Drone Uses AI and 11,500 Crashes to Learn How to Fly - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/drones/drone-uses-ai-and-11500-crashes-to-learn-how-to-fly <comment><USER2> This is interesting. It really shows how deep learning has become almost "Lego-like".

1\. Imagine the problem, add a camera or two (or more).

2\. Build/use a pre-trained ImageNet model as a starting point (probably using TensorFlow/Keras).

3\. Build a dataset, split it into test, train, validation sets.

4\. Train the model further.

5\. Test and validate the model. Lower the error rate (don't overfit though!).

6\. Profit?

As far as what language to use, depending on the speed of whatever you're trying to do, Python would likely work fine in the majority of cases. If you need more than that, C/C++ is around the corner.

Oh - and OpenCV or some other vision library will probably be used (but just to grab the images, maybe a little pre-processing).

You wouldn't have to use this exact pipeline (you could substitute other deep learning libs, other vision libs, other languages, etc) - but the basics are to start with a well-known CNN model, preferably "pre-trained", then apply your own dataset(s) to the task to get it to work better. Not much more tweaking needed, the biggest thing is to get (or be able to synthesize from what you do have) enough data to throw at it (and have a fast enough system to train it in reasonable time).

We've seen this approach many, many times; it seems to work well for a ton of domains and problems. Again - very "Lego-like"...

<comment><USER3> It concerns me a bit that at some point, there are fundamentals concerning simple yet effective approaches that may be forgotten (or a least not taught) in favor of black box neural nets, like Kalman filtering, PID control, etc.

Institutional memory is something of a weak point in the software industry compared with other fields.

<comment><USER4> Similar "institutional memory loss" happened in mechanics. On many occasions, it's not so much the theory as the fluency putting it in practice that might be lost...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "...success is simply a continual failure to crash"

My programming methodology has been validated at last!

<comment><USER6> "There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, that presents the difficulties."

<comment><USER7> That describes my view of the wingsuit flying to a T.

<comment><USER8> Wingsuit instructor here. Can confirm.

<comment><USER9> Is there a more stressful job than instructor for an extreme sport with such a high risk of death or serious injury? (I literally cannot imagine, though I hope I at least overstate the risk in my mental model.)

<comment><USER10> Jumping out of a plane wearing a wingsuit is reasonably safe. If something goes wrong, you deploy your parachute. If your parachute fails, you deploy your reserve. You have plenty of time to control with a spin or stall.

Jumping off a rooftop or a mountain wearing a wingsuit is practically suicidal. If something goes wrong, you die. The margin of error is simply too small.

The latter form of wingsuit flying is relatively new and highly controversial, even within the wingsuit and BASE jumping communities.

<comment><USER8> Off of a rooftop _would_ be practically suicidal. Wingsuits need time to inflate and start flying, which for the best guys on the planet is around 300 feet. Normal humans require about 400. 'Margin' is a word that has a bunch of different contexts, most of which still put wingsuit base in a reasonably safe range. Terrain flying, which is the sub-discipline of wingsuit base where you're goalposting trees, is indisputably the most dangerous sport on the planet, and I've lost six friends to it in the last year.

I don't know that i'd describe it as 'controversial' but would rather describe it as 'that thing a bunch of people with nowhere near enough experience or currency to be doing it keep doing and fucking killing themselves.'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Similar to the rc rally car that learns to drift by driving and crashing itself [1]. I'm collecting articles/videos where you can see machines teaching themselves things like flying/driving/video games [2].

[1] [http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that- think/transportation/self...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that- think/transportation/self-driving/autonomous-mini-rally-car-teaches-itself-to- powerslide)

[2] [https://www.reddit.com/r/WatchMachinesLearn/](https://www.reddit.com/r/WatchMachinesLearn/)

<comment><USER12> I know there are lots of rules with racecars. Is "can't have AI" one of them?

<comment><USER13> There's a driverless race. I'm doubtful if it'll be as powerful a force as the real world race to the market that has a bigger prize.

[https://electrek.co/2015/11/30/formula-e-will-launch-a- new-r...](https://electrek.co/2015/11/30/formula-e-will-launch-a-new-race- series-with-driverless-electric-cars-starting-in-2016/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know people have trained AIs to do more sophisticated things than this, but something about watching from the drones perspective as it scans its environment and moves around really makes you feel like you're watching a real intelligence at work.

<comment><USER15> It's certainly cool to watch and in area of research which is proving fruitful, but isn't ascribing true intelligence to it just anthropomorphising the point of view of the camera? When I watch an insect essentially using trial and error to try to find its way towards the light on the other side of an open window, _intelligence_ isn't the first thing that springs to mind

<comment><USER16> I find that in many cases the goalpost of what is intelligence moves further away each time we get somewhere close to what was previously considered intelligence. If you asked someone you could train a computer to fly on it's own and learn from its mistakes, say, ten years ago, they would probably be more inclined to say it's intelligent than we are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is how Uber is going to train it's self-driving cars, isn't it?

<comment><USER18> It's how they're training their business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Would it not be cheaper and faster to simulate a drone and fly it through virtual 3d environments and still learn?

Or would the physics be too complex to model well for simulation?

<comment><USER20> It's not that the physics can't be modeled, but figuring out the appropriate models is probably harder than it looks. Every sensor and actuator has quirks. Does it matter how much your airframe flexes? Does the turbulence caused by some little protrusion matter enough to model? You aren't going to model every individual molecule, but how much detail is enough to be right?

The elegant thing about using machine learning is that you don't need to build any models at all. And you can develop the ML technique once and then reuse it to train different hardware configurations, instead of incurring the cost of modeling every one.

<comment><USER21> One way around that is to make small random variations in the simulation (sensor calibration, vehicle performance etc.) when you generate the training data, so that your system learns to drive a generic vehicle rather than a very specific one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> gene-h I wonder how well the learned policy generalizes to other environments. Places like an art gallery, outside, or a cave. Could the network have learned something fundamental about monocular vision?

It would also be interesting to see if the learned policy corrects for perturbations. If we tilt the drone by hitting it, will the policy stabilize it again?

While this is a really cool result, I suspect that this approach might not be the best way to control UAVs. Dragon flies are ready to fly, avoid obstacles, perch on stuff, hunt down prey right after warming up their wings for the first time. This implies that a good amount of the flight behavior is 'hard- coded.'

Although I really can't wait until someone expands upon this approach. So instead of outputting left or right, the network could output 'stick vectors,' which translate to control stick commands. Maybe even have the network take in some sensor data and a 'move in this direction' vector. Add in a pinch of sufficiently fast video processing and we could probably learn how to do fly through an FPV course or do aggressive maneuvers to fly through someone's windows[0]

[0][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM)

<comment> jon-wood > If we tilt the drone by hitting it, will the policy stabilize it again?

My understanding of the way this is being done is that the output from the machine learning model is already a simple "left", "right", "straight on", so it's not really responsible for stabilization anyway.

That side of things is likely being handled by the drone's control software which takes those inputs, translates those into what angle the propellers need to be at to achieve it, and then translates that into the correct rotor speeds. If you hit the drone the gyroscope will pick up that it's at the wrong inclination, feed that information into the control software, and the control software will adjust rotor speeds to correct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This reminded me of the Douglas Adams books, in which Arthur Dent eventually learns how to fly by "throwing himself at the ground and missing".

