Mort Drucker has died - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/arts/mort-drucker-dead.html <comment><USER2> Man, and Sy Mead ... my childhood heroes are disappearing.

I would pick up the odd Mad magazine from the grocery store (or Rexall Drug) if I had enough allowance money. I had been drawing since I was a small kid (like everyone else) but as I got to be about 11 or 12 I started seriously trying to draw people: the hardest thing for me to draw well.

One style of art stood out for me in Mad magazine. The artist drew people in a realistic way. They were caricatures to a degree, but not off the scale like Don Martin. The poses and facial expressions were natural, the lines minimal but enough to convey a degree of realism.

I looked at how Mort Drucker drew the clavicle on a woman, as an example — just a little serif, a small arc with a long tail — and I started drawing clavicles like that.

And on and on.

I've come to believe that an artist's "style" is a result of all the little tells they've stolen from other artists (perhaps tempered by their own artistic shortcomings?).

I often wonder where Mort Drucker and other contemporary artists got their style from. Use of line weight from Winsor McCay? Crosshatching from John Tenniel?

No doubt Mort Drucker has influenced thousands and thousands of artists. He will be missed but his art will always still be here.

That's an actual legacy.

<comment><USER3> _I 've come to believe that an artist's "style" is a result of all the little tells they've stolen from other artists (perhaps tempered by their own artistic shortcomings?)._

Pro artist, you are pretty much spot on, except for not including a certain number of stylizations invented while working from life. I like to say that when you can rip off eight people in the course of one drawing, you have your own style.

I learnt recently that the creator of Lupin III was influenced by Drucker and Aragones and the way that manga/anime looks makes _so much sense_ now.

<comment><USER4> Style is how you stitch the thefts together.

<comment><USER5> This is an amazing line- I think it transcends fields.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The guy had a genius for simple yet superb art.

An example off pinterest...

[https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e1/ee/70/e1ee708d9a72bb8b8c52c8aa9...](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e1/ee/70/e1ee708d9a72bb8b8c52c8aa91d424a8 --drucker-mad-magazine.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER7> I drove to Microcenter with my son yesterday, picking up parts for new workstations. Brought my son to get out of the house, he brought a Mad magazine (Christmas book special edition) and read it the entire way. RIP Mort!

</comment><comment><USER8> In a 1985 MAD issue there was a 'special computer section' with numerous tech jokes, oddities and a giant chunk of BASIC code

Here's a thread of scans posted recently: [https://twitter.com/harrymccracken/status/124937498518697984...](https://twitter.com/harrymccracken/status/1249374985186979840)

([https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1249374985186979840.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1249374985186979840.html))

</comment><comment><USER9> I've always been particularly impressed by the way Mort Drucker drew hands -- so expressive and seemingly effortless, sometimes carrying the scene as much as the faces.

A good summary: [http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2006/03/wowee-look-at- th...](http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2006/03/wowee-look-at-those- hands_11.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> .

I met Mort Drucker by accident at a Starbucks in Syosset, NY. I noticed he was sketching and made a comment. His companion said, do you know who this is..?

I worked in a comic book shop in high school and into college. Of course I knew Mort Drucker, and now I recognize him.

</comment><comment><USER11> Kinda ironic that his name literally means _dead_ in French

<comment><USER12> I was curious enough to look it up and the given name Mortimer means "dead pond" according to Wiktionary. Mort Drucker's name is Morris, not Mortimer, so I guess this is a somewhat irrelevant piece of trivia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Even though I haven't read MAD in a long time, and didn't see this name anywhere for probably a decade, seeing this post instantly sparked recognition.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is it common in the USA to have an obituary without including the cause of death?

<comment> kube-system Yes, very common, especially if the cause is not directly relevant to the person's life story.

i.e. it might be mentioned for things like a military member dying in combat, or a person who fought a lifelong battle with a disease. But an older person who died of a health issue would not usually be mentioned.

<comment><USER15> Sometimes there are ways to guess:

"long illness" \- cancer, but can be other things

"short illness" \- heart attack, stroke, pneumonia, for instance

"died at home" \- polite euphemism for suicide, though can be natural death at home for someone who lived alone</comment></comment></comment>


Springsource acquires rabbitmq - <AUTHOR> http://www.springsource.com/newsevents/springsource-acquires-rabbitmq-cloud-messaging

<comment><USER2> VMWare bought Spring, which bought bought Grails, Groovy, and CloudFoundry, and now they buy RabbitMQ. Hosted Integrated Cloud Solution for Groovy/Grails next?

</comment><comment><USER3> Java company buys Erlang messaging expertise and product... that's pretty big news.</comment>


Team is as good as its Leader - <AUTHOR> http://onsoftwareandstuff.com/2010/08/07/team-is-as-good-as-its-leader/

<comment><USER2> nice article.. short article but addresses very important point. The first quality in leader should be able to delegate the work and decision making processes</comment>


Ask HN: Was your YC application worthwhile? - <AUTHOR>

I am very far from applying to YC, but it is always interesting to watch the application process play out. I will probably never apply to YC, but I have used the application to help think through my own projects.
I have been wondering, for people who were not granted an interview, do you feel better able to move forward on your project because you took the time to apply?
What clarifications did you have about your project by completing the application? <comment><USER2> One benefit it had for us was it helped us study our competitors closer and deeper to explain how we are different</comment>


Ladies & Gentlemen, Jessica Livingston is on Twitter (PG beware) - <AUTHOR> http://twitter.com/foundersatwork#jessica <comment><USER2> You'll notice that jl followed people in the "right" order, starting with the company, then pg, then the worker, then this reddit dude.

Contrast that with pgs follows, which were uncalculated, and revealed the rough order in which he thought of people as being "interesting". Sam Altman was one of his first follows, in spite of being a very boring twitterer (I think he just checks in with loopt on twitter).

The high up joshu follow, ahead of trevor blackwell, for example, would imply that they do speak outside of at meet-ups.

</comment><comment><USER3> Have you been drinking Alexis - you cheeky monkey. Follow me at your own risk - I may bore you to death :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Highly unlikely!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> First Paul Graham and now Jessica. This is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER5> As someone who came here from a reference from a friend and had no idea what HN was about, I have no idea who Jessica Livingston is.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Livingston>

Oh, okay.

</comment><comment><USER6> Word on the street is that Jessica wrote a good book one time …

Welcome to twitter!

</comment><comment><USER7> Twitter is getting some big YC love, I hope the reverse happens too (like what Facebook did)

<comment><USER8> Kind of already happened: [http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2009/10/says- paul-graham-t...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2009/10/says-paul-graham- twitter-is-th.php)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The words "oh noes" come to mind.</comment>


Funding a startup with credit card; good or bad? - <AUTHOR> https://www.startupguys.net/he-funded-his-small-business-with-credit-card/ <comment><USER2> I didn't read the article but I can answer your question: bad</comment>


AMD Reports Q2 2020 Earnings - <AUTHOR> https://www.anandtech.com/show/15935/amd-reports-q2-2020-earnings-notebook-and-server-sales-drive-a-record-quarter <comment><USER2> Interesting to compare Q2 2020 results between Intel & AMD:

Intel Revenue: 19.7B, Net Income: 5.1B, Market Cap: 209.42B, P/E: 9.06

AMD Revenue: 1.93B, Net Income: 157M, Market Cap: 79.2B, P/E: 133.82

But by the sentiment of all media reports INTC is in sharp decline & AMD is killing it, yet even in their most recent results Intel revenue/earnings still dwarfs AMD's.

<comment><USER3> The stock price is in part determined by the discounted future Cashflow, the one of AMD is pointing upwards that of Intel seems neutral or declining. Intel had a long string of failures and bad acquisitions recently, which points to bad management. AMD has all the potential to attack Nvidia's deep learning moat with in house talent. Maybe this is all wishful thinking though, but my AMD calls jumped 46% within a day.

<comment><USER4> This might be wild speculation but I just now realized that AMD, Nvidia, and, of course, TSMC are all Taiwanese lead. Did Taiwan have some kind of incubator or have some kind of special emphasis on semiconductors or is this just pure coincidence? I wouldn't be so surprised if Taiwan isn't such a small country (relative to its bigger neighbors). Just wondering.

<comment><USER5> The government of Taiwan realized that their semiconductor industry might be the one thing that the US would be willing to go to war with China over to protect. So the government has invested heavily in ensuring they maintain critical mass in semiconductor expertise, typically by investing heavily in university education and research in related engineering fields. Computer/electrical/materials engineering is pretty much the default major everyone gets funneled into without capacity limits since at least the 70s.

For example, my parents and all their friends weren't well off enough to afford private university, but majors at public university were limited by the government based on projected need with slots offered to only the highest test scores. They couldn't test high enough to secure a public university slot for accounting, art, architecture, education, medicine, and trades such as automotive repair or plumbing. So they all ended up with computer science and engineering degrees. Fully paid for by the government.

They basically treat the semiconductor industry like how the US treats its defense industry.

<comment> pickle-wizard I have long held the opinion that education should be part of national defense.

I think is a good example of what happens when you do that.

<comment><USER6> There's a fairly commonly held view that improving education access means giving people more ways out of poverty and therefore less people choosing armed forces as their career.

It seems intuitive to me that as war technology progresses, number of humans becomes less of a factor in military strength, but I know so little about this area that I couldn't guess how greatly alternative educational opportunities impact military applications, nor at what point in the past/future the scale might tip between wanting policies that push more into armed forces vs. no longer being so important (and I assume it would be different for different countries, too).

