We lost the war. Welcome to the world of tomorrow (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://frank.geekheim.de/?page_id=128 <comment><USER3> Eh, I'm amazed at the ignorance of the obvious by authors like this. This is chickenlittleism on full throttle.

The tone is vaguely ellegaic, harkening back to that time when freedom and democracy was the law of the land. Let's see, looking at the 20th century: totalitarianism, the industrialization of genocide, nonstop global warfare (hot and cold), institutionalized tacism and other forms of oppression, CIA trained death squads, pitiful consumer protection stsnfatds , union busting, riots, high profile political assasinstions, colonialisms of all types.

It's hard to see a some kind of serious decline in the progress of civilization ushered in by pervasive surveillance technology.

Furthermore, to the extent that the author is persuasive that technologically advanced and ubiquitous surveillance will be used to maintain the social order, he highlights a weakness in his thesis.

The coming challenges he enumerates, climate disasters, energy problems, migration pressure are not the result of insecure communications. They will come anyway.

IMO he rightly guesses that selling increased surveillance to the public will be easy, as very few people in the developed world want society to fall apart.

Electronic communication infrastructure cannot be ignored by the power structure. Suppose these horrible changes were stopped by our idealistic hackers from being easily used for social control. What would take their place? I shudder to think.

Somehow a world where power can be consolidated by unaffiliated creation of dark networks doesn't sound like much of an improvement.

The quality of a society will be progressed through cultural means. Technology is just part of the fabric of this human world.

<comment><USER4> I am sorry you were downvoted (particularly because you were called a shill for daring to voice your reasonable opinion). There is a doom-and-gloom mentality on this site; people seem like they _want_ the end-of-days. I noted, as you did, that almost all of the problems listed were independent of communications protocol.

This entire argument is one of "exaggerate the bad and completely ignore the good". We have companies working on cheap space travel, which opens up asteroid mining (mitigating resource crunches) and allows us to use space- based resources to alleviate problems on Earth (solar shades to reduce warming, etc). Asimov made a great point at the end of I, Robot, where he notes that the intractable problems of one age are rendered moot by the technology of the next. People feared that NYC would be uninhabitable by the year 1950 because there wouldn't be enough place to put all the horse manure - which became a non-issue with the advent of automobile. People feared mass starvation in the 1970's because we couldn't produce enough food - <USER2> irrelevant by the green revolution. People fear global warming and totalitarianism today, and it will be made irrelevant by the tech of tomorrow. We already see birth rates falling globally, to the point where we will soon be shrinking in population. This will reduce stresses from unemployment, and paired with a burgeoning space economy we will have more to share with fewer people.

There is no reason to cower from the ills of today; they are only a call to keep moving forward.

<comment><USER5> It is exciting to think that everything is collapsing and the world is changing and now is different than the past. And in a lot of ways it is. But there is no technological singularity that is going to make human beings irrelevant. We need to do something about the various crises of our time, but the guy you responded to is right. My first reaction on reading the article in the OP was "Wow, isn't it funny how bad things looked only a couple of years ago!" The whining 'democracy is a lie' part made me particularly nostalgic for a kinder, simpler time, a time when I could hate George Bush with all of my hate and could say stuff like "the system is totally broken, man" with a straight face.

While you can't trust governments and powerful individuals to reliably act in your interest (and never could), we need to take a step back here. There's a lot of nonsense and science fiction dystopia going around itt, a lot of people who think that 90% of humanity is worthless now that we don't need them for physical labor. That's ridiculous. Things are basically fine and while there are going to be some serious repercussions among tech people things will remain basically fine for the vast majority of westerners.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _> paid manual labor will be eaten away further by technology_

As labor continues to be automated, we'll need a minimum income for "unproductive" members of society. In reality, they're not really unproductive as long as they can engage in consumer behavior, which is something we absolutely need them to do. We simply can't afford an underclass without access to our new high tech quality of life. So we'll subsidize them.

Of course, this will come with restrictions. To be eligible, you won't be allowed to own your house, a part of that income will most likely be added to your "debt", and you'll have to take part in certain mandatory activities.

But in essence, basic income will _have to_ be introduced.

<comment><USER7> > To be eligible, you won't be allowed to own your house, a part of that > income will most likely be added to your "debt", and you'll have to take > part in certain mandatory activities.

What? That's not basic income.

<comment><USER5> It's slavery. Well, indentured servitude, but that's just a slightly technical way to say slavery, like those pedophiles who call themselves ephebophiles like it makes a difference. It's still messed up and vile.

<comment><USER8> Sadly, listen to the elite GOP strategists, and they openly talk about financial instruments that are coded phrases meaning exactly indentured slavery. How's about the idea floated recently that students can have a discount on their university in exchange for a life percentage of their income? What happens when their career gets automated or outsourced? That "debt" has got to be repaid, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> While we, the techno intelligencia, discuss how to manage technological change against the powerful security state, it is probably the case that the more desperate will just start shooting oligarchs despite the vast security apparatus designed to protect them. Once they realize they're not secure, they'll decide to cede power. The question is who will be able to negotiate this transition in a transparent and positive way when politicians are already corrupted by them?

I in no way advocate violence, (except occasional lapses of thought on the hockey rink). I just think that these events will occur: If there are millions of people that the state believes are refuse, many will turn to crime to eat and as the social contract is broken, some of these people will tend towards violence against those who run (what were once democratic) countries. The oligarchs are a natural enemy to the "refuse" of society because they do have a large hand in their plight. Consider: They generally advocate for trade pacts which lower the wages of low skill workers. They extract high rents for education so many cannot better themselves. They pay as little and hire as few as humanly possible. The only aspect of their operations that they would have in a first world country are point where they receive customers' money. To many of them, their ideal is that both the production and the profits are off shore. None of this endears them to millions of the poor. So that, unfortunately is how things change. Please prove me wrong.

<comment><USER10> It is for this reason that I'm a fan of the masses being armed. Without weapons, they can never revolt. True, one could manufacture weapons, but a good side arm and long riffle go a long way.

I see violence as a sad, but necessary thing. The history of man is one of warring between to groups. Once the rich/super rich become so powerful that they basically enslave the rest of us, there has to be a war. There is no society in the world that hasn't had a war of some kind.

It is true that one could, in theory, use non cooperation to dismantle the existing apparatus of state. The difficulty lies in the fact that the "refuse" are already disenfranchised. In the techno world of the future, they are not needed on any level. They are not consumers, therefore no one should care. Without a good portion of the elite siding with them, their non-conformism won't help. Even with India, the government of England and its citizenry were tired of empire anyway. India wasn't worth the effort to them. It is unlikely that we'll see the same from the elite anytime soon. They are on the uptick now.

Oddly Marx is right. There will be a class war. A new synthesis will be struct. In the mean time, sadly, people will die or be wounded. The best thing to do is prepare for it and try to mitigate it.

<comment><USER9> I don't think there needs to be war. I don't think government is the enemy--it is the corruption within government. People fighting the state directly will only accomplish a bloody mess.

Maybe only Lawrence Lessig can save us all now?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's a prevailing sentiment amongst hackers here and everywhere that things are and can be moved forward in an ethical, and positive ways in the future.

I was always interested - are there cynics or at least pessimists amongst us that don't see all this progress (even humanity in general) anything but highway to hell?

If so, how do you cope?

<comment><USER12> Anyone with a working brain can realize for all the shit we are in now, barring a world shattering catastrophe we are better now than 50 or 100 or 500 or 2000 years ago. And same can be generally said of things 50,100,500 or 2000 years ago.

Human progress to a more empathical and overall better society has been constant. At first empathy was reserved only for members of one family and tribe. Then empathy expanded towards people of same nationality and religion. As long of circle of empathy expands to encompass more and more things, we'll be fine.

I won't say there haven't been some really dark blemishes on history, but in spite of all that humanity as a whole moved on.

Humans make mistakes. A lot of mistakes. It comes with the turf.

As for coping, try reading some Terry Pratchet and embrace the ancient philosophy of Discworld - Things happen, what the heck.

<comment><USER13> "Human progress to a more empathical and overall better society has been constant."

Part of me desperately wants to agree with that, but then I remember that the world probably looked a pretty decent place in 1913 and look how downright awful and risky the next ~75 years turned out to be.

There is no fundamental law of civilization that guarantees that things will only get better. Having said that, I think that on balance things will keep getting better - but only because a lot of people fight for those improvements based upon observations of where our societies are going wrong and putting up a fight to bring them back on course.

<comment><USER14> In 1913, the US was just wrapping up fifteen years of bloody guerilla warfare in the Phillippines after starting the Spanish-American war and the Phillippine-American war.

First the government got the masses worked up with a propaganda campaign, and then went to war to annex new lands and seize booty. That's what healthy, vigorous countries did, and we had recently run out of Native Americans to pillage. We killed millions in Cuba and the Phillippines and demolished their industry, economy, and infrastructure - a major reason they are poor countries today.

Our Vice President, Teddy Roosevelt, personally led men into battle, killed people defending their homelands, and made millions off the war. So we elected him President.

The world was a rough place 100 years ago.

<comment><USER13> Of course, there was an implicit "from here in the UK and from a very comfortable middle class home" in my statement there...

[NB Anyway I stole the point from the start of Niall Ferguson's _The Ascent of Money_ ]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you think there is any truth in this article, then real democracy becomes ever more important as a check on the power afforded the elite.

