Gravity waves from Big Bang detected - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gravity-waves-cmb-b-mode-polarization/ <comment><USER2> As an outsider (PhD student in a quantitative field, no relation to physics), the experimental physics community really strikes me as a class act. High standards for statistical significance, vigorously working to rule out mundane explanations before publishing data, outlining which statistical tests will be performed _before_ data is collected...I'm a fan.

"In fact, the researchers were so startled to see such a blaring signal in the data that they held off on publishing it for more than a year, looking for all possible alternative explanations for the pattern they found." That's pretty amazing; as far as I can tell, such caution is less typical in e.g. the brain sciences.

<comment><USER3> The popular media really like to grab any neuroscience paper and twist the hell out of it. Talk to most neuroscientists and they are much more conservative in their leaps and jumps... in reality its moving slowly, but the media wants to portray a Ray Kurzweil reading of every finding.

<comment><USER4> > The popular media really like to grab any neuroscience paper and twist the > hell out of it.

This is true, but a specialized case of the equally true:

"The popular media really like to grab any science paper and twist the hell out of it."

Which is just a specialized case of the also equally true:

"The popular media really like to grab anything and twist the hell out of it."

<comment><USER5> I can believe, however, that neuroscience gets it worse, because it has more obvious applications in the lives of readers/viewers etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They made a nice video of the researcher surprising Prof Linde with the news: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlfIVEy_YOA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlfIVEy_YOA)

The reaction of the couple is great!

<comment><USER7> I love the humility, skepticism of belief Linde professes at the end. Despite a deep desire to believe in the beautiful, he is well aware of how you can be seduced into believing things because you want to, not because the universe is that way.

<comment><USER8> This is what separates the scientists from ... others.

<comment><USER9> We can only wish that is true, we are all just humans in the end:

[http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-t...](http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists- think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble)

Also, I vaguely remember a study in 'some journal' that looked at all it's P values[0] and found an alarming number of them parked right at the limit of acceptance (.05), more so than chance could assume. If anyone remembers this study and can provide actual proof (not my terrible memory), I would be very thankful.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-value](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-value)

<comment><USER10> I don't think he's commenting on statistical analysis, but rather saying that a scientist should follow the clues where ever it may take them, instead of looking for the clues that will get them where they want to be. And of course they fuck up, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Guardian has a nice and simple article explaining gravity, gravitational wave, and about this detection:

[http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/17/gravitational...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/17/gravitational- waves-bicep-inflation-big-bang)

</comment><comment><USER12> Here's an excellent explanation on cosmic inflation from Sean Carroll:

[http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/03/16/gravitat...](http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/03/16/gravitational- waves-in-the-cosmic-microwave-background/)

<comment><USER13> ...which seems to be unreachable for me at the moment. I'll have to check it out later. In the mean time....

Cosmic inflation has always bothered me. I just don't get it. I'm not a physicist at all, though. I get _why_ it's postulated. (The uniformity of the universe requires it to all be in close proximity and the time scales don't have enough time for that part, IIUC.)

But the expansion of inflation is significantly faster than the speed of light. What's up with that? I know, spacetime is expanding rather than things moving within spacetime, but still, during inflation, this particle _here_ is watching that particle _there_ recede at >> C. I doan geddit.

( _Grump._ )

<comment><USER14> The way I understand it is that the problem is with the definition of velocity. If you want to measure speed, you have to measure distance, which eventually comes down to the magnitude of the vector between two points - subtract the X's, subtract the Y's, subtract the Z's. Problem is, at cosmic scales, expansion means that those two points aren't in the same reference frame, because more space has appeared between them. You can try to measure it, but by the time you do the axes themselves have stretched again. The two X's can't be subtracted directly anymore, because they're on different reference frames. You get a result of >>C only by assuming that the relevant bits of space are relatively well-behaved Euclidean R^3, but that's not the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So just to clarify, this is only the measurement of an artifact most likely caused by gravity waves during the period of inflation. We still have not directly measured gravity waves in our current universe, right? I think the fact that gravity can't be measured is a subtle clue about one piece of the puzzle for a unifying theory of everything.

<comment><USER16> I find this concept of "directly measuring" things confusing. My theoretical knowledge is very weak though, maybe someone can explain.

It seems to me like we never measure things _directly_. For example: To measure the temperature of something in everyday life, we use a tiny glass cylinder filled with some kind of liquid. The liquid expands or contracts, roughly linearly, because of the temperature exchange with its surroundings. We then compare the current level of the liquid to a little ruler inscribed in the cylinder, maybe the markings form a shape similar to "100°C". The photons that bounce off this little ruler into our eyes causes impulses in some neurons and so on and our brains compare the shape "100°C" to yet another reference point, boiling water. It's hardly direct¤, in any sense of the word.

If we measure gravitational waves by observing "ripples in background radiation"¤¤, isn't that kind of the same thing? I've seen several people here mention that it's not "measured directly" \- does it mean something else in this case?

¤ If you stick your hand into the boiling water to measure its temperature, it's a bit more direct but not as accurate.

¤¤ I'm just a programmer, this is kind of how I understood it. :D

<comment><USER17> There's a good philosophy of science argument to be made that there's no _precise_ and _discrete_ distinction between direct and indirect measurement. In our model of the universe, there are always multiple physical steps that link the phenomena under investigation to our conscious perception. Therefore, any conclusions we draw from a perception are conditional on our confidence in the entire causal chain performing reliably (e.g. a gravitational wave induces a B-mode in the CMB, which propagates as a photon to our detectors, which heats up a transition-edge sensor, which increases the resistivity of the circuit, which flips a bit in the flash memory, which is read out to a monitor, which emits photons to our eye, which change the nerves firing in our brain). "Direct" measurements, then, are just ones that rely on a _small number_ of _reliable_ inferences, while "indirect" measurements rely on a _large number_ of _less reliable_ inferences.

Nonetheless, in practice there is a rather clear distinction which declares "direct" measurements to be those that take place _locally_ (in space) using _well-characterized_ equipment that we can (importantly) _manipulate_ , and which is conditional only on physical laws which are very strongly established. All other measurements are called "indirect", generally because they are observational (i.e. no manipulation of the experimental parameters), are conditional on tenuous ideas (i.e. naturalness arguments as indirect evidence for supersymmetry), and/or involve intermediary systems that are not well understood (e.g. galactic dynamics).

The classic example is dark matter detection. A detector built in your laboratory that produces clear evidence of a local interaction between the dark matter partice and the atoms composing the detector would be "direct detection". Seeing an anomalous excess of gamma rays from the center of the galaxy whose energy and distribution is consistent with some theories which predict dark matter annihilation would be "indirect detection".

Naturally, direct measurements have a much larger impact on your Bayesian credences than indirect ones. If someone says "I don't trust that indirect measurement" they mean "one or more steps in the inference chain which connects the phenomena to our perceptions is unreliable".

EDIT: Oh, it's worth replying more directly (ha!) to your comment by noting that both pulsar slow downs

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave#Using_pulsa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave#Using_pulsar_timing_arrays)

and the CMB measurements by BICEPS are indisputably indirect. Gravitational wave detectors

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

like the LISA proposal

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Ant...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Antenna)

are direct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> From the horse's mouth: [http://bicepkeck.org/](http://bicepkeck.org/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Nothing bugs me more than when a supposedly scientific magazine uses thumbnails of important images without actually linking to the full size. I just wanted to see the black lines in the image the article refers to.

<comment><USER20> Google search by image [http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/images/searchbyi...](http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/images/searchbyimage.html) returns [http://bicep.rc.fas.harvard.edu/bicep1_3yr/](http://bicep.rc.fas.harvard.edu/bicep1_3yr/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> > The finding is direct proof of the theory of inflation, the idea that the > universe expanded extremely quickly in the first fraction of a second after > it was born.

Small nitpick, but wouldn't the use of the words "evidence for" instead of "proof of" have been better? Not that I am in any way trying to take anything away from the discovery. Just from a science perspective, the word "proof" has always bugged me.

<comment><USER22> It's kinda a pet peeve of mine as well, having to switch between 'proof' meaning a conclusion that logically necessarily follow from premises, to proof meaning "really strong evidence".

But, as harshreality was getting at, if we used 'proof' that strictly, nothing outside of pure math and logic would be a 'proof'.

<comment><USER23> > But, as harshreality was getting at, if we used 'proof' that strictly, > nothing outside of pure math and logic would be a 'proof'.

True that. But isn't that an important part of the scientific method (at least in the karl-popper-scientific-method sense), and part of the point of science, really? Strictly speaking, you can't prove anything using the scientific method; only 'falsify' it (hence Popper's 'falsificationism', 'science as falsification', etc.) To 'kinda-sorta-prove' something in science, you formulate a null hypothesis, and then attempt to falsify it. But strictly speaking, one is not able to 'prove' anything (only provide weak/strong evidence for/against something.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm very curious of how, if we now presume this to be true, if and how that may effect the "Are we living in a simulation?" question.

<comment><USER25> I think there exist potential implementations of virtualization that are not detectable from inside the virtualization.

<comment><USER26> Especially if you are willing to sacrifice speed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is gravity a wave then, like light? I thought the jury was still out on that.

<comment><USER28> Light is both a particle and a wave

<comment><USER29> Or, light is neither a particle nor a wave, but a distinct thing that seems to behave like both under various circumstances.

<comment><USER30> There are some cases in quantum mechanics where you just have to accept that a value can be two different things at once, not that is was really one thing. Like it or not, superposition is a real thing, so it is inarguable that assuming something has to have one value at any one time is wrong.

