What Your Klout Score Really Means - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/04/ff_klout/all/1 <comment><USER2> Ron Conway's score of 48 is the reductio ad absurdum of this algorithm.

<comment><USER3> Klout is better than what came before it, but there's considerable room for improvement.

There's demand for this product, just needs for someone to get it right.

Klout feels like MySpace waiting for Facebook to come along.

<comment><USER4> It's likely noone will ever see this, but it looks like what they need is a PageRank equivalent. Klout is AltaVista, counting numbers of followers and retweets. What they need is to be Google, distinguishing the _true power_ of their connections. Google's key insight was in realizing that a link from the NYT was _better_ than a link from geocities. Klout could do something similar, building a weighted social graph with the value of a given node determined not only by the number (and directions) of its connections, but also by their importance.

Ron Conway is more important than some "social media expert", because of who takes notice when he talks. The social media expert may have 100k followers and 5k retweets for every inane tweet, but Conway's utterances filter through the Internet's data channels, finding their way to other important people, TC, Forbes, etc. It should be relatively straightforward to judge the impact a given person has, and so make their Klout score more significant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> i had a friend who once observed that the more productive she was the lower her clout score -- i've since taken that to heart and see it as a measure of inverse productivity.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have no scientific basis to back this up with, but here's my hypothesis:

The higher your Klout score, the lower quality of your connections/posts. Klout mostly cares about quantity, not quality.

The way Klout is going to make it's money is by identifying good evangelists. The best evangelists are not necessarily the best content creators (eg. Justin Bieber)

</comment><comment><USER7> It's nice to see that the PR industry is not suffering in this economic downturn.</comment>


Theory vs Practice: Making algorithms claimed 'optimal', 10x faster. - <AUTHOR> http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2010/7/95061-youre-doing-it-wrong/fulltext <i>"Would you believe me if I claimed that an algorithm that has been on the books as "optimal" for 46 years, which has been analyzed in excruciating detail by geniuses like Knuth and taught in all computer science courses in the world, can be optimized to run 10 times faster?"</i> <comment><USER2> I think this is pretty much identical to the subject being discussed here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1426211>

There's a lot of discussion there already, and it might be worth reading it before commenting here and repeating all the arguments.

ADDED IN EDIT: Having gone and taken my own advice (for a change 8-) I prefer the other article because the diagrams are larger and in-line.

<comment><USER3> It's the same article by the same author, of course. One is a preprint and the other is from this month's CACM.</comment></comment>


Ycomb interview invites 2015 - <AUTHOR>

any1 received interview rejection or invite emails for this 10th April 2015 batch ? <comment><USER2> Seems like they will go out by midnight PT.

"katm 6 hours ago Invitations will be sent out by midnight PT."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9355215](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9355215)

<comment><AUTHOR> thx. im going to sleep..

<comment><USER2> JU CAN DO IT!

"Girte hain sheh-sawar hi maidan-e-jung meinWoh tifl kya gire jo ghutnon ke bal chala karte hain. Murde dil bhi kya khaak jiya karte hain."

look up the translation, when you have some time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yes. Rejected. :-)

Any constructive feedback on my project would be appreciated: [http://makemake.io](http://makemake.io)

<comment><USER4> Hey this looks cool! I just tried it out! Smooth.

Well, that's alright 3rd time rejected fella over here, keep going forward & build stuff :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a bizarre and likely counterproductive way to try to find out, to say the least.

<comment><USER6> What do you suggest?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Whatever happens, good luck to you all and congrats to the people who got invites.

</comment><comment><USER8> How many of you got here through a Twitter link? Just spotted atleast 5-10 Twitter bots from Hacker News re-tweeting this link. Someone's building the anticipation!

<comment><USER6> Got in right before I saw it blow up on Twitter. So many people will have mini heart attacks over those links!

<comment><USER9> It's fun to try and figure out which of the various threads will be the "one true thread". This one seems to have won out by virtue of having the most clickable title.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Results should be sent out the first thing in the morning and deadline should be 11:59pm. That is the most efficient way, to save everyone's time.

</comment><comment><USER11> From what I've seen in the past, they typically send them out in the evening.

</comment><comment><USER12> Best of luck to all. Hoping for some good news myself.

</comment><comment><USER13> Just received email...didn't make it :(

</comment><comment><USER13> Been waiting for a while... Fingers crossed

</comment><comment><USER14> Still waiting. Cross my fingers.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> yeah i did some research, should have been sent out like half an hour though right...

<comment><USER14> Are you taking into account pacific time?

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> not yet.. they are taking their time, I guess. Too many applicants:)

</comment><comment><USER16> They were just sent out.

<comment><USER17> Dint receive anything here. Still refreshing my inbox :|

<comment><USER18> Nobody else anywhere is claiming they got it. Possible troll

<comment><USER16> Not trolling. I know 2 others who also received them too. Hoping that the delay for you is an acceptance!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> got it, lost it. Will try again next time with more progress.

<comment><USER17> Dint receive yet

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Nothing for me either

</comment><comment><USER21> Just received email

<comment><USER22> email + text or just email?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone news guys?

</comment><comment><USER23> Anyone hear yet?

</comment><comment><USER18> Good luck all!

</comment><comment><USER24> best of luck guys!

</comment><comment><USER23> nothing for me

<comment><USER25> do they tell you if you didn't get it?

<comment><USER14> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> nothing yet</comment>


A Microscopically Sized Wasp: Megaphragma Mymaripenne - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaphragma_mymaripenne <comment><USER2> Here is a far more interesting thrips egg parasite than megaphragma mymaripenne.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adactylidium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adactylidium)</comment>


We're not like Yammer or Chatter, and we don't want to be - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hipchat.com/2011/02/09/were-not-like-yammer-or-chatter-and-we-dont-want-to-be/

<comment><USER2> If people are comparing you to Yammer maybe you are pitching to the wrong audience? When I see your video I'm comparing you to Campire! Are you like Campfire?

On a side note: I tested you product a couple of months ago for my startup (campfire was too expensive for our use) and we finally choosed jaconda.im because they have the gtalk/jabber integration and it was a killer feature for us! We dont need to have a special tab or install another program. We keep our current workflow with one more contact in our list. My 2cents

Edit: i wrote basecamp instead of campfire

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you mean 37Signals Campfire. Basecamp is their project management tool. We're working on XMPP support but it doesn't make group chat easy (or pretty). It's even more complicated when you're trying to get companies of 60+ people set up.

<comment><USER2> You are right thank you :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This may be so, but your homepage is strikingly similar to Yammer's... (above the fold)

.edit 1) <http://www.hipchat.com/> 2) <https://www.yammer.com/>

<comment><USER4> And both of them look pretty close to one of the SaaS themes.

