What software will you trust when you get senile? - <AUTHOR> https://www.lifepim.com/blog/5856_What_software_will_you_trust_when_you_get_senile <comment><USER2> I've just spent three days with my mother. She is in a care home. She has Alzheimer's, a cat and a laptop. She's pretty sharp still but sinking.

The laptop throws up some warning screen on bootup about the power adapter and recommends to go into BIOS to stop the warning. I wrote out the instructions: just ignore and click continue. She's locked on that screen obsessing.

Anyway she doesn't have the password, so the computer is useless.

She can't stop trying though. She's shamed by not being able to use it.

If she could get in then the frustrations would only increase.

The cat is great though.

Planning tech for Alzheimer's is like designing UI for people on acid. You have no idea how confusing things can get and how silly your interface and assumptions are.

<comment><USER3> My grandmother spent the last years of her life deep in the fog of Alzheimers. Unfortunately, I can't imagine any level of tech beyond the _most basic_ supervisory and assistive care would have helped in her case. (She thought, and had many violent incidents as a result of thinking, that I was her dead husband, among other things)

My only silver lining is that she was too far gone to feel any of that frustration. She lived in a different world from the rest of us near the end.

I say this because your last sentence stuck with me in that context. I'd say it's even harder than acid, the fundamental precepts of how your brain functions have begun to break down, and my focus, at least with preparing myself philosophically for this path and in brainstorming assistive capabilities, is on ways to integrate tech "invisibly." Even the most basic things, better monitoring for incidents, the ability to detect the need for assisted care before it became urgent, mechanisms to bridge gaps caused by the loss of individual competence without requiring new skill sets and learning.

I was only a child when I was exposed to the bulk of this, so sincere apologies if any of the above seems to come from a weird point of view, I realize it can be a sensitive subject.

<comment><USER2> Higher doses of acid and bad trips result in intense pattern transfer. In my youth I've had the ink boil off the page as I wrote, confusion as to how many people I am, and one time I couldn't understand cause and effect for a few hours. There really is no UI for people that don't comprehend the arrow of causality.

There is a woman at my mother's home. She had run a company, now she's in an advanced stage of AD. She wanted to pitch an idea to me to see if I would go into business with her. It was something that went around and around and around and it looks at you. Eventually I figured out that she had been looking at a rainbow windmill on the balcony and had transferred that into some cosmic invention.

Her other idea was for a place where people could meet to work on ideas and build electronics. Especially for young women. That's a makerspace ! I found one in high Wycombe and considered contacting them to see if any women makers wanted to visit this fascinating old woman.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's last month. He's had symptoms for a couple of years, but as an engineer with a pretty high cognitive reserve he compensated with systems, rituals, and routines, but, mostly, paper systems.

In the 30 years since my grandmother died from Alzheimer's, we haven't made much progress on treatment. I'm now looking ahead about 30 years to the age when my father and his mother both experienced the onset of symptoms and I'm thinking about how I might compensate, keep myself aware of my condition, and remain functional for longer. As a software developer who already relies heavily on software systems to keep life organized, I expect software will play a large role for me.

I believe there's already a market for technology widgets for cognitively impaired people. Dad still likes to surf the internet to read the news and do research about his condition. It would be handy if I could sandbox him a little. Is there a way to rig a browser so a user can't buy anything online? That would be handy.

As wearable tech -- and in 30 years perhaps implantable tech -- advances, I can envision many devices and software aids for those with cognitive decline.

Would be nice, though, if I didn't need any of that because the next 30 years yields an effective treatment or cure.

<comment><USER5> I've thought about this a lot too. My grandparents stayed mostly functional into their late 80s, but I've developed a really high cognitive load for a few decades and experienced some pretty severe sleep deprivation for a couple of them. There's some genetic predisposition, too. I expect to be semi-functional but forgetful in old age.

So, gradually, I've been building out a software architecture which I hope will be able to help. A simple text-based interface to start, some basic NLP, the ability to interface with a lot of different services. I want something familiar, with not too many dependencies (which is why it's not a web-based interface), that's forgiving of spelling and other errors.

<comment><USER6> Wait, learning more stuff makes Alzheimer's Disease worse off later? I get sleep deprivation, sure, but I'd have thought that if there is more stuff to forget, you'd be able to 'last longer'.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, I didn't word that right. You're correct, the current literature suggests that there's a correlation between mental "exercise" and a reduced risk of Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia.

However, there appears to be a link between stress and stress-related hormones and increased amyloid accumulation ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2905685/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2905685/)), so if the amyloid theory for dementia is correct, then there's a fine line between "fun" cognitive load and stressful cognitive load.

<comment><USER6> Ahh! So a 'relaxed' style of reading and learning is the way to go then. Not under a deadline, so to speak. Need to get that cortisol out of the system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've thought about this recently. My grandfather has been struggling with some senility like problems. He tends to leave his house in an attempt to "go home" and wander off somewhere and then suddenly realize he's in the middle of nowhere and doesn't know how to get home.

When I think about developing such conditions myself it doesn't seem like it would be as much of a problem for me. If I suddenly came to cognition in the middle of nowhere with no idea where I was I'd immediately use my phone and Google maps to find the way back or Uber if it was far away. Likewise, if I found myself in an unfamiliar place and had a compulsion to "go home" I assume I'd try to use Google maps to find my home, and when it pointed to my current location I might dig into my recent photos and notes to discover messages to myself that I actually do live here and have been having memory problems and what I should do is sit in a chair and wait for a bit.

I hope the advance in technology and the extent to which my phone is part of my life and mind will make me more resilient to some of the harms of old age.

<comment><USER8> From what I've seen, once you reach your grandfather's age, you too will have the same problem he does -- the inability to reason your way out of the problem. My father has reached a similar state of mind recently, and I'm not at all sure how to address it and fill the void it created, especially since he never was very fluent with tech (computers or cell phones), and he lives alone.

Ten years ago your grandfather would have done what anyone without a GPS does -- he'd retrace his steps, or bring a map, or ask someone how to get home. But the problem now is that these things don't occur to him; his mind is no longer self sufficient; he's confused.

I think the only _tech_ solution is for him to be able to speak aloud, "Take me home", and hopefully there's a device in his hand (or strapped to his arm) that understands his words and can tell him exactly what to do. Or it can send a message to a rescue team which comes to get him.

At some point in life, when your mind is no longer able to think rationally, I believe your digital assistant will have to take charge completely -- listening to your voice and telling you exactly what to do or calling help for you. Hoping to restore lost cognitive skills via the right kind of device or app is not a plan that scales well with a declining mind.

<comment><USER9> I think you're on the correct track, but in this case the default state should be assumed to be one of failure.

It needs to operate like a deadman switch, and if out of prescribed safety bounds require active feedback of intent and will to not trigger stages of reaction. Contacting family/friends, and/or emergency responders if the situation is critical or at risk of becoming so.

<comment><USER10> Personally, I doubt I would get along well with an assistant that was keeping score of all the times I was wrong, and always questioning my abilities based on that.

"Dave, you have lost your wallet exactly 19 times in the previous 29 years. It was underneath your car's seat exactly 17 of those times. Why are you checking the couch for the third time? You are showing signs of dementia. Should I call your brother for assistance?"

...

You know, I typed the first part out with an honest oposition to the idea of an "assumed failure" state, but the situation I came up with just makes it look more appropriate. Expecting the software to tell the difference between all my normal insane things and genuine dementia seems impossible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the crucial point is you have to develop the habit before the disease sets in.

I've found the Apple Watch works well because I can set reminders in the watch for someone with memory issues and they already have the habit of looking at their watch.

Similarly it would be useful to be able to print something that looks like a newspaper with today's agenda because they have the habit of reading news.

They tend to trust everything so the main hygiene is having a trusted person running the show.

<comment><USER12> Have fun with the updates then...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> See

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1990314/?ref_=ttnw_hd](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1990314/?ref_=ttnw_hd)

I would not at all agree that "today's old people aren't fluent with technology."

My Aunt Lucy in a nursing home just got a phone, she thinks Facebook is just great so she keep track of what the rest of the family is doing.

Those "chumboxes" on the internet play to the fears and biases of the old and you'd better believe somebody clicks on them.

Back in 2001 I went to Carthage, NY to learn how to drive draft horses and all of the old ladies were sitting at a cafe and talking about "AOL" and "Instant Messenger" and "Netscape" and all of that.

<comment><USER14> _I would not at all agree that "today's old people aren't fluent with technology."_

Today's old people wrote the software your bank probably still relies on today. In ten years, you're going to be talking about _me_ , one of the ones who saved you from Y2K, wrote software you have likely used (if you've used Windows or Visual Studio, you've used my bits), wrote mobile phone software you might be using even today, and you better hope I was having a good day when I wrote that routine controlling the programmable logic controller in the nuke plant down the road. So in ten years old people will magically be fluent in technology? No, no more than your nephew can help set up that network because he spends all day on Facebook. Techies have always been a subset of the population, always will be. But that doesn't mean the "normals" can't use what we produce. That also doesn't mean that "produce" has anything relation to "consume". I don't know the first thing about making a movie, but I do love watching one.

