"Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air" by David JC MacKay - <AUTHOR> http://www.withouthotair.com

<comment><USER2> I seriously like the numbers he's giving. He actually outright states what the theoretical max of certain technologies are, like if wind turbines covered the whole of the UK we would only extract 200kWh/d per person (which would involve the levelling of every city to blanket cover the country), and his estimate for the UK is 195kWh/d per person of usage.

Even his best-case production estimate (which would basically turn the UK into an importer of everything as 75% of our arable land would be producing biofuels) he states we would only likely get 180kWh/d/p and that's assuming the technologies don't conflict (like having 10sqM of PV _and_ 10sqM of solar heaters on our roofs _per person_ \- so 80sqM of roof usage in a 4 person house - would be feasible, especially considering the amount of people in high rises). The actual estimates though, from the Institute of Electrical Engineers and a half-dozen others, puts the estimate at ~18kWh/d/p of renewable production, compared to our 180kWh/d/p of consumption. _Big gap_.

Basically our option if we want to cut carbon emissions as much as possible is to go nuclear. The US has a consumption of 270kWh/d/p and Canada has a consumption of 350kWh/d/p (due to heating use, in some places basically 8 months out of the year). Both the US and Canada are benefited by being the 3/4th largest country and the 2nd largest country, respectively, which might make us capable of going green without nuclear, especially Canada.

However the infrastructure costs, employment costs and everything else will be astronomical. Simply put the US cent/kWh cost for electricity generation speaks worlds, in the UK it costs roughly 4 cents/kWh for nuclear, 7 cents/kWh for onshore wind, and 11 cent/kWh for offshore wind. In Europe those costs can jump to 15-20 cents/kWh for onshore and offshore respectively while nuclear jumps only to 7 cents/kWh.

The usage of natural uranium in reactors and the reprocessing of fuel (MOX) can significantly cut down on costs, especially considering that ~$300,000 of palladium can be recovered from 1 ton of spent fuel during reprocessing. The MOX can then make a second cycle, bringing up the palladium content per kilo of fuel purchased. Palladium reprocessed from spent fuel is actually less radioactive than a granite counter top, and due to its emission type and half- life (6.5 million years) it eventually decays into silver.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps "like" is too strong a word, but it's rather bracing to get an idea of how long high-energy civilization can last; barring some miracle like practical, cheap fusion power appearing in the next decade.

If I were to make a comparison to a work of fiction, it wouldn't be to _Mad Max_ or _The Day After Tomorrow_ ; but to _The Cold Equations_ , by Tom Godwin.

<comment><USER2> Nuclear can prolong us for a long time, uranium would basically be a stop gap to full on conversion to thorium reactors, as it's 3 times more abundant than uranium, but 550 times more abundant than U-235.

Basically nuclear would only be a stopgap to Fusion. Once fusion becomes available, you can begin replacing fission with fusion. Existing nuclear power plants have so much land reserved around them as a buffer zone that entire fusion plants can be built on them without the requirement of any new land as the old nuclear plants are decommissioned.

The ITER project currently puts the first commercial fusion plant in 2050, however that's based on current funding and research. As fusion increasingly becomes our only alternative I have a feeling the funding will begin going through the roof. I still wouldn't bet on anything closer than 2035 though.

<comment><USER4> 1\. ITER (and NIF) may turn out to be irrelevant: <http://www.technologyreview.com/business/23102/>

2\. It's been a while, but IIRC we're looking at at least 50 more years of U-235 and maybe two centuries of plutonium and thorium (lowballing). I have a hard time believing that there won't be even one revolutionary breakthrough in how we use or generate energy in the next 150-250 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like how he dispenses with the fallacy of saving energy by unplugging DC adapters or TVs by focusing our attention on the high-energy cost activities (heating and transportation).

5 minute shower * (5 gal/min) * (440 BTU [to heat water 85 degrees]/gal ) = 11000 BTU or 3.223kWh or ~16 hours of 200-watt HDTV

1 gallon of gasoline = 115000 BTU or 33.7kWh or 10 5-minute hot showers

<comment><USER2> The ironic thing about bodily hygiene is that room temperature water is as good at killing bacteria as warm or hot water, incidentally its effect is negligible. Soap works better in warmer water, however as more and more people use liquid soaps and hand washes its meaningless as the added surfactants enable it to work just as well at lower temperatures. In fact many liquid soaps are better at removing grease and dirt at lower temperatures than standard soap is at better temperatures.

Then there's the whole problem that frequently washing your hands in warm water without a good liquid soap (which typically contain antibacterial agents too) can actually _increase_ the bacteria on your hands due to the added moisture and temperature.

Dropping the temperature of your shower to room temperature will not only save you significant amounts of energy but will wash you just as well. In fact plumbing a cold water storage tank into your shower line and keeping it in a well insulated area of your house, you can spend virtually nothing on heating your shower water. Even adding a cold water storage tank to your shower line will likely cut the energy usage of your shower in half even if you take a hot shower. Most showers either run off a hot water tank (majorly inefficient) or an on-demand hot water system (either one that replaces the hot water tank, or a stand alone shower unit connected to your cold water line) and both ways end up heating ground temperature water: water lines stay at ~55F, room temp is between 68F-77F and a hot shower is 85F.

So even if you like a hot shower, simply adding a holding tank to the cold water intake of your shower can reduce the amount of energy you use phenomenally (potentially a 2/3 reduction). If you're in and out of a shower in 5 minutes, you likely only need a 25 gal tank, but for an average household I'd recommend perhaps a 100 gal tank, just in case.

<comment><USER6> Also, shower shorter. 5 minutes is way more than enough.

<comment><USER2> Your average guy maybe, but I doubt you'll get too many women or teenage girls to shower inside of 5 minutes, especially if they have long hair. However a shower longer than 10 minutes might as well be a bath as your average tub only needs 60 gals to fill and your average shower pumps out 50 gals in 10 minutes. So if you take your time showering, you might as well take even longer and have a good bath instead.

After all a shower is supposed to be a fast alternative to a bath, if you take forever in a shower you might as well go full hog.

<comment><USER7> Baths don't seem to make much sense: you're soaking in the very filth you're trying to clean off of yourself, and after you're done, you're still soapy so you need to rinse off anyway. It also takes time to draw the bath, time that you would otherwise be washing yourself.

When I was young though, I would close the drain, shower, and then take a bath once the bathtub was full.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> After 78 pages I now feel somewhat qualified to say something about the book: It seems to be great. I like its non-preachy style and its very limited and seemingly well executed approach of supplying the reader nearly exclusively with baseline numbers. This is what we have – we only have to find out what we can change and how.

I also like that for once I get a realistic and detailed approximation of my energy usage. There are quite a few surprises in there.

</comment><comment><USER9> I read this a couple months ago and loved it. It's a physicist looking at the hard numbers of energy consumption and (sustainable) production. It's the opposite of all the wishy-washy environmentalist hand waving that's out there.

Read this if you've ever wondered about how leaving the lights on compares to turning the heat down a degree compares to...

</comment><comment><USER10> This is the book to read if you want to understand sustainable energy issues. The only part where it's weak is discussing the economics; I would have liked more material on the costs and how to make sure they're manageable.

And yes, it's refreshing to see a book on this subject written by someone who can do enough math not to fall for nonsense.

<comment><USER11> I know this guy and he's pretty approachable. He was always keen to improve the content of the book so get in touch if you've got comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Another book of his on a different topic but with same great clarity of explanation is "Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms". The PDF is on his site at <http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/itila/book.html>.

</comment><comment><USER13> Incidentally, David Mackay's group came up with the Dasher eye-tracking user interface and a bunch of cool machine-learning stuff; and for further HN cred, one of his ex-postdocs is CTO of Songkick.

<http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/>

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm a bit confused. This author makes the future sound bleak, with impossible choices. He makes it sound like wind, solar, geothermal, and hydro will never be enough.

But then, you read a quote like this from another source and the solution sounds almost easy:

"Less than 1% of the world's deserts, if covered with concentrating solar power plants, could produce as much electricity as the world now uses."

<http://www.trec-uk.org.uk/images/CSP_map_squares2.jpg>

What am I missing?

<comment><USER15> One of the major obstacles is that you don't just need power, you need power on demand. Using current technology it's impossible to store electricity so it needs to be used right away or it's lost. Wind, solar and many other forms of green energy aren't dependable enough that you can rely on them as your only power source. If the wind doesn't blow on a winter night you're going to have a cold apartment if you're dependent on wind and solar.

There are experiments being done with transferring large amounts of electricity across countries in Europe based on the assumption that it will always be windy or sunny _somewhere_ and that if power can be transferred long enough the uncertainty of supply will be cut drastically.