Also, the flight had an almost organic quality to it somehow. Spooky, but cool.

</comment><comment><USER23> What determines autonomous flying? Couldn't the drone just hover in the middle of the room and not crash? Would that count? Don't you need some sort of increased score for moving around?

<comment><USER14> In the video it shows that the AI is only able to do one of three things: "go left", "go forward", and "go right". It can't choose to hover in place because that isn't an intent it can express. Although I don't know why it couldn't just keep going around in tight circles?

Funnily enough, if you've ever implemented a Pacman clone, this is also how the ghost AI works.

<comment><USER24> Fun fact: all of the Pacman ghosts actually behave differently:

[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3938/the_pacman_dossie...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3938/the_pacman_dossier.php?print=1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Imagine if Google taught their self-driving cars that way: 10,000 crashes. I think self-driving was completely procedural back when it started 15 years ago. But now with faster and better understood neural nets, some parts like recognizing objects have been replaced by deep learning.

</comment><comment><USER26> > There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how > to throw yourself at the ground and miss. ... Clearly, it is this second > part, the missing, that presents the difficulties.

</comment><comment><USER27> Why would they not use a general purpose classifier [1] instead ?

Sure, the tagging of objects in the field of view in this model may be unnecessary but you leverage an existing model that should allow the drone to 'think' beyond the current limited "obstruction here". It could at-least have been used as a base model to build upon.

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

Personally, I'm also looking forward to neural networks modeled after real brains [2] .... but the tech to accurately scan the complex interconnections in larger brains seems far away.

[2] [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/weve-put-worms- mind...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/weve-put-worms-mind-lego- robot-body-180953399/)

<comment><USER28> Why would an object classifier matter?

If my plane is about to crash, do I really care whether it's a mountain or a building?

<comment><USER29> You would have really cool behaviour.

\+ Not going through glass (although humans do not always exceed in that themselves)

\+ Going through a fly door curtain

\+ Going through smoke

\+ Not going through a mosquito net.

\+ Not going through a fountain.

\+ Pushing through soft objects.

\+ Pushing a half open door.

<comment><USER30> The method used would also end up with many of these behaviors. If it didn't crash, that behavior is enforced. So flying through smoke would not be avoided if it didn't crash

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Does it really predict 'weather' to move forward or not?

I think you mean 'whether'.

<comment><USER32> Does it really 'more' forward or not?

I think you mean 'move'.

<comment><USER31> Fixed. Good thing I'm not published in IEEE.

<comment><USER33> You need a few doses of [https://twitter.com/respectfulmemes](https://twitter.com/respectfulmemes) I think

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Its a pity that it was programmed to split for a decision only between left and right images. It could have avoided the chairs by flying higher if there were top and bottom images. Ideally, the number of decision-point images should be the area of the FOV divided by the drones forward surface area.

</comment><comment><USER35> Cool! Do I understand correctly, that the splitting into the part where the drone was doing fine and the part where the drone is crashing (i.e. the annotation of the dataset) was still done manually?

A similar approach using unsupervised learning would be even cooler...

</comment><comment><USER36> Pretty cool.

Why did they use an input that does NOT provide any information about depth/distance from objects?

<comment><USER37> I can only guess because I am not on their team, but:

They clearly didn't need it. Human pilots clearly don't need it.

Extra custom sensors might produce more noise than they are worth.

Image processor is a hot topic of research in CNNs.

<comment><USER36> Except humans derive distance/depth information from their sight (depth perception), that's why we have a pair of eyes and not a single eye.

The equivalent on this setting would be adding a second camera.

I'm not criticizing, their experiment is pretty cool, I was just wondering why they chose to use only the camera on board.

<comment><USER37> > that's why we have a pair of eyes and not a single eye.

This is really overstated. It really only matters for about 3 or 4 meters of distance. We do depth perception well enough at distances to drive cars.

We also do just fine at perceiving depth in video games and single lens camera.

How often do you have trouble determining the depth of something in a movie? Only about as often as the filmmakers want you to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Somebody should do a cost-benefit analysis of all this machine learning business. For instance, how much did this project cost and what did they get in return? I'm not suggesting it's not worth it, just curious to know how the numbers turn out.

<comment><USER39> Also, IIRC early neural net research covered this approach with Hannibal & Attila decades ago.

Edit: I guess there are some differences -- I think this is what I was remembering:

[http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/AIM-1091.pdf](http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/AIM-1091.pdf)

...but maybe there was further work that is more closely related.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Like watching a baby learn to walk! We're truly in an exciting age for technology.

<comment><USER41> Yep! And the best thing is that nothing could possibly go wrong and there is no conceivable universe in which humanity comes to regret the exact way we're building intelligent machines right now. :)

<comment><USER42> Oh come on. If that were even remotely possible, there would be books about it. Maybe even movies. That would make a good summer blockbuster.

Luckily, that possibility is too remote even for Hollywood.

<comment><USER43> Regrets about building small autonomous drones that later end up killing people? That was a Black Mirror episode (albeit not the best episode):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hated_in_the_Nation_(Black_Mir...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hated_in_the_Nation_\(Black_Mirror\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> That's silly. It took me no more than 1,000 crashes to learn to fly my drone.

<comment><USER13> But hiring you to fly their drone doesn't scale. You're not nearly as good at replicating your ability as a computer is, or at working for free.

<comment><USER31> True, but I was kidding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Pretty cool!

I was curious, in the article it mentions difficulties navigating through glass environments, could they combine visual information with sonar to avoid crashing into glass and other transparent barriers?

<comment> gene-h Now the question is, do human quadcopter pilots have the same problems running into glass? Although birds tend to be bad at handling 'glass environments'

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Drone Uses AI and 11,500 _casualties_ to learn How to _kill terrorists_ ... coming soon /s

<comment><USER46> After 10,000 civilian casualties, it finally got a terrorist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Learn to fly scenarios vs how tesla would build an autonomous drone is my question for something viable.

</comment><comment><USER48> Cant they use a simulation to do the training and then finetune it using the poor drone?

<comment><USER49> They're training on video so their simulator would have to produce thousands of hours of realistic video. On top of simulating the aerodynamics and performance of the done itself. All to produce something which is going to be inferior to real-world data.

<comment><USER50> Human pilots also train using simulators first.

<comment><USER51> Well because if a human crashes a plane, that human doesn't stick around long enough to learn from that experience and do better next time.

Also the cost of a human crashing a plane is a bit more than a drone crashing itself, such that it's probably better to save on planes, and invest in simulators - whereas developing an accurate physics simulator for the purpose of training a drone might take more time/money than just letting it crash, and figure it out itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> A coding drone uses AI and 11,500 bug reports to learn how to code. Are we there yet?

</comment><comment><USER53> In other words, they're just learning not to crash/failing to crash.

</comment><comment><USER54> what happens if after trained we move the drone to another location, will those learned "abilities" be reused? making easier to fly at the new location.

</comment><comment><USER55> Oh, great. Next step: weaponization and AI target analysis.

</comment><comment><USER56> Pretty close to 10000 hours to get good at something?

<comment><USER27> I don't really believe in the 10,000 hours number. Granted I've never read the book but it 'feels' faux.

