Regulators Have Doubts About Facebook Cryptocurrency, and So Do Its Partners - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/technology/facebook-libra-cryptocurrency.html <comment><USER2> Call me dumb for saying this, but I can go to a casino or chuck e. cheese and trade in USD for chips I use at their location. I could take those chips somewhere else if I wanted to and use them with anyone willing to take them. Why is Libra so upsetting? Isn't it the same thing? It seems to me like criticizing Facebook is just the fashionable response to it right now.

<comment><USER3> You actually can't. Nevada law is explicit that casino chips are not allowed to be used "for any monetary purpose" and federal law prohibits the creation of currencies. Casino chips are highly regulated and only permitted to be used as a stand in for gambling funds where it is permitted.

In real life if a casino doesn't think you got a chip from them directly as part of gaming at that casino they won't pay out on it. That actually happens with some regularity.

<comment><USER2> Well I learned something new today. But I'm meaning there are many examples of business that will take your money and give some other form of "currency." Like if Libra where called a "facebook gift card" would it be a significant different thing. (Joking)

<comment><USER4> A lot of times when you exchange money for chips or coupons there are signs everywhere saying "no monetary value" or something like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can anyone imagine laundering dirty money through purchasing apps and stickers that are just fronts? Suddenly Facebook becoming complicit in the drug trade, terrorism, human trafficking, like HSBC.

<comment><USER6> This has been happening for years with Valve videogames, so far as I know it hasn't been limited or cracked down on.

<comment><USER7> I think you're misrepresenting things. Credit card fraud is not terrorism.

There's a plenty of illegal activity related to Valve games, but it's not the kind mentioned in the parent (drug trade, terrorism, human trafficking). Not at any meaningful scale anyway.

<comment><USER6> I'm not talking about credit card fraud.

Drug dealer has cash, drug dealer buys Steam gift cards from local 7-11 (or physical stores that carry them) and uses it to load into Steam.

Steam has a marketplace, dealer buys hats/skins and then sells them for real money transferred by paypal e.t.c. via the various 3rd party sites that do that kind of thing.

Cash is now converted to money in a bank account without ever going into a bank itself.

<comment><USER7> So you're personally aware of drug dealers who are doing this?

Why wouldn't they just use some of the many cheaper and simpler methods of getting cash into digital currency?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Gee what could go wrong? I mean did not facebook just agree to the biggest 3 billion dollar fine in history?

I do not think Mark Z's and facebook's past actions bode well for their cryptocoin venture

<comment><USER9> What was the smallest 3 billion dollar fine in history?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Libra is the best way for payment middlemen and governments to combat cryptocurrency -- by creating something that looks like it and provides some convenience, but removes all of the teeth and allows them to continue to control and profit from it.

I am sort of hoping they won't figure that out. But it seems likely that eventually they will.

Maybe I should stop saying it's not a real cryptocurrency and stuff, because perhaps if they think it's real or could turn into a real cryptocurrency then many will be afraid of it and kill the project. And that could give time for Bitcoin and Ethereum scaling efforts to be deployed.

By the way, what are they all planning to do if the scaling efforts of real cryptocurrencies succeed and the dream of digital cash becomes a reality?

<comment><USER11> India, Indonesia, and China are already using WeChat, GoPay, PayTM. I'm not sure what Bitcoins or Libra can offer that e-wallets don't already provide. And these e-wallets, unlike crypto, work well with existing gov't regulations.

Some of them, like GoPay works with the Indonesian gov't to provide loans for micro-small businesses. Since they have the data of business transactions they can forecast loan repayments.

> By the way, what are they all planning to do if the scaling efforts of real > cryptocurrencies succeed and the dream of digital cash becomes a reality?

My fear is WeChat and GoPay will get there first well before cryptos.

<comment><USER10> The differences between digital cash and an e-wallet are as follows:

Digital cash is a public system. It is not run by a monopoly company. It is auditable by all. Fees are reasonable. Wallets are entirely in your control. Wallets are private. Companies and governments can't control your money. The system is secured by strong crypto.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If they want to comply with the law they will probably need KYC like other crypto platforms require, and i dont see most facebook users (the ones still using it...) uploading their id to FB.

<comment><USER13> And yet folks show their ID to their camera to get into their Facebook account all the time.

[https://m.facebook.com/help/314201258613998](https://m.facebook.com/help/314201258613998)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Your Libra wallet and funds have been permanently banned for violating Facebook code of conduct" read an email notification. Her crime? Clicking the "like" button on ...

<comment><USER15> What do you expect from a "currency" with the ethics of Uber, the censoring ability of PayPal and the customer service quality of Vodafone?

<comment><USER16> Regarding Vodafone - I think it takes some special kind of talent to be so utterly and consistently awful across all channels for customer service.

I even tried complaining through their website about my miserable failures in trying to buy stuff from them and their online complaints form returned an error when I submitted it - meaning that I ended up emailing them complaining about their complaints process!

Edit: Apologies for the off topic rant - but I saw "Vodafone" and "customer service" together and couldn't stop myself.

<comment><USER17> I wonder what priority that ticket got when it found it's way into the backlog.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Predicting it will be what AOL might have created if it tried to compete with PayPal. Maybe worse.

When I go on Facebook, the site is so bad, the app is so dishonest that it is disgusting and intractable to use. Everything is a lie. Nothing works in one normal way. You can tell that it's this tangle of effort hoisted up into service with maximum effort to slime people.

It's like when wholesale clubs move the products around the warehouse so that you have to wander around and look for the thing you wanted to buy. Where is that thing I need? Why can't I find it?

Oh right. The system is designed to suck me in and waste my time. I can't delete anything because deleting data isn't real anyway. I have to prove the revenge porn is me by posting nudes. Riiiiiight...

Yeah, trust Facebook. They won't play games, because they care about you, and they take your money seriously.

The best part about Facebook is that, when push comes to shove, they're helping you see more relevant ads.

</comment><comment><USER19> So does it's general public.

<comment><USER20> The general audience of Facebook has very little overlap with HN commenters.

<comment><USER21> Average HN commenter is bright enough to close their account year ago?

<comment><USER20> Correct. But the general FB audience cares much less (if at all) about their privacy than the general HN audience.

If you were to estimate FB's health as a company based on HN comments only, it should have been dead and buried long ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Given that Libra is not a real cryptocurrency (it requires trust), is this a way for them to plant FUD around bitcoin?

<comment><USER23> _> is not a real cryptocurrency (it requires trust)_

Trustless is not a requirement for a cryptocurrency. PoS requires trust, but still would be a viable consensus mechanism for a cryptocurrency.

<comment><USER24> eh. This is an oversimplification. I dislike the concept of trustless anyhow. It seems to be misunderstood and misused. Libra is not censorship resistant. This is the major problem with Facebook controlling a large swath of corpokleptocurrency.

<comment><USER23> Agreed on both points. The oversimplification was intentional, PoS is mostly theoretical right now.

Regardless, Libra still qualifies as a cryptocurrency, even if it's not trustless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Regulators won't do anythings against facebook. Not in the data leaks, the gdpr, so I have no reason to believe they'll do something against libra.

</comment><comment><USER26> Give me something to pay anonymously with and I would be very happy.

<comment><USER27> Some people accept a chicken as payment, those are pretty untraceable...

Nothing on the internet is anonymous

<comment><USER26> Most things on the internet actually are anonymous for the most practical purposes. I wouldn't know your name for example.

The chicken example is nice and all, but why not just offer the same advantages as good old cash? Would be a far more appropriate comparison, don't you think?

Most internet transactions are not anonymous of course, but there are options and I like to keep them. I regularly use non-anonymous transactions myself, but that is not the issue.

<comment><USER28> Not knowing how to map a digital identity to a meatspace identity is _really_ not anonymity. It's pseudonymity.

And pseudonymity is good! We should allow for lots more of it.

But anonymity is a different thing. It's not clear to me that anonymity is worth trying to achieve, anymore; instead we should be fighting for judicial oversight of when pseudonymity can be pierced, combined with dramatically _less_ anonymity for the misdeeds of the powerful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Perhaps mildly off-topic, but it looks like Google is not in on the project?

<comment><USER30> Why would they want to be in it?

<comment><USER29> Well, it seems like if the biggest social network is initiating currency project then rather have a foot in than out, no?

More broadly, it seems that yet another media campaign to push Facebook's bowl over somehow is going on. Not a fan of the company by any means, but it does look like this project has merit and will happen whether the naysayers want it or not. Given this I would just assume that any big tech company would like to participate with their knowhow.

And yes, maybe it won't succeed, but it's hard to see how it wouldn't. I guess the regulators are the biggest possible obstacle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's the New York Times. You don't even need to read their Facebook-related stories to know what they will say.

</comment><comment><USER32> Since "people are excited about the project and cheering for it" is not newsworthy material, we get articles like this.

An absolute waste of time.

<comment><USER33> We do get those articles, and _they_ are a waste of time.

What's a waste of time about this? It seems reasonably well balanced, facebook have an incredibly narrow line to walk launching this currency. Finance unlike the internet actually has regulation, and a negative view from a regulator has the potential to scupper the project. Everyone is cautious as a result. Its a chess match at this point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why not we all just... let them launch and see what happens?

Libra is nothing more than the latest iteration of a long line of stablecoins a-la Tether, USDC, GUSD etc. I find the industry and regulatory overreaction puzzling, surely these issues have been explored before?

The "But it's Facebook!" argument disingenuous, any one of the popular chat app has, or can replicate this experiment (Wechat, Telegram, Slack, Kakao, Line, Twitch, Discord).

