Eric Schmidt: CNET gets it right on the NSA/Google issue - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/+EricSchmidt/posts/XfgQ1PXzM5g <comment><USER2> Eric Schmidt would be the last person I'd believe on matters related to privacy.

He's well-known for basically claiming that we're not entitled to any privacy ("if you don't want anyone to know blah blah ... ") and for later being a vindictive fool when CNET published some of his personal details found through Google.

Besides, he's not even CEO anymore, why would he know anything about highly confidential dealings with the NSA?

<comment><USER3> Whether you trust Eric or not has zero to do with if you trust CNet's claim that "The National Security Agency has not obtained direct access to the systems of Apple, Google, Facebook, and other major Internet companies, CNET has learned."

Inferring he is no longer CEO and _might_ not know about these matters is just an informal fallacy and has zero to do with whether or not Google, Facebook, etc. is telling the truth on the matter. FWIW, I believe them when they say they aren't giving direct access to their servers to the government. That doesn't mean they aren't, and I'm willing to listen to any substantial claims that they are.

I don't trust the government to always do the right thing when poking around in our business, but I'm also not going to run around like a chicken with my head cut off when everyone gets their underwear in a knot over leaks like these.

<comment><USER4> Could a possible explanation be that the feds have unauthorized access?

<comment><USER5> I think it's as simple as a misinterpretation of the technical intel-community jargon being used by NSA.

They're saying PRISM gets them access to Google/Facebook/etc.'s data with no other middleman. That's not always the case; when working with international partners NSA might obtain intel from other (foreign) intelligence agencies, or their HUMINT might report data that is itself hearsay.

So the source/provenance of data is very important for an intelligence agency. NSA is saying this (with PRISM) is the best case as far as the source of intel goes, there is no better primary source.

That still doesn't mean NSA has embedded backdoors or that the company doesn't control _access_ to the data though. Data Access is a separate concept from Data Source in intel.

We can still say that having this kind of access to data is above the capabilities NSA needs to have (it certainly seems ripe for abuse) but it's sounding like the reality is not _quite_ as sinister as Greenwald or WaPo had been led to believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From Glenn Greenwald's twitter, [https://twitter.com/ggreenwald](https://twitter.com/ggreenwald):

      Allow me to quote from the NSA document we just
      published defining PRISM: "COLLECTION DIRECTLY
      FROM THE SERVERS"

      Our story was written *from the start* to say NSA
      claimed this, telecoms deny-we wanted them to have
      to work it out *in public* what they do

      We reported - accurately - what the NSA claims. We
      reported - accurately - what the companies claim. It
      conflicts. That's why we reported it

      Just one more time: NSA on PRISM: "Collection directly
      from the servers of these US service providers:
      Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook.."

<comment><USER7> edit: doh, I misread the tweet. Looking over the new slides at that story just posted [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa- surveillance...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-surveillance- prism-obama-live?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20full-width-1%20bento- box:Bento%20box:Position2#block-51b36893e4b0cc6424372292)

edit: It's just one new slide ([http://static.guim.co.uk/sys- images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/20...](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys- images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/6/8/1370711209084/b444b0a8-4436-4802-921e-5c3177bfc0eb-460x276.jpeg)) which says "directly from the servers"...but since Google is ostensibly arguing that the slides are poorly worded, hopefully the Guardian believes the other unreleased slides elaborate? The blog post ends with _" A far fuller picture of the exact operation of Prism, and the other surveillance operations brought to light, is expected to emerge in the coming weeks and months..."_, which means that they will be releasing bombshell by bombshell, or that they think other revelations will be independently reported?

(original comment below:)

I immensely respect Greenwald, but he's setting up presumptions for his reporting that make it unassailable, no matter what the facts are.

1\. Our reporting is accurate.

2\. The fact that the companies involved deny it is proof that our reporting is accurate, because our reporting said that they would deny the report.

3\. Therefore, our reporting is accurate.

It's possible that the reporting is accurate on its face, but the most relevant details (i.e. the ones that would separate this from, egregiously and surprisingly evil to, well, just more of the same) were not reported correctly. Has either the Guardian or the WaPo released the entire slide set?

<comment><USER8> >which means that they will be releasing bombshell by bombshell, or that they think other revelations will be independently reported?

Presumably, the Guardian is in possession of the full 41 page powerpoint. They'll likely release pieces of it at a time. Nice to see they're waiting for everyone to trip all over themselves first. I can't wait to see how this plays out in the coming weeks.

Funny. When Wikileaks did the same thing people said it was inappropriate and editorializing and dishonest. It seems that the Guardian and Wikileaks strategies for maximizing impact are on the same frequency.

<comment><USER7> That doesn't explain why the Washington Post hasn't released their copy of the slides, though...those two outlets are competing on this story (it's nice to have two independent established outlets compete on a story of such national and specific importance, fwiw) and the WaPo could have the scoop. Maybe they're waiting for the Sunday edition?

My guess was that the source feared that one or all of the slides have some kind of identifying tag, if not as a meta-watermark but as something tell-tale in the content...and so had requested the Guardian and the Post to release as little as possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The referenced story: [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57588337-38/no- evidence-of...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57588337-38/no-evidence-of- nsas-direct-access-to-tech-companies&#x2F);

declan submitted his story [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5844091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5844091) but it languished.

It's a shame, because it's the first responsible piece of reporting I've seen on this mess. The media has been trolled by a Powerpoint brief from self- important USG bureaucrats.

<comment><USER10> Yes, but it's still using the term "direct access", which we've seen is the antithesis of forthrightness.

Surveillance is tricky business and technology makes the boundaries of what's acceptable to reveal even trickier. It's true that the muddling of the Verizon/AT&T stories is being interwoven with this, which may not have helped. And the scope of the information requested falls well within acceptable procedure for "traditional" investigations I.E. who contacted whom at what hour on which day. But this isn't a traditional investigation anymore.

In essence, they tried to automate police footwork, which still doesn't fly with a lot of us.

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/why-metadata- matters](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/why-metadata-matters)

<comment><USER11> Google Chief Legal Officer:

"the government does not have access to Google servers—not directly, or via a back door, or a so-called drop box" [https://plus.google.com/+google/posts/TMh6gUVrwMq](https://plus.google.com/+google/posts/TMh6gUVrwMq)

<comment><USER10> Yes, I read your previous excerpt and I've read this very post here before. Repeating it over and over (this is your 3rd post so far posting this link) doesn't make me believe it any more strongly.

<comment><USER12> The point of posting it multiple times is to make an attempt at unwinding some of the damage done by countless misreports.

<comment><USER13> Assuming you are qualified at making such a judgement, or even more qualified than any who have differing interpretations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Collection directly from the servers" doesn't actually have to mean real time interception of data. It could mean "we send a National Security Letter, and when they comply, they send us the user's data in a TARBALL." That's application level data "directly from the servers" instead of upstream fiber packet traffic.

Greenwald pisses me off and I don't trust him. We know there are 41 slides. They are putting out 1 new slide per day it seems. Just release all of it and get it over with. This seems designed to maximize the Guardian's traffic by doling out the information piecemeal.

Today they released a slide ([http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa- surveillance...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-surveillance- prism-obama-live)) that shows NSA upstream fiber-interception (outside company datacenters) + PRISM, but again, it is vague as to what PRISM is.

If the slide definitely said "Data from internal datacenter taps or backdoors" it would be clear and inarguable. All that would need to be discussed is whether they did this with HUMINT moles, or whether the companies knowingly cooperated.

