US Secret Service rumbles into action against Bitcoin facilitators - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2013/05/us-secret-service-rumbles-into-action-against-bitcoin-facilitators/

<comment><USER4> Amazingly daring:

55 million transactions _virtually all of which were illegal_

And then all the keywords:

 _credit card fraud, identity theft, investment fraud, computer hacking, child pornography, and narcotics trafficking_

How on earth can you honestly claim that fifty-five million transactions were illegal and at the same time not having acted before? I mean: it is not 'we are at war and we have to let some people die in order to win the great battle'.

But then again, the US is at war, is it not?

So complicated...

<comment><USER5> > But then again, the US is at war, is it not?

Against its citizens, lately.

<comment><USER6> "lately"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are we talking about BTC or liberty reserve? The content and format of the article are very confusing. I find people are to not aware about what the possibility of anon tx entails when they argue the counterpoint. Of course the first people who are going to use it are criminals. One opportunity missed here to reflect on the issue.

<comment><USER8> I think the page is seriously broken -- the "article" as currently presented is incoherent. Maybe it is the author's notes?

<comment><USER9> The article is, IMHO, a press release from the secret service with annotations by the author.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As we learn more about Liberty Reserve and their alleged facilitations of money laundering the question I'll be asking myself is; Were the alleged actions of Liberty Reserve worse than the alleged actions of HSBC? HSBC got off with a fine by the US DOJ. So this question helps me to understand the real motivations behind the indictment of Liberty Reserve. Was the DOJ's motivation to actually thwart monet laundering, or was it motivated by something else like shutting down something outside of their regulatory control?

<comment><USER11> Well the settlement with HSBC was to pay a $1.9 billion fine -- it's unlikely that Liberty Reserve would be able to come up with something of that order of magnitude. Additionally, I think the prosecutors would make the case that Liberty Reserve was _primarily_ a criminal money laundering operation while HSBC was a large, multi-faceted organization which engaged in certain criminal acts.

And anyway, they still may face criminal prosecution -- the judge has yet to sign off on the deal: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/may/23/hsbc- court-th...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/may/23/hsbc-court-threat- money-laundering-charges)

<comment><USER12> "HSBC was to pay a $1.9 billion fine -- it's unlikely that Liberty Reserve would be able to come up with something of that order of magnitude"

That was for $60 Trillion in un-monitored transactions. The fine is very roughly ~ 1/32,000th of the total transaction dollars. Perhaps rather than shutting them down, the feds could fine them 1/32,000th of all of LR's un- monitored transaction?

This "break the law to make money and pay the fine later on" is just part of the revenue model now. Fines are not a deterrent (in fact I think they are more appropriately called "bribes"), they are considered like insurance, or rent, or banking fees. All just part of the cost of making the most profit possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think it's amazing, given the feds' apparent belief that the system was used to transmit illegal money only, they shut it down instead of just working with the owners to record all the transactions. Seems to me, this would have delivered some pretty easy law enforcement home runs for (almost) free.

<comment><USER14> After what happened to e-gold, there's fuck all chance anyone running a similar service would want to work with the feds.

<comment><USER15> LR and e-gold are the same people, in fact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Stupid article is a press release about liberty reserve, and comments about bitcoin.

Bitcoin is about as related to Liberty Reserve as it is to Mastercard. Namely not at all.

<comment><USER17> It is related as in the same case can be brought upon bitcoin facilitators.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's like killing Napster but only after bittorrent was invented. They could not bother themselves and just wait till liberty dollars are obsoleted by bitcoins. And then just accept that from now on transactions are semianonymous and irrevokable and they can forget the whole antimoneylaundering crazy efforts. They might actually focus on better laws and preventing crimes that now they are just trying to disincentivise by going after criminals money.

For example credit card fraud is possible mostly thanks to stupid rules and even dumber application of technology.

<comment><USER19> Except in this case, shutting down the exchanges is all that needs to be done to discourage the vast, vast majority of digital currency use. That would pretty much quash them entirely.

<comment><USER18> Everybody can work as an exchange. You have to be very dedicated to shut down all the people that become exchange. Same way shutting bittorrent is possible but you have to be very dedicated. Far above the point where lots of people are gonna say "come on, you can't hide behind the claim that such measures are for our greater good"

<comment><USER19> Erm, how does everyone agree on an exchange rate? They would all have incentive to manipulate their exchange rate for arbitrage. That alone means that not everyone or even any meaningful number of people can become exchanges.

<comment><USER18> What's wrong with arbitrage? Arbitrage keeps exchanges in sync. You don't need single rate everyody agrees on. If you can successfully manipulate price at one exchange to gain more than usual from arbitrage and more then you spend on trying to swing the exchange then I congratulate you and wish you best of luck. Somehow this sounds like a perpetum mobile for me or at least some serious gambling. Investors know more then one exchange an check prices on all of them when deciding whether to place or cancel an order.

<comment><USER19> Okay, but that doesn't hold up at all when _everyone_ is an exchange...

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure what you have in mind. Not everyone has to be an exchange. But everyone can. All you need is ability to take and give bitcoins and traditional currency and bit of honesty and trust. Traders can deal with many such exchanges keeping them in sync by arbitrage and doing the usual trades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This article is just a draft, it cannot be the final version. It's basically a press release on the crackdown over Liberty Reserve plus a quote by someone (not mentioned!) about Bitcoin - that's it. So the title is either a work-in- progress or a click-trap.

Bitcoins are steadily trading at $129 now, if the article was true there would be important fluctuations.

<comment><USER21> > Bitcoins are steadily trading at $129 now, if the article was true there > would be important fluctuations.

MtGox's BTC-USD exchange rate is currently trading at that price, and the price of BTC itself cannot be measured. The distinction is important, and hopefully in the future fiat currencies will be valued against BTC instead of the other way around.

<comment><USER22> Why is the distinction important?

In practice, a currency's only purpose (as far as I know) is using it to buy things. Calibrating against USD, or GBP, or JPY, or gold value, or any other major stable currency, is equally good and gives a way of understanding the current value of BTC. How would you suggest we currently understand the value of a single BTC?

Certainly BTC have been, and continue to be, much more unstable than any of these metrics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Global Illicit Financial Team" ie. GIFT wow, cool, these must be the good guys.

Thus begins the FUD storm to discredit BitCoin :

Implication : "if your using Bitcoin rather than a 'legitimate' currency, you must have something to hide. you must be an evil pederast/blackmarketeer/hacker/terrorist"

</comment><comment><USER24> I am not quite sure what is happening here. There are two different ways to look at this, the first being that the federal government knew about the illegal transactions happening at LR, and was unable though incompetence to stop them. The second being that the government didn't have the technical or legal ability to stop them. Either way it does not paint the government in a good light.

<comment><USER25> > There are two different ways to look at this, the first being that the > federal government knew about the illegal transactions happening at LR, and > was unable though incompetence to stop them. The second being that the > government didn't have the technical or legal ability to stop them. Either > way it does not paint the government in a good light.

Due process protections in the US generally mean that there tends to be a gap between "government has a pretty good idea that something illegal is being done and a fairly specific idea of what it is" and "government has its ducks in a row regarding proof that will stand up in court to begin legal action with a reasonable probability of success".

I actually think this is the core of one of the _best_ features of our government, so I don't think it paints the government in a bad light at all that it often knows about bad things happening considerably sooner that it has the practical legal ability to stop them (or, at least, before exercising that ability will jeopardize the ability to hold wrongdoers accountable under the law.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Sooner or later, the federal government (and foreign governments as well) will attempt to crack down on Bitcoin, simply because they need to protect their monopoly on currency. Has nothing to do with right or wrong, or crimes that may be committed using Bitcoins. Hell, crimes are committed with cash all the time, but they aren't gonna crack down on THAT.

Yet.

</comment><comment><USER27> Here is the problem guys: The FED has money issuance monopoly. And on the top of that it can manipulate interest rates (legally). It can also legally counterfeit money (because that's what money printing... sorry quantitive easing really means).

BitCoin is basically threatning that monopoly. It doesn't help when you want to 'revive' the world economy by scheduled printing from USA, through EU, to China -- when citizens can exit your inflation by going to assets like gold.

Or - even better - BitCoin. I have a few coins, it's difficult to shop around you know. It maintains the value, true. But it's cumbersome to oww, store, risky to exchange for cash, etc. BitCoin - this is XXI century folks!

So you have the biggest and most dangerous lie on the face of the planet where banks literally are in bed with governments - currency monopolies all over the world. Everything tied back to the USD. And then you have some smarta$$es right at your nose in Manhattan showing you big finger with their virtual currency.

There is no competition with currencies. It's not like before central banks were forced upon people's throats that you can choose currency to pay with or create your own. 300, 400 years ago, a prince, or just a merchant or a city could have issued their own currency. Have their own banks issuing it. That's competition folks. That's not why real powers running this world established central banks ages ago. They did it to have a total control over currencies, interes rates and economies.

You know how easy is to manufacture a crisis like the one we have had since 2007?

As easy as keeping interest rates artificially low for 15 years by a central bank issuing world reserve currency. Crisis, great money are made. War - <USER2> better. And then with war you get rid of all these issues like overpopulation, water shortages, other natural resources shortages.

