H-P's One-Year Plan - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576535211589514334.html <comment><USER3> It is astounding how people, WSJ contributors inclusive, only see HP as a pusher of cheap laptops and crappy inkjet printers.

Assuming I'm reading these numbers correctly[1], the PC division posted earnings of $567 million in Q3 2011. Compare that to $1.2 billion in earnings on enterprise services, $699 million from enterprise hardware, and $892 million from printing and imaging. Revenue from commercial printers was twice the revenue gained from consumer printers.

All told, while the consumer business is a respectable chunk of change even to HP, the consumer business has the thinnest margins, is shrinking, and at the end of the day earns much less than the enterprise side of the house.

HP makes a killing on enterprise services already. More than double the earnings of its entire PC business. Buying high margin software products like Autonomy for its services division to push on customers is easy money. The fact that HP's software business only earned $151 million on $790 million in revenue in Q3 2011 is a tremendous lost opportunity.

HP is not a consumer company anymore. It doesn't need a consumer oriented CEO. It's an enterprise company that needs an enterprise CEO.

Yet somehow, even "financial commentators" fail to recognize any of this. A very disappointing article from the WSJ.

[1] [http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-n...](http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol- newsArticle&ID=1598003)

<comment><USER4> Sounds like HP is doing what IBM did not too long ago. Getting out of commodity markets and into markets where profits are higher and it's easier to differentiate yourself from the masses. IBM is still strong in what they do even though they got out of the PC business and pretty much everything else consumer focused. Now HP is doing the same thing and they're getting torn a new one.

Plus, figure that even if the consumer business made about $800 million last quarter (between PCs and printers), selling those businesses off for a couple billion, putting the cash in the bank, then laying off all the employees (or transferring them to the buyer) will fill the bank account, reduce head count (and expenses), and allow for more focus on less products that each have higher margins.

Putting it that way, it sounds like combining the Apple and IBM business models to me. Simplify and specialize, focused on the enterprise (where the money is these days).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> On dumping the PC Business: "A beautiful absurdity...like McDonald's getting out of the hamburger business."

Zing.

<comment><USER6> HP did 'pivot' in the early days, first into making electronic calculators and then into PC's.

Though this latest 'pivot' into a services company smells a lot like what IBM has done, abandon its hardware manufacturing and go into software services and consulting. Some part of me hates that radical a change, especially since how many of these massive software consulting companies are actually needed?

<comment><USER7> "We're going to concentrate on our core compentency, software."

A couple of ex-housemates of mine (who worked at HP a while back) just laughed. It's like Oracle getting into video games, or Cisco deciding to crank up a steel mill. Software is /not/ one of HP's strengths.

I wonder who's selling short?

<comment><USER8> The second most annoying thing about HP printers to me for the past 6 years has been their horrible 600mb driver software packages. (The first simply being the price of ink).

<comment><USER9> You want the HP Universal Print Driver: [http://h20271.www2.hp.com/SMB- AP/cache/380442-0-0-14-121.htm...](http://h20271.www2.hp.com/SMB- AP/cache/380442-0-0-14-121.html)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the tip. But, hey, it's HP ... can't change the spots on that cat. Drill down two not-so-obvious links to the download page, and there are SEVEN choices of "universal" driver:

        Select your product
        » HP Universal Print Driver for Windows
        » HP Universal Print Driver for Windows - PCL 5
        » HP Universal Print Driver for Windows - PCL 6
        » HP Universal Print Driver for Windows - <USER2>
        » HP Universal Print Driver for Windows 64-bit PCL 5
        » HP Universal Print Driver for Windows 64-bit PCL 6
        » HP Universal Print Driver for Windows 64-bit PS

[ [http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/ProductList...](http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/ProductList.jsp?locale=en_US&taskId=135&prodTypeId=18972&prodSeriesId=503548) ]

Thankfully they forgave us the usual split in NA, EMEA, AP1, AP2, etc, geographic versions, with the only clue being in the cryptic codename in the link.

<comment><USER9> It's still better than seven separate installers per printer each of which is 10 times bigger :)

<comment><USER11> A polished turd is still a turd. The point is other printer mfrs get it right, so why can't HP?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well put. Who in HP's board made the brilliant decision of bringing in Mr ex- SAP as the HP CEO.

1\. The dude has no experience running a consumer oriented hardware business. 2\. He hasn't run a global company. (SAP, for all it's glory is still an European company). 3\. None of SAP's businesses have anything in common with HP's DNA.

Not sure why the board committed such a blunder and why they continue to do so as the CEO is taking down one of the well respected companies in the valley.

<comment><USER13> Disagree on point 2; we see some of SAP's tentacles down here in New Zealand which is about as far from Europe as it's possible to get. Wikipedia seems to think they're pretty global too (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP_AG>).

Having said that, I don't think it would be the biggest issue anyway; 1 and 3 are much bigger problems for HP and you're spot-on with those.

<comment><USER14> SAP's US headquarters is near me in Pennsylvania. I interviewed for a software developer job there once. I was told, by the interviewer, that the programming jobs in the US are boring because the real work is done in Germany...

<comment><USER15> Non-boring SAP job?

<comment><USER16> From a pure techie point of view you can do great stuff there as a programmer. But the end-result is just nog as sexy as having developed games for an iphone or invented the New Social Thing. But your software scales over 100 gigs of RAM, is blazingly fast and can process transaction records in the order of 10,000s per second; that's non-boring to me :P

<comment><USER17> Yes... but I think quite many of us older than 23 would rather program SAP than games or Iphone apps, although I wouldn't hazard a guess at the proportion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> >Fire _well-performing_ CEO Mark Hurd

Based on what?

<comment><USER19> Well, at least under his watch the company wasn't headed nowhere quite as fast as they seem to be now.

<comment><USER20> That's not clear at all. The Palm acquisition was Hurd's doing. This column is knocking Apotheker for killing it, but a pretty good case can be made that keeping it going would just be throwing good money after bad.

<comment><USER21> And a counter argument could be that given time, HP could have done something productive with WebOS -- the TouchPad, Pre, etc.

WebOS was/is thought by many to be the best mobile OS without a company big enough to push it. HP could have been that company. Especially with the PC business providing some buffer for profit loss while issues with the other hardware were worked out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> They may be the biggest PC maker, but I would not say that is because they make great PCs-they just make A LOT of them. HP used to make great printers and servers. I hope they can get back to a place where they do SOMETHING well.

<comment><USER14> They once made a great consumer PC. It was the initial HP Envy 14.

All aluminum/magnesium alloy case, oversized multitouch trackpad, island style backlit keyboard, edge to edge glass over a very bright, very dense 1600x900 screen... You couldn't get a better display in a similar size from any brand, even Apple. Compared to the dull, sparse 1366x768 panels every other PC offered, it was amazing. There was true attention to detail and build quality there. I think it was easily the best laptop on the market, and Wired named it PC of the Year at the end of 2010.

A few short months later they stopped building it with that display, and put the same cheap 1366x768 panel in it as everything else, then started incorporating its design features into the rest of its lineup... but without the build quality rivaling a MacBook Pro the Envy briefly had. They came close to doing laptops really really well, but gave up on it for unfathomable reasons...

<comment><USER23> I'm not complaining. Me, my fiance, and her friend have gone through probably 5 total HP Laptops over the last 5 years. All 5 were different models and had the power switch connection to the system board go bad after 1-2 years.

I ended up cracking and getting a Macbook, but I still have a 6-year-old Thinkpad that runs like new. Those things were, in my opinion, far better quality than anything HP put out.

