Tea: High-Level Language and Runtime System for Automating Statistical Analysis - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.05387 <comment><USER2> From the abstract: "In Tea, users express their study design, any parametric assumptions, and their hypotheses. Tea compiles these high-level specifications into a constraint satisfaction problem that determines the set of valid statistical tests, and then executes them to test the hypothesis."

This is awesome. I currently use R to run simple stats, but I make a lot of mistakes and have to spend a lot of time verifying that I'm using appropriate tests.

<comment><USER3> Great point. I wish R had an interface to a well-typed language.

I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't done anything in this regard, despite the fact that they own R.

<comment><USER4> There's an interesting interface from F# to R, which is not maintained by Microsoft [http://bluemountaincapital.github.io/FSharpRProvider/](http://bluemountaincapital.github.io/FSharpRProvider/)

The most important errors in R are not at all related to data type safety (though NA/NULL handling is a common issue), they're about the statistical soundness of the analysis you're conducting. Experimental design, implicit assumptions and invariants, confounding factors, and the appropriateness of the statistical tests you're applying for the distribution of the data you're applying them to. It sounds like tea-lang helps with the latter part.

Microsoft definitely doesn't "own" R, just one distribution of R (Microsoft R Open) and a package repository (MRAN).

(I'm a Microsoft employee and heavy user of R at work)

<comment><USER5> This is so interesting/cool to learn about. Thanks for sharing :)

You're spot on - Tea is focused on ensuring statistical soundness. Another way to think about this: Tea helps people analyzing data from studies to "maximize internal validity."

I hope to support integration with existing tools/common workflows in the future. Microsoft R Open definitely looks like an interesting target.

It'd be great to follow-up. I visit Microsoft in Redmond periodically. If you're interested, email me! (<my username> at cs.washington.edu)

<comment><USER4> Cool, I'll shoot you an e-mail. I'm very interested in the Tea project and potentially contributing to it too. It's the sort of thing that could make every working data scientist noticeably more effective at their jobs.

I was thinking about whether it'd be possible to write something like Tea for R, but then I found there is no R package for Z3 nor any other SMT solver! So that would be an extra challenge...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's an opensource python package that can be used in a jupyter notebook. Source is available at [https://github.com/emjun/tea- lang](https://github.com/emjun/tea-lang)

</comment><comment><USER7> This looks really useful! Is there a typo in example code, where the 'So' variable is assumed to be normally distributed (I think it's meant to be the 'Prob' variable)?

I tended to avoid statistics in the past, knowing just enough to realise how easy it is to draw wrong or misleading conclusions. I recently had to perform some data analysis and got a bit paralysed at the thought of choosing the wrong approach; something like Tea would have been great, if only to give external validation/justification to the decisions I made.

<comment><USER5> Yes, nice catch! Thanks :) In case you're interested, we want to explore opportunities to expand the "grammar" of assumptions people might want to express.

And, that's our hope. We'd love to increase people's awareness and confidence in their analyses.

<comment><USER8> There are a few errors in the paper. "HCI" is not defined. Figure 2 refers to independent and dependant variables for an observational study but the text under "Study Design" says it should be "contributor" or "outcome".

The software has zero releases. This doesn't allow comments w.r.t. versions and possible bug fixes.

I like the concept. Adding a graphic representing the model would help make it interpretable by non-numerate stakeholders, such as management. Or politicians (!)

It would be helpful to be able to make some statement on future support....is this going to be around for a few years?

<comment><USER5> Thanks so much for pointing these out :) Yes, as we speak, I am working on updating the README, supporting docs, and a better website for the language/project. I will let you know once I have these up and running! It would be great to get your feedback.

My plan is to continue building on Tea for _at least_ a few more years and provide support for new use cases, statistical methods, etc. Are there topics/concerns you'd like to see addressed? :)

<comment><USER4> I read and shared your paper and GitHub link with the rest of my data science team here at Microsoft Azure--we do a lot of hypothesis testing of this nature in our day-to-day work (using R or Python) and a tool like Tea would go a long way in helping us apply stats tests more efficiently and thoroughly. Good to know that you're planning to continue development, we'll be following with interest!

Some other areas to potentially explore could be support for power analysis, sequential analysis and stopping rules, for use in the pre-trial phase of controlled experiments such as A/B tests.

I'd also suggest adding a LICENSE file to your project to clarify how it's allowed to be used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is extremely interesting. This paper does a few different things that are worth separating:

1\. Structures knowledge about common statistical tests, the assumptions they need to satisfy, and the kinds of problems for which they are appropriate.

2\. Models this as a constraint satisfaction problem.

3\. Creates a DSL to write specifications for statistical testing.

4\. Develops an output format for statistical testing based on (3).

5\. Provides a python package that implements the above.

IMO (1) is by far the most fundamental of these, but the paper spends most of its time describing (3). I'll admit to not fully understanding (2), what the alternatives were, and why it's an appropriate choice - I wish there were more on that in the paper as well.

If the approach to (1) were described in more depth and published in a usable way outside of the implementation in (5), I could see it being broadly useful and leading to an ecosystem of different (competing) implementations. As it stands, the work on (1) is spread across a few functions in solver.py.

Looking more broadly, statistics-as-an-HCI-problem is fascinating, and I think this is a promising start. I'd also love to see more attention paid to (4), the output format. Most "doing harm with statistics", I believe, comes from misunderstanding/misapplying results, so looking at the full workflow / user story is critical. The focus of this paper is instead making the input easier, which is also obviously important.

emjun, so glad to see you in the comments here! What's the best way for interested folks to contribute to this project?

<comment><USER5> Hi! I, too, think statistics-as-an-HCI problem is a cool framing that allows for new methods/solutions :)

Your observations and distinctions about what Tea does are great.

I am currently trying to fix some bugs/make improvements from the deadline push. After that, I plan to restructure the internals to make the logic/reasoning/implementation easier to follow and extend.

I would love contributors! It would be great if you could watch, open an issue, or open a pull request on Github ([https://github.com/emjun/tea- lang](https://github.com/emjun/tea-lang)).

If there are enough interested collaborators, it might be worth opening up a gitter or slack group? In the meantime, if you'd like to chat more, please feel free to email me! (<my username> at cs.washington.edu)</comment></comment>


Aren't we all somewhere on the spectrum of disease? - <AUTHOR> https://thedeductible.com/2020/07/18/arent-we-all-somewhere-on-the-spectrum-of-disease/ <comment><USER3> This is a really dangerous and misleading way to look at bipolar.

The disease proper of bipolar disorder is progressive and degenerative. This progression is accompanied by structural changes in the brain [1] as well as biological changes in the body [2].

If someone had the syndromes of manic or depressed symptoms in response to a medication, that does not prove either way that the person actually has the progressive and degenerative disease that can induce those syndromes spontaneously. If withdrawing the medication completely solves the problem, it simply indicates that they don't have the disease.

The sentiment of "we're all a little crazy" is very old, and very dangerous to go around repeating. There's a specific threshold where things suddenly get orders of magnitude more fucked up, and anyone who has crossed this threshold will know how damaging it is to treat these diseases as if they're just an extension of normal human experiences.

If you have this disease, you need to halt the degenerative process. I've taken my meds every single day for the last 14 years because I know what will happen if I stop. I have friends and family that went down that road, and it isn't pretty.

[1] [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00063...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006322307002338) [2] [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160531104421.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160531104421.htm)

<comment><USER4> > The disease proper of bipolar disorder is progressive and degenerative.

This is also not entirely true. It may spontaneously resolve itself in many cases[0]. I suspect that we've grouped a number of different disorders under the label "bipolar" because they all manifest with similar symptoms.

[0] [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090929141530.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090929141530.htm)

<comment><USER3> Thank you for that! I hadn't seen it before.

I'm a little nervous about the idea of coming to conclusions about individual outcomes based on national surveys of self-reported diagnoses. It seems like there are vast opportunities for outside factors to mislead attempts at analysis.

For example, the proportion of people who were misdiagnosed to start with; the increased openness over time when it comes to accepting or speaking about the diagnosis; the improvement in mental health resources meaning more diagnoses; the possibility that patients decompensate and lose insight or reject diagnoses over time; etc etc.

If you're thinking "that sounds like a No True Scotsman", you're right. The disease is clearly progressive for some people. Declaring that people who don't demonstrate that progression don't have the disease is semantically useless but may be clinically useful.

<comment><USER5> I think a large part of the problem lies in the difficulty of accurate diagnosis, coupled with people's personal experiences with misdiagnosis.

I've been misdiagnosed as bipolar in the past, and the medication regime I was put on lead to schizoid delusions and incredibly unstable emotional state that only resolved once I stopped taking the medication (under the monitoring of the psychiatrist who initially prescribed them).

My mother was also misdiagnosed as bipolar, leading to her actual condition of Borderline Personality Disorder going untreated until she attempted suicide (she died 6 months after because of complications relating to the attempt).

A friend of mine who is schizophrenic was also misdiagnosed as bipolar, because his delusions and paranoia were fairly minimal. In his case, the misdiagnosis was probably more helpful than not, as the medications were helpful in stabilising his mood.

My point here isn't that the medical establishment is bad or that doctors are stupid. It's that disorders related to mental illness are very, very difficult to diagnose and treat, even for incredibly intelligent trained professionals. Many disorders have significant overlap with other disorders. An effect whose impact is only made worse by the fact that a bunch of these disorders are highly co-morbid. Mix in the fact that the borders between healthy and unhealthy are not especially well defined, and it's easy to see where a lot of the contention comes from

<comment><USER6> I'll add that someone who might be (self-)destructively bipolar in one environment, might be able to 'manage' in another, even without medication.

