Last Men Standing: the luck to survive AIDS, and the misfortune to live on - <AUTHOR> http://projects.sfchronicle.com/2016/living-with-aids/story/ <comment><USER2> My old man is in his late 60s, has been HIV positive since < 1989, his partner passed away however he is going strong, with a happy family, great house and just started his own biz. Basically a really lucky guy living with a very unfortunate disease. /anecdote

<comment><USER3> Just reading _Borrowed Time_ (a few years back) left me with strong feelings of a painful and dark epoch, I can't even imagine how harrowing it must have been to live through it and come through to the other side. Godspeed and long live to him.

<comment><USER4> All of Paul Monette's writings are worth reading. As a young gay person, after reading _Borrowed Time_ in particular, I am now painfully aware of how lucky I am to have been born when I was. Meeting people who have lived with HIV for a long time when I moved to SF just reinforced that.

It may feel like the country is going to hell and the world is fucked sometimes (though I think the trends are actually more positive than people think :) ), but at least in this one area the last twenty five years have produced miracles. A death sentence has become a manageable chronic illness and, with PrEP, you can even avoid seroconversion in the first place. Wow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I tried to view this on my phone, and it placed a massive JS blocker across the whole page bitching at me to view it vertically. Who the hell writes these scripts?

<comment><USER6> Sometimes I wish there was some kind of institutional body that could bar these people from getting a job ever again. _Sometimes_.

</comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra I don't understand why people continue to live in increasingly unaffordable city, with vanishing funds, and expect a miracle (which they might get, yeah, coming from pockets of others). Why not move?

They might be attached to the place, but frankly - they arrived into the city in their 20-s. Now there's a new wave of 20-s aged guys and gals who would like to take their place and have money/jobs to back this up. Why previous generation is considered to be entitled to living where they want and getting subsidies on that, while next generation is supposed to cope (and pay those subsidies also)?

</comment><comment><USER7> A poignant and well written piece. The author didn't touch on medical advances as a positive outcome of the effort to cure HIV. Since 1981, and in no small part because of the AIDS research effort, we have a far better understanding of retroviruses, cell surface structures, immunity, the evolutionary role of viruses in forming our DNA, and many other areas.

It's small consolation to someone suffering from this disease, even someone supposedly in remission from using the latest treatments, because there are still so many complications as outlined in the article such as brain infections and dementia, premature aging and fragility, and of course the PTSD of watching your entire community die around you.

But nonetheless, their suffering has given rise to new cancer treatments and other medicines that are saving thousands of lives. Over 500,000 people die of cancer every year; a friend of mine just died yesterday after a 15 year battle with breast cancer.

I look forward to the day when these viral infections and cancerous mutations will be handled with a routine shot that restores full immunity and function. Perhaps this day can be hastened if we invested more resources into research -- $100 billion instead of $36 billion, for example. What more important work can we do, than to save millions of current and future lives?

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder how many other cases there are of people thinking they're virtually certain to die soon, blowing all their long term resources for (rationally) a the short time they have left, and then being "saved", only to then suffer the consequences of the earlier decisions. (Is this a common topic in psychology? Notable works of fiction?) -- sort of related to a pyrrhic victory, but without the causal relationship.

<comment><USER9> I suspect there are many. It seems people are more likely to believe doomsday scenarios than ones where everyone lives. Living past the good times was a central theme of the movie "The Grand Budapest Hotel", and the song lyric, "Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone." So for me clearly the notion is part of the shared cultural experience.

My grandfather used to joke (somewhat morbidly) that everyone is afraid to die until one day they wake up and they are afraid they _aren 't_ going to die. He was always thinking about the consequences of things in the present as they rippled forward in time.

Sadly, I'm not sure what we can learn from it. It is easy to say "live every day as if it is your last, it may be." but "Save things to do later, later might be a lot longer than you think?" doesn't work so well.

I found the stories of people living on disability most compelling. They are trapped because if they did work, that work would disqualify them from their income, and how they know they are not going to die any time soon. So they can't step out of the life boat for fear that they will still be alive and now with zero financial support. If ever there was a situation of the heart in conflict with itself that is it.

<comment><USER8> Yeah -- the heartless-but-logically-correct thing is to be more ruthless in enforcing disability tests, so if working is a possibility, you have to work. But that's horrible, too.

Another argument for Basic Income.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm pretty familiar with the epidemic and (ineffective/poor/malicious) response to HIV/AIDS from a systemic and government standpoint, and this definitely has merit for discussion. One thing that I try to look for is how the notion of health insurance plays into a chronic disease, and unfortunately the article looked pretty light on it - a few mentions of private disability insurance. One of the functional systemic changes brought by the ACA has implications for lots of different survivor types:

The notion of a pre-existing condition used to be used as a way to carve-out certain populations from cost-effective access to the US healthcare system - HIV/AIDS is a headline case, but it also had implications for Cancer survivors, which, if I'm not mistaken, is a growing cohort now and in the forseeable future.

</comment><comment><USER11> Sometimes negative spaces are interesting. In multiple ways. I noticed and then searched the article for the phrases "PTSD" and "survivor guilt" both of which I'd expect in a story about survivors of a scary epidemic, but didn't find them. Maybe just authors word choice. Maybe they hold legacy political meaning I don't know. Could be there's background I don't know why PTSD or survivors guilt uniquely wouldn't apply to this particular epidemic. But it was interesting in its absence. I could imagine a very smart author doing that word play intentionally to make someone think hard about his article.

<comment><USER12> They did mention PTSD, I think they spelled it out fully.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, and "survivor guilt" wasn't explicitly mentioned because it was one of the over-arching themes of the whole piece.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _They also are suffering debilitating health problems, chronic illnesses brought on by a lifetime of living with AIDS and the toxic effects of its treatment._

Can anyone explain what they mean by "toxic effects of its treatment"?

<comment><USER13> Antiretroviral treatment is hard on the body even now, and the earlier versions were cruder and had more adverse side-effects.[1] It's similar to chemo in that sense.

[1]: [https://aidsinfo.nih.gov/guidelines/html/1/adult-and- adolesc...](https://aidsinfo.nih.gov/guidelines/html/1/adult-and-adolescent- arv-guidelines/31/adverse-effects-of-arv)

<comment><USER6> I see, thanks for the resource. Tough disease. I somewhat assumed that if you were getting treatment you could more or less forget about the disease but that doesn't seem to be the case. After reading some serious articles that have been published in the last three years it seems that a cure could found in the next 15 to 25 years... optimistic of course but let's hope that's the case.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: font-ah! Quickly prototype a text using random settings - <AUTHOR> https://fontah.netlify.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I made it in a weekend to find the right font for a home page and to experiment with hyperappV2. Use it to find a font/color/size combination for a text in a single place, with a little help from... fate.

Just: enter the text; use the buttons in the header to change colors, size and typeface; copy font and color params from the footer</comment>


Thinking like Leonardo Da Vinci: A review - <AUTHOR> http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/2008/05/12/review-how-to-think-like-leonardo-da-vinci/ <comment><USER2> Great article and while I don't think following this advice will exactly make you a genius or anything, it looks like common sense to leading an interesting life.

It does increasingly feel like _actually_ being a genius mainly means not caring about whether you are one or not. Just keep working on cool things and let others take care of the definitions.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/2008/05/12/review-how-to- think-...](http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/2008/05/12/review-how-to-think-like- leonardo-da-vinci/)

The author of the book examined the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci and tried to figure out the secret of his genius. The result is something he called "seven steps to genius every day"</comment>


How Edmunds Got in The Fast Lane - <AUTHOR> http://technology.edmunds.com/blog/2010/11/how-edmunds-got-in-the-fast-lane.html <comment><USER2> Reading this article and the recent DeviantArt post about page-load optimization (especially with respect to JS) makes me think there is a need for a standardized, scalable solution for page-assembling & loading. Something that would take into account things like ad networks, external JS, user- accounts, lots of small JS files used throughout the site, lots of small images, and backend services like memcached. Maybe the solution is not a standalone application or a new framework but rather a front-end JS library with a few backend modules in different languages (PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl).

Small sites spit out HTML from a couple of files/classes, large sites (e.g. your auto-insurance company) assemble a single HTML page using hundreds to even thousands of different files. Most large sites write their own HTML concatenator but as there is no standard or best-practice method, each one is organically grown and gets more and more complex over time. Now imagine being tasked with improving the pageload of a single webpage that calls 43 different backend services (mysql, vsam, ldap, memcache, soap etc.) across 600 different .php or .java files - you won't even know where to begin. MVC doesn't help much when you have 30 controllers calling 40 views and 20 models. The problem is there is no HTML pipeline.

Writing code to make a cube spin in 3D is easy using OpenGL. Making 100 cubes do the same isn't much more difficult either. This is because the graphics cards have a pipeline that you can fill using OpenGL commands in the right order. There is no right order for spitting out HTML, CSS, or JS and so everyone makes their own. Large sites already use some object-orientated say to echo "[div]blah[/div]" instead of hand-coding it. They just do it using their home-built solution. If there existed a standardized pipeline that different libraries, modules, and even web-servers could use, the optimizations described in the article would be nearly automatic.

<comment><USER3> This is a side effect of the fact that the combination of HTML, CSS and JS as we know it is a giant hack. Or rather, they all developed mostly independently and then sort of kludged together.

