It was 84 degrees near the Arctic Ocean this weekend - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/05/14/it-was-degrees-near-arctic-ocean-this-weekend-carbon-dioxide-hit-its-highest-level-human-history/ <comment><USER2> Are these numbers matching predictions?

"forecasts a temperature rise of 2.5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century." [1].

I might be wrong but I feel like the temperatures are getting higher quicker than we think.

[1]: [https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/](https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/)

<comment><USER3> I believe the estimated rise is for global mean temperatures but the linked article is discussing a local peak temperature, which aren't really comparable units.

This fundamental misunderstanding is likely what prevents people from really understanding the impact of global warming. After all, a 2.5° difference is well within the daily temperature variance or every region of the US. It takes a decent understanding of statistics to understand that an 5% increase in an average translates to a very large increase in the frequency of rare events at the extreme.

I.e., a 1 inch increase in average human height translates into something like a 10-100x increase in the number of people over 7ft tall, yet a set of brothers may vary in height by much more than an inch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Fort Yukon, Alaska is 6 miles above the Arctic Circle and is often above 80 degrees F from June - August.

The Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge experiences extreme temperature variance and scarce precipitation. Fort Yukon holds the state record high temperature of 100° F (38° C), and comes close to the record low at –75° F (-59° C).

Yukon Flats is the only place in the world where temperatures of 100° F have been recorded north of the Arctic Circle. The Refuge also experiences some of the coldest temperatures of any inhabited area. In the uplands and mountains surrounding the Yukon Flats, there is less temperature variance with cooler summers and warmer winters.

[https://www.fws.gov/refuge/yukon_flats/visit/weather.html](https://www.fws.gov/refuge/yukon_flats/visit/weather.html)</comment>


Bag of Words models for visual categorization - <AUTHOR> https://gilscvblog.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/bag-of-words-models-for-visual-categorization/

<comment><USER2> bag of words is really old, and the post doesn't offer anything new with or about it (author doesn't even implement it)...why is this here?</comment>


Pitch raises $30M more to take on PowerPoint - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/01/pitch-a-presentation-startup-from-wunderlists-founders-raises-30m-more-to-take-on-powerpoint/ <comment> dawg- Hopefully it's not just a copy of Powerpoint and Keynote with a slick brand. If they decide to do something radical, like limit the number of text words per slide to something like 10-15, then I will _really_ be interested.</comment>


Lockheed Martin's laser can stop a truck from over a mile away - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/04/lockheed-martin-laser-athena-test/ <comment><USER2> I don't see any benefit to this in its current state.

It's way less inefficient than standard weapons today, and it is effected by things such as smoke, humidity, etc.</comment>


Show HN: Candidate Dashboards for the 2020 Democratic Primary Field - <AUTHOR> https://www.politicalalertengine.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all, I made a dashboard to easily track prediction markets (via the PredictIt API) and news (via the Contextual News API) for all of the major candidates.

What it does:

-Easily see a graph of a candidate's chances (say Biden) of winning the presidency, nomination, IA, NH, SC, NV with some news

-You can add a graph of any market (something you can't do on PredictIt's current UI)

-Stack: Postgres, Express, Node, React-Redux, SemanticUI (React), ChartJS( React)

-You can also add any PredictIt market to any chart

-APIs used: PredictIt, Contextual News

-Works better on desktop but all functions can be accessed on mobile; give the first chart ~10-15 seconds to load and if still does not appear, refresh

NB: PredictIt Contracts are binary options that will mature to $1.00 if event occurs or $0.00 otherwise. Thus a contract trading at 35¢ can be thought of as a market consensus of roughly 35% probability of occurring.</comment>


Minimum Viable Block Chain - <AUTHOR> http://www.igvita.com/2014/05/05/minimum-viable-block-chain/ <comment><USER2> I like that this actually covers why each piece is needed.

My only beef with this system is the proof of work, which leads to an arms race in electricity consumption. Proof of stake is better, and frankly, distributed timestamps don't need a race to solve a problem every time something has to be timestamped.

For currency, it would actually be nicer to have a system that treats trust/credit/reputation as the scarce resource. It would help people who aren't rich in the traditional sense nevertheless organize and help each other, and would allow people to "create their own currency" in communities, or the equivalent of that, that they aren't able to do now.

<comment><USER3> I'm familiar with proof of work and how it works within a blockchain to secure blocks.

I keep hearing about prof of stake. I'm very interested in it, however I haven't found an explanation that clearly explains to me how it works. I've looked at the Wiki article and read a little about Peercoin. Do you know of any article, video or source that may help explain exactly how proof of stake works?

<comment><USER4> If you haven't read the peercoin whitepaper[1], it may get you a bit closer to an understanding. That being said, I still don't have a solid grasp of _exactly_ how coins destroyed results in solving blocks...

[1] [http://www.peercoin.net/whitepaper](http://www.peercoin.net/whitepaper)

<comment><USER3> Thank you! I can't believe I missed it and didn't think to check for a white paper for this. Especially since that's what really cleared up bitcoin's proof of work blockchain to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Excellent read. This is not for a general audience, but helped me get a nicer grasp on the fundamentals technology than I had before without getting too particular in the under the hood stuff.

The "blocks are never final" idea is what I believe has led to some of the proposed 51% attacks on the bitcoin network.

Question: Does proof of work have to be a near 'lottery' system? Obviously it needs to be asymmetric, but are there other good options than hash collision?

<comment><USER6> Some other proof of work protocols: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of- work_system#List_of_pr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of- work_system#List_of_proof-of-work_functions)

<comment><USER7> Or on the more detailed cryptocurrency wiki: [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_work](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_work)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The author seems to have mildly misunderstood the technicalities of hashcash- like systems.

They seem to have thought that the hex representation of the hash matters when mining, when really we're talking about large integers. If you just do the former "look for a hash with two 0 at the start", you end up with almost no granularity in the difficulty needed. You end up in the situation where 0000 is too easy, but 00000 is too hard. Bitcoin uses integers, and can therefor adjust the target difficulty down to an arbitrary number of digits if required.

Seems to be a common misconception when people have been told a simplified version of what is going on.

<comment><USER9> Technically, you could say that you're looking for an hash with N zero _bits_ at the beginning. But yes, a lot of people seem to think that you're looking for N zero _bytes_ instead.

<comment><USER10> Even granularity of 1 bit is too big. It is 2x increase or decrease in difficulty while the actual hashing rate grows by 10-20% every 2 weeks even during today's crazy time of land grabbing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The article fails to mention that while separation of a blockchain from the currency is technically possible, in reality a blockchain without associated currency won't work as nobody's going to spend their CPU time maintaining it without getting something (money) in return.

<comment><USER12> This isn't actually true. In theory a blockchain could be maintained by interested parties only. For example, if an honest blockchain solved a problem of great importance to me (value = x) and even by putting a small amount of work (value < x) into mining the blockchain I could protect myself (say withdraw from action during double action attacks) then you can create a system where many people are mining, making the entire blockchain more secure each while guarding their own interests.

The closest analogy would be people setting up water sprinklers in their home. Sure it helps keep the whole town safe, but the reason they do it is for their own protection.

Similarly, in theory there are some other blockchain applications that give each miner a gain _just from mining_. For example, imagine that scientific communities around the world built a blockchain that checked folded proteins for applications in medicine. In order to compactly represent this they use a proof of work algorithm that solves these protein problems. The blockchain allows them to quickly share paths that do (or do not!) bear fruit in a specific direction, but it also coordinates search efforts along various veins of discovery.

These are just two examples I thought of in the span of 5 minutes, I'm sure there are countless ways of using blockchains, PoW algorithms, and cryptographic techniques for communication, synchronization, and commerce.

<comment><USER13> _For example, if an honest blockchain solved a problem of great importance to me (value = x) and even by putting a small amount of work (value < x) into mining the blockchain I could protect myself (say withdraw from action during double action attacks) then you can create a system where many people are mining, making the entire blockchain more secure each while guarding their own interests._

Wouldn't a rational actor free ride instead of mining? Also, the total hash rate needs to be high enough to prevent 51% attacks, so there's no guarantee that your cost of mining would be smaller than your benefit. A blockchain that doesn't pay miners seems to have an equilibrium where trolls 51% it into oblivion (as has already happened with some scamcoins AFAIK).

<comment><USER12> The 51% attack isn't a global problem, just a bitcoin problem due to it being a currency. There are other blockchain uses that do not suffer from it.

<comment><USER14> How so? With 51% of hashing power you can essentially rewrite the block chain to say whatever you want. What possible use could you have for a block chain that is not accurate and controlled by a single entity?

<comment><USER15> No you can't. With 51% hashing power you can exclude/remove transactions at will, and nothing more. You cannot forge transactions.

<comment><USER16> Actually yes you can.

