Sweden has proof foreign submarine entered its waters - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/14/us-sweden-submarine-idUSKCN0IY0U720141114 <comment><USER2> Before people start defending Russia too much and proclaiming NATO to be the aggressors, have a look at [http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2014/11/world/russia- west...](http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2014/11/world/russia- west/?hpt=hp_c1) (and that's just the last 8 months, doesn't include Russia's target practicing on Stockholm with nukes for example)

There's a big propaganda war going on in Europe right now, against NATO, the West, and western ideas. Free media in Russia are being closed down. Not good signs.

The former USSR Baltic states are afraid of getting invaded, like eastern Ukraine, but Sweden is probably "safe" from a direct invasion.

Edit: also it might be good to know that the Armed Forces are very careful not to point to any specific country (they're clearly stating the facts), but we're already getting disinformation from Russian media.

<comment><USER3> You don't need to defend Russia to say that the CNN data is distorted to present a particular message. Most of these actions (flying in international airspace, military exercises) are routinely performed by NATO but never similarly criticized, or as this infographic shows, even mentioned.

<comment><USER4> I read just this weekend about a huge number of unmarked NATO tanks just rolling in to a neighboring sovereign country seemingly oblivious of borders and international law.

No, wait...

<comment><USER3> Have you forgotten the last decade of wars where "NATO" tanks rolled into a sovereign country, seemingly oblivious of borders and international law?

<comment><USER4> No, and I did not approve of a few of those (Iraq2 for example). Most importantly in those cases, those nations did it under real flag, and had to answer questions. People on the countries who helped overthrow Saddam could vote their politicians out of office. Parents of those soldiers could openly scream in free press.

The last time a NATO or EU country blatantly annexed a whole or part of another country I cannot remember.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another round of whiskey on the rocks[1]? Russia is also conducting some pretty aggressive bomber "patrols"[2].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_S-363](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_S-363)

[2] [https://ca.news.yahoo.com/russias-bombers-conduct-regular- pa...](https://ca.news.yahoo.com/russias-bombers-conduct-regular-patrols- ranging-arctic-gulf-140627703.html)

<comment><USER6> There have been some plane incursions into Swedish airspace in the recent past too, I believe. Looks like Russia doesn't really care about borders anymore, which fits right into how they treated Georgia, the Crimea and now eastern Ukraine.

<comment><USER7> "It is not possible to accept that the shelling of Tskhinvali during much of the night with GRAD multiple rocket launchers (MRLS) and heavy artillery would satisfy the requirements of ha ving been necessary and proportionate in order to defend those villages. It follows from the illegal character of the Georgian military assault that South Ossetian defensive action in response did conform to international law in terms of legitimate self-defence."

(c) Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia (IIFFMCG) Volume I

Don't trust everything from the mass scream media... and "believe" is something for the church. There is this thing called Google on the internets I "believe".

<comment><USER8> A good start is assume that ANYTHING published from russian channels will be propaganda. It's a bandit state.

<comment><USER9> Dude, what Western people are completely missing, is that _we 're_ being bombarded with propaganda too! The Ukraine crisis starts and suddenly Russians turn out to be massive homophobes, huh?

Putin is evil and Obama is good, right? Nevermind that the US is still torturing people in the very Guantanamo Obama promised to close.

It's just not as simple as choosing to side with "the good guys" (=The West). In reality, it's a game of politicians vs us little folks, ie. rulers vs subjects.

<comment><USER6> > The Ukraine crisis starts and suddenly Russians turn out to be massive > homophobes, huh?

Suddenly? They'd been widely criticized for their new homophobic laws well before the Ukraine crisis.

Also, the US torturing people doesn't make other atrocities okay. I keep hearing countries and their fanboys say "yeah, but that other country also does bad things", or "but China is even worse!" Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's okay for your country to do the same. It means that the other country should stop. Can we stop making this a race to the bottom?

<comment><USER9> > They'd been widely criticized for their new homophobic laws well before the > Ukraine crisis.

I'm not so sure about that.

> Also, the US torturing people doesn't make other atrocities okay. I keep > hearing countries and their fanboys say "yeah, but that other country also > does bad things", or "but China is even worse!" Yeah, but that doesn't mean > it's okay for your country to do the same.

I'm equally against _all_ "countries" (=governments, in practice). You may have noticed they all do bad things, either currently or eventually.

<comment><USER6> > I'm not so sure about that.

It's easy to verify by looking up some dates. The law against homosexual propaganda stems from June 2013, and has been widely criticized ever since, including calls to boycott the Winter Olympics at Sochi, in February 2014. The protests that led to the Euromaidan revolution started in November 2013, the actual revolution took place in February 2014, and was soon followed by Russian intervention.

If you didn't start to pay attention to Russia until after the crisis started, I can imagine you might think the homophobia criticism came only after the crisis, but it actually started half a year earlier.

<comment><USER9> There's been such a massive propaganda campaign over Ukraine that it's difficult to verify anything.

But what we do know is that it's all a geopolitical power struggle. The US wants Kiev under its control, but that control has been slipping.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Whilst they may not be able to identify the nation responsible there's pretty good odds it was a Russian SSK. Everyone else operating in those waters isn't going to risk entering Swedish waters as they have an announced policy of using force against unidentified submerged contacts. Entering foreign territorial waters submerged, especially of a nation with counter-detection capability and a military that may fire on you, is the sort of decision that goes right to the top.

<comment><USER11> > _there 's pretty good odds it was a Russian SSK. Everyone else operating in > those waters isn't going to risk entering Swedish waters as they have an > announced policy of using force against unidentified submerged contacts_

What kind of argument is this? Are Russians somehow notorious for being reckless and suicidal? Or how else does Sweden's policy as you describe it make the odds higher that it was a russian submarine? Please explain.

<comment><USER12> I don't know how the classification was made, but the first picture suggests that the sub was operating in broad daylight, within a few hundred meters of the coast, with masts and possibly the sail visible to the naked eye from shore??? This was either an on-board emergency, some very, very careless submariners (not something submariners in _any_ country are known for), or something else entirely.

The incredibly short distance from the coast suggests the possibility of an unmanned submarine to me. Territorial waters start at 13NM; operating at the 12.75NM is like conducting military operations 12.75NM inside a country's sovereign borders.

<comment><USER13> You mean like 0.25NM inside a country's borders?

<comment><USER12> No, I mean 12.75NM. If you can take a picture of a submarine with your phone from the shore, it's within a few hundred yards.

<comment><USER14> I think the parent was confused due to your inconsistent/ambiguous use of reference points for distances (13NM away from the coast vs 12.75NM inside [apparently] of the maritime boundary). I experienced the same confusion, reading your original post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Are subs still used to lay wiretaps on undersea communication cables? The submarine was spotted off the coast near Stockholm, and there are four undersea cables going through the area, according to submarinecablemap.com.

<comment><USER16> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_(SSN-23)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_\(SSN-23\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> When I saw the news, my first thought was narco-submarines. They got to be designed, built, and tested somewhere, and the size of such submarines has been reported to be similar to those of military use. It also make sense to do so inside a larger city which has a large enough technical educated workforce.

 _update_ : Once built, the submarines can be sold on the black market. Using it in Sweden make very little sense given the bridge in south and border in north.

<comment><USER18> Narco-submarine doesn't sound plausible at all.

Sweden has very little border control on land borders. You can drive a van from mainland Europe through Denmark and over a bridge. Or cross over from the Finnish border in the North. It doesn't make any sense to build a submarine for drug trafficking purposes when you can just drive a car or walk over the border.

Typical narco-subs are not submersible at all, the bulk of the craft is below water but the conning tower is on the surface at all times. This unknown craft was under water apparently for several days. (edit: according to Wikipedia, newer narco-subs may be fully submersible, but still probably not for extended periods of time)

Also, the Swedish military claims to have had "contact" and detected the craft with several sensors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Perhaps it was an extremely large narco-submarine [1] smuggling drugs into Sweden.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco- submarine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine)

</comment><comment><USER20> To be honest, I don't think many people doubted that Russian submarines were in its water. China would have been a surprise. The USA, unsurprising except that its reported

<comment><USER21> Well, it would not be the US's first time invading an ally's waters, presumably to spy, as we did to Israel in 2004 for whatever reason. [http://www.haaretz.com/news/report-submarine-spying-off- coas...](http://www.haaretz.com/news/report-submarine-spying-off-coast-last- year-was-american-1.160437) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_States_re...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_States_relations#Intelligence_relations)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> How do they know it's a _foreign_ submarine? If they know it's a small submarine, and the pilot was apparently clumsy enough to scrape the bottom, maybe it's an amateur engineer who has built their own submarine.

It's not exactly unheard of: [https://www.google.com/search?q=homemade+submarine&espv=2&bi...](https://www.google.com/search?q=homemade+submarine&espv=2&biw=1680&bih=882&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=QApmVIKoOMfksAT25IH4Ag&ved=0CCAQsAQ)

<comment><USER23> _If_ it was an amateur engineer it must have been both a crazy and a skilled motherfucker. The bottom scrape did probably occur when the submarine did hide from the Swedish navy.

<comment><USER24> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC3_Nautilus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC3_Nautilus)

<comment><USER22> Exactly, that's all the point I was trying to make: not exactly unheard of for Scandinavians to be building crazy-awesome submarines in their backyards, essentially.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> honestly I want to know, just exactly what can they accomplish knowing this?

If its Russian, why would they care other than an effort actually didn't work. In the grand scheme of things Russia isn't going to be overly worried about Sweden. So I figure at most, they will have to figure out some new tactics to avoid detection and keep doing it till they get it right, if ever

<comment><USER26> Aside from joining the NATO alliance, Sweden could seek to create or strengthen some other alliance. The Baltic sea and the Danish straits are important waterways to Russia, St Petersburg's access to the North Sea and the Atlantic. Russia's access to the Mediterranean goes through Turkey's (NATO) internal waterway. Both routes could effectively be shut down by a hostile navy.

