Hacking Kids - Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://www.eytanlevit.com/post/32391027251/hacking-kids-part-1 <comment><USER3> To anyone who is not a parent reading this, please note that not everyone's experience of parenthood is blissful. The first few years of fatherhood were, for me, the unhappiest of my life.

Don't get me wrong - I've always loved my kids, but the physical and emotional demands they put on you, and the relentlessness of those demands, are impossible to understand from the outside. My youngest was almost two before she slept through a full night, and the constant exhaustion had a profound effect on my relationship with my wife, on our sex life, on my health, on my whole outlook on life.

Children are not experiments, they are actual really real people who will live in your house with you for 18 years or more. You will love them, yes, and hopefully they'll love you, but if you think love circumvents everyday practical difficulties then you've never experienced it.

New parents - please PLEASE don't only listen to stories of how amazing parenthood is, or you may get the shock of your life (as I did)

(FWIW my youngest is 4 now, and I'm probably the happiest I've ever been - <USER2> who knows what teenage years will bring)

<comment><USER4> That you. I am constantly annoyed that most parents aren't honest about how much babies suck.

Even after they have admitted that they basically killed their own children by beating them to death they will still claim that they are good parents and absolutely love their children.

Please don't get kids and treat them as an experiment. Don't get children, at all, unless you have spend significant time with kids and are completely sure about that you want children and have been so for years (not as in eventually, but as in right now).

And don't get them to "save the marriage". That you can even consider that as an idea shows that you are unfit to be a parent.

<comment><USER5> Babies are exhausting--except as regards nourishment I wouldn't use the expression "suck".

'And don't get them to "save the marriage". That you can even consider that as an idea shows that you are unfit to be a parent.'

There I agree with you--it seems a splendid way to start with 2 unhappy people and end up with more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great post! As a father of a 2.7 yo and a 1.3 yo, I agree with your points and would add the following (among others):

\- Having kids makes you a better communicator generally. It's easy to get frustrated with kids and adults when they don't do what you say. Having kids makes you realize that you need to look at yourself first. Repetition matters. Consistency matters. Being the best example of what you want them to be matters. Having high expectations and then doing your part in helping them get there matters. And so on. The maturity that comes with these realizations make you so much more effective in other ways as a communicator.

\- Having kids makes you INCREDIBLY efficient. After I had kids, I decided to be home by 6.30p every day with my mind cleared and ready for my family. Per Parkinson's law ("work expands to fill the time you give it"), I figured any level of success can be had while meeting that constraint, provided you (and your environment--a big factor) prioritize accordingly. So I've become incredibly efficient. Once I made efficiency a priority, I realize that improving my thinking was a necessary step. Among other things, I started meditating as a way to improve mental clarity and the ability to switch efficiently between tasks. It's had a huge impact on my life in ways beyond what I intended. I now do more things than I did before I had kids and wonder what I did with all the time I had before I had kids!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great points, totally agree.

Regarding the meditation, it's really interesting - could you tell a bit more about how it has helped you, do you do it every day, how long, what exact meditation technique and where did you learn it?

<comment><USER6> I've just found my thinking to be much clearer. Meditation is essentially practice in awareness: awareness of your thoughts, awareness of your focus, awareness of your emotions. It doesn't mean being able to ignore or eliminate them, just becoming aware of them and reacting accordingly.

Ideally, I'd like to do it twice a day for 20 mins each, but right now at least I average every other day or so for 20 minutes after the kids are asleep.

I first heard about it when reading stuff by Ray Dalio, founder of the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates. He called it the best return on investment he ever made so that piqued my curiosity.

There's a great online resource at [http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books- articles/medita...](http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books- articles/meditation-instruction/)

There are a couple of different types of techniques that seem to be variations of each. Transcendental Meditation is possibly the most famous (or notorious). It's expensive and has a "secretive" air to it.

Sara Lazar, who does research on the effect of meditation on the brain, was really helpful. Check out her talk here: <http://www.tedxcambridge.com/thrive/sara-lazar/>

She recommended a few places that eventually led me to the Insight Meditation Center.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> [WARNING - sorry if this is considered trollish - this is my own analysis, where I try to consider the general issue without giving in to emotions]

I am concerned that the positive outlook is given and shared ( and commented here on HN) by persons who describe themselves as parents.

Besides the potential biais due to social pressure (not liking kids is socially throwned upon, which might favor expressing a positive opinion and keeping quiet about a negative opinion) I wonder how much of this is about sunk costs?

I mean, when you have a child, it's a sunk cost - you can't get rid of it (putting a child to adoption is also socially throwned upon) or decide it would have been better to do without one, so you try and get the best of it.

[Even considering this, you will have to take care of it for 18 years (legally) and then add financial costs for the child college/university etc.]

Considering most couple stick with a limited number of kids, the marginal return seems to decrease.

But given the social pressure to a) like children and b) do not put children into adoption, maybe we are not just looking at marginal returns, but at what the real decision should be when sunk costs are removed.

The fact, noted by other posters, that kid makes you efficient is at least doubtful. Maybe you will be more efficient for the time spent at work, but if you spend much less time that your "improved" efficiency factor, as most parents seem to like spending time with kids, you are overall less efficient.

<comment><USER8> In my experience, kids do make you 2x-3x more efficient, at least. You can only do so much real work in a day and you're forced to move that work into a smaller time interval. However, your mileage may vary.