If you have > 51% hashing power for a long period of time then you could theoretically choose an arbitrary block some time in the past (the further back you go the more difficult and time consuming it will be) and begin mining from that block. Including (or making up) whatever transactions you want as you go. Eventually you will have a longer chain than the "main" block and unless manual intervention is made you will orphan all of the other blocks and be able to rewrite history.

<comment><USER17> Dylan16807 is correct. You can't forge transactions. You can create an alternative history, but each transaction still requires holding the necessary private key to sign the transaction. If you're trying to make up new transactions out of whole cloth, you can only do so if they're transactions that you could have otherwise legitimately created.

What the 51% attack lets you do is remove transactions, which lets you double- spend. And of course there may be other benefits too. For example, if someone is using the blockchain for purposes other than sending money to people (e.g. notarizing a document, proxy transactions that represent movement of physical goods, etc) then removing transactions may be beneficial without double- spending.

<comment><USER16> You (and Dylan) are spot on, thanks for taking the time to correct me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Excellent write-up, but having taken Corporate Accounting courses the "triple- entry bookkeeping" moniker tripped me up a bit - it's an inaccurate metaphor (see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double- entry_bookkeeping_system](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double- entry_bookkeeping_system) to understand why).

<comment><USER19> Curious, could you elaborate? The wiki page is long, not sure what I'm looking for... It seems like "triple-entry" is often used alongside "momentum accounting", but its not clear to me why they are conflated. Disclaimer: I'm no accountant, so the simple terms are good. :)

<comment><USER14> fyi comrade your hellbanned

<comment><USER14> Uhh, I was just trying to let comrade1 know that all of his comments were appearing dead. It seems to have been fixed now though.

I guess that is somehow deserving of downvotes...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For handling distributed convergence in an entirely trusted space, take a look at Vector Clocks [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_clock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_clock)

Blockchains build off the general concept by introducing proof of work and consistent design to handle forks (longest blockchain wins)

</comment><comment><USER10> Note that blockchain is more than a currency, but it must contain a collectible within itself in order to be. New blocks will appear and will be backed by the maximum computing power only if miners are competing for the rare collectible that exists within the blockchain. Such collectible must tend to become a universally accepted money (i.e. most marketable commodity) to guarantee maximum amount of CPU time. If that collectible is too inflationary or sucks at something (poorly transferrable, or poorly divisible), then the entire blockchain is at risk. In other words, if there could be a long-term viable and secure blockchain, there will only be one. Everything else will be insecure and fall victim of the law of opportunity cost.

See also: [http://blog.oleganza.com/post/54121516413/the-universe- wants...](http://blog.oleganza.com/post/54121516413/the-universe-wants-one- money)

<comment><USER21> i'm new to bitcoin, so forgive me if this is a silly question. is it possible to compensate miners in another way beyond offering a rare collectible?

<comment><USER10> Blockchain is a decentralized consensus. It must contain all information relevant to determining consensus in itself, so every node can have all the data necessary to determine which chain is the main chain. That's why any incentive to maintain the chain must be produced by the chain itself. You can't peg the reward to a USD bank account, or a Facebook stock, or some Folding@Home tasks. They exist outside of the chain and thus can't be trusted/verified by every peer.

So you need to create some incentive in form of a valuable reward that is purely informational, can be verified independently by anyone, contains all necessary information in the blockchain and does not consume enormous amount of bandwidth/time/energy in order to be verified. This could only be a fungible cryptographic token and this token must be rare. This does not guarantee that it will be valuable, but fungibility and scarcity are necessary to start with.

This token must be created in a way that can't be counterfeited and can be independently verified using only the blockchain data (because one can only trust what's in the blockchain). So far it was proof-of-work that provided scarcity. I don't think there is a drastically different way to solve this problem.

<comment><USER21> so higher miner fees would not be a viable incentive? thanks for the information, very helpful in understanding blockchains better.

given your analysis, how will miners be compensated once we hit 21M bitcoins? others have asserted higher miner fees. if they are right, this seems to negate one of bitcoin's supposed benefits -- negligible transaction fees -- precluding certain applications like microtransactions.

not attacking bitcoin, just trying to understand its true applications.

thanks for your help!

<comment><USER10> > so higher miner fees would not be a viable incentive?

Miner fees are irrelevant if one does not have the coins to begin with. The chain will be maintained by competing miners only if they are incentivized with initial distribution of a limited supply of units. If all units belong to just one guy, then why anyone should mine anything? If you need coins, you can just buy them from him. But why would they have any value then?

> how will miners be compensated once we hit 21M bitcoins?

We will never "hit" 21M bitcoins. We will slowly approach lower and lower inflation until it becomes zero. But we will notice how miners receive bigger and bigger portion of income from the fees. There will be more demand for on- chain transactions which will increase competition among users and fees will go up. To increase income, miners will be eager to increase the block size limit thus allowing more throughput and as a side effect making fees stabilize at some level. The process will be slow that no one will be shocked by the adjustment of the reward. At the same time, all known events of the future are already priced in. Miners already know that in 3 years they will have 2x smaller reward.

Think of the process this way: miners want to maximize their revenue, users want to minimize their costs. If on-blockchain transactions become too expensive, users will use some clearing houses thus depriving miners from extra fees. Therefore miners will be eager to process more transactions at the current or slightly lower prices to collect those fees. But by allowing more transactions, they reduce competition between users thus preventing the fees from growing further. The system will stabilize at an intersection of 1) affordable bandwidth for miners (so they do not lose too much money on side blocks), 2) optimal fees for users to pay and miners to earn. If bandwidth/CPU is infinite, miners would collect trillions of transactions costing a 0.0001 of a penny and users would enjoy microtransactions right on the blockchain. But we have some real-world limitations that shift equilibrium somewhere to lower throughput and higher fees.

See also: 1) [http://blog.oleganza.com/post/43677417318/economics-of- block...](http://blog.oleganza.com/post/43677417318/economics-of-block-size- limit) 2) [http://blog.oleganza.com/post/43849158813/this-is-how- block-...](http://blog.oleganza.com/post/43849158813/this-is-how-block-size- limit-will-be-raised)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Finally an analogy-based explanation of cryptocurrencies/blockchains that I read all the way through!

Two questions: Currently, bitcoin transactions don't have any transaction fees. In this case, where are these 'mined' coins coming from? Is it by adding a transaction from 'the ether' to the miner?

Also, if there are transaction fees but the person who verifies the block adds their own fee to the block, what's stopping them from verifying that Alice and Bob have offered the miner a transaction fee of 100 BTC instead of 1 BTC?

<comment><USER23> Yes, the first transaction of a block is allowed to "overspend" by up to the subsidy amount, currently 25btc. Obviously the miners pay these newly minted coins to themselves.

<comment><USER23> Why the downvotes? What I wrote is correct:

[https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/main.cpp#...](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/main.cpp#L1838)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Somewhat related: The size of a chain will be constantly growing, right? How fast, and will it be a problem?

<comment><USER25> It's already a problem. Bitcoin is around 20GB right now - it means you can't have a full bitcoin client on a cheap USB key anymore. (A common security recommendation to avoid hacks.)

If you have more than one currency installed on your computer you might use 100GB or more for them. It fits, but it's starting to become a significant % of a typical hard disk. (Although presumably people with lots of wallets are not typical and have larger disks.)

<comment><USER26> If you're storing the entire blockchain on a USB key to "avoid hacks", you're doing it wrong.

An offline live-CD or USB key has no need to store the entire blockchain if you just want to store coins and keep them safe.

<comment><USER25> How would you initiate any transactions from your live-key if you don't have the client installed? And the client needs the entire block chain.

(I'm aware of light clients that work with a server, but that's not the standard.)

You can store the wallet cold on a usb key, certainly, but that's not the use case here. The use case here is a usb-key you boot ONLY for bitcoin, and nothing else. No web browser, no nothing, just the bitcoin client.

This is recommended if you are on windows, or if you aren't certain you can secure your computer (most people can't).

<comment><USER15> You can get by just fine with a client that stores the root hash of each block and part/all of the blocks where it sent or received money, ignoring all other blocks. You won't be able to fully verify old transactions but you'll be able send and receive.

Whether someone has coded such a client I don't know, but it's not a difficult problem, and does not require a server.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > The critical property of the above workflow is that the output of the > cryptographic hash function (SHA-256 in this case) is completely different > every time we modify the input: the hash value of the previous attempt does > not tell us anything about what the hash value of the next attempt when we > increment our counter - i.e. its a non-deterministic algorithm.

It's a fully-deterministic algorithm. It would be quite useless if it were not. I believe what the author is trying to say is that it's not _predictable_.

</comment><comment><USER27> I propose that someone create a proof-of-work system that creates a distributed auction of the computing power of the miners. This has the twin benefits of not wasting electricity on doing useless hashes, and of providing a backing for the value of the created currency (because the currency can be used to purchase computing power from miners). A standardized NP-complete problem formulation could be used.

