The Brain is Not Computable - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/view/511421/the-brain-is-not-computable/ <comment><USER3> >But Nicolelis is in a camp that thinks that human consciousness (and if you believe in it, the soul) simply can't be replicated in silicon. That's because its most important features are the result of unpredictable, non-linear interactions amongst billions of cells, Nicolelis says.

This is a fringe opinion, and I really wish the title reflected that. Ignoring the absurd 'linear' part of the article, I don't believe predictability is important to the brain. While it's possible quantum effects could explain unpredictability in the physical universe, there is no scientific evidence this is relevant to the brain; the brain operates at a much higher, more macro level than quantum mechanics. Besides, randomness can be introduced into silicon if it's that important. I hope the article is misrepresenting his opinion, but they seem dangerously close to 'the brain is more complex than I can comprehend, so it must be magic'.

I and many cognitive and neuroscientists I've spoken to consider this whole line of reasoning to be anti-scientific philosophy (although I may be biased because I studied AI, which rests on the idea that silicon can recreate intelligence).

<comment><USER4> According to Max Tegmark's calculations, the importance of quantum mechanical effects on brain processes is negligible:

<http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9907009>

This paper posits the brain can be modeled as a classical (e.g. Newtonian, "billiard ball"-style) physical system

<comment><USER5> This is based on the idea that the sum total of what the brain does can be explained by and represented by neural network type models.

The conventional neural network model neglects the interior of the neuron. Gene regulatory networks for complex eukaryotes are on the order of neural networks in complexity and involve quantum-scale interactions, which opens the possibility of quantum effects being significant. Gene regulation within the neuron affects neural firing behavior and, more importantly, profoundly affects neural growth patterns and thus learning and longer term forms of cognition.

This also neglects the possibility (now considered probable) that more cell types than just neurons are involved in brain activity:

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

In short: the brain is not a neural network. Rather, those mathematical connectionist models are just that: _models_ of _aspects_ of the brain. We do not yet know to what extent these other mechanisms play a role, and what their role is. Given their nature it seems in both cases that their role might be more long-term, affecting long duration learning, planning, etc.

It really seems to me as if the most ardent and enthusiastic adherents of the Kurzweilian vision are computer scientists who don't really respect the domain of biology and like to hand-wave away its complexity as "background noise." You can't do that. I say this as a lifelong computer programmer who has studied biology. Studying biology really blew away any notions I had of simple, classical computer programs becoming movie-style AI.

The author is _not_ making an anti-scientific "magic" argument. He is simply pointing out that biological systems are analog, embodied, electrochemical (and thus physical and possibly quantum), nonlinear complex systems, and he is being skeptical about the idea that such a system is going to yield readily to digital computer simulation. I agree with his skepticism.

Prediction: brain simulations will simulate superficial brain behavior but they will not become sentient. More specific prediction: they will get stuck in closed cycle loops. They will not exhibit the higher order motivation, creativity, or learning behavior seen in brains, which is probably because these behaviors emerge from all the real embodied biophysical stuff the CS people are ignoring.

<comment><USER4> This paper specifically addresses microtubules and is definitely not neglecting the interior of neurons. I suggest you read the paper instead of just the abstract before you give feedback.

<comment><USER5> Microtubules, maybe, but that's only one of a billion things going on in there.

Here's a pretty decent article:

<http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110615/pdf/474272a.pdf>

My point is that a neuron is not an equation in a connection model. It's a cell. You can't hand-wave away its identity as such or all the things that happen in cells.

Even if nothing quantum is involved (and I didn't say it was... we don't know), including significant aspects of intra-cellular activity and including other cell types (glia, etc.) and other types of interactions adds exponentially to the classical computation requirements.

I didn't mean that I _dismissed_ the idea of classical computers simulating the brain or the implications. I just meant that I'm skeptical. Even if it is possible I'm very skeptical of it happening soon due to the absolutely insane computational requirements. My intuition is that it would require a leap on the order of vacuum tube ENIAC -> Intel Core i7. Meanwhile consumer demand for faster and faster chips is giving way to demand for slower but more energy efficient chips for mobile devices, which is subtracting from the economic incentive to continue Moore's Law. (AMD just bowed out of the x86 race for instance, leaving us with an Intel monopoly at the high end. Monopolies get lazy and stagnate.)

Personally I'm much more optimistic about "wet" transhumanism-- life extension, augmentation, brain hacking, etc., than I am about "real" AI in the near term or mind uploading. I also see computers stagnating a little for a while the way aerospace did from the Apollo era until about now... entirely for economic rather than physical reasons.

<comment><USER4> A cell is a physical system. A physical system can either:

1) Be sufficiently large that quantum effects are irrelevant, like a billiard ball, and thus it can be modeled deterministically inside of a computer. The Tegmark paper proposes this is how the brain works.

2) Rely on quantum mechanical effects (which are non-deterministic, but can still be simulated inside a computer if you trust a computer's opinion of "random"). Penrose, Searle, etc. would argue otherwise, that there's a method to the madness, and that there's something "special" about the quantum mechanical effect on microtubules. We still don't understand quantum mechanics very well, so if human consciousness really relies on quantum mechanics, there is arguably a bit of wiggle room here, especially if you're a physicist of the same caliber as Penrose.

Microtubules are specifically of interest because they're one of the few brain structures small enough to arguably be subject to quantum mechanical events.

Tegmark argues that they're not small enough and that it's irrelevant.

The real question is:

Is it _possible_ to simulate a brain within a computer?

\- not -

Is it really hard? Is it too hard for modern technology? Is this problem simply too complex for us to understand? Do we lack the technology to build sufficient understanding today? Etc. Etc.

This article is claiming it's IMPOSSIBLE to simulate a brain within a computer. Proving that is a tall order.

<comment><USER6> > Be sufficiently large that quantum effects are irrelevant ...

This misunderstands the role of quantum theory in macroscopic systems. There is never a scale so large that quantum effects can be safely ignored. All that happens is that the specific effects, and probabilities, change.

The Heisenberg Uncertainly principle doesn't build a wall between the microscopic and macroscopic realms, it makes a probabilistic prediction about quantum events at all scales -- larger scale, lower probability.

But a macroscopic system that has a very low probability of exhibiting classic quantum behaviors as a whole, will nevertheless show quantum behaviors at some level. An easily understood example is a radioactive sample -- let's say a kilogram of uranium. The sample isn't going to behave like Schrodinger's cat, but its constituent atoms certainly will.

In one sense, the uranium is a classical mass with no contribution from quantum theory. In another sense, it's highly influenced by quantum theory -- were this not so, there would be no nuclear disintegrations.

An observer can examine the sample and, intent on demonstrating that it's a classical system, use the half-life equation to predict its future --

a' = a 2^-t/f

a = activity level at time zero

a' = activity level at time t

t = time, consistent units

f = half-life factor

\-- And the outcome looks very classical, but only because the sample is large. But the timing of the next disintegration is quantum-deterministic. So the uranium is a chimera -- part classical, part quantum. This is an example that makes the point very clearly, but all classical systems (and scales) possess quantum properties, usually not so obvious as it is with a radioactive sample.

> Rely on quantum mechanical effects (which are non-deterministic, but can > still be simulated inside a computer if you trust a computer's opinion of > "random").

Quantum effects aren't merely random. What connects an event to quantum theory isn't its randomness, but the nature of the randomness -- its genesis. No matter how carefully I design a random number generator, I won't be able to imitate quantum entanglement unless the system is actually capable of this specific physical behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm going to take the unpopular stance and say that it's very hard to make a prediction like this. Anyone who has a very strong stance one way or another probably needs to reevaluate their predictive capabilities.

I do work in molecular dynamics. To even simulate a million atoms requires huge approximations. You can get more accurate as you simulate less. If you want an almost perfect match with reality, simulation will get you about 2-3 helium atoms. Now consider how many atoms are in a human brain.

So it's hard for me to imagine fully simulating a human brain, although I don't see why it is theoretically impossible. Brains behave according to the same laws of physics as everything else in the universe.

On our _current_ technological improvement path, I don't see a brain simulation occurring any time soon. If quantum computers were developed, it would make things much easier, but we would still need a new "kind" of technology. I wouldn't rule it out completely though. Who in the 1600s would have predicted microprocessors?

As for his talk about souls or consciousness, that just confuses me (and I'm religious too). Everything that we have thus far discovered obeys the laws of physics, so ruling out a simulation via some mystical "property" that human brains have seems sketchy to me.

Now, if you want to talk about things that really aren't computable, I'll direct you to Chaitin's constant: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaitins_constant>

<comment><USER8> As I understand it, currents attempts to simulate brain activity operate on a slightly higher scale, mimicking the behaviour of neurons and the electronic signals between them, without resorting to modelling the behaviour of individual atoms.

<comment><USER7> Yeah... what I've found from my work is that higher-order modeling tends to leave out important effects. Which is okay when you're specifically trying to understand one particular property of a system (diffusivity, charge distribution, etc.), but when you want ALL properties to be accurate? That's difficult.