<comment><USER35> > Why not we all just... let them launch and see what happens?

because more often than not when we do that our data happens to end up in the hands of private companies that try to steer public elections. Facebook is a private company and we should not let it attempt to displace the financial system. The same scrunity should be applied to wechat or telegram should they ever attempt to do the same. As it stands wechat has no relevance on the western markets though. Control over financial transactions and the monetary system directly impacts national security.

>Libra is nothing more than the latest iteration of a long line of stablecoins a-la Tether, USDC, GUSD etc.

the difference is that facebook exercises control over 2.4 billion users, so everything it does, by definition, is in a very different ballpark than a community project.

<comment><USER36> >we should not let it attempt to displace the financial system

Why do people think that this will shove our existing financial system aside? The second something comes close to having too much of an impact (stepping on the toes of banks, displacing the dollar, etc), the regulators will crack down on it. What I can see happening is that it becomes an alternative payment method at best.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is semi-unrelated, and I've kind of lost hope of cryptocurrencies ever achieving popularity (since all everyone seems to do with them is speculate), but I recently came across a page explaining Stellar and it seems to me like it's the best of all worlds (decentralized, fast confirmations, inflationary, no mining, etc).

Does anyone know what the downsides are? I haven't been able to find any posted anywhere, but I don't trust something until I've seen the cons, so I'm wondering if anyone here has looked into it.

<comment><USER38> The whole network got taken down a couple months ago when a server run by the Stellar company crashed. Not very decentralized.

[https://cointelegraph.com/news/stellar-node-outage-causes- tw...](https://cointelegraph.com/news/stellar-node-outage-causes-two-hour- complete-transaction-freeze)

<comment><USER37> Oh wow, that's terrible. Yeah, that's not decentralized at all, too bad...

EDIT: It looks like it _can_ be decentralized, just nobody is running any nodes apart from the foundation. I wonder if that's because there isn't enough incentive, or that people just don't trust them. Either way, it's bad.

<comment><USER39> Check out Hashgraph

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Could someone please create a curupto coin that can be easily forged, and easy to make disappear, just like that time tested USD paper that flows so freely around the whole worldwide criminal world. Criminals they are absolutely everywhere, and they use USD. Think about, if facebook coin can disappear and be forged as easily as USD, well then, and only then is it threat.</comment>


Helm 2.0 stable release - <AUTHOR> https://deis.com/blog/2016/helm-is-now-stable/ <comment><USER2> For those wondering what helm is all about:

Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes. It allows you to search for and install "charts" \- which are pre-packaged applications that can be deployed on Kubernetes.

I have been using it for the past month - and am really enjoying it.

Congrats to the helm team.

<comment><USER3> I don't currently use K8s, but am planning to get into it soon. Could you clarify the difference or advantage between using a Kubernetes specific package manager like Helm vs using a container repository? Isn't part of the point of containers to use prebuilt immutable containers?

<comment><USER4> I use Helm to deploy containers to various environments and clusters in k8s using its gotepl/sprig template system. The last thing that I want to do with my containers is to lock my environment variables inside of them, then I'm going to need multiple sets of containers per microservice (prod, staging, yaddayadda) and have to go through the process of docker commit, push, etc.

Beyond that there are also a lot of Kubernetes specific variables that you want to be able to define before you launch pods. You often need to set namespaces, resource limits, labels, persistentDisks, etc, things that would not be defined in any docker container at all. I also use Helm to template that out.

With Helm you can package the network config (load balancers, services), volumes, secrets, etc very easily. These are things that have nothing to do with the actual docker container lifecycle. There are a lot of kubernetes objects that need to be configured for an actual deployment.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the answer.

So, again, coming from a place of having done a couple passes of the basics, but otherwise completely ignorant.

What is the advantage of having that kind of config info baked into a package vs having it in etcd?

Again, I really appreciate it.

<comment><USER5> When you deploy with Kubernetes, you need some yaml or json files to define the configuration of your stack. Depending on the complexity of the stack, this could grow to a significant number of files. Helm allows this collection of files to be put into a single shareable package. Then, rather than calling the 'kubectl' command a number of times to deploy each individual component, you'd make one call to Helm to do it all at once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Arrggh, I got all excited because I thought they were talking about "Helm for emacs"

<comment><USER7> Same</comment></comment>


Ask HN: A free "cell phone" for use within a few miles of home? - <AUTHOR>

It seems to me that I should be able to buy a two-way radio that reaches a base station at home from at least a few miles away. I should be able to hook this radio up to my internet connection and do VoIP over my existing Skype/Gtalk account.
a) Cell phone-like mobile (battery operated) radio (encrypted ;-D ?)
b) Base station at home hooked up to broadband router.
c) One time cost of less than $300.
So:
1) Does it exist? (I'm guessing no, so why not?)
2) Would it be possible to do myself without spending $1k on hardware, hacking a bunch of custom hardware/software, and getting a ham radio license?
Update:
Long range cordless phones do seem to exist, but they're not cheap.
Voyager SS 2600 ($1500)
SN 258 ($300)
I'm also not sure they're allowed to be used in the US unlicensed. <comment><USER2> Assuming the US, you'll run into legal problems. None of the Part 15 (low- power unlicensed) bands would have the range you're looking for; the power levels are too low to give that much range. Part 97 (ham radio) wouldn't help; there are too many restrictions on content (no encryption, no profanity, no pecuniary interest, limits on "third party" traffic, etc.) to use ham radio for the purpose desired. And you can't send data (other than selective calling codes, and geolocation bursts only in the FRS) on the various licensed-by-rule "citizen" services in Part 95.

That pretty much leaves you with having to get a business radio license ($260 per ten years minimum, plus possible additional fees), and on top of that you'll need a someone with a GROL ($60 fee plus testing fees) to maintain and operate it.

The only other option would be unlicensed VLF. This you could do, but there's two problems: the antennas for VLF are huge, and the available bandwidth is tiny. Ever used a 300 baud modem? Well, that screams compared to what you can get out of a VLF connection: 5 baud is a fast data rate in this band.

Those Voyager units use frequencies reserved for military use the United States. Using them in the US would be a good way to get yourself in a heap-o- trouble.

The problem you have is that for the range you want you need to be able to operate over the horizon. That means your receiver is going to be in one of the transmitter's diffraction zones, which means only a fraction of the transmitter's signal will get through. We do this all the time in radio, and we accomplish by throwing enough power at the problem to have a received signal strong enough to be demodulated even with diffraction losses. For the distance your looking for, you'll need about 25 watts minimum, way more than you can get away with in Part 15.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hack a walkie talkie ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkie-talkie> ) ?

Use one as the base and get the audio in/out connected to your home PC audio in/out.

Hacking in a tone dialer ( <http://is.gd/5EjWA> ) might also be necessary.

\-- MV

</comment><comment><USER4> I have seen geek radio pairs. The quality wasn't great and they came with many ifs and else. Then there are legal restrictions, atleast here in India. Checkout ThinkGeek.

As for the successful commercialization, I think it involves too many components for ordinary people to be able to use it and customer support would be a nightmare.

</comment><comment><USER5> A ham radio license won't help, as ham radio transmissions are forbidden to be encrypted, and there are limitations on speech, e.g., profanity, commercial transactions.

There are unlicensed bands that are available, but again there may be restrictions similar to ham radio, and cost might also be a factor.

</comment><comment><USER6> More than why not, I'd like to know why?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm almost always within a few miles of my home or office. Both locations have high speed internet connections. Skype offers great rates on international calls.

Just an idea, I'm not saying it's definitely a good one.

<comment><USER7> Do you make many international calls when on the go?

I can see this being useful if you don't currently have a cell phone. If you did, outside of cheaper international calls, it seems really redundant.

Plus if you ever traveled outside the signal radius you'll effectively have a big lump of plastic wasting space in your pockets (on top of everything else you carry).

All that said I think this would be a fun side-project and really with the rise of municipal broadband and services like Fon, I can see this being somewhat viable in the long-term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone else remember Rabbit?

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_(telecommunications)?w...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_\(telecommunications\)?wasRedirected=true)</comment>


Why did HSBC shut down bank accounts? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33677946 <comment><USER2> Shadowy data brokers ( _But we learned about World-Check, a confidential database owned by the financial information giant Thomson Reuters._ ) designated a British mosque as "Terrorist". Do the data brokers have a review process? Are they accountable for any mistakes?

When do we find out that there's a shadowy data broker that keeps tabs on developers, whose files get marked "Open Sourcer" or something. Or a shadowy data broker that insurance companies consult to see who has "medically complicated" dependents. The big data sword cuts all different ways, I guess.</comment>


Free sales forecast templates for startups - <AUTHOR> https://www.twelvezeros.co/forecasttemplates <comment><AUTHOR> We've created 4 free forecasting templates for your SAAS or Software business.

One is focused on helping you raise your first venture round. Second one is focuses on SAAS business'. The third is a forecast for bootstrapped companies that need to do annual budgeting. The final one is best practice around sales forecasting.

We share these free templates as we know what it's like to start a business and without degree forecasting can be daunting!

Enjoy!</comment>


Healthful diet report: Sugary drinks out; coffee, eggs in - <AUTHOR> http://www.nwitimes.com/niche/get-healthy/healthful-diet-report-sugary-drinks-out-coffee-eggs-in/article_a5db8f4a-7dad-5b06-821d-a7d3d48cb008.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the related report is here: [http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015-scientific- report/1...](http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015-scientific- report/14-appendix-e2/e2-39a.asp)</comment>


China: What world recession?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2009/05/01/china_surges_ahead/index.html

<comment><USER2> Back in the middle of the decade, Chinese policymakers were struggling to contain inflation. They managed not only to do so, but they saved up quite a pile of cash as well. All of that took a lot of hard work and due diligence. They reap what they sow.

