Google to Sell Zagat to The Infatuation, an Upstart Review Site - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/business/dealbook/zagat-google-infatuation.html <comment><USER2> CTO of The Infatuation here. We're excited to get rolling on this and have some really unique challenges ahead to extract Zagat from internal Google technology. Feel free to reach out with any questions.

If you want to help us tackle this, check out our openings on our Engineering team: [https://www.theinfatuation.com/careers](https://www.theinfatuation.com/careers)

<comment><USER3> What precisely are you guys doing to ensure review authenticity? This is the number one reason I ignore all reviews all the internet but Yelp.

<comment><USER4> Really? I find even Yelp reviews low quality in general, so I use older methods (food forums like Chowhound or eGullet, some bloggers I'm familiar with, sometimes even newspaper critics) to find restaurants.

Too many Yelp reviewers take off points for feeling disrespected in odd ways or don't know much about food to begin with. I don't really trust a completely random person's opinion on food, so I prefer going to the "hobbyists" (forums). These people have their own biases, but the base level of knowledge and care is much higher.

Plus Yelp has a bad history (edit: disputed below) of extorting money from businesses by controlling which of their reviews show up.

<comment><USER5> _" Plus Yelp has a bad history of extorting money from businesses by controlling which of their reviews show up."_

No, they don't. This is a rumor that is often repeated, but is never backed with evidence that goes beyond hearsay.

Also, I worked at Yelp, on the systems in question, and I can tell you that it's false.

<comment><USER4> The evidence against Yelp seems to amount to a (from what I can tell sizeable) population of small business owners who claim that Yelp 1. is extremely aggressive about selling its advertising services (perhaps annoying, but not criminal) and 2. responds to failure to buy these services by filtering or deleting positive reviews.

Now, this evidence exists mostly in hearsay-type form: blog posts, forum posts, huge reddit threads. You can find similar stuff for BBB and Angie's List. There are also a couple thousand FTC complaints against Yelp, at least.

Yelp has turned these attacks away in court, but the (apparent) last ruling on this seemed to come down to an inability on the plaintiffs' side to prove Yelp actually changes review visibility based on advertising [1].

It seems silly to believe random people on the internet over tossed lawsuits and a dropped FTC investigation. But I see this as the likely result of Yelp being cagey about how reviews and advertising interact, and being able to hide behind a policy that promises a scrupulous approach and proprietary algorithms. It's not like I'm using Reddit posts to support anti-vax arguments, small business owners can definitely reason about how Yelp operates from their interactions with it.

[1] [https://www.wired.com/2015/11/people-keep-suing-yelp-over- it...](https://www.wired.com/2015/11/people-keep-suing-yelp-over-its-reviews- and-keep-losing/)

<comment><USER5> _" Now, this evidence exists mostly in hearsay-type form: blog posts, forum posts, huge reddit threads. You can find similar stuff for BBB and Angie's List. There are also a couple thousand FTC complaints against Yelp, at least."_

No, the "evidence" exists _entirely_ in hearsay form. All you ever see are stories about parents, friends of friends, distant cousins, and so on. There's almost never so much as _a link to the business page._ Why? Because it's trivial to debunk these claims when you can see the reviews.

 _" It seems silly to believe random people on the internet over tossed lawsuits and a dropped FTC investigation."_

Not just silly, but absurd. It's internet conspiracy theory, and people are just thoughtlessly repeating it as fact.

 _" But I see this as the likely result of Yelp being cagey about how reviews and advertising interact, and being able to hide behind a policy that promises a scrupulous approach and proprietary algorithms."_

If Yelp revealed how reviews are filtered, the filters would be rendered useless overnight. It would be the equivalent of Google publicly documenting their search algorithm. And while I think Yelp does many things badly when it comes to this stuff, they're 100% clear about how reviews and ads interact: they don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is interesting. What's the data use agreement like on this sale? Does google get to retain all of Zagat's historical data? Or is it sold to the Infatuation?

They just bought Zagat in 2011, so selling it so quickly seems odd. It's an undisclosed amount, so I assume it's at a loss from its $151M purchase. I hope it eventually becomes public knowledge through Google's SEC filings.

If this is just a way to buy deep data sets, then this makes sense. $150M for likely the best training set for food review in existence makes sense and therefore isn't Google stupidly investing in review sites. It would also explain the buy and sell technique used on Boston Dynamics, Moto, and others.

<comment><USER7> If they are using the data internally (e.g. for ML training), they can get away with not buying it. They already scrape every website in existence and feed their data to ML training algorithms, it's not like Google needs to pay for a data set just to use it internally.

<comment><USER8> Publishing something does not make it public domain. I am not a lawyer, but saying they can do anything with what they scrape seems questionable.

<comment><USER7> I mean in practice they can get away with it. As of now, there are no audit trails required for training of machine learning algorithms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So - Zagat and the Infatuation have a reputation for quality over quantity, and function more as "restaurant guides" than "review services", such as Yelp (fwiw, Yelp sucks).

I'd wager that Google doesn't have a platform like this in its corporate strategy. What other high (-er) quality, curated content does Google provide? I suppose a case could be made for its SEO algorithms (if you call that curating), but I feel that has more applications for its existing review service than something like Zagat.

<comment><USER2> Don't have too much context on high (er) quality content in the rest of Google's portfolio, but we definitely were drawn to Zagat and saw it as a great counterpart to The Infatuation for exactly this reason. Quality over quantity will remain our principle strategy to tackling this space, but we will be exploring new avenues to scale this out more broadly with Zagat moving forward.

<comment><USER10> Truth be told, I haven't heard of The Infatuation until today. However, I have heard of Zagat and imbue a level of trust with that brand name. I may not represent your main target audience, but I've done many searches for restaurant recommendations, mostly on Yelp (with the appropriate grain of salt). Now, I'm curious - has the idea of fully assuming the Zagat name been kicked around? It's been a while since the Google acquisition, however, it's been around so long that there's still good name recognition.

<comment><USER2> Really looking to make the brands symbiotic. A model we're drawing from is Rotten Tomatoes where The Infatuation is the critic score and Zagat is the community score.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Woah this is really cool! I'm a huge fan of The Infatuation. It's solving a really important need on the internet - quality reviews from trusted sources that you actually want to read.

<comment><USER12> Hopeful for this. Google seemed to leave Zagat to wither at first. They eventually did fix some things but it clearly hasn't been getting a lot of TLC. I usually find Zagat more concise and reliable than other sites. I'm probably a better match for their historical demographic from the guidebook days than Yelp, etc.

Wasn't aware of The Infatuation. Will have to check out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm glad about this. When Google bought Zagat, they basically sat on it for a few years, batted it around a little, and let it go. It's lost a lot of its positive reputation. I'm glad to have it be in better hands.

</comment><comment><USER14> I recently used the Infatuation, hopefully they can get a better breadth of reviewers and hopefully calibrate to your tastes i.e. pick a few restaurants that are 10 and calibrate to a reviewer from there.

For instance, the Slanted Door review by Max Child...mentions nothing of the history of the place and the head chef Charles Phan, instead commenting on "back in 1995, upscale Asian food in a shiny setting was a new and exciting concept, and these guys jumped on the opportunity" which is borderline offensive. Nor did it mention the fast-food side restaurant with great options. And the juvenile writing style was very off-putting. Disclaimer: I'm Viet and grew up near Little Saigon.

At least in SF I tried and uninstalled The Infatuation because it was dominated by this single reviewer that I disliked. Reviewer calibration would be absolutely killer if they could make it work.

</comment><comment><USER15> Question: How does the Infatuation make money? I see they've only raised $3.5mm in seed funding, but over the last few years, they've been blowing up the restaurant review industry.

<comment><USER2> Our main source of revenue right now is through partnerships with brands who we see as sharing in our values. We have always believed that by providing quality content and by keeping our partnerships no bullsh*t and to brands that gel with us and that we believe our users will legitimately be interested in, our user base would remain loyal and interested in what we and our brand partners have to say. That model has worked for us to grow well into profitability.

<comment><USER16> Is brand partner another word for advertiser/marketer?

I see a couple image ads on the reviews, but I doubt that brings in much revenue. So are doing things like product placement/mentions in-article?

I hope you don't accept money from anybody pushing you to review particular restaurants.

<comment><USER2> Our deals with partners are a combination of integrated content (API), events and branded content.

We respond to RFPs from brands with a proposal of how we would help them reach their goals and then execute it. Examples of brands we've worked with are Amex, Delta, Caviar, etc.

We never accept money from restaurants or groups representing their interests, something we really try to hammer home in our review ride-alongs on Instagram.

<comment><USER17> So would this be more of the original Buzzfeed model then where brands would get sponsored posts written for them, and then Buzzfeed would handle the marketing of said post?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Zagat... Wow. There's a name that was once synonymous with the PalmPilot.

