The Future of Lighting - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/07/the-future-of-lighting.ars

<comment><USER2> A group of colleagues and I planning an attempt to elucidate some of the luciferin synthesis genes in our spare time. Much of the pathway is unknown at present, and there would be interesting applications given a complete understanding.

In the unlikely event that we manage to work out the entire system (which I doubt we can in our little free time), I can see us switching to a full time project trying to clone it into house plants or trees or something. I've got decent experience with agrobacterium and callus culture protocols, and we could use computational / systems biologic modelling to cut down the gene expression and regulation search space given some initial in vivo data.

Do you think we would be able to get private funding if we made headway? I haven't looked into that much, let alone biotech startups, but I would be very interested in starting one. It's unfortunately pretty costly work...

<comment><USER3> The Founders Fund might be willing to fund you:

[http://www.crunchbase.com/financial-organization/founders- fu...](http://www.crunchbase.com/financial-organization/founders-fund)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> OLEDs and LEDs however still don't have a CRI that matches that of a nice incandescent light.

There is much to-do in the theater world about when LED light sources will be able to take over the venerable HPL and other tungsten sources, and the ability to accurately light color is a major stopping point.

<comment><USER5> That's always been my issue, too. Even CFLs aren't great, and those don't dim.

I started following another technology a few years back called ESL (Electron Stimulated Luminescence) which is basically a TV turned into a light bulb. The company finally started shipping stuff earlier this year and I got my hands on 2 of them.

The light quality is really nice, and they dim quite well (although not as low as I'd like). It only puts out ~30 lumens/Watt. That makes their 19W bulb around 600 lumens and can reasonably replace 50-60W incandescent. Check out <http://www.vu1corporation.com/> as far as I know they're the only company making ESL. I am not sure if their tech has the ability to scale up in terms of power or efficiency. It's a tiny company compared to the scale of those working on LED/OLED.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A good written article about all the facets of the lighting industry including some cost analysis. Two things I found missing. One is the LEP (Light Emitting Plasma), which is a also a very promising lighting technology, but not often covered in the media. Another point I think crucial for LED is the possible control capability compared to fluorescent technology. With smart detection and bi or tri-level light output settings for LED light solutions at the current 100lm/W show savings at e.g parking is up to 60% alone.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's quite interesting why nobody's talking about making the light bulbs properly. For example the world's oldest still burning lightbulb in Livermore [1], which represents the technology when the bulbs were made to last.

Here in north the energy efficiency is bit different than in south. The heat the lights generate warm up the house and you cannot calculate the waste as you would in the warmer parts of the continent.

[1] <http://www.centennialbulb.org/>

<comment><USER8> Reading the bulb's wikipedia article, sounds like it is not really the bulb's technology that's responsible -- it is very low power (4 watts!), and has a dedicated steady power source. (I previously lived in an apartment with erratic power, and incandescent bulbs only lasted a couple weeks until I got the landlord to fix it.)

If you asked engineers today to come up with a long lasting 4 watt bulb, they'd probably do just fine.

<comment><USER7> The site reminded me from a TV documentary which stated that there was a light bulb cartel which enforced the manufacturers to build bulbs that lasted only about 1000-2000 hours to get more sales. I'd like to link to the video, but I saw it from finnish national television.

Edit: Oh yes it was linked on that site. [http://www.catalanfilmsdb.cat/en/productions/documentary- tel...](http://www.catalanfilmsdb.cat/en/productions/documentary- television/the-light-bulb-conspiracy-ndash-the-untold-story-of-planned- obsolescence/2749/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have some LED bulbs by Qnuru, Philips, and GE, and I like them all. Good light quality, bright enough for my needs.

I did get them as review units, though, and retail they would be around $100 each. But in a couple years they should be quite inexpensive.

</comment><comment><USER10> Not sure if it is just me, but I feel LED lamps emit inferior quality of light for reading. Hurts my eyes.

<comment><USER11> Cheap LEDs do this. They lack a warm spectrum. They also give a lot of noise on your electricity net.

But there are expensive LEDs emitting warm light. Perfect for reading. They emit a much wider spectrum of light.

I think in the aquarium world there are a lot of innovations when it comes to the light spectrum of LEDs. Especially in salt water aquariums.

<comment><USER12> For some reason I've always preferred cold light, even when reading.</comment></comment></comment>


Was Snookie Behind The Gold iPhone 5S? - <AUTHOR> http://www.appstorechronicle.com/2013/09/gold-iphone-5s-surprising-twist.html

<comment><USER2> The gold iPhone was the best gimmick Apple has come up with recently to sell more phones, because there are people that would buy gold _anything_ just to show it off and look cool, even if the case is going to cover it up.

I don't think it was Snookie. In fact, I think it is marketed at those who prefer rap and R&B music, to whom the gold trimmed Nexus's were also marketed. It sounds racist, but African Americans are a market, and many of them like gold things. It's not only African Americans, but I'd be surprised if that wasn't the intent.</comment>


Why I'm Kissing Spotify Goodbye - <AUTHOR> http://nerdgap.com/why-im-kissing-spotify-goodbye/ <comment><USER2> I just wish Spotify could serve up a stream of _recommended_ tracks, based on your listening history, like Last.fm can.

Spotify's "Radio" feature compounds my dislike of "genres" as a means of navigating and discovering music.

 _Radio, play me a stream of "Rock / Alternative / Pop / 70s"_

What the ---- does that even mean? Guaranteed you'll be skipping 9 out of 10 tracks it serves up.

I hate genres. Every file in my local music collection has that tag blanked.

<comment><USER3> Have you tried Pandora? It is an absolutely amazing service that has an uncanny ability to find very similar music, occasionally finding gems from a different genre. They also have tons of small, high quality bands.

The biggest con is that a specific "channel" can start to repeat the same 50 or so songs, but that is easily solved by making a new one.

It is well worth the $36/year for the paid ad-free version, and the adobe air desktop app is lightweight and responsive. Nice bonus: you can have up to 2 or 3 computers streaming music on the same account simultaneously.

Seriously, I cannot emphasize enough how awesome Pandora is.

Windows 7 in the US; YMMV elsewhere.

<comment><USER4> On Linux and the Mac, the command line Pandora client "pianobar" works really well, and while API updates break it, it's always been mere hours before it was fixed, in my experience.

<comment><USER5> If you're on a mac and want something in the menubar (or whatever they call the thing on the top), try PandaBar. Very nice, has keybindings, and the dev adds features requested as quickly as Apple will turn around updates through the App Store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I signed up for premium the day they launched in the US. I cancelled the day they required a Facebook account.