Those are the conventional military-strategic concerns that are supposedly making Russia so nervous about NATO aggression. Crimea is (allegedly) important for Russia's naval security, so had to go back to Russian control. Actively driving a geographically strategic country, with resources into increasing it's naval power and seeking an alliance is losing at strategy.

On the economic, Oil prices have recently dropped. They may drop further. Russia is very reliant on oil revenues for public funding. Europe and the US are nearing the point of sanctions. Foreign investment is taking a hit. New energy projects like gas pipelines are unlikely. They do not need some pointless costly conflict.

IMO, it comes down to this. An direct NATO-Russia conflict is unlikely. The cost is too high for all parties. But tensions can rise and relations can deteriorate. Russia seems to think that's ok, borderline desirable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm knowingly ignorant of international politics. Can someone who follows this speculate the meaning of this?

<comment><USER11> Some top swedish officials have been closely working with the CIA, for example Carl Bildt.

This is probably just a PR effort to sway the swedish public towards NATO partnership/affiliation. Perhaps there was no submarine, or it was a NATO one ...

Always ask yourselves: cui bono? The Russians have nothing to gain from risking a submarine in swedish (of all) waters. Sweden as a NATO member would be extremely useful to NATO at this point.

<comment><USER28> Objectively Russia may have nothing to gain from short military intrusions into neighboring countries, but these decisions are driven by more indirect goals.

There is plenty of evidence that Russia is actively testing the military readiness of countries close to their borders. For example, intrusions by Russian military airplanes into Finnish airspace have increased tenfold compared to previous years.

Dismissing the submarine reports as a NATO ploy looks like a conspiracy theory when it's clear that Russia is actively doing this stuff all over their European border.

<comment><USER29> Finnish Ministry of Defence has reported five airspace violations by Russian airplanes this year, and there were three in 2013.

<comment><USER28> Sorry, I misremembered the numbers. There were none in 2008-2012, and eight in the past 18 months. So that is a significant increase in activity, but it can't be described as "n-fold" since there wasn't any before :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This looks like hunt for Loch Ness monster :)

<comment><USER31> Yes! I've seen clearer Loch Ness's monster pictures :D

<comment><USER32> And downvoted! (despite the comment being truly (y)) Hilarious :)

<comment><USER31> I've read through the FAQ and I don't understand downvotes here. As I'm quite new, can you explain to me the reason of this particular downvote?

<comment><USER14> I did not personally downvote you, but you were likely downvoted because the HN community generally does not favorably view comments which only contain jokes/humor (or comments which complain about being downvoted).

<comment><USER32> There must be a huge overlap with this c-ty: [http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/01/stack-overflow- where-w...](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/01/stack-overflow-where-we- hate-fun/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the "conclusive evidence": [http://www.forsvarsmakten.se/siteassets/6-aktuellt/nyheter/2...](http://www.forsvarsmakten.se/siteassets/6-aktuellt/nyheter/2014/bildspel- fran-pressmote-141114.pdf)

<comment><USER33> That's not the claim. On the press conference they showed those images to give two individual examples to the public. They hold that the strongest evidence is classified.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, sounds more reasonable. The quote was actually from the Swedish press (not the gov), and they seem to have gone a bit overboard with their description of the evidence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here are the ideas this propaganda piece is meant to sink into Swedes' heads:

        - Russians are scary and bad. We're on the good guys' side.
          (The good guys are NATO and the West in general, of course)
        - We need to increase our military spending.
        - We need to join NATO.

<comment><USER6> I suspect recent Russian behaviour might make NATO membership a lot more popular all of a sudden.

<comment><USER11> Russian behaviour such as ... ? There have been plenty of allegations, that's true - but zero proof. It's sad how western media have completely failed to ask for any proof and have just been blowing NATO's political horn.

<comment><USER34> There's no proof that Russia forcibly annexed Ukraine? What newspaper have you been reading?

<comment><USER11> You guys make me laugh. Such ridiculous statements that display complete ignorance for the situation in the Ukraine (which has not been annexed, perhaps you mean Crimea, which voted to become independent from Ukraine) speak for themselves, nothing more to add. It's sad that some of these people can downvote based on their "knowledge".

<comment><USER7> Upvoted. Ministry of Truth is doing its job very well (on the other part of the world).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Asking the Big Questions at Singularity University - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_16350819?nclick_check=1

<comment><USER2> This is something I thought about back in the 90s. Here is a simple thought experiment. Suppose that there was a computer selling for $1,000,000 that was equivalent to a human. With a 5 year amortization schedule, said computer would be equivalent to paying someone $200,000/year. Not really a threat to humans.

Fast forward 3 years. After two generations of Moore's Law, said computer now costs $250,000, and can profitably replace people worth $50,000/year. Previous generations of technology always had the result that there are other things humans can be trained to do more easily than you can build machines to do it, so humans move. But there is nothing you can train displaced people to do that the computer can't do as well. What happens?

Fast forward another 3 years. Most people are unemployed because they can't do anything that those with money can't get done with machines. In theory there is enough excess capacity for everyone. In practice investors will demand returns and efficiency, and attempts at economic redistribution have never succeeded.

There are a lot of arguments against this.

A common one is based on the concept of competitive advantage and the benefits of free trade. Adding robots is therefore good. However that argument has a major flaw. It is true that with 2 parties, if you open up free trade then both benefit. It is true that with 3 parties, opening up free trade leaves everyone better off. However it is _also_ possible (and fairly common) that free trade with 3 parties works to the advantage of two, and the disadvantage of the third. (For a real world example, look at the long-term economic decline along the silk road after Europe began trading directly with Asia via ships.)

A second one is based on history. It is true that every advance in technology has left people better off. But that is because there was always something that people had a comparative advantage over machines at that people really wanted. And the cause of our comparative advantage is our intelligence. If machines can supply that, then we cannot demand a salary that is greater than the value of the resources needed to do the same job with machines. Once that happens, Moore's Law is _not_ our friend any more.

<comment><USER3> It seems obvious to me that if we can be a lot more productive with a lot less human work we will have to change the way our economy works. That's a challenge and we might very well fail but I don't think it's impossible. Should we succeed the elimination of the need for humans to work would obviously be very positive [+].

You seem to me a bit to quick at brushing that possibility aside. I think that it is already not true that attempts at economic redistribution have never succeeded. I know that Germany and many other European nations already redistribute money on a relatively massive scale (unemployment benefits, child benefits, and so on). My knowledge about the US is somewhat limited but I would bet that there are at least some redistributive policies in place.

[+] Barring other possible problems with AI like it killing all humans.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Gravatar-like service for your global profile? - <AUTHOR>

Would you be interested by a gravatar-like service, but for your full profile information. Hmmm, why ?
Are you tired of filling out forms on several services ? Ok, entering firstname, lastname, birthday, ... is really not a big deal. But now, suppose you have to write your developer skills. You write it on Stack Overflow Careers, on Linkedin, on Geeklist, on Coderwall, on Viadeo, and so on ! It would be useful to have all these services access to this kind of information through the same API. Wouldn't be ?
Unlike your firstname, lastname, birthday... your developer skills, your current work, ... are some data that changes regularly. It would be great to update these kind of information in one place.
- Do you think it's a good idea ? <comment><USER2> A great idea, especially if you do it using webfinger + portablecontatcs. This way you just give your identifier, and your profile is automatically discovered.</comment>


More reasons to launch early and often. - <AUTHOR> http://www.amemototheinternet.com/2008/07/19/launch-early-and-launchoften/

<comment><AUTHOR> Any thoughts?</comment>


The Remarkable Persistence of 24x36 - <AUTHOR> http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2018/10/the-remarkable-persistence-of-24x36.html <comment><USER2> I just wanted to add, for anyone who is not familiar with the site, that The Online Photographer is pne of the Good Corners Of The Internet. It features well thought out articles, a moderated comment section, and a real sense of commu ity. Highly reccomended if you're interested in photography.

Oh, and I should add: an ethical ad based revenue model. Ads are self hosted, js free, and only for companies that the author believes his audience may be interested in.

<comment><USER3> I use adblocker and I didn't even notice the ads.

Small amount of small static ad images on the side is perfectly OK for me, but they probably don't generate as much income as those that interrupt you.

<comment><USER4> > Small amount of small static ad images on the side is perfectly OK for me, > but they probably don't generate as much income as those that interrupt you.

Well static ads don't have to be pay per click / or per view, so it's likely they set their own placement price and make their money up front. Under that scenario they would be making money as long as the ad space is occupied.

<comment><USER3> It's ads generate less revenue to the advertiser, they pay less for the ads no matter what the payment method is.

<comment><USER4> that's only one side of it. the site operator also has to decide if placing the ads are worth the cost of having ads on his pages. So if the operator is selling static ad placement and getting buyers, then he's at least covering that cost plus profit, otherwise it's not worth it.

So it's like buying a billboard. The advertisers have to decide if it's worth their money or not. But the operator will be making money as long as the ad space is occupied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Enthusiastic (and, in solidarity with another popular post right now, mediocre) amateur photographer here.

When I was a teenager I desperately wanted a 35 mm SLR. I bought photography magazines, read all the reviews. For me, price was the biggest factor, so I was looking at Pentax K1000-class cameras, which could be had then for a little over $100 with a lens.

The thing that struck me then, and still strikes me today, is the sheer amount of brand snobbishness in photography. Back then, you weren't a "real" photographer", and you weren't using a "real" camera, unless you were shooting Nikon, Canon, or Leica. And of those, only the Canons were at all affordable. And yet, you could throw the exact same Ektachrome in any 35 mm camera, grab a good prime lens, and shoot exactly the same pictures. No one on earth could tell whether you had taken it with a Leica or a Pentax.