HTML5, CSS3 and JS all together with common libraries like jQuery or Dojo or YUI is now pretty much resembling a GUI toolkit, and that's probably what it should have been from the start. Too bad we had to reinvent all that all over again the hard way.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For those interested, I got this browsing the Google Code Blog: [http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/11/edmunds-partners- with...](http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/11/edmunds-partners-with-google- to-make.html)</comment>


Even Physicists Don't Understand Quantum Mechanics - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/opinion/sunday/quantum-physics.html <comment><USER5> Sean Carroll, the author, is a huge proponent and believer [1][1.1] in Many- Worlds Interpretation (MWI) interpretation of QM. MWI's basic idea is that the wavefunction is real and that there is no wavefunction collapse. Each time there's a decoherence, there's a universe split. Some physicists think this is pseudoscience or 'crackpottery' at best [2] since it can never be proven. A lot of physicists also don't see any value in MW's interpretation since it offers no predictive value (if you assume it to be true, there's nothing that this belief 'buys' you).

So when Carroll talks about 'physicists not understanding QM', he's just unhappy that most physicists don't share his view about QM and he's been known for trying to shame physicists for not sharing his view too. [3][3.1]

[1] [http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/06/30/why- the-...](http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/06/30/why-the-many- worlds-formulation-of-quantum-mechanics-is-probably-correct/)

[1.1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxgGYJ3OjM8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxgGYJ3OjM8)

[2] [https://motls.blogspot.com/2014/07/many-worlds- pseudoscience...](https://motls.blogspot.com/2014/07/many-worlds- pseudoscience-again.html)

[3] [http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2013/01/17/the- most...](http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2013/01/17/the-most- embarrassing-graph-in-modern-physics/)

[3.1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZacggH9wB7Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZacggH9wB7Y)

<comment><USER6> I don't believe any of the possible interpretations of QM have a clear path to being proven, so are they pseudoscience as well?

If Hawking Radiation can never be observed till the heat death of the universe, is that pseudoscience, or just really hard to test?

At this regime, all of physics is very hard to design an experiment for on ranges we have access to.

<comment><USER7> > I don't believe any of the possible interpretations of QM have a clear path > to being proven, so are they pseudoscience as well?

The characterization is a little bit harsh, but yes. The Copenhagen interpretation is non-falsifiable, (relative to MWI) so while I don't know what it is, I know it isn't science.

There's a reason most reputable scientific journals don't accept papers dealing with interpretations of quantum mechanics. There's no "there" there.

Hawking radiation is interesting because a proof of lack of Hawking radiation is a proof of the falsehood of quantum mechanics. Which is really interesting; any time you can falsify something like quantum mechanics every physicist should be paying attention. Also, if certain models of string theory are correct, particle accelerators like the LHC should be able to produce micro black holes, which will then evaporate in detectable ways. So Hawking radiation is of observational interest as of 2010 as a possible way to provide evidence to support string theory. (spoiler alert: we didn't find any)

<comment><USER8> It feels like you are way too quick to kick things out that aren't on a path to being proven. String theory forever has had the problem that it didn't make experimentally verifiable conclusions. A quick web search finds recent articles discussing apparently discussing this. Aren't people still working on string theory?

Or why is mwi impossible to verify.

<comment><USER9> The difference is, string theorists are _trying_. Everyone knows that it is a major problem that we cannot currently design experiments to falsify ST or other quantum gravity theories, and everyone is working towards it in the hope that one day we may. When it comes to interpretations of QM, there is not only nothing on the horizon, people don't even speak in these terms. No one is insisting on falsifiablity, and indeed every new interpretation seems completely hell-bent on just providing a "story" around the equations in a way that does not - and fundamentally _cannot_ \- make any predictions that contradict basic QM. I can count on one hand the number of interpretations I can think of that make experimentally testable assertions, and for those I have plenty of respect[1]. But the majority of interpretations and their proponents seem to deliberately stay within the comfort zone of non- falsifiablity, writing paper after paper whose actual impact on either physics or philosophy can be summed up with "yeah well, that's just like, your opinion, man". I did my MSC in physics under a professor who is a well-known proponent of MWI (though my master's thesis was not directly related to the subject). Two years of working side by side with him proved to me that the detractors of work on interpretations are, by and large, correct in their assertions about the proponents of them.

[1] There is this one theory whose name I cannot remember, where each particle in the universe gets their wavefunction multiplied by a delta function or very thin gaussian at random intervals, and whose sudden localization also causes a sort of chain reaction and localizes all particles it is entangled with. This theory is interesting because it helps set a (statistical) limit between microscopic and macroscopic interactions; basically, when you go past a certain number of entangled particles, everything will be well-localized virtually all of the time, but for small numbers of particles we'll see quantum phenomena. Unfortunately I recall this theory having too many holes, and perhaps it has already been falsified, but the point is that at least it made an effort to address inherent problems in QM (namely, wavefunction collapse) in a way that physicists actually should; by making testable claims.

<comment><USER10> This was linked above and sound like the theory your footnote describes: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghirardi%E2%80%93Rimini%E2%80%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghirardi%E2%80%93Rimini%E2%80%93Weber_theory)

<comment><USER9> That's the one! Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The idea that someone with equal ability to do calculations with both could understand Newtonian mechanics better than they understand quantum mechanics belies an extremely naive view of how easy it is to perceive the true metaphysics of classical mechanics. In fact, the metaphysics of classical mechanics remains unsettled even today, the only reason it seems like there isn't a lot of philosophical debates left to have is that it has fallen out of fashion. A brief conversation with any philosopher will reveal that nobody "understands" the basic essence of being or whatever you want to call it. In fact, if "understand" means "have direct sensation of the true nature of reality," or even "have some grasp of the true metaphysics," then nobody understands anything.

To give a specific example, let's say you have a classical system with only three particles in the entire universe, and further let's say they are interacting via a conservative force. So, how many things are there in the universe? Is each particle communicating with the others to organize their movements? Then, there would be three things in the universe. Is there a potential field permeating all of space, into which the particles project their influence? That would be four things. Is there a "strand of force" connecting each particle to every other particle? Then, there would be six things.

The debates in the paragraph above were alive and well in Newton's time. However they were philosophical debates, not physical debates, because the three suggestions I proposed (along with the other possibilities I didn't mention) are all mathematically equivalent and would lead to the same motion.

<comment><USER12> The thing is, since all those descriptions are mathematically equivalent, _nobody cares_ whether, in a Platonic sense, there are three or four or six things, because _it makes no difference_.

<comment><USER13> Isn't the analogy to a similar situation with quantum mechanics, where people seem concerned with different mathematically equivalent interpretations?

You say "nobody cares", but people do care, and if they care in one context, why shouldn't they care in another?

<comment><USER12> Many worlds is an actual difference - one we cannot ever see or prove, but it's different. "New universes are being created" is _deeply_ different from "they are not".

Forces at a distance vs fields? Not so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Physicists don't understand their own theory any better than a typical > smartphone user understands what's going on inside the device.

This article seems to take a confused definition of "understand". Not admitting to a full and complete understanding is rather different from knowing nothing at all.

And to give your typical smartphone user some credit, most of them probably have some idea of the concepts of radio waves and computers, even if they don't grasp the details.

<comment><USER15> I think it's a somewhat legitimate comparison. The average person can use a smartphone but couldn't tell you much about why it works the way it does. They can accomplish all sorts of things with it but they have little insight of its internal structure. It's the same with Schroedinger's equation: I can use it just fine, and it's clearly a useful way of looking at the world, but I don't understand _why_ reality is like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think quantum mechanics is well-understood, the mathematics behind it provide us with excellent predictions.

I think because at its core it is a probabilistic (or perhaps there are many worlds, but the implications are identical) theory--there is some inherent uncertainty in the predictions. This uncertainty builds up over time if left unmeasured, due to the chaotic nature of the system. We won't be able to result this uncertainty until we have more precise and accurate measurement devices.

I was thinking, the only real way for us to progress was to get the results out of CERN we were expecting--either smaller particles or some detection method which allows us to peer even deeper into the atom.

I think certain physicists are tired of the search for a unifying theory since it probably won't help us make better predictions. We need to get out there and get new empircal data.

<comment><USER17> I did my M.Sc. in quantum physics, and I'll be the first to admit I don't understand it.

Yes, the equations do seem to predict what we observe in experiments very well. Shockingly well, given how strange some of the predictions made by them are! However, we lack an intuitive understanding of _why_ the equations work. Matter and energy behave very differently on the quantum scale than they do on the macroscopic scales we're used to observing. If you're trying to model a pendulum, your intuition about how objects behave in the real world can be of immense help when performing sanity checks on your equations. Your intuition is _worse than useless_ when it comes to quantum systems. It's not just flat- out wrong much of the time, it can lead you to ignore things that should not be ignored.

Quantum physics has all sorts of English language, short-hand descriptions for mathematical functions like "tunnelling", "non-local", "spooky action at a distance" or, as is pertinent to this article "observation". You may think you understand what these mean, but you're probably at least partly wrong if you're thinking about them in terms of human language, natural human intuition, or even the very specific short-hand terminology of physicists. We are continually teasing out nuances in the math that language simply does not capture. If we lack the language to adequately describe reality, can we really understand it?

