Git grep - <AUTHOR> https://nodevine.com/library/git-grep-can-increase-your-productivity-by-50

<comment><USER2> Where's the rest of the content? All I see is this: <http://i.imgur.com/7iqA15C.png>

Also, the author has committed the grave sin of not including a date on their post.</comment>


Some extinct species of crocodile were herbivores - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-06-extinct-crocs-vegetarians.html <comment><USER2> PBS had a show "When Whales Walked, journeys in deep time" the first part covered the evolution of crocks and how large and varied that species was in previous eons.

</comment><comment><USER3> About a third of the way through the Triassic period, (which predated the Jurassic and Cretaceous), a mass extinction did in most of the crocs, and the dinosaurs and pterosaurs took over. Before that there were crocs living in trees, crocs that ran like hell on two legs, and, yes plant-eating crocs. It was the crocs' world to lose, and they did; like we will, someday -- maybe soon. Then the raccoons or bears can take our place.

But according to the article, many interesting croc lineages survived for another 150 million years after the dinos took over, and succumbed along with the non-avian dinos.

</comment><comment><USER4> That's why they're extinct :P

<comment><USER5> I don't understand this joke, why is it funny?

<comment><USER6> Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process.</comment></comment></comment>


Why I'm Betting on Kubernetes - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jonathangrosdubois/why-im-betting-on-kubernetes-5ae25486e2cf <comment><USER2> > [The author] like[s] to describe Kubernetes as "A special kind of operating > system for the cloud — One which allows developers to treat an arbitrary > number of machines/hosts as if they were a single, very powerful machine."

I don't agree with this comparison. Apps still have to be designed to run in a distributed environment.

I'd describe it more like a flexible, self-contained PaaS.

<comment><USER3> > > [The author] like[s] to describe Kubernetes as "A special kind of > operating system for the cloud — One which allows developers to treat an > arbitrary number of machines/hosts as if they were a single, very powerful > machine."

> I don't agree with this comparison. Apps still have to be designed to run in > a distributed environment.

To be fair, in the author's analogy you also have to design applications to run in a multi-threaded environment (since they talk about scheduling and how an OS's main job is scheduling tasks so they can utilise resources). So the analogy holds there too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't see why I can't replace "K8" with "Mesos" everywhere in this article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes you can.</comment></comment>


UK Cops Can Now Remotely Disable Phones Even If No Crime Has Been Committed - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/uk-cops-can-now-remotely-disable-phones-even-if-no-crime-has-been-committed <comment><USER2> This along with the whole TV licence fee both seem so odd.

</comment><comment><USER3> pre-crime detention tactics are unjust</comment>


The Corporate Sovereignty Saga Involving Ecuador and Chevron - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160130/07171733469/incredible-corporate-sovereignty-saga-involving-ecuador-chevron-continues.shtml <comment><USER2> This is a complex case. This article is very biased. Quotes Public Citizen and Telesur, sources with an axe to grind and a government propaganda service. Very interesting situation if you are willing to do some digging.

<comment><USER3> Set me on my way. I'm South American, and I read a very thorough New Yorker (?) piece years ago that went to great lengths to show the "dark side" of the lawyer opposing Chevron, including something to do with selling shares on the outcome of the decision.

And yet, in the end, he still came out pretty clearly on top. What's your favourite coverage of the story?

<comment><USER2> Read Judge Kaplan's 2014 opinion in Chevron v Donziger. It is long (497 pages!) but fascinating.

[http://www.sdnyblog.com/files/2014/03/11-Civ.-00691-2014.03....](http://www.sdnyblog.com/files/2014/03/11-Civ.-00691-2014.03.04-Opinion.pdf)</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft Launches React Native for Windows - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/06/microsoft-launches-react-native-for-windows/ <comment><USER2> I switched from Mac to Windows a few years ago and I have to say, I'm always excited to see their latest announcements and OS updates.

When was the last time macOS had an update that was exciting for developers? They're phasing out OpenGL, and there is no CUDA support for Mojave. Docker support was pretty frustrating the last time I tried it as well. No big features in the last few macOS releases. All the latest features increase lock-in and don't exist outside of the mac ecosystem (looking at you Handoff and iMessage)

Microsoft now has:

\- VS code

\- A new terminal announced today (a very welcome change)

\- Ability to natively run any linux distro, with GUI! (WSL w/ X11 server)

\- Hyper-V powered docker containers (and they're fast)

\- Great CUDA support

\- One click to install and run Ubuntu desktop in Hyper-V

\- Chocolatey has grown on me and is an effective brew replacement.

Overall, i'm very satisfied with the development experience on Windows, and the pace at which it is improving makes me very confident that it will continue to attract more devs.

I also like that they make their products available on other platforms. I know that if I switch back to MacOS my OneNote, word docs, and C# code can be brought over without issue. The same equivalents for macOS don't provide any cross platform equivalents.

I'm still holding out for tabbed windows in the file explorer, though :/

<comment><USER3> I find it amusing you claim docker on mac was frustrating when it's damn near useless on Windows. File change notifications still don't work right (as of about a month ago).

Edit: I'd love to use Windows as my daily BTW, it's just not there yet for me. I don't want to have to jump through hoops to make my current workflow, work.

<comment><USER4> With the new WSL2, you can run Docker natively!

<comment><USER5> How is performance? I used Windows subsystem for Linux a year or so ago. Using a package manager to pull down some dependencies, which should take on the order of tens of seconds took several minutes to complete. It was painfully slow.

<comment><USER4> WSL2 now uses VM technology, so the performance is now a lot better.

<comment><USER6> WSL performance problems were mostly due to slow I/O.

How does virtualization fix that?

<comment><USER4> Translating syscalls to the NT kernel is slower than running Linux with a virtual filesystem.

<comment><USER6> But in the end, the virtual filesystem is backed up by done Windows storage?

<comment><USER4> Idk, but Microsoft cites these differences for the performance improvement.

Maybe things can be speed up/cached when you are one-to-mapping the syscalls to NT kernel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it's wrong/confusing to say that they're "launching" React Native for Windows. React Native for Windows is out already, and it works fine. They're just announcing the kickoff of a C++ rewrite.

[https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native- windows/blob/maste...](https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native- windows/blob/master/vnext/README.md)

> _In this sub-folder, we are working on a vnext rewrite of React Native for > Windows10 built in C++ that reuses the C++ core bridge implementation from > Facebook's React Native. This will allow React Native for Windows10 to > innovate and provide features by sharing the same core as Facebook's React > Native._

Cool, but this is basically just an implementation detail.

(I _do_ wish it supported Windows 7 and 8.)

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I think you're right. A lot of people have even shipped applications using React Native for Windows and it's been around for years. The article, in the way it's written, makes it sound like they just opened it up today which is wrong.

The C++ rewrite is exciting but yeah, it's more of an implementation detail. I wonder if Microsoft words the announcement better (only saw the one from Tech Crunch).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think it won't be long before Microsoft returns to the smartphone market with an OS based on Windows, and this time it won't be a flop.

<comment><USER10> The rumor for a long time was that the Windows Phone brand was dead but that they might want a "Surface Phone" possibly with x86 emulation, which could double as a PC in your pocket. They just tested the water with ARM-based Windows laptops that have x86 emulation.