Wave-particle duality is a lot like that as well, where it is tough to come up with some distinct thing that could possibly act like a particle, but still diffract like a wave.

<comment><USER31> > _where it is tough to come up with some distinct thing that could possibly > act like a particle, but still diffract like a wave._

Armchairing here. But as I understood, objects in quantum-land are known as "amplitudes in the complex plane". They behave like this all the time and under all circumstances, and should be understood on their own terms. E.g. squaring the height of pond ripples doesn't return a probability distribution. The "sometimes it's a wave, but other times it's a particle" idea is a historical artifact, like how humanity uses a base ten number system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > This pattern, basically a curling in the polarization, or orientation, of > the light, can be created only by gravitational waves produced by inflation.

I call BS. "Within our current theories, this pattern can be created only by..." would be a more accurate statement. The arrogance that "with this theory, we understand it all" has been shot down over and over in the history of science.

[Edit: tarrosion noted the caution of experimenters in making sure that the data could not be caused by something else. This is appropriate, and it's good that they have it. You now have one, and only one, theoretical explanation for the data. But the statement in the article that I quoted is still a step too far. It presumes that our existing theories are the only possible ones.]

<comment><USER33> Usually publications are understood within the context of their field. It would be exhausting to list each limitation of your field in every paper, and the limitations are understood by the intended audience.

<comment><USER13> A friend-of-a-friend has the "science religion"\---he seems to try to claim that what we "know" now is the closest to absolute truth that we could possibly get, and would therefore make the claim from the article with a straight face. (He seems unfazed by comments that some new discovery tomorrow might invalidate what we "know" now and seems to think that what we would learn would simply be more absolutely true.)

Me, I'm of the opposite philosophy and understand that everything I think I know now is probably wrong. It's just slightly not-as-wrong as last week.

<comment><USER34> On the whole of it, your friend is probably more correct than you are:

[http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm](http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm)

<comment><USER35> As an illustration, around 2200 years ago, 200 years before Jesus, a Greek scientist actually _measured_ the curvature of Earth not moving from his town(!) only by observing the shadow of the Sun and cleverly thinking, giving the circumference as "50 times distance between Alexandria and Siena." He didn't have the exact distance then, but knowing that distance today, he measured the circumference of the Earth with the error of less than 0.2%.

[http://todaslascosasdeanthony.com/2012/07/03/eratosthenes- ea...](http://todaslascosasdeanthony.com/2012/07/03/eratosthenes-earth- circumference/)

150 years later, still before Jesus, another scientist, Posidonius, repeated the experiment.

Most of the things we confirmed today survived a lot of checks. As Asimov writes it's not that there's much "wrong" in what science knows today, it just that is "incomplete" in the smaller (from the perspective of the common experience) details.

<comment><USER13> The difference to me is that "incomplete" means you are missing something: more precise measurements, better calculations, more information. But that is not necessarily the case. You may be able to measure the size of the Earth relatively precisely, but if your theory puts that Earth at the center of the universe, more measurements are going to do little but cause you headaches.

Take the ever-popular conflict between relativity and quantum mechanics. For all intensive purposes [sic], I believe they both work out to about Newtonian mechanics at scales I can easily observe and they both work very well for their different appropriate tasks. But they don't mesh well together, which is another requirement for science. "Incomplete" doesn't begin to describe that situation because I suspect that whatever is going to unify both is going to be as different from either as they are from classical physics.

[As an aside, I've seen Asimov's essay before and while I usually don't have a problem with his writing, in this essay's case I can't get past the fact that it is either very poorly written (if I'm feeling charitable) or a rather silly ad hominem (if I'm not).]

<comment><USER35> My example is totally orthogonal to the subject of the position of the Earth in the universe, I don't understand what can benefit from bringing the confusion in the discussion.

Your other argument is what scientists are well aware of for decades, so it's a good example of the science knowing its current limits, which again means _we can 't be wrong_ if we know the exact limits. We have unmapped terrains that span only first 1e−32 part of the first second! Can you even imagine how small that time is? There were 1e49 such time intervals since then! What's that when not a small "incompleteness" of our knowledge. That people who work on that call it "a big thing to unify" doesn't change the fact that it's something small to the vastness of the time we already cover with the present equations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Reminds me of the way Einstein, not being an experimental physicist himself, would conclude his famous papers with suggestions for experiments to confirm them. Awesome for this research team to have the opportunity to confirm this discovery in Linde's lifetime.

</comment><comment><USER37> How would you folks rate the significance of this, let's say as far as scientific discoveries / realizations go in the last 100 years? Yes, of course this is completely subjective. I would say in the top three.

<comment><USER18> Assuming it's real, I think it's up there with T ~ 3 K (cosmic microwave background itself, Nobel 1978) and Λ > 0 (accelerating universe, Nobel 2011).

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> A little bit of caution from here: [http://profmattstrassler.com/2014/03/17/bicep2-new- evidence-...](http://profmattstrassler.com/2014/03/17/bicep2-new-evidence-of- cosmic-inflation/)

Very interesting result, potentially game-changing, but it also could be nothing too. Wait for more experiments before we can say for sure.

<comment><USER39> interesting that BICEP2 polarization from gravitation waves as they describe it [http://bicepkeck.org/faq.html](http://bicepkeck.org/faq.html):

"strong B-mode polarization at the much larger angular scales--2 to 4 degrees on the sky--where lensing is a tiny effect but where inflationary gravitational waves are expected to peak. "

is of about the same scale as 500 million light years period of Baryon acoustic oscillations period (ie. baryonic (gravitating) matter density period):

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon_acoustic_oscillations#BA...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon_acoustic_oscillations#BAO_Signal_in_the_Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Is this the same as graviton in string theory? Or could this be used to further justify the existence of graviton?

<comment><USER41> I'm not a physicist, but I would think the answer has to be yes, since everything we know of with wave nature also has particle nature on some scale. But I can't even imagine what kind of experiment would detect one.

Wikipedia has some interesting things to say about this: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton#Experimental_observati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton#Experimental_observation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> This page allowed me to have an idea of the concepts underlying this discovery (CMB light, B-mode polarization): [http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/~yuki/CMBpol/CMBpol.htm](http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/~yuki/CMBpol/CMBpol.htm)

</comment><comment><USER43> Interesting that they succeeded in detecting gravity waves where LIGO failed?

<comment><USER18> They are using a different method. In their own words: "The presence of a water wave can be detected by feeling its up-and-down motion or by taking a picture of it. We are doing the latter." LIGO is doing the former.

[http://bicepkeck.org/faq.html](http://bicepkeck.org/faq.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Is there a way from this data to calculate the frequency of the wave(s)? Bandwidth? Or otherwise characterize the signal that is causing the polarization? Is that even a meaningful question in this case?

<comment><USER45> Not really. What's being observed are remnant polarizations from gravitational waves that had their effect long ago, under very different circumstances and mass-energy densities.

What's interesting is that the present measurements can be interpreted as evidence for gravitational waves to the exclusion of other explanations to a high degree of certainty.

Until now, evidence for gravitational waves was rather indirect and circumstantial, for example orbiting pulsars (very dense collapsed stars that emit periodic radio pulses) were observed to slow their pulse repetition rate over time in a way that suggested they were losing potential energy by radiating gravitational waves. Unfortunately those waves could not be detected directly.

In principle, a gravity wave could have nearly any frequency/wavelength consistent with its source. The pulsars discussed above were thought to produce gravitational waves of relatively high frequency / short wavelength, proportional to their pulse repetition rates. A so-called "millisecond pulsar" would have a possible gravitational wave frequency of one kilohertz and a wavelength of 3 x 10^8 / f meters or 3,000,000 meters (3,000 kilometers). That's hardly short compared to a radio broadcasting station's wavelength, but for gravitational waves, it's remarkable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Another HN post from earlier today about the same discovery: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7411341](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7411341)

</comment><comment><USER47> They have evidence of gravity waves, but cannot prove causation (i.e. big bang), right?

<comment><USER48> We already have overhealming evidence of the Big Bang, this is yet more evidence. But we have only a relatively small amount of evidence of Inflation and gravitational waves, and this is evidence of both (even better, it's evidence against several theories of Inflation - including the current prefered ones).

Correlations are evidence of causation, and quite strong evidence if you foud them because of a causal theory.

<comment><USER49> As someone who doesn't have a very good grasp of these things, can you explain the difference between the Big Bang and inflation to me? It seems like the Big Bang is the explosion of all matter that would be in our universe, and inflation is the rapid expansion of the universe itself. And inflation is believed to have taken place almost immediately after the Big Bang. Is that sort of accurate?

<comment><USER50> The Big Bang theory is not about the "explosion" of our universe from a point.

Firstly, the universe may have always been infinite in size. It's just that every small piece of that infinite universe has been expanding since about 14 billion years ago.

Secondly, "explosion" is a misnomer. The universe is expanding, not exploding.

As a theory, the Big Bang theory makes various predictions, such as the cosmic microwave background radiation, the relative abundance of elements in the universe and of course the expansion of the universe.

But it doesn't predict that the universe will be the same in all directions. There just isn't time for energy fluctuations to have evened themselves out due to the transfer of energy from hot spots to cold spots. That process can only happen at the speed of light (energy is transferred at the speed of light).

Because of the way space is expanding, the speed two points move away from each other depends on how far apart they are. Thus, very distant points on opposite sides of the sky are actually moving apart faster than the speed of light. What this implies is that there's no way they can have had time to reach thermal equilibrium (i.e. have reached the same temperature)!