As it stands now, PRISM could be anything from "Google Takeout NSA Edition" that lets the NSA get a ZIP file of account data after it's been requested via a warrant/NSA, or it could be a hack into Google's servers that somehow allows them to slurp up and intercept data and it flows around the data center.

We don't know, but if Greenwald has other slides that clarify this, just release them, the speculation right now is irresponsible and based on lack of knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nope, according to a new tweet today by Glenn Greenwald (who broke the story): Allow me to quote from the NSA document we just published defining PRISM: "COLLECTION DIRECTLY FROM THE SERVERS"

[https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/343421926057861121](https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/343421926057861121)

<comment><USER16> The interesting thing here is that Greenwald is sending a signal that he has more information than he has released.

Which puts everyone on all sides on notice that they should step carefully with their statements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There are two axis that seem to matter, by my way of thinking, whether this business is conducted via carrier pigeons or fiber optic cables.

1\. What is the process.

What requests come from the government. What government entities make those requests. What entities within the internet companies process those requests. What parts of the request handling are done by humans with decision-making authority vs what parts are handled by machines or by humans following a rigid script. In either case, what policy drives those decisions. What proportion of the requested information is given or denied.

2\. What is the speed and scale of the process

How quickly are these requests fulfilled. How much data comes back from a request. What proportion of this data is relevant to the target and the investigation vs "incidental". How many requests are there per month or per year. How much data is gathered per month or per year.

Side-issues not covered above:

Is the access "direct". Is there a "back door". Is access given to "servers". Is access given to a "network". Is there a "beam splitter". Is the government provided with a private or secret "key".

There are many ways to construct such a system, and there are many ways to describe it (nevermind flat-out lie about it) by carefully parsing these side- issues. What matters is not the implementation details but the effect.

</comment><comment><USER18> Any of you who have been reading Declan McCullagh's reporting regarding online privacy and civil liberties know he's the last person you'd expect to find writing a takedown of the WaPo NSA story. He's also a frequent commenter on HN.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't understand - was it not obvious from the get go?

The PPS lists various types of data the NSA gets from various companies. For some reason most commenters here chose to interpret this to mean the NSA has a direct pipe feeding it all of these companies data. The fact the PPS mentions it's a $20m program should inform that this is _obviously_ not the case. Is it just a matter of wanting to believe the more outrageous version?

</comment><comment><USER20> The real question clamoring for a clear statement is far more complex:

Does any government, US or otherwise, their agents, representatives, contractors or NGO's have access, directly or indirectly, through any means, to <insert company name here> DATA, FILES, COMMUNICATIONS, LOGS or any other information having any relationship whatsoever to <insert company name here> users?

This could be, and probably should be, refined, IANAL.

The point is simple: We don't care about "direct access to servers". We care about access to data. And this can be provided through many channels, direct and indirect. It can even be provided via daily tape backup dumps. Of course, it can be provided to organizations peripherally working for or with a government yet not directly to a government agency. And, finally, it could be provided to another government that, in turn, can pipe it back to US governnment agencies or collaborators.

Anyone can say "The US government does not have direct access to our servers" while still feeding them a firehose of information through alternative means.

<comment><USER21> "have access, directly or indirectly, through any means" is a not a useful basis for the question, because a regular search warrant certainly qualifies as that.

<comment><USER20> Criticism accepted.

Now, could you suggest better language?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hey Eric! How's the Bilderberg conference going? Is the food good? Have you guys picked the next president yet?

<comment><USER23> [http://www.news.com.au/business/world-leaders-in-secret- soci...](http://www.news.com.au/business/world-leaders-in-secret-society- bilderberg-meeting/story-e6frfm1i-1226659654991)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't know who to believe anymore...

<comment><USER10> Believe in yourself and take reasonable steps (use your judgment to discern what's reasonable, including my post) and take adequate steps to ensure your privacy by investigating as much as you can.

Provided you're of sound mind, you're the only person who can't let you down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> So, what's new news in the CNET story?

 _The order has to be for account information or an intercept directed at a specific foreign person, and "you can't say everyone in Pakistan who searched for 'X'... It still has to be particularized."_

This seems to contradict the NYT's claim [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/technology/tech- companies-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/technology/tech-companies- bristling-concede-to-government-surveillance-efforts.html) that

 _FISA orders can range from inquiries about specific people to a broad sweep for intelligence, like logs of certain search terms, lawyers who work with the orders said._

. Maybe it's specifically there to contradict the NYT claim.

</comment><comment><USER23> How can you misread "COLLECTION DIRECTLY FROM THE SERVERS" (sic)?

[https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/343421926057861121](https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/343421926057861121)

And what about the FISA requests Google cannot legally talk about?

[http://uncrunched.com/2013/06/07/cowards/](http://uncrunched.com/2013/06/07/cowards/)

</comment><comment><USER26> I don't buy it, There is every single possibility that CNET was forced to write this article by someone from the top.

I'm not angry about my details leaking to governments, what I'm angry about is how manipulative the media is and how much stupid they assume we are.

I rather trust Mark Zuckerberg than CNET. Their tech reviews are mostly biased sponsored ads, why would I trust them with something serious like this?

<comment><USER27> I don't buy it either. There is every single possibility that the person who leaked the document has a financial stake in CNET and the Guardian and made the whole thing up for pageviews. </s>

I'm not sure what you mean by "every single possibility." Do you just mean "it's possible"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28>
        "It's not as described in the histrionics in the Washington Post or the
        Guardian," the person said. "None of it's true. It's a very formalized
        legal process that companies are obliged to do."

Please, please can we know about this "formalized legal process"?

</comment><comment><USER29> This is evil because if Schmidt knew anything he would be sworn to secrecy under penalty of prison and fine.

</comment><comment><USER30> The NSA does not need direct access to the servers to monitor activity.

Strategically placed traffic monitoring at major ISPs is enough to build a pretty complete picture. I can imagine SSL traffic doesn't even pose much of a hurdle to a well funded project. You don't need the data in real time.

</comment><comment><USER28> The problem is "access to private data" as and when required. The problem is NOT "back door access" or any other such term whatever the hell it means. I see carefully worded statements by Internet firms without any evidence.

</comment><comment><USER31> An echo chamber of debate as the ship continues to sail into the flames… godspeed everyone.

</comment><comment><USER32> Apparently neither Eric Schmidt nor the Cheif Legal counsel for Google have sufficient security clearance to know whether or not they're involved in Prism.

</comment><comment><USER33> Interesting watching these guys react. Kinda tells us how serious this really is.

</comment><comment><USER11> Drummond adds:

 _We cannot say this more clearly—the government does not have access to Google servers—not directly, or via a back door, or a so-called drop box. Nor have we received blanket orders of the kind being discussed in the media. It is quite wrong to insinuate otherwise. We provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don't follow the correct process. And we have taken the lead in being as transparent as possible about government requests for user information._

[https://plus.google.com/+google/posts/TMh6gUVrwMq](https://plus.google.com/+google/posts/TMh6gUVrwMq)

<comment><USER29> THEY SAY THESE THINGS BECAUSE THEIR CO-WORKERS HIDE THE TRUTH FROM THEM, BY LAW

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Well done guys! Quite an achievement turning a site for so-called smart people into one dumber than the Drudge Report in only two days.

<comment><USER35> This place turned into r/conspiracy.</comment></comment>


What Does Harper Lee Want? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-harper-lee-go-set-a-watchman/

<comment><USER2> Whoops. Got me. Very embarrassing. I tried to be fancy by grafting the ordinary, non-physics meaning of the word onto the more specific, scientific use. Just pretentious and ignorant--a really great combination.