People drive cars without knowing what the Otto cycle is. People use microwaves without knowing how to use a compiler for the IMX6 chip driving it. People can use Facebook without knowing how to write a _for_ loop in PHP. But it wasn't always this way. You _used_ to have to know something about the Otto cycle to drive, or you'd burn the tops of your pistons off when you advanced the spark too much with the manual lever. You better know where in the compression cycle to start hand cranking the engine for maximum success (and minimal arm-breakage). But that's because (take your pick) the technology sucked, or simply wasn't ready for prime time. My wife and I were talking about why women didn't generally drive "back then". Manual transmissions, right? No, women drive stick just fine, ya pigs. But that's what I've heard. Reality: power steering. Anyone with a left leg and a right arm (and I have evidence that you don't even need the arm) can push a pedal and move a lever. But turning our '81 VW out of a tight parking space at low speed? Yeah, you better sack up and get a good grip on that steering wheel. Moving 4000 lbs. of steel around wasn't quite ready to be accessible to everyone.

My long-winded point is that old people will be fine with technology. But here's a tip for all you up-and-comers: make sure your product is not yet- another-thing-I-have-to-fuck-with. Old people don't get technology? No, old people have a low tolerance for yak shaving. Why did VCRs flash "12:00" back in the day? A sign of technological doltishness? No, it's a sign that first sentence in "how to set the clock" is, "grab a set of trimming shears..." Fuck it, it can just flash. Your device randomly needs a reset every X number of days because you outsourced the firmware development? Fuck it, back in the box it goes. You get the idea. I can barely remember to take my pills, and you're giving me something _else_ that needs regular attention?

<comment><USER15> THIS.

The older I get, the less willing I am to waste time on yak-shaving bullshit. Make it difficult or tedious, and I'll just dump your product and go do something else with my precious time and attention.

<comment><USER16> I do the same, but I do NOT think my patience has decreased. Perhaps not being able to deal with "yak shaving" is a sign of cognitive decline, but because the truth hurts, we say we don't have time for such things (e.g., I have no time to recompile a kernel! I just want a computer that works, give me a Mac!). In our youth, complexity was fun because we were able to takle it easily.

<comment><USER17> > Perhaps not being able to deal with "yak shaving" is a sign of cognitive > decline, but because the truth hurts, we say we don't have time for such > things (e.g., I have no time to recompile a kernel! I just want a computer > that works, give me a Mac!). In our youth, complexity was fun because we > were able to takle it easily.

My first computer ran Windows XP. I was 12 years old at the time and was curious about learning how it worked. I messed around, broke the install, fixed it by using the rescue floppy. From my mistakes I learned quite a bit, as one tends to do.

About 6 years later, when I started using Linux and FreeBSD, once again I messed around a lot in order to learn about these operating systems and how things worked. And once again I learned from the mistakes that I made.

I have now been running Linux and FreeBSD almost exclusively for the past 10 years, and I will keep using these OSes for as long into the future as I can imagine, but...

When my systems break these days, it's a chore. Because when something broke back when I was new to these things, it was an opportunity for learning. But if I render my system unbootable due to an oversight during system upgrade for example, there is really nothing new to learn from that anymore.

And that is what it boils down to for me, and why certain things made sense to spend time on before, whereas now those same things don't.

I am willing to put in a lot of hours on something that will either earn me the right amount of money, teach me something new or better yet, both, but really it was always like that — I put in the time on certain things then that I won't today because back then I still needed to learn about _that_ thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm not so sure about the point that the software would need to not change.

This will be really interesting to see play out as digital natives age. One school of thought is that we've learned a new generation of things, another school of thought is that what we've learned is the skill of coping with constant/rapid change.

So would an app UI changing throw off a mentally declining digital native? Or would they just relive the same excitement every day that their app got an update and has a whole new UI.

As futurist Alvin Toffler said:

> The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and > write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.

<comment><USER19> My grandmother (96) suffers from dementia but consistently recognizes me. My visual appearance has changed but it seems like if it's slow and gradual enough, it would be okay.

In my opinion, the ability to learn is one of the skills that is hit hard by dementia. The inability to string moments together and view them as a whole makes learning something new a real challenge and the longer it takes to do the thing, the more likely it is that it will simply be un-learnable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Honestly, a google home or something similar seems to be the right way to go - while it's not "secure", it's incredibly intuitive, can't be misplaced, and has most of the functionality you'll need, and I imagine as time passes it'll develop a lot of the rest.

<comment><USER21> The elderly are certainly the natural use case for voice interfaces and IoT services, since they're a group of people that often find basic household tasks and using a GUI and handheld interface genuinely difficult. I think there's an enormous market there for the right products.

But I suspect the mobility-impaired and the lonely-and-bored are more easily served than those with declining cognitive functions. Once people have reached the stage where they're starting to not recognise people or remember what year it is, [re]discovering a disembodied voice in their living room that _sometimes_ answers questions intelligibly and/or does what they ask of it could be a bit disturbing. The UX problem is much harder than simply ensuring the service doesn't make buggy recommendations, and not an easy one to test.

<comment> crooked-v > Once people have reached the stage where they're starting to not recognise > people or remember what year it is, [re]discovering a disembodied voice in > their living room that sometimes answers questions intelligibly and/or does > what they ask of it could be a bit disturbing.

On the other hand, there are people who exist now who will, in old age, have had helpful (but occasionally stupid) disembodied computer voices around since childhood.

<comment><USER21> True, but they're not the main market.

And I don't think the main problem is that elderly people have never been familiar with the idea of a disembodied voice; radio's been around since before everyone was born. I think it's that (i) it's not necessarily smart or human enough to persuade someone with declining mental functions that it has their best interests at heart and (ii) one of the more distressing aspects of talking to someone with declining cognitive function is that their perception of the day and their problems are often filled with conversations they didn't have (or didn't have in the last decade). Putting a machine into the equation which conceivably could have been responsible for "John told me NOT to take my pills" or "someone keeps asking me for money" makes untangling this more difficult for family, as well as something the machine itself can't handle (though I suppose smart devices with logging and "rewind/replay" functions are a lot better than telephones with scam callers in that respect)

<comment><USER22> I think this comment hits the mark; making a voice assistant to help a nonagenarian who thinks it's time to get ready for school, or to send out invitations for a long-ago child's birthday party, is a distinct challenge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think the future could be radically different from what we see now, depending on technological advances. 'Phones' with 'Apps' is one thing, but a genuinely smart system which could have tendrils into your phone, your watch, in your robot helper, or just being aware of what you do around the house and have a voice would be a game changer for old people and certainly I would expect things to go that way in the next 30 years.

I saw a film a few years ago, 'Robot and Frank' which was set in the near future where such systems were becoming available. Frank would have perhaps been 40-50 now and while he had used technology he was not comfortable with the robot his son got him. At least this film educated my partner about the possibilities of such systems and/or software without being too fantastical (Robot is a little clunky, compared to Ava from Ex Machina)

</comment><comment><USER24> I think something like MS-DOS. A CLI is good, because it gives you a record of what happened, but Unix-style shells are packed with foot-guns as documented in the Unix-Hater's Handbook[0]. Even with a healthy mind I've lost data to incorrect quoting. MS-DOS is simpler. Lack of multitasking helps too.

[0] [https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~weise/uhh- download.html](https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~weise/uhh-download.html)

<comment><USER25> This handbook expresses so many things I've felt, I'm surprised I've never come across it before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If I'm senile I'll probably trust all software.

<comment><USER20> Or you'll be demanding that the toaster tells you the weather.

<comment><USER27> It will by then.

<comment><USER28> It will by NOW:

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

> The toasteroid app, on the other hand, has several features you can enjoy. > This is needed to be downloaded in order to work the toasteroid product. > There's a weather news here where you can check the status of the weather > daily.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/258723592/toasteroid- fi...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/258723592/toasteroid-first-app- controlled-smart-image-toaste)

<comment><USER20> They just missed their "adjustable brownness dial" stretch goal! Oh, what a fickle lot millenials are!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> There's a movie that touches on this very topic and references many of the requirements listed in TFA. It's quite good:

"Robot & Frank" (2012) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1990314/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1990314/)

</comment><comment><USER30> I think this is a very important question. The amount of elderly people is about to rise. Also, in The Netherlands (where I live) at least, it's a fairly wealthy group of the population.

I see a business opportunity that is worth it from a societal and financial perspective.

</comment><comment><USER31> Why an app? Friends and family should be making these decisions and helping out. There's no need for a technological solution. I get life isn't perfect and neither are people, but that means software isn't either.

<comment><USER15> Just how much are friends and family expected to attend to someone whose mind is in decline?

My grandfather had Alzheimer's. We attended to him more and more as he got worse and worse. But one day, he went down to the basement while grandma was napping, and was doing _something_ that involved a chunk of wood and a piece of pipe in a vise, heating it with a torch while beating on it with a hammer. Luckily, it just set off the smoke alarms and the fire department came. He could have burned the house down with him and grandma in it. That's what happens when you leave someone with Alzheimer's unsupervised for a few minutes.