Your mileage may vary, of course; I only have my experiences to go off of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's a real shame that HP has lost it's mind because I really wanted to get a Veer as my next smartphone. I like the design of the phone itself, and I really wanted to give webOS a try but I am just not confident that HP will continue to support it. After all they've demonstrated that they are willing to lose a significant amount of money to divest themselves of the consumer mobile industry.

</comment><comment><USER25> Well a very entertaining read, I question it's validity. I've never been a big HP fan, but I find it hard to believe this is even close to being the whole situation at HP.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is a terrible article. Their main error was buying palm. That was a huge gamble that was very unlikely to pay off in this market. You can't beat a 'free' OS on cost and you don't have the magic marketing and design to make a high-end product more desirable than Apple. There was effectively 0 chance web OS would be a "hit," and a low chance that it would even sell at all.

The only other valid point in the article is that they haven't handled their PR well.

I guess I am alone here, but I was very impressed that HP was willing to cut it's losses on palm/web OS so quickly.

Also, for better or worse, a publicly traded company needs to grow. If you look at HP's financial report...there is definitely room for growth in enterprise software. I think buying Autonomy (a profitable company) is a good direction for them to go (though I do admit they paid a very high price).

<comment><USER27> The huge gamble was the 10x larger purchase of a software company unrelated to HPs business...

<comment><USER28> And a company that was worth 2 billion dollars with a decreasing revenue stream. As an ex employee of autonomy i can definitely say that HP made a very very big mistake.

<comment><USER26> 2 billion? I think you are forgetting about their recent acquisition of Iron Mountain Digital. I would say the companies were worth 4-6 B. They still paid too much, but there is a big difference between paying 400% over value and paying 60% over value.

<comment><USER27> ... Iron Mountain Digital was bought three months ago for $380M. If they were worth $2B before, they haven't doubled or tripled their worth because they spent $380M of their cash reserves.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Visual, Intuitive Guide to Imaginary Numbers - <AUTHOR> http://betterexplained.com/articles/a-visual-intuitive-guide-to-imaginary-numbers/ <comment><USER2> I loved this article.

PG: feature request - how about a way on news.yc for me to give points out of _my_ karma to a submission/comment that I particularly like? Right now, upvotes are free so I can just throw them around. If they came out of my karma, maybe they'd be more valuable and presumably lead to better voting?

<comment><USER3> Interesting idea.

Lots of people have also wanted to be able to give more than one upvote every now and then, say 5 extra upvotes in a day. Your idea may solve that elegantly as well. You can give as many as you want, but they come out of your karma.

The real challenge is to avoid complicating the UI.

<comment><USER2> It might also be a good idea to make downmods come out the voter's karma.

<comment><USER3> Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting +1/-1 mods come out of the voter's karma. That is an incentive against the transactions that are the life-blood of this network.

But if you want to do something special one way to do it is to pay for it in karma points. And yeah, that could be +n or -n.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Consequently, I remember reading something that tried to explain the fourier transform using the same geometric interpretation of a rotating vector with its complex numbers. I think waves can be thought of as rotations as any point on the wave is going through a cycle, and the FT can "pick out" different frequencies by looking at where the vector lands.

I should go back and look at it. To this day, I never really fully comprehended that and the butterflies in FFTs.</comment>


Ask HN: Does this website make sense? - <AUTHOR>

I'm building a new website, but I'm not sure if people get what it does.
Was hoping people might be able to give me some first impressions to see if I've made it intuitive enough.
I've included the clickable link in the comments.
Note: it only works in Google Chrome right now. <comment><USER2> I think this is great - it kinda _why ish. I think that if it can be solved using the controls you provide that's good, but if short cuts can be made by hacking the code there is an incentive to try - like adding a loop that fires the cannon continuously, a loop that changes it angle over a range... I don't know - but if the 'cheats' are in the code there is a reason to look at it (the code). They need to be simple (initially). I quickly started adjusting the angle force in the code to just to see if I could.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, exactly, that's what I was thinking. Just need to get a little more sophisticated with the levels. I have one in mind to build a tower on a see- saw, so unless you place the blocks perfectly, they'll fall over, making it way more easy if you just code it.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: <http://peanutty.org>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I've added in a level that requires a little coding to solve :)

<http://peanutty.org/#level/a_little_code>

</comment><comment><USER3> This was so much fun! Maybe programming a small task needed to complete a level might give the desired inverse effect. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, I was thinking about that. Maybe I'll do that for the next level I build.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's pretty fun. I am wondering why you made it such that it only works in Chrome?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm going to make it work in other browsers soon, I just wanted to focus on the product for a bit without having to worry about cross browser weirdness..

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It doesn't render a thing

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you using Chrome? It only works in Chrome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is amazing!!! You should post it as a direct link again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Coolness, codecademy for physics based games

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you think people will think it's only useful if I want to build a physics- based game? I'd like for people to think of it more just as a fun way to learn how to program, or, if you know how to program already, a fun way to build/solve physics-based puzzles.

<comment><USER7> Well, I feel like right now the focus is much more on the solving aspect rather than learning to program the game.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, I can see that. Any thoughts on how to encourage the creation of levels?

<comment><USER7> Part of the issue is that I don't have to touch code at all. I'd consider adding more steps into the levels where you introduce the concepts. For instance, in the Simple Bucket level why not have me alter the cannon controls in the code rather than just changing the values in a text field?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, cool. I'll try that. Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seems Cool! I like it~</comment>


Humble Bundle Mojam live stream - notch & co. coding for charity - <AUTHOR> http://www.humblebundle.com/? <comment><USER2> Someone should document how best to do a stream like this.

They seem to have a program called XSplit which lets them do picture-in- picture camera video (wireless? laptop webcam?) and a VLC feed (to stream live desktop video screenshots - hard to read even at 720p and no chance if they put several on screen).

Also need how to actually run such a stream once it's setup - responding to people on chat, switching feeds, doing hourly recaps or maybe scrolling marquees of status.

The recaps or lack thereof are really bad at the moment - there was a meeting about the game design but nobody explained to the camera what the outcomes were. It's written on the conference room whiteboard but we can't see that - maybe a rapid fire blog of decisions/milestones for people to catch up on the code run?

<comment><USER3> ...you're saying they need commentators.

Like John Madden, screaming about dropped semi-colons and unprotected pointer dereferences?

I'm pretty sure the Starcraft community has figured out how to do this right. It's too bad they didn't invite a pro to come and make it more entertaining.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I still don't understand how some people can livestream their coding and _people watch_!

Is it because they're making games? Would it work for anything else as well?

<comment><USER5> I can't understand how they put a bunch of people on a field with a ball, and people watch.

EDIT: actually, that's a snarky comment... I'll try to add something constructive: I absolutely LOVE watching people code - it's fascinating to see how others approach problems (it's rarely exactly how I'd do it). But at the same time, I'm not interested at all in watching a graphics guy creating amazing images - spending an hour to correctly shade some backdrop. I'm all like, "errgh, who cares about this? Get back to they guy troubleshooting his perlin noise implementation!" ;)

<comment><USER2> Feeling a lot better to see them googling how to make a PriorityQueue in Java (take that algorithms class!) or misusing println to track down a deadlock in the network code loop ;)

Would be fun to have a panel of running commentary like sport, especially for those who can't quite see the screen or want to learn something new. The justin.tv/twitch.tv chat is more obsessed with ponies and complaining about lag .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wonder will there be an archive video after this? Live video is choppy at best for me

edit: looks like <http://www.twitch.tv/mojang> will be the place

</comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone know if Notch has added some sort of vim key bindings to eclipse. It looks like he can jump to the beginnings and ends of words, but I'm unsure if this is either lag of the video, really fast arrow movement or some form of key shortcuts.

