100,000+ Sign Up For Stanford's Open Class on Artificial Intelligence. - <AUTHOR> http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/18/100000-sign-up-for-stanfords-open-class-on-artificial-intelligence-classes-with-1-million-next/ <comment><USER2> If I'm not mistaken all people did was sign up for a mailing list to receive updates about the course.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. Very few of these people will actually listen to the first lecture, and very few of those people will put in the work to complete the course and master the material.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How is this new? The stanford iPhone course (<http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi-bin/drupal/>) has been downloaded more than a million times.

<http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/may20/million-052009.html>

<comment><USER5> Is the Stanford iphone class interactive? It seems like something you just download and watch.

<comment><USER6> It is not

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd be interested to see stats of how many people actually finish it. Seeing as its free its easy to say 'yeah ill do it' and then not find the time.

</comment><comment><USER8> wow..This is unbelievable. This clearly shows how much progress we are making in terms of the way we are getting educated. Thanks Stanford.

</comment><comment><USER9> Damn. AI 3rd ed on amazon is $115. Assume the authors get $50 so Norvig gets $25. He may have just banked $2.5MM.

No disrespect meant -- it's awesome to see Stanford experimenting with education like this. But still... wow.

Edit: reminds me of the $24MM house Stewart -- of Stewart's calculus -- built with earnings from his calc texts [1]. I'm not hating on educators being paid well, but particularly stewart seems a little... unseemly, particularly in light of the constant churn of new editions. Has calculus or calculus pedagogy seriously changed in the last 10 years in a way that requires a stream of new calc book editions?

[1] [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123872378357585295.html#proj...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123872378357585295.html#project%3DSLIDESHOW08%26s%3DSB123869600484183257%26articleTabs%3Darticle)

<comment><USER10> > Has calculus or calculus pedagogy seriously changed in the last 10 years in > a way that requires a stream of new calc book editions?

Speaking as a math prof: No. No. NO. It is a ripoff of our students, pure and simple.

When teaching calculus at a previous job we used the eighth edition of this calculus book by Varberg et al., and the statement of Taylor's theorem (one of the major theorems of calculus) was wrong. You figure, eight editions, you could get it right. But evidently I was naive.

However, a couple of universities I have taught at have explicitly told publishers that if they go to a new edition, and stop selling the old one, then the department will move to a different book entirely. I've finally moved up to a tenure track job; I'm going to enjoy this game of hardball :)

<comment><USER11> "Speaking as a math prof: No. No. NO. It is a ripoff of our students, pure and simple."

As a math prof, which texts(old or new) do you think are good? (fwiw I like Spivak)

<comment><USER12> The best introduction to Calculus is classic "Calculus Made Easy" by Silvanus P. Thompson. It is in public domain, is a de-facto standard and is praised by many working scientists (Antony Zee, for example).

The book itself <http://djm.cc/library/Calculus_Made_Easy_Thompson.pdf>

Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus_Made_Easy>

It gives you a working knowledge to get going with almost any practical problem you may encounter that needs to be approached with mahtematical analysis.

I would say that Spivak books are more about learning the culture of working mathematicians, and while with its merits one must be careful with commitment of investing her personal time to it.

Also, here is a great page to learn about good (and usually public) books for different branches of mathematics and physics by a Nobel-winning theoretical physicist G. t'Hooft <http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~hooft101/theorist.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That's the future of education. Udemy is going to rock it.</comment>


Login as root on macOS High Sierra by just leaving a blank password - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/lemiorhan/status/935578694541770752 <comment><USER2> Main thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15800676](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15800676)

</comment><comment><USER3> How the hell does a bug this shallow slip through QA?

Of all companies, Apple is the one banking heavily on their image of taking care of their users' security and privacy. How do they not have a test case for this. This kills my trust in them.

What. The. Hell.

</comment><comment><USER2> The root user is disabled on macOS by default.

Apparently trying to use it the admin prompt enables (creates?) the root user with an empty password. It does not seem to disable the root account afterwards, either.

Current workaround is enabling the root user [0] and change the password:

$ sudo -s passwd

0: [https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT204012#enable](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204012#enable)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm yet to upgrade but if this is true then it's pretty shocking and suggests some serious problems with how OS X releases are tested (especially after the recent "reveal FileVault password" bug).

Hopefully they'll up their game in response to these incidents. I've no intention of moving away from OS X but things like this make it a bit harder to recommend to people!

</comment><comment><USER5> Was able to reproduce on my machine. macOS High Sierra 10.13 (17A405)

This is incredible.</comment>


Ask PG: Is HackerNe.ws an official domain? - <AUTHOR>

http://hackerne.ws <comment><USER3> No, someone else created that.

<comment><USER4>
      hackerne.ws.		1722	IN	A	22.214.171.124
      news.ycombinator.com.	835	IN	A	184.108.40.206

You really should check the Host: header that gets sent and if it's not a host you recognize, redirect to one you do recognize. Do not allow people to create aliases to sites you control. This is dangerous.

Users can log in and register with it. After a while, he could redirect through a proxy, and catch the cookies. Search engines might crawl you through this domain name, which can later be re-pointed. There's all sorts of abusive or inappropriate things that can be done here; don't allow it.

<comment><USER5> You're right about the dangers; but those dangers can't really be avoided. If the news.ycombinator.com server stops responding to queries for hackerne.ws, the owner of hackerne.ws can simply set up a proxy which changes the Host: header and have hackerne.ws start working again.

<comment><USER4> That's a good point, although he could throttle on an IP address. Or at least logins on an IP address.

You still generally want to eliminate low-hanging fruit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting. Not sure how often it updates, but seems reasonably current. Doesn't know who I am, which is the best giveaway (eg, my login id doesn't appear, and I have the option to upvote stories / comments I already have - <USER2> which are my own).

Actually, when I go to vote, it asks me to login.

No thanks.

