My apology and why the tech world is awesome - <AUTHOR> http://jerryguo.tumblr.com/

<comment><USER2> This is a very limited apology. He was in the news for pretending to be a journalist while researching a startup, sure, but that was merely weird (you might even call it "scrappy," like some of the stories you hear about other startups doing slightly dishonest stuff early on). But that story had plenty of other examples of Guo doing really weird stuff, like getting free air travel and product samples by claiming he was going to write about companies. He vaguely alludes to that in the blog post, but it's a weird omission not to address that. A simple "These stories are all wrong" or even "I was broke and really intended to write about those guys, but it was still the wrong decision" would be fine.

[http://www.betabeat.com/2011/09/27/jerry-guo-newsweek- groupe...](http://www.betabeat.com/2011/09/27/jerry-guo-newsweek-grouper- fareed-zakaria/)

<comment><USER3> I agree. This is really a damage control to his own reputation. I don't find the apology sincere at all, given the extent and duration of his dishonesty.

<comment><AUTHOR> Jerry here. Here's the statement I gave to Gawker about the Newsweek complaints:

As for the letters of complaint, Guo tells us they "stem from the fact a) I just didn't end up writing about some of the places I stayed, because they sucked and I wasn't about to portray them as anything else and b) Daily Beast and Newsweek merged last winter, and I left pretty quickly after that, so with a lead time of several weeks / months, those stories just didn't get written."

Here's a statement from Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek on our editorial policy:

Mr. Zakaria emailed Betabeat to explain the change. The Good Life, he said, was "an effort to provide a service for our readers and attract new advertisers. It is quite common in that world for reporters to, say, go to a special tasting at a new restaurant or attend a weekend retreat at a new hotel. I relaxed our rules on this stuff for those two pages.

<comment><USER4> The rest of that Zakaria quote (taken from [http://www.betabeat.com/2011/09/27/jerry-guo-newsweek- groupe...](http://www.betabeat.com/2011/09/27/jerry-guo-newsweek-grouper- fareed-zakaria/2/)):

        ...In retrospect, it was a mistake—my mistake—and I
        regret it. We should not have been in the business of
        covering luxury goods—that world is so different from
        the traditional world of news reporting. I was always
        uncomfortable with it but was trying to help to help[sic]
        the magazine survive through tough economic times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like this sentiment and think it frees us up to be more like the people we wish we were than the people we think we should be out of fear:

      Startups are not a zero-sum game. We can all win, and by that,
      I mean create value that ultimately helps those around us—by
      creating jobs, connecting people, making markets more
      efficient, etc—and some go on to change the world.

Is it naive? Probably. I enjoy my life more and the people I get to interact around me when I am not spending half my energy trying to protect myself from being "p0wn3d" in a theoretical, physical, psychological and financial sense.

ASIDE: I realize that this is only my perspective because of where I am in life... if I were a billionaire on Wall Street, I would likely have a very different take on the human condition.

I am just commenting that I like the positive energy in living your life in an open/collaboratory (word?) way.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice apology ... after almost 30 years in business, I still do things like this that I have no rational basis for (usually when I'm dog-tired). There are three important parts to the recovery:

1) Apologize ... it _never_ hurts even if the offended party has no idea what you're talking about.

2) Learn something from the mistake.

3) Not only remember the mistake in the future, but apply the same principles to other situations that might be similar.

You've done a great job with the first two ... and only time will show whether you master the third. From the tone of your apology, I suspect that you will.

</comment><comment><USER4>
        I don't want to stoop to their level and give a point-by-
        point refutation, but will just let my reporting speak
        for itself and the love our Grouper members have shown us.

I found that this sentence did not match the general tone of the article. It seems out of place in an apology to insist that, while you are a dishonest entrepreneur, you are an honest journalist. I'm sure the statement is true, it just seems like an odd topic to bring up in a relatively short, otherwise focused post.

</comment><comment><USER7> Bravo guy. Mike Lynch can perhaps get a takeaway from this.

One day, when you make it and all the little script kiddies look at how you did it, they'll fall upon this and learn something.

</comment><comment><USER8> [http://www.betabeat.com/2011/09/30/jerry-guo-newsweek- groupe...](http://www.betabeat.com/2011/09/30/jerry-guo-newsweek-grouper- taiwanese-animation-animated/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Note that the biggest accusation of them all is not addressed: that grouper is a lie, and is just old fashioned human matchmaking.

See [http://gizmodo.com/5845467/how-i-was-nearly-seduced-by- group...](http://gizmodo.com/5845467/how-i-was-nearly-seduced-by-grouper-the- biggest-sham-in-online-dating)

</comment><comment><USER10> Honestly, imo, even if he didn't mean the apology/still doesn't care, props for at least trying to MAKE STUFF. Contribute through any means.</comment>


Boto: integrated Python interface to Amazon Web Services - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/boto/ <comment><USER2> See [http://jimmyg.org/2007/09/01/amazon-ec2-for-people-who- prefe...](http://jimmyg.org/2007/09/01/amazon-ec2-for-people-who-prefer- debian-and-python-over-fedora-and-java/) for a cool Boto related tutorial.

</comment><comment><USER3> boto's a great library, we've been using it for S3 for years without a hitch. Mitch's tutorials are nice examples of what's possible with the Amazon services:

[http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?ex...](http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalID=691) [http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?ex...](http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalID=1404)

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been using this lately. Only takes a few lines of code to upload to S3. I had trouble with larger files (250 MB), but I don't think the problem was with Boto.

</comment><comment><USER5> Good thing Python is cross platform. If they needed a special OS X version, it would be Botox.

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be nice to have a cross platform API for GUIs for Python. It might be slightly handicapped, or might have options only available on certain system, but it would help get the wrinkles out of today's GUI programming. WxWidgets and QT are pretty good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> thumbs up to boto

<comment><USER6> should i have rambled on about how boto helped me get going on SQS and S3 super-quickly? would another anonymous "yeah, this helped out in ways i wont describe" testimonial really be more valuable than just "thumbs up because i like it" ?

i realize "thumbs up to boto" is pretty simple, but its darn honest.

<comment><USER7> You're supposed to say "+1 boto." Alternatively, "boto FTW" for style points. "Thumbs up" is not tolerated on Hacker News because, as it happens, Roger Ebert is a sworn enemy of Paul Graham.

<comment><USER6> ha! i will be spending the next 3 days at work researching this claim voraciously, and celebrating a (tenuous) chance to use the word "voracious"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


VCs tell HipChat to stop charging. - <AUTHOR> http://vator.tv/news/2010-11-08-javelin-venture-partners-looks-at-hipchat

<comment><USER2> This is silly and obviously poorly researched since hipchat is free for <4 users</comment>


ALEC calls for penalties on 'freerider' homeowners who install solar panels - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/04/alec-freerider-homeowners-assault-clean-energy

<comment><USER2> Yelp, Facebook and Google are members of ALEC. Hopefully this latest development will provide the public attention needed for them to drop their support, although I'm not particularly hopeful.

For those who are unaware, ALEC is well known for their lobbying efforts in:

      Stand Your Ground laws
      Voter ID
      Anti-Abortion choice
      Privatization of Education
      Privatization of Prisons
      Killing renewable energy adoption
      The Keystone XL Pipeline
      Arizona's SB 1070 Immigration Law
      Stopping the EPA from regulating the coal industry
      Pushing against bans on cigarette branding outside the US

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

</comment><comment><USER3> There are few things in life I can count on reliably. ALEC generating terrible model legislation is one of them.</comment>


Ask HN:  Why not Programming languages instead of Mathematical Notation? - <AUTHOR>

Why don't educators and modern math text books use programming languages instead of mathematical notation?<p>As a programmer, I tend to absorb mathematical concepts by writing programs.  With the recent emphasis on programming literacy, and the fact that much math ends up expressed in a computer program, why don't educators use programming languages instead of mathematical notation?  Mathematical symbols are often difficult to represent without special editors.  Modern languages (Python, Ruby, arguably R) can be used to notate algorithms in a few lines of code that replace "pseudocode" type illustrations. <comment> one-two Formal (math) notation has been around forever and it will probably stay that way. Using it to specify software is a recent application, but the meanings of symbols and their relationships are well established. Programming language syntax rules change, math does not. Also, math is more concise, more precise, and easier to analyze (prove that something is possible/impossible) than a programming language.