Edit: I'll elaborate a little bit more. We currently simulate large proteins using force fields like CHARMM or AMBER. The problem we're trying to solve is what structure these proteins will fold into, and these force-fields work pretty well for that.

But consider this: these potentials are basically a handful of equations that describe stretching, bending, torsional, van der Waals, and electrostatic interactions. The parameters for these equations come from measurements of simple compounds that have similar structure, and these are used to extrapolate what will happen in a different substance. Good enough for folding, but if you want accurate energy levels? No way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not with our current technology, I agree

But saying the problem can't be solved ever seems dead wrong to me.

We humans excel at understanding and replicating what nature did - then at improving it.

Once we clearly understand how memories are stored, if they can be read _and written_ that'll be half of the problem : accessing the data.

If the theory about memory being encoded in the microtubules is right, imagine some nanomachines that could read it from a "live" human - by broadcasting radio waves, or emitting photons (we started doing that for proteins with antibodies glued to radioactive markets, then we improved and glued them luciferase, now we do multiple colors and IIRC it's being experimented for DNA), whatever.

Now imagine other nanomachines that could rearrange the microtubules to match that - voila, you've got Matrix-style "uploading" of knowledge once we understand how the memory bits interact with eachother, how they can be accessed by the subject. Maybe it's like a SQL database fk/pk - we don't know. But something must exist to allow it. When we figure it out, there is no reason why it couldn't be done too.

My own predictions : after we confirm how memories are stored, if we have nanotechnologies to create nanomachines, we will start reading memories just like we did with DNA and proteins.

It will take a while, we will only have a read-only access at first- and with many bugs just like how introns and TATA boxes could be mysterious initially - but we will understand in the end, and that will be half of the problem solved.

Downloading will require additional advances in computer technology (at least faster cpus, in 3d instead of 2d to get more interconnections and raw computing power, and maybe some integration of processing and memory to match how neurons work), but it does not seem far-fetched to me.

<comment><USER10> Computability in this case is a theoretical term and doesn't really relate to levels of technology.

Whether or not all physical processes are computable in the sense that they can be simulated by a turing machine is an open question, although my impression is that most folk who care to express an opinion think that they can. There's a little bit more on the Wikipedia article on the Church-Turing- Deutsch principle. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing%E2%80%93D...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing%E2%80%93Deutsch_principle)

<comment><USER9> Regarding computability, I wouldn't dare giving any opinion on that, and hopefully didn't in my original post. All I'm saying that once we figure how information is stored and processed, with enough technology we could replicate the process. It's not about computability- if you are making a biological duplicate I'd expect it to work the same way. Some might say this is not the "singularity", but it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...

Also, it would help creating silicon equivalent. Imagine we have something just as small (or smaller) than a biological neuron, which can interface and work in the very same way.

Computability or not, if it works in exactly the same way, I'd guess it could work the same on a higher level too - like, in a brain, especially if we have figured how to extract the stored information and if we can feed it back. (unless there are emergent properties we missed in the first place, but then if they can be identified, maybe they can be replicated too?)

That would allow an iterative trial/error (ex: if it doesn't work - why?) which might not resolve the computability question, but bring even more interesting issues about why it might not possible - something we can learn only from an experimental approach.

<comment><USER10> As far as I can tell, there's a hidden (but not unreasonable) assumption in what you're saying; that it is _possible_ to simulate what is going on. There are many things that cannot be computed, e.g. the Busy Beaver sequence, and it's quite possible that a simulation of true physics also involves noncomputable problems which would mean that it's not possible for a turing machine to simulate it.

I like this blog's [http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/interesting-problems-the- chur...](http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/interesting-problems-the-church- turing-deutsch-principle/) take on it:

"Yet our ease with the CTD Principle is an ease brought by familiarity. One hundred years ago the statement would have been far more surprising, and, I suggest, even shocking to many people.

Viewed from the right angle, the CTD Principle still is shocking. All we have to do is look at it anew. How odd that there is a single physical system – albeit, an idealized system, with unbounded memory – which can be used to simulate any other system in the Universe!"

You say "once we figure how information is stored and processed", but how do you know that what is going on in the brain is just a matter of storing and processing information in a way that can be mimicked by a turing machine?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >That's because its most important features are the result of unpredictable, non-linear interactions amongst billions of cells, Nicolelis says.

Replace "cells" with "molecules" and "consciousness" with "fluid dynamics", and you can see what a vague, hand-waving argument this is.

>"You can't predict whether the stock market will go up or down because you can't compute it," he says. "You could have all the computer chips ever in the world and you won't create a consciousness."

You can't predict the precise behavior of an analog amplifier, either, but you can still model it and produce a digital equivalent.

<comment><USER12> This quote also stumped me

>"You can't predict whether the stock market will go up or down because you can't compute it,"

If you had an accurate model of the agents, you could easily compute the stock market.

<comment><USER13> But as soon as you want to use that knowledge to actually make money, your agent is participating in the market, so it has to account for itself...

<comment><USER12> True, but irrelevant in context of the analogy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't think the non-linearity argument is too convincing. Certainly, I accept that you cannot simulate a specific brain/mind - that is, if you somehow knew the exact structure and inner workings of a specific mind that you could then run a simulation of that mind which returns the same outputs as the original mind. I can buy that our simulations of non-linear problems will not fully match 'reality' and cause divergence.

However, that doesn't mean we cannot run a model. Exactly what the model's output 'means'... well, that's a different question. To use his examples, our simulations of weather or the stock market do not produce the same output as the future. But their outputs (hopefully) represent actually realizable states of the world.

In other words, as long as our model gives us 'human enough' output, then I guess it's sufficient? I mean, it really comes down to 'why do you want to simulate the human brain'. If you want to be able to upload your brain, then that probably isn't good enough. But I can imagine for various other uses, it could be enough.

I do think Kurzweil is at best... wildly optimistic though.

</comment><comment><USER15> I simply can't understand why people feel the need to proclaim that something plausible will never ever happen some time in the (possibly very distant) future. It's both stupid, unproductive and often embarrassing (when they are proven wrong).

>"But Nicolelis is in a camp that thinks that human consciousness (and if you believe in it, the soul) simply can't be replicated in silicon.

I'm guessing/hoping that the silicon reference was made by the author of the article and not Miguel Nicolelis, considering that silicon is extremely likely to be replaced by graphite or something else in the next decade or two, at least with almost full certainty by the next century. If it actually was Nicolelis who spoke about silicon, it automatically discredits him from having anything to say about the distant future of computing.

>That's because its most important features are the result of unpredictable, non-linear interactions amongst billions of cells, Nicolelis says."

Even if that was true, which I doubt, so what? There has to be some kind of a system behind those "unpredictable, non-linear interactions" in order for the brain to have any functionality at all, and every system can be figured out and simulated. It might be incredibly complex and take centuries for us to gain the required knowledge and processing power, but even that doesn't make it impossible.

<comment><USER16> Agreed. The brain was 'invented' by non-intelligent evolution, a blind drunkard's walk of chemistry and biology. I am amazed we haven't figured out what mind-bogglingly simple premises are required to build a brain - <USER2> happened through a series of alway-stable always-useful small steps. I've seen a car designed by a web page through random 'genetic algorithm'. How about a simple random walk through neuron interconnection until something useful pops out?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I too believe this. Here is my argument:

1) If we have to simulate it at a low level, the human brain is far too complex for any computer in any timeframe of our current lives to have enough power to simulate properly

2) Working backwards and simulating the high level processes (AI, etc) have been a dismal failure at actually replicating human thought processes, and will continue to be. While NN or the like can theoretically simulate any algorithm, we have no idea how to effectively train them in a way that produces high level thought similar to a human brain.

Generally when discussing this with people, I say this: if you disagree, give me a date by which you think I will be shown wrong, and then we'll reevaluate at that point.

I fully expect I could be proven wrong, and that would be an awesome world to live in, but my bold and unfortunate prediction is that I won't be.

<comment><USER12> _> I too believe this._

You don't. The article argues that there is a theoretical barrier that prevents a brain emulation _in principle_ , you argue that technology isn't ready _yet_ and won't be in our lifetimes.

Opponents of your viewpoint argue that you simply can't imagine the state of technology in 50 years.

<comment><USER17> The subject is, "The Brain is Not Computable". I too believe that. The article itself is quite vague in what particular objections the guy has. It doesn't actually state he thinks it is not computable in theory, just in practice

> That's because its most important features are the result of unpredictable, > non-linear interactions amongst billions of cells, Nicolelis says.

If he thought it was theoretically impossible, then the "billions of cells" would be redundant. It would only take 1 un-computable cell. Without a longer interview, we can't be sure what exactly he means.

My interpretation was "unpredictable, non-linear" (i.e. not computable by a simple algorithm, would have to be very complex, because of non linear interactions between inputs) amongst "billions of cells" = an obscene amount of computational data. I don't think he means unpredictable to mean strictly uncomputable.

