Ian Jackson Resigns from Debian Technical Committee - <AUTHOR> https://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte/2014/11/msg00091.html <comment><USER2> Can someone provide context for this? I am not familiar with Debian and do not know the back-story.

Also, I assume this is not directly related to the recent resignation[0] of Heen. But does the resignation of two people (whose resignations were deemed worthy of being voted to near the top of the HN front page) within a few day span suggest concernening structural issues or is this just poisson statistics at work?

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8617874](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8617874)

<comment><USER3> You missed some:

[https://lwn.net/Articles/621895/](https://lwn.net/Articles/621895/) [https://lwn.net/Articles/621003/](https://lwn.net/Articles/621003/) [https://lwn.net/Articles/620879/](https://lwn.net/Articles/620879/) [https://lwn.net/Articles/620878/](https://lwn.net/Articles/620878/) [https://lwn.net/Articles/619749/](https://lwn.net/Articles/619749/)

They are related in the sense that are all fall-out of the struggle to integrate or block systemd in Debian and/or how it exposed some problems with the Debian constitution.

It's a shame to see that so much talent is lost and frustrated over what in my eyes seems to be a small issue. systemd and Upstart are both a large improvement over the System V init scripts. So, it's quite logical that it should be replaced at some point. Since systemd seems to have the most traction in other major distributions and upstream software, it makes sense to make that the default, while making it still possible to switch to Upstart et al. if someone wants to (at the risk of losing support for some upstream software).

If it turns out in three years that systemd is a dead-end, rip it out, and use whatever is better then. Distributions did that with devfs, the old hotplug scripts, egcs (which was merged back in mainline), etc.

<comment><USER4> I'm starting to wonder if this is a problem with modern culture in general -- all over the place I'm seeing less "let's try our different approaches and see who has the best end result" and more "I will rape you to death with a flaming donkey for not running your project my way". It's like nobody wants to do any work to demonstrate that their way is superior, they just want to sit back and bitch about how the other way is inferior, until the other team gives up and our overall result is nothing :-/

(See also: both sides on pretty much any political issue in the past few years)

<comment><USER5> Both sides did lots of work to make their solution better and each side had a sizable list of legitimate advantages over the other. The ultimate decision came down to a subjective value judgement about which advantages were more important and inevitably wound up ignoring about half of those honestly held priorities (not to mention the work that went into Upstart). I don't see how it could have happened any other way.

It's sad that people resigned over it but the pain itself seems unavoidable from where I'm sitting.

<comment><USER4> > the pain itself seems unavoidable from where I'm sitting.

If there's enough time and energy in the community to be throwing death threats around, surely there is enough energy to maintain debian/systemd and debian/upstart as separate distros, both of which live happily ever after, sharing the 99.999% of code and infrastructure that they have in common? Then if one side really IS technically superior, people will naturally end up moving to that one and the other will die a gentle natural death, no personal attacks and resignations needed.

(For example, see what happened when Canonical wanted Debian to be more apple- like -- they didn't send death threats to Debian developers, they just did the work that they wanted to see done, and now both projects are a great success)

<comment><USER6> That was the Linux community of old. These days it seems it is the old hats that is required to fork if they want to maintain their tried and true ways rather than risk their systems to a massive switchover.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ladies and gentlemen, this is open source at work. Open source empowers people and if you don't like it some way, you have the power to move on.

There are so many other platforms that this will never be possible on. Don't like something in Windows, tough. Don't like something in OS X, tough. Don't like something in Linux, xBSD, etc? Fork or go home.

I'm excited to see what happens next and if it will be folded back into Debian in the future.

<comment><USER8> We used to say "linux is about choice". It was a point of pride for Debian that it ran on dozens of platforms - multiple architectures, multiple kernels even - that multiple desktop environments were available, multiple MTAs, multiple webservers, all fully supported, all benefiting from the shared infrastructure and spirit of collaboration. Debian runs on enormous Itanium servers and tiny ARM chips, and it doesn't need a fork to do so.

It's sad to see an end to this era - and it's an end that's been brought not by Dr Jackson (who's been part of Debian for decades) but by SystemD abusing the spirit of openness, following the letter of open source but not the spirit of open standards, of allowing a diversity of solutions to blossom and letting users mix and match whatever best suits their needs.

There will be a fork; there are enough people who care about good engineering not to let this lie (unless they all turn to FreeBSD). But it's sad that it's come to this, and it shouldn't have happened this way.

<comment><USER9> how many init systems could you chose from before systemd?

<comment><USER10> I think you missed the point. Prior to systemd, Debian was truly the universal operating system in the sense that it ran on just about anything, and you could swap out the kernel (not a trivial thing to do, but possible) for the FreeBSD kernel, for example. Because systemd is Linux-only, this is no longer possible. Because the list of smaller userspace utilities dependent on systemd is growing faster every day, it's likely that Debian will end up being no different from Arch, Fedora, RedHat, or Mandriva overall, apart from the package manager. Basically GNU/Linux is becoming GNU/systemd/Linux.

Some people don't have a problem with that, some do. In the end it's not about choosing an init system; indeed, I think a lot of the arguments and opposition to systemd would go away if systemd were interchangeable with any other init. But that's not the case; if your distro of choice has decided to go with systemd, then you're running systemd or you're not booting (yes, there are shims in Debian right now but they exist only for migration purposes).

<comment><USER11> You seem to be confusing Debian with NetBSD...

<comment><USER10> How so? Debian runs on more architectures and with more flexibility (prior to current events) than any other GNU/Linux. NetBSD also runs on just about anything, including toasters, but systemd isn't an issue there since it won't work on any BSD. I'm not sure why you would think that I was confused about it at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is the 3rd person to resign in 10 days (Colin Watson, Russ Allbery and now Ian Jackson).

<comment><USER13> That's 3 of the 8-member Technical Committee, which is the group that's ultimately responsible for all technical decisions in Debian.

<comment><USER14> That's a bit of an overstatement; it's responsible for very few technical decisions in Debian, and doesn't normally have even a theoretical ultimate- decision-maker role of regularly reviewing or steering them. Their only role is technical dispute-resolution, and they are supposed to wade into even that as minimally as possible. Most technical decisions are made by a mixture of individual package maintainers, the Debian Project Leader and release- management team, and informal consensus-building. To the extent there's an "ultimate" technical decision-maker, I would say for the majority of issues, the release team working with the project leader functions in that role.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a confidence builder for migrating my two servers to FreeBSD from Debian. I don't have a problem with systemd from a technical perspective but I do have a _big_ problem with politics getting in the way of progress or forcing hands.

<comment><USER16> Then be happy: the result of the vote is a clear majority of Debian developers saying "no more politics on this init topic" (by rejecting this GR as uneeded).

In all group of a given size there's bound to be some amount of politics, even if it's desirable to keep it low. What's specific to Debian is that 1) it's big 2) it's fully open. That makes any emotionally loaded discussion noisy and widely heard. One just has to understand, accept and keep cool about this. Sausage taste best when you don't know how they're made for sure, but I still like the Debian sausage anyway ;)

<comment><USER17> >the result of the vote is a clear majority of Debian developers saying "no more politics on this init topic"

No, it's a thin majority of devs saying, "lets not make a decision of any kind, so please continue fighting these political battles amongst yourselves".

Just wait for Jessie, you'll see. Package dependencies are going to become the next huge political football.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If I had a penny for every Debian bust-up I've read about on LWN...

Debian will survive. That constitutional document and those processes people like to moan about all the time, are the same document and processes that ensured Debian's success, solidity and continuous development. For every great engineer stepping down, I'm sure Debian will attract new talent who wants to make a difference. For every controversial decision like on systemd, there will be a time when that decision will be either vindicated or corrected. Like the Linux kernel, the Debian project is now too big to die because of a single but controversial technical choice.

<comment><USER19> systemd is not an init system, that's how it started, but they state they want to comprise a whole OS.

Debian may seem too big to die, but they are slowly being commoditized away, because RedHat is known to offer better sales force, better service and support:

       How do you differentiate your product if your core mission is to ensure
       that your product operates exactly as your competition?  The bottom
       line is that you don't

<comment><USER18> _> because RedHat is known to offer better sales force, better service and support_

When did Debian ever offer support or sales? Debian is not a corporation, it works under a different paradigm. Debian will be the last Linux distribution to die, and it might even survive as a non-Linux OS. As long as there are people who can benefit from a free open-source operating system, and people willing to dedicate their time to make it possible, Debian will live on.

