Unix ZSHell Reloaded - <AUTHOR> https://cwoebker.com/posts/unix-zshell-reloaded <comment><USER2> Yes! I love running remotely managed scripts on my local machine as root! What could be safer?</comment>


Learn Datalog Today - <AUTHOR> http://www.learndatalogtoday.org <comment><USER2> _Datalog is a declarative database query language with roots in logic programming._

That's right, and even more holds: Syntactically, Datalog is a _proper subset_ of Prolog!

<comment> iso-8859-1 In this tutorial, they use EDN, which is a subset of Clojure data instead.

<comment><USER2> Yes, I noticed. That's a very significant departure from Datalog syntax.

"Learn Datalog Today", and learn something else from this tutorial!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6171722](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6171722)

<comment><USER4> Is this a bot? Pretty good idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you are wondering why you would want to dive in, let me offer another good reason: there is Datascript ([https://github.com/tonsky/datascript](https://github.com/tonsky/datascript)), which puts a good subset of Datalog inside your client-side browser app.

I found it very useful for dealing with relational data in browser apps.

</comment><comment><USER6> This seems like a really interesting page, unfortunately it's currently hard to consume on a smartphone: no mobile view and not possible to enable Reader Mode even on Firefox for Android :(

<comment><USER7> To be fair, a big part of this page is the interactive exercises, which would be a nightmare to try to do on mobile anyway. So I can see why being compatible with mobile wasn't a big concern.

<comment><USER6> Well reading about this non interactively is still better than, well, not reading at all. I have vivid imagination!</comment></comment></comment>


Mark Zuckerberg Facebook F8 keynote! - <AUTHOR> http://developers.facebook.com/videos.php <comment><USER2> Zuckerberg may be a technical and business genius but he's an awful presenter. Anyone else find his voice, for the lack of a better word, creepy?

</comment><comment><USER3> Haha, Oh man. There are some things Jobs can pull off that Zuckerberg just can't. ex: Today, we will start a movement!

</comment><comment><USER4> That guy thinks he's Steve Jobs...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> That guy is damn smart and an inspiration. He may well end up the next jobs

</comment><comment><USER5> yeah, the intro/failed kumbaya was excruciating. but the rest (ok, i only watched about a third of it) was well delivered, and pretty damn compelling.

</comment><comment><USER6> He scares me.</comment>


The First Evil Maid-Proof Computer - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2016/08/09/the-first-evil-maid-proof-computer/ <comment><USER2> This looks like an awesome product to protect sensitive data. Be it in the legal field, lawyers, ...

<comment><USER3> There's also the rackmount version in case you want to put it in a colo.</comment></comment>


Google Maps/Yahoo Maps: Why Aren't NYC & Wash., DC on the Default Map? - <AUTHOR> http://www.41latitude.com/post/512232485/wheres-nyc

<comment><USER2> Washington DC is there - it's labeled "District of Columbia"

<comment><AUTHOR> Why not list both the "District" of Columbia and the "city" of Washington on the same map?

<comment><USER3> While the city of Washington used to exist as a legal entity within the District of Columbia, these days it's all just the District. Including both D.C. and Washington, D.C. on the map would be including two names for the same thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> If that's true (and Wikipedia says that it is), then Google Maps _already_ _uses_ two names for the same thing:

Map showing the "District" of Columbia: [http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=40.010787,-78.09082&#...](http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=40.010787,-78.09082&spn=19.320998,28.78418&z=5)

Map showing the "City" of Washington: [http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=38.548165,-77.34375&#...
Why not just list them both?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is amusing and absolutely true.

The small town (population: 120,000) that I grew up appears on Google Maps before NYC or Washington are visible.

<comment><USER5> Whoa. 120k is a small town these days?

(EDIT: Context: the town in which I grew up would be around number 90 on this list: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_and_towns_in_Aus...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_and_towns_in_Austria) )

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Its probably decided by algorithm. It seems to that several states are very small in that area and maybe too many names will obscure state borders.

<comment><USER7> I wish people also appreciated how incredibly complex and nuanced (semi)automated map labeling can be. It is ridiculous.

<comment><USER8> We do. It's just that stuff like this is pretty glaring.

Google Maps was released over _five_ years ago now. If it were still in beta, I'd understand, but…

<comment><USER7> The problem with maps is that they are half art. Who's to say showing New York and Washington DC before showing Philadelphia is best? Maybe their reasoning is that most people already know where New York and Washington are? It is subjective, not a "glaring" bug.

<comment><USER8> If you really believe that mapmaking decisions are "subjective", then you have no business criticizing other people's "subjective" opinions about how maps should be made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Perhaps being an 'important' well-known city counts against being displayed. The more well-known a city is, the less likely you need it to be displayed on the most zoomed-out levels. You know where to click to zoom in if you want to see New York City.

Rather than dismissing Google and Yahoo in favour of Bing, I'd be interested to see if there's any actual user testing in favour one way or the other. Otherwise, it's just uninformed opinion on what 'should' be the best way to use a map.

<comment><USER10> "Perhaps being an 'important' well-known city counts against being displayed..."

Then why are London, Paris, Mumbai, Shanghai, Tokyo, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco on the same map that New York isn't on?

<comment><USER9> Because other weighting factors suggested they should be shown.

I wasn't implying a simplistic 'everyone knows where X is, don't show it' system - just that being well known could counter-intuitively reduce the need to show a label at some zoom levels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This post is yet another example of the incredible inferiority complex of the New York tech scene.

//sarcasm

</comment><comment><USER12> Honestly, my first thought was:

"To 'thwart' 'terrorists'."

</comment><comment><USER13> Special request of Homeland Security. If terrorists don't know where NYC and Washington are, then they can't harm us. I can't believe anybody wouldn't be aware of this in these days of heightened awareness.

</comment><comment><USER14> "Given its immense importance…".

I wonder if Justin O'Beirne lives in NYC?

<comment><USER10> "Given its immense importance..."

You're seriously going to argue that NYC isn't immensely important?

From Wikipedia: "New York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is one of the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over global commerce, finance, media, culture, art, fashion, research, education, and entertainment. As host of the United Nations Headquarters, it is also an important center for international affairs."

When the aliens came to Earth in "Independence Day", they didn't blow up Philadelphia... they blew up New York.

<comment><USER15> _they didn't blow up Philadelphia... they blew up New York._

That's because they were scared of Philadelphians. We threw snowballs at Santa after all.</comment></comment></comment>


Opensource spaced repetition system (SRS)  - <AUTHOR> http://ichi2.net/anki/

<comment><USER2> The killer feature for these things is content. You need the ability to draw on a Wikipedia style collaborative project so that you don't end up entering all the standard info (100 most common words in language X, countries/states and capitals etc. etc.)

As far as I'm aware no one has done this yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> What is interesting is that most people seem to be using SRS for learning languages.

Also, I'm mystified as to why people would pay for anything similar (see <http://fullrecall.com/>), given that

1\. The algorithm being used is freely available "SuperMemo2" 2\. Most facts/languages are freely available.

[I'm new here. hurrah]

<comment><USER3> It's probably becuase many people prefer a complete, working solution rather than roll-your-own kind of thing. I would actually pay for something like mnemosyne that works well on the Web & iPhone and has the kind of content I care about.</comment></comment></comment>


Intuit lobbies against California's free tax filing service - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ventry-intuit-20100721,0,6498588.story

<comment><USER2> I think the key issue here is that when a government imposes administrative procedures on its citizens (e.g. tax returns), it should be entirely logical for said government to provide free software that reduces the administrative load. In fact, this should be the norm. You can't accuse the state of anti- competitive behaviour in this case, because the market you're serving wouldn't even exist if they hadn't created tax filing procedures to begin with.

Or, as I like to think of it, governments, by necessity, introduce a certain amount of friction into our lives, and have every right to try and reduce that friction. If your business is built on reducing that friction, you simply need to ensure that your service stays ahead of the free service, because your profits are not a right.

</comment><comment><USER3> Shouldn't that read "Intuit has no idea how to compete without crying to the government."

<comment><USER4> Well, in this case it looks like they're competing _with_ the government. Still, I'm not a fan of what they're trying to do. Of course, the Accountant's lobby and Congress have been conspiring to provide lifetime employment for tax preparers for decades, so it's really not anything new.

If we really wanted to save money, we'd reform the tax system, not provide band-aids like this program.

<comment><USER5> _If we really wanted to save money, we'd reform the tax system, not provide band-aids like this program._

Exactly! As a taxpayer I want the tax code to be simplified so that I don't need to use a computer or pay someone to prepare my return.