This is not one of my favorite critiques of startups. If you're selling to businesses, the only thing that matters is that you look competent. So what if there's an idiom people are falling into with their websites? That's a good thing; one less thing to worry about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I met one of the founders at a Twilio event not long ago, and when he told me about his product the first thing I said was "So it's kinda like Yammer?"

At least they are starting to address this marketing problem directly.

</comment><comment><USER6> So, you're like IRC with embeddable images?

<comment><USER7> ... and large-paste support.

... and backlog replay when you go offline.

... and searchable history.

... and (like most IRC clients, but unlike Campfire) built-in notification support.

You can get some of these with IRC, if you have a server to run bip on or leave irssi running on, but it's worth having an integrated package that Just Works.

(Hipchat: you're welcome for the endorsement, now how about that IRC gateway? [http://help.hipchat.com/hipchat/topics/irc_compatibility?fro...](http://help.hipchat.com/hipchat/topics/irc_compatibility?from_gsfn=true) :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So a bit like <http://talkerapp.com/>? (the UI is along similar lines, though there are only so many ways to cut a chatroom, I guess!) Talker has some interesting Ruby-based plugin support as well, though I found it too expensive to use long-term.

<comment><USER9> Except I think one of their USPs is that they have a desktop app

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Please dump Adobe AIR as soon as you can and make native apps, I (and most likely others) hate AIR apps. That's one of my biggest complaints with Yammer is their desktop app. If you don't want to be like Yammer don't use AIR ;)

</comment><comment><USER11> So, you're like AIM/MSN Messenger/Yahoo Messenger/Google Talk/ICQ...?

<comment><AUTHOR> Except we actually do group chat well. We designed it specifically for companies and teams.

<comment><USER12> after watching the video I don't see anything you do that google chat doesn't and quite a lot of the reverse. I wish you all the best but the reason you're having difficulty in differentiation perception is because the products are all very similar.

Having build a chat system, the real problems don't start until you have scale. I'd hate to be using this in a real work environment only to have it fall over when there's a lot of users. Chat is the only time I've ever had to write Erlang code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Campfire?

<comment><USER14> [Repost from our blog comments]

We're definitely competing with Campfire. They were one of the first tools to focus on providing group chat to businesses but unfortunately didn't go much further. It's only group chat and it's only in the browser. We have desktop applications with real popup notifications, one-to-one chat support and voice/video calling. HipChat is a tool you use all day and love, not a barebones group chat site you run alongside AIM.

A more in depth feature comparison is here: <http://www.hipchat.com/compare>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Convore?

</comment><comment><USER16> The design of your chat stream looks like an almost direct rip off of Campfire. If you want people to believe you're doing something different, you have to make it so your product isn't confused with the competition with a glance.

</comment><comment><USER17> Why are you charging so much money?

Convore is free.

<comment><USER14> So that we have a successful business. This is a tool for business productivity. It helps companies be more productive and they have no problem paying for it. In fact, they all say we should charge more. :)</comment></comment>


Clojure conj registration open - <AUTHOR> http://clojure-conj.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> Kudos to the organizers for keeping the registration affordable. $199 for the early-bird seems very reasonable. I recall that the goal was to pay for the venue plus a little contingency.

</comment><comment><USER2> That looks like a great conference! I wish I could go, but I'll be out of the country. It would be great to meet everyone.

</comment><comment><USER3> You should go to clojure-conj (I certainly am). But if you can't make it, you might be interested in Strange Loop (St. Louis Oct 14-15), which also has a strong Clojure focus: <http://strangeloop2010.com/calendar>

</comment><comment><USER4> So far, so sad. Google maps says 15 hours and 9 minutes of traveling. I hope videos will be available.

</comment><comment><USER5> Back-to-back with the ILC... Intentional?

</comment><comment><USER6> Learn with Node and do a ClojureKnockout?</comment>


Bitcoin for rent happening in the Philippines now - <AUTHOR> http://owners.trueproperty.ph/2014/02/07/things-just-got-real-for-digital-currency-in-the-philippines/ <comment><USER2> When I've tried to read the article I got 404 response, so just in case that happens again:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://owners.trueproperty.ph/2014/02/07/things- just-got-real-for-digital-currency-in-the-philippines/)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.trueproperty.ph/A-139144383731](http://www.trueproperty.ph/A-139144383731)

I don't know what the laws regarding kicking out tenants in the Phillipines are, but I'd hate to be the landlord locked into this lease if the price of bitcoin drops significantly.

<comment><USER4> Or the the renter stuck paying if the price of bitcoin goes up massively. (and would that count as an increase in rent if there is any sort of rent control or limitation on how much rent can increase by?)

<comment><USER5> The same could happen with any currency (and does). Your rent would not fluctuate if the price of cars/tvs/food went up in the middle of your contract.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This seems like a terrible idea for all concerned. The price of bitcoin is anything but stable.

You'd pretty much want to pay the whole term up front to avoid regret on either side.

<comment><USER7> I've seen my bitcoin holdings rise and fall by orders of magnitude, but mostly it rises. You can get used to it if you have a bit of a buffer for living expenses.

It's no more irrational than being an entrepreneur.

<comment><USER8> It's quite a bit more irrational than being an entrepreneur, especially if you've invested so much of your money in bitcoin that living expenses are a "buffer".

<comment><USER7> If you do the calculations, you might find that the expected utility return from investment in Bitcoin is much greater than the expected utility return from bootstrapping a business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Presumably this is connected to this kind of thing: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25729140](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25729140)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone. Sorry you had a bad experience after I posted this. We got a lot of traffic and the site went down. We are working on resolving it now.

</comment><comment><USER10> Aaaaand, it's gone.

</comment><comment><USER11> Link works for me.

<comment><USER2> Maybe they've restarted the server. Before it was just timing out and later returned 404, that's why I've posted the link to the google cache.

<comment><USER11> More like spinning up a few more AWS instances :0</comment></comment></comment>


"Hour of Code" Aims to Ease Programming Crunch - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/12/09/hour-of-code-aims-to-ease-programming-crunch

<comment><USER2> nice article</comment>


Show HN: C/C++ Development Environment for Emacs - <AUTHOR> http://tuhdo.github.io/c-ide.html <comment><AUTHOR> I added a demo on how CEDET works with Boost: [http://tuhdo.github.io/static/c-ide/semantic-boost- demo.gif](http://tuhdo.github.io/static/c-ide/semantic-boost-demo.gif)

Here you also have an outline tree the Emacs way, which is very efficient to use when a file contains lots of function/variable definitions: [http://tuhdo.github.io/static/part3/helm-semantic-or- imenu.g...](http://tuhdo.github.io/static/part3/helm-semantic-or-imenu.gif)

</comment><comment><USER2> If anyone follows this and happens to like GNU Global/ggtags (I did), there's a Pygments plugin released earlier this year that enables it to use any language that can be parsed by Pygments: [https://github.com/yoshizow/global- pygments-plugin](https://github.com/yoshizow/global-pygments-plugin)

For Arch Linux users, I made a PKGBUILD for it: [https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/global-pygments-plugin- gi...](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/global-pygments-plugin-git/)

The Pygments plugin is really awesome; it should prove useful even for those who don't use Emacs. For example, gtags lets you use vim/Doxygen/bash/less/etc. to access the tags as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> While it's good to see the work you put into this article, for the emacs novice it really is far too much of an information dump, in particular it's a little difficult to keep track of all the different things which do the same thing.

