Generalized linear models, abridged - <AUTHOR> http://bwlewis.github.io/GLM/ <comment><USER2> If you mainly care about prediction, rather than inspecting the fitted parameters, a lot of this detail is usually overkill.

To generalize well, it's almost always a good idea to have some sort of regularization, such as penalizing the sum of the square of the parameters. The extra term in the cost function will usually make the naive "normal equations" approach work fine, and give much the same predictions as fancy pivoted QR approaches. On my machine it's also a lot faster (the ball-park is ~~10x faster for large systems).

I'm glad R has super-solid robust GLM implementations. And unless you're fitting _many_ models, you should probably just use such a library routine. However, I wish more tutorials and textbooks would spend more time on the reasons for numerical stability, and when one should care, rather than pushing that detail off into a trail of citations.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice overview. I thought it was a bit odd that they pulled out a stieltjes integral so early on to define the mean and variance (I = Integral x dF(x)). I wouldn't expect most people reading this sort of introductory material to be familiar with it.

Did it trip anyone up?

<comment><USER4> I suppose it's the only single definition that works for both continuous and discrete variables. Although I actually read it as the more common Riemann integral definition (i.e. mean = integral of x*f(x)dx) until you pointed it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a great post! I tried implementing my own GLMs [1] a short while ago. But I ran into a lot of trouble with numerical instability and had a hard time tracking down ways to solve these edge cases.

Hopefully with this as a resource I'll be able to make some more progress on it!

[1]: [https://github.com/AtheMathmo/rusty- machine/blob/master/src/...](https://github.com/AtheMathmo/rusty- machine/blob/master/src/learning/glm.rs)

</comment><comment><USER6> If the author read comments, this hard coded "http" seems to broke mathJax rendering in Firefox/Chrome with "HTTPS Everywhere".

      <script type="text/javascript"
        src="http://cdn.mathjax.org/mathjax/latest/MathJax.js?config=TeX-AMS-MML_HTMLorMML">
      </script>

Everything is converted to https except this link and Firefox/Chrome then refuse to load the javascript on http from an https page.

</comment><comment><USER7> A good resource here is Trefethen and Bau's Numerical Linear Algebra.

</comment><comment><USER8> That... exceeded expectations actually.</comment>


Videos and Slides from BackboneConf 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://backboneconf.com/

<comment><USER2> Not to pick favorites or anything, but ... ;)

If you're looking at this index page, but don't know where to start, try Kristofer Joseph's talk about building Adobe Reflow (a desktop app with web tech under the hood) for some amazing demos ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpG6Ap7qhPw);](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpG6Ap7qhPw\);) and then try Mark Wunsch's stellar tour through the different geological layers of a long-lived production app ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFdwTz_hYAM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFdwTz_hYAM)). After that, it's all gravy.

<comment><USER3> FYI, Mark Wunsch's video seems to be cut off.

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems like the BackboneConf folks are aware and are looking into it:

[https://twitter.com/jorydotcom/status/367328492787994625](https://twitter.com/jorydotcom/status/367328492787994625)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also: there's a rap - [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqt1RdrYekc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqt1RdrYekc)</comment>


Some Boundaries Are Worth Preserving - <AUTHOR> https://www.patagonia.com/stories/some-boundaries-are-worth-preserving/story-90712.html <comment><AUTHOR> I hate the vessel used for this article and would prefer it to be not something 2 clicks away from spending money. That said, I thought the article's upsides outweighed the possible downsides here, thus making it worth sharing.</comment>


HBO is trying to get $250,000 in Bitcoin to pay hackers who stole scripts - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/11/hbo-hack-game-of-thrones-ransom.html <comment><USER2> The game theory is a bit interesting here.

You pay the 250k, they give you back everything, and this was all a big scare, a 5-10% budget overrun, and everyone goes home happy

Or, you pay the 250k, they don't give you back anything, andddddd..... I don't know, you lose the money and you look stupid to the outside world?

I guess the real lesson here is don't get hacked, because choices are pretty dismal beyond that point

</comment><comment><USER3> 250K is better than zero to us laymen. Hackers' dismissal of said amount shows they are big time.</comment>


Science Won't Save Vaccines from Lawsuits Anymore - <AUTHOR> http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/26/science-wont-save-vaccines-from-lawsuits-anymore/ <comment><AUTHOR> "This week, the highest court of the European Union handed opponents of basic public health their greatest legal victory in recent memory. At a time when a widening measles outbreaks across Europe and a growing pattern of parents refusing to immunize children, the Court of Justice of the European Union — the rough equivalent of the U.S. Supreme Court — decided that courts across the Continent may weigh whether a vaccine caused an illness regardless of whether or not there is any scientific evidence linking the two."

Well, at least thanks to BrExit, you can still have public health in England.</comment>


Ask HN: Why are patents transferable? - <AUTHOR>

Why are patents transferable beyond the original creator? Shouldn't they only benefit the person who created it? What claim does some arbitrary company dozens of sales down the line have to that patent other than that they have a large amount of money/clout?
I can understand someone has an idea but lacks the resources to substantiate their vision and therefore sells it to someone who can, but even then, why can't they just license it?
And, in a similar vein, why wouldn't a patent become public domain once the creator dies as there's no way for them to benefit from it after that (metaphysics aside). Pharmaceutical patents have an end point so I don't see why this isn't plausible. <comment><USER2>
        Why are patents transferable beyond the original creator?

This allows the creator to benefit in the case they can't personally exploit their work. If I invent some CPU fabrication process, I won't have the capital to invest to realize it and benefit - but maybe I can sell it to someone who can, which means the invention is actually used, and also I get some benefit.

        why wouldn't a patent become public domain once the creator dies

What if the patent is a joint creation, or created while working for a company, i.e. the company owns it?

<comment><AUTHOR> > This allows the creator to benefit in the case they can't personally exploit > their work.

I wanted to be succinct for the title, but I'm more getting at why people other than the creator can sell a patent. Selling is still beneficial to the owner, however, if the company sells it after that then how's the benefiting the owner?

> What if the patent is a joint creation, or created while working for a > company, i.e. the company owns it?

This is more of a side note to me, although, it looks like patents expire after 20 years. At least that's a number I've seen cited a couple places since posting the question.

With that said, maybe the pharmaceutical process is something worth looking into? I know the timer starts on their patents as soon as they submit it which long before they can ever produce it, but the point is that they're able to pay for all the research and trials involved in making the drug. Maybe there's some analogy for other applications (e.g. software patents)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > why wouldn't a patent become public domain once the creator dies

Because there'd be a financial incentive to kill patent holders?

If you think that's far-fetched, consider that some organisations are quite happy to torture their employees with silicosis if it means they can make faded jeans cheaply (Google it).

(On a related note, abolish patents!)

<comment><AUTHOR> > Because there'd be a financial incentive to kill patent holders?

To be fair, a) people don't kill copyright holders before Disney got a hold of the legislation (or did they?) and b) I imagine the legal ramifications would outweigh, at least largely in part, the benefits of assassination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are tax, liability, and business issues. Trust me it's a mess especially when you try to minimize the tax liability, you can do all sorts of crazy crap.</comment>


Early Access to .shop Domain for $39,990.00 - <AUTHOR> http://rogerburkhard.com/hackernews/united_domains_nl.html <comment><AUTHOR> Received the Newsletter from United Domains today and I'm quite surprised about the early access prices:

Phase 1: 39,990 (September 1-2, 2016)

Phase 2: 14,990 (September 3-5, 2016)

Phase 3: 3,990 (September 6-9, 2016)

Phase 4: 1,490 (September 10-13, 2016)

Phase 5: 790 (September 14-17, 2016)

Phase 6: 490 (September 18-21, 2016)

Phase 7: 149 (September 22-24, 2016)

Unfortunately I didn't find more Informations or a link concerning this subject that's why I saved the email on my server.</comment>


Gary Vaynerchuk Keynote at Big Omaha - <AUTHOR> http://vaynermedia.com/gary-vaynerchuk-keynote-at-big-omaha.html

<comment><USER3> Being an Omaha-native, I attended this event and it was excellent from start to finish. Many creative people, entrepreneurs, and developers in attendance.

Gary's keynote is definitely worth your free time. I might just watch it again the next time I'm bored.

<comment><USER4> Cool to see other Nebraskans on HN!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://twitter.com/garyvee/status/1854968425>

<comment><USER6> <http://bit.ly/info/Zs1Ca>

RT view of traffic to HN via his tweet and descendants (RT) therof

And I think these metrics are the reason why Bit.ly is a good potential acquisition for Twitter

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've occasionally bitched and moaned about Gary V as an entrepreneur - basically inheriting a family business makes it a heck of a lot easier - <USER2> he's a pretty good speaker. And that's a large part of it.

<comment><USER8> I'm gonna assume that you are not an immigrant that has worked in a family business. Because you don't inherit the family business.

I worked in the plywood plant where my dad worked when I turned 16 and I worked in all of his side businesses. My uncle that owns an electrical business put my cousins to work when they were 13. My uncle that owns a chain of retail stores put my cousins to work starting at that age, too.

