Frank Gehry started off building cities with his grandma - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/frank-gehry-started-off-building-cities-with-his-grandma-1.5491434 <comment><USER2> I'm not an architect, but I have a fantasy about building a new type of city.

High density city centers have transport and other infrastructure largely concentrated on one or two levels. This means that it is impossible for most people to use vehicles because the streets cannot possibly accommodate so many. So there are trains. Trains sort of work, but they are still quite crowded and uncomfortable, and overall do not permit point-to-point travel and are slow compared to direct travel by vehicle.

So my thought is, plan for an area that has several say 60 story buildings in a group.

The basic idea is for tall buildings to be connected on multiple levels. For example, if you have a type of roadway every ten floors, in sixty floors there would be five elevated roadways. These would mainly need to handle small single passenger automated pods, or anyway vehicles less than 1000 pounds.

This requires the architecture to cooperate in a way that is not possible without sophisticated sharing of CAD designs.

Or it might be a type of cooperative enterprise to build a robust skeletal structure for reservation group, which would then be filled in by individual owners or tenants after the superstructure was complete.

Well, it's not entirely a new concept, since many people have had similar ideas, at least in terms of multi-level cities.

<comment><USER3> I am not an architect, and I've dreamed of building a new city for most of my life (I'm 43 now).

I tried to build a startup to address this desire in 2017. We ended up building something different, hopefully useful but far away from my initial dream. [0]

I recently decided to give it another try [1], and applied to the "Apollo Projects" program [2] just a few days ago. Hope to hear from them soon :)

[0]: www.fabrica.land

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtMybYBGCwc&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtMybYBGCwc&feature=youtu.be)

[2]: [https://apolloprojects.com/](https://apolloprojects.com/)

Edit: forgot to add one comment: tall (20+ stories) buildings are actually NOT the best way to have good density and "livability" of a city center.

It's a long discussion, but just look at the monsters that Le Corbusier (Radiant City [3]) and others tried to build in the past. Almost unanimously, architects and engineers agree today that these are not the right paradigm to build a city.

Great additional reads if you're curious: "Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander, and "The Death and Life of great american cities" by Jane Jacobs.

[3]: [https://99percentinvisible.org/article/ville-radieuse-le- cor...](https://99percentinvisible.org/article/ville-radieuse-le-corbusiers- functionalist-plan-utopian-radiant-city/)

<comment><USER2> Okay I am aware that many architects do not like tremendous skyscrapers these days. However, my concept, which I have not fully specified, would be unlike any existing design which they may correctly criticize.

Here is another very different idea I had before (which was criticized for not being dense enough): [http://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage/](http://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage/)

But I am really curious to know what sort of structures or design you prefer.

<comment><USER3> That's interesting!

The ones I personally prefer are the ones that have been proven over decades, or better centuries. Pretty much any city center in most small/medium towns in Europe, for example.

Jan Gehl's Strøget in Copenhagen is, AFAIK, the best example of readapting a large city to a proven, older model.

[0]: [https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/urbanism- planning/j...](https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/urbanism-planning/jan- gehl-copenhagen-and-the-trajectory-of-city-planning_o)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Gehry is a great example of how architects have lost touch with what normal people consider attractive or useful. I'm yet to meet anyone that hasn't studied architecture that likes his buildings.

<comment><USER5> I went to architecture school, Gehry is extremely unpopular amongst most contemporary architects. He's considered more of an artist then an architect.

<comment><USER6> Are contemporary architects disliking his work a sort of counter culture sort of way (because he is everywhere)? What are fundamental complaints against his work?

Did Frank Gehry advance architecture in a way that people are standing on top of his work (figuratively speaking)?

<comment><USER7> There are generally two types of architects: white collar and blue collar.

White collar architects are artists, and spend their time designing. Then they hand their sketches to structural engineers and say "Figure out how to build this." These are generally the folks architecture magazines write about.

Blue collar architects are more engineers and tradespeople, and see success as a building that fits the purposes of the client, in budget, in a pleasing way. They're more likely to repurpose a historical form, if it's well suited for the request at hand.

One of the central features of architecture meta is that white collars think blue collars lack creativity and intelligence, and blue collars think white collars are pompous pricks.

<comment><USER8> Who do blue collar type architects look to for inspiration or guidance?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Personally I like his forms. But I sometimes wonder if he is a good architect. Maybe he should be called a great artist.

The same can be said about some website/app designers. Beautiful designs but barely useable. Maybe those designers should also be called artists.

<comment><USER10> Have you lived in one of his buildings/have you insight if they really are hard to live in/use? They look that way, but the outside of a building doesn't necessarily translate to the same on the inside.

<comment><USER7> I've worked in one, at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. The Peter B. Lewis Building: [https://weatherhead.case.edu/about/facilities/lewis/default](https://weatherhead.case.edu/about/facilities/lewis/default)

Among other problems: (1) no provision was made for the fact that Cleveland gets snow and ice, leading to barriers for pedestrians to avoid their evisceration via detaching ice sheets from the curved roof, (2) the glare off the roof is focused straight down a nearby street @ 5pm, creating driving hazards, (3) it's difficult to navigate internally from one side of the building to the other.

Most star architects are hacks, coasting one step ahead of being made to answer for the flaws of their previous projects. The more famous the architect, the more they feel obliged to ignore basic design.

<comment><USER11> I think this photo ([http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5PEXDshWZlA/UaTCV9uc1OI/AAAAAAAAAC...](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5PEXDshWZlA/UaTCV9uc1OI/AAAAAAAAAC4/C5J8rgybYlo/s1600/pbl_toward- lake.jpg)) perfectly illustrates why this type of architecture is a literal nightmare. It has no concept of its' physical surroundings or geography, it's just someone's abstract fever dream plucked from the sky and plopped into a setting where it makes zero sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are there any Facebook engineers who worked in the Gehry building? How was it working there?

<comment><USER12> I spent time there on a few occasions. It is an interesting building in that it is huge, but somehow it still feels kind of comfortable and localized. Kind of like a shopping mall but without the walls, but the walls aren't necessary.

The park on the roof is _phenomenal_. There are thousands of people working below you and you'd never know it, it's more like just being on a hill near the bay.</comment></comment>


'We won and we didn't notice' - a conversation with Jeremy Allison of Samba - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/open/features/We-won-and-we-didn-t-notice-a-conversation-with-Jeremy-Allison-of-Samba-1334992.html <comment><USER2> At my company, I develop on a Linux system for a Linux system, using Linux servers to store source code.

Things are getting more and more 'penguin' all the time. :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Where once Samba and Apache sold Linux to the world they are now just part of the plumbing."

What I'm taking away from this article is that indeed Linux has became plumbing. Long gone are the glamorous times when Linux and the FOSS movement in general were the underdog and apparently the price for victory is becoming a commodity.

<comment><USER4> Why is being a commodity a "price"? Even if we are applying the (obsolete) ideals of commercial success, nearly every company I know of would _love_ to be a commodity.

<comment><USER3> I didn't mean it that way, Linux did become ubiquitous but not in the way some people (including me) hoped it would. I mostly meant that despite being one of cornerstone of the internet, it's far from the glamorous future some of us hoped for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The all one one page version:

[http://www.h-online.com/open/features/We-won-and-we-didn- t-n...](http://www.h-online.com/open/features/We-won-and-we-didn-t-notice-a- conversation-with-Jeremy-Allison-of-Samba-1334992.html?view=print)

</comment><comment><USER6>
      > ... developer Jeremy Allison met up with Richard
      > Hillesley. Here, Richard Allison's description of
      > the ...

Richard Allison? Wat?

</comment><comment><USER7> Note to Microsoft PR flacks: it now behooves you to rail against the oppressive Linux monoculture.

Also, there must be quite a few underdog skins hanging in your walls, try donning one of them for greater effect.

(But do not kill whatever seed you now have of what will be the Microsoft Linux release of 2016/17.)