If software can help when they aren't being actively supervised, I'm all for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I installed Ubuntu on the PC of an elderly relative in mental decline who kept downloading malicious software. It's worked quite well. She just needs a browser and has no reason to use the terminal or anything.

<comment><USER15> I gave my mother a Chromebook for the same reason. I'd given her a Windows machine before, and she was constantly calling because she'd click on whatever random toxic shit promised her something for free or warned her of dire consequences or whatever, so her machine was basically a cesspool. Since she got a Chromebook, I haven't had to do any tech support. Win!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is an important and difficult problem to think about. It's great that the author is making the effort.

However, the article doesn't mention any caregivers. If you instead assume that there are caregivers involved, how would the assumptions about what software is useful change?

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here - having caregivers certainly changes it, but I was focusing on a possible technical solution in addition to caregivers.

It would still be nice to have some impartial device tell you or confirm that what is going on, is actually going on.

<comment><USER33> One thing to consider is that at the point when it becomes difficult to do everything on your own, family or caregivers or whoever is helping you need to understand whatever devices you're using and help you use them. Maybe privacy becomes impractical and other considerations like good record keeping become more important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'll trust some beautiful fem-robot that says she likes me for who I am and that I make her laugh and tells me how lucky my late wife was and that no she needs the bank account details just so she can wire the car down payment I've been taking about to my granddaughter and how she's sure my daughter wants power of attorney to get control and feed a fentanyl habit and that yes even though I've had two heart attacks a trip to Bali would do me good.

I'm f*cked.

</comment><comment><USER35> IMHO, today's software (particularly on mobile) is barely usable for adults, so the best software for young children and the very old is no software.

</comment><comment><USER36> I won't trust anything other than my own fears at the moment and nothing will convince me otherwise at that point. Dementia ruins everything.

<comment><USER37> > Dementia ruins everything.

I like to think that it makes everything a lot more interesting. Just like I like to think that, if I ever found myself falling through the atmosphere for some reason beyond my control, I would enjoy skydiving once before I die, since I would never jump out of a perfectly good plane. I'm sure I'm wrong in both cases, but I'm perfectly happy being an eternal optimist right now.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If anyone has any links to existing products, or organisations looking at this stuff let please post details here (or email me) and I'll update the references on the blog post.

I didn't find much at all in terms of software, but we need to at least try some things.

I made a start a few years ago - just a shell really to try and work out the requirements in my head [https://github.com/acutesoftware/acute- experiments/tree/mast...](https://github.com/acutesoftware/acute- experiments/tree/master/ITNOBAM)

If you want to contribute, or share any code you've done I think you should. It would nice if we could work together on this.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm more interested in the lead-in period before one is senile but when the brain (memory in particular) isn't what it used to be.

I'd love sidekick software that helps remember things and can be queried very quickly and easily.

</comment><comment><USER39> Reminded me of this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand)

</comment><comment><USER40> One of the things I worry about is the web itself. I've had more experiences with elderly folks being confused by deceptive advertising and intrusive advertising than anything. Pop up ads, auto-playing videos, etc.

To me, the internet trash of advertising is more of a roadblock to the elderly/senile.

</comment><comment><USER41> I wonder if it will even be a problem for me? I've spent my whole life learning how to create and use new interfaces, so hopefully I'll retain the ability to do so as I age? Or maybe AI will have advanced so much that it understands even my most incoherent request?

<comment><USER42> I think your facility in creating/using new interfaces won't be much of a protective factor. I think your being, say, less than 35 years old at the moment would be much more important. By the time you're 65+, there's a reasonable chance there will be effective, affordable treatments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> The same as Ken Thompson, that which I write entirely myself, senility be damned.

</comment><comment> Iwan-Zotow If I'll become senile I'll trust each and every piece of software

</comment><comment><USER44> They will fish for us senile with emulated win xp or console popups

</comment><comment><USER45> vim...since I'll still be trying to figure out how to exit it.

<comment><USER46> A nice seclusion room!

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> If you were old and senile, your Auntie who called would be ancient.. And BTW some older people use lots of apps, I probably have more than 100 on my iPhone. But I can't remember what they are for.. (Just kidding ..)

<comment><USER48> I realize you're probably joking, but it's possible (common, even?) to have an aunt/uncle who is younger than you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Probably all of it.

</comment><comment><USER50> I think Apple and Google products as they are the simplest without dark patterns.

<comment><USER51> well if you include facebook in that group, they already know everything about you and can fill in any gaps that you've lost.

<comment><USER20> "I see your seventh grade boyfriend's wife just died, maybe you two should reconnect?"</comment></comment></comment>


ISS astronaut uses 3D printer to make socket wrench in space - <AUTHOR> http://theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/20/iss-astronaut-uses-3d-printer-to-make-socket-wrench-in-space

<comment><AUTHOR> _"... Engineers at Made in Space, which built the experimental printer, overheard space station astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore mention on the radio that he needed a socket wrench. The company used computer-aided design (CAD) to draw up plans, produced an earthbound version of the spanner for safety certification by Nasa, then had the plans relayed to the ISS, where it took four hours to print out the finished product. ..."_

The future is here, it's just distributed unevenly.</comment>


As Cell Service Expands, National Parks Become Digital Battlegrounds - <AUTHOR> http://www.govtech.com/network/As-Cell-Service-Expands-National-Parks-Become-Digital-Battlegrounds.html <comment><USER2> "Industrial Tourism is a threat to the national parks. But the chief victims of the system are the motorized tourists. They are being robbed and robbing themselves. So long as they are unwilling to crawl out of their cars they will not discover the treasures of the national parks and will never escape the stress and turmoil of those urban-suburban complexes which they had hoped, presumably, to leave behind for a while."

― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness

</comment><comment><USER3> The last thing I want to hear when hiking in a park is someone else's phone ringtone, much less the conversation afterwards. But the point about needing communications for rescue is a good one. Perhaps there could be lockers at the park entrance where you swap your phone for a PLB.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position- indicating_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position- indicating_radiobeacon_station)

</comment><comment><USER4> In the national park in NZ where I have done most of my tramping, there is limited cell reception around the main village in the park (population 38), and the mountains surrounding this village are where 90% of overseas visitors experience the park - and get into trouble.

The introduction of that cell coverage, limited to the one valley as it is, dramatically decreased the amount of search and rescue call-outs with helicopters etc., often people can be guided off the mountain by phone.

I miss the wilderness aspect in that area - getting texted an hour above the bushline is weird, but luckily I have plenty of other valleys to choose from.

So yeah, limit it to the rescue hotspots, I reckon.

</comment><comment><USER5> I realize I'm an edge case, but as someone who loves both hiking and location- based games (Ingress! Pokemon Go! Geocaching!) this would be awesome! No more having to download a ton of offline maps on my phone, and all those National/State park portals are no longer inaccessible :)

</comment><comment><USER6> > First responders support the plans

Why can't they just put towers that allow emergency calls only?

<comment><USER7> Or towers just for UHF/VHF radio repeaters? Doesn't require fiber backhaul and can be run on solar.

<comment><USER8> This already exists in many parks. Which is why it's slightly puzzling that first responders would be stumping for this.

<comment><USER7> My guess is that hikers don't carry a UHF/VHF radio, don't know how to use it, or don't know the right channel to call for help. Most people have a GSM/CDMA phone to call for help.

So, not so much help for the first responder's communication, but helping to alert the first responders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hiking and backpacking is my time to unplug and tune into nature. I bring my smart phone with me but only use it for photos. If cell phone reception were available, I still wouldn't use it.

I've hiked all over North America in front and back country. The people who hike beyond the first half mile of trail aren't the type to ruin their time outdoors with cell phones.

I suspect the Telecom providers are lobbying for this. The language really screams special interest:. "advocates for increased cell service, including many NPS officials, say the parks can't cling to an earlier era"

Who the hell are these Advocates, other than Telecom providers, their lobbyists, and Alphabet?

Also, no one in the NPS is advocating cell phone reception. They've gotten on just fine without it. They are afraid of being fired by the Trump stasi for speaking truthfully, though.

<comment><USER10> >If cell phone reception were available, I still wouldn't use it.

Yes you would - if it were a matter of saving someone's life.

I agree with you about unplugging to the point I don't want to see anyone out there if I can help it, but there's there are a lot of interests to balance here.

<comment><USER9> You don't extend cell phone coverage across millions of acres of protected national park space for edge cases like "saving someone's life". How many deaths in National Parks in the last 10 years can be attributed to lack of cell phone coverage? You've just made up a non-issue. There aren't, as you say, a lot of interests to balance in this case. Your argument is like that used by the State about exercising its massive surveillance project for the sake of catching child molesters. Sure, some good will be made but at great cost and for primary motives other than those brought to light.

<comment><USER10> The point is, you misspoke, you would use it.

