components of interest. And these were black-and-white.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This one is impressive [https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1824c/](https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1824c/)

<comment><USER10> I think this one is even more impressive [https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1824d/](https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1824d/)

If I understand correctly the middle and the image on the right are the same thing, both taken by VLT array. But the right is using the new MUSE technique.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Kinda hard to find the pics so here's top 100 [https://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/top100/](https://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/top100/)

<comment><USER12> Great images. However, the text below the first image says:

> _The Very Large Telescope snaps a stellar nursery and celebrates fifteen > years of operations_

... so presumably most of those were not taking with this new technology.

Thanks for linking anyway, though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Really cool profile page of the telescope [http://www.eso.org/public/teles- instr/paranal-observatory/vl...](http://www.eso.org/public/teles- instr/paranal-observatory/vlt/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Jesus, the description of the technology sounds amazing. I am blown away at how much ingenuity was required to make this.

</comment><comment><USER15> The neptune image is breathtaking. It instantly summons a yearning to explore this unknown icy neighbour.

</comment><comment><USER16> So the light we see from the lasers is emitted by atoms in space? I thought space was a vacuum? Or is it that the emitted light only comes from atoms in the atmosphere? So the further up we go, the dimmer becomes the emitted light.

Also, is there a way to determine how much blurring is happening from gravitational waves? In other words, if a ripple in spacetime washes across the space between us and a far away star, will the star become fuzzy like the schlieren distortion on a hot day here on earth? (faraway objects become ghostlike as heat from the hot ground alters the air density between observer and target)

</comment><comment><USER8> > The correction algorithm is then optimized ... to reach an image quality > almost as good as with a natural guide star.

Then why not use natural guide stars?

<comment><USER17> Because they have to be very bright and very close to the target. This limits the observable targets quite a lot (we don't want to observe something, but specific targets for most projects).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Lots of bla bla bla and only one image! Now I feel cheated, that was clickbait!</comment>


Why doesn't Windows include native PDF reader support? - <AUTHOR> http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001943.html <comment><USER2> Because Adobe pitches a fit about anything MS does to make working with PDF's free. You may not be aware of this but MS Office 2003 was supposed to have the ability to save to PDF builtin-but Adobe threw a huge hissy fit about MS cutting into their markets so MS took it out (there has been an add-on available as a download since it was released-but Adobe insisted the functionality not be included by default)

<comment><USER3> They make an insane amount of money from the way that _enterprises_ spend hundreds of dollars on Acrobat Professional licenses for every single computer. Sometimes they wise up and implement a baroque license management server where they only have to pay for a fraction of the licenses, but it still costs an insane amount of money.

When it gets used, it's almost exclusively for "Print to PDF". _Power Users_ will use it to combine PDFs, and maybe do some shitty doodling. Occasionally the awful PDF forms functionality gets used, but they usually learn their lesson (easy to make one worse than an MS Access app!)

It's the calf to Microsoft's Office cash cow.

<comment><USER4> PDFCreator? Ghostscript? What's wrong with corporations? (I guess that's why startups can be so successful)

<comment><USER5> Based on some similar experiences with a corporate client:

\- Purchasing-level decisions have to be approved by someone who worries less about the money being spent now than the situation the company will be in later. In other words, if I offer a free alternative to expensive commercial software, they'll be concerned that even though they'll save a few hundred or thousand dollars now, they'll be hamstrung if I ever leave, or if the free software vanishes.

\- These decisions are also often made by individuals who are not all that technically inclined, so they're suspicious of what they see as "amateur" versus "professional" (or commercial, or enterprise) software.

\- They're concerned about compatibility with their business partners.

\- They find many of the things that we like about the representation of free or open source software -- names like "Mozilla", "Firefox", "Thunderbird", "Foxit Reader", the FreeBSD daemon -- to be amateurish and annoying.

Yes, that leaves the door wide open for startups. However, there's a reason why this tends to be the pattern as businesses go from "startup" to "enterprise".

<comment><USER6> Not to mention that your startup can't spare the people for a (completely unnecessary in most cases) 6-month pitch/RFP/proof-of-concept process.

Basically the incentives of the typical purchasing department are not well- aligned with the interests of the corporation as a whole.

<comment><USER5> > _Basically the incentives of the typical purchasing department are not well- > aligned with the interests of the corporation as a whole._

I don't know about "typical" purchasing departments (or personnel), but in the example I was giving, they actually are working in the interests of the corporation.

My point was that the interests of the corporation -- in this example -- are different from the interests of those who devote more of their time to their computers.

Here's one more anecdote: this same client recently replaced my inexpensive, well-tuned, up-to-date, carefully-configured OpenBSD firewall for their network with an off-the-shelf SonicWall device. That annoyed me, to say the least, and I'm of the opinion that the move has made their network less secure overall. On the other hand, I also realize that now they have a device with a simple, easy-to-understand interface, so when they choose to replace me with a full-time employee, they won't have to worry about whether the employee has any OpenBSD experience. It also guarantees that I'm not hiding any funky backdoors in their firewall, and hey, if there is a network incursion, then they can go after the SonicWall company ... versus not having anyone to catch the fault in the case that the OpenBSD box gets rooted.

I don't want to come across as mean here, but honestly, if someone can't understand why corporations aren't using more open source software, then they don't have much experience with corporations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Twelve years ago, Microsoft found itself in a courtroom opposite the US Department of Justice for including native internet browsing support. The conclusion of that case was that Microsoft is not allowed to add "products" to their operating system. I think a PDF reader constitutes a product.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft>

<comment><USER8> And since then, they've included anti-virus software, a firewall, video players and codecs, and so on. I don't see how a PDF reader would be any different than Windows Media Player.

<comment><USER9> anti virus and firewalls are much closer to basic OS functionality- it's like self defense, but for software. That is much less objectionable than competing with Netscape was, which was the biggest software war of the time (that I know of)

Or, you can look at it from the POV of firewalls and AV is needed to fight flaws in their product. Should they be prohibited from defending their own product, even if it isn't a direct patch => resolution but a prevention?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd say they're probably trying to avoid another massive fine from the EU.

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

</comment><comment><USER11> Isn't this the same industry that screamed bloody murder when MSFT decided to produce a free anti-virus for Windows 7?

<comment><USER12> Microsoft produced a free antivirus for MSDOS 6.2, if memory serves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is the main thing I dislike about Windows. In OS X I constantly use PDFs: print to PDF, export as PDF, quickly preview PDFs. In Windows those things either require 3rd party software and/or way more time to launch programs.

<comment><USER14> You make "third party software" sound complicated.

Here, free PDF reader with annotations, blazingly fast: <http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/>

<comment><USER15> In osx you get print to pdf, reorder pdf's, remove pages from pdf's, add pages to pdf's, etc... for free out of the box. In addition using skim (3rd party) you get an excellent, fast, opensource, notetaking pdf reader.

Not saying that foxit is not good, I use it all the time in windows, but it is not a full featured free pdf utility.

<comment><USER16> > In osx you get print to pdf, reorder pdf's, remove pages from pdf's, add > pages to pdf's, etc... for free out of the box.

Wow, I've been missing out! I use PDFLab to do all but the first of these tasks; I didn't realise OS X had a built-in solution. How do I do it?

<comment><USER15> Use preview.app with the sidebar pulled out and you can just drag and drop pages around. Also you can delete pages from there and add in pages from other preview.app instances. You can also rotate pages from there too.

<comment><USER16> Beautiful—I didn't realise. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Microsoft has a competing format: XPS

</comment><comment><USER18> Pdf technology is a native part of Apple's drawing system Quartz in OS X: <http://www.prepressure.com/pdf/basics/osx_quartz> .

That might explain its relative ubiquity.

<comment><USER19> The Skim PDF reader/annotator takes advantage of this (as I understand it). Not having a Mac, I haven't tried it, but when I read about it a year or two ago, I became quite envious.

<http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Interesting that after all this time MS still haven't fixed this bug. I mean, I realize the patch is probably a business agreement rather than some code, but still.

</comment><comment><USER21> Didn't adobe have the rights for PDF till recently when they made it open source?

<comment><USER22> PDF became an open standard in 2008, but before that the format was still well specified and openly published.

<comment><USER21> It may of been well known, but anyone that tried to use it would of had to abibe by the license owner's wishes. Which according to other comments was Adobe not wanting it included which meant they couldn't without a lawsuit being introduced.

<comment><USER4> In most cases, unless a patent applies, if you don't get your information from the licensor (i.e. you create a "clean room" implementation) the official licensor of a format has no say in how you distribute your product. But, with the number of software patents granted accelerating, this approach appears to be less and less viable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Would it reduce the amount of .docs floating around the Word Wild Web?

</comment><comment><USER24> Export to PDF functionality is native in Word 2010 Beta

</comment><comment><USER25> Foxit Reader?

<comment><USER26> That's not the point--Mac _natively_ can render a PDF. You have to download a separate reader on a Windows machine.

