Why Chips Die - <AUTHOR> https://semiengineering.com/why-chips-die/ <comment><USER2> Seems like a very light and theoretical article. I remember reading papers produced by IBM and HP where they analyzed chip failures - and they were much more specific in terms of both deep analysis and proximate cause (heat being essentially the overwhelming proximate cause.)

<comment><USER3> Do you have any references that you can share?

<comment><USER4> Wilhelm G. Spruth's "The Design of a Microprocessor" has some interesting material on the entire lifecycle of a design to ship of a chip including failure analysis. I have some newer books in my library on this kind of thing as well that I'd have to go re-familiarize myself with but that one is striking in that it is first hand knowledge of a crown jewels kind of project and not academic or the accounts of an outsider.

<comment><USER5> Thank you. It seems like a great read! I have obtained the pdf.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Electrical design seems to have a lot of dead ends where we can't go any further. Does anyone have any insights as to what the current status is for transistors based on light? I would like to start with chip design (did microchip programming as CS), is it even a feasible to achieve something in that field? Is there any good places / papers to start with?

<comment><USER7> > _Does anyone have any insights as to what the current status is for > transistors based on light?_

It's a good question, but there is something often ignored in press-releases about photonic transistors: How _exactly_ does a speedup occur?

For example: Photons do not interact with each other, so a photonic transistor will rely on electrons or holes to effect some sort of interaction between photons. That interaction might occur in a photorefractive material, but ultimately the photorefraction is a result of photons interacting with electrons of the underlying material. So why are the electrons in the photorefractive material faster than the electrons in a conventional transistor? It also might be worth noting that the fastest fT in conventional transistors is around 0.5 THz, so the bar is not particularly low.

FD: I have a patent on photonic transistors from Bell Labs days.

FD2: I have become an old cynic on photonic transistors.

FD3: The above is really a rant on high-speed transistors. Photonic transistors might well have a superiority in different areas, eg quantum computing.

<comment><USER8> fT for the fastest transistor - probably isn't the parameter limiting electronic circuits - it's more about wire length and capacitance, and power density of a circuit. It's both true inside circuits, but also outside, at the "memory wall" \- which on the surface at least, seems particularly fitting for photonics.

<comment><USER7> > _it 's more about wire length and capacitance_

At the fastest speeds, interconnect on crucial lines is engineered as a transmission line, where the inductance balances out the capacitance. When you look at the propagation in the transmission line, the energy of the traveling wave is dominated by the electric and magnetic fields outside the metal. So it is not generally appreciated that transmission-line interconnect is already photonic, and moving at photonic speeds. As you might expect, for most transmission-line geometries, the speed of the signal is not terribly far away from the speed-of-light in the material.

Moreover, the intuition that "metal wires" are slowing down the signal is not taking into account that an "all photonic transmission" still requires some sort of confinement. If you were to eliminate the metal, you would still need some sort of waveguide to confine the photonic energy. Inevitably, the waveguide will have some region of a higher dielectric, which as you know will slow down the propagation and also have some loss. As it turns out, the final propagation speed is close to a transmission line.

So again, it's important to quantify _exactly_ how the speedup occurs by switching to "photonic interconnect", because the reality is that it is already photonic.

Where photonic interconnect might have had a use is where the lines are very long, and the loss associated with a transmission line gets impractically large due to the confining metals. At that point, it's an engineering tradeoff: Converting to and from photons at each end of the line is non- trivial, and not all materials lend themselves to converting photons to electrons. There have been efforts since the 80s to put GaAs on silicon just to address this issue. (I was part of a team that got to 100MHz for GaAs-on- Si. The fact that GaAs-on-Si photonic transmission is still pretty much confined to the lab tells you everything you need to know about the manufacturability.)

<comment><USER5> Thank you. That was most interesting !

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not really what I expected. My cousin worked as a chem eng for an on shore chip mfgr in the 70s/ 80s doing polymer research into chip packaging material and the general impression I got from informal discussion was the main long term enemy was water and gas (air) infiltration and ceramic chips were essentially inert in comparison to plastic DIP material. She was happy when here theoretical model indicated the chip pins on the outside of the chip would corrode off before most interiors would contaminate and fail; I have not idea if the team working on pin metallurgy had a similar goal of not corroding until her plastic seal failed, LOL. She also said something about EPROM UV windows being her nemesis or impossible or something similar.

Possibly her main long term enemy to chip life as a polymer chemist was not the overall system enemy to long term chip life.

</comment><comment><USER10> My friend studied chip design and was taught how to design for planned failure after X years, curiously without any ethical considerations. Are these techniques actually used in practice?

(That was my first thought after reading 'death by design')

<comment><USER11> I work in chip design, and we certainly don't design for planned failure, but we do design for 20 year reliability. This means we over-design to ensure reliability up to 20 years. If a market does not need such longevity then it would be reasonable to design for less time, to ensure you are not over designing. Chip deign is all about trade offs - power, area, performance, reliability, flexibility, integration cost, high/low temperature operation, yield, etc - and designing for 20 years certainly impacts this trade off.

<comment><USER12> What's the upper limit of longevity testing, say for space use, 100 years ?

<comment><USER11> Good question, it depends on a few factors - e.g. BTI is aging that alters the transistor performance over time when a transistor has a fixed bias, so if you've loads of margin for this it should not impact you, or you can mitigate by periodically altering the bias to recover. TDDB is an issue at higher than normal voltages, so of the environment is controlled this can be avoided. For high reliability situations older process nodes are usually used which are less susceptible to these failures, and the environment is well controlled. Space has other issues like much higher probability of random bit flips, so design for space is challenging. Note our 20 year lifetime also assumes worst case conditions, so I'd wager many of our chips would last much longer in practice.

<comment><USER13> What does changing the bias to recover look like in practice? Any resources on this?

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure about resources but I can explain the basics. BTI happens when there is a constant voltage across the gate/source of a transistor for a long time. An example for a digital circuit could be an inverter held in one state. Either the pmos or nmos will have a large vgs and over time this bias will shift the threshold voltage (vt). Now if this inverter delay is critical, BTI will cause the delay to change and could break timing. To fix it if the inverter is toggled after sometime it will mostly recover to the normal delay. Some people mitigate it by having very low frequency toggling for 'off' gates, but usually only if those gates are critical/matched. Alternatively people just margin the timing for the worst case. Analog circuitry has to be designed for it also, and it's an issue in differential pairs for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Well, I was told once that the more you expose a chip to stress-generating heat (for example running a game with a bad quality cooling fan), it drastically reduces its life span, and will also make it slower.

Apparently chips "age", but they still function because or error mitigation, which is witnessed by a performance drop.

To me it's the only explanation why I see so many computers turn slow, despite the fact that I have reinstalled them, cleaned them, etc. I argued many times against the "just put a SSD and add RAM, windows 10 is just slower", but in my mind, I just cannot explain why a newer OS becomes so much slower and memory hungry and unresponsive, even when running very basic programs.

I think there is a myth that chip will always perform exactly the same as long as they work. Chip engineering sounds much more complicated than it seems, and I cannot trust any IT support person telling me to "upgrade".

I'm sure military-grade chips have different designs and cooling requirements, which doesn't turn them into domestic/obsolete products after 3 years.

<comment><USER15> You are mistaken, this is not a myth. Synchronous digital chips have a clock with a fixed frequency, and their working is fixed. So if it works, a chip perform exactly the same, regardless of age. If something's slower, it's software or pheripherals. Probably software (and that's why some people are so upset: hardware is getting faster, observed performance keeps degrading. I have to wait 10 minutes for my computer before I can start working, every day).

<comment><USER16> The cooling system ages - dust accumulates and coolingpaste become less efficient - which in turn can cause more frequent throttling of the cpu. (technically a peripheral to the chp)

<comment><USER17> This is an important and often overlooked aspect of system aging. Heat dissipation is the primary performance bottleneck of modern CPUs (in truly CPU-bound tasks). There's a reason liquid nitrogen/helium cooling can enable dramatic over clocking.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


From Bankrupt Builder To Owning Every Zip Code - <AUTHOR> http://www.domainsherpa.com/jake-ackerman-zipsmart-interview/

<comment><USER2> It's amazing how domain names are a form of real estate that most people don't value the same as physical real estate.</comment>


How to Acquire Customers: 19 "Traction" Channels to Start Testing Today - <AUTHOR> https://zapier.com/blog/acquire-customers/

<comment><USER2> Traction Channels? That's a pretty terrible piece of phrasing.

Here's the list: 1\. Viral Marketing 2\. Public Relations (PR) 3\. Unconventional Public Relations 4\. Search Engine Marketing 5\. Social and Display Ads 6\. Offline Advertising 7\. Search Engine Optimization 8\. Content Marketing 9\. Email Marketing 10\. Engineering as Marketing 11\. Targeting Blogs 12\. Business Development 13\. Sales 14\. Affiliate Programs 15\. Existing Platforms 16\. Trade Shows 17\. Offline Events 18\. Speaking Engagements 19\. Community Building

I'd like to point out that under "Targeting Blogs" the first sentence begins with, "While it could fall under PR..."