> Opponents of your viewpoint argue that you simply can't imagine the state of > technology in 50 years.

Yes, but at the same time there are things we thought we would be able to do 50 years ago that there is no way we can do now. There are physical constraints to the universe, and we can't just assume "technology" will overcome all of them. Nobody can imagine the state of technology in 50 years accurately, but I am still willing (and have done) to take bets on this 50 years into the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My girlfriend is a neuroscientist. Every time she sees something about them 'modeling the brain' she is visibly amused/unhappy. It might be possible, but our current understanding of the brain feels much further away.

The concept that we're going to hit some moore's law style thing in science that will propel us to just automatically understand things, which we can barely measure currently, just doesn't line up. Just the process to understand how a single thing functions on a single channel seems to take forever now, and most neuroscience labs aren't limited by the speed of their desktops...

<comment><USER19> Right, it takes forever now - and it took twice as long five years ago.

<comment><USER18> But the thing is most neuroscientists don't just sit at a computer all day. 95% of the tasks they do are not computer-bound.

If you're doing animal-based research (the majority of real neuroscience currently), then its time spent with behavior testing, surgeries, waiting for the drug to be in an animal for 72 (or however many) hours, processing slides, pipetting, etc.

The time spent at a computer is mostly data analysis, reading papers, ordering supplies and grantwriting. A huge amount of time seems to be spent jumping through hoops, ordering things, working with vendors of equipment that doesn't frequently work as advertised, and dealing with broken stuff overall. The data-analysis they are doing again, isn't bound by the computer's speed. It generally is working with a few dozen (or hundred) samples of relatively computationally easy data.

There's not much for a computer to speed up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm somewhere in between. I think it might be possible to create a machine that does what the brain does, or even to "upload," though I don't see the latter anytime in the foreseeable future.

But if so, I don't think it'll be with a standard von Neumann machine. Not that such a computer _couldn't_ perform the required computations... it's Turing complete. But I think it would be a very poor fit for the problem domain. You'd want some kind of radically different incredibly highly parallel architecture. You also might want it to be analog or analog-like. There's been some interesting renewed interest in analog computers for a little while, and in probabilistic processors that can run incredibly fast by discarding the requirement of perfection.

</comment><comment><USER20> There is one constant in the History showing that a generation of human can achieve goals that were admitted impossible by their predecessor

Apart from that, there is this thing called ethnobiology, a sub-dicscipline of anthropology, that studies the way civilizations understand and represent the living things.

Ethnobiology reveals another constant in History : we tend to compare our brain to the most complex technology we know.

At the Renaissance, philosopher assimilated the brain to a very complex and subtle clockwork, Freud compared it to a steam engine, which pressure should be evacuated to avoid explosion. In the 40's, schoolboy and schoolgirls were told that brain was like a telephone exchange. Today, computers are the most advanced technology we know, so we tend to compare our brain to it. But like our predecessors, it's very likely that we are wrong.

Let just think forward, and admit that we are totally biased by the fact that computer are now inherent part of our life. Let's admit that there is a chance that our brain may never be modeled by a computer.

PS: for those who read french, a part of the above is largely inspired by a talk of Ted CHIANG, available here : <http://www.actusf.com/spip/article-9802.html> (sorry I can't find an English version)

</comment><comment><USER21> Such opinions happened before, and I guess will keep happening again.

> But the greater lesson lies in the vitalists' reverence for the elan vital, > their eagerness to pronounce it a mystery beyond all science. Meeting the > great dragon Unknown, the vitalists did not draw their swords to do battle, > but bowed their necks in submission. They took pride in their ignorance, > made biology into a sacred mystery, and thereby became loath to relinquish > their ignorance when evidence came knocking.

> The Secret of Life was _infinitely_ beyond the reach of science! Not just a > _little_ beyond, mind you, but infinitely beyond!

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/iu/mysterious_answers_to_mysterious_...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/iu/mysterious_answers_to_mysterious_questions/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Surely if you created a physics virtual machine and loaded an image with all of the atoms and electrons in place.. you'd simulate the brain. I imagine it would take a lot of computational power, but it's not 'never'

Unless we're talking about souls here or something

<comment><USER23> If we really need to simulate interactions at molecular level we're fracked. That kind of computational power is unimaginable.

<comment><USER15> So was Petabytes 60 years ago, yet today there are people who have single- handedly uploaded more than that on private BitTorrent trackers.

Never say never.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> LOL what total bunk, "unless" of course you practice some sort of magic and believe by definition humans cannot replicate this form of magic, then his theory might fit.

Besides which the Singularity has nothing to do with the 'soul' and consciousness. It's about super intelligence, this is possible without being self aware. IE Deep Blue I assume is not considered 'conscious' but it can solve the chess problem better than us, why would you think a super intelligent machine that can solve general problems has to also be 'self aware', bizarre.

</comment><comment><USER25> Is anyone familiar enough with this argument that they can lay down the premises? It is not clear what makes him think that the brain and, by extension, physics are not computable.

</comment><comment><USER26> Oh come on. I'm not going to make a prediction one way or the other, but there's one thing I do know: simulating the brain and simulating the current stock market to predict the outcome of a stochastic process (which is unknowable because you don't even know the inputs) are two vastly different things. So that's a really weak argument for his position. Not an argument for it at all, actually.

</comment><comment><USER27> Has anyone seen a better critique of Kurzweil's "How To Create A Mind?" I'm reading it now and have been kind of hankering for an analysis to compare my own issues/questions with.

</comment><comment><USER28> Assuming the brain is an instrument or computer machine as many seem to be doing in the comments. Who is the operator of the machine?

</comment><comment><USER19> Of course the brain is computable. The brain is a computer.

<comment><USER29> [citation needed]

<comment><USER19> The brain is made up of neurons. The neuron is a device that stores and processes information. Does it do so using a finite set of logical steps? We don't quite know yet, but it seems likely, since the behavior of the neuron has been shown to closely follow a known set of differential equations (the cable equations - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_theory>). But using the broadest definition of a computer, a device that stores and processes information, the brain is most certainly a computer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> tl;dr: guy says the brain is not computable.

I say: Is too! Dialogue complete.</comment>


If only Georges Simenon had been a bit more like Maigret - <AUTHOR> https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/if-only-georges-simenon-had-been-a-bit-more-like-maigret/ <comment><USER2> I love these books. I can buy them in Portugal for 50p and piece and they phenomenal covers. French police stories are fantastic because everything revolves around sex; which speaks to me as more realistic than American det novels (often about conspiracy theories, threats from other countries or from powerful men - to be fair some of them are quite frank about sex too) and British novels (which don't seem to mention sex at all or when they do, it's almost in passing and with no relevance to the story).

I find that the French frankness about sex leads to better crime novels that speak more about reality to me. I get the impression that the kind of crime novels each country has really speaks to their character (or intended character - I think the British are as horny as any other people, but they are bad at talking and thinking about sex).

<comment><USER3> > I can buy them in Portugal for 50p

Can I ask you where? Also, in French of Portuguese? Moving to Portugal in 2020 and would love to know where to find books for cheap!

<comment><USER2> You can find French books in some places, but you can find cheap Portuguese books virtually anywhere, but particularly so in Porto, close to where I live.

We call local/old/second hand bookshops "alfarrabistas" and they are very common around the country. Some have closed with the savage turistification that's hit the country, but most are still around for now.

<comment><USER3> Do you have any favorite you feel like suggesting? I've been there several times but never noticed them and even my Portuguese partner wouldn't know where to find one after many years living abroad.

<comment><USER2> Where? In Porto or Lisbon?

<comment><USER3> Both are fine :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maigret is much better in French. For such kind of "cheap" unpretentious books, the author is pretty astute and solid building the narrative. There is a lot of "European soul" and specially "French soul" distilled in the books.

</comment><comment><USER5> I lived in France for a few years and wanted to become fluent in the language. One part of my strategy was just to try to brute-force through some novels with the aid of a dictionary and a conjugation chart. I started with _Les Trois Mousquetaires_ but found the diction too difficult to slog through. I made it through _Le Petit Prince_, but I really clicked with Simenon's detective novels. Since it was a familiar, modern form, it was easier for my brain to fill in the blanks through context. The dialogue, especially, was realistic and quite to the point ("Ici c'est moi qui pose les questions" sticks in my mind).

<comment><USER6> I did something similar as part of learning English. For me the best author for this purpose was Stephen King (not that I spent much time searching, just random trial and error; I don't even like horror stories). After mastering Stephen King I moved on to J. R. R. Tolkien. For the first fifty pages or so of The Lord of The Rings I had to look up words pretty much one for every other line of text.

It was amazing to see how different authors, although both very good and well- known, use language so very differently, and use quite different sets of words and of very different sizes. It's not like Stephen King writes children's books, or that his stories are any more simple than LOTR. It's just like with code: You have people using a small(er) subset of a language but express similarly complex ideas (algorithms), while others enjoy using less commonly used language features. Both methods can get the job done beautifully in the right hands. One has the advantage of being more (easily) accessible (and to a larger amount of readers) though.

