Toward a Mature Science of Consciousness - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5986937/ <comment><USER2> John Vervaeke argues that much of our trouble with studying or defining consciousness is due to its fundamentally recursive nature.

Start with the definition: A conscious being is one which is conscious of itself.

Seems circular, but there is really no good non-recursive definition. This definition also seems to "ring" perfectly well with random people on the street.

It has been argued that any attempt at a non-recursive definition of consciousness includes things which most people don't consider to be conscious, see for example the paper titled "If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious".

Which leads to the problem of identification: how do we know that rocks are NOT conscious? Or, more interestingly, how I know the universe itself in its totality is not conscious? The universe certainly must have all the requisite "components" of consciousness, whatever those components are.

Once again, the process of identifying is recursive. A conscious being can only identify, with 100% certainty, its own consciousness. Any "other" thing could theoretically be a p-zombie or a Turing Test.

Corollary: No conscious being can know, with 100% certainty, that a particular entity is NOT conscious.

Could we have a science of a recursive thing? Perhaps, but only if we are willing and able to accept a recursive model with circular arguments.

<comment><USER3> >No conscious being can know, with 100% certainty, that a particular entity is NOT conscious.

You might be interested in a very short 2011 paper of mine, "A paradox related to the Turing Test", on page 90 here:

[https://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/researchcentres/reasoning/TheRea...](https://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/researchcentres/reasoning/TheReasoner/vol5/TheReasoner-5\(6\).pdf)

I'll paraphrase the paradox here. Suppose you can magically detect conscious entities. I begin speaking to you, and you are obliged to periodically guess whether or not I'm conscious.

Here's what I'll do. Whenever you are guessing that I'm conscious, my entire dialog will consist of nothing but "Uhhhh..." over and over, until you change your mind and start thinking I'm non-conscious. Whenever you are guessing that I'm non-conscious, then I'll speak normally.

Since I _AM_ conscious, and you have your magic conscious-detecting ability, you should eventually reach a state where you're certain I'm conscious, and you don't need to change your mind any more thereafter. But once we've reached that state, which only takes finitely much time (so for all you know my whole dialogue could've been a tape recording), thereafter I only ever say "Uhhhh..." A non-conscious machine could do that, so do you change your mind? If you do, contradiction, if you don't, contradiction.

<comment><USER4> I would reach the conclusion that you are conscious, but a bit obnoxious or you like playing games.

<comment><USER3> You're implicitly assuming that you yourself have free will and/or are too complicated for a computer to mimic. Because if not, then I could just be a computer which doesn't even hear the words you are saying, and is merely reacting to the words I would hear if I did have ears (which I can do because I have your entire sourcecode built into me).

The longer you meditate upon this very silly paradox, the more unsettling it becomes :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I found that Dan Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" really resonated with me. His thesis is (as best I can condense a whole book to fit in an HN comment) that consciousness is essentially an illusion produced by the brain as the best model it can construct of the sensory input it receives. But the model actually lags behind the present, and its history can be rewritten when new information comes in. Dennett describes it much better than I do, and provides a lot of experimental evidence. If nothing else, the experiments he describes will make you see your own consciousness in a new light. I recommend reading the book.

<comment><USER6> I've always felt that Dennett has side stepped the question here. The 'hard problem' here is to explain how a set of physical processes give rise to consciousness or sensory experience at all. In other words, why the lights are on.

As far as I can tell, consciousness is literally the one thing in the universe that can't be an illusion. Even if, in the extreme case, we're brains in a vat, etc.

<comment><USER7> _The 'hard problem' here is to explain how a set of physical processes give rise to consciousness or sensory experience at all. In other words, why the lights are on._

But subjective experience isn't the light being "on" or "off". Subjective experience is a messy, fuzzy collection of stuff. People do things without intending to, people believe things they've automatically were intentional and reverse. The zone between waking and sleeping isn't set, etc. etc.

If one does the "blind spot" experiment, one realizes one's vision is constantly confabulating to make for vision's imperfections. And so-forth.

So there's no reason no to expect that our experience and memory of consciousness isn't a incomplete reflection of what's actually happening.

Lots of people strongly believe they have a soul. That's clearly anti- materialist and has no basis in reality but it seems like a quite natural illusion (one that the "hard problem" ideology resembles). The "subjective experience exists" statement, if it's taken to mean a single, uniform fabric of experience exists, seems unjustified given the overall messiness I mentioned and if the hard-problem claim isn't this, what is it?

<comment><USER6> I'd take your argument further even. We could be mistaken about every experience we've ever had. Let's take the brain in a vat example, in which none of our sensory experiences accurately model reality.

This has no bearing on the hard problem of describing consciousness or how organic material (maybe silicon some day) gives rise to it. It also doesn't indicate how a physicalist picture of the mind could, in principle, capture the phenomena.

<comment><USER8> You can be mistaken about the content of your experience, but I can not conceive you you can be mistaken about _the fact you 're having one_.

Dream, delusion, reality, drugs, schizophrenia, completely fabricated sensory manifold, whatever; the content _does not matter_ for purposes of this question. Is that brain in a jar experiencing something? Is it _experiencing at all_?

That's consciousness.

<comment><USER9> But wouldn't it mean that literally all living beings have consciousness? That consciousness is not a binary thing, but there are many levels of consciousness.

Humans always liked egocentric views -- "The Earth is the center of the Universe". Or another version: "Humans are superior because they have consciousness".

If there are many levels of consciousness, one may imagine some extraterrestrial super intelligent beings that are many levels above humans, that would think of humans as non-consciousness beings -- like we think of many animals.

Now, if we go down instead, we can say that all animals with brain are conscious (just as not as we are), can't we?

<comment><USER8> Yes, it does.

In fact, I submit that it's the duty of anyone saying that the line separating "conscious" and "not-conscious" animals is _here_ or _there_ has to justify not just why that's where they drew the line, but _that there is one in the first place._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I always found fascinating how, given enough time, organic matter evolved to the point where it became aware of itself, created mental forms to communicate with itself (language), named and categorized itself (human beings, plants, animals, rocks, etc) to try to understand itself.

The water that I drink has been inside countless beings for eons. My body is composed of elements that have been on this planet for eons. I think I'm separate from the rest of the planet, of the system, but am I, really?

I am like a VM inside an hypervisor. I think I'm separate from the whole, but that's only an illusion.

Our senses are powerful and allow us to navigate the world, but if we train ourselves to go beyond them, beyond the language we collectively created, beyond even our memories and thoughts/feelings associated with them, what will we find? Perhaps consciousness is something that should be studied individually?

</comment><comment><USER11> I seems to me the way forward to understand consciousness scientifically is making computer simulation of parts of conscious awareness and comparing with how it works in real brains until the results are similar. "What I cannot create, I do not understand" as Feynman had on his blackboard. [https://www.quora.com/What-did-Richard-Feynman-mean-when- he-...](https://www.quora.com/What-did-Richard-Feynman-mean-when-he-said-What- I-cannot-create-I-do-not-understand)

Neural scene representation and rendering (deepmind.com) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17313937](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17313937)

seems a step in that direction.

<comment><USER12> > What I cannot create, I do not understand

Does not imply that you necessarily understand what you can create.

In this instance, I feel creating something that behaves like a normal brain would not straightforwardly lead to an understanding. In the contrary, it may left us with more questions than answers.

<comment><USER13> > In this instance, I feel creating something that behaves like a normal brain > would not straightforwardly lead to an understanding. In the contrary, it > may left us with more questions than answers.

Depends on what level of abstraction you create it.