</comment><comment><USER19> Pretty cool. I always suspected Google really bought Zagat in the first place because it was easier than evicting them from 111 8th, Google's NYC HQ. Zagat was a tenant when Google bought that building a few years back.

Spotify was too. Wonder if there were ever talks of a buyout.

<comment><USER20> That's not true, Zagat was in Columbus Circle. They moved months after the acquisition.

Spotify was subleasing space from someone else in the building, something that the owners, Google themselves, did not know and most likely did not appreciate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What a title.

</comment><comment><USER22> What's up with Google selling all these cool properties? Are they running out of money? :). More likely it's just management getting too short sighted for creative and quirky startups to thrive or even survive there. May be thanks to Ruthless Ruth and clueless Rosenstein blessed with penny pincher Page. I've heard stories about Boston Dynamics being treated with such a heavy hand to contribute to bottom line and give up on their long term vision that they rather just wanted out. Google used to be a very cool company. It stopped being cool on the day Boston Dynamics left the building.

<comment><USER23> Google doesn't need (and shouldn't try) to do everything.

Google is much less of a "penny pincher" nowadays compared to when they were small and far too scrappy. Google R&D has increased by 233% in the last 5 years and has gone up even as a proportion of revenue (12.9% in FY13 vs 15.0% in FY17).</comment></comment>


Putative class action against PayPal for holding sellers' money - <AUTHOR> http://www.complexlitgroup.com/PayPal-Holding-Money.shtml <comment><USER2> Some law firm seems to attempt this very same class action suit every year, all the way back to the original case in 2002 that was settled with no admission of wrongdoing. This firm's the proud owner of this domain from 2010: <http://www.letssuepaypal.com/>

I don't think any of these cases have gone anywhere. All banks offering Visa/MC card acceptance have the same "we'll hold your funds for 180 days if we close your account for risk/fraud reasons" term in their contracts, the same as PayPal's User Agreement. Doesn't seem to be illegal.

<comment><USER3> sure, but you should be able to have _some_ kind of recourse to be able to dispute the fraud allegations, right?

<comment><USER2> No, I don't believe you should have that. PayPal can choose who it wants to do business with, the same as you or anyone else. If they've closed your account and held the funds, it's because they decided there is too much risk associated with doing business with you. A process to dispute the decision not to do business with you, with the possibility of winning the dispute, is tantamount to forcing two parties into a contract, which goes against the very spirit of contract law -- that of agreement between two parties to enter into the arrangement.

They hold on to any funds still in your balance for only as long as it takes to ensure you can cover chargebacks and reversals on your own payments, then disburse them to you and your relationship is ended. I don't think adding a dispute process to this would better the situation. It may be frustrating to have someone decide not to do business with you, but it's not illegal, and shouldn't be something you can dispute.

<comment><USER4> Financial industry is strictly regulated. Otherwise, imagine what would happen if banks could freeze your accounts freely, leaving you out without any means to pay for food or housing. Paypal could be that for larger merchants who could have substantial part of their assets tied up at Paypal.

What I find interesting is that Paypal is essentially a bank, yet it's completely unregulated.

<comment><USER2> But there is no regulation on banks that would affect this policy. Actual banks that offer merchant accounts do the exact same thing. They can and do freeze your merchant account freely, leaving you with no access to any undisbursed funds.

I've been through this myself. I had a merchant account about 8 years ago, underwritten by First National Bank of Omaha (the largest private bank in the United States). I got a couple large, unexpected chargebacks all at once from a single scammer that used multiple stolen cards. FNBO decided to create a reserve on my account for several days while they reviewed my account, then decided to terminate it due to the chargebacks. They held several thousand dollars of my money for exactly 180 days before returning it to me. That's money I needed to pay vendors and pay my bills - and it was perfectly legal for this regulated bank to hold it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yawn.

Wake me up when I can join a class action suit against lawyers who chase high profile cases, win mega payouts for themselves, and leave the harmed with $1 checks or worthless discount vouchers.

I long ago stopped wasting time reading most class action lawsuit participation notices I receive.

<comment><USER6> > _Wake me up when I can join a class action suit against lawyers who chase > high profile cases, win mega payouts for themselves, and leave the harmed > with $1 checks or worthless discount vouchers._

This makes the assumption that the only reason to join a class action suits is to be compensated or make money.

How about to punish the entity that did you harm and stop it from doing it in the future? I could not care less if I made $0 on such a class action, if the end result was that PayPal was forced to reconsider it's ways.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. I have especially despised Paypal/eBay since they started doing this and I don't care that lawyers make tons of money on this so long as Paypal is punished and learns a lesson.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Only a Freelancer would understand how shitty and shady Paypal's actions are. I hope someone else better than them replaces them soon and hope this case buries Paypal into the ground. They offer the highest transaction rates and lowest currency conversion rates...one of the shittiest companies I've ever dealt with.

<comment><USER9> Have you found any better alternatives out there? I'm planning to start freelancing again and was planning to use Paypal.

<comment><USER10> Stripe will probably beat PayPal if it finds a way to expand internationally quickly.

<comment><USER11> Stripe seems to be the perfect one, wepay looks like a great competitor to PayPal, in fact all the great payment processing companies are US only, I'm desperate finding a good solution available in europe, working in France as far as I'm concerned. Finaly, I'll go with PayPal, just because it's the only one working worlwide without a merchant account.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Daily Crowdfunder - <AUTHOR> http://dailycrowdfunder.com/

<comment><USER2> Nice work on the responsiveness, guys! Fun idea this. Gonna follow for sure.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really like the campaigns you've highlighted.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, appreciate it! A new one on a daily basis from now on.</comment></comment>


How to grow a lawn quickest way? - <AUTHOR> Any ideas and suggestions on how to grow a lawn quickest, without rolling out grass? <comment><USER2> You can buy these rolls of fiber that have seeds embedded in them, along with fertilizer etc. You roll them out, sprinkle with a light earth cover and water. The fiber keps birds off and mainatins water and resists rain washouts. glance through these. Of course, you are limited to the grass biologically limited growth rate. [https://www.google.com/search?q=grass+seed+rolls&oq=grass+se...](https://www.google.com/search?q=grass+seed+rolls&oq=grass+seed+rolls&aqs=chrome..69i57.4015j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)</comment>


Nasal vaccine for Alzheimer's cuts atrophied brain matter in mice - <AUTHOR> http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13273986 <comment><USER2> Actual article [it's open access]: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-020-0172-y](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-020-0172-y)

Pleasantly surprised to see that it's not yet another amyloid-targeting approach that works great in mice but will inevitably bomb in humans (just like the last dozen Aß trials).

<comment><USER3> It seems amply demonstrated that the mouse model of the disease is different enough from the actual disease that any given mouse result tells us nothing about the disease, or what may cause or cure it.

But there are very many researchers who know a great deal about the mouse model. It is not clear whether. any know about the human disease; or, if any do, whether the mouse modelers pay them any attention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The interesting part to me is that its nasally administered. Weren't we just reading in another article about Alzheimer's patients having some vulnerability in the upper nose. As well as also usually having some infection like herpes, where here a vaccine seems to provoke a good response to a condition like infection?

<comment><USER5> At least half of Americans have some form of herpes infection.

<comment><USER6> 10% of those over 65 have Alzheimer's in the US, and growing. It's not unreasonable to investigate a link, and indeed researchers (finally, depending on your bias) are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I remember when google went on an AI buying spree with DeepMind, and other professors, etc being hired. Why isn't sergeibrin buying up these professors? His fam hx and interest in this field are at odds with the lack of headlines of google pursuing this area of interest.

</comment><comment><USER8> Relevant: [https://podcastnotes.org/portal-with-eric-weinstein/bret- eri...](https://podcastnotes.org/portal-with-eric-weinstein/bret-eric- weinstein-portal-lab-mice-telomeres/)

Link to full podcast (highly recommended listening): [https://open.spotify.com/episode/0pSAI6UqXc2yLTdk2x4mZE](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0pSAI6UqXc2yLTdk2x4mZE)

<comment><USER9> Was going to link to The Portal podcast as well, then saw your comment.

Related reading for anyone wanting a quick introduction to Bret's theory re: the efficacy of generational laboratory mice as test subjects:

\- [https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_1352201](https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_1352201) \- [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11909679/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11909679/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It should be noted that the standard mouse Alzheimer's models have proven pretty useless over the last 25 years. So far, I'm pretty sure 100% of Alzheimer's treatment has failed in trials.

</comment><comment><USER11> Bears repeating. Just because it works in a mouse doesn't meant it will work in humans.

If you did have a pet mouse, i think we cured every alignment it could ever get.

