Is the Psychology of Deadly Force Ready for the Courts? - <AUTHOR> https://undark.org/article/psychology-deadly-force-ready-courts/ <comment><USER2> Interesting article. I wonder if there's evidence that the mindset of a police officer reflects the general public.

Sorry to have to generalize here but I've had a lot of exposure to police over my life as a volunteer EMT and an ex wife who's department was part of a police department. I have a lot of friends who are police officers.

They have one thing in common (mostly) - they think they're right about every situation. I don't think the general public thinks the same way.

Of course I have no idea if that's a selected behavior or something they learn during their time as police officers. I can certainly see how it's a beneficial behavior from a stress standpoint but we can see how it turns out with respect to these deadly force encounters.

I have a lot of respect for law enforcement but also personal knowledge enough that their decision making strategies are not like mine.

<comment><USER3> Well, if you had a gun and permission to shoot people for being "uncooperative" or "resisting" or "refusing to obey orders", you'd be right all the time too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The real issue here is whether or not this same logic will apply to the average citizen. And we know it won't. Nor should it. At the end of the day, we are responsible for our actions with only _very, very_ few exceptions that are already laid out in the law (i.e. temporary insanity, severe mental illness, etc.). It sounds like what is being argued for my Miller is that we expand the exception list in a _big_ way. One that society likely will find unacceptable. Also, I'd be really curious to see if Miller wants to apply this same standard to everyone across the board. Because right now, if I shoot someone - even if in self defense - there's a good chance that I will be charged and have to defend myself in court to prove it was in self defense and a lawful act because the bar for me being apply to apply deadly force is very high.

The rules are already very different for cops in the current state of affairs. They already have every advantage and already face extremely low odds of being charged. As the article mentions, only 96 officers have been charged since 2005, which is ridiculous. We've seen a lot of absurd cases that were major news where officers weren't even charged. Sure, I would bet that the overwhelming majority are totally legitimate. But I also think there are way too many that go un-charged.

And I'd bet my life (no pun intended) that this same logic will definitely not apply to the average citizen if they shoot another citizen. And I'd bet my child's life that this logic would never, ever, ever be used in defense of a citizen if they had the gall to shoot (gasp) a police officer.

We the people bear some responsibility for this situation of officer shootings. Juries routinely either fail to indict in the grand jury or acquit if it actually goes to trial far too often. And these jurors themselves do not apply the same standards that would apply to the rest of us.

Accounting for population difference, on a per capita basis US police officers shoot citizens at a rate _37 times_ more frequently than the UK. Now, you can either choose to believe that the US has 37 times more serious violent crime that would justify that level of violence by cops. Or you can choose to believe there is a problem with US the way US police go about their business.

<comment><USER5> > Accounting for population difference, on a per capita basis US police > officers shoot citizens at a rate 37 times more frequently than the UK.

The UK is not a good example, since it is one of the few countries where most cops don't have guns.

<comment><USER4> I get your point, but I have to disagree. The fact that the UK can have its officers not carry by default and armed officers only show up for the most extreme situations is a testament to how they are conducting their operations. They had only five deaths in 2017 due to officer shootings. Four of those were terrorist attacks. So their response time is good enough to stop terrorists with lethal force while also not resulting in extra civilian deaths and still keep their beat cops gun-free.

<comment><USER6> You can't extrapolate that model to the USA, where there are more firearms than citizens [1].

This means that the average risk / threat an officer may encounter in otherwise routine situations are quite different than the UK, which has very strict firearms policies, since they decided to ban almost all firearms in 1988 / 1997.

1 - [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/there...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/there- are-more-guns-than-people-in-the-united-states-according-to-a-new-study-of- global-firearm-ownership/)

<comment><USER7> And even with all those firearms available to US citizens, only about 40 police officers are shot dead every year in the US. Being in law enforcement isn't as dangerous as the police unions would like you to think.

<comment><USER8> I live in the South, and know two officers currently working on the street.

In the last five years, between the two of them: someone tried to run the officer over with a truck in a dark alley, a man pointed a shotgun at the officer's head from a few feet away (while carrying three guns and 400 rounds of ammo, and having previously fired several rounds through a house wall), a fleeing criminal pulled to the side of the road and opened fire at the officer, and while responding to an officer who had been shot in the woods, were ambushed by the suspect, who killed the officer next to him, and sent my acquaintance to the hospital for a month.

And I don't even live in a high crime area of country!

<comment><USER7> Hey, I've got anecdata, too! My previous institution is on the hook for half a million dollars after an officer-involved shooting. This was a civil settlement, without admission of liability, the usual kind. The officer was permitted to resign. He had racked up an unusual number of disciplinary issues already but was never disciplined for that incident, when he severely injured the student. The police captain was also permitted to resign, even though there were severe concerns about discipline in the force he was overseeing. There was never a criminal trial for either of the two, there rarely is, because of the unholy alliance between the district attorney and the cops. Probably both are working for other police forces nearby, they _love_ officers with a disciplinary record, it shows a willingness to go along and bend the rules.

But this is the important anecdote: [https://www.wrdw.com/content/news/Diabetic-man-has- episode-t...](https://www.wrdw.com/content/news/Diabetic-man-has-episode- tased-by-police-502822791.html)

A diabetic man became hypoglycemic and confused, he led the police on a car chase and was then manhandled by two officers after he crashed into a ditch. He would like changes in protocol and can only pussyfoot around the real issue, police brutality, because everyone agrees that he deserved a beating. Or something. As is usual, there is nothing to see here, district attorney sides with the cops.

Whatever anecdotes one has, citizens are more at risk from the police than the other way round.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Given the replication crisis, is psychology ready for much of anything?

Yes, I admit that this is snarky, but it is also uncomfortably true. There is good evidence that things said by psychology that also fit common sense are probably true. However things said by psychology research studies have a good chance of being false. And things concluded by individual psychologists upon a chain of research based on those studies should be viewed with significant skepticism.

This will change when psychology can get from their current 50% replication rate (on a good day) to having a significant body of established research that we have good reason to believe is about 90% likely to be replicable. Until then I'd advise against placing too much trust in anything that it says which you can't find independent reason to believe.

<comment><USER2> You have hopes that psychology is a robust enough science that it can improve it's replication rate? Not sure there's evidence of this at all.

<comment><USER9> Yes, I have hope that psychology is trying to replicate what they thought were established results. After a few rounds of that we'll have a limited body of knowledge that has been successfully replicated enough that, despite the overall replication rate, we can trust those results.

Once that body of reasonably certain psychological observations is established and starts growing, it will be possible to make some statements about psychology with a high degree of confidence. But whether that coalesces into a paradigm about how to understand people that turns it into a recognizable science is another story.

<comment><USER2> Seems difficult to imagine such positivity with replication considering how much psychological science depends on subjective information from subjects using "evaluation tools".

Who knows what it means when I answer the question "How depressed am I" with 5?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It feels to me like the question of how humans react to life-threatening situations is less relevant here than the question of how humans judge what _is_ a life threatening situation. Are you in imminent danger of death if you encounter a teenager walking away from you in the middle of the street at night? I think most people would judge that situation to be non-life- threatening and I guess the jury in the referenced case agreed.

</comment><comment><USER11> Seems to be missing the fact that if you are unable to handle stressful situations you have no business being a police officer in the first place.