That having been said, inflation is still a reality for them. Right _now_ their growth rate is around 6%, but their inflation is probably around 4%. That means they're only getting 2% growth, which is paltry. How much will inflation go up with the government stimulus being applied?

Still, it is better than how we're doing, but the point is that the truth is --as usual-- a little more complicated than the news would suggest. It also seems doubtful that they can have meaningful growth when so much of their economy is dependent on exports, unless the current bout of reforms manages to build up the middle class so that they have self-sustaining growth. This is at least as difficult as the feat they just accomplished in reining in inflation.

<comment><USER3> The parent poster has a much better grasp on the big picture than the author of the Salon article.

While he was bashing western banks, he failed to point out that domestic Chinese banks have long been giving out loans to unprofitable companies as a way of creating employment, and that the central government regularly bails them out.

China's economy is a really interesting and complicated subject, especially given the unreliability of local economic data.

But Salon is just giving us useless linkbait by publishing an article with a few cut and pasted quotes and a catchy headline.

<comment><USER2> Oh we're all well aware that transparency is a joke in the Chinese financial system. Let's frame it this way. Remember Jefferson's argument that banks are scarier than armies? Imagine if China actually HAD a working, efficient banking system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> China has been in mental recession ever since its conception.</comment>


Resources for learning Rails 3 - <AUTHOR> http://tutsonrails.blogspot.com/2011/04/resources-for-learning-rails-3.html

<comment><USER2> I just started learning RoR yesterday. Here is what I've done and what I'm planning to do. It would be great to get some validation.

My background: I took intro to C++ in high school six years ago. I wish there was more to say here...

Anyhow, here's what I've done: -TryRuby.org (This is suppose to be a 15-minute quick run to try Ruby in my browser. It took me a bit longer.)

Here's what I'm doing: -Railsforzombies.org (A longer in-browser interactive tutorial, also free)

Here's what I'm planning to do, in no particular order: -Mess around and try to build my rejected YCSummer2011 idea. -<http://www.codeschool.com/courses/rails-best-practices> (done by same people at RailforZombies, costs $45)

This is my first post to Hacker News. Howdy from Texas.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not compulsion to spend some money and do the course. When i started rails, i was without even computer sciences background. The best way to learn rails is by doing and learning with application development itself. In this regard this may help - <http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial- book>

Keep in mind, the best way to go with rails is learn the conventions, once you get them you will start loving rails or else thing might frustrate you.

<comment><USER2> thanks man, good to know someone with a similar background.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> What? No mention of Michael Hartl's _Ruby on Rails Tutorial_? It should be the de facto recommendation for everyone new to Rails.

<http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book>

<comment><USER4> I'm a few chapter's into Hartl's book now. I really appreciate how it explains most things on a few different levels, i.e. both the concrete and theoretical workings of a piece of code. I don't understand much yet, but instead of frustration (I've had a few programming books whose learning curves have turned vertical), I feel excitement.

If the start of the book is any indicator, it's a great resource.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is no shortcut to knowledge - do, fail, rinse and repeat, until you understand. Until you have installed, understood and successfully ran a rails app, tutorials are just next to useless. Apply apply and apply some more. Follow this guide and <http://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html>, and don't slack.. Understand every line before you move on..

</comment><comment><USER6> Agile Web Development With Rails simply cannot be oversold. The first editon of this book was pivotal for me - I just didn't know things could be that way. It should be recommended as a general horizon broadening book to any programmer, web or otherwise.</comment>


How autism may stem from problems with prediction - <AUTHOR> https://spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/autism-may-stem-problems-prediction/ <comment><USER2> _In Ayaya's telling, her autism involves a host of perceptual disconnects. For example, she feels in exquisite detail all the sensations that typical people readily identify as hunger, but she can't piece them together. "It's very hard for me to conclude I'm hungry," she says. "I feel irritated, or I feel sad, or I feel something [is] wrong. This information is separated, not connected." It takes her so long to realize she is hungry that she often feels faint and gets something to eat only after someone suggests it to her._

This sounds more like a failure to integrate sensory information than a predictive error. That also fits with existing theories of autism relating to sensory processing.

<comment><USER3> Isn't that sort of the same thing? To what end does one integrate sensory information other than to make predictions or classify things?

<comment><USER2> The idea that there is a conflict of prediction vs. reality, and a simple failure to connect disparate sensations into a whole are nothing alike. The former is a characteristic of something like motion or VR sickness; your body expects one thing, but receives conflicting information. Integration failure doesn't require prediction, just different sensations not creating a whole impression.

The author describes experiencing hunger as a bunch of disconnected sensations, that don't add up to one thing. She feels pain in her stomach, irritability, tiredness, but doesn't integrate that into "I'm hungry" and just experiences them as different incidental feelings indicative of nothing in particular.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> IMO,autism tends to effect high-level cognitive domains because those domains depends on a lot of neural machinery. The particular neurochemical pathways that disrupt those high-level cognitive domains will differ between individuals though, and the gene-environment interactions involved seems to be a total mishmash of mutations in genes and environmental factors regulating the brain...If more genes are affected relating to attention, we might give a diagnosis of ADHD. It IS a spectrum. So when a title says Autism stems from problems with prediction, I would rather say that prediction and balance between prediction and stimuli sensation are frequently disrupted because they are high level forms of cognition that can get disrupted in a number of ways.

I am still new to Autism research, but in my own work and others, I am seeing that ASD is related to a reduction of neuro-typical sex differences. However, I do not think I'd say that Autism stems from reduced sexual differentiation. I'd characterize it as a piece of the puzzle, and that disrupted neural machinery will likely disrupt the processes of sexual neuro-differentiation.

I try to be very humble about making claims about Autism, because I have begun to see how truly complicated and multivariate the disorder(s), an dmainly want to focus on my efforts to aspects of the disorder that affect quality of life (and certainly not extinguish all neurodiversity).

<comment><USER5> Exactly I too believe everything is being classified as Autism nowadays. Instead of focussing on improving the life for those who truly struggle.

<comment><USER6> "everything is being classified as Autism" _because_ autism diagnosis opens the door to insurance coverage for therapy and special-education services in the schools.

<comment><USER4> And early behavioral intervention is one of the few things we know yields tangible benefits to quality of life outcomes

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Definitely some interesting bits and pieces. I was recently diagnosed and the focus on predictive ability reminded me of a particular weakness I have: inability to follow plots. I can't figure out what's going to happen in most movies and usually I load up the Wikipedia entry to follow the plot if things aren't explicitly mentioned in the dialogue :-D

<comment><USER8> I work in film and visual art, and have always, odd as it is, associated my difficulty following film plots with my intrigue or indiosyncratic relationship to the art forms. I am also diagnosed. Film editing offers an interesting boundary of sorts in thinking about scope of perception or hierarchies of attention. I've always had a hard time _just watching_ a film as a story experience but I find and appreciate plenty of elements about films to be plenty intrigued by _almost_ any of them. I got very interested in _media affect_ as a result, that is the experience of media intake.

I have come to believe my (seemingly) unique sensitivity to _aesthetics_ is somewhat undermined by a lack of sensitivity to _poetics_. This conclusion was painful to reach, but so far the realization has paid off in the way of understanding the limits of my abilities. On a more related note, I tend to experience _poetics_ from the outside in, which causes me to miss out on much of the human experience, including the way many people enjoy films.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article reminded me a lot of my struggle with ADD. Noises that are repeating and usually filtered out by most people are the thing that keeps me from being able to focus on a single thing. I was never diagnosed with ASD, but I can commiserate.

<comment><USER10> Diagnosed with ADHD and ASD over here. My Dr. says there is some thinking that ADHD is potentially on the lighter side of the same scale of "thing" and the symptoms often exhibit together. I was diagnosed with ADHD first and the ASD thing came much later. It really helped put some of the pieces into place for me. I definitely see their relation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I found this interesting. I'm diagonsed with ADD and carry all of the tell tale signs. My mind is geared to constantly fill in—like I need to over predict and guess what someone is going to say. When I watch a movie I am constantly hunting for the plot twist even if there is not one. I also have a higher than normal error rate because my mind tends to come to a resolution on scant evidence and I need to slow myself down and often double or triple check. I've often felt that autism was on the other end of the spectrum. Everything needed to be explicit, complete, and literal.

<comment><USER12> I relate strongly to your comment, specifically about the need to over-predict and be wrong. With my ADHD, I think my lack of a verbal 'filter' also contributes to that error rate, where my brain has a tendency to express the first thought that pops in it, rather than the best one :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Came out of the other end of this article totally convinced im autistic. How much of this like hearing your own voice echo is part of everyday experience to lesser degree?

</comment><comment><USER14> Or possibly, how problems with prediction may stem from autism.

<comment><USER15> That seams like a very good question.

Why would they not mention that in the article? seams odd

edit:

But on second thought...

If something is caused by autism it would be part of the definition for the behaviors that we call autism.

<comment><USER14> I should thank Michael Crichton for getting me in the habit of looking out for potential "Wet Streets Cause Rain" articles.

<comment><USER16> The article gets into that near the end, that maybe social issues make it harder to learn how to make predictions rather than the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> At first I expected this to be something about the process of synaptic pruning, which doesn't seem to work for people with autism and could be a big part of how autism works. I guess in retrospect this is only somewhat related to prediction in that the brain has to predict which pathways will be used and which won't in the future, and eliminate the less used (and less valuable) ones. That's really a key process to learning and associating things, which sort of ties into what's described in this article.

