Ray Kurzweil Responds to "Ray Kurzweil does not understand the brain" - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/ray-kurzweil-responds-to-ray-kurzweil-does-not-understand-the-brain <comment><USER2> I wish bloggers could have these kinds of debates without all of the butthurt jabs like "... which so-and-so clearly does not understand..." or "I'm surprised anyone actually pays attention to that kook."

If we are so very intelligent, then shouldn't we be smart enough to see that ad hominem attacks result in emotional responses overriding the rational desire to open our minds and learn, instead replacing those instincts with the knee-jerk defensive reaction of tightening our hold on our existing beliefs, right or wrong?

I understand that we're all passionately devoted to truth and understanding, and we take umbrage when we perceive that someone is damaging those virtues. But the kind of thinly-veiled high school drama aired in these two posts is what disappoints me more than anything.

<comment><USER3> Kurzweil, I think, comes off better in that respect, using phrases like "some of my critics claim that I underestimate the complexity of the problem" which neatly remove the personal jabs while still responding directly to the argument. Myers's style is to get personal and it does occasionally get a bit tired, but usually he gets away with it _because he's right_. Probably they'd both get on a bit better if they actually met and had a reasonable discussion, rather than relying on reports of what the other said.

<comment><USER4> I don't think Myers is always right. Surely, it always seems that his assessments are correct, until you look at the right angle.

<comment><USER5> Not always, but usually. In part this is because he's usually writing about subjects (like evolution) that he knows a lot more about than his interlocutors (like creationists).

In this case, the situation is reversed: he's writing about subjects (artificial intelligence, information theory, and self-reproducing systems in general) that he knows very little about, and that Kurzweil knows a great deal about.

It's unfortunate that he didn't bother to find out what Kurzweil was actually claiming, instead relying on some dumb-ass "science journalist", before launching his little jeremiad. You'd think Myers, of all people, would know better than to trust science journalists.

<comment><USER4> I agree with you. I can only add that PZ Myers, unfortunately, for Science and scientific blogging has become a buffoon, and some of his posts are just as detrimental to the scientific community than most of his opposition.

It's not difficult to know more evolution than creationists, as most of evolutionary theory is _just_ logic and facts, something lacking in most creationist reasoning.

This is not the first time that he uses his mob-leadership to attack someone, and it won't be the last. He is not a scientist anymore, he's just a blogger, that for better or worse has cult followers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What I got from the previous article (admittedly as my own synthesis, not afaict from the original text as such) was, sure, the program to build a brain is only X Megabytes, but the computer that runs that program is the human body growing in the physical universe. If you want to be able to run that program, you're going to need to emulate at least the relevant instruction subset of the physical universe. It's hard to know how large is the relevant subset or if computers will ever plausibly get there. If the subset turns out to be quite large, you'd need a computer that could model its own subatomic physics.

<comment><USER7> That is what I got from the previous article as well. However, from reading Kurzweil's article get that this point is irrelevant, because he never suggested to reverse engineer the brain in that way. He used the genome argument as an estimate on how complex the brain is, basically viewing the genome as a data compression of the brain.

Myers argument only shows that the decompression algorithm, i.e. the route from the genome to brain, is insanely complex, but it doesn't say anything about the actual complexity of the brain. So in essence, yes, if we would choose to model the brain in a highly compressed form like the human genome we would potentially need a computer that could model it's own subatomic physics, but that's not likely the way we would want to approach this.

Anyways, this doesn't mean that the brain isn't very complex and impossible for us to model at the moment. They main question is how long it will take for us until this complexity is manageable (if ever).

<comment><USER8> > _the decompression algorithm, i.e. the route from the genome to brain, is > insanely complex, but it doesn't say anything about the actual complexity of > the brain_

This is where both Kurzweil and you are wrong. A very complex compression/decompression scheme can achieve much better compression. Intuitively, you can encode some of the information in the decompressor itself, even if it is in a very abstract form. This is the reason why compression competitions include size of the decompressor code, e.g. <http://prize.hutter1.net/>

<comment><USER5> Even if the "decompression algorithm" is somehow optimized for making intelligent brains easy to encode, the "source code" for it is still present in the other half of the genome, so this doesn't affect the argument much.

<comment><USER8> It's not in the other half of the genome. All cells in an organism share the same DNA, but different cells develop in a very differentiated manner depending on the cells around them (e.g. should it be a neuron or a connecting tissue?). The "decompression algorithm" is in the laws of physics, biochemistry, and the way life works in general. Since we don't understand these well enough, we can't make reasonable information-theoretic claims about the "decompressed" genome.

<comment><USER5> It all starts from a single zygote. Every material in that zygote is either an essential nutrient, a peptide made according to its DNA (including mitochondrial DNA), or catalyzed from essential nutrients by those peptides.

The laws of physics and biochemistry are irrelevant, unless you're claiming that a substantial fraction of the information needed to build intelligence (we're talking tens of megabytes here) is encoded in the laws of physics or in the biochemistry we share with snottites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Amusingly i think that Kurzweil demonstrates his ignorance all the more clearly in this post.

The brain is a product of not just the genome but the environment in which it develops. You are not just the product of your genome. You are the product of your genome and the womb in which you were incubated, and the environmental stressors on your mother.

You can't go from genome => organism without a WHOOOOOLE lot of Ceteris Paribus to fill in the gaps. Information theory is really pretty irrelevant to the subject of developing a biological model of the brain.

To clarify (having read Kurzweil's post more carefully), a lot of the interesting features of the brain are specified in the configuration and connections of the brain. The base building blocks and types of neurons might be specified in the genome (i'm not positive about that, i'm not a geneticist), but even if that were to be the case, Kurzwiel would have to demonstrate that environmental factors were not critical in the development of the structures of the brain that make us thinking beings.

I don't think he can do that. Biologists and computer scientists have spent a long time doing research on the building blocks of neural networks, and not only do the fields still face some difficult and fundamental challenges, but for the time being, it's very clear that we do not have the tools necessary to interrogate the brain in the manner we would need in order to be able to map interesting things out.

Perhaps things have changed in the 5 years since i graduated university, but... i haven't heard anything earth shattering that would indicate we do have the level of sophistication to computationally model the brain in an accurate manner, or even promising starts to such an endeavor.

Additional Edit:

Kurzweils assertion that we can't predict how technology will change is correct. Neither can he. Progress is a discontinuous non-linear process. It may be that we'll be able to track all the particles in the brain and watch them as the develop over time, but... then again it very well be that we won't be able to. Tinkering with brains in invasive ways is difficult, let alone _non_ -invasive ways.

<comment><USER10> You're mis-characterizing his post:

"It is true that the brain gains a great deal of information by interacting with its environment – it is an adaptive learning system."

Where does he say that the brain is only the product of its genome?

<comment><USER11> That exact line illustrates that he does not understand Meyers' objections. He thinks Meyers meant that we need to also model all of the information that the brain gains as it interacts with its environment. That is not what Meyers meant.

What he meant is that we need to model _everything that happens to the brain before it becomes a brain_. That is, how the proteins interact with each other in the physical world to form the brain. Meyers' analogy was that the genome is the _data_ , and the physical laws of the universe are the program. People are modeling how proteins fold and interact in the physical world, but it's a hard problem, and we're far from being able to do it for an entire organ.