Becoming a police officer is akin to stating: "I will approach confrontations level-headed and try to deescalate" and I'm sure police officers receive training to that end as well.

<comment><USER12> Nobody is prepared to handle life-or-death stressful situations. Training at least makes those experiences less terrible, but the only life-or-death stress response you have born in you is your fight-or-flight meant to ward off primarily large predators.

<comment><USER13> Sure, no one is fully equipped to handle the moment of their death, but that's not what is being talked about here.

Training should equip officers for the not-uncommon case when a suspect has a knife but is otherwise nonthreatening.

<comment><USER12> > when a suspect has a knife but is otherwise nonthreatening

A knife is a deadly weapon. Even a non-deadly strike from a knife means a loss of organs (lung puncture, liver intrusion), limbs, facial tissue, eyes, etc. If someone is threatening with a knife (attacking cop cars, etc), especially if they are not acting entirely sanely, they are an active life-or-death threat and yes, you might absolutely be walking into the moments before your death.

Even if you have a gun, you have at best a few heartbeats to make a judgement call if they decide to lunge for you. Especially if your firearm is in it's holster, in the time it takes for an attacker to lunge at you, you need to:

1\. Establish a positive grip on the firearm

2\. Defeat any safety measures on the holster (snaps, buttons, interlocks)

3\. Clear the holster with a duty sized firearm

4\. Draw firearm to combat position

5\. Secure off hand grip to firearm

6\. Obtain sight picture

7\. Check target and backstop

8\. Squeeze trigger

The person who intends to kill you meanwhile needs to do the following:

1\. Lunge forward with knife angled outwards

If it's available in your area, I recommend taking a use-of-force seminar and seeing how well you do with the above kind of scenario.

<comment><USER13> None of that is relevant here. This was a man _walking away_ with his back turned. That's what I meant by nonthreatening.

<comment><USER12> If someone threatens your life with a deadly weapon, the fact that they've turned their back for a moment and headed towards other people (innocent people, your comrades, etc) doesn't make them not a threat anymore. As a police officer, you have an obligation to keep the public safe, and that includes from knife wielding nutcases.

Yes, it'd be great if cops could bear hug everyone into submission, but that's not the reality of the situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The key question is: is the "stress" argument ever going to be successfully deployed to exculpate someone who, in a stressful situation with a weapon, shoots a police officer?

No, of course not. The American use of deadly force by police is far in excess of other first-world countries, and it has become a deadly part of the culture war. Various people have commented that the US troops in the occupation of Iraq had more restrictive rules of engagement.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. We've seen countless examples of _" I thought he had a gun"_ and _" I feared for my life"_ from cops. Can I shoot someone if I think they have a gun but, oops, it turns out I was wrong? I'd be fine, right? I'm sure I wouldn't face any serious consequences.

And therein lies the problem. There's a separate set of (lower) standards applied to the very people who are trained for this sort of thing and who are _allegedly_ held to a higher standard.

<comment><USER14> >Can I shoot someone if I think they have a gun but, oops, it turns out I was wrong? I'd be fine, right? I'm sure I wouldn't face any serious consequences.

If the totality of the circumstances show that a reasonable person would believe that they had a gun and there was a threat to your life, then I would expect you not to have serious consequences in the form of criminal penalties.

<comment><USER15> > If the totality of the circumstances show that a reasonable person would > believe that they had a gun and there was a threat to your life, then I > would expect you not to have serious consequences in the form of criminal > penalties.

Police officers have guns, and I suspect some minorities might reasonably fear for their lives when confronted by the police... I'm sure the bar for 'reasonable' fear is much higher for civilians.

<comment><USER4> Yes, this is precisely the point I'm trying to make. The standards that are applied are not equal, yet police officers are not only allegedly held to a higher standard, but they are also bound to follow all the existing laws because they are citizens themselves. There isn't an exemption made that allows them to violate the law or have a different set of criteria apply to them when determining if a crime has been committed. The only exception to that rule I am aware of is in cases of undercover operations - officers are able to obtain permission in advance from their handlers for certain crimes they expect to be required to commit (i.e. bribing someone or buying drugs). Outside of that, no exceptions exist that I know of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This looks like nothing so much as the old determinist's "how can you be morally culpable when the outcome was predetermined by natural laws?" dusted off and dressed up with some psychology jargon.

<comment><USER17> I think the jury would have a better time first understanding predetermination & determinism, than the psychological jargon as you put it. Maybe psychologists have found a stigma against determinism by the free will thinkers and so they find the need to dress it up as something else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The current system has two sets of rules, one for cops, one for everyone else. It's like how in medieval Europe a knight would be justified if he cut down a normal person in circumstances where a normal person could not engage in violence against another normal person. That's all fine and dandy (I'm being sarcastic when I say that) except that out current societal norms and laws prohibit double standards like that. This is just an attempt at bastardizing science and law in order to uphold the double standard when what we really need is to apply the same standard to police use of force as we do to normal people

</comment><comment><USER19> Dr. Laurence Miller: "His fee as an expert witness in cases that require travel is $10,000 per day of testimony"

I don't know how Mr Miller gets to be an expert witness but it seems to me that Law Enforcement pays him quite well to be in the business of being a witness...

<comment><USER14> Hint: it's those letters in front of his first name.</comment></comment>


Samsung commits to monthly updates for unlocked Galaxy phones in US - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-will-release-monthly-updates-to-unlocked-galaxy-phones-in-us/ <comment><USER2> I have a lot of initial samsung hardware (android tablets and phones) and I never see software updates to any one of them. That is why a year ago I decided to stop buying samsung products completely.</comment>


Ask HN: Freelancers: Do you do anything to improve your cash flow situation? - <AUTHOR>

Getting paid on net-30 kind of sucks when you have bills to pay, and you give up some otherwise great clients if you can't wait to get paid.<p>Is there anything you do that helps you get paid more quickly? <comment><USER2> I have the same problem. all i can do is manage my own behaviour. So i initiated ruthless timekeeping. I charge for every minute. I have a punch clock and I punch in and out for every client as i work for them all day long.

You can offer a discount for early payment but I've not found it useful.

And in my spare time I work on a product. When a customer pays late or otherwise abuses the relationship I pour the energy into that. If it flies someday then maybe I can get ahead.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can't you negotiate the terms with your clients? I know that at least my clients have been open to that.

Perhaps not what you want to hear, but other that getting paid more quickly, the most obvious solution to cash flow problems is having a large enough buffer.</comment>


Crowdsourcer – a non-money-orientated crowd sourcing alternative - <AUTHOR> https://crowdsourcer.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Here's a link to the reddit post by the creator.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/6gsp5i/i_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/6gsp5i/i_got_tired_of_the_large_amounts_of_funding/?st=j3upvdet&sh=95f4686f)</comment>


NZ court rules Megaupload warrant legal, dealing blow to Dotcom - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/19/us-newzealand-megaupload-warrant-idUSBREA1I02F20140219 <comment><USER2> There are a lot of political things going on in the background with this case.

1\. New Zealand (NZ) desperately wants closer economic ties to the US but is constrained by public sentiment

Because New Zealand is primarily a low value added commodity export based economy the NZ Government and NZ businesses highly covet lower trade barriers. However NZ's anti-nuke stance and lack of military spend means that NZ will never get free trade agreement. Therefore anything else the NZ Government can do to appease US counterparts wins NZ small favors. This is why NZ is very much in bed with US spooks and basically has a US intelligence facility in Waihopai.