But I do believe good, free education should be a key part of any country, regardless of whether it helps national défense or not. If that drives up the cost of recruiting people to the armed forces then fine - I'm no fan of them in general, but if people are going to risk their lives potentially in wars then it shouldn't be because their choices were limited to that vs a life of poverty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm a _huge_ AMD fan but I fear that its current valuation already has an immense amount of success already priced in.

They are doing absolutely spectacular work, but there's still much to do, and there are significant risks.

They have been making progress on the GPU side, but as long as they don't provide a CUDA-like ecosystem _and_ experience, I don't see them challenging NVIDIA soon in the accelerator market.

I'm pretty confident that they will continue to outpace Intel on the CPU side, but with Amazon's Graviton2, and the recent TOP500-success of Fugaku -- pure ARM, no accelerators - there is still a tremendous amount of competition ahead.

<comment><USER8> A market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

If you want to sit on the sidelines and watch valuations soar to unreasonable levels and not try to claim a piece of that fine, but don't cry when you see how much you missed out. AMD could be the next NVDA.

<comment><USER9> Congratulations to those who have enjoyed AMD's stock price rise by 30x over the past few years. If you think its going to rise by another 30x, prepare to be disappointed. Another decade or more of massive growth is already priced in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The real threat to intel comes from arm not amd. Amd is also threatened by arm.

If you compare with intels numbers. Then amd is a dwarf. And the growth figures are loosely following intels:

[https://www.intc.com/investor-relations/investor- education-a...](https://www.intc.com/investor-relations/investor-education- and-news/investor-news/press-release-details/2020/Intel-Reports-Second- Quarter-2020-Financial-Results/default.aspx)

<comment><USER11> I agree that ARM is a threat to AMD as well, but AMD has two things going for it:

1\. Stronger x86 design: AMD's recent CPU releases have shown they are inching ahead of Intel on x86 design, and are able to achieve significantly better cost per $. At the same time, AMD are already well into shifting a big chunk their 7nm manufacturing to TSMC. Intel has only just started this process.

2\. A strong GPU business: Yes, they are second to Nvidia, but given the design skills they are showing on the CPU side, I expect that gap will narrow very quickly. Both Sony and Microsoft have chosen AMD for CPU and GPU in the PS5 and Xbox Series X, with support for full 4k ray-tracing. Given how long this generation of consoles will be on the market for (likely 5-10 years at least), it is a strong forward indicator of roadmap strength.

tl;dr: I expect AMD will weather* the ARM storm better than Intel.

* Originally a typo as "whether". Thanks for the correction!

<comment><USER12> I wouldn't interpret Sony's and Microsoft's decision for AMD graphics as anything other than Nvidia being dickheads.

Keep in mind that Apple is also exclusively building Macs with AMD graphics cards. They don't even support Nvidia cards as eGPU anymore. The rumour is that Nvidia is not willing to do any customised designs and someone at Apple is very upset with Nvidia.

<comment><USER13> Nvidia simply not interested in consoles because how thin margins are:

[https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/150892-nvidia-gave-amd- ps...](https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/150892-nvidia-gave-amd-ps4-because- console-margins-are-terrible)

<comment><USER14> Unless it is their own one.

[https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/)

<comment><USER15> Does everyone here forget that the Switch is a custom NVIDIA Tegra processor ?

<comment><USER16> Is that Tegra not off-the-shelf? I didn't think it was custom, due to said reluctance to do custom designs.

<comment><USER15> I may have been misled, but here's my source:

> "Nintendo Switch is powered by the performance of the custom Tegra > processor."

[https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/nintendo- switch/](https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/nintendo-switch/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> While most of the focus here is understandably on the CPU side, there seems to be some interesting shifts taking place on the GPU side.

AMD currently has a process lead over Nvidia (and this is rumoured to be set to continue for a little while longer - apparently the first consumer Ampere chips are being fabbed on Samsung's inferior 8nm process due to lack of capacity at TSMC for the next few months)

Nvidia has clearly had an architecture advantage, although RDNA2 may close this gap, depending on how Ampere performs.

While Nvidia has had a much stronger showing in the GPGPU space, with CUDA helping it be the clear current winner, this also appears to have driven architecture decisions at Nvidia with the focus on tensor cores.

In gaming, Nvidia has put a lot of work into utilising these tensor cores for Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). The idea being that you render at a lower resolution and then use deep learning to upscale in real-time to higher resolutions. DLSS 2.0 made some leaps in quality and DLSS 3.0 is on the horizon. It will be interesting to see:

a) How well they can get this working b) Is AMD working on its own version of this? c) If so, how well will the RDNA architecture be suited to this approach?

Will be interesting to watch how this plays out!

<comment><USER14> Lets put it this way, Octane Render has dropped Vulkan support and replaced it with CUDA based Optix 7.

[https://home.otoy.com/render/octane- render/](https://home.otoy.com/render/octane-render/)

So how is AMD going to get relevant in the Hollywood and TV studios that are the big buyers of OctaneRender?

<comment><USER17> I wasn't aware that OctaneRender was actually a large portion of the Hollywood and TV studio segment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Random comment about AMD, but damn their cpu line naming is really confusing. between zen, zen+, zen2, threadripper, ryzen 7,8,9. ryzen is actually 3 different architectures? then there's like ryzen 7 2000, 3000, now 4000. But for the laptop cpus the architectures are actually different. zen2 isn't used in the ryzen 3000 mobile cpus. Then you can look at best buy and see a laptop listed using a 3rd gen ryzen. Im not sure what that is actually referring to. I'm not sure how this compares to their epyc line either. I still need to read up on that...

<comment><USER19> zen, zen+ and zen2 are the architecture. Threadripper and Ryzen are product lines. I find that quite straight forward.

The really confusing part is, is that the Ryzen 4000 APUs will be zen2 architecture but the desktop CPUs without APUs or the mobile Ryzen 4000 series are zen3 architecture.

<comment><USER20> And zen3 is planned for release later this year...

<comment><USER19> zen3 has already launched with mobile processors

<comment><USER21> Those are Ryzen 4 but Zen 2 (yes, really).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good for them. I daily drive an AMD Hackintosh (3900X) and the price to performance ratio of this chip is excellent.

More broadly, consumers are real winners with this zen-powered competition of the last few years. Intel first dropped prices aggressively and now with them shaking up the tech org it seems likely the two companies will have to fight one another for consumer dollars for years to come.

<comment><USER23> What are the things that _don 't_ work? Does power management work? Suspend/resume? Audio? Thunderbolt? Multiple monitors?

<comment><USER24> Sleep is pretty tough to get working, but some folks have managed recently; wifi works with a compatible card; facetime/imessage all works flawlessly;

lots more info at amd-osx.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Looking to buy a Ryzen laptop (G14) in the near future, those chips are amazing performers and have great battery life.

Well deserved record quarter.

<comment><USER26> I really want the G14 as a durable performant work machine but it has no webcam :(

<comment><USER27> Yeah, you can tell they designed that machine way before the pandemic and WFH was the norm and they switched to a no-webcam-on-gaming-laptops mantra.

ASUS engineer: "laptop webcams have shitty quality and gamers don't use them anyway, let's just not include one and save ourselves the BOM cost; _applause from bean-counters_ "

Covid-19 WFH: "I'm gonna end this man's whole career"

I'm sure their hindsight is now 20/20 though.

<comment><USER28> MacBook Pros got the right balance between usability, features and power a long time ago, other companies should just copy & modernize it. Not having webcam on a laptop is unacceptable (though having a physical switch on it is a great feature for privacy).

<comment><USER27> I disagree, other companies should definitely stay away from copying the modern Macs.

I like having choices regarding OS, hardware configuration, ports, keyboards, displays, upgradeability, reaprability etc..

If you want a Mac copy then the Mac will be the best anyway.

<comment><USER28> I don't like the post Steve Jobs direction that the Macbook Pro took, so it's a no-go for me. I had a company macbook pro in 2008 and I loved it (except the OS and the keyboard layout). It had great sound (I had more expensive laptops with worse speakers since then). Also the display was perfect for me (especially outside in sunshine...). Maybe it's just my memory, but I don't feel that the current laptop offerings are that much better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> A couple of years ago I remember seeing a video where a Google engineer said they were working on CUDA to AMD compilers and a push to standardize CUDA - what happened to that ? Or am I misremembering something ?

<comment><USER30> This? [https://research.google/pubs/pub45226/](https://research.google/pubs/pub45226/)

AMD already has a cuda to rocm transpiler, but their libraries are so lacking that many things cannot be converted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The real question facing us now, I believe, is how is AMD going to compete with ARM-based silicon?

I believe that ARM is on the path to dominance due to performance per watt. Does AMD have a path to continue to win at that game?

<comment><USER32> I think it ultimately boils down to who has the best CPU architecture if you are talking exclusively about performance-per-watt. Right now, it feels like AMD/ARM are going to be very competitive with each other in the mobile segment, but only on paper. They mostly stay in their own separate market arenas. Apple may disrupt this soon.

The bigger picture is that x86 is a platform that most of the business world runs on top of right now. ARM is certainly pushing into that arena, but AMD is keeping the x86 offering very attractive.

I am of the camp that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with x86, and especially not its recent implementations. It is an old & dirty ISA, but it gets the job done. Every scenario on earth has been thrown at it and it has adapted to suit. Decades of iteration and testing with billions of participants.