And the same thing is true today. Today, because most of my photography (which is, again, mediocre) is travel photography, I shoot an Olympus em-10 with a $300 lens most of the time. It's small and it won't break my heart if it gets broken or stolen. The m43 system has a ton of great lenses and high quality camera bodies. With the different sensors it's now possible, in theory, to even tell the difference between pictures shot on an Olympus and a FF Nikon, but in practice 99% of photographers won't ever realize those differences. But it isn't a Nikon or a Leica, so I'm still not using a "real" camera.

Anyway, my point is this: to be perfectly honest, I doubt the ability of the field to choose standards based in technical merit. There are decent reasons to desire FF cameras over APS or m43 — the availability of a lot of legacy lens designs, for instance — but as far as I can tell that isn't the real reason it's taking off. It's taking off because it's now possible to drop ten grand on such a system.

Sorry for the cynicism. But I've been told so often that I'm not using a real camera that I finally just decided to ignore the hype and enjoy taking pictures.

<comment><USER6> The Leica lenses were better than the Nikon lenses that were better than the Canon lenses that were better than the Pentax lenses, on average (there are exceptions to this). It didn't really matter at normal print sizes for usual focal length, but for example a 21/3.4 Schneider Super-Angulon for Leica from 1963 was a vastly better ultrawide than what you could have for other 35mm systems.

If you try to print big (let's say A3+) you'll rapidly find the limits of the m43 system.

<comment><USER7> > If you try to print big (let's say A3+) you'll rapidly find the limits of > the m43 system

I've printed a good number of images shot on m43 at about that size, and that's not been my experience. The specifics definitely matter, but I've found Olympus's M.Zuiko 75/1.8 to be competitive with a 70-200/2.8 in terms of sharpness, distortion, etc, for instance (dxomark seem to broadly agree: [https://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Olympus/Olympus-MZUIKO- DIGITA...](https://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Olympus/Olympus-MZUIKO-DIGITAL- ED-75mm-F18) vs [https://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Nikon/AF-S-VR-Zoom- Nikkor-70-...](https://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Nikon/AF-S-VR-Zoom- Nikkor-70-200mm-f-2.8G-IF-ED)). You do have a larger minimum DoF, but 150/3.6 equivalent is not that far off.

I would like a bit more resolution, but that's also true of my Nikon D4S (also 16MP).

Clearly FF and m43 have different strengths, and you'll get the best results by playing to the strengths of each. I concede that all else being equal, larger sensors do afford you more flexibility (lower light performance, for instance). On the other hand, traveling with my Nikon FF kit is a huge PITA (mostly due to the lenses; the body is a constant cost I can mostly deal with).

I'd love to hear more about the limitations you've hit with larger prints on m43.

<comment><USER6> I don't actually use m43, but 16 or even 24mp would be rather inadequate for my needs, especially from a bayer sensor.

I do my printing at 720 ppi on Pictorico OHP transparency stock, which I then use to contact print cyanotypes or pt/pd (I'm really dedicated to useless stuff). You can see how the resolution requirements for anything bigger than a postcard are stringent.

In practice I use either a Sony A7r (36mp, with very sharp primes) a Sigma with a foveon sensor (which holds up very well to the Sony at ISO 100, and it's not like I use the Sony at more than ISO 100) or high-resolution scans from Adox CMS20 II microfilm stock (ISO 20, there is a special low contrast developer for pictorial contrast) shoot on a Leica or Contax with their respective very highly resolving primes.

<comment><USER7> Gotcha. Cool setup!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Cameras that used 24x36mm sensors returned photographers' favorite lenses to > the FOVs they were already long comfortable with. And, of course, the second > was prestige. Status is a very strong motivator in the photography hobby. > "Full-frame" sensor cameras were bigger and more expensive, their "image > quality" at least detectably ahead of that of smaller sensors.

Some of us have also been patiently waiting for "full frame" DSLR bodies are doing it because a fast normal lens (so-called because it has (much handwaving) roughly the same field of view as your eyes) is so cheap as to be basically free compared to a nice DSLR body. A similarly fast and sharp 28mm or 35mm (roughly a normal lens on an APS-C-sized sensor) is vastly more expensive, if it's available at all.

Pentax[0], to my (limited) knowledge never made a 35mm or 28mm lens that came close to matching the speed and sharpness of the SMC Pentax-M 50mm f/1.7, which can be had <$50 US on ebay. The first 28mm f/2 I see listed is $430, the much commoner f/2.8 and f/3.5 are much cheaper, but give up a lot in low light performance.

The 50mm f/1.7 is a mighty fine lens; the arguably better 50mm f/1.4 goes for <$100. It's not until you're looking at the rare, super fast, and arguably yet better still (I have no personal experience) 50mm f/1.2 that you hit the price range of the 28mm f/2.

So whether you're buying at the peanuts end of the price range or the high end, you're giving up a stop and a half of low light performance going with APS-C over 24x36.

It could be argued that with ever improving digital sensors, low light performance in a lens is less important now than ever. There's probably merit to that.

Still, as mentioned in TFA the faster lenses let you make different choices with regards to depth of field than you have with a slower lens. I'd rather have that choice, historical preferences of f/64 notwithstanding.

[0] I'm not going into lens generations here. As an extremely casual user, I buy what's good, used, and cheap. I'm strictly an M42 and SMC-M guy, and can't compare with anything newer; my overall impression from reading reviews is that the SMC-K, -M, and -A generations are largely comparable for the same focal length and aperture. The M42 generations are adequately comparable, at least for folks like me.

<comment><USER9> On the other hand, to my knowledge very few if any small-and-cheap double- Gauss "nifty fifties" are particularly great wide open on modern high- resolution sensors. Though it could be argued that the current drive for ultra-sharpness among the "Ad-Am" crowd again stems more from prestige—and the tendency to pixel-peep—rather than any real need. Especially in a world where the vast majority of photos are viewed at low resolutions, highly compressed, and on small screens.

Mirrorless, with its short backfocus distance compared to SLRs, does bring onto table the feasibility of inexpensive and compact "normal" lenses for APS-C and smaller sensors. The Panasonic 25mm f/1.8 for MFT is a good example, as is the recently announced Canon EF-M 32mm f/1.4.

<comment><USER8> Most of the reviews of the Pentax fifties contain words to the effect that they aren't super sharp around the edges of the frame wide open, but that they sharpen up by f/2\. I don't have any background in optics, but I've operated under the assumption that most lenses at full aperture necessarily compromise some resolution for speed, meaning you have the same loss of resolution with a 28mm or 35mm lens at full aperture. Are other focal lengths of different designs where this doesn't hold true?

Do modern sensors have enough more resolution than film that they show the loss of sharpness in the lens at smaller apertures? I'm curious because I'll be looking for a (used) DSLR body at some point in the next few years. At least in the Pentax world, most of the commentary about old lenses on new bodies centers around the lack of the mechanical aperture coupling on the newer bodies, and the compromises stemming from that (stop-down metering, mostly).

<comment><USER10> > Do modern sensors have enough more resolution than film that they show the > loss of sharpness in the lens at smaller apertures?

Film quite obviously shows soft corners too, just most people didn't care because they weren't obvious at the sizes normal people view or printed photos.

I wouldn't worry about soft corners to be honest. It's like criticizing a classic muscle car because it has a slower 0-100 than newer ones

<comment><USER11> I agree. And if your underlying question is "are these lenses going to take good pictures with this camera", the best advice I can give is: _try it!_

I say this because some of my favorite lens/camera combinations are those with issues far beyond mere unsharpness, and that would likely be rejected by the mass of Internet forum cognoscenti in favor of native lenses that I know from experience that I'd never use even if I already owned them.

Case in point: an old Arri/Zeiss 16mm f/1.2 cine lens that I shoot on Micro Four Thirds, despite the fact that it was designed for the much smaller 16mm (motion picture) format: in spite of edges are soft at all apertures, corners that aren't so much "soft" as "missing altogether", an overall image almost certainly less _sharp_ than the average native kit zoom, and various other technical considerations compromising optical performance, I enjoy both the process of shooting with the lens and the results when I do. So why, then, should I give a damn what the Internet thinks?

Whereas, I sold the more "appropriate" Panasonic 15mm f/1.7 native lens several years ago, at a considerable loss, for lack of use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I adore these obscure histories of standards we take for granted. I could see this piece being adapted into something like an episode of 99 Percent Invisible.

</comment><comment><USER13> The 35mm format is rather amazing balance of design trade-offs. No wonder it is so enduring.

It's large enough for the double-Gauss lens (a.k.a. normal prime lens) to have a nice shallow deep of field wide open. f/1.2 is close to the limit of a typical SLR mount. So a normal 50mm f/1.2 lens gets us 42mm of aperture. This means we can get the same depth of field and angle of view as a 6x7 medium format with a 110mm f/2.8 lens or a 4x5 large format with a 180mm f/4.5 (but with a much smaller system!) And we get a faster lens as a bonus.

Smaller formats lose some of that versatility of composition. The focal length of the normal lens on APS-C is 32mm. We would need f/0.8 lens to the same DOF. That's not possible on an SLR mount. Mirrorless systems with their shorter flange distances could get us there. But even then there are limits to how short the flange can be because image sensors become much less efficient as the angle of incidence of the light hitting them increases.

</comment><comment><USER14> > It used 35mm movie film

And why was movie film 35mm wide? It seems an odd width. William Dickson was going for a frame 1 inch wide, then added 3/8" for the sprocket holes. The original specification was in Imperial units: 1 3/8" (34.925mm). I don't know when or why its name turned to metric.

"At the end of the year 1889, I increased the width of the picture from 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch, then to 1 inch by 3/4 inch high. The actual width of the film was 1 3/8 inches to allow for the perforations now punched on both edges [...]." \--- [https://archive.org/stream/journalofsociety21socirich#page/4...](https://archive.org/stream/journalofsociety21socirich#page/450/mode/2up)

To go back further, we would have to ask, why is an inch an inch?