P.S. Check out Using Z (usingz.com). It is fantastic.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some responses might involve analogies with musical notation. Knowing the notation allows you to read the modern literature and also great documents of the past. But it would seem that an awful lot of math could be applied with out having that depth of understanding. Guitar tableture serves as a suitable proxy for guitarists...</comment>


Signs of a Creepy Government Conspiracy at Standing Rock - <AUTHOR> http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2418-the-standing-rock-hacks-cracked-unravels-real-conspiracy.html <comment><USER3> The tricky thing about stuff like this is that the majority of people at protests (and in the general population) are incredibly tech illiterate. They are easily exploitable, but also prone to misunderstanding what they're seeing when things go weird with their devices.

We know that hacking and spying on protestors happens, because there are FOIA (and similar state level public information act) requests that have revealed it. We also know there is collusion between private tech firms and the government at all levels that utilize questionable tactics (Stratfor leaks; Barrett Brown just got out of jail for covering this collusion as a journalist and Jeremy Hammond is still in jail for leaking it). So, something is certainly happening at Standing Rock. It is a protest against perhaps the most powerful interests in the world (oil and gas and international finance) so surely every tool available is being used against them.

So, this is probably half paranoia and half correct. It's hard to know which parts are correctly diagnosing the symptoms, however.

Also, some of the practices are likely unconstitutional, by most reasonable interpretations, but we long passed the point where the US government gave a damn about that when it comes to tech privacy.

<comment><USER4> > "So, this is probably half paranoia and half correct. It's hard to know > which parts are correctly diagnosing the symptoms, however."

If you believe the story, then tech-savvy people have caught attacks whilst they were happening (the article mentions they spoke to someone that demonstrated a Wireshark re-enactment of ARP attacks performed on networking equipment at the camp).

<comment><USER3> Even those parts of the story leave much to guessing and theorizing. I believe wholeheartedly that the government at many levels is spying on these folks, probably using illegal techniques. I just don't know that the explanations given in this article are right.

<comment><USER4> Whilst it's healthy to have some cynicism about news stories (and the reasons they're spread), I wonder what level of proof you'd be looking for before you were convinced. Aside from finding equipment involved in the alleged signal jamming, what sort of information is likely to convince you? If someone took the time to triangulate the source of these attacks and could link those locations to government officials, would that suffice?

<comment><USER3> Oh, I think you're assuming I'm more skeptical than I am. I believe they have one or more Stingrays on site. It would be silly to assume they don't, given the history of use of Stringrays at protests.

I also suspect the number of active cell phones on the networks in that area is probably a hundred times higher than usual; there's probably enough cell traffic happening there to saturate the current capacity many times over. This can lead to cell phones dying faster than usual (searching for signal), cell phones coming online and off, failing to send large files, etc. It can look like "jamming", even when there is no nefarious activity actually happening.

So, I'm not trying to argue nefarious shit isn't going down. I have absolute confidence it is; I know too much about our nation's history with protestors to think otherwise. I don't know that airplanes are carrying the Stingrays (or other cell phone hacking devices) or WiFi honeypots. I don't know that all of the unsecured networks are honeypots put up by law enforcement. etc. I'm saying the specifics of their assessment may be wrong, not that the hacking and spying isn't happening. It's picking nits, in some regards.

But, the motivations of law enforcement are sometimes misinterpreted by protestors, and the capabilities of law enforcement are sometimes over- estimated, even by people that understand the technical side of things. Law enforcement does shady stuff all the time, particularly in dealing with protestors, but, local police also don't have particularly strong technical teams. If the FBI is involved, then things get murkier. They have the resources and the expertise to do probably more than the worst thing we can imagine them doing (and possibly the will, as well).

But, to be clear: I support the protestors, and think that the abuses they've endured in all of this have been criminal. Indigenous peoples in the US have been treated like garbage from the very beginning, and it continues today; this very reservation has been shrunk and unilaterally "renegotiated" (sometimes with guns) multiple times due to profit motives. The reservation has been shrunk on behalf of gold miners, and for major river re-routing, flooding, and damming projects. Even if these folks were making huge and unreasonable demands (which they aren't) I would _still_ support them.

I'd like to see a more thorough investigation of what's actually happening, by someone with a bit more expertise than Cracked. Wireshark dumps are great, but that's just the beginning of an exploit post-mortem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are a few comments questioning the journalistic abilities of the article and despite that they did mention that someone else with more resources ought to take over, they could have done a bit more. A few days ago I came across a youtube video regarding this protest. It showed Peaceful protestors getting shot by rubber bullets, attacked by dogs and I don't remember what else against a heavy militarized police force. Wanting to know a bit more, I was surprised how good their website looked. And also, under special cases like this one, instead of criticizing certain pain points, support in any way should be given. Whether it be fact checking, increase awareness, whatever. What I saw on that video should never happen, anywhere, no matter the reason, and much less over the protection of WATER.

<comment><USER6> > should never happen, anywhere, no matter the reason

Okay. But to make it concrete, what alternative are you proposing?

<comment><USER7> Ship in the water in big tankers. Like they do in the Middle East. In any case heavy handed military sort of dealing with people can massively backfire. Right now it's American Indians with small numbers in the future it might be alt-right conservatives with millions of supporters and lots of guns. It's a two way street with violence, you could start an insurgency if the other side had enough numbers and felt that you were acting out a war scenario. This is not good for any sense of democracy or civil rights to engage in this sort of behavior with locals. Which again points to a sort of racism when dealing with rights of minorities, especially economically disadvantaged minorities, compared to advantaged minorities like Corporations.

<comment><USER6> > compared to advantaged minorities like Corporations

Do you have particular protests by corporations in mind?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If everything in this story is true (and I see no reason to doubt it), then there is a 0-day being used here in the wild to hack gmail accounts for political purposes. There really need to be some security engineers (ideally Google security engineers) on-site investigating, both to identify and fix the exploits being used, and to establish their use later for legal purposes.

<comment><USER9> I don't think so. The phones connect to a honeypot network and send over their credentials. The person who controls the honeypot now has their gmail password and so can use it to login and change their password.

<comment><USER10> Gmail credentials are supposed to be delivered over an encrypted connection. Controlling the network should be insufficient to see passwords in transit. That said, passwords are a poor form of authentication that is prone to interception by poorly configured clients, HTTP downgrade attacks, and typosquatting login forms. I wouldn't jump straight to "0day".

<comment><USER11> If you're using a browser without certificate pinning wouldn't a MITM attack suffice? E.g. sslstrip

<comment><USER12> gmail uses HSTS so sslstrip is unlikely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've seen this particular article before and despite me being fairly liberal, seems kind of lazy for journalism. It's a bunch of heresay with no conclusion, but clearly wants to draw the reader's opinion. The author admits that they aren't a place with an investigation budget and "someone else" should look into it. This damages the story - which seems likely to be happening to some degree - to the point where it is completely lost to someone who isn't fully aligned with the conclusion ahead of time.

I mean, a simple technical fact check of one paragraph that they could have enhanced by speaking with someone who understands these things:

> would talk about their cellphone signals cutting out just as drones circled > above.

OK, plausible

> Mobiles would switch themselves off and on again -- not in pocket but in > hand.

If they mean turn on and off, unlikely. Maybe rebooting via DDoS on the baseband, but we're jumping into suppositions and inventions here.

> Camera apps were opened out of nowhere

Pretty unlikely

> and batteries would drain by enormous percentages, killing the phones in > minutes, rather than the steady decline of any device pinging back and forth > searching for a signal

That seems plausible. DDoS on a phone by making the bandwidth burn power.

<comment><USER14> > seems kind of lazy for journalism

Note this important comment at the end of the article:

        ... we've really got to get back to writing about
        Back To The Future. Some site with an "investigation"
        budget should probably take it from here.

This is _Cracked_. While their writing is often a lot better than their clickbait headlines suggest, they are still primarily a comedy/culture based site. This story is _way_ outside their usual style, _and they know that_.

Why isn't this story being covered by other reporters that do have experience investigating government, technology, the oil industry, etc? Cracked is reporting on this because it's _important_ and the only coverage the larger media has given to the pipeline protests has ranged from "nothing" to "reading the police press release".

<comment><USER15> Yeah, this isn't the Cracked I grew up with. The only journalism of theirs I'm familiar with featured Nanny Dickering ([http://cracked.wikia.com/wiki/Nanny_Dickering](http://cracked.wikia.com/wiki/Nanny_Dickering)).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If some or all of this is real -- someone in the command chain above these resources needs to reshape their thinking and fast! Talk about a quick way to radicalize individuals against the society in which they are embedded:

\- Visitors from all over the country come to a welcoming self-supporting nature camp with friendly people behaving peacefully and protesting the destruction of nature for profit

\- Apply violence to those people

\- Attempt to disrupt these people's ability to communicate about their experience

That kind of visceral experience is the stuff of which revolutions are made. Lately I can't stop thinking about this quote from JFK:

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable

<comment><USER4> I've been following the DAPL protests for a couple of weeks now. The actions of the police have already begun to backfire massively. For example, around 2000 veterans are due to be arriving at Standing Rock over the next couple of days in support of the water protectors. Whilst these veterans have said they won't be bringing weapons, I suspect their presence will increase the mainstream media attention on the protests.

