Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/y-combinator-goes-on-the-offensive-against-hollywood/?src=twrhp <comment><USER2> I think what we need to work on is improving the political clout of engineers, not destroying hollywood. We've won this one (I hope) but it took rather extreme measures. Blacking out wikipedia isn't something which can be done every time congress threatens to do something stupid. It's a bit like going on strike - a negative act which can turn people against us if overused. We need mechanisms which can influence politics on a day-to-day level, so we don't need to do these last-ditch operations.

Nevertheless, defeating SOPA is hugely significant, because it shows that we CAN be politically effective. Politics can operate as a kind of nonviolent intimidation: if our opponents have the reputation of being politically effective, and our group has the reputation of being politically ineffective, individuals think it's not worth their time trying to influence politics.

Take software patents. Whenever this comes up, there are always gloomy posts saying that we will never defeat the patent lobby. This perception deters everyone from trying to.

EFF does a good job. But I think more of us need to be active as individuals, on a day to day basis rather than just when the trumpet sounds like this. Suppose there was a website where you could sign a pledge which said: "I will spend 1/2 hour a week working against internet censorship". and then provided stack-overflow-like facilities whereby activists could suggest useful actions and vote on which are the best; and collect data on which arguments seemed most effective. Not only would this make us more effective, it would declare that we were a force to be reckoned with.

Anyone up for making such a website?

<comment><USER3> It's not about engineers vs. "Hollywood". I'm not even sure what either of those categories are, and I doubt the people who fall into those categories could agree who belongs in them and who doesn't. Also, the distinction is completely meaningless when you consider that many of the labor interests behind the "Hollywood" position are scientists and engineers who do the logistical grunt work of the on-screen magic.

Lose that false dichotomy and the rest of your post stands on its own: we won't win if we give up.

<comment><USER4> You need to convince millions of people not to watch Dark knight Rising, Transformers, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Twilight, Mission Impossible, and hundreds of other blockbusters and TV Shows, every year.

Then, the hardest part, you need to come up with something that is Waaaaaaaaaayyyy waayyyyy better than all those movies and TV shows combined -- and do it every single day.

Then, you'll kill Hollywood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the risk of being down voted to hell, this whole thing seems completely misguided to me. I _love_ the product that hollywood produces. I love great movies and great TV. I frankly think "The Wire" is the best example of story telling I know of. I can think of nothing that silicon valley has produced that even comes close. If Zynga disappeared tomorrow, I could care less, and Hollywood and Zynga are both selling entertainment. Zynga's entertainment value is less than worthless to me. I hope hollywood continues to be a massively successful industry in the hope that the next David Simon is created.

<comment><USER6> you're missing the point completely. any replacement has to succeed because it's better than hollywood. something even more awesome will come along and replace it.

the argument is not "lets all share files until they go bankrupt"; it's "there is change afoot; whoever can make the awesomest, most loved art / entertainment of the next wave will win big".

you're not a special flower. the stuff you like is mass market. you will like even more whatever comes next - if you didn't, then it wouldn't be the next big thing. the argument is self-fulfilling; yc simply wants to be the one that makes money on it. don't be mislead by the macho "killing" rhetoric.

<comment><USER7> > any replacement has to succeed because it's better than hollywood. something > even more awesome will come along and replace it

Don't forget, when it comes along, it will probably appear to be _worse_ than hollywood, just as text messaging is worse than email and email is worse than an express envelope.

That's the nature of a disruption. It's obviously worse. Until, after the fact, everyone suddenly claims it's so much better.

<comment><USER8> It's worth keeping in mind that The Wire is a product of HBO, and cable TV. They are now well established, but they were once upstarts in their own way.

HBO got its start showing rewarmed mainstream Hollywood movies, months or more after their theatrical releasee. This though was enough to make them one of the few bright spots on the vast wasteland of Gilligan's Island and Bewitched reruns that was cable TV. For that, cable operators were able to extract a premium. From there, they branched out into various bits of original programming.

Then came original programming like Oz, Sopranos, the Wire. This was TV that people regarded as art, and as art, superior to anything on network television and hollywood movies.

Other examples to consider, early Miramax and Merchant/Ivory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What hollywood has going for it, is a track-record of executing on the operations behind producing movies that make money.

People who invest in movies invest for the same reasons all of us invest in anything-- to make money.

Hollywood is a business, albeit one rooted in entertainment, but let's face it-- many artists are also just in it for the money.

I don't think our world view of "entertainment" is going to shift the way that YC suggested in it's call for action. I think most of us (unfortunately) are still going to want to watch movies like Transformers 3 at a $200 million budget than a $1million dollar indie flick.

So, once we've recognized that uprooting involves figuring out how to finance movie production instead of shifting the realm of entertainment (at least, for our generation, perhaps future generations will just want to watch WOW and starcraft online), then we're getting somewhere.

Unfortunately, figuring out a way to finance a film that costs tens or hundreds of millions to produce is a pretty tricky endeavor.

Still, it will be pretty awesome when Brad Pitt signs onto his first crowd- sourced flick =)

<comment><USER10> Think in a disruptive way. Actors don't have to be paid $10 million. Special effects don't have to cost tens of millions. Equipment doesn't have to cost millions either.

Make the movies the way you would build a lean start-up. And bank on innovation in the movies and scripts, rather than recycling popular content and make it very flashy.

But as I mentioned in another comment, I think to kill Hollywood you need incubators like YCombinator to seed the initial team and script, and attract young talent, and then help them find investors who would put a few millions into the movie, and also build a platform for distribution, like a Youtube for these movies, and a good business model to monetize them.

Some kind of news/community sites would help too, not only to share information about the projects, but also get feedback and build a group of "early adopters" who will evangelize your movie later.

<comment><USER11> Honestly, what do you think YCombinator can bring to the table that isn't already there? How exactly do you propose to disrupt something you know nothing about? It's the equivalent of the head of the MPAA saying 'Fuck it, we'll build our own search engine'. I know the tech scene is full of very smart people, but guess what - the film industry is full of very smart people too!

The thing you have to understand is that smart, talented people are making films _right now_ with innovative scripts and low budgets. And most of them will lose money, because nobody wants to see them. People genuinely prefer watching 'flashy' films with lots of VFX and actors who they've heard of.

Just because you want it to work differently doesn't mean it will.

<comment><USER12> _"Honestly, what do you think YCombinator can bring to the table that isn't already there?"_

The attitude that things are wrong with the industry, and it can/should be done better.

<comment><USER13> That's already there in droves: that's basically the mantra of every indie film director, iFilm, most film schools, alternative distributors and theaters, and just about everyone else connected to movies who isn't the big studios. They even have substantial seed funding for that kind of thing (much larger than YCombinator's typical seed funding) through a large number of directors, actors, grant agencies, universities, and rich film fans who regularly fund "not Hollywood" experimentation (sort of that industry's version of angel investors and incubators).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The project has an objective _find an alternative to Hollywood_. But like everything else, baby steps are in order. I don't know why it is assumed that a beta solution should ship with the ability to produce "Avatar" caliber productions.

When it comes to technology, I'm optimistic that it has almost limitless potential to revolutionize. My instinct tells me though that a startup aimed at competing against Hollywood doesn't have to be about inventing alternate forms of entertainment, but rather to work at optimizing on alternate means of production and distribution of the already successful form of entertainment. Recent efforts with other media have shown that most optimizations are about cutting out as much unnecessary intermediary layers as possible.

I'm convinced that a number of people currently working within the Hollywoodian system are unhappy with the present arrangements and I would not be surprised if a few were to come out the woodwork because of this YC invitation. Their expertise will be essential, because if my guess is correct, I think that a large majority of people on HN are complete ignorami when it comes to making a movie or a tv show. We're more consumers and critics than we are creators or producers of such material.

Another thing would be to look at what currently exist that tries to spearhead such alternate efforts. Is it successful? What are the problems? What has been tried? Where's the data?

First, let's ask the people who currently work on the fringe of Hollywood how they're doing it.

<comment><USER11> Do you know what's involved in making high end mass-market entertainment as produced by Hollywood or the games industry? A massive amount of work by large groups of very talented, highly qualified, incredibly hard working people. You see, unlike most tech startups, making movies is a really big collaborative endeavour. As an example, let's consider post production/VFX.

VFX companies are external contractors to the studios and compete to bid on upcoming projects. Competition is tough and the studios are more than willing to go wherever they can to achieve the best price/quality ratio. Yet still VFX can amount to a significant fraction of the production budget for a modern blockbuster. The studios are happy to pay for this though since they know that VFX driven films generally do better than the alternative.

<http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/>

So if the VFX companies aren't making massive profits, what are their costs? The costs are employing hundreds of artists and developers to create content. And content is what people are ultimately paying money to see. It's exactly the same in the games industry.

So to create an alternative to Hollywood, you'd need to generate content that's as good as Hollywood. And you're not going to do that without lots of highly paid content creators. Doesn't seem like particularly low hanging fruit to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am sort of surprised that pg chose movies rather than music. Movies are _hard_. You need a lot of things to make a movie. I liked Avatar. You can't do that kind of thing on the cheap. Actors, sites, makeup, lighting, special effects, etc. For music, you need the band, which are essentially founders from an equity standpoint, and own their own instruments already since they know how to play them. You need like $1000 of recording gear and some dude to hit the "record" button.