</comment><comment><USER18> Prediction is the one thing a AI excels at at this point. I wonder if someone could devise an apparatus to assist with such a disability.

<comment><USER19> Shit HN says.

<comment><USER20> [http://n-gate.com/](http://n-gate.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally%E2%80%93Anne_test](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally%E2%80%93Anne_test)</comment>


Ask HN: RFI - Which Angels/VCs work in the National Security tech space? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Some do it more formally than others. Paladin Capital has an explicit focus on "homeland security issues and needs." Chart Venture Partners in New York does that sort of deal, or did when I last worked with them.

On the less-formal side, Novak-Biddle Venture Partners in the DC area is also quite friendly to what I call "dual use" deals, where there might be a government play in addition to the commercial one. From a founder's perspective, they're good folks, too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, Strat. Much obliged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In-Q-Tel <http://www.iqt.org/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you - good link. They focus more on the established, multi-million. Similar to OnPoint. Any suggestions on Angels? Or lower threshold players? Any private sector players?</comment></comment>


Push To Classify Internet Addiction As a Mental Disorder - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/17/push-to-classify-internet-addiction-as-a-mental-disorder/ <comment><USER2> Today, the 'internet addiction' is a disorder; tomorrow, 'hobby addiction' is. Don't we already have enough things to blame childish behavior on, such as ADD?

(Not to say it isn't real, just that it may be a bit, say, over diagnosed...)

</comment><comment><USER3> So do I have to wait till it gets official before I admit to having it?

</comment><comment><USER4> I could have used some MUD Rehab back in the late eighties!!! :)</comment>


Founders Workbench - <AUTHOR> http://www.goodwinfoundersworkbench.com/

<comment><USER2> There are some great documents here, although I would still consider creating a relationship with a good law firm -- you will need them as time goes by and often they won't charge anything/very little for these initial incorporation documents anyway.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is also this: <http://ycombinator.com/seriesaa.html></comment>


Ask HN: Building apps for Apple devices in 2020 - <AUTHOR> As someone new to Swift, what technologies do you use or recommend when it comes to building apps for iOS, iPadOS and macOS since cross platform apps using SwiftUI seems to be a thing now.<p>Are UIKit/AppKit still the preferred way? Electron on MacOS and UIKit on iOS/iPadOS? <comment><USER2> If you are only building an app for Apple products, you should stick with native macOS apps. Electron is _acceptable_ for cross platform apps. You will get a lot of benefits of sharing code if you do build native for iOS/iPadOS and macOS.

<comment><USER3> With respect, no — electron is not acceptable.

You're bundling a complete copy of the chrome browser into your code. How many copies of chrome do you think one person needs?

If you're going to do that, then you should just build a web page and host it on your own site, and let people use whatever browser they want to access your site.</comment></comment>


Arrington Finally Makes It Onto The Cover of Time (If You Squint Real Hard You'll See Him) - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/01/arrington-finally-makes-it-onto-the-cover-of-time-if-you-squint-real-hard-youll-see-him/ <comment><AUTHOR> Are you kidding me? Time considers Arrington one of the 100 most influential people in the WORLD????</comment>


Ask HN: Who do you make a complaint to about a missing privacy policy? - <AUTHOR> I'm currently trying to answers about personal data collection from a well funded finance app I'm using that shockingly does not have a proper privacy policy on their website. They are suggesting their banking partner's privacy notice is the same as their own, but that notice doesn't cover the company's website or app. <comment><USER2> Typically the CCO, the 'Chief Compliance Officer' of the company, and if that doesn't work escalate to the local data protection authority or equivalent.

Note that quite often privacy policies get 'lost' in website updates so usually companies will be quite happy if you point this out to them.</comment>


Open Sourcing Microsoft's C++ Standard Library Implementation - <AUTHOR> https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/open-sourcing-msvcs-stl/ <comment><USER2> >> As C++ Standardization accelerates, with more large features being voted in every year, we believe that accepting major features as open source contributions will be important.

Translation: we believe it will be cheaper to take changes from people working for free/on someone else's payroll than to hire more of our own developers.

<comment> m-p-3 also, everyone wins</comment></comment>


Npm install java - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nearinfinity/node-java <comment><USER2> this is awesome!</comment>


Trump presidency rated among top 10 global risks: EIU - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35828747 <comment><USER2> Trump rhetoric != Trump politics

This is something that the media have completely failed to address.

Take something like illegal immigrants.

You don't find a single politician in the US or in Europe for that matter who would ever say that they are ok with illegal immigrant. There is more or less complete political consensus around this subject yet Trump managed through rhetorics to make it look like there is deep political disagreement, simply by saying he wants to build a wall and make the Mexican government pay for it.

Everyone from left to right fell for it but when you look at it Trumps political are actually quite moderate.

Fundamentally he is for gay marriage, for legalization of some drugs, he isn't very religious, his taxation politics are fundamentally to lower taxes for small businesses but remove deductions, he is fundamentally in agreement with most of Affordable Healthcare Act (especially the part about preexisting conditions which is one of the most important parts of it) and he is a business man who basically need the common man to do well so that many of his enterprises can do well, hardly someone who wants to go to war. He is also against the trade agreements. Which is hurtigt average americans who don't get to benefit from globalization.

The real crime here is that the media haven't called his bluff and instead of giving us proper analysis they gave us the juicy headlines that he is in almost infinite supply of. Because that is what sells.

Trump rhetoric is vulgar and over the top but he is talking to a bunch of people who have never been heard and who have never felt like they had a voice. Trump give them that voice and thats why he is popular.

If he ever became president he would most likely only be running for 4 years because he would basically not do any of the things he's been talking about.

A real populist for sure but a global risk he isn't.

<comment><USER3> > A real populist for sure but a global risk he isn't.

A real populist with an access to all sorts of red buttons (military, financial and political) is an excellent example of a global risk.

<comment><USER2> Thats not how the american system works. You can't just start sending troops to war or pushing buttons. The military is under no obligation to just do everything the president says. They have many checks and balances in place for that.

And keep in mind the current presidents use of drones killing innocent people just to get things in context here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm more afraid of Hillary becoming president actually. That would pretty much guarantee more wars and grand theft/banksterism.

<comment><USER5> Hillary guarantee more wars than a man who is openly prejudiced and hostile to both Muslims and Mexicans? As Secretary of State did she not work on building foreign relationships and brokering peace deals? Why would you say her election guarantees war?

<comment><USER6> She does not have a good track record and is a well known hawk. Many, many people have been killed, injured, and displaced thanks to policies she strongly advocated for in Libya and Syria. As for Trump, no one has any idea what he will do. He is a wild card.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I remember a lot of apocalyptic predictions were made about Ronald Reagan when he first was elected. He was going to start a new world war, he would recklessly use nuclear weapons, there would be massive oppression of human rights, etc. Ironically, however, the Reagan era was a remarkably peaceful time, with tremendous economic growth and very little military action other than the brief intervention in Grenada.

<comment><USER8> "He was going to start a new world war"

He almost did: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83)

However, to his credit he learned from this mistake and decided to take a less confrontational line with the Soviets - a change that he deserves a lot of credit for.

Edit: See "Arsenals of Folly" by Richard Rhodes.

<comment><USER7> Wikipedia, eh? The deployment of short range nuclear missiles into the European theater was a deliberate strategy to unsettle the Soviets and force them to the negotiating table. And it worked.

It also of course sparked youth protests all across western Europe; they were concerned that "warmonger" Reagan was going to use them as the battlefield in his chess game with the Soviets. Pentagon strategists talked of using tactical nukes to destroy Soviet armies.

Yes it was scary times, but we won. The Soviets are gone, and the 80s-90s were a period of unparalleled prosperity in the U.S. and much of the world actually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra Maybe you should stop demonizing this particular guy? After all, nobody wrote panic reports about GWB, did they?

<comment><USER9> Because nobody panicked about GWB, we shouldn't panic about Trump? Even if it was true, how would that be a sensible argument?

<comment> guard-of-terra You should not panic, and you should panic even less about herd-propagated non-issues.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Furloughed, Options? - <AUTHOR>
 Hey HN,
Was recently furloughed by my company a dev for a large restaurant chain. I knew I was going to be first on the chopping block as I started in the past 6 months and am one of the more junior on the team. 3 years out of college, ~17k in cash saved up, no debt at all. I don't know if my job will be there in the 4-5 weeks stated the furlough will last as the corona virus in the US doesn't look to be stopping in that time period aka no restaurant cash flow increase either unless we get a miracle..
Wanted to ask you all for some advice; should I start looking for new jobs asap, wait it out and hear back from my company, drop my lease (month to month) and move back to a low COL area and job hunt?
Just wanted to brainstorm with yall, more minds are better than one and Id rather be proactive than reactive. Figured some of yall were in the dotcom bust or the 08' bust and had some wisdom to drop on me. <comment><USER2> There will be lots of places looking for devs, but I'd start RIGHT NOW before larger problems start to seep in and competition gets higher. Depends what your run rate is - but I'd probably give it a month of looking.

Do not wait it out to hear back no matter what you do. You don't have income and a large recession is looming - get that income back.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds good, shot of some resumes today for the ASK HN whos hiring thread and contacted a recruiter. Appreciate the advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just start looking - you don't even have to make any decisions until an offer is on the table. It will take time to get to that offer, and you will then be able to see how this crisis has progressed. With more information at that time, you will better be able to decide whether to take the new offer or wait on the old job.

</comment><comment><USER4> IMO looking for a new opportunity is a higher priority than moving to a lower COL especially since moving takes time/money and also increases your infection risk.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would start looking now. If they happen to hire you back before you find something else awesome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, kicking the job hunt into high gear again.

