Ross: Attorney built on top of IBM's Watson - <AUTHOR> http://www.poweredbyross.com/ <comment><USER3> Couple of my friends that work for IBM told me that it still needs a lot of work because researchers that take blind tests can almost always tell apart the cold, inhuman responses that are devoid of any human decency from the responses generated by the computer.

<comment><USER4> .... bravo. You been holding on to that one for a while? Waiting for the technology to catch up :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Love the idea and execution, but this is less an attorney and more a legal librarian. Attorneys spend most of their time on the facts of the case.

In law school, most lawyers are taught to present each argument in a standard format called IRAC: Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion. The issue is like the question presented on the front page here: "can courts pierce the corporate veil where a corporation has misappropriated funds?" ROSS spits out the relevant rule, and any information it can find on how to interpret that rule in specific situations. However, this is only the beginning of a lawyer's job. The largest part is taking that rule and actually applying it to the facts of the specific case. ROSS doesn't seem to be able to do this, yet. Finally, and least importantly, the lawyer comes up with a conclusion (or a series of probability-weighted conclusions). ROSS doesn't seem to be able to do this either. In law school and in court, it's not enough to cite the rule of law. It's much more important to apply the reasoning of the rule to every specific fact in the specific case.

It would be very interesting to see this intelligence applied not just to legal research, as here, but to e-discovery, which is the other time intensive task given to associates and contract attorneys. That would, I think, be the next step into turning this into a general purpose attorney that _would_ be able to handle the analysis and perhaps conclusory stage of a legal issue.

If anyone who worked on ROSS is here, where did you purchase your corpus from? West or lexis? How are you doing shepardizing and pruning of bad law?

<comment><USER6> Right now, there are a lot of billable hours for what Ross can do in seconds. I don't think it's unfair to say that this is replacing a substantial portion of _some_ lawyer's jobs.

<comment><USER7> I'd like to see a concrete description of the difference between what ROSS gives you versus what, say, LexisNexis does.

If its just giving you a simple answers and not actually producing the kind of research results a research attorney using traditional research tools would -- where the simple answer would be part of the heading, but sources and analysis would be part of the report -- its not going to be _useful_ except as a novelty. In law, its rarely as important to get a simple answer as to have an answer that you can support as most correct and explain why other potential answers are less correct for the specific circumstances.

And, from the vague marketing hype, it doesn't seem like what is really needed in law is what ROSS is being sold as doing.

<comment><USER8> My guess is that it's roughly analogous to the difference between Wolfram and Google.

One is actually computing on the data to combine it in novel ways.

The other is the one I use.

(Snarky, but as much as I try, the only thing I've found WA useful is for COLA comps)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm impressed, and I'd love to see it in action. But I'm also worried that this is going in the wrong direction.

If the law is getting too complex for humans to handle, the solution is not to create supercomputers that help us. The solution should be to simplify the law.

<comment><USER10> This seems similar to attempts to rewrite a complex code base to be simpler, more consistent, and easier to understand.

In practice, a lot of the quirky, wonky code is there to fix an actual bug that was encountered, and taking it out re-introduces the bug.

How do we know eliminating some of the complexities of current laws won't re- introduce some of the problems those complexities were trying to solve?

<comment><USER11> > How do we know eliminating some of the complexities of current laws won't > re-introduce some of the problems those complexities were trying to solve?

The other side of that coin is: are the bad outcomes produced by the current codebase bad enough that we will replace them and accept the risk of re- introducing the other bugs?

Alternatively, the entire codebase is in English (+/-) so one could _document_ the bugs that changes are attempting to address.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That's the winning project in the Watson Challenge.

[http://metronews.ca/news/toronto/1230021/watson-challenge- wi...](http://metronews.ca/news/toronto/1230021/watson-challenge-winners-at-u- of-t-want-to-create-a-great-canadian-company/)

</comment><comment><USER13> This sort of device is only applicable for very specific areas of "law". It may work for generalized law questions, retrieval of known legal principals, or even for electronic discovery (data mining) but once you get beyond law school there is a human element. I would like to see a machine come up with a novel means of describing a realworld legal situation.

Ask him to determine whether John Stewart's use of media from other networks (ie fox news) constitutes fair use for purposes of copyright law. That very basic question, answerable by any second year law student, requires image recognition, cultural understanding, even a sense of humor. It cannot be answered from legal databases alone.

Or here is one I get all the time: What constitutes "reasonable security" for a law firm handling client information? How about for a hospital? Or a Bank? No two lawyers will ever agree on those standards. They cannot be gleaned from case law and change every day in response to new threats/technology/needs. I doubt the machine would have much to add.

Or, does a CDN violate the principals of net neutrality? Lol. Have at it R2D2.

<comment><USER14> Its not meant to replace humans. Its meant to reduce the amount of tedious research work they need to do.

If you reduce the vast tedium of researching stuff in Westlaw/LexisNexis, you can spend more time on your research memo. You can do more actual analysis work. Thus firms can reduce the number of associates they need on staff, because the associates won't be wasting time on wrangling research results.

Yes, you still need a smart human to pose the right questions to Watson.

<comment><USER13> Perhaps, if you are the 1% of lawyers who are associates at big law firms doing appellate-level research. They basically the same job as law students do in LRW class, pulling hundreds of quasi-relevant caselaw from a massive database. That side of things has, in recent years, been outsourced overseas.

See companies like [http://www.legalsupportglobal.com/](http://www.legalsupportglobal.com/)

<comment><USER15> You don't have to be doing appellate level research to have a need for pulling tons of caselaw.

I doubt much of that has been actually outsourced.

But its just not a huge part of the junior associate responsibilities. It is probably 1/10th or less of the job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Next step: Engineer built on top of IBM's Watson. Next next step: Engineer built on top of IBM's Watson to replace Watson development team. :)

<comment><USER17> Did anyone say Singularity? :)

<comment><USER18> >that's not how that works

<comment><USER19> So why can't they apply Watson to the challenge of improving Watson?

<comment><USER20> I used a sharp piece of flint to carve out an even sharper piece of flint. But it didn't become sentient. :-(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wowed by the engineering brilliance. Ambivalent about the social cost-benefit. Creative destruction indeed (for the lower and middle orders, anyway).

"First it came for the factory workers,...and then the medics and lawyers..."

<comment><USER22> It won't be satisfied until there's no work left to do, then how will we spend our time!

<comment><USER23> This century-long decent into lesiure is what's really killing us. I wish I could remember back when cars were unaffordable, computers were unattainable, and hobby supplies were expensive specialist shops. I bet those were the days!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder if the creators where fans of 'Suits'

<comment><USER25> Sorry, downvoted you by mistake! I agree -- it might be a reference to Mike Ross (chap with an eidetic memory) from Suits.

<comment><USER26> Nope. Read the end. [http://thevarsity.ca/2015/01/12/a-lawyer-in-your- pocket/](http://thevarsity.ca/2015/01/12/a-lawyer-in-your-pocket/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does anyone know of in-depth articles that explain Watson internals (or even general such as what family of algorithms they're using) ?

A friend of mine got to visit their R&D department a few years ago, and told me they basically explained nothing at all and remained on the marketing level. But there's got to be something somewhere, like previous research articles by the team's members, right ?

<comment><USER28> The team has published quite a few papers (albeit they are mostly behind paywalls). Here's a good overview: [http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/23...](http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/2303/2165)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Does anybody know if this is in the "idea" stage right now or if it is a working product?

If I understand correctly, this is a project by a team of University of Toronto undergraduate students for a competition to receive 100,000 $ seed funding by IBM and continued access to Watson. It seems to me that the stated goals are incredibly ambitious // hard to reach with these resources?

</comment><comment><USER30> Honest question -- This is amazing! But why limit the search only to legal profession, why not apply Watson to all general questions and compete with Google?

I'd love an answer to a question without a list of results.

<comment><USER31> Well, in a nutshell, the way Watson Ecosystem works, you are granted access to an instance of Watson in which you can build a corpus of knowledge only in a particular domain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Is there an amazing demo of this tech that i missed ? because if not-this is just another marketing site for watson/ibm, nothing more. we've seen plenty of those done by IBM- without much result yet(for example, where is watson the chef app they promised), 4 years after jeopardy.

So i think it's better to be skeptical.