<comment><USER25> Consider:

"Heck, you don't even need to build it into the OS. Just make it an optional download such as your Save As PDF add-in for Office."

And:

"Your customers are tired of the exploits and the complications that so many of today's PDF readers include."

The authors are asking Microsoft to write an application that reads PDFs and isn't Adobe Reader. My point is that such an application already exists, is free to download and use, and is both faster and more secure than Adobe's reader.

<comment><USER3> Foxit has had some pretty blatant security vulnerabilities -- straight up unprompted local code execution: <http://blog.didierstevens.com/2010/03/29/escape-from-pdf/>

It does a mediocre job of rendering, and isn't faster than Acrobat if you strip out all of Adobe's lame plugins ( _we put plugins in your plugins so you can extend while you embrace!_ )

<comment><USER25> I didn't know that about Foxit Reader; thanks for sharing. Still, there's no reason, given the author's own requirements, why a PDF reader has to come from Microsoft rather than a competent third party. Granted, Microsoft has gotten better at security in recent years, but they're hardly exemplary at it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Next wave web development: Elixir+Phoenix vs. Meteor+Angular2+TypeScript - <AUTHOR> My Background: Java Servlets/JSP, then Rails, and now Clojure fan. Elixir+Phoenix is very attractive, but Meteor+(some DOM system)+(some ES6-ish language) seems very nice.<p>The ultimate question, as a polyglot and a "get it done easier and not regret it too much later" kind of person, is which is worth the plunge?  I have a project right now to do, and I must commit. <comment> dimitri-gnidash Is that a personal project? I would be careful using any of the cutting edge technologies on the commercial projects.

Imagine the maintenance issues the developers that follow you will have if you do not pick the stack correctly.

For commercial projects, I would urge you to use something that is well- adopted React or Angular 2.

If the project is personal, then why not just have two smaller projects to utilize both tech stacks or even combine them. Nobody depends on you, and you have all the flexibility to play around and write the software as you please.

If you do end up playing with both, share your experience, and tell us which technology you prefer.

</comment><comment><USER2> Meteor is dead, it really pains me but it's done.

1\. Stagnated feature set playing catch up to other boilerplates.

2\. You will run into performance issues at 100 users.

3\. Still no real SQL support. Instead they're going all in on Apollo (graphql).

4\. Brain drain. Too many influential package maintainers have left Meteor entirely, including Arunoda.

Go with elixir and Phoenix - you won't think about performance until you get acquired lol

</comment><comment><USER3> Controversial opinion about Meteor by CEO Geoff Schmidt in another "Ask HN" 21 days ago:

 _> Meteor isn't going to take over all JavaScript development the way Rails took over Ruby development, at least not anytime soon. That's just not how the JavaScript ecosystem works. However, I think it will be the #1 full stack JavaScript framework for a long time to come and will continue to be a really great option for teams that want to build JavaScript apps quickly, especially apps that have a realtime or collaborative element._ [1]

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13303345](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13303345)

</comment><comment><USER4> These are not mutually exclusive options. You can use the heir to meteor (Apollo-client[1]) with elixir and phoenix quite easily. Absinthe [2] is shaping up to be a very complete implementation of the graphql spec, with proof-of-concept of non-spec features like subscriptions. I've been very happy with this combination, and it allows you to swap your front-end easily for another implementation (e.g. go with ember or react instead of angular).

[1] [https://github.com/apollostack/apollo- client](https://github.com/apollostack/apollo-client) [2] [http://absinthe- graphql.org/](http://absinthe-graphql.org/)

</comment><comment><USER5> If you're optimizing for "fun and functional", go Elixir/Phoenix and don't look back.

You'd still need some frontend tech, but there's a good amount of integration tools out there already for things like Elm, React, probably Meteor, Angular etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> My question is "does it matter".

In 24 months is everything your suggesting going to be replaced with something newer? The answer is maybe, and any guess is as good as any other.

Pick what you like, or think is going to make you happy, validate your choice and leave your self notes as to why. Come back to it later and see if you rational of today holds true in the future!

</comment><comment><USER7> For most web-app use cases your prior Rails knowledge would be a good starting point for building out your backend/api. A simple popular and well-supported framework (Angular/React) would make for a very effective frontend.

</comment><comment><USER8> Angular 2 with TS for front-end is an OK choice and works well for us. Choose another backend though, Meteor has seen it's prime. Chances are that a good old Express server will be more than enough.

</comment><comment><USER9> I can only speak for myself, but I find Elixir+Phoenix an awesome dev environment. It's a fantastic first functional language to get started with.</comment>


Juking Your Facebook 'Share' Stats Is as Easy as Sending a Message - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/10/facebook-likes-messages/

<comment><AUTHOR> An important distinction that isn't clearly stated in the article: When discussing like-stats, they refer to the like-button counter embedded on websites, not the Facebook Page likes.</comment>


VR is not just a tool, it's a foundation to build new tools off of - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@yoshikischmitz/vr-is-not-just-a-tool-its-a-foundation-to-build-new-tools-off-of-f9d48bbf6358#.lmaoy66ah <comment><USER2> "off of" is one of the daftest American manglings of the English language. Ending a sentence with such a preposition just makes it sound all the more ridiculous.

[Why do Americans hate the word "on" and love the word "of[f]"? They leave out the former and needlessly double up the latter]</comment>


Amazon EC2 Latency - <AUTHOR>

I've heard that EC2 isn't really suitable for serving website pages because it has a lot of latency. I haven't tested this myself but I did notice that x forwarding from amazon machine images is pretty slow--I suppose these are the same thing. Any thoughts? <comment><USER2> We experienced a lot of latency. In an application to serve static images from S3. We ended up moving our content to Panther CDN, which performs much better than EC2 or S3.</comment>


Ignoring the Wisdom of Crowds  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.asmartbear.com/blog/ignoring-the-wisdom-of-crowds.html

<comment><USER2> The article considers two situations where group wisdom is tapped using a simple democratic process, and shows that it works in one instance and doesn't work in the other. A more interesting question, and one that is far broader in scope, is to try to identify which _community structures_ amplify individual wisdom and which structures diminish it. Wikipedia and Slashdot would probably be extreme examples -- the former has built something remarkable by leveraging the collective wisdom of unremarkable individuals, whereas the latter has managed to take people who are smarter than average and reduce the discourse to juvenile banter. This should be interesting to people here, since Hacker News is an experiment in this vein. But I think the issue is important enough to merit rigorous study, so that people who are building various types of social sites can start with an idea of what kind of features to put in and what to leave out.

<comment><USER3> I case of Wikipedia, it's a collective effort but the actual work per article is done just by few people or even an individual.

The wisdom of the crowd still lies in the invidual knowledge, skill and effort -- not in guessing or voting the right answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> James Surowiecki, in his book "The Wisdom of Crowds", addresses some of this. Of the three conditions he says are necessary for the crowd to be wise, he says the following which applies to the holiday meal planning:

"Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise. An intelligent group, especially when confronted with cognition problems, does not ask its member to modify their positions in order to let the group reach a decision everyone can be happy with. Instead, it figures out how to use mechanisms -- like market prices, or intelligent voting systems -- to aggregate and produce collective judgements..."

The use of crowd wisdom to select a holiday meal is doomed as soon as the author says "eventually you realize there's only way to please everyone." That's not the way you use crowd wisdom. The better way is to give them some # of tokens and let them spend the tokens on possible meals. The final selections won't please everyone, but more people will be happy at the party. If there's limited meal choices and everyone has veto power as per the article, the solution will quickly go to null with the number of voters.

</comment><comment><USER5> I watched Who Wants to be a Millionaire quite frequently, and it's interesting how the crowd fails when it fails to provide the right answer. The problem is always the same. People who don't really know do not vote randomly and they do not abstain. They vote for the cliche and therefore don't cancel each other out.

90% accuracy from hundereds of people is actually pretty bad. A few people in the crowd undoubtedly know the right answer but they have no way of telling the others that they do. The "ask a friend" life line has the advantage that the friend will tell them how certain he or she is. So the contestant can at least disregard that opinion.

So my conclusion is that wisdom of the crowds doesn't even work very well in those areas where it is supposed to work well. We rarely work in an environment that is similar to the cookie jar example. Most of the time we are surrounded by cliches and ideologies. That's why I'm usually very reluctant to believe a source that cannot tell me how it knows what it claims to know.

</comment><comment><USER6> The writings of Thomas Malone are also very insightful so here is an introduction [http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/future-of-work/the- crowdsourced-...](http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/future-of-work/the-crowdsourced- company-31686)

</comment><comment><USER7> At the financial markets, at last, i can grant you that the masses are aways right ...</comment>


Who takes more risk: VC or Entreprenuer - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/4/who_takes_more_risk_vc_or_entrepreneur_ Seems obvious but a good read nonetheless. <comment><AUTHOR> It's a bit obvious but a good read nonetheless.

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice article, Hank. I knew it was only a matter of time when you posted something I completely agreed with.