</comment><comment><USER15> > The 24x36mm image size, which by the 1950s was becoming accepted as a > standard, was also widely known as a rather awkward rectangle. It suited > landscape photos, but little else—it looked too tall in verticals, and made > composition difficult, especially for photographers used to the square shape > common in 120 cameras.

I don't quite understand this part. If 35mm film was "standard" but photographers had a strong preference for square images, why wasn't there a proliferation of cameras that could shoot 24x24mm images on the same type of film?

<comment><USER16> Too small, slide mounts were already standardized on 24x36, and the square was never all that popular among the general photographer. The reason why the square shape in 120 was originally developed was a technical hack. Since it outputs a square, there was never any need to hold a Hasselblad vertically; just take the photo and crop it to suit. The only square consumer oriented cameras I can think of are twin-lens reflex cameras like the Rolleiflex, which are delightful but somewhat uncommon. A number of folks started trying to make use of the square format as a square format, but it was not originally, I think, intended for that purpose.

Re: too small; an 8x10, one of the smaller standard print formats for portraits, is about an 8x enlargement from a 35mm frame. With modern materials and good technique, 8x-11x is feasible, but starting to push it at the edges; I have printed 13x17s off 35mm but I would not want to push it much larger. 35mm does 4x6s, 5x7s and 8x10s perfectly reasonably, which is what it spent most of its time doing for common consumer work. It's worth noting that one of the other common consumer cameras of the 1940s was the Brownie, which output 6cmx9cm images and was routinely contact printed, producing something smaller even than a 4x6.

120 produces images that are between 1.8x (in the 645 format) or 2.5x (in most others) as large, physically, meaning that the common enlargements are only 4x-5x. If you push it, with quality equipment, you start getting into print sizes that are super clumsy to handle like 20x24. I've never printed, personally, anything larger than a 16x20. If you do your own wet processing they're also nicer to work with—35mm negatives are real small and kinda fiddly. 4x5 sheets are also delightful to work with, of course, but they require fighting the camera in the field.

<comment><USER17> > With modern materials and good technique, 8x-11x is feasible, but starting > to push it at the edges; I have printed 13x17s off 35mm but I would not want > to push it much larger.

Many pros push 35mm to billboard sizes. The size of the print doesn't matter. It's the viewing distance.

<comment><USER18> Not a pro here, but the greater the distance, the better my pictures look. ;) Back to the subject at hand, it is a little surprising to me that a format closer to square didn't catch on at some point. I suppose that the image quality of the image deteriorates more toward the edge of a circle around the center point. The format that gets the most out of a circle of acceptable quality is a square. As the shape becomes more oblong, more of that 'acceptable quality area' falls outside the image. Perhaps this is one reason that larger formats are closer to square than 35mm.

<comment><USER19> Well to be pedantic, the format that gets the most out of a circle of acceptable quality is a _circle,_ not a square.

<comment><USER18> Point taken. That makes me curious if any cameras were ever produced in that format. I would suspect that circular format photography might be used in astronomy where every last bit of the image is valuable.

<comment><USER19> Yo're right though, a square is certainly the rectangle of largest area from a circular lens.

If there was a need to maximize the capture for technical reasons I imagine it would be easier to just oversize the film or sensor and trim the corners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> While tha 36x24 frame dates to the original Leica, I believe the 3:2 aspect predates that significantly as the some of the early Kodak box cameras shot 6x9cm on 120 film.</comment>


Hunting Hydrogen Balloons with Fireworks - <AUTHOR> http://rcexplorer.se/files/ba11c31bb018b71fbf14995bce5af236-246.html

<comment><USER2> My friend was at a school gathering in India and didn't realize that the balloons had been filled with hydrogen instead of helium (save on costs?). He went to pop one with a lighter and the whole bunch of 70 went up in flames and burned the hell out of his body.

Moral of the story... be careful with hydrogen balloons.

<comment><USER3> Try acetylene. More fun/scary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good to see someone channelling their inner child and really enjoying themselves!

The footage reminded me of this article: [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/12/how-a-rc- airplane...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/12/how-a-rc-airplane- buzzed-the-statue-of-liberty-with-no-arrests.ars)

I really want to get a setup like this. Looks like the closest thing to being able to fly!

p.s: Love the 8bit arcade music.

</comment><comment><USER5> So were they human-controlled or autonomous?

<comment><USER6> The end of the video shows "Pilot: David Windestal". The video from the sentry with its target rectangle makes it appear that it could have been autonomous, though that could have been added after.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> holy crap that's cool, the nes music at the end makes it the awesomest thing ever.</comment>


Flowmatic (1957) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Remington_Rand/Univac.Flowmatic.1957.102646140.pdf <comment><USER2> From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOW- MATIC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOW-MATIC) :

 _FLOW-MATIC, originally known as B-0 (Business Language version 0), was the first English-like data processing language. It was developed for the UNIVAC I at Remington Rand under Grace Hopper during the period from 1955 until 1959. It had a strong influence on the development of COBOL._

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know if it's just me but I just find the graphic design here impressive. It's indistinguishable from modern/current design.

<comment><USER4> Really? It looks dated to me. The colors, the typefaces, and the illustrations are very "midcentury".

<comment><USER5> I have a strong feeling that people of a certain age (say, born in the 70s) associate this kind of design with oldness, while younger generations have had little to no contact with it except in retro inspired modern design.

So, paradoxically perhaps, the older you are the older this kind of design looks. I'm of the age where it reminds me of old magazines and ads and stuff, so I see where you're coming from. _But_ , I've also noticed that this kind of design has seen a massive resurgence in many areas of design. Mid-century modern furniture, interior design, etc. is all the rage these days. Many very modern companies and projects (the already mentioned Atom project being an obvious one) are using these kinds of design elements. Atomic and space iconography, subdued warm solid colors, non-traditional quirky (but simple and still quite readable) typefaces, etc.

<comment><USER6> I think that's it. The PDF clearly looks dated to me, but I think it's only some slight updates away from being something that could be produced today. (Different colors, clearer lines (which here probably is primarily limits of print and scan), slightly different fonts and typography)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Imagine living back at this time, and seeing the advancement of computers. It's not hard to imagine that natural language programming and real artificial intelligence would not be far off. Science fiction of the period had entire economies planned and administered by computer.

Of course, that didn't happen, but it gets me thinking about what we imagine won't be far off from today. For myself, I imagine ubiquitous implanted health monitors and advanced computer/brain direct interfaces.

What do you imagine we will see "just around the corner"?

<comment><USER8> Bret Victor has a wonderful talk (The future of programming), where he pretends to be in the 60's with all the research going on with Lisp, Algol, Fortran, and looking towards the future.

Needless to say, none of the positive predictions turned out as expected.

<comment><USER7> I wonder how many of these didn't work out because they didn't scale well to real world complexity.

<comment><USER8> The reasons are more to do with political interests and willingness to invest into specific technologies.

For example, do you think the whole Web 2.0 with JavaScript everywhere would ever taken off if it wasn't for companies with the engineering resources of Microsoft, Google, Apple and Mozilla into fighting for JIT performance?

Without it, JavaScript would still be used for form validations and dummy page animations.

Or Java on Android, with Google's goal of making it succeed whatever it takes.

It is all a matter how much money a company is willing to spend into making something become reality.

<comment><USER9> No, not really, at all. Natural language programming and strong A.I. are vastly different than the Node.js framework of the week. These things you mention, Javascript, Java, Android etc are like toys. You argue that the toy makers just as easily could have produced the equivalent of a Moon rocket program, if only they had spent money on that.

I am not convinced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If anyone is wondering, the UNIVAC scientific system pictured at the end was able to hold the impressive capacity of ~55 kB of RAM: [http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Remington_...](http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Remington_Rand/SperryRand.Univac.1957.102646141.pdf)

<comment><USER11> 12*1024 36-bits words, max, so exactly the same number of bits as in 54 kB. Clock frequency was 125kHz, it seems.

The drum stored 288MB.

Edit: under "Some Applications", the first item listed is "Missiles". That shows where the money was.

<comment><USER12> > The drum stored 288MB.

Where did you get that number? It seems awfully high for 1957.

<comment><USER13> The text makes it clear that capacity of the drum was 16384 12 bit "words", 196608 bits in total. The use of core memory was a big advance at that time. Previously the drums had been the main memory for that generation of machines, with optimal placement of code on the drum being seen as a major programming skill.

<comment><USER14> The words are 36 bits. 3 12 bit characters (the analogue to a byte)

<comment><USER15> Wikipedia: "The size of the byte has historically been hardware dependent and no definitive standards existed that mandated the size – byte-sizes from 1[3] to 48 bits[4] are known to have been used in the past."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Shame it's the brochure and not the manual. (The sample program is incomplete, missing data declarations --these were in a separate DIRECTORY section, but info on its syntax is ... scarce.)

</comment><comment><USER17> In retrospect, Flowmatic is a really cool name for a programming language.

<comment> the-dude It is from the time centrifuges ( washing appliance ) were called Turn-o- matics.

<comment><USER17> I guess I _do_ learn something new every day.

Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Wavesdropping Uber driver saves 16-year-old passenger from her pimps - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/12/30/an-eavesdropping-uber-driver-saved-his-16-year-old-passenger-from-her-pimps-police-say/ <comment><USER2> "wavesdropping" ???</comment>


Terminator 0.0.1 (alpha) - <AUTHOR> http://arxivblog.com/?p=536 <comment><USER2> Two better candidates for an early terminator:

iRobot's Warrior + Metal Storm: <http://www.irobot.com/sp.cfm?pageid=150> [http://www.metalstorm.com/component/option,com_sm2modulewind...](http://www.metalstorm.com/component/option,com_sm2modulewindow/id,3/Itemid,173/)

Or, Foster Miller's Talon Swords projects <http://youtube.com/watch?v=EhR8PMllkjY>

</comment><comment><USER3> If they sell it to the public, they should provide a PC based API where one can customize it with one's own commands via an application running on one's PC connected to the robot via USB or the like. I love robots, but would not want to spend 4K euros on something I could not customize.</comment>


Wow, just wow. SOPA sponsor to SOPA opponents: You don't matter - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/sopa-sponsor-rep-lamar-smith-to-sopa-opponents-you-dont-matter/

<comment><USER2> An empty statement signifying nothing. Cluelessness isn't even worth getting angry about.

<comment><USER3> _Cluelessness isn't even worth getting angry about._

Of course it is, if his cluelessness can have a direct and material negative impact on your life.</comment></comment>


Announcing The Matasano/Square CTF - <AUTHOR> http://www.matasano.com/matasano-square-microcontroller-ctf/ <comment><USER2> Go easy on us for a bit; this is a fresh deploy in a new environment and it's bound to be janky. The odds of it not completely asploding tonight are pretty low.

Happy to answer questions.

One obvious question we haven't answered: how long will it be up for? Answer: a'unno. Until it gets boring? Or super expensive? We're in no rush to shut it down. I've never understood why awesome CTF events are so eager to shut down.

Here's what it looks like:

[http://twitter.com/tqbf/status/423992147155509248/photo/1](http://twitter.com/tqbf/status/423992147155509248/photo/1)

We're on Freenode #uctf if you want to bug us live.

In case you're interested: this is a very small Rails app talking to an emulator we wrote in Golang that exports an HTTP/JSON interface.

<comment><USER3> This looks cool!

> I've never understood why awesome CTF events are so eager to shut down.

We actually were planning to leave the first Stripe CTF up indefinitely. We'd mostly just built it as a side project, and hadn't really expected anyone to take notice. But we were swarmed by thousands of users, and suddenly keeping everything running was a full-time job — Andy wrote a script to alert us to forkbombs, and every hour or two we'd have to go in and clear out the forkbombs from a machine. The runner for level5 would get wedged due to an exploit that hung it, and would require kicking. One of the machines would be overloaded with level6 password bruteforcers, and we'd have to spin up another or kill off runaway ones.

For the second CTF, we at least knew what we were in for and built a much more resilient architecture. It was successful in that it was much less work to maintain, but there still was a lot of maintenance, ranging from working around an EC2 security groups bug that would blackhole traffic from certain client IP addresses to spinning up more level2 boxes (since everyone was overloading them in their attempts to bruteforce the level8 passworddb).

Anyway, my tl;dr is that running any production system is hard, and we couldn't have kept them running without significant time investment.

<comment><USER2> In other words, "we're going to keep this site up for a long time" sounds like famous last words to you. :)

On the other hand, we're a security consultancy, so maybe we have lower, more tolerable standards for "up in production" than Stripe does.

Nelson Elhage is a machine; he ripped through 9 levels in under an hour.

<comment><USER3> Yep, pretty much :).

Also, fun fact: Nelson was our test solver for CTF2. He also ripped through all the levels there in a few hours. But then he got to level8 (PasswordDB, which was source port counting), and was stumped for a few days. He had a lot of hypotheses about the vulnerability, many of which were much cooler than the actual one. Given it had taken him so long, I decided the level was too hard and made it easier by adding some code that would log source ports. (It turned out to still be too hard, so launch day I released a bunch of hints until finally wgrant solved it, at which point I went home and got some sleep.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can someone explain what "cmp.b @r13, 0x2400(r14)" does, and/or how I would find out myself?

I looked through the manual and saw the instruction 'cmp' tests the two parameters for equivalence, but I don't see 'cmp.b' anywhere. I found the TI manual for the instruction set which happens to say something about '.B' being a byte operation, but I'm not sure if that's related.

The tutorial explained that @r13 uses the value in memory for the address in register 13, but '0x2400(r14)' is really confusing.

I was thinking it just meant register 14, but that doesn't seem to be the case because the comparison fails when r14 (which is the value 0x0000 at this point) and @r13 match. I thought it also could mean the literal value '0x2400', but the comparison still seems to fail when it should match, and that doesn't explain the r14 in parenthesis at the end of it.

<comment><USER5> 0x2400(r14) is an offset syntax. Take the value in register 14, add 0x2400 to it, and look up what's in memory at that address.

<comment><USER4> Awesome, thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> PSA for people like me who aren't security specialists: "shellcode" (in the survey) does _not_ mean "a shell script", it means this: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellcode](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellcode)

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I think that question should have three options for answers:

       [] Yes
       [] No
       [] I had to look shellcode up on Wikipedia

(I'm with you in that last category.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've worked a lot in assembly, but never tried to exploit anything before. This is like crack.

I've always been meaning to try out a few public problem sets of this sort that a couple university security courses publish. Theirs are often based on a VM image with various binaries inside them that you are supposed to exploit. While those would probably have the advantage of being slightly more relevant to my everyday work (since they're running a Linux OS/environment more like the one I regularly use and program for), this contest makes it much easier to get over the hump of setting everything up, and of course the points/competition aspect is highly motivating.

Nicely done. :)

</comment><comment><USER8> I used to jump at hacking challenges in high school, blowing off homework and in the summers staying up til 5am.

Nowadays I see these and I have to practically tie myself to the ship's mast to not drop everything I'm doing and sink days into it. I couldn't resist with Stripe's CTF but had to quit after I got busy. This one's especially hard because I love tinkering/building embedded devices.

I guess the point is please, please keep this running as long as you can so I can have a crack at it when I'm not working day and night =].

</comment><comment><USER9> During the tutorial, it seems like the memory dump goes blank for me (it loses its scroll bars, and loses its contents) -- [http://i.imgur.com/ta9iykd.png](http://i.imgur.com/ta9iykd.png)

This is Firefox 25.0~b1+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1, on Ubuntu 12.04. I'll try it on something more modern when I get home.

Looking forward to it!

<comment><USER9> Additionally -- on the first "Yay!", I don't get the nextlevelbutton (which seems to be what it wants me to do next); gray_bg and youwin_outer remain display_none. I have to go manually put them in place in order to proceed on.

This looks like it will be a lot of fun, though.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for this. We're looking into it now. You can also mail us at firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><USER10> FWIW, happens with the second "Yay!" as well.

Thanks for making this!

<comment><USER2> We think we fixed this now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The lock (fake) manual is available here:

[https://microcorruption.com/manual.pdf](https://microcorruption.com/manual.pdf)

<comment><USER6> Cool! Notably, it appears that it is based on TI MSP430, which is a real CPU with its own instruction set. At first I thought they had invented their own ISA, which would have been crazy.

<comment><USER12> Well, let's just say it's an architecture Square knows well. :)

<comment><USER13> In particular, Square's credit card readers use an MSP430 chip to encrypt the stripe data before passing it on the phone.

Their first credit card readers were entirely analog devices, which were very easy to use to skim cards.

Hopefully the latest batches have per-device unique keys (based on some centrally-known KDF) so a compromise of one doesn't re-enable such an exploit.

<comment><USER2> Just so I can be super clear here: none of the code in this challenge has anything whatsoever to do with anything Square ships. We deliberately made things less realistic to make the levels more fun, and easier to ramp up with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I encourage anyone who's avoiding taking part because they don't know assembly or reverse engineering to at least give the tutorial a try, you might just surprise yourself!

Having not really touched assembly that much before, I found the tutorial to be an excellent introduction. I'm now battling with level 4 after thinking I wouldn't even get past the first level.

Great work Matasano & Square!

</comment><comment><USER15> Dean Pelton: Agnes, cancel all my appointments.

Agnes: What appointments?

Dean Pelton: ...Wishful thinking.

Damn. There goes my weekend.

<comment><USER16> Yup. There went my evening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> PWNED! I've never been one to shout at my computer, even in multiplayer games, but I've been doing plenty of yelling over here, and a few victory dances too.

This is AWESOME, thank you for putting it together. This should be mandatory training for developers in languages with no bounds checking. It's downright scary how easy some of these exploits can be. Yes, I know x86 makes things more complicated, but I had no idea the basic concepts could be so simple after reading disclosures about buffer overflows, stack smashing, and other spoilery stuff I won't mention here. Working on Algiers right now.

Minor bugs: I like to hit "enter" in the debugger to keep single stepping, but every now and then the focus disappears from the input window. Typing "s" works because it seems to jump back to the window, but typing "enter" does nothing.

Several levels produce garbled text from puts() -- doesn't affect the playability, just looks funny. Or maybe you fixed that already, I'm not able to reproduce it now.

It would be nice to be able to copy/paste from the memory dump to the disassembler without having to trim the other columns off first.

And the cherry on top: remember my "hide box headers" setting. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Thanks! If you look closely at the requests we're generating, it's pretty easy to see how to get direct access to memory and to the disassembly. Just don't abuse it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Never printed on paper."

[https://microcorruption.com/manual.pdf](https://microcorruption.com/manual.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER19> FYI - On level 3, the "okay" button is obscured by the page footer, and can't be clicked on one of my machines. Scolling down doesn't help, the button remains obscured by the page footer which scrolls with the page.

<comment><USER20> I got around this by zooming the page out in Chrome, in case anyone else is having trouble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> And then it turns out that this was a massive Mechanical Turk.

</comment><comment><USER4> Possible bug in the score board:

In most cases, it won't let me see the scores for levels that I haven't beaten yet. Presumably this is because seeing the input size and min cpu cycles would be a strong hint about how to solve the level.

However, when viewing a particular user's profile (e.x. [https://microcorruption.com/profile/294](https://microcorruption.com/profile/294)), it shows their completion stats for the level you are currently on, despite having not beaten it yet. The levels after it are still obscured, though.