<comment><USER16> You can convert the electrical energy to other forms of energy though and store it that way. In following the link that nkurz gave the Andasol solar power station was mentioned which apparently will store excess thermal energy in liquid salt allowing electricity generation into the night. Pumped storage hydroelectricity is another, more established, method of storage.

I don't envisage huge vats of molten salt meeting our energy needs throughout the night but I suspect that energy storage will continue to have a part to play in meeting our energy needs in the future. It seems to be relatively expensive but then so is long distance transfer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Extremely smart book. Read most way through his draft version a few months ago. Ordered it in paperback, looking forward to rereading the final copy.

Seems pretty up the middle as he tends to attack all sides who spout off bullshit numbers. However, there's going to be a lot of political hate for this book. Oh well, that's the world we live in. Truth and pure data analysis is very under appreciated in todays hyper partisan political environment.

</comment><comment><USER18> Thank god for physicists.

<comment><AUTHOR> To maintain balance we have politicians and bureaucrats.

<comment><USER19> Balance along what spectrum? Rationality vs. Demagogy?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes.

Using numbers taken out of context to push own agenda.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What a clear way of explaining the problem. Very readable graphs too, I'm impressed!

</comment><comment><USER21> what a lot of you seem to miss is that we need to start cutting on wasted energy at the same time as we build more solar/wind/nuclear/tidal/etc.

it's not just about replacing hydrocarbons by equal amount of alternatives!</comment>


Newly identified computer virus, used for spying, is 20 times size of Stuxnet - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/newly-identified-computer-virus-used-for-spying-is-20-times-size-of-stuxnet/2012/05/28/gJQAWa3VxU_story.html?hpid=z3

<comment><USER2> For other discussions and stories, see here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4038051>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4038200>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4033224>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4033225>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4033242> <\- Comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4033315>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4033481>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4033541>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4034879>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4035300>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4035485>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4035641>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4035833>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4036025>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4038014> <\- "Fix" found</comment>


Faviki's Social Bookmarking Tool Makes Semantic Tagging Even Easier - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/favikis_social_bookmarking_tool_makes_semantic_tagging_easier.php

<comment><USER2> I wonder if users actually want this.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's true that in this moment it is hard to come up with practical benefits of semantic tags/structured data for end-users. Still, the structured graph they are part of holds a great potential and the Web of data is evolving fast.. I guess the time will show.

<comment><USER2> I think you need to figure out the why of tags.

In general, I recommend not spending a huge amount of effort (equivalent to a big bet) without taking some effort to vet the concept in a low-cost way.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand your point. For now, I compromise between 'why' and 'how'. Explaining 'the why' of semantic tags (and the Semantic web in general) is still a great challenge, but I feel that moment is very close. Thanks for sharing your thoughts :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Osmo - <AUTHOR> https://www.playosmo.com/ <comment><USER2> I don't understand all the hate in this thread. This is a clever and creative use of technology that combines a favorite toy (iPad) with the one thing it lacks: physical interaction with real world objects. From what I understand (I'm a new dad so I'm still reading and learning), this sort of thing is very important for a developing mind.

<comment><USER3> I'm with you. People citing their absence of research and their certainty that this will be discarded in a day is amusing. What those academic papers lack is an actual product and customers deciding to buy and use that product of their own free will. When someone releases an app to "connect people" or make some day-to-day taks easier, nobody seems to want academic papers to back their claims. I also feel like it goes without saying that this will most likely be discarded in a day but so will 99% of the products we build as startups. That's the great thing about today's environment. We get to experiment in the real world with real people and real products! Enjoy it while it lasts is my suggestion.

<comment><USER4> > When someone releases an app to "connect people" or make some day-to-day > taks easier, nobody seems to want academic papers to back their claims.

Most people are qualified to evaluate whether an app is allowing them to connect with others. On the other hand, they are not qualified to evaluate whether a product is educating their child. Education claims are widespread and difficult to disprove, but rarely come with any proof. It is completely rational to expect some.

<comment><USER5> No it's not. No one is saying buy this and don't play with your kids as well. This is one tool among many.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >Top educators from over 150 elementary schools nationwide, including the Bay Area's best preparatory institutions, are raving about Osmo's natural ability to foster creative, social, and emotional learning ‑ and how much their students love it.

If there's one thing I, as a teacher, do not trust, it's when teachers (sorry, I mean "educators") get excited about technology.

(Doubly so if educators = administration)

<comment><USER7> Although "educators" being excited about technology certainly doesn't guarantee that it will be great, it's not a negative signal either. Singling this out for such cynical focus when there's so much other content here to comment on seems unwarranted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> OK, seriously, why is it so hard for companies to just tell me _what their product is?_

I guess it's some sort of augmented reality thing? With a clip-on mirror? (???) And a standard Tangram game?

"For the first time, fun knows no limits." Did somebody redesign zombo.com for the 21st century and try to attach a product to it?

There are so many beautiful product pages out there which completely fail at the basic task of telling people what they're selling. It's baffling.

<comment><USER9> I have no interest in watching to video either, but I can clue you in on the mirror's purpose at least. Normally the camera looks straight out at the user. They need the camera to look down at the table/floor/play surface. The on screen games depend on the app being able to see where you place each piece. Without the mirror the camera wouldn't be pointing at the pieces.

<comment><USER8> Thanks. I kept insisting on thinking that the mirror let it look _back_ , which made no sense as there's already a camera back there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't know I just get the overwhelming feeling that a lot of people aren't parents in this thread. My daughter loves these types of puzzle games on our touch devices. As soon as I saw the video, I have a good feeling she will like it. Really it looks fun , and the word game looks like something we can do together. I'm excited about this product. I really could care less about the actual learning aspects and more interested in the technology + fun aspect.

</comment><comment><USER11> That looks awesome. I'm considering ordering one for the kids.

This paragraph is pretty hilarious though:

"Osmo is crafted for kid‑durability and always ready to go: no batteries, or Wi-Fi required."

Well, yeah.. Except for the actual iPad.

<comment><USER12> That's a pretty big deal considering that I only have one Android tablet and no iPads.

<comment><USER13> I imagine that given the array of Android tablets it's much harder to design such a thing for them, not just because of the differing physical form factors but because of the varying capabilities of the cameras themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The company introduces Osmo, an iPad suite of games for children which uses the iPad's camera to use physical tiles on a traditional tabletop as input. The demonstrated games include tangram, a tile based word guessing game, and a physics-engine based game in which players must draw a path for falling objects to hit targets.

While the product describes itself as using "reflective artificial intelligence, a groundbreaking technology that bridges the real and digital realms for unlimited possibilities of play", it falls under what we in academic HCI call "tangible interaction", following Shaer & Hornecker's definition:

 _" Interfaces that are concerned with providing tangible representations to digital information and controls, allowing users to quite literally grasp data with their hand and effect functionality by physical manipulations of these representations."_ [0]

The four claims typically made when introducing tangible interfaces in products for children are usability benefits, learning benefits, collaboration benefits, and fun benefits [1]. Osmo does not escape to the rule, claiming all 4 in its marketing copy.

While Osmo does not include any information about research conducted with it that would demonstrate those claims, similar systems have been proposed in the past.

The word game is mirrored in Dekel & al's Spelling Bee [2], a game which uses wooden letter blocks instead of Osmo's Scrabble tiles, and LEDs embedded in the cubes to provide player feedback. The authors report high engagement from the test audience (children 7-12), but no learning assessment or long term engagement study was performed (arguably 2 of the most important metrics).

The tangram game is mirrored in past research projects, including Scarlatos & al's [3] tangram game. Xie & al's [4] paper performs a user study on 3 implementations of a puzzle game: physical, GUI based, tangible. The authors report finding same self-reported level of enjoyments from the test users on all 3. However, they report that repeat play was more significant in the physical & tangible version of the game, which does not create an argument in the favor of Osmo. They do report significant gender effects in the way of collaboration, which could be relevant for Osmo:

 _" While all gender pairings' mean scores on the Interest and Enjoyment subscale were nearly the same for the TUI condition, the boy-boy pairs had significantly higher scores than the girl-girl and girl-boy pairs for the GUI condition. In addition, the girl-girl pair scores were significantly higher for the traditional PUI condition than for either of the computational conditions (GUI, TUI). For girl-girl pairs mean scores for Perceived Competence subscale were also higher for the PUI condition than for either of the GUI or TUI conditions. Mean scores for boy-boy pairs were highest for the GUI condition."_

The last game implemented by Osmo, the physics game, is the least interesting of the 3 as it has less claims to educational value than the other 2. However, it is reminiscent of several similar tabletop based tangible systems and augmented reality systems. [5]

Unfortunately I have to go work now, and the edit window will be over when I'm back online :( But for readers who found the above interesting, I will leave a few more relevant papers [6][7][8][9]

[0] Shaer & Hornecker, "Tangible user interfaces: past, present, and future directions", 2010

[1] Zaman & al., "Editorial: the evolving field of tangible interaction for children: the challenge of empirical validation", Personal Ubiquitous Computing, 2012

[2] Dekel & al, "The Spelling Bee: An Augmented Physical Block System that Knows how to Spell", ACE, 2007

[3] Scarlatos & al, "TICLE: using multimedia multimodal guidance to enhance learning"

[4] Xie & al, " Are Tangibles More Fun? Comparing Children's Enjoyment and Engagement Using Physical, Graphical and Tangible User Interfaces ", TEI 2008

[5] Krzywinski & al, "RoboTable: A Tabletop Framework for Tangible Interaction with Robots in a Mixed Reality"

[6] Antle & al, "Hands on What? Comparing Children's Mouse-based and Tangible- based Interaction", IDC 2009

[7] Resnick & al, " Programmable Bricks: Toys to Think With", IBM Systems Journal, 1996

[8] Price & al, "Let's get physical: Learning Benefits of interacting in digitally augmented physical spaces" , 2004

[9] Resnick, "Edutainment? No thanks I prefer Playful Learning", 2004

<comment><USER15> Thank you for the well researched and thoughtful post on the potential "educational" benefit of Osmo.