<comment><USER19> That's precisely the point, it's part of the quote, the more Debian standardizes on the upcoming systemd distro, it'll get erased by RedHat real fast, who offers a differentiating advantage.

       How do you differentiate your product if your core mission is to ensure
       that your product operates exactly as your competition?  The bottom
       line is that you don't .... Theoretically, you could have a better
       sales force or better service and support .... Yet these are the assets
       of the larger, entrenched companies.

> As long as there are people who can benefit from a free open-source > operating system

As if Debian were the only free open-source OS... Not even considering only GNU/Linux, where Slackware was first (why not also last?).

> and people willing to dedicate their time

A complete OS will take much more than that, if Debian loses relevance, people will leave. What differentiating advantage to choose Debian over CentOS or Fedora? Debian will have to fight that battle, being or not a corporation is irrelevant.

I hope Debian endures, but you have to understand that systemd standardization is not going to be positive to Debian relevance.

<comment><USER18> _> As if Debian were the only free open-source OS_

It's the only free open-source OS backed by an explicitly democratic approach, enshrined in its constitution. It's "the GNU System that works, will always be Free, and will give an equal say to any developer" (at least in theory). All the other distributions are owned by a specific group of people (or in the RedHat case, by shareholders) and/or are not Free. That's the Debian differentiator that RedHat will never be able to match, no matter how many "community editions" they sponsor.

 _> What differentiating advantage to choose Debian over CentOS or Fedora?_

Those are both owned by a corporation.

 _> being or not a corporation is irrelevant_

I respectfully disagree there. You just have to look at the evolution of the Linux ecosystem to see how "being or not a corporation" makes a huge difference. History is littered with corpses of Linux vendors. In fact, there is an argument for big Linux projects being naturally incapable of making money as corporations in the long run, a concept that was seriously challenged only by RedHat and Ubuntu at this point.

 _> you have to understand that systemd standardization is not going to be positive to Debian relevance._

My point is, if that's the case, the project will likely have the necessary strength to reconsider and correct this choice later on. It's not like they can "run out of money" or something like that; they have such a huge mindshare that it would take ages to dissipate, and votes seem to indicate that most developers don't really care about the init system that much. If things come to worst, Jesse will just go down in history as a terrible release (wouldn't be the first...) and the project will move on.

If anything, it's downstream projects that have to worry (i.e. Ubuntu) since _they_ have to differentiate in a competitive market, but they seem to have already adopted systemd, so...

<comment><USER19> > "being or not a corporation" makes a huge difference

Take a look at Mozilla, they implemented DRM, otherwise they could have lost relevance, they explained.

Now Debian must commit resources just making everything work with every new "innovation" brought by systemd. RedHat will dictate the pace and the terms, Debian will follow, and once the future "systemd + linux OS" integration has been declared standard, they can't correct the decision, they will be stuck with "systemd OS" forever.

<comment><USER18> That's as much a guess as mine. We'll see in time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If all these people dropping out of Debian is due to systemd, somebody needs to step up and force some kind of compromise. (I have no clue who; does Debian have a Dictator For Life position?) I may not like systemd, but I sure as shit would find some way to coexist with it rather than drive people away from a project.

<comment><USER8> > If all these people dropping out of Debian is due to systemd, somebody needs > to step up and force some kind of compromise.

That's what Ian Jackson proposed - that while systemd would be the default, Debian would fully support users using other systems (bugs that only affected SysV users would be considered equally critical). He was voted down, hence his resignation. The systemd folks don't seem to be interested in compromise.

<comment><USER21> From what I gathered following the discussion the problematic option was actually "no package that depends on systemd and does not provide an alternative that works with sysV is permitted". That would require that somebody provides the code to make the alternative way viable, work that neither the upstream would do nor the maintainers were willing to shoulder. It's fine to make that demand, but if you do, IMHO you should also step forward and say "and because this is what we propose, we will be providing said code."

<comment><USER22> Yes. Saying "We permit systemd to exist in Debian, but we will not permit any packages which uses systemd's extra features or advantages." is hardly a compromise.

<comment><USER23> Neither, of course, is saying, 'we will permit packages to fail to work with any init system other than systemd.'

<comment><USER21> why not? If a package leverages functionality that only systemd provides and users want to have install package, they have to bite that bullet and install systemd.

What are the alternatives? You can't force the upstream or the package maintainer to invest the extra work to make the package work without systemd, you're not providing the required work either and you certainly don't want the user to be on the loosing side because _you_ don't like systemd.

<comment><USER8> > you certainly don't want the user to be on the loosing[sic] side because you > don't like systemd.

Debian has a long and glorious tradition of standing on principle to the user's (at least short-term) detriment. Look at the way they used to ship KDE programs (especially in the days before GPLed Qt), or the way they still package tomcat, or their approach to multimedia codecs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think this is only the beginning. The Linux community is in the midst of an identity crisis. Linux has a well established history of fragmentation. Fragmentation represents choice, flexibility, modularity and so forth. It also represents control for the individual user. For a long time, this was considered Linux's biggest strength. It was the anti-Windows. However, in the past few years a unification movement has grown, largely inspired by OSX. I think GNOME has pushed the hardest in this direction, systemd is just the latest battle. The success of Ubuntu has also added fuel to the unification fire as it continues to break away from the old guard and build their own unified experience (Unity). While I think unification has its merits, it will continue to meet significant resistance as long as there is still a large contingent of fragmentists (just made that term up). I think it will come to a head in the near future and the Linux community will break into two sides; the unification side and the fragmentation side. The irony is that the unification side stands as much a chance of fragmentation, since it appears Ubuntu will continue to move away from GNOME. But so is the nature of OSS.

</comment><comment><USER25> That means today is the last time I install a debian-derivative on a machine.

I mean, I had switched to gentoo for other reasons, but when the founder steps down over systemd, this means we're seeing a quiet war being waged. And it isn't by the guy who put the Ian in Debian.

<comment><USER22> Ian Jackson had nothing to do with the founding of Debian, Ian _Murdock_ created (and named) Debian.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> systemd is a cancer. I am glad some are taking a firm stand against forcing it down the throats of the Linux community.

<comment><USER27> At least the vote is on the record. Time will tell whether this is another Elop moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm very concerned, systemd becomes system-Destruction, people are leaving for BSDs likely because of it too.

It's very sad to watch this, systemd is too intrusive with the strong support from the OSS Microsoft, that is, the Redhat behind the scene. No other project can be so controversial so fast, it's really bad.

<comment><USER19> I followed a link to webarchive and, coincidentally, ended up on the slashdot homepage from about 2000 I think, RedHat was becoming a threat to Linux, just like Microsoft, and it's interesting to me how well they predicted the future, they noticed that GPL, open source... (as Microsoft's github account shows) wouldn't stop a company from maneuvering, entrenching its position and dominating the marketplace.</comment></comment>


Facebook Is About to Launch Their First Social VR App - <AUTHOR> http://www.roadtovr.com/facebook-launch-first-social-vr-app/ <comment><USER2> I know Facebook bought the Rift for this purpose, but you'd think Facebook would see more benefit by being cross platform. Seems really weird to me to be only on the Rift.</comment>


Fedora Devs Looking to Change Default Editor from Vi to Nano - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Fedora-Workstation-Vi-To-Nano <comment><USER2> I think this is one of the best things you can do to make the Linux CLI more accessible. I love vim for a lot of reasons but when I'm mentoring someone who's just starting out I skip straight past it for nano because I don't want the people I'm teaching to get bogged down in something that is super terse... New vim users almost always have to use a cheatsheet and I'd rather not inflict that on someone who's dipping their toes into Linux.

Once you get a bit further into the OS and what you can do I find vim to be an important tool to learn.

Changing your editor or shell is super easy to do and anyone who has a strong preference can update either within seconds.

<comment><USER3> I get what you're saying, but I think it's generally wrongheaded to tailor Linux defaults to new users. We're all beginners for only a fraction of our time on a platform after all.

I used nano until I got on my feet too and I'd love for it to be added to the standards so it's always present. But the goal of good POSIXy defaults are for transferable consistent experiences/skills. I think defaults should be things you'd want for typical real world use, not to upgrade off of.

Edit: To clarify: I think accounting for beginners is important! But I don't think using crippled defaults are the way to do that.

<comment><USER2> > "it's generally wrongheaded to tailor Linux defaults to new users"

> "I think accounting for beginners is important!"

I read this as two conflicting statements.

> But I don't think using crippled defaults are the way to do that.

I disagree that nano is a "crippled default" \- nano is a highly competent text editor and I see plenty of industry professionals use it daily.