I haven't worked out exactly how to do this (specifically: if the problems posed to the miners are not random, what is to prevent a miner from posing a problem to which they already know the answer?), it's just an idea.

more rumination at [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Intrinsic_worth_brainstorming#pse...](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Intrinsic_worth_brainstorming#pseudo- BTC_that_uses_computational_power_in_service_of_some_problem)

</comment><comment><USER28> As much as I hate the concept of "trusted computing" I believe it could help with Sybil attacks. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing#Endorsement_k...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing#Endorsement_key)

<comment><USER13> Then you have other problems as described in Vinge's _Rainbows End_. [http://vrinimi.org/front9uns.jpg](http://vrinimi.org/front9uns.jpg) [http://vrinimi.org/back9rev.jpg](http://vrinimi.org/back9rev.jpg)</comment></comment>


IEEE: Pay $3000 and we'll remove your article's paywall. - <AUTHOR> http://www.theinstitute.ieee.org/portal/site/tionline/menuitem.be4d708ccca114d8fb2275875bac26c8/index.jsp?&pName=print_only&TheCat=2201&article=tionline/legacy/inst2011/mar11/featureopenaccess.xml <comment><USER2> This kind of gouging soon won't be a problem anymore. I'm in the process of creating an online service (launch date sometime this summer) that will provide completely free full-text access to _all_ academic journals in one fell swoop. Think Napster for academic research.

I won't give implementation details for now, and I'm still evaluating different domain names, but it will be called Acropolis.

Yes, I know it will create a legal shitstorm, but I feel it's a small price to pay for what is at stake. To hell with it. Academic research is supposed to be free.

<comment><USER3> The problem that needs to be solved isn't distribution, it's how to transition the traditional model of peer-review into one with much less overhead. Building a web app to allow researchers to submit their articles and have them peer-reviewed by other researchers would be an interesting project that could actually disrupt the industry. I don't think things like arXiv do that yet.

Your project seems disruptive and may cause people to talk about the issue but it doesn't solve anything, as it just undermines the system that is producing the very journals you are exposing. The same way Napster didn't solve the dependency between musicians and outdated industry business models, it just exposed how the models were outdated.

<comment><USER4> We've seen Zotero and Mendeley trying to offer a platform for that (unconvincingly if you ask me); from mass adoption of those, points for good comments can be awarded to incite proper behaviour (reddit, HNews and Quora are here to attest it works, and abuses and their proper correction are well typed); I'm expecting the Livfe extention of Mekentojs' Paper 2 to come closer to something usable.

<comment><USER5> Hey, I work for Mendeley, so I can comment on a few things. Commenters here have noticed that it's the lamentable reliance on journal prestige that is keeping this whole dysfunctional system held together. The good news is that there are a number of smart people working on alternative metrics for papers (and for datasets and code as well) which focus on reuse, basically an extension of citation. Mendeley helps because we can collect and display some of these stats back to the academics who use our service. Not only does this allow research to proceed much faster by radically shortening the feedback cycle, but it provides a possibility that as the alt metrics get better uptake and respect, the lack of a suitable IF won't be a barrier anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a counter-suggestion: pay $3000 to support one of the open access journals (see The Directory of Open Access Journals "[http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=home&uiLanguage=en](http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=home&uiLanguage=en) for suggestions) and they'll let you post as many articles as you want. (Of course, I believe most of them will let you post for free, but by contributing articles and money to open access journals, you get to stick it to IEEE twice).

<comment><USER7> So... how is the tenure committee going to do with the fact that you have nothing in peer-reviewed journals?

<comment><USER4> All the journals in the list linked are peer-reviewed. We would all appreciate if you could keep your purposely misinformed snide out of academia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It would have made more sense if it wasn't called a "processing fee". That implies they can justify the cost with specific work associated with making a paper available.

<comment><USER9> I would be happier if IEEE/ACM would typeset the damn articles. The International Conference of Software Engineering this year has hired a publishing company that have been sending manuscripts back for even the slightest failure to meet (their interpretation of) the ACM style guide.

I've gone through the process 4 or 5 times across multiple papers.

You can't charge $3000 for the benefit of putting a PDF on a website when you do absolutely nothing for the creation of it. If they did the typesetting themselves, I might ( _might_ ) accept that there are some costs per article, but at this point it's obviously complete nonsense on similar old-world scales as the NYT's $41m pay wall. Putting PDFs up is a fixed cost, which, even amortized over the development of the site, is nowhere near $3000 per article over and above the revenue they are receiving from libraries and memberships.

We keep getting told that there are overheads in running a journal; that open- access can't work without significant investiture. I disagree. When all you are doing is facilitating communication (academics do essentially everything for free: write, typeset, review, accept/reject, organize conferences, and new things like storing source code and data for replicability like PROMISE or SIGMOD), you are just a middleman. All that's being provided at this point is "authority" because ACM/IEEE-stamped articles count towards tenure, and the rest don't (at least in CompSci).

This sort of thing is ripe for disruption: a competently written web app could annihilate the processes that are in place. The only problem is selling the authority. A company like Google or Microsoft Research taking to the right people and bringing them on-board for a rival publication/conference would do that (MSR are actually quite well-versed in doing conferences, the Foundations of Digital Games conference started with them, and that's now ACM for authority). I think most academics are totally fed up with the status quo, so I can't imagine that's all that hard, you just need the money to have a dedicated person to do all the "selling."

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> From the website:

 _"Open access can coexist with traditional publishing. IEEE will continue to allow authors to post manuscripts of their articles accepted by IEEE journals on their own Web sites or those of their employers."_

Hence, it would be perfectly fine for me to publish on IEEE journals. Basically, if you want to read one of my articles you just have to look for it using google scholar. Is it that difficult?

<comment><USER9> ...but remember this is only because they have no choice. IEEE/ACM would _love_ to remove these clauses, but they've realized if they do, that's going to be the match that lights the fuse for all-out academic rebellion. It's not like that's a gift or some evidence that they are in any way reasonable.

They're totally aware of the precipitous situation they're in, they just don't want to/don't have the competency to fix their monetization strategy.

<comment><USER11> The fact that they're "granting you permission" to post your own paper, which you wrote at your own expense (or that of supporters you secured independently from the IEEE), and in which they have no legitimate copyright claim on your own website just underscores how dangerously close to the wind these guys are really sailing.

Unless they're actually bribing tenure committees to maintain their exclusive (and totally unearned) hold on people's professional futures, it seems like they're one coordinated action away from a richly-deserved implosion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> they think scholars have enough money to do the research AND pay $3000 to have it openly published?

it's the beginning of the end of closed academic publishing models.

<comment><USER13> I certainly do not. It is usually enough of a challenge to cover "overpage" charges that publishers charge when an accepted article runs over the "standard" length (usually 8 pages for a standard or regular article). Often times, the "extra" pages are introduced by additional text required to satisfy reviewers. One time I was requested to convert an 8 page article submitted as a regular paper into a short paper format (4 page limit), while adding a significant amount of new content. The result? A 7 page article that ended up costing $575 to publish. We won't even talk about charges for colour figures, which can run into the thousands.

Of course the money spent on overpage charges could be better spent on graduate student stipends, equipment purchases and maintenance, software licensing, attending conferences, and other expenses incurred by an active research program.

Other open journals, while still expensive, charge significantly less than what the IEEE is proposing. The challenge for academics is that, at least for now, IEEE journals are well regarded, well cited and considered to be a prestigious venue for publication.

<comment><USER5> The idea here is that the tend of thousands your library is paying now could be used to offset your costs to go the "Gold OA" route. With this discussion of fees, I have to point out that the majority of OA journals don't charge any fees at all, and of those that do their fees are generally comparable to the page charges you'd be paying at a non-OA journal.

It's only a rare few, like these guys, Nature Publishing, and a few others that charge so much. PLoS charges about half that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't understand the criticism leveled at organizations like IEEE although maybe I'm missing something. These are professional organizations and consequently non-profits. So even though they charge a lot to access the articles, it implies that nobody is actually getting rich off this.

Edit: I know that there are some for profit publishing houses, but there are also many journals published by non-profits (IEEE being one of them).

<comment><USER11> Also, "non-profit" only refers to the tax status of the organization. The fact that the organization employs management that may be grossly overcompensated is left unmentioned. In any case, the relationship is likely to be highly - and personally - profitable for the people running it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> $3,000 may be too much, but I basically like this idea. Isn't the whole premise of (peer-reviewed) open access that authors would pay fees sufficient to cover the cost of publishing and peer review, so libraries aren't ripped off by publishers? This is at least how PLoS and other leading open access journals I've heard of work.

If $3,000 is a ripoff, authors would refuse to pay and will pressure IEEE to reduce prices or take their business elsewhere, which has happened in a number of fields where open access journals have sprung up. Having libraries pay the publisher is not as effective for cost control.