<comment><USER3> You replied to the parent instead of the top-level poster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "This Watchman publication is what physicists call a singularity. There has > been nothing like it before now, and there never will be again," says Daniel > Menaker, a former editor at Random House

You'd think someone in the business of words would be less likely to abuse terminology they don't understand.

<comment><USER3> Well, that quote is definitely awkward. But a "singularity" can mean a singular event, like (the moment before?) the Big Bang.

The piece as a whole was really well-researched, and convinced me that Harper Lee is being abused, or at the very least spoken for.

<comment><AUTHOR> The singularity line took me for a very mild loop & didn't distract from the article. It's disconcerting that carter can be taking advantage of the situation given all that Harper represents(maybe it takes a law degree:(</comment></comment></comment>


Abba - JavaScript a/b testing - <AUTHOR> http://blog.alexmaccaw.com/abba

<comment><USER2> It's a bit confusing that this has the same name as another (pretty well known) a/b test calculator: <http://www.thumbtack.com/labs/abba/>

<comment><USER3> I'm impressed with how nicely this handles the whole A/B testing stack. But the statistics have some potentially important shortcomings -- I posted a github issue about it:

<https://github.com/maccman/abba/issues/3>

(Full disclosure: I authored the ABBA library mentioned by matsiyatzy, so this is incidentally self-promotional. But I wrote that tool with the hopes of improving the use and interpretation of A/B test statistics in the wider community :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cool. But if you already use google analytics and are lazy like me and don't want to set anything up server side, you can also consider ABalytics: <https://github.com/danmaz74/ABalytics>

</comment><comment><USER5> The screenshot of the chart shows 217 conversions from 184 visitors, which isn't right... is it?

<comment><USER6> You're correct - I mocked up that screenshot and looks like I made a mistake, my bad!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very interesting. I'll have to try it out. The first thing I'll look at is how it deals with the jQuery changes being visible to the visitors (aka flicker/flashing). Do you hide the page and wait for document to be ready?

Do you do continuous checking of the DOM like Optimizely? Diagram: [http://support.optimizely.com/customer/portal/articles/45288...](http://support.optimizely.com/customer/portal/articles/452881-how- when-does-optimizely-evaluate-my-variation-javascript-code-)

<comment><USER6> The trick is to place your a/b testing JavaScript right after the relevant DOM elements, and not do a/b testing on DOMReady or window.load. That'll ensure there's no flickering.

<comment><USER7> I'm just hoping someone comes up with perfect way I can just put a script in the head and not worry about flickering. So I don't have to hide the body with CSS and make it visible when the script finishes. Optimizely seems to be getting there, but it's not perfect. (And kind of awkward, why can't browsers provide a better way to target elements as they come into existence?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > If the link is navigating to an external page which you don't control, then > you have no choice but to cancel the link's default event, wait a few > milliseconds, then navigate manually:

Why not have a callback on the `complete` method to trigger the navigate when the request has finished?

 _Update for clarity_ : Presumably the call to the server to register a conversion uses JSONP or similar. Why not provide a callback for completion (or timeout) of this call, and use that to trigger navigation away. This seems more robust and it better encapsulated than requiring the application developer to setup a timeout.

<comment><USER9> You don't want to force your link to depend on receiving a successful response from the server, because that would be a really bad user experience when it does break. You should opt to lose your analytics when things break instead.

To do that, you'd need to set a maximum timeout to wait for the response anyways, so then it's just a (valid) laziness call. If you _absolutely_ need the best performance then go with a success handler _and_ a maximum wait timeout. But realistically you want the maximum timeout to be ~300ms anyways, so why bother with the extra code.

Regardless, it would be nice to be able to pass a callback (whether it's based on a timeout or receiving a response) right to the `complete` method. Not sure why you're getting downvoted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if segment.io will be able to interface with this?

<comment><USER9> Ian from Segment.io here—randomly happened across this and I was thinking the same thing while reading it. I'd love to hear about how you were thinking it'd work, or what the abstraction would look like: email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thanks for open sourcing. How hard is it to convert server-side from ruby to php ? I was expecting a simple ajax post. However it looks like ruby everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER12> Thank you for releasing this!

</comment><comment><USER13> maccman — is not ANOVA the superior comparison?</comment>


Alpha3 of ArangoDB 3.2: Support for Distributed Graph Processing Using Pregel - <AUTHOR> https://www.arangodb.com/2017/03/alpha3-arangodb-3-2-support-distributed-graph-processing/ <comment><USER2> Great news. I hope we hear more about pluggable storage engine soon though. RocksDB support will be just perfect.

<comment><USER3> We are on our way! Plan to release RocksDB implementation with a next alpha end of this month...

<comment><USER2> Thanks. We're going to production soon with ArangoDB. We have tested 3.1.17, and 3.2 Alpha. 3.2 Alpha seems to be much more efficient with RAM. Would love to know more about what changed in this area.

<comment><USER3> We had to implement some preparations for the new storage engine in 3.1 which included changes in the WriteAheadLog. E.g. this consumed additional RAM. With 3.2 the memory needs are much lower as we put in some additional improvements.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The public do not understand logarithmic graphs used to portray Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/covid19/2020/05/19/the-public-doesnt-understand-logarithmic-graphs-often-used-to-portray-covid-19/ <comment><USER2> Some of the comments at the bottom of the article lament the "innumerancy" of the general public. But let's be honest: logarithmic scales take effort to read. And like any kind of communication, you should make it easy to read.

As a person who creates and looks at charts all day, I can read complex charts. But I really prefer other people use linear charts of simple bars or trend lines. You're conveying a new idea to me, so don't assume I have all the context you do when reading the chart.

If you want to show acceleration, remember to use different units. Choose a unit that can be shown on a linear scale. E.g., the ratio of today's cases over the cases from a week ago.

<comment><USER3> Well log scale is intended to make it easier to read... In general it is used in cases where a linear scale would be unreadable.

Your suggestion about changing what is represented in order to avoid a log scale is good but does not solve the root of the issue: many members of the public will not understand the information however it is represented because the concept itself is too complex.

It really is a numeracy problem.

<comment><USER4> Blaming the people you're trying to communicate with is not a winning move.

When you look at the 2 graphs side-by-side, as in the article, it's apparent which conveys more meaning (the linear one), unless I suppose you read log graphs all day. The public does not.

<comment><USER3> Blaming would be to claim that it is their fault for not understanding. Here it is not blame, it is a statement that anything above the most basic maths concepts will stump a surprisingly large number of people. I'm not sure 'surprisingly' is the right word but here it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's not just a matter of not understanding, it's also the tendency to assume the default, which is a linear scale.

One suggestion would be to make the logarithmic scale super-obvious and in your face.

"1 10 100 1k 10k 100k" in small print obscures the unusual nature of the scale.

Instead, show 1 10 100 1000 10000 100000 and show those numbers in a large bold font so that they are the most noticeable feature of the graph.

(Possibly use an increasing font size.)

<comment><USER6> Best log charts I seen had a linear version of the chart next to it, or one visible by toggling a UI option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is propaganda.

What actually happened? Some people were shown linear data on a linear scale, others were shown the same linear data on a logarithmic scale. The people who saw a straight line, because the scale matched the data, were better able to interpret and extrapolate the data.

The spread of the novel coronavirus in the USA _used_ to be exponential, but it was linear at the time the subjects were asked to analyse.