Feynman was very correct to observe that people who think they understand quantum physics on a deep, intuitive level, probably do not. Doing quantum physics with a human brain evolved for bashing stones together is like trying to breathe in outer space. It's possible with considerable effort and the right tools (e.g. a space-suit), but if you ever forget that it's a deeply unnatural thing to be doing you're probably going to get yourself into trouble.

<comment><USER18> I ask you because I definitely do not have an M. Sc. In quantum mechanics - <USER2> the lowest level of any system isn't it inevitable that there is no deeper understanding. At a certain point you have hit the base level and things just "are." Correct me if this is erroneous!

<comment><USER17> Consider the equation: 1+1=2

You don't have to understand the mathematical explanation for _why_ this is so (one does exist) in order to have an intuition that serves you well in practically all situations. For most of us, there is no deeper understanding. It just is, and that's good enough. That doesn't necessarily mean there is no deeper understanding, but let's ignore that for now.

What I was trying to get across is that basic intuitions we have about the macroscopic world that we can see and touch are often flat-out wrong on the quantum scale. Likewise, human language has developed to describe macroscopic phenomena and struggles to capture the meaning of quantum phenomena. Intuition and language are crucial parts of understanding, but we find ourselves on treacherous ground when we try to apply human language or intuition to quantum systems. The confidence that comes with intuition and mastery of language are wholly counter-productive in quantum physics. You need to constantly reexamine what you _think_ you know in the light of both new discoveries and the math. Both are sources of continual surprise.

Hence, if you _think_ you understand quantum physics, you probably haven't given it enough thought.

<comment><USER19> Yes and because we live in the macroscopic dimension we develop the intuition this way and thinking in terms of another dimension makes out heads swirl. Perhaps we'll never build an intuition at the quantum scale, just some tools to abstract it away and get some benefits out of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." \- Richard P. Feynman

<comment><USER21> A related comment from one of my physics profs: "You don't understand quantum mechanics, you just get used to it."

<comment><USER22> Never heard that one before, but I love it.

<comment><USER6> The original version is from Von Neumann

John Von Neumann once said to Felix Smith, "Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think the author (Sean Carroll - whose other books I've read and pre-prdered the one this article comes from) is trying to point out that we're at a stage where maybe we should regroup a bit and find better analogies for what's happening in the quantum world, which may lead to better understanding in the future. The mish-mash of crazy phenomena could be laid out a bit more logically than "wow, check out this insanity!" We need to kill Shrodinger's cat, stop yammering about entanglement, and stop talking about wave functions as if they're real things. There has to be better ways to describe this stuff.

Personally, I think they should start with the nomenclature. It may have been amusing at first to call things strange and up and down and colored, etc. but at this point it's a mess, especially when it's now clear that many particles are just the same thing with varying energy levels.

Also, while I'm on a rant, the double slit experiment is crap. It never shows the particle grouping pattern, just the interference pattern. They _talk_ about measuring the photon at the slit, collapsing the wave function and creating a grouping as if by little ping-pong balls, but it's never demonstrated!

<comment><USER24> The double slit experiment has been repeated many times in single-particle (photon, etc.) mode.

[https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Esperimento-della- doppia...](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Esperimento-della-doppia- fenditura-effettuato-con-elettroni-Le-immagini-sono-prese- dopo_fig47_262251891)

Here is data showing particle grouping patterns. This forms the basis of the many-particle interference pattern.

If you put a detector near the slits to try to measure what passes through, then this pattern does not arise.

<comment><USER23> "...then this pattern does not arise."

Have you ever _seen_ an example of that? There's not a picture on the internet of two groupings that I can find.

<comment><USER24> Here is a transition image of the double slit experiment being disturbed to skew the probability distribution function: [https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mask-movement-A-mask- is-...](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mask-movement-A-mask-is-moved- over-a-double-slit-inset-and-the-resulting-probability_fig1_232608419)

<comment><USER23> Thanks. Just to be clear, I understand and believe the results of the experiment. That said, none of those pics show two distinct blobs as described by Feynman, et. al. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Despite the forthright title, it is worth noting that this is an _Opinion_ piece in the NYT and there are other physicists who would be uncomfortable with the popularising tendency to woo-ify our most successful scientific theory.

<comment><USER6> This opinion piece is written by a well-known research professor at CalTech and sits behind Feynman's old desk.

He's been extolling this exact message for years.

I think he would say he's trying to de-woo QM by asking folks to think critically about it's principles

He is not saying that the predictions that QM gives is wrong.

He's a hard materialist and rejects the Copenhagen interpretation of QM (as many do who think intently about it) and prefers Many World's Interpretation, but admits there's more work to be done. He's saying in the article that folks should work on it.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_M._Carroll](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_M._Carroll)

<comment><USER25> I'm well aware of the author's credentials, writings and views - and would have thought that being in a position of popular renown would have made him more cautious of playing to the crowd with titles that indicate mysticism is the _acknowledged_ heart of the scientific project.

<comment><USER26> I'm not sure how you get from a title like "Even Physicists Don't Understand Quantum Mechanics" to the "mysticism is the acknowledged heart of the scientific project" thing. The heart of science has been trying to figure out things we don't understand which is not the same as mysticism.

<comment><USER25> Quantum Mechanics is sold as weird and magical and unfathomable etc in popular representations. The title _clearly_ bolsters that view and insists the author's confusion is shared by physicists generally.

<comment><USER27> Carroll says essentially this exact same thing in most of his podcast episodes and his dozens of talks and interviews. I don't think there's any sensationalism here. He is indeed saying that the public's impression of QM as inscrutable and mysterious is basically right, in this current scientific climate, and that, even worse, many physicists want to keep it that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think the problem is that people have trouble shedding the illusion that particles are small balls on 3d billiard table.

If they accepted that the wave function with all it's weirdness is the particle they colud get a better feel for quantum mechanics.

Funny thing is that Schrodinger equation that describes how wave function evolves simplifies to classical movement equation if you consider "pointlike" wave function.

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

There's no need for thinking that there's a collapse of the wave function and then some little ball pops up that's governed by different equation. The equation is the same. Just a lot od terms can be simplified if wave fuction is small and sharp. Just like there is no collapse when you slow down from relativistic speed even though you can now skip relativistic terms in equations and still get mostly correct result.

<comment><USER29> How did you conclude that there's no need for thinking that there's a collapse of the wavefunction? How does wavefunction collapse arise from the Schrodinger equation?

<comment><USER28> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehrenfest_theorem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehrenfest_theorem)

Basically classical mechanics is just Schrodinger equation for sharp, small wave functions.

So you don't need to think that due to measurement classical particle pops up out of fuzzy thing that the wave function is. Instead you can think instead that due to measurement wavefunction itself reshapes to be really narrow and sharp but it still obeys same shrodinger equation. Just now thanks to sharpness you can simplify the equation a lot so it becomes classical motion equations.

<comment><USER30> An integral part of quantum mechanics is the actual discrete states, ie the eigen values which it probabilistically chooses during a wave function collapse.

Hence it doesn't behave like a wave, also it doesn't behave like a particle, it behaves like a mix of both. That is quantum mechanics and we don't fully understand the maths of it yet, ie when do these waves behave like particles and when do they behave like waves ie when do the wave function collapse?

<comment><USER28> What I'm saying is you don't have to see eigen values as something of different nature than the wave function. They represent very condensed wave function. Instead of getting rid of all probability by calculating eigenstates you could get rid of just a part of probability (sort of like by using fuzzy numbers in your calculation instead of real numbers) and get something that is close to eigenstates but still is a wave function. If you track such object in time and space you'll see it still obeys Schrodinger equation.

Nobody does that because that won't help you with predicting results of your experiments and it's way more work. But it gives you insight some people crave while others feel it's completely unnecessary.

<comment><USER30> > What I'm saying is you don't have to see eigen values as something of > different nature than the wave function. They represent very condensed wave > function.

They do not represent very condensed wave functions, have you taken even a single course in quantum mechanics? You should have learned about the Double slit experiment in high school at least, how do you explain that using only the schrödiner equation?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double- slit_experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment)

<comment><USER28> The wave function are reshaped by the slits. When it interacts with the barrier with two slits it gets reshaped to have for example very low value directly after the barier far away from the slits. And then final reshaping into something extremely sharp occurs at the screen.

The final reshaping is so precise that given photon wave function gets condensed precisely to a single atom of a particle of the photographic dye.

Anything except for those reshapings is governed by Schrodinger equation.

> [Eigenvalues] do not represent very condensed wave functions

User kgwgk said: "Note that eigenvalues are wavefunctions just like any other state"

Even if mathematically they don't. Same way as limit of a function at some point outside the domain of a fuction is not a value of that function. But if you consider something close to that limit it is still value of that function.

Limits are useful for calculations but if the function represents someting real, limits unlike the function don't actually exist. They are one step more removed from reality than the function is.

What I'm saying is that it might be useful for developing intuition for quantum mechanics to consider that eigenvalues don't exist. That they are just mathematical constructs that are useful to represent wavefunctions that are close in shape to them.

The genral tendency is exactly opposite. To consider wave function to be mathematical construct (becouse complex numbers and no macroscopic analog) and eigenvectors and states they describe as reality (just because we measured something close to their precisely calculated values).

<comment><USER31> The interaction with the slits is governed by Schroedinger's equation because it is not a measurement (if it is a measurement the interference pattern disappears).