The amount of time needed to master is more a combination of deep practice, motivation to master & the individual learning rate.

'The talent code' talks about deep practice. Deep practice is the 80 in the 80/20 principle.

<comment><USER25> Some essays have refuted this hypothesis. Some people have natural talent, i.e. prodigies, which may become proficient in far shorter time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I think this is how babies learn to walk.

</comment><comment><USER58> This really is the beginnings of SkyNet.

</comment><comment><USER59> I don't understand why it didn't learn to fly; using a flight simulator.</comment>


Ask HN: Percentage of female users on HN - <AUTHOR> I hope someone from HN answers this.<p>I was wondering what is the percentage of female users on HN, is their pattern of usage similar or different from male users, and if you do have this data, how did you get it? (since the users are anonymous). <comment><USER2> Can I ask a question about your question? What conclusions are you looking to draw from the answer? How is this ratio relevant seeing as majority skill-sets of HN regulars neither favours one gender or another?

<comment> LeonardA-L Why not simply out of curiosity ? People have a tendancy to assume tech people are men, or that people on the internet are men. I myself always picture HN users as 25-35 y.o white men with a beard and glasses. The Silicon Valley stereotype. Sometimes it's interesting to get a picture of what the HN community is actually made of, without any other conclusion than "oh, ok."

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I am usually assumed to be male here, and addressed as such. I don't mind it really, and I understand why it is happening tho.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> does HN do demographic yearly surveys?

</comment><comment><USER4> That's not a reliable way to get data. Because you'll get different results depending on the time of day.</comment>


Cargill: The Worst Company in the World - <AUTHOR> https://stories.mightyearth.org/cargill-worst-company-in-the-world/index.html <comment><USER2> Dow chemical is also a strong contender for this dubious crown.

They now own what remains of Union Carbide, who are largely responsible for Bhopal. That was bad enough that it is still taught as an ethics example in chemistry courses, 30-odd years later.

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

<comment><USER3> Do they teach that sabotage was not the cause?

<comment><USER2> The emphasis is strongly on the corporate malfeasance after the incident itself.

As well as the actual chemistry of what happened; this was taught in orgoII when i took it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Curious if being private company makes things worse in this case.

</comment><comment><USER5> Unreadable on mobile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Reads fine on iOS: Safari, Firefox Focus and Chrome. What browser and OS are you using?

<comment><USER6> iOS Safari has an ever-present portrait covering half the viewport as I scroll

<comment><USER7> On iOS I use MiniHack.app which opens all links in reader-mode on the safari webview... it's quite nice, and gets right to the actual substance.

Or, perhaps you can just double-click on the text, it'll zoom on the text only.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


U.S. Charges Former Intelligence Analyst with Leaking Classified Data - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2019/05/09/721737050/u-s-charges-former-intelligence-analyst-with-leaking-classified-data-to-reporter <comment><AUTHOR> > The instances in question occurred nearly five years ago, according to an > indictment unsealed Thursday. ... Investigators found evidence in Hale's > home that included two thumb drives, according to the indictment.

Hold on, was this evidence collected over five years ago and the Feds are just now getting around to arresting Hale, or did Hale keep this evidence around in his home for years? Either way seems crazy.</comment>


Seeking Reasons for Autism's Rise  - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703422904575039351632663996.html

<comment><USER2> Maybe one of the reasons is that there is not a definitive diagnosis/screening, hence a significant rate of misdiagnosis.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism#Screening>

I've even seen claims of 1 in 120 people having some degree of autism which I find ludicrous:

[http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/article/penn-study- discove...](http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/article/penn-study-discovers- increasing-autism-locally-and-nationally)

</comment><comment><USER3> I say, let's blame TV! The theory...

<http://www.slate.com/id/2151538/>

If true, there are all sorts of chemical, physical, and psychological processes that could be the mechanisms:

\- less sunlight/vitamin-D

\- less interactive time with real people, more time with scripted/non- reactive people

\- less time in nature/3D

\- less exercise</comment>


Safe TypeScript: Safe and Efficient Gradual Typing for TypeScript - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=226836

<comment><USER2> I wonder what the typescript community thinks of this. For a long time, one of the big things about typescript was that they didn't value soundness very highly and had a bit of a "we are a pragmatic language willing to cut corners" vibe. But now with Safe Typescript and Soundscript we see a bit of a return to traditional type systems that care a lot about soundness...

<comment><USER3> I, for one, welcome our new sound overlords if it means better performance.

<comment><USER4> Though gaining better performance through sound type system seems quite unlikely, in the best case there will be small overhead, but 15% they claim now is still large.

from the article:

> we measure a 15% runtime overhead for type safety

<comment><USER5> You would only turn on the runtime checks during testing.

<comment><USER6> Which goes to show how much type systems are really adjuncts to testing, rather than something qualitatively different from and better than testing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Server Error

However, you can still reach the paper at [http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/224900/safets.pdf](http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/224900/safets.pdf)

bibliography: [http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/bibtex.ashx?id=22490...](http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/bibtex.ashx?id=224900)

Cached at [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:w8TMT0...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:w8TMT0p2TqoJ:research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/%3Fid%3D224900+)

Text:

Safe & Efficient Gradual Typing for TypeScript Aseem Rastogi, Nikhil Swamy, Cedric Fournet, Gavin Bierman, and Panagiotis Vekris July 2014

Abstract

Current proposals for adding gradual typing to JavaScript, such as Closure, TypeScript and Dart, forgo soundness to deal with issues of scale, code reuse, and popular programming patterns.

We show how to address these issues in practice while retaining soundness. We design and implement a new gradual type system, prototyped for expediency as a 'Safe' compilation mode for TypeScript.1 Our compiler achieves soundness by enforcing stricter static checks and embedding residual runtime checks in compiled code. It emits plain JavaScript that runs on stock virtual machines. Our main theorem is a simulation that ensures that the checks introduced by Safe TypeScript (1) catch any dynamic type error, and (2) do not alter the semantics of type-safe TypeScript code.

Safe TypeScript is carefully designed to minimize the performance overhead of runtime checks. At its core, we rely on two new ideas: differential subtyping, a new form of coercive subtyping that computes the minimum amount of runtime type information that must be added to each object; and an erasure modality, which we use to safely and selectively erase type information. This allows us to scale our design to full-fledged TypeScript, including arrays, maps, classes, inheritance, overloading, and generic types.

We validate the usability and performance of Safe TypeScript empirically by typechecking and compiling more than 100,000 lines of existing TypeScript source code. Although runtime checks can be expensive, the end-to-end overhead is small for code bases that already have type annotations. For instance, we bootstrap the Safe TypeScript compiler (90,000 lines including the base TypeScript compiler): we measure a 15% runtime overhead for type safety, and also uncover programming errors as type-safety violations. We conclude that (1) large TypeScript projects can easily be ported to Safe TypeScript, thereby increasing the benefits of existing type annotations, (2) Safe TypeScript can reveal programming bugs both statically and dynamically, (3) statically type code incurs negligible overhead, and (4) selective RTTI can ensure type safety with modest overhead.

<comment><USER8> The attractive part for me when considering TypeScript was that it had 0 runtime overhead, while coding in a type safe manner. If I use nothing but types via my TypeScript code, isn't Safe TypeScript simply just overhead?