I've had multiple friends with diagnosed bipolar disorder, and harrowing and heartbreaking stories of how this affected their lives well into their twenties or even early thirties.

All of them have found ways to 'manage' their condition, without medication, through a combination of lifestyle changes, (odd) environments, and, perhaps most importantly, a group of friends who can deal with it or provide support in various ways. Some of them have been on medication for periods, and much prefer their current, imperfect situation.

By no means would I advocate avoiding medication, and I'm absolutely not saying that this can work for everyone. I'm also not arguing that their lives are just peachy now. It's a serious disorder.

And I do agree that people making statements like "we're all a little bipolar/autistic/borderline/etc." are often not helping and often actively harming those who are any of that more than 'a little'.

I've been diagnosed with autism and it's maddening how often, when I open up about it, people will say stuff like "well isn't that 'just' <x>" or "everyone has that". At this point I usually don't even bother trying to explain that there's a difference between, say, being punctual and curmudgeonly about it, and having a borderline-meltdown when plans change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's weird that we consider mental illness to be a disease, in my opinion -- none of the drugs have been linked to physical/chemical shortages in the brain or the like. We're able to mask symptoms but have absolutely no proof about underlying reasons, and so we create names of things and put it in the same classification of a medical disease... but that's very different.

Bipolar cannot be identified by any physical means. Different doctors will tell you different things. I agree that gradient approaches are useful in most contexts, but I am very hesitant to use this when a drug can be prescribed (with knowing bad side effects) can be applied. It can seriously mess someone's life up.

<comment><USER8> Mental Illness as defined by the DSM as not thriving. You can have the symptoms of a disorder, but if you are thriving then you do not have the disorder.

>It can seriously mess someone's life up.

Treatment to try fix someone who is not thriving, is precisely because someone's life is already messed up. Yes treatment may make it worse, but it often makes it better and there are treatment algorithms where we use best practices of how to go from here, and what signs should we be mindful for often when the meds make things worse the doctor should be asking the right questions for there are warning signs when the med is making things worse.

<comment><USER9> > _Mental Illness as defined by the DSM as not thriving_

Isn't that a two-system measure? The person. And their society.

A gay man in Tehran won't thrive, but the solution isn't medicating him into submission.

<comment><USER10> Yes. From page 20 of the DSM,

> Definition of mental disorder

> A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant > disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior > that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or > developmental processes underlying mental functioning. Mental disorders are > usually associated with significant distress or disability in social, > occupational, or other important activities. An expectable or culturally > approved response to a common stressor or loss, such as the death of a loved > one, is not a mental disorder. Socially deviant behavior (e.g., political, > religious, or sexual) and conflicts that are primarily between the > individual and society are not mental disorders unless the deviance or > conflict results from a dysfunction in the individual, as described above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well yes. But that shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone, humanity isn't made of absolutes or boxes or borders.

A spectrum you can be 'on', as the word suggests, is just a range or a degree within a classification so we have a common concept when communicating about things. If we had to develop a new word for every unique combination of attributes it would become very hard to talk about things.

</comment><comment><USER12> Not only are we all somewhere on a spectrum, we're on a linear combination of different spectra.

</comment><comment><USER13> As far as I understand, this kind of thinking is especially visual with Diabetes.

People have different levels of insulin sensitivity, which changes over time with thing such as diet and excercise.

Then magically one day you cross some arbitrary barrier, and you have type 2 diabetes. Crazy.

Only recently has this even been taken under scrutiny, and the phrase "pre diabetic" is used more. But it's clearly not enough.

I think the key to unlocking this is getting more people into measuring their insulin sensitivity through products like Veri[1]

[1][https://www.veristable.com](https://www.veristable.com)

<comment><USER14> Great example of that barrier is gestational diabetes, which may as well be called secondary type two diabetes.

It's not a rubicon, either, since it's so commonly reversible (though this isn't trivially easy).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've always thought about mental illness in this context - we define it as illness because of negative consequences, but it's really just the deviation from a norm.

I think Elon Musk is the best example of this - even ignoring some of his childish Twitter behavior, the guy's brain is waaaaaaaaay far off from the normal human brain. He thought he could start an electric car company from scratch and be successful. That's... crazy. And yet, because he's been successful at it, we don't label him as mentally ill.

The really interesting cases are people like artists - David Foster Wallace committed suicide because of his depression, but only after creating one of the great works of American literature. We label him as mentally ill for his depression, but we don't really have a label for the positive side of the fact that his brain was far from an average brain.

<comment><USER16> > He thought he could start an electric car company from scratch

Except he didn't. He invested in one that was already started with several employees, and had himself given founder status by fiat as part of the deal.

<comment><USER17> At what point do you consider a company founded? At the moment the business is registered by the local government?

<comment><USER16> Well, when 3 guys start it and work on it for a long time, incorporate for a year, have an office and employees, and then a VC comes in, the VC definitely _did not_ "found it", no matter when you define the actual date.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20150228163500/http://www.busine...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150228163500/http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla- the-origin-story-2014-10)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd long believed that cognitive issues like autism are on a 2 dimension spectrum and that all of us lie on it.

Perhaps something similar applies to the personality disorders. However those disorders tend to overlap; I can't imagine the geometry that might to represent it.

</comment><comment><USER19> What practitioners call mental health problems a "disease"? Surely that should be reserved for things like Covid or the plague?

<comment><USER20> They all have two aspects, the cause and the disease it triggers.

COVID-19 is the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus like AIDS is caused by HIV.

It gets complicated where they don't know or understand the cause like a lot of autoimmune diseases.

<comment><USER19> > like a lot of autoimmune diseases.

I worked for some years in a lab testing for auto-immune conditions - <USER2> called it that - a condition. I suppose other labs might have labelled it otherwise.

Would you call cancer a disease? I wouldn't.

But I suppose this is just arguing over semantics.

<comment><USER20> It is semantics but then words matter if you're the one affected - having the doctor say you have a condition would be better than having a disease.

I guess it depends on your definition of disease, which is technically broad in the literal sense of an abnormal negative medical condition. A condition in itself can be positive or negative and also has an implied connotation that it's just the current state.

Seem to be hitting that original argument about labeling things that are on a spectrum, where a condition could becalled a disease once it reaches a cetain state. Disease does imply a level of sickness and incapacitation, and maybe a permanent state?

Alternatively we could classify and reclassify disorders but the general public gets left way behind.

EDIT: There's also the notion that a disease is something you catch, which given our understanding of viruses and bacteria in triggering various diseases and conditions (and potentially some cancers) maybe excludes genetic and environmentally caused conditions?

<comment><USER21> I would ascribe the exact opposite feelings to the permanency of condition vs disease. Disease feels like something you get, you fight off, and you get better. A condition feels like something that you deal with and plan your life around.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, your right. I added in that disease is historically thought of something that you catch (and hopefully get over). Conditions can also be categorised as chronic which would be that permanent state of you have it, deal with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is a good video done by Philosophy Tube about this subject (it also talks about Jordan Peterson.)

Some words are inherently subjective, like we can't define what "healthy" is without using so many words that are beyond description. (About 10 minutes in this metaphor appears, when Philosophy Tube references Richard Boyd.)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEMB1Ky2n1E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEMB1Ky2n1E)</comment>


Rate this screencast of our startup - A student collaboration tool on Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://screenr.com/IpA

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a screencast of our student collaboration tool. It's in beta right now and the first phase is built as a Facebook application.

It's a way for students to meet and collaborate with students in their classes, exchange notes and set up study groups. Professors can join and communicate with their students on Facebook without requiring them to be "friended". Both the students and professors maintain their privacy.

This is phase 1 of about 100 :)</comment>


Fred Wilson: A Lot Can Happen In Five Years - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/11/a-lot-can-happen-in-five-years.html

<comment><USER2> "Things take longer in the short run but they happen faster in the long run."

The way I've heard it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a day, but underestimate what they can accomplish in a week/month/year.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've heard it phrased as "We overestimate change in the short run, and underestimate it in the long run"

[http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/03/roy-amara- forecaster.ht...](http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/03/roy-amara- forecaster.html)

E.g. it doesn't take long to go from "OMG online Social networking"? this will change everything! To "eh, my life is still the same". Then year later, you notice how much your social life has been slowly but totally extended and rearranged.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ray Kurzweil also likes to point this out. It's his explanation for why we don't appreciate how fast things are actually changing.</comment>


PuTTY 0.73 - <AUTHOR> https://lists.tartarus.org/pipermail/putty-announce/2019/000029.html <comment><USER2> PuTTY is fine of course, but just FYI to those who don't realize it: Microsoft has worked for a while to port OpenSSH to Windows proper. I think they are even shipping it with Windows nowadays.

[https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh- portable](https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable)

<comment><USER3> Mobatek's MobaXterm is a truly superior product:

[https://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/](https://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/)

SSH, remote desktops, hugs & cupcakes for all my friends!

<comment><USER4> MobaXterm is not free/open source software. This may or may not be relevant to you of course.

<comment><USER3> What do you mean? They offer a paid version with some minor bennies.

The product is of sufficient value that it's worth supporting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm been using a pretty "obscure" fork named PuTTY CAC. The big feature added is that you can use it with a SmartCard including a Yubikey.

I know the most popular use of Yubikey + SSH is via OpenPGP but it involves a lot of things which are not working very well on Windows (namely GPG4Win, unstable gpg-connect-agent, etc.).