By the way, my next level in "word acquisition" came through reading The Economist and a few other magazines of similarly exalted vocabulary. Again I had to look up at least ten words per article when I started.

Which reminds me: Is there a service that manages to categorize books by looking at the set of words they contain (and possibly sentence structure/grammar)? Might be quite useful as a niche service for foreigners learning a language. The obvious and simple answer is to sort by intended audience (e.g. books for children and young people vs. _sciency_ books), but as my Stephen King vs Tolkien example shows, the overall level does not have to be different at all just because one uses a smaller set of words.

<comment><USER7> > categorize books by looking at the set of words they contain

Sometimes books are tagged with a "vocabulary level" or "reading level". A search on those pops up some possible answers, e.g. [https://library.austintexas.libanswers.com/faq/40667](https://library.austintexas.libanswers.com/faq/40667)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I read mostly non fiction but mystery novels are the one fiction genre I never mind reading. I read it like a (roundabout) lesson on the character of a time and place. I'd previously read London's Sherlock, Belgium's Poirot (written by the English Agatha Christie), LA's Philip Marlowe and France's Lupin (good reads, but the translations are poor quality).

I picked up Pietr the Latvian recently in a search for more Continental novels in the 18th and 19th century. I've started another Maigret novel since. Georges Simenon is a pretty incredible author given his serial output. Likewise the translators mentioned in the article did excellent work. I highly recommend these translated Maigret novels for both the plot and the wordsmithing.

<comment><USER9> Can I humbly suggest a few more "detectives with literary ambitions" you may or may not know already?

Manuel Vázquez Montalbán's _Pepe Carvalho_ is a survivor of Franco's purges, solving crimes and describing recipes in late-1980s Barcelona. (Spanish)

Andrea Camilleri's _Salvo Montalbano_ brings justice to the decadent and complicated Sicilian society of today. (Italian)

Both spawned several books, and have been translated to most languages at some point or another. Both draw a lot from Simenon, but have their distinctive styles (Camilleri in the Italian original uses a pidgin dialect that calls to Gadda and Joyce; and MVM is obsessed with food and politics).

<comment><USER10> Thank for the suggestions.

I also keep my eye on NYRB Classics Suspense/Crime offerings as they have a pretty good international selection (some Simenon included):

[https://www.nyrb.com/collections/classics/suspense- crime](https://www.nyrb.com/collections/classics/suspense-crime)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> That's an ad for the new release of the translations, imitating an article. Read Monsieur Monde Vanishes instead if you want to read some Simenon, it's a better book.

<comment><USER12> The new translations are indeed mentioned in passing, but the piece is a good introduction for people who don't know the author.

<comment><USER13> Quite. I suspect many, like myself, mainly know Maigret from the television series starring Rowan Atkinson (yes!).

<comment><USER9> Maigret is probably second only to Poirot and Holmes for number of tv adaptations. In Italy we had one in the mid-60's that was very good, if a bit theatrical.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect's Echo recordings - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/28/amazon-refuses-to-let-police-access-suspects-echo-recordings <comment><USER2> More importantly, the headline should read: "Police use high time resolution data from modern water meter against man charged with murder."

Basically this Abstruse Goose comic, [http://abstrusegoose.com/553](http://abstrusegoose.com/553) , about the dangers of utility data logging have come true. The greater the time resolution of such things the more can be inferred. Such high resolution is completely uneeded and complex in order to just charge for usage. The new wireless meters could simply send daily lump sums and still be wireless and easy. But instead they abuse the functionality in order to intrude on the lives of everyone.

<comment><USER3> Isn't it a good thing to record data that helps solve a murder? The police are still getting it with a warrant and presumably from physical access to the device, so it's not the same worry as bulk monitoring.

<comment><USER4> >Isn't it a good thing to record data that helps solve a murder?

Recording everyones data everywhere just in case it might be relevant to an extremely rare event like a murder is very dangerous. The use of NSA recording capabilities by employees to digitally stalk victims of their affection (LOVEINT) is a clear example of how badly this kind of collection can go wrong.

<comment><USER5> Your first statement is correct, but not because of what you said in your second. Google "ubiquitous law enforcement" for some good reading.

<comment><USER6> That was an excellent read, as Vernor Vinge usually is.

I've certainly used anti-surveillance arguments like "what if some employee misuses the data", and I mean them, but it's not my fundamental objection. On a much deeper level, I worry about surveillance as an _inherent_ harm. Partly as the death of privacy (a right in itself, to me), largely as a de facto power transfer to the state.

I think _Seeing Like a State_ is right when it argues that states depend on 'legibility'. If it can't be logged, measured, or predicted, it can't be handled on the statistical level where states have to operate. And so everything that increases the legibility of our lives eases the _real_ power of the state, without any need to expand its _legal_ power.

<comment><USER7> > _Seeing Like a State_ is right when it argues that states depend on > 'legibility'.

[http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground- burn...](http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground-burning- world/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article title seems misleading. It says "Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect's Echo recordings" and in the article says "Amazon has refused to hand over recordings from an Echo smart speaker to US police investigating a murder in Arkansas". However, the article then points out that the device only has an audio buffer of a few seconds and there are no such recordings: "the vast majority of the recordings it makes are not saved for longer than the few seconds it takes to determine if a pre-set "wake word" (usually "Alexa") has been said. Only if that wake word has been heard does the device's full complement of microphones come on and begin transmitting audio to Amazon."

So it would seem Amazon isn't "refusing" to hand over recordings. Amazon just doesn't have recordings of everything that is said around it retained long term.

<comment><USER9> USA Today has a few more details and got a statement from Amazon about it. Amazon refused to answer the requests.

 _Specifically, the Bentonville Police Department requested "electronic data in the form of audio recordings, transcribed records, or other text records related to communications and transactions between An AmazonEchoh device" located at Bates' residence and Amazon.com's services between Nov. 21 and 22, court documents show.

Amazon refused both times. In a statement to USA TODAY, Amazon said will not release customer information without a valid and binding legal demand properly served on it. Amazon objects to over broad or otherwise inappropriate demands as a matter of course, the company said._

[http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/12/27/amazon- al...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/12/27/amazon-alexa-echo- murder-case-bentonville-hot-tub-james-andrew-bates/95879532/)

<comment><USER10> To be fair, compared to some other law enforcement requests I've seen recently this is reasonably narrow. From this specific device, and only one day.

Still, they need to get a warrant.

<comment><USER11> > Still, they need to get a warrant

Isn't that what they do?

Article says "Arkansas police issued a warrant to Amazon to turn over recordings and other information associated with the device owned by James Andrew Bates."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When Eric Schmidt said "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," this is pretty much what he was talking about.

We live in a society where passive, ubiquitous, voluntarily-accepted monitoring is becoming the norm because of the vast convenience it affords the users. The flip-side of that coin is _of course_ breaks in your regular pattern of behavior are going to show up in the data trail.

Rather than blame the data trail, maybe we can just all agree to a societal understanding that if you're going to take up murder as a hobby, it might be somewhat incompatible with your other cloud-based ubiquitous-computing hobbies?

<comment><USER13> Same logic used in the Salem witch trials. You ever wonder why The Right to Be Silent is the first right mentioned in Miranda? Our entire criminal justice system is rooted is this concept. You have to be proven guilty and the state has to provide probable cause to search or seize.

Eric Schmidt is as biased on this subject as you can get, he profits from our data.

<comment><USER14> The full context of that Schmidt quote was that he was warning people that whatever they do, the government has legal (or as it turned out, extra-legal) ways to find out.

"the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time. And [...] we're all subject, in the US, to the Patriot Act, and it is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities."

That seems like a good warning, hardly evidence of some nefarious bias.

<comment><USER12> Precisely. If you're going to take up illegal activity, maybe don't search "How to do illegal activity" on Google the week before you do an illegal activity.

There are, to be certain, concerns about ubiquitous data being used in fishing expeditions, but a dead body in a hot-tub on a person's property is hardly "fishing expedition" territory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How can they refuse to provide the recordings in case of a warrant? It makes no sense. They even acknowledge that the device is not always-on and therefore probably not useful. Because of bad publicity?

If the police stands in front of my house with a warrant to search my belongings, can I refuse that? Does it make sense if I have nothing to hide?

The recordings of the water meter is more interesting and the possible combination with other devices, including the Echo. In case of a housing with lots of IOT-Devices the police could reconstruct the actions within based on the stored information, like when did someone eat, turn on the lights, wash hands, open the door, watch TV...

<comment><USER16> > If the police stands in front of my house with a warrant to search my > belongings, can I refuse that?

Yes, if your legal team denies it as overly broad. They can also file an injunction. This is why you call a lawyer as soon as the police arrive w/ a warrant or ask you questions.

> Does it make sense if I have nothing to hide?

Yes. Because you value your privacy of hobbies and speech.