All AMD needs to do is continue cranking out 100W+ TDP parts that tear through workloads. The current style of ARM devices cannot keep up with power budgets like that. I believe they would have to completely redesign their architecture if they wanted to move from 5-15W up to something like the toasty 225W TDP of the 7742.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Side note: is there some reason why the columns in the tables are ordered most-recent, least-recent, second-most-recent?

<comment><USER34> It is not least-recent, it is YoY.

Current Quarter, YoY Quarter, last Quarter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Man I really wish I bought AMD stock when Ryzen was announced.

</comment><comment><USER36> If Intel has another delay, they're dead. They'll be like Boeing (but their mistake won't directly kill people). It'll mean that all engineering culture is dead and the best minds have already left the company. Everyone who at Intel who predicted the wrong schedule and not a realistic one should be fired. They have destroyed a national champion in their short term greed.

<comment><USER27> Their best minds have definitely not left the company. Probably, just like with Boeing, they're just watching the clock, waiting for their retirement and for the quarterly bonus to come in.

Let's not pretend Intel is dead, they just had a record quarter and my friends working there still got sizable bonuses.

<comment><USER37> What's the best case scenario for them though? The mobile market is already permanently blown for them. Best case AMD chips are heavily defective next gen and Intel price/performance blows AMD out of the water with 7nm...which AMD has now already shipped.

My pet theory is that the Trump funds to keep American microchip manufacturing afloat has made a Intel complacent. Maybe they're just dunces though.

<comment><USER9> Best case for them is TSMC continues to be heavily capacity constrained for the next few years, handicapping AMD's ability to pick up significant market share while Intel resolves their fab issues. Intel may also have to heavily lean into backporting new designs that have been sitting on the shelf waiting for new nodes. 14nm is finally moving past Skylake-based architectures with Rocket Lake, and there should be opportunities to backport 7nm designs to 10nm as well. Not ideal, but if they can remain roughly competitive with AMD and just out-ship them, that could get them through the next few years without losing much market share.

A US government injection of cash to Intel's fab business seems like it could get bipartisan support if Taiwan/China continue to lead the market, but Intel's problems don't appear to be be cashflow related.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amtrak's Grand Plan for Profitability [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSw7fWCrDk0 <comment><AUTHOR> If you're not following the videos (and podcast) made by Wendover, you're missing out on amazing nerdy stuff on the web!</comment>


Fox chooses to live stream the republican debate for free - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxbusiness.com/live-coverage/fox-business-network-wall-street-journal-gop-debates?intcmp=whatshot <comment><USER2> If you're interested in submitting a question, WSJ is taking them here:

[https://www.facebook.com/wsj/videos/10153814553423128/](https://www.facebook.com/wsj/videos/10153814553423128/)</comment>


Entire Neighborhood Has Shared Solar Heating - <AUTHOR> http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/06/27/community-solar-power/ <comment><USER2> I find this technology interesting because it won't work well for an individual, you must cooperate to make it work. The heat is stored using boreholes to heat a volume of the earth underground. The surface area/volume ratio is against a single user, but becomes more favorable as the number of participants increases.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a good idea. In the past, we got by with just giving everyone electricity and having them turn that into whatever they needed, but since it's inefficient to convert sunlight -> electricity, it's now more economical [1] to just pipe hot water to people's homes.

Hopefully they system can be enhanced with the ability to carry cooling water to the houses also.

[1] Actually, this probably costs a lot more than electricity right now, but it's the most economical way to get solar heat. Some day there won't be cheap energy, but there will always be sunlight.</comment>


The Postal Inspector Who Took Down America's First Organized Crime Ring (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/09/16/the-postal-inspector-who-took-down-americas-first-organized-crime-ring-219597 <comment><USER2> Nice read on Inspector Oldfield!</comment>


Ask HN: Is a degree in computer science necessary? and how useful? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,
I'm an Italian student attending last year of high school and I'm in the middle of choosing the university.
Right now the degrees I'm considering are: applied math, informatics (the most similar to computer science we have in Italy) and informatics engineering.
I've been doing development for a number of years (mostly javascript, both server and client side) and lately I've started doing some freelancing in my free time.
I'm a bit confused and would like to know from people that have already been through this a few opinions:
1-) I've learned everything by myself reading on the internet and I feel like what I miss mostly is not learning a new language but more math, algorithms and project solving. To get this sort of knowledge is a degree in computer science necessary or I can get it easily through other degrees like "applied math" which I think is very interesting?
2-) I like what I do right now and ideally I would like to keep doing this as a work. When searching for a development job is a degree in computer science a requirement or experience/projects are valued more
Thanks! <comment><USER2> It depends a lot on your goals. If you want to work at a large corporation, many of them screen resumes based on whether you have a CS degree. On the flip side, I work at a startup where out of 7 excellent engineers only 3 have CS degrees and 2 have no college degree at all.

A CS degree will help you get your foot in the door for your first job regardless. Once you have a few years of experience your degree matters much less - with a few exceptions (including the large corps mentioned above). If you want to work on "hard" problems, a CS degree (or at least a minor plus a math major) will be valuable for the work as well as the hiring. (A math major or - if you want to work with hardware - an electrical engineering major plus CS coursework are nearly equivalent to a CS degree for many employers in general, but HR departments too often use software to filter by too-narrow requirements.)

On the flip side, if you just want to build basic web and mobile apps, you can get started in a career with not much more than basic practical knowledge of a scripting language, one database, and HTTP. (But the more you know and can demonstrate you know, the better!) For entry level jobs in this part of the field, big corporations still tend to care more about credentials but startups care more about demonstrated experience.

If you want to go into programming in any shape or form, and if you do have the opportunity to take CS classes alongside other coursework, I'd particularly recommend taking classes on algorithms and data structures (including the infamous big-O notation), a bit about encryption, and if possible the underlying lower-level underpinnings of programming (from logic gates to assembly, bits, bytes, pointers, and machine language). And the problem solving part mostly comes from experience!</comment>


Researchers study the genetics and behavior of elephants born without tusks - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/11/wildlife-watch-news-tuskless-elephants-behavior-change/ <comment><USER2> I saw an elephant pull its tusk out at the Zoo once. It was just before they moved them to another place. Everyone was asking and the staff didnt even turn around. It felt like they were covering something up, I thought this might be about it. Instead it was about elephants being born without tusks, which is interesting, but not the same thing.

<comment><USER3> Well, in my brief research, it seems that it is similar to a tooth, so it would just be the equivalent of a human pulling out a tooth?

<comment><USER4> How did it pull it out, lacking hands and dexterity?

<comment><USER3> They got a big ol limb on their nose called their trunk that I assume they use

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Evolving?

<comment><USER6> Please let's not get snagged by a word. We've changed the title to something less triggery.

<comment><USER7> There's nothing wrong with the word. It's not evolution _by natural selection_ , but it's a change in allele frequency / phenotype at population scale. It's evolution.

Why in the hell is HN moderating titles based on being "triggery"? National Geographic can publish it but HN can't?

<comment><USER8> triggery of shitty discussions. Pointless empty squabbling and the like.

<comment><USER9> Do we really have young earth creationists here, or is it squabbling by pedants instead?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Create your own map of World, Europe or USA with custom colors/descriptions - <AUTHOR> http://www.mapchart.net/

<comment><AUTHOR> Take a look at the examples first. Then choose a region (simple/detailed world, Europe or USA) and fill it with the colors and descriptions of your choice by following three easy steps. You can then save the map you created in PNG format.

Feedback/suggestions are welcome !</comment>


Apply HN: Create Interactive/Visual Courses for Computer Science and Tech - <AUTHOR> We are building Educative.io to let anyone create Interactive and Visual courses for CS/Tech. Creating and publishing courses is free for authors and our WYSIWIG editor enables quick creation of interactive and visual content. Learners will buy courses through our marketplace and they will be able to learn better using visualizations and can do interactive exercises to quickly learn new concepts.
We are now working on creating full-fledge interactive environments that will let authors create courses on Data Science, Big Data, AI etc. where all the execution happens on our servers and learners can interact with their sand-boxed environments.
And we just released our iOS app today (will be in app store in a few hours).
Some examples are
Coderust 2.0: Faster Coding Interview Preparation using Visualizations - https://www.educative.io/collection/5642554087309312/5679846214598656
Learn ReactJS in Browser (https://www.educative.io/collection/5638830484881408/70001) <comment><USER2> > they will be able to learn better using visualizations

This claim sticks out to me. Have you validated it? How do you know that people will actually be able to learn better or faster? Are you sure that's what's missing from this market?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we have validated (at least to some extent). Here's how we've validated it so far.

1\. Talking to the people who have bought a course. The most common theme has been that they were more focused with interactive animations than a video lecture.

2\. Sometimes, people want to learn but setting up an environment (even though it's part of the learning) is daunting. Installing libraries, setting up environments etc. We take that friction out.

3\. Research from CMU on Interactive Learning for CS is here: [http://www.ischoolguide.com/articles/25866/20150916/carnegie...](http://www.ischoolguide.com/articles/25866/20150916/carnegie- mellon-university-study-interactive-learning-online-courses-moocs.htm)

4\. FCC recommends use of interactive books and their research showed 30-80% increase in learning outcomes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Found the link to FCC's Fact sheet[PDF]: [https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-312244A1.p...](https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-312244A1.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Demo or Educative's editor: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYvAuFR0r_0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYvAuFR0r_0)</comment>


The iWatch will fill a gaping hole in the Apple ecosystem - <AUTHOR> http://asktog.com/atc/apple-iwatch/

<comment><USER2> I've been thinking the same thing for a while. I even speculate on the name -- iWatch or iSiri, and even the event headline if it's called iSiri: "It's time to get sirious"

It's a totally different approach, but it's in the same domain as google glass -- wearable computing. It will be years until google glass gets to down in size to not look like a cyborg, whereas the technology for a small smartwatch seems to be in place already.</comment>


Do you believe in miracles? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327207.000-opinion-do-you-believe-in-miracles.html <comment><USER2> I find the reasoning around Jesus not having a human father to counteract Dawkins very much stretched.