<comment><USER4> Yes, and probably more usable than vi (not talking about vim) and its features are more than enough to edit configuration files.

It has copy paste of a line or an arbitrary chunk of text (I learned that last week! But I often use the copy paste functionality of the terminal emulator anyway), syntax highlighting, undo redo, line numbers, search and replace. Access to these features is efficient.

It's also fast and lightweight. All the characteristics of a good default terminal text editor. Free us from vi! :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Do it!

</comment><comment><USER6> Undoubtedly, we can all agree that vi, like all other UNIX tools, is poorly conceived and awful to use.

However, beginners need to learn these tools if they want to become even somewhat proficient on UNIX systems. No pain, no gain.

<comment><USER7> > Undoubtedly, we can all agree that vi, like all other UNIX tools, is poorly > conceived and awful to use.

I disagree with everything in this sentence.

(neo)vim + Unix tools make the best IDE in existence. Nothing else to date can hold a candle to that combination (except, perhaps, Plan 9 or Inferno OS).

<comment><USER6> > (neo)vim + Unix tools make the best IDE in existence. Nothing else to date > can hold a candle to that combination (except, perhaps, Plan 9 or Inferno > OS).

Don't forget about the Dvorak keyboard. It doesn't work without Dvorak.

<comment><USER7> I should really make a list of things I would change if we could adopt better standards free of legacy. Dvorak would be included; the only reason I haven't learned left-handed Programmer's Dvorak is because most devices don't make it trivial to change the keyboard layout.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a Vim user, this is a good idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> As a vim user, I too agree. Vim is my favorite editor, but the learning curve being a barrier to adoption is an undeniable fact.

Just would hate to have vi dropped entirely, like it is in NixOS / GuixSD.

Also, I can't recommend vimtutor enough to anyone new to it who doesn't have nano at their disposal.

Would prefer if something like nano but non-GPL was available for the BSDs.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Lazylog – logging for lazy devs - <AUTHOR> https://www.lazylog.co/ <comment><USER2> Oof, it's going to be difficult to police this and prevent abuse.</comment>


Show HN: mTECH, a ResearchKit app studying the effects of energy drinks - <AUTHOR> http://mtechstudy.com <comment><USER2> It's an interesting idea. Is there more information about the app and it's development?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, you can find some more information at this link [[http://www.imedicalapps.com/2015/12/researchkit-app-study- en...](http://www.imedicalapps.com/2015/12/researchkit-app-study-energy- drinks-side-effects-mtech/)] or if you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to answer them.</comment></comment>


A Raspberry Pi 4 Performs Against Intel's Latest Celeron, Pentium CPUs - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspberry <comment><USER2> To save you the reading: Pee 4 is somewhere around Athlon X2 performance territory, ~2005 desktop. $30 8 year old laptop (x230 i5-3320M) with broken screen is still 10x faster, with more expandability and storage options while maintaining power draw in same order of magnitude envelope. Idle 2W vs ~8W (i5-3320M cpu alone draws 3.65W), CPU full tilt 6.4W vs ~30W.</comment>


AOL And The Cheezburger Network: Turning Content Into An Amsterdam Hooker - <AUTHOR> http://techdrawl.com/News-Post/Fresh-Voices/AOL-And-The-Cheezburger-Network-Turning-Content-Into-An-Amsterdam-Hooker <comment><USER2> This has concerned me too, Dave. All you have to do is look at AOL's SEED Network with its tutorials on how to write a sentence with correct grammar to see they are paying $10 to help literacy as much as anything else. If you check out their "technology" network, would you be likely visit these sites for technology content? www.seed.com/aol-network/I certainly wouldn't!

It is scarey the power AOL has to dominate the first pages of search with this cattle-call strategy. This is a great argument for curated content like Regator's and for additional filter systems for news with a clear editorial slant life Huffington Post or Drudge Report.

On the other hand, this onslaught of vanilla content from AOL may help traditional newspapers sell online subscriptions so consumers can at least know the editorial slant. The NY Times is offering an online subscription keeping much of its print format for ~$4.50 a week and I am thinking now it may be successful after all.

Actually, I rather like "I Can Has Cheeseburger" because LOLCats are just so stupid. I think Letterman started it with his "kitties" nonsense. I prefer this one for LOLDogs, however: ihasahotdog.com/

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm surprised the author didn't mention Yahoo and their purchase of Associated Content & rumored interest in Huffington Post.

[http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/entry/51608/yahoo-eyes- huff...](http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/entry/51608/yahoo-eyes-huffpo-for- content-partnership-or-acquisition/)

I suppose the content quality of HuffPo is debatable (I find their headlines to be a bit sensationalistic for my taste), but it appears Associated Content has been criticized for their lack of quality content:

"It is a wasteland of bad writing, uninformed commentary, and the sort of comically dull recitation of the news you'd get from a second grader."

<http://www.slate.com/id/2237107/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, another $100M deal that I'm sure has already paid for itself... I could have gone on with the examples, but I chose to box in my frustration with the AOL kids :-)

<comment><USER3> Hahaha I suppose there are lots of examples from which you could choose!

Personally, I love lolcats. To each his own. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can AOL figure out how to turn crap-content to gold? Find out next week on ...</comment>


Has anyone used a crowdfunding site for an open source project? - <AUTHOR>

 I've been considering using Kickstarter to try to fund a free software project of my own and it seems to me that it should be a natural fit.
If a developer posts a proposal for a project (and these proposals would be pretty thorough, with video demos of the final product), and the can raise enough money to work on the project full time, it could be a win for everyone. More free software is created, which is good on its own, and giving the project a developer's undivided attention should result in higher quality, more complete solutions, and faster completion.
Has anyone tried this, or thought about trying this? <comment><USER3> The Pyramid project is using chipin.com to collect donations for rewriting the documentation.

[https://groups.google.com/d/topic/pylons- discuss/sGupDbtrq9E...](https://groups.google.com/d/topic/pylons- discuss/sGupDbtrq9E/discussion)

Kickstarter has a number of open source projects. Diaspora being one of the more popular ones.

Just search for Open Source on Kickstarter, you can see dozens of ones that have gotten funded.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, there are a good number of projects, but most of them are "open source hardware" projects, which isn't really what I had in mind. I'm surprised I don't see projects like "Finish off GNU Free Call" and the like - <USER2> some full-time developers to larger projects.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I guess what seems strange to me is that there's nothing "unifying" the various open source projects on Kickstarter in particular. I'm surprised that there isn't a Curated page run by the FSF or OSI, or some other group interested in encouraging open source development.</comment>


How to SSH into a self-driving truck - <AUTHOR> https://gravitational.com/blog/how-ssh-into-a-self-driving-vehicle/ <comment><USER2> I've previously been involved in maintaining a fork of teleport. Take a look at one of the core source files: [https://github.com/gravitational/teleport/blob/master/lib/au...](https://github.com/gravitational/teleport/blob/master/lib/auth/clt.go) (try grepping for 'not implemented')

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm torn on if i'd even want to setup this type of anywhere connection to my vehicles. On one hand, remote configuration, updates (maybe just use uptane?), and debugging is attractive, but the other hand is now you have a new threat vector that can cause a lot of harm if exploited.

<comment><USER4> I think it's likely we'll see some remotely-controlled terror incidents before car manufacturers begin to take security more seriously.

<comment><USER5> Many people think that this is an issue that needs to be solved before self- driving vehicles are deployed at scale. We need to wake up and realize the degree to which the vehicles we drive TODAY are vulnerable to remote exploitation. If the vehicle has an internet connection, there's likely a vulnerability somewhere. An attacker may not be able to drive it to a specific location to crash, but they can disable critical safety systems and crash it all the same.

<comment><USER6> Ugh - it's why I'm not looking forward to buying a newer vehicle any time soon. I have a 1997 2002 and 2010 - and not in a hurry to replace any of them.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Vampire: First-Order Theorem Proving [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~laurako/pub/CAV13_Kovacs.pdf <comment><USER2> "This license does not allow this Software to be used in a commercial context. Users wishing to use the Software in a commercial context should contact the copyright holder for an alternative licence.

It is further prohibited to use this Software or a substantial portion of it in a competition or a similar competetive event"

No thanks, you can keep your 150k lines of C++.

<comment> loup-vaillant > _The Licencee may not distribute the Software._

> _The Licensee may not modify, disassemble, translate, reverse engineer, or > decompile the Software._

Clearly proprietary software. I didn't expect that from something advertised in an academic looking PDF. Back to Coq or TLA+, I guess.