<comment><USER33> Where is the Watson chef app? It's been writing a book: [http://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Cooking-Chef-Watson- Innovati...](http://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Cooking-Chef-Watson- Innovation/dp/149262571X/)

(disclosure: I work for IBM, not in the Watson group)

<comment><USER34> Chef website: [http://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/trends- news/art...](http://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/trends- news/article/work-with-chef-watson)

Request beta access: [https://watson.ihost.com/watson/chefwatson/page/survey.html](https://watson.ihost.com/watson/chefwatson/page/survey.html)

<comment><USER32> "fill up this survey, and you might win a change to test watson". Doesn't really inspire confidence. and maybe there's a good reason for that - <USER2> it's not ready for prime time, or for heavy testing by technologists ?

And that sound like what review says here[1]:

"it's worth reiterating that, at this early stage, this software really does not stand on its own. That's not to say it's not useful (it is!) but it has a ways to go before it's ready for prime time."

And since this is field nobody has tried to build apps for(because of limited commercial value),there's nothing to compare it to, which makes it harder to evaluate the tech.

[1][http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/let-ibms-chef-watson-create- tha...](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/let-ibms-chef-watson-create-thanksgiving- meal-heres-happened/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Unequal access to our legal system is the shadow problem of our age. It touches so many aspects of our society and we barely seem to be aware of the issue.

Hopefully this technology and others in the same vein will bring costs down and speed up the process so more people can have access to what they should have already by right.

</comment><comment><USER36> This brought to mind a passage from Stanislaw Lem's "The Cyberiad", where one of the main characters cooks up a one-use lawyer, much like a throw away shell script:

And Trurl went home, threw six heaping teaspoons of transistors into a big pot, added again as many condensers and resistors, poured electrolyte over it, stirred well and covered tightly with a lid, then went to bed, and in three days the mixture had organized itself into a first-rate lawyer. Trurl didn't even need to remove it from the pot, since it was only to serve this once, so he set the pot on the table and asked:

"What are you?"

"I'm a consulting attorney and specialist in jurisprudence," the pot gurgled, for there was a bit too much electrolyte in it.

If you've never read The Cyberiad, you really should.

</comment><comment><USER37> This might be a way to help overburdened court appointed defense attorneys better represent their clients (as well as speed up the overburdened judicial system).

<comment><USER38> I'd like to think of this as comparable to CAD for architects, except attorneys have never had any serious domain-focused assistive software, beyond word processing. Maybe some have, but it's not a well-known category that I've been able to see.

<comment><USER39> There are some packages for very specific sub-fields, things like Collection Master and such but I'm not aware of anything generic enough to cover the field of 'law'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Why is this only offered to lawyers and legal professionals? I have had countless scenarios where I just want to look up something regarding the laws surrounding a topic but get lost looking for accurate legal information... This seems like a perfect solution for that use case, no?

<comment><USER41> Watson's good, but it's not that advanced. It's an 'expert system', in that it's a system for experts, not a system that is an expert.

This is a smarter, domain-specific search engine. You still need to be able to ask the right questions and then understand interpret the results it provides.

I still don't disagree that for certain 'low-stakes' issues it could be a useful tool for lay persons, but they'd need to understand the limitations. Perhaps they're worried that giving such access might tarnish the Watson brand -- if a medical doctor has tried Ross and found it wanting then when they roll out 'House' she might dismiss it as junk based on that experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I am so glad other people are thinking about this. I think the potential use of ML and AI for helping with legal matters is absolutely huge, and I think it is one of those things that would add incredibly to a large number of people's lives. I've been financially intimidated by the threat of frivolous lawsuits far too often over the last five years, and I know the problem isn't unique to me. Even if you are undeniably right, you can easily drop $100k proving it. It's the same problem that is at the root of patent trolls. This is a fantastic idea, and it's good to see the Watson team working on such fantastic stuff. I honestly hope I get a chance to help them with their efforts at some point.

</comment><comment><USER43> Kind of sounds like the beginning of Cinco e-Trial.

The best part is, e-Trial never gets it wrong.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL2RLTmqG4w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL2RLTmqG4w)

</comment><comment><USER44> Expert systems. And so the AI circle has been completed.

</comment><comment><USER45> I run lawdingo.com. Any ideas on how we could use this?

<comment><USER46> I think the most obvious way would be to offer this as a subscription service to the lawyers of your platform. But, remember we're talking about IBM, this will cost you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is a good 80/20 solution. 80% of the value of the attorney for (less than) 20% of the effort/cost.

<comment><USER48> What people seem to misunderstand about steveeg1 comment is that a lot of time at an attorney office is spend sifting through old cases.

Since lawyers bill in hours they either have to raise their hourly bill or lie about the hours spend in order to keep the final price tag the same.

<comment><USER19> As far as I know, litigators do spend a fair amount of time researching cases as it there job to assemble a case that is capable of being presented in court - although most litigation gets settled before going anywhere near a court.

However, in most law firms I know litigators are in the minority - and I don't think the likes of corporate lawyers spend much time researching cases?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Now that this "Attorney" can do legal research, I guess the next steps are to get it to marshal the relevant facts and evidence, analyze documents and information, interview witnesses, negotiate with the other side, and present a case to the jury.

<comment><USER5> Why do that? IBM becomes largest arbitrator ever, each side submits their case online, gets results in under a minute!

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> and if I want Ross to help me sue IBM, does Ross act independently? :)

<comment><USER51> So it will be IBM vs IBM

IBM wins of course. And the lawyers

<comment><USER50> Ross would have to win, otherwise IBM's product looks like a dud.

<comment><USER38> So IBM folds to protect its reputation and the robot's ego. Oh, maybe implementing ego was a poor choice after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Seems more like this totally replaces the job of much of what a paralegal does, research. It is the logical evolution of tech to do just this however.

</comment><comment><USER14> Wow! If this actually works, firms can reduce the number of junior associates needed on litigation cases.

<comment><USER53> They already are. Law dropped in 2008 recession and hasn't recovered. Law school applicants are down 1/3 or something like that, and it's causing much stir [1].

[1] [http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legalwhiteboard/2014/10/wha...](http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legalwhiteboard/2014/10/what- law-schools-can-learn-from-dental-schools-in-the-1980s-regarding-the- consequences-of-a-decline-.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Does someone now where the stunning photo of a library was taken?

<comment><USER55> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtbibliothek_Stuttgart](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtbibliothek_Stuttgart)

Another view of it: [http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblioteca_civica_di_Stoccarda#...](http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblioteca_civica_di_Stoccarda#mediaviewer/File:Bibliothek21.jpg) \- it looks positively Kubrickian.

<comment><USER56> Absolutely beautiful. I wasn't 100% sure it was even real!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Follow ROSS for updates @poweredbyross on Twitter!</comment>


Cutting-Edge Microscope Spies on Living Cells Inside the Body - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04760-7 <comment><USER2> Engadget is reporting this as well: [https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/20/microscope-3d-cell- funct...](https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/20/microscope-3d-cell-function- video/)

They link to Harvard Medical School report which is more detailed: [https://hms.harvard.edu/news/boldly-go](https://hms.harvard.edu/news/boldly- go)?

"In a new study in the April 20 issue of Science, researchers from Howard Hughes Medical Institute's (HHMI) Janelia Research Campus, Harvard Medical School and collaborating institutions report the development of a microscope capable of capturing 3-D images and videos of cells inside living organisms in unprecedented detail."

Mind-boggling detail. Stunning imagery. I wonder what the key advances here were to ramp up the resolution. There's nothing like seeing something in real- time with your own eyes. I can well imagine this will lead to an explosion of medical advances. Funny, I always thought physics was "sexier" than "chemistry" which in turn was "sexier" than biology. I'd say I got that dead wrong.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More of these mysterious images from Janelia physicist Dr. Eric Betzig's lab in link. Optical innovations, combined adaptive software, are piercing the veil on hitherto unseen phenomena!

Observing the cell in its native state: Imaging subcellular dynamics in multicellular organisms

[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6386/eaaq1392](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6386/eaaq1392)</comment>


Does more screen real estate make you more productive?  - <AUTHOR>

I have been using my 20" Dell LCD for 4 years now and debating if I need to upgrade or not.<p>What type of setups do you guys have. Does a big screen really help you design/ develop more efficiently? <comment><USER2> Yes, up to a point.

I've used two 19" 1280x1024 monitors, two 20" 1600x1200 monitors, three 20" 1600x1200 monitors, and one 30" 2560x1600 monitor.

The most productive, and what I use now are the two 20" monitors. With three there was always one on the edge I didn't really use, and the 30" was horrible because minimize and maximizing windows was no longer useful. Rarely if ever do you want something to be 30" in size.

I'd guess what works best varies person by person, but once you have to move your head more than a little to see something, it's far enough away that you won't use it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Classic Dilbert cartoon about dual monitors. It rings true...

Disclosure: I'm very happy with my secondary Dell 20" LCD - put my term windows and mail/IM windows there.

