Best of ArXiv.org for AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning – November 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://insidebigdata.com/2017/11/27/best-of-arxiv-for-machine-learning-february-2016/ <comment><USER2> Is there a way to track which Arxiv papers get republished in peer-reviewed journals?

<comment><USER3> Not really, AFIAK. You can check [https://openreview.net/](https://openreview.net/) though.

Most Arxiv papers from Google/FB/OpenAI get a pretty good review on Twitter and /r/MachineLearning.

Some Arxiv papers say "under review for NIPS (or whatever)".

<comment><USER4> Openreview is only for iclr, so you'll be missing a lot of papers.

To the above poster, in ML journals aren't the main means of publication. You want to look at conferences like ICLR, NIPS, CVPR, etc.

<comment><USER3> Some NIPS workshops use Openreview[1].

(I kind of assumed the poster meant "journals or conference proceedings")

[1] [https://openreview.net/group?id=NIPS.cc/2017/Workshop/Autodi...](https://openreview.net/group?id=NIPS.cc/2017/Workshop/Autodiff)

<comment><USER4> Yep I'm aware haha.

I made [https://chillee.github.io/OpenReviewExplorer/](https://chillee.github.io/OpenReviewExplorer/), so I'd love if all conferences used openreview.

<comment><USER3> Nice.. maybe you could fix the NIPS website too? ;)

<comment><USER4> Hmm, what do you mean by that? Not sure what I could add to the nips website from what they provide

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Please stop with those "Best of AI papers".

This isn't how science work, this isn't how anything works

<comment><USER4> What's your problem with these lists?

I don't think making these lists is necessarily incompatible with the peer review process. Orals or spotlight presentations at conferences are effectively "best of" lists anyways.</comment></comment>


Steve Blank says "Founders are artists." (go to 4:17 in video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.founderly.com/2011/04/steve-blank-part-4-of-5/

<comment><USER2> A start-up is a painting that the artist "founder" tries to express to his audience. At times he's misunderstood, but there are times when the whole world appreciates and respects the artist's masterpiece....

<comment><USER3> I like to call this trope 'John Galt Wears a Beret'

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Exactly the way I see things, I bet that most of people also think about it the same way... but it feels good to listen that from likeminded people :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Go to 4:17 in the video to hear why Steve Blank thinks founders are artists.

</comment><comment><USER5> Very interesting and informative. I'm not even entrepreneurially minded.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I am happy to hear that. We're hoping these stories can be interesting and informative not only to founders, but for a general audience. And who knows, maybe you will be a founder someday?</comment></comment>


Dow futures fall as much as technically possible pre-trade. Crash today? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aLD.lHY14Fm8&refer=home

<comment><USER2> I have to laugh. I'm just getting into investing and I put 50% of my net worth in over the last few weeks. Half about a week ago and half yesterday because I figured "Hmm, looks like it is starting to bottom out".

FAIL - I guess this is why they say don't try to call bottoms.

My plan - keep putting money in. I'm young and holding for the long term, this is a great buying opportunity no matter what happens today, or monday, or 6 months from now.

For me specifically, I'm socking a lot of money away in a retirement account to make up for the fact that when I start my company, I won't be making many contributions until I start making money.

Having money working for you even when you are not working helps reduce the risk of starting a company.

<comment><USER3> I doubt the bottom will come till next year my friend, so buy incrementally. And I feel the Christmas season will be a fluke of optimism, however the news media may spin in into a the Nightmare Before Christmas... markets are random, probably better off investing in yourself at this point.

<comment><USER4> I don't think there will be any positives coming out of Christmas. Everyone will look at Q4 retail numbers and get the wind knocked out of them.

Historically, equities do well in Nov and Dec. Markets may be random, but they do have tendencies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am sick and god damn tired of ignorant poor people believing there is some leviathan force of rich people out there keeping everyone else down.

I am sick of all these huge numbers being quoted without acknowledging that most of it is tied up in the _working capital_ of major companies.

Sure socialists, tax the hell out the rich in the erroneous belief that they have enough money to support everyone. Watch society fall apart. I'm sure you have a 5 year plan to fix everything.

</comment><comment><USER6> Time to buy dividend issuing stocks at massive discounts (compared to historical averages).

<comment><USER4> Don't do divvies in financials at least. Look at KO, PFE, JNJ, VZ (7% yield!) and any oil companies with no debt (they're sitting on a ton of cash).

I've got a couple strategies here: [http://investingwithoptions.com/2008/10/iwocom-video-long- te...](http://investingwithoptions.com/2008/10/iwocom-video-long-term-covered- calls/)

<comment><USER6> Already bought JNJ before I even posted this :). I'm liking FO as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Oh, and so did NASDAQ and S&P 500 futures. The guy on CNBC just made an earnest "we who are about to die" _Gladiator_ salute (not making this up).

<comment><USER7> Youtube?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not true. It hit the pre-market circuit breakers. There are lower levels than that and will only trigger before certain times of the day (12pm 2pm).

And we've been in a crash for nearly the entire month of October.

And I do video commentary about stuff like this that I have to plug: www.investingwithoptions.com

</comment><comment><USER8> Well, that seems to have been a big deal about nothing (as of just before noon, New York time). It opened about 4% down, but crept back up and is now 3.5% down, at 8,387.

<comment><USER8> ...and then they closed at 8,378, just 3.6% down over the day.

Well, that was pretty anticlimactic, wasn't it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fix it, fix it, fix it! (apologies to SNL)

</comment><comment><USER10> I would like to share with you some comments from a friend of mine, living in the so-called second world:

(I've edited out quite a lot, mostly offensive words)

 _I am unable to comprehend what is happening at the moment. Some argue that the neoliberal capitalist system is collapsing, others that is another way to turn public funds into private funds. I am very confused._

 _You know that 400 americans own 1.7 trillon USD? (the GDP of Argentina is 250 Billon USD). You know that 50% of the world population has 1% of the GDP._

 _And then they want me to believe that there is a financial crisis. There is a crisis, one that nobody mentions, people are starving and dying, and nobody gives a shit, they only care about themselves. Well I would love to believe that they are really losing money in the big casino ..._

<comment><USER11> Well, poor people starving as usual is _all part of the plan_ , so no one notices. This stuff isn't in the plan.

<comment><USER10> It's not _poor_ people, it's people without equality of opportunities, tied by family weights, unable to become enterpreneurs even if they really want to because society around them has collapsed.

Emigration is, so far, the only solution (even if painful), but despite being college-educated and very capable, the western world doesn't _want_ them--not easy to get visas of any kind.

And 50+ year old people don't feel like moving at all, because their country used to be fine and is now, very deep in, their home. One can always pretend that nothing has changed--we humans have perfected the art of self deception.

Was it their fault that it collapsed? That's a slippery slope. I have no answer. But the current situation of Argentina may serve as a comparison reference to any over-hyped news of "collapse" or "martial law required to fix the economy in the USA": the USA is doing fine, thank you, as can be seen in this very forum of enterpreneurs.

<comment><USER12> Did those people bring it about themselves: without really knowing the story of Argentina (except dictator, brutal torturing and stuff), I would wager to say YES. Probably it was another case of communism gone wild. And that is why an attitude like the one from the "second world" you quoted annoys me a bit, frankly. It annoys me if people don't even try to understand the "financial crisis" or what is causing it, and instead simply scapegoat some imagined rich people whom they blame for everything. Because that is exactly the attitude that then makes the real shit happen, communism, fascism, civil war and the likes. I am not saying that I don't feel sorry for the poor, complex systems are hard to understand, and I can not paint you a complete picture of the financial crisis, either. It is important to try to understand it to avoid making the same systems as in the past.

<comment><USER10> I agree with you. Yet my friends' imagined "rich people" are _everyone_ living in a developed country. I.e. "rich people" means something entirely different to him.

Some people was born _after_ the collapse, or were children at the time. Yet the first world handles them just the same way as their perhaps accountable parents. And exactly how is their fault in any way? So from their perspective, the whole situation is just unfair, and the cries of self-pity of large financial institutions very much out of place.