<comment><USER5> I know because I got 3 months severance a couple years back and I wish I had started looking immediately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Get on unemployment ASAP. Look but be prepared for a gap.</comment>


Giles Bowkett turns language elitism upside down - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.raganwald.com/2006/12/giles-bowkett-turns-language-elitism.html

<comment><USER2> I've always felt this way, and have never been able to understand why Java is thought to be great for "average" programmers. Java is _hard_ , at least for me. Certainly much harder than Perl, Ruby, Smalltalk, Tcl, and Scheme (I haven't spent any time with Lisp). I even find it harder than C, in general, though I suspect that's just a factor of how much code I've read/written in the languages...and I've never had to build the infrastructure in a C project that Java removes completely, as I've always been a contributor to an existing project rather than starting from scratch. But, Java is certainly not a simple or concise language. There's a lot to learn..."Core Java" apparently requires two gigantic 1000+ page books. While one can learn most of Scheme from a single tiny text. Java has so many nooks and crannies that I feel like I'd never be able to learn it all. Likewise, one can get a pretty good understanding of C by spending a weekend with K&R. Simple but powerful languages hold more appeal for me.

But, I guess the thing I (and possibly Reginal and Giles) find hard about programming is not the thing people usually find hard about programming. I think of myself as an "average programmer", but the thing that bothers me about programming is tedium and the fiddly bits. The more scaffolding a program has, the less I enjoy working with it and the harder it is for me to grasp. If a piece of code isn't _for_ something, then I don't like it and find it really ugly, but also hard to understand. So, Java is chock full of stuff that makes me zone out completely. I've been surprised to find that PHP is hard for me, as well. I always sort of assumed, "Hey, I've met some really dumb PHP programmers...how hard can it be?" Until I actually had to work on some PHP code. It's so verbose. Everything is a function call, even basic data structures. So, I find PHP much harder than the other languages that I work in, even though it has a reputation for being easy.

<comment><USER3> I've had a similar experience to this also. I suspect it's a case of the Blub Paradox.

A few months ago I was watching a Java programmer write a text processing program. I found it frustrating to watch as he struggled with even basic stuff like reading files, regex's and string splitting.

But here's the thing.. I couldn't even remember myself how to match or replace a string based on a regex.

I consider myself a fairly smart programmer, but I probably couldn't write a Java program to read a file and match some regular expressions without looking at the API. Java makes it hard!

Perhaps this example isn't very fair to Java, but this kind of thing comes up all the time.

I'm sure even the 'average' Java programmer would have no trouble doing this in Ruby (or Python, take your pick) in 2 minutes.

<comment><USER2> That's a good example...and whenever I've brought up examples along those lines, a Java developer will say, "But how often do those kinds of problems come up?" And, then I pause to think about it, and I can't help but respond, "What programming problems _aren't_ that kind?" When I think about development, I'm thinking, "get some data, work on it, write it out", and Java makes those tasks pretty complex.

I know there are problems for which Java is a great choice. Google is not made up of stupid people, and they have a _lot_ of Java code...it's their go to language for systems-level development. But I can't think of any task that I write software for that would be better served by Java than Perl, Ruby, Python and probably even Smalltalk or Scheme or Lisp (though the latter three are weak when it comes to interacting with the system, and I build web-based systems management software--Smalltalk and Scheme and Lisp might be fine for the web-based part, but not so much on the systems management part, while Perl was pretty much designed for the purpose).</comment></comment></comment>


Alaska is a petrol state, but uses its oil wealth in more conservative ways - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_juice/2014/08/alaska_is_a_petrol_state_but_it_uses_its_oil_wealth_in_much_more_conservative.html

<comment><USER2> Very interesting to observe that Alaska is politically conservative, yet shows "liberal" values in important ways.

I visited parts of the state again this summer, and impressed with it's the breadth of its multicultural history and the extent it's celebrated and preserved. There is enormous environmental awareness and effort made to take care of the state's natural bounty is notable. I always much to learn about things and places I've never seen or known about first hand.

To the extent "conserve" is the root of "conservative" that must be regarded as indeed a positive attribute.

<comment><USER3> This is not that surprising. In terms of the well-known regional cultural identities in the US, Alaska is a mix of Cascadian culture (i.e. the Portland/Seattle/Vancouver arc) and Sagebrush culture (i.e. the intermountain West).

The environmental awareness comes from the Cascadian culture. The Sagebrush culture comes with the political view that how a person chooses to live their life is none of the government's business, which has socially liberal political effects. The multiculturalism comes from both.

Sagebrush regions are politically confusing to people from other parts of the US. The background culture tend to be socially conservative, and ironically also among the _least_ religious regions of the US, but in Sagebrush culture there is a strong distaste for dictating how your neighbor lives their life. It is politically libertarian, which has socially liberal effects, even though the people tend a bit more conservative in their personal lives. This leads to the famous legal minimalism of the Sagebrush parts of the US, where laws common in other States do not even exist for many things and the laws that do exist tend to be atypically permissive. Very "live and let live".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do not ever get in trouble in Alaska - they have very long sentences on par with Federal sentences. With all that oil revenue, they can afford to lock people up for long times. I know this from personal experience!

</comment><comment><USER5> Yet more TYPICAL US REVISIONISM. Once again they DENY the role that the UK has played in international history - this time OMITTING it, NEEDLESSLY, from the list of profligate petrostates.

<comment><USER6> > Yet more TYPICAL US REVISIONISM. Once again they DENY the role that the UK > has played in international history - this time OMITTING it, NEEDLESSLY, > from the list of profligate petrostates.

Are you mad that Slate didn't mention the UK, or mad that they didn't call them profligate?

<comment><USER5> Both, of course. People always assume it's developing/Middle Eastern/BRICS- style states that have the monopoly on pissing away their oil bounty, by taking the revenues and spending them rather than investing them - but it's not so, damnit!

(As I understand it, since the UK was never part of OPEC, nor restricted by any self-imposed quota a la pre-peak USA, private companies were allowed to produce as much oil as they could. This meant working through the available resources as quickly as possible, with the resulting excess holding down the prices they were sold at. (The UK - and Norway - were at one point major oil producers.) All in all, not very strategic - though the UK always seemed to do very poorly as a command economy, so, even in retrospect, probably not the wrong thing.)

<comment><USER7> I don't think that the UK producing excess oil was a significant factor in keeping the oil price down; peak production was in 1985, when prices were falling due to excess production (and large falls in demand) but Russia was a far bigger producer.

The money was not invested it is true, but not producing it at that point (given the large investments) would probably not have been optimal either.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


It's fundamental: You are a programmer if you... - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.raganwald.com/2008/01/its-fundamental-you-are-programmer-if.html <comment><USER2> In other words, debates about what makes one a good programmer are interesting and helpful. Questions about our responsibilities to the industry and society as a whole are worth discussing. Discussions of the meaning and value of a university degree and universities' responsibilities can be valuable, even if they're inflammatory.

However, arguments about taxonomy are boring, a waste of time, and usually more rooted in snobbery than any desire to learn or teach about our chosen field, so let's all agree on this definition so we can go back to the more interesting discussions.

<comment><USER3> > usually more rooted in snobbery than any desire to learn or teach about our > chosen field

I defy anyone to start teaching programming by opening with the lines "You may think you're a programmer, but you aren't." It will probably go as far as writing a blog post that says "you may think you belong to an exclusive club, but you don't."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Continuing the artist analogy, you are a poet if you write something everyone agrees is a poem. It doesn't mean you're automatically the poet laureate of _anything_ , or even a not-terrible poet, but you have written a poem, and you can probably write more poems, therefore you are a poet.

Similarly, you are a programmer if you can write computer programs. Even if the programs suck and you're a mindless hack, and nobody in their right mind would hire you.

</comment><comment><USER5> Maybe we've got a false dichotomy on our hands? Rather than a binary programmer-not, we should think of a spectrum of programming ability.

It's just a label after all; what really counts isn't what I call you, but what you can do.

<comment><USER3> This is the point I was trying to make: that there are programmers who would be _better_ if they applied the fundamentals. I though the foot-painting analogy would make that clear.

But judging by the response, everyone thought I was presenting a dichotomy, which proves that although I am a writer of sorts, I am not a _good_ writer.

<comment><USER6> I liked your post. It reminded me of "anyone can cook" in the movie Ratatouille.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hmmm. I think it's more about, do you do it habitually, consistently, etc.

If I diagnosed myself with a cold, I wouldn't call myself a doctor. If I went around diagnosing other people with colds, or opened up an office where people could trundle in and let me diagnose them with a cold, then yes, I might consider myself a doctor... though a pathetic one.

I started programming when I was 12. If I had just written a few programs at that time, and then stopped, and never did it again, then I don't think it would be fair to call myself a programmer. Since I have continued to write programs, and expect to do so for the foreseeable future, then -- even if I don't do it as well as you do -- I believe I am a programmer.

</comment><comment><USER8> You are a music composer if you...whistle aimlessly.

<comment><USER9> Well, if you whistle a tune you wrote, I suppose you are.

<comment><USER8> As I said, aimlessly.

<comment><USER9> You also said compose. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This post is inane at best, harmful at worst.

It sounds like: "You know, mediocrity is not so bad."

<comment><USER9> As opposed to the "You should program like this" posts?

It makes perfect sense: Hackers and Painters, after all; you're an artist if you paint, even if the portrait sucks.

<comment><USER11> Not necessarily, but you _are_ a painter.