It may well be that Facebook virality is the only way to grow a music startup. I can't really critique their strategy. But I'll tell you this: I am willing to pay for music services that focus on the music and music-playing experience. I could give fuck all about what track 37 of my friends are listening to, and it's not like they were just tacking this stuff on, they have made this a core business strategy, and that will come at the expense of improving the core experience, which frankly could use a lot of improvement.

<comment> k-mcgrady If you already had an account there was no requirement to add Facebook. Seems you just cancelled 'on principle'. And all the social integration within the app can be easily disabled in preferences.

<comment><USER6> Yes, I did cancel on principle. I cancelled immediately in the hopes that there would be a large number of cancellations that very day and it would have some impact on management.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No one ever said there was one music service to serve all manners of music consumption. There are many to serve many.

It is a fallacy to assume that everyone consumes or enjoys music the same way, or that music has the same role in every listeners life. In fact, music could have many roles depending on artist, genre, song, album, mood, etc.

You can't as a music service do a user experience and interface, business model, etc that will serve all modalities and particularities of consumption, fanaticism and enjoyment. It isn't possible. It wasn't possible with physical media either.

I have the luxury of affording many options, and so I have many options: RDIO, Spotify and iTunes. All have different uses for me, all fill different roles in my life as a music listener and consumer.

This is no different than 20 years ago, when vinyl, CD, radio and cassette tapes all had their place in my life depending on what it was I was doing.

</comment><comment><USER8> Since you plan to buy music, and seem to have an extensive catalog, give Audiogalaxy (<http://www.audiogalaxy.com>) to have free access to your music from everywhere. It's my startup, so don't let me bias you - check out reviews on iTunes/Android and the web. I'm pretty sure you'll like it. :)

<comment><USER9> Looks nice. I'll have to give it a try.

Do you have any plans to support automatically backing up music between devices? Current solutions seem to solve either the "play anywhere" or "keep your music safe" problems, but not both.

Ideally, I'd like something with the following characteristics:

* Syncs music like Dropbox, except does it peer to peer between my own devices so I don't have to pay for space. My wife and I both buy music on both our computers and both our iPhones, and keeping a canonical repository of it for backup and safekeeping is a huge pain.

* Lets me choose which artists/albums to sync on to constrained space devices, for offline play. It should take me 2 seconds to say "I want Iron Maiden and Blind Guardian on my iPhone while I'm camping this weekend." Lets me do this from any of my devices.

* Lets me stream music without syncing it (like Audiogalaxy currently does).

* Lets me make tracks/playlists available to my friends for streaming (licensing issues around this one are tricky, but of Spotify can do it, it should be possible.)

I would LOVE something like this.

So far, the only thing I've heard of that even comes close to the spirit of this is iTunes Match, whenever that finally happens.

<comment><USER8> #2 (marking selective chunks of music for offline playback) is available as a paid addon. Some of the other items are stuff we're working on, is all I can say at this point. Stay tuned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Spotify, Rdio and all these other sites need to open up their catalog to local and independent artists. That's one of the reasons iTunes was so popular -- they allowed Youtube singers and other aspiring artists to post their songs and allow people to purchase them. They tapped into this long tail and both Apple and these indie artists made money from it.

These companies can't compete with the big players by offering less. No one cares about the piracy thing, they just want their music, and they want the music they are looking for. 'Social discovery' can be great and all but if I'm looking for a very specific, hard-to-find song, chances are I'm going to find it on Youtube instead and forget about Spotify/Rdio, etc. I think Grooveshark let users upload their own content, but failed in that aspect because their catalog ended up being way too messy.

Difficult problem to solve, wonder who will prevail.

/edit typo

<comment><USER11> At Mog (where I work) we have a highly responsive catalog department. We can pretty much get anything that is already in digital format. This includes bands who are distributed solely through CDBaby or other non-label services. Labels push stuff to us on a weekly basis, but for smaller bands, it may be a matter of making a request.

Then there's the flip side: bands who don't do digital distribution at all. Tapes and vinyl. There's nothing a digital music service can do for these. Unfortunately, a lot of my favorite bands are like this. They'll take convincing.

<comment><USER12> How do I create a Mog account without using Facebook?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If Spotify had Grooveshark's interface I would buy a premium account in a heartbeat. When I first opened Spotify's desktop client I was baffled by how clunky it felt.

<comment><USER14> I too really wanted to like Spotify. But the Spotify UI always felt like _work_ rather than enjoyment and exploration. Unfortunately, until and unless Grooveshark can solve their legal issues and obtain solid licensing, they're going to remain largely locked out of the iOS market (except for an aging an increasingly incompatible legacy app).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> For me, it seems ridiculous to pay for a subscription music service that has a paltry catalog with less than half of the albums I want to listen to. That, and I can't be guaranteed of the quality of the file, if it's transcoded, etc. I have decent headphones and prefer to use them to their full potential.

For people who just want to listen to albums, buying albums still seems like the way to go (whether you use iTunes or Amazon, buy CDs or records).

<comment><USER11> What are the artists that you're not finding on Spotify? Are they available digitally at all?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Until this moment no service convinced me to change my 10-year-old habit of buy/download the music, organize the tags and put it on my mobile device. Since I bought my first iPod until today with my Nexus S I am still doing this and it is very practical to me.

<comment><USER17> My thoughts exactly. I can buy a cd, rip to flac / mp3, listen to the mp3's everywhere mobile, and flac in my home theater or on my nice headphones. All of the cd's I buy still costs me less than some subscription service.

<comment><USER18> Yes, but you _could_ listen to more music for the same price. Even if there are only 2 new albums I want to listen to a month, it's break-even to get an rdio/mog/spotify subscription vs. buying the albums.

<comment><USER16> Another difference is that by buying music the albuns are yours _forever_ , and with a service like this when you stop paying you got nothing left.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've been using Rhapsody for a while and the selection is pretty solid.

<comment><USER20> I'm sure it's better now, but Rhapsody lost me by having _the worst web player I've ever experienced_. It's hard to overstate how bad it was. I just can't bring myself to go back, even though I realize they've worked on it. It was _so_. _bad_.

<comment><USER21> I was in the same boat. It made the platform unusable. That coupled with some of the worst and most apathetic customer support I have ever experienced, I swore to never go back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The argument against the Desktop app seems unfounded, the author states: "I don't usually like playlists and I'm the kind of guy who enjoys listening to whole albums, front to back". I'm of the same opinion, but when finding a new album to listen to I simply dray this into a new playlist and they become one and the same. This would also negate the argument against the mobile app as well.

<comment><USER23> I'm using Spotify right now. I just pick the album, click the first song and it plays the album. Am I doing something wrong? Why do I need a playlist?

<comment><USER24> This is the way I use it as well.

What I would like is some way to tag or bookmark an album. I find I stumble upon a new artist or album I like, but then forget what it was later in the week.

<comment><USER25> Why not create a playlist called "bookmarked"?