<comment><USER2> The overhead of safe typescript is only in the parts of your code that interact with untyped code. For those parts the default typescript was actually unsafe.

<comment><USER8> I see. This adds soundness to an entire application ts or non ts.

<comment><USER2> The main goal of a sound gradual type system is to make it so that any type errors can be "blamed" on the untyped part of the code. For example, if untyped code calls a safe-typescript function and passes the wrong argument type safe-typescript will check and detect the error right away. On the other hand, traditional typescript would accept the invalid parameter without checking and would eventually throw a "method missing" exception somewhere down the line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think a good way to marketing typescript is provide tool converter c# to typescript. It would be fun is there is tool convert my mvvm portable library to typescript angular js. If microsoft provide this, i can porting my mobile app to mobile site easily. And then automaticly i will learn typescript

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how this relates to Soundscript which was on the frontpage yesterday. They seem to have similar goals and both are based on Typescript, so they seem to overlap a lot.</comment>


Ted Ligety has practically invented a new way of skiing - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/sochi-olympics/giant-slalom.html

<comment><USER2> That's an awful article. Huge auto-playing jerky videos which show you nothing useful interspersed with tiny paragraphs. Someone call Tufte and his chartjunk remover.</comment>


'I Am Rich' iPhone Application Retails for $1,000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,398903,00.html <comment><USER2> Good common sense by Apple...finally. Apparently this app has now been pulled.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great marketing sense by this developer.</comment>


Monsanto built a step-by-step strategy to destroy my reputation - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/08/monsanto-roundup-journalist-documents <comment><USER2> A company complaining to editors? Routine crap. Hiring FTI to pose as a journalist? Hiring people to post fake reviews on a book you don't like? Seems illegal, but I don't know. Are there US laws that prevent such actions?

<comment><USER3> IANAL, but I don't believe that a smear campaign against her would be illegal in the US. I mean, she's arguably a public figure, so a libel case wouldn't stand.

Indeed, it would have been a better article if she had focused on how common this stuff is. And just used her own experience as the lead.

<comment><USER4> > I mean, she's arguably a public figure, so a libel case wouldn't stand.

No, it would just require evidence of actual malice: that is, knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth.

<comment><USER3> Is that true in the US? I thought that the bar was pretty high for public figures. I mean, consider what people say in political campaigns. Lies and malice (i.e., prevent their election) are common.

<comment><USER4> > Is that true in the US? I thought that the bar was pretty high for public > figures.

"Actual malice" is a much higher bar than is generally in place for libel, but it is not an _insurmountable_ bar.

> I mean, consider what people say in political campaigns.

Litigation over political campaign statements for defamation is fruitless for reasons aside from the legal standard to win a judgement; it takes to long to get a final verdict, but more importantly the litigation itself keeps whatever damaging claim you are trying to suppress at the center of the news, doing your opponents work for them.

<comment><USER3> Thanks.

So she (and others, similarly targeted) might at least get ~decent settlements.

I guess that I was thinking about this in the context of SLAPP suits and assassinations (e.g., Karen Silkwood).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oh wow, how would we know that some corporate lobbyists or worse some government agency is not monitoring HN right now and propagating their agenda here in comment section. How can we detect that and how can we trust anyone else ?

<comment><USER6> If done well, how would something like that ever be possible to detect? Unfortunately, well-resourced malicious actors can stack the decks :( I now question every time I saw fairly vehement defense of Monsanto in comments sections and wonder if that defense was at least inspired by paid internet commenters and posters, even if it wasn't directly them. Who really controls the narrative?

<comment><USER7> What really boils the noggin is realizing that it's not just "other" people who fall for this. We all do. Some portion of all of our political, economic, and moral views were put into our heads by corporate or government propaganda.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Makes me think about the (fiction) book "The Doubt Factory" by Paolo Bacigalupi

</comment><comment><USER9> I mean, it sounds like she built a step by step strategy to destroy Monsanto's reputation, so it seems disingenuous to be shocked when they respond in kind.

<comment><USER10> She's commenting on the scientific research and evidence on a certain topic, which happens to be largely but not only about one individual company. That's what journalists do. Your comment is very disingenuous.</comment></comment>


Apple rejects iPhone camera app for using volume controls for taking photos - <AUTHOR> http://taptaptap.com/blog/cameraplus-volumesnap-rejected/

<comment><USER2> It looks like the reviewers pointed to specific Apple requirements that the app violated. That was great. The developers already knew that their app violated the requirement and they are responding to the rejection in a mature manner. This is also great.

Whether or not Apple should review/approve apps is a different question. However, given the current system, it looks like the system worked as well as one would want any review/approval system to work.

</comment><comment><USER3> _They did not reject Camera+_ \--- Camera+ is one of the most popular apps on the store (it's fantastic, by the way). They rejected a single release of the app which _drastically_ violated Apple's interface guidelines, and specifically explained why.

<comment><USER4> Um. Well, yes. It's true that their submission _did not conform_ to Apple's interface guidelines. I think it's a little over the top to say they "drastically violated" them as if the poor guidelines were left raped and bleeding on a lonely country road. Sheesh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> When the iPhone 4's separate-button volume controls came out, I thought Apple might use one of them for the shutter. It would have really increased the utility of the phone as a camera. I already use Camera+, this would have been a great new feature.

<comment><USER6> Seriously! In his keynote, Jobs likened the feel of the iPhone 4 to an old Leica camera. A Leica without a shutter button?

<comment><USER7> What a funny comparison. Perhaps it's because in both cases you pay more for the name?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That sucks. I've wanted an app that did this forever.

<comment><USER9> There must be other phone brands that would allow you to do just that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this is a good policy. I hate getting blasted with unexpected loud noises especially with earbuds. It's a very painful experience. The volume buttons should always work as advertised. There's a good argument to be made that the iPhone needs an extra physical button. Either on the top right side or perhaps the ringer on/off switch could become a multi-function button. Toggle + press.

</comment><comment><USER11> All I can think about is: the time and energy expended sifting through Apple's red tape is time and energy spent not creating new apps and improving existing ones.

<comment><USER12> It would've been a surprise to most, I think, if this had gotten through.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> They should follow [Tapbot's lead]([http://tapbots.com/blog/pastebot/pastebot- music-in-backgroun...](http://tapbots.com/blog/pastebot/pastebot-music-in- background)). Play some music, have the volume buttons adjust the volume of the music (thus following the HIG) while also triggering the shutter.

<comment><USER14> i.e., play by the _letter_ of the rule, instead of the _intent_. And risk being shot down in the future, because it's a rather asinine thing to do, and any attentive reviewer would think so as well. HIG is important to Apple. (note that I don't think Pastebot will be a victim of this, just Camera+ if they do it)

The situations are also pretty drastically different: Pastebot is using music- playing to get background operations to _work_ , which will capture clipboard content _passively_ , not via the volume buttons. Meanwhile, Camera+ is trying to use the volume buttons _actively_ to perform a function _which is not volume related_. Prediction time: if they attempt this, it won't get past the review stage, or will be shot down shortly after.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Stifling innovation? - there's an app for that!™

</comment><comment><USER16> It's nice they don't react angrily or surprised.