Perhaps if you change it in future, think about having a 'basic config' which one can follow?

It would also be nice to know how well these things cope with things like templates and C++11 rvalue references and lambda functions. My past experience is that tags-based tools are fine when your C++ code is basically just C code, but die horribly as soon as you start using C++11 or boost.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's pretty basic. I created a demo repo for people to play with, so they don't have to configure themselves: [https://github.com/tuhdo/emacs-c- ide-demo](https://github.com/tuhdo/emacs-c-ide-demo)

For C++, CEDET works pretty nicely with templates and libraries like Boost. I haven't used much C++ aside playing with lambda, so I'm not sure. I've looked at rvalue reference, and it seems to return an assignable pointer to do other thing from a function. Currently, you can jump to the function but not the pointer that the function returns.

Currently, I only work with C. But being able to jump anywhere in the Linux kernel source tree and your system include source (such as "/usr/include", "/usr/local/include" is already very useful, don't you agree?

<comment><USER4> _I 've looked at rvalue reference, and it seems to return an assignable pointer to do other thing from a function_

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion, but it is not correct. R-values don't have much to do with pointers at all. Though they sometimes do solve problems you would be tempted to use pointers for. I admit I do find it hard to explain briefly what they are though. Maybe these are helpful, though it might be hard to grasp if you don't already properly understand C++: [http://www.artima.com/cppsource/rvalue.html](http://www.artima.com/cppsource/rvalue.html) [http://thbecker.net/articles/rvalue_references/section_01.ht...](http://thbecker.net/articles/rvalue_references/section_01.html). This example basically gives an idea of why they are useful: [http://thisthread.blogspot.be/2011/03/what-is-rvalue- referen...](http://thisthread.blogspot.be/2011/03/what-is-rvalue-reference- good-for.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well currently I only work with C not C++ anymore so my knowledge might be outdated. I thought that the rvalue reference is something new in C++11, as I read it here: [http://thbecker.net/articles/rvalue_references/section_01.ht...](http://thbecker.net/articles/rvalue_references/section_01.html). Your article seems to mention different thing from 2008? In the article I read, a function returns a pointer that you can assign it like this: get_pointer() = 1;

<comment><USER4> The design of C++11 started way before 2011, hence articles from 2008.

      get_pointer() = 1;

assigning 1 to a pointer isn't the best idea :P so I think you mean you read

      int& get_reference();
      get_reference() = 1;

which is about _lvalue references_ , not _rvalue references_ , and has existed in C++ since the beginning.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the explanation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This actually convinced me to never use Emacs as C/C++ IDE ever. The amount of unnecessary complexity is astounding.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's so complex? I wrote in the very beginning of the guide:

"In this guide, I will help you to setup an efficient working C/C++ environment. Despite looking long, the setup is short and easy (mostly copy/paste Emacs Lisp code into your init.el); most of the guide are explanations and demonstrations of many useful features. "

Most of the text are just explanations to help you understand what you are doing, why you need these features.

Or, you can have a simple recipe with 42 steps for setting up a working environment with Linux kernel in Ecliplse with barely any explanation, just learn by heart: [http://wiki.eclipse.org/HowTo_use_the_CDT_to_navigate_Linux_...](http://wiki.eclipse.org/HowTo_use_the_CDT_to_navigate_Linux_kernel_source) . The guide is merely for NAVIGATING the Linux kernel. Even with the first section of my guide with setting up ggtags or helm-gtags that you can do in 5 minutes, you can freely roam the linux kernel.

<comment><USER6> I can understand where he is coming from. At least in my case the question was - how come there is no package that does all this by default? Install the package and that's it... I want to be productive in my project before I get productive in init.el customization. Nice to have but it comes second. Anyway, I've bitten the bullet and after realizing that I'm not that smart to choose `the` packages for C dev myself, I decided (again) to see what others do with their setups.

Nice timing this time, because of these:

1) [https://tuhdo.github.io/emacs-tutor.html](https://tuhdo.github.io/emacs- tutor.html)

2) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTUE03LnaXA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTUE03LnaXA)

Since I want to use it for navigation more than for programming these two made my day because I've found about global and how to integrate it with emacs. The rest came as a bonus. Now I can go on with my work and not worry about customization until I have to.

I've been using Emacs for about eight years but never as a power user.

EDIT: Thanks for your work. This tutorial has some new ideas I want to try.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love emacs, and use it daily for lots of text-editing, but since I've been learning Qt, I've been using Qt Creator and seems much easier to get certain things (which granted might be available in emacs, or visual studio but haven't checked how).

For example adding function class member in the .h or .cpp file, and then adding the other part automatically. Or changing arguments, and little balloon comes up, you pres alt+enter - and gives you choices how to make the changes.

Then switch between header/cpp (right visual studio doesn't have this built- in) and few other things make Qt Creator a very good choice.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can switch between .h and .cpp easily with ff-other-file. Bind it to a key:

(add-hook 'c-mode-common-hook (lambda() (local-set-key (kbd "C-c o") 'ff-find- other-file)))

If the .h is in the same directory as .c/.cpp, then Emacs automatically opens. Otherwise, you prompt for the .h file. Once the .h file is opened, subsequent execution of the command switches between the two files.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> After a few years with PyCharm I'm not excited to manually write wads of elisp to get basic functionality. Instead I pay the JetBrains people a negligible sum per year (and the basic functionality is open sourced now). They are working on a C++ IDE now: [http://www.jetbrains.com/objc/features/cpp.html](http://www.jetbrains.com/objc/features/cpp.html)

This is refactoring capability another commercial Emacs plugin had in 2007: [http://www.xref.sk/xrefactory/emacs.html](http://www.xref.sk/xrefactory/emacs.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Because such refactoring is not really needed. You can do easily with sed.

What's so difficult about using Elisp to configure your editor? If you know how to turn on a light switch, you already know how to configure Emacs at its basic level!!! Most of Emacs lisp configuration is like this:

(semantic-mode 1) ;; 1 means turn the feature on

If you want to turn it off:

(semantic-mode 0) ;; 0 means turn the feature off

Most of Emacs plugins work this way, with a few more Elisp code for setting key bindings and other things. Anyway, the package maintainers always give you config Elisp code. Your only work is to copy/paste into your config file and it's done.