<comment><USER6> But think about all the starving accountants. Think about their children!!!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is somewhat of a silly move for Intuit - the free programs that California aren't something that I, as a California resident, am going to trust, namely because I don't feel that I can get support for it like how I can from Intuit and that I don't think I can hold the state accountable like how I can Intuit in case of a screw-up.

I suspect that there are going to be a lot of long-time TurboTax users like me who feel the same way.

<comment><USER8> There are surely some people using the free services. Presumably with time, the user satisfaction with these programs will increase as bugs get ironed out and word of mouth helps spread them.

You seem to believe that just because you will not use the states tax software that no one will, which seems to be a error in generalization.

From a profit maximization perspective, I completely understand how Intuit's rent seeking behavior is justified. On the other hand, it almost certainly socially suboptimal.

<comment><USER7> From my comment

"I suspect that there are going to be A LOT of long-time TurboTax users like me who feel the same way."

From yours

"You seem to believe that just because you will not use the states tax software that NO ONE will, which seems to be a error in generalization."

Seems to me like you made an error in reading comprehension.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is Calfile or ReadyReturn open source ? This would be a great asset in deploying similar systems in... say.. developing nations.

</comment><comment><USER10> Silly. I would expect the pay services to still have an advantage because most people are probably going to expect a free government service to not highlight all the potential tax breaks for you.

But given Intuit has taken this tact, perhaps they don't work as hard as they should be to justify their cost...

</comment><comment><USER11> I dont think this about self interest, Political democracy.

I think this is California Hippies significantly price gouging the competition out of its Highest profit margin customers. And Big Business is like you are price gouging us, when we are suppose to be price gouging them.

Those customers that are the quick and easy returns, might file themselves through the state. I would imagine consumers general risk aversion with regards to government oversight would be the determinate for logical consumers adoption of these government goods with a relevant weight with regards to the price savings and the resulting of a comparable net return.

If the california system is off in its returns or doesn't produce returns similar results as previous year. The customer is going to intuit next time.

The false positive is the trick for Califronia to catch in order to make their system a success. The guy that had someone doing his taxes for years. Really basic, but now that guy started a business, or bought a house and the deductions are not standardized enough for the flag to call a higher level of deductions.

This guy uses the system for years and now he finds out from his friend that intuit does it much better, and tax preparation service steps in and wham.. They have a wow loyalty customer.

This is just market signaling that the actuary boys at Intuit think that the free deal is going to be a winner for customers. Or false signaling, you tell me.

<comment><USER11> Was it the hippi or big business building tools for small business that generally offended you. Resulting in the downing voting of the analysis. For it is definitely sound.</comment></comment>


In Rwanda, a young woman activist challenges longtime leader - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/in-rwanda-a-young-woman-activist-challenges-longtime-leader/2017/06/10/e061b96e-4dc3-11e7-987c-42ab5745db2e_story.html?utm_term=.24bbdf234608 <comment><USER2> I wish her the best success, however I would not say that only the Kagame regime (which in some aspects is awesome and others terrible) is to be feared in the region. Most Western countries and China want to have their say in the politics of CAR/CDR/Burundi and they do not hesitate to use dirty tricks.

</comment><comment><USER3> Kagame looks like a solid leader.</comment>


JSON-LD Schema.org Markup Generator - <AUTHOR> https://www.jamesdflynn.com/json-ld-schema-generator/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is a little tool I wrote a while back to help insert structured data into websites and pages in a more elegant format than traditional markup.</comment>


Mark Cuban: Why You Should Never Listen to Your Customers  - <AUTHOR> http://blogmaverick.com/2010/04/06/why-you-should-never-listen-to-your-customers/ <comment><USER2> Of course you should listen to your customers. But the wrong way to listen to your customers, is just to add features or just to read their emails and take them literally. You have to analyse the reasons behind their requests. Why do they want this feature? What problem are they trying to solve with that?

When you are doing usability tests, you don't just listen to the user explaining whats going wrong you are watching him. Often the user explains that there is a problem with your buttons but in reality he just has a problem with some descriptions. What the user thinks and what he does are two different sides of the same coin. You need to find out "What is the problem?" and solve it.

The user might say "I need larger buttons on my phone, they are too small" but the problem might be that he makes many mistakes. Now this is a totally different problem and you can solve it in many way (auto correct features, voice recogn,... or something totally new).

Now if you find a big problem with big business potential most users will have this problem, but the won't be aware of it.

Think about Dyson, everyone had this problem, you have to buy bags for your vacuum cleaner, but this wasn't problem most people were aware of. Now Dyson solved it and instantly everybody was aware of it.

Think about phones, they ahd more and more features, but most user were not able to use them. Now Apple solved that, most features of iphone where available before the iphone but suddenly people where aware these features existed and they could use them.

Listen to customers, but don't do it "literally" ;-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Asking your customers what to do is not the same thing as listening to your customers. Listening to customers is essential to success.

</comment><comment><USER4> "If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." -- Henry Ford

<comment><USER5> As my co-founder said when I threw that one in his face: "Sure, but he would learn that one of their big problems was speed."

<comment><USER6> Didn't he know that? Didn't the original model solve that problem?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Customers are great at finding bugs, but not so great at developing features.

<comment><USER8> Or: let users influence tactics, but not strategy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> He has a point. For years his customers have been telling him to get some f-ing defence, but Cuban just won't listen. And lets face it, those 120-110 games the Mavericks keep coming up with are a lot of fun to watch. Especially if you are not really a Mavericks fan.

<comment><USER10> Yeah but his fans also want a championship, and not early round playoff exits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The basic point of this is good, but the post borders on the linkbait side. If you take the title literally, you won't have a business left! You should always listen to your customers. You shouldn't give in to their requests easily of course. But I'd much rather deal with a company that will listen to me and shrug me off than a company that won't even do the first step.

Nothing's more important to me than having a _real_ human being listening to and at least acknowledging my requests.

<comment><USER12> All good bloggers know how to linkbait every once in a while... it's the most reliable way to sustain traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Cuban's title is wrong for his post. Obviously, if your customers think a new product sucks, you should listen, right? Apple didn't sink billions of dollars into AppleTV.

<comment><USER14> Seems pretty clear he's speaking within the context of features/functionality.

<comment><USER15> It's clear after you start reading the post. It's not clear from the title. Hence dunacnj's point that the title is "wrong."

<comment><USER14> I guess it comes down to how you approach it.

I had no reason to expect a statement trivially-falsifiable when held to the standard of universal truth was meant to be taken as such. So I assumed there was a particular context relevant to the assertion and was unsurprised to find that there was.

If you approach article titles expecting to find absolute logical precision, I'd imagine this is but one of many 'wrong' titles.

<comment><USER15> I knew the title couldn't mean what it literally meant. But I find that style of title if not "wrong" at least "bad." That the literal interpretation is obviously wrong is the intent; it lures you into reading the post to find out what exactly the author means by it. This is in opposition to a good title, which succinctly states the main point and lures you into reading by being an interesting idea.

I consider this technique linkbaiting.

<comment><USER14> I absolutely agree with that. On the axis of truth vs marketing, this is definitely out toward marketing. I don't think this is _quite_ as bad as linkbaiting, but it's surely kin.

I guess I just misunderstood what you'd meant by 'wrong'.

<comment><USER15> That's why I said "wrong," to make sure it was clear I was using someone else's word. I probably would have said "misleading." And that was my first thought after reading through enough of the post to understand what he was really saying. I don't like posts where someone makes a provocative statement, then jumps through hoops to redefine words or attach different semantics to make it fit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A big problem with listening to your customers is that you're often listening to individual customers. The problems they would like you to solve can't be fixed the way they suggest because it would cripple the system/community as a whole.

This is because users will often have a pretty egocentric view of how their experience can be enhanced. They do not understand this will never work when it's applied to all users.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's silly to boil this down to a black and white issue, because it's not. "Listening to your customers" is not equal to relinquishing creative control of your product's direction. It means that you, as a company, address the day- to-day pain points that your users experience while using your software. That's it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is this why the iPhone didn't have copy/paste and MMS for the first 2 years?

<comment><USER19> The flip side is that sometimes a company can be too "clever" trying to invent something better when they could just copy.

For example, Microsoft waffled for years before adding tabs to IE. They wanted to find a better way manage multiple pages. I think most people still prefer tabs to their "clever" image thumbnail thing. So all they did was waste a few years not implementing an existing feature that their customers were all asking for.