<comment><USER11> Surface Phone is certainly not a bare rumour. Prototype PCBs and unleaded parts of the device been spotted around Shenzhen for around a year now.

Moreover, Microsoft itself been said to go around different prototyping shops here.

Lakefield was once said to be a codename for Surface Phone, but now been discovered to be a codename for Intel CPU purpose made for it.

<comment><USER11> unlabeled _

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Build 2019 gives us so many exciting news today.

This year I switched my developer machine from Macbook to Thinkpad and so far it has been wonderful.

</comment><comment><USER13> Announcement: [https://www.microsoft.com/developerblog/2016/05/26/creating-...](https://www.microsoft.com/developerblog/2016/05/26/creating- universal-windows-apps-with-react-native/)

</comment><comment><USER14> There has already been ReactXP from Microsoft to make apps for web, iOS, Android, and Windows: [https://microsoft.github.io/reactxp/](https://microsoft.github.io/reactxp/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I find it interesting that most threads on HN lately about Windows always seems to have quite a few comments in the form "I switched from Mac to Windows, loving it!" I know no place is immune from shilling, but it does raise a particular brow.

Conspiracies aside, and probably more interestingly, I am not convinced that "this is the new Microsoft" or that Satya Nadella is some visionary CEO because while everyone has been seemingly lulled to sleep here on "the new Microsoft" on HN lately, guess what accounted for an ever growing portion of Microsoft's business last quarter? Microsoft's data mining business! Horray! So while we are out here with our pitchforks on the Google's and Facebooks of the world collecting our data and selling it, Microsoft has quietly turned around and ramped up their version of these practices seemingly unscathed.

Remember, Microsoft is still under scrutiny for continuing to collect your data on Windows and other products _even after_ you have opted out. From my perspective, choosing to run Windows is still choosing to run a spy machine for Microsoft.

Maybe I am wrong, but Microsoft still doesn't deserve our trust, not even in the slightest.

<comment><USER16> I completely agree. Most of the HN readers are too young to remember MS's bad practices.

<comment><USER17> How many employees from Microsoft in the 90s are still there now, calling the shots?

Microsoft is a company like any other, and like any other company we should keep an eye on what they're doing.

But too often the people who "remember Microsoft's bad practices" are completely unwilling to reevaluate the company based on what they're actually doing _now_, instead preferring to cling to illogical biases based on an old grudge.

<comment><USER18> How many of the National Security Letters are still in place?

How many PRISM-like APIs are there?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As a long-time React dev, I booted Windows and started looking thru the "vnext" setup. But then took another look and saw this:

System Requirements: Visual Studio 2017

Oh. Well, sorry but I'm not going to drop my current IDE (i.e install and run a branch new IDE rather than my everyday tool I've customized greatly).

</comment><comment><USER20> What would be the arguments for/against using this instead of, say, Qt?

<comment><USER21> "Learn once, write everywhere". Can't speak about performance comparison vs using Qt/.NET/whatever but the whole idea about React Native is that today, you can write a __native __app for iOS, tvOS, Android, web, macOS, Windows, and a few others, all using the same language and framework. You still have to understand platform specifics like UX guidelines but you use the same technology to build a fully customizable, and fully performant, native experience. It 's sort of like using C++ but way more developer friendly.

The cons:

\- an extra layer of abstraction

\- need to write a plugin if you want to surface a native functionality to RN if it's not yet supported

\- no visual UI editor like in native tools (Qt/VS), although you generally won't need it with React Native's code-first and instant refresh development workflow

\- you need to be comfortable with React Native / JavaScript, obviously :-)

<comment> iso-8859-1 It's not gonna run everywhere, for the same reason WPF doesn't run everywhere. Given that the apps written with this will bind to Windows using C++, and there is no abstraction in between (like Qt), it's not gonna be portable. As far as I understand, it is going to be a reimplementation of React Native where the apps might have a similar style, but the backend will be completely Windows specific. And nothing will stop a developer from using native Windows APIs, so they will.

> The "current" subdirectory adds support for an earlier React Native for > Windows10 implemented from scratch in C#. It reimplemented the JS<->Native > bridge in C#, and shared the JS with Facebook's implementation of React > Native. The ongoing direction of React Native involves a closer interaction > between C++ and JS which is hard to achieve with a separate C# > implementation.

Given that they say that the "old" version "shared the JS" in past tense, that seems to hint that the "new" version will not share the JS? In that case, what is left of React? It sounds like it will be the same style of API and workflow, but different widgets and no cross-platform compatibility.

Source: [https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native- windows/blob/maste...](https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native- windows/blob/master/vnext/README.md)

<comment><USER22> He said "Learn once, write everywhere" not "Write once, run everywhere"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This smells like an EEE, but I welcome it, they just want to snatch React from FB.

<comment><USER24> What is EEE? And what do you mean by "snatch React"? Facebook owns React, it's not really snatchable.

<comment><USER25> "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish", Microsoft's 1990s playbook for eliminating competition by creating a proprietary fork of some open system/standard, then locking the industry into the Microsoft version of the product.</comment></comment></comment>


Dynamic Bézier Curves - <AUTHOR> https://www.joshwcomeau.com/posts/dynamic-bezier-curves <comment> bra-ket for a great primer on Bézier Curves see [https://pomax.github.io/bezierinfo/](https://pomax.github.io/bezierinfo/)

<comment><USER2> +1 fantastic, github-backed resource

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It reminds me of x-splines. The only implementation I've seen of them is in Xfig. Each control node has a slider that lets you smoothly change between approximating the node, exactly smoothly interpolating through the node, or sharply (i.e. with a corner) interpolate through the node.

It was one of the first papers I ever read:

[https://static.aminer.org/pdf/PDF/000/593/089/x_splines_a_sp...](https://static.aminer.org/pdf/PDF/000/593/089/x_splines_a_spline_model_designed_for_the_end_user.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER4> It reminds me a 2D water simulation I made a few years ago (click to shake the water) :) [http://lib.ivank.net/?p=demos&d=water](http://lib.ivank.net/?p=demos&d=water)

</comment><comment><USER5> Only tangentially related, but if anyone wants to generate bezier animation paths using jquery's animate function, several years ago I wrote a little utility to help generate the input parameters. [http://jqbezier.ericlesch.com](http://jqbezier.ericlesch.com)</comment>


Introduction to Apple WatchKit with Core Motion – Tracking Jumping Jacks - <AUTHOR> https://heartbeat.fritz.ai/introduction-to-apple-watchkit-with-core-motion-tracking-jumping-jacks-259ee80d1210 <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting @hsiaoer and looking forward to your ML classification follow-up post. I've been focused on similar research and read with interest the ARM DynamIQ ML focus [0] as I believe this will open up ML edge processing on wearables, although hard to beat what Johny Srouji and team are doing.

WatchOS 4 seems to support CoreML [1], do you plan to do inferencing on the device eventually? If so, cool!