As a parent I like to think that the top of my list of buying qualifications be that something is educational and enriching.

But from a product perspective this thing just looks like FUN.

And my reality is that spending $50 for "fun" potential for my little kids is a no brainer.

That it's interactive and even POTENTIALLY educational is the icing on the cake, not my primary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's a neat concept - a nice, polished AR kit. The actual tangram concept is a bit disappointing though - dragging simple objects around on a flat surface is already something the iPad excels at. In this case it feels like it's somewhat obsoleted by modern touch-screens.

Obviously there are cases where touch-screens fail, but simple tangram puzzles work just fine with them.

I'd be interested in seeing this expanded to things that require too large a play-area to do conveniently with a tablet, or that involve manipulation that doesn't correspond to simple dragging (which you can already do well on the iPad).

Either that or focus on vision-impaired students. Maybe a set of braille algebra-tiles[1]?

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra_tile](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra_tile)

<comment><USER10> I disagree, on the tangram aspect. Most games have an almost auto snap feature that if you drag the piece close enough it just snaps into place. I like the fact that it takes more of hand eye coordination and understanding of physical space for the physical objects to create the shapes on screen.

<comment><USER17> And rotating a tangram on the iPad takes two touchpoints, where the physical one can be rotated with a single finger.

<comment><USER18> Auto-snap, and most importantly _inability_ to rotate, allowed my 1.5yo kid to solve puzzles when he wasn't yet able to solve wooden puzzles well. After an intense period of solving those non-stop (I believe it's first time he strongly experienced the positive reinforcement of winning a game), he also easily does the wooden puzzles. I don't have any data on whether that's indeed a win developement-wise, but I'm excited that easy software tweaks (which would be impractical in physical product — how do you stop one from rotating pieces?) can dramatically affect kid's ability to engage them.

<comment><USER16> My daughter fell in love with a similar non-rotating tangram game at that age, and that's why it came to mind... tangrams are something that tablets do _really_ well.

That said, I do see what they mean about rotation. My son took some time to learn to play Amazing Alex (Rovio's Incredible Machine remake) because of the clumsy rotation UI in that one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How do these games benefit from including a tablet? From what I can learn from the video the tablet assists you with counting points and lets you know when you've arrived at the right answer. Sure, it makes things more convenient. But what is wrong (from an educational point of view) with letting children add their points/checking their solutions themselves?

<comment><USER20> It benefits the companies which sell tables and such games.

If the game benefits from it, I have my doubts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Great product (at least from an ingenuity point of view; would be interesting to see how kids react to it)

Side question: What is this style of info presentation called? Basically, a full-page-width webpage, with very sparse information that slowly shows up as you scroll down. I'm not too fond of it, but I see it a lot lately, so I assume it has been shown to lead to higher conversion rates. Does this presentation style have a name?

</comment><comment><USER22> Am I the only one who saw this and was hoping it was an online remake of Cyan's Cosmic Osmo [1]?

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Osmo_and_the_Worlds_Beyo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Osmo_and_the_Worlds_Beyond_the_Mackerel)

<comment> at-fates-hands Apparently I'm the only one. I used to play this over at a neighbors house all the time when I was a little ankle biter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Looks interesting. I want that technology but just to transfer paper notes/sketches to digital. I've tried using stylus on iPad for wireframes etc. but I can't quite get it to work same as sharpie & paper.

<comment><USER24> You might want to try the Google Drive document scanner function!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I played with this at the NY toy fair in February. The words game is really cool, you find yourself digging through letters as quickly as possible while trying to form the word but you also have to watch to make sure you are actually on the right track before you shove too many out there, and watch the other player too. The game is scored by giving you points for getting the word but you also lose points for every letter you shove in that isn't right. If you want you can just shove the whole stack in front, you'll instantly solve the puzzle but with an enormous negative score.

Something about that particular game is an experience I haven't had with either physical or digital games before, whereas most physical/digital hybrids I've seem could just as easily be done purely in one or both realms.

The tangram seemed like a bit of a dud for that reason, for example. It is nice to be able to get hints while playing physical tangrams (it can show you just the outline but tell you if you have a piece in the right spot), but that isn't really that much of an improvement over just having the pieces or just an iPad game.

The physics game where you draw on the pad is a strange demo to me. You can just do it as a drawing game without the paper, which is a bit less social, but again, this isn't much of an improvement. What is really cool, though, is the interactive outline of your hand or any object you put in front of it. But it doesn't really encourage that in any way, it just feels like a tech demo.

All that said, this product does excite me just because the word game gave me a feeling I haven't gotten in either a purely physical or purely digital space.

</comment><comment><USER26> There is a similar "augmented reality puzzle game" for adults called Reflow.

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reflow/id444083164?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reflow/id444083164?mt=8)

It was released Jun 01, 2012.

</comment><comment><USER27> Did anyone else get excited expecting something related to this?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Osmo_and_the_Worlds_Beyo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Osmo_and_the_Worlds_Beyond_the_Mackerel)

<comment><USER28> Me too! I remember watching some little kids (who are now in their 30's) delightfully playing Cosmic Osmo, and explaining it to the adults.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> At first I thought this was a stupid, idea. In the, I became excited and envisioned a lot of opportunities for cool games.

I don't know why there are people in this thread talking about school and education. This is a toy. A toy should not be designed to educate. Kids play videogames the whole day these days. Osmo could bring them out of the videogame, make them interact with objects, not to learn, but to play, only. This should not be confined to small kids games, but also to all kinds of games, and other uses as well.

</comment><comment><USER30> I really like this. It seems to me to be an early approximation of Neal Stephenson's _A Young Lady 's Illustrated Primer_ from _The Diamond Age_.

A commensurate companion, guide, and teacher. Sure this may only be a few activities but the responsiveness and seeming magic to it is fantastic.

I particularly like that you can set down a toy in front of the camera and it renders out a flat illustrated version of that toy.

<comment><USER28> Here's a free "magic" iPad app that I'm developing, which doesn't require any gadgets!

[http://pantomimecorp.com/](http://pantomimecorp.com/)

[https://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZContentLink.woa...](https://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZContentLink.woa/wa/link?mt=8&path=apps%2fpantomime3d)

<comment><USER31> Hey Don!

I was about to post a link to your new gig when I spotted that you had beaten me to it!

<comment><USER28> Thanks -- here's a video demonstrating the new networked multi player version of Pantomime that we're showing at Augmented World Expo! Pantomiming with your friends in AR is a whole new ball game!

We'll appreciate your vote for "Best Augmented World Video" in the Augmented World Expo competition, please -- your vote will really help, because we're currently in second place!

[http://augmentedworldexpo.com/auggie-category/auggies- best-a...](http://augmentedworldexpo.com/auggie-category/auggies-best- augmented-world-video/)

Click on the "Pantomime Corporation" entry to see our video of the new multi player version, which just won the Launch: Silicon Valley World Cup Tech Challenge in the Digital Media Mobile group.

[http://www.heraldonline.com/2014/05/21/5986165/svforum- annou...](http://www.heraldonline.com/2014/05/21/5986165/svforum- announces-2014-winners.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is a great product. To me, the video (while marketing) showed exactly how kids would react to something like this. Nowadays, all kids know how to use an iPad so throwing in the physical pieces as well brings back the "legacy" way of playing. Plus, it has a nice teaching aspect and i could imagine a dual iPad "versus" mode to encourage a little competition.

</comment><comment><USER33> To be fair, tangrams are pretty fun. Young me would rather it just show me the silhouette than showing me where to put the tans though.

