AP: Video expert says White House clip of CNN reporter was likely doctored - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/11/ap-video-expert-says-white-house-clip-of-cnn-reporter-was-likely-doctored/ <comment><USER2> Meanwhile, Buzzfeed have run an article about why it's not in fact clear that it was doctored: [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/acosta- vi...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/acosta-video-trump- cnn-aide-sarah-sanders)

And Motherboard's expert says there's no evidence that it is: [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qvqpp5/no- evidenc...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qvqpp5/no-evidence-the- white-house-video-of-jim-acosta-was-doctored-forensic-expert-says)

Basically, there's nothing clear about this. (Except for the fact that AP's contention that the audio was removed to make it easier to doctor is dubious. It was a GIF. GIF files don't support audio.)

<comment><USER3> I don't see why it would matter. If you cherry-pick the single version from the various transcodings of a video that happens to portray an inaccurate version of the event, then you're still intentionally being deceitful.

<comment><USER4> > cherry-pick the single version from the various transcodings of a video that > happens to portray an inaccurate version of the event

Where is the evidence that this happened?

<comment><USER5> Just watch the original and it's obviously different than the GIF in question.

<comment><USER4> "video is different than GIF" != "proof of cherry-picking with the intention to deceive"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth.

</comment><comment><USER7> i've seen the doctored version and the undoctored version. i don't really see any big difference between them in terms of what Acosta did and don't see why either of them are a big deal. it looks like he was just reacting to having the microphone grabbed.

</comment><comment><USER8> The WH should be able to remove credentials from journalists who legitimately don't follow the rules or lack proper decorum.

I don't think the WH should spread a lie and claim that's the reason for pulling his credentials.

<comment><USER9> The whole administration lacks decorum, should they remove themselves?

If you attempt to interact with this admin with decorum you get nowhere. You can't do your job. They are like the kid who puts his finger in your face and repeats "not touching you! not touching you" and then you go to detention when you push the finger out of the way because he screams assault.

she tried to grab the mic out of his hand and he resisted. good.

<comment><USER8> The administration does, but there have been numerous instances of journalists pressing their question without it turning into this.

<comment><USER10> What exactly did it turn into? This is a non-story that only turned into one because the WH revoked Acosta's press pass.

<comment><USER8> The microphone having to be taken because he was interrupting and the subsequent lie by the press secretary. Whether or not he should've interrupted is a different question, but irrelevant since that's not the reason cited by the WH.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Anyways his hand just drops quickly because she yanks down the mic...

His hand clearly bounces up a little when he makes first contact with her arm and than just rests there, following her movement when the yank comes.

</comment><comment><USER12> This thread is quickly devolving into political discourse and should be removed, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is ridiculous, doctored or not.

"Pardon me, ma'am" is nothing like "placing his hands on a young woman."

EDIT: For people who haven't watched a full video of the press conference with audio, here's my transcript, please forgive any errors:

Acosta: thank you mr president, I challenge you on one of the statements you made at the tail end of the campaign, the midterms that...

Trump: Here we go.

Acosta: Well... If you don't mind Mr. President -

Trump: let's go, let's go. Come on. [whistling noise with hand gesture to urge haste]

Acosta: ...that this caravan was an invasion, as you know

Trump: I consider it to be an invasion

Acosta: as you know mr president, the caravan was not an invasion, it's a group of migrants moving up from Central America towards the border with the U.S...

Trump: thank you for telling me that, I appreciate it.

Acosta: ...why did you characterize it as such, and...

Trump: because I consider it an invasion, you and I have a difference of opinion

Acosta: ...do you think that you demonized immigrants...

Trump: not at all, no, not at all

Acosta: ...in this election to try ...

Trump: I want them, i want them to come into the country, but they have to come in legally, you know, Jim, they have to come in through a process, I want it to be a process and I want the people to come in and we need the people to come

Acosta: your campaign, your campaign...

Trump: wait, wait - you know why we need the people, don't you? Because we have hundreds of companies moving in, we need the people.

Acosta: but you campaign had an ad showing migrants climbing over walls and so on

Trump: well that's true, they weren't actors, they weren't actors, it's true - do you think they were actors? they weren't actors, they didn't come from Hollywood. These were, these were people, this was an actual, you know, it happened a few days ago, and

Acosta: they are hundreds of miles away, though, they are hundreds of miles away, that's not an invasion

Trump: honestly, honestly, I think you should let me run the country, and you run cnn, and if you did it well your ratings would be much better

Acosta: if I may ask one other question

Trump: that's enough

Acosta: if I may ask one other question, are you worried

[begin incident over microphone]

Trump: that enough, that's enough, that's enough

Acosta: pardon me ma'am, I'm

[end incident over microphone]

Trump: that's enough

Acosta: regarding the Russia investigation, are you concerned...

Trump: I'm not concerned about anything with the Russia investigation, because it's a hoax. That's enough, put down the mike.

Acosta: ...are you worried about indictments coming down...

[trump walks away from the podium, Acosta hands microphone to intern and sits down]

[nbc reporter Peter Alexander gets mike, trump returns to podium]

Trump: I'll tell you what, cnn should be ashamed of itself, having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person, you shouldn't be working for CNN.

Alexander: I think that's unfair...

Trump: the way you treat Sarah Huckabee is horrible, the way you treat other people are horrible. You shouldn't treat people that way.

Peter Alexander: in Jim's defense, I've travelled with him, he's a diligent reporter...

Trump: well I'm not a big fan of yours either.

Alexander: I understand.

<comment><USER13> as an outsider: everything related to american politics has become a joke since trump has taken power...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> And not to justify _anyone_ doctoring video and trying to pass it off as news, we have also had examples of news organizations editing video or audio to make it more dramatic, present it out of context, or even change meaning, such as what NBC did with the 911 call audio in the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin incident.

I think we're just in a world where you have to question the motivations of anyone presenting video/audio evidence. Editing that kind of stuff is so easy now, and will only get easier and more convincing in the future.

</comment><comment><USER15> Acosta is a massive douchebag. He larps like he's some paragon of justice "journalist" but he's just a disrespectful grandstanding jackass, and his behavior has been getting more and more egregious from press conference to press conference. If you watch the whole clip and don't even focus on the physical interaction between Acosta and the woman, it's not only really apparent that this guy is the hero of a movie in his own mind, but you can hear other journalists in the crowd groaning as he continues to grandstand after being told his time was over and it was the next person's turn for a question. If you completely ignore the physical interaction between Acosta and the woman, you see more than enough reason to revoke his press pass. This whole thing blew up over accusations of a "karate chop" which obviously did not happen, but that's an easy headline, made even more believable with possibly altered footage. Putting that aside though, the dude's unarguably inappropriately (at a professional level) touching a woman as she tries to take the mic away from him after he's been told his time is up. Focusing on the force involved in the touching seems like a red herring as the touching, especially after not willingly giving the mic up when he was told to, was inappropriate to begin with.

It seems like a core "Trump" tactic is to slightly mislead, such that people tear the misleading bit apart, and in doing so, get the point he wants across to the people watching, while making the dissecters seems silly. For example, there was that time when he tweeted about how the costs of a new Air Force One were out of control, and would cost more than four billion dollars. Everyone tore him apart over this saying he was "lying," and that the actual cost was... four point nine billion. So yes, he made a factually inaccurate statement by exaggerating the number, but in doing so, got the press to make his point for him.

This seems like another one of these kinds of things.

Or it could just be an encoding aberration.

</comment><comment><USER16> Doctored or not, this is, at best, mildly inappropriate behavior. Trump could tap immigrants and drink their blood on prime time while grabbing an intern's pussy and Republicans would cheer. This is a distraction.

<comment><USER17> I agree. I'm not opposed to Trump, and I don't understand why this has been getting the attention it has. It's silly. He obviously didn't intend to hurt the woman, and she doesn't appear to be hurt. Trump can pull Acosta's press credentials if he wants - that's consistent with his past behavior anyhow. Using this as a rationale for doing so seems more childish than is typical to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Whether or not the video was doctored is a distraction. It's much more plausible his credentials were pulled due to ego rather than concern for the fatal blow suffered by the white house intern.

The arguments otherwise are in bad faith. Especially in light of Trump's victim-blaming of the woman Corey Lewandowski grabbed at a news conference (resulting in battery charges).

</comment><comment><USER19> Buzzfeed explains the video conversion process to create the animated gif is responsible for the alleged discrepancies:

[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/acosta- vi...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/acosta-video-trump- cnn-aide-sarah-sanders)

But this is all a red herring. Look at the actual video and it is clear Acosta physically prevented her from taking the mic back. Opponents are trying to make the video the story instead of Acosta's action, as they did with the Project Veritas video which implicated Planned Parenthood. What Acosta did was wrong, and the media is trying to spin it to make it appear as if Trump is wrong.

<comment><USER18> Agreed, he clearly responded to her attempt to snatch the microphone from him while saying "pardon me", as opposed to the white house's characterization that he "put his hands on a young woman".

<comment><USER10> Your statement doesn't agree with the OP. They are claiming the WH is in the right here.</comment></comment></comment>


Twitter is opening up its full archive to the broader developer community - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/01/twitter-is-opening-up-its-full-archive-to-the-broader-developer-community/ <comment><USER2> We got really burned, multiple times, by Twitter. After the first time, shame on us, right? Never again.

<comment><USER3> Sorry to hear that. We have a public API roadmap and a plan. What were you building previously?</comment></comment>


Net Neutrality – The End of Google's Biggest Subsidy - <AUTHOR> https://tomluongo.me/2017/12/16/net-neutrality-the-end-of-googles-biggest-subsidy/ <comment><USER2> This article seems to think content providers have been on an unlimited data plan and the elimination of net neutrality means they must pay per byte.