</comment><comment><USER8> For context:

 _"In twenty years everything has become Linux. I have a music system that is entirely Linux-based. I have a video streaming and TV watching system that is entirely Linux-based. I wouldn't be surprised if every flat screen television I have is also Linux-based. The laptop and the desktop my wife uses to do her online banking and email is Linux. My phone is Linux, and my son's tablet PC is Linux..."_

So his family uses Linux and they've apparently won. That's like Steve Ballmer saying his kid use Zune so they won the MP3 wars.

With that said Linux has become the most popular Unix variant by a large margin -- but who hasn't noticed? It's been years in the making, well telegraphed, with thousands of articles written about it.

<comment><USER9> But I think you would be surprised by the amount of consumer electronic devices that run linux. My Toshiba TV runs linux, and it doesn't have a DVR or anything like that. None of those fancy widgets and internet connectivity. Just a plain up TV running linux.

<comment><USER10> [It's not that I don't believe you, just curious] .. how do you know it runs Linux?

<comment><USER11> Well, I can't speak for the parent, but my Panasonic Viera TV had a little note in the on-screen menu about software licenses with a URL (and also the complete text of the GPL). I downloaded it and it included a Linux kernel. I have no idea which part runs Linux (the whole thing, or just the part that reads jpegs off of the SD cards) or if there is any good way to get a shell...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: T3 – Template to build Three.js applications - <AUTHOR> http://maurizzzio.github.io/t3/docs/

<comment><USER2> Very nice. Especially good job on making a nice page detailing how everything works.

You might be interested in a similar boilerplate that I put together, which using Require.js to structure the application: [https://github.com/felixpalmer/amd- three.js](https://github.com/felixpalmer/amd-three.js)

One pain point that my setup solves that I haven't seen many THREE.js boilerplates tackle is the ease of writing GLSL for creating custom shaders. Here I've supplied a Require.js plugin which allows you to pull your GLSL code in as dependancies and provides some basic pre-processing like #import and modifying #defines from JavaScript.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! I'll see how you fixed the problem and try to add it to the boilerplate

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For anyone unfamiliar with Three.js (like I was a minute ago), it's evidently a JavaScript library for 3D graphics: [https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/](https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Someone might be interested in an interactive version I made here [http://callum.com/apps/threejs_app_template_interactive/inde...](http://callum.com/apps/threejs_app_template_interactive/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks like it will be useful. I often make small visualisations of my work in physics with Three.js and the boilerplate time gets annoying sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks promising. Just out of interest, do you think it would be easy to build a hardware accelerated 2D interface using this setup?

<comment><USER7> Have you looked at pixi.js?

[http://pixijs.com](http://pixijs.com)

<comment><USER6> I wasn't aware of pixi.js before, but I am now, I think it's great, thank you atrilumen! This was probably my favourite project using it... www.spaceneedle.com/home/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very cool, I'll be keeping this in mind for the next Ludum Dare! :)</comment>


Find the people you've crossed paths with - <AUTHOR> https://www.happn.com/

<comment><USER2> It's like Tinder, but for stalkers!

</comment><comment><USER3> This app is for Facebook users only, don't bother downloading it if you're not on Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER4> Preposterous. The individuals shown are young, photogenic, employed, attractive, physically fit persons with no obvious medical maladies. The target demographic is minuscule.</comment>


Spy agencies target mobile phones, app stores to implant spyware - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/spy-agencies-target-mobile-phones-app-stores-to-implant-spyware-1.3076546 <comment><USER2> "The case raises questions about whether government agencies, even covert ones, should carry some responsibility for informing citizens of weaknesses they've unearthed in devices, operating systems and online infrastructure"

It should be legislation that any government agency discovers a security issue that it must be disclosed, promptly to software vendors, then after patched, it must also disclose to the public. Accountability is the keyword here. A major security agency must be accountable to security issues it finds, crazy right? After all, these agencies are suppose to be protecting their own citizens, or one would hope so...

<comment><USER3> Duh. They do. Not doing that is the same as not revealing, say, a microbe that would be useful for wiping out some disfavored population, or, worse still, genetically engineering such a microbe. The people who make and sell exploits to governments are no better than freelance biologists weaponizing microbes.

It is hypocritical of them to rattle on about "cyber terror" and conduct their own cyber war with the same weapons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sometimes I feel we miss the wood for the trees. Spy agencies implant SPYware, not that surprising.

Surely the real story, the original Snowden story, was about PRISM the way large corporations do the bidding for spy agencies letting them tap information at the source. This was quickly drowned in a sea of other stories, and is hardly ever mentioned any more.

<comment><USER5> The story is that agencies that are tasked with foreign spying are spying dragnet-fashion on their own citizens and citizens of allies.

<comment><USER6> ? Quoting the article:

> Respecting agreements not to spy on each others' citizens, the spying > partners focused their attention on servers in non-Five Eyes countries,

<comment><USER7> That's bullshit imho, Snowden's documents showed that GCHQ spied on American citizens & NSA spied on British citizens so that they could bypass the whole "don't spy on nationals" rule.

<comment><USER6> I clipped the next three words since they didn't seem relevant but maybe they are. "the document suggests." so some snowden documents are bullshit and some aren't?

<comment><USER8> Every Snowden document is authentically what someone in a large and complex organization said. That someone may or may not have had accurate information.

If you've ever talked to 2 co-workers who have a different understanding of a particular decision, then you know the phenomena.

That said, it would be perfectly plausible that spy agencies could have maintained a policy of, "We will passively collect and analyze all transmissions, including our own citizens" along with one of, "We will actively infect devices, but make an attempt not to be attacking our own citizens in the process."

So it is possible that both documents were completely correct.

<comment><USER6> All true. Mostly I'm just entertained by how HN resolves apparent conflicts between documents, and which bullet points trump which other bullet points.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > it appears they didn't alert the companies or the public to these > weaknesses. That potentially put millions of users in danger of their data > being accessed by other governments' agencies, hackers or criminals.

I don't care if the bug finder is a white hat researcher or a spy working for NSA: It's the writer of the bug who puts the user in danger, not the finder of it.

<comment><USER10> It's not an either/or. The behavior of the bug finder directly impacts the amount of danger end users are put in.

Selling 0 day exploits also puts the user in more danger.

Posting exploits publicly without attempting to notify the maintainer also puts the user in more danger.

Keeping exploits secret also puts the user in more danger (though less than selling them).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are journalists dripfeeding us Snowden revelations? Why are these revelations news now, long after the initial disclosure? The same question could apply to any new disclosure.

<comment><USER12> Yes, [http://cryptome.org/2013/11/snowden- tally.htm](http://cryptome.org/2013/11/snowden-tally.htm)

Because this leak wasn't a "publish everything at once" leak. Snowden wanted the journalists to decide what to release, and that requires work, which takes time.

<comment> chroem- Two entire years, though?

It's like they're trying to release them just slowly enough so that public outrage never quite reaches critical mass. They can still trickle all they want, but I would appreciate it if they released these stories a bit more regularly and closer together.

<comment><USER13> or helping ensure that each story gets some play in the media vs. one period of outrage and then back to business as usual.

<comment><USER11> Or different journalists looking to make a name for themselves after the other stories died down

<comment><USER14> It's almost as if journalism was a business, and Snowden stories were a valuable commodity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not sure I know anyone using the UC Browser; are most users in China?

According to Wikipedia, it routes all data through a proxy which modifies the data in order to improve performance on mobile platforms (e.g., by using compression). I think that proxy is a much more likely target for attacks than 500 million individual phones.

</comment><comment><USER16> By now, absolutely everyone knows that using a mobile phone is not secure if you really are trying to keep something safe.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is anyone else struck by the "banality of evil" aspect to all these internal powerpoint style presentations? These documents are interchangeable with some plumbing and heating supply chain company marketing presentation, except they are spying on the planet.

<comment><USER18> Banality of Evil? Come on. Equating SIGINT programs to protect America's interest with the Nazi party is really shrill. I'm no NSA defender, but I believe nations have the right to SIGINT programs to protect their interests. The real question is what implementations and limitations are acceptable.

>These documents are interchangeable with some plumbing and heating supply chain company

Efficiency is universal. Powerpoint-like presentations work in the corporate structure. Memos, emails, etc are used for a reason. Look at Al Qaeda's job application form, its bizarrely corporate. Or how Osama Bin Laden's bookshelf is straight out of a HN reading list. Or how drug dealers hire Ivy League finance guys to run operations that, if you didn't know the product, would assume it was some boring commodity widget being sold.