Also: here is an account of how life is currently in a country that used to be just fine, and now is totally broken down:

[http://www.frugalsquirrels.com/cgi- bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ub...](http://www.frugalsquirrels.com/cgi- bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=044387;p=1)

Search for "We understood it the same way a kid understands photosynthesis" for a description of how it feels to have the process explained of how a large middle class falls down to a low class, and when that means your own class in your own country. I found it heart-shattering.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: GearPlan – Airbnb for music equipments (built with Meteor) - <AUTHOR> https://gearplan.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN. I built this over the past year for a client of mine and recently launched it. I'd appreciate any feedback and would love to answer your questions.</comment>


Satire: Hitler finds out about iOS 7 - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndjedaoDcDE&sns=em

<comment><USER2> lol, this made my day</comment>


Autonomous EVs are coming–but not nearly with the speed Musk expects - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedrive.com/opinion/12606/elon-musk-is-wrong-about-the-future-of-self-driving-electric-cars-in-america <comment><USER2> The whole article, and all the studies cited in the article are characterizing AVs as things people will buy, and some will, but AV use will come predominantly as robotaxis. Looking at the number of vehicles sold isn't even pertinent, the relevant metric is the number of vehicle miles travelled. Like a regular taxi, an autonomous Rideshare EV will move something in the neighbourhood of an order of magnitude more people per day than a conventional privately owned vehicle.</comment>


Show HN: Cash v2: An absurdly small jQuery alternative for modern browsers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kenwheeler/cash <comment><USER2> I think this is an interesting idea. I know jQuery isn't fashionable right now but I still use it for many projects including new ones. I think there are still a wide variety of webapps that shouldn't be SPAs, particularly if the Backend renders html and isn't node, and so I think there is a wide need for something like this, I'll definitely be checking it out.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> New maintainer here -- I'll be happy to hear your thoughts on this :)

I'm trying to make cash the last jQuery alternative:

\- It's written with modern browsers in mind.

\- It implements a subset of jQuery.

\- It doesn't include Animation or AJAX functionalities, for which you should use other libraries.

\- It can be as small as you want, since it supports partial builds (at the file-level, not at the megamodule-level like jQuery, Zepto and others do).

<comment><USER3> I am writing Javascript day in and day out. I have not felt the urge to include jQuery or an alternarive for a long time now. Browsers nowadays provide all I need natively.

What use case do you have in mind?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm using cash in my UI framework [1], using a jQuery-like API instead of the native methods is pretty nice, and I need some of the abstractions provided, like event namespaces.

[1] [https://github.com/svelto/svelto](https://github.com/svelto/svelto)</comment></comment></comment>


You probably don't need input type="number" - <AUTHOR> http://bradfrost.com/blog/post/you-probably-dont-need-input-typenumber/ <comment><USER2> The problem with this is the browser and desktop environment makers. The correct thing to do is <input type="number"> and it's a reasonable choice even though it's not the most optimal UI for your site. If the user encounters it the average Hacker News reading developer's site, it's probably a good thing it was there and not somewhere more critical, so they'll notice and maybe not make the same mistake when they're submitting adoption papers or something.

I like the article, and have enjoyed everything I've read that Brad Frost has written, but I will probably keep using <input type="number">. I hope somehow this gets back to browser and desktop environment makers and they fix this usability and accessibility issue.

<comment><USER3> Well... The spec actually says it's not the "correct" thing to do

[https://www.w3.org/TR/html5/forms.html#number- state-(type=nu...](https://www.w3.org/TR/html5/forms.html#number- state-\(type=number\))

>The type=number state is not appropriate for input that happens to only consist of numbers but isn't strictly speaking a number. For example, it would be inappropriate for credit card numbers or US postal codes. A simple way of determining whether to use type=number is to consider whether it would make sense for the input control to have a spinbox interface (e.g., with "up" and "down" arrows). Getting a credit card number wrong by 1 in the last digit isn't a minor mistake, it's as wrong as getting every digit incorrect. So it would not make sense for the user to select a credit card number using "up" and "down" buttons. When a spinbox interface is not appropriate, type=text is probably the right choice (possibly with a pattern attribute).

<comment><USER4> As far as I can tell, a spinbox interface is not appropriate in any circumstance, even when your semantics are unambiguously numeric. This is mentioned in the article too: "Dammit! I wanted to buy two pairs of socks, not 39."

A spinbox only makes sense if you don't care what the value is, such that any two nearby values are _exactly_ equivalent. And that is what the W3 guidance you quote says:

> Getting a credit card number wrong by 1 in the last digit isn't a minor > mistake, it's as wrong as getting every digit incorrect. [And that's why a > card number field should not use a spinbox.]

This suggests to me that the real problem is the idea that "type=numeric" means you want a spinbox. You don't ever want a spinbox; there's no reason for any attribute to give you one. But you frequently do want to restrict the input to numeric characters.

Mouse-adjustable low-resolution analog values have their own widget, the scrollbar. If you somehow find yourself wishing for a spinbox, use one of those.

<comment><USER5> When I'm doing game dev or 3d modeling or something, I often don't care what the values are, I just spin a bit until they look good. The same goes for angles that aren't on a labeled unit circle, percentages, and most other numbers that can reasonably be >30 or so.

Basically, if "close-ish" is acceptable, then a numeric input makes a ton of sense. And that's the case for lots of things, and most of those things wouldn't be entered with a keyboard (unless you want to get the figure in the ballpark).

If the number is <10 or so most of the time, then a menu makes a ton of sense (number of socks), and include a "custom" option so users can enter their own numbers. I do this with all kinds of things that only need a ballpark number but don't benefit from tweaking (e.g. seconds in an internal; basically, if 10 options or so makes sense, just make it a menu).

I happen to work with graphical things that don't need to be precise much of the time but need more precision that a set of presets. But most retail and whatnot apps are not that.

<comment><USER4> > that's the case for lots of things, and most of those things wouldn't be > entered with a keyboard

I agree with that, but this is an attribute of a text entry field. Like I said, we already have a different widget that accommodates the "I don't care what the value is, but I want to be able to easily fudge it upwards or downwards" use case.

<comment><USER6> Is there an <input type="scrollbar"/>?

Also, input does not necessarily mean text entry. We have <input type="checkbox"/> and <input type="button"/> among others.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure what you mean by "scrollbar" input, but maybe <input type="range"> fits?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Input type="number" is the only way to get a numeric keyboard that supports floating point numbers on iOS. The "pattern" trick gives you nice big numbers, but no decimal point. Apparently, the "inputmode" property will solve this in the future, but it doesn't yet.

I learnt this the hard way while trying to get my text input fields to show the correct numeric keyboard on this site: [https://percentagecalculatortools.com](https://percentagecalculatortools.com) \-- I eventually had to switch back to number inputs. I couldn't find any other solution that worked.

<comment><USER9> On the bright side, it's probably less likely to have an input impacted by a mouse wheel on mobile, so just changing the input type between mobile and desktop might be good enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ugh. Can I just say that using the scroll wheel for _anything but scrolling_ is one of my all-time UX pet peeves. Probably #1, in fact.

Above all, Google Maps repurposing it for zoom. Like, I'm scrolling down a webpage, there's an embedded Google Map, and suddenly it stops scrolling and starts zooming in by orders of magnitude and it's just a WTF moment... you're _breaking the web_. Nobody wants to zoom by orders of magnitude like that. Nobody asked you to stop scrolling the page. It's beyond useless.

Likewise, this is doing the same for numbers, at least in Safari. Again, _nobody wants that_. I can't think of any good reason ever to have that as a "feature". I can't even imagine what goes through the minds of people who think that's a good idea. Worst. Design. Decision. Ever.

<comment><USER11> I'm so confused. I've never wanted the scroll wheel to do anything but zooming on Google Maps. It's not like there is anywhere to scroll to in the first place?

<comment><USER12> On Maps prime site it makes sense, embedded on other pages it makes less sense. But, the page other needs to add one line of config, or G needs to change defaults for embedded

<comment><USER11> But even when I'm on an embedded map it's super annoying to have to hold control... I pretty much never want to scroll if my mouse is hovering over the map. It's how it works in every application isn't it? Scrolling while hovering affects the object under the cursor, not the object with the focus. I feel like it might be better if the page has logic that checks "if you're already scrolling, then keep scrolling the same object instead of shifting focus to the embedded map"?

<comment><USER13> I have yet to encounter an embedded map that could not have better been

\- a static image

\- a table of addresses with an external map link

It's not just the idea of wheeling around in some 256x256 box added at the last minute to a Contact Us page, the entire concept of an embeddable map is shit

Their main purpose seems to be to add 1 second to page loads across the web, and feed more clickstream back to the mothership

The main exception to this I can think of right now is Flightaware, but even that does not require such detailed rendering

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> For crying out loud, input type="number" is fine. Please don't stop using it. The problem here is a bad input device.

<comment><USER15> No, disagree.

> input type="number" is fine. Please don't stop using it.

Agreed

> The problem here is a bad input device

 _Part_ of the problem is the input device, but, as is stated around here, a "Social Security Number" is _NOT_ a number. A number is an object that we can reasonably expect +-*/ operations on, within the context of mathematical feasibility (i.e., yes, there are some issues with division under the integer set).

I saw stated elsewhere something like, a Social Security Number is an identifier which happens to be limited to [0-9]. It should be treated as such -- an input field with a limitation on valid characters. Same with a phone number or a membership ID. No matter how sensitive the input wheel, you should not use input type="number" for a non-number, no matter how much it really, really looks like a number.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Certainly not for account numbers, social security numbers, credit card > numbers, confirmation numbers, and others.