That is not the case. Netflix and YouTube _already_ pay in proportion for the bandwidth they consume.

Aside from being factually incorrect, the article's incoherent, rambling style is awful.

<comment><AUTHOR> I also read this 2009 article about youtube's bandwidth costs earlier [http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2009/04/...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2009/04/do_you_think_bandwidth_grows_on_trees.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am sorry but this is less of an article than a rant. A poor one at that.

First the misunderstood net neutrality notion. Even if one was to presume that Google's "COGS" was low and now it will meet market demand. The problem is Google can somewhat afford to increase their "COGS". But someone trying to build another Google will get killed because now the costs have increased.

Then there is something about blockchain and Steemit out from the left field.

<comment><AUTHOR> it just goes to show the understanding and perspectives of this issue out there...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this is a poorly written rant on an albeit important issue. Content providers should also abide by some net neutrality rules, such as not censoring speech or websites, or content in general. They should also pay for the bandwidth they use. I think Google, Facebook, and Netflix do not support net neutrality out of altruism, but out of a business need. It's important we keep that in perspective.

</comment><comment><USER5> Poor bandwidth has nothing to do with Net Neutrality and everything to do with ~zero competition.

There's a reason these folks are fighting municipal broadband.</comment>


Drag And Drop Image Editing & Sharing With WebGL - <AUTHOR> http://drawwith.me/demo

<comment><USER2> Well done, fellas. I noticed a few bugs, but awesome job on pushing the limits of browser capabilities.

Keep us posted on your progress.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also, you can drag and drop multiple images. We didn't really restrict anything. Give it a shot.

</comment><comment><USER3> Look interesting. But it doesn't work for my version of Chrome 15.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm. Do you get the Sorry message? Or does there seem to be some sort of other problem?

<comment><USER3> Yes. I got "Sorry/It looks like your browser/computer doesn't support WebGL...". I'm on Chrome 15/Mac.

UPDATE: I restarted Chrome. The page started to work, then hung and eventually brought up Chrome's page crash notification. After that I get the Sorry message again.

I guess WebGL is still a bit buggy.

UPDATE2: It did eventually work after a few restarts of Chrome. Go figure.

<comment><AUTHOR> EDIT: In response to your updates, yeah we've deal with a lot of browser compatibility issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really cool dudettes! Great work!

</comment><comment><USER5> This is sick. Great work!</comment>


Apply HN: Codeflow – A revolutionary programming platform - <AUTHOR> Url: http://codeflow.co/ (There is a demo video)
Codeflow is an attempt at changing the way we program computers.
Most of the current programming languages are inherited from the command-line era of the 1970s. The personal computing industry have moved a lot since. The GUI revolution triggered by the mouse, touch screen interfaces triggered by the iDevices, the VR/AR & gesture/voice based interfaces of today and so on.  But programmers are still stuck with a keyboard, are forced to remember the exact syntax & commands and type things character by character, to perform even basic tasks. The resulting stream of text isn't pretty and doesn't convey well even to a fellow coder.
In Codeflow, you program by wiring independent modules on a visual canvas. The Input interface of each module is visual and therefore self-documented. We invented a completely visual expression language to connect the pieces together. As a side effect, the 'code' will always looks like your brainstorming diagram.
Think of a modules as a mobile app. The same way you don't read a manual to operate so many mobile apps, you don't need a manual to figure out the configuration for individual modules, be it querying a mongo db or setting up an http listener. You definitely need an understanding of the concepts of every component, but you don't ever need to learn the syntax or read docs for interfacing with the component.
It wasn't easy, we almost took three years developing it but we believe we have achieved what we dreamed of. Apart from doing several internal projects, we also convinced and worked closely with two startups to launch their backend stack on Codeflow (http://tailslife.com, http://plento.co).
Codeflow will be opening for public soon and will be fully open sourced. Please upvote if you think Codeflow should be part of YC.
p.s. If you are interested in using the platform for your next or current work, please reach out to me - email@example.com. <comment><USER2> Ok, so you seem to understand it's a huge problem to attack and many, many people tried to do it and viewed it as "the next big thing" in programming (Wikipedia page [0] lists more than 100 visual languages).

I think a possible way to a success is creating a domain-specific language tailored for enterprise users. I think it would be extremely hard to win "real" programmers with a visual language. There's a huge cultural clash of the traditional programming centered around text (editors, VCS, build systems, Unix integration etc.) and visual GUI tools that are just from a different world.

So a tool for visually building a mobile app by a non-programmer from some pre-built "blocks" \- yes. A general-purpose programming language - not a chance. Why being forced to use your GUI tool, when the same structure can be represented in text and thus supported by the multitude tools that are known for decades?

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

<comment><AUTHOR> I know it's like attacking a huge army :). But if we succeed, it would be a huge win, for all of us, right?.

I believe pure text-based programming is an overkill in modern programming. We seldom write complicated algorithms, we mostly do plumbing of pre-written algorithms. Why should we be stuck with directly editing text for everything, even down to requiring library to tiniest details? Internally even flows are also text, but you never need to edit it directly. If you really need to write complicated algorithms, text editor is always available, like say the terminal in mac or command prompt in windows world.

It will also work well with modern input interfaces like touch based screens and even gesture based AR/VR systems. And as a far stretched goal, wouldn't it be easy for AI bots to assist you with a structured program vs plain text(as there could be a thousand way you could format text)?. Imagine you will be telling the computer what to do instead of typing out every detail..

We have put a lot of effort into it and we believe we are one of the best implementation till now. And we will be making it open source, so we can make it happen together as a community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice idea and the demo video looks great. But trying to replace typed syntax with a drag and drop GUI is going to be an up hill battle if you're trying to convert existing programmers. And from the demo video, it doesn't look like something a new programmer could pick up easily. So who is your target audience?

<comment><AUTHOR> Great question. We understand your concern, as we all know there is a dogma against drag & drop tools, which we believe is mostly due to the lack of quality open source implementations. We strongly believe we can change that. The benefits are many, like much better productivity and improved collaboration. The cons, if any (like doing diffs without the GUI) can be debated and worked around.

Though the paradigm as such can have greater benefits when applied to any place where programming or automation is required (like Robotics, IOT, Analytics etc), we are targeting general programmers (Web services to begin with). We didn't want to tie ourselves to a niche as we might lose an opportunity to make a huge impact. We believe we are really close to achieving that! (holding my breath as i am typing it).

Codeflow is clearly not intended as a toy language, like MIT Scratch. We have built some fairly complex web apps on Codeflow and they are running in production for like 5+ months, and it took us approx. 3-5x less effort to build them, as compared to in Node.js and was fun. With larger teams we see an even bigger impact.

If you think about it, it's not just a drag and drop GUI, it's really an advanced IDE that we are building. We seldom write algorithms anymore, we just reuse what is written. If you look at Node.js ecosystem, there are more than 200,000 public modules. Almost all of them have their documentation that is scattered across Readmes, docs and sometimes deep inside the source. Developers spent most of their time reading and understanding that. If you count the SaaS/API ecosystem, it might add another 10k. Imagine thousands of developers across the world going through the pain again and again. If you are an experienced developer, you might probably copy paste snippets and change the parameters from existing code. You can think of Codeflow modules as wrappers around those snippets that expose the API visually.

It will also work well with modern hardware innovations like touch screens and high resolution graphics, which are not leveraged well by traditional programming tools. I hope Codeflow, or an idea like it will eventually catch up with programmers. We are giving our best shot and so far we are very optimistic about bringing it to mainstream acceptance (fingers crossed) :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I once had an idea of similar product, CONFIGURATION AS A PROGRAM. All programs are json file. Each function is a json file. All algorithm as state machine. Operating System just move a step on each file, a step at a time. Eventually I could not figure out which direction it should take, of AI or of OS ?

.....

So, my point being, even if this is a very good idea, your chance of big success will only come if you can narrow it down to specific use cases instead of generalise it as a day to day programming. i.e. Android Visual App Development Platform, or, Cross Platform Data Visualisation Platform with backend connecting to google analytics etc.

Being Specific is the key here.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Founder here.. Just to reiterate a point - we understand that this is not the first attempt at making programming more 'visual'. Though visual programming is pretty popular on the enterprise side, they have failed to get mainstream acceptance.

Codeflow is heavily influenced by successful application of the paradigm on enterprise side, especially on ETL/EAI space. We believe entire web programming is a big integration/ETL use case. You transform data from one form (Database) to another (Json or html).

</comment><comment><USER5> Silly questions:

Can I run all my preexisting node projects through this thing and see everything rendered as little visual blocks ?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, but you can use the Execute Node module to invoke any existing Node.js code. Also the Engine (run-time system) is published as an NPM module so you can invoke Codeflow project from within Node.js as well.. That way you can make a gradual switch from existing Node.js codebase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Small market.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why did you feel it's small? We believe it's a huge market. Software development industry as a whole is half a trillion market as per a Gartner report ([http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2696317](http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2696317)).</comment></comment>


The Great Decoupling: The U.S. presses for a post-pandemic decoupling from China - <AUTHOR> https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/14/china-us-pandemic-economy-tensions-trump-coronavirus-covid-new-cold-war-economics-the-great-decoupling/ <comment><USER2> Our worker protections are comparatively too strong to decouple and not see a stark rise in prices across industries.</comment>


HN Please Add Target Property to Links - <AUTHOR>

Majority of sites that have links open them up in a new tab upon clicking. This behaviour  would be great on HN (at least the main page) so that way I can click on a link, read it, and close it. This way I don't navigate away from HN, and don't have to worry about opening a link in a new tab myself.
Here's the quick obvious template with addition of the target property:  My amazing link title here  <comment><USER2> I don't agree.