<comment><USER3> You are mixing things up a bit, the alternatives you want are z3, cvc4, spass and e. Coq and TLA+ are proof assistents / formal specification languages, not smt solvers/theorem provers.

And actually in my experience with using the sledgehammer tool in Isabelle, Vampire does not fare very well when it comes to real world problems.

<comment> loup-vaillant Oh. Noted, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks very interesting, some of the application areas sound really useful.

One thing struck me:

"It is written in C++ and comprises about 152,000 SLOC."

OK, so how do I trust the results of this theorem prover? I can't find it right now, but I remember a talk by someone from Google who is/was also on the C++ standards committee saying that they have probably the best C++ programmers in the world, and nobody there can write code that is actually correct according to the standard, IIRC particularly but not limited to UB.

While I am generally fine with testing for most applications, something that says it provides proofs probably needs to be held to a higher standard. Or we call it a "theorem demonstrator"?

<comment><USER5> There's a tremendous amount of work that's been done on trustworthy theorem provers (see LCF, HOL, HOL Light, Milawa, ...), verified SAT solving and SMT solving, proof-producing first-order solvers, etc. All of this is cool and interesting.

But from an industry perspective, there's plenty to like about plain old unverified C/C++ solvers and verification tools. They might crash sometimes, and they might occasionally have a soundness problem. But the odds that (1) your prover has a bug and (2) you will accidentally exploit that bug to "prove" something that isn't true are low.

To argue by analogy: plenty of people use unverified compilers, and of course these do have bugs. Even so, when your program isn't doing what you expect, it's still almost always a bug with your own code.

<comment><USER6> Some on the parts of some verified compilers are not "really" verified, in that there is no proof they always work. Rather, what is proved is that IF the compiler successfully compiles the program, THEN the result is correct. This can be easier, because it only requires that the compiler be able to provide a checkable certificate that its output is correct.

Consider a register allocator that uses graph coloring. In this case, the compiler just needs to check that the coloring that is produced is really a coloring: that it uses k colors, and that no two adjacent nodes in the associated graph are assigned the same color. This checking routine must be proved correct, but that's an easier task.

For a theorem prover to be verified in the same way, it just needs to produce an explicit proof, and then have a proof checker that is proved correct. The theorem prover itself, the part that produces the proof, doesn't have to be shown to always work (and indeed it won't, since it will very often time out.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure why it was name Vampire; however, I wonder if it's inspired by Charle Stross's "The Laundry" books. In that universe, you become a Vampire by proving a certain Theorem. This causes your brain to attract the attention of interdimensional parasites.

Addendum: It seems unlikely unless the name change is recent. The original version of VAMPIRE was in the early nineties. So unless Stross was inspired the other way :)

</comment><comment><USER8> > VAMPIRE has a special mode for working with very large knowledge bases and > can answer queries to them.

Does this mean it can somewhat replace Prolog? I forget why Prolog doesn't use full logic, but, does Vampire find a way to get around the need for Prolog's more limited, Horn clauses? Anyone know?</comment>


Ask HN: Does AdWords work for you? - <AUTHOR>

I've talked to a few businesses (mostly Saas) who run AdWords campaigns that don't "work".  The campaigns drive some traffic, but they're not seeing  a good positive ROI.<p>Have you made Adwords work for you? Can it be made to work for smaller businesses? <comment><USER2> I've used it for five years now. I started with one of those free fifty or hundred dollars vouchers in the business magazines and I don't think I've ever paid any extra. I would periodically get emails from google saying if I do something they would add an extra fifty bucks credit.

My biggest three recommendations are: -Keep cost low. I saw that some people were paying like $10 for a Justin Beiber click. Maybe if you are trying to sell some hair-gel to make you look like justin beiber buying a $.25 hair-gel keyword could be better from a cost perspective. -Target location. My clickrate went up a bunch for a few months but didn't see an influx of users. I checked analytics and found a bunch of clicks were coming from some weird Japanese website. Some kind of fraud. It was using like 90% of my click payments. I disabled Japan and had no problems since. -Be very careful accepting their auto-recommendations. I did all their recommendations and I think it would be bad for a serious company. It adds creepy shit like "watch grandma peeing" and my keywords aren't related to that at all. It also isn't accurate. It says "we estimate you'll get 150 new clicks every day from now for x dollars." and I'll get none or one.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've seen both sides of the story - both successful and unsuccessful. Following are some points that distinguish between the two:

1\. Keyword research: understand the search volume and competition level for each target keyword before you start your campaigns. Having an estimate of CPC before you start is critical to right planning. If you operate in an industry where search volumes are less and/or competition is high, you should perhaps not depend on search engine are your primary traffic source.

2\. Contextual relevancy of keywords: the more relevant the keyword is, the lesser price you pay as you drive more CTR. Google charges lower CPC for higher CTR ads. SEO directly helps SEM.

3\. Catchy headlines, good description: ad making is an art. Even text ads. Test multiple copies for each keyword group and see which one does best. See if having _FREE_ in the heading helps, try adding phone number, etc. Again higher CTR implies lower CPC.

</comment><comment><USER4> I experimented with it back in 2008 to advertise an ebook I paid to have written (my 4 hour work week phase). I was targeting long tail keywords, but no matter what I did, the cost per click was too high to make it worthwhile. $1 a click doesn't make sense when you're selling a $20 ebook. Then I hired a guy on elance to optimize my campaign and for $150 he tweaked the keywords, landing page text, and ad copy, and got the CPC down to under 5 cents. It's all about quality score. If your landing page text, ad copy, and keywords all line up, you get rewarded with cheaper clicks. That is the only way you can afford it.

<comment><USER5> That's great! How did you find and choose this particular guy?

<comment><USER4> He was one of the best rated SEM guys on Elance. His name is Josh May, I believe. I contacted him later for another project, but he was no longer taking on new work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You should try asking this question at growthhackers.com - there's folks who hang out there that have more experience with paid marketing.

</comment><comment><USER7> The Emperor has no clothes.</comment>


Show HN: Turn your SMS into postcards for your grandma, every month - <AUTHOR> http://thesilverpost.com <comment><AUTHOR> OP here.

Built this to solve my own problem: remembering to send updates to my across- country grandparents.

Instead of trying to teach them how to use instragram/facebook/twitter/snapchat to see my updates, I thought it would be easier to convert my digital updates into an experience they are already used to: mail.

Every month, the services sends an SMS reminder to reply with a picture or two + a caption. We then hand design the postcards and ship them to your recipient.

Though the product & designs are built for the elderly, we also have a few customers using it for other loved ones in their life.

While nothing beats picking up the phone to call my grandmother, I've noticed that sending monthly postcards makes it easier to contact her. I now have less guilt about being in touch with her so I have less anxiety about calling her. It also gives us topics to talk about—she asks me about the pictures I've sent her.

<comment><USER2> Is it easy to send Facebook images from a SMS app? (I don't know, FB is not installed on my phone)

<comment><AUTHOR> Images I post to social media are already on my phone, so I just use that. However I think most mobile apps allow you to 'share' photos with a phone number via SMS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is one of those, "Why didn't I think of this idea" ideas.

Fun service

<comment><USER4> How much? I resist signing up just to see the fee. Edit, I see it's $5/month, somehow I missed that.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can I get started with VR/AR? - <AUTHOR> Hey everyone! I'd love to get into AR/VR development, I understand 3D packages (Houdini/Maya) and programming (webdev) reasonably well, but have never tried doing any gamedev.<p>What is the best way for me to learn how to develop AR/VR apps? Should I learn Unity or UE? Are there any good books/courses? Any more tips/advice? <comment><USER2> AFrame is a good intro to VR.

</comment><comment><USER3> start by NOT buying a device. it will give you tunnel vision. pardon the pun.</comment>


GNURoot: GNU/Linux for non-rooted Android devices - ezequiel-garzon https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=champion.gnuroot

<comment> ezequiel-garzon Have you guys checked this out? It's completely amazing to finally invoke GNU utilities (cal!), ipython et al from your Android phone. I made my small donation and hope it improves over time.</comment>


Show HN: Braid: Chat Variation for a Different Conversation Style - <AUTHOR> http://www.braid.space <comment><AUTHOR> Myself (Braid username: tscizzle) and Preethi (Braid username: preethiv) built this because our conversation style online doesn't fit well with traditional messaging. Our conversations tend to split into "strands", where we might send 5 messages (thus, 5 strands), and the other person wants to respond to each of the 5 messages independently.

So we built a chat application which allows each of these strands to be viewed independently, in an accessible and intuitive way. And now it's fully replaced Gchat for us (when talking to each other)! So we thought we'd share it, see if anyone else would find it useful, and see what other people thought in general.

