Well, We Failed – Wattage is shutting down - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/inside-wattage/well-we-failed-77e795e16ecf <comment><USER2> It's not about the pitch deck. It's about the product. How many people really want a custom radio front panel?

There are other customized products in that space which might be more useful.

* Customized entertainment remotes. Tell us what gear you have, what you like to do with it, and we make a remote or remotes that makes it easier to use. You might have a simple "watch TV only" remote, and a tablet type "does everything" remote.

* Light your house and garden. Send us pictures of your house and garden, answer some questions about how you use them, and we'll design an outdoor lighting system for it and have an installer put it in. You get to see renders of what it looks like at night before you buy. (There are Autodesk tools for that.)

* Custom control panels for the aftermarket auto sound industry. Make cool stuff for LA rappers and wannabees.

* There are lots of industrial products which need heavy customization. Offer on-line ordering tools for such products as a service to industrial sellers.

Trying to hammer a customized product model into the web-based "order on line, ship to customer, integration is someone else's problem, no customer service" model wasn't going to work.

<comment><USER3> > * There are lots of industrial products which need heavy customization. > Offer on-line ordering tools for such products as a service to industrial > sellers.

Yup. This definitely should have started out as a B2B play. Industry will pay an arm and a leg for customization for lots of random parts. Use the cash to build the foundation of the biz then go after the finicky consumer market later.

<comment><USER2> Yes, and there's a business model. There are industrial companies that are good at making things, but not so good at making web interfaces for ordering complex products. So there's a niche for an online service. There are lots of things a good online service could do that few industrial companies now offer. Consider:

        * proper cross-checking of compatibility of items ordered
        * generate image of finished product
        * on-line generation of installation drawing/CAD file,
          including mounting holes and electrical connections.
          Let users play with the options. Huge win for
          designers - "If we add option B, will it fit?"
          This, in fact, is the big win - let users try your
          options and see what works for them.
        * generate manufacturing data in format the seller's
          production system can use
        * provide cross-company integration.  If you need
          something that requires parts from several
          companies, and they're often used together, give
          the user help in getting everybody going in the
          same direction.

Most industrial sites have a big parts list and a "call for details" phone number. Getting all the right pieces together is hard. The automation level in this space is low, except for a few big companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are some questions about the deal we secured to return our investors' money. Without going into the specifics, I can say it was essentially an acquihire. I'm going to another company, and part of that deal allows me to repay our investors in full.

<comment><USER5> Just wanted to ask how common is it to return money to VC's?

Or how is this any different than a bank loan, If the VC doesn't shoulder the risks that come with these kind of projects I wonder what is the value they add.

People might as well borrow the money on loan.

<comment><USER6> I'm astonished at the amount raised from "friends and family." If my network of people I can ask is 250 people (a lot!), and my success rate for securing some amount of money is 10%, the average amount contributed per person is $10,000. Maybe it's my modest means speaking here, but that's an insane amount.

<comment><USER7> It's not "Friends and Family." It's "Friends and Family who qualify as accredited investors." (at least in the US).

An accredited investor is "someone whose net worth exceeds $1M not including their primary residence." The vast majority of people are not accredited investors because they cannot use their house as part of their net worth.

This is not your extended family giving you a $500 or $1000 to pursue your dream. These are wealthy people who know what they are doing, and are putting in several thousand if not tens of thousands of dollars each.

<comment><USER8> Friends and family are allowed to invest in a company without being an accredited investor. The rule about accredited investors involves soliciting investment from the general public. Rule 504 allows a company to raise upwards of 1 million dollars over a 12 month period from non-accredited investors so long as that money is raised from pre-existing contacts, that is no general solicitation is made.

[http://www.sec.gov/answers/rule504.htm](http://www.sec.gov/answers/rule504.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You may have failed, Wattage, but you certainly left the place in better shape than you found it!

In a time where a good portion of the industry is helping us click on ads that we would rather not see, you attempted something difficult, different, and with less money than most VC backed start-ups spend on their espresso machine.

I am looking forward to your next venture.

<comment><USER10> Nailed it @t1m. Excited to see what these guys do next!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> That seems less like a pitch deck and more a professionally polished brochure for a product, or maybe the introductory section of a prospectus. I don't see how an investor evaluate the company in that deck; I can't see:

* Go-to-market, or even a price point (did I miss it?) or COGS estimates, or a plan for distribution

* Traction, up-front sales commitments, or a sketch of target customers

* Competitors and substitutes --- not having competitors is not usually a good thing.

* An "ask" and a use-of-proceeds summary; what is this deck actually raising?

* Why this particular team (also: the connections between the logos on the bottom and the people listed aren't clear)

If you look at the Mixpanel, Airbnb, and Buffer decks: _they 're not pretty_. They're dry and factual and cut to the chase. Those decks probably work (to the extent decks matter) because they do a good job of surfacing exactly the facts investors care about when evaluating a deal.

I used to sweat decks the same way this designer did, and I'd get compliments on them. Now I feel like I spend more time talking my friends down from sending decks like these to prospects.

<comment><USER4> There are a few of things that I omitted from this version that were usually included or shared in person. Use of proceeds and traction was always shared. We also provided a breakdown of how the pricing worked (as it depended on what you were building).

I usually spoke in more detail about who the team was when I met with someone.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for replying! A question: did you ever wonder whether producing such intricately designed collateral actually harmed you from a signaling perspective, by tipping investors that you were focusing a lot on stuff that didn't matter? I ask because I started telling myself that a few years ago (not really so much re: investors, which I thankfully don't have, but other business associates) and I found it very liberating to not have to worry so much about design anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not sure how I feel about all of these companies shutting down prematurely to return investor capital (the following example is not based on this company, but it illustrates the point). If a $50M investment actually means $10M in risk capital, and the $40M will be returned at the slightest sign of failure, then entrepreneurs are giving up far too much equity because the investor is actually only risking $10M. Further, the signal that a $50M investment sends to the market about a company is far different than that of a $10M investment.

Combine that with other things like preferred shares, and these large investments wind up being horrible for entrepreneurs, unjustly rewarding for the primary investors who are actually risking small sums in exchange for large portions of equity, and unfair for others that invest based upon what the "smart money" invested with a huge headline number.

<comment><USER4> We burned through all of our investors' money, and worked until we couldn't meet payroll. Once it was clear that we were going to run out of cash, I took a job and negotiated a deal that allowed me to make our investors whole.

<comment><USER12> As I said, my example didn't necessarily apply to your company. But just in the last few days I have read about 4 different startups returning capital to investors. Investors seem to be aggressively seeking the return of capital, which takes the "risk" out of "risk capital". Decreased risk should also mean decreased rewards.

If you chose to do it of your own volition, then that's a personal decision (though one I don't recommend because your investors made a calculated wager on you...sometimes wagers lose, and that's the nature of the game they have chosen to play). But if you were asked or pressured into it, they shouldn't have done that, and by doing it voluntarily, you are teaching those investors to expect it of others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > 1,600 people signup for our email newsletters, and each of them received a > personal message from me. I gave them my email address and phone number, and > invited them to chat if they had any questions. I heard from 100's of them, > and many shared "the thing" they wanted to create. The problem is many of > them simply weren't feasible with the current technology. I suspect we could > have eventually delivered on most of them, but not in the foreseeable > future.

I would love to see these emails (anonymized in some way).

</comment><comment><USER14> I built the Timbuk2.com bag customizer ([http://timbuk2.com/customizer](http://timbuk2.com/customizer)) and I would say that 50% of their business is on the custom side. People are playing with the product and often they surprise us. Timbuk2 ends up charging a premium for the custom bag, but it a unique bag.

Same applies to Nikeid or adidas or converse or ... A lot of people are trying to build custom products and let the consumer get access to their manufacture, but it is not as simple as it sounds. There are, as in all things, a lot of moving pieces and enough rope to hang yourself.

<comment><USER15> Cool looking customizer - nice work! I created a super simple product customizer that allowed users to slap their logo on promotional products (similar to cafe press, but a few years before that). Even with that ridiculously limited set of options it was a challenging project, so kudos to you on the bag customizer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow, that mission statement is so ambitious it made me cringe. Reality check: hardware startups are struggling to ship very simple products after obtaining >$1m funding.