I think it's typical for a middle-button click and/or control-left-click to open a link in a new tab. That's easy to do, and so we get to choose new tab or same tab ourselves, rather than having the website make the decision for us.

My habit with HN is to open a link by middle-clicking both the post link and the comments link. So I get both the post and its comments in side-by-side tabs. It's convenient for me, but people who just want to use a single tab can still do so.

<comment><AUTHOR> Using the middle-button click and/or control-left click open still works the same with the 'target="_blank"' specified so this wouldn't affect the way you do things anyway

<comment><USER2> Exactly. Doing "target='_blank'" would not help me. But it would be detrimental to others.

In a site full of ordinary users, maybe "target='_blank'" is called for. But HN is aimed at the kind of people who are knowledgeable about their computers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Agree with others stating that links should be left alone. Just middle or ctrl-click to open in a new tab if you want to do that. Adding the target attribute would remove the option to open in the same tab, which I often want to do.

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks like somebody built a chrome extension for this _EXACT_ purpose (literally with HN in mind)

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/open-external- link...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/open-external-links-in- ne/pmgjfdndcgbblimbigekghdmgkjbffba?hl=en-US)

</comment><comment><USER5> if i want things to open in new tabs, i can do that myself. that's not a decision the web designer should be making for me.

</comment><comment><USER6> That doesn't do a new tab it does a new window. It is always the feature I have to work around whenever I have to install a new browser.

</comment><comment><USER7> Feature requests should be made using the link at the bottom of this page [and many other HN pages].

..</comment>


The Memorandum as a Management Genre (1989) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.ismlab.usf.edu/dcom/Ch6_YatesMemoMgtCommQtly1989.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> I'd stumbled across this and simply found it fascinating.

Letter-writing itself, as a widespread practice, is fairly new, it relying on post offices, stamps, and paper, and above all, _literacy_. The forms of letters written in the 19th century were very much defined by guidebooks and conventions.

Business writing itself is also highly formulaic, though it dropped much of the verbosity (and social grace) of earlier forms, discussed in this essay.

Messaging-as-technology, the protocols, conventions, forms, usage, and economics, are all mentioned, in particularly the induced demand created by easier communications, storage, and retrieval (or reversal as practices were limited or discontinued).

There's also the emergence of standard fields -- "From", "To", "Subject", "Date", and "In reply to", which actually _predates_ the other four -- go Mutt and threaded discussion!

The influences on subsequent communications formats, particularly Email and Usenet, aren't mentioned, but are obvious.

</comment><comment><USER2> Great article on how the memo has a central place in bureaucratic decision making.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/memo- to...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/memo-to-trump- this-is-why-youre-losing/530490/)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's actually where the Yates study reference turned up ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What a quaint idea - that there could be any management genre other than the slide deck.

I don't think a letter, memo, or report has ever been generated at my office. Proposals, maybe. Any presentation of findings, recommendations, or status is going to be a deck.</comment>


What We Learnt From a Failed MVP - <AUTHOR> http://arg0s.in/what-we-learnt-from-a-failed-mvp.html

<comment><USER2> While lean is generally a great step forward implementation can be quite tricky.

Saw a video last night by Jeff Lawson of Twilio about a lean test he conducted on an email sending API. It's starts at the 9:30 mark:

[http://vimeo.com/16306094](http://vimeo.com/16306094)

He did a very thorough test using Google to drive traffic to his test website along with various A/B tests on pricing.

His conclusion was there wasn't a viable market. Tell that to SendGrid and their various competitors ;<). I've done the very same thing with several sites and was always left wondering was it the test or my idea?

My conclusion is that to do lean successfully you also need to get off the web and get out and talk with potential customers face to face. Sometimes if you listen carefully they will hand you an even better idea.

<comment><USER3> Yes! That's part of why "get out of the building" is such a popular Lean Startup mantra. More generally, I tell novices to cycle between qualitative and quantitative learning.

For example, I recently had an idea, so I did a bunch of interviews with potential users. That gave me enough information to form a quantitative hypothesis: if I offer users app X, then Y% will use it regularly over a two week period.

Whether that fails or succeeds, my next step will be to talk with users. If it succeeds, the interviews will tell me where to take the product next. If it fails, interviews will help me distinguish between a fatal failure (e.g., nobody will ever use this) or a fixable one (e.g., minor UI issues make friction too high for frequent repeat usage).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is an excellent lessons learned write-up in a framework that is very clear. He outlines the initial vision, key assumptions (labelled "big IFs) and then a sequence of five experiments with a clear definition of Hypothesis, Audience, Acquisition, Validation, Execution, Result, Learning. The author is candid and offers a conclusion that I find very insightful:

       "However, one thing I noticed after I moved back to India from the
       Valley was that we often hesitate to talk about failures, and
       what we learnt from them. People are much more interested in
       learning from a success story. However, if you ask me, I'm more
       interested in the 51 attempts of Rovio than just the one that made it
       big. It's the failure to learn that's a failure."

<comment><USER4> Thanks for sharing this on HN, I was surprised when I suddenly saw a spike in traffic and tweets. ;)

I certainly think the Valley is more open to discussing failures and what worked and what didn't. In my experience, it's been hard to have honest, clear discussions in India with other entrepreneurs about challenges being faced and what people are doing to address them. There's just a lot of noise in the startup ecosystem. That said, all this is maturing, and I'm sure it'll get better soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think this had to be a failure. A huge part of the job of building a success is being willing to change what you're doing based on the results that you're getting.

The one thing that I think is missing from "what we could have done better" is this:

Be willing to CHANGE your ideas, big time.

You had people signing up. They wanted something. Instead of sticking with your first idea (video), why not try a bunch of stuff until something worked.

You have to be creative, flexible, and determined in order to make this type of business work. You had SUCCESS with many of the tests -- don't throw those successes away just because one test failed.

People didn't want video. Give them something else. Does it really matter what it is? Does it even have to be charades? Be willing to CHANGE on the spot in a BIG way.

Think about this:

1\. People sign up and say "yes, I want to play charades".

2\. They land on a page tht asks them to play charades. How the heck can you immediately engage them? By asking them to turn on video? Or...???

If you're giving up because people don't want to turn on video -- then you may as well not try. Think about this: If I want to have "online boxing", should I give up if people don't literally punch themselves in the face, in order to simulate real punches? Sure, it sounds silly, but it's not that different than asking people to turn on video. Online video can literally be harmful to people, especially when it involves strangers, and even when it involves friends and acquaintances. People don't want video charades. That doesn't mean they don't want charades.

Don't get stuck on the wrong thing!

<comment><USER6> You said exactly what I wanted to say...

An alternative improvement that I would feel comfortable -

1) Instead of email id, just ask "enter a nickname". More people would feel comfortable this way.

2) Once I'm in - "Welcome to your private charade room. Invite your friends to join your private charade room by sending this url".

Provide a private url to that room that they can send to their friends. Let them send it by mail. And don't ask me to enter my friend's email id or link to my facebook / twitter accounts. Many have already fallen for this trick from Linkedin etc and paid heavily for giving them access to the friend's ids.

Now make it easy for me also to enter this room using the url. If my friends enter the room, we are ready to play.

Allow me to create multiple rooms. So I could play with my family, my friends or colleagues at different time. And all through the day I could watch which room has member and start playing ...

3) And now provide an option for them to join a public room... Here mention clearly that your video is now visible to the worlds and could even be recorded ....

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This lesson shows the difficulty in testing of any game or pop song or any other product that is really "fashion." They do not follow the same rules as a typical business model would. You're not solving a problem or getting a job done. You're providing entertainment. You have to try it and see if it works. You need the vision of an artist and quite a bit of luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nicely explained.

One thing I have to tell novice experimenters a lot: A failed experiment _is not_ when you get a result different than the one you wanted. A failed experiment is one where you don't learn what you set out to learn. Which can also be fine as long as you learn how your next experiment can be better.

This was a successful experiment.

<comment><USER4> Agree completely. I left the misleading title in there since not everyone is familiar yet with some of the lean terminology.

I did include a para further down in the article explaining this further. It's the failure to learn that is failure.

[http://arg0s.in/what-we-learnt-from-a-failed-mvp.html#was- th...](http://arg0s.in/what-we-learnt-from-a-failed-mvp.html#was-this-a- failed-mvp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Failed MVP" is a contradiction in terms. (The V.)

Sustainability implies pivoting into something people will pay for, you can build and convince them to use before cash runs out. If the team is highly motivated, they will not disband on a single failure but will find something else that people want.

</comment><comment><USER9> I find it difficult to come up with the right validation criteria. Would you share your thought process? How did you come up with specific numbers?

      Of a sampling set of people searching for Charades online, at least 25% will sign up
      to check out the game.

<comment><USER4> It's fairly subjective at this stage, and is more of a judgment call than a science. I went with the following assumptions while putting down the 25% metric: * Conversion rates on vanilla sign up pages (with not a lot on the page) are generally not that high. I'd read that 8-10% was common. * Users already searching for charades online would be motivated to check out the ad (in my mind, this justified looking at a higher rate) * Since this was SCM based, it was not granular from a demographic perspective - likely had a mix of early adopters, mainstream users, etc.

Hope this helps. I'd love to hear how others are doing this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is definitely a good exercise to do.