<comment><USER12> Based on this post (and more so what I've been able to find of the original discussion) I don't think he's overlooking this at all; if anything it's so obvious that he's not calling it out literally, like saying "I'm building an automobile"; you don't expect to have to say it's going to have wheels...

<comment><USER11> That's because we already know how a car works. We know that wheels and an engine are necessary, but a cupholder is not. Meyers' point, as I understand it, is our understanding of the brain is not yet sophisticated to know what we can exclude from simulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> While I don't have the knowledge to dismiss Kurzweil's theories outright (I only have a gut feeling), I must say that this response did not achieve a refutation of the statement that "Ray Kurzweil does not understand the brain".

I did not see anything in that response that indicated that Kurzweil is basing his beliefs on anything more than his 2001 adaptation of Moore's law to all things technological; to me, the brain's biology and particularly its physiology fall outside our current notions of technology.

<comment><USER14> I agree — we can't simulate something we don't understand, and it's nearly impossible to estimate how long it will take to understand anything. We don't even know what consciousness _is_ , so how can we even begin to simulate it?

<comment><USER15> Really? Generally I mostly simulate things whose macroscopic behaviour I don't understand, and I simulate them so that I can understand them better.

<comment><USER14> It's true that we do that, but we at least understand the framework. Simulated models are the basis of a lot of neuro research, but we need to do so much more biology before we can begin to even try to simulate the brain in any useful way on a macro level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm a singularian, but much more long-term that Kurzweil. Like 500 years, instead of 20.

I think the much more interesting question here isn't "Can hardware simulate the brain or not?" We'll figure that one out eventually. The interesting question is "As hardware and software begin simulating the brain (already happening), and integrating with it (already happening), what are the implications for the species?"

What's a half-singularity look like? Because that's very well how this century might turn out, and instead of arguing at the extremes, it's probably much better to focus on the immediate practical implications of what's already happening.

<comment><USER17> The borg is one example of a half half. Star trek truly invented the future ;p

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Something amazing will happen and it will resemble the human brain".

I imagine this is ridiculous to anyone working in Machine Learning, Applied Statistics, AI or what it is called at the moment.

Point me to the algorithms that have the potential of resembling the human brain, and I will have a look. Talk a lot about "computers are becoming smarter" and namedrop some brain region names and a lot of technically minded people will zone out.

<comment><USER19> There is strong evidence that the neocortex works on a common algorithm; vision, hearing, touch, language, behavior, and most everything else the neocortex does are manifestations of a single algorithm applied to different modalities of sensory input.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_temporal_memory> <http://onintelligence.org/> <http://www.numenta.com/Numenta_HTM_Concepts.pdf>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> To make the argument more clear:

Kurzweil says "The genome can be compressed into X bytes, so that's an upper limit on the complexity needed to simulate the human brain."

Meyers says: "No. The genome says 'make a protein with this shape'. We don't understand the full complexity of the brain until we understand all of the physics (including potential quantum effects) that go into protein folding + all the different environmental effects. Further, the information in the physics and protein folding stuff is much much greater than information in the genome".

</comment><comment><USER17> I at least agree with him that you don't need a trillion lines of code. A couple of lisp macros should do it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Kurzweil's retort falls apart in several places:

"It is true that the brain gains a great deal of information by interacting with its environment – it is an adaptive learning system. But we should not confuse the information that is learned with the innate design of the brain."

He is misunderstanding Myers here - Myers is talking about the physical ontogenesis of the brain during development (in utero), proteins interacting with proteins (and the environment and such) during its development, not the development of the brain through "adaptive learning"

"But we can take a much more direct route to understanding the amount of information in the brain's innate design, which I also discussed: to look at the brain itself. There, we also see massive redundancy. Yes there are trillions of connections, but they follow massively repeated patterns."

"Yes, the system learns and adapts to its environment..."

Again, Kurzweil is failing to address the crux of Myers argument, that the design of the brain is not only in the genetic code, but in the intricate "playing out" of cells during brain development. Myers did not talk about the brain adapting to a system in the holistic or psychological sense, but on a much more fine-grained biological level.

</comment><comment><USER22> > [...] It is true that the information in the genome goes through a complex > route to create a brain, but the information in the genome constrains the > amount of information in the brain [...]

This is false. Genotype-phenotype is not general purpose compression algorithm so there is no limit. You could theoretically compress all information about the universe in single bit. Algorithm for that would be: If you see one then you should return full information about universe and if zero then you should throw exception: "Error in input data."

Not every phenotype can be compressed to genotype. There is no DNA for animal on 17 wheels or for a cheese-cake.

It is more similar to fractal compression or procedural generation where huge (even infinite) amount of data can be "compressed" into simple rule.

If simple math can do something like that then complex machine of physical interactions can do much more.

</comment><comment><USER23> Kurzweil snipes "It is an argument from information theory, which Myers obviously does not understand." With some delight, I would like to explain how Kurzweil incorrectly uses information theory and arrives at a false conclusion.

In fairness, I'll also explain why Kurzweil's main thesis appears to be unassailably correct - albeit mainly because, in the end, he makes only quite weak and uncontroversial claims.

(For biological criticisms of Kurzweil, see "knowtheory"'s comment.)

Kurzweil seeks to establish an upper bound on a quantity he calls "the amount of information in the brain prior to the brain's interaction with its environment."

He is not terribly precise about how that quantity is to be defined. He does tell us that his upper bound will show that the "design" of the brain isn't very complicated and that it will not require "trillions of lines of code to create a comparable system".

To establish his "amount of information" upper bound he looks at the number of "bits" in a complete human genome. A human genome contains about three billion base pairs. Each base pair position can have one of four possible values (e.g., contains two bits of information). Thus he comes up 6 billion bits overall, around 715 Megabytes (he says 800), and he points out that genomes are far from random and asserts that the whole thing can be compressed down to, perhaps, 50 Megabytes.

Apparently we are to believe that the amount of "code" needed to build a system "comparable" to the brain can not possibly be "trillions of lines" because the genome does it in less than 50 megabytes.

A zygote, in other words is a machine. It runs the code in the DNA. The code tells how to build a brain. Our simulator will be some kind of programmable system. We'll supply it with code. The code will tell it how to make or simulate a brain-like thing. If a zygote does it with a mere 50MB of code, our machine will as well.

It is just there, in that last step, that Kurzweil invokes a fallacy. In general, if you have two different kinds of machines, and you want to program each to compute the same result -- _upper bounds on the program size on machine tell you nothing about the the upper bounds on the other machine_.

That is why, for example, when Chaitin lectures about Omega he is always mumbling "relative to some choice of turing machine" (at least initially, until it is then understood to apply throughout the talk).

If all you know is that the zygote machine and our simulator machine are two machines - program size on the zygote tells you _nothing_ about program size on the simulator.

There is, in other words, no abstract quantity that describes "the complexity of the design of the brain". Information theory does not recognize any such concept. There is no such thing as the irreducible complexity of a program other than relative to a particular machine.

The upper bound from the zygote could actually translate to our simulation machine _if_ we agree that the simulator will operate on principles essentially the same as the zygote. Alas, Kurzweil says the opposite: "I did not present studying the genome as even part of the strategy for reverse- engineering the brain. [....] It is not a proposed strategy for accomplishing reverse-engineering [....]"

Kurzweil has to give up either the relevancy of the size of the genome, or his denial that we'll build a machine that operates on similar principles to a zygote (or on principles that can be proved computationally similar to a zygote). Either way, he should not be looking down at Myers' understanding of information theory.