With this fork, you just need to install the official Yubikey mini driver to have it work with PuTTY CAC. (You will also need Yubikey Manager to configure your key).

Connect your Yubikey, launch PuTTY CAC, look in SSH>Certificate, enable Attempt cert auth, Set CAPI cert (choose your Yubikey cert).

It even works through Windows Remote Desktop.

[https://github.com/NoMoreFood/putty-cac](https://github.com/NoMoreFood/putty- cac)

<comment><USER6> When I used Windows, to use an OpenPGP smartcard with SSH I used this smartcard-enabled fork of pageant[0]. According to the page it should also support Yubikeys.

The process was: launch sc-pageant.exe, insert smartcard in reader, and ready to connect with any SSH client with agent support.

However it is not open source and you have to register your key if you don't want to get an annoying popup from time to time (iirc it was 1€, but you could also email the developer if you were using an OpenPGP card).

[0]: [https://smartcard-auth.de/download-en.html](https://smartcard- auth.de/download-en.html)

<comment><USER5> Wow, it's even better!

But the licensing is meh. 20 euros for one public key hardcoded to the license...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been using KiTTY for a while now which was forked from a slightly older version of PuTTY and seems to have far more features (and bugfixes)

[http://www.9bis.net/kitty/](http://www.9bis.net/kitty/)

<comment><USER8> Not to be confused with [https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty](https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty), a GPU-accelerated terminal for MacOS and Linux.

<comment><USER9> When have you ever been cpu-bottlenecked on your SSH session?

<comment><USER10> Quite often if you have transparency enabled and have a lot of output.

And since stdout is blocking, it _can_ actually affect the performance of programs.

(and, anyway, it's about input latency)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Out of curiosity, why is the version number so low? It's been around forever.

<comment><USER12> Why does that matter? It's a mature piece of software that has ongoing fixes.

<comment><USER13> That's exactly the point: a version number <1.0 is the universal signifier for "this isn't ready to be a daily-driver yet". If that doesn't apply to PuTTY, it's a (minor) failure of communication.

<comment><USER14> Or it is a feature because they don't care about your particular production support issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I highly recommend the Bitvise SSH Client[0] for anyone looking for more features and (I believe) a better interface.

[0] [https://www.bitvise.com/ssh-client](https://www.bitvise.com/ssh-client)

</comment><comment><USER16> I have several PuTTY requests for serial port:

\- A pulldown to allow you to select a serial port, as in TeraTERM. I frequently can not recommend PuTTY to non-power users because it lacks this one feature. And yes, I know it's hard, but it's not that hard.

\- Integrated Zmodem support. I use Zmodem for firmware updates for some embedded applications. It works great over TeraTERM.

\- Sixel support (as in xterm), so that embedded applications can print graphs through the console serial port.

</comment><comment><USER17> I used to use Putty for all my SSH on windows, until I discovered mobaXterm; it's Fk amazing. not only an SSH client, but you can also browse files at destination, and copy files there from same window; it also has xserver built in to run GUI on destination machine

</comment><comment><USER18> SuperPutty is a nice Addition to get tabs and a session manager with folders:

[https://github.com/jimradford/superputty](https://github.com/jimradford/superputty)

<comment><USER19> I was going to mention it, but I see someone else got there first :)

I've been using SuperPutty for several years now - tabbed UI is really useful, as is the folder organisation of lots of connections.

<comment><USER20> Haven't tried SuperPutty, but I find that Putty + ConEmu is good for a tabbed UI.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> After using PuTTY for many years, and then Bitvise SSH client for some more, I shifted to Termius. The thing that finally made me switch from both the earlier really good products was its ability to work across Windows/Mac _and_ Android, and syncing hosts/credentials across the instances. It has a free version which provides SSH and port forwarding and a paid one with more features.

[https://termius.com/](https://termius.com/)

<comment><USER22> That looks very nice. I appreciate the link. Are you (or is anyone) aware of open source alternatives?

I really like how it shows the terminal, but kind of separate from the phone UI. A lot try to show you the terminal _as_ the phone UI and it does not work well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Already available on Chocolatey:

        cinst putty

FYI, kitty, putty fork has some better options

        cinst kitty

[https://chocolatey.org/packages/putty](https://chocolatey.org/packages/putty) [https://chocolatey.org/packages/kitty](https://chocolatey.org/packages/kitty)

</comment><comment><USER24> No mention of Cygwin? You get all most used Linux terminal applications ported to Windows.

</comment><comment><USER25> My advice for people (who want to use SSH on Windows) is to install Git which ships with Git Bash and SSH.

<comment><USER26> In my experience WSL is much simpler and more flexible than that. Bash, git, ssh, tmux, and any other Linux utilities you want.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I have 6 months. What should I do? - <AUTHOR>

I'm an senior undergrad student at a top school in India. I have an offer from a top company in India. I'll be totally free during my upcoming semester. I'm not sure if I should spend time on competitive programming and improve my algorithm skills or work on a startup. I have a SaaS idea that I'd like to work on. Which one do you think will payoff better later? I'm not able concentrate on either of these as I keep swinging between them. Any reasoning would be much appreciated. Thanks! <comment><USER2> Don't do either. Go and see places you've never seen before. The reasons are two fold; this is probably the last time in your life you will have the opportunity and it will benefit you later on as you'll be able see how other people live and perhaps be able to empathise more easily with other points of view.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! But, let's just say, the conditions I'm in, I can't afford to spend time on anything else other than shaping my career. What would your advise be?

<comment><USER3> Work for a charity for 6 months. And not in a back office role somewhere spending each day at a computer. Go and work directly with the underprivileged, the homeless, the sick or the poor.

This will shape your future career by providing a solid foundation of empathy, leading to stronger relationship building skills and hopefully an ability to better communicate with people from diverse backgrounds in a wide range of professional situations. You will be much better placed to succeed than the graduate who has never taken time to explore life and themselves, outside their immediate surroundings and social circles.

<comment><USER4> Just curious, did you ever actually do this yourself?

<comment><USER3> I was fortunate enough to spend 12 months as a youth exchange student in South Africa in the early 1990s. Part of my obligations in that programme was involvement in the charitable works of my sponsoring organisation.

This 12 month period at a young and impressionable age, in a society on the verge of significant change, certainly altered my life outlook, hopefully for the better. I think it made me a less selfish person, more open to the needs of other people, although I still need reminding from time to time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> % of algorithm skills needed that you already have: 90

% of startup skills needed that you already have: 10

Do the startup.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ultimately we are not you. What might be best for us might not be the right thing for you.

So accept that you might take the wrong path, it will certainly not be the last time it happens to you ;-)

</comment><comment><USER7> All depends on what are really willing to do? If you have some spare money that can supports you for a while, why don't you run after your dreams. You can try to build a MVP, apply some local incubation center, try to convince people for funding your product. It will provide you a lot of experience even though you cannot make it. Again, it depends what you want from life.

</comment><comment><USER8> Get a job with a non-Indian company. In my experience Indian companies are bodyshops who'll bleed you dry and treat you like a slave and expect you to thank them for the opportunity.

<comment><USER9> OP says 'top company in India' rather than 'top Indian company'. Besides, there could be good Indian companies that he might have got a job at ex. Flipcart, Snapdeal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The startup, obviously. You may not have the same opportunity twice and you will improve your skills anyway while working on your project.

</comment><comment><USER11> So basicly, your question should be: "What would look best on my resumée?"

<comment><USER12> this is terrible advice

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Email me email@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER8> Look for a job with a non-Indian company.

</comment><comment><USER14> work on your startup idea.</comment>


Oculus VR founder: We'll support Mac 'if Apple ever releases a good computer' - <AUTHOR> http://www.neowin.net/news/oculus-vr-founder-well-support-mac-if-apple-ever-releases-a-good-computer <comment><USER2> The original video interview and story is at Shacknews:

[http://www.shacknews.com/article/93547/oculus-palmer- luckey-...](http://www.shacknews.com/article/93547/oculus-palmer-luckey-will- consider-mac-support-if-apple-ever-releases-a-good-computer)

</comment><comment><USER3> i would asume that he said it with a frown on his race.

Apple does not make bad computers, just not computers for gamming or performance heavy computing.</comment>


Research claims strong public service media is a good thing for democracy - chestnut-tree http://www.ebu.ch/news/2016/08/ebu-research-shows-strong-public-service-media-contributes-to-a-healthy-democracy <comment> chestnut-tree This research is by the EBU (European Broadcasting Union).

Some interesting findings include:

\- Overall, TV and radio are the most trusted sources of news in Europe (trust is highest in Nordic countries)

\- The written press is least trusted in Southeast Europe and the United Kingdom

I'm from the UK and I'd agree with the general findings. The main TV and radio broadcasters in the UK do strive for accuracy and impartiality. They fall short at times and there is plenty of criticism levelled at them, but overall I do believe there is a commitment for the news to be accurate and informative.

In contrast, our national newspapers (both tabloid and broadsheet) have no commitment to accurate reporting. Instead, we have the most vicious, self- serving, partisan, deceitful, shrill, hysterical, nasty, racist, repulsive, ethics and integrity-free press in the whole of Europe. It's quite baffling that there is such a sharp contrast between TV and radio news and the anything-goes attitude of the national press.</comment>


Transition Watchpoints: Teaching Old Debuggers New Tricks [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1703/1703.10864.pdf <comment><USER2> So, they've reimplemented reversible debugging by a process of replaying from the start, with some finesse to ensure determinism in the multi-threaded case. Code seems to be here: [https://github.com/fred- dbg/fred](https://github.com/fred-dbg/fred)

It's worth noting that binary search is not necessarily optimal for a 'going back to the start' search. To see that, assume the cost of an observation is zero: then linear search is clearly optimal. If it is infinite, then binary search is optimal. It it's something in between, then some pivot less than n/2 is the correct choice.