<comment><USER12> Most of the diseases we treat in mouse are "mouse-models" i.e. genetically engineered in the first place for the purpose of experiments, which may be completely different from the actual disease in humans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> These optimistic studies is used to get investor money. While it is good, they are not headed in the right direction with the beta-amyloid theories.

<comment><USER13> The beta amyloid fan boys are out to down vote</comment></comment>


uLisp: Lisp for microcontrollers - <AUTHOR> http://www.ulisp.com/show?3J <comment><USER2> I'm impressed that they seem to have managed to get a mark-sweep GC to work with only 2K of RAM. Or does it use a special non-GC mode with small amounts of RAM?

<comment><USER3> They've used the classic technique of the bottom bit of the car pointer. The code is easy enough to read: [https://github.com/technoblogy/ulisp/blob/master/ulisp.ino](https://github.com/technoblogy/ulisp/blob/master/ulisp.ino)

        #define mark(x)            (car(x) = (object *)(((uintptr_t)(car(x))) | MARKBIT))
        #define unmark(x)          (car(x) = (object  *)(((uintptr_t)(car(x))) & ~MARKBIT))
        #define marked(x)          ((((uintptr_t)(car(x))) & MARKBIT) != 0)
        #define MARKBIT 1

<comment><USER2> Marking isn't the problem. It's fitting a minor + major heap into 2K. In my (small, but not very optimized) ML implementation a useful minor heap is probably min 64K.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Iwan-Zotow If you have some space to spare, consider femtolisp: [https://github.com/JeffBezanson/femtolisp](https://github.com/JeffBezanson/femtolisp)

<comment><USER4> What does femtolisp have compared to ulisp?

Also there is this board, Lisp Badge that runs ulisp and has a keyboard and screen on the pcb board!

[http://www.technoblogy.com/show?2AEE](http://www.technoblogy.com/show?2AEE)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm curious how uLisp compares to esp-lisp ([https://github.com/yesco/esp- lisp](https://github.com/yesco/esp-lisp)) on the esp32, which appears to be the most performant of the microcontrollers listed.

</comment><comment><USER6> Related: A Common LISP for embedded systems. Prof. Rod Brooks (MIT) [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2949173_L_-- _A_Comm...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2949173_L_-- _A_Common_Lisp_for_Embedded_Systems)

developed for building robots using the Moto68332 with 32K of memory, but will work down to about 10K.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have always wanted something like this. I can't really build this myself because I have no hardware skills.

<comment><USER8> If you have the desire, there has never been a better time to learn!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Enjoyed the introduction to uLisp a lot. The author is also a very good teacher and writer.

</comment><comment><USER10> From 2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11777662](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11777662)

</comment><comment><USER11> Requires a princely 32K, or less than their logo.

<comment><USER12> Drat, and here I was hoping to get it running on an unexpanded 16K Speccy...

<comment><USER13> There's always [http://blog.funcall.org/lisp/2015/10/30/zx-spectrum- lisp/](http://blog.funcall.org/lisp/2015/10/30/zx-spectrum-lisp/)</comment></comment></comment>


Huawei: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with China's tech giant - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48363772 <comment><USER2> If there was one thing which was going to accelerate RISC-V development and adoption at Huawei, this would be it.

Edit: Though thinking about it, even though RISC-V is an open ISA, how much could it be considered a "US origin technology" given its roots at UC Berkley? Anyone more knowedgable care to weigh in?</comment>


The Multiverse as Muse - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/48/chaos/the-multiverse-as-muse <comment><USER2> Well that ended rather abruptly - where is the rest of the article? The remaining paragraphs must be made of type 2 particles.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is the existence of nautil.us an attempt to make many-worlds theories seem intellectually respectable? They seem to have some kind of mandate to publish at least eight multiverse stories every year.

<comment><USER4> There are multiple ways to interpret QM which all work out on paper and experimentally agree. There's nothing wrong with the "intellectual respectability" of non-Copenhagen interpretations, other than historical stigmata.

Edit: If you're worked up about "stigmata", just wait for "schemata", "indices", and "alumni".

<comment><USER5> >historical stigmata

I only point out typos that are silly, so with that in mind: Stigmata is where you develop sores or bleeding on your hands as some sort of weird solidarity with Jesus. I imagine that would make writing papers harder.

<comment><USER6> _stigmata_ is the plural form of _stigma_ , which is

        1 a archaic :  a scar left by a hot iron
          b         :  a mark of shame or discredit

[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stigmata](https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/stigmata)

<comment><USER7> The link you provided says

> "When the plural form stigmata is used, it usually refers to the nail wounds > on Christ's hands and feet, wounds which have sometimes reappeared on the > hands or feet of later worshippers such as St. Francis."

<comment><USER6> usually !~ (always|only). OP's usage was fine and the complainant looked more ignorant than petty.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Machine Learning's 'Amazing' Ability to Predict Chaos - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/machine-learnings-amazing-ability-to-predict-chaos-20180418/ <comment><USER2> Don't be too seduced by the enticing ideas at the end of the article. The disconnect here is that success in learning how to predict the results of an algorithmic simulation is not really indicative of how it would perform with the decidedly non-algorithmic natural behavior of weather or earthquakes, phenomena which don't operate in a closed system with predefined limits and parameters. It _sounds_ like the next step, but even if weather were reducible to machine-discoverable patterns, you first must face the need to collect an immense amount of high-resolution condition data from around the globe on an ongoing basis. I'm guessing our current mesh of satellites and weather stations, as impressive as it is, comes nowhere close to enough raw data to sufficiently feed the beast in this case. And even _that_ assumes that we _know about_ and can measure all of the factors that go into weather patterns. I sincerely doubt that's the case.

<comment><USER3> It's actually kind of unclear what it means to predict results from an algorithmic simulation. Surely that's just trying to use a different method to simulate the process?

I also don't see them mentioning anything about noise, so what exactly are they trying to achieve? Surely perfect prediction should already be possible, otherwise what are they comparing the output to?

<comment><USER4> Yeah, they're predicting the outcome of a chaotic but deterministic process based on the output data given.

Surely they're discovering hidden (or obvious) regularities based specifically on the process being deterministic.

As a counter example, the Smale Horseshoe [1] is an example of a inherently unpredictable map - it's approximately equivalent to choosing a real number "at random" and attempting to "predict" each digit as you find it. Sure, if some implementation has chosen a number with repeating digits, you can "predict" those digits but this would have nothing to do with being an oracle for algorithm itself.

More broadly, I think it's pretty established that any realistic model of weather is kind of an extension of this concept - it depends unstably on it's initial conditions (small changes in initial conditions result in large changes in final result after some period).

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

<comment><USER5> This interpretation sounds right to me. I found it cool that the article characterizes success in terms of prediction accuracy out to N "Lyapunov times", a concept that is supposed to incorporate the unpredictability of the system. So perhaps discovering these regularities proves that in this implementation, the true Lyapunov time is longer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can we have more publishing like Quanta magazine? It's just perfect in terms of reporting from the frontier, being easy to unsetstand, and not talking down to you.

<comment><USER7> It's funded by Jim Simons, of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies. A mathematician with money, trying to promote mathematics. Quanta magazine is a fantastic service.

But the other Renaissance magnate, Bob Mercer, as his own media hobby funded Breitbart News.

<comment><USER8> Yeah it's kind of sad to me. Quanta is amazing but I'm not sure if I could reasonably expect to exist without Simons or someone like him privately funding it

<comment><USER9> Why do you feel _sad_ about the fact that an individual who values science is "privately funding" a great publication? surely you don't object to private wealth and/or activity?

<comment><USER10> Being dependent on the whim of a wealthy individual is saddening.

<comment><USER9> Could one be, instead, appreciative of and grateful to the considered, generous decision of that individual? how do you think _he_ would respond to someone expressing one kind of feeling or the other?

<comment><USER11> I assume that he became a multibillionaire in part by not troubling himself with the opinions of nobodies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It would be fascinating to apply this technique to card shuffling. Shuffling techniques are not even close to random...casinos hope for chaos at best. It would be interesting to see if a machine learning algorithm could come up with an approach that could be carried out by humans to, for example, predict whether or not the _next_ shoe of a hand-shuffled blackjack game is going to have a positive or negative expectation for the player.

<comment><USER13> You can card count on apps already. The repeated linear operator + nonlinearity of the ESN (the reservoir) could implement a card-counting memory but, you know, so could a card counting memory in a normal program.