I note that the European Project (i.e. the slow but relentless move towards a United States of Europe) is a step away from democracy in that the European Commission is not elected by universal suffrage, but appointed, and that rules are made centrally and applied to diverse populations with different priorities.

<comment><USER16> You missed the European Parliament, which _is_ elected (with elections taking place right now). The balance of power between the EC and the EP needs to be shifted towards the EP, and other reforms are essential -- but the EU is not intrinsically anti-democratic; the real problem is that the members are all (at least nominally, esp. in the case of Hungary) democracies, with parliaments jealous of delegating power to a higher authority, so the regional governments have deliberate policies of trying to keep the center weak and unaccountable to the polity.

<comment><USER17> No doubt you know the United States had a similar problem in their early days, and that nothing sufficed to resolve that conflict short of a half-decade of generally very ugly warfare. Here's hoping the "United States of Europe" so- called don't find themselves so afflicted.

From what I hear, though, that seems unlikely; it sounds as though those charged with its assembly are, whether or not they consider it in these terms, attempting wholly to preëmpt the democratic phase, by not only skipping straight to the bureaucratic sclerosis, but actually _designing_ said bureaucracy instead of letting it simply grow in its own fashion.

It's an interesting idea, and probably the best chance they've got of avoiding the susceptibility to dangerous enthusiasms which is a young democracy's besetting flaw.

On the other hand, it seems at least plausible that attempting to subsume into federalism a range of distinct polities each of which has centuries of history as an independent state, _without_ hammering them together by main force as was eventually done in the American case, is a project doomed to ignominious failure.

Whether it'll actually work and how well, I haven't the slightest, but I sure do look forward to finding out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Decentralized infrastructure is needed. "

There is absolutely nothing I can think of more important than this.

There's room for companies, there's room for restricted centralised services - but in my humble opinion the core services should be managed and run by the people.

We are capable of doing it, if we're not - it's time to learn.

Interesting place to start: [http://maidsafe.net/](http://maidsafe.net/)

<comment><USER19> "Only true peer-to-peer systems that need as little centralized elements as possible can survive."

I'm not sure how to interpret statements like this. Decentralization seems ideal. But some of the most successful services so far either begun or are centralized, not decentralized. If I'm not mistaken, the electric and water utilities, Google, and Facebook are all centralized for example. On the other hand, other services like email and the web (excluding DNS) are decentralized.

Is the intention behind this idea that control over those services shouldn't be centralized, while pooling resources could be ok, depending on the service involved?.

I'm not saying it's possible to remove control in a centralized service, but I am saying that there is a distinction. A blanket statement that "centralized services can't survive" would seem incorrect, and the existing statement of "as little centralized elements" implies that "as little" in the relative sense will be equal to little in the absolute sense, which might not be true. It could be that "little" practically equals centralization.

The reason such a misconception is dangerous is that one might put their efforts in designing a fully decentralized service that isn't adopted. Good design is often hard in that it challenges your assumptions in ways you hadn't originally anticipated.

<comment><USER20> Everything seems to start centralized, and become more decentralized in the long run. That's because it's easier to build things "in-house" first, and it's also simpler from ca technological point of view. P2P systems need to build communities that can take advantage of the technology, too, otherwise they won't be very effective.

<comment><USER5> You know how p2p systems can be more effective? By not being p2p systems, and instead being centralized. It's not some kind of natural progression, it's an evolutionary process. Centralization gives you control, reactivity, and all kinds of good things. Decentralization makes you resilient during destructive upheavals that kill centralized competitors. We're gonna end up with a lot of both.

<comment><USER18> That's a great point, however you must take into account the crowd-innovation aspect. Decentralisation allows for a great deal more creativity to 'eventually' bubble to the surface (in a perfect world ;))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > _" Genetic engineering and other biotechnology as well as nanotechnology > (and potentially _free energy_ technologies if they exist)..."_

Somehow this part makes me think the whole article lacks a healthy dose of skepticism and manages to hide it well.

For what Frank seems to be talking about here is stuff like 'zero point energy' or other such misconceptions.

(Apologies if he means things like cold fusion on a tabletop device, which is _slightly_ less crazy.)

<comment><USER22> In the context of nanotechnology (specifically MNT/molecular manufacturing as described by Eric Drexler in Engines of Creation) "free energy" could refer to photovoltaic panels that cost essentially $0.

That may or may not have been the author's intent. It's what I thought of when I read that sentance

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's from 2006, but it's more relevant than ever.

</comment><comment><USER24> Technology is a lever that can be used to amplify power. Surveillance is the example du jour, but there are plenty of others.

We are social beings, (vertices in the social graph) and we have relationships with (edges that connect us to) other individuals and groups of individuals. Some of these relationships are characterized by asymmetric power (influence & coercion) attributes.

The aggregate effect of these relationships on us as individuals is sometimes beneficial, sometimes deleterious; an effect characterized in terms of personal liberty; economic utility, and perhaps other factors too.

We naturally have an interest in understanding the benefits and risks inherent in this network of relationships; and in understanding the factors that maximize the aggregate benefit whilst reducing the aggregate risk.

I am idly pondering what it would take to build a statistical model of the network of power relationships between individuals and groups, and explore how various types of technological power amplification change the distribution of reward and risk across individuals.

I.e. does the amplification of existing power relationships through technological change increase the risk that personal liberty will be restricted? What about the economic impact? Is there a risk that the distribution of "personal liberty" will become more concentrated? How big is that risk, and what is the spread? What about economic wealth?

Of course, this is just a silly thought experiment ... but I am sure that some of the readers here have access to both the computational resources and the raw data (graphs of interlocutors with power/influence attributes decorating the edges) to do this experiment ... if you haven't already done it.

I'd be interested to know if any unclassified & publicly available results exist?

<comment><USER25> Cooper's Law: All machines are amplifiers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think we should go back to a real democracy, not a representative republic.

Why can't all citizens vote online?

We bank online, we pay our taxes online. We could develop a system that is more secure than the local polling stations we have now and vote on laws, regulations and budgets all online.

We don't need congress. We would vote on laws ourselves. We would vote on the budget ourselves. We could even vote on budget proposals line by line. Voting out any projects that only favor local communities. We could approve or disprove going to war. The president would answer to us directly.

Some would this is would be chaos, but it could be implemented on the local level first and then scaled bigger.

Others say that the common person can't understand laws. I say it's imperative that everyone be able to understand our laws. If a law is too complicated, then it shouldn't be a law.

Anyways, just my thoughts.

</comment><comment><USER27> Great analysis. Reminds me of an updated, "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us", by Bill Joy.

</comment><comment><USER28> > So what now?

On the political level, the meta problem causing most of other problems is money.

Take money out of politics.

No political advertising allowed, no "donations", no lobbying. 1 official website (or print brochure) as the only means for voters to get political information (or brainwash) from.

<comment><USER29> No, the meta problem is power. The more power politicians have, the higher the incentive to influence them. The solution is decentralization, which disperses power, thereby automagically reducing lobbyism.

<comment><USER30> I've often wondered what sort of effect simply passing a law that all representatives must live full-time in their home districts would have. It would certainly make lobbying uneconomical - instead of one lobbyist being able to wine & dine 535 members of Congress, they would only be able to wine & dine one member, or perhaps 2-3 in a densely-packed municipality. It might lead to representatives considering their constituents as their "tribe" rather than the government as a whole. It would probably slow down the pace of regulation, and significantly raise the threshold for what level of support a bill needs to become law.

<comment><USER31> You mean convince the lawmakers to put themselves under house arrest? Yes, that is going to work. But only until somebody invents some tool or device that would allow people to communicate over large distances.

<comment><USER30> You could phrase it as "Spend more time with your family and out of the hustle of the beltway! Avoid spending a fortune on private schools, private drivers, and a second apartment in DC." There are several lawmakers who come from modest means, actually grew up in their districts, and have family and community ties there that they need to leave behind for Washington.

It'd probably work best after a significant changeover in Congress, when there are a lot of freshman reps all dealing with navigating capitol hill. Such a change would be a big power shift from people who have established relationships to people who have fresh ideas.

And the idea is that they'd be using e-mail, videoconference, Google Moderator, or some other electronic means to communicate with their fellow reps. The idea is to build stronger bonds of trust between reps and their constituents than between reps and lobbyist/other reps, so that they actually act like representatives instead of a separate caste.

<comment><USER32> > And the idea is that they'd be using e-mail, videoconference, Google > Moderator, or some other electronic means to communicate with their fellow > reps.

If those were as effective means of full-spectrum communication as face-to- face meetings, then moving them out of the capital to their districts wouldn't effect lobbyists ability to influence them -- lobbyists can use technology to communicate with members, too.

<comment><USER30> The point is that they convey information without building trust. Research has shown that face-to-face contact is essential for building trust, because there is a lot of subconscious emotional information conveyed in body language. E-mail and other electronic communication conveys the factual, logical information, but not the emotional information. So if you want representatives to collectively decide things based on what is rational and logical but not be subconsciously influenced by lobbyists or other politickers, cut the emotional channel out of their communications.

It's the same reason that Google makes promotion decisions by a committee located on another continent. You want people to judge based on facts and not impressions, so divorce the objective facts from the subjective impressions.