I think the positive outlook given my parents simply stems from the fact that they wouldn't make a different decision if they had to do it all over again, even if it was a giant pain in the ass. It's less of an unconcious aversion to admitting mistakes and more that, after all is said and done, they would rather have their child (and the memories of them) than to spend 18 more years being childless. Childlessness is fun but it does lose novelty, and some things are worth it even though they can be hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've got 4 kids, from 14 to 5, and have always treated it as a "grand experiment". We've made some decisions that are a bit "outside the norm" - mostly the choice to home educate. It's been scary, but seeing the results as the oldest enters adulthood is fascinating, awesome, and rewarding.

<comment><USER10> Why did you decide to home educate, and who is doing it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thanks for sharing!

I'm curious about your experience running your own early stage startup and raising kids at the same time. (I was also inspired after meeting with Joel to start blogging!)

When did you start YouSites, was it before or after having kids? What was the reason behind that decision? As an entrepreneur and a new parent, what experiences have been most rewarding, and what would you have done differently?

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm a new father (4 weeks). From the pregnancy, to the delivery, to the first smile, to the every morning warmly feeling of having created life with my love one, it is all about love and sincerity. We are already thinking about a second one...

<comment><USER8> I hate to say this, but the first month or so is a honeymoon period when the baby is unusually quiet, sleepy, and peaceful. Maximum sleep deprivation probably kicks in at around three months. Also, any smiles you see at this age are involuntary and not social. Mark my words: it will get much harder.

<comment><USER13> Just about to hit 3 months, I thought it was supposed to get better by now!

<comment><USER8> From personal experience, it gets good at around six months, and even better just before a year. Judging by the number of siblings I see spaced 18 months apart, I think others agree.

However, there is another difficult period around 2-3 where they rebel against your authority, and it is a constant battle to reassert control. On one hand, they have more motivation, more time, more energy, and fewer distractions. On the other hand, it's usually 2 vs. 1, and you control the food and entertainment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "it's better to regret something you did than something you didn't do"

Isn't that line from Satan, by Orbital?

<comment><AUTHOR> I heard it first when I was 16, listening to Red Hot Chilli Peppers song called Deep Kick

Song: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjj6ZnTAeUA> Lyrics: [http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Deep-Kick-lyrics- Red-...](http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Deep-Kick-lyrics-Red-Hot- Chili-Peppers/73A75D885E02B2BB48256A100012726C)

I remember... 10 years ago in Hollywood We did some good and we did some real bad stuff but the Butthole Surfers said It's better to regret something you did Than something you didn't do</comment></comment>


Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP - <AUTHOR> http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/the-gdel-letter/ <comment><USER2> I like the personal touch you see in these old letters. It'd be nice to see more technical blog posts/comments these days that open with a paragraph asking after the recipient's health, and close with sincere best wishes and congratulations for a recent success.

<comment><USER3> That would only make the use of TL;DR more appropriate.

Blog posts are rarely targeted at an individual, and those that are are often written in a confrontational or sarcastic tone.

<comment><USER2> That's a fair point-- and exactly what I'm talking about.

This idea that it's a waste of time to write or read anything nice about someone else is a cancer on our community.

<comment><USER3> Considering the quality of the average blog post, this would only serve to decrease the signal to noise ratio, especially when what is actually the meat of many posts are already so devoid of useful content.

I notice that you didn't start your response with concern about my health nor wished me well on my future endeavors in your sign off.

<comment><USER4> This thread seems possessed of an almost Gödelian self-referentiality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I liked this very much. A letter between two of the towering intellects of the modern age that is still so accessible and packed with information puts all those fucking content-free PowerPoint info sinks right in their goddamned place.

I also appreciated that it wasn't walled off in scribd or something. I was able to, you know, read the text in a relaxing and "natural" manner.

</comment><comment><USER6> This sounds to me like what we now call the Busy Beaver problem. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busy_beaver>

<comment><USER7> It's not. Godel is asking, what's the fastest program that can tell if a (first order predicate logic) formula is provable?

Maybe you were confused by the 'max', but what he's doing is defining the complexity of the prover by the hardest (max computational time) formula instance for each length n. You still try to handle that maximum difficulty case as efficiently as possible, it just happens to take the longest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For what it's worth, Lipton writes an excellent blog. It had very good coverage of the Deolalikar P=NP question, and continues to be interested even to those of us without a theoretical computer science background. Well worth adding to your RSS.</comment>


Ask HN: How would you start an online marketplace? - <AUTHOR>

I love HN for its great community. Therefore I want to ask about your experiences how to start a online marketplace. The development is done, so we want to start with the marketing channel. We like to pitch craftsmen in one single city. How would you do this? What channel would you use? In my opinion it is difficult to use adwords or fb because the owner of those small business don't use it. So we are still thinking about which primary channel we shall use. In my opinion direct mailing via postal service is the only way. What do you think? Thank you. <comment><USER2> Go and visit them. If you look at any of the bigger marketplaces or on demand apps in the market at the moment, most of them started by getting a few people signed up on the demand side. They did that by physically going out and talking to them, demoing the product, explaining why it works, what the benefits are and frequently physically taking them through the signup process. If you do a bit of relationship building with your supply side providers, you'll be amazed at the results. Assuming your idea is good, has demand and is easy to use, those service providers you talk to will be some of your biggest advocates. They'll talk to their colleagues and friends in the industry and hopefully tell your story on your behalf. You effectively want to create advocates on the supply side. Also, that personal relationship will allow you to get invaluable feedback that you frequently wouldn't have thought of.