Feel free to message us on Braid at usernames tscizzle and preethiv if you are trying it out.

Thanks, and enjoy!

</comment><comment><USER2> I like the general idea. Unfortunately, it's not really usable on mobile (Chrome on Android). Thanks for sharing anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> True. Thanks for the feedback, and we probably should have mentioned platform on here, given that we are totally aware that it is not fit for mobile yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> love it. i always use lists in messaging platforms and it's so hard to keep track of each point in the list when talking about it.</comment>


DirecTV's Secret War On Hackers (2001) - <AUTHOR> http://slashdot.org/story/01/01/25/1343218/directvs-secret-war-on-hackers/ <comment><USER2> Years later, the person responsible for the "Black Sunday" kill came forward:

[http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/news/2008/05/tarn...](http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/news/2008/05/tarnovsky?currentPage=all)

<comment><USER3> Tarnovsky has given several really great talks at Defcon: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh238PUqz3I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh238PUqz3I)

He goes into a lot of technical detail which is great. I'm a big fan of his work.

<comment><USER4> I can neither confirm not deny being directly affected by his work at the time :) Needless to say once the story came out it was amazing to read about it from the "other" side. The scene got so complicated it could only be described as an arms race. It quickly moved from having modified cards and custom devices to live intercept rigs where a computer sat between the card and receiver. What, you don't have an unlooper in your drawer?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fun fact: DirecTV HD DVR's contain GPL code. (Maybe Linux, but I can't remember, really.) It was amusing coming across the phrase "Ty Coon, President of Vice" in my parent's printed owner's manual a couple years ago.

Not so fun fact: When I saw that, I checked online to see what sources DirecTV is offering, and I came across claims that DirecTV is yet another corporation shirking their responsibility wrt their use of GPL code.

<comment><USER6> Please send a copy of the manual and specific details of what you tried to receive source code from DirecTV to <email@example.com>.

Note that GPL doesn't require "putting the source online" necessarily, but they are required to make a valid offer for source code to you and fulfill that offer when exercised. We'll need to investigate whether or not they've properly done that before anyone should claim that DirecTV has violated GPL.

(BTW, I'm Bradley M. Kuhn, who, through my role at Conservancy, started the GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers: [https://sfconservancy.org/linux- compliance/](https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd just like to point out that vulnerabilities in satellite TV are surfacing once more, but this time, on a much more irreparable scale.

[1]: [http://colibri.bplaced.net/powervu.htm](http://colibri.bplaced.net/powervu.htm)

<comment><USER8> PowerVu is pretty old, and (at least in the USA) it's not really used for home viewing, so I think this isn't very interesting unless you have a giant C / Ku band antenna.

<comment><USER7> Right. But if you do have a big ugly dish (or are willing to find one on the free section on craigslist and put it in your backyard) you can theoretically view nearly everything.

PowerVu isn't used by DirectTV or Dish for their home viewing. But it is still used by the major networks. Nearly everything from sports to entertainment is on PowerVu at some point, and then received and retransmitted by individual carriers.

Check out lyngsat.com.

<comment><USER8> My experience working in cable headends are that most programs that we watch on cable are delivered using DigiCipher (motorola's) CAS. There are always one or two PowerVu receivers tho: Viacom (MTV, A&E) is one notable feed. Also there are usually a small number of tandberg-style receivers with Irdeto or something.

Nevertheless I was glad to see that someone is figuring out PowerVu :) I would like to see the same for DigiCipher, as the 4DTV scheme uses it.

Both PowerVu and DigiCipher have similarities to the CAS schemes from their respective manufacturers for cable settops, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I remember it well, last time it came up: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6387545](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6387545). Ingenious, with a little dig at the hackers.

</comment><comment><USER10> Not loading for me - did we just Slashdot Slashdot?

</comment><comment><USER11> DirectH was my fav app. I remember when DirecTV took control of hackhu.com. Forgot about this scene.</comment>


Are fluoride levels in drinking water associated with hypothyroidism prevalence? [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://fluoridealert.org/wp-content/uploads/peckham-2015.pdf <comment><USER2> Study has no control group. Bullshit masquerading as science at its best.</comment>


Ask HN: Are you selling, holding, or buying your Bitcoins? Why? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Holding, but growing skeptical that this sort of growth is sustainable. It currently makes no sense to purchase anything with Bitcoins, when one will certainly be worth more tomorrow than it is worth today.

</comment><comment><USER3> I bought .2 BTC just for shits and gigs in May, and I guess I'll be holding on to it. If there is ever another huge downswing in value then I might buy up some more (depending on how low it goes)

</comment><comment><USER4> Mining.

Why, because I had $30 to waste and wanted to learn about it. Bought a simple USB miner. Using a pool at at 0.00063331 BTC since Saturday morning. Pretty sure I am never going to break-even, but it was just an experiment to try and understand Bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER5> Holding, since I only have 1 coin and selling it would make no noticeable difference to me right now.

I prefer holding and hoping for the 1/1000 chance that it ever might be worth $20000+

</comment><comment><USER6> Holding. With its recent growth, I view Bitcoin as much more of a (highly) speculative investment than a form of currency. Curious to see how Bitcoin's rivals fare and how they impact Bitcoin.

<comment><USER7> Bitcoin is a form of currency everyone uses as an investment because its not very usable as a currency. makes total sense.

<comment><USER8> Welcome to humanity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Holding right now, but if I see a correction over the next few days I will buy more. My goal is to get to 100BTC and then just sit on it for a while, with some slow withdrawals as needed.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am living vicariously through my friend who got in at $12. He unloaded $150,000 this week. He thinks its the new Gold and will hit $2K next year.

</comment><comment><USER11> You left out the most common way: stealing your way to the top by breaking into insecure centrally managed wallet sites.

</comment><comment><USER12> Holding. They've had 10x growth per year roughly. It would be smartest to hold them long term, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm holding on to them because coinbase is taking forever to validate my bank account.

</comment><comment><USER14> Holding and potentially more buying. I'll sell when I feel its a good time to sell.

</comment><comment><USER15> I fully expect it to go to the low $4000s by the beginning of the holiday season, perhaps even by early December.</comment>


IMDb orders imdbAPI to shut down or else   - <AUTHOR> http://imdbapi.com/

<comment><USER3> That is rubbish!

imdbapi.com could refer to, like he said in his response, literally thousands of different acronyms, such as the new website title: "Integration Manager Design Baseline Automated Physical Inventory" - amusing ;)

Who's to say it isn't for an Instant Messaging Database API service?

"The disclaimer you have added doesn't change this result. First, ordinary consumers don't read fine print and so the potential for confusion is unaffected. Second, even a prominent disclaimer doesn't allow you to adopt a competing product's name as your own."

This is also rubbish as he clearly isn't adopting a competing products name as his own.

IANAL but I think so long as he isn't using the IMDB name or logo, they haven't got a leg to stand on. Having their trademark somewhere within the domain name is not enough.

</comment><comment><USER4> This hurts regarding the history of IMDB which had large portions contributed by volunteers in the early days:

"Users were invited to contribute data which they may have collected and verified, on a volunteer basis, which greatly increased the amount and types of data to be stored or for which sections needed to be added. As the site thereby grew in content exponentially," <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imdb#History_before_website>

So IMDB is a community effort that has been commercialized.

Would be nice if the current 'owners' would respect the history of their own site and play nice with another community effort in the same field.

<comment><USER5> While I agree they don't particularly play nice with the community, they do still let people download the raw data for non-commercial use at least. Not that they promote that fact much. <http://www.imdb.com/interfaces/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> We all know that big brand names has early access to new released domain names to protect their name and avoid domain squatting - they pay premium for that and this sounds fair. But its nothing illegal in having imdbxxx.com - <USER2> btw is still available. I might be wrong but if this is the case - imdb (in this case) should make sure that they own all domains , which might be associated with their brand (like imdbapi.com for example). Not securing them and requesting free transfer from anyone who dared to buy one isn't anything else but corporate bulling.

</comment><comment><USER7> How does this thread not have any comments?

I'm no lawyer, but I hope you get someone to help you out. However, given this case of giant corporation versus hardworking developer, the former usually wins.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was hoping same as well

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> All following domains should be handed to Amazon too:

        I.com
        IM.com
        IMD.com
        IMD.BE
        IMDBA.com
        IMDBAP.com
        AYEMDEEBEE.com

;)

</comment><comment><USER9> Sorry, I personally don't think you have a case. IMDb is a very strong trademark in my mind, I don't think you could get away with using it at the start of your domain name.