<comment><USER12> Likewise, you can be a programmer without necessarily being a hacker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> for (i=0;i<ManyTimes;i++) { div1.innerHTML += 'For the '+i+'th time, me still is the Chief Programmer of the USA
' }

If it runs, it must be true.</comment>


I'll Never Use Squarespace Again - <AUTHOR> https://caitlynmayers.com/blog/ill-never-use-squarespace-again/ <comment><USER2> She could have saved her changes somewhere, reverted to the non-developer mode, update and re-apply the changes but no, she decided to abuse the first- line staff in an unnecessarily aggressive and extremely rude way. Then, she tried to hurt Squarespace by posting this entry on her blog.

I wouldn't work with this woman for all the money in the world.

</comment><comment><USER3> The article also links to a follow up from shortly thereafter: [https://caitlynmayers.com/blog/squarespace- update/](https://caitlynmayers.com/blog/squarespace-update/)

</comment><comment><USER4> (2013)</comment>


DDoS Letter to Chairman Wheeler - <AUTHOR> https://www.scribd.com/document/328854049/DDoS-Letter-to-Chairman-Wheeler#download <comment><USER2> It strikes me as being somewhat dangerous to compromise open network/network neutrality rules in order to kick compromised devices off the Internet, never mind the fact that it puts the cost of security vulnerabilities on end users, who can't fix them, instead of vendors, who can.

<comment><USER3> This feels much like laws that already exist around Attractive/Public Nuisances. A compromised device DDOSing is interfering with others' right to be able to access the internet. The users themselves would in turn have much more impetus to seek remedies, legal or otherwise, to get the devices fixed because they'd then be without the ability to use devices they paid for. In a lot of ways, doing this would put more pressure on the manufacturer, because they would have much less room to wriggle out of their responsibility to ensure their device is actually usable.

<comment><USER4> Yeah and public nuisance laws are similarly problematic: selectively enforced and sometimes used to punish the victims of crimes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Requested responses 8 and 9 scare the crap out of me. I think those pretty much end open source software on the internet. Requested response 6 looks like a call for forced updates. I would of preferred a call for a rule that prevents cell providers from holding up phone updates.

<comment><USER3> 8 and 9 specify manufacturers -- people selling something that connects to the internet. If you're selling, you should have to certify that you've done due diligence. If this is done through NIST standards being created, one of the side effects of this would mean that everyone would get actual guidelines, and almost certainly tools, which could do checking if a device is configured at least semi-properly. If anything, it would mean that vendors would have more impetus to communicate and send patches, because they would have to actually own their problems.

<comment><USER6> Yes, but even if your standard only states that manufacturers have to provide some sort of resilience to attackers modifying the binaries on the device remotely, I suspect many manufacturers are going to go with the simplest way: preventing any modifications save manufacturer-signed updates, and/or reducing user configurability of the device.

My feeling on this are somewhat mixed; on one hand virtually everyone who owns a modifiable device never makes any significant modifications and doesn't know how to properly secure it to boot. On the other hand, that means that even if manufacturers had no selfish reasons to put in such limitations of their own volition, the natural state for most consumer device markets is going to be to have no modifiable devices available for purchase just because making an unlocked version isn't worth it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> ISPs don't assign IP addresses to most IOT devices; routers do. So there's one credibility problem with this letter right from the beginning.

<comment><USER8> Maybe he's an IPv6 fan.

<comment><USER9> ISPs wouldn't assign addresses to the IoT devices with IPv6 either...

<comment> angry-hacker But who does? Or what factor decides what my iot's device ipv6 will be?

<comment><USER10> Devices tend to self-assign IPv6 addresses using SLAAC, but the router would still have MAC-to-IP mappings in its neighbor table. Or some cases the router assigns it using DHCPv6.

<comment><USER6> Just to clear things up for people unfamiliar with IPv6, the ISP does have some input in this process: they give your router a unique prefix (basically a subnet) which the router delegates to the devices in your network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Parts of this letter sound informed, while other parts sound woefully misguided... I'm not sure I understand the point. What's Mark Warner going for here?

<comment><USER3> He's going for starting the conversation. Basically saying, "hey, here are my ideas, we need to talk about this."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Letter on the senator's website itself:

[http://www.warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2016/10/sen- ma...](http://www.warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2016/10/sen-mark-warner- probes-friday-s-crippling-cyber-attack)

Unfortunately it also links to scribd.

<comment><USER13> Humbly and without snark, what happened to scribd that has upset people? Is it just the non-standard PDF viewer or have they been up to something underhanded?

<comment><USER14> Want to keep reading? Download the app for the full version!

* Read all 4 pages of DDoS Letter to Chairman Wheeler.

\</comment></comment></comment><comment>-

Their website cuts off the last page of the letter and tells you to download their app to read it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think there are a number of specific laws or regulations that could reduce the problems _without_ harming innovation.

Here's a starter list: [http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/law- security.html](http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/law-security.html) . I'm sure that list can be improved on (I'd love to hear about improvements).

</comment><comment><USER16> A non-Scribd source please?

</comment><comment><USER17> How about we fix DNS?

<comment><USER18> To do what? DNS isn't the only amplifier on the Internet, and not all of the Mirai attacks are amplified to begin with.

<comment><USER17> "Decentralization of core nameserving and smarter caching downlevel so that single modes of failure on internet name resolution doesn't bring entire swaths of the internet down" is what I was thinking.

Reflection (UDP) and amplification are problems, sure - we could address those as well.

<comment><USER19> This wasn't an attack against the root servers, so it's unclear what decentralization help. Should Dyn stand up two servers? That sounds like a good idea, but also something they can do themselves.

<comment><USER17> So a proposal here would look like: redundant resolvers with ISPs and routers failing and load balancing between them along with smarter caching strategies on the entire name resolution stack. Getting more academic and speculative with a "pie-in-the-sky" proposal that would remove both privacy and centralization concerns: quorum strategies over a peer-based, differential privacy protected authenticated database seeded by root servers.

The point here is that "IoT" isn't the problem. Thousands of traditional servers can do just as much damage (or more) than thousands of IoT devices in a DDoS. You want to stop attacks that bring down DNS? Fix DNS. You aren't going to be able to legislate away compromise-likely devices and services. That's an imaginary solution, and likely to exacerbate other issues (IoT privacy).

<comment><USER18> I'm still not clear on how this is a solution. Attackers don't need to target DNS. With massive botnets, they can generate backbone-melting traffic --- which will look identical to legitimate traffic --- without the use of any amplifiers, and which will knock out any service they choose.

<comment><USER17> This isn't a proposal to stop all DDoS. That's some crazy feature creep you're suggesting.

Look, if the purpose is to stop all DDoS, legislating IoT devices won't solve that problem either.

You seem to be disqualifying a solution to attacks on DNS because it doesn't solve a problem we aren't trying to solve.

I don't get it.

<comment><USER18> Sorry. Reset. What problem are we trying to solve, and why that problem next?

<comment><USER17> > What problem are we trying to solve? The problem where DNS providers, such > as Dyn, are taken down, leading to outages to large swaths of the internet.

> Why that problem next? The recommendation to tackle this problem next is the > topic of discussion. Namely, the DDoS letter to Chairman Wheeler.

The letter inappropriately confuses fixing this recent outage/attack on DNS with preventing IoT devices from being compromised. My proposal (the high level comment) is to fix the problem being discussed by fixing DNS (making it difficult, as a core internet service, from being DDoSed).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Distributed Systems Engineers should really work with Blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://blockchain.works-hub.com/learn/Why-aren-t-distributed-systems-engineers-working-on-blockchain-technology-?utm_source=BCW%20(JG)&utm_campaign=BCW%20(JG)&utm_content=BCW%20(JG) <comment><USER2> All in good time. The blockchain space is still an evolving ecosystem. The level of growth we are seeing in the market and the possibilities of DLT technology is exciting but we need to turn this energy into productivity. The hiring tech powerhouses of today like Google and Amazon didn't happen overnight.</comment>


Low Level Bit Hacks You Absolutely Must Know - <AUTHOR> http://www.catonmat.net/blog/low-level-bit-hacks-you-absolutely-must-know/

<comment> old-gregg For those who enjoy these kind of problems I highly recommend "Hacker's delight".

[http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Delight-Henry-S- Warren/dp/0201...](http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Delight-Henry-S- Warren/dp/0201914654)

<comment><AUTHOR> Seconded. That is an amazing book.

I also recommend this much more complete article on bit hacks:

<http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> How could they miss the classic. Swap two integers without a temporay var:

        a ^= b
        b ^= a
        a ^= b

<comment><AUTHOR> oh no! totally forgot about this classic. :)

<comment><USER3> it doesn't deserve the time...

first only works if a is a different var than b

second it can be much slower than typical swap...

and finaly, it isn't clear what it does if your code is for others to read

<comment><USER4> It still works fine if a and b are the same value.

Here's the general proof:

a ^= b (a = a ^ b, b = b)

b ^= a (a = a ^ b, b = b ^ (a ^ b) = a)

a ^= b (a = b ^ (a ^ b) = b ,b = a)

Now, let's replace all references initial values with constant c:

a ^= b (a = c ^ c = 0, b = c)

b ^= a (a = 0, b = c ^ 0 = c)

a ^= b (a = c ^ 0 = c, b = c)

Notice that at the end, you still end up with a = b = c. There are plenty of reasons not to use this approach, but that ain't one of them.