This blog entry reads like a Malcom Gladwell story with it's selection bias. Innovating in itself is not enough if the features you're spending time on are not going to be a big success. That's why you still need to keep copying successful features from competitors. They've already done most of the hard work.

<comment><USER20> _I think most people still prefer tabs to their "clever" image_

Tabs is web browsers are evidence of some fundamental brokenness with the web. I think Microsoft's designers probably instinctively hated the idea, just like Apple's probably did (Safari didn't (doesn't?) have tabs turned on by default).

It's far from clear to me that most people are comfortable with the concept of dynamically managed tabs. Clearly computer nerds do like them though.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: BroadcastChannel and LeaderElection to share data between browser tabs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pubkey/broadcast-channel <comment><USER2> Will this also work across browsers--say a user has a the same site open in Safari/Firefox--can broadcast-channel connect the two instances?</comment>


Google's New Favicon  - <AUTHOR> http://googlesystem.blogspot.de/2012/08/googles-new-favicon.html

<comment><USER2> If this "news" makes frontpage, it's time for me to look for a new Hacker News.

<comment><USER2> For those downvoting me: please explain me the significance of Google's new favicon for a community focused on "Hacker News".

<comment><USER3> I did not downvote you either, but I think branding is a concept that is pretty important to most of us. How the major companies handle the evolution of their brand is pretty interesting, especially the subtle aspects that we see every day but might not think about.

<comment><USER4> Sadly, the post provide little content besides showing the favicons Google used in the past.

The icon itself's not even new -- the post mentions it's the same icon they've been using on the mobile devices already.

Really, all the post is saying is: "Lookie, we're using our mobile icon everywhere for the sake of consistency."

Does that really "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity"?

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I miss the logo with the capital G and colored lines around it. Reminds me of one of those wooden letter blocks I played with when I was a kid.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, the favicon they used starting around 2009[1] was definitely my favorite visually. It stood out among a ton of tabs; the monolithic favicons they've been using since they just look like blobs to my eye. This latest one is especially bad in that regard.

[1] [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/googles-new- favicon.h...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/googles-new-favicon.html)

<comment><USER7> To me, that new 'blue pill' one is better, more subdued, and the 'g' is very legible. Before that that was just a patchwork of colors and the 'g' was unreadable on a white background (i.e Chrome's own location field). The original entry by André Resende was much, much better than the messy one they used since 2009. The capital G was nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I quite like it. I always found the old one to be a bit of a mess on the browser tab. It's never really looked good to me. Happy to see the change.

</comment><comment><USER9> It looks exactly like the favicon in use prior to 2009. Except with a bit of color change.

<http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-05-30-n48.html>

</comment><comment><USER10> Some earlier discussion <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4375713>

</comment><comment><USER11> It has to be a coincidence, but it kind of looks like they updated the logo for Windows 8.

</comment><comment><USER12> Does that mean the candy cane +1 buttons are being revamped too?

</comment><comment><USER13> I prefer the old favicon. You know, the bright, colorful, cheerful one.

</comment><comment><USER14> Major boring.</comment>


Charles Stross predicts the next 80 years - <AUTHOR> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/01/world-building-301-some-projec.html

<comment><USER2> These future prediction posts all seem to say the same thing about lack of ubiqtuious space travel in the near future. It is a real shame that the economic viability of space exploration and travel hasn't really been figured out yet and it is no longer a priority for government agencies. I would love to think I would get a chance to travel in space eventually.

Heres to hoping for medical advances to prolong life until such a time space travel is as common as a transcontinental flight.</comment>


The largest computer ever built - <AUTHOR> https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/the-largest-computer-ever-built/ <comment><USER2> > What are the manageable pieces needed to make quantum computing or deriving > all electrical power from the sun a reality? I don?t know, and I don?t know > of anybody else who does: therefore, such things do not count as legitimate > long term projects.

Boy, that wording rubs me the wrong way. This stuff is known as "research". Yes, that makes it highly uncertain. No, that does not make it an illegitimate project.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, they're legitimate "research" projects, not "engineering" projects. No usable device is expected to be produced and put into service at the end. People funding that research are buying knowledge, not useful systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're in Bay Area, it (well, some pieces of it) is on display in Computer History Museum - [http://www.computerhistory.org/VirtualVisibleStorage/artifac...](http://www.computerhistory.org/VirtualVisibleStorage/artifact_frame.php?tax_id=02.02.02.00)

<comment><USER5> This web design is terrible. I expect better from the Computer History Museum.

I tried Chrome, Safari and Firefox on OS X and it looks terrible in all of them.

<comment><USER6> Really? I went there, was able to clearly see a well written article, not cluttered with anything distracting that gave me the information I needed, allowing me to focus 100% on the content.

<comment><USER7> He's referring to the Computer History Museum link in the parent, not the SAGE article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Core Memory" .. that brings back a memory. I worked on an unrelated system while in the USAF that had 512 bytes of core memory. We had a problem where the data was getting corrupted some of the time, particularly on a message indicator byte that disrupted flow control. After a day of oscilloscope work, it turned out that one core in the array had gone bad, and it just happened to be in the "wrong" place.

The system had been designed in the mid 1960's, and this particular core array had been running since 1970 or so, and this was 1985. So 14 or so years of continuous uptime. There's something to be said about building hardware at the macro size, not the micro size. ;)

</comment><comment><USER9> 3-112-0_Theory_Of_Programming_Apr59.pdf is quite interesting.

</comment><comment><USER10> If long term projects can be made obsolete by their deployment time, then on what basis can long term project actually happen. What ever you do, it's a gamble.

<comment><USER11> This is why "release early, release often" was invented.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Our grandfathers knew about fault tolerance"

Just our grandfathers, and not our grandparents as a whole?

<comment><USER13> "Grandfather" also means 'ancestor'.

<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grandfather>

<comment><USER14> Your own 'ancestor' link is a referal to the definition of father of parent. It's not gender neutral.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Imagine a beowulf cluster of these...</comment>


Will Polldaddy let me keep my ftp.polldaddy.com username? - <AUTHOR> http://www.matthewslight.com/2011/06/21/can-i-use-ftp-polldaddy-com/

<comment><AUTHOR> This seems a bad idea to me. I wonder why they don't have tighter controls on which usernames can be chosen. I notice that you can not use 'www' or 'blog' for obvious reasons, but usernames like ftp and mail don't seem to have been screened. I suspect that in time they will have to have some form on control on this.</comment>


During Pandemic, Two Veteran C.E.O.s Risk $1.8B on an App - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/business/media/quibi-streaming-app-jeffrey-katzenberg-meg-whitman.html <comment><USER2> It's remarkably _easy_ to make fun of Quibi:

* Most experienced media executives I know expect it will be a spectacular failure.

* Most experienced TV reviewers have panned the shows, the format, and the idea.

* Many commenters here on HN are looking at Quibi almost in disbelief ("Wait, they spent how much? On _what_!?")

But none of these opinions and prognostications will matter in the end. The only thing that will matter for Quibi is whether people around the globe sign up for the service or not. There are billions of people glued to their mobile phones every day around the planet; even a tiny fraction of billions is a big number. How many will sign up?

</comment><comment><USER3> Scathing review in The Guardian. Ouch!

[https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and- radio/2020/apr/06/quibi-s...](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and- radio/2020/apr/06/quibi-streaming-review-short-form-tv)

</comment><comment><USER3> > Writers who sign on have to follow a rule of Mr. Katzenberg's: They must end > each installment with a cliffhanger.

Oh, that would really annoy me</comment>


Forests Around Chernobyl Aren't Decaying Properly - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/forests-around-chernobyl-arent-decaying-properly-180950075/ <comment><USER2> I saw a documentary about the Chernobyl exclusion zone a couple of years back. One of the more interesting facts was that while the radioation levels on the ground and soil surface have slowly gone down, the radiation levels from the _trees_ are higher.

Explanation for this oddity was also provided, and like most things, makes perfect sense in retrospect. The radioactive particles have been slowly washed downwards in the soil, which explains the soil surface figures. But as the particles get to the depth where trees and saplings have their roots, these suck the particles in and eventually they get distributed in the leaves.

Funky, but oh so natural.

<comment><USER3> In the months after Chernobyl, mushrooms e.g. in the Tirol and in Eastern Europe were measured concentrating fallout up to 400x.

I'm not surprised that slower growing vegetation is showing an uptick.