But satellite observations tell us the observable universe is very nearly the same temperature in every direction!

The problem is resolved by the Theory of Inflation. This is a time of exceedingly(!!) rapid expansion which occurred before the time described by the Big Bang theory (remember the Big Bang theory is not about the "explosion" of the universe from a point, but about the subsequent expansion of the universe _after_ inflation).

The reason inflation solves the problem is that a very, very tiny region of space (subatomic scale) expanded exceedingly rapidly in a tiny fraction of a second, smoothing out any temperature fluctuations. What we see as our observable universe is just the temperature fluctuations in a subatomic sized piece of universe from before inflation happened.

After that tiny fraction of a second, inflation stopped, and normal Big Bang physics took over.

Moreover, inflation explains the formation of galaxies. Tiny quantum fluctuations became the seeds of galaxies, clusters, superclusters and giant strings of clusters that make up our universe today.

Note that almost everything written in the current Slashdot summary of the breakthrough is completely wrong!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Wow.. that's sweet but really come on only supporting mavericks OS. And already.. if you have a iPad the notes app automatically synchronizes with the mail server (I use web based email service mostly.) I didn't even set it up or should I say allow the iPad to do so.

<comment><USER52> Gravity waves work fine for me under ubuntu.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Just 5 sigma confidence...

</comment><comment><USER54> Congratulation!

</comment><comment><USER55> Interesting info! Thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER56> can someone explain the significance of this, for those that are not familiar with this area?</comment>


Idea Gardening: A Primer - <AUTHOR> http://davetroy.com/?p=547

<comment><USER2> Excellent article. Seems a tad lengthy at first, but very well written, and presents some interesting ideas.

One problem with that idea, however, is that it's quite hard to keep 10, or even 4 ideas growing in parallel. If you're able to do that, yes, your chances of success are higher, but most of us struggle to push even just one idea along, let alone pursuing half a dozen businesses simultaneously...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Such a great concept for innovation or possibly naming a phenomena that has happened and is happening.</comment>


Engineering RC cars from Dyson's scrapheap - <AUTHOR> http://www.humansinvent.com/#!/10174/engineering-rc-cars-from-dysons-scrapheap/

<comment><USER2> I feel like if you are going to the effort to show the EU cookie warning I should be able to say no and still view the content. Would you rather I don't see your ads without cookies enabled or not see your content at all?

</comment><comment><USER3> I've always wondered why Dyson vacuums must look and feel so flimsy? Especially considering their price. Do they last?

<comment><USER4> I bought mine in '99 and replaced a burnt out motor last year but other than that and a split hose it's been fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> IE 10 is too old and not supported by that site :(</comment>


Don't Root for Aereo, the World's Most Ridiculous Start-up - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/14/dont-root-for-aereo-the-worlds-most-ridiculous-start-up/

<comment><USER2> The same exact article could be written for AirBnB in the light of recent NYC witch hunts against AirBnB operators. Just because a startup is founded on a legal loophole, does not make it worthy of disdain. Netflix still mails DVDs of movies it does not have the rights to stream. That is also "a legal inconsistency that's screaming out for a fix." That does not mean Netflix should shutter its DVD rentals.

The very essence of a startup is to have an ingenious solution to a problem people have and might pay for. I had not heard about Aereo but if they expand to Florida, I will most likely sign up for it. Digital reception is horrible in my house, cable companies charge about the same for their most basic (usually hidden) package, and I cannot watch it on my iPad. Moreover, I do not want to string coax cables all over my house.

So for $12/mo, if I can watch live Simpsons or record it for later viewing (which I cannot view on Hulu Plus using my Roku even when I pay!), then I will most certainly pay for it. Hulu Plus is closer to Aereo's competitor, not Netflix. Old episodes of TV shows are available on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu Plus. But only Hulu Plus has the new seasons without charging by episode. If I can get new seasons of ABC/CBS/FOX shows to automatically record so I can watch them with my wife (who has a very erratic work schedule), $12/mo is NOTHING.

I have no idea what beef the author has with Aereo but I'm certainly rooting for it. Thanks to the author for telling me about Aereo.

<comment><USER3> AirBnB and Netflix aren't founded on legal loopholes; they're hindered by them. Hotel owners are trying to kill AirBnB via legal loopholes. Netflix still mails DVDs precisely because there are no legal loopholes. Aereo seems like a much riskier proposition. Even if Aereo wins in court, as the article notes, there's a good chance that the big content providers would just decide to sell the same service for cheaper. (Unlike the author of this article, I'm not sure why this would be bad, though, and I think it's a decent reason to root for Aereo as long as you're not invested in it.)

OTOH, I agree with you that $12/month is not actually all that excessive for the service Aereo wants to offer. I could do the same thing with a DVR and a $20 antenna, but the equipment cost would be about at least the price of a year of Aereo service, and it would require more work on my part to set up and offer poorer quality because of the shitty upload speed on residential connections.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't read this article, the world's most stupid article.

I use Aereo. It's convenient for me to be able to record Olympic trials and my favorite shows in high definition to watch whenever I want on my iPad. I gladly pay $12 a month for that.

Maybe there are alternatives, but they're inconvenient enough that I don't use them.

The only valuable part of this article is his point that Aereo redundantly captures shows independently for each viewer. That's not a problem with Aereo though, it's a problem with the law.

I applaud Aereo for being one of the first startups to attempt such a massive feat with a nuanced understanding of the law so that I, as a user, don't have the break the law everytime I want to watch a show online. As a result, they actually get to survive where Napster, BitTorrent, Megaupload and the rest died, hopefully long enough to fight another day.

<comment><USER5> Yes, this is indeed a stupid article but not as stupid as: [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/apples-brilliant- boondo...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/apples-brilliant-boondoggle- macbook-pro-retina-display.php)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Who doesn't want live local TV broadcasts to be offered thru the net?

I didn't read this article fully, but for me I am excited about Aereo as the antenna we have in our apartment only gets two channels and there is no DVR function. Thus we watch those two local channels as well use Netflix, Crackle and others thru our Roku box.

Further we pay $8 for Netflix so an additional $12 a month for 6 to 8 live channels with DVR functionality is no sweat ($20 a month). Our Internet is paid thru our apartment complex, so $20 a month vs. over a $100 for feeding cable pig is a good deal. With Aereo we now will be able to watch live sporting events, as well as local news.

This article IS ridiculous - link bait!

</comment><comment><USER7> Wow, this author (and Pando) are actually hitting a new low in competence. Kind of impressive.

Aereo might be a hack, but it's got a lot of useful use cases. On the go, people who just don't own a TV, people watching blacked-out events or outside their own market, etc.

$12 may or may not be the right price point, but the service itself is something I'd consider using.

</comment><comment><USER8> "To understand just how ridiculous this plan is, let's point out, first, that recording and streaming television is not a difficult technical problem to solve."

Yeah, if you paid for cable. The whole point of Aereo is that you DON'T pay for a full cable service and you get an experience that is more in line with how you watch TV.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'd have a much easier time not rooting for Aereo if the author didn't spend 5 paragraphs writing fluff to read his own writing before getting to the point.

</comment><comment><USER5> Other than the $12/month part, I don't see why this is such a lousy effort. It's pretty insane that in 2012 you can't get free broadcast TV over the net. Kudos to someone trying to make it happen. No kudos to those trying to prevent it and to those calling it stupid.</comment>


Crypto experts blast German e-mail providers' "secure data storage" claim - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/08/crypto-experts-blast-german-e-mail-providers-secure-data-storage-claim/

<comment><USER2> Web.de & GMX are truly some of the worst mail providers I have ever had to deal with. Web.de, I think, just recently upped the ante on provided mail storage to 1gb (up from very very little, I think it was 10mb or so, I don't remember, but my girlfriend used it like 2-3 years ago and I was shocked upon hearing that).

Their UI is awful. Gmail came out in 2005 (or so) and it took them 7 years to move to a more modern ajaxy interface that didn't like like coming from the 90s. And yet, they still have tons of awful advertising everywhere, in a way where Gmail feels like a blessing.

If you seriously want to move users onto the German soil, dear Telekom or German Government, please take some of the money that is being burned everyday on ideas like the above, and try to find a serious startup motivated to create a real Gmail competitor. Something that doesn't try to be what Gmail used to be 5 years ago, but something that tries to be what Gmail will be in 5 years. I hear Berlin is packed with people willing to startup every idea that can't run away fast enough or has been done in the US one year ago.

Now, I don't want to sound cynic, and I think it's great that there's some initiative for secure email and some understanding for privacy even at a level as high as telekom, but I'd be even better if they'd done something broader instead of teaming up with Germanies worst mail providers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe what we need is a new email standard that is incompatible with the old one deliberately. One designed by people who understand all the issues. Sure it's a pain in the butt to change everything and require all new apps but it seems like email has reached the end of its lifetime.

<comment><USER4> There are several different secure asynchronous messaging protocols in existence or being worked on. The ones I'm aware of:

\- Bitmessage ([https://bitmessage.org](https://bitmessage.org))

\- Retroshare ([http://retroshare.sourceforge.net](http://retroshare.sourceforge.net))

\- Pond ([https://pond.imperialviolet.org](https://pond.imperialviolet.org))

<comment><USER5> The problem with all of these is that it needs a buy in from the biggest providers like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. With a wide consortium, working towards an open standard that didn't have any insecure backwards compatibility, was just as easy to use, was decentralised, and was open source for all to see, this could work.