In communist states the government regulates prices of everything. From a piece of bread to a car. At the end this causes the economy to suffer to much that there is no bread and no cars. Because by ignoring supply-demand curve for the products and just enforcing a price that seems 'fair' to the government, you make it too cheap for a producer to care to produce, or too expensive for folks to buy it. Pretty obvious, basic economics.

Ever wondered why somehow they never acknowledge this to work the same way for the most important price an economy has - the price of credit? It's not like the market forces, supply&demand, decide what the price of credit is (interest rates). This is decided by the Government - FED - Ben Bernanke decides what the price of credit should be. A buerocrat. Are you surprised there is a crisis? What type of capitalism is it anyway which has the most important price on the market - the price of credit - decided and manipulated by the Government?

BitCoin, gold, silver, all take it away from them. Hence they hatred.

Another example: if a bank wants to lend USD it has to adhere to the rate set by Mr. Bernanke.

But if I want to lend BitCoin, I can do it at whatever %/apr.

That's their monopoly broken right there.

If they print too much to 'help the economy' (their friends in big banks) it won't work if guys will start using BitCoin. to trade and do other transactions.

<comment><USER28> BitCoin isn't a "threat" to the money issuance monopoly any more than a ton of bricks at the bottom of the ocean is a threat.

What gives money value is demand for the money. Government primes demand by requiring that all payments to the government be made with that money. That is the root of value.

Everything else isn't currency - it's either a barter, a commodity, a ponzi scheme or a scam.

<comment><USER29> > BitCoin isn't a "threat" to the money issuance monopoly

You are mistaken. Look at what was done to Liberty Dollar.

<comment><USER19> Which had nothing to do with it being a real threat to the USD - <USER3> because it was never a real threat to the dollar, and secondly because it was demonstrably used for criminal transactions.

<comment><USER29> > it was demonstrably used for criminal transactions.

I'm sure you have proof of this.

<comment><USER19> Right, everyone using LR was using it for 100% legit transactions, no money laundering of any sort. Mhmm.

<comment><USER29> We had a mistake in communication. I thought you were referencing the Liberty Dollar topic I had raised.

I have no issues with people moving their money around as they see fit. Why not outlaw cash if "money laundering" is a concern?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


SEOmoz introduces public analytics on all posts - <AUTHOR> http://www.seomoz.org/blog/raising-the-bar-on-data-sharing-introducing-open-analytics

<comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I helped implement this.

I think it's a great idea. Many news sites have been displaying "visits" or "hits" next to their news stories for a while but it's never exactly clear where this comes from and how it's measured.

By pulling this data directly from Google Analytics we are speaking the same language as everyone else and displaying metrics like time on page, bounce rate etc I think reveals a greater level of data than most.

We're following in the (awesome) footsteps of people like Fred Wilson (<http://chartbeat.com/demo/>) and I hope that by displaying this data it will help our community keep us heading in the right direction and of course it should motivate all of us to keep pushing the numbers in the right direction :)

</comment><comment><USER3> As someone who blogs on SEOmoz, you can bet this is going to make me up my game with my posts now everyone can see how widely-read my posts were vs. my colleagues'.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Post Analytics" seems like a terrible label for that button. What does that even mean? Especially for the web dev folks that are probably reading that blog... am I POSTing analytics to the site? Sending my analytics to SEOmoz?

Why not "Show Analytics"? Why not show that info by default, without a button click?

<comment><USER4> Er, after reading it a second time it's probably intended to be more "This Blog Post's Analytics". The noun/verb issue is easily misread, especially since every other call to action button on that page uses a verb. "Add Comment" "Hide Comments" "Get RSS" "Friend Us" "Follow Us" etc...

<comment><USER5> I think you're right though that "show analytics" would be better. Also the reason they don't show it up front might be twofold (or not) - one that it increases engagement by making the blog part more interactive, a small but significant thing IMO, the other is that it reduces database load as not everyone will look at the analytics (if you're not bothered to read them then they just clutter up the page).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It looks like all the comments here are from SEOmoz employees.

<comment><USER5> ATM: 8 comments, including your, 5 from non-SEOmoz employees.

Actually Will I think is only a guest blogger there. Not quite sure what the relationship between SEOmoz and Distilled is but it seems pretty tight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love the concept, but a piece missing here is how many "goals" / "conversions" each post generates.

From my own adventures in blogging I found that # of visitors isn't the right metric to measure success / fail.

EG - this somewhat technical post is low visits (~1500) but consistently generates leads at a high conversion rate:

[http://www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/05/how-to-track- co...](http://www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/05/how-to-track-conversions- without-a-conversion-page-in-google-optimizer/)

Vs this link-baity post which generated lots of visitors (15,000+) but generates substantially fewer leads than the technical post:

[http://www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/12/%E2%80%9Cmerry-...](http://www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/12/%E2%80%9Cmerry- christmas%E2%80%9D-vs-%E2%80%9Chappy-holidays%E2%80%9D-nearly-double-the- conversion-rate/)

That's not to say that there isn't inherent SEO / brand value in high-traffic posts but again, in my own experience, I'd rather have a handful of posts that perform like example #1 vs. a dozen of example #2

<comment><USER2> This is definitely on the roadmap, this initial implementation is just the bare bones.

One unusual thing with SEOmoz is that they get a huge volume of traffic through their blog where the conversion rate (to money) is low. What I'd love to see more is softer conversions such as social interactions, registered users etc.

Thanks for your feedback!</comment></comment>


Show HN: Using Robust Optimization on Singapore's water resources - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/dsaid-govtech/using-robust-optimization-and-mixed-integer-programming-to-manage-singapores-water-resources-a62257afdb82 <comment><USER2> nice use of Google Collabs to show the modelling part</comment>


Thrashed – Jake Phelps has run the bible for skaters for more than two decades - <AUTHOR> https://story.californiasunday.com/jake-phelps-thrasher <comment><USER2> Wow! I can't believe Thrasher (and Jake Phelps) made the front page of HN. I first met Jake Phelps at Tampa Pro in 2006 when I was in middle school. He was giving away free wheels and I thought he was just some random dude. Later I found out his position at Thrasher.

Thanks for upvoting this, fellow HNers. If you don't skateboard and you've thought about it, I recommend you try it out. Or if you "used to skate," get back on the board! I find software dev and skateboarding very similar. There's a certain resilience that comes from both endeavors, at least for me.

If you've got a little bit of time to burn, check out the Thrasher YouTube channel [0].

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/user/ThrasherMagazine/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/ThrasherMagazine/videos)

<comment><USER3> On it! I've been thinking of grabbing a board again. This article showing up on HN just lit the fire. Now, to decide, a blank deck or something arty...

<comment><USER2> Keep the fire lit!

Get something cool--It's worth the extra $20. I just bought a couple of Quasi boards and I like them a lot. I'm also fond of Habitat.

<comment><USER4> Quasi is rad. I've been riding Polar boards lately which are also cool.

<comment><USER3> Wow, just checked out their site and I am blown away. Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Really interesting. It seems like Jake is trying to preserve the version and attitude of skateboarding that he remembers from his youth. I often wonder how he views changes in The City, and the way things are going. A great read.

<comment><USER2> Great point. I have a few friends I grew up with who moved out to SF. Some skate and some work in the skate industry. I visited in July, and I was taken aback by the gentrification/rent issue in the city. I should have anticipated it because I knew what gentrification was (as in I read about it), and I knew SF's population was changing. Don't get me wrong--I'm not "taking a side here." I'm merely explaining that I was naive to the whole issue, but many conversations I had over that 10-day trip at least touched on it (especially at Zeitgeist--great bar, btw). Further, I stayed in The Mission and there was a ton of street art dedicated to the gentrification issue/"preserving" the city. I think it's a really tough problem that doesn't have an easy solution. People and places change over time. Some welcome the change, whereas others feel that the great city they came to is slipping away from greatness.</comment></comment>


China's Plan to Keep Sand from Swallowing the World - <AUTHOR> http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/08/china-plants-billions-of-trees-in-the-desert/ <comment><USER2> I remember learning The Man Who Planted Trees (L'homme qui plantait des arbres) [1] in French class in primary school.

Even though many of the trees aren't surviving, I'm cautiously optimistic about the Green Great Wall project. I think that trees breaking the wind can stop more air pollution than grass. They will use more water, but when the wind is blocked, the humidity can stay local, so even rotting dead trees can fertilise the next generation of plants.

There's some skepticism about corruption and incompetence of government planning, which is probably true. But has the American government put so much effort and money into an environmental project?

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

</comment><comment><USER3> 86% or 60% dying is really not a big deal if the remaining surviving 14% or 40% are, in absolute numerical terms, greater than the amount it takes to transform the desert.

The article unfortunately doesn't talk about what we think the latter is.

edit: explain the down vote. you think planting trees to die is immoral, or something?

<comment><USER4> It's both moral and practical.

It depends on the species, but in many cases the best way to get ten big trees quickly is to plant many more, maybe even a hundred. The young trees enjoy having dense company. As they grow each tree needs more room, so cut down a few every year.