<comment><USER10> Not having used the API, but seeing that does use movie information (using rotten tomatoes). I think that it's going to be difficult to claim fair use of quite a distinctive acronym in the same realm.

Paying a lawyer for an hour to confirm this will save the author of the API time and effort.

Rename it and move on, be your own brand. There's no need to coattail if you have a great product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Pick a better acronym if you want to have a shot at winning.

<comment><USER3> My suggestion was:

I Must Design Better API</comment></comment>


PromoRepublic raises $1.2M for AI which creates social media for small businesse - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/26/promorepublic-raises-1-2m-for-ai-which-creates-social-media-for-small-businesses <comment><USER2> TechCrunch called us - "WIX for a small business's social presence"</comment>


Camera vs. Lidar - <AUTHOR> https://scale.com/blog/is-elon-wrong-about-lidar <comment><USER2> Cruise Automation handling double-parked cars with LIDAR.[1] They show the scan lines and some of the path planning. Busy city streets, lots of obstacles.

Waymo handling city traffic with LIDAR.[2] They show the scan lines and some of the path planning. Busy city streets, lots of obstacles.

Tesla self-driving demo, April 2019.[3] They show their display which puts pictures of cars and trucks on screen. No difficult obstacles are encountered. Recorded in the Palo Alto hills and on I-280 on a very quiet day. The only time it does anything at all hard is when it has to make a left turn from I-280 south onto Page Mill, where the through traffic does not stop. [3] Look at the display. Where's the cross traffic info?

Tesla's 2016 self driving video [5] is now known to have been made by trying over and over until they got a successful run with no human intervention. The 2019 demo looks similar. Although Tesla said they would, they never actually let reporters ride in the cars in full self driving mode.

[1] [http://gmauthority.com/blog/2019/06/how-cruise-self- driving-...](http://gmauthority.com/blog/2019/06/how-cruise-self-driving-cars- deal-with-double-wide-parking-video/)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8R148hFxPw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8R148hFxPw)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfIelJYOygY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfIelJYOygY)

[4] [https://youtu.be/nfIelJYOygY?t=353](https://youtu.be/nfIelJYOygY?t=353)

[5] [https://player.vimeo.com/video/188105076](https://player.vimeo.com/video/188105076)

<comment><USER3> > Look at the display. Where's the cross traffic info"

Tesla's display does not render all of the data that the computer knows about.

Additionally this article is assuming the camera based solution for Tesla will be single-camera. Last I checked the actual solution is going to be stereo vision of multiple cameras (think one on each side of windshield) and using ML to combine that data. The Model 3 does not have that capability though because its three cameras are center mounted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _It's always better to have multiple sensor modalities available._

This is the main takeaway. Unsurprising but interesting nonetheless. I'm working in the field and it confirms my experience.

However they have a big bias that need to be pointed out:

 _[...] we must be able to annotate this data at extremely high accuracy levels or the perception system's performance will begin to regress._

 _Since Scale has a suite of data labeling products built for AV developers, [...]_

Garbage in, garbage out; yes annotation quality matters. But they're neglecting very promising approaches that allow to leverage non-annotated datasets (typically standard rgb images) to train models, for example self- supervised learning from video. A great demonstration of the usefulness of self-supervision is monocular depth estimation: taking consecutive frames (2D images) we can estimate per pixel depth and camera ego-motion by training to wrap previous frames into future ones. The result is a model capable of predicting depth on individual 2D frames. See this paper [1][2] for example.

By using this kind of approach, we can lower the need for precisely annotated data.

[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.04998](https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.04998)

[2] more readable on mobile: [https://www.arxiv- vanity.com/papers/1904.04998/](https://www.arxiv- vanity.com/papers/1904.04998/)

Edit: typo

<comment><USER5> > taking consecutive frames (2D images) we can estimate per pixel depth

Yeah, I find it odd that they're bringing up Elon's statement about LiDAR, but then completely ignore that they spoke about creating 3D models based on video. They even showed [0] how good of a 3d model they could create based on dat from their cameras. So they could just as well annotate in 3D.

0: [https://youtu.be/Ucp0TTmvqOE?t=8217](https://youtu.be/Ucp0TTmvqOE?t=8217)

<comment><USER6> Egomotion is very useful but relies on being able to reliably extract features from objects which isn't always possible. Smooth, monochromatic walls do exist and it's imperative a car be able to avoid them. It is possible for a human to figure out (almost always) their shape and distance form visual cues but our brains are throwing far more computational horsepower at the task than even Tesla's new computer has available. But perhaps knowing when it doesn't know is sufficient for their purposes and probably an easier task.

An interesting intermediate case between a pure video system and a lidar is a structured light sensor like the Kinect. In those you project a pattern of features onto an object in infrared. Doesn't work so well in sunlight but be interested in learning if someone had ever tried to use that approach with ego motion.

<comment><USER7> "Smooth, monochromatic walls do exist and it's imperative a car be able to avoid them."

Aren't those the types of walls, barriers, truck behinds that tesla's keep ramming into? :S

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This completely neglects the fact that humans can build near perfect 3D representations of the world with 2D images stitched together with the parallax neural nets in our brain. This blogpost briefly mentions it in one line as a throwaway and says you'd need extremely high resolution cameras?? Doesn't make sense at all. Two cameras of any resolution spaced a regular distance apart should be able to build a better parallax 3D model than any one camera alone.

<comment><USER9> The first thing we need to remember is the self driving doesn't work like our brain. If they do then we don't need to train them with billions of images. So the main problem is not just building the 3d models. For example we don't crash into the car because we never seen that car model or that kind of vehicle before. Check [https://cdn.technologyreview.com/i/images/bikeedgecasepredic...](https://cdn.technologyreview.com/i/images/bikeedgecasepredictions1.jpg?sw=959&cx=0&cy=63&cw=1280&ch=720) we never think that there is a bike infront of us.

Humans do lot more than just identifying an image or doing 3d reconstruction. We have context about the roads, we constantly predict the movement of other cars, we do know how to react based on the situation and most importantly we are not fooled by simple image occlusions. Essentially we have a gigantic correlation engine that takes decision based on comprehending different things happening on the road.

The AI algorithms we teach does not work in the same way as we do. They overly depend on the identifying the image. Lidar provides another signal to the system. It provides redundancy and allows the system to take the right decision. Take the above linked image for an example.

We may not need a lidar once the technology matures but at this stage it is a pretty important redundant system.

<comment><USER10> > _So the main problem is not just building the 3d models_

That's not relevant when discussing which technology to use to build the 3d models. Everything you said is accurate until the last few sentences. Lidar provide the same information (line of sight depth) as stereo cameras, just in a different way. The person you're responding to is talking about depth from stereo, not cognition.

<comment><USER11> > Lidar provide the same information (line of sight depth) as stereo cameras, > just in a different way.

This is incorrect, the amount of parallax you need to get the same kind of accurate depth using camera is infeasible. Velodynes other common lidar now gets you points accurate at 150m+. Cameras can't do that, and if you use nets to guess you'll still make mistakes.

> The person you're responding to is talking about depth from stereo, not > cognition.

You miss the point; saying human 3D reconstruction works because of sensors without world context is naive. The response was trying to capture that; human perception systems utilize context / background knowledge extensively.

<comment><USER10> > _the amount of parallax you need to get the same kind of accurate depth > using camera is infeasible. Velodynes other common lidar now gets you points > accurate at 150m+_

I meant they both just provide line of sight depth.

The point being made by the first comment is that human eyeballs placed one inch apart are currently the gold standard for the actual looking part. So the right set of cameras is by definition sufficient for the looking part of driving. The cameras just have to replace eyes well enough. The brain replacement is farther down the chain.

<comment><USER11> From the OP:

> humans can build near perfect 3D representations of the world with 2D images > stitched together with the parallax neural nets in our brain

This is a statement about cognition. And the response addresses this.

Your response:

> The person you're responding to is talking about depth from stereo, not > cognition.

I think this is the disconnect. The person _is_ talking about cognition. OP makes a claim about how humans see, connected to how the human brain works. Response explains why camera-based image recognition right now is a lot worse than your eyes (a big piece of the answer is your brain).

> The cameras just have to replace eye well enough

So yes this is nice in theory. But I also get the sense most people don't realize just how large the chasm is today between cameras and human eyes. They don't "just provide line of sight depth." Dynamic range, field of view, reliability even under conditions like high heat -- there are many other dimensions where they just aren't analogous yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They are refuting a claim that wasn't made. If they need Lidar to do better annotations, fine. You'd only need the lidar on data collection/R&D cars though, and could just use cameras on production cars.