[0] [https://community.arm.com/processors/b/blog/posts/arm- dynami...](https://community.arm.com/processors/b/blog/posts/arm-dynamiq- expanding-the-possibilities-for-artificial-intelligence)

[1] [https://developer.apple.com/library/content/releasenotes/Gen...](https://developer.apple.com/library/content/releasenotes/General/WhatsNewInwatchOS/Articles/watchOS_4_0.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link!

Yes I would love to get the CoreML model onto the watch itself. I think the interesting part will be tweaking the model and exploring how we can build it with space, battery consumption, and resource utilization in mind. The nice thing is that we can possibly deploy 2 models (one to the phone and one on the watch): the one on the phone runs when the watch is nearby and is more robust. The other runs directly on the watch itself with some tradeoffs). We might discover that we need better hardware on the watch but that would be interesting to explore too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > Unless you're extremely flexible, changes are that your palms won't be > facing away from your body (if you've put the watch on correctly).

Keep in mind that some users wear Apple Watch so that the screen face is on the inside of their wrist, rather than the outside. To a naïve interpretation this would appear as "palms facing away".

<comment><USER4> So many features are broken in this orientation that I doubt anyone would be surprised by this.

<comment><USER5> iirc, you can set the orientation in the Watch settings. The OS and software should adjust.

<comment><USER6> The orientation settings let you choose left or right wrist and, separately, left or right facing Digital Crown, which means you can turn the watch "upside down" and wear it that way. But it doesn't have a setting for wearing it on the inside of the wrist.

<comment><USER7> What if I use the watch at my right wrist and set is as left wrist? Edit for clarity: this is to make screen facing my inside and watchOS knows about this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You can also consider using creating a model using the Activity Classifier toolkit in Turi Create which automatically exports in CoreML format for use in. your watchOS app

[https://github.com/apple/turicreate/tree/master/userguide/ac...](https://github.com/apple/turicreate/tree/master/userguide/activity_classifier)

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome. Been meaning to play around with Turi Create. Seems pretty easy to get started with. One of my colleagues wrote a post on building the hotdog/not hotdog app with it in an afternoon. [https://heartbeat.fritz.ai/building-not- hotdog-with-turi-cre...](https://heartbeat.fritz.ai/building-not-hotdog-with- turi-create-and-core-ml-in-an-afternoon-a87fd1967d10)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I know it's just for educational use (thanks!), but fun to think through what it would take to make this into a fully functional app.

Exercises that don't involve arm movement would be impossible to classify. An extra sensor on the leg might be enough to a) handle cases where just leg movement is involved and b) capture body position for static exercises like planks and wall sits.

<comment><USER10> check out Gymatic featured in Apple Watch app store. Exercise classification + rep counting. I am the developer and we already have a lot of active users using the solution in Gym.

<comment><USER9> I'll take the bait. Great job on the app - seems like it really works. Also answers most questions about how this would be feasible

* How to track workouts where arms don't move? Add a second sensor, or create artificial arm movement.

 _\- Want to track Leg Press? Strap phone to your leg. Or keep hands on your leg to move along._

* How to distinguish between similar workouts/add custom workouts? Custom classification per user means a smaller pool of workouts to distinguish.

 _\- It takes just 3 seconds to train any new exercise_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've just bought a new 3 series and it really bothers me how neuterd most of the apps feel. I have what's equivalent to a desktop PC from 2005 on my wrist yet there is no web browser, decent games, or anything else actually pushing the hardware. The built in email client wont even render html or images. Google has dropped all app support but News. I'm not sure why people aren't doing more with this platform, as the hardware specs are amazing.

<comment><USER12> > _I've just bought a new 3 series and it really bothers me how neuterd most > of the apps feel. I have what's equivalent to a desktop PC from 2005 on my > wrist yet there is no web browser, decent games, or anything else actually > pushing the hardware._

Because you'd e.g. be web browsing on a watch if it did have a web browser?

Besides, even with the "neutered apps" and only cursory use of them, the battery barely lasts a full day. Imagine with what you're suggesting...

<comment><USER13> With a series 3, even the cellular version, the battery will easily last 2 days for most people. Even with heavy use I usually have over 50% battery left at the end of the day...

<comment><USER14> Curious: I just got a series 3 last week and use it as my sole phone (hate smartphone form factor, flip phone user since forever). All I use it for is heart rate, phone, messaging, and music (very happy with it).

I've had to charge my series 3 every night. I guess not having it paired with a phone somehow uses more battery power? Technically, I reset my wife's phone with my sim+apple id, paired, reset back to wife's backup and sim. So it has no real phone to pair with, though I guess maybe that causes it to use cellular a lot more than most.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Any insight into battery life when collecting data?

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't get a chance to profile the app for battery consumption since my recordings were only 5-10s each but I'd assume that while the watch is recording the battery life would be significantly less if you had it on for an extended period of time.

<comment><USER15> Thanks</comment></comment></comment>


Voice control for Keysight 1000-X oscilloscopes using Snips - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jmwilson/ollie <comment><USER2> Pretty simple but great use case of voice control.

There are plenty of times where my contribution to helping someone with an oscilloscope was just to start and stop the trigger at a given time.</comment>


TCP Fast Open: expediting web services - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/508865/

<comment><AUTHOR> from last weeks weekly news.

note the comments, especially the one from ychang: <https://lwn.net/Articles/509376/>

it clears up some serious misunderstandings (that at least me and some commentators there had).</comment>


Entrepreneur raises millions of bugs to tackle food waste problem (2017) - <AUTHOR> http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1066448.shtml <comment><USER2> Interesting. Jinan is the modern center of Shandong province, one of China's oldest continuously inhabited provinces according to the traditional view of the growth of Chinese civilization. It is pretty much denuded after 3,000 years of intensive agriculture, so any means to reuse food waste is welcome. If anyone has the chance to visit, the nearby town of Linzi has a musuem of _cuju_ [0], an ancient Chinese game which FIFA recognized as the earliest form of association football. The ancient capital of Qingzhou[1] is fascinating, with some of the oldest mosques and most important Buddhist statuary as well as carved Buddhist grottoes on nearby mountains and a huge picturesque park- valley dividing in the middle of town. And the nearby town of Dezhou[2] holds the tomb of a Philippino Muslim sultan who is thought to have been murdered by the Chinese after failing to display appropriate deference to the Emperor. Then of course there's the home of Confucius - Qufu[3], the old German treaty port of Qingdao[4], etc. Not a bad province for those with historical inclinations!

On the subject of food waste, we are planning to collect and recycle from our food robots but this may be hampered by regulations frustrating importing food waste across the Chinese/HK and Chinese/Macau borders. We shall see.

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

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

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

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qufu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qufu)

[5] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingdao](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingdao)

<comment><USER3> What kind of food robots do you have?

<comment><USER2> Scary awesome ones that make noodles. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Black solider flies (BSF) are another popular food composting insect. Their larvae are absolutely ravenous, and chickens go bananas for them. Their castings are not that nutritious, but they make a good bedding for worm composting. As an extra plus, unlike cockroaches the adult flies are not pests - they don't bite people and they won't stay around unless there's rotting food. I would NOT want a cockroach farm anywhere near my home, while I would be just fine with a BSF farm in my own yard.