<comment><USER5> From the article:

>>>> The researchers' biggest worry is that the trees are depleting subterranean aquifers so that eventually nothing will flourish.

I know nothing about this subject so the above may be an issue, or it may not. What can you take away from the article? I'm sure there have been a great many displaced along the way by the project, is it going to be worth it in the end?

It seems like it should be a great project to analyse. There's a large amount of money being injected into it and it's at a large enough scale that you could try a lot of different approaches to see what worked. But, as ever, it sounds like incentives are misaligned so we may never get true information about what is actually working and what isn't.

Reading through the article it sounded spookily like China's Great Leap Forward at the end of the 50s:

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

<comment><USER6> Somewhat qualified guess (studied agriculture and forestry for 1.5 years):

If the desert expands that will most likely definitely destroy the areas.

And while trees will use a lot of water (somewhat depending on specie I think) they'd hopefully also provide protection against direct sunlight for a more diverse ecosystem to establish.

Compared to the Midwestern way of pumping groundwater only to grow seasonal crops this seems like a good step in a better direction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This reminds me of Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps from 1933 to 1942, which at one time comprised 300,000 people and planted over 3 billion trees in America to combat the extensive deforestation brought by industry[1]. The town where I live was almost abandoned at one point in the early 1900s because our local sawmill had stripped the surrounding area of all trees for miles. It was the CCC that brought them back.

I think preserving our commons is the most important role of government.

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

</comment><comment><USER8> I suspect science writing like this is one reason why public trust in science is at a low. I read a passage like this:

> But plenty of scientists remain unimpressed. Many of the trees, planted in > places they don't grow naturally, eventually die. The survivors soak up > precious groundwater that native grasses and shrubs need, causing more soil > degradation. Meanwhile, thousands of farmers and herders are forced off > their lands to make way for the trees. China may be winning its war against > nature for now, but at what cost?

I was a STEM major, but my first reaction to this is still: so what the hell is the takeaway? Science news coverage is all like this: "some scientists do X; other scientists say Y; I'm a journalist so f--k if I know who is right." Science gets turned from something that offers clarity to something that underscores humans' inability to understand the world around them.

<comment><USER9> Would you have preferred a confident but unsupported statement? Maybe presenting a nuanced view undermines trust in science, but I think I prefer that to blind trust without understanding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe synergies can be used here! On HN 1 month ago: The World Is Running Out of Sand: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15739917](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15739917)

<comment><USER11> As noted in that discussion, there are different types of sand – (ironically?) the growing desert is not usable as a construction material; the individual grains are too small and spherical, in construction sand the grains are coarser and larger. Why is why we have the situation where Gulf states import some of the sand for their construction boom even though a huge proportion of their land is desert (that is to say – sand).

edit: so no synergies unfortunately!

<comment><USER12> So what you're saying is someone needs to invent a cryptocurrency where the proof of work is measured by the number of spherical grains of sand you coarsen?

<comment><USER10> We need to launch an ICO here. The Internet of Sand (IoS) is the future. Every coarse grain will have its IPv6 address which is retained in a blockchain for tracking, making "intelligent concrete" the very fabric of architecture 4.0.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder how we plan to terraform Mars if we can't even deal with a desert or two.

<comment><USER14> terraforming is pure scifi, the least hospitable place on earth is vastly more hospitable than the best place on mars, even after almost every conceivable planet scale disaster. Pretty much every technique that could be used to make mars more hospitable could be used on earth instead. We dont have to spend 20 million dollars a kilogram to get there either.

Its part of a futurist escapist fantasy where we have somewhere safe to go when we ruin the earth, so why worry about it right?

<comment><USER15> The way to develop technologies that will save the earth's environment is to go to space or other worlds where there are no NIMBYs or reactionary fanatics or existing corporate kleptocracies, develop them to maturity, and then redeploy on the mother planet. Commercial fusion power, for instance, will probably always remain 'thirty years from now' as long as the unholy alliance of fossil fuel incumbents and so-called 'Greens' continues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Israel has had a lot of success with their desert agriculture, even on soils that are predominantly salty in composition. While there is no significant precipitation, some of the water is captured from fog, through nets.

</comment><comment><USER17> Sea Buckthorns are considered a much better desert fighter in China than poplars or pines:

[https://books.google.ca/books?id=6XfgBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA293&lpg=P...](https://books.google.ca/books?id=6XfgBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA293&lpg=PA293&dq=sea+buckthorn+china+desert&source=bl&ots=SnLviA_vXY&sig=Pk- IfxHkG2nfCLMNRrwqJgS8cVY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwisyMuA_5XYAhVIylQKHQQPDPEQ6AEISjAI#v=onepage&q&f=false)

I have one in my front yard, it's a neat but very aggressive and very thorny shrub.

</comment><comment><USER18> People talk shit about china's one child policy but these guys know how to act decisively and restrict individual freedoms for the greater good ( i know the one child policy didnt have the intended consequences im more reffering to decisiveness and purpose behind such an action... there is no first world country that can pull off such a feat.)

Environmental problems which are largely based on over population can only be solved with drastic controversial action.

</comment><comment><USER19> I find it amazing that in some places in the world, there's too much sand, and we're planting new ecosystems to control it.

And in other places in the world, there's not enough sand, and we're stripping it away for concrete and killing the ecosystems that depended on it in the process.

I know the two sands might be different, but is there a reason we're not developing concretes that work with the invasive sands?

</comment><comment><USER20> Would like to see them try and do this, get the ground a bit more fertile and planting native grasses perhaps to get it going somewhat? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI)</comment>


Ask HN: Cost of a server farm - <AUTHOR>

If I want to run a commodity hardware farm, say 100 eight-core machines, how much will this cost? I am also asking about incidentals like space to house the servers, T3 internet to the outside world, gigabit intranet, power, etc. <comment> patrickg-zill 100 8-core servers, each 1U, figure $2K apiece as a rough guess. That is $200K.

Next you are talking about 3 racks of space (you can fit 42U in a rack), plus extra power, figure $3000 per month in a less-expensive colocation space.

Gigabit switches, cabling, etc. figure another 5K or more, depending on the quality and features you want.

Bandwidth will be metered by your colocation provider, prices can vary, usually you will be given 5-10Mbps as part of the rack.

So figure $210K plus $3K per month or so.

<comment><USER2> You can physically fit 42U in a single rack, but you can't run that many servers off the regular per-circuit (which is often per-rack/cabinet) AC power limits most datacenters provide. Each circuit is usually 16-20 amps, this is in my experience about 8-10 2-3U servers (your hardware should have wattage and amperage documentation). You can get higher power density (and sometimes cheaper prices) if you use DC powered hardware. You can get more circuits, but they often charge incrementally more because as the servers per square foot ratio goes up, cooling requirements go up also (you pay for cooling as part of the price for the physical space), and the power limits are a way to help keep that under control, predictable, and homogenous across the datacenter.

<comment> patrickg-zill Well, 100 1U servers is about 33 per rack if you have 3 racks; switches should not be more than 2U or 4U on top of that, and they do not use a lot of power.

Not sure exactly how much power, but 2x 30A power feeds will give 48A usable power, which is just about 1.5 amps per system. Whether that is enough for 8 cores (2x quad core), I don't know; will depend on amount of memory and disks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> $58,400/month plus bandwidth -- as 100 Amazon EC2 "High-CPU Extra-Large Instances", with 8 virtual cores, 7GB RAM, and 1690GB local disk.</comment>


Nobel Lecture by Mother Teresa - <AUTHOR> http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1979/teresa-lecture.html

<comment><USER2> This is way way off topic.</comment>


Craigslist Updates UI Slightly with "List View" "Pic View" and "Map View" - <AUTHOR> http://orlando.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=house&srchType=A&zoomToPosting=&minAsk=&maxAsk=

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought this was interesting because Craigslist is known for sticking to its classic (some would say dated? ugly?) user interface. This is the first change that I've really noticed in Craigslist's UI (the update adds purple buttons for viewing results by "list" "pic" or "map".</comment>


LBRY – A decentralized YouTube alternative - <AUTHOR> https://lbry.io/what <comment><USER2> The LBRY team had a reddit AMA earlier wherein many redditors asked some very pointed (though often impolite) questions that I think were not answered very well by the team: [https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/50tyub/were_the_nerds...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/50tyub/were_the_nerds_behind_lbry_a_decentralized).

The top comment, reproduced verbatim:

Suppose i created address with name of my company lbry/:Mycompany and i bought this address at 1 LBC.

On that address i will be posting my music that i created myself. This address becomes very popular. People often going on that address and buy music created by me. After 4 months it appears my music that you can find on address lbry/:Mycompany becomes very popular. So some guys came in, he sees that many people come in to that address to buy stuff. So he buys lbry/:Mycompany with 1.1 LBC and started posting his content and sells it. So the first guy who created lbry/:Mycompany in a lose position here. He make this address very popular to attend and then he loses it. And right now it is a headeache for him to try buy back this address on greater price or make another name.

So what is the point of such system?

<comment><USER3> >So what is the point of such system?