You don't inherit a family business if you grew up in an immigrant family. And it's definitely not easy. It's hard work from the day you are born.

<comment><USER9> its much easier to build a $4 mil/yr business into a $40 mil/yr business, than it is you build one from 0 to $4mil.

Those people that inherit their parents business, may have worked their ass off since they were young, but they start off ahead off the curve, simply due to the ground work laid down by their parents.

<comment><USER8> And he was a stockboy at the business when it was being built from $0 to $X million.

How is that any different than Paul Graham taking support calls at ViaWeb or Joel Spolsky putting up blinds at Fog Creek? In a family business, everyone does what it takes to make it successful. They are not inheriting the business. It is their business even if they are not listed as co-founders in the legal papers.

<comment><USER9> Because Paul Graham and Joel Spolsky were actually the ones running the business while they did those extra things like take support calls/put up blinds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> He got clapped for saying that his family is the most important thing to him as if that's remarkable nowadays. A sign of the times!

</comment><comment><USER11> I found the first half of this talk to be a little crass and not very substantive. The second half contained a few interesting answers in the q & a. Gary brings so much energy though that this is a decent keynote if you're looking to be motivated.

</comment><comment><USER12> I said this shortly after on Twitter, but I was not at all satisfied with the answer I got from him when I asked if WineLibrary TV had turned into sales for Wine Library. I don't buy that he doesn't give a fuck at all.

I do believe that he's building a global brand, but he's only tangentially helping Wine Library. More than that, he's building the Gary Vaynerchuk brand, which is admirable, but does me no good when I'm trying to show people who don't "get" the internet that you can actually help the sales of a brick-and- mortar business by becoming a big name on the web.

I like Gary, but he did dodge my question.

Rachael Osborn

</comment><comment><USER13> Can I just say that I loathe the trend of speakers wearing headset mics? And since I don't like headset mics, it's plausible to conclude that I also don't like it when they _walk around constantly_ while talking, thinking that they are creating visual interest.

</comment><comment><USER14> Awesome awesome! Gary gave our entrepreneurial / tech community just what we needed to hear in what many think was one of his most passionate and motivating talks.

</comment><comment><USER15> By the way it's GaryVee, not Gary V and it's not necessarily just inheriting the family business that counts, it's what you do with it after it is in your hands and GaryVee is Awesome, phenominal and brilliant!!! He's doing it his way.. YES!!!!! You are going all the way to the top and you deserve it!!!!</comment>


Bookmark is dead - <AUTHOR> http://zehfernandes.com/bookmark-is-dead <comment><USER2> If I find something genuinely interesting (i.e. not another cat pic) I just save the page to my disk. The costs are minimal and I don't ever lose it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I already do something similar myself by Googling keywords from pages I visited a while ago.

So much easier if my browser had Graph-like search built in.</comment>


New version of YSlow Possibility to turn off certain checks - <AUTHOR> http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2009/04/yslow_update.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Haven't had the chance to play around with it too long but by the looks of it, it's a nice release. Alone that you can turn off the "Use a CDN"-check is worth upgrading. You can of course also turn off any other check to create different custom profiles.</comment>


Men may have evolved better 'making up' skills - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36969103 <comment><USER2> I've noticed that the latest trend about men vs women have evolved from 'men and women are equal' to showing that there are actual differences between the two sexes.</comment>


Dithering in Games, Part 1: Simple Quantization (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://bartwronski.com/2016/10/30/dithering-part-one-simple-quantization/ <comment><USER2> I usually think of dither as trading spatial or temporal resolution for dynamic range. This quote reminded me that this isn't the full picture:

> _these computers_ […] _performed more accurately when flying on board the > aircraft_ […] _the vibration from the aircraft reduced the error_

Just yesterday I came across a similar story without realising that it's another example of dither. The latest episode (#300) of NSTAAF [0] contains a bit about photorefractive keratectomy (the predecessor of Lasik). I don't want to spoil the punchline too much more, so I'll just say that Dr. McDonald, the first surgeon to try this on a living human, coined the term "trash compactor patients".

Another thing I meant to reference would have been that page with those stunning visual examples of what can be achieved by combining ordered dithering with error diffusion in clever ways (it's not unlikely I got there via HN not more than a month ago). You know the one I mean? Bummer; unfortunately I didn't manage to find that link right now. But you can find interesting papers by looking up 'structure-aware error diffusion' and 'hybrid dithering'.

[0] [https://www.nosuchthingasafish.com/](https://www.nosuchthingasafish.com/)

<comment><USER3> _Another thing I meant to reference would have been that page with those stunning visual examples of what can be achieved by combining ordered dithering with error diffusion in clever ways (it 's not unlikely I got there via HN not more than a month ago). You know the one I mean?_

This one?

Show HN: Ordered Error Diffusion Dithering (observablehq.com)

37 points by vanderZwan 20 days ago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21682070](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21682070)

<comment><USER2> That's the one; thank you very much!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I built a simple web app for dithering basic images, in case anyone wants to try some dithering of their own:

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

</comment><comment><USER5> This is part 1 of a series: [https://bartwronski.com/2016/10/30/dithering-in- games-mini-s...](https://bartwronski.com/2016/10/30/dithering-in-games-mini- series/). We changed the URL from that to the first post, since generally it's better to link to one element of a list rather than to the list itself ([https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20list%20denominator&sort=byDate&type=comment)).</comment>


How can one become obsessed with anything? - <AUTHOR> I think being obsessed with some subject is a way to master it, to create something great. It's a mark of prominent creators.
I have several interests like AI, blockchain, maths, etc. I feel like I want to create something great in one of those areas, something I can be proud of and other people can use. I make some progress in them, but I think I am very causal and relaxed to push myself to invest more into my interests. I feel like it's a lack of some focus, craziness, passion, obsession, whatever.
Is it possible to grow and cultivate obsession, passion, or it's a matter of hormones, genetics, neurology, something out of our control? <comment><USER2> I think that creativity is _essentially_ an emotional process hence its tie to what you call being "obsessed". There are two cognitive errors that are inhibiting your creativity.

The first is if, in general, you repress your emotions, i.e. feel them yet stifle them instead of allowing yourself to feel them, then you are unavoidably also stifling your creativity. Many people are afraid to express their emotions especially the negative ones like hate, fear, anger, etc. out of fear of social disapproval or in the mistaken belief that rationality means to be unemotional, like Spock. The problem is that the good emotions like love, joy, happiness, desire, etc. get repressed in the cross-fire as repression indiscriminately chops off your highs and lows.

The second cause is being uncertain about what you believe is true and right and thus self-doubt that you will be worthy of or able to even achieve success. In any serious endeavor you are going to run into resistance from naysayers and other barriers to your goal. More importantly, such goals are inherently selfish and there is 2000 years of anti-selfish propaganda floating around the culture. One common adage to counter the self-doubt is to "fake it till you make it" which many rational people dismiss as obvious non-sense. However, that adage is not meant as advice to be dishonest or a "faker" but to take action regardless of your self-doubt or fears, because in the end you will develop the skills, ability, mental toughness to achieve and enjoy the ends you seek.

The goal is not to fear and repress your emotions nor to go through life without strong convictions (what you believe is true and right) but to understand both and change them if necessary. The good news is that there is an Rx for both of these cognitive errors which is to write a daily journal to examine and revise your conscious convictions and your subconscious emotions. Moreover, to counter the onslaught of anti-selfishness in the culture and lay down a path to being integrated in mind/body and thought/action you should read Ayn Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness" and "Philosophy:Who Needs It".</comment>


Obama Administration Supports Privacy-Invasive "Cybersecurity" Bill - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/08/obama-administration-supports-privacy-invasive-cybersecurity-bills <comment><USER2> I suppose when they talked about Transparency what they really meant was they'd be able to see everything you do.

</comment><comment><USER3> For those also getting 503'd

[https://web.archive.org/web/20150821123901/https://www.eff.o...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150821123901/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/08/obama- administration-supports-privacy-invasive-cybersecurity-bills)

<comment><USER4> You, my good fellow, are awesome. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Its pretty clear at this point that every Western government wants to be able to spy on its own citizens as thoroughly as possible while dressing it up as 'security'.

It is really quite sad how obviously transparent it is yet most people are indifferent. :/

<comment><USER6> Well, it /is/ "security" in their sense of the word. It isn't very /good/ security or very /effective/ but it's goal is indeed what it is claiming. They don't desire totalitarianism or anything.

Remember that a controlling government is a byproduct of giving governments control, not the actual goal of any individual or group within government (who merely want control to do a different thing). Nobody wants to be a bad guy, they genuinely think this is helpful. The road to hell and all that.

<comment><USER7> Which is why it is our responsibility as citizens to limit the government's control.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the Windows 10 privacy issues are going to become common in modern operating systems if they haven't already.

It is going to give governments back door access into what we do online and what things we look at on the Internet and how we communicate with others.

All it takes are some operating system updates to install the NSA backdoor if there isn't already one there anyway.

In order to secure the Internet, this bill has to have the government spy on its citizens to make sure they aren't doing anything wrong.

</comment><comment><USER9> Many people who use the internet see themselves as global citizens.