All of that said, if you strip out his hype his only substantial claims seem to be that we'll build hardware that can run neural network software very efficiently (perhaps in real time for brain-scale networks) and that we'll get clues about useful network topologies from looking at brains.

That, my friends, is a perfect message for a "futurist" to deliver to a dazzled audience because, well, to many of us it is what you call "very old, somewhat boringly obvious news".

<comment><USER24> Sigh...where's Eliezer when we need him? :)

 _It is just there, in that last step, that Kurzweil invokes a fallacy. In general, if you have two different kinds of machines, and you want to program each to compute the same result -- upper bounds on the program size on machine tell you nothing about the the upper bounds on the other machine._

Right on, upper bounds on program size do not directly translate from one machine to another. So we can't set a hard bound, and we always need to speak about information content relative to a given machine - too few people have noticed this.

However, science doesn't give up when hard bounds prove impossible. There's always statistics to fall back on.

And statistically speaking, we can _absolutely_ translate information content claims across machine boundaries if we're careful, as long as we have no reason to believe that the machine in question is somehow "special".

A priori, knowing nothing else about machines A or B, we would expect that if we observe an upper complexity bound on an algorithm relative to machine A, there's better than a 50/50 shot that the same upper complexity bound will also hold relative to machine B (it's greater than 50% because it's almost certain that our observation did not pick out the best theoretical upper complexity bound).

As good Bayesians, exactly how this all translates into a best estimate for the bound relative to machine B depends on a lot of stuff (all our prior distributions - in fact, in cases like this talking about upper bounds is silly, it's far better to talk about the distribution of upper bounds, but I digress).

But it's _simply wrong_ not to adjust your complexity estimates relative to machine B in some manner based on an observation of machine A, unless you know something special about machine A that differentiates it from all machines in such a way that it's well-suited to express the algorithm under consideration.

So I ask you this: do you know a fact about "zygote machines" that makes them much better suited to constructing intelligence algorithms than most other machines? Do you have some reason to suspect that their dynamics are more likely to lead to intelligent computations than, for instance, normal computers?

Because otherwise, Kurzweil is a _hell_ of a lot closer to the "right" estimate than you are.

(Edit) FWIW, I posted a more detailed argument elsewhere in this thread (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1621053>) that more carefully boils Myers' claim down to just about the same question I asked you.

<comment><USER23> ewjordan: That's beautiful. Let me sort it out slightly and offer a counter argument or at least response to part.

So, we agree that Kurzweil's "information theory" snobbery is wrong. His real argument is "C'mon... look, the genome's small. Under a microscope the brain looks like it has many parts but very regularly arranged. How hard can it be? Trillions of lines? Please!"

That's not an information theory argument. That's a vague, hand-wave argument to an underspecified but compelling-sounding conclusion. "Reverse engineer the brain." "Build something similar." WTF could possibly happen that would prove him wrong? How exactly could Kurzweil's "predictions" here be falsified?

Put another way, if he changed his rebuttal to Meyers to be "I made no substantive argument or claim. Myers responded as if I had. Therefore Myers has erred." -- I could accept that. It then does raise the question of why Kurzweil was not more explicit about making no substantive argument or claim but that's a separate matter. It's moot because Kurzweil isn't making that rebuttal.

To your statistical argument, which is quite interesting...

I think the meat of your case is here:

 _So I ask you this: do you know a fact about "zygote machines" that makes them much better suited to constructing intelligence algorithms than most other machines?_

Rather than quibble over what "intelligence algorithms" mean I am going to pretend you said "human brains or things very similar to such".

The answer is "Yes, I know quite a few facts that strongly support the hypothesis that human zygotes are, among the machine-like entities in the world, uniquely well suited to building human brains -- and very difficult to replace by any substantially different kind of machine."

At this point I would basically just repeat Myers' argument, perhaps adding in more specific but randomly selected details.

If you want to rescue Kurzweil by leaving the abstract "information theory" b.s. he offered and looking at the specifics -- then we've gone full circle. Kurzweil doesn't understand the brain.

Now there is an exception to all this. A different way of looking at it. I think that if you scrape off layers of hype and clouds of obfuscation, Kurzweil will consider himself to be proved correct if, in say 20 years, -- and just for example:

You can buy a box that has at least stereo video inputs and that, using an artificial neural net, does exquisitely accurate facial recognition. Or that can look at visualization of architectural CAD drawings -- millions of variations per hour -- and select a few with a high percentage chance of being pleasing to most people. Or that, in combination with the tactile-feedback neural net, can manipulate agonizingly capable microscopic tools for very delicate surgeries or for building nanotech or ...

I think it's f'ing obvious that (unless civilization fails - not out of the question) we have all that in 20 years and maybe sooner. I think that was f'ing obvious about 30 years ago, and to some, pretty clear even before that.

I don't think those devices count, in any reasonable way, as "reverse engineering the brain" but I guess they count as "reverse engineering a few select aspects of useful computational tricks that brains do in real time, quite efficiently".

I don't think those inevitable advances offer much support to Kurzweil's "exponential" technology - they are straight up incremental, boringly predictable advances. I don't think they're a real challenge to ordinary human predictive powers: we've seen this stuff coming for decades. Don't even get me started on how "the singularity" is dangerous, meaningless, new-age clap-trap.

But, Kurzweil dresses up such banal observations to make it sound like, any day now, massive machine mega-brains will take over the world. Hopefully they'll love us and kindly upload our consciousness and.....

So it is, to repeat my original point, with some delight that I take on Kurzweil's "information theory" sniping at Meyers.

<comment><USER24> _Rather than quibble over what "intelligence algorithms" mean I am going to pretend you said "human brains or things very similar to such"._

I think this pretty well illuminates the source of our "disagreement" (and resolves it), apart from this we're on the same page about the details, I think.

To me, there's a very big difference between what I would qualify as successful AGI (artificial general intelligence) and "human brains or things very similar to such", in that successful AGI could work _very_ differently from a human brain (and IMO, probably will, if/when we ever get there) and still qualify as a bulls-eye hit.

Taking that as our (relatively wide) target, I don't think protein folding and all that fun stuff adds much information.

However, if our target is narrower, simulating a brain or something close to that, then I agree, the details of biology do shift the estimates considerably.

Looking over one of Kurzweil's actual statements:

 _It is true that the information in the genome goes through a complex route to create a brain, but the information in the genome constrains the amount of information in the brain prior to the brain's interaction with its environment._

...it appears that you're right, he's talking more about creating an actual brain than creating some algorithm that solves the same problem (possibly in a different way). Mea culpa: I unwittingly altered his argument before defending it, so I've really been arguing about what he should have said rather than what he actually said.

Not all is lost, though: the fact that his claim _can_ be fixed up so that it's got some actual teeth is still worth noting, and I think Myers criticism is a bit too broad (he essentially claims that you can't say anything useful based on the length of a DNA string, which is not true). I think the real lesson here is that _if_ we want to use DNA length as a proxy for information content, we need to be exquisitely careful about what "information content" means relative to the systems we're discussing, and nail down exactly what systems those are and how we're defining our problem.

<comment><USER25> > Taking that as our (relatively wide) target, I don't think protein folding > and all that fun stuff adds much information.