<comment><USER5> He meant if they are the same variable, not the same value. (E.g., you pass pointers to your function.)

      int swap(int * a, int * b)
        {
        (*a)^=(*b);
        (*b)^=(*a);
        (*a)^=(*b);
        }
      int x = 15;
      int *y = &x;
      int *z = &x;

      swap(y,z);  //Now *y == 0

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Also see the more advanced Bit Twiddling Hacks page: <http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> This article is kind of lame. 1 - 6 should be basic skills from undergrad CS courses. Also the intro paragraph is a bait and switch,

"Instead of performing some operation (such as counting the 1 bits in an integer) by looping over individual bits, these programming nuggets do the same with one or two carefully chosen bitwise operations."

We never actually learn how to count set bits in an integer. (My initial thought was look-up table but is there a better way?)

<comment><USER8> The best solution I know of is:

      a, i = 11, 0
      while a > 0:
        a, i = a & a-1, i + 1

If there are k bits set out of n bits, it only does k iterations.

<comment><USER9> That's [http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#CountBit...](http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#CountBitsSetKernighan)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think it's unfortunate that the article does not provide real examples where these bit hacks are used. Why would I want to be able to unset the left-most 1 bit of a series of bits?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's a good question and comment. I'll try to write another part of the article with applications to these hacks! There are plenty in embedded engineering, kernel programming, cryptographic algorithms, space efficient data structures, fast image processing algorithms, and in plenty other computing areas.

To answer your question, why you'd want to set/unset the right-most 1-bit, suppose you have a space efficient 8 bit data structure that represents 8 devices. Each bit represents if a device is on and off. And you want to turn off the right-most device. Then you could use that hack. Or for example, you want to linearly turn on devices from 1st to 8th, then you can just turn on the rightmost bit eight times, and turn off in the same manner. Or you could have some crazy device that puts data at some memory location and waits you to clear the rightmost bit before it puts new data at that location. Or you have a number system coded in your byte in such a way that rightmost low order bit is always the sign (or some other craziness).

<comment><USER11> When, given a bit-vector representation of 8 devices, would I want to do something with the "right-most" of those devices?

<comment><AUTHOR> for example, those 8 devices were 8 LEDs, some of them on, and you'd want to turn the rightmost led off. :)

edit: i'll look into more serious applications when i write that article on bit trick applications.

<comment><USER11> Ok, lights are a good example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I guess I should be the one to provide the usual warning that C and C++ make no guarantees about the in-memory representation of the built-in types, and that this type of code can be very dangerous.

It is, however, very cool when it works.

<comment><USER13> Look up C99 and stdint.h. You will be pleasantly surprised.

<comment><USER12> Consider me educated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> my favorite is determine if an int is a power of 2: if(!(a & (a-1))){ // a is a power of 2 }

<comment><USER15> or a is negative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is that a MOS 6502 in the image of the article? I want that chip.

</comment><comment><USER17> you can also print binary in python like so:

      >>>print bin(12)
      0b1100
      >>>

<comment><AUTHOR> Only Python 2.6 I think, and it does not print negatives very nicely (it prints bin(-x) = -bin(x), instead of some number representation).

<comment><USER17> yes, you are right python >2.6 only

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> AKA "how to write line noise".

<comment><AUTHOR> Not quite!

These are embedded programmer tools of trade. For example, you don't want to loop over bits to count number of bits in it (not covered in this article, but will be in the next part of the article). It can be done with several shifts and ANDs! Huge speedups!

Another example, finding the lowest order 1-bit in a 64bit integer - it can take up to 64 iterations to find it with a loop. Instead it takes one AND and one but inversion operation (= 2 ops total)! 32x speedup!

<comment><USER19> Absolutely! Some of the examples, depending on the core architecture, could benefit from a table lookup, but all are good tools to have in the box.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly! And you can get these questions even in job interviews. If you want to score the intervieews, then you better know the quick ways!

<comment><USER20> I like bit twiddling, but I'm not sure I'd take the job if a primary concern of the interviewer is whether I know the quick way to find the lowest-order bit in a 64-bit int...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was expecting to see "None of them" as kind of a joke.

For a web app developer are these useful? For fun? yes. For profit? no. Title should be Low Level Bit Hacks You May Find Interesting.

<comment><USER22> Maybe I'm missing something... Why the assumption that all (or even the majority of) HN readers are interested only in developing web apps?

<comment><USER23> It suffices that just one such individual exists to invalidate the claim of the title.</comment></comment></comment>


Ragtime is neither classical music nor jazz (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://www.frederickhodges.com/is%20ragtime%20classical%20music.html <comment><USER2> The author derides the ahistorical, overly-respectful approach of people who treat ragtime like pre-20th-century classical music - but fails to acknowledge that this approach is just as ahistorical and overly-respectful when applied to pre-20th-century classical. Chopin, Liszt, and Beethoven were absolutely writing to put bread on the table, and absolutely did not play to the score as written.

> Classical music and popular music serve entirely different purposes and have > diametrically opposed motivations behind their creation. In general, a > classical composer uses music to express his deepest emotions and > experiences. Classical music arouses the intellect and the passions. It > addresses the deepest questions of human existence. Classical music is > sophisticated and intelligent. The impression is that it cannot be > appreciated by the uninititated and the uneducated. Of course, classical > composers were traditionally supported and constrained by the patronage > system. Poverty may have obliged Mozart to accept commissions for works he > might not otherwise of written, but his patrons probably never asked him to > "dumb it down."

This is sheer nonsense. I'm hardly a major classical fan but I can immediately think of an example: Beethoven's String Quartet No. 13 B flat (thanks HN for eating the flat symbol) originally concluded with his Große Fuge (which was later published separately), but at his publisher's pleading he reworked it with a lighter and more accessible ending.

As far as I can see this essay draws no genuine distinction between Ragtime and Classical. Joyous improvisational play is equally authentic - and equally valuable - for (pre-20th century) classical as it is for ragtime.

<comment><USER3> > _Chopin, Liszt, and Beethoven were absolutely writing to put bread on the > table, and absolutely did not play to the score as written._

Is whether or not you play the score as written an issue? How do we even know this about composers that predate recording technology?

I'm not wondering if maybe the advent of recording technology might be the source of the modern distinction between classical, pop and jazz.

Something that struck me from the bit you quoted from the article:

> > _In general, a classical composer uses music to express his deepest > emotions and experiences._

I think that might actually be more true of some forms of jazz and pop. Much classical music is very much an intellectual exercise, whereas blues and rock tend to be far more emotional. But again this varies wildly within each genre. Hardly a meaningful distinction.

There's a massive difference between pre-20th century classical music, which was very much the pop music of its day, and modern classical music, which is often far less accessible and more elitist. (Though there are still many beautiful and accessible modern classical pieces. Interestingly, many draw inspiration from jazz.)

<comment><USER2> > Is whether or not you play the score as written an issue?

It's a question discussed extensively in the essay, and one that the essay sees (ahistorically, but perhaps descriptively true in modern practice) as defining the distinction between classical and jazz.

> How do we even know this about composers that predate recording technology?

Accounts from people who saw multiple performances, evidence of composers reworking written pieces after experimenting during performance, composers' own diaries...

> I think that might actually be more true of some forms of jazz and pop. Much > classical music is very much an intellectual exercise, whereas blues and > rock tend to be far more emotional. But again this varies wildly within each > genre. Hardly a meaningful distinction.

Yeah, agreed. Indeed I'd say pop often expresses the emotions that are most fundamental and deeply held (which by the same token are often the simplest and clearest).

<comment><USER4> What most people call "Classical" music now is really an large umbrella term for instrumental art music written in tonal forms prior to the 20th century on a certain class of instruments and with vaguely homogeneous views on what music should be and includes Baroque, Classical, Romantic and a few others. It is semantic nonsense to quibble about whether Ragtime is classical as much as it would be nonsense to quibble about whether D is in the set of {A,B,C}. They are all letters, and D has lots of qualities close to {A,B,C}, but it isn't in the set, maybe we could define the set {A,B,C,D} and say D is in that, but then we have a new set. Pick a new word and move on in life. Or you can co-opt the word "Classical" and add new things into the label, but that would be different than what we are talking about. Is Beethoven Classical or Romantic era? His early works are Classical, his later works become more and more Romantic and he is basically the father of the Romantic era, but we have to take a more nuanced view of everything he wrote. He isn't "just Romantic" but was influenced and influenced a whole host of ideas and areas. We can define attributes of a class and maybe we can say that anything that walks and quacks is a duck, but it is all simply splitting hairs and re-definitions. It is useful to have classes of things and distinctions of things that look alike, because then we can hope to reason about them, but ultimately we should look at Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Romantic as separate things and understand them separately.

In my view, one of the aims of a lot of classical music was to have highly structured music which could evoke a complex tapestry of emotion and ideals. It takes deeper understanding to get and appreciate a lot of art music ("music snobs"), but it was written for a _purpose_ and _ideal_, often ideological, religious, or emotional. Pop music is fun, lighthearted, easy to appreciate for most people and evokes feelings that we all know. But art music can be amplified by knowing the ideals and desires of those who wrote it. Beethoven's Eroica symphony has a complex background, symbolic and stylistic reasons for the way it is with the original desire to tribute Napoleon as a representative of Republican ideals (before he crowned himself Emperor... which made Beethoven erase that...). It is similar to appreciating why the Fairie Queene was written and appreciating the deeper symbolic meaning and cultural ideals, rather than reading the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew as pleasant detective fiction. That's my take on it.

<comment><USER2> > It is semantic nonsense to quibble about whether Ragtime is classical as > much as it would be nonsense to quibble about whether D is in the set of > {A,B,C}. They are all letters, and D has lots of qualities close to {A,B,C}, > but it isn't in the set, maybe we could define the set {A,B,C,D} and say D > is in that, but then we have a new set.