A lot of these 19 items overlap with each other, so if you're going to do that, at least make it an even 20 ok? And you don't get to use the word traction, you're going to ruin it.

Now get off my lawn _grumble grumble_</comment>


Best angel investing book: Jason Calacanis's 288 page "Angel" in 2 Infographics - <AUTHOR> https://startupsventurecapital.com/best-angel-investing-book-jason-calacaniss-288-page-angel-in-2-infographics-bfa02c338bec <comment><USER2> Good information, but those are definitely not infographics. They're images jammed full of text.</comment>


Microsoft Slowly Euthanizes Xbox Indie Games - <AUTHOR> http://devlicio.us/blogs/vinull/archive/2010/11/03/microsoft-slowly-euthanizes-xbox-indie-games.aspx

<comment><USER2> _sigh_ This is a subject that is dear to my heart: Until recently, I worked on the team that built the XNA Framework, Tools, and Xbox Live Indie Game ecosystem. More specifically, I primarily worked on Visual Studio integration.

Xbox Live Indie games has been an incredible, internal, uphill battle from the start. No one on any of the teams really wanted any of those restrictions, but a lot of factors were conspiring against us.

1) Legal: Indie games went into development long before Apple released the iPhone App Store. There was sooo much fear about allowing arbitrary content out there. There are also privacy concerns (think about people selling Facebook user IDs and stuff; similar things apply to Gamertags) preventing open internet access; specially considering young kids may play Xbox. Startups can "get away with stuff". Hell, Google and Apple can get away with this stuff. Microsoft can't, or simply won't.

2) Security: Full Xbox 360 titles run with full control over the box. Registered developers are trusted fully. This is in part due to simplicity, but also because games are really demanding software that want to avoid kernel call boundaries and other low level performance sucking security measures.

3) Cannibalization: Xbox Live Arcade (professional downloadable games) is big business. Leadership was terrified that people were going to systematically clone all of the best selling games. Hence silly rules like no free games and segregated Top Games listings.

4) Internal support: The XNA team is full of amazingly talented engineers. And amazingly savvy project managers. There are sooo many dependencies that go into XNA, it is simply incredible. Between the various platforms, SDKs, APIs, web services, etc. It could take two full days to just install all the stuff you need to be able to use a dev machine effectively. Such is the pain of working on a product that cross cuts about a dozen different layers of the technology stack; each layer independently written by a team larger than the entire XNA team itself. With so many partner teams, it is a miracle that Indie Games shipped at all.

5) Politics: At Microsoft, success is poisonous. If your team is talented and effective, if your product is sexy and fun -- and XNA was certainly all of these things -- then every middle manager in the entire damn company wants a piece of your action. We got re-org-ed so many times, I lost count. When XNA 1 launched on Xbox, it was a triumph. Then we spent a ton of time onboarding the latest platform, like Zune or Windows Phone, that management forced down our throats.

There is more, but this post is getting out of hand....

<comment><USER3> The Visual Studio integration is and always has been flawless. Debugging on an XBOX and being able to break into code on my PC is just an unheard of capability for technology at this price point, on a console. Thanks for all your hard work on this.

I'm hoping the winds change again in our favor. Maybe with enough parties vested in XNA they will know better than to drive away their seasoned developers by starving IG.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's easy to view Microsoft as an evil corporation that is trying to keep the little guy down, but this story is remarkably similar to how Google has treated the little guy on YouTube. Google and Microsoft may have more in common than folks here would like to admit.

<comment><USER5> What are you talking about on YouTube? Most of the top Youtube partners (people who get paid by youtube for videos) are individuals and not corporations.

I don't know any YouTube decision that hurt YouTube channels by individuals in any way.

<comment><USER4> The YouTube of 2010 is very different from the YouTube that Google acquired in 2006. It's nice that Google and Microsoft share revenue with the little guy. However, the evolution of YouTube over the years at the expense of the little guy is quite similar to Microsoft's treatment of Indie X-Box developers. You don't have to do a lot of searching on YouTube to find videos where small time video producers bitterly complain about how the gradual evolution of YouTube over the years has caused the little guy to suffer the death of a thousand cuts when it comes to YouTube's video discovery mechanism.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V025E_b5I4g>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sadly, when trying to get on a console as an Indie developer, this is far better then Sony's or Nintendo's options.

I'm almost thinking a new business venture would be to be a middle man between best of breed indie games and platforms with high barrier's to entry, but I guess this is called a "publisher"

<comment><USER7> > this is far better then Sony's or Nintendo's options

Hell, Nintendo is practically hostile towards indie developers. But this just goes to show, without competition MS will only treat customers/partners as good as the bare minimum they have to, and no more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "XBLIG can not connect to the Internet

...

XBLIG can not be played offline"

Well... damn.

<comment><USER9> That also generated a couple parse errors in my brain until I think I figured it out.

I'm guessing what they mean is the user must be logged into Live in order to play the game (requiring the Xbox to be online), however the game itself cannot access the Internet in any way.

<comment><USER10> For the xbox indie games, you can't use sockets or any network access outside of what they provide for the xna api on the xbox. This limits the games to peer-to-peer with a max of 6 (maybe 4, can't remember offhand) players in a single session.

In general, the indie dev situation is awesome on xbox, especially compared to ps3 or the Wii. It has a great community set up for controlling quality and content ratings without requiring intervention from Microsoft and the speed you can go from no tools to code run on the 360 is nothing short of amazing.

<comment><USER11> _especially compared to ps3 or the Wii._

That was something that confused me about the article. "Euthanizes" implies that Microsoft is actively trying to kill the service, but from the complaints it sounds like they are simply failing to improve it. And if they are already better than their competitors, it's not surprising that there is little pressure to improve.

Given that, it seems unreasonable to assume that the situation will not be better for Windows Phone, since Microsoft will need to stand up to comparisons against the iPhone and Android development experiences.

<comment><USER12> They're actively making changes to the service that make it worse, so it goes a little further than 'failing to improve'. The platform was already in need of significant improvement to serve as a real revenue stream for indie developers - only the biggest successes on XBLIG were bringing in revenue streams large enough to justify further development as anything other than a hobby. The changes they've made have actively made this situation worse, by making it harder for end-users to discover/purchase games and harder for developers to support their customers. Their current trajectory indicates that their only concern is the success of Windows Phone 7, and based on how they dropped support for Zune, if WP7 fails they will probably kill the Indie Games program entirely and use the funding on something else.

<comment><USER10> What particular changes have they made that make it worse? Looking at the article, and from all the newsgroups/mailfeeds I'm on, the only changes are the 4.0 breaking updates (expected with a major point change, same thing happened going to 3) and the menu layout. Everything listed in the original article here have been in that state for the past few years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I was working on a game in my spare time, with an eye to eventually release it on XBLIG if I ever finished. This and a number of other niggling things, such as this ([http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2010/10/12/xna- game...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2010/10/12/xna-game- studio-4-0-xbox-360-and-indie-games.aspx)), have prompted me to basically drop the project and switch over to making a Mac/PC/Linux game instead, focusing on Mac first.

</comment><comment><USER14> This article needs more context. For example, how popular were indie games before the change? If they were very unpopular, and users were complaining that other aspects of the dashboard were hard to find, and they kept running into indie games, this change may make sense.

Also, since MS doesn't review Indie games the way they do tier-1 games, lack of internet access makes sense. They're really trying to keep the XBox a safe console.

If you want some of the other features listed, consider coughing up the dough to be a tier-1 developer. Or do PC games.

</comment><comment><USER15> There ought to be a rating somewhere about how wildly a company tends to veer, and how often, when corporate re-strategizing kicks in, specifically in regards to APIs and deployment. MS in particular seems to be pretty schizoid that way, at least in the consumer space. (People were also bitching about Facebook and its APIs in that regard recently, no?) Say what you will about Flash, but I have unfinished games from 2006 that I could still safely release tomorrow without issue.

</comment><comment><USER12> One particularly troubling decision not mentioned in this post: a new version of the XNA development tools (4.0) was recently released that introduces many breaking changes from the previous supported version, 3.1. Some of these changes actually reduce the number of windows machines an XNA game can run on, and other changes remove features entirely (even though they worked before).

As a result, many games cannot realistically be ported to 4.0 unless the developer only cares about shipping on XBox 360 at any cost. Under most circumstances, this would be fine, but Microsoft has decided that any games developed using the previous version of the framework (3.1) cannot be released if they wait more than 90 days after the official launch of the new version. Oddly enough, games previously submitted using version 3.1 will continue to function, so they're not dropping support for the framework - they just want everyone to move to 4.0. Essentially, Microsoft is forcing a release date on the set of developers who actually tried to develop games simultaneously for PC and XBox, even though this kind of simultaneous development was originally one of the things that made XNA interesting.