<comment><USER17> It's sad that the only thing way to appeal to mass media is to be of a sympathetic social status.

All they need now are (white) single moms and some cute puppies.

<comment><USER4> I agree it's sad that the MSM has largely ignored the protests so far, but sympathetic social status is not the only way to get attention.

The thing that really gets the MSM interested in a big story like this is when it fits into a narrative that doesn't undermine their corporate funders. For example, if the protesters had turned violent they'd be all over this like white on rice, as it let's them paint the protestors in a less favourable light. They're only reluctant to get involved because they'll find it hard to spin the story the way they want to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Relevant part of the Constitution, the first amendment:

"Congress shall make no law [...] abridging [...] the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Full first amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

The real problem is, when all you need to justify a crackdown is to make a peaceable assembly unpeaceful, it's relatively trivial to insert agent provocateurs to instigate violence and fade into the background or through the police lines as they push. Therefore I think there needs to be a massive congressional inquiry into the use of agent provocateurs domestically, and laws passed to prevent that usurpation of our Constitutional rights.

<comment><USER4> > "The real problem is, when all you need to justify a crackdown is to make a > peaceable assembly unpeaceful, it's relatively trivial to insert agent > provocateurs to instigate violence and fade into the background or through > the police lines as they push."

It has been suggested that this tactic has already been tried in the DAPL protest, with an DAPL-linked employee called Kyle Thompson:

[http://thedailyhaze.com/kyle-thompson- knightsbridge/](http://thedailyhaze.com/kyle-thompson-knightsbridge/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Relevant: Lack of a Cipher Status Indicator on Android has been an open issue since 2009 ([https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5353](https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5353))

There is also an open-source android app to detect fake base-stations: [https://github.com/CellularPrivacy/Android-IMSI-Catcher- Dete...](https://github.com/CellularPrivacy/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector)

<comment><USER20> Just to expand, lack of cipher status is a massive problem on every phone produced in the last decade. I've not had a warning on any smartphone I've used (Apple, HTC, Samsung, Microsoft etc) or for that matter on any feature phone I've used, including going back to things as old as the Nokia 3310, 6310, 8100 or as new as things like the Nokia 105 or E51.

Even on a handset that supports the indicator (the spec says all should) the spec also says this can be overridden by the SIM card and apparently most sim producers and macro operators disable the warning by default anyway.

It's also worth pointing out that I'm only aware of this being part of the GSM spec. I don't know what happens with CDMA (which I believe is prevalent in the USA) and 3G and 4G _can't_ run without encryption so it should (theoretically) be a non-issue there too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Speaking of radio... one of the water protectors has been flying a small drone with a camera to try to monitor the pipeline progress. He explained that sometimes this was difficult because he would lose control when the drone was within a small-ish (10-20m? maybe?) radius of a specific building or work site. The drone was programmed to auto-return if it lost signal, so the operator was usually able to regain control a few seconds later.

Does anybody know what legal status is for jamming? I believe the FCC usually considers interfering with other transmissions to be some sort of violation, but it's been a very long time since I studied radio law (my amateur radio license expired >20 years ago).

</comment><comment><USER21> When humor sites are the best source of "the news", things are mostly likely in the shitter.

<comment><USER4> I'd suggest there has been far better coverage of the protests that can be found from non-comedic sources, but you're not going to find insightful coverage from the mainstream news.

Overall, the best coverage I've found has been from TYT Politics. Whilst I dislike the clickbaity nature of the main TYT channel, the TYT Politics channel is surprisingly decent. Here's one example of the coverage from TYT Politics, giving clear evidence that the police have been lying to the press:

[http://youtu.be/TarWzK2Swxs](http://youtu.be/TarWzK2Swxs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm not really on board with the whole anti pipeline narrative but this kind of action is really inappropriate. The FBI can't catch two Russian kids with a pressure cooker before they become a problem but they can spend god knows what screwing around with protesters. If it was just doing "back-end" stuff to help out the state police who should be running the show then I'd be less not ok with it. If it was the typical dragnet eavesdropping bs applied to everyone they see come or go then I'd chalk it up to business as usual but I'm going to call foul on using cell site simulators anything but sparingly. The FCC should be very pissed off about the FBI for this. The Telecom companies should be very pissed off at the FBI anialiating their QoS.

</comment><comment><USER22> In other strange news, Cracked is on the front page of HN.

<comment><USER23> Maybe they're going the way of Buzzfeed

<comment><USER24> It's... less good for Hacker News that click-baity article titls are getting more upvotes. This story was reported 3 times in the last 2 days...

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=standing%20rock&sort=byDate&pr...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=standing%20rock&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

<comment><USER25> It has been reported, yet the government has still not backed down in attacking its own citizens over legal and morally correct actions.

The news should continue to be reported until it is no longer news, especially given the large scale anti-American technological effort being mounted by our own government to protect the interests of Big Oil.

<comment><USER24> Morally correct? That's a pretty questionable statement.

The protesters tried to cause a privately owned herd of buffalo to stampede into the construction site... This resulted in a number of buffalo and a horse being killed.

The protesters are causing damage to construction equipment owned by individual owner-operators. Small businesses. This isn't right. This isn't standing up to the government, or civil disobedience, it's destruction of private property.

And before someone accuses me of not caring about the people there... I grew up about 30 miles away from where the main protest is happening. These are my family members... on both sides.

You going to give up your car and not use any oil? If so, great, you've got a leg to stand on. But we have thousands of miles of pipelines across this country. Pipelines are more efficient than trains or trucks... as long as people still use oil, we still need oil pipelines. What's the alternative?

<comment><USER25> The Oil industry has no future, and anyone who continues to invest in it or further the goals of that industry isn't a very good investor and is prioritizing short term profits over long term investments.

One of the largest drains on the US economy is the fossil fuels industry. There is no future for them. We, as a society, need to admit this, and move on.

How do we appologize to future generations, "Sorry, we raped the land, we killed innocent people, you're dying of cancer, because temporary money was more important instead of using better energy production methods"?

I've never heard of a solar farm having a sunlight pipeline leak, or earthquakes caused by fracking the ground for wind reserves, or people mining renewable energy and the mines collapsing and killing dozens.

People's lives have monetary value: they are assets that are worth something. It is not profitable to sacrifice assets of such high value for such unimportant things.

So, yes, morally _and_ financially correct.

And the alternative? Tesla. Either buy their car, buy a car from someone that licensed their technology, or buy a brand new... ancient relic from the past.

<comment><USER24> Do the math. It's going to take time to switch off of petroleum. Even if Teslas were free, it'd take decades to replace all the existing cars with Teslas. You want us to do nothing in the interim?

We're in the process of moving on, but we can't stop everything while it's happening.

The fact that you think people in North Dakota should be driving Teslas... it's pretty shitty uneducated thing to say. Compassion, right? Understand what people need to do, what they want to do, and suggest alternatives. You aren't even trying, just spewing, "Oil is bad!" sound-bites. This isn't Reddit...

Please note that there isn't a single Tesla supercharging station in the entire state of North Dakota. 0. So... I guess you want those people to just... move? Die off? What exactly is your plan here for the people who live in North Dakota? Give up oil tomorrow, give up jobs that provide for their families, and... what exactly do they do next? It's a process, it'll take time.

[https://www.tesla.com/findus#/bounds/49.38,-66.94,25.82,-124...](https://www.tesla.com/findus#/bounds/49.38,-66.94,25.82,-124.39?search=supercharger&name=us)

You're clearly clueless and haven't ever been to North Dakota. Understand that most roads aren't paved, many people live in rural areas, when it rains... we're talking massive washouts and mud you can't drive a car through. Mud that a 4-wheel drive pickup gets stuck in.

And you're there saying those people, and everyone, should just instantly overnight drive a Tesla. Smart.

<comment><USER26> Refusing to authorize the construction of more petroleum-extraction infrastructure is a great way to spur market-based activity toward switching away from petroleum. If fossil fuels are cheap, people will keep using them. When fossil fuels become more expensive than the alternatives, people will switch. We do not have very much time left - we've been hanging out in the "interim" you propose for at least thirty years now, which is as long as I've been aware of the issue - so we really do need to push on both ends of this equation.

<comment><USER24> First, it hasn't been 30 years. The Tesla is the first sort-of-viable alternative to most cars that hit the market. And... I say "sort-of-viable" because you can't tow a horse trailer or throw hay bales off the back of a Tesla. So... see my previous comment, it's not a viable alternative.