Let's go deeper. There's three parties involved in this market. Users, platform providers and content creators. The users dictate the terms. Where they go the others follow.

What is this whole technology providing for the users? Nothing, at least nothing of mass appeal.

It's a losing strategy.

The best example of this is Ebay/Paypal. They always put the buyers first for the same reason and Ebay alternatives who don't never catch on because the buyers don't want to use a platform that is not biased towards them.

<comment><USER4> Lumberjack, I agree with you. this is technology just for the sake of technology. As a user I don't see any kind of valid use case.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I need to see a more compelling use case than the "small guy producing content", considering YouTube DOES exist

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > What happens when you build your business on YouTube or Amazon and they > change fees? Or Apple drops your content because the Premier of China > thought your comedy went too far? Only LBRY consists of a _known, promised > set of rules_ that no one can unilaterally change. LBRY provides this by > doing something unique: leaving the users in control rather than demanding > that control for itself.

> It is also worth noting that in the event that LBRY received notice that > either name contained an illegitimate copy of Spider Man, LBRY would > dutifully and quickly put that content id on a blacklist, blocking discovery > or purchase via any legal services. LBRY and users of LBRY are still subject > to the DMCA and other relevant laws of their respective countries.

These two goals -- being subject to the DMCA (and similar laws), and promising a predetermined, immutable set of rules -- are incompatible.

As long as you intend to abide by $LEGAL_CODE, the set of laws you follow is not fixed since it is subject to changes in $LEGAL_CODE. What happens if the Premier of China, to use the example from the page, decides to make it illegal for some content to be viewed in China?

Of course, this is in addition to the whole problem of the bidding system being flawed since there is (apparently?) no concept of ownership, as opposed to a continuously running auction where the highest bidder as of some time controls an address. The idea is unquestionably elegant, but leaves open the potential of some evil party with significant funds taking control of your address, where you _need_ to buy the address back, causing, e.g. some sort of Gawker-esque financial ruin. The only way to avoid this kind of thing is to have some kind of judicial arbitration. I suppose people still remember the whole Ethereum fiasco.

Besides, there may be two "reasonable" addresses for some content, or more. I find it highly unlikely that there is some kind of economics-assured "existence and uniqueness" theorem that assures otherwise. How about "/wonderfullife" vs. "/itsawonderfullife"? You will _need_ some kind of signing or cryptographically robust identification system to ensure authenticity, because you risk not being able to keep up with a stream of DMCA takedown orders against YouTube-style indiscriminate uploading of copyrighted material.

<comment><USER6> I agree with your point about owning the LBRY address. The article kept referring to the people who value the name the most being the ones who eventually own the addresses, but that doesn't stop big enough freebooters from squating on address smaller creators with less funds need. I'm thinking of YouTube folks who may have to compete with large media firms without the advantage of an arbitration system. To add to that, the fact that address ownership isn't permanent also weakens the position of small creators.

I'm hopeful, though. I like the idea of a decentralized content platform.

<comment><USER7> > I'm hopeful, though. I like the idea of a decentralized > content platform.

We have one of those, the WWW.

What we need is a decentralized method for the social aspects: identity management, networking (following/liking, etc), etc. We had some of that with the early blogosphere stuff, but we largely let it slide into oblivion.

<comment><USER6> I suppose the Internet is a "content platform," but that's in the most basic sense of the term. I mean things like YouTube and Vessel that are trying to bring together all those things you mention. If anything, I wouldn't begin to consider a service to be a content platform unless it had those things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've never been this aggressive in a HN comment: change the fucking title. This is not a showcase for a YouTube alternative. It's a fucking advertisement for a service that has nothing to do with YouTube-like services. It's AOL keywords with a bidding system - for any site or service. This kind of clickbait bullshit, listing a well-known product like "YouTube" for the sole purpose of gaining more traction, is unacceptable. HN has lately been falling into the same trap that killed Slashdot - falsely labelled posts, providing clickbait views for someone's startup that would _never_ make the front page if the title matched the content of the submission.

<comment><USER6> The submission definitely mentions YouTube and Netflix as services it could replace, as well as bemoaning the centralized nature of many content platforms. I think the title is perfectly accurate.

<comment><USER9> > I think the title is perfectly accurate.

No. A cranked up, ludicrous vision of the future is not a valid base for an accurate title. The bidding system has nothing to do with YouTube. The only reason why the developers are mentioning YouTube is getting attention, SEO.

The worst thing about these types of venture capital backed pipe dreams is, that they give sane decentralisation ideas, like IPFS, a bad name :(

<comment><USER6> I disagree, but whatever.

If anything, this got me extremely interested in what these kinds of decentralized systems can be put to use for. Now I get to look up IPFS, so thank you. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This screams Bitcoin BitTorrent until you get to the end of the article. First thoughts would be all the lawsuits that would compound. We already have lazy people ripping and reposting Youtube videos in order to gain subscribers and make a quick buck. Imagine how much these rippers would love it if they could charge full price?

> "On the whole, as with the car and encryption, the benefits of LBRY clearly > outweigh nefarious uses."

This seems to underestimate the persistence of human malice. But LBRY promises to stop that e.g. via universal black lists and other records. I don't quite see how the "decentralization" label still applies with a universal black list and banning policies. That aside, getting the general populace on-board distributed systems has always been slow-going. Just ask anyone in GNUSocial. The fact is, most people aren't interested. Youtube is easy already. Easy has won out.

</comment><comment><USER11> Isn't this just a little complicated for a YouTube alternative? I mean, maybe I'm being a bit silly here, but don't most people like YouTube and other services cause they're super simple to use? One domain, various videos on said domain, link to a video never changes.

This on the other hand... it feels like it was made for a tech audience instead of a mainstream one. You've got the decentralised aspect with its own protocol and app. You've got a weird payment system where someone can outbid the original creator to take over a URL for some reason or another. And you've then got the awkward content filtering/censoring side that somehow still exists in a supposedly decentralised service.

This seems like something that's gonna be pretty hard to explain to the average Joe who's merely looking for cat videos and doesn't know what a credit or protocol or client or anything else means.

I also have to wonder who the 'main' target audience is here. People that like decentralised services don't want a system where things like DMCA notices actually work. I mean, can you imagine if torrents could somehow be synced to remove all copyrighted content on request? No one would use them. And the idea of other laws (those related to 'hate speech' for example) being something you can implement on a decentralised service doesn't appeal either.

Meanwhile, you've then got the aforementioned confused average Joes, for whom a simple server/client system is about as complex a deal as they can be bothered with, and both groups wondering why an auction system exists for video URLs.

Feels like an overengineered, not quite intuitive solution to a problem.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wouldn't call this a YouTube alternative. Like it or not a YouTube alternative would have to be able to pay the content creator while delivering their content to users for free. It's quite sad but for now we do not have other models than advertisement for that.

Otherwise, technologically, LBRY is interesting, it makes me think of IPFS and ZeroNet (which could have both been used as backend maybe?).

<comment><USER13> Yeah, this has nothing to do with YouTube. This is about art distribution with a digital currency. Very little of YouTube is about art and there is no currency involved. Not every content creator on YouTube want to be paid by viewers. For sure I don't, that would against the goal of my videos (very short vacation clips for friends or tutorials to bring people to my local go club). The title is misleading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've tried to read the article, but it was crazy difficult to me, incomprehensible. I could be just stupid, of course, or lazy. But 4,000 words to explain the idea doesn't seem right to me, really.

So I went to the main page and tried to watch the video (it's just about 2 minutes, I think). The things did not get better.

I am a fairly technical person but I am always trying to look at any idea from the consumer perspective. So here we go...

1\. I generate content, say, videos. I upload them on YouTube and I know how it might potentially get monetized. I mean that for X views and Y ads I may get Z dollars. All these Bitcoin/Blockchain kind of ideas always explain some kind of technology improvements but they never touch how the end user would actually benefit from it. Saying "everything will be better", "you will get fair profit", "no piracy anymore", and stuff like that is close to saying nothing. No one usually tells "why", "how" and "what" I would need to do as a user.

2\. There is YouTube. There is Vimeo. There is Facebook which is constantly trying to make video integration more efficient. Instagram. Twitter. Etc. So, if the idea is to build another YouTube with some different technology behind the scene, then my question is - who would follow? I won't. Seriously. Because YouTube works, and there are millions of people there. If you build a network with different content, different functionality, different user experience, I may consider switching or using it at the same time with YouTube (YouTube also sucks a lot). But I will never care, as a user, whether it's built on MySQL, Big Table or Blockchain. That's not my business at all.

So, the technology might be great (I am not to judge), but the application of it looks still blurry to me. People just don't seem to come up with any good idea how to apply Blockchain, and they are trying to take any random industry and build a solution which "should work better" than existing ones. But from the user point of view, it doesn't matter.

<comment><USER6> I think one of the key parts to this working in the long-run is the client that has to come with this. Like you said, YouTube already exists. It's easy. Also, I don't think most users will happily search for something by starting their search with "lbry://..." They mention the development of an app that solves all of these problems by simply giving users a simple interface like they're familiar with. I don't know how they'll deliver on that.