<comment><USER31> Some of the decisions can not be actually made based on facts, such as decisions about future performance of some person (there are no facts that can guarantee it) or future effect of certain policy (the facts may be lacking or subjective and depend on interpretation). So, unfortunately, in many aspects in the politics "decisions based on facts only" are just not possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> In Spain, having all this in mind we have created a citizens network in 2013 to force in a short time a real democracy in our country. We are common people, hackers, lawyers, engineers with our jobs but we are very well organized, we have learnt a lot from open source development organizations, we have no investors but we have the best people with us.

We created the party to lobby our institutions and in just 1 year we are growing much faster than expected. This article in NYT was right after we were born [http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/is-spains- newes...](http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/is-spains-newest- political-party-party-x-too-idealistic/)

We may be wrong but certainly our are proposal for a new democracy is one of the most advanced in the world after years studying examples all around [http://partidox.org/basic-information/](http://partidox.org/basic- information/) (sorry but the information in English is very reduced)

On Monday 25th of May there are European elections and for the first time we will be in the list of candidate parties.

Our fisrt candidate is a "hacker", he is Herve Falciani who since 2009 has been collaborating with numerous European nations by providing information relating to more than 130,000 suspected tax evaders with Swiss bank accounts.

We have very exciting times ahead and thanks to technology we have new ways of organizations and new ways for pushing changes

<comment><USER34> >Our fisrt candidate is a "hacker", he is Herve Falciani who since 2009 has been collaborating with numerous European nations by providing information relating to more than 130,000 suspected tax evaders with Swiss bank accounts.

So instead of attempting to scale back the mass surveillance state, the candidate embraces it with open arms and knocks on its door with a vaguely- indicative list of nonviolent alleged criminal code violations of 130,000 people whose metadata he's aggregated?

<comment><USER33> Not exactly, first he was proposed and voted in a open list. His list of evaders, which is not public includes the top bankers and politics in Europe including some of European deputies. His personal goals are to deploy by law in European banks a system he has developed to monitor bank transactions at European level to elaborate a map of money movements to detect tax evaders.

Because of him, governments in Europe have been able to get back millions of euros back

Corruption in Spain is a big problem and politics have never been trusted or respected, he is death treated by looking for the common good which at least is a sign he will never be involved in corruption and he will never hide his head in the attempt to achieve our goals.

<comment><USER31> >>> His personal goals are to deploy by law in European banks a system he has developed to monitor bank transactions at European level to elaborate a map of money movements

In other words, complete mass surveillance system, no financial privacy at all for any EU citizen. A commendable goal.

>>> Corruption in Spain is a big problem and politics have never been trusted or respected,

And yet you are building a mass surveillance system which will be controlled by the corrupt politicians, maintained by the corrupt politicians, operated by the corrupt politicians and the corrupt politicians would decide what to do with it next.

>>> which at least is a sign he will never be involved in corruption

Of course, nobody involved in corruption has ever gotten death threats. But you don't even need to corrupt him - why bother if he gives a most powerful instrument - control over every financial transaction - to the politicians, which as you admitted are corrupt? Without any coercion or corruption. Why break into your house if you bring to the thieves the keys from it voluntarily and beg them to take them and be your guest any time they like?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This article nails several realities dead on. The premise of a pervasive electronic panopticon is a modern fatal charade, that we've unwittingly cast ourselves in. There's an enourmous power differential at play now, in everything we do. Even buying a pack of gum at the gas station with pocket change can be readily transformed into permanent public record.

On the other hand, it's important to bear in mind that the problems highlighted here are social. Between human beings. The manner in which we share the world we live on, and whether we reduce it to ashes by fighting with each other.

It's not a problem that can't be solved. It's a problem that can only be sabotaged.

</comment><comment><USER36> typical alarmist sensationalism, let alone dates because of its reliance on doom and gloom global warming scenarios that amazingly don't occur and whose model predict such dire fates cannot even be used to show how we are now compared to forty years ago.

Will give them points on robotics, robotics will change the world so significantly I doubt we can exaggerate it. We literally will have to find something to do.

</comment><comment><USER37> What is painful for me about this is that while we might sensibilize a handful of (A) talented hackers here and there that (B) are in good shape to do anything about it, there are legions of lobbists and bureaucrats with big budgets daily working to expand the State, some of those legions are tax minions who's "added value" is bite yours

</comment><comment><USER38> I believe in fundamentals. Just don't post anything online, unless you're certain you want to. Do not post pictures. Don't use social networks and cloud services. Your life won't get THAT much harder if Google Maps cannot guess which coffee shop you mean immediately.

</comment><comment><USER39> From H.G. Wells interview with Joseph Stalin, which made the charts on HN a week or two ago:

\-----

The capitalist is riveted to profit; and no power on earth can tear him away from it. Capitalism will be abolished, not by "organisers" of production not by the technical intelligentsia, but by the working class, because the aforementioned strata do not play an independent role. The engineer, the organiser of production does not work as he would like to, but as he is ordered, in such a way as to serve the interests of his employers. There are exceptions of course; there are people in this stratum who have awakened from the intoxication of capitalism. The technical intelligentsia can, under certain conditions, perform miracles and greatly benefit mankind. But it can also cause great harm. We Soviet people have not a little experience of the technical intelligentsia.

After the October Revolution, a certain section of the technical intelligentsia refused to take part in the work of constructing the new society; they opposed this work of construction and sabotaged it.

We did all we possibly could to bring the technical intelligentsia into this work of construction; we tried this way and that. Not a little time passed before our technical intelligentsia agreed actively to assist the new system. Today the best section of this technical intelligentsia are in the front rank of the builders of socialist society. Having this experience we are far from underestimating the good and the bad sides of the technical intelligentsia and we know that on the one hand it can do harm, and on the other hand, it can perform "miracles." Of course, things would be different if it were possible, at one stroke, spiritually to tear the technical intelligentsia away from the capitalist world. But that is utopia.

Are there many of the technical intelligentsia who would dare break away from the bourgeois world and set to work reconstructing society? Do you think there are many people of this kind, say, in England or in France? No, there are few who would be willing to break away from their employers and begin reconstructing the world.

Besides, can we lose sight of the fact that in order to transform the world it is necessary to have political power? It seems to me, Mr. Wells, that you greatly underestimate the question of political power, that it entirely drops out of your conception.

What can those, even with the best intentions in the world, do if they are unable to raise the question of seizing power, and do not possess power? At best they can help the class which takes power, but they cannot change the world themselves. This can only be done by a great class which will take the place of the capitalist class and become the sovereign master as the latter was before. This class is the working class. Of course, the assistance of the technical intelligentsia must be accepted; and the latter in turn, must be assisted. But it must not be thought that the technical intelligentsia can play an independent historical role. The transformation of the world is a great, complicated and painful process. For this task a great class is required. Big ships go on long voyages.

<comment><USER40> _" We did all we possibly could to bring the technical intelligentsia into this work of construction"_

=> "We had dissenters taken out and shot / sent to Siberia"

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> 'We have it in our power to begin the world over again.'</comment>


GIF inventor wins Webby award, says it's pronounced "Jif" - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/an-honor-for-the-creator-of-the-gif/

<comment><AUTHOR> Remember the dancing baby? <http://cache.ohinternet.com/images/a/ab/Dancing_baby.gif></comment>


A first-person engine in 265 lines of JS - <AUTHOR> http://www.playfuljs.com/a-first-person-engine-in-265-lines/ <comment><USER2> Heh, reminds me of kkrieger - a first person shooter in 100KB for a scene demo.

[https://www.scene.org/file.php?file=%2Fparties%2F2004%2Fbrea...](https://www.scene.org/file.php?file=%2Fparties%2F2004%2Fbreakpoint04%2F96kgame%2Fkkrieger- beta.zip&fileinfo)

<comment><USER3> If you missed it a couple of weeks ago, this article about its creation was really interesting: [http://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/metaprogramming- for-...](http://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/metaprogramming-for-madmen/)

( Thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7739599](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7739599) )

<comment><USER4> It's really interesting but would someone mind explaining why they have to keep this code under some size limit?

<comment><USER5> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene)

<comment><USER4> Cool, thanks, looks like that's what I was missing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This demo unfortunately uses an incorrect perspective transformation. There is no reason to go to trig if you represent the camera plane as a vector, and step along it one pixel at a time, and allowing the wall height to vary linearly in the distance to the _camera vector_ (taking lines to lines). In addition to being correct[1], it has the added benefit of being faster if implemented well.

My (admittedly n00bish and embarrassing) attempt at doing the same thing is here: [https://github.com/pervycreeper/game1/blob/master/main.cpp](https://github.com/pervycreeper/game1/blob/master/main.cpp)

[1] in the sense that lines map to lines, as in most photography, Renaissance and later painting, and most computer graphics

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure I'm convinced, as finding the cosine does in fact find the linear distance from the camera plane to the intersection. This is, as far as I have seen, the standard implementation, eg: [http://www.permadi.com/tutorial/raycast/rayc8.html#FINDING](http://www.permadi.com/tutorial/raycast/rayc8.html#FINDING) DISTANCE TO WALLS

However, I would love to see your proposed solution demonstrated. Would you care to fork the raycaster and compute the results with an alternative method?

<comment><USER6> My implementation above complies, but I can send you binaries if you need them. Be forewarned that I neglected to implement atmosphere. Here's a screenshot [http://i.imgur.com/7LJocjS.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/7LJocjS.jpg)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm less interested in seeing binary output and more interested in understanding the principles behind what you're saying. The wikipedia page you mentioned: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_projection#Diagram](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_projection#Diagram)

...appears to be describing exactly how this example works, right down to the diagram:

[http://www.playfuljs.com/images/raycaster- distance.png](http://www.playfuljs.com/images/raycaster-distance.png)

I'd be happy to update this article with an improved method once I understand it.