Choosing just one product for color/material customization is a good idea, but I'm not sure that radio is the right choice. I venture a guess that the founders were simply stuck on the concept of making customizable electronics.

Maybe a fashion accessory (e.g. headphones, skateboards) or home decor/furniture of some sort could have been a better choice. People will pay a lot of money to show off.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's always instructive to see how people failed and how they eventually realized why.

In this case I would have told them up front this is too much to do to start with. To get big wins eventually you have to start with small ones.

</comment><comment><USER18> "Having previously raised $250,000 from friends & family"

I cant imagine any of my friends or family being able to give me a quarter million.

<comment><USER19> Right? I see this a lot and it's often an investors first response when asking for small seed rounds: "Well have you considered raising money internally? Ask around your friends and family".

If I had friends and family that could just toss me a $250k I don't think I'd be in this position.

<comment><USER20> But they have to ask, because if the answer is no, that's a huge red flag. "You are willing to lose my money, but not your friends or family?"

<comment><USER21> An investor should be willing to make a "10% chance for a 100X return" type investment, but no, I wouldn't usually suggest that to my friends and family unless the amount of money was not significant to them. I don't think that's a red flag; investors have different risk tolerances for good reasons.

<comment><USER22> What you describe is a basic application of the Kelly Criterion: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion)

It helps you determine how much of your bankroll you can wager depending on (1) the odds, and (2) the size of your bankroll. It's the same reason why you shouldn't (mathematically) play the lottery (when it's expected value is actually positive) unless you're already filthy rich. The same math applies for hyper-risky startup investing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'd say you were just too early, everyone will benefit from them having pushed these ideas further.

<comment><USER24> Early? Chumby was 10 years ago.

<comment><USER4> Chumby was an inspiration. As were things like LittleBits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > "Now That's A Beautiful Pitch Deck"

Reminds me of this quote:

"As a designer, this is hard to admit: Extremely beautiful design is a negative warning signal for startup success. (70%+ accuracy.)"

[https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/571082598920925187](https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/571082598920925187)

So, so true. Also, I've long noticed that startups who call themselves beautiful on their front page seem 99% bound to fail. Noticeably higher failure rate.

<comment><USER4> I would tend to agree with this, but it's usually a sign that the startup has incorrectly focused their energies and money on design, instead of focusing on the underlaying business itself.

In this case, I simply designed the deck myself. I'm flattered that everyone thinks it looks nice, but my intention wasn't to make something with style over substance.

<comment><USER26> On the penultimate slide, p.24, what's the relevance of the company logos? It appears to be an endorsement, in what way is that true or false. The alternative interpretation is that the 70 years of product development has been for the listed companies?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> That sucks. I really like that you were pushing boundaries and creating a platform that had the potential to advance mankind - too few people are building things that have that potential.

</comment><comment><USER28> One of the few postmortems that actually may be fairly accurate. Yes, the pitch deck is easy on the eyes but terrible at piquing investor interest. I still wasn't quite sure what the product was or why so much energy was being spent trying to create a picture of 10 years from now.

Focusing on 1 (or 2) promising products was definitely the way to go. A customizable wifi radio that plays a podcast, Pandora or Spotify sounds kinda cool.

</comment><comment><USER29> One of the most important take-aways from that article is the importance of focus. I think if they had limited their priorities to, at the very most, two things, they may have been successful. I find whenever I have more than two priorities, I don't have any priorities at all. Some people argue that the magic threshold is three, but for me it is two.

<comment><USER4> No arguments here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The idea is interesting, but I think the technology isn't there for scalability (need of better 3D printers like the OP said).

Just allowing me to customize a radio (do people still buy radios? I'm curious) isn't of incredible value right now.

I'd wager that "custom drones" would have been a more successful start point, but scalability would have been a problem.

<comment><USER31> I read the pitch deck. Reading between the lines they were planning to be a far more advanced version of something like FPE.

[http://www.frontpanelexpress.com/](http://www.frontpanelexpress.com/)

Or maybe seeed studios is reminiscent of what they're aiming for.

The more advanced part being assembly and the like, plus coupling with suppliers.

I can only imagine how entertaining the customer support would be for something like that. FPE has it easy, whip out the digital dial calipers and is there, or is there not a 2.54 mm hole there or not, customer support is just simple yes no QA work, whereas debugging someone else's electronics design is not for the faint of heart.

Think of it like print on demand for books. Somebody PODs a "Complete genealogy of the Towne family in colonial Massachusetts" and puts it in the background photo of the pitch deck and the point isn't that almost nobody is interested in that topic, but that everyone who isn't hopelessly boring has something to make, whatever it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> As part of a business plan you have to research your target market. I highly doubt the average person wants to customize their own electronics, much less a radio in the 21st century were people have smart phones with music streaming apps.

Hardware is hard to sell, look at the OUYA project and how it is struggling and trying to sell itself to save itself. They too had quality issues, they too raised a lot of money but had a hard time selling units. Most people just play video games on their smart phones these days, they don't need to buy a video game console that runs Android.

Good research and a good business plan would have saved them from these mistakes. Instead of making a radio, maybe they could have made wireless Bluetooth speakers for smart phones to play music in the house/apartment for the average person. I'm sure that would have sold better than an AM/FM radio.

</comment><comment><USER2> There's a minor industry devoted to customized imagery and colors for consumer product. There are startups set up to serve that market, with online design tools.[1][2]. Custom shoes and sports equipment are doing reasonably well. The T-shirt industry has been doing this for at least half a century. Bain, the consulting firm, has an article on what works in product customization.[3] Basically, let the user tweak minor stuff, but not change much.

None of these companies actually let the user affect product function much. It's all decorative, or sizing-related. Autodesk has gone further, with Autodesk Homestyler, which is a free CAD system for home interiors.[4] This is a descendant of Autodesk Kitchen Designer, which was for sizing kitchen cabinets to fit a kitchen space. This lets you lay out a house, existing or planned, add commercial furniture, and view the house in 3D. Available for desktop, browser, and mobile. Despite being an impressive tool, it's never caught on. Probably because most people are terrified of starting with a blank screen and designing their house.

Carl Bass, the CEO of Autodesk, thinks that user design mods and product customization will be important, but aren't here yet. Autodesk has come out with a range of low-end CAD products. They now have their own 3D printer, and there are things like their 123Catch, for turning sets of pictures into 3D models. The technology is doing fine. But designing your own stuff isn't an instant-gratification thing.

[1] [http://www.dogma.com](http://www.dogma.com) [2] [http://www.fluid.com](http://www.fluid.com) [3] [http://www.bain.com/publications/articles/making-it- personal...](http://www.bain.com/publications/articles/making-it-personal- rules-for-success-in-product-customization.aspx) [4] [http://www.homestyler.com/floorplan/](http://www.homestyler.com/floorplan/)

<comment><USER33> Remember the original business model for Pixar was for it to be a home animation studio, in the same way that people use photoshop to do their own graphics.

I think they had terrible takeup on that and started producing shorts to show how good the technology was.

I think it's the same point - if you can't get instant gratification with something, then the consumer takeup is low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Mirror for the pitch deck? Looks like Dropbox is 429'ing it.

<comment><USER35> fixed - it's on Google Drive now

<comment><USER26> I wonder if somewhere a Dropbox engineer is crying over that comment!?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I would like to know how far you got with the product. Even if it's incomplete, I think I would rather judge this on how far completed to beta launch you guys were.

I signed up a few weeks back and was interested in seeing what the product would look like.

<comment><USER4> We have a fully working version of the creation tools, which would output all of the files required for fabrication. We had created all of the custom electronics, and were able to produce a number of functioning prototypes.

The beta was intended to do a few things:

1\. Measure interest in the platform and generate traction for investors. 2\. User-test and see what was/wasn't working 3\. Get a sense of what parts and materials were most popular, to ensure we properly handled inventory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Should have focused on a specific sub-market at first, used it to proof-out internal tools and design->front door delivery processes, show the potential.

Something boutique-ish but simple, maybe a few internal configurables, that could use customization. Like headphone amplifiers (since headphones are becoming like fashion accessories).