<comment><USER8> If I understand you correctly, Ctrl+Left/Right normally does that in Windows and Linux. Alt+Left/Right for the same thing on OS X.

<comment><USER9> It annoys me when apps don't allow this. This was one of the first keyboard shortcuts I learned back in my first data processing class and everyone should know it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hopefully they open source their code after they finish. It would be fun to see what people could do with it (since it's probably unlikely they'll be supporting a game that's making them no money).

<comment><USER11> The chat is not working right now but I've seen a link to the code about an hour ago.</comment></comment>


Unofficial Twitter Bootstrap Documentation - house9-2 http://unofficial-twitter-bootstrap-documentation.com/ Unofficial Twitter Bootstrap Documentation http://unofficial-twitter-bootstrap-documentation.com/
The current project I am working on is running bootstrap 2.0.2 and after the release of 2.1.0 the online documentation for 2.0.x was gone.
I went ahead and compiled the archive docs from the bootstrap github repo into a single site - hopefully others find it useful. <comment> house9-2 Unofficial Twitter Bootstrap Documentation <http://unofficial-twitter- bootstrap-documentation.com/>

The current project I am working on is running bootstrap 2.0.2 and after the release of 2.1.0 the online documentation for 2.0.x was gone.

I went ahead and compiled the archive docs from the bootstrap github repo into a single site - hopefully others find it useful.</comment>


The WireX Botnet - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-wirex-botnet/ <comment><USER2> "Researchers from Akamai, Cloudflare, Flashpoint, Google, Oracle Dyn, RiskIQ, Team Cymru, and other organizations cooperated to combat this botnet." Kudos to that!</comment>


Just Enough Bitcoin for Ethereum - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ConsenSys/time-sure-does-fly-ed4518792679 <comment><USER2> Etherium sounds like a great idea, and a great approach. But I'm afraid it's going to end up like GPG: Technically awesome, strong, capable, and useful - but completely out of reach of most of the people you'd want to use it with.

Every time I read a "Getting started with Ethereum" guide which involves 7 steps just to buy Bitcoin (from a site nobody's heard of) and then set up a wallet, I watch the number of potential users dropping like a rock.

I hope very much that it succeeds enough to justify its learning curve, as it's an interesting idea. But I suspect that outside of a few _very_ small markets where it offers the ability to do something completely impossible with any other method, having an ethereum interface for your product or service will be roughly equivalent to GPG signing all your emails: People in the know weren't that concerned anyways, and nobody else knows enough to care.

<comment><USER3> Someone really has to get a simple proof of concept application made that any dummy can understand and run on their own. I'm a developer that bought ethereum, and even after reading their materials after the launch I couldn't be bothered with trying to get it running or understanding it. That doesn't bode well for the long-term success of the project.

<comment><USER4> There are a few projects working on this. One problem is key management and giving the app a connection to the blockchain. If you do key management in the webapp and read from the blockchain via a centralized API, thats not much of an improvement over existing systems. Ethereum core's solution to this is a special browser, but it is still under development. I'm working on a project[0] that takes this on, but is still a couple months out from a public beta. Its a bit of a hack but it manages a zero-install solution by having a sort of browser-in-browser that intercepts transaction signing requests and provides access to blockchain data. Can't wait to get it out there.

[0]: [https://metamask.io/](https://metamask.io/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm investing and developing a product on Ethereum, not affiliated with the project or developers, so I'll give my sense of things. We're in an era of rapid experimentation. It feels a bit like a shared developer box without any libs or tooling so people are busy working out the best way to approach common problems.

I know it sounds like marketing but it does remind me of the early days of the web, like 95, before the web was serious business. It's all toys and gizmos, the hacker equivalents to water ripple effects, with frameworks coming in to help people build more interesting and production-quality things.

Very basic questions persist such as how to best store large data files (ipfs looking like the clear winner), how to reference them, how to design a currency, how to avoid designs that are too stiff or get stuck in a state where they can't be easily updated, how to express an application model in smart contract form, how to best represent a user account, etc. If that sounds fun, jump in, if you were wanting something that matched the hype, wait a few months. Apps on Ethereum can be as expressive and polished as the apps you use today, and can even be designed just as _centralized_ as the apps you use today, but with properties you would typically think of only belonging to Bitcoin.

</comment><comment> aaron-lebo I watched Ethereum for several months after the initial announcement and was really excited about it. I know the network went live recently and it surprises me how little it's been discussed at places like HN.

How are things going as far as tech, adoption, etc for Ethereum for those in the know?

<comment><USER6> I am curious how one goes about verifying that these "trustless transactions of arbitrary (turing-complete!) complexity" will have the behavior that you expect (as a participant) or intend (as an author) for them to have, and that they are proof from subversion by a malicious counter- or third party. After all, this is not exactly a solved problem anywhere else Turing-complete complexity is employed, and it would seem to nullify the point of trustlessness if you are relying on someone else's word on this matter.

<comment><USER7> Well, the compiled code is available, and if they provide the source code, you can verify that it compiles to the code on chain (or, you can analyze the code on chain without the source code of the contract, but that is harder).

The source code for the contract can be made to have a proof of correctness in it, or, as it is probably not all that long, if you look at the source code long enough you can be sufficiently convinced that it runs how you expect it to.

Regarding the problems with turing completeness, any transaction is guaranteed to finish within a particular number of steps, because the transaction includes an amount of "gas", which puts a limit to how many steps the contract will run. If it runs out of gas before finishing, all the changes in the state are reverted (but the person still pays the gas cost). If it finishes, then the extra "gas" is returned. (the transaction specifies some "gas cost", which is how much ether per gas or gas per ether (idr) , and some amount of ether, which is the max cost the transaction is allowed to take. There aren't "gas balances", any "gas" that is transferred just is ether at the end. Its just a unit of how much computation, and the gas price is how much they are willing to pay per amount of computation. I feel like I didn't explain this well...)

Checking that the contracts were run correctly is done by anyone verifying the block which contains the contract call. If the miner runs the contract incorrectly, then the people verifying the block will not accept the block as valid, so people won't mine on the block, so it wont end up in the main chain, so the miner will not receive anything from mining the block, and what happens in the wrong execution wont effect anything.

I'm not sure if this explanation has been very clear, but I hope it has been clear enough. I can try again if it isn't though.

<comment><USER6> Thank you for your reply, but I have to say that I think it understates the problem.

>The source code for the contract can be made to have a proof of correctness in it..

Has this capability already been implemented for the Ethereum contract language(s)? If so, I would greatly appreciate a link, as my admittedly cursory search did not find it (there is some discussion of verification of the Ethereum infrastructure, but that is merely a precondition to contract verification.)

Even so, I think it is significant that only a tiny fraction of today's software is written this way, and only a tiny fraction of all developers know how to do it. Someone has to write these contracts.

>... or, as it is probably not all that long...

Ethereum's promoters are imagining nothing less than a revolutionary new economy, with vast networks of interacting contracts. The amount of contract software implicit in these dreams is huge.

>If you look at the source code long enough you can be sufficiently convinced that it runs how you expect it to.

The steady stream of security vulnerabilities that are being found in ordinary software shows that this is not an effective technique. If you are a software developer, imagine doing your work in an environment where any bug of yours could cause you, personally, to lose a significant amount of money.

Nor do I think 'gas' completely solves this problem. Now your analysis has to cover the issue of whether your contract, or any of those it is dependent on, will run out of gas before completion. In most cases, and particularly in networks of dependent transactions, reverting back to the initial state is not a viable outcome (imagine that happening on the last payment of your mortgage on a house.) I can imagine that running out of gas on some obscure corner case might be used by an attacker as as a means to disrupt a network of dependent transactions.