I've just invested in a marketplace in the Middle East. Our product is almost ready for beta. We've been out talking to the people who will be our service providers for the last month (and we probably won't launch for another month), showing them screenshots, talking to them about what they need and what would help them and generally gauging interesting and getting numbers signed up. We've had some amazing feedback and have introduced a few small features into the apps on the basis of the most common pieces of feedback.

Go out and talk to people. Hit the bricks. I guarantee you the results will be immeasurably better than direct mail, adwords or anything else in the early stages.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points, thank you. You are right, it is good to go and visit our clients in order to better understand and fulfill their needs. Is it appropriate to call those companies to introduce ourself?</comment></comment>


Apple re-designs Microsoft logo (Icon re-design) - <AUTHOR> http://www.cultofmac.com/391167/check-out-the-new-microsoft-windows-logo-designed-by-apple/ <comment><USER2> I wonder if Apple just didn't have the rights to use Microsoft's logo; that's often a legal gray area. This clearly isn't a "redesign".</comment>


Google-caja - Project Hosting on Google Code - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/google-caja/ <comment><USER2> The demo page locked up FF 3.6 on Snow Leopard. I would avoid that page.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not sure what this is. Any thoughts?</comment>


Studies about human perception - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kennelliott/39-studies-about-human-perception-in-30-minutes-4728f9e31a73 <comment><USER2> Worth a read -- there are some unexpected results (e.g. that pie charts might not be evil after all, but rather preferred in some situations). Also gems like "Two of these studies individually reject Tufte's popular "high data-to- ink ratio" philosophy."

<comment><USER3> I almost skipped reading this article because from the headline I wasnt sure what it was about. Your post inspired me to read it and since I design I found some of the information helpful. Thanks for your comment!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I gave up after the 2nd paragraph:

Clearly I have learned everything there is to know about how humans perceive data graphics in preparation for this talk. Literally everything. But I couldn't possibly fit it all into 30 minutes. So for your sake, let's just refer to this talk as "39 studies on human perception in 30 minutes."

<comment><USER5> why? i thought it was a joke.</comment></comment>


Most frequent how-tos we search for - <AUTHOR> http://how-to-fix-a-toilet.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Title from: [https://flowingdata.com/2017/09/04/most-frequent-how-tos- we-...](https://flowingdata.com/2017/09/04/most-frequent-how-tos-we-search- for/)</comment>


Whatsapp - <AUTHOR>

Is it possible for someone who knows my mobile number to log into whatsapp with it? If yes, will my messages be loaded into their whatsapp?
Meaning if this person wants to spy on me and read my messages, its just as simple as downloading the app and inputing my mobile number and ta-da! Whatever msgs still on my app would be replicated in their app as well? Of course the contacts wouldnt be named as they wouldnt have the same contacts as me. Pls comment someone. Thanks <comment><USER2> Just try to hack someone messages and you'll know

I think that whatsapp retrieve your phone number thanks to your sim card or similar so I don't think that someone can hack your messages

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm..in order for me to hack into someones messages i would have to delete my account now then log in with someone else's number right? I dont really wanna do that cuz i need quite a few messages. Work stuff. Anyway, i dont think its linked to the sim cuz my bf has 2 sim cards; one british and one german. So when hes in germany he puts the german sim in his phone but when hes on whatsapp its logged on with him brit number.. I only have his brit number saved on my phone so yea we're chatting as usual.. Another thing is that i lost my phone a while ago and got a new sim with the same number. I had gotten a second hand phone and logged into whatsapp.. Guess what nearly all my previous messages from my lost phone got uploaded back. I was glad about it cuz i have some of my friend's numbers back but then this led me to wonder how easy it is for someone to do the same using my number and retrieve my messages! What do u think?</comment></comment>


MicroTugs - <AUTHOR> http://bdml.stanford.edu/Main/MicroTugs

<comment><USER2> I so want some gecko grip shoes :-) One of the more interesting (and practical) problems is rope climbing. Many large structures and spans start with a shooting a thread across a span, then pulling across a larger rope, then a still larger rope. I would love to see a rope bridging robot that could traverse gaps in that way.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's awesome. I assume a major, practical problem is the power source and how much work such a small robot can do before running out of energy.

<comment><USER4> One of their videos mentions the vertical climber with a full battery pack could operated for 100km, or carry a large solar panel with it for continuous operation.

<comment><USER5> 0.4Wh would equate to 17 m with 1 kg weight attached assuming perfect efficiency if my math is right. I would be surprised if it could do much more than 3 m.

<comment><USER6> I suspect they're talking about the unladen climbing distance, that would be a lot closer to the ballpark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Good, more companions for the finglonger and angry dome.</comment>


The Outrage about PRISM spying is wearing off already - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2043777/the-outrage-about-prism-spying-is-wearing-off-already.html <comment><USER2> This is from July 7th. Almost a month ago.

Maybe I suffer confirmation bias because I'm following the story, but it seems to be picking up steam to me. A few days ago, the US House of Representatives almost passed a law which would have curtailed the NSA's activities, and now we have the XKeyScore revelations which are still playing out.