Eventually movies will be democratized, but killing the RIAA/iTunes cabal seems like the obvious first step.

<comment><USER16> games used to cost a lot of money and used to be hard. now they cost nothing to make except your time, and you can do it in your garage.

let people have the opportunity to access the distribution channel, and they will figure the other problems out.

people in this community seem to think that they're the ones that are going to solve all the problems in an industry to move it forward.

colleges have access to expensive equipment - if students have access to quality distribution channels, they'll take time to produce high quality content.

my first company made software and hardware; we started in my dorm, used electronic equipment (scopes and power supplies and stuff), and build a product and company that made money. if I can do it with technology, someone else can do it with cameras, recording equipment.

music has itunes, software has app stores, artists/painters have the web, online retail has warehouses without floorspace (and in some cases, not even warehouses). there is absolutely no reason movies don't fit into the equation.

<comment><USER17> > games used to cost a lot of money and used to be hard. now they cost nothing > to make except your time, and you can do it in your garage.

Let's not go overboard here. Just because there is a growing market for indie games like Minecraft does not mean big budget productions like CoD, WoW or Skyrim is at all feasible for a single person to design, code, test, and support from a garage.

Good games are still very hard to make. They dont have to cost a lot of money but if you want to make the next WoW, you better have a big budget.

<comment><USER16> you missed the point. the point is that the distribution model has changed and parties interested in participating has increased. this doesn't mean that the larger parties with deep pockets no longer participate. but if you are implying that competition has not increased and won't increase because making games, good or bad, costs less then you would be wrong.

the average game does cost less to make, because there are a lot more low- budget games out there.

the game changes when the distribution model changes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Or how about a way to fix the congress and the election process? A startup to provide information on the promises kept/broken, campaign financing, how much someone is influenced by lobbyists etc, so that only people who can be trusted get to vote on these issues. I think having politicians who can be trusted, who are informed, is more important. The recent blackouts swayed so many of them, but we can't do this every time. Some dashboard kind of thing, to let them know what their constituents want would be very useful for them, since I'm afraid they dont read opinion polls...

</comment><comment><USER19> It is so very true that financing is the real issue here. <http://rootstrikers.org/>

<comment><USER20> Definitely. Either fix financing or join in. The reason why Hollywood is so powerful is because they actually donate to campaigns and have lobbyists.

That seems far more productive than trying to destroy an industry because you're tired of their political power.

<comment><USER21> It's important to remember you can do both at the same time. Work hard towards financial reform, but in the mean time flex your financial muscles to get there otherwise you will be defenseless and the reform you seek will never happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Am I the only one who believes that this notion of 'piracy stealing jobs' is simply a catalyst for Rupert Murdoch and his billionaire friends who collectively own this industry to personally control the Internet? This is absolutely a power struggle. They want to control our information, like they always have--look at Fox news.

As more and more people switch to online sources of entertainment, their industry is simply being diluted by Youtube's, Hulu's, Reddit, HackerNews and the Apple App Store.

So in their dying breaths, they are spending $100 million a year trying to take control of the very industry that is diluting their power over our information and their control of our minds. It sounds very George Orwellian, but I mean really.. have you seen Fox news? It's a parody of itself.

Rupert Murdoch tried his best to have a go at the online industry with Myspace and we all know how well that turned out for him, so I guess the self- professed billionaire tyrant figures if he can't beat them, why not just try and own them?

</comment><comment><USER23> It's ironic Hollywood itself WAS a group of rogue startups, just over 100 years ago.

But here's the thing - you can probably make a dent but "killing it" ?

Wouldn't that be like making professional sports obsolete?

There is just too much money and organization and you are never going to get all the fans to try something else instead and stay with it.

</comment><comment><USER24> Relevant- Hollywood tries new online network for connecting established filmmakers with investors.

[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/risky- business/sundance-201...](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/risky- business/sundance-2012-slated-online-hub-283760)

</comment><comment><USER25> If you want to get rid of Hollywood, there is only one way to do it...

Start funding shows, movies, and productions.

Or figure out how to get 100MM people (or more) subscribed at $10/month (or more) to check-mark which shows and movies they want created. Then use the revenue from that to make the production.

Maybe even make the process completely democratic, where actors (known, and unknown) can send in their auditions and you get to vote on it. Then use YouTube or NetFlix for distribution, and provide downloads.

There is more to it than the above, but that pretty much cuts the studios off, and Hollywood in general, at the knees, and gives control to the consumers.

<comment><USER26> So back to the beginning of the loop... One has to pay for content.

<comment><USER25> How's that a problem?

<comment><USER26> I don't think it is. I guess the problem that should be tackled is not how the movies & music are actually done, but rather the way they are sold. The problem in my view - without pointing at anyone - is that not enough people are willing to pay for the products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does getting rid of our Old Entertainment Overlords really matter, if our New Entertainment Overlords are going to be doing the same thing? As long as one group of people is getting rich in an industry, the temptation is always there to start rigging the rules in your favor by working the refs. Look at the current mess we have with patents. Disrupting Hollywood is great, but we should also innovate by coming up with new ways to discourage and punish companies from attempting things like SOPA.

<comment><USER28> Yes, it does matter, because whatever replaces Hollywood will 1) let me consume better entertainment products in ways I prefer, and 2) not require legislation to remain viable. I have no problem with whatever and whomever eventually disrupts Hollywood getting rich off me buying their stuff.

I agree that lobbying power for industries like Hollywood is a problem that needs to be fixed, but that is a much larger context than entertainment. We can both replace Hollywood with a more consumer oriented industry and reform lobbying, but they are two separate goals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Such ridiculous, destructive bills should never even pass committee review," Mr. Arment wrote. The real problem, he added, is "the MPAA's buying power in Congress,"

The real problem is that money has buying power in Congress. Money shouldn't buy votes. I don't know what the solution is but I'm fairly sure that's the problem.

</comment><comment><USER30> Woa, that went huge fast. I mean, every startups is an _offensive against something_ already existing, no? Yes, you can have an original idea but more often than not, it's based on something existing and enhancing it in some ways.

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't believe we can blame the politicians for campaign finance corruption. It is our own complacency that has allowed this system to take a firm root in our government. How can you blame or get mad at one of our representatives for playing the game we make/allow them to play. I guess what I am saying is if you can't get elected unless you use the corrupt campaign financing system that we allow to be in place how can we be upset when our elected officials are a pawn to the system?

<comment><USER32> Same here. Campaign finance reform is a great idea but is not going to happen overnight. As long as it is not abolished the existing system has to be used to one's advantage. And as long Hollywood lobbyists outnumber Tech lobbyists it is going to be an uphill battle. I hope this recent conflict motivated big tech companies to increase their involvement in the policy process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> How much money do indy film makers need for a minimum viable product? How can we help them bring it to an audience and make money?

<comment><USER34> There is already lots of Indy product. Distribution and audience seem to be the hard bits. If you can make money, the product will come, people want to make this stuff...

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Bookmark this article and remember this date, as YCombinator has altered its focus and embarked on this political venture. Once it had worked hard to stay clear of political entanglements, now it dives wholeheartedly into the grift of politics. No one play politics and plays clean, not even angel investors.

</comment><comment><USER36> When all is said and done, more is said than done.

</comment><comment><USER37> Engineers love to solve problems. Hollywood has become a problem.</comment>


Cronut - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronut

<comment><AUTHOR> Apparently demand for this is so high, there are professional line sitters to get this for you!

<comment><USER2> Still? I thought that was a 2013 fad.</comment></comment>


Uber and Lyft approved in Vancouver, B.C., rollout coming in days - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/uber-lyft-approved-bc-1.5437997 <comment><USER2> This is coming along with a number of regulations, including making drivers adhere to the same regulations as taxi drivers [1].

[1] [https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/transportation/vehicle- sa...](https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/transportation/vehicle-safety- enforcement/services/passenger-transportation/pdv-driver-requirements)

</comment><comment><USER3> Previously this may have been met with a shrug, but the very popular Car2go (ShareNow) car sharing service is shutting down so those users might try out Uber/Lyft instead of the other active local car sharing service, Evo.

</comment><comment><USER4> They're going to screw this up just like they did with marijuana. The regulations will make it not worthwhile for the drivers.</comment>


Article on why Kafka is fast - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/why-kafka-is-so-fast-bde0d987cd03 <comment><USER2> Good article. But this does not belong to Show HN. Show HN posts are meant for some tool or service that you can try out. This should be a regular post.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip. I've changed the title.</comment></comment>


Google deleted all my company's data - <AUTHOR> We accediently created a personal google account using G Suite's main account, and without any warning Google just removed all of our access to a very sensitive data for our organization.
next we opened a ticket with G Suite support team, and we got the below response.
Thank you for contacting G Suite support. I understand that by mistake you deleted the G Suite account.
It was a pleasure talking to you today. Unfortunately, we are not able to recover the information you had in the account. My recommendation will be to use G Suite Business to prevent you to lose information. Remember that with G Suite Business you have Google Vault that will help you recovering lost information. I will leave you this related Help Center article where you can find more information about the benefits https://support.google.com/a/answer/6034782?hl=en.
I will keep the case open for two more days and as I was telling you, please if you have any feedback you can reply back to this email so I pass the information to the engineering team. I hope you have a wonderful day. Regards,
Karla Google Cloud Support
<comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>=====
I am not sure how a large corporation reply with a very stupid response as the above on a critical situation.
I will need your help guys to push this. This hurt us badly, we basically lost every document we have, access to google console, google analytics, and even or google play publish account. </comment><comment><USER2> Maybe they want to make it an example, so people pay for their G Suite Business accounts? IDK...</comment>


The secret to staying young is broccoli and cabbage - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-secret-to-staying-young-is-broccoli-and-cabbage-2016-10-31 <comment><USER2> > They found that when they fed older mice drinking water with a high dose of > a natural compound called nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), which is found > in [...]