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2010/10/12/xna- game...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2010/10/12/xna-game- studio-4-0-xbox-360-and-indie-games.aspx)

Microsoft has also dropped support an entire platform: Version 3.1 of the framework allowed you to target games at Windows (DirectX 9), XBox 360, and the Zune. Version 4.0 allows you to target games at a smaller subset of Windows, XBox 360, and Windows Phone. Anyone developing a Zune game is entirely left out in the cold (that's what you get for being an early adopter) as well.

<comment><USER16> "A smaller subset of Windows" - I assume you mean that it supports all Windows OS's they have released in the past 5 years? (I.e. not XP).

Microsoft wants to move on from XP. I believe it's fair that they produce dev tools that reflect that fact.

EDIT: That being said, this is still a disappointing turn of events.

<comment><USER12> The switch from the previous device caps model to HiDef/Reach means that games cannot opt to run on any windows machine that supports the GPU features they require, or choose to scale their experience down based on available features. If you select the HiDef profile, your game will fail to start if any of the features in the profile are missing. Likewise, the Reach profile prevents you from using HiDef features, so you can't target any of the millions of PCs that occupy that space in-between (for example, anyone with an Intel GPU). While it is theoretically _possible_ to ship a PC game using the Reach profile, the profile is so absurdly limited that you'd be insane to use it for anything larger in scope than a 2-week project.

I don't think they dropped XP support, they just made it harder to use on XP. It does require .NET framework 4, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't understand moves like this.

Why do companies seem to put developers in such poor positions? In platforms like this, it seems that your customers are in a large part, the developers. But instead of trying to lure them in, it's viewed more as a privilege to get on their platform than an attempt to gather the best software. I understand the desire to get on a large platform like Xbox, but isn't it at least somewhat of a concern that if Sony releases a developers eden for the platform that they'll lose business?

I suppose the problem is a lack of competition on any of the platforms, to my knowledge. If you're a developer you would want a game available on as many platforms as possible, regardless of any rules imposed on you. If you want your game on Xbox the only way to get it on is through microsoft, correct?

If not, it seems that someone should make a developer-centric distribution platform.

</comment><comment><USER18> The late-2010 Xbox 360 dashboard update did seem to bury the indie game section under more menu's than the old one did (this is my gut feeling; I don't recall the steps for the late-2009 dashboard update):

1) Game Marketplace (1 of 9 options)

2) Explore Game Content icon (1st listed out of 11 icons)

3) Specialty Shops (1 of 6 options)

4) Indie Games icon (2nd listed out of 6 icons)

Though to be fair the entire Xbox 360 dashboard is overtly populated with lots of menu's everywhere. A lot of it is redundant (I count at least 10 options for Kinect stuff littered throughout; there are likely more).

<comment><USER19> In 2009 I believe it was

1) Game Marketplace

2) Indie Games

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does anyone have any suggestions for the best way to contact Microsoft and negotiate an XBox Live Arcade publishing deal?

I've been developing an XNA game full time for the last 2 years and am unsatisfied with the state of XBox Indie Games. I have little business experience though, and have no idea how best to approach Microsoft. If money is a problem, I'm fairly confident I could raise 50k-100k on the merit of the current build.

<comment><USER12> My understanding is that at present, Microsoft prefers for XBLA deals to be negotiated through publishers, as most of the (fixed in quantity) XBLA publishing slots for each year are assigned to those publishers more or less in advance.

If you really want an XBLA deal for your XNA game, your best bet is probably the MS-run yearly competitions. Honestly, I think you'd be better off talking to Valve and getting on Steam, because they're a) not totally insane and b) already selling other XNA games on their platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What possible downsides would there be to Microsoft pushing Indie games more, perhaps through a dedicated channel on the dashboard? Is that kind of exposure likely to cannibalize retail game sales to any extent? It just seems to me that there is so much potential being wasted here, and for what reason? Just look at the iOS App Store, any Indie developer can release a game and it's thriving.

<comment><USER22> The assumption is that Indie sales hurt XBLA sales. XBLA pay good money to get on the platfrom/certification, XBLIG's pay peanuts to do so.</comment></comment>


Paystack's Y Combinator Application - <AUTHOR> https://blog.paystack.com/paystacks-y-combinator-application-81e9a8345d51 <comment><USER2> Not so many YC startups do this. It's great to see Paystack make their YC application available to the public.</comment>


The Internet's Original Sin - <AUTHOR> http://theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/advertising-is-the-internets-original-sin/376041/

<comment><USER2> #10 on the front page, 125 point, 64 comments

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177063](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177063)</comment>


Apple: Dark Value and Degrees of Monopoly in Global Commodity Chains [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.jwsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Clelland_vol20_no1.pdf

<comment><USER2> While the author may be perceived as anti-capitalist this is actually a very good read. These topics are critical for understanding how your costs add up, who pays them, and where the margins come from. I am surprised it didn't get more votes.

The author's claim is that labor costs are being pushed down, suppressed and hidden from public view. Yet if we examine a time series Chinese labor costs, the price inflation over the past 13 years is phenomenal: [http://imgur.com/rkEOiPj](http://imgur.com/rkEOiPj) Even if workers are not being compensated the full amount they are owed, the competition for labor means they are being paid a great deal more (3x-8x) than they would have been paid in 2001. If we accounted for inflation, it isn't as much but still there.

I strongly agree with the hidden & unpaid value of environmental pollution.

The author also should mention the hidden value captured by China's artificially low interest rates and other government expenditures. I also did not notice anything about confiscation of land.

Plenty of problems with a supply chain involving countries where citizens have minimal to no rights. Certainly it should be a concern for Apple and other companies as China re-balances (today's Hong Kong protests perhaps just a tremor of what is to come.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Other points I found particularly interesting:

The author argues that this surplus extracted value doesn't end up primarily in Apple's pockets, but in consumer's.

The author incorporates the concept of "reproductive labor" as an unpriced input, a cost accounting I've not seen before and have some skepticism of but is interesting nonetheless.

It tries to account for the extra extracted value that come from hukou restrictions, giving purchasers of their labor some level of monopsony power.

Instead of focusing myopically on "proletarians" like most Foxconn diatribes do, the paper also brings up the usually unaddressed issue of exploitation of Chinese management and engineering resources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There is a huge error in the introduction:

"Between mid-2010 and mid-2011, Apple sold a little more than 100 million iPads, all assembled in China"

Well... No.

Apple started selling the iPad in April 2010 (Fiscal Q3 2010). Between mid-2010 and mid-2011, during five fiscal quarters (Q32010 + Q42010 + Q12011 + Q22011 + Q32011), Apple sold a total of 28.73 million iPads. That's a really gross mistake, it took me two minutes to get the official info from Apple's investors website. I'm surprised nobody spotted that during editing.

Edit: the error is probably related to the announcement of 100 million iPhones sold to date during the iPad 2 launch event in 2011. From Wikipedia (well sourced content): "On March 2, 2011, at the iPad 2 launch event, Apple announced that they had sold 100 million iPhones worldwide"

</comment><comment><USER4> Does this remind anyone else of Peter Thiel's notes on value systems? The entire time, I was thinking about how Peter was emphasizing that finding the right size market was key. Too big, and the competition erodes your profit away. The higher level tiered companies had to face much more competition, and Apple utilized that by having them compete with each other.

If you are interested in learning more about this, I highly recommend reading Economics of Strategy as it talks about the benefits and costs of being horizontally and vertically integrated. There are also some good anecdotes on how one can obtain economic profits, which reflects the opportunity cost of a venture, compared to accounting profit which just takes into account the total profits, through various forms such as competitive advantages.

Value Systems: [http://blakemasters.com/post/20955341708/peter-thiels- cs183-...](http://blakemasters.com/post/20955341708/peter-thiels- cs183-startup-class-3-notes-essay)

Economics of strategy: href="[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/111827363X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/111827363X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=111827363X&linkCode=as2&tag=none0004-20&linkId=GEV57SMWC2LQUJYZ)

</comment><comment><USER5> I was going to read this but it's a PDF.

<comment><USER6> Chrome, for example, can deal well with PDFs. You might want to give it a try.</comment></comment>


Scientists Make a Molecule by Manipulating Just Two Atoms - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/scientists-make-a-molecule-by-manipulating-just-two-ato-1825241681 <comment><USER2> Reminds me of Diamond Age!</comment>


Follow your buddies with Google Latitude  - <AUTHOR> http://latestgeeknews.blogspot.com/2009/02/follow-your-buddies-with-google.html

<comment><USER2> Several of these carries slightly different commentary or comment, so they're not all exact duplicates. However, I think I have the full set so far ...

Here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=467084>

Here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=466368>

Here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=466089>

Here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465549>

Here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465494>

Here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465474>

Here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465458>

Here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465359>

Here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465276>

You job, should you choose to accept it, is to find which one (or ones!) carry the HN comments.