From the release of the Pentagon papers, to Nixon's resignation, took three years. The incident which ultimately led to the president's resignation was a side issue, buried in the back pages of the A section, for most of that time.

I'm not sure if the US government is still capable of policing itself in that way. But however it plays out this isn't going to be over in a few weeks.

<comment><USER3> Failing to pass the law but coming close to passing the law means literally nothing. That is not a victory.

And have you talked to people outside of the Internet about it? _Plenty_ of people didn't ever care, and are now upset with Snowden for even having leaked what he did.

This is not going to "pick up steam" any more than it already has, short of non-spying related leaks (Obama killed a guy with his laser vision, for example).

<comment><USER2> I think you're being unnecessarily negative. I like the metaphor Wyden had: "The side of transparency and openness is starting to put some points on the board." All-or-nothing thinking is not helpful.

But you have a point. Snowden didn't come to the public with revelations about how these programs were persecuting anybody in particular. So the objections one might raise are more theoretical, about "turnkey tyranny", or that panoptic surveillance is itself an offense against the people. I have a feeling that if a more specific case came to light, it would change everything.

<comment><USER3> It's not all-or-nothing thinking re: failing to pass the law. A vote count's closeness has very very little to do with how close the outcome actually was. It literally means nothing that the vote count was so close.

I also don't think one case will do it. It'd have to be a trend (people literally snatched up in the night), a policy shift ( _all_ copyright abuse starts being enforced because now they have that data), or some kind of tragic action leading to the deaths (yes deaths) of people on US soil.

<comment><USER2> You may be right. But in my opinion it's not the severity of the action that's brought to light, it's who gets hurt. The elites of the US are usually fine with extraconstitutional shenanigans and human rights violations when they only affect foreigners, or relatively powerless people within the US.

When it affects the domestic balance of power, then you start to see elite consensus building against it, and the wheels of reform start turning. This is how a hotel break-in is more serious than a secret war in Indochina.

It's possible that US elites will perceive surveillance as a threat to themselves. If they don't, you're probably right and then everyone just gets used to it, and any reckoning is kicked down the road for a few more decades.

<comment><USER3> No one's actually _gotten_ hurt because of the NSA's surveillance, so that's the problem. All of these potential consequences are theoretical. We're trying to string the NSA up on what amounts to pre-crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is a follow up protest to Restore the 4th, 1984 Day, planned for this upcoming Sunday, August 4. If there is one being held near you, please consider attending. Keep checking if there isn't one nearby, as they have been adding a few more locations in the past day.

[http://1984day.com/](http://1984day.com/)

<comment><USER5> Do all of these rallies insist on using Facebook for organizing their privacy protests?

The irony is stunning.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I find it stupid as well. I have the Facebook domain blocked at the /etc/hosts level and generally won't go there, period.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's not surprising. The Zimmerman trial was an excellent distraction to get everyone's mind off of privacy and on to racial divisiveness. Now that the trial's long over, all that NSA stuff seems so distant in the memory of the average American. It was a brilliant move by the administration.

<comment><USER7> Are you saying the Obama administration set up the Zimmerman trial just to distract people from the NSA stuff?

<comment><USER8> No, the people who tell the Obama administration what to do, told the media to make a circus out of the case.

<comment><USER9> I can't tell if you actually believe this or if it's just sarcasm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am still outraged but I don't know what to do about it. I don't think the restore the 4th/1984 day stuff is the right way to go about it. That is a great way to spread a message but has about a 0% chance of shutting down the NSA etc...

This stuff has recently caused me to fall into a bit of depression because I feel totally helpless.

Does anyone else feel this way? What could we do?

<comment><USER11> The distressing part about all this is that there is, in fact, very little to be done about this. For now, the best thing anyone can do is to keep the issue from dying. Raise awareness. Find reliable data to back up claims against PRISM and XKeyscore (data of which, I'm sure there are respectable amounts). The more people know, the more can be done about the issue. Protests, speeches, walkouts, boycotts, and, should worse come to worse, riots can be organized. Maybe more people working on the projects can be convinced to defect or sabotage the project.

Just fight to keep this relevant.

<comment><USER10> Definitely.... However, I have been working to keeping this subject alive but at a certain point people don't want to hear it and even more disturbingly I've found that many people don't think that our government would really do something like that even after reading about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The way the average american thinks, if the police slowly came every other day and disappeared one of your neighbors, they'd shrug it off and say "oh well what can you do, we need to be safe".

Until it was their turn and there was no one to protest.

This is why we still have the TSA grabbing your genitals and the NSA grabbing everything else. "oh well what can you do, we need to be safe".

Meanwhile congresspeople would write in exemptions for themselves and figure out how to do insider trading to profit from the activity (btw, they gave themselves back the right to do the insider trading).

<comment><USER10> Whenever I fly I request a hand screening and it seems that more often than not the person screening me is more uncomfortable than I am. In the past I have literally walked a TSA employee through the procedure because he was to shy to touch me like he was "required" to.

It's not only passengers who struggle with this stuff but also the employees of the companies that require this kind of behavior.

<comment><USER13> I flew out of Newark twice last month, and both times I was the only person who requested a hand screening, and both times the TSA employee doing the screening just seemed pissed off with me for making them do it.

It does seem that sadly most people will just accept what ever ridiculous rules are forced upon them,

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I would right away move from Google, Microsoft, Apple, products if I had good alternatives.

