Depressing: News Sites Are Their Own Biggest Advertisers - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/02/13/depressing-news-sites-are-their-own-biggest-advertisers/?partner=yahootix

<comment><USER2> That's really not all that surprising considering that with digital publications you can show much more ads and advertisers limit how many views they're willing to pay for.

The interesting thing to know would be how many views are actually going towards non-inhouse ads.

Also not that surprising that the highest percentage of real advertisers are financial ones, as buying ads for those types of services return the best ratio of CPC/CPM to net profit.

</comment><comment><USER3> It certainly is a big change compared to years past, but I fail to see how it's necessarily depressing (or even "bad").</comment>


Big Uber Shareholders Rebel on CEO's Pay Package Amid Coronavirus Layoffs - <AUTHOR> https://observer.com/2020/05/uber-ceo-pay-shareholder-backlash-coronavirus/ <comment><USER2> > $2 million in reimbursement for work-related expenses.

Huh? I don't even get reimbursed for using my personal phone and this joker gets 2 million bucks to play with?</comment>


Ask HN: How to create my own version of AWS using AWS - <AUTHOR> I want to create a version of AWS using multiple Raspberry Pis.
Any tutorials or links that would guide or lead me in that direction? <comment><USER2> Interesting question.

I dont own a raspberry pi, so no idea what hypervisors are available for you to use. I normally use KVM on centos7.

Quick google, and I only seen 1 hypervisor. [http://xhypervisor.org](http://xhypervisor.org)

No idea what it can and cant do.

</comment><comment><USER3> Which aspects of AWS? They've got well over 100 distinct services at this time...</comment>


AMD Ryzen 7 2700X gets overclocked to break the 6GHz barrier - <AUTHOR> https://www.techradar.com/news/amd-ryzen-7-2700x-gets-overclocked-to-break-the-6ghz-barrier <comment><USER2> I'm pretty happy about Ryzen + architecture. They have at least proven that they can iterate on their existing architecture and work on a 12nm die. I was an early adopter of Ryzen and was happy to get my 1800x running stable with all cores at 4GHz. The price to performance ratio of Ryzen is great for almost all workloads.

While this article doesn't mean too much for real world applications. It does show that AMD is really competing with Intel. I agree that if Epyc can penetrate the server market (which I think it can), then it's really going to start an innovation war between Intel and AMD which is going to be good for the consumer.

<comment><USER3> With no onboard graphics you are required to buy a graphics card. That can raise your cost a significant amount if you weren't planning on buying one. If it ever dies, and every build I've owned has had the GPU die at some point, your computer is unusable until you buy another. Plus you can't do any Android development unless you boot into Linux. I'm sure these issues don't affect most people, and probably saves some gamers a little money that they can put toward their GPU, but I had two similar builds for the same price, picked AMD Ryzen over Intel to support the underdog and I regret it. I'm planning to give my Ryzen build to my folks and buy an Intel.

<comment><USER4> you regret buying a ryzen because you had to buy a gpu, and why can't you do any android development? can you not use genymotion or a real device for development?

<comment><USER3> No, but I am saying that should factor into the cost. If I buy a CPU with similar performance to Intel for $20 less but have to buy a graphics card for $50, it's not really cheaper. The regret is just the difference between being able to do everything and having to work around it because my CPU isn't supported. I doubt there's anything you can run on an AMD chip that you can't run on Intel but the opposite isn't true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hope to god the big three cloud providers pick up EPYC in good quantities. High core counts, lots of PCIe lanes, competitive perf per watt, what's not to like? We badly need some kind of viable competition for Intel.

<comment><USER6> The problem for folks below that tier is that the ecosystem for AMD is terrible.

On the software side, basic tools like numatop don't work on epyc. That's because the the equivalent of the Intel uncore counters that measure infinity fabric (AMD's new Hyper Transport, like Intel's QPI) are not available. Perhaps the big three have the time to do these tools themselves, and the NDAs in place to get access to the counters. Since even their single socket offering has up to 4 numa domains, getting access to these counters is pretty important.

There is also a limited selection of motherboard offerings from just a few vendors. This won't impact some of the cloud providers (who do their own board design), but for the rest of us, it is a pain. We've had an epyc we've been testing. I'm its biggest fan, but the motherboard is terrible in an enterprise setting. Just this week I updated the BIOS on it to get the new AGESA. Unlike our Intel / Supermicro boards, the BIOS update wiped all the settings. Earlier BIOS updates have required a physical (at the wall) power cycle, rather than a remote ipmi chassis power cycle.

<comment><USER7> numatop was not updated since 2015 AFAIK...

<comment><USER6> It was actually updated in late 2017 to add POWER support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The original article is: [https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-7-2700x-6-ghz-world- record-ov...](https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-7-2700x-6-ghz-world-record- overclock/)

<comment><USER9> The >3000 comments are fun to skim over :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Educate a noob: What is the significance of overclocking at this insane frequency when the CPU is not stable? From a digital design perspective I would imagine that a lot of timing constraints are not met, and this makes the CPU unstable. What prevents other CPU's unable from reaching this speed?

<comment><USER11> Getting a CPU Z validation is a sport, nothing more. But they have to develop tricks and techniques to further their sport, which may have other benefits in terms of understanding the hardware.

<comment><USER12> What is preventing someone from doing the same with the latest Intel chip? Do they fry immediately or do they just emergently shut down?

<comment><USER13> Different chips have different limits. I used to do some of this competitively back in the day. Different architectures can't get as high max frequencies, some respond differently under the extreme cold. These records are typically done using liquid nitrogen or phase change cooling and a lot of chips will freeze up below a certain temperature. Then its also a toss up between different individual cpus of the same model. It's a bit of a crapshoot.

<comment><USER14> Hell I even remember back in the day hunting down RAM produced from specific batches

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> That's nothing, the old P4s could do 8GHz on liquid nitrogen! I guess it's impressive that it's a multi-core AMD processor rather than an architecture that clocked well but had little else going for it.

<comment><USER16> Isn't the highest stable just over 10gigz??

<comment><USER17> No, ~9GHz is the fastest real one I've seen: [https://valid.x86.fr/show_oc.php?id=2385966](https://valid.x86.fr/show_oc.php?id=2385966)

More details: [http://www.theoverclocker.com/9-ghz-barrier-falls-hard- amd-h...](http://www.theoverclocker.com/9-ghz-barrier-falls-hard-amd-hits- milestone-with-9062-mhz-validated/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Since TechRadar redirects me to some boilerplate BS because I block 3rd-party scripts by default, I needed to use a mirror. Here it is for anyone else who needs it:

[http://archive.is/yyBpa](http://archive.is/yyBpa)

</comment><comment><USER19> While impressive, it's not really a barrier is it.

</comment><comment><USER20> And shortly after, sustainable fusion was achieved.

</comment><comment><USER21> Thats cool, I can spin my legs at 200rpm on a child's bicycle for 1 minute before it breaks.</comment>


Anonymous one-on-one chat app for the Ivy League - <AUTHOR> https://www.campusanonymous.com

<comment><USER2> While as an Ivy League student I relish in the potential that Stanford could be left out of this, heheh, these things are pretty inherently elitist and omegle has a similar function. Still, I signed up because I like meeting other Ivy students because there's some sort of weird vague bond between undergraduates, and that's at least something to make friends.

</comment><comment><USER3> I tried to start a startup in a similar-ish space (more detailed student reviews of colleges). This is what I learned - [https://medium.com/@adamzerner/case-study-of-a-failed- startu...](https://medium.com/@adamzerner/case-study-of-a-failed- startup-37db342df2bf). I'd be happy to chat/brain storm - email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER4> They say "we'll pair you with another Ivy League student", but I wonder what they do to prevent alumni, professors, and staff from joining? Would people be as willing to use this if they knew that it didn't solely consist of students?

<comment><USER5> Hey! We filter out known alumni email addresses (e.g. alumni.princeton.edu) but there's no way for us to differentiate between non-students and students if they both have a "student" email address.

<comment><USER4> Alumni email addresses are sometimes filterable, due to a different domain, but faculty or staff generally aren't; at many schools, students, faculty, and staff get indistinguishable email addresses.

I considered trying to sign up as an alum to test it out, but decided that I don't really have any interest in chatting with random Ivy League undergrads even if just for testing purposes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Surprised to see Terms of Service and a Privacy Policy for a project so (seemingly) early and small.</comment>


"The Fallen Apple" Corrections (1999) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nomodes.com/LinzmayerBook.html <comment><USER2> _A draft of an early Newton flyer said "It recognizes your handwriting". I insisted that the phrase be removed, and the copy writers promised to take it out. The printed flyers did not arrive at the CES show until minutes before we started the presentation. There, on page 1, it said, "It recognizes your handwriting". The PR team must have thought that I would forgive this transgression after I saw what wonderful press coverage we received from such a bold statement. But what they had unknowingly done was to hammer a large nail into the Newton coffin by setting expectations we knew we could not meet._</comment>


Roadmap to Learning Software Development: A Beginners Guide - <AUTHOR> http://mcardleliam.tumblr.com/

<comment><USER2> While I applaud anyone trying to get into software development I find it hard to believe that in 2011 "the resources available to a new student developer were limited". I'd also object to ruby being the best first language for someone to learn. Maybe you had trouble getting advice as to where to look to get started, but the internet is full of folks who are eager to give you their 2 cents on that topic. As far as ruby goes, nothing against the language but I personally think it's much more difficult to learn than java or c# which have more applications, a wider audience (and hence more material to read) and better support in terms of IDEs. They are also syntactically much easier for newbies.