One other point: you can lose money and then get it back but you can never get back the time you lost. In a lot of deals the VC puts in the money and the entrepreneur puts in his time. Since he's investing something he can never recover, isn't that another way of saying he's taking the greater risk?</comment>


Ask HN: How do people code, when StackOverflow is down? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Like barbarians, with this old-fashioned thing called "documentation".</comment>


Show HN: Blackjack Break, a minimal quick-play blackjack game - <AUTHOR> https://blackjackbreak.com <comment><USER2> Nice game. I'm glad you identified the major problem in many online blackjack toys - that they've got a scummy vibe to them - and done a clean break from that.

Some ideas:

* Keyboard shortcuts would be welcome - the click targets are grouped together on desktop and are not very large.

* Upscaling the game on desktop would be helpful for usability, it's quite small currently.

* I know it's just a hobby project, but it seems the action buttons are not in the tab order - was this deliberately removed? This seems like it would be a really easy step to take for at least minimal accessibility. Currently, a mouse is required on desktop due to this problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent suggestions, thanks! Any key recommendations for the shortcuts?

<comment><USER3> hjkl; or anything that can be done one-handed, preferably on the home row

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> From the about page: Towards the end of 2017, I found myself wanting to play a quick game of something while I was working. That something turned out to be blackjack. I tried a few web-based games and downloaded a bunch to my phone. All of them either felt kinda scammy, were hard to look at, or just played way too slow. I like making things, so I made Blackjack Break. I hope it's a fun diversion for you like it is for me.

<comment><USER4> Very nicely done, enjoyed playing it! My only wish would be to hit after split, though the way you handled it is perfectly valid.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, never played in a casino - Are the left and right hand cards hit immediately after splitting?

<comment><USER5> It depends. The rules vary from casino to casino. :)

The Wizard of Odds has a very thorough walk-through of the variations of rules - and what they mean to the odds:

[https://wizardofodds.com/games/blackjack/basics/#toc- RuleVar...](https://wizardofodds.com/games/blackjack/basics/#toc- RuleVariations)

Brings back memories from playing many, many hours of playing optimal strategy blackjack to release generous bonuses from online casinos. :)

Well done on launching btw. I second the UI suggestions about making UI a bit easier.

<comment><USER4> I was impressed by the online casinos using real dealers and those scannable oversized cards. I don't think I would have gone that route but great that people are employed and I guess that puts to bed any discussion about algorithms or if the computer is dealing under to itself. Wizard Of Odds is an amazing guy, I love the articles on his site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This would be a great candidate for automatic light/dark mode with the prefers-color-scheme css option.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll experiment with this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Makes me recall "BytesJack" from the old 10kb build competition: [http://heliom.github.io/bytesjack/](http://heliom.github.io/bytesjack/)

<comment><USER8> this is slick

<comment><USER7> Keyboard controls, responsive design, no images (I don't think), pseudo elements, and all weighing in under 10kb.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is there something like this, but for poker? The issues described by the author with most of the already existing offers are the exact same ones i have. I just want a poker game that isn't slow, doesnt feel scammy with tons of dark patterns and microtransactions, and has a clean and simple UX.

Great job btw, i definitely dig the overall feel of the app.

<comment><USER10> [http://gpokr.com](http://gpokr.com) not as active as it used to be but every now and then you'll find a table.

<comment><USER11> Gpokr was very popular back in the day as a GWT project, nice to see it alive 13 years later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great job!

For people not very into BJ - there are rules available with pretty binary decisions trees (depending on rules). Quick google search brought [https://www.blackjackapprenticeship.com/blackjack- strategy-c...](https://www.blackjackapprenticeship.com/blackjack-strategy- charts/) but there are plenty of other resources. Essentially, I believe there is always a perfect strategy available that should guarantee profit (given unlimited cash available to play unlimited game)

<comment><USER13> Without counting (which is not possible with this version since there is no shoe or deck to count from), optimal (basic) strategy will guarantee a loss in the long run. If there was a basic strategy which guaranteed profit for the player, no casino would offer this game.

<comment><USER14> With the set of rules implemented here, including early surrender and double after split, it seems perfect basic strategy, even without counting, gives a very minimal edge to the player.

Also, this version lets you count cards, since it uses a single deck and displays shuffles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I was looking for this! Works great on the Tesla touch screen while charging.

<comment><AUTHOR> So cool, I love it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is this open source? I kinda want to try training a Blackjack AI, and the clean minimal design for here could help if I try giving the game state to the AI as an image.

Also it would be fun to play with data of everyone's games if you're collecting them.

<comment><USER4> If your AI is any good it will refuse to play because it's realized the house always wins.

I spent a few hours watching card counting videos on YouTube to see if there was anything to it - didn't matter who it was, they spent the entire time belly-aching because other players were getting "their" cards. Amazing how all these card counting schemes depend on everyone else playing perfect basic strategy.

<comment><USER17> Card counting schemes have almost nothing to do with the cards of others. I have no idea who you were watching but they sound like frauds. It's trivially easy to verify that counting systems work in theory. If you have a sufficiently good counting system, you will know exactly the cards remaining in the deck (Suppose I knew only 8s were left in the deck. I just never hit and let the dealer bust continually). Even the best human-capable counting systems only have an edge of 1-2%, meaning that you still need to get lucky or have a ton of time and a near infinite bankroll (minimize risk of ruin).

Having more players at the table hurts the efficiency of the count because more cards come out between when you place your bet, and when you receive both of your cards. This means that the correlation between the count when you place your bet, and the hand you receive, decreases.

House edge at good casinos is normally below 1%, and you're telling me an AI with perfect information couldn't beat a dealer whose moves are incapable of changing given new information?

Source: I've card counted for 6-7 years now

<comment><USER4> If your playing with a six deck shoe and the casino is cutting at deck and a half, how much of an edge can you really get? Even if your the only player.

<comment><USER17> Depends on your betting spread and table rules. But at a deck in a half you're probably looking at around 0.75% for a pretty standard ruleset [1]

The casino I usually play at cuts at under a deck and also has a side bet (Over Under 13) with even better odds than the blackjack game if you use a different count. It can also be gamed many other ways (they give $5 and $2.5 chips, but don't pay quarters, so if you bet $7.50 for your hand, they pay $11.50, essentially improving your odds even further).

[1] [https://www.qfit.com/book/ModernBlackjackPage309.htm](https://www.qfit.com/book/ModernBlackjackPage309.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very nice. Any plans on open-sourcing this? I'm a newbie at blackjack and have been wanting to build a similarly minimalistic version adding a "strategy feedback" mode to help me memorize basic strategies.

<comment><USER19> I've got a simple blackjack program[1] in bash that I occasionally play; it's ugly code, but it's pretty straightforward.

More directly, I wrote (perl) a blackjack tester[2] to quiz myself, as well as a simple output of basic strategy[3]. I haven't touched these in half a decade, but seem to work fine!

1: [https://github.com/Amorymeltzer/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/bla...](https://github.com/Amorymeltzer/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/blackjack)

2: [https://github.com/Amorymeltzer/sandbox/blob/master/blackjac...](https://github.com/Amorymeltzer/sandbox/blob/master/blackjackTester.pl)

3: [https://github.com/Amorymeltzer/sandbox/blob/master/basic_st...](https://github.com/Amorymeltzer/sandbox/blob/master/basic_strategy.pl) but I recommend running it as perl basic_strategy.pl | awk '{printf "%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\n", $1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7, $8, $9, $10, $11;}'` for nicer output

<comment><USER20>
      perl basic_strategy.pl | column -t

<comment><USER19> Indeed, but the broader spacing from awk is easier on the eyes

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Very nice! It might slightly more comfortable to play if the dealer and player were differentiated better. Is the source code available?

<comment><USER22> +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is really nice! It reminds me of a similar site I played on ages back that supported online play for several different card games - it had a similar minimal, clean design. (Wish I could find it again.)

I agree, often I look for a card games online, but they are mostly bloated, full of ads, require accounts, really spammy.

Refreshing to see this.

</comment><comment><USER24> Minimal is good. I went the other way.

A bit relevent to this subject matter is a redesign of blackjack I finished awhile ago. I wanted to make game characters out of the cards and put the player in a dungeon-like environment rather than the generic game table.

Still working on v2, mainly updates to the graphics.

I put it on itch.io and you can download it for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

popup21.itch.io/popup21

</comment><comment><USER25> Nice! Is the deck 'infinite' or are you shuffling a set amount of decks together and dealing from the limited set?

<comment><USER26> The deck has 52 cards and is shuffled once 75% of the cards have been delt

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Great minimalistic interface. Two suggestions:

* Dark mode

* Add short instructions on how to play Blackjack. Im familiar with twenty-one but not with Blackjack so it'd be nice to have it there. I had to read Wiki page to play it

</comment><comment><USER28> Of course when I play fake blackjack I make 10x my initial bankroll within 5 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER29> Would be awesome if you could turn on basic strategy suggestions for each hand to help teach it. How many decks is this based off, or is it random from a single deck each deal?