<comment><USER4> It's an A record, not a proxy. Still abusive but the owner would have to point it elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This domain was registered about a year and a half ago as a gift offering to news.yc.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=84039></comment>


Benford's Law: Most Numbers Start With 1 - <AUTHOR> http://www.rexswain.com/benford.html

<comment><USER2> Oh look, Benford's Law again. Here are a few discussions to catch up on:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1917514>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2089809>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1653808>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1569669>

<http://searchyc.com/submissions/benford+law?sort=by_date></comment>


Samsung Stops Galaxy Note 7 Smartphone Shipments as Safety Suspicions Spread - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/samsung-stops-smartphone-shipments-as-safety-suspicions-spread-1472726756 <comment><USER4> Samsung just announced that they will replace all 2.5 million Note 7 sold so far.

[http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/02/reuters-america-brief- samsung...](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/02/reuters-america-brief-samsung-says- will-replace-all-problematic-note-7s-sold-or-shipped.html)

<comment><USER5> That's not going to be cheap! Must be pretty serious for them to come to that conclusion. No doubt somebody will have some stern words said to them over this, been in one of those meetings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Got mine 5min after @Samsung told me they stop delivery.

Now unopened package on my desk.

Very angry at Samsung, their ecommerce shop (3 tries until ordering worked), delivery notification (10 hours late for every update), delivery (wrong delivery address from their system to DHL) has been very bad already. For an 850 EUR premium device. I will never buy from them again.

And now this.

Probably returning and getting an iPhone7.

<comment><USER7> You really have no idea how much crap Samsung is doing. Their entire business model is basically copy what the established players are doing, but not obviously enough to get sued and then undercut them on price. They screwed up once with Apple, but otherwise it works fine for them.

Then there's the bizarre sexist ads, refusing to pay the return flight for bloggers if they don't praise Samsung and other stories.

I wouldn't buy anything from them even if their customer support were great.

<comment><USER8> Yet, they absolutely dominate the smart phone market outside of the US, having not just a relative majority, but an absolute majority.

<comment><USER9> That's true, but market share is a pointless metric, since ultimately all it takes to get market share is money - the more you spend on advertising, the more you discount your product, the more people will own it regardless of how good or bad it is.

What matters is profit share, and Apple vacuums up nearly 100% of the profit in the smartphone world, and meanwhile Samsung silently prays that some day it will be within earshot of just breaking even.

<comment><USER10> Matters to who? Why?

I don't give much of a crap if my vendor makes a profit, I care about user experience and app support. A big market share certainly impacts the latter.

Samsung do make profit on their smartphones, by the way, not sure what makes you think otherwise.

( Edit -- 1Q 2016 they reported a profit of around 3.3 billion dollars on their mobile operations, source - [http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/28/samsung-has- got-its-mojo-back...](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/28/samsung-has-got-its-mojo- back-as-smartphone-profits-surge-42.html) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My, rather cheap, Samsung phone had it's battery puff up and after I put the battery in a metal container for a month, it did catch fire and burn for a short time inside the container. That's a rather known problem for a Galaxy S3 Mini and such. I had to buy a new battery. So it might not be surprising that a same problem has occurred with the Note 7, it might be a bad battery supplier.

<comment><USER12> The surprising part is that Note product line is supposed to be pretty mature after all these years, but we still observe these childish issues in the final product. If you're copying from Apple or others, at least do it right.

<comment><USER13> Apple has copied more from the note series than vice versa.

<comment><USER14> Like what?

And no, Android features Apple copied from _Google_ don't count.

<comment><USER10> Well, the phablet form factor - the Samsung note range did create (or perhaps reveal) that particular market, which Apple eventually decided to move into.

Software-wise, I have no idea as I've never really used an iPhone.

<comment><USER14> If you're going to credit Samsung for the phablet form factor then you need to credit Apple for the iPhone and iPad form factor it built off, and so on and so forth.

<comment><USER10> I'm not the initial poster and have no interest in defending the initial claim about who contributed more, I just wanted to give one example where Samsung lead the market and Apple followed.

Presumably we should also be giving credit to MS for their early pushing of the tabletpc form-factor. It's all evolutionary...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The timing re the iPhone 7, which is coming out in a few days, is terrible for Samsung. I imagine customers will have to return their Note, and then many will strongly consider the new iPhone. If this happened even a month ago, that would be far less of an issue.

</comment><comment><USER16> I feel a sense of schadenfreude over this after Samsung decided to disregard their loyal Note series customers and put a non-removable battery in the Note 7. Terrible decision.

<comment><USER17> I'll never buy Samsung again after owning Note 2. Memory failed after 2 and a bit years. I found out it was a known issue. I had bought it with the intention of using it 4-5 years. When spending that kind of money I'd expect only the best components. The fact that they used poor ones in their flagship product doesn't speak well for them.

<comment><USER18> How do you handle security issues with such an outdated phone?

<comment><USER17> I'd root it and install latest Android.

<comment><USER16> That only works if you can get device drivers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Reuters has a short article (sans any named source) that Samsung will issue a global recall [1].

[http://www.reuters.com/article/samsung-elec-smartphones- reca...](http://www.reuters.com/article/samsung-elec-smartphones-recall- idUSS6N19U01C?type=companyNews)

</comment><comment><USER20> Unfortunately the last two release cycles of the Note series have been feature downgrades ever since Note 4.

Fun fact - this is not a maths error, Samsung skipped Note 6 branding and went straight to 7 to match their S7 release names.

<comment><USER13> What features did the Note 4 have that the Note 7 does not? I think the IR blaster is definitely missing.

<comment><USER20> UV light sensor which for some reason needed location data to measure correctly. I've never understood why this is required as it should be able to read raw data based on incoming light.

<comment><USER20> And less megapixels for the camera, although this is not a conclusively bad thing...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If they'd just made the damn thing with a removable battery like the note4 and older this would be a much easier, and cheaper, problem to deal with.

<comment><USER22> I might have actually have bought one in the first place. I don't buy any phone I can't get a replaceable, extended battery for.

I'm still rocking a Galaxy S3 with a Hyperion 7000mAh battery which easily lasts 3 days without recharging and am only looking to replace it because I got the international version, with no LTE and only 1GB of RAM. If I had gotten the South Korean version I would keep on using it until it broke.

<comment><USER23> Didn't knew until today that there are 7000 mAh batteries which can fit in samsung phones, interesting. Why do you think the companies are not going for these kind of batteries in the first place?