By other factors I mean I prefer to judge it based on the impact rather than the concept. What would it mean to the environment, the beauty, the silence, the safety however insignificant you want to make it.

For you it seems to be an issue of principle, for me it's matter of what would be the real and practical effects. If it's as bad as you're suggesting I'd be against it, but not for spiritual reasons.

<comment><USER11> Wouldn't each and every person use it were it available? But we accept risk when we go into national parks. They are intended to be wilderness. They are not your town park and this is posted many times throughout them.

The idea that it might "Save just one" makes it a viable option is false. Danger is a beautiful part of nature and destroying the last vestiges of Earth as close to beyond human influence as possible in order to cover edge cases is ignorant of the realities of life.

We don't mourn the wing-suiters who crash into mountains on their flights. The same for the people who venture into dangerous territory. Otherwise, where is the limit for abdicating the responsibility of our own safety?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Density of visitors and their respect for the resources, seem more important that whether or not cellular exists (leaving aside visual impact since it was not described). Lots of voice call pollution can only come from lots of people.

Besides what's the point when within a few years, multiple next gen satellite systems will be up that make that avenue a lot more practical than it is today.

Regulate traffic, visual and environmental impact, noise pollution, whatever. If all of that is done right what's the benefit of cutting off what will actually save a few lives over the years?

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't get it... So you might be hiking and overhear a conversation? Does it matter if that conversation is between two other hikers or a hiker on a phone? The outdoors might sound like McDonald's? Other than the signs of the kitchen I've never thought of McDonald's as noisy places. Most people are eating and chatting with their meal mates. I guess I don't find a phone much different than noiser than two people chatting. As far a ringtones go, how often do you hear them. Go to a city park... How many ringtones do you hear? This is such a non issue.

</comment><comment><USER13> We need to have places where there is no cell coverage. We just have to have that. The alternative is a world where we never can get away, ever.

<comment><USER14> Where I am in the northeast right now, it's about -15°F. There are roads passing through unpopulated areas of National Forest that have no cell service. If you break down along these roads and no one drives by to help, what in warmer climates would be just an unfortunate inconvenience would leave you frozen to death by dawn.

We shouldn't compromise safety because we lack the self control to turn on Do Not Disturb mode.

<comment><USER15> Sounds like an EPIRB for the car would be a good investment.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position- indicating_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position- indicating_radiobeacon_station)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In the long run someone will eventually succeed in building out a low-cost satellite communications service. At that point any objections to cellular service in national parks will become mostly moot. SpaceX is making plans to deploy a constellation to compete with Iridium. They might not succeed right away but launch costs are dropping every year.

<comment><USER17> OneWeb and SpaceX are both planning pizza-box sized antennae.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I support more towers but agree there should be limitations. If they were private towers, requiring people to pay a fee to the park for data, then that would cut down on use. However all emergency traffic is free. Might also help in geolocating or triangulation of people who are lost.</comment>


Ask HN: Need to generate a magnetic field with a Pi Zero W - <AUTHOR> I'm new to electronic and in need to generate a magnetic field I can read value with a Raspberry Pi Zero W. Where should I start ? The object I need to track is very, very fast moving (near 100 km/h) and have ferrite in it. I would enjoy your feedback on the matter. The object can be close to the detector (near 2-3 cm) or far (20-30 cm). <comment><USER2> You might look into a magnetometer:

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

[https://www.adafruit.com/product/1120](https://www.adafruit.com/product/1120)

Here's link to a video I made about using one to create an HTML5 animated compass:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YW6HWJg4f4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YW6HWJg4f4)

Here's a link to code I used and some install instructions for the Pi:

[http://www.raspberryperl.com/compass/](http://www.raspberryperl.com/compass/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your feedback. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the magnetometer is only for measuring the earth's electromagnetic field, right ? What if I want to detect metal nearby, does the same chip will be OK for the task ?

<comment><USER2> No, it will detect a nearby magnetic field. I had to try that just for fun when I had mine hooked up.</comment></comment></comment>


A package for verifying Google reCaptcha v3 responses in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/HazCod/go-recaptcha <comment><USER2> Please don't push recaptcha. It's awful for those of us who are concerned about privacy and use Tor, vpn, or noscript.</comment>


Coding for Startup Founders – Learn to Code by Cloning Real-Life Startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.codingfounders.com/ <comment><USER2> I hope this doesn't just involve cloning the same functionality in Rails and ignoring optimizations and cleverness of the actual product</comment>


The Advanced Persistent Threat You Have: Google Chrome [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.netsq.com/Documents/GoogleAPT.pdf <comment><USER2> This seems like a good paper that isn't actually about something wrong with Chrome. It's about what security tools need to do to track auto-updating software.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "Making of" paper is here: [http://www.netsq.com/Documents/MakingOfGoogleAPT.pdf](http://www.netsq.com/Documents/MakingOfGoogleAPT.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> I found the paper very eye-opening, but perhaps I missed the "moral" of the story. I understand that Google's auto updater can behave similarly to a malicious utility by an APT, but what recourse or mitigation techniques are available? According to the paper, each step individually is indistinguishable from benign activity. Techniques for identifying the end result of the activity and flagging it as suspicious are omitted (or perhaps I missed them).

</comment><comment><USER4> Presumably Chrome and its updater are digitally signed... not that that stops malware but at least it is another layer.

</comment><comment><USER5> Others are dumping Chrome for similar reasons: [http://www.extremetech.com/computing/210576-why-im- dumping-g...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/210576-why-im-dumping- google-chrome)

</comment><comment><USER6> The paper is dated 18-Apr-2012

</comment><comment><USER7> total FUD .. nothing gets updated here unless I want it to. And why isn't the Microsoft software updater or your AV updater considered an equal threat. Who paid for this 'study'.

</comment><comment><USER8> I can't read through the pages and pages of grandstanding in this PDF, does this at all have some sort of escape of a security boundary, or is it just "I found a weird way to hack myself"?

<comment><USER9> It's not about hacking; it's about threat modeling using a widespread and well-understood implementation that behaves similarly in many ways to a real threat. Basically, if your APT identification tech can't detect Google Chrome updates being pushed out over your network, you won't be able to detect real malicious actors. A true threat would act in a very similar way, except the payload would be more malicious than Chrome updates.

It's an interesting thought experiment; but no, there are no concrete conclusions.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you guys go about advertising your software? - <AUTHOR>

What are some effective techniques you guys use to advertise your products?  mTurk?  network with bloggers in your space? <comment><USER2> What kind of software? You do different things for Windows desktop app than Mac desktop app than iOS app than a website.

Furthermore, how you do advertising highly depends on what kind of product it is.

Advertising a website for plumbers would be completely different than advertising a website for dentists.

Finally, the methods aren't really that complicated:

* try adwords (and other kinds of advertising networks, like facebook)

* try content oriented marketing (i.e. write about things related to your software and hope someone will notice)

It's just that neither method is a sure way to get attention.</comment>


New book reveals Apple's Steve Jobs mentored Google co-founders - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/04/09/new_book_reveals_apples_steve_jobs_was_targeted_for_role_of_google_ceo.html <comment><USER2> BS mythmaking mostly taken from a tabloid's sensationalist take on the book [1]. For one, the whole "Larry & Sergei asked Jobs to be CEO" story has been around for a long time and has been so blown out of proportion you'd think Steve had an office at Mountain View instead of the few meetings and offhand remarks that really occured. And the whole hiding the iPad from Schmidt seems deceptive in a few ways. For one, it was well known that Schmidt would often be asked to leave meetings if a conflict of interest was to be discussed. And for another, Google would have to be purposefully ignoring the outside world to be surprised that Apple was releasing a tablet.

1: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1375121/In- Th...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1375121/In-The-Plex-New- book-Google-released-fall-China-Steve-Jobs.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> The publishers are trying to force people to buy the dead tree version of this book by delaying the release of the Kindle version. They've already lost a chance to take my money twice now (the number of times I've been on the Kindle page ready to click "buy now"). I could preorder but I want to read a sample first.

I'll probably buy it when it comes out because I love Stephen Levy, but if I was any less interested, there's a good chance that they would have just lost a sale.

When are publishers going to realize simultaneous release just makes it easier for people to buy things?

</comment><comment><USER4> The book cited as source is from the same author as "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution", which I really enjoyed reading.</comment>


Tesla Announces $500M Common Stock Offering - <AUTHOR> http://ir.teslamotors.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=927533 <comment><USER3> This is a timely announcement following chatter about Tesla's cash flow problems[1][2].

[1] [http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/1846965/tesla...](http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/1846965/tesla- shares-fall-wider-loss-ceo-comments-cash-need)

[2]Flagged HN thread from 3 days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10030101](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10030101)

<comment><USER4> Why was that thread "flagged"? What does that mean?

<comment><USER5> The thread was flagged because the pro-Tesla crowd on HN felt that the article was inaccurate regarding the amount of money Tesla lost on each car, and flagged it over wording.