<comment><USER17> Why would they? The App Store has allowed these developers to create and operate a viable software business, and it's probably made them rich. That wouldn't have been possible if the App Store was not managed correctly.

<comment><USER18> _That wouldn't have been possible if the App Store was not managed correctly._

That's a silly thing to say: obviously some people might profit with an incorrectly managed App Store. For example, many people profit handsomely in very badly managed countries.</comment></comment></comment>


What to do with an ad-based site?  - <AUTHOR>

My current company created an online tutorial site that gets 1.3 million page views per month, and 65K unique visitors. Unfortunately, that only translates into about $500 in AdSense income.
Some friends and I are starting a new company with a biz model based on paid subscriptions, not ad revenue.
At an ad broker's $5 CPM rate, the current site's traffic translates into $7000 a month, but brokers won't touch it (it's tutorials, not editorial/blog content) and we don't have the time to sell our own ads.
So, what should we do with this site? Can we sell it? If so, where? <comment><USER2> Sure you can sell it.

Options:

1) Online site markets, sitepoint.com and others have forums and tools that allow site owners to sell and either set their price or run an auction for the site. These are probably your best bet for a quick sale, though not for the highest ROI.

2) Maintain the site and let it run adsense to generate a trickle of side income. One new tutorial a week, or some sort of new content to help with SEO and user returns. The ROI on this sort of site is high, even if the total income is low, the time investment remains low.

3) Try to convert the site to include an editorial / blog to entice ad brokers. A much higher level of time investment with potential for the gains to increase as well.

3.a) To minimize your own time investment, pull a FHWW and look to hire virtual assistants to generate new content or content ideas. Will still require time editing and finding the freelancer / assistant, but can also reap benefits.

Best of luck!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comments, guys. The site is www.inpics.net -- illustration- based software tutorials.

Where are online site markets other than sitepoint.com? What's a FHWW?

What alternative ad networks might be interested in this?

I'm much obliged for your help!

<comment><USER3> google adplanner says that you get 36k unique users with 430k pageviews

<comment><USER4> adplanner is definitely off the mark from my own experience with figures. Relative figures are probably ok, but it seems to grossly underestimate unique users and pageviews (and considering we're using analytics to calculate those also, it's rather ironic).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What sort of tutorials?

I own and run SmartFlix.com, and we're we're just now launching some new stuff - we're paying $20 commissions for each customer that signs up for one of our Universities.

100 signups a month is $2k. Not huge, but better than $500.

<http://smartflix.com/store/search?q=university>

If your site is something that we cover, or that we could cover, send me email at the four letter email address made up of my initials, in the obvious domain name.

Travis J I Corcoran, President SmartFlix

\-- <http://SmartFlix.com/> web's biggest how-to DVD rental store

</comment><comment><USER6> Have you thought about bundling your tutorials into books, and selling them as a print on demand service. Take a look at <http://www.lulu.com/>.

Instead of selling ads for other sites, how about setting up an online store at Shopify.com and selling products that your viewers might be interested in. If you don't want to worry about order fulfillment, outsource that to Amazon.com.

Speaking of Amazon, have you looked at their affiliate network? You'd almost have to make more money than Ad Sense.

</comment><comment><USER7> Have you tried affiliate links? You could probably link to tutorial books like "Learn Access in 30 Days" on Amazon and get decent conversion.

</comment><comment><USER8> Affiliate marketing. Hands down. Video professor puts out about 55$ per conversion, which is very related to your sites. You can go to cj.com and look for related products.

</comment><comment><USER9> Perhaps run targeted affiliate product ads for the tutorial being viewed, if possible. (ex: tutorial for cooking, have ads for recipe books, pots and pans, etc)?

<comment><USER10> That would come under the category of selling their own ads wouldn't it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What is it tutorials for? If it's something specialised, maybe it's possible to talk directly to people selling things to do with that speciality?

</comment><comment><USER12> adsense is not the best model when your uniques are so much lower than your pageviews.

seek out an alternative ad network. there are quite a few that will touch your site. it won't be optimal CPM rates, but it will likely be better than what you're seeing from adsense.

</comment><comment><USER13> Check out <http://www.adify.com/>

</comment><comment><USER14> Sitepoint.com will do the job.

</comment><comment><USER15> What is the site?</comment>


Over $9T of Federal Debt Will Mature in the Next Four Years - <AUTHOR> https://thesoundingline.com/over-9-trillion-of-federal-debt-will-mature-in-the-next-four-years/ <comment><USER2> Looking at this number in a vacuum and not in light of total spending/borrowing, and looking at it in a linear scale, makes this not as interesting. To be clear, this is a huge number and generally government debt is the problem. But this is a record amount of debt only because EVERY YEAR is a record amount of debt.

The article says that this "represent[s] the fastest growth in the amount of maturing debt since the Financial Crisis", but that's not true. Looking at the numbers, this represents a 10.0% increase from the previous year but 2012 gave us 10.7%. 2008, 2009, and 2010 represent bigger jumps, but you can argue that the financial crisis extended to 2010 (although you can argue that it's still not really over now -- definitions are hard). Pre-crisis we had 2003 13.5%, 2002 12.5%.

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I wrong in thinking that this doesn't bode well for the value of the dollar over time, and will likely cause hyperinflation?

<comment><USER4> Yes, you are wrong that it will likely cause hyperinflation. Even if the Fed simply monetized that debt (which it won't do) you might get some inflation, but nothing close to HYPERinflation. What's more likely, as the article states, is that more investor money will go to the government rather than mortgages or commercial loans, which will slow the economy, drive up interest rates, and potentially cause deflation.

<comment><USER5> A lot of the new bonds will _replace_ what's already been loaned to the government, so what will matter is the delta between the interest rates on the old bonds and new ones as well as whether the new bonds have different maturity times. So how much rolling the debt over will drive up interest rates is debatable though the issuance of new debt to finance the current deficit is more likely to do that.

Of course, that assumes that there are buyers for the rolled over debt. The biggest source of financing over the past 20 years (China) isn't exactly happy with the US government right now. That could drive up interest rates on the bonds and cause problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Feels like Wile E. Coyote who has sped off the cliff but will keep going until he inevitably looks downward.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why is this a news? Doesn't federal debt mature all the time?

<comment><USER8> it isn't, someone wrote about it on an irrelevant site, someone posted it here and it trends here

it just opens the discussion on this general topic, but nothing really about the specific thing being discussed

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can someone ELI5 what this means?

<comment><USER10> The US Government spends more money than it takes in taxes. In order to finance the difference it takes out loans (in many ways just like you might take out a loan to buy something). These loans take the form of government bonds.

Various people/organizations buy these bonds and give the US government money. Later on these bonds "mature" and those people get their money back plus some interest.

This post is saying that about 9 trillion dollars worth of these bonds will mature in the next 4 years so the US government will need to come up with that much money to pay the bondholders. The way the government does this (for the most part) is by "rolling over" the debt. This means the government will issue new bonds that pay out at some point in the future.

In some ways this is actually great for the government because interest rates are at very low levels right now, which means the new bonds will (in most cases) have a lower interest rate than the old ones.

<comment><USER11> One buyer, in particular, most likely will stop buying and that is China.

<comment><USER12> Have they made that threat?