<comment><USER7> I'd love to see an updated version and a 'before and after' shot

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It is very interesting to me that you need to multiply the distance-to-wall by the cosine of the angle to transform the image from fisheye to normal. It makes me wonder, why is it that our eye in real life sees straight lines as straight, the way this demo renders the image?

To illustrate the question, see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Panotools5618.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Panotools5618.jpg) – why do we see the world as in the bottom image instead of in the top one? After all, our eye really is at different distances from different parts of a straight wall, so it sounds logical that we would see the fisheye effect describe in the article. Is the rectilinearity of the image we see caused by the shape of the lens in our eye, or by post-processing in our brain?

<comment><USER9> I was trying to crack exactly the same problem a decade ago - I was very frustrated by "classical" perspective distortions (such as looking up and down at a very tall pole, you notice in 3D projection the projected width at a given height changes depending on the pitch angle, which is counter-intuitive as your eye doesn't do that). I searched for answers, read Denis Zorin's disertation from Caltech, various different camera models etc. After one talk with a neurosurgeon he mentioned that those "perspective distortions" are perceived often by patients after a brain surgery and as the brain heals the normal undistorted picture begins to emerge. I am still curious if there is a more realistic mathematic formula that would allow us to have exactly the same perspective projection in 3D graphics as we have with our eyes. Anyone knows any recent research on this subject?

<comment><USER10> this is the perspective projection that we have with our eyes: spherical projection. detail here: [http://www.treeshark.com/treeblog/?p=301](http://www.treeshark.com/treeblog/?p=301)

At any given moment we're only looking at a very small slice of that larger spherical panorama. Our brains are constantly constructing a coherent 3d model, with the help of various schematic constraints, such as expectations about straight lines being straight.

We _perceive_ straight lines. but that's not what we _see_. But the curvature is usually so slight that it is very difficult to see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As someone with no experience in computer graphics it's always insane to see demos like this. Especially using just around 250 lines of javascript. Really impressive.

Also on the topic, the demo scene stuff is mind blowing, too. [0]

[0]: [http://awards.scene.org/awards.php](http://awards.scene.org/awards.php)

<comment><USER12> The nice thing about this implementation is that the code is very clear and easy to follow. You could easily make it much shorter if that were the goal.

<comment><USER13> Exactly. I think that's wonderful about this example, it's not just 250 lines of heavily compressed code, it's readable and clean.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> s-macke My raycast engine in Javascript needs a few more lines and works a little bit different, but gives also impressive results I think :) .

[http://simulationcorner.net/index.php?page=comanche](http://simulationcorner.net/index.php?page=comanche)

<comment><USER14> Love that you referenced Comanche ... my favorite helicopter game ever. Nice work on the JS side also!

<comment> s-macke The graphics were impressive, but the gameplay never touched me. Comanche 3 was much better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Cool. It reminded me of a similar work published by Opera some years ago

[http://dev.opera.com/articles/3d-games-with-canvas-and- rayca...](http://dev.opera.com/articles/3d-games-with-canvas-and-raycasting- part-1/)

woa! it was 2008, time sure pass by.

</comment><comment><USER16> > Rain is simulated with a bunch of very short walls in random places.

This made me laugh. I would have never thought of that way of doing it, but before I knew how it was implemented, I didn't even notice! That's a pretty good approximation!

</comment><comment><USER17> Great work. I had a huge amount of fun converting your last article (terrain renderer in a tiny number of JS) to WebGL and that was only fun because of your clean, easy to understand code. Thanks for sharing.

\--Callum

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm really surprised that it's 265 and not 256... I mean, there's got to be a good reason not to make it a round number, right? I'm mind blown anyways...

<comment><AUTHOR> Was shooting for 256 but went over to implement touch events ;)

<comment><USER18> Well I guess that's the downfall of the touch screen era

<comment><USER19> The downfall is that you an add a complete secondary interface in 9 lines of code?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> aaron-lebo That's really impressive.

I've seen some people suggest that voxels are like sprites for 3d programming (as far as sheer simplicity goes), but this strikes even more so as that. How does this compare to using actual 3d/voxels? Can you still have interesting physics or do you miss out on a lot?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! As with most software decisions, raycasters involve a tradeoff. They are related to voxels in that they impose constraints on what can be rendered. Voxels render grids in 3 dimensions while raycasters (typically) render them in 2.

For this reason, you can generally build a raycaster faster and simpler than either voxels or meshes, but there will be things you can't do. Rotation on the x axis is tricky, for example.

It's probably best to think of physics in a raycaster as the same sort of physics you could apply in a top-down 2D game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It runs really slow for me, like 1 FPS. Firefox 29 on Linux.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. Does FF 29 on linux perhaps have purely software graphics? It runs much faster than 1 fps on iphones and most androids, 60 fps on modern desktops in safari/chrome, and 30 fps on FF / osx.

<comment><USER21> I get terrible FPS with Firefox on Windows as well (Intel Haswell graphics).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is so great. Very straightforward explanation of raycasting. Looking forward to playing with!

</comment><comment><USER23> A raycaster in 254b on the C64

[https://plus.google.com/108984290462000253857/posts/MxWQwo14...](https://plus.google.com/108984290462000253857/posts/MxWQwo14GNS)

</comment><comment><USER24> Raycasting brings back memories! I remember poring through raycasting techniques to make my Wolf and Doom clones as a teenager. When I was almost done I demoed this for a group of friends at our school's computer club and boy were they were impressed up until the point the clipping algorithm failed and objects stopped disappearing when they fell out of the players field of view. Was teased for months after that. ... .

</comment><comment><USER25> Nice demo! But one note, I don't know about DaggerFall but Duke Nukem 3D does NOT uses Raycasting to draw walls.

DN3D uses sectors (Convex Polygon) to store room's lines (or walls), and draws those lines using player's FOV (Field Of View).

When those sectors are connected with others sectors, it's called portal. This is used to sort only the sectors that is inside the player's FOV.

<comment><USER26> Didn't games like Duke Nukem 3d, post-Doom, Wolf games use what was called a scanline algorithm? Drawing the lines in the players FOV as you just stated and then using a clipping algorithm to keep unwanted information out. I think raycasting would be a type of scanline algorithm, but the technique is less primitive since your not using a proper 3d engine. It's a long time since I programmed games like this so am now a bit fuzzy on the specifics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I feel very pathetic from this. You could have given me 265K lines and I wouldn't have figured it out.

<comment><USER28> Pretty sure the author followed this tutorial. [http://lodev.org/cgtutor/raycasting.html](http://lodev.org/cgtutor/raycasting.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I remember being amazed how simple raycasting was when I wrote a similar (though much simpler) engine in Java for a high school project. The "engine" itself was like ~200 lines of code in just 2 or 3 functions. Raycasting is a really clever technology. Cool demo!

</comment><comment><USER30> I know that the arrow keys have actual arrows on them, but so many modern games have trained us to use WASD to navigate, that if you're going to insist upon the arrow keys for navigation, you should probably mention this somewhere before the link to the demo.

<comment><AUTHOR> done!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Reminds me of [http://www.p01.org/releases/20_lines_Castle_Wolfenstein/](http://www.p01.org/releases/20_lines_Castle_Wolfenstein/)

</comment><comment><USER32> this is incredible. I remember doing something in C in openGL with triple the line count and not nearly as impressive results during a bachelor computer graphics class. This would have been a much more interesting lab.

Thanks for the great work, i can't wait to play around with this!

</comment><comment><USER33> What's the difference between ray casting and ray tracing?

<comment><USER34> Wikipedia gives a pretty good breakdown of the two terms:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_tracing_(graphics)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_tracing_\(graphics\))

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why do you need to use Uint8Array and not just a normal array?

<comment><AUTHOR> I (mistakenly) thought it would access faster. In looking for benchmarks to link you to, I found out that's a false assumption. So - no reason to at all :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> And it even manages to include Google Analytics !

</comment><comment><USER37> Wow.

</comment><comment><USER38> Awesome!

</comment><comment><USER39> <rant about no. of lines being a completely useless metric> <jquery in 1 line></comment>


I Hope the Supreme Court finds the Affordable Care Act Unconstitutional - <AUTHOR> http://merricklozano.com/obamacare-unconstitutional

<comment><USER2> IANAL and I have not read the complete unabridged text of the bill but so far as I can tell the only piece that is likely unconstitutional is the individual mandate, correct? The commerce clause can be very powerful provided commerce is already taking place but I am not aware of precedent allowing it to _coerce_ one into commerce in the first place.

Is there such a precedent? Would the existence of such a precedent be a good thing in the long term? I'm inclined to support this bill 100% but I just don't know what kind of effect this could have on businesses in the future.

<comment><USER3> That's an open question. The legal term is "severability". Sometimes an entire law (or contract) will be struck down if one part is found to be illegal or invalid. Other times just the invalid part will be cut out, and the rest will still be enforced. It can go either way, depending on very specific details of the law (or contract), drafting history, previous precedents, etc.

Often, a law (or contract) will contain a severability clause specifically saying what will happen. (Contracts almost always say that the contract should stand if any clause is found invalid.) The problem here is that the ACA's drafters (perhaps foolishly) did not consider the possibility of a constitutional challenge, and did not include a severability clause into the law.