Tesla makes money on each car it sells (sales exceeds cost of goods sold), but once fixed costs and other expenses like R&D and capital investments are included, it has an enormous loss, so _on average_ it loses about $4000 to $17000 per car (depending on whether you use Unicorn Accounting or Generally Accepted Accounting Practices). The article reported this as Tesla losing $4000 per car, which is accurate in a general/layman's sense but is technically inaccurate.

<comment><USER6> I'm going to have to start using the "unicorn accounting" phrase (vs. GAAP). Love it.

<comment><USER7> It's nice but it kinda hints that GAAP is "the right thing", which is a bit too optimistic IMO.

<comment><USER8> Particularly when you look at any company which is growing very fast. SolarCity would be an example where the company is growing exponentially, but the returns are spread over 20 years instead of being realized quarterly.

<comment><USER7> Well, accounting is not supposed to tell how valuable a company is, just what its balance sheet is, right? That people then take the balance sheet and invent ways to mechanically arrive at a valuation based on that is not GAAP's or any other accounting rules' fault.

The trouble with any accounting rules is that it's hard to convert everything on the balance sheet into the same unit. If you don't convert it all, it's really hard to compare balance sheets. If you do convert it all, this conversion may be unfair to one balance sheet more than another. Or at least that's how I understand it...

One example is pricing stock option grants so that you can then add them up with other expenses. I'm sincerely not sure how I'd do that. Here's a critique of what GAAP mandates:

[http://www.cypress.com/documentation/ceo-articles/dr- rodgers...](http://www.cypress.com/documentation/ceo-articles/dr-rodgers- speech-silicon-valley-rally-supporting-employee-equity-let- our?source=search&keywords=options%20go)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They just mass emailed Model S customers to reduce Super Charging.

[https://i.imgur.com/ruKYVHF.png](https://i.imgur.com/ruKYVHF.png)

[http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/51482-Supercha...](http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/51482-Supercharging- letter-from-Tesla-2015-8-13)

<comment><USER10> Wow, so just ~2 weeks ago when I visited the Tesla show room in Toronto Canada, in response to my concern, "My condo building isn't letting me install an EV charger at this time, so i probably cant buy one" i was told "Well you can come here and charge any time, its free and not that much longer than having to fill up your car a gas station anyway"

At the end of the day, I feel like I avoided a bullet here, I ended up buying a Mercedes-benz instead...the interior of the Tesla (mainly lack of tactile feedback due to the touch screen, and simple things like there being no button for the sun roof) was just not up to scratch, and potentially a dangerous distraction to the driver, in my opinion.

<comment><USER11> "the interior of the Tesla (mainly lack of tactile feedback due to the touch screen, and simple things like there being no button for the sun roof) was just not up to scratch"

Setting aside the design differences (the Tesla interior is very modern and stark and has very simple design) the _quality_ and featureset of the Tesla interior is roughly equivalent to a 3-series BMW or an Audi A4.

Which is to say, it's glaringly insufficient for what is usually spec'd out as a 90-120k car.

Let's tilt the field in favor of Tesla and compare only against mid-sized, mid-ranged competitors, which are the 5-series, A6 and E-class. Those have much, much nicer materials, more adjustable seats, features like ventilated seats ... it's hard to believe that this far through the lifecycle the model S interior is so lacking.

<comment><USER12> Is this a matter of design or a matter or budget?

If all the electric features are making the car already expensive... maybe the market would not react well to another 10k in price to add some luxury features like ventilated seats.

If things like ventilated seats are really only a few dollars to add, then maybe it was indeed a weird choice to make. But not seeing Tesla currently having a huge glut of inventory to unload, so seems to be filling some kind of market niche ("Not the nicest luxury car, but fast and eco and pretty nice")

<comment><USER10> The impression I got was that its a matter of development convenience.

The Tesla UI is a big screen. If i was given the problem of "We don't have much experience building car interfaces, and its likely something we'll want to change once we get more experience; what should we do?" the thought of throwing in a big screen that you can auto-update does start to sound pretty appealing.

Having said that, as a driver, the practice of having this style of interface just so the company can produce the cars faster and easier...i find less appealing.

This video shows how to open the sun roof ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5a3n-vTtuU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5a3n-vTtuU)), the fact that this button is more than 1 layer into the UI is pretty insane(Normally the radio is in the place you see the roof in this video, so you're pushing a button just to get to the sun roof slider). I often find myself making this kind of adjustment while driving. Having it in this part of the UI, i found to be a bit distracting and hard to use while performing my test drive.

<comment><USER13> You can bind any of these actions to the scroll wheel so you don't have to dig into the UI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> These sort of things can spook investors, but Elon purchased $20M of the offering himself as a show of good faith. That's a big insider buy! TSLA is currently trading up 2.5% so apparently it was also quite a convincing play.

<comment><USER15> To me, that it worked so easily says a lot about the people holding TSLA.

<comment><USER16> $20MM USD is about half a percent of Mr. Musk's holdings...

TSLA is like Bitcoin; no news is bad news.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I am not too familiar with financing stuff. So is this a dilution? Does it mean that current shares will be devalued?

<comment><USER18> To first order, current shares should be worth a smaller fraction of the company, but should be worth the same dollar amount as they currently are.

This process is meant to increase the size of Tesla by $500M, by simply putting $500M into its bank account. The people who are providing this money are getting new shares in return. In theory, the value of the new shares should be $500M, and the value of the old shares should add up to the old market cap of the company, and the sum of the new shares and the old shares will naturally add up to the company's new market cap.

There are second-order effects, though. If there is only a fixed demand for Tesla shares, this may reduce the price of shares (and so devalue the shares of existing shareholders.) Conversely, if people think that Tesla is going to make very good use of any new money, then existing shareholders may end up better off.

<comment><USER19> > To first order, current shares should be worth a smaller fraction of the > company, but should be worth the same dollar amount as they currently are.

Is this fair? I mean, you lose power because you have less shares. The share price is only part of the investing story.

<comment><USER20> you have less power but over a more valuable company that's how it works

<comment><USER21> But if a company increases in value, shouldn't the value of your shares go _up_? I mean, isn't that the whole point of owning a percentage of a company?

<comment><USER22> The increase in value only came from the new $500m in cash. That cash didn't come from the company's operations and it didn't come from you, so there's no reason to think that your shares would increase (or decrease) in value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So how do secondary offerings work, practically speaking? They've named the amount they want to raise, not a number of shares. So do they wait until trading closes one day, issue how many shares they need to to make that work out to $500M and then sell it to people who've "registered" to purchase $X of it? And then when the market starts the next day there's just an extra $500M in market cap but all the shares trade similarly?

<comment><USER24> That is one way to do it, but i don't think they can trade the shares similarly at least not this way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I feel like buying some stock in Tesla to make a contribution toward our future, not in the hopes of making money.

If these shares make money, that will be a bonus.

<comment><USER26> If by "contribution toward our future", you mean giving money to Tesla, buying their stock in the secondary market (i.e. the "stock market") doesn't transfer any money to them. You'd have to get in on the IPO or a secondary offering to have that effect.

However, supporting the existing stock price could have an effect - <USER2> the market price influences the price of a secondary offering like this.

<comment><USER27> If Tesla offers new stock, that's additional money in their pocket.

<comment><USER26> The "secondary offering" part of my comment already covers this.

It also worthwhile to note that the underwriters will take a cut/percentage of whatever goes to the issuing company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Frankly Tesla would be stupid not to issue as much stock as possible when it's trading far above its intrinsic value.

<comment><USER29> The efficient market hypothesis would like to have a word with you.

<comment><USER30> Theory and reality don't often match

<comment><USER31> In theory, they always do. But in reality...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> So here's a thought. If I have lots of businesses with a high chance of failure, and I bring them under one roof, any one business is more likely to destroy my entire company. So if I have two high-risk businesses (electric cars and energy storage) having both in the same company greatly increase the total company's chance of insolvency and failure.

On a higher level, I LOVE Elon Musk, but what made Steve Jobs so great is that he could innovate like crazy and make gobs of cash. Right now, Elon is innovating, but his companies are really struggling to even sniff profitability.

<comment><USER33> I don't think your argument is correct. That is the whole point of portfolio theory:

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

<comment><USER32> Let me tighten up my argument a bit. Assume two businesses with an 80% chance of success, where success is worth $1000, and a 20% chance of failure, where failure is worth -$2000. But of course these are stocks, so they can't be worth less than zero, so the expected value of each is $800.

But the expected value of the combined company (where all outcomes are floored at zero) is only $1280 (not $1600), because there's a real chance that one business blows through the profits of the other.

<comment><USER34> Looking at it from another perspective, this is exactly why you want to incorporate if you start a business, instead of just going as a sole proprietorship. That way you have two entities (your person and your business) and if one fails (your business goes under) the assets of the other are protected (they can't take your house).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Any decent OEM can currently buy Tesla with spare change. It's criminally undervaluated.

<comment><USER36> It's a financial blunder to sell new shares at a 'criminally' low price, so maybe that isn't true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> With Tesla loosing $4,000 per car[1], and they are on track to produce 50,000 cars this year, you knew they had to raise money sooner or later.