Dawkins wasn't arguing from what is possible today, he was arguing from what was possible 2000+ years ago, and as far as we know today human cloning wasn't on the table then.

(and it hasn't been positively established that it is even on the table today!).

</comment><comment><USER3> ". I have already argued that Hume's definition of miracles violates the principles of logic rather those of science."

The argument is mere question begging. He claims that miracles do not violate the laws of physics because, he claims, laws of physics cover miracles too.</comment>


Reading list for modern web design - <AUTHOR> http://blog.stapps.io/reading-list-for-modern-web-design/ <comment><USER2> Cached view for anyone experiencing connection issues: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://blog.stapps.io/reading- list-for-modern-web-design/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for posting this cached version! Woke up this morning to see my server went down twice over night, I'll beef it up a bit later.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Any other books you'd recommended for modern web design?</comment>


Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46550862 <comment><USER2> For context, the predecessor of SpaceShipTwo reached an altitude of over 100km in June 2004, becoming the first commercial venture to put a person in space [1]. A few months after that, Virgin got involved and it seemed like commercial passenger spaceflight was just a few years away. 14 years and two fatal accidents [2,3] later, the 80 km flight seems to pale in comparison to those expectations. In that time we've seen the rise of SpaceX and Blue Origin, whose aspirations and capabilities look set to far exceed those of Virgin Galactic. As impressive as this spaceplane is, its competitors are starting to make it look like the product of some (very expensive) backyard tinkering.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne#Development_and_w...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne#Development_and_winning_the_X_Prize)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RocketMotorTwo#Related_test_pr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RocketMotorTwo#Related_test_program_accident)

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

<comment><USER3> Right now Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are in about the same place, with SpaceShipTwo ahead of New Shepard in terms of test flights (and presumably crew rating). Both will provide suborbital tourist flights.

SpaceX isn't in that game; they're trying to get the Falcon 9 crew-rated for orbital flights. If Blue Origin's New Glenn ever gets off the ground, they may pursue an orbital crew rating as well.

<comment><USER4> >If Blue Origin's New Glenn ever gets off the ground

Are you having doubts?

<comment><USER3> Few doubts given their benefactor's unlimited resources, but it's worth remembering how _unexpected_ SpaceX's successes were.

I'm mainly pointing that it's odd to compare aspirations with accomplishment. I've thought about climbing Everest, and even planned a route and bought some gear, but that doesn't put me in the same category as Norgay or Hillary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Ars Technica article on this event [0] contains this interesting snippet:

>Probably the closest thing to [an internationally agreed upon boundary for "space"] comes from the World Air Sports Federation, or FAI, which uses 100km (the Karman line) to delineate the boundary of space for the purposes of establishing world records. However, this organization says it is looking at lowering this boundary from 100km to 80km, due to "Recently published analyses (that) present a compelling scientific case for reduction in this altitude."

>Much of the push for a lowering of the boundary has come because of work by Harvard University astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, who has argued that orbiting objects can survive multiple perigees at altitudes around 80 to 90km and that this altitude range is consistent with the highest physical boundary of the atmosphere, the mesopause.

Does anyone here know more about this? How recent is this work? How controversial is it, if it is at all? This is the first I've heard of work along these lines.

[0]: [https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/12/virgin-galactic- just...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/12/virgin-galactic-just-flew- to-82-68-kilometers-is-this-space/)

<comment><USER6> The defined boundary of space always reminds me of Jeannette Piccard, the first woman in space (as defined in 1934).

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

It's interesting where we define what is an isn't space, with its own cultural ramifications.

<comment><USER7> It's hard to argue that you've left the atmosphere, when the craft you're using is supported by it. Hence the Karman Line.

Tereshkova has a much better claim to being the first woman in space.

<comment><USER8> You can reach the surface of a lake in a craft that floats on water so you should be able to reach the end of the atmosphere in a craft that floats on it.

<comment><USER9> The surface of a lake is much more well-defined, though, and has high density. You can't "float" on whatever you define as the "surface" of the atmosphere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For anyone looking wistfully at the $250k price tag of a VG sub-orbital flight I suggest checking out Zero-G:

[https://www.gozerog.com](https://www.gozerog.com)

They fly short (~30sec) sub-orbital parabolas in a regular commercial jet (with a custom interior). It's not quite like going into "space" but it is quite literally only 2% of the cost for (IMHO) >80% of the value. The total amount of zero-G time is about the same as it will be on the VG sub-orbital flight (~5 mins). I've done it and it's an awesome experience.

<comment><USER11> How are you able to achieve 0G while still within the escape velocity of earth, what's the science behind this?

<comment><USER12> Any time you're not resting on a surface, hanging from something, or otherwise being held up against gravity, you're in freefall.

("Zero G" is admittedly a bad term, since there's no such thing as "zero G" literally anywhere in the universe. It's all freefall.)

<comment><USER13> Net G relative to your frame of motion is zero G is a better way to put it.

G is a unit. 9.81 Newtons. So 3G is 3*9.81 newtons.

<comment><USER14> It's "g". "G" is the gravitanional constant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Articles like this feel awfully fuzzy when it comes to how they suggest VG is in some kind of "race" with actual orbital companies. I'm just not seeing the path from A to B for VG's current efforts there, and without that I'm also not seeing what their future is at all?

> _The company said the space ship 's motor burned for 60 seconds, travelling > at 2.9 times the speed of sound as it gained height._

So they managed to briefly beat the Concorde (top speed a bit of Mach 2) and are still well under half the speed of the X-15? I mean, good for them I guess but it seems pretty ridiculous to put VG in even vaguely the same game as anybody doing actual orbital work (not just SpaceX or BO but smaller outfits even). Mach 2.9 isn't even 1 km/s, and LEO average orbital is more like 7.8 km/s (and required delta-v for that will likely be at least a good extra 1.5 km/s over that accounting for drag/grav). Yes "space" may start at 100 km as the atmosphere drops sufficiently, but I think what most people think about when it comes to "going to space" and doing something useful involves _orbit_ , even for tourism purposes (orbital space hotels say). The challenges of every bit of it, from delta-v to heating to in-orbit survival is all on an entirely different plane.

Meanwhile with the BFR it looks quite possibly that SpaceX may well drop below $500/kg to LEO, possibly by a lot. They claim to be aiming for $10m a flight which would be more like sub-$100/kg, but I take that as more a long term aspirational goal approaching the costs of fuel a minimal maintenance then anything in the immediately realizable future. But even a conservative guess of more like $40m would still mean being able to get people into real orbit for less money then VG's up-and-down. BO is pursuing similar cost economics, and both are fighting through the very hard R&D work in actually getting scalable long term cost reductions like methalox working right now.

Can anyone explain what if anything about VG's current R&D would actually carry over to a real spacecraft, or what they use case for it would be if it can't reach that? For merely going very high and very fast on Earth low boom supersonic R&D seems more promising, and for actual space, well this isn't it. What am I missing here?

<comment><USER16> Virgin Galactic doesn't have any orbital aspirations, as far as I know (unlike Virgin Orbit). The biggest change I saw was they floated the possibility of actually traveling this way- e.g. London to New Mexico or somewhere. But that was awhile ago, I haven't seen any kind of that talk. I think especially since the accident, they've been focused on just doing these suborbital up and down trips and trying to make them a regular commercial activity.

Anecdotally, people in the space industry don't seem too thrilled with VG. This type of ship was great for the X prize, but it remains to be seen how robust it is. Some of the test flight footage has looked almost unstable. Also their hybrid motor approach (solid & liquid fuel) was said to have gotten all the drawbacks of both approaches with little benefit.

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the reply, that was my rough impression from eyeballing it but the article certainly talks quite optimistically and I'm not at all an expert.

> _The biggest change I saw was they floated the possibility of actually > traveling this way- e.g. London to New Mexico or somewhere_

Yeah, that definitely seems like a wild thing thrown out, particularly given research like the X-59 QueSST NASA is doing [1]. I can't see them possibly competing successfully with an air breathing supersonic aircraft capable of legal overland flight in terrestrial transport, so there's a squeeze from the bottom. And even from a joyride and "I've gone to space!" angle it doesn't feel that compelling vs actually going into orbit for a similar price (or less!). So it seems like a dead end, albeit a cool one, but also a significant amount of money just for that given the context of the times.

\----

1: [https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/lowboom/index.html](https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/lowboom/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Great article, but I don't think that Virgin Galactic is really in the same market directly competing with the likes of SpaceX or Blue Origin. There is a place for all three, but Virgin Galactic is just about LEO space tourism. SpaceX's stated mission is to make humans a multi-planetary species and start a mars colony. Slightly different things.

<comment><USER18> No, not quite right. VG is in suborbital tourism business - their current technology allows only short hops to Karman line or so. To get to LEO one has to have a substantially more capable system, here SpaceX with its crewed Dragon would be front runner.

On the other hand, VG is much closer to starting offering suborbital rides than SpaceX is to starting offering interplanetary manned flights.