</comment><comment><USER26> Nice game. I really enjoy how simple it is. Is there a reason it's not a PWA? I would love to be able to install it with offline play

</comment><comment><USER30> Very nice! The only thing I would recommend is after splitting, showing both hands even though the action is only on one of them.

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't know if it's just me, but on iOS I have to double tap the links sometimes to get them to fire.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll increase the clickable area of the links. That may fix this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Hah, interesting to see this here. I'm actually working on this but for mobile devices.

</comment><comment><USER33> Nice game. Would be nice to know when the deck gets shuffled for card counting purposes :)

<comment><USER34> I think it does that. I received a "(shuffled)" indicator after a deal several hands in.

<comment><USER35> [https://blackjackbreak.com/about#feedback](https://blackjackbreak.com/about#feedback)

>Dealer shuffles after dealing 75% of the deck

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is sleek! Hopefully hold'em is next up in the queue :)?

</comment><comment><USER37> TIL I suck at blackjack

</comment><comment><USER38> Just in time for re:Invent! Thanks. :-)

</comment><comment><USER39> Very well done, hands play quicky

</comment><comment><USER40> Very cool. Addictive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Loved it. Perfect.

<comment><AUTHOR> 'Preciate it!</comment></comment>


Mystery Frequency Disrupted Car Fobs in an Ohio City, and Now Residents Know Why - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/04/us/key-fobs-north-olmsted-ohio.html <comment><USER2> The answer (excerpted from the linked article):

      The source of the problem was a homemade battery-operated
      device designed by a local resident to alert him if someone
      was upstairs when he was working in his basement. It did so
      by turning off a light.

      "He has a fascination with electronics," Mr. Glassburn said,
      adding that the resident has special needs and would not be
      identified to protect his privacy.

      The inventor and other residents of his home had no idea
      that the device was wreaking havoc on the neighborhood, he
      said, until Mr. Glassburn and a volunteer with expertise in
      radio frequencies knocked on the door.

      "The way he designed it, it was persistently putting out a
      315 megahertz signal," Mr. Glassburn said. That is the
      frequency many car fobs and garage door openers rely on.

      "There was no malicious intent of the device," he said in a
      statement.

      The battery on the device was removed and the signal
      stopped. "It was a relief," Mr. Glassburn said.

<comment><USER3> FYI: quoting material like that is impossible to read on mobile because it does not wrap. Please just use ">" as an quotation marker.

<comment><USER2> I'm aware, and consciously chose this because in this case I thought that preformatted was clearer. But perhaps I'm wrong. What percentage of people use mobile for HN? Is there a reasonable column width that works for 95% of them?

Edit: OK, I just looked at it on a phone. Yes, it looks bad, and that the lines would have to be about half the length to be readable. Too late to edit this one, but I'll try to switch to italics or '>' in the future for everything except for code samples.

<comment><USER4> I get 26 characters portrait, 40 landscape.

I almost exclusively read HN on mobile, occasionally emailing things to myself to do on a desktop/laptop later.

<comment><USER5> On the other hand reader mode for FireFox temporarily fixes the bug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cutting thru the clickbait: Someone built a homemade light control system that operated at 315Mhz, and caused interference with many other devices.

<comment><USER7> I hate clickbait but that doesn't mean any article needs to be reduced to fit in a headline so no one has to read it in order to qualify as non-clickbait.

<comment><USER8> the headline omits basic critical information that could easily be included in the headline. They could have just as easily written it "Source of Mystery frequency disrupting car fobs in an Ohio city was homemade electronics project".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And this, everyone, is why the FCC regulation of transmitter hardware is a good thing and a benefit to society.

<comment><USER10> How's that work anyway? I thought their certification on transmitters was meant to certify that the design didn't emit any extra RF noise other than that it was intended to, that the power of the generated signal was commensurate with its' intended use, and that it fell within a frequency band that wasn't reserved for something else.

The only thing that really chafes for me with the FCC is their absolute retardation with Internet regulation, and I'm still not sure I'm 100% okay with idea of "spectrum auctions". I get the idea behind it, but I seriously question the wisdom of anything that basically self-selects for corporate ownership over anyone else.

Still a bit of a noob on the RF scene though, so I've probably got nil real insight into the real reason the FCC is actually doing a good job.

<comment><USER11> I don't know much about RF, but essentially any device can act as a software defined radio.. loops, obviously, operate many times per second; if you use that loop to send power down a wire, you get software defined transmission.

If your power is going down a long wire, it tends to generally get better travel on the signal (for accidental transmitters, intentionally sending signals can can use math and design to better results)

So if your Arduino operates on a loop, and sends LOW voltage, and occassionally HIGH voltage, you get a radio. The frequency is not exactly always the loops executed per second, it tends to get mirrored onto many frequencies for some reason I'm not familiar with.. you can force it to a certain frequency by getting you loop to operate at a specific speed, but it will also appear in other frequencies.

Would love a radio guy to expand on my explanation here.

<comment><USER12> > tends to get mirrored onto many frequencies for some reason I'm not familiar > with.

Play with this for a few minutes: [http://www.jezzamon.com/fourier/index.html](http://www.jezzamon.com/fourier/index.html)

And watch any of these: [https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=vibrating+reed+...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=vibrating+reed+frequency+meter)

Okay, so think of a radio receiver as being sensitive to a particular frequency, because it has a filter in front of it. A vibrating reed of a specific length, if you will. (This is almost exactly true for certain types of crystal and SAW filters, actually.)

But when you flip a digital output from 0 to 1 or vice-versa, it changes state very quickly -- the output is essentially a square wave. (Physical limits mean it does have a finite slew rate...) Which means it contains components of every frequency. Think of coming up to one of those vibrating-reed meters and smacking it -- a single impulse excites ALL the reeds.

Smack it regularly (change the pin state at a specific frequency) and the reeds that're _way_ off frequency will just sort of bounce around but not be particularly excited. You're creating noise, but it's just noise. But the reeds that're _odd multiples_ of the smacking frequency will vibrate too -- these are the harmonics. They'll get really excited, almost as excited as the fundamental. (The evens essentially cancel out.)

Here's what it looks like on the radio spectrum: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC36AqL5mw8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC36AqL5mw8)

Incidentally, this is why so many chips now boast "slew-rate limited" outputs: to intentionally slow down those transitions, to reduce the amount of noise that has to be filtered and shielded in order for the device to pass RF emissions testing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's not a "mystery frequency", the frequency is perfectly obvious, 315 MHz. It was a "mystery transmitter" stomping on the frequency, that's all.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was a mystery until they discovered what the frequency was.

<comment><USER12> But if your 315 MHz devices aren't working, it's probably interference on 315 MHz causing the problem.

And if it took _weeks_ for someone to look up the FCC ID printed on literally every single device affected by this problem, and learn what frequency it operates on, then I think that suggests a deeper problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The article misses to point out an important insight that this could be illegal and FCC governs radio spectrum. You can't just spin up a giant transmitter as a DIY project, you'll need a Ham radio license and can only operate in a certain frequency.

Lazy article - readers now think "hah...some nerd in his basement, no big deal." except that it is a federal crime.

<comment><USER12> That's not accurate. You absolutely can spin up a transmitter as a DIY project, as long as you stay within the power and duty cycle limits. Devices not intended for eventual sale don't even have to be tested or certified, as long as the builder/user makes a good-faith effort to comply with the regulations.

A ham license moves you into a different set of limits and gives you more bands to play in, that's all.

Take a read of [https://www.ti.com/lit/an/swra048/swra048.pdf](https://www.ti.com/lit/an/swra048/swra048.pdf) for a reasonably cogent summary of the regulations. The FCC's own rules are considerably denser legalese, and the relevant parts are scattered over hundred of pages. That app note brings it all together.

More: [https://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Do...](https://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Documents/bulletins/oet63/oet63rev.pdf) (See the "Home-built transmitters that are not for sale" section.)

<comment><USER14> That TI document is a nice look at the regulations that concern the device designer. There are also some regulations that the device user needs to comply with that you don't automatically get for free by using a compliant device. I didn't see those in the TI document, but may have missed them.

Probably the most important are for interacting with other services that share that band. A band might have several services authorized to use it, and these services have different priorities in case of conflict.

Generally, the rule is if a higher priority service interferes with you, it is up to you to filter it out or tolerate it. If you interfere with a higher priority service, it is up to you to stop.

For example, the lower part of the 2.4 GHz WiFi band overlaps the higher part of the 13 cm ham band. Hams have higher priority. So if I were to use that band for some long range telemetry (I have an Extra class ham license) and that messes with you using the lower WiFi channels, you are the one who has to find a workaround. If your WiFi messes up my telemetry, you are again the one who has to find a workaround.

On the other hand, part of 13 cm is an Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band. That ISM band has higher priority than the ham band. If your microwave oven messes up my telemetry, I'm the one who has to cope, because microwave ovens are classified as and operated as ISM devices. And if my telemetry messes up cooking your burrito, I'm the one who has to deal with it.