The beauty of such a move is that there would be a huge economic benefit, as companies across the globe would start building server and client software to sell to as massive growing market.</comment></comment></comment>


How to build a racing game in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://codeincomplete.com/posts/2012/6/23/javascript_racer_v1_straight/ <comment><USER2> A very good series of articles. As I played the demo, I couldn't help but press the Ctrl key to imagine I was shooting the vehicles ahead of me.</comment>


My Nexus 5 was stolen by UPS - <AUTHOR> http://forums.androidcentral.com/google-nexus-5/332139-my-nexus-5-stolen-ups.html <comment><USER2> I have friends that work at the UPS distribution center in Toronto, and this happens more often than you'd think. Usually with consumer electronics but also with new video games, etc. Shipments are often accidentally "damaged", and the goods inside tossed over the fence for people to collect after work.

In my personal experience, I have never had this problem happen with FedEx (ive had it happen with both UPS and DHL), but I know there have been horror stories of FedEx drivers damaging mail as well.</comment>


Notes from the Field: Tetanus in an Unvaccinated Child – Oregon, 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6809a3.htm?s_cid=mm6809a3_e <comment><USER2> Who paid for the $800k medical bill?

"The boy required 57 days of inpatient acute care, including 47 days in the intensive care unit. The inpatient charges totaled $811,929 (excluding air transportation, inpatient rehabilitation, and ambulatory follow-up costs). One month after inpatient rehabilitation, he returned to all normal activities, including running and bicycling. Despite extensive review of the risks and benefits of tetanus vaccination by physicians, the family declined the second dose of DTaP and any other recommended immunizations."</comment>


Data Mining Moves to Human Resources - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_12/b4124046224092.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_top+story

<comment><USER2> Cool, now when I go for an interview I can quote my DMN (data mining number).</comment>


The Daily Illuminator: 20 years of blogging - <AUTHOR> http://www.sjgames.com/ill/

<comment><USER2> Direct link to the post in question (it's not on the front page any more):

[http://www.sjgames.com/ill/archive/November_22_2014/The_Dail...](http://www.sjgames.com/ill/archive/November_22_2014/The_Daily_Illuminator_20_Years_Of_Beta)

</comment><comment><USER3> > Fast forward to 2014. Blogs are old news now, but they're still a great > tool.

Yep. This year I noticed & appreciated the way Tesla used their blog to defuse ugly PR situations. I saw various startups and Fortune 500s use their blogs in various ways to talk up a pivot or to open lines of communication to a new audience. We see blog posts here on HN all the time. And a client of mine who was pretty much blogs-are-dead for the last couple of years decided last week to start a blog and commit to it. (Later they decided that they didn't want to show the actual blog post dates anywhere because they weren't sure they could keep their enthusiasm going...heh)

</comment><comment><USER4> I really admire how Steve has remained independent and continued to create fun, imaginative games year after year. Truly one of gaming's greats.

For those who might not be familiar, a fun episode from SJG past...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._Un...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._United_States_Secret_Service)</comment>


Show HN: GosuWay - A social hub for eSports fans, players, and casters - <AUTHOR>

Here's a project I've started as a company, but now became a side project for various reasons. It's a social network for gamers, particularly starcraft gamers. It's based on the Twitter model (it makes more sense for gamers to follow a professional gamer rather than be friend with him).
The difference with twitter is mainly that you can customize your profile as a gamer, post files (starcraft replays get automatically parsed and shown as replay files with the players name, etc.), and that you can also comments on posts.
In the mid term, I'd like to include support for teams (where you can chat only with your teammates and have a profile page) and also include a way for pro-gamers (professional gamers) to sell replays and lessons. Additionally, I'd like to make it more "real-time chat".
Any comments or suggestions?
Also, for any sc2 fans out there interested in working on it, I'd love to hear from you :) (It's written in django.) <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable <http://www.gosuway.com></comment>


Middle management has its uses. - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2270948/ <comment><USER2> Synopsis: if you are in the textile business, then middle managers are a good idea.</comment>


Gömböc - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6mb%C3%B6c <comment><USER2> There was a lecture on the long science night fest here about the Gömböc.¹ A very interesting observation accompanying the idea of the Gömböc is, that the number of stable and unstable equilibrium points decreases, the more a stone travels along a river.

¹ [https://www.mis.mpg.de/wissenschaftsnacht2016/programm-im- vo...](https://www.mis.mpg.de/wissenschaftsnacht2016/programm-im- vortragsraum/gleichgewicht.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> For such a fascinating shape you'd think that there would be at least one video, picture, or even illustration of it sitting on its unstable equilibrium point.

It is also interesting how this particular shape seems to have strong marketing campaign behind it. It is not everyday you see mathematical concepts perk up commercial interest.

<comment><USER4> The unstable point is at the top of the crest. You would need a vacuum chamber with dampened vibrations to have any chance of it standing there, as any small deviation from a perfectly balanced position would make it fall.

<comment><USER5> Under ideal theoretical conditions, yes.

In practice, friction and material deformation will probably give the top of the crest some degree of stability, possibly enough for a demonstration. At the very least it will probably be much slower to roll from such a metastable orientation.

Edit: also, based on the following gif someone else posted, I don't think the top of the crest is the metastable point. You can see the object linger at that point before seemingly spontaneously finding true equilibrium - illustrating my point rather well.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gömböc.gif](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gömböc.gif)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fascinating!

If anyone would like to have their own gömböc, there is a web shop here: [https://gomboc-shop.com](https://gomboc-shop.com)

<comment><USER7> > Each Gömböc comes with a booklet containing every necessary information > about the product, as well as a unique product ID to identify the Gömböc and > prove its authenticity.

        Sandblasted Al: 239 Euro
        Porcelain: 606 Euro
        Steel: 499 Euro
        Bronze: 599 Euro
        Plexiglass: 199 Euro
        Polished Al: 269 Euro
        Al (rough polish): 199 Euro
        Black (polyoxymethylene): 249 Euro

[https://www.google.com/search?q=gomboc+3d+model](https://www.google.com/search?q=gomboc+3d+model)

I'm guessing it costs an order of magnitude less than those published prices to machine an aluminum one, given an accurate model? The product page says the Al one is 500g, so the machining cost is probably the most significant factor?

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi Strange, I was looking for gömböcs this morning (like 12 hours ago) and now I find them in the HN front page.

I found this website which has much cheaper gömböcs (42 €):

[http://gomboc-online.com/index.php/gomboc.html](http://gomboc- online.com/index.php/gomboc.html)

But apparently their only shipping method that ships outside Hungary is "currently unavailable".

Well, there is also the option "SZEMÉLYES ÁTVÉTEL GLS CSOMAGPONTON" but Google is not very concrete when translating it. It sounds to me like picking up in a "something-point" though, which also looks like it's not international shipping.

If anyone keeps investigating and finds a gömböc that wouldn't make me broke and can ship without shenanigans outside of Hungary, I'd be grateful.

<comment><USER8> > SZEMÉLYES ÁTVÉTEL GLS CSOMAGPONTON

Means that you can pick it up personally at a GLS (like FedEx) point.

The checkout page does say it ships internationally: "DHL EXPRESS WORLDWIDE"

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi OK, I now see that the problem is that for some reason they do not ship to my work address's postcode... if I enter that code, they say that DHL delivery is temporarily unavailable. With my home address postcode, it works (a pity I'm almost never home).

<comment><USER8> Maybe ship to friend / family address? Just an idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't really understand why an egg shape does not satisfy the requirements.

<comment><USER10> think of an egg on its side, it can rest anywhere along it</comment></comment>


The Phantom Gambler - <AUTHOR> https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/03/05/dice-roll-the-phantom-gambler/ <comment><USER2> For me, this was the most interesting line

> [Bergstrom] let Binion know that if he'd lost the bank's money, he'd planned > to kill himself by swallowing seventy pills.

I wonder how many people out there have done something similar, but had the dice not land in their favor?

There are 50,000 suicides in the US each year. I imagine a not-insignificant percentage of those are at least indirectly related to money. What if everyone who was suicidal adopted the attitude "I may as well take out a loan and bet it all on black. I was going to kill myself anyway so why not". There is definitely a cold logic to it at least.

<comment><USER3> >"I may as well take out a loan and bet it all on black. I was going to kill myself anyway so why not". There is definitely a cold logic to it at least.

Ah yes, I believe this is known as Pascal's Roulette Wager.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> On a related note, I always found it interesting that the number of people broadly banned from Vegas casinos for cheating is on a small public list currently numbered 35.

See [https://gaming.nv.gov/index.aspx?page=72](https://gaming.nv.gov/index.aspx?page=72)

</comment><comment><USER3> > _On September 24th, 1980, a man wearing cowboy boots and carrying two brown > suitcases entered Binion's Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas. One suitcase held > $777,000 in cash; the other was empty. After converting the money into > chips, the man approached a craps table on the casino floor and put > everything on the backline. This meant he was betting against the woman > rolling the dice. If she lost, he'd double his money. If she won, he'd lose > everything. Scarcely aware of the amount riding on her dice, the woman > rolled three times: 6, 9, 7... And just like that, the man won over $1.5 > million. He calmly filled the empty suitcase with his winnings, exited > Binion's into the desert afternoon, and drove off. It was the largest amount > ever bet on a dice roll in America._

> _"Mystery Man Wins Fortune," the Los Angeles Times reported. No one knew the > identity of the fair-haired young Texan who'd just made history, and so he > became known as the "Phantom Gambler." "He was cool," said Jack Binion, > president of the Horseshoe. "He really had a lot of gamble in him." But it > would be years before the phantom would be seen in Vegas again._

I'm surprised there were no AML laws in 1980 requiring any sort of ID for a win that large.