The idea of a modern nation state exists due to the weakening of religion and tribalism and creation of nationalism.

The internet is very threatening to nationalistic values - just like scientific thinking was to religion - and a weakening of nationalism is the ultimate threat to all world government.

<comment><USER10> "War is the health of the State."

[http://fair-use.org/randolph-bourne/the-state/](http://fair-use.org/randolph- bourne/the-state/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Where is the outrage? All I see is passive acceptance or indifference.

<comment><USER12> Most people don't understand exactly what is happening or even that bills like these might be passed.

Imagine trying to educate the average, non-IT field citizen about the technology used in the NSA/GCHQ programs we learned of during the Snowden leaks.

It's an insurmountable task.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Transparency for thee but not for me...</comment>


Using a full iPad to test how your app will look and feel on the iPad mini - <AUTHOR> http://blog.michaelslater.net/making-your-ipad-app-mini.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems to work for me. Might save me a couple of hundred pounds unless I decide to go for the Mini anyway.

<comment><USER2> You might want to try real hardware anyway since iOS apparently does some accidental touch detection at the edges. Anyway, that's how I interpreted the website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You could try using one of those novelty oversized "number 1" hands to see if the interface is too small.

</comment><comment><USER4> Or just use a normal iPad 1 or 2? They have the same resolution. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER5> I believe this is about size, not pixels. This way you can see if your buttons are too small, or similar...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Full iPad? Is that what we're calling it now?

</comment><comment><USER7> If you can't afford to just buy a real iPad mini, you're not really serious about developing and testing on the device.

<comment><USER8> How is this helpful?

You do realize that the iPad Mini won't ship until next Friday, and that people may want a head start on testing their app on a smaller screen.

And additionally, I'm sure there are a lot of small developers who can't afford to buy all the devices their software might eventually run on.</comment></comment>


The "Work" Trap - <AUTHOR> http://notes.unwieldy.net/post/29050677758/the-work-trap/ <comment><USER2> I notice that many of the commentaries misunderstood both the title and content. It's about "work", not work. He's not speaking to extremely occupied people. Quite converse.

The trap here is that procrasinating makes you fail to deliver, guilt stops you from doing anything else (hence, "busy"), and not doing anything else makes you unproductive. Rinse and repeat until you get to the state where no one even bothers anymore to call you to take you out.

That being said, I have a breaking bug in my live web app. I'm going to go out now and take a sloooow macchiato with complimentary homemade croissant. And then I will come back and fix the bug. If anyone calls meanwhile, I'll say I'm not busy.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps another way to think about this is the distinction between the act of working and the objective one's trying to accomplish. I think it can be very easy for some people (myself, ahem) to conflate these two, and ultimately to come to view the act of working as the essential good. Seems like this has been coming up a lot recently ('The Busy Trap', etc.).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Statements about time to do things are statements about priorities. You have time to do lots of things, only you have to give up other things. Someone who says they don't have time for something important doesn't understand their priorities.

People who know their priorities work on them in order and get them done because you aren't distracted by less important things.

People who don't know their priorities get distracted by less important things and don't finish important things.

If you want to avoid busy-work, know your priorities.

<comment><USER5> That's easy to say. My job (required to maintain current standard of living) takes up a minimum of 12 hours, 5 days of the week. I need a minimum of 8 hours sleep to be productive at my job. That leaves a maximum of 4 hours per day during the week to give attention to my wife, my two kids, eat, shower, "honey do's", etc.

I'd also like to do something that gets me out of this situation, but I can't pick anything up without dropping something else. Should I neglect the wife some so I can work on a startup? She probably won't still be around by the time I'm ready to release and the release may fail in the end anyway.

Some of us truly don't have enough time and are actively working to fix it as we can. We're not all morons who don't know how to prioritize.

<comment><USER6> One option would be a new job.

Edit: (either I missed this or it was a ninja edit; no big deal) re: 'standard of living': that's a choice of less risk for what you've got vs. the 'HN way' of shooting for the moon. If you truly want out, choose something else. Yes, easy to say...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> not suggesting the OP lifted the idea or title, but this Times article from June is a good read on the same subject.

[http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy- tra...](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/)

<comment><USER8> Author here; I didn't (intentionally) lift the title—had no idea there was an article of a similar name already.

<comment><USER9> Incidentally, I find it very interesting how differently you , the NYT article & dsirijus (top commenter paraphrasing but also interpreting you) are describing what is going on when people are "busy".

NYT: _Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand.._

You: _I call it The "Work" Trap. What is it? It's both a procrastination technique and a way of staying in your comfort zone while feeling or seeming productive._

dsirijus: _procrasinating makes you fail to deliver, guilt stops you from doing anything else (hence, "busy"), and not doing anything else makes you unproductive. Rinse and repeat.._

<comment><USER2> Yes, I'd very much like to hear more from author on this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's the classic battle of urgent vs. important. It's easy to fall into a trap by always focusing on the most seemingly "urgent" task at hand while neglecting things that are actually more important. Responding to emails, fixing bugs, or hiring a new developer might seem urgent, but what longer-term goals end up suffering? Things like building company culture, fostering business relationships, or developing long term strategy are hardly urgent, but extremely important things that often get neglected when we fall victim to the day-to-day tyranny of urgency.

</comment><comment><USER11> This isn't really about work, but rather procrastination. But you don't actually have to have work to be "to busy" to do whatever. I once rented a room in a house where the landlady was divorced and living off of alimony (this was a few years ago). She didn't have any hard demands on her time (like employment), but whenever she didn't want to do something she would tell other people she didn't have time. Funny thing was I think she actually believed it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I understand where the author is coming from and where he wants to take us to.

But these things are not as black and white as people show them to be. When you chose something over the other, you are just making a trade off. You need to be happy with that trade off or you should not make it. If you feel you will be happy taking hours off and doing something else, then you should be happy for that and not worry about lost money you could have otherwise make if you had worked instead.

Now this is OK for a day or two. If you do this for years, you will lose substantial money compared to your peers. Enough to make that distinction apparent. It will show in everything. The house you live, the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the vacations you take, the food you eat, your hobbies, your lifestyle. There will hardly be anything in your life which won't be affected by this. You should be happy with all this.

Don't go down to a state where you have to tell yourself and people around- 'Even I could have been like the person Y had I worked for X more extra hours, I would have everything he has'

</comment><comment><USER13> It is called - get out and enjoy life now and then. As someone who is often "busy due to work", it is easy to ignore the fact that you have reached the point of diminishing returns in a given day. Going out, letting your mind wander on to other subjects and just having fun add to life more than just the "hey, I am being social".

Life is certainly more than work, even when we love what we do.

</comment><comment><USER14> It seems he is saying to take some time to work on your career instead of just focussing on your job all the time. Good advice.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, or even that 'life' thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> its called Workaholism. the workaholic sabotages to make work because his ultimate fear is not having enough work. google "Chained to the Desk" book on amazon and read it on kindle. also google my post "Hero - Martyr Cycle" or "Kent Beck: Ease At Work (Part 1 of 7)". also read "4 Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferris to learn how to really get shit done and go play. also "Rework" and "Getting Real" by 37Signals.

</comment><comment><USER17> On the other side of things, how do you convince someone who is in this trap to get off their butt and go (with you or not) do something worthwhile?

</comment><comment><USER18> I can very much relate to that way of working. I found that the best way to avoid falling into this trap, is to start your day with an activity that you enjoy doing, outside. sports are perfect, like going for a bicycle round in the morning. adding the relaxing effects of the released endorphines should give you a great start into the day.

</comment><comment><USER19> Personally, I'd recommend working on whatever you're interested in and best at. Just hope for the best.

</comment><comment><USER20> You say "work," I say learn. Artistole's social animal still needs time and space to learn, change, improve. I think "job" is more appropriate. To the comments below, quoting Tim Ferris when he doesn't work 4 hours a week is like quoting Romney about paying taxes.

</comment><comment><USER21> _"Being busy is a form of laziness - lazy thinking and indiscriminate action."_ \-- Tim Ferris

(this blogpost reminded me of this quote)

<comment><USER12> Not the kind of laziness we know of.

I think its not laziness but rather more of mismanagement.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Masking – Generate anonymized database - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kibitan/masking <comment><USER2> Looks pretty nice!

Does anyone have a recommendation for PgSQL?

<comment><USER3> I played around with this one a few months ago and liked it a lot. And the developer was very helpful in getting it up and running [https://gitlab.com/dalibo/postgresql_anonymizer](https://gitlab.com/dalibo/postgresql_anonymizer)</comment></comment>


Russian Hack of the DNC - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/07/russian_hack_of.html <comment><USER2> So how is the US supposed to respond? If the attribution had remained secret, I'd imagine some sort of tit for tat response by US spies. We'd hear about an embarrassing leak abou Putin sometime in the future.

But with the whole world knowing that Russia is messing with US elections the response has to be equally public. No more Cold War style spy games.

Also any other candidate in history would be damaged by receiving help from Putin, but Trump's supporters will just blame it on Hillary somehow.

<comment><USER3> Well, Obama is pretty incompetent. So don't expect anything from him. And if Hillary were the President, she would probably escalate it into something even worst, with her war-hawk personality.