<comment><USER7> Afaik, no, proofs of correctness are not currently implemented in the languages that are used. Some of them iirc have a way to do that in part, but currently the languages aren't set up for full proofs of correctness. (But, iirc, some things can be shown)

It is planned though.

Ok, yes, I suppose that the contracts will/would eventually get kind of long. As it is now though, It hasn't taken me /all/ that long to read the contracts I've looked at. (But perhaps I've only bothered to look at the ones short enough to read )

Regarding finding security flaws despite people looking carefully: yes, that seems a good point. I think proofs of correctness will be important for important contracts. However, many contracts logic is not really all that complicated. A contract can be powerful without being complicated, I think. Because of this, I think much of the time the proofs should not be too hard to write.

Regarding running out of gas:

Well, yes, if the transaction you send does not have enough gas, and you needed it to run, that could be a problem. But, if you run the transaction locally, and use that to estimate the amount of gas which needs to be used (might not be exact if the state of the contract changes in a way that your transaction needs more computation, but for reasonable contracts I think this would not be much), and one can provide extra gas in case this happens (the extra gas will be refunded), to have a high confidence that it will be enough.

But, if the transaction is important, one would be watching what happened carefully anyway, to make sure the transaction gets in the chain, regardless of the complications from the computations in the transaction. If, counter to your expectations, the gas you provided did not end up being enough, then you would be able to notice this, and, though you would be out that gas cost, you could just send the transaction again with more gas.

The block times are very short (under a minute), so you probably wouldn't have to wait long to send the transaction again with more gas. Most of the gas costs shouldn't be too large, so unless the transaction you are sending is very time sensitive, or very computationally expensive, a transaction running out of gas shouldn't be /too/ much of a problem?

I think you make some good points btw, just explaining my understanding of how those things are addressed.

Also, I'm not sure, but it seems you might have a small confusion about gas. Gas is included in the transaction, not stored by a contract over time. Gas only exists within the context of a particular transaction, the token which is actually exchanged is ether. You might have just been choosing not to mention the details of that though.

<comment><USER8> I think @mannykannot misunderstands the purpose of gas in Ethereum. It's only purpose is a solution to the Halting Problem [1]. Alternative solution could be disallowing jumps backwards / loops or limiting time of the computation.

Why is it the problem? Because contract with something like while(1){}; will render the entire network of nodes useless.

1\. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem)

<comment><USER6> I am well aware of the purpose of gas. What I have not seen is any argument (from @drdeca or anyone else) that gas materially simplifies the problem of verifying that a contract behaves properly (from your perspective, as one of the parties to the contract) in all circumstances. The fact that it will always halt is only a tiny step along that road, and if it halts as a result of running out of gas, that is strong evidence that it has not worked as intended.

An example may be useful. Suppose I tell you that I have written an Ethereum contract whereby people can loan me money, and after a year, I will pay them back double. Before you enter into one such contract with me, I hope it would cross your mind to wonder if I might actually be running a Ponzi scheme. Don't worry, I say, Ethereum has this gas feature that means the transaction will always halt. How much more confident should that information make you feel?

As for your alternatives, gas is essentially the same as limiting the time of computation. If backwards jumps were disallowed, the language would not be even approximately Turing-equivalent.

<comment><USER8> 1\. Gas mechanism has nothing to do with tamper-proofing transactions, thats what blockchain (or more correctly hashchain) is for.

2\. There are Turing-complete languages which only allow loops with known number of iterations.

3\. Check my presentation, If you want to understand Ethereum programming model:

[http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/nivertech/ethereum-vm- and-d...](http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/nivertech/ethereum-vm-and-dsls-for- smart-contracts)

IMO Ethereum is just a first step in the right direction, the real solution will need to be much more scalable.

<comment><USER6> > 1\. Gas mechanism has nothing to do with tamper-proofing transactions, thats > what blockchain (or more correctly hashchain) is for.

I am not sure why you are mentioning this here, but if this is what you think I am misunderstanding about gas, perhaps you could point out where you think I made this mistake.

>2\. There are Turing-complete languages which only allow loops with known number of iterations.

You did not originally write "loops with known number of iterations", you wrote "disallowing jumps backwards / loops".

> 3\. Check my presentation, If you want to understand Ethereum programming > model.

Based on your contributions to this thread so far, I am not very confident that I will find my specific question addressed, but if you give me a specific slide number to start at, I will give it a look.

BTW, do you have an answer to the question I posed in the second paragraph of my previous post?

<comment><USER8> _An example may be useful. Suppose I tell you that I have written an Ethereum contract whereby people can loan me money, and after a year, I will pay them back double. Before you enter into one such contract with me, I hope it would cross your mind to wonder if I might actually be running a Ponzi scheme. Don 't worry, I say, Ethereum has this gas feature that means the transaction will always halt. How much more confident should that information make you feel?_

Again, it has nothing to do with gas. You just need to review/audit the contract's source and EVM code and be sure it doesn't have backdoors.

For simplicity, you can think about Ethereum Transaction as an RPC call to Ethereum contract, where in addition to arguments (Data), you can also transfer a monetary value (in Ether) and provide fuel (Gas) for contract execution. Gas price (in Ethers) serves the same function as Bitcoin Tx fee.

Gas mechanism is just an implementation detail.

EDIT:

Regarding the contract example you mentioned "unsecured loan", I'm not sure it can be implemented as a "Self-enforcing contract", which is a proper term for "Smart Contracts". If a contract depends on your will or ability of repaying the loan, then it's not a self-enforcing contract. Somebody need to provide a collateral. It doesn't make sense for you to put up a 1001 Ether collateral to take 1000 Ether loan.

With smart property represented on the Blockchain you will be able to put up your car or apartment as a collateral for a loan, then it can be made self- enforceable. But it's not there yet.

The only way I can see for it to be implemented is with your own token, which will be devaluated each time somebody not repaying the loan in full.

<comment><USER6> I don't think you have ever read the entire thread here. It was drdeca who first introduced gas into the discussion, apparently suggesting that it somehow either solved, or at least mitigated, the verification problem (he was vague about exactly how he thought it helped), and it was I who responded that it made no fundamental difference. The whole point of the example was to demonstrate that gas does not materially simplify the verification problem.

You appear to have replied to the wrong person in your first post in this thread. Did you mean to say that @drdeca, not @mannykannot, misunderstands the purpose of gas?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is this a press release?

</comment><comment><USER10> Bitcoin is a solution. Ethereum is an experiment. Both noble pursuits.

<comment><USER11> That's glossing over quite a lot of details.

<comment><USER10> Definitely a generalization but I think that's how it's viewed by many from 30k ft. I should have made it clearer that I was making an observation about a perception not my own views.</comment></comment></comment>


Man jailed for criticizing court system has been acquitted by jury - <AUTHOR> https://reason.com/2019/09/20/a-michigan-man-has-been-acquitted-by-a-jury-for-criticizing-a-county-judge-on-facebook/ <comment><USER2> I am so happy to hear that he's been acquitted. This was posted on HN after it happened:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20881509](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20881509)

It made me really angry then, and I think it's both hilarious and sad that it took the jury less than half an hour to rule on such an obvious case.

"Judge Lucido replied that there were "limits" to free speech. When Somberg asked Lucido to clarify which of the Facebook posts presented to the court were threatening, Lucido said that they 'alluded' to the judge and did not explain his reasoning any further.

Lucido raised Vanderhagen's bond to $500,000, an amount Somberg told Reason was tantamount to a bond "you would expect for a murderer or rapist.""