Our definitions should reflect the underlying reality; otherwise we will be mislead by them ( [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FaJaCgqBKphrDzDSj/37-ways- th...](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FaJaCgqBKphrDzDSj/37-ways-that-words- can-be-wrong) ). "Do we refer to ragtime with this particular pattern of letters" is indeed an uninteresting question, but "does ragtime have as much in common with these other forms that we call classical as they do with each other" is meaningful and ultimately grounded in objective reality.

> ultimately we should look at Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Romantic > as separate things and understand them separately.

Yes and no. "All models are false; some are useful". Of course baroque/classical/romantic have differences, and if you zoom in on any one you'll find further distinctions within that group. But all models are simplifications, and as long as that simplification genuinely corresponds to reality - there is a lot that baroque/classical/romantic have in common with each other in a way that they don't with, say, rock - then it's useful to group them together in a category with a name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> vanilla-almond Joplin is the most famous of the ragtime composers. He aspired to be taken seriously as a classical composer. Although some of his rags were popular when they were published, recognition as a serious composer never came during his lifetime. Other composers of rags may not have aspired to elevate their pieces as serious compositions, but Joplin certainly did.

Also, contrary to what this article states, ragtime pieces are not all "happy, joyful, playful, danceable, and uplifting". To take Joplin as an example again, although many of his piano pieces are lively and melodious, there are also melancholy pieces like Solace and Bethena Waltz perhaps reflecting the troubled life he led.

The article is also wrong when it states Joplin had no intentions in the way his work is performed. Joplin did not want his rags to be played at fast speeds. This is often the case in many recordings (including, in my opinion, with Joshua Rifkin). My favourite performer of Joplin's music is the late Canadian musician John Arpin.

I listen mostly to classical music and love Joplin's piano music, but even today, there's a lot of snobbishness about Joplin's music from some quarters in the classical music field.

But wherever you start with Joplin's music, the sound of a rag is irresistible.

By the way, if you are in the UK you can listen to an 2017 episode of Composer of the Week on Joplin on BBC Radio 3 here. BBC Radio 3 is the BBC's classical, jazz and world music radio station.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04z0qqt](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04z0qqt)

</comment><comment><USER5> I like ragtime. The syncopation, the snappy rhythm-- it's good music.

I also associate it strongly with 'The Sting'. An old movie, but a great one.

<comment><USER6> The musical score of The Sting (a great movie, I agree) was notable because of the orchestral arrangements of Joplin's music, which of course was originally written for solo piano.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Stride (bass notes on 1 and 3, chord accompaniment on 2 and 4, all in the left hand) is the common accompaniment in ragtime, and is also a very common technique used in jazz for solo pianists. In jazz you might vary it up some more, mixed in with some voice leading in the comping and some walking bass lines, but anyways, while ragtime might not be jazz, they do have some common language.

</comment><comment><USER8> I can't remember the movie, but I recall a British character proclaiming the "Jazz is just musical wanking." Or something to that extent. Whatever. This article is the written equivalent. I love some forms of Jazz and hate others. If you like a different set, good for you! Like what you like and ignore the haters. This was a very pretentious article.

<comment><USER9> Looks like the author is a classical + jazz pianist, so I'm not sure why it would be pretentious for him to have an opinion about something he loves and does for a living. Can you explain?

<comment><USER10> I'm a jazz bassist. The author seems to pit stereotype against stereotype. I can't fault his analysis of ragtime music, but he needn't paint me as an enemy. His description of jazz musicians and fans seems to be from a movie, not from real life.

I play in a large jazz enesmble. We tend to favor newer material when we can lay our hands on it. The musicians and audience members come from all walks of life, and at least according to my own impression, are generally a cheerful lot, just happy to be able to experience the music.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This whole article and discussion reinforces my decision to remove any and all genre tags from my music files.

</comment><comment><USER12> I first read that as "Ragtime is neither classical nor music", which seemed a bit harsh.

</comment><comment><USER13> Ragtime is classical music</comment>


How Life Sciences Actually Work - <AUTHOR> https://guzey.com/how-life-sciences-actually-work/ <comment><USER2> Being a life-sciences refugee myself, I read this essay and noted that my intellectual response to it was very discordant with my emotional response to it.

Intellectually, I think the author did a very good job and although like any scientist I could nitpick, grossly speaking I found myself agreeing.

Emotionally, however… Having been through the wringer I would ask any reader to consider not just the "central tendencies" viewpoint but the "this is YOU going through this" viewpoint.

If you are doggedly determined and personally consumed with getting into a fantastic lab to bootstrap your career so that you can slave away for essentially minimum wage with no benefits so that you could get a research position for which you might get a job security at the age of 42 to 45… Seriously?!

For many, that prospect looks very different when you're closer to twenty than fifty.

Here's another view point: the system is horribly horribly broken, leaving a trail of collateral human damage… But there are so many people throwing themselves at the meat grinder that inevitably greatness occasionally arises.

Do I sound bitter and cynical? Perhaps. But living the experience, for me and many many others, is rather different than reading summaries of what the life is like.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for this. I completely agree with you. Unfortunately my essay had a different focus but maybe I should try to interview people just on their personal feelings and see how that -- less cerebral -- perspective would be different...

<comment><USER4> While I like your article a lot, as I said in another comment, I disagree about some conclusions.

In my opinion, big groups are the cancer of life sciences academia. It's not just me who thinks that. If you look into all the organizational research that HHMI did prior to setting up Janelia Labs, they essentially concluded that CSHL, LMB and Bell Labs were so successful in the past because groups were small and all funding was internal (which implies you no longer need PIs, you can go back to classical professors).

The vast majority of the big PIs I have worked or interacted with (and that includes Cambridge, Oxford, EMBL, Karolinska, MIT and other places) are pure _rent seekers_ , literally. They bet on some postdocs or PhDs and simply stamp their name as last authors if there is a publication. However, they rarely have any insights on what is being done. Sometimes they don't even understand it at all. So no value added, just profit. Unless you count as value chairing conference calls, calling editors to negotiate publication terms or discussing funding with agencies (most grants are actually written by senior postdocs, despite what author lists indicate).

That's when things go well. When personal issues pop up, they can screw up their subordinates big time. I have witnessed this many times. After all, grads and postdocs are just pawns in their chessboard.

Such an organization is at odds with classical academia, where your professor (not PI) was your mentor and you would engage into endless discussions about science with him. Other fields retain some of this approach, but in life sciences it is lost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One issue I ran into personally is incremental vs fundamental research. In the drive to get publications, which provides evidence of production so you can get grants, better jobs, more money, better publications in higher journals-- the quest for all that leads to very small steps in research. There are proportionally far fewer biologists than there used to be working on fundamental, big picture type work. One counterpoint may be that the low hanging fruit has been picked. However, I feel it's also a cultural problem. To do well, so many of us biologists get caught in the incrementalism loop rather than thinking bigger.

</comment><comment><USER3> Author here - this essay is the result of a year (and 100+ interviews) of my figuring out how life sciences work. (there are also discussions of it on reddit [1] and on twitter [2])

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/cqxcey/how_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/cqxcey/how_life_sciences_actually_work_findings_of_a/) (16 comments)

[2] [https://twitter.com/alexeyguzey/status/1162017187919478784](https://twitter.com/alexeyguzey/status/1162017187919478784) (28 responses)

<comment><USER6> Terrific stuff. I'd be interested in hearing your opinion about where additional funds would come from. And the areas most in need of allocation. Life sciences research can be a black hole. Infinite funds and data in, with very little usable output. At least that tends to be the perception ;)

An additional trend I've noticed is that many senior researchers tend to veer away from the pure research and discovery that marked early triumphs. And veer into issues of cruft, turf wars, plumbing, and "technical debt" later in their careers. A kind of "low hanging fruit" mentality sets in. In ML research for example, issues of reproducibility and generalizability need to be solved before trust can be placed in the system. And while I recognize the ethical need for theoretical foundations to be rock solid before deployment at scale. I am wondering if that's the class of problems the most brilliant minds should be working on.

It's only now that we are getting hard metrics about the return on research expenditures. And while its currently in vogue for administrators to use these stats competitively and make claims like "UCL published more Neuroscience papers than MIT last year". We should start to see more wise allocations of research dollars into the areas of development most needed.

Thanks!

<comment><USER3> As I wrote in [https://guzey.com/patronage-and-research- labs/](https://guzey.com/patronage-and-research-labs/) \- my hope is that philanthropists and foundations will be deciding to experiment more and to allow scientists to pursue research differently...

Wouldn't want to point to specific areas - rather I think that we need to find brilliant people and back whatever they're working on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One additional point is needed to complete the picture. Life sciences research is now almost completely dependent on technologies and reagents provided by a small number of commercial entities. Building custom equipment or synthesizing reagents has become almost impossible because institutions have gotten rid of their science support facilities and staff.

</comment><comment><USER8> Aren't you kind of mixing engineering with science?

We still have plenty of opportunity for optimization of scientific discoveries in biology, what we don't have plenty of is new scientific discoveries.

I am just asking, maybe I am missing something but read like that to me.

<comment><USER3> There's plenty of space of new scientific discoveries in biology! Wikipedia for example has a good list: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_b...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_biology)

<comment><USER8> Sure there is space but thats not the point though :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd recommend the following book:

How Economics Shapes Science [https://www.amazon.com/Economics-Shapes-Science- Paula-Stepha...](https://www.amazon.com/Economics-Shapes-Science-Paula- Stephan/dp/0674088166)

It looks into key challenges of the scientific labor market.

</comment><comment><USER10> Great read. If you ever want to do this for industry life science research, I'd love to participate!</comment>