</comment><comment><USER5> Read the story first, but here is the wiki on the gambler: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lee_Bergstrom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lee_Bergstrom)

Great story.

</comment><comment><USER6> There's no real lesson, but that's a great story.

</comment><comment><USER7> I like to play poker (which isn't gambling) so I walked in to a local casino (I live in Tanzania, so it's pretty small and run by some Russian gangster) and tried to find a table. They only had house games (including house poker, but it's rigged) so I decided to play some roullette. I had walked in with $500 USD and decided to just bet $50 on black and consume as many free drinks as I could until I ran out of money.

Everyone was betting on different numbers and kept trying to determine what was "lucky" It was kind of baffling actually. But I wasn't having much fun, but everyone else was because they thought they were making "choices" thinking they were adding some value to the equation.

After losing all my money, I personally didn't get much of a rush (maybe because my strategy was to play until I lost it all), but I can see the appeal if you think you have some sort of "skill" at it.

So now I understand. I love playing poker and get a big rush from putting a couple hundred bucks on the line in a big hand, but only because I feel I'm adding alpha or skill to the equation. In the same way, gamblers are getting the same rush that I get from poker because they feel like they are adding some alpha.

Admittedly, though, if I was wagering all of my net worth on the line, I would probably have thought roullette was more exhilirating.

Slots, on the otherhand, I still don't get. You essentially just sit there and lose money.

<comment><USER8> As a poker player: poker is gambling.

Pretending it isn't doesn't gain you anything.

It is different from slots or roullette because rather than the house you bet against other people but it is totally gambling.

<comment> stone-monkey It may still be gambling in the sense that there's a large element of chance that dictates the game, but it's not the same as something like Baccarat or poker which is strictly a game of chance. The element of skill can cause variance in outcomes over the period of play. It's important to make that distinction because you're getting into gray areas here.

Are actuaries and insurance companies engaging in gambling? They're essentially betting on not needing to fulfill the terms of the contract for unlikely outcomes by analyzing the "odds" over time. Often, they "lose" the bet and have to pay out, but they reliably win more than they lose. Of course, good poker players are probably not getting matched up with amateurs, so it's not exactly identical.

<comment><USER8> Insurance companies engage in a co-operative relationship with the people who take out insurance products with them.

When you insure your house against fire neither you nor the insurance company want your house to burn down.

In a gambling scenario the layer wishes the bet to lose and the backer wants it to succeed.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A therapist's guide to staying productive when depressed or heartbroken - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1089589/how-to-stay-productive-when-youre-depressed-or-heartbroken/ <comment><USER2> I am 35M terribly heartbroken after my most important relationship for which I had great hopes, ended in a complete disaster almost 10 months ago. Person I loved the most, cheated one, shitted on me, got engaged to guy, sent me pictures of her/dude + wedding band on OUR anniversary day, told me that she will name a dog after child we were planning to have, got dumped in 6 months, because he didn't want to have her 10 YO son and came back without apologies, and when I refused to take her back, she went to Switzerland police and got restraining order against me ... just to shit on me more. So, I am banned from entering Switzerland.(I live in US) To be honest, I followed a lot of things on this list, but it still doesn't help. To this day, my productivity is shit. Somehow, I accomplish things being asked of me, but I feel like empty shell of former me walking around. Have to admit, alcohol helps me a lot.

<comment><USER3> If it's any consolation it sounds like your ex has a personality disorder with sadistic traits. It is unlikely she will ever make anyone happy, quite the opposite.

<comment><USER2> She has traits of [Borderline?] Personality Disorder, but I found out about BPD after whole thing went down in flames and I started doing research. She is 35. Attractive. Abused childhood, absent mother that went around banging man and abusive stepfather, father left when she was 2. She had 3 marriages that collapsed, numerous engagements that probably fell as well, and shit-load of relationships that are short-lived(6m-1y). And of course, all men were terrible. On top, she has eating disorder and thin as rail.

Entire ordeal sounds like some evil plot to destroy me. My older friends, who went through divorces, were shocked and said this by far nastiest break-up they heard about.

<comment><USER4> It's not uncommon for someone with BPD. It only gets worse over time unless the person makes a concerted effort to work with a trained specialist to manage the symptoms, and most don't. You are neither the first nor last to have a marriage fall apart as a result of BPD. It's fucked up, it's horrible, but you will survive it. Eventually you'll have days where you don't even think about it.

That said, I highly recommend you speak to a therapist. There are things you are doing to attract these personalities and it's important to recognize it so you don't find yourself in the same situation in the future.

Also, read this book immediately: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1442238321](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1442238321)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can say that as a combat vet with under control ptsd I just want to say these are good basic conversation points but I highly encourage people to attempt cognitive emotional behavioral therapy (CEBT/CBT), especially for people who dislike therapists and want to work throught their own shit. Once the science finally made it's way to practice, I have seen many fellow combat vets who responded poorly to other treatments make amazing progress under CBT/CEBT.

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

Drugs: Fuck that seratonin zombie bullshit! Try smoking some cannabis instead of drinking next time. I personally also have this theory that ayahuasca can cause ego-busting outlook shifts for people with everything from alcoholism to ptsd, but there hasn't been enought science done on the subject yet and I can't speak anecdotally because I haven't been able to afford the trip down to Peru. Other drugs with potential positive effects on ptsd/anxiety/depression are MDMA, peyote, morning glory, and salvia divinorum. Of course do your own research and consult a doc if you intend do any of this.

It's a crime that so many potential medicines are illegal.

<comment><USER6> MDMA and ketamine are employed in the UK for extreme depression and PTSD, IIRC.

<comment><USER7> I don't think MDMA is used, and if it is it's only used in research settings.

There's a single clinic offering ketamine for depression. [http://www.oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/service_description/ketamine-...](http://www.oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/service_description/ketamine- clinic-for-depression/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As someone who has major "on" and "off" period swings of productivity due to depression, this list is pretty on the mark.

One thing I would add, which I've seen around here and other places, is the "no zero days" rule. Do at least one thing everyday to work towards your goal. Not only does this help instill discipline, it helps you prevent the snowball effect of having a bad day.

<comment><USER9> I absolutely need zero days rougly ever 8-10 days of full-time brain work. Nothing recuperates my fried circuits better than the occasional single day with _absolutely no agenda and not even the tiniest of goals_ , the rare day of _anything goes, nothing must_. Motivation drive and interest comes back so swiftly and with such vengeance on the next morning, I doubt there's _anything_ that remotely compares.

Guess that's what this whole "weekend" notion was all about in the first place! =)

<comment><USER10> Well, the comment about no zero days was in the context of trying to remain productive while depressed, not how to avoid burnout during periods of intense productivity. Do you agree context matters?

<comment><USER11> It's often ambiguous whether you're depressed, burned out, or both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This misses the mark as I see it because it doesn't emphasize the three most important things to helping depression:

Bright light, sleep, and exercise.

Light: get bright light to wake you up, experience bright light during the day (preferably sunlight), if you're having trouble sleeping, disconnect from any screens at least an hour before a scheduled time to sleep. Don't set up yourself in a dark closed-window living environment.

Sleep: ahead of time, schedule times when you should be asleep and awake, always be trying to keep to this schedule. Stay out of the bedroom outside of these hours.

Exercise: whether it's walking around the block, going to the gym, or hiking up a mountain, do what you can to exert yourself every day. It helps with the light and the sleep.

These three things won't fix your problems but they will make everything better even if you can only improve them a little.

<comment><USER13> >experience bright light during the day (preferably sunlight

I'm in the Pacific NW, fall/winter/spring is coming.. :(

<comment><USER14> Going outside and getting daylight on overcast days is still much, much better than any typical light indoors. If you measure the light in a room vs. outside, rooms are dark caves. Your eyes may say it isn't dark, but you'll get next to nothing indoors. This has a big effect on your mood and hormones.

<comment><USER13> That's good to keep in mind. Some friends and coworkers are big on the 'happy lights' but they (the lights) make me want to pull out my eyeballs. Guess we'll have to get umbrellas and stand in the rain to be happy!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As a relatively young entrepreneur that fell in love a year ago, and then had the relationship fall apart a few months ago, I found falling in and out of love to destroy my productivity.

I was in a multi month rut that I only crawled out of through therapy and understanding how to actually care about myself.

As much as I know that I'd be better at handling the situation after having experience now, the sheer awfulness of having to run a business while feeling heartbroken turns me off from wanting another relationship. I guess I understand now why so many entrepreneurs I know have messy love lives.

<comment><USER16> It's not so much that you're not productive when depressed, as the awareness that achievement in other spheres of activity are not actually all that satisfying absent a nurturing relationship - also a problem for many lottery winners who find themselves trying and failing to consume happiness.

I'm sorry that happened but you shouldn't treat it as an insurmountable problem. If you're just 20, your body isn't even completely done growing and you're also relatively inexperienced in dealing with intense emotions. You'll always bear the scars of the pain you felt from this relationship breaking up, and have regrets about whatever parts of it were caused by you, but you can and will heal. Being willing to accept help through therapy and reassess yourself means you're already a long way towards that.

Be careful of the hesitancy to get into another relationship - a natural doubt, but one that can stiffen into a 'reaction-formation' is taken too far. It's certainly tempting (especially when you're younger) to just date casually for social and sexual companionship, but if you systematically avoid relationships then undertaking and sustaining new ones will be more difficult, and as you get older the frustrations and loneliness that can result will weigh increasingly heavy and result in bitterness.