<comment><USER15> We'd all be impressed and terrified if your telemetry "messed up" a burrito, whether it was in the microwave oven or out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> People seem to love these stories even though there's always a boring explanation.

1\. Car key fobs aren't working... Mystery! Conspiracy!

2\. ... one week goes by ...

3\. Oh, actually something was broken / someone was doing something stupid.

e.x. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19046475](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19046475) cause: "faulty consumer electronic equipment stuck in transmit mode" [https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/carstairs-co-op-determines- source...](https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/carstairs-co-op-determines-source-of- interference-that-rendered-vehicle-key-fobs-inoperable-1.4279460)

At least "homemade battery-operated device designed by a local resident" is slightly more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER17> On a related note: LED light bulbs often emit radio frequencies and all of the ones I've tried so far interfere with my garage door. Which was insanely hard to figure out.

(Garage door openers have spots for 2 light bulbs.)

</comment><comment><USER18> What would happen if you just jammed car doors across an entire city? Or after a big game/concert? Could cause some panic i think.

<comment><USER19> Most (all?) cars have a keyed driver door. Otherwise you couldn't get into the vehicle if the battery died.

<comment><USER18> Sure, but if your car was working perfectly fine on the way in to the game and three hours later hundreds of people can't get into their cars either...you're thinking the bomb is coming.</comment></comment></comment>


Can we stop pretending the iPad represents the future of computing? - <AUTHOR> http://bgr.com/2016/03/28/post-pc-era-ipad-future-of-computing/ <comment><USER2> tablets are personal game/tv systems. I'm sorry but a screen with no tactile feedback doesn't work for typing. Any kind of designing/programming needs a large if not multiple screens. When if augmented reality hits, the design use case will fall, to that device. If you can capture a persons inner voice you really wouldn't need a pc.</comment>


Apple IPhone Lust Revives Underground U.S. Market Joining China - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-24/iphone-lust-revives-underground-u-s-market-joining-china.html

<comment><USER2> There go, Apple. If people want it, they're still going to get it no matter where they are. And yes, resellers are still getting the phones from them, but all that extra profit they'll get is not something they might want.

</comment><comment><USER3> And now iPhone bends too.</comment>


Can Google Stop the Brain Drain? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/03/can-google-stop.html

<comment><USER2> From a Student's Guide to Startups back in 2006:

"Speaking of cool places to work, there is of course Google. But I notice something slightly frightening about Google: zero startups come out of there. In that respect it's a black hole. People seem to like working at Google too much to leave. So if you hope to start a startup one day, the evidence so far suggests you shouldn't work there."

</comment><comment><USER3> No.

From the article: He says most Googlers' options vest under four- or five-year plans

Google floated in Aug 2004. Here's looking forward to Aug 2008. That may be why Quaero recently got US$306 million investment ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=136759> ) and why SearchMe recently got US$31 million from Sequoia ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=134291> ). The latter is quite telling.</comment>


Ask HN: Are .io domains still considered good for (web based) startups? - <AUTHOR> Just wondering if they are still considered a good choice or if they're "sooo 5 years ago"?  They were all the rage a few years back, but how about nowadays? <comment><USER2> There have been some frustrating and long outages of the DNS, causing hours of downtime. We switched our API endpoint from .io to .com because we can't afford that much downtime for no good reason.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think so, depending a bit on your audience. When the .com you want is taken (almost always), going for the .io usually makes sense as it's now so commonplace (especially in tech-savvy circles).

If you're trying to build a big direct to consumer brand, .io might not be the best choice.

<comment><USER4> +1 .io is for a "techie" audience. .com still wins for a generic consumer audience.

<comment><USER5> I'd almost argue that for the techie crowd, .io is shiny, but any extension is welcome. Tech audience cares less about domaine ext I think.

Where as I think my father would assume `legitsite.la` is a virus or something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They were never a good choice...

When I see a startup with a .io, I always check the .com and almost always see their name was already taken by some other company.

That's a pretty big hint: think of a better name.

<comment><AUTHOR> In my experience it's not that another company has the .com for what I'm looking for, but a squatter has parked it or a reseller is asking $100s or $1000s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the novelty has worn off, yes. You won't get a bonus by it anymore, so ask yourself if it is worth the extra money and the potential stress of any DNS issues.

I've owned them in the past and I wouldn't buy them again for a new thing.

</comment><comment><USER8> I would diversify across several tld's and be ready to make use of any of them in your application by switching a properties file or database entry. Should there be a problem with a set of root servers, your SLA impact can be reduced. Even for my personal hobby sites, I always get at least 2 TLD's, sometimes 4+. That is just my own opinion based on my own experiences.

There is also some factor of brand protection in this method. If you wait until your business is successful and fast growing, it is too late to go back and get all the TLD's for your brand. They will have been snatched up and you will have been too busy to remember this or notice until it is too late.

</comment><comment><USER9> If your audience is the British Indian Ocean Territory, why not?

</comment><comment><USER10> As others have said, .com is king.

But since it's very difficult to obtain a good name in .com these days, a good alternative is .app which was just released so there's plenty of good names at reasonable prices.

<comment><AUTHOR> What if you don't plan on releasing an app, but just want a web presence for your startup -- is .app a good idea in this case?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you can, just stay with a .com. You're just looking for more headaches down your road to success.

</comment><comment><USER12> They were never a good choice.</comment>


Nudge.ai Is Closing - <AUTHOR> https://nudge.ai/notice-thank-you/ <comment><AUTHOR> What is Nudge? A planner app that runs over SMS [https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/10/the-nudge-is-a-planner- app...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/10/the-nudge-is-a-planner-app-packaged- as-an-sms-subscription-service/)</comment>


Our road to self-driving vehicles - <AUTHOR> https://www.uber.com/blog/our-road-to-self-driving-vehicles/ <comment><USER2> I love how they disingenuously imply that their end game is to have tons of self driving cars with a highly trained (and presumably highly paid) driver sitting in the driver's seat.

In reality, those drivers are there temporarily until the tech is good enough to phase them out (obviously). My guess is that the cars will be ready for full driverless before "driverless with backup driver" becomes big enough for anyone to notice.

<comment><USER3> Those drivers will provide value add services. Which is more valuable: a coffee shop or a coffee shop with a person in it? Why would you think a mobile coffee shop would be any different?

<comment><USER4> Not sure this is the best analogy. Here, the car is the coffee.

So to use those nouns, it's more like comparing a cup of coffee vs a cup of coffee with a person in it....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Curiously, the source code @1:44 [1] is pretty visible [2].

Seems a Flask app in a file called hexstub.py, created by dennisz.

[1] [https://youtu.be/27OuOCeZmwI?t=104](https://youtu.be/27OuOCeZmwI?t=104)

[2] [https://i.imgur.com/x4SJmJe.png](https://i.imgur.com/x4SJmJe.png)

<comment><USER6> Neat. Looks like some source from their iOS app on the left, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> We've had "Johnny cabs" for decades now in science fiction. People are clear on the concept. Once they work cleanly, smoothly, safely, I predict really driverless cabs will become the norm in half a decade. They need to look, feel, and be safe is all. Cabs don't have to handle all terrain; they can be constrained to known, plotted streets.

</comment><comment><USER8> So, from the video, I get the idea that a "self-driving car" is going to still have someone behind the wheel (a more-qualified someone than otherwise, it seems) so the self-driving part to ... increase safety? make you good about automation? allow more videos to be made? ...

<comment><USER9> I was wondering that too. I think they're the designated scapegoat. If anything goes wrong, they get the blame.

Pretty smart. It sidesteps some of the moral questions by punting.

<comment><USER10> Exactly. We have this weird cultural fixation on having "someone" to blame. What's weird is that if it's a human that made the mistake, that's somehow OK. We give humans a free pass. "To err is human", after all. Shit happens.

But if an algorithm screws up and kills someone, that's unacceptable. We start imagining ways that a human would _not_ have failed in the same scenario. We decry "killer robots" and "cold unfeeling machines". Even if that algorithm has already saved 99 lives from being lost to stupid, tired, drunk, inattentive humans, that 100th life is somehow more important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's a little sad that nobody at Uber spent 10 seconds reading past the first sentence in this post:

"At Uber, we've got lots of people helping to get our hundreds of our self- driving cars out on the road. "

</comment><comment><USER12> I find this all very jarring.

<comment><USER13> I hear ya. I'm not worried. People tend to underestimate how intelligent humans are and drastically overestimate how "smart" pre-programmed cars are going to be. The reality is, like "free money" it's also a control system, and most of us already know it. Consider the near total rejection of camera tickets when it's put to a vote. There's billions of $ in hype. I'll happily bet against it.

Something that concerns me slightly more is when we start growing 'subservient' neurons to drive us around. They will be smart enough to make it work, but the closed and connected 'trusted' silicon surrounding them would be a problem.

A short term problem is new drivers might become dependent and not learn the necessary skills... like pilots forgetting how to land.... but I doubt it. Gen Z is turning out just fine.