You don't say! Before the the authors recruited 2000 subjects to investigate that, maybe they could have enrolled in Physics Practical 101 and listened to the demonstrator. If they went to an old-school physics department, they would have seen some real semi-log graph paper, designed for people to read actual values off. It doesn't look anything like the scales on their graphs.

Oh, but the subjects who saw a linear graph were more likely to accept the authors' opinion on what to do about that data.

The authors are right: the USA and UK should do more to contain the coronavirus. But it's still propaganda to advocate that data be presented in a certain format because that makes readers agree with your opinion, even when your opinion is right.

<comment><USER8> > [...] we find that the group who read the information on a logarithmic scale > has a much lower level of comprehension of the graph: only 40.66% of them > could respond correctly to a basic question about the graph (whether there > were more deaths in one week or another), contrasted to 83.79% of > respondents on the linear scale.

> Admittedly, we cannot know which policy preferences are superior. However, > we do know that unlike the people who saw the graph on a logarithmic scale, > the people exposed to a linear scale graph can form their preferences based > on information that they can understand better.

While they're using pandemic data, they're asking people about their basic understanding of data in the graph.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a good article - everybody should read it.

> The public do not understand logarithmic graphs used to portray Covid-19

\- does the public include our leaders? Very likely.

\- although I know what a log plot is, I didn't have an intuitive answer to the question posed in the article. So instead of informing people, it adds further confusion.

Related:

\- the Santa Clara (Bay Area) hospitals dashboard is confusing and takes about 2 minutes to load, so another example of poor crisis communications - inexcusable in 2020:

[https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#ho...](https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#hospital)

If anybody is familiar with that BI software, is there a way to cache it?

</comment><comment><USER9> Logarithmic scales are such a common and useful tool, it's a hard pill to swallow that the general populace doesn't have the knowledge or interest to understand them. I'm not talking from an elite academic point of view; if you make it through sophomore year of high school, you have at least been exposed to them, and if you graduate highschool you've been tested on their use.

I use them regularly (nearly every time I plot data to figure out trends or whatever), and have a hard time imagining not having them for problem solving.

</comment><comment><USER10> I love log graph but I understand the sentiment.

Yesterday I was looking at a COVID-19 log graph and I was interested in a point of the curve right at the middle between the 100 and the 1000 tick mark. It's hard to have an intuition on what the value was.

edit: I double checked for the record, the value halfway between 100 and 1000 is 316.2.

</comment><comment><USER11> The financial times has a covid tracker with log vs linear, daily vs cumulative and absolute vs per capita toggles. I understand log scales and even so, changing these settings really makes me look at the data differently. For example - look at absolute daily data on a log scale and Brazil seems headed for destruction, overtaking the UK amd US. Look at cumulative per capita data on a linear scale and things don't seem so bad for Brazil, but Belgium looks like a disaster.

</comment><comment><USER12> Well even tech folk don't read charts correctly, even if they understand a logarithm.

I have seen all kinds of junk nonsensical charts in my career that somehow made it into reports, because nobody thought it was necessary to take the time to READ the chart and ask a few questions to see if it made any sense.

</comment><comment><USER13> I made a video about this for my students. Basic math behind a NYT graph [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2-- cCFwSbA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2--cCFwSbA)</comment>


Microsoft To Offer Cash Back To Search Engine Users - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/20/microsoft-to-offer-cash-back-to-search-engine-users/ <comment><USER2> Oh man... who wants to bet that Microsoft will be alive in 200 years? Seriously, how many companies have they gone head to head with in the past 30 years or so... Apple, Lotus, Oracle, Netscape, Nintendo/Sony, Tivo, Google...

Regardless of your opinions about Microsoft, you have to admit that this is one hell of a resilient company. Even if they fail in some markets they just keep going and going.

I don't know if this new advertising model will work or not, but I think in 20 years when the NBT comes out from some new startup, MS will be there to fight against it in the marketplace.

</comment><comment><USER3> Paypal used to give $5 to new users. I estimate that this is what put them on top, not (as Max Levchin guesses) that they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on fraud.

</comment><comment><USER4> This will be awkward to implement but not for the obvious reason of avoiding automated fraud.

In some jurisdictions, it is illegal to offer kickbacks for certain products and services, if not all. For example, in the UK, I believe that it is illegal to offer consumers cash to accept a line of credit. I believe it is for this reason that UK credit card affiliate programmes specifically prohibit affiliates from sharing revenue with consumers.

If you offer a cashback programme to end users, you'll have to forego some lucrative advertising and/or explain to end users that some offers in some jurisdictions don't provide any cashback and/or explain fraudulent clawbacks to a large number of end users. In addition, the exceptions will be awkward to implement, maintain and administrate.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wow, that's a good idea. Go Ballmer.

<comment><USER6> Their product is so bad they have to bribe users to use it ;)

<comment><USER5> It is a solid way for a second tier player to gain ground in any web market and here Balmer is trying to do it for the biggest market. At the very least, this is a good way of forcing the market to take less money from consumers.

<comment><USER6> There are a million cashback sites out there though. You can get cashback, or commission on anything you buy online already. Just seems a bit desparate to me.

<comment><USER5> Yes, there are a million cashback sites because it is profitable. Now MS has the biggest one and they can upset a market also. It won't save their company, but can anyone actually state why this is a bad business decision for Microsoft?

<comment><USER6> Well for me, it cheapens the product. It's like they feel they need to give people stuff to get them to use their product.

IMHO they should concentrate on making a better product that people _want_ to use without being paid to use it.

<comment><USER5> Certainly it cheapens the product. They already lost their chance to win the Search Marketplace... Arrington talked about Yahoo doing a "scorched earth" tactic on the market. MS is doing the same thing by attempting to take away users while simultaneously cheapening the market.

At this point, is there anything Microsoft could do to beat Google at search? The only thing left is for someone to offer a completely free API.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Read any story on Medium for free - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mediumship/bmiaaebehjjikccjanedpidhmpcbhnfg <comment><USER2> The short story of how this works.

\- Take an arbitrary article as an example: [https://medium.com/popular- science/twitter-is-killing-its-te...](https://medium.com/popular- science/twitter-is-killing-its-terrible-mac-app-here-are-your-options-for- replacing-it-58d900b2ac8)

\- Extract the article id 58d900b2ac8.

\- Hit the url medium.com/p/58d900b2ac8/notes which returns a JSON-ish object.

\- Find the webCanonicalUrl. In our case it looks like "webCanonicalUrl":"[https://www.popsci.com/twitter-mac-app-dead-applications- rep...](https://www.popsci.com/twitter-mac-app-dead-applications- replacements?dom=rss-default&src=syn")

\- Go to that instead.

Neat trick.

Edit: Medium appears to have caused webCanonicalURL to always be empty in response to this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wait, since when do posts on medium cost money? I haven't encountered a paywall other than one encouraging me to log in. But I do vaguely remember an announcement by medium regarding charging for articles and revenue sharing with authors. Have they implemented this?

<comment><USER4> It looks like they've been phasing it in. This is from March last year: [https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/22/medium-debuts-its-paid- mem...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/22/medium-debuts-its-paid-membership- subscription-program/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't like it. It's clearly against the intended use of Medium.

IMHO, if you don't want a paywall, you either pay for the product or leave the website.

<comment><USER2> I don't think this particular implementation is unethical. It's not bypassing the paywall so much as it's querying Medium for another site where the article is published and probably isn't paywalled. No different than Googling the article title and finding the original.