<comment><USER4> So, in the event of nuclear fallout, we could seed mushrooms everywhere to clean it up? Maybe we should do that in Fukashima.

<comment><USER5> But what do you do with the contaminated mushrooms ?

<comment><USER6> _queue retro arcade music_ super Mario!

<comment><USER7> lol!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> After a decade there's a couple extra inches of wood and leaf matter sitting on the ground. I've always wondered what our planet looked like in the millions of years between the evolution of trees, and the evolution of the first fungus that could break down cellulose. With nowhere to go, those dead forests eventually fossilized and became coal deposits -- but what was it like to actually be there when those forests were growing. How thick did the dead wood stack up? How did anything grow after the first few generations of trees covered the ground in so much dead carbon?

<comment><USER9> Was there such a time? A quick google gives me, for trees, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_history_of_plants#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_history_of_plants#Tree_form) _" The early Devonian landscape was devoid of vegetation taller than waist height."_ and _" The first plants to develop this secondary growth, and a woody habit, were apparently the ferns, and as early as the middle Devonian one species, Wattieza, had already reached heights of 8 m and a tree-like habit."_,

Comparing that with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_fungi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_fungi) _" A rich diversity of fungi is known from the lower Devonian Rhynie chert"_, and lower Devonian = early Devonian, I very tentatively conclude fungi precluded trees. Given that, I (not hindered by much specific knowledge of the subject) expect that fungi breaking down cellulose co-evolved with trees.

<comment><USER10> Actually, the period between the development of woody plants and the development of wood-eating fungi was approximately 60 million years, and is known as the carboniferous because of all of the carbon that got sequestered.

Also, the key chemical wasn't cellulose, but rather lignin. Lignin is an astoundingly complex polymer* that plants use as "concrete" to create their woody cells. As far as I know, white rot fungi is the only group that can break it down.

*seriously, look at that thing: [http://cse.ksu.edu/REU/S11/emd4y8/breakdown.html](http://cse.ksu.edu/REU/S11/emd4y8/breakdown.html). That's a big goddamn molecule.

<comment><USER11> Great answer indeed! Now do you maybe have an idea of "how thick did the dead wood stack up" as @dangrossman asked? Thanks !

<comment><USER12> Let's post it on whatif.xkcd.com :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a potential solution, has anyone considered sprinkling the area with graphite, massive amounts of graphite flakes? It's quite difficult to burn nuclear grade graphite, and it might actually act as a moderator for the fallout and help to control what's happening randomly.

Maybe the solution is to dump a moderator over the area and seed it with organisms and see if something takes hold? Either way, this doesn't seem to be an intractable problem if one is a bit lax in terms of long term uncertainty. (this would throw off the projections of how this is going to play out 500 years from now)

<comment><USER10> To the best of my understanding, graphite in reactors serves the purpose of moderating nuclear chain reactions. The radioactive materials in the forest are almost certainly not dense enough to undergo a chain reaction, so adding a moderator would be pointless. The issue isn't the environmental radiation (like you might worry about standing next to an exposed nuclear core), it's the prospect that radioactive materials might be absorbed by people (like you might worry about if a nuclear core was on fire in the same city as you). Spreading moderators around would do nothing to help about bioaccumulation.

<comment><USER14> > _The radioactive materials in the forest are almost certainly not dense > enough to undergo a chain reaction, so adding a moderator would be > pointless. ... Spreading moderators around would do nothing to help about > bioaccumulation._

That's basically correct. There won't be a fission chain reaction because essentially no neutrons are released by the radioactive decay of the isotopes in the fallout. Consequently, deploying neutron moderators would have essentially no effect. (It'd be like, say, taking a life jacket with you on a hike through the Sahara.)

The relevant radioactive isotopes are mainly caesium 137, iodine 131, and strontium 90 [1]. When they decay into other elements, they release beta- and gamma radiation, which can damage nearby cells if ingested into the body. But none of them fissions to release neutrons that would be absorbed by graphite or boron.

The danger posed by these isotopes is that if you inhale or swallow them, they can stick around in your body tissues, zapping nearby cells, for a long time. For example, caesium 137 has an estimated biological _half_ life of 70 days [2], while strontium 90, which is taken into bone much like calcium, has an estimated biological half life of 18 years [3].

A major forest fire in the Chernobyl area would turn contaminated trees into contaminated smoke. Who knows where the wind would blow the smoke. The resulting fallout could be inhaled and/or swallowed by people and other animals. It also might fall on farmland, where it could be up-taken by crops that _would_ eventually be swallowed. All in all, not good news.

(Source: I used to be a Navy nuclear engineering officer.)

[1] [http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/backgrounder...](http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/backgrounder/en/)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium-137#Health_risk_of_radi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium-137#Health_risk_of_radioactive_caesium)

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium-90](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium-90)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What do we think of the experiment design? Good example? Anyone think of any obvious flaws?

<comment><USER9> As nknighthb says, it's hard to say without access to the full paper. I googled for it, but couldn't find it.

There are two things I noticed in the web page (not the paper) that triggered questions immediately.

Firstly the claim "Because they had so many bags placed in so many different locations, they were able to statistically control for outside factors such as humidity, temperature and forest and soil type". The map only has 19 or so locations. Seems a bit few to me to control for so many variables. Or am I mistaken?

Secondly, the map has areas colored green, but the legend runs from yellow via orange to red. What does green mean? Radiation at normal levels?

<comment><USER16> I believe this[1] is the paper (paywalled).

From the abstract:

>we deposited 572 bags with uncontaminated dry leaf litter from four species of trees in the leaf litter layer at 20 forest sites around Chernobyl that varied in background radiation by more than a factor 2,600

Depending on how much variation there is in microclimate and soil type within their 20 locations, I could believe that they could get some pretty convincing results from 572 bags. Especially if, as it appears from their claims, the effect of radiation is very large relative to background noise.

On the other hand, the senior author:

* is not an expert in any related field as far as I can tell

* has been known to fabricate his data [2] and engage in borderline misconduct during the data analysis and writing phases as well [3].

I'm agnostic.

[1]: [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00442-014-2908-8](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00442-014-2908-8)

[2]: [http://news.sciencemag.org/2004/01/ecologists-rocked- miscond...](http://news.sciencemag.org/2004/01/ecologists-rocked-misconduct- finding)

[3]: [http://bio.fsu.edu/~dhoule/Publications/mollerreview.pdf](http://bio.fsu.edu/~dhoule/Publications/mollerreview.pdf) (large PDF)

<comment><USER15> Latin square type design I presume. Thanks for posting this and spending the time.

Given the record in your second reference, I'd imagine the lead author would want to have the data out there and eye-balled by as many as possible to improve reputation.

<comment><USER17> Some of the data is in link [1] as "Supplementary Material". This can be downloaded without a fee. It isn't much though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Huh I'm curious about whether this is really that bad.

Eastern Europe (including and most of all, Russia) have peat lands which are extremely dense decayed plant matter that has, over many many years, compressed to the point where it has more carbon than coal. Russia's forest fires (having killed tens of thousands in 2010 and 2012 each) are the worst because the dense peat in the ground continues to burn through the years and nothing but a _huge_ investment in landscaping will help put it out.

If decomposers are unable to create the peat as fast, it might make controlling the fires far easier in the short term because the peat won't continue burning, thus decreasing the risk of a catastrophic forest fire spreading nuclear ash everywhere.

Edit: That said, peat takes thousands of years to build up so it might not make any difference whatsoever.

<comment><USER19> More spin:

Carbon that is not decaying is carbon that is sequestered. If the trees don't decompose, it removes carbon from the biosphere and ultimately from the atmosphere.

Win!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Excellent science. Of course, in retrospect, makes complete sense. Radiation is used to sterilize food, so it's not surprising that it is doing the same thing to the forest.

<comment><USER21> I'm surprised. I'd expect micro-organisms to adapt faster to radiation than plants, not slower.

<comment><USER22> My guess is, for a micro-organism death of a single cell is deadly. So the first photon that comes along kills. ( A bit more formal, irradiation effects are probably proportional to the surface area, while available cells, and thus ratio of destruction, is probably proportional to the volume. So relative damage is proportional to 1/size.)

<comment><USER17> All light is made of photons. I think you mean "ionizing radiation", which includes gamma rays (photons), as well as alpha particles, beta particles, neutrons, etc.

I concur with Dylan16807; your physical model makes no sense. It means that viruses would be killed if a gamma ray sneezed nearby, and it doesn't explain D. radiodurans survivability.