Note I live in one of the most freedom appreciating places on Earth, if you are in one of the nanny states that has already hooked the population on public transportation then all bets are off and ya, you should worry.</comment></comment>


jQuery Crash - <AUTHOR> http://archive.plugins.jquery.com/project/crash

<comment><USER2> Description:

      A jQuery plugin for crashing IE6. That'll teach those
      motherf!%@*#s to upgrade their s#*t.

To save your time, here is the code:

      ;jQuery.crash=function(x){for(x in document.open);};

Define a function on a global object? Plugin!

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the real reason IE6 persists is b/c windows 2000 persists and IE6 is the newest version of IE that can be installed on Win2K. Firefox no longer supports Win2K and Chrome has never supported it.

<comment><USER4> I've heard that XP is widely deployed, but in what world does a business persist in keeping Win2K deployed? Wifi support is weak, and USB support was still shaky.

I doubt Win2K is the reason. It's more likely IIS-specific ActiveX-infested enterprise code that requires IE6... Microsoft (and their partners) have a rather sizeable consulting presence that has in the past 15 years pushed out a lot of MS-specific web solutions.

<comment><USER3> Windows 2K is the newest version of Windows that does not "phone home" to activate after the product key was entered. Thus it is widespread due to piracy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Shrug. People who can upgrade have already. It isn't a won't, it is a can't. So you aren't teaching anybody anything.

<comment><USER6> Well, if they can't do the upgrade then they should find the person who can. If people scream loud enough it will get done.

<comment><USER7> Yes, they should replace the operating system they currently use and are perfectly happy with just because you want them too. Step outside yourself for a moment and consider who those people are, and what their needs are. They don't care about your buzzword3.0 social.ly cloud.io startup's pointless javascript app. The fact that it won't work in IE6 doesn't matter to them in the least, they just use their web browser to retrieve information, a simple task which even mosaic is perfectly capable of. Crashing their browser to try to make yourself feel good doesn't accomplish anything.

<comment><USER8> Sometimes I wonder about things....

Do you honestly believe that anyone with a business is going to consider using this code as opposed to either ignoring IE6 users, or re-directing them to a page that asks them to upgrade?

I think, just by looking at it, its a joke but I might be wrong (Poe's Law).

<comment><USER7> Did you reply to the wrong post by accident? I was responding to the post I replied to. My comment should obviously be taken in that context, not as a response to the existence of the "plugin".

<comment><USER9> Hi, two weeks ago I asked you a question about which css framework you recommended and I believe you may not have seen it, as there was a very large discussion. As I have no other way to contact you I wonder if you could answer here?

<comment><USER7> I don't know of any that I would consider using. We have a web designer on staff so it isn't an issue for us.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Social. Local. Mobile. solomo lomoso moloso somolo losomo mosolo - <AUTHOR>

Which do you prefer? <comment><USER2> Solomo sounds the best, but it also resembles "slow-mo" which is a good thing and bad thing, given the meaning of the word.

</comment><comment><USER3> Social should always be Global and on every device possible. But I did love that part of the episode, it's so true to the current times.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd pick Solomo, because it resembles a real word, and is also the exact sequence you picked.

</comment><comment><USER5> None. Standing on their own, they're just meaningless buzzwords.

</comment><comment><USER6> Solomo or somolo.

</comment><comment><USER7> moloso two dot oh

</comment><comment><USER8> mosolo

</comment><comment><USER9> s17e</comment>


Show HN: A minimal web-based IMAP client for use on untrusted machines - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dividuum/one-time-mail <comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to have a way of accessing parts of my email account from untrusted machines (e.g. from an internet cafe while on vacation). I didn't find a simple way to do this, so I wrote my own tool. It's a python/flask/gevent based server and a very minimal read-only frontend to display mails. It only allows access to a configured set of mailboxes using one times passwords or a YubiKey.

Feedback welcome.

</comment><comment><USER2> Definitely a cool idea. Though I feel like I would want to be able to have more flexible rules than "folder" to decide what the account can access. For example, "all unread emails newer than 1 day and containing the string 'registration'" would be quite useful. To be fair, it would be a bit of a pain to implement but it might be useful for the usecase of wanting to just get a single email.

It's also quite annoying that you have to set up the keys beforehand. Though, obviously if you could connect to the server to create keys then you wouldn't need to use this. :/

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback. I've updated the code to be more flexible: You can now specify an IMAP search ([https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3501#section-6.4.5](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3501#section-6.4.5)). You can also create multiple "views" that use different searches for the same IMAP folder. So your example should be doable now.

<comment><USER2> Awesome! :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6238](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6238)

Have you considered something like TOTP paired with Google Authenticator or the like instead of just the Yubikey for one-time passwords?

EDIT: I know you don't _just_ use Yubikey. But, unless I'm not reading this correctly, the other tokens are pre-specified and can be exhausted.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have. But TOTP is a bit tricky: A generated password isn't single use by design (as it's valid for 30 second window). So you'd have to make sure a single password can be only used once on the server side. Additionally the default 6 digit code seems a bit weak. It seems that 6 digits is fixed in Google Authenticator at the moment: [https://github.com/google/google- authenticator/wiki/Key-Uri-...](https://github.com/google/google- authenticator/wiki/Key-Uri-Format#digits).

HOTP might also be possible, but then you also have to store state (the counter) on the server side. Additionally that also seems to be limited to 6 digits in Google Authenticator.

My current approach is: Don't exhaust the tokens before you return from vacation :-)

<comment><USER3> Fair approach. Just a thought. Good point on the 30 second window, would suggest that (without ensuring the server only accepts it once) that someone else could gain access (though it being read-only they'd have limited access).

I'm not familiar with Yubikeys other than that they exist. How're you using them for authentication? Do they not have the potential password reuse issue (seems they include TOTP support among other methods of authentication)?

Also, I'm fairly new to TOTP and was a bit surprised that Google Authenticator didn't allow for longer keys. That seems like it ought to be easy, to this layman, to implement for them.

      ===EDIT===

Found my answer to the Yubikey question. Read their documentation on how their OTP works. My initial confusion was based on a cursory read through where I saw they supported TOTP, but they have another method that's not time-based. So, yeah, not sure a good solution to the TOTP password reuse problem, but might spend more time looking into using Yubikey for myself.</comment></comment></comment>


Is Quantum Theory About Reality or What We Know? - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us//blog/is-quantum-theory-about-reality-or-what-we-know <comment><USER2> I hope Pilot Wave Theory [0][1] gets more recognition and future work is able to extend it to account for relativity, there's hope that we actually can find a deterministic approach to Quantum Mechanics.

Here's a amusing video of an analogous macroscopic experiment, droplets oscillating and interacting with each other at stable states: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUI_DtzXdw4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUI_DtzXdw4)

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory)

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

<comment><USER3> I've been fairly interested in pilot wave thoery, and the more I delve into it, the less I feel it's useful.

My understanding is that the statistical equivalent of the pilot wave theory is "when you flip a coin, there is not a 50/50 chance, but a 100% chance of getting the result, because you got the result". Hyper-determinism.

The programming equivalent is "all functions are built with lookup tables, with precomputed values". Great, but I still want to predict the values of the lookup tables to describe the function.

From the wiki description of the "guiding function" (basically, the universe's step function):

>The main fact to notice is that this velocity field depends on the actual positions of all of the N particles in the universe.

This feels totally infalsifiable! "in the exact state of the universe you get the result you get". None of the results end up being usable because there's always the "out" of "the universe has changed". You end up going into hyper- determinism, which is almost all about negating free will.

Even if the pilot wave theory is the "real thing", the other model of quantum mechanics ends up being more useful because at least you can make some predictions on the state of the universe.

(Would love to have someone explain to me how we can apply Pilot Wave Theory in a "local-ish" fashion, people worked hard on this stuff so I imagine there's some use)

<comment><USER4> > You end up going into hyper-determinism, which is almost all about negating > free will.

You seem to think this is a bad thing. Why?

<comment><USER5> I would say: because a totally deterministic, nonstochastic universe becomes subject to paradox theorems about Laplace's Demon.[1] You need at least a little bit of stochasticity to make prediction and unpredictability work out.

[1] -- [https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/laplaces- demon/](https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/laplaces-demon/)

<comment><USER6> Most of the disproofs here don't actually seem to disprove the demon's existence, just limit it's ability to answer trick questions.

"Suppose that there is a device that can predict the future. Ask that device what you will do in the evening. Without loss of generality, consider that there are only two options: (1) watch TV or (2) listen to the radio. After the device gives a response, for example, (1) watch TV, you instead listen to the radio on purpose. The device would, therefore, be wrong. No matter what the device says, we are free to choose the other option. This implies that Laplace's demon cannot exist."

This doesn't prove that the demon can't exist, just that it can't answer the question. If it knows what you will do in any case of its response, and it knows what its response will be, it knows what you will do, generally. It just can't tell you what you are going to do. Sort of a difference between being omniscient versus being omnipotent.