Maybe peer review or even journals should die? I don't quite agree, but if it's true, having authors pay is probably the best way of bringing this about.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is very topical for me. I have been drafting a paper that I was hoping to submit to the IEEE. This "might" change my mind. I'm not sure yet. There are stipulations that you can publish your work on personal sites if you get permission from the organization and you include a copyright notice at the top.

Incidentally, they also have an optional but suggested charge for papers containing color diagrams and over-length papers. They say that an organization should include publication costs in their budget for the research and thus the fees are reasonable.

The author guidelines, are dozens of pages long and I only had a week to absorb them so correct me if I missed something.

<comment><USER9> _Incidentally, they also have an optional but suggested charge for papers containing color diagrams and over-length papers._

These are wonderful holdovers from when people read papers in actual printed copies. When's the last time you read a paper from a printed copy from the publisher? That's why they're "optional" (and roundly ignored, AFAIK). It's another example of their completely outdated monetization methods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "hybrid open access"

 _Bullshit_

What you mean is "not open access." Don't lie to us.</comment>


Haskell Data Analysis Cookbook - <AUTHOR> http://haskelldata.com/ <comment><USER2> Haskell or Julia?

I have a highly varied background that includes: SPSS and R for statistical analysis, NLP scripting/programming on a very niche platform, some web app development using PHP, MySql, Javascript, LeafletJS and HighCharts.

I have been reading about both Haskell and Julia and have wondered which would be most worth the time and energy to learn. Anyone with knowledge of both have a nuanced opinion to share?

The presence of this book might be an avenue for me to approach Haskell from a domain where I already understand the lay of the land.

<comment><USER3> I would say go through this book and see what you think. Don't get too hung up on specific parts but try to move through it quickly so you get a "feel" for Haskell.

Then I'd look for a similar book/tutorial with Julia and do the same. If you can't find a similar resource for Julia, you could probably make due with replicating the Haskell examples with the manual[0] and "learn X in Y minutes"[1] for Julia.

After compare your experiences. If you still aren't sure, try implementing something a little more difficult or involved in both.

They are both very capable tools as far as I know, so how much you enjoy each language might be the most important factor in lieu of limits each language may have for your intended uses.

0: [http://docs.julialang.org/en/release-0.2/manual/](http://docs.julialang.org/en/release-0.2/manual/) 1: [http://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/julia/](http://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/julia/)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the advice.</comment></comment></comment>


Sick marine mammals turning up on California beaches - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-pmmc-rescued-animals-20190308-story.html <comment><USER2> Lifelong surfer here, pollution from storm drains doesn't take a scientific study to see. It's discusting out there after it rains and it seems like it gets worse and worse. I used to surf after it rained all the time but these days I just can't risk it anymore. So much trash, dead animals, condoms it's gross.

<comment><USER3> I am curious about the opposite. December 2017 I was staying on the New Port Beach peninsula in So Cal and the water was clearer then I think I've ever seen anywhere in the entire world. I grew up in the OC and have been to or by the beach 100s of times, I had never seen it so clear. Any idea why? Is it common? Was it fluke? Is it seasonal? Has something changed?

Picture: [https://i.imgur.com/9WFTldz.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/9WFTldz.jpg)

You could walk half way down Balboa Pier and still clearly see the bottom of the ocean. I don't think I'd ever seen the bottom of the ocean through waves in any beach in So Cal ever. Never thought of it as dirty so much as just normal for sea water.

<comment><USER4> Not easy to say without chemically analyzing the water. Oceanographers deal with this questions all the time

Roughly speaking, clear water means less life, less phytoplancton. The algae had gone. Is registered in lakes when water turns more acidic by contamination. They appear pristine, but is an ilusion. The ecosystem is very ill.

At sea this can normally indicate a different water mass by natural processes. Different salinity or temperature, a change on winds, barometric pressure, or sea currents can change this. Is totally normal.

And this could happen also when trowing signifiant amounts of something that kills microscopic life to the water (chlorine to pipelines for example).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it's interesting that it's tragic when cute animals die in small numbers due to totally natural causes, and totally irrelevant when non-cute animals die by the millions due to human infrastructure.

To the north and to the south of this particular data point, mammal rescues are normal.

Normal (El Nino) weather patterns seem to explain why these young animals may be having trouble finding food. And while plenty of spectres are thrown about like toxic algae and pollution from storm runoff, no data are actually provided, which IMO is beneath journalistic standards.

<comment><USER6> On a some what similar topic: the amount of killing and hunting (rabbits, moles, mice and other small mammals) that happens when we grow produce. Add to that the destruction of a previously thriving eco system of small mammals, insects and lizards that is caused by the vast mono crop method used by most conventional farmers. And you end up with questions about the ethics of a plant based diet (at least one that is based on our conventional methods of large scale farming).

On the surface it would seem that a diet that includes meat from free range (non feed lot) cattle would result in less death (by numbers) and less destruction of natural habitat than a 100% plant based diet (even a small organic farm practices eco system destruction to plant its non mono crops and I assume practices animal trapping/hunting?). Which maybe is fine with some vegans but I think a large percentage don't consider this. In particular the amount of poison and traps that are used to kill small mammals to produce each pound of carrots, broccoli or other plant life.

<comment><USER7> Most of the grain grown in the USA is fed to livestock. If you are concerned about the impact of agriculture on the environment the single best thing you can do is eat lower on the food chain.

The number of small animals killed to feed one person a carnivore diet is far far more than it takes to feed that person a plant based diet.

<comment><USER8> Grass fed beef addresses both. You don't need to be so brash.

<comment><USER9> Another factor to consider with cows is large scale cattle farming, grass fed or not, releases huge amounts of methane gas into the atmosphere. Methane gas is estimated to be 28[1] times worse for climate change than C02.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A lot of pollution is 'out of site, out of mind'.

I've had two run-ins with basic runoff pollution, swimming in the ocean Brazil and Sri Lanka. In both cases I swam out a few meters and into a mass of garbage: diapers, plastic bags, crisp bags etc.

I remember thinking if it's happening here, it's happening everywhere.

</comment><comment> lota-putty Humans turned out as masterminds at both trashing the only planet with rich life and treating the sick on it.

"No rain drop thinks it's responsible for the flood...nor does it care."

<comment><USER11> "Modern problems require modern solutions."

I was reading Michael Pollan's famous "Unhappy Meals" essay the other day and I was struck by this paragraph:

"It might be argued that, at this point in history, we should simply accept that fast food is our food culture. Over time, people will get used to eating this way and our health will improve. But for natural selection to help populations adapt to the Western diet, we'd have to be prepared to let those whom it sickens die. That's not what we're doing. Rather, we're turning to the health-care industry to help us "adapt." Medicine is learning how to keep alive the people whom the Western diet is making sick. It's gotten good at extending the lives of people with heart disease, and now it's working on obesity and diabetes. Capitalism is itself marvelously adaptive, able to turn the problems it creates into lucrative business opportunities: diet pills, heart-bypass operations, insulin pumps, bariatric surgery. But while fast food may be good business for the health-care industry, surely the cost to society — estimated at more than $200 billion a year in diet-related health-care costs — is unsustainable."

Unfortunately, I see a lot of parallels between food, health, and nutrition and our approach to climate change, too. Every year we incur more and more costs associated with climate change. Entire cities are destroyed, thousands die, and millions more slowly become more and more sick. The costs are truly unsustainable, but the root problems are never addressed. Instead, the homes are simply rebuilt and the cycle continues. We're committing self-destruction as a species. We don't deserve to find another Earth if we can't sustain this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've seen this more where I'm from, too. Our underwater ecosystem is collapsing. Their world must be like some of our smog-choked, acid rain hellscapes, if not moreso and even more acute.

<comment><USER13> I freedive and spearfish in that underwater ecosystem on a weekly basis between Malibu, Santa Monica, and Palos Verdes. It's fine, much cleaner than the wilderness around there on land.

As for the article, it's an interesting data point but who knows, there is a lot we are still learning about the ecosystem. There's clearly some strange patterns this year - warm currents have been bringing up large tuna to just off of Long Beach and that may be affecting plankton and bacterial populations, especially with the organics from the rain runoff seeding the waters. Domoic acid poisoning is a natural phenomenon but it's no joke.

<comment><USER14> How did you get in to spearfishing? I saw it in a sailing video recently and it appeals as far more interesting and time-efficient than traditional fishing. Can you recommended any media?

<comment><USER13> Through another friend in tech - it's good to have someone to show you the ropes because there is a lot of tribal knowledge. YouTube and forums are somewhat of a help but most of what I've learned is from listening at the spear shop or going on public charter trips and listening to the elders.

This guy has my favorite spearfishing YouTube channel - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0tqvgU_8Qg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0tqvgU_8Qg)

<comment><USER14> Cheers will take a look. Fantasizing about sailing before all the coral dies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I heard from someone at Whole Foods yesterday that Oregon and Washington are recalling (some) Dungeness crab because of domoic acid levels -- I wonder if that is related.

