Kip Thorne: The science of Interstellar - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2014/11/28/parsing-the-science-of-interstellar-with-physicist-kip-thorne/ <comment><USER2> Surely Kip Thorne himself has to realize that he's grasping at straws. A lot of the things he mentions are of the type "in this precise, extremely rare situation it is possible, if we ignore all the other side effects". For example, I'm sure his calculations will be correct regarding the planet orbiting a black hole close enough for relativistic effects. What it also means is that the planet would pass through the extremely hot accretion disk twice every orbit, killing everything and evaporating all the water. And considering the speed that a stable orbit would require, that would be a very common occurrence.

The point is: don't claim that you're scientifically accurate. Usually, a good sci-fi movie will set up rules for itself, and follow those rules appropriately. If you make your ruleset "real world physics", you have to be extremely accurate if you still want to make it believable. The rules set up expectations, and breaking your own rules is an instant turn-off for science fiction fans.

The movie shows other cases where it doesn't follow its own rules: they have spaceplanes that can get to orbit from a planet with 1.8 times earth gravity, but not from earth without huge boosters?

For the record: I like Interstellar a lot. It was a great film, and I'll definitely be buying it when it comes out on DVD. I just have my gripes with the lofty claims of accuracy that Hollywood films so love to make.

<comment><USER3> I liked Intersteller a lot as well, but its plot was horribly contrived in places and the science isn't as good as it was purported to be - even moreso if you include the behaviour of the scientists involved :). The science was certainly better than most other serious sci-fi films though. The real problem with the film is the needlessly long hour of character establishment.

(SPOILER) Rather interestingly, I've seen very little discussion about the christ story in the film - the 33-year-old man, who is also the 'father', who is also the 'ghost'; who disappears presumed dead, only to return; who has the only information that can save humanity (the 'quantum data') and also sacrificed himself to save humanity; and who was helped along by 12 others - one being the questionable [Dr] Man[n] who is weak of spirit. There's a few more other parallels, but the gist is there.

<comment><USER4> Not to mention the use of organ music — easily reminiscent of Christian hymns — in Hans Zimmer's soundtrack: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo5m5GXF9Ec](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo5m5GXF9Ec).

The parallels between "quantum data" and the Logos of Gnostic Christianity are also apparent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Accuracy aside, from a scientific point of view Interstellar was one of the most interesting movies in a long time, and it really made me think about Physics a lot again.

It's really cool to see how much you can actually learn about the universe of Interstellar by making use of some Physics knowledge and the information given to you in the movie.

An example: The first planet they visit orbits Gargantua (the supermassive black hole mentioned in the movie - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole)) at a distance very close to its Schwarzschild radius (or event horizon). In the movie, they say that the time dilation there is such that one hour passed at the surface of the planet corresponds to 7 years (!) on Earth. Interestingly, with that information alone we are already able to calculate how close the planet is to the Schwarzschild radius of the black hole by using a really simple formula: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_radius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_radius) (here we have to assume that the black hole is not rotating very fast).

Making some assumptions about the mass of the black hole then allows us to see how large the actual Schwarzschild radius is in fact, and if the time dilation shown in the movie is possible (it is). Similarly, if we use the information they give us about the gravity constant on the planet (about 1.3 times Earth gravity if I remember correctly) as well as an estimate of the height of the tidal waves they find there (maybe 200 meters?), we could even estimate the rotation period of the planet.

There are many more examples of clues like this in the movie, which offer great 'Fermi problems' ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem)) and allow us to learn many things about the universe presented to us in Interstellar.

Of course I also have to mention the absolutely stunning rendering of the black hole, which incorporated the gravitational lensing effects ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens)) that make the accretion disk of the black hole appear like a halo surrounding it. Also, the rendering of the wormhole as a four-dimensional "hole" embedded in three-dimensional space was absolutely gorgeous.

Amazing movie, amazing science, amazing universe.

<comment><USER6> Wait what? What about sending "quantum data" back from the black hole? The point is that no information can leave.

Also, from what I learned in high school physics, the body of a human would completely fall apart if it's falling to the black hole, because of the difference in gravity between proximal and distal parts.

These are just the 2 things I noticed and I'm far from a physicist. Basically, it got a couple of things right and a bunch of things wrong. There was a clear preference of emotion over science. It just seemed like "The Core" Version 2.0, but here love and reading books conquers all and is beyond the forces of nature.

I liked Europa Report a lot more even though they didn't invest nearly as much into special effects.

<comment><USER5> That's an interesting point! The fact that our current theories suggest that no information can ever leave a black hole entails a paradox which is known as the "Black hole information paradox" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox)). In the movie they resolve this by resorting to gravitational waves, which can "permeate" through space and time by a mechanism not explained in the film. In real physics, there is actually an ongoing debate in the community about whether information can escape from black holes or not, which resulted in a famous bet between Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne on one side and John Preskill on the other. The fact that Thorne suggests that information can be sent out from a black hole might therefore be a small stab at John Preskill ;)

Concerning the second point, there is actually a pretty fascinating explanation: For a small black hole, the "tidal force" when entering the black hole (i.e. the force difference between your feet and your head) would be so enormous that you'd probably get ripped apart (so-called "Spaghettification" \- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettification)). However, the Schwarzschild radius (or event horizon) increases linearly with the mass of a black hole, whereas the gravitational force declines with the square of the radius. Hence, for a supermassive black hole with 10 million solar masses, the tidal force is not bigger than the one you experience here on Earth ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole)), and you would probably not even notice when you cross the event horizon. Fascinating stuff.

<comment><USER7> They glossed over the tidal force in the movie and I assumed it was a deus ex of sorts (in fact, I assumed the whole final act of the movie was more concerned with resolution of the story than with proper Physics). Thank you for this explanation, this is fascinating stuff.

<comment><USER8> It's still a gloss over, but one of the characters does mention it early on, which I took as indication that it was going to end up being important.

I remember having a similar thought process to all of the above, but they even explicitly call it out as "gentle" with maybe a single really simple sentence on why it was. I don't remember if they made the direct connection to it being supermassive (like they did with its rotation), but it was in the same bit of dialog.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It sounds like he's just discussing certain aspects of the film, while ignoring much more glaring issues. It's not ice clouds that are the issue, it's the entire story.

[Spoiler alert] Here's the whole plot of the movie, does any aspect of it make sense?

Earth is dusty so the simplest solution is to transport all of humanity through a wormhole to another planet. The main characters go through a wormhole and walk around on a planet where 1 hour = 7 years of Earth. Later, to help the mission succeed, the main character detaches from their main spaceship into a blackhole and he ends up in a multi-dimensional space where he sends Morse code messages to his daughter in the past by moving her books and watch. How does he do that? Because love. And gravity. She understands the message which contains gravity data from the blackhole that lets them get everyone off earth. The main character then pops out of the blackhole thing near Saturn and is re-united with his daughter just before she dies.

<comment><USER10> >he ends up in a multi-dimensional space where he sends Morse code messages to his daughter in the past by moving her books and watch. How does he do that?

Because the multi-dimensional space was set up by higher-dimensional creatures, who also created the wormhole, specifically so he could accomplish all this (right down to preventing him from going on the earlier missions by causing his craft to crash with a gravitational anomaly at the beginning of the film).

<comment><USER11> That seems like a rather roundabout way to save the human race, no? A love- powered hyper-dimensional gateway used to transmit Morse code sounds like something straight out of h2g2.

<comment><USER8> (spoilers, obviously) It's a predestination paradox -- so, as with all predestination paradoxes in fiction, the story is a little too in love with the use of it -- but the movie sets the ground rule that the only way to communicate backwards is to manipulate gravity, therefore that's how they're going to have to accomplish it.

As for the love-powered part, everyone's a little too hung up on that set of dialog. There's nothing in the plot that relies on it. Sufficiently advanced magic gravity technology is more than enough. Is any advancement of the plot motivated by more than the fact that he wants to see his daughter again? Sure, if they had listened to Brand's feelings they wouldn't have ended up with crazy guy and would have ended up on a (seemingly) habitable planet, but the human race also would have died on earth and lived on entirely from the test tube embryos.

The whole tesseract section doesn't entirely fit with the tone of the rest of the movie but it's not powered by love.

<comment><USER11> Why not prevent the whole mess by just sending a clear message in Morse to almost anyone at NASA from the future using gravitational waves?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _spoilers_

I liked the film, and it bothers me a bit that they can launch from a planet with stronger gravity using tiny rockets, or that we would consider a planet orbiting the event horizon of a huge black hole as good candidate for our new home.

But my biggest gripe is with the premisse of the film. We have a catastrophic ecological disaster, which is unconvincingly explained in a single sentence by Michael Caine, and our solution is to take the entire species on an intergalactic travel through a worm hole. Instead of, you know, digging a big hole right here and creating an artificial biosphere underground. Or maybe check out Mars or Europa, which are right around the corner.

<comment><USER13> Or the idea of abandoning Earth because it's too hostile to grow crops with some dust storms, yet the idea of colonising a distant, extremely harsh-for- human-life planet is a more realistic idea. Surely building massive "vertical farms" or other artificial environments here on Earth would be more cost effective and realistic.

Overall I think we may be thinking too deeply about the plot ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why was the Ranger launched from Earth on a giant rocket, but was single stage to orbit on all the other Earth-like worlds?