Seems like an obvious abuse of power. I hope there are consequences, but cynical me doubts it. At the very least, it shows a good legal precedent and I hope will guide future case law.

</comment><comment> d-sc I studied a fair bit of free speech literature in college. Based on my reading of the article, I would have a hard time seeing his comments pass first amendment scrutiny with enough lawyering.

<comment><USER3> What part, in your opinion, isn't covered by the first amendment?

<comment> d-sc Rereading my comment now, it looks a bit confusing. I would think that it would be hard for the state to convict him. Generally a threat must pass a higher standard of scrutiny when directed at a public official. E.G. a judge.[1] Threading to dig up skeletons in the courts closet, while not very nice, doesn't suggest that the guy intended to cause physical harm to the judge and is well within the realm of political banter. Even the case report didn't find intent of physical harm to the judge. Also, there was a guy a couple years ago that made much more threading remarks on social media that the Supreme Court said were ok. [2]

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

[2][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elonis_v._United_States](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elonis_v._United_States)</comment></comment></comment>


Things About VIM I Wish I'd Learned Sooner - <AUTHOR> http://lolcodrz.com/blog/2008/11/5-things-about-vim-i-wish-i-learned-sooner/

<comment><USER2> Neat. Thanks.</comment>


Projell: Fast Synthetic Data Generation API for Machine Learning Models - <AUTHOR> https://projell.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm Sumit Srivastava, founder of Projell. We made this after dealing with the data hell like lw data availability, high data procuring cost, huge time sink for data collection, and privacy concerns over the user data.

This prompted me to build an easy way to generate synthetic data for machine learning models. This primarily uses GANs, but we use techniques which are most efficient for specific usecases.

Areas where we've found it useful are biomedical, drone imagery, sattelite imagery, retail, and autonomous mobility.

As already prominent in the ImageNet challenge, the state of the art is using synthetic data to gain higher accuracy.

Google, for their autonomous vehicles, used millions of miles of real driving data and billions of miles of synthetic data. It is clear where the world is moving towards.

I would be happy to share the tools with everyone since dealing with data is something we struggled with and don't want anyone to struggle anymore.</comment>


Craigslist begins to roll out PadMapper-like map view for apartment listings - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/04/craigslist-map-view/

<comment><USER2> Moral of the story, yet again, ad infinitum: don't waste your time watering somebody's else's garden. Yes it's the Internet and technically data is practically almost free to reproduce, but this doesn't imply a trouble-free right to steal your neighbour's database and proclaim your 100 line Javascript hack a startup. Borrowing content like that only works when you have lawyers, cash, and an excess of testosterone or stupidity (see also: YouTube)

<comment><USER3> More specifically, if you're infringing something, it should be to gain momentum or some other asset that you can use once your ability to infringe goes away, which it will if/when you become successful.

<comment><USER4> Isn't that sort of a horrible, morally bankrupt thing to say?

If there is no better reason to infringe than you want to make some profit, then you're just a scumbag. I'd hope there was some other moral stance you are taking before you infringe.

YouTubers will surely say the ends justify the means, that the TV monopoly needed disruption, and it was good for consumers to break down traditional ideas about copyrights. Maybe that's just a thin veneer on greed, but it's a start at least.

<comment><USER3> If you can make something of value that persists after you stop infringing, then I would say it's worth it to the world. For example, YouTube is a great asset to the world that would not exist without early infringement. But that's a moral calculus you have to do for yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was kind of hoping craigslist was cooking up something awesome, and waiting for the product to be fully polished and "magical, revolutionary" before launching it. unfortunately, this just feels like they rushed out of the door with the first thing they could mash up. specifically, two shortcomings: 1\. as far as i can tell, it doesn't show you what listings you've already clicked on, unlike every map based apartment search out there 2\. it doesn't appear to be loading the data as you scroll around the map - it loads it all at once up front. of course it's nice that you don't have to wait for it to load as you scroll, but that means there's an upper bound to the number of listings you can search through, and just goes to show how incomplete their implementation is. i'm guessing that's why it isn't offered in NY yet - too many listings to serve all at once

<comment><USER6> You just used "fully polished", "magical" and "revolutionary" in the same sentence as craigslist. There's no precedent for any of those adjectives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So, should PadMapper countersue Craigslist for anti-competitive behavior?

I think so, but I have a vindictive streak.

<comment><USER8> Protecting what is yours is not anti-competitive

<comment><USER7> But what Craigslist claims is theirs is actually other people's data. Although this protection isn't currently enshrined in U.S. law, I'd like to think my data belongs to _me_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nicely done. I never had any problems with Craigslist on HousingMaps. In fact, they were always quite helpful, e.g. unblocking my IP from their scraper list every year or so.

</comment><comment><USER10> CL have eyeballs, content and audience. So I'm not surprised that they are doing this. They'll also come victorious. Content is king. As always!

</comment><comment><USER11> I was almost certain[1] that Craigslist was working on PadMapper like interface and it was the reason they sued. They should have done the right thing and hire/buy one person company PadMapper.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4149263>

<comment><USER12> I don't see why the "right" thing would be to reward someone for breaking your ToS and stealing your database as a means of creating a potential competitor to your business.

On top of that, even if PadMapper had not been slimy, I don't see why it's "right" to pay a sum for something you're perfectly capable of building yourself for less time, money, effort, and headache than what an acquisition would cost.

<comment><USER13> No, of course, it's not like Craigslist has done some damage to PadMapper and now needs to buy them as recompense or anything. But buying them would be the... _gallant_ thing to do?

That is, it isn't so much what Craigslist "needs" to do to be in the right, here, but it's what they _could_ do to be in the _very right_. To be better than any other random classifieds company, to generate viral PR, to be something you'd be _happy_ to say you use, etc.

<comment><USER12> I think it would be wrong to reward the PadMapper author's ethically questionable behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm speculating here, but perhaps this was the root of CL suing PadMapper in the first place.

<comment> dumb-dumb You think they had this functionality in the works before PadMapper?

It certinaly doesn't look good for CL, IMO, if they only started working on it after PadMapper started gaining momentum.

It's an interesting question.

<comment><USER15> Only if by "look[ing] good", you mean it changes your opinion of them. From most perspectives it doesn't really matter when they decided to move in this direction since it's their data. It's the same thing we've seen over and over, where a small guys builds on someone else's platform, and the platform provider uses their inherent advantages to take over.

<comment> dumb-dumb IMO = in my opinion

How did you get your numbers for your conclusion about "most perspectives"? That is not just an opinion, correct? Otherwise you might have used words like "I think" or "in my opinion".

Another related conclusion I'm curious about is "their data" (i.e. the data users uploaded is now CL's data). That is not just an opinion, correct? When I search for a clear answer on that issue, I can't find one. I'd love to see some clear guidance on this question.

Platform providers do sometimes use their advantages unfairly. But platforms cannot succeed without some level of symbiosis between those who provide them and those who use them. This is only my opinion. However I have seen others say much the same thing.

<comment><USER15> Sorry, misinterpreted the "IMO".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Love this headline. For those unaware, Craigslist is suing PadMapper for using their data.

<comment><USER17> I would feel bad for the PadMapper maintainer, except for the fact that he seemed so self-entitled here in the threads.

<comment><USER18> Really? He seemed very humble to me and consistently expressed a sincere wish to come to an agreement with Craigslist. The impression I got was that CL couldn't possibly have sued a nicer guy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Except it sucks compared to PadMapper.

<comment><USER20> Actually its pretty good - solves 90% of the use cases for me. And it feels much faster than padmapper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Hope padmapper comes up victorious, CL is being a huge bully it seems.