Basically I do not use any Apple products, but Skype is the only Microsoft thing I use.

Duck Duck Go as search engine works, but still I like my personalized search results, they get me faster where I want to go. Though my search results should be secure and not spied upon. Duck Duck Go is also missing image search and some other problems like 25 Mb / 25 MB does not give me 0.125, but instead Provincial Trunk Highway 25, Brandon, Manitoba

Then comes the problem of phone operation systems. Ubuntu Unity, Firefox OS could be nice, but they are long way to come here. Only mobile operation system options for me are iOS, Android or that damn Windows currently.

It's pretty damn hard to stop using Facebook, Google+ or Twitter just for the reason of spying, because everyone of your friends is in one of them.

If I decide to stop using these systems where I can be spied upon I most likely will lose ability to contact most of my friends who are not technically skilled to use something like torchat or does not care that much to learn to use it.

If I leave these systems I can no longer easily inform my friends about the dangers of the systems they are using.

Thing is walled gardens are walled gardens and they are hard to compete with. Do I wait that people create better and secure services or go offline and never come back?

</comment><comment><USER15> Like any other outrage in the past few decades. We have become soft and there is nothing you can do about it. Instead of writing intellectual comments on the matter, we should go down the street, burn some tires, overthrow the government; stuff like that. Yet here I am,thinking that no one will be brave enough to initialize or follow me if I would. They made us soft and we obeyed. Don't tell me there is a civilized road to solving this because the stakes are way too high for anyone to turn in what we have become.

<comment><USER16> Americans don't know outrage. They've been trained from a young age to be apathetic and those that have the audacity to fight back have been systematically beaten down.

When's the last time they've had to mobilize the National Guard because there was a protest?

The entire American economy could collapse because of a giant banking scandal and people wouldn't even raise a fist in anger.

<comment><USER15> The best part being these downvotes only proving the point.

<comment><USER17> People aren't protesting because like the article says...they really don't care. NSA spying doesn't directly affect them in any tangible way, so there is no reason for the average person to be upset. If people were being physically yanked from their homes and interrogated related to NSA spying intel, then it might be a different story I believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> For the average citizen it's all about reward and risk. A large population of the US is middle class and the risk of being detained, alienated or whatnot is far greater than the reward of complete liberty. And besides the surface illusion of liberty seems to be doing an alright job anyways.

Now if the majority of US population sinks into poverty then the elite will have something to worry about. A far more likely scenario for the near future is that smaller countries become affected by citizen outrage, at which point they cut US political and economic influence out of their governments' decisions. You know how America imposes sanctions on Cuba? Well imagine that a large portion of the world imposes sanctions on the US. That might have some meaningful effect although an ongoing relationship with China alone might be enough to keep the US going for a while.

</comment><comment><USER19> Elected officials don't have a reason to action _any_ concern unless you're willing to change your vote over it (indeed, if _lots_ of people are willing to change _all their votes_ over it.)[1]

Something like PRISM doesn't even get the requisite majority support (well, it does for email, not for phone records), let alone high enough priority to make people vote for some third "privacy party" candidate in the next presidential election, or to vote out legislators based on their support for it. It doesn't stand a chance of being changed.

(except by a ruling that it breaches the 4th, which is rather unlikely, sadly.)

[1] example from the UK; leaving the EU (most people would say yes, but wouldn't change their vote over it). House of Lords reform, too. If we ever get a referendum on either, boom!

</comment><comment><USER20> Most people in the US probably assume that:

* the agencies performing surveillance by and large have good intentions

* surveillance has or will have no practical impact on their lives, because

* _they 're_ not doing anything wrong, so they're probably fine, and anyway

* they can't really do anything about it.

As for the first, it reminds me of this Onion article: "Smart, Qualified People Behind The Scenes Keeping America Safe: 'We Don't Exist'"[0]. We have ordinary people, people with flaws and cognitive biases. They're hyper- sensitized to threats, convinced we're all in imminent danger unless we institute mass surveillance For Our Own Good. This is essentially a flawed premise (the road to hell, etc).

The second is more or less correct. It makes no difference in one's daily life.

In the third, I chose the word "wrong" deliberately. Most people incorrectly assume they've not done anything _illegal_ , but most people don't have nefarious plans and therefore assume they've nothing to worry about.

The third is also more or less correct, but it's a flawed premise that you, personally, have to be able to do something about it.

I really think more people should be educated along the lines of "Don't Talk to the Cops"[1]. Even if you have no nefarious plans, the justice system's incentives are all aligned against you; they want convictions, not the truth. The adversarial nature of the system is predicated on you _not_ being thoughtlessly compliant.

[0]: [http://www.theonion.com/articles/smart-qualified-people- behi...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/smart-qualified-people-behind-the- scenes-keeping-a,17954/) [1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik).

edited: formatting. wish I knew how to do bulleted lists.

</comment><comment><USER21> i haven't lived in America long enough, I'm Asian. I lived in Australia for long enough to know what democracy feels like, at least on the surface.

But this incident is really something that I can't comprehend. What's happening to all those crouching potential heroes in American movies? The only hero I've seen so far is Snowden. Where have all those American brave cowboys gone? Where has the American dream gone? The dream of liberty, freedom, of a Fair country?