That said, I congratulate you on your new found love of programming and your willingness to share the knowledge.

<comment><USER3> "java or c#...are also syntactically much easier [than Ruby] for newbies."

Wait, what?

<comment><USER4> the syntax is much more regular and more verbose, but that can be a good thing. The regularity means that it's easier to remember what's supposed to come next/how to do something, and the verbosity means that there's less obfuscated phrases.

Granted, ruby and python aren't as bad as perl, but they definitely aren't as regular as java either.

Of course, once you start getting into advanced topics, all that can go out the window, but at that point we aren't talking about a newbie anymore, so what we/they will expect from a language will be different.

<comment><USER5> > Granted, ruby and python aren't as bad as perl, but they definitely aren't > as regular as java either.

I wouldn't mix those two when making a comparison to Perl.

As an example, there are like four different ways to write a simple 'if' statement in Ruby, with some blurring the difference between that statement and conditional expression (ternary operator in C-like languages). In Python, there is just one 'if' statement which is also clearly distinct from 'if-else' conditional expression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a great list/discussion of resources. I am also helping someone get started learning software development but I have taken a slightly different approach. I am focusing on the computer science fundamentals first and afterwards focusing on web development. I have found that the Coursera courses as a great starting point. There is the Algorithms I and II with two introduction to programming courses using Python.

I also believe the Stanford courses (such as CS106A) is a great resource. I also would not discount the Oreilly Technology School.

The danger with starting with web development is that unless the person is very keen on learning, gaps in knowledge can develop and bad coding practices can be learned.

<comment><USER7> It would have been nice if Coursera offered an Algorithms class in Python..

<comment><USER6> Here's a resource that you might find useful:

[http://interactivepython.org/courselib/static/pythonds/index...](http://interactivepython.org/courselib/static/pythonds/index.html)

It's not Coursera but it's well put together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Regardless of whether you are looking to become an iOS developer, a Mac > developer or a Web Developer [...]

Yes, because those are the only three types of developers. iOS, Mac or Web.</comment>


How Do You Spark a Love of Math in Children? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/05/how-do-you-spark-a-love-of-math-in-kids/ <comment><USER2> One of my kids is in Kindergarten, he can add and subtract almost any number. (eg. 201 + 31) and is getting pretty good at division and multiplication (eg. he knows 2 for $3.00 is $1.50 each, but doesn't do so well on 2 for $3.25).

He brought home his report card the other day and got a failing grade in math, apparently, he won't draw lines between numbers (eg. connect two apples to the number two.) His mom went to talk to the teacher with my son, the teacher explained all the tasks, in front of the teacher she asks my son what's 32+21, 53 he says, the teacher gets wide eyed in amazement and then informs his mom that they can't put him into a more advanced math class because the first years are concentrated on getting the english kids conversational in french. According to the school French > Math, C'est la vie!

Oddly enough he just got an award for embracing the french culture, I personally think it's very french of him to avoid doing pointless work.

I had the same problem in school, I wouldn't do the homework, would ace the tests and get questions about cheating because I never did the homework. I avoided higher education for much the same reasons, I'd rather just open a book, teach myself and move on rather than engage in random excersizes. You only need to do the a^2+b^2=c^2 a few times to understand the concept.

The school system has no interest in mathematics but has an intense interest in making kids perform strange rote tasks that have something to do with numbers.

<comment><USER3> As programmers I think we have a special relationship with meaning, pedagogy. Also we read about people like Alan Kay that brings math to children and see how they play with it, often to our great surprise.

I see here and there (khan academy, psychology publication in Europe) a tendency to kick painful myth out of learning, but I'd like to see a cohesive effort to rethink the learning systems we call schools. Especially the early years. If any of you here knows people working on this I'd be happy to read about their thoughts.

<comment><USER4> Check out Maria Montessori's works, methods, and materials.

My 3-year old daughter has been at a Montessori school since August last year and the progress she's made --in manual work, counting, drawing, and reading, is incredible. Her vocabulary is now equivalent to a 5-year old.

See <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcgN0lEh5IA> for a fun, decent exposition of what a Montessori education does by contrast with traditional schooling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The real problem is the disconnect between math and "math".

"math" is the game of rote memorization that kids play in school where they try to memorize arcane rules that seemed to have been pulled from some greek dudes ass with no explanation.

Math is a legendary construct whispered about as a hypothetical possibility in high school classrooms. A problem solving exercise that has you _think_ , with a logical progression from base rules and assumptions.

"Math" and Math both use the same language and the same symbols, with a lot of the same concepts. I've never seen Math, and only know of it's existence through hear say from mathematicians, but been through a lot of "Math". Imagine if we tried to teach English this way. It would look a lot like memorizing words out of the dictionary. And then playing ad-libs with out of context sentences.

<comment> excuse-me Not just kids in school - you can get to grad school in science with lectures that consist of:

What's an eigenvector?

It's the solution to an eigenfuction!

What's an eigenfunction?

It's an equation that has an eigenvector as the solution - now goto the next chapter...

<comment><USER5> <http://lesswrong.com/lw/iq/guessing_the_teachers_password/>

Now kids, what did you learn?[0]

Don't guess the teachers password?! Excellent! Next chapter...

[0] As I was writing that I thought that there could be a paradox somewhere in there if you phrased it right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Paul Lockhart said it better in his Lament - <http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf>

This article and research is a non-starter. It doesn't address the core problem. Mathematics is a beautiful way of thinking about the abstract, yet it's taught as nothing more than a procedural tool.

Teach it like music. Instill a love of mathematics as the art that it is. Reconstruct how we present mathematics to children and they will have a chance to love it, like they might love music or art or science.

These micro-problems are just hairline cracks in the broken pieces of a shattered cup. Why patch the cracks if the cup will never hold water? We need to forge a new one.

"I don't see how it's doing society any good to have its members walking around with vague memories of algebraic formulas and geometric diagrams, and clear memories of hating them. It might do some good, though, to show them something beautiful and give them an opportunity to enjoy being creative, flexible, open-minded thinkers—the kind of thing a real mathematical education might provide." -- Paul Lockhart

<comment><USER7> > Mathematics is a beautiful way of thinking about the abstract, ...

Most people do not have the intelligence for much abstract thought. Look at how much trouble CS students have with recursion, and they are in the top few percent of intelligence.

> Teach it like music.

The majority of people _do_ have enough tone perception, coordination, and muscle memory to make music. It does not compare to math.

<comment><USER8>
      they are in the top few percent of intelligence

Citation needed

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I used to hate maths. I am a relatively intelligent 18 year old and things like science, business and history come easily to me. About a year ago halfway through my IB diploma with me failing the maths part of it a number of things happened which have completely changed my perspective of maths. I started loving maths, reading about it outside of school and doing extremely well in the subject. The things that happened which caused this 180 degree turn:

a) My teacher sat down with me and explained the WHY. It wasn't just formulas and rules but actual explanations that allowed me to approach problem questions with logic rather than a formula book.

b) Khan Academy. The ability for me to go back to the very start and become proficient in the very basics of maths without looking like and idiot and at my own pace was amazing. Some people laughed when I started at the very bottom in khan academy and worked through most of the program but the things that I have learnt and were never taught to me (or I ignored them when they were taught) was just astounding.

c) Choosing physics as my main science where I had to use maths to solve real world problems. When I discovered that maths could actually be used in real life to solve real problems I extremely motivated to read more about the formulas and their deeper roots.

Now I have graduated high school and when ever younger kids ask me what they should do and focus on I tell them that they should focus on maths and make sure they understand everything when its taught because learning it later when you are on more advanced topics is extremely painful.

I think the biggest problem school's today in relation to maths is that we are allowing people to move on in the curriculum with a maths score of 50%. In other subjects it doesn't matter because the content next year isnt based completely on the content of this year but in maths it does. If only I had been told in year 6,7,8,9,10 "You are going to have to repeat this year unless you improve you maths score".

All it takes with maths is practice and giving kids a reason to learn it other than "you have to". Maths is one of the most amazing things I have ever come across in my (short) life and once I truly understood its power, my view of the world was never the same. Maybe my experience is unique but it truly think that many kids are suffering the problems as i had.

<comment><USER5> The number of people who say something along the lines of "You shouldn't be able to move up without an understanding above ~60% of the grade level math." is seriously scaring me. The ability to move up past the broken system is important. Needing more assumes Math is being taught and not "math".

<comment><USER10> How can you "move past" not understanding mathematical concepts when they're essential to everything that follows?

I mean that's the whole point of math - to provide an explanation in which every step is necessary, and understood to be necessary.