It may help to think of relating to others as a skill to be developed and continuously improved rather than as an achievement to be unlocked (which is way overstressed in media and marketing). A pet animal can help a lot with that. The obligations involved impose a sort of emotional discipline on you, but the rewards are unbounded as animals are generous with their affections. If you end up with a dog it will also improve your social life - people are well-disposed to the owner of a happy dog, and it also makes small talk much easier.

<comment><USER17> This comment is extremely insightful and actionable. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Stuff that helped me \- Staying near or staying along with your closest ones \- Sleep and Exercise \- Some ayurvedic pills that is known to relieve stress and help sleep ("Ashwagandha" to be specific. I wont say it is a magic pill, but when I take it , I used to get a deep sleep)

</comment><comment><USER19> Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is heal.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> An essential element to resilience is to have a strong support group, ideally friends, or people who are going through a similar thing.

In that vein - shameless plug:

I've been working on a service (www.campfire.care) to build peer support groups for any focus. Groups of 5-10 people with the same issue meet regularly via video and stay connected via chat.

The idea is that we are fundamentally social creatures, and struggling with a challenge alone is unhealthy. It is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. But peer support can be effective + inexpensive.

And being part of a true peer group can provide a kind of value that professional mental health can't. You can't be friends with you therapist, and their job is not to truly empathize with you.

Would love any thoughts / feedback!

<comment><USER7> You might be interested in the Q Community's work on peer support: [https://q.health.org.uk/q-improvement-lab/lab-1-peer- support...](https://q.health.org.uk/q-improvement-lab/lab-1-peer-support- available/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I will check this out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you're actually depressed, go see a professional.

<comment><USER21> have you had to do this? there's a catch-22 here in that depression makes it way harder to invest the time in finding professional help.

<comment><USER20> Not personally. I've lost 2 loved ones to it. Just because it's hard to seek help doesn't mean that it's incorrect.</comment></comment></comment>


STEPS allows TCP in 200 LoC, Javascript in 170, self-hosting in 1000 (Alan Kay) - <AUTHOR> http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf

<comment><USER2> Increasing the coolness factor: those 200 lines of code parse the textual RFC header diagrams to learn the format of TCP/IP datagrams.

Decreasing the coolness factor: it's not actually TCP (calling this protocol --- which lacks flow control and congestion avoidance --- TCP is like calling those fiberglass kit cars in the back of sports car magazines "Ferraris").

</comment><comment><USER3> Has anyone found any more recent work on this? It kind of looks like the project is dead.

<comment><USER4> The latest OMeta code is still being worked on and is now available here: <http://www.tinlizzie.org/ometa/></comment></comment>


What to expect when Amazon closes your account - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/9aAfYrdn <comment><USER2> This seems highly unusual. Did the person try to buy uranium on Amazon or something?

Nonetheless, like the story of the guy who had his google account inexplicably closed, this is a pretty good wake-up call to download all of my invoices via Amazon and back them up somewhere.

I always kept my confirmation e-mails when an order ships, but the invoices themselves would be good, too.</comment>


Why climate change is good for the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9057151/carry-on-warming/?s

<comment><USER2> Wow is that a terrible article.

The comments on the spectator website get to the point, but 'Scientific Consensus' isn't one single person reviewing a dozen papers and deciding climate change isn't a big deal.

Cherry-picking a few areas where humans will benefit doesn't just negate the rest of the (mostly unknown) impacts. Fewer people will die in the cold? The presence of cold doesn't kill people, it's the lack of protection from the cold caused by failed governments and failed economic systems. Flooding doesn't matter since we can just build dykes? Ugh.

There are actual existential threats (looking at you ocean acidification) to the survival of humanity, but it'll be warmer and we can build dams, so NBD.

<comment><USER3> You could have just stopped at "mostly unknown impacts", or rather "unpredictable effects". Because the heart of the problem, and I think the debates between pro and anti climate change perfectly illustrates it, is that we don't exactly know what will happen if we push the ecosystem too far from the current equilibrium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are many decisions that need to be made around climate change. Is it worth the cost (financial, lifestyle, environmental) to mitigate it by reducing energy consumption and therefore reducing growth? How much warming is acceptable? Is geo-engineering a reasonably option? Should the countries that created the existing CO^2 bear the majority of the income costs?

These are reasonably questions to be asked by those who will be affected by the change, i.e. everyone. However this debate can only happen when there's an acknowledgement that climate change is happening. Sadly there appears to be a politically influential group who deny the science out of fear of a potential outcome.

(Not implying that I agree with the article, just that exploring these questions is a good thing)

</comment><comment><USER5> So... hypothetical question for the climate change activists: What if tomorrow we found conclusive evidence that global warming was completely natural? (I'm not suggesting it is, this is just a hypothetical.)

Would we still try to enact legislation to alter the projected change?

</comment><comment><USER6> For US readers : the Spectator is a well regarded but self consciously right wing magazine, most famously edited by the current London Mayor Boris Johnson.

The article is a rehash of the arguments proposed by (cited) Bjorn Lomborg - who rose to fame / notoriety with "The environmental Skeptic" (not sure if have title right there).

He is a economist who does make sensible arguments about needing to take into account the costs and benefits of climate change - which I do agree with. I only am suspicious of who said the reasonable and sensible comment - it's like the difference between Lech Walensa saying the workers should organise and Lenin saying it.

I am however, heartened by the fact that right wing magazines in the UK accept climate warming, accept it as human caused, merely argue if we need to do something. Which apparently puts us a long way ahead of the Republicans.

<comment><USER7> The IPCC reports say pretty much the exact same thing, if you filter out the spin. In particular, the "impact" part of their reports says the next 1-3 degrees of warming will on-net increase agricultural productivity - it'll be easier to feed the world. If you look at the underlying studies the biggest positive impacts seem to be: (1) In the northern regions that currently produce the most food, warming means longer growing seasons means more food. (2) Near the equator where it's too hot to grow most crops, extra CO2 makes growing trees much more productive.

<comment><USER6> great - now all we have to do is make sure we stop at 1-3 degrees,and we are all sorted :>

<comment><USER7> The good news is that gives us about a century, and if we don't break the world economy today with our attempts at _premature optimization_ , our technological capabilities then will be unimaginably greater than they are now.

Roughly one century ago - around the year 1900 - cities of the world had a huge problem - horses. The problem of hauling away the horse manure and dead horses was a bigger and bigger job and throwing more horses at the problem was not doing the trick. The cities _smelled_ and bred disease and there was just nowhere to put the stuff. The situation was _unsustainable_. People drew line charts with hockey sticks. There were conferences where people gnashed their teeth and wrung their hands over how horrible it was - and getting _worse_ \- and how would we ever _survive_?

Then the problem went away. Not because the professional worriers came up with a solution, but because technology changed.

That will happen this time too. The one thing we can be ABSOLUTELY SURE of is that our biggest problem a century from now will be something ELSE, probably something we haven't even encountered as an issue yet. It is an amazing luxury that we can afford to worry about such trivial matters. I think there must be a "conservation of worry" law - as the world gets safer, as fewer people are starving or dying of dysentery or whatever, we still need to worry the same amount, so we find new things to worry about - no matter how arcane and obscure they have to be - and invest them with undue importance.

<comment><USER6> The glenra law of conservation of worry - loving it

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't get it -- was that supposed to be satire?

Either way, such claptrap</comment>


Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/judge-tosses-apple-motion-allows-patent-troll-lodsys-to-continue-rampage/ <comment><USER2> The texas east district stuff is fascinating. What if the app and software developers start licensing their apps with a license and technical measures explicitly excluding East Texas (or the entire state of texas, for extra safety) from the operation of the app.

It could be enforced by some soft of geofencing at app startup that splashes a "You're from East Texas, our app doesn't work there" type language. Will that affect the ability of the trolls to venue shop at least (if not to bring the suite in the first place).

Of course an even better response would be if smartphone vendors disable their entire OS's in that district. That might be fun.

<comment><USER3> I like this idea a lot.

If the population living in the causative region understands the nature of what their governing body is doing to impact and infringe upon on the rest of the world, maybe they'll change who holds the relevant positions of power.

It would be great if we could do this to websites and technology in general as well. Maybe we can start with this kind of campaign [1], but utilize geo-IP targeting.

[1] [http://internetdefenseleague.org/](http://internetdefenseleague.org/)

<comment><USER4> It's a federal court, the State of Texas has nothing to do with it. These judges are appointed by the President.

<comment><USER5> With the recommendation and consultation of the representative for the district and the two Senators for the state. Who clearly have something to do with this. How else can you explain east texas being the venue of choice?

<comment><USER4> A friend of mine who's a patent lawyer explained it to me once. Some time back the chief judge started putting patent cases at the top of his docket so his district became known as a having "rocket docket" and began attracting patent cases from across the country. A cottage industry sprung up in the area and the rest is history.

<comment><USER6> One suggestion was that the court was the least busy federal court around (all the other federal courts were swamped with drug cases). So patent cases started appearing there. Once the judges in the area became so-called "experts" on it, more and more companies started to file their cases there.

NPR (well, technically This American Life) did a special on it a couple years ago[0]. It's fun to listen to. It may not tell the whole story, but it at least paints a decent picture.

[0] [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/441/w...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Apple should hire a nation wide law firm to defend any and all apple developers who are sued by Lodsys fore these patents. Instruct the lawfirm to never settle and actively file actions on beheld of each client against Lodsys. It's simple, once they realize that no one will settle with them, they will go away.

Now, where on earth is that patent troll bill congress has been promising?