<comment><USER22> How are they being a bully? It's _their_ service. If they want to kick someone off it and develop a competitor, that's their prerogative.

This is just another example of why you shouldn't base your startup on someone else's product. If you're successful, they'll develop a competitor and use their position to push you out.

<comment><USER23> >How are they being a bully? It's their service. If they want to kick someone off it and develop a competitor, that's their prerogative.

So? They're still being a bully. Just because you're acting within the confines of the law and your rights doesn't necessarily mean you aren't being a dick about it.

<comment><USER24> So CL are bullies for dictating what people can do with their data?

<comment><USER25> The idea that Craigslist owns their posts is ridiculous. It may be true from a legal point of view, but from a moral point of view they're just the custodian of that data for the people posting it, and they should act as such.

<comment><USER12> If Craigslist doesn't own the posts, then that means the users own their own posts, and you don't have their permission to re-use their posts.

This just puts you back where you started.

<comment><USER25> Not really - the users own the posts and put them up in order to get publicity. It's like claiming 'I republished your classified ad for you in 6 papers' is a problem - virtually every classified ad would be pleased that they had more coverage.

<comment><USER12> I don't want my classified ads republished because I've chosen to publish the advertisement in places that target specific types of people.

It's incredibly naive to assume you know best.

We have our job ads republished by job sites with user bases that are far outside what we're interested in, and it results in a massive waste of our time in filtering those candidates.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why is what you're building only possible or necessary today? - <AUTHOR> http://euwyn.com/post/4872646183/why-is-what-youre-building-only-possible-or-necessary

<comment><USER2> I think this is often not true, and the examples in the post show that.

People had already been willing to put their real names online. Friendster launched 1-3 years earlier, grew very fast, and if they hadn't been alienated their users and been hamstrung by technical problems, they might have gotten to be Facebook.

Airbnb is a great company, but VRBO.com had been around since 1995 and is now going public (as part of HomeAway) -- they did pretty well through the real estate boom. There was also Couchsurfing, founded about 5yrs before Airbnb. Could they have been Airbnb? They succeeded at getting users, so I think they were only missing two key pieces: they hadn't realized that if you charged people to stay you had a great business (or didn't want to do that), and they weren't very good at making backups.

Of course Dropbox had a whole forest of competitors. I don't think Box.net or Xdrive or whoever failed to become runaway successes because people didn't have enough devices - there were millions of geeks with multiple computers and there had been for years. And there was plenty of broadband: YouTube had already been around for 3 years. Dropbox succeeded because they made syncing easier to use, and because they marketed that better than anyone else.

There are definitely some startups that couldn't have succeeded a few years earlier, (like the Zynga example which needed the FB channel to exist). You couldn't have made AdMob any earlier because a lot of people needed to go buy smartphones. You might have been able to build YouTube in 2004, but not in 2002, because you needed broadband penetration, fast computers, and a Flash player that could stream video.

Sure, riding a wave or exploiting market trends can be helpful. I think a lot of great products could have been built much earlier though, and the limiting factor is often simply that it's difficult to know what's important, and difficult to get the important things right.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good article, but I think the reference to Dropbox is a bit out of place.

Online backup/sync, which is what Dropbox does, was readily available when they arrived. The thing was, nobody was using these services because they were not straightforward enough to set up, or were too costly, etc. Dropbox "got that right", so to speak.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I was focused on how I use Dropbox today, which is to sync media between my various devices (this seems to be where the company seems to be heading). But Dropbox did win largely because of flawless product execution, and IIRC was initially focused on the backup problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another, related, question: "If what you are building has been necessary and possible for a long time, why hasn't anyone done it?"

<comment><USER5> Or, alternatively, "Which temporary economic disequilibrium are you arbitraging? What are its properties?"

This actually wouldn't be a bad question for the YC application.

<comment><USER6> Is this a must?

What disequilibrium did Facebook or Twitter arbitrage?

<comment><USER5> In the case of Facebook, it was clear that there needed to be a website that showed people what all of their friends were doing, and helped people plan social engagements with their friends. In the (paraphrased) words of Mark Zuckerberg, "I knew someone was going to make a social network with a billion plus users, so why not me?"

In the case of twitter, I don't think there was any temporary economic disequilibrium, which is why they are stuck with the revenue model of a service business and the cost structure of a startup. You could always make up something after the fact, like saying they are arbitraging the lack of money and literacy ability of inner city minorities, but that's clearly absurd because they never would have started the business if they had thought about it that way.

If they were applying to YC back in 2006 and had to answer that question, they probably would have written that there isn't currently a way to send text messages to groups, and it's clear this is going to exist some day. But that's probably about as much detail as they could have given, plus maybe some version of the usual mobile software use cases from Howard Rheingold's book Smart Mobs.

Is it necessary to have a temporary economic disequilibrium? According to the business school definition of entrepreneurship, it's one of two things that separates a lifestyle business from a startup, the other one being the potential for rapid scalability. (Cornell b-school actually uses the phrase 'temporary economic disequilibrium' in their 'official' definition of entrepreneurship, I didn't just make that up.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> shouldn't the question really be "why is what you're building only possible or necessary tomorrow?"</comment>


Ask HN: Is LP/NLP Related to AI and ML? - <AUTHOR> I was wondering, are these fields related to each other?<p>Also, how much programming is needed for LP/NLP? From what I hear, it's mostly math, but I think I also heard Python is used in this field. <comment><USER2> LP = logic programming NLP = natural language processing

Strictly speaking, the term "logic programming" is used to describe backwards- chaining reasoning systems such as prolog, although logic inspires other kinds of systems such as production rules (expert systems) and SAT/SMT solvers, theorem provers and related tools.

Natural Language Processing is a term for systems that process natural language, no matter what techniques are used. These could be systems that use formal grammars (like used for programming languages) or they could be based on machine learning or a hybrid.

There is also some overlap between logic-based systems and machine learning. For instance, C4.5 learns a tree of rules that can decide something, Random Forests learns a large number of rule sets that can be combined to make high- accuracy decisions, also there is something called "Inductive Logic Programming" that can combine human-specified rules with learned rules.

LP is, by definition, a form of programming.

In the case of NLP somebody is doing programming somewhere, but you might have a linguist or other subject matter expert involved. Python has a rich collection of libraries of NLP.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your thorough answer.</comment></comment>


AI startups raised $6.9B in Q1 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://angel.co/today/stories/ai-startups-raised-6-9-billion-in-q1-2020-a-record-setting-pace-before-coronavirus-17659 <comment><USER2> 1\. Many startups claiming AI are simply doing things with data; research shows two-fifths have no AI programs in their products [1].

2\. Round-closing announcements trail the actual closing by several months. Not to mention the actual raising and diligence takes months (even more so for larger/later rounds). Thus the $ reported here does not factor in covid19 and the current economic crisis, as implied.

[1] [https://www.ft.com/content/21b19010-3e9f-11e9-b896-fe36ec32a...](https://www.ft.com/content/21b19010-3e9f-11e9-b896-fe36ec32aece)

<comment><USER3> I've spent an unhealthy amount of time at presentations, conferences, seminars and meetups. With that, on your first point, I'm more inclined to believe somewhere around 90% have absolutely no "AI" or "ML" for that matter in their products. And a large fraction of those who do have re-used existing open source solutions without digging a lot into them. De omnibus dubitandum est, of course, but this is the impression I get.

<comment><USER4> Your suspicion is largely correct, in my experience. I've worked as a consultant on a number of different AI / ML projects for start-ups. Most aren't doing anything all that new or groundbreaking from an ML point of view. Their real innovation is usually more about applying ML to industries / areas where it hasn't been used much before. But that doesn't get the investor dollars flowing in, so the founders try to make it seem like they have some radical new ML breakthrough. And in recent times, it has worked.