This is basically Niacinamide/Nicotinamide, a form of Vitamin B3. I understand that this vitamin helps keep the inflammatory oils from being released (edit: from storage). Niacin causes a flush; Niacinamide doesn't have this effect.

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

From the second wikipedia link:

      Anxiety

      Studies show that nicotinamide has anxiolytic
      (anti-anxiety) properties. It may work in a
      way similar to benzodiazepines.

<comment><USER3> How would vitamin B supplementation compare? I know there has been a lot of shitposting in the last few years how "multivitamins don't work", but I have a hard time actually believing it.

<comment><USER4> I have a hard time believing vitamin supplements work that well and multivitamins in particular. You may end up thinking they _are_ effective but you should have to work hard to get there. There are several major conceptual problems with vitamin supplements (this is before we get to multivitamins).

First is bioavailability. The gut isn't just a large database processing engine in which food is disassembled and its constituents simply extracted. Many compounds don't even survive the stomach acids. Different digestive stages extract different components _which have to survive intact that far_. In addition, some chemicals (vitamins) are synthesized in the body and don't pass from the gut at all (you mention B, which can be the opposite: B12 is synthesized in animal tissue but is not available to the body in that form; eating animals allows the gut to extract it and supply it to cells for use).

In addition, typically 95+% of what you eat or take (yep, those medicines too) is immediately removed by the first pass metabolism, so most of the drug you take are pissed into the toilet. Unless the compounds you eat are structurally appropriate to make it through the gut properly you'll lose them.

But does it matter? The second problem is dosage. You can take a worthlessly low amount or a dangerously high amount of many chemicals: how do you know the ultimate levels of bioavailable vitamin are useful? Studies in this area are largely, at best, poor.

Which leads to the multivitamin itself -- they always promise several X the "recommended daily consumption" but you have no idea what they do in combination, where those recommendations came from (mostly pulled out of someone's backside) and how much ends up usefully in your bloodstream. Not to mention most are not produced under GMP and congress has explicitly removed the FDA's oversight -- so you don't even know if you're getting what it says on the bottle.

Now I do selectively take two supplements: D1 and EPA+DHA. I take them both in an oil suspension (they are oils) and based on some research in German I've read and discussed with my doctors and some specific family history (half of which grew up at a much lower latitude, so I don't synthesize enough D in California). But finding a dose that gave the response we were looking for in my bloodstream was quite difficult and I take about 4X the US recommendation. Even then the data on proper resulting D levels is quite poor.

<comment><USER2> These are all good points about supplements vs. food.

> Now I do selectively take two supplements: D1 and EPA+DHA

niacinamide helps protect us from having excess amounts of the polyunsaturated oils in circulation. These aren't so stable at human-temperature...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Both broccoli and cabbage are "cruciferous vegatables".[0] Other ones you're probably familiar with include Brussels sprouts and kale. It's a very healthy family, and while I'm no nutritionist, I suspect the benefits are not limited strictly to broccoli and cabbage.

[0] [http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=btnews&dbid=126](http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=btnews&dbid=126)</comment>


China reforms one child policy - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-25533339

<comment><USER2> If true, the closure of labor camps, and halt of re-education through such, seems like an equally major story.</comment>


Why playing the lottery is so addictive - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2383644/Why-playing-lottery-addictive-Our-brains-t-cope-little-odds-winning-make-irrational-decisions.html

<comment><USER2> Sometimes I wish there was a charitable organization that ran ads showing depressed looking people buying lottery tickets and losing.</comment>


Why Apple Should Kill Off the Mac - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apple-should-kill-off-the-mac-1434321848?mod=e2fb

<comment><USER2> And all those developers writing iPhone and iPad apps should use... Linux? Windows???

This is bean counter thinking. The Mac plays a much more important role in the Apple ecosystem than just generating profit. This guy probably thinks Chevy should kill off the Corvette too.</comment>


Launched: You Should Launch with Less - <AUTHOR> https://leanpub.com/you-should-launch-with-less/

<comment><USER2> I've worked with John in the past and will happily vouch for his expertise. Over the past several years John has worked with a broad variety of start-ups in the early-to-mid development stage on both sides of the Atlantic. He's come away with a great understanding of the challenges start-up founders face leading up to launch.

I regularly turn to him for advice on engineering management. I'll definitely be buying this book.

(For the record, John didn't ask me to write this nor did he know I was going to.)

<comment><USER3> Seconded – I've worked with him and he's very knowledgeable about architecture and startups – already bought the book and looking forward to reading it.</comment></comment>


Does it mean that WealthFront mis-represents their AUM? - <AUTHOR> It looks WealthFront started to misrepresent AUM on their web site. Their website now shows $1,550 million AUM for Month 34 (~September 2015). https://www.wealthfront.com/two-billion#100-million<p>Their SEC 13F Holdings Report for the year ending 9/30/15 shows $2,501 million AUM http://www.secinfo.com/d12Pk6.m1945.htm <comment><USER2> 13F filings don't show any short positions or any private positions.

I"m guessing this is mostly what leads to this discrepancy. It's also a reason why the industry really hates 13F filings. They don't tell the whole story.

A fund could show they are long $1,000,000,000 of Microsoft but have in the money puts for the same delta value making them effectively flat Microsoft in the real world. But according to the 13F filing they are long.

Infact this is often one of the first mistakes people make when joining the industry. They see the 13F and figure that they now know what positions a hedge fund has, when in reality its more akin to saying you've see Facebook's source code by selecting show code from your web browser.

Those two things are related but very far apart.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your response. My concern is that they claim that "each of our selected asset classes is represented by a low cost, passive ETF." [https://research.wealthfront.com/whitepapers/investment- meth...](https://research.wealthfront.com/whitepapers/investment-methodology/)

So it is supposed to be a long-only strategy and therefore, theoretically, in their case their 13 F filing should be consistent with their reported AUM.

What do you think?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am not sure. Their web page doesn't work very well. The one chart I could spot doesn't seem to show September '15, and it stops at $2 billion.

The bigger problem with WealthFront is the question of how many paying accounts they have (given that they don't charge for accounts under $10K). Let's say all of the $2.5 billion are paid accounts.

As far as I can understand, they would be collecting about $520,833/month now that they have reached $2.5 billion AUM, assuming all the accounts are paying accounts.

There seems to be a sustainability problem in there somewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, the second slide from the bottom shows their CURRENT AUM and it is lower than the number filed in their September 2015 13 F form ($2 billion now vs. $2.5 billion in SEC filing in September 2015).

I agree with you about potential sustainability issues - they need to grow their AUM really quickly to justify ~$100 MM in venture capital investments.</comment></comment>


Sausage ceasefire may not end war between China's noodle kings - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/09/china-noodles-idUSL4N0HQ07920131009

<comment><USER2> So this is interesting - unable to compete on price, because a low price products are not trusted to be safe, they compete on free products (as a proxy for a discount).

Doesn't this make any agreement to stop offering giveaways akin to price fixing?

</comment><comment><USER3> " Whilst Uni-President is pulling back for now, analyst Nice Wang at Yuanta Securities in Shanghai said the price battle may not be over"

heh

On a more serious note, i think it is much better for the consumers if the major players in the fast food game are keeping product quality at a relatively constant level whilst giving away free things (Opposed to the american method of making food quicker and cheaper)

<comment><USER4> I don't think prepackaged noodles with soup flavoring can get much quicker or cheaper...and 'quality' is not something I'd associate with them. Have a look at the nutritional information on a pack - it's horrifying even before you realize that the package contains _two servings_.

<comment><USER3> Wow, I've eaten a lot of maruchen in my life, and i feel like a pretty healthy guy, but man that reads like poison. I wonder if there is a difference in quality/nutrition between american/western instant noodles and Chinese.

<comment><USER4> They are virtually identical, bar the packaging. Any fried noodle is going to be nutritionally atrocious.

EDIT: for the curious, a package of instant ramen has 14g of fat (7 saturated) and 1660mg of sodium. Somewhat surprisingly, it has ~8g of protein. For comparison, that's half the fat of a big mac, but twice the sodium.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This title deserves an award.

<comment><USER6> It's certainly one of the weirder titles I've read on HN (and off HN too for that matter)

<comment><USER5> Seriously, it's a work of art in itself. Reuters tends to be a bit more formulaic and boring with titles, but I can't imagine a better one for this piece.</comment></comment></comment>


Making an indie movie is now too cheap - there aren't enough viewers to support them - <AUTHOR> http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/mcurtis/story/the_very_very_serious_problem_with_democratization_of_technology/

<comment><USER2> I heard a good phrase the other day: each new surplus creates a shortage. In this case, surplus of cheap movie making tools makes a shortage of viewers.