I firmly believe that this was a primary reason for the NZ Government's willingness to let their US Government counterparts to run the operation on Kim Dotcom.

2\. NZ has been trying to woo the US film and TV industry

The NZ Government has been doing its best to entice the US film and TV industry even before the success of The Lord of the Rings (circa 1995 with Hercules: The Legendary Journeys).

I'm of the opinion that the heavy handed nature of the raid on Kim Dotcom was to send a message the NZ Government takes the rights of film and TV studios seriously.

That said, I think the NZ Government didn't properly gauge how far public opinion would swing against them for being so heavy handed against Kim Dotcom. Kiwis love an underdog and when the local TV media showed video footage of the raid on Kim Dotcom complete with helicopters and SUVs it certainly looked like an absurd Hollywood action movie. Also the use of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) to spy on Kim Dotcom unnerved many Kiwi's sense of privacy.

After this recent ruling I'm not sure how this whole saga will play out. I imagine that with with his personal freedom at stake, Kim Dotcom will keep pressing his case through to the Supreme Court of New Zealand.

<comment><USER3> _However NZ 's anti-nuke stance and lack of military spend means that NZ will never get free trade agreement_

Is this an official policy? Why is nuclear such a big deal, and how does the military factor in? Is it just that those are the major things the US would like to sell to NZ?

<comment><USER4> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand%27s_nuclear- free_z...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand%27s_nuclear-free_zone)

Yep, it's the law. Much to the chagrin of the US.

Their Military has no Nuclear weapons, and the population is pretty strongly opposed to anything nuclear, instead favouring 'green' technology.

I'd go as far to say, as it's now so entrenched in NZ's identity, if any government that tried to repeal it, it would be an act of political suicide.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, my reply was badly phrased. I understand NZ's anti-nuclear stance, I was just wondering why the US think that's so important for free trade agreements.

<comment><USER2> Hi, I just answered your question above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > However, the appeals court upheld an earlier ruling that prosecutors had not > been authorized to send clones of seized electronic evidence to the United > States.

> A New Zealand government enquiry in 2012 found the nation's secretive spy > agency acted unlawfully by giving information on Dotcom to U.S. authorities > before the 2012 raid.

Does anyone know if anybody actually got in trouble for this?

<comment><USER6> Of course not, Kim Dotcom is the criminal here! How dare you imply that the law applies to everyone! ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when the US government started calling the NZ government and making promises (and threats) to make sure this happened.

It would be naive to think otherwise. The USG is amazingly patient. Kimble has been on their radar for a long time. Now they really want him, and I would be very very surprised if they don't get him eventually.

Somehow I really think he has a small chance to stick it to the man, so I kind want to root for him, even though he's more than likely a tool.

<comment><USER8> Actually, Kim Dotcom is not a tool. He's very well spoken, intelligent and surprisingly compelling individual.

Here's the Campbell Live interview -

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMcvYhQwAC8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMcvYhQwAC8)

<comment><USER9> He's a crook who'll do and say just about anything for his personal enrichment and self-aggrandization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I see a lot of folks suggesting that the ruling is somehow evidence of intergovernmental pressure or elsewise improper.

Is that just based on how you'd like the case to have turned out, or is there some greater level of familiarity with the laws and jurisprudence of NZ than I'd have expected at HN? Is it possible that the warrant was ok and that the initial ruling was in error?

At any rate, according to the article there seems to be another court which can hear an appeal, so it may not be entirely decided yet.

</comment><comment><USER11> Time to retaliate by taking Libertarian activism up a notch.

Here's an example how: Stores in a Berlin tourist neighborhood began opening on Sunday all at once. The council let them because it would be too embarrassing to fine them all.

They found a niche where the law says government has power, but Realpolitik says it does not.

I swear I'm going to find as many of those as I can in my everyday life, and I will use them.

Who's with me?????

<comment><USER12> Taking on the local council over stupid historical-accident religon-based laws that actively damage a major local industry during difficult economic times is one thing. Taking on your national government, and directly challenging the authority and interests of the US at the same time, is quite another.

I'm not trying to be defeatist, but you'd need massive civil disobedience Ukraine-style before NZ decides to soften its stance on "piracy" (or more properly, copyright infringement).

<comment><USER11> I believe your assessment is correct.

Massive civil disobedience is to the local council as hitting a home run on national television is to batting practice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I used to use megaupload when I was much younger. It was fast, reliable and easy to use, compared to other ones (4shared, RapidShare for example). MU had probably the best bandwidth for upload and download.

As I got older, I can afford something. I went ahead and got a Netflix account to celebrate my first internship (yeah, literally, I thought that was the best way to celebrate...). But a lot of great movies are missing from Netflix and I didn't feel like renting one from Amazon Videos or Youtube store. $3.99, $5.99? Meh. Only a few times because I was desperate to see watch them.

From time to time, I was hoping MU was still alive. I would find a link easily. Putlocker took the lead after MU went down. That's probably the most popular domain to view illegal contents.

I prefer to have high-quality video. As I grow older, I am side with the music and film industry. I want to pay. I still go to theater for awesome films. I don't know if people have studied how bundle HBO, movie on demand into cable TV ever helped subscribers to reduce the incentive to download illegal contents. My guess is some good percentage of individuals probably feel less motivated to get illegal contents if they could just find them from their on- demand channel.

I know making a film or making a music album is a big investment. But ultimately, owning a DVD is going to sound old and useless in a decade. Everyone wants instant play, or digital copy on their device. I am glad the music industry is becoming more open to streaming service (thanks to iPod and iTunes - though Apple wasn't really the first one to do that, but Apple _pushed_ it). I can listen to free legal, high quality music on Spotify, 8track, soundcloud, pandora. I am just waiting for the film and tv industry to become more open :) I really hope that one day, I can turn on my computer, and select a movie I want to see and I get to see it.

Last, I still like going to movie theater. I don't mind if new movies won't be available right away on Netflix until the new movies are away from theater.

</comment><comment><USER14> A government court ruled in favor of the government? You don't say?</comment>


Behind the scenes with Twitter and why they use Apache Mesos - <AUTHOR> http://opensource.com/business/14/8/interview-chris-aniszczyk-twitter-apache-mesos

<comment><AUTHOR> "When is the last time you've seen the fail whale on Twitter?" This is my interview with Chris Aniszczyk, Head of Open Source at Twitter, and we take a deep dive on how Twitter scales their data center with the Apache Mesos project.</comment>


Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 too little, too late - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/24/BUUC1G00J3.DTL&type=business <comment><USER2> What really concerns me about Windows Mobile 7 is the damage it's going to do among mobile web applications. You see, right now, if you want to do a mobile webapp, you can live in HTML5 land with working scripting, working DOM, good CSS3-support and all other goodies.

Sure, there are differences between mobile browsers, but all major platforms are now using webkit of some sort (and for those that don't, Fennec is available which also works really well), so that's a solid foundation to build upon.

And now WP7 arrives, brining us not IE9, not IE8, but IE7 (which by now is 4 years old already) in all its glory.

Up until today, you could get away by just ignoring WM6 and pointing the rare user of that platform to Opera Mobile, but now, there's no more Opera Mobile and the platform is about to get a lot more popular, so your app better works in IE7 too.