<comment><USER12> Oh I wasn't talking about card counting. I was talking about being able to determine, knowing the order of the cards going into the shuffle, whether or not the next shoe (after the shuffle) would have an overall positive or negative expectation. The theoretical expectation accounting for every single possible order of cards is slightly negative. However, if a massive percentage of the possible orders that the cards can be in is eliminated, the expectation may either be much more positive or negative than the overall theoretical return.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Novel paper. But it seems like a lot of the excitement is because of the fusion of two buzz-words, one from the 80s and 90s and another from the 2010s. So, the output is a bunch of stuff coming out of a kinda simple dynamical system. Chaotic for sure, but still simple. Deep learning (and more generally, recurrent neural nets, LSTMs, and derivatives thereof) has been shown capable of learning much more complex nonlinear systems, including human perception. Given this, I think the OP paper is a low-hanging fruit. It was only a matter of time before someone figured out a way to learn specific chaotic nonlinear dynamical systems. Nice work nonetheless.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure if human perception is a chaotic system.

Chaos is defined as "small change in input -> large change in output".

Perception is actually the opposite, with small input changes (changes in light, different angles,...) leading to fundamentally unchanged perception ("It's a tree").

<comment><USER16> First, sensitivity to initial conditions is a necessary but not sufficient property for chaos. Some sort of folding/mixing is also necessary, which can be gauranteed by a bounded state space.

Second, it's definitely true that information processing systems, if they are to be reliable enough to be useful, are not going to be chaotic throughout their state space. They need to return the same output given a certain input. But I'd imagine there are also at least a few noisy regions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> d--b Doesn't that mean that the neural net learned itself a numerical method to compute the solution of the equation, and that it is close enough in terms of approximation up to 7 Lyapukov times, and after that time, the approximation becomes not good enough and the system can't predict?

It doesn't sound like too groundbreaking...

<comment><USER17> I think it's blurring the line between modelling and simulation. You can find an efficient route down a hillside by pouring water down it, or a line of least resistance through a system by passing a current through it. Is the system learning a numerical solution, or performing one? I think this is like building a model of a system that is much closer to the territory than the map compared to a normal model, but still easier to work with than the territory.

<comment><USER18> > Is the system learning a numerical solution, or performing one?

Is there a real difference? Any learning must be, fundamentally, an algorithm, so learning _is_ performing.

<comment><USER17> This is a deep topic but one good treatment of is in the works of David Deutsch: [https://www.cs.indiana.edu/~dgerman/hector/deutsch.pdf](https://www.cs.indiana.edu/~dgerman/hector/deutsch.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Very cool! This looks like a very promising way to improve weather forecasts, predict wildfire movements (maybe?), and can maybe be used in control for chaotic systems? (Among other uses of course).

It feels like every day I'm seeing deep learning make more mathematical tools obsolete. It's amazing how useful this tool has been.

<comment><USER20> When we started saving layers and gained nonlinear functions, it gained the ability to approximate any function, given enough time and data. These are big caveats.

RL can function with a lot less data. SVMs can run with a lot less time and space. Partial function application and expert modelling reduce data needed - and some of the best results are from ensemble suites. It's not obsoleting, it's another tool in the box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was really hoping this was about weather forecasting.

<comment><USER22> It can be!

<comment><USER23> From the article:

"This paper suggests that one day we might be able perhaps to predict weather by machine-learning algorithms and not by sophisticated models of the atmosphere," Kantz said.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If there's an algorithm to create this 'randomness' then how can it be all that random?

Isn't it just learning to make an approximation of that algorithm, rather than actually predicting chaos?

<comment><USER25> It's working with imperfect information about the current state, which makes the algorithm that generates it useless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can anyone speak to whether PRNGs might be affected?

<comment><USER27> If you know the seed and the used algorithm, you are already able to "predict" the pseudo-random sequence perfectly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why wouldn't it? A lot of misunderstanding out there in both machine learning and nonlinear dynamics.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm curious, has anyone tried to apply ML to solving large _linear_ systems?

<comment><USER20> Yes. Vladmir Vaptnik (1995)'s work on SVMs is probably the most recent, but linear regression is an ML technique as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I want to know how this does with traffic. Pretty remarkable.

<comment><USER31> I'd like to apply it to the stock market.

<comment><USER32> Ergodicity becomes a problem here. The nonlinear systems typically studied by complexity and chaos theorists have strong fixed rules that do not change in time. Markets have systematic and structural changes which can make prior observations completely irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> even after cross-validation?

</comment><comment><USER34> Isn't deterministic-chaos an oxymoron?

<comment><USER35> The specific kind of chaos here implies (roughly) that a system starting in state X and a system starting arbitrarily close to X will at some point in the future behave totally differently. Not different as in "they'll drift further apart," but different as in "this one rolls off the cliff and this doesn't."

It's a fascinating field of dynamical systems, which is one of the coolest subfields of math (since the world is dynamic). Here's the wikipedia page [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> >when the powerful algorithm known as "deep learning"

Quanta is normally better than this (and the rest of the article is decent). But still :(</comment>


How to Make The Most of Your Least Productive Time - <AUTHOR> http://finchblogs.com/2012/02/03/how-to-make-the-most-of-your-least-productive-time/

<comment><USER2> I heard an interview of a writer who said that he writes by allowing himself to either write or do nothing. He usually starts by doing nothing and then gets bored so he starts writing.

I've found that approach to be quite effective. In the evenings I also include "go to bed" as an acceptable activity. You might not get more done than if you spend the evening watching TV or surfing Facebook but you'll be much more refreshed and productive the next day.

Lastly: Banning all the "time-wasting" sites on my work machine has worked remarkably well for me.

</comment><comment><USER3> I find the "become productive in situation x" blog posts and articles extremely irrelevant to me. Most of the time there's nothing new and insightful that I haven't thought of already. Everyone is different and motivation doesn't always come from the same source. For example, the author suggests to concentrate for a few minutes to get the ball rolling, and eventually you'll get lost in your work (hopefully). When I've lost all concentration or I'm dreading the start of a new task I usually go for a short walk or leave my work area for 5-10 minutes. I find that my work is lousy when I'm not in the mindset to work, especially when I'm forcing myself to do it.

<comment><USER4> It sounds like you've learned a rule that applies to you: to become productive again, go for a short walk.

These authors may seem to prescribe general _rules_ since they write in an authoritative style, but we generally know to take them as _considerations_

<comment><USER5> This whole subject is so subjective. I once had the same views as the author, i.e. read a lot, use your time to be as productive as possible. Now I take a much different view. For example I would advocate not "diving into a book world" while commuting but instead be aware of other people, watch them, listen to their talks and try to understand their situations. The same with his 100 pages a day: I think this is also very much arguable. For most mainstream books it seems smarter to just read the summaries, for more demanding literature rushing through them makes only sense if the mission is to "hunt" some specific information down. Reading less but thinking more(critical) about it makes in my option much more sense.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Copy Marker – Copy URLs with highlighted page sections - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kamranahmedse/copy-marker#:~:text=Copy%20Marker%20allows,in%20the%20URL. <comment><USER2> Is there a Javascipt library that I can include in my website to allow readers to copy links to hightlighted text fragments? It would be awesome if the library can provide fallback for Text Fragments for browsers that don't support it.</comment>


Show HN: merging RTS and web strategy gaming in new blend - Nebula 44 - <AUTHOR>

We have launched our startup: MMO strategy game that can be played in your browser. Not very unique from first sound, but the fun hides in the gameplay which tries to blend RTS and web strategy genres.
Feedback on the site design and game impressions are very welcome!
Some of game features include:
* Powerful trading system that allows people to exchange in-game currency (creds) for game resources.
* Real-time real-world based movement system that allows players to interact while travelling, making our game akin to classic RTS genre. This also allows interesting gameplay possibilities like piracy or embargo.
* Beautiful combat replays that can be slowed down to analyze battle tactics.
* Units that can be specialized to your liking and strategies, ensuring you will never meet an identical enemy.
* Real-time in-game chat system and forums for player cooperation and help.
You can try Nebula 44 out at http://www.nebula44.com/
Thanks! <comment><USER2> did you guys consider eliminating login phase to decrease bounce rate?

</comment><comment><USER3> very nice :)

something to consider: rather than needing a sign-up, let player play straight away in some simple sandbox way and get them to register to continue after 5 minutes of play or something

<comment><AUTHOR> We haven't considered exactly this, but single sign on login is on its way.

Thanks for the idea!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can a teddy bear teach kids to code? - <AUTHOR>

DiDi is an iPad powered teddy bear for kids 3+
Our development is currently focused on basic knowledge and skills that kids need to learn for elementary school, but I've been thinking that maybe he could also teach kids the basics of coding.
Any thoughts on how we could make our toy more little hacker friendly? I have some concepts and would like to discuss them with the HN community.
Here is the kickstarter page about our Teddy Bear, DIDI: http://kck.st/1lw2LCk <comment><USER2> How about some icon based language with if then conditionals, loops, a couple variables and a random number generator. the icons could be sounds (music notes?), pictures, buttons, phrases, etc. Drag the icons onto a strip which is the program listing.