But actually I think this is just a distribution and filtering problem. The best content isn't getting to the people that would like it most.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Making a web 2.0 site is now too cheap - there aren't enough users to support them"

</comment><comment><USER4> you mean: now there's enough capacity to create movies that supply can surpass demand. but that's a good thing. now there can be more competition, and people who suck at making them will end up doing something else.</comment>


A Look Into Moby's Manhattan Studio - <AUTHOR> http://www.motherboard.tv/2009/10/19/electric-independence-moby--2 <comment><USER2> I had to laugh every time the starry-eyed "interviewer" somehow stumbled into the shot, but I suddenly respect Moby a lot more.

I think this is a pattern, too: every time I see someone's workshop and the tools they use, I understand the product a lot more. It doesn't matter what the domain is; the tools fascinate me. If I don't respect the tools, then I don't respect the product as much. I think this is where Autotuner comes in... Although as an aside, I do have a lot of respect for the autocorrelation maths that lurk beneath the surface of Autotuner.

I also got a gestalt feeling of loneliness from the interview. I used to jam with some friends between 2004-2008, and when I moved across the continent, I lost a really major social aspect of the musical experience. Like Moby said, you don't have to wait around for everyone to get their schedules in order if you're a one-man show, but it's not as much fun either. It's also more work to make _sound_...

Live music with several people can just happen, once you've set up. Multitracked, solo music involves as much process and perseverance as it involves technique and vision. I think the quality of my solo work is better because it's more intentional, but the live and social experience of jamming feels much more humane. Not surprisingly, it's more spontaneous, and with the warts and everything, it feels more genuine.

Sure, when you take a band into the studio, you get the whole "process and perseverance" aspect back, but with solo music, you never get to leave the studio.

More than anything else, I think the reflection on "drum machines as church organ accompaniment" captures the interview. To echo jnorthrop's comment (i.e. that Moby's studio is devoid of art) it seems to me that the term "studio" isn't apt at all. It's the Church of Moby, where we speak in whispers and wait for the right moment to listen, for the first time, to "ancient" electronics.

</comment><comment><USER3> _books_

The Manhattan Transcripts - Bernard Tschumi

Things Just Get Away From You - Walt Holcombe

Reason For Hope - Jane Goodall

The Love Book - Robert Rosenheck

A Season In Hell - Arthur Rimbaud

Here Kitty Kitty - Jardine Libaire

American Desert - Percival Everett

Sex in N.Y. City - Alison Maddex

The Paris Review -

Let's Put the Future Behind Us - Jack Womack

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers

A History of the Middle East - Peter Mansfield

Blinded By The Right - David Brock

? - Jack London

Oariannus 1983 - ?

The Medici Aesop - The New York Public Library

Futurist Manifestos - Umbro Apollonio

Scatalogic Rites of All Nations - Captain John G. Bourke

Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo

Orson Scott Card - War Of Gifts

National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky

</comment><comment><USER4> Its amazing to me that as an artist Moby's workspace is completely void of any art, or even color. It looks like he has his gold and platinum awards in a hall but everything else was either white or equipment.

I understand that is a certain aesthetic and I don't mean that as a criticism just an observation. In stark contrast check out the Gigapan of Wilco's recording space (<http://wilcoworld.net/loft/gigapan.php>).

<comment><USER5> Maybe it's because they're not in the same branch.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> His last two sentences are worth the price of admission.

<comment><USER6> Mmm, I don't agree. 'Cool' is so subjective.

<comment><USER7> I agree. How can he say ALL electronic artists are nerds? What about Portishead? Michael Jackson? The Human League?

'Nerd' isn't even an insult in my book.

<comment><USER8> Portishead _cut samples of their own playing back to vinyl_ so they could bring them back in as scratches.

Anyone that dedicated is, in the best possible sense, a bit of a nerd.

<comment><USER9> I'd say that makes them geeks or wonks, but I think nerd has a "socially inept" connotation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What a collection of drum machines he has. My level of respect for Moby just went up. Electronic artists have software like ableton, fruity loops etc that takes you so far away from analog. It's nice to see this level of dedication and love.

<comment><USER7> Recently I bought an Akai S950, a popular sampler used by Moby (and others), and it is amazing how much better it sounds than a software sampler - especially if you route the 8 outputs through an old mixing desk and adjust EQ/level (and put a compressor on a drum through the Insert channel).

<comment><USER11> Better is subjective. The S950 is a 12-bit/48kHz sampler, which is pretty atrocious resolution by today's standards. Accuracy is less subjective, and one can quantitatively prove that a 24-bit/96kHz sample on a modern machine is more accurate than a 12-bit/48kHz sample (most users used lower sample rates to save memory and fit more samples in at once).

I happen to like gritty old sounds, too. Though I've gone even further back...I use a C64 and a GameBoy as my primary electronic instruments lately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Did anyone else find the website really slow (constant buffering) ?

<comment><USER13> I think it might have been their flash video player having a poor implementation. For some reason it pegs my cpu at 100% and starts to glitch.

<comment><USER14> My Macbook Pro maxed out too. It's 2009. How is it even possible for anything to peg my CPU playing video?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "...but then eBay happened." Best line =)</comment>


Liveblogging the Amazon Kindle E-Reader Show with Jeff Bezos - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/19/liveblogging-the-amazon-kindle-e-reader-show-with-jeff-bezos/

<comment><USER2> Come on man, the same exact story was posted 30 minutes ago. It was and still is in the top 10 for new stories, so I'd imagine it wouldn't have been difficult to spot had you have looked.

Do you post out of a genuine intention to contribute, or just karma whore? You've accumulated 270 karma points in the last 18 days.

<comment><AUTHOR> Few comments about your comment:

\- _karma whore_ : not really a nice way to talk to people, specially when its a tight community like here, kyro (but maybe thats why you don't disclose your real name and email here)! if you spend some time on this site then you would know its a lot easier to gain karma points here than what you think. I could simply push any of my articles that are submitted to the first page, or write something up that would gain me a lot more points than you would think. ( Also, my understanding was that just submitting a URL will not get you points, but thats besides the point.)

\- after looking at _your submissions_ it seems like you operate more like a leech than a true contributor. Most of your submissions appear to be self- centered, and will _only_ benefit you. _We_ are not here to help you on your textbook problems, finding you a partner or other stuff.

\- if you think submitting links will get you more karma then you don't appear to be that smart! you should know there are easier ways to do it!!!

\- FYI: the same exact story _was not_ posted 30 min ago, its not even possible to do that with the same URL, _you_ should know that. But if you mean similar coverage then its a different story. I have read them, but this was the one that was covering it live. Also I thought some of the comments on TC were interesting.

\- I do post out of genuine intention to contribute. I actually believe I have posted many interesting articles, (some of which have even gone unnoticed). Also most of my Karma is coming from my comments, which are usually a _lot_ lengthier than the average comments on the site

\- you are _right_ I have received a lot of karma for the past 18 days, reason being is how active I have been! I guess if you have been as engaged as me (and not as selfcentered as you are) you would have had thousands of points right now.</comment></comment>


Theranos - <AUTHOR> http://www.theranos.com <comment><USER2> Theranos is a medical laboratory that appears to have developed new methods of measuring lab values in small sample sizes more quickly. This is interesting because it means that instead of a traditional blood draw with a needle and vial requiring a trained phlebotomist and healthy veins, physicians can use blood collected from a finger stick -- a far less invasive and painful procedure. Additionally, it appears that they've managed to keep costs very low by automating everything -- this also improves their accuracy. I would love to get a look at their technology and implementation. From a biogeek's perspective this is insanely great.

<comment><USER3> That is a pretty stunning board of directors as well. I don't doubt their CEO can get an introduction to, and lunch with, nearly anyone on the planet.

<comment><USER4> This board seems heavily geared to do deals for defense-related applications. That's fine; getting deals with the Armed Forces and VA is feasible and quite rewarding.

What they overtly lack is connections to the healthcare world. I'm surprised they aren't publicly roped into Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic or Kaiser, as they to support novel technologies in this space. I suppose you can argue that the business model is fundamentally incompatible, but I've seen Mayo and Kaiser go in anyway; they can acquire these labs and roll them into operations pretty easily.

<comment><USER5> Serious question: what economic incentive does the healthcare world have to adopt something like this?

If it's a finger prick, there's less to mark up.

From the outside, it seems like the entire healthcare industry is built on being purposefully inefficient so as to create large costs that they can in turn mark up.

To the VA, inefficiency is a problem. In the healthcare world in general, it doesn't seem to bother anyone.

<comment><USER6> _what economic incentive does the healthcare world have to adopt something like this?_

Not much, which is why this service should not be offered through the standard healthcare system. I can see two other ways to do it:

(1) I walk into a drugstore, sit down at the testing machine, select the tests I want, swipe my credit card, and the machine takes a drop of blood from my finger, runs the test, and gives me a printout of the results.

(2) Home testing kits for every common lab test, not just blood sugar.

<comment><USER4> Note that Quest Diagnostics has a drugstore partnership with CVS[1], directly competing with Theranos+Wallgreens. Labcorp has similar offerings, although some are whitelabeled.

[1] [http://ir.questdiagnostics.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=82068&p=irol-...](http://ir.questdiagnostics.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=82068&p=irol- newsArticle_print&ID=323137&highlight=)

<comment><USER6> But these tests still require large blood samples, and they have to go back to the lab to be tested, right? So you can't just walk into the drugstore, get tested, and walk out with the results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does this mean that I'll be able to walk in and order my own blood tests in the US, without being extorted by a doctor? I see zero reason for me to be forced to schedule time with a doctor, pay her, just for her to "order" tests and have the results sent only to her, and then pay her again to read them back to me.