It may not add information at all, just as the physical structure of a transistor does not add much information to what a computer can or can not do. In a computer the 'smarts' however are not even embedded in the connections (like what's being posited is the case for the brain), but in the software. Software is state, and software is, to all intents an purposes as good as invisible, unless you find a way to do a dump of what sits inside a running brain.

And then you _still_ have to reverse engineer the computer that that software was running on in order to be able to resume.

Myers DNA length argument is easily disproved by reducing to extremes, if DNA length would be an irrelevant item then you could encode a brain with an arbitrarily short length of DNA, the fact that it takes up as much as it does proves that it is from an information processing perspective not a simple structure. So length is relevant, maybe not the whole story, but definitely a factor.

Part of me wonders if we are going to find one day that the genome does not just contain proteins but also contains the 'boot strap' state required to power up a brain after its initial configuration is complete.

That's highly speculative but there is a lot more data in the genome than what seems to be used and nature never was _that_ inefficient, even if there are many things that could be improved on with the function oriented hindsight that we have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I believe that when it comes to things in nature that look impossibly complex, that they are really constructed using a series of simple patterns. Understanding the strategies nature employs to create a thinking human brain will yield much more usable results than understanding the bio-mechanical processes which transform genes into a fully functioning brain.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've made an "all in" bet that AGI is going to be attained by the "human memome project" long before Kurzweil's biomimetic boondoggle achieves anything -- the biomimetic boondoggle is appealing to many, however, because the whole society is accustomed to flushing hundreds of billions a year down the drain on biomedical technology without any accountability.

<comment><USER28> "human memome project" - do you mean top down symbolic AI projects like CYC?

<comment><USER27> CYC is an important development in that direction, but a modern memomic approach doesn't privilege top-down over bottom-up approaches.

Like the human genome, the human memome is already available (in natural language) and the challenge is interpreting it. I don't believe the state of the art is good enough to create an upper ontology that can capture human experience, but sectors of ontology that capture chunks of it can be built from the bottom up now and merged as necessary.

Think of it this way. I know something about quantum physics and I know something about french lit crit. I don't need a general theory that encompasses both of them until I actually need that general theory -- at that point I'm going to build out as much of that theory as I need by an appeal to thought, experience and experiment.

The immediate term strategy is to find areas in which "unreasonably effective" strategies make it possible to extract facts and partially solve the "grounding problem". It's important to recognize that this is essentially a finite task: like the Earth's atmosphere, the Earth's noosphere has no perfectly defined 'edge'... However, there's a principle of interconnection and attraction of concepts that causes it to form a 'main body' that is essentially finite. The game of 20 questions shows that, more or less, the scale of human shared reality is 10^6 or so terms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Did that 50MB figure derive from just the protein-coding part of the genome? I just tried out the sequence from <http://hgdownload.cse.ucsc.edu/downloads.html#human>. After converting it to binary, 2 bits per base pair, bzip2 compresses it down to about 650MB (from 715MB uncompressed). I'd like to know what assumptions give you an order of magnitude greater compression, and how probable they are. I suppose the biggest factor has got to be junk DNA, since species can vary so much in genome length -- but I get the impression there's a lot of uncertainty still about functional noncoding DNA.

(The other number estimated was how many lines of source code the compressed 50MB or 25MB might correspond to. In the last thread I couldn't get this number to work either, though it came closer; and I actually know something about programs.)

</comment><comment><USER30> I have this kinda particular interpretation that "the best science is the one that makes fewer assumptions", or that, at least, is better equipped to access and deal with its own assumptions. In that vein, what bothers me about Kurzweil is that he seems to be just taking some assumptions and running with them.

Specifically, i believe that he assumes that intelligence and computation are the same thing. At least, he asserts that both are equimaterial --- that a sufficient powerful calculating machine is bound to be able to generate intelligence.

I do not know if intelligence == computation.

I do accept that, in many domains, the two things are interchangeable. Like, for example, if you are interviewing for a programming job and you can't do division in your head, that is a bad sign.

But if we are looking to _build_ intelligence _from_ computation, then i think we will bump into any differences that exist.

If computation and intelligence are equal or at least similar, that would be an interesting fact. It would teach us a lot about ourselves. To my taste it is a very interesting line of questioning. But it is not proven.

Really, we can't even really define intelligence! (As a sidenote, i think that is exactly the point of the "Turing Test", not to prove AI, but to show that intelligence is not clearly defined.)

If intelligence is a kind of computation, then Moore's Law means AI, definitely. And in that case, Kurzweil estimate of 2 decades is as good as any. If intelligence != computation, then some completely unrelated discovery has to intervene.

There is one thing that makes me doubt the assumption of equality, though. Namely, computers are already extremely better at computation than we are. I am 30yo and i can't recall a time when i didn't have available calculators way more powerful and fast than myself. If the translation from computation to intelligence was straightforward, my feeling is that the exponential nature of Moore's should have already made AI a reality before i went out of college.

</comment><comment><USER31> There may be only 1 bit of information describing the brain, it doesn't matter, the bits of information do not have a one to one correlation with logical gates or anything else for that matter. It is silly to compare genes with "lines of code", you also need a machine to parse, and eval those lines of code so you should also include the instructions for that machine as well.

</comment><comment><USER32> Given the idea that consciousness is related to complex quantum interactions at the molecular level, and the fact that computing power hits hard limits with regard to physical complexity at nano-scale, it seems unlikely that we'll be modeling human brains well enough in 20 years to reproduce conscious human thought.

<comment><USER24> _Given the idea that consciousness is related to complex quantum interactions at the molecular level_

Yes, that's an idea; it just so happens to be (at least outside the world of philosophy, where it's still easy to find people that don't believe in special relativity...) a fringe, unpopular one with pretty much no evidence whatsoever to back it up, because there's still no consensus on what "consciousness" even means, or whether it's definable even in principle, let alone measurable.

But in any case, consciousness has absolutely nothing to do with strong AI, which is defined in terms of what the AI can do, not whether its internal states are conscious or not.

 _it seems unlikely that we'll be modeling human brains well enough in 20 years to reproduce conscious human thought_

Sure thing, I can agree with that, practically as a matter of definition.

Luckily, in the practical AI community "conscious human thought" is not what anyone's trying to create. They'd be perfectly happy with non-conscious, non- human thought that can learn a wide variety of things, regardless of how it's implemented.

<comment><USER32> Fair enough.

I guess I don't understand what non-conscious thought is supposed to be, exactly.

<comment><USER5> It would be great if there was an algorithm that would pick out the best 15 HN comments for me to read each morning, instead of relying on other people's votes. That algorithm would necessarily have to process human language at a high enough level to distinguish good from bad. But would it necessarily have to be self-aware, considering the absurdity of its existence in its off-hours? We don't know. Certainly there are programs today doing many tasks that once we would have thought required a self-aware entity; composing listenable music, translating badly between human languages, and part-of-speech tagging, to name a few.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> [http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2010/08/thinkingme...](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2010/08/thinkingmeat.jpeg)

</comment><comment><USER34> So to some up: "Yes, the brain is very complex, but you don't understand the power of exponential growth in information technology!" Surprising.

<comment><USER35> That should be "to sum up".

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This whole argument seems to be about whether you need to include the design of the factory in the specifications for the chip.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm writing this to try to clarify my understanding. I think this is the essence of Kurzeil's argument on estimating complexity:

Let's take the genome (DNA) as a program + data, and the phenome (the organism) as an output (and assume the mother is in adequate health, and development proceeds normally.) Then the number of different possible phenomes is limited to the number of different genomes (it could be fewer, if there are non-significant regions of the genome, because then more than one genomes could produce the same phenome. That is, the function G->P is not necessarily injective.)