I just went through a similar process and did a write-up of my own - [https://medium.com/how-to-succeed/86e70e2c33c1](https://medium.com/how-to- succeed/86e70e2c33c1)

</comment><comment><USER11> I like the writeup, but one question I would've liked answered is: _does the OP enjoy playing charades?_

To me, it seems like the best products are the ones that served the creators' wants and needs. Github was created because the founders wanted to share code more easily. Facebook was created as a better way to (eventually) get laid as a college student.

If you really love playing charades, and more importantly, love playing charades so much that you'll do it online, even with strangers, then the path to a viable MVP seems clear. As it currently reads, the OP's analysis seems sound, but without much of the passion that seems needed to drive a product.

<comment><USER12> In some sense it is almost better if the founder is not too attached to the idea. I don't see how one user (the founder) being super excited translates to a viable MVP - but I could see how it could lead them to ignore the results of their experiments and the actual data.

<comment><USER13> "I don't see how one user (the founder) being super excited translates to a viable MVP "

Less excited people simply won't bother building it.

It's that simple.

<comment><USER14> Less excited people won't know what makes some problems acute and some not so much.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


COBOL turns 60: why it will outlive us all - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/cobol-turns-60-why-it-will-outlive-us-all/ <comment><USER2> This is just Micro Focus astroturfing! They don't have a business in a world where banks and government agencies have written their software in a modern language.

Here's a comment I made a month ago about another thinly-veiled Micro Focus press release: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20987206](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20987206)

<comment><USER3> Why would they undertake such a massive task if they don't have the need?

It's cheaper to pay for training so new hires can write obsolete languages on IBM's last innovative release (the AS400).

<comment><USER4> I work in fintech, and my company is switching over to Java. It's gonna take a few more years, but they are implementing more than legacy code.

<comment><USER5> That's exactly why "Java is the new Cobol" is an occasionally-heard slogan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Something of a shallow look into why it's still around. Part of it is that it's not just COBOL, but the ecosystem around it that makes it harder to port. Porting over a COBOL program from MVS, OS/400, MPE, etc, also requires porting over the surrounding stuff. Job schedulers, record (vs stream) based files, monitoring, print formats, character encodings, 3270 screen formats, and so on.

<comment><USER7> Seems like a lot of that could be emulated or made part of a virtual machine

<comment><USER6> Technically, yes. Legally, no. See the Hercules emulator for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Zdnet writer: "why is COBOL still around?"

Cobol vendor: "well let me tell you how widely it's still used"

Zdnet writer: "k thx." _sends to editor_

It would've been way more interesting to get even one customer perspective, say from a bank. Why do they still use COBOL? (Answer: it powers critical infrastructure, it's risky as hell to migrate, and the benefit isn't worth the cost right now vs investing elsewhere)

</comment><comment><USER9> You don't like this COBOL article? Try this COBOL article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21288415](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21288415)

</comment><comment><USER10> It's COBOL, not Cobol. And I keep my COBOL textbook to ensure that I never have to work in COBOL again. I'm certain that as soon as let that textbook, I'll end up needing it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I originally wrote the headline as COBOL, but HN has some sort of "auto headline munger" that munged it to Cobol. I see it's subsequently been set back to COBOL, presumably by one of the mods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The point of this seems to be highlighting the micro focus cloud migration marketing piece at the end. Besides some history, very little here.</comment>


Performance: Node.js vs. IoJS 2.0.0 - <AUTHOR> https://raygun.io/blog/2015/05/performance-showdown-node-js-vs-io-js-v2-0-0/

<comment><USER2> I feel like these stats are kind of misleading because of their questionable usefulness. It's not like it's outright dishonest, but "performance showdown"? What are the chances that a situation like the ones they tested ever actually show up in a prod environment?

"it certainly pays to give io.js a look as out-of-the-box you get some rather impressive perf improvements." Might be true, but feels like an overstatement in relation to the data provided.</comment>


Simple Facial Recognition Search Engine Can Track You Down Across the Internet - <AUTHOR> https://onezero.medium.com/this-simple-facial-recognition-search-engine-can-track-you-down-across-the-internet-518c7129e454 <comment><AUTHOR> Product is PimEyes

[https://pimeyes.com/en/](https://pimeyes.com/en/)

Original title was too long. It was:

This Simple Facial Recognition Search Engine Can Track You Down Across the Internet</comment>


Show HN: World Cup Spoilers Blocker - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/world-cup-spoiler-blocker/aghafhfennhbflakcpkhhgkkbgjccnml?hl=en-US <comment><USER2> A similar thing I sometimes want is to see partial or older versions of pages before match results have brown recorded.</comment>


Mobx-state-tree: Opinionated, transactional, MobX-powered state container - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mobxjs/mobx-state-tree <comment><USER2> Does anyone out there use MobX in production on a large app and have any comments on how the experience is? Especially how it scales beyond simple todo list apps.

<comment><USER3> See [https://github.com/mobxjs/mobx/issues/681#issuecomment-26234...](https://github.com/mobxjs/mobx/issues/681#issuecomment-262348294) (that thread started only yesterday, so it isn't very long yet), but yes, MobX is in use in large complex production apps for a long time.

For example in proppy.io, as described here: [https://blog.wearewizards.io/a-mobx-introduction-and-case- st...](https://blog.wearewizards.io/a-mobx-introduction-and-case-study)</comment></comment>


Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers - <AUTHOR> http://osrp.lanl.gov/pacemakers.shtml <comment><USER2> More information here: [http://www.prutchi.com/pdf/implantable/nuclear_pacemakers.pd...](http://www.prutchi.com/pdf/implantable/nuclear_pacemakers.pdf)

<comment><USER3> And so, if you look at the pictures, you'll see an interesting number denoting the quantity of plutonium powering the device. It's not measured in grams, or even micrograms, or any unit of mass, as would be common with ordinary materials. Instead, the quantity of plutonium is measured in curies.

And is there a means of converting curies to mass?

Well, sort of... except radioactive decay generally means the original mass of a sample of material has been steadily converting itself into something else over time, so to provide a measurement of mass might not be a practical piece of information later on, and given the application in these circumstances, the gross weight of the device is more relevant than the mass of the plutonium therein, and the power provided by the plutonium, and how hot the slug is, turns out to be the more interesting number.

So what's a curie?

      The term "specific activity" is defined as the amount
      of radioactivity - or the decay rate - of a particular
      radionuclide per unit mass of the radionuclide. For
      example, the specific activity of Ra-226 is 1, meaning
      that one gram of Ra-226 contains one (1) curie (assumed
      to be uniformly distributed throughout that mass)

      http://www.iem-inc.com/information/tools/specific-activities

And, so based on all those pictures, the devices seem to average ~2.0 to ~4.3 curies of plutonium.

The specific radioactivity of plutonium, according to the above source, is:

      Pu-238 - 1.7E1

So, approximately one or two grams per device.

Based on all this information, I bet harvesting plutonium pacemakers would be way more lucrative than stealing kidneys.

<comment><USER4> That last line doesn't tell us much, because stealing kidneys essentially never happens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Forms for undertakers have a section where one has to certify whether or not the deceased person has an implanted device.

Cremating a person with a plutonium powered pacemaker might be a bit of a health hazard.

<comment><USER6> Cremating a person with a big lithium battery encased in an airtight metallic casing is also a bit of a hazard. Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators add also a few big capacitors to the mix. There have been quite a few crematoriums destroyed or damaged by pacemaker explosions in the last decades.

<comment> david-given Iain Banks' _The Crow Road_ starts like this:

> It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening > to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach's Mass in B minor, and > I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to > Gallanach.

Fantastic book, with possibly the best opening line ever, and yes, she does have a pacemaker.

[http://www.tor.com/2009/06/22/a-funny-book-with-a-lot-of- dea...](http://www.tor.com/2009/06/22/a-funny-book-with-a-lot-of-death-in-it- iain-banks-the-crow-road/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Next, nuclear powered car, hopefully.

</comment><comment><USER8> How was this ever approved!

<comment><USER9> How this is not a standard! It's a shame actually that for various reasons, we don't have more nuclear-powered devices.</comment></comment>


Why Explore the Moon - <AUTHOR> https://jatan.space/why-explore-the-moon/ <comment><USER2> They really don't make a good case, because the case for the moon is much weaker than Mars.

• The moon has much more limited scientific value compared to Mars. Mars has a 4 billion year history that may have included life and may still include life.

• Despite that much greater distance due to Aerobraking Mars takes less fuel to land on and it's easier to land large cargo ships on.

• Mars has far more resources, it's awash with water and CO2 making fuel production easy, and metals are literally laying about on the surface. The moon is a desert of rocks and dust that only has water in polar craters that is likely mixed into rock percentages at absolute zero.

• Mars is far easier to survive long periods on. The moon is a desert of dangerously razor sharp dust that alternates between two weeks of intense heat and two weeks of near absolute zero temperatures. Mars atmosphere is thin but it means it's temperature ranges are far less extreme, and it's surface soil has been eroded. It also has a lower radiation environment, but that's a minor concern. Most importability water and CO2 and metals are easy to access.

• Returning people from Mars is much easier than the Moon because high volume in-situ fuel production on Mars is easy, while probably not going to be possible on the Moon for decades.

Virtually all lunar research can be done tele-robotically since it's only 3 seconds away. That's impossible on Mars, where we've had a robot trying to dig a hole for over a year. Sending humans to Mars will vastly increase our scientific knowledge of Mars, they will explore more of Mars in a few weeks than rovers have in 50 years.

The answer is send more robots to the moon, but send the astronauts to Mars.