I get regular liver checks due to medication I take. Being able to walk into a lab and download the results online is a great convenience, but not something allowed in the US at the moment (to my knowledge).

<comment><USER8> Their website said you still need a doctor's note. It would be nice to avoid that in the future, I'd get cheap tests done all the time just out of curiosity.

<comment><USER9> Yes, I'm not sure about the types of tests that are done but if there are some that you could run periodically to compare numbers, it might prove useful to monitor how one's body changes over time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "We believe access to accurate, affordable, real-time diagnostic information is a basic human right."

There's a bit of a conflict-of-interest if the company that makes money providing "X" declares that "X" is a basic human right. Even as a non-profit (most hospitals are non-profit, but that just means the corporation doesn't keep earnings), you can't justify that statement.

<comment><USER11> Agreed, although I don't mind so much whether they are making money off it- anyone making money off promoting freedom of speech is welcome to promote free speech as a human right.

But there's an issue of basic human right inflation thats slightly distasteful. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to own property without it being arbitrarily taken away for you by someone stronger. Those are basic human rights, and they don't have to be provided at someone else's cost.

I'm a strong supporter of an individual right to healthcare, provided by society/government, but that's a right agreed by social contract... Saying it in stronger terms risks devaluing in a a real way the more basic rights, which billions of people don't have.

Maybe I'm being pedantic given that this is PR copy...

Edit: carbocation said this 15 minutes ago, oops, upvoted

<comment><USER12> Who grants basic rights? If they're God-given, perhaps they're immutable. Nature grants no rights, and is perfectly willing to stand by idle while we slaughter each other by the millions.

The alternative is that basic rights are agreed upon by the society, and as the society matures and evolves, why shouldn't its understanding of what basic rights are change?

<comment><USER11> What rights do you think have changed?

<comment><USER12> Do rights change, or does the expression of a right change? I believe everyone has a right to an education. Obviously that education will have changed from 4000BCE to 2013. What about the right to create and choose family? How does that intertwine with society's thoughts about homosexuality?

I guess a good answer to that question would be a PhD dissertation, not a HN comment. I wish I knew the answer, or that it was easy for me to express.

<comment><USER11>
      I guess a good answer to that question would be a PhD dissertation, not a HN comment. I wish I knew the answer, or that it was easy for me to express

Very true :) we are not the first to discuss this. Nor is it the first time a legitimately interesting HN post about technology has turned into a side debate about quasi-libertarian philosophy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The website design hides the message in frills and imagery, but the essence appears to be:

Faster/cheaper blood-testing, via a smaller/quicker samples (a fingertip-prick rather than needle-stick).

<comment><USER14> Your summary is worth a thousand web sites.

<comment><USER15> Can we make this saying a thing? I want it to be a thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Yep, I still have no idea who they are or what they do.

It's a pretty looking website though.

[http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2010/07/08/theranos- rai...](http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2010/07/08/theranos- raises-45m-for-personalized-medicine/) actually made it a lot clearer than their website did.

<comment><USER17> the pictures of the people kind of creeps me out. the technology sounds great but the website design kind of gives me a half life feeling... like if I give them my blood next thing we know I'll be walking around like a zombie.

besides that - website looks great. It would be great if my kids did could only have to deal with a finger prick to draw blood... definitely one of my worst memories growing up.

<comment><USER18> I know exactly what you mean. I haven't seen a website scream "ulterior motives" quite so loudly in a long while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Yep, it is a shame their site doesn't do a better job of telling their story but this article in this weekend's wsj does: [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732412300457905...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324123004579055003869574012.html)

A real game changer I think.

</comment><comment><USER20> So, it's a health testing company that will keep all my blood-related health information and make it "actionable", with the backing of James Mattis, William Perry and none other than Henry Kissinger. There are more soldiers in that board there than doctors.

The only way I'd give them my blood would be to infect them with a disease.

<comment><USER21> Just recently I had a visit at an allergist and found the entire procedure so primitive, that I nicely informed the doctor that they could upgrade the way they do tests. I or anyone else technically minded could very easily come up with less prehistoric tools, but he was as expected not interested in any improvements. I hate school-medicine.

Thanks for the background info, it's always worth to know who is behind something. Even the best thing that can happen to humanity would be abused, if supported and financed by sick minds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Very interesting people on the Board of Directors.

Former heavyweights in the diplomatic, intelligence and military government sectors (George Shultz, Senator Samuel Nunn, Henry Kissinger etc).

No big names from the technology or VC space are mentioned however.

Something big is brewing.

<comment><USER23> They'd be dead within the year without some hefty political backing. The FDA does not play nice with novelty, ask any biomedical startup founder.

<comment><USER4> My experience in the space is that this is a mischaracterization of the FDA, but also misses an important point:

Theranos does not fall under the FDA's mandate in its current form. It is a CLIA-certified laboratory operation, regulated under CDC rules and scrutinized most likely by the College of American Pathologists(CAP). The CLIA/CAP scrutiny is very different from the FDA device/drug process, focusing on protocol and output. Even if they have novel technology, it is often classified as a laboratory developed test(LDT) and falls outside of the FDA's mandate (for now).

Many startups have achieved CLIA-certification without too much difficulty, from Foundation Medicine to Veracyte to Counsyl. It's totally reasonable and doesn't take too long.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wow. That board of directors is a sight to behold. Looks more like a panel at the World Economic Forum. How on earth did the founder manage to get such high-profile backers?

</comment><comment><USER25> They seem to have dropped their big map marker right on top of Agilent (between 280 and Lawrence in Santa Clara). If you do a search for 95051 (that zip code), it eventually tells you there are no locations there.

I wonder what the significance of that marker is, then...

<comment><USER26> It's just saying that clicking there you find an actual map.

<comment><USER27> It'd be nice to have the marker on a real pace though, rather than being plopped in a random spot.

<comment><USER28> I was going to write a response adding that adding a picture of the actual location would've been just as easy, instead I made a post about how I was going to make a post about how ready it'd be to use a snapshot of the actual location.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems like an ease/cost breakthrough for health-monitoring... so I'm surprised they picked a name that sounds so much like 'Thanatos', the Greek god of death.

</comment><comment><USER29> Ok, what the hell are they selling? It says in "our tests":

\- Oncology \- Pediatrics \- Geriatrics

Yeah. Would you go to a doctor that is specialized on "cancer and stuff"? I wouldn't. This is as unspecific as one can get.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's odd how little information is provided about the actual new technologies behind this.

</comment><comment><USER31> it's weird how the founders' background is all about "dropped out from here" and "dropped out from there". Is dropping out an achievement?

<comment><USER24> It's always been a gamble. If you achieve even a modicum of success or notoriety, your "drop out" status becomes incredibly valuable. You're a trailblazer, a rebel who blew past convention on her way to glory.

If you fail, you're an arrogant idiot who thought she was too cool for school.

What's fascinating about Holmes is that she's a drop out in the biotech/health care realm. This has long been considered a protected area, one where heavy education is a must, as lives are on the line. Founders are expected to be PhDs or MDs with decades of research and/or clinical experience.

Holmes has a decade of experience, and no degree. This is going to be a lot of fun to watch.

<comment><USER32> It sounds like she dropped out in 2003 to work "in biotech" so she's probably working on this for the past decade. That she's gotten to this stage is pretty impressive - considering the board, plus the "careers" page and the type of folks they're looking for right now looks like they're off and running

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Just today, I was just searching around for a way to order my own Quest lab tests here in the US. (I'm on the East Coast, Theranos doesn't seem to have locations here)

Does anyone know of any e-doctors that will provide me with lab orders on my behalf? I've seen WellnessFX, but I want to order Quest panels for things they don't offer in their package. Who else is doing something similar to them?

</comment><comment><USER34> I've been waiting so long for this. As someone who avoids syringes like the plague, I always wondered, how come we have robots in Mars, yet we can't come up with something better than injecting a large piece of metal into our bodies? Now I just need to find a way to give them my money.

</comment><comment><USER35> Strangely designed web-site. When you open it you don't understand what they provide. Is it a service, app, or idea? Device or standard? Then while clicking through sections you see some clipartish generic-looking pictures of people and ipad screens. Only the small vial with blood promises some useful information but no descriptive text or images provide any detail (why this small vial is better and experience is less painful than generic tests?). So after skimming the site reveals nothing you get irritated and leave. There's so much interesting things on Hacker News. Maybe those guys are changing the world but their web-site does not convey it.

</comment><comment><USER36> Am I the only one here who thinks all those people imaged on the web site have really weird eyes?

Creepy.

<comment><USER21> I think the intent was to show how humane and globally thinking they are, by showing different ethnic races.

But to me it looks as if they want to hoard blood-samples for a DNA-Database in order to clone the best of us into super-soldiers. If the military has a DNA-Database of every human on the world they think are worth living, they could wipe all of us out, then re-breed the world to their own likings. I think some billionaires would love this sick sick idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> "one tiny drop changes everything."

They might want to come up with a different tag line: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_drop_rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_drop_rule)

</comment><comment><USER38> I assume the image of the micro-vial balanced on a fingertip is meant to illustrate how small the quantity of blood is, but, at least for me, the initial evocation is of drawing blood from beneath the fingernail.