</comment><comment><USER3> It would probably need a good way to get input: a usb keyboard or something? But if it's an iPad teddy bear, maybe you're biting off more then you can chew -- teach them to read before they can code?

</comment><comment><USER4> This sounds like a pretty neat idea. You should check this out: [http://csunplugged.org/](http://csunplugged.org/)</comment>


Ask HN: How to hack myself to increase my work hour? - <AUTHOR> has anyone been able to work more than 40hrs/week and still healthy with bio-hacking? <comment><USER4> The first hack is to only work 20hrs/week. If you are convinced that you only have half of the time to do the same amount of work you will stop wasting time, and ruthlessly prioritize.

The second hack is to be able to maintain that work ethic/productivity for as long as you want: 40hrs, 50hrs, etc.

<comment><USER5> Good hack, as long as you are paid by performance and not by arse-chair contact time.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you everyone for your contributions. I've spotted and upvoted some very good answers. If anyone has more tips and tricks please chime in.

Some takeaways so far:

      - work schedule: do 1.5-2h blocks of work alternated by 0.5-1h blocks of non-stress activities, OR blocks of different types of work.
      - eat healthy
      - get enough sleep
      - <USER2>
      - <USER3>
      - alternate sit/stand posture

Also, since a lot of you are asking, I thought I'd provide more context. I'm the founder of my current startup. My background is software engineering. Love what I do, love my team. I do prioritize my tasks. "Hacking"-wise, I've been doing meditation, eating very healthy (organic, lo-carb, no-caffeine, no- drug), exercising. I can usually bump to 60hrs if I do what I'm experienced with, but things seem to come to a limit of 45hrs under stressful periods.

Thanks to your answers, I now have some ideas of what to fix:

      - sleep: my total sleep hours is fine, but my sleep schedule is wild.
      - work schedule: gonna try balancing the work blocks with relax blocks. I usually get stuck on the computer coding for 3 hours straight. Will have to learn to leave it after 1.5-2h.

So far so good, thanks everyone! Remember to chime in if you have anything else to add.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why would you even do that, unless maybe to work for your own company? So capitalism can suck you dry even more?

<comment><USER7> Motivation probably matters the most here. Own company or working on a project you love (w/ a team you respect and enjoy working with) is great.

However, 40+hrs/week after a while, might probably lead to some sort of burnout / dissatisfaction (something adverse), if it is only for capital gain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7>
      I consistently "work" over 60hrs/week. -> Sustainable for long term if executed well.
      During "rush-weeks" I have been able to push 90hrs/week. -> Short bursts of 1-2 weeks at a time…. 4-5 times in a year (usually before a launch or an important event)

      60+hrs/week schedules are more likely to be sustainable if:
      1. YOU  LOVE YOUR WORK.
      2. YOU LOVE YOUR TEAM.
      3. You have an excellent support structure (Family & Friends)

      My schedule changes quite a bit depending on what's going on that week (events, travel, off-site meetings etc). But, I am able to follow this schedule for the most part:

      Monday-Thursday [44h, 11h/day]
      5:30am - 6:30am     -  Morning routines ||
      6:30am - 8:30am     -  Creative Work Block-1 (home) [2h] ||
      8:30am - 9:30am     -  Breakfast + Get to work ||
      9:30am - 11:00am    -  Meetings- internal. [1.5h] ||
      11:00am - 12:00pm   -  Email Block-1 [1h] ||
      12:00pm - 12:30pm   -  Lunch ||
      12:30pm - 2:00pm    -  Meetings, calls & emails [1.5h] ||
      2:00pm - 3:00pm     -  Afternoon routines ||
      3:00pm - 5:00pm     -  Meetings- internal [2h] ||
      5:00pm - 7:00pm     -  Creative Work Block-2 [2h] ||
      7:00pm - 8:00pm     -  Email Block-2 [1h] ||
      8:00pm - 10:00pm    -  Family / social ||
      10:00pm - 11:00pm   -  Night routines ||
      11:00pm - 5:30am    -  Sleep  ||

      Friday [9h]
      5:30am - 6:30am     -  Morning routines ||
      6:30am - 8:30am     -  Creative Work Block-1 (home)[2h] ||
      8:30am - 9:30am     -  Breakfast + Get to work ||
      9:30am - 11:00am    -  Meetings- internal. [1.5h] ||
      11:00am - 12:00pm   -  Email Block-1 [1h] ||
      12:00pm - 12:30pm   -  Lunch ||
      12:30pm - 2:00pm    -  Meetings, calls & emails [1.5h] ||
      2:00pm - 3:00pm     -  Afternoon routines ||
      3:00pm - 4:30pm     -  Creative Work Block-2 [1.5h] ||
      4:30pm - 6:00pm     -  Email Block-2 [1.5h] ||
      6:00pm - 10:00pm    -  Family / Social ||
      10:00pm - 11:00pm   -  Night routines  ||
      11:00pm - 7:30am    -  Sleep  ||

      Saturday [3.5h]
      7:30am - 8:30am     -  Morning routines  ||
      8:30am - 6:30pm     -  Family / social   ||
      6:30pm - 10:00pm    -  emails, catch-up work  ||
      10:00pm - 11:00pm   -  Night routines  ||
      11:00pm - 7:30am    -  Sleep  ||

      Sunday [7h]
      7:30am - 8:30am     -  Morning routines ||
      8:30am - 9:30am     -  Breakfast + Get to work ||
      9:30am - 12:00am    -  Creative Work Block-1 [2.5h] ||
      12:00pm - 12:30pm   -  Lunch  ||
      12:30pm - 2:00pm    -  Creative Work Block-2 [1.5h] ||
      2:00pm - 3:00pm     -  Afternoon routines  ||
      3:00pm - 5:00pm     -  Creative Work Block-3 [2h] ||
      5:00pm - 6:00pm     -  Emails and calls [1h] ||
      6:00pm - 10:00pm    -  Family / Social ||
      10:00pm - 11:00pm   -  Night routines  ||
      11:00pm - 5:30am    -  Sleep ||

      Definitions-

        Creative Work:
      -Product related work.
      -Prep for meetings
      -Prep for pitches
      -Prep for demos
      -Skimming through user logs
      -Reading engineering logs and commenting.
      -Skimming through code
      -Technical stuff
      -Research (customers, competitors, market, strategies, etc…)

       Morning routines:
      -Brush, wash, get ready.
      -Cardio & stretches

       Afternoon routines:
      -Meditating for 20 min or taking a power-nap (depends on mood)
      -Run / walk outside in the sun (usually tagalong a teammate)

       Night routines:
      -Meditate for 20 min
      -Get ready for bed (brush, wash, etc)

       Some "bio-hacks" I use:
      -I try not to get distracted in the mornings (I turn off my notifications before going to bed). I FOCUS on the most important work on hand. I feel most creative in the mornings before everyone in my family wakes up and in the evenings when work day ends for most of the company and I don't have any meetings scheduled for the rest of the day. I also find that my creativity goes up after an exercise. It took me a while to figure out my "sweet spots". Figure out when your body and mind will be "most creative"....
      -I make sure to get at least 5-6 hours of sleep every day and 8 hours over the weekends. Sleep is soooo underrated. It is key for optimal performance. Probably the most important "bio-hack" is SLEEPING (Quality of sleep matters. Also, I try to keep bed time and sleep-period consistent)
      -I eat HEALTHY (I am a vegetarian). I follow a healthy and holistic diet that gets me ALL the nutrition I need (no supplements or meat)
      -Exercise and the SUN. Can't stress enough how important this is! I feel energized and creative after my workouts (especially if I am running outside in the sun).
      -I Meditate at least once a day (for 20 min). I find that the techniques I use to "clear my mind" while meditating are very similar to the techniques I use to FOCUS and clear my min of other thoughts...
      -I try to minimizing noise and other distractions as much as possible. (I sometimes listen to sounds of rain or waterfall or a stream flowing....)
      -I spend high-quality time with my family / friends. Every second counts. This is when I am living in their world and not mine.

      Getting on a schedule and cultivating healthy habits make a world of difference.

      I have been going 60+h/week since 2014. I have learnt a lot, I have come very close to burnouts and depression. Be careful. Your health is very very important. It is easy to loose track of the real world, so make sure you ground yourself in reality and have checks and bounds for your mental and physical health.

      Good Luck!

<comment><USER8> Meditate for 20 min in night routine.. this one activity will ensure that you have good sleep and calm mind

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Working long hours has the following problems IMO that need to be addressed:

1\. If sitting it is bad for your posture, back etc. Lack of exercise could be an issue.