<comment><USER26> This is exactly what I did. Then it's as easy as dragging the song and/or album straight to it. That's it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The intro made me snort...

"I've just canceled my membership with Spotify and my narccicism makes me want to tell you all why."

<comment><USER28> The number of grandstanding blog posts where people publicly declare why they're not using a particular website is a metric of success.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I've tried lots of services and apps, and Spotify is my favorite. Of course, it's not perfect but it's way better than what the author suggests in this article.

About the "Playlist a whole album is too complicated"; I'm not sure what he mean by that as you click on a song in the album and it plays all the album.. this could hardly get more intuitive than this.

Of course, there's not all songs but at least they let you upload your own local music (Unlike grooveshark for instance).

Unlike the author, I really like the concept of playlist in Spotify. Basically, it's simply a list of _pointers_ to the real song. So, basically, if you want to save the album, just create a playlist with the name of the album.. in fact, it does that for you automatically if you want.

On the negative side, as someone else pointed out, I wish they had a better "Suggesting new music". Yes, there's a radio but I feel it's not really good. They always show the same songs and most often than not they're not in my taste. I mean, I've got 1000+ songs in my playlists, I'm sure they could use those datas to guess a little better what I like.

A missing feature that I loved from grooveshark was: "Show me a playlist who contains _that song_ ". It was a nice way for me to discover new artists/songs. I'm not sure why it's not in Spotify as, unlike guessing a good songs, this is fairly straightforward to implement.

Another thing that is annoying is how the sync mode works in the desktop app. Basically, if you're in "online mode", it syncs it.. while offline don't use internet. The problem with that is sometime I want to "be online" to listen to the radio or something, but I don't want it to download all songs that need to be synced. (Say when tethering from my iPhone). Also, in the desktop app, if spotify starts when I'm not connected to internet, and _then_ get connected, it will stay in offline mode forever.. there's no way to "turn on online mode". I have to restart the app and then it notices that I'm on internet. And yeah, same problem, since I'm on internet it will automatically start to sync everything.

And, finally, I wish it had a web interface. Yeah, we get it, with the desktop app you have more freedom to implement whatever you want. But still, a materialistic web version to listen the radio or your song might be useful..

So, in summary, it's not perfect, but it's the best solution I've found. And, it's legal :-) (Even though I had to _hack the system_ to get it working in Canada as Spotify is illegal here.)

<comment><USER30> If you start playing an album by simply playing a song in it, then Spotify won't stop when it reaches the end of the album. Instead it moves on to whatever song is listed after the last album song. I'm an album listener too, and that _really_ bugged me when I was testing out Spotify.

<comment><USER31> Just click on the album title first...

</comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady I've been using Spotify since it first launched in the UK a couple of years ago and have been a premium subscriber for over a year. Spotify's cat log is excellent. I have an eclectic taste and most things are available. I do find the odd thing missing but it tends to be classic rock bands which didn't even allow iTunes to sell their music until recently.

I find the desktop app to be great. It's very lightweight and simple to use. To add tracks to your library you star them. Simple. You can also star albums to add those to your library.

The mobile app is the weakest link but not too bad. It has full library access (starred tracks), integration with the iPod library, full search, and offline capabilities. The UI isn't great but it has all the features needed.

</comment><comment><USER32> The reason why I switched back to Rdio? They use your computer as a P2P network.

[http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/how_exactly_does_s...](http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/how_exactly_does_spotify_utilise_my_internet_connection)

</comment><comment><USER33> Like all products, spotify is a constantly improving product. The desktop app is not that great, but the fact that i can access a lot of music within a few clicks without doing anything illegal makes me happy . If you have an exotic special taste you'll have difficulties with every service i guess. I used to listen a lot to last.fm ... but i prefer "on demand" music like spotify offers. The service still needs to improve a lot, but they will get there in the end ... its the new way of listening to music. It doesn't make sence to me to "buy" a song on itunes, since everything is moving to the cloud, "owning" a song really doesnt make sence.

</comment><comment><USER34> spotify is generally non hardware/os/file dependant. iTunes is not any of these things. this is why I'm staying. sure you have to compromise a little on selection, but to me at least the previous benefits greatly out weigh this deficiency.

</comment><comment><USER35> Is there a way to disable all "sharing" of what I'm listening to? I really don't want to share that info. It appears that one has to choose "private listening" whenever starting the app.

<comment><USER36> There is a checkbox in preferences that turns off posting to facebook persistently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm using Rdio and I've been pretty happy with it.

Before I plopped down my money, I did a comparison with Spotify on the artists/genres I cared about, and Rdio pretty much matched Spotify blow for blow.

<comment><USER18> Rdio was definitely lean at first (they didn't even have the Pixies!) but now they have a pretty solid US catalogue. Plus their mobile apps and music discovery features are superior to Spotify.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Grooveshark 4 life

<comment><USER39> I <3 Grooveshark's UI, but every time I see 50 versions of one song I cringe.

<comment><USER38> Haha true, but I'd always rather see 50 than none

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I know that these are fundamentally different services, but if you have a decent home internet connection and a digital music collection you can easily set up a streaming server to listen to your tunes anywhere. I personally use Sockso, which made my mind up to not purchase spotify. I heard Subsonic is good as well. I only pay for the most basic cable internet package and I have no issue streaming my tunes anywhere I may happen to be.

</comment><comment><USER41> I wish I could favorite an artist somehow. Am I missing this option some place? It seems so obvious to me. I like listening to albums, not a random mix of tracks usually and want to be able to keep tabs on my go to artists.

Right now I have resorted to adding full albums to a new playlist so I can see artists names as there are times I can't recall every artist I've liked listening to in the past.

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm pretty happy with my account, the one downside is that with iTunes my wife and I could share an account. With Spotify only one account can be playing at a time. I realize they do this so people don't share accounts with multiple people, but it would be much better if you had five registered devices like iTunes allows.

</comment><comment><USER43> Spotify seems to have fixed the problem where the desktop app sucks up ALL of your outgoing bandwidth (although it is still bad enough to lag YouTube and other streaming video), so I started using it again.

However, would it kill any of these streaming music apps to add an equalizer?

Edit: Also, I highly recommend EarBits for music discovery.

<comment> k-mcgrady I never suffered those bandwidth issues, even on poor connections. Could it have been a problem on your network?

And why would you be listening to Spotify and streaming video? :)

<comment><USER43> Pause Spotify, watch a streaming video. Spotify continues to serve P2P connections even if it's not actively playing music.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I like to keep an eye on bands in the metal genre... one issue I noticed is during (and after) the US launch, quite a few metal bands pulled their music off Spotify. Perhaps the US launch was a big enough milestone for these niche labels to decide whether or not to continue using the service?