There's no James Bond-ish school of super technology or unique processes. Whatever management fads are popular in the business world work their way into government, and that includes intelligence, military, space programs, etc. I'm always a little surprised at how cheap looking every NASA press conference is and how many technical issues they always seem to have (mic issues, streaming issues, etc). If there's really a balality of evil, I'd say that's just a subset of the banality of all bureaucracies.

If anything, unique organizations that are successful tend to be extremely rare. Startup culture and other 'progressive organizations' just end up being 'office lite' until they go mainstream/IPO/whatever then they fully embrace becoming a regular office. The only non-trivial organization I can think that is successful and has a unique structure is probably Valve, with its fascinating flat management style.

edit: downvotes for suggesting that maybe the NSA shouldn't be compared to the party that gassed 6 million people solely for their ethnicity? Grow up, HN.

<comment><USER19> > Banality of Evil? Come on. Equating SIGINT programs to protect America's > interest with the Nazi party is really shrill.

Comparisons based on common themes are not the same as holding that the things being compared are equal. The source material for the quote is a general comment upon evil, drawn from a reflection upon Eichmann. It is not a specific comment upon the Nazis, but that normal people doing things that seem perfectly normal (indeed right) to them can perpetuate terrible crimes. The observation goes something like this:

"The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and our moral standards of judgement, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together, for it implied… This new type of criminal… Commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or feel that he is doing wrong" (s.276)

"It was as though in those last minutes [of Eichmann's life] he was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness taught us – the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil." (s.252)

\- _Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the Banality of Evil._ Hannah Arendt.

<comment><USER17> Yes, in fact that is precisely what I meant.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


On (Startup) Chile - <AUTHOR> http://hervalicio.us/post/14915671294/on-startup-chile

<comment><USER3> I was in same group as Herval and he is a good guy. This said, I have a huge problem with this general mentality and I think a lot of today's entrepreneurs are spoiled brats that don't have their perspectives right.

I have had an awesome experience in Chile and it has been one of my best decisions I have made. I have met my girlfriend here, I have scaled my business a lot, I have learned to surf, I have met amazing people from all around the world etc. On top of this, my company got $40.000 free money. The reimbursement process could be improved, but generally I did not have that much problems with it.

The problem I see is that people expect everything on a silver plate. They expect everything to be perfect. And of course, if you expect this you will be disappointed by Chile and Start-Up Chile - - because it isn't perfect and they have a long way to go, but they are trying hard to create a good platform for entrepreneurs and so far I think they are doing a great job (and a better job than most other countries in the world).

Maybe this lack of perspectives is culturally/experience bound. For me, my dad's story as an entrepreneur gives me perspective that I have it good and that I have much better opportunities than he ever had. My dad was an entrepreneur that quit his factory job to start his own business in his early 20's. He worked 12 hours pr. day at least. He worked and scaled his business for over 20 years - - to provide education for my siblings and good life for my family. Then the Bosnian war came and we lost it _all_. We had to relocate to Denmark, a country where we did not speak the language (and I can tell you that Danish isn't an easy language to learn). What did my dad do? He learned Danish and started another successful business in his late 40's.

So when I see people complain about the process of getting free money or that the chairs in the offices are bad then I laugh, because I think they have no perspective of what it takes to build a business, how hard building a business is for majority of people or what struggles other people have.

<comment><USER4> I don't think it's a spoiled brat mentality. It's the difference between what Startup Chile appears to be and what it is. The pitch is it's a 40k grant. The reality is it's a 40k credit and anyone who doesn't really understand latin american bureaucracy doesn't know what they're getting into. I live in Argentina and deal with mind-numbing bureaucracy every day and I have warned some people to be careful before they accept... that said, i'm on the advisory board of one startup attending the next class and i think it's a huge opportunity for them because one of the founders is a "yankee" living in Argentina and he knows what they're getting into.

<comment><USER5> i'd be careful in extrapolating too much here. the cultural differences between argentina and chile are significant. for example, on the index of economic freedom, chile ranks 11 (just 2 below the usa at 9) while argentina is 138. similarly, on the corruption expectation index, chile ranks 22 (slightly above the usa at 24) while argentina is 100. those are _huge_ differences - please don't tar chile with argentina's problems.

<http://www.heritage.org/index/Ranking> <http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/#CountryResults>

<comment><USER6> Yeah, but Argentina's a lot more lively. :-) I'd definitely do my startup there if my goal were anything that could be described by the words "lifestyle business" or "work-life balance". Come to think of it, that is my goal. See you in Buenos Aires.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I thought I'd put in a note about my experience with a comparable program in Singapore called iJam. A very similar thing, though at the time it didn't include office space or travel expenses - basically a government managed micro-grant of $30,000, repayable only if you make $2MM in revenue.

I was also very frustrated by the amount of bureaucracy and the difficulty in getting payments - much of the time whether or not payments made it through was based on personal relationships. In fact at one point our payments were suspended simply because one of the advisors on the review committee didn't like us. In the end we got our cash - but lost a lot of time and ultimately didn't find it to be worth it. A better approach for us would have been to find a supportive early investor.

However, all of that said - even in Singapore, with its reputation for completely clean government - the program was riddled with conflicts of interest, double dipping, and other problems that led to a fair bit of controversy. So I understand the need to put stricter controls on how the money is doled out.

Net - this isn't so much about Chile, but rather about governments trying to be investors - they can't move quickly, they are not profit motivated, and they tend to rely on relationships rather than merit in the absence of clear guidelines.

I'm hopeful that the Chileans will figure out a clean set of rules that apply to everyone equally which will make equitable the tradeoffs between the free money and the pain of dealing with some bureaucracy.

</comment><comment><USER8> I came from the same country as Herval (Brazil) and I am flying to Chile on the 4th of January. Myself and my partner are working hard on bootstrapping our 2nd company for the last 1 1/2 year. We are very fortunate to have landed big contracts in Brazil this year. We will keep a commercial operation in Brazil. I can point out wonderful reasons to do business in Brazil: \- Very large market, 200M people \- Booming consumer market \- Internet penetration, 70M \- Mobile phone penetration, > 200M \- Engaged social media users \- Beautiful woman and beaches ;-) \- More VC capital than in Chile .But there are several restraints here: \- Highest interest rate in the world (11% year, in practice more than 28%) vs 3,5% in Chile \- One of the worst countries in the world to employ people, according to Employing Worker Index Brazil ranks at 120th position vs 69th for Chile \- Nothing similar to SUP in Brazil \- One of highest taxes in the world totalizing 35% of GDP vs 18% in Chile \- Very corrupted \- There are in Brazil a few serious, honest and friendly venture capitalists, but Brazil is also crowded with crippled VC´s, angel investors that never invested in anything (whenever you meet one, ask them what were their last 3 investments).

(for a complete comparison look at <http://www.heritage.org>) So, reading Herval post I got concerned but, what he describes is pretty much what we have 'for lunch' in Brazil everyday. Sounds to me like a shallow analysis. I can live with those issues, those seems to be like micro issues that can be, at some point, fixed. What I would like to hear from the author or from someone else is if, compared to Brazil, Chile is a good place to set up a business that targets LATAM? How do those incredible better economic indicators (again, when compared to Brazil) impact your business and your life in the LONG-TERM? Did you think about the long term perspective of having your headquarters in Brazil vs Chile?

<comment><USER9> For brazilians in specific, there's a big plus for being on SUP: being "international" automatically doubles your perceived value in our dear xenophile country.

Although sny incubator would do the trick - even having a friend in Palo Alto and use his home address as "headquarters"

The ironic truth... ;)

<comment><USER8> Xenophile for sure! ;-) . Anyway I am thankful that you and others are shouting aloud your thoughts. Perhaps the program improves and people adjust their perspectives as a result.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Startup Chile is a great program, but Herval's post is completely accurate (I was in his cohort there building pingpigeon.com). Drawing down on the funds takes a _lot_ of paperwork and time and negotiation, when the government bean counters inevitably find some random reason to disagree with you.