<comment><USER28> Sort of. Shrodinger equation doesn't so much describe interaction with the slit barrier as it describes propagation through space not occupied by the slit barrier.

The only difference between passing through a slit and the measurement at the screen is the size and location of the "hole". Measurement at the screen is just a silt of the size of single atom.

If your measurement is just ensuring that photon passed through one slit not the other you no longer have interference pattern at the screen but you still get diffraction pattern. Your measurement didn't collapse a wave to single point because it wasn't precise enough.

<comment><USER31> > Shrodinger equation doesn't so much describe interaction with the slit > barrier

And what would describe the interaction with the slits according to you?

<comment><USER28> If you want to have precise description you would have to look at how interaction with wave functions of electrons bound in atoms of the barrier reshapes wave function of incoming wave reshaping it in a way that some of it bounces off, some of it dissappears to encompass the act of potentially absorbing the photon on the barrier. And part of the wave is left undisturbed to propagate through the slits.

Completely infeasible to calculate but I argue valuable to think about. :-)

<comment><USER31> You know that is all happening according to Schroedinger's equation, right?

<comment><USER28> Culling of the the wave function due to absorbtion by the atoms of the barrier that happens or not with some probability is a consequence of Schrodinger equation? I thought it describes evolution of the wave function in spacetime empty or not (like around nucleus) but doesn't cover any kind of decay, absorptions, emmisions and such.

\---

We reached max thread depth and I can't reply to your response. Not sure if you are going to see this.

If you are using electrons instead of photons for double slit experiment barrier still absorbs them. They get caught by atoms of the barrier or exchange virtual photons with electrons of the barrier. Shrodinger doesn't cover that I think.

<comment><USER31> In principle you can model the interaction between the electrons and the particles in the barrier and the whole system evolves according to Schroedinger's equation and will be described by a wavefunction. This wavefunction may be a superposition of states where the electron goes through the slits and states where it doesn't. Until there is a "measurement" - <USER3> "detection" which is "amplified" - you cannot say what has happened to the electron: every outcome remains possible and the system remains described by a wavefunction. If the detection happens first at the screen there will be a probability of finding the electron at each position and a probability of not finding it at all.

Note that the detection on the screen is done using a scintillator/photomultiplier or something like that to amplifify the detection of a single electron into a measurable electric signal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> What I don't exactly understood is why the hostility toward theories that could lead to quantum gravity and whatnot? What are the historical reasons for it?

<comment><USER33> It's complicated, and it's going to take a long time for historians - <USER4> multiple books - to untangle the failure.

But so far as I can tell it started because Bohr was a bit of a tyrant and didn't like having the Copenhagen Interpretation questioned. So that set the tone for the first few decades. And QM was still developing, so it was more important to solve specific problems than worry about generalities.

After that, progress was still being made on the Standard Model, so there was academic selection pressure pushing graduates towards PhD specifics and away from more philosophical speculations about Quantum Origins.

And after _that_ the String Theory people were much better at aggressive self- promotion than any of the competing QG theories. So something related happened again.

Now there's no data to allow further fundamental progress on the Standard Model. SM alternatives continue being ruled out. And String Theory has run into very serious problems, So there's more interest in Quantum Origins and alternative QG theories. The odds of a big breakthrough are very low, they're higher than they used to be.

And also it's really kind of annoying not to understand what's happening.

<comment><USER11> > _And after that the String Theory people were much better at aggressive > self-promotion than any of the competing QG theories._

I'm not sure if that's a fair interpretation of history. At the time string theory still looked like the best option, and some say that even today it is the closest thing we have to a consistent theory.

<comment><USER26> Was there ever a sting theory that looked plausible to explain gravity say? As far as I can tell it started off as a simple model of how the nucleus held together - to stop the protons flying apart lets model stings holding them together. And then after that it's been let's play with the maths and the aggressive self-promotion thing mostly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> You can read about the newer theory mentioned (but not explained) in the article here: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghirardi%E2%80%93Rimini%E2%8...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghirardi%E2%80%93Rimini%E2%80%93Weber_theory)

</comment><comment><USER35> "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." \- Richard Feynman

</comment><comment><USER36> > If you think you understand quantum mechanics then you don't understand > quantum mechanics.

Richard Feynman

<comment><USER37> This is the third time I'm reading this quote here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Isn't this a tautology?

It's the same with all probanalistic descriptions of a phenomenon, isnt it?

You can use probability to model all kinds of things that you cannot (yet) directly model, cannot observe, and do not understand. It seems natural that it's a way to describe a system not well understood.

Isn't many worlds what you get when you interpret the Randomized Model as Truth?

</comment><comment><USER39> Time to grab your tinfoil hat. Of course physicists don't understand Quantum Mechanics, it has been classified in 1964. Before that time we didn't really have the computational resources to use the alternate model efficiently.

You've got to remember we are talking about the technology which make nukes.

What if the physics world was as simple as the one we teach in high school, a simple classical world with a twist. In the 1950s there were even science kits for kids with Uranium. We were on the track towards a world with clean infinite energy. Clean, yes, because the first fusion bomb had just been tested, and fusion technology was just around the corner.

Then the cold war paranoia made everything change. The Vietnam War brought what ifs ?

What if the know how was so simple that any Vietcong could build a nuke ? What if one of those damn pacifists decided to make one at home ?

They gathered a few people from Los Alamos to seek council. The tale has it that it was Von Neumann that put the final nail in the coffin of the green world utopia. With machines using its architecture, it would, before a few decades, be simple for everyone to simulate everything from chemistry to atom bombs. It was simply not acceptable. They devised a plan to make sure that was not going to happen.

The beauty of science is that once you accept a false result, you can easily disprove the true theories. Then it's just a question of smoke and mirrors (should I say vapor chambers, and single particle detectors ?). Control the experiment results by making sure the experimenters know the theory it needs to prove.

That's how in 1964, a crackpot physicist made the world non-local. It was such a success to attract young new people to the field, that those who knew better played along.

Of course since then smart people saw through the veil and are thankful for the elders' wisdom to not free the dragon.

<comment><USER40> " it has been classified in 1964"

oh, and math too? All over the world? Seriously...

<comment><USER39> QM comes from a time where computers weren't powerful enough. It's a non-local theory that's helpful to calculate by hand. With the advancement of computers, they stumbled upon ways of calculating the same results faster in a different way. It was deemed too dangerous. So they figured a way to backdoor the science.

Come on, it's not that hard of a campfire story to understand, burning-man was last week and area 51 raid is very soon, you gotta step up your game...</comment></comment></comment>


Top Green Business Ideas: Creating a Fingerprint - <AUTHOR> http://www.meetupcall.com/top-10-green-business-ideas-creating-fingerprint

<comment><USER2> I've worked in a building with motion sensor lights. It means you have to wave every few minutes of the lights will go out.

<comment><USER3> I worked in retail and higher-education for a number of years. I saw sensor lights used well and poorly. If tuned correctly and used correctly, they work very well.

Good: sensor lights in walk-in coolers and bathrooms at grocery stores seemed to work very well.

Bad: sensor lights in some classrooms led to some really frustrated profs and a whole class spontaneously, and simultaneously, waving their arms.

I've been contemplating trying them out for my kids' rooms.</comment></comment>


Historical collections reveal patterns of diffusion of sweet potato in Oceania - <AUTHOR> http://www.pnas.org/content/110/6/2205 <comment><USER2> Very interesting. It is amazing how far the Polynesians were able to travel.</comment>


The "fake cell tower" story was PR for a cell phone company - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/security/440934/were-we-all-suckered-mystery-cell-phone-tower-story

<comment><USER2> [http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

It's not a fake story, though, and no one in the press got "played". It's a real story, with the usual lazy sourcing and lazy reporting.</comment>


Snow Leopard: Which Apps Won't Run? - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/171103/snow_leopard_which_apps_wont_run.html

<comment><AUTHOR> MacPorts Python ports are broken as well

[http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/9fm2w/snow_leopard_m...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/9fm2w/snow_leopard_macports_warning_python_ports_broken/)

(I've been dealing with this one all day; the first comment in the reddit thread has been helpful though)

Here is a list of the status of macports ports in Snow Leopard:

<http://trac.macports.org/wiki/snc/snowleopard></comment>


Exposing high-end poker cheating devices - <AUTHOR> https://www.elie.net/blog/security/fuller-house-exposing-high-end-poker-cheating-devices <comment><USER2> The casino industry knew all about this in 2014.[1]

 _" Right now there is some scary technology coming out of China that incorporates IR marked cards, concealed cameras and computer analyzers. Combined to create a high-tech card marking system, I must say that this device could do for cheats what silicon did for the cosmetic surgery business. The devices are being marketed as poker analyzers."_

 _" The technology works like this. The long edge of every card in the deck is marked with an invisible IR marking. Each mark identifies an individual card. In collusion with a poker dealer, the special marked deck is swapped into play. The player sits opposite the dealer on the table. He positions a concealed camera on the table (usually disguised as a cell phone). The camera has an IR lens that is used to transmit an image of the edge of the deck of cards to a small computer located in a smart phone (the poker analyzer) in his pocket. The image is transmitted during the period after the dealer has shuffled the cards and the deck is resting in front of the dealer before cards are dealt to the players. The IR snapshot of the cards looks like a barcode. The poker analyzer identifies every card in the order that they will be dealt to the players in less than a second. A computer-generated voice message is sent to the player via a Bluetooth mini earpiece communicating the rankings of all the hands on the table."_

And the countermeasures:

 _" Most surveillance cameras, in their natural state, actually have infrared viewing capabilities. The problem is the picture is not so good, so manufacturers add a cut filter over the CCD chip to block out infrared light. ... A number of major surveillance camera systems provide end users the ability to remotely change the IR status of the camera via the operator's keyboard. This allows the operator who suspects someone is marking cards at a table to use a PTZ camera assigned to the table to switch to IR mode so the cards can be checked live on the game. If you currently don't have this feature, speak to your manufacturer."_

[1] [http://ggbmagazine.com/issue/vol-13-no-2-february-2014/artic...](http://ggbmagazine.com/issue/vol-13-no-2-february-2014/article/surveillance- report-on-your-mark)

<comment><USER3> I guess my thinking is that if you own the dealer _and_ the deck of cards, the game is already over. There are bound to be easier ways to cheat under those circumstances than adding a Rube Goldberg contraption into the mix.