The oil pipeline represents the kind of economic engine that allows the people of North Dakota to be able to afford Teslas. Look at the state... it's filled with industrious people (very very low unemployment rate), who make not a lot of money (very very low average wage). Besides, nobody is talking about NOT having a pipeline, they're just talking about moving it. One way or the other a pipeline is getting built, it's just a matter of 10-15 miles one way or the other.

If I'm hearing you right, you'd rather ship oil from over seas (the amount of carbon released is staggering), or ship it via truck, because building a pipeline is wrong and bad and evil. Because... why exactly? It'll be a generation or more before we're off petroleum, won't happen over night. Does it make sense to be less efficient, and make it harder for the people in that state to earn money, while we wait?

The pipeline will function for the rest of our lives... we aren't getting off fossil fuels that quickly. Think about not only cars, but pickups, tractors, construction equipment... on our ranch we had a 50+ year-old bulldozer that we still used. Those sorts of big-engine items won't be replaced by solar power for a lifetime or more. Not like we could have afforded to buy a new bulldozer... fossil fuels... plan on them being here for our lifetimes. I understand climate change, I don't think it's a great thing, but it's just the world we live in.

<comment><USER26> It's been at least 30 years since we've known that we need to stop burning fossil fuels. The fact that it has taken this long to actually begin the transition reveals a terrible failure of global political leadership - and the US government is one of the worst culprits.

The cost of solar power dropped as rapidly as it did because governments - <USER2> particular the government of Germany, though others followed along with similar programs - chose to heavily subsidize solar panel installations. This stimulated a rapid increase in the level of investment in solar panel technology and in the factories which produce them, which led to a rapid improvement in both power-generation efficiency and manufacturing efficiency; the whole industry scaled up, and now we live in a world where generating electricity via solar is cost-competitive with fossil fuels, with no further need for subsidy.

The fact that "the pipeline will function for the rest of our lives" is exactly why we need to stop building pipelines. We don't _have_ the rest of our lives to wean ourselves off this petroleum addiction. It's not about replacing the pipeline with ships or trains; it's about making petroleum expensive and inconvenient so that non-petroleum-based solutions can become more competitive. We need petroleum to become more expensive, and we need the cost to rise quickly, because that's the only way we're going to stimulate the kind of investment that will enable the kind of scale-up that will let us accomplish the enormous infrastructure reinvestment we should have started working on long ago.

Yes, it sucks for the people of North Dakota that their lifestyles are unsustainable, and it's going to be hard times ahead for them as they figure out other ways to live. It's going to suck much, much more for the many millions of people around the world on the verge of being displaced, impoverished, and probably even killed as a result of the climate change we are creating by continuing to burn petroleum products.

No, it won't happen overnight, but _this is not overnight_. We've known this for decades. We have already been running down the clock. We can't just magically demand more time, and more time, and more time, while continuing to do things the way our parents and grandparents did them.

If you think we can continue living this way for the rest of our lives, you really don't understand climate change. One way or another, our lives are all on the verge of changing. Do you want to choose how that change happens now, or wait til it is forced on you?

<comment><USER24> There's a difference between knowing we need to stop, and having an alternative. The way you paint it... people should have just woken up in the 70s and said, "Yup, guess it's time to let my kids starve... I can't be driving this car to work any more... it'll be better for the planet if we all just die off since we inconvenience people on the coats."

What's kind of funny... North Dakota has a LOT to gain from global warming. Look at their location. A flip to what you're saying is... "Hey, maybe all those people who live on the coasts should move someplace that could stand to have an extra 4-6 degrees added to the average annual temperature." I say that tongue in cheek, mostly to point out how silly it is to mandate change.

People have to decide for themselves, right? Freedom and all that. Telling one of the poorest states that they need to forgo economic improvement because people in coastal states say that global warming is bad... it's exactly like me saying you should move away from the coasts. You don't get to decide how others live any more than they get to decide how you live.

It gets old hearing, "oil is bad" \-- we've certainly heard all the doom and gloom for a long time. People need viable alternatives. Just saying, "Yes, it sucks for the people of North Dakota that their lifestyles are unsustainable..." you aren't going to get anyone to side with you. Not your point, but you also realize that the power of government derives from the consent of the governed -- right?

I split my time growing up in Seattle and North Dakota... and I'm quite purple as a result. It's important to see the big picture. The reason Tesla is tying in self-driving cars to electric cars. They know that as soon as more people start driving electric cars... the price of oil is going to tank. Even with amazing strides towards solar, wind, hydro... because of those strides even... we're faced with 50+ more years of oil. As oil prices fall... it's just that much harder to buy an electric car. They need a hook... and self-driving is just that.

But it's not like we have to cut off all oil use tomorrow. Especially in more rural areas, places that can absorb the CO2, places like North Dakota... the places that have too many people, where nature can't possibly hope to keep up... those are the places that need to stop using oil. Right? So putting the burden on North Dakota... cities, people in cities should bear the lion share because they're the ones causing the most damage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> More details here:

[http://www.idsnews.com/article/2016/11/protestors-at- standin...](http://www.idsnews.com/article/2016/11/protestors-at-standing- rock-subject-to-24-hour-police-surveillanc)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I really wish they would have confirmed that the attacker was in a plane. If this really was the FBI, has there ever been a case where the U.S. government was this flagrant at hacking citizens?

</comment><comment><USER28> I have a question:

At the beginning of the article they author mentions that there is no cell signal once you reach the camp.

Wouldn't a Cessna with a Stingray on board show up on your cell phone as a signal?

It was my understanding that the way the Stingrays works is that they broadcast a pilot signal just like a regular cell tower albeit a spoofed one.

Wouldn't you be able to see that your cell phone all of sudden has x bars signal when you hear or see the Cessna and then that signal would disappear when the Cessna leaves?

Cessnas are not that quiet and they aren't capable of flying that high to the point that you couldn't hear or see them right?

<comment><USER29> They could just as easily be jamming cell signals.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's no way they would stoop that low. They can just as easily block service with a stingray and avoid causing interference for everything other than the target. There's also the issue that a jammer will also block 911 calls so I don't really see why the FBI or any domestic law enforcement would want a simple jammer instead of using a stingray to selectively block service. There's really only downsides to it when compared to using a cell site simulator.

<comment><USER18> "There's no way they would stoop that low."

I'm not sure you are familiar with the history of the police state. Just when you think they won't go below a certain bar, then do. Why do you think, when performing any other manner of illegal and unconstitutional things, they wouldn't add one more to the list, especially when there seems to be no repercussions?

I'm also reminded of occupy wall street, in which is was found out after the fact that:

"Banks sat down with FBI officials to pool information about OWS protesters harvested by private security; plans to crush Occupy events, planned for a month down the road, were made by the FBI – and offered to the representatives of the same organizations that the protests would target; and even threats of the assassination of OWS leaders by sniper fire..." \- Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy - Naomi Wolf

Much later we even found out the CIA had some involvement, and that's an organization which is not supposed to operate domestically! So, I think you are being naive in putting the abuse of zero-day cell exploits past them, especially when it might not even be the police forces themselves, any number of three-letters could just be seeing this as a good realistic _training exercise_ to test out their latest toys.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Why do you think, when performing any other manner of illegal and unconstitutional things, they wouldn't add one more to the list, especially when there seems to be no repercussions?"

Because there's just no incentive for them to use a jammer as opposed to a cell site simulator. With all of the news of government corruption I absolutely wouldn't assume that the government isn't doing something nefarious, but with corruption, it has to be driven by some incentive, there isn't really one here.

"So, I think you are being naive in putting the abuse of zero-day cell exploits past them"

I'm not saying that they wouldn't do this, just that they wouldn't ever bother with jamming specifically other than maybe for a bomb scare.

<comment><USER30> I believe your analysis to be flawed.

Confusion and fear are the _actual_ tools being utilized here.

Blocking some service, and targeting others is _exactly_ the type of attack that foments both fear and confusion.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was referring to a literal jammer as opposed to using a cell site simulator and null routing everyone's data. Using an actual jammer is simple and cheap but it's also illegal and I don't believe the FBI could use one outside of exigent circumstances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Reading this I was immediately reminded of the Del Rio Water scenes from Sleep Dealer [0]. I find the prescience of that film quite remarkable, although I suppose events like these have played through before, just without the technology aspect.

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

</comment><comment><USER32> First, someone should look at the coverage map of the area. Verizon and AT&T are iffy, and Sprint and T-Mobile are non-existent.

Second, the article starts with "The demonstration at Standing Rock, North Dakota is the largest gathering of indigenous people in modern American history." which is taken from the source material's statement "The largest gathering of indigenous nations in modern American history".