The money is there for you to get it; Startup Chile is not "Bullshit". But once a month, the time and emotional energy spent in getting the money takes away from your ability to focus on your startup. Raising vc/angel money is the same: your company gets put on hold while you raise the round. Think of Startup Chile reimbursements as the same but on a much, much smaller scale, six times over six months.

<comment><USER11> It sounds like Startup Chile _is_ bullshit if (and only if) you have better options available. Startup investor quality is judged relative to other investors.

<comment><USER10> "Better options" is always relative. If you absolutely need cash-flow and freedom from administrative hassles, Startup Chile is not for you. But if you want some seed money to build on an idea without giving up _any_ equity, and have ~8 weeks of working capital, this is a great deal. It all depends on the context of you and your company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> We are currently working on <http://supportbee.com> in Startup Chile.

I spent some money from my Indian company's account when I was coming over but I could print out a few documents to prove it and it was done in 20 mins. Atleast that is no longer an issue here.

It does take about a month for the first reimbursement to roll in and you have to manage till then. The account executives (the ones handling your reimbursement) are quite friendly and willing to help (by giving you a date sooner if you are really running out of money etc).

The only case I have heard of someone having to give back money is of a guy who smashed his phone on stage during a presentation and had the cost of the phone, 400 dollars reduced from his $40k grant (or may be next reimbursement). I was not present in that meetup and I have never met the guy.

Startup Chile does have some problems (or starting troubles) but certainly reimbursements is not one of them. Also, they provide a great office space which is a great place to work with your team and meet other entrepreneurs. I would be happy to answer any questions here. Ofcourse, I am only two months into the program so my experience with everything is limited so far.

<comment><USER13> So the other post suggested that paying yourself was problematic. Can the money be used for living expenses (essentially the largest expense for any software-related business)?

<comment><USER12> Yes. The rules are very clear about that. You get 800 USD as single team member and USD 1200 if you are two or more. Also for upto three team members, you can take USD 700/month per member salary. The office space (with snacks, coffee etc) is free for upto three team members. Your tickets, Visa fees, Medical insurance etc is all reimbursed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> from my own experience (as an englishman living in chile) i tend to look to "social differences" to help understand conflicts like this.

one of the main themes in the link is (imho) anger at a lack of trust - <USER2> need to justify each expense, and to follow somewhat arbitrary rules, even after winning the grant. and that (again, imho) reflects a difference in culture between americans and chileans. in support of this thesis, there was a chilean presentation at startechconf (the recent web dev / technical conference in santiago) that seemed (i admit i left part-way through in search of a more technical talk) to be arguing the same point: that _chileans need to trust each other more_. my own amateur anthropological take on this is that the difference comes from chilean trust networks being based on family ties rather than professional relationships.

it will be interesting to see if the technocrats/bureaucrats that saw startup chile as a way to "educate chileans" will themselves learn from this. to the credit of chilean society, "they" (sorry) do (yet again imho) take criticism - particularly from outside - quite seriously, so i think there is a real possibility of change.

[edit: the talk was "Agustín Villena: Que mantener, arreglar e intentar en la industria chilena de software" [http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/440025/Que- mejorar,-m...](http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/440025/Que- mejorar,-mantener-e-intentar-en-la-industria-de-software-chilena) \- slide 11, 89% of Chileans don't trust their neighbours]

<comment><USER14> The whole article made me think of life here in Italy. Seems like there are a lot of things in common. Well, except for the massive copper resources.

They should have picked me, dammit:-) After years of living in Italy, these sorts of bureaucratic hurdles are easy to deal with. And I may not have an awesome, world changing startup, but at least my niche effort makes money, and... I've been around. I have war stories!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am from 2010 pilot group with Vendder project. Most teams will agree the reimbursement process is broken, time-consuming and painful.

I dare everybody here to push forward a type of investment, loan or subsidy that provides you 40.000USD with so little effort from your part without asking any share of your company in return.

Once again, and for the entire web to read, Startup Chile is a governamental grant/subsidy and should be considered as should, even if they have a so energetic staff who shoot fancy videos and write enjoyable blog posts. If you consider this you see Startup Chile deal is much sweeter than most government initiatives everywhere else.

A person should not compare apples and oranges.

<comment><USER16> Is there a startup incubator/seed funding break down chart? It would really highlight some of the differences that all of these programs have- when starts up more or less (we did) blindly enter

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> While the reimbursement policy is certainly (quite) troublesome and extremely annoying, I'm more concerned about the climate/environment in Chile once the program ends.

More countries need to foster entrepreneurial endeavors with a solid mix of residents and non-residents (almost like an exchange program) to get a better global mix of problem/market/solution. Startup Chile appears to be a good first step at addressing this.

However if Startup Chile didn't create a strong ecosystem (including investment and other support) then there's a risk that an increasing number of companies will fail once the program ends. Programs with high failure rates won't survive and have less chance of being funded in the future.

Hopefully Startup Chile is capable of adapting and addressing these concerns and other incubator/accelerator outside of long standing startup environments (e.g. SF, NYC) can learn from this example.

<comment><AUTHOR> As it stands I have little (actually zero) incentive to stay here after January. I'm distanced from my partners, friends, family, and investors who actually spend their money. I'm also not interested in spending 3 months, and a lot of money, incorporating a company here when I already did it in less than 24 hours back home in Canada.

<comment><USER18> Why would you need to incorporate in Chile in order to stay? The initial visa is for a year, right? I'm curious because we're planning to stay the full year, and may stay a second year if we can get a renewal.

<comment><USER9> The idea (at least we thought so) was to incentive us to stay. If everyone leaves, there's no ecosystem...

<comment><USER16> and what is that incentive? there's no extended office space, mentor-ship, or support network, I was working with George on this, but we felt like it got slipped out beneath us when we tired :/ I agree with Herval that this could have be executed better, but more accurately that if these complaints don't exist the program will not improve (though many are extreme.. along with zac's comments :p )

<comment><AUTHOR> Really it all boils down to there being no VC opportunities. The only angel/VC investor that was formally arranged for us to pitch to has left the country.

In fact, the Demo Day needed to be arranged by us instead of SUP staff taking the initiative. Hell, they were actually against it when asked on multiple occasions for their support. In the end all they did was blog about it as if it was their idea.

The above two paragraphs really sum up the problems. Reimbursements are tough, without clarity, etc., but the program will surely fail if they don't figure out the above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've not done business in Chile, but i have in Uruguay, which ranks about the same in terms of various transparency / economic freedom / gdp per capita as Chile. Everything he complains about is just the reality of living and working in latin america. Chile markets itself as being different, but it's not so different. Getting stuff done is hard, getting investment is hard, doing business is hard. There are lots of rules and red tape. It's just a part of the game.

<comment><USER20> Here in Uruguay we have a local-only, lower-scale program sponsored by the governmental agency ANII (Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación):

[http://www.anii.org.uy/web/convocatorias/apoyo-j-venes- empre...](http://www.anii.org.uy/web/convocatorias/apoyo-j-venes-empresas-0)

It's a similar system (government reimburses 80% of the expenses), and with the same problems from what I've heard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Hi. In am part of Round 1 of Entrepreneurs; For me, its been a great experience.

I can't believe can we be criticizing a free 40K grant, in exchange for no equity. (A few loose strings attached, so what?)

If there are better, more entrepreneur friendly grants available; why do we never hear of them? And why dont entreprenurs go there instead?

<comment><USER9> A simple question: How many RVA points did u guys make? :)

If u don't give anything back, not complaining about "zero equity" makes total sense. If u were as involved as I was in the local "big picture", the fsct that there's no 40k grant means I basically worked for the government FOR FREE, or at least with a VERY HARD return on my time.

Very good proposal for a "noobie entrepreneur" hoping to build a "name", a terrible waste of time for any serious startuper.

<comment><AUTHOR> They had to implement the Return Value Agenda program because a lot of the teams in the pilot project outright refused to participate in any way other than work on their startup. Christian, an ex-staffer with Start-Up Chile told me that there were people who literally never left their apartments and when asked whether they would host a meetup outright said "Nope".