<comment><USER22> Fashion, mostly. Skinny jeans and thick smartphones are a problem.

Also the mentality that thinner==better being mainstream.

What boggles my mind is companies like LG, who offer phones with replaceable batteries not selling their own high-capacity batteries. Maybe they fear people will see someone with the extended battery and believe that is the regular phone?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Aggravating is the fact that this device goes into the new GearVR, so strapped to your head and just a few centimeters from your eyes.

</comment><comment><USER25> I hope Samsung (and others) learn from this clusterfuck and decide to employ user-replaceable batteries in the future.

I had my Note 1 battery also expand in volume - probably due to a crappy charger and the electronics didn't filter voltage fluctuation enough - and had to get rid of it before it exploded.

<comment><USER26> > I hope Samsung (and others) learn from this clusterfuck and decide to employ > user-replaceable batteries in the future.

Na. Won't happen and honestly I'm fine with it. Replaceable batteries are a very tiny niche that the vast majority of users not only don't care about but don't want to have to deal with. It also further complicates waterproofing. You can even shove a larger battery in the phone if it's not replaceable.

> I had my Note 1 battery also expand in volume - probably due to a crappy > charger and the electronics didn't filter voltage fluctuation enough - <USER3> > had to get rid of it before it exploded

To be fair it's supposed to expand versus catching fire / exploding so it doesn't necessarily indicate that it _will_ explode though you should most certainly get rid of it ASAP.

<comment><USER25> > It also further complicates waterproofing.

I own a CAT B15Q, which sports a replaceable battery and is waterproof enough to have earned back its price by betting random people in bars "can this phone survive dunking into a mug of beer".

> To be fair it's supposed to expand versus catching fire / exploding so it > doesn't necessarily indicate that it will explode though you should most > certainly get rid of it ASAP.

Yes, but with a fixed backplate you won't see the battery expanding until it's too late. Also, phone vendors can't ship the battery separate from the phone, which has two issues:

1) no more "take out the battery" to reboot the phone, as vendor you have to rely on a secondary processor to monitor a key combination for rebooting - <USER3> if this goes wrong, no way short of disassembly to force a reboot.

2) as Samsung is experiencing right now (and various manufacturers before them), extremely expensive callbacks in case of battery defects. With replaceable batteries, just give any store (or the consumer!) a way of checking if the battery is vulnerable (a simple web interface with a serial number input), and a stock of replacement batteries, and it's done in under 5 minutes. Disassembling will usually require specially equipped stores (clean rooms, replacement glues, special training for nondestructive opening, ...) and time, both of which are expensive and reduce the number of service points available to the consumer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have to respect Samsung for doing a recall correctly, not like how Whirlpoint are bungling their dryer recall. Years wait for someone to come around and fix it! In the mean time do they really think that people can just stop using the dryers.

</comment><comment><USER28> Never liked Samsung phones (Google Nexus 5 user still), but this is really annoying for their customers. I'm even sadder for those who buy these expensive phones unsubsidized.

</comment><comment><USER29> wonder what they're going to do with 2.5 million phones they take back. I don't think they would dare sell them as refurb units.

<comment><USER6> Replace battery, sell them as new is what I bet on. Fishy yes. Compared to taking a 1B$ hit easy for excecutives.

<comment><USER19> > sell them as new

That's what they did for their washing machines that also caught on fire [1].

[1] [http://www.samsung.com/au/washingmachinerecall/](http://www.samsung.com/au/washingmachinerecall/) "Did Samsung apply the rework to machines prior to sale? "

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Will airlines ban carrying the Note 7 on board?

<comment><USER31> The might ban putting them in luggage. Most people carry theirs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> __EDIT: __The Korea Herald indicates that the issues appear to be originating from faulty ITM battery packs [2].

 __OLD: __

Going along with the assumption there is some fault with the devices...

Essentially they should just sit there in shipping unless there is an external/internal battery short, extreme temperature or puncture. I assume the batteries were not punctured sitting in their target package after all the testing they must do and the fact these batteries can handle the temperatures of shipping (this is done all of the time).

"Sister company Samsung SDI Co Ltd (006400.KS) said that while it was a supplier of Galaxy Note 7 batteries, it had received no information to suggest the batteries were faulty." [1]

These batteries are made and tested all of the time, I would hope the technology is quite well understood my now which for me would rule out the likelihood of internal battery failure. Samsung also tend make quite high quality equipment in general in my personal opinion.

For me that leaves two likely possibilities, the phones were somehow switched on during travel (potentially through vibration or bad software) or bad circuit design meaning some current draw in given scenarios allowing the batteries to warm up.

My money would be on the devices turning on during shipping due to a crate knock or large shock. If a pallet fell of a fork lift or some semi-large force to the devices, I wouldn't be surprised if the low-profile power button was pressed inwards, switching the devices on.

If I remember rightly, Samsung devices ship in cardboard, acting both as insulation and something to get the fire going. A nice large hot display and hot battery well insulated would be enough to do a bit of thermal escalation. I would imagine it would only take one to turn on to do the trick. If I were Samsung I would switch one on, stick it back in it's packaging and wrap it in bubble wrap to simulate the condition of being in the middle of a pallet.

[1] [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec- smartphones-i...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec-smartphones- idUSKCN1161BL)

[2] [http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160901000855](http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160901000855)

<comment><USER32> That theory (issue with shipping) doesn't seem to be consistent with a global recall.

<comment><USER5> I stand corrected.

After reading "The Korean Herald" [1], it does appear you're right about them considering a global recall.

"Thus far, explosions have been reported on the phones using the ITM battery pack." [1]

"Amid growing concerns among consumers, Samsung is considering recalling all the Note phones and exchanging the battery free of charge." [1]

I'm really surprised, seems like the suppliers of the batteries have some lacking quality control. This isn't something I would expect from a major competitor to Apple, usually there is ridiculously over-the-top quality control from these companies.

[1] [http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160901000855](http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160901000855)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> My Samsung Galaxy S7 heats up aswell while charging and using phone.

It's not okay too... I fear that it will blow up someday.