I worked this out once, and came up with the solution that the pivot should satisfy the equation:

1+(start_time+observation_cost)/length = log(pivot/length)/log(1-pivot/length).

(except that sometimes a pivot of 1 step is more efficient, because of a special case). But I have lost the derivation of this.</comment>


Ask HN: When do you think we will be able to regenerate teeth? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Depends on what you mean by regenerate. If you want to "remineralize demineralized enamel areas" [1] then check out nano-hydroxyapatite toothpaste that's been available for more than 40 years.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4252862/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4252862/)

<comment><USER3> I found your link was broken for me here is an alternative that worked for me [https://europepmc.org/article/pmc/pmc4252862](https://europepmc.org/article/pmc/pmc4252862)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think even if we could it would be too expensive to be worth it. And our society has grown brittle. We're not interested in revolutionary technologies. If it put any dentists out of work or made them less money there would Be a huge push back.

</comment><comment><USER5> Need more stem cell research. Growing a tooth is very hard to do so far.

<comment><USER6> Tumours do it all the time apparently.</comment></comment>


On the orientation of Roman towns in Italy (2007) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0703/0703213.pdf

<comment><USER2> When posting links to Arxiv, please link to the web page rather than the PDF file. It makes it easier to cite the content and to preview what it's about before reading.

[http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0703213](http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0703213)

        On the orientation of Roman towns in Italy

        Author: Giulio Magli
        Submitted on 23 Mar 2007
        As is well known, several Roman sources report
        on the existence of a town foundation ritual,
        inherited from the Etruscans, which allegedly
        included astronomical references. However, the
        possible existence of astronomical orientations
        in the layout of Roman towns has never been
        tackled in a systematic way. As a first step
        in this direction, the orientation of virtually
        all Roman towns in Italy (38 cities) is studied
        here. Non-random orientation patterns emerge
        from these data, aiming at further research
        in this field.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice job collecting the data, but paper could have benefited from a map of the towns with a legend that shows the orientation of the towns.

The author discusses clusters of towns with orientations, but as a non-subject matter expert I struggled to follow the trends that may be suggested.

Paper is also incomplete in that the table on the final page doesn't have headings. I hope the published version in 2008 had it, but it's under-paywall and doesn't appear on the Authors webpage.

<comment><USER4> If ever a paper needed a proper appendix its this one.

As a minimum I'd want to see the orientation of the town against it's topographical features and _the orientation of the Roman roads connecting the town with its neighbours_ which would seem like the obvious alternate hypotheses to explain towns' orientations.</comment></comment>


Operation Earnest Voice – An astroturfing campaign by the government of the US - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Earnest_Voice <comment><USER2> [https://ntrepidcorp.com/](https://ntrepidcorp.com/) has the contract. Does the Herndon address suggest they're more interested in traditional Beltway Banditry than Cambridge Analytica style targeted marketing?

This news does lend fresh plausibility to the accusations made in [https://demotivation.me/images/20140405/rhq85mwjl9qh.jpg](https://demotivation.me/images/20140405/rhq85mwjl9qh.jpg) ...

Linebarger's history of US WWII propaganda carefully states _given explicit authority_ in:

> "The FIS was taken from the COI, and the COI took on the new name of > OSS—Office of Strategic Services—under which it retained three major > functions:

> (1) continuation of scholastic and informal intelligence;

> (2) black propaganda operations (given explicit authority only in March, > 1943);

> (3) subversive operations, in collaboration with regular military > authority."

[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/48612-h.htm#Pag...](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/48612-h.htm#Page_77)

As to astroturfing in general, not only was it mentioned in the Arthashastra, but Linebarger even claims a biblical example:

> "The story is told in the seventh chapter of the Book of Judges. Gideon was > in a tactically poor position. The Midianites outnumbered him and were on > the verge of smiting him very thoroughly. Ordinary combat methods could not > solve the situation, so Gideon —acting upon more exalted inspiration than is > usually vouchsafed modern commanders— took the technology and military > formality of his time into account. Retaining three hundred selected men, he > sought for some device which would cause real confusion in the enemy host. > He knew well that the tactics of his time called for every century of men to > have one light-carrier and one torch-bearer for the group. By equipping > three hundred men with a torch and a trumpet each, he could create the > effect of thirty thousand."

I'm currently thinking creating a deradicalisation rabbit hole would be a far more ethical means of achieving OEV's goal: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24373042](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24373042)

Bonus play: [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/844/844-h/844-h.htm](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/844/844-h/844-h.htm) (although Wilde's Earnest is merely duplicitous and not decacitous)</comment>


Google Suffering Login Issues Across the Board - <AUTHOR> http://www.berryreview.com/2013/10/24/google-suffering-login-issues-across-the-board/

<comment><USER2> This was sent out to the App Engine Downtime Notify group:

We experienced an issue with Google App Engine Open ID service starting at 2013-10-24 13:40 US/Pacific. Some users got a 502 error when attempting to login to applications that use Open ID authentication. The problem was resolved as of 2013-10-24 15:15 US/Pacific. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.

</comment><comment><USER3> I had troubles with my regular Google account as well, but only on my Android phone. My first thought was to come on HN, but I did not see any news on it, so I thought it was me only - looks like I was wrong.</comment>


A New Focus for Camera Makers - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304444604577342094118995830.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_RightMostPopular

<comment><USER2> It's about time. I've wanted a reflex camera with quality similar to an SLR ever since I bought a Canon G1 10+ years ago. "Through The Computer" seemed like the next logical step after "Through The Lens" SLR cameras.

After a few cameras, I reluctantly switched to a D-SLR for paid gigs, but my "hit rate" went down since I don't always know what the onboard computer will do. Sure, I like the faster lenses and low noise sensor, but it seems clunky to carry so much hardware.

At this point, I would suggest that camera makers try to compete against smart phones with "smart cameras" that have cell connections, "apps", bluetooth, etc. The smart phones are close to eating their lunch. It's just so easy to shoot a photo and email it immediately. With a DSLR, I carry a heavy case and a laptop and need to spend time processing the photos before sending them.</comment>


Open Notebook History - <AUTHOR> http://wcm1.web.rice.edu/open-notebook-history.html

<comment><USER2> This is something that interests me very much.

My vision is an "active" notebook--something I can record ideas or hypotheses in, come back later and find them explored, implemented, fleshed out and connected to the rest of the world's knowledge.

Blog comments don't cut it. They can you help make simple discoveries or connect you to others. But, they're better than nothing.

Right now a software project with issue tracker is probably the closest thing, but this is like manual labor. I might have 5 ideas in the morning (or just from reading an article like this one). I look forward to the active lazyweb of the future.</comment>


Ask HN: Is meditation entirely a placebo effect? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> No.

Mindfulness meditation has a measurable and significant effect not only on stress, emotional regulation, recurrent thoughts/rumination, attention, and decision-making, but also a physical effect in the brain in the form of a reduction of amygdala size, and an increase in the activity (and size) of the prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices.

`Internally', it changes the meditator's subjective sense of self and of how he experiences the world.

</comment><comment><USER3> I dislike the way scientists and "objective thinkers" (for want of a better phrase) usually dismiss the placebo effect as something to be ignored.

If the placebo effect can be demonstrated to having positive effects in pain killing, and healing, it should be studied with enthusiasm.

We all know how stress can have negative effects on health. Why should the placebo effect and "positive thinking" not be able to have positive effects on health?

</comment><comment><USER4> There are many different kinds of meditation, but some forms of calm meditation have been observed to produce numerous benefits beyond placebo effects, including lowering cortisol levels.

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816155000.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816155000.htm)

</comment><comment><USER5> Is day to day life experience capable of causing change in the neural anatomy ? We know the answer is yes because people who go through intense trauma end up with brains that function differently in measurable ways, and that is well studied. Meditation is a similar thing except that where trauma causes brain damage meditation causes brain healing. Meditation is about learning to control and direct your faculty of attention in order to upgrade your brain's "wetware".

You're learning to choose a new primary neural pathway that tends to route around the fight/flight parts of the brain and route into lesser understood parts of the brain. The end effect is a calmer, happier, less worried you, but it takes.. well... practice :)

</comment><comment><USER6> It may have no effect for some people. I practiced samatha/vipassana for over a decade at a Tibetan Buddhist center. This included daily sessions, one and two week solitary retreats, week-end and month-long group retreats. I met wonderful people but I experienced no change in attentiveness, clarity, calmness, or acceptance of my shortcomings. Meditation instructors said, "Just keep practicing." I did, but eventually lost interest and left the community years ago. My level of attentiveness does not seem to have decreased since. YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are a lot of before/after studies of meditation. This book covers a lot of them from a pro-meditation point of view and includes brain scans comparing monks to people beginning meditation to people who have practiced meditation for a few weeks to a few months: [http://www.amazon.com/Pictures-Mind- Neuroscience-Tells-Scien...](http://www.amazon.com/Pictures-Mind-Neuroscience- Tells-Science-ebook/dp/B0032BW5BQ)

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes. But something being a placebo effect doesn't mean it isn't also a 'real' physiological change.</comment>


Show HN: ACM SIGMOD Programming Contest – Optimistic Concurrency Control - <AUTHOR> http://db.in.tum.de/sigmod15contest/ <comment><AUTHOR> This year's contest features a challenging task in the field of optimistic concurrency control for databases.