</comment><comment><USER45> He mentions selection. One of the problems I have with Spotify is region lock out. I'm American, but listen to a wide selection of music from different countries and genres. It's frustrating to see music available in one country not be available in another country.

</comment><comment><USER46> The convenience of being able to _instantly_ search and listen to the universe of music cannot be understated. It is a killer feature. iTunes Match is a step backwards compared to this - anyone that thinks otherwise is kidding themselves.

<comment><USER39> I wouldn't compare the two. I'd use both. You can't possibly dismiss iTunes Match as a killer feature itself could you?

<comment><USER46> With iTunes Match, you have a tiny subset of all possible music to select from. Why limit yourself?

<comment><USER39> Well, not that my iTunes library is larger than my online streaming library, but it has a larger library of songs I listen to than my online streaming library if that makes any sense to you.

Also, my iTunes library is available offline cross-platform. I'm not limiting myself, which is why I'd say I'd use both. I'm expanding myself. + my offline library is more organized. Am I alone in this viewpoint?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> So he's going to use iTunes, Grooveshark and Pandora. Now that seems, well, cumbersome to me.

Too bad Spotify bothers him -- even though it may lack some songs and features, I don't see why you can't enjoy Spotify for most use cases.

<comment><USER39> I think the library is probably the biggest thing for OP. I mean, when I first tried using Spotify and found out they only had a single track from Blink-182, I immediately stopped using it. They have their entire catalog now, but, I'd imagine still not some songs for OP which, if a service doesn't have an artist/song you want to listen to, why use it?

<comment><USER48> If you own the music, you can add it, and it is then available to you inside Spotify.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> So, you cancelled spotify to replace it with 3 other competing or related products with their own unique interfaces and quirks. I think that somewhat complicates matters.

Most, I think, will stick to spotify in that scenario.

</comment><comment><USER50> Try rdio again. The selection is much improved and the interface is better than spotify. Plus, they don't shove Facebook down your throat.

</comment><comment><USER51> For 9 bucks/month, I'm saving more than enough money to justify the service. When I want to find new music, I use Turntable.fm or Pandora.

</comment><comment><USER52> I don't buy music, don't ever pay for it either. But Spotify has very much upped the "scam" factor recently, by first cutting from 20 to 10 free hours per month, and now not even showing how many hours are remaining till you run out. Also, not until you find and read the long terms and conditions do you find out the first "6 months" (which already seem to be up for me) are a trial of premium, after that you get 10 hours a month free, but they won't tell you till you have 0 minutes left.</comment>


Photos: The Works of Christo - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2020/06/photos-works-of-christo/612484/ <comment><USER2> Some of these seem to be as much art as engineering.</comment>


Difference between Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates? - <AUTHOR> http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/02/difference_betw.html <comment><USER2> Well done Jeff- hope to be able to emulate that. Pretty cool that he knows his Star Trek, too :)</comment>


Istio transferring trademarks to the Open Usage Commons - <AUTHOR> https://istio.io/latest/blog/2020/open-usage/ <comment><USER2> The Linux Foundation (with MS on its board) and Google are now suddenly interested in "helping" with trademark issues.

I smell a rat. This makes no sense.

15 U.S.C. § 1125(a) creates a civil cause of action for claims of false designation of origin and false advertising. This provides federal protection for unregistered marks.

Do you expect that MS and Google are going to fight a civil suit to protect your trademark? Or do you have to sign over the rights to your trademark first, which means you no longer control the trademark. You no longer control your project.

Who benefits? Well if MS and Google get people to "sign over" their trademarks then they can freely define what the trademark means. This would feed into the MS embrace-extend-extinguish technique. The end result is that they effectively "own" open source projects. Imagine if MS or Google owned the Linux trademark and were able to define what was "officially Linux".

This sounds like a "collect the trademarks" competition.

Corporate pokemon.</comment>


Lua Cheat Sheet for Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://coffeeghost.net/2010/11/01/lua-cheat-sheet-for-programmers/ <comment><USER2> Very nice.

I tend to steer clear of cheat sheets for Vim etc. as I try to program my motor memory fairly strictly (and use a look-up of the in-depth help system as both punishment and useful exploration).

But when switching between languages frequently, or when knowledge of one is getting a little rusty, something like this is just perfect.

(I'll also take this chance to recommend 'Programming in Lua' by the creator - Roberto Ierusalimschy. It's really one the clearest, well-paced language texts I've read.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Lua is super easy, once you get past a) function-calls-on-tables syntactic sugar, and b) metatables. The first especially confused me when I was starting Lua, but I love it now.

Edit: Now with code! <http://pastebin.com/rpWwCGVy></comment>


Urban Legends in Computer Vision - <AUTHOR> http://www.lyndonhill.com/opinion-cvlegends.html <comment><USER2> CV is older than the 1960s, and Minsky had enough experience with it to know it wasn't an undergraduate summer student job.

Minsky and Russell Kirsch worked on CV back in the 1950s. Quoting [https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/107503/oh...](https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/107503/oh179mlm.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y) :

Minsky: From the very start AI labs were obsessed with making machines that could see. So there was the early vision work. A lot of the early vision work was somehow associated with AI. Although my friend Russell Kirsch at the Bureau of Standards, had been doing it as early as 1954 or '55.

NORBERG: Which? Vision?

MINSKY: A little bit of computer vision with the SEAC machine. Nobody used the word AI yet. He was the kind of person who could say well, everybody's having their machines crunching numbers, can we have one that can recognize patterns. Of course, the electrical engineers would dispute that and say, we've been making sensory systems all the way back to World War II.

In [https://www.webofstories.com/play/marvin.minsky/29](https://www.webofstories.com/play/marvin.minsky/29) you can hear Minsky talking about recognizing letter shapes in the 1950s. Though I don't know if his work used images, or simply a graph data structures.

Minsky's 1960 "STEPS TOWARD ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE" (see [https://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/steps.html](https://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/steps.html) ) also describes some of the work toward training a computer in "recognizing normalized printed or hand-printed characters."</comment>


OpenELEC 5.0 - <AUTHOR> http://openelec.tv/news/22-releases/153-openelec-5-0-released

<comment><USER2> After my original RaspberryPi which was used for a media centre running OpenELEC died, I've gotten a new Pi and installed Raspbmc on it. Although it did what it said on the box, and I am appreciative for the work done by that team, going back to OpenELEC today was particularly nice. Usually I like to customize my linux machines, but with media centres, I'm more than happy to take something pretty much stock, and just use it.

I downloaded the 5.0 image (which I didn't realise was only just released), dd'ed it to my SD card, booted the pi, and then ran the first run wizard (pretty much clicking next on everything except the dhcp config).

Quick, easy, and enjoyable. Thanks to everyone for all your hard work making this distro.