<comment><USER4> You would be right. I used to run poker games myself. Basically home games that people find out about through meetup etc. While I never condoned cheating and only made money on rake, I had dealers who would offer to cheat. They basically used anything from simple slight of hand tactics to brazenly just stealing chips. The alcohol is always free at the games and bad dealers will pass around drugs to any willing victims.

Some will organize with a group of 5-6 people. They basically come in and collude with a lot of cash to rob the other 4-5 sitting at the table. Once I realized how pervasive cheaters were I stopped playing and hosting games. I was trusted by the cheats and could have worked with them. I didn't think it was worth losing morals over nor the risk. Soon the higher end games started getting straight up robbed at gunpoint.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An interesting bit of computer history trivia is that Claude Shannon co- invented the first wearable computer with Ed Thorp to beat roulette in Vegas in 1961. It used a button in the shoe as an input device for the user to record the speed and location of the ball which was used to infer the likely ending location using orbital decay algorithms. An auditory signal was then sent by wire to an earpiece to let the user know where to place bets (it wasn't pinpoint accurate - the user would bet on 8 numbers which still gave him a positive expected value).

The story around that is really fun, recounted in this paper: [https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/thorp.pdf](https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/thorp.pdf)

Versions of the same device from this century use lasers to get a more accurate read on the ball's location, with one group using the system to net £1m from London's Casinos: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4069629.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4069629.stm)

Thorp was also involved in developing the Blackjack system that was showcased in the film 21 and later ran a hedge fund, details on which were recounted in his interview for this book [https://www.amazon.com/Hedge-Fund-Market-Wizards- Winning/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Hedge-Fund-Market-Wizards- Winning/dp/1118273044). Very interesting guy.

<comment><USER6> Ed Thorp is a very interesting guy indeed. His Memoirs are coming out in the beginning of next year but there's a foreword written by Nassim Taleb that gives a good taste of Thorp: [https://medium.com/@nntaleb/foreword-to-ed- thorps-memoirs-a-...](https://medium.com/@nntaleb/foreword-to-ed-thorps- memoirs-a-man-for-all-markets-6beba78cd2b#.pty00tqyo)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I haven't been to a casino that allows a phone on the table in ages, especially in Asia. Not only that, but most decks are tightly controlled in reputable casinos.

This is more for backroom games (which are still lucrative), but get caught cheating in those and you'll regret it quickly.

<comment><USER8> I played 2/5 NLH at the Venetian in June of 2015 and had my phone on the table most of the time. I had earbuds in and would check twitter and text friends playing at other tables between hands. No one seemed to have a problem with it and I wasn't the only person doing something like that. I never thought it would be a problem actually.

<comment><USER9> The cheating device in this article also required a marked deck. So as long as the house isn't in on it, this cheating method wouldn't work in casinos.

The article did mention that some anonymous sources claim to be using these devices in Vegas casinos, so I wonder of there are some corrupt dealers in cahoots with the cheaters.

<comment><USER10> There was a British show called The Real Hustle where the cast basically performs real world scams on people filmed with hidden cameras. One year, they went to Vegas.

In one of their most brazen scams, they gathered a crew to swap the card shoe at a casino table. It's amazing how much damage nerves of steel, team work, and a split second distraction can lead to.

This particular scam starts at about 22 minutes: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixUvZjIK_Ms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixUvZjIK_Ms)

The expert at the end does mention it is likely bribing dealers and camera operators would be the most likely scenario since the payout is large enough to make it affordable to do.

<comment><USER11> Ballsy and dangerous coördinating that many people to execute something like this. Cool show with the play-by-play shot well / from multiple angles to explain it all. Will check out more of it.

<comment><USER12> _coördinating_

Completely, unabashedly unrelated, but I honestly can't remember the last time I saw dieresis in the wild. Is this a regional thing?

<comment><USER13> That's how It's spelled in The New Yorker, for example.

<comment><USER11> The New Yorker is precisely where I saw & adopted the dieresis way back when. It's also simpler to type on vkeyboards than a hyphen -- click-and-hold vs switching layouts and back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If I bought a device like this, with the clear amount of skill and effort that went into its functions, I would never plug it into a computer, ever.

<comment><USER15> Good point. I also wouldn't ever use it on the same network as any other private devices or use any of its services with private data (as noted, it is a fully functional phone - I would assume that it phones home regardless of my ability to detect it). Sure, the manufacturer would hurt their business by ripping off their clients, but we've already established loose ethics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> TL/DR: phone-like device for reading specially marked cards using infrared

<comment><USER17> It actually works as a phone, too, though.

<comment><USER18> I wouldn't trust this device as a phone, especially not as a smartphone. You couldn't pay me to associate it with a trusted wifi network, put my SIM in there, or actually use an app.

<comment><USER19> Might as well put it in a Faraday cage then as it could be sending your precise location to the FBI...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The article says this device is used to cheat in Vegas, but I don't see how that would be possible since you have to bring your own cards. It's hard to imagine casinos colluding on this, so I guess they're talking about private games that happen to be in Vegas?

<comment><USER21> Most places won't let you have your phone anywhere near the table. Awesome technology, just not built I think for Vegas.

<comment><USER22> I've never played at a place that banned phones. That casino probably wouldn't have many players.

<comment><USER23> At every casino I've been to they will yell at you if you pull your phone out at any table game. If you want to respond to a text you need to step away from the table and wait a hand/spin to bet again.

<comment><USER22> You shouldn't be fiddling with your phone when the action is on you. Using your phone while you're out of the hand is totally fine.

<comment><USER24> Most places I've played won't let you use the phone at the table, and if you're using it they'll deal you out and ask you to get up.

But they don't care if your phone is on the table.

I think this is more to keep the game moving than any concern about cheating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The technique with the markings on the edge of the card is also used in a well known card magic routine - but using wax instead of infrared ink, so you can feel the slight differences in texture when you handle the card (though only if you're paying attention to it).

Takes quite a bit of practice, though.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is an impressive breakdown of an even more impressive device. Realtime(ish) cheating software running on custom concealed hardware in a lookalike device? Used for scamming high rollers in private games? Color me fascinated.

I wonder how long this has been around. I would be very interested to hear from anyone who knows how long these have been available/prevalent. My apologies if this is somewhere in the video, I have not been able to watch it yet.

</comment><comment><USER27> You could never take this into a real casino. The cameras would pickup the infrared signals. The security guys would know something is up since a regular phone doesn't do that.

<comment><USER28> Good point, but it works with marked cards so you essentially have to have control over the deck anyways. It can't work in an official game by a player, the house has to be in on it.

My guess: this device is used to rip off players in backroom games. Marked cards are nothing new. The only novelty here is that the system is hard to detect if you don't know about it. This thing could be completely stealthy though, I suspect that you only have to turn on the infrared LEDs if the environment not lit well. And even that can probably be solved by using a more expensive camera module...

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Previously, decades ago, the state of the art in roulette cheating: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Newtonian-Casino-Penguin-Press- Scie...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Newtonian-Casino-Penguin-Press- Science/dp/0140145931)

<comment><USER30> That's interesting. I dealt roulette occasionally in my younger years ('90s) and we had 3 different sized balls to work with if we sensed someone getting a little too lucky.

I don't know the inner workings of casinos in the modern day, but back then we had a lot of ways to deal with cheating. I'm sure there were pros that we never noticed, but the people who read how to count cards and decided to try it out were easy to spot and deal with. I remember one time the pit boss telling me over my shoulder "that's enough, bring it in" and I said "I'm trying!" because I actually was. I had dumped most of my tray of chips (not all that much on a $25 table) and it was very obvious we had 2 people at the table working on the rookie dealer.

He pushed me out for my twenty minute break twenty minutes early and when I came back the tray was full and the players were surly. I commented "what happened to all your chips?" and the guy on third base stood up, pointed to the dealer that replaced me, and said "that bitch took it all". Cue security and the table cleared out just about instantly.

A few of the things we could do to change things up on a blackjack table:

\- burn extra cards

\- change the shuffle

\- new deck of cards

\- prematurely end a hand

\- encourage non-standard play from the other players

\- encourage a player to walk away

When I ran into the players I mentioned above, I only knew about burning extra cards. You pick up other ways from other dealers who've been around longer and want you to pull your weight by bringing in better tips.

For roulette, there were just the two ways (changing the ball, stop and start the wheel), but it was pretty rare for me to deal that game, so who knows.