Those are not numbers. Those are opaque identifiers which just happen to take a form of a number. My DBA teacher always said: If you don't need to calculate it, then don't process and store it as a number. This applies to phone numbers as well.

<comment><USER17> Strings take so much more space than a number. This is why you store IPV5 as numbers and not strings unless you want a very large table.

<comment><USER18> What happens when you convert 00000456 to an integer? Strings are safer, which is more important than space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> >I quickly refocused into the field and slightly moved my index finger up on my Magic Mouse.

Sounds like your problem is your "magic" mouse.

<comment><USER18> ...or any touch-pad or touch-mouse? Or really any device that scrolls?

<comment><USER20> My macbook's touchpad doesn't seem to increment or decrement a type="number" input when I try to scroll within it.

<comment><USER21> Try a standard html input, some websites hijack the input to stop this behaviour.

<comment><USER20> I created an html file with only a

        <input type="number">

element in it.

<comment><USER18> Yeah I looked into also, it appears to pretty much just be Chrome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My favorite input type=number quirk is you can type the letter 'e' into it for compatibility with scientific notation!

<comment><USER23> An additional reason not to use type=number just because something is only made up of numbers. Good thing we have the pattern attribute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The ball on the magic mouse is particularly twitchy, and doesn't give back any sort of feedback. There are lots of other reasons why that particular mouse is an ergonomic nightmare, but I think this aspect is what caused the author to not notice the number change.

</comment><comment><USER25> As a side note, EU account numbers include a built-in checksum, so you can detect right away if the account number is correct or not.

[for the pedants/purists: yes, there is a chance that your mistake will just happen to hit the same checksum]

<comment><USER26> >This check is guaranteed to detect any instances where a single character has been omitted, duplicated, mistyped or where two characters have been transposed.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Bank_Account_Num...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Bank_Account_Number#Check_digits)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I learned a general rule about numbers vs strings, and I think it'd apply in this example as well: if you aren't doing math with it, keep it a string. (Phone numbers, numeric postal codes, account numbers, house numbers, etc).

<comment><USER28> Don't leak your data model, though. Having mobile users have the number pad pop up is absolutely the right answer. Treating it as a generic string is an incredibly annoying UX failure. The fact that spinwheels by default on this thing is another UX failure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I agree with his point, account numbers aren't numbers. Say your account number is 000345. That's not a number.

<comment><USER29> That's something I think most developers will at some point in their career run into - it's probably in a "Misconceptions developers have about x" kind of post. I mean a phone number looks like a number but if it has a 0 prefix information will be filtered out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> OP probably doesn't need those stupid circle graphics that make reading the article title impossible to read.

[https://imgur.com/a/QHtfBKn](https://imgur.com/a/QHtfBKn)

</comment><comment><USER31> pattern=/d* or =[0-9]* no longer works in iOS 12.2 beta.

inputmode is supposed to work in Mobile Safari on iOS 12.2

type=number acts differently between iPhone and iPad. And on an IPad if you type in anything that isn't a number, it silently fails (value=="").

type=tel works ok, but at some point will have a popup to select from contacts or autofill.

Data input is essentially broken on browsers from anything more complex than a text field.

</comment><comment><USER32> As a data manager and a database developer, I can assure you there is a big difference between "a number" and "a string of digits" (even when those digits are _supposed to be_ a number). It's a sign of poor database design when a field type of numeric is chosen because something "looks like a number". Usually, I would only use an integer field for something like an internal record ID or lookup code, whereas an external-facing ID should be a string, enforced by a mask or limited input set. Often, as a database evolves, what starts out as a numeric ID ("Customer 1"!) can evolve into something more complex ("Let's prepend a geographic code to segment our ID space!"), which cascades through the entire application stack. It's important for a UI developer to really understand what the data domain is, rather than just blindly following the underlying data type, and to help ensure that the user is guided properly.

</comment><comment><USER33> I ran into this on a site a while back, I believe it was for a health insurance claim. There was JS on the page that was interacting with a number input and making the form impossible to fill in properly; I had to use the inspector to change the input type to get it working. I wonder how many people simply gave up when confronted with the problem...

</comment><comment><USER34> > While input type="number triggers numeric keyboards on touchscreens leading > to better mobile UX, that can also be accomplished by configuring the > pattern attribute in a certain way.

Sorry, it's silly to propose features which work only on iOS. Standards-wise, I am not even sure if browsers should be parsing regex to accomplish this goal.

Input type=number can just be about what keypad to show, and shed the up-down arrows for increment/decrement. That's a valid complaint.

<comment><USER35> The linked article in the post especially specifies that it doesn't work well at all and has it's own limitations and recommends using pattern + type=number together and then adds like a ton of workarounds on top of that.

The pattern trick article basically explains the exact opposite of what the "you don't need input type number" article says but is cited for something it does not say at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I've never even thought to test the scroll behavior on input number. Win Forms and browsers used to do that on select boxes too. Win forms still requires a hack, but browsers fixed that long ago. Why on earth did they think it was a good idea for any other input? It's especially problematic on any view that scrolls, it's easy to accidentally land on the input and not even notice you changed the value.

</comment><comment><USER37> so... the real problem is the crappy apple's magic mouse?

<comment><USER38> Yes, but everybody is (deliberately?) ignoring that point.

<comment><USER39> That mouse scroll is "clever", but for accurate input a regular scroll wheel is so much better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Sounds like it should be <input type="magnitude" /> or <input pattern="..." />

</comment><comment><USER41> > "Oooohh, so things like account numbers and social security numbers aren't > really 'numbers'".

This seems surprisingly insightful for a non-programmer! Either OP is a good explainer, or the support person is one the bank should hold on to.

<comment><USER42> OP in this case being Brad Frost, one of the more influential members of the web community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I thought the general recommendation was to use type="tel" to pull up the 9 digit keypad

</comment><comment><USER5> One pretty stupid reason I have for it is that Angular used to (still does?) automatically converts number inputs to numbers in the data binding layer, which is nice sometimes. It's not a very good reason, but it's a reason nonetheless.

Now that I'm using React, I try to use the best type for the UX since I have to do it manually anyway, but with Angular it was sometimes easier to use the slightly worse UX.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'd suggest that you don't need input type='number' where the number is an identifier, not a quantity. However, that would put mobile users at a disadvantage, because they'd have to switch to the numeric keyboard manually. The input device is also not at fault here. It's the browser vendor's implementation of the number field that isn't optimal.

<comment> frosted-flakes You can specify the pattern attribute to be only numeric digits with "\d" .

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Input number also doesn't give a very good experience on mobiles too for the reason that at least google keyboard hides autocomplete suggestions for me. The most common number input I do is enter my mobile number and it would be lovely to have autocomplete fill it.

By the way I found typing hero on android just for this. It's a fantastic app for entering numbers and expanding short cuts on android!

<comment><USER46> Isn't type=number not at all suited for phone numbers? It might work for local numbers, but the common E.164 recommendation allows for a leading `+`.

type=tel [1] seems a lot more suited for this.

[1] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/in...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/input/tel)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Kind of a workaround, but if you desired the feature to enable loading the numpad keyboard on mobile or onscreen accessible keyboard, etc, could you possibly override the on-scroll handlers, preventDefault etc?

<comment><USER48> Yep, it's possible. Looks like you need to prevent the default behavior of the wheel event. Here's a quick example I whipped up: [https://codepen.io/yefim/pen/drroer](https://codepen.io/yefim/pen/drroer) and here's a 5 year old Stack Overflow answer about it: [https://stackoverflow.com/a/14810932/597260](https://stackoverflow.com/a/14810932/597260)

<comment><USER47> Thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> AKA: Chrome's poor design choice to allow the value of input type=number to change (without warning) on scroll. Safari of course doesn't have this problem.

</comment><comment><USER50> "Thanks, Brad!"</comment>


Online Human-Bot Interactions: Detection, Estimation, and Characterization - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.03107 <comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR: 9-15% of Twitter accounts might be automated services ("bots")</comment>


Scientists find proof plants are capable of complex arithmetic - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10134715/Scientists-find-proof-plants-are-capable-of-complex-arithmetic.html

<comment><USER2> Is this a joke? By such reasoning a bucket filling with water is integration.

<comment><USER3> Careful now. Computers are a similarly mindless arrangement of atoms. The only difference is that humans designed computers, and natural selection designed plants. Under your reasoning, computers are incapable of arithmetic. At that point, how are brains any different?

Perhaps that's right, but such a "pure" definition of computation is hardly useful.