<comment><USER3> I used a Cubox-i4pro for a while with OpenELEC and it was nice enough (some 1080p content wasn't smooth) when it didn't lock up. It worked well enough while the PSU in my htpc was dead. I haven't redone it since the sd card self- wiped.

I haven't really looked at it since. It was a nice option, and there still isn't a good Ubuntu experience on the device, so it sits unused at the moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can warmly recommend the Gigabyte Brix GB-BXBT-2807 to anyone looking for a completely fanless, quick, and fully supported device. As of OpenELEC 5.0 wireless and bluetooth has been working out of the box. They're on the expensive side of the spectrum, but very quick and neat little boxes.

<comment><USER5> This is tangental, but is there a place online that aggregates all of these smaller boxes or boards?

For example, if I'm looking for something more powerful than a Raspberry Pi / Arduino / Beagle, etc. but not quite the level of an i3, where would I look?

<comment><USER6> There are a few sites that deal with single-board computer news like: [http://armdevices.net](http://armdevices.net) [http://liliputing.com](http://liliputing.com) [http://linuxgizmos.com](http://linuxgizmos.com)

Quickly, you might take a look at the ODROID boards, they nicely cover the lower price and performance spectrum and do a nice job supporting them: [http://www.hardkernel.com/main/main.php](http://www.hardkernel.com/main/main.php)

<comment><USER5> This is exactly what I'm looking for, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a very confusing name. My first thought was that this is a opensource election software.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. At least XBMC had "media" in there. If they are going to use such meaningless names, they should just always stick "media software" after the name in all posts or something.

<comment><USER9> XBMC just changed its name to Kodi.

[http://kodi.tv/](http://kodi.tv/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Since their initial Chromecast support, Plex has won out in my home thanks to its better metadata support and sharing libraries through their website.

Does anyone with OpenELEC/Kodi experience if this is still the case? Should I switch?

<comment><USER11> I want to switch to plex for my TV media center software, I really do but the thing that keeps making me move back to xbmc/kodi is the seek lag (trying to skip to the middle of a movie) and sometimes it just freezes while fast forwarding.

to be fair, I haven't use the plex media center app, my experience is based on chromecast/android app and the android tv app. (my plex server is running a quadcore haswell i5 with 8gb of ram so it should be fairly responsive)

I bought an android TV purely for plex but so far it has been a bit disappointing.

<comment><USER12> I haven't used the Android app but I can vouch for the Media Center app. We use it nearly every night at home and it works beautifully.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I just bought the cubox to try this out on (Before that I was using i3 intel NUCs, so my cost will go from around 400$ per node to 100$ per node). I cannot even begin to evangelize how awesome this project is. You can keep all your source content in a central place with very little system requirements and do all the unpacking on a tiny arm/intel system. Interface is fantastic, and paired with yaste its the best media center experience that exists today.

<comment><USER14> I have this exact setup: a Cubox-i4 Pro in the front room and RPi in a bedroom) connected to my QNAP NAS which runs a shared (MySQL) library; it's fantastic. Can't recommend it highly enough.

<comment><USER15> Any suggestions on a good android device (not a phone) for running Yaste? I've been extremely unimpressed with all the home theater remote options on the market now.

<comment><USER14> I run it on my Nexus 10 as well as my phone and it's fairly nice. It's not quite as polished as Plex imo but it's improving at a decent pace; updates are very frequent.

I uploaded some screenshots of it on my N10: [http://imgur.com/2mdrFYx](http://imgur.com/2mdrFYx) [http://imgur.com/nqppci9](http://imgur.com/nqppci9) [http://imgur.com/xB2AN1H](http://imgur.com/xB2AN1H)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've used it on an Intel Celeron machine and it was absolutely wonderful, apart from the fact that the machine had the Intel 24p bug.

I've recently switched to a Zotac PI320 which is very nice as well, but sadly due to some UEFI nonsense it can't boot OpenElec :( This is a shame as it's easily the simplest way to get a Kodi installation up and running (and automatically updated!).

</comment><comment><USER17> Nice, this release switches from OpenSSL to LibreSSL. Also kernel 3.6.17, with the new getrandom(2) syscall. Good crypto improvements.

One question I have is how LibreSSL allows them to drop both OpenSSL and GnuTLS -- why did they previously require both?

</comment><comment><USER18> Very grateful for the OpenELEC distribution. Worked great on my RPi and now seriously considering to replace Fedora on my HTPC NUC with it, as well.

If any of the devs read this, THANKS a bunch and happy new year!

<comment><USER19> The only gripe I have with OpenELEC is the fact `their` linux isn't as easy to add applications to than raspbmc is (or other distribution paired with xbmc/kodi).

<comment><USER18> The price to pay for having an awesome, stable, but specialised distro. It is indeed significantly harder to add new software to an OpenElec installation ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For potential XBMC users, check out xbmcbuntu. gives you a little more freedom to install / do whatever you want in comparison to OpenELEC.</comment>


America's Ruling Class and the Perils of Revolution - <AUTHOR> http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the <comment><USER2> I find the printable format to be easier to read, even on screen:

[http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling- cla...](http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and- the/print)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm currently reading the biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. It's a compelling look at the origins of the American experiment, and it makes me feel hopeful seeing just how similar things were at that time. These are all complaints people were leveling then, just as they have been since the beginning of government.

"If men were angels..."

<comment><USER4> While I mostly agree with you, I have to note that Hamilton was _competent_. One of the reasons we're an economic powerhouse vs. all those countries that keep themselves messed up (or in the case of Argentina threw it all away on the verge of becoming a 1st World nation) is the efforts he helped lead to put our financial house in order and keep it there. (In point of fact, one of the reasons the previous system of the Continental Congress fell apart was a failure to deal with that.)

One of the points that Codevilla is making is that our current ruling class doesn't have what it takes to guide our country through its current travails.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For a much more thorough look at elite dominance in america, I strongly recommend "The Irony of Democracy":

[http://www.amazon.com/Irony-Democracy-Uncommon- Introduction-...](http://www.amazon.com/Irony-Democracy-Uncommon-Introduction- Advantage/dp/0495501239)

</comment><comment><USER6> It's funny how current problems and developments in politics and society are always and without fail "unprecedented" and "radically different" from anything that has ever happened before, anywhere - at least in the minds of the people who write (and avidly read) this kind of prose.

<comment><USER4> Nah, enough of us know our Pareto (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilfredo_Pareto>), who "is famous for saying 'history is a graveyard of aristocracies.'"