<comment><USER3> > And in recent times, it has worked.

This is what __REALLY__ bugs me. Personally I'd love to see money poured into actual R&D rather than people abusing the "ML" and "AI" acronyms. Investors don't care about your R&D at all and commonly see it as a huge risk factor. Which it is of course. A semi-working prototype has a much better chance of succeeding so they stick to that.

But as a consequence many people(myself included) are not even bothering with pitching anything to anyone and invest their own money, time, resources and savings into it. Blocking? Yes. Painful? Absolutely. Slow? Incredibly. I'm sure the next AI winter is around the corner, if it isn't here already: The virus outbreak might be the catalyst that triggers(or has triggered) it, given the staggering amount of people going full "I have AI which will provide a cure, vaccine and time travel to go back in time and warn the world, just gimme cash". I doubt anyone would deliver on any of those promises(and that's me being optimistic). But the crisis will likely push a lot of investors to pour millions into the empty promises that have a few buzzwords thrown in. I hope I'm wrong.

<comment><USER4> I share your frustration. If you're trying to be realistic and straight- forward about the limitations of AI/ML, you're getting little interest from investors. Here's an anecdote. I was at an "AI in drug discovery" conference 2 years ago. One of the presenters, the founder of a drug discovery start-up, emphatically made the claim in a talk that "we should deliberately overhype AI in drug discovery, to raise awareness of what we as an industry can accomplish". I was gobsmacked by this. And yet, in the social mixer afterwards, the investors I spoke with LIKED this approach- they said the boastful founder was bold and visionary, and they didn't care that he was exaggerating the capabilities of his company. So, that's why all we hear is hype- founders are just responding to investor incentives.

That's also why I work as a freelance consultant and not as a founder. I think that autonomous driving (rather, the lack of such) is going to be what triggers the next AI winter. Too much money and hype, too little results for too long- the rope is wearing quite thin from what I can see.

<comment><USER3> I think the autonomous driving, while a factor, will not be as much of a kick as covid-19 cure and/or vaccine. I mean all the best to everyone trying and I hope someone proves me wrong about this by actually discovering a drug/vaccine through AI. But as far as autonomous driving is concerned, at least there are some visible results. Not as advertised and(to my mind at least) but most importantly not that valuable but at least there's SOMETHING on the table....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://a16z.com/2020/02/16/the-new-business-of-ai-and- how-i...](https://a16z.com/2020/02/16/the-new-business-of-ai-and-how-its- different-from-traditional-software/) a very good take.

Most AI startups are struggling to scale because models are hard to scale and generalize compared to SaaS. There'll be some fortunes made for sure, but we're still very early in building out these businesses and mostly these seem to be VC's who are (were?) desperate for "deep-tech" portfolio items to make them sound "bleeding-edge" at CogX, Davos, that thing in Aspen, etc.

<comment><USER6> Seconded on this article. I shout from the rooftops to anyone who will listen that for ML, "the confusion matrix _is_ the product," which summarizes much of what they say. The only thing I add to that adage now is that a meaningful product is a weighted function of Relationships, Data, and Expertise.

Most ML companies have one, funded ones have two, and profitable ones have the right balance of three. Funding an ML company that isn't 85th percentile on at least two is dumb.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The key bit of information from this ([https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/14/ai- startups-raised-6-9-bi...](https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/14/ai-startups- raised-6-9-billion-in-q1-2020-a-record-setting-pace-before-coronavirus/)) is that "capital flows disproportionally into large late-state deals." I would read this as a lagging indicator of how "hot" the field is. Most of the companies have found their "niche" and identified the actual problems that need to be solved; like other commentators have said, these problems may only be tangentially related to ML models themselves. These companies are currently scaling up and locking themselves into the market. Given how long the sales cycle is and how sticky it may be in enterprise, this means now is not a great time to start a company just doing "AI".

</comment><comment><USER8> I expected to see a list of the startup names and how much they raised.

</comment><comment><USER9> What's the value of this link over the original one?

Original: [https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/14/ai-startups- raised-6-9-bi...](https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/14/ai-startups- raised-6-9-billion-in-q1-2020-a-record-setting-pace-before-coronavirus/)

</comment><comment><USER10> What percentage of these "AI" startups do you think are doing no more than traditional automation with technology? Applying deep learning to do no more than what can be done with more accessible technology is like using Haskell on steroids, ensuring that no more than a few people will ever be able to maintain it.

<comment><USER11> Pretty sure it's mainly platforms. [https://hbr.org/2020/03/navigating-the- new-landscape-of-ai-p...](https://hbr.org/2020/03/navigating-the-new- landscape-of-ai-platforms)

I've personally been seeing several pop up for helping with training+deployment for edge-oriented applications like Edge Impulse and Latent AI.

<comment><USER2> Latent Sciences?? [https://latentsci.com/](https://latentsci.com/)

<comment><USER11> Were you referring to when I brought up Latent AI? If so, this is them: [https://latentai.com/](https://latentai.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is an insane amount of funding when you look at the projected revenue for machine learning over the next couple years.

Maybe those projections are wrong, and I certainly love all the energy in this space, but it feels like a lot of investors are going to get burned.

</comment><comment><USER13> Almost none of the company leaders or even VCs fully understand what AI even is or does. They just like to hear thats its there.

If you don't have some AI in your company, you won't get investors.

<comment><USER14> Is it really that bad? I thought investors care more about business model and growth potential.

<comment><USER15> It isn't THAT bad. Investors definitely care more about model and growth potential. But you will certainly run into those who ask "How are you integrating AI into your platform?" without any real idea about what that means.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Incentives are really messed up here. Tacking the letters "AI" on the end of your company name will increase it's multiple. It will force your engineers to call their rules engine "AI" when on calls with customers. It's really unfortunate.

</comment><comment><USER7> Is there a break down of percentage allocated from seed, series A, B, ... all the way down to F rounds?

</comment><comment><USER17> I was hoping the bubble had burst by now, but it sounds like it might not be there yet.

</comment><comment><USER18> "Anonymous Indians"

<comment><USER18> Was not trying to be racist, it's just a Twitter term for fake AI startups (started by one Indian man).</comment></comment>


Haystack vs How The Internet Works - <AUTHOR> http://haystacky.s3.amazonaws.com/www.oblomovka.com/wp/2010/09/14/haystack-vs-how-the-internet-works/index.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Found from Boing Boing's link-filled story [http://www.boingboing.net/2010/09/14/haystack-is- burning.htm...](http://www.boingboing.net/2010/09/14/haystack-is-burning.html)

(I did search for haystack on this site and found no recent references to this, but I won't be surprised if someone points out a dup)</comment>


The Plot to Steal the Color White - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-stealing-dupont-white/ <comment><USER3> _" It's about stealing something you can make a buck off of. It's part of a strategy to profit off what American ingenuity creates."_

This may be a quote of the assistant attorney general of the U.S. Department of Justice's national security division which can be easily ignored but the next paragraph just makes it seem like the author wants you to accept the quote as fact.

 _" A 2013 study estimated that China accounted for as much as 80 percent of the $300 billion in losses sustained by U.S. companies from the theft of intellectual property."_

What absolute nonsense. It truly makes this article come across as American propaganda.

<comment><USER4> Do you have facts that counter that 80 percent number? I'm curious why you think the Chinese aren't stealing American intellectual property. It's not propaganda if it's true, and everything I've seen indicates that the Chinese are trying to steal American IP on a regular basis, so please state anything you know that counters this article.