Haven't lived in America myself, but from the self-confident, open-minded Americans I met, from Hollywood movies, I just can't understand why people are kinda OK with this incident. Why are people so tolerant to such a pretty big lie.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think privacy is already gone. I remember Geraldo Rivera going on a "Privacy is gone forever" rant after 9/11, and I was ashamed to admit that I actually agreed with him.

</comment><comment><USER23> Not sure why this article has been flagged, but here's an anecdotal counterpoint. I run a public XMPP server listed on [1], and since the PRISM revelations the number of new user registrations has increased significantly. I've seen no sign so far of a downturn in new registrations.

[1] [http://xmpp.net/](http://xmpp.net/)

</comment><comment><USER24> _" There's some hard evidence that all this privacy stuff just doesn't alarm us all that much."_

I wish all these articles would stop the reinforcement of apathy in every spying article's opening paragraph. It sets the tone for the entire piece.

</comment><comment><USER25> Wow, what a crap article. I've got a more to-the-point headline, if Mr. Vaughan-Nichols has trouble coming up with another: "World Doesn't Stop On A Dime To Fix Problems: Must Mean Nobody Cares". Classic spin-down.

</comment><comment><USER26> Why is this surprising? This happens with every single item of news worth getting up in arms about. You are just seeing the receding area under the bell curve of social interest...

</comment><comment><USER27> Relax. The Party is everything, knows everything. There are no spies, only brave members of the inner committee doing their duty for the empire.

</comment><comment><USER28> FYI this entry was just still among the top 30 stories on HN and is currently listed at #169. Can somebody explain this please?

</comment><comment><USER29> *The Outrage in the USA about PRISM spying is wearing off already.

The rest of the world however..

</comment><comment><USER30> says "PC World" ...

</comment><comment><USER31> denial, anger, bargaining, depression, accpetance

</comment><comment><USER32> _" [...] the ten most searched terms, according to Google Trends, were: iOS7, PS4, Tim Tebow, Mac Pro, Kingdom Hearts, Miami Heat, IGN, Chad Johnson, NBA Playoffs, and the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference ( WWDC)."_

Probably the most important cause of this is the fact that the mass media are tightly controlled by a couple of extremely rich people. And they don't like change as they fear the loss of power. The current system works very much in their favor.

Free and unbiased media is the basis for democracy.

<comment><USER7> Another way to look at it would be to say that people care about things that directly affect them. The NSA stuff isn't something that really affects anyone's day-to-day life, whereas in the US there are just HUGE portions of the country that play PS4, watch sports, buy phones, etc. No conspiracy theory necessary.

<comment><USER32> > No conspiracy theory necessary.

This is a saddening statement. What I'm saying has nothing to do with conspiracy. (When I say "controlled by a couple of extremely rich people", "a couple" might even be "a few hundred", but that's still "a couple".)

<comment><USER33> You suggested that a few rich people control the media and tell people what to care about. That's pretty much the definition of conspiracy theory.

Alternate hypothesis: you're in a tiny minority of people who think the internet is really important. Like, foundation of society important, as opposed to a convenient place to buy shit and message your friends and look up the release date of the latest Madden game. Surveillance of the internet seems more important to you than it does to other people, and you can't understand why and have to resort to an explanation involving the shadowy elite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34>
      But do you really care? Or are you more like my dogs, who
      can be distracted at any moment by a rustling in the
      leaves. "Oh, look, a squirrel!" their alert little faces
      seem to say.

mmm hmm... Is all Stevens work this misdirected?

</comment><comment><USER35> The problem of centralization, and its solution:

[http://myownstream.com/blog#2011-05-21](http://myownstream.com/blog#2011-05-21)

</comment><comment><USER36> Outrage is useless. Protests won't stop shit. Did they stop the wars? Nope.

It's what you do with that situation is important.

I'd say an independent party should use privacy as an opportunity, a platform, name the responsible for the spying. Name the politicians who voted for it, name the judges to let it happen.

Another good thing that will come out of it is the awareness of the encryption. More people will start using it. Assuming NSA doesn't have a magical anti-crypto algorithms, and it's a pretty solid assumption, NSA can spend trillions of dollars on hardware and still not be able to decrypt just one message.

<comment><USER32> > Outrage is useless. Protests won't stop shit.

I don't see it that way, b/c this is just 1 out of tons of measures that will be needed. Each measure will stimulate other measures, it's an interactive thing.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is Amazon's NFL "live stream" 30 seconds behind cable? - <AUTHOR> Amazon is currently live-streaming the Pittsburgh vs. Houston NFL game. I tuned in via both amazon.com and my NBC cable channel, and found that the Amazon feed is 30 seconds behind cable. Does anyone know why Amazon's stream is so lagged? <comment><USER2> In the analog days it was hard to delay a television signal, practically you would have to put it onto a film loop, tape loop or possibly some kind of analog delay line. Back then, live TV was really live with almost no delay.

In the digital age, it is easy to delay a television signal. In fact, if you watch the same broadcast through different paths (OTA TV, cable, satellite, FM Radio, ...) you will see that the broadcasts are perceptibly out of sync with each other.

In the case of internet streaming, there is often a large delay introduced by the encoding process. Remember AMZN has to produce streams at several different bit rates, possibly supporting different compression methods for different devices. They encode it in one place and send it out over a content distribution network (at least to other AWS nodes) Each step in the journey adds some latency, particularly due to the use of buffers.