Your other comments are also valid. Especially the one on content creators moving to this. I think the only advantage to this as compared to other companies that have tried in the past is the underlying technology. If creators don't have to deal with a centralized organization that gives them plenty of headaches, that sounds like a win.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Look, these guys said Blockchain and Streaming, then the clouds open up in the sky, angel investors came and spend USD500k just in case

</comment><comment><USER15> A DNS system as a penny auction scam! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidding_fee_auction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidding_fee_auction)

The Reddit AMA is a hoot. [https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/50tyub/were_the_nerds...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/50tyub/were_the_nerds_behind_lbry_a_decentralized/)

</comment><comment><USER16> "Additionally, bids can also be retracted at any time, even if you're the current winning bidder. To prevent a name from rapidly switching between multiple resolutions, the parties that have existing control of a name have a reasonable period of time to respond to counter bids before a name's resolution switches."

"Since LBRY names are the equivalent to content storefronts, we believe that LBRY names will hold the most value to rightsholders who produce content associated with a given name."

"As names in demand on LBRY will be more expensive, the names themselves will also serve as a signal of reputation, legitimacy, and quality. If a user searches LBRY for Spider Man and sees one at lbry://spiderman and one at lbry://spiderman_russhaxor, there will be little doubt that the latter is less legitimate."

Yes, this sounds somewhat like DNS. First come, first serve, try to snatch up domains first and then sit on them and try to sell them.

But, that places way too much assumed value in the name. All is takes is a search service to resolve "lbry://asdfaljsfd" to a good copy of Spider Man, and now it no longer matters what LBRY URL looks legit.

</comment><comment><USER3> The whole premises of this whole technology is this:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/50tyub/were_the_nerds...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/50tyub/were_the_nerds_behind_lbry_a_decentralized/d76xm3j)

In particular this bit:

>Our goal is to create a system where the URL a user guesses is the most likely to return what they are actually looking for. Economics says this design is the most likely to do so, because the URL is most valuable when it returns what users want.

I very much doubt that orthodox economics actually supports their claim. At the very least it's probably not as simple as they make it out to be.

This has always been a problem I had with crypto technologies. Those who get involved seem to have an attraction towards very simplistic economic notions and an aversion to more refined theory, that is much more able to deal with reality as opposed to that simple sandbox economic world their mindset seems to permanently inhibit.

<comment><USER17> Yep. Their assumption is that whatever content users "want to see" will be most valuable to those users, and will therefore generate the most revenue, and will therefore be able to outbid other competitors.

Problem #1: people aren't in general rational, and willingness to pay isn't always correlated with value derived. How many people benefit from Wikipedia, compared with the number who donate money?

Problem #2 (more severe IMO): if I understand correctly (the white paper is very hazy on details), the bidding process is based on capital, not income. Anyone with sufficient reserves of LBC can squat on a name and extract value from it with zero recurring cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> By trying to fit in mandatory payments, they screwed up.

They should have focused on doing everything else well, and perhaps introduce voluntary payments (i.e.: donations) later.

Mandatory payments ain't gonna fly; Even assuming they somehow made the technical part work, which I don't see happening, a system that's the same but without the payments is bound to exist. Guess which one people are going to use? If payment is strictly voluntary, however, then a single system is enough.

</comment><comment><USER19> >Blacklists. LBRY will publish and maintain a blacklist of infringing names. All clients we release and all legal clients will have to follow our blacklist, or one like it, or face substantial penalties. Especially because…

Doesn't that kind of defeat the whole point of decentralizing it to begin with?</comment>


How the Crash Will Reshape America - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/meltdown-geography

<comment><USER2> I was all ready to hate on this article, because an article titled something like "How The Crash Will Reshape America" might as well be entitled "I, The Author, Tell You My Political Philosophy In Boring Essay Form"... that is, most people seem to basically be predicting that the ideas they espoused all along will suddenly win out. This is somewhat smarter than I was expecting, in that some honest thought was put into the future of various regions.

But there's still a pretty strong element of "My Political Philosophy Is Now Inevitable" in the piece; the biggest example I would cite is the statement that suburbs are over. Suburbs being over mostly depends on transportation getting monotonically more expensive and more difficult, which is a perfectly rational conclusion... assuming technological stagnation.

That's a whopper of an assumption.

(Yes, I'm aware some other things were cited. The stuff about the effect of home ownership on mobility were interesting, I thought, but you can still rent your way into a suburb.)

Even without energy breakthroughs, fission can provide cheap energy for a long time. Energy breakthroughs may yet occur, and I consider at least one of "cheap-enough solar panels to be brain-dead easy buys" and "alternate fusion proposal like Polywell" to be a reasonable probability. Combine that with what I think is a reasonable chance of robotic cars, and... suddenly the disadvantages of suburbs _qua_ suburbs pretty much disappear.

Let me make myself clear: I'm not saying this is going to happen. I'm saying that in terms of future prognostication, it's as good a guess as the one in the article. (Yes, you can extract some of my technological beliefs from my point too. I'm willing to be fair that way.)

The simple truth is that this article is at least twenty years too early. You really can't know how this is going to go. I for one have been surprised about how this recession has accelerated some trends long foreseen, but always thought to be further in the indefinite future... anyone care to place odds on the New York Times not making it into 2010? Nobody would have even entertained that bet three years ago. It might still be long odds today but it's definitely into the "worth thinking about before fixing a number" range.

(Anyone wanna guess the odds on "The New York Times doesn't make into 2010 OR the only way they make it is by selling off more than half of their concrete assets"?)

<comment><USER3> suburbs just don't scale. If the population of the USA keeps increasing, this country has to move forward into more urbanization, more density, and higher buildings and mass transit. When I moved to California, I was surprised that its architecture had more in common with the Midwest than with the more urban east coast. Appart from SF, you have to have a car to go anywhere. In the east coast, from Boston, to D.C. you can get along fine with urban transport + zip car. But I realized, most of the cities in the east coast were created centuries ago, and were made for people, and not cars, and tend to have higher densities (even comparing suburbs to suburbs). Unfortunately, most Cities in CA, were made for cars. (with SF being the exception).

There will be natural forces that will make cities to increase their density. LA is already a big giant parking lot, how much further can it expand? All the bay area highways (all 5 lanes ), are already clogged all the time. What will happen when there are 20% more cars in the street just two decades from now?

People either have to endure long hour + commutes, or live close to their working places, or choose their work and place to live according to public transport accessibility.

Necessity will shape this nation. It wont happen overnight, but in few decades things will be different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "the crash of 1873, the Great Depression—have a way of upending the geopolitical order, and hastening the fall of old powers and the rise of new ones."

There has been much ado about the US failures, but the failures in the UK seem even more serious. I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere as the focus seems to be on the US, as is usual, but this is the last nail in the coffin for the UK as far as I can see, after this it will be an island off Europe that spends its time talking about the old empire.

</comment><comment><USER5> \- debt fueled consumption is over

\- american wages will slowly revert to global standards where there is global competition...i.e. start getting used to hiring managers talk about the "bangalore price" just as people in manufacturing have been beaten about with the "china price".

\- stock markets will be continuously pummeled by volatility and mandated selling (boomer 401k liquidation)

\- the big "IF" - can the dollar survive. we've basically entered a zimbabwe- like state of fabricating huge volumes of new currency to prop up fiscal fractures that were themselves caused by excessive abuse of currency in the 90s. one must ask, at what point does the dollar break? my guess: US debt of 25 trillion</comment>


Ask YC: news that requires registration to read? - <AUTHOR>

So what do you think? do you like visiting sites that won't allow you to read the article without creating an account? commenting is one thing... reading is another. <comment><USER2> I can't stand it - I refuse to read NYTimes articles for that very reason. I don't see any reason to require accounts to read articles.</comment>


Last year, 25 hedge fund managers earned a combined $22 billion - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/04/money?fsrc=scn%2Ftw%2Fte%2Fbl%2Fnotbadworkifyoucangetit

<comment><USER2> Some corporations go pretty far to save money (reducing workforce, etc.), all apparently in the name of keeping investors happy. Shouldn't there be investors in banks asking questions about these managers' salaries?

If I were a major shareholder, the first thing I'd demand is that a test of managers' worth be done. Set up a few theoretical funds with spreadsheets, full of what-ifs such as how much money is invested in total, and with goals for each fund (such as a certain amount of gain, or safety). Then, take some people with minimal finance experience, like new college grads, and pay them $50000 a year each; pit them against the hedge fund managers for the same funds.

For a few months, everyone has to try to work those fake funds; they must use real market values and suggest decisions based on real data, but obviously the funds contain no real money and the effects would just be calculated. Here's the best part: since the real managers are making over 100 times what the grads would make, they had better have some pretty damned impressive results. If the grads come _anywhere near_ what the managers do, the managers will automatically have their pay docked accordingly. In other words, if they aren't astronomically better when applying their "experience" to a few simple tests, why the hell would any investor continue to tolerate paying these managers so much?

<comment><USER3> I think it's partially because they manage _so much money_. I agree that they're overpaid, but maybe their funds don't think so.