The only thing I've been able to think of was that they used some kind of exotic propulsion, like antimatter, therefore there was no sense wasting such a precious commodity to leave Earth if you had a rocket available.

But nothing in the movie seemed to explain it.

<comment><USER8> There is the one-off about this being the last of its kind space vehicle, and the booster pack in orbit had been there for quite some time. You can somewhat fanwank that into meaning they had to use older, simpler technology to get the capsule itself into orbit, but then could take advantage of the pre-Blight technology already in orbit for the rest of the movie. That's about the same as your explanation, though.

Pretty weak, so it would be nice if they had at least given us a throwaway sentence or two to wave it away like they did with spaghettification, as the rocket orbital mechanics, at least, were distracting. I imagine the real reason was Nolan wanted to invoke a parallel to the Apollo missions in the liftoff from earth, but didn't want to waste time with the very hard problem of getting off other worlds once you get there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> One thing I cannot understand is... Sure, this movie was very "accurate", all these explanations can make sense, the calculations fit but.. why is nobody talking about the major obviously impossible/inconsistent problems in the plot?

INTERSTELLAR SPOILER BELOW

For example, how did he survive inside a black hole, how did he pass through the Schwarzschild radius with his simple spaceship, why was there no time dilation as he approached the black hole, why did his spaceship break down inside the black hole but he was able to eject with his simple spacesuit and survive, how did he realistically survive out in cold space (at the end, yes okay I know this is technically possible but still..)?

When I watched this movie, I saw a lot of problems that made me think "has a physicist ACTUALLY worked on this and said 'yes, this is accurate'?". And those certainly weren't the minor details like the time dilation on the planet, the structure of the black hole and the icy clouds on that one other planet.

Disclaimer: I enjoyed Interstellar a lot, it was a pretty good movie, although I felt that at times the director was pretty much screaming in my face: "SEE? WE ARE SO REALISTIC! LOOK THERE IS NO SOUND IN SPACE, AREN'T WE REALISTIC?" (sorry for caps lock but it's to provide emphasis)

<comment><USER16> SPOILER ALERT

The science was basically non-existing: controlling a distant device with gravitational waves? Which can only be controlled whenever it is in a specific room? Which stores the information transmitted and repeats it endlessly (otherwise, how is the daughter able to gather all information transmitted)? How long does he spend inside the black hole transmitting what must be like lots of information in morse code, by slowly pulling gravitational waves? Looks to me like several hours / days? What is the time dilation of getting into a black hole if getting into a planet gives you a 1 hour to 7 years ratio? Getting inside / outside a black hole, unharmed? What part of this is current physics domain?

More strange facts: the device in the black hole was supposedly man-made ("we are they"), by the men of the future. But the men of the future can only exist if this particular crisis is overcome. And this crisis can only be overcome if this device is in the black-hole. Granted that the man of the future controls the five dimensions, and thus time, but we currently do not, so we can not in any way survive this crisis. Which means the men of the future will never be, so they can not build the device to survive the crisis.

Just the very simple facts are maybe according to the current scientific knowledge (time dilation, gravity effects, I can even accept a worm-hole), but most of the movie is just an exercise on futility with a very high dose of emotions. Boring, slow and not enjoyable at all. The fact that they are pretending that this is a science-based movie makes it insulting. If you want to do a Hobbit, do it and I'll have a good time, but do not pretend it is based on any established science.

Gravity was orders of magnitude better.

<comment><USER17> > Gravity was orders of magnitude better.

Gravity was a completely different sort of movie, so the comparison makes little sense. Gravity was about the here and now, things we understand and can convey rather easily. This movie explores some of the most strange edges of our current understanding in order to tell a _story_.

Also, did you miss all of the criticism of the physics in Gravity?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's not a science movie. It's fiction. Science is a passenger, not the vehicle. You want science - go watch a Neil DeGrasse Tyson or Carl Sagan (and don't get too wound up about how they gloss things over - the kind of science they're doing is too complicated for an hour long show).

The science used in sci-fi movies is not about the science - it's about the myth of science; the things we wish science could do or lead us to do. But more than that, it's about telling a story. We are not relating facts here, we're off into Joseph Campbell territory.

Even the most scientifically accurate movie is going to do some jazz hands once in a while just to keep things interesting/heroic/funny/whatever because: failure is not an option - the movie has to make money.

<comment><USER19> All that I could swallow, if only. If only it made any attempt to even fake it well. If only it didn't ignore plot holes the size of a truck. If I could only figure out what the plot was, or who the characters were (from moment to moment), or what they meant by the words that came out of their mouths. If only it was a real movie, and not just a bunch of images on a screen to give teenagers the impression they're watching a movie.

<comment><USER18> All of the problems you mention are problems created by the writer, director, producers, etc., and have nothing to do with bad science. They can, and frequently do, show up in every genre of film. One of my favorite films is Big Trouble in Little China (as an example) and I'm sure there are all kinds of issues about the film itself, but I still love the film. Ditto Blade Runner, Brazil, Contact, etc.

Disclaimer: I'm not a scientist by profession.

<comment><USER19> Its an interesting question: who failed this movie? The director is easy to blame - why are characters changing without motivation? Who is connected to whom, emotionally? What is that grandfather doing there anyhow? How can a father care deeply about his daughter, but ignore his son (and grandson)? If there're reasons, let us know!

As for science: its more than technical details. Its why they are so dumb. Why can a 12-year-old out-guess the plans made by the scientists? (We're in a terrible hurry; lets set down on a time-dilated planet for a few hours and let the masses on Earth rot for a decade or two).

Once decided, why park your interstellar ship outside the time-dilation zone, so you can take your shuttle to the surface? Makes no difference to Earth - they wait either way. But the ship burns half their fuel, just station-keeping for 20 years. If it had been time-dilated too, that wouldn't have happened! Not even to mention the poor sap on the ship, stuck waiting for half his life.

Oh I can go on (have, for hours, to my family's dismay)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What was the deal with "the blight"?

At one point, they mentioned it had to do with the ability to fix nitrogen?

Also, wouldn't any pestilence as widespread as that be transported on the cargo ships with the people and their plants to the new planet?

<comment><USER21> In hard science fiction, "science" is physics. Maybe chemistry, maybe. But biology is all squishy and such and doesn't carry the mathematical gravitas needed to be taken seriously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does he explain the glaring paradox of the time travel storyline?

Someone said it is permissible as a 'closed timelike curve' but smells like BS to me.

<comment><USER23> There is no paradox: [http://www.reddit.com/r/interstellar/comments/2mmh71/spoiler...](http://www.reddit.com/r/interstellar/comments/2mmh71/spoilers_no_alternate_realities_no_paradox/)

<comment><USER22> maybe I missed something but I don't see how that resolved the paradox

just because you introduce more dimensions, doesn't mean you resolve a paradox within the existing dimensions</comment></comment></comment>


A Novel Approach Comes to Restaurant Pricing - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-11/bob-bob-ricard-restaurant-plans-to-revolutionize-the-way-you-pay-to-eat-out <comment><USER2> Tangentially related, I think he will be a tremendous disruption to the marketplace when retail pricing and change on the fly. Digital price tags will update based on volume, supply, audience, etc.</comment>


Rethinking Streets for Bikes - <AUTHOR> http://rethinkingstreets.com/ <comment><USER2> I quickly read through this. Context: I'm Dutch and live in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

This booklet has one massive flaw: it is constructed using American best- practices. At best, a couple of examples could be considered almost acceptable. Most of them were woefully inadequate and consist of little more than a blob of quickly-fading green paint in ill-considered positions. Worst of all, several examples are clearly flawed, and to me seem even more dangerous than not having any infrastructure at all.

If the goal is to show to unimaginative people that it is indeed physically possible to create something resembling bike infrastructure, then it will do fine. But if you're trying to actually create a good, safe, well-used cycling network, then this is not the way to do it.

If you want good examples, go visit something like [https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/](https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/) . This booklet almost reads as if it was written by someone who has only heard about cycling infrastructure, but never actually lived in a city which has it. The intention is there, but there's an even longer way to go.

Some trivial stuff to change:

\- Add green dye to the asphalt instead of adding a layer of green paint. This means that it will not fade. \- Color the whole cycle path, not just a few small parts of it. You're trying to create a continuous network, remember? \- Don't use a zebra-crossing style striping at crossings. A continuous green bar would be way easier to see and interpret as something to stop for. \- Don't create turn boxes. They are always in dangerous positions and there are better alternatives.

But most important of all: don't just add cycle paths to your main car roads. You wouldn't add a sidewalk and crosswalk to an interstate, would you? Create the main cycle routes on secondary streets, and make them unattractive for cars.

<comment><USER3> I recently visited Amsterdam and was blown away by the cycling infrastructure there (I live in NYC and cycle daily).

I realized, though, that unlike many American cities, Amsterdam came of age way before the automobile. The US has a fetish with cars.

Therefore, it's impossible to compare the two countries' cycling infrastructures. The link you shared is so far beyond anything we have in the US; you can't simply say "this is how it should be done".

Instead, we have to start somewhere small and make incremental changes until a tipping point ocurrs. Add more bike lanes, introduce bike share programs, etc. Since I've lived in NYC the amount of cyclists has increased steadily. I'm hopeful this trend will occur as programs like OP are continually introduced.