Football is particularly challenging because of the high-complexity and high- action and rapid cuts. Variable Bit Rate helps a lot because you can take advance of times when they show graphics and talking heads to send data for the complex scene that is next to come. That adds latency (the coder has to be 10+ seconds ahead of now) but really helps with image quality, reliable streaming, low bandwidth requirements, etc.

Most people won't notice the out-of-sync unless they watch two streams at once or if they do real-time sports betting. Thus they prioritize the other characteristics, which customers will notice.

</comment><comment><USER3> Architecture. They're probably writing every X seconds to an S3 bucket, updating that bucket content to a cloudfront URL which then servers requests from end users. You can see how this pipeline could incur tens of seconds of latency over actual real time. As long as the latency is constant and in the tens of seconds, it qualifies as a live stream in my book

</comment><comment><USER4> Money, of course. Why do you think such large sums are bid for screening rights? Sports fans want to know what's going on as quickly as possible, both to feel like they're part of the action and because they may be gambling on the outcome.

</comment><comment><USER5> For that matter, even cable/satellite feeds run 8-15 seconds behind real time (easily noticed if you listen to a non-delayed radio broadcast at the same time).

Radio broadcasts may themselves be delayed for ratings tracking.

</comment><comment><USER6> A very simple technical reason. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Live_Streaming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Live_Streaming)</comment>


Soft Machines VISC architecture - <AUTHOR> http://www.softmachines.com/technology/

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is a presentation: [http://www.softmachines.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/10/Soft-...](http://www.softmachines.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/10/Soft-Machines-VISCtm-Architecture-Tech-Briefing- vF.pdf)

<comment><USER2> The first striking thing is the diagrams have a "magic box" ("Global Front End") that turns serial code into threaded code. Skeptical. On the other hand, they claim they've had $125M funding, taken 7 years, have filed numerous patents, and have (at least a picture of) working hardware. Interesting times.

<comment><USER3> The parallelism is there in most of the algorithms, and it gets taken out by a human translating the algorithm (which is inherently parallel) into some arbitrary language that the computer understands (most of which aren't parallel).

If you do a REALLY good job of pattern recognition coupled with some execution in a simulator you might be able to figure out what the core of a program is and go to work on that.

I'm skeptical of anything that reverses arbitrary machine code from serial to parallel but that's not to say it can't happen.

I did some work patching binaries on "basic blocks" which are chunks of code between branches. Inside a basic block you can reorder instructions however you'd like so long as you don't step on your own feet. The key piece of insight that enables this is that as long as the program state is correct by the time you get to a branch, it doesn't matter the EXACT order in which it got to the correct state.

If they've had some kind of bigger insight, it's not unreasonable to come up with short-timescale virtual threads. Cache latencies are on the order of a few to say a hundred cycles. Core to core latency should be about the same if you design it well. Having an insight that's bigger than basic blocks and scales up to say maybe 1000 cycles would enable you to shuffle computation from one core to another and back in time to make an improvement.

CPUs which do out-of-order execution already have a commit engine which either commits or throws away the results of speculative computation as a result of the branch predictor. To make something which operates at a larger (though not program-wide) scale isn't impossible to believe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> All I got from that press release was a mental image of a car labeled "Soft Machines" driving headlong towards a wall with "Amdahl's Law" spraypainted on it...

</comment><comment><USER5> How is this different from SMT?

<comment><USER6> SMT maps multiple threads to a single core. This maps a single thread to multiple cores.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Community restaurant menu generation idea - <AUTHOR>

I am the founder of Menutail (http://www.menutail.com), and what the company offers is website hosting and nutrition analysis services.
To help get sales, what I am doing is visiting the restaurants around me and pitching the use of our website hosting services because either a restaurant doesn't have a website or it isn't mobile compatible.
Now every restaurant owner I've talked with agreed that they need to address the technology side of their business (the website), but have lacked the time to sit down and work on a new site because they are so busy running their day to day food operations.
I'm trying to think out of the box to help these business owners be more receptive to our hosting service, and something I thought of is customers crowd sourcing the website generation.
What could happen is any loyal customer could create the website for the owner, and then later on the owner could claim ownership of the site.
An example of a client that is working on their site is:
https://www.menutail.com/public/site/5
I know I'm rambling perhaps a little bit, but any thoughts on this from the community? <comment><USER2> It seems like originally you thought hosting was the problem but it's really the store manager's time & their lack of understanding of the apparent importance of having a website.

Instead maybe you could automatically generate a website for them by combining data from Yelp, Locu, Yext, Twitter, or whatever other info you can get your hands on. Take the data and find / create a few generic themes that you can insert the data into. Then go to them & tell them you'll host it for $X a month. Maybe over time, you can add support for Yext / Yelp / Twitter / Yelp admin management from one centralized dashboard (given those services allow you to in their ToS / API rules).

By grabbing the data and generating the websites, your chance of selling to them is much higher since they have something they can touch & interact with (not a hypothetical website they have to make themselves). In addition, over time you could build a nearly automated system which discovers restaurants on Yelp that don't have a website, build them one from the info / data available online, and contact / email them saying you can have it live in minutes + will charge $X a month to host it.

2 important things to keep in mind: 1\. Restaurants and store owners are incredibly cheap. They're especially cheap since most restaurants have very low margins (1-8%). Many of them use the restaurant to support their family and pay expenses. The $40 a month you want to charge them seems high (from your current website).