I'm going to stop flagging duplicates - I very rarely get upmodded for it, occasionally get down modded for it, and my name will _never_ turn orange. It's therefore obviously held in little or no regard by the community.</comment>


How to Fix Wall Street – Madoff's Law - <AUTHOR> http://blogmaverick.com/2009/05/22/how-to-fix-wall-street-madoffs-law/ <comment><USER2> This is an absolutely terrible idea. A couple problems:

1) It creates huge concentrations of counterparty risk. Let's say you're the firm that invents the credit default swap. For the next five years, you are the counterparty for every single CDS transaction. If you go bust, the whole market explodes and everyone is in for a world of hurt. Participants can't spread their risk around by trading with different counterparties. In the current environment, we should be doing everything we can to decrease counterparty risk.

2) What counts as a "new" financial instrument? Let's say it's 2004 and you want to start selling credit default swaps on asset-backed securities. At that point, CDS had been around for 10 years and ABS for at least 15. So is CDS on ABS a new product? Can you get a patent for it? For another example, let's say it's the mid-80s and you work on the CMO desk. (CMOs, collateralized mortgage obligations, are a type of mortgage-backed-security where the cashflows from the mortgages are restructured to better fit investors' demands). Everyone's doing sequential deals, and you do the first floater/inverse IO deal. CMOs aren't a new product, but your structure is completely original. Can you get a patent on that?

3) The products that are at the core of the current crisis weren't really new! Mortgage backed securities have been around in one form or another since the late 70s, and credit default swaps were invented in the early 90s. Any patents would have long since expired.

4) You'd be handing huge profit margins to the bank that invents them. For traditional physical products, the idea is that this government-granted monopoly encourages companies to spend time doing capital-intensive R&D which they wouldn't otherwise consider. But we've seen that banks, hedge funds, etc. have been willing to innovate without government-granted monopolies. So why give them a monopoly now?

Ultimately, this isn't much different from software patents. If software consists of an abstract idea instantiated in code, financial instruments are an abstract idea instantiated in legal documents and markets. The case against software patents applies to financial instruments too.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, a monopoly on financial instruments seems ridiculously bad. You need to construct markets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This ties into what I like to call the "other gambler's fallacy", wherein one's visceral understanding of probability tends to exaggerate high probabilities and underestimate low probabilities. That is, one sees a probability like 0.001, and ends up treating it as though it were zero.

That said, I'm not sure about the solution the guy proposes. It's basically patents for esoteric financial instruments. While I don't see anything inherently wrong with the idea, patents as they are now nominally exist to speed innovation. This idea is intended to slow the spread of innovations in one particular area.

In other words, it's possible that this system could develop all the problems that the patent system has: people would come up with slight variations on an existing financial instrument so that they could sell it without buying a license from the creator, or for marketing reasons, or whatever. This would naturally make instruments more complicated, which in turn makes them harder to reason about.

</comment><comment><USER5> Worthwhile part:

>Call it Madoff's Law. Where there are consistent returns, it doesn't mean that the risk is reduced, it means you can't see the risk.

Worthless part:

>I would create additional forms of licenses (...) that any financial institution can apply for (...) and receive for a new financial instrument.

<comment><USER6> Yup. Spot on with his analysis of the problem, completely off with his idea for a solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If this extra cost/regulation was enacted it would just move the business offshore.</comment>


A Comparison of the Top Privacy-Focused Analytics Platforms - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/hmhrex/a-comparison-of-the-top-3-privacy-focused-analytics-platforms-209m <comment><USER2> it was pretty strange when SimpleAnalytics announced[0][1] they're moving servers to Iceland to protect users.

this means SimpleAnalytics doesn't understand their threat model which is a shame because the industry could deal with some disruption: ("Simple Analytics Inc, FVEY's and Hanlon's Razor" [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/simple- analytics-inc-fveys-ha...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/simple-analytics- inc-fveys-hanlons-razor-joachim-bauernberger/)).

[0] [https://twitter.com/AdriaanvRossum/status/107619496360250572...](https://twitter.com/AdriaanvRossum/status/1076194963602505728) [1] [https://blog.simpleanalytics.com/why-we-moved-our-servers- to...](https://blog.simpleanalytics.com/why-we-moved-our-servers-to-iceland)</comment>


Machine Learning Meets Economics, Part 2 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mldb.ai/blog/posts/2016/04/ml-meets-economics2/ <comment><USER2> So the Sell/Check/Recycle model only requires 33% of the labor compared to the Check only model. The author suggests that this means tripling production would be possible, but that depends on QA being the factories bottleneck. If QA isn't the bottleneck, than you might as well fire 2/3 of Quinn's QA workers. Hooray, the computer didn't take my job, but it took the jobs of the guy to my right and the gal to my left.

<comment><USER3> I got to the same conclusion Ai will increase efficiency so a company will need fewer workers. Ai augmented humans might be better than ai or humans alone but results in the same thing loss of human jobs. I have to say though most automation these days increases effiency for companies but passes the work to the end user. With true Ai that will probably change.

<comment><USER4> Hopefully these people get another job. After all they have proven they can reliably show up for work every single day and cope up with the corporate chores. It would be a waste not to employ them for some other work. That's what entrepreneurship is about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just a point of discussion:

> "Exactly," agreed Danielle, "and just like with the previous project, the > model will get some wrong, but this will be outweighed by the cost savings > of not having to check every single gadget."

And that's how we consumers go from being able to receive a 100% reliable product every time (i.e. "Quinn's team works very hard to avoid penalties") to needing to go through the hassle/delay/cost of returns. Sure the QA department "has to pay" for the return, but does that economic model accurately include the cost of lost goodwill?

<comment><USER6> Well, I'd object to the idea that even a careful human team in production can hit 100%. In domains where the human "gold standard" is somehow falsifiable (that is, not tautologically correct as in some judgment call situations), it always ends up being a numbers game until the humans can no longer provide 100%.

It's kind of frustrating when you're trying to sell ML-based solutions to a skeptic. I've found that executives will often try to poke holes in the predictions, especially if the ML solution is risky or potentially threatening to them.

It helps a lot to frame things with a known human error rate and cost, as the Data Scientist in the story does, because then the conversation becomes win- win (how do we optimize for best outcomes) rather than unwinnable (why isn't your fancy ML algorithm right about this example X which I can plainly see myself is wrong??).

<comment><USER7> > I've found that executives will often try to poke holes in the predictions, > especially if the ML solution is risky or potentially threatening to them

In particular, automation that reduces headcount reduces their justifiable budget and therefore power within the firm, salary and benefits, and external status. For an example of the latter, Havard Business School asks you how many people you are currently managing when you apply for an MBA.

This creates a strong incentive to block any attempts at automation or increased efficiency, especially when said inefficiency is not reflected on the KPIs used to gauge the executive's performance. Customer satisfaction and error rates are rarely measured well, nor with a refresh rate sufficiently high to be such a KPI. Blocking is easiest to do by seeding mistrust in the person attempting to build the automation, and in the automation itself.

Part of being an effective data scientist/big data engineer/whatever the buzzword du jour is consists of figuring out what KPIs the executive wants to maximise and sell him on that instead. The good old "work on making your boss look good".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The main gist of the article is that you can use ML to catch "slam dunk" categories and give people the harder tasks.

Ten years ago or more, lumber mills started using computer techniques to suggest optimal cuts (which dimensions you can get out of a given log, understanding that larger dimension lumber has higher sale value per unit mass), and flashing the suggested cuts to an operator for review/approval, which only rarely is overridden.

<comment><USER8> > which only rarely is overridden

So what's holding them back from replacing the cutter with a machine as well?

<comment><USER9> Maybe they like the people cutting. Maybe the people do other jobs as well, like moving the wood in or out?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sure, it's true that a given technology by itself doesn't lead to job losses.But this really doesn't scratch the surface concerning the way that the labor market has been transforming.

A human being is remarkable flexible that can do lots of things robots and computers can't do as well as program himself/herself quickly to do things it takes a long time to program a computer to do.

If a human being is also really cheap, and they are in many places, then a human being is a really good deal. And the situation of automation and (even more) the globalization of work, is that it reduces the margin price of labor - there's still demand for people but the demand for people at a lower price - and being flexible, people have accommodated.

But when life is cheap and work is constant, it degrades all those things that makes human society pleasant. Except for those few with money to burn and to some extent even for them.

</comment><comment><USER11> Unfortunately the parameters of the algorithms, which are set by humans, end up being just as flawed. In the earlier example regarding the discarding of widgets, no cost was attributed to discarding of these widgets. Where do they go? Why is waste disposal free (or virtually free)? The environment is a finite place with tremendous monetary value. The fact that businesses are able to profit off the destruction of the environment (in this example, throwing away widgets that might not work) is a fundamental flaw in the economic formula. How can one discuss efficiency when one fails to factor the destruction of a valuable, non-renewable, finite resource in the process?

</comment><comment><USER12> Not that I'm a futurist, but I predict that 2020 will be the decade where AI becomes unsettling (beyond image recognition, which is already becoming unsettling), and that 2030 will be the decade where AI has _serious_ economic consequences.

<comment><USER13> Curious word choice: "economic _conseqences_ "

What do you imagine they will be? What about economic _benefits_?