If there's one class that should be Pass / Fail, this is it, and the bar for passing should be set VERY high. I agree that this would create problems, but those would fall squarely on the schools, who - as many others have mentioned - teach "math", not math.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have two sons and this is pretty interesting. There is one thing that could also be hugely useful in my opinion. It is the historic context of mathematics. Lots of very intelligent people (and geniuses) and tens of years (some times hundreds) are needed to develop mathematics. But in a class of "math" you are only given a procedure to follow and it is explained as if it were self evident. Something that took years to be developed is written in a blackboard in 2 min. And that it is, now do this exercises and next friday you´ll have a test. (of course passionate teachers do better than this)

One of the best books I´ve read in scientific divulgation is Fermat´s last theorem by Simon Singh . It tells the story of the assault to the theorem beautifully. You follow different mathematicians through history and see how they advance and how they fail, how it affects their lives, their careers and also human history.

Although the mathematic concepts involved at the end of the book are pretty advanced (the book is not heavy in mathematic formulas) you feel able to understand them and I feel that one of the reasons is due to the beautiful context every thing is set on.(the other of course is the great writing job Simon Singh does). I still remember some of the developments involved, and more than 7 years have passed since I read the book.

It sparked in me a deeper interest in mathematics, I used to like them, but it was not the kind of curiosity I have now.

Of course you can not "learn" with this book, but it is a great tool to put everything in a context, and learn how it advances. I really think that teaching some kind of history of mathematics (greeks, Egyptians, arabs, etc..what they discovered, how, where they got stuck and why) + mathematic concepts (no exercises needed in this class) could be a great way to spark the interest of students, and see mathematics in a human and achievable way.

edit: some typos, and some excess of "mathematics" to be cleared.

</comment><comment><USER12> TLDR: How do kids get turned off to math? ... Students who feel little self- efficacy in math, who fail to see the usefulness of the subject, whose parents evince a lack of interest, who are not learning math in environments conducive to flow, and who feel math anxiety [1] are the ones who will turn off and shut down.

Article suggests a few strategies for addressing those problems, and references the source research paper [2].

1\. [http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/03/how-to-deal-with- kid...](http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/03/how-to-deal-with-kids-math- anxiety/)

2\. [http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&...](http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&uid=2011-24239-001)

</comment><comment><USER13> Many of the puzzles in the Prof. Layton series on the Nintendo DS can be solved with basic math: simple logic, combinatorics, linear equations, trigonometry and a little analytic geometry.

</comment><comment><USER14> My wife claims that the switch from elementary school witgh one classroom teacher to the middle school with departmentalized classrooms could also be a major cause.

A singular teacher will be able to integrate all subjects together during the school day.

When you switch to department teaching there is less emphasis on the importance of a particular subject. For example a students English teacher will not show the importance of Math.

Also teachers seem to hesitate to tell a student that they are incorrect. Teacher cushion their responses by saying this like "hmmm, ok... lets see if Johnny agrees" or "I'm not sure about that, lets try it this way". This works alright for most subjects, but Math is pretty black and white. You either get the answer or you don't.

Students also don't get grades in elementary school. Getting a poor grade in a difficult subject like math could turn them off.

</comment><comment><USER15> Make them play the Khan Academy math exercise set from the beginning. That way, any gaps in their knowledge get filled in and they will be much less frustrated by encountering problems they don't have the tools for. If they get stuck, there's always a link to a helpful Khan video on the topic that the particular exercise is testing mastery in.

It's like playing a reasonably enjoyable, if a little tedious, puzzle game. As a side-effect of playing it they will just happen to learn all K through 12 math. I went through the whole thing when they had 280 exercises over the course of a month. It was a great review.

Here's a link: <http://www.khanacademy.org/exercisedashboard>

</comment><comment><USER16> NRICH is a joint project between the Faculties of Mathematics and Education at The University of Cambridge. It has lots of interesting problems to encourage mathematical thinking.

<http://nrich.maths.org/>

</comment><comment><USER12> I would also add that different students learn in different ways. For example, mainstream math education in the US is very outcome/test-based. Does anyone know if there are more exploratory-oriented methods of teaching math? Project- based rather than test based?

I'm not an educator, but an observer with a particular interest in teaching hard science/math/cs subjects to people who are not naturally talented at them.

Based on what I've read of neuroscience and our deepening understanding of the way the brain works, I suspect it's possible, but requires an entirely different way of going about it than currently. Anyone know of any research in this area?

</comment><comment><USER17> For me learning math wasn't too difficult, I always had an affinity for it. However, I realized that a good story of how many apples and oranges can be bought with any collection of coins was always a lot more fun than some random numbers strewn across the page. The current scenario is, however, not so. Most systems are still held bent on using the old hammer and nail system to pound all the theories into those little heads. Kids don't care about theorems, that's why all the greek dudes were old. An example: <http://hpmor.com/> Look at the latest authors notes (ch 85)

<comment><USER18> Funny, the stories about apples and oranges made me actually _hate_ numbers -- they seemed stupid, boring, and I never saw the point (I still don't). Recently I had a reconciliation with numbers, but I still try not to deal with them in my math research as long as it is possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Fundamentally, a few things are wrong with math education.

First, you can advance grades without a full understanding of what you were taught. I'm not saying students need 100% comprehension, but letting someone go up in math with only ~50-60% comprehension is a terrible idea. Math builds, and like Jenga, you can't build without a firm foundation.

Math is taught as a set of rote "exercises" with loosely- (and vaguely-) connected theorems. Students are never really given an explanation of why something is useful or why they should even care. You're just expected to memorize it, recite it for the test, and forget it until the final rolls around. This is the mindset school has got us in: so many students don't realize the building nature of math before it is far too late.

Perhaps the most damning thing about math education is its focus on the what, not the why. For example, the quadratic formula: it is introduced and students are told that if you have an equation "of the form" ax^2+bx+c=0, you can "find x" by plugging in the numbers. Never are you given an explanation of where the quadratic formula comes from, never are you given an explanation of why you would want to solve a quadratic.

In my math classes, I was always trying to figure out the "why" behind something. Why were sine, cosine, and tangent all positive in the first quadrant, while only sine was in the second quadrant? We were never told, and most students never even bothered to question why this was so. In fact, when they were told "all students take calculus" and shown the pattern, they just happily nodded and thought "I'll remember that for the test." But if you understand the real reason behind "ASTC," you don't need a silly phrase to remember it.

And, finally, you have the "exercises." You're given a generic 'class' of problem, told how to solve it, and move on. Really good teachers will make some cursory attempt to explain why you can solve a problem how you can, but if a student already has been pushed up through a few math classes he should not have passed, it is likely to be well over that student's head. That feeling of mathematical incompetency just makes them tune the teacher out. And all the while, since grades are the de facto measure of your "worth" in school, the students are thinking "this explanation is too difficult: it won't be on the test." That's a dangerous mindset to cultivate... but the way the system is designed, it doesn't matter one whit.

The student can memorize some facts, never understand why they are as they are, and then study the generic classes of problems that will be present on the test. Then the student can ace the test, feel good about his or her self, and move on, all without any real comprehension. But that's the way the system is designed: you can't apply a teaching process that would really give a full education of math to everyone. For one thing, we don't have teachers skilled enough in math to do so. (A chicken-and-egg problem.) So we are stuck with these half-baked attempts at a curriculum, with kids gaming the system to get their A (or whatever standard they set for themselves) and nothing more.

It's sad. Math is such a beautiful field, full of mysteries and interesting connections. But thanks to the terrible math education system, the vast majority of high school graduates think math is a worthless field full of arcane formulae jumbled about in a seemingly random way all with no real logical structure.

<comment><USER20> _Perhaps the most damning thing about math education is its focus on the what, not the why. For example, the quadratic formula: it is introduced and students are told that if you have an equation "of the form" ax^2+bx+c=0, you can "find x" by plugging in the numbers. Never are you given an explanation of where the quadratic formula comes from, never are you given an explanation of why you would want to solve a quadratic._

This is not entirely the education's fault.

When I was taking algebra in 7th grade, the teacher _did_ derive the quadratic formula for us. We studied completing the square first, and then he did it with generic symbols for A, B, and C. I thought it was WAY cool. I never memorized it; instead, for the next two years, any time I needed it, I simply re-derived it. You could find the derivation on the back of just about every math test I took in high school.

None of my classmates took that route, though. Every last one of them memorized the thing.

I was the sort of person who automatically thought the _why_ of something was much cooler than the _what_ , but I don't think most people are that way. I don't doubt math education could inspire an interest in the _why_ , but I'm not optimistic that it will inspire _everyone_. At the very least, I think that would take more than merely presenting it.

I don't know. Maybe tests have pounded the natural curiosity out of kids, maybe it's just cynicism. But it's certainly my perception that the vast majority of them care more about the _what_.

<comment><USER21> > _Never are you given an explanation of where the quadratic formula comes > from_ //

That's not [exclusively] how I was taught the quadratic equation and it's solutions, in high school in the UK, either.

I wish people would remember to provide geographical context on HN. The article is about Australian middle school so should I assume that's what everyone is referring to with their generalised statements of "this is what 'math' is like"?

> _I simply re-derived it_ //

This is why I did well at maths. Practically no memorisation required; you can start with something you know and derive what you need to answer the question.