<comment><USER3> Fascinating, thanks! I knew most of these points in some fashion, but wasn't tying them together in such a coherent view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Surprise!

On Moon there is almost unlimited Helium-3: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3) "Much speculation has been made over the possibility of helium-3 as a future energy source. Unlike most other nuclear fusion reactions, the fusion of helium-3 atoms releases large amounts of energy without causing the surrounding material to become radioactive."

<comment><USER5> "The abundance of helium-3 is thought to be greater on the Moon than on Earth, having been embedded in the upper layer of regolith by the solar wind over billions of years,[5] though still lower in abundance than in the Solar System's gas giants"

Sounds a bit different than, allmost unlimited. Also, there are great quantities of gold in seawater on earth. That does not mean, we have those great quantities avaiable.

<comment><USER4> Well - if we can get to the Moon, use it's H-3 as fuel for some engine, then maybe we can colonize Solar system.

I know - energy is one of issues, but there are many more - solving cosmic radiation, life support systems, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those interested, further reading on ESA's Moon scientific goals [https://sci.esa.int/documents/34161/35992/1567260389633-ESA_...](https://sci.esa.int/documents/34161/35992/1567260389633-ESA_Strategy_for_Science_at_the_Moon.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> Because it is there.

</comment><comment><USER8> How did water ended up on moon?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good question! The sources of lunar water are poorly understood.

Some of it is formed as a result of hydrogen ions in the solar radiation hitting the oxygen present in the surface and forming water, and then being transported to the permanently shadowed regions. Another source, and likely a major one, is asteroids and comets, which were impacting vigorously during the early solar system.

But to truly differentiate between the sources of water, sample are needed. This hasn't been done yet but will open a huge box of mysteries and also give insights into how the Moon formed.

<comment><USER9> Wasn't the moon originally created due to a collision with the earth? Was there not any water for Earth to share with the moon when that happened?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We, as humanity, simply have to explore beyond Earth to survive in the long term (meaning really long term, like next 1000 years). Moon, Mars, and beyond. It's evident that Earth is not big enough for all of us, today. What about the next 1000 years? Our population growth rate over the millennia looks very much like covids spread ;) so I guess there's nowhere else to go than space.

<comment><USER5> In the really long term, like the next 5 billion years, definitely yes. But for mere survival we do not have to leave earth. At some point population growth would simply stagnate. When there is less food than humans. (which is a factor for quite some humans now)

Now the side effects of this scenario on a big scale might wipe out humanity (if food wars get nuclear), but they don't have to.

In either case, I am 100% pro space colonization, but I don't think we need to dramatize it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice sub/read, thank you!

</comment><comment><USER12> Also: Trump signs executive order to support moon mining, tap asteroid resources

[1] [https://www.space.com/trump-moon-mining-space-resources- exec...](https://www.space.com/trump-moon-mining-space-resources-executive- order.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> One of these days Alice, bang! zoom! straight to the moon!

</comment><comment><USER14> At a glance the article doesn't seem to mention military motivations which are probably gonna be the driving force of lunar exploration.

<comment><USER15> What are the military motivations? What advantage does it provide?

<comment><USER16> The moon is at the "top" of Earth's gravity well and has relatively low gravity itself. A simple launch system would allow you to shoot rocks at targets on earth whenever you want, using them as kinetic projectiles without the launch costs of putting rods into low Earth orbit. The down side, of course, is that any attacks from the moon would be slow, taking hours at minimum to reach targets.

<comment><USER17> It takes a fair amount of delta-v to "drop" something from Lunar orbit to Earth. It also takes a long time to reach its target. Accurate targeting would be a challenge without active guidance. Even hitting a city would be a bit tricky, and if you're firing projectiles that can flatten large areas such that you don't need accurate targeting everyone's gonna treat that like a nuke, so you may as well just use nukes. I find it hard to believe the costs of establishing and maintaining even an automated Lunar launch system of this sort would be anywhere near worth it, compared with many other options.

<comment><USER18> as I understand it, "fair amount of delta-v" is quite the understatement. the delta-v needed to realize that gravitational potential energy is equivalent to the moon's orbital velocity. aside from atmospheric drag in the launch phase, you're not saving much energy compared to strapping a bunch of rockets on an earth rock and letting it fall back down. much cheaper and more effective to deliver a nuke via ballistic missile.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Booking.com App UI concept  - <AUTHOR> http://modernmobilemachine.tumblr.com/post/62103699920/updated-shot-from-the-booking-com-app-concept

<comment><USER2> I don't think comparing the raw numbers of hotels, b&bs, or hostels tells me (as a consumer) enough to warrant burning the byline of each city. If it's an app, and for booking.com, I would rather see the effective cost to reach each city from my current location via the most common travel method (train, plane, etc). It would give an interesting opportunity to A/B test different date, price, and travel options, too.

(For someone in London, is it better to show a fun trip to Paris this weekend? vs. someone in Seattle to Paris, which is far more pricy travel plans and requires extensive travel plans for the average consumer.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks or the feedback! That's exactly what the Routes tab in the screenshot is for. It is going to show users the different places other people have visited leaving from where they currently are, as well as the most used travel methods as you stated, price and distance. It'll also allow you to link multiple locations together into a travel Route to get a breakdown of your overall trip.

I'll be sure to post a link to more shots showcasing the Routes feature. Keep in mind Booking.com is mainly a hotel booking service, so the thinking here is that the average person may already know where they want to go, they just don't know where they're going to stay. I do think there is still an unmet need to provide an easy way to find places to go to for those who don't have any particular travel plans yet and are looking for interesting locations. I think this is a direction booking.com can go to expand their service offerings.</comment></comment>


Learning to squat - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/learning-to-squat <comment><USER2> Despite what it says about Mehdi and Stronglifts, I wholeheartedly will endorse both to anyone who is seeking to become fitter and stronger.

As I progressed along the program and started to squat 1 BW (squatting a weight equal to my body weight), I could think of nothing but the upcoming set/rep during the entire workout. It was meditative in a way that no other activity had been for me.</comment>


NASA May Decide This Year to Land a Drone on Saturn's Moon Titan - <AUTHOR> https://www.space.com/43010-dragonfly-mission-would-put-a-drone-on-titan.html <comment><USER2> Dragonfly is such an amazing concept. A nuclear powered quadcopter!

[http://dragonfly.jhuapl.edu/](http://dragonfly.jhuapl.edu/)

>Unable to use solar power under Titan's hazy atmosphere, Dragonfly would use a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG), like the durable Curiosity rover on Mars. Flight, data transmission, and most science operations would be planned during Titan's daytime hours (eight Earth days), giving the rotorcraft plenty of time during the Titan night to recharge.

<comment><USER3> There's got to be a way to do that here. Ie replacing oil power generation with nuclear - say for the largest container ships.

<comment><USER4> It's already being done. Since 1955 in submarines. Since 1959 in ice breakers. Since 1962 in commercial shipping.

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

<comment><USER5> I wonder - why don't they use it for container ships and so on? I would imagine fuel savings there, and lower pollution would be immense.

<comment><USER6> Well, it does result in enriched nuclear material floating all over the ocean, ripe for the taking by pirates or nation-states that we'd rather not have access.

<comment><USER3> So you use the same naval threat that we already use to deter idiots from our nuclear powered vessels.

<comment><USER7> Pirates still seize large merchant ships in Asian and African waters on a monthly basis. There are only a few hundred surface vessels capable of effective anti-piracy patrols worldwide from all navies and coast guards; they can't be everywhere at once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the real breakthrough on some of these probes to other planets isn't so much how they move around, but the growing possibility of self-directed action. Mars is between 3 light minutes and 22 light minutes away. Every command takes at least that long to reach a probe on Mars, then the same amount of time for NASA to be told "Yes, I heard you and did that".

The Curiosity rover has been on Mars for 6 years. It can travel 90m/hour. Theoretically, it could have moved 3,400km by now- that's more than once around the equator of Mars. It's managed almost 20km. While I'm sure there was much to pause and study, I cannot fathom that it could not have done more in it's time were it not constantly waiting for commands.

Saturn is, at closest approach, more than 1 light hour away.

I feel as though there's a real need to put a generic computer system that can be reprogrammed after launch into orbit around whatever planet we're studying. Give it higher-level commands of what we want to see happen, and send us back the highlight reel.

<comment><USER9> Curiosity's top speed across flat ground is just 0.09 mph (0.14 km/h).

<comment><USER10> And, of course, that is wildly optimistic, given the actual terrain it runs on. [https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/fact_sheets/mars-science- labor...](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/fact_sheets/mars-science- laboratory.pdf):

 _"NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., […] engineered Curiosity […] to travel up to about 200 meters (660 feet) per day on Martian terrain."_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is there a way to throw money at specific NASA projects? Ie a way for the crowd to indicate interest. I doubt it, but nasa is pretty popular

<comment><USER11> No, government agencies may not accept targeted donations due to anti- corruption law.

<comment> mellow-lake-day Apparently it's legal in some cases when you give it directly to people

>Buried in the campaign finance reports available to the public are some troubling connections between a group of wealthy donors with ties to Russia and their political contributions to President Donald Trump and a number of top Republican leaders. And thanks to changes in campaign finance laws, the political contributions are legal.

[https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/05/08/put...](https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/05/08/putins- proxies-helped-funnel-millions-gop-campaigns)

<comment><USER12> This partisan op-ed is barely tangentially related to the OP. So tired of seeing worn out sensationalist divisive news where it obviously doesn't belong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As long as it is not Jupiter's Europa, because, as we know, we should leave it alone.