Your IDEs appears nice at first since they hide most of the complexity in a menu item called "Options". But when you need to adjust something, and when you click the "Options" menu, things are not so nice anymore. For example, try Eclipse.

<comment><USER9> If you do that kind of refactoring with sed, I won't believe you take refactoring seriously.

<comment><AUTHOR> How do you refactor complex C code with myriad of macros? I think we should avoid writing code that having to seriously change its structure later. If we want to refactor, it should be minimal and manageable.

And if you mean seriously refactoring as in this article from Qt Creator: [http://qt-project.org/doc/qtcreator-2.6/creator-editor-refac...](http://qt- project.org/doc/qtcreator-2.6/creator-editor-refactoring.html#refactoring-c- code) that includes reformatting code, generating getter/setter or automatically detect and fix mistake for you, then no. I have never write such code in the first place that having to back later and I believe we should not fall into the use cases listed in that article.

My only use case for refactoring is to rename variable/function names.

<comment><USER9> Refactorings are used to adapt your code to newly acquired knowledge and/or changed requirements. That are things that CAN'T BE PLANNED because you simply don't know them yet. Therefore you can't plan how minimal you'll have to refactor.

Let's take the "rename function" refactoring. You claimed sed was sufficient. What about functions with the same name in different namespaces or different visibilities?

The same goes for move parameter. Sometimes you want to move a parameter so the order adheres to a guideline that you've accidentially forgotten or that newly emerged. Again: What about ambiguos function names?

Refactorings such as pull method up (e.g. to create an interface)/ push method down are probably not even possible with sed.

Those are small and manageable refactorings. But even a small refactoring such as rename function can mess up your code if not done correctly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> @tuhdo Are you using Emacs in terminal? Do you prefer it use the GUI version?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am using both GUI and terminal. I prefer the GUI for my local use. But when working, I have to connect to remote server only through SSH under the terminal. Instead of using Tramp (which is not practical for the current latency), I setup Emacs on the remote servers and use it from there when I connect to the servers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Do any ROR devs use emacs? Are there articles on good configurations for Ruby or Rails? I'm trying to get into emacs. I see the value, but it is REALLY overwhelming getting started.

<comment><USER12> Here's a different couple of guides to get you started:

[http://lorefnon.me/2014/02/02/configuring-emacs-for- rails.ht...](http://lorefnon.me/2014/02/02/configuring-emacs-for-rails.html)

[http://crypt.codemancers.com/posts/2013-09-26-setting-up- ema...](http://crypt.codemancers.com/posts/2013-09-26-setting-up-emacs-as- development-environment-on-osx/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I use VIM, though :( .

\- Jonathan</comment>


The Tangled History of Big Bang Science - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/the-tangled-history-of-big-bang-science <comment><USER2> BB cosmology is impressive, but at the same time problems with it have always been there and still are. Inflation is a framework which requires ever more finely tuned conditions to function, which frankly undermines the whole point of the conjecture in the first place. Instead of absurdly fine-tuned initial conditions, now you have absurdly fine-tuned energy curves for the infalton. Instead of a horizon and flatness problem you have... well you still kind of have those unless you adopt the unlikely potential energy plots for the inflaton.

It's not a coincidence that other ideas ranging from MWI to Cyclic Ekpryotic are so persistent. It's an interesting and stimulating field of study and theoretical work, but it's still so far from anything we can test that it's sort just philosophy with some math.

Take string theory, amazing tools for analyzing matters, but as a testable theory which actually maps reality? Eh...

</comment><comment><USER3> That top image makes a mistake when it says "degrees K". It's just 3K. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_(temperature)?wprov=sfsi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_\(temperature\)?wprov=sfsi1)</comment>


Face recognition: In future can you remain anonymous? No gov. guarantees - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/13/technology/face_recognition/index.htm?iid=HP_Highlight <comment><USER2> Obsessions over face recognition are really a red herring compared to "warrantless wiretapping", logging of mobile phone geolocations, who has access to Facebook's database and ISP data retention. Even if face recognition were perfect and instantaneous, the other kinds of data logging are far more revealing.</comment>


Amazon Aurora Now Available - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/now-available-amazon-aurora/ <comment><USER2> Interesting from a licensing point of view: the GPL does not require you to redistribute changes that are 'internal' to your organization. You are not redistributing the program itself in this case, you're just letting someone access it.

For some people, this kind of end-run around the GPL is the poster child for the AGPL: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License)

<comment><USER3> Can't you get around the AGPL by just making it an _internal_ service on your network? Basically it looks like this.

Internet --> Your API service --> AGPL program

Your API service uses the AGPL to implement it's logic. Since the FSF holds that API cannot be copyrighted, Your API service implements the same API as the AGPL program and uses a network connection to the AGPL program running on another computer to implement the API. Since the Internet user never connects to the AGPL program, they are not entitled to the source code. You are required to release the source code to the users interacting with the AGPL program over the network. You therefore release the source code to the implementers of Your API service and call it a day.

Adding another layer of indirection solves a lot of problems in computer science, even GPL and AGPL

<comment><USER4> That is correct.

However, only if there is effectively the API service in the middle, making your AGPL program internal. But if you are exposing an AGPL program (let's say a database) as-a-service, you cannot have an API service in between (unless you'd re-implement all the API yourself) and hence exposing directly the AGPL database, in which case you are bound by the license with respect to the users.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for posting this, we've had some arguments with our investors and their lawyers recently about (specifically Golang, in our case) GPL and AGPL meanings and how they relate to SaaS. One case in point we have a cronspec parser package licensed AGPL (what the hell!?) which doesn't even include a web server or listener code of any kind… so are we in violation by using it to parse cronspecs that our customers have entered into our SaaS API?!)

Do you have any citation, references, or case-law I could use as a starting point to steal your arguments as my own?

<comment><USER6> The citation/case-law to use is those that define the terms distribution, adaptation, and derivative work.

With GPL, anything which isn't client side code should be fine, especially since legal advice from GPL authors have said that SaaS and GPL do not put any additional requirement on the service provider.

AGPL talk about using the work, and here the law as I have read it defined that you got to be a lawful owner in order to be permitted to copy the work into RAM. In order to be a lawful owner of the copy, you got the be in compliance with the license. How you do so is up to you, but the perceived consensus seems to put that responsibility on the SaaS provider.

Since we are talking about an SaaS API, what count as the program is sadly a grey zone. For example, Linux based operative systems has commonly a command line API but it isn't a single program. Ask yourself (or the lawyers) what a nontechnical layman would consider as a single work and what they would consider as multiple separate programs working in unison. I suspect it highly depend on what the API do, how data is flown, and how the internal source code is laid out.