Two examples:

1\. a person creates a complex video game using assembly language (Roller Coaster Tycoon). It can probably be said this person understands very intimately how every aspect of his game works at every level of the computer.

2\. a person creates a complex video game using <Unity, Unreal, etc.>. It can probably be said that the person understands how their game works at a high level, but lower levels (memory, OS, graphics) are still magic to that person.

<comment><USER14> #1 certainly not. Chaotic systems (such as the game of life) are easy to build from scratch, but very hard to understand. Reduction is not understanding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A good start towards defining consciousness is to box it in with edge cases: a person in coma? a severely mentally retarded person? a person on hallucinogenic drugs? a dog? The answers to these edge cases can help us separate possibly entangled concepts that seem to come under the umbrella of consciousness.

I would concentrate on collecting empirical evidence, at the expense of developing further theoretical speculation along the lines of "p-zombies". I could see a Darwin-like figure traveling widely and recording detail minutely, and using it to make the case for simple unifying force behind an enormous spectrum of variation.

</comment><comment> wu-ikkyu If controlling and isolating variables is crucial to objective science, and using our own consciousness is a requirement to test/observe consciousness, is it even possible for us to objectively test consciousness?

</comment><comment><USER16> Is there a simple explanation for why consciousness (as an idea, or something distinct from unconsciousness) is necessary?

I think my wording was poor. I don't mean necessary for things that may exhibit consciousness. I mean why should consciousness even be considered to exist? Why is it a necessary complication to understanding the mind?

<comment><USER17> Does the idea of consciousness have any explanatory power? Does it pick out something substantively different than unconscious processes? If we were to replace all talk about consciousness with talk about molecules swirling about, would we lose something? I think the answer to these questions is yes. It seems that consciousness is a necessary feature of a complete explanation of the world in the same way trees and tables are. That is, even if these things can be reduced to more fundamental things, talk of tress and tables, and consciousness is still important.

<comment><USER18> You could probably use few more specific words to a greater effect. Such as self-model, world model, memory, information processing, directed action, responsiveness. Consciousness is a bit too underdefined a word. It is probably not as much of a whole as a tree or human as an organism is - it is not even persistent nor stable - and leaves no persistent traces in the world.

You don't get a consciousness carcass left behind or a "monad" as some current theorists postulated. At least we haven't found any.

<comment><USER17> But consciousness picks out something different from self-model, world model, information processing, etc. That is to say, none of these things sufficiently describes the processes we refer to when we talk about consciousness. A replacement concept would need to capture everything real about the term. We can replace water with H2O in any context and it makes sense. But there are contexts where we can meaningfully speak of consciousness where self-model (apparently) doesn't completely fit, e.g. "the pain of my stubbed toe overwhelmed my conscious experience".

<comment><USER18> Replace by "overrode my decision capability" (meaning you cannot act beyond reflex) or "overran my symbolic capability" (it was so big you cannot describe it) or perhaps overrode your other senses (couldn't sense anything else physically) or perhaps "stopped your self model from updating" (blocked integration of other perceptions).

Better? Definitely less poetic but perhaps more accurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A pet hypothesis of mine: I think consciousness comes from our evolved brain capability to simulate and predict the behavior of others for the purpose of recognizing if we are conned. Consiousness then is being able to apply this capability to ourselves.

</comment><comment><USER20> Check the ideas of Bernardo Kastrup. [https://bigthink.com/robby-berman/are- we-all-multiple-person...](https://bigthink.com/robby-berman/are-we-all- multiple-personalities-of-universal-consciousness)

[https://www.bernardokastrup.com/p/papers.html](https://www.bernardokastrup.com/p/papers.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> I recently read Bruce Hood's The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity. I think there are some interesting ideas there and in Matthew Lieberman's Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect about the evolutionary value of consciousness that are a bit of a different take, in that consciousness's advantage might be seen as an improvement to collaboration and that identity is more of a means to that end than an end in itself.

</comment><comment><USER22> 2011 "Explicit memory as a framework for the neural correlate of consciousness" [https://www.dropbox.com/s/huol1vf4j1fs1ll/mind_matters.pdf?d...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/huol1vf4j1fs1ll/mind_matters.pdf?dl=0)

</comment><comment><USER23> the many problems in the study of consciousness are well documented (hence why this thread begins with "toward a...") -- so of course it must be studied in an interdisciplinary manner (what cognitive science attempts to do). can somebody more familiar with this work in particular explain what it contributes, or summarize the idea behind MICS for us?

</comment><comment> bra-ket too philosophical, how about figuring out first how we identify objects, parse sentences or recall things from memory before talking about consciousness

<comment><USER24> There is a functional and descriptive science of the apparatus of our consciousness, i.e. the things you describe.

There is also the profound mystery of how individually 'unconscious' physical constituents of our nervous system can give rise to our conscious experience of the world.

The domain of the first is neuroscience and will yield its mysteries to us in time.

As for the Hard Problem of Consciousness as I've described it above, I have resigned myself to the belief that we will never be able to peel back that fundamental mystery. One could (and many have) write volumes on why this is the case, but I believe the simplest explanation of why the Hard Problem is Hard is that we are unable to even state the nature of the problem in a satisfactory way. Our language (our comprehension) fails when we try to probe at the root of consciousness.

<comment><USER25> > One could (and many have) write volumes on why this is the case, but I > believe the simplest explanation of why the Hard Problem is Hard is that we > are unable to even state the nature of the problem in a satisfactory way.

Or the nature of our perceptions simply fools us into thinking there's actually a problem to solve.

<comment><USER26> Or our brains are tricking us into believing that they are universal knowing machines -- that is anything we cannot know cannot be, and anything that is we are capable of knowing.

<comment><USER18> Interesting figure of speech "our brains". Did you employ some other reasoning tool formulating that sentence? (Yes you did, quite a few. Those tools were designed using the brain too.)

<comment><USER26> I don't follow -- but I'm curious what you mean?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Haha eventually with all this theory they will just declare "this is what consciousness is!" and tell all of us that our experiences of consciousness are invalid. Most likely we will sit down and take it, like ok, you win scientists. Then we will be replaced by dumb but efficient robots. Yay.

<comment><USER25> Kind of like they declared "this is what life is", and they were probably right to do so. Vitalism and dualistic theories of consciousness both belong in the dustbin of history.

<comment><USER27> I belong in the dustbin of history, we're hanging out in the dustbin and I'm throwing a party. Everyone can come wrestle in the mud.

<comment><USER28> I wonder sometimes if scientists will solve consciousness and realize that we should have just been partying and having fun with each other the whole time.

<comment><USER29> We picked capitalism, it was a choice, and it says some people get to party sometimes, but not all of the time, unless they did a really good job once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Our medical ethics prevents us from directly studying consciousness in a way that would give us strong casual explanation. I'm unsure if we'd ever allow it actually.

We might get around the edges, but until you can show you can directly turn consciousness off (and back on again probably) in vivo, in the same way we try to do with every other "effective" medical treatment, the strength of any proof is going to be inconclusive.

The closest we'll probably get is eventually creating some system which convincingly displays the characteristics that humans recognize as "Consciousness." Hopefully we can stop talking about it then.

<comment><USER5> > until you can show you can directly turn consciousness off (and back on > again

But we can, and we do -- every day. That's exactly what general anesthetics do. It's also what happens during sleep.

<comment><USER27> Hm really? Try more drugs, like ketamine. Dissociatives in general will give you an interesting perspective on these issues. Personally, I feel conscious in my dreams while sleeping. Also there are gradations of sleep state, such as the one where you don't get high quality sleep because you partially monitor your scary environment.