</comment><comment><USER34> I love this so much. But, when I step back and look at what you're getting for $58, I'm wondering why I can't build one myself. It looks like I'll need an iPad stand, a small mirror, and a fisheye lens.

Then, I'll just use the same apps as the other Osmo users.

<comment><USER35> Really? How much are a mirror that you have to fashion yourself, a fisheye lens, and an iPad stand going to cost you? And after you've found all that you still don't have the games. $58 shipped to you seems pretty reasonable to me.

<comment><USER36> My thoughts exactly $58 is a decent price, there are a lot of scrooges in here. The argument of "geez i can build this in a day and the materials will cost me less than 10 bucks" are tiresome and stupid. If you value your time at more than $2 an hour its a good price.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I have siblings with kids (and iPads) so this looks like a perfect timeline for a Christmas present...but it's never a good sign when you try to give someone money and they won't take your CC because they're doing validation wrong.

-_-

</comment><comment><USER38> Okay, I don't get the product, but I'm impressed that as you scroll down the screen, the Osmo drops onto the iPad, and then the iPad drops into its holder.

</comment><comment><USER39> The hate here, I believe, is because the ad is very artificial and the the children are clearly acting. Too obvious.

</comment><comment><USER40> I wonder if there are other use cases for a little iPad augmented reality app on a stand beyond kids stuff

</comment><comment><USER41> Needing to give kids an iPad raises all sorts of issues: Cost, breakage, internet exposure...

I would be very likely to buy a self-contained colored digital etch-a-sketch that logs everything ever drawn on it, which I can later put on my computer.

I know that would be very big brother of me, but it's for cute's sake!

<comment><USER42> it's really simple to turn kiosk mode on in your iPad. It makes the app full screen and you can only exit out with a pin you set up when you launch kiosk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I would love to see this with a giant screen. The iPad is great but kids needs space and room to play. Great start and I really feel that things like this will have a great impact in the future.

<comment><USER44> I'm sure this would be fun on a giant screen, but it's not necessary. Kids play with tablets and phones all the time. Large screens are not a prerequisite for enjoyable playtime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Not a bad idea in the last, but I strongly suspect my kids would be more interested in creatively disassembling the iPad than playing with Osmo.

</comment><comment><USER45> If I lived in the states I would buy one for my kids in a heartbeat. The newton game looks like something even I would enjoy! Great job guys!

<comment><USER46> Just ordered one for Spain. They do ship internationally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I don't have any kids but I'm buying one this is awesome - Looking forward to getting one of these to play with.

</comment><comment><USER47> Looks SO awesome! that's the kind of article i like to see on HN!.Looks great,cant wait my kids to try that.

</comment><comment><USER48> Looks great, but it really needs an independent review.

</comment><comment><USER49> I am definitely getting this for my daughter.

</comment><comment><USER50> This is brilliant! Amazing job guys!

</comment><comment><USER51> looks like a google product

</comment><comment><USER52> This blew me away.

</comment><comment><USER53> Poor website. Till I read the comments here, I could not figure out in 30 seconds what the product does except that it uses artificial intelligence.

</comment><comment><USER54> What's with the weird space between "Pre" and "Order Osmo" in the header? Also, the percentage doesn't add up. Or is it supposed to be with shipping?

By the way, the price is ridiculous. Even the discounted one. That puzzle sells for about 4$ (that's with profit), let's be generous and say that the app itself is worth $10 (which it isn't) and we are left with $85 for a mirror embedded in plastic? Shipping not included?!

That being said, nice idea, I haven't seen it done before. Possibilities to extend this are great.

<comment><USER54> Constructive criticism (first two questions) and explanation why the price is insane downvoted without single response. Awesome job.</comment></comment>


Facebook and Stanford researchers design a chatbot that learns from its mistakes - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/17/facebook-and-stanford-researchers-design-a-chatbot-that-learns-from-its-mistakes/ <comment><AUTHOR> Original paper: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.05415](https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.05415)</comment>


It's the End of the Gene as We Know It - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/68/context/its-the-end-of-the-gene-as-we-know-it <comment><USER2> article contains multiple misrepresentations of the facts and the ultimately conclusion is very wrong. It;'s too bad, because otherwise, it does contain a number of very good statements about the limits of heritability.</comment>


Netflix and FreeBSD: Using Open Source to Deliver Streaming Video [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/netflix_freebsd/attachments/slides/3103/export/events/attachments/netflix_freebsd/slides/3103/FOSDEM_2019_Netflix_and_FreeBSD.pdf <comment><USER2> Why is there such a visceral hatred for non-GPL software? Seems that every time the GPL vs. BSD (or equivalent) issue comes up there is much anger about companies doing proprietary work on top of FreeBSD. I'm curious about the opposite: code taken from BSD (or equivalent) projects and put into GPL code bases and then extended such that those improvements cannot be ported back to the BSD source. GPL proponents say this never happens but in multiple forums I've heard from folks who have had their permissive-licensed projects killed because their work was effectively GPLed and "extended" against their will.

To me this boils down to how you see humanity: if you think we're essentially good and willing to help each other, permissive licensing makes more sense. If you think morality has to be enforced by contract because we cannot trust one another then GPL is the only choice. I chose permissive licensing because I don't see my fellow humans as essentially evil.

<comment><USER3> As user of commercial software and ex-Linux zealot, I have my own glass ceiling, so take it with a grain of salt.

Had Linux and GNU not been GPL, and we would all be using Aix, HP-UX, Solaris, ..., because none of the BSDs would have gotten back the contributions like it happened to Linux, and BSDs would still be just another UNIX derivative among many.

Just look at the optimizations that some embedded OEMs, or even Sony, don't contribute back to LLVM. And speaking of Sony, not everything from PS4 OS has gotten back to BSD.

<comment><USER4> The Playstation 3 and Vita also run/ran NetBSD, as well

Sony also helped spawn "ToyBox". A BSD licensed replacement for the GPL "BusyBox" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toybox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toybox)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really like the work Netflix has done and open sourced back into FreeBSD [1], But I do take issue with one of the slides, where it says "Using FreeBSD and commodity parts, we achieve 90 Gb/s serving TLS-encrypted connections". Sorry but that's not FreeBSD, that's a Netflix proprietary fork of FreeBSD serving all that, until me and the rest of FreeBSD community can actually download and use TLS sendfile, Netflix should probably stop saying FreeBSD serves all this TLS traffic.

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sZZN8Szh14&t=834s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sZZN8Szh14&t=834s)

<comment><USER6> I clicked on that video and at the timestamp in the link the guy says they like FreeBSD because it's not GPL. Not that we have anything against GPL or the Free Software Foundation, but the BSD license is more collaborative. I'm paraphrasing here.

Is there any actual evidence for that claim?

I'm a Linux guy so my view is probably biased. All I'm seeing is BSD licensed projects being ripped off by corporations left and right. Maybe we mean different things with the word, sharing. Netflix using FreeBSD and their idea of giving back to the project is telling them this will lead to their code being tested really well? That sounds to me like "please create a web page for us for free, it will lead to more exposure for you".

Why does FreeBSD then not have your TLS sendfile code? Linux has TLS sendfile. It was contributed by a corporation, as far as I know.

Personally, I have always really liked the BSD projects. The people working on them have been nothing but professional and yet courteous, they tend to fix their security issues quickly. I would love for them to get paid properly.

With money. Not with "exposure" or "we'll test your code".

<comment><USER7> >I'm a Linux guy so my view is probably biased. All I'm seeing is BSD licensed projects being ripped off by corporations left and right. Maybe we mean different things with the word, sharing. Netflix using FreeBSD and their idea of giving back to the project is telling them this will lead to their code being tested really well? That sounds to me like "please create a web page for us for free, it will lead to more exposure for you".

Where are you seeing these corporations ripping off FreeBSD? Netflix has contributed code in the past, currently over a thousand commits in FreeBSD, and there's no reason to doubt their intention to continue doing so.

<comment><USER3> Apple, Sony, a couple of companies selling routers,...

They are on their right though, that is what the BSD licence is all about, code for free no questions asked.

<comment><USER7> I'll grant you there are probably router companies ripping them off, though that's true of Linux too. Your other two have both contributed much back to FreeBSD, so I'm unsure what you mean.

<comment><USER3> With Linux there is a legal way to get hold of those contributions, to anyone willing to invest time and money into it.

Yes, they have contributed back and I referred that in another thread, just not what they were supposed to under a copyleft license.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is ZERO technical details in this PDF beside 'we track head closely'

</comment><comment><USER9> I was a bit naive when I said I wish Netflix had use Fast.com as their brand of CDN. Turns out their whole CDN are tailored to their special needs of Video and Video only. So it wouldn't work nearly as well if there were many small files or other CDN use cases.