This means to either provide two versions of your app, or go back to what we have to do on the desktop too, which is progressive enhancement which sometimes can really destroy the quality of your code and will, again, costs hours upon hours of wasted effort (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1828586>).

Thanks Microsoft. Much appreciated.

<comment><USER3> We can only hope that either:

a) they release an OS update soon next year with an IE9 rendering engine

b) no-one buys the product

I actually suspect that both are likely, at least in Europe.

<comment><USER4> > a) they release an OS update soon next year with an IE9 rendering engine

Unlikely - Microsoft's strategy is to fragment every market it can't control and prevent commoditization of the platform layer. The inclusion of a broken IE was probably deliberate.

<comment><USER2> makes me think...

maybe it's time we developers stood up and said "no".

Let's stand together and declare that "working mobile web" just isn't a feature of WP7. If you want the cool bling of todays mobile web, you'll have to get any other phone aside of WP7. Any will do. Just not WP7.

<comment><USER5> That's fine, but you pay my salary to feed my family. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> what I meant was to shift our mindset. At least for me it has always been a matter of honor to support all clients out there as equally well as possible just because that's what we have done on the web ever since.

What I was thinking was to not do it this time around. Now if your customer insists, explain the issue and add the IE tax (I'd say an additional 80% of what you'd charge for the real-browser-only version). If your employer insists, well, then you don't have too many options of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Too early to write them off too.

</comment><comment><USER7> Even if Windows Phone 7 is not significantly better than the iPhone and Android competition is a good thing, right? I've played with a device in store and it seems OK-to-good in comparison to my iPhone 4 (which is quite good). I think consumers will be better off if Windows Phone 7 is a credible phone platform, regardless of whether they actually ever use it because it will keep iPhone and Android improving.

<comment><USER8> There is still Blackberry, webOS, and Nokia. Already lots of competition. Adding Microsoft doesn't hurt but it's probably not helping much at this point.

Also, I think Apple and Google know they need to improve, regardless of the competition. They are both strong players vying to be the #1 in smart phones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems like an interesting phone, and with all the money MS has they are going to buy a lot of partnerships, marketting deals with it. A lot of people could buy this thing and more important, will be used as an experiment for the desktop.

I don't like it, through, I think the interface is so ugly(like the zune external design), and the proof that MS guys had become lazy bastards that just care about making stuff fast. Who knows, maybe people don't care about detail.

</comment><comment><USER10> This may give RIM some competition in the mobile enterprise space.

<comment><USER2> really? Isn't all the PR about WP7 really focussed on the consumer? You don't read at all about the enterprise features (does it even have any?), but all is full of Facebook, media sharing and stuff.

<comment><USER11> Office hub, SharePoint integration - yes, there's plenty there in the enterprise space. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a way to extend Active Directory group policy to the devices already, or in the next update or 2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I found the UI unappealing and the heavy use of rotation effects amateurish.

Is this the best they can do? Draw rectangles...

Vertical list of applications??? Microsoft what have you been smoking?

And sorry but I just can't shake the feeling that the UI looks like some half- baked demo.

Microsoft should have just copied the iPhone and Android, they would have had a lot more success.

<comment><USER6> If they had done that, I am sure you would have commented here saying it looks like a cheap imitation. Have you actually used the phone?

<comment><USER13> That's my problem with Microsoft software ... they get hyped months or years in advance with nobody actually using the damn product.

And when a product is hyped, you've got to expect a backslash when it doesn't support basic functionality people got accustomed to.

I also think that if third-party integration like Twitter will be less than what Facebook got ... WinMo 7 is basically screwed.

<comment><USER14> My understanding is that any app can register itself for any of the hubs, so I don't see any technical reason why a twitter app can't go in the people hub.

No clue whose over-sight it is that the twitter app isn't already there.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Mathematical Way to Check for Number Negativity - <AUTHOR> This function returns a positive nonzero number if x is negative, and 0 otherwise:
f(x): abs(x) - x
And this one returns a negative number if x is negative, and 0 otherwise:
f(x): x - abs(x) <comment><USER2> And you could even use these functions to check their own outputs and these functions again to check those outputs in turn, and these functions again to check _those_ outputs in turn, and these functions again to check _those_ outputs in turn, and these functions again to check _those_ outputs in turn, and these functions again to check _those_ outputs in turn, and on, and on...

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course.</comment></comment>


The Axiom of Choice Is Wrong (2007) - <AUTHOR> https://cornellmath.wordpress.com/2007/09/13/the-axiom-of-choice-is-wrong/ <comment><USER2> The problem solution in the article uses the axiom of choice to construct a "nonprincipal ultrafilter" on the natural numbers. This is actually weaker than the full axiom of choice, but you can still show that no such object is computable. It's a nice exercise to show that with the same assumptions as in the article you can decide the halting problem. (hint: consider the boolean sequence where the nth element is true iff the Turing machine halts within n steps)

As for the axiom of choice, the real problem is trying to claim that it is right or wrong in the first place. Mathematics as a whole has never quite recovered from the failure of Hilbert's program... The bottom line is that there is no complete and consistent notion of "truth". There is no objective mathematical reality, because it cannot include a statements about its own consistency (and it's easy to translate this into "statements about certain hard problems", by exactly the same process we use to show that some problems are NP complete by reduction from another NP complete problem).

On the other hand, this is not actually detrimental to mathematical practice. It only means that you have a lot more freedom in modeling your problem domain. For instance, it turns out that set theory with the axiom of choice is a horrible place to do probability theory in (non-measurable sets and functions are a direct consequence, and you have to go to a lot of trouble to exclude them everywhere). If ZFC was part of some objective mathematical reality, then this would in some sense be unavoidable, since ultimately you want to make statements describing reality. On the other hand, once we realize that this assumption is just plainly false, we can start looking for more refined models.

<comment><USER3> _There is no objective mathematical reality, because it cannot include a statements about its own consistency_

I'm assuming we're talking about Gödel's incompleteness theorems?

Don't they just say that if there's such a thing as objective mathematical reality, it can't be effectively axiomatized?

<comment><USER4> > Don't they just say that if there's such a thing as objective mathematical > reality, it can't be effectively axiomatized?

No they don't. Real space doesn't appear to be infinite, and Zn is not subject to Godel's incompleteness theorem.

If you drop the requirement of infinite numbers and "recursive" infinites (e.g. real numbers), as reality appears to do, there is no problem.

<comment><USER5> > Real space doesn't appear to be infinite

Citation needed. People keep saying things like this ("real space isn't infinite" or "real spacetime must be discrete") but never show their work.

<comment><USER6> There was a post here two weeks ago discussing this exact problem. [1] It starts by explaining Democritus' reasoning that matter must be made of discrete atoms. The main point of the article is that a similar logic applies to the future theory of quantum gravity; space and time too must be discrete.

From the article:

> Importing the atomic philosophy of Democritus into modern physics might be > essential for reconciling general relativity (which assumes a continuous > reality) with quantum mechanics (which very much does not).

As far as infinite vs finite space: because there is a fixed rate of information propagation, we only need to show that time is finite in extent, and it follows that space is also finite. We know that the visible universe is finite (by looking in the sky) and we can explain why: the big bang happened at a finite time in the past.