<comment><USER31> Evan Thompson explores these ideas further in his book 'Waking, Dreaming, Being' if you're so keen. A brilliant guy, who successfully integrates information from various cognitive disciplines, though he can be dry at times.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


"Blob-free OpenBSD kernel needed" - <AUTHOR> https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=143355112811564&w=2 <comment><USER4> I've gone down the road of setting up a "blob-free" system, just to see what it might take, and it turned out (unsurprisingly) that it requires an enormous amount of sacrifice and effort. In the end I had a fragile old thinkpad x60 that ran an OS that got in my way. I lacked the time/effort/enthusiasm/means to commit to the cause, and now it's sitting in the corner collecting dust.

<comment><USER5> To piggyback off of the above comment; There does exist a completely, as in 100%, free laptop for sale. "This is extremely rare in modern day computing."[0]

[0][http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/](http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is it just me or is there a conspiracy not to determinedly and aggressively seek alternatives to closed firmware in the so called open source world? Theo de Raadt's response makes me feel that some people who claim to be committed to open source are happy to violate the principles by giving hardware providers who are not committed to the principles an easy ride.

I mean how many leading Linux/Open Source developers are ready to say 'we don't really like it, but if you want to use their hardware you will have to use their blobs'

How hard is it for open source designers to design their own hardware and open the firmware for it? How difficult is it for hardware developers to release the specs for dated hardware to allow software improvements, and keep the firmware for new more performant hardware closed.

The complainer has a point. It is disingenious for Linux to claim commitment to open source and neglect be virtually silent on the threat closed firmware blobs pose in this era of security issues.

<comment><USER7> The OpenBSD developers are concerned with working on OpenBSD, not leading some crusade against closed-source firmware. If it bothers you that much, then do as Theo says and don't use hardware that requires the blobs. If there are no open alternatives, why is that OpenBSD's problem?

<comment> vezzy-fnord Not to mention the implication that the BSD and Linux communities don't care about software freedom is patently false. The two communities have very much been willing to fork or reimplement things from scratch because of licensing reasons all the time, even when the result ends up worse (e.g. Debian's cdrkit forked from cdrtools).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm happy Theo dealt with this in a swift manner

"You don't know jack shit about computers or electronics, that much is obvious."

You might be sensitive to profanity (I am not), but it seems is a waste of time and energy to try to explain them the obvious.

"Fact is, modern hardware simply "is what it is". Telling people that OpenBSD should not run on such hardware is a gigantic illusion."

A good, realistic view, as opposed to that by Richard Stallman

<comment><USER9> For what it's worth, Stallman thinks that firmware is an integral part of hardware, and doesn't seem to think of it in the same way as other software.

<comment><USER10> IIRC he thinks that if the code is updateable, it should be free and it should be possible to replace it with code of ones own creation, if so desired. Completely non-updatable firmware in ROMs he is OK with being non-free.

<comment><USER11> That's the problem. I understand and respect Richard Stallman, but I can't agree with him on this subject.

How can you know that firmware is "completely non-updateable"? You trust the vendor with that, there's no way to know for sure. What's more - <USER2> (~1.5y ago) somebody figured out how to update firmware of microSD cards [1]. Thanks to him, if we want to apply FSF's point of view, microSD cards suddenly became unacceptable, non-free hardware, while before that blog post they were just fine.

I'm involved in development of Neo900 [2] phone and already had fair share of discussions about freedom and openness of components with various people. I was a part of Openmoko community in the past and remember the TI Calypso modem used inside Neo1973 and Neo Freerunner. At first they were non-updateable (for consumer), so were acceptable to RMS. Some time later Openmoko Inc. got firmware fixes for pretty annoying bugs like SIM compatibility and started trying to figure out how to distribute the updates. They obtained a license to redistribute the updater tool, provided the instructions and the firmware image. Suddenly, Neo Freerunner became non-free hw.

Then, some time later, partially thanks to Openmoko who provided the updater and instructions, OsmocomBB [3] was born (Harald Welte, who initiated OsmocomBB, also worked earlier in Openmoko). Suddenly Neo Freerunner became free again because there's a free firmware available for Calypso now.

So my device I was carrying in my pocket, without any my intervention, went from free to non-free and to free back again. Fun!

Also, as a user who cares about his freedom, I prefer to have a hardware with updateable or even entirely user provided non-free firmware than a black-box with the same non-free firmware inside, but not updateable. Of course over that I'll prefer a hw with open firmware, but in the case of the black box, there is even no hope that such a firmware will be provided in the future. And when at the same time you cannot be 100% sure that it really is non- updateable, then what's the advantage? I can't see any.

In theory, I can agree with FSF and RMS. In practice, hardware doesn't really work that way.

[1] [http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554](http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554)

[2] [http://neo900.org/](http://neo900.org/)

[3] [http://bb.osmocom.org/](http://bb.osmocom.org/)

<comment><USER8> Good point

And today, chances are the firmware _is_ updatable, even if it's not documented/supported.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord It's about time a decent Theo de Raadt smackdown made it to the front page of HN. The scale of the condemnation directed toward Linus Torvalds is quite unfair when there's even more stern (and often correct) ranters than him.

<comment><USER7> I'm sure I wouldn't want to find myself at the other end of a Theo or Linus rant, but they sure are entertaining to read. Let's face it: a majority of people probably wish they could be so direct, especially when dealing with those who do effectively zero research before wasting everyone's time.

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure the majority of people really wish that. There are plenty of places where you _can_ rant on mailing lists, but it's not really a great way to spend time. Better to just calmly correct things that are worth correcting, ignore things not worth responding to, and move on to other things. Imo this style of rant isn't even entertaining once you've seen more than a few of them, because they basically follow a template. (Suggested AI class project: write a generator for Theo rants.)

<comment> vezzy-fnord _Suggested AI class project: write a generator for Theo rants_

Or just use theo(1) from 9front: [https://plan9front.googlecode.com/hg/lib/theo](https://plan9front.googlecode.com/hg/lib/theo)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> While it is naive to imply closed blobs could ever fully or easily be replaced, it is also naive to blame the kernel user for having bought the hardware. For add-on cards, sure, but the line is not always that clear. Many are simply making do with the hardware they were gifted, or that is embedded, and so it's an all-or-nothing scenario. The closed blob in question may be getting loaded for something the user can't unplug or replace. Everything costs money, and not everyone can afford to throw away an imperfect choice and start again.

I can typically blacklist things, but I need to know they are there to begin with so, to me, the problem boils down to the kernel, and other software, potentially doing things that I don't want. Since closed kernel blobs are clearly controversial, something as simple as highlighting their loading and making it as easy as possible to prevent it from happening on future boots may be enough. If the process is in place, it can be a simple lack of orientation - but Theo's response certainly doesn't help with that.

As for running blob-free in general... It's not that hard, really. Often the only loss is fast 3D. Debian does a good job of separating free from non-free - and really, that is enough, since adding non-free items then becomes a conscious act (there can be other ways of making the distinction though).

<comment><USER11> See, even you are confused.

If you give "loss of fast 3D" as an example of running blob-free, you didn't understand what Theo is talking about. 3D drivers run in user or kernel space, there is a clear policy about how to deal with stuff like that in basically any serious operating system that labels itself free and open.

This mail was about firmwares. The little blobs your OS has to upload into memory of your WiFi card, Bluetooth controller, sensors, camera... and that's all it has to do with it. The rest happens on completely different CPUs - <USER3> ones that live inside your WiFi card, Bluetooth controller, sensors, camera...

Even if your hardware seemingly doesn't require the blob to be loaded, it's most likely because it simply has a on board memory to store it. Some don't (obviously, that's cheaper way) and require user to load their firmware before they can operate.