<comment><USER34> not sure whether to worry

<comment><USER33> well, it will some day blow up.

i'm glad that i don't play Pokemon anymore, because it's turning off everytime i've played it after 15 minutes or so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I know news sites making viewing a paid-for experience is relatively new, but it feels kind of wrong to bring closed source information onto HN. Regardless of quality, it's generally frowned upon.

This link could be replaced by the link below without sacrificing quality (it may actually be the original source too):

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec- smartphones-i...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec-smartphones- idUSKCN1161BL)

<comment><USER35> \- Add refcontrol[1] for Firefox, or some alternative for Chrome.

\- RefControl > Options > Add Site

\- Enter site as www.wsj.com and Action as [https://www.google.com](https://www.google.com)

You can also use this trick for ft.com and probably a few other sites.

1\. [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- GB/firefox/addon/refcontrol/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- GB/firefox/addon/refcontrol/)

<comment><USER36> Thanks for the tip!

Works for me on Chrome with "Referer Control" extension:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/referer- control/hn...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/referer- control/hnkcfpcejkafcihlgbojoidoihckciin?hl=en)</comment></comment></comment>


Tariffs Hit Those Trump Wants to Help: U.S. Factories - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/tariffs-hit-those-trump-wants-to-help-u-s-factories-1539518400 <comment><USER2> It is like if Trump would want to help China by making it harder to produce in the US. A country like the US imposing tariffs to Chinese imports produces a small impact on Chinese companies as those products are needed in the US anyway and most of them can only be found there.

If Trump wants to have a competitive industry the solution is not trying to block the providers but facilitating global trade.</comment>


How do machines learn meaning? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.lateral.io/2015/06/how-do-machines-learn-meaning/

<comment><USER2> This isn't learning by any means - this is just similarity. Machines don't understand what the words mean, nor the nuance of how to use them via this method.

<comment><USER3> You say this as though you have a definition of what it means for something to "understand" words. It's easy to make a claim, why don't you try to back it up?

<comment><USER4> usually, we assume that a meat grinder does not "understand" meat, that a rice cooker does not "understand" food, and that a telephone or a CD player does not "understand" human language.

Wiktionary terms "understand" as (i) be aware of the meaning of something (so we've just reduced it to the meaning of awareness and meaning), or (ii) to impute meaning that is not explicitly stated.

To put it in more colorful terms, a blind person can understand the difference between green, yellow and brown bananas, but they usually cannot understand the visual aspect of color.

By the same rationale, a vector does not understand the word it describes any more than the telephone book understands the people listed in it or the city that they live in.

<comment><USER3> We are not talking about just a vector, but rather vectors trained in a specific way along with cosine similarity. You could easily argue that this system can tell you that one words has a different meaning from another word, or that two words have similar meaning. Further, it learned this without these relationships being explicitly stated.

Once you start to try to define aspects of cognition explicitly, things very quickly get ambiguous. Also, these conversations usually go along the lines of:

1\. State a definition.

2\. See that computer matches.

3\. Decide it's wrong after all and try to change it so that computer can't match it.

4\. Repeat until we find a definition that excludes computer.

I think it's a fascinating topic, but the above pattern is fairly disappointing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not ML expert (especially in the natural language space), but I can't help thinking something is missing here. I know a ship 'is-a' boat. Cats and dogs are unrelated animals etc. Maybe the colocated words are a very good approximation of a dictionary or real meaning?

<comment><USER6> So this is my research area.

Distributional vectors are a proxy to word meaning. Words with similar vectors have similar meaning or are semantically related in some way. But usually, you just measure similarity by a single number: the cosine similarity between the two words' vectors.

This number can tell you words are related or not, but it can't tell you _how_ they're related [1]. There's been a good deal of work in automatically identifying that "ship is-a boat" (which is called hypernymy) or cats and dogs are unrelated animals (cohyponomy), but it's still being perfected.

But it is useful. Words that are similar in meaning can be treated similarly. As a bad example: maybe I know that "anger" has negative sentiment, but I don't know what sentiment "furious" has, but I can infer it probably has negative sentiment since it's so similar to "anger".

[1] There's a good deal of evidence that words that have high cosine similarity are more likely to be cohyponyms.</comment></comment>


All-electric passenger ferry to be built in New Zealand - <AUTHOR> https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12177865&fbclid=IwAR1aD3aeBU8Q7TX-ojfRl9qqJKQ2Q1bw7Eod3Jbu7QJ5wVVX8F38baYGUIA <comment><USER2> Visiting family this Christmas, I was happy to see the ferry line that connects Sweden and Denmark has retrofitted their fleet, so they are now all- electric.

The ferries are automatically recharged by a robotic system at each port while they are loaded, it's pretty neat.

[http://sailwiththecurrent.com/](http://sailwiththecurrent.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> For those wondering: the first was [http://fjellstrand.no/flyers/flyer_1696.pdf](http://fjellstrand.no/flyers/flyer_1696.pdf) (2015)

Quite a bit larger than the NZ one (4 times the length) , about a MW of power (max), and, reading [https://electrek.co/2018/02/03/all-electric-ferry-cuts- emiss...](https://electrek.co/2018/02/03/all-electric-ferry-cuts-emission- cost/), about a MWh of battery capacity.

This isn't built for long distances, but a good first step.

<comment><USER4> This is also interesting, Sweden is converting it's two large ferry's to battery electric as well.

[https://electrek.co/2017/08/24/all-electric-ferries- abb/](https://electrek.co/2017/08/24/all-electric-ferries-abb/)

These aren't small ships, 10,000 tons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Small steps :-)

</comment><comment><USER6> "Southern Hemisphere" is an irrelevant non-interesting click-baity qualifier here.

"Johnson just set the world-record fastest pitch ever! against an eastern conference team on an odd calendar day during an avocado price crisis"

<comment><USER7> Well perhaps to you, but if you're an aspiring engineer in New Zealand or Australia it can be quite good and inspirational to be reminded that modern tech isn't just something that happens on the other side of the world.