Or e-ink pens.

<comment><USER38> It's really easy to say this is why someone failed and this is what they should have done instead but take a moment to walk in their shoes. Do you really think it never occurred to them? Every decision has incredible amount of weight to it and only they had to the bear the consequences of the those decisions.

<comment><USER39> You sound defensive. He's just voicing his opinion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> """We were targeting software developers, as we believed we could offer them an entirely new outlet for their creative efforts. But this narrative wasn't big enough. Investors want to hear a story about changing the world."""

I disagree with this. I think focusing on software developers and making the "hardware side easier" is a viable enough hypothesis. It's better to focus on one segment and understand it well. Have a vague notion of the other potential customers but leave the dreams of hockey sticks to the VCs instead of feeding them imo. Rather focus on whatever segment you identify as a good entry point and validate that is true. I think a smart VS prefers someone that is laser focused on a segment vs someone that dreams too big early but I might be wrong.

</comment><comment><USER41> That really IS a nice pitch deck.

<comment><USER42> That deck is really pretty but I'm really curious whether investors would spend their time going through so much text. Here is a pitch deck that buffer used.

[http://www.slideshare.net/Bufferapp/buffer- seedrounddeck](http://www.slideshare.net/Bufferapp/buffer-seedrounddeck)

<comment><USER4> I felt I needed to tell a richer story about what we were trying to achieve, mainly because we were created an entirely new market. I couldn't point to another company and say "we're like them, but 10x better." I didn't exactly have market numbers to use as a method of framing the investment potential. I felt

I needed to paint a picture about a future we were trying to create... but you may very well be correct.

<comment><USER42> I'm with you on having a narrative and conveying the drive. Did you find that some investors understood that and made decisions based on it or was it that you found them to be speaking a different language?

Btw, I respect the effort and thought that went into analyzing the reasons for failure and the courage required to be open about it. Hope things work out in your next attempt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Thanks for the mostly transparent insight into your experience.

How does one enter a deal to pay back investors with a shuttered operation? Does that mean make them whole or just pay something back? It seems like someone is holding onto a bag - THE bag?

<comment><USER4> Nobody is holding a bag of money. I only wish it played out that way. It was essentially an acquihire, so I'll be going to another company, and part of that deal allows me to make our investors whole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> How did Wattage secure a deal to return its investors money? Presumably they had spent it. Did they arrange a loan on terms that would give the original investors liquidation preferences?

<comment><USER45> They probably stopped spending their remaining funds once the next round didn't come through.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I think the product (radio) is totally non-viable but you would've made a killing on Kickstarter (see Coolest Cooler etc.)

</comment><comment><USER47> Sorry to hear things didn't work out. I am curious to know more about your thoughts on VCs in Toronto versus those south of the border. Canadian VCs have this rep of being quite conservative, only wanting to invest at later stages when there is very little risk. Does your experience agree with this characterization?

</comment><comment><USER48> Really hard to start something you have to educate people about in the first place, before selling them.

Case in point: it was not quite clear to me what they wanted to do (for a layman like myself in this space) after reading the post-mortem. I felt like I was filling in the blanks in my head and making assumptions.

<comment><USER49> This is one of our pain points as well, educating our customers/users

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is like making a McDonalds because everyone says they want it their way but deep down the truth is we just want an In-N-Out menu of 5 things. And the McDonald's way is bloated, slow, expensive, and dying.

<comment> aaron-lebo One of my favorite Jobs stories is how he took Apple's late-90s lineup of numerous products and simplified it in a 2x2 matrix.

(Maybe not the best link, but it shows what I'm talking about.)

[http://www.slopefillers.com/steve-jobs-product- matrix/](http://www.slopefillers.com/steve-jobs-product-matrix/)

<comment><USER4> That strategy worked because Apple was dying and Jobs needed to focus their efforts. But that all changed once they found their footing. Consider the iPod and all the sizes and colours they offered, or what Apple is now doing with the Watch. There are many many customization options, and I suspect these options are only going to grow.

<comment><USER51> I don't know you, but you seem stuck on customization? A lot of us out here just want a functional product with a decent half life. I think Apple is making a big mistake putting form over function? I cringe when I hear I need a heat gun in order to open their sleek products. If a product is well made, and does what it's suspose to do, I don't see the need for a bunch of aesthetic nonsense. The best watchmakers don't vary their designs much-- Rolex, Patek, and Omega vary their styles so little, I mistake some older models for new. I glad you have a new job. I'm just more mystified over VC funding/hiring than before I came here today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Not clear who this was and what they were selling.

</comment><comment><USER53> I really wanted that customized joystick. Damn...

</comment><comment><USER54> Sorry to hear you couldn't give birth to your own unicorn but thanks for sharing the story, a good read.

</comment><comment><USER55> I could see this working if it were marketed towards kids, as a kind of `Build a Bear` workshop.

</comment><comment><USER56> its not just about the pitch deck, also about the vision and the usage, how many people working daily and returning from work to home want to play with the radio that has a touch screen with a customization buttons/themes !!

</comment><comment><USER57> Thanks for sharing your story!

</comment><comment><USER58> Thanks for the post mortem. Did you do much customer development?

</comment><comment><USER59> Does that mean Medium.com is shutting down?

</comment><comment><USER60> Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER61> POP!

</comment><comment><USER62> The good news is the vision of mass-customized electronics is a huge deal. The bad news is, Apple proved it in 2007-2008 with the iPhone + App Store.

The points that you could've focused on a specific object are good. It would've made you think like your intended customer, the designer. You would've been forced to answer the question "Who wants this?" instead of planning layers of abstraction.

You should've taken a smaller slice not only so that a small team could execute it well, but also to make the concept much more graspable to customers. That's the true brilliance of the App Store.

<comment><USER63> ? The iPhone is less customisable hardware than the old Nokia candy bar phones.

<comment><USER62> The customization people actually want is met by the software layer. With a responsive touch screen and apps, you can satisfactorily reproduce physical interfaces, and more importantly, their functions.

<comment><USER63> People expect total plasticity of software. But that cannot satisfactorily reproduce all physical interfaces - people cannot operate a touchscreen without looking at it. Despite this they seem to be becoming popular in cars where they cannot be safely operated by the driver.

The rise of smartwatches suggests that people want another kind of interface. The complaints over screen size are another aspect. You can't have a screen that's both small (easily carried) and large (easily read) at the same time.

Finally there's an aesthetic argument. People _like_ the appearance and heft of twiddly knobs and clicky buttons. This is why Roberts DAB radios are so popular.

People customise the external appearance of their featureless iPhones with flip or shell cases. People like to be visibly a bit different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Whole business model was around selling box that can be replaced with fancy tablet case/stand? Wow, wonder why it failed.</comment>


Hover Camera – Self-Flying Camera That Follows You - <AUTHOR> http://gethover.com/ <comment><USER2> Reminds me of the drone camera in _All Tomorrow 's Parties_.</comment>


FBI Computers Crunch Numbers in Their Sleep (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/january/grid_012210

<comment><USER2> tl,dr: FBI has turned its workstations in some offices into a botnet for their own use.</comment>


Ask HN: Is Google recording our calls for Google duplex? - <AUTHOR> Is google recording our every call to train their AI models for google duplex ? e.g. "Mm-hmm" <comment><USER2> My impression is Google's lawyers are not dumb enough to let Google publicly announce they're illegally recording calls in a two-party consent state: Presumably their demos were recorded with permission or staged.

But I was definitely curious how they could operate Duplex without running afoul of existing laws. It's possible Google believes they are not "recording" the call when they send audio to and from their AI.

They may be _transcribing_ calls to text, which arguably isn't "call recording", it is just writing down verbatim what was said in the call. They likely have enough voice data from other sources, like Google Assistant on people's phones and Google Home that they can avoid recording calls explicitly.

<comment><USER3> >>Google publicly announce they're illegally recording calls in a two-party consent state

Why wouldn't they just run these tests in a one-party consent jurisdiction? From a quick google only 12 states are two-party. Nothing about the demo indicated to me it was done in California.