Video: [https://youtu.be/5M6u9ZX5ecE](https://youtu.be/5M6u9ZX5ecE)

<comment><USER5> Isn't there an issue with biomagnification ? I mean the waste probably went into contact or already contain toxic molecules. How can it be a good idea to feed it to chicken again ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This sounds like pure marketing to me. Statements like "Cockroaches are also a raw material in traditional Chinese medicine, known to be able to promote detoxification" and "found that chickens fed with the powder were not only healthier but also grew stronger and faster than normal chickens" without citations sets off all sorts of alarm bells.

And I don't know a ton about this area in general but it seems like if you are separating the organic compounds from trash then compost centers would be the real alternative (rather than landfills)?

<comment><USER3> Don't know about the chinese medicine, but insects chewing organic matter can be better than compost if you don't have a lot of dry carbon (paper, twigs, leaves whathaveyou). If you just let lots of fruit rot, you get anaerobic decomposition, which is slow and releases lots of methane (greenhouse gas) not to mention smells like rotting fruit. Can't compost meat without some real disease issues either.

I've got a friend with Black Soldier Fly larvae eating his leftovers of all kinds. Raw meat, pineapple, it all gets turned to dirt. Insects are magic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This reminds me heavily on the 'perfect food' issue primarily in western countries. Every apple that's not pretty, every cucumber that's not straight and so on. All just goes from the supermarket into a bin.

It's a really horrible amount of waste that easily could solve many issues around poverty and hunger, but yet, very little action. Good to see more momentum around food waste.

<comment><USER8> It's also horrible because, in the quest for the perfect _looking_ food, flavor and nutrition are often the first thing to go.

<comment><USER9> The science suggests that food is becoming less nutritious because of more abundant carbon dioxide, not directly due to farming practices.

<comment><USER10> You could just breed it back down to being slower-growing if that was the case, if that was what any big farmer wanted...

<comment><USER9> Realistically, what the farmer wants is irrelevant. A farmer who grows what a farmer wants is a farmer that is no longer in business. You need to have customers to stay in business, and so the customer always dictates what is grown. Customers don't buy product they don't want – why would they?

If the customer desires a slower-growing plant, the customer will get a slower-growing plant (assuming the tech companies are able to make the science work, but that's outside of the hands of farmers). Although knowing the average consumer, there is a good chance they would never accept a slower- growing plant as it may cause autism or some other story that they start to spread around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Looks like the protein can be consumed by humans as well, since many people eat roaches. Can't the protein powder be used like whey isolate powder? If yes, that's a massive industry to tap.

<comment><USER12> The food for farm animal for human consumption is heavily controlled. You can't give them any crap. They also need strict veterinary controls.

But if the roaches are farmed to produce food that is given to animals that are consumed by humans, the extra level of indirection makes everything more easy.

<comment><USER13> _The food for farm animal for human consumption is heavily controlled. You can 't give them any crap._

"poultry litter or broiler litter is a mixture of poultry excreta, spilled feed, feathers, and material used as bedding in poultry operations ... it is now also used as a livestock feed as a cost-saving measure compared with other feedstock materials, particularly for beef animals."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry_litter#Use_as_cattle_f...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry_litter#Use_as_cattle_feed)

<comment><USER14> I do not regret my decision to stop eating meat. That's disgusting.

<comment><USER15> the plants you eat are consumers of cow and other animal excreta

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ok, so they've found all these bugs, but who is going to pay to fix them? This is the problem with open-source.

</comment><comment><USER17> Something doesn't add up, the roach eat but they need to shit and roaches don't grow after reaching certain size. So at the point they'd be just eating and shitting. The shit can't be used as protein, so there still need to land fill that waste correct? The article isn't telling the whole story.

<comment><USER18> As oh_sigh says their castings can be used as compost, and the roaches themselves can probably be used to make fish or animal feed. In fact their poop might too. People might hesitate at the prospect of eating roaches, or shit, but pass it all through some tilapia and they're thrilled.

<comment><USER19> _People might hesitate at the prospect of eating roaches, or shit, but pass it all through some tilapia and they're thrilled._

Yeah, but that's normal. People don't want to eat grass either until it's passed through a cow or a sheep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Must be one of the worse place to work on earth too

<comment><USER20> Yeah, imagine if the cockroach containment breaks and they start to roam freely into neighbouring factories, office buildings or worse, homes. Expect properties near _cockroach food recycling factories_ to be quite cheap.

<comment><USER17> I googled pics and the place in hallways is just overrun by roaches, not sure how they can contain those things. Back to topic, they say they grind up the rotting food and feed it into a massive glass container, imagine the smell along with all that

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Why do I feel like the stuff they're eating is going to work itself back into our food supply somewhere down the line?

<comment><USER22> Sustainable business cycle! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> At first I thought the title of this post was wrong or satire :)</comment>


Show HN: Caboose.io easily prototype and build powerful back ends for your apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.caboose.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Caboose is a Backend as a Service (BaaS) that my friend and I built as a passion project. The idea is to drastically simplify the steps needed to build or prototype almost any type of application without compromising functionality and power. We built an experience that makes development simple and accessible by allowing you to develop and define your backends using plain old English. You can also extend anything we provide with JavaScript, Java, PHP, or Python.

While there might be some rough edges, please take a look and tell us what you think. We know there are a bunch of BaaS providers out there, but we feel the functionality and simplicity of Caboose makes it a stand out.

</comment><comment><USER2> but is it web scale?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a data store option for /dev/null... so yes

<comment><USER3> Perfect dialog here. For anyone who doesn't "get this"... watch this video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What big discoveries can be attributed to Elite schools? - <AUTHOR>

Since I know this is an educated bunch, I thought it would be interesting to see what you all thought about how big discoveries in the world could be attributed to Elite education.
Are elite schools really significant to truly disruptive innovation?
Do they just attract smart people, and smart people tend to have good ideas and execute them well?
What is it specifically about these schools that cultivates disruptive innovations that lacks at other "non-elite" schools?
Please leave your honest evaluations below.  They will be useful in my ongoing side-project on graduate admissions. <comment><USER2> If you broaden it a bit to include other elite schools like MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, etc. the impact is enormous. Their innovations won WWII. Their students and alumni founded HP, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, MySpace, Intel, and on and on. These schools tend to have alumni networks all over the place. There are Harvard Clubs coast to coast.

Take a look at Nobel Prizes; these schools dominate. Take a look at the diploma on your doctor's or lawyer's wall.

"Do they just attract smart people, and smart people tend to have good ideas and execute them well?" Not necessarily that they think better or execute better than everyone else. It's just that in the aggregate there are so many of them that there are bound to be ones around anything significant.

As a counterpoint, I live near Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. It's not a top tier school, but it's surprising the number of successful startups that have come out of it. Jamba Juice come to mind.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response. I broadened it a bit. What I'm more interested in is what these schools may offer specifically that helps cultivate disruptive technologies.