If the mandate is found unconstitutional, the court will also need to rule on the severability question; it's very uncertain at this point which way they'll rule (if they have to rule at all).

(Bonus question: Do we want the ACA struck down if the mandate is struck down or not? The law does a lot of things, some of which are quite good, and would still work just fine without the mandate clause. On the other hand, guaranteed issue and community ratings without a mandate might completely destroy the health insurance market, without replacing it with anything else, which would be a disaster. The Court is highly unlikely to rule that it's partially severable, so we'll probably see the whole ACA struck down, or only the mandate. In theory, Congress could fix it either way the next day...but in practice it's likely to be terrible deadlocked. Messy.)

<comment><USER4> I rather hope the bill stands or falls as a whole. The individual mandate is one of the lynchpins of the bill. Without it, the bans on annual limits and discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions that are coming in 2014 will probably force premiums to increase considerably. Admittedly there's plenty of good stuff in the act beside all that, but I fear it's still better to lose everything in the bill than it is to lose the individual mandate but not the things that need the individual mandate to be feasible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What are the chances that if the Affordable Health Care act is found unconstitutional that America gets universal health care in the next decade?

<comment><USER6> You could always go for the European-style universal healthcare, where the Government pays for everything. You'll need to have higher taxes, though, or cut some of that military/war budget.

<comment><USER3> A rarely talked about fact is that the US government already spends more per- capita on health care than European governments do. (No, really!)

So actually, it's perfectly possible for the US to enact universal healthcare and cut overall healthcare spending at the same time.

(Also, minor quibble, but when you say "Government pays for everything" you're really talking about "free at the point of use" healthcare. That's one system of universal healthcare used in Europe - and elsewhere - but not the most common one.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Some people aren't in a position to take on the risk of entrepreneurship. Counting those with significant medical conditions among them doesn't strike me as abnormal.

If society is geared to reward risk takers who succeed, it seems that if society were then to eliminate a good deal of that risk, something in the arrangement would be lost.

How is universal healthcare any different to start ups than a government funded insurance policy that pays a modest amount when your startup fails?

My friend drives a nice sports car. He's outraged at the cost of dental work. He thinks dental care should be free to Americans. How is that any different that government subsidized sports cars?

<comment><AUTHOR> The average age of a tech startup founder is 39, and a % of those have families. They should not have to risk financial ruin as a tradeoff for starting a company that could provide jobs.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. I'm in this position now: a single breadwinner with a child. As a Canadian, I don't risk financial ruin for any health-related issues (unless I travel to the US without health insurance, of course).

This was a big factor in me making the jump to founding a company from up here in Canada. Hiring folks with families in the USA was a huge pain for us, specifically because of the health care issues. We were paying a _lot_ for them to extend their current health care from their previous employers, and one had the added stress of having a pregnant wife at the time we brought him over, with all the complications that brings to the health insurance story.

Hiring a fellow Canadian was basically a cakewalk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Actually, I think the ACA does improve the situation he describes. Small companies, like start-ups, wouldn't be required to purchase health insurance and people whose earnings teeter at the edge of "ramen profitable" would likely be eligible for extensive subsidy.

</comment><comment><USER10> Your friend is doing it wrong.

Instead of shelling out 17k/year, get a 5k deductible policy, and pay for the doctor visits yourself. put the 5-10k you save per year in some sort of investment you can get at when you really have to. Something like an index fund if you're young, or bonds if you're older.

<comment><AUTHOR> Those 5k deductible policies still cost $500 a month for family in a small group and leave you really exposed to 15k per person (max out of pocket) and max 45k out of pocket for the family. That's not inline with what healthcare should cost. An individual may pay $75 for that same policy but still have exposure of around 15k per year max out of pocket.

The HSA plans are just as expensive as middle of the road plans as well and are geared towards people who save a lot to begin with.

<comment><USER10> here are some real numbers:

[http://www.mrhealthinsurance.net/PDFs/Blue_Cross_Options_Blu...](http://www.mrhealthinsurance.net/PDFs/Blue_Cross_Options_Blue/optionsblue_rates.pdf)

a 64 year old with a drug problem and 3 kids is looking at 31k a year (worst case, 6k best case).

what, exactly, are you looking to have happen? it's either socialized, where healthy people subsidize the sick, or it's not, or there is some gradient between the two.

I think, right now, you're looking at about 6k/year per person. you can divide that up however you want... billg pays all of it, you pay your own way, or some point on the gradient between the two. regardless, the money has to come from somewhere. I kind of like the obamacare, everybody contributes something model. I think i'd prefer it as a straight up tax, but FREE MARKET IS AMAZING, RAWR, so whatever. that's fine.

 _edit_

or we just let people die. i'm not ok with that.

 _edit 2_

I need to qualify that, this is only for people that aren't poor or old (which medicare and mediaide cover already) or for veterans (which have their own system) or kids (chips it think it's called). this is exclusively for working class kinda folks who never went to war. the other 60% are already covered by socialized medicine.

 _edit 3_

why the hell am i participating in an /r/politics discussion on hn? i'm obviously dumb.

 _edit 4_

Thank you for simply downvoting and not replying. this way, i can go to sleep not worrying you're expecting a reply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Healthcare isn't a right. End of story.

<comment><USER5> At the same time, America treats emergency healthcare as a right and then the rest of society pays those bills.

It's probably cheaper for people to get care before it gets to the emergency level. It certainly results in better quality of life.

<comment><USER12> _It's probably cheaper_... _It certainly results in better quality of life._

Why don't we use that rationale to justify complete regulation of food consumption? Let's have the government force all citizens to eat a vegan diet. The economies of scale would certainly make it cheaper to consume. Overall health would improve. And we would all have a better quality of life...

Except for that little word "force". What if I feel like a milkshake today or a nice juicy steak every once in a while? If I can afford it, and it doesn't hurt anyone else (humans at least), I should be free to purchase those things.

When you're required to eat things, or required to pay for things... OR GO TO PRISON, you're not really free anymore, and that's why Americans don't like government programs like ACA or socialized health care. It might make sense on paper and look just like a big insurance pool, but in reality, it looks more like a centrally planned market, where price signals and efficiencies are non- existant, because when your doctor has a guaranteed paycheck from Uncle Sam, he lacks an incentive to make sure you get the best care. When medical students realize that reimbursement rates have dropped to the point that they can't afford to repay their student loan for a very long time, we'll get fewer doctors, or standards will drop.

I'd rather pay a little bit extra for poor people to get free care than to force me into a one-size fits all plan with long wait times for special procedures. Let's at least fix the problem of poor people not being able to afford a decent level of care before we force everyone into a one-size fits all government program with promises it can't keep, like Social Security and Medicare.</comment></comment></comment>


FBI takes out $14M DNS malware operation - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/fbi-takes-out-14m-dns-malware-operation

<comment><USER2> "Users involuntarily routed to Internet ads may well have harbored discontent with those businesses, even though the businesses were blameless."

I have a hard time believing the businesses were completely blameless, if they made little to no effort to vet the services they purchase. Chances are the prices were low enough for them not to ask many questions.

<comment><USER3> I've been on the receiving end of this. Though maybe a different group. The attacker was redirecting users to my pages with their ads. All complaints were then directed to us. It's not a fun place to bein having to explain to a bunch of angry people that yes it's your site but it's not really your site.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for clarifying, I probably just don't quite understand how businesses went about being duped.

<comment><USER4> I don't think they were duped at all. From what I can tell from the article, this is malware pointing machines to a bogus DNS server, not businesses using a shady registrar. These is little an affected business could do about it. I'm not sure if sanswork is describing the same thing but he could be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _As part of a federal court order, the rogue DNS servers have been replaced > with legitimate servers in the hopes that users who were infected will not > have their Internet access disrupted, the FBI stated._

I don't know if that's really the best solution. It's likely exposing more security holes in whatever machines it's on - breaking their connection might actually help them (or re-routing to an info page), rather than keeping them in the dark.

</comment><comment><USER6> Whoa... I recently observed this very scam while using the network at a local coffee house. The interesting thing was, it wasn't an end-user computer that was infected -- their router had been reprogrammed to direct users to this DNS server in Russia.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is precisely with PROTECT-IP and E-PARASITE are horrible ideas. We need DNSSEC, and legislative efforts that'd work against it are just going to enable this sort of criminal activity to continue.

I hope that legislators connect the dots.

<comment><USER8> I don't understand what any of this has to do with DNSSEC. DNSSEC is a dubious idea; its core value proposition is to turn DNS registrars into CAs. If we had DNSSEC 5 years ago, Ghadafi's Libya could have controlled Bitly's TLS key.

I also don't see what an FBI malware bust has to do with E-PARASITE, but I don't care at all about E-PARASITE in any direction, whereas I do care about DNSSEC, which I think could actually fuck up the Internet.

<comment><USER9> _Ghadafi's Libya could have controlled Bitly's TLS key_

A. Hosting important stuff under TLDs controlled by unstable, unfriendly governments is a dumb idea any way you slice it.

B. Ghadafi's Libya did control bit.ly. Libya still does, until such time as no one will talk to it without properly-authenticated TLS.