</comment><comment><USER39> Wow...one of their board members is Henry Kissinger - [http://www.theranos.com/our-company](http://www.theranos.com/our-company)

I wonder how they pulled that off.

This is interesting....I wonder what the technology behind this looks like. Is it really that difficult to achieve 'instant, accurate' results?

Why is that? Is it because the traditional way is to just put a blood sample on a fungus and see what happens?

</comment><comment><USER40> When I was in South Korea a while back I was able to get a blood test via a finger prick and the results back before I left the clinic that day. Admittedly, the chap at the clinic did think I had hepatitis, but apparently that can be explained by the excessive amount of whiskey I had consumed the previous day.

</comment><comment><USER30> Holmes has a set of lectures on Udemy about building a team, if you want to learn how to put together a board like that:

[https://www.udemy.com/the-essentials-of-team- building/](https://www.udemy.com/the-essentials-of-team-building/)

</comment><comment><USER41> their patents portfolios seems huge with 17 issued and mostly covered microfluidic diagnostics. one of them is titled "Real-time detection of influenza virus" (US 8,007,999). it would be really disruptive if they could do their claimed 1000+ lab tests with their proprietary microfludic devices in under 4hr.

</comment><comment><USER42> > We believe access to accurate, affordable, real-time diagnostic information > is a basic human right.

Your employer thinks likewise.

</comment><comment><USER43> The company is all hot air. They have a board full of retired military figure heads that have no experience in medical devices or retail services. Additionally, they do not have any products to show. Look at their patents. They are all very general and broad. There has been NO FDA CLEARANCE for anything they are doing, which raises legal questions. Speaking of legal, search for lawsuits they are involved in. Their core technology is not even theirs. They stole it from someone else.

<comment><USER4> While I have no idea if any of the other claims are true, it's important to note that they do claim to be regulatory-cleared (not FDA, not relevant in this case): they claim to be running a CLIA-certified lab.

CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments)[1] defines the regulatory standards for clinical labs which take in samples and perform medical tests on them. It works very differently from FDA drug or device approval. Most often the certification is done by an organization such as the College of American Pathologists (CAP), which scrutinizes a lab's protocols and output[2].

In any case, if they are CLIA-certified they are open for business, legally speaking.

[1]: [http://wwwn.cdc.gov/clia/](http://wwwn.cdc.gov/clia/) [2]: [http://www.cap.org/apps/cap.portal?_nfpb=true&cntvwrPtlt_act...](http://www.cap.org/apps/cap.portal?_nfpb=true&cntvwrPtlt_actionOverride=%2Fportlets%2FcontentViewer%2Fshow&cntvwrPtlt%7BactionForm.contentReference%7D=laboratory_accreditation%2Faboutlap.html&_pageLabel=cntvwr)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> With a board like that they'll probably get a lot of VA /Medicare /Medicaid contracts and swim on cash. But then Labcorp etc will fight back, they already offer deeeeep discounts for Aetna and other major clients (seen $7 for them, $100+ for cash payers.) Also on top of my head, I can think of newborn screening, that is all done via heel prick, so the tech exists.

Unless the business plan call for a free first test for everyone in USA...sponsored by NSA ;)</comment>


Ask HN: How do I make sure blog stays up after I die? - <AUTHOR> Assuming it's not something I want to burden friends or family with. <comment><USER2> Most assured way, place it in a managed trust with enough money to keep it running or a way for it to generate enough money that it fills the trust with operational funds to cover costs. While you are alive you control the trust, upon your death it would be managed by a trustee.

Probably other ways, but this one will work, that is how family assets are handled many times and also can handle tax complications cleanly etc. There are multiple legal structures btw that accomplish the same thing. If it is truly critical this is the tried and true way to make it happen at least to my knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER3> How long a time frame are you talking about? 10 years? 20 years? 3 months? 1 year?

If it up to 1 year, find a company that lets you pay up front and pay up front. Also cover domain registration as well.

It becomes harder the longer you go though, with time frames like 50 years you'll be looking up trusts and etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not sure if you're willing to switch platforms, but with [https://posthaven.com/](https://posthaven.com/) it says in their FAQ that after 12 months if you stop paying your blog goes into archive mode which basically means they will host a read-only version forever.

</comment><comment><USER5> Well, unless you want to task someone with running a server, you're going to be tied to the fate of a company. You can either go with a free choice (like netlify) or a paid choice (standard hosting company, AWS s3). Those will be simpler.

As other commenters have said, it's definitely tied to the length of the time you want your blog to be available. For 10 years, I'd run a quick script to crawl the blog ([http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3172](http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3172) documents how) and push it up to s3 or netlify. For either, I'd set up a prepaid credit card to pay for the expected traffic times 3. You can also prepay for your DNS names.

You might need to write up some instructions for a friend to do the final sync and switch over DNS.

</comment><comment><USER6> Assuming there will be no content after you pass, you could always arrange for it to become a physical book.

</comment><comment><USER7> Google Cloud (and the other big cloud providers) have their "Always Free" tier where you can host a static website forever. This does not include you own donation of choice though, but solves hosting.

</comment><comment><USER8> First off, Great Question!

Your question is a very interesting one, because it blends themes of persistence, visibility, and accessibility within the context of the web...

Before we talk about the web, let's talk about persistence outside of the web... to gain persistence of your writings outside of the web, you could collect all of them into a book, and physically publish that book.

That would make your writings somewhat persistent, although, perhaps not as accessible as they would be if they were on a website.

But alas, the web changes over time.

Web site hosting companies come and go, and freely hosted web page providers frequently change hands and become subject to owners with new terms, conditions, and inactivity deletion policies... If I recall correctly, Geocities or Tripod (both free hosting providers), one or the other went out of business and lost thousands of free pages that people had created... so it's not guaranteed that any given free hosting provider will be in business 5, 10, 20 years from now...

A few ideas...

1) Put the same blog on multiple free blog hosting providers. That way if one goes down, it will still be mirrored by the other providers.

2) Make sure all of those blogs are indexed by the Wayback Machine: [https://archive.org/web/](https://archive.org/web/) (The Internet Wayback Machine will probably stick around for awhile...)

3) I suppose you could write a book, and then if the book became a literary classic, like say, The Bible, then it would it would be copied and printed and re-printed throughout history. (On the other hand if your book didn't become a classic, then it wouldn't be reprinted, copies of it would be progressively harder to find, and at least in physical printed form, as more time went by, it might not achieve persistence...) But if you did write a book, you could probably get it on Google Books and on Amazon's electronic shelves (you'd probably want to make it free), and there it might stick around as long as Amazon and Google are in business... which might be reasonably decent persistence...

4) Oh yes, you'd probably want a legal notice in your writings saying that anyone can copy them at any time and for any reason -- or whatever set of conditions you'd prefer to apply. But keep in mind, the less conditions you apply, the more other people will be willing to freely copy and share the material, resulting in more persistence...

5) You could additionally put your writings in audio/video formats and upload them to YouTube and other video/audio hosting services.

6) You could host your writings (in whatever media format(s)) on P2P networks... if enough people downloaded them, they might stick around for awhile...</comment>


The unified control group hierarchy in Linux kernel 3.16 - <AUTHOR> http://lwn.net/Articles/601840/

<comment><USER2> In the last weeks, the kernel developer Neil Brown has been contributing a series of very in-depth articles about cgroups and hierarchies in the current kernel in general. Worth reading and worth paying LWN to access the content (and the associated discussions) as soon as it is published.

[https://lwn.net/Articles/604609/](https://lwn.net/Articles/604609/)

* Control groups, part 1: On the history of process grouping — a look at the history of grouping processes, going back to the early days of Unix.

* Control groups, part 2: On the different sorts of hierarchies — a look at hierarchies, including some from inside Linux and some from outside.

* Control groups, part 3: First steps to control — a look at the more simple cgroup subsystems.

* Control groups, part 4: On accounting — hierarchical accounting in the remaining cgroup subsystems.

* Control groups, part 5: The cgroup hierarchy — options and implications for hierarchical structure.

</comment><comment><USER3> I had no idea what a control group is, so here is a short summary for others in my position:

\- cgroups (abbreviated from control groups) is a Linux kernel feature to limit, account, and isolate resource usage (CPU, memory, disk I/O, etc.) of process groups.

\- Various projects are using cgroups as their basis, including Docker

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cgroups](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cgroups)

<comment><USER4> Technically isolation is actually implemented in what we call Linux namespaces (which are analogous to Solaris Zones/BSD jails etc) and are not part of the cgroups infrastructure per se.

The definition above comes from wikipedia and is incorrect in my opinion.

Cgroups only really encompasses accounting, limits and some other cool functionality (like freezer, which allows you to atomically pause groups of processes).

Namespaces on the other hand implement namespacing of all the crucial resources like UIDs, PIDs, devices (including network adapters), routing tables etc and form the basis of the "security" part of a container.

It just so happens that people tend to think of them as one thing as their only interaction with them so far has been LXC/Docker/Heroku/Borg when in reality they are much richer systems that can be used to do all sorts of cool things.

<comment><USER5> Being able to ensure that your important job gets a certain fraction of the CPU, memory or I/O resources regardless of what other jobs on the same machine are doing is very much an instance of 'resource isolation' \- in terms of usage, rather than access/naming which is the kind of isolation that namespaces provide.