2\. If thinking hard it might cause fatigue in the mind, burnout etc.

3\. If working in a stressful environment, e.g. working with dicks then longer exposure to this could cause psychological problems.

A good hack would be to do a job where you can stand / walk for at least some of the time.

E.g. a job where you do some stuff on a whiteboard, or present a lot in front of people, or can pace around and think would help.

A job where you don't work with dicks would help.

A job where you are not doing novel stuff all the time or working on complex code bases or issues all the time would help.

So my hacks are in the choice of job where you work the long hours, rather than along the lines of drinking soylent etc.

HOWEVER

Why do you desire to work long hours? This seems odd to me.

If it is just to get better results, then just aim for better results. If you run your own business this might entail setting up systems that take you out of the picture.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks bbcbasic. I want to work more hours since my startup is in a very early stage right now, and thus requires me to push as hard as I can. Luckily I get to choose who I work with, so pheww, no dicks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't work a lot. But have more energy. And you can use the energy for whatever you want I guess ?

Have you fixed food ? Only eat best food for your body (no meat, alot of vegs, fish, chicken) + supplements (fish oil etc).

Don't drink coffee and only use it for special occasions (to push more hours).

Exercise: swim for overall body health + running to fix bugs in your head and get high/relaxed (8-10km).

Quit drugs legal & illegal (or only on weekend).

Fix sleep.

<comment><USER10> How is eating no meat healthy?

<comment><USER11> It's not, but you shouldn't take my word on it. For a supposedly science focused crowd, most people here on HN don't know what they're talking about when it comes to diet. Programmers in general tend to be overweight and unhealthy.

<comment><USER9> I need special diet to get a six pack (naturally high body fat), but I can do half-marathon, kickbox etc.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Evasiveness: the number-one corporate value - <AUTHOR> http://www.dorisandbertie.com/goodcopybadcopy/2011/07/06/evasiveness-the-number-one-corporate-value/ <comment><USER2> There was some article or blog I read that put forth a very convincing argument that "corporate speak" (what the OP is all about, which applies not only to external comm but also internal) is actually necessary and beneficial. Something about how you can't talk to everyone the same way because they all have different perspectives/bets/goals, but sometimes as a leader you have everyone looking at you at the same time, so you have to say something.

Basically as you mature as a leader, your communication style has to evolve.

<comment><USER3> So mature leader == ability to say something that will make everyone happy, but lacks concrete terms? I realize that part of leadership is keeping people happy, but is it really correct to consistently bury a little bit of content in a lot of fluff?

The trouble is that, as a guy working for The Man, corp-speak just makes me think that the corporate leaders are guys who will say anything as long as it can be couched in non-offensive terms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I just came across a REAL list that looked exactly like the one in the article (yeah, that's the point but I still found it funny how uncanny it was)

<http://www.ketchum.com/careers>

 _How we stand out is through six guiding principles, which bring our vision to life and help us attract many of the best PR and communications pros in the industry:

1\. Attract and Retain Distinct Talent - Recruit people of integrity who respect one another, want to grow professionally, value diverse views, work hard and have fun.

2\. Preserve Our Client-centered Culture - Make sure we continue to forge enduring client partnerships by delivering fresh and actionable insights, compelling creativity and quality work.

3\. Focus on Results - Deliver results that clearly show value and drive brand awareness, credibility and loyalty.

4\. Go Beyond the Obvious - Seek innovative solutions -- from any source -- to address each client's unique business challenge.

5\. Create Communications That Get Heard - Dominate in media relations and differentiate through innovative media solutions -- deepen relationships by engaging influencers and stakeholders.

6\. Hold Each Other Accountable - Evaluate our performance against fair and objective standards to improve our performance as individuals, teams and a total firm._

</comment><comment><USER4> I realize this is supposed to be satirical, so is it sad that I half agree with most of these changes, purely out of necessity? :(

<comment><USER5> Yes, it is sad. And yes, it must be done out of necessity.

Any company, especially a large company, must do business with a large number of people. Inevitably, some of those people will be, uh, neurotic. Some of those people belong to watch-dog groups which may or may not have motivations aside from playing out internal "rescuer" psychodramas. Some of those people are journalists who are itching to carve out a "hard-hitting" reputation from the hides of their betters. Some of those people are lawyers who are trying to salve their consciences by showing that no, they didn't go into Law just for the money. Some of those people are bureaucrats who wish to demonstrate their "impact" so as to impress their peers at the next high-society cocktail party. And so forth.

Corporations act like contemptible curs partly because the free market does not work exactly as advertised, partly because business schools are seedbeds of iniquity, and partly because _they get punished for acting otherwise_.

<comment><USER6> In this example, the fundamental problem with the original set of statements is that they are _not true_.

The problem is that the copywriter works at an organization that has contemptible business practices. Given that state of affairs she could either:

1) Tell the truth and produce a highly cynical document that would cost her job plus blowback.

2) Tell lies (the original version), causing blowback and probably costing her and several others their jobs.

3) Write a bunch of pleasant-sounding meaningless nothings (the final version) which fulfills her assignment of writing a value statement free of both lies and brutal honesty. Interestingly, on a meta level, this is actually a very honest document, as it ends up reading "We have no values."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Personally, I have said that legacy PR based on controlling the message is fundamentally flawed for a while now.</comment>


Social media crimes 'at least half' of frontline police work - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27949674

<comment><USER2> I can't stand the UK any more. I used to be patriotic, but now I hate the place. It's one giant police state. That the people living there can't see this sickens me.</comment>


Videos for learning Org Mode - <AUTHOR> https://orgmodeforbeginners.com/ <comment><USER2> Fewer videos, please, and more well illustrated walkthroughs.

For one, videos are very hard to go back and reference specifics from, and two, they age poorly in this world of quarterly updates.

<comment><USER3> > they age poorly in this world of quarterly updates.

Seriously? Does org mode - and particularly the fundamentals - _really_ change that much and that regularly? And if it does, what's the point of learning it in the first place?

<comment><USER4> It doesn't change that frequently. There was a major release a while back that changed attributes slightly, but the core is stable

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I figured. I was really just trying to highlight what I saw as a ridiculous point.

I occasionally use emacs and always have the intention of using it more. Whilst a lot of work has been done on it and, in many ways no doubt, it's much richer, the fundamentals really haven't changed at all in the 20 years since I started using it.

I think for these tutorials video is a fine enough format: it'll certainly work well for some people, whilst others would prefer a different format. Both of those points of view are OK. Neither needs to be attacked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Outliners are great and underrated tools. But after a detailed analysis of Org Mode (and some other tools) I implemented [https://github.com/rochus- keller/CrossLine](https://github.com/rochus-keller/CrossLine) which I'm using every day since ten years.

<comment><USER6> You should write some words about why your tool is better than org if you mention it here.

Org gained new features too in the last ten years. E.g. for crosslinking there is org roam: [https://github.com/org-roam/org-roam](https://github.com/org- roam/org-roam)

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't say it's "better"; it just has some features which I didn't find in other tools at that time, e.g. translucent cross-links, everything in one fulltext-indexed file, immediate incremental persistence, not speed-down for large outlines, dockable outlines, just to name a few. Didn't have a close look at Org Mode since.

EDIT: of course there are many features which also Org Mode has, e.g. extremely efficient to operate by keyboard (for a trained user), multiple outlines, titles, attributes, not wasting screen space with menu bars and the like, just to name a few.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Feedback on the website. May be it will help to say on the homepage that OrgMode relates to Emacs text editor. Had to go to the About page to understand what the site is about. TBH I thought this is one of the various info management methodologies like zettelkasten.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. I would assume a website about a thing for beginners would explain what the thing is. What is Org Mode and why do I need it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wonderful initiative. Thanks. If I may suggest it's help to have videos put in to playlist by topic or level of difficulty etc. if you're planing to publish many that is. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice project idea and congratulations on launching the first set!

One suggestion in case it's OP's project or the author is reading: if your video editing workflow has audio adjustment tools or supports plugins, consider using a de-esser to reduce the sibilance a little bit. Everything's easy to understand but some of the s's can be just a little harsh.

Good luck!

<comment><USER11> Agreed, congrats on getting this published and sharing your passion. I learned a lot of org mode basics from videos, so I admire your effort here. I still refer back to Rainer's series from time to time on you tube. Some good material here: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVtKhBrRV_ZkPnBtt_TD1...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVtKhBrRV_ZkPnBtt_TD1Cs9PJlU0IIdE)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm doing a video series about Org Mode as well, using Emacs Doom - so there's a little Vim vibe to it. ;)

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhXZp00uXBk4np17N39Wv...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhXZp00uXBk4np17N39WvB80zgxlZfVwj)

</comment><comment><USER13> As a non Emacs user, I thought this site was going to be a crash course on the best practices of building business software that caters to org clients (enterprise essentially). Gotta say, I got really excited for a moment!