Let's take a hedge fund manager who's making $10m a year. If he's managing a $5b fund, even if his performance is 0.2% better than that of someone who works for free, he has "earned" that $10m in terms of value added.

Now, why they charge over 1% is another question...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > AR Magazine said Mr. Shaw, who gave up day-to-day oversight of [D.E. Shaw's > funds] in 2002, made the list because the firm charged a 3 percent > management fee and took 30 percent of the investment gains.

What's the justification for management fees at all, let alone such a steep one? Their cut of the profit in fat years should be enough to keep the doors open in lean ones. Such fees also create a perverse incentive to simply get as much money under management as possible.

<comment><USER5> _What's the justification for management fees at all, let alone such a steep one?_

The justification is that people are willing to pay it.

Of course, you're probably asking not whether people pay it, but whether it's a fair price. The answer is no in general; hedge funds historically have underperformed the market.

<comment><USER4> You're of course right. I'm questioning whether it's a wise price to pay. A lot of funds' results take a big hit once you account for fees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If they charge such massive fees, why do rich people continue to invest in hedge funds? Is it simply a luxury pastime that might occasionally pay off big like collecting art or antique cars?

<comment><USER7> Basically, they continue to invest in hedge funds because hedge funds keep producing huge returns. These are the folks who operate the supercomputer- powered vacuum cleaners that suck all the arbitrage out of the market.

<comment><USER8> Yet they still manage to under-perform year after year.

<comment><USER9> They under perform compared to the market as a whole but the people who put their money into a hedge fund don't care about that. They are not able to get the same returns a hedge fund can get on their own.

<comment><USER10> You also need to think about opportunity cost. While many smart people can do the research and figure out how to maximize returns, often it's worth the lower return to to have to worry about it. The time you would spend micro managing the investment just may not be be worth it to many people. Their time is better spent doing other things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Isn't the purpose of a hedge fund to reduce the total variance in investors' portfolios? Shouldn't they be evaluated by non-correlation rather than comparative returns?

<comment><USER8> These days it's just a label which allows them to largely avoid the SEC.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It is hard for me to imagine a scenario where they (on average) each created $880 million in value to society.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am sure that on average they created at least $880 million of value to society to make up for the $880 million of resources they were compensated with.

<comment><USER7> There's a reason sarcasm is called the lowest form of wit. It's much easier to sarcastically say _P_ than to put forth a logical argument for _not-P_. And it's really rather annoying, because if you _do_ happen to believe _P_ (or some moderate point of view between _P_ and _not P_ ) then a sarcastic comment gives no actual hook to start a discussion.

That is why I think comments like yours should be discouraged.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry. Thanks for the feedback.</comment></comment></comment>


Supreme Court Rejects Attempt to Expand Patent Liability, but Limits Defenses - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/supreme-court-rejects-attempt-expand-patent-liability-limits-defenses <comment><USER2> The most important text in this Supreme Court ruling is this:

        > District courts have the authority and responsibility to ensure that frivolous
        > cases—brought by companies using patents as a sword to go after defendants for
        > money—are dissuaded, though no issue of frivolity has been raised here.
        > Safeguards — including, e.g., sanctioning attorneys for bringing such suits, see
        > Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 11 — combined with the avenues that accused inducers have
        > to obtain rulings on the validity of patents, militate in favor of maintaining
        > the separation between infringement and validity expressed in the Patent Act.
        > Pp. 13–14

In the past, the district courts have failed utterly to fulfill this responsibility, and I question whether they have the de facto authority. The cited Rules of Civil Procedure - [https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_11](https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_11) \- are not a sufficient tool for the courts to fulfill this responsibility with. While this ruling makes it clear that they must do _something_ , it seems as though it obligates them to invent new legal theories.

<comment><USER3> The most important text in the opinion is dicta?

<comment><USER4> Like in most Supreme Court cases?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very sad, that there is still no courage, to effectively limit weak patents.

Weak patents are a hindrance to innovations. In a better world, the patent offices should care for that -- but because they earn money from issuing them, standards have been continuously reduced in the past decades. It also looks better in the "innovation news" of the past year, when more patents can be listed ... but it is just eye-washing.

<comment><USER6> First everyone at the top needs give up on the idea that patents = innovation, therefore more patents = more innovation. I remember until 2-3 years ago even Obama basically said the same thing in his speech, when he passed that new legislation that gives the patent to whoever files for it first. I don't know if he still believes that now, but many still do in the government.

If anything, more patents = increased ability to restrict competitors from coming into the market or doing more rent-seeking = _less_ innovation.

<comment><USER5> We have the same thing in Germany. The problem is not, that the politicians are to ignorant or adhere to wrong believes, but for example our chancellor first met with the big corporation bosses -- and they told her, what "innovation" is in their opinion. And of course, the big corporations have a total different view of innovation than others.

It is like asking the dinosaurs, who the most fittest species on earth is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why was the government involved in this case and on the side of patent trolls?

<comment><USER8> In general the government is interested in anything that increases the government's power. Stronger patents make them a more powerful tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a fairly bad ruling. Patents should be thought of as invalid by default, especially considering the rubber stamp methodology used by the USPTO. None of this is addressing how trivial it is to get trivial patents, then use them for monetary gain against those who actually build things.

70 year olds making tech policy is just scary. This is a major boon to "troll" companies and probably sets back any reform movement several years if not decades.

<comment><USER3> The USPTO is far from perfect, and examiners make bad calls sometimes... but it is by no means trivial to get a trivial patent issued. And the idea of a presumption of invalidity (as opposed to, say, no presumption one way or the other) is so ludicrous that it doesn't bear response.

<comment><USER10> > it is by no means trivial to get a trivial patent issued

Actually, it's pretty easy. Here's how you do it:

1\. File the application.

2\. Wait for it to be rejected. The rejection will have a point-by-point explanation of why the patent was rejected. (i.e. the patent office is required by law to do your homework for you.)

3\. Tweak the application so that the objections raised by the examiner are no longer valid, and re-file.

4\. Repeat as necessary.

I have personally used this method successfully three times, and it only took two iterations all three times. The third time I used it on an intentionally bogus patent ([http://www.google.com/patents/US20030133714](http://www.google.com/patents/US20030133714)) just to see if it would work. It did.

<comment><USER3> Like I said, examiners do make mistakes sometimes. For what it's worth though, your claims look pretty lengthy.

<comment><USER10> > examiners do make mistakes sometimes

That is true, but it misses the point. Apart from the occasional honest mistake, there is a system of perverse incentives that results in the reliable and predictable issuing of bogus patents even when examiners do their jobs well.

> your claims look pretty lengthy.

You must not have read many patents. I have one independent claim and six dependent claims, each with a single minor tweak on the independent claim. That's well below average.

<comment><USER11> You've got one lengthy means plus function independent claim. That is typically a poor claim. Means plus function severely limit claims despite sounding very broad.

<comment><USER10> Yes, of course it's a poor claim. The whole patent is bogus. That's the whole point.

<comment><USER11> I mean poor in terms of how good it is to assert against someone. You can easily get a really narrow useless patent, but that doesn't cause any problems.

<comment><USER10> That's true. But you can also get a really broad bogus patent. I happened not to do that, but many others have, and that _does_ cause problems.

The point is just that the actual bar for getting a patent -- any patent -- is very low if you know how to play the game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I deal with patents day in, day out. With millions of patents issued and many more examined, there is bound to be some real stinkers. Whether or not a patent is allowed depends on the examiner assigned to the case, the art unit (technology category), the prior art patents the examiner finds (they define the outer limits of the patent claims), the skill of the attorney/agent, the name of the company seeking a patent, and, of course, the amount of money thrown at the examination.

Some examiner are push-overs. Some examiners are impressed with the assignee name (Google, Apple, and such), and may be more likely to allow. Some examiners seem to take pleasure in rejecting the application, even if they cannot find appropriate prior art.

There is variability in the quality of examination. However, there are methods to correct mistakes at the Patent Office. I am often involved with post-grant review procedures to invalidate issued patents. If a patent is truly overly- broad, then it should be possible to find prior art somewhere in the world that can be used to invalidate the patent.

The presumption that a patent is valid only applies in court. There is no presumption during reexamination or an inter partes review process. In fact, it is very difficult to defend a patent in post grant review. The patent owner is very likely to lose its patent or find it severely weakened.

Also, someone here has pointed out an example or two of terrible patents. Even though issued, these patents could be near useless, because the claims are extremely narrow and are easily designed around, if anyone cares to even do this. Most of these patents are like bees without stingers - still buzzing and spinning around, but harmless and soon to die.

One more thing, it irritates me when people in the software world say the patent system is broken and should be abolished, when they may just be looking at it from just a software point of view. There are many true innovations in every field, and at least a few copycats that are waiting for a product to hit big, so they can create a duplicate completing product. Look at the X-Hose getting knocked-off by PocketHose. There should be some protection for those who have created something novel.

You can argue that some people would create innovations without the patent system, which is true; but there are many more who would not bother without the prospect of patent protection. One more benefit of the patent system is that, in exchange for a patent, the applicant must fully disclose how to make and use the invention. Instead of sitting in some notebook or Word file, the information is shared. The maintenance fee system (where a patent owner must pay a fee at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years to keep its patent in force) weeds out many patents, as the owner decides that it is no longer worth the money to keep it alive.