The point Musk and others are making though is that the lidar on the market today has poor performance in weather. The cameras will struggle to a degree in weather as well, so not having good annotations when your dev car is driving though rain is exactly the time when you need the ground-truth to be as clean as possible.

<comment><USER13> With respect, thats not what they are claiming

They are saying that lidar enhances the perception system to get more accurate dimensions and rotations of objects to a greater distance.

this means that you can predict far better, allowing you, for example, to drive at night full speed.

Weather affects visual systems as well. The "ooo rain kills lidar" is noise at best. Visual cameras are crap at night.

There is a reason that the radar augmented depth perception demo is in bright light, no rain. Because it almost certainly doesn't work as well at night, and will probably need a separate model.

<comment><USER14> >>Visual cameras are crap at night.

Mitigated somewhat with headlights

<comment><USER13> Not really. Most cameras don't have the dynamic range needed to either full see where the beam is pointing, or cope with near objects.

Infra-red cameras work, but RGB not so much (well not in the <$400 per CCD price point)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Some of this feels very cherry-picked. They're comparing lidar vs camera on snapshots, when a model will always be continuously built as the scene changes.

There's also one instance where it gives lidar the advantage because it's mounted on top of the car and can see over signs. What?!

<comment><USER16> Are they only utilizing one camera? Doesn't Tesla use multiple cameras and radar?

<comment><USER15> Seems like those shots were from just one camera.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This article is only considering static images. Lidar static "images" necessarily contain depth information so yeah obviously they'll have better depth estimates.

But that's really beside the point because the world is not static and any system attempting self-driving will need to take that into account.

Using parallax measurements which is what Tesla says they are doing, you can dramatically increase the estimates of depth measurements by comparing multiple frames of 2D images.

Also, just a reminder that Tesla is also using radar in conjunction with the cameras.

<comment><USER18> This was my question as well. How good are systems over a stream of data?

I am not expert in this field: how tracking actually works with a time dimension? These must be some sort of "state" carried over frame-by-frame? What is the "size" of this state? Objects just do not disappear and reappear for certain frames? This latter effect you can often see on many automatic labeling demos you find on GitHub.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think it's completely clear at this point that Tesla(or more specifically, Elon Musk) is just simply lying about what their cars will be able to do in the future with existing hardware. Don't get me wrong - the existing "autopilot" is fantastically good. But it's not going to jump from where it is now to full self driving, no matter how many years or millions are poured into it.

<comment><USER20> Elon is an eternal optimist that truly believes that the tech will catch up with his goals.

<comment><USER21> To be fair, though: Elon is shipping actual vehicles. I mean, I think the GM and Waymo offerings look great too, but I can't buy one. Even granting the premise that LiDAR is going to be a firm requirement, it's not clear to me that Tesla is actually behind the curve on real products. Adding a LiDAR system (or buying one from Waymo) to a Tesla seems naively simpler than finishing and shipping a whole new system from scratch.

<comment><USER22> It does make me sad that Tesla didn't just throw all the (affordable?) tech they could into their cars, and then figure it out later.

Eg, it seems like they are taking the "figure it out later" approach, but they limited what they can work with to just camera information. Which to me is a shame. I'd like to see Tesla's model with lots of inputs.

Then again, I don't ship these cars, so I'm probably being ignorant :)

<comment><USER23> To be fair, it seems like there's been a lot of innovation and miniaturization in the LIDAR space in the past year or two. Even if Tesla wanted to preemptively install LIDAR for future proofing, I'm guessing that addition to the car would be an eye sore.

<comment><USER2> There are lots of LIDAR startups. And there's Continental, the big European auto parts maker. They bought Advanced Scientific Concepts, which has a good but expensive flash LIDAR. (I saw the prototype on an optical bench 15 years ago.) They showed a prototype on a car in 2017.[1]

There are about 100 companies involved with automotive LIDAR.[2] Making LIDAR units cheaper looks within reach. Arguments are over which technology of several that work will be cheapest. Not whether it can be done. There are the rotating machinery guys. The flash LIDAR guys, divided into the "we can make CMOS do it" and "we can get InGaAs fabbed at reasonable cost" camps. There are the MEMS mirror people. All have working demo units.

But no car maker is prepared to order in quantity. Continental is an auto parts maker - when some auto manufacturer wants to order a few hundred thousand units, they'll crank up a production line and get the price down. There's no demand yet beyond the prototype level. The startups mostly want to get bought out by someone who can manufacture in volume. In the end, it's an auto part.

Once the units get cheaper, they can be better integrated into cars. The top 2cm or so of the windshield can be dedicated to sensors. Additional sensors near the headlights, looking sideways from the fenders, and backwards will complete the circle. The top-mounted rotating thing is a temporary measure until the price comes down.

[1] [https://www.continental-automotive.com/en-gl/Landing- Pages/C...](https://www.continental-automotive.com/en-gl/Landing- Pages/CAD/Automated-Driving/Enablers/3D-Flash-Lidar)

[2] [http://www.automotivelidar.com/](http://www.automotivelidar.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is ignoring the Elephant in the room: The AI is not good enough often enough for general purpose AVs. In restricted settings it will be great (container terminals, warehouses...) but from every thing I have seen, from the outside as I am not a insider, the last little bit of safety seems unobtainable with neural networks. I so want to be wrong, and please tell me why I am. I want my next care to have a cocktail cabinet and drive smoothly enough to balance my champagne flute on the arm rest.

<comment><USER25> Cars will reach 50% and 75% and 95% autonomy but they won't reach 100% unless we change infra to be controlled. So long as they are driving among humans on roads made for humans they will never be 100% autonomous. 100% autonomy might sound like just a little more than 95% but it's not. At 100 is where a car can be built to not have a driver. Its passengers can be drunk or not know how to drive. It's a huge difference from 95% or 99%.

I think when cars are 95 or 99% autonomous they will be sold with human remote control so there will be centers where manufacturers have hundreds of remote drives ready to intervene and handle the last 5% or 1% of situations. Ther race to AV profitability will be won by the manufacturer with the smallest army of backup drivers.

<comment><USER26> How do you expect human remote control to work reliably enough for safety critical situations when our existing cellular data network fails so frequently? What happens when a construction crew accidentally cuts through the backhaul fiber?

<comment><USER25> The handover will be after the car stops because it's confused. If there is no cell network or no operator available the car is simply stranded on the side of the road, just as after a mechanical failure. Operators can't help "unknown situations" while moving.

<comment><USER26> In many places like bridges, hills, and congested city streets there is literally no road shoulder, no safe place to stop. When existing cars break down in those locations they end up blocking a traffic lane and frequently get hit from the rear by a drunk or distracted driver.

<comment><USER25> Yes, the autonomous car will need to make a judgement whether to "limp" out of a situation it is unsure of, or whether to stay where it is. It's weighing two risks against each other). This happens whether it's 95 or 99.99% autonomous - it just happens with different frequency.

It could also be possible for the occupants of the car (if it has any!) to pick up a smartphone and guide the car to safety if needed. Part of the attraction of autonomous vehicles is that if can operate _without_ occupants, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> But remember that accuracy of drawing bounding boxes around objects in still frames is only very slightly related to actual self-driving ability, even if intuition suggests otherwise.

This is basically just an ad for Scale and Scale's services, which include... drawing bounding boxes around objects in still frames.

</comment><comment><USER28> I think all of this discussion about whether or not LIDAR or cameras are better misses the point that really matters- Will cameras actually be good enough to get the job done? If they are then it doesn't matter which is better. You can always add additional sensors and get more information, but engineering has always been a cost vs benefit problem. If adding LIDAR doesn't give a significant benefit in scenarios that cameras are not already good enough, then they might not be worth the additional expense.

<comment><USER29> I'm going to go with the guy who seems to be successfully launching StarLink

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The weird thing about this article is that it's only comparing annotation performance, which is important, but not what you should ultimately care about. If you trained a visual model using annotated lidar for ground truth, then you might expect better performance from the model than from human annotations of the image alone, and certainly better than a model trained on those annotations.

</comment><comment><USER31> Seems like they are either incompetent or cooking the data. When converting from the image to a top view shape / outline, one would design and or train the system to adjust for perspective. Clearly they have not bothered to do that.

And the title is inflammatory. Nobody who understands the discussion is talking only about camera versus lidar. It's more about camera+radar versus camera+radar+lidar, and other comparisons between other hybrid or standalone sensor combinations. It's not as simple as one versus the other... surprised we still have to point this out to them.