To spare you the boring parts we already provide working implementations in C++, Java, Go and Rust! Simply register, try our implementations, improve them, and work your way to the top of our leaderboard. The top-5 best-ranking undergrad or grad student teams are invited to the ACM SIGMOD 2015 conference in Melbourne, with the best one winning a $5,000 prize.

</comment><comment><USER2> I would be interested why the go implementation is so much slower than the Java implementation. The algorithms behind both implementations seem to be exactly the same and both are garbage collection languages. There probably has to be a stupid performance mistake somewhere. I tested with the small dataset from the task page.

</comment><comment><USER3> The title should probably be updated to say "ACM SIGMOD Programming Contest", to distinguish it from other contests like ICPC and ICFP.

<comment><USER4> Thanks, we updated the title.</comment></comment>


Free as in hugs license - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/isaacs/free-as-in-hugs-license <comment><AUTHOR> Oh I can't decide between this and wtfpl [http://www.wtfpl.net/about/](http://www.wtfpl.net/about/) :)</comment>


Ask HN: What book best encapsulates what you learned in business school? - <AUTHOR> If you had to pick a single book that to you encapsulates the most important principles and theories you learned in business school, what would it be? <comment><USER3> Eh learnt a bit from various texts during my management degree, but I wouldn't say one text taught me more than another... It's the combination of theories that is important. Also tbh that knowledge pales in comparison to the amount I've learnt from working in construction/heavy industries and merely just watching decisions/the decision making processes of those senior to me play out in the "real world", so often stuff that the texts would recommend as the correct action... Is far from what is needed or what is realistically achievable.

So I'd say the "book of life" , don't be afraid to get out there and work as a shit kicker at the bottom, you get a good view from there up to the top if you keep your eyes open and read between the lines.

</comment><comment><USER4> MBA Dropout here. Sorry to break the news, but you don't actually learn anything in business school. Warren Buffett, Peter Thiel, Paul Graham - <USER2> won't hear any of those names in business school. Maybe some of the elite schools might talk about those guys, or even invite them to come speak at the business school. But they usually record those talks, so you can just watch them on YouTube.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't hold MBA, but I was recommended The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman. Amazing book.

</comment><comment><USER6> Haven't read it yet, but just yesterday someone recommended this book to me: The Ten-Day MBA by Steven A. Silbiger. Supposed to provide a very practical coverage of business realities, despite the silly title.

<comment><USER7> I've read this, and it's very good.

I had never studied business before (at any level), but found myself in a position where I was managing software projects, and dealing with MBA's from our client companies every single day.

I wouldn't say this is a replacement for going to business school, but for me -- it helped me understand the world my clients were coming from, and how they were incentivized.

So yes -- very practical book, easy to get through, and highly recommended. Gives a broad overview of the field, so you can at least speak the lingo.</comment></comment>


IAC Buys Into Fitness Social Network DailyBurn - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/20/iac-dailyburn/ <comment><AUTHOR> After listening to Harry Lin talk about Evite (owned by IAC), this doesn't sounds like an acquisition I'd be excited to be part of.

<http://mixergy.com/evite-harry-lin/></comment>


Ubuntu Is Deprecating Fglrx (Catalyst) in 16.04 LTS - <AUTHOR> https://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-16.04-Dropping-fglrx <comment><USER2> Now i feel even more confident in buying just AMD GPUs.

It was much more "Plug-And-Play" like than nvidia, and seems it just gets it even more.</comment>


UBS Rips Apart Tesla's Model 3 and Finds Some Areas Seriously Lacking - <AUTHOR> https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/ubs-ripped-apart-tesla-model-3-and-found-some-areas-seriously-lacking-14692527 <comment><USER2> They checked cars from Nov 2017, which is ancient history, because Tesla has made numerous changes to improve build quality since then. Munro report has said as much, as did consumer reports.

</comment><comment><USER3> UBS cannot be trusted in this matter. They have tried to prevent other Tesla reports from being published. Something is very fishy.

HyperChange takes them apart in this video[1] on the UBS profitability estimates for the model 3.

And even if HyperChange generally has a positive view on Tesla, their reporting is based on facts.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Uz5gPQ6Bs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Uz5gPQ6Bs)</comment>


Apple announce Schoolwork – lets teachers dole out digital assignments - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/27/17156100/apple-schoolwork-classkit-announced-ipad-app-assignments <comment><AUTHOR> "It also plans to update student iCloud accounts to include 200GB of storage by default"

Thats pretty good!</comment>


Fansubs for TV shows and movies are illegal, court rules - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/fan-made-subtitles-for-tv-shows-and-movies-are-illegal/?comments=1 <comment><USER2> Specifically, a Dutch court. Back when one of my friends introduced me to anime fansubs, he was very clear about the community norms. Nobody is to make any money from this ("not for sale or rent!") If the show ever gets picked up for US distribution, you tape Star Trek (or whatever) over your copy of the fansub. It's not to be kept around if there's a legal way to get it. Those norms were obviously intended to avoid legal trouble, but it seems those days are long over.</comment>


Nexus 5 Review: Flagship hardware for half the price - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/11/nexus-5-review-flagship-hardware-for-half-the-price/

<comment><USER2> Not sure if it's fair to call it "flagship". I have one now and it seems blazingly fast and it's nice to have stock android... but the device isn't without compromise. The battery life is 'meh' and the camera is pretty crappy (the speakers are also weak, but not what I'd consider to be a core feature of a 'flagship' device). So you can definitely tell they cut corners on those two (very important) aspects of the phone. Overall I still really like it, though.

<comment><USER3> The article makes the same points, but that doesn't change Google's positioning of the product. This is the "Google phone". It says so on the front of the blue box packaging. It says so in the Kit Kat OS we've waited so long for. To have to wait for some future Google Now/OS update to support background use of "OK Google" in such an otherwise well-thought out device... It's a bit irritating.

And the camera could be fixed with software but... see above.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great phone, but I'll be trying the iPhone 6 next and I'm looking at Wi-Fi enabled photo cameras for the interim.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> But how many updates will it get before it's not supported any more? I got a Galaxy Nexus last year (from Google at I/O, in fact), and it's already unsupported in that it isn't getting KitKat.</comment>


The chicken first crossed the road in Southeast Asia, landmark gene study finds - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/chicken-first-crossed-road-southeast-asia-landmark-gene-study-finds <comment><USER2> There are four species of Gallus. Only one, the red jungle fowl hens, became the mother of modern chicken, in several places at the same time, but the history is more complicated than that.

Indonesian for example have an endemic species, the green one, and are fond of producing red+green hybrids for navigation at open sea [1]. Green is the oldest species and does not live in China.

Then we have the chicken skin. Plucked chicken are typically yellow. Only a few chicken breeds have black skin, they are all black in fact, black beak, legs, caruncles, crest, inner organs and even black bones

But when we think in a plucked modern chicken is yellow. This is because the grey species, from India, provided the yellow gene. Therefore all (or almost) chicken that you can buy in the market have indian blood. Grey (and Ceylon's wildfowl) are endemic from Indian continent. And any study that is not sampling this areas would be incomplete.

The red was adapted to rainforest but is a species from bamboo cloud forests also in the mountains, so provided the cold resistance gene, and won in the battle being the easiest to breed.

[1] Each rooster has a different song that is really loud and unique from this animal. People go fishing with their pet rooster and thus can locate the position of all other people easily even in dense fog or open sea.

<comment><USER3> Wow, rooster identification as sort of a "Marco-Polo" is rather ingenious.

<comment><USER2> Yes but this couldn't be done with the red. The green junglefowl is a mangrove species, so was particularly well suited for the fishermen lifestyle. It feeds on fishes, starfishes and marine animal's carcasses stranded in beaches and can survive without drinking freshwater for a longer time. Is perfect for long distance open sea travel and to colonize small isolate islands without permanent sources of freshwater

Araucanas, ameraucanas and olive eggers have its blood. It provided the genes for blue and green eggs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Every winter, looking at our chickens roosting in their unheated coop at -15C, I marvel at the ability of the descendant of a bird from the tropics to survive in a Canadian winter.

But then I remember that my species comes from eastern Africa...

<comment><USER5> I imagine that chickens had to adapt to the cold much much much faster than humans had to.

<comment><USER6> I live in the UK and I am amazed that date palms do well here, in a country with much higher rainfall and it does get colder than the middle east. Also agaves seem quite happy (what tequila is made out of.

What's actually more surprising than cold tolerance is that water tolerance; desert-y plants tend to be adapted to be needing periods where their roots are dry for long periods. Let them stand with wet feet and many desert plants get very upset.

I guess the middle east was wetter even in roman times, so perhaps that answers part of that.

To flip the chicken question around a bit, it's perhaps odd that chickens can cope not with the cold but with their native heat so well, what with wearing a full-body, heavy down jacket all the time in their native tropical jungle.

<comment><USER7> Chickens molt! They rid themselves of the feathers and down periodically.

<comment><USER6> And then they grow them back again I presume. In the middle of a jungle forest. It seems odd.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am confused. I thought it was long established that the chicken came from SE Asia. Why is this article a "landmark study"?

<comment><USER9> I just mentioned this article to my Vietnamese partner, and got a lengthy story about how the modern chicken came from SE Asian pheasants, which are often referred to as "jungle chickens," as taught 30+ years ago in primary school.

So it's pretty clear that there are generations of children who were well aware of the connection, too. There must be something hidden in the details that would raise this study to the lofty level of "landmark."