While this doesn't directly describe the complexity of a phenome, the argument is that the complexity of a thing is no greater than the means of defining it, and that any additional complexity in the resulting thing must contain redundancies (perhaps very hidden) that can be eliminated. A simple case is a program to print hello 1000 times. The program is short, and though the output is long, it contains redundancies. What about from chaotic systems and fractals, or 'normal' numbers like pi, where great complexity arises from simple rules? The argument is that this is merely apparent complexity, and in reality contains great redundancy. Big output changes from small input changes doesn't disprove this; consider changing 1000 to 2000 in the above. While a particular sequence of pi digits, or a particular fractal frame, might seem complex, there is also the input to consider of the specification of that part (eg which digits) also takes information.

\---

Here's the theoretical flaw: considering a genome as a program, what if the entire program isn't really listed in the genome, but it calls library functions? Obviously, it becomes much shorter, but we're not measuring the library code, so it's cheating. Or, what if the program is written in a highlevel language rather than a lowlevel one (like assembly) - this is equivalent, if you consider the syntax of the language as causing in function calls. Clearly, we still have the same mapping of program->results, and the number of different results is still limited, but those results are much more complex than the program; they programs don't represent the complexity of the output.

How does this apply to the development of a phenome from a genome? Does anything add information, like standard libraries? One might say that the mother is like a standard library - but little information seems to be input in this way (consider development of a chicken egg); and fundamentally, the mother is also a phenome that can be specified by the very genome in question: it's self-hosting.

Does protein folding add information? It is very complex, but is that just how it operates (the way that the implementation runs), or does it also add information to the output? Remarks on this seem to say only that it's complex and unknown and therefore hard to simulate. I'm talking about whether the complexity of action adds information to the output. If so, how much complexity? Is it significant, comparable to a standard library, or is it more like a trivial macro?

I don't know how much _information is added to the phenome_ by protein folding; this is a question for the biologists. I think addressing it squaring in these terms would defuse much of the emotion in the discussion. But I'll guess:

If we assume protein folding is dictated by quite a long sequence (ie. it's not a context of one, like G->down, U->up, A->left, C->right, but a function of say 100s of bases -- and of course the fold direction is not always 90 degrees), then there is scope for an (almost) arbitrarily complex function, from sequence->fold. The complexity is limited by the input (number of bases involved) and output (the actual fold).

If we then assume that the shape of the protein is the crucial thing for its interaction with raw materials and other proteins (eg. as an enzyme), then complexity of protein folding does directly translate into complexity of results - even at this, the finest-grain level of operation.

Although protein folding potentially adds complexity, I find it hard to imagine that it would add information comparable to a standard library, such as, say 50 bases specifying an eye or a liver (which a standard library might do, like Python's SimpleHttpServer). That would be miraculous, if the laws of physics were so favourable to the particular needs of organisms (like a programming language that is customized to a particular application, as modern libraries contain code for TCP/IP and HTTP.) I find it easy to believe that it's more like the variation in syntax between (say) lisp, java and assembly.

So, I don't think protein folding adds much complexity to the result; it's more like a _general_ purpose programming language than a set of _specialized_ library functions (I think this question is the crucial issue in the debate.)

\---

To conclude, I think the complexity of the genome _does_ estimate the complexity of the phenome: I agree with Kurzeil that the brain is (roughly) as complex as the sections of the genome necessary for its development.

<comment><USER24> _So, I don't think protein folding adds much complexity to the result; it's more like a general purpose programming language than a set of specific library functions._

This is dead on.

The reason that library functions enable great code compression at higher levels is that they are designed _specifically_ to enable code compression for the expected high level uses. Library designers pick out a small subset of all possible programs, and write their library code so that those programs can be expressed efficiently.

Unless protein folding has, by sheer chance, ended up working _just right_ to make wiring up an intelligent brain especially easy (and I'm not talking about the physical wiring, but the logical wiring), then it's silly to expect that it adds much information.

On the other hand, the complexity of protein folding _is_ vitally important for efficient evolution of any structure, and this is something that we need to take to heart: even if the complexity doesn't add much _information_ , it allows small differences in the genotype to create massive differences in the phenotype. This shuffles regions of the fitness landscape around, so that in certain areas evolution is not so much climbing a hill as it is bouncing around atop a frothy unpredictable fractal. It's a fantastically clever way to avoid getting stuck in local maxima while still retaining a lot of the advantages of local search, as long as your fitness landscape has enough high points on it and the shuffling is not too severe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'd be more impressed if Ray Kurzweil's AI responded to it.</comment>


Tomorrow's Web Meetup: #01 - Presentation Videos - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6F2F426387B15A4C

<comment><USER2> Had an awesome time, great people, really well put together. Looking forward to the next one.

</comment><comment><USER3> Was a great event, I hope even more of the HN community comes to the next one :).

</comment><comment><USER4> Was a great day, thanks for running it. Managed to meet some great people too.</comment>


DoNotPay's new service auto-cancels free trials - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/free-trial-card/ <comment><USER2> This seems to do a lot more than canceling trials, and I really like the idea.

Unfortunately, you can't even get into the app without providing your phone number and then entering your banking information.

Nope, not happening.

It's not that I don't trust the kid making this app. I mean, I _shouldn 't_ trust him, but that's not even the issue. He is using a personal developer account, doesn't seem to have a proper company, is involving third parties for app functionality (including the banking info).

Even with the best of intentions, he's likely to get hacked or bought out, or his third party SDKs are, and there's no way to protect yourself from that.

You would have to be seriously foolish to type your bank username and password into this thing.

Maybe someone can make a virtual bank app, so you can sign up for virtual credit card apps...

<comment><USER3> privacy.com allows you to do this, you can generate virtual credit cards that are one use only, one source only, with spending limits, etc. The only gripe I have is that it's linked to your checking account and not your actual credit card.

<comment><USER4> Love privacy.com, but I can't seem to use it outside the US :(

<comment><USER5> This is likely due to anti-money-laundering / know-your-client (AML-KYC) US regulations (similar in many other countries).

<comment><USER4> Can you elaborate? I'm no longer US based, so it's not about me travelling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The Free Trial Card is a virtual credit card you can use to sign up for free > trials of any service anonymously, instead of using your real credit card. > When the free trial period ends, the card automatically declines to be > charged, thus ending your free trial. You don't have to remember to cancel > anything.

That's not how it works. Just because they can't bill your card does not mean you're not on the hook. Anybody that's forgotten about a gym membership on a expired card knows this first hand. Only reason they won't go after you is that the LTV and PR isn't worth it. If it is, they will.

> As he sees it, companies that require you to put in a credit card in order > to sign up for a free trial are engaging in deceptive practices.

There's nothing deceptive about it if the price is disclosed. Far from it. On the sell side it also has the advantage of filtering out people who cannot or would not pay for the service early on.

<comment><USER7> I believe in Quebec it's illegal to automatically turn a free trial into a subscription via credit card. I'd love to see that law proliferate elsewhere.

<comment><USER8> How do companies typically implement this? Do they not offer free trials to Quebec residents, or charge for the trial, or offer a free trial that automatically ends?