Overall I agree with you, I just think the historical contexts are fundamentally different. American cities will approach Amsterdam...in a few hundred years :)

<comment><USER4> > I realized, though, that unlike many American cities, Amsterdam came of age > way before the automobile. The US has a fetish with cars.

No, Amsterdam also loved cars. It was activism that turned it into a bicycle heaven.

[https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam- bic...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bicycle- capital-world-transport-cycling-kindermoord)

<comment><USER5> See also [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY6PQAI4TZE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY6PQAI4TZE), about the Amsterdam neighbourhood De Pijp fight for a play street without cars in 1972.

<comment><USER6> Thank you for this link. I moved to Amsterdam less than three years ago, and the difference between what is shown in the video and how the whole city is now is just unbelievable. It's a testament and a lesson on how it's possible to really vastly transform things for better, with time and will.

Hemonystraat, one of the streets cited in the video, now:

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com,4.9026422,3a,58.5y,13...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,4.9026422,3a,58.5y,137.85h,87.62t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ses9alBsdaQ6J6U_BonNvHQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So when I last visited Perth, I bought a bicycle and rode around a lot. Google Maps was helpful here in showing where the bike paths are. While other people might feel fine riding in traffic I never have and probably never will. Honestly I just don't trust drivers, particularly in this era of smartphones.

Anyway, there are vast differences in what people view as a bike path. Take Reid Highway as an example [1]. Those strips on either side of the road are the bike path. This is a highway with a speed limit of 90kph (~55mph), which probably means people are really going 120kph on what is essentially the hard shoulder.

There's no way in hell I'd ride on that. Personally I considered something like this stretch of Morley Drive [2] to be a good standard of biking infrastructure, for several reasons:

1\. Wide bike path separated from the road

2\. The road has a wide median strip. I can't tell you how much this helps in crossing busy roads.

3\. The bike path isn't right up against the walls of residential properties. This can be a real nightmare for visibility of cars pulling out.

4\. Bike paths shouldn't be clogged with pedestrian traffic either as in if it's a busy pedestrian area, have a separate pedestrian path.

Personally I just like to find long residential streets with minimal busy road crossings. You can fly down those things and don't have to second guess what cars are doing most of the time.

As for America in particular, I've said it once and I'll say it again the most anti-cyclist (and anti-pedestrian) rule is the ability to turn right at a red light and it's almost universal in the country. Even in places where it's technically illegal (eg the five boroughs of NYC) you have people who either don't know or don't care (eg once I told some driver fairly calmly after they did it and stopped at the traffic 50 feet down the road that it was illegal in NYC they told me to go F myself).

[1] [https://goo.gl/maps/MfLB58HyZHJ2](https://goo.gl/maps/MfLB58HyZHJ2)

[2] [https://goo.gl/maps/wAnsF4HUqPA2](https://goo.gl/maps/wAnsF4HUqPA2)

</comment><comment><USER8> Designing to accommodate bikes is the right direction but I wonder if a city could be designed to have a actual physical separation between large vehicles and small ones. Just because of the physics people on bikes are likely to be injured or killed by much larger cars in the event of a collision.

<comment><USER9> The places where people ride bikes en masse, like Amsterdam, have physical separation. Very few people want to have cars whizzing by a few feet from their elbows. If you want people to seriously consider cycling as anything other than a hobby you need physical separation of bicycles from cars.

Unfortunately cycling advocacy organizations in the United States tend to be opposed to physical separation.

<comment><USER10> Why is that? I've seen that: dedicated, separated bike paths are unused, and cyclists continue to ride in the street with the cars.

<comment><USER11> Cycle lanes tend to be designed for speeds below that which a cyclist of even average ability is capable (otherwise, they would tend to more closely resemble roads).

Sheltered from motorised traffic, they cater to a wider age, experience and ability range, and the fact that they are typically narrower than roads exacerbates problems that arise from mixed-ability/experience users sharing same facility.

Features of cycle lanes[1] tend to put cyclists in closer proximity to pedestrians than they would be on a road, and this creates a lack of physical and psychological separation that further reduces practical speed (and utility). They also create new challenges such as situations[2] requiring a cyclist to observe a 270°-arc on the approach to a junction. In the last example, it doesn't matter if I have right of way, and it doesn't matter if I'm wearing a helmet; all it takes is a motorist not to be paying attention or to misjudge my speed and I could be the victim of a fatal accident, and that's not a risk that I'm willing to take.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/CkAxcE5.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/CkAxcE5.jpg) [2] [https://i.imgur.com/0q9PadV.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/0q9PadV.jpg)

<comment><USER12> Those multi use paths in my city are almost all full of people on their phones. You basically have to go at walking pace.

<comment><USER2> Or yell loudly at them. If the bike paths are obvious, people will quickly get used to them, especially if they themselves also bike on them regularly.

But multi-use paths where pedestrians mix with cyclists should be avoided at all costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is anyone catching the irony that building cities for bikes is pretty much like building cities for cars, just in a somewhat smaller scale? You need fast lanes, parking lots, bad weather handling, crossings, cross roads, etc.

Will we in 20 years have even denser cities and then try to ban the bikes?

How about fighting the trend to ever denser cities? Allow for three or four story buildings and leave it at that. Demand lots of space between buildings. Build intelligent subways. And plant some effing trees now and then.

<comment><USER2> What is ironic about it? There are already pedestrian-only zones in many cities, aren't there?

Ironically, the aim should be towards the opposite you're suggesting. By increasing the density and removing space between buildings, you are creating a city where it is more viable to use bikes or walking as your main mode of transportation. Subways are useless if your final destination isn't easily walkable from your stop. Your goal shouldn't be to create a city for cars, your goal should be to create a city where it is easy to get somewhere.

I do mostly agree with the three or four story height, though. This is the proper height to use for most suburb-style developments, higher is only really needed in the CBD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I appreciate a lot of the ideas of accommodating bikes, and think it's a laudable goal. But it's not practical everywhere.

As an example, I have lived in Houston in the past for some time. It is huge - I commuted roughly 20 miles each way. That's not "bikeable". And not everyone goes to the same place. Some work downtown, but not nearly as many as you'd think. The energy corridor is in an entirely separate area. Many people work in the Woodlands. Some people have jobs out in Katy. Some work in the industrial areas or near the ship channel.

And don't even get me started on the heat. Nobody wants to bike when it's 95 degrees out, even if you can shower once you reach your destination.

Many of the proposed solutions are centered around cities like New York: small metropolitan areas to which everyone commutes with at least reasonable weather and with reasonable distances. It's also very difficult to design good public transportation for such a city as I described, especially since many of the places I listed are technically different cities.

With that said, I would be interested in hearing ideas for how to solve a problem like this. I and friends of mine have debated how to solve such an issue before, and come away without an answer. If someone has an idea, let me know.

<comment><USER2> You're completely right, most cities just aren't built for cycling.

The solution is probably zoning. First, create smaller zones, resulting in more diversity. Second, allow some light commercial use inside residential areas. Ideally, stores like small supermarkets should always be within a 20-minute walking distance inside towns or cities. Third, create denser plots: discourage single-story buildings, leave less space empty on the plots, and create narrower roads.

The problem is the conversion, but it's doable over a longer period of time. If the proper laws are in place, this is probably doable over a year or 50-75.

<comment><USER15> Shortening the distances is not enough to solve the heat problem, when being outside 5 minutes with moderate motion resulting in needing a shower.

<comment><USER14> Exactly. Many people don't realize that Houston is not just hot but humid. How much water would all those extra changes of clothes use? All those extra showers?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting, and a bit cyclical - roads were originally "smoothed" in the 19th century because of lobbying from cyclist organizations.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike- blog/2011/aug/1...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike- blog/2011/aug/15/cyclists-paved-way-for-roads)

Note: the obvious pun wasn't intentional, but I'm leaving it in because it's a pun.

</comment><comment><USER17> This might sound pedanatic but I hate when transportation choices are framed as for cars or for bikes. Transportation is for people. Talking about and designing our street infrastructure as if it's designed for machines like cars and bikes leads us to designing systems that aren't very friendly to humans (one needs to look no further than the ever increasing incidents of deaths for people walking or riding a bike).

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure what the point of your comment is to be honest. Transportation choices are made between different modes of transportation all the time. There's no universally good option.

Take NYC where light changes happen about every 45 seconds. This is necessary for pedestrians to be able to get anywhere and because the blocks are fairly narrow (in the north-south direction) in Manhattan.

I've visited the Bay Area many times and it's a nightmare as a pedestrian. You need to cross, say, Castro and El Camino Real and you might be waiting 3+ minutes for the light change to cross those 6 lanes of traffic (and you probably have to be on your guard for inattentive drivers turning right at red lights even when you have right-of-way.

I used to walk back to Mountain View from the Google campus along Shoreline in the afternoons. That's where the on ramp is onto 101 South and it uses a light-less system (I don't believe it's a full clover leaf?). Crossing that on ramp to continue down Shoreline was essentially an exercise in waiting for some driver to take pity on you to let you cross.

Clearly a choice has been made in favour of cars.

Urban planners also go out of their way to restrict traffic to 20mph in pedestrian-heavy areas by narrowing lanes and decreasing distances between lights because there's a huge increase in injuries and death to pedestrians by going 30mph.

So a choice is made in favour of pedestrians here.

<comment><USER17> Examples of bad design thinking from the report:

* Decorative bike racks that make securing a bike more difficult.