<comment><USER8> If Apple is "instructing" that firm, then they aren't representing their clients' interests correctly. That sort of relationship is actually very hard to manage in the courts, which is why it's quite rare (and usually limited to true pro bono work by established non-profits).

<comment><USER9> > If Apple is "instructing" that firm, then they aren't representing their > clients' interests correctly.

Sorry to pick on just one phrase of your comment but I'm honestly curious. How is the "not-representing the client's interests" thing a problem inside a court? Is it because the other side or the court will pick on it, or is it because it honestly does not represent a client's interests[0]?

[0] In this case, I can't imagine an app. developer not wanting help dealing with this specific problem, but I've never been in that position.

<comment><USER10> > "Instruct the lawfirm to never settle"

<comment><USER9> I automatically made the association in my mind that not only would they defend you, they'd fund the thing. Thanks for making my misunderstanding obvious :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here is what Lodsys has to say about the creator of the patents it asserts:

> Abelow is not an officer or manager of Lodsys Group LLC, he has no interest > in Lodsys patents, and he does not receive any revenue from the licenses > granted by Lodsys in the patents he created.

<comment><USER12> So Abelow is either a fool for not getting a cut from Lodsys or he is a patent gifting fairy.

<comment><USER13> Neither- he already cashed out. He sold the patents years ago.

Just like you can sell stock to people completely unrelated to a company, you can sell patents too. Patent trolls are just efficient monetization of patents. The real problem is patent law (and judges preventing class-action to allow more efficient judgement of the validity of patents).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Microsoft -> Nathan Myhrvold (former CTO) -> Intellectual Venture (founder) -> Lodsys -> Threatening Apple Developer

Hmmm.

<comment><USER15> Google and Apple also have links to Intellectual Ventures. I suspect Lodsys would be happily going after WinPhone developers if not for the platform's relative irrelevance; so far they've concentrated on iOS and Android developers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why hasn't anyone addressed the probable criminal activity going on with these handful of judges in this one district of Texas? Just because someone has the title "judge" doesn't give them untouchable super powers. There's a giant reek of illegality coming from that area and someone needs to look under the covers.

My hypothesis is there's a payoff racket going on. There's a multi level system setup with a few insiders who know how to pay off the local judges to dismiss certain cases.

This is Texas. These people don't have some sense that big bad companies are beating up on little old inventors trying to protect themselves with patents as has been portrayed in the media. These people are generally small minded Jesus followers who can't name 20 states outside of Texas and would be hard pressed to remember the name of the Vice President.

I'm not speaking out of my ass either. I've lived in Texas. I have family there now.

There's some serious corruption going on and it needs looking into.

<comment><USER17> > _Why hasn 't anyone addressed the probable criminal activity going on with > these handful of judges in this one district of Texas? ... My hypothesis is > there's a payoff racket going on. There's a multi level system setup with a > few insiders who know how to pay off the local judges to dismiss certain > cases._

Careful there. Unless you've got more than a hypothesis, what you're saying borders on the libelous. (Not that a federal district judge would deign to notice. The judges are public figures, so you have enhanced protection under the First Amendment, but making a statement like this, without evidence to support it, might qualify as the type of "malice" that can pierce the First Amendment protection.)

The judge is constrained by long-established rules. Article III of the U.S. Constitution limits the power of the federal courts to actual cases and controversies. If the parties to a lawsuit settle the case, then _that case_ is moot, and with very limited exceptions, the judge is automatically stripped of pretty much all authority in the matter. (You wouldn't want it any other way, given that Article III judges are appointed, not elected, and for life.)

The battle isn't necessarily over. Apple might well be able to make a case on appeal that it should be allowed to continue to litigate against Lodsys, on grounds that the same issue is likely to come up again and be settled again, thereby evading judicial review. That's a standard exception to the mootness doctrine [0], and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is likely to give it serious consideration.

Disclosure: I'm a Texan; a lawyer, also admitted in California; and a patent litigator in a previous life.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mootness#Capable_of_repetition....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mootness#Capable_of_repetition.2C_yet_evading_review)

<comment><USER16> Thanks for a well-discussed and well-thought response, which is more than the other responses garnered. "Go back to Slashdot", "You're a biggot", etc.

I say what I think and while some people don't like what I say, I try to be as realistic about a situation as I can be. So yes, on average Texans are among the most devout Christians and among the worst educated in the United States. There are more than enough public statistics to back this up.

In response to your libel statement, while I respect your background, that is entirely not the point.

It's actually exactly the response I would expect from someone or a group who are involved in nefarious acts and are being called out on it. Rather than addressing the accusation and presenting evidence to the contrary, they seek to attack and silence the investigator by throwing out accusations of libel. It's a tactic of snakes.

Unless I am seriously misunderstanding what happened here, which is possible, there was no mutual settlement here. Lodsys was allowed to unilaterally settle. Most of Apple's arguments were just ignored. Quoting from the article,

"The East Texas judge overseeing Lodsys' systematic patent attack on app developers has refused to even consider Apple's motion. Instead, he allowed the patent-holding company to settle all its cases—and then dismissed Apple's motion as moot. By doing so, US District Judge Rodney Gilstrap—who has inherited the patent-happy East Texas court that once belonged to patent-troll favorite T. John Ward—has enabled Lodsys to threaten developers for months, and perhaps even years, to come."

This is why I stand by my question of corruption. Another commenter posted about no one finding corruption out of normal bounds. At least someone has been looking into it. But when you smell smoke, something's burning. These cases keep getting the same rulings over and over, in one area of the country, by the same judges, in an area of business that is essentially parasitic and damaging to the very nature of my industry. It has to stop

<comment><USER18> "Unless I am seriously misunderstanding what happened here, which is possible, there was no mutual settlement here. Lodsys was allowed to unilaterally settle. Most of Apple's arguments were just ignored. "

You are seriously misunderstanding. There is a mutual settlement between Lodsys, and the _actual defendants in the lawsuit_.

Apple is not a party to the lawsuit except as an intervenor. If the parties to the lawsuit want to settle, that's their call. If Apple wants to sue Lodsys for tortuous interference or something else, that's fine, it's a different suit.

Otherwise, what would happen is you'd end up with a lawsuit that was against 7 companies, none of whom were still in the action.

Your suggestion is essentially that Apple should be able to prevent the actual _defendants and plaintiffs_ from ending the lawsuit, because Apple has a problem with one of the plaintiffs.

If the defendants wanted to keep fighting, Apple's motion should probably have been granted. However, except in circumstances involving non-parties (like class actions), once folks want to settle, intervenors can't really object, as it should be.

Note that the article is also some really bad reporting. Apple's motion to intervene in the lawsuit was actually granted: "SEALED MEMORANDUM OPINION and ORDER - Apple has satisfied each of the four requirements for intervention as a matter of right under Rule 24(a)(2). The Court finds that permissive intervention is also appropriate under Rule 24(b). To avoid any potential prejudice to Lodsys rights under the License Agreement such intervention shall be and is hereby limited to the issues of license and patent exhaustion. Apples Motion to Intervene is GRANTED-IN-PART to the extent and as specified herein. Motions terminated: 4 MOTION to Intervene filed by Apple, Inc.. Signed by Judge Rodney Gilstrap on 4/12/12\. (ehs, ) Modified on 4/12/2012 (ch, )."

So Apple was given a right to be heard as an intervenor, but once the underlying jurisdiction terminated due to the settlement, they have no standing, and all of their motions are moot.

Note that apple could have prevented this outcome. If they had indemnified app developers by agreement (instead of disclaiming all liability), they likely would have been impleaded, which would have made them an actual defendant.

They don't get to have their cake and eat it too.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for clearing that up. It makes what was said before make more sense now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think these patents have expired. US 7,620,565 and 7,222,078 date back to an August 1992 parent application, and were themselves filed in 1999, after the 20-years from priority date rule went into effect. Neither was granted patent term extension. So they should have expired last year.

</comment><comment><USER20> How are any of these patents valid, especially in application to mobile application technology? I'm not a lawyer; I'm seriously baffled as to how any of them, in application to mobile "pay to upgrade" (or any other "customer interaction") flows, aren't obvious. It's the first thing I thought of when I first thought to write a mobile application and how to make money off of it.

</comment><comment><USER21> The threat that Lodsys represents to anyone doing technology is so large that it would seem to make sense to band together. I'm thinking along the lines of creating a "Patent Defense Cooperative" where members pay a certain amount every month for the three purposes of a) patent lawsuit insurance, b) to fund lobbying efforts to reform the patent system, and c) scrutinize a judicial apparatus that seems biased in favor of patent trolls.

I would certainly join such an organization as an individual inventor and technologist. This can't be a new idea. Has anyone else thought of doing this?

<comment><USER22> >patent lawsuit insurance

Lawsuit insurance is interesting. The problem seems to be that if an insurance company is funding the defense then they have the same incentive to pay a settlement rather than fight that anyone else does, and that would just cause even _more_ money to go into the pockets of trolls by giving them a deep pocket in the form of the insurance company, exacerbating the problem (and making the premiums unaffordable).

But let's suppose we solve that by stipulating up front that the insurance money can't be used for a settlement. If you want the money then you have to fight; it can only go to lawyers, not plaintiffs. _That_ would be an interesting dynamic. (Obviously plaintiffs would hate it with the fire of a thousand suns because it would cause all but the most blatantly liable defendants to fight.)

> to fund lobbying efforts to reform the patent system

That sounds pretty sensible.