</comment><comment><USER14> When did we start calling them drones instead of probes?

<comment><USER15> Because it will fly around.

<comment><USER16> The headline says they'll land it though.

<comment><USER15> It's going to land and then fly to a new location from time to time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >But incorporating extraterrestrial drone technology is a means to an end, not the final goal.

they are really trolling the crackpots here by saying _incorporating_ instead of _implementing_ extraterrestrial drone technology...

</comment><comment><USER18> Well, I really hope they actually decide to do this then, as the concept of YAML (Yet Another Mars Lander, also a serialization language) is starting to bore me. Call me jaded, but I'm a bit tired of looking at pictures of dusty red rocks. I'm ready for the Spaceman Spiff landscapes and aliens surely to be found on the moons of the gas giants. Bring it NASA.

Yes I realize the other option detailed in the article is a comet sample return. Meh, some comets do that for free you know? I say at this point, go big or stay on Earth.

<comment><USER19> > _the concept of YAML (Yet Another Mars Lander, also a serialization > language) is starting to bore me. Call me jaded, but I 'm a bit tired of > looking at pictures of dusty red rocks_

They aren't doing it for the pictures of rocks, these missions have science goals you know.

<comment><USER18> Detailed study of dusty red rocks is all fine and dandy, but I don't think anyone is clamoring to land a man on Mars for #ScienceGoals. The most inspiring space achievements have all been trailblazing, and visually iconic. Think of Earthrise from Apollo 8, first Man on the Moon photo from Apollo 11, the lunar rover, the Blue Marble, the Space Shuttle itself, images from Hubble, landing 2 SpaceX rocket boosters at the same time etc. The Viking landings on Mars count too as well as the first rovers, but we're far into diminishing returns territory at this point.

Given the reality of a limited budget, I'd prefer to see those resources spent towards doing something new, more challenging, and more interesting; such as landing on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn (or even a more durable modern lander/drone on Venus). Also I think there is plenty of science to be had on a geologically active moon with a significant atmosphere.

<comment><USER20> In the real. of achievable but not yet done, I want a Neptune and/or Uranus orbiter.

A Neptune orbiter could give us a detailed look at both an ice giant and it's dwarf-planet-sized moon Triton, believed to be a captured KBO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> 0.14g surface gravity and 1.45 times earth's atmospheric density might make this a very good way to get around.

Edit: The low wattage of RTGs strikes again. This thing will do one hop every Titan day (16 Earth days) [0].

Edit 2: I'm conflating atmospheric pressure and density. However, it appears to have a 98.4% nitrogen atmosphere, so that seems reasonable.

[0]: [http://dragonfly.jhuapl.edu/What-Is- Dragonfly/](http://dragonfly.jhuapl.edu/What-Is-Dragonfly/)

<comment><USER22> This is why we need the kilopower.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is amazing, and it makes so much sense. I hope this project gets off the ground (ha!). I want to know if there's animo acids or RNA floating around that lake.

</comment><comment><USER24> I would personally find more interest in an exploratory pit mine on the moon.

</comment><comment><USER25> Drone? Can it fly? Is it a quad copter?

Why are we calling rover deones now? Clickbait?

<comment><USER26> > Can it fly?

Yes.

> Is it a quad copter?

No; current designs are showing it to be an octocopter.</comment></comment>


Falling in Love with Statistics: Shaping Students' Relationships with Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientia.global/professor-lisa-dierker-falling-love-statistics-shaping-students-relationships-data <comment><AUTHOR> see: [http://passiondrivenstatistics.com/](http://passiondrivenstatistics.com/)</comment>


One percent of Googlers get to visit a data center, but I did - <AUTHOR> https://blog.google/inside-google/infrastructure/how-data-center-security-works/ <comment><USER2> I did not realize this was so rare; my whole team toured a Google data center just a couple of months after I began working there. Perhaps security has grown more stringent in the last eight years. It was interesting, to be sure. I was particularly struck by the amount of engineering that went into the cooling system. I had never really thought about that before.

The tour left me with a powerful, pit-of-the-stomach feeling that I had made a big mistake by going to work there. Wasn't the whole point of the PC revolution that we were going to do away with these sorts of massive, centrally-controlled institutions of computing, instead giving the power to the people...? How did we end up back here?</comment>


Ask HN: How do I disclose bugs to a company without a bug bounty program? - <AUTHOR> I recently found bug on a large (publicly traded) company's website that can lead to personal information exposure.  The bug allows you to gain a user's phone number and other personal information given only their email address.<p>What is the best way to contact this company and responsibly disclose these bug?  They have no bug bounty program, I cannot find a dedicated email address for the developer team, and I am reluctant to email their customer support.  Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> As anonymously as possible, IMO.

<comment><USER3> I agree, in the few cases I have seen the company gets angry.

<comment><USER4> It's saddening, really. Instead of hiring you, it seems as if they're doing everything they can to stifle, or even worse, sue you.

And if you're Slack, you just pretend like it's an undocumented feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > I am reluctant to email their customer support.

If this reluctance is out of security concerns, you could always ask for the best contact method to report security vulnerabilities _without_ disclosing the vulnerability to that email.

Plugging their website into [https://whois.icann.org/](https://whois.icann.org/) may give you some alternative contacts if you just hate customer service.

</comment><comment><USER6> Even though you're reluctant to email their support, you can contact them without disclosing the specific issue and just ask for their security contact (or a person who is authorized to handle this kind of issue). An alternative is to contact them by phone number, if they have one readily available. Also what MaulingMonkey pointed out, you can see if the whois gives you any more contact info.

</comment><comment><USER7> You could contact a well known security expert that does this kind of stuff professionally, unless you want to make a name for yourself.

</comment><comment><USER8> Post the exploit here. It will get to where it needs to go... eventually.

</comment><comment><USER9> Try emailing the CIO/CTO direct. You can look up his address here > [https://emailhunter.co/](https://emailhunter.co/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't. Hold them for ransom. Why do you want to do charity work for for-profit businesses?</comment>


Visit the World's Largest Model Railroad in Street View - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/13/you-can-now-visit-the-worlds-largest-model-railroad-in-street-view/?ncid=rss <comment><USER2> Worth a visit if you are in Hamburg!

The control room: [https://goo.gl/maps/PqBmK9vjX1G2](https://goo.gl/maps/PqBmK9vjX1G2)

<comment><USER3> I totally loved this place. I could have stayed the entire day if the rest of my family would have let me.

If you swivel 180 degrees, note the locker with the multi-colored doors. Inside each door is a charging cable for a type of camera or smartphone. You can stand there and get a quick refill of your device, or put €1 in the slot and leave it for a while.

It's the neatest thing I've ever seen in a tourist attraction. Haven't seen it much of anywhere else.

<comment><USER4> This is exactly why I travel alone.

<comment><USER3> Well, my son asked to go because he wanted to see the new airport addition (and it's insanely cool). I'm the one that had to be dragged out at the end because I get way into the mechanics of the attraction.

<comment><USER4> Oh, I just mean that the reason I travel alone is so that I have complete freedom to spend all day in a place like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you get a chance to visit a giant miniature railway like this, do so. They are marvelously complicated pieces of machinery combined with hand crafted works of art to build the city and scenery on top.

And if you get a chance to peek in the control room to see what makes these things tick, take it. I took a peek to a control room of a much smaller railway set than the one in the article and it was impressive. About a few dozen monitors that display the entire track network and every train and vehicle on the tracks.

The railway I visited was in Berlin, on the top floor of a mall in Alexanderplatz. It's the biggest miniature railway I've ever seen, but it's smaller than the one in the article.

</comment><comment><USER6> _" We're talking 13,000 kilometers of track [...] across a layout that's now takes up almost 14,000 square feet."_

That would be half a mile of track on each square feet; even 13 kilometer seems crowded to me.

Looking at their site, I learn it is 13 km on (1,300 square meters (14,000 square feet) plus lots of interconnections between the sections; a lot of that track is out of sight.

And by the way, their YouTube channel ([https://www.youtube.com/user/MiWuLaTV](https://www.youtube.com/user/MiWuLaTV)) is worth watching, in particular Gerrit's Tagebuch (diary) (edit: videos are German spoken)

</comment><comment><USER7> Anyone near Hamburg able to do this with Mapillary [1]?

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

</comment><comment><USER8> This is awesome! Especially that they spent time developing tiny street view cameras.

But why can't I move around? :-(

</comment><comment><USER9> They didn't blur faces and addresses! This must be in violation of some Privatrecht!

</comment><comment><USER10> Should've rendered a sky as background :)</comment>


Mermaid School' Makes a Splash in Spain - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/mermaid-school-makes-a-splash-in-spain-1440722589

<comment><USER2> > Once confined to aquatic shows or Hollywood movies, "mermaiding"—swimming > with a fish-shaped tail ...

For example, Weeki Wachee Springs in Florida (see [http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2068](http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2068) or [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeki_Wachee_Springs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeki_Wachee_Springs) ).