In other words, the demon knows that its response will be X, and your actions will be Y, it's response just can't be truthful. It's all still perfectly deterministic.

Free will is just a convenient illusion based on the fact that predicting the universe faster than realtime would almost certainly require more resources than the universe contains. At best, we can limit our scope for imperfect predictions based on imperfect knowledge and limited processing ability. The universe is likely deterministic, but there's no way to act on that in a meaningful way, so for the purposes of human existence, we may as well act as if we have free will.

<comment><USER7> Free will can exist; we just are not able to model it or reason about it with the constructs we have

<comment><USER8> Free will is an outcome of a universe which is not purely deterministic if you have a proof that the universe is then essentially there is no freewill.

Freewill goes beyond the concept of your brain deciding what to have for dinner.

People are actually analogous to some physical system it's much harder to predict the actions of an individual whilst predicting group actions on a larger scale is easier since the various individual inputs are effectively canceled out.

This is like modeling say a glass of water, modeling each individual molecule is nearly impossible because you get to the point of not being able to measure them especially when you trying to measure or predict the sub atomic make up of each molecule, but modeling the entire system is easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you're interested in the subject matter, I highly recommend Richard Feynman's 'Six Easy Pieces' series (available on Youtube here: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBxHpsmcxyNghmwd6MJBy...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBxHpsmcxyNghmwd6MJByuhwMr- WkfoB8) ).

Feynman was a key member of the Manhattan project (Wikipedia link here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project) ). I trust him to know what he's talking about. :-)

</comment><comment><USER10> I really enjoyed the article.

Every time I read about Quantum Theory it reminds me about a story I read online some time ago. I can't fully remember it:

I think it was about a guy who made a Quantum Computer to answer any question in the universe by asking it to different dimension of himself. I think he uses it to win the lottery but in the end he mistrusts himself to answer the question "how to live a happy life" and ends up living an unhappy life.

I really want to re-read it. Does anyone know where I can find this story?

I spend weeks now to find it ... with no luck.

<comment><USER11> [https://physicsnapkins.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/all-paths- to...](https://physicsnapkins.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/all-paths-to- happiness/)

<comment><USER10> YES, That is it! Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> " _Measuring a system will generally change its state from one in which each possible outcome has some non-zero probability to one in which only one outcome occurs. That's a lot like what happens when, in the die game, you learn that the die does, in fact, show a six. It seems strange to think that the world would change simply because you measured something. But if it is just your knowledge that changes, things don't seem so strange._ "

This is the only interpretation of quantum theory that makes sense to me. The idea that an objective reality of the world has changed, through our act of observation, leads to absurd conclusions such as Schrodinger's cat being simultaneously alive and dead at the same time. I believe this is the same point that Schrodinger tried to make with his thought experiment as well.

<comment> wu-ikkyu So the most logical interpretation of quantum physics is that _reality is subjective_ , correct?

<comment><USER13> No, the most logical interpretation of quantum mechanics is that you can't measure things without using particle interactions, and particle interactions change what they interact with.

<comment><USER14> I don't think that's enough. Particle interactions are unitary, but measurement looks non-unitary from the point of view of the observer.

Reality is intersubjective, but not subjectivist.

<comment><USER13> I think confusion arises when people hear 'measurement' and jump to thinking "wait, what's so special about measurement? Would the world not exist if we weren't there to measure it?" This is due to an imprecise understanding of measurement, and should be corrected by pointing out all particle interactions are measurements. Our classical world exists without superposition because there are enough particles interacting with each other that everything is constantly being measured.

<comment><USER15> I cannot agree with this more. Universe has been existing without intelligent observers for billions of years. It stands to reason that universe is constantly being shaped as particles interact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Anyone who thinks that QM is making stuff up, please watch this video. Here Rubidium atoms (mind you atoms and not electrons or photos) are made to interfere with each other.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_w6AGe_fIo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_w6AGe_fIo)

Quantum mechanics is a foundation of physics, chemistry and materials science. Still, there is an ongoing debate about the emergence of the classical, macroscopic world from the well-understood microscopic world of quantum mechanics. We contribute to this discourse by demonstrating quantum superposition of massive particles at the distance (0.5 m) and time scales (2 s) of everyday life, thereby advancing the state-of-the-art of atom de Broglie wave interferometry by nearly two orders of magnitude [1]. In addition to testing a central tenet of quantum mechanics, we pave the way for new precision tests of gravity, including the possible observation of gravitational waves and tests of the equivalence principle. In related experimental work, we demonstrate that entangled clusters of approximately 1000 atoms can be used to achieve 10-fold improvement in the sensitivity of quantum sensors based on atomic transitions; the levels of performance achieved could not have been realized with any competing (non-entangled) method [2].

</comment><comment><USER16> This is closely related to QBism (quantum Bayesianism)

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

[https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150604-quantum- bayesianism-...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150604-quantum-bayesianism- qbism/)

</comment><comment><USER17> "Physicists know how to use quantum theory—your phone and computer give plenty of evidence of that."

What?

<comment><USER18> Semiconductors couldn't work without quantum mechanics [0]. Heck, _the sun_ couldn't work without quantum mechanics [1].

[0] [https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/112615/why-is- it...](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/112615/why-is-it-said-that- without-quantum-mechanics-we-would-not-have-modern-computers)

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/ethansiegel/2015/06/22/its- the-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/ethansiegel/2015/06/22/its-the-power-of- quantum-mechanics-that-allow-the-sun-to-shine/#2014a30143f7)

<comment><USER18> (This does not make your phone a quantum computer. Your phone is an ordinary computer that happens to be enabled by quantum mechanics.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think that "reality vs knowledge" is a false dichotomy. After all, our knowledge is a classical-level feature _of_ reality, not a core element of nature's physical ontology. What does nature's physical ontology require, such that once it all builds up to the classical level, we can know things?

Information as an element of physics is what I'd guess.

</comment><comment><USER19> As a laymen, it seems to me that quantum theory is similar to the expanding universe theory in that scientists substitute complexity (cause of expansion, quantum states) with a token (dark matter/energy, indeterminacy) until you better understand the underlying systems.

Can anyone tell me why I am incorrect?

<comment><USER20> The two examples you give are very different. I would argue that you are, indeed, very incorrect.

The purpose of scientific theories is to be able to make predictions about physical systems. Fundamental theories are based on some postulates (assumptions; in mathematics, we would have axioms). Quantum mechanics is based on a few postulates (which are expressed in very mathematical terms, like "Physical observables are represented by Hermitian matrices on a Hilbert Space H").

If the theory makes incorrect predictions, it is deemed to be wrong. If it makes predictions that cannot be explained using "common sense", then non- specialist come out of the wood work stating that it is obviously incorrect, that specialists simply do not understand.

For the expanding universe ... we have a theory (Einstein's Theory of General Relativity) which has been extremely well tested in all kinds of scenarios, and has always been found to make correct predictions. Your phone's GPS would not work if it would use predictions from Newton's theory rather than Einstein's.

The Theory of General Relativity can be thought as a set of 16 equations of the form:

(aspect of geometry of space time) = (stress-energy-momentum content of the universe)

In simplified terms, the left-hand side of these equations relates to the observed expansion of the universe. The right-hand side of these equations is what type of "energy/matter" we observe. We find that simply including baryonic (i.e. "normal") matter that we can see by looking (using telescopes) at the sky leads to inconsistencies with the observed expansion. If we include different type of energy/matter that we _cannot_ see (i.e. dark), each obeying precise equations of state, we can have predictions that are consistent with what we observe. Thus, we use General Relativity + observations about the expansion of the universe to make predictions about what is the energy/matter content of the universe.

What you see as a failure, I see as a success of G.R. as it makes predictions about what is found in the universe which we did not know before, and had no way to know simply using the tools we had.

"Fun fact": many years before modern neutrino experiments nailed down the number of "normal" light neutrino species to 3, using General Relativity and known nuclear physics, one could use the observations of the ratio of light elements (He/H, Li/H, etc.) produced in the early universe to make the prediction that the number of light neutrino species had to be equal to 3.

<comment><USER21> > "Fun fact": many years before modern neutrino experiments nailed down the > number of "normal" light neutrino species to 3, using General Relativity and > known nuclear physics, one could use the observations of the ratio of light > elements (He/H, Li/H, etc.) produced in the early universe to make the > prediction that the number of light neutrino species had to be equal to 3.

Could you give a bit more detail on how the observatsions, plus nuclear physics, plus general relativity, led to that conclusion?

<comment><USER20> Look at the very short section titled Big Bang nucleosynthesis on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_neutrino_background](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_neutrino_background). Based only on the relative abundance of He-4 and D (H-2), one gets an estimate of 3.14 for the number of neutrino species. You can find more detail on [http://darkuniverse.uni- hd.de/pub/Main/WinterSchool08Slides/...](http://darkuniverse.uni- hd.de/pub/Main/WinterSchool08Slides/CosmologicalNeutrinos.pdf). Basically, the more light neutrino species there are, the faster the expansion occurred in the early universe, and the less time there is for making other nucleus from protons and neutrons. After a while, the matter is to diluted for fusion to occur and the ratio of various nuclei is "frozen" .... until stars are formed much later on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Doesn't Bell's inequality address this question?