It's like when North Korea hacked Sony. What did Obama do? Nothing. What else was the United States suppose to do? Drop a nuke on them?</comment></comment>


Asynchronous (Clockless) CPU - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_circuit#Asynchronous_CPU <comment><USER2> Though fundamentally very different, in some cases clocking with a free- running clock is an alternative. That clock has a frequency that represents several gate-delays, and these delays in turn depend on the current core voltage. The end result is a clock close to optimal given the voltage applied to the core, and that even adjusts the clock within a single SMPS charging cycle.

A RISC-V prototype achieved almost 40% power savings: [https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bora/Journals/2017/JSSC17-...](https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bora/Journals/2017/JSSC17-1.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> I have read a lot about async designs recently and most of the research seems to have drained around 2010.

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on how much power you can actually save with an async CPU. It's said that clock distribution on modern CPUs/boards(?) amounts to around 30 or more percent of the overall power consumption but on the other hand the savings do not necessarily amount to that much.

From a Technical Review article on clockless chips: The Intel "clockless prototype in 1997 ran three times faster than the conventional-chip equivalent, on half the power." Apparently economically that didn't make sense for Intel because you'd have to re-create virtually a whole industry that is based on clocked chips.

Another Intel scientist (unfortunately I can't re-find that source) later said that the power savings of async CPUs aren't as high as claimed by their proponents.

Interestingly Intel Chief Scientist Narayan Srinivasa left the company to be a CTO at Eta Computing who develop an asynchronous ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller.

<comment><USER3> Adding to my own post

> ... Apparently economically that didn't make sense for Intel because you'd > have to re-create virtually a whole industry that is based on clocked chips.

Also you'd have to invent a sales/marketing scheme as an alternative to the existing one that is based on increasing clock rates. GHz is to the PC what HP (horsepower) is to the car. That might come to an end obviously but now at least we have cores.

<comment><USER4> > Also you'd have to invent a sales/marketing scheme as an alternative to the > existing one that is based on increasing clock rates. GHz is to the PC what > HP (horsepower) is to the car.

The GHz race has been over for a long time. Since Intel Core (and AMD Zen, I think; at least AMD Bulldozer had in my opinion a different design philosophy), it is all about smarter cores that do more in less clock steps. Also since AMD Zen, the "number of core race" has regained traction. Finally, in particular Intel tries to promote extra-wide SIMD instructions (AVX-512).

<comment><USER3> Just look at how they are promoting the new i9 (!) with 8 cores and 5 GHz :) [https://thenextweb.com/plugged/2018/10/08/intels-9th-gen- pro...](https://thenextweb.com/plugged/2018/10/08/intels-9th-gen-processors- bring-8-cores-and-a-5-ghz-i9-chip/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Race conditions: now in hardware at the gate level!

A few questions

1\. Could you call current SOCs asynchronous since they not only clock different blocks at different rates, but internally within a block subsections run at various rates?

2\. Does variable clock rate deliver many of the benefits of async without the complexity? In other words how much more blood is there to squeeze from the async stone in the current world?

I doubt we'll see a competitive async chip anytime soon, but as CPUs continue to evolve perhaps we'll see the functional blocks broken up into smaller and smaller clock domains until it becomes difficult to tell the difference?

<comment><USER6> 1\. No, asynchronous means something different than multiple clocks. Think of it like the difference between polling based programming and using coroutines; with multiple clock domains you have separate sections of your chip performing tasks at predefined instants in time (when your clock signal rises/when your polling loop swings around again) but with a truly asynchronous design, you simply start processing the next chunk of work when the previous chunk is finished (when the previous chunk of logic drives a signal high/when the previous coroutine finishes and control flow resumes in your coroutine).

2\. It does deliver some benefits, but not all. Truly clockless design is desirable in some cases due to power concerns; for example the Novelda Xethru ultra-wideband radar SoCs are actually clockless, because power distribution networks can account for 20%+ of the power consumed in chips like this. (This is what I've heard, I don't have a citation for this. The paper I quote below similarly handwaves and throws around numbers from 26% all the way up to 40%, but they don't do any analysis of their own on this)

I've never used a clockless CPU design before, but the theoretical advantages are listed out quite nicely in this paper [0], which lists (among other things) the natural ability for the CPU to sit at idle (not executing `NOP` instructions, actually idle) when no work is available. It appears that the AMULET 3 processor (which is compared against an ARM 9 core) is competitive in power consumption, but doesn't quite stand up in performance. While still pretty impressive for a research project, this shows that we do still have quite a bit of work to do before these chips are ruling the world (if, indeed, we can scale up our tools to the point that designing these isn't just an exercise in frustration).

[0]: [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.83....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.83.7655&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

<comment><USER3> > the natural ability for the CPU to sit at idle (not executing `NOP` > instructions, actually idle) when no work is available.

That just makes so much sense. Just think about how much power could be saved with all the computing devices that are idle pretty much of the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As someone who is working on an asynchronous process myself, I should remind you that asynchronous is more a design level choice rather than a magic bullet that makes everything better.

In particular, in CPUs with a big centralized register file there can be significant overhead to having an asynchronous CPU.

There are certain architectural cases in which it can be a killer advantage or other cases in which it is pretty much the only way forward (e.g. in a 3D chip it can be quite difficult to distribute a high speed, high quality/low skew+jitter clock)

<comment><USER8> > (e.g. in a 3D chip it can be quite difficult to distribute a high speed, > high quality/low skew+jitter clock)

How thick is "3D" here, and why is that? What makes a bit of vertical distance harder than several mm of horizontal distance?

<comment><USER9> I believe troubles are caused by induction effect from adjacent layer (similar to self-inductance[0]).

[0] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductance#Self- inductance_of_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductance#Self- inductance_of_a_wire_loop)

<comment><USER10> Not just inductance, but capacitance between the layers themselves too since you've got to have an insulator between them. All the fun things you get in 2d from nanometer scale devices are now compounded in another degree of freedom. The only thing I don't think you have to work around is quantum tunneling between layers because they'll probably be too far apart still to need that level of work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've been studying the Cal-tech and seaforth processors lately and they've actually inspired me to go back to school so I might one day take part in an asynchronous design.

Does anybody recommend any readings besides papers on the above?

As far as I can tell most engineers view asynchronous processors as arcane equipment only meant for the most specialized tasks.

<comment><USER12> Where are you doing an MS in CompA?

<comment><USER11> I actually don't even have a BS yet. I dropped out after doing a cost benefit analysis and learned I could get tech jobs without a degree. It's been a bumpy road to say the least haha. I'm currently unemployed and looking for a gig/job before I go back to get my degree. I plan on attending OSU since it's near by.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I hate to be the one to ask this because a clock-less CPU sounds like such a neat idea... but wouldn't it also open up a whole other world of timing attacks? (I'm very happy to be enlightened as to how it would not).

<comment><USER14> On the contrary, it should close off an entire world of power analysis timing attacks.

There probably are new internal timing attacks that could be exposed through some asynchronous CPU designs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> No mention of Ivan Sutherland and his Fleet Architecture?

[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.167...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.167.7784&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

<comment><USER16> Some more recent publications here: [http://arc.cecs.pdx.edu/publications](http://arc.cecs.pdx.edu/publications)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The future is running event-triggered lambdas using async system calls in tickless kernels on clockless CPUs.

Q. would tickless kernels benefit from running on async CPUs?

<comment><USER18> Interesting question. Thinking very abstractly, I guess that on an async CPU, software could more easily avoid polling, and be totally event driven, so we could get rid of timers/preemptive multitasking/any notion of time, and having no notion of time would make it easy to be tickless.

Of course you probably still want load-balancing between long-lived tasks, not sure how you'd handle that with a fully async system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Modern synchronous techniques can already be low overhead, take a look at "slew tolerant" circuits where you can have not flip-flop setup/hold delays in the circuit path:

[http://pages.hmc.edu/harris/class/e158/01/lect21.pdf](http://pages.hmc.edu/harris/class/e158/01/lect21.pdf)

Also, big CPUs are power limited anyway. I mean "speed step" allows one core to run fast, as long as the others are unloaded.

<comment><USER7> Skew tolerant domino needs a multi phase clock and domino logic as you know, can be quite the power hog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What's involved in creating simulation tools for async? Is it straightforward, or in need of research?

<comment><USER3> I can't answer your question but here's a an open source async synthesis system with a simulator: [http://apt.cs.manchester.ac.uk/projects/tools/balsa/](http://apt.cs.manchester.ac.uk/projects/tools/balsa/)

Last update is from 2010 so I guess it could use some research :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Other the last 20 years, I have seen multiple attempts to commercially take advantage of clockless logic, they all disappeared.

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't understand how you buffer the output from stage X if stage Y is running more slowly.

<comment><USER23> Stage X probably just stops until stage Y is ready; that's why there needs to be an acknowledge signal that propagates backwards through the pipeline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> To confirm something already stated: back in the day in grad school (90s), my understanding was that clocked circuits were just too far ahead in tooling, so clockless could never catch up in the big, complex domains where it would make a difference.