An ex-boss recounted how when she was growing up in north Florida, many girls her aged dreamed of being a mermaid, and would use a filled sink to practice holding their breath.</comment>


Ask HN: Working fully remotely as a QA and/or deaf person? - <AUTHOR> Preface: Commute 2h 1-way to Chicago half of the week, remote the other half.  Work in QA automation and am very good at what I do (finding bugs), in charge of a QA team.  May have opportunity to work full remote and want to.  I am deaf but have a cochlear implant - I can talk and hear well for the most part.
I communicate OK with my colleagues while at home on a 1:1 basis, talking over Slack or a video call.  My weakness is in a group setting when I am remote.  If I am present in person at a group meeting, my chances of understanding everything enough to answer QA related questions or enforce a culture of quality is high.  While I am remote, it is hard to both raise my voice to get my words in and also very hard to understand everything people are saying in a group meeting.  Even without group meetings, my level of contribution is high - but others feel differently and frequently want to schedule meetings with me being present in person.  I feel that if I go fully remote, they will be unable to cope.
1. Are there strategies on how to minimize group meetings or otherwise make them a bit more directed?  Is it awkward to do so just for one person (me) so I can perform better while remote?
2. In your experience, does working fully remotely impact my chances to keep being in charge of a team?
3. Do I even have a chance as a deaf person to find another remote QA job to keep doing what I do if this current job doesn't pan out forever?
I'm trying to find experiences with folks who have done any of those things:
- Worked remotely as a lead or have responsibilities related to "being in charge of a team"
- Worked with a remote deaf employee of any position
- Worked as a remote deaf employee of any position
Please offer your insights! <comment><USER2> I recently had some "how to run a meeting" training, maybe some ideas? This would be just thoughts I have maybe to make remote video/audio meetings work better. Honestly though, I'm just guessing. I'm not an expert (yet!)

Can you delegate the running of meetings to others in your team? Have meetings "chaired" by a different member of your team each time, they're in charge of keeping it to agenda, making sure everyone contributes, doesn't go too off topic, etc. Then they have free reign within that. Use it as a training / mentoring thing for them too.

Before each group meeting, you have a quick 1 on 1 with the meeting chair, let them know your direction, etc, and afterward to debrief if things go badly.

Also, have a PM window open to them during the meeting, and msg them if you need something clarified, or want to say something. I'm sure they'll be happy to ensure that happens. Teams look after each other.

One of the ideas from the meeting training I had was some companies have a "if there's no agenda and notes sent ahead of the meeting with enough time to read them all, then you aren't expected to show up".

Look for information about "Lean" meetings, maybe, there are a few different styles about.

I whole heartedly recommend getting in contact with Dan and Suzie Potter ( [https://duzie.com/](https://duzie.com/) ), they're fantastic coaches and team trainers, and excellent and giving out-of-the-box ideas.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you manage lot of bookmarks? - <AUTHOR> I have been adding around 20 bookmarks daily and its getting tough to manage all bookmarks. I normally use Firefox bookmark extension.
I often name a bookmark and then forget that name. Its a pain when you want to search for them because you dont remember what you named the bookmark.
For other services like pinboard, you have to tag it manually which is time consuming. I dont want to tag all bookmarks. Its kind of like distraction.
How do you deal with huge number of bookmarks? <comment><USER2> I use and love linklocker.co ! It's $12 yearly, but it's worth it! I think I have over 3000 links saved in there.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi! I have more 1800 bookmarks and use bubblehunt.com. It's search engine for your information, sync any amount of bookmarks and get access through simple search line.</comment>


Bitcoin Divided [audio] - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/06/29/484029238/episode-708-bitcoin-divided <comment><USER2> So this appears to be an ad for pay content. I really don't know what /free/ content to read and thus have an opinion.

<comment> chao- Did you click "listen"? That's the content (this is a podcast after all) and it's 18 minutes long. The text is just a summary.</comment></comment>


Intel Futurist Shows How You'll Download and Program Your Own Robot Next Year - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20130921/intel-futurist-shows-how-youll-download-and-program-your-own-robot-next-year/?mod=atd_homepage_carousel

<comment><USER2> I couldn't find anything in my brief search, but does anybody know how you'll program these robots?</comment>


Slack vs. Discord vs. Discourse - <AUTHOR> https://orbit.love/blog/slack-vs-discord-vs-discourse/ <comment><USER2> Author of the post here. We compared each platform across ~25 factors, looking specifically at their utility for communities of different shapes and sizes.</comment>


Most Corporate Blogs Are Unimaginative Failures - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/06/30/most-corporate-blogs-are-unimaginative-failures/

<comment><USER2> _Most Corporate X Are Unimaginative Failures_

For what values of X is the above not true? It can't be right to just assume the empty set, but...</comment>


Show HN: Anon – A Unix Command to Anonymise Data - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/intenthq/anon <comment><USER3> De-identification of data sets (like cryptography) is a very difficult problem.

It is great that people are building tools for this. Even if I were skeptical of one or another in particular, the availability of tools popularizes the discussion of what is necessary and sufficient for de-identifying data.

The main use case I worked on was how to test an event driven (SOA at the time) pipeline without production data. Health information handling is very tightly regulated, so generating a test data set large enough that reflected the needs of the system was a significant challenge. Engineers couldn't just copy some production data and use it for testing. The regime I worked in that defined these rules (early PHIPA, PIPEDA in Ontario) is not unlike what people may encounter with GDPR.

When I was doing this sort of work, I found that it made more sense to find the structure of the data, then synthesize it from scratch. For a data format like HL7, this is non-trivial.

Synthesizing a few gigabytes of json/xml/text from a small training corpus provides incomplete test data. There are a few companies in the de- identification business, and I remember a few consulting services for it.

I can think of a few ways to do this, and they aren't simple.

</comment><comment><USER4> How does this tool compare to other (libre) anonymization software programs, such as ARX [1]? From what I understand, there are only basic routines so to sample records and coarsen a few attributes (e.g. ZIP code, dates) implemented so far.

This might also not be sufficient to truly anonymize data, as a large body of research has shown so far [2,3,4]

[1] [https://arx.deidentifier.org](https://arx.deidentifier.org)

[2] [https://www.uclalawreview.org/pdf/57-6-3.pdf](https://www.uclalawreview.org/pdf/57-6-3.pdf)

[3] [http://randomwalker.info/publications/no-silver-bullet-de- id...](http://randomwalker.info/publications/no-silver-bullet-de- identification.pdf)

[4] [http://arxiv.org/abs/1712.05627](http://arxiv.org/abs/1712.05627)

<comment><USER5> Hey! I'm one of the co-maintainers of the project here.

What you see today in this project is really a means to scratch an itch we had - mainly to quickly and easily sample/obfuscate some delimited data in a way that is "good enough" for use for demonstrating a visualisation tool without using the original dataset. It's important to note that that we intend to use this data still within a secure environment.

This tool is absolutely not up to the task of anonymising a dataset in such a way as to make it able to be made public. For us, it's about risk management vs effort: from a security perspective there are scenarios where we can use samples of data that have gone through this process and decrease the risk of holding data in mutliplate places substantially without significant effort. If we were to go onto to make any of these datasets ultimately public, we'd be looking for a better suited tool.

As a result, tools like ARX are not something we really want to compete with - they're aiming for a complete solution whereby the results are good enough to potentially make public. It goes perhaps without saying really that the reality of this goal is debatable given the research you linked, but some people might be comfortable with those risks.

One thing we've done to try and bridge the gap a bit is to make it really easy to add new functions as we need them, and I think we can get to a point whereby for a good portion of use-cases this tool is good enough (for example, making datasets you can use in a development environment that are representative, but a manageable size and anonymised to a reasonable degree).

We'll also try to add something to the README addressing this exact question from you as it's one I anticipate we're going to get asked a lot - so thanks for the constructive line of questioning as it really will ultimately help us and people who choose to use this tool make a decision that's right for them and their use-cases.

<comment><USER6> I would recommend you make this clearer in the readme, as I wasn't left with the impression reading the documentation that the tool was for limited scenarios and scope.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The intent behind this tool seems good, but I don't think it's a good idea. To actually anonymize data requires semantic understanding of that data and an understanding of what sort of data, harmless by itself, is transmuted into identifying data when provided in the context of other otherwise harmless data.

This tool doesn't help you with any of that. It seems to be a glorified awk script. My concern is that helping the user with the _easiest_ part of anonymizing data stands to encourage the user to go full steam ahead without slowing down to stop and think very carefully about what they're doing.

<comment><USER5> Hey! I'm one of the co-maintainers of the project here. I've posted a very similar reply to a very similar comment below at [1], but to replay the main points:

We absolutely agree this tool only solves the easiest part of anonymising data, and internally we rely on our team of data scientists to do the difficult parts. This tool is absolutely not up to the task of anonymising a dataset in such a way as to make it able to be made public. For us, it's about risk management vs effort: from a security perspective there are scenarios where we can use samples of data that have gone through this process and decrease the risk of holding data internally in multiple places substantially without significant effort. If we were to go onto to make any of these datasets ultimately public, we'd be looking for a better suited tool (eg. ARX [2]).

Regarding one part of your comment:

> My concern is that helping the user with the easiest part of anonymizing > data stands to encourage the user to go full steam ahead without slowing > down to stop and think very carefully about what they're doing.

We're going to try to add something to the README addressing this exact question from both of you as it's one I anticipate we're going to get asked a lot - or one that carries risk if it's not made obvious form the outset - <USER2> thanks for the constructive line of questioning as it really will ultimately help us and people who choose to use this tool make a decision that's right for them and their use-cases.

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17144702](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17144702)

[2]: [https://arx.deidentifier.org](https://arx.deidentifier.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > anonymising ... columns until the output is useful for applications where > sensitive information cannot be exposed

This tool will not provide any significant amount of anonymity.

> rows to randomly sample ... hash (using ... 32 bits) the column ... mod the > result by the [constant] value

This is not random. It deterministically selects the same very predictable fraction of rows.

> UK format postcode (eg. W1W 8BE) and just keeps the outcode (eg. W1W)

> Given a date, just keep the year

Partial postal codes and dates quantized to the year are still _very_ revealing. Combined with other data (such as a hashed name), the partial postal code may allow a lot of people to be uniquely identified.