<comment><USER13> Not to my knowledge, its all just speculation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It will simply be refinanced, like all other debt with sizeable balloon payments. The underlying problem is not the so much the maturity, which can create liquidity issues, but the continued use of debt to finance government deficits.

<comment><USER15> This is not a problem as long as the RoI on spending is possible, or as long as the dollar value of the economy is expected to grow, through population growth, productivity gains, or inflation.

A government budget is not a household budget, and the same rules don't apply to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> _" If you have the right people, like, in the agencies and the various people that do the balancing ... you can cut the numbers by two pennies and three pennies and balance a budget quickly and have a stronger and better country."_

-Trump

 _" I'm pledging to cut the deficit by half by the end of my first term in office."_

-Obama

 _" We must balance the federal budget. We can do so without raising taxes. What we need to do is impose spending discipline."_

-George W. Bush

[ Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich actually did briefly balance the budget ]

"Balancing the budget is a little like protecting your virtue: You just have to learn to say 'no'".

-Reagan

<comment><USER17> Obama did cut the deficit in half. More than half. At least over the course of his entire presidency, not sure about the first term.

<comment><USER18> He did, but only after he doubled it his first couple years.

<comment><USER19> Well, again, in fairness, that was because the global economy had been run into the ground. The situation he stepped into had little to do with him.

<comment><USER20> He did vote in favor of the bank bailout (as a Senator) so the large deficit in 2009 did have a little to do with him.

<comment><USER19> Yes.

But that assumes that the global economy had been run into the ground because of the bank bailouts. This is not the case. The situation these leaders were presented with left them with few options.

The time to act with complete freedom of movement would have been _before_ the crash. Once the crash happens, your options are severely restricted.

<comment><USER20> The bankers who were bailed out were the very people who ran the economy into the ground. The government could have unwound the situation without bailing them out.

But the relevant point for this discussion is: that was a one-time event and not a fair comparison with future deficits.

Deficits from later years should be compared to 2008 or 2007, or to 2009's budget without the bank bailouts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This discussion is so twisted with incorrect and downright offensive to proper reasoning rhetoric. Please look up modern monetary theory. Stephanie Kelton explained modern governmental finance very well in a pod cast on Tuesday last week with Chris Hayes. Basically, if the government runs a deficit then there is a surplus somewhere in the economy that otherwise wouldn't be. The recent trillion dollar tax cuts and lack of resulting inflation underscore their point.

The US and world economies are enumerated with USD - a fiat currency. The government says "you may pay your debts with our currency" and only they supply it. Which means all money comes from the government and only the government.

<comment><USER22> You seem to be assuming that MMT is The Correct Theory. That's... well, at a minimum, it's not an assumption that you should expect your readers to automatically recognize as correct as soon as you state it. In fact, it might take more than one podcast to convince people.

For that matter, even Paul Krugman (a great friend of government spending freely) thinks MMT is very wrong.

<comment><USER21> I made a claim and supplied a reference for defense of the claim. Their claim is much closer to the true operations of government finance than the prevailing perceptions. They discuss Paul Krugman's and Larry Summers' criticisms in the podcast.

multiple political cycles have been dominated by demonstrably false claims and those claims have been used to refute proper understanding and progress. It's important to refute and push back against such dismissive rhetoric.

<comment><USER22> > Their claim is much closer to the true operations of government finance than > the prevailing perceptions.

Um... yeah, I want to see a bit more than a podcast as evidence of that assertion.

> multiple political cycles have been dominated by demonstrably false claims > and those claims have been used to refute proper understanding and progress. > It's important to refute and push back against such dismissive rhetoric.

It takes a lot more than you have supplied to push back. That's not "dismissive". That's reality.

And, "demonstrably false claims"? Absolutely, there have been a bunch, from a bunch of different sides. All the more reason we should want a bit more evidence than a podcast from last week before we believe MMT.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Don't fall into the SEO trap - <AUTHOR> http://teamblog.supportbee.com/2011/01/18/dont-fall-into-the-seo-trap/ <comment><USER2> While I guess I can get behind "Don't do time sucking ineffective SEO when you could be implementing marketing which scales", the rest of the post strikes me as misguided. You can end up with traffic dominated by SEO over referrals for many reasons. One is being good at SEO. One is having a strong brand on the Internet. (I'd put money on over 90% of first time visits to, eg, 37Signals coming from Google. That isn't because they're particularly focused on SEO, but because Google is so many orders of magnitude more popular than _the sum of every page which mentions them_.)

Another plausible reason is being in a non-techy market, because you run headlong into the 1/10/89 activity pyramid except it is closer to 1/10/989: people who can't tell the difference between the green Googles and the blue Googles don't often start blogs to talk about their abiding love for invoicing software, and they don't come to websites directly because they have learned a way which works to access your Googles and that other way with the typing a website email address never really worked that well. (They still can make great customers, though.)

<comment><USER3> What is the 1/10/99 activity pyramid?

And yes, this doesn't really apply to non-technical markets, remember the "Facebook login" debacle? There's a whole slew of users that don't use the address bar, they just use the Googles.

<comment><USER2> Historically, a rough rule of thumb is that there is one content creator to every ten people who interact around content (say, comment on it) to every hundred people who consume content. You can play around with the numbers a bit (they're not really that important -- it is an order of magnitude guesstimate) and come up with 1:10:89 as ratios of creators : interacters: consumers.

This is an important thing to keep in mind, since as an SEO you'll typically be wanting to influence folks in those first two categories with the eventual intention of increasing your reach among folks in the last category who only want to pull out their credit cards.

If you want to get into it, you can do a _lot_ of sociological work on how creators are quirky fish and how/why to optimize for their preferences. (For example, there is a strong anticommercialist streak among many influential folks on the Internet, so a core skill for businesses is not looking like they're just in this to separate you from your money while still successfully separating people from their money.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Many older traditional businesses (like the one I work for) barely, if ever, look at the analytics. It's just not an important part of their marketing strategy. That may be a mistake but it is far more common than you might think. If you provide a great service or product that genuinely fills a need then people will seek you out.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've spent the last few years getting very heavily into SEO, working out ways to increase relevant search traffic to my business sites. I've spent lots of time on seobook - an awesome private community for anyone serious about learning SEO.

In many ways having a good understanding of SEO is fantastic. When you understand what search engines want, and you know how to give it to them, you can get traffic that your competitors have no idea even exists. The small guy that understands SEO has a tremendous advantage over the big guy that doesn't.

However, for a small software company, I think it can be important to avoid going overboard. If you're making software (or a web service or whatever), SEO is just one piece of the puzzle, and there are only so many hours in the day. Generally only 24. Keeping close track of rankings, keywords, inbound links, and new linking opportunities is time consuming, and, when you're operating in just one niche, you can reach a point of diminishing returns. For niche products, there's only so much relevant traffic out there.

If you have multiple SEO-savvy competitors competing for your keywords, then maybe you do need to focus more time on day-to-day SEO, to keep the traffic rolling in. But many niche software businesses are doing something new, and actually don't have all that much competition for the keywords that line up well with what they're offering.

I think that often the best way for small software businesses to approach SEO it is to bake it into the systems they create, then leave those systems to do their job, building links, awareness and search traffic that will increase over time without direct involvement. By "systems" I don't mean scrapers and bots, I mean systems that encourage people to market your site for you (including building you good, natural links), and maybe systems that generate good link-worthy content for you as well.