<comment><USER22> No memorization? To do those derivations, you must have memorized derivation steps and be able to recognize when it makes sense to apply them.

That, IMO, is the big thing: students that are relatively poor at abstraction cannot see commonalities between problems that those with more talent find trivial.

<comment><USER21> > _you must have memorized derivation steps_ //

Certainly later on, like with QFT, I was left to grope in the dark recesses of memory for the next step in a proof of some corollary or other but I found that understanding how a proof works means that the steps make sense in the same way as having to pull down your trousers before pulling down your underwear. Yes there is memorisation involved but nothing like that required to establish who was the King of France in 1492.

I did say "practically", perhaps "comparatively" would have been more to the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The comments already posted here are quite interesting. It takes well prepared teachers to serve up engaging problems that will excite young learners about mathematics. I just learned about the 2010 Teacher Education Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M)

[http://www.educ.msu.edu/content/sites/usteds/documents/USTED...](http://www.educ.msu.edu/content/sites/usteds/documents/USTEDS- FAQ.pdf)

a few days ago, as I discovered the book Teacher Education Matters: A Study of Middle School Mathematics Teacher Preparation in Six Countries

[http://www.amazon.com/Teacher-Education-Matters- Mathematics-...](http://www.amazon.com/Teacher-Education-Matters-Mathematics- Preparation/dp/0807751626/)

at my alma mater university library as I searched for books about mathematics education, my occupation. (The book, in turn, appears to be based on a publication from the study

[http://www.educ.msu.edu/content/sites/usteds/documents/MT21R...](http://www.educ.msu.edu/content/sites/usteds/documents/MT21Report.pdf)

that I was able to view in one Web browser but not another. Perhaps most of you HN participants can read the study publication directly online.)

The study found and the book reports that "Putting more resources into U.S. middle school mathematics teachers' education could significantly raise future teachers' mathematics skills but may not be sufficient to equal those in countries where mathematics skills are substantially higher or produce sufficient numbers of more highly skilled middle school mathematics teachers, for two reasons. Average mathematics knowledge among U.S. college students is much lower than in Taiwan, South Korea, or Germany, and because of the relatively low salaries and prestige of teaching in the United States, the college students enrolled in teacher education are likely to average much lower mathematics skills than the large number of students in science, engineering, and economics/business." (Pages 278-279) The book also reports, especially relevant as a commment on the submitted article here, "South Korean and Taiwanese future teachers included both simple and complex examples in their lessons, usually including these in the beginning and middle of the lesson. By contrast, sampled U.S. future teachers tended mostly to use simple examples and to include them at the very end of the lesson." (Page 289)

Teachers in the early grades having adequate mathematics preparation to help young learners advance in their understanding is a very severe problem in the United States, where it has been reported that most elementary school teachers in a sample of teachers in New Jersey did not know a general rule for finding the area of a rectangle if the side lengths of the rectangle are known.

<http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf>

The dramatic differences in teacher preparation result in dramatic differences in mathematics achivement between countries.

<http://pirls.bc.edu/timss2007/PDF/T07_M_IR_Chapter1.pdf>

(See Exhibit 1.1 on pages 34 and 35 of the .PDF document for an example of an excellent use of parallel boxplots to compare the centers of various groups.) In general, United States "average" students are at the bottom level of top- performing countries, while even "average" students in those countries are at a "gifted" level for the United States.

The FAQ page for Epsilon Camp collects some other writings about producing challenging (and thus engaging) lessons for mathematics learners, preparing them to go far in mathematics with a love for the subject.

<http://www.epsiloncamp.org/FAQ.php>

</comment><comment><USER23> Gamifying worked for me: MathBlasters

<comment><USER24> There's also the great Free Software project "TuxMath":

<http://tux4kids.alioth.debian.org/tuxmath/>

TuxMath is part of the "Tix4Kids" project which provides similar software for other topics:

<http://tux4kids.alioth.debian.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've been reading about the use of Singaporean math curricula in the US, there are a few articles out there about the differences between the US and Singaporean style of math education. The US has been embroiled in the "math wars" since the '90s, over constructivist textbooks that have proven woefully ineffective in raising objective test scores.

Have a read:

<http://educationnext.org/miracle-math/>

\----- It was another body blow to education. In December of 2004, media outlets across the country were abuzz with news of the just-released results of the latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) tests. Once again despite highly publicized efforts to reform American math education (some might say because of the reform efforts) over the past two decades, the United States did little better than average (see Figure 1). ... And in three consecutive TIMSS test rounds (in 1995, 1999, and 2003), 4th- and 8th-grade students in the former British trading colony of Singapore beat all contenders, including math powerhouses Japan and Taiwan. United States 8th graders did not even make the top ten in the 2003 round; they ranked 16th. Worse, scores for American students were, as one Department of Education study put it, "among the lowest of all industrialized countries." \-----

Further reading: [http://personal.anderson.ucla.edu/jason.frand/math_enrichmen...](http://personal.anderson.ucla.edu/jason.frand/math_enrichment/SingaporeMath.html)

It sounds like the way math is taught in many public US classrooms is killing students' confidence and interest in math. There were a few news articles talking about how many students became interested in math again after the Singapore program was introduced in their school (see here: [http://singaporemathsource.com/curriculum/schools-in-the- new...](http://singaporemathsource.com/curriculum/schools-in-the-news/) ). A common refrain was that the kids simply weren't understanding what was going on in math - as if they were stumbling around in the dark with no idea what the computations they were doing _meant_.

I've also read good things about other foreign curricula (e.g. "Russian math") being used in American schools and by homeschoolers, but none are as common as Singapore Math. Here's some praise about SM from American mothers, including sample word problems: <http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/singapore.htm> \- where you'll see simple algebra problems that are not solved by traditional algebra at all.

I can tell you as a Singaporean that I think the curriculum gave me a solid base and understanding of school math, and really stretched me at its harder portions. I hope more people will give it a try, especially if you have kids who aren't "getting" math or are bored of their current math curricula. Get the additional 'tougher' practice books (IP and CWP) for your bright kids to experience the full brain training of the Singaporean system.

<comment><USER26> I can't help but wonder if some of the difference in performance can be attributed to the culture of each country, especially regarding its attitude toward education. In particular, the attitude towards test taking in Korea just blows me away: [http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/21/zakaria-w...](http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/21/zakaria- why-all-of-south-korea-went-silent/)

Apparently planes are grounded, late children are driven to school by police officers and people actually gather at the schools to cheer on their relatives/peers on their way into school. What these events convey to me is a deep, cultural understanding of the importance of education.

In my high school, it seemed as though respect was garnered among students for (Excuse my language) "Not giving a fuck". The ability not to care seemed to be something to aspire to. Of course, this is entirely anecdotal, but a point of interest for me after seeing the incredible dedication students in other countries have.

Can you tell me a little about the culture surrounding education in Singapore? Is it at all similar to that of South Korea?

<comment><USER25> Glad you asked. To us in Singapore, the South Koreans and Japanese actually look a tad excessive (what with their headbands and everything in that article). But it's more likely just a function of how they display their emphasis on school testing. We probably care as much about test results, but don't display it in the same way.

Test results matter when a majority of successful people got where they were because of their results. They did well in school and got good jobs (often in foreign MNCs); not many started their own businesses. Add to this the cultural motivation of wanting to keep up with the Joneses (being 'kiasu', in our lingo) and you have a strong incentive for parents to be all "responsible" for their kid by making sure she gets tutoring in whatever subjects she's weak in and she does additional practice outside of homework, often at a harder level than in school.

And of course, in the good schools, the ones that take in a higher-scoring crop of students, the teachers create harder test papers for their students to keep them motivated (we can't have everyone getting As now, can we?), and so parents go to tutoring companies with "challenging" or "enriching" programmes to make sure their kids keep up. The problems at this end of the pool get a bit ridiculous, and people end up complaining: [http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2011/09/10/primary-6-maths...](http://everythingalsocomplain.com/2011/09/10/primary-6-maths- exam-question-too-tough/)

The tide is turning slightly as new parents, freshly emerged from the competitive sea of schooling, take a less intense view of the importance of academic performance, and recognise that there are other paths that their kids can take in life that don't rely on test scores. We've opened specialist schools in arts, music, sports and design in recent years. But there's still a heavy economic pressure to do well and get good jobs in finance, medicine, law and so on, so I don't expect the culture of focus on education will weaken significantly in the near future.

I think the fundamentally different culture of American schools means that many Asian approaches will never transfer well; but there are still improvements that can be made, e.g. in the area of curriculum, in teacher training and ongoing development, etc. American schools are incredibly diverse in populations and practices; they have big weaknesses and big strengths. I think it would be good to have a unified tough-but-capable program for the struggling schools in poorer neighbourhoods, while letting strong/specialised schools do their thing. That would be something like the best of both worlds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> "Math" really as a dyslexic I find the ungrammatical title of this depressing its Mathematics Physicists learn Physics and not Physic and Chemists don't learn Chem.</comment>


DHS Watchdog OKs 'Suspicionless' Seizure of Electronic Devices Along Border - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/electronics-border-seizures/?cid=co5746764 <comment><USER2> So, remember a few months ago, when people like me were saying that the third parties are the only hope in America's democracy? Then a bunch of people said that Obama was worlds different from Romney, and that comparing Obama to Bush was lunacy.