<comment><USER17> Aaaaaaaand you still proved my point, which is that they're not really competitors at all, unlike what the article says!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There is lots here about how far short this falls, vs. a real launch. I don't think anybody has mentioned that the rocket is basically full of powdered rubber and Oxy detergent. You would not be impressed by the odor when you get out.

That, and the amount of pollution it dumps into the upper atmosphere is embarrassing. Not so bad, that way, as the old space shuttle with its strap-on boosters, though. Hydrogen-fueled rockets are the only non-embarrassing way to reach Earth orbit. (H2O2 is OK, but no one uses it for that.)

<comment><USER20> Arca Space advertised the use of hydrogen peroxide, at least for some of their launches a while ago: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARCA_Space_Corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARCA_Space_Corporation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This should say "space". It's very impressive still. Space is usually defined to be defined as starting at 100k altitude, when the atmosphere peters out, also called the Kármán Line. This only went to 60k. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kármán_line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kármán_line)

Update: 82k. Sorry, the article I looked at first said 60k, that was wrong.

<comment><USER22> km, not k

<comment><USER23> My Australian relatives say "it's about 50 kay" to describe driving distances, for what it's worth.

<comment><USER13> 50 kilomiles?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The fun thing about Virgin Galatic is that they already have all their crew/human support tech working, and have been flying with humans for years.

All they need to do to be the first private company to put a human in space is just choose to burn their rocket a little bit longer than they have already...

SpaceX and Blue Origin totally have the theoretical capability to put a man in space anytime now - Blue Origin has flown dummies to space, and SpaceX could fly a suborbital flight with their current Dragon capsule even if it wasn't up to NASA human standards.

The biggest issue at this point is just cost vs bragging rights. SpaceX would have to pay so much more than the other two, that I would guess they will just wait to claim the first private orbital man in space crown.

<comment><USER3> I'm confused, has Blue Origin demonstrated orbital capability and I missed it? I thought SpaceX and Rocket Lab were the only private orbit-capable launch providers.

<comment><USER24> I'm talking "Alan Sheppard" man in space, not "John Glenn" man in space. Suborbital. Blue Origin can do that any time they want to risk it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "Getting to space is easy. It's not, like, something you could do in your car, but it's not a huge challenge. You could get a person to space with a small sounding rocket the size of a telephone pole. The X-15 aircraft reached space just by going fast and then steering up. You will go to space today, and then you will quickly come back. But _getting_ to space is easy. The problem is _staying_ there." \- [https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/](https://what- if.xkcd.com/58/)

<comment><USER26> > You could get a person to space with a small sounding rocket the size of a > telephone pole.

This is in fact the goal of Copenhagen Suborbitals: [https://copenhagensuborbitals.com/missions/spica/](https://copenhagensuborbitals.com/missions/spica/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm happy there is one more company, but, can anyone explain what's their mission apart from "sending dummies to space" ? Is there any potential practical value from that?

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess testing with relevant weight? They said 2 pilots plus a dummy passenger. If the plan is to take a single person up at a time, then this would allow them to test their assumptions about fuel burn and engine performance with the same configuration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is awesome, the ship looks awesome, especially the way it accelerates after dropping from the plane, but...

Reaching space is one thing, staying there is something else.

cue elon re orbital velocity [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/669131093379956736?lang=...](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/669131093379956736?lang=en)

<comment><USER29> U r saying u have a lot of money to waste. Donation is better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is the reached altitude a first for a private company? I mean, with humans on- board?

<comment><USER31> > It did not breach the 100km Karman Line, where Earth's atmosphere ends.

SpaceX, Blue Origin, and a few others have exceeded this. SpaceX regularly sends objects to the ICC, which is ~5-6x higher than what Virgin did.

IMHO, they didn't reach space since they didn't break the Karman line... They just achieved "very high atmospheric flight". It's still quite an achievement, and more than they've done in the past IIRC, but they still have a long ways to go.

<comment><USER32> Didn't Scaled Composites do this with SpaceShip One about 15 years ago?

<comment><USER33> This article is about SpaceShipTwo, the successor version that was supposed to actually be able to carry passengers

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'd love it if they started live-streaming all the launches.

</comment><comment><USER35> If I was an editor at BBC, I'd be like—"hey guys, this is VA reaching space, can we get a picture of that thing in space?"

</comment><comment><USER36> Question, do flights like this generate a sonic boom that can impact those in the area?

<comment><USER37> The craft is taken to 45,000 feet by a more traditional aircraft at normal speeds and after detachment the rocket engine wouldn't bring it to boom- producing mach speeds until somewhat above that I think, and the atmosphere is much thinner so the effect would be greatly reduced. So no, I don't think so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> What are the big improvements they've made in the 14 years since SpaceShipOne?

</comment><comment><USER39> Despite the front page on the BBC brandishing this story I feel underwhelmed and I am sure I am not alone. This may be Branson's biggest expedition to date but I don't think it sets the world alight in the way that his previous exploits have done so. In 1986 he captured the Blue Riband for fastest crossing of the Atlantic:

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/26/new...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/26/newsid_2519000/2519869.stm)

This was very good for the Virgin/Branson publicity machine and important for the image of his airline and other ventures.

However, much like this new 'Galactic' effort, this was kind of done on the cheap. The Blue Riband had previously been contested in the days before the jet age by very large passenger ships carrying hundreds if not thousands of fare paying passengers. Branson's effort had just himself as a 'fare paying passenger'.

Sadly for Branson the efforts of Musk/SpaceX have downsized the publicity potential for what has gone on here. That time that SpaceX landed two of the rocket boosters was one of the most exciting moments in space thus far, the Tesla 'Rocketman' was also quite crazy. This should have persuaded Branson to throw in the towel on his 'space' ambitions but we all have our pride.

If you really want to see the edge of space then I am sure that if you ask the USAF nicely then they can oblige with a flight on a U2 plane. The view is pretty much the same on this tried and tested plane as what Branson offers with this 'Virgin Galactic' thing, which is far from Sagan's 'Pale Blue Dot' or Apollo's 'Earth Rise'. Top Gear presenters have had been to the edge of space (70 000 ft):

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

I am sure the Russians could offer similar passage. you could even grease the palms of someone with a 50+ year old English Electric Lightning in private ownership to get you up to 70 000 ft. But nobody is beating a path to the door of those with planes capable of this, to come back to earth and demanding to go that bit higher. Consequently I very much doubt there is a market for Virgin Galactic. Maybe Virgin Galactic will have as much impact as the Virgin F1 team, canned after a few seasons lollygagging at the back of the grid. But Branson seems okay keeping these fun adventures going and good on him for that (even if a few test pilots die on the way or if he himself ends up free falling without a parachute). As billionaires go he isn't a bad chap but I ain't no fan-boy.

<comment><USER40> > Sadly for Branson the efforts of Musk/SpaceX have downsized the publicity > potential for what has gone on here. That time that SpaceX landed two of the > rocket boosters was one of the most exciting moments in space thus far, the > Tesla 'Rocketman' was also quite crazy. This should have persuaded Branson > to throw in the towel on his 'space' ambitions but we all have our pride.

That was the same trip, and probably more exciting than anything since Apollo. Seeing those two rockets landing together before cutting to a dummy in a car blasting out of orbit, all choreographed to David Bowie, it looked like something from a movie.

However back when spaceship-one went to space (not orbit obv) and back twice in 2003, it felt like space was just around the corner. It took over a decade before SpaceX successfully landed their rocket to surpass that feeling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'll be interested when they start firing Branson, Musk, Clinton and Trump towards the nearest habitable system.

</comment><comment><USER42> I'd save my money for a trip in the BFR

</comment><comment><USER43> Then fell back down. Call me when it's orbital.

<comment><USER44> It's an orbit. It's just that the perigee is located deep within the Earth. (Deceleration due to sharply increasing frictional resistance is very likely on this class or orbits. This is likely followed by rapid unplanned disassembly.)

<comment><USER45> How likely is very likely? Can we quantify the chances of rapid unplanned disassembly causing deceleration?

<comment><USER44> It's very likely a real number.

<comment><USER45> I also imagine it to be real.

<comment><USER44> It's also very likely in the set of complex numbers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> headline similar to recent "Nasa's Voyager 2 probe 'leaves the Solar System'"

Similar but different...haha

</comment><comment><USER47> Free fall. Like inside an elevator with a broken cable. Here the aeroplane starts the free fall with considerable upwards speed. That and the horisontal speed form an upward parabola path of free fall.

</comment><comment><USER48> Surely the increase of all rocket launches/ships must be having a somewhat substantial impact on Earth's environment?

<comment><USER49> Whether we ruin the Earth or not it won't last forever. We need to find additional space-fairing vessels capable of sustaining humanity at some point. For now, it looks like the Moon and Mars are the most achievable bets for getting some of our eggs out of this cozy basket.

So...#worth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Gotta love articles that consist of short-sentenced, one-sentence paragraphs.

</comment><comment><USER51> Found it ironic that Branson called space 'Virgin Territory'.

There's a very good possibility that we'd be sending ourselves into the dark ages if space debris goes unmanaged. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU&](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU&)</comment>


Let's Replace JavaScript with Something Better - <AUTHOR> https://john.ankarstrom.se/english/texts/replacing-javascript/ <comment><USER3> > JavaScript always was a bad idea, for the simple fact that automatically > executing untrusted code from untrusted and unknown sources is a bad idea.