C. TLS keys are not part of DNSSEC. Some people are proposing that idea, but it's not clear if whatever might get adopted could actually usurp a decently CA signed cert served over HTTPS. It looks far more likely that CA pinning in HSTS is going to be deployed much faster than anything over DNSSEC.</comment></comment></comment>


Webscaled: Buy and sell web crawls - <AUTHOR> http://webscaled.com/

<comment><USER2> Hi everyone, I released a sample dataset a couple days ago. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1176977></comment>


Samsung Pay could overtake Apple Pay in mobile payments - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/article/2890885/opensource-subnet/samsung-pay-could-overtake-apple-pay-in-mobile-payments.html?nsdr=true#twitter

<comment><AUTHOR> Apple may have lost its lead in contactless payments yesterday when Samsung introduced its universally accepted Samsung Pay at Mobile World Congress. This may be somewhat surprising considering just last September Apple convinced the mobile industry that it had revolutionized credit and debit card payments with Apple Pay.

<comment><USER2> LoopPay is considered an inferior technology and it has a short life expectancy ahead of it. It mimics the magnetic swipe of credit cards allowing it to work on common credit card swipers without NFC. However, credit card swiping will gradually disappear because it is not as secure as newer mechanisms that don't transfer credit card credentials to the merchant. These new mechanisms are mandated by law, because a new rule will shift liability from cc companies to merchants in the event of fraud. There are other aspects of Samsung Pay besides LoopPay that I am ignoring, but they won't have the same market reach as Apple Pay.

<comment><USER3> > These new mechanisms are mandated by law

AFAIK no, it's just that MasterCard and VISA put it in their contracts.

> as newer mechanisms that don't transfer credit card credentials to the > merchant

AFAIK even with EMV the merchant still gets the PAN, in the case of tokenization it's just not the "real" one. The Samsung press release mentions tokenization but it's not clear to me whether this will always be used or is just an option.

<comment><USER2> The feature that gives Samsung Pay ubiquity comes from LoopPay and mimics magnetic swiping. It can be used in many places where traditional credit cards can be used, but not when credit cards need to be inserted such as vending machines. This does not use tokenization or rely on NFC. Hence it's still as insecure as a traditional credit card.

Samsung may incorporate tokenization, but that's outside of magentic swiping and requires NFC terminals. This is where Samsung is lagging Apple Pay.

LoopPay will become obsolete on October 2015, when liability rules shift, and EMV-based machines replace older machines and chip and pin cards are mailed by banks to consumers. It's not just Mastercard and Visa (although they are responsible for the M and V in the name), but also Amex and Discover. These new machines will support tokenization and NFC. The machines may also incorporate requirements stemming from the Durbin amendment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article doesn't address security. The point of Apple Pay was the merchant, who've proven themselves untrustworthy, doesn't have any of your credit card info. If Samsung Pay provides similar functionality then they may have something. I don't see how they could though without the merchant having to change their backend processing, thus destroying the ubiquity.</comment>


An interesting take on how "feminine voice" assistants can hardwire sexism - <AUTHOR> https://www.turingtribe.com/story/experts-warn-ai-could-HDbg5i8hvbEs8YxmD <comment><USER2> It's funny.

Look at science fiction voice assistants and you will find many male voices such as KITT, Jarvis, etc.

Cortana, Siri, Alexa and others I know are female and I wonder why. I know the spectral content and legibility of male and female voices are different, but I do wonder if people feel more comfortable with a female in a "servant" roles and have the same kind of fear of men that many people have towards black people.

The evidence is clear that both boys and girls benefit from male role models. Having a actively involved father is great, but it is also good to have male teachers and caregivers at the preschool and K-6 levels.

Preschools that hire male workers, however, find it is just a matter of time before somebody is like "yikes! they have a male working there!" and a complaint of sexual abuse is filed. Often these turn out to be groundless, but it can be a big burden on an organization that isn't equipped to handle it.

Although you still hear the broken record that the educational system discriminates against women, and it probably does in some way, women are getting better results today from preschool to the PhD. I think growing up in a female-dominated space might be teaching boys that education is a "girl thing" the same way that many black people have gotten the idea that education is a "white thing"

Most commercial voice synthesizers have multiple voices, both male and female -- I don't think they do it for "political correctness", I think they just figure people want a choice. Why don't voice assistants give us that choice?

</comment><comment><USER3> Why are we trying to remove gender from everything? It's one of the great things in life! Our differences should be appreciated, not ignored and certainly not attacked.</comment>


India Overrules Bayer, Allowing Generic Drug - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/business/global/india-overrules-bayer-allowing-generic-drug.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&seid=auto&smid=tw-nytimes&adxnnlx=1331578809-OC1gj5v7vMffNnNY0dydMA

<comment><USER2> _According to the decision, Bayer must license the drug Nexavar, or sorafenib, to Natco Pharma, an Indian company. In exchange, Natco must pay Bayer a 6 percent royalty on its net sales and has to sell the drug for 8,800 rupees ($176) a month, about 3 percent of the 280,000 ($5866) rupees that Bayer charges for it in India. Natco's drug is for use only in India, the decision said._

In 2011, India's GDP PPP per capita was $3,703 and actual per capita income was about $1100.

So the monthly cost of the Bayer drug was nearly twice the GDP PPP per capita and over five times the actual per capita income.</comment>


Automatic braking long a priority for trains, but costs are daunting - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/05/14/automatic-braking-amtrak-crash-positive-train-control-ntsb-congress/27300969/

<comment><AUTHOR> Forcing trains to slow for turns is not a complex engineering problem, IMO. Here's my safer, low-tech solution that wouldn't cost billions of dollars and wouldn't be vulnerable to hackers. Before the turn, pound a "stake" into the ground. Then add a simple lever under trains that forces them to slow down. When the lever hits the stake, the train is forced to slow. No human intervention required. If you need different speeds for different turns, just position stakes further left or right. 20mph stake slows the train to 20mph, easy. (Extrude the metal enough that it wouldn't be easy to tamper with.) Seems like this billion-dollar wireless solution would be vulnerable to hackers. Personally, I'd feel safer with a mechanical solution.</comment>


World's first anti-ageing drug could see humans live to 120 - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/12017112/Worlds-first-anti-ageing-drug-could-see-humans-live-to-120.html <comment><USER2> [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23900241](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23900241)

[https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02432287](https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02432287)</comment>


So how do I write an intellegent freelancing contract so I can keep a roof over my head? - <AUTHOR>

I have been wary of businessmen since I read Catch-22 in middle school, but it is a bit difficult to avoid them and eat for any extended period of time.
I want to know what to look for in a freelance contract for programming work and what to include if I have the opportunity to write one myself. I imagine many of you have been in my situation; I appreciate your help.
In the absence of experience, idle speculation will do.
(edit: Let me recommend middle schoolers avoid Catch-22) <comment><USER2> Your question is too broad and vague, but I think you want to read this:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1413300871/sr=8-1/qid=11543...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1413300871/sr=8-1/qid=1154311680/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0667002-9632049?ie=UTF8)</comment>


What if the secret feature of the iPad 3 is a new touch-feedback technology? - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/03/07/what-if-the-secret-feature-of-the-ipad-3-is-a-new-touch-feedback-technology/

<comment><USER2> My take is that Apple lets rumors run, then gets the best ones and plans them for next releases. You know, like they did in Lost, the TV show.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this is it.</comment>


Ask HN: any good books or resources to read about how to start a startup? - rush-tea

I am looking to read some books or resources about how to start a startup from operational and business strategy point of view.
Topic that I can think of are:
1. business license (DBA license required?), how to incorporate in different states in US or Puerto Rico, Bermuda (?)
2. how to raise fund
3. how to successfully get funding from VC
4. different stages of funding (series A, B, etc) and preparation
5. how to market your startup via social media, etc.
I am curious to know how the process goes. I have a clear idea, but would love to know more.
Thanks. <comment> rush-tea anyone?</comment>


Last Day to Join Global Hackathon - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/koding/global.hackathon

<comment><USER2> Looking for teammates. Rookie Java, PHP and HTML/CSS developers needed. Feel free to contact via email: gosain.arnav[at]gmail.com

</comment><comment><USER3> Do somebody wants a algorithmic C++,python and ruby guy.

</comment><comment><USER4> Looking for teammates. Angular JS expert needed.

<comment><USER5> Hi I work on JS and Java, I would like to join

<comment><USER4> Send me your details to me [at] sumonselim [dot] com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Waiting to start koding

</comment><comment><USER7> hi, i'm from India.... Still haven't got a team.... looking out for a team....

<comment><USER8> What languages are you interested in?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> i do not have teammate yet, i'd like to work with cyber teammate :)

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm here</comment>


Hyperloop speculation – launch assist for electric aircraft  - <AUTHOR> http://electrictakeoff.com/archives/767

<comment><USER2> Elon Musk said it was nearly impossible to get injured in his system. Which means that any aircraft travel is out, because all it takes is an engine failure to kill everyone on board.

The safety reason is a big reason why I'm going with the underground tubes between LA and SF.

<comment><USER3> I don't think it can be underground, since Musk said it would cost $6 billion to build. Also, the plan is to build something similar for east-west coast travel, and underground would be even less possible.

<comment><USER4> The other consideration aside from cost is that seismic activity, even minor, can skew a tunnel. (Edit: for deep tunnels, that is. I have no idea about tunnels right below the surface.) That's bad news at high speed. I've given the tunnel approach some thought.[1]

And I keep hearing people trying to apply Hyperloop to coast-to-coast travel, but I don't recall Elon every saying anything about that long of a distance. In fact I recall him specifically talking about "the right city pairs", which implies some kind of distance limit.