I have to wonder what happens when those Obama supporters with left-wing sentiments read an article like this.

<comment><USER3> An article like what?

I voted or and contibuted to Obama because I felt he would fight for public schools and against nationwide voucher programs, and because he supported meaningful health care reform.

I had absolutely zero expectation that Obama would waste political capital revamping CBP.

The TSA is a far bigger problem for ordinary Americans than CBP is, and a more constitutionally offensive one. I think we can all quickly agree that electronic strip searches of all American citizens are an affront to the word "reasonable".

And yet it never crossed my mind not to vote for Obama because his DHS supported the TSA. Why? Because something like 70% of Americans support the TSA, and, simultaneously, game theory more or less demands that any administration support all counterterrorism measures. There was no possibility that _any_ winning candidate was going to eliminate the TSA. The problem wasn't Obama or Romney; it's the American people.

<comment><USER4> Sometimes, when faced with a terrible set of game theory circumstances, the only winning move is not to play.

<comment><USER5> A wonderful quip, but what is its explanatory power here? What is it here "not to play"?

I'm as much Fuck the Man as the next person, but let's try to dig a bit deeper.

<comment><USER6> Obviously, you're supposed to not vote for anyone, then go online and tell everybody about how you're fighting the system.

<comment><USER4> What I chose to do is a touch more difficult than simply doing nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here are guidebooks from the EFF and BCCLA detailing your lack of rights at the border and practical steps you can take.

[https://www.eff.org/wp/defending-privacy-us-border-guide- tra...](https://www.eff.org/wp/defending-privacy-us-border-guide-travelers- carrying-digital-devices)

<http://bccla.org/our_work/electronic-devices-pocket-guide/>

Organizations like these and the ACLU do incredibly important work protecting your freedom on relatively small budgets. While a lot of people on the comments here are shocked to read this report, remember that even getting it released is the result of years of pressure from the ACLU. Those of us who benefit most from a free society, and technological progress have a special duty to make a donation and to get involved. It's a worthwhile investment in your future.

</comment><comment><USER8> Don't forget to put a zip bomb on all your devices. :-)

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

</comment><comment><USER9> That "watchdog" doesn't seem to be doing its job all that well.

</comment><comment><USER10> Does the 100 miles apply to ocean borders too? If so, that puts entire cities like NYC, SF, LA, etc. right within this exclusion zone.

<comment><USER11> Yep: <http://www.aclu.org/constitution-free-zone-map>

<comment><USER3> It is worth knowing that this map is intended to illustrate the absurdity of a specific (old) statement from DHS. It is almost definitely not the case that living in NYC puts you at risk of arbitrary border searches; among other things, SCOTUS has specifically said it doesn't.

<comment><USER11> I guess it just applies to folks in the south west, hundreds of miles from the border.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if this is a CYA for TSA employees who steal stuff out of luggage. "It was a legitimate seizure!"

(Fortunately, my equipment can defend itself)

</comment><comment><USER13> Didn't DHS also declare that 100 mile range from the border is basically Constitution-free? This is mighty convenient, as they can now search everyone like this within that 100 mile range.

<comment><USER3> DHS can say whatever it wants, but SCOTUS says that the search has to actually take place at the border. See for instance _Almeida-Sanchez v. US_.

"Constitution free" is obviously hyperbolic.

<comment><USER14> What good is what the Supreme Court said, if the DHS freely violates it?

Nothing personal, but you seem to pay more attention to what the law says then what actually ends up happening. This is a common issue in American politics

<comment><USER3> How does this mentality response to Japanese internment camps? Should we have given up on the whole enterprise after WW2?

For whatever it's worth to you, when you take a detour from your argument to point out what you think I believe, that is in fact a personal statement. I take no offense, but don't kid yourself about what you're doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Aren't they just going to lose this at court? The degree of suspicion required for different kinds of border searches is something that has already been tested before SCOTUS.

<comment><USER14> and a challenge will take many years to go through, meanwhile they are completely free to implement this abusive policy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Most people don't know that the USCG has never needed a reason to board and search any boat within US waters, or any US flagged boat anywhere in the world.

This doesn't seem much different.

</comment><comment><USER12> Dear DHS,

you are welcome to try and steal my stuff.

I will be sure to laugh at you when you fail. Further, I will be sure to put it on youtube to share the mirth.

Pretty sure this won't damage your credibility any...

<comment><USER16> Who needs credibility when you have unchecked power?

<comment><USER17> Ah, but they don't have unchecked power.

Only mostly unchecked. Bigger evils have falled (see Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Assyrian empire, Chile, Argentina, Spain, etc).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> On this note, maybe someone want's to program an application that would select random unused portions of hdd and write random data to them? Something like a daemon/windows service that would take care of the data that hasn't been fully purged by os delete. I would do it myself, but I lack knowledge in low level api's

<comment><USER19> This application fits your needs on the Windows platform:

"Eraser is an advanced security tool for Windows which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Eraser is currently supported under Windows XP (with Service Pack 3), Windows Server 2003 (with Service Pack 2), Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2."

<http://eraser.heidi.ie>

<comment><USER20> Overwriting data to safely delete it is usually enough, most of the recommended additional overwriting is snake oil. Unfortunately, overwriting data still takes a lot of time.

Using system encryption is therefore easier: You delete the key and your data is as good as overwritten a million times … all modern operation systems offer system encryption by default.

<comment><USER19> Disk encryption wouldn't defeat an attacker that had access to your keys (either by compromising a running system or through a cold-boot attack[1]). If the keys are available, the contents of the disk are accessible. Overwriting deleted files would still have value in these cases.

[1] <https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/coldboot-sec08.pdf>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was just wondering: In the case that the confiscated electronic devices are encrypted, are you obliged to decrypt them or do you have the right to politely refuse ?

If not would claiming plausible deniability (I.e I don't know the password) be a viable alternative?

<comment><USER22> This is what TrueCrypt is for: giving you plausible deniability.

<comment><USER23> But it takes a lot of work and planning to let this look natural. i.e. switching the systems back and forth so the plausible deniable partition looks legit etc.

<comment><USER24> Use the decoy/plausible deniable system for your day to day mundane uses (facebook, netflix, or whatever other computer usage won't be private anyway.), and the 'real' system for your periodic private activities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's things like this that mean that I won't go back to America. I love Americans, and there's a great deal of the US I'd love to see but it's just not going to happen while stuff like this goes on.

<comment><USER3> My most vivid experience of traveling in Europe in 2000 was of having my bags searched on a train midway between Zurich to Prague. Not as a condition of getting on the train, but 30 minutes out from the last station we'd stopped at. Not on any individualized suspicion, but as one of several passengers to receive the same treatment. Not in order to protect the safety of passengers, but (evidently) as part of a drug interdiction program.

Beware the grass-is-greener trap. You may be right: it may be that there are fewer circumstances in which your electronics will be searched in Europe than in the US. But by and large European law operates under a regime that values communitarian values more highly than individual ones. You can certainly be searched without a warrant all throughout Europe.

<comment><USER26> _"You can certainly be searched without a warrant all throughout Europe."_

Never happened to me but I do believe you. However what did happen though is that a vehicle of mine equipped with a GPS got stolen in Europe and despite me telling the cops exactly behind which garage door the vehicle was located, they refused to open the garage without a warrant. Now so many days have passed by that it's likely that the thieves have moved the vehicle and that I'll never see it again.

 _"Police and thieves, in the street... Fighting the nation with their guns and ammunition"_

I cannot say that I admire your 100% belief in the state that you've displayed in this thread.

But you're probably right: Europe sucks and the U.S. is the greatest place to live ever and certainly nothing is going wrong in the U.S. right now (zeppelin over Washington DC, en masse murdering using drones, illegal detention, justified torture, etc.).

I've got a bridge decorated with pink unicorn running in fairyland to sell you.

<comment><USER27> I'm not sure where you got that second quote. It's nowhere else in the thread, the article, or any of tptacek's comments on any other recent threads.

<comment><USER28> It's lyrics from a Clash song (technically a reggae song they covered, but most people associate it with them). It's about the police misusing their power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Just remember to leave important data in the cloud and if you need to access them use a secure storage and protocol (e.g, Dropbox, VPN, etc).

<comment><USER30> If they can force you to login to your laptop could they not also force you to login to your Dropbox account?

<comment><USER20> If they can force you to login to your laptop, they usually don't have to force you to login to your Dropbox account: Most users are already logged in to Dropbox and all Dropbox data is available in the Dropbox folder by default anyway.

<comment><USER30> Yes that's true. I wonder about the case where the data is not present on the device. I've seen lots of people assert that the government would be powerless in that case. I think this assertion is often made on the basis that the alternative is too horrible to imagine. I hope there are more compelling reasons why this would not be legal but I am doubtful.