It's unfortunate that happened, it's kinda of screwing it for the rest of us. Actually, a more comprehensive application process would have fixed a lot of the problems :)

<comment><USER9> There's more than one person in this thread that fall into that category... Christian was one of the great guys actually interested on helping btw. A real, real shame he left, making people have to interact with mr budeguer... (too much inside info, sorry)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Stop driving in the rear view mirror. I applaud Startup Chile for their efforts, but I think this whole conversation focuses on the wrong questions. One of the biggest challenges with Startup Chile or other similar program is that without a common language or framework around early-stage value creation milestones, the fallback mechanism is to measure how entrepreneurs spend money. This is like driving in the rearview mirror and the approach hasn't historically achieved optimal results. Is it possible that the reason we aren't achieving higher hit rates on startups is that we are measuring the wrong things?

If we look at the "startup industry" as an industry, we should ask ourselves some tough questions like... What other industry in the world has an 80% to 90% failure rate? And why is such a high failure rate acceptable?

I don't fault Startup Chile for their program and think we should all be working to push these startup conversations forward. To improve the odds of a positive outcome, here are the questions I would ask if I ran such a program. "How much more effective would these programs be if the focus was on agreed to customer-centric value creation milestones and then capital was deployed based on achieving these milestones? What if the entrepreneur or startups were measured on building products that 1) nail the customer's pain, 2) nail the minimum feature set to satisfy the customer demand, 3) nail the business model or go-to-market strategy? etc...

In addition to reimbursing for expenses, an effective startup program could tranche additional seed capital based on how the startup achieved early success and nailed early value-creation milestones. Give high-potential entrepreneurs a little bit of guaranteed runway is great. In addition, provide them follow-on financing in the form of tranched performance payments based on successful execution.

Doing this would require an agreed to framework. Here's a link to a recent conversation thread on one possible way to achieve this. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3406330>

</comment><comment><USER23> I too had issues with reimbursements but while there are certainly issues that can be improved I don't think there's a better deal in the world available for entrepreneurs.

My stance is best summed up in this photo from earlier in the month: [http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=280134802038762&s...](http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=280134802038762&set=a.280128665372709.81130.110074692378108&type=1&theater)

</comment><comment><USER24> Thanks for this discussion. The more information that is available about programs like these, the better it is for prospective applicants. Best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER25> Yes there is red tape here but one of the things that doesn't come up much is the OPPORTUNITY. Who cares if the idea/start-up you came here with doesn't work, if you're willing to commit to being in Chile there is a lot of low hanging fruit. If you're willing to work hard and outcompete the competition (which is much easier here than in the States) you can be successful. I'll admit that our start-up, www.bungolow.com is not a "new" idea, but there are market opportunities here that we can't take advantage of in the US.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is sad, if true (and it kind of rings true). As soon as I saw the reimbursement policy I got the sense that the program would be bullshit. I'd love to hear otherwise.

<comment><AUTHOR> The program is not bullshit, it's just that the government isn't in the business of throwing money away. There a lot of legitimate startups here that have gone from an idea to a proper product with actual customers. There is, however, a lot of red tape to cut through in order to ensure that money is spent properly, that's why there's so many rules.

It would look really bad if the government of Chile was seen to be funding vacations. Unfortunately, that happens anyway. There are a bunch of people participating in the program that have done fuck all for the last six months and have little more to show for themselves than a Twitter account and some nice photos of the parties they've been to.

<comment><USER26> "it's just that the government isn't in the business of throwing money away"

In all seriousness, this is why they shouldn't be investing in startups. Early stage investing is all about "throwing away" a bunch of money and (hopefully) making even more back when a subset of your portfolio wins big. If you're micromanaging each dollar/transaction, then you're really, really doing it wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> You do realize that VC funds try to invest in startups that have that 1/10 chance of being a massive success. They don't wilfully throw their money at 9 crappy businesses that they don't think will succeed and really just hope for the 1 they think will do ok. It's simply a reality that you can't have 10/10 startups all succeed so they accept the odds.

Saying investing in startups is all about "throwing away" a bunch of money isn't at all accurate.

The government of Chile isn't looking for a cash return on their investment, they're interested in the long term effects of having globally oriented entrepreneurs in the country interacting with future local entrepreneurs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Steve Blank says: Startup teams require a Hacker, a Hustler, a Designer and a Visionary. The title of this post could be "Make sure you bring your hustle to Startup Chile!". I know we will and I thank God every day for our little hustler :)

</comment><comment><USER18> We're preparing to move to Chile in February to start as part of the next class. I see a couple of these blog posts along the lines of "well my 6 months are up, I'm outta here!". That seems like such a tragedy to me.

I've been to Chile before, Santiago is a wonderful city. We had only a few weeks in the country, but in that time we saw a little of the area and even went to Easter Island (which is part of Chile.) There's whole regions of Chile we didn't get to see, such as the high desert, punta arenas, etc.

SU Chile gets you a 1 year visa, and se we're planning to spend at least a year in Chile (they said they can help with renewal so we might stay 2 years even.) And while we're going to be working really hard on our startup I can't imagine a better place to do it than a county where stepping out of your door to go to dinner and suddenly you're on a foreign vacation for the evening!

I hope everyone whose considering going to Chile will also consider staying longer than 6 months. If your startup is internet or software based, you don't really need to come back to your home country right away, do you?

But looking at just that visa, there are so many moving parts we have to get aligned to get that visa. Its really no big deal in terms of visas on the global scale-- imagine trying to get a 1 year visa that lets you work in the USA! Much, much harder. So, bureaucracy is involved in the visa, and the reimbursement process.

The thing is, TANSTAAFL (there ain't no such thing as a free lunch). They don't take equity, but they want you to help the with their project. That's fine, part of our business plan is helping build a community of independant startups anyway, we've got no problem doing that. But that's how we "pay our way".

With expenses, every expense is different, and so, of course, some expenses might be approved for some people but not for others-- some people might forget to get receipts or might make an other error. The bigger question is whether the rules are straightforward, comprehensible and clear. Or not.

Maybe it would be better if the program worked as a grant, and they gave each startup $6,500 a month just as a check to spend as the startup wishes. The thing is, that would run the risk of scary stories like "These drunken 20 year olds from Amsterdam came to Chile and bought drugs with government money!!!" (or maybe not, don't know if they have tabloids in chile.) So, government money, government bureaucracy.

I havent' heard anyone say that they were cheated by SU Chile... and with any reimbursement system, you have to expect there will be imperfect coverage. Someone else commented that they spent $7-8k over the 6 months (with the rest covered by SU Chile reimbursements) -- that's a hell of a low burn rate!

So, maybe you could theoretically live in Chile on the $40k and have it all be reimbursed, but expecting that seems silly.

<comment><USER9> Excellent ideas, although it would never stick with a government... (I proposed that myself ;))

Santiago is a GREAT city indeed (one of the best in latam), although a bit expensive (specially if u eat out a lot!)

<comment><USER28> According to my experience, in Santiago the food and general bills are pricier and housing is cheaper compared with the rest of latam (Colombia, Argentina, Peru). The most expensive city here is Sao Paulo, by far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So, if I'm reading this correctly, starting a business in a country lacking a robust economy and business culture did not work out.

Well, I believe that.</comment>


Ask HN: How is the technology scene in Australia? - <AUTHOR>
 Are there lots of Java jobs?  Is the pay comprable to the united states? <comment><USER2> Depends on the field.

Right now the ATO (Australian Tax Office) is undergoing a vast reengineering of how business and organizations deal with government. The project is SBR ([https://www.sbr.gov.au/](https://www.sbr.gov.au/)). There is a lot of LOB software that needs to comply and have this stuff retrofitted. Most of it is Java.

</comment><comment><USER3> Given the geographical size of Australia and states, and relative isolation of major centres from each other, and tendency of certain jobs to be more prevalent in certain states (mining in WA/Qld, defence in NSW/Vic/SA, etc), you will have to be a lot more specific. Relative pay and living costs also differ likewise between parts of the country.