<comment><USER7> > With GPL, anything which isn't client side code should be fine, especially > since legal advice from GPL authors have said that SaaS and GPL do not put > any additional requirement on the service provider.

Legal guidance from GPL authors is of somewhat limited utility; they aren't _your_ lawyers, and for software where the FSF isn't the copyright holder as well as the license author, it doesn't even have the utility of being a documented representation from the copyright holder as to their intent with license they were offering.

They also are employed by an entity with a vested interested in promoting the use of the GPL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Mentioned this on Twitter to the Aurora program manager but it would be awesome to see a PostgreSQL compatible frontend.

Still though, awesome achievement to build a competitive database engine. :)

<comment><USER9> > but it would be awesome to see a PostgreSQL compatible frontend

Why not just use PostgreSQL directly?

<comment><USER10> Aurora has a bunch of nice features WRT automatic failover, redundancy, and automatically scaling storage as you push more data into the DB.

<comment><USER11> Does Aurora do anything other than detect a heartbeat failure, shoot the node in the head and bring it up on another box WRT failover?

<comment><USER12> That is the basic idea on such things, though distributed protocols become complex when you have to consider split-brain, multiple concurrent failures, etc which all can occur in large-scale events.

Aurora leverages Amazon RDS Multi-AZ in this area. Their implementation has been battle-tested over many years and many many db instances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've lost track of the characteristics of the players in this space. Do Rackspace or DigitalOcean have anything that even compares?

I've always used Rackspace as a sort of default. They seem to employ good people, so they must be good - so the thinking goes.

But what's the real breakdown between these three? And any others I might not know about?

<comment><USER14> AWS is a giant construction store like Home Depot, where you can find everything. Rackspace is local home improvement shop, with good service, which was doing fine until Home Depot build it's store nearby. Now people have less and less reasons to visit it. Some folks like it for the old times sake, though. DigitalOcean is your buddy who works at "Hammer&Nails Manufacturing Inc.", he can get you nice hammers and nails pretty cheap if you ask him, but not much else.

That's how I see it :)

<comment><USER15> What do you do with your analogy now that Rackspace offers official support for helping you with your AWS and Azure deployments? Are the general contractors who started the local hardware store now also working a side job at Home Depot? ;)

<comment><USER14> Local shop owner offers consulting service - go with you to the Home Depot and help you find right things for your project (and hoping next time you'll go the his shop, after you see how good he is) :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So keen on Australia to get a third availability zone so that we can use this - we were lucky enough to be invited to the preview programme but there was no point to us hosting on another continent. Very exciting!

</comment><comment><USER17> At that pricing, I'm curious if it makes sense to put blobs in the database rather than S3. Any thoughts?

<comment><USER18> At $100/TB/mo? I don't think so. S3 is $30/TB/mo. Unless you have some compelling reason to have the blobs in the database, like indexing them, you'd be better off keeping them somewhere else.

I guess if you won't have many blobs, it may be worthwhile to save yourself engineering time of supporting both S3 and Aurora. In an ideal world, there'd just be one permanent data store with a built-in caching layer, for databases, blobs, and log files.

<comment><USER19> > I guess if you won't have many blobs, it may be worthwhile to save yourself > engineering time of supporting both S3 and Aurora. In an ideal world, > there'd just be one permanent data store with a built-in caching layer, for > databases, blobs, and log files.

We're getting close to that. Write once your data to S3 for persistent storage, then load into Elastic Search. Mostly there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> No Cloudformation support yet? I don't see it in the docs.

<comment><USER21> I'm highly disappointed by Amazon for recommending CloudFormation, but always neglecting to maintain it. Aurora has been in preview for a while, adding support for it in advance would be a great thing and coordinate the launches. As a person who fell in the trap to use the "best practice", I'm always months if not years behind in my CloudFormation stack as it takes months for CloudFormation engineers to add, let's say, a single attribute.

So, based on my experience, give it a quarter before you see it in CloudFormation! I keep bugging Jeff Barr, but it seems that he doesn't have much control over the process.

The whole development process at Amazon seems broken. Everything is developed in a silo and once GA, then other teams start integrating it, unless the two products cannot operate in isolation.

P.S. I keep checking this URL [0] several times a day and I curse several times a day, because it almost never changes!

[0] [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGui...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/ReleaseHistory.html)

<comment><USER22> Amazon is involved in a lawsuit over CloudFormation and U.S. Patent No. 8,271,974. Perhaps they are hesitant to invest until that is cleared up.

<comment><USER21> They still update it, just very slowly, but I wasn't aware of this other patent troll. I guess Terraform and Fugue are in danger as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Due to Amazon Aurora's unique storage architecture, replication lag is > extremely low, typically between 10 ms and 20 ms.

I think in the original announcement, this number was lower, but this is still great.

In this range of latency, the most compelling thing relevant to my needs is the possibility of using read replicas for serving read-only API calls, with minimal risk of having a write API call immediately followed by a read API call serving stale data. It's possible to orchestrate a prevention for that with regular latency-prone MySQL replication, but it carries tremendous complexity depending on the application.

Would be very interested if anyone else has explored this idea further with Aurora.

</comment><comment><USER24> >they verified that each Amazon Aurora instance is able to deliver on our performance target of up to 100,000 writes and 500,000 reads per second

This bit caught my attention, does an "Amazon Aurora instance" means one computing instance? Or do they refer to something like your allocated share of the overall Aurora platform? Because if they are able to achieve that performance per-machine, I'm truly amazed.

Their larger instance appears to be "32 vCPUs and 244GiB Memory", that sounds credible to be able to sustain that throughput, particularly if your whole data fits in RAM, but barely. Would be nice to see R/W performance on the smaller instances.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can read the blog post that I wrote last year when we announced Aurora to learn more about how it works:

[https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/highly-scalable-mysql- compa...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/highly-scalable-mysql-compat-rds- db-engine/)

<comment><USER25> Do you have any plans for Geo functionality? We're working on a massive project that Aurora sounds perfect for, aside from the apparent lack of that feature.

<comment><USER26> It seems like MySQL 5.7 will start to have better GIS support. Though that is still a development release at this point. Hopefully if Amazon tries to maintain compatibility, native GIS support may eventually arrive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does anyone know how this benchmarks against Postgres and MySQL? Would be curious to see how TPC-C runs on this platform but I can't find any studies of any independent parties benchmarking Aurora.

<comment><USER15> It only just came out of preview, so I'd expect someone independent to test it out in the coming weeks. Maybe / hopefully one of the Percona folks?