One of my proofs likenee it to (at the time) ai, where it held out such promise, got tons of hype, then reliably would totally disgrace itself every ten years...</comment>


Using jQuery to Produce Rich User Interfaces - <AUTHOR> http://onwired.com/blog/using-jquery-to-produce-rich-user-interfaces-onwired-portfolio-example/

<comment><USER2> jquery is fantastic even for programmers. There is almost no learning curve to get started. For advanced users, jquery has many tricks up its sleeve and it never fails to surprise.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely. Take it from Simon Willison, who doesn't get any more advanced when it comes to JavaScript:

<http://simonwillison.net/2007/Aug/15/jquery/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> for us non programmers jquery really is super easy to use.</comment>


Facebook Plans to Speed Up its iPhone App - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/27/facebook-plans-to-speedup-its-iphone-app/

<comment><USER2> Facebook's current app isn't slow because it's written predominantly in HTML5. It's slow because it takes forever to retrieve assets from their servers.

There's nothing magical about Objective-C that's going make the HTTP requests quicker.

The whole "native vs web view" performance debate is about things like animations and scrolling and rendering, not about the speed of retrieving assets from a remote server. And that's what's terrible about the current iOS app.

<comment><USER3> User perceptions play into performance more than you'd think. If the HTML app can't scroll or transition smoothly, or it's spinning up new WebViews and you have to wait (there is an inherent delay in loading _any_ content in a new UIWebView), then users will say it's slow. Not to mention memory usage of HTML elements, and managing that whole mess (the "rococo pandemonium" of HTML CSS and JavaScript, as Tim Bray put it) of objects in (usually) one giant container...

I've never found a situation where a WebView-based app is better than native.

<comment><USER2> I completely agree with that - but I'd argue that the overwhelming majority of "slowness" felt with Facebook's iOS app revolves around lengthy requests, not a lack or responsiveness on user interactions.

<comment><USER4> Personally, it's both. The application stutters for me constantly. I use my thumb to scroll, and the application does not respond for a second, then quickly catches up to what I did. _That_ I assume will be fixed by going native.

<comment><USER2> I'd imagine that the average, non-HackerNews-reading user is far more sensitive to "this takes FOREVER to load" than "this scrolling is choppy".

<comment><USER4> I imagine both bother them about equally, but that they don't distinguish between them. They're both just the app being "slow." To be clear, the scrolling isn't just a little choppy. It's a delay of a full second sometimes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the bigger problem is still iOS's webview from within native apps, not that it has to pull most of the assets from the server. If you go to m.facebook.com in Safari it is much faster than using the native application and most of it is the same HTML5 code that is running within the webview of the native app. The twitter app is also painfully slow when clicking a link and it opens up the resulting page in a webview.

<comment><USER6> I've noticed this as well, and it seems to be a recent phenomenon - it's gotten to the point where I just open links in Safari when possible. Any idea why?

<comment><USER5> One reason:

"...performance of UIWebViews is less than in mobile Safari. This has a lot to do with the absence of the new Nitro JavaScript engine in UIWebViews, apparently for security reasons. I ran some tests on my iPhone 4 with iOS 5.1.1, the JavaScript benchmark Sunspider running in Mobile Safari was 3 x as fast as running in a native app with a UIWebView. Also, to communicate from the UIWebView to the native app, a JavaScript bridge is needed. This is tricky stuff, slow and not really thread safe."

[http://blog.mobtest.com/2012/05/heres-why-the-facebook- ios-a...](http://blog.mobtest.com/2012/05/heres-why-the-facebook-ios-app-is- so-bad-uiwebviews-and-no-nitro/)

<comment><USER7> This.

IIRC, the reason is that the Nitro engine compiles directly to native code, which is then executed. This requires writing to memory as data and then executing the data. However, Apple doesn't allow third-party applications to execute data for any reason. This would violate security policies. Thus, any and all third-party scripting—be it JavaScript in a Webkit view or something else—must be interpreted. The best a third-party application can do is compile to byte codes and then interpret the byte codes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the biggest problem here is that iOS/Android WebViews are incredibly sensitive to memory and CPU, and if you just take an otherwise amazing desktop or backend developer and throw them in mobile webview, you're setting them up for failure.

The webview is a whole different ball of wax (my last gig was PhoneGap development on iOS and Android) and if you are not, from day one, incredibly focused on performance (CPU and Memory) you're gonna have a bad time.

Knowing what I know about making PhoneGap apps, there's nothing inherent in what FB is doing that the WebView is incapable of doing. It's just really hard to get it right, much harder than a native app.

<comment><USER9> No harder than getting it right in native code on 3 different platforms.

<comment><USER8> Depends on what you mean by "hard". Although it's time consuming to learn different platforms, there are not a whole lot of gotchas you have to discover on your own. It's all been done before and well documented.

PhoneGap development is hard inasmuch as there are tons of gotchas you don't know about and haven't been clearly and extensively documented.

<comment><USER10> Hard as in writing code in three different languages. Apart from that I think tech community giving too much credit for Apple and especially Google. They could have fixed this native vs html5-js-css thing two versions ago.

<comment><USER11> Three different languages that provide vastly superior runtime libraries and tooling that facilitate implementing first-class applications on the target platform.

I agree that supporting multiple platforms is suboptimal, but instead choosing a suboptimal common platform isn't any better.

We already tried that once with Java desktop applications, and Java at least _tried_ to provide a viable common widget/platform toolkit.

<comment><USER9> No, we tried it once with web applications, and it worked brilliantly.

<comment><USER11> When did that happen? Are we reading the same article?

<comment><USER9> Sorry. What I meant was, web applications have been a successful cross platform way of delivering software for the past 10 years. I don't see any reason why it can't continue on mobile, especially now that the hardware is catching up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have tonnes of emails saved in my iPhone Notes app of people I met, tried to unsuccessfully find on facebook using the app, and later found them using the facebook.com from a normal computer.

I'm starting to feel that facebook purposely broke its iPhone app to limit use. There is simply no other explanation why the most basic feature of finding and adding a new friend would be so terribly broken.

</comment><comment><USER13> There is no excuse for using HTML5 when the native platform offers you so much more and the user base is substantial. Only cheapos try to get away with it. Web is dead, welcome to app economy!

<comment><USER9> Are you trolling? If you go native you have to write and maintain a different codebase for ever platform you want to support. With HTML5 you can update code without going through Apple's lengthy update process, and you can share that code across as many platforms as you like. HTML5 also allows you to tap into a much wider pool of developers.

<comment><USER11> None of what you covered provides any advantage whatsoever to your users. It's all about making web developers happy.

<comment><USER9> In the case where you only have the resources to make an iOS version of your app, you certainly are thinking of your users when you use a cross-platform solution so that Android is supported.

<comment><USER14> Perhaps, but the better thing to do would be to write native apps for both users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Jeff Atwood said it best: performance is a feature.

[http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/06/performance-is-a- fe...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/06/performance-is-a-feature.html)

<comment><USER16> Unless you are Chrome for iOS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Excellent news. I know it says that the design isn't really changing, but I hope that a few things get cleaned up, too — say, like the way comments views sometimes show Likes and sometimes don't. That one's baffling to me.

</comment><comment><USER18> "the company had chosen to build its apps predominantly using HTML5 so that it could take advantage of reusing programming code across multiple mobile platforms"

This is certainly a benefit, but at Facebook's scale, it made sense to dedicate engineering efforts to have the best experience on the iPhone. I'm glad they're finally going in this direction. However, I think that one of the benefit that is not mention here is the easiness to change the UI at any point, which they've been doing all the time.

That being said, I would think that it would still be possible to modify a native UI without going through an App Store review, since more or less everything can be created and customized programmatically: so you can send some kind of file that describe the UI tweak. Surely, it can become a mess pretty fast, but it's an option.

<comment><USER9> That would violate Apple's terms. Apple allows updating of HTML/JS/CSS without going through the update process but not the updating or changing of any native code.

<comment><USER13> Don't really understand what you are saying. What prevents you from changing the JSON data that you display within a native screen at any given time? HTML is not the only way to transfer data out there and interpretation is totally upto the app.

<comment><USER9> Meaning, you can replace code wholesale so long as it doesn't change the original intention of the app and it's just html/css/js you're changing. So if you're using a javascript framework to build an application, for instance, you could send an update to that app over the web rather than go through the app store update approval process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Having done some PhoneGap dev lately, it is possible to make a great app using HTML5, but to make it perform well and have the right look and feel requires a ton of work, and the tooling around it still leaves something to be desired, especially on the UI side.

Libraries like Kendo UI or Sencha Mobile help a lot, but if I were Facebook, I'd spend the dev time to do it right and make it awesome.

Whether that means optimizing the crap out of their HTML 5 or going native is a judgement call.

<comment><USER3> I've had a hard time finding a really convincing "great app" that is largely HTML5. Can you mention what it was?

<comment><USER20> Linkedin's app is mostly web tech. While I personally have used it a few times, I think most people enjoy it.

<comment><USER3> LinkedIn's app on the iPhone has a lot of native views. There are some telltale signs that indiciate native components make up everything but the "leaf nodes" of the app's UX.