<comment><USER12> Think of DeepDream x 1000. First, start with self-driving cars and semis cutting out taxi and freight services. Then, move on to musicians and composers no longer being hired to do mundane (90%) work, or video game levels being procedurally generated with intelligent design. From there, go on to everything that could be automated today, but requires a little bit of human ingenuity.

Economic transactions will start to look very different than what's normally accepted today.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: A reasonable deployment solution for small-scale kiosk apps? - <AUTHOR> We need to find a solution for the deploy, monitor, update cycle for small-scale, multi-platform (mac, windows, linux), LAN-bound kiosk apps. So far we have survived writing our own tooling for specific tasks but it's quickly getting out of hand due to the increasing amount of clients we need to support.
After an admittedly cursory examination of a few popular solutions (docker, nomad, kubernetes) it seems their use is mostly concerned with the big-scale infrastructure side of things, and so far it's unclear to us whether they can be adapted to ad-hoc distribution / versioning on LAN and local storage.
If anyone is able to point us in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> Try CFEngine or similar tools. They have some learning curve, but they do well also for small number of machines (i.e. don't add too big overhead for operator).

</comment><comment><USER3> I had a project last year where we had to deploy to a few executives' laptops, running in a company that was so paranoid they had no Internet connection. But they expected to release this app as a SaaS product eventually, and so wanted it built it with a standard webapp stack (Rails/Postgres). For the initial install and later updates, they would temporarily bring the laptops to a separate location to get online. A couple laptops were running Windows and some OS X.

For the laptop deployment, I wrote a Chef script to provision a Vagrant VM, then saved it as a .box file. We delivered the .box file along with short .bat/.sh scripts to start it up. It sometimes felt like we should have used something trendier, like Docker, although Docker seemed like a bad fit both because of the Windows/OS X requirement and the multiple processes (Postgres, Unicorn, Nginx, background jobs....).

They actually volunteered how impressed they were by the smoothness of the install process. (!)

We had a sh/bat file to run Capistrano for app updates, so as long as no system changes were needed, that was very easy. Delivering system updates (e.g. now we need ImageMagick installed....) was painful though. A couple times we actually abused Rails database migrations as a poor-man's configuration management tool. :-) The .box file was very large, and we would have to replace the old VM without wiping out the database. I think there are easier ways to solve this problem than we used, e.g. Packer, but I wasn't aware of them then. I'm still not 100% sure they would have worked for us.

Anyway, this seems kind of similar to your LAN-bound kiosks.

I would definitely not use Kubernetes, which is really intended for a datacenter. I haven't tried Nomad so I can't speak to that. I might be willing to try Docker nowadays---I think it would allow incremental system updates and so alleviate the pain of moving big .box files, and you could keep the database outside of the image. I would still probably run it in a Linux VM though, since I don't really trust Docker for Windows/Mac yet.

But in general, I think the new devops tools we read about on Hacker News are intended for a different use-case than yours, so I would not feel bad for passing them by. I certainly sometimes questioned my decision to avoid Docker, and got asked by a lot of people why we weren't using it (none of whom had experience with it). But I think it was the right decision to use older, more battle-tested tools, and ones that were a better fit for what we had to do. On-prem software is really a whole different beast from webapps you host. It requires a different QA process, a robust install tool, and a good plan for handling updates.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the detailed answer, going to check those tools out no doubt.</comment></comment>


Welcome to America's Cultural Revolution - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/welcome-to-americas-cultural-revolution/ <comment><USER2> The article has good points, but all of them summed up times 10 is still child's play compared to the Cultural Revolution proper. I'm sorry, but this kind of sensational labelling is exactly the one thing Americans don't need right now, and it's a shame since, again, the article does have many good points.

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally as a continental philosophy academic prior to software, its fascinating that a species of Michel Foucault interpretation became the predominant Liberal/Progressive discourse

</comment><comment><USER4> I just reposted this because one minute it was on the front page and the next minute it could not be found.

<comment><USER5> Use a feed reader to access sites like HN instead of the front page, that way you get to see all content which has been posted in the order it has been posted - there is no ranking nor any direct censoring.

<comment><USER4> I try to watch my data use so I am reluctant to download one, but I appreciate the tip.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Important and topical article about Google Ads and monetisation.

</comment><comment><USER7> Welcome to Soviet States of America. You can feel now exactly how it was back in those days in USSR.

<comment><USER8> So how do you think it's been for people of color this whole time?

<comment><USER7> People of color are oppressed in the US, but "socialist revolution" is not a solution. This is a deep cultural problem that must be solved from kindergarden-age. Well educated people can defend themself.

<comment><USER5> In what way are 'people of colour' \- between quotes because as far as I'm concerned they're just people [1] - oppressed in the US? I don't just blindly swallow the narrative espoused by BLM nor do I just blindly accept the opposite. For more than 2 weeks I've been listening to interviews with people who say that the narrative is in fact incorrect, that they themselves lived in the areas where the oppression should have been rife but - again according to them - did not seem to be. Many of these people put the blame for the disparity in income and outlook on social programs which have led to the dissolution of the family which is supposed to have led to the majority of children growing up in a single-parent household combined with the fact that schools are paid directly using local taxes which leads to poor neighbourhoods having underfunded schools. The lack of fathers, according to them, leads to a lack of male role models which in turn leads to boys finding their role models elsewhere, often on the street where they see gang bangers sporting fancy goods and gaining status. Many of the people I listened to found other role models to follow - one of their grandparents, a retired police officer, their own parents who came to the USA and built and existence for themselves and their children, a teacher in school, etc. Some of them ended up in academia, some of them started a business, some did well in sports in one way or another, some went into politics. Some are religious and pull that factor into the mix, others are secular or atheists. None of them seemed to be dirt-poor, nor did any of them seem to be rich, they all seemed to be part of the middle class.

All of them are, to use the term I dislike, 'people of colour'.

It can not be the case that both sides have it right here - either there is systemic oppression against people based on their skin colour or there is not. They claim this not to be the case and they back up their claims with data. They do not claim that there are no occurrences of discrimination based on skin colour but they _do_ claim that these are just that, individual occurrences. What makes it possible for these people to succeed and thrive where so many others fail to do so? Either the people I mentioned have it right and the cause lies in the negative effects of social programs which keep people tied to the state as the source of handouts, keeping them alive but in poverty, or those who claim that 'people of colour' are oppressed in the USA have it right and the ones I have been listening to for the past week live in a fantasy.

The people I listened - and listen - to do not get heard in the media for some reason, probably because their point of view does not fit the preferred narrative. They get called bad names like 'Coon' and 'Uncle Tom' in the cesspit of social media. When I hear them talk they sound convincing, when I check the statistics they cite they seem to corroborate their position. To me it seems they have a better grasp on the actual situation than those who makes claims about systemic racism but, not being an American, I can not be sure. I can just observe, read, listen, compare to similar situations in my own experience and my own environment and draw my own conclusions. Those conclusions lead me to believe they are closer to the truth than the loud voices heard in the media. They do not claim that there is _no_ discrimination, they claim there is no _systemic racism_. I know discrimination and racism exist, they even seem to be on the rise - there are not many Jews left in the city of Malmö for this reason - but that is not the same as _systemic racism_. I tried to table this subject before [2] and got a number of links related to what is claimed to be _systemic racism_ related issues in reply. I followed the links and found that most of the mentioned issues were either not indicative of _systemic racism_ or are mentioned as not being related to such in the interviews I've been listening to. My conclusion still stands, either those folks I've been listening to are deluded or the ones on the front pages of the news magazines are.

[1] Why I dislike that 'people of colour' term: From when I went to primary school it has been drilled into me that skin colour is not important, that it is merely superficial, that we're all people, that you should look beyond such things like you look beyond hair colour. That culture is what binds us no matter what colour we have. This seemed to work, things were getting better in my country (the Netherlands), culture _did_ seem to be the binding factor - and in other cases the dividing one. Culture, not colour. And then... things changed. Where before it was _not done_ to be focusing on that superficial aspect of skin colour suddenly a movement made itself heard which did _nothing but_ focus on skin colour. And, lo and behold, there actually _is_ more discrimination and racism in society now than there was before that movement got started. The cause-and-effect of this is unclear since this event more or less coincided with the arrival of a large number of migrants from the Middle- East and Africa but to me it certainly feels like this renewed focus on skin colour certainly did not make things better, nor does the expletive-laden simplistic rhetoric and labelling espoused by proponents of this movement.

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23421551](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23421551)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> "Flagged".

We need to at least listen to opposing views. The sanctimonious silencing of non mainstream views is scary.

<comment><USER9> It's really annoying to me that Hacker News is the forum which I regard as having the highest bar for conversational civility, but sadly the community completely refuses to discuss anything besides tech news and startup cheerleading.

<comment><USER10> I cannot attest to that at all. A good portion of all highly voted submissions were against the rules in the last two weeks and not tech at all.

<comment> non-entity Not even just the submissions, these sort of articles end up in discussions that break majority of thr _In Comments_ guidelines, shattering any illusions that HN is somehow superior to everywhere else on the internet.