</comment><comment><USER14> I can get by pretty well by only using org-capture and org-agenda and ignoring everything else about Org mode.

</comment><comment><USER15> Video to remove Windows 10 is missing.

</comment><comment><USER16> Can we preface this title with: "EMACS: "

<comment><USER17> I just assume until proven otherwise.</comment></comment>


Piratebay.org Sold for $50k at Auction - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/piratebay-org-sold-for-50000-at-auction-thepiratebay-com-up-next-200916/ <comment><USER2> This article keeps using piratebay.org and thepiratebay.org interchangeably despite the fact that only the former was sold. The latter still points to TPB and was not sold.

</comment><comment><USER3> Kinda related, both thepiratebay.com and thepiratebay.net are in "Pending Delete" status and should drop later today. There's still time to put in a backorder: [http://www.namejet.com/Pages/Auctions/BrowseDomains.aspx?ter...](http://www.namejet.com/Pages/Auctions/BrowseDomains.aspx?term=thepiratebay.com)</comment>


Apple Is Vindictive and Ruthless - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/1231277435997417473 <comment><USER2> Remember when Apple was AntiIBM? Now they are the IBM of the 21st century.</comment>


Email Use Drops by 59% Amongst US Teens in One Year - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedrum.co.uk/news/2011/02/09/18488-email-use-drops-by-59-amongst-us-teens-in-one-year/

<comment><USER2> Email is a protocol. Phones are a protocol. Facebook is... a company. I don't like the idea that the coming nexus of communication is a single-company provider, with zero incentive to open up a "facebook message protocol"... they simply want to be the only source of communication.

I find this scary.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't worry that much. Phones were a company once too.

<comment><USER4> Yes, but I can switch companies when I'm not happy with my current company or don't like their policies. Also, my AT&T phone can call my friend's Verizon phone.

<comment><USER5> That wasn't always the case. There was a time before I was born where you either had a phone through Ma Bell or you didn't have a phone.

<comment><USER6> Yes, but market forces did not solve that problem.

Should we not worry about Facebook because government will solve it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Before I got into the "professional" world I never used my email. I had one mostly to sign up for things and a few notifications from services.

When I started my first job, that was related to my career, my email use sky rocketed. Email is now my life blood. I have over 50 servers that drop me various forms of messages and notifications. I have discussions with my boss about the direction we should take things. My coworkers will use it to ask questions.

Email is useful. In fact I would say it is one of the most useful pieces of modern technology we have, but only for a subset of uses. Most people don't have the needs, at least in their private life, that email fulfills. Particularly teens.

<comment><USER8> I think that's kind of the point. We, as adults, use e-mail, especially at work. By the time these teens get to work, what will happen is a mix of 1) They adapt to using email 2) They'll use their way of communicating with their then-colleagues.

New technologies are adopted more slowly at work, but eventually they will be, because people will use what is efficient for them. (For a good recent example, look at the adoption of wikis in companies)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article makes illogical conclusions.

Here is the primary source: [http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/1/W...](http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/1/Web- based_Email_Shows_Signs_of_Decline_in_the_U.S._While_Mobile_Email_Usage_on_the_Rise)

The chart in the original post has in its title "Web-based e-mail". That chart represents the amount of time spent using web-based e-mail. Not the number of e-mails sent or received on web clients. Not e-mail app usage. And not mobile usage.

Mobile e-mail usage amongst teens has gone up 40%. Isn't that a more likely reason for the decline in web-based e-mail that an unquantified Facebook influence?

</comment><comment><USER10> How accurate are these types of measurements? Even if teen email use in the US dropped dramatically last year, how do we know it was replaced by facebook use?

<comment><USER11> Exactly - how on earth do you compute 'teen email use'? If it is self-reported it is likely to be inaccurate. If it's based on some type of network analysis, the amount of spam would skew statistics, because spam is only sorted generally at the point of arrival.

Anyways, color me skeptical.

Even if it was Facebook messaging taking over from email, that's hardly a problem, because in the eyes of the user, facebook messages are email. You have an inbox, sent items, new message, etc. If/when the teens get to a job or study, they aren't going to be stumped by viewing a messaging client instead of a facebook page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am an younger person who sends a magnitude more emails than text messages and facebook messages. Email is useful for classes, coordinating groups, and etc. where facebook and text messages are too limiting to use. Email is also a useful tool to communicate to all age groups.

</comment><comment><USER13> The thing with email, is that, it's messy. No matter what you do, you eventually will start getting unwanted email and spam. It's boring to maintain a clean email address.

Unfortunatly there isn't any good alternatives to email. Google Wave tried it, yet, they failed.

<comment><USER14> I have two email addresses - one to sign up for things, registrations etc, and one for personal email.

Works pretty well.

<comment><USER13> I have that solution as well, but, my main email always ends up with spam content somehow. Maybe it's bad luck

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is an entire generation of youth who have grown up with Facebook and social networks at the center of their internet experience. While email will likely not be extinct any time soon, it may be used less as a social tool, and more as a business tool.

</comment><comment><USER16> "emails may simply be too long or too stuffy for daily, non-professional communication"

Nah. The reason is no-one wants to log in to two things. People who start out most of their online life on a social network aren't going to want to log in to a second thing (email account) to communicate.

I started out on email, and don't want to log in to a second thing (Facebook) to communicate. I let Facebook notify my email when it gets a message though. I didn't want to get into Twitter, but Buzz fit into my Gmail habit (and can even link to Twitter).

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't think this means the 'end of email'. This seems to me like a natural progression. Before FB, Twitter and cheap SMS, email was the most effective means of digital communication. Now we have different tools for different types of digital communication. That doesn't mean email is becoming obsolete. It's a bit like saying mobile-touch computers will replace all other types of computers. I don't see that happening at all. Instead, we just use a number of different computers (in all shapes and sizes), for different situations.

</comment><comment><USER18> When I was a teenager, in the early 2000s, we hardly used email at all. We all used AIM to talk to one another. Pretty much the only reason to use email was to sign up for things online.

</comment><comment><USER19> A drop in email use is no biggie. If it's just about communication, people will IM, facebook message, tweet, SMS, whatever. No biggie. But email isn't just about communication; it's also about identity. And as far as that aspect, email will never go away. At least, I believe, not in my lifetime.

To put it simply, as long as you need an email address to sign up for Facebook, email will not go away.</comment>


Ask HN: What books are you currently reading? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious what books everyone is currently reading. What books are you currently reading? <comment><USER2> I just finished Ready Player One, it was a great read, super interesting story, If you like the 80s and Arcade Games it's a must read.

<comment><USER3> Ready Player One is a super fun read and they are making it into a movie too!

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As expected there's lot of nonfiction readers here. Does anyone else find that they get more out of fiction than nonfiction? There's a lot to learn from putting yourself in a character's shoes, seeing life through their eyes and witnessing their life unfold.

I'm currently reading 'Steppenwolf' by Hermann Hesse, and 'Of Human Bondage' by Somerset Maugham. Both novels are fictional representations of the author's life.

<comment> Adam-Kadmon I agree with you ! I'm currently reading "Siddhartha" by Hesse and I finished reading "The Name of the Rose" by Eco about a week ago !

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pimp: Story Of My Life written by Iceberg Slim. Learned about it from the latest Chappelle standup special. Very dark and fascinating tale of a pimp in the 1940's. A lot of cold, calculating capitalist ideas abound in it.

Also just started Astrobiology: A Short Introduction which was recommended by a fellow HNer.

</comment><comment><USER3> I just finished reading Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson. It is the third book in the Stormlight Archive series. It was a fantastic read and the entire series is totally epic. Sanderson has many different trilogies, novels, and short stories in a universe he calls The Cosmere. If you like fantasy and haven't read any Sanderson, you should definitely check his stuff out!

[https://brandonsanderson.com/books/the-stormlight- archive/oa...](https://brandonsanderson.com/books/the-stormlight- archive/oathbringer/)

<comment><USER6> Looking forward to this myself, but don't want to rush in because of the expected gap until the next volume is published.

So I'm re-reading the first two books again before I start it.

(I have a shelf full of Brandon's work - even the young-adult books!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> * Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig - for some reason I never read this before although I've known about it for years. Enjoying it so far.

* How I Became Free in an Unfree World by Harry Browne - I read this years ago, but decided to re-read on a whim and it's surprising how relevant it still is.