* An expectation that people will feel comfortable riding feet away from vehicles traveling 35-40 MPH

* Shrugging off increased injuries on one redesigned street.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One of the issues here is that it's very likely that e-bikes will start to dominate regular bikes in near future. Because of their fast acceleration they may well be more suited to the roads that cars currently dominate than to the typical "bike lane" environment. Certainly the difference between an e-bike and a regular bike is much bigger than would be expected at first glance.

Last year the Dutch bought more e-bikes than 'normal' bikes. And in terms of the euro total amount it was even much more. [1]

[1][https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/01/bike- country-n...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/01/bike- country-n0-1-dutch-electric-record-numbers-e-bikes-netherlands)

<comment><USER2> The difference isn't that big in The Netherlands. Legally, e-bikes are limited to 15mph, and the electric motor can only provide assistance. Faster pedelecs are classified as mopeds and are mostly not allowed on bike paths for obvious safety reasons.

In practice, I've not yet noticed this domination. Getting passed by an e-bike does happen, but it's not very common.

<comment><USER18> It may seem contrary to common sense but e-bikes primarily replace a car, rather than a regular bike, for running chores within the range of about 10-15km. It's the range, and lack effort (sweat) that is compelling rather than its speed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Here is a moon shot idea for US cities, by 2050:

1\. All car streets need to be under ground in tunnels

2\. All vehicles must be 100% electric

3\. Over ground traffic is limited to: walking, wheel chairs, bikes, scooters and wide load special permit vehicles.

Forget Trump's plan for going to the moon another time, can we do this instead?

<comment><USER20> The waste and cost of putting even a small percentage of road miles underground is truly astounding. This isn't comparable to going to the moon. It's comparable to turning every single family home into a thirty story skyscraper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why do journalists continue to compare American cities to Copenhagen or Amsterdam when it comes to bicycle infrastructure and safety? I argue it is primarily the climate followed by size.

In Denmark the climate is mild, with few hot summer days and even fewer snow days that would make bicycling impossible. Comparing Boston average temperatures to Copenhagen, Jan-Feb on average are 4 degrees C lower and July- Aug are 7 degrees C hotter [1][2] in Boston. Then there are lists of America's worst bicycling cities ranking Dallas, TX at the top, where average July-Aug highs are 15 degrees higher than in Copenhagen [3]. Climate wise the cities are very different.

If you can't bike to work everyday because of the weather then infrastructure of bikes cannot replace car infrastructure. In Denmark bicycle infrastructure can replace car infrastructure because the climate makes it possible to bike work every month of the year. In even mild climate cities like Boston it becomes much harder to be dependent on bicycles with hotter summers and colder winters.

That's looking at the climate. Next, the Boston Urban area is 4.600 sq km with 4 million people, whereas Copenhagen is only 606 sq km with 1.6 million people [Wikipedia]. Some back of the napkin calculations would make average travel distances 3 times greater in Boston.

Because of the differences in climate, size and population between Copenhagen and Boston, I do not consider bicycles a viable solution for Boston's transport challenges and I extend this line of thinking to most American Metropolitan centers.

[1] [https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=90527&cit...](https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=90527&cityname=Boston- Massachusetts-United-States-of-America)

[2] [https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=8160&city...](https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=8160&cityname=Copenhagen --United-States-of-America)

[3] [https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=95227&cit...](https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=95227&cityname=Dallas- Texas-United-States-of-America)

<comment><USER21> > Why do journalists continue to compare American cities to Copenhagen or > Amsterdam when it comes to bicycle infrastructure and safety? I argue it is > primarily the climate followed by size.

Because they're the world leaders and something to aspire too

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Dave Amos, one of the authors of this publication, has a YouTube channel called City Beautiful [1] in which he covers issues around urban planning. It is absolutely worth a watch.

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGc8ZVCsrR3dAuhvUbkbToQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGc8ZVCsrR3dAuhvUbkbToQ)

</comment><comment><USER23> I drove to the office 5 days last year. My bicycle is my primary form of transportation and I have to say, it's a wonderful way to live.

I doubt the US or local states/cities will properly implement bicycle infrastructure anytime soon. Imaginative or not there's just too much money to be made by having everyone purchase cars.

</comment><comment><USER24> Bike lanes in the US have always been in the areas where it is more dangerous to ride. The mere presence of a bike lane instead of an undecorated shoulder seems to confuse many as to what is possible or acceptable.

Riding and moving at speed with traffic will always be safer than getting boxed in.

Bike only trails are typically filled with weaving inline-skaters, people walking four abreast, and other hazards. Again, you're safer and faster when you stick to the roads.

This typifies the attitude of "there aught to be a law" held by individuals (usually those who have no intention of cycling seriously) waiting for the state to take action and spend money to solve a non-problem.

The self-starter's solution is to take action and build up your cycling skills.

</comment><comment><USER24> How safe does 80mph freeway traffic feel for novice drivers?

Cycling is incredibly dangerous according to many here, but is it more dangerous than heart disease?

</comment><comment><USER25> so annoying that i have to register to download the pdf. ugh.

</comment><comment><USER26> Looks like the full text is behind a paywall

<comment><USER2> For "Rethinking streets with bikes":

Fill in any values on the form, they are for tracking purposes only. No mail confirmation or payment required.

For "Rethinking streets":

The download link sends you to a registration form, but you can fill in any random email address - no confirmation is sent and it directs you to the download page at [http://www.rethinkingstreets.com/download.html](http://www.rethinkingstreets.com/download.html) .</comment></comment>


29 Things Young Designers Need To Know - <AUTHOR> http://pixelnoir.tumblr.com/post/2911778658/29-things-young-designers-need-to-know-i-agree

<comment><USER2> Source, from an insert in the January 2011 issue in HOW magazine: [http://blog.howdesign.com/how-magazine/rules-to-live-work- by...](http://blog.howdesign.com/how-magazine/rules-to-live-work-by/)</comment>


Is this the year of Windows 8 tablets? - <AUTHOR> http://hal2020.com/2013/11/21/is-this-the-year-of-windows-8-tablets/

<comment><USER2> nope.</comment>


How to Design a New Chip on a Budget - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/hardware/lowbudget-chip-design-how-hard-is-it <comment><USER2> I believe the major disruption waiting to happen in chip design is open source tools, and the hardware languages.

Frankly, the closed source tools are pretty awful from a user interface perspective. Under the hood, amazing things happen, but the tools are pretty awful to use.

and the languages... ugh, the languages. Our big leap forward was SystemVerilog. It's a bastardization of three languages: of 80's c++, 80's Verilog, and an interesting constraint solver in a distinct dialect.

We need (in my humble opinion):

* Open source high performance discrete event simulator (language agnostic, use an intermediate representation like a source mapped netlist)

* Said simulator, but distributed (multi core, process, data center)

* An ecosystem that encourages language development (Said simulator could help)

* An open source synthesis framework that can read the intermediate representation netlist.

* GUIs that don't cause eye hemorrhaging and monitor punching.

<comment><USER3> I worked in EDA for several years, late 80's/early 90's. Its tough. Yes, the current tools are miserable. But the market isn't huge, so there are only so many development dollars to go around. And the interfaces between tools are information-lossy kludges held together with duct tape and string.

Open source is hard, because without access to the data, it is hard to do a good tool like a timing analyzer. Heck, when you _do_ have access to the data and you can talk to the physical chemist that designed the process because his desk is 5 rows over it is _still_ hard to get it better than "close enough".

I've thought many times about doing an open source event-driven logic simulator. At one point, I was a top guru of that technology. The thing is, I doubt if a sufficient number of people would care, and it is basically worthless without all the tools that feed it and drive it.

<comment><USER2> I would be happy if all my bullet points applied only to cycle accurate sims.

I think the market would create itself with the right ingredients present. I think a high level language, a well defined intermediate representation with an eye toward synthesis but initially just targeting simulation, and a cycle accurate high performance simulator for said intermediate language would be explosive.

(bonus points for writing the sim in WASM, heh)

<comment><USER3> WASM? Well, if I'm going to tilt at windmills, I'll use the project to learn Rust while I'm at it.

Explosive? I remain unconvinced. There just aren't enough people doing that kind of work.

I _am_ excited to see progress in open source FPGA fitters. I've always felt those would be hard to do because without access to the performance model, it is hard to do a good job of auto-placement. So that is cool, even though the current open source tool (I forget the name...) only does a few FPGAs.

<comment><USER4> If an open source tool exists, people will end up playing with it. That's categorically not the same of closed source tools - as social creatures we want to share what we're doing, so if we can't share that we stumbled on a cool closed-source tool leaked on the internet, what's the point of playing with it?

So there's that.

I would very much like to hear about your progress on this, FWIW.

Also, I'm not sure, but just in case the following things I was reminded of are directly/indirectly useful/helpful (for ideas or parts, or maybe some of the engineers may be interesting to talk to..?)...

\- MARSSx86 - a cycle-accurate x86 emulator built on top of QEMU: [http://www.marss86.org/~marss86/index.php/Home](http://www.marss86.org/~marss86/index.php/Home)

\- Cling - a C++ interpreter built on top of LLVM's JIT: [https://root.cern.ch/cling](https://root.cern.ch/cling)

There are several cycle-accurate emulators out there, MARSSx86 is the first I discovered. I'm not sure if it's useful.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm mentioning Cling. It used to be based on a custom runtime (and called CINT) that was absolutely massive and was basically its own C++ implementation. Cling is effectively a very small patch/driver on top of LLVM's C++ implementation and its JIT runtime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://efabless.com](http://efabless.com) does 180nm open source in the browser window and you get a chip in the package at 5K USD or less.