For example, I have heard of border agents taking phones and calling contacts on them. This is a way of getting data about you from another location. From there it seems like a small step for border agents having the right to get access to your data at the border if it is available to you when you are crossing the border regardless of its physical location.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> miami-dade What I find amazing is how people continue to push for political solutions like "term limits" while ultimately taking no action. Even as we lurch towards an obvious fiscal iceberg, undoubtedly responsible for the abrupt hike in tyrannical measures we've seen as of late, there are plenty of otherwise capable, intelligent people, and even hackers who are seemingly unable to abandon ship.

Whatever. History has shown the rich are always the first to leave. I suspect it's because they know more truths about human nature than some would like to believe.

Political action towards positive change is absolutely pointless. There's nothing any political party - not left, right nor libertarian - can do to stop America's path to inevitable fiscal crisis and subsequent self-destruction. Not with the political gridlock in Washington. Not with the bozo Ivy League clowns and TBTF banks running the show. Not with more and more people waking up every day to the corruption and lies spewing from the mouths of virtually everyone in Washington DC and all of their supporters and cronies. In short their shit just stinks too badly, and the average person has become too educated and capable to sit there and take all the abuse.

America is $16.5 trillion in debt and rising, and there's nothing you can do to make that debt disappear short of printing trillions more dollars to debase it and insodoing completely wipe out the average individual's savings, not to mention piss off other countries. All viable economic and political solutions are too little, too late. You'd better pray for our continued military might every night before you go to sleep, because that's the end game given the way things are going.

The only viable move for the U.S. elite is to sink America like Enron, and pray they can keep things under control. Thus the advent of tyrannical control measures.

Let the elite continue to have their follies with the savings of average Americans and others who are too blind to see the storm brewing, or too proud to abandon ship. Let them have their gold, their silver, and their perceived political capital aka giant circle jerk. Let them have their warplanes and battleships. Let them continue to send our young to die in their places in exchange for worthless paper green rectangles.

The only viable move for the individual is to evacuate the USD before their savings are wiped out. Everyone on HN has the capacity and the short-lived opportunity to move their economic and political activities into the cryptographic realm, where any and all central planning efforts are rendered irrelevant. Therein lies the only remaining true safe haven for economic activity.

Love it or hate it, you have no other option but to embrace strong encryption and Bitcoin before your nation, and perhaps the entire global economy descends into a fiscal default scenario right out of your worst nightmares. If you fail to see this risk and the danger it entails, I implore you to utilize public transportation extensively.

"Truthfully I do not expect much to change. Practically speaking, history has demonstrated the ability of sovereign nations to justify themselves, and postpone the moment of crisis. This will be even more true for the United States as the largest economy by far with the strongest central bank. As a result, over the course of your lives, you will experience withering but stealthy attacks on your quality of life, as government attempts to manage its faltering finances. You will see declines in the quality of healthcare, the quality of education, the quality of public safety, and the quality of our currency. Of course this is a false prophecy. I am simply describing what is already happening."

\- Dr. Michael J. Burry [1]

[1] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CLhqjOzoyE>

</comment><comment><USER31> >"We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits,"

Well frankly, in that case, I don't give a shit what you conclude, because you're mentally incompetent.

"We also conclude that following the Constitution for Americans reentering the country would put us in a bind for looking at whatever we want, so we're going to say that you don't need that right to privacy."

<comment><USER3> The Constitution does not forbid the government from conducting searches without warrants at the border. The word "reasonable" is in the 4th Amendment in order to defer judgement about what searches are and aren't constitutional to the the courts. Unfortunately for your argument, SCOTUS has for many many decades held that border searches are, subject to some limitations, reasonable.

<comment><USER31> I think that, aside from disagreeing with most of that principle, it is futile to search the contents of electronic devices at the border. I could ship an encrypted device through mail, I could use steganography and encryption to upload a file to a personal server and have someone immediately unplug said server... there are lots of ways to transport digital files that don't involve the physical device at the border.

<comment><USER3> My response to this is complicated (but I'll keep it short):

* I agree with you that anyone who wants to avoid being effectively searched at a border can and there's little the government can ever do about it.

* I think most of the people carrying (say) child pornography into the country aren't too bright to begin with, so maybe that doesn't matter.

* I remember being very upset about the border search exception when I learned about it 10 years ago. It still bugs me.

* If the principal you're disagreeing with is that the state's interests in a secure border outweigh the individual's right to be free from casual, minimally invasive searches, you should know that you're disagreeing with something like 10+ SCOTUS opinions going back to at least the early '70s.

* If the principal you're disagreeing with is that the 4th Amendment allows judges to fill in the blanks on what "reasonable" means, and that "reasonable" overrides "warrant", know that you're disagreeing with something like 175 years of jurisprudence.

* I definitely agree that electronic searches are nonminimal and highly invasive.

<comment><USER32> This event, described at the end of the article, does not sound like a "casual, minimally invasive search" to me:

"At an Amtrak inspection point, Pascal Abidor showed his U.S. passport to a federal agent. He was ordered to move to the cafe car, where they removed his laptop from his luggage and "ordered Mr. Abidor to enter his password," according to the lawsuit.

Agents asked him about pictures they found on his laptop, which included Hamas and Hezbollah rallies. He explained that he was earning a doctoral degree at a Canadian university on the topic of the modern history of Shiites in Lebanon.

 _He was handcuffed and then jailed for three hours while the authorities looked through his computer while numerous agents questioned him, according to the suit, which is pending in New York federal court._ "

<comment><USER3> _I definitely agree that electronic searches are nonminimal and highly invasive._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> In the anecdote in the article, the guy who had his laptop searched was asked for a password. As far as I know, there is no legal basis for compelling a password at the border. He could've just said no. The price would probably be losing the laptop.

I've very curious about the legality of password compulsion in the US. With so much moving to cloud storage, the feds are going to lose their picking rights if that don't have that one.

<comment><USER20> _The price would probably be losing the laptop._

… probably after spending hours of uncertaintity in some DHS waiting areas, interrupted only by DHS officers shouting at you from time to time – in case of an American national. For a foreigner, the result could be even more unpleasant.

The first part of my just-written paraphrah by the way is standard for the so- called DHS secondary check if you enter the US and some system (or some officer) does not like you for some reason.

Regarding cloud storage, most data in the cloud is not encrypted, and if encrypted, only with a provider and not with a user key. Dropbox is a well- known example, i.e., authorities can always ask such providers for data access and they will usually get it.

<comment><USER33> ..if they know the username of the account.

Beyond that, I don't think there is any legal basis to compel a password. Do you know of one? I'm curious about it. In the UK, apparently, there is but only for criminal investigations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> What's a watchdog? A lap dog you can wear like a watch? I suggest to call it "watch dog" then, just so it doesn't get confused with [http://www.google.com/search?q=watchdog&tbm=isch](http://www.google.com/search?q=watchdog&tbm=isch)

<comment><USER35> "watchdog" is slangy terminology for a consumer rights organization or an industry regulator. It's, like, a metaphor, man.

I don't know about the US but the term is commonly used in the UK.

(I suppose "watch dog" would be a dog that watches, or something that watches dogs, or, as you suggest, a dog that's somehow got something to do with wrist- mounted timepieces.)

<comment><USER36> It's used in the US as well (quite a bit in the media for the purpose you defined) so not sure what the OP is getting at really.</comment></comment></comment>


APFS filesystem format - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cugu.eu/post/apfs/ <comment><USER2> Very, very cool exercise. For anyone who hasn't been following APFS much though, worth knowing that Apple has stated in their AFPS FAQ [1] that they do intend to directly "document and publish the APFS volume format specification" themselves later this year. Presumably (as they do with other stuff they develop) they want to be able to more easily make breaking changes during the shakedown period of initial public deployment (first on iOS right now, later on Macs, though maybe not a default option until 10.13 this Summer/Fall). That'd be the most helpful in getting read/write into FUSE and other platforms should anyone choose to do so.

\---

1\. [https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Fi...](https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/APFS_Guide/FAQ/FAQ.html)

<comment><USER3> They said the same about Facetime and iMessages but never opened or documented those, so let's see when and if it actually happens. Apple has a history of false promises when it comes to opening and documenting their protocols & data formats.

Edit: I misrecalled that iMessage was announced as something they were opening.

<comment><USER4> They never promised to open up iMessage. The story behind FaceTime is a little bit more complicated. Steve Jobs said he would open it up without asking the engineers and lawyers who were just as surprised as anyone else about his announcement.

As far as Apple not open sourcing anything.

[https://opensource.apple.com](https://opensource.apple.com)

They also published the full git commit history of Swift from the initial commit.

<comment><USER5> Apple's relationship with open source is pretty average. In the end, they use open source strategically. If there's no benefit to open-sourcing something, they won't.

Clang, WebKit and Swift are "proper" open source projects, done in the open. But there aren't many of those. They have no open source apps, and most frameworks such as Cocoa, AppKit etc. are completely proprietary.

Some of their open source efforts have been half-hearted; Darwin was enthusiastically embraced by the community, then essentially shut down by Apple. The XNU sources are APL, but there's nothing open about its development. I/O Kit is closed, I believe.

<comment><USER6> > In the end, they use open source strategically. If there's no benefit to > open-sourcing something, they won't.