</comment><comment><USER8> The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25761655-the-secret- of-o...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25761655-the-secret-of-our- success)

</comment><comment><USER9> THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE

[https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/daniel-defoe/the-life- and-...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/daniel-defoe/the-life-and- adventures-of-robinson-crusoe)

</comment><comment><USER10> [https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/33942804-phillip- rhode...](https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/33942804-phillip- rhodes?shelf=currently-reading)

</comment><comment><USER11> Bronze Gods by A.A. Aguirre [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15808271-bronze- gods](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15808271-bronze-gods)

</comment><comment><USER12> [https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Science-Distilled- Computatio...](https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Science-Distilled- Computational-Problems/dp/0997316004)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm currently reading "The four hour chef" by Tim Ferris. It's amazingly interesting, as it doesn't only cover cooking but also language learning and other skills. Great book!

</comment><comment><USER14> I am suffering trough, Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars (currently reading)

<comment><USER15> I found this series more rewarding than almost any other book series. I find it to be so.... literarily... satisfying. I have no idea how to explain that. The author's vision of the future is so complex and compelling, and the humanity of it all. I could go on for hours!

<comment><USER14> We agree to disagree on this one :-)

For me one series I feel like you do, is the Asian Saga by James Clavell, maybe because I read the books for the first time as a child and have always been interested in business, etc, but like you I cannot explain it :-)

<comment><USER15> I will certainly check it out! Isn't it strange what kinda reaches out and gives you a big impression? I'm interested in your opinion once you've finished.

I am always glad to hear of books that leave this kind of impact on people, and I've heard about the Asia Saga before, but I forgot about it. Very eager to start. Thanks for the recommendation

<comment><USER14> I would recommend the following books I have read last year and really liked the ideas behind:

"The Road Not Taken" is a short story by Harry Turtledove

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken_(short_stor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken_\(short_story\))

Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy by Liu Cixin

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_of_Earth%27s_Past](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_of_Earth%27s_Past)

And this one is autobiographical by one of the smartest men of our time: A Man For All Markets by Edward O. Thorp

[http://www.edwardothorp.com/books/a-man-for-all- markets/](http://www.edwardothorp.com/books/a-man-for-all-markets/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Nothing right now, but have two unfinished books in my backlog. First is Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima and the other is Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software.

</comment><comment><USER17> Just finished in the last week:

\- What a wonderful world by Marcus Chown

\- 47 Ronin by Joan D. Vinge

\- Practical Monitoring by Mike Julian

Currently reading:

\- The Four by Scott Galloway

\- The Art of Capacity Planning 2nd Edition by Arun Kejariwal, John Allspaw

</comment><comment><USER18> Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, 2666 by Roberto Bolaño, and the Haskell Book.

</comment><comment><USER19> \- Go tell it on the mountain by James Baldwin

\- The doors of perception by Aldous Huxley

\- The Patriarch (Joseph Kennedy biography) by David Nasaw

</comment><comment><USER20> \- Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman by RPF.

\- The book of secrets by Osho.

\- Big Data Baseball by T. Sawchik.

\- The Intelligent Investor by B. Graham.

</comment><comment><USER21> Right now I'm reading Zen Guitar to rethink how I play guitar, and The Color of Magic for fun.

</comment><comment><USER22> Every january since 3 years ago I reread Antifragile by Nassim Taleb. I always find new ideas in it.

</comment><comment><USER23> I am reading Shoe Dog, the memoir of Phil Knight

It is a pretty amazing store of how he started Nike

</comment><comment><USER24> Robert Louis Stevenson essays (again) GK Chesterton _Orthodoxy_ (again)

</comment><comment><USER25> JPOD from Douglas Coupland. I like it much more than Microserfs :-)

</comment><comment><USER26> Quantum Computing since Democritus, by Scott Aaronson

and

The City and The City, by China Mieville

</comment><comment><USER27> Last 4

Snow Falling on Cedars Color of Law Artemis Evicted (starting tomorrow)

</comment><comment><USER28> Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age

</comment><comment><USER29> Pragmatic Thinking & Learning - Andy Hunt

</comment><comment><USER30> Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland

</comment><comment><USER31> Sell or Be Sold by Grant Cardone

<comment><USER10> Have you read Grant's other books? So far I've read _Sell or Be Sold_ , _The 10x Rule_ , _If You 're Not First, You're Last_ and _Be Obsessed or be Average_. I've found all of them to be pretty good. Not necessarily life changing, but solid, with a good mix of motivational message and some actionable ideas. Enough so that I'll probably go back through and read a couple of those again and actually take notes this time through.

<comment><USER31> I have not, I would really like to thou. Thanks for the feedback on the other books. I am going to move to the 10x rule next.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The Godfather</comment>


Ask HN: Would you hire a dropout? - <AUTHOR>

Assume that they 1) Are fully qualified for the position, and 2) Dropped out to purse self-employment/self-education/work, not because they couldn't handle school <comment><USER2> Yes.

Then again, I'm biased.

A proven track record of being self motivated and being persistant with their goals are far more valuable traits in an individual than a piece of paper saying they went to some college or university for several years.

</comment><comment><USER3> The first is hard to ascertain without a conversation, and it's very hard without a conversation to convince many people (myself included) that you didn't just drop out because you couldn't handle school.

I try to shun away from dropouts because school signals, more than anything else, an ability to slog through tedious tasks. And unfortunately, not everything you will do is glamorous.

</comment><comment><USER4> Based on your description, why wouldn't you? If those are your requirements, and a degree is not, then I don't see the problem.

</comment><comment><USER5> Really depends why they dropped out. Here in Finland I would not hire any drop outs, because money is not good reason to drop out because students like me get cash to live on our own while studying in upper secondary school, vocational school, universities until something like age of 28. If they can not handle graduating from the school, how the heck I can trust them to become better at the job and keep their interest even if it might become little bit boring.

The only reason I accept for dropping out of school is money problems, but even then I trust those people more who will work on the side of their studies.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've yet to be asked for any type of degree (I don't have one) for places I've been hired for, consulted at and/or interviewed for. I've also seen people highly decorated with degrees and certificates that can barely get an interview. I think it all depends on the person, their attitude, their ability to connect with people and willingness to learn from others.

</comment><comment><USER7> Depends on the job requirements. For a R&D related or senior position, I might be a little on the edge. School is not just about the degree it has a lot to do with development of the core educational foundations.

Remember anyone can program, not everyone can find a solution.

<comment><USER8> Michael Faraday solved about as many difficult problems as any scientist in history and did it without a formal education. And in his time there were even more barrier to working class people joining academia than there are now.

Skills and an apprenticeship under the right mentor trump the piece of paper in terms of real world results. It's really tough for more conservative types to realize this until the researcher in question is so famous that they no longer have a chance of hiring them, though.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A part of the problem is the difficulty in distinguishing people with 2 from those without 2 who simply claim it.

Any difficulty distinguishing people with and without 1 is more important, but is present regardless.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yes, given these assumptions. But that person needs to be better than the other candidates (not JUST qualified for the position). I would also like to understand what he/she did after dropping out of school.

</comment><comment><USER11> As a "drop out" technical manager, I have hired about 50% with CS/CE degrees, 10% with non applicable degrees and 40% with no degree at all.

</comment><comment><USER12> Drop-out from high school, or university/college? I'm part of the latter group & hire people from that pool frequently.

</comment><comment><USER13> I would actually prefer to hire a drop out over someone with a degree.

</comment><comment><USER14> I would add a question: how many jobs ads are asking for a degree?

</comment><comment><USER15> I am a dropout. So, yes I would hire someone like me.

</comment><comment><USER16> You mean like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?

</comment><comment><USER17> Absolutely, hackers don't need degrees. In fact, we frown upon them.

</comment><comment><USER18> Yes.

</comment><comment><USER19> No, but my industry is license-based, and acquiring the license requires a degree and a very expensive test.

The problem for most jobs that "require" a degree is that a degree signifies a minimum knowledge base and experience with the subject matter (if not practical experience) of the position. The point at which work experience becomes more important than having a degree depends heavily on the position. Thus, for example, work experience will probably always be more important than a degree for something like design, but a degree may be more important for starting out in development (assuming that you do not already have work experience in the relevant areas).

Further: people in my industry tend to pursue a formal education, work, and/or self-education simultaneously (or at least two of these options). Any candidate who couldn't handle work and education simultaneously would simply not cut it, unless they opted for work because they could not afford to work and pursue an education at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER20> The degree is there to _show_ that the candidate is qualified. One can't tell by mind-reading a candidate.

Unless the candidate was too poor to afford the school, or born in the 3rd world, or something like that, there's not much excuse for not having the piece of paper.

If you decide to hire the dropout, you are _gambling_ on "this guy dropped out because he's the next John Carmack, not a loser". The odds are poor.

ADDENDUM: The degree acts as an arbitrary filter because you simply do not have the resources to exhaustively examine every candidate. you only take a closer look at the candidates that make it through the filter.</comment>