We don't know if the universe will have a finite future, but it might be the case. One possible cause of a finite future could be accelerating expansion of the universe due to dark energy. [2]

Of course there are other interpretations of "real space", but this one (causally connected) seems parsimonious to me.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13466254](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13466254)

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

<comment><USER5> To the best of my knowledge, mainstream quantum mechanics assumes continuous spacetime, so the argument that the primary reason it can't be reconciled with general relativity is _continuity_ seems pretty specious to me. And it's possible to come up with a model where the universe is infinite but the visible universe is finite. In fact, I believe FLRW is one such a model, and is supported with high accuracy by the latest experimental observations. So again, your argument doesn't seem that compelling to me.

<comment><USER6> > To the best of my knowledge, mainstream quantum mechanics assumes continuous > spacetime, so the argument that the primary reason it can't be reconciled > with general relativity is continuity seems pretty specious to me.

Your criticism is right and that is a bad argument. The real reasons they are hard to reconcile are technical (see for example [1]), and not mentioned in the source I referred to.

The article only says that a discrete theory of spacetime "might be essential" for the reconciliation; the arguments for this are philosophical - it would be beautiful and historically completing. Read the article if you're interested in the arguments, which aren't included in my comments.

> And it's possible to come up with a model where the universe is infinite but > the visible universe is finite. In fact, I believe FLRW is one such a model, > and is supported with high accuracy by the latest experimental observations.

I agree with you that the universe could be infinite, but that doesn't contradict my previous comment. I explained that I was talking about local (causally connected to us) space-time, only. I admit this is a bit of a trick, but the parent comment used the term "real space" which I interpreted in such a way to favour an argument for finite space.

> So again, your argument doesn't seem that compelling to me.

I've given reasons but I think it might be helpful to restate what I am actually claiming. I admit I don't know that space and time are discrete. The source I gave is a poetic and philosophical argument that it might be. I think it's established fact that energy and matter are, and that time is finite in the past, so the visible universe is finite. I think it's possible that the future is finite too.

I don't know what FLRW is. My best guess is [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–W...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker_metric)

[1] [http://www.theory.caltech.edu/people/jhs/strings/str115.html](http://www.theory.caltech.edu/people/jhs/strings/str115.html)

<comment><USER3> > I think it's established fact that energy and matter are, and that time is > finite in the past, so the visible universe is finite.

None of that is established, actually:

Metric expansion of space comes with a cosmic event horizon where redshift goes to infinity. While the energy contained within that region is finite, there's no reason to assume that the universe outside the horizon looks any different than inside the horizon, and it might very well be spatially infinite.

As to time being finite in the past, it is possible to generalize Einstein's equations so that they can be extended past the big bang singularity, and what you get is a mirror universe on the other side. The issue here is that as we approach Planck scale, quantum gravity becomes relevant, and we have no predictive theory of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As time goes by, I increasingly view things like uncountable infinities and the axiom of choice as "a fun maths game", rather than having any intrinsic truth or falsity. Other's view may differ.

Here is an interesting thing I've never seen anyone write down (I should do it myself) -- we don't need uncountable infinities.

* How many natural numbers are there? Countable

* How many rational numbers are there? Countable

* How many numbers are solution to a polynomial? Countable

* How many numbers are the output of any turing machine (including programs that run forever, producing an infinite decimal)? Countable

* How many numbers are the answer to any maths problem anyone can write down (where the problem has at most a countable number of answers)? Countable.

If the set of all numbers any can express in any sensible way, and the solution to any problem any could ever have, is countable, why do we need the other uncountables?

<comment><USER8> Are you aware of the concept of periods ? This is a quite fascinating, countable, ring of numbers, that captures all of the above:

Kontsevich and Zagier introduce and develop this concept quite far:

[http://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~aar/papers/kontzagi.pdf](http://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~aar/papers/kontzagi.pdf)

<comment><USER9> Just to give a little bit more attention to this link: Wikipedia link to one of the authors:

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

Proof that one of the authors really is no other "M. Kontsevich" (I openly admit that I wanted to be sure since I associate Maxim Kontsevich mostly with other mathematical areas):

> > [http://www.ihes.fr/~maxim/publicationsanglais.html](http://www.ihes.fr/~maxim/publicationsanglais.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are many problems with this puzzle that go against the intuition.

\- the number of prisoners is infinite, so they will never finish answering the question. At any point in time, only a finite number of prisoners will be freed.

\- a single prisoner must process an infinite amount of information to reach the decision. In fact, by observing only a finite number of hats he cannot possibly choose the answer.

\- the number of equivalence classes is uncountable. Not even a countably infinite number of prisoners can possibly have enough time to pick out a single element from every equivalence class.

<comment><USER11> As soon as you start treating the axiom of choice as a superpower for a conscious being you are in conceptual la la land.

How do I guess the color of my hat if there's an uncountable number of possible colors? Doesn't that mean that communicating the value of that color involves transmitting an infinite amount of informtion?

<comment><USER12> Quick, tell me your favourite number between 0 and 1.

How did you do that? Weren't there an uncountable number of possible numbers?

Ah, you may say, but I obviously wasn't going to choose one with an infinite information content, so all but countably many possible numbers had probability 0.

Which is true. But in fact it's true that _whenever_ you have a probability measure on an uncountable space then all but countably many elements have probability 0, so that escape clause applies equally well to the hat colours.

<comment><USER13> But the axiom of choice applies to all sets, not just ones that you can easily choose a number from. For instance, what is your favorite non-computable number between 0 and 1?

<comment><USER14> Inverse of Kolmogorov complexity of thirteenth bit-string with uncomputable Kolmogorov complexity, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What an interesting thought experiment. Lying in bed last night, the best I could come up with (before seeing the optimal solution this morning) was an average of 83 with a minimum of 66.

The prisoners agree that every third prisoner, beginning with the first, uses "white" to convey that the subsequent two prisoners are wearing the same color and "black" to convey different colors. Since the second prisoner in each triple knows the color of the third, he can deduce his own color, leaving the third prisoner to also deduce his own color. And of course there's a 50/50 chance the sacrificial first prisoner in the triple still gets out. I suppose this could be improved upon by later prisoners having a longer memory, but I've already seen the optimal solution. ;)

Interested to hear others' attempts.

</comment><comment><USER16> Mathologer recently did a video on the puzzles mentioned in this article: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDOP0XynAzA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDOP0XynAzA)

</comment><comment><USER17> The axiom of choice is used to demonstrate the _existence_ of something, in this case a perfect strategy.

However, if said strategy's implementation requires actual infinities, eg each prisoner having an infinite memory, then that is why you find it intuitively objectionable.

It is useful here to think of computer algorithms and not just math. While mathematical arguments have no problem supposing infinite amounts of actors, the next question is whether each actor can have infinite memory.

In mathematics, infinity can be thought of as a property of a _set_. It can also be thought of as some limit of an infinite sequence of operations on sets, which is a statement that is simultaneously true about each member of that sequence.

This is useful because it can tie constructions we observe in the real world into patterns that approximate and converge to the limit of this infinite sequence. And then the question is how the computational complexity grows.