<comment><USER9> They just don't call it a "free one month trial". Instead they say "sign up and get an extra month free". Which is basically what the "free trial" is if you fail to cancel it.

<comment><USER7> Which I think is more than a moot point. It's more honest, and it opens up a category for companies who genuinely want to offer a "one month free trial" that doesn't require a credit card and auto subscription.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >When DoNotPay's system got that ping, an algorithm the team spent six months building looked at the code request to see if the purchase was for a free trial. Determining that it was, the system approved my transaction. When I tried to use it to buy a $48 pair of Thinx period-proof underwear on that company's website, it was declined. You can't use this card to make real purchases.

if (chargeamount>0){ decline()}

<comment><USER11> I've seen a charge amount of 0.01 for a free trial. I'm pretty sure it was just a pre-auth, i.e. they didn't follow up and actually complete the charge.

<comment><USER12> This is presumably an actually hard problem despite the comments. A pre-auth allows the acquiring merchant to capture that authorization and charge you. Sometimes these can be for $1 or more, depending on how aggressive the service is. Pre-authorizations are subtracted from your available credit/balance.

If the card approves the pre-auth, they are (presumably, AFAIK) on the hook for that $1 if the merchant captures the pre-auth. If many (unpaying?) users start charging you $1...

<comment><USER13> I'd guess they allow small pre-auths (up to $3 say), and then keep a blacklist of merchants who actually capture the charge.

Merchants on the blacklist have all charges denied.

Any 'free trial' who actually captures a dollar from their clients will cause lots of chargebacks from their customers, so would go out of business quickly... (A chargeback costs a business ~$15 in fees)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you sign up for a recurring payment with a company then the company can pursue you for the payment even if the credit card company declines it. This doesn't usually happen though because it's not worth the expense.

In this scheme it is DoNotPay accepting the liability (and declining the payment). It might then become economic for a big free trial operator to sue DoNotPay for all the declined payments.

But I'm not a lawyer. Good luck to them anyway.

<comment><USER15> This is particularly true of gyms, for some reason. In many cases, gym membership agreements have terms requiring the customer to cancel in person, too.

<comment><USER16> A gym I joined years ago required a certified letter sent to their headquarters.

I think it's a public service to tell young people how gyms work. Basically it's high pressure sales ("this discount membership offer only good for today!") plus hard to cancel memberships.

Gyms work on a model of human nature + oversubscription.

Human nature means that a huge % of people join the gym, go two weeks, and _never_ return. Then it's hard to cancel, so the same people that don't bother coming in, don't bother figuring out the membership cancellation gauntlet.

<comment><USER17> My gym is not like this at all. It's owned and run by a real person.

They charge a day fee or a monthly fee or you can pay for 3, 6 or 12 months.

I've never given then any credit card or bank details as I pay cash, but I believe they do offer direct debit.

<comment><USER13> All the big chains use these high pressure techniques. That's why your gym is still a small business and they have hundreds of locations...

<comment><USER18> In the UK, 'TheGymGroup' literally tells you to cancel membership by ending your direct debit. They're not all that predatory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is the service that lets you create a virtual credit card with a specific limit. It doesn't "auto-cancel" \- the service that attempts to charge, simply can't make the charge beyond the limit.

Check if your bank offers this kind of service. Mine does, and it's very convenient!

<comment><USER20> According to the article it can actually cancel the service for you

> If you want, the app will also send an actual legal notice of cancelation to > the service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> > It's available now through the app DoNotPay, created by 22-year-old > wunderkind coder and entrepreneur Joshua Browder.

Hmm this needs explanation. Why's he a wunderkind? What did he do? I googled him and found his wikipedia explaining that he created DoNotPay. Is that enough to justify a wikipedia entry or is it because of the forbes 30 under 30 thing? Can I create a wikipedia page about myself for the apps I created?

<comment><USER22> You can, and it probably won't get deleted immediately. However, if even a novice Wikipedia editor comes long and finds is suspect, there will likely be a deletion request. The process for deletion varies; depending on the path taken, you might have a chance to argue against it, or it might just be deleted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've noticed that when I use Privacy.com on a some SaaS sites, the site already declines the signup saying something like "we don't accept temporary cards".

I can't remember which right now, but I know I've seen the error message a few times.

<comment><USER24> Privacy.com issues you a card that is coded as a prepaid debit card. Most payment providers expose this to merchants, which means that if they choose to decline prepaid debit cards for other reasons you'll get caught in the mix.

<comment><USER25> What's the reasoning behind rejecting prepaid debit cards, if there are sufficient funds available?

<comment><USER26> Maybe the cards are being loaded with illicitly acquired funds

<comment><USER25> That's a valid risk, but then why single out prepaid cards for this given the rampancy of credit card fraud and theft?

Edit:

An interesting answer elsewhere in the thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20465459](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20465459)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> One of my credit cards (Citi) allows creating virtual credit card numbers. I've been hesitant to use them in this way, though, because I'm concerned it could affect my credit.

Does anyone know if legally you're on the hook for the paying the service provider? As technically they did provide the service, and you're "refusing" to pay for it. Presumably, if so, they could send the bill to collections and put a black mark on your credit.

<comment><USER28> If it's the cable company- definitely. They will eventually send your bill to a debt collector.

I think XYZ Startup won't do that because they would rather let it go for now in hopes that you'll become a paying customer again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm a fan of [https://privacy.com/](https://privacy.com/) and use it for most subscriptions and any site I don't intend to buy from more than once - basically unlimited virtual debit cards you can set a limit for and make recurring or single use (i.e. burner).

For subscriptions I don't intend to use past the free trial, I just enter a low limit (e.g. $1) and set as a burner card.

<comment><USER30> I'm a huge fan of it as well, but I use it for a slightly separate purpose: It makes fraud impossible by tying each card to one merchant. If someone steals the card, it's completely useless to them (unless they use it with the stolen merchant, which thieves don't usually do).

<comment><USER31> Sadly, Privacy.com makes their transaction information opaque. All the charges show up in your account as being from Privacy.com, and you can no longer see what charge is for what product or service or merchant, etc....

They need to give people a way to make that information easily exportable, so that I can combine this with other information from my credit cards, debit cards, and all other financial transactions.

<comment><USER32> I see them. Two possibilities?

One, your bank doesn't show the full ACH details. This is what it looks like for me at my credit union: ACH Debit PINBOARD - PRIVACYCOM - 7/12/2019 - $25

Two, maybe you enabled the "private payments" setting on your account, which omits the merchant data?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Sweet service. When will they start charging a subscription to cancel your other subscriptions?

<comment><USER34> It costs 3 dollars per month.

<comment><USER35> Can you auto-cancel this subscription?

<comment><USER36> There's no free trial, so auto-cancelling would mean you cancel on day zero. So...yes? Closing the signup form is equivalent to an auto-cancel for this service, so do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm by no means an outstandingly organised person (ask my ex-partner), yet I find it pitifully easy to pop a date in my calendar reminding me to cancel a trial, and then do it.

Is there really money to be made building services to automate things that don't remotely need automating? Maybe I should jump on it.

<comment><USER38> It's a real pain with some services, Zipcar and XM radio require you to cancel over the phone and it could take a while

<comment><USER13> Call all the companies at once on a big conference call.

Then you can say "Hi Bob from Zipcar, Fred from XM radio, and Kate from FitGym, I'd like to cancel all your services."

If one puts you on hold, you talk over the hold music to speak to the other ones on the call.