<comment><USER23> It addresses a related but slightly different question.

You flip a coin: there is a 50/50 chance of heads or tails. These probabilities are due to our incomplete knowledge: the coin knows which face is up, and it's only because we don't know that we assign probabilities.

Now if we have a particle that is 50/50 spin up or spin down, we may think that it is like a coin: the spin is already determined, we just don't know which it is. This is where Bell's Inequality comes in and shuts that idea down. Until the particle is observed, it simply does not have a spin, in the same way that a coin has an up face.

So if a pre-observed particle does not have a spin, what does it actually have? This is the core of the dispute in the article. There's two possible answers:

1\. A wavefunction (psi), aka a quantum state. This is the psi-ontic view which argues the wavefunction is a real and physical thing that evolves in time regardless of any observations. MWI and Bohm are both psi-ontic theories.

2\. Nothing. This is the psi-epistemic view which holds that it makes no sense to talk about a particle's reality in-between observations. In this view, only measurements and their results are real; the wavefunction is a state of knowledge. Copenhagen, Consistent Histories, and the minimalist ensemble interpretations are psi-epistemic.

<comment><USER24> The argument about what "a real and physical wavefunction" means boils down to this question:

"Is there a science of the wavefunction beyond QM?"

Can you ask more questions about it, break it down into constituent processes, maybe re-engineer it?

Or is it opaque and closed and there is no possible way to do further science on it?

My money is on option 1, because it's hard to imagine an organising principle you can't possibly do any science on.

Wavefunction science may be weird and like nothing ever seen before - especially given non-locality and possibly non-realism. But it's a good rule of thumb in science that when nature becomes counterintuitive you're on the right track. If the answer was obvious and familiar you wouldn't need original and creative thinking to find it.

Option 2 seems like an admission of total defeat. It would be the first time in science where we hit a wall and didn't even try to understand what it was made of.

That doesn't mean it can't be correct. But it does mean we shouldn't give up without trying for quite a while longer. And if we do give up, it should only be after discovering some kind of meta-Bell theorem which _proves_ there's no way to go further.

<comment><USER22> If I understand it all correctly, the article describes an experiment to test your preferred option, but so far the evidence is in favor of option 2?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Oh Hey, I know the author of this! In fact, I think I introduced him to that Spekkens paper. Small world.

</comment><comment><USER26> Seems like it changes reality. The presence of a measurement changes the interference pattern for all observers, no?

If the waveform collapse only happened in my reality then if I observed a field, I would expect others to see an interference pattern, even if I only saw a clear field.

If other people can observe an interference pattern while I observe a clear field, then that's a multiverse. That means you need a whole new universe for every observation. Seems like poor compression. Although I guess if it's an append-only store then it works out ok.

<comment><USER27> The article describes an alternative interpretation.</comment></comment>


As an employee, what guarantees do you have that your equity won't be diluted? - <AUTHOR>

Can the founders/investors could dilute your shares at will?<p>I understand that all shares gets diluted during investment rounds, but what I'm asking is: could your shares be singled out and diluted to nothing if the founders/investors wanted to do so? <comment><USER2> It can be done. For example majority shareholder can get a loan from the company, then make company issue new shares and buy new shares using funding from that loan. Cash doesn't even have to leave company bank account, it can be done as an accounting operation.

It is one of the examples of shareholder oppression and it is illegal.

There are laws protecting minority shareholders but you would have to take the case to court in order to protect your rights. It might not be worth if you are defending small stake.

<comment><USER3> > It can be done.

and

> and it is illegal.

So, that's like "It can not be done" legally, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Typically, it's expected that as a company raises more money, it will probably create more shares in the process. Even though your percentage of equity goes down, over time the company should be worth more money (hopefully).

0.2% of an $80M company is better than 1% of a $1M company.

</comment><comment><USER5> They can and they do. Here are some ways:

1\. Management makes a share issuance, diluting all existing shareholders by X%. Management then turns around and distributes shares amongst themselves. Something like this can happen if management have majority control and can get approval from their VCs/preferred shareholders (who have reserved matters that can block share issuances). Often, the VC can work with management to get something like this done.

(A more complicated version of this happened with the Zuckerberg/Saverin saga).

2\. An option pool--say 10%--is issued as part of an investment round. This dilutes all shareholders by 10%. The Board then distributes the option pool to key management. There's nothing a minority shareholder can do.

</comment><comment><USER6> There's no guarantee. Anyone with a stake, including early investors, faces the same issue. At my last company I thought I got an ok deal on signing but after a couple of pivots and acquiring a smaller company my original stake became increasingly small. I got decent follow-on options but the 4 year clock starts over for each one.

</comment><comment><USER7> If your question is, can the founder maliciously single you out and dilute all your shares to zero because he hates you?

That would be illegal, and you could probably sue in that case.

If your question is, is it safe to do a business venture with people you don't trust, my answer is no don't do that. There are many ways founders/investors could make you unhappy if they wanted to.

</comment><comment><USER8> 'guarantee' is the wrong word here, more description would be 'how likely' with a response of very likely.

<comment><USER8> *descriptive

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hopefully, the company will only take additional money if it can be used to make everybody's stake more valuable. So even though you have a smaller percentage of the pie, it will be a bigger pie and you'll get more pie.

Of course, the best laid plans gang aft aglay.

</comment><comment><USER10> dilute all shares down to nothing, give new shares only to new investors and founders.

wasn't that what facebook did? and isn't this exactly what restricted share is for?

</comment><comment><USER11> None, but the company may offer you additional "uplift" options to mitigate the effect of the investment dilution.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why would you not expect to get diluted? If you are very lucky you might get offered the same terms as new investors. But why should you expect to get for free what others had to pay for? If you want this, try to negotiate something as part of your compensation but it would be very, very unusual. Good luck!</comment>


Usenet is officially dead ... - <AUTHOR> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1487710

<comment><USER2> That thread spiraled into the absurd

</comment><comment><USER3> It's not dead, its purpose shifted, that is all.</comment>


Fastrange: A fast alternative to the modulo reduction - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lemire/fastrange <comment><USER2> This is how we've been doing division by a constant in the embedded world since...forever

this is so well known in fact that arm gcc defaults to this when a proper constant exists if you do division or modulus operator...

<comment><USER3> I was going to say, this is an ancient and well-known optimization. I have no idea how old it is, but I would venture it's been a regular practice for at least two decades.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Shouldn't a good compiler apply this type of optimisations?

<comment><USER5> It generally does. (GCC, Clang and ICC) But it cannot simplify the operation on some architectures or when the factor is variable.

The "fastrange" is a very different operation on prime factors than modulo.</comment></comment>


Please sign petition to throw out Mandlesons Internet Bill (UK) - <AUTHOR> http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/dontdisconnectus/

<comment><USER2> Is there any other action people in the UK can take? I don't have much faith in the number10.gov.uk petition page.

The number 1 petition there was for Gordon Brown to resign [1],[2]

Despite getting more than 72,000 signatures, the response [3] was more like a boilerplate reply.

[1] <http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/>

[2] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/27/downing- stree...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/27/downing-street- website-resignation-petition)

[3]<http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page21213>

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought it had a good effect with the Turing apology. It's hardly likely a Prime Minister would resign based on an online petition though.

<comment><USER3> The Turing apology wasn't something anyone in power cared about. Granting petitions like that makes them look benevolent (and us feel empowered), but doesn't interfere with their plans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> An e-peititon is going to do nothing. This nonsense distracts people from actual effort and helps bills like this get passed.

If you want to make an impact, the minimum you should do is write a letter to your MP, on paper, sign it and send it to them by post. Letters and phone calls (but particularly letters) are the currency your MP uses to gauge public opinion. Use them.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the whole point of the government petition website is to gauge public opinion. I think it'll do more than 'nothing'. I'd agree though, write letters as well.

<comment><USER4> It actually does less than nothing.

Since an e-petition site like the one linked gives people opposed to an issue the impression that they've accomplished something, those people are that much less likely to do something substantive to resolve the issue they're concerned about [Citation_Needed -- I couldn't be bothered to find it].

So, less is actually done to oppose the issue than if the site never existed in the first place. It actually _helps_ those who are in favour of the issue opposed.

E-petitions aren't useless: They're _worse_ than useless.

<comment><AUTHOR> How about all the times the e-petitions on number10.gov.org have been reported in the mainstream media?

Now each article which reports on the issue will be able to say "An issue which has seen X sign a petition against it".

Also it's likely to make the news in more places.

<comment><USER5> But how many of those e-petitions with the media traction actually got meaningful results, other than making the news in more places?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Done.

<comment><USER7> Hardly. It's promising to be a long slug.</comment></comment>