More examples of plants mechanistically doing math: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahXIMUkSXX0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahXIMUkSXX0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Scientists find evidence. Only mathematical theorems may have a proof.</comment>


Colombia Peace Deal Is Defeated, Leaving a Nation in Shock - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/world/colombia-peace-deal-defeat.html <comment><USER2> Why on earth was a matter of war and peace left to a referendum? As someone who lives in the UK my confidence in referenda and most forms of direct democracy (and watching the US that is starting to include having presidential elections over parliamentary systems in which the executive comes from the parliament) couldn't deteriorate any further. A common criticism in the UK to Brexit amoung remain supporters is that an issue that complex or fraught should never have been brought before the public as something to be voted on. Can we please all just adopt sensible parliamentary democracies and recognise that plebiscites are a clutch for weak posturing governments that should otherwise face a general election challenge.</comment>


Why not string theory? Because enough is enough - <AUTHOR> https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2016/06/dear-dr-b-why-not-string-theory.html <comment><USER2> Speaking as a professor specializing in string theory, I'd say, "More power to her." I have no idea whether string theory gets too much attention relative to its actual value in modeling the real world, but I think one essential part of finding the right amount of attention for any physical theory is for theorists to make their best judgement about what's worth their time to study.

In fact, it's quite comforting to me to see people deciding to focus in other directions: to my eye, that means the system is working (though perhaps the author would argue it's not working efficiently), and I'd hate to see other worthwhile angles of attack wither away purely due to lack of attention. For myself, I got excited about string theory in grad school and decided to go that route, and I'm still finding it fascinating today. (And it still feels worthwhile to keep studying it, though perhaps I'm not quite as optimistic about its ultimate success as I was 15 years ago.)

<comment><USER3> So you feel strong theory connects to reality, and is falsifiable and avoids "piling on epicycles"?

Will string theory be more parsimonious than the the more concrete model of physics it tries to model?

<comment><USER4> Of course string theory is falsifiable. String theory reduces to quantum field theory in some limit and to general relativity in some other limit. Unlike all the other previous theories, string theory is the theory that has resisted all efforts to falsify it yet.

It's a ridiculous misconception floating around that string theory can't make predictions, when in fact string theory is the only theory we have so far that predicts all known observed phenomena.

<comment><USER5> _String theory reduces to quantum field theory in some limit and to general relativity in some other limit._

That's nice and clearly shows why string theory research is a worthwhile endeavor, but you only get a gold star once you make an experimentally verified _new_ prediction. There is a reason why people were excited about the discovery of the Higgs boson.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "[A]cademia is currently organized so that it invites communal reinforcement, prevents researchers from leaving fields whose promise is dwindling, and supports a rich-get-richer trend."

A really awesome quote there. (Perhaps a bit self-serving for me).

<comment><USER7>
        (Perhaps a bit self-serving for me).

So you think she's biased in pointing out that academia has systemic biases?

<comment><USER6> sorry, that parsed poorly.

It's a bit self serving for _me_. I operate a science nonprofit outside of traditional academia.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I realized later it was possible to interpret that sentence another way. I think my downvoter thought I was making a dumb throwaway snark, but I was actually just confused.

<comment><USER6> well it's not an expected situation that anyone runs a science nonprofit, so your confusion is understandable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've got a theory that string theory is more of a sociological phenomena than real science. It started as a genuine attempt to model how the nucleus was held together and then continued because it's a good area to do maths and write papers rather than because it models reality.

One thing I don't get, which may be down to my own stupidity - take maybe the simplest interaction in physics - you have two electrons in space a few cm apart and the accelerate away from each other due to the charges repelling. I'm not sure how that is supposed to happen if everything is strings. Do they ping tiny strings at each other and how do they know which way to aim? Maybe some string person can enlighten me.

<comment><USER9> >I've got a theory that string theory is more of a sociological phenomena than real science.

Yes. I have a friend with a PhD in physics, and he says that a generation of string theory people basically just shouted everyone else down in a rather obnoxious way. Other critics (e.g. Lee Smolin) have said similar things, albeit slightly more politely.

At some point it stopped being science and became more about careers, reputations, funding, and paper mills. Which, given the way that academia works at the moment, became self-sustaining.

Some interesting math has fallen out of string theory, but it should never have been allowed to hold back other approaches to quantum gravity to the extent that it has.

Considering the amount of time and paper involved, there's a huge wall of maybe-perhaps-if but very little solid physics to show for the effort.

Incidentally, that blog is a real find - some of the clearest explanations of hard concepts I've seen anywhere.

<comment><USER8> It reminds me a little of the phenomena of efficient market theory in economics / finance. Academics were drawn to it partly because it enables them to do a lot of fancy mathematics whereas if you look at inefficiencies like the stuff that went on in the movie The Big Short then the academics don't really have much of an edge against people working in the field. So much academic stuff goes 'assuming efficient markets', blah blah... which is not actually wrong but maybe a misallocation of resources from looking at bubbles and crashes which could have helped avoid the whole 2006 episode.

I agree the blog seems very good.

<comment><USER10> It gets more complicated, because there are various `strengths' of efficient market hypotheses around. The weaker ones are obviously true, but the stronger ones are more suspect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The author says that he "became more convinced [string theorists] are merely building a mathematical toy universe." The explanation for his conclusion was that they kept revising string theory in order to fit observations. I know little of string theory, so I am probably misreading his meaning, but isn't that how all science works? Create a model, then revise it when you get more data.

<comment><USER12> It's called adding epicycles : [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Adding_epicycles](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Adding_epicycles)

<comment><USER13> I mostly agree, but I'd argue that epicycles actually made useful and testable predictions, although we found a simpler description later on. The article underlines a lack of refutable theories. Thus, I think [1] is a better analogy.

[1] [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Dragon_in_My_Garage](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Dragon_in_My_Garage)

<comment><USER14> The characteristic of metaphorical epicycles is that the make simple, testable predictions that are then _wrong_ , which are fixed with another epicycle.

Another more subtle aspect of epicycles, real ones this time, is that they are too powerful and can be used to prove anything. You _can_ predict the motion of the planets with epicycles, it's just that the required series is very long or infinite. And with very long series of cycles, you can "predict" anything: [https://youtu.be/QVuU2YCwHjw?t=25s](https://youtu.be/QVuU2YCwHjw?t=25s) Thus, one of the problems with epicycles both real and metaphorical is that they are indeed not refutable. Because epicycles can predict anything, they aren't that useful; they exclude far less than meets the eye at first.

It isn't hard to see that characterist showing up in string theory. The theory has for a very long time had problems with _excluding_ possibilities, and each new metaphorical "epicycle" seems to come with more parameters than the last, rather than fewer. Now, this isn't unique to string theory since all the current theories seem to have that problem, but then, the point is, why does this problematic theory have so much more support and money than the other problematic theories?

<comment><USER15> Whack realization of the day for me at least.

Epicycles --> Taylor series.

<comment><USER14> They're more closely related to the Fourier transforms. That's how somebody calculated the actual values that would yield Homer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is probably a naive question: can we input a bunch of particle interactions into a deep learning system and train it to predict the probability of future interactions? It would be like a "black box version" of physics. If we can predict, then we can find a more elegant mathematical notation and a more intuitive physical interpretation.

Machine learning can observe and learn patterns that are more complex than humans can grasp. What if the perfect Physics theory is more complex than humans can understand and possibly quite unintuitive in meaning? Then we won't like it and steer away from it, and that would be a bad thing in the end.

<comment><USER17> > _Machine learning can observe and learn patterns that are more complex than > humans can grasp._

That is a common misconception. ML cannot do anything beyond our modeling ability because it is designed with it. Deep learning is simply a method to approximate a function with a nonlinear formula. Something that cannot be easily approximated this way may require too much memory and power to be practical.

It is fundamentally similar to how JPEG is not a good fit for storing text: glyphs are hard to approximate with Fourier transforms.

The edge that ML has against humans is not in the learning part, it is in the machine part. Human memory is volatile, while we have grown exceedingly good at making machines retain memory.

<comment><USER18> That is not a valid argument. You need to provide a reason why the patterns that machine learning grasps are all graspable by humans, or that humans grasp something that machine learning never will. Multilayer neural networks can capture very interesting (from a human perspective) patterns and concepts, but also many others that seem garbage to us (perhaps because we dont grasp their significance).

<comment><USER17> Give me a ML system, and I can give you a problem it cannot solve. I am guaranteed success thanks to the No Free Lunch theorem: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_free_lunch_theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_free_lunch_theorem).

In the case of deep learning, I can point to the task of determining values above 0.5 on an infinite Perlin-noise-derived 2D space fed by Mersenne Twister with seed 0, with an infinite number of octaves. Deep learning does not deal well with infinite spaces to begin with, and the pseudo-random generator cannot be easily encoded with common neural network nonlinear functions.

On the other hand, while we cannot compute an infinite number of octaves, and while places extremely far or extremely small details will run into IEEE754 limitations, we will get a good approximation by writing the program that computes the texture.

And that is just with only two numbers as input and one number as output.