> I have nothing to hide.

The average person breaks 3 laws a day. Whether that's speeding, texting while driving, having your friend over who left a dirty sock that smells like marijuana over. The police are "rewarded" when they find evidence of any crime, not just the one you are accused of.

Not a great example of having nothing to hide, but a great example of a broad search that found an entirely different crime. Survivor contestant, Michael Skupin, was having financial documents searched by police when they found kiddie porn was sentenced yesterday.

<comment><USER17> Do you have a citation for the 3 times a day figure? I'm not disagreeing because I belive it's true. I'd just like to see some real data.

<comment><USER18> Three crimes a day is probably a reference to this book: [https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target- Innocent/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target- Innocent/dp/1594035229)

(I know it's better to provide references to web pages and not books, but I don't have a web page that recreates that book on hand. Suggestions welcome.)

As I understand it, it's an estimate, not an actual figure. In order to perform such a survey, we'd have to sample people, record their entire daily activity, and determine how many crimes were committed. Determining how many crimes were committed would require an army of lawyers and private investigators... and that's the _real_ point. As a normal citizen without an army of lawyers, you should have no confidence whatsoever that you are not committing crimes. If measured by "what could be used to convict you if the government wanted you out of the way" I'd guess 3 per day is a grotesque underestimate, at least one order of magnitude and I wouldn't bet much against 2.

<comment><USER19> Hell just think of everyone going 5-10mph over the speed limit on any given road.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm wondering, what if the suspect agreed with the request of the police to check the Echo recordings? Suppose the suspect is innocent and thinks that allowing access to the Echo recordings can only make his case stronger.

Would Amazon then still refuse access?

<comment><USER21> Does Amazon not provide access to your recordings similar to how Google does with OK Google recordings? That seems easier.

<comment><USER22> The cops can't be certain if the suspect hasn't deleted incriminating recordings.

<comment><USER21> How is that different from you giving them access to your text messages?

Edit: IANAL, but pretty sure deleting incriminating evidence is obstruction of justice

<comment><USER22> I don't think it is. I expect cops to ask the provider for a copy of the messages as well.

 _pretty sure deleting incriminating evidence is obstruction of justice_

Probably, but so what?

<comment><USER21> This thread started with the idea that someone might want their Alexa records as evidence of their innocence. I doubt that an innocent person would commit a crime to remove potentially incriminating evidence from their voluntarily offered evidence.

The prosecution very well might subpoena those records if they thought there was value in so doing.

Edit: grammars

<comment><USER22> And my point is that the records are useless as evidence, since the cops can't trust them, therefore an innocent person would want Amazon to provide the recordings themselves anyway.

<comment><USER21> In the US it's the jury that needs to trust them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Slightly off topic, but this brings up the issue of whether data maintained using technological means is correct. And how can the correctness be verified or refuted? For example, suppose Amazon does provide data in reply to the warrant. How is anyone sure it's the data from the specified device at the time in question? Database errors happen all the time. It might be possible to use other means to assure that the data is correct, but it's unlikely anyone with the necessary knowledge would be assigned to this task.

Similarly, in LA, there are no fare gates at metro train stations. Occasionally police stop people leaving the station to check whether fare is paid by scanning the transit smart card. What if the card malfunctions? What if the scanning device outputs the wrong information? I have no way of contesting or verifying the information on these devices. It would be me, the passenger, held to account, not the infrastructure technology.

<comment><USER24> That's why in serious criminal cases we have trial by jury and not technology. If your only evidence is a 20 second recording from an Echo, you shouldn't be going to trial.

Poor DNA evidence/practices have wrongly convicted people, they have also exonerated people that were wrongly convicted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Has anyone, Amazon or otherwise, clarified what the Echo is actually recording? If anything? My use of the Echo and my reading of the information available from Amazon indicated that _nothing_ of any value was ever recorded/saved.

/edit

Ok, I'm an idiot. I see now that the app has a history of my commands and their audio recordings. Which is actually kind of creepy. But then I wonder why the police don't just check this guy's Alexa app on his phone. And maybe that's the real question - are they asking Amazon to provide some sort of recording of everything the device heard that night?

<comment><USER24> No, they're asking amazon to provide everything it recorded. Publicly they're saying it might have been accidentally triggered (e.g, device thinking it heard the wakeword)

Privately, they're hoping it records everything.

However to date, wireshark investigations and other forensics people have done proves it only sends data to the cloud when you ask it the wakeword.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This had a major thread at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13263894](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13263894), so by the usual standard this is a dupe, unless it contains significant new information. Since both articles are lifted from The Information's paywalled original, I'm guessing that's unlikely.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm curious if this situation would be different if the Echo was owned by the victim, and the murder happened at the victim's house.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is really hard to support the headline from the story.

The artical says Amazon twice declined to hand over Echo data... I'm presuming because the police didn't have a warrant. The article says Amazon has been handed over a warrant (now?)... so... Amazon will or will not refuse to hand over the data now with warrant in hand???

</comment><comment><USER29> How is this any different from a bank refusing to release financial records, or a phone company refusing to release phone records? These both happen all the time in criminal investigations, and I don't see a ton of recommendations to stay away from banks and homes here on HN...

</comment><comment><USER30> Actually the headline for this should be "Amazon PR team spins disturbing surveillance capabilities via Echo to make it seem like they are fighting for privacy"

</comment><comment><USER31> Am I right in thinking that this means that all comms between the Echo device and AWS are end-to-end encrypted? Big plus for the devices, if so.

<comment><USER32> While I've got no doubt that they are end-to-end encrypted, _this_ certainly doesn't even suggest that.

<comment><USER33> Does this not suggest that Amazon could provide unencrypted audio files from their servers? That's not really "end-to-end" in my mind.

<comment><USER32> End-to-end just means that the communications _between_ two parties are encrypted, in this case _between_ you and Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> First thought that comes to mind is: If Amazon lets the police access the Echo it would prove they're constantly listening, even if the device is in "Mute" mode

Which is really the main reason why I have avoided these smart speakers. Encrypt them all you want. Send a NSL and all the sudden you've made wiretapping _that_ easier. And that would be very bad for business.

<comment><USER35> nevermind your smartphone

<comment> gm-conspiracy ...or you live somewhere with glass windows.

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

<comment><USER36> Laser microphones at least require you to be targeted prior to the warrant, and typically require someone on the other end. They can't retroactively request data from a laser microphone attached to most US households.

<comment><USER37> Given the cost of laser diodes is now pennies, how much would it cost to target _every_ window in a city?

<comment><USER38> You still have to distribute and read those sensors.

<comment><USER37> I'm imagining drones putting sensor domes with ~100 laser diodes each on top of existing street lights, using in the order of a few watts from a small solar cell and battery to do basic signal processing (most windows will be silent most of the time) and uploading anything possibly interesting over a standard mobile data connection.

Then process the possibly interesting signals with a voice-to-text system similar to Alexa/Siri/Google/Cortana and now there's a searchable text database of everything spoken next to a window in a city.

That would be, what, mid tens to mid hundreds of millions of £ for London? Compared to the annual budget of £3.24 billion?

edit: possibility->possibly

<comment><USER38> Well, yes. Quite a possibility. In fact you wouldn't need the drones. People putting them there will receive much less attention.

I still can't imagine those globes deciding what is "interesting" and what is not on a solar panel power budget. But at this point it's guaranteed to become viable at some point, and I don't have all the info to conclude it's not viable now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Real WTF here is that Amazon is actually recording this. They break many laws by doing that.

edit: Why downvotes? It is illegal to do voice recording without a consent.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_recording_by_civil...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_recording_by_civilians#Voice_recording)

<comment><USER21> Can you clarify? It sounds like you're implying that Amazon is breaking the law by using the cloud for voice recognition?

<comment><USER39> Amazon would break the law, if their persisted data uploaded to their servers. Article implies they do that.

(I am not lawyer)</comment></comment></comment>


Firefox 5 Enters Beta Channel With CSS, Speed Improvements - <AUTHOR> http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/05/firefox-5-enters-beta-channel-with-css-speed-improvements/

<comment><USER2> I noticed that they have copied the close tab behavior from Chrome. That's a pleasant surprise I didn't see mentioned in the release notes.

<comment><USER3> What behavior is that, for those of us who can't install the beta at the moment to compare?

<comment><USER2> The following link is a pretty thorough explanation. Much better than I could do in a few lines.

<http://www.theinvisibl.com/2009/12/08/chrometabs/>

<comment><USER3> Good explanation, but the only difference from how my Firefox 4 installation works is the delayed resizing, which isn't as important since I can close a tab by middle-clicking anywhere on the tab.

<comment><USER4> Reconsider that. You're missing a large part of the point. The delayed resizing is important because it means it's consistent in allowing you to close tabs both successively and very quickly without moving your mouse.

Trust me, once you get used to it, going back to the Firefox 4 behavior is just very frustrating.