The premise here is completely wrong. A modern web browser is a sandboxed application delivery platform. The entire purpose is to execute untrusted code and it does so remarkably well. Take this away and you just have a document viewer -- a sophisticated one for sure -- but one always limited to its original purpose.

This proposed solution would eliminate many of the applications that web users use every single day and many more that haven't even been invented yet. HTML5 games would be impossible. Forget Google Maps. It's not even worth entertaining.

> In the company of the two declarative languages HTML and CSS, the > imperative, all-purpose JavaScript always seemed the odd one out.

Declarative languages are extremely limiting and the trend has been to move away from them. For example, the introduction of Service Workers to replace manifest files.

Much of the success of the web has been in defiance of the declarative nature of the formats rather than in support of them. We're building complex applications in a declarative format designed for documents and that's only possible because we can imperatively manipulate those documents with code.

<comment><USER4> _This proposed solution would eliminate many of the applications that web users use every single day and many more that haven 't even been invented yet._

No big deal. When Apple introduced the App store, a maybe-not-new-but-finally- practical way of shipping applications to end-user devices was born. And they weren't webapps. No JS at first, mostly Objective-C and plists. And was still revolutionary in its reach, and consequences. Then Android came. Still no JS, but XML and Java.

So, no, you don't need HTML+JS to deliver rich content application to users.

<comment><USER3> You need HTML+JS if you want to deliver one single application to iOS, Android, MacOS, Android, Linux, BSD, Solaris, Chrome OS, Tizen, and OSes that don't even exist yet and not be held to a single proprietary platform owned and managed by a single entity.

You could argue that it's not necessary but that's what it is.

The site you're posting to now probably wouldn't even exist if it required installing a different proprietary application for every platform.

<comment><USER4> _You could argue that it 's not necessary but that's what it is._

Yeah, that's the whole point I'm trying to make. That it's not necessary. That JS it no more special than any other language, and that there are recent, real, practical examples of absolute disruption (Apple/Android app stores) which broke what we thought it was required to deliver content to users.

As per the _one single application_ , that's a gross oversimplification.

<comment><USER3> Nobody said JS is special but the point of the article is that code execution (of any kind) is unnecessary.

The ironic part is that app store you're arguing for wouldn't even exist without the web. The web is what made Mac OS X viable for users to switch to it (and MS Office). The platform network affects that made Windows a monopoly have been drastically cut down by the web.

> As per the one single application, that's a gross oversimplification.

Says another person posting on a web application that runs on every platform out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Every 2-3 years this gets suggested again. Somebody builds something to "compile" their pet language x to JS. At the same time 3 new JS libraries or frameworks come out to abstract an abstraction. I've been writing JS since '94 and I'm sorry but at this point all I can muster is an eye roll.

<comment><USER6> It has also grown unbelievably well. ES6 alone has added in so many quality of life features that I find myself using fewer and fewer libraries every time I go to do a project and check compatibility.

I just need full module support and I'll be laughing.

<comment><USER5> Maybe I'm just crotchety now and/or beyond front-end fatigue but I keep thinking, "you don't need all that!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I prefer JavaScript to all the other languages I've learned/worked with (C#, Java, PHP, Python, Lisp, etc).

So thanks but no thanks.

<comment><USER8> So, if you are one of the people who _doesn 't_ like JS, then... what? Screw you?

<comment><USER7> We're not gonna "kill JavaScript" (quoting the article) just cause some people don't like the language.

<comment><USER8> I don't think it's a matter of killing JS - that would be rediculous. I don't think it's unreasonable that people should be able to choose the right tools for the job and it's not ok for JS fans to just say that JS is always the right tool

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Above all, what's dangerous about JavaScript is that it is executed without > the user's knowledge or consent.

Ummm ... is this not how all software works? Is the average person 'aware' of the code that is executing as he/she clicks around in any piece of software? How is a web browser any different?

<comment><USER10> Agreed. When a user opens Microsoft Word, billions of lines of code are executed without supposed consent.

<comment><USER11> Not to mention when your operating system likely updates itself, when you import new dependencies from a repo, when any software is updated to a new version by any means other than the user recompiling from source, etc.

It happens all the time but for some reason, it's more evil when it's javascript.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "JavaScript is also weird because it is imperative, forcing the programmer to describe the means in which to achieve the desired result, instead of declaratively describing the desired result itself, like in HTML and CSS."

It actually has First Class Functions that enables declarative programming, there's a lot of cool libraries out there(ramda as an example) that let you express your apps in declarative way. Not saying that is a Pure functional language nor that was born as a functional language, it is indeed a general purpose language enabling more styles of programming with a plenty of good and bad ideas. However it gets better as it is continuosly improved by a lot of smart guys. Btw as I can see it, the main point or your article is not about javascript but about browser APIs

</comment><comment><USER13> > Let's Replace JavaScript

The entire article is about changing various browser APIs, not Javascript itself

<comment><USER14> It's about adding browser APIs _in order to replace Javascript in the most common use cases_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wasn't this Google's premise when they released Dart?

<comment> forgot-my-pw Also CoffeeScript and TypeScript

<comment><USER15> Well, CoffeeScript and TypeScript are different in that they simply compile into Javascript, but Google initially intended dart to be available directly within web-pages. More on the reversal of that decision here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9264531](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9264531)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My view is that instead of running JS, browsers should run a standard bytecode with a well-defined and safe interface to the browser and managed access to the user's machine. The article covers some of these concerns. I really think a byte code is the way to go, just so people can use whatever language they prefer. It is ridiculous that if I want to solve a problem on my computer I can use whatever language I like but if I want to write something on a browser - one of the most important IT systems in the world - I only have one choice.

<comment><USER16> What's your favored language? Because odds are good that it can compile to JS: [https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of- langu...](https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of-languages- that-compile-to-js)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My sentiment here is that modern JavaScript is _much_ better than its predecessors. The real issue, as it pertains to the web browser, is supporting legacy functionality that's causing drag on the web as a whole.

I'm curious: what's so bad about JavaScript that other languages seem to do better?

<comment> ben-schaaf It still doesn't have integers.

<comment><USER18> Agreed. The fact that JavaScript lacks reasonable numeric types means that I never use it except when there is no alternative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This article has some interesting ideas, and it's definitely true that the web has a lot of problems, but I'm not sure how much of it is actually related to the underlying technology. Sites that use a lot of javascript tend to fall into one of two categories: * News sites with a billion ads and tracking scripts. * Actual web apps (Google Docs, Gmail, etc).

For the first category of websites, it's basically an economic problem - <USER2> are including all this junk because it makes money. If this proposal were implemented, most sites would just find ways to work around it - and if you can send network requests in response to events, it's always going to be possible to track users. You could easily just send a network request every time something on the page is clicked, hovered over, etc. and doing that would likely be even less efficient than what we have today. The article mentions alerting people when a network request is made, but if you had to click a button every time a site wanted to make a network request, it would be so annoying that most people would just give up and go back to the old web. Ultimately, the only way to stop tracking is to somehow fix the economic model so that there's no incentive to do it, although it's not entirely clear how that would happen.

For the second category of things that are real apps, this system is probably not going to work in most cases. There's a practically infinite number of actions that a real app would need to do, and if you implement an API for every single one, you'd end up with something that's really similar to what we have today. Most likely, you would just go back to downloading and installing native apps, which provides even less security protections than a web browser does (and it also makes it much harder to distribute your apps, which is the whole reason the web won in the first place).

Rather than getting rid of javascript completely, I think there's a few things that we could do that would solve a lot of the problems present today: * Create a way for sites to easily accept micropayments so that there's an alternative to ads. Brave seems to be the only company attempting this right now; it will be interesting to see whether they succeed or not. * Have your web browser notify you if a site is using too many resources. Firefox already kind of has this with the "x is slowing down your browser" notification, something like "x has used 100MB of data. Stop loading?" would work really well. * Enable first-party isolation by default, which would do a lot to reduce cross-site tracking.

</comment><comment><USER11> The article seems to suggest that javascript should be replaced by extensions to HTML and CSS, making both more or less Turing complete.

However, I don't think it sufficiently defends the premise of being objectively superior to javascript, given that all of the features mentioned _could be implemented in javascript._ There is nothing fundamental to the language which prevents designers from being proactive about consent in the way described.

I feel like the author blames the language for what are, essentially, design paradigms with which he disagrees, and I think a lot of people who criticize javascript do the same thing. We don't need to replace javascript to accomplish what the article describes, we just need to write javascript more ethically.

</comment><comment><USER20> Webassembly is the better thing we will replace JS with as a target language for browsers.

<comment><USER21> JS will stick around because it is easier to write. WASM will be for heavy lifting, not for making a modal pop up.

<comment><USER22> WASM will pave the way for other 'easier to write' languages to occupy the same space as JS. Rust is pushing heavy for native browser support and will likely be an early adopter in this space. It's only a matter of time until <your language of choice> will support compiling to WASM and run in the browser

<comment><USER11> The problem with that is, no one is going to be writing raw WASM code - it's going to be compiled from another language, which means requiring a compiler toolchain to replace an interpreted scripting language that only really requires a text editor.

For sites which are already using the paradigm of "compiling to javascript" that might not be an issue, but that doesn't cover all the use cases for Javascript.

Other languages can't really occupy that same space until it's possible to, say, embed Lua or Rust source in script tags and just have it work as easily as Javascript does, and have the browser handle compilation and execution entirely.

<comment><USER22> That's an interesting thought. I didn't mean to suggest anyone code in WASM, but I think I see what you mean.