<comment><USER10> Maybe it provided genetic evidence for this human oral history? I would consider that landmark personally. Although writing an article about it is harder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Unanswered is the question of where and when a chicken would first have an opportunity to cross a road. The article reports that researchers traced chickens genetically back to southeast Asian pheasants domesticated around 7500 BCE. Beyond the title, the article mentions nothing about roads. At what point in history did some trails and paths become roads?

<comment><USER12> There were stone-paved streets in Harappa and Ur, circa 4000BCE. There's also evidence of _log roads_ in England appearing between 4000 BCE and 3800BCE.

Brick paving appeared in India around 3000BCE.

By 2000 BCE, the "leading edge" roads had become quite advanced: Minos had tens of kilometers worth of roads which were not just paved but mortared, on thick subgrade, with side-drains and distinct shoulders, and anatolian roads had sidewalks.

<comment><USER13> And the Romans perfected the art of building long and straight roads, some of which still are in use today.

<comment><USER14> Mostly just the same place, though. Even the terrain around it is probably very different.

<comment><USER15> Ah yes, the Road of Theseus problem.

<comment><USER13> Is it the same road if it is renumbered ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder how far the Chickenosaurus project is coming along.

<comment><USER17> There is progress toward Jurassic Park. 1\. Gene edits turn a bill into something like a dinosaur snout: [https://www.livescience.com/50886-scientific-progress- dino-c...](https://www.livescience.com/50886-scientific-progress-dino- chicken.html) 2\. early birds may have been baby dinosaurs that stopped developing, yet could produce off spring, according to another recent DNA study I can't locate at the moment. Now if that development process could be turned back on in a bird ...

<comment><USER18> > 2\. early birds may have been baby dinosaurs that stopped developing, yet > could produce off spring, according to another recent DNA study I can't > locate at the moment.

And early humans may have been baby ~chimpanzees that stopped developing, yet could produce offspring :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Doesn't it make sense that flying dragons fossils are often found in South East Asia so chickens appeared there?

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm fairly sure this hypothesis predates Darwin.

</comment><comment><USER21> The question isn't when. It's _why_.

</comment><comment><USER22> Thought this was an Onion headline at first.

</comment><comment><USER23> I guess this is why Korean and Taiwanese fried chicken is the best.

<comment><USER24> I don't follow, Korea and Taiwan are not part of South-East Asia?

<comment><USER23> I really need to read links before posting any comments. My bad. (Taiwan's fried chicken is still really amazing.)

<comment><USER9> Yes people should read the links before commenting, lest they end up sounding like capricious idiots. But this was in the title.

<comment><USER25> Please don't be a jerk on HN, regardless of what somebody else did or didn't read.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why did the chicken cross the road?

The next time someone asks you this question, you can give them the following answer.

The question "Why did the chicken cross the road" is invalid. It is invalid because "why" assumes that the chicken had some reason for taking the action "cross the road". This, in turn, assumes that the chicken has the concept of "road"; after all, if the chicken doesn't know that the road is there, then the chicken did not - from the chickens point of view - cross the road, and consequently it is meaningless to ask for its motivations for doing so.

Since chicken is an animal, it is unlikely that it has the concept of road in the same sense than humans do; since it is a bird, whose ancestors were propably capable of flight in the near past, it is unlikely to have the concept of road in any sense - why would a flying bird need roads?

Therefore, the chicken can never have any motivation for crossing the road, since from the chickens point of view, it never does any such thing. It simply moves from one point to another, and these points happen to be on the opposite side of a flat area of ground. No road-crossing has happened.

Think of it this way: if you walk over a scent trail left by some animal, and you don't know that the trail is there, it is foolish to ask your motives of crossing that trail. One can ask your motives for walking in the first place, but the crossing was pure coincidence and not something you chose.

<comment><USER27> > "why" assumes that the chicken had some reason for taking the action "cross > the road".

I don't think so. It's pretty normal to ask "why" questions about non- conscious entities. "Why does my stomach hurt?" "Why is the sky blue?" And so on.

<comment><USER28> Does a chicken have consciousness? If so, when talking about conscious beings, are we using why in the sense that we use it when asking why the sky is blue?

<comment><USER27> I don't think it even necessarily matters whether the chicken is sufficiently conscious. If we asked "why does the chicken have a red comb?" it would be clear we weren't asking for an explanation of the chicken's conscious choices.

<comment><USER28> Sure, but I think if I ask "Why did you do that?" I'm specifically asking for an explanation related to your consciousness rather than a physical explanation. That's a different sort of question than "Why are you six feet tall?"

I asked if chickens are conscious because, if the chicken _is_ conscious (or at least if the question asker believes they are) than we're asking the first sort of question and it may or may not be fair to call that question invalid based on a chicken's conscious understanding and sysrpl's reasoning.

If it's not, then we can only reasonably ask the second kind of question and I agree it wouldn't be "invalid" to do so.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tom Hanks on Typewriters - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/opinion/sunday/i-am-tom-i-like-to-type-hear-that.html <comment><USER2> In 2012, a podcast host who wanted to interview Tom Hanks sent a 1934 Smith Corona to the actor as a gift when requesting the interview. Within days, Hanks responded with this letter, typed on the Corona: [http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/10/damn-you-all-to- hell.ht...](http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/10/damn-you-all-to-hell.html)

<comment> at-fates-hands I like how they added the transcript - you know, just in case.

<comment><USER3> It can really help when the letters are handwritten.

<comment><USER4> Or when the user agent doesn't have images (screen reader, console-mode browsers, text-only archives in the future).

<comment><USER5> Or when you only remember phrases from the letter and you want Google to find it for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Last year I had a revelation while reading Gore Vidal that all my favorite books almost without exception had been written on typewriters. I immediately went to Ebay and bought two: an Olivetti and a Olympia.

I think Mr. Hanks missed one salient point of why bothering to type on an old machine still may play a valuable role to the writer in the modern age </comment><comment>----Silence.

I found there is a vast difference sitting in front of any computer compared to a typewriter. Mechanical typewriters are not alive. They do not have an internal CPU constantly cycling and doing things, constantly prodding you for attention with little indicators and wifi meters and clocks and things. Computers are needy. They are constantly trying to distract you, even when they are doing absolutely nothing. Typewriters on the other hand, are doing absolutely nothing. They are merely empty mechanical contraptions with no life in them whatsoever. What you find when typing is -- well, at least what I found -- is that you are left alone with your thoughts and the workings of your mind and nothing else but the silence of the room. This might be the first time in fifteen years you have experienced this sensation. It was odd at first and slightly uncomfortable. But I found that when writing narrative fiction, the words are totally uninhibited. They are not forced. You are not churning away as if you are a member of a large electronic industrial machine: society, but instead are left in quiet solace with nothing but you and the table, the stillness of the dust floating in the air and this solid bit of metal under your palms, and they are utterly quiet, and you can think, as if for the first time. It is a miraculous sensation.

I urge anyone to try it who has been steeped in tech for the last decade or two.

<comment><USER7> Heck, I swear I used to be a more creative coder back before I got internet. No inhibitions about having written something that already exists. No pressure to keep up with the latest and greatest whatever. I really only can get back to that now when using less-popular languages whose development is complete (e.g. TLA+).

<comment><USER8> Hrm. Is FONBF a thing? Fear of not being first?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a person who handles mail for a living I can assure you a typewritten letter, or should I say envelope, is a sure-fire way to have somebody open the letter.

I once used a typewriter to ask a large Ranch technological Training Company company if they had any scholarships for old-time programmers ( I was one) who were out of the game for a decade or so.

I was told my letter was passed around like a novelty and - yes I did receive the scholarship and was able to learn iOS 4. (And learn about HN)

<comment><USER10> _I can assure you a typewritten letter, or should I say envelope, is a sure- fire way to have somebody open the letter._

It's interesting that you say that, as I'm a consultant who does grant writing for nonprofit and public agencies (see [http://www.seliger.com](http://www.seliger.com) if you're curious). We send fee quote letters via email but we also send snailmail letters that arrive a day or two later. Potential clients often make their decisions before the letters arrive, but sometimes those letters jar indecisive potential clients into making a decision, and sometimes those letters sit on their desks for months until another grant opportunity comes along. A physical letter and card are often easier to find and sort than voluminous email.

This might not feasible for high-volume businesses, but it's been very effective for us. The email follow-up arrives the same day, and the physical letter a few days after that.

<comment><USER9> I bet you use a real stamp too that has to be "pasted" on. First class letters get forwarded too.

I throw so many letters "away" (UBBM) and the sender has no idea it never made it.

Plus many people don't open theor mail right away or they are away from their house for a long period Of time. A first class letter that doesn't look machine-made is always an intriguing "open"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >Computer keyboards make a mousy tappy tap tappy tap like ones you hear in a Starbucks — work may be getting done but it sounds cozy and small, like knitting needles creating a pair of socks.

I wonder if he's tried a mechanical keyboard? He might like it quite a bit better, even if just for the fact that you can choose your personality of keyboard with your computer, just like he does with typewriters.

<comment><USER12> As someone who restores older Teletype machines, I get to type on a real mechanical keyboard. It's a strange experience at first. When you press a key, it locks down for 200ms while the mechanism cycles. During this period, no other key can be pressed; the other keys are physically blocked. You can't press two keys at once; that, too, is mechanically interlocked. Efficient typing on these machines requires typing at a fixed speed of 5 keystrokes per second. It's like playing a piano; rhythm matters.