What I really wished was I could have a CDN based on BSD. Even though you can't actually use BSD for lots of other reason, you could at last contribute a little by having some infrastructure that is built on top of BSD and you are paying for it. As far as I know only Limestone CDN are on FreeBSD, but unfortunately they only offer business to Enterprise.

</comment><comment><USER10> All of the discussion points in this thread are valid but what the slides omit is whether they using ZFS?

<comment><USER11> UFS. Source: 47:50min @ [https://ftp.fau.de/fosdem/2019/Janson/netflix_freebsd.webm](https://ftp.fau.de/fosdem/2019/Janson/netflix_freebsd.webm)

<comment><USER10> Thanks. ZFS doesn't have to be used everywhere. And in media like this it probably makes little sense as they have all the tools custom built to deliver stuff to it and such.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Absolute shame flaunting open source as a backbone for DRM delivery.

</comment><comment><USER13> Using Open Source to Deliver Streaming Bytes You Hope Are Just Video

<comment><USER12> ^ better title, please update OP</comment></comment>


Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove Eclipsing N.S.A.'s - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/us/drug-agents-use-vast-phone-trove-eclipsing-nsas.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> Take a look at what happened when the drug dealers were doing the exact same thing:

In a police raid, Cali cocaine cartel leader José Santacruz Londono was found to have assembled a database that contained both the office and residential telephone numbers of U.S. diplomats and agents based in Colombia, along with the entire call log for the phone company in Cali, which was leaked by employees of the utility.

A $1.5 million IBM AS400 mainframe was loaded with custom-written data-mining software. It cross-referenced the Cali phone exchange's traffic with the phone numbers of American personnel and Colombian intelligence and law enforcement officials. The computer was essentially conducting a perpetual internal mole- hunt of the cartel's organizational chart. Santacruz could see if any of his lieutenants were spilling the beans.

They were. A top Colombian narcotics security adviser says the system fingered at least a dozen informants -- and that they were swiftly assassinated by the cartel.

Ref: [http://www.mail- email@example.com/msg000...](http://www.mail- email@example.com/msg00087.html)

Longer story here: [http://cocaine.org/cokecrime/index.html](http://cocaine.org/cokecrime/index.html)

<comment><USER3> That story can't possibly be true -- he would have only had access to metadata, and I've been told many times that metadata surveillance is completely harmless.

<comment><USER4> The existence of the data would be enough to infer a relationship that shouldn't exist at all.

<comment><USER5> woosh

<comment><USER6> I think you were looking for this... [http://i.imgur.com/YwgbT16.gif](http://i.imgur.com/YwgbT16.gif)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the document:

 _Protecting the Hemisphere program is a formidable challenge. We have taken the following steps to try and keep the program under the radar..._

The fact that our government creates and then goes to such great lengths to hide programs that it knows the public (and most likely the courts) will vehemently object to shows the level of contempt that government officials and employees have for the very people they were hired to serve. I don't know that it can be fixed, but it is a very serious problem.

<comment><USER8> Maybe they don't want drug pushers and users to know they have this either?

<comment><USER9> Is this an argument in favor of the practice? Because, honestly, drugs should be legal to sell and to purchase. If all drugs should be legal and if the trade in drugs should be legal, then how can any program like this designed solely to enforce drug laws be justified? In that event, who cares what drug "pushers" and users know?

<comment><USER10> Well, honestly, drugs should not be legal to sell and to purchase.

What world are you living in? Do you think these guys deal weed? Have you seen what (crack) cocaine does to people?

These cocaine pushers are in the business of destroying people, and they certainly should be apprehended.

<comment><USER9> Many drugs are horrible and ruin lives. But they ruin fewer lives than do the laws making the sale and purchase of drugs illegal. If every penny spent on enforcing drug laws and incarcerating drug sellers and buyers were spent on education, treatment, and poverty programs, drug use would fall in the United States by orders of magnitude.

One of the more pernicious effects of making the sale and purchase of drugs illegal is that people who sell and purchase drugs are sent to prison. Most people sent to prison for these offenses are themselves addicts either trying to feed their habit, or to pay for it. These are the people that the drug laws are intended to protect, no? But as a result of going to prison they:

* are frequently denied effective treatment for their illness, and therefore continue as addicts inside and outside of prison;

* are effectively exiled from the legitimate economy, becoming a burden on society both before and after incarceration, and increasing the likelihood of continued drug use;

* cannot take care of their families, increasing the burden that we all carry that we would not otherwise carry;

* are mixed with a violent element, whose influence will certainly cause many to commit non-drug crimes that they otherwise would not have.

The prisons turn users into addicts and addicts into career criminals.

Some people seem to believe that we need these harsh laws in order to catch, as you put it, "cocaine pushers" who are "in the business of destroying people". In fact, narcotraffickers are entirely the creation of US "Drug War" policies. Decades of supply-side enforcement has made these people so wealthy that they can purchase entire governments. The government of Mexico, the world's 14th largest economy, is populated in some percentage at almost every level by agents of the cartels. It is "Drug War" policies that create the profits to pay for this corruption.

Demand-side policies along with controlled and regulated distribution of drugs in the US will decimate the narcotraffickers. Without customers willing to pay ridiculous margins for their product, they will simply go out of business. Although some former narcos will attempt to leach off of society through kidnapping and other crimes, a lack of local community support, money and political cover will mean that aggressive policing will finally be able to stomp them out in time.

Also consider the case of Oxycontin, a legal narcotic manufactured by Perdue Pharma, "a privately held pharmaceutical company founded by physicians and now located in Stamford, Connecticut". Oxycontin is among the most destructive drugs today. Oxycontin is primarily acquired by addicts either by getting doctors to legally prescribe it, or by purchasing excess pills from individuals to whom it was legally prescribed.

"Drug War" policies are entirely ineffective a combating this kind of practice; as a result, prescription drug abuse is growing at a faster rate than nearly all other forms of drug abuse. However, it is almost certain that addiction-treatment regimes instituted to reduce the use of currently-illegal drugs will also be effective at reducing the illicit use of currently-legal drugs.

And if for some reason you think that education and treatment programs can't have a significant (if not massive) effect on addiction rates, I would ask you to take a look at the following two data points:

[http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/12/science/la-sci-sn- ci...](http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/12/science/la-sci-sn-cigarette- smoking-kids-20130712)

[http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/drug- decriminal...](http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/drug- decriminalization-portugal-lessons-creating-fair-successful-drug-policies)

<comment><USER10>
        If every penny spent on enforcing drug laws and incarcerating drug sellers and buyers were spent on education, treatment, and poverty programs, drug use would fall in the United States by orders of magnitude.

I have no doubt that's true. But even if the war on drugs was stopped, the money wouldn't go to helping the poor. The U.S. only has right wing parties, so the money would just end up paying off debt or lowering taxes.

        One of the more pernicious effects of making the sale and purchase of drugs illegal is that people who sell and purchase drugs are sent to prison.
        ...
        The prisons turn users into addicts and addicts into career criminals.

(hard) Drugs are illegal where I live too (The Netherlands). But we don't have such harsh laws at all. Possession of drugs means a fine and perhaps a few days in a cell sobering up.

It is not the war on drugs that is destroying the U.S's lower class, it's the ridiculous prison sentences. No country in Europe has as many drug related problems as the U.S., and in no country in Europe drugs are legal (except maybe portugal?)

You are absolutely right in everything you say. But legalizing crack cocaine does not sound like an optimal solution to me, sure perhaps you'll succeed in overthrowing the drug cartels. But then you have the issue of regulating or even organizing the legal (private) distribution of drugs. I don't see that ending well at all.

The prisons and the U.S.'s messed up legal system are the problem they are what should be fixed.

<comment><USER11> "then you have the issue of regulating or even organizing the legal (private) distribution of drugs. I don't see that ending well at all."

We have been very successful at regulating tobacco and alcohol. Yes, you can find moonshine if you look really hard, but that's just the point -- almost nobody wants moonshine, people prefer regulated liquor. Sure there is black market, unregulated tobacco and teenagers manage to buy it, but the vast majority of people who smoke buy their tobacco legally.

For that matter we have also been overwhelmingly success at regulating pharmaceutical drugs, to the point where a black market exists for them as _replacements_ for illegal drugs. There is a reason recreational opiate users want pills: the regulations on purity, dosage, etc. Even methamphetamine is available by prescription (for narcolepsy, obesity, and ADHD treatment), and the pharmaceutical stuff is a lot safer, _because of regulations_.