I have experience embedding lua applications within mobile apps, and it required a fair deal of wiring in C to marshal between java and lua (android) or swift and lua (ios).

To do the same in WASM sounds rather undesirable.

Edit: to finish my thought, I dont see the problem with using a compiler toolchain to create web applications. Can you elaborate on why that isn't a good thing?

<comment><USER11> >Can you elaborate on why that isn't a good thing?

It's not a bad thing per se, but it's added complexity without any obvious benefit if that code is still doing what javascript already does, just as a binary blob, especially for simple uses like glue code around jQuery or the sort of JS running on Hacker News.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Whoever wrote this pile of crap hasn't used a SPA and doesn't understand what actually JS is used for nowadays.

</comment><comment> ben-schaaf As much as I disagree with getting rid of imperative languages on the web, that CSS Prolog idea is amazing. Styling is exactly the kind of niche I can see it succeeding in. Though I would be a little worried about my CSS looping infinitely...

</comment><comment><USER24> JS clearly has issues and I wish some of these issues could have been alleviated when ECMA introduced "use strict". It was a one time opportunity to correct the language at its core, AKA remove a bunch of features and behavior.

<comment><USER6> Not one time. They also considered "use strong" but declined. I don't recall why. But you can always do it again and make further subsets of the language that clean up for modern use with modern support.

But I also question the purpose. Just use dev tools to help enforce more strict code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> My only issue with javascript ecosystem, i.e. nodejs, is that when I 'npm install', all of sudden I get hundreds of modules pulled in with a few hundred MB of content, which I feel bloated and who-knows-what-just-pulled-in.

A glibc-style standard binary library might be better to maintain and for production use. Making the 'standard library' modularized so I can customize will be even better.

</comment><comment><USER26> Nice to see Intercooler getting some recognition. I haven't done much front end stuff for a while but I always intended to do a deep dive into it.

</comment><comment><USER27> "In light of the Meltdown and Spectre bugs", allow me to pivot the conversation to something completely unrelated.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, that's where I stopped reading...

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It seems to me that you are criticizing JS as it were in 2005. There are well known -low overhead- solutions to all the 'problems' you identified.

<comment><USER30> Despite being a js fan i don't think this criticism of the article is true. The critique applies equally to today as 2005 no? It seems that the article wants a language whose capabilities vs js are heavily neutered

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> lol

</comment><comment><USER32> I will love Python to replace JavaScript and Sass to replace CSS, but it will never happen.

<comment><USER33> WASM will mean compiling Python will be possible, and most of the useful Sass features are supported in CSS now?</comment></comment>


Twitter is 'toast' and the stock is not even worth $10: Analyst - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/21/twitter-is-toast-and-the-stock-is-not-even-worth-10-analyst.html <comment> anthony-james TL;DR: CNBC either doesn't know how to value companies, or is using a 50% discount rate. Either of these is concerning.

Disclosure: I'm using data from their 2015 Annual reports[0]

Valuing the stock requires at least 2 subjective metrics to be defined by the investor: The discount rate (similar to what return you could get on the next- best-investment) and the duration you think the firm will operate. This is because the value of the stock represents the present value of all future cash flows the entity will earn over its life.

On their balance sheet [1] they have about 6 bn worth of assets, 2 bn worth of liability and 4 bn worth of equity. They have enough cash and short term investments that if they wanted to, they could pay off all of their liabilities, and be left with property, intellectual assets and other tangible items of value, worth about $4bn. With about 715 million shares outstanding, the value of their company as a whole right now would be about $5.6 per share.[2] But, that's not the whole story - we need to figure out the discounted cash flows.

So first, how long do we expect twitter to last? Well, in their 2015 annual report they had a 143% increase in ad-engagement and a 41% decrease in the cost-per-ad. This tells us that they're getting more and more efficient, and at the very least, still in demand.[3] With about $2bn cash on hand, we can figure that they're in a position to buy out any early-stage competitors in the near future, so can we agree that they can last at least 5 years? Awesome, now which discount value should we use? Well if you're not investing in twitter, perhaps you could get 10% investing in other tech companies. But for the purposes of this example, let's say you're REALLY good, and can grab a 20% return on your investments.

So now we do a net present value calculation. Twitter has had ~2 bn worth of revenue per year. A 20% discount on $2bn every year for the next 5 years is about $6 bn. $6bn divided by 715 million shares = $8.37 per share, plus the $5.6 it's worth today gives us about $14 a share - still 40% more than what CNBC suggests, but a little less than what it's valued at today, although remember that this assumes an outrageous 20% discount rate. A more realistic return would be 10%, which would put us in that $16/share range.

So if anything, I would say Twitter is slightly undervalued. They're operating more efficiently than ever, and have taken huge steps towards making the necessary changes to bring about transformation change. They may fail, of course, but to say that the stock isn't even worth $10 is completely absurd (since to get $10 per share they'd have to use a 50% discount rate and only discount 3 years). At least if you invest in Twitter you can have a reasonable chance at getting your money back within the next few years. Their incredible liquidity and fair valuation is attractive, and the potential upside is not encapsulated in the share price as of now.

[0] viewproxy.com/twitter/2016/

[1] page 65 of Annual report

[2] ycharts.com/companies/TWTR/market_cap

[3] page 44 of Annual report

<comment><USER2> A few critical mistakes here.

First, you have to distinguish between operating and non-operating assets. The $4B you cite is the book value, which most certainly includes operating assets.

If you are adding operating assets to your valuation, then you are basically assuming that you are selling these and not using them to generate revenue. You can only do one or the other.

You can add cash (non-operating asset) to your DCF, but you (may) have to remove debt also, depending on what kind of cash-flow you are using.

The bigger issue is that you cannot use _revenue_ for a discounted _cash- flow_. Twitter has significantly negative free cash flows (unless you don't count stock based compensation, a huge number), so you have to start making some serious assumptions about cost-cutting to get it positive to get a positive enterprise value.

Even assuming they can swing it around to positive $100M FCF (after reinvestment needs), that's $1B (using your 10% discount), add in $2B (we'll assume that the $100M figure includes interest payments, so we will not subtract debt), that only gives $3B, and that's with hefty assumptions of cutting costs.</comment></comment>


Zelda 30 Year Tribute - <AUTHOR> https://www.zelda30tribute.com <comment><USER2> This is very cool... nice work! (p.s. to get the sword, just go into the black opening above your character at the beginning... I wasted way too much time to discover this)</comment>


Startups do a bad job of trying to replace real friendship/camaraderie - <AUTHOR>

The more I think of it, the more it seems true. Startups have tried to replace a culture that is increasingly lost and it's not doing a great job of it.
So many of things startups push - free breakfast, "unlimited" holidays, beers after a certain time, "team building" exercises are driven largely by profit (ie: keeping you in the office longer).
I increasingly find it cynical that they try to turn some of the best parts of human life into a human resources strategy. Pressuring people to stay later in work or trying to de facto push groups of colleagues together to be "friends" is cynical. It's kind of like the Pixar version of real life - things seem real in many ways buuuttt...the bottom line is in trouble and boom, you are out on your own - minus "friendships" and all the other guff you got from the startup cult. <comment><AUTHOR> Meanwhile, your 12 hours days have lead to loss of free time with your lifelong friends, girlfriend, bad health, missing travel, social, sporting and community/political opportunities...Just look at the feeling of something greater that so many of the Obama 2012 geeks felt when they were dragged out of their startup open plan offices and made to be part of something greater (whatever your politics).

All the startup "teams" I've seen and worked with have never come close to replacing my real friendships, no matter how hard HR departments tried...

It's sad that at a time when we are increasingly disconnected that the startup mentality has used this for it's own purposes (not always cynically ofcourse but the effect will probably still remain.)

Nothing, never, ever can beat the friendships, teamwork and sheer joy of talking and having fun with friends of mine who I once served with in the military etc. Perhaps it was the most cynical of all organisations but the friendships where the most true...people who you know would be there for you, no matter what, including most of the people in charge of you - NCO's, officers etc (yeh some are bad but most are good a really care - they are not just playing a game)

<comment><USER2> The differences in military vs. startup organizational friendship may have to do with what is on the line. In the military, the organization is a matter of life and death. In startups, the organization is simply a matter of profit and loss.

I've had similar experiences in the activist world... nothing builds camaraderie like being tear gassed and arrested together.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, I understand the activist world, as have been part of it myself sometimes...

It's the way startups feel like such a cynical transaction these days...Initially it seemed like such a liberating thing, now it's more of an emprisonment for many - shuttered away from those people and things that really matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Well, that is kind of obvious. They hire you for your work, and try to extract the most out of you in a productive way without pissing you off. You really think they would give a damn about your life otherwise? This is why people should have a life outside work, with family and real friends who care for them.</comment>


The Alternative to the Four-Hour Mindset - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/26/the-alternative-to-the-four-hour-work-week-mindset/ <comment><USER2> This addresses a very particular type of entrepreneur, one that I built a lot of my early contracting business on. Someone who calls themselves the "idea person" but rarely gets their hands dirty. I have met many of them via elance, at useless networking events, or via referrals. I have never seen any succeed or change their mindset.

The 4-hour mindset becomes more useful when it's time to scale. The problem is an unwillingness to do "unscalable things" at early stages, which just comes down to being too lazy to be an entrepreneur.

Surprised there aren't more comments since I found this article very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> An interesting conundrum occurs to me as I read and processed this through my own largely failed or semi-failed start-up experiences. The issues is this that the failure in my experiences has been enterprise sales delivery. We built cool, even award winning tech. We delivered the product to market. We had CIOs say they loved it. But driving real adoption, selling and getting revenue not just accolades was the issue.