<comment><USER2> I think it's the culture. Stanford has long had culture of fostering entrepreneurship. The concentration of smart people helps. You can spout off about your latest harebrained scheme and there is better chance of good criticism or even an eager partner. And as I said the alumni networks are significant. Name recognition helps a lot. Harvard has opened door for me, especially in other countries where people haven't even heard of the lower tier universities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Elite schools have renowned faculty, great facilities, lots of money, and a focus on research. Consequently, the curricula are better; the research opportunities more numerous and varied; the expectations greater. These institutions have the capacity to engage and challenge their best students. And they have the reputations to attract the top students from around the world, where they meet, compete, and collaborate. I think this environment enhances the likelihood of innovation through sudden insight.

Another possible mechanism for innovation is through gradual refinement leading to a breakthrough. Well-funded, research-oriented institutions are in the best position to fund this kind of incremental research.

</comment><comment><USER4> Which field?

</comment><comment><USER5> collateralized debt obligations</comment>


Show HN: AddonList - services for developers, my weekend project - <AUTHOR> http://addonlist.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Please feel free to suggest any addons I should add.</comment>


SplitShire – Free Stock Photos copyright free for your business - <AUTHOR> http://www.splitshire.com

<comment><USER2> Page looks broken for me on Chrome WinX64 42.0.2311.135

<comment><AUTHOR> Check it now willy

<comment><USER2> Now it's looking good :)</comment></comment></comment>


Gravitational Lensing to Observe Ancient Earth - <AUTHOR> http://rein.pk/gravitational-lensing-to-observe-ancient-earth/ <comment><USER2> Reminds me of one of my favorite books (well, not really. The premise was incredible and the writing was impeccable but it was part one of a trilogy that never materialized): _Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus_

It was basically a brilliant alternative historical fiction novel based around the premise of being able to rewatch the past.

<comment><USER3> I consider it the best science fiction book for people who are interested in historical fiction and speculative historical fiction. Longest list of citations for a fiction book I've ever seen. And as you say, excellent premise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So it's possible for a beam of light to wrap around a black hole and intersect its own path. This must mean that light doesn't follow Kepler orbits[1] in general relativity?

[1] i.e. ellipse, parabola, or hyperbola: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_orbit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_orbit)

<comment><USER5> _> This must mean that light doesn't follow Kepler orbits[1] in general relativity?_

That's right. This is true even in the weak field limit: the orbits of planets in the Solar System are not exact ellipses when GR is taken into account. This is called "perihelion precession", and was observed with Mercury even in the 19th century; it was one of the "classic tests" that Einstein calculated to satisfy himself that GR was correct. With modern observations I believe this effect has been observed for at least all of the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars).

<comment><USER4> I see, so GR causes all orbits to precess, and actually nothing follows classical Kepler orbits exactly. Even the simple two-body problem doesn't result in elliptical orbits.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two- body_problem_in_general_rel...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two- body_problem_in_general_relativity)

<comment><USER5> Yes. (Strictly speaking, a perfectly circular orbit would qualify as a "classical Kepler orbit", and is still possible in GR, but this is an idealized case.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is what's so crazy about technology. Whatever we can imagine, we can make happen, no matter how crazy it sounds. Our descendants 1,000 years from now will probably be able to observe everything we are doing today. If you asked me how yesterday, I wouldn't have a clue. But today, this article shows me one way to do it. Imagine the other possibilities yet to be discovered.

<comment><USER7> This is a common view point which kind of irritates me. It leads to a lot of false assumptions and gullibility with regards to pop science. What about time travel, teleportation or travel to the nearest star system? All things well with in reach of our imagination and far from our ability.

<comment><USER8> I don't think it is impossible per se, but we put our time and resources in other things, so it won't happen.

<comment><USER7> We will see none of these things in our lifetime nor is it likely to happen in the next 1000 years. I challenge you to read up on what it would take to reach Proxima Centauri. Small amounts of time travel happen all the time. Significant forward time travel is physically possible, as is interstellar travel, but unobtainable by humans. Pop science has tried to make us think teleportation is possible through quantum entanglement but that has been proven false. I would love it if we could do any of these things but it's just not reasonable to think it will happen.

I believe this sort of gullibility stems from not really understanding what we have achieved. If our current achievements seem like magic then anything seems possible. Mankind's achievements are impressive to mankind but we're also a bunch of self-aggrandizing egotists. Hopefully no one else is watching.

[http://earthsky.org/space/alpha-centauri-travel- time](http://earthsky.org/space/alpha-centauri-travel-time)

<comment><USER9> If you travel close enough to c it wouldn't take very long to the astronaut to get to Proxima Centauri. It's _very_ far from our capability but you're saying it won't happen in the next thousand years? It sounds like someone in 1200 A.D saying it's impossible for humanity calculate PI to the 100,000th digit within the next 1000 years.

I'm forward time travelling, and have traveled over twenty years in my life time, at a rate of 1 second per second and that's significant enough for me. :)

<comment><USER10> There's a big difference between "it's possible" and "it will happen". I mean, look at air travel for example. Supersonic air travel has been possible since the '70s. But it doesn't happen because it's not cost effective, and the benefit from it never outweighed the cost.

I think it's possible that we _can_ to send a human consciousness (physical astronaut, uploaded mind, etc.) to Proxima Centauri in a thousand years. But _will_ we? "It would be amazing", as it turns out, isn't actually a very strong justification for doing anything.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't happen now, because the sole craft was eventually retired. (Rather spitefully, too, with BA refusing to cede any to Virgin)

There is, nonetheless, Skylon under development, though dreadfully underfunded. If it actually works as expected, SABRE will be a quite remarkable innovation. So far, it's all looking good, including the particularly gnarly issue of cooling the incoming air in extremely little time.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SABRE_(rocket_engine)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SABRE_\(rocket_engine\))

<comment><USER7> re: SABRE, there's no air in space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is there any calculation on what resolution would be even theoretically possible? There are only a finite number of photons being emitted by the surface of the earth and so at a certain distance there wouldn't be enough to show detail past some level.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've spent a good amount of engineering hours doing research on this thought when I had it in the shower a few years back. My thought was a little different in that : " perhaps we could beam a laser with encoded information on a loop journey, that is meant to return to earth in X million years."

Such a trajectory might also depend on the position of earth and other objects and have a very narrow windows. As if watching a pond on a windy day and the wind eases off for a second or two yielding a glimpse of your own reflection and then to pick up again leaving a blurry pond.

<comment><USER14> For the digital-network analogue, see pingfs: [http://www.shysecurity.com/posts/PingFS](http://www.shysecurity.com/posts/PingFS)

<comment><USER15> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This reminded me of a short story I read, called Light Of Other Days, written by Bob Shaw.

Instead of black holes or other massive objects, he used a concept called "slow glass" \- glass in which light takes years to pass.

Obviously, though, you'd had to have panes of slow glass in front of the scenes from life 6000 years ago...

<comment><USER7> "Light of Other Days" is a great book but it was written by Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke.

<comment><USER7> Wait, sorry. There are two books with similar titles. "The Light of Other Days" is by Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke. "Light of Other Days" is indeed by Bob Shaw. I have not read the latter. The former deals with a new technology which allows people to see in to the past via microscopic "wormholes".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >In 2002 Daniel Holz and John Wheeler investigated this idea and ran all the calculations in their paper Retro-MACHOs: Pi in the Sky?

