Poland's oldest university denies Google's right to patent Polish coding concept - <AUTHOR> http://www.pap.pl/en/news/news,1037604,polands-oldest-university-denies-googles-right-to-patent-polish-coding-concept.html <comment><USER2> I'm not understanding how Google and employees is claiming to be the original inventor here.

 _Each inventor must sign an oath or declaration that includes certain statements required by law and the USPTO rules, including the statement that he or she believes himself or herself to be the original inventor or an original joint inventor of a claimed invention in the application and the statement that the application was made or authorized to be made by him or her._

[https://www.uspto.gov/patents-getting-started/general- inform...](https://www.uspto.gov/patents-getting-started/general-information- concerning-patents)

How is Google+Co the original inventor?

<comment><USER3> The system has changed - it's first to the patent office, now, and vast amounts of intellectual property is being legally stolen.

<comment><USER4> Yes it is now first to file, but that is only to determine the inventor in the case of multiple independent inventors.

As before, it is still illegal to file for a patent you did not invent without the inventor's consent.

<comment><USER3> You do have to claim you thought of it on your own, just a lot later, true - but that's trivial to do, and impossible to disprove.

For example, it's perfectly okay to patent an idea in use a thousand years ago, nowadays, as long as most people in that field haven't heard of it; thanks to recently truly perverse judicial decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, fuck Google. They really should consider re-adopting "Don't be evil" for PR proposes at the very least.

(This isn't too say other companies don't pull the same shit; fuck them all just as much)

<comment><USER6> Has google ever filed a patent suit against someone other than in defense? What's more is they have purchased licenses to defend public use of formats.

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2013/03/07/googl...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2013/03/07/google- and-mpeg-la-sign-licensing-agreement-covering-googles-vp8-video-codec- clearing-the-way-for-wider-adoption/)

<comment><USER7> How is that relevant to an attempt to patent something that's in the public record?

<comment><USER6> Well, the us has moved to first to file. It could be they are just protecting it from being patented by someone else.

Also, until you see the patent app, you don't really know what they are patenting exactly.

<comment><USER8> ...but ffs! The reason is that Google is encouraging their employees to file patents, just as everybody else, since the patent system in regards to software patents is really just a pissing contest - they need patents to hit each other in the heads with, and it doesn't matter if it's obvious implementations of things that people with a common sense will figure out in 10 minutes.

In this case it took a while to figure out the smart thing, and it took 10 minutes to find an application to patent.

I worked for a company that probably infringed on an existing telecom patent that was more or less equivalent to looking in another sock drawer if you can't find a matching sock, but as it was related to "an apparatus or method" for "locating subscriber registry data" it was apparently novel enough to require a patent.

It took me about 1 minute to come up with the solution as an obvious solution to a simple problem so it was clearly just rubbish.

The patentee had about 2 million other patents, so if someone had actually cared we could potentially have infringed on several more patents and run out of money long before we could win.

<comment><USER9> But Google doesn't do that. That's worth something, right? It's easy to take the moral high ground, but I wanted to point out how it looks to the quiet objective people reading.

<comment> qu4z-2 My experience with Google is that the claim should probably be "Google doesn't do that _at the moment_ ".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Side note. When I was preparing biographies of Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv (the inventors of LZ77 and LZ78), I read an interview with Lempel. He was asked why they hadn't patented their algorithms. And he replied like this: we're scientist, our goal is to improve the world, not be rich. His answer surprised me. They clearly knew that the invention is remarkable and would be profitable, but deliberately made it free.

</comment><comment><USER11> (For those interested in data compression, [https://encode.ru](https://encode.ru) is very active. This thread covers the rANS patent problems: [https://encode.ru/threads/2648-Published-rANS-patent- by-Stor...](https://encode.ru/threads/2648-Published-rANS-patent-by- Storeleap/page3) )

<comment><USER12> Please consider not showing that forum to people who are not working in compression. It is a rare beauty that could easily fall into Eternal September.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I stumbled upon this edit war concerning Huffman Coding article on Wikipedia [1], where the ANS algorithm author (Jarek Duda) justifies his edits back in 2007 as a way to "shorten the delay for its [ANS] current wide use in modern compressors, leading to unimaginable world-wide energy and time savings thanks to up to 30x speedup."

Sounds dramatic, but today it seems like he had a point. The other guy (guarding Wikipedia against self promotion) has a point too, though.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AHuffman_coding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AHuffman_coding)

</comment><comment><USER14> Today's Google is a sugar coated evil corporation. "Don't be evil"... pathetic.