<comment><USER5> Anyone who manipulates tabs with anything other than a middle-click is missing out on a wealth of delicious UI consistency. A middle-click on a tab closes it, and you can aim for any part of the tab (Fitts' Law approved).

Arguing about how efficient you can be /after/ you've targeted a microscopic UI element with your mouse cursor seems odd.

<comment><USER4> No, you're still missing the point. I never said anything about not using the middle click to close tabs. That's _precisely_ how I close tabs. When you have as many tabs open as I often do... the resizing ruins the ability to quickly close tabs in succession.

I would again ask that you actually go try it rather than assume you know what I'm talking about. Trust me, the way I can target a tab and rapidly close lots of tabs (YES, by using the middle click SPECIFICALLY) does NOT work in Firefox 4. Please try it yourself rather than force me to make a video of it.

Open 8 tabs in Firefox. Target the third tab and without moving your mouse, close tabs 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. It's not possible. The tabs resize and you end up closing tabs 1 and 2. I don't know how you browse the web, but I _daily_ find myself opening numerous tabs and then wanting to close the last several after opening lots of pictures or articles on reddit. (But then again I'm in Linux and scroll on my tabs in Chrome so I move my mouse very little as it is and it suits my browsing habit.)

<comment><USER3> In that scenario, I'd put my cursor over the last tab, and middle click 6 times, possibly having to move the cursor for the last one or two. Or, I'd more likely have tabs 1 and 2 pinned as app tabs (probably gmail and pandora, in my case), in which case I can flail with any close tab action without problem.

Also, I browse with browser.tabs.closeButtons set to 3, which gives me a fixed-position close button at the end of the tab bar. (And on my laptop, I close tabs with a gesture that doesn't require me to move the cursor at all.)

Delayed resizing is a neat feature, and one that Firefox should copy, but it is not as critical as you make it out to be.

<comment><USER4> >Delayed resizing is a neat feature, and one that Firefox should copy, but it is not as critical as you make it out to be.

How on Earth can you possibly say this? Besides it being a matter of opinion, it's highly lauded as good UX (which I believe and have heard numerous other Chrome users swear by), and you can't possibly know how often I use it or how frustrating it is to use Firefox with it's default behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No support yet for NavigationTiming :(

<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=570341>

Soon? Pretty please?

</comment><comment><USER4> And does it still take a life time to start in Linux? It's crazy how slow it is. Chrome can open and I can manually middle-click six bookmarks to check my social sites before Firefox is even started. And that's with me clicking it's launcher first.

Even the tab behaviors are all considerably less responsive. Every once in a while I'll use a colleague's computer with Firefox 4 in Windows and I'm blown away by how functional it is. It looks nice, it's fast, it doesn't feel sluggish.

It's just a slap in the face of Firefox's original base of users that it _feels_ so inferior to Chrome on the Linux desktop.</comment>


Increasing wind turbine rotor blade visibility reduces avian fatalities - <AUTHOR> https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.6592 <comment><USER2> I'm all for reducing avian fatalities from wind turbines. But it's also important to understand that this is not going to make a significant dent in how many birds are killed by human causes. Glass buildings kill 2500 times as many birds as wind turbines. House cats kill _10,000 times_ as many.

[https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/15195/wind-turbines- are-n...](https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/15195/wind-turbines-are-not- killing-fields-for-birds/)

<comment><USER3> It will make a significant difference for specific species of birds, such as assorted eagles and other raptors, that generally live away from cities with their tall glass buildings, and that would quickly kill any house cat foolish enough to try to take them.

Wind turbines tend to be built in the same kind of places those birds hunt.

<comment><USER2> True. Residents of Juneau know not to let cats and small dogs play outside because eagles will take them.

So yeah, I'm all for this technology but it bugs me that we hear so many people who are obviously trying to defend fossil fuels and denigrate renewables couch their rhetoric in terms of "the poor birds!" Yet we never hear them advocate bird-saving technology for tall buildings (which does exist) or keeping house cats indoors.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I saw a pro-logging meme that said sarcastically "Save a tree, wipe your &$$ with an owl." (context: [https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/owl- ruling-halts-l...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/owl-ruling-halts- logging-on-56000-acres-of-private-land/))

You know it's disingenuous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems like a noisy low-probability event.

> While the number of recorded carcasses increased at the control turbines (7 > vs. 18), they decreased at the treated turbines (11 vs. 6 [expected: 28]) > (Table 1).

I didn't read the article very closely, but it also reads like they're doing lots of hypothesis tests on different groupings to find significant (p < 0.05) results:

> However, the annual fatality rates fluctuated considerably between years > (Figure 3 lower panel), stressing the necessity of a long‐term study. > Seasonally, fatality rates (across years) were strongly reduced at the > painted turbines after treatment during spring and autumn, but increased > during summer (Figure 4). When grouping data by season instead of years, > painting reduced seasonal fatality rates by 70.9% (95% CI: 61.7%–77.7%; z = > −2.003, p = .042, n = 64).

I'm not convinced.

<comment><USER6> I agree with you.

For some reason, every now and again studies like this -- ones that are interesting but under-researched -- are posted on HN, and I don't get why. People then treat these studies as if they are conclusive evidence of something. Luckily nothing ever comes of it, but still

<comment><USER7> maybe the results of their test will spur some doubting Thomases to pick up the mantle and have a go themselves. They'll either find supporting results or disagreeing results. Either way, sounds like good science.

If they are taking the results of the single study to say "This is the final answer", then that would be bad. If they are just saying "These are the results we achieved", then that sounds like what a study is suppose to do.

<comment><USER5> To be quite frank, repeated hypothesis tests on ad-hoc groupings is _terrible_ science.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > The most common species found were willow ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus), > white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), common snipe (Gallinago > gallinago), hooded crow (Corvus cornix), and meadow pipit (Anthus pratensis) > (Table S1). Eagles are large conspicuous birds and will therefore often > catch the attention of passers-by. Ptarmigan are often found near the > turbine base as they are suspected to collide with the actual tower

This disproves my assumption that many of the collisions were with nighttime migratory birds (maybe that is buildings?). I hope this simple fix applies to all locales and is not specific to Norway.

<comment><USER9> Last night I watched an episode about Eagles on PBS NOVA. They said predatory birds like eagles are constantly looking down and they also have a ridge above their eyes to block the sun. They basically don't look up, maybe the white looks like clouds so they don't think they can run into it.

It's a pretty cool episode. They use eagle watchers to turn off turbines when an eagle gets too close but the human can't see in the direct sun. They built a robot with a 360 camera and 2 cameras that rotate to find eagles. It worked much better than a human.

IdentiFlight system: [https://www.identiflight.com/](https://www.identiflight.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wind turbines are painted white to reduce their visibility (particularly effective on overcast days). Humans don't want to see wind turbines, birds do. I wonder wether the turbines can be painted a color which blends in with the natural scenery for humans but is really visible for birds.

<comment><USER11> Can't birds see into the ultraviolet part of the spectrum? I wonder if you could get the blades to emit enough UV light for them to avoid it.

<comment><USER10> If anything the black works because it absorbs UV (and visible) light.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> News article from the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research: [https://www.nina.no/english/News/News- article/ArticleId/5037...](https://www.nina.no/english/News/News- article/ArticleId/5037/S-229-effektive-er-tiltakene-for-fuglevennlig- vindkraft)

</comment><comment><USER13> This research's analytical technique is so cool, I'm almost giddy.

Another hypothesis is that white paint attracts insects, which then attracts their predators.

I'm hoping experimenters continue with all sorts of crazy paints and patterns, optimizing for visibility to misc birds.

I'm certain that we can do many incremental improvements to reduce bird mortality.

</comment><comment><USER14> figuring there isn't much of a weight difference, I do wonder if the thermal difference with one blade being black will have any impact on performance and longevity of the structure as a whole.

<comment><USER15> Is there really thermal concerns for wind turbine blades ? These things are literally aircooled by the wind, aren't they ?

<comment><USER16> They are only cooled by the wind when there is wind. Sometimes there is a lot of sun and no wind. One side of the blades will heat up more than the other, and potentially undergo rapid cooling when a rainstorm hits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The real missed opportunity here is the one-two combination of reducing avian fatalities and advertising with LEDs:

[https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB15.LQMVXXXXXNXpXXq6xXFXXXZ/GTF...](https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB15.LQMVXXXXXNXpXXq6xXFXXXZ/GTFS- Hot-AAA-battery-Powered-LED-Programmable-Message-Fan.jpg)

But seriously, is there a way to illuminate the blades in a low-cost way that's obvious to birds and invisible to locals? Intensity, visible wavelength, frequency?