What we are seeing now is the beginning of what he described as a "circulation of elites".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The comments on the original article are scary. It looks like the Spectator is the sort of place where you can say women shouldn't be allowed to vote, and have people agree with you. If these people are the alternative, thank goodness they aren't well represented in our politics.</comment>


Ask HN: Expert coders on demand via Hangouts - <AUTHOR>

A while ago I saw a site on HN which basically provided expert coders on demand via Google Hangouts.<p>Now for the life of me I can't remember the sites name. Anyone remember? <comment><USER2> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Helpouts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Helpouts) is a paid video mentoring scheme; some of their offerings involve tech stuff. [https://helpouts.google.com/search?q=programming](https://helpouts.google.com/search?q=programming)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thnx

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.airpair.com](http://www.airpair.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep that's it! Thanks</comment></comment>


Show HN: Responsive Boilerplate - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/websitescenes/responsive_template/tree/v1.1 Responsive template based off of html5 boilerplate <comment><AUTHOR> Updated the repo significantly since this link..</comment>


Ask HN:Lowest cost hware tool for: validate physical presence and online web app - <AUTHOR> Hello community, i'm trying to find a hardware solution to this problem (assume senior programming skills) :
-  the lowest cost (in dollars and human processes for validator and validated)
-for several distinguishables certifications of the fact that a web app is present physically in a determinable timeframe.
So far I've came up with :
- I mount a screen placed in a determinated physical place connected to internet with 3s interval refreshing QR code that web app have to scan
- validator scan with specific app a barcode on web app (but non cheap on human cost)
- ibeacon with web bluetooth api (but only newest-ish mobile browsers)
- human validator gives a specific code input in web app
basically as simple and cheap as possible digital signature of time and place, how would you do it ?
Ideally you tell me that there is a mini 2" x 2" screen with online capabilities on batteries with juice for several months that can display qr code. To be validated web app has the incentive to scan QR code to prove the web app is present physically present "there" in a determinable datetime.
Lets brainstorm :) <comment><USER2> What's the application you're thinking of? Maybe there is an alternate solution.

<comment><AUTHOR> assume something similar to a digital punch card

<comment><USER2> What if the user supplied a token to a device at the location rather than the user collecting a token from the device? Depending upon how often you needed to confirm attendance, you could greatly reduce communications. You could also use the users device to power the locations device.

Without more details from you it might be hard to come up with lots of ideas</comment></comment></comment>


Poker People (Matt Maroon) - <AUTHOR> http://www.thepokerchronicles.com/archives/000952.html

<comment><USER2> I think your second hypothesis is the correct one: honest people tend to be better poker players. The reason for that is that they can handle losing. People who have a shaky code of ethics tend to equate unfairness with anything that doesn't benefit them. Every time they lose a hand, they feel like they're getting cheated. And that would make them get sick of playing pretty quickly.

</comment><comment><USER3> I really miss poker too. I never played at the level you did, but I had a pretty healthy obsession going for a couple years. And the people I "met" were more on places like 2+2 and the play sites than live, but I see your point about a latent honesty and honor.

re: "...but not one where they ended up getting stiffed when the stakee went on to win..." one exception came to mind. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Gold#Winnings_controversy> Yeah, he's an exceptional douchebag, and he wasn't exactly staked from his rep, but still. (I just wanted to call him a douchebag again.)

</comment><comment><USER4> Matt, by upper percentile in math, where did that place you, i.e. SAT scores, etc? I'm curious whether I have the math chops. Also, is it entirely math and logic, or do you also need a good cold reading ability?

<comment><USER5> I had really high math scores (aced it on ACT, close on SAT) but to answer your question, they're both two sides of the same coin. I'll probably address it in a post on the poker blog as that's the most common question I get asked by hackers (less common but still there amongst others).

The short version is that the two are highly interrelated. Math helps you make the right play given the information you have, reading gives you more information with which to use math and come up with the right play.

And I mean reading more in terms of reverse engineering someone's range of holdings from their actions rather than tells. Tells certainly exist, and have the same effect when you spot one, but they're highly romanticized in movies, etc. Once you get past the lower limits they become fairly rare.

<comment><USER4> Follow ons for your blog post:

How much did you earn in poker in wage terms, i.e. $/h?

How would you rank your mathematical ability compared to most you played with?

Is it possible to quantify the level you can play at based on your standardized math scores?

Did your group try to maximize the potential payoff:mathematical ability ratio in your poker game crowds?

Is this something that can be done to a useful extent?

Finally, if success is so mathematically based, why did you say in an earlier comment that it is so hard to create good poker AI?

<comment><USER5> 1) I was relatively lazy because I didn't enjoy the game, but with really hard work I think I could have done 7 figures a year, or at least close. 2) Most top players are probably around where I am in math. A few are far beyond though. 3) I don't think so. A large part of poker is reining in your emotions. 4) No 5) I doubt it. 6) Like I said, math and reading ability are two sides of the same coin. Computers can't read people for shit, especially when there's more than 1 opponent. Even the worst human can do a better job of it than the best computer.So even though a computer is clearly superior at math, it will always have to put me on such a wide range of holdings that it won't help much. They can do a good job at heads up limit hold'em, but the more players you add to the table, the worse the AI becomes.

<comment><USER4> Thanks, my curiosity about the poker world is now satiated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The number one rule of poker is to play with people worse than you are.

</comment><comment><USER7> Your description of "the honor among poker players" reminds me of the diamond merchants in NYC. Millions of dollars moved around in people's pockets based on honor only (sometimes not even a handshake i.e. a man and a woman). No one breaks the honor or they're shunned for life.

Sometimes the same thing with friends and family. I've had bankers try to make me do yoga on a thimble for a lousy $10K while friends (or even friends of friends) say, "How much do you want. I'll write you a check. I know you'll do the right thing."

Funny how far you're reputation will take you. Sometimes, that's all you got.

<comment><USER8> I think the diamond merchants in NYC is a different situation since it is a tight-knit community of people that rarely lets insiders in. Most people have known each other and each others families for years, so its easier to hold them accountable. Poker is a much more diverse group.

<comment><USER9> Maybe the number of player's at Matt Maroon's level were smaller than the number of VC and startup founders, which would tend to explain his observation.</comment></comment></comment>


Stop distributing .doc files - <AUTHOR> http://maxmackie.com/2012/03/19/Stop-distributing-.doc-files/

<comment><USER2> In Italy the .doc/.docx format (and all othe Office formats) is widely used. At my IT company the file format used in the CV is the starting point for the selection of a candidate. .doc/.docx is the worst choice. We prefer a .pdf file and as an addition we look at the "producer" metadata (just in case).

</comment><comment><USER3> A-men.

There are good reasons to be concerned about this from a business perspective as well. MS Word files can contain a tremendous amount of non-visible information, including reverts to recently-made changes, values coded into the template, meta-data, etc. By exporting to PDF, you strip a good portion of that information away.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point I completely forgot to mention. I might do a bit more research on this and scrape up some tools and make a Version II of the post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I regularly get "screen shots" and "mock-ups" as doc files that contain a single image. It drives me nuts, but I can't find a way to change people's behaviour. Any suggestions?