<comment><USER2> Also a possibility. Google can provide one-party consent since Google is initiating the call.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> GOOG-411 likely gave Google a large datasource for voice training.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOOG-411](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOOG-411)

<comment><USER5> I believe this has been explicitly confirmed, but I can't find a source at the moment.

<comment> nappy-doo As a Xoogler, that is my understanding. Similarly, all the Google Assistants and (now) Google Homes out there are also being used.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They have all the youtube data plus millions of calls they could buy from call-centers to train if that's not enough, I doubt they need to resort to record calls.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you use GCP Enhanced Speech to Text models you're contributing to a central model:

[https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text/docs/enhanced- models](https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text/docs/enhanced-models)

</comment><comment><USER8> "To obtain its high precision, we trained Duplex's RNN on a _corpus of anonymized phone conversation data_." \- Yaniv Leviathan

</comment><comment> forgot-my-pw They probably already asked the businesses first, then just did the test at random times.</comment>


Insider's Guide to Tech-Job Hunting  - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2009/tc20090831_615357.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories <comment><USER2> This guide applies only to people who are good at what they do. What about the majority of the population?

<comment><USER3>
      a. Get good at what you do.
      b. Follow OP's advice.</comment></comment>


What's new in Java 12, 13 and 14, part II - <AUTHOR> https://java.christmas/2019/19 <comment><USER2> "Helpful NullPointerException" is a game changer. I haven't tried it yet, but from the looks of it this seems to be a good enough reason to upgrade to Java 14 by itself.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Part I is here: [https://java.christmas/2019/17](https://java.christmas/2019/17)

</comment><comment> java-man I wish they changed the spec so iterating over a null Iterable would not throw an NPE:

Iterable items = null;

for(Object x: items)

{

       // will not enter the loop

    }</comment>


Mint Slideshow: Money Graffiti - <AUTHOR> http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/money-graffiti-09222010/ <comment><AUTHOR> I hate the design of the slide show embed but i enjoyed the pictures. Almost did not notice it was a slide show.</comment>


The Door Problem (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.lizengland.com/blog/2014/04/the-door-problem/ <comment><USER2> I like that the author brings up all the different roles in a company and explains succinctly what each one does with the door.

This could be a good way to explain an industry or the roles within a company to newcomers.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think all jobs have that component in many ways, though not all with the veneer of glamour. In my job, it's not doors. It's "I count things".

I'm probably something like a data scientist (my work precedes the popularization of that term) but I'm sort of merging of data/statistical analyst, report writer, occasional programmer, occasional ETL writer etc.

An extremely large amount of my work results in output that is a count of some measure or metric or whatever. It might be something that happened, things happening now, things that might happen. But a lot of it comes down to counts. I recently finished a month-long analysis of 10 years of data to validate potential operational changes. The result? Counts of what happened in the past, counts of what might happen if we make changes.

The list of questions I have to answer, and ask people, is as long as the "doors".

Most jobs are rarely as simple as they appear from the outside. On a novel project, it might take me a week to come up with a single number. I have had a few occasions where I have had to explain in a similar "doors" list why that is often the case. It often ends with me saying something like, "So I can get you a bad number in a day. I can get you something minimally usable in 3 days. Or I can get you the correct answer in a week."

</comment><comment><USER4> > Character Artist: I don't really care

"I'll have to detail the hand for the door animation"

</comment><comment><USER5> If curious see also

2017 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16021509](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16021509)

<comment><USER6> If incurious await further instruction.

<comment><USER5> That case is meant to fall through. Is there a bug?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And here I thought it was about the other door problem, where they're used as a chokepoint, enabling a more timid playstyle.

</comment><comment><USER8> That was quite an insight. But wait, isn't it middle-managers job to address those conflicts and take steps to resolve them?

<comment><USER9> there aren't really conflicts. all the "problems" with the door are things a designer needs to spec out as behaviors of the "door system".

The rest is just how each cog in the whole machine deals with implementing the design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you have a good team, 2/3 of those roles can be avoided, saving you from bloating your company and diluting your value.

<comment><USER11> Reminds me of this Dilbert strip: [https://dilbert.com/strip/2011-04-14](https://dilbert.com/strip/2011-04-14)</comment></comment>


Apple plans to reinvent the textbook with iBooks 2 for iPad - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/01/19/apple_plans_to_reinvent_the_textbook_with_ibooks_2_for_ipad_.html <comment><USER2> I had an idea for a book that optimizes itself for your skill level by asking you questions about the subject and asks how you want to learn. Video, audio, lecture, song, reading, interactive, puzzles, writing, talking (listen and repeat).

Books are going away sooner or later for optimized and evolving learning systems that morph to keep the "reader" learning.</comment>


Oracle: OK. So Maybe We Are Cutting Sun to Profitability - <AUTHOR> http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100607/oracle-ok-so-maybe-we-are-cutting-sun-to-profitability/?mod=ATD_rss <comment><USER2> Some 640 millions earmarked for severance payments ? How many people will they fire ? At five digits per average severance package, which I find extremely generous, it comes out to a five digits number, which seems huge to me.

<comment><USER3> If this is correct:

" _some 80 percent of it evidently earmarked for employee severance payments at Sun's European and Asian outposts_ "

Then the numbers may be significantly different due to differences in employee law and culture.

Also, if they're closing down offices, e.g. consolidating them with existing Oracle sales and support ones world wide, there's all sorts of other expenses involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's pretty sad to see a legend in computing like Sun die. But the good news is that Java will probably go with it, which will be one of the best things to happen to computing since ... Java. (Hey, it got GC accepted in industry.)

This makes me especially happy because I can recite the "your language is dead" line to Java developers now:

      Java developer: You're a loser, Perl is dead.
      Me: Yeah, dead.  When was the last major release of Java?
      Java developer: 3 years ago.
      Me: Ah.  We got a new version of Perl last month.

This will never completely offset the bitterness from a career of hearing this constantly, but it will offset it a little ;)

<comment><USER5> I have no fondness for Java the language, but it would be a big shame if the JVM died, or stopped being actively developed. As a substrate for better languages to run on, it offers a lot (e.g. world-class GC and JIT, cross- platform availability, good tool support).

Java is verbose and clunky, but Ruby, Python, Scala and Clojure are all pretty good languages...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well, I'm guessing they are firing the entire sales force and costumer care people. It's redundant in their view and they have been blaming them for Sun's issues. Oracle really wanted the engineers it seems but they aren't doing a good job at keeping them around.

<comment><USER7> For some reason I highly doubt that. Sales teams never get cut... engineers always do. Sales teams are revenue generating and engineers are just a cost center.

<comment><USER8> Unless you already have an abundance of really good sales people and a shortage of really good engineers and you just acquired an organisation in the exact opposite situation, maybe?

<comment><USER3> Didn't Oracle say they're hiring thousands of salesmen to tell Sun stuff?

<comment><USER8> Which you would do if you thought the current ones weren't doing a very good job, no?

<comment><USER3> Didn't Larry Ellison said a big part of Sun's problem was that they didn't have enough?

He said something in the direction of my thesis on this, that they'd outsourced too much of their sales to "VARs" and such, but I think he may have also included higher end sales.

Anyway, his public objections have been to Sun's upper management in pretty much all areas (e.g. he said even Sun's engineers couldn't succeed due to them), not the individual salesmen, although of course he wouldn't complain about the latter if he was planning on keeping any of them.

Surely it makes the most sense to establish a new structure and retain the existing Sun salesmen who thrive in it.

<comment><USER8> I agree, it will be interesting to see where it goes.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Docker and the Future of the PaaS Layer - <AUTHOR> http://blog.appfog.com/docker-and-the-future-of-the-paas-layer/

<comment><USER2> Does Docker really not allow you to set environment variables? That would be a rather strange design choice, if true. And I always took the config requirement of 12factor to mean you keep it out of source control. Store it wherever you want, be it Chef, Capistrano, or just a shell script you use to deploy, but keep it out of your code.