<comment><USER18> I'm more curious if there are other colors or patterns that would be more effective at warding away birds. For instance, would bright red or neon orange be more visible? Or could you co-opt existing danger-patterns like the red- yellow-black of a coral snake or the pattern of a monarch butterfly to trigger the "I am poison, stay away!!!" response in birds explicitly, rather than just being visible as "oh hey there is a giant thing there"? If we created a novel patterning for wind turbine blades (or highways, for that matter), could animals develop an aversion for it, and how long would that take?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The paint scheme they tested:

[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/41ca0d89-d383-425e...](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/41ca0d89-d383-425e-97e7-bf55b854322f/ece36592-fig-0001-m.png)

</comment><comment><USER20> I find it fascinating how much discussion and effort goes into birds hitting wind turbines compared to the number of birds and mammals killed by mountain top removal coal mining or killed in slurry ponds.

<comment><USER21> Do you have a resource in mind for learning about those too?

In UK coal mining has all but ceased but wind turbines are on the increase, do it seems natural to talk more of the latter in any context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm always amazed how inefficient cross industry pollination is. This was a major issue in aerospace for years (see Hudson River) and there are a number of solutions, one of the best being a high pulsing light on the wings. How has that not gotten pulled over to the wings of a wind turbine?

</comment><comment><USER23> Did they try posting a scarecrow on top of the turbine?

<comment><USER24> Or at least a conspicuous vane on the leeward/downwind side that makes the whole thing a little more conspicuous to birds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Lacks ((RGB LED) persistence of) vision.

Why waste the opportunity to have giant advertisement displays like in Bladerunner?

</comment><comment><USER26> Would it be possible to emit high frequency sound that's undetectable to humans to warn birds away?

</comment><comment><USER27> _No negative reactions from local human inhabitants are known to us._

Maybe not the locals, but I think they're underestimating internet conspiracy theorists ability to turn this into _something._

<comment><USER28> But I certainly hope large scale policy/infrastructure decisions are made to appease internet conspiracy theorists.

<comment><USER29> I hope you intended a "not" to be somewhere in there lol

<comment><USER30> Sarcasm over the internet fails again

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> How about a drone with computer vision to identify birds and chase them away?

<comment><USER32> This company does fixed cameras which identify birds and then temporarily shuts down the relevant turbines: [https://www.identiflight.com/](https://www.identiflight.com/).

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think evolution should largely take care of the problem here. Evolve or die. It's the natural order.

<comment><USER34> Evolution typically is a slow process. Not that smarter species don't have learned behaviors that is passed down outside evolution that can compensate. If a species is unable to adapt, loosing it can be an important part of an ecosystem potentially triggering a further cascade impact. Obviously we (humans) compete for resources on a grand scale and generally don't care about the ants we squish along the way, but it is worth considering the impact, understanding the repercussion. As much as we would love to believe otherwise, we can't survive without the biomes around us.</comment></comment>


Why Silicon Valley should settle in Oakland - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2014/02/17/some-day-silicon-valley-will-move-north-heres-why-it-should-settle-in-oakland/ <comment><USER3> If only there were some way for programmers to collaborate without them being in the same room.

</comment><comment><USER4> I just moved to the Bay Area last year and living in SF was never an option. You can get the same housing (or better) for $1000/month less by living in the East Bay and you'll be right next to the BART. If SF real estate prices continue to climb like they have been, I think there's going to be an even greater trend of folks moving to the East Bay where it's more affordable.

I also think the East Bay will be attractive for the same reason the Valley was: once you get older, it's a great place to settle down and think about having children. You can buy a single family house (with a yard!) in Rockridge, Berkeley, or Orinda with great schools that's still accessible to SF. I know plenty of folks getting into their mid-30s or 40s for whom this has become a lot more attractive than a million dollar rowhouse in SF.

<comment><USER5> For how long? The situation sounds untenable. Better to spread the tech- industry all over the country and world in my not at all humble opinion.

<comment><USER6> Somebody needs to solve the out-of-sight-out-of-mind problem then. The technology already exists for easy videoconferencing (Hangouts/GVC), for easy screen-sharing (VNC), for easy code collaboration (GitHub), and for easy code reviews (Rietveld/Gerrit). The problem is that this isn't enough: many of the great ideas that the big tech companies are built on came out of small informal discussions in hallways, in cubes, or over dinner. Until you can hack human nature so that people will randomly say whatever just popped into their head to the avatar sitting next to them, there will still be a strong incentive for creative companies to colocate their employees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If there's one lesson to be drawn from the San Francisco mess, it's this: if a community is going to choose a city to move into, it had better not be a city where political corruption has rendered it illegal to build new housing. How does Oakland fare in that regard?

<comment><USER8> Political corruption or utterly stupid democracies that can't think beyond one dimension?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I lived in the south bay area for 20 years, although I moved away ten years ago. Unless there has been a seismic shift, why is it inevitable that the tech industry must move north? There is an assumption in this article that the ideal place to be is SF, except for the prices there, so the game is to get as close as one can afford.

I utterly reject that idea. I loved visiting San Francisco when I was 20, and when I was 30, and when I was 40 with kids, but through those different phases of my life, I never wanted to live there, and not living there was never an impediment to my career. None of the companies I worked for considered moving there.

</comment><comment><USER10> Looks like someone invested in Oakland real-estate...

<comment><USER11> I always wondered if you couldn't finance a high speed train (Or Elon Musk's "strange loop") in areas like California by buying cheap real estate and selling it to future commuters.

Edit: It ought to be enough with 50-150 km distance to get low land prices around that part of California? Assume a train at 250 km/hour, the commute will be short and there won't be a need for "exotics" (maglev, Musk's tube, etc).

<comment><USER12> I don't think anyone has every figured out a way to make trains profitable at a price that consumers will pay. That's why governments are pretty much the only people that build them now, since they are willing to take the losses to facilitate any economic gains generated by public transit. Whether or not those gains are real is a separate argument, but as far as I know, no American public transit system is profitable on a revenue-expenditures basis.

<comment><USER13> There are two profitable high-speed rail lines: Japan (Tokyo-Osaka) and France (Paris-Lyon).

Some will say Acela, but it is only profitable if you ignore capital expenditures.

<comment><USER12> That's what I thought. Ignoring capital expenditures could make lots of unprofitable businesses look profitable.

<comment><USER13> I've learned a lot of journalists don't look at the footnotes or supplemental tables when they write articles. It does provide a good indicator of competence though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 2025: That's the (%$&!ing ridiculous) year that BART is scheduled to open up in downtown San Jose:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_San_Jose_%28BART_stati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_San_Jose_%28BART_station%29)

In the meantime, downtown Oakland has many of the same problems (and a surprisingly similar crime rate) as downtown Santa Cruz (OK Oakland is more violent by a bit). The former is right next to San Francisco and the latter is right next to UCSC, both technological hotbeds.

I wouldn't want to live in either place because they're just not safe(tm) and by that I mean the perception more than the reality.

SF dealt with such issues by pushing all the "undesirables" out of the center of the city and into the residential neighborboods. I wonder how Oakland would deal with this. Santa Cruz OTOH continues to stick its head deep into its own digestive endpoint and deny such problems even exist.

<comment><USER15> Moving to SC has one big issue - Highway 17.

It's one of the most dangerous highways in the State of California - <USER2> worse I'd argue than CA-152.

<comment><USER14> Route 17 should not be an issue. Santa Cruz _should_ be filled to the brim with tech jobs incubated by the mere existence of UCSC and its top-notch CS department. It's a beautiful place with ugly problems.

It's washed out hippy and NIMBY central with a crony government that presides over an unconscionable crime and homeless rate as well as a runaway meth problem.

In just the past few weeks there have been drive by shootings and a mental case driving a car into the lobby of a downtown theatre and slicing his own throat with a shard of windshield glass. Last year, the most famous thing that happened there was two cops getting gunned down:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/us/violence-spurs- identity...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/us/violence-spurs-identity- crisis-in-free-spirited-santa-cruz.html?pagewanted=all)

I harp on Santa Cruz because based on the shenanigans there, I don't think the great Oakland migration is going to happen. There are just too many other places to live in the bay area. What we need is a county-wide moment of clarity about mass transit. I'm not expecting that either. I'm expecting status quo. In an age when we could at least work partially remotely, the trend is running towards banning telecommuting and pushing more and more people into coding boiler rooms. Yuck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Transportation from the valley to Oakland is just too bad. How will all the SV folks who live in... well... SV get to Oakland? There's no BART from Cupertino, Palo Alto or Mountain View. And driving is HELL. Every tried going a few miles on 880 in rush hour? Now try to go thirty, fourty miles or more! Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why not Mountain View?

It's much easier to move a number of local businesses in and construct high- rise apartments than it is to move a bunch of tech companies with thousands of employees. I predict that we're a lot more likely to see hip restaurants, bars, bubble-tea shops, and cultural venues move into Mountain View than we are to see Google and Facebook move to Oakland.

It's already happening to some extent. My girlfriend grew up in Silicon Valley - she says that the Mountain View downtown has changed dramatically since she was in high school. We're seeing high-rise apartment towers going up near San Antonio, along with a number of walkable shops and supermarkets near their base. A number of mid-rise apartment complexes and townhomes have gone up by the Caltrain station and downtown, where it's already walkable. And there's been a longstanding plan to build high-rise apartments with ground-level shops north of 101, within walking distance of the Googleplex. This plan has been blocked a few times by the Mountain View city council, but 3/4 of the voting block opposing it is retiring this year.