> scrutinize a judicial apparatus that seems biased in favor of patent trolls

I don't see this going anywhere. It is _far, far_ easier to lobby to have the law changed by Congress after a judge does something you don't like than to actually have the judge punished for the ruling. What you may want to do here is to lobby for sympathetic judges to be appointed to e.g. the Eastern District of Texas or the Federal Circuit (which has jurisdiction over patent appeals), but that's obviously not a short-term solution because the turnover rate isn't that high.

<comment><USER23> > The problem seems to be that if an insurance company is funding the defense > then they have the same incentive to pay a settlement rather than fight that > anyone else does

Not true at all. The difference is that the individual needs to factor in the cost of one defense (tens of thousands of dollars at a minimum - PLUS the chance of loosing and then going out of business) versus the cost of the settlement (perhaps a few tens of thousands of dollars). Financially, it makes no sense to pursue the case.

The insurance pool needs to factor in the cost of ONE defense (tens of thousands of dollars at a minimum -- PLUS the chance of loosing and then owing a court's determination of a "reasonable cost" for licensing the patent for all the pool's clients) versus the cost of ALL the settlements (a few tens of thousands of dollars times how ever many clients the pool has).

A pool doesn't need to get very big before it's financially advantageous to pursue cases you are likely to win and to settle cases you are likely to lose. (By comparison, for individual companies, the best short-term benefit is gained by settling in ALL cases.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Six million developers in the US iOS ecosystem?

If that's the case that is a massive number of people, particularly if you consider employees and contractors they might work with.

Perhaps I am being a simplistic moron. To me the solution to these problems is to make a lot of noise. A lot of it. And to do it continuously. And to do it through all available media and channels. And not to stop until the issue is dealt with by legislators. You want coverage by every single media outlet on a daily basis.

This community can make something like that happen. It's isn't that difficult if top level companies take lead. With one simple addition to their websites the entire world would become aware of the issue that is killing innovation in tech circles.

This is a community that has the power to do this. If this community unites behind a common message tomorrow the entire world could start to feel the pressure. Political leaders will have to both acknowledge and act to solve the problem.

This is not a war that will be won one battle at a time. This is a war that needs to be won through legislative action. There are far more people affected by bullshit patents than most imagine. All we need is an organization under which we could all unite and start making noise. Banners on all websites. Pop- ups on all apps. Whatever it takes.

Would it be inconvenient to our users? Possibly. However, you have to consider the idea that there's a huge opportunity here to educate everyone and, at the same time, highlight the fact that a more sensible patent system would actually improve things across the world. I am not going to do them math, but I am sure one could easily show economic advantages which will include job creation.

I wish I had the standing, time and resources to launch such a thing. I don't. There are well-funded companies with more than enough resources to devote to such an effort. To borrow from Bravehart:

Help us. Help yourselves! Now is our chance, now! If we join, we can win. If we win, well then we'll have what none of us have ever had before; freedom to create; freedom from the fear of trolls; the ability to innovate to the extent of our abilities; the freedom to create whatever our minds can imagine. You are the technology leaders and there is strength in you. Unite us. Unite us!</comment>


Renaming the Company - <AUTHOR> http://www.typesafe.com/blog/whats-in-a-name/

<comment><USER3> I don't want to be negative, but this really feels like a dangerous strategy. No, that's nice, this feels like a mistake and this person with a C-title is leading them into a trap.

\- This company is semi-old (they've survived a generation)

\- They are heavily built on reference and recommendation

\- Their prior name has an above average reputation

\- Their name's source has a positive connotation with programmers, developers, and most of the code world ("we might go a little slow, but we catch small details. We have less bugs")

\- Change is bad

      - People hate change

      - People don't care about 'mission statements'

      - Is your product/service good?

      - Can I easily find/contact you to get it?

\- Change is confusing

        - Mental links

        - Physical links

        - Resource, supply, pointer, ect.. links

        - Makes you hard to find

\- Wishy washy 'let's hold hands' change is worse

       - As leader, I don't really know what I want

\- Getting ideas, brainstorming is great

\- Publically letting everyone know you have lost your way and are entering a period of company uncertainty - <USER2>

<comment><USER4> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borland#The_Inprise_years.2C_an...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borland#The_Inprise_years.2C_and_name_changes)

<comment><USER3> Exactly. "When Borland changed their name, many thought they had gone out of business."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I actually think "Typesafe" is an excellent name for a company - whether or not it has grown to be more than just Scala. It says to me: If you build on top of our software, you will be safe and protected due to our built-in guarantees. That is a good foundational brand identity for any company. I don't think you should change it.

<comment><USER6> I only skimmed the article but it seemed they were starting to deal more in softwares that are not typesafe, therefore the name is misleading. It's a great name for a Haskell shop!

<comment><USER7> What they say is that a lot of their clients use Java (since most of the products have a dual Java/Scala API) and Java is not the most typesafe language there is.

Also Akka is not very typesafe, with the actors message being of the "Any" type!

<comment><USER8> Interesting, can you name a distributed system that preserves types across machines?

Other than the experimental typed actors library that Akka is working on, and Cloud Haskell, I'm not aware of any type preserving distributed system, certainly nothing production ready/widely used.

So, the critique, "oh no, Any, how horrible!" seems absurd given the current state-of-the-art ;-)

<comment><USER9> The word 'Jini' is bubbling up from the depths of my memory... Java-based distributed architecture which relied on the 'write once run anywhere' model to distribute proxies for remote objects...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > _More and more we are seen as the Reactive Company and yet our name does not > speak to this aspect of our mission._

There is company named after fruit which manufactures computers and phones.

<comment><USER11> A brief history on the naming of the fruit company: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzzOwRx3D1E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzzOwRx3D1E)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems like a huge waste of money and a source of confusion. I do not know, whether you noticed, but there is only one .com for every name.

A name is just a name. Typesafe has "safe" in it, which always sounds good, even if you do not know, what typesafety is. Automattic, Canonical and other Open Source companies seem to do very well with a company name distinct from the main product.

Also, I could not care less about your "movement" or "mission" I want to buy quality products from a company that is associated with them.

Will you rename again, after the "Reactive movement" is superseded by the next paradigm?

Stuff like this makes me fall back in an old pattern of valuing administration and management very little and feeling superior to them. I want to overcome it, because it makes you seem like a dick, but stuff like this makes it hard for me.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure I understand what Typesafe does. They have a prominent link to a white paper, but to read that, you have to register first.

"Register here to get your white paper" is kind of a litmus test of enterprise products -- I guess I'm not part of the target audience.

<comment><USER14> They develop and provide commercial support for Akka, an actor-based concurrency toolkit (think Erlang) for Java and Scala, and Play, a web application framework for Java and Scala, among other projects. They're also major contributors to Scala itself, which is a multi-paradigm (oo + functional) programming language for the JVM. (I work with their software and the company I work for is a paying customer.)

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the clear explanation!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How about Kneejerk? It sounds reactive enough %D. Jokes aside, I don't really see why a name change would be warranted. The current name is not very descriptive, granted, but does it need to be?

<comment><USER16> He said it himself, he isn't an developer.

Probably the only idea he had ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Seem like the pet peeve of a new CEO who doesn't understand the company but the arguments are pretty weak. My advice, leave it as is and move on. Even better, think about a new CEO.

</comment><comment><USER18> I suggest a pun on long compile times.

</comment><comment><USER19> If I remember right, they redesigned Akka logo and website twice last year and almost same for Play. It seems someone in (ex-)Typesafe is strongly encouraged about rebrandings.

</comment><comment><USER20> Typesafe is a great name. Don't bring disturbance in.

<comment><USER20> Also, remember Borland/Inprise/Borland debacle?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If they're planning to discuss possible names in the open, I'm sure domain/social media squatters will be right on this.

</comment><comment><USER22> Like 10gen becoming Mongo and 37signals becoming Basecamp, it seems clear that "Reactive" is the right choice. They are known as "the Reactive Company" and they (presumably!) own trademarks related to the Reactive name.

<comment><USER23> +1

Name the company after the core product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Renaming is a terrible idea for a company as involved with software frameworks as Typesafe is: if they can't even keep a stable company name, how much will you trust them to keep their APIs stable?

</comment><comment><USER25> How about AnyUnit?

<comment><USER26> This is the exact name I was going to suggest. Kudos to you.

The Any -> Unit definitely defies the current name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Has anyone ever cared about a mission statement?

</comment><comment><USER28> Changing the name makes sense to me. Type safety isn't want people are looking for at the moment. The trend they're most related to is reactive programming, so they want a name that evokes that. It's a smart move.

When Automattic announced the WooCommerce acquisition the other day, I came across a comparison grid of their competitors. It turns out that there are popular e-commerce platforms that I'd heard mentioned before, but had no idea what they actually did because their names had nothing to do with commerce.

Names matter.

</comment><comment><USER29> Scala is definitely type-safe but Akka is not really reactive:

[http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/255047/why- is...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/255047/why-is-akka- being-marketed-as-reactive-is-actor-model-reactive)

</comment><comment><USER30> Well, if they don't want it, I'll take it. It's a great name.

</comment><comment><USER31> safetype

</comment><comment><USER32> Scompany.

From "scalable company".

<comment><USER33> Horrible. My first thought is it sounds like scumpany and is likely to be associated for word play for "scum company".

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Rename it Datacode.</comment>


Show HN: Realtime time-stretching and pitch shifting in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Infinity/Kali <comment><USER2> Nice! Here is an older one that I made a few years ago: [https://github.com/mikolalysenko/pitch- shift](https://github.com/mikolalysenko/pitch-shift)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Demo here: [https://infinity.github.io/Kali/demo.html](https://infinity.github.io/Kali/demo.html)</comment>