<comment><USER31> Counting cards is not actually cheating.

<comment><USER30> No. It's perfectly legal. And the counters you can notice are generally pretty bad at it anyways.

Still, it's discouraged. The casinos would much rather a weekend tourist walk away with a day of winnings than a pro. Tourists tell their friends and inspire them to visit.

<comment><USER31> The bad counters are probably losing money anyway, it doesn't take many mistakes per hour to lose the tiny edge counting can give you.

<comment><USER4> A very skilled counter I know in real life made over 6 figures a year. She played 7-8 months out of the year 8 hours a day 5 days a week. Bets sized from $25-$100 generally. It's not illegal but, once you are identified you are banned from all casinos in Vegas at least. They use facial recognition and catch you walking in the door. There is one guy that works for all casinos and recognizes faces manually along with the FR equipment. My friend mostly only played in Mississippi and other states in the East.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This seems like it'd be mostly used in private games, of which I'm sure there are a huge number. Many of those are probably also going to be pretty high stakes, and if someone loses a bunch they may not be inclined to go to authorities and claim cheating - if said authorities would do anything anyways. ("Awww, you lost your money in an off the books backroom private game? Perhaps next time you'd like to try one of our fine professionally run casinos.").

I suspect that most casinos are set up with surveillance designed to catch point source IR LED illumination these days.

<comment><USER33> Well, if the movies are to be believed, while that may be true, you're liable to get your ass kicked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Hmm with an incredible enough camera you theoretically ought to be able to see and then memorize idiosyncracies per card with any deck and then take it to Vegas at any table. I'd say its possible now, although too slow and expensive and obviously seeing the same card as the same card from every side is the hardest part. The camera and light would probably be a fair amount larger, too.

<comment><USER35> With an _unmarked_ deck, I don't believe the technology currently exists.

I would accept that at a given magnification, every card is unique (including when viewed from the side), and can be uniquely identified.

But without a marked deck, it would need one (probably more than one) run through the deck, to see the value of a card and associate it with an image of the side of the card. Bear in mind you only get to record cards that are shown, so it could potentially take many games to record the full deck, and that's assuming the deck stays consistent.

But even with multiple run-throughs of the deck, I don't think we have the technology to produce that high resolution a camera in a small enough form- factor. Even putting aside expense, the trick here is pre-marked decks, with markings visible only to IR.

Without that, we'd need serious advancements in lenses and sensors before we could have a tool that was discreet enough to pull out at a game.

<comment> Tuna-Fish > Bear in mind you only get to record cards that are shown, so it could > potentially take many games to record the full deck, and that's assuming the > deck stays consistent.

Depending on what game you are playing, you don't need to mark anywhere near the full deck. In hold'em, you can get a definite edge if you manage to mark two aces.

The primary problem is optics. All optical devices are limited by the quantization of light. No matter how good your camera technology, if there are not enough photons bouncing off a target, you cannot see it accurately. Modern cameras (and even your eyes!) are much closer to the hard limits placed by physics than most people think. In the case of a side of a card in not very well lit indoors, I don't think you can discern enough detail without either a large lens or a long exposure, both of which could be hard to pull off inside a casino.

Even painted on markings, they need a bright IR light to pull this off at a close distance. Similarly, your camera would need a bright light source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Before reading this entire post (fairly long) a quick note, this only works with specially marked decks not just any deck of cards.

</comment><comment><USER37> How do people find these "underground forums" and things like that? This fascinates me so much.

<comment><USER38> Tor, probably

<comment><USER4> It's been done via IRC using hacked proxies and VPN forever now. I got in the underground trading scene around 1993. Back in those days I doubt a single Fed knew what IRC even stood for. Now they have infiltrated everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I heard something some time ago about casinos marking their cards with rfid chips to avoid cheating. I wonder if you could make something to read those RFID chips.

<comment><USER18> They just tag the boxed decks so they can verify chain of custody and control.

</comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands I think it would be easier to count cards then to rely on something like this. Sure, you're still working with odds, but then you don't have a device and marked cards which limits your exposure to having something horrible happen to you in some back room game.

<comment><USER40> The article talks about this in the context of poker, not blackjack.

<comment><USER33> It also says it can be used for multiple games though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I can't believe the manufacturer agreed to send them the device! Pretty amazing technology.

<comment><USER42> > I can't believe the manufacturer agreed to send them the device!

The way I understood the article, the manufacturer assumed the guy was a normal "legitimate" customer. They did not expect the guy to do a teardown of the device and write an exposé.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Why not just OCR the faces of any deck with a side reading camera like the ones used for archival purposes to digitize really old books?

</comment><comment><USER44> What's the range on that camera? I can't imagine it's more than 20-30 cm

</comment><comment><USER45> TL;DR tampered deck.

</comment><comment><USER46> Why would you specifically mention "Chinese made" in the title? The actual article has a different title. Also, why does the fact that this device is made in China says anything about the device itself?

<comment><USER47> Half of the entire article is about the difficulties of acquiring the (Chinese!) device, him trying to figure out if this is actually a real device (only made in China!), and eventually going direct to a factory (which is in China!).

Read first, virtue signal second.

<comment><USER48> It's the author's right and responsibility to accurately advertise the article, not the submitter's. We've updated the title from "High end, Chinese made, poker cheating device".

> _Otherwise 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></comment><comment><USER49> i presume this would be about the online poker bots taking over the low level stake tables

</comment><comment><USER34> I'd wager the engineers behind this have thought a lot about voting machines, except I'd bet they'd find a way to cheat me out of both of these gambles.

</comment><comment><USER50> This is pretty silly. No casinos or card rooms let you have a phone/device at the table.

That aside, you need to have a special marked deck. People have tried something similar with flourescent ink and special glasses. I think professional shuffling devices have some kind of built in blacklight check now for this. IR is a bit better since its harder to detect without a camera. You would still need to have a tub of ink and manually mark the cards though.

You'd basically need to have the dealer in on it, and if that is the case you don't really need the device at all.

A more interesting method from a few decades ago that actually worked was "edge sorting". Because of printing/cutting one could determine certain cards. [http://deadspin.com/how-phil-ivey-beat-or-maybe-cheated-a- ca...](http://deadspin.com/how-phil-ivey-beat-or-maybe-cheated-a-casino-for- mill-1562993963)

<comment><USER51> _This is pretty silly._

Someone has gone to extreme lengths to build these things and people pay lots of money for them. And yet your first instinct is to declare it useless.

When you can't see the point of something, maybe it is because you are cleverer than all the other fools, or maybe it is because you don't know as much as you think you do. It is very telling when people automatically assume they are the smartest.

<comment><USER52> The "Chesterton's fence" experiment comes to mind..

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fen...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Why is everyone treating this like it's real?

Isn't this sort of overly-long, overly-detailed, yet still totally vague blog post just a clever way to get people to transfer $2000 via Western Union to a stranger?

<comment><USER54> If it is a con, it is the longest long con you could ever invent.

1) Work hard, become a chief of anti-abuse team at Google.

2) Work harder, publish several papers ranging from self published papers about hacking Heartstone to multi-author papers at conferences like WWW.

3) Create a scam device, describe it in detail.

4) Go present it with you own face and name to the DEFCON.

5) Write a blogpost about the said non-existent device.

Rake in the 2000 USD (which is reeeeally big fat reward for all your effort, risk and credibility) wired to a stranger in China who isn't even identified in the blog... You win a prize.

<comment><USER54> PS: [https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Ayw4GsAAAAAJ](https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Ayw4GsAAAAAJ)</comment></comment></comment>


What's interesting about UDP? - <AUTHOR> https://jvns.ca/blog/2016/12/21/what-s-interesting-about-udp/ <comment><USER2> Interesting "work-in-progress" document. I'm moderately interested in this topic myself ;-) If this thread gets popular, I'd be happy to answer questions with my company's (check profile) experience with UDP on mobile networks around the world.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cjos2SXXEAAUZSP.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cjos2SXXEAAUZSP.jpg)</comment>


Ask HN: I'm cloning my own app into 10x new apps. Is it allowed on Google Play? - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone,
I have made a decently fine app in my free travel time : Memes for Whatsapp - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.makulabs.chat.memes.pro.for.whatsapp&referrer=hn
App lets you search memes, share them on various chat apps, etc. I've also added a bit of Facebook audience network for Ads.
I am now building a script which will make copies of the source, replace string files & some selected assets to generate a brand new app (with a new package ID) which does something brand new but on same lines as of the original app.
ORIGINAL App : search and share memes
NEW CLONE Apps : [search and share inspirational quotes, search and share devotional pictures of gods, search and share pictures of new clothing styles, search and share hollywood actress pics, etc]
All of these cloned apps will have separate ID's, tracking, etc - but will be based on my original source code.
Objective is not to repeat myself. Bug fixes are easier, generating new APK's for all is like just running a script, etc.
*BIG question : Are apps produced from such a process acceptable on Google Play (specially since the manual screening has started)?
Thanks in advance! <comment><AUTHOR> Update - so I wrote scripts to do this and now I have 5 apps live which are "generated" from the same code base.

</comment><comment><USER2> Just keep it in one app and do in-app purchases for different content packs. Much easier.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the idea.

But what if the ideas don't have a common audience? Like devotional apps need a different audience than funny pictures app.