<comment><USER15> Along with the kiddie play-school design. Some creepy psych things going on there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> #3 168 points 7h IOCCC Flight Simulator

#72 280 points 6h Poland's oldest university denies __Google __' s right to patent Polish coding concept

(had to scroll to middle of 3rd page)

(and it's #1 on Algolia 24hs top)

Makes sense, perfectly explainable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any story that puts Google in bad light is heavily censored on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is related to the ANS patent of Google, which was previously discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14751977](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14751977)

</comment><comment><USER17> This post had 251 points in two hours. It was no 1 post for some time and now it was downgraded to 42ND position in the list. 2 hours after posting with 251points. How is it possible????

<comment><USER18> Google employees flagging it en masse.

<comment><USER19> This. Read some interesting comments that I agreed with only to see them flagged after some time. Great work Gogglers. You "showed us" who is boss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Can anyone explain Google's rationale here?

As I understand the US patent system, patent trolls can and do make these sorts of patent filings all the time, and the legitimacy doesn't matter, because their victims can't afford to defend themselves in court.

Isn't it irrational _not_ to file patents like these?

Or is Google planning to use this patent "offensively?"

<comment><USER21> Google has never used a patent offensively. Hell even Waymo was more about theft than patents. But HN turns rabid in these situations rather than understanding Google has to do this to prevent trolls from doing it.

<comment><USER22> >Google has to do this to prevent trolls from doing it.

So you believe that a company as powerful as Google deserves more consolidated power. No, thanks.I will stick with the possibility of getting sued by a troll than handing that power to Google.

<comment><USER21> No, but they've never used that power whereas trolls always use it for bad.

The fact that you'd rather have a troll own it than Google is literally retarded. That's like advocating you'd prefer North Korea have nukes than the US, because the US already has too much power.

Why would you rather be sued in real life over a theoretical fear? Is absurd.

<comment><USER22> >theoretical fear Profit is always the bottom line. Google isn't some humanitarian project. Get your head out of the clouds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Google, the universal evil company.

(That's where you realise emojis lack a pinky finger, that could become google's logo).

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't understand how companies can be so bold as to file for patents on things that are already in industry use by more than the filer of the patent.

</comment><comment><USER25> Does the article mean ENcoding and not just coding?

<comment><USER26> They mean "coding" in the information theory meaning of the word:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%27s_source_coding_theo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%27s_source_coding_theorem)

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

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

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's interesting that arithmetic compression and its variants seem to be a favourite of those looking for something to patent. From the description of ANS, it looks very similar to the QM/Q-coder for JBIG/2, JPEG, and JPEG2000, which was patented by IBM a long time ago (since expired.)

</comment><comment><USER28> Someone should stop the monopoly of google in computer science and AI. Otherwise its going to be dangerous.

<comment><USER29> It needs to be broken up like [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System)

<comment><USER22> More than 90 % of its revenue comes from ads so I don't see a way they would be affected. The only valuable brands are Youtube and the search engine(android could even operate as a nonprofit funded by Google). Progress but hardly a "win".

<comment><USER29> Make it spin off YouTube, Maps/Earth, Translate, its public cloud, GMail etc etc.

<comment><USER22> Yes but most of those services gain traction from the search engine. Google2 could quickly use FOSS code to integrate similar products to those that they would lose and even if they would be a MVP that would still do the trick. See what I mean ?

<comment><USER29> Its the level of integration thats the problem, the way they can leverage dominant positions in markets A, B and C to conquer market D.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why this news, posted 2 hours ago, slided from front page to 40th position in about 2 minutes? It's got 251 points, 52 comments which is way more than anything on the front page?

<comment><USER31> Same here, I saw it at the top, after I read the comments and refreshed the main page, it was gone I found it on the 46th spot.

</comment></comment><comment> e-beach Sorry, but I wouldn't trust an article written by the Polish state media. The title of the article, labeling the idea a "Polish coding concept", clearly presupposes that Google's claim was baseless.

<comment><USER32> It is fair to bring up Polish state media and the tendency of Poles towards nationalistic bias. If anyone didn't get that then this comment is useful. Just bear in mind that Google PR is on the other side of the argument. It was usually a safe bet to side with Google but given recent trends it may be a good idea to look at the merits of the arguments.</comment></comment>


Apple to Unveil IPad 2 on March 2 in San Francisco - <AUTHOR> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20110222/exclusive-apple-ipad-2-event-set-for-march-2/ <comment><USER2> What I find stunning is that Apple is about to launch the iPad 2 and we are still waiting for the first credible Android-based tablet, aside from the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Note that the first iPad launched almost a year ago in April of 2010.

Apple's time-to-market in tablets has generated at least five key advantages for the company:

1\. Apple has locked up the market for critical components, including 60% of the global supply of 10" touch capacitive screens.

2\. The company is much further along the learning curve in tablets, with refined hardware and software as well as more efficient production through its partnership with Foxconn.