<comment><USER8> Not just something that happens on the other side of the world but even just retaining knowledge. In Wellington we replaced out NZ built electric trains with ones made in Korea, and our NZ made electric busses with ones made in China. So it's good to see this sort of manufacturing knowledge return to the city

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Few note in today's "electric fever":

\- since few (not so few) years all mid-size/large boat thrusters are electric, normally powered by combustible oil generators, they have replaced expensive diesel engines used in the past;

\- we know very well how simple and effective an electric engine is, unfortunately we also know how hard is storing electricity.

Long story short IMO all these "battery-based electrical vehicles", ferry, plane etc included are simple _stupid_ engineering games or marketing moves until we found an affordable way to store electricity enough.

Also people should take into account that we use petrol not only as an energy source but also for plastic, witch include nearly anything from electrical insulation to packaging solution and we do not have real/more environmental friendly alternatives for most of these uses. That's of course does not means that we have to keep going with petrol, but means that we need far more research before doing real move.

In the meantime people should consider in terms of pollution how many emissions they can produce building modern, small, insulated homes (reducing both steel usage that it's a real problem today since we are really start to fall short and HVAC/heating power consumption), consider that we can use alcohol and methane for car and small vehicle power in general, they produce both far less pollutants than petrol/diesel fuel.

<comment><USER10> >Long story short IMO all these "battery-based electrical vehicles", ferry, plane etc included are simple stupid engineering games or marketing moves until we found an affordable way to store electricity enough

Correct, but you failed (intentionally?) to note that now we have. More specifically, every year the proportion of the totality of vehicles becomes a logical target for elctrification grows larger. Would you really dispute that?

>consider that we can use alcohol and methane for car and small vehicle power in general, they produce both far less pollutants than petrol/diesel fuel.

The day has passed when that would be better option than electrification.

>In the meantime people should consider in terms of pollution how many emissions they can produce building modern, small, insulated homes (reducing both steel usage that it's a real problem today since we are really start to fall short and HVAC/heating power consumption)

Why can't we do both?

<comment><USER9> I do not failed to notice the _commercial_ and _political_ push toward battery-based EVs, I do not notice that they can be sustained in the mean and long run.

We can't produce and dispose enough battery to electrify our personal vehicle only at country-scale, we can't produce and distribute enough energy to charge them.

Consider that at a certain scale we can do tons of things, but only at a certain, limited, scale. In Germany hydraulic-propellers for trains are still fairly common, they are super-duper complex to design and maintain but they was pushed as a flag of excellent German industry decades ago and they have them even if are monsters and does not really scale nor offer any practical advantage. In the '60s Italian Ansaldo have designed and build electric planes with electricity generator inside the fuselage, they fly well but they can move around half the load of the correspondent classic-design plane and they cost more, another Italian industry, Fiat, have built personal cars with a jet-mini-turbine engine as a power generator + electric motors, they works however they are so noisy, they eject too much heat, they consume so much fuel that they simply drop it.

The fact that we can do something it does not means automatically that it's a good things to do nor that can scale. We can save enormous resources and improve our lives building energy-efficient houses so it's a good move, we can't for now produce electric vehicles so we have to research (a forgotten thing in managerial-era) but not try to push something we know can't scale.</comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Halo: Jaw-Dropping New Health-Monitoring Wearable and Service Revealed - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidphelan/2020/08/27/amazon-halo-is-a-jaw-dropping-health-service--measures-body-fat-in-an-all-new-way/ <comment><USER2> "If you create a voice profile and turn on the microphones on the Halo Band, it listens passively in the background, sampling speech samples every 10 minutes or so, to work out your state of mind."

\- Not sure I'm a fan.</comment>


Horizontal, cableless elevators to enter testing in 2016 - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/2/7318585/thyssenkrupp-elevator-ropeless-horizontal

<comment><USER2> Cool and needed. But are they anywhere as safe as existing elevators? Technology hasn't changed in 160 years because they are so safe. There's a failsafe gravity-powered brake that activates if the rope breaks. What do they plan to do to match that? Any active braking is vastly less safe, if it depends on electronics/sensors/maintenance.</comment>


Ask HN: Your best productivity hack? - <AUTHOR> I work on a side project outside of my day job.  I try to write down what I will work on the night before.  This helps me hit the ground running.<p>What is your best productivity hack? <comment><USER2> Gnome Shell. Helps me to focus and getting things done.</comment>


Notes from Startup Lessons Learned Conf - <AUTHOR> http://docs.google.com/View?id=atp5cgp89zw_396dqk483hd

<comment><USER2> Absolutely brilliant. Thanks for putting this up, it complements the slides they've put up.

<comment><USER3> Agreed.</comment></comment>


Obama to Name Tom Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323982704578455000613034748.html <comment><USER2> It's interesting what the headline chooses to mention. He was a lobbyist from 1979-1984, but he's also a venture capitalist and entrepreneur who has founded multiple telecommunications companies: "Mr. Wheeler is a managing director at Core Capital Partners, a Washington investment firm with $350 million under management. He has helped to oversee the firm's investments in an array of start-ups and small- to mid-size technology companies, including GoMobo, Twisted Pair Solutions and Jacked. He also is a member of the board of EarthLink, an Internet service provider that competes aggressively with Verizon and AT&T." (From the NYT article).

The NYT article is a bit better: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/business/technology- invest...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/business/technology-investor-is- reported-choice-for-fcc.html?_r=0)

Forbes has more info: <http://www.forbes.com/profile/thomas-wheeler>.

BusinessWeek has a more complete profile: [http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/pe...](http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=533926&privcapId=751092&previousCapId=174438&previousTitle=TARGET%20CORP)

He has a blog/website: <http://www.mobilemusings.net>.

<comment><USER3> Sadly, the WSJ has just another soundboard for Rupert Murdoch's FUD. Doing whatever they can do to make a story more polarizing.

<comment><USER4> (EDIT: Disregard the following, see ordinary's reply) Not that I disagree about the WSJ, but it seems that the lobbyist part of the headline was added by the submitter.

<comment><USER5> The article's header says "Obama to Name Wheeler to Head FCC", but the HTML title attribute says "Obama to Name Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC".