<comment><USER5> The claim is about as hollow as the claim that software and media companies lose exorbitant amounts of money due to piracy. No, a large portion of that revenue would have been non-existent anyway for a number of reasons.

It reminds me of the time I attended the annual American Chamber of Commerce Asia conference in 2010, that year in Beijing. One of the keynote speakers was the Asia CEO for Honeywell. They went into China, tried to localize their products, and were slaughtered by copycats. He said a common saying among those copycats was that Honeywell created the market demand for industrial products that previously didn't actually exist in China before, but it took Chinese companies to supply products that actually met market needs at prices customers were willing to pay. Honeywell didn't cry foul and pout. They revised their R&D strategy to be able to make good local products from the ground up and fought back the way market competition should happen. He said the lessons they learned now form the base of their strategy for entering any new foreign markets.

Yeah, there are all sorts of shenanigans that can happen everywhere. The question should always be how do you fight back and win with something superior, not how do you cry foul.

<comment><USER4> So you're claiming that having people prosecuted for theft of IP is "pouting" and that companies should just accept it and not complain? So if I came to your company and stole all of your trade secrets you'd just say "Well played, I guess I'll just have to compete better!" Interesting.

<comment><USER6> Do bear in mind that DuPont got started with TiO2 by taking a patented process and just using it, screwing the Australian license holders.

Funny how they cry foul when the shoe is on the other foot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What a terrible article. Lots of unprovable allegations and over-the-top adjectives, very light on actual facts. Looks like it was written by representatives for the prosecution or DuPont.

The author throws "America" and "China" in there, and seems to assume that that's enough to prove guilt.

<comment><USER8> It's a story about industrial espionage, it includes allegations and claims from both sides; what did you expect, Xinhua news?

<comment><USER9> I find it fascinating that the article never uses that term. It comes close to it, using "economic espionage" twice, but otherwise refers to the activity as trade-secret theft, or just "plain" theft.

Which it is, of course. But I couldn't shake the feeling that the author, and likely the editor too, have both made sure to avoid calling it industrial espionage. To me that term would have a very loaded connotation: "Company X is competing in an industry, and have inferior technology to someone else. Of course they will resort to espionage. They would be stupid and financially irresponsible not to."

Or maybe I'm just too cynical and jaded.

<comment><USER10> Or Liew was charge for violations of the "Economic Espionage Act". And theft is more common as a charge since one doesn't need to prove as many extenuating facts i.e. only that it was stolen, not why it was stolen. I suspect the author was being careful to be factual.

[https://www.fbi.gov/sanfrancisco/press- releases/2014/walter-...](https://www.fbi.gov/sanfrancisco/press- releases/2014/walter-liew-sentenced-to-15-years-in-prison-for-economic- espionage)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm surprised that a lot of the leaked information about DuPont's process came from disgruntled ex-employees. Surely DuPont's problem is with those ex- employees leaking sensitive information than anything else.

<comment><USER12> Expect a lot more disgruntled employees now that DuPont is merging with Dow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The article liberally drops anti-Chinese sentiment at every paragraph. Things like:

"Of Chinese heritage, Liew was born in Malaysia in August 1957."

That would be the equivalent of writing:

"Of Kenyan heritage, Obama was born in the USA".

<comment><USER14> I don't disagree with you. However the article does bring up a topic that isn't discussed that often yet.

Where do the loyalties of naturalized US (and Canadian) citizens truely lie? I feel that this was less of an issue until the US began allowing dual citizenships i.e. you no longer have to renounce citizenship from your country of origin in order to become a US citizen / you can become a citizen of another country and still be a US citizen. On the surface, you'd expect this to be simple; these individuals would be most loyal to the US... As a naturalized US citizen of Chinese descent, I've had some interesting conversations with other naturalized US citizens of Chinese descent that would show that it's more complicated than that.

I'm not sure how, but the topic of "what would happen if China and the US ever declared war on each other?" came up. To my surprise, the other naturalized Chinese Americans told me that they would be conflicted as to who they would support. For context, these are educated people with post-grad degrees from places like Berkeley with occupations to match. They also seem completely naturalized with accents that would fool people into thinking they were born and raised here. The kicker is that neither person was born or raised in China but each grew up in some Southeast Asian country, yet they're essentially comtemplating treason solely due to their race. I found it strange. Since what I have is just anecdotal, I'm guessing (and hoping) that most naturalized US citizens are way more loyal than that and I feel that Chinese Americans born and raised in the US don't have this issue at all. Still I have a feeling that this is probably only going to get worse when you have stuff like birth tourism happening i.e. You get US citizens who spend most of their lives in a foreign country resulting in loyalties to that foreign country

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/01/china-us-birth- tour...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/01/china-us-birth- tourism_n_7187180.html)

To be fair, China isn't the only country related to this issue. I could be wrong but the US probably has the same problem with dual citizenships involving Russia, Israel, Turkey, or any other country that isn't 100% aligned with US interests

Of course, this has a fix. Just don't allow dual citizenships in the US. Force people to choose.

<comment><USER15> > Where do the loyalties of naturalized US (and Canadian) citizens truely lie?

See, for example, the Cricket Test. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket_test](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket_test)

> The cricket test, also known as the Tebbit test, was a controversial phrase > coined in April 1990 by the British Conservative politician Norman Tebbit in > reference to the perceived lack of loyalty to the England cricket team among > South Asian and Caribbean immigrants and their children. Tebbit suggested > that those immigrants who support their native countries rather than England > at the sport of cricket are not significantly integrated into the United > Kingdom.[1]

I think it's dumb, but a bunch of English people at the time seemed to think it was useful and relevant.

<comment><USER14> Supporting a country in cricket and supporting a country in a war are two very different things. To be very clear, we weren't talking about cricket, soccer, or the Olympics; so bringing it up is useless.

That's the thing about dual citizenship. It's not irrational to support your country of origin, unless you're part of a class of persecuted people. That is the place where you were born and raised, and where you derive your (initial) cultural values which you may or may not keep.

[http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-dual- citizen...](http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-dual- citizenship-20141228-story.html)

"But the concept of dual citizenship is problematic both symbolically and practically, and could become divisive if more immigrants decide to avail themselves of the privileges of U.S. citizens — as we believe they ought to do. U.S citizens with strong ties to their ancestral countries have been accused of divided loyalties in the past even when they didn't possess citizenship in those countries — witness the internment of 110,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II. But when a U.S. citizen is also a citizen of another country, the accusation is even easier to make."

Ending dual citizenship would help prevent a future version of Japanese internment in the US.

<comment><USER16> The better solution would be to not have people be 'loyal' to any country at all. The whole thing is just a way to be able to demand all kinds of services where no obligation to provide should exist in the first place and where - usually - there is no loyalty in the reverse direction.

Any country that wants my loyalty to a flag or some abstract concept has lost my vote of confidence right at the gate. Countries - just like people - <USER2> be judged by their actions and loyalty should be earned rather than demanded.

<comment><USER14> Like completely ending corruption or racism, it would be a better solution, but is it a realistic one that you can achieve within a decade?

> countries - just like people - should be judged by their actions and loyalty > should be earned rather than demanded.

I agree. On that note, maintaining a dual citizenship is an action that will be judged. Even with the constant influx of immigrants, it's rare to see. Less than half of 1% of a population of about 300 million people maintain dual citizenships. Most immigrants that attain US citizenship do not maintain a dual one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This brings the movie _The Spanish Prisoner_ to mind.

</comment><comment><USER18> I like how the DoJ makes it sound like _spying_ is fine and dandy, but _theft_? Well, we can't have that...

</comment><comment><USER19> The Jingoistic tone of this article is pretty distasteful</comment>