<comment> j-pb Sure, I choose... "Exhaustive Search in the space of programs". (maybe with some genetic algorithm heuristics to shave of a couple billion years on each query)

It's a ML system that can solve any decidable and even some semi decidable problems. Which is (if the church turing thesis holds) everything that can be understood by humans or other.

You might not be able to wait around long enough to see it give you a result though, but hey at least _it_ got an answer.

<comment><USER17> If you allow impractical ML systems, you might as well pick a dice. Sure, the answer is inaccurate, but there's a non-zero probability that it is correct!

But, realistically, the ML system you devise cannot learn about features that require knowledge outside of the observable universe.

<comment> j-pb How does a static dice model computational processes?

What does the universe have to do with the set of computable functions?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The author is taking a different approach called phenomenological quantum gravity that has some promise to be more productive in the long term.

[http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2013/06/phenomenological- qu...](http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2013/06/phenomenological-quantum- gravity.html)

From what I understand, she and others are trying to understand what empirical differences a quantum gravity theory of any sort would have, and hopefully will come up with one that can be experimentally observed, which in turn would help people figure out what is the correct quantum gravity theory.

</comment><comment><USER20> > Even with that problem fixed, however, it was quickly noticed that moving > the superpartners out of direct reach would still induce flavor changing > neutral currents that, among other things, would lead to proton decay and so > be in conflict with observation.

Dissonance strikes again!

</comment><comment><USER21> i vote we change the name. "generalized quantum mechanical phenomena maybe" ... and we can rename quantum gravity to "generalized macroscopic versions of quantum phenomena maybe"

then we can add the "maybe" suffix to all the rest of our theories

</comment><comment><USER22> Article isn't about TCL.

</comment><comment><USER23> This ties in with my thinking that there is just too much funding to do research for the sake of research. Let the private sector work on moonshots if they want but more realistically no one should be researching super far out problems. Instead the agile "just in time" approach needs to be used in academia as well as private companies.

A good analogy is no one was trying to build electric cars fifty years ago but now they are. But they only are because progress has been made indirectly in other fields to make it worth it now.

<comment><USER24> Babbage designed a computer almost 200 years ago. We need people to be working on moonshots. A lot of them will fail. When one finally succeeds it pierces the veil of "just in time" capitalistic motivation. The financial incentive is certainly perverse in this case. Everyone sells their ideas up front in a frenzied competition to _exist_. We need a lot _more_ research for the sake of research. More varied and more useless. We need to find a way for people like Babbage to exist, at scale, while seeking whatever intrinsic motivations drive them. We likely won't be able to know if they're doing anything useful until they're done. Academia needs the ivory tower.</comment></comment>


Buying .eth is harder than .com was twenty years ago - <AUTHOR> http://www.scottshapiro.com/ens-cyptocurrency-domain-name-scottshapiro-eth/ <comment><USER2> Interesting. Does this domain have any possibility of hosting http apps, or is this completely limited to dapps?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is an early project for the .eth TLD to support DNS queries so that you can't point to http. I assume that should work with https too. But the ethereum blockchain can only run dapps.</comment></comment>


How does your team deal with chat/chatops during SaaS chat outages? - <AUTHOR> Sometimes our favorite SaaS chat services go down. How does your team deal with this? Do you use a self-hosted IRC server? Something else? Especially interested in teams that are running Ops through chat. <comment><USER2> We switch from slack to hangouts (it's a serious statement, it's our policy).

</comment><comment><USER3> We had our own IRC servers for engineering. When we migrated our email to Gmail and servers went down, no one ever really got anything done.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wish we only used a single system... Whatsapp and Skype at least. I tried to change to Discord, but no one ever really changes systems.

</comment><comment><USER5> Group SMS</comment>


Google Translate Cannot Handle Dead Languages (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2019/08/17/google-translate-cannot-handle-dead-languages/ <comment><USER2> I recently re-read The Name of the Rose, and tried using Google Translate to translate some of the Latin quotes that appear throughout the text. It was close to useless, which surprised me as most (it not all) of the quotes are from well-known and widely translated texts.</comment>


Millennials Are in Worse Financial Health Than Previous Generations - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/utopiapress/millennials-are-in-worse-financial-health-than-previous-generations-e1f1abf7ab4d <comment><USER2> My hypothesis is crushing school debt is the primary culprit for this. Their parents and government failed to rein in school tuition prices when they went. Sadly, we're no closer to keeping university costs in check now.</comment>


Merkle Patricia Tree - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/%5BEnglish%5D-Patricia-Tree

<comment><USER2> This should mention that the purpose of a Merkle Patricia Tree is to permit safe and fast comparison of large blocks of data.

A Merkle Patricia Tree isn't faster than a regular Patricia tree because of the added hashing.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I coach junior devs who wont listen? - <AUTHOR> Two months ago I joined a dev team at a large company as a senior software engineer on a web app. I joined a team where their last app that they worked on before I joined became maintainable and failed after 6 months (they blame the fact that they used React over Angular). I have been trying to suggest architectural changes as well as suggestions for how to make the app more maintainable, but the junior developers don't want to listen. (For example, they want to replace our Postgres DB with MongoDB because they don't understand normalization well enough). Our software lead, despite being a bright guy who knows what he is doing, mostly lets them get away with doing whatever they want to avoid conflict. How should I handle this situation? <comment><USER3> Change the culture and the devs will follow -- refactor code and illustrate best practices with the team. Emphasize testability, writing tests, simplicity, etc.

Spend time reviewing PRs and making thoughtful suggestions on how to improve things. Don't bikeshed on technology -- like mongo vs postgres, angular vs react -- if the code is written in a clean way, those technology decisions don't really matter that much.

</comment><comment><USER4> The problem is not the junior developers. The problem is your lead engineer.

</comment><comment><USER5> Lead from the front, explain patiently, change what you can, don't fret about what you cannot change, don't get into conflict over technical issues - <USER2> are not important.

Read "The Prince".

I have to say though, what sort of technical lead is letting the juniors define anything? Their opinions are worth listening to, but it is the role of the leader to make the decisions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps I should have a talk with my lead and ask suggest he take a more authoritative approach?

<comment><USER5> I'd tell him that if he is not comfortable making solid technical decisions then he should delegate that to the next level of seniority down by appointing someone as the "architect". Tell him it does not work at all to have juniors dictating tech strategy and he risks his position by allowing it. Tell him that the opinions of juniors are welcome but they should not be making the decisions or dictating outcomes, unless of course he either doesn't care or is aiming for big problems later.

Honestly he sounds like a shit tech lead - a leader should, well, lead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Odds are that you can't change the situation. Therefore you have to deal with the situation. Your top priority should be taking care of yourself. Are these guys making you frustrated? That is bad, find a way to not get frustrated about it. Because it is not like you are alone -- lots of people are working with "not very bright" colleagues.

In the grand scheme of things, the choice between Postgres vs Mongo for a silly website is insignificant. Don't lose to much sleep over it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I remeber myself being a junior - overwhlemed by enthusiasm and lack of experience, eager to just create things, not thinking about how to maintain them in the future. What a pain it was for our leads to handle us.

"Herding Cats: A Primer for Programmers Who Lead Programmers" is a good book for psychological issues like this.

</comment><comment><USER8> A master must prove his worth. Just because you are senior people will not do what you want them to do.

Building a team of noobs takes a lot of work. That kind of work, I'll only put in a startup where I've ownership.

</comment><comment><USER9> Ask them why they won't listen. In my personal experience as a junior dev I was working under idiots because everytime I asked certain questions, they never gave me a plausible answer.</comment>


Lockheed Martin's new fusion reactor - <AUTHOR> http://sploid.gizmodo.com/lockheed-martins-new-fusion-reactor-design-can-change-h-1646578094

<comment><USER2> Isn't it fairly standard for anyone having a new idea about fusion to claim they'll have a working model "in 10 years" once they've ironed out the "few small details"?

Then, in 10 years, after billions of dollars, it'll be "we've -almost- cracked it, another 10 years, easy."

Repeat for 40 years and counting...</comment>


Spirit A319 at Boston, Jul 17th 2015, fumes on board, captain died 50 days later - hugh-avherald https://avherald.com/h?article=4b6eb830&opt=0 <comment><USER2> The captain flew the next day without seeking medical treatment after being incapacitated midflight? That's outrageous if I'm reading this right.

<comment><USER3> This is a blatant violation of 49 CFR 830.5(a)(2). It's an explicitly listed incident that requires immediate reporting by the pilot. I can't find a definition for immediate, but as a pilot I consider it to mean today, not tomorrow. If it were a clearance, immediate means right now, not even one minute from now and if I can't do it right now, I would right now reply "unable: reason(s)"

And a big part of why I expect this is because ATC collects a shittonne (an SI unit) of data per day, and I don't expect they have a very long retention for that data. The accident and incident reporting requirements are meant to make sure that data is preserved. I have zero expectation of data retention for flight plans, audio tapes, radar tape, beyond 30 days. I would not be suprised if it were 7 days.