Perhaps try looking at [https://www.seek.com.au/](https://www.seek.com.au/), [https://www.indeed.com.au/](https://www.indeed.com.au/), etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sydney and Melbourne have lots of Java jobs. Typ pay is 120kAud which is About 90kusd for mid level, I guess this is a bit less than a typical USA job but better than Europe (except London)

Also .ner shops would give a Java dev a go.</comment>


Optimizing Cache Performance on Posterous - <AUTHOR> http://technology.posterous.com/planning-and-engineering-your-cache-for-maxim-0

<comment><USER2> > Most important is the cache's miss rate: how frequently do we need to > regenerate data? It is the miss rate that ultimately impacts site > performance.

Not so fast. While the miss rate determines how much you need to regenerate, the miss time can have a huge effect on the average access time, which is what your users see.

If a is the average access time and m is the miss time (both in units of hit time), the required hit rate is (m-a)/(m-1). For largish m and reasonable a, the required hit rate can be quite high. (Memcache can be very fast relative to query+render.)

Things are more complicated when people are involved because people don't task-switch while waiting, they wander off. For example, you might want to cache so frequently accessed things have a higher miss rate. Why? Because the occasional long-access time on something that you do frequently can be seen as a glitch while a long-access time on something that you're doing for the first time (or rarely) looks like a broken system.

</comment><comment><USER3> Pretty cool stuff, especially the tool. I usually just graph the memcached hit/miss ratio in (cacti|ganglia|zabbix). Isn't that much easier to determine current and past cache performance than adding additional logging?

(Doesn't allow for simulation of course)

<comment><USER4> Definitely graph memcached hit/miss ratios -- they're a good way to diagnose issues in your cache. However, I can think of a few instances where more logging is helpful:

1\. Your cache server is shared between several different classes of objects. In this case, the overall memcache hit/miss ratios might mask issues occurring in one class of cached values.

2\. You want to figure out how your cache will improve with a given change in cache size (i.e., simulate results ahead of time, as you mentioned).</comment></comment>


Animals in the wild found to use running wheel if given the choice - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2014-05-animals-wild-wheel-choice-video.html <comment><USER2> Hi there,

If you liked this article perhaps you'll be interested in a project I've been working on. My wife has a Hedgehog (yeah, like Sonic) and he's pretty shy. He also has a wheel and runs ALL night.

To feel that he interacts a little more I connected a wireless node with a magnetic switch so I could count how many laps he runs every night, and therefore the equivalent distance. Every morning he tweets how much he ran, just like RunKeeper :)

Check out his twitter account here: [https://twitter.com/runhedgie](https://twitter.com/runhedgie)

And, of course, the code is hosted on github: [https://github.com/jlhonora/iot](https://github.com/jlhonora/iot)

I just finished this project yesterday, but I have many more ideas to add. I'd like to correlate running activity with temperature (hedgies are pretty sensitive to cold weather) and ambient light. I'd also like to make a public API so that anyone can analyze his activity patterns.

So, stay tuned and follow!

<comment><USER3> ... now I feel terrible at slacking off at my jogging. Little guy is like 4 inches tall and running 5.8km last night.

<comment><USER2> Well, there's a catch with all of this. The wheel has some inertia, so running in it should be easier than running the same distance on the floor. The ran distance is still the same , regardless of this fact.

And I'm trying to keep up with my jogging as well :)

<comment><USER4> A body also has inertia that makes it easier to keep running. The wheel may have more, but that also means that it takes more effort to bring it up to speed.

Also, one should take air resistance (of the running body or the spinning wheel) into account.

<comment><USER5> In physics it's generally safe to assume that all the different air resistances and drags and so on cancel out. You just draw a force diagram and everything always cancels, otherwise the hedgehog would have constant acceleration which we know isn't true.

<comment><USER6> Boundary drag on the wheel as it spins causes a loss of angular momentum, and so it slows over time unless force is applied (via adorable hedgehog legs) to keep it constant. Additionally, there are likely normal frictional forces at the meeting of the wheel and the supports, as I highly doubt they gave the pet a wheel with magnetic bearings in a vacuum.

And yes, the hedgehog must exert constant force in order to overcome this viscous friction.

On a related note, this viscous damping term scales as velocity, so the faster the wheel turns the harder the little thing has to work to keep it at a constant velocity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >The researchers claim the animals ran on the wheels because they enjoyed it, which could be a little bit of anthropomorphizing, as no one has been able to prove that animals other than humans experience emotions.

Is this really the state of the art? I thought the entire animal rights movement is rooted in the idea that animals can experience emotion

This is pretty great research, seeing a slug in a running wheel is particularly silly

<comment><USER8> There's proof and proof. No one has managed to prove other humans experience emotions, or even exist. Given a hypothetical model of a continually manipulated memory and consciousness you could even argue that you can't prove that you yourself have emotions (you might merely have the mistaken belief that you experience them).

To take a more pragmatic approach to proof (good enough but not absolute) Humans and some animals experience emotions. At the very least most Mammals. Probably not all animals. A trickier proposition would be whether all vertebrates do, that's a different level of debate entirely.

If you can't take things like the Monkey fairness tests as a sign of emotions [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg&feature=player_d...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg&feature=player_detailpage#t=75)

then you have a standard of proof that a lot of humans wouldn't meet.

<comment><USER9> I'd highly recommend the Blackfish documentary about killer whales regarding mammal emotions (trailer: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OEjYquyjcg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OEjYquyjcg)).

Especially this part where a mother is separated from its baby, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWFo6kf21Hw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWFo6kf21Hw) ; it gives pretty good insight about whether animals can experience emotions.

<comment><USER10> Yep, I absolutely agree. Even if mammal emotions have not been scientifically "proven", I think there's a lot of strong evidence that they do experience most or all basic emotions.

It's not like it's very shocking that they would, either, considering humans aren't that distantly related from them.

<comment><USER11> As someone who has two cats, and has had a dog and a cat previously, I'm always amazed when I come across people who categorically state that animals _don 't_ have emotions. Spend a small amount of time with a cat or a dog, and it becomes pretty clear that they have moods and emotional states, albeit simpler ones that humans. I realise that domestication will have changed animals and their environmental responses, but I find it very hard to believe that dogs or cats would have developed emotions from scratch in the ~10,000 years since they were domesticated.

In my experience, those who claim animals don't have emotions are usually justifying some kind of behaviour; in one case, it was a hunter, and another, someone who was generally unpleasant and cruel to animals. The former was otherwise a nice guy, though I found his hobby extremely distasteful; the latter was an irredeemable arsehole.

<comment><USER12> > _In my experience, those who claim animals don 't have emotions are usually > justifying some kind of behaviour_

I agree. Similar things were said historically to justify slavery.

This poses an interesting ethical question.

If a subject is not known to have emotions or not. Should the party that would be inflicting emotional pain on the subject have the burden of proof (that the subject does not in fact have emotions)? Or the party that would not inflict it?

<comment><USER10> If there's a plausible chance of the entity being able to experience emotion, then the burden of proof needs to be on the inflicter. "Plausible" because inanimate objects like rocks obviously cannot ever have emotions.

Things get a little more complicated with plants, such as trees and flowers, but even there I would say it's pretty implausible that they experience emotion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Direct links to videos:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5gI1joaCxI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5gI1joaCxI)

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

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KnbD1dmJzk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KnbD1dmJzk)

Not sure why the video were wrapped in another player.

<comment><USER14> I loved the slug video. In my mind the slug is making broom brroom noises as it 'speeds' along the wheel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Someone should put cubicles out in the woods and test whether random humans that come along decide to sit at them for fun.

</comment><comment><USER16> Egads. I tried to read the article. I really did. But it brought my chrome to its knees. Ran a quick javascript profile, and the minified function wa() was taking using 94.16%. Inspecting it, there's a for(;;){} loop that never hits a break condition.

This only makes me hate phys.org even more than I used to.

<comment><USER17> I use Ghostery, and I got a message: "It appears that you are currently using Ad Blocking software. What are the consequences? Click here to learn more."

But at least the page loaded.

If any phys.org admins are reading this: I don't mind _seeing_ your ads; I do object to their tracking me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> As usual, phys.org is not exactly the best source for this. (I can't think of any occasion when phys.org has been the best source for _anything_.)