For content owned originally published by Medium you're on their regular free trial system.</comment></comment>


Humpback Whale Baby Boom Near Antarctica - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/01/science/humpback-whale-antarctica.html <comment><USER2> I worry about the predator:prey relationship implicit in the whale:krill thing. rebounds in one, with systemic changes in the underlying ecology (ie warming) mean the krill are more likely to exhaust which means we will inevitably see some downstream decline in whales, which will be painted by some people (the japanese whalers) as a catastrophy requiring culling.. or other outcomes.

We probably have to ensure krill stocks. Which are being aggressively hoovered up to provide fishmeal feed for onshore fish farming, prawns, salmon and tuna ponds.

This stuff is not going to go well. I am delighted the whale numbers are up. I am not confident its an overall good story.

<comment><USER3> What's concerning about that scenario per-se? A lot of wild animals (e.g. deer) are culled by man when they overpopulate in the wild with the same rationale, if it's done correctly it's a win-win, those animals would have starved anyway, and the hunters get the benefit of getting the animal before it becomes (in this case) crab food.

<comment><USER4> Deer culls rarely have anything to do with deer starving. They are culled when they become pests, when they start spreading disease or endangering humans. Deer populations are not limited by resources, rather by the number of predators. What causes deer populations to explode isn't food but human intolerance for bear/cougar/wolves.

<comment><USER5> > Deer populations are not limited by resources, rather by the number of > predators.

Harsh winters (extreme cold and/or sustained icy conditions) can definitely limit deer populations as well, both directly (starvation) and indirectly (weakened deer become ill or easier targets for predators).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's generally good news for Blue Whales as well, at least in the eastern Pacific, [http://www.bbc.com/news/science- environment-29069515](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29069515)

Given the level of hunting this gives me some kind of hope that all the environmental damage we have done can be fixed.

<comment><USER7> Growing up in clean(-ish) LA air already gave me that hope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder about the social impact of the whaling century. We see now see all sorts of antisocial behavior in elephants raised without their pack's 'teaching'\- they are more violent, they rape rhinoceroses, etc.

I imagine whales and elephants have similar intelligence, and would have as many 'cultural' forces shaping their behavior.

<comment><USER9> Indeed. Both elephants and humpback whales have been proven to possess cultures that passes down the generations in certain populations. I wonder what cultures were lost, and what the social impacts of loosing these cultures are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I join the call: don't kill whales

</comment><comment><USER11> That's nice to see :)

</comment><comment><USER12> Calling all Japanese fishing vessels.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hopefully, they will still be around when that cylindrical object arrives in 2286 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_IV:_The_Voyage_Home](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_IV:_The_Voyage_Home)</comment>


Hash Functions: the modulo prime myth? - <AUTHOR> http://www.codexon.com/posts/hash-functions-the-modulo-prime-myth <comment><USER2> For a uniformly distributed input set, it doesn't matter how many buckets you have. When you take your modulus, you're going to mix well, regardless of whether its prime or not. This is what the article (accidentally, apparently) confirms.

The win of using a prime modulus comes when you have a non-uniformly distributed input set (though of course you could craft an especially evil input set). Mod prime is just more likely to produce a more uniform mix across a larger set of input distributions.

Since we're talking about a general-purpose hash table, we can't assume we know anything about our inputs (i.e., that they're uniformly distributed), so we use a prime number of buckets just to up the odds that we come out ahead.

<comment><AUTHOR> "For a uniformly distributed input set..."

A little off-subject, but another good reason to make your primary ids sequential whenever possible. This issue just goes away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The article writer (Nathan) used uniformly distributed cryptographically secure random numbers as his test data. Any decent hash for integers that doesn't throw bits away is going to produce a nice even distribution for that kind of sequence no matter what the divisor.

The problem with hash tables is bad hash functions, or hash functions which perform badly on certain data, where "perform badly" means recurrence of certain patterns, usually "latent periods", i.e. too many function results that are divisible by some number or one of some set of numbers. If those numbers have factors in common with the bucket count, then there's going to be trouble.

For example, a poor hash function might turn up even numbers twice as often as odd numbers; if the bucket count is also even, then the even buckets will have 50% more collisions than the odd buckets, on average. A prime number of buckets guarantees that there's only one factor that can clash, rather than a bunch of them.

<comment><USER4> Hello, this is the author. (btw Nathan is a commenter, not me)

It was exactly my conclusion that the hash function and data is more important than using mod prime.

Try to think of it this way. The ideal hash function takes your not so random data and outputs random data.

I = low-medium entropy data

H(I) = high entropy output equivalent to random numbers

bucket = (H(I) or random number) % m <\--- experiment is here.

Now to simulate this, I used the previous model, as it is the definition of a good hash function. If you have repetitive data in, and repetitive data out, no modulus is going to help you.

So yes, the conclusion of your comment and mine are the same: Worry about your data and hash function. But many people came out of the woodwork trying to poke holes in the experiment.

<comment><USER2> _If you have repetitive data in, and repetitive data out, no modulus is going to help you._

Um, no. A prime modulus will often help in this case. That's the whole point.

<comment><USER4> Do you have any statistical evidence?

<comment><USER2> In your test code, change your loop to:

        for r in [3, 5, 17, 257]:
            for i in xrange(n):
                num = r * i
                table_p[num%prime] += 1
                table_c[num%composite] += 1

On here and on your blog, you keep falling back to the observation that modulo prime makes no difference when you have a uniform distribution of inputs, like you get after you apply a good hash function.

Nobody who is telling you that you're wrong would dispute that. The fundamental point that you keep ignoring is that doesn't matter, because as a library writer providing a hashtable, _you don't control the hash function_. Having a simple way to mitigate the ill effects of users choosing bad hash functions is a good thing. Why do you keep ignoring this point?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Quick point: the reason to use primes is to avoid a nasty interaction between a common fault of hash functions and the modulus. Specifically, if the hash function puts out a lot (e.g. more than appropriate for a uniform distribution) of hash values that have a common factor F, and if F also a factor of your modulus, then you've divided your number of buckets by F for those many hash values.

It seems a little obscure until we look at common factors like 2 or 4. It's pretty easy to write a hash function, that when combined with its input (say ASCII text, or addresses returned by malloc()), puts out a lot of values that divide by a power of two.

To avoid it, without doing any analysis of your hash function or input, a prime factor adds safety. Thanks to this: <http://primes.utm.edu/notes/proofs/Theorem2.html> you know that if n is prime, then so's 2^n-1. So, for a prime n, a cheap prime modulus for computers is to do a bitwise and with ((1 << n) -1).

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm a little late to the conversation, but I'll explain the reasoning. You don't want the hash and the bucket size to have a common divisor. A prime bucket size is the best way to ensure that.

For example, let's suppose you have a bucket size of 8 and a flawed hash function that produces multiples of 12 more often than other hashes (it can even be only slightly more common, but will still have an effect). Then the 0 and 4 spots will be used more often than any other.

Obviously, if you have a super awesome hash function, then it isn't a problem. Most of the time, making a hash function with good distributive properties is hard and makes the hash function slower.

There's also a simple universal hashing solution using prime bucket sizes:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_hashing>

[http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and- Compute...](http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer- Science/6-046JFall-2005/VideoLectures/detail/embed08.htm)

</comment><comment><USER7> very interesting, and worth reading all the way up to and including the comments. Nathan appears (in the comments) to counter the conclusions, but merely sketches out why, rather than give anything concrete.

Then again, it would seem odd that Knuth was not only wrong, but that nobody in 30 years of CS has spotted the error.