And nowadays, basically anything has such a firmware. Even microSD cards.

From OS point of view, the only sensible approach to differentiate between free and non-free firmwares is to ask a question "is it freely redistributable?". If you go deeper than that, you enter the Open Hardware territory - which comes with its own set of principles and pandora boxes.

<comment><USER13> (I'm saddened that you can't imagine ever needing to load FPGA, NAND, or VRAM "firmware" to boot a GPU.)

> "the only sensible approach to differentiate between free and non-free > firmwares is to ask a question 'is it freely redistributable?'"

Is it? That's the question. It may not be when _not_ differentiating between licenses, as shown by the current conversation, is differently important to different people. I'm still convinced that it's just a disagreement over log verbosity. It is perfectly appropriate for a kernel to support loading non- free anything... It's even a feature. I just want to know what it's doing, and show me a line based on a license that I fully acknowledge the kernel doesn't need to differentiate between other than for clear logging. I am simply hoping, as a user, to get the information I need to make informed choices, including the ability to turn feature X on or off as I see fit. I can only know to buy different hardware when I am told about the blob, and I can only see the effects of my goals if I can progress towards them (by disabling binary loading). I shouldn't have to guess, the feedback and levers should simply be presented clearly.

I will stop tilting at this one, for lack of OpenBSD-specific examples, but I'm really just advocating for better information - not reducing hardware support or anything so nonsensical.

<comment><USER11> How can you be sure that the firmware blob you got for some chipset is really some software compiled from source code and not a hand made initialization structure for some registers needed for it to operate properly?

Or maybe you need some custom, proprietary solution to compile it that even the company that developed this hardware have no rights to redistribute?

Or maybe even the company you bought that hardware from has no idea about the source code or firmware, because they simply used some chipset available on the market?

Or...

It's really counterproductive to differentiate it in this way. It doesn't help the cause at all. The license of firmware blob is really _not_ a kernels issue. It's a lower layer - you can go for that when you start requiring all your hardware to be open. Otherwise, it's like bashing Mozilla due to Firefox not providing an option to load only Creative Commons or similarly free content from the Web.

The kernel is here just to upload a bitstream to memory of some device. For kernel, it doesn't matter if it's open or not. It's just set of bits needed to be sent somewhere, nothing more, nothing less. It not like a typical software, as it's not even executed on your system.

<comment><USER13> I don't think it's counterproductive at all and we actually agree in a sense. In a sense, opaque blobs are the default license category. Moving past that, if we can acknowledge that unambiguously (positively-stated) non-proprietary licenses are worth favouring, it _is_ worth differentiating as a means to an end of open hardware.

For example, I would appreciate a "noblob" kernel option. If my system doesn't boot, I may reverse that choice, but I can also (still) hope for, and request, useful information along the way so I can choose the closest to ideal (for me) from the options available.

At some point it becomes a "if you don't like it, submit a patch" scenario, which is fine. It is more likely to lead to that when the response isn't overwhelmingly dismissive or insulting.

<comment><USER11> You already have such option. On Linux, you simply don't install or remove stuff from /lib/firmware

However, ideologically it doesn't make any sense, since when your kernel is booted you're most likely already past the loading of lots of non-free blobs in lots of chips. Kernel deals only with the ones that don't have internal memory to store them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> On a more pragmatic note, how can a person who 'don't know jack shit' figure out what hardware on their system requires non-free blobs for operation? (either in BSD or Linux)

<comment><USER15> On OpenBSD you can check the man page for fw_update IIRC. That utility is responsible for downloading firmware that couldn't be included in the kernel tree due to legal stipulations.

I went down the road recently to try and build a binary firmware free desktop. I gave up. I did manage a no non-free firmware build, which runs OpenBSD spectacularly, but I couldn't get rid of all firmware blobs.

It seems like open hardware is very hard to come by in this respect. Even swapping out your bios for coreboot is not possible for many (most?) systems-- never mind all the other umpteen specialty computers running in your computer. A computer isn't one computer these days, and you will have a hard time taking a principled stand on all your software being free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If one knows what he is doing, it's possible to build such computers (PC, server). You can run PCs with just the generic drivers that come with Windows or ReactOS, and the same goes for Linux and *BSD. It's usually means a few sacrifice and more effort on your side. Some distributions (afaik Debian) come without any blobs by default, but can be added to apt list. And maybe one should learn the difference between GPL and BSD licensed software - both have their advantages and disadvantages.

<comment><USER17> What about hard disk controllers and the like? I think that's what Theo is talking about here.

I'm not an expert, but I won't be surprised if it's completely unrealistic.

<comment><USER18> Hell, what about _hard disks_? Those have firmware too; it's often updatable from the host, and can be modified to add surprising new behavior:

[http://www.malwaretech.com/2015/05/hard-disk-firmware- hackin...](http://www.malwaretech.com/2015/05/hard-disk-firmware-hacking- final-part.html)

But, oddly enough, I have yet to hear anyone calling for open-source hard drives...

<comment><USER17> I believe that's what I said. The hard disk controller is a chip packaged with the hard drive. The CPU talks to the hard disk controller to get data from the disk, with IDE commands or something like that.

I think controllers used to be dedicated circuitry, but now they are more like CPUs with firmware.

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

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controller_(computing)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controller_\(computing\))

In a modern computer, there are dozens of these little chips, each having security implications. Nobody knows the provenance of all the code since they are mostly manufactured overseas.

<comment><USER18> Oh, when you said "hard disk controller" I thought at first you meant the SATA bus master.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This email was a bit harsh. The first poster was a bit clueless but I'm sure it would have been possible to correct all the misconceptions without being rude. And I'm a bit surprised to see a high profile maintainer bother to reply to such a misguided post anyway.

Perhaps being a maintainer of a significant infrastructure project like an OS kernel wears on a person and builds a bit of a short-fuse temper :)

<comment><USER20> That's just Theo being himself (and the OpenBSD community by extension) alienating yet another user.

A reason IMHO that OpenBSD has never reached the level of notoriety of FreeBSD is Theo's childish behaviour. I can understand a 20-something insulting someone like that, but not Theo.

ps. I didn't quite understand the Linus reference, but anyway.

<comment><USER7> Then please explain Linux's extreme level of notoriety despite Linus Torvalds' equally combative attitude.

<comment><USER21> Linus' rants are usually (if ever?) not targeted at newcomers, but at people who know him well (and vice-versa).

<comment> vezzy-fnord Different project structure, I think. You'll likely get told off by subsystem maintainers or even kernel janitors before that. If it gets to Linus, it must have been something unnerving.

This can be interpreted both ways, however. Where Linus will be more elusive, Theo will have no qualms with just barging in and telling you to read the source code, ivory tower be damned. Almost as if he sort of respects even newbies enough to slap some quick advice to their face.

A funny example is here: [http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/212565](http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/212565)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There are some great talks by Theo on different subsystems of OpenBSD on youtube. I would post a link but I'm on a mobile.

</comment><comment><USER23> How does this relate to the anti-BLOB sentiment which they expressed very clearly in the OpenBSD 3.9 release song?

[http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#39](http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#39)

<comment><USER11> Binary blobs running on your CPU under your OS is a completely different issue than binary blobs of firmware. If you have to provide the firmware blob to the device, it's most likely only because it was cheaper to not include any flash memory on it that could store it.

Also, they can be very different in their nature. Firmwares can contains fairly complex operating systems that run on some microcontroller inside your hard drive, they can be hand-crafted for particular piece of hardware (so there's no source code) or they may only consist of some data structures needed to properly initialize the registers or other stuff like that.