<comment><AUTHOR> If this is coming from an IT/Tech company, I would HIGHLY question the competence of the employees (no offense meant).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Normally I'd prefer to be shared a Google Docs document by a coworker, but if they'd rather write it in Word and email me a .doc or .docx file, I have no problem with that.

Gmail makes it extremely easy to view those files online, and it's equally easy to convert them to Google Docs format for further editing (all taking place within the browser, no need for Office.)

Anyways, it's extremely futile to stop this phenomenon from happening by means of a blog post.

<comment><AUTHOR> On the contrary, I think the perfect place to voice my opinion is with a blog post. If I can get at least one person to stop and think about the people on the receiving end of a document (especially within a large company), I would say I've made an impact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ah a blog post, written by a tech person, posted to a tech-heavy website.

This will surely reach the target audience.

</comment><comment><USER7> flatform-specific is a typo right? Right?</comment>


JQuery in 2025 - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/martinrusev/60a0c4babf37bd54675b

<comment><USER2> Why this is upvoted? Can you explain more?

</comment><comment><USER3> i dont get it.

<comment><USER4> Neither do I.</comment></comment>


Social media is doing strange things to our memories - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/4857e0da-f472-11e6-95ee-f14e55513608 <comment><USER2> Hmm. Anyone got a non-paywalled link for this story?</comment>


Robot tanks: On patrol but not allowed to shoot - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50387954 <comment><USER2> I don't buy this.

Given a sufficiently desperate situation, I can't imagine any military with autonomous tanks taking a call to keep the autonomous shooting "disabled" when it would risk actually loosing a war.

If anyone had real ethical concerns, they would've not put a gun on a robot to begin with. Once you arm a robot, a software disable is just lipstick on a pig.

<comment><USER3> I've heard it argued that cruise missiles are robots - at least as much as a Roomba is - and hence that 'killer robots' have been with us for decades.

<comment><USER4> And already we have all sorts of problems with cruise missiles (fired by mistake, locking on the wrong target, misbehaving in flight...). Increasing the window of risk to ground combat is very, very risky. As the British ex- soldier quoted in TFA, even humans struggle to discern friend from foe in situations like Afghanistan or Iraq, a machine could potentially create clusterfucks of unimaginable proportions.

Not that I think someone won't do it - if it gives even a resemblance of tactical superiority, someone _will_ deploy it, then watch in horror as things go terribly wrong.

<comment><USER5> out of scope, but this made me laugh :

>>> clusterfucks of unimaginable proportions

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That demo where the unmanned tank pointed its gun at the platform full of generals...... talk about your nightmare demo. I've done a few and even getting my network connection working at a client site can make me sweat a little when a room full of executives are waiting. I can't imagine how the engineers felt when their baby went off the reservation like that.

<comment><USER7> There is the famous ww2 rocket powered mine that looked like a pair of giant Catharine wheels that was designed to breach defences on d day.

When tested it ran amuck and turned back towards the observers

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Mandatory "You have 20 seconds to comply."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzlt7IbTp6M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzlt7IbTp6M)

*That demo with generals probably looked like this :)

<comment><USER9> Even now, 33 years later, that robot is goddamn terrifying. Props to the designers for creating the most disconcerting creature I've seen in all cinema.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> No government or regulation can strop entropy, and given the tools and the knowledge, a Robocop is inevitable. The best we can do is prepare the rest of the world to deal with these things, and the time when without a doubt they get hacked, or become self-aware. The question is, what are we going to do?

</comment><comment><USER11> If you're being attacked, troops on the ground aren't necessarily better than autonomous robots. Robots don't rape and pillage. An advancing robotic army doesn't incentivize the retreating force in adopting a scorched earth tactic, since the robots don't need buildings to house them, groceries or farms.

Maybe I read too much about the Nanking massacre recently, but having it fresh in my mind makes me question whether the often repeated assumption that humans need to be involved, is to be taken at face value. Maybe it's a good idea to keep humans at a safe distance, even if they're actively part of the conflict.

<comment><USER12> But we should have 'skin in the game'. Removing the risk, by using robots, lowers the barriers to engage in conflicts and may lead us to behave more aggressively than we would have done otherwise.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_94xdbisu8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_94xdbisu8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> These articles always focus on man vs. machine but war is a great leveler. What happens for example when there is a proxy war and these devices get used? Lets say the US deploys them somewhere for one side but then surely Russia or China or whoever is supporting the other side will deploy their own versions to counter. Will we then end up with a machine vs. machine scenario?

<comment><USER14> This is basically the plot of Horizon Zero Dawn. [Spoilers] Machine swarm vs machine swarm in human proxy war, but then the humans lose the password and can't access the swarms and they destroy everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> On one hand, I'm pretty excited that something from the universe of Ghost in the Shell would become reality; on the other hand, it's a slippery slope to some dystopian reality where ethical considerations are completely removed from battle.

<comment><USER16> > "where ethical considerations are completely removed from battle"

I'm surprised you say that. Having tired, squishy humans in a hot, cramped box fearing for their life is not exactly a guarantee of "ethical considerations".

Remotely controlled weaponry removes said humans from the immediate danger. It's a lot easier to apply ethical considerations, when you can be certain a moment of hesitation won't cause your death.

Fully autonomous weaponry moves the ethical decision making even further up the chain. Where cold heads can do all the thinking beforehand.

Now, don't get me wrong: There is a lot of ills with remotely controlled/autonomous weaponry. Chiefly among them that it removes certain costs from the political calculus. Politicians fear the spectacle of their troops dying. This fear moderates their decision making. Removing this cost will make the world a worse place. But i would hardly call this an "ethical consideration".

<comment><USER17> That is assuming that both sides have them. That is not likely unless we see the major superpowers going to war with each other, and I don't see that happening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> ED-209: Please put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply.

Jones: I think you'd better do what he says, Mr. Kinney.