<comment><USER21> He/she meant the iPad app.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


'Populist Entertainment': Making Movies in the Trump Era - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/from-texas-movies-for-americans-hollywood-left-behind-1526400385 <comment><USER2> The article is pay-walled, that's not very "populist" ;-)

But what is "populism" anyhow? I cannot get any clear definition. My best guess so far: rebellion against the established political parties and players by experimenting with "outsider" or non-traditional politicians. (Donald is a hell of an experiment.)</comment>


Newegg trial: Crypto legend takes the stand, goes for knockout patent punch - Suraj-Sun http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/newegg-trial-crypto-legend-diffie-takes-the-stand-to-knock-out-patent/ <comment><AUTHOR> Lawyers can be a pain at times, but sometimes they set up punchlines perfectly:

 _" We've heard a good bit in this courtroom about public key encryption," said Albright. "Are you familiar with that?

"Yes, I am," said Diffie, in what surely qualified as the biggest understatement of the trial.

"And how is it that you're familiar with public key encryption?"

"I invented it."_

<comment><USER2> Scummier was the attack on his credibility:

 _That 's not what Fenster did. He went on the attack.

"You never completed a master's degree, correct?" he asked Diffie.

"That's correct," said Diffie.

"Other than the honorary degree, you don't have an earned doctorate or Ph.D. correct?"

"That is correct," said Diffie.

And even though he taught a few courses, "you never had a real professorship, correct?" asked Fenster.

"I never had a full-time academic job, no."_

<comment><USER3> Maybe a missed opportunity, but using Bill Gates as a counter-example of the necessity of formal education in CS could have neutralized that line of attack.

<comment><USER4> And Steve Jobs. The two dominant companies in personal computing, both founded by drop-outs!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought I'd go and have a looksee who Dr. Rhyne, the opposing expert witness, is and I found this:

 _Dr. Rhyne, who will lead the three-day Boot Camp, is a broadly experienced expert witness who has provided in-courtroom testimony in over three dozen federal patent cases and ITC hearings over the past thirty years. He will be joined by legal and technical staff members from Patent Calls, as well as selected guest lecturers._

 _Carefully designed to be a program that will be "Conducted by Experts for Experts," Boot Camp participants will learn that serving as an expert witness is a unique and productive way to use their technical knowledge. "By their nature, patent trials are highly charged competitive environments for companies and attorneys who have a great deal at stake," Dr. Rhyne has explained, "and an expert witness is often a key part of that process. I am pleased to have this opportunity to share my experience as a witness with others."_

 _Patent Calls' Patent Expert Witness Boot Camp will provide an opportunity for individuals who have some patent expert witness experience – or who are aspiring to become an expert witness – to benefit from both intensive instruction and interactive training that are intended to increase their effectiveness and appeal to potential clients. Participants will receive a highly integrated combination of classroom instruction, team exercises, and simulated examination and testimony that will serve to challenge them and thus maximize their learning experiences._

[http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20101115007716/en/Pate...](http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20101115007716/en/Patent- Calls-Hosts-Patent-Expert-Witness-Boot)

Which contrasts nicely with the questions put to Diffie about his status as an expert witness:

 _Fenster noted that while Diffie was testifying in court for the first time, he had other expert witness work lined up. His rate varies from $500 to $600 per hour, and it 's $700 for testifying in court._

 _" Your agent helps you to get expert witness jobs, is that right?"_

 _" Actually, no," said Diffie. "My agent handles the arrangements with my clients. All of the jobs have come in directly through me."_

</comment><comment><USER6> Finally, we're starting to see some people stand up to trolls, and judges and juries are beginning to understand what these people are.

I don't follow patent troll cases too closely because they make me so angry, especially given that so many of them end up with the troll winning, or at least going right back to doing what they were doing after losing in court in a specific instance, but not losing the patent (or they just continue attacking people with other patents in their portfolio in the rare event the patent is invalidated). So, when I see a positive story...and this one looks pretty positive to me.

I worry vaguely that the judge or jury might not recognize the _vast_ difference between Diffie and some unknown asshole who makes his living testifying in court as an "expert witness" in patent cases.

<comment><USER7> > I worry vaguely that the judge or jury might not recognize the vast > difference between Diffie and some unknown asshole who makes his living > testifying in court as an "expert witness" in patent cases

The "unknown asshole" is an IEEE life fellow and former board member, with a long successful career in research, industry, and teaching in computer engineering, and authored a widely used award winning textbook on digital design.

His profile is pretty typical for expert witnesses. Quite a large fraction of them are people who are retired (Rhyne retired in 1998) after having had a very successful and distinguished career in engineering or science, usually including research, industry, and academia.

Expert witness gigs are a nice way to pay for a new boat or RV without a lot of work. (One of the experts at the trial I was involved in was paying for a Tesla from a couple expert witness jobs). Many become registered patent agents, and then they can testify as both experts on the engineering aspects of the patent and on the patent aspects (e.g., prior art, infringement, interpretation of the specification, and such).

The workload is actually pretty light, compared to what their load was likely like before they retired. Basically, they write a report that analyzes the patent and the alleged infringement and explains why the patent is valid and why it is indeed infringed, get deposed, and testify about the report.

<comment><USER6> OK, so he's not entirely unknown, and not incompetent. Still an asshole. Working for patent trolls is a genuinely destructive and unethical thing for an engineer to do, even if it pays for a nice boat.

<comment><USER8> That's just, like, your opinion man.

Me, I prefer to see data. Fortunately, there are a number of studies coming out about patent trolls. Unfortunately, there is no clear consensus. Also, things like the impact of baseless demand letters simply cannot be studied because they cannot be tracked and there is no data. This will hopefully will change soon.

But I'd much rather prefer analytical study over uninformed vitriol. Ars Techica is usually good, but not when it comes to patent matters. This is the same blog that painted CSIRO, a well known Australian research lab, as a patent troll because they claimed to invent WiFi and sued manufacturers over it. The comments on that article (many from posters down under, naturally) kept calling out Ars' incorrect rewriting of history, but they would not back down. I wouldn't want my news from somebody who won't accept the facts because they don't agree with their biases.

<comment><USER9> There isn't exact data and there will never be exact data, because many of the settlements extracted are confidential and there is no incentive for anyone to talk about them.

If someone is ambushing people in the street, hitting them over the head with a pipe, and robbing them, I don't need to see a double fucken' blind study to decide that this needs to stop.

You've reminded me of a meta-study published in some medical journal, analysing "parachute application to prevent trauma due to gravitational challenge", i.e. if it's worth wearing a parachute when jumping out of a plane. They found that little high-quality data exists to support parachute use, and recommended further study.

<comment><USER8> You don't need exact data, you just need enough. There's no doubt bad actors in the system, but do they characterize all of them?

The papers I read indicate that trolls actually often have "strong" patents, but like you said, most of those settle out of court, so you never hear about them. The ones that go to court are the weak ones, and those are the ones you hear about, which creates an image that all trolls assert bogus patents.

I mean even NewEgg, who've been spouting a lot of "We Never Settle" rhetoric admitted, in this very case, that they've licensed a majority of patents that were asserted against them. The coverage on Ars is a bit brief, but it sounds like out of 80 assertions NewEgg has taken it to court only a handful of times. To me, that sounds like the system is not imbalanced.

 _> If someone is ambushing people in the street, hitting them over the head with a pipe, and robbing them, I don't need to see a double fucken' blind study to decide that this needs to stop._

Or maybe the alleged victims claiming to be robbed are lying because they don't want to pay money owed to the alleged assailant and they're hoping he gets put away? Are you going to believe individual he-said/she-said cases or data?

BTW the parachute study sounds hilarious. Link?

<comment><USER9> The study is here: [http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459](http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459). One of the authors archived it here, [http://elucidation.free.fr/parachuteBMJ.pdf](http://elucidation.free.fr/parachuteBMJ.pdf), since the British Medical Journal website is restriced-access. It actually is a pretty profound comment; I recommend it highly.

The fact that many of these idiot patents are legally strong is precisely the problem; that's why we need patent reform to kill them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Awesome stuff, I really hope they nail this one dead.

That said, I'm pleased that we've finally gotten a number of jurists now who are better able to navigate the complexity of the Internet, programming, and 'process patents' when they involve Internet programming. I also find it remarkable that the Trolls have trained up a specific jurisdiction by over using it and are now at a disadvantage there. No doubt they will start looking for somewhere else to file soon but the effect will be the same as opinions and case law flow out of the east Texas courts.

I am perhaps an optimist, but I believe we have turned the corner on stupid patents. And more and more of them will be brought down and fewer of them will be of use to trolls. With luck in another 10 years people will be able to talk about the 'bad old days' of patent trolls as being behind them.

<comment><USER8> I think we've turned a corner too. I see fewer and fewer ridiculous patents. One of the reasons why, I speculate, is the advent of Google search :-)

<comment><USER11> Citation needed on there being less ridiculous patents being filed, because I doubt it.

As far as Google Search goes, standard advice for any tech company to their employees is don't go searching for patents, just submit potentially patent- able ideas to legal. This is because if someone has a patent on something and you violate it and they can prove that you knew about the patent via subpoenaed records then you owe them three times as much as you would otherwise, so the more ignorant you are of existing patents the better.