In the pre-1930 Teletype machines, the keys are ordinary Underwood typewriter keys. If you type too fast, you blunt your fingers against the immovable keys. In 1930, Teletype switched over to spring-loaded keycaps, with about 1mm of spring motion in case you hit a key before the machine is ready. This made fast typing much more comfortable.

Western Union expected their Teletype operators to be able to type "blind", with no display or printer to see what they were typing. Outbound operators often used a machine with a keyboard and a tape punch only - no printer. Here's one at work.[1] The machine she's using doesn't have the 5 keystroke per second limitation - notice the loop of tape between the keyboard machine and the tape reader. That's buffering. Operators were expected to type without errors, of course.

[1] [https://youtu.be/4ziHpB-Dw7o?t=367](https://youtu.be/4ziHpB-Dw7o?t=367)

<comment><USER13> > _Western Union expected their Teletype operators to be able to type "blind", > with no display or printer to see what they were typing._

My aunt taught typing at a girls' high school in the '80s. She was amazingly fast - she bought a typewriter with a memory, and I recall her being finished with a typewritten letter when the page was only one-third of the way through 'printing'. Had to wait for it to finish each time before loading in the next letter.

Later in the '80s she got a job as a temp and was working on a computer. Boss comes in and sees here just staring motionless at it: "What are you doing, why aren't you working?". Her response was "I'm just waiting for the computer to catch up". The boss went over to look, and sure enough, the computer was still bringing up what she typed onto the screen...

<comment><USER14> > _" I'm just waiting for the computer to catch up"_

Heck, even into the mid 90's, my mother would type so fast into Microsoft Word on Windows 95 that she'd have to pause and wait for the computer to catch up to where she'd typed!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm very interested in this phenomenon where people seem to idolize certain outdated, analog technology. It seems to be some reaction against, or coping mechanism for, the increasingly digital world. I have a lot of fuzzy thoughts on it, and I'd like to read a book or an article that unpacks the idea more thoroughly.

<comment><USER16> The article makes a very astute point: that people are attracted to the physicality, the tangibility of "analog" things. Whether out of nostalgia (because we've been there) or retro fascination (when we haven't lived it firsthand), we can develop an emotional connection with a single physical objects that succinctly and permanently hold an abstract concept in a physical package -- like a letter, a book, a music record, or a photograph.

In the digital world so much of what we produce, consume, and interact with has no physical manifestation what we can strongly identify with. The computer is an abstract filing cabinet which can display what you're looking for on its own screen, or plays abstract 'music files', or streams 'video' from subscription apps. We're essentially asking the computer to recall these things from its "memory", and luckily, they remember with exact accuracy much more than a human would. While we can experience these things, we can't hold them in our hand; we can't share them in a self-contained, self-describing form (like handing someone a book) -- if we can share them at all.

<comment><USER17> I think as related sensation is the feeling of control, or at least understanding, over our technology. You can see exactly how a typewriter works; each letter you type is a direct result of your action, through a clear causal chain. When you type on a computer, letters appear on your screen through a much more convoluted process we take as magic, and especially for someone unused to the technology, that can lead to a feeling of loss of control.

<comment><USER18> A typewriter never has inexplicable input lag. I think you've made an astute point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> We would all be remiss not to mention Hanx Writer, Tom Hanks' typewriter emulator application for iOS.

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hanx- writer/id868326899](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hanx-writer/id868326899)

<comment><USER20> Hm... reminds me of this distraction-free WiFi typewriter.

[https://getfreewrite.com/](https://getfreewrite.com/)

<comment><USER21> Interesting (I'd never heard of this), though pricey.

Strangely, I'd prefer a plain keyboard (w/o a screen) where I could type (for journaling) and have what I type be saved. I suppose this could be easily done with a wireless keyboard connected to my phone. People would think I was crazy, though, seeing me type on a computer keyboard without a computer in view.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Tom Hanks on Typewriters", the newest web framework (latency and scalability are still a bit of an issue with it honestly).

<comment><USER23> All web requests are routed directly to Tom Hanks, who will type up the page and mail it back to you. Expect 2-4 weeks for delivery.

<comment><USER13> Does it support RFC1149?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > No one on the planet has yet to save an Evite.

Brilliant. Great little article. Doubt it will do much to overall typewriter usage (I also don't think that is his point, really) but you have to admire his passion.

<comment><USER10> _Doubt it will do much to overall typewriter usage (I also don 't think that is his point, really) but you have to admire his passion._

I also doubt it'll increase typewriter usage, but a while ago I saw _The Atlantic 's_ review of this device: "The Future of Writing Looks Like the Past: The Freewrite, a 'smart typewriter,' wants to liberate writers from their computers," which looks intriguing ([http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/freewr...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/freewrite/481566/)). At $500 it seems a bit pricey, but I've talked to many writers who complain of relentless distraction from the notifications on regular computers, and I wonder if the Freewrite is a possible solution to that problem.

Myself, I'm fond of Freedom ([https://freedom.to/](https://freedom.to/)) for quieting the temptation to log in, but I can see the appeal of alternatives.

<comment><USER25> You can get an Alphasmart on eBay for 30$ if you want a distraction-free writing device.

<comment><USER26> Yeah. I have got 3 Alphasmart from eBay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I like the romance of the typewriter as much as the next person, but does anyone miss the terrific amount of labor that went into those things?

I mean your hands really had to work hard at typing. These days, I am trying to keep even keyboard typing as low stress as possible.

<comment><USER28> You definitely consider your words and characters more carefully.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have an IBM Selectric that I bought from a Goodwill for $13. It's in near perfect condition.

I can't use it because people can hear it clear across the house. It makes the cats hide. It definitely makes your writer's block very apparent to everyone in earshot; that's embarrassing and leads to filling that silence with "All work and no play..."

That said, it types like a dream. Very few keyboards I've ever used come close (the original PC keyboard is probably the closest in feel). The problem with all of these is that your typing makes the people around you want to murder you.

I have high hopes for the KeyboardIO split keyboard. We'll see :-)

<comment><USER13> I work one day a week at a place where I am the only one who has a mechanical keyboard. It's not even a loud one ('cherry brown' switches). But I sit down and start working, and I'll occasionally hear someone say "Oh, is it Thursday already?", my presence announced by my keyboard-bashing...

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Reminds me of Hanx Writer: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hanx- writer/id868326899](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hanx-writer/id868326899)

and Electratype (I was on the team that made this app): [https://itunes.apple.com/app/electratype/id619414507](https://itunes.apple.com/app/electratype/id619414507)

</comment><comment><USER31> My dad wrote his book on a typewriter. My mom typed the revised drafts. Again and again and again. It was true drudgery. There's no romance in that.

</comment><comment><USER32> Going off at a bit of a tangent here, but this reminds me of something that I find quite interesting:

I believe history has it that the querty keyboard layout was intentionally designed to slow down the typing speed, because the mechanical efficiency of the first gen/early typewriters (1860/70?) was fairly low, causing the moving prongs to jam if typing was done rapidly.

I also believe the dvorak layout (which got invented later and never gained much popularity) allows measurably faster typing (never used it myself). I think the older Apple keyboards used to have a qwerty/dvorak switch on the backside. Any dvorak users/fans here, I wonder?

<comment><USER33> I learned Dvorak as a teenager and I've been using it ever since. Obviously I can't use it all the time, since it's not worth setting up on other people's computers, iPads don't support it for the onscreen keyboard, and similar, but I use it on my computers. I think it's faster, and more importantly it's more comfortable since there's less movement involved. It's sometimes inconvenient, as keyboard shortcuts which make sense for QWERTY are sometimes weird for Dvorak, but overall I'm glad I made the switch. I don't have any real trouble using QWERTY when I need to, either. It takes me a minute or so to get back up to speed, then I'm fine.

<comment><USER34> > more importantly it's more comfortable since there's less movement involved

This is far more important for me. Even typing a couple of words on Qwerty feels uncomfortable.

Assuming your keyboard is Qwerty, try typing

        "feels uncomfortable"
        "yddp; flismysokanpd"

The second line is the keys you'd type if your layout was Dvorak. Notice only two letters are on the bottom row, and the top→bottom pair is an unusual letter combination (MF) rather than very common ones (UN, OM). The hand alternation is also more even, with at most two letters typed on the same hand, compared to Qwerty's four:

        "LLLRL RRLRRLRLLLLRL"
        "RLLRR LRRLRRLRRLRRL"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> One of Mr. Hanks haunts (his son is attending Stanford) for collecting typewriters.

[http://www.losaltosbusinessmachines.com/](http://www.losaltosbusinessmachines.com/)

</comment><comment><USER36> I went through a phase in my late teens where I used an old typewriter to record my screeds on life, politics and technology. It was fun to get that rythm going with the keys clattering and the hammers indenting. It made it feel like you were really writing something important (I would italicize but for the phone).

I guess I was a hipster before hipster was a thing. I might have to dig through my files and see if I still have any of it...

</comment><comment><USER37> _" You can choose the typewriter to match your sound signature."_

[http://freesound.org/people/keithpeter/sounds/123344/#](http://freesound.org/people/keithpeter/sounds/123344/#)

Olivetti Lettra 22

I might record the Olympia SM9 when I get time to clean it up. The manual suggests getting some cork to rest it on to reduce the sound (it is a solid item).

</comment><comment><USER31> At a technical conference a few years back, I decided to give my presentation using hand written viewfoils on an overhead projector. The conference venue had to really dig to find a working projector :-)

For years afterwards, people would come up to me and remark on how that presentation stuck in their memory!

(I still have a mechanical typewriter. Maybe I won't throw it away after all.)