<comment><USER2> Religious people don't like funny pictures?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure about the cloning, but having the names Whatsapp and Twitter in your app name could get the app banned.

<comment><AUTHOR> As per the Google Play Guidelines, having a brand word in a formation like "Foo for [Brand]" is valid. See last section on this help page [https://support.google.com/googleplay/android- developer/answ...](https://support.google.com/googleplay/android- developer/answer/2985717?hl=en)

<comment><USER3> That's good to know. I have 6 apps out that are all made from the same source code, but each one has a couple of changes and all have different icons and images. People used to make cloans of live wallpaper apps, but most of them got the developer banned, so I don't really know what the line is for duplicate apps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you mind sharing links to your apps? It'll be awesome. Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> And are you worried about ethics?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not ethics - but I am just trying not to trip any Google Play Guidelines & get my app banned :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice touch, putting a referrer tag for HN in your URL.

<comment><AUTHOR> Everything should be measured. No? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> don't fill up app stores with this cruft

<comment><AUTHOR> What you think is "cruft" might be of important usage to others. Please don't be so fast to judge. You don't know content usage patterns around the world.</comment></comment>


HPE hasn't abandoned OpenStack, releases Helion OpenStack 5.0 - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/hpe-hasnt-abandoned-openstack-releases-hpe-helion-openstack-5-0/ <comment><USER2> I find the article to be interesting from beginning to end. It was very informative but yet I applaud HPE for adjusting their take on the cloud industry by partnering with SUSE and reinventing themselves with this new OpenStack 5.0 that will be releasing soon.</comment>


Mozilla Position on Web Packaging - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ha00dSGKmjoEh2mRiG8FIA5sJ1KihTuZe-AXX1r8P-8/preview#heading=h.lkpapew31o48 <comment><USER2> If there is any question to if this was published by Mozilla:

[https://github.com/mozilla/standards- positions/issues/29#iss...](https://github.com/mozilla/standards- positions/issues/29#issuecomment-495122302)</comment>


The rise and fall of Sugru - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/article/the-rise-and-fall-of-sugru <comment><USER2> Watched from the sidelines as Jane invented an early version of Sugru at college in 2003/4\. Everyone I knew (and me) thought she was completely bonkers, developing a weird substance that didn't seem to do anything but make a horrid mess of well-designed objects. Saw how doggedly she persisted for years to get it off the ground, eventually winning me over (in theory) for the main use cases. But still, as a hard-won fan with 15 years of anecdotal observation turned admiration, and as an accomplished DIYer and general proponent of fixing things, I couldn't find a use for Sugru in my life.

The real story here is a major life effort, not a crowdfunding over reach.

<comment><USER3> I use Sugru on almost everything I own. It's on my steering wheel and gear shift, it is on my telephone protecting the camera lens, it's on my stylus, fountain pen, keys, and wallet.

Pretty much any time I think "that could have been designed better" I use Sugru. I agree that it's expensive, but it had saved me more money than it costs. I would actually love a subscription, where one gets a single packet in the mail once a month, to address the expiration issue.

<comment><USER4> Do you happen to have any photos documenting this? I'd love to see some of your use cases.

<comment><USER3> I'm not a big social media user, but if there is anything specific that you'd like to see, I'll photograph it.

<comment><USER4> I'm most interested in the phone camera, wallet and keys use cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A lot of people are pointing to weaknesses in the product, but it's a highly convenient little product that applies to a lot of small problems. It was never going to be a huge business, just like 2 part repair epoxy is never going to be a huge business. But that doesn't preclude it from being a successful small company -- Sugru has plenty of benefits over 2 part mixtures. One can sell in Walgreens and the other in Home Depot.

I would propose a different mistake: they simply got too ambitious. If they had raised a little money and grown organically, they could have eventually been a tidy little $5-10M a year business, netting the founder a healthy 6 or 7 figure income. Nothing says you need to follow the start-up venture funded playbook, in fact, most consumer packaged goods businesses do not.

<comment><USER6> At least the article doesn't say how much the founder made. It may well be just the investors that got shafted.

<comment><USER5> Wow, you're right! According to the listing on CrowdCube [1], they only sold 4.6% of the company in the offering. Scratch what I said before, the founders made off like bandits and the investors took almost all of the hit. Sadly not much recourse for them.

[1] [https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/sugru/pitches/bgNOBZ](https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/sugru/pitches/bgNOBZ)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Bloody hell Wired.

Blu Tack was invented in Leicester, and Bostik still make it there. It's reusable and doesn't set or cure, though it deteriorates a bit after a decade in a drawer. Can repair pretty much nothing, but handy for sticking posters to walls. :)

Sugru is/was a silicone putty that cures after a few minutes in air, and expires in a few months in the packet. Seemed terrible value for money based on the tiny packet I bought so I'd never buy again.

At least with two part putties you can keep plenty in a drawer, for years, they don't cure until you've mixed them and cost a fraction of Sugru.

Edit: Well this provoked quite the discussion. If you're looking for repair putty the two main UK brands I know are: Araldite (Now a US brand, mainly DIY and automotive, also epoxy adhesives), and Milliput.com (Epoxy modelling clay, perfect for repairs to plastics, steel etc. Comes in a few grades and colours), with shelf life in decades. Milliput are Welsh. :)

<comment><USER8> It expires after a few months in the packet?

RIP my spare Sugru.

<comment><USER9> This is what bummed me out about it most when I tried it. I had to buy a pack of 6 (maybe smaller sizes are available now), when I wanted to use half of one. The rest was all waste.

<comment><USER10> This might sound a little melodramatic, but it ruins the product for me.

Sugru is the type if product I want to throw in my toolbox for when I need it, because when I need it I NEED it. But instead I have to buy it online, takes 3 days to arrive, and by that time I've already used duct tape and moved on.

It is a good idea and a great product, but the short shelf life is a huge problem.

<comment><USER11> Plumbing putty has been around for a couple of decades and is available in most hardware stores. It hardens to a waterproof seal.

<comment><USER12> > Plumbing putty

Plumbing putty doesn't harden, it's calcium carbonate, petroleum grease, and silica. The hardening stuff is Plumber's Epoxy aka WaterWeld,et. al.

<comment><USER13> Plumber's epoxy putty has been recommended in a number of sailing/cruising "must-have" lists I've read over the years, which has earned it an entry in my (yet-to-be-exercised) provisions list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I repaired a tablet case with Sugru and replaced the worn feet at the bottom of my Macbook with it. I also reinforced several cables with Sugru to prevent breaks. Overall I'm pretty happy with the product, but I don't have many problems where Sugru is useful. It's too expensive to make bigger things out of it and small repairs just don't happen too often.

<comment><USER15> My biggest complaint about it is that it expires! I bought a 5 pack because I had an immediate use and it worked amazingly well.

6 months later I again had a need for it and I went to grab one of the 4 remaining packs and they were all dried out and hard. I flipped them over and there was an expiration date that had passed!

This is the type of product I want to keep on the shelf for when I need it, not something I want to purchase on demand. Also it's expensive.

<comment><USER16> I use this stuff from 3M that is absolutely vile-smelling but delivers the same results as Sugur, for about 1/5th the cost. It comes in these little rolls, with an inner core material and an outer material, which somehow manage to co-exist on the shelf without curing, until you remove the end-caps which expose both layers to oxygen, somehow setting off the curing process .. you then smoosh it together, so it becomes this ultra-disgusting smelling blob, then apply it where necessary. Within a few hours, its like, rock-solid. I've fixed countless things with the batch I bought a year ago, and its still good after living in the fridge ...

<comment><USER17> Would you mind sharing the name of the product?

<comment><USER17> Doing some quick googling revealed this: [https://www.amazon.com/J-B- Weld-8276-KwikWeld-Reinforced/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/J-B- Weld-8276-KwikWeld- Reinforced/dp/B0006O1ICY/ref=pd_sim_263_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0006O1ICY&pd_rd_r=P1AXVGA9SKJ344N92229&pd_rd_w=GuqIi&pd_rd_wg=57g0M&psc=1&refRID=P1AXVGA9SKJ344N92229)

Apparently two part epoxy dries really hard. So not quite the same application as Sugru.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think the problem is the product itself. I bought it online, wasn't that cheap, and wasn't that useful.

And, by that, I don't mean that the product isn't good (it is), doesn't fulfill the purpose (it does), but it just will not be used in that many situations. Sometimes you'll fix the broken thing with commodity glue, sometimes with duct tape, and all those cost less than Sugru.

</comment><comment><USER19> I make my own Sugru: simple silicone caulk and corn starch. I have no idea how well it compares to the real thing, but a repair to the rack inside my dishwasher has lasted for several years without any noticeable degradation. The benefit of this is that the caulk and corn starch last for a while and don't cost as much as Sugru per unit volume.

Source: [http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Make-Your-Own- Sugru-S...](http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Make-Your-Own-Sugru- Substitute/)

<comment><USER20> Sugru seems to be mostly silicone caulk and talcum powder, so probably not that different. A lot more R&D has probably been put into the optimal mixture ratio and choice of solvents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The cost was too high. At $12 USD for a package, it passed my threshold of spontaneous purchase. Silicon tape, which is amazing stuff, is about half that price. Silicon tape is water tight, flexible, bonds to itself, and very versatile. Ultimately I never tried Sugru because more affordable alternatives could do the same job.