A more informative informal summary of the research can be found at the GrrlScientist blog [http://www.theguardian.com/science/grrlscientist/2014/may/21...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/grrlscientist/2014/may/21/wild- mice-exercise-wheels-behaviour-stereotypy-neurosis).

For those who don't mind the much drier writing style, the full text of the original scholarly article is at [http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1786/2014...](http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1786/20140210.full) (it's quite short) and the "Data supplement" link at the right will get you the three videos of animals running on the wheel.

HN submitters: When you see something cool on phys.org, before submitting it ask yourself "Can I find a better source than this for the same story?". Take two minutes -- google the title of the paper, the author's names, etc. I claim that at least 75% of the time you'll easily find something that's either _substantially better_ or _textually more or less identical but closer to the original source_. Then submit that instead.

<comment><USER19> The phys.org article includes the link to the original paper.

How is the GrrlScientist blog better than the phys.org article? Based on a quick scan, it seems more or less equivalent to me in terms of basic journalism standards. It just looks like a different style and perspective.

What, specifically, is problematic about phys.org?

<comment><USER18> Yes, the phys.org article includes a link to the original paper. (Did I say or imply otherwise? If so, I screwed up and I apologize. I didn't mean to.)

The GrrlScientist blog entry is better in (for instance) the following ways. It gives more context (e.g., Lorenz's earlier observation about formerly- captive animals running on wheels). It gives more information about the frequency of wheel-running by different kinds of animal. It is more accurate on at least one important point (article and GrrlScientist say 200k animal visits recorded of which 12k used the wheel; phys.org says 200k instances of animals using the wheel). It mentions, where phys.org doesn't, a very important finding: wheel-running continued even after the experimenters stopped putting food near the wheel, so it wasn't just that animals run on the wheel because they've found food there and think getting into the wheel will somehow provide more. It describes the article's comparison to wheel running in lab mice.

On the other hand, it's also more chattily verbose, which might be a good thing or a bad according to taste.

What's problematic about phys.org is that it's scarcely ever the best source for anything. Much of its content is recycled press releases, exactly the same as you can get from (usually) the website of the institution where the work was done but often with some illustrations removed and extra advertising added. Sometimes (as here) phys.org does actually write its own material, but (as here) it's usually more superficial and less informative than one can get from elsewhere.

There may be cases in which the phys.org writeup is (1) not just recycled from someone else and (2) the best available account of the matter for some plausible audience. If so, I just happen never to have encountered any.

[EDITED to add: I am not alone in thinking HN would be better linking to better sources than phys.org's blogspam. See, e.g., this lengthy collation: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4676259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4676259). Full disclosure: some of the critical comments listed there are also mine.]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Well, when you encounter a running wheel for adults along your way, you would try it too: [http://www.notempire.com/images/uploads/grasswheel.jpg](http://www.notempire.com/images/uploads/grasswheel.jpg)

... which doesn't suggest that you would enjoy being imprisoned for life in a tiny cell where there is a, running wheel, bed, food and nothing else.

<comment><USER21> Certainly. That would be a different study though. The hypothesis that this study investigated is:

> If wheel running is indeed caused by captive housing, wild mice are not > expected to use a running wheel in nature. This however, to our knowledge, > has never been tested. Here, we show that when running wheels are placed in > nature, they are frequently used by wild mice, also when no extrinsic reward > is provided. Bout lengths of running wheel behaviour in the wild match those > for captive mice. This finding falsifies one criterion for stereotypic > behaviour, and suggests that running wheel activity is an elective > behaviour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The frog video made me laugh. It's a great experiment and this is something really new about wild animal behavior.

</comment><comment><USER23> Consider the normal use of running for an animal: running for prey, running to not be prey... Yet, we know as humans that running can be enjoyable. For an animal, running is more often associated with hunger and fear of being eaten. I propose the running wheel presents to the animals a rare "place to run safely". Normally, running transports an animal into new, potentially unsafe locations. This running wheel was both in an enclosure, and the wheel itself offers protection from attack. I wager that 18 minute run was a mouse experiencing the joy of running without fear for the first time, and was exhilarated.

<comment><USER24> You presuppose the wild animal can understand a running wheel, something it never encountered before.

The mice, on seeing something novel, did what that normally do and try to climb all over it looking for food. They then got stuck running on it, not realizing they were getting nowhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> If they put a human-sized one of these around my residence, I'd run in it.

<comment><USER26> I have one nearby, and it's great! (I can't do more than a few seconds without falling over though)

<comment><USER4> I always thought those things were impossible to run in because the rotational inertia of the wheel is way higher than the inertia of one running in it. That requires you to run at almost constant speed (if your foot stays a bit longer on the ground, you do not decelerate the wheel much, but your feet ends up a few centimeters backwards. Repeat for two or three steps, and you lose your balance).

That changed when I saw the Ukrainian entry for this year's Eurovision contest ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5DhH0jWyfk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5DhH0jWyfk)). On the other hand, that wheel is smaller and likely has way less rotational inertia than the ones one finds in the typical playground, and probably also has less rolling resistance. That guy must have trained, if only to make it look effortless, but it may be easier than one would think it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I would imagine that the sudden appearance of food and new environment elements would set the mind of any animal in a "run around and explore" mode, especially for species living near humans.

<comment><USER13> The wheel was there for 3 years.

<comment><USER28> And one of them ran for up to 18 minutes.

<comment><USER29> 2 wheels, used by 200,000 animals, which has got to be a typo, cuz thats on average 137 animals per hour.

<comment><USER30> 2 wheels, 3 years, 200,000 animals is an average of 3.8 per hour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The article seems overly political in trying to refute the claim that laboratory animals run on wheels because they are driven insane by their environment. However ultimately they are undermining their position because it begs the question, "If animals like to have fun, should we really be doing experiments on them?". This is probably a lot easier to grasp by the general public than the more nebulous concept of whether animals experience emotions.

<comment><USER32> > the more nebulous concept of whether animals experience emotions

Is there debate about that? I suppose I took it as a given, hence all the efforts people go through to treat lab animals humanely.

<comment><USER31> I agree this debate is already over. However I think this simplifies the issue enormously and makes it a lot more likely that general public opinion can be mustered against animal testing. If you tell the tell the future adults of this world that animals like to play and have fun then ask them whether it is right that animals are experimented on then the answer, for good or for ill, is going to be a resounding no.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I see opportunities for new ways to generate electricity :)

<comment><USER34> "My Tesla is using environment friendly electricity. It is slug powered"

<comment><USER35> And it only takes 16.3 years to recharge!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wonder if the same free animal would enjoy it for a long time or if it is merely the excitement of something new.

</comment><comment><USER37> Thanks to this research I feel slightly less weird for preferring to run on a treadmill.

</comment><comment><USER38> Now we need to make giant wheels for dogs!

</comment><comment><USER39> Well I can see why, as the research states at the end animals enjoyed it.

If we see it in a scale, it's like for us humans going on a roller coaster!

</comment><comment><USER27> _Still, the experiments should put to rest the argument about whether mice in the lab are running on wheels because they live in cages—they 'll do it anywhere they find one_

and

 _They also put the wheel inside an enclosure with a small entranceway to keep large animals from knocking the wheel on its side_

<comment><USER40> They mean because they are trapped in the cage and can't run anywhere else. Not that it's just in an enclosed area.</comment></comment>


Microsoft vs. Android - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/microsoft-vs-android/8529

<comment><AUTHOR> Or, to quote Cory Doctorow, "All complex ecosystems have parasites"</comment>


Apple Watch Series 4's Hyped Fall Detection Put to the Test by a Stunt Woman - <AUTHOR> https://hothardware.com/news/apple-watch-series-4-fall-detection <comment><USER2> The stunt performer seemed a little unnecessary but good vid regardless.</comment>


Confessions of a fixer: a scheme that benefited hundreds of college athletes - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/confessions-of-a-fixer/150891 <comment><USER2> It would be better to recognize the scam that is going on and start from scratch by lettig two businesses continue: The business of education and the business of sports. To enter the education business, you only need to have good grades. To enter the sports business, all you need to do is to play well. Make it independent decisions. Let people who enter the sports business earn a living through salaries not unlike professional sports. Let the sports business be a money making enterprise, with each "sports side" organization (team) making money through TV, radio and apparel, and clearly funneling the money earned to a foundation controlled by the university. Basically, make the teams be the money making aspect of colleges, with the requirement that each team gets rights to use the college's names, colors and symbols. A given person can be a college sports player, a college student, or both. Simple rules can be enacted to let players graduate to professional sports such as NBA or NFL.