The article cannot even get its first fact correct, and frankly I would dispute NBC's statement as well. I guess we haven't heard of Pow Wows and government meetings.

I also notice that both articles seem to gloss over the indigenous versus non- indigenous ratio. Not good for the narrative I guess.

Also, to be truthful there was a fairly sustained attack on all North Dakota networks when that damned actor from the avengers said the state should be hacked. I guess he forgets that all the tribal schools are on the ND network. Maybe some of the protesters were caught in that?

[okay fine, cracked is factually untrue, but I get down voted for being here - wtf?]

</comment><comment><USER19> Invalid SSL cert on the site.

> There were even reports of people's Gmail accounts being hacked.

This sounds suspiciously false - even if they are phones were forced to downgrade to A5/1 this should have no effect on TLS.

<comment><USER33> They mention unsecured Wi-Fi? Either way, openly attacking citizens accounts seems... surprising for a government agency confronted to peaceful protesters?

I don't doubt the US (or German, or UK, etc) have the technical capacity to do such things, but would they risk it be discovered for such a "low" target as a natural site?

If true that probably means they have much more powerful tools at their disposal for "true emergencies"...?

<comment><USER17> However bad you think the government's actions are double your expectations and it's still worse than that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain)

<comment><USER25> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_assessmen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_assessment)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> cracked.com is a humor website is this definitely real?</comment>


Moving Beyond TCP/IP (2010) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.pouzinsociety.org/images/PSOC-MovingBeyondTCP.pdf

<comment><USER2> It is definitely untrue that ISPs are not profitable.

</comment><comment><USER3> How does one address global names in RINA?</comment>


How to use last 5 minutes of a day - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2011/01/the-best-way-to-use-the-last-f.html?cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-weekly_hotlist-_-hotlist011011&referral=00202&utm_source=newsletter_weekly_hotlist&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=hotlist011011

<comment><USER2> _"You can do so much in 10 minutes' time. Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good. Divide your life into 10-minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activity."_

      Ingvar Kamprad, Founder of IKEA

<comment><USER3> Remember that just because you're not working does not mean your're engaging in "meaningless activity." Taking a vacation or spending time with loved ones are perfectly acceptable ways to spend those 10-minute units.

<comment><USER4> And just because you're working doesn't mean you're working on the right things, or the things that will have the most effect, or working towards the right goals.

Which is what this post is all about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is only occasionally important to engineer/programmer types (and that's definitely not who this is geared toward in the author's defense -- it's Harvard Business Review for god's sake). You definitely should be taking stock _sometimes_ of "how things went with your team" or whatever, but it's not even close to how best to use the last 5 minutes of a day.

The best use of the last 5 minutes of my work day, without question, is making a few comments on about half a sheet of paper of what open questions I have for tomorrow and a couple of directions I might head to solve them, along with caveats/gotchas I thought of while working.

This way when I let go of work for the day, I don't think about it anymore unless I really want to and I'm confident that I have enough written down to hit the ground running the next time I want to work.

This frees me up completely to do something _besides_ work.

<comment><USER6> I know your comment is basically part of the central premises of "Getting Things Done" but your words "This way when I let go of work for the day.." resonated with me.

Perhaps today is when I start using those last 5 minutes to take at least one note a day.

<comment><USER5> I'm actually really terrible of letting go of work, but one of the things I noticed is that part of that is the fact that I'm trying to keep track of too much in my head.

"I'll have to remember to copy config file X over if I move process Y to machine Z tomorrow" "I have to factor out that piece of code, this will be the 3rd time I've written something similar" "Call person about thing" "Email other person about other thing"

Instead, with my piece of paper, I remember one thing:

"I need to read my notes tomorrow".

It allows me to focus a little better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >She saw that she was working so hard and moving so fast, that even if she was delivering quality results, she was working against herself, putting her job at risk, and making things harder for everyone.

Maybe she just needs to start her own company?

<comment><USER8> If she's doing good work but is a net drain on everyone around her then yes, the possible solutions are to 'fix' her or isolate her.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Many interesting things have been said in the comments, so only one short thing to add: don't do this right before you attempt to fall asleep. Putting your mind into the state where you consider the deep strategic implications of your day is not conducive to quickly falling asleep. The advice to carve out time at the end of your WORK is appropriate; follow this with play/relaxation.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm doing this now without realizing it. I started last September and I haven't missed a day since. I write a short entry everyday in a "journal" detailing what happened in my day, how I felt, what I did, where I went, etc. It's quite nice reading entries from a few months ago.

I can't wait to read old entries a year from now.

<comment><USER4> >I can't wait to read old entries a year from now.

Knock yourself out...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Personally, I much prefer taking stock in the early afternoon. That's the time when I tend to be feeling low on energy and motivation, and need an extra bit of inspiration to keep me going. And if I decide/discover that I need to make some change in my life, I can do it that day.

What happens when you start reflecting on the day (or planning the next) late at night? You get excited, or you remember something you forgot to do -- either way, that makes it hard to sleep. And the next day, all the enthusiasm is lost.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'd say I do this more on an "as-needed" basis, which I doubt is every day.

I typically do sit down at the end of the day and go over a list of all the things that have been done and those still yet to do and prepare a plan of attack for the next day, which, from time to time, does include improvements in workflow.

Over the last year or two, I've taken to thorough note-taking. Every time I'm on a phone call, I take notes. Whenever I'm working on some bit of code and happen to see something that needs improved later, make an improvement, get an idea about a feature, etc. I take notes. Whenever I review things with a client, I take notes.

They're all handwritten, with a good pen, in Mead notebooks I get for $0.15/each during "back to school" sales. Each project gets its own (labelled) notebook, and I have another one for miscellaneous notes.

This all sounds very simple and obvious, but the act of physically writing things down in a book I can flip through, mark things out of, and scribble on (vs. typing them in a text file to get lost somewhere on the hard drive, or in an application I have to open amongst other windows) has done wonders for my productivity.

</comment><comment><USER13> "And, sure enough, she did."

What is this? A Mr Men story?

</comment><comment><USER14> The main point of this piece is not that you take time at the end of the day, or in the middle, or a few times throughout. The point is that, whenever you do it, you need to take time to think, time to reflect on what you've been doing. If you never take time to reflect and answer some of the nagging bigger questions, you severely short-change your long-term effectiveness.

I've been running an experiment recently to take at least 15 minutes each day to think about my research (I do neuroscience research for a university in DC). The results have been great, and I'm starting to add in more reflective time throughout the day, even when I'm not 'working'. If you're interested, I have been, and will continue to be, writing about it here: <http://joshrule.com/blog>. Look for posts about trial 2.

</comment><comment><USER15>
      Catchy title?  Check.
      Appropiate topic?  Check.
      Interesting story?  Check.
      Sympathetic people?  Check.
      Real world problems?  Check.
      Common sense approach?  Check.
      Actionable advice?  Check.

They why do I hate this post so much?

Because it's so 1990s.

Waiting until the end of the day to evaluate it is way too late. What once took days now takes hours, even minutes. You need to be doing the recommendations in this post _all day long_ , dymamically, as you go. If you're looking back, you already lost.

Then what should you actually be doing with the last 5 minutes of your 2011 day?

Make a "list" of the #1 thing that you must complete tomorrow.

This one little item will probably have more impact on tomorrow's success that anything you could possibly do about today's.

<comment><USER16> Im sorry, but this seems like a terrible, short-sighted bit of lunacy. Yes, you should be noting things all day, but taking the time to review your notes as a cohesive whole seems to be the point. It will let you see bigger patterns. It will help you deduce what you could be doing tomorrow for your "#1 task".

Think of it like an optimization problem, small tweaks based on limited feedback will get you caught in a local maximum -- seriously, what you described is basically a genetic algorithm. When you step back and notice general trends, things that turn into inefficient tweak loops and so on, there is a lot of good that can come from it.

GO! GO! GO! is not a sane mentality, and has never helped me do much but get work done. This is useful, excepting of course those situations where the work itself isn't useful but I can't see that because I don't look back and analyze. Looking back on today and this week is a nice way to keep perspective, get some peace and have big picture understanding of what is going well and isn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This advice applies to organisations as much as it does to people. Companies need to take some time out to think about what worked, what didn't and why not. And they also need to encourage folks to speak up about failures and be prepared to listen to rants, complaints and concerns that employees.

This sounds really easy, but it's amazes me how many companies just don't want to listen to bad news. A surefire way to detect a crappy company is by their reaction when employees complain. The really great companies listen and get the management to act. The mediocre companies suggest that the employee take the initiative and act. The lousy companies just blame the employee.