<comment><USER38> A friend of mine fell when going on stage for a conference. He broke his nose and there were lots of blood and an ambulance involved. Everybody remembers it.

It's great that you use that technique if it is going to make your presentation clearer, if using the projector really helped your audience to get whatever you were presenting better. If that was the case, congratulations for an original idea. But if they only remember you as the annoying guy who had everybody waiting while looking for a projector, I would not feel very proud of it.

<comment><USER31> I had the sense to talk to the conference people a couple weeks in advance about the projector, and it was waiting in the conference room on schedule. So that wasn't a problem.

It didn't affect the content of the presentation at all.

The only issue was one of perception - I was talking about new technology, and was presenting using old technology. It wasn't congruent, and didn't really fit, although it was fun. Hence it was a one-off thing. I didn't do it again.

I doubt today one could even find a viewfoil projector, and the audio-visual staff would be annoyed because it won't interface to their recording system. Annoying the AV staff is never a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> As a typewriter collector and huge nerd this is great. If you want to learn more about the recent revolution in typewriter ownership, etc. check out Richard Polt's book: The Typewriter Revolution. Really nicely done. I keep a 1958 Hermes Rocket in my office and it bemuses the younger staff, and visitors, most of whom have never seen one up close.

<comment><USER40> I recently wrote something on a typewriter, got half way though the page and spelt a word incorrectly, tried to fix it and somehow destroyed the whole page...

<comment><USER41> My international politics professor had a story about how he had a copy of his master's thesis in his carry-on on a train in what was then Soviet Russia. He left the bag on the train and ended up having to retype the whole thing in a weekend.

<comment><USER39> If you're interested in typewriters and spa I craft, read up on The Gunman Project at NSA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> If you don't want to go all the way back to paper, you could always try a USB typewriter: [http://www.usbtypewriter.com/](http://www.usbtypewriter.com/)

</comment><comment><USER43> Lost one Olivetti Studio 44 to a flood (and to a family member's insistence then that we get rid of it :-( Me: _But, parts...!..._ ).

Got one remaining.

</comment><comment><USER44> nice, little romantic schpeel. i once leased an office next to a guy who typed everything; couldn't nap for shit!

</comment><comment><USER45> The man has a wonderful joy of living.</comment>


About the security content of macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 - <AUTHOR> https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208465 <comment><USER2> Funnily, if you look at the description in the app store, it makes it look like a completely skippable update, especially if you don't use Messages.

> This update:

>

> * Addresses an issue that could cause Messages conversations to temporarily > be listed out of order

<comment><USER3> "Arbitrary code execution" means very little to most users, I'd assume. Fixing Messages is something they can immediately understand.

Plus, the Messages bug has been driving me up the wall for weeks, so I'm glad it's fixed.

<comment><USER4> > "Arbitrary code execution" means very little to most users, I'd assume. > Fixing Messages is something they can immediately understand.

It doesn't say "fixing messages". It doesn't hint at a high impact CVE. The only mention of any form of "security" is the link to the KB article, which I only caught after I noticed this HN post.

As a software engineer at a software+network security company and in investor in Apple, I'm not impressed. Bottom line: there was no urgency baked into the update description.

<comment><USER5> You can subscribe to their emails if interested. These security update lists are released alongside every OS update.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There may yet be more security fixes included than the article currently lists. It seems that for the last few releases, Apple has been quietly adding and updating CVEs to the release notes days and weeks after the initial publication, not least of which was the meltdown mitigations in 10.13.2 (that update was pushed almost a month before the meltdown embargo was lifted, and the fact that patches were already included was kept secret).

For a scary-looking example of what macOS 10.13.3 / iOS 11.2.5 may secretly contain fixes for, take a look at [https://twitter.com/ranixch/status/955921380855418882](https://twitter.com/ranixch/status/955921380855418882)

<comment><USER5> I believe the Twitter user you link was credited on the page actually.

<comment><USER6> Huh, that's odd. I thought I seached for the CVE number on the page before posting this. Maybe the page has been quietly updated already. Or maybe I was confused. Actually, I was probably confusing the macOS and iOS announcements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Regarding IOHIDFamily: An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privilege

I found this: [https://siguza.github.io/IOHIDeous/](https://siguza.github.io/IOHIDeous/) that was published Dec 31.

It took Apple 23 days since it was public before they released a fix.

> The exploit accompanying this write-up consists of three parts:

> poc (make poc) Targets all macOS versions, crashes the kernel to prove the > existence of a memory corruption.

> leak (make leak) Targets High Sierra, just to prove that no separate KASLR > leak is needed.

> hid (make hid) Targets Sierra and High Sierra (up to 10.13.1, see README), > achieves full kernel r/w and disables SIP to prove that the vulnerability > can be exploited by any unprivileged user on all recent versions of macOS > [!!!!!!!!!]

<comment><USER8> For what it's worth, the GitHub README.md calls it a Zero day so they apparently didn't give Apple any heads up to prepare for the release of the exploit. While a same day/same week fix is ideal, 23 days isn't that bad given a QA cycle. Patches for Meltdown/Spectre are just still their way out/not yet released for Microsoft's Server OSes for a point of comparison [1].

I wish I could have found something newer, but according to Symantec the average resolution time found in their 2015 study was 69 days[2]. The last time Apple rushed a fix out.. it didn't go so well[3].

Now, while I'm waxing poetic, I may as well frighten you with a recent RAND corp study about how long Zero Days can be known privately before publicly disclosed [4]. It also doesn't take too long to weaponize them [5].

This stuff sucks and is really nerve racking for anyone involved in security even tangentially. It's really easy to criticize but I guarantee that anyone on Hacker News who has written any meaningful software has released a security flaw. If you think you haven't you're absolutely kidding yourself and should reevaluate your stance.

[1] [https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en...](https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en- US/4f10320d-19f4-49a1-9ef3-673787e541cd/meltdown-patch-for-windows- server-2012-without-r2-and-2008-r2-still-not-released-regedit- key?forum=winserver8gen)

[2] [https://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/guide-zero-day- exploi...](https://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/guide-zero-day-exploits)

[3] [https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/11/30/apples-blank- roo...](https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/11/30/apples-blank-root- password-fix-needs-a-fix-of-its-own-here-it-is/)

[4] [https://www.rand.org/news/press/2017/03/09.html](https://www.rand.org/news/press/2017/03/09.html)

[5] [https://securityintelligence.com/news/zero-day-research- time...](https://securityintelligence.com/news/zero-day-research-time-from- discovery-to-exploit-shrinks-to-four-days/)

<comment><USER9> Wow, 0day avg lifespan is 6.9 years with a 5.7percent collision rate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is the weirdest update I've ever applied.

Download>Click install>30 seconds later it reboots>Apple logo gray screen I see "installing software updates" and a status bar that gets 25% of the way done and then the screen goes black, fans go high, then a reboot>screen is still black, fans go high, 3 minutes another reboot>screen is still black, fans go high for 30 seconds and now nothing for the past 10 minutes.

Power light is on, caps lock key does light up, the keyboard lighting comes on if I touch keys and I can increase or decrease that lighting with the proper key, but no backlight. WTH?

OMFG, now 15 minutes after starting, more fan noise for about 30 seconds...

So it's still doing something, but with a black screen.

No change 35 minutes after starting the update...

<comment><USER10> After 2 hours I gave up and held down the power button for 5 seconds to force poweroff. Next reboot, I get a boot chime, but still a black screen. Force power off. Cold boot again and zap PRAM, still black screen. This update has fucked my mac over, or it's one hell of a coincidental hardware fail

It really pisses me off when Apple buries firmware updates into system software updates. I have no idea if this update contained a firmware update, and whether this problem I'm having now might be a failed firmware update? But I'm pissed off. If Apple wants to prevent me from installing OS updates until I have a firmware update applied, they can do that, but this total lack of disclosure what is being done, and therefore what failed, is really really fucking annoying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find this title unhelpful. Is there something specific I should be aware of in this update?

<comment><USER12> 15 security fixes, most of which are "read restricted memory," "arbitrary code execution," and "arbitrary code execution with kernel privileges."

Several of the arbitrary code executions are triggerable by processing maliciously crafted web content. There's also a local sandbox bypass.

Not a big deal for user-visible features, a very big deal for security vulnerabilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> 2.17 GB!

<comment><USER14> So what? 30 sec download time.

<comment><USER15> Or multiple hours for those of us who are still plagued with slow internet at home.

Luckily it's not that bad for me anymore, but I still sympathise with everyone with slow connection speeds, because you can't "just" download an update.

<comment><USER14> I though most of the developed world is on 1 Gbit / 1 Gbit FTTH at this point.

<comment><USER16> That is utterly incorrect. I get 15% of that under ideal circumstances.

<comment><USER17> 150Mb/s sounds pretty good...I get about 10% of that.

<comment><USER16> Parent comment said 1Gbit, not 1Gbyte. I too get about 15Mb/s

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is this the second or third time the're fixing Meltdown?

</comment><comment><USER7> If you look at the Mac security updates lately, you can see avalanches of "execute arbitrary code" fixes for every release. It seems that Mac Os X has more holes than a factory of Swiss cheese.

EDIT: Why was this downvoted?

If you down vote at least you can comment why. These are the security updates since Oct:

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT201222)

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208331](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT208331)

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208165](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT208165)

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208315](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT208315)

<comment><USER19> I completely agree that it's disconcerting. At least they are transparent about it and no other mainstream OS seems to be doing better.

That's the problem with C, it can't be written securely and these bugs will continue to be fixed for decades.</comment></comment>