<comment><USER16> According to the Oregon Department of Agriculture:

Commercial evisceration zones and orders

Oregon crab: Crab containing viscera harvested from zone K are under an evisceration order effective 12:01 a.m. February 11, 2019, due to elevated levels of domoic acid in the crab viscera. Crab harvested from zones J and L are under an evisceration order effective 12:01 a.m. February 14, 2019, as a buffer zones to zone K. See the link below called Evisceration orders and recall information for details.

California crab: Crab containing viscera harvested from California waters are under an evisceration order effective 12:01 a.m. January 15, 2019, due to elevated levels of domoic acid in the crab viscera. This remains in effect until further notice.

[https://www.oregon.gov/oda/programs/foodsafety/shellfish/pag...](https://www.oregon.gov/oda/programs/foodsafety/shellfish/pages/crabbiotoxininfo.aspx)

Is it related? Looks likely, but not directly quantifiable:

 _Domoic acid is a naturally occurring biotoxin that does not present danger in small quantities. It becomes dangerous when it is present in large quantities. While we are uncertain of the causes of the influx of domoic acid in our oceans, scientists are researching possible causes for the increased levels. Possible contributing factors include global climate change, eutrophication from fertilizers, agricultural and urban runoff, aquaculture activity, coastal development and consequently the increased exposure to waters and foods contaminated by domoic acid._ [https://www.oceansoffun.org/domoic_acid_poisoning](https://www.oceansoffun.org/domoic_acid_poisoning)

 _The increasing frequency and geographic extent of toxic algal blooms along populated coastlines is generally attributed to human activities_ [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2996450/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2996450/) 1\. Parsons ML, Dortch Q, Turner RE. Sedimentological evidence of an increase in Pseudo-nitzschia (Bacillariophyceae) abundance in response to coastal eutrophication. Limnol Oceanogr. 2002;47:551–558. 2\. Hallegraeff GM. A review of harmful algal blooms and their apparent global increase. Phycologia. 1993;32:79–99.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What about sea birds?

<comment><USER4> This is an important point so I will repeat it. Maybe somebody in the area has info about what is happening with sea birds?</comment></comment>


Financial Lifestyle Startup - <AUTHOR> I have an idea for a startup and would love some feedback!
I plan to start a company that focuses on these four ideals: 1. Reducing/Managing Debt
2. Increasing Savings (at least the 10% of income recommended by experts)
3. Income Growth
4. Investing
At a very small fee (think, $10/month or so), the service my company provides allows you, as the customer, to essentially outsource having to tackle the above four necessities to achieve financial freedom.
Of course everyone's situation is different. We would do a routine financial health checkup for every new client, devise a strategy tailor-made for you, and then seek to optimize as many (if not all) of the above ideals for you with very little effort on your part.
What're your thoughts on this idea? For you personally, what service in particular do you feel would be of great benefit to your financial health, whether planning for a short term goal, long term retirement, not having to deal with the headache of financial matters (which is a leading cause of divorce and other societal issues), etc.?
I am open to any and all suggestions or criticisms. <comment><USER2> How is this different from a financial advisor?

How are you going to make money at that price point with the level of service you outline here?

<comment><USER3> I'd add: what's your target market? It reads a bit "everyone", which I don't thinks it's a great idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> The target market would be those from ages 18-35.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems a great idea. If you manage to do a US version and an international version would be great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that tip! If we were to roll out both a US version and an international version early, is there anything in particular you would want to see different between the two?

Of course the US market has way more average citizen debt than a lot of other places, so the two markets would undoubtedly have to be approached from different angles.

</comment></comment><comment> jags-v Sounds good. Build it for 10 Users . All the best

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

For you personally, is there anything that would make this service more compelling? That is, is there anything you feel is missing?</comment></comment>


The Milk That Lasts for Months - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170327-the-milk-that-lasts-forever <comment><USER2> UHT milk has not flavour, it is just like water.</comment>


Optimizing Content Quality Control at Netflix with Predictive Modeling - <AUTHOR> http://techblog.netflix.com/2015/12/optimizing-content-quality-control-at-netflix-predictive-modeling.html <comment><USER2> So much (great) emphasis on viewing experience, so little emphasis on browsing experience. I've been a customer for over a decade and am just perpetually frustrated; e.g. on the Netflix PS3 app titles automatically start playing when you view their info. So if you wanted to watch that title, it saves you the agony of clicking "Play." If you were just browsing, you now have this thing playing while you're trying to read the synopsis, director, actors, etc. Then, it'll show up in Account Activity as "started" and also affects recommendations ("Based on your interest in...").

<comment><USER3> Have had the same issue on my PS4. It's mildly annoying when searching for something new, and kinda nice when you're getting back into something you were watching yesterday.

I wish it was selective about autoplay, for certain conditions. Chances are, I don't want it to play when I've never watched a second of any episodes in my life, but it's nice that it autoplays when I click it from "Continue Watching" section.

<comment><USER4> Same thing for the Amazon Fire Stick... the Netflix app is extremely laggy and playback stutters, it feels like even they have very capable engineers, there's a lack of love at the very last mile.

Also, discovery of new films is awful, as they basically want to be helpful and guessing your taste all the way, but it's severely lacking filtering options for power users. Which I don't mind, because it's driving people to our site in droves recently :)

(shameless self-plug: [https://www.justwatch.com](https://www.justwatch.com) )

The sheer amount of systems they are trying to cover with a performance and security (DRM) sensitive video player component isn't that easy to support on the other hand.

<comment><USER2> I don't even think basic filtering is only appealing to power users. Just some way to find films apart from their recommended, too-cute "genres" would be appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If this kind of control system interests you, check out Chimera [0]. It is a similar approach that the output of the machine learning approach can go to a human, but is interesting because the human can feedback to the machine learner. That is, not only can the human see that the machine learner was wrong and write rules to correct it next time, but the learners can utilize that new training data to better classify in the future as well.

Of course its a tradeoff, because it seems like false negatives (movie had QoE problems but ML system did not flag it) should be avoided at all costs in this case.

[http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~anhai/papers/chimera- vldb14.pdf](http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~anhai/papers/chimera-vldb14.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER6> My experience with Netflix's video quality has been pretty positive, so they seem to have been doing something right. I hope this predictive model will only improve things and won't deteriorate quality (consider they tuned for low false negatives quality shouldn't decline).

This is a nice write-up of the business case for data science. It would have been nice to have a follow up with the technical details - but maybe that's deemed proprietary?

My problem with Netflix is that I rarely find streaming films I would be interested in watching. It's so bad that I don't even bother looking there any longer, I'd rather just pay the $2.99 and rent a film I'd like to watch from Play or Amazon.

<comment><USER2> Just curious: what are you interested in that Netflix doesn't have? My queue always hovers around 350 unwatched titles, so this always baffles me a little bit.

<comment><USER7> They have a lot of great television, but the film selection always seems limited.

<comment><USER8> I discovered this thing the other day, [https://www.smartflix.io/](https://www.smartflix.io/) and lo behold, imagine my surprise when nearly everything I searched for... was in fact, streaming in my own country (New Zealand) and nowhere else. That was an eye opener.

With that said, I quite like the Smartflix UI -- it's great for discovering things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's interesting but they could have given more details into the features, types of models they tried, how successful it is etc etc. right now it just reads as "we used ML to fix a problem we have".

<comment><USER10> Likely they're holding their cards close to the chest as it's a competitive market.

<comment><USER11> Historically they've been very open about their tools, though, even open- sourcing a lot of them.

Not to say this can't be the exception, just that it does seem a little out of character.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook bans Adsense in all applications, driving Google out of Facebook.com - <AUTHOR> http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?id=91182&p=2 <comment><USER2> Somehow people are surprised that Facebook (a company that makes most of its revenues from advertising and is competing for "Top internet dog" spot) and Google (a company that makes most of its revenues from advertising and is competing for "Top internet dog" spot) are not in harmonious agreement when it comes to having each other's ads on their properties.

Seems pretty predictable to me. Facebook will do whatever it needs to win the battle. My commentary here: [http://swombat.com/2011/3/5/facebook-predictably- bans-adsens...](http://swombat.com/2011/3/5/facebook-predictably-bans-adsense- applications)

<comment><USER3> If Facebook is "a company that makes most of its revenues from advertising", and Google is stealing their revenue according to them, they need to work on their Ad Platform. As a small startup, we did some ads on Facebook with 500,000 displays but only 13 or so clicks (but then again, the ads were cheap to run). Nobody cares about Facebook ads and no one clicks on them, I know I very rarely do.

<comment><USER4> If you ran ads with 500,000 displays and only 13 or so clicks, you did something horribly wrong. Facebook ads have a value because they can be ultra targeted. There are many ways ways you could have made a mistake, for instance, demographics that were too unspecific, bad images, not enough variations (i use 10+ sometimes), bad copy, etc.