Xfab is on the backend.

</comment><comment><USER6> The article mentions "Magic" as open source design tools.

I was hired by UC Davis as Summer Intern to work on porting it from X10 to X11 in 1988.

Very cools to see it still around and being used after 30 years!

<comment><USER7> I remember using it in my layout class in 2004 or so. I didn't realize it was open source, I'm sort of tempted to find it and give it a spin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have thought about this. I have looked at several multi-wafer services for my own projects. Mainly some interesting analog designs mixed with digital.

For instance [http://cmp.imag.fr/](http://cmp.imag.fr/) has a 350nm process for only 650 euros per sq mm. However, that does exclude packaging costs which is quite steep for such a low number of devices.

<comment><USER9> minimum 5.5mm^2 is required, so we are talking about 3575 euros here. Besides, it is very rare that you can get a production grade chip on the first try, bug happens all the time, you might need 2 or 3 or even more tries to get a working product.

<comment><USER10> You might, but there are plenty of examples of first Silicon working, the trick is to spend a lot of time on getting your simulations right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How easy is it to take code written for an FPGA and transfer it to run on an ASIC (e.g. code written in Verilog). Are they so different it would need to be rewritten from scratch, or could it be done with the equivalent of a a recompile? Do people often use FPGAs as a stepping stone to a custom ASIC design? Would learning how to program FPGAs be of any use when it comes to designing ASICs?

I'm interested in getting into FPGAs, but I can't help but worry they are a bit of a dead end as any sufficiently popular use case will eventually be replaced by an ASIC.

<comment><USER2> FPGAs are definitely not a dead end. By virtue of being reconfigurable, they will never be obsolete as long as ASICs are a thing. Now, some whole new technology will come along eventually, supplanting present day ASICs and FPGAs... but until then...

Program as a term means something different with chip design than it does with software. An analogy is that to program an FPGA is to paint a canvas. The source code in chip design is instructions for how the canvas should be painted.

Another analogy would be to program an FPGA is to cook a meal. The source code is the recipe for the meal. But one doesn't run a recipe on a meal.

These analogies break down because a painting and a meal is passive... it doesn't do anything by itself, or react to the outside world.

So another analogy would be building a car. Here "programming" and "building" are the analogous terms. The instructions for the assembly line to construct the car is the source code. Once built, the car responds to stimulus (steering wheel, pedals) and does stuff. Same with the FPGA. It has inputs, it responds and does stuff. If you painted a picture of a CPU in your FPGA, it could run software.

There is tremendous overlap in designing for an FPGA and an ASIC. Most ASICs start life as an FPGA simply to prototype an idea.

The difference between an ASIC and an FPGA, at a high level from a design perspective, is the difference between writing with a pen vs a pencil. Learning to write is equally applicable.

It's probably not helpful to think about right now, but an FPGA is actually an ASIC.

<comment><USER12> The LUT based architecture is starting to run out of steam, I think a CGRA sort of architecture is the future, but programmable logic startups will likely fail, and there's approximately a zero percent chance that Xilinx or Altera would try anything that new.

<comment><USER8> Problem is you still generally need simple logic to combine some course grained blocks. Also we have a lot of FGPA's that including adders, RAM, DPS cores, and more course grained devices.

Honestly, a LUT can be pretty efficient structure for what it does. The biggest advantage to coarse grained structures is their they are much faster since the internal construction can use optimal routing.

The biggest issue with FGPA's is the programmable routing/connections. Ideally each LUT would form a complete graph. However, the number of wires grows at the approx rate n(n-2)/2 where N is the number of LUTs. So instead the structure is more hierarchical. Still the majority of silicon on an FPGA is still just used for routing.

However, I think an array of ALU's actually could be quite useful for some applications over an FPGA.

<comment><USER12> No, I understand, but the granularity of the LUT exacerbates the routing problem, because in a CGRA you can route multiple wires at once.

<comment><USER8> Well this depends on the underlying routing architecture of either system. However you are right in general since finer grain logic means more things that need routing.

Nothing stops you from treating LUT outputs in groups like corse grain system though. FPGA manufactures could make chip with a different routeting topology that works really well for certain applications.

However, we could be making lots of devices that fit certain data flow patterns better. By doing so makes the devices simpler and faster.

Routing is pretty important. Its just current FPGAs are built with quite flexible interconnect.

If you want see really limited programble interconnect look at some old PLDs that you program by blowing fuses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The TL;DR; of this article is:

"...a simple ASIC (say one that is a few square millimeters in size, fabricated using the 250-nm technology node) might cost a few thousand bucks for a couple dozen samples."

<comment><USER14> There's a lot of people quoting the price in this thread but very few coming forwards to say "yes, I've actually done this".

<comment><USER15> The number of people with the experience, knowledge, cash, and who are not bound by NDA is very small.

<comment><USER12> Literally everyone who has done this is bound by NDA. Every single foundry will make you sign one.

<comment><USER8> Having signed the a couple of those NDAs. The foundries are mainly concerned about their standard cell library, and any information that may let a competitor understand the details of their lithographic process. Most engineers just use the cell library from foundry, but cell library does contain information about a foundry's process.

A lot foundries will let you make chips without using their cell library. You some times have to make complete custom components in the analog world. (Be warned this a ton of work and is no easy under taking)

However, even if you developed your own cell library for a particular foundry. It will still be tied by an NDA since it may leak information about how the foundry handles optical proximity correction and uses phase shifting (of light) for their process to increase resolution. Also how many layers it takes to implement something and how each of those layers have particular characteristics may reveal some of the chemistry and material science used to dope the silicon or create certain structure for their process.

~edit a few typos/omissions~

<comment><USER15> How much of this was "simulatable" \-- either by Cadence or Magic?

What's the average number of tries to get something right?

How'd you end up in this business?

<comment><USER8> So cadence for instance lets you create device models. For instance if we are making a simple inverter some things you would need are: width and height, channel (width x height), Zero bias voltage, Zero-bias depletion capacitance (Planar and Sidewall), Channel length, Surface potential, Oxide Thickness, Carrier Saturation speed, Junction Grading, Area diffusion, Transconductance, Carrier Mobility,

The list goes on. So once you get this information you can create a model file that will let simulate your simple NOT gate. However, if you are starting from scratch such as there is something that does not exist in the standard cell library. You can't just measure these properties since the device does not exist yet. So you have run other simulation software to get reasonable values as calculating them by hand is not pretty. Also to get these values you may need information from the foundry. For instance Intel's finfet transistor behave differently in some regards compared to a traditional planar transistor (mainly the channel). Intel is not going to just tell you how they work so you can get accurate model of them without an NDA. Also a foundries process can effect your design as layer thickness can changes such capacitance. So the big thing is cadence does not let you model

Cadence also can only simulate a limited number of devices. So for large designs/system you can't simulate the whole thing. So you can only simulate sub components for big designs. It's also slow to simulate large design again pushing you to smaller simpler sub components. It's limited to things you can generate a net list for. It additionally will let calculate cross voltages. I could keep going on and on, but there is only so much I can cram into a hacker news response.

Depends on who you are working for and what you are making. However, you generally use 2 spins for a large device. I bet you have heard the term engineering silicon. That's usually the first spin. If there are problems usually the only changes are made to metal (wiring) layers of the masks. If a serious problem is discovered it may require a complete re-spin. That's if you mainly using the standard cell library provided by the foundry. If you are making something from scratch that's whole other story. However, you still generally build into your design other elements that let you shut off defective parts or include redundant elements to increase the chance of one elements working. So the designs also include a lot additional circuits and logic that you may not be aware of for debugging and testing purposes. If you can't get the device perfect you still may sell use it and publish an errata or more specify a more limited range of operation.

I'll just say I am computer engineer. My first job was at Micron.

<comment><USER16> Yes, God forbid you need native (low threshold) devices... want to minimize NWell spacing for stacked devices while preventing ESD latch-up... care about capacitance density or voltage variation.

Basically, if you are designing mixed-signal/analog then your PDK (Process Development Kit) either comes from a tier1 foundry (TSMC/UMC), the process is a very good copy (SMIC/GF), or you need a year of support and a one or more full time process support engineers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Question, I read that fabs use specific, proprietary technology to produce ASICs and this technology is protected by NDAs and Trade Secrets. Some components require intimate process knowledge, which may never be open. Why wouldn't these companies have patented these technologies?

Granted there isn't a lot of love for patents with software, but I think ASIC design is a case where the concept would be beneficial for the public. Although the fabs would have a monopoly on their process for a time, it would atleast be published so that open source tools could be made that take advantage of these processes.

<comment><USER18> You said it yourself: "Although the fabs would have a monopoly on their process for a time, it would atleast be published so that open source tools could be made that take advantage of these processes."

I know of at least one place that grows their own wafers and does all their own processing, and publish absolutely nothing about it - no patents, no external papers, zip, zilch, nada - specifically because other people could read the patents and figure out what they were doing, so they keep it all trade secret. It gives them absolutely no advantage to publish about something it requires enormous capital costs to even be considering, it risks exposing some of their secret sauce, and it costs tens of millions of dollars (...a year) to develop and maintain - and you'd want them to what, give it away? For 'open source'?