...</comment>


Making Waves in Deep Learning--How DL apps will map onto a chip - <AUTHOR> http://semiengineering.com/making-waves-in-deep-learning/ <comment><USER2> Well they finally did it. I always wondered what a thousand C64s on a single chip would be like. And this looks to be just about that (albeit it is not a 6502).</comment>


The Secret War Against the New Age - <AUTHOR> http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2010/08/secret-war-against-new-age-introduction.html

<comment><USER2> Not relevant to HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> From the guidelines:

 _"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."_

and:

 _"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also commnt that you did."_

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html></comment></comment>


Realm ties PostgreSQL databases to mobile applications - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/article/3181819/database-administration/realm-ties-postgresql-databases-to-mobile-applications.html <comment><USER2> This is really cool. How does the mapping work?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! In the configuration of a new PostgresAdapter, you can define the Realm schema, which can be a subset of the tables/columns in Postgres. For example the demo app we built works with a Postgres database with 15 tables, but the adapter only syncs the 2 tables needed by the app into Realm Schemas. See more here: [https://github.com/realm-demos/realm- dvdrental](https://github.com/realm-demos/realm-dvdrental)</comment></comment>


Google Invests in Satellites to Spread Internet Access - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/google-invests-in-satellites-to-spread-internet-access-1401666287-lMyQjAxMTA0MDAwMTEwNDEyWj <comment><USER2> I have to wonder if they will be able to provide uncensored service to parts of the planet that are not able to get it now. China has their firewall, and other governments have tried restricting the internet as well. Satellites over head can get around the restrictions.

This would bring the internet not only to rural areas, but also oppressed areas.

<comment><USER3> Wouldn't whatever spectrum you use to communicate with satellites be governed by the country's government much like how wireless spectra are owned by countries? In which case, I don't think you'd be able to subterfuge like that.

<comment><USER4> Iridium and other satellite providers somehow managed to get around this. I think the only places they can't provide service is embargoed countries (and that's more of a "source" country rather than a "destination" country issue).

Further research suggests that the ITU-R is responsible for this, likely under some type of treaty.

<comment><USER5> The equipment used to communicate with the satellites is usually heavily regulated. For example in India you can't bring in items that communicate via a Satellite without a permit.

In Kenya before they changed the law, VSAT terminals were heavily regulated. They had equipment that could detect if you had an unauthorized installation and you could get under heavy fines.

Bottom line you can't regulate whether you can or can't get the signal, but you can regulate the domestic equipment required to communicate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I started/ran a commercial satellite provider (in war zones) for a while last decade. The big transition just happening then (but not in my region, due to a rocket blowing up during launch) was Ku -> Ka band.

Ku has big enough beams (thus, less freq re-use) and low enough bandwidth (due to cost of space segment) that it really wasn't economic for "regular" Internet for people -- hundreds or thousands of dollars for a high-latency connection with other performance characteristics of the worst DSL.

Ka is an order of magnitude or more better (although more subject to rain fade); smaller and cheaper equipment, too.

I was kind of sad Google went with "project loon", which seems kind of..loony to me..rather than UAVs, tethered aerostats, or LEO constellations. It looks like they're not _just_ doing loon.

I want to figure out how a Gerald Bull space cannon or RAMAC (10-50k G force launch of 1m diameter satellites, for $100/pound) could be used to build an LEO constellation.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure if this is related, but my father told me about something similar. My father is from and lives now in Palau [1], and the typical internet connection there has a download speed of something like 20 kbps. My dad said something about a company deploying satellites seeking to service unconnected or poorly connected regions, and Palau wanted in.

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

<comment><USER4> Yikes,

An email only dialup account in Palau is $15/month. Unlimited dialup is $99.95.

64kbps DSL is $199.95 per month, going up to $759.95 for 320kbps...

I just wish they would give high-speeds at the last mile and ship in multi-TB drives for local access, while rate-limiting international (satellite uplink) access based on how much one pays.

edit: Palau internet access rate card: [http://www.palaunet.com/view_pdf_file.aspx?field1=Palaunet%2...](http://www.palaunet.com/view_pdf_file.aspx?field1=Palaunet%20service%20rates%20for%20website.pdf)

<comment><USER7> You witness what happens when there is only one ISP with no competition (PNCC provides palaunet). A little example at a different scale of what could happen if comcast and time warner were to merge :)

>I just wish they would give high-speeds at the last mile and ship in multi-TB drives for local access, while rate-limiting international (satellite uplink) access based on how much one pays.

This idea has been around so long but no one has tried to actually tried to do something like this. Moreover, there isn't a lot of "local access" that I know since there arent't many websites on the island to begin with. Something like a local email service would make sense; palaunet's email service is so bad that people rather use services here in the US like gmail.

The funny thing is that PNCC and the Palau government had a chance to tap into AAG[1] when it was laid in the 2000s but Palau opted out of it because they thought it wasn't worth the investment. What a mistake...

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAG_%28cable_system%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAG_%28cable_system%29)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Admittedly, I scanned the article, but this article seems mostly business speak. I was more curious behind the technical details, specifically potential speeds and overcoming limitations with satellite internet.

In other words, can this someday compete with (or even eliminate the need for) current broadband infrastructure?

<comment><USER9> No. Speed of light ensures this will never happen.

<comment><USER10> This won't replace broadband, but for a different reason.

The article suggests the satellites would operate from LEO orbit which generally means a few hundreds to 2,000km above the planet. This is less than 10ms even accounting for ionospheric effects.

Bandwidth would be a huge problem, though.

<comment><USER9> So would LOS. LEO sucks because you definitely aren't going to be using a dish, doubly so if you want continuous connections. At least not on any large scale.

<comment><USER11> Well, I remember reading about teledesic, which this seems to be under a new name, and the idea was you would always have 3+ sats in your sky at once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Their driverless car needs Internet to work. This will let you drive anywhere.

<comment><USER13> And connect their robots to Viki.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder where and how they are putting together a team to design and build the hardware and coordinate with launch companies. This will be a huge contract for whichever company wins the launch bid.

</comment><comment><USER15> I hope they will use laser technology, which can probably go up to 1 Gbps if they're using cutting edge technology. Although that can probably work only for residences, so if they want it for self-driving cars they'll also need radio-based Internet.

<comment><USER16> Doesn't punching through 60 miles of atmosphere require dangerously high power?

<comment><USER17> Either that, or very good antennae.

<comment><USER18> Insects have antennae. Radio devices have antennas.

<comment><USER17> Thank you! Even after 37 years of English there is still room for improvement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think Google should invest in creating more [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantons_of_Switzerland](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantons_of_Switzerland) in the world

</comment><comment><USER20> iridium lives!

<comment><USER11> More like: Teledesic lives.</comment></comment>


Lawsuit Filed To Prove Happy Birthday Is In The Public Domain - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130613/11165823451/filmmaker-finally-aims-to-get-court-to-admit-that-happy-birthday-is-public-domain.shtml

<comment><USER2> A dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8092864](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8092864).

</comment><comment><USER3> Relevant: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f2PCWYAZQc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f2PCWYAZQc)</comment>


UPS deliveries may soon arrive in electric trucks - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90229460/your-ups-deliveries-may-soon-arrive-in-electric-trucks <comment><USER2> Here's hoping they come with A/C ([https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/hot-seat-ups- delive...](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/hot-seat-ups-delivery- drivers-are-risk-heat-stroke-kidney-n1031321))</comment>