IMO, I don't think the articles should neccesarily be flagged, as the rules seem kinda loosely interpreted on this stuff, but more of the comments should probably be flagged than get so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Sacramento Kings play-by-play announcer Grant Napear, who's been calling > games since 1988, was forced to resign after saying the words "all lives > matter."

I thought 'All lives matter' was commonsense.

<comment><USER12> "All Lives Matter" taken literally totally is compatible with "Black Lives Matter". However "All Lives Matter" when said is not meant literally. No one said all livers matter until someone said "Black Lives Matters". It's an attempt to shut down "Black Lives Matter". And the opposite of "Black Lives Matter" isn't the opposite of "All Lives Matter", the opposite is Black Lives Don't Matter, which is what is happening when so many black people are killed by the police and no one says or does anything. Looking at the evidence how black people are treated by law enforcement as well as the legal system, that they are treated as less than equal.

<comment><USER10> As a counterpoint, look at what happens with the "it's okay to be white" posters. Completely benign, commonsense and not a reaction to something. And yet...

<comment><USER13> Much like "radicalizing" the OK hand sign as meaning "WP," and the latest lolcow of making hawaiian shirts a sign of terrorist groups: seems like the right wing meme makers keep coming up with these things to alienate normies from activist types, and the left, who above all else in current year America, seems to enjoy thinking they have special knowledge that requires they lecture others about what is morally acceptable, keeps taking the bait. I don't see this pattern ending well.

<comment><USER10> I'm having honest problems parsing this comment. What's WP and what's a lolcow?

<comment><USER14> Ah well WP is WordPress, of course. Truly an evil thing that we must all apologize for, forever, or until it's perfectly bug-free.

As for lolcow, you'll be more entertained if you google it than if anyone explains it to you.

<comment><USER10> What a time to be alive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm all for diversity in thought - typically though this kind of thing gets flagged on HN.

After 9/11, invasion of Afghanistan and both Iraq wars there were songs banned from the radio and people were thrown out of malls for wearing t-shirts that were anti-war. Conservatives were all for that or had little to say about stifling free speech concerns. The argument was its private property and companies can do what they want.

There were plenty of pro war advocates that brow beat anyone who disagreed with any of those military actions. There was very little anti war sentiment on any of the major networks in the run-up to Iraq 2003. The disparity of pro war to anti war advocates on all the major networks and cable news channels was heavily tilted towards being in favor of invading Iraq. I recall watching Nightline on ABC when it still did heavy and serious news, when Ted Koeppel hosted it. They had a very honest forum about both sides, it was very even handed and I felt like everyone in America should have seen it, as it may have had more influence on the country. No one was watching it at 11:30 EST, and quite frankly it was too late. Nobody at Nation Review complained. It was all too convenient for them.

And now that the mood of the country has shifted so much that even Rush Limbaugh has the hosts of a black radio program, and even the typical right wing blowhards concede maybe there's a problem with racism and policy brutality. And the National Review, which has trained the political and cultural attack dog, that typically goes after those on the opposite side of political spectrum, suddenly they are afraid that the monster they've helped create is coming back to get them. And the comparison is so weak its pathetic. Just because NYT subscribers (full disclosue I am one) didn't think they should have published is crappy editorial. Suddenly we're the Chinese Cultural Revolution. This is pathetic.

Tom Cotton, a senator who could have published his editorial anywhere, and the NYT, a barely center left newspaper got grief about publishing it. No one is shutting down Tom Cotton, the subscribers of the NYT could and would have heard about Senator Cotton's ideas anywhere. What a bunch of whiners.

<comment> non-entity > Conservatives were all for that or had little to say about stifling free > speech concerns. The argument was its private property and companies can do > what they want

No one is actually principled. They just use these sort of ideals as a convenient talking point when it supports what they want, and it's not just Republicans.

<comment><USER15> This is entirely true. It's also the reason that more and more extreme ideas flourish.

The disingenuous engagement disillusions more reasonable people. People left of center see how Barack Obama was treated for the mildest of progressive ideas, and then decide that there's no point playing nice. I'm sure there is a similar analogy for conservatives.

If you don't listen to reasonable, accommodating people, don't be surprised that you are selecting for people on the extremes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If this is really the problem conservatives claim it is, there's a simple solution: Get a backbone and delete your social media accounts. Most platforms (unlike HN) provide account deletion functions (though some keep them well- hidden).

<comment><USER17> Most of us moderates were shamed off social media years ago. I locked myself out of my HN account because I was tired of being flame baited by Woke tyrants. Don't use Facebook, don't use Twitter. This new ideology seems more popular than it is because the sane people have left the internet. Most of us keep quiet about this stuff because any wrong think will end our careers.

Congrats, Woke people. You'll never know the size of your opposition until election day because you've made it too dangerous to question the narrative openly.

<comment><USER18> Maybe you aren't a moderate? I mean, you literally are calling anyone who participates in the internet these days insane. That hardly scans as a moderate take.

<comment><USER19> The ground has shifted. Someone who was a moderate in 1995 would be considered "alt-right" today.

<comment><USER20> This is pretty hyperbolic. Somebody who was "moderate" in 1995 could be considered left-leaning or right-leaning today, depending on their specific politics, and in fact, without any specific context like "internet free speech", I would think a majority of them would be considered more left- leaning on average today. And even if that isn't true, the alt-right is a pretty specific flavor of hate-motivated shitposters, not just "people who are heavily right-leaning".

<comment><USER19> If alt-right has any meaning at all, I agree that it _ought_ to refer to rather extreme beliefs. In practice, the left uses it as an all-purpose slur to refer to the half of the country that voted for the current President. (Hence my quotes.) These days, the only thing the word means is that the one uttering it is being an ass.

As a more specific example, though, Hillary Clinton was considered a moderate in the 90s. Back then she notably referred to Black youths as "superpredators". I think anyone doing so today would be seen as pretty far right. That's an example of the ground shifting.

[https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/aug/28/reince- pri...](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/aug/28/reince-priebus/did- hillary-clinton-call-african-american-youth-su/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _> The Times can claim that a harsh tone and a small factual error in Senator Tom Cotton's recent op-ed was the reason the entire paper had a meltdown, but the staffers who revolted initially claimed that Cotton's argument for bringing the National Guard into cities put black lives in "danger."_

Cotton's entire argument was that the military should be sent into the cities to crack protesters' heads, which is something significantly more aggressive than "a harsh tone."

If I were to take to the op-ed page of the _Times_ with the argument that national stability requires that we send the military to crack the heads of everybody who writes for the _National Review_ , I suspect they would waver somewhat in their commitment to unlimited free speech.

<comment><USER22> The op-ed draws a distinction between those who are peacefully protesting and those who were rioting and looting. Dropping that context seems unfair and misleading.

This paragraph - which is probably the source of the criticism - is clearly in the context of how to deal with rioters who are breaking the law by causing substantial damage.

"One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers. But local law enforcement in some cities desperately needs backup, while delusional politicians in other cities refuse to do what's necessary to uphold the rule of law."

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton- protes...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests- military.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Anytime someone equates private control of a private platform with an abridging of "free speech" rights I automatically think they have suffered a head injury that has damaged their ability to think and makes them take nonsensical positions.

If I flood Hacker News with TIMECUBE truth and they delete my posts are they infringing on my free speech rights?

> I am a Knower of 4 corner

>simultaneous 24 hour Days

>that occur within a single

>4 corner rotation of Earth.

If you disagree with that TRUTH you are a COMMUNIST from COMMUNIST CHINA, you DIRTY COMMUNIST.

<comment> non-entity Those downvoting this post are evil censors and are dangerous to society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is absurd. The New York Times opinion section is primarily for right-of- center opinions that support the ruling class. They let in center left and actually left ones from time to time to be able to claim it isn't. They went a little too far right on this one for their readership.

Have you ever seen an op-ed in the Times with a communist perspective on current affairs?

To those who think I am being hyperbolic, here is an op-ed they published in 2018 to no backlash.

Why We Miss the WASPs: Their more meritocratic, diverse and secular successors rule us neither as wisely nor as well.

If you want to understand more, here is an article in which Bennet (now resigned editor of the op-ed section) describes his ideology explicitly: [https://fair.org/home/top-nyt-editor-we-are-pro- capitalism-t...](https://fair.org/home/top-nyt-editor-we-are-pro-capitalism- the-times-is-in-favor-of-capitalism/)

<comment><USER25> While the article itself is kind of an exercise in dumb self-pity, and I don't think it hits the mark at all when talking about the Times, I will say I am noticing a pattern of "mind closing" in Leftist spaces over the past year. I think it really kicked into gear with the Democratic primary where a lot of the "New Left" media went into the tank for the Sanders campaign. Being too personally invested into a political campaign (especially a losing one) has a way of shorting out people's analytical brains. There's just a very strong ego-preservation incentive to shut naysayers up and to engage in obviously motivated reasoning to explain away failures, insist there is still hope even when there isn't, and to point fingers and deflect blame. These are all bad for keeping any sense of perspective, keeping an open mind about things, having a movement that can actually assimilate new facts as situations evolve, or be able to talk to people outside who aren't already bought in. It's kind of like a fractional distillation, eventually the heat starts boiling off different groups of people, who might have added vitality or useful intellectual perspective to the movement, until you're left with kind of a burnt-out sludge on the bottom.