</comment><comment><USER6> The only thing worse than having a very high percentage of your traffic come from Google is not having it at all.

My sites typically get 75% of their traffic from search engines. I know that it could be all gone tomorrow, so I've worked on developing new sources of referrals. I still haven't found anything that delivers traffic as consistently as SEO.

In fact, generating advertising revenue from long tail traffic is a big part of my business. I don't feel like I'm in a death trap. Implementing the advertising is actually one of the best things that has happened to my business in a long time.

My company is a content business, not a software business, but I've never worried that I'm over-optimizing. If anything, I feel like I spend too little time micro-optimizing, and I spend a lot of time focusing on SEO.

<comment><USER7> Exactly our point. If you clearly know that search traffic works for you, invest most resources there. However if you are a resource constrained startup building a community (like quora for example) you may wanna keep SEO as your second or third priority. Your number one priority, atleast early on should be to make sure people are interacting on your site.

<comment><USER6> I agree that your product should be your #1 focus. Lots of users landing on a site that offers a poor experience is a waste. However, the problem with that is that investments in SEO compounds over time. Not only are aged links valuable, but as your rankings increase, you tend to build more links.

Aaron Wall calls it Self Reinforcing Authority: <http://www.seobook.com/archives/002033.shtml>

A good user experience can also offer compounding returns, but it's hard to test and improve user experience without users. SEO can provide a steady, free stream of users that enables you to test changes large and small at a statistically significant level. That's really valuable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a viable concern, but it applies to pretty much any activity a startup can engage in. There are a lot of paths to revenue you can choose to take, and maybe over-optimizing is an easy one to be led down, but I don't think that this is a danger that is unique to SEO. Ignoring SEO and your analytics data is probably equally dangerous and just as common.

</comment><comment><USER9> TLDR: if most of your traffic comes from search you haven't written enough linkbait articles...

</comment><comment><USER10> SEO has diminishing returns. the basics don't take long and provide great results. trying to micro-optimize to jump up a spot or two takes tons of time and energy, and since there's some voodoo magic in the mix, might not yield positive results.

<comment><USER11> I'm going to have to completely disagree with you. A very basic SEO strategy might get you ranked for your basic brand related search terms but if you are in a niche with any real level of competition that is all you'll get. If you have a deep understanding of SEO and the ability to implement complex SEO strategies you hold the key to significantly improving the quantity and quality of your traffic. Moving from position 5 to position 1 is likely to increase your traffic for that term 5-10x.

<comment><USER10> and for a company that has multiple employees, a finished product, and/or is actively looking for user acquisitions, that is a good thing to spend time on -- SEO, conversions, A/B testing, etc.

for a smaller startup that is still trying to develop their product and push out an MVP, their best bang for the buck is going to be hitting the effective basics until they're ready and able to spend more time on more in-depth things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This article makes a good point.

But the problem is that Google controls traffic to that extent. Almost any website if asked honestly will say that at least 60% and more likely 80% or more of their traffic comes from Google.</comment>


Bobby Jindal presidential bid sparks Twitter mockery - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-33272125

<comment><USER2> Please don't post garden-variety stories about politics to HN.

Also, please use the original title unless it is misleading or linkbait.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> The fact that the poster here manufactured a title different from that of the article to imply some failing on Gindal's part betrays prejudice.</comment>


How To Stop Sucking And Be Awesome Instead by Jeff Atwood - <AUTHOR> http://youtu.be/L7EGIt3-WUQ

<comment><USER2> When did Atwood jump the shark? I think he was when he started blogging about coding for a living, instead of coding for a living.</comment>


Ask HN: how do you demo apps running on an actual phone in presentations? - <AUTHOR>

I want to demo apps running on the actual phone in presentations. No emulators please since that doesn't feel real at all. I want to show the live view of my fingers touching the phone. Most venues would only have a projector -- no luxury of a separate video camera like the guys at Google I/O.
So my requirements are: 1. It has to be portable - the equipment should nicely fit into a bag that can be carried around. 2. It shouldn't take more than a few seconds to set up and switch from slides to live view 3. The video needs to be clear enough for the audience to read the text on the phone when being projected.
My best solution so far is WebCam + desktop Tripod + Quicktime Player + Webcam Settings app on Mac (to enable manual focus).  However, I tried a few high-end webcams (e.g. Logitech C920) and couldn't really find one with good enough quality.
I'm pretty sure that I'm not alone here in this situation. What are your gears? <comment><USER2> I carry an HDMI cable with me to meetings and show the phone on an overhead projector. Although you don't have the benefit of seeing your fingers, it's a readable and digital solution.

<comment><USER3> In the developer options on Android theres a setting "show touches", though I'm not sure if that'd show up on an external display or only the device...

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, but that's still different, especially when you want to show something like shaking the phone, or switching devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For iOS devices we use airplay and airserver on the computer side. Unfortunately this doesn't show touches, so you need to be creative and implement it part of your app.

</comment><comment><USER5> Visualizers (seemingly aka document cameras) have been the tool used in any presentations of this type that I've seen. Portable versions appear to exist.

</comment><comment><USER6> For Android, there are some remote-control applications which stream the device screen to your computer using wireless or USB. Maybe check this out?

<comment><AUTHOR> To give a realistic impression, I wanted to show my fingers too, not just the device screen. One other way I could think of is to use two phones, one for running the app to demo, the other shooting the video and projecting it via the HDMI cable... But it's a bit difficult to setup - switching projector cables is often quite painful.

The problem with my original approach is that I couldn't find a good webcam that records videos as well as the phone.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Bookman, read ebooks via email - <AUTHOR> https://usebookman.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Bookman is for those that like to read a lot and want a way to keep reading with discipline but don't have time to sit with a book.

Email is the most convenient way if you want to read anywhere anytime. After signing up and uploading your ebook, you get snippets from the book via emails. You can click on the "Read more" button to get the next snippet. If you don't have any epub files, Bookman offers a small selection of epub. Enjoy!</comment>


The wealthy are using pawn shops to finance their business ideas - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/05/the-wealthy-are-using-pawn-shops-to-finance-their-business-ideas.html <comment><USER2> What is the typical interest rate in these situations, both in banks and pawn brokers?

I read somewhere that it's usually 200% APR, for pawn brokers, so if you are inherently paying ~20%/month in interest I feel like this is a very bad value proposition.</comment>


The Neuroscience of Changing Your Mind - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-neuroscience-of-changing-your-mind/ <comment><USER2> Study: Neural Basis of Cognitive Control over Movement Inhibition: Human fMRI and Primate Electrophysiology Evidence

Citation: Xu, Kitty Z.; Anderson, Brian A.; Emeric, Erik E.; Sali, Anthony W.; Stuphorn, Veit; Yantis, Steven; Courtney, Susan M. Elsevier Science Neuron. December 2017.