Neither pilot reported this incident? And the surviving pilot admits he did not file a required incident report but he's done a recorded public presentation on an incident that has a mandatory incident reporting requirement? And his excuse is intimidation by his employer, which is probably a crime? What?

I don't have time to dig through all of this, so maybe I've missed something, but something does not pass the smell test.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps the problem is self reporting? If the captain is still mentally affected, he might not remember to follow through with that? Or he might not have understood that he was even incapacitated at that point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For the confused, the captain's symptoms were "consistent with ToCP poisoning", meaning

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

which is used as "an additive in turbine engine oil".

<comment><USER6> That is some nasty stuff. Can someone who understands lubricants explain the need for it in lubricating oil? Is it to keep mold from growing in the oil, or does it have essential anti-wear properties?

<comment><USER7> from the wikipedia page:

>It is used as an antiwear and extreme pressure additive in lubricants and hydraulic fluids.[2][3]

<comment><USER6> This explains the chemical mechanism: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_pressure_additive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_pressure_additive)

An important property is that when localized hot-spots appear on metal surfaces due to friction, the heat causes a chemical reaction that bonds the molecule to the metal preventing further wear. Organophosphates like ToCP do this at higher temperatures than some less toxic compounds, presumably important in jet engines. So they're not just mixing in random poisons for no reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The AvHerald & Simon Hradecky is well respected in the aviation community for factually reporting incidents and accidents in a balanced and non-dramatized manner.

He has posted numerous times regarding fume events, which occur somewhat frequently on the A320 series airliners, and less frequently on other types.

</comment><comment><USER9> Nobody commenting about bleed air sensors? I think that bleed air sensors are the obvious solution here, expensive and difficult to add but with the claimed almost 2000 fume incidents per day it seems like they are fairly low-hanging fruit.

Anyone with more experience know about this? e.x. how expensive they would be to add?

There's this screenshot from a presentation about bleed air sensors (from the article) [http://avherald.com/img/spirit_a319_n519nk_boston_150717_3.j...](http://avherald.com/img/spirit_a319_n519nk_boston_150717_3.jpg) I suppose in this case the "sensors" worked but there was interference from higher-ups:

"While the flight crew was considering what to do next, the assistant chief pilot of the airline boarded the aircraft and told the crew off, that they didn't know what they were doing and they were wrong in pushing for further maintenance action."

</comment><comment><USER10> A fun little tidbit for you all.

As far as FAA is concerned, this death will _not_ count as related to that fume situation. For something to be an "accident", it must meet a few criteria, one of them is causing a death or serious injury. A fatal injury related to an accident is defined in 8020.11C as

       > Fatal Injury - any injury which results
       > in death within 30-days of the accident.

It will not even count as a "serious injury"

       >  Serious Injury - any injury which:  (1)
       > requires hospitalization for more than 48
       > hours,  commencing within 7-days from the
       > date an injury was received; (2) results
       > in a fracture of any bone (except simple
       > fractures of fingers, toes, or nose); (3)
       > causes severe hemorrhages, or nerve,
       > muscle, or tendon damage; (4) involves
       > any internal organ; or (5) involves
       > second- or third-degree burns, or any
       > burns affecting more than 5-percent of
       > the body surface.

Further reading: [https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/8020.11C_.pd...](https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/8020.11C_.pdf)

<comment><USER11> Wouldn't "(4) involves any internal organ" apply? As I understood it the pilots internal organs (lung, brain, etc) were severely injured by the toxic fumes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This really opens my eyes. My wife flies frequently, usually on AA but sometimes on others. For years, really for as long as I remember she would spend the first day or so fighting stomach problems, headache, etc. and after the return flight she would inevitably have similar symptoms that she always attributed to food eaten while on the road.

I finally just warned her to avoid the shrimp or seafood since we rarely eat it when at home but it seemed like every time she traveled she ended up at a restaurant and had some kind of sea food.

It didn't help because just last week she returned home, again with headache, nausea, sinus problems, etc. that kept her sidelined for part of the weekend.

I am going to look into test strips to detect these substances that she could carry on the plane with her to see whether any correlates.

Her assignments see her needing to fly as it is too far to drive in a realistic time frame to most of the meetings but maybe a career change might solve this if it is the cause of her post-flight issues.

Anyone else have similar observations or observations that would indicate this is likely not an issue? I'm open for any discussions.

<comment><USER13> Those symptoms strike me as altitude sickness-esque -- they're what a friend of mine experienced when we went to Bogota. A quick google seems to indicate that altitude sickness from flying is a thing for some people.

[https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/really-flying- can-...](https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/really-flying-can-cause- mountain-sickness/)

<comment><USER14> It wouldn't shock me. Cabin pressurization depends on the plane--maybe the airline(?)--but my understanding is that it's to about 6K to 8K feet. In other words, higher than Denver but lower than Quito or many US West ski areas. Serious altitude sickness does happen in Colorado. I've heard of it happening in Denver itself but it's at least rare. I'm not sure it's a likely explanation but it's at least possible.

<comment><USER15> From the World Health Organization:

> "Although aircraft cabins are pressurized, cabin air pressure at cruising > altitude is lower than air pressure at sea level. At typical cruising > altitudes in the range 11 000–12 200 m (36 000–40 000 feet), air pressure in > the cabin is equivalent to the outside air pressure at 1800–2400 m > (6000–8000 feet) above sea level. As a consequence, less oxygen is taken up > by the blood (hypoxia) and gases within the body expand. The effects of > reduced cabin air pressure are usually well tolerated by healthy > passengers."

[http://www.who.int/ith/mode_of_travel/cab/en/](http://www.who.int/ith/mode_of_travel/cab/en/)

While the NY Times blog link earlier in this chain of comments had a recommendation about reducing cabin air pressure to 6,000 ft, I question how useful that is, since for those susceptible to altitude sickness, 6,000 feet is going to be enough to trigger symptoms for many.

These next two articles are not devoted to airline travel per se, but about high altitude related sickness.

From "Preparing for Safe Travel to High Altitude", by Paul Anderson, M.D.

> "High Altitude Illnesses (HAI) include Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS), High- > Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE), and High-Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE). > The symptoms of AMS are typically felt by most people when they arrive at a > new altitude, but the symptoms are usually self limiting (e.g. 1st 3-5 days > at high altitude). The exact mechanisms of AMS remain unclear, however > symptoms tend to be the most prevalent 1-2 days after arrival at elevation. > The most common symptoms include a headache, gastrointestinal upset, > feelings of fatigue, dizziness, and sleep disruption. ..."

[http://www.mayo.edu/research/documents/preparing-for-safe- tr...](http://www.mayo.edu/research/documents/preparing-for-safe- travelpdf/doc-10026905)

From "Altitude-Related Illnesses", Mayo Clinic Preceedings:

> "... An estimated 30 million people are at risk for altitude related > illnesses in the western United States annually. Many cases are unrecognized > by the victims and by their physicians who may attribute symptoms to viral > illness, "hangover," or fatigue. In addition, commercial airline travel > exposes passengers to a cabin pressure equivalent of 2,500 m and allows them > to travel rapidly to high altitude destinations such as Aspen or Steamboat > Springs, Colorado, where they may be exposed to even greater altitudes.

... The rate of ascent and a prior history of altitude illness are the major determinants of a person's susceptibility to altitude illness. Aerobic fitness does not correlate with the likelihood of acquiring AMS."

(See especially the symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness in this article.)

[http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)6...](http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196\(11\)63396-X/fulltext)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hopefully, future aircraft designs will follow the Boeing 787 in eliminating the bleed air system, which is the likely culprit in these kind of cabin air contamination events.

<comment><USER17> In the past few years I've flown a bunch on the AA A321T configuration, brand new planes. I was shocked at just how much better the 787 is in almost all regards in terms of the environmental quality of being on the plane. From the air, to the noise.. everything was noticeably better. When the A321T lands, the noise created was peaking ridiculous dB and hurting my ears. I was expecting something similar on the 787 and chalked it up to "lighter/thinner materials, more sound gets through" and it was shockingly almost silent by comparison.

<comment><USER18> Sorry, but those are just two entirely different planes with very different requirement sets. One is a wide body the other is a narrow body, for starters. A350 vs 787 is a slightly better, if still not perfect, comparison

<comment><USER19> A better way to look at it is that they are two different generations of planes. I fly/have flown a lot in a prior role.

Excepting the 747, which let you get so far away from the engines that it was often irrelevant, newer planes create significantly improved passenger experiences (ignoring seat pitch).