Open source hasn't even given us a competent PCB package, and has only recently given us a marginally passable office suite. In 2018.

Let the magnitude of the utter failure of open source just sink in for a minute, there. Are people really that clueless, that they think "well, someone will take advantage of this if we just get people to publish about all the details that someone else spent all the money to create AND maintain!"

I absolutely don't get the circle jerk for open source. It's amazing and wonderful at times, but let's not pretend it solves real problems. Elon Musk isn't going to open source his rocket designs anytime soon, but if you want a selection of 35000 poorly designed MP3 players, open source has your back!!112

If an open source solution solves a real problem, it was government funded (SPICE, LAPACK, MAXIMA, etc). We all _paid_ for it. The one shining counterexample is the GNU Compiler - but FFS, they couldn't build a kernel even after the success of their compiler!

<comment><USER4> I don't care what anybody else thinks, I 1000% agree with this rant. I feel similarly strongly about it, and have ever since I discovered the whole open source thing myself several years ago.

With gcc, IIRC Richard Stallman was basically just playing cat-and-mouse with feature parity with the commercial compilers for several years. Okay, very impressive investment in terms of total SLOC, but methinks that's a byproduct of a brain being able to excel in exactly the field it's really really good at. Apparently rms wasn't a kernel person (?).

Broadly speaking open source gives me the impression of a bunch of people who honestly don't know what they're talking about and who aren't really all that smart. As a collective, that group isn't going to have very good ideas _or_ execution. There are undoubtedly some smart people hiding in the corners, but their work is shunned or scoffed at because of the collective lack of intelligence of the whole.

While probably a frustratingly unanswerable question, I've been yearning for an online community for some time that are like-minded toward the idea that open source isn't everything and that there are better things out there.

<comment><USER18> It isn't online: for most of us, that's work. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> loup-vaillant > _(One study found that the average commercial application contains 35 > percent open-source code.)_

Yay!

 _< Clicks the link>_ [https://info.blackducksoftware.com/rs/872-OLS-526/images/OSS...](https://info.blackducksoftware.com/rs/872-OLS-526/images/OSSAReportFINAL.pdf)

Nooo…</comment>


Programming languages and the Singularity OS - <AUTHOR> http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2010/8/96608-the-singularity-system/fulltext <comment><USER2> It's a radical idea, on the same level of jumping from monolithic kernel to micro kernel system.

The main idea is to use a safe language (Java/C#) to provide process isolation instead of relying on the OS imposing separate process address space.

Safe language codes can be proved that they do no harm, cannot corrupt another program (the bytecode verifier will stop it). For the unsafe language programs (C/ASM), the current way to prevent them from stepping on each other is by putting them in separate address space processes with limited privilege (ring 3).

The main advantage with a safe language only system is that everything can be trusted enough that they can run in ring 0 in the kernel, thus very fast. There will be no more slow user mode to kernel mode system calls, no more ring 3 to ring 0 transition. It also allows all programs to run in one process address space, no more expensive process context switch (though thread context switch is still there). Inter-program messages will be very fast since they are in the same address space. Code quality will be improved with whole classes of bugs removed in safe languages.

Remember the complaint about microkernel? That most of its OS services are in user mode servers and thus incurring extra kernel-to-user mode transition? Imagine a system that has no kernel or user mode distinction and no mode transition.

The disadvantage of safe language system is that everything has to be in safe language, user program, kernel services, device drivers, etc, which is kind of impractical. Singularity allows "trusted" drivers written in unsafe languages. I don't know how well that works.

IMO a hybrid approach is more feasible. An OS with the traditional kernel (preferably microkernel) that supports unsafe language programs and drivers, and a safe-language kernel that allows verified safe-language programs and drivers to run in ring 0. This would maintain backward compatibility and allow radical new development that improve on quality and safety.

</comment><comment><USER3> _On today's fast computers, it is no longer necessary to design systems around the lowest common denominator of assembly language or C, seeking performance to the detriment of essential system attributes (such as modularity and reliability)._

I'm on board with that.

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting ideas though I don't know enough about kernel and language design to know if there are any revolutionary ideas in this or just an evolution upon current thinking.

Anyone with a CS PHD want to highlight some important points for the rest of us?

<comment><USER5> Not a Phd, but I'll take a stab at it anyway...

 _Unlike in other systems, processes in Singularity are software-isolated processes, or SIPs, that rely on language safety, not hardware mechanisms, to isolate system software components from one another. SIPs provide isolation and failure containment at far less performance cost than hardware mechanisms, so they can be used in more places than conventional processes._

This is the (IMO) really interesting part, and is why I've decided I like instead of dislike type-safe virtual machines on general principle.

 _The Singularity architecture avoids many of these problems. For example, SIPs are sealed processes that prohibit shared memory, in-process code generation, and dynamic code loading. A process that wishes to invoke an extension starts the extension code running in a separate SIP._

dlopen() cannot exist. I'm not sure how/if you could write your own JIT (say, for something like... a JVM?), you'd probably have to fully pre-compile down to MSIL. This is one of those "nice in theory" things that I suspect won't work so well in the real world, because the extra development overhead probably isn't worth the added safety in most circumstances.

Having this be a flag that a given process can declare in its manifest might be good, having an _optional_ startup parameter to the OS to require it for all processes might also make sense. Making it universally mandatory seems questionable.

 _With only two exceptions, an ABI call affects only the state of its calling process. The two exceptions alter the state of a child process before or after it executes, but not during execution. The first is a call to create a child process, which specifies the code loaded for the child before it begins execution. The second is a call to stop a child process, which reclaims its resources after all threads cease execution. State isolation ensures that a Singularity process has sole control over its state._ (From [http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=5271...](http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=52716) )

In sounds like it's an object-capability system, which is very cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As I started reading the first paragraphs the thing that kept popping in my mind was Java. It almost seemed like they were describing java. Specially the part about garbage collection, although they did not named it garbage collection. They simply described that resources would be released once nobody was using them.

<comment><USER7> The point is sort of that they're taking ideas from languages like Java and actually using them for OS/system code. You're right, it's all old hat for programming languages, but using it for the OS itself (usually done in C or assembler) is quite unusual.

So it's at least an interesting experiment.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. Dig deep enough in any modern OS and you'll find a heritage that dates back to the 60s. Since then we've come a long way. Byte-code VMs, advanced garbage collection, rich and robust interoperability between modules and services (JARs, .NET assemblies, WSDL, etc, etc.) But all of this is layered on top of the OS, which still has very primitive foundations.

Shockingly, there's been very little research in operating system fundamentals. One of the most important OS breakthroughs in the past 20 years was little more than an open source re-implementation of POSIX UNIX (linux), but very little has been done in terms of honest to goodness green field OS development.

I suspect we're not quite "there" yet in terms of having all of the tools and techniques available to finally justify kicking over the old OS foundations and starting anew. I'm certain that byte-code VMs (perhaps even LLVM itself), high-level interop, and garbage collection will play a big role. I suspect that some of the hot new (or rejuvenated) trends in computing especially functional languages, immutable data based programming, noSQL data stores, and especially event-based systems will be key parts in the foundations of the next re-invention of operating systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's a really nice microkernel OS out there that you can play around with, it's called QnX, unfortunately it's not open source. QnX is huge in the embedded world, but it also runs on x86.</comment>


Sign In With Apple is a big win for online privacy - <AUTHOR> https://cantina.co/sign-in-with-apple-is-a-big-win-for-data-privacy/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey -- my smart and humbled colleague Matthias wrote a blog post about Apple's recently announced "Sign In With Apple" and whether or not it's a game changer for online privacy. We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback!

</comment><comment><USER2> So Apple will now know which service you use and that is called privacy wow!!

<comment><USER3> A verifiably tracking free anonymous Auth service provided by the likes of duckduckgo or eff would be news/privacy worthy.

But this celebration of having the opportunity to give your info directly to a different faceless megacorp is beyond me.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Free designs? - <AUTHOR> I am planning to start a 2 day code sprint to make an app , where is am struggling is to find a place where I can see some good app designs as an inspiration . I want to focus on coding as much as possible in next 2 days . any good leads to websites offering the same ? <comment><USER2> Tried [http://dribbble.com](http://dribbble.com) and searching for apps? You can also search for specific categories if that helps.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://pttrns.com/](http://pttrns.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> this one is good ... ! thanks a lot

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> bootswatch.com is a good start

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually am going to start a mobile app , I just want some good color combinations and some good animations so that I dont end up with a bad looking app . Just inspirations from different good looking apps .</comment></comment>


Webinars that don't suck - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/crowdcast-news/crowdcast-webinars-that-don-t-suck-9ba1c90cf472 <comment><AUTHOR> @SocialJumpstart got a sneak peak of the new Crowdcast and was quite the fan.

</comment><comment><USER2> Timestamped Q/A that makes everything searchable, game changer</comment>


Goldman Sachs Introduces Real-Time Employee Performance Reviews - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-21/goldman-sachs-introduces-real-time-employee-performance-reviews <comment><USER2> Come on, it's yet another HR bullshit vehicle to suck away time and good-will.

Any happy, healthy and productive working group with a manager and directs enjoys an environment where feedback is "realtime" and context sensitive. It has been this way since the dawn of modern workplaces. People got stuff done and companies flourished even without HR-driven company-wide "reviews".