[1] [http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/10/tesla-burns-cash-loses- more-t...](http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/10/tesla-burns-cash-loses-more- than-4000-on-every-car-sold.html) [2] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-05/tesla- fall...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-05/tesla-falls-after- lowering-sales-goal-to-as-few-as-50-000-autos)

<comment><USER23> Again, they're not losing $4000 per car in the sense that their cost to produce one car is $4000 more than what they're selling for. (Meaning if they sold 50k more cars, they'd lose $200M)

They had significant CapEx and so their revenues - costs worked out to an amount that was $4000 for every car they did sell. Had they sold more, their net loss would have been less, not more.

<comment><USER38> With all the headlines about the $4000 figure the last few days, I was completely mislead about what that actually meant. Thanks for explaining it.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, for whatever reason that headline stuck even on sites that are typically less click-baity and/or pro-Tesla. My favorite way I saw the headline explained was something like:

I had major medical expenses this year and had to dip into my savings such that I ended up spending about 12k more than I brought in this year. I also ate 12 pizzas in the year. Their headline is like me saying "I lost $1k per pizza this year". It's accurate in a sense, but they're not related.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Anybody have an opinion on tesla stock? Are they overvalued or undervalued? How are there fundamentals?

</comment><comment><USER40> It's going to be fantastic when all synergistic factors are fully in play.

<comment><USER40> Anyone want to cue in as to why the downvote party?

<comment><USER41> Might've thought "synergistic" was being sarcastic.

<comment><USER40> Ah, well, I wasn't being sarcastic. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Python past, present, and future with Guido van Rossum [audio] - <AUTHOR> https://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/100/python-past-present-and-future-with-guido-van-rossum <comment><USER2> I've recently had to start writing python professionally and I'm not super impressed. My previous python experience was writing small services and fixing others code. Now that I'm working on larger "apps" it feels like a 90's language with all the rough edges and warts. I'd rather being working in a language with better language services and tooling, but python has numpy and all these data viz libraries so whatcha gonna do? At least I get a little reprieve with TypeScript; never thought I'd be so happy to work with the node platform, but there you have it.

3.5 looks attractive but there are just fundamental issues with the lang and language services. It's a bit like lipstick o... Well, I'm not going to say it.

<comment><USER3> Haskell and OCaml are also 90's languages. The rise of Python at the expense of safer, typed, faster, more principled languages makes me very sad for the state of our industry. I do not even believe it is the best choice for teaching programming to children. It heavily mixes and conflates higher-level ideas like lambdas and list comprehensions with imperative programming and mutation (the assignment syntax "x=x+1" must be especially confusing to high- school kids). It also throws in "object-oriented programming" constructs into the mix too.

<comment><USER4> > The rise of Python at the expense of safer, typed, faster, more principled > languages makes me very sad for the state of our industry

There is no rise. Not any more. At best, it's a plateau, and in my opinion, all dynamically typed languages except Javascript are on a straight decline curve, slowly being replaced by statically typed languages.

I noticed that a lot of people who enjoy Go come from Ruby or Python. Go's type system is clearly antiquated and weak, but it's a straight upgrade from a dynamically typed language, which is why it's finding an audience with the Python/Ruby crowd.

<comment><USER5> """There is no rise. Not any more. At best, it's a plateau, and in my opinion, all dynamically typed languages except Javascript are on a straight decline curve, slowly being replaced by statically typed languages."""

This sounds like wishful thinking. (Your wish, apparently... certainly not mine. :-) I have seen no evidence that Python is on the way out. If I look at the languages asked for in HN's "Who's Hiring" thread, Python is #1. Even so, there are dynamically typed functional languages, like Clojure and Elixir, that are definitely on the way up.

<comment><USER4> Sure, it's just my opinion.

Your post history seems to suggest you are heavily involved in Python. I'm not. I don't write Python, I don't write Go, I have no dog in this race. I'm just observing trends, like I've been doing for the 30+ years I've been in this industry.

And these past few years, I've observed enough hints that people are moving from Python and Ruby in droves. And also that no large projects would be started in either of these languages today. Python/Ruby are going to stay around forever, no doubt, but much more as a glue/infrastructure language to write scripts here and there (and TensorFlow might help Python stay relevant for a bit longer too).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> After years with Python, it's still a mystery to me how the same constructs are so intuitive and readable in Python (think it acceptable that they are less in C++, Java or javascript etc, even Ruby)

<comment><USER7> It might depend on your previous history. My development arc was C, Perl, Java, Ruby, Python with Javascript in parallel. Python is not particularly intuitive after 10 years of Ruby. Actually it's a mistery to me how people can like such a complicated language. However I got only customers using Python last year so I must make me like it at least a little. I keep thinking I could have been very unlucky and found some Java projects instead.

<comment><USER8> Yup. I'm with you. For my money, Ruby could fill exactly the space Python does and do it better...but Python has too much steam in its niche and Ruby got pigeon-holed as a web language; such is life.

<comment><USER9> The reason it happened that way is the community.

The python one valued doc, robustness, readability and stability.

The ruby one loved cleverness, beautiful design and conventions.

Eventually they ended up meeting at the middle, but in the mean time, people got tired of :

\- having the last monkey patch breaking their code

\- having to try to understand the last crazy dsl somebody came up with

\- having an incomplete out of data doc and no tests

\- having gem install breaks on you randomly

\- having to mess with rvm (still an issue though) which never seems to do quite what you want

Ruby is a good language, but it took too much type to come out of it's teen years, playing bold and teasing. Now it's too late.

JS is getting away with it, despite being way inferior to ruby, because it's the only language on the web platform and we are forced to use it. Ruby didn't have this chance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've only started this particular episode, but the Talk Python to Me podcast is pretty stellar and has contributed a lot to my addiction to technical podcasts.

<comment><USER11> if you're into Node, then try: [http://nodeup.com/](http://nodeup.com/) i liked it quite a lot

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've made a living of Python since 2.4 and hitting the 3.6, here is my take on it:

The Python team does an incredible job at making the language evolve. This is a 20+ years old language, with billions of lines written in the world, and allowing a huge number of paradigms. It still matures, steals ideas, makes hard compromise on growth vs compat, etc. I know very few other techs that can even compare to this level of legacy/flexibility.

E.G: the current debate on the mailling list about the "delayed" keyword: [https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python- ideas/2017-February...](https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python- ideas/2017-February/044682.html)

(Python-idea is a fantastic mailling list BTW. You learn a lot about programming, community management, Python and humans. It's very approachable, yet you read some very talented people. Sign up ! [https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python- ideas](https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas))

Coding in 2.x is now a pain. You can't see that if you are stuck in 2.7. 3.X doesn't seems appealing because what it brings on the table is not shinny. But the hundreds of small fixes hugely add up, and the experience is not the same at all on any project that takes more than a few days.

The good things is, Python 3 won. Nobody starts a new project in 2.x, most important 3rd party libs are have been converted and legacy code is ported every day. Porting a big code base is not really hard (2to3, python-future and python-six do most of the work) and can take only a few hours if you know what you are doing. Which is nothing given Guido have us 15 years to do it.

Honestly I had more time porting from Django 1.5 to 1.9 and DRF 1 to 2.

Python 3.6 is a wonderful release and a bliss to use. pathlib, f-string, better error handling, absolute imports, diminished verbosity, transparent unicode support, stable asyncio, unpacking everywhere, improved windows support, wheels for so many things, subprocess pools, pip+venv included (although debians admin excluded them, grrrr)... Everytime you go back to an earlier version it feels clunky.

The problem is, there are very few tutorials showing you the current best practices. I still read plenty of .format(), os.path.join(), manual subprocess/threads handling, etc.

People are still complaining you can't provide a standalone Python program while nuikta have been compiling very well Python for years now. It's even yum/apt installable.

Whether you are in Python 2 or 3 though, the ecosystem makes it all.

I'm amazed at where I find Python these days. It's the official language for colleges in France, it's installed on Linux and Mac by default, on the raspi (en consequently a recommended language for all students in the UK). It's at Google, Facebook, Instagram, Apple, Disney/Pixar, Sony, the CNES, the NASA, Mozilla, Docker...

But also in very heterogeneous places. Blender uses it to script, but most GIS as well. I got clients from everywhere using it: mathematicians, physicists, geographers, sysadmin, bankers, big data analysts, deep learning researchers... In big and small ways.

Plus there are so many great 3rd party tools: requests, django, sqlalchemy, numpy, pendulum, begins, jupyter, httpie, faker, marshmallow, autobahn, crossbar, pew are fantastic.

But how do you discover those ? The ecosystem is so huge, even curated lists such as [https://github.com/vinta/awesome- python](https://github.com/vinta/awesome-python) are intimidating.

On strengh of Python is that it's good a little script upt to big projects. but there is an enormous list of things to learn if you want to get out of the scripter mind set and start coding a big project.

\- virtualenv. Wait virtualenvwrapper ? Wait pew ? wait pip ? wait conda ?

\- tox, coverall, pytest, flake8, pylint, bandit...