</comment><comment><USER32> What if we have sensors/cameras/etc along the road and they feed data to whichever car is there?

And if we also have cars share their sensor data?

Would that speed things up in terms of achieving full autonomy?

<comment><USER33> Yes, drastically. But with it you bring new fears of how that data will be used by the government. You could also achieve something similar by forcing all vehicles to have embedded sensors that real time share data.

<comment><USER32> So we could have highways offering 100% automomy and small village roads offering 20% autonomy.

Investment wise it wouldn't be impossible since roads are already expensive to build.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I suspect this is yet another story sponsored by the Tesla shorts. Just saw an excellent two hour interview by Lex Fridman of George Hotz and he goes into details why he thinks camera will win over lidar.

But he also admits that presently Google is ahead of everyone in the race for level 5, but raises the question of whether they can ever do it economically enough to make money on it?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwcYp- XT7UI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwcYp-XT7UI) 2 hours!

Money quote is when Lex tells him, ""Some non-zero part of your brain has a madman in it"

I'd argue that is true of many of the greatest inventors of our time.

<comment><USER35> I believe Tesla's also have radar.

I also listened to the podcast. George made it sound like the Lidar wasn't being used for much. It augments the maps to help determine more precise location?

<comment><USER12> I noticed that too. My understanding of what he said was most AV companies were using the lidar purely for localization (on an HD map) and not for object detection. This was the opposite of my understanding, so his statement was very confusing to me. Anyone able to comment?

<comment><USER6> You can absolutely use lidar pointclouds for object detection. It can be hard with low resolution lidar in a cluttered environment, though.

<comment><USER12> Of course you _can_ use it. The claim Hotz seemed to be making was that the major AV stacks weren't doing it, which would have been major news to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Regardless of which side of the 'Efficacy of Lidar' argument one is, it's impressive how much impact Elon Musk's statement has on the industry.

</comment><comment><USER37> >If your perception system is weak or inaccurate, your ability to forecast the future will be dramatically reduced.

This is reasoning is exactly backwards. If your perception system can forecast accurately, it simply must not be weak or inaccurate.

The question here is, what is important information for a system to perceive to make accurate forecasts? Lidar might help a bit... But we know it simply is not required.

</comment><comment><USER38> I strongly recommend Lex Firdman's recent interview with George Hotz where they covered this topic in some detail [https://youtu.be/iwcYp- XT7UI](https://youtu.be/iwcYp-XT7UI)

</comment><comment><USER39> This completely fails to address Musk's argument: that for a L5 car you need to be able to drive in inclement weather where LIDAR does not work reliably.

Musk may be right or wrong, but this article is a non-sequitur.

<comment><USER40> Cameras don't work reliably in inclement weather either.

So what was Musk's point ?

<comment> yo-scot-99 there's 200-300k cars out there with just cameras + radar and their bet is the software catches up to the rhetoric. Adding lidar is next to impossible on the current fleet and adds to the cost if they start now. It is an early design bet which the coders now have to meet.

<comment><USER25> But no car sold yet (or in the coming decade) will have close to "full autonomy". Not even close.

<comment><USER41> He's been promising otherwise.

<comment><USER25> Hopefully no one bought a car hoping it will magically be "fully autonomous" in the future, given that no one knows whether it will even be possible with a research vehicle in 10 years

<comment><USER42> If they weren't hoping that, it would seem odd for them to pay several thousand dollars for a "Full Self Driving" option.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, I mean I hope people realize that just a few thousand and "Full self driving" doesn't imply "Fully autonomous" in the sense that people can use their Tesla as an Uber and be drunk in the back seat! It just means that they'll have the best autonomy that Tesla can provide which still means they have to pay attention. "Fully autonomous" to me is the point where my kid who can't drive can use it as a taxi to school with no other driver etc. Musk doesn't imagine that yet I hope.

<comment><USER42> Now I'm confused. At one point, Tesla literally had the following description for "Full self driving": "in the future, Model 3 will be capable of conducting trips with no action required by the person in the driver's seat".

Isn't that pretty much what you said "Full self driving" does NOT imply?

<comment><USER25> Conducting (some, specific/easy) trips with no action is easy. Even conducting most trips is likely doable within the near-ish future.

"Full autonomy" (at least to me) is being able to do _any_ trip. Not just some or most. Because the key benefit is that the car can be empty, or the passenger drunk/blind/...

That's what I think the crucial difference is between their marketed "full self driving" and true full autonomy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm suspicious - this article has been posted several times in the last few days. Does hacker news accept dupes?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20677720](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20677720)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20680495](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20680495)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20683288](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20683288)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20686791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20686791)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20705890](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20705890)

<comment><USER44> This is answered in the FAQ: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html).

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I side with Elon on this. Except he's kinda of a cheap bastard and my idea of using Lytro cameras instead of cheap ones used by Tesla won't actually fly with him. So yeah, use Lytro and you can forget about Lidar altogether.

<comment><USER46> I really like this idea, and had come up with it independently a few days ago. Light-field is very processor intensive, but oh so powerful.</comment></comment>


The Hidden Taxes on Women - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/business/women-hidden-taxes.html <comment><USER2> In the UK at least there is one very literal tax on women: paying VAT on sanitary products because they're defined as a _luxury_.</comment>


Facebook tracking UK political party websites - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oPHu-TUQX4 <comment><AUTHOR> This is from a new private browsing session, no page loaded (tabs only prefilled with urls to load).

Notice, no consent given on Facebook or the political party sites.

Facebook has been sent a wealth of data on who is a member of UK political parties, because UK political parties are mostly giving it away to them illegally.</comment>


Early Impressions of Kotlin - <AUTHOR> http://natpryce.com/articles/000815.html <comment><USER2> The author's criteria sounds like a brochure for Scala development.

> We wanted a typed language. We wanted language aware editing. And we wanted > a language that had an organisation behind its development [Typesafe] and > enough people using it that we could get questions answered...a more active > community, is being used for commercial development by...a number of other > companies [Twitter, Foursquare, The Guardian], has good editing support > within IntelliJ, has an active community on social media, and promises easy > interop with existing Java libraries.

Scala also shares most of the "good points"

* is interoperable with Java

* infers types

* has more advanced variance rules

* has data classes

* has sealed classes

* has a mechanism for extension methods

* has operator overloading (though Scala operators are syntactic sugar for methods, so arbitrary names are allowed)

* has getter and setter syntax

And solves many of the "surprises"

* destructuring

* data classes that can be sealed

* better null handling (i.e. Options)

* structural typing

And of course, Scala has a larger, more mature community, broader support from IDEs and build tools, compile-to-JS abilities (ScalaJS), and many more open source libraries and frameworks.

The author mentions that build times are slow. Was compiler performance the singular deal-breaker?

I'm not saying I can't think of any downsides of Scala; after three years of full-time development, I've seen a few. (Yep, slow compile times. Also, conceptual complexity. Also anything in the bug tracker. [https://issues.scala-lang.org](https://issues.scala-lang.org) .) But I left the article feeling like Kotlin was a fasting compiling Scala that was less mature and had fewer features. I'd enjoy a fuller perspective on Scala from a Kotlin dev.

\---

Side note: "Kotlin borrows the concept of companion objects from Scala. Why can't classes be objects? Perhaps it's a limitation of the JVM but compared to, say, Python, it feels clunky."

I'm guessing this is referring to using compile-time types (classes) as runtime data? I.e. reflection.

<comment><USER3> The problem what I see of kotlin is that it tries to be different through naming, but it isn't different. It's a "light" scala.

Also IDE support of kotlin is really good through IntelliJ. What I mostly dislike about kotlin is that they tried to have something like ScalaJS but they couldn't really make a "good" version in 1.0</comment></comment>


Using WhatsApp with XMPP client - <AUTHOR>

Is there anyway to use WhatsApp with any of the XMPP clients? If yes, how it's done<p>The Wikipedia article says, it supports XMPP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp <comment><USER2> It's protocol is a customized version of XMPP, as per the wiki article. I doubt if any third party XMPP client will work with it. Whatsapp doesn't have an open API, though some guys had managed to reverse engineer it last year. They have since updated their API apparently.

Unless whatsapp explicitly opens with API, I think we are stuck with their official apps on the phones.

</comment><comment><USER3> As far as I know there currently is no way to accomplish this, but I am working on a solution for it. Unfortunately the project just started and will take its time

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you working with WhatsApp for this? Or reverse engineer?</comment></comment>