The cartoon is not available on the main dilbert site anymore... Hopefully this link works. [http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s133/fottizio/Varie/dilbe...](http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s133/fottizio/Varie/dilbert2036666071016fm7.gif)

</comment><comment><USER3> I remember seeing Paul Buchheit's (Gmail creator) setup for pair programming. It is extra-ordinary.

Two laptops, one 1080p 42"+ HDTV

[http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/06/quick-big-screen- de...](http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/06/quick-big-screen- development.html) <http://tinyurl.com/2s9jz6>

</comment><comment><USER4> My home setup consists of two wide-screen 21" ViewSonic monitors. Wide screen is interesting, you can easily have three documents open side by side (html, css, and browser for example). I usually play a TV show or a movie on the other screen - gotta have something playing in the background.

Tall monitors seem interesting. I came across this photo of an office at Apple: [http://www.officesnapshots.com/wp- content/galleries/apple/ap...](http://www.officesnapshots.com/wp- content/galleries/apple/apple8.jpg) I've never seen one of those, but that seems just incredible for coding (I know it's a flipped wide monitor, but the dimensions are interesting). You can see much more code in there. It makes code much easier to read and understand.

</comment><comment><USER5> I absolutely love my two 19 inch Samsung 940BF's and I'm definitely more efficient with them. I can have my code on one side and a web browser on the other. If I'm doing schoolwork, such as writing a paper, well, I get a web browser on one side and Open Office on the other. I'm even more efficient at leisure now - I can browse the web on one side and watch TV or a movie on the other. I think my next display upgrade will be an array of either 3 or 4 monitors.

I disagree with the people posting about wishing they had a single large monitor -- I can't stand reading the tiny text on high resolution displays. I think 1280x1024 on an 18-19 inch monitor offers the best readability.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm using a Dell 24 - it's great, but I can always use more. The ability to view more of a given code segment helps me understand it more quickly.

An aside: I find that the (unix) screen utility is a great way to help me make better use of the the shell's real-estate. 'man screen' to find out more. The only real annoyance is the default use of ^a for everything, which I often use instead to go to the beginning of the current line. But it can be remapped.

</comment><comment><USER7> Larger is nicer, but I think more is better. Having 2, 19" monitors would be much better to me over one 22 inch.

Currently I use a 22" wide and a 15.4" (laptop) as a second monitor.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have two 19" monitors, and wish I had one, say, 30" monitor. I would like to be able to use the "center" of the screen...

<comment><USER9> Same experience here. Two monitors are _not_ the same as one large high- resolution monitor. I wish I had one of the latter as well.

<comment><USER10> One 30" is _much_ better. As you said, the center becomes usable again. I would never go back to two screens, even if they offered more total space.

That being said, I could go for one 42".</comment></comment></comment>


Robot needs 50 tries to learn how to flip pancakes. - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/robot-learns-to-flip-pancakes/

<comment><USER2> Two interesting things to notice from the video:

1\. In the failure trials the robot does not move its arm toward the object as it falls. This is distinctly inhuman! When we initiate a motor program we are constantly checking our prediction for the behavior of both our body and external objects against reality and then updating that program in real time. This bot apparently updates its program only after each trial.

2\. The robot moves back to its standard starting position after each successful trial. This demonstrates the specificity of the motor pattern it's developed. Due to time pressure and the complexity of variations we deal with it is usually advantageous to learn a generalized pattern rather than a single pattern that works for a constrained set of starting conditions.

As a side note on the difficulty of this task, I agree with sukuriant that the paucity of the information the robot has, especially lack of fine grained touch, is a huge impediment. Secondly recall that in the human brain about 50% of the neurons live in the cerebellum which is strongly implicated in storing and updating fine grained motor patterns. (Gross patterns and intentions being initiated in the motor cortex).

<comment><USER3> Watch a professional basketball payer shoot freethrows and you see an attempt to replicate initial conditions. It's actually fairly normal when someone is trying to be precise, ex: Darts, billiards, tennis etc.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interesting how the failures make it look eerily human. And it seems to me while watching that the robot becomes frustrated when failing. I know it's me projecting that, seems interesting to apply that to human interaction though. How much is projection and how much is real empathy.

<comment><USER4> If you haven't yet, read up on the concept of the "Uncanny Valley". It's relevant to what you express here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What I find particularly interesting is the sort of "superstition" many of these kinds of robots show. What I'm referring to in this case is how, after 50 tries, the robot arm here moves to its right before every flip attempt. I believe the same thing shows up with solutions from genetic algorithms and neural networks.

Seems like there is always some non-negligible probability that within the factors any learning robot takes into account as part of its success is a factor which is actually totally irrelevant. That's probably somewhat how our own brains operate as well.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps running the learning process multiple times and averaging(?) the results would eliminate irrelevant motions. Or perhaps the irrelevant parts are critical to the rest of the movements, and removing them would break things.

<comment><USER7> If the motions are truly irrelevant, then yes, they would disappear. But they could disappear as a function of the number of trials, so anything that still persists after 50 trials would take a long time to get rid of.

It is general a hard problem in adaptive learning algorithms that they only produce results. You can't tell the superstition from the intuition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What's interesting to me is that the robot has a little pan wobble at the end of the flip. I wonder if that has some sort of advantageous effect on the outcome of a flip? Or maybe the robot is just 'superstitious' because it had a more successful run once when it added the wobble.

<comment><USER9> From the Vimeo description:

> _"After 50 trials, the robot learns that the first part of the task requires > a stiff behavior to throw the pancake in the air, while the second part > requires the hand to be compliant in order to catch the pancake without > having it bounced off the pan."_

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The associated article seems to think that 50 steps is a long amount of time for learning this article. I would argue that 50 steps is nearly no time at all. Even though a human being may take less attempts to learn, 1) we are likely taking input from more senses than the robot is about what's occurring (we sense by stereoscopic sight, feel, etc. The robot may not sense by all of these.) 2) can apply knowledge from other domains in solving this problem (if memory serves me, this is part of the Holy Grail for artificial intelligence) 3) may make multiple attempts in our own minds before attempting to perform the activity physically again.

While I'm primarily experienced in Genetic Algorithms and NNs (so not re- enforcement learning, so much), 50 steps (or generations in a non-steady-state GA) is a very short amount of time, and so learning to properly coordinate multiple degrees of freedom into a successful activity in only 50 steps is, to me, pretty impressive.

<comment><USER11> I'd say it's pretty impressive even for a human.

We also have the advantage of having some 'physics simulation' software if you will that lets us do some runs in our head before doing it physically.

<comment><USER12> Our biology is designed to anticipate gravity. Regardless of athletic training the average person is capable of adeptly throwing and catching a ball.

I work in construction and I regularly throw and catch objects like rolls of tape - duct tape sized rolls - 18V drills, levels, etc. but it's only when we throw something light (IE that air-resistance has an effect) and then you start getting screwed up. We don't expect things to slow down dramatically when it's thrown or falls.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I realize this isn't exactly the point of the whole exercise, but a stiff pancake that easily slides onto the pan is kind of cheating. :-)

A deformable pancake would make the experiment batter.

<comment><USER14> If that was a pun, it was awful. If it was a Freudian slip, it was epic.

<comment><USER15> You seem to have very high standards for puns, and very low standards for Freudian slips.

Here is the epic pun you are looking for:

<http://puzzlet.org/personal/wiki.php/KnockKnock/SoThisGuy>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm pretty sure it would take me about as long to master...

<comment><USER17> Especially if you are blindfolded. Which are the conditions for the robot, I believe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Even though it doesn't use any learning process, I think that you might find this video interesting:

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3757897210640719617#>

The control uses the dynamics of the robot to optimize a trajectory to increase the weight that the robot can lift.

</comment><comment><USER19> Next: try pancakes of varying shapes and sizes. I have a suspicion they might struggle with their approach.

<comment><USER20> Or how about something more challenging... toss the pancake higher, or make the pancake rotate more rotations when tossed =P

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm curious if anyone knows why it sounded like there was a jet engine in the background throughout the video? Was it just a bad recording or was there some reason why the room had to have a crazy amount of ventilation?

</comment><comment><USER22> Has anybody found a better link, describing more technical details?

</comment><comment><USER23> "Artificial pancake." You know, as opposed to the ones that grow on trees. Great.

</comment><comment><USER24> "WITH THIS ROBOT, HE PLANS TO ENSLAVE THE WORLD!" _dramatic choir_

Sarcasm aside, I'm sure stressed-out mothers and financiers alike rejoice...</comment>


Apple Unveils macOS Catalina - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/3/18650205/apple-macos-catalina-10-15-update-announced-features-wwdc-2019 <comment><USER2> I sure hope that Slack can now get their iOS app (which performs better than the current desktop version believe it or not) working on the Mac.