\- Python path, modules, __stuff__...

And the packaging is still a mess. It's hard to make a setup.py file for a newcommer. And the 1000 files next to it. It's hard to make a compiled extension wheel. To provide a msi, a deb or a dmg.

It's hard to do desktop or mobile UI. Kivy and PyQT are nowhere as easy as creating a website, which says it all.

Mypy and type hints are not mature enough. Really a pain to use. I would not recommend it right now. Also VSCode and PyCharm makes everything better. I'm a sublime text guy, but the competition rocked it on this one.

Asyncio is super low level. Most people should probably just not use it, it's designed to dev high level libs, not to code your service yourself. And most high level libs using it are not mature. The revolution hasn't happened yet, and we need it to happen in the next 2 years. MeteorsJS is here and kicking. JS has the Webpack ecosystem (which sucks, but provide features you don't have in pure Python right now). You see more and more stack with Sass + es 6 + jsx + whatever and the Python tools to do it don't cut it. So you are back to JS. I hate JS.

Hosting a Python website is still too complicated. pythonanywhere.com comes close, but beginners want PHP + FTP kind of deployments, and you can't blame them. Not everybody needs the robustness of our pro stacks.

Performances, though, has never been an issue for me. I know some people that have indeed the need for it, but my experience is that they are a rare breed. Most people complaining about it want a pony, they don't have a Python performance problem.

Nevertheless, I look forward for the gilectomy just to stop hearing the FUD. But I'm not holding my breath.

I have more hopes for Pyjion, the Microsoft JIT, though. Their approach is the sanest I've seen. Pypy is nice, but is having a hard time by design. Pyston is dead.

Free perf is like free pizza. You don't need it, but hey, free pizza!

Also I have a feeling that rust and Python will be very good friends in the future...

<comment><USER12> > The problem is, there are very few tutorials showing you the current best > practices.

As someone looking to expand from simple Python scripts to serious Python projects, this is my primary issue. Do you have any recommendations?

<comment><USER9> I like to brag and say the best blog I know about Python is mine. But it's in french so you will have to take my word for it. Yet it has more than 300 articles about Python and covering at length stuff from decorators to metaclass and even a fat 8 parts manual on OOP. Maybe google translate can help.

<comment><USER13> linky?

<comment><USER9> [http://sametmax.com/](http://sametmax.com/)

<comment><USER13> Thanks

Edit: _NSFW!_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Any chance for a text version?

<comment><USER15> The text is up and part of the audio as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, thanks J. You can find it in the player:

[https://talkpython.fm/100](https://talkpython.fm/100)

Or directly here:

[https://talkpython.fm/episodes/transcript/100/python-past- pr...](https://talkpython.fm/episodes/transcript/100/python-past-present-and- future-with-guido-van-rossum)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I liked the bit where he said he underestimated the number of people and code using python 2.7. I often hear python 3.X has 99% penetration based on probably the same bogus metrics, like downloads from python.com. Then they go on to talk about how many exciting changes are being made to python 3. Some of us actually have work to do.

</comment><comment><USER17> The unofficial python 2.8 is here:

[https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon](https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon)

<comment><USER18> But didn't Guido say that everything what could be backported was already backported?

> There are a small handful of backwards incompatibilities introduced by > Tauthon.

How to understand this?

Anyway, something like this was expected to happen. I wonder if it wouldn't be better if Guido would not halt python 2 development and just let it evolve.

<comment><USER19> This discussion goes now on since Python 3 was released. Python 2 will not be supported or developed after 2020.

<comment><USER18> Yes, I know. The question is if this decision is correct, given that apparently a lot of people and companies just doesn't plan to switch no matter what.

<comment><USER20> Well, if you want people to switch to 3, you do need to apply some pressure by end-of-lifing 2.

<comment><USER21> Or you could offer something in 3 which will make switching enticing enough for people to do so of their own free will.

<comment><USER22> Proper unicode handling, list comprehensions, generators, await & async, TSL 1.1 & 1.2 support, better namespace handling, better string interpolation, and better argument parsing are just a few of the things that you get.

Is there a feature that could entice these people? Or have they made up their minds?

<comment><USER21> List (and set,dict and generator) comprehensions and generators are available in python2. Await & async and unicode handling are nice improvements, but you could do both in python2 well enough if it was important to you. TSL support I don't use in python so I cannot comment on it. And I've honestly never found namespace handling or string interpolation a problem.

 _Is there a feature that could entice these people? Or have they made up their minds?_

A working, stable, version of [http://pyparallel.org/](http://pyparallel.org/) would entice the hell out of me.

<comment><USER23> It's not practical to safely work with non-ASCII strings in Python 2. There are too many "arbitrarily mangle my string" functions available (both in the language proper and in libraries), and the only way to avoid them is constant vigilance, which doesn't scale.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


OpenBSD forks, prunes, fixes OpenSSL - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/openbsd-forks-prunes-fixes-openssl-7000028613/

<comment><USER2> It's cool they're doing this cleanup, but overly self-righteous commit messages ([http://opensslrampage.org/](http://opensslrampage.org/)) on patches like [http://www.openbsd.org/cgi- bin/cvsweb/src/lib/libssl/src/cry...](http://www.openbsd.org/cgi- bin/cvsweb/src/lib/libssl/src/crypto/asn1/a_time.c.diff?r1=1.15;r2=1.16) rub me the wrong way (I'm sure comparing a string pointer to '5' / decimal 53 is _exactly_ what the old, ridiculed code meant to do…)

<comment><USER3> That is pretty bad. I can't see how that wouldn't give a new compiler warning that would tell the dev that they probably shouldn't commit that patch.

<comment><USER4> You may need a few compiler flags turned off to compile OpenSSL ;)

That said, many opensource projects ignore the vast majority of compilation warnings. Many _projects_ do the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Some of that is indentation, because we are trying to make the code more > comprehensible. 99.99% of the community does not care for VMS support, and > 98% do not care for Windows support. They care for POSIX support, so that > the Unix and Unix derivatives can run.

Do they not realize that _clients_ also need SSL support? Servers that don't have anyone to talk to them are kind of useless, so at best this is half of solution (unless it really is the year of the linux desktop, of course). There are a ton of applications out there that run on Windows and use OpenSSL for handling SSL connections.

That being said this may be a great replacement for servers, and there really isn't a requirement for there to be "one library to rule them all". This may be a great step towards diversifying the encryption-library ecosystem a bit.

<comment><USER6> They're building it first and foremost for OpenBSD. If anybody's interested in using their fork, they'll create a portable version, as they do for OpenSSH, OpenSMTPD, &c.

The act of stripping the library down is worthwhile though: OpenSSL has accumulated a _lot_ of cruft over the years.

<comment><USER7> I think restructuring OpenSSL with better modularization could achieve / maintain more compatibility than just ripping things out.

<comment><USER6> The OpenSSL codebase is already pretty modular, but it's not very _clean_ , and that's its major issue. Needless to say, it could be made even more modular, with the crypo code, X.509 code, the SSL/TLS protocol implementation, &c., entirely separated from one another, but doing that will still benefit from pulling out as much cruft as possible. They're ripping out all that stuff because it's more hard to test stuff that can just go wrong, and when it comes to critical security infrastructure, that's a _bad_ thing to have lying around.

All they really need to do to maintain compatibility is maintain the same API. And they're doing just that. In fact, it's in their best interests to maintain the same API as deviating in any significant way is just going to complicate porting software that uses OpenSSL over to use their implementation. So long as they do that, there's little to worry about.

And maybe some day their fork will end up becoming the dominant SSL/TLS implementation, much as OpenSSH became the dominant SSH implementation.

<comment><USER7> Ripping out FIPS and Windows Support based on their use case isn't ripping out cruft. I think the codebase needs attention (I am personally way to comfortable with it), but a dramatic fork instead of collaboration isn't necessarily best for the open source community as a whole...

<comment><USER6> If they can't maintain it, then it certainly _is_ cruft from their point of view.

Keep in mind that _first and foremost_ they're doing this for OpenBSD: all other platforms are secondary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have to say -- and I am not a system programmer -- this shit is pretty hilarious. E.g. Multiple unnecessary and broken implementations of common library functions (printf!).

</comment><comment><USER9> A quote in there says that customers don't care for FIPS support. I hope OpenBSD is not planning on dropping FIPS support from LibreSSL -- it seems like that would be a huge mistake. Government agencies are among the many that are open to SSL vulnerabilities. Our tax, financial, SSN, and healthcare information are all open to vulnerabilities in buggy code. Dropping FIPS support means that government agencies whose security we (as consumers) care a whole lot about will not be benefiting from the massive improvements that the OpenBSD community hopes to bring about.

<comment><USER10> Since when does OpenBSD (a Canadian project with a developer group all over the planet) need to care about some certification and standard bullshit by the government of the United States of America?

What have the USA done for us lately? Oh yes, fought a long battle against cryptography in the hands of world citizens, spied on everyone and their dog, canceled OpenBSD funding, started multiple illegal wars and threatened every single country into submission (except for the one with nukes pointed at the White House).