CGroups can theoretically provide resource access isolation too, e.g. the device security cgroup subsystem, but it's not really the ideal model for it.

FWIW, Borg (at least as of a few years ago - it's possible that it's changed now) hardly uses any resource access isolation - apart from a bit of bind- mount trickery to provide filesystem isolation, it's primarily concerned with resource usage isolation, and jobs are very aware that they're running on the same kernel with potentially many other jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Huge props to Tejun Heo and everyone else involved in this effort.

This is a big deal in our modern container powered ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hearing about cgroups always reminds me of the resource metering/dispensing parts of the KeyKOS papers. [http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~KeyKOS/](http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~KeyKOS/)

Convergent evolution is fun. :)</comment>


Canonical Is Considering Dropping Support for 32-Bit PCs After Ubuntu 18.10 - <AUTHOR> http://news.softpedia.com/news/canonical-is-considering-dropping-support-for-32-bit-pcs-after-ubuntu-18-10-505761.shtml <comment><USER2> It's much sooner than 18.10. From the article, "Starting with the upcoming Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety Yak release, there shouldn't be any 32-bit Desktop and Server ISO images available for download."

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Seems like they plan to stop making 32bit ISOs allready from 16.10 and release 32bit as netboot installers only. Then by 18.10 no more 32bit?!

<comment><USER3> So 32bit netbooters and upgraders will have to move on when 18.04 ends support in 2023? That doesn't sound too bad - time to move on.

My last 32bit system (a Thinkpad R51) didn't support PAE, so effectively stopped being supported by quite a few distros 4 or 5 years ago as their 32bit kernels and installers moved to PAE only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ditched ubuntu with 12.04. Linux Mint Debian Edition is all you need.

should you be allergic to systemd, Devuan is pretty nice as well.</comment>


Why do dieters succeed or fail? The answers have little to do with food - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/3/13/17054146/diet-isnt-working-why <comment><USER2> It seems to be will-power and a true desire to lose and keep off weight. Lifestyle is your own choice. I've worked across a broad range of industries in my working life.

Manual labor and being young was by far the easiest to stay thin. Age and a happily married software engineer doing side startups doesn't contribute to being thin.

The solution that has worked for me has been to make meal plans with my wife every Friday night. We shop Saturday morning (pre crowded) and we cook from home and take lunches while working in 10k steps and physical exercise with free weights (I also do stairs every hour at my regular job).

When I stick to my goals, weight comes off, muscle goes on. When I don't, weight gains are fast and the negative consequences are more irritating as I age.

tl;dr; Will power and a real desire to be healthy is what it takes.

<comment><USER3> _It seems to be will-power and a true desire to lose and keep off weight._

For some people, this is simply not true. I don't think the problem space is as solved as a lot of people seem to imagine.</comment></comment>


3taps and Creative Commons Hackathon in SF (April 23rd) - <AUTHOR> http://3taps.com/hackathon

<comment><USER2> This is going to be a fun event!

To be clear - I am helping organize it :) but still, it really is going to be fun. And I/O Ventures is letting us use their great space that is next to The Summit in the Mission.

<comment><USER3> Date has been changed to April 29/30...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I set up a Convore group as well: <http://convore.com/3taps-hackathon/>

</comment><comment><USER4> Looking forward to seeing what comes out of this.</comment>


Full-screen API available in Firefox nightly  - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/11/html5-games-video-get-boost-from-full-screen-api-in-firefox-nightly.ars

<comment><USER2> Now all we need is a mouse capture API to make first person games.

<comment><USER3> It's coming. There's a spec here: [http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/webevents/raw- file/default/mouse-lock....](http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/webevents/raw- file/default/mouse-lock.html)

Implementations for Chrome and Firefox are bug 72754 and bug 633602, respectively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is a serious problem in this proposal: they want to disallow all keys not on a whitelist, and that whitelist does not include letters. Which would mean no WASD movement. While the intent is good (prevent phishing), I think a better solution is still needed.

<comment><USER4> Actually, scratch that - there's a way for apps to request letter keys in full-screen mode, which just imposes additional confirmation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Chrome has this and I truly and completely hate the way Youtube uses it. The only reason I switched to HTML5 video on YT was the fact that it resized to the browser window, therefore not wasting massive amounts of screen estate on my 24" monitor. The way I'd use it was to have the video on 2/3 of the screen and Vim on the other 1/3.

Alas, those days are gone, unless I figure out a way to override requestFullscreen to always return false.

<comment><USER6> If you want to disable it in Firefox, you can go to about:config and set the pref for full-screen-api.enabled to false.

I'm not sure if Chrome has a similar way to disable the feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's wrong with asking the user to press F11? After all, the browser should be under the control of the user, instead of the other way around.

<comment><USER8> > A Web application can't arbitrarily make an element fullscreen without user > intervention—the operation has to be initiated by a user action.

As the article says, the intent is mostly to offer similar functionality as e.g. Youtube's fullscreen mode. It's much simpler/cleaner to ask ordinary users to click a button on the screen (that is a part of your own interface) than to ask them to press F11. Also, F11-fullscreen doesn't stretch elements as this does:

> It allows Web applications to toggle the browser into full-screen mode and > _stretch a single page element_ so that it fills the user's display.

<comment><USER9> > Also, F11-fullscreen doesn't stretch elements as this does

Which begs the question, why not?

<comment><USER10> F11-fullscreen stretches the browser window.

Using the fullscreen API, you can put in fullscreen some _specific parts_ of your website (a specific div, a specific menu, etc.).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When will Mobile Safari support it?

</comment><comment><USER12> I hate that Chrome has modified the fullscreen support so that it is no longer possible to have "fullscreen", mean "fullwindow" mode. It was my absolute favorite. Tiling WM or even manual, along with "fullwindow" mode was the best of all worlds. You were an F11 away from fullscreen, but had the flexibility of having just the video in a window to do with what you pleased.

<comment><USER13> Opera still has this feature. I use it all the time with wmii.</comment></comment>


The Matrix Calculus You Need for Deep Learning - <AUTHOR> http://explained.ai/matrix-calculus/index.html <comment><USER2> Does anyone know of good resources for studying machine learning or data science given a strong mathematical background? I'm transitioning careers from pure math research into industry. I know very little about machine learning, but I know the crap out of linear algebra and real analysis (and other, less relevant fields). It'd be great to have some sources that leverage that without assuming much prior CS knowledge.

<comment><USER3> There are many new methods cropping up that most people in the data science hype train will be full-on unable to access, including methods on manifolds (even kernel methods on manifolds) and algebraic-topological methods (persistent homology) with enough maths to give Kagglers the screaming meemies.

I'm using some of those for $(redacted, the plan is to make money). Don't follow the crowd.

<comment><USER4> When I started out in ML I was really keen to learn about the most 'mathsy' approaches out there.

I think with hindsight, it's great to have a broad spectrum of methods available to you, but if you focus too much on methods at the hard-math end of the spectrum just for the sake of an intellectual challenge, you can end up fixated on an exotic solution looking for a problem while the rest of the field moves on, rather than doing useful engineering people care about.

Maybe you find a niche where something exotic really helps, maybe you don't -- maybe for research this is a risk worth taking. But just something to keep in mind.

IMO: breadth is good. Mathematical maturity helps. If one sticks around one finds uses for interesting maths eventually, but not worth trying to force it.

Another avenue for people who want to use some hardcore math: try and use it to find some good theory around why things which work well, work well. Not an easy task either by any means.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If someone likes more lecture style explanation I can recommend 3blue1brown's material on YouTube. He explained in a pretty good an accessible way imho.

I didn't learn artificial neural network stuff from there. I knew those concepts but I didn't know the matrix formalism applied to it. So this was really nice to understand why GPUs are good for this. Math-wise it was really nice watch.

<comment><USER6> It's amazing what a rich-get-richer effect products and content that really manage to solve problems in a high quality way get in comments sections around the web. (E.g. 3B1B.)

<comment><USER7> I'm not really sure why you're being downvoted. You're right that 3B1B really does manage to solve a problem in a high-quality way, and it's amazing how much of an effect that really has on people, especially considering the relatively niche topics that 3B1B goes into. (You'd think that his "Essence of" series would be more popular, but the one-off problem analyses have ridiculously more views in general.)

In some ways, it _is_ a "rich-get-richer" effect. But creators like 3B1B expend a lot of time and resources to do what they do, and the word of mouth he gets is an acknowledgement that the work he does is worth the money and views we provide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So I have a question somewhat related to this that I never knew where/who to ask (well actually I asked a few mathematicians at a university I work with whose answers I couldn't understand - their answers were almost as impenetrable as the Wikipedia page, and some engineering scientists who I thought would be more into 'applied math' but they didn't know. So I'm hoping some data science people reading this would better understand where I'm coming from, and be able to explain at my primitive math skills level).

So, some time ago I contracted out writing some code for fitting a logistic regression onto a given set of observations. There were some specific requirements, but I think I should have been able to piece something myself together using mainstream LA libraries; some of them even hint at 'you could fit a logistic regression using these functions' but no complete examples. But I didn't understand well enough so I contracted it out.

The woman who ended up writing the code used a 'Hessian' matrix to do so (she actually wrote two functions doing the same thing, one used this Hessian approach - I think the idea was that it would be faster but there wasn't a lot of time and it never got tweaked enough to make a difference).