It's likely going to be a function of DNA size, ability to repair DNA, redundancy in the DNA, and lack of easily induced damaging side effects. None of which are strongly correlated to cell volume.

<comment><USER22> I am not talking about cell volume, I am talking about number of cells. So if a single celled organism is hit by a gamma ray and a cell dies, it is dead. If a tree looses a single cell, it will probably survive.

<comment><USER17> A single gamma ray rarely kills any cell, just like a single gamma ray rarely kills a tree.

If there is a ton of single celled organisms, and enough radiation to kill 1/2 of them, then 1/2 a ton of single celled organisms remain.

If there is a ton of tree, and enough radiation to kill 1/2 of the cells, then the tree is almost certainly dead.

And if I read the numbers correctly, you'll likely need more radiation to kill a single celled organism cell than a tree cell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Chernobyl: no fridge needed.

</comment><comment><USER24> What about bioremediation? Bring in microorganisms, bacteria and fungal spores, from healthy forests, and inoculate this one?

<comment><USER25> The issue is most likely that high radiation levels are inhibiting the growth of microorganisms. So new microorganisms would probably just die.

Note that this is not particularly unexpected. We do this on purpose (in a more controlled manner) to prevent spoilage of food and reduce food borne illnesses.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Have anyone been to Chernobyl? I find the topic fascinating, and are considering to go there to have a look for my self. Apparently there is possible to have an guided tour into the exclusion zone. For example [https://chernobyl-tour.com/english/](https://chernobyl-tour.com/english/) .

</comment><comment><USER27> This is awesome science (I would say a little more worthy of a kickstarter than Another burger joint). Fukushima is the Chernobyl of the sea, hopefully someone will do similar research to study it.

<comment><USER28> radiation underwater is much, much less harmful, because water is much more dense than air.

[https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/)

<comment><USER29> Assuming the water is clean of radioactive particles( like dust or metal fragments ).

<comment><USER28> I would predict that such particles would be more dense, and sink over time to the bottom.

However, there is the possibility of organisms eating them and then swimming around. Nonetheless, the environmental damage should be greatly reduced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> What about the animal population that seems to have adapted enough to resist the current radioactivity levels (source: some BBC documentary IIRC). I found it fascinating.

<comment><USER17> I take it you didn't read the Smithsonian article? The second paragraph says:

> Birds around Chernobyl have significantly smaller brains that those living > in non-radiation poisoned areas; trees there grow slower; and fewer spiders > and insects—including bees, butterflies and grasshoppers—live there.

See also [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disast...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disaster#Plant_and_animal_health) , which also points out that "[s]ome plants and animals have been able to adapt to the increased radiation levels present in and around Chernobyl", but then only lists the Arabidopsis plant.

There _is_ more animal diversity there now than before, but that can also be attributed to it being more like a wildlife sanctuary.

<comment><USER30> I read it (without skimming even). But allow me to be surprised that, considering what I remember about human populations impact (heavy and deadly mutations in children), even with reduced organs, there are living animals near the site.

<comment><USER17> This is likely because your baseline is not a wildlife sanctuary. You are comparing the animal life in populated, pre-accident Chernobyl with farms and agriculture, to depopulated, post-accident Chernobyl with little additional human impact.

See [http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/nuclear_pow...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/nuclear_power/2013/01/wildlife_in_chernobyl_debate_over_mutations_and_populations_of_plants_and.html)

> Those studies found mammal diversity and abundance equal to that of a > protected nature reserve, with rare species including bears, lynx, river > otter, and badger as well as introduced herds of European bison and > Przewalski's horses. Bird diversity is even richer and includes 61 rare > species. Whooper swans—never before reported in the region—now appear > regularly.

It points out that animal counts isn't the same as animal health, and it suggests that a reason we don't see those animals born with 'heavy and deadly mutations' is because they are quickly eaten by other animals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I appreciate the care they went to in order to exclude other causes. I am not surprised that microbes are more susceptible to ionizing radiation than larger multi-cellular life given their structure. But I am surprised that they don't make up for that in fecundity.

</comment><comment><USER32> Reminds me of the grocery store scene from _28 Days Later_ \-- "Mmmmm! Irradiated!"

</comment><comment><USER33> Hm, so that's how the forests in Nausicaa happened...

</comment><comment><USER34> _Unfortunately, there's no obvious solution for the problem at hand..._

How about seeding the area with radiation-eating fungi, would that help?

<comment><USER35> That just redistributes the radiation into the fungi. Then what do you do?

<comment><USER36> find an animal to eat the fungi, then collect all the dead fungi predators, and place them deep in a mountain where we put nuclear waste?

<comment><USER10> The huge majority of any fungi tends to be in the ground or within it's host.

Plus the entire problem is quite likely that the wood/leaf eating fungi are radiation sensitive, so...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> >Click here to continue to the article

Dropped. Can anyone give a summary?

<comment><USER38> Yeah I can't believe those deceitful bastards at the Smithsonian would dare float the idea of a possible subscription to their magazine before you read their article.

<comment><USER39> It isn't even that (at least I didn't get that). It's just a standard click through advertisement that 90% of magazine sites seem to use. A lot of interesting and informative articles are hidden away behind these pernicious, easily skippable, advertisements.

<comment><USER38> While I agree completely that it's a bit outdated(sorry, potentially putting words in your mouth) and has the potential to be pernicious(see the parent of this thread), the easily skippable part is what makes it ok with me.

I found the subscription notice to be incredibly unoffensive given the reputation of the source as well as the high quality of the article.

<comment><USER39> No worries. I keep leaving off the /s. I think we're on the same page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Wow, who would have expected that there is slow decay when microbes that decay things are killed or slowed by radiation...

What a waste of time.</comment>


Thoughts on the Apple Credit Card - <AUTHOR> https://rjevski.io/thoughts-on-the-apple-card <comment><AUTHOR> Author here - any feedback or constructive criticism is more than welcome!

<comment><USER2> I agree with you in general, but even at its core there's nothing interesting here.

Simple did this whole categorized transaction, friendly in app chat customer service, blah blah thing years ago. But it was also a current account. It still exists after being bought by BBVA.

Capital One has been doing this sort of thing too in their mobile apps for credit cards.

The cash back is standard, even inadequate as you can get a flat 2% on any transaction card from Citibank and Fidelity.

But... the average American is terrible at money management. Apple is huge. The titanium card is shiny and free. So I think this will get some traction, but there's really nothing interesting about it from a finance or fintech perspective.

I actually think this is a bad product for Apple to so deeply brand (it is going to just be run by GS anyway). How does Apple deal with charge offs? Does the friendly, upscale brand turn up at your door and demand their titanium card back? How does this effect the relationship between Apple customers and Apple?

I can't say I'm a fan of Apple's conglomerization. There's just something weird about this. I don't know quite what that is.</comment></comment>


Study suggests Android handset makers will suffer the fate of PC makers - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/nov/05/android-prediction-study

<comment><USER2> "Handset developers must urgently seek new sources of differentiation to offset the huge pressure on margins. Their search will need to consider their industrial designs, user experience, the richness of available applications, and new business models"

-I will give it to android and ios, it has caused handset manufacturers to start making phones that don't suck as much they used to. Think, the last cool phone that motorola made was the Razr (2004), now they're coming out with some pretty cool handsets. Overall, this is going to only benefit the end user

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't understand how this is a bad thing. We'll have different lines of products, the more efficient manufacturers will stay in the game, the bad ones will have to pull out or will be relegated to unprofitable niches.

As long as I can have the Android equivalent to a Thinkpad, I'll be happy.</comment>


Mac vs. PC gap is the narrowest since '90s - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/05/tech/gaming-gadgets/mac-vs-pc-graph/index.html

<comment><USER2> It's odd, I see this story everywhere. Now even in CNN. But I still haven't seen a story that explains where the numbers came from and what they represent. For instance, is this worldwide or US only? Are all PC makers considered (large and small ones)? For instance, are Brazilian PC maker Positivo's sales considered? Some stories refer to "PCs with Windows" or "Microsoft's PCs". Does that mean they only count PCs bought with Windows preinstalled?

</comment><comment><USER3> If you want something to be true hard enough, you can explain it any way you want.

What's weird, is that this seems to imply that Apple has gone from 1.8% market share (in 2004) to 6.125% market share, and that's amazing.