[1] [http://www.youell.com/matt/writing/?p=1050](http://www.youell.com/matt/writing/?p=1050)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "It leaves when you arrive"

This doesn't work for an electric aircraft, or many normal public transport methods as they are all focused on batching people up into large groups (planes, trains, etc).

Also, Elon has called Hyperloop 'another type of transport', i.e. nothing like we already use, whereas I would say this idea is just an aircraft with a new type of launch system; not as different as Elon suggests it will be.

However I agree that getting the land to build a tunnel on the surface (or a track of any sort) would cost a lot of money, and tunnels below the surface would be too costly as well.

Although I think lots of people are converging on the idea, sound waves, evacuated tunnels, all that sort of stuff, I think everyone so far has missed the big detail or breakthrough that makes it feasible, after all, these techniques have been known for a long time, just not been taken advantage of because they aren't practical.

<comment><USER6> > This doesn't work for an electric aircraft, or many normal public transport > methods as they are all focused on batching people up into large groups > (planes, trains, etc).

True, but as the batch size gets smaller, so does the interval between vehicles. "one every minute, on the minute" is not much different from "It leaves when you arrive". This may not work for aircraft, but it certainly would for automated light rail systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been out of the loop for a while. How long is speculation about the master plan supposed to go on until Musk reveals what it is?

<comment><USER8> Until August the 12th at the most.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'll re-issue my prediction: an STP hydrogen tunnel with elecromagnetic levitation (my favorite being Inductrack, known for its passive failsafe) and propulsion, and wheels for low speeds, makes a lot more economic sense than an evacuated tunnel. Much less drag, much higher speed of sound.

The other things that any modern engineer would never do that an 1870's railroad technician somewhere built into SOP, like mixed speed segments, frequent braked unbanked turns, single-tracking, and manual signalling / switching and grade crossings, will also be consciously avoided; the FRA regulations are built on making operating under such principles safer. Applying modern real-time at-speed routing to rail is something the PRT guys have been dreaming about for decades - the money and organizational will just hasn't been there to make it happen at a scale sufficient to make it cheap enough to justify.

<comment><USER10> Sounds like an insane fire hazard. With large volumes of hydrogen and breathable air in close proximity, otherwise minor failures would be catastrophic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> After ruling out underground tubes, electric aircraft and coast-to-coast travel, teleportation seems to be the only option left. And I haven't really expected that.

</comment><comment><USER12> One of my takes on it is that it has to be some sort of land/underground interconnection between cities.

My reasoning behind this is that he is open sourcing the designs. My guess behind this is that if it is a ground based system that requires right of way/property access etc. then there is tons of transaction costs & government regulation that would prevent copy cats from destroying the first mover's capital investments that would normally be protected via IP law.

If it didn't have these high transaction costs associated with it, then any actor could come and undercut your system after the tech behind the open source designs becomes cheaper. Traditionally this would be protected because of IP laws. However, he's dismissing this route & letting anyone up to the challenge take on the construction challenge with him. I'm guessing this is likely because the government won't eminent domain/allow/permit etc. extra routes between SF & LA etc. if there's already a hyperloop.

</comment><comment><USER13> Perhaps it could be an evacuated, semi-flexible, underwater toroidal ring along the coast?

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting idea, but I don't think it is realistic as air travel, even from a launch tube, I suspect would be under the rules if the FAA, which I'm sure would still require the security ....uhhhh, stuff (?) that we currently have to deal with, so really a very limited benefit.

Plus, if then hyper loop can run along/beside the California aquaduct, I think that would solve the issue of terrain and land purchase. If elon can convince the gov't that the hyper loop would secure the passageway, they might go for that.

</comment><comment><USER15> About the land access concern, in France we had the aerotrain which was developped as an alternative to high speed train but did not survive the conventional railroad lobbies. There is still 60 km of test track south of Paris. The track is 10 m above the ground and is built using pillars every 20 m. It has been there for more than 40 years for it's considered too expensive to dismantle for actual very limited annoyment, more limited than high voltage power lines for example. However, land is flat there and mostly non urban.

<comment><USER16> Germany has something similar: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transrapid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transrapid) The Asian maglevs are german engineering.

<comment><USER17> Not like Asia is awash in maglevs, I think the shanghai airport link is the only commercial one.

<comment><USER16> I think Japan is working on one, but I might be mistaken. But yes, the Shanghai one is german. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Keeping a passenger aircraft at constant speed of 600 mph is not realistic with the current (or near-future) battery technology, even if the initial kinetic energy comes "for free".

<comment><USER19> May be it's a rocket. You just stand in a small rocket vertically, like those used in the military and cost about 3-4 million each. You get launched to 10-15 miles height making a gravity turn at some point. After that it takes a relatively small burn to secure a nice trajectory that lands you 500 miles away. I imagine it's a vertical pipe 1 mile high and you stay on your feet the whole journey with about 5g being accelerated in the pipe until you reach the proper delta-v. Then you land with parachute on cushions or grasshopper-style. Worst case may be an electric propeller.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Elon Stevens mashup?

 _And again, the [hyperloop] is not something that you just dump something on. It 's not a big [plane]. It's a series of tubes._

</comment><comment><USER10> Is there a complete list of Musk's statements about Hyperloop, constraining its nature?

<comment><USER21> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop)

<comment><USER8> So Musk himself decribed it as a "cross between a Concorde and a railgun and an air hockey table". So why do people keep talking about tubes ?

Wouldn't a Ground Effect Vehicule ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_vehicle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_vehicle)) fit the descripton better ?

Edit : thought a self powered super-sonic GEV would be hard to pull of.

<comment><USER22> one of the more appropriate links...[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A9rotrain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A9rotrain)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I remember a similar project from the French TV news. The airplanes were ultralight drones (no pilot and only as many passenger as taxis). I can't find the source.

</comment><comment><USER24> I guess Elon Musk does know about stuff like "right of way". Also you might experience difficulties to launch something into the air from an evacuated tube...

<comment><USER8> He didn't say the tube were going to be evacuated did he ? If you are going to put something in the air, evacuationg th lauchpad seem to be a bit pointless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> why is everyone taking this thing so seriously? correct me if I'm wrong but it seems so vague as to not deserve the current hype, regardless of who Musk is

<comment><USER26> It's a lot more fun to imagine it won't be a massive, Segway-level disappointment; plus he has a history of making big promises and delivering. Also, I think humanity is just _ready_ for teleportation technology, now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> So my take on it is this:

There will be a guiding rail, and the vehicles will be 2 / 4 person pods that can be accelerated in the same way railguns work.

</comment><comment><USER28> An exciting field; I haven't heard anything recent, but former Mint CEO Aaron Patzer started work on some new transit ideas a couple years ago</comment>


Intel Ponte Vecchio GPU Will Be Made on TSMC 6nm Process, CPUs Could Be TSMC 3nm - <AUTHOR> https://wccftech.com/intel-ponte-vecchio-gpu-tsmc-6nm/ <comment> websg-x Sorry, but that fake news. The news is for manipulation of Taiwan stock market. TSMC dominated the Taiex index.

We are having a fun day on PTT. A popular Taiwan BBS frequent by lot of real TSMC engineers.

One example, [https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/Stock/M.1595925811.A.03E.html](https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/Stock/M.1595925811.A.03E.html), people are poking fun with how only naive people(韭菜)believe the 5nm, 3nm cpu news.

<comment><USER2> If it is fake then it certainly has been repeated a few places.

<comment> websg-x Same sources, 電子時報(digitimes),中國時報(chinatimes),經濟日報(economic daily),工商時報(commercial times). Known for publishing false rumors to move stock market.

The rumor is 180000 wafers for GPU next year, which is impossibly large. In comparison, AMD book 200000 wafers for all of their CPU, GPU, and PS5/XBOX cpu.

<comment><USER3> And they face no repercussions for that ? That's the kind of things that tend to annoy powerful people

<comment><USER4> Ummmm... so its powerless people using their non=existing resources who try to manipulate stock market to annoy powerful people?

<comment><USER3> People who try to move stock market have certainly some power (or at least lot of money or it's useless) but that doesn't mean that people who lost money or the regulators are okay with market manipulation.

Maybe they can't do anything about it. I admit my knowledge of finance is limited. I've read about the SEC doing investigations after Elon Musk tweet for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am pleased TSMC is moving the industry forward, but I fear we are moving from an Intel monopoly to a TSMC monopoly. As a consumer the result will be the same.

<comment><USER6> It's easier to switch from one fab to another than from x86 to another cpu architecture.

<comment><USER7> Linux has done it.

<comment><USER8> Linux is not tied to a single architecture. Not sure if it ever has been, really.

<comment><USER9> From the original announcement email by Linus:

> It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will > support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(.

And he meant it too, as later in the thread when someone says they don't believe him about the non-portability:

> Simply, I'd say that porting is impossible. It's mostly in C, but most > people wouldn't call what I write C. It uses every conceivable feature of > the 386 I could find, as it was also a project to teach me about the 386\. > As already mentioned, it uses a MMU, for both paging (not to disk yet) and > segmentation. It's the segmentation that makes it REALLY 386 dependent > (every task has a 64Mb segment for code & data - max 64 tasks in 4Gb. > Anybody who needs more than 64Mb/task - tough cookies).