Edit: typo (out _of_ preview)

<comment><USER12> For TPC-C like benchmarks, you can run: 1) CloudHarmony: [https://github.com/cloudharmony/oltpbench](https://github.com/cloudharmony/oltpbench) 2) Percona: [https://code.launchpad.net/~perconadev/perconatools/tpcc- mys...](https://code.launchpad.net/~perconadev/perconatools/tpcc-mysql)

We've found it easier to load large datasets using CloudHarmony but have run both.

I'd recommend reading through [http://d0.awsstatic.com/product- marketing/Aurora/RDS_Aurora_...](http://d0.awsstatic.com/product- marketing/Aurora/RDS_Aurora_Performance_Assessment_Benchmarking_v1-2.pdf). It is oriented towards SysBench, but will help you set up your clients to have enough network throughput to run a full test.

Generally, we find the performance comparison improves on large instances, high throughput workloads, or when the data set does not fit in RAM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The AWS pages are very heavy on marketing and light on system characteristics. It would be pretty nice to know if the characteristics of Aurora are different than RDS; for example, RDS table size and index rebuilding were a big problem for a client, and I suspect that Aurora would do better, but have no reason to believe it.

<comment><USER29> Aurora is not an RDS alternative. It is a new database engine available to use on the RDS platform.

<comment><USER28> hopefully everyone else understood what I said.

<comment><USER12> We've made a number of improvements relative to MySQL, for example with large numbers of tables and the results set cache. There are some improvements on large tables and schema changes, but quite a bit more to be done in those areas. You can contact our PM team at aurora[dash]pm[at]amazon[dot]com to give us the issues that matter most. Feedback is how we prioritize!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> We've been experiencing huge problems with our multi-AZ and encrypted MySQL RDS instance this morning (it looks like a hardware issue). We're contacting support, but are considering taking our entire application down and migrating to Aurora. The timing on this is too ironic.

</comment><comment><USER31> I wonder what this is. Did they create a proper multitenant version of MySQL or are they simply running mysql without a container around it ?

I'm guessing it's the latter (much easier) option, but ... Do you really get 5x savings from simply not having a container ?

<comment><USER32> Amazon Aurora – New Cost-Effective MySQL-Compatible Database Engine for Amazon RDS

* [https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/highly-scalable-mysql-compa...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/highly-scalable-mysql-compat-rds-db-engine/)

It's an engine for MySQL.

Aurora Database Architecture by Amazon Web Services:

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TbRxwcux3c&list=WL&index=5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TbRxwcux3c&list=WL&index=5)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Is this based on Galera?

<comment><USER34> That's my question as well - and an important one. Using Galera cluster with MySQL imposes several performance and usage constraints an end user needs to be aware of.

And if it's not Galera, how did Amazon work around the constraints of multiple writers in an ACID database, and what constraints does it impose?

<comment><USER32> It's linked in the article, here is more links:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9960276](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9960276)

<comment><USER34> It definitely looks like Galera (which is what powers both MySQL and MariaDB cluster implementations; it's a storage engine built atop InnoDB), but it's hard to say without more information. They mention a quorum write with automatic recovery across three nodes, but doesn't mention the method used - two phased commit, checking commits against pending transactions, etc.

It's a very complex thing to implement, and unless they have made leaps beyond what Galera has done, for some workloads it will be fast, but for others it will perform far worse than a standard MySQL instance.

Of course, I guess it could also be a cluster built upon NDB, but the lack of memory constraints on the size of the data makes that less likely.

<comment><USER12> Aurora isn't implemented based on either Galera or NDB.

<comment><USER34> Since it sounds like you have the information on what it is based upon (if only the principles which were used to address distributed ACID consistency), it would be good to get this information dissiminated - it's hard to trust that it will "just work" when we have so many examples of distributed ACID not working well.

<comment><USER12> You can think of Aurora as a single-instance database where the lower quarter is pushed down into a multi-tenant scale-out storage system. Transactions, locking, LSN generation, etc all happen at the database node. We push log records down to the storage tier and Aurora storage takes responsibility for generation of data blocks from logs.

So, the ACI components of ACID are all done at the database tier using (largely) traditional techniques. Durability is where we're using distributed systems techniques around quorums, membership management, leases, etc, with the important caveat that we have a head node generating LSNs, providing a monotonic logical clock, and avoiding those headaches.

Our physical read replicas receive redo log records, update cached entries and have readonly access to the underlying storage tier. The underlying storage is log-structured with nondestructive writes, so we can access data blocks in the past of what is current at the write master node - that's required if the replica needs to read a slightly older version of a data block for consistency reasons.

Make sense?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Is 30GB of RAM the max for this service? That's rather paltry for very large joins, which seem plausible given they claim support to up to 64TB of data. Percona had recommended 144GB+ and moving to that from 64GB made our BI-type queries an order of magnitude faster. Obvi YMMV but in my experience one needs more RAM for joins before more disk for data.

That said, the UI and system for managing replication looks pretty nice. I've never done MySQL admin directly but I do appreciate how much of a pain point this can be.

<comment><USER15> No; from the product page:

"You can use Amazon RDS to scale your Amazon Aurora database instance up to 32 vCPUs and 244GiB Memory. You can also add up to 15 Amazon Aurora Replicas across three availability zones to further scale read capacity. Amazon Aurora automatically grows storage as needed, from 10GB up to 64TB."

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Can anybody with any experience compare this vs RDS for me?

<comment><USER37> Aurora is an engine for RDS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Offtopic a bit but I'm genuinely curious: Jeff, why did you post this at 10pm Pacific?

<comment><USER21> That's pretty much his job and he's very passionate about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> You got it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> At these prices I would rather install MySQL on Hetzner myself at a fraction of a cost.

<comment><USER39> Every time I see a comment like this, I get the feeling that the poster doesn't understand how "the cloud" works.

Everybody knows that renting a dedicated server (or purchasing your own servers) is generally a more cost effective approach. Cloud computing is used to accomplish different goals when used appropriately.

Sure you could install MySQL on a box at Hetzner, but what happens when it goes down? Do you feel like maintaining the box for security and updates? What about log rotation? What if you need to migrate to a different geographical region, or need to increase capacity?

Smaller sites might be okay with managing those on their own, but as you grow, being able to offload that work to Amazon (who tend to know what they are doing more than the average joe) is a benefit when you have other business- logic issues to deal with.

So yes, naively getting a box at Hetzner or any other dedicated provider would be less of an upfront monetary cost, but in the long run, the advantages aren't as clear cut.</comment></comment>


108 F-35s Will Not Be Combat Capable - <AUTHOR> https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/10/16/108_f-35s_will_not_be_combat_capable_112477.html <comment><USER2> The Marines are bringing back Harriers (ancient and not very effective) because the Hornets are wearing out.* The UK has a carrier in service that has no planes. The original plan was to have the JSF in service in 2010. Plans keep getting pushed back, more money is spent, and the state of the art is not standing still.