3\. Apple has achieved significant economies of scale to drive down per unit costs, having already shipped and sold 15m+ iPads.

4\. The company has developed a sizable collection of complements in the form of apps and content (via iTunes) and physical accessories.

5\. Apple has generated strong brand awareness around the iPad, given the limited competition for consumer mind share in this market.

These aforementioned advantages build upon Apple's already significant, corporate advantages in the areas of technology, distribution (e.g., retail stores), customer service, and overall brand recognition.

Credible Android-based tablets will arrive soon. For instance, the Motorola Xoom is due to hit stores this Thursday. However, it may take some time (measured in years) for competitors to catch up to Apple in this market.

<comment><USER3> If you are just counting announcements there are tons of android tablet announcements, iPad 2's release could still be months away.

<comment><USER4> The first gen iPad was announced on January 27, 2010. It was available on April 3, 2010. That's 2 months between announcement and launch.

Apple could afford to release information that far in advance, because it didn't replace an existing Apple product and there was no competition from other vendors. This year, the situation is different. I'm willing to bet that the second gen iPad will be available within 5 weeks of its announcement. (If I'd have to guess, I'd say Saturday, April 2.)

<comment><USER5> I heard today that the first iPad required FCC approval so keeping it under wraps was never going to happen. But that doesn't apply to the iPad 2.

I expect the iPad 2, if announced on March 2, to ship before the end of March.

<comment><USER6> I expect the iPad 2, if announced on March 2, to ship on March 2.

Because that's the way Apple usually rolls.

<comment><USER7> I doubt it will ship March 2. They haven't given a new beta OS to developers, and they don't want all apps to be broken on launch day.

<comment><USER6> What new beta OS? The iPad 2 would ship with iOS 4.3, iOS 5 will be released this summer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Somewhere in Cupertino yesterday...

"Tim? Hey, problem. Bloomberg just put some nonsense out about slipping dates. Getting traction."

"Ok. Get Mossberg on the phone."

<comment><USER9> While that was probably tongue-in-cheek and meant to be humorous, Walt Mossberg is one of the more respected tech reviewers and is pretty clear on his ethics policy, which you can read here.

<http://allthingsd.com/about/walt-mossberg/>

<comment><USER6> Mossberg and a few others are pretty well known as "controlled leak" sources for Apple: they're respected, they tend to not go for the crap/shock value, and they're usually quite appreciated by Cupertino.

An Apple exec can pick up a phone and give Mossberg a few actual facts (a bit hidden in the subtext of inquiring about his health, let's not be too overt), I don't think there's anything in _that_ which would go against his ethics policy. Though I may have missed that section.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So....who else held out on the first generation and is planning on buying? I'm in.

<comment><USER11> I held out. As much as I like dead tree CS books, lugging relevant ones around has become too much of a pain. Add to that the awesome offer from O'Reilly for $5 ebook versions of books you already own, and the ipad becomes irresistible to me.

I've just been holding out for a lighter version. I think the original ipad is just a bit too heavy.

<comment><USER12> Do you have a link? I have a shelf of O'Reilly books that I'd love to get in PDF form, but I'm having trouble finding that offer on the website.

<comment><USER13> <https://members.oreilly.com/account/register/index>

If you create an account, then go to that URL and enter the ISBN of your book you're then given the option to upgrade it to an eBook for $4.99.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm curious to see how right the rumours are about the new design. From the case designs which have leaked, the iPad 2 is significantly thinner, with two cameras. I'm also expecting a dual core CPU and 1gb RAM, dual cameras, but no "retina display".

If it really is as thin as rumoured I'm impressed.

<comment><USER15> I wonder how many apps in the app store that use multithreading will suddenly break a lot more frequently because of the second core.[1] Rare, freak crashes and glitches could suddenly become unusably frequent. Maybe all apps submitted with SDK < 4.4 (or whatever) will be pinned to one CPU?

[1] most race conditions will only trigger on a uniprocessor system if preempted, which is fairly unlikely if the racy data accesses are close together.

<comment><USER14> I don't know that much about programming, but OS X has always supported SMP and multi-core CPU's, and Cocoa also supports it fine.

<comment><USER16> Right, but it's extremely difficult to get concurrency right at the application level. Anything that works usually works by chance, and changing the hardware that a multithreaded program runs on is a great way to find out how you fucked up the implementation.

Right now, it's likely that a lot of bugs are not showing themselves regularly, so nobody has bothered running any diagnostic tools (Helgrind, etc.)

<comment><USER17> I agree with you that people are really bad at concurrency, but I disagree that it's that hard once you get used to it.