That's one of the best paper names I've come across.

From the introduction:

>The bending power of a black hole is not limited, however, to small angles but reaches π and odd multiples of π. Illuminated by a powerful point source of light, the black hole will therefore shine back with a series of concentric rings (we call this retrolensing).

Does anyone know if this sort of research is on the agenda for the James Webb Space Telescope? Our space imaging has progressed dramatically in the last couple of decades, so it wouldn't surprise me to see many more MACHOs (maybe even Retro-MACHOs!) being discovered, in the same way our understanding of the vast number of galaxies in the universe was increased by the Hubble Space Telescope.

</comment><comment><USER18> Coincidentally, something like this was asked on reddit.com/r/askscience recently.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2y93cz/if_we_wer...](http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2y93cz/if_we_were_far_enough_from_earth_could_we_see_the/)

(if we were far enough from the earth, could we see the dinosaurs)

One comment claimed that the lens would be the limiting factor. If using traditional glass lens, they calculated that it would need a diameter of 4 light years to be able to see the dinosaurs. They furthermore claimed that a lens of this size would gravitationally collapse, and thus would not be feasible.

I don't believe gravitational lensing was mentioned as of my reading.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've a different idea. Rather than try to recover old photons that left earth long ago, can recover and collate the remnants of these photons. This might be possible if these photons left a holographic imprint on matter which is still present – buildings, old trees, rock formations. I envision that in the future there will be a field of "photonic archaeology" where scientists will reconstruct past images from these trace holographic signatures. Same thing could theoretically be done for acoustics.

<comment><USER20> _Godel Escher Bach_ has a chapter riffing on the acoustics version of this idea: [http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/jvt002/BrainMind/Readings/P...](http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/jvt002/BrainMind/Readings/Prelude.pdf). Though the discussion there is about recovering sound waves that are _still propagating_ in the air, which seems orders of magnitude more difficult than recovering sound from impressions on solid objects (which already feels likely impossible in most interesting cases).

<comment><USER21> Reminds me of this [http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/algorithm-recovers-speech- fro...](http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/algorithm-recovers-speech-from- vibrations-0804)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Assuming we could overcome the technological/scientific/physical limitations and we did have a 'realtime' video feed from a Google Earth-like perspective of events happening 65 years ago (picking the final example)... I wonder what the societal impacts of that would be?

<comment><USER23> I would first of all want to check if any religion's historical claims are true.

That would help a lot of people with their beliefs!

<comment><USER17> Using the GP's figure of 65 years ago, you could check out Elron's claims. Scientology was founded in 1952. Dianetics was going crazy for a few years before that.

Other than that we need to find some MACHOs between ~700 and ~1800 lightyears away in order to check the claims of the more popular religions.

But, considering the data would be coming from the scientific (and in particular the atrophysics) community, it would be ignored by those who found it inconvenient.

Religion and Astronomy have a very checkered past.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Imagine if everything in the Universe was just the light from our solar system refracted billions of ways making it seem like there were galaxies but really we are all alone.

</comment><comment><USER25> There is a lot of exiting stuff: observing Einstein cross visually, GAI mapping mission, MACHO detection... Perhaps we could start with that...

<comment><USER26> > There is a lot of exiting stuff: observing Einstein cross visually, GAI > mapping mission, MACHO detection... Perhaps we could start with that...

I am not sure what you mean. We have had optical observations of at least one Einsten cross since the late 80s / early 90s[0, 1]. Signs of MACHOs were detected in 1995[2]. I don't know what a "GAI mapping mission" is, so I cannot comment on that.

[0] [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993BCFHT..29...22H](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993BCFHT..29...22H)

[1] [http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9512103](http://arxiv.org/abs/astro- ph/9512103)

[2] [http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/199507/macho.cfm](http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/199507/macho.cfm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This article from berkeley is super relevant, it was published just a few days ago: [https://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2015/03/05/distant- supernova...](https://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2015/03/05/distant-supernova- split-four-ways-by-gravitational-lens/)

We can see a supernova 4 different times using gravitational lensing.

</comment><comment><USER28> How would the calculations play out for near-earth MACHOs and radio frequencies instead of visible light? I can imagine that the construction of a suitable antenna is more feasible than for a visible-light telescope?

</comment><comment><USER29> I am not a lawyer, but maybe if multiple MACHOs in the right positions could make this work.

</comment><comment><USER30> Would we ever be able to collect enough photons to form any kind of image though?</comment>


Explorable Explanations - <AUTHOR> http://explorableexplanations.com/ <comment><USER2> Imagine if you could also _listen_ to these documents, with the author reading, and the text tracking.

I believe the effect of that one simple addition would amplify their effectiveness (or at least reach) by an order of magnitude.

After the massive work that their authors put in, the effort of one good read- through would be marginal. If the above surmise is true, you'd be in power law territory.

But you'd need a tool to make such an additional channel as trivial as doing one good read-through.

I'm a little surprised that Bret Victor doesn't do this for his pieces, considering his emphasis on the use of more human capabilities[0].

Implementing the read-back part is trivial [1], and available on all "modern" browsers.

Trickier is making the product that lets authors add this channel without manual tagging. But even this is becoming trivial with speech-to-text API's.

Anyway, I wholly agree with the OP that the first focus of documents in dynamic media should be improved exposition and, by extension argumentation.

[0] "The Humane Representation of Thought" [https://vimeo.com/115154289](https://vimeo.com/115154289)

[1] For example, see a crude implementation at [https://willshake.net/plays/Ado/1.1](https://willshake.net/plays/Ado/1.1) (click a play arrow in the blue column.) The tracking code is at [https://willshake.net/about/text_tracking](https://willshake.net/about/text_tracking)

<comment><USER3> Can you expand on why adding a narrative would amplify the effectiveness of these explorable explanations by so much? The whole core of explorable explanations is that you can play with the models yourself to gain insights and reach conclusions the author may not have come to herself, to me, adding a narrative would only add to the linearity of the text itself, and therefor take away some of the "exploration" part

<comment><USER2> Glad you asked.

First, consider the difference between two people reading aloud: one is new to the material, concepts, and associated vocabulary, and the other is the author. They are reading the same text, but the author's rendition will carry an _understanding_ of the material that is absent in the other one—and not found in the text, either. Doesn't that difference comprise relevant _information_?

Shakespearean actors do this for a living: they stick to the words on the page, but they add another layer of signals to help unlock them for people. Technical and expository writing can benefit from this effect as well. Don Norman argues, for example, that _thinking requires emotion_ , and the voice is an easy way to add an emotional connection.[0]

So I believe that _any_ document, explorable or otherwise, is amplified by a human reading, when that human really understands and cares about the material. And again, for subjects that warrant these specialized explanations—which tend to require some specialized language—the value added is particularly great, because it teaches people _how to read_ something new.

Second, I strongly believe in an "all-in" approach for things that you care about. Clearly these authors care about reaching people, and I think there can be no doubt that the ability to click "play" brings in listeners who would never have been readers. And by giving a passive "flow" to the presentation, it helps sustain many readers who would have given up.