The problem with this is that the US is spending insane amounts of money for what will not be a very effective plane in any particular role. Defenders will say that the JSF can do more things than any other plane, but what is the point if in combat the plane is not the best at the role it is sent to perform?

It's hard to know what to do at this point, perhaps just keep the JSF as a VTOL replacement (there is no other) and keep some for the Air Force. At the ranges our navy will need to engage in Asia, they should think about drones and planes that are built to work very well with drones.

*[https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/u-s-marines-will-keep-the-...](https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/u-s-marines-will-keep-the-harrier-around-longer-as-hor-1794046061)

<comment><USER3> The UK carrier isn't actually in service yet.

<comment><USER4> It's undergoing training and testing, which seems a bit dubious without any aircraft to land on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> ISTM the F-35 will be the undoing of the U.S. military. The program seems to be eating all available time and funding but without delivering on essential core capabilities.

<comment><USER6> It certainly seems to be the undoing of the Dutch airforce. We always used to have around 100 fighters. It's going to 37 F-35s now. I wonder how many missions we can still fly with that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> When you compare the speed and effectiveness of Russia's military renewal (including planes like the Su-35) with the chain of fiascos in the US defense sector, one really wonders whether the Soviet Union's KGB campaign was a success. The KGB wanted to place deep cover agents within the US establishment (political and defense) in order to subvert the USA and damage its ability to threaten the Soviet Union. Normal KGB practice for this was to set up agents, but then let them run free with no control from Moscow or any requirement to send info back to Moscow. This made them virtually undetectable and when the Russian Federation disbanded the KGB, those deep cover agents continued to function. Soviet defectors in the 70's and 80's warned about the KGB campaign but nobody seemed to listen.

So when we see so-called "bad decisions" resulting in useless aircraft, useless stealth ships, and a whole chain of military equipment fiascos (up to and including $10,000 hammers) you really have to wonder whether the KGB won the cold war after all. We now know that the USA ran a decades long campaign to subvert the Soviet Union by sowing corruption deep within the Soviet system. How could the KGB not have done the same? Also, the Soviet Union disbanded itself quite abruptly and unexpectedly. Students of the KYB and of Russian strategy seriously wonder whether this was done to prevent the ultimate endgame in the US plan which would see Russia balkanized into a dozen small squabbling countries. Watch the film "The Turkish Gambit" to get an idea of the kind of chess games that Russians are capable of playing.

<comment><USER8> The Russian military is in worse shape today than it was five years ago. Between the embargo over Ukraine and the drop in the price of oil they're broke again.

<comment> T-A [http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/24/news/russia-military- spendin...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/24/news/russia-military- spending/index.html)

[https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat...](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locations=RU)

[https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.CN?location...](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.CN?locations=RU)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Popular Mechanics had this story too, but they apparently got an update from an air force official:

 _Update: A U.S. Air Force official tells Popular Mechanics that, "the Air Force plans to upgrade all aircraft in question to Software Block 3F."_

[http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a28685/f-3...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a28685/f-35s-unfit- for-combat/)

Who knows what will actually happen.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's interesting that while the US develops consistently better stealth technology, the Russians develops consistently better countermeasures such as VHF low frequency radar and IRST pods.

<comment><USER11> Well, I personally think that the entire question of stealth and air superiority against Russia is a mute point. With a range of just 2000km, the Russians can simply use traditional air deffence against important targets and fire missiles directly at the totally non-stealthy giant, impossible to miss aircraft carriers.

<comment><USER12> moot point

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is the physical equivalent of rewriting a complex software system from scratch. Seems like it'll be less pain and effort than modifying the existing system, yet five years later you end up with a pile of shit that you're tempted to rewrite from scratch. The next "rewrite" won't have any humans onboard.

</comment><comment><USER14> All a bit laughable considering Americas current "enemy" drive pickup trucks and shoot AK47's

<comment><USER15> That's the thing with defence spending - with the lead time on resources like this you can't fixate on the current conflict, but need to think decades ahead.

It's not beyond the realms of possibility that nations could see themselves in a war for dwindling resources on the planet in the next 30 to 40 years.

<comment><USER16> Fair point. But which would have been better, having one F35 or having 3 F16's for roughly the same price?

There's a great (old/free) sci-fi story with the same premise (of which I can't remember the name right now). In it the leading power is engaged in a war which they should win easily, but then they keep inventing all these new and great technologies. However every time they try and implement a new one they give up more ground until in the end they're in a bit of trouble.

<comment><USER17> [ _Superiority_ by _Arthur C. Clarke_ ]([http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html](http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html))

> We were defeated by one thing only - by the inferior science of our enemies.

<comment><USER14> >The Analyzer contained just short of a million vacuum tubes and needed a team of five hundred technicians to maintain and operate it

Sounds almost like an F-35 :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't see why this is such a big deal. It's like saying Intel spent $3B to make development boards for their next gen chip but instead of replacing the chips on those dev boards they just bought new production boards. I can easily see how that's less costly than upgrading the dev boards, or the aircraft in this case. I mean they'll still have the planes for training and such.

<comment><USER3> It's a huge problem. The Air Force didn't need anywhere near 108 aircraft for flight testing and initial training. Unlike electronics development boards which are relatively cheap to manufacture, aircraft cost millions. Concurrency has been an abject failure.

<comment><USER9> Well, if they're only used for initial training, then ya.

But worth pointing out that right now, there are ~13 active duty USAF F16 squadrons, something like 17 ANG squadrons, and ~5 training squadrons. That's roughly 6:1. The USAF was planning (who knows...) to get something like 1500+ F-35s. Even at 12 active airframes per training airframe, you'd still be able to absorb 108 airframes.

If these airframes can be made into sufficiently good trainer airframes, then it could be okay.

That's a big if though, looks like Block 2B have lower G limits than the Block 3s - don't know if that's a real structural thing, or just software qualification stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor)</comment>


I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid <comment><USER2> I've thought about the topic of Academic freedom and the ability to challenge students and how it's been neutered by the concept of "microagressions" and "trigger warnings".

When I was in school, we watched Schindlers's List. Not when we were young, but when it was thought we were old enough to appreciate it. Talk about a trigger warning. It's literally a graphic portrayal of one of the most terrible things people have done, but we watched it because it's important to be challenged and grow. I worry that's no longer the case. I really really hope I'm just being a typical "old person" and that I'm wrong.

The other area where I fundamentally disagree with the concept of microagression and trigger warnings is that there is a popular concept that people have the right to feel a certain way. They don't. Some people suffer from "Lepidopterophobia", fear of butterflies. Their feelings are 100% real and in fact, should you be around someone suffering from Lepidopterophobia try and be considerate. However as a society we should make no attempt to remove discussion of butterflies from public places or classrooms. People suffering from Lepidopterophobia have no inherent right to keep the rest of us from enjoying butterflies. Under the ADA it might make sense to provide them with reasonable accommodations if a psychiatrist has determined they are suffering from Lepidopterophobia but that's about it.