I'm going to continue to use primes I think, just in case.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's been a few years since abstract algebra, but might it have something to do with finite fields? I seem to recall that modulo primes held special significance (i.e. you can't have a finite field size other than a power of a prime).

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't understand what that graph is showing. Which variable is independent, or supposed to be? It can't be buckets as a function of collisions. At first I thought he had his axes reversed (from the customary y as a function of x), but it's not a graph of collisions as a function of buckets, either, because reading it that way implies that a very small number of buckets produces a small number of collisions, which is obviously false with a hundred million inputs being distributed over ten or less buckets.

It looks like a graph of the moral equivalent of 1=1, by numeric methods. What am I supposed to see there?

<comment><USER2> It's a histogram. It's counting the number of buckets (y axis) for each number of collisions (x axis). He's showing that the distribution is the same for both methods; if one had a clear advantage, it should have a relatively more uniform distribution.

The problem is that the input distribution is uniform, so you'd expect a pretty decent distribution of collisions regardless of what your modulus was. A prime modulus only helps for non-uniformly distributed inputs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> You use a prime to be able to reach all slots in open addressing if you use a linear probe bigger than 1. Can't think of any other reason.

</comment><comment><USER11> Use a critbits/radix tree instead of hash tables. They are just better.

<http://cr.yp.to/critbit.html> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radix_tree></comment>


Ubuntu Phone, Jolla Sailfish and KDE Plasma Active to share API? - <AUTHOR> http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2013/01/qml-component-apis-to-come-together.html

<comment><USER2> Another good resolution for the new year...

</comment><comment><USER3> Good development.</comment>


Why President Obama Can't Pardon Edward Snowden - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/why-obama-wont-pardon-edward-snowden-nsa-538632 <comment><USER2> He should have said "Won't" instead of "Can't."

tldr; Whether Snowden's theft was an idealistic attempt to right a wrong, a narcissistic drive to obtain personal recognition, an attempt to weaken the foundations of the surveillance infrastructure in which he worked, or all of the above, by the time he stepped off that Aeroflot jet in Moscow, it had evolved, intentionally or not, into something much simpler and far less admirable. He was disclosing vital national secrets to a foreign power. Conjectures about Snowden's motives matter less than the undeniable fact that he was greatly assisted in his endeavors by powerful enemies of the United States."

I bet if you had a program where whistle blowers were honored instead of destroyed internally, you'd have less exfiltration of data, and less external whistle blowing.

The 4th amendment has been getting curb stomped for quite a while now, I'm curious as to when it'll be declared deceased. You currently have no expectation of privacy at a border, or too close to a border, or with any data at your phone carrier, or isp, or email provider, so really where does this "persons, houses, papers, and effects," really exist anymore? Hell, even if you think the 5th amendment protects you from being coerced with prison into telling your passwords, it often doesn't.

Maybe I'm missing something, and the 4th amendment is doing a great job somewhere, if it is I could use a reminder, I'm getting jaded.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author's argument boils down to: 1\. Snowden didn't come back to the US, so he must be a traitor (rather than a non-idiot who knew exactly what had happened to Chelsea Manning). 2\. Putin allowed him to come when the passport had been cancelled, so Snowden must have agreed to sell Russia state secrets.

This feels very much like a deep state smear job, especially given the weirdly adulatory photo of Obama.

<comment><USER4> But as the article points out, Putin is not a warm, fuzzy, lovingly altruistic person. He wouldn't do favors if he didn't get something in return.

I always assumed it was more PR reasons, rather than anything Snowden knows. How can the US accuse the Russian Federation of human rights abuses or lack of individual freedoms if they have a walking, talking example of a citizen who cannot go home to the US but lives free in Russia? It's farcical, as Putin's Russia is less free than the US, but it does shut down debate.

And in a slight change of topic, I have been really shocked in the last 6 months how willing ordinary Americans are to defend Putin in political discussion. Something is working over there.

<comment><USER5> Putin built a pretty good PR image over here that appeals to certain segments.

The Russians aren't a bunch of idiots. They have a need to be players on the global stage, but cannot compete on military hardware.

So they fight for perception and impressions, which is more effective than bombs anyway. I've even heard laudatory comments about Putin's attempts to curb violence in Syria! (After propping up Assad for years)

Meanwhile, we've had a series of presidents that either couldn't put a sentence together (Bush 2) or couldn't make a timely decision (Obama).

<comment><USER4> Say whatever you want about Bush 2 or Obama. They both step down when term limits say so and I never heard anyone accuse them of murdering their political opponents. Neither is true of Putin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One new allegation (as far as I know) in this article is this:

"Obama also knows that NSA documents Snowden copied and removed but did not give to those journalists in Hong Kong were used to embarrass America's allies in NATO well after he arrived in Moscow. For example, the explosive revelation that the NSA targeted the cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel was released in September [2013]. _In June 2015, NSA documents stolen by Snowden on WikiLeaks_ caused further trouble by revealing that the phones of three presidents of France—Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande—had also been targeted. These embarrassing revelations—made long after Snowden claimed he had no more documents—put Obama in a very bad spot with America's European allies."

It's an important part of Snowden's history that he gave all the documents he had to Glenn Greenwald, and didn't keep access himself. Bruce Schneier believes that Snowden was not the source of the September 2013 leak,[1] and I can't find anyone (before this article) even suggesting that Snowden was the source of the June 2015 leak. There's no source for the claim in this article, other than "Obama knows."

So that seems significant if true, but it's a pretty nasty smear if not -- I hope it doesn't stand as an unsourced rumor.

[1] [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/08/the_us_intell...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/08/the_us_intellig.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> "my book, How America Lost Its Secrets: Snowden, the Man and the Theft.".. well that sounds balanced

</comment><comment><USER8> I read this entire thing through and it's literally like vapor, there's nothing to it whatsoever that supports it's headline, and no counter narrative that upends the basic story Snowden and his journalist contacts have laid out. I assume this writer is now owed a favor by his buddies at the NSA who he worked with on this story.

</comment><comment><USER9> Why President Obama Can't Pardon Edward Snowden: because they're not on the same team.

Snowden sacrificed a cushy job in Hawaii and risked life in prison because he's a hopeless romantic True Believer in the American style philosophy of freedom.

</comment><comment><USER10> Character assassination.

So rife with innuendo, appeals to emotion and straw men and so utterly devoid of fact that I don't know where to begin.

</comment><comment> gm-conspiracy _A president can pardon anyone from any crime for any reason, or no reason at all..._

I thought it was only federal crimes that can be pardoned, no?

<comment><USER11> And I thought the pardoned person had to have been convicted of the crime.

Except if it's Nixon...

<comment><USER12> Well, that's called a blanket pardon, and the fact that it was granted to Nixon establishes it as precedent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not convincing. Really tried to read with an open mind, but there was literally no new info here, just a narrative spin.

<comment><USER14> "Projective speculation"

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The only thing he shows is that Snowden was premeditated. We already knew that.</comment>


Shared idea with peer for feedback. Peer stole it. - <AUTHOR> http://www.brightjourney.com/q/deal-someone-takes-idea-told-decides-launch

<comment><USER2> This is why I don't share really good ideas.

You can say that ideas are worthless, but when you put a good idea in the head of someone with more time, drive, or resources than you, you will create competition (and possibly put yourself out of business before you start).

My last couple of business ideas (which now make me good money) came from someone blabbing about it on an Internet forum. My idea was a little different of course, but it did directly compete.