And on the legal side of things, IP lawyers just search the USPTO records directly, not through Google Search.

<comment><USER8> I've read hundreds of patents over the past 7 years or so, so the first citation is simply my experience. You won't find, for example, a broad patent on something like bytecode like this one [https://www.google.com/patents/US4667290](https://www.google.com/patents/US4667290) these days

However, I've been researching the patent system quite a bit, and have come across a number of studies about patent quality [1-12], including "software" patents [1, 2, 3, finding that software patents are no worse than other patents]. Unfortunately, there are many problems with these studies:

1) Judging patent quality is hard and time-consuming, and doing it for a significant number of patents to get data is much more so. Hence many studies use proxies to judge patent quality, such as back-citations [4, 5], or more complex multi-variate models [10] . And then other articles point out flaws in using proxies like this, or actually showing that the metrics actually show the opposite of what they conclude [6]. And then other studies that propose new metrics [7, 8, 9]

2) Related to 1, the other problem is looking at not enough data, looking at different subsets of data, or using different methodologies. Studies are usually careful to highlight these shortcomings and try to logically make an argument for generalizing these results, but it's hard to reach a general conclusion, especially since there is no real consensus.

Now, back to your [Citation Needed]: Few studies convincingly evaluate USPTO (or other) patent quality over time. One study that does find an improvement over time [10] attributes it to the KSR decision rather than Google. Another says that EU patents are getting better over time, though not the US [11]. Another one does briefly argue that US patent quality has been increasing over time [12] based on a bunch of other studies, but some of these use metrics that are not fool-proof, as I mentioned in point 1).

And no, patent lawyers and examiners do absolutely use Google for search.

1\. [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=970083](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=970083)

2\. [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=650921](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=650921)

3\. [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2291603](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2291603)

4\. [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=426020](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=426020)

5\. [http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/scienceandtechnologyfallingpate...](http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/scienceandtechnologyfallingpatentqualityhitsinnovationsaysoecd.htm)

6\. [http://hallingblog.com/oecd-patent-quality- measurement-%E2%8...](http://hallingblog.com/oecd-patent-quality- measurement-%E2%80%93-confusing-patent-quality-with-innovation/)

7\. [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1452862](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1452862)

8\. [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1709999](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1709999)

9\. [http://www.columbia.edu/~mr2651/A_New_Look_at_Patent_Quality...](http://www.columbia.edu/~mr2651/A_New_Look_at_Patent_Quality.pdf)

10\. [http://www.ipo.org/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/PatentQualityi...](http://www.ipo.org/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/PatentQualityinCAFCprepostKSR.pdf)

11\. [http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/docs/patent/patq...](http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/docs/patent/patqual02032011_en.pdf)

12\. [http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2013...](http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2013/02/patenting%20prosperity%20rothwell/patenting%20prosperity%20rothwell.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Ar-Curunir Whitfield Diffie looks a lot like Keanu Reeves.

Also weren't most of the questions that the TQP lawyer asked ad hominem? I understand that he asked those to discredit Diffie, but they still seemed very disrespectful. Almost anyone in the crypto field would back up Diffie's reputation, so that was a rather stupid move on the part of the TQP lawyer IMO.

<comment><USER12> Sounds like it, but unlike HN arguments ad hominem is allowed in court. It seems that discrediting witnesses is a pillar of our court system.

<comment><USER13> It's not really the same. What the lawyer was trying to do wasn't disprove the argument but the facts, which Diffie provided based on his position as an expert. It's perfectly legitimate to do the latter, and really no different than when someone criticizes a source linked in some HN post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow, talk about strawman attacks by the lawyer "You do not have a PHd, you are not an academic" etc.

I am surprised he was allowed to get away with it.

<comment> adam-a A "strawman" is where you set up a flimsy counter point to your own argument and then defeat it. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man)

You might call it "ad hominem" as it is an attempt to discredit Diffie, although that usually describes a logical fallacy - the personal attack doesn't affect the validity of the argument. In this context the main reason for having Diffie there is because of his status and achievements, so it's a reasonable counter to try to discredit him.

I would say that kind of attack is not very fair, and a little bit dishonest, but not a flaw of reasoning.

<comment><USER15> It insinuates that the witness is unqualified to make the statements he's making, using logic of the form "if you don't have a master's degree you likely can't be an expert in this field."

I would have loved to response to ""You never completed a master's degree, correct?" he asked Diffie." with "Just like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, no I don't have a masters degree" (well apparently Bill eventually got one...). I assume the judge would be unhappy with this, which strikes me as unfair - surely I can defend my reputation?

<comment><USER16> They ask a yes or no question, you answer with the truth. Later on your side gets to ask questions.

I wouldn't use Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs as examples of experts.

<comment><USER17> Use both, you are talking to a jury, not other computer folks.

<comment><USER16> That's a fair point.

I'd be tempted to use the person within the organisation who's done lots of published research even without the diploma. But you make a good point - trials are about persuading the jury.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Read the book "Crypto" if you haven't already and want more background on how public key encryption got started and how it got to where it is today. It was suggested previously on HN, and I am so glad I gave it a read.

</comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone knows some case where patents were used for the good of humankind?

<comment><USER20> A litigated court case? I'll have to think about that for a while. But the question you ask, are patents good for humankind in general, is yes. Transnational comparisons make it easy to see over the course of history that people invent more in countries that have secure rights for inventors. Patents can be overbroad (that's often what we talk about here on Hacker News) and patents can be for "prior art" already known to other workers (and that's what often gets litigated), but in general patents are a helpful public policy, along with copyrights (I think current United States copyright terms are much too long) and trademarks. Protection of legal rights in intellectual property encourages creative people to produce more intellectual property.

AFTER EDIT TO REPLY TO A QUESTION:

I was asked for a written account of transnational comparisons of intellectual property law and its effect on innovation. Here is one.

[http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/law/intellectu...](http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/law/intellectual- property/intellectual-property-law-and-innovation)

I have to go to a conference today for work, but perhaps other participants will join in with other comments on the international legal comparison issue. I have lived in two countries (the United States and Taiwan), and I lived in Taiwan before and after it developed intellectual property law enforcement, and it is plain to me that intellectual property rights encourage innovation (as contrasted with mere copying).

<comment><USER21> Do you have some evidence that inventions are a direct result of patents as opposed to socio-economic factors? I can see inventors appreciating recognition, but our system offers no other means of appreciation than patents. Patents are an example of degenerate capitalism, taking away your freedom.

<comment><USER22> Having a free market, which allows the inventor to be first to market, is an inherent means of appreciating innovation. Compare and contrast with ideal communism. Patents are really just a way to strengthen and extend this inherent benefit.

<comment><USER21> 1\. We don't need to appreciate innovation by granting a monopoly. Math is thriving, even though none of that is eligible for patents.

2\. You can be first to market by developing it secretly, perhaps collaborating with a larger company in exchange for royalties. That may not earn you as much money as a patent-monopoly, but that's fine.

In any case, if I independently invent something I should have full rights to pursue it however I want. That someone else 'thought of it first' is unrelated to my inventing it. That's the free world I wanna live in.

These inventions are built on our shared knowledge. Nobody deserves a patent for it. Inventors will invent anyway.

<comment><USER22> I'm mostly with you, I just wanted to point out what looked like a missed connection in the earlier statement.

That said, I'm not _completely_ sold on whether patents are _entirely_ useless. Certain types of invention seem to fit the model better than others.

Then again, I've heard of instances where patents, or something similar, could help innovation. One example is the business poaching I've heard of here, where someone starts exploring an idea as a service, only to shortly thereafter have a separate services company run with the idea, and put out a better executed version quicker than the originator because of more capital. At first glance that seems unfair to the originator but better for society, but if enough people think it's not worth entering the market because they'll be scooped, we _all_ lose out on those ideas.

I don't have a solution, and I don't think the answer is simple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The funny thing is that the lawyer tries to discredit Diffie by trying to present prior art. He was trying to shift focus away from the case and into attacking the witness by presenting prior art to the prior art. Kind of a moot move.

<comment><USER11> I was a juror on a (6 week long) product liability lawsuit this past summer, and it came out that despite the fact that an expert witness for the plaintiff asked to see punch biopsies to check for neuropathy in the supposedly injured leg with a control sample from the other leg, the plaintiff's lawyers only sent him the punch biopsy from the leg claimed to be injured. When this came out the plaintiff's lawyers claimed they did this because they wanted it to a be a "blind study". I almost wtfed out of my chair.

It was pretty clear to anyone with half a brain that the plaintiff had no actual case and the issue he was suffering from was related to preexisting degenerative arthritis and nothing to do with the product that supposedly injured his knee, but sadly based on nothing more than emotional manipulation by his (very good) lawyers of the jury he came very close to winning (ultimately it was a hung jury, but the majority of votes were in plaintiff's favor).

Sadly, people are right to doubt the fact that many of the jurors have the context to value Diffie's testimony over the plaintiff's expert witnesses in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> TQP should be forced to pay back all the money they stole with this silly patent

</comment><comment><USER25> is Whitfield wearing a cape?