I like to look at the comparison of google ads vs facebook ads as such: If you want to provide a service/product to people who are seeking that solution, use Google ads. And if you want to go to the targeted demographic directly and present your solution/product/message, use Facebook.

An example would be if you sold wedding services in miami. You could go on facebook and target women 25-35 who are engaged and live in miami. The ads would display only for the targeted demographic and would likely have a good click-through rate. Or you could go into google adwords and buy terms related to wedding services miami or zipcode+wedding service. The differences here are that a woman in the younger demographic is much more likely to be spending hours on facebook and only minutes on a google search.

In addition, google also has incredibly high competition for some of the more lucrative keywords and it is getting increasingly more competitive in local search, now requiring a top 7 ranking to really matter in the local listings.

Also, never underestimate the cpm (cost per thousand) displays of facebook ads to the targeted demographic. They work great for events like concerts and other events when simple awareness is key. A good image also helps a lot, as I run ads with the same text and different images and see dramatic differences in the number of clicks.

It's difficult for me to believe that "nobody cares about Facebook ads and no one clicks on them" because Facebook Ads (and Google Adwords/Adsense) operate as markets, with a bidding system on price. I almost don't want to post this because the more people who know about and use facebook ads, the higher the price rises. Their prices have been steadily rising over the last year as more and more business try them out. They do work, but not for every product and not for every demographic. But people wonder how facebook can have such a high valuation, because they underestimate the amount of direct access and data Facebook has to over 500 million people.

The ads do work, but to create a good campaign requires knowledge of the platform, and experience in marketing, advertising, and copywriting. Laypeople assume they don't need marketers and can do buys themselves, and more cheaply, but usually end up spending more. The true gold in online advertising though, comes from what happens after the person clicks.

<comment><USER5> Hmm,

 _You could go on facebook and target women 25-35 who are engaged and live in miami._ If Facebook's booster can't find a different glittering hypothetical, they are going to be in trouble... What about "barbers in St. Louis"? Uh wait, barbers in St. Louis actually need almost exactly what barbers in Houston need. The virtue of online business isn't "targeting" but finding something lots of people need.

 _Engaged?_ I think I remember friends talking what it's like having your Facebook profile say "engaged". Boy, that's one status that every retailer _thinks_ they can exploit.

 _It's difficult for me to believe that "nobody cares about Facebook ads and no one clicks on them" because Facebook Ads (and Google Adwords/Adsense) operate as markets, with a bidding system on price._

If your reasoning was correct, nothing sold at an auction would ever be a bad deal.

But given that Facebook is _seen_ as the next platform, every minute one has to presume that a new-customer appears to _try_ and take advantage of this great platform. But frequency of these customers appearing doesn't prove that they are getting a deal that works for them.

<comment><USER6> Cleaning services in st louise don't want to target barbers in Houston. Not everyone is selling a web app.

Agreed about "engaged" status though

<comment><USER5> Yes, but a cleaning service in St Louis can't afford to only target barbers.

My point is that the number of business that actually engage in very-narrow- targeting are small. And the target groups tend be overwhelmed by this token. _What percentage of the population makes major purchases very specific to their demographic_? Is it not high (weddings, college, funerals? Anniversaries? You start to run out after a short time). The rich can also be target and are targeted and you are again back in the "not-a-slam-dunk" range.

A San Francisco dominatrix still buys a car and a washing machine in the same fashion as a mid-western minister.

If you look at the idea behind Facebook advertising, you'll see it's actually the _old_ model of brand advertising - somehow injecting an _irrational_ connection between the customer and the product. It's just that brand advertising rightly imagine they can get more traction if they know the exact demographic someone is one. They might indeed do so but it's still in the same realm. The goal is to sway someone's purchase decision when that someone is at a store and has to decide ten different otherwise identical whats-its. The smallest prejudice you can insert will be worth a lot to you here.

But the Google model is the opposite - informational advertising. The model of offering an honest argument for a product that the person is actively seeking.

A Facebook ad is essentially about hijacking attention. Hoping you'll get some free-floating interest from someone who isn't otherwise thinking about your offer.

A web page gets you the chance to make your case to those who are interested in your case. What _objectively_ makes your service better.

Does a cleaning service want barbers? It wants customer in the million-person city of St. Louis but that's a big group. It mostly wants anyone who actually needs a cleaning service. And then there are a lot of things to say but this basic is pretty simple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The game is on! Please place your bets!

So now we see who is the real powerhouse and if the Facebook is the Google killer hype lives up to its expectations.

I place my bet on Google, I also see in my crystal ball that Zuckenberg is going to do something so stupid and greedy that he will shadow Rupert Murdoch. And I also divine that this will happen in next 5 years. By 2016 you will see headlines: Facebook is dead, Larry Page reads obituary. Stock options worthless.

<comment><USER2> Hardly. Google can lose this battle without dying. Facebook can't.

Two determined opponents are about to do battle... both are composed of very smart and motivated people. One side gets slaughtered if they lose, the other side just has to walk back home and continue to enjoy their current lifestyle. Are you sure you're betting on the right side?

<comment><USER8> That's the old argument: Rabbits are faster than foxes because rabbits are running for their lives, while foxes are only running for their dinner. For the sake of an interesting discussion, I would like to point out a flaw in applying this logic to FB vs. Google.

The dinner/life argument is true when we observe creatures that have co- evolved over a long period of time to reach an equilibrium of sorts in an ecological niche. Foxes catch some rabbits, but not enough to wipe them out, and not so few that foxes starve.

However, along the way there may have been other predators that starved to death because they couldn't catch any rabbits. And other prey animals that couldn't run fast enough and were wiped out. If we travel to a new ecological niche like a volcanic island that has risen from the sea, and there we observe one fox chasing a rabbit, it isn't a safe bet that the rabbit will escape the fox. We don't have evidence that foxes and rabbits are in equilibrium on that island, with both species able to eat enough and live long enough to reliably produce offspring.

Looking at Facebook and Google, we are not talking about the business equivalent of evolutionary time, and we are not talking about whole classes of businesses. Even though Facebook is running for its life, Google can easily wipe them out, just as on our volcanic island, one fox might easily eat one or for that matter all rabbits.

Footnote for the curious: [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ilha_da_Queim...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ilha_da_Queimada_Grande)

<comment><USER9> Facebook is more like a wolverine than a docile rabbit. Google is a bear; much bigger and should be more capable, but the wolverine is 10x more violent and will easily back it down in a fight over the salmon. The wolverine is quick, fearless and single-minded ( "eat!" ) while the bear is large, slow, probably well fed, and therefore isn't nearly as tenacious. With _that_ analogy, who you should bet on is clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, who has any experience with one of the allowed Ad Providers[1]? I visited a couple of sites from that list, but most of them don't offer _any_ information of what their rates are, how you get paid (per impression vs. per click) or what their ads look like (I don't want overly distracting, blinking ad banners). That is, without signing up first.

Finding a good ad provider seems to be exceedingly difficult :/

[1] <http://developers.facebook.com/adproviders/>

<comment><USER11> Interesting to me that none of the premier CPA networks made the list.

It's completely true that most of these networks run offers that are the 2nd tier "enlargement" and "weight loss" fare -- that sort of thing is probably 75% of their available offers and 99% of their revenue. But a good pub on a top CPA network can make a lot more money than a good pub using Adsense.

<comment><USER12> I'm interested in looking at some CPA networks for an upcoming project. Would you mind listing who you consider the top CPA networks?

<comment><USER13> Adzoogle, Neverblue - but they'll deny your application if you don't have serious publishing experience. I'm making an assumption that if you don't even know their names you're not going to have enough experience to get approved.

Your best bet for finding someone who is big enough to have offers, but not so that they turn people down. Try Commission Junction for a proper 'place CPA banner Ad' type setup.

They'll (probably) have you.

Once you're reliably making a few hundred to a few thousand a month, then you'll be able to waltz in to Adzoogle and any other affiliate network you want. As it turns out though, a lot of the smaller 'niche markets' are as good or better than the big guys.

Maybe sign up for offervault to get the names networks you want to apply to based on the offers that they carry.

<comment><USER14> Can you recommend any particular 'niches'? e-cigarettes?

<comment><USER13> I can't recommend niches for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I strongly believe that all of the niches you can find make money. Seriously, you see the same ones on every affiliate site and if they didn't work, they wouldn't keep putting them up there.

If you believe in e-cigarettes, if you believe that through whatever channels you try for you can reach smokers who would like to try e-cigarettes, and you believe you can get enough 'buyers' to make your spend profitable (eg: $20 on ads and $30 in sales) ... then e-cigarettes are the niche for you.

Well, within reason - you've then got to turn your faith into facts via testing.

Second, because I'm only in the very early stages of my affiliate marketing 'career' - I have a lot of background experience from working around brilliant world-class affiliate marketers, but the devil is in the details. I'm not yet confident that I know the niches to move into if I gave you advice I could be steering you down the wrong path (every niche makes money, just got to figure out how).