</comment><comment><USER3> Execution is everything. An idea evolved and the seed of the idea may be the same but the end result will almost always be different. The peer is a dick for such a move but it's not something to dwell on. If you are to succeed, it will be because of how you execute or lack thereof, not because someone stole your seed idea, generally speaking</comment>


Gene Therapy Finally Makes Comeback After Patient Death - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/?p=191171

<comment><USER2> Misread as "Gene Therapy Finally Makes Patient Come Back After Death" o_O</comment>


"Our office when we're not posing for an architect competition" -Mojang - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jeb_/status/253856034093948931 <comment><AUTHOR> ( _Context:_ "You won't believe how nice Notch's office is " - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4601573>)</comment>


Nellie Bly: Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887) - <AUTHOR> http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/madhouse/madhouse.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I posted [http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/05/05/ten- days-a...](http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/05/05/ten-days-at-the- mad-house-nellie-bly/) qua user, but replaced it with the original piece qua moderator. HN prefers original sources. :)

Popova gives some background, though.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is a great story - it's one of the things you learn about when you take the Circle Line cruise in NYC.</comment>


Encrypted Search / Google is no slower, in my experience - <AUTHOR>

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/search-more-securely-with-encrypted.html
I know there has been a lot of chatter about whether encrypting the entire Internet would make things slower.
In my experience, using a 2.9 GHz machine over medium-speed unencrypted wireless connection, SSL for Gmail and Search doesn't seem to be any slower at all.  And I have the confidence that only the big boys can spy on me or introduce redirections ("302") <comment><USER2> I haven't noticed any significant delays using their encrypted search either.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have been using the Encrypted search ever since they announced it and have not seen any delay whatsoever. I have also used it in numerous locations over wifi and wired networks - still no delay.

I hope this helps.</comment>


Stanford engineer aims to connect the world with ant-sized radios - <AUTHOR> http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/september/ant-radio-arbabian-090914.html?utm_content=bufferaae5e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><USER3> It is a very cool development but I see couple of issues with it:

1 - It works at about 60GHz. You are not getting a lot of distance or even going through a wall at that frequency and (likely) very low power levels

2 - The devices still need a central "base station". Presumably they rebroadcast to neighbouring nodes; but at lower power levels since they reuse some of the received power for themselves. I doubt you'd get more than 2 - <USER2> hops out before you don't have much power to begin with.

3 - He cites including these in fridges, coffee makers, light bulbs, etc. None of these are power constrained applications. You can put in $0.45 802.15.4 chip in them TODAY and it comes with a whole microcontroller inside to do what you want to do.

The tech here is no doubt "cool" but I don't see any applicability for IoT. If anything I think it would have some medical uses in pills you can swallow etc. But IoT use is kind of a dud.

Most IoTs have pretty good power source and you can run the w/ existing chipsets.

<comment><USER4> > Presumably they rebroadcast to neighbouring nodes;

Unless you have a directional antenna, which these don't, you can not possibly scavenge power and simultaneously hope to increase the range by rebroadcasting.

So rebroadcasting is pointless, these simply communicate with the base station.

But what do they do? I mean it's nice to communicate, but you have to have something to say.

<comment><USER5> The power scavenging circuit looks to not be the same frequency as the communications radio circuit due to antenna size differences. Likely it's harvesting power from 2.4 GHz or similar frequency and then using the higher (24 GHz-ish) band for comms. With a decent meshing protocol this would be quite interesting, although latency with many many short hops will be horrid.

<comment><USER3> The antenna is way too small for 2.4GHz. It makes sense for higher frequency (60GHz or whatever he said in the video). You can power harvest RF waves straight up but what you absorb gives you very little to rebroadcast again.

There are others doing work on this for sensors you could embed into say a wall to give you the pressure reading of the concrete (a simple piezo say) but those usually modulate an RF wave (similar to NFC) instead of rebroadcasting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> These seem like the beginnings of the localizers in Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky, or maybe his earlier Fast Times at Fairmont High.

<comment><USER7> The Larson Localizers?

In the story those nodes were compute, storage, and transport. As well as interface.

Amazing tech.

I would be interested in trading for a sample, or better yet, the specs of the industrial base necessary to manufacture them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Now Arbabian envisions networks of these radio chips deployed every meter or so throughout a house (they would have to be set close to one another because high-frequency signals don 't travel far)._

The whole concept is a bit creepy, but that particular sentence stood out. It's not hard to envision these tiny devices all having microphones and cameras... the Internet of Things That Watch You seems not far off.

<comment><USER9> Microphony in radio circuits is pretty much a given so even if there is no overt microphone every one of these will exhibit a frequency shift when hit by sound waves and that shift is detectable.

Hm. This makes me wonder if you could recover audio from wifi signals.

<comment><USER10> Maybe you can describe this a bit more. The Great Seal Bug was used for wireless audio recording in the 40's, but this operated by using a microphone/cavity to modulate the load of an antenna; thereby embedding audio in the reflected fields.

Bell did a similar demonstration in the 1890s using a mirror to embed reflections in ambient light and demonstrated wireless audio transmission over 200 meters.

However, I'm not sure why audio would cause a frequency shift in a radio circuit. Perhaps you are meaning the antenna will be perturbed and that could possibly be recovered? I'd be interested to know.

<comment><USER9> In the times that I was still building radio transmitters (for a very illicit living, selling them to pirate radio stations in Amsterdam) I had to hot-melt each and every long wire and coil in place so that it wouldn't vibrate.

The oscillator circuitry of a transmitter is (even when crystal controlled) sensitive to mechanical perturbation, which typically leads to spurious AM and FM modulation of the outgoing signal. To demonstrate the effect I once held a half our session on air with a guy on the other side of the city by just talking to the circuit board.

In a PLL or crystal controlled transmitter modulating the carrier in such a coarse way is much harder. Typically the modulation is done using a capacitive diode (a varicap) which is a diode whose capacitance changes with the reverse voltage. Because this voltage has to be applied to the diode somehow (in the days before SMD) this meant that that wire was again susceptible to microphony because air pressure on the wire changed it's location relative to the ground plane and that caused a measurable frequency shift. Not nearly as big a shift as in the older stuff but it was definitely a factor.

Wifi radios as _much_ more robust than the stuff that I built. But I suspect that given a sensitive enough detector a residual audio component might be extracted from an otherwise non-audio signal by direct interaction between the sound waves and the transmitter hardware.

In a nutshell, it is very much harder to make something that does not exhibit microphony than to make something that does. You'd have to take that into account from the beginning of the design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This sounds almost exactly like amorphous computing... but not. Was that bit just left out of the article? Is the intention that these chips will be used one-at-a-time and perform significant computation onboard rather than (as with amorphous computing) having computation be an emergent property of the internetworking of many such chips?

<comment><USER12> This is going to sound a little harsh, but that's not the intention. I am genuinely curious about emergent phenomenon of computation.

I spent a lot of time messing around with toy evolutionary algorithms. I never really got any satisfaction out of those experiments. eventually I found this [1], and felt sort of foolish.

Has anything really happened with emergent properties in the last 10 years or so?

[1] [http://lesswrong.com/lw/iv/the_futility_of_emergence/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/iv/the_futility_of_emergence/)

<comment><USER13> I've never seen emergence "used as an explanation in its own right." I also don't understand why you would feel foolish after reading this.