<comment><USER26> Given the beard, a wizard staff would be more appropriate. Gandalf fighting against software patents! Good tidings indeed!</comment></comment>


Model Based Reasoning – Troubleshooting (1988) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/6491/AIM-1059.pdf?sequence=2 <comment><USER2> Very interesting, particularly where it describes the limitations of what model to choose (theoretical NAND gate vs. two transistors, etc.) and how choosing one impacts the troubleshooting.

Does anybody know of any research on the logic of models? This smells like a good problem for logic programming and constraint logic... X output is only explained with this model of a fried transistor, etc.

<comment><USER3> I know that a later development of this sort of research went into the Deep Space 1 Remote Agent -- an experiment in autonomous spacecraft. A malfunction during a flyby leaves you p. screwed with the usual approach of going into safe mode and waiting for instructions, given the lightspeed delay. IIRC they coded this part of the system in C++; Ron Garrett's Lisp In Space essay gives some of the background.</comment></comment>


Mozilla's Mitchell Baker on Total Surveillance - <AUTHOR> https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2013/06/11/total-surveillance/

<comment><AUTHOR> It greatly heartens me to hear this "straight from the lizard's mouth."

In recent months (perhaps years) many people here on Hacker News have doubted the importance that Mozilla plays. I think today more than ever their importance shines.</comment>


Ask HN: How to Solve Complex Problems? - <AUTHOR> Is there any approaches that you've found useful?
How do you solve complex technical problems when in the beginning it's not clear at all what you need to do? <comment><USER2> I personally use the stick bundle principle. Each complex problem can be broken down to less complex issues So you look at the less complex problems individually and break them down into more less complex problems until you can actually solve that less complex problem. Others call the process divide and conquer, some call this process something else

</comment><comment><USER3> Can you give an example?</comment>


Former Bank of America workers allege it lied to home owners - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/14/us-bankofamerica-mortgages-idUSBRE95D10O20130614 <comment><USER2> We were eligible for consideration for a modification under the DoJ settlement with BoA. After going back and forth with a contractor for over 5 months attempting to satisfy their never ending demand for extra paperwork, we got a letter from the bank saying we were eligible, but because the contractor did not send our phone number in the package to the bank, we had been denied. After a couple more months of back and forth and escalating complaints through the bank hierarchy, we actually ended up getting a modification that, while not perfect, still reduced our interest rate dramatically. The notary from the bank said that almost nobody actually gets the modification - she said that our 9 month turn-around was the quickest she had heard of, most people just give up after the first rejection.

I am sure that a sincere investigation into BoA's practices would reveal systematic denials of some sort, so this article doesn't really surprise me at all. They have never really been held to account for their misdeeds of the past, so there is little incentive for them to reform. The bank has multiple layers of customer service reps whose sole purpose is to block you from moving forward. There is no such thing as speaking to a supervisor; they all seem trained purely in the art of stonewalling. It is truly Kafkaesque.

<comment><USER3> My sister used to work for a loan modification company. The BoA horror stories were the worst.

<comment><USER4> isn't there some other mortgadge provider that people could use? competition is usually the way to stop this sort of problem.

<comment> mh- competition solving these sorts of issues relies on informed, educated consumers.

there is _endless_ debate about how much the government should protect consumers 'from themselves', and I (personally) find merit in opinions from both ends of the spectrum.

with that out of the way:

* home loans, by far, are the most complex product that most consumers will ever evaluate and purchase.

* home loans are also one of the most lucrative products for commissioned salespeople to close.

issues that arise in _any_ sort of B2C relationship are more likely to manifest here. if you agree with the (common) opinion that the industry is rife with unscrupulous business practices and persons, this just compounds things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've dealt with similar institutions before. They have to be seen to be playing by the rules, but they use every possible lie and excuse to wriggle out of their obligations. Here's how to beat them:

* Understand that your relationship is entirely adversarial. Play by the rules, but be an asshole.

* Your adversaries will mostly consider themselves decent people, who are forced into a corrupt role. Use the cognitive dissonance against them.

* Create a cross-referenced paper trail so strong that it is impossible for them to pretend that they don't have every document they need.

* Hound them relentlessly on every promise and every lie.

By the time you're done with them, they won't care about their performance bonus. They'll just want you to leave them alone.

For example, here's how you send them an important package of documents:

1\. Add cross-referenced meta-data to the package so that, if anything gets "lost", it will be immediately, undeniably obvious.

2\. Send the package by registered mail.

3\. After the package has arrived, call them to confirm that they've received it.

4\. They'll probably "lose" it the first time, so go back to step 1. (Eventually they'll catch on, and stop "losing" things so often.)

5\. When they confirm receipt, also ask them to confirm what will happen next, and when. If they don't give a date, tell them that you'll call them back every week for progress reports.

6\. Send them a follow-up letter in which you tell them exactly what you sent them (repeat the meta-data), when they confirmed receipt, what they said they'd do, what you said you'd do, a summary of previous correspondence, and so on.

If you catch them telling lies on the phone, you have a golden opportunity. Ask them whether they'd be willing to confirm their statement in writing. When they say, "Yes." grab a pen and get them to agree an exact wording with you. Send them a copy of the wording, remind them that they agreed to these exact words, and ask them to sign it and send it back to you.

Of course, you won't get your signed statement, but they're not going to admit that they lied to you either, and the cognitive dissonance will make them deeply miserable. Hound them.

</comment><comment><USER6> Neil Barofsky talks about this at length in his book. If you really want to be infuriated, read it to find out how Treasury viewed this program: not as a way to actually help homeowners, but as a way to "foam the runway" for the banks, allowing them to stretch out the period of time over which they could foreclose on all these homes to avoid being overwhelmed by the logistics. Truly disgusting.

</comment><comment><USER7> For the life of me I cannot understand the logic of massive foreclosure campaigns like the ones the banks have been onto. There is already a surplus of housing for the next few years (outside the obvious top 10 cities) so how does forcing people out of their homes (the ones that have paid up) benefit the banks? the neighbors banks? the neighbors or the town?

Maybe there is a bigger picture that I'm missing.

<comment><USER8> Private equity firms are buying the foreclosed houses then turning them into rentals. This was a growing concern in Atlanta when I lived there. It seemed like entire neighborhoods were being bought up.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-17/private-equity- in-a...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-17/private-equity-in-atlanta- after-picking-phoenix-clean-mortgages.html)

<comment><USER7> If those prices are correct then the auctions are priced at less then the price of land, material, and labor. In this day and age it's very difficult to construct a single family home for less than $60K. Unless you are using cheap material, microscopic plots, and a lot of unskilled labor.

The banks are willing to take a bath on their own profit to please private equity investors? That doesn't add up.

<comment><USER8> There's also an demographic dynamic at play unmentioned in the article. Unfortunately, in Atlanta the racial makeup of the neighborhood has a lot to do with the value of the house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Articles like this disappoint me, mainly because the system is so skewed now in favor of mega corps that the average joe is left bewildered and overwhelmed and largely impotent in their fight. Remember many of these same mortgage holders were mislead at the time they bough their homes too regarding ARM rates etc.

</comment><comment><USER10> Wait a minute, isn't that both mail fraud and wire fraud at the very least? I don't think anyone who argue that bankers can't be prosecuted because they didn't do anything wrong has a leg to stand on at this point.

</comment><comment><USER11> Sounds like the cobra effect.

</comment><comment><USER12> The article looks upside down and in a strange character set or language to me.

<comment><USER13> Your neighbor is fed up with you leeching their internet connection.

[http://www.ex-parrot.com/pete/upside-down-ternet.html](http://www.ex- parrot.com/pete/upside-down-ternet.html)

Get your own connection.</comment></comment>


What's Inside Red Bull - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/15-07/st_redbull <comment><USER2> The official RedBull site has a list of ingredients for all product lines[1]. I am fond of the sugar-free version myself, although it can't be any better for you.

[1] [http://www.redbull.com/cs/Satellite/en_INT/Products/Red- Bull...](http://www.redbull.com/cs/Satellite/en_INT/Products/Red-Bull-Energy- Drink-021242751115866)</comment>


Ask HN: What are some good one day social software hack/mashup ideas? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Build something on Huginn! :)

[https://github.com/cantino/huginn](https://github.com/cantino/huginn)

<comment><USER3> Thanks tectonic. Huginn is great. First of its kind in Open Source ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Improve [http://indiewebcamp.com/Bridgy](http://indiewebcamp.com/Bridgy)</comment>


Lists of resources of newly funded startups? - <AUTHOR>

I'm searching for an opportunity to work with a very early stage venture, and am looking to work close with a strong foundational team for very cheap. My motivation is much more as a learning opportunity and a chance to develop a good working rapport - since I am new to SF, as opposed to making a lot of personal income. Does anyone have some advice for someone like me (non-tech, learning RoR though), like a list of recently funded start ups (like a ycombinator graduate class, etc.) that could use some cheap help from a recent grad? Thanks! <comment><USER2> <http://ycuniverse.com/> <http://500suniverse.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Money! Thanks much Ben!</comment></comment>