Your best bet to have real experts teaching you the answers on where & how to get started is probably something like warrior forums.

Also, check out Mike Colella on mixergy <http://mixergy.com/mike-colella- adbeat-interview>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder what would happen if google dropped facebook from their search results in retaliation. At least for tech-savvy users it won't pose a problem, but for the rest it will cause major problems (e.g. the RWW article). Will it be legal though?

<comment><USER2> Google can't do that. They'd get sued under anti-trust laws for serious money.

Edit: Seriously. Tweaking your search algorithms to the detriment of some providers and to the benefit of others is one thing (that Google does now, and which they won't be sued for). Deliberately removing a direct competitor with as high a profile (and deep pockets) as Facebook is a different kettle of fish.

Google owns 84% of the search market _globally_ ([http://marketshare.hitslink.com/search-engine-market- share.a...](http://marketshare.hitslink.com/search-engine-market- share.aspx?qprid=4)). That is considered a monopoly as far as Anti-Trust laws are concerned.

<comment><USER16> A company the size of Google isn't afraid of a lawsuit, nor has it been established that the _search market_ is something those laws apply to; Google has plenty of room to do whatever they want with their search results including banning Facebook. They can say the same thing Facebook did, they're our competitors and they're stealing our customers.

<comment><USER17> I'd argue that Google would be terribly afraid of a lawsuit that might establish that the search market is something those laws apply to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I see an arbitrage opportunity! Create ad company, get into facebook list, backfill with Google ads.

</comment><comment><USER19> All Google have to do is agree to these terms:

<http://developers.facebook.com/ad_provider_terms/>

Should be a piece of cake. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> quote: "... upon request, the Advertising Provider agrees to provide Facebook the names of and contact information for any employees and/or contractors "

may not be so easy

<comment><USER3> Facebook and Google just need to talk. Might be a holler over the fence, but their rift is spreading far and wide. Yes, they are both growing powers on the internet, but for the sake of users and developers alike they need to settle some of their differences. I wouldn't be surprised if this 'contract' move was partly inspired to be able to block Adsense. If so, this is one of the oldest tricks in the book: forcing everyone to agree to something Google can't. Or it was the legal department going overboard.

<comment><USER20> I don't think it would be good for developers for Google and Facebook to settle their differences. The last thing we need is the internet in the hands of a giant cartel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I know i might get downvoted. But, how is this different from places that show a sign saying "no outside drinks or food"? It's not like fb has a monopoly advantage in anything. On the other hand, google has a near monopoly in online ads. This might be a good thing for smaller ads companies.

<comment><USER22> Eh, the sign isn't "no outside drinks or food" -- it's basically "all outside drinks and food welcomed, except Coke. We friggin hate Coke."

<comment><USER23> And would you really be surprised to see a sign like that in Pepsi's cafeteria?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think this is pretty bad form on both sides.

On Facebook's part, they shouldn't be using a "certification process" to try and exclude competitors from making money from their app ecosystem. From what I can tell, the developers trying to make a living creating apps and even the Facebook platform itself can ill afford this sort of disruption right now. This sort of action will hurt the developers who invested in your platform the most.

On the Google side, they should be thinking about how to structure some sort of revshare agreement to help app developers get back to using Adsense and getting on the list of networks blessed for Connect sites.

Concerning arbitrary and unexplained actions, participating in Adsense alone will get you subject to more than a few of them. Consider what will happen to you as a publisher if you share your eCPM or a screenshot of your Adsense account.

And the same thing with advertisers when they have their creatives pulled for no apparent reason.

In other words, both sides use bully tactics when it suits them, and in this case, a peace treaty would probably be more mutually profitable than a prolonged slugfest.

But it's not like corporate egos haven't fueled destructive behavior before...

</comment><comment><USER25> With the google app store coming into effect with html5 games(and apps), those game creators on fb maybe lured or tempted into trying their games in a new segment. I for one use facebook less and less. Purely as a place to go when I want to communicate with a friend who likes fbmail over email.

</comment><comment><USER26> Warning: rant ahead (pet topic)

When HTML came out, it was purely academic. People said sure, it's cool, but how could you ever make money from just text with pictures and little links?

Now we have the answer: you create content -- text, video, pictures, games, etc -- that actively interacts with the user. Then, if you're smart, you make it so they have to "visit" your site to see this content, and, once there, they can only see whatever you choose. It's called a walled garden. All is beauty and loveliness. As long as you stay within the walls and don't piss off the gardener.

But this idea of "visiting" a site is only there because people type some text into a navigation bar and the browser loads material from a certain server. There's no reason or law that says I have to type in an address -- or that once I type in an address I am limited to seeing things from one server only. There's not even a reason I should see the information in some certain format or another. Why not type in "weather" and see various weather forecasts put out by various sources? After all, I want weather, not Joe's weather or Amit's weather. With all due respect to Joe and Amit, weather is weather.

Google is already doing this, of course, but only as a gateway. And they've got their own walled garden they're working on. Play by the rules and you'll appear on Google -- exactly where we want and alongside ads we feel are relevant to your page (and ads we make money from)

But what if you took the "location" idea completely away from HTML? Then you wouldn't be "visiting" anybody's site, and there wouldn't be any gardens to build. What if you simply interacted semantically with your computer and it gathered information from various sources and condensed it into plain text for you to consume? Gone would be "site stickiness", "addictive gaming", and "landing pages" and all sorts of other nonsense that's grown up around the idea of internet locations.

You could still consume multimedia and interactive material, of course, but only under terms you set, not terms the various site owners set. Perhaps you would want no ads, or no hyperlinks, or a time limit each day that would be acceptable for you to play games.

This puts the user back in control of their internet activities, the way it should be. It destroys many business models, but the internet is data-based, and it must evolve. I do not want the same internet in 2050 as we have now. It also gets back to the true meaning of HTML -- separating the data from the presentation. The designers of HTML realized that the purpose was structuring the data so that it relevantly linked, not creating a walled amusement park in the form of Facebook.

The curating and presentation of data is inherently a personal matter and best not left to others. We either fix this problem or it will continue to get worse, as recent events keep showing.

<comment><USER27> I read over this twice and couldn't understand what is being said. Can someone explain what is being said here?

<comment><USER26> Facebook screws over developers because they can. Expect more of it. From lots of other vendors.

The reason they screw developers and consumers over is because of the way we access the internet, using a browser, an URL, and a single-site "visit" metaphor. We are programmers, though. We are free to redefine how we access the internet any time we like. We have created our own prison.

We can do better than this.

<comment><USER20> I agree with you that this doesn't seem to be leading us towards a great utopia.

The problem isn't just programmers creating their own prison though - it's about business models. How do we create this seamless brand-free info sphere and still get paid?

<comment><USER26> I agree it is a tough question.

But it is a different question than "how did we get here?" which is the question I answered.

If we don't know how we got here, or what the nature of the problem is, how can we ever expect to solve it?

<comment><USER20> History is a slippery beast. We only understand the past in terms of what we know in the present. To change the future, we have to build it now. If we spend our time trying understand the past before we act, time will have moved on without us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This will not end well.

</comment><comment><USER29> Google also recently removed Facebook contacts from Android with the Gingerbread 2.3.3 update. Facebook had an exemption up to that point where they played by different rules with regards to how/where contacts are stored when syncing contacts using the Facebook app. It will be interesting to see how this back and forth goes.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's simple all the money passes through Google; they don't have any control. Now they want to see or even collect some of that money; they want control.

Result, an army of angry developers, Google loses a lot of clients, a war has begun between two of the biggest web companies.

</comment><comment><USER31> Any official announcement? I feel that Google don't like that their ads are displayed the way most of the Facebook app developers do (with many other ads, driving people to click and very low CPC).

</comment><comment><USER32> Wait - I must be the only one who doesn't "get it": what does AdSense have to do with Facebook? Can someone explain how AdSense and Facebook advertising worked before The List?

<comment><USER2> You could have AdSense ads in your Facebook apps. Now you can't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Any good experiences with the providers listed?

<http://developers.facebook.com/adproviders/>

</comment><comment><USER34> The real question is, does this include websites that simply USE facebook APIs?

If so, it would be extremely uncompetitive :)

<comment><USER35> No it doesn't include them. It only applies to apps on Facebook.com. Also known as canvas apps or iframe apps. Connect apps also known as Facebook for Websites are still free to use AdSense...which is why I converted my app to be a Facebook for Websites app this week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> If facebook is going to ban google, it should provide its own revenue possibility for its app dev's.

</comment><comment><USER37> It is facebook. What would you expect? It is the same thing if Google didn't allowed facebook in their search results. Both "own" a monopoly and shouldn't be allowed to do such things.

<comment><USER38> It's not the same. Facebook is a social networking site. Google advertises to be a single stop indexer of all web sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Poor Google, using up their favors at the DOJ to go after MPEG-LA, when this is a more direct threat to their business, and also more likely to bear fruit in an antitrust probe.