HR departments, unfortunately, aren't satisfied with the annual hoop-jumping exercise that everyone hates but finishes in haste to get it over with. The fashion now is to drag out this process over the whole year. Instead of you and your boss having to "prove" your worth once a year to HR, you now have to do it several times a year, tracked and nagged by a "realtime" system. Goldman Sachs isn't the only company doing this stuff, it's all over the place, sadly.

For once, I would like to see large companies take a step back and reduce the burden of these stupid reviews, but it has only been getting worse and more annoying.

<comment><USER3> I respectfully disagree here. Having worked in the industry for many years (now at a startup) the review process was deeply flawed. Because it happened once a year and your bonus was tied to it people always erred on the side of providing 100% positive and thus superficial feedback. There wasn't a mechanism to know where you really stood and how you could get better. I'm not saying this is the solution in itself but the current low touch twice a year process which is minimally invasive is a disaster in my opinion. I think this solution has merit as it takes a page out of Ryan Dalio's Principles which is to shorten the feedback loop as quickly and as much as possible.

What I think would be interesting is to see behaviorial benchmarks for employees that are auto tracked. I sat next to kids that always printed 5+ extra color copies of 100 page presentations just in case. That could cost the desk 20k over the course of the year. banks have no way of knowing if employees are going out of their way to be efficient, save costs, or be productive other than subjective year end measures. bottom line is as someone in the industry I think this is a positive step forward and wanted to throw that in the mix for consideration.

<comment><USER4> I can respect your experience, and in fact it mirrors mine, in that any review process invented by HR inevitably becomes a broken, gamed system, with limited value.

Where it seems we disagree is on the solution. I don't think adding an even more burdensome artificial review system will fix what is still the same review process, just sped up. They've missed the entire human aspect of how immediate feedback is used/interperted, i.e. how a manager can correct a poor attitude or a deficiency without turning it into an everlasting stigma. As much as HR would like to pretend otherwise, good management is a skill and requires some basic human interaction talent to do correctly.

This will be another failed HR initiative within a year or two, at best. At worst, it'll turn into an episode of Black Mirror. -> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive)

<comment><USER5> The solution is to game the system to advance your career.

That's how it always worked.

<comment><USER6> Successful "gaming" and "advancing your career" means you have figured out how to work the organization to achieve objectives...that means you know when you are a go-getter, a driver, a supporter, a smoother, a leader :)

<comment><USER7> Yes sure, if they actually put in real useful targets in there. But typically they don't. (Even if they on paper might look the part.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The obvious next step is to create a real-time market for employee performance reviews, allowing employees to bet on and against their and other employees' performance reviews and possibly even trade derivatives priced based on baskets of rising or falling performance reviews.

There would be many benefits. For starters, having a liquid, efficient market for performance reviews in which employees are able to bet on each others' reviews with minimal frictional costs would unleash market forces that would keep the performance reviews accurate (right?). But the really big payoff would come down the road, when this market could be opened to external investors like the venerable firm that manages your Aunt Tilly's pension plan, generating new sources of trading revenues for Goldman.

In all seriousness, I'm not sure real-time performance reviews are a good idea. They immediately bring to mind the societal nightmare of Black Mirror's "Nose Dive" episode: [http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/24/13379204/black- mirror-sea...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/24/13379204/black-mirror- season-3-episode-1-nosedive-recap)

<comment><USER7> People cannot bet on what they don't know. This is how all markets are really inefficient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm unclear if this _replaces_ in any way their existing (annual?) performance review process. Employees _do_ request immediate feedback: it's a major "best practice" and a very common performance improvement area.

Now, usually this takes the form of _just talking to your direct reports_ when you see them do something good or bad. I haven't seen an institutionalized _IT system_ that would do this, nor that those micro-interactions would somehow "add up" to a full performance appraisal.

So this seems to add more friction to giving feedback: never a good thing. And refer also to the whole Amazon "Anytime Feedback" peer feedback tool that turned into political posturing and back-stabbing.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees- reportedly-s...](http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-reportedly- slam-each-other-through-this-internal-review-tool-2015-8)

<comment><USER10> My guess is it supplements. Ultimately the person managing an employee's development still has to be involved in coaching and formal evaluation. 360s provide data points as well as an opportunity for ongoing improvement rather than saving it all for a once-a-year feedback loop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think it's fair that employees are given regular feedback throughout the year, instead of it be withheld until evaluation time and not have opportunities to correct.

I think it's also fair that the feedback mechanism is bi-directional.

However, what concerns me about this is, managers with lower-performing employees may get dinged harsher than managers with top performers.

In large companies with many teams, this will require a bit of digging to uncover this factor. What is manager's recourse without looking like he or she is throwing his/her team members under the bus?

</comment><comment><USER12> Very Bridgewater-eque

...and the employees "wanted" this? I doubt it.

Seriously, did I misinterpret this? Not trying to be a troll.

<comment><USER13> Imagine thinking you did a good job all year, only to hear in your review everyone hates your guts -- and you had no idea.

If the critique is fair, timely feedback also gives you a chance to change instead of letting it build up until they hate you. Imagine your wife/husband told you they always hated your cooking. Why not tell me before instead of while we're divorcing?

If you're guaranteed to get feedback, it's always better delivered in a timely fashion.

<comment><USER14> > Imagine thinking you did a good job all year, only to hear in your review > everyone hates your guts -- and you had no idea.

Imagine you talk to your manager and coworkers regularly to get feedback but you don't put the negative feedback into a formal software system that encourages politics and backstabbing!

<comment><USER10> Why on earth do you believe a formal system would make backstabbing and politics worse?

I'd argue it has the potential to make it better since it creates a papertrail and transparency. I'd rather that than Joe Angry Developer sneakily badmouthing me to my boss or my co-workers behind my back.

Worst case it seems like a lateral move as far as politics goes.

<comment><USER14> You have changed from a system where small complaints are usually handled between individuals to a system where people are encouraged to report complaints into a long lived formal system that can be viewed by the management chain as well as by HR.

How would you respond if I file a HR complaint about you or send a complaint to your manager?

Better than if we had just had a quiet word?

Or now rather than blowing off steam by complaining to another colleague that e.g. you don't want to delegate your co-worker will formally report it into a system used to manage compensation and career progression.

Others will game the system and make sure people write lots of positive comments about them. Now when it comes to the next pay cycle I have dozens of positive comments and you have a couple of positives and a few negatives. Guess how that will work out for you?

It encourages people to complain in the heat of the moment.

Etc etc etc.

Not to mention that people who want to badmouth you behind your back still will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My employer tried and failed using a similar system with Salesforce Work.com. It all seemed a bit pointless and forced to me. In the early days of using it while it was still a novelty, managers were giving feedback to people so that they could demonstrate to HR that they were being good little soldiers by using the tool, rather than because they wanted to praise good performance. This insincere praise was worse than no feedback at all.

In the end, it never really went anywhere because it became another inbox to check, and we already have too many of those. A chicken-and-egg problem also presented itself, where people only checked the site when they got a notification saying they'd received feedback, which led to no-one visiting the site to give feedback.

<comment><USER16> If you don't mind me asking, what did you guys fall back to, and were you guys satisfied with it?

<comment><USER17> It's a terrible idea. Please don't even think about building it.

As another poster mentioned real time feedback between team members and leaders happens organically (if the people are any good). The HR annual or bi- annual review is a formalization and documentation step but I can't imagine usually leads to better performance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think (and maybe this is a flawed premise) that most folks desire genuine, helpful feedback (or perhaps more generally what other people think about them). However, it seems like folks have difficulty when being on the giving end of the feedback, which makes tools for real-time feedback a one-sided marketplace. I could hypothesize a few reasons (i.e, feedback taken the wrong way could damage interpersonal relationships, feedback is awkward to give to a colleague, feedback is based on a sliver of the full-picture of an employee's performance, etc.), but I'd like to know y'all's opinions on the matter.

What seems to be a part of the problem is also how nebulous workplace interactions are when administrated by HR. It's awkward and unnatural to ask a close friend to "describe something that <other close friend> has done well." Most of the time when I give feedback about someone, it's a reaction to something that that person did that I observed. Having such an open-ended review in annual performance reviews seems to create a breeding ground for feedback that isn't helpful, and asking those questions constantly like Goldman and a lot of other companies are trying to do serves only to exacerbate the problem.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The article makes it sound better than what immediately popped into my head, which was employee performance via metrics shown on a Chartbeat-like animated dashboard. Sadly, some media companies are indeed mesmerized by watching article performance via Chartbeat's real-time traffic charts.

</comment><comment><USER18> One would think HR would be against something that introduces constant stress in the workforce rather than introduce it.

It comes across as a company obsessed with getting the maximum possible output from their workforce like from a machine but quite not sure how to pull it off from human beings.

</comment><comment><USER19> They're crooks whom subvert democracy and exploit people and businesses with obsfucated trickery. Who cares? Next financial crisis brought closer because coworker competition in performance reviews means legitimized stealing even more money, faster.

</comment><comment><USER20> "Dashboard"

Danger! Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!

Pardon my ingrained reaction to the Christmas tree metrics.

When I was back in corporate land, real, ongoing feedback and a _real conversation_ would have been useful. But, it all came down to the yearly ritual and basically fitting people into the slots (including pay increases / pre-defined budget) that were available.

Maybe Goldman Sachs will come up with something else, but with respect to "real time" reviews, I can't help thinking of the old expression:

"What have you done for me, lately?"