So my question - is there a layman's explanation for what a Hessian matrix is, and how it applies to fitting a logistic model? Also (with an eye to the future of my project), does it have applications for non-linear regressions?

Alternatively, are there any books where this is covered? I have most standard stats/applied stats/operations research books, as well as a few like the no bullshit guide to linear algebra, but none cover this specific issue - or even how to fit a logistic regression at all, on a practical level (so not just 'conceptually you do xyz, implementation is left as an exercise for the reader').

<comment><USER9> Those Wikipedia pages are kind of awful for pedagogy, but they have the right equations, so I won't cover those.

Say we have a curve that corresponds to how good of a fit your model is. We want to try to find the maximum on that curve. However, calculating every point of the curve is too expensive, so we want to minimize the number of points we have to check. So, we start with a guess as to the highest point on the curve and take the first and second derivatives of the curve at that point. This gives us enough to fit a parabola that approximates the curve in the neighborhood of our initial guess point. Then, it's pretty easy to solve for the highest point on the parabola. That's our new guess. Repeat that a few times until the guesses stop shifting much. If the curve is nicely shaped (i.e. smooth everywhere, only has one maximum), the guesses will converge on the highest point.

This is a often faster than a similar method, gradient ascent, which relies upon only taking the first derivative. This would yield a line in the vicinity of our guess, and then we just move our guess a little bit, such that it goes up the line. This is pretty slow, since it can't just go straight to a guess of the top, and if you go too fast, then it'll blow right past the maximum.

The Hessian matrix is the higher dimensional equivalent to the second derivative there and the gradient is the equivalent for the first derivative. For example, if we have a two dimensional surface in 3D, then those matrices will be 2x2 and capture the curvature of the 3D paraboloid in the vicinity of the guess. As you go up in dimensionality, they're called quadric hypersurfaces.

When you're fitting a logistic regression, your hypersurface is the logarithm of the likelihood that the data you have fits the logistic curve with parameters at that point. The logarithm makes the hypersurface better behaved and makes the calculus easier. You just need the gradient and the Hessian, evaluate those at your initial guess, fit a quadric hypersurface to the guess there, pop up to the top of that hypersurface, repeat a few times, and you've got your model.

<comment><USER10> Unfortunately, mathematics is one of the areas where Wikipedia is pretty awful in general. The articles seem mostly written for people who pretty much already understand the topic in question. Of course, you always have to assume _some_ knowledge base but the stereotypical jargon-filled Wilipedia approach is particularly off-putting in this area.

<comment><USER11> I understand what you're trying to say, but Wikipedia is a fantastic resource for mathematics. "Pretty awful" is not a correct choice of words. But yes, much of it is written at beyond-undergrad-math level. And undergrad math is already advanced! And no I'm not someone with a math PhD talking down! I'm struggling through teaching myself undergrad math.

<comment><USER12> The only way "pretty awful" is incorrect is that it is too polite and reserved. Reams upon reams of pages are written completely at odds with Wikipedia's own style guidelines and common-sense expectations of what one might find in an encyclopedia. Unlike some famously dense mathematical texts, wikipedia maths pages don't even come with any of the benefits of brevity or focus. It's like a giant joke competition of who can describe every trivial thing in the most abstract and abstruse way except it got out of hand and the participants forgot it was supposed to be a joke. Mathworld and similar sites will help you much more with undergrad maths.

<comment><USER11> We're saying much the same thing, it's just that I find your and GP's use of the absolute "pretty awful" to be hyperbolic and something of a loss of perspective. Remember what we have here: a free, actively maintained, accurate, comprehensive and advanced corpus of expository writing on mathematics. Adjectives that are missing there are "intuitition-rich", and "helpful for undergraduates". I do understand if you are disappointed with it. As noted, I (undergrad level) don't approach it with an expectation that it will be my favorite reading on a topic.

<comment><USER12> _We're saying much the same thing_

No.

 _something of a loss of perspective._

You'd have to provide some alternative perspective or argument that goes beyond 'pretty awful sounds kinda mean'.

 _Remember what we have here: a free, actively maintained, accurate, comprehensive and advanced corpus of expository writing on mathematics_

We already have a few of those. As I mentioned, mathworld is far better at this and it's been around longer than Wikipedia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Absolutely best guide (for me) on these things is [http://www.psi.toronto.edu/~andrew/papers/matrix_calculus_fo...](http://www.psi.toronto.edu/~andrew/papers/matrix_calculus_for_learning.pdf) Also "Matrix algebra" by Magnus and Abadir.

</comment><comment><USER14> This thread is a glowing reminder of how effective and friendly the HN community can be, when good will is extended in both the question and the answer. Thank you to all who contributed as the comments have provided me (and many others I'm sure) with a clear and concise map of the matrix calculus full of helpful resources. My 4th of July beach reading is now complete.

</comment><comment><USER15> The explanatory style here is excellent. They explain clearly in 3 paragraphs what I was unable to get a good handle on in a semester of college math (due to awful teaching styles and textbooks), namely why partial derivatives are calculated the way they are.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is really useful. Matrix calculus was one of the hardest parts of my machine learning course at university simply because it had never been covered by any of the many math classes I'd taken.

</comment><comment><USER17> Too extensive and not focusing enough on the core concepts. Teaching mathematics is about making the underlying structure as clear as possible. It's a very hard thing to do effectively.

</comment><comment><USER18> This book had a really gentle explanation of the required calculus: [https://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Own-Neural-Network- ebook/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Own-Neural-Network- ebook/dp/B01EER4Z4G)

It also builds some really simple Python code to create a simple (non-"deep", i.e. with just one hidden layer) neural network capable of recognizing human- drawn digits with good accuracy.

</comment><comment><USER19> Truely amazing work. Hoped for some nice drawings but Latex did it!

</comment><comment><USER20> There's a tool now that can do matrix calculus: [http://www.matrixcalculus.org/](http://www.matrixcalculus.org/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16267178](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16267178)

<comment><USER22> Hmm that definitely qualifies this one as a dupe, but the discussion is unusually substantive so I guess we'll leave it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> an accessible and concise refreshment of material</comment>


Ask HN: What are current CS subfields in their infancy? - <AUTHOR>

My wife (a chemist) and I were recently talking about Watson and Crick and other work that had a significant impact on the life sciences. She asked an interesting question which I was unable to satisfactorily answer:
What are some examples of computer science subfields which are in their infancy today?
Two examples I came up with were quantum computing and nanoscale computing+robotics. These are fields which (to my knowledge) are still in their infancy today but which I think will have a significant impact within the somewhat near future. It's also perhaps interesting that both of those subfields are interdisciplinary and not pure CS.
This is a train of thought along the same lines as Richard Hamming's "You and Your Research" talk (http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html). While I think Hamming comes across here as elitist and arrogant, he does have an interesting point: if you don't know what the important problems or areas are in your field, you can't be an effective representative. <comment><USER2> I'd argue that AI, or more specifically "soft computing" is still nascent. Not so much in the theory behind it, but in practical/everyday applications having access to enough computing resources to do anything with it.</comment>


Visual Dataflow Implemented in Lisp [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://web.onetel.com/~hibou/fmj/interpreter.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Full Metal Jacket:

\- Home: [http://web.onetel.com/~hibou/fmj/FMJ.html](http://web.onetel.com/~hibou/fmj/FMJ.html)

\- Tutorial: [http://web.onetel.com/~hibou/fmj/tutorials/TOC.html](http://web.onetel.com/~hibou/fmj/tutorials/TOC.html)

<comment><USER2> Can we download it and kick the tires?

<comment><USER3> Not yet. Please be patient. I still have to add the ability to define new data structures and types before it's a complete language. I'm currently working on that. Then I need to make the code more robust. I also have to eat my own dog food for a while - if I don't use it, who else will?

After all that, I'll sort out the .303 release. This will allow free (as in beer) non-commercial use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Simple arithmetic and function definition are simple enough to follow, but the iteration and conditionals seem clunky.

Also, I think there's a typo on this page because the images doesn't seem to match the equation (or I'm not understanding the mapping between code and graphics): [http://web.onetel.com/~hibou/fmj/tutorials/Functions.html](http://web.onetel.com/~hibou/fmj/tutorials/Functions.html)

<comment><USER5> Pretty much. Iteration and conditionals are the bane of a making a DAG elegant. I think the inverse is fairly true too, data flow is much better visualized in a DAG and much more difficult to see in an imperative line by line approach.

<comment><USER6> Funny in image compositing software the iteration is abstracted away as time ticks over image sequences that update the input nodes thus pushing new outputs. It's there without being there explicitely.

<comment><USER5> Right, and the iteration over pixels is hidden in plugins themselves. Complex filters though are difficult or impossible to build since there is no granularity and in fact gathering or scattering of arbitrary memory locations is very awkward.

Anyone who has used Shake or Nuke knows that working with essentially a domain specific interface is an enormous benefit.

I think there is a lot of value in learning from compositing systems as well as Houdini when writing software - namely being able to freeze data in place and iterate on one data transformation at a time.

<comment><USER6> Houdini especially since he deals with any kind of data, it's almost the Lisp of computer graphics. Some tutorials are mixing geometry, analog signals (audio), discrete signals (user inputs), through Houdini's builtin operators. Never seen such versatility. I always say this should be taught in programming classes (both for UX, ergonomy, programming paradigm).

And the virtual + freeze is also very present in audio production software. All this things that are close to memoization, laziness are present there.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>