This has great potential to finally bring competition to Electron. We learned that HTML and JS apps perform terribly on mobile. Why we repeated the same mistake on desktop just boggles the mind. This should bring a huge number native apps to the Mac (although this won't solve the issue for Windows or Linux users).</comment>


Discuss: There are no more Google/Facebook size opportunities on the web. - <AUTHOR>

I feel like all the big 1+ billion online opportunities have already been grabbed, and there's nothing big remaining. Does anyone else feel this way? <comment><USER2> In technology, billion dollar markets and opportunities are usually only recognized after they've landed. Its hard to predict or foresee markets, and even if you can, you have no idea what will work and what won't.

There are actually billion dollar opportunities opening up all the time with every new platform. Look at how many companies the Facebook API spawned; Zynga is valued at billions of dollars and is 3 years old. They make dinky flash games for gods sakes. Playdom was acquired for around $800 million by Disney.

iPhone and Android apps have made millionaires out of small teams of developers. The makers of Tap Tap Revenge, a series of iPhone games, were grossing millions in revenue.

There are ALWAYS opportunities. Obviously fewer billion dollar ones, but who cares otherwise.

<comment><USER3> I second this. Back in 2000 I had a friend who had this stupid website called "GroupNetwork". Every time he brought up his site (and he brought it up a lot, as it kind of defined his entire life at the time) we'd all make fun of it for a while before moving on.

Specifically, you would create an account on it, and then had access to a rather limited blog mechanism (you could download much better blogging software) and a relatively lame photo gallery (why would I trust this site with my photos? it isn't even good at browsing them). You could then make these things called "groups" in which you could add your friends, assuming they also had an account (and how likely would that be, right?).

The worst part was that he had this "API" by which third parties could write new applications that plugged into this framework... sounds great, but it meant that all the third party apps had to use HTTP requests (dude: slow) to get access to the data. He tried to make it feel better by making all of the queries based on SQL (insecure? seriously: stupid).

OMG was that a stupid idea. ;P

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Finding a way to filter silly questions off the internet is easily a multibillion dollar idea.

<comment><USER5> umm... interesting. Maybe someone can extend that and actually solve the problem of spam.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6>
      user:	sidder
      created: 15 minutes ago

Don't feed the trolls.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't have any intent to troll, I just created this account to ask this question. I think it's possible to have a meaningful discussion about large opportunities in the internet's future.

<comment><USER6> Alright, I'll take you at your word. The question is kind of ridiculous though; there are new billion dollar companies created pretty regularly; what makes you think that's stopped happening?

<comment><AUTHOR> The opportunities for creating tremendous value may move elsewhere, and the web may simply become a utility. It became a lot harder to create a profitable car company after the automotive industry matured.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One question you could ask is :are there any big industries that hasn't used the full potential of the web yet ? the answer is clearly yes: just look at education,health-care, web-video,human-resources and there are probably others.

Another question : what kind of new technologies have the potential to enhance the web ? telepresence,AI, augmented-reality and 3d-printing are probably just a few. every enhancement could easily open new markets.

</comment><comment><USER8> Only when I think about other industries as examples.

In theory the more people fussing around some industry, the more tools they create for it, the more possibilities there are and so more money can be made. That's been true for scientific and technological progress overall, but individual industries stagnate.

I understand the feeling, you're out of ideas or whatever, but there are actually more possibilities now than there were when Googleface was starting out, in theory.

In practice industries stagnate for non-technical, social reasons. Too many people join, create too much fuss, the best people might leave and create a boom elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER9> I remember reading articles 1998/1999 saying that the search problem had been solved and no major new search engines would enter the market.

Google proved that wrong.

There are many 1+ billion opportunities. Think of the ideas that started Google / Facebook - Pagerank and a class hand-book. Had these ideas been explained to me as starting successful billion dollar companies, I would have laughed.

Not to say that that all laughable ideas create billion dollar companies. However, I think the laughable part is the interesting bit. Maybe we find these ideas humorous because they force us to look at the world in a different way.

<comment><USER10> How is the concept of ranking websites based on links a laughable idea? We already knew search would be worth billions at that point and the methodology of ranking sites during the bubble was awful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Everything worth inventing has already been invented...

<comment><USER12> until someone invents something else worth inventing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Every day the old technologies get a little more penetration and the world at large is a little more ready for the next one. There's no market for Twitter if the wrench hasn't yet been invented, but that doesn't mean there never will be. Technology wave N is here; why shouldn't anything in technology wave N+1 be worth a billion dollars?

<comment><USER14> Can you prove this using induction?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> No way, the next big thing is always just around the corner. The world will change, facebook and google will become old and their successor(s) will come from somewhere they don't expect.

Look at how Microsoft surprised IBM, then Google suprised Microsoft and now Facebook look like they might threaten Google's empire.

<comment><USER10> I'm not trying to be snarky or anything. I'm honestly curious as to how Facebook threatens Google?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> A scant two years ago, someone might have said that there are no more MySpace- sized opportunities on the web.

<comment><USER10> Facebook was already bigger than Myspace two years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Groupon has become a 1+ billion company in less than 17 months. See Forbes article: [http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/entrepreneurs- groupon...](http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/entrepreneurs-groupon- facebook-twitter-next-web-phenom.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> Of course there are.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm sure people said there were no more Google sized opportunities before Facebook too...

<comment><USER5> as far as I know, yahoo had captured the "portal" business, so "they" must have also said "There are no yahoo sized opportunities left"

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think there are more opportunities than ever before.

</comment><comment><USER21> I guess Twitter and Quora are the next Facebook/Google.</comment>


British aircraft carrier (HMS Invincible)  for sale - <AUTHOR> http://www.edisposals.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/Disposals-Public-Site/en_US/-/GBP/ViewProductDetail-Product;pgid=MieqQ4wkQg8000ArvQ_8K1sp0000CisTad9a?ProductUUID=38jAqBIQwVwAAAEsaApaBWLN&CatalogCategoryID=VaLAqBELPagAAAED8GeasfoP

<comment><USER3> From the fact that they're very interested in telling you its precise metal content I think we can assume that they're not expecting to sell it for a floating museum or a billionaire's private yacht.

There's no price given, but I would estimate that it will go for approximately the cost of ten thousand tons of scrap steel, minus the cost of towing it to China.

<comment><USER4> Properly, but then the fun things usually happens when somebody does something you wouldn't expect.

Sadly, I don't have the money to buy it; would be awesome as a place to create a free port of call though. Work on your startups while sailing the mediteranian. Plus no pirates are stupid enough to attack an aircraft carrier.

<comment><USER5> _Engines - <USER2>

 _Generators and Pumps - Generally unserviceable or not working_

Doesn't quite seem so seaworthy now, eh? If the Royal Navy wanted to sell it as a ship, they would have sold it to an allied country; in fact, there were plans to sell it to Australia in the 80's, but the Falkland Islands War queered the deal.

The carrier isn't tremendously useful though--it can only carry helicopters and Harriers, not full aircraft.

<comment><USER6> Why is a Harrier or a helicopter not a full aircraft? They certainly look and behave like aircraft.

<comment><USER7> Well, they are but they also have vertical take-off. What the person above was probably trying to say is that it is no good for launching fighter jets.

<comment><USER6> The Harrier does not usually launch vertically from these carrier either, but they are STOVL aircraft; I think you meant to say that the original poster meant to say that non-STOVL jets struggle to launch from them, which is still quite a leap from claiming that neither a helicopter nor a STOVL-capable plane is a full aircraft.

<comment><USER5> Apologies for the lack of clarity. I think by now you know what I meant, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Soon to be joined, I expect, by one of the two brand new ones. Look sharp and you can also buy the aircraft to go with it, as the UK has decided to simply hope no carrier-borne aircraft will be needed for a decade or so.

<comment><USER4> Why?

<comment><USER6> Because it's cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like the "Add to Wish List" button on the website.

Please Santa, please!

<comment><USER4> True, also the "Availability: In stock" is pretty funny.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> No engine, and the pumps and generator are bad. Seems like a good fixer upper (no thanks)?</comment>


Twitter's on GitHub - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/blog/669-twitter-s-on-github <comment><USER2> I love the pedigree of open source apps. Facebook made cassandra, thrift, and scribe. Twitter uses all three.

It makes the competition less about technical know-how and more about product. Awesome.