So in your example here, each FINITE set of prisoners can't coordinate a strategy. So there is no "approaching a limit" \- the thing only starts working with an infinite set of prisoners, each of whom has infinite memory etc. And that is why you get your intuition alarm bells go off :)

But it is even more than that. Your construction requires each prisoner to _use the axiom of choice in order to take an action based on the NAME of the chosen member_ which is used to demonstrate the existence of a sequence of _actions_ that satisfies a certain property. However, when the axiom of choice is used normally, it is not used to actually NAME the chosen element, but merely work with it like a black box. By NAME, I mean an id that distinguishes it from all other elementa, and lets you pick it out and examine is properties THAT ARE DIFFERENT than all other elements in that set.

In other words, Sure, you can assume that the chosen "representative" sequence has the same property as any other in the equivalence class -- namely that all but finitely many terms are equal. BUT the part where you "cheat" is having the prisoner "find out" more than that about the representative sequence, in particular its initial values up to an arbitrary depth.

</comment><comment><USER18> The axiom of choice always seemed intuitively wrong to me. You can't just take a set and arbitrarily pick something out of it! Making a choice requires information, and you can't pluck information out of thin air at whim; applying the axiom amounts to creating information out of nothing.

I suppose this is because i'm not a mathematician, but have a natural sciences background. In the physical universe, memorably, "the law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature" [1], and so we do not accept the mathematicians' fake information.

More specifically related to choice from a set, Curie's principle that "when certain causes produce certain effects, it is the elements of symmetry of the causes that may be found in the effects produced" [2] forbids something uniform from becoming arbitrarily non-uniform; whenever that appears to happen, there must be some hidden cause which already carries that non- uniformity.

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

[2] [https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/jpa-00239814](https://hal.archives- ouvertes.fr/jpa-00239814) \- "Enfin, lorsque certaines causes produisent certains effets, les éléments de symétrie des causes doivent se retrouver dans les effets produits."; please excuse the not-so-literal translation

<comment><USER19> > You can't just take a set and arbitrarily pick something out of it! Making a > choice requires information

True, but how can you "have a set", i.e. reference a set in any way, without having information about that set? There seems to be a requirement of some bare minimum of information enough to specify the set, and so enough to pick out a member of the set.

<comment><USER18> Having enough information to specify the set isn't enough to pick out one particular member.

For example, if i say "the colours teal, maroon, and taupe", you have enough information to know what's in the set, but no extra information that would let you pick one element out of it.

<comment><USER19> Well the issue is whether its possible in principle to define such a function for all possible sets. But if you can enumerate the elements of the set, such a function is simply to pick the first element.

So the issue is how much information is necessary to guarantee that its possible in principle to construct such a function. It should be clear that enough information to enumerate each set is enough to create a decision function. The remaining question seems to be whether one can specify a countable set of countable sets without specifying enough info about each member set to enumerate the set's members. It seems trivial that a set with countable elements is enumerable, but I might be missing some subtlety.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'd assume that even if in every case the number of incorrect guesses is finite, the _expected number_ of people that fail to guess their color is infinite.

Am I right about this?

<comment><USER21> Im not sure what you mean by "expected number." Do you mean if you try to guess how many inmates the warden has managed to guarantee will fail? Per the article, the warden can guarantee that an "arbitrarily large finite number of them" will fail. But it's still always finite despite being unbounded. If you want to predict a lower bound on the number of failures the warden has guaranteed, you just have to guess a larger natural number than the warden. :)

<comment><USER20> I mean if the warden picks a sequence randomly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have a vague understanding of the Axiom of Choice, but I've always had trouble with some of the analogies people use to explain it.

Two things that have bugged me for a while:

\- why is it usually talked about only in the context of infinite sets? Is there a general trick to building a choice function if all you have are finite sets?

\- There's a saying like "you can choose from an infinite set of shoes, but not from an infinite set of socks without AC". Why exactly?

<comment><USER23> The axiom of choice is about making an _infinite_ number of _arbitrary_ choices simultaneously. If you can specify some rule, this rule is just one choice. Finitely many choices are always fine and don't need the axiom of choice.

If you have a finite set, you can number its elements and make rules by saying "let's take the element with the smallest number having this or that property", so you don't need the axiom of choice when dealing with finite sets.

The point of Russell's shoes versus socks analogy is that shoes are distinguishable while socks aren't: To choose one shoe from each of an infinite set of pairs of shoes, you can always choose the left shoe, or specify some pattern (so you don't need the axiom of choice), whereas when choosing socks, you have to make an arbitrary choice to select one from each pair (so you do need the axiom of choice).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> An interesting alternative to the axiom of choice (AC) is the axiom of determinacy (AD): [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Axiom_of_determin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Axiom_of_determinacy&oldid=738341699)

</comment><comment><USER24> If you're interested in the Axiom of Choice, Godel, finitism, pseudo- randomness, complexity, information, and other foundational topics, check out the indie film "Digital Physics" on iTunes, Amazon, or Vimeo. Free packs of trading cards (with gum!) are available too! Check the website.

</comment><comment><USER25> This problem has exactly the wrong setup for using th the axiom of choice:

First, the axiom of choice requires that you have a countable number of sets that you are choosing elements from, but there are undoubtably many of the equivalence classes that he described [0]. So the author is using something stronger than the axiom of choice to arrive at his paradox.

Second, if you actually are in a situation where you have to choose from a countably infinite number of sets, you only need the axiom of choice if there is no selection rule for choosing an element available. In this case there is a rule you can use, namely: select the sequence in which the "finite prefix" is all zeros.

[0]: the number of equivalence classes is uncountable because there is a 1:1 relation between the equivelance class and an the infinite sequence that is common to all the sequences in the equivalence class once theirs uncommon prefixes have been truncated.

<comment><USER26> > the axiom of choice requires that you have a countable number of sets that > you are choosing elements from

You're referring to the "axiom of countable choice", which is a different axiom. The Wikipedia entry for the axiom of choice makes it clear that the number of sets can be uncountable.

> select the sequence in which the "finite prefix" is all zeros

This doesn't really make sense as a selection rule. The size of the prefix can vary between pairs of members from the same equivalence class.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Infinities aren't real, so you shouldn't be surprised if unrealistic things happen when you invoke infinities. That you can duplicate a sphere by cutting it into a finite number of pieces and reassembling it is a "fact" in the same sense as "Luke Skywalker destroyed the Death Star". It might be interesting and culturally important, but it's talking about fictional entities. Both spheres and arbitrarily detailed pieces of spheres only exist in the imaginations of mathematicians. The Axiom of Choice is obviously true, and the fact that it lets you invent weird sounding stories from weird components is no evidence against it. Don't confuse mathematical tools with reality.

<comment><USER28> Mathematics is formalised is to avoid this sort of philosophizing.

I used to think, for example, that the dirac delta function was mathematical fiction - a mathematical "hack". But then in an engineering control systems class, we did an experiment where we used a step function to approximate a dirac delta function. I could see the results both on the computer screen and in physical reality through a mass-spring-damper system. From that moment on I saw the dirac delta function in the same way that I see cosine/sine: The reason it works in math is because it has a basis in physical reality.

The lesson to be learned here, is that you don't know in advance whether something is obvious or not. To me, it doesn't make sense to decide whether the axiom of choice can be justified by looking at the axiom itself. You have to look at where it's used and required, and whether the proofs convey something that matches your physical intuition.

<comment><USER29> > I used to think, for example, that the dirac delta function was mathematical > fiction - a mathematical "hack".