In reality we know how to regulate drugs, including extremely dangerous drugs like alcohol and tobacco, and even "hard" drugs like methamphetamine. Maintaining a regulatory system is not the problem here. The real problem is that the war on drugs is profitable. One of the most ironic facts of lobbying in today's world is that "The Partnership for a Drug-Free America" receives money from alcohol, tobacco companies, and pharmaceutical companies. There is also the matter of politicians having figured out that they can always portray themselves as "tough on crime" by pushing for drug arrests. Police officers unions are fighting for their members jobs by lobbying for maintaining or even expanding the effort. The executive branch has also figured out that the war on drugs is a great excuse for expanding executive power -- even to the point of the attorney general's office having gained the authority to _declare_ drugs to be illegal (and then prosecute people for possessing those drugs).

Legalization and regulation are the answers our society really needs. We need to disband the DEA, repeal the controlled substances act, pass a constitutional amendment that forbids all such prohibitions, and set up a regulatory framework. It is not likely to happen, for the reasons outlined above and because we have had so many decades of propaganda that people have trouble with the idea of alcohol being drug or of methamphetamine having medicinal use.

Out of curiosity, what is it about crack cocaine that has you so terrified? There are far more dangerous drugs out there...

<comment><USER10>
        Out of curiosity, what is it about crack cocaine that has you so terrified? There are far more dangerous drugs out there...

Sorry for the late reply. I disagree with you, and I was a bit tired so I stopped discussing :P I'll answer your question:

The combination of accessibility, addictiveness and health effects. I live opposite to an addiction treatment center and see crack addicts every day. It's addictive like tobacco is, has stronger mental health effects than alcohol and because of its low cost is more accessible than any other hard drug.

I know alcohol is very dangerous too, but 99% of alcohol users manage their addiction in a way they can still manage their lives adequately. With crack and other hard drug addictions you will find the odds reversed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The article didn't address the question of _why_ AT&T has phone records going back so many years. I doubt that five year old data about a customer would be useful for marketing, considering that they have the most recent data. Nor is old data useful for billing once the time period for contesting a phone bill has elapsed. Network capacity planning could be done with anonymized or aggregated data. So it would seem that the only reason why they hang on to all this data is because the government asks them to, or because they can make money selling it to the government (or both).

Now, think about what adverse effects such old data could have on justice. For example, let's say a friend of mine from school, who I spent a lot of time talking to on the phone a decade ago, decided this year to become a drug dealer. The government could start investigating me based on this stale data, despite not having any reasonable suspicion that I was involved in any crime.

I think that what we really need is a privacy-oriented phone company built on the model of DuckDuckGo, which doesn't keep any data about customers beyond what's necessary for billing purposes. But maybe the U.S. already has laws that would make such an ethical phone company illegal.

<comment><USER13> Theory #1 – Because deleting stuff at scale is harder than you think. If you've got structured data (think "relational database, much of which is pretty much guaranteed to be append-only") and you've optimised it's on-disk structure for reporting (think "highly indexed, possibly even with both the index data and the transaction data being stored in ways that take advantage of known query patterns and physical disk geometry) – removing data from it is likely to be _much_ more effort than just flipping a "deleted" flag and continuing to expand your storage pool. This is even more true if you'd also need to consider replicated copies/archives/snapshots/backups. Facebook/Google/Twitter et al store _everything_ , not _just_ because they think it'll make them more valuable to advertisers, but because deleting data from distributed/sharded/backedup/archived databases is more expensive than just marking it "deleted" and leaving it in place.

Theory #2 – The NSA (or it's predecessor or a related agency) have been paying them to store whatever they can since whenever it became possible. If you're prepared to ignore the privacy implications, it's obvious that some _tiny_ percentage of that data _will_ become useful for law enforcement purposes. Unfortunately – when the "privacy implications" are considered in terms of "Is _your_ privacy more important than _my_ career?" – it's pretty clear that a very powerful cohort of law enforcement and intelligence agency decision makers say "Hell no! I just need one or two more _big successes_ and I'll get that promotion I want! Of _course_ it's worth monitoring every single person on the planet to give me a shot at the executive bathroom and an office with a door!" (or, less cynically but equal in consequence "Should I listen to every phone conversation in America, if it might possibly mean we can stop the next 9-11? Yeah, I think it might be…").

<comment><USER14> _Because deleting stuff at scale is harder than you think._

If you've got an age-based retention policy, _and_ you've built in the capacity to delete the data, not really. Periodic purge. I'm not saying this is _trivial_ , but it's not _hard_. The system was clearly designed _not_ to delete the data.

Your theory #2 holds much more water.

<comment><USER13> The optimist in me wants to argue that there may be OPEX vs CAPEX reasons to have not invested in "building in the capacity to delete", or possibly even tax implications of development budgets vs ongoing maintenance which might reasonably explain why you'd choose to build such a system as "append-only, archive indefinitely". The pessimist in me fears you're correct…

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "The government pays AT&T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987."

"Unlike the N.S.A. data, the Hemisphere data includes information on the locations of callers."

"Some four billion call records are added to the database every day"

No wonder phone number portability got pushed through.

<comment><USER16> Even if you switch phone numbers, using Hemisphere they can determine your new number. They look for a new phone number calling all your old contacts.

<comment><USER15> Absolutely. But allowing/encouraging people to keep a single identifier sure makes things easier, and cuts down on your database joins.

<comment><USER17> Do you _really_ think the DBA for a project that doesn't official exist gets to write consumer protection policy?

Can you imagine any nontechnical organization doing something as complicated as passing a law just to cut down on database joins? Seriously?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This "Protect the Program" stuff sounds like another "Parallel construction" debacle. They are not talking about hiding the program from the public, they are talking about getting the information elsewhere after you used Hemisphere.

Basically, this is a private backyard deal the DEA made with AT&T. Apparently our laws have deteriorated to the point where AT&T lawyers believe they can do this legally.

</comment><comment><USER19> Another day, another peek behind the veil of large scale (institutional and codified) data abuse.

We don't have to put up with them poking their fingers in our lives for much longer. We can build around them. We can make them irrelevant. It'll take a more concerted effort than building social networks for cats (where you spend four years of your life posturing about "changing the world" and "being successful" then the next day you cash out for big acquihire fake-success bucks).

Stop studying $FAD_OF_THE_WEEK and go back to your math and ML fundamentals. Play around with it. Build good things. Then build bigger good things. Build good things for good people.

</comment><comment><USER20> If you haven't already seen The House I Live In, I recommend watching the documentary online. It will change the way you think about drugs and the United States' prison system. The movie doesn't focus specifically on technology, but it explores the by-any-means-necessary approach to law enforcement that helps facilitate things such as the Hemisphere Project mentioned in the story.

Trailer: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0atL1HSwi8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0atL1HSwi8)

<comment><USER21> I recently read an article about prisoners who had cell phones from which they posted to their Facebook pages, replete with images of their drugs and snack stashes, even facilitating communications between inmates in different prisons.

It was only after investigative journalists brought the situation to the attention of regulatory agencies that the prisons clamped down on the security breaches within the prisons.

[http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/tennessee-inmates- post...](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/tennessee-inmates-post-photos- partying-drugs-cells-article-1.1334686)

<comment><USER22> They didn't clamp down on anything. All they did was make an example of them. I bet the other inmates 'helped'. They still have access to cell phones and Facebook, they just are more careful now about this sort of stupidity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _The government pays AT &T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives_

If the government pays your salary and you are embedded in the DEA, you are a government employee. Saying these people work for AT&T is patently absurd.

<comment><USER24> Exactly. People get so worked up about the technical distinctions, ones that are mostly drawn by the IRS for tax purposes, that they confuse the form for the function.

It is no different than Booz Hamilton "contractors" working on site at NSA and other TLAs. If the money comes from the government and you take direction from the government, even indirectly, you are an agent of the government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It seems pretty clear that the mobile operators are the biggest commercial organization threats to personal liberty. Their only real competition is the banks.

<comment><USER26> Cash is really easy to use and is accepted everywhere. There's no similarly elegant solution for mobile connectivity if you want to stop revealing metadata information.

<comment><USER12> Well, not really everywhere. If you tried to buy an airline ticket with cash, you'd be subject to a lot of scrutiny.

<comment><USER14> "Legal tender for all debts, public and private".

<comment><USER24> > "Legal tender for all debts, public and private".

Yes, _debts_ being the operative term here. You don't incur a debt until you receive the product. Airline tickets are paid for in advance so the customer never incurs a debt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This story alone is reason enough to _seriously_ start working on a program and schedule for:

\- legalizing drugs and

\- selling them in a controlled environment,

\- taxed and

\- accompanied by a heavy investment in related education in schools nationwide

...instead of throwing billions at killing our most basic rights.

The example of Portugal: [http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating- drug-d...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug- decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html)

<comment><USER28> We already have "related education" mandated as curricula in several different grades in every school system in the country. It's not uncommonly ridiculous propaganda, with blatant urban legends dramatized for your FUD, which is widely rejected by the student body.