Gets the job done much quicker typically.

<comment><USER39> What if an automated voice asks you to spell out your username/ID?

<comment><USER13> You just tell the other people on the line to be quiet for a moment while you spell it out.

Same for "press 1 for ..." type menus.

Sometimes the automated system says embarrassing things like "The balance of your account is..."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The guy won't provide the bank issuing the card but if you have the first digits of the card number you can just go to any BIN lookup website and find the issuing bank. Its not something you can keep a secret since it used to route the transaction on the card network.

</comment><comment><USER41> So what's the business model here?

Last time I tried something similar (unroll.me), I paid in privacy.

<comment><USER42> It's says in the article. 3$ per/mo

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> So if services like this become popular enough, will services start allowing customers to do a free trial without entering their credit card number?

<comment><USER26> No because there's still the vast majority that doesn't know services like this exist and will still cough up their actual card number to watch Netflix/HBO/whatever because "it's convenient"

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I had never heard of DoNotPay. Sounds like a really helpful and useful service -- there's a lot of things it does (check out the app).

I lived below the poverty line in college (didn't have loan/grant money; instead I worked 2 days/wk to pay for tuition, rent, gas, and food). The kinds of services they offer would have been so helpful to me back then.

</comment><comment><USER44> Here is what I do, which doesn't require an app: Cancel it right away. All services I have done this with still give you the full trial period.

</comment><comment><USER45> I actually don't want to automatically cancel free trials. I wouldn't sign up for one if there wasn't a reasonable chance I'd be interested in keeping the service.

Anyway, I find this easy and effective (free too, if you already own a phone):

When I sign up, I tell my phone to remind me to review on such-and-such a date (or "in 29 days" or whatever).

</comment><comment><USER46> > It's available now through the app DoNotPay, created by 22-year-old > wunderkind coder and entrepreneur Joshua Browder.

This "wunderkind coder and entrepreneur" is son of Bill Browder, wanted in Russia for tax fraud [0].

I realise that most HN readers (and the entire western mainstream media) are sympathetic to Browder senior, no doubt due to his personal war with Putin.

Indeed it's difficult to find any detailed criticism of Browder, however if you are interested, here are a few [1], [2].

The docco "The Magnitsky Act. Behind the Scenes" is especially interesting. During it's creation, the film-maker Andrey Nekrasov went from being anti- Putin and believing Browder, to being threatened with libel suits by Browder.

[0] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-browder/russia- ask...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-browder/russia-asks- interpol-to-arrest-kremlin-critic-bill-browder-again-letter-idUSKCN1RL0PY)

[1] [https://www.thekomisarscoop.com/?s=browder](https://www.thekomisarscoop.com/?s=browder)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magnitsky_Act_%E2%80%93_Be...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magnitsky_Act_%E2%80%93_Behind_the_Scenes)

</comment><comment><USER47> You can just get a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_payment_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_payment_number) and do this yourself without the fee.

<comment><USER40> Or you could just use a prepaid debit card that is drained.

<comment><USER47> It's not just about blocking transactions, with ShopSafe you can set a dollar limit per merchant, you can also do monthly recurring transactions of a particular amount, and stop them when you want, by closing the number.

So you can actually pay for a while, then block them.

You can set custom expiration dates, which is nice if you have a future transaction, but want to make sure they don't bill after that.

Even better each merchant gets a different CC number, so you have a much lower chance of your number being stolen.

I'll typically make a 1 year card with a high limit for each online merchant. If it's a one off, I'll make a 1 month card with a dollar limit of exactly the transaction amount.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> "they were in Canada, a place where HBO inexplicably doesn't exist"

It does exist. For a long time under hbo Canada now under the crave brand.

</comment><comment><USER48> PSD2 (Payment Services Directive 2) is the new regulation in the EU that requires rebilling consent.

</comment><comment><USER49> How do you pay DoNotPay? What is their business model?

</comment><comment><USER50> Is this a positive service?

It sounds like adblock. Sounds great until you consider youre defunding things you want to exist (for free)...

</comment><comment><USER51> Isnt this what the pre-authorization is to prevent?

Basically ensures it CAN charge the card but then doesnt

<comment><USER52> No.

Pre-authorization times out after 5 days. The merchant does pre-authoriziation first for a small amount (like one dollar) just to make sure the payment is actually valid, which disappears after 5 days with no capture. It's just a card validation method, it doesn't reserve any funds (besides the single dollar). Consumers would be rightly upset if starting a free trial with no obligation immediately reduced their available funds by a significant amount. This is unrelated to the later charge when the trial ends, which is usually more than 5 days later, and will be a distinct charge for the full amount.

There isn't anything unethical about automatically declining purchases. It's not any different, cost-wise, from manually cancelling the trial. The merchant could however continue to provide the service, claiming that you never really cancelled it, then consider you indebted for the declined charges, but that wouldn't go over very well.

<comment><USER13> Some companies pre-auth for a significant amount (eg. 3 months service), and then cancel the pre-auth immediately.

They do that on the basis that if you don't have funds to cover 3 months service, they probably don't want you as a customer. Any service with upfront costs (eg. Sending out hardware) is likely to do this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I'm putting a reminder into my iPhone and cancel manually</comment>


Wall Street Journal Investigation Into MySpace Was Quietly Killed - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/22/wall-street-journal-investigation-into-myspace-was-quietly-killed/ <comment><USER2> The WSJ is a Murdoch rag and thus I assume it's dedicated to nothing other than profit and protecting the establishment.

 _Edit:_ Allow me to clarify. I'm just sharing how I view Murdoch properties (incl. FOX, WSJ, and MySpace), and implying that this article is not surprising. Still, I upvoted this submission, because we _should_ demand ethical journalism; we _should_ report on the reporters.

<comment><USER3> There may well be (and it appears quite likely is) a conflict of interest here, but there are less obnoxious ways of pointing that out. Like, say, the OP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hmm, Murdoch gave quite a few assurances when he bought the WSJ that they'd maintain independence as a news organization, at least on the news side (the op-ed page was already super-conservative, and basically a separate organization). Would be problematic for their usefulness if that turns out not to be the case.

<comment><USER5> Murdoch gave identical promises when he took over the Times of London, they lasted all of about 6 months. The Times went from the most respected UK paper to a downmarket broadsheet that toes the Murdoch line without fault in about 3 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Occam's razor suggest choosing the simplest reason. Sadly I think it's the one where WSJ was told not to print something bad about MySpace. Knowing the record of all other news corp subsidiaries this would not be at all surprising.

<comment><USER7> A simpler - and more mundane - reason is that the story wasn't done yet. Maybe it needed more research, more writing, or more editing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You go, Arrington. Practice some more real journalism and hold their feet to the fire.

</comment><comment><USER9> Murdoch _really_ wants to kill the ad biz so everyone is forced to charge for content. This is almost getting hysterical. Somewhere the former WSJ owners are shaking their head.

<comment><USER10> That is the reason I don't click through to anything at the WSJ anymore.

Although the Financial Times is blowing their oppurtunity to eat WSJ's online market share, everytime you go to their website you are asked to log in/register. Why do I need to register to read an article?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This kind of reporting is extremely, extremely dangerous. I'm all for this kind of rumor-mill stuff, but, when placed on a site that's supposed to exist as a newscenter, the lines can become incorrectly, and dangerously, crossed.