<comment><USER24> > they can be hand-crafted for particular piece of hardware (so there's no > source code)

The property of being handcrafted for a particular piece of hardware does not imply that there is no source code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Parent poster means free as in speech. Theo chooses to take it as free as in beer. Love OpenBSD but Theo should have thought before getting angry.

<comment><USER21> I'm pretty sure Theo understood what the parent poster meant.

<comment><USER25> I'm sure Theo understood too. But Theo didn't say 'I don't share your definition of free', he just said the parent was wrong and that it was free, which doesn't seem like a very adult way of conveying his disagreement.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple announces Apple Music radio - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/08/apple-announces-apple-music-radio/ <comment><USER2> They've been running Beats 1 for the last 5 years (now rebranding to just Apple Music 1). I like the idea of a pop & pop-adjacent radio station with a lot of different shows for different subgenres (it's obviously patterned after BBC Radio 1), but it never seemed to have the "right" mix of variety, and unlike Radio 1 it didn't really have any tentpole stuff to center around (like e.g. Essential Mix), just a lot of random short-lived celebrity-presented shows. Adding country and pop hits stations isn't exactly going to improve it, but I assume that's for people who found it a bit too left-field.

Kind of astonished it's quietly been on air for so long, and I wonder if the rebranding means they're actually going to revitalize it in some way or if this is just going to lead to them quietly dropping the more interesting aspects of it.

<comment><USER3> I listened to it a lot when they launched but the problem with it is they really treat their shows as live radio. There's no way to save them or subscribe and get notifications when they're live. There is no way to follow them. Searching for them is weird. Discovery is also awkward. There were and probably still are a lot of good shows but good luck figuring it all out.

<comment><USER4> I was listening when Beats 1 came on air, the song they played just prior to the start was Music For Airports by Brian Eno. That influenced me to include it in our Burning Man art this past year. [1]

I've subscribed to Apple Music since the start, but apart from a massive catalog, I can't help but feel that it is a neglected product.

Apple put Jimmy Iovine in charge of that business, presumably because the company needed industry legitimacy and the connections he had.

However, I do not think Iovine or his lieutenants were music "fans", which are people who for personal reasons intentionally seek out new artists, listen to them and share their picks with friends.

I think this lack of familiarity with the customer and how to connect with them through mobile software products led to the state it is in now.

What is strange to me is that Apple Music as an application has not improved. The views do not pre-cache, so they are the slowest loading of any app on my iPhone. Apple Music often fails to perform searches properly.

Despite the volume of data Apple had from my music preferences _before_ Apple Music existed, the recommendation engine is still no good, and the music curation lacks any semblance of personality.

When I ask Siri to play a song, it sometimes feels like Apple Music tries to play a version of the song that has a lower licensing fee than the one I'm actually after. This is total conjecture, but I would not be surprised.

That Spotify has done as well as it has is more a credit to the failure of Apple Music to materialize into something at all representing the vast beauty and detail of music.

I occasionally have tuned into Beats 1, especially if there was an artist interview I wanted to hear. But I really did not like the vibe of Zane Lowe. I felt like he was always fawning over the artists and he interrupts them while they're talking.

Hopefully, these minor radio changes are indicative of a larger changes coming to the Apple Music product as a whole.

[1] [https://skylarkcollective.com/blog/](https://skylarkcollective.com/blog/)

<comment><USER5> To say that Jimmy Iovine isn't a music fan ... that's a weird thing to say.

<comment><USER4> I don't think he looks at music and browsing for new music in a remotely similar way to an average person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Apple today announced two new live global radio offerings_

...and that's where you lost me.

Global radio doesn't work. Hundreds of companies and thousands of people have tried it, and it's never worked. People are different all over, they're not the same, so they don't all want the same thing.

I stopped listening to the BBC World Service when it stopped being about Britain and started being "The world's radio station™," because it just got boring and repetitive.

"Centralcasting" is what almost killed radio in America the 1990's. Jacor/Clear Channel ate hundreds of stations across the country and had a computer in Kentucky decide what music should be played for an entire nation. It didn't work. People flocked to iPods and streaming to get away from the homogeny. Those stations that kept true to their local content survived, and some thrived.

Even Sirius learned this with its satellite radio stations, and the DJs no longer pretend to be some monolithic continental presence in the sky, and instead talk about wherever they're broadcasting from, and some even bend the playlist to match their geography, so it changes through the day as they switch from a host in Detroit to one in Boston to one in DC to one in L.A. When I was in broadcasting it was called a POD — Point Of Difference. Why can DJ A give me that DJ B can't?

KCSN/Northidge and WXRT/Chicago are both AAA radio stations, but they don't play the same songs. They're tailored to what their LOCAL audiences like. That's a good thing. Apple Global Mega Huge Music One has no local audience, and zero feedback other than a subscriber count.

When I listen to a pop station in London, I hear different music than when I listen to a pop station in Los Angeles or Melbourne. That's good. I listen to music from stations all over the world, and in genres I don't ordinarily like, simply because I enjoy the discovery of new songs and artists that I never heard of.

Apple has enough money to keep this online for a very long time, even if no one listens. But why? Who is it good for? Aside from a branding exercise, or trying to give one more checkmark for its bundled services package, what's the point?

<comment><USER7> If they were being globally-minded about these "global" stations, Country would _not_ be the second station they make. What a misfire.

<comment><USER6> _If they were being globally-minded about these "global" stations, Country would not be the second station they make. What a misfire._

I think you're letting you biases show. I've heard country music on radio stations from Germany to Japan to Mexico. There are even country music artists from Europe that show up on American radio stations.

I think Apple has enough data and enough smart people looking at that data to know what genres to pick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really don't understand what they've done with the Beats brand. They've released a handful of headphones (that in my experience have suffered an array of technical faults compared to reports from Airpods users) and Beats 1. Now they're killing off the latter.

It clearly fits into the Music product better but even after the corporate takeover there was something cool about "Beats" as a brand. It even sounded good in the stings. Oddly this is currently in Music as "Apple Music Beats 1" next to Hits and Country, which is even worse than one or the other.

The visual branding of all three stations is amateur too. Quite clearly so next to the Beats branding.

I wonder what the real success of the station has been - it seems to have all the right ingredients even if I'm not that interested after Julie left. It's always seemed a little discard by Apple, as it often is with these big tech companies and their side projects. If this was a business in its own right, as with Apple Music, I assume there'd be more publicity and a more competitive product.

<comment><USER8> Beats One was supposed to be a differentiator for Beats before it was acquired (I worked on it). The point was that it would be unique content you couldn't get from a commodity streaming service, and the hosts would bring an existing fanbase.

My impression is post-acquisiton Apple figured their brand would be sufficient to differentiate them, so they kind of stopped caring about the very high- touch work involved in curated radio. I think at this point it makes sense to view Apple Music as "commodity music streaming but it's apple, so it's preloaded, etc."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Beats 1 has been the free version of Apple Music service for some time, but no one really knew that because of disjointed marketing/branding. This is a good step in unifying the services into a cohesive set of offerings.

<comment> at-fates-hands That's an interesting point.

I just switched back to iOS about a year ago and I haven't seen an ad for it in the app store or had it recommended for any of the music players I've test driven since I switched back.

I'm not sure if that's just bad marketing or is it Apple not pushing its own products in the app store?