</comment><comment><USER18> Was I the only one who thought this would be advice on how to get ready for sleep?

I don't hear "a day" and assume a business day...

</comment><comment><USER19> I like to spend the last 5 minutes of a day with an interesting problem I need to tackle the next day. Then think about it as I try to fall asleep. Sometimes though rarely I dream about it, but for sure when I wake up, I'm thinking about it.

</comment><comment><USER20> What I think is pretty interesting, is that this is precisely what religious people do when they pray. Even if god is imaginary, praying forces you to spend 5 minutes reflecting.</comment>


Unit tests, and why they don't work – James O Coplien (2014) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.rbcs-us.com/documents/Segue.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Chose a paradigm that allows for the simplest, least complex, most provably correct code.</comment>


Ask HN: Method to send and receive payments to/from users - <AUTHOR>

What payment services allow you to send users money in addition to receiving money? So far I've run across Amazon's Flexible Payments Service however I'm not crazy about it requiring users to have an Amazon account. It would be great if there was something like Stripe that also let users setup direct deposits etc. Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> I could not agree more with this. I feel like this is a huge business opportunity, to have a stripe-like api that lets you add bank accounts and do transfers that way.

I know that Venmo (<http://venmo.com>) just switched over to paying and receiving payments directly through bank accounts, but I assume they have painstakingly crafted the ability to do this from scratch. It's worth looking into - they have done a great job of it and it has to be possible, but there isn't a public api we can use.

If anyone has a solution, I would be stoked. If not, this is territory that is waiting to be tacked by stripe or another ambitious startup.

</comment><comment><USER3> PayPal is the obvious option. 232 million accounts and all that, with the option to withdraw by ACH, check or free debit card. There's even no fees if the recipient only has a personal account. You can use Mass Payment to do payouts in bulk. Lots of companies that run affiliate programs pay out commissions through PayPal using Mass Payment.

I don't usually recommend it, but this seems like a good use-case for Dwolla as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. I was kinda hoping to avoid PayPal just because of all the negative press you hear about them but it looks like they might be my only option at the moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I believe WePay offers this.</comment>


Microsoft to raise some UK prices by up to 22 percent over Brexit - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/24/microsoft-price-increase-2017/ <comment><USER2> > business software pricing will rise by 13 percent and cloud services will > see a 22 percent increase.

HN title was misleading.

The GBP was high early this year. Then it took 10% hit over time + 10% hit on the brexit day + 10% recently when some political idiot announced that they'd proceed with Brexit next year.

As much as I hate pricing changes, and find companies to be quick to adjust price upward but not downward. I have to admit that there is a bottom price window that will call for aggressive adjustment from international buyers/sellers. Maybe it's reached already. People will have to live with the consequences.

<comment><USER3> > some political idiot

That was the PM's speech at the conservative party conference. It confirmed that the UK was going to go for Brexit(no free movement, no single market) not Brexit(free movement, single market), and therefore lots of firms will have to relocate large parts of their operations outside the UK. Especially in financial services.

<comment><USER2> Then I should replace "idiot" by much worse words.

Firm will not relocate magically. It's simply not possible to get rid of 1000 people and a big building in the blink of an eye.

That would require to hurt the economy and the companies very badly, bringing down hundreds of thousands of jobs and millions of people along. If the MP really hinted at that, it's no wonder that the pound took -10% right afterwards. :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another cynical cash grab using Brexit/Fallen GBP as an excuse. I didn't see them lower prices when it was at it's highest.

<comment><USER5> What would be the benefit to Microsoft for lowing their prices purely on an exchange rate fluctuation?

<comment><USER6> What would be the benefit for them lowering their prices ever? It's not like they're going to get more customers that way, or have fewer customers with higher prices. People use MS products pretty much independent of cost. They could raise their OS prices to 10x the current costs and no one's going to switch.</comment></comment></comment>


DeepMind: First major AI patent filings revealed - <AUTHOR> http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2018/06/deepmind-first-major-ai-patent-filings.html <comment><USER2> This could be... potentially _disastrous for innovation_.

Patented work includes:

* 2018/048934, "Generating Audio using neural networks", Priority date: 6 Sep 2016

* 2018/048945, "Processing sequences using convolutional neural networks", Priority date: 6 Sep 2016

* 2018064591, "Generating video frames using neural networks", Priority date: 6 Sep 2016

* 2018071392, "Neural networks for selecting actions to be performed by a robotic agent", Priority date: 10 Oct 2016

* 2018/081089, "Processing text sequences using neural networks", Priority date: 26 Oct 2016

* 2018/083532, "Training action selection using neural networks", Priority date: 3 Nov 2016

* 2018/083667, "Reinforcement learning systems", Priority date: 4 Nov 2016

* 2018/083668, "Scene understanding and generation using neural networks", Priority date: 4 Nov 2016

* 2018/083669, "Recurrent neural networks", Priority date: 4 Nov 2016

* 2018083670, "Sequence transduction neural networks", Priority date: 4 Nov 2016

* 2018083671, "Reinforcement learning with auxiliary tasks", Priority date: 4 Nov 2016

* 2018/083672, "Environment navigation using reinforcement learning", Priority date: 4 Nov 2016

...

Is there anyone from DeepMind on HN who could comment on this?

<comment><USER3> Can't remember a single time Google sued people for patent infringement except for that one time against BT [0] (which was retaliatory anyway).

These are purely defensive patents because they know that other companies will be more than happy to sue them for patent infringement.

DeepMind (+ other research organizations at Google) are among the biggest publishers of AI papers + open-source AI code.

[0] [https://www.ft.com/content/ea436a88-762a-11e2-8eb6-00144feab...](https://www.ft.com/content/ea436a88-762a-11e2-8eb6-00144feabdc0)

<comment><USER4> How many times did Google threaten small companies under seal with its patent portifolio?

If you don't know this number, the one you pointed out is basically useless.

<comment><USER5> Do you know that number? I have yet to hear a single instance or even rumor of that happening. Your post is the first time I've even seen it mentioned. Do you have any proof to back it up? When you make bold claims like that, I think the onus is on you to back it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> By way of comparison, Microsoft is the single largest funder of academic CS research in the world, significantly larger than the NSF or US government, and unlike competing companies like Google and Apple they encourage academic researchers to publish papers on the work they fund to the point where if you don't publish your work you don't get more funding from them. Microsoft also doesn't file patents on the academic research they fund.

But we all know Microsoft is the one that's evil, because they bought GitHub unlike Google which is merely trying to stifle all use of and research in the most important arena in CS.

<comment><USER7> Why do you think Google doesn't encourage publishing papers? Google has a very big amount of papers they publish ... as an example, [https://ai.googleblog.com/2017/12/google-at- nips-2017.html](https://ai.googleblog.com/2017/12/google-at-nips-2017.html)

<comment><USER6> Nearly all the authors in that list are google employees, not independent academic researchers.

That blog post is about Google's employees publishing papers on work google owns, the same sort of work that google is attempting to secure patents on. This is very different from supporting independent academic research.

<comment><USER7> Supporting independent academic research like [https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/03/google-faculty-research- aw...](https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/03/google-faculty-research- awards-2017.html)?

<comment><USER6> Everything I've heard from academics is that the terms that come with funding from Microsoft are much better and more flexible for the academic than the terms that come with funding from Google, and there is certainly a great deal more funding available to academics from Microsoft than Google.

That said, given that my point was about the absurdity in difference in responses to Microsoft's actions and Google's actions, I'm particularly amused(?) that here we are, in a page about Google applying for patents that would cover a tremendous amount of essential CS research, and the primary thrust of your points here seems to be "Dude! Google's Awesome! They're so supportive of research!" which is pretty much exactly the response I was trying to highlight. Don't be evil was a wonderful way to start their branding. It doesn't matter that's not the company they are anymore, it's still how people think of them.

<comment><USER8> You are trying to frame people's responses into a "Google good, Microsoft bad" response, and I do not think that is fair to them at all. They are disagreeing with your idea that Google is non-existent on the academic research front, and Microsoft is doing way more than them. And frankly, as someone in academia, this does not pass my smell test either.

<comment><USER6> I'm baffled where you get the idea that I think google is non-existent on the academic front. Yes, Apple is not-existent, but that's certainly not something I believe or would say about google, because it's not the case. I did say Microsoft is the #1 funder of academic research in the world, which I believe is still true and which no one seems to be challenging [edit: it looks like there is some discussion of whether Microsoft's funding is bigger or smaller than the government's contribution, but all within a context of Microsoft certainly being the biggest NGO funding source and possibly being the biggest overall]

Again, I think it's fascinating how in commenting on a post about google trying to file patents that would completely control the most important new field in CS, someone who correctly points out that Google is not #1 in funding academic researchers is branded as calling Google "non-existent on the academic front".