<comment><USER3> Docker absolutely let's yiubset and read environment variables either via docker run or via the Docker file with the ENV directive.</comment></comment>


Minimalism - <AUTHOR> http://ihumanable.com/blog/2009/12/minimalism/

<comment><USER2> The "minimalist" staircase in the picture accompanying the article is a horrible design, IMO. Each step is a very thin pure cantilever. In order to prevent the step from sagging and sloping unsafely towards the edge, it would have to be extraordinarily stiff and strong as compared to readily available building materials. This problem is compounded by the lack of guard rails. This is not a matter of form following function. This is form _defying_ the primary function, while leaving out secondary ones, like safety.

A better design with almost the same effect: use a transparent panel, diagonally following the free edges of the steps, perhaps 1 foot wide, with cable support form the ceiling at the top. (Or a column from below.) This preserves the stark effect of the thin cantilevered steps jutting out from the wall, but gives us a more favorable geometry for structural support. The transparent material doesn't have to be extremely strong, since the geometry is favorable. Most of the force can still be borne by the step, but we can prevent sagging and discourage people from sitting on the edge.

Alternatively, cables can be used to transfer load to the step above and eventually to the landing, which can be supported by a single column or a cable to the ceiling. Since the steps will be much stronger cantilevers in the horizontal direction than in the vertical, due to their geometry, we can take advantage of this by converting part of their load into the horizontal direction. The cables will be inexpensive, very strong, and will also discourage foolish people from sitting on the edge.

              /
          <--*
            /
        <--*

<comment><USER3> You describe a more efficient design. If sufficiently strong material is affordable and used, and safety is not a concern, yours is not necessarily a "better" design. A transparent panel wouldn't be entirely invisible, and the visual effect of the staircase would not be the same (or as striking).

<comment><USER2> IMO, both the cable supported and transparent beam versions would be nearly as striking.

Of course, this is all down to aesthetics and judgment about what the design should prioritize. The designs I describe can be just as strong, or stronger, and cheaper at the same time, with additional safety features.

EDIT: To clarify, in my designs, there would be only one cable running to the ceiling, attached to the landing. Alternatively, one could use a transparent column.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think Jeff Atwood was asking for additional features, merely fixing some of the _obvious_ issues with the original specification: anyone who has used it a couple of times will have run into the weird_filename_italics_thing.

If the down button on the Apple Remote didn't work, that wouldn't be 'minimalism', it would be broken.

<comment><USER4> And a case in point: I reckon that the word 'simply' in the first sentence of the blog article should be 'simple' (ok, so it could make sense with either word, but 'simple' would be more readable).

Now, should the author correct the mistake? Or would that not respect the 'minimalism' with which it was written? We wouldn't want to have to produce a feature-bloated version 2 of the article, would we?

<comment><AUTHOR> You are correct, I should have typed simple, it is fixed now, thanks for the correction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This confuses a minimalist result with a minimalist process.

Minimalism doesn't necessarily mean it takes a minimum amount of time to arrive at a good solution. It is an aesthetic ideal for the end product where what can be eliminated is eliminated. It might take quite of bit of trial and error to get there though.

<comment><USER6> Favorite quote time: "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead" wrote Blaise Pascal (or possibly Mark Twain, or Churchill).

<comment><USER7> Pascal wrote it first, though not very shortly. He actually wrote _Mes Révérends Pères, mes lettres n'avaient pas accoutumé de se suivre de si près, ni d'être si étendues. Le peu de temps que j'ai eu a été cause de l'un et de l'autre. Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte._ which in English is _My Reverend Fathers, my letters have not usually followed so closely, nor been so long. The small amount of time that I have is the cause of both. I would not have made this so long except that I do not have the leisure to make it shorter._ (Source: <http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=177502>)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The best example demonstrating that I've seen for how easy it is to just not "get" minimalism is the famous "what if Microsoft designed the iPod box" video at <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=36099539665548298>.

The whole goal of Markdown is to be a simple, easy and stable piece of syntax that lots of websites can converge on. The _last_ thing you need is to have multiple versions of it and users having to think about which markup rules a given site is using.

<comment><USER8> You do know that that video was done by MS as an intentional self-parody, right?

[http://www.ipodobserver.com/ipo/article/Microsoft_Confirms_i...](http://www.ipodobserver.com/ipo/article/Microsoft_Confirms_it_Originated_iPod_Box_Parody_Video/)

<comment><USER9> How can publishing something like that help their efforts?

Likewise, were they responsible for the "Windows 7 Launch Party" video?

<comment><USER7> The idea is obviously to communicate to the people who are part of a broken marketing process exactly how their well-intentioned efforts to improve Microsoft's marketing are failing to work.

With the hope, obviously, of reforming the process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In four lines of code he's hidden a ton of complexity and can now completely avoid thinking about all the low-level garbage.

Markdown similarly hides (automates) all the details of how it generates HTML from source, and in exchange you give up control over (many) aspects of what the target HTML looks like.

My car abstracts away from me the details of fuel-air mixtures, gear shifting, battery recharging, and so forth.

In all of these cases if I want more control I can go get it. The point is that I don't _have_ to: I can drive the kids to school, document something in reasonably nice HTML, and get a damn window on the screen without having to think (as much) about it.

<comment><USER11> Sometimes I like to have more fine-tuned control of what is going on in my code without having to rely on a wrapper between me and the code.

I feel that if everyone uses markdown it will lead over time to less understanding of what goes on behind the scenes. You have to understand the low level access before you can properly use a high level library.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Am I the only one irked by the use of the non-word 'minimalistic', when the shorter 'minimal' or 'minimalist' is what is really meant?

It seems like a serious blow to one's minimalist cred. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Minimalistic is a word meaning: of or pertaining to someone or something advocating smallness

"minimalistic." Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon. Dictionary.com, LLC. 30 Dec. 2009. <Dictionary.com [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/minimalistic>](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/minimalistic>).

<comment><USER12> Interesting, that's the first dictionary i've ever seen that lists it - Merriam-Webster, Cambridge and Websters all claim it's not a word. (As well as google - "Did you mean: minimalist")

In any case, all three are adjectives with what appear to be interchangeable meanings, so using the shortest suitable word seems most in the spirit of minimalism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've noticed a trend in people calling themselves minimalists. Well, there's nothing in the minimalist movement that dictates making block quotes obnoxious to read.

<comment><USER14> This trend also extends to any new framework or library someone writes. The code is always "fast and lightweight".

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "am a minimalist at heart, I like simple things with clean lines and no clutter."

Judging from the design of his blog, this must be a guest post.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's stupid. He's comparing low-level Win32 API to a high-level wrapper called Qt.

Notice how in his Qt example he lost control of the window style, icon, brush, cursor, styling of the message box, and a dozen of other little things that you can do with low level win32 api.

<comment><USER17> You _can_ do all those things with QT, the point is that you don't _have_ to.

<comment><USER18> I hope QT do error checking for you too then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Comparing a low-level API like Win32 with a high-level toolkit like Qt FTW.

HelloWorld using C# and Windows Forms is about 10 lines if you do it by hand.

</comment><comment><USER20> The author didn't know how to use it's/its correctly.

</comment><comment><USER14> The lesson I am taking from all this is to promise less and deliver more.</comment>


My attempt at creating Commodore 64 emulator (C#) - <AUTHOR> http://kataklinger.com/index.php/commodore-64-emulator/

<comment><USER2> [https://friendconverter.com/8010802210](https://friendconverter.com/8010802210) instal dis app n get mobile recharge of 130 n free calling n msg chatting to anyone ol over in d world hurry</comment>


Ask HN: Why are most Wordpress themes total crap? - <AUTHOR> This title is probably a bit extreme.  But... seriously, I just want to see some simple, clean Wordpress themes instead of so much animation and unnecessary panache.  Themes that don't rely on 30 different javascript libraries and megabytes of CSS.  For the love... <comment><USER3> As you know about javascript and css, you are likely not the target audience for most commercial themes. The average non-technical site owner equates features and effects with value. They are serving their audience.

With that said, there are thousands of themes out there. I'm sure a few might meet your requirements. Unfortunately, it may take a long time to find them.

Finally, you might start with a skeleton theme instead, and build up your own without all the whizbang. As I agree with you about commercial themes, that's what I do.

</comment><comment><USER4> 2 Things i wish to say here :

\- I came across this beautiful quote and it had quite an impact on me : "The best way to complain is to make things happen" If its bothering you, you should probably create a theme and sell it on wordpress.