<comment><USER4> Oh hey, it does. Apologies. (Viewing title tags is inconvenient on a phone.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's the story at the LA Times, which is not behind a paywall:

 _Obama to nominate venture capitalist Thomas Wheeler to head FCC_

[http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fcc- wheeler-20130501,0...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fcc- wheeler-20130501,0,213730.story)

</comment><comment><USER7> This notion that each industry knows best how to regulate itself keeps ending us up in one disaster after another.

<comment><USER8> The most regulated industries in America are banking, medicine, and education. It seems to be doing a good job.

Meanwhile internet technology is among the least regulated. Someone needs to do something to ensure a vibrant competitive landscape.

<comment><USER9> Yes, your comment is witty, but I think it's critically flawed. Firstly, medicine and education should be public services, in the sense that their management should have the imperative of increasing living conditions for the populace rather than generating capital. It can also be added that arguably, the purpose of banking is to increase living standards, instead of being a business for those that control it.

Secondly, you're implying that the correlation between regulation and 'success' in those sectors implies causation between the two. Do you really think that the problem with health care in the US is that it's not regulated ENOUGH? Similarly, correct me if I'm wrong, but are you implying that education should be privatised? And lastly, do you think that the success of internet technology is a result of the fact that it has been less regulated than other industries (I'm not saying that it SHOULD be regulated, I'm just questioning whether or not that is a crucial factor)?

If that was intended only as a joke I understand, however I think it's important to think seriously about these things if we are to every try to fix them.

EDIT: typo

<comment><USER10> Using your logic, shouldn't access to knowledge and information (the internet) be a public service too? Shouldn't management have the imperative of increasing living conditions for the populace rather than generating capital apply to internet as well?

The logic behind the reasoning for healthcare, education, banking, telcom being heavily regulated is extremely flawed. The real reason those sectors are heavily regulated is so they can lock in profits with little effort.

<comment><USER9> The internet is more than access to knowledge and information, and I agree that the sectors responsible for knowledge and information should have the imperative of increasing living conditions, and not generating capital. This is why Wikipedia should not be a business; this is why universities should not be businesses and this why they should receive tax dollars. Note however, that whether or not they should be regulated is a totally different matter. I was questioning the notion that the problem with banking, medicine, and education in the US is excessive regulation.

On the other hand, companies like Amazon and Facebook have little to do with broadening access to knowledge and information (barring the latter in a trivial sense of the word), and are oriented towards generating capital, so I don't think the rhetorical questions that you open with are applicable here.

I'd like to hear you elaborate on why the reasoning for regulation is flawed in the cases of healthcare, education, banking, telecom.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> They told me that if I voted for Mitt Romney that lobbyists would be put in charge of the internet.

<comment><USER12> There was nothing false about that. It was your mistake for assuming that voting for Obama wouldn't also result in lobbyists being put in charge.

As long as we have only 2 parties, they will have no incentive to do anything different from one another. It's like expecting your local cable monopoly to be a better ISP because they have to compete with your local telephone monopoly for Internet subscribers.

<comment><USER13> I completely agree. Even though there are many political parties[1] in the US, there are only two that have the funds and mindshare to win presidential elections.

I like that independents like Bernie Sanders[2] and Angus King[3] manage to get into the senate, it provides a little bit of hope for change.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_th...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States#Major_political_parties)

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders>

[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_King>

<comment><USER14> The two major parties are propped up by the mathematics of voting, and funds. I believe mindshare is a symptom of those two things.

<http://www.rangevoting.org>

<comment><USER13> Interesting site, but the process is more complex than I think it needs to be. Try instant-runoff voting[1], Australia already switched to it: [http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-alternative-vote- explained.h...](http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-alternative-vote- explained.html)

Of course, this assumes that people know how to vote for the parties best for them. Which comes down to quality education and good news sources. You'd have to ban paid political ads, SuperPACs, lobbyists.

Then there's the matter of voting fraud. Voting computers shouldn't be used at all, all voting should be done on paper and the ballot design should be standardized. Voter registration should be done away with. On election day, all public transport should be free and workers should get at least one hour paid leave to go out and vote.

(None of these things are going to happen anytime soon, but I think they would help.)

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting>

<comment><USER14> Not for single-winner elections. STV (IRV) isn't so bad for multi-winner elections, but for single-winner elections it fails monotonicity. (It's difficult to design a multi-winner election system that's truly _bad_.) You think Florida in 2000 was bad? If there's a significant election skewed by IRV's problems, the population will want to burn the people who chose it _at the stake_.

<http://www.rangevoting.org/rangeVirv.html>

[http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/Instant- runoff_voting#Assess...](http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/Instant- runoff_voting#Assessing_IRV)

<http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/articles/irv.html>

<https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/articles/irv.htm>

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system_criterion#Compli...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system_criterion#Compliance_of_selected_systems_.28table.29)

IRV is a hack to incorporate run-off voting into the first-round voting system, and run-off voting is lacking.

In a political system as dysfunctional as the U.S., allowing voters to express true voting preferences is more important than having a voting system that will lead to only marginally better outcomes. Once true voting preferences are known, the political parties will have to adjust to accommodate that. As long as the voting system encourages some people to hide their true voting preferences, those preferences cannot push the two dominant political parties to change their platforms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does being a former lobbyist make him inherently evil, though? I'm no fan of lobbying from any aspect, but it's shallow to judge his priorities off of this one piece of his career -- especially with the article highlighting his history in favor of the government regulating telecom.

<comment><USER16> As a lobbyist, he headed the National Cable Television Association, and later the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. Why might cable TV operators, cell operators and Internet providers would pay someone good money to lobby for more government regulation? What business purpose could that possibly serve?

<comment><USER15> These are irrelevant questions, as the article specifically states that he is in support of regulation:

"...Tom Wheeler, appeared open in 2011 to letting wireless giant AT&T Inc. acquire T-Mobile USA...But he had a price. In exchange for a $39 billion merger, AT&T would have had to agree to a slew of new regulations, according to an idea Mr. Wheeler laid out at the time on his personal blog."

If you dig into said personal blog, you can find the following article [1], where Mr. Wheeler summarizes his reasoning:

"Now we have the perverse situation where a government win means less regulation while a victory for the corporate interest opens the door to more."