Being only 1 in 15 isn't a good number, and distorting relative change as opposed to absolute change is just intellectually dishonest.</comment>


These Guys finished a record Cannonball Run from NYC to LA averaging 103 MPH - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/12/06/these-guys-finished-record-cannonball-run-new-york-la-averaging-mph-heres-how/ <comment><USER2> Stuff You Should Know did a podcast about the Cannonball Run in 2009 [https://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/cannon-ball- run-...](https://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/cannon-ball-run-reel.htm)</comment>


Carl Sagan Warned the World About Nuclear Winter - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-carl-sagan-warned-world-about-nuclear-winter-180967198/?no-ist <comment><USER2> The concept of "nuclear winter" is a great example of science gone wrong. As it turns out, the original 1980s report vastly overestimated the amount of combustible fuel in cities and inaccurately estimated both modern nuclear weapon yield and blast size. Nuclear war would _not_ create firestorms capable of injecting soot into the stratosphere and would _not_ cause years-long crop failures. Nuclear war is, in fact, quite survivable.

[https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4244](https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4244)

[https://www.nature.com/articles/475037b](https://www.nature.com/articles/475037b)

[https://www.quora.com/How-many-nukes-would-it-take-to- cause-...](https://www.quora.com/How-many-nukes-would-it-take-to-cause-a- minor-nuclear-winter-What-about-a-moderate-one/answer/Allen-E-Hall-2)

<comment><USER3> > Nuclear war is, in fact, quite survivable.

Nuclear winter may be less plausible than people believe but I'm not sure a nuclear war can be described as "quite survivable". The potential disruption to transportation networks that are essential for food distribution and delivery of medical supplies etc would be catastrophic in a nuclear _war_. I have no doubt that a nuclear exchange would be accompanied by electronic warfare - disruption/destruction of the power grid in the north could kill millions in the winter, especially if the petroleum supplies required to evacuate were also disrupted.

<comment><USER4> It depends on what exactly is meant by "quite survivable."

Does that mean you'll have a 99% chance to survive even if you do any special preparation? If so, nuclear war definitely does not qualify.

Does it mean you'll have a greater than 50% chance to survive with good preparation? Nuclear war probably qualifies.

Or does it just mean that nuclear war won't result in human extinction? Nuclear war definitely qualifies.

An all-out nuclear war would definitely kill tens of millions immediately, and tens if not hundreds of millions with the after-effects. You may not see years-long crop failures due to nuclear winter, but you'll get the same ultimate effect from lack of fertilizer, machinery, and distribution infrastructure. And fallout. A good chunk of the US's productive agricultural land is downwind from ICBM sites which would be targeted for extremely dirty ground burst attacks.

<comment><USER5> There's no reasonable interpretation of a 50%-ish survival rate that can be described as 'quite survivable'. Toxicologists say LD50, for instance, not QS50.

<comment><USER6> On an individual scale? Sure. On a civilization or species scale? Survival of the larger group is almost certain if each individual has "only" a 50% chance of death.

<comment><USER2> The Black Death, after all, killed about half of Europe's population. European civilization survived.

<comment><USER7> Was it really half? I have seen figures around 30%. Are there any accurate records in every country at the time?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Carl Sagan's predictions were really dire. Here's a three paragraph TLDR of his specific predictions from his 1983 article that brought "Nuclear Winter" into the vocabulary:

—

"Our baseline case, as in many other studies, was a 5000-megaton war with only a modest fraction of the yield (20 percent) expended on urban or industrial targets… In the baseline case, the amount of sunlight at the ground was reduced to… too dark for plants to make a living from photosynthesis.

"Land temperatures, except for narrow strips of coastline, dropped to minus 25 Celsius (minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit) and stayed below freezing for months -- even for a summer war... virtually all crops and farm animals, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, would be destroyed, as would most varieties of uncultivated or domesticated food supplies. Most of the human survivors would starve.

"But what if nuclear wars can be contained, and much less than 5000 megatons is detonated? Perhaps the greatest surprise in our work was that even small nuclear wars can have devastating climatic effects. We considered a war in which a mere 100 megatons were exploded, less than one percent of the world arsenals, and only in low-yield airbursts over cities. This scenario, we found, would ignite thousands of fires, and the smoke from these fires alone would be enough to generate an epoch of cold and dark almost as severe as in the 5000 megaton case. The threshold for what Richard Turco has called The Nuclear Winter is very low.

—

I think the reason the Carl Sagan was widely panned afterwords is that the science was just plain bad. The scale of the predictions he made were so off the charts from almost forty years of previous nuclear experience, that he was obviously was wrong. He predicted essentially the end of the humanity from a mere 100 megatons of nuclear explosions, and yet twenty years before article, the Soviet Union had tested a 50 megaton bomb with no more than the usual local effects.

Using bad science to advance a public policy goal is exactly what got us to the current "distrust of science"

<comment><USER9> 5,000 megatons would be enough to destroy every major and semi-major city on the planet, literally.

There are 4,416 cities on the planet with 150k+ population. 10 100kt bombs are more than enough to destroy most cities on the planet, at least when you define "destroy" as "most everything is broken and/or on fire and most people are dead within 1 year's time".

After your 10-nukes-per-city campaign, you've still got another 5,840 100kt bombs left in your 5,000 megaton budget to divide among the largest cities (NYC, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Tehran, etc.).

I'm stating this because I don't think it's too useful to predict the secondary effects (nuclear winter, etc.) of a war so terrible that basically everyone on the planet would already be dead (from blast, fire, etc.) or dying within a year's time (radiation, starvation from infrastructure collapse, etc.).

<comment><USER10> That sounds like a city-dweller's perspective.

Sure, I would almost certainly be dead, but life on Earth would continue, our species would continue, and our civilisation would continue (albeit with some major setbacks).

Besides, I don't think anyone's nuclear war plan is actually to destroy every major to semi-major city on Earth. In a realistic 1980s nuclear war, a lot of nukes would be targeted at military bases and the like. Plenty of others would destroy every major city in the US and USSR, plus each country's nuclear-armed allies. Maybe we here in Australia would get a nuke or two out of spite. But is anyone going to bother to nuke South America?

<comment><USER7> > In a realistic 1980s nuclear war, a lot of nukes would be targeted at > military bases and the like

i think it's mentioned in Command and Control (book) but if I recall correctly the plan from the US perspective was not only to nuke military targets, but also all major population centers, with several thermonuclear bombs for each target, for good measure. And that was not only the USSR, but basically every ally of the USSR as well.

You can imagine that the other side was also going to do about the same thing.

Sure, some countries may have been relatively spared, but all in all the whole of Europe, US, Russia, China, would have been annihilated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find it weird that scientists get crap from other scientists for speaking publicly. Simple jealousy doesn't explain the vehemence.

As for the politics of the issue, mutual assured destruction has been the working theory since Eisenhower. Those who think strategic nuclear war is winnable, as well as the SDI nutters, are threats to that stability.

<comment><USER12> > Simple jealousy doesn't explain the vehemence.

In any industry, if you attack/speak-against my beliefs/views/plans/theories, then I don't like it. Even if you didn't mean too. Even if you didn't know I existed or had those views.

It's not about science, it's about humans defending their worldview and beliefs. Even stamp collecting has this.

Anything people put time/effort into has this.

edit: ChuckMcM does a better job describing this.

<comment><USER13> Aka

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

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

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think it's worth pointing out that the global nuclear arsenal today is about a fifth the size it was when Carl Sagan made this warning. We've made significant progress toward reducing existential risk. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_we...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons#/media/File:US_and_USSR_nuclear_stockpiles.svg)

<comment><USER15> It's a fifth of what it was, but yet the ordinance (and "migratory" patterns of civilization to cities/shrinking factory towns, globalized economy) is enough to decimate the population dozens of times over; and suspend modern civilization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This article is interesting; I would say that it is crucial that such warnings and such "celebrity" scientists enter the public debate (expecting backlash and support and discussion - is this not similar to sharing research within one's academic community?). The public can have their existential dread soothed by the idea of nuclear weapons as defense, but it seems that their understanding of their usage is not sufficient. Sagan or someone needed to provide thoughtful discourse on the repercussions of using the weapon. It does seem great to think your nation can use this powerful tool to attack / ultimately defend its and your existence, but the power of and nature of the weapon requires understanding it. The scale of the weapon is not comprehensible, as much as say a simpler explosive device could be to layperson (voter?).

The advocates of SDI and nuclear did not seem to discuss the repercussions of use, rather the fact that the power is a deterrent and useful against enemies. The repercussions are what limit the use of nuclear as a strategic weapon.