What we _need_ is a non-criminalized mental health system that actually functions (addiction neural wiring being a subset of mental illnesses that can be acquired through the victim's actions), and a poverty / diminished capacity safety net that tries to redress problems in the way of marginalized people rejoining civil society.

Essentially everything else would self-resolve after legalization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> David Simon pointed out something like this when PRISM itself was first leaked. The courts and law enforcement have combined for some pretty incredible types of surveillance and investigation possibilities, and have done so for years and years.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is there any doubt as to the fascist nature of the USA now?

Call it "corporate cronyism," or "corporate fascism," but whatever it's called, it's no land of the free anymore.

<comment><USER30> Well, unfortunately the word "fascist" isn't particularly meaningful anymore. But there certainly isn't any doubt that Fourth Amendment protections for documents in peoples' homes haven't been considered to be extended to digital communications moving through various service providers' pipes, and that various government agencies have been having a field day with surveillance data they've been able to legally justify collecting based on that lack of Constitutional protection. It seems largely like a widespread failure to create language protecting digital privacy in the same _spirit_ as analog privacy was originally protected. Maybe that's fascism, but it seems less useful to use words without agreed upon meanings.

<comment><USER21> My bad for using sensational terminology, but the heart of the matter remains.

The privatization and collusion between government and private entities at the expense of We the People has brought the USA to a point where it's obviously become the land of the corporation and the home of the wage-slave.

Lobbyists with vast funding avail their corporate sponsors of representation which is denied to those who lack such deep-pockets.

Only those with similar vast funding are able to attain high level elected positions within our government, from whence they enact legislation which furthers the divide between the plebiscite and the proletariat, which falls right into line with Marxist "liberal-democratic" ideology, where the government becomes the tool of the Bourgeoisie at the expense of the Proles and the Plebes.

This socioeconomic stratification is quite visible in today's USA, and programs such as "Hemisphere" exemplify this situation.

I too find the exclusion of electronic communications from 4th Amendment protections to be an egregious failure of our Constitutional checks and balances, yet due to my own limited understanding of the situation I have always considered our electronic communications to be analogous to the "... papers and effects..." outlined in the 4th Amendment, but my motivations are different from those who have been appointed to interpret our legal structures.

The very notion of "Too big to fail/jail" is yet another example of holding those with vast resources to a different standard when compared to the average Joe Public who worries about how he's going to continue to feed his family as well as keep an acceptable roof over their head.

Where it leaves us is at an increasingly disadvantageous position, unless we are of the Bourgeoisie and able to purchase our way through the system on par with big banks who launder cartel drug profits with impunity; where political appointees can perjure themselves before Congress with impunity; and where every day words are redefined by our public servants as they maneuver their way through the system with similar impunity as relates to their questionable acts.

<comment><USER30> I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I actually don't think the recent surveillance scandals are the best example of corporatism. It is very unclear that corporations (for instance AT&T, in the article) are actually _colluding_ with the government, rather than being _legally compelled_ to comply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> " _Unlike the N.S.A. data, the Hemisphere data includes information on the locations of callers._ "

Unlike the _publicly known_ N.S.A. data.

Also, as if call status matters.

</comment><comment><USER32> It can't just be AT&T, it must be regional bells, the other major carriers, small companies, everyone.

<comment><USER12> The article notes that:

 _" Representatives from Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile all declined to comment on Sunday in response to questions about whether their companies were aware of Hemisphere or participated in that program or similar ones."_

If they were _not_ participating in Hemisphere or similar programs, I'd expect them to be quick to say so.

<comment><USER33> If they were asked to comment on Sunday (on a weekend), then it's probably more likely that they wanted to confer with their legal departments before denying with any confidence.

This is especially in light of the recent public/media PR confusion with technology companies around PRISM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The connection to counternarcotics is a distraction from the real story here. Legalizing drugs changes nothing. The article points this program was used in routine law enforcement, e.g., bomb threats.

I'd like to know more about the "administrative subpoena" process. How often are innocent people's phone logs dumped? Why not just install cameras in the TVs and be done with it?

<comment><USER35> If you look at slide 18, it looks like 96% of requests were for drug cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Yet another reason to legalize drugs.

</comment><comment><USER37> When they say it goies back to at least 1987, I think they are referring to the Daytona database of call detail records (CDRs). That project was active in the 80's, but it goes back much farther, and it may contain most of the CDRs ever created. In it's early stages, punched cards, and later magnetic tapes, were trucked to Bell Labs and subsequently AT&T Labs, where the Daytona system was operated. In it's heyday it was the biggest database on Earth.

There may be a successor to Daytona by now, and "all the CDRs, ever" is not as impressive as it once was, but it is likely that joint telco/government projects like Daytona have been collecting and analyzing call data since there was call data to analyze.

I would not be surprised if they are still using Daytona's query language.

</comment><comment><USER17> HN and the internet community reacted with consistent and vigorous outrage towards Facebook and Google for complying with subpoenas, and over unconfirmed rumors and suspicions that they were selling user data to 3rd parties (not just ad targeting internally). We had boycotts and alternatives to try to move off these services.

Where's the boycott of the PSTN? Why aren't we angry at AT&T for actually _embedding staff in the government_? Why aren't we encouraging people to switch off their services?

<comment><USER38> Probably because telcoms are already considered the worst offenders, and assumed to be evil? No change to the status quo = no uproar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> "Crucially, they said, the phone data is stored by AT&T, and not by the government as in the N.S.A. program"

The irony of this, is that it's exactly the tactic used by drug dealers. In order to avoid the risk of possessing illegal substances, they coerce drug addicts to hold their stash. The courts call this 'constructive possession'.

</comment><comment><USER40> Key term: administrative subpoena. Judges, we don't need no stinkin' judges.

[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/administrative- subp...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/administrative-subpoenas/)

For the P. Simon inclined, rather than just pointing to the obvious slope we've slipped down since Nixon:

Whoah God only knows, God makes his plan The information's unavailable to the mortal man We're workin' our jobs, collect our pay Believe we're gliding down the highway, when in fact we're slip sliding away...

[http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/simon+and+garfunkel/slip+slidin...](http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/simon+and+garfunkel/slip+sliding+away_20124691.html)

</comment><comment><USER41> I wonder if this system has a search capability or it strictly limited to phone # searches. I also wonder if tech to speech works well enough to convert all these calls to text.</comment>


What kind of a thing is Krishna? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/arunnair2006/what-kind-of-a-thing-is-krishna

<comment><AUTHOR> (Commenting here since the text doesn't seem to appear with the URL)

I am a Hindu (but an atheist). I was reading a bit too much Vedanta recently and thought it might be interesting to give an atheistic twist to the idea of Krishna. People waste a lot of time on Krishna in India - why do they do so? What is the attraction in what is clearly a character in an epic/purana? That was the question I wanted to answer.

It's supposed to be a fun read. I am not scholastic or anything!</comment>


Apple Should Pull the Plug on the iPhone (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-should-pull-the-plug-on-the-iphone

<comment><USER2> >Now compare that effort and overlay the mobile handset business. This is not an emerging business. In fact it's gone so far that it's in the process of consolidation with probably two players dominating everything, Nokia Corp. and Motorola Inc.

I don't use any Apple products, and really don't like them at all...but I applaud Cupertino for doing whatever they want despite critical opinion and, sometimes, logic.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20...</comment>


Show HN: Mumu – My attempt to indie hack after two years of lurking - <AUTHOR> https://getmumu.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! The maker here.

It's my attempt to code natively on Swift without Storyboard, SwiftUI, or anything else.

Looking forward to hear your feedback about it. I'm all ears.</comment>


Ask HN: Will you use this Google mash up?  - <AUTHOR>

I built this mash up for learning and fun during my days off. Any feedback will be appreciated to improve my project. http://jamafriend.com/LargeMap.aspx <comment><USER2> I think it's pretty cool. It could be a great traveller-centered tool. Weather and local events/activities seem to be the primary causes of trip success.

As for if I would use it, it would depend on the format and the way the site/product was deployed. I have 3-5 travel centered mobile apps downloaded, but I never use them. I would be more likely to use it if it were positioned as a "get to know the world around you" device. I'm honestly not a cutting edge adopter for these things though, so my feedback may be more suited for a 2 or 3.0 rollout.

</comment><comment><USER3> Neat idea but buggy, News and Events do not finish loading. How about an option to switch between Celsius and Fahrenheit?

Also, who am I to judge but - _Google_ Maps and _MSN_ search? :S

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess you might be using IE, right? A bug in my Ajax code for IE browser, trying to correct it. Right now it's optimize for chrome, safari and ff.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Rooster - An SMS service that messages you the forecast every morning - <AUTHOR> http://www.roosterapp.co/

<comment><USER2> This is do-able with IFTTT. Maybe best to market outside of the tech community, to people who don't know about or aren't interested in setting up their own IFTTT.