Does it get any more selfish? Bah.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Somehow, I don't see removing FIPS or Windows support being in the best interest of the community as a whole. For startups wanting to have a product that requires some level of FIPS support, starting with a decent base makes things easier.

Windows support? There are more than a couple of applications out there running on Windows that make use of OpenSSL.

Theo's quote -- "99.99% of the community does not care for VMS support, and 98% do not care for Windows support." \-- is, at least to me, narrow minded in the scope of what he defines as "community" \-- unless he specifically means the OpenBSD community.

<comment><USER11> Except, for example, FIPS support mandates availability of operating modes which are broken by design.

<comment><USER7> There are ways of crafting the software that could make sure the broken operating modes aren't necessarily part of the FIPS build profile.

More than one company I have worked at built on top of OpenSSL and went for FIPS compliance. Sometimes, if you want to be able to qualify for contracts that require things like FIPS, building off a base is better than starting from complete scratch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can't help feeling a bit bad for the OpenSSL team in all of this. For years they did a thankless yeoman's work with insufficient resources and now that people are recognizing the work they did it's almost uniformly negative.

Of course you can argue that they brought it upon themselves, but man would I love to watch a 60-minute documentary on how OpenSSL came to be, the people behind it, and how it went wrong.

</comment><comment><USER13> This seems like a good time to mention that 50% of the problem is the overcomplexity of TLS itself not necessairly OpenSSL...

</comment><comment><USER14> Cryptographic algorithm usually are pretty straight forward when you look at them.

Beside good verifiable coding practice to have a quality implementation, it seems that the issue is with the many side channels attack that needs to be obfuscated and make the whole thing a lot harder to maintain and verify.

So I'm guessing the issue is probably more about the very badly engineered protocols with blurry designs and too many bells and whistles rather than with the basic cryptographic building blocks?

<comment><USER15> _Cryptographic algorithm usually are pretty straight forward when you look at them._

Take a look at the hand-optimized for speed immplementations in assembly sometime.

<comment><USER16> They're still just doing a bunch of math; the complexity is in I/O and protocol interactions, not the algorithms themselves.

<comment><USER17> The AES is a good example of a cryptographic algorithm that is rather not straightforward to implement in an efficient and safe manner.

AES is defined on a 4x4 byte state, and every operation (even the sbox) is defined over GF(2^8). However, fast implementations resemble very little of that definition, and end up being a large number of xor and (large) table lookups. This is a much faster way to do it, on general-purpose machines, but it often leaves you open to cache-timing attacks.

So to come up with a fast and secure AES implementation you need to transpose the state in a way that resembles processing 8 blocks in parallel, and emulate hardware-level bitwise arithmetic on software. This is a so-called bitsliced implementation. By this point the code is much more complex and tricky than the original specification, and it will only actually be fast for parallel modes of operation such as CTR, leaving CBC hanging. Thankfully processors now implement AES round instructions, which simplifies secure implementations, but makes portable implementations difficult.

Cryptographers have learned from this state of affairs, though. New algorithms being created (like Keccak, aka SHA-3) now try harder to make the straightforward implementation secure and reasonably fast by default.

Public-key algorithms, on the other hand, are always tricky to implement, even if the arithmetic itself is not very complicated. One of the appeals of curve25519 (and other so-called "safe curves") is precisely that it is rather easy (but still not trivial) to implement them in a safe manner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> OpenSSL is beyond repair. We need a new clean start, sane design and rock solid implementation with principles and following best practices.

<comment><USER19> Like NaCl? [http://nacl.cr.yp.to/](http://nacl.cr.yp.to/)

<comment><USER20> NaCl addresses a different problem than OpenSSL. NaCl is great if you have no legacy or compatibility requirements, and it should be the only crypto library most web and mobile developers ever come within a mile of. But it's not a workable replacement for OpenSSL.

<comment><USER21> What about this from the libsodium web site?

"NaCl ships with constructions that were just prototypes, and that shouldn't be used any more."

What does "shouldn't be used any more" mean? Certainly not security, or djb would have released an update. Compatibility with other products? Something else?

<comment><USER20> No, IIRC Bernstein improved his public key signing system, and libsodium uses the new version. Neither construction is useful for standard TLS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> IMO, Putting libre in front of any project name is a surefire way to loose enterprise any and all enterprise / corporate acceptance.

</comment><comment><USER23> QAWSEDRTYGFRDESWAQSWEDSWAQ</comment>


Philips Hue API Hacking - <AUTHOR> http://www.issackelly.com/blog/2012/11/10/philips-hue-api-hacking/ <comment><USER3> As an aside, What I really need for this system is a wall-switch that doesn't clobber the state. Right now if you cut power completely (use the wall switch) it loses all it's last settings and turns into roughly the visual equivalent of a 60w incandescent bulb.

I'm trying to decide the best way to do this, the easiest would be a raspberry pi. I'm thinking there must be some way to do it with a much ligher thing like a xbee module.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice work! I work at Q42 and we wrote some of the (web) software for the Hue platform. As you might guess we're great fans of Hue and we have lots of lamps in the office to play with (<http://www.w00tcamp.nl/image/36420335853>).

Anyway, just wanted to say that I put up a list of Hue libraries on github: <https://github.com/Q42/hue-libs>

I added python-hue as the first entry.

To everyone else: Send us a pr if you want to get your lib on the list. Would be cool to see support for Ruby, Scale, Closure, Haskell etc ;-)

<comment><USER5> I like how the building says 'Huelands Spoor', I guess you're located pretty close to the train station ('Hollands Spoor' for those not familiar with the train stations near The Hague in the Netherlands) ;-)

<comment><USER4> in fact you can control the lights in our office yourself using this website: <http://www.huelandsspoor.nl/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why does the Hue class have an argumentless constructor that must immediately be followed up with attribute initialization and a call to the _actual_ constructor? Kind of a nitpick, but definitely doesn't seem pythonic - <USER2> obvious.

Cool hack though, API looks straightforward.

<comment><USER3> I haven't gotten around to writing an application with it yet, just futzing from the terminal. I agree that it's a wart, I pretty much stopped once I got it all working here, and until tonight I haven't had much outside interest in this one.

<comment><USER7> I would also change h.lights.get('l3') to h.lights[l3] by defining __getitem__(). Possibly even cut this back to h[13], as you'll always be referring to the lights.

<comment><USER8> And setState should probably take kwargs rather than a dict of arguments. Might also be cool to use a context manager for a "complex send" e.g.

        with light:
            light.bri(220)
            light.alert("select")

which would only send the whole request at once in __exit__, as in "transactional" APIs.

<comment><USER3> I do really like this one. Been trying to think of a decent way to do pipelining. If you haven't noticed, it is possible to do chaining with the existing API, but it's one request/call.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> burgestrand- There's been efforts to map out the Hue API. I've created a GitHub repository for documenting the API, and host it via GitHub pages: <http://burgestrand.github.com/hue-api/>

Through the README there's additional links to other resources, such as the EveryHue forum, where people from the Hue developer team appear to hang out as well: <http://www.everyhue.com/?page_id=38>

</comment><comment><USER9> It just so happens that I met Issac Kelly (the author of the post) three or four years ago at a coffeeshop in Columbus, nearby the Short North I think.

Spoke mostly about entrepreneurship, .NET, and Python. Nice guy.

I'm mostly tinkering with Clojure these days, but the day job so to speak is Python. No more .NET anymore :)

I moved to the bay area too!

About the post:

You mentioned that you were disappointed in the security of their straightforward HTTP/REST implementation, what do you think would've been more secure?

<comment><USER3> The security issue is that they're sending my data back to their sites (phone homes) via HTTP not HTTPS. Schedules, on/off status and device hashes. At that point if you had the traffic it would be fairly trivial to pretend you were one of my registered devices locally (this is how I did initial testing), possibly even over the internet back to Hue (not tested, as their webservice hasn't quite worked for me in normal circumstances)

Also, reintroduce yourself! Coffee in Columbus talking shop doesn't narrow it down enough for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A friend of mine hacked something quite nice for/using his Hue. <http://vimeo.com/54065245>.

</comment><comment><USER4> Here are some clips showing how we heuified the office:

strobe effect <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVh4V5QyVQY>

remote control <http://vimeo.com/54163866>

</comment><comment><USER11> WeMo and Hue...looks like we have much in common ;) [http://blog.lumawake.com/post/37648185851/ask-and-you- shall-...](http://blog.lumawake.com/post/37648185851/ask-and-you-shall- receive-after-dozens-of)

</comment><comment><USER12> Does anybody know what the response times of commands is? Is it possible to make a disco-like light show controlled by music or are response times too long?</comment>


Threat of violence escalates at Greece-Turkey border - sahin-boydas https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/03/11/greece-turkey-border-migrant-crisis-black-pkg-intl-hnk-vpx.cnn <comment><AUTHOR> That's actually the big issue, when talking about system overload. A second wave + coronavirus will put Europe in another Category of right wing..</comment>