\- I have found some themes which are minimal and "blob-free" on wordpress but they cost money : search for single / two column themes & minimal themes - <USER2> should be able to find them.</comment>


Democrats fight FCC's plans to redefine "broadband" from 25+ to 10+ Mbps - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/09/ajit-pais-plan-to-lower-broadband-standards-is-crazy-fcc-democrat-says/ <comment><USER2> To those saying e.g 10 Mbit/second is enough: Do you live with other people?

Get a family on one of those lines, and 10 will not be enough.

And the problem is, even if you think it's a fine solution to ask such cases to pay more for a higher tier of service, in many areas, _there is no higher tier of service._

In my area, the phone company's line was too poor quality to support DSL when I moved in, 16 years ago. And I am _not_ in a rural community. I'm in a dense sub-division, in the middle of suburbia.

Forward to 2 years ago, when I had a chance to talk with one of the linemen linemen regularly assigned to my area. AT&T _still_ had not replaced that line. And, as far as I know, still has not.

It's not that a 25+ expectation is "too hard" or "too expensive". It's that many incumbents _aren 't even trying._

Then again, whenever a municipality wants to move forward and roll its own broadband deployment, then AT&T rolls out their lawyers.

They won't roll the trucks for upgrades. But lawyers, to stop competition? Sure thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article doesn't focus on the bigger issue: Mobile internet as a viable substitute.

Right now, the FCC's policy is for all Americans to have _access_ to _both_ home broadband and mobile internet.

Ajit Pai is seeking to change that, so that you only need _one choice_ , and that that "choice" may be limited to 10Mbit down 1Mbit up.

While _both_ changes are absurd, I think that allowing mobile internet to "qualify" as home internet is the most detrimental change.

<comment><USER4> With the right speed and latency, I don't see any problem with mobile broadband substituting for fixed. Number of providers is more important for choice than if those providers fit in the "mobile" of "fixed" broadband buckets (except you need mobile whether or not you have fixed; why you need fixed if you have quality and choice in mobile, though, is less clear.)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have 12 Mbps at home and have had faster speeds (50-100) when traveling and at work. I generally don't notice any difference when working, browsing the web, or streaming Netflix/Hulu/etc.

We definitely need to have a "broadband" threshold that automatically increases over time, but IMO 10 Mbps is functionally equivalent to 25 in most ways right now.

I run a startup from home and the only time I notice bottlenecks is when I'm uploading 100MB files. This is rare and not worth the extra $10/mo that I'd have to pay to get a higher speed.

I'd be interested to know what others think — are there big benefits out there that I'm missing out on? Has anyone gone from 10 to 25 Mbps and had a big impact on their work/life?

I'd sooner focus on the fact that sales agents at AT&T and Comcast both routinely refer to megabytes per second when they should be saying megabits...

<comment><USER3> 12 Mbps may be an OK _bare minimum_ if it's consistent.

Unfortunately, most connections I've used give you a burst, and then drop drastically down, so you only experience the 12 Mbps for a second or two, then watch it fall over 30 seconds to around 1-2 Mbps.

Right now I have 20 Mbps fiber that is consistently 20 Mbps. It's right at the threshold that I would call "comfortable". I'm not sure I would be OK with half that.

"Broadband" used to mean "really fast". Redefining it to the lowest threshold that internet is _usable_ does not sound reasonable to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _Unfortunately, most connections I 've used give you a burst, and then drop > drastically down, so you only experience the 12 Mbps for a second or two, > then watch it fall over 30 seconds to around 1-2 Mbps._

I've not experienced this. I've had Comcast and AT&T (DSL) and typically get 60-100% of the putative max speed. Sometimes it's under 50%, but then if I call in they admit that there's a problem. More importantly, I can do anything I want with 6 Mbps downstream. In fact, I had 6 until Comcast got rid of the plan, and I'd happily stick with that speed if I could pay 60% of my current bill. Maybe I'm peculiar in this regard, but we have 5 tablets, 4 computers, and 2 iPhones in our house. We're definitely not the "average" US household in this regard.

> _" Broadband" used to mean "really fast". Redefining it to the lowest > threshold that internet is usable does not sound reasonable to me._

Reasonable minds can differ on what this definition should reflect. If the government is going to regulate companies based on a definition, I'd rather it be closer to "minimum usable" rather than "really fast".

Then you can use that threshold with multipliers if you want, akin to how we use the poverty level threshold. (For example, you qualify for certain benefits if you have less than 150% or 200% of the poverty level.)

<comment><USER3> > I'd rather it be closer to "minimum usable"

The definition is for _what is available_. It explicitly means that if a community literally has no 25 Mbps option, that ISPs aren't doing a good enough job with the millions they get in tax dollars. Are you really OK with a significant population of Americans being limited to the absolute bare- minimum?

<comment><AUTHOR> > _Are you really OK with a significant population of Americans being limited > to the absolute bare-minimum?_

My understanding is that this definition only impacts how statistics are reported (e.g., "80% of American's have broadband access at home"). So changing the definition does not affect people's actual speed, or any incentives that ISPs have to offer different packages.

For the purposes of reporting, I do think that 10 Mbps is the more appropriate threshold. Otherwise I would be counted in the "x percent of Americans without broadband access at home". Considering how much I do with my internet, and how happy I am with my speed tier, that would be a gross misrepresentation of my situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The FCC redefined broadband as 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up as reported in the 2015 Broadband Progress Report (from 4Mbps/1Mbps in 2010).

[https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/broadband- progr...](https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/broadband-progress- reports/2015-broadband-progress-report)

</comment><comment><USER6> Why do we need such a definition at all? Anyone can see that 50Mbps > 40Mbps > 30 > 10 > 1Mbps. And everyone is, regardless of any given definition, going to figure out how many Mbps will suit their purposes, and then buy the package from their ISP that they find to be the best tradeoff.

<comment><USER7> That is to force ISPs to provide a minimum level of service everywhere -- what good is it if you are prepared to pay for 50Mbps in a rural under-served area, but the ISP will not provide it to you because they don't have the infrastructure for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is just such a nonissue. 10mbps is fast enough for anything regular users need.

<comment><USER9> In our household 200Mbps approaches not fast enough when everyone is using, such that we're upgrading to 1Gbps.

With improved speeds usage patterns change. 5 years ago we would barely crack 150GB/month, and now we're pushing 1TB/month.

<comment><AUTHOR> What apps/services sucks up the bandwidth? I know 7-person families (where everyone has a computer/tablet) that are happy with 50 Mbps.</comment></comment></comment>


High Temperature and High Humidity Reduce the Transmission of Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551767 <comment><USER2> But not by enough. This epidemic has a growth rate (R) of at least 2. The article claims "One degree Celsius increase in temperature and one percent increase in relative humidity lower R by 0.0383 and 0.0224, respectively." The March to July difference for New York City is only 19C. San Francisco, 9C. For both cities, humidity is relatively uniform year round.

Even assuming this result is meaningful, it still leaves an R way above 1.

<comment><USER3> > For both cities, humidity is relatively uniform year round.

There is no way humidity is relatively uniform year round in NYC. It gets very humid during the summer and very dry during the winter.

<comment><USER4> The relative humidity in NYC does not vary much from 60-65%. Absolute humidity is measured as grams water per cubic meter and is virtually never reported because what is relevant to human comfort is evaporation.

Indoor humidity in the winter is generally low because increasing the temperature without adding moisture is lowers relative humidy.

[https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Humidity- per...](https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Humidity-perc,New- York,United-States-of-America)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> _-___________-_ I am eagerly awaiting more studies into this subject. Something doesn't feel right about the relative lack of local transmission in e.g. Vietnam (temperatures over 30C at least in the south right now) compared to e.g. Italy (temperatures, what, 15C or lower in the north right now?).

Cambodia's extremely low case count can easily be explained away by them not testing anyone, but Vietnam appears to be quite proactive with tracing and testing, yet still has a relatively low count and minimal transmission.

<comment><USER5> Vietnam has taken this epidemics 10x more seriously than Italy, that could just be the difference.