Link: [https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2017.11.010](https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2017.11.010)

DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2017.11.010

Summary: Executive control involves the ability to flexibly inhibit or change an action when it is contextually inappropriate. Using the complimentary techniques of human fMRI and monkey electrophysiology in a context-dependent stop signal task, we found a functional double dissociation between the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC) and the bi-lateral frontal eye field (FEF). Different regions of rVLPFC were associated with context-based signal meaning versus intention to inhibit a response, while FEF activity corresponded to success or failure of the response inhibition regardless of the stimulus response mapping or the context. These results were validated by electrophysiological recordings in rVLPFC and FEF from one monkey. Inhibition of a planned behavior is therefore likely not governed by a single brain system as had been previously proposed, but instead depends on two distinct neural processes involving different sub-regions of the rVLPFC and their interactions with other motor-related brain regions.

Highlights:

• A context-dependent stop-signal task with human fMRI and primate neurophysiology

• Task design, data types, and analysis methods enable dissociation of system components

• Multiple distinct parts of rVLPFC and interactions with other brain areas required

• Context-based attention, interpretation, monitoring, but not direct response control

<comment><USER3> Thank you! A bit frustrating that the original article didn't cite the paper

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The top sticky bar has class is-sticky, can blocked with uBlock's element blocker with this entry:

         ##.is-sticky

<comment><USER5> There's also this great bookmarklet which I use:

      javascript: (function()%7B(function%20()%20%7Bvar%20i%2C%20elements%20%3D%20document.querySelectorAll('body%20*')%3Bfor%20(i%20%3D%200%3B%20i%20%3C%20elements.length%3B%20i%2B%2B)%20%7Bif%20(getComputedStyle(elements%5Bi%5D).position%20%3D%3D%3D%20'fixed')%20%7Belements%5Bi%5D.parentNode.removeChild(elements%5Bi%5D)%3B%7D%7D%7D)()%7D)()

<comment><USER6> BTW, I haven't tried this in Edge but in Firefox, Chrome, and Safari you can create a bookmarklet by creating a bookmark, and then editing its location and pasting in your code WITHOUT having to first convert it to one line or do the %XX encoding. All you have to do is add the javascript: prefix.

The browser will deal with encoding it and making it into one line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I read the title as "making changes to your mind," such as learning a new skill or breaking a habit.

That's not what it means. The article is about reversing a prior decision, aka "changing your mind."

</comment><comment><USER8> > "Lead author Kitty Xu, formerly a Johns Hopkins graduate student and now a > researcher at the social media site Pinterest"

Well that's depressing.

<comment><USER9> I presume (perhaps wrongly) that the parent finds it worrisome that Pinterest is hiring neuroscience researchers with a background of knowing how to change peoples' minds.

On the other hand Kitty Xu is almost certainly a very smart person and Pinterest just likes hiring really smart people.

<comment><USER10> I presume that the parent finds it worrisome that Johns Hopkins University (prestigious, academic, intelligent, good) can't compete, on employing neuroscience researchers (intelligent, valuable, academic, good), with Pinterest (dumb, corporate, useless, bad).

But it's a mystery for now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Huh. That says something about autism. I noticed my step-daughter has difficulty shifting out of states or shifting out of pre-planned things.

<comment><USER12> I know nothing about autism.

One of my parenting strategies for stopping undesired behavior was to "reboot their brain". Versus scolding, punishment, etc. That usually means something physical. When timeouts stopped working on my minions, I escalated to pushups, then sit ups, then jumping jacks, peeking at wind sprints (running back and forth).

It's very hard for a child to continue being naughty when they're pumping iron.

<comment><USER13> > It's very hard for a child to continue being naughty when they're pumping > iron.

What if all of Spartan culture was simply a parenting trick run riot?

<comment><USER14> "Off the cliff with you"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > "To confirm their findings, the authors then ran the same experiment on a > single macaque."

How do you instruct a macaque to stare at black dot?

<comment><USER16> I imagine you use fixed and then partial reinforcement to train it first, then do the experiment.</comment></comment>


Why I'm Not Looking to Hire Computer-Science Majors - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-im-not-looking-to-hire-computer-science-majors-1440804753?mod=trending_now_4 <comment><USER2> Just the usual "omg we need someone for angular/jboss2.34/.net4.3/... We don't care about compilers, logic, theory bla.

Because development in the industry is becoming as superficial as tinder in dating. Just riding the current hype train.

So we could just throw all our background knowledge out of the window and just teach placing buttons and form fields in angular hybrid apps, right?

I also find the trend of everyone having to do side projects on github pretty weird. No one of my professional friends in other fields would do something like that. Because you might think that what you do professionally is worth more than your hobby stuff. Personally, after a typical work day, in the evening my back and my eyes hurt and I also want to enjoy family, dog, nature or just sleep. I do read a lot of technical stuff or watch coursera or udacity. But even more t-rexing?

<comment><USER3> I agree. As the author says, the development scene is always changing. Maybe that's a reason to teach generic concept skills and concepts instead of current techology.

iOS and android development may be totally diffrent in 5 years, for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I come to this as a self-taught programmer and I think like most Ford-Chevy arguments the reality is somewhere in between. After working as a professional software developer for eight years on desktop apps, web apps, and mobile apps, I can see there are places where having a foundation in computer science could absolutely improve quality of my work, mainly algorithms and data structures, but also higher level subjects like OS and database architecture, security...etc.

And I also think CompSci folks would do well to work on a personal software project on nights and weekends and see it through to release and get actual people to use what you wrote. There's so much valuable experience that comes from that process that can never be learned in a classroom, or even from most jobs to be honest.

<comment><USER5> I think the CompSci folks that are dissatisfied with their employer and are comfortable with their skills are already doing stuff on the side. Today, sharpening your skills & earning extra $$$ through side projects is a no brainer. The wealth of online how-to articles and distribution channels has lowered the barriers to entry.

Of course if one is well looked after their employer financially and personally then there is really no need to do this. Makes you wonder why so many people out there are dissatisfied with their employers eh ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> College isn't supposed to teach young developers skills. It's supposed to teach them how to acquire skills. You're supposed to teach them skills.

<comment><USER7> That is the status quo. Is it a good system design? It seems to result in poor performance (hard for smaller employers to hire fresh college grads, since they haven't built an internal finishing school) and shoddy, duplicated effort (every major employer eventually constructs an ad-hoc finishing school for college grads).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If one cannot pay market rate for developers maybe the startup is not viable.

</comment><comment><USER5> What an awful article. "colleges doing such a rotten job of teaching them skills."? right, this is why Google and Facebook nick those with a Computer Science degree and pay them bucket loads of money. Try getting into those companies without a degree lol

The author goes on complaining that iPhone and Android development is missing in computer science departments. Right, problems are solved using an app _rolls eyes_. Computer Science is "Foundations". Language and Tools change daily but foundations rarely.. think algorithms, data structures etc.. this is what these degrees teach and how to apply them to solve problems. Yes it's f __kin hard and takes years of practice to be good at it. But this is what makes Computer Science /Engineering majors a hot commodity!

</comment><comment><USER9> This guy has just got daddy issues: his father is a CS prof at Yale.

(Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gelernter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gelernter), mention of his son as this guy: [http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240529702038331045770721...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203833104577072162782422558))

</comment><comment><USER10> Is it me or is that signup/premium only content? :s

<comment><USER11> If you Google(/Bing) the title and click on the wsj link from the search results, you can circumvent the paywall. I'd give a link, but I'm not sure that's okay (also, the procedure is just tedious, not complicated).</comment></comment>