It is clear through his explanation that his approval was meant only as leverage for harsher regulations on the duopoly of wireless TelCos. That is a pretty solid indicator of where his allegiance lies. Likewise, if you meander around his blog, you'll see lots of musings in favor of Net Neutrality.

[1]: [http://www.mobilemusings.net/2011/09/awaiting-final- aria.htm...](http://www.mobilemusings.net/2011/09/awaiting-final-aria.html)

<comment><USER16> My point is that "regulation" isn't a monotonous scale from "more/better" to "less/worse". The quote and link does not at all answer my questions; what regulations did he work for as a lobbyist, and why?

Industry incumbents frequently use lobbyists to create regulation to raise the bar to entry in their field, cementing their own position and stifling competition - creating the kinds of complacent mono/doupolies that we know so well from cable companies and ISPs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hope. Change. Flushed.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I make them pay up? - <AUTHOR>

I had a contract with a client and had a sub-contractor.  Client pays me, I take a cut and pay my sub-contractor - nothing strange here.
My client wanted to pay my sub contractor directly, so I worked it out with the sub contractor to pay me a "finder's fee".  Basically, the same end result.
It's has been going well for several months but now the sub contractor is trying to renege and not pay.  What should I do?
I have been open with everyone and all parties involved know that I am making money on this deal.  I could go to the client and let them know that sub contractor is not paying me but that feels unprofessional and could potential hurt the sub contractor's reputation i.e. lose-lose for everyone involved.
I am extremely disappointed by the sub contractor's unprofessional and unethical attitude.
Any suggestions on how I can handle this situation? <comment><USER2> By no means am I recommending what to do, but I found this insightful reading when it comes to my own decisions on handling situations:

[http://philip.greenspun.com/politics/litigation/philosophy.h...](http://philip.greenspun.com/politics/litigation/philosophy.html)</comment>


How to Save $5000 on Your Logo - <AUTHOR> http://jimleff.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-save-5000-on-your-logo.html Entrepreneur, author, and musician Jim Leff argues that creative types aren't always that creative and that it's better to come up with a rough idea and have them tweak it than to go to them with a blank slate. <comment><USER2> As a designer, there's nothing I hate more than clients who come to me with preconceived notions of what they want or need, nevermind actual sketches of their "vision". It often leaves little opportunity to improve on the idea, or a hell of a lot of nudging to get them to accept something better.

My last logo job had about a hundred sketches, further refined to a dozen candidates, from which I presented the top three. The idea that an artist/designer/musician can't be called upon to think up fresh ideas is laughable. Any truly competent creative can pump out ideas a fast as they can draw/write/play.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, for every competent artist/designer/musician out there, there's at least one (and most likely more) hack that can't cut it and isn't competent at their job. And for someone who's job doesn't deal with what is more traditionally thought of as needing creativity, it can be hard to distinguish the competent people who are good at their job from the hacks who imitate.

<comment><USER2> You find competent designers the same way you find competent electricians, surgeons or programmers.

Ask around, get recommendations, look at their portfolios and talk to them about their methods and processes.

<comment><USER3> True, but: If you don't know what to look for, what good does talking looking at prior work or talking shop with them do? For all you know, they're completely making everything up as you go along in the conversation.

Getting recommendations from people is the best thing to do, but people are much more likely to need a dentist or an electrician then a writer or musician for something. So solid recommendations may be slightly harder to get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If the logo pictured therein represents the mockup he gave to the designer, I hope he'd be prepared to have it entirely modified or discarded. The logo is busy, repetitive, and difficult to digest.

Designers, musicians, and others make a living at their craft because they're _good at_ what they do (ideally). Logo designers have spent hours learning what's good and what isn't.

I wouldn't want someone who has a "compositional idea" to come up to me (as a piano player myself) and ask me to morph their idea into a masterpiece unless they fully understood that I might change their idea entirely, or that their idea might not even be feasible.

Same goes for startups -- you can't present an idea to a few developers and expect them to roar back with a great startup. It takes persistence, experience, and inspiration to create something good. But inspiration itself comes from having experience at a craft. Not all inspiration is created equal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Let me argue the other side for the sake of discussion. Designers, musicians, etc. make their living because they're good at what they do, but what is it that they do?

Designers are good at playing with visuals, writers are good at playing with words, musicians are good at setting harmony to a melody. Sometimes, those people are good at creating something from nothing, but it's a different animal.

Having worked as a writer, I liked starting from scratch, but I also appreciated when the CEO had a clear vision and story of what his company was about that I could run with. Many great works of music are derivative of a theme from another composer.

Jim's point seems to be that giving them something to react to and work with is a huge shortcut with little or no loss.

<comment><USER4> Sure, something's better than nothing.

That's what brainstorming is all about -- creating ideas without having any expectation that any particular idea will succeed. Starting with something might spur an idea forward, or it might not. An initial idea's good; multiple ideas are better. As long as the person understands that collaborating with an expert will necessitate change, perhaps back-and-forth consultation, etc., until a good, agreeable conclusion is reached.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've seen people get great-looking logo designs for $300 using <http://99designs.com>

I'm sure it pisses off $5000/logo designers as much as iStockphoto pisses off people that used to make a good living from stock photography, but welcome to the 21st century.

<comment><USER2> Spec work sites like 99designs are ripe with stolen illustrations from stock sites.

Should you ever get caught with a logo using stolen works, you're setting yourself up for some really hefty fees regardless of where you obtained the work. This isn't conjecture, it's happened before:

[http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/index.php/anti- spec-...](http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/index.php/anti-spec-work- parable/)

<comment><USER6> That's a great article. (The word is "rife", btw.)

As the article hints, it's a problem of economics. With spec work, the artist only gets paid on a few works out of many. To make many works and still earn a living wage, the artist must make each work with a fraction of the resources usually allocated to a professional work -- which on average can't compete with stolen works produced with more resources.

If spec work paid more, real artists might be able to compete -- but the only reason people want spec work is because it is cheaper... in the short term at least.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting how he accompanies his text with one of the worst logos I have seen in a while.