This would eliminate the need to continue to keep this fake cover of legitimacy. We will then acknowledge what we want as a society: good students and good entertainment.

I feel sometimes our Puritan background prevents us from making such moves and keeps us "pure" when we know the current arrangement is prostituted.

</comment><comment><USER3> "I want to coach Division 1, so I'm going to cheat my students through the system so that I can get the job."

Yeah, that benefits hundreds of college athletes. It also screws over anyone that is trying to honestly do well and competing for the same positions. If you think it benefits college athletes to not get an education, then maybe don't give them degrees.

<comment><USER4> NCAA athletics is a zero sum game for the athlete. If you keep one bad apple, you necessarily don't get a new student in. When they talk about requiring a 900 SAT and how that would deny some people, it is true in a sense. But it also opens the door for someone 900+ who doesn't run the ball quite as well. The same number of people get scholarships either way, but the quality of the game may go down a smidge.

<comment><USER5> NCAA is rotten from the head to the tail. It's bad for athletics, bad for athletes, bad for students, bad for colleges. We can be sure that crap like this goes on at every NCAA institution.</comment></comment></comment>


Duke Concealed Info on Potti's Fraudulent Trials from Patients for Over 2 Years - <AUTHOR> http://cancerletter.com/articles/20150522_1

<comment><AUTHOR> Duke recently settled the lawsuits regarding a famous cancer researcher who fudged his data (he had huge grants, millions in capital venture investments, and now most of his papers are withdrawn and the university is facing a federal research misconduct investigation). Now the patients are free to talk:

Joyce Shoffner, one of the two living plaintiffs said Duke did not inform her of the ongoing problems at the time until the trials were canceled November 2010, over two years after she joined the breast cancer trial. Even when she was notified of the cancelations, Duke did not come clean on the truth behind the data, and she only learned about the fraud via Google.

Breast cancer experts reviewed her treatment in this article and said she did not receive the standard of care at the time: Shoffner's oncologist at Duke, Marcom, relied on the genomic predictors to deny her a class of drugs experts say should have been given to a patient like her. Her oncologist never discussed that option with her -- which the trial protocol allowed -- and never discussed the risk and benefit with her, apparently a standard procedure in a scenario like Shoffner's.

The patient was diagnosed with PTSD as a result of her "devastating" experience with Duke, an institution she was affiliated with for over 40 years.</comment>


What the Heck Is a Monad - <AUTHOR> http://khanlou.com/2015/09/what-the-heck-is-a-monad/ <comment><USER2> Before trying to answer this question, it might be useful to see the reasons for using Monads along with examples in Phillip Wadler's Monads For Functional Programming[0].

From there I like to go to "You could have invented monads!"[1].

Then you might want to checkout "Monads as computation"[2].

From there look at the huge guide of "All about monads[3].

If you are still confused you haven't made enough programs using monads yet. Try taking some of the examples (especially from [0]) and modifying them to do something else.

0: [http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/papers/marktoberdorf/ba...](http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/papers/marktoberdorf/baastad.pdf)

1: [http://blog.sigfpe.com/2006/08/you-could-have-invented- monad...](http://blog.sigfpe.com/2006/08/you-could-have-invented-monads- and.html)

2: [https://wiki.haskell.org/Monads_as_computation](https://wiki.haskell.org/Monads_as_computation)

3: [https://wiki.haskell.org/All_About_Monads#Introduction_2](https://wiki.haskell.org/All_About_Monads#Introduction_2)

</comment><comment><USER3> A monad is a device to frighten off newcomers from Haskell and to show your friends that you're smart.

Oh, and seriously, it's something mathematical. But no one on the Internet talks about that, so I have no idea, really.</comment>


Another Problem for the Fed: Banks Pressured as Clients Scramble for Cash - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/another-problem-for-the-fed-banks-pressured-as-clients-scramble-for-cash-11584356272 <comment><USER2> Alternate non-paywall: [https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow- jones/202003163693/anot...](https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow- jones/202003163693/another-problem-for-the-fed-banks-pressured-as-clients- scramble-for-cash)

I find it interesting that it seems to be corporations scrambling for cash instead of actual people; and cash from credit lines no less.

Isn't this exactly what everyone is told _not_ to do? I feel like I'm missing or misunderstanding something here.</comment>


Need for speed – Page Optimization - <AUTHOR> http://alexsblog.org/2014/06/13/need-for-speed-page-optimization/

<comment><USER2> Google Page Speed ([https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/](https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/)) and Yahoo Yslow ([https://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/](https://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/)) also provide best practice to optimize page loading time.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can "Optimization of HTML" through minimization: remove spaces, new lines. Also you can remove it entirely if you don't need SEO or pre-render on the server side.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the good online maths university programs - <AUTHOR> About 10 years ago I graduated with master's in CS but haven't been using maths a lot, and want to catch up on that. I do not need a university diploma, but I was still thinking about enrolling because of the structured program. Are there any online alternatives to that, free or not, that I could do during the quarantine? <comment><USER2> In "Learn X the hard way" style, I'm planning to refresh my maths degree fundamentals by working through some of the Cambridge Tripos material at [https://www.maths.cam.ac.uk/undergrad/studentreps/tripos- spe...](https://www.maths.cam.ac.uk/undergrad/studentreps/tripos-specific- resources)

(particularly the Dexter Chua notes). This may be too hard without tutor support, but I figure I can always find easier material if it gets too tough.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure what you want to learn but I found MIT to be very helpful when doing my engineering degree. I find the lectures in my own university hard to follow and wanted to look for more resources. I found that MIT had amazing lecturers that took difficult topics and explained them simply. [https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/find-by- topic/#cat=mathematics](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/find-by- topic/#cat=mathematics)

</comment><comment><USER4> When you say catch up on do you mean you want to review what you've already learned or you actually want to catch up with the literature in what used to be your field?

If the former, I don't see why you would go through a structured programme again, you already know what the knowledge tree looks like and you can google for the best textbooks or youtube videos for each topic or course.

<comment><AUTHOR> Bad wording, sorry. I meant to refresh the knowledge I already have and learn the new things, ie go deeper into the maths topics.

What I studied during my cs course was just the basics: linear algebra, mathematical analysis, probability theory, and physics. All beginner levels.

I do need to refresh my knowledge from 10 years ago in order to move forward. I was thinking about taking the time off from work and spending a year in a library reading books and learning more. The problem is that I don't really know which direction to take, what are the good books for that. And this is something I hoped a university program would solve.

<comment><USER5> It is impossible to usefully answer the question without having an objective in mind.

If you want to become a research mathematician through self-study, then working through the qualifying exam syllabus for an established math program could be helpful [1].

If you want practical skills in the fields you have listed, then a great way to get them is to work through Gilbert Strang's OCW linear algebra course and Feynman's lectures on physics. That means doing the problem sets, _all_ of them. The former will give you linear algebra, the latter will give you _useful_ analysis/probability/physics. If you diligently solve the P-sets, you will probably be in better shape than 99% of people leaving university with a BS/MS in math/stats/physics.

It is very easy to go down a rabbit hole that is not useful to a practitioner. This is particularly true in analysis and probability theory. Almost no one but a research mathematician needs to know about Lebesgue measures or Radon- Nikodym derivatives or whatever.

[1] [https://www.math.harvard.edu/graduate/study-the- qualifying-e...](https://www.math.harvard.edu/graduate/study-the-qualifying- exam/the-qualifying-exam-syllabus/)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is exactly what I was looking for (and why I was asking for a university course) - hints what to study, which books and lectures to use.

I'm not looking for a research career in maths but rather to refresh my existing knowledge and deepen it even further.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Khan academy</comment>