<comment><USER2> Yup. This is fixed, but won't be deployed until later tonight; we don't want to disrupt the site right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> If anyone is worried about participating because they don't understand this domain very well, don't be. The tutorial is very useful, and the interface is generally very nice. Check it out.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is embarrassing, but... I'm totally stuck on puzzle #2 (Sydney) since the cmp doesn't seem to match up with what's in memory, and I bet that the puzzles won't get any easier from here! Is there a good resource, trove of documentation, or excellent book for those of us who would love to learn how to do this stuff? The tutorial great, but it was definitely pretty basic.

<comment><USER24> Me too! I must be missing something...

<comment><USER25> Hint: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness)

<comment><USER26> Not sure if anyone is still checking comments or not. I'm completely new to reverse engineering, ASM, etc. Looking at the cmp statements I tried the changing the endienness of the address being compared, but I still am not seeing that address. For example, when looking at 'cmp #0x3866, 0x0(r15)', to me this means add 0 to the value of r15 and look up the value at that address and compare that to the value at memory address 0x3866. So I'm changing the endienness of 0x3866 to 0x6683. Is this the correct thought process? Thanks.

<comment><USER27> It's been a long time since i've written any asm, but I just did this. You're almost correct; 0x3866 contains 2 pieces of information, 38 and 66. so you should end up with 0x6638

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Encountered quite some bugs with FF (Aurora here), most prominently the highlight wasn't updated when I moved a step forward.

Suggestion on top of that: It would be really nice to grab the whole 'firmware' and dump it to a local .hex file. If that isn't allowed for obvious reasons/by design: Fair enough.

</comment><comment><USER29> I put my credit card number in, and it didn't give me an account. Did I do it wrong? Why isn't there a padlock on the signup? Ohh nooo...

</comment><comment><USER30> I was all excited with myself for passing the first one after the tutorial and then couldn't get past the second...though I've been drinking.

This is very cool and I think would be "even more awesome" if there were a separate version that provided a tutorial for the skills required for each level.

For us 'tards. :P

</comment><comment><USER31> This is fun. For those looking for more details on the instructions and addressing modes, check out the MSP430 User's Guide:

[http://www.ti.com/lit/ug/slau049f/slau049f.pdf](http://www.ti.com/lit/ug/slau049f/slau049f.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER32> I went through the tutorial. Seems _very_ cool. Disappointed that "password" worked though - I thought it would show me how to read the value my input was compared to instead of just matching the string (and lucky guessing).

<comment><USER33> Funnily enough, I had to refresh once or twice during the tutorial, and I started realizing that it was checking it against a known number (9). Your input wasn't really compared against anything but its length. It took me a good minute, but I figured that out before it told me the password. (because of the tutorial)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is awesome, I'm having a lot of fun reactivating my assembler knowledge.

Also, I want to compliment you on the interface, my laptop broke yesterday and I'm doing this on a borrowed Acer A500 tablet without any serious problems.

</comment><comment><USER35> As someone completely inept in this niche, I'm looking forward to the results. I hope you share them. You'll probably have to dumb them down for us commoners.

<comment><USER36> Go through the tutorial at least. It's quite a good tutorial in the concepts of simple reversing (I'm just starting to learn a few things in this area)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is great. I hope at least the UI is open-sourced at some point - it's really clear and it'd be good for other reversing tutorials.

</comment><comment><USER37> Just did the first one. This is a lot of fun. Great work!

</comment><comment><USER38> This would be a great way to crowd-source the cracking of a digital lock ... I hope you're opening the warehouse that contains all the NSA's secrets (every HN story has to have comments that reference the NSA or they'll be thrown into the dead-pool).

<comment><USER39> No it wouldn't.</comment></comment>


The Invisible Bike Helmet: An Airbag On The Go - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/15/invisible-bike-helmet/ <comment><USER2> In the US, perhaps the real market might be for motorcyclists where the surrounding culture attaches negative traits to helmet use -- dislike of freedom, lack of bravery, etc.

It is now so common for skydivers to use automatic activation devices (deploys one's reserve canopy if he passes below a certain altitude traveling at least a certain velocity) that many dropzones refuse to allow the use of "rigs" without them installed. I recall being told that, when the Cypres (www.cypres- usa.com) was first introduced, a major marketing feature was that it is not visible to those casually observing the skydiver or his rig. So, a user could avoid the stigma associated with choosing to reduce the risk of death from skydiving. Over time, the culture reversed so that those not using a Cypres were deemed foolhardy.

I should note that I stopped jumping a few years ago, so my information is somewhat out-of-date.

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of complaints I saw about new table saw tech that aimed to prevent injury[1]. It wasn't that people were opposed to increased safety, but rather were afraid that expensive equipment would become mandatory, and possibly encourage complacency that would undermine existing safe practices.

Did you feel that the Cypres encouraged skydivers to become more complacent?

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SawStop>

<comment><USER2> At least as of a few years ago, the rate of death per skydive had remained largely constant for years. What changed drastically was that people died from injuries sustained after a successful canopy deployment. Concurrent with Cypres's adoption was the emergence of high performance canopies. With large, "boring" canopies, it would be hard to kill oneself if already under a good canopy above cornfields. However, small, high-performance canopies provided thrilling swoops toward the ground along with long plane-outs. Half the fun of the skydive now could be had during the landing. With this fun came the risk of a poorly executed turn slamming a person into the ground hard enough to kill him. So, having achieved greater safety in the air, perhaps skydivers adopted add-on risks? The other factor which probably reduced deaths due to low deployments was the widespread adoption of larger aircraft which could quickly take large groups of jumpers to 15K ft. When one's only option for skydiving was to ride for 20+ minutes in a Cesna 182 to 10K, he wanted to maximize his airtime and might deploy somewhat low. However, the extra time in the air isn't so significant if one can exit 5K higher after a mere 10 minute ride. Deploying higher means extra time to cut away a malfunctioning main canopy and deploy a reserve parachute.

tl;dr; Skydivers traded increased safety levels for newly-found risks.

<comment><USER3> Interesting -- I didn't even know such canopies existed; I've only ever seen the bog-standard rectangular ram-air ones at airshows. Are high-performance canopies restricted to certain levels of licensed proficiency? That's basically how it is with paragliding _(although the licenses are basically self-regulated and the restrictions are informal)_. IIRC, at least one of the skydiving wingsuit manufacturers won't sell to you unless you can prove an advanced level of skydiving experience -- and paragliding in a wing that is above your skill level is highly discouraged.

Glancing at Wikipedia, the higher-performance ones sound like paraglider wings -- more cells, elliptical shape. I guess paragliding wing optimization has come full circle back to skydiving parachutes.

<comment><USER2> "more cells, elliptical shape" Yeah, a relatively rigid wing which reacts quickly when deformed by pulling a toggle.

"Are high-performance canopies restricted to certain levels of licensed proficiency?"

Circa 2004 (when my knowledge ends), rules were informal and largely enforced on a case-by-case basis by dropzone owners who didn't want the bad publicity of an inept person splattering himself into the ground. "No Bob, you're not going to jump with that canopy here!"

I do recall the wingsuit manufacturers at least having minimum standards and then asking questions when someone called to purchase one. It also helped that most wingsuits were sold at skydiving conventions where the manufacturer was on-site and could directly assess the buyer's competence. This sort of regulation is quite prevalent in the BASE jumping community where it's even frowned upon for individuals to sell used gear to someone without first assessing competence (or at least the existence of a mentor).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Neat, but it's fixing a problem that doesn't really exist.

Bike Helmets are reliable and inexpensive. This thing isn't. How about putting it on the bike itself, or on other parts of the wearer's body, so that it works in coordination with the helmet.

<comment><USER5> No-one wears helmets in Amsterdam, very few die (~5 p.a.) mostly due to others faults (trucks). Not sure whether helmets would help.

Helmets give you helmet hair.

Where do you put them when not using?

<comment><USER6> On the bike.

Most dead bikers aren't at fault. That's part of the point of the helmet.

Where are you drawing the boundary of Amsterdam? It has ~0.1 the population of NYC, and 0.5 the bike helment death rate.

So, maybe helmets would save lives in Amsterdam (not to mention non-death casualties like paralysis)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So you replace a bike helmet with something you wear around your neck instead. That seems less comfortable and more annoying that just wearing a normal helmet. Plus you could get a very comfortable helmet for much less than $600.

<comment><USER8> Not to mention it looks like some parts are electronic, so I wonder how much it weighs.

<comment><USER9> More importantly, it means it's battery operated, and batteries can go flat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder why they chose to use compressed helium to fill the bag. I don't know much about these things, but helium is not cheap, and surely you don't need its lighter-than-air properties in this application. Couldn't you use compressed carbon dioxide, or even just compressed air? For comparison, apparently automotive airbags are inflated with nitrogen gas.

<comment><USER11> Automotive airbags are inflated with an explosive which has Nitrogen gas as the majority byproduct, it's rare for actual compressed Nitrogen to be used.

As to why they chose Helium for this application, it's hard to say. It might mean that they are compressing the gas to very high pressures which would result in liquifaction of other gases, but that's just speculation.

<comment><USER12> Maybe the container which holds the gas has to be small so helium would require a smaller storage container which is able to fill the volume of the device.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder how well the crash-sensing technology works. In a car, it's dead simple: you notice a rapid deceleration and you can inflate the airbags while the crumple zones are crumpling.

There are no crumple zones in your head. Yes, you do often fall forward or sideways onto the ground, allowing for time to sense the new orientations... but not always. Would it inflate if I broadside a bus (like if the bus ran a red)?

<comment><USER14> If you watch the doc that's on Vimeo about this thing they sampled a lot of data themselves by actually simulating normal riding situations and then also situations where they would crash in different ways. I'm assuming they used some accelerometers and other recording devices and then designed something that discerns a crash situation from a normal bike riding situation

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> And Neal Stephenson is proven right again.