Excerpt from the article: '"People didn't want to change the way they were thinking of [nuclear] weapons," he says. "I see an echo of that now. What nuclear winter shows is that they're not really weapons in the sense that other things are weapons: that you can use them to harm your adversary without harming yourself. People are not really considering that if there really were to be a nuclear conflagration, in addition to how unthinkably horrible it would be in the direct theater of the use of those weapons—say in the Korean peninsula and surrounding areas—there would also be global effects."' \- Grinspoon

<comment><USER17> The absolutely incorrect thing to do is to lie to the public by using your credibility as a scientist to knowingly make up your own incorrect story about the hypothetical effects.

You wonder why so many people don't trust "scientists" when you can see they are clearly lying to push a social cause?

<comment><USER16> I agree. That is a true failure that has effects on all future scientists going public. Presenting hypothetical effects as a possibility and open to discussion / discourse is still important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A great mini-doc overview of the same topic:

[https://www.retroreport.org/video/nuclear- winter/](https://www.retroreport.org/video/nuclear-winter/)

<comment><USER19> Also, the 1984 BBC documentary 'On the 8th Day' is worth a look: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCz9zqTTark](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCz9zqTTark)

<comment><USER17> How about this NYTimes story where even the scientist who coined the term disavowed it as a scenario.

> the five scientists who introduced the term ''nuclear winter'' now > acknowledge that they overestimated its severity, and their concession > appears to have moderated the longstanding debate.

> most discounted the extreme view that global chilling of the atmosphere > would be severe enough to be described as ''winter.'' Scientists > specializing in such studies also generally reject the suggestion that a > ''nuclear winter,'' in itself, could bring about the extinction of the human > race. Even Dr. Richard P. Turco, the physicist who coined the phrase > ''nuclear winter,'' discounts the idea.

[http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/23/science/nuclear-winter- the...](http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/23/science/nuclear-winter-theorists- pull-back.html?pagewanted=all)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Was Carl Sagan aware of just how many nuclear weapons had already been detonated in testing by both countries, as well as by India and China? I don't know the exact number but I do know it's over a hundred. If his models were correct, we'd have already been experiencing a nuclear winter by the 1980's.

<comment><USER21> Um, no. The tests were rather deliberately located away from cities and avoided creating the firestorms required to raise the massive dust clouds and create the effect. They were also not near-simultaneous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> You probably don't need a high yield if you just nuke a volcano or super volcano [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter)

</comment><comment><USER23> "I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones!" ~Albert Einstein

</comment><comment><USER24> Winter is coming!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

</comment><comment><USER25> Worries about nuclear fallout are vastly overstated. If you detonate the weapons at the right altitude, they retain most of their destructive effect without creating long term catastrophic fallout.

<comment><USER26> Surely that will be considered when employing these weapons in a war.

<comment><USER27> Surely the "when" was meant to be an "if"? Is the default assumption that this level of violence will happen again? The presence of that mindset is what allows escalation, rather then it being considered at most a crazy edge case scenario.

My coworkers were discussing what would happen if California voted to declare independence from the United States. The hypothetical scenario instantly moved to "occupation by US Military forces", which hadn't even come up in my mind. Its not like the EU states moved to occupy Britain or anything. It seems like the obvious solution is to try to sit down, think about it, debate it, and work out the problems of the involved parties. Why turn directly to violence?

<comment><USER25> > _The hypothetical scenario instantly moved to "occupation by US Military > forces", which hadn't even come up in my mind. Its not like the EU states > moved to occupy Britain or anything._

We had a war about this. US states are not allowed to secede. The Union is perpetual.

<comment><USER25> And in contrast, the EU explicitly allows exit. So it's not a very good comparison.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Matrix Multiplication - <AUTHOR> http://matrixmultiplication.xyz/ <comment><USER2> Oh hey, that's actually really cool. I never knew how matrix multiplication worked. Honestly, there's a lot of maths I don't necessarily understand as well as I should, but this gives me hope that I will one day be able to get that understanding.

<comment><USER3> The wiki article on it has a number of good illustrations to show it as well. Moreover, I find the cognitive leap from matrix multiplication to simultaneous equations very powerful and enlightening, particularly when you then understand the wide application of simultaneous equations.

Also, I encourage you to play with trying to shrink/expand the rows/columns of each matrix and seeing how it enforces certain rules on the other matrix. Once you mentally picture what'd happen if it _didn 't_ viz the animation that the site plays when you hit 'go', you begin to understand it better.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_multiplication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_multiplication)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Static Analysis Tool for Dockerfiles in Haskell - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lukasmartinelli/hadolint <comment><AUTHOR> I can only encourage to use Haskell for such kinds of problems. This was my first Haskell program and I was productive quite fast thanks to "Learn you a Haskell" and the great Parsec library for parsing the Dockerfile.

If you are an experienced Haskeller I would be very glad if you look over the project and problems in an issue. Because mostly I have no idea whether what I am doing is idiomatic or not.

<comment><USER2> The code looks good. One thing you might want to consider is using applicative style for parsing. So

      taggedImage :: Parser BaseImage
      taggedImage = do
        name <- many (noneOf ":")
        reservedOp ":"
        tag <- many (noneOf "\n")
        return $ TaggedImage name tag

Would end up something like:

      taggedImage :: Parser BaseImage
      taggedImage = TaggedImage <$> (many (noneOf "\n") <* reservedOp ":")
                                <*> (many (noneOf "\n")

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> i would be nice to make codeclimate engine out of this. [https://docs.codeclimate.com/docs/list-of- engines](https://docs.codeclimate.com/docs/list-of-engines)</comment>


Tips to improve CPA - <AUTHOR> http://blog.adstage.io/2012/12/13/cpa/ <comment><USER2> I was hoping for "cartesian product analysis" (how can we trim down the exponential explosion of types?), fearing "certified public accountant" and was completely surprised.

<comment><USER3> We're here to please. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Please update the title. When I read "tips to improve CPA", I was thinking about some suggestions to improve certified public accountants practices.

<comment><USER5> I think that too when I see CPA, _except_ at HN or some other web-related site. Context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Optimize and test. Different combinations of ad content and landing pages will impact your conversion rates, and thus CPA.

<comment><USER3> Yup, that's exactly right. Though, there are good goals you can set up to help indicate that you are getting closer. If you set up a Time on Site goal and a Page visits goal, if you notice both of those goals working but no conversion to signup, you know something if off with your call to action in most cases.

Good to setup those indicators.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Much-needed stuff. I'm really loving the overall shift from clicks and backlinks to conversion and Cost per actions. RCS

<comment><USER3> Right. People try to optimize cost per acquisition (actions) by just focusing on their campaign/ads and miss the other half, their landing page(s). Critical in improving overall performance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> nice</comment>


Yahoo board strife as Dan Loeb splits from board - <AUTHOR> http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/monster_mayer_VrobE7ww2asDBvpN9Uw6pJ

<comment><USER2> Those interested in the history of Yahoo's rather complex corporate governance issues should check out this HBS case (I assume this link has distribution rights; I'm not supposed to distribute my copy):

[http://www.thedecisiongroup.nl/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/Ca...](http://www.thedecisiongroup.nl/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/Case-04.-Strategy-and-Governance-at-Yahoo-Inc..pdf)

That's a quick overview with some more quantitative data on how the whole thing went down. It shows you what one man can do with 5% of a company.

</comment><comment><USER3> Loeb & co had agreed to step down if their %age of Yahoo shares ever dropped below 2%. It did, so they're out.

A guy like Loeb doesn't hang around forever, just long enough to get the bulk of the upside. At a guess Loeb is impatient with Mayer's reform, it takes too long for him & his allies. Corporate raiders make their money with short term plans, they rarely sit around as long as they did here.

<comment><USER4> Loeb made more than a billion dollar (over 100% return) in 2 years.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2013/07/22/billionai...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2013/07/22/billionaire- dan-loeb-sells-most-of-his-yahoo-stock-makes-1-billion/)

This whole episode seems like another hedge-fund driven money making plan - take some equity, get control of board, hire a high profile CEO, take seemingly big bets, jack up the stock price and silently exit. This yahoo stock buy-back seems to be a way to avoid the insider trading charges.

A good read on this [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732478320457862...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324783204578621642882020724.html)

<comment><USER3> Yahoo has been buying back lots of stock which is one reason it is as high as it is.