Once you deal with one large deep difficult highly concurrent project, you get used to the idea that when there are threads and mutexes involved you have to think REALLY HARD about how it should work, and you can't rely on just trying something and testing it like you can with normal code. And if you do that, you can get threads to work pretty reliably, not just by chance.

<comment><USER16> My thoughts on threads boil down to: they're a tool for library authors. Using them in applications is ... misguided. Use an event loop instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have an iPad. I love my iPad. That said, it's too heavy. 1.5lbs is really light when you have a laptop that you set down to use, but when you actually hold the device whenever you're using it, that weight adds up. It needs a better display. Please don't misunderstand me, the iPad has an amazing display compared to what was available when it launched. When you hold an iPhone 3GS up to an iPad the phone looks like it's using 16 bit EGA. But the galaxy tab and the iPhone 4 have raised the bar for what consumers expect. Finally, it needs at least a front facing and would benefit from two cameras. The new iPad also needs FaceTime. Also, if apple were smart they'd add the same camera the iPhone 4 uses to the rear. That would further lock up production capacity so that competitors can't use the backlit camera technology in their stuff. I'll be watching the keynote live if at all possible and I'll be following by liveblog if not. Should be a great event.

<comment><USER19> What do you mean by a better display? Merely a higher resolution? The iPad's IPS panel is great and I personally hope that they don't go with other technologies. An increased resolution would be nice but unlikely.

<comment><USER20> I'm always amazed that people think the iPad display is good. The text always looks blurry and poorly antialiased to me which I attribute to the fact that it has quite low DPI. Further to that the minute I walk out the door I can barely see anything on the screen - it's just not bright enough. I love the iPad in a few ways but the display is one of the things I dislike.

<comment><USER19> The iPad has the ppi of a 15" screen with a 1680x1050 resolution. No low ppi count by any means. It uses the same non-subpixel antialiasing as OS X and tests showed that it can get pretty bright and pretty black. Certainly no worse than a laptop screen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The new iPad will probably be awesome. I have the original, but don't use it as much after getting an 11" Macbook Air. I'll probably sit this one out.

<comment><USER14> Probably gonna make the first one look like ass ha ha

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It seems the iPad was released not too long ago so it's 'fun' that the current iPads will have such a dive in value with the new iPad2 hitting the streets.

I know it's been released in April, but that's just in the US. It arrived in the rest of the EU at the end of July (and I bought mine in September).

Of all things Apple could release more often, they pick the iPad...

As an iPad 1st gen owner I hope at least they would release some attachable iSight camera for the iPad. Because video calling is about the only thing I would want it to do in order to be a decent Skype station.

Personally I've found little value in the iPad. A pocketable iPod Touch is perfect for light email reading, quick browsing, and Skype calls while a Kindle is much nicer for book reading. Furthermore, these two added weigh less than the iPad!

</comment><comment><USER23> On a side note, I wish articles would just say " _guessers_ expect the iPad 2 to be thinner ... blah blah" instead of _analysts_. I'm getting tired of "analysts" who "predict" but play no role in the creation.

</comment><comment><USER24> _dcurtis_ has a link to what may be the iPad 2: <http://blog.dustincurtis.com/photos-of-ipad-2>.

</comment><comment><USER25> i am much more interested in the new Macbook Pro that are rumored to be announced on Thursday. With an event a week later that now seems unlikely though.

</comment><comment><USER26> Of course this happens when I buy my parents an iPad for Christmas.

<comment><USER27> Don't worry, your first gen iPad will be perfectly fine and you'll continue to do all the fascinating things that you're already doing with it. Do you change your iPhone/macbook (if you have them) every time a new one comes out? I hope not, and that's the same with the ipads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The first iPad was a big iPhone 3, so this one will be a big iPhone 4. iPad 3 will be a big iPhone 5. Why mess with a successful model?

<comment><USER29> b/c the market demands it.

<comment><USER28> how do you know what the market demands? you know through sales. The market liked a big iPhone 3, so it is reasonable to predict that they will like a big iPhone 4.

Feature list:

\- front facing camera \- "retinal" display \- iPhone 4 style designing

<comment><USER30> In the past couple years Apple has shown a much better ability at predicting what the market demands than random internet commentators. I don't think their thought process for the iPad was "big iPhone 3," as they changed many applications. The iPad 2 may share many features with the iPhone 4 because Apple now has the knowledge to execute those features and the technology is now mature, but the reasoning wouldn't be to "make a bigger version of the iPhone 4."