<comment><USER13> "Look at the X-Hose getting knocked-off by PocketHose. There should be some protection for those who have created something novel. You can argue that some people would create innovations without the patent system, which is true; but there are many more who would not bother without the prospect of patent protection. One more benefit of the patent system is that, in exchange for a patent, the applicant must fully disclose how to make and use the invention. Instead of sitting in some notebook or Word file, the information is shared. The maintenance fee system (where a patent owner must pay a fee at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years to keep its patent in force) weeds out many patents, as the owner decides that it is no longer worth the money to keep it alive."

Insightful, I'm hesitant to agree that people will be dissuaded by having to compete, and will therefore not innovate. I think people should produce what they please and others should choose to purchase whichever product they seem superior. Without any coercion.

<comment><USER12> A patent is not a monopoly in the pure sense, meaning there is no consumer choice and the consumer must buy what is patented at the asking price. It is quite the opposite in most situations. The competition between companies is fierce. Several companies may have competing similar products, each with their own patents.

I help companies look at patents and find ways to design around the claims or just invalidate them. You would be surprised how often we succeed.

Look at cell phones, there are numerous patents on cell phones, apps, communication technologies, and so on. Yet, there is no lack of choice. We are buried in choice.

Also, I advise my clients to think of every way their invention can be made, including the terrible ways. Many times, the competing, non-patented product will be inferior to the patented product, yet not infringing the claims. The inferior product may just have better marketing. The consumer is usually not an expert in the field and must rely on advertising claims and dubious good reviews.

It is my opinion that patents create constant disruption and competition, which is healthy for the market; and ultimately provides better choice for the consumer. Perfect designs, like paper clips, enjoy 20 years of protection, then eventually become commodities. While imperfect designs will be exploited by the competition, with design-arounds and improvements. And there are very few perfect designs.

Finally, I mainly work with small companies that wish to compete against large companies. They do not wish to be the free R & D lab for the larger company. A patent may allow a small company to compete against the overwhelming resources of a large company; hopefully creating jobs and wealth at the same time. It is still a very hard path that few can navigate. Patents are just one tool to make business a little easier.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to prevent abusive flagging of posts on HN? - <AUTHOR> This morning there was a #1 ranked story about Tim Berners Lee on HN that had gathered over 110 points and maybe 30 comments in less than half an hour.
So it was clearly of great interest to the HN community, but it apparently rubbed some people the wrong way. One commenter wished they could downvote it, and another suggested that flagging submissions is an option.
A few minutes later, the post appeared as [flagged] and had completely disappeared from the front page. Myself and a couple of others commented we were surprised it had been flagged, that we thought the discussion was valuable.
I'm not going to link to it here because that's not my point, and I don't want this post to be flagged either.
My point is: should just a couple (presumably) people be able to flag a post to silence debate on a topic of inherent interest to hackers?
It doesn't feel right that a tiny number of people can quell a valuable discussion for a much larger number of people.
Is there a way to prevent abuse of flagging like this? <comment><USER2> Mail the moderators. They can unflag the story.

Abstractly speaking: Overwhelmingly the flags are correct, and you should think hard whether it's really a case of "quelling a valuable discussion".

</comment><comment><USER3> I just read the article (what I assume is the article) and I would not characterize flagging of it abuse of the system.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not sure about "preventing", but a great solution to this problem would be a sort of recommendation system that would show each user articles that other users "like" them generally wanted to see. We don't all like the same music, and there's little reason to think we all want to read (or flag) the same articles, either.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would like to add I wish there was a way to clear paywalled content... flagging seems like the wrong way to do it...but its the only option currently</comment>


Ask HN: How do you backup your files? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Scheduled full backups on most important files (~2 GB) using Cobian. Copies saved locally, on usb memory stick and usb drive.</comment>


Dan Meyer: Math Class Needs A Makeover - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sokanu.com/dan-meyer-math-class-needs-a-makeover-13

<comment><USER2> It's not just math class. It's every class.

I've felt for some time that the incentives we're given in school are incorrectly formulated: performance on massive standardised tests gear your brain toward an ability for short-term rote memorisation.

How many classes did you take in high school or college and pass with flying colours, but if you had to recall anything but the name of a core concept you would fail? At Michigan we called it "academic bulimia" — binge on textbooks the night of the exam for the class, purge it all over the paper, take your grade and repeat whilst you spent the rest of your time doing something you felt was more important.

<comment><USER3> "Education is what is left after all that has been learnt is forgotten." -- James Bryant Conant

I've always liked that one :-)

<comment><USER4> Wonderful quote. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Last posted about a month ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1345008>

</comment><comment><USER6> I have said it before.

Seymour Papert's book "Mindstorms" is a must read if you are serious about changing education for the better.

<http://www.papert.org/></comment>


"The Home Information Terminal – A 1970 View" by John McCarthy [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/hoter2.pdf <comment><USER2> Two things never cease to amaze me:

A. How prescient some of these guys and gals from the 1960's and 1970's (or perhaps, further back than that) were. John McCarthy, Douglas Engelbart, Vannevar Bush, etc... all of these folks saw so much of today's technology landscape so many years before most of the technology actually existed (or, before it was practical / cheap / readily available).

B. How far we still have to go, to realize some of these 1960's / 1970's visions. For all we've accomplished, there are _still_ things that Engelbart, McCarthy, Bush, Licklider, etc. spoke about back then, that we don't have yet. Of course, some of that is down to political / economic issues, and not just technological ones. For example, some of the things that McCarthy describes in this paper sound a lot like applications of the Semantic Web, which still isn't fully realized for a combination of reasons: technological, economic, political, etc.

The good news, I suppose, is that you can go back and read some of these older papers and still find interesting ideas for things to work on. Heck, there's probably a handful of really good startup ideas buried in the works of McCarthy, Engelbart, Licklider, Bush, W. Ross Ashby, Norbert Weiner and other luminaries of that era.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Paper written by John Mccarthy that shows the projected future in the 70's of users remotely logging into large computers to use the Internet and applications.

It's in the small handful of papers in this genre that make you laugh because of how _true_ the predictions turned out to be rather than how far off the mark.

From the abstract:

"This article was published in Man and Computer. Proc. int. Conf., Bordeaux 1970, pp. 48-57 (Karger, Basel 1972). It is interesting to compare its 1970 proposals with the current situation, 30 years later. I have decorated it with footnotes commenting on the 1970 situation and making comparisons. Some of the improvements advocated in the paper are still yet to come. I claim quite a few prophet points for it."

Some notable mentions in this paper:

\+ Worries about ways that the Internet as we know it might not have happened. (eg. Getting stuck in the compuserve trap.)

\+ Paid for publishing model that we still don't have because micropayments are broken.

\+ Self publishing for authors in the vein that Amazon now allows

\+ The possibility of the system allowing for Orwellian editing because of centralization.

\+ 3D printing/computer controlled manufacturing as a service.

\+ In-depth discussion of the realities of resource usage and costs of computer hardware at the time of writing. (Eye opening if nothing else as to how indebted we are to Moore's law.)

</comment><comment><USER3> It is forgotten that futurists around 1970 assumed that something like the WWW was going to come in the early 1980s; for instance there was a lot of excitement about two-way communication over CATV system that would not be commercialized until the mid 90's. The real story is "why was it so slow?" rather than the "it happened so fast" that people who lived through it perceived.

<comment><USER4> > assumed that something like the WWW was going to come in the early 1980s

It actually did: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Witty as hell, to boot:

"...perhaps we may have to compromise with sin and provide a hard copy terminal after all."

 _giggles_

"In the second place, you will see that the new information system will make the public more responsive to the careful reasoning of you good guys and more immune to the blatant propaganda of those bad guys."

Up with Good! Down with Bad!

(But seriously, futurism generally isn't this uncannily accurate. I know hindsight lets me select the best predictions _a posteriori_ \- anyone know any way of improving this? - but it's still interesting.)

<comment><USER6> > _Up with Good! Down with Bad!_

Or, in 2015, Upvote the Good! Downvote the Bad!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What is the "laser file" mentioned in the article?

"Fortunately, much larger files are becoming available. The laser file made by Precision Instruments Inc. is claimed to store a trillion bits and costs $ 1,000,000."

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's this: [http://www.google.com/patents/US3657707](http://www.google.com/patents/US3657707)</comment></comment>


The sound of nature helps us relax - <AUTHOR> http://exactlyscience.com/archives/11817.html <comment><AUTHOR> Research paper: [http://www.nature.com/articles/srep45273](http://www.nature.com/articles/srep45273)</comment>


Books Every Software Developer Should Have Already Read - <AUTHOR> http://robertgreiner.com/2013/09/software-developer-book-recommendations/

<comment> vezzy-fnord I'll have to check these out. Obviously, these are only three books and there's plenty of others, but I believe that 'Code' by Charles Petzold should be a must-read for developers, hobbyists and CS students alike.</comment>


1 year since I quit my job to learn how to code - <AUTHOR> http://www.proudn00b.com/post/7764086648/i-year-since-i-quit-my-job-to-learn-how-to-code

<comment><USER2> Proud of you Emile. Keep up the hard work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Kacy!</comment></comment>


CRAPCHA: Completely Ridiculous And Phony Captcha that Hassles for Amusement - <AUTHOR> http://crapcha.com/ <comment><USER2> All joking aside, is there any hope that the extremely user-hostile CAPTCHA will go away any time soon? Half the time I see it I wonder if it's really necessary. The other half I wonder if the service provider could be a bit more clever or industrious.