<comment><USER8> I did't catch that up too, but after he says:

"Nope, wasn't "implying" that! In fact, a careful read would have indicated the Chowhound logo was NOT created according to this advice. It was, in fact, done by a pro with vast experience, "condensation" or not."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Get a good designer and trust his/her intuition. A client of mine once paid for a logo and 10 days later got two squiggly lines back. How underwhelming! We kept it and sent for the letterheads and other office supplies to be printed. When they came, the thing looked JUST right on paper. Nice, crisp and to the point (we didn't know the logo went into a certain area on paper, it wasn't centered like in our printout.)

One logo might look OK on a printout, but imagine being in an office where nearly everything has that logo? The two Squiggly lines had _space_ around them and stood out. Anything meatier and we would have gone nuts. Looked gorgeous on their custom lamps too; they had reading lamps made of a murky glass bowl, except the logo area was see through. The whole thing just looked pro.

</comment><comment><USER10> Just go to logoworks, plunk down $400, get a pretty decent one, call it a day.

</comment><comment><USER11> Any designer worth his salt is going to spend some time going through a discovery process with you. This is where he or she would find out exactly what you are thinking and then translate that to good design. You may think this ugly ass dog looks good, but I can promise pretty much no one else does, so you're doing your brand and yourself an injustice to pretend you're the expert, when you're obviously not.

I am constantly baffled by designers and developers not understanding or appreciating each others craft.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wow Jim, harsh for you. I've almost always have had great experience with designers as long as the "front load" is good --what you want in concept/brand. I wouldn't presume, though I have other skills, do to what they do.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure whether or not I agree with this, but it's thought provoking. Interested in what others think.</comment>


Ask HN: Best birthday gifts for developer friends? - <AUTHOR> I have a best friend that has his birthday in a few weeks and I'm at a loss for gift ideas, so just soliciting some. He's in his early 30s, and pretty much has the money to buy whatever he actually needs, so probably something fun/frivolous/surprisingly useful would be great.
I of course would prefer it to last rather than be a oneoff novelty thing, but am open to ideas!
Feel free to also name a good gift you yourself got. <comment><USER2> I'm a developer in my early 30s, similar situation. Here are some cool gifts I would like, maybe it'll give you some ideas!

\- A solar powered battery pack (so I can go camping and charge devices/etc.) \- Books! If your friend is really into a particular subject, a highly-rated book on the subject would certainly make me happy. \- Shirts. I'm a little picky with clothing in general, but I do really enjoy funny tech t-shirts. \- Home office accessories. Things like exhaustion mats for standing desks, posters to hang up, a mini fan, stuff like that. \- Food! Food is a universally great gift =) \- A zoom dinner! My family recently did this: they ordered food for us and we all ate together over zoom. Was really a nice way to catch up and have a good time.

<comment><USER3> A good battery pack is actually a very nice idea for an utilitarian gift that won't just be collecting dust. I didn't really need one but got one for free and it often proves useful. Surprisingly enough in my case I use it mostly where I can technically get to an outlet but a charger would be inconvenient or a trip hazard (especially if people are drinking) so a portable battery is handy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My go-to gift is always a book. Stripe press produces beautiful, interesting hardcovers that gift well.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks Philip! I'll go dig. I enjoyed reading Will Larson's book, I think that was stripe press

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thinkgeek.com has both novelty and serious tech related gifts.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! I'll look around in it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> mechanical keyboard

raspberry pi</comment>


Ask HN: How would you build a service that is still be functional in 1000 years? - <AUTHOR>

Assuming that Internet is here to say, I want fixed text (less than 10ko) to be published on the Internet at regular pre-determined times in the future, for 10, 100 or even 1000 years. Obviously you can't have a standard web server because the hosting company would go bankrupt. There are also issue of electronic component decay, or changing protocols and languages. I've thought about self-replicating web software that would self-evolve with the contained data, or maybe an autonomous raspberry pi-unit (solar panel, enclosed in a glass unit) that would broadcast wirelessly the text. Other ideas? <comment><USER2> Published where on the internet? If it had a given domain name then you need to manage that. If it's on a specific site, then you need to know that it's there.

For 10 years it's easy - pay a few dozen people to make sure it happens. 100 years is harder, but doable with the same fashion. For a movie example, consider the Western Union message that Doc Brown sent in 1885 to Marty McFly in 1955, in Back to the Future II. Brown had the advantage of knowing that Western Union would exist, but I can imagine similar systems working.

After all, there are long-running experiments which take more than a lifetime, like Beal's germination experiment which started in 1879 and is expected to end in 2100. With enough money you can set up a fund, with a requirement that the information be published at set times in the future.

For 1,000 years? Forget about it. There are few human systems which have worked for that long, and your best bet is to write a document that's interesting enough so as to inspire someone in the future to transmit that document for you. For example, read [http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97nov/teller.htm](http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97nov/teller.htm) and see how someone in 1916 convinced someone in 1997 to do something.

For an entertaining fable, read [http://www.centauri- dreams.org/?p=11894](http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=11894) regarding a tale of New College, Oxford needing new oak beams.

<comment><USER3> For a related story, check out "Humanity's Final Game," the story of the winner of this year's GDC Game Design Challenge: [http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/28/4158218/humanitys-final- ga...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/28/4158218/humanitys-final-game-a- titanium-board-game-buried-in-the-nevada-desert)

The winner's efforts show the difficulty in designing something that will last, and be recognizable, in thousands of years. It was constructed of titanium and glass, the instructions were custom pictographs, and the location where it was placed was carefully orchestrated.

This illustrates the problem with trying to span such a long time. What will the world even look like in 100 years, let alone a millennium? Will we have the Internet? Will we speak any recognizable language? Heck, will we live in this solar system?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Create a cult. Induct people in it making them pledge to broadcast this text at predetermined times and make their children and grandchildren pledge the same.

Although this idea is quite stupid owing to extremely large possibility of the cult dying out, its protected from decay of devices and protocols with time.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not an Internet service, but the Long Now Foundation has started construction on a physical clock that's designed tot to last 10,000 years.

-[http://longnow.org/clock/](http://longnow.org/clock/) -[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Now_Foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Now_Foundation)</comment>