</comment><comment><USER40> You guys realize the linked forum thread is from all the way back in 2008? :-)

<comment><USER41> The "drop dead" date for prohibiting AdSense was not in 2008, it was on 2/28/2011.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Facebook lets you use the fruit of their labor for free. Then they do something to encourage revenue growth. But you're free to opt out (you don't have to make a Facebook app, or page, or place ads there, etc.) One may not like it but it's well within their rights to do it. Beggars can't be choosers. And vote with your feet. (And believe me I've hated some of Apple's walled garden decisions too, and yes I'm already voting with my feet there: more webapp-centric and, to lesser extent, Android.)

</comment><comment><USER43> More information: [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-lists- official-a...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-lists-official-ad- providers-google-microsoft-missing/420)

</comment><comment><USER44> There goes the business plan for the 4 "businesses" so far this year that have asked me to build their website that's going to compete with Facebook. That's a shame. They all seemed so talented. </sarcasm></comment>


Ask HN: How can a programmer optimize learning after getting a job? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for my first programming job. I've just finished a coding bootcamp and have spent some time teaching myself (I'm currently studying algorithms).
When you're in school, the answer to "how do you learn as much as possible" is pretty straightforward - study hard, study smart, take hard classes etc. But I sense that the answer becomes different once you're not a student anymore.
* I sense that what you work on has a lot to do with how much you learn. If true, how do you end up in an environment where you're learning a lot?
* I sense that who you're around has a lot to do with how much you learn (because of guidance and mentorship). How do you end up in an environment where you're surrounded by the right people?
* Is it a good idea for more experienced programmers to still take classes? Read books? Etc.
* What are the skills worth having? Is it worth learning all the different frameworks? Being familiar with different levels of abstraction (hardware, architecture, systems level, scripting level...)? Drilling math and logic?
* Are there other disciplines that are particularly worth learning? I know PG talks about Art vs. Programming.
In general, how can a programmer learn as much as possible? And a related but tangential question, if you're a good programmer, how did you get good? <comment><USER2> Right off the bat, with honesty based on what I have lived through already, people who are smart and experienced enough to offer mentorship usually find "pupils" who have already reached a certain level on their own. So trying to surround yourself with "the right people" before gaining enough experience to offer insightful feedback to your peers is truly like expecting a venture capitalist to invest in your business when you possess no real business plan to maximize their return over investment.

With that said, keep yourself efficiently informed. Read quick bits of information to maintain a broad image of what's trending in the fields you are interested in. Twitter, Quora, LinkedIn articles are all great places to get just enough to keep yourself up-to-date.

Find what makes you truly passionate. At any given time there will be 20 or 30 emerging technologies which will claim and convince many that they're the next big thing. So instead of trying to bloat-up your resume with every trendy set of acronyms you can find, focus on the few that really resonate with your programming personality. This will increase the quality of the learning you are able to squeeze between (or even during) office hours.

In that same line of thought, keep your peers, and especially your superiors, in the loop of what makes you passionate. Once you find the next big thing which interests you, make a presentation and share the knowledge. This will not only guarantee that you'll place yourself in a spot where opportunities will multiply to work with the tools you like best, but, to make sure you're truly prepared for thorough questioning, it'll also force you to truly sharpen your knowledge and go that extra mile when digging through the docs and teaching yourself.

</comment><comment><USER3>
      * I sense that what you work on has a lot to do with how much you learn. If true, how do you end up in an environment where you're learning a lot?

Ask during your interview! If a company has a culture of learning, they'll usually be very upfront about it.

      * I sense that who you're around has a lot to do with how much you learn (because of guidance and mentorship). How do you end up in an environment where you're surrounded by the right people?

Again, you'll have to scope this out during your interview. It's definitely true that you need good teammates in addition to a culture supportive of learning.

      * Is it a good idea for more experienced programmers to still take classes? Read books? Etc.

Definitely. I find that I read more programming books now than when I started learning. The big difference is that I'm reading to learn about new concepts and ideas, rather than "how does this piece of syntax work."

      * What are the skills worth having? Is it worth learning all the different frameworks? Being familiar with different levels of abstraction (hardware, architecture, systems level, scripting level...)? Drilling math and logic?

There's value in everything you listed, but becoming proficient in all of them is a life-long task. Find what interests you and focus on it!

      In general, how can a programmer learn as much as possible?

The key is to spend every waking minute programming.

      And a related but tangential question, if you're a good programmer, how did you get good?

Wrote a lot of code, and constantly critiqued everything from the code I wrote to the tools and processes I used.

<comment><USER4> All good advice.

> Find what interests you and focus on it!

There are different ways to interpret this. I think most people think of programming related technologies.

But remember, software runs almost everything. Which means that, with your programming skills, you can work in almost any industry that uses software.

So besides thinking about what about programming interests you, think about what in the world interests you. I've been fortunate to work in: shipbuilding, airliner manufacturing, , telecommunications, finance, web development and medical device manufacturing.

Besides the programming technologies, the subject matter is usually at least as interesting, if not more.

It was really cool walking under 747s to get to my office.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Learning after school is self-study. Don't expect anyone (even a mentor) to teach you what you need to know.

Every job comes with different challenges and requires learning new things. You'll spend the first few years getting comfortable with the technical side of things. When the business side becomes a more important/bigger challenge than the programming side; that's when you know you're a developer.

My advice is this: identify role models in the fields/technologies you are interested in and follow them. Try to find someone who is more passionate about what you do than you (i.e. someone doing the same things as you but is better than you) and learn all you can.

One of the books I can highly recommend is Evan's Domain Driven Design, it makes it easier to reason abstractly about business.</comment>


Pull down menu - <AUTHOR> http://codepen.io/fbrz/pen/bNdMwZ

<comment><USER2> Wow this is a really interesting style of navigation. I honestly have never seen this befor, well done!

I really like how smooth transitions are. Also, the action of dragging down to match your menu item is very "fun" for the user. Overall a wonderful UI to use.

Are you planning on using this for a project or just playing around?

<comment><USER2> P.S. I was admiring your pen before you put it up on HN, small world!</comment></comment>


Super Mario Bros. Programmed into Super Mario World via Glitch - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czKHg5lmwsw

<comment><USER2> Heh, I watched this live during AGDQ, it was absolutely amazing.</comment>


Ask HN: 4-Lua JVM implementations, which is best? - johnx123-up

1. Kahlua, a Lua Implementation for Java https://github.com/krka/kahlua2 (Old http://code.google.com/p/kahlua/ ) 2. anlua, App Engine Lua, now featuring GAE and NGINX hosts https://bitbucket.org/xixs/anlua (Old http://code.google.com/p/aelua/ )  BootStrApp http://boot-str.appspot.com/ , wiki engine with mods using aelua 3. Jill is an implementation of the Lua language, in pure Java http://code.google.com/p/jillcode/ 4. Luaj, unique direct lua-to-java-bytecode compiling http://sourceforge.net/projects/luaj/
Which is best and why? <comment><AUTHOR> I had the same question. Any results?</comment>


Show HN: Share wishlists with your family - <AUTHOR> http://gifts.housejeffries.com/

<comment><USER2> Cool! I knew I wasn't the only one out there with this need. I wrote something similar over 10 years ago in old school PHP. I rewrote it recently enough for similar reasons as you (practice project). Mine is over at <http://www.gifttracker.net/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Very nice. What made you decide to go with the no-password option? I've never actually seen that before and it's pretty wild. Is there anything stopping someone from logging into your account?

<comment><USER2> The main reason was the sharing mechanism. When you share your list with someone, you can type in their email even if they don't have a Gift Tracker account. What will then happen is an account will be created for them with no password. When they end up following through on the share link and viewing the list, they'll be using their newly created account.

Near the top of the page, a message will appear suggesting that they lock down their account with a password.

So to answer your question, nothing but knowing the user's email address stops someone from logging into their account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Maybe I'm just slow, but what is the advantage of this over Amazon Universal Wishlist?

<comment><USER4> 1) People can comment on items allowing, among other things, people to co- ordinate sharing buying large presents and alerting people they've got an alternative but similar item. Both of these would be useful for me and my family.

2) You can create a group of your family/friends, giving everyone a single place to look for multiple people's lists.

Whether that's enough of an advantage to negate the ease of purchasing and trust with Amazon Universal Wishlist I'm not sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You might want to keep the buttons at the bottom of the object they modify (for example on the 'update my list' page). That would make it more consistent on mobile or space constrained displays. It's also more common practice.

</comment><comment><USER4> There doesn't appear to be any "Forgot my password" option.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I need to add one. Thanks.</comment></comment>


My 3 Essential Podcasts - <AUTHOR> https://danielmiessler.com/blog/3-essential-podcasts/ <comment><USER2> Hey thanks for the list. Have you tried the Darknet Diaries podcast? Wondering what you think of it.</comment>