Edit: Good on you for actually doing it though!

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great point, and I think it'd be especially useful to people with dumb phones who otherwise wouldn't have access to weather info on the go. Figured I'd start it here and then see if I can market it to those crowds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is super cool, and I'm very tempted to sign up... but how else will my cell number be used? Even without getting all legal, I'd love a brief note in your FAQ about your privacy policy.

<comment><AUTHOR> The only plan is to send weather texts. If the costs of hosting become a burden, I might add a donation feature to the site. But I definitely don't plan on renting/selling/sharing/etc any of this info.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great!

Thanks so much for sharing the code, it's extremely helpful.

I've thought about making something similar (notifications for certain events via SMS) and I'm wondering if you know if Twilio can charge a fee to the end- user for every text? i.e. if for example I say "Subscribe to get an SMS every time there is a tornado in your area, for 50c per SMS" (I made that up, BTW)

<comment><USER5> I think it'll be hard to charge for weather alerts via SMS when so many people are already offering that for free -- like me ([http://www.WeatherWatcherAlerts.com](http://www.WeatherWatcherAlerts.com)).

<comment><USER4> Agree. My plan is not for weather alerts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm guessing location refers to US zip codes. I'm living outside of the US, is there anyway to specify decimal lat long coordinates?

<comment><AUTHOR> Location data is run through Google's geocoding API to return latitude/longitude. If you include something that uniquely identifies your location, it should work fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Out of curiosity, I signed up for a daily weather text from a Show HN a couple months ago. I love their imaginative texts.

But I want a friend to sign up and have no recollection of what service it is. I'm guessing not this one as this says it doesn't get sent on weekends. Ideas?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, don't know the service you're referring to. Curious what you mean by "imaginative texts" though. Do they spice up the forecast language?

<comment><USER7> Coincidentally, today their update had a short URL in it. So after three months, I know what the service is. :-)

[http://poncho.is/register/](http://poncho.is/register/)

Yes, they have imaginative updates. Signed up on 25 April, and so far, no two have sounded alike.

Also noticed once every couple weeks they seem to have a sort of "localized product placement" type update along the lines of "Sunny and 75 degrees, perfect for an outdoor table at Susie's Diner." At least I assume that's what it is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, very cool! I'll see if I can reach out to them. Thanks for the tip :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very cool, thanks for sharing the source, too! What's future plans with this app, if at all any?

<comment><AUTHOR> At this point, it's just a simple way to experiment with new ways to deliver an app instead of the usual web or mobile app context.

I've seen similar "morning update" apps that send you all sorts of information, but I'd rather stick to the "do one thing and do it well" ideal.

I think it'd be really cool if I could market this to areas where smart phone penetration isn't as strong. I'm imagining farmers or laborers in poorer areas would really benefit from a daily forecast, but might not have easy access to one. I just have to figure out how to get this in front of those people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can we have a relative weather service? I'd like to know how today will be compared to yesterday. It's insane that this doesn't exist given that is how most of us end up gauging what action we need to take for the weather.

<comment><USER10> Check out poncho.is which launched recently from betaworks. They do this (It's warmer than yesterday) and it's been really helpful for the confused nyc seasons we're getting.

<comment><USER7> I'm in NYC area and love this service. Signed up in April, have been wanting to recommend it to friends, but until this morning's update with a URL in it, I couldn't remember what service it was and the SMS "HELP" didn't tell me.

If Poncho is reading this, update your HELP to mention poncho.is!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is great thanks!! Ever since google shut down sms search I've been wanting something like this!

</comment><comment><USER12> I implemented something like this as a Python script last year. It was fun to do.

</comment><comment><USER13> How is it free ?

</comment><comment><USER14> Farenheit. Lol.</comment>


COMING TO KICKSTARTER: revolutionary LED display for printing Instagram photos - <AUTHOR> http://www.litpix.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Early bird pricing will be given, you can sign up now to be notified.</comment>


HelpJuice -- The automatically updating help page - <AUTHOR> http://www.helpjuice.com

<comment><USER2> Signed up. Loving it, although emails when they come to me with new questions should have in the reply to all the juice email that i need to send it to get it to show up automatically.

Tools like this are awesome though. Many of us are one man shops. I run a website with 400 users, and I'm one guy. Anything that increases my productivity without me doing anything more is awesome. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Andy. Thank you sooo much for the positive comments. Nothing better than reading these comments and chatting with the users. Very motivating!

Would you mind sending me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com? I might have something interesting for you

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been using GetSatisfaction for years but it grew out of control. I'm looking forward to a simpler solution.

<comment><AUTHOR> This means a lot, coming from a person like you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 'Perfect' is misspelled, and so is 'Hi there'. Comes across as unprofessional. Please spend some time reviewing your copy.

<comment><USER5> So is "founder" in the chat box appearing when we watch the demo

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> super helpful founder answered my questions, seems like an interesting service

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much for the positive feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A product that serves the company's bottom line, takes a load off the support team AND serves the customer very well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the nice words :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> HelpJuice is awesome!</comment>


Why does everything suck?: The Stats Are In. YouTube Really Is A Turd - <AUTHOR> http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/04/stats-are-in-youtube-really-is-turd.html <comment><USER2> I don't know why so many people presume Google are trying to turn a profit on Youtube. Google has deep pockets and long term thinking; it seems far more likely that they are happy to position Youtube as the dominant online video site, while crushing competitors by giving it away for nothing. Then one day when online video has settled down and bandwidth is even cheaper, they can just turn on the revenue tap and drown themselves in video-ad money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Work well for railroads but with all those hungry hackers and greedy VCs, there will always be competition. If there's profit to be made, people will _always_ be chasing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think this article is jumping to conclusions. YouTube isn't a turd. Google just haven't figured out the best way to advertise on YouTube.

Anyone who brings desirable content and lots of viewers together is basically doing the job of a TV, and there are ways to monetise that (even though they are changing). This video was very interesting, on the topic.

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1720068211869162779>

</comment><comment><USER4> I guess ad-revenue does not make sense as a business model anymore. So where does that leave us? \- Subscription revenue \- Donation \- Sell your company

<comment><USER5> There are other ways to be free that don't require ads!

As long as your revenue engine benefits from lots of traffic, then giving stuff away (which is cheap on the internet) will be one way to get that traffic.

One example is 37 signals. Their blogging (free content given away) gets them traffic, and they can take a shot at converting that into customers for their paid for products. No ad vendor in sight.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm glad someone else pointed out that Google's ad-funded largesse won't last forever, and the free web will take a big hit when it does.

<comment><USER6> I'll guess that longer term free video will be distributed via some p2p system. Torrent-like capabilities will be transparently integrated into players, the kinks will be worked out and video will be smooth, and free sites for reliably indexing and distributing the "torrents" will emerge.

I doubt youtube is viable long term. They are popular because they hand out free bandwidth and storage, and have lots of copyrighted material. Youtube will be pointless once it's as easy to post a video as it is to stick a picture somewhere online.

<comment><USER7> _Youtube will be pointless once it's as easy to post a video as it is to stick a picture somewhere online._

So it will be as pointless as Flickr is right now?

<comment><USER6> The flickr of video is a vastly different proposition than youtube. Flickr has paying subscribers.

<comment><USER8> You think that people will pay to host (smaller) photos, but not (larger) videos?

<comment><AUTHOR> The fact that people are willing to pay for smaller photos is a fantastic sign that they would pay for larger videos!

They might pay to host higher quality or longer videos. Here are some things a premium youtube could provide:

\- longer videos

\- higher quality videos (for screencast, plays, etc)

\- spam filtering or policing comments

\- ???

The fact that people are willing to pay for smaller photos is a fantastic sign that they would pay for larger videos!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


My favorite way to TDD - <AUTHOR> http://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2015-09-10-how-i-use-test-doubles.html <comment><USER2> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10203425](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10203425)</comment>


Ask HN: Whats the best way to find a H-1B job in the Bay Area? - <AUTHOR>

Due to the general advantages of the Bay Area tech bubble I'm considering to move over from europe. While I am aware that most start-ups don't want to go trough the process there are probably a few  bigcorps considering overseas talent. Whats the best way to find companys offering sponsored H-1B visas? Are there any specialized recruiters or job sites? <comment><USER2> From what I heard there are quite a few startups that are willing to sponspor an H-1B for the right candidate. You might want to look for those that have received some funding, but other than that just look for startups that you'd like to work for and ask them whether they're willing to sponsor an H-1B.

</comment><comment><USER3> H1B applications are publicly available, so you can download an excel spreadsheet of every company that's applied for them. It also includes job title and company address, so with some excel-fu you should be able to get the data you want.

</comment><comment><USER4> I could do with an answer to that one as well although I'd rather work with a startup than a bigcorp.</comment>