Wouldn't that apply for most companies? Let's not pretend that Facebook, Microsoft et al do open source as a charity

<comment><USER7> They don't but they both perform much better than Apple on the subject.

React is one of the leaders in JS dev and several other Facebook projects are quite useful.

Microsoft is the company with the biggest number of open source contributors and several of their projects like TypeScript are extensively used and they are the biggest contributors to LINUX [https://octoverse.github.com/](https://octoverse.github.com/)

Apple made Swift an open source language that runs only on their proprietary devices and that's it...

<comment><USER8> > made Swift an open source language that runs only on their proprietary > devices

Incorrect. Besides Linux, like the other poster mentioned, it even runs on Raspberry Pi:

[http://dev.iachieved.it/iachievedit/swift-3-0-on- raspberry-p...](http://dev.iachieved.it/iachievedit/swift-3-0-on-raspberry- pi-2-and-3/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For those who, like me, don't follow developments in this area closely:

APFS is Apple's new filesystem, intended to be used across all of their devices (Macs, iOS, watchOS, etc). For Macs, it will be replacing HFS+, a direct descendant of the Hierarchical Filing System which has been used since 1985. (The original Macintosh Filing System, from 1984, was suitable only for floppy disks; among other things, it was a flat filing system and didn't really support folders.) The main improvements HFS+ made over HFS were support for larger files and Unicode; Apple has since added some more features but the core filesystem remains a 30-year-old format which was designed for early hard disks.

<comment><USER10> It replaced (as of iOS 10.3) HFS+ on the mobile devices as well, didn't it?

<comment><USER11> Almost correct. 32-bit devices that received iOS 10.3 did not receive APFS. It was exclusively delivered to 64-bit devices.

<comment><USER12> It's also worth noting that the first 64-bit iPhone/iPad were released in 2013, so they've been around for a while.

The iPhone 5c will have the shortest support window from its release, at 4 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If someone wants to know like me why Apple came up with a whole new FS - [http://www.cultofmac.com/435718/apfs-new-apple-file- system/](http://www.cultofmac.com/435718/apfs-new-apple-file-system/)

<comment><USER14> Great link! I'm very interested in the mention of per file keys, one for data and one for metadata. I wonder what data structure they store these in. It sounds a lot like cryptree [0].

[0] [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ianopolous/Peergos/master/...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ianopolous/Peergos/master/papers/wuala- cryptree.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Kaitai which was used as a parser for this looks pretty interesting. I need to reverse engineer some of the Allen Bradley Ethernet Industrial Protocol and its client communication. This seems pretty useful for documenting that.

<comment><USER16> [http://kaitai.io/](http://kaitai.io/)

Also check out [https://ohmlang.github.io/](https://ohmlang.github.io/) and view the maths demo in your local copy.

<comment><USER17> Holy shit this is so cool. I will never have a need for this but it's really amazing to poke around with. It kind of feels like Wireshark for files instead of packets.

They also have a web version[0] with a bunch of example files if you want to check it out without installing it locally.

[0] [https://ide.kaitai.io/](https://ide.kaitai.io/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Apple should publish something like TN1150 for APFS. several years ago, I had to implement HFS+ for an embedded system, and TN1150 proved very helpful, saved me a lot of hassle.

[https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/technotes/tn/tn11...](https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/technotes/tn/tn1150.html)

</comment><comment><USER19>
      Timestamps are 64bit nanoseconds

As far as I can tell, this will overflow in just 11 years – 2028-06-15 09:33:27.3709551615 UTC

Why would this go into a new standard? Is there a practical use for such a high level of granularity?

edit: off by a factor of 10 in my calculation... It's actually

2554-07-21 23:34:33.709551615 UTC

<comment><USER20> By my math, we're fine for almost 600 years:

[http://wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2%5E64+nanoseconds+from+now...](http://wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2%5E64+nanoseconds+from+now&x=0&y=0)

<comment><USER21> But that should be 'from 1.1.1970', i.e. from the unix epoch. Still far out, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Typo thread!

"this hight result in" => "might"

"and seams to be related" => "seems"

"sometimes spaceman" => "sometimes called spaceman" ?

Very interesting read, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER23> Awesome research, would love to be able to do that.

Some things that came to mind: I like that some of the block types are "acronyms" of their meanings: 5 = S(pace man), B = B(-tree), C = C(heckpoint). Also, I wonder why the volume superblock magic is "APSB", while the root (container) magic is "NXSB"; maybe this refers to NextStep? Seems a bit anachronistic, but I don't know.

<comment><USER24> Apple superblock, and next superblock (meaning "the next superblock", not nextstep).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Anyone know how Apple pulled off an in place filesystem upgrade ? Is the data copied to your upgrade laptop and back ?

<comment><USER26> No, nothing like that necessary. Data remains in the same spot, and during the conversion new metadata and file tables/pointers are created in APFS format. Then the volume is remounted using the new format, and the old hfs stuff goes bye-bye.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone know or can speculate on the purpose of the 4 "alignment" bytes in the node block header? Are they _for_ alignment (in which case it's strange to have them at the beginning instead of the end)? Or are they _describing_ alignment (in which case it's strange to need 32 bits)?

<comment><USER27> I just called it alignment. It's just a bit that decides wether the following entries are fixed length or variable length.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is there a filesystem that can fragment a large, existing file to perform arbitrary inserts?

<comment><USER29> Common in the mainframe world, like VSAM. That would be variable length record oriented files, versus stream files. Someone did do this for GEOS: [http://justsolve.archiveteam.org/wiki/GEOS_VLIR](http://justsolve.archiveteam.org/wiki/GEOS_VLIR) , but I've never seen that for anything remotely unix like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Ends a little abruptly (as in no closing) but other than that interesting read.

<comment><USER31> It's a description of the format, not a review of it. What conclusion were you after?

<comment><USER32> I wasn't even after a conclusion or anything. But since there isn't a footer I just thought maybe my internet connection died and it only loaded a portion of the page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Is there any reason to use APFS on desktop?

<comment><USER34> There are a couple features missing from HFS+. Some of these are implemented in APFS: * Case sensitivity * Clones extents / ranges (reflinking) * Holes in the middle of files * ACLs * Collapsing file ranges * Per file compression and per file encryption

These are useful for apps like SQLite or other stores which implement a multi user, log structured store.

<comment><USER35> FYI - HFS is capability of case sensitivity and is an option during formatting. I believe it even used to be the default.

<comment><USER36> HFS and HFS+ were never case-sensitive by default on Mac OS. Case-sensitive HFS+ was made available as an option in Mac OS 10.0, but was always glitchy (especially for boot volumes), because many applications depended on case insensitivity.

<comment><USER37> I have a case sensitive HFS+ and everything works fine.

That was a problem with older versions of Adobe suite, but since lots of people on Macs used Adobe Apps...

<comment><USER38> Isn't the problem still present? A few months back I tried installing the latest version of Photoshop and Illustrator, and it didn't let me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> So it is copy-on-write. Interesting.

</comment><comment><USER37> Look, we get it, you bought an Android and you want to use iMessage and FaceTime.

That would be stupid, Apple doesn't make money from users data, Apple doesn't listen to conversations like Google does to sell ads.

So why would they support servers (and there are a lot more of android users than iOS users) for people that didn't bought anything from them? For people that bought Androids to like them? They don't need that.

It has nothing to do with open source, the open source community doesn't need this and Apple couldn't care less about the GNU types after GPLv3 incompatibilizes with their business (while Android OEMs break the license every single day, but the community turns a blind eye, because it's Google)

Also, they would lose a few of their product sales and lots of 30% shares on sticker packs and other Apps for iMessage they sell.

<comment><USER40> We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14175206](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14175206) and marked it off-topic.</comment></comment>


Systemd-free Devuan Linux hits version 1.0.0 - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/22/devuan_1_0_0_released/ <comment><USER2> This is secondary reporting. The actual announcement was posted here as [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14171119](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14171119) by Denis Roio xyrself.</comment>


Iceland grapples with the prospect of a future with no ice - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/business/iceland-ice-melt-global-warming-climate-change.html <comment><USER2> I recently encountered the term solastalgia ([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solastalgia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solastalgia)), a name for the pain caused by environmental change. Global heating isn't the only phenomenon that can lead to solastalgia, but it has already affected all people on Earth in ways that are increasingly painful.

<comment><USER3> Every year the entire Midwest experiences this nostalgia for long-gone weather patterns, probably twice. Once at Halloween where you'll commonly hear people say "when I was a kid we had to design our costumes to fit over winter coats" and once in December where you'll hear "remember when we used to have snow on Christmas day?"

<comment><USER2> Yes! I'm from Wisconsin, and I feel this so deeply. I especially miss the crisp cold of October nights.

I remember hearing an episode of Minnesota Public Radio's Climate Cast [0], a show/podcast about the climate crisis in MN, where a guest spoke about cultural losses in his state. What happens when cross-country skiing is no longer a viable sport? Elsewhere in Minnesota, academics are researching the solastalgia of indigenous communities [1].