<comment><USER17> >It's much easier to move a number of local businesses in and construct high- rise apartments than it is to move a bunch of tech companies with thousands of employees.

True, but then a certain dominant Mountain View company is already running the n-th largest transportation network to commute people from SF/upper peninsula down to them, so in many cases it would just be like "hey, stop commuting as far".

<comment><USER18> That would free up a LOT of space in SF, so I think even that scenario isn't bad

<comment><USER17> You mean it's _currently_ freeing up space in SF? Because the status quo is where your commute is shorter in proportion to how close to Mountain View you are. The hypothetical was where they'd move to SF, where proximity that city would determine commute distance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Once you leave San Francisco and Silicon Valley, why stop in Oakland? Why not go to Walnut Creek or San Ramon?

<comment><USER20> Because Walnut Creek.

<comment><USER21> Many people carry out fruitful lives in The Nut.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Silicon Valley has already moved north. PG has mentioned that at the beginning of YC, they saw startups based in SF as a warning sign, now, they have an office in the city. It started out in Palo Alto, now SF is pretty clearly a part of it. It wasn't always.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think moving south to Silicon Beach is a better idea.

[http://www.accuweather.com/en/us/santa-monica- ca/90401/daily...](http://www.accuweather.com/en/us/santa-monica- ca/90401/daily-weather-forecast/337241)

</comment><comment><USER23> Makes sense. People coming from San Jose are the only ones likely to think that Jack London Square is cheap and convenient for shopping.

</comment><comment><USER24> Another article wondering why City X hasn't attracted more of a tech community given some spelled-out advantages over Silicon Valley.

Rather than wondering why markets don't act the way one wants them to, we could learn more by trying to understanding why markets do what they do.

</comment><comment><USER25> So Oakland = Silicon Valley 2.0? It seems plausible that the new 'up and coming' start-ups would seek territory in unconquered land such as Oakland, but for companies already established in SV to move to Oakland - I don't see it.

</comment><comment><USER26> I don't imagine it ever replacing SV, but supposing a tech scene did take root in the East Bay, where do you think it would be? Think something analogous to "Silicon Alley", AKA Dumbo/Red Hook in Brooklyn, NY.

<comment><USER27> Silicon Alley is the general Union Square area. There are quite a few tech offices in Dumbo, and starting to be more in Williamsburg/Greenpoint and Downtown Brooklyn, but very few in Red Hook, which is one of the least transit-accessible neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

<comment><USER26> Sorry I am not super familiar with the neighborhoods. I think of Red Hook and Dumbo as the same for some reason, I am thinking of one neighborhood (with lots of tech companies), but not sure which of the two is the name of it. Apparently it's Dumbo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'd actually argue the tech center should leave the bay area and colonize a part of the country where land is cheap and plentiful - it could be an existing metro, like DFW - or something completely greenfield.

<comment><USER18> Kinda what is happening to Austin, with all the California techies moving in

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What's Oakland like in SF neighbourhood comparisons? I've never been on any of my visits to the Bay Area. I'd heard it was gross & ghetto, but lots of SF is pretty disgusting too…

</comment><comment><USER29> Doesn't distance to Sand Hill road play a role in VC-run Silicon Valley company locations?

<comment><USER29> Curious on the downvote -- was my question too offtopic?

<comment><USER30> In all public forums there are people who never post, who only express their opinions by voting, and there is often no perceptible logic or pattern to their votes. I would call them the silent incoherent majority.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I like that "moving north" idea, but why not Portland or Seattle?

The West Coast itself still has a great appeal to many, and Portland is still affordable, quirky, and frenetic.

<comment><USER32> Housing in Portland (particularly rental housing) is getting less affordable by the day, and the city is _very_ aggressive about land use planning. This is, of course, one reason why the city is so nice... but it also means that there is a very fixed amount of buildable space, literally all of which is already taken. Infill is certainly happening, but the city really can't absorb any larger of a population increase than it already has over the last couple of years.

<comment><USER33> Beaverton is just over the hill, and it's a short MAX ride to downtown.

<comment><USER32> Very good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wouldn't choose engineers based on who needs the money, and I wouldn't choose a location based on who needs the tax revenue

Berkeley appears more pleasant than Oakland, though further away.

As much as I find it unappealing, I notice more things happening in Oakland. For now, it looks like the hippest devs are moving there first, guys like substack who seem like they enjoy a bit of chaos, crime, and dirt. Engineers with kids aren't going to live there, though

<comment><USER35> _" Berkeley appears more pleasant than Oakland, though further away."_

In the grand scheme of things, it's not that much farther. We're talking 2-3 short BART stops.

The bigger issue with Berkeley is real estate. Oakland was zoned industrially, it's got a lot of cheap space, and it can bear the load of big company HQs and apt/condo conversions. I'm not sure Berkeley can absorb scale as easily, at least as it's currently laid out.

<comment><USER34> The crime rate also has something to do with the cost of space</comment></comment></comment>


Xkcd 1110 high res PDF (moved away from dropbox) - <AUTHOR> http://s.rlink.co/JZPY

<comment><AUTHOR> Dropbox says "This account's public links are generating too much traffic and have been temporarily disabled!" so I put it on Cloud app as a backup.</comment>


Tannenbaum's "Distributed Systems" 3rd edition (2017) free download from authors - <AUTHOR> https://www.distributed-systems.net/index.php/books/distributed-systems-3rd-edition-2017/ <comment><USER2> From the author:

"An update of contact forms unexpectedly disabled the recaptcha causing havoc. As a result, the site is suffering from a massive number of requests for books. Until I have managed to fix that, no copies can be downloaded. I apologize for the inconvenience."

Doesn't give any indication on when the problem might be fixed.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for posting this. This message isn't anywhere on the webpage and I was confused as to why I wan't seeing a form to input my details in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hmm, it doesn't seem like the site clearly explains the process how to acquire the PDF version of the book.

Re: [https://www.distributed- systems.net/index.php/books/distribu...](https://www.distributed- systems.net/index.php/books/distributed-systems-3rd-edition-2017/ds3-sneak- preview/)

Where may I fill in my e-mail address and to whom may I submit my request?

<comment><USER4> Sorry, I should've read the other comment completely before writing :)</comment></comment>


Slate, now 20 years old, reflects on the value of taking the long view - <AUTHOR> http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/09/slate-now-20-years-old-reflects-on-the-value-of-taking-the-long-view-and-not-chasing-digital-media-trends/ <comment><USER2> Oh, it's always great to be "money no problem"!</comment>


Why search competition isn't the point - O'Reilly Radar - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/05/why-search-competition-isnt-the-point.html <comment><USER2> Search will be a fundamental part of the Web OS, whatever this buzzword ends up being defined as. You can argue an office/productivity suite is also fundamental.

For a company to ensure it plays at the Web OS table, it needs a hand to compete in the search market. MS knows this and they're trying to - literally! - buy their seat at the table. Google earned its seat, and Yahoo! seems content to be kicked off its seat.

</comment><comment><USER3> does O'Really really believe his own hype2.0 ?

</comment><comment><USER4> Search will die. It is a middle man in the flow that is Thought>Search>Suggestion>Decision. Someone will figure a way to jump from Thought to Suggestion>Decision with no need for Search.

<comment><USER5> We're quite a few years from having a DWIM button in your browser.</comment></comment>


How do you get business people to take QA test seriously? - <AUTHOR>

Is it common for business people to 'sign-off' on what they see in QA environment, but then repeatedly comeback with more changes afterward?  It's one thing if the change is a major bug or show-stopper, but 3/4th of the changes appear to be 'minor' changes and typos, for which there were plenty of chances to correct.  Unfortunately, nothing really is minor.
And many of these changes magically appear near the release date, which tells me that business folks don't take testing seriously until the last moment.
I understand business people are not professional QA testers, and they may be distracted by their day-to-day tasks.  But how do you get them to take testing seriously?
If you had similar experience at your organization, how did you overcome the problem? <comment><USER2> I hear a lot of talk about agile these days but it all looks like waterfall to me. The development and QA teams need to do whatever it takes to support the business, including dealing with the fact that go-live has magical powers to generate change requests. QA is part of the team, so do what you can to support change right up to the last minute.

</comment><comment><USER3> As a person who majored in Computer Information Systems but is considered a "business person" (ecommerce manager) I can confidently say that this problem does exist in the workplace by most "business people". It doesn't only happen at small/mid size companies. This problem exists even at the enterprise level. We are very highly ranked in the IR500. (top 100)

The way to overcome this problem is make very clear to executive "business people" how risky/costly (change management, bugs, etc.) a relatively small problem could create.

For example in ecommerce if you make a "minor" change to the checkout process which results in the site not accepting orders, or even a small percentage of orders the damages would be substantial at a financial, and customer level.</comment>