</comment><comment><USER3> Direct link to all projects+description page: <http://twitter.com/about/opensource>

</comment><comment><USER4> Direct link: <http://github.com/twitter>

edit, this is just one of several of their accounts

</comment><comment><USER5> ...is GitHub 'on github'?

<comment><USER6> Of course <http://github.com/github> (admittedly, much of our OSS contributions are split between our personal accounts)

<comment><USER7> maybe a feature that will aggregate all repos under one company namespace?

<comment><USER8> There are links to each Githubbers profile on the blog ( in the right hand column):

<http://github.com/blog></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Zen of Python typographic poster - dnt404-1 https://github.com/ewjoachim/zen-of-python

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't know if the text gains anything from the added typographical noise.</comment>


Minimum Viable Movie: How I Made a Feature-Length Film for $0 - <AUTHOR> http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/minimum-viable-movie-joe-avella/ <comment><USER2> I have about a decade of experience in low- and no-budget filmmaking, including 9 feature films and too many shorts to count. Technology is a wonderful thing, as is the fact that people are willing to pitch in and led equipment, talent, and locations for nothing. But...

a) if you work this way (with actors doubling up as crew and so on), then you say goodbye to QA. Although there are clear improvements from project to project the quality is...not good. I don't want to go through a laundry list of critcisms. But I suggest ditching the DV camera, getting a DSLR, and learning to shoot at 24p with a 1/50 shutter speed. The cost and time savings of not using DV tapes _alone_ will cover the food bill for your shoot.

b) "I raised $2,000 using Kickstarter." That's a very small budget, but it's a hell of a lot bigger than $0, no? This sort of bait-and-switch marketing technique only works if you have a commercial release. Your budget is part of your marketing plan, and you can only use this trick once. OK, so the point is that the filmmaker did it with $0 of his own cash. There's a thin line between creatively financing your project on a shoestring, and coming off as a freeloader.

c) "If this is what I did with $2,000 imagine what I could do with $2,000,000." Production companies in Hollywood hear this pitch approximately weekly. The response (among themselves, not to you) is 'I'm perfectly capable of wasting my own money.' What you need to focus on now is leveraging the achievements so far into a $20,000 budget (enough to pay a minimum wage to a small crew and cast), and having a plan to generate a similar amount of revenue. _That_ will open doors to larger things.

<comment><USER3> As someone interested in making documentaries on a shoestring - I think it is an intereting educational and interview tool - are there specific products you would point me at, community film groups - are they any good? Just basic 'mistakes not to make' list would be very appreciated - top of the list is which camera to (not) get and whether OSS can handle non linear editing

edit : and, rude of me not to ask first time, do you have links to any of your 9(!) feature films - would be interested and the hackernewser links don't seem to take me there.

<comment><USER2> _are there specific products you would point me at, community film groups - are they any good? Just basic 'mistakes not to make' list would be very appreciated - top of the list is which camera to (not) get and whether OSS can handle non linear editing_

I personally like Canon DSLRs. The current Digital Rebel series produce nice images in combination with a tool like Magic Lantern for well under $100. If you can afford a 7D or %d the image quality is marginally better, the ergonomics significantly so. But products from Nikon are also good, as are the Micro 4:3 units from Panasonic. Sony's I'm not familiar with, but have heard others speak highly of them.

Certainly check out film production courses at commnity colleges in your area - you may be able to learn a great deal for relatively few $, not to mention making food contacts. Online, good resources are <http://prolost.com/> and <http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/> are two of the best resources, but also check <http://rebelsguide.com/forum/>. Stu Maschwitz's 'Rebel's Guide' is a really excellent starting point in book form, I wish I'd had it when I got started: <http://astore.amazon.com/prolost-20/detail/0321413644> The Guerilla Filmmaker's handbook is also excellent: [http://www.amazon.com/Guerilla- Makers-Handbook-American-Edit...](http://www.amazon.com/Guerilla-Makers- Handbook-American-Edition/dp/0826414648) Join a film library or filmmaker society if you are a decent sized city, as you'll save a fortune on seeking out and buying books on technique, financing, contracts, etc.

I personally don't rate open source audio/video editing products very highly. If you're on Mac, then you have to seriously consider final Cut, but Adobe sells the most comprehensive suite of tools. (Disclosure: I test for them.)

You need to understand something about motion graphics even if all you're doing is putting up titles and evening out lighting/color disparities in your footage. You can pick up books on Adobe Premiere and After Effects for pennies - no need for the most current version, learn the basics from a book that's a version or two out of date. You can get demo versions of the Creative Suite software for free, and get full working versions quite cheap if you are enrolled somewhere as a student (same is true for competitors of course). If you have a budget then treat them as a line-item expense. If not, then you can go looking for an, ah, evaluation copy. Don't try to become expert in everything, but become conversant with the basics so you can have meaningful conversations with people who are more experienced.

BTW, as you're in the UK, shoot 25p rather than 24p. It's easy to convert later for other markets if necessary, but naturally you want something that works with your local TV standards. The Guerilla film guide has more of a UK focus, which may be helpful for you.

 _edit : and, rude of me not to ask first time, do you have links to any of your 9(!) feature films - would be interested and the hackernewser links don't seem to take me there._

Sure, here's a few. Please note that they're not 'my' films; they're films on which I worked as crew or cast, and/or in which I had a silent producer role. Most of them are pretty bad :-)

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0491095/> <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460985/> <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0968738/> <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0834904/> <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0860837/> <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1762380/>

<comment><USER2> Ooops, that should read 'for well under $1000' - for a camera like the T3i or somesuch, plus a few SD cards.

<comment><USER3> That's a shame :-). But thanks for the great overview - will see how we go!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really refreshing to see how people use their resources in another industry. I'm glad to hear that he got inspiration from the hacker community at SXSW.I haven't watched the movie yet, but I have it bookmarked for this weekend.

</comment><comment><USER5> Could somebody take this further and build up a studio that seeds those kind of movies?

I mean, look at Primer (posted here, thanks!): a budget of 7000$ and a 424000$ revenue. Even if they had a margin of 10% on that, 42000$ is still a great payback.

I was reading on HN of a guy proposing budgets of 25k per movie. That means 4 movies with 100 k. Is somebody doing this? Why nothing like this comes up or more mainstream?

Thoughts?

<comment><USER6> I think filmmaking and other pursuits like music will continue to bring great authors without any community funding. Every great artist just got started with limited means and their work shows for itself. A good artist doesn't need a few thousand dollars to get started, they just get started, and that initial work is either good enough for the artist to move forward or it isn't. Peter Jackson started his first film in his backyard with his friends on the weekend, and through sheer persistence just kept going with it long enough, and with interesting enough ultra-low budget footage that he got a grant to finish it, based on the quality of his work. Every other successful artist I know just had the hustle built in: the act of producing. You can't pay people to find out if they are going to make great work. It's there or it's not.

<comment><USER5> I don't agree with that. I mean, let's be practical here, movies are there to make money. If a movie has a budget of 25 k, you need ~50 k people willing to pay 1 euro to watch it to make already a decent margin. Then, after a while, you sell downloads withouth DRM and you make another nice profit.

Other than that, a studio should offer: actors easy to reach to (maybe on a wage?), shooting gear, special effects experts, etc. Lots of this things would lower the entry barriers for movies a LOT.

<comment><USER6> If you're talking about movies as an industry then that's different, but if you're talking about finding great work like Primer or Herzog's documentaries, throwing money at filmmakers isn't going to make great work and kickstarter- for-movies may just flood us with more mediocre product that doesn't follow through on the director/writer's promise. You can't make a movie with a community controlling the outcome: you need absolute creative control to make a good film.

Shooting gear, special fx: these things are already so inexpensive compared to 10 years ago that having a nice HD camera and lenses and access to After Effects isn't stopping anyone. I've got friends making films after hours and on the weekends because they decided a long time ago it's what they wanted to do, and they'll keep doing it until they make that one beautiful, promising piece.

You just can't kick-starter this: good work happens serependitiously, not because of a bigger budget.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Action City Bathroom[1] is brilliantly funny (at least IMHO).

[1] - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fqC9iKpZns>

<comment><USER8> Thanks iuguy! Glad you enjoyed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whenever I see people claiming they did something for 0$ I find it disingenuous. It reminds me of the old JWZ quote:

> Linux is only free if your time has no value

<comment><USER8> JWZ?

<comment><USER10> Jamie Zawinski, one of the original Netscape developers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's a great indie film making community in Fairfield, IA. Have you ever been there? <http://theskyisfree.com> is an example of something out of Fairfield - also made on basically 0 budget.