<comment><USER3> > I wonder if the service provider could be a bit more clever or industrious

That takes time and effort, something which is often in short supply. Easier to just slap any old captcha on there, even a mostly ineffective one will stop the drive-by scripts.

I had to implement a non-CAPTCHA method of stopping spammer signups to our forums, and after a day of work I had something that still let through 2-3 spammers a day. A CAPTCHA would have taken under an hour (plugins available) and probably have stopped more.

<comment><USER4> The problem of the captcha is not the efficiency, it's that it 's a horrible user experience.

<comment><USER5> And the "best" user experience is to never require signup or login or credit card verification or anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now it just needs a modem connecting sound as the audio mode.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't get it. This looks exactly the same as the other CAPTCHAs I see every day.

<comment><USER8> The letters aren't images, they're span elements.

<comment><USER9> _#include <sarcasm.h>_

<comment><USER10> ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You can solve this, of course, by using the inspector in Chrome to select the '<div class="code">', and then entering copy($0.innerText) in the console.

So this is actually easier to solve than the audio mode of reCAPTCHA.

<comment><USER12> Thanks. I did not know about the $0 trick :)

<comment><USER13> I think you'll like this: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOEw9iiopwI>

<comment><USER12> I like it. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is missing the most important feature: a webcam shot of the person's face when they see it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I solved one correctly, it didn't do anything special.

<http://crapcha.com/show/#eaShnaILW1>

<comment><USER16> Should've used 'ə'

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For fun: a quick way to grab the crapchas on the page (that aren't protected by cross-origin)

        $('.crapcha').each(function() {
          console.log(['Crapcha',
            $.map($(this).find('span'), function(letter) {
              return $(letter).text();
            }).join('') ]);
        });

</comment><comment><USER18> Evil Idea: Put up a really good, well paid, job ad with an application that has this crapcha at the very end. Log IPs and see how long the average person tries to submit their application.

Compile and release the statistics to your evil deed on HN.

<comment><USER19> It might actually work quite well. "Can you beat the crapcha? You are hired!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ryaniar (a budget travel airline in Europe) have started using this type of thing to their advantage. Each Captcha is about flight insurance, low cost, on time etc. Annoying and good advertising at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER21> My favorite part was the (i) link went to a new tab with the site. Captcha remind me of inkblot tests [1]. I wonder if there are any that actually use those cards.

My favorite captcha experience: it only checked the first 3 characters matched (as in only enter the first 3 of a two word captcha). I supposed maybe I misunderstand how they work but I would have thought they checked against at least one full word.

1\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test>

</comment><comment><USER22> Ahh, so that is why we need all those unicode characters. Did you know that you can register domain names like these now? So very useful....

</comment><comment><USER23> I just spent way too much time on this. Some of the icons (the ones you can't view source and copy) come from <http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/>. Allow hex input and you're golden.

</comment><comment><USER24> Chrome 26.0.1410.65 for OSX when I mouse over the text in the crapcha I get the I-cursor.

<comment><USER25> The best part about bug reports for hostile features is the workaround is always, "Because fuck you, that's why!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I could solve some of them quite well with only using a standard US keyboard and US layout (the trick is to use the compose key)… As long as they don't start including icons into the crapcha as well.

</comment><comment><USER27> Most captchas look like that to me.

I frequently have to click reload half a dozen times or more before I find one that I'm able to decode.

I think there is an opportunity for user experience improvement when it comes to stopping bots.

</comment><comment><USER28> Nice! If only I had known about this before April fools!

</comment><comment><USER29> I think they're really easy. For example: <http://crapcha.com/show/#0rPMqgcbmt>

</comment><comment><USER30> I wasn't going to click on this but my intrigue got the better of my time. I am so glad I clicked through, this put a big smile on my face.

</comment><comment><USER31> Old stuff being repost: [https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=crapcha](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=crapcha)

<comment><USER32> I wonder how the same link can be posted three times. I though HN was checking if the URL had already been posted before allowing it?

<comment><USER33> It does.

<http://crapcha.com/>

<http://mashable.com/2013/04/17/crapcha/>

<http://www.crapcha.com/>

[http://thomaspark.me/2013/04/crapcha-completely- ridiculous-a...](http://thomaspark.me/2013/04/crapcha-completely-ridiculous- and-phony-captcha-that-hassles-for-amusement/)

Except there does seem to be one old duplicate of the exact `<http://crapcha.com/`> one. Perhaps it allows a re-post after enough time has elapsed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> prodention

</comment><comment><USER35> In 50 years, the machine will be able to outperform the bottom 50% of the human population in any conceivable endeavor or task behind a keyboard/monitor. So CAPTCHAS will eventually be useless.

So it's an intelligence race. The more intelligent system (a computer, human, or hybrid) will be able to deceive the lesser intelligent system (computer, human or hybrid).

So the problem changes from: "Is the entity I am dealing with a computer or a human" to: "Does the entity I am dealing with have intentions to gain an unfair advantage over this transaction."

Humans have a part of our brain where we look for how others might be taking advantage of us, the algorithms and data structures there are remarkable. Computers will need to acquire those abilities if they are to manage the exchange of money, goods and services.

<comment><USER36> Captchas are really just an efficiency measure. You _could_ simply have a human screen every single comment (or signup or whatever) and cull the spam. But human time is too limited, so we come up with lesser measures.

When machine intelligence advances that far, we'll be able to easily automate human-level examination of every single comment or submission or whatever. So I think the problem will get better, not worse, with that level of power.

<comment><USER37> At that point, you'll have this: <http://xkcd.com/810/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Looks almost as annoying a Google's reCAPTCHA.

</comment><comment><USER39> Not much to say other than LOL, maybe because it isn't that far off from the supposedly real and readable ones.

Maybe put this at the last step of something the person really wants?</comment>


Morphology and kinematics in scaling hummingbird metabolic rate and efficiency - <AUTHOR> http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/285/1873/20172011 <comment><AUTHOR> Video from same lab: [https://youtu.be/-2pfEbohsZM](https://youtu.be/-2pfEbohsZM)</comment>


Confirmed: Snapchat's Evan Spiegel Is Kind Of An Ass - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/28/confirmed-snapchats-evan-spiegel-is-kind-of-an-ass/

<comment><USER2> This is such a non-story. The content of those emails is really really tame. Go read totalsororitymove.com or totalfratmove.com and you'll find equal levels of college drunk hookup culture openly displayed. Or go read textsfromlastnight. Young people say things in some contexts that they wouldn't in others. I bet you can find old usenet posts from currently respected senior people in all sorts of fields that are equally troubling, and these posts weren't written for public consumption.

More importantly the email leaker is quite the jerk for releasing them. There is no smoking gun here, just some moderate embarrassment for a moderately famous person.</comment>


What 7 Key Strategies Must We Learn From Apple Marketing? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kissmetrics.com/7-strategies-apple-marketing/ <comment><USER2> I think "Each and every time Apple decided to innovate, they were laughed at" is a bit of an exaggeration, from what I recall the iPod,iPhone, iBook, MacBook and probably other products all were innovative and highly appreciated by about everyone. I mean, even the latest macbook airs are receiving raving reviews and have quite a bit of innovation in them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Extremely on-point re: design and packaging. Apple does not get enough credit for its innovations in packaging. It's not software; it's not hardware; it's not a sexy topic. But it's been a powerful, driving force behind Apple's revival and ascent. Extending ease-of-use and aesthetic simplicity into the unboxing experience was a stroke of genius.</comment>


A general reinforcement learning algorithm for chess and Go (Journal Club) - <AUTHOR> https://blackswans.io/post/144/ <comment><USER2> This is just a link to the deepmind paper. Why not link the paper directly : [https://deepmind.com/research/publications/general- reinforce...](https://deepmind.com/research/publications/general- reinforcement-learning-algorithm-masters-chess-shogi-and-go-through-self- play/)</comment>


Bacteria within us may be affecting our cravings and moods - <AUTHOR> http://universityofcalifornia.edu/news/do-gut-bacteria-rule-our-minds

<comment><USER2> This sort of research has the potential to change the mental health field entirely .. and of course the psycho-pharmaceutical industry as well. So I imagine there will be a flurry of 'counter arguments' to this thesis over the coming weeks, as PR flacks from all the majors start to get wind that we may have alternatives to their dependency chains.

I for one welcome our gut-chemistry overlords. The gut is a little more accessible to the common man than the brain, so at least if this all proves to be a viable thesis, we _can_ do something about it without requiring major dependencies to psycho-pharmaceutical industries, whose desire for our dollars is derived from their own gut-borne vermin ..</comment>