<comment><USER22> I don't understand why they don't sell it for a few bucks a sachet in a simple point-of-sale display or via the internet. I'm waaaay more willing to buy one when I need it than have to shell out for a big multipack of stuff that has a limited shelf life..

<comment><USER23> Perhaps because a small part of the cost of the product comes from the sticky stuff itself. Selling a quarter of the quantity may have 90% of the cost of sale. So it might have to be $12 for a pack or, $11 for a small sachet, to be worthwhile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Anecdotally, I bought a pack a few years ago and didn't replace it when used. I was only partially successful at the mends I used it for, and for the cost, simple electrical tape would have been better. And of course regular sticky- tack is still better at hanging photos, etc, and cheaper, and the same goes for multi-surface glue. I am sure there are specialized use cases in which Sugru excels, but I didn't think it worked as a general repair product and I think that hindered its growth if early adopters like me didn't enthusiastically recommend it to others or buy more.

</comment><comment><USER25> > "I'm very disappointed as the funding literature indicated high growth > plans," says a Crowdcube backer who wishes to remain anonymous

I'm not surprised they want to remain anonymous if they failed to perceive a downside in investing in a new product. What would you exepct - "our plans for growth are unambitious and we expect only mediocre performance in the market"?

<comment><USER26> Honestly I would too be disappointed if a company planning high growth goes out and says "whoops we lost a backer, now we're selling" It definitely makes it seem like the company is knowingly misledning investors in an attempt to pull in funding for an urealisabel plan.

If you're at the verge of having to sell the entire company at a loss, the least you can do is try to restructure, reduce costs and plan for moderate growth which doesn't depend on you pulling in huge amounts of funding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I bought some sugru thinking it'd be useful but by the time I wanted to repair with it, it had been too long and it had hardened...

If you have kids it might make more sense but otherwise, I think it's a difficult sell given the cost

</comment><comment><USER16> I wish they'd pushed harder to become a key part of the Maker scene .. I really wonder what a 3D-printer that used Sugru as its base material would be like. Probably prohibitively expensive in comparison with the ABS materials, but then again .. maybe they could have carved a niche in that segment that pushed their value higher.

One thing is for sure, after seeing it adorning various devices and appliances around the scene for a few years, I've come to associate it with "ghetto hackers" who don't have the druthers to just 3d-print replacement parts themselves. It always amuses me to have this thought - its a bloody expensive material, all things considering.

The one thing I consider it really excels at, also, is preserving peoples fingerprints...

</comment><comment><USER28> I put Sugru on the buttons of my camera to make it easier to feel them at night. I was always surprised how well it works and how long the buttons would last.

It makes me a little sad that a company with a good and useful product doesn't survive while others who sell only junk do.

</comment><comment><USER29> Sugru anecdote.

I had read about Sugru in~2011/12 or so -- I wrote to her (inventor of it) and she sent me a packet for free.

Then the Fukushima meltdown happened and a few days later San Francisco experienced one of the most wicked rainstorms ever - and the wind was driving the water against my glass-door flooding my apartment (twin peaks)... there was a hole where the sliding glass door lock should have been on the bottom of the door and the water was flowing in through there - I grabbed a pack of Sugru and molded it into the opening and plugged the leak.

When I discovered the leak at 1AM - I had thought my dg had peed in the dining room...

My dog thanks you, Sugru, for not being blamed for peeing....

</comment><comment><USER30> When Sugru was a new gimmick it made a gift idea for that nephew you have no shared interests with. I suspect that a lot of the initial sales were clueless gift purchases, the packaging looked legit, the product was theoretically useful and what else do you buy someone when everyone has everything (including Blu-Tak)?

Was there any need to get tens of millions in funding? If you have a deal with Target stores or John Lewis in the UK then you can order from your suppliers what they need, do a back of the envelope calculation as to what you can fund on the basis of those sales and stock accordingly.

Greed and hubris gets the better of people though. We have seen it before with boo.com and in plenty of other examples.

Much is said in the article about the 90% lost by investors, I think there is another 90% - I doubt that 90% of this stuff was ever opened or used. It was gifted by well meaning mums and aunties. Then those recipients didn't rate or use the product enough for it to become 'as exciting as cellotape'.

£2 million buys you a posh house in London, so the bank loan wasn't that big in the scheme of things, but a lot of money if your product is neither 'fast moving' or 'big ticket'.

<comment><USER31> "Was there any need to get tens of millions in funding?"

They probably pitched it with plans of expanding into floor waxes and dessert toppings. Or, you know, more than just little sachets of goo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think this exposes the problem with crowdfunding investments. Most people aren't savvy enough to perform proper due diligence, or don't have the risk tolerance. (Edit) Or don't have the time needed to do the kind of due diligence needed to invest in this kind of a company.

On the other hand, crowdfunding products, which essentially is a pre-order, is something I love. It's well within my risk tolerance and due diligence.

<comment><USER33> Indeed. I'm rather dumbfounded that crowdfunded securities were greenlit by the FCA - it opens the door to exactly this situation.

Kickstarter-style project crowdfunding makes loads more sense, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> It was useful for a few things, but much too expensive. £7 for three sachets. For comparison an epoxy sachet is less than a pound and lasts forever.

I think Sugru might have even put the price down - I remember them being even more expensive.

<comment><USER35> Yup.

 _"The challenge of explaining the vast potential of mouldable glue and how it can be relevant to any given consumer has proved to be a lot harder than anyone imagined," said ni Dhulchaointigh._

That was never their problem. Most of my tech-savvy friends knew the product by name and had multiple uses in mind. Literally everyone also agreed that the price just was not worth it.

<comment><USER36> It wasn't the price. It was the fact that it expires.

I have a packet that lives in my fridge forever, as a reminder, behind my many mustards. The mustards may live forever, the Sugru won't.

<comment><USER31> If it's in your fridge it's probably still good. Might need to warm up a little first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Sugru is just overpriced thermoplastic. Search Instamorph, Polymorph, Moldable Plastic for cheaper options. It comes in dry pellets that don't dry out like sugru.

<comment><USER38> Well, technically it's an air-curing silicone rubber ... but you're right, actual thermoplastics like Polymorph are cheaper, don't expire and can be re- melted if you're not happy with a first attempt at something, or you want to reuse the material in a different project.

<comment><USER37> You're right. The end result is very similar though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I would like to see what the cost of all the chemicals needed to make it. I have seen a few companies fail because the vastly overpriced the product they made, thus killing their market. Would sugru have met with success at a lower price? I for one(of many I see) put off by the huge cost.

<comment><USER40> I agree. I wasn't even aware of the expiration issue. I was too put off by the price to ever try it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I bought some many years ago, entranced by its promises, but then somehow never managed to find a concrete use for it.

This does not say good things about the product's viability.

</comment><comment><USER42> Bad headline. Crowdfunding isn't what killed it, the failure to meet bank loan requirements was.

</comment><comment><USER43> Since they've been acquired, hopefully it'll get considerably cheaper now.

</comment><comment><USER44> I suprised and sad that they failed. I guess the product may still be available from the acquiring company ?

Having kids who damage toys all the time, Sugru was really universal repair tool for us.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'd be interested to know whether they qualified for EIS ([https://www.crowdcube.com/pg/eis-seis-tax-relief- overview-43](https://www.crowdcube.com/pg/eis-seis-tax-relief-overview-43)) or not. It'll allow to deduct parts of the losses made against your taxable income and therefore the overall amount lost could be much less than the 90% quoted in the article.

</comment><comment><USER46> I heard about Sugru when it first came out. I bought a few 6 packs and gave some to my engineer friends. I think I was the only one who got pretty exited about the possibilities. Since then, I have lost several packets to age, and learned to keep any I bought in the fridge. As several people have said, I would love to know a place to get the raw materials. It is much nicer to work with than silicone caulk.

</comment><comment><USER47> I was minutes away from investing £5k to sugru back in 2014...I was convienced the product would be popular like sellotape or superglue :(

</comment><comment><USER48> I love Sugru, it works great. I don't care that it expires because I only buy it when I need. I know people that buy it in bulk because they use it very often. The loan out audio/video equipment and use it to reinforce cables and fix things. I've also found that it lasts well past the expiry, it is definitely a conservative date.

</comment><comment><USER49> Wow, I had no idea it was still around.

I checked my GMail, and I ordered 2 "Smart Hacks Super Packs"(multi-color multipack of sugru) on 21 October 2010. I'm pretty sure most of it is still in my freezer. Well, by that I mean, it survived 2 moves and is now living in its 3rd freezer.

I guess, ultimately, I just don't have to mend that much stuff.

</comment><comment><USER50> The ridiculously high cost and short shelf life put me off sugru, but looking in to it did lead me to a handy and cheap DIY alternative - clear silicone mixed with corn starch. I don't know how the 'rubbery' property compares to sugru after it sets up, but it worked nicely for my needs.

<comment><USER51> Its shelf life is advertised as something like 1.5 years if you keep it in the fridge. Just the other day I used some that must be about three years old and it worked fine.</comment></comment>


Need A Lab In Outer Space? Try Science Exchange, The Airbnb Of Weird Science - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1800957/the-airbnb-of-weird-science

<comment><USER2> After working in academic research for 10 years I can't see this ever working. I don't a single scientist that would trust another lab to run their studies for them. Unless it's something completely routine or just controls where there's an expected outcome.</comment>