<comment><USER10> If you launch the pre-installed Music app and tap over to "Radio," you'll see it (now them) front and center.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you haven't listened to Soulection (radio show every saturday on beats 1 and archived on soundcloud), stop what you're doing and add that to your life.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for this rec! I see it's also actually archived on Apple Music as well, which is nice. Really wish Beats 1 surfaced their non-celeb-hosted shows like... literally anywhere in the Browse interface.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if all radio apps like TuneIn will be banned from the app store because they will directly compete with an apple software, I believe I saw this clause in the apple TOS...

<comment><USER13> if this were in fact true, wouldn't Spotify have been banned long ago for competing with Apple Music? Google Maps vs Apple Maps, etc?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> They need to re-ramp the UI/UX on Apple music app. I have been using it for fairly long time and you can see how other competition like Youtube/Spotify have much nicer recommendations and ease of use. Some sort of streamline and unification needs to happen.

<comment><USER15> I try Apple Music about once a year. Only when they are offering a free trial. I always cancel the trial quickly. Apple Music is just bad. Ignoring my experience with a privacy violation that still makes me question Apple's commitment to privacy, nothing about Apple Music is enticing. Ignoring the confusing UI, music discovery is awful.

Apple has a large selection of songs it can pull from to know what I do and do not like, and could easily recommend things for me. The last time I checked out the recommendations, they were awful. Spotify? Spot on. =) Also, Spotify is just available everywhere I want it. Apple? Pretty much "Apple brand" or nothing. Apple is not the end-all of my universe. I'm sure Apple Music is fine if you _ONLY_ use Apple products or listen via Apple approved products, but no one I know does that. Not even the iOS developers I know.

Anyways, even if you are a fan, you have to admit their offering is pretty lame.

<comment><USER16> I have to disagree pretty strongly. I have both Spotify and Apple Music, and the latter has spot on recommendations, sound quality, and the far better UX for me. Probably 80% of my listening time is in Apple Music. TIDAL seems better for lossless/master quality in my stereo setup but is really expensive, so I only sign up occasionally.

The only reason I use Spotify is sharing playlists with friends or on social media, which is something Apple Music recently added, but isn't widely used. I will admit that Spotify has nailed The music sharing UX.

<comment><USER15> I just opened up Apple Music to see if it changed much. I tapped on a song to play. Instead of playing, I got a full screen ad.

A full screen ad. For Apple Music. The app I'm in.

Edit: And I want to make sure I'm clear here. I pay for iTunes Match. I have a nice music library, and it's in iTunes, so I like having it with me where I go when I want to listen to something from that. So, I'm in Apple Music, trying to play music I own. And it's synced through a service I've already paid for. And Apple has the audacity to ask for more money? Stop me from playing my music after I've already paid them and deal with an annoying full-screen popup Ad.

Opened Spotify, and is synced up with what my Desktop is doing.

It's fine you disagree. It's just Apple has done everything they can to make me hate using Music.

<comment><USER16> It's fine you hate using Music, but at least be honest about the situation: You want it without paying for it.

You're not paying for Apple Music. Apple Music costs the exact same price as Spotify Premium: $10 a month, or $15 for a family.

You're paying for iTunes match which is an annual fee of $25 that lets you play your CD-ripped library anywhere without transferring the files. Go to your Library, play your music, relax, this is what you paid for.

To suggest that somehow you're entitled to free Apple Music because you pay an annual fee of a separate product, is disingenuous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Trying to understand. In a world of gazillions of radio shows online on so many platforms including direct and indirect competitors, with traditional shows going online, with platforms like pandora. Why two radio stations from one big company is such a big deal?

</comment><comment><USER18> i've used apple music for a couple of months and i don't understand why people use it compared to spotify. the UI is awful and buggy. the UX is horrific.

<comment><USER19> Spotify is extremely slow and battery-draining on my 6s. I don't want the random videos that play either. I also want the integration between my mac, apple tv, watch and iphone.

<comment><USER20> For that specific complaint, the videos can be disabled in Settings -> Playback -> Canvas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't see celebrity shows as attracting a big audience. I have to like the celebrity, to want to listen. They should try to break new music. Like The Weeknd will preview his new song/album LIVE here, before it goes on the streaming services.

Plus, if you take EDM/dance genre for instance. All the big shows/DJs play the same current hits. There are lots of less known tracks that come out that a DJ/show could break.

</comment><comment><USER22> Shoutcast has been a thing for near a quarter of a century. I don't see how this compares favorably at all. I have been streaming Shoutcast stations on phones since the late 2000's back on featurephones.

iOS I'm currently using 'radio.net' for a Shoutcast client, Android I use Radiodroid. Tons of stations across pretty much any genre. Lots of FM stations that simulcast on here as well.

Is there something I'm missing about Apple's service that doesn't even provide a way to play old shows? Are they trying to do live streaming as a creative way to skirt licensing costs (like how FM stations don't pay a penny to play songs). I seem to recall soma.fm and di.fm shoutcast stations trying to lobby and get fair licensing structures, and they still pay $$$ to keep their services up.

<comment><USER23> That's not really what the product is about. They already had Beats 1 Radio before which is just like a regular radio station but with well known hosts they hired.

Some shows that were on-air are usually available as on-demand after the show.

If you are not looking for the exclusive shows or you want to avoid switching to a different apps it's probably not a product for you.

<comment><USER22> Thanks for the clarification, I looked into it a bit more and it looks like what you get on the radio section is a Shoutcast client with 3 exclusive stations. I would assume the integration is a better feature sell than the exclusivity agreements. It seems more of a cheaper competitor to SiriusXM when viewed this way, where instead of leaning on the Shoutcast broadcasters to fill in a sparse radio section, they actually run a bunch of their own curated stations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Looks like they're killing off the beats brand…

<comment><USER25> I was confused as to why Apple would buy beats as a brand when they were clearly planning around AirPods and Apple Music. I'm sure that combo would have beaten Beats with enough time.

<comment><USER26> It was more about Jimmy Iovine and Dre and less about headphones. They had a star team, Ian Rogers, Jimmy Iovine, Dr. Dre and Trent Reznor as creative director... and somehow we ended up with Apple Music. _sigh_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> While the sales side of things is pretty despicable, Sirius XM is pretty nice (an online subscription is only $8 a month). I also subscribe to Digitally Imported (electronic music, with dozens of genre-specific channels), a service I've listened to since the early 90s, for about the same price point.

</comment><comment><USER28> _"feature exclusive original shows from the world's top music hosts and artists"_

Do we need to worry about podcasts?

</comment><comment><USER29> Mafia</comment>


Ask HN: Govt Request – Entrepreneur/Engineer Immigration Horror Stories? - <AUTHOR>

My dear News.YC folks, I work with the White House and the U.S. Small Business Administration. As you know, a big priority of the White House in the next coming months is immigration reform. Part of that reform is an effort focused around startup visa and making sure knowledgeable workers aren't educated, financed, and then kicked out of the United States.<p>We're interested in hearing Entrepreneur/Engineer Immigration Horror Stories. I've heard of some from VC-backed entrepreneurs who have been detained at the border and spent the night in jail, but I'd like to hear more. If you're also willing, say what state you received your education and what state your company is based. Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> Hi, Andrew,

Thanks for engaging in the conversation with us here!

I think my story is not a horror one, instead I am luck to be able to go through the EB-1A (Extraordinary Ability green card) path.

I started 3 companies in China, worked in Europe (Ireland) for a few year and then move to US to work for Microsoft Research. I tried several different path in order to get a visa status do my new startup, and found it's nearly impossible. It's a chicken and egg problem: you need a visa for yourself to be able to work legally for your startup, but it's nearly impossible to get yourself a working visa for a startup without enough capital, it's also nearly impossible to get funded if you don't even have a legal status to work full time for your startup... it's basically a dead loop. Our project as a moonlight side project got traction, got users, got reported in major US news (USA Today, ABC, CNN...) but sadly those only made my life tougher since I was in the risk of losing my job which keep my visa status -- which means my whole family will have to go back to the home country within a few days.