<comment><USER12> Tell me who I am

Tell me what to know and where to go

.. I'll follow

Lead us to the lie

You gave your gift now we believe

... its up there

The sky is free and we are free

<comment><USER11> :D!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have not seen this movie (yet) - But there is an other film that was made on a shoestring budget (ca$5000) called Donkey.

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1595388/>

This film has the feeling and quality of early Quentin Tarantino films, and a plot that is much better than 90% of major US films.

<comment><USER13> _Primer_ (2004) is surprisingly good indie film made for just $7000:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_%28film%29>

<comment><USER14> Primer is probably my all-time favorite. I'm in love with the whole thing. The story, the acting, the soundtrack, all phenomenal for what is basically the work of one guy.

The best part, though, is the feeling that you could go out to your garage and build something amazing.

<comment><USER8> What ever happend to that dude? Shane Carruth? Form the looks of his imdb he hasn't done much. Too bad :(

<comment><USER14> From what I've heard, he's working on a new movie called A Topiary. I assume he's doing it the same way as Primer, so it'll probably be a while.

<comment><USER13> io9 has some (not _too_ spoiler-y) info about _A Topiary_ from 2010:

[http://io9.com/5569986/more-details-about-shane-carruths- nex...](http://io9.com/5569986/more-details-about-shane-carruths-next- mind+bending-film)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How did you cope with being laid-off? - <AUTHOR> There are rumblings that several of my team members and I may be facing a grim future at September's end. I have enough savings to get me through 6 months, and feel like I will be able to find something else, but the uncertainty is still nerve wracking. Have you ever been laid-off and how did you bounce back from it? <comment><USER2> One of the hardest things to remember is that despite what our culture seems to believe: your moral worth is not equivalent to the value of your current employment relationship. Don't let anyone, especially self-doubt, try to blame the lay-off on you or that you did anything right/wrong. Don't let anyone tell you while you are unemployed and seeking employment that you are worthless or terrible.

One especially hard one, I found, to deal with is unemployment insurance. _You_ pay into unemployment insurance while employed, it's an insurance product designed to soften the blow in precisely these sorts of situations. Some state governments (in my case I especially throw shade on Indiana) force you to read brochures (and sign and fill out forms) designed to make you feel as guilty as possible to deign to take money out of the insurance pool you contributed to. It's hard to stay emotionally afloat when even the systems designed to help support you in a tumultuous time were designed to also harass you for needing them.

It can be a full time job to interview and look for your next job. Don't forget to take some emotional breaks and see friends and family you love and remind yourself you aren't alone, and are worth more to the world than just the job that laid you off or the next job that you will eventually find.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been back to work for a month following a 3-month layoff. I knew my company was heading down a dark path at the end of last year and started to reply to recruiters that would contact me. When a dozen people were marched into a room and to see HR and the two owners sitting together was still quite the shock though.

I made sure to keep a routine during my time off. I set my alarm and got up on time each morning. After dropping my kid off at day care I came home and did an hour or so of applying to jobs.

The first week or so I only applied to dream jobs, and slowly started to expand my search. My search criteria expanded as follows:

Exclusive work from home, iOS Developer, making $$$+

Willing to go to an office 3 days a week, iOS Developer, making $$$+

Willing to go to an office 3 days a week, iOS/Web Developer, $$+

One day remote, iOS/Web Developer, $$+

Pays me money

I ended up landing a job that offers one day a week remote and a $10k pay raise. I'm not doing iOS work though. Persistence is key, start to expand your network now, and honestly, might not hurt to try to beat HR to their own game.

No one (visibly) gave pause when I explained that I was laid off, it may have helped that I would follow up my reason for looking with mention that former supervisors and owners are willing references if we get to that point.

</comment><comment><USER4> Something to bear in mind. I've been in this game 33 years now and very few of the companies I worked for even exist today. They either went bust or were bought by a bigger company. And I'm not talking fly by night companies either: MySQL AB bought by Sun for 1 billion. Sun bought by Oracle. One day someone will probably buy Oracle (God help them!).

One company I worked for I literally had about an hour's notice before they shuttered. I was working from home on the Friday and got a call late afternoon and while my manager was on the phone the sys admins shut down the networks and an hour or so later everyone had gone home and the company never opened its doors again!

Being laid off can work out. The last time I got laid off I took the plunge, went contracting, and never looked back.

My advice. Stay cool. You have savings (many don't). This could be a good opportunity for you.

</comment><comment><USER5> In March 2013 I was laid off from Research In Motion. It was my first full- time job. I got 10 weeks of severance (I'd been employed since January 2012), on top of the savings I had.

I was pretty shocked, so I took a few days of "vacation" to not think about anything work related. Then I started looking around for a new job, secured by the knowledge that I had money for living expenses for the near future. I started out selectively: looking for fun jobs that interested me. I took a part time job at a startup, partnered up on a business idea with some friends from the local Linux Users Group. Eventually I found a new full-time job overseas through a friend.

</comment><comment><USER6> No company hires anyone just because. Management have a plan and need people to help execute it. If layoffs occur it is because management failed to execute the plan - and workers bear the consequences. That's all it is. Anyone who has been around the block, or worked in volatile industries, knows the score, so don't worry about being judged in your next interview. When they ask why you left your last job look them in the eye and say layoffs, anyone worth working for will understand. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER7> You can wait for the ship to sink before swimming to the next ship or you can jump and board another ship while the current one is still afloat. Both are viable options - depends how much you like swimming in possibilities/uncertainties, but it sounds like you find it nerve wracking. :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Make sure to start collecting unemployment as soon as possible. For people with savings that don't feel like they need it, you can tend to let that slip.

If the job search takes longer than you anticipated you may have left a few thousand on the table.

<comment><USER9> Also, factor in and take COBRA health insurance (if your context provides for it).

You never know what might hit. The group pricing is cheaper than you will find, individually.

And, with the uncertainty in U.S. health care (if we are talking about the U.S. context), it is worthwhile right now to maintain continuous coverage. You don't want one or another variation of the ACA "repeal" push to suddenly make a gap in coverage much more significant and negatively impactful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Don't wait. Start taking action, now.

Not only will you be further along if it does happen. You'll feel more in control and less stressed.

</comment><comment><USER10> Start searching for a job now.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best time to introduce eventual consistency into a system? - <AUTHOR> Let us say, there is a relational db intensive SaaS application that is being tested for its capabilities. As more and more data is saved by customers, the operations become slower and slower, because the use case needs to go back to some of the data stored earlier(need to select, sort on some fields) and update some values. So the longer the customer has used the product, the slower the application becomes.
Is this the right time to introduce eventual consistency to the application so the newer saves can be done faster so the user experience is better? All operations are done on a single db txn, because we need ACID properties of the relational database. So in case something fails, rectifying it outside the context of the user request is going to be difficult for user.
This is the classic case of users outgrowing the capabilities of the application. Could anyone speak from experience or provide pointers to examples of what worked for others? <comment><AUTHOR> To clarify, is this a valid usecase to introduce streaming architecture to the system?

</comment><comment><USER2> /me can't resist

Eventually.</comment>


Making the case for that payrise the hacker way - <AUTHOR> http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/

<comment><AUTHOR> While reading <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1591225> about asking for a payrise, there was lots of talk of finding your market worth before asking.

This is the tool I use for that (Not mine, obviously). It gets source data from job adverts, so I assume that the upper bound might be inflated, and personal experience says that the lower bounds are typically shown as being higher than in practice. But the figures feel about right, and there is a lot of other nice bits of information too.</comment>


Kinect optical camouflage hack makes you invisible - <AUTHOR> http://www.neowin.net/news/kinect-optical-camouflage-hack-makes-you-invisible

<comment><USER2> Maybe I'm missing something, but this seems to be just:

+Take a static shot of room

+Record image of the actor via Kinect

+Overlay actor and apply a filter

Not exactly a hack, but just a relatively simple video trick. I'm not even sure what applications there are beyond this video effect.

<comment><USER3> Normally when chroma keying you have to cover something in green or blue or use that as the background.

This technique apparently uses the kinect's ability to recognize the body to crop it out in real time to achieve this effect.

<comment><USER4> Check out the game 'Yoostar' which is a commercial implementation of this, allowing people to insert themselves into their favourite movie scenes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 3D data not required. EffecTV had this almost a decade ago: <http://effectv.sourceforge.net/predator.html>

Check out the rest of the EffecTV effects: <http://effectv.sourceforge.net/>

This is cool, nonetheless. I'd really like to see someone find a way to add 3D data to EffecTV.</comment>


Netflix's Fascinating Cancellation Questionnaire - <AUTHOR> http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2011/06/12/netflix-cancellation/

<comment><USER2> Iirr sky had a torrent client in it's pc 'app' for a while. I wonder how much more effective having a signed torrent file spread around your subscribers is compared to a really good cdn? Does anyone have any figures?