Adding a channel does not "take away" anything. Everything, including the interactivity and the opportunity for non-linear reading, is still there. (And note that the recording doesn't have to be linear, anyway.) The authors are not competing with themselves, they're competing with YouTube and notifications and other low-friction distractions.

So I'm excited about the OP. I would like _this_ community—mature, passionate thinkers and teachers—to be the _avant garde_ of future media.

[0] _Emotional Design_ , Don Norman

<comment><USER4> > _They are reading the same text, but the author 's rendition will carry an > understanding of the material that is absent in the other one—and not found > in the text, either. Doesn't that difference comprise relevant information?_

Not to me, as someone who's never run into the material before. There's no knowledge-carrying particle that's transmitted vocally.

In fact, to me it would be a distraction. I learn better visually; I can stop reading, and start again, and quickly re-scan what I'd read before to catch up. It's harder to do that with a recording of a voice, and takes longer.

<comment><USER2> > Not to me... to me it would be a distraction

Other people might say the same about the graphics, or the interactions.

The point is that it's not zero-sum—no one loses out by the presence of other channels, if the document is dynamic. But if some people _do_ benefit, then there's a value proposition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Instead of isolated examples that happen to use math, would it make sense (or even be possible) to start a platform for visualization of mathematics? Something like context-augmented LaTeX. Not a computation engine (like mathematica or sage), but something closer to a github for math (visualization and exploration).

Consider how much time it took you to learn Gaussian elimination from a book or lecture vs how long it would take to see an animated example and then pick up the details. Or consider how ambiguous mathematic notation can be [1].

So much of mathematics (purportedly the most structured knowledge produced by humankind) sleeps in mountains of unread journals and inside the brains (software) of mathematicians that are trained to do these visualizations on wetware.

It is a feature of math that these aren't hard-coded, as in the abstract one can conjure up any edits the imagination desires without the complex implementation details typically required by a computer. And in some cases a visualization (such as geometry) can be misleading and reduce generality [2].

However, there could be much to be gained by the majority from the hypothetical platform. Computation packages like mathematica only incidentally help visualize, as a byproduct.

Take for instance the videos by 3blue1brown [3]. Their appeal (and those in the parent link) is that they reduce the individual mental overhead and that a carbon copy of the visual is imprinted in the learner.

There is no punchline to this comment. And I'm certainly not an expert on the matter. I still find the 'movement' fascinating.

[1] [https://jeremykun.com/2013/02/08/why-there-is-no- hitchhikers...](https://jeremykun.com/2013/02/08/why-there-is-no-hitchhikers- guide-to-mathematics-for-programmers/)

[2] [http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/743067/visually- dece...](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/743067/visually-deceptive- proofs-which-are-mathematically-wrong) (not what I had in mind but this will do)

[3] [http://www.3blue1brown.com](http://www.3blue1brown.com)

<comment><USER6> I think mathbox fits what you're describing:

[http://acko.net/files/pres/siggraph-2014-bof/online.html](http://acko.net/files/pres/siggraph-2014-bof/online.html)

[http://acko.net/blog/mathbox2/](http://acko.net/blog/mathbox2/)

<comment><USER7> Was just about to link that.</comment></comment></comment>


Analysis of the Human Bird Wings - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/analysis-of-the-human-birdwings/

<comment><USER2> I had to follow back to the submitted article's author's earlier blog posts, a couple of degrees of linking back, to figure out where the "log-plot of the wingspan vs. mass for different birds along with the human with wings" came from. It came from the author himself, without a validation study, and "anyone can edit" Wikipedia. People who know their history of physics well will remember that Galileo showed that in general, as an animal's size scales up, its mass increases with the cube (third power) of the scale factor while its surface area increases only with the square (second power) of the scale factor.

<http://dinosaurtheory.com/scaling.html>

[http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/609.ral5q.fall04/Le...](http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/609.ral5q.fall04/LecturePDF/L14-GALILEOSCALING.pdf)

To scale up flight by arm motion to the mass of a human adult would have to result in a very different wing loading from that of any bird. There is a lot of hand-waving about electric motor power (at what weight?) for the wings in the video being discussed here on HN, but no verifiable figures about what energy is input into the wings versus what weight the total assemblage has.

As astute comments pointed out in the earlier main thread about the video, it would be easy enough to verify this extraordinary claim just by letting some professional journalists take a look at the rig and weigh it and photograph it up close and do their own videography of a set of flights of the rig and its operator. There is no reason to take an amateur, self-produced video with unverified claims seriously about an issue that is so contrary to well studied principles of aeronautics. Until there is better quality evidence, there is no warrant for believing this extraordinary claim.

<comment><USER3> The electric motors--if using the heavy-duty outrunners mentioned in the last thread--are on the order of 2-4 kg each, for a total of about 10 lbs. The weight of the fabric/kite is on the order of 1kg (<http://www.humanbirdwings.net/about/working-on-the-wings/>).

The batteries appear to be lightweight li-poly packs, so really powerful for very light weight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ignoring impossible feats of physics, the video is fake. There is a comment on the first Wired article which points out incontrovertible evidence of poorly done compositing around the 20 second mark with the guy on the left running "through" the wingtip without bumping it.

Uncut, raw video from the side of complete take-off and landing (since there is supposedly someone taking video from the side) would be enough to prove its real. Too bad this isn't real.

<comment><USER5> That 20 second mark is pretty damning - the shadow cast on the wing by the guy on the left is visible before his body is in front of the wing.

Thanks for crushing my dreams.

<comment><USER4> My pleasure. I worked on the visual effects team for a movie with a _lot_ of compositing. This is cut-rate stuff. Can you imagine what sort of things we will believe if someone were doing this sort of fakery with a real budget?

<comment><USER5> Exactly - I read the Wired article yesterday and didn't even think to second- guess it even though in general I'm something of a skeptic. I just marveled at how clever and technologically advanced humans have become.

Ironically, this _is_ a demonstration of how clever and technologically advanced we are, but not in the way I originally thought!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> His take off speed and the angle of attack for his wings looks suspect. As much as I want this to be real it looks like he is in a stall the moment his feet lift off the ground. I am looking at this from a traditional fixed wing aircraft view though so my views could be flawed.

</comment><comment><USER7> _"Either this part of the video was made with a real hand held camera, or they have found better ways to 'fake shake' the video."_

Good fake camera shake isn't too hard. After you take your tripod shots to add CGI to, also take some actual shaky footage of the same scene, or of anything else about the same distance away. Then motion-track the shake from your shaky footage and apply the same motion to your CGI shot. High-fives all around.

In conclusion: unrealistic camera shake would tell you something, but realistic camera shake doesn't tell you anything. It's like, "yep, these look like real people rather than cartoon characters, so this definitely wasn't faked using old Simpsons episodes ..."

</comment><comment><USER8> All of this discussion is a complete waste of time. The burdon is on the publishers of this video to demonstrate these wings in front of a live audience of reputable journalists and engineers. Until then, can we move on?

</comment><comment><USER9> Wouldn't you FIRST test the ability to glide back down before you add motor and power to get in the air?

The lack of any video gliding down from a building etc. immediately made this extremely suspect for me.