This is a historical curiosity of course. The Linux kernel supports more architectures than anything else.

<comment><USER10> Was there a effort to make it cross platform, or just the tech that looked 386 only at the time like a MMU becoming more widespread (I remember a fail0verflow talk on ps4 linux a while back where they mentioned a MMU and clock as requirements to port Linux to an architecture)?

<comment><USER11> MMU is less of a requirement these days, since the uclinux patches were upstreamed.

And it was ported to Alpha early on to be ported to a very 'not 386' style architecture. Before that it was very x86 specific.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is absurd. Intel's fab capacity is several _times_ TSMC's so even if intel had chosen to do this there is no way TSMC would be able to satisfy Intel's needs. In addition most of TSMC's capacity has already been committed.

That's the business side; ignore the technical errors like 3 nm.

There's already a comment saying this is market manipulation; I just wanted to point out the logical fallacy to avoid "is no" — "is so".

<comment><USER13> Intel already confirmed on their earnings call that Ponte Vecchio will be based on "external process technologies", so while yes, 6nm is (probably) an error, Intel is 100% certainly running their GPUs on TSMC.

[https://www.extremetech.com/computing/313222-intel-amd- repor...](https://www.extremetech.com/computing/313222-intel-amd-reportedly- fighting-for-capacity-at-tsmc)

They're not moving _everything_ to TSMC, just this specific line of products - which is a new line and would have required additional fab capacity _somewhere_. That's either 14nm (completely full), 10nm (massively low yields on something this big), or outside the company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Intel has still good profit margins, much better than AMDs. But Intel has rarely been the best in microarchitecture. It has been almost always the superior process technology that gave them the edge over competition.

If Intel is forced to compete against Nvidia and AMD as fabless for several years, it's very bleak future for them.

<comment><USER15> Intel going fabless is like Boeing ordering aircraft from Airbus. Desperate but temporary. Intel can't cut their core business because everything is build around it. They can fall but they can't quit.

"TSMC internally does not consider orders for Intel's processors as long-term ones, and therefore is unlikely to build additional production capacity for the new contract if it comes, according to industry sources." [https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20200728PD201.html](https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20200728PD201.html)

<comment><USER16> To work for TSMC it would have to be a long term commitment. But Intel has the cash to pay for it and given recent events it would boost investor confidence if Intel could say (e.g.) 30% of our CPUs in future will be made by TSMC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is anyone other than me truly shocked at Intel's fall from grace here? Intel outsourcing their chip fabrication because they're basically unable to do it themselves. Like... who would've seen that coming 10 years ago? Or even 5 (back before 10nm was the debacle it became)?

I realize Intel recently ousted their chip chief (who, as I understand it, was poached from Qaulcomm a few years earlier) but if I were on the board, I'd be looking at this situation and calling it what it is: a massive failure in leadership and the pissing away of one of the greatest industry leads and I'd be going further and cleaning house entirely of the executive team.

Oh and free advice for the board: don't put a bean counter in charge of a hardware company. Seriously.

<comment><USER18> >don't put a bean counter in charge of a hardware company. Seriously.

Or pull a Boeing and move your management away from having a tech background and moving them half way across the country from the rest of the company too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why would Intel not be focusing on protecting its x86 business and working through the issues on getting CPUs onto TSMC first rather than a product which is currently generating zero revenue for Intel?

Just to clarify - not a point about Intel using TSMC at all - just not clear why they would put Ponte Vecchio on TSMC first when CPUs should be the priority.

EDIT - Added clarification.

<comment><USER19> Protecting its x86 business by outsourcing & relying on an external supplier for one of its core competencies?

They've announced they have contingency plans to hedge against further schedule uncertainty (assuming that means using TSMC), but their #1 priority would be to use their own fabs.

<comment><USER16> Protecting their x86 server business should be their number 1 priority right now. Customers don't care if the product is manufactured in Intel or TSMC Fabs and the margins will still be more than satisfactory.

If the x86 based product falls behind customers have an incentive to move to ARM made on TSMC (Apple being the obvious case in point). In this respect AMD is doing Intel a long term favour by giving firms an x86 fall back.

<comment><USER19> That's fairly short-sighted, a 200B company shouldn't be protecting their core business by handing over their manufacturing reins to effectively create a monopoly that most of the world relies upon for chip manufacturing to make up for a 6 month delay, whilst still incurring the massive fixed costs of their existing fabs.

How much more secure would their business be if they're at the mercy of Monopoly supplier with no competition?

At least Apple's business is protected as they're a value-added supplier with a near impenetrable network monopoly to prevent competition, but most of Intel's business is chips, conceding manufacturing of them to a single supplier who's now worth nearly 2x Intel, who are big enough to buy ARM or merge with AMD seems unwise for their long-term prospects.

<comment><USER16> I didn't say they should hand all their manufacturing to TSMC.

Rather, if they have fallen behind on manufacturing (which they have) and decided that they need to access TSMC fabs (which they seem to have) then the priority should be x86 not Ponte Vecchio.

Why? Because whilst they are behind on process some firms have an bigger incentive to switch to ARM (eg Apple). Once they have gone to ARM they are much less likely to come back to Intel x86. If they can keep them away from ARM they have a chance of getting them back if/when they get their manufacturing back on track.

<comment><USER19> Either way conceding manufacturing of their flagship products to their competitor is not without consequence, and shouldn't be their primary preference - it's their contingency plan, as it should be.

<comment><USER16> Sure, their primary preference would be to use in-house, but their flagship products today are being built using either an old or a problematic process node and that's a big problem that is not going to get sorted in 6 months.

Reading the earnings call I think its reasonably clear that they will be going outside for at least some of their manufacturing - the 'contingency plan' is really around what happens if things get worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does TSMC even have the capacity to produce 6nm, 5nm, 3nm etc. for the leading CPU manufacturs AMD, NVIDIA, Apple, and Intel?

If not, that's probably good news for TSMC's future profit margin, but it's worrisome that there isn't much of an alternative.

It would be great to see Samsung open up its fabs more.

<comment><USER21> The world-wide PC market including Intel and AMD totaled about 290 million units last year. 190 million of them were laptops.

Apple sold about 200 million iPhones, 70 million iPads and 60 million Apple Watches (and not including other A-series devices such as T2 chips, Apple TV, or HomePod) All of these are split among TSMC's 10nm and 7nm parts. So it's fair to say that TSMC with investment in fabs can work on that scale. I'm intrigued that Intel would be chasing the low cost 6nm however.

<comment><USER22> > I'm intrigued that Intel would be chasing the low cost 6nm however.

My guess would very much be availability of delivery dates; I would be unsurprised if the first couple years of 5nm was largely sold out, and provided you can deal with the lower density 6nm (which is, after all, primarily just an incremental 7nm improvement with the same design rules, etc.) it allows them to bring it to market sooner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> When I suggested 2 days ago that Intel should cut their losses on their long failed fab strategy and use TSMC I was downvoted and told I was wrong...

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23932541](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23932541) * [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23932529](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23932529)

</comment><comment><USER24> Why would you name a product "old bridge" ? Nobody speaks Italian at Intel's marketing department?

<comment><USER25> Intel uses geographical codenames, have a look at this (out of date) list: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_codenames](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_codenames)

Ponte Vecchio is, of course, a famous bridge in Firenze.

<comment><USER26> It is also the name of many less famous bridges across Italy. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_Vecchio_(disambiguation)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_Vecchio_\(disambiguation\))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I feel like links to wccftech com should be banned here. Most of them are outright false information.

</comment><comment><USER28> While I do read wccftech from time to time, one must realise they are not a reputable site. You need to read everything with the largest grain of salt.

If we could also stop posting or upvoting anything from wccftech would also be great.

</comment><comment><USER29> What happens after 3 nm?

0 nm? -3 nm?

<comment><USER30> I think that the radius of a Silicon atom is about 0.1 nm. ~1 nm may be the limit of what's possible. The next nodes after 3 nm are likely going to be 2 nm and 1.4 nm.

3 nm is not available yet, though. Current best is 7 nm, I believe.

<comment><USER31> Is the process of making smaller scales possible redundant or does it depend on new findings in science that no one anticipated?

I'd really like to know if the fab producers repeat some kind of procedure to create smaller chips or if a new prodigy to make breakthrough findings has to be found every other year to adhere to Moore's Law.

<comment><USER30> Making transistors and connections is a bit like Minecraft: you need blocks to create structures and in this case the blocks are atoms of semiconductors.

It means that, leaving whatever physics considerations aside, the size of structures is limited by the size of the building blocks.

1 nm is about 5 silicon atoms so cannot be physically shrunk much further. I suspect that there are further physics limitations (e.g. you may be an isolation channel to be wide enough to actually isolate by preventing things like tunneling, etc.)

<comment><USER31> I got that. Just what is the process of actually making chips smaller and smaller until the limit would eventually be met.

<comment><USER32> Each additional step requires solving a lot of new engineering problems and usually some new physics too, and it's not a linear process: many techniques are proposed that become cost effective only when previous techniques hit their size limits, and then a lot of research is done and most techniques are never gotten to work at scale and just a few pan out and become the next process.

This is a great talk on the history of chip processes: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4)

This is about some of the challenges that had to be solved for a current modern process: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gMdGrVteI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gMdGrVteI)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> AMDs Ryzen is going to eat Intel's lunch and they are clearly worried.</comment>