(by signed torrents I mean netflix gpg signs each chunk and so you can be assured the quality is top notch they can be fairly sure you get charged etc etc)

<comment><USER3> P2P is much slower than CDNs; e.g. Joost only got 1/3 of each stream from P2P (hardly seems worth the engineering effort).</comment></comment>


Hyde - a static website generator powered by Python & Django - <AUTHOR> http://ringce.com/hyde

<comment><AUTHOR> With programmer-friendly blogs/CMS's such as Hyde or Jekyll, I see less and less reason for database-backed solutions and their overhead, at least for the solitary writer/coder on his own site. Previously dynamic parts like comments, pingbacks, and search can all be outsourced (e.g. Disqus for comments). And on top of speed and simplicity, it also seems to me that such systems offer a killer-advantage: the use of real version control systems with one's content. Does anyone disagree?</comment>


Mesofacts, Memes and More: 25 New Tech Words You Need to Know - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/07/new-tech-words-vocabulary/ <comment><USER2> "Meh - One of the best onomatopoeias ever"

\--Nice.</comment>


Iran Bans Arstechnica - <AUTHOR> http://arabcrunch.com/2010/10/iran-bans-arstechnica.html Arstechnica says the ban happened after the sites published second piece of coverage about the Stuxnet malware which hit Ithe workers of Iranian power plant. <comment><AUTHOR> Arstechnica is a technology website, this is wrong to ban it

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> well, freedome of speech comes to test here.

</comment><comment><USER2> Iran ftw</comment>


'Most Unusual' Vehicle Stopped on M25 in Hertfordshire - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-49393998 <comment><AUTHOR> _a "homemade electric motorcycle" which was "made from bits of balsa wood and duck tape"_</comment>


No one cooks at home with a Leatherman - <AUTHOR> http://scotchandcode.com/2011/10/26/no-one-cooks-at-home-with-a-leatherman/

<comment><USER2> Well, it depends on whether the feature imposes any costs on people who do not need the feature. For example, the cost to every Emacs user of adding a new major mode customized for some obscure programming language is negligible because all Emacs users already have to know about and adapt to whatever complexity is required to support n major modes. (I am not sure, but I suspect that approximately the same thing applies to drivers in Linux.)

Well, it is a little more complicated than that because catering to a small market tends to have lower expected revenue than catering to a market that might become very big. That is a minor reason for not catering to any and all feature requests, but I believe that the major reason is that it tends to make things more complicated for the majority.</comment>


DNS Tutorial For Beginners - <AUTHOR> http://needforair.com/blog/2012/04/22/dns-redirections/ <comment><USER3> IMO here's a better tutorial by D. J. Bernstein: <http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/intro-dns.html> (although the "record" syntax is for his own tinydns server vs. BIND's zone files).

But if you care about security, you probably don't want to be running BIND given its long history of bugs and security holes.

Here's BIND's security advisory page: <http://www.isc.org/advisories>. By contrast only a _single_ security hole has ever been discovered in the djbdns suite: <http://article.gmane.org/gmane.network.djbdns/13864>. DJB has a well earned reputation for being abrasive, but his proven track record for writing secure software is unmatched.

Full disclosure: I'm developing a DNS hosting service (<http://slickdns.com>) and needless to say I do not use BIND.

<comment><USER4> thanks for the link to DJB - this is gold :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That started out promising, but ended up a bit disappointing. Editing the zone file seems like the _least_ interesting part of this topic.

How about explaining the relationship between dns, registrars, soa records, ns servers etc.? This is where things get really hard to understand due to all those levels of indirection going on.

<comment> echo-unity well?

* sorry for being so obtuse I was just curious

<comment><USER5> Ah, you mean you'd like an explanation of those concepts? Well, I think I more or less understand the details by now, but it would take some effort to put it all into words. I'm afraid I don't quite have the time for that at the moment, so this was more meant as a suggestion for the author of the article to look into.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why reinvent the wheel? Spend time on smth of greater value.

There are a lot of good resources on beginner matters. So use existing resources:-

1\. <http://library.linode.com/dns-guides/introduction-to-dns>

2\. [http://library.linode.com/dns-guides/configuring-dns-with- th...](http://library.linode.com/dns-guides/configuring-dns-with-the-linode- manager)

3\. [http://serverfault.com/questions/301868/dns-entries- required...](http://serverfault.com/questions/301868/dns-entries-required-to- get-test-example-com-to-respond-to-pinging)

4\. Registering a GoDaddy domain name and point it to linode. <http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4226%3E>

I have not seen a good, easy to understand tutorial to get me from beginner/mid-level to high level understanding [not even speaking about mastery] of DNS. Spending time on such tutorial and sharing it would be much appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sorry, but this was rather disappointing. Most registrars do not allow you to edit zone files, but rather provide a GUI. Of course, you could host your DNS yourself, but you don't want to do that or use an alternative DNS host, which probably provides a different GUI.

It is important for a beginner to understand what an A record or a CNAME record is, rather than how bind(?) is configured.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our registrar (gandi.net) allows us to edit the zone file, something I find much simpler than most GUIs out there.

<comment><USER6> So, this is a guide for Gandi then, not DNS.

<comment><USER7> No, it's about DNS resource records generally used by all name servers (RFC 1035).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you find zonefiles a hassle might want to use <http://www.entrydns.net> a free service I'm building with a sysadimn friend, it has nice GUI interface to manage most DNS needs.

<comment><USER6> Your SSL certificate is not trusted on my Asus Transformer Prime - <USER2> ICS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Google's doc is bit more descriptive here.. [https://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=...](https://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=48090#A)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true, I should have been clearer in my introduction: this really is a guide for beginners. The goal here was to show a simple zone file example and go through it, so that someone who never set up a DNS could do it in 10 minutes. That's why it is nowhere as complete as Google's description :)

<comment> X-Istence Except someone who has never done it before probably shouldn't be in the position to edit zone files themselves... They should most likely use their registrars DNS servers or the DNS servers for their host, or if they want to get fancy one of the DNS providers out there.

Once you get to the point that you have outgrown the solutions out there, or you want to do something fancy such as create records on the fly then you can start looking into doing your own DNS hosting.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with you that if you want to be a full-fledged programmer you will need to understand this topic beyond this simple example, but at the time I really could have used it as a starting point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> <http://continuations.com/post/16405180072/tech-tuesday-dns> is more descriptive.

<comment><USER11> it's not the same thing. Wenger doesn't explain how to use zone files. We do link to his post at the end of ours

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is the worst tutorial I've seen in a long time.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is probably a stupid question but is there a good reason you must have a period at the end of the name?

<comment><USER14> I think it becomes a relative path without the final/root dot. That is, "example.net" in the zone file "mydomain.com" will be understood as "example.net.mydomain.com.".

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This hostname to IP translation thing is really going to take off, I can just feel it!

</comment><comment><USER16> Really today? Yesterday I was searching for article like this.

</comment><comment><USER17> Beginners probably won't need to directly edit a zone file.

<comment><AUTHOR> It does seem paradoxical, but I know quite a few people I consider to be good coders, but know almost nothing about DNS. For example, a former researcher in CS who now wants to launch his webstartup.

<comment><USER18> Right, but they probably won't need to edit zone files directly, unless for some reason they chose to host their own DNS servers (why would they).</comment></comment></comment>


Building your b2c startup: Idea to prototype - <AUTHOR> http://www.techendo.co/posts/building-your-b2c-startup-idea-to-prototype

<comment><USER2> If anyone has any other handy tricks to help out in these early stages of product development, let me know. :)</comment>


Why Writer Are The Worst Procrastinators  - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/why-writers-are-the-worst-procrastinators/283773/

<comment><USER2> I know from personal experience that writing is like riding a lightning bolt. It's very hard to do when the lightning is not there. But with enough typing, sometimes you can generate a spark. It's always a question of effort and result.</comment>


How can I build a fulfilling, less stressful business/career? - <AUTHOR> Seems a number of these questions pop up every few weeks, so maybe I can get some perspective. I'm 37 and live in Europe. I fell out of society in my teens due to abuse and never managed to get a grip on the working world. After sporadic manual jobs in my late teens I had a breakdown, and I haven't worked since.
I've taken courses over the years on various subjects, and even got part way through a degree from the OPen University. I read for hours a day, and have taught myself basic coding.
I'm thinking that finding work as a developer or any type of IT role after 17 years of not working will be....tough. I do have some hope remaining, or I wouldn't be making this post.
In my situation what would you do? I have a small amount of money to live on each month, but it only covers the basics. I've had to summon the courage to post this, so please have some empathy when replying. <comment><USER2> thaumaturgy has excellent advice, and I just want to add a few things.