2\. Don't focus on menus, thats more v2 or v3 stuff. Also, Locu.com is the leader in both getting menu information for most restaurants as well as offering a centralized place for restaurant owners to update their menu. Best part is, even if store owners don't use Locu to manage / update their menu, Locu intelligently crawls restaurant websites to update menu listings automatically. It may be hard to compete with Locu at least initially. Instead maybe focusing on the facts that A. Many restaurants don't have websites but if for $10 a month you can make hefty profits (9 dollars of the 10 profit with enough automation) and B. Store owners apparently don't have enough time to manage their digital footprint / brand. Build super easy tools that let them do so with minimal time spent + also collect / publish data on the benefits of having a digital brand when you're talking to restaurant owners.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, those are great comments!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As someone who goes to restaurants somewhat often, I've never thought to myself that it would be a good idea to sit down and make a website for that restaurant for free. I don't think you're going to find many restaurant customers at all that would be willing to try that. One idea I had off the top of my head to try and make the service more appealing to restaurant owners would be to have the site generate both online and offline menus.

Kind of like squarespace-for-menus, offer a wide variety of really nice templates for offline paper menus each restaurant can choose from and customize. Then when they update their menu on your website, it also automatically generates a new PDF they can print out or send to a printer without having to hire a designer/intern/nephew to make minute changes to the old menu files. I think this would be especially useful for restaurants when they do price changes on items. Could monetize the thing by dropshipping fancy printed menus to customers.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why would an owner need to take "the time to sit down and work on a new site" if he's paying you to do it?

I think that's your issue right there. Your software is designed to let owners create their own website. They don't want that. They don't have time for it. But they do have money.

Crowdsourcing is one solution. But you need to work in compensation somehow. Maybe host a competition for anyone that frequents that restaurant to design the site then give a prize?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, in this case they are subscribing to our $10/month service where they would generate the site themselves. But to your point, even with that, they don't want to do it themselves with their time constrictions.

Interesting idea on a competition on creating a site for a restaurant though...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: S2008 applicant weed out question? - <AUTHOR>

Are any of the following true? (a) You are the only founder. (b) You are a student who may return to school in the fall. (c) Half or more of your group can't move to Boston for the summer. (d) One or more founders will keep their current jobs during the summer. (e) None of the founders are programmers.<p>Is this the first line of defense again single founders and others who are not fully committed and/or just not hackers? <comment><USER2> Yes.</comment>


Has Sony been hacked this week? - <AUTHOR> http://hassonybeenhackedthisweek.com/

<comment><USER2> Apparently hassonybeenhackedinthelastsevendays.com was already taken.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is funny, and therefore probably powerful. If it gets enough attention, it may actually pressure Sony to step up their security company-wide.

<comment><USER4> Well, many of their sites got hacked recently, but that didn't seem to help in terms of hardening their systems from the security standpoint.

So I must wonder: will a site like that prove to be any useful? I don't think so.</comment></comment>


Film set signs specialize in misdirection (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/10/business/la-fi-ct-set-signs-onlocation-20130710

<comment><USER2> I learned a while back how to get onto the set for a TV shoot: I just walked up to the security guard then said "I'm here to see Ted".

In my case, I really was there to see my friend Ted Arabian, who was appearing in a TV commercial. But I expect that would work well in other cases. The key is to act as if you really belong there.</comment>


Microsoft: 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 handsets sold in first six weeks - <AUTHOR> http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/12/21/microsoft-1-5-million-windows-phone-7-handsets-sold-in-first-six-weeks/

<comment><USER2> I'm not against Microsoft as player in this space, per se.. but what worries me most about the prospect of the rise of WP7 in terms of marketshare is the simply having to support their [historically] awful browsers.

Blah-blah-let-the-market-drive-innovation, I know. Microsoft could, potentially, drive innovation in the html5 space with their entry into the market (especially given the sorta-monoculture around WebKit (a dualopoly-at- best between Apple and Google)). It's fair to say that, in the late 90s and early 2000s, MS did drive some innovation in the browser space. And then they stopped. For like five years.

Anyone with more than a few years experience in the web (especially in the enterprise space) has had to write enough crufty client code to support horrible IE6 corner-cases. I just hope history doesn't repeat itself with WP7's browser.

And say what you want about iOS vs Android, but at least both platforms are running very similar (WebKit-based) browser technologies. This makes things like Zepto.js (with a stated "we're only supporting WebKit for now, so quit asking about gecko" policy) feasible in terms of offering rich mobile functionality. The appearance of WP7 as a viable contender throws a spanner in the works, in this regard.

Does anyone have any insight into how good/bad the WP7's browser support is for a lot of stuff people are doing in the mobile app space (backbone, etc), compared to existent mobile functionality present in iOS and Android?

</comment><comment><USER3> 1.5 million sold to carriers and retailers != 1.5 million sold to customers

</comment><comment><USER4> My prognostication: Microsoft will get huge market-share, but will do so largely at the expense of RIM/Blackberry.

RIM could respond by extracting the good parts of the Blackberry infrastructure and licensing these to companies with Android phones and by exploiting greater openness on the Windows Phone 7 platform. In essence, RIM gets out of the device business and transitions into the business mobile networking infrastructure business using various platforms as a substrate.</comment>