The A350 (2013 First Flight) , A380 (2005FF), and B787 (2009FF) are significant cabin environmental quality improvements over the A330(1992FF), A340(1991FF), B777(1994FF). They aren't just using different materials that are using IMMENSELY different technology and computing power in the design process. That lets the engineers pay attention to details they couldn't before.

For Comparison (look at the front and rear wings especially:

1994(B777era) F1-straight lines, single curves, few compound surfaces [0]

2005(B787era) F1-lots of curves, compound curse galore, intentionally designed interactions of surfaces [1]

Thats the different in design capacity driven by computing tools and technology.

[0] [http://www.spannerhead.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/02/Ferrar...](http://www.spannerhead.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/02/Ferrari_412_T2.jpg)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_FIA_Formula_One_World_Cha...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_FIA_Formula_One_World_Championship#/media/File:Heikki_Kovalainen_Jerez_Feb_2009_3611a.jpg)

<comment><USER20> 2008 or 2017-2018 would be more dramatic examples of recent Formula 1 aero taken to extremes - 2009 was the most aerodynamically restricted year in recent regulations.

<comment><USER19> I know but I was going for what lined up to make my point :)

If you look at details, the progression from 94 to 2008 is HUGE but its very much in details. That was the point more so than figuring out which McLaren had the most appendages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 1\. Has anyone done investigative work on the passengers of this flight and their subsequent health status? How many visited a doctor with symptoms similar to the crew? Were there any fatalities among the passengers in the weeks following the flight?

2\. How many years away would you estimate the the commercial aviation industry is from avoiding this type of toxic air problem? Are newer aircraft still susceptible to air quality issues like this? Does a radically new approach such as solar powered flight reduce these issues?

</comment><comment><USER21> For those like me who are not familiar with aviation topics, "bleed air" is air taken from the compressor stage of the engines and used to pressurize the cabin. Not all aircraft use this system and some have an option to use this or some other system to pressurize cabin air.

<comment><USER20> The 787 is the only jet-powered passenger aircraft I'm aware of that doesn't use a bleed air system. Any pressurized-cabin turboprop aircraft uses bleed air, and so does the M1 Abrams tank. Bleed air is not just used for cabin pressurization, it's also used for anti-icing systems, cabin temperature control (the high-pressure air is the working fluid, see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_cycle_machine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_cycle_machine)), and nitrogen generation systems for fuel tank inerting.

(I worked on the environmental control system for the Gulfstream G650 many years ago)

<comment><USER22> When you fly commercial, is the 787 your favorite? Or do you recommend other aircraft?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'd just like to chime in that I'm on a plane right now and the slight foot odor permeating the cabin is driving me nuts after reading that article.

<comment><USER24> Just remember, you are at statistically much higher risk of death or being maimed while crossing the street, something you likely do every day.

<comment><USER4> That's for general aviation travel. What are the chances of death when in an airplane that has a strange smell?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So, could this kind of thing have caused the MH370 disappearance?

It's a stretch, but perhaps similar cockpit confusion caused by oxygen deprivation or ToCP poisoning (from a gas leak) could have been a reason to change direction (before passing out)?

<comment><USER19> Theoretically I could see how, but my impression was that there wasn't a single flight path change but multiple changes and possibly even active effort to avoid radar [1]. That seems more cognitively engaged than the routinous behavior described in the article.

[1][https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/108...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10802361/MH370-Malaysia- report-indicates-plane-flew-route-to-avoid-detection.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This looks like a serious issue that the faa should investigate. Since they look at so many problems and frequently issue repair orders, recalls, etc by certain dates, why would they treat this particular issue so differently?

</comment><comment><USER27> Any mitigation to this as passengers? Given the security environment these days I'd hate to be they guy that starts yelling "I smell dirty socks - <AUTHOR> the oxygen masks!" when it was actually dirty socks. Given the odds / number of events does a rational person bring a basic respirator for themselves and their family?

<comment><USER28> Reading the letter, reading between the lines, it seems like an airline would have to report this to NTSB/FAA if a passenger requests medical assistance upon landing. We're always in a hurry when flying which probably contributes to under-reporting.

It also feels like the primary risk here is that the pilots will pass out and crash the plane, not main cabin toxicity. The pilot in his letter states clearly that had he not put on his mask when he felt the onset of tunnel vision "we would've killed every person on that aircraft". By that point the captain was already slumped over, eyes half open in a dead stare. Meanwhile 200+ people are in the back oblivious.

Chilling.

<comment><USER29> But wouldn't the air bleed of ToPC effect the passengers? And if so, wouldn't that mean Spirit could be on the hook for passengers who suffered as a result?

<comment><USER28> Yes but I'm guessing air volume of cabin vs cockpit could explain why nobody passed out in mc?

<comment><USER29> I don't know anything about aerospace HVAC, but wouldn't the larger cabin volume necessitate a larger exchange of usable air, and therefore bring in just as much ToPC as in the cockpit? I.e., isn't the volume adjusted for regardless?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is anyone else not surprised to see this from Spirit? They are absolutely the worst carrier I've flown with in the states. Nothing is on time, everything seems dirty, and nobody that works there seems to care about anything.

<comment><USER31> You've clearly never flown with Allegiant...

<comment> sjm-lbm I don't know if you are joking or not, but the point you are making is very legitimate. Over the past few years, there has been reason to be unusually concerned with Allegiant's maintenance practices.

(see here: [https://www.travelpulse.com/news/impacting-travel/is- allegia...](https://www.travelpulse.com/news/impacting-travel/is-allegiant- americas-most-dangerous-airline.html))

<comment><USER31> Definitely not a joke, unfortunately. I've personally had way too many concerns to justify ever traveling with them again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This article is poorly worded and does a poor job of forwarding their argument. The overall tone of the article is amateurish and feels more like an article you might find arguing against vaccinations.

The claims presented in the article are extremely serious-if what they're claiming is true, the FAA, major airlines, and pilots unions have all been sitting on 'fume events', or actively suppressing knowledge of them.

<comment><USER33> The Aviation Herald is recognized as accepted industry service for safety relevant occurrences. This is the closest you get to first-hand, factual and objective journalism. It does not intend to bring any argument forward (like opinion-making "journalism"), but instead inform people, primary aviators themselves. Thats also the reason for the technical wording.

Your comment is the epitome of ignorance on HN.

<comment><USER26> I also thought the article's trustworthiness based on how it was written and presented was difficult to ascertain. I had never heard of that publication.</comment></comment></comment>


Comments on Consolidated Tape Association Plan/Consolidated Quotation Plan - <AUTHOR> https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-ctacq-2017-02/ctacq201702.htm <comment><AUTHOR> Eric Hunsader commented on the $9000/month fee for Non-Display (algorithmic) usage of price data. Eric claims that the current proposal removes two exemptions that have existed since 2014, for GUI software and derived data, [https://twitter.com/nanexllc](https://twitter.com/nanexllc)

Oct 2014 rule: [https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/nms/2014/34-73278.pdf](https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/nms/2014/34-73278.pdf)

March 2017 proposal: [https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/nms/2017/34-80300.pdf](https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/nms/2017/34-80300.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER2> Yeah. Get rid of it and RegNMS. Now we can delay ticks it doesn't mean much anyways.

</comment><comment><USER3> If the SEC truly wanted a transparent public market, all trade data would be published, for free, in near real time for anyone to use.

<comment><USER2> It is. You just have to pay for the connection like every other thing.

What is your proposal for disseminating the feed? A web interface couldn't handle it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it practical to start a 1-person Micro ISV these days? - <AUTHOR> I know of Mike Perham's SideKiq Pro [1] and Andy Brice's Perfect Table Plan [2]. These are along the lines of what I mean by "a 1-person Micro ISV" (they are not Software as a Service (SaaS) providers). These types of businesses, <i>seem</i> to be few and far between, though. Any advice or thoughts on how to go about selecting a first product for an ISV would also be appreciated.<p>[1] http://sidekiq.org/products/pro [2] http://www.perfecttableplan.com/ <comment><USER2> OSS helped because I could build it in my spare time with little investment or risk. I spent the first two years building Sidekiq and Sidekiq Pro and was able to build up an audience by blogging and tweeting.

I spent 15 years working at various startups and earned little more than a typical dev salary in the end. Today I'm making several times my previous salary so the business has been a big success for me.

As for visibility, I'm happy owning my own little niche of Ruby background jobs. I don't advertise or market much, just provide the best product I can, support it every day and developer word of mouth does the rest.

<comment><AUTHOR> So, would you still do a similar approach if you were starting out today?

Edit: fix grammar

<comment><USER2> Absolutely. I would change a few things (my pricing model should have been subscription-based from day one) but on the whole the business has wound up almost exactly where I intended it to be.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. This is helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have asked around previously. I didn't get much response. I posted a short list to my blog:

[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/10/bicycles- on-...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/10/bicycles-on- information-super-highway.html)

This list is not just software vendors. Some are webcomic artists. I was interested in any really tiny web operation actually making enough money to support the people running it.