It goes something like this:

\- Loeb & co buy 5% of the company

\- gain board seats

\- force the CEO to step down

\- headhunt Mayer

\- Yahoo uses cash it got with selling a chunk of Alibaba to buy its own stock

\- Loeb & Co unload at a huge profit

\- and give up their board seats again

<comment><USER5> Exactly - this was his plan whole time. That is why he sent letter about Thompson's resume; that is why he wanted seat; that is why he wanted to "unlock value" of Asian assets; that is why Yahoo bought his shares at July 19's closing price, guaranteeing liquidity without forcing Third Point to pay a discount, as usually happens when an investor offloads a large chunk of stock.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Smart move by Marissa. She played politics to get in, won - and then did what is best for Yahoo! for the long-term. A large shareholder activist is merely looking to make fast monetary gains, and doesn't care about long-term projections.

<comment><USER7> On average shareholder activism is good for share prices. Your assumption seems bad without more info. In particular, the fact that he led the push to hire mayer in the first place means that his net contribution to yahoo is probably positive.

<comment><USER6> Shareholder prices, right. That's one metric, and the wrong one to follow IMHO if you want to innovate and grow. Firing 12,000 people would have been devastating for morale of the company, even if Marissa bought other good talent and companies - and other problems with it too.

<comment><USER8> _Firing 12,000 people ..._

Point taken, but if you're referring to Loeb's firing plan that Mayer supported, the firing would have been towards roughly 2,400 - 3,600 workers, not 12,000.

From the article:

 _"... Loeb's plan was to fire between 20 percent and 30 percent of Yahoo!'s roughly 12,000 workers — an idea Mayer initially supported ..."_

Edit: yep, I agree it's still a lot, just wanted to point out the difference.

<comment><USER6> Ah - thanks for pointing that out, my mistake there, though that is still a lot of workers. Up to 1/3rd of your co-workers gone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "She liked being loved" is a probably a quaint (and fairly sexist) euphemism for "She wasn't going along with the plan."

As others have said, the typical corporate-raider plan is to slash costs (i.e., mass layoffs), sell off assets, create the appearance of a turnaround, capture the upside, then jump ship. Mayer was to be a figurehead in this arrangement. Whether she knew about this plan all along, or whether she put the pieces together after arriving, it sounds like she wasn't going for it. Loeb needed short-term profit (to the tune of $1B, it seems), and Mayer didn't want to be stuck holding the bag after the company was strip mined.

You don't climb to Marissa Mayer's position in life being overly concerned about "being loved." The more rational explanation is that her incentives and Loeb's incentives didn't align, so to speak.

</comment><comment><USER10> "She quickly decided it did not make sense," the source said. "She liked being loved."

That seems oddly put, in all the background on Mayer it doesn't ever seem like she's interested in much past the numbers and the strategy. Reasons for not slashing staffing; a) you don't attract new talent, b) you get everyone worried about how much security they've got and create conditions for an exodus, c) you create an atmosphere of despondency rather than positivity.

So yeah, that seems an awful odd thing to say. Slashing staff would have been a terrible decision that only would have had incredibly short term benefits.

<comment><USER11> The unauthorized biography [http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer- biography-2013-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer- biography-2013-8) certainly doesn't leave the impression that Marissa Mayer is overly concerned about what people think of her. Unless she has a use for them, that is.

You are probably right. Marissa Mayer wants to be known as a great CEO, which requires thinking long term. Loeb was mostly interested in short term profit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Incidentally, Loeb has also been stirring up shit at Sony, as of late: [http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/5/4592330/sony-ceo-kaz- hirai-...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/5/4592330/sony-ceo-kaz-hirai- rejects-third-point-entertainment-proposal)

<comment><USER13> I think he's going to find that a much more difficult target. A foreigner mucking with Sony is not going to go well.

<comment><USER14> Money has no country.

<comment><USER13> In this case and that country, I would disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _" There was heartburn over Tumblr," the unprofitable micro-blogging service, said one source._

The Board approved that decision, so I'm confused why there's buyer's remorse.

<comment><USER16> You don't get rich by writing a lot of checks. Also, a hedgie-third of the board just skipped town, so there's three guesses as to who the "one source" is.

<comment><USER6> You do get rich if playing the long-game well ... which sometimes requires writing cheques.

<comment><USER16> Is Third Point known to have been going long with their Yahoo! shares?

<comment><USER6> I don't know

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Could it be that he made his profit (With little upside from here) and looking for a reason to exit?

When someone made profit of a Billion Dollars in less than 2 years, there is more to it that what it looks outside.

<comment><USER6> Could be a publicity stunt for a 'valid reason' for the market's eyes for him to leave "pissed off."

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> _> "She quickly decided it did not make sense," the source said. "She liked being loved."_

Quite the sexist smear, especially without supplying any relevant evidence. I suspect her decision was a bit more complicated than that.

</comment><comment><USER16> A hint as to who the unnamed sources in this story are:

 _As part of the deal, the three directors nominated by Third Point — Harry Wilson, Michael J. Wolf and Loeb — agreed to step down on Wednesday._</comment>


Learn Haskell by hacking on crit-bit trees - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bos/critbit

<comment><USER2> I think this is a cool project, but surely needs more of a preamble? Like what are crit-bit trees? [1,2,3,4]

[1] [http://benlynn.blogspot.com/2007/04/trees-hash-tables-and- tr...](http://benlynn.blogspot.com/2007/04/trees-hash-tables-and- tries_11.html)

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radix_tree>

[3] <http://cr.yp.to/critbit.html>

[4] <http://www.imperialviolet.org/binary/critbit.pdf></comment>


New Acer Ultrabook Ad - It's A Time-Travelling Spaceship? - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/v/ISZ4QLr7ms0&autoplay=1&rel=0&fs=0&showinfo=1&theme=light&color=white&version=3&autohide=1&modestbranding=1&fmt=22&hd=1

<comment><USER2> Does it come with a flux capacitor?</comment>


Skype lets hackers track your BitTorrent downloads - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/21/skype_bittorrent_stalking/

<comment><USER2> Interesting research, but I doubt it would hold up in a court. You just can't prove ownership of a Skype profile by an individual unless you subpoena Skype, and if you're going to subpoena someone, you should just subpoena the ISP of the IP directly.

Still, this kind of service could be used by background check agencies, private detectives, etc where the burden of proof is whatever the client decides to accept (though I can think of much easier ways of getting someone's IP address than this).

<comment><USER3> It holds up "in court" (figuratively) when: It's cheaper to pay a couple of grand than to pay a lawyer; A three -- or six -- strikes commercially- initiated and/or arbitrated policy kicks you off the Net; Private, commercial database records haunt you indefinitely.

I think that, for a majority of people, this will end up being about "clout" rather than the rule of law. And they will feel/find themselves on the short end of that stick. And the more they fear, the more that entrenched interests win by default.

I would guess that we're in agreement. I just become a bit... I don't know what word to use, when I read "in court" these days. Because industry is doing everything it can to ensure that "in court" (literally) is precisely _not_ where the battle is fought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This was posted about a couple of days ago ([https://torrentfreak.com/security-flaw-links-bittorrent- user...](https://torrentfreak.com/security-flaw-links-bittorrent-users-to- skype-accounts-111020/)), and the Register makes the same (incorrect) assumption as TorrentFreak that IPs can be traced to a single person.

This attack vector links Skype accounts to IP addresses, and then tries to find those IP addresses in BitTorrent swarms. But IP addresses are not people: an IP assigned to an account I owned is not necessarily being used by me, and the person who has a Skype account using a given IP is not necessarily the same person who is using BitTorrent to join a swarm from that IP.

The _major_ issue here is that anyone can find out the IP address of any Skype user just by knowing their username, which can be found in the Skype global directory. Even worse, the user isn't able to block this (or even be notified about this) and the attack can be done by someone not in your contact list.

<comment><USER5> While I agree with you, I'll add that the ability to use Skype to 'track' someone across IPs (and then through the BitTorrent swarms) allows more evidence than a simple 'it came from this IP.'

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am always against bittorrent being associated with everything illegal. If anyone ever gets to the legal phase, wont ISP's disclose the IP number details rather than relying on skype ?

</comment><comment><USER7> The actual arxiv pdf was submitted about a month ago. <http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4039> The main thing here is that the attack is one of several ways to distinguish that a machine running Skype is the same machine running the bittorrent client; they're not separate machines hidden behind the same IP.

</comment><comment><USER8> Shouldn't this just be: 'Researchers exploit Skype to gain IP address information'.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wouldn't these be _researchers_ rather than _scientists_?</comment>