Of course, those outlets actually have really small readerships in the grand scheme of things. This dynamic mostly happens in smaller groups chats, forums, subreddits, discords, etc. But these groups do tend to punch above their weight in the minds of journalists because they're big on Twitter, and most journalists/media people spend way too much time on Twitter. I think what might be happening with the NYTimes debacle is people are reading their personal experiences in whatever smaller discussion groups they've been involved in into the Opinion section of the Times. What they're missing is the context that this is largely centrist journalists mad at a breach of standards rather than idealogues who can't just deal with people who disagree with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The problem with this narrative is that it _really_ doesn't fit. When you encounter situations like this, it's good to ground yourself as close to reality as you can get. Ie, ask questions such as: How has the guns? Who has the money? Who has the media? The clergy? etc.

In the case of the The Cultural Revolution, the answers were simple. Mao had it all and he cracked down hard. In the case of the Soviets, the answer is also the same - the party had all the guns, all the money, all the media and the clergy were irrelevant.

This situation is nothing like that. Conservatives control the guns, both officially (executive, half the legislature, most of the courts, most of law enforcement) and unofficially (the right-wing militias, which can show up anywhere and demand anything with guns and get treated deferentially). Money and Media are split, with everyone amassing on each side. The clergy is very heavily on the conservative side.

So no, this is much closer to the Prague Spring than it is to the Cultural Revolution.</comment>


My @JFK Twitter account "has been suspended and will not be restored" - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@john_43250/death-of-jfk-or-why-twitter-permanently-suspended-the-only-thing-that-made-me-cool-2a4bb9420d82#.x6muu4kyy <comment><USER2> I don't think you can impersonate an airport. They should revise the message to say that they're taking his username for "imairportation".

Kind of reminds me of:

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

Except in the real world, if you buy the domain name it's yours, while being an early adopter of Twitter just gets your account shut down if Twitter thinks they can make more money by giving it to someone else.

Finally, it's not like he told people to message John Fitzgerald Kelley with complaints about KJFK airport. They did that on their own, and he just took it in stride. That's what passes for a terms of service violation these days.

<comment><USER3> One of the senses of "impersonate" is "to manifest or embody in one's own person". Thus the _person_ in impersonate is the person assuming the identity, not the person or thing whose identity is being assumed.

<comment><USER2> Overall unconvincing. People also messaged "him" to bemoan his assassination. Did they actually think they were talking to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, even though they obviously knew he was dead?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I sympathise with the author, the end result was pretty inevitable. Getting a popular handle like that is both a blessing and a curse.

My experience from the other side: There is a well know budget airline here in Australia which (like all budget airlines) is renowned for it's poor service. After one particular bad flight experience a couple of years ago, I hastily sent off an annoyed tweet @airlinename.

A few minutes later, I received a barrage of insults and self righteous tweets from that account. Checking the account history, I see that is is some guy in the UK with the same handle as the airline, and looking at his historical timeline, it seems to be his routine day job to hurl insults at anyone who mistakenly tweets him thinking that is the airline's twitter handle.

Fair enough, I should have checked first. But he never pretended to be a rep from the airline - just a rude, bad tempered git with poor spelling and grammar skills, so I was never mislead, and I just forgot about the incident. Until a few months later when I checked on that account again and discovered that it was now a private account.

</comment><comment><USER3> He may have not created the account with the intension of misleading anyone, but he lost moral authority when he started replying to tweets in a manner designed to reinforce confusion (for example, by using the pronoun 'we').

<comment><USER5> Plus his profile picture is JFK airport's signage.

That's clearly designed to mislead. Just go look at his own screenshots of his tweets in the article. It is pretty damning.

<comment><USER3> It is not. It was derived from the banner image on this page:

[http://airportparkingguides.com/jfk-airport-parking- guide/](http://airportparkingguides.com/jfk-airport-parking-guide/)

I found it via a Google image search for "JFK airport"; it was the fifth result.

<comment><USER5> You say "it is not" then link to something tying his profile image to the airport? All you've done is reinforce what I said, that it is clearly designed to mislead and impersonate the airport.

People in this thread act like this is "David and Goliath" when in reality the owner of the JFK Twitter handle intentionally changed his profile picture to one associated with the international airport then acted as a representative in order to generate complaints/bad sentiment.

It is pretty indefensible. It wasn't an accident or a mistake. He did it over days, not hours, and further compounded the deceit by changing the account's profile picture to misleading people into believing he was the facility.

Sorry, but I would have killed that account too. I would not be able to trust him not to do it again in the future, and frankly he might be better off losing it than getting sued by the airport (even if he doesn't appreciate that at the moment).

<comment><USER6> They meant "it is not [JFK signage]" which is a pedantic attempt to deflect because they either have nothing to add or think it's fine and rather not defend it directly. The profile image is specifically related to JFK by image (which he sought and chose)...making it intentionally confusing or casually confusing because he rather use a clip of an image from a site dedicated to JFK airport, rather than make up his own MSpaint image. Indefensible is the correct term, if-and-only-if Twitter has decided that monikers don't mean anything unless they do. There have been similar fights in naming Guilds in WoW, AOL usernames, etc. It's to be expected and acting surprised is just noise.

<comment><USER3> I completely agree. I did not mean that it is not official JFK signage, and therefore OK. The fact that the picture was very likely found via an image search for "jfk airport" is just further evidence of deliberate impersonation. It is not exculpatory in any way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Unfortunately, these kinds of things happen all too often. Corporations don't have souls. Someone likely reported the guy and some worker making pennies in the Philippines spent a few seconds on his case and moved on to the next hundred. The only way to get them to care is if you're someone important, or if you kick up a big enough storm. The way companies like Google are moving towards automating human decisions (as evident in Youtube and the Play Store) will only exacerbate the alienation users will face. This is the future we choose with these megacorporations. One user is a not even a raindrop in their ocean and is not worth the monetary expense to them to provide reasonable support for. Of course you're a guest on their platform, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have expectations for how you are treated. The only solution is to move towards platforms where you are in control (like Diaspora) or ones that are small enough to respect you personally. The internet was supposed to bring us closer together, but with things like anonymity and scale, sometimes the worst parts just overwhelm the rest.

</comment><comment><USER8> The author got me until he showed the screenshots where he impersonated the airport.

I mean, you could complain if you got your Twitter account suspended for no clear reason. Maybe the airport or some other big party attempting to unfairly get your handle. But this does't seem to be the case here.

</comment><comment><USER9> What a strange blog post. It goes from being a strong argument why he should have the @JFK account to a strong argument why he shouldn't.

</comment><comment><USER10> > I can't help feeling like I'm getting the death penalty for a parking > violation

I think our obsession with short/cool handles is strange, and even stranger is people building their "empire" on something that can be taken from you so arbitrarily.

It's the same as people expecting to get free-speech on Twitter/FB/Tumblr.

Even domains, which can't be taken from you on a whim, can be made far less "valuable" with the introduction on new TLDs.

</comment><comment><USER11> TL;DR - Guy with JFK twitter handle decides to impersonate airport. Outcome is predictable.

<comment><USER7> Your tldr is missing the point though. They know how they messed up, the point of their post is to show the disproportionate and impersonal response they received to something that was just supposed to be some fun.

<comment><USER12> "Fun" is in the eye of the beholder. The people tweeting at him may have _never_ realized that this wasn't the airport.

If you want some fun, go play a video game or something. I have no sympathy for someone who gets their fun at other people's expense.

<comment><USER13> How was it at someone else's expense?

<comment><USER12> From the images in the article, @DapperDapo tweeted out loud, tagging @JFK, asking what the right handle was to file a complaint. @JFK responded. They then proceeded to state their complaint, and @JFK mocked them.

> What's @jfk Twitter page. I have complaints.

< @DapperDapo we don't take complaints, only compliments. #WhyPeopleSoAngry?

> Why are there 2 people working the customs line when two international > flights just landed? @JFK

< @DapperDapo Duh. One per flight. Next question?

It's very likely (keep in mind they were probably on mobile if they were tweeting from a customs line, and @JFK has display name "JFK" and a photo of the airport as its profile picture) that they believed that they successfully reached someone at JFK, and the airport hires grumpy people. In fact, the joke is only funny if that's the case, if they were tricked into believing they talked to the airport.

A very good contrast is @slack, a human named Matt Slack. His profile picture shows his face, and his display name is "Matt Slack", not "Slack". If you tag him by mistake (which happens very often!) he'll reply with some sort of joke about how he's a person and not a messaging system. Funny, classy, and not attempting to mislead. The humor is always about him very clearly _not_ being @SlackHQ, as opposed to him being a rude version of @SlackHQ. [https://twitter.com/slack/with_replies](https://twitter.com/slack/with_replies)

<comment><USER13> But where is the notable negative impact to those two people's lives?