Fortunately I found EB-1A was a potential path and I went through it successfully, and I am now full time on my startup. But it's no fun at all to spend all the time in preparing immigration papers works instead of working on your startups when the momentum was there. Many of my friends find it's so entertaining to see my GC documents looks like, here is just a half part of it: <http://discoverful.com/photo/30461/>

My story was covered by Immigrant Exodus last year: <http://immigrantexodus.com/robert-mao-discoverful/>

Even though I went through this EB-1A process, I was just lucky that I did a lot of other stuff (published papers, got media reports, received awards, played critical roles etc.) which made me qualify for those EB1A criteria.

I would like to share my stories to help improve the US immigration system, to allow more entrepreneurs like myself to be able to have freedom to innovate and start new business here in US. The United States is build on entrepreneurship, let's make it better for entrepreneurs.

Robert Mao

</comment><comment><USER3> __I need to work on remembering my pw Andrew:

See this article for a piece Steve Case wrote about me: <http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/224579>

He also used the story as an example in a testimony at a congressional hearing: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=H-VcL8Oqhio#at=56)

Quick brief on the situation: * PhD/MD till katrina hit the city and changed the course of my life. * Phd (genetics) at UNC, where I founded my first company (biotech) during my 3rd year. Saw I could have huge impact on peoples lives through these type of ventures * DC for post-doc -- started 2nd company (data analytics in heath and wellness) * Triangle Startup factory (accelerator), a little money, and some mentorship later we are where we are (4 person team, v1 web app, growing user base ~10K, revenue, building mobile apps, pilot testing biometric sensors). Predictive analytics aimed at harnessing behavioral data exhaust in a meaningful and structured manner and extracting actionable knowledge from it. Shifting the paradigm from "lets tell you what you have done" to "let us tell you what you NEED TO DO to get healthier and fitter." * Havent left the country since 2009. Started MBA early because my OPT (optional practical training) expired and I wanted to stay in the country. I can't sponsor myself for an H1. Cant really get funding while I am in school (investment risk - could potentially be overcome). Can't be out of school because of immigration rules. * Finally left so I could see family. Had to get a new visa to come back and finish school... but visa application just got flagged and is going through "administrative review". I have been stuck here now for over 3 weeks without any definite end in sight. This leaves me with running a team remotely (extremely), paying for an education that I cant take advantage of (one that I was getting in order to build a US-based business), cancelling and having to rebook travel plans (I know, not that big of a deal -- but it is a few thousand $$) and waiting.....

Happy to continue offline...

<comment><USER2> Did you solve your problem? Since you have a PhD, likely you may also be able to go through EB-1A, or EB-1B. Would happy to offline with you to share my experience on EB-1A.

<comment><USER3> I'm currently stuck in Singapore (well I'm actually traveling around SE Asia, since they don't have the draconian immigration policies of the US). But would def like to connect offline. email: firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER2> Just sent you an email. Would happy to connect and see if my experience could be help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi Andrew, I came to the US at 19 for college with 2 suitcases and $400 in my pocket. Had been coding since 13. The year I graduated with a Computer Information Systems degree was the year H1B visas ran out on the second day after their release. No way any company could have sponsored me that year. Still, because of the 8 years of tech experience I had, I got 3 offers and one company took me on a prayer I could still work for them after a year (a number of my non-tech classmates were not so lucky, some had to leave for London). Fortunately near the end of that year the OPT visas were extended for Engineering folks to 2+ years instead of 12 months, but it happened last minute and I had almost packed my bags by then. I had to go through the whole process after college and work in corporate engineering roles for 5 years before being able to jump out and start my own business. Ironically, I would start entrepreneurial initiatives at every company and team I worked for and some we ended up launching (you can block the entrepreneur visa, but you can't block the entrepreneur spirit I guess). I am now working on a startup.

</comment><comment><USER5> Limbo periods - Unclear rules. -> Personal experience: applied for EAD card to work, graduated from a top school with a masters. Death of a family member occurred right after. Could not(?) go home for fear of not getting back to country to start the job. Had (and have) huge student loans to pay off.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am a software engineer on an H1B visa. My company was willing to put up with the fact that I could only start in October because of how the visa works. However my wife can't work on her H4 visa. The only way for her to work in the US would be to find an H1B sponsor, which is much, much harder for people who don't work in tech. This is increasingly frustrating, so we are considering moving back.

H4 visa holders should be allowed to work. You'll find plenty of horror stories on the internet.

<comment><USER7> I'm in the exact same position. I'm an Engineer who received many job offers before moving to the valley on an H1B. My wife is on an H4 visa. This in effect says "you are welcome to spend money, but you can't make any!". Of course, there is the patronizing concession that she can study (she is already very qualified...).

Unfortuantely she is not a developer, so the chances of her getting granted an H1B are extremely low. Particularly because the quota is reached so early in the year. She is qualified and talented, with international experience. Language is not a deterent as we come from an English speaking Western nation.

This situation is not common around the world. This is the third country we have lived in, and the first where we have encountered problems as great as this.

We are currently considering leaving. The valley will lose another resource, and many more will follow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My husband is here in the US on an H1B Visa as a Software Engineer at a fantastic SV company. As his wife, I was given an H4 and cannot work. My career (not in tech) has screeched to a standstill, because although there are plenty of places I could work and be a useful contributing member of society, I am unable to even get a social security number. This visa renders me a second class citizen. We are also considering moving back.

<comment><USER7> H4 holders should at the very minimum be exempt from the quota. In all fairness they should be granted work authorization. It makes no sense that the partner of an H1B holder has no work authorization, while the partner of an L visa holder is free to work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hi Andrew, I dont have personal horror story to share, but I am really please to see WhiteHouse engaging in conversation with hackers/startups here!

I was lucky to get my green card soon enough, which enabled me to start my own, create new jobs and now we have some customers across the world as well (doing our little part in economy)

</comment><comment><USER10> Ah- No horror story - but I did have to bid my time in Corporate America for 10 years waiting to get my greencard and eligible to start my own business. So now I'm in my 40s doing a startup. I feel like Ed Bundy in Modern Family having a baby in his 60s. There's pluses and minuses, but I'll get by!

</comment><comment><USER11> Hi,

Not an horror story per se, but it's quite annoying.

I'm an engineering student from an european country who happens to also have a nationality on the condor SAO list.

I've been waiting for my J-1 visa for seven weeks.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hey Andrew.

Is there a way I can start a private conversation? I see you don't have your email on your HN profile.

</comment><comment><USER13> By startup visa, do you mean E-2 or do you also want to hear about OPT, H1-B around startups?</comment>


Ask HN: Review my project, Factolex - the fact lexicon - <AUTHOR> http://www.factolex.com/

<comment><USER2> Some thoughts:

Maybe write a script that goes through the web, starting with Wikipedia, and intelligently extracts facts from sentences. From there, pass it along to Mechanical Turk folks to gauge whether or not it makes sense. You could cheaply populate your database with all sorts of relevant information this way.

Maybe focus on a particular field at first, such as tech industry or the stock market or... whatever. Once you've got a grip on that, start expanding to others. I'm not suggesting you stop gather other types of facts, but I think right now its better to focus than spread yourself too thin. I think your visitors rather have your site tell them a lot about one topic than a little about a lot.