<comment><USER18> Interestingly enough Steve has mentioned before that the iPad came first.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6--_Z4unLQ0></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Where there's oil and gas there's Schlumberger, yet you won't have heard of it - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/18/where-there-is-oil-and-gas-there-is-schlumberger?CMP=fb_gu

<comment><USER2> I used their high speed chip testers when I did an internship at Intel back in the day. If your in the energy industry, you know them.</comment>


The Purpose of Persuasion - <AUTHOR> https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-purpose-of-persuasion <comment><USER2> I think pseudonymity will be important for the future of ideas (expanded beyond HN but into actual journalistic practice). You don't have to put up your real name, aka your full reputation behind interesting ideas that could risk damage to you as a person (being cancelled, character assassination, or otherwise)

I also believe that this kind of work will invite better discussion and critique around different topics since the focus can only be on the merit of the content. Of course, anonymity also has its downsides, but good work usually finds a way into circles while bad work gets nipped at the bud fairly quickly

<comment><USER3> The Rolodex re-purposed, keeping track of all of our own identities instead of other's

I do think this is interesting as an adaption, though to have any coherence of identity then that identity will need to re-used. That makes an interesting game, where people effectively wager different amounts of reputation, while understanding that some or total loss of that reputation could also occur.

The natural advantage to having reputation is that you are better discovery status, more exposure. Imagine debating if the "top" tier identity or the "low" tier identity should be used to promote a new idea, as it is riskier.

Overall, I think this expansion of pseudonymity as a society would just lead to additional fragmentation of personality. The "coherence" of a person as one, consistent individual is an interesting breakdown of self. We see this already with "online" vs "real-life" personalities can be highly divergent (Insta-self vs actual-self).

<comment><USER4> > Imagine debating if the "top" tier identity or the "low" tier identity > should be used to promote a new idea, as it is riskier.

This sentence reminds me a lot of Ender's Game, in which the characters of Locke and Demosthenes are created to contrast views.

> _They used throwaway names with their early efforts, not the identities that > Peter planned to make famous and influential... When Peter was satisfied > that they knew how to sound adult, he killed the old identities and they > began to prepare to attract real attention._

<comment><USER5> I think xkcd's take on how that would play out is more typical: [https://xkcd.com/635/](https://xkcd.com/635/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Somewhat tangential...

I've been thinking lately that there is a need for a space in which political discussions can be had where people are as committed to the values of civility and good-faith argument as we are at news.yc.com

I have not a clue how such a space could be moderated. It's obvious to me that a person violating guidelines would quickly claim suppression if their posts were moderated, and the space itself would quickly devolve into the things it tries to avoid. Eg, echo-chamberiness, sophists, trolls.

It seems like a paradigm shift is required, or that the medium just isn't appropriate. It also seems widely-accepted by nearly everyone that our current medium is destructive and no longer serves constructive use. Reputation, ranking, and moderation based on the 'wisdom of crowds' is no longer viable in its current form, but I'm utterly unwilling to cede control to an authority...

How does one establish trustless good-faith?

<comment><USER7> A lot of approaches to moderation seem destined to fail, afaic.

I think first principles should be:

1\. There is no such thing as objective moderation. The universe gives us no way to conclusively prove something is good, fair or true.

2\. You cannot moderate a forum at internet-scale using exclusively paid employees.

3\. A tech company is not the government. There is no shame in a company looking out to protect its own good name.

Some takeaways: (1) and (3) suggest a social network should admit its point of view, and moderate according to its tastes from the top-down. (2) suggests the bulk of moderation should either be AI-based, or delegated down via a hierarchy of its users. Since AI won't be capable of competent moderation for at least a decade, the primary method should be the community. (3) means that the the positioning on moderation should be heavy-handed. Eg: "If we dislike your contributions or feel you make us look bad, we will ban you. We offer no 'court of appeals', because it's an esthetic judgment."

This ideology of my model is rather depressing, but the current state of the internet (compare HN or Tildes with 8chan or Gab) hints that it's better than the status quo.

<comment><USER8> > 2\. You cannot moderate a forum at internet-scale using exclusively paid > employees.

Sure you can. You just may not be able to print money Facebook style while doing so.

<comment><USER7> I agree that these companies could _afford_ to hire tens of thousands of people, and have them follow a flowchart. I don't see that environment ever delivering competent moderation. Not to mention, it's unethical to subject employees to several hours a day of troll vomit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you're trying to start another venue with a stated specific bias, there is every reason to believe that it will (eventually, if not immediately) become exactly as limiting and echo-chambery like the rest of them.

However, if you're trying to _not_ do that, and create a truly open environment, you run into the problem which was perhaps best described like this:

"If you're against witch-hunts, and you promise to found your own little utopian community where witch-hunts will never happen, your new society will end up consisting of approximately three principled civil libertarians and seven zillion witches. It will be a terrible place to live _even if witch- hunts are genuinely wrong_." (Emphasis in original.)