On the other hand, to re-introduce the sarcasm, it couldn't happen to a nicer group of people.

<comment><USER16> I've never been through a performance review before (currently a college student), but I'm curious: what distinguishes a good conversation about your performance from a bad conversation? Do you receive a plan of action? Is it the way that the conversation is conducted?

<comment><USER20> There are many things that could be said, I guess, but a good and concise summary would be, "Trust your gut reaction."

If/When you get into such meetings, if you feel uncomfortable -- not that you have goals to meet, but with respect to the natures of the goals, measurements, and feedback, itself -- trust your reaction.

In my corporate experience, all of this ultimately goes to serve Human Resources (HR). And, contrary to the impression some newer employees can have and that HR itself often fosters, HR _DOES NOT_ serve the interest of the employee. They are there solely to staff _and to protect_ the organization.

Much of the performance review process serves to produce documentation they can subsequently use to justify whatever action they decide to take. Note that such actions may not actually correspond or respond to your real performance.

Hopefully, you'll end up with a good manager that will help you grow and understand the system. But, that _is your direct management._ THAT is the critical decision.

I had one manager who was like that. Things were good, until they early- retired him out. I basically consolidated the work of a 5 department team down to one person -- me -- as we continued to go through layoffs. Done in substantially less time and with substantially less errors, more flexibility, and a complete change-over, with much greater complexity and variability, in the underlying data.

I received an award. And another time, that manager, before he was retired out, just showed up at my desk one day with an unsolicited 12% raise, because "I was doing the work." In the midst of a company-wide pay freeze.

But when they were done with me, I received a very cold stare from our HR manager as I passed her in the hall one day, and the next I was out.

Trust your gut. Not any "performance review" process. You need to respond to and manage the process, as it unfolds. But you trust your gut.

P.S. Yes, I should have gotten out a lot sooner. I had basically become a "workaholic" to avoid a lousy home circumstance and personal life. Another lesson to learn and avoid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Don't see how something like this will be good for morale, but I suppose that's what the enormous bonuses are for.

</comment><comment><USER22> It is a result of a test driven education system. Young people want feedback more often to feel secure in their actions.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's like to Twitter but for Performance Reviews.

</comment><comment><USER24> Yes! Because this has worked so well in politics and on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER25> Haven't they learned from history? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y#Theory_X](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y#Theory_X)</comment>


ARkStorm - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARkStorm <comment><AUTHOR> Having watched YouTube videos on Salton Sea it made me wonder what sort of storms would make the Colorado river flood, it turns out that ARk storms, that is Atmospheric Rivers predicted to occur once every 1000 years (that's the 'k') have dropped huge amounts of water.

Although the 'k' is supposed to denote once in a thousand years, they seem to occur every 100 years or so.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It seems the idea of Atmospheric Rivers has really solidified in the last couple of years.

It would be interesting to find out how they could plan for these.</comment>


Harry Dean Stanton has died - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/movies/harry-dean-stanton-dead-actor.html <comment><USER2> Wow. I've been a fan of Harry Dean Stanton for a very, very long time. His first credit is in the 1950s-- and he has a movie in post right now!

Some notable films you might want to check out (but might not realize are worth it)

Repo Man 1984 -- a major role for him in a cult classic from the punk rock era. Also young emilio estivez

Paris Texas 1984 -- A great film from the german director Wim Wenders, very much like a german David Lynch

Pretty In Pink 1986 -- A John Hughes film, Harry Dean Stanton plays Molly Ringwald's father in a touching performance

Wild at Heart 1990 -- An avant garde film by David Lynch with Nicholas Cage and Laura Dern in their prime. Probably Lynch's best movie, in my opinion.

The Straight Story 1999 -- Also by David Lynch this is actually a G rated film, about a guy who goes to visit his brother. It's kinda spectacularly touching while still being extremely minimalist in story.

Big Love 2006-2010 -- HBO TV Series about a mormon polygamist marriage, where Harry Dean Stanton plays an evil cult leader, super creepy, super effective and a "you love to hate him situation".

That may be a bit too many suggestions, but I pared it down from the 199(!) credits he has. I have seen all of the above and can recommend them all, though several are avant garde or not designed to be happy fun movies.

Also note he has a movie coming out soon-- Lucky -- where he plays the titular character and it looks to basically be an ode to Harry Dean Stanton.

RIP Harry-- you impacted my life and I will miss you.

<comment><USER3> Singing "Just A Closer Walk With Thee" in Cool Hand Luke (1967):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckulh3cSPuU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckulh3cSPuU)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Repo Man was a favorite of mine when I was a teenager.

<comment><USER5> Likewise in my circle of friends we used to quote this movie a lot.

But later it was elevated to an unassailable classic due to the ridiculous over-dubbing when it was shown on TV, replacing all the use of mother-fucker with melon-farmer.

<comment><USER6> I still quote _Repo Man_ but then no one gets the reference anymore and so I end up sounding like a mentally deranged nut.

      Look at those assholes, ordinary fucking people. I hate 'em.

I was even in a 7-11 and the guy said _Have a nice day_ at 10pm. So I said, _Night, Day. Doesn 't mean shit._ Again, too cool for the room and I get the nutjob look.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What part did he play in Kelly's Heros?

Is this him? [https://youtu.be/Iby1Ni0VJxg?t=93](https://youtu.be/Iby1Ni0VJxg?t=93)

<comment><USER8> Yep, that's him. "But my hair is still in curlers!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> As Alien is my all-time favorite movie, I am sad to hear this news. Farewell Harry and thank you!

</comment><comment><USER10> Whow. A friend of mine just released his very last picture "Lucky" which is currently making the festival rounds. Sundance, Locarno, Viennale, ... Should be in the theatres soon.

</comment><comment><USER11> Noooooo! It was only recently pointed out to me how amazing an actor he was. At least he left an amazing legacy for me to while.

</comment><comment><USER12> always intense

<comment><USER13> Ordinary people spend their time avoiding tense situations. Repo man spends his time getting into tense situations.

Though Paris Texas is my favorite. The two confessions in the sex shop is, to me, one of the most intensely moving scenes in all of film.</comment></comment>


Digispark ATTiny85 USB key "rubber ducky" clone - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chris408/digispark-usbkey-board <comment><USER2> If you're interested in what you can do with this (without being there to observe the screen), here is a list of payloads written by others:

[https://github.com/hak5darren/USB-Rubber- Ducky/wiki/Payloads](https://github.com/hak5darren/USB-Rubber- Ducky/wiki/Payloads)

</comment><comment><USER3> A while ago I wrote a Rubber Ducky server [1] that is remote controlled and uses a Raspberry Pi Zero W (which supports being a USB HID device).

Once connected to a host computer, it exposes a hidden WiFi network that allows you to inject and run Ducky Scripts remotely in real time using a small web interface.

It also includes a Ducky Script parser written in Python which could be useful outside of this project. You can grab it here [2]

[1]: [https://github.com/ozkatz/pi-remote-ducky](https://github.com/ozkatz/pi- remote-ducky) [2]: [https://github.com/ozkatz/pi-remote- ducky/blob/master/ducky/...](https://github.com/ozkatz/pi-remote- ducky/blob/master/ducky/parser.py)

</comment><comment><USER4> I wrote something similar to this, except it used the caps lock key to get data back across from the computer. The benefit is that you don't need to rely on a network to get data back. Often the keyboard is the most trusted device on the machine.

</comment><comment><USER5> Glad this is a thing - having lost 2 rubber duckies myself, a cheaper alternative is great. Only thing I would need is DuckyScript compatibility, so I wouldn't need to rewrite all my existing payloads.

<comment><USER6> Fortunately, tools already exist to translate regular ducky scripts to digispark:

[https://github.com/mame82/duck2spark](https://github.com/mame82/duck2spark)

By the way, the repo author has done a lot of work to develop a whole USB attack platform based on Raspberry Pi 0, which really deserve some interests:

[https://github.com/mame82/P4wnP1](https://github.com/mame82/P4wnP1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Awesome. Does anyone know of a USB-C alternative?

<comment><USER8> I've spun a few Digispark based designs, and you can basically just replace the micro-usb connector with a usb-c one.</comment></comment>


Gaia for HTML5 — introducing Giga.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/shovemedia/GigaJS

<comment><AUTHOR> If you remember the GAIA Flash framework, you remember what a timesaver it could be for building rich sites that have nice transitions from page to page, deep links, seo friendliness, etc

For those unfamiliar, this module wraps a state machine around the mechanics of preloading, transitioning, and managing history in Flash-like, animated sites.

I've missed this terribly in HTML5 [sic] and I finally decided to do something about it.

Currently weighs in at about 100k minified ( _not_ gziped) and I think I can improve that. This is pretty alpha at present, but I can't tell you how excited I am to put this through the paces.

Questions, comments, and snide remarks welcome as always.</comment>


With $2.6M, BetterDoctor wants to use data to matchmake patients and doctors - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2013/10/22/with-2-6m-betterdoctor-wants-to-use-data-to-play-matchmaker-for-patients-and-doctors-2/

<comment><USER2> Another interesting startup from the Nordic. Where can I see what positions the team is hiring for?

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the interest, dh! We'll be hiring soon and will definitely post about it when it's relevant. At the moment you can say hi at hello(at)betterdoctor.com.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Congrats Ari and the team!</comment>