This is precisely the sort of unproductive back and forth argument that the HN software is designed to discourage and punish, so I'm going to try to back off here and say hopefully we can agree to disagree, particularly since it doesn't sound to me like we actually disagree.

<comment><USER8> I admit that I exaggerated with my wording that you think Google is non- existent on the academic front. It's unfortunate that your response focuses almost entirely on this one aspect, and not the message my post attempted to convey.

> _someone who correctly points out that Google is not #1 in funding academic > researchers_

This type of wording is unnecessary. You are declaring that you are correct, while at the same time not providing supporting evidence when requested.

> _This is precisely the sort of unproductive back and forth argument that the > HN software is designed to discourage and punish_

Welp. I am sorry this had such a negative effect on you. We can certainly agree to disagree. Cheers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is so disappointing. DeepMind deserves to make money off their research-- they really are doing amazing stuff--but I feel like these patents will completely stifle any AI research outside of Google if they go through.

"Processing {text, video, audio, images} using neural networks" and fundamental concepts like reinforcement learning or RNNs shouldn't be patentable :/

<comment><USER10> They're just titles. The patentable claims are obviously more narrowly constrained.

<comment><USER9> "Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for environment simulation. In one aspect, a system comprises a recurrent neural network configured to, at each of a plurality of time steps, receive a preceding action for a preceding time step, update a preceding initial hidden state of the recurrent neural network from the preceding time step using the preceding action, update a preceding cell state of the recurrent neural network from the preceding time step using at least the initial hidden state for the time step, and determine a final hidden state for the time step using the cell state for the time step. The system further comprises a decoder neural network configured to receive the final hidden state for the time step and process the final hidden state to generate a predicted observation characterizing a predicted state of the environment at the time step."

From "Recurrent Neural Networks" patent. This doesn't sound narrowly constrained to me. This just sounds like a RNN, which according to wikipedia, were conceived in 1982.

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

<comment><USER11> That is the abstract of an application--it does not define the protection of a patent. It is intended to aide someone browsing patents to determine if this document may be something worth looking into closer, it is supposed to be quite broad and vague.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Since AI is the last great problem in computer science, I can't help but feel a tremendous sense of sadness and foreboding about this. I always wanted to dabble in AI in that far off mythical future when I have the time to do so. But if it all gets patented, what's the point? Might as well patent relativity, or quantum mechanics.

<comment><USER13> I love when people say "dabble in ai". The mathematical foundation to even begin truly understanding ai isn't something you can dabble your way through. - so am i being downvoted because im wrong or because i hurt your feelings? jesus fucking christ.

<comment><USER14> Probably it reads like textbook gatekeeping and doesn't add much to the discussion.

Granted this doesn't really either, but I'd rather people be interested in learning something rather than just be intimidated because they can't "really" learn anything about AI. That's just plain mean-spirited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How are methods like these patentable when the research in these domains has been openly published and built upon by the community already? For example, the "Generating audio using NNs" patent abstract is:

        Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media,
        for generating an output sequence of audio data that comprises a respective audio
        sample at each of a plurality of time steps. [...]

... which seems really broad.

<comment><USER16> "when the research in these domains has been openly published and built upon by the community already"

Well, mega-corps like Google lobbied for a first-to-file system (America Invents), for one thing. Community shmunity; whoever has the most resources to file the most applications wins.

<comment><USER17> FTFY:

 _> whoever has the most resources to file the most applications _soonest _wins._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> China has a history of not giving a shit about US patents. Will this shift AI research to the East?

<comment><USER18> Google announced, in December, that it would be opening an artificial intelligence centre in China.

1: [https://www.bbc.com/news/business-42334583](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-42334583)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Somebody at Alphabet or DeepMind decided that the research they produce wasn't tangible enough to justify their cost, so they have to demonstrate 'real business value' of their research. For bottom line business people, this means patents.

This is just speculation on my part, but from my experience, this is how/why this happens in a large org.

<comment><USER20> Most big companies reward people for suggesting parents to file.

[https://www.quora.com/How-do-big-companies-reward-their- empl...](https://www.quora.com/How-do-big-companies-reward-their-employees- for-patents)

</comment></comment><comment> a-dub 2018/122456 "Utilizing sample data to train algorithms for pattern recognition and generation"

</comment><comment><USER21> Is this enforceable in the European Union?

My understanding was that we (the people) won the battle about software patents.

<comment><USER11> These are not enforceable anywhere -- they are applications. If and when they issue into patents, those will be enforceable in their respective territories. A PCT filing such as these, however, can go national stage in any of the PCT countries, which includes pretty much the whole world.[1]

[1] [http://www.wipo.int/pct/en/pct_contracting_states.html](http://www.wipo.int/pct/en/pct_contracting_states.html)

<comment><USER22> What makes you so sure they'll be granted?

(From a US perspective) The disclosures I've flipped through reek of non- patentable subject matter (software/algorithms with no defined field of use), lack a strong inventive step (ok I'm not so sure but it seems like a lot of these are already being researched/used), and have a claims list that is LONG.

It only takes one claim to not be met for a product to not fall under that patent. So if the exact processes described in the claims are not followed or even altered, the offending party could see DeepMind in court (where they would, unfortunately, likely lose).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> These were all filed in 0.02 seconds by Author: Deepmind. AI has learned patent trolling ;)

</comment><comment><USER24> Relevant: [https://i.imgur.com/snLplqq.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/snLplqq.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER25> For a small(ish) company good alternative to patents is trade secret. If you really invent something valuable, never publish it.

Companies like MS, Google, Amazon can justify free academic research because they have infrastructure that uses the research. They don't make their profits directly from the research.

Deep Mind can only get value from fundamental research using patents or trade secrets. Being just a consulting gig company does not generate enough profits to justify basic research.

Its the same in electronics I'm more familiar with. Small design company can from IP licensing, but if you want to keep working with some fundamental research that does not fall under a copyright, you must choose between patent or trade secret to benefit from the research.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm very concerned to hear that Demmis Hassabis is a genus. I knew he was smart, and I was prepared to accept that he may be a different species, but I was hoping that he would maintain at least some backward compatibility with the primates.

</comment><comment><USER27> One of the biggest issues with enforcing patents is "how do I recognize (and then later prove in court) that my competition is infringing on my patent?

Since you can't easily just go have a peek your competitor's code, it's going to be a challenge to come up with an enforcement strategy.

<comment><USER28> Could they subpoena their code?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Using neural networks" is the new "on a computer"

</comment><comment><USER30> Google points a gun at everyone's head.

"But this is defensive!", an astroturfer claims.

Google won't shoot you. But she could. She won't. But she could. She might. Maybe.

</comment><comment><USER31> These are defensive patents. Google entire culture is different than say Microsoft.

Google believe in all ships rising also helps them. Versus lowering competitors ships helps them which is the Microsoft and other old tech companies approach.

That is why they buy up patents like what they did with Motorola but use for cross licensing NOT to collect royalties. We look at Android and Microsoft collects patent royalties such as they get more per Android device than Google. That is just the difference in cultures.

Google even lets one of their chief competitors, Amazon, use Android without any fees paid to them. Amazon turns around and uses for the Echo, Dot FireTV and majority of their other hardware and then bans everyone on their marketplace from being allowed to sell competing Google products.

Not just Amazon will NOT sell but bans every other company on their market place from being allowed to sell.

Yet Google still just gives it away.

Google owns Android and Chrome which are by far the dominate clients. Then owns the #1 and #2 most popular Internet sites with search and YouTube.

They create SPDY which is a better solution and save cost and really no reason needing to share. Yet they give it away to the standards committee. Who then changes and Google goes back and moves to the standard with HTTP2.

Google is doing this while being in the dominate position. When MS was dominate you would never see them doing something like this. Honestly it is not really smart business but glad Google cares more about the overall industry moving forward. They get all ships rise is good also for them.

Security is another perfect example. They invest and find all the major security vulnerabilities like Shellshock, Cloudbleed, Heartbleed, Metdown, Spectre among others.

They share these vulnerabilities and even mitigations to the entire market because all ships rising helps Google and just how they look at it.

They find vulnerabilities with Microsoft and give them 90 days to fix. MS fails to fix and b*tches instead of thanking Google.

One of the biggest is the silliness from the Mpeg-LA. They charge ridiculous license fees with mpeg-2. Google saw that and invested into creating VP8. That forced the Mpeg-LA to stop extorting money.

But Google does not keep it just for themselves and use as a competitive advantage like any "good" business would do.

Instead they not only give away for free but then also protect anyone from patent infringement. That is crazy.