First, having your basics covered is huge. You can optimize how you use that money by improving your cooking skills and making healthy, delicious meals at home. This will be a major boost as you work on everything else. You'll not only save money and get healthier: you'll have something luxurious to look forward to with every meal, once you have the skills.

Two, if you have some basic coding skills, you should be able to find freelance work online through Upwork or whatever. The pay isn't great, but it will help you to grow your skills, learn how to work with clients, and maybe most importantly, build your confidence. You might not believe you can be a professional programmer right now, but you will after getting paid for several jobs where the client came away satisfied.

Third, always take care of your mental health and make it a priority. Particularly if you're getting stressed out about work and have imposter syndrome when working your first few client jobs. Remember that your health is non-negotiable. Do the work as well as you can, don't beat yourself up about struggling, and don't let fears take root too deeply. If you do your best, most clients will be happy. The ones that aren't happy probably wouldn't be happy with anyone.

Good luck. You can do this. Take care of yourself.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is certainly a place for you. You "just" need to find it since nobody will present it to you. Be humble and accept (almost) anything that you can use to gain experience. One you get started, things will look different after a year.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been restless most of my life and have started over a few times. So, speaking from some experience...

Trying to build a decent life starting in your late 30s is mostly about developing discipline. You're not out of time yet, but you will be soon, for things like developing healthy habits and some kind of plan for retirement so you're not waking up one day at 70, struggling to get out of a chair, and wondering what the hell happened to all that time you thought you had.

So before you try to take on the big stuff, you fix the small stuff: you start eating better, you start going to bed a little earlier, you start getting a little exercise. These are _really_ important. In your 20s, you can still get away with ignoring these; in your late 30s, these become the foundation that's necessary if you're going to improve anything else.

Because you're going to need to feed your self-discipline, and rest, nutrition, and exercise help.

You have to start taking a solid look at yourself and identifying whatever self-destructive habits you've got. I have a few, as most folks do. Maybe it's spending a bit too much time on TV or video games, or maybe it's picking fights with people or being too proud to accept help or not sticking with a job for more than a few months. Whatever it is, take a good look at it and start figuring out how to fix it.

Start putting more energy into your job. If you don't have one now, then your job is to find a job. Set a concrete goal, like sending out 10 applications a day, and do that as though it was your full time job. Start networking: a lot of people get hired by knowing somebody who knows somebody. Improve your skills. Or consider finishing your education, if financial aid is available.

Speaking of finances, get hooked in to some kind of financial planning system. I use Mint. I also got my first IRA a while back and they had this really nice graph which showed me just how dire my $0 retirement was going to be. That put a lot of pressure on me to make better financial decisions, including staying put in a job and pushing for (justifiable) wage increases.

Once you have a job, you have to do the job, and then you have to come home and look for a better job. These days, there's no reward for employee loyalty. The best way to get a raise is to get a new job. You should start seeing each job as an opportunity to build your CV so that you'll look more attractive for a better job.

Don't look too far into the future and try not to focus too much on your current situation. Getting a grip on your own psychology is pretty important. That means finding ways to remain positive about your future and not feel overwhelmed by what lies ahead, because if you start feeling hopeless, you won't have the energy to fix the things that need fixing. So focus on the small stuff: simple, achievable goals, gradual improvements, the things that need to be done today or tomorrow or maybe the next day. Don't compare yourself to other people or spend time on wishes or regrets. Keep a list of accomplishments -- even the little stuff -- and add to it every day, and if you start feeling beat up, come back to that list.

37 is not too late to build a career as a developer, if that's what you want to do. But, that means developing a marketable skill set _right now_ , and seeking out the right person that'll be willing to hire you. They aren't going to just appear right away, it's going to take time, so you have to put actual effort in to it -- every day.</comment>


Show HN: Howler 2.0 is PR outreach as a service starting at $99/mo - <AUTHOR> Hey guys!
~3 months ago we launched Howler (www.howler.media) as a simple "PR outreach as a service" product; a productized alternative to $5k/mo PR agencies for $149/mo.
So far we've helped ~100 startups like Ben (YC W18), Bitsbox (as seen on Shark Tank), and Off The Grid get dozens of interviews with outlets like TechCrunch, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. (You can see some of the features we've gotten our subscribers at www.howler.media.)
We've taken all the feedback we've gotten from our subscribers and have just shipped a 2.0 with an updated pricing model, brand identity, and landing page. We've also recently on-boarded someone to our team in NYC to lead our outreach campaigns and account management. Here's how Howler 2.0 works:
1. We'll write a custom press pitch for you, and we'll refine it together until you confirm
2. We'll use that press pitch to algorithmically generate a hyper-targeted media list from our database of 500k journalists
3. We'll send personalized pitches to the 125-500 emails in that list
4. We'll follow up with each journalist 1-2 times
5. We'll CC you on the thread if any of them express interest
6. We'll monitor HARO and reach out to journalists proactively if we think you're a good fit for their story
7. We'll provide analytics of open & reply rates throughout the campaign
We'd really appreciate your feedback on our messaging + pricing model! We also have a 20% discount code for HN: HACKERS.
Thanks!
– Matt, Aaron, David, & Frances <comment><USER2> Former PR shill here: thank you for making this.

I left that industry because it was stuck in the 90s: writing crummy emails in Outlook and bcc'ing every journalist whose email address you managed to get hold of. No MailChimp, no analytics, and media monitoring was just doing a Google search for the company's name and copying and pasting clippings into a Word document.

Time to drag this business into the 21st.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed! We're working hard to do just that</comment></comment>


Git for Node.js and the browser using libgit2 compiled to WebAssembly - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/petersalomonsen/wasm-git <comment><USER2> This looks useful. Are there pending standards for other browser storage mechanisms than an in-memory FS?

Would it be a security risk to grant limited local filesystem access by domain; with a storage quota?

... To answer my own question, it looks like the FileSystem API is still experimental and only browser extensions can request access to the actual filesystem: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/FileSystem](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/FileSystem)

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, looks like emscripten has support for a few different options, including IndexedDB[1]. I have a use case where we'd like to both use the local filesystem via Node APIs as well as in-memory in the browser. I asked the author of wasm-git and it looks like this is possible with a custom build[2].

[1]: [https://emscripten.org/docs/api_reference/Filesystem- API.htm...](https://emscripten.org/docs/api_reference/Filesystem- API.html#filesystem-api-idbfs)

[2]: [https://github.com/petersalomonsen/wasm- git/issues/3](https://github.com/petersalomonsen/wasm-git/issues/3)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should I share the offers letters during salary negotiation - <AUTHOR> Should I share the competing offers to the during salary negotiation or are numbers enough?<p>When asked, how do I go about the situation? <comment><USER3> It depends.

Let's say you are negotiating about an offer for - say - 100,000 units (make them dollars, euros, peanuts, whatever).

How big is the competing offer?

110,000, 130,000 or 250,000 units?

You are - presumably - to be hired by someone that is ok about giving you a certain (huge) number of units in exchange for your work and - implicitly - <USER2> trusting you.

So, if you actually have a 110,000 offer letter, you should say that (and show no letter).

If you have a 130,000 offer letter, you should say that (and show no letter) but you will likely be asked to show the letter and then it depends on you whether you think that they want to see it because they will make a counter offer or they want to see it only to know who is the one that is going to spend 30% + (both imply that they don't trust you much).

If you have a 250,000 offer letter, you are not negotiating, you are losing a better job.

</comment><comment><USER4> Don't share letters. There is no reason to.

Whether they might think you're bluffing or not, at the end of the day they are prepared to go up to a point but are simply trying to get you for as cheap as possible. There is no qualm to be had in getting them to pay the max. they are prepared to.

Their attitude on this is also something for you to consider because it tells you something about how working for them might turn out to be.

</comment><comment><USER5> Consider redacting anything other than the salary that may be sensitive, but yes, you can share them.

Depending on how you negotiate, you may benefit from not sharing numbers and letting the other side guess (potentially overshooting and offering a much higher salary).

<comment><AUTHOR> Does overshooting work? Won't people get caught doing this..</comment></comment>


Dark energy found stifling growth in universe - <AUTHOR> http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/12/16/dark.energy.found.stifling.growth.universe

<comment><USER2> Finally a reasonable explanation of why I've been feeling unproductive over the past few days!</comment>