[0]: [https://www.mprnews.org/podcasts/climate- cast](https://www.mprnews.org/podcasts/climate-cast)

[1]: [http://www.seagrant.umn.edu/climate/solastalgia](http://www.seagrant.umn.edu/climate/solastalgia)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe Iceland and Greenland can finally swap names?

I know this is off topic and doesn't add much, I guess I use humor in order to make myself feel better about dire situations (such as climate change tipping point).

<comment><USER5> Or rename Iceland to Niceland?

<comment><USER6> They can change Ísland to simply Island.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One upside (and I'm just completely ignoring the fact that this is all thanks to spiraling climate change for a second)

This may make monetizing their _insane_ amount of geo-thermal energy easier, perhaps?

[https://time.com/4844086/geothermal-energy-iceland-deep- dril...](https://time.com/4844086/geothermal-energy-iceland-deep-drilling- project/)

With the Ice melting off, it would be fair more stable to tap the country (ironically enough) for its green energy potential. I know there's a fair amount of energy intensive manufacturing that has been moved here for that alone. If they were able to extend long sea cable this would make for extremely _cheap_ server farms too.

<comment><USER8> there is a volcano under at least one of the big glaciers

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If Iceland or Greenland has no ice, we will have a much bigger problem to fry, to quote Milosh from Seinfeld.

</comment><comment><USER8> There are some cave tours, a nice glacial lake, a small ski mountain, and some snowmobile tours... that's about it.

Ah, but where would the waterfalls get their water if there is no melting glaciers?

The mountainous areas that get exposed would be extremely cool to explore.

^ been to IS 12+ times in past 2 years

<comment><USER10> I'd assume fresh water would be in rather short supply ? I guess it would depend on annual snowfall/rainfall in the time after the glaciers have moved on.

<comment><USER11> Desalination plants should be fairly cheap in Iceland. You can distill seawater using geothermal energy.</comment></comment></comment>


This is why memory fragmentation is bad - <AUTHOR> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=666058#c31 <comment><USER2> The sad state of affairs is that papercuts are the death of us all. We've come to the point where we have "unlimited" resources that we just throw away memory like it's going out of style.

I remember a profiling of a gnome startup. It touched something like insane like 40K files. Another profile I saw removed a few bytes (unneeded, it wasn't some complex optimization) from some commonly used datas-tructure for an 50%+ speed improvement.

Simply we're being cut to death by bloat and pure, sheer lazyness. a web browser has absolutely no excuse for using 500megs of ram. None. Whatsoever.

I expect this comment to fall on deaf ears.

<comment><USER3> Your comment is wrong on so many levels:

• It's not even on topic. This post is not about general memory usage; it's about fragmentation in the javascript VM – i.e. that a system object existing in a general memory page precludes that page from being garbage collected / deallocated even though the lifetime of system objects is very different. This is not a trivial matter for which the only explanation is laziness.

• It's spoken like someone who's never seriously worked on a large open source project. Memory profiling and leak tracking is done widely and often (using valgrind, mostly).

• You speak as if you know how much memory a web browser should use. How do you know? Have you worked on modern web browsers? Or are you just, as I assume, by fiat deciding that 500 MB is too much?

• There's very often a speed / memory usage tradeoff. At present, especially for web browsers, users tend to prefer speed. (i.e. how many rendered pages do you cache per tab so that clicking the back button is next to instant?)

• The right time to profile and optimize is usually later in the development process. We all know the famous quote. Optimizing early tends to lead to ugly code that, amusingly, is harder to optimize later.

<comment><USER4> I remember sometime back probably around 2004. There was a lot of noise regarding memory leak in FF. And the expert sounding ones started to claim that there was no memory leak and the very large memory usage in FF was because of browser history and cache storage. Then one year later they all accepted that FF was actually leaking memory.

Since then I stopped accepting expert opinion blindly.

<comment><USER5> I could be wrong, but wasn't a large part of this due to Flash?

<comment><USER6> I think it turned out that a large part of it was due to, like, 100 different small things. There was never _a_ memory leak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Summary: Firefox has a bunch of long-living system javascript objects; these get fragmented in the javascript engine's heap and end up keeping alive a bunch of mostly-empty chunks of memory. Tests show that removing this fragmentation reduces Firefox's overall memory use by up to 35%.

</comment><comment><USER7> Remarkable: "No we don't free chunks right away (except with the new SHRINK GC call). They survive 3 GCs because of allocation heavy workloads. Freeing and allocating right away hurts benchmark performance (bug 541140)."

So they're basically saying one of the reasons a copy of Firefox with no open tabs is currently consuming 1GB of my computer's memory is because they didn't want to suck on benchmarks. Is there a flag I can set to tell the damn browser "I AM A REAL USER AND NOT A BENCHMARK, PLEASE DON'T SIT ON 1GB OF MEMORY, FREE IT IMMEDIATELY"?

<comment><USER8> I have 6G of core and 4G of swap. If using more memory makes browsing faster, I'm all for it. Memory is cheap. CPU time is expensive.

For reference: 24G of DDR3 costs about $220 these days.

<comment><USER9> All of the physical RAM in the world doesn't mean a damned thing if you're a Win32 process limited to 2 GiB of user address space. Heap fragmentation is a very real problem there.

<comment><USER10> So don't run win32. :) We've had 64-bit processors for a while now, run a 64-bit OS and you have all the address space you might want.

<comment><USER11> LOL. Yesterday, I restarted firefox because it ate 13GB of virtual memory and started to get really unusable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What's actually surprising is that it took them this many years to get it fixed. Memory fragmentation is just as bad as memory leaks. To the user, the RAM being used just keeps going up and up until they run out of memory and have to restart FF.

<comment><USER13> See my comment below; Mozilla has been well aware of memory fragmentation for years and has been constantly working to decrease it.

<comment><USER12> I remember that blog post like it was yesterday. I guess the Mozilla source code is such a gargantuan beast at this point that it really does take years to get significant improvements into it?

Could explain their recent flurries of rewriting the javascript jits.

<comment><USER13> Yes, Mozilla source code is huge (5.2 million lines [1]). But keep in mind that all browsers are roughly that big (compare Chrome, at 4.8 million lines [2]).

[1]: <https://www.ohloh.net/p/firefox/analyses/latest> [2]: <http://www.ohloh.net/p/chrome/analyses/latest>

<comment><USER14> this is the #1 reason why I sought out a Firefox alternative a long time ago. I like to have a lot of tabs open, and to almost never close or restart the browser. Firefox was, and to an extent still is, unusable with that type of usage pattern.

I hope they get it sorted out because it is the main blocker to getting a lot of the early adopter crowd who have switched to chrome back onto Firefox.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe you have a different use case than I do; my Chrome instance usually uses about 30% more memory than Firefox despite having a quarter as many tabs open.

<comment><USER14> OS X? I have 50+ tabs open atm and it is taking up 690MB in total. Chrome is also good with swaping/paging tabs that are in the background.

Also, I have flash disabled, and use 3 separate builds of chrome on OS X to separate web accounts, dev instances and anonymous browsing

<comment><AUTHOR> Win7. Between eight and ten tabs open, one open to Grooveshark. Everything gets refreshed every eight hours or so. Firefox usually has anywhere between five and a hundred tabs open. Both get rebooted about once every three days for updates. Chrome is at 400MB, FF is currently at 300.

<comment><USER14> my own experience was that chrome on windows is the best/fastest browser experience available atm, but I don't use it often. have you tried chrome canary or webkit/safari? you seem to have a weird problem - it might be down to a plugin or extension, so I would disable them all and re-enable one-by- one.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm running Canary. I think it's mostly thanks to Flash, really; I've never had good luck with Adobe software and Flash is the worst of the worst.

<comment><USER14> chrome://plugins/ - kill flash, enable html5 on youtube, and you will never miss it. been 18 months for me, and I very very rarely find that I need to open a flash-enabled browser

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Glad to see they are finally doing something to address memory fragmentation besides suggesting that users "occasionally restart Firefox". Seems like this has been a major problem in Firefox forever.

<comment><USER13> Mozilla has been well aware of this problem for years. See this blog post from 2008, 3 years ago, detailing the changes that went into optimizing memory use for Firefox 3, including switching to jemalloc to decrease fragmentation: <http://blog.pavlov.net/2008/03/11/firefox-3-memory-usage/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> We measure fragmentation level of disks is a unique way, that allows a central fragmentation control instead of periodical defrag. The idea can be converted to memory fragmentation - if anybody wants to join us for developing a similar tool for cases described here.. Koby <http://www.disklace.com>

</comment><comment><USER17> 'No we don't free chunks right away (except with the new SHRINK GC call). They survive 3 GCs because of allocation heavy workloads. Freeing and allocating right away hurts benchmark performance'

This is the real problem then - benchmark score vs real-world useabilty.

</comment><comment><USER5> He mentioned wanting to get that patch into FF7. Why not FF6?

<comment><AUTHOR> <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases#Firefox_6>

FF6 has already been frozen and released to the Aurora channel; it goes to Beta tomorrow. FF7's code gets frozen and released to Aurora tomorrow.

<comment><USER18> By the time we get to FF412 in a month or so I expect it will be awesome and actually ordering me free RAM from Crucial</comment></comment></comment>