Can you expand on this? The Dirac delta function is not a function from R to R for example.

<comment><USER30> Treating it as a function is the fiction (and the reason is probably that the average college freshman doesn't know what a distribution is). But it's "enough" like a function that unless you look too closely, no real problems arise from glossing over the function/distribution distinction.

<comment><USER29> Right. That was kind of my point. It is a "mathematical trick" in the sense that it's not a function, but a distribution.

<comment><USER28> You're right, but what I should have emphasized is that if you accept that cos/sin are based in physical reality because they model a circle, then you have to have just as much faith in the dirac delta.

Cos/sin are infinitely precise, and can't be reduced to algebra (as opposed to calculus/analysis). This in itself is an idealisation, a fiction.Sin/cos seem natural because they model the ideal unit circle, while the dirac delta is natural because it models an ideal impulse. The latter seems more abstract than the former because we all have been exposed to unit circles, but usually we are not exposed to unit impulses.

You can apply a step function to a mass-spring-damper system, then observer the response. Thereafter, you can make the step function narrower but taller and observer the response. As you continue this process, the response approaches something simple. Maybe this way of thinking about the dirac delta in obvious to everyone, but to me it was a major breakthrough because I couldn't imagine how something infinitely tall and infinitely narrow could model anything in the real world.

So my ultimate takeaway message is that cos/sin are to an n-gon what the dirac delta is to a step function, and that they are just as "real" as one another. Alternately, the dirac delta doesn't work for "symbolic" or algebraic reasons. It's an idealisation of reality, not an abstraction _away_ from reality for the sake of convenience (e.g. how we sometimes artificiallyl define 0^0 (zero to the zero) to be 1 in some cases or 0 in other cases)).

<comment><USER29> I was under the impression that we were talking about mathematics and not physical reality.

In mathematics, cos/sin are just functions cos:R -> R and sin:R -> R. As far as functions go, Dirac delta is kind of a fiction because we don't have a function δ: R -> R. That's why I think that your initial characterization was correct.

Of course if we define it with distribution or measure then we don't have this issue.

> Maybe this way of thinking about the dirac delta in obvious to everyone, but > to me it was a major breakthrough because I couldn't imagine how something > infinitely tall and infinitely narrow could model anything in the real > world.

By the way, if you're looking for intuition on the Dirac delta I think a good way to think of it is just the identity element under convolution. Equivalently, you can think of it as a thing whose Fourier transform is 1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > Sure, this is based primarily on my intuition for finite things and a naive > hope that they should extend to infinities.

but it's known that it does not extend!

</comment><comment><USER32> So what bothered the author was the axiom of choice and not the part where a prisoner with a finite brain needs to memorize an infinite amount of information and then perform a computation on infinite information to compute the equivalence class? For this strategy to work you must assume that the prisoners are capable of carrying out noncomputable computations, too. _That 's_ the more problematic assumption.

</comment><comment><USER33> You can generalize their prisoner example to using a countable number of colours, not just two or finite.

</comment><comment><USER34> In the comments to the linked article there's a nice explanation by Terry Tao of why this is not so spectacular, in the sense that our intuition with probabilities here relies on Fubini's theorem, which in this case do not apply due to measure theoretic obstacles. But, again, our intuition of probability fails with much easier examples.

Here follows Terence Tao's comment (refer to the original to have proper rendering of math symbols):

"This paradox is actually very similar to Banach-Tarski, but involves a violation of additivity of probability rather than additivity of volume.

Consider the case of a finite number N of prisoners, with each hat being assigned independently at random. Your intuition in this case is correct: each prisoner has only a 50% chance of going free. If we sum this probability over all the prisoners and use Fubini's theorem, we conclude that the expected number of prisoners that go free is N/2\. So we cannot pull off a trick of the sort described above.

If we have an infinite number of prisoners, with the hats assigned randomly (thus, we are working on the Bernoulli space {\Bbb Z}_2^{\Bbb N}), and one uses the strategy coming from the axiom of choice, then the event E_j that the j^th prisoner does not go free is not measurable, but formally has probability 1/2 in the sense that E_j and its translate E_j + e_j partition {\Bbb Z}_2^{\Bbb N} where e_j is the j^th basis element, or in more prosaic language, if the j^th prisoner's hat gets switched, this flips whether the prisoner gets to go free or not. The "paradox" is the fact that while the E_j all seem to have probability 1/2, each element of the event space lies in only finitely many of the E_j. This can be seen to violate Fubini's theorem – if the E_j are all measurable. Of course, the E_j are not measurable, and so one's intuition on probability should not be trusted here.

There is a way to rephrase the paradox in which the axiom of choice is eliminated, and the difficulty is then shifted to the construction of product measure. Suppose the warden can only assign a finite number of black hats, but is otherwise unconstrained. The warden therefore picks a configuration "uniformly at random" among all the configurations with finitely many black hats (I'll come back to this later). Then, one can again argue that each prisoner has only a 50% chance of guessing his or her own hat correctly, even if the prisoner gets to see all other hats, since both remaining configurations are possible and thus "equally likely". But, of course, if everybody guesses white, then all but finitely many go free. Here, the difficulty is that the group \lim_{n \to \infty} {\Bbb Z}_2^n is not compact and so does not support a normalised Haar measure. (The problem here is similar to the two envelopes problem, which is again caused by a lack of a normalised Haar measure.)"

</comment><comment><USER35> How can an axiom be 'wrong'?

<comment><USER36> An axiom is simply a statement that is _defined_ as being true. Often times on grounds of being self-evident. For example, one of Euler's axioms is "Things that are equal to the same thing are also equal to one another".

Whereas Euler's may seem pretty tame, the Axiom of Choice is not. That's why some people think it might be wrong.

<comment><USER35> Exactly, so unless it leads to contradictions it may be weird and unintuitive but it's not _wrong_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> YOUR MATH ARE WRONG

If prisonners follow the last strategy, the dude number 0 as a probability of finding his hat of 50% and the dude number 1 000 000 50%. Why? because nobody knows how many times they will lose. Those who are sure to win are those close to infinity... This have nothing to do with Axiom of Choice. But only because almost all the mass of your distribution is near infinty. With or without Axiom of Choice this things exist.</comment>


A. Flexner – The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge (1939) - <AUTHOR> http://fermatslibrary.com/s/the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge#email-newsletter <comment><USER2> downloadable link here:

[http://southasiainstitute.harvard.edu/website/wp- content/upl...](http://southasiainstitute.harvard.edu/website/wp- content/uploads/2012/08/UsefulnessHarpers.pdf)

For context, Flexner was the founder of the Institute for Advanced Study where he fostered an academic culture based on letting the faculty do whatever they felt like.</comment>


The 50 Best Gaming Articles from the Last Year - <AUTHOR> https://airtable.com/shrzJxrXCaJwwJO2T <comment><USER2> This is the worst presentation of a listicle I have ever seen.

There is no introduction to tell me who is selecting these articles and why I should believe their claim that these are the best articles on this subject.

It's displayed as a spreadsheet that's far too big to fit on my screen even if I rotate the tablet horizontally; I have to scroll all the way to the right to read the brief summary of what each article is about.

And I cannot scroll vertically. At all. I drag the screen and it just tries to select the cells, or scrolls whichever column I'm pressing on left and right a little.