I suspect the lack of response is partly due to low visibility and/or a desire to lie low. Small shops that don't want to grow into big corporations do not necessarily want excessive attention and also may not be well known enough (as a Micro ISV specifically) for other people to confidently say "Yup, this qualifies." A small shop doesn't need tons of traffic and money to support the few people working on it and may view excessive exposure as a bug, not a feature.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. Your list is particularly helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm trying to build a 1-person business for quite some time, going back and forth between ideas. Sometimes I think I would like to implement a desktop app, sometimes I feel web apps would be better, sometimes I just want to quit, etc.

In the last couple of weeks I've been finally building my product as a web application mainly because of these factors: currently I have more experience on web development that desktop development; I use a lot of SVGs and tables and they are easier to do on HTML; I have my source code in Python and C and it is a pain to distribute Python; cross-platform desktop development tools are not great nowadays (Qt is the only serious option and it sucks); I would have to distribute lots of libraries with my application.

The way I see things now is, if you really want to test the market for something and you can use a web app, do it. It is easier for you to control the updates, iterate faster to improve your idea, and have better discoverability. It is less painful for a prospective client to click on your URL than thinking on downloading and installing your application. The funnel for web applications is smaller than for desktop apps [1], and that is really important when you want to test your application.

Later in the game, after you have a stable idea and enough loyal clients, you can always move to the desktop or mobile if that's the case. This is what is happening with all major SaaS nowadays, they start on the web and eventually go to the desktop when they reach some maturity (Evernote, Slack, etc...)

[1] [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2009/09/05/desktop-aps-versus- web-a...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2009/09/05/desktop-aps-versus-web-apps/)

<comment><AUTHOR> > I'm trying to build a 1-person business for quite some time, going back and > forth between ideas. Sometimes I think I would like to implement a desktop > app, sometimes I feel web apps would be better, sometimes I just want to > quit, etc.

I empathize with what you are going through.

> The way I see things now is, if you really want to test the market for > something and you can use a web app, do it. It is easier for you to control > the updates, iterate faster to improve your idea, and have better > discoverability. It is less painful for a prospective client to click on > your URL than thinking on downloading and installing your application. The > funnel for web applications is smaller than for desktop apps [1], and that > is really important when you want to test your application.

Perhaps you are right. I do wonder, though, if there is a place for a desktop offering. Balsamiq Mockups [1] started as a desktop app, if I remember correctly. The plus to an installed app (especially if it is a single executable along the lines of Go, Rust, Swift, etc.) is the customer data can stay with the customer, performance can be quite good without the need to scale the backend, operations can be simpler, among others. (Many of the downsides are already addressed in patio11's article you referenced.)

[1] [https://balsamiq.com/products/mockups/](https://balsamiq.com/products/mockups/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> FWIW there are 22K google hits on MicroISV and variations - [https://www.google.com/search?q="Micro- ISV"|"MicroISV"|"μISV...](https://www.google.com/search?q="Micro- ISV"|"MicroISV"|"μISV")

[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Micro- ISV.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Micro-ISV.html)

[http://www.microisv.com/](http://www.microisv.com/) (defunct)

[http://www.singlefounder.com/the-day-the-microisv- movement-d...](http://www.singlefounder.com/the-day-the-microisv-movement- died/)

</comment><comment> a-ron I don't know. I think the "gold rush" period is over, probably was a while ago. Seems like everyone wants to start their own micro-ISV or SaaS or whatever, but I'm projecting. And I'm jaded because I've failed a few times at these things and have a sour taste in my mouth about their viability these days.

I think those of us looking to start something really want certainty that whatever thing we're thinking of building will be successful. I think it can be, but it takes more grunt work selecting the right thing to build.

To answer your question, yes. Go do it then come back and tell us how it go. And good luck.

</comment><comment><USER6> There are lots of successful 1-person online businesses, but they are not software businesses per se. HN has a huge bias towards apps/software, we only hear from coders/technical people. When it comes to Saas apps, there aren't many examples run by solo entrepreneurs.

The vast majority of successful 1-person businesses are run by non-technical people and are more content-driven then software driven.

</comment><comment><USER7> >Is it practical to start a 1-person Micro ISV these days?

I don't think so. I've launched a few 1-person SaaS companies in the past, and some were popular (but not profitable). I've settled on earning a salary and investing as much of that salary as possible.

I still get the urge to build stuff, and I still do, but I now look at it as a hobby.

</comment><comment><USER8> IME, the person's idea for the first product is the reason they start the micro ISV in the first place. I don't know of anyone who started an ISV, and then thought of a product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to clarify ... I am not seeking to start a micro ISV without an idea. I am wondering if this approach is practical to pursue. If it is, there may be ideas/possibilities I have not thought of. When looking through SaaS-colored glasses, everything starts to look like a SaaS. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> RAD Game Tools seems to be doing just fine.

</comment><comment><USER10> apps could be ISVs. A lot of software is going Saas because the cost per customer tends to get pretty high unless you can get cheap traffic. List on a popular top 10 list or rank high for a keyword.</comment>


In Battle Against Alzheimer's, Here's Ground Zero - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-battle-against-alzheimers-heres-ground-zero-1430127182 <comment><USER2> Non paywall link?

<comment><USER3> Search for the title on Google. You'll often be able to read the full article without hitting the paywall if the referring URL comes from a search engine.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best SaaS for a Consultant? - <AUTHOR> A search actually does not result in anything meaningful on this.  A family member who does business consulting is looking for a software solution to track multiple clients who they help. Not time based at all (no need to track time) just flat rate projects for work they do. Just one person firm (not multiple people) and no need to interface with the clients on the system (although I guess if that was a feature would be nice).
So far all I was able to turn up was Atlassian offerings but interested  in ways people typically do this or what else is out there. The person is not a computer or software consultant but what they do is close enough that a solution that works for that would work here.
Once again did do a search but  all I get are 'SAAS Consultants'... <comment><USER2> [https://www.reifyworks.com/writing/2017-10-31-growing-a- cons...](https://www.reifyworks.com/writing/2017-10-31-growing-a-consulting- business-with-a-crm)

</comment><comment><USER3> What are they using for the moment (Excel, Trello, ...)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Desktop file folders and text files. Actually a single text file that essentially has a date and then is updated with comments as far as any new things that are going on or that need to be followed up. They had something which created text files (from a command line shell routine) but it actually was quicker to just keep one text file open and update it as needed (if you want to call that easier).</comment></comment>


Meet Microsoft's Source Fource -- Developer Action Figures - <AUTHOR> http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/hero/sfbio/

<comment><USER2> Probably the silliest thing ever to come out of Redmond after Bob.

</comment><comment><USER3> Honestly; Please, please tell me that someone didn't get paid on msft payroll to create this stuff.

</comment><comment><USER4> They were just looking for an excuse to use Comic Sans.</comment>


What kind of small project can I undertake now that I have free time? - <AUTHOR> I´m having a lot of free time lately, and I´d like to start a project. I would prefer to make it an open source project, or it could be a little service for free.<p>Either way, I wonder if anyone has ideas for this. <comment><USER2> First thing, change post to an Ask HN.

Second thing, add more detail ;)

Add more detail about your interests, previous projects and skill sets.

How much free time? 10,20,30 etc hours per week?

How long will this free time last? A month, a quarter, a year?

</comment><comment><USER3> Build something you're interested in something you would use.

You could also pick out a new language or skill set you'd like to learn and use that so it's a double win.

There will be others like you that find it useful.

</comment><comment><USER4> Kaggle!!! National Data Science Bowl, if you like AI / machine learning, it's the way to go. You'll know interesting people and collaborate with them, and there are chances you can win money and put results on your resume!</comment>


MacBook Pro Keyboard Recall: My Ridiculous Experience - <AUTHOR> https://www.saberfeedback.com/blog/macbook-pro-keyboard-replacement <comment><USER2> > under UK consumer rights laws, faulty goods must be repaired or replaced up > to 6 years after purchase

Dang that's awesome, I need to move to the UK! No guarantee like that in the US

</comment><comment><USER3> Apple is really heading down the 90s Microsoft path. Increasingly buggy software, terrible design for their native apps, terrible design decisions for their hardware (keyboard, dongle proliferation), the iCloud mess. They had a good run.

<comment><USER4> We had a news cycle about Apple becoming a $1 trillion company less than a week ago.

<comment><USER3> Microsoft is still pretty big too. They are both _entrenched_ , with momentum guaranteeing their size and growth in spite of increasingly crappy products.</comment></comment></comment>


Bill Gates on giving, batteries, tablets, and more - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20012993-56.html?tag=topStories2

<comment><USER2> Somewhat off-topic, but the first thing I noticed in the video is that Gates isn't wearing a seatbelt, and that kept bugging me for the whole thing.</comment>