<comment><USER3> "In his 1992 book Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson described a protective airbag technology for bikers and skateboarders."

Below quote courtesy <http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1824> :

"At the same time, she jerks the manual release on her cervical collar and goes into full Michelin Man mode as tiny gas cartridges detonate in several strategic locations around her bod. The biggest one goes off like an M-80 at the nape of her neck, unfurling the coverall's collar into a cylindrical gasbag that shoots straight up and encases her entire head. Other airbags go off around her torso and pelvis, paying lots of attention to that spinal column."

<comment><USER15> Thank you, too lazy to go find the book and quote it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Previous discussion - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1828134>

</comment><comment><USER17> Saw a demo of this where the dummy fell off the front of a bike and the dummy fell right on its face. The helmet doesn't seem to protect the dummy's forehead, not getting all the way in front of it.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Oud3iGXWY&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Oud3iGXWY&feature=player_detailpage#t=236s)

<comment><USER18> I recently crashed my mountain bike wearing a full face (think motorbike) helmet.

I can personally attest that even those won't protect your face in certain circumstances. No helmet is perfect.

(here are pics of me. WARNING: blood <http://imgur.com/a/UgGTI> )

<comment><USER17> Very true, but were I to wear a helmet or neck airbag helmet I probably wouldn't wear one that was objectively worse at protection than another. I figure if I'm going to look like a dork either way, might as well go with the safest option?

If there's data to prove it's just as safe as regular helmets (which right now aren't tested very well either, if memory serves me correctly the only test required is to drop a weight on the helmet at height) then I might be less critical, but I still think the forehead protection looks a little shoddy on the surface.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The CDC started this, with inconclusive information. They are giving the general population bad stats. Go to the American Motorcycle Association website listed here. They have been at this a looonnnggg time. The CDC is only going on what has been given to them without doing any research on their own. So, who do you trust? There are pages and pages that come up when you search CDC Motorcycles that have run this mis-information all over the nation. Please check out AMA's information. It is much more indepth, and much more American. [http://www.americanmotorcyclist.com/Rights/PositionStatement...](http://www.americanmotorcyclist.com/Rights/PositionStatements/VoluntaryHelmetUse.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER3> I could have sworn I've seen a prototype of something very similar to this for motorcycle racers years ago...

EDIT: A quick Googling comes up with a whole suit system by Alpinestars, reported on 2 years ago, and another airbag system made by Dainese from 4-5 years ago, which I think is what I saw. I always wondered if these ever made it into the mainstream, or if they were too expensive or were otherwise unavailable/undesirable for the average motorcyclist.

</comment><comment><USER20> If you want to see it in action, it's at 2m:50s in the video.

</comment><comment><USER21> Some great points in the comments about how helmets are less expensive, but I'm surprised how quickly a revolutionary new tech is being dismissed because of its high initial price point. If this can find scale, the price will fall and they could become even more compact. And if any of this can mean more people actually wearing helmets, this company might save lives. A pretty awesome innovation.

<comment><USER22> It is interesting tech and to be sure, but when the target market is "people too cool to be seen wearing helmets" it loses some of the punch for me.

I'd be much more interested if the system was a fully body airbag that provides additional protection above and beyond a standard helmet.

<comment><USER3> See my comment: <http://hackerne.ws/item?id=4389384>

Looking at a few pictures of these systems inflated _(harder to find than you'd think)_ , it doesn't look like they are really "full body". I've always been amused by the idea of an airbag suit that, when triggered, resulted in something like what the Mars rovers used (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbag#Airbag_landing_systems>).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> My initial impression was that this wouldn't be commercially viable in the US due to prohibitive bicycle helmet laws. Well to my surprise, bike helmet laws in the US are actually pretty lax, with only 21 states requiring them (and usually only for younger riders): <http://www.iihs.org/laws/HelmetUseCurrent.aspx>

<comment><USER24> I'd think the real question is whether you'd be allowed to market it as a a "bike helmet". Will it pass ANSI certifications for helmets, like my "real" helmet did?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I thought not only impact, but "skidding" was a huge danger for cyclists [that don't wear helmets]. This seems to do next to nothing to help there.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'd rather just wear a helmet. Visca el Barça btw.

</comment><comment><USER27> I´d love to see this to motorcycles too. At my country the helmet is mandatory.

<comment><USER3> See my comment: <http://hackerne.ws/item?id=4389384></comment></comment>


Facebook Reality Labs Introduces SUMO Challenge - <AUTHOR> https://research.fb.com/facebook-reality-lab-launches-the-scene-understanding-and-modeling-sumo-challenge/ <comment><USER2> This looks really cool! I have no idea how you would even solve the first one with bounding boxes. I guess you would progressively build up a scene using the raw depth data then move onto more complex shapes at higher levels?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's relatively and unsolved area but there are definitely people working on it. Technically when you have RGBD you can create a point-cloud and go the 3D object recognition route. There are 2D to 3D methods out there too.</comment></comment>


In China, Bill Gates encourages the world to build a better toilet - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/business/bill-gates-reinvented-toilet.html <comment><USER2> The last time I read about this technology there was a concern that there would be lasting smell from the toilet due to how it cleans itself (improperly). Has the issue been fixed?

I believe you also need to remove a poop-filled/stained component from it every few months, but this would probably be just a minor inconvenience for people who haven't even owned a modern toilet before.

</comment><comment><USER3> I find it insulting when billionaire entrepreneurs make their fortunes with American resources using the power and reach of American markets and then spend it on humanitarian philanthropy in hostile, Communist third world countries.

<comment><USER4> I hope you're joking. People living under hostile government rule are also humans just like you and me, and deserve to be happy and healthy too. If anything, they might need more help because of their hostile environment.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Automated Security and Dependency Updates for Python Projects - <AUTHOR> https://pyup.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> I've built this last year because it was a great hassle for me to keep multiple projects updated and secure.

Would love to get some feedback!</comment>


Ask HN: What is a ballpark timeframe for developing a mobile app? - <AUTHOR>

I'm talkin after design. Going from wireframe to functional mobile app. How long does it take to write the code? <comment><USER2> This depends greatly on what your app is doing, what your platform is, how many people you have, and so on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Let me reframe the question. How long would it take for one experienced developer to write the code for an app like Yelp. 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year?

<comment><USER3> I am assuming you are talking about Android/iOS Native Apps. From my experience, the development time for these 2 platforms are essentially the same, assuming the same level of developer for each platform.

The amount of time needed can vary a lot depending on amount of 'polish' required as well how thorough the design and specs are.

With all of that said, I would give an above average developer 2-3 months to develop something like the Yelp app. This is assuming the back-end and web services are ready and available.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you want? - <AUTHOR> -- Let's see how HN elites answer this open ended question -- <comment><USER2> I want to have the freedom and time to learn, investigate, and accomplish the things that interest me. While also having the freedom and time to invest fully in my relationships with family and friends and to relax and decompress when and how I see fit. Without worrying about how I'll pay the rent and buy food next month.

Also, a pony.

</comment><comment><USER3> I want to always have a new interesting problem to solve. I want to achieve financial independence ( work because I want to, not because I have to). I want to make a turn based rpg game

</comment><comment><USER4> I want to become a good painter and release some graphic novels.

I want to understand ai to the deepest and contribute to it.

I want to be able to play an instrument.

</comment><comment><USER5> I want to reach the limit of my potential.</comment>


Decrease churn, increase conversions or hire a sales team? - <AUTHOR> http://thinkvitamin.com/business/decrease-churn-increase-conversions-or-hire-a-sales-team/

<comment><USER2> Do you need a sales team or a sales Lead to eventually build out the sales team? Why ramp up an expensive full-fledged sales "team" (size?) without processes in place for sales, communication with the developers / client services (expectations managed and met).</comment>


Confirmed: The Last Great Prediction Of The Big Bang - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/confirmed-the-last-great-prediction-of-the-big-bang-68ab6f4a5475

<comment><USER2> It's interesting to me how many scientific breakthroughs we've seen in the past few years. I wonder if hard science hasn't been slowing down; but rather waiting on technological advances that would give them the data they needed to make the leaps. With technological catching up these leaps are now happening.

<comment><USER3> The pace of scientific "leaps" would be very hard to quantify, and it's certainly not my impression that it's "speeding up".

Rather, it's my impression that there's been a pretty consistent pace of scientific discoveries for the past 80 years. Advancing technology certainly helps, but technology has been advancing rapidly for quite some time.

The last 20 years hasn't been a big difference from the 20 before it on the hardware end of things.

Recent science has seen an increase in discoveries added by "big data" science (CERN, astronomy) but that's just one more tool in the researchers toolbelt.

<comment><USER4> I perhaps quibble with the dates, but I think it's hard to underestimate how revolutionary and groundbreaking the preceding "30 Years That Shook Physics" were ([http://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Years-that-Shook- Physics/dp/048...](http://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Years-that-Shook- Physics/dp/048624895X)). Perhaps 35, from Plank's late 1900 "there's quanta out there" to Yukawa's 1935 explication of the strong nuclear force, and don't forget Einstein's General Theory of Relativity in-between, it's still the best we have for gravity.

Since then, even with earth shattering developments like the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938 and what followed from that, things have been quite a bit slower in physics. Biology, though, certainly took up a lot of slack, we only really started getting a handle on its foundations in my lifetime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder why the author says that Gamow made the great leap backwards, when Gamow was in fact developing a theory first proposed by Georges Lemaitre a decade earlier than what the author states for Gamow.

<comment><USER6> I frequently find this used by people who don't want to discuss that the Big Bang was originally theorized by a priest. It doesn't fit their narrative.