So in light of this article, much of the behavior that the author describes sounds a lot like "sales" the very thing I have found missing. And, because it sounds and feels like sales on some superficial level it is easy to imagine for the practitioner that they are just around the corner from the big win.

<comment><USER4> I think you are right with respect to the need to hit the accelerator on growth through sales and marketing. Great products do not sell themselves. I think that having some notion of how to get a product to market and how to market that product is essential.

I thought this article was interesting and touches on your experiences:

It's not a feature problem—Avoiding Startup Tarpits

[https://hackernoon.com/its-not-a-feature-problem-avoiding- st...](https://hackernoon.com/its-not-a-feature-problem-avoiding-startup- tarpits-7d5ec4b8c81b)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the article. I read most of it.

Parts sounded very similar to the start-up that I was referencing most directly in my comment. The big difference was that in selling to large enterprises, marketing is very inefficient at reaching decision makers.

We thought we had this in hand because our founder and a couple of key early employees were deeply integrated into the CIO community. And, we did succeed in getting CIOs on board. The real challenge though for us was that revenue depended on adoption and ongoing use within large enterprises. While CIO's were telling us this platform is really great and we will have 20 procurement projects hosted on your exchange in the next 6 months, they weren't willing to force adoption within their organization. We would get delays and then maybe 1 or 2 projects and then nothing. There was still something missing or a unidentified barrier when it came to the needs of a VP or director 2 levels down from the CIO.

Eventually we ran out of money. The technical foundation was really good and allowed the founder to run it solo until he found a larger service company that wanted to retrofit the technology to support their business model. He got a smallish buyout which in theory made him and the investors whole plus a little. The last I heard they were having legal wranglings to actually get the money paid out from the acquiring firm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very interesting take. I think the pitfall discussed here is that many may plan for passive before the foundation is built.

</comment><comment><USER6> >"I didn't know how to do x, so I just had to figure it out."

Hiring managers, are you paying attention?</comment>


TfL closes 40 tube stations, suspends Night Tube, fewer trains, buses next week - <AUTHOR> https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2020/03/18/tfl-suspends-the-night-tube-closes-40-tube-stations-fewer-buses-from-next-week/ <comment><USER2> Here's the official announcement, perhaps should switch link to this

[https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press- releases/2020/march/...](https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press- releases/2020/march/planned-services-to-support-london-s-critical-workers)

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems like the right response. For Americans who are used to driving everywhere, it is hard to state just how critical the tube is for all people to get to work. Very few people in London have cars, so shutting down the tube entirely would prevent critical workers from getting to work. Looking at the stations to be closed, it seems like a reasonable list; buses will still offer a reduced timetable to connect affected areas.

<comment><USER4> Won't this just guarantee that every bus or tram is as full as possible?

<comment><USER5> We have reduced bus and tram schedules here in my city in Poland (they now go according to the weekend timetable) and still there's not much people in them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Neither any of the comments nor the article explains what TfL stands for; it is "Transport For London", basically their public transport authority.

</comment><comment><USER7> London is already a ghost town. I went in for the last time a few days ago to ensure some colleagues could work from home. Normally the City (financial district) is packed with people, no seats to be had, streets full. Monday felt like a Sunday afternoon. I think people are starting to get the message.

</comment><comment><USER8> With fewer trains, wouldn't that lead to more overcrowding?

<comment><USER9> In Copenhagen, the metro took the reverse action, running more trains, even outside rush hours (basically all their trains all the time). Well, that happened two weeks ago, and now no one is actually taking the metro, so maybe they have cut down since then.

I think bus companies and train companies in general took the same action, but they are also reporting an 80% drop in passengers.

<comment><USER10> Copenhagen can do this as the metro trains are automatic (no drivers, just some controllers with oversight in an office somewhere) and the stations are often not staffed.

London has to have train drivers, and most stations aren't as safe as a fairly new system.

<comment><USER11> Then have more drivers and pay them a bit extra. Train drivers are mostly isolated in their cabins and not exposed to the people much anyway.

<comment><USER12> Average salary for a tube driver is £55k. Here's what TFL say; "The average base pay of a Tube driver is £55,011. The overwhelming majority earned total remuneration – including base pay, overtime, employer pension contributions and certain allowances – of £70,000 [$80k] or considerably less." Always think that's interesting

<comment><USER13> That's a reasonable salary if you are expected to live (or commute daily) to London and provide something resembling a family home.

Everyone else in low and middle income bracket is just getting screwed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if this can be a solution to the heating problems on the older lines. I haven't done the math but a few weeks of closure or reduced service can be an opportunity for some heat exchange.

<comment><USER11> Please don't fuel this bad reasoning - decreasing the number of trains or lowering their speed is a dangerous measure that will _increase transmission!_

It's the same brand of broken-mindedness that brought us the "only sick people should wear masks" and other _wrong-think_ measures that _increase transmission and make everything worse!_

<comment><USER15> >the same brand of broken-mindedness that brought us the "only sick people should wear masks"

So apparently qualified health professionals having to deal with masks shortage are "broken-minded", but a bunch of armchair MD Internet commenters are correct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Similar in the Netherlands with the train network, they've cut the train frequency way back and most intercity trains are no longer running, being replaced with sprinters (which stop at every station.)

As is annoyingly common with them, the English detail is rather useless:

[https://www.ns.nl/en/travel-information/calamities/fewer- tra...](https://www.ns.nl/en/travel-information/calamities/fewer-trains.html)

but the Dutch is fairly comprehensive:

[https://www.ns.nl/reisinformatie/calamiteiten/vanaf- vrijdag-...](https://www.ns.nl/reisinformatie/calamiteiten/vanaf- vrijdag-13-maart-minder-treinen-in-de-spitsuren.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> Even though this is the right response I feel this is a bit late.

<comment><USER11> It's _the opposite of the right response!_

<comment><USER18> How so?</comment></comment></comment>


A look at decaf antiforensics anti-cofee tool - <AUTHOR> http://praetorianprefect.com/archives/2009/12/regular-or-decaf-tool-launched-to-combat-cofee/

<comment><USER2> COFEE is just an epic failure as a computer forensics tool simply because when it comes to Forensics the accepted Medium is to switch off the machine, remove the Hard-Disk and then Mirror the contents of the hard-disk in a secure read only medium such as LibEWF or Expert Witness Format.

Unfortunately when a tool like COFEE that is inserted into the machine on USB, whilst it's running, cracking the password as it's inserted, it would access the RAM on the machine when it got inserted. Which can be construed as Data Tampering as it would have to Read & Write Data from the Hard-Disk!

By reading and writing to the Suspects computer via a USB device it paves the possibility of a rouge application spreading via the USB. How can anyone determine the effects of COFEE if it is closed source and distributes in the marvelous Self *.exe'cuting Binary .Win32 format?

In Forensics, you read and reconstruct the Data from a Disk-Image of the HDD or in the Case of a USB device you would Extract the Data from Thumbs.db which is a hidden file on any Fat16 formatted USB Pen. Only the accepted norm is you do not tamper with the Data in anyway by allowing your machine to Write to it!

</comment><comment><USER3> This problem is isomorphic to the antivirus problem. You can't even trust the memory controller to tell you the truth about live memory contents. When you compare Decaf to, say, a modern rootkit, it's apparent how superficial this forensics conflict really is.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, it's just a scratch on the surface. But if the authors were to open- source it and develop a plugin scheme they might find a lot of contributors, a la Firefox or iPhone app store. Maybe not as many, but with similar enthusiasm.

Not sure I approve of antiforensics because I suspect COFEE could help convict a lot of criminals. On the other hand it seems an invasion of privacy and the US 5th Amendment IMO.</comment></comment>


Acceleration found in galaxies challenges current understanding of dark matter - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2016-09-spiral-irregular-galaxies-current-dark.html <comment><USER2> As someone who can appreciate physics, but doesn't really know much: What are the implications of this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Galaxies don't seem to obey gravity in their rotation.

Take images of a galaxy, estimate the number and mass of the stars based on their brightness. Make a computer simulation using this and the known laws of gravity. In the simulation the galaxy will rotate way differently than in the observations. This happens with every galaxy, so we just don't know why galaxies rotate the way they do.

There are two major theories:

1\. Maybe our estimation of the mass distribution in a galaxy is wrong. We only estimate the mass based on the light of the stars we can see. So people have invented dark matter. We can add unseen matter in a certain distribution into the galaxy, until we get it to rotate, under our known laws of gravity, the way we observe it rotating.

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

2\. Maybe our laws of gravity are wrong. Maybe the gravitational interaction works differently over very long distances than it works inside our solar system. After all, we have directly measured gravity only over distances inside our solar system.

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

Generally physicists feel that the mathematical form of the gravitational interaction is too precious to meddle with. It is easier to postulate unseen, unknown, extra mass to all galaxies, than to alter the equations of gravity. So dark matter is the more generally accepted theory.

This study is purely observational. The authors observe that the deviation in the rotation of visible mass, compared to out laws of gravity, follows a nice curve with almost no scatter. This gives slightly more support to the theories of modified gravitation laws, because the deviations seem to follow a smooth pattern. But if we postulate some mechanism which distributes the dark matter just right, to follow the observations, also the dark matter theories would conform to these observations. So this is a small step in one of the big unsoveld problem in physics.

<comment><USER2> Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>