<comment><USER14> Actually, most of the uses of the word "emergent" I encounter are exactly as the LW article describes. If you'd replace the word "emergent" with "magic", you'd learn nothing more and nothing less from a sentence. [0]

As for feeling foolish after playing with evolutionary algorithms - I'm not the OP but I can relate somewhat given how I saw people learning evolutionary algorithms and neural networks at my university (and I'm pretty sure it's not a local phenomenon). Evolutionary algorithms are usually explained as inspired by biological evolution, with implicit (and sometimes explicit) note that "evolution made us, therefore evolution is superpowerful, therefore evolutionary algorithms - which are just evolution in code - will be superpowerful too!". Except they're not, and the whole concept is bullshit. It's a belief in Random Number God. Throw enough shit at the wall and something will stick. Evolution is terribly, terribly inefficient, and so are the evolutionary algorithms.

Sure, this inefficiency gives them some interesting properties that may help them avoid particular types of local optimas, etc. But those are mathematical features of an algorithm type, and have nothing to do and share no power with evolution, or magic.

The whole problem stems from people trying to transfer virtues of biology to computing by using a surface metaphor. There's a post on LW that covers it nicely:

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/vx/failure_by_analogy/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/vx/failure_by_analogy/)

" _So... why didn 't the flapping-wing designs work? Birds flap wings and they fly. The flying machine flaps its wings. Why, oh why, doesn't it fly?_"

Or about neural networks,

" _A backprop network with sigmoid units... actually doesn 't much resemble biology at all. Around as much as a voodoo doll resembles its victim. The surface shape may look vaguely similar in extremely superficial aspects at a first glance. But the interiors and behaviors, and basically the whole thing apart from the surface, are nothing at all alike. All that biological neurons have in common with gradient-optimization ANNs is... the spiderwebby look._"

I encounter a lot of similar "medieval thinking" in CS departments. I don't know why. It probably goes in common with the concept of not caring about how the world works.

Oh, this one is also good: [http://lesswrong.com/lw/rj/surface_analogies_and_deep_causes...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/rj/surface_analogies_and_deep_causes/).

[0] - it's also a good trick I picked up while hanging on LW; if you don't know why something happens, label it as unknown explicitly. Say "this process is driven by magic", or "caused by Divine Intervention" instead of trying to invent equivalently-informative but sciency-sounding labels like "emergent behaviour" or "spontanous self-organization". This way you'll never forget that your theory still has holes that need to be filled in, and you won't accidentally confuse yourself (or others).

<comment><USER13> Who is saying that the analogously named models are equivalent the analogs themselves? Analogous terminology and metaphors exist so that people can ease themselves into a deeper understanding of a subject. I agree that some people can incorrectly draw grand conclusions from a simple name, but that doesn't mean the people who use these "things" with these "names" only understand their mechanisms on a superficial level. Seriously, good luck explaining _any_ model without introducing an analog that we, as humans, can relate with.

<comment><USER14> Sure, I'm not saying analogies are the problem. They're not, we need them, they're important parts of our cognition.

My point was twofold: a/ beware inference from surface analogies, always strive to understand where the border between similar and different properties lie, and b/ it does happen. People do draw conclusions and build their understanding on superficial analogies _in a systematic way_. That's why I mentioned the anecdote of CS students I know. I've seen it in real life. Also known as cargo-culting, it's unfortunately not a rare phenomenon.

Also, I'm not the CDDDDARP ((cddddar this-comment)-poster), but I hazard a guess that he "felt sort of foolish" because he discovered he accidentally did some inferring from surface analogies and ended up disappointed.

<comment><USER12> Exactly that. I inferred from surface analogies and was disappointed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've just read the paper; it's academically very cool yet practically useless (at least for now). It uses 24GHz for RX, 60GHz for TX so retransmission is just a fantasy of the "journalist". It requires +45dBm output power (32watts!) at the Basestation to power it at 50cm range, so less practical than regular RFID for now really (and absolutely no chance of ever working as a mesh).

<comment><USER10> 45 dBm is crazy! Do you know the FCC limitations for that frequency? For the ISM bands its +36 dBm EIRP maximum. I'm not familiar with the rules for the higher GHz frequencies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> You'd think it might work better if they had a bit of wire attached as an arial. Then they could use lower frequencies, get more range and so on, perhaps? Having mucked about connecting bits of wire to oscilloscopes it seems most of the signal that you could use to power something is 50/60Hz picked up from the mains. It would still cost cents given a bit of wire is not terribly expensive.

</comment><comment><USER17> A light bulb _I_ can control is nice, but one that _anyone_ can control doesn't seem very useful. How does one implement security on top, since this is passive?

<comment><USER18> The article says it has a CPU, therefore in theory it can check digital signatures.

That said, I don't see why would it need to be passive if it's in a light bulb, or any other device that can be actuated. It'll need more energy to do whatever you tell it to, so it can also use that energy to actively power the CPU.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Comparing with existing wireless sensor network "motes", this is much much smaller - but do it's processing/networking capabilities match those of motes?

</comment><comment><USER20> I'd like to know more about how it's powered. Didn't see anything on that. Seems like it's powered by proximity to that purple square.

<comment><USER21> They say it's energy scavenging - like passive NFC tags essentially.

<comment><USER22> Agree, the whole demo looks like an passive NFC tag.

What's new here?

<comment><USER10> Its far-field, so it couples completely differently than NFC tags. Also, NFC communicates by reflecting signals, this device communications by active transmission (according to the article, I haven't read their paper yet).

What's new? Its tiny, and I'm very curious how they got that an oscillator to work at extremely low powers. But, it is really just an extension of RFID/NFC/IoT miniaturization work. But then again, just about everything starts out that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What is this... a radio for ants? But seriously speaking, at the frequencies used, I'm guessing it is meant for some bluetooth application?

</comment><comment><USER24> Is it programmable? That is, does it have CPU/memory? The article wasn't clear on this.

</comment><comment><USER25> Isn't this an RFID tag? What makes it different?

</comment><comment><USER26> "What is this? A radio for ants?" "I don't wanna hear your excuses! The radio has to be at least... three times bigger than this!"</comment>


Ask HN: I need to learn D3. Help design my curriculum. - <AUTHOR>

I need to learn d3.js for my job. Right now my programming experience is largely SQL/SAS/Scheme/Matlab, so nothing really serious.
Things I know I have to learn: HTML/SVG JS...jquery? Finally, the d3 package.
Any tips on where a complete beginner would start?? <comment><USER2> This is the gentlest introduction to d3 out there.

Run through the book and you will have a solid foundation to start playing around on your own for basic visualizations and charts.

<http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920026938.do>

This was also posted on HN a while back:

<http://code.hazzens.com/d3tut/lesson_0.html>

d3 is not dependant on jquery and covers a lot of the same basic DOM manipulation. You also need to learn some super basic css to theme things.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> D3 has some fairly extensive API documentation on GitHub, which I personally believe is pretty great. There are also links to various resources on d3 GitHub wiki and for extra measure I personally like to study Michael Bostocks' bl.ocks.org site for example visualization a with code samples.

Nothing beats thousands of example implementations written by the creator of d3 himself.

</comment><comment><USER4> Check out my collection of links on Kippt: <https://kippt.com/caseyf7/d3>

I agree Scott Murray's book is the best of the books.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> +1 on the O'Reilly book.</comment>


Ask HN: should web browsers report heartbleed? - <AUTHOR>

Should new versions of web browsers report if the site you are visiting is affected by heartbleed? <comment><USER2> I would like to see this.

Somewhat unrelated: what does everyone think of those privacy-centric browsers? Aviator, Epic, maybe others. I haven't heard much else since they hit HN but I just didn't trust them either.

A browser that actively scanned for security and privacy issues would be well worth it in my opinion but unfortunately it could easily be hidden from user that the same "secure" browser is reporting back to someone else.</comment>