> Hash (SHA1) the input

 _Hashing does not provide anonymity. Substituting a candidate key with the hash of the key is usually a 1-to-1 map that is often trivial to reverse. It isn 't hard to iterate through e.g. all possible names, postal codes, license plates, or other short-ish strings to find a matching SHA1.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/poorly- anonymize...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/poorly-anonymized- logs-reveal-nyc-cab-drivers-detailed-whereabouts/)

The salt _might* provide some resistance to per-computed tables, but a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti running hashcat can search for matching SHA1 at over 11 GH/s (giga-hashes per second). That means that a single 1080 Ti running for ~3-4 hours would not only discover _not only_ that SHA1("hasselhof") == ffe3294fad149c2dd3579cb864a1aebb2201f38d; it would exhaustively search all 10 character or smaller lowercase strings.

> range

This is the only feature that could provide anonymity, if it is used correctly to group large numbers of individuals into the same bucket. This is probably more difficult that it first appears.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, one of the co-maintainers here. Thanks for your comments.

>> rows to randomly sample ... hash (using ... 32 bits) the column ... mod the result by the [constant] value

> This is not random. It deterministically selects the same very predictable > fraction of rows.

Yep, you are right. We didn't intend the sampling function to be part of the anonymisation but just something we tend to use and we thought it would be useful to have it.

Its objective is to pick a portion of the input data. No more.

>> UK format postcode (eg. W1W 8BE) and just keeps the outcode (eg. W1W)

>> Given a date, just keep the year

> Partial postal codes and dates quantized to the year are still very > revealing. Combined with other data (such as a hashed name), the partial > postal code may allow a lot of people to be uniquely identified.

You are absolutely right. Depending on the use case and your data, having the outcode, the city or the year might be very revealing. In some other cases even having decades or centuries might be revealing.

We don't pretend that each function provided applies to all use cases. But in certain use cases partial postcodes or years can be good enough.

>> Hash (SHA1) the input

> Hashing does not provide anonymity.

We are very aware of that. That's why we offer the option to add a salt (that the user of the tool can make as long as possible and throw away after the anonymisation process).

>> range

> This is the only feature that could provide anonymity, if it is used > correctly to group large numbers of individuals into the same bucket. This > is probably more difficult that it first appears.

We usually work with sets of data that are tens of millions of users. Choosing the right ranges and, specially, analysing the data and making sure you anonymise the outliers (by choosing your bottom and top ranges carefully) it's crucial.

Again, this tool is a hammer. We expect a person that understands about wood and nails to analyse their problem and use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Json for a config that's intended to be used by humans is an abomination.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, one of the co-maintainers of the project here. And the one that decided to use json.

I agree with you. there are other options for configuration that are much better than json (yaml, toml).

Main reason for chosing json was simplicity. This was my first project in go and I didn't want to spend much time in it either. I found an example that was using json and I saw that I didn't need any external library to decode it. I thought that was good enough, at least for now.

Will probably look into using a library that supports yaml/toml for configuration in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Good idea. You should add a preview of before and after the anonymisation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip. We plan to add an examples folder. We'll add a preview too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why is it a UNIX tool? What makes it UNIX? Would it not work on e.g. Windows?

<comment><USER12> It ostensibly is a tool that follows the model/philosophy of unix: ie, a command line utility that does one thing well, inputs and outputs are text so they can be piped together, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Slightly related: Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit [https://mat.boum.org/](https://mat.boum.org/) (which seems to be in need of contributors)

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm surprised it doesn't support anonymisation of IP adresses. That would be pretty much the first feature I'd implement.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the idea. We don't support anonymisation of IP addresses because it's not in any of our use cases yet. But I've already added an issue to address it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Now that homomorphic encryption exists, why is data anonymization still a desired thing?

<comment><USER16> Do you have a pointer for a real life example?</comment></comment>


Apple's next-gen Macs to have something special under the hood - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/07/28/apples_next_gen_macs_to_have_something_special_under_the_hood.html <comment><USER2> A lot of the rumor seems like bunk, but I still think that apple is going to be coming out with new laptops _just_ after their free iPod Touch student special. I think I'm going to buy a macbook with an ipod touch on like, sept. 15th and if they come out with new laptops in september still, just return it and get the new laptop. I'd love a new macbook form factor - Its just not quite what I want now, but if they made it a little smaller and lighter, with a better screen i'd buy it right now.

</comment><comment><USER3> When Apple uses standard technology they leave themselves open to competition from clones. I think this is a strategic move to avoid that possibility.

<comment><USER4> The only thing that Apple has done that successfully prevented competition from clones was to sue them. Their proprietary architecture has been cloned more than once in the past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is something very suspicious about this article that I can't quite put my finger on. Everyone is looking forward to the Montevina chipset because it uses 30% less power, so when a rumor like this is leaked without the official story it creates fear and uncertainty that the new MBs and MBPs won't come with these benefits. Perhaps a competitor is hoaxing the rumor sites to spread FUD?

<comment><USER6> My interpretation of the story is that Apple will use something _better_ than Montevina (perhaps a chipset which runs on RDF instead of electricity). I consider that extremely unlikely.

<comment><USER4> That's what it sounded like the author was trying to say, but I think you're right, it's very unlikely.

If Apple is doing anything with PA Semi's technology, I'd expect a mobile device with more horsepower than we're accustomed to seeing.

It could be possible however to use PA Semi's technology as an extra processor to service things like video encode/decode, physics, etc. Or even a TV tuner, for that matter.

And there are of course other possibilities as well, but I don't have all day to type this :)

<comment><USER6> OpenCL suggests that Apple would prefer to perform video encode/decode, physics, etc. on the GPU. It's logical, since the GPU is already paid for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Apple did buy PA Semi chip designer just a few months ago. My guess is that they are using it to add custom functionality to their hardware (both in terms of features and lower power consumption).

[http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/04/23/apple-buys- pasem...](http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/04/23/apple-buys-pasemi-tech- ebiz-cz_eb_0422apple.html)</comment>


Refactoring Towards Language - <AUTHOR> https://blog.metaobject.com/2018/11/refactoring-towards-language.html <comment><USER3> > How can we [...]

One thought-provoking prompt (from a bar conversation at SPLASH last week) is "with a sufficiently powerful __editor__ we could ..." It seemed a form of "what does a collaborative compilation environment look like... with an editor-like ui?" Here, it suggests reversible metaprogramming as presentation. You open your generic ObjC file, and your editor improves readability - <USER2> colorizing syntax, and collapsing hierarchy to outline, and... performing the code transformations described to hide boilerplate.

</comment><comment><USER4> > As is typical when you remove duplication, you notice more duplication, > because stuff is closer together: the two parameters are almost identical, > except for capitalisation. This doesn't have to be the case, but it is a > good convention to have. Alas, the pre-processor can't change the > capitalisation of strings so we are stuck.

If you're at the point where you're using the processor, a bit of runtime trickery might be useful as well; specifically, NSSelectorFromString([CFSTR(commonName ":") lowercaseString]). You get an extra method call at runtime, but honestly, what's an extra couple nanoseconds?

<comment><USER5> Losing tbe ability to grep for usage, for one. And creating another abstraction simply to save typing. I've done similar things in thr past and have regretted it every single time. Just be explicit, it will be okay.

<comment><USER4> > Losing tbe ability to grep for usage, for one.

Grep for what? You should still see the outer macro; this just saves you from typing essentially the same parameter twice.</comment></comment></comment>


Ruby 2.2.1 Released - <AUTHOR> https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/news/2015/03/03/ruby-2-2-1-released/

<comment><USER2> Ruby is a Japanese product, the Japanese culture is "to live for the surrounded first, then for yourself", so i'm not surprised with continuous Ruby update through years. Thank you all Ruby developers!

<comment><USER3> It is an insanely well-managed product (IMO).

<comment><USER4> I believe it's a fairly poorly managed project, by looking at objective measures:

* Key documents are inaccessible to majority of potential contributors because they're only in Japanese.

* Releases are not semantic versioned. E.g., the second level version number is simply an indicator that another Christmas has passed. It's not an indicator of any semantics.

* Press releases are untruthful and self-deceptive: "Ruby is now semantically versioned". On discussion with the core devs on this issue, they declare that semver actually isn't important. So, which is it?

* A closed, insular development process with no public roadmap, and terse release notes. Cf. Python.

I could go on. But these items alone are good evidence that the project is not "insanely well managed."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For all the complaints about CRuby, the recent years have been under the sign of steady improvement, on a predictable schedule. A new version on Christmas, patch version around February/March.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is there a roundup of what's in this other than the GC fix on symbols? Or is that the only change of note?

<comment><USER7> The changelog? Perhaps the _two_ listed fixed issues (ffi build failure, Symbol GC memory leak) were just the most important ones according to the maintainer.

<comment><USER6> Some others:

 __Fix dependencies to make bigdecimal installable by rubygems

 __some updates to rb_hash_delete

 __" restrict searching case-insensitive name from the filesystem to only last part, for the performance"

 __file.c (rb_file_expand_path_internal): drop characters ignored by filesystem on Mac OS X.

 __A GC fix on Solaris

 __" DNS is case-insensitive, so the comparison should be case-insensitive as well"

 __Some other OS specific fixes

 __Misc

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great project that produced a great product.

<comment><USER9> What product is that? Basecamp? Shopify? If you're referring to a framework, that's a "project" too :-)

<comment><USER10> The reference Ruby interpreter. :)</comment></comment></comment>