I ain't denying that he was being a goober to them, but "at their expense" implies its at their expense

I don't see how it goes further than, them getting to the next worker at the airport, saying "UGH, your PR on twitter sucks!", and then being told "maam/sir, that is not our twitter account"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ha, I know the early adopter pride. I have a cool phone number from Google Voice and occasionally drop "in my day" from my 10 year old reddit account. I know it's silly, but there's a little bit of pride there.

Must be sad to lose @jfk. I know technically he did have it coming, but it seems like the kind of thing where maybe you could get a warning first or something.

<comment><USER15> Pride comes with embarrassment. I have an almost 12 year old steam account and am regularly ridiculed for playing CSGO poorly with a 10 years+ veteran's badge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Twitter's namespace belongs to Twitter alone. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves.

</comment><comment><USER12> > _I tweeted 9 times in response to people who tweeted at me, who were > directing their ire at the wrong place, and who really should just lighten > up a bit._

"You should just lighten up" is a good sign that you have no argument and you're being a jerk. It is the catchphrase of a schoolyard bully who never grew out of that phase.

And the best part is it can apply either way. Twitter took your account that you had for 9 years! That's pretty funny! You're not on Twitter any more! Just lighten up, go outside, and stop using Twitter. Get a sense of humor, okay? What, you don't like me turning your argument around on you? Lighten up a bit!

</comment><comment><USER17> While my account hasn't been suspended I get similar mis-tweeted traffic. Probably because most of the people using Twitter don't know how to use it correctly.

</comment><comment><USER18> This leaves you with something to think about: Can one assume that one can continue to avail such services forever? Maybe it is only a matter of time when (1) the provider stops offering services (selectively), (2) it becomes paid, (3) it ceases to exist.

Maybe it's good to be prepared that it might happen.

</comment><comment><USER19> In a perfect world, Twitter would restore your account, and JFK airport would hire you as SVP Customer Service.</comment>


Sears adds a little zombie style to its site - <AUTHOR> http://www.sears.com:80/shc/s/dap_10153_12605_DAP_Zombie?origin=zeta&storeId=10153&catalogId=12605&expCheckout=&orderEmail=&langId=

<comment><USER2> This is a surprisingly creative bit of Halloween flair from _Sears_ , of all companies. If you didn't notice, you can switch the language to "Zombian" in the top right corner of the page. The following link should work to get you there directly - <http://www.sears.com/shc/s/dap_10153_12605_DAP_Zombian>

</comment><comment><USER3> to _its_ site.

</comment><comment><USER4> reddit repost</comment>


Ask HN: How does the technology that marks spam as dead on HN work? - <AUTHOR>

It seems to work reasonably well. But I don't imagine a lot of resources are dedicated to it.<p>So how does PG have it set up? How has it changed over time? <comment><USER2> If it's anything more than ordinary users flagging spam when they see it on the new page, that's news to me.</comment>


Ask HN: Is my concept and current application viable? - <AUTHOR>

Hi
I have recently finished the first launchable product of my "startup" for want of a better word. http://jv.binkd.com
The basics - it connects businesses to join together to form joint ventures to help increase both of their businesses.
I am struggling to get constructive feedback on this application and whether it is actually ready for me to take further or needs a different approach.
The responses from people testing so far have been, looks good, good concept and it will be useful once you have lots of people. Not exactly confidence building.
So my question, is it just the people I require to increase it's usefulness and am I ready to hit my foot on the accelerator?
Currently this is funded by my other business activites in Binkd (Jvee is a small off shoot), I am not new to business but am fairly new to web based startups and the startup community in general.
I would be very greatful for anyone who could offer constructive feedback on this application and concept.
Thanks Adam <comment><USER2> Hi Adam,

I just went through your site. A few things from the 5 mts I spent there

1\. I find the name hard to pronounce. It would be tough for me to remember the name let alone spread it 2\. As a business owner you didnt convince me about how exactly I benefit by collaborating with other businesses. Any case studies? Personal experience? I haven't felt the need to collaborate with other businesses to improve mine. But if you can convince me about it I wouldn't mind trying it. 3\. Monetization. What are your plans?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for checking out the site. Some case studies would be a great idea, I am about to use the software myself (in real business) to setup/manage a few JV's, I shall publish the results. Thanks for that idea.

Monetization - freemium model. Once numbers have increased to a threshold, the amount of businesses you would wonder who you could trust. Business relationships are formed around trust. So additional verification added to businesses who want to upgrade and also the current limit of a max of 5 active Joint Ventures lifted, among a few other things.

Thank you for giving your feedback. I appreciate the time you took to do it.

<comment><USER2> All the best!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Also in addition to the case studies that I need to put up, I do actually have a blog post on ways businesses can work together, if your interested to read over it or maybe it will give greater insight into what binkd is trying to achieve.

[http://jvblog.binkd.com/general/10-ways-to-expand-your- busin...](http://jvblog.binkd.com/general/10-ways-to-expand-your-business-by- joint-ventures/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The one issue I have with the concept is that "joint venture" means so many things to different businesses - it can be as simple as pooling cash for a marketing campaign (probably quite easy to arrange via a website like yours) or as complicated as setting up a separate legal entity after years of debate, due diligence and contract negotiation. Generally I'd consider things like sponsorship and donations (mentioned in your blog post) to be a different beast entirely.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are 2 ways to do this, either open up and do it more as a social b2b site and not so focused on JV's or close it down further and more specifically what type of JV this site accepts.

You are right that JV means a lot to different people and I think that the word joint venture probably has to go and I need to close this down further to only support certain types of joint ventures.

Any suggestions?

And thanks for taking the time to look at my site.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ok, 30 mins, not one piece of feedback. I did learn about links becoming active in comments and not posts, which is something at least.

Maybe I should ask the question on how do I get people to respond to my questions? Because my experience over the last week is showing I am failing fairly badly at it. :)

</comment><comment><USER4> My 2 cents... I don't want to sign up to see how the system works, I'd rather be looking at other businesses with goals similar to mine, and if I want to get in touch... BOOM! Sign up time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just an idea. If made the search open to the public, but required a little bit of information at the start e.g. what industry you are in etc (some search parameters, but not identifiable information) then it turned up unimpressive results (as it would at the moment since there are not many businesses in there)

Then say, do you want to be notified of any other businesses that are interested in a JV with you in the future.

Would you signup to that? Or would you move along?

<comment><USER4> You raise an excellent point. I normally do shove my email address into things to be notified of in the future, and the weirdest thing is I hardly ever get notified.

I think this would work well (for people like me anyway...)

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent. I think I might give that approach a try. Some extra coding for me tonight, though it will be fairly easy to add to the existing site :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have gone about this the completely wrong way.

Rebuild time :) (not as drastic as I just made it sound)

Thank you everyone for letting me think this out.

</comment><comment><USER5> Linkity! <http://jv.binkd.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> what is the process for making a link active in HN.

Do I do html? BBCode?

<comment><USER6> links in the body of your post will not become a hyperlink. only in comments do they become clickable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just a small thing: Upload your logo in higher res

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, will do.</comment></comment>


Desktop Big Bang Shows Time Travel May Be Possible After All - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/model-big-bang/

<comment><USER2> FTA - "That doesn't mean that real time travel is possible," he said. "But for this analog model, it is so."

Way to get my hopes up with the headline crappy science journalism...

</comment><comment><USER3> Misleading headline. Misleading article.

It's like saying: _Hey! Time Travel is possible. All you really need is a capsule that travels at the speed of light going around an infinitely long cylinder. See? Possible._

</comment><comment><USER4> I've always looked at it like this: Time travel is possible and we're doing it all the time, just at the standard rate. Mathematic models show that if you travel close to the speed of light that time slows down, effectively making you travel faster into the future. Once you hit light speed (which is theoretically impossible), time essentially stops. Past that (also theoretically impossible), I would imagine time reverses, though I haven't studied this stuff in years. Granted we'll probably never be able to travel that fast or backwards in time, but we're all traveling through time, just at 1second/second.

<comment><USER5> Time travel becomes a much greater possibility in the event of multiverse being true, because then causality doesn't matter.

If every decision 'creates' a new universe, then your birth doesn't depend on the duplicate grandfather in the time travelled universe. Sure time-duplicate you won't live, but that won't cause you to cease to exist.

In a linear universe time travel is paradoxical because you're literally creating a loop in time and any action you take is likely to cause a knot. In a multiverse you're simply rearranging matter to a prior state with the exception of you, it's still a continuous line of time. Time hasn't changed, the matter in the universe has.

I personally believe I'm travelling through time at 1.1second/second and I'm impatiently waiting for everyone to catch up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Would you go to the past or to the future?

<comment><USER7> As you accelerate, time moves more slowly for you relative to a stationary (or slower moving) observer. Time speeds up for everything relative to you.

See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation>

There's also various experiments with atomic clocks proving this on an extremely small scale. Basically, as you move through space, you also distort time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Aren't we traveling in time with each moment anyway?</comment>