— [https://web.archive.org/web/20200618093842/https://slatestar...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200618093842/https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral- vs-conservative-the-eternal-struggle/)

<comment><USER10> > echo-chambery

What is the distinction you draw between an echo chamber and a community which mostly shares certain baseline assumptions and values?

<comment><USER9> Since you ask:

A community which _just happens_ to mostly share common values is merely that and nothing more. An "echo chamber", on the other hand, is when such a community does not get any significant input from any outside sources, and as a result keep reinforcing their own internal beliefs, even though those beliefs may be erroneous. This extreme homogeneity, thus created, in turn gives rise to a culture in which any persistent dissenters are viewed as anomalous and therefore dangerous. And this is limiting for those who sometimes wishes they could express dissent. It is also restricting the community itself from ever developing any further.

To contrast, a normal community with mostly shared values would occasionally be affected by outside influences. This would create a constant level of turbulence in the system; there would always be some base level of variation between individuals, and over time, the median belief would slowly change this way and that, somewhat like fashions, and this would be normal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> anonms-coward I think the rise of a well headed, free speech space is extremely important. The US has reached a point where certain topics are not even up for debate, as ruled by the court of twitter mob.

<comment><USER11> I can't wait for VR-style chat[1] to become a dominant mode of online discourse. It is much more likely to emulate the civility of in-person discussions.

[1] Chatting with avatars that can navigate in a 3D digital environment, with or without an actual VR headset. That's just like the eponymous VRChat which allows 2D users to interact with 3D users and vice-versa. I highly recommend trying it. It's free and the worlds are beautiful. [https://vrchat.com/](https://vrchat.com/)

<comment><USER12> I doubt VR will become the dominant mode of anything for the simple reason that it's synchronous. Asynchronous communication in text form has become the dominant mode for good reason: it demands way less time and attention from users. People find synchronous voice/video communication exhausting (it's called "Zoom Fatigue" [1]).

[1] [https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-to-combat-zoom- fatigue](https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-to-combat-zoom-fatigue)

<comment><USER11> Asynchronous communication is possible in VR/AR. However, if a material amount of deep conversation moves from asynchronous to synchronous format, that can have a big impact. There's also no reason that synchronous and asynchronous discussion can't be combined. A phrase like "Let's take this IRT" (in real time) can become the new "let's take this offline."

Think about the really controversial tweets that garner thousands of responses. What if there was a link next to the tweet that launched you into a virtual lounge where you can interact with other people looking to discuss the tweet? If someone who joins one of those groups wants to summarize their thoughts and conclusions from the discussion afterwards, in an async format, their response would indicate which discussion group that they were in. It would also be bundled with posts from other users in the same discussion group. It would be like "Twitter meets Reddit meets VRChat."

<comment><USER12> It's a nice thought, for sure. I think people would generally use it only to hang out and relax with their friends though. People, for the most part, don't want to sit down and get into an intense discussion/debate over controversial topics with someone from "the other side". They'd much rather be around people with whom they agree.

I could see it being useful as something of an intermediate between traditional online video games and offline gatherings involving food & boardgames. I don't see it being used as a primary mode of communication though, for the simple reason that it demands too much time and attention. Text messages and email occupy that space because it's so convenient to pick up and drop them at any time, even with a half-read message or a half-written reply. With VR that means putting on your gear every time, and resuming the "VR video" or whatever.

Heck, tons of people complain when video talks are posted without slides/transcripts. They want the information. They don't care about any other aspects of the presentation. VR in that case just seems to be more distracting stuff that gets in the way of the information.

<comment><USER11> Members of the cultural vanguard have a disproportionate impact on our zeitgeist. They don't deserve their status in the vanguard unless they're willing to engage in synchronous discussion at near-zero marginal cost using the most human digital communication medium in history. They don't even need to dawn VR headsets. They can log on in 2D or, in the future, use lightweight AR glasses (hence "VR-style" chat).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's hardly a shortage of liberal media outlets, does the world really need another one?

<comment><AUTHOR> Liberal here means classical liberalism, not just "left-wing":

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

<comment><USER13> Yes, an ideology which is already vastly overrepresented in the media. I'm sure we'll soon find out exactly how necessary this particular venture is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> am i reading that we need to get militantly centrist?

</comment><comment><USER15> A bit of a self-important way to start what appears to be a blog, imho.

</comment><comment><USER16> Rhetoric may well find its place as an esteemed study once again.

<comment><USER17> This guy is apparently "alt-right", though I don't know exactly what that means these days, but someone mentioned him here on HN the other day which led me down the rabbit hole.