They are testing as much as they can, everybody who had contact with infected people are tracked down and quarantined, streets where you had infected people are closed down and disinfected, almost everybody wear masks, you have temperature checks & hydroalcoholic gel available in public areas, schools are fully closed since early January.

<comment> _-___________-_ Yes. However, there's also no travel restriction between Cambodia and Vietnam, significant cross-border traffic, and Cambodia is not "taking it nearly as seriously" as Vietnam is.

If Vietnam had the transmission going on that Italy does, the case-tracking and quarantining would be a lot harder, and I just don't buy that the other things (masks, forehead temperature checks[0], hand sanitizer that hardly anyone knows how to use properly) have much of an impact.

There has to be some much larger factor than those at play (and this study suggests what that factor could be).

[0] I encourage people to ask or look what the reading is when getting these checks. About a third of the time when I get a forehead temperature check, the reading is totally nonsensical, like 31C, but the person just waves me through since it's under the threshold. I'm skeptical of the efficacy of a test that is this inaccurate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another paper saying something similar

[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3550308](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3550308)

</comment><comment><USER7> Really hoping this helps in India which so far has had really low reported cases.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sure, but what about when it gets cold again? It may come back even worse

<comment><USER9> By then, we should have enough testing kits, and authorities should be better prepared to handle it.

<comment><USER10> Not to mention a better baseline immunity within the population, and more preparedness as a whole.

Testing kit shortages, lack of information, no vaccine, etc. are all a function of how little time we've had to respond. If we can buy 3 months, that's a lot of bonus time to prepare.

<comment><USER11> Europe had about 3 months compared to China and is handling the situation much worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Maybe that's why Singapore hasn't been badly impacted?

<comment><USER13> Singapore is included in how they determined this result, therefore you shouldn't use this result to explain why singapore is doing better.

<comment><USER14> No, Singapore is not in China and is thus _not_ in the set of "100 Chinese cities". It's only mentioned in the paper in graphs of temperature and humidity of a whole bunch of countries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here's the study on arxiv [1], if you're more inclined to use that system.

[1] [https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2003/2003.05003.pdf](https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2003/2003.05003.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER16> This isn't peer-reviewed.

Maybe I have bad information, but cold plus high humidity caused it to persist on fomites longer (9+ days). Wouldn't heat plus low humidity be better than heat plus high humidity? What is/are the breakdown mechanism(s)?

<comment><USER17> High humidity reduces aerosol transmission, which is the more important vector.

(By essentially washing down the vapor and additionally making people exhale less water. At least that's the theory behind it.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Spain seems to be an exception to this theory.

<comment><USER19> Madrid has cold weather up until Tuesday - [https://www.accuweather.com/en/es/madrid/308526/march- weathe...](https://www.accuweather.com/en/es/madrid/308526/march- weather/308526)

It'd be interesting to see if the warmer weather since Tuesday will reduce the number of new cases. If we assume a week between exposure to getting diagnosed, we would start seeing lowering rate of new infection starting from mid next week.

<comment><USER20> 23C, thought it would be warmer now, what about Thailand?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I checked with a bunch of biologists and all of them find the results here to be merely correlational and misleading. Have asked to wait for more evidence

</comment><comment><USER22> Excuse my ignorance but would a colder temperature but with rain help prevent due to the high humidity or does it require heat AND humidity?

</comment><comment><USER23> In the developed world a lot of people spend time indoors with air conditioning most of the summer anyway? Especially more frequently now thanks to climate change. Not sure how this changes a lot once it's circulating already?

</comment><comment><USER24> Taiwan is doing good in containing Covid-19 despite its proximity to China

</comment><comment><USER25> Looking at figure 4 in the paper gives me some comfort since the majority of the population centers in the northern hemisphere could approach a R of 1 in July.

</comment><comment><USER26> This sounds great, but I don't know anything about SSRN. Can someone shed light on the credibility here?

<comment><USER27> same as arxiv

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Have the authors considered increased sunlight/UV radiation in warmer areas?

</comment><comment><USER29> 105 data points (patient pairs). Linear regression. Not conclusive.

</comment><comment><USER30> To be pedantic, COVID-19 is the disease, SARS-CoV-2 is the virus. It's like HIV vs AIDS.

<comment><USER31> If you reduce the transmission of the virus, do you not reduce the transmission of the disease?

<comment><USER30> I mean, that's why it's pedantic.

Technically you can't "transmit" the disease. The disease consists of the effects on the body.

Also, you can transmit the virus without having the disease, which is what makes it dangerous since you have no idea. It's like you can transmit HIV without having AIDS for years:

>Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is defined in terms of either a CD4+ T cell count below 200 cells per µL or the occurrence of specific diseases in association with an HIV infection

That doesn't happen for a long time (or today, for a lot of people, never).

<comment><USER31> Well, fair. My assessment was based on the assumption that the distribution of outcomes for a patient isn't affected by the source of the infection. If you had some hypothetical way of transmitting the virus only to hosts who would then develop symptoms of the disease, I guess you could argue that you could reduce transmissions of the virus while maintaining transmissions of the disease.

That'd be _impressively_ evil though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This study fits a two-variable linear model to a high-dimensional nonlinear process.

</comment><comment><USER33> Exactly how does one take this body of scientific knowledge and act on it?

</comment><comment><USER34> this abjectly fails to deal with heteroscedasticity

</comment><comment><USER35> How is the virus doing in Singapore, an island on the equator?

</comment><comment><USER36> Here's a likely related paper from 2007:

[https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899](https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899)

 _In this study, a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-based pseudovirus system was employed to address these issues. Our results indicated that the SL-CoV S protein is unable to use ACE2 proteins of different species for cell entry and that SARS-CoV S protein also failed to bind the ACE2 molecule of the horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus pearsonii. However, when the RBD of SL-CoV S was replaced with that from the SARS-CoV S, the hybrid S protein was able to use the huACE2 for cell entry, implying that the SL-CoV S proteins are structurally and functionally very similar to the SARS-CoV S. These results suggest that although the SL-CoVs discovered in bats so far are unlikely to infect humans using ACE2 as a receptor, it remains to be seen whether they are able to use other surface molecules of certain human cell types to gain entry. It is also conceivable that these viruses may become infectious to humans if they undergo N-terminal sequence variation, for example, through recombination with other CoVs, which in turn might lead to a productive interaction with ACE2 or other surface proteins on human cells._

Look at the authors:

 _Zhengli Shi_

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

 _She is a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Shi and her colleague Cui Jie found that the SARS virus originated in bats._

<comment><USER37> Can someone with a better understanding of molecular biology and virology explain what this means? I don't want to jump to conclusions.

<comment><USER38> The paper describes how virologists in Wuhan engineered a "SARS-like" virus -- previously limited only to bats -- specifically to make it infective in humans via the ACE2 receptor. That's the same receptor used by the SARS-CoV-2 bug we're fighting now.

Note that the paper was submitted 12 years ago. They've had a lot of time to work out the kinks, if they were so inclined.

EDIT:

I want to repeat what I've said in other comments, because what I initially said was inaccurate. These researchers didn't actually create a new coronavirus, but rather a much simpler and safer virus purpose-built to test some receptor-binding structures.

This is a well-established way to study viruses safely, and this kind of work is critical if we're to learn how to develop vaccines faster in response to epidemics.

<comment><USER39> Why on earth would they do this? What sort of application does this have or serve?

If it's a bioweapon, why was it published?

Is there any concrete genetic or documented evidence to show COVID-19 is engineered? This is a big claim and has severe ramifications for China, if true.

<comment><USER38> According to the paper, they did it in order to figure out why SARS-CoV was able to infect humans, while numerous other SARS-like viruses are not. Their hyposthesis was that the critical feature is a particular sequence in the protein found on the "spike" that the virus uses to bind to host receptors. By constructing a new SARS-like virus with the desired spike protein, they were able to validate that hypothesis.

It seems to me that if there was any malign intent behind this work, they would not have published a paper on it. Obviously, that's doesn't preclude the possibility of an accidental release from the same lab twelve years later. As far as I know, there's no way to prove whether 2019's coronavirus was engineered in any way.