Seriously this is hilariously illegible and unusable on the iPad that I am looking at this with. Dump this into some other format that actually gets reflowed properly.

<comment><USER3> Display issues aside, I personally find this format far superior to a typical listicle you might find on the ad-revenue-driven web, with banner ads between every item and a heap of JS running on your page for no reason.

<comment><USER4> What is the JS doing on those, anyway?

<comment><USER5> User tracking, mostly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> this is a list almost entirely about how video games make money. There's very little here of substance about video games as a medium, and very little that seeks to investigate how video games function as cultural artifacts. This isn't a list for people who want to make video games or who want to advance the state of video games as an art form, this is a list that only serves the capital class, and looks almost exclusively at video games through the lens of business opportunity.

The first article starts out largely about Animal Crossing, and another Animal Crossing article appears on the list, but neither even _attempt_ to interpret the game in any way, or to consider what the game might mean and how it relates to life as we know it. Compare with this recent Atlantic article: [https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/04/animal- cr...](https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/04/animal-crossing- isnt-escapist-its-political/610012/) and you'll see what I mean. I find this incredibly ironic, because Animal Crossing is rich in content about labor, economics, and consumerism, but these themes are taken at face value and never critiqued in any meaningful way. While the author has cobbled together a list of articles about how games make money, the list is bereft of any interpretation of games in general, _even the game about making money_. Nothing in this list will improve the reader's literacy when it comes to interpreting and playing games.

A handful of the articles are just marketing about upcoming games. What makes this article on of the best articles about games? It is little more than an advertisement. [https://www.polygon.com/2020/3/2/21155158/valorant- project-a...](https://www.polygon.com/2020/3/2/21155158/valorant-project-a- riot-games-shooter)

To simply call these articles the "best gaming articles" is incredibly self- centered, as the viewpoints expressed in this list have an extremely narrow focus, and the focus is almost universally on money-making.

<comment><USER7> I have not read you but I believe you. I crave for good game journalism, insightful enough but not academic (because regretfully academics try to optimize different metrics).The closest example I have is some pieces during the early years of RockPaperShotgun, but that site jumped the shark eons ago.

Do you have any examples or recommendations?

<comment><USER8> Not articles, but a favourite Youtube channel of mine is Game Maker's Tookit. It does informative videos on various game-design topics, like story-telling through level design, how multi-player games get balanced, deep-dives into well-made levels from various games and what makes them so good, etc.

Here's an example (and the channel's most-viewed video) - How Game Designers Protect Players From Themselves

[https://youtu.be/7L8vAGGitr8](https://youtu.be/7L8vAGGitr8)

<comment><USER6> yeah, their stuff is good! They had a video about Celeste last year that was really fantastic: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yorTG9at90g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yorTG9at90g)

That stuff is very in-the-weeds on the mechanics of platformers. If you like that video, Itay Keren's article on the history of how cameras work in 2d sidescroller games is one of my favorite pieces on 2d game construction: [https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ItayKeren/20150511/243083/Sc...](https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ItayKeren/20150511/243083/Scroll_Back_The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Cameras_in_SideScrollers.php)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Missing the excellent "The War stories" from Ars Technica. e.g. [https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/03/war-stories-how- princ...](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/03/war-stories-how-prince-of- persia-slew-the-apple-iis-memory-limitations/)

Their PAX West/East reviews and thoughts are also excellent.

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't read this one - this is awesome. It's a great series, I love the one on Crash Bandicoot.

[https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/02/war-stories-how- crash...](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/02/war-stories-how-crash- bandicoot-hacked-the-original-playstation/)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone - I'm coming up on a year of writing a weekly newsletter about the video game industry.

I must have read at least a couple hundred articles over the last year, and there's definitely a few that have stuck out to me. I compiled the ones I enjoyed the most (or wrote myself) and gathered them in this handy airtable.

Feel free to subscribe to my newsletter if you're so inclined to stay up to date on more content in the future: www.pausebutton.news

</comment><comment><USER10> Great list. I'm a video-game enthusiast too and similarly compile news. A few days ago I made a static site generator that delivers me my latest feeds: [http://fdg.gg/news](http://fdg.gg/news) It's really early stage but feel free to use in your own journey.

</comment><comment><USER11> This was a fun trip down memory lane thanks!!

</comment><comment><USER12> Thank you! This is the best post I have read all year!

<comment><AUTHOR> No problem - figured after writing about games for a year it was time to spread the love!</comment></comment>


Reusing an ancient industrial Robot for Art - transistor-man Recently finished reviving an ancient SCARA robot, adding a modern control software, giving it a paintbrush and with the help of comrades python-ing it into painting with a paintbrush.<p>Its a bit heavy on the robot mechanical and electrical side, but there's a github repo of image processing to synthesize the brush paths and I thought you folks might be interested. <comment> transistor-man The robot documentation is here: [http://transistor- man.com/bluebot_revival.html](http://transistor-man.com/bluebot_revival.html)

A quick video demo: [https://vimeo.com/213723506](https://vimeo.com/213723506)

This is also an entry into the robotart competition, there's a login to vote for art that interests you.

[https://robotart.org/](https://robotart.org/)

Our team didn't have access to a brand new robot, so we revived a scrapped one</comment>


Evolving phishing attacks target journalists and activists in MENA - <AUTHOR> https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2019/08/evolving-phishing-attacks-targeting-journalists-and-human-rights-defenders-from-the-middle-east-and-north-africa/ <comment><AUTHOR> There is a very interesting arms race happening in relation to targeting of journalists and activists over the past few years. From Finfisher to Hacking Team and NSO Group and even more sophisticated him grown stuff, it is getting harder and harder to stay on top of things. Governments and adversaries (including corporate intelligence) are deploying ever more sophisticated tools to try and gain access.

But it's not just about access, it's also about how they use the information they gather. For example lower level disruption seems to be increasingly spreading (disrupt their donors and reputation, damage their personal life), rather than high level (and public) attacks (beat them up, arrest them). I've worked on this for over a decade with 50+ organisations and we'll over a 1000+ individual journalists/activists and have started to put together a full strategic theory about how it is happening and ways to counter. Though to be honest I am a little concerned about what may be seen as a red team playbook (which is clearly not my intention). Also I'm trying to find the best medium and location to be able to discuss this.

For those on Hacker News who are interested in helping journalists and activists protect themselves in situation such as these. You might be interested in an app we built and launched called Umbrella. It's a free, open source app with best practice advice on how activists/journalists can stay safe at protests, deal with arrest, surveillance, send a secure mail or communication etc. We wanted an all-in-one guide for anyone who needs help. You can read more about it at [https://secfirst.org](https://secfirst.org) or try it

iOS: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/umbrella- security/id14537153...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/umbrella- security/id1453715310)

Android: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.umbrella)</comment>


Levi's found a way to make hemp feel like cotton - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/levis-investing-in-hemp-as-a-cotton-alternative-2019-5 <comment><USER2> In case you are wondering why that is important (like I did): 'Hemp uses significantly less water and chemicals than cotton during cultivation.'

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, found a way to make a 69%-cotton / 31%-hemp blend feel like cotton, in a denim type fabric. Not much info on how they soften the hemp.

<comment><USER4> Also, it apparently was a European partner doing the research, but we won't even know which one. Maybe Lenzing?</comment></comment>