I thought this video [1] was interesting and it introduced me to the difference between rhetoric and dialectic. Rhetoric is using emotion to convince people. Dialectic is using reason. He points out that you need to know how to read your audience to choose the correct angle of argument. Some people get hung up on, for example, always persuading through facts (dialectic), when what they really need to do is reach for emotion (rhetoric).

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting intro to the topic.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHpalC3WaXY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHpalC3WaXY)

<comment><USER18> > This guy is apparently "alt-right"...

Yeah, no. I mean, I don't know this guy from Bob, but the above has neither citation nor argument, and everything I've seen disagrees with that assessment.

Skim the list of the board of advisors...

[https://www.persuasion.community/p/our- board](https://www.persuasion.community/p/our-board)

Several names pop out - and not because they're alt-right / reactionaries / populist right-wingers. Some bios:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Applebaum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Applebaum) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Fukuyama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Fukuyama) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheri_Berman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheri_Berman)

Again, I don't have any personal knowledge here, but it's interesting to consider, eg, this bit from Wikipedia:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yascha_Mounk#Political_positio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yascha_Mounk#Political_positions)

> Mounk stated that he had changed his position on nationalism. He initially > considered it a relic of the past that must be overcome, but he now > advocates an "inclusive nationalism" to head off the threat of aggressive > nationalism. On the German television newscast Tagesthemen, he stated that > Germany is on a "historically unique experiment, namely to transform a mono- > ethnic and monocultural democracy into a multi-ethnic one."

I suppose words like "nationalism" and "mono-ethnic" might appear in an alt- right missive, but IMHO the above doesn't sound anything like an alt-right perspective.

<comment><USER17> Sorry bad wording on my part. The guy from the linked video. Reading it again I really butchered the message.

<comment><USER18> Oooh, I see how I misinterpreted! Thank you for clarifying. Cheers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > It is difficult to convey just how many amazing writers, journalists, and > think-tankers—some young and some old, some relatively obscure and others > very famous—have privately told me that they can no longer write in their > own voices; that they are counting the days until they get fired; and that > they don't know where to turn if they do.

Why? Name a number.

<comment><USER20> Humans are bad at counting. It'd be the _proportion_ of writers, journalists and think-tankers that this person knows that should be communicated, and even then you have to take into account selection bias effects… It's hard to communicate a felt-sense of the magnitude of a quantity like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It was interesting to read the description of 'fighting institutions' that focus on arguments about certain topics that are mostly based on fallacies.

The sad situation in the U.S. is also a result of it being the target of so much psychological warfare from Russia. The internet is an excellent medium to cause confusion. Fix that, and you might heal democracy.

<comment><USER22> If you really blame Russia for the current US situation, I have bad news for you. Blaming an external power is a political manipulation 101. Focusing public attention on them is almost always used to hide real structural domestic problems. Soviet Union also loved to shift blame onto the US and modern Russia does it as well. Did that help them to built a better society?

External powers can only do so much. Usually most that they can do is to give a little push to processes already existing in society (and the US is a world leading expert at giving such pushes). So my advice would be: look at domestic roots of a problem first, not at foreign powers which try to exploit them.

<comment><USER20> > _So my advice would be: look at domestic roots of a problem first, not at > foreign powers which try to exploit them._

External powers have done a _lot_ to manipulate US elections… via Facebook, a US company.

This is good advice.

<comment><USER22> Do you seriously believe that the main reason that Trump got elected is a bunch of Facebook ads?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fatigue is entirely a mental phenomenon: Lectures for basketball coaches - <AUTHOR> http://kburke.org/kevin/lectures-for-basketball-coaches-fatigue-is-entirely-a-mental-phenomenon/

<comment><USER2> hah. I wonder if hiring a coach to shout at me, basketball-style, would allow me to program longer?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've thought about hiring a boss for weekly meetings next semester. If it worked the better grades and reduced stress would totally be worth it.</comment></comment>


KSL: Kinematics subroutine library - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/shift-dynamics/ksl <comment><USER2> Super cool! Out of curiosity, is this an academic group or a (potentially hiring?) company?

Update: After some internet stalking, might be related to JPL? I'd love to hear some meta info about this project: why it was created, what you're doing with it etc.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the interest! KSL is not affiliated with JPL in any way, (other than the fact that I work there). KSL is a personal project. It is used as the math library for a multibody dynamics simulation software I am working on called "Shift", which is still under development. The notation for the data structures and documentation follows my thesis. My goal is to provide a standalone resource for people to learn the theory and the code. The library is small and lightweight, written in C, and may be useful in other applications such as embedded systems, model-based control, etc. The documentation is a work in progress and will evolve over time.</comment></comment>


PHD in Statistics & Economics - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN,

         I'm a computer science graduate,math college undergraduate.I 'm experienced mainly in development ,product management,and database (sql server & tsql).i wanted all the time to work on data mining  & data analysis but never got the opportunity.

         i 'm thinking to do a phd in statistics but i want it to be linked to economics.
         do you think that i can get back my math abilities to do a phd in statistics?how hard it is?
         are there any predictions for career in statistics for the next 3,5 years?
 <comment><USER2> My background as a mathematician likely biases this answer. Someone who has experienced life outside of academia will likely have different advice.