It's a small detail, but capitalizing the first letter of the descriptions would make it look sharper. Also, on my browser, IE7, the "More information" link drops down below the "Welcome" link. I think you could do better with a different, unique color scheme which people would associate with Factolex. (At first I thought HN was ugly, but now I wouldn't have it any other way.)

Overall, very well done. I could see a lot of search engine traffic getting directed to Factolex someday down the road.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Factolex.com is a fact lexicon. We split up knowledge into small sentences: facts

You can use the checkboxes to remember the facts that you find relevant and by doing so, we create your personal lexicon (which can be exported using the API or a widget). Also, the more people select a fact as relevant to them, the higher it is ranked within the term.

I'd love to get some feedback from the HN community. Thanks for checking it out.

<comment><USER3> very interesting. Could you tell me how its made?

<comment><AUTHOR> what do you mean? like what it is built with (i.e. programming language, server etc)?

<comment><USER3> like the idea of project. how was definitions obtained?

<comment><AUTHOR> The idea of the project is a new approach into collaborating on knowledge, by splitting the knowledge into smaller parts, and then being able to handle them in an easier way.

Most of the definitions come from Wikipedia. We started off trying to have people enter facts manually, but then I figured that we should leverage all the knowledge of Wikipedia that is freely available.

So I wrote a bot that is not particularly clever, but most of the times good enough for fetching facts from Wikipedia.

By the way, it can also extract facts from the German Wikipedia (there is a German version of Factolex as well: <http://de.factolex.com/> as my mother tongue is actually German).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very clever--it's a nice way to integrate fact-searching across many different websites. The interface is effective and doesn't get in the way. I like the branding you've created for yourself as well. The avatar of the Factobot incorporates the logo and that awesome chimpy-looking bot really well.

I like how you let me add to my personal lexicon without having to register, but will that be saved, and be carried over to any account I create if and when I do?

Few nags:

On the tab bar, if "Home" has a bar on the very left, shouldn't FAQ have one on the very right?

On the "ongoing votings" page, it's not immediately clear what I am supposed to do, and the yellow hint box towards the right says the same thing it does when I search for something--hit a checkbox. There aren't any checkboxes. This could be confusing for some.

Great job overall, I see myself using this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words.

Your personal lexicon survives your registration (of course :) For the navigation bar: we tried it, but settled for leaving the bar out (as the menu actually continues on the far right). A matter of taste, I suppose. The ongoing votings section is still sort of under construction, thanks for bringing that up. There is quite some room for improvement there ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's the difference between this and searching for "define: word" on google?

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=define...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=define%3Avienna&btnG=Search)

<comment><USER6> Personalization!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Excellent, should be part of Google! (e.g. "fact:Hackernews")

On index pages no inline links are visible. e.g. "Illusion a Polish band founded in 1992 in Gdańsk, Poland and defunct since 1999"

You can only click "Gdańsk" if you're on the single fact page.

<comment><AUTHOR> As a matter of fact, there is a Greasemonkey extension for Firefox that achieves integration into Google search: <http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/32352>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does your grabber get things from urban dictionary?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not yet, but I am not actually sure what to use from there. There are just so many definitions that have weird up vs. down ratios that I wouldn't dare to let a program decide what is legitimate or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Suggestion: include the Cyc database.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the idea. I am not sure if I can extract useful facts from it, but I can definitely see this helping for "see also" purposes.

Integrating with the semantic web is a natural further step for Factolex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> one simple idea: put a big number in the header or on the homepage with how many terms you have.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is somewhat like an idea I've been considering. So I think it's a great concept... and have strong opinions on possible directions.

If your primary model is a ranked listing of 'facts' by a major 'term' key, it will be hard to outperform Wikipedia (or even Mahalo). When those sites' single-topic articles/pages are well-written, they already lead with the core facts, and then proceed through the rest in a well-organized fashion. Even the Google 'snippets' in natural search hits then turn out to be pretty strong for anwering people's questions/queries. So I think to differentiate you need to break out of that linear model somehow.

The multiple licenses situation is confusing and may prevent you getting proper credit for openness.

You may hope voting and reputation will be mechanisms for gradual quality improvements, but they often backfire. Any benefit from people seeking to 'climb' for the right reasons can be offset by gaming.

It's unavoidable you'd need to use some bulk automated processes (like scraping Wikipedia or hired contributors) to bootstrap, but that may then undermine the organic growth of 'community spirit' and norms that will be essential for the long term. The right balance will be hard to find.

Good luck!</comment>


Real Time Writing Technology is Now Available on Widbook - <AUTHOR> http://blog.widbook.com/real-time-writing-with-widbook/

<comment><USER2> I love it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I love read books in this site

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you most like there? Have you tried the real time writing tech?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome!!!</comment>


Show HN: Actionable JVM memory analysis - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jakewins/jaa <comment><AUTHOR> Maybe this is too niche, but I've wanted to try this since I realized the Heisenbug nature of allocation analysis on the JVM - if you instrument allocation points, the JVM stops optimizing them, and your results are dominated by allocations that don't normally go on the heap. See here for an example: [https://twitter.com/jakewins/status/707754868497231872](https://twitter.com/jakewins/status/707754868497231872)

This is particularly problematic in languages like scala that allocate a lot of objects the JVM is normally good at removing.

The idea in this little tool is simple: Use a fastdebug build of the JVM to find out what allocations HotSpot removes, and then filter those allocations out of the report. The end result is an allocation report that's actionable - if you address the allocations in the report, you'll actually make a dent in heap usage.</comment>


White House CIO & CTO Launching Open Government Plan live online at 11AM ET - <AUTHOR> http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/12/07/streaming-11-am-cto-chopra-and-cio-kundra-launch-open-government-plan

<comment><USER2> It's like they're trying to convince us this is a good thing. Instead of just telling us what is available now and what the schedule is.

<comment><USER3> They're probably not trying to convince _us_ , i.e. Hacker News reader types. More likely trying to convince the more general public.

<comment><USER4> A large part of that broadcast was also targeted at the civilian, middle management Federal bureaucrat. They need buy in from the rank and file content managers of federal program offices because that is where the bulk of the non- headline Federal data lies. (not things like legislation - but rather research, stats, etc)

There is very little groc-ing of these types of efforts on that level because by and large the federal government outsourced all it's IT years ago. The people that run the show at these levels are by and large print journalism people with little experience with the web - much less the open web. They are used to completing a project and getting a "web page" set up for it by simply tasking a contractor to turn a PDF brochure into a web site.

The contractors are set up to act as worker bees rather than consultants and there are very few feds at the middle management level that have an understanding of the underlying technologies to innovate in this area without help. The CTO's office is trying to set up models to follow and help the ideas permeate the civilian workforce.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The President wrote a memo saying he wanted this on his first day and only now do we have a directive. A directive that asks the various departments to make a plan in the next 4 months. So in the end it's going to take over a year and a half to get from the President's memo that he wants this to a first draft of a plan to actually implement it.

That right there is what's wrong with Government imho

<comment><USER6> would you expect anything less?

<comment><USER5> No but I think a lot of people do.

I think a lot of people think the slowness is Government was caused by technologically backwards administrations and that now things are going to be different. My point is even when you have a President that uses a Blackberry and knows what a dataset is Government still takes forever to get things done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> After they spent 18 million redesigning the recovery.gov website, [http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/07/18m-being-spent- to-...](http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/07/18m-being-spent-to-redesign- recoverygov-web-site.html) resulting in an end product that provides false information [http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jobs-saved-created- congressio...](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jobs-saved-created- congressional-districts-exist/story?id=9097853) why should we be optimistic that this isn't just another hole to throw money down? As I recall the recovery site was sold to the people as a step towards open government.</comment>