Then the fact I use an electric bicycle with a 48volt 1kwh battery for long distances. It's lithium but it's still big and EXTREMELY heavy. So is the motor. And those wings would need even more battery and more powerful motors.

</comment><comment><USER10> What's up with all the people trying to discuss the physics involved? The video is blatantly fake, for other reasons entirely: the obvious viral factor, shady YouTube channel, bad acting, fake camera movement, etc. This thing is probably a Red Bull viral, inspired by that other "walking on water" viral.

</comment><comment><USER11> A lot of people don't realize that there are motors on his backpack that power the wings. The movement of the arms guides the brushless motors using components seen in the Wii controller and only marginally assist the power sent to the wings.

<comment><USER12> That, and the perspective as he runs on the "takeoff" is completely out of whack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Previous night's discussion with something more than just "I can tell from some of the pixels."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3732385>

It may be fake, but it isn't impossible.

</comment><comment><USER13> Absolutely fake. If this is not obvious to you, learn more physics.

<comment><USER14> It looks as if the author -did- look at the event with a fairly in-depth analysis, and the results were plausible yet inconclusive.

<comment><USER6> His results seem to suggest that the video wasn't CGI'ed, correct?

<comment><USER15> Well, no. They suggest that the camera shake wasn't added in after the fact with postprocessing of an existing image -- or at least that the image was fairly high-res and blur was also added after the fact. He doesn't rule out that the whole video wasn't computer-generated, nor that the dude was running into a greenscreen, nor for that matter a green cable that was digitally altered out, or anything like that. Some of these would venture into "faked" as opposed to CGI -- a cable which did not need to be shopped out might be an example, although whether you could have a nice construction crane nearby to operate it would be a worthwhile question, since the video doesn't give it much place to hide and the larger it is the more dangerous it would be to hang someone off of it and then move it from point A to point B.

<comment><USER3> There is a very real possibility that the wing was pulled by a cable. The kite adapted is actually one of those ones you usually pull behind a boat and which glides you up into the air.

<comment><USER15> That's also something I haven't considered. Whether or not this was really done, if you wanted to create the same effect by faking it, you could do it at least in part by doing two different "takes" -- one where you pull the guy from the front and view with a camera behind him, and another where you pull the guy up from behind and view with the camera on his head. There is a blurry whitish splotch when he first gets air which could be a tree in the distance, but if you wanted to fake it, that could be a way to disguise the cable.

This would give a plausible way to fake the first and the last scenes, where you see the man from behind, as well as the "in the air" scenes where you just see from his perspective: you could in principle put him in a boom lift vehicle -- perhaps suspended from it or perhaps even just sitting in it -- and the image would look very similar.

The side-view shot would be much more difficult to fake.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tunguska, the ternary computer emulator - <AUTHOR> http://www.acc.umu.se/~achtt315/tunguska/index.html <comment><USER2> Great stuff. Reminds me heavily of some time spent at uni studying old Soviet Ternary Computers.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun> <http://www.computer- museum.ru/english/setun.htm>

The high level logic for wanting to build one _seems_ sound, but then when you get into the nuts and bolts of it, binary systems are simpler and use less silicon. However, the kinds of logic gates are really quite fascinating (building the equivalent of a full-adder was really cool if I remember correctly)

Can't seem to find the site that has the logic diagrams, but I recall they were particularly intriguing.

<comment><USER3> This[1] paper discussing "DSSP", the systems programming language of Setun computers is a very interesting read. It's rare that languages have design goals sufficiently similar to those of Forth to allow direct comparison.

[1] <http://www.forth.org.ru/~dssp/msdos_e/papers/daf.txt>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It annoys me when FLOSS software sites have the 'News' as the front page (like this project). If I go to your site many times i probably know where to get the news, or get it another way (IRC, web forum, mailing list, etc.). However if it's my first time all I see is "please see the about section".</comment>


Show HN: HasComponentViews — child view handling for Backbone - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/weeksie/has_component_views

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a simple component I put together for our very front end heavy application at Plyfe. Child view handling seems to be a common pain point with Backbone projects so I figured I'd share our solution. It's our first go at it and we'll be updating things as we cut our fingers on the corners.</comment>


The New Facebook News Feed: A UX Breakdown - <AUTHOR> http://zachtratar.com/?post=%2Ffacebook.html

<comment><USER3> Sorry, completely off-topic rant but for an article about UX, TFA is on the crappiest-UX site I've ever seen.

First, half the page is dedicated to a head shot of the author. And then, to make matters worse, scrolling is completely broken. I spent several seconds swiping my trackpad in frustration, unable to understand why the page was refusing to scroll only to realize you can only scroll if the cursor is on the right side of the page. Permalinks are broken/non-existent, too.

Frankly, the entire site (from domain name, to ginormous headshot, to half the page dedicated to "about myself") screams narcissism.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, I'm not a narcissist. In my experience, it's best to give constructive feedback instead of slander.

<comment><USER4> We all are. It's just to different degrees and how we harness it - <USER2> attributes such as self pride/confidence (positive narcissism) vs arrogance/grandiose (negative).

Narcissism is getting a more bad rep due to today's over sharing platforms (and for valid reasons), but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss/defend from the label.

You may not notice it, but outsiders can see it more easily (ie: headshot taking half the page). I notice you even took the time to shop in an artificial background for your headshot. Just these lil bits that add up.

As for the article content, I'm surprised you went for a UX breakdown without using the product (or do you have beta access?) Visually I like the redesign, but not knowing how the menus work, actually using the product and knowing that the announcment page is full of carefully curated photos, it's hard for me to comment and compare.

Edit: OP said wasn't shopped - I stand corrected.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well thought out and I partly agree. The background actually isn't photoshopped. There was a blue curtain at a career fair booth.

My analysis is purely from the shots and common behavior patterns among other web apps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Completely unusable website for me running a relative recent version of Chrome on an older Ubuntu. Scroll functionality completely broken.

The irony isn't lost on me.

</comment><comment><USER6> A small UX feedback on your website - I spent a couple minutes trying to figure out why I couldn't scroll with my mouse and realized that it was because my cursor was over the left side of the website with the headshot which is separate from the article.

<comment><AUTHOR> That will be fixed soon. Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> there is no way i can begin to read your article with your ginormous head shot staring at me.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. This is what it looks like after a double-tap zoom on iPhone: <http://i.imgur.com/wy6kGiJ.png>

<comment><USER9> A bit disconcerting to say the least.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Also, once I clicked the link to your About page on the left, the only way to navigate back to the post was to refresh the page...

</comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone else have 3 scrollbars on this site?

<comment><USER11> No, but...

<http://imgur.com/QJCC8lD>

<comment><USER12> This is hilarious

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That guy´s face is frigin huge!</comment>


The Existential Operator - <AUTHOR> https://coffeescript.org/#existential-operator <comment><AUTHOR> This is by far my favorite feature of Coffeescript, and it makes me sad not to have it in other languages.

There was an attempt at including it into EcmaScript, and an interesting discussion about the merits and the difficulties of implementing the operator, here: [https://esdiscuss.org/topic/the-existential- operator](https://esdiscuss.org/topic/the-existential-operator)</comment>