The mathematics you will likely want to know includes:

\- Multivariate Calculus/Matrix Stuff/Linear Algebra

\- Real Analysis

\- Probability

\- Measure Theory?

\- Statistics 101

If you successfully took proofs-based mathematics courses in undergraduate and you've grokked "mathematical maturity" then learning these subjects is just a matter of time. These subjects for the basics tools for dealing with classical statistics.

I'm not currently engaged in research but there seems to be a few major trends in the talks I've attended.

\- It appears that the Frequestist approach to finite dimensional models with small sample sizes is largely resolved.

\- The introduction of high powered computing gave new life to the analytically intractible Bayesian approach and has renewed interest in how to to Monte Carlo simulation more efficiently.

\- There has been a lot of work studying situation where the number of parameters is infinite or at least significantly larger than the number of samples. Eg, determining 10,000 genes from each of five people with cancer and five without and trying to identify which gene causes cancer.

\- Perhaps this is more machine learning but there has also been interest in how to deal with unstructured data. Traditionally the random variables have been numbers so you can say things like "Assume a citizens height is normally distributed with mean x and variance y." It's a bit more tricky to meaningfully put a distribution on the set of all email texts, or the set of all network structures etc.

\- There also appears to be interest (on blogs at least) about data visualisation.

The point of mentioning all of these is to point out that there are a number of options available to you. Some are more pure mathsy and other more computer sciencey. Different topics will require different mathematical backgrounds.

</comment><comment><USER3> The math of research-level statistics is so hard many statisticians don't do it, and economists often gripe about not being able to justify even basic statistical approaches.

The financial industry has in the past had a great deal of interest in this space, and so I believe there is a good deal that can be developed - if you could get data. After the recession, I would not be surprised if interest wanes.

I don't actually know what I'm talking about, but I would not recommend this line to everyone. There is much that is frustrating - biostatistics has better posed questions.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can you fix the format of your question? It's hard to read..</comment>


The hypersphere: the four-dimensional sphere [video-french-subs] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy_MUfBuq2I <comment><USER2> We can map 3D sooo nicely in to 2D. Can we map 4D in to real 3D (e.g. with 3D glasses and VR) and get something that might become intuitive after a few weeks of usage?

I wonder if at some point you could quickly graps something rather simple like a 4D scatter-plot. Though I could just encode the 4th Dimension in color and get used to it I guess. Maybe I should write my own styleguide for visualizations to get a native feel for such things.

The moving lights on the hypershpere allowed for a glimpse of making senso of thet 4D, but in general I couldn't follow just yet, even less: grasp it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I thin you should fix the HN title, in case it's not too late. The video also have English subtitles. Reading the title, I expected a video in French with French subtitles, and I can't understand French (well, just a little).

What about "The hypersphere: the four-dimensional sphere [with English subs]" (youtube.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea - Unless I'm missing something, I don't think I can edit it myself?

<comment><USER3> It's probably too late. I think you can edit the title only for a few hours. In case of an emergency you can email the mods ( email@example.com ) but I don't think this qualifies as an emergency. Take this as a suggestion for the next submission.</comment></comment></comment>


Do you have to quit your job to get a big raise? - <AUTHOR> http://www.joshdoody.com/2015/03/do-you-have-to-quit-your-job-to-get-a-big-raise?ref=hn7

<comment><USER2> That's the generally accepted wisdom, I think.

At my previous employer, we (usually) received a 3-4% raise per year. I was technically a state government employee, so this usually dependent upon budgets, the political climate, etc.

The largest raise I ever received (without changing jobs) was because I told my boss and H.R. that I was offered and going to accept a different position in a different department in a different city. I was offered a $10k/year salary raise along with a change in how my position was classified (which provided more benefits, including a pretty substantial increase in the company's contribution to my retirement plan).

(I should note, though, that this was right at the same time as our annual "performance reviews" were going on and upper management was quite pleased with me that year for saving them six figures in a lawsuit from another employee. I suspect they might have not tried as hard to keep me if it weren't for that.)

<comment><AUTHOR> That raise size (3-4%) sounds pretty typical to me. Getting $10k during performance review time is often real difficult to pull off, so you must've really bailed them out :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> some people are more aggressive about their careers than others. If money is your main motivator, then yes, plan on switching jobs at least every two years, if not soon.</comment>