<comment><USER38> I want to repeat what I've said in other comments, because what I initially said was inaccurate. These researchers didn't actually create a new coronavirus, but rather a much simpler and safer virus purpose-built to test some receptor-binding structures. This is a well-established way to study viruses safely.

This kind of work is critical if we're to learn how to develop vaccines faster in response to epidemics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The ME in MERS stands for Middle East, since outbreaks of it are always from camels. Such places are some of the hottest on the planet. MERS is another form of coronavirus.

It is foolhardy to think spring and summer weather will save us.

<comment><USER41> It's a related but different virus. Also, the environment in the Middle East tends to be arid.</comment></comment>


25% Layoffs At Seattle's Zillow - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/17/25-layoffs-at-seattles-zillow/

<comment><USER2> Redfin also laid off around 20% of their staff a few days ago: <http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2008/10/a_very_tough_day.html></comment>


Warren Buffett's bio "The Snowball" and lessons for startups - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchenblog.com/2009/02/22/warren-buffetts-bio-the-snowball-and-lessons-for-startups/ <comment><USER2> I think it's interesting that Andrew considers 8 years a long time to build a company. I think if you look at Buffett, the reason he's so rich is because those first 8 years were just the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER3> Im currently reading this book and there is one point that is off with this post.

"2. Who cares what other people think? Boring businesses can win big"

While I agree with the point, Buffett was very sensitive of what people thought.

<comment><USER4> I've always heard Buffett emphasizing being rational instead of going with the crowd - even being contrarian.

But I haven't read "The Snowball" - does he reveal something different about it there? (e.g. overcompensation for insecurity?)

<comment><USER3> His mother had emotional issues and he took some verbal abuse as a child. This led Buffett to go out of his way to be liked by others and avoid confrontation at all costs.

<comment><USER4> That's in his personal life (and is probably why he is so well-liked); but in business decisions, he buys when others are selling (and vice versa). He closed up his first partnership, depressed, because the stock market was booming. He has described himself as being excited when the market falls. (but maybe much of this contrarianism comes from his partner, Charlie Munger, and his mentor Benjamin Graham?)

I think he also supported breaking a strike (at the Washington Post). That ain't nice stuff, and I think he vowed never to get into that situation again. But he did get into the first time.

<comment><USER5> _I think he also supported breaking a strike (at the Washington Post). That ain't nice stuff_

What's not-nice about that? Letting a cartel exploit its customers seems like the moral low ground.

<comment><USER4> If you confront strikers, they won't like you - see the context of this thread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> patrickg-zill Buffett deserves a lot of admiration, he certainly built his early cash hoard with hard work and grit.

However, he was born on an upward slope fed by historical circumstances such as the destruction of the industrial base in many countries as a result of WWII while America was mostly untouched; by the growth of fiat currency unencumbered by being tied to gold or silver; by the increase in the value of human labor due to (again) WWII and productivity increases of automation.

Now that many of those growth curves have flattened out, I am wary of following WB too closely - I worry that the lessons of the old economy will not work in the new, diminished age that is upon us.

<comment><USER6> He's been investing since the 50s. How many times in his long career could someone have told him "the world is fundamentally different now, and your old strategies won't work"? Many times.

The fundamental business of Berkshire Hathaway is this: get cheap cash (float) from the insurance business and use it to buy high-quality companies. Berkshire's inflow of cheap cash is unrivaled, and it has an extremely good reputation as an acquirer. In the "new, diminished age," I think those factors are even more important.</comment></comment>


PyData London at Level39 Canary Wharf (Feb-21 to Feb-23) - <AUTHOR> http://pydata.org/ldn2014

<comment><AUTHOR> This will be my fourth PyData after NYC 2013, SV 2014, BOS 2014, and NYC 2014...

This conference series is great!</comment>


Renraku OS: It Lives - <AUTHOR> http://daeken.com/renraku-it-lives

<comment><USER2> Question: will it compile on Mono? I think this should not be much of a problem, or should it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't tested building on Mono (as noted, I just got TestKernel building), but I believe it should with few problems. I believe the only thing you'll have to do is install nasm (in addition to the normal deps) and change lines 51 and 52 of Renraku.build to:

      <exec program="mono" commandline="Obj/Compiler.exe Obj/TestKernel.dll" output="Obj/kernel.asm" />
      <exec program="nasm" commandline="-o Obj/kernel.bin Obj/kernel.asm" />

Let me know if you run into any issues.

Edit: Note, you need to have Boo 0.9.0 or better to build the code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=686802>

</comment><comment><USER4> This is an OS?

My OS project (<http://www.loper-os.org/>) has been accused of having a 10:1 hot air to code ratio bytewise, but at least I have written a bootloader which initializes hardware and prints "Hello World." This man currently has "prototypes in a mix of C# and Nemerle." Does he intend to recreate Microsoft's complete runtime environment on the bare metal? Are we to laugh or cry?

<comment><AUTHOR> Err, I think you're looking at the "Background" section of my previous post. In the one linked in this post, I give a bootable kernel in Boo which implements basic functionality.

<comment><USER4> Where is the bootloader? Where is any code which runs outside of Windows? I could not find it in your tree.

<comment><AUTHOR> The bootloader is GRUB. I haven't tested building TestKernel on anything but MS.NET, but you can give it a shot. Follow the instructions at the GitHub repo ( <http://github.com/daeken/RenrakuOS/tree/master> , also linked in my post), and if you're running on a non-Windows platform, you'll have to install nasm and point the build script to that instead of the exe that ships.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


ARMageddon: Cache Attacks on Mobile Devices - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/IAIK/armageddon?2 <comment><USER2> From the linked article: "While the data stored in the cache is protected by virtual memory mechanisms, the metadata about the content of the cache, and hence the memory access patterns of processes using that cache, is not fully protected."

=> And this metadata seems be used to get to the keys/passwords from sibling processes: with memory-access time measurements for known crypto implementations...

<comment><USER3> "protected" is really the wrong word. Doesn't need the NSA to read RAM!

<comment><USER4> You misread the explanation. Data from another process is in the cache, but your process can't access it (due to virtual memory protection). But you can still extract side-band information by measuring the cache latency.</comment></comment></comment>


MathJax 2.0, probably the nicest way for showing/writing math on the Web - <AUTHOR> http://www.mathjax.org/2012/02/26/news/mathjax-version-2-0-now-available/

<comment><USER2> Someone on Reddit wrote a nice bookmarklet to use MathJax on pages where the site doesn't support it. You can get the bookmarklet here: <http://web.mit.edu/jcalz/Public/Reddit/mathbookmarklet.html>

Here was the Reddit discussion: [http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/o6a2u/math_bookmarklet...](http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/o6a2u/math_bookmarklet_tex_the_world_mathjax/)

It supports both MathJax and TeX the World, which is what /r/math uses. However, that is no longer being developed, so for sites other than /r/math I think people should stick to MathJax.

The great thing about the bookmarklet approach is that it also works great on mobile devices. The previous solution for adding math to sites where the site owner won't support it was to use a greasemonkey plug-in or something similar, which generally left out mobile.

Here's some math if anyone wants something to try out with the bookmarklet.

The solutions of \\(a x^2+ b x + c = 0\\) are: $$x = {{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}\over{2a}}$$

Another example. Consider the continued fraction expansion of an arbitrary real number \\(\alpha\\):$$\alpha=a_0+{1\over{a_1+{1\over{a_2+{1\over{a_3+...}}}}}}$$.

Let \\(\left\\{p_n\over{q_n}\right\\}\\) be the sequence of convergents for this continued fraction.

For almost all real \\(\alpha\\), the limit as \\(n\to\infty\\) of \\(q_n^{1/n}\\)exists and $$\lim_{n\to\infty}{q_n^{1/n}}=e^{\pi^2\over{12 \log 2}}$$

For the curious, more information on that interesting limit can be found here: <http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Khinchin-LevyConstant.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> There is a css/js dropin for wikipedia under development here:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nageh/mathJax>

It is phenomenal on wikipedia pages. Sadly it does not support wikibooks at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER4> AFAIK, it is the only one. True?

<comment><USER2> There's also TeX the World, although that is no longer under development and probably should not be used.

Wordpress.com has some kind of support for math in blogs. I don't know how they actually implement it.</comment></comment>