I'd implore people to try and keep some of these ideas separate in their head. There are people suffering from PTSD and I'm sure there are situations that trigger their PTSD (4th of July explosions, dimly lit jogging pathways, men) and cause them to feel some terrible mental anguish. Society is under no obligation to remove those triggers from their life.

I keep saying that society is obliged to do this and not obliged to do that. I should clarify what I base this reasoning off of. When society decides to keep people safe by outlawing their murder they are saying that a certain behavior is basically never ok because it's intrinsically harmful. Second hand smoke is intrinsically harmful. Peanuts are not, though for many people they are quite harmful.

When somebody avoids a certain topic that makes people feel bad there's no end to that slippery slope. If we decide that one person's internal state is sufficient reason to censor people then there is literally no such thing as free speech anymore. That's a price I'm not willing to pay for one person's comfort.

</comment><comment> noir-york Dreadful! But what do you expect when the student is the "customer".

Education is there to benefit the student, sure, but society has a very large stake in educating its population. Its called a positive externality.

This is a matter of public policy and society should be regulating this stuff. Now try doing that in a partisan political climate, where we can't even agree that creationism should not be on any curriculum.

<comment><USER3> I agree. However the problem isn't necessarily that students are "customers", but rather that according to this writer the universities apparently have some kind of "customer is always right" approach to teaching.

Ideally the college experience should be a transformative one in which the student has a chance to progress beyond the worldview they grew up with in their parent's home, by learning new things in a fresh, neutral setting.

But when it comes down to it there are always going to be some people who are so entrenched in their current world view that they refuse to consider anything outside of it. In that case there are plenty of options for them. If someone wants to learn creationist worldviews in a college setting and have professors tell him that evolution is "just a theory" then there are religious universities they can go to for that. If they want to learn conservative worldview or liberal worldview only they have options to make that happen. If you are willing to pay money for a flawed, narrow minded education, and there are enough others like you to create a market, then there will be an institution that will serve you in order to get your money.

Of course if the student chooses one of these myopic routes they are wasting their money by missing out on a tremendous opportunity for self improvement by learning about the world and other people's viewpoints on it.

</comment></comment><comment> norea-armozel I'm split on the issue because I like it when a professor challenged me in college, but I'm not keen on having a professor mistreating me (ex. being treated badly due to race or gender identity). But I do think that people shouldn't file bogus complaints for a professor trying to get a lesson back on track.

</comment><comment><USER4> "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, the pursuit of Happiness and not having their feeeeelingzz hurt."

</comment><comment><USER5> College's should have a complaint review system that goes through diversified student and faculty boards before being deemed legitimate.</comment>


Logging and Learning - <AUTHOR> http://tom.posterous.com/logging-and-learning

<comment><USER2> I agree so much with the "Log files are where data goes to die" that it hurts. Here's what I spent half an hour investigating this morning.

The general flavor, with more than a few details fictionalized: picture your standard credit card order form.

First Name: Elaine Smith who teaches in 6th grade at George Washington Middle

Last Name: School

Now, in a real comedy of unlikely events, everybody just passed that transaction along to the next step of the chain.

My app: Paypal collects billing details, let them worry about the correctness of them.

Paypal: She's got a username and password and a Paypal balance? Transaction authorized!

Payment processor: A transaction from Paypal? OK, email straight to her spam folder, hit the script on Patrick's site to record transaction.

Script: First name, please? Hurk. _writes error message to log file_

Customer: Where's my stuff?

Me: _checks records_ That's funny, I can't find a record of this transaction anywhere in the database... Why don't I spend thirty minutes fruitlessly searching for variations of her name? Oh, no dice, hmm, one last thing to try: _sudo grep "George Washington" production.log_... Oh crud.

New feature as of this evening: any hits on the sale notification script which do not result in a successful save to the database are going to displayed on my web dashboard in Blaze Orange.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whenever there is a weird bug in my software, I wish I had logged more.

To prevent this from happening, I just put the request, state, and response objects into my object database now. It doesn't really take up all that much space, and it is nice to have a big picture of what is going on with the app.

The next step is to start logging data flow at key points.

(BTW, this data all "dies"... but it is nice to have when something is obviously failing. You can always process data you have; you can't process data you don't have. Log now, ask questions later.)

</comment><comment><USER4> You reached these Keeeeds!

<comment><USER5> A certain part of me always hopes that people "get" my seemingly random headers. Bonus points if you tell me where the last one is from.

<comment><USER6> Starship Troopers: winner of the most unexpected shower scene of all time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't mean to take away from the discussion here, but any one know of any good books/resources that cover this topic. At my current project we have been having an on-going tussle between logging too much and too little and I am hoping to find anything that helps. Thanks!</comment>


Popcorn App - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Yify/popcorn-app

<comment><USER2> It seems YIFI Torrents is picking up the Popcorn Time ball and running with it.</comment>


Logitech Slashes Google TV-Based Revue to $99 as Returns Exceed Sales - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/28/logitech-slashes-google-tv-based-revue-to-99-as-returns-exceed-sales/

<comment><USER2> I actually like my Logitech Revue a lot! I use it for Netflix streaming and to show family and friends my Picasa web albums.

It seemed to get more reliable several months ago after it updated itself.

All that said, I got one for free from Google last December and I would be less happy if I had paid $299 for it. At the "get rid of inventory" sale price of $99 it seems like a pretty good deal. I expect something even better to be released in the next year or so.

BTW, does anyone know if Apple TV supports Netflix and other data streams? If not, will they?</comment>


Movie Studios Back Oracle in Supreme Court Fight over Computer Code - <AUTHOR> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/movie-studios-back-oracle-supreme-court-fight-computer-code-1279929 <comment><USER2> Partners in crime - this alone negates the Oracle POV...</comment>


Top Israeli prof claims simple stats show virus plays itself out after 70 days - <AUTHOR> https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-israeli-prof-claims-simple-stats-show-virus-plays-itself-out-after-70-days/ <comment><USER2> Gosh, if a top professor said it then it must be true!

<comment><USER3> Well crap! Now I have to go and dig up the paper that said the same things about AIDS in the 1980's.

BRB!!

Back!!

Farr's law applied to AIDS projections. Bregman DJ1, Langmuir AD.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2308183](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2308183)

"The 6 years of incidence data closely fit a normal distribution that crests in late 1988 and then declines to a low point by the mid-1990s. The projected size of the epidemic falls in the range of 200 000 cases. A continuing incidence of endemic cases can be expected to emerge, but we believe it will occur at a low level."</comment></comment>