Give away for free and then also protect?

Some of the IP they give away is just crazy. Borg was novel and just incredibly valuable and they give away Borg through Kubernettes (K8). Who does that? Well all ships rise and so do they.

They do not charge royalties for IP like Microsoft and the other do. They sure have some incredible IP but they just give it away. Map/Reduce, Text2Vec, GFS, WaveNet, or so many different incredible papers. I just love they share their "secrets" and help everyone move forward and do not just keep to themselves.

But they also do the "right" thing and not something that just gets them a buck or a billion bucks.

Perfect example is China. The China government tried to hack Gmail accounts of their citizens data. Google walked away from billion in China and said that is not acceptable.

But then we have Apple hand over all their customers data to the government but also the encryption keys. Just the perfect contrast you can have.

"Campaign targets Apple over privacy betrayal for Chinese iCloud users"

[https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple- privacy...](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple-privacy- betrayal-for-chinese-icloud-users/)

Google is a new tech type company that has a very different culture than the old tech companies. They believe in all boats rise helps also them instead of trying to hurt competitors with things that do NOT move the industry forward.

<comment><USER32> Exactly. Personally, i widh larry,sergey came out in public more often. I think Alphabet is getting hurt coz of their absence. Google gets really less appreciated. I guess people forget the Good when even a little bad is committed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think it's important to note, and keep in mind, that DeepMind is explicitly trying to create Artificial General Intelligence. In their words:

 _" solving intelligence, and then using that to solve everything else"_

Even just five years ago, those of us who attended AGI conferences or discussed AGI would get kicked out of the room for publicly contemplating the topic.

OpenAI has the same charter.

So why is it still taboo to discuss?

[1] [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601139/how-google- plans-t...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601139/how-google-plans-to- solve-artificial-intelligence/)</comment>


Ask HN: Let's talk gpt-3 hype. overblown or justified? - <AUTHOR> I've counted between 3-5 GPT posts on the front page all today and yesterday
Not to mention 74% of my twitter feed.
Don't get me wrong, I was at peak hype. Top 10% of gpt-3 hypebeasts.
But now I'm thinking: "it's good, but what are the practical use cases that is effectively a babbling machine"
In other words if it's 95% believable, with the amount of nuance required for high skilled use cases or jobs, well, that's still not enough.
Your thoughts? <comment><USER2> In terms of human development, publicly available and disclosed machine intelligence has reached what in human child development would be considered a major new milestone.

Previously, Eliza and the likes could only mimic basic speech construction, with increasing levels of correctness.

Now, GPT-3 can mimic meaning and understading, rather convincingly. Its mistakes are akin to a child's naive questions.

I would put its equivalent human age at about 3-5 years old. Sometimes 5-year- olds can come up with nonsense, and sometimes you have an "out of the mouths of babes" moment.

That's really huge, IMO.</comment>


The New Old Boys from the ARPAnet (1985) - <AUTHOR> http://www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/10.html <comment><USER2> I recently read this book and can certify that it's a fantastic read — especially if you're the kind of person that loves computing history.

I'd recommend getting the latest edition because the book was originally written in 1984 and the latest edition has fascinating interviews from Doug Engelbart, Alan Kay, Ted Nelson (and other titans) that took place in 1999 where they reflect on their prior predictions and make some predictions about the future.

What I loved about the book was that it painted a very vivid image of the technologies and ideas that were available at the time, and how these visionaries expected them to evolve. What I loved is that Rheingold walks you through the idea maze of computing (starting at the very very beginning) —- showing you different dead-ends and subsequent unlocks that happens through some combination of chance and brilliant insight.

I enjoyed the whole thing, but if you were force me to pick a single chapter to recommend I'd pick — "The Loneliness of a Long Distance Thinker".</comment>


Instawallet introduces instant bitcoin payments (zero confirmations) - <AUTHOR> http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=32818.0

<comment><USER2> This is actually a special case of a general concept: specifying how much you trust particular addresses. Instawallet has just coined 'green address' as a nickname for an address that you will accept payments from instantly (0 confirmation), but what do you call an address for which you would prefer to see 1 or 2 confirmations (~10 or 20 minutes, respectively)?

If Bitcoin UIs allowed you to specify how much you trusted particular sending addresses (in terms of confirmation numbers), things like green addresses would fall out naturally. Also, providing these trust numbers is a great usecase for a web-of-trust system.

<comment><USER3> I'd hope you wouldn't do business on just 1 confirmation. It'd be fairly easy to spoof.

<comment><USER2> Not particularly... an attacker with a rack of GPU filled machines will only find a valid block every 10 days or so, and blocks are valid for around 10 minutes on average: this is a relatively narrow window for double spending, and not an opportunity to waste on a small transaction.

There are other attacks that rely on the receiver being fenced off from the wider network, but those are even harder to coordinate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Would people be happy for banks to use the same security for your account? Because that's what people seem to be arguing when they say it's perfectly safe/secure. This is in regards to the obscure URL being the entry point to the account not to do with BC itself.

</comment><comment><USER5> Cool to see this finally get implemented. Thanks Instawallet!

</comment><comment><USER4> Yikes, no security except the obscurity of the address... I'm not sure I would be comfortable using that. I know the search space is huge (~10^28) but there are so many other implications.

<comment><USER5> Erm... that's the public part of a public-key pair. It's as secure as any other modern public-key crypto out there (plus or minus a few digits). Any transactions are signed.

<comment><USER6> No, in the case the problem is that the URL is essentially the private key!</comment></comment></comment>


Julian Assange claims his encrypted laptops were stolen in 2010 while traveling - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/julian-assange-claims-his-encrypted-laptops-were-stolen-in-2010-while-traveling/

<comment><USER2> > the document revealed that the police force was instructed to violate the > Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations in order to arrest me:

That's great they have direct evidence the Police were instructed to violate the Vienna Convention.

More and more everyday we're seeing Governments doing whatever they hell they want, in blatant violation of laws - laws from their own countries and international laws.

Sooner or later, people will have to stand up and fight this.

<comment><USER3> Even as a youngster, well before I was ten, I learned that airline checked baggage is a gamble.

Specifically, it's roulette. Sometimes it's a 00 and you get your bag on time. Sometimes it's red and you get your bag an hour to a week after the plane lands. And other times it's black and you never see you baggage again.

It's not a place you'd put anything you really care about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> He put his super important laptops in checked baggage? (What kind of dimwhit does that?) And claims a conspiracy because he (says) there were lost? Come on...

</comment><comment><USER5> From the article -

> unlawful interference in [WikiLeaks'] _journalistic activities_.

From - [http://wikileaks.org/cablegate.html](http://wikileaks.org/cablegate.html)

> Wikileaks began on Sunday November 28th 2010 publishing 251,287 leaked > United States embassy cables...

Indiscriminately releasing dumps of secret US embassy cables in no way can be classified as _journalistic activities_.

If on the other hand WikiLeaks only released a specific few cables that in some way showed a real crime taking place, that would be another story.

But what they did had only one purpose - promote WikiLeaks, embarrass the US, attempt to hurt the US, give ammunition to non-US players.

While what WikiLeaks did is not a crime (since they did not facilitate the theft of those cables, and Julian is not a US citizen), what they did cannot be classified as _journalistic activities_.

The notion that they did this to expose the fact that US has self-interests first and foremost is absurd. Every nation is like that, except for the one or two that are committing suicide.

<comment><USER6> [http://wikileaks.org/static/html/faq.html](http://wikileaks.org/static/html/faq.html) says

> For this release we are releasing the documents in a gradual manner, > reviewing them with the assistance of our media partners.

which doesn't exactly sound "indiscriminate".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I understand they had to wait but... I wouldnt like to be a source now.

<comment><USER8> Assange must have set off alarm bells for potential sources even before this latest news. For example, it seems that while Snowden might have gotten some advice from Assange, so far he has done all his leaking through other channels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So this happened 3 years ago... and they're doing something about it now?

If this was important, wouldn't it have made sense to deal with it, say, 3 years ago?

<comment><USER10> TFA says he waited for the trial of Chelsea Manning to end, which is fair enough -- Manning was in a delicate position already, no point in making it even more complicated. Also, part of the alleged activities were put on record during that trial, so they cannot be denied now.</comment></comment>


Movie Datasets for Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> https://lionbridge.ai/datasets/movie-datasets-machine-learning/ <comment><USER2> It would be awesome to have a data set of scripts and the corresponding filmed scenes

<comment><USER3> To build like an auto subtitle creating model or something like that?

<comment><USER2> There's more than just dialog in screenplays.

I wonder if you could create a GAN that renders video from the script.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahh I see. That would be incredibly interesting.</comment></comment></comment></comment>