<comment><USER4> Per Wikpedia, he " _was a Belgian priest, astronomer and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Leuven. He proposed the theory of the expansion of the universe, widely misattributed to Edwin Hubble. He was the first to derive what is now known as Hubble 's law and made the first estimation of what is now called the Hubble constant, which he published in 1927, two years before Hubble's article. Lemaître also proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, which he called his "hypothesis of the primeval atom" or the "Cosmic Egg"._

It would seem this guy, who got his Ph.D. at MIT, was erased from history due to anti-religious bigotry, "Let there be light" maps too well into the Big Bang, as the Pope recognized (but took too far). Fred Hoyle was one such figure: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle#Rejection_of_the_Bi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle#Rejection_of_the_Big_Bang)

<comment><USER7> Of interesting historical note: Fr. Lemaître's studies of Einstein's theories were prompted by the encouragement of another churchman, Cardinal Mercier of Belgium.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9sir%C3%A9-Joseph_Mercie...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9sir%C3%A9-Joseph_Mercier)

Here is an English translation of the Cardinal's most important book, published in 1897:

 _The origins of contemporary psychology_

[https://archive.org/details/originsofcontemp00merciala](https://archive.org/details/originsofcontemp00merciala)

And the abstract for a review of the book, written in 1970:

[http://www.researchgate.net/publication/232491640_Review_of_...](http://www.researchgate.net/publication/232491640_Review_of_Les_origines_de_la_psychologie_contemporaine)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I absolutely love reading articles like this. Though I'm not passionate enough about the mathematics of physics enough to pursue it, the theories/science being done is absolutely amazing and I enjoy hearing and reading about it immensely. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER9> I was under the impression that direct detection of cosmic neutrinos would be a lot more informative than this indirect method. Anyone know more?

<comment><USER10> The article notes that we have enough trouble directly detecting neutrinos in the _mega_ -eV range, while the ones we need to measure for this purpose are in the _micro_ -eV range. Yes it would be more informative, but so hard that we assume direct measurement is practically impossible ... but the article describes an alternative method (phase-shift) of deducing temperature from other consequences of that value.

<comment><USER9> Yes I understand all that, but direct detection is definitely not impossible. The PTOLEMY experiment at Princeton is attempting to do just that, although it's very very hard. Might still be decades away.

[http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.4738](http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.4738)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was super excited when I started reading this article, I thought they were talking about a direct measurement of the CNB.

Right now, the CMB is as far back as we can see in time. That radiation originates from a time when the Universe was around 380,000 years old. The CNB originates from when the Universe was _two seconds_ old. A direct measurement of it would be an astounding achievement and would give us many new insights into how the Universe formed.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, such a measurement is extraordinarily unlikely. Neutrinos are extremely hard to detect, but the thing is there are different temperatures of neutrinos, and their detectability scales extremely non-linearly with temperature. Even with extremely high energy/temperature neutrinos from supernovae or stellar fusion we still only detect the faintest fraction of the vast quantity that flows through the detectors. The CNB is at a temperature of only a few Kelvin, and is made of extremely low energy neutrinos that are effectively impossible for us to detect, let alone study with current technology.

<comment><USER11> It is something being worked on, though [0]. Extremely difficult does not equate to impossible :)

0: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.03966](http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.03966)

<comment><USER12> That's why I said "effectively" impossible. There are so many orders of magnitude between what we can detect and what would be needed to study the CNB. It's hard to have hope that we'll ever be able to overcome that, though it'd be awesome if we could.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sounds like this isn't quite finished until we get the temperature confirmation.

</comment><comment><USER14> "Each one of these predictions, like a uniformly expanding Universe whose expansion rate was faster in the past..."

I thought that the universe's expansion was accelerating. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_universe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_universe)

<comment><USER15> The 'greater rate in the past' would correspond with the supposed inflationary model of the universe (a very fast expansion just after the big bang), only the wording here is a bit confusing.

For more info: [http://www.ctc.cam.ac.uk/outreach/origins/inflation_zero.php](http://www.ctc.cam.ac.uk/outreach/origins/inflation_zero.php)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Two degrees above absolute zero was never so hot.":)

</comment><comment><USER17> WTF. I can only suggest this summery:

[http://www.cosmology.info/newsletter/2014.05.pdf](http://www.cosmology.info/newsletter/2014.05.pdf)

If your model is correct, it must explain everything, not just some or most of it. Money Quote:

Each of these sets of problems could be, and in fact often are, dismissed as mere "anomalies" in an otherwise well-supported theory. But taken collectively they contradict all the predictions of the theory, leaving no support at all. The response of supporters of the Big Bang theory has been to continually add "parameters" to the theory to account for new discordant data.

For me, this hole theory is as logical as the flat earth theory. Compressing the hole universe, which is so huge (see hubble deep field) into a single point is just absurd.

<comment><USER18> [http://preposterousuniverse.blogspot.com/2005/05/alternative...](http://preposterousuniverse.blogspot.com/2005/05/alternative- cosmologies.html)

<comment><USER17> He does not go into detail to the referenced articles. Those are peer reviewed observations that do NOT fit. For example the huge Quasar cluster found in the 90s where many astronomers clearly state: this thing is old, very old, 50 to 100 billion years old. How does this fit 13 billion years timeframe ? The Brightness Surface does not match the distance: pleas explain that. The Li concentration does not fit the age of the stars,... The list goes on. He does not explain any of the phenomena, just attacking unsubstantial. If the Redshift is a comsological phenomena, and the Background temperature a signature of the Zero Point Energy (exists an QM as well), absolutely nothing speaks for the Big Bang Theory anymore.

I found BSM-SG the most logical model I have seen so far, so, I stumbled about nothing that does not fit into this model. We have a 2 major errors in our physical model that made the whole standard theory so utterly complex, non logical understandable (mathematical logic != classical logic) (common view under Theoretical physicists) and hardly explaining edge cases. From my experience nearly nobody sees it, because they work in a very narrow field...</comment></comment></comment>


"Anyone can start a Groupon" and other startup myths - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchenblog.com/2011/06/03/anyone-can-start-a-groupon-and-other-startup-myths

<comment><USER2> If I remember correctly, Groupon tested its idea via Wordpress.

Blogging software, such as Wordpress, is pretty ubiquitious.

Scaling a daily deals site might be difficult, but I don't think starting one is.

On the other hand, starting a search or energy company would be different.

<comment><USER3> I think for you, "starting a groupon" just implies the tech- the post acknowledges the trivial technical hurdle and argues that the real obstacle is the $30 per email sub. It's not real until you are actually making money on deals, and the cost per email is the real bottleneck.

<comment><USER2> <http://www.mamabargains.com>

<http://www.whiskeymilitia.com>

<http://woot.com>

<http://tippr.com>

<http://livingsocial.com>

<http://steepandcheap.com>

<http://bonktown.com>

<http://chainlove.com>

<http://dailyimprint.com>

<http://scopeaday.com>

<http://leatheraday.com>

<http://noondaydeal.com>

<http://1saleaday.com>

<http://14stix.com>

<http://2daysbargain.com>

<http://98main.com>

<http://appledod.com>

<http://babysteals.com>

<http://caddiesbag.com>

<http://camofire.com>

<http://chronoshark.com>

<http://cigarmonster.com>

<http://www.socialbuy.com>

<http://www.buywithme.com>

<http://homerun.com/seattle>

<comment><USER4> My first inclination on seeing this post was to look for a "report spam" link. Then I realized it's actually quite informative. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I generally agree with Andrew's posts but I disagree solely with respect to Groupon. In fact there _are_ tons of groupons, and as far as I can tell they're all going concerns with increasing revenues, email lists, and growing user bases. Here in Argentina, there are at least three others, not including the startup put together by four classmates...that was soon acquired by groupon becoming groupon.com.ar.

<comment><USER6> I don't think Andrew's being literal. Of course you could START a groupon tomorrow.

What he's saying is that 85 million subscribers at a current acquisition cost of $30 (!) is a helluva moat.

<comment><USER4> You can start a Groupon, but can you finish one?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't get the part about arbitrage of local ad inventory that's no longer available. Is he saying it's no longer available because all the Groupon competitors buying up the inventory?

<comment><USER8> Yep. I've seen it in some other industries as well, particularly with auction markets like AdWords. One company will figure out a novel PPC strategy that pays out considerably more in profit than than it costs to acquire a customer. If this strategy also scales, it's a license to print money for a time. Problem is, competitors notice and mimic the same strategy, bidding up the price of the ad units in question (keywords, what have you) until it cost of acquisition is very close to the lifetime value of the acquired customer. It's not so much that the competition buys up all the inventory (although that happens if you don't pay attention) but that the price of the good inventory soars for everyone. So more value gets captured by the publisher of the ad units and less by the buyer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> 4000 salespeople. The End.

</comment><comment><USER10> Correct, it's not that 'anyone can start a groupon'. But it's rather 'any website/app with a large enough reach in at least one or more local market can start a groupon service'.

\- yelp/gowalla/foursquare/scvngr/etc.

\- facebook/google/apple/microsoft/etc.

\- country-specific like rakuten/renren/yandex.

\- local-specific like eatla/sfgate/latimes.

Literally hundreds and thousands of well-established websites can do coupons. They just have to look up which stores already have done a group-buying deal before and contact them. And they can all undercut each other until probably they only take 2-3% and give the rest back to vendors.

No wonder Groupon wants to IPO RIGHT NOW.

<comment><USER11> Even though theoretically what you are saying is correct. In reality however the tremendous investment group on has done in the building up the sales power provides them with more defensibility than you would think.

For example - A vendor is parting away with some money for every new customers. She could have used the same money via adwords? Still lot of these merchants may not have even tried adwords before. There in comes the power of having reach to direct markets.

Of course sales power doesnot provide as good protection against competition as technology or even UX, but that does not mean we can write off Group on that easily as well.

<comment><USER10> What?</comment></comment></comment>