I'm not sure if it's the traffic success of Angelgate or what, but this kind of rumor-mill junction is the type of libel that can drop stock prices and damage the PR of a company - without any real facts. And that's obviously wrong. That we allow million dollar swings to occur because of one man's _reputation for fact_ alone is an absolute joke, and one that shouldn't be stood for. If Arrington wants to run a tech gossip site, run it. _But don't run it on a site that's meant for news_ \- and occasionally, opinionative blog posts that clearly define themselves as such. And definitely, don't run it as fact - with a "this is absolute truth" headline - without the substantive evidence to back it up.

It's irresponsible. And irresponsible is a rather tame way to describe it.

<comment> brown9-2 Techcrunch has seemed like a place for rumors and opinions for as long as I've been aware of it. Are we reading two different sites?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Arrington loves writing link-bait articles. The WSJ just published an article on My Space leaking user date to advertisers:

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230373850457556...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303738504575568460409331560.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Arrington notes at the bottom of the post that this WSJ article was published _after_ the TechCrunch article and "was supposed to be published earlier this week, and wasn't". He goes on to say (and it certainly seems likely to be the case) that it probably would not have been published at all had he not written this post.

<comment><USER13> Another explanation is just that the article was going to be delayed for some non-sinister reason. Then WSJ pushed it out the door in response to the TechCrunch article because, had they published it in (say) a week, it would have looked like they wrote the whole article to answer TechCrunch (as opposed to now where is just looks like the released it to answer TechCrunch).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is the same logic behind conspiracy theories: because this narration of events makes sense, it must be true.

</comment><comment><USER14> People still care about myspace?

</comment><comment><USER15> Arrington deserves a man hug. He has been on a role recently. Keep it up please!</comment>


Nexor – Real Encryption - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/andrewhodel/nexor <comment><AUTHOR> Hell, I figure if there's no jobs available.</comment>


Obama's "Race to the Top" doesn't include humanities - <AUTHOR> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/race-to-the-top-of-what-obama-on-education/

<comment><AUTHOR> Fish's main point is that in our craze to catch up with China in technology, not only are we shortchanging college humanities but we are embracing the "Tiger Mom", test-oriented approach to learning in colleges.

So, rather than trying to emphasize the differences that makes US education unique, to drive competition, they are trying to out-do China in its own game.</comment>


Last night's Microsoft Surface(Tablet) Keynote (Full MP4 Video) - <AUTHOR> http://cdn-smooth.ms-studiosmedia.com/news/mp4_mq/06182012_Surface_750k.mp4

<comment><USER2> I like the subtle dig at apple when they are talking about the antenna "no matter how you hold it".

</comment><comment><USER3> "The keyboard can measure the exact force exerted" We can finally have games which understand urgency :)

<comment><USER2> This could help the dire state of driving games on the PC. To play a driving game properly you need at least a joypad (or ideally a dedicated wheel). Of course most people's PCs only have a keyboard and a mouse.

This is because you need to be able to give gradual controls for things like steering and throttle. A keyboard that solves this problem would be great.

<comment><USER3> Force exertion can really be another neat signal, We can probably make the confirmation boxes go away if delete is pressed with a lot of force.

This is really something which we expect out of natural input devices. I can't count the instances where I used to press the keys harder in fighting games just to hit the other person harder.

<comment><USER2> That is true, but I guess it would need to be calibrated on a per person basis. I know people who really give their keyboards a thumping just in the normal process of typing.

I'm really looking forward to the next generation of keyboards , with things like dynamic displays on the keys (so that it shows application specific function labels on the keys themselves) and also this.

I have heard many people say that the keyboard is dead, which I don't believe for a second but it is certainly high time that it evolved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "You can use all the applications that you're familiar with." (19:58)

Hm. Are applications sandboxed? That is, do I have to worry about running antivirus software on the device?

<comment><USER5> It's not needed in WinRT mode, because WinRT apps can be installed from marketplace. You might wanna install AV for desktop mode though (in case of Win8Pro version).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thank you for the link. Was eager to watch the announcement as the videos available on the web don't tell much and does not show somebody interacting with the tablet.

</comment><comment><USER7> Just a thought on the presentation itself -- they seem to be relying on a teleprompter too much. Either that, or the prompter is located in a really bad spot.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> how do you think this affects the OEM's that will release Windows 8 tablets and ultrabooks? is this considered competition or a 'paradigm' like google's nexus?

personally I was planning to buy a Windows 8 tablet (x86 one) and even after last night's presentation i'm still considering Acer Iconia W700

<comment><USER8> Well some reports yesterday considered this as sort of a reference design but MS showed how good they can be at hardware. I can't imagine anyone not wanting to choose the Surface first over an OEM unless it's due to price.

I think it also shows the internal conflict of MS. Ballmer spoke of the integration between hardware and software much like Apple has done. We may be seeing the beginning of the end of the OEM on a large level such as a Dell and HP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> One thing I noticed here. I'd actually like to have on of these but I'm not too psyched about running Windows on it.

Is it possible that MS is in fact better at hardware than they are at software? MS mice have certainly been popular over the years, also see the Xbox 360 control pad which beats any other pad I have ever used.

</comment><comment><USER9> Isn't there any YouTube link? Or Vimeo? The file is downloading very slowly for me. Not even enough to stream.

<comment><USER10> A search for 'surface keynote' yields, as the top hit, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCmudUDv3GA>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Whoops".

</comment><comment><USER12> From this it seems pretty certain that the resolution of at least the pro version is 1080p (25:58). And the strong implication is that the RT version is 1366x768, which works out to 208 ppi for the pro version and 148 ppi for the regular version.

<comment><USER11> I wasn't watching it really carefully, but wasn't it that they just specified that the output of HDMI and DVI can handle those?

I'm at ~30 min still though.

<comment><USER12> He says "the apps that I've been showing you, they look really great in the native resolution of the screen, the 1080 resolution", that's very unambiguous.

Also, they refer to the resolution as "HD" and "Full HD", which is also a rather unambiguous description of 720p and 1080p.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> lol. Typical Microsoft. In the middle of the presentation the "surface" stops working. The the guy swaps it with another to continue the show. Its around minute 14. Fail.

<comment><USER14> Isn't that sort of hiccup par for the course at these sorts of events? I assume the best you can hope for is to handle them gracefully when they arise.

<comment><USER15> I was about to say. Stuff like this happens to the best of us. Look at any Apple press event and you'll see several machines lined up - and in fact, Jobs has had his hiccups as well during keynotes.

If this is regarded as a "fail", than the OP clearly has never held any serious presentation that involved hardware and software.</comment></comment></comment>


Wow. I really didn't expect that to work - <AUTHOR> http://www.homesforhackers.com/linkedin_endorsement_BenBarreth.jpg

<comment><AUTHOR> So why are you just sitting there? Endorse it already! :)</comment>


The Era of Japan's All-Powerful Videogame Designers Is Over - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/04/era-japans-powerful-videogame-designers/?mbid=social_twitter <comment><USER2> I don't understand how any article with this title can get by without mention of Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto. He's probably the _most famous_ of all of Japan's 'rockstar' executive producers.

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

<comment><USER3> Probably because it doesn't feed into the narrative he's trying to make.

Nintendo have been pretty much been releasing highly memorable and praised games year-on-year. Most of which have a big designer behind it or at least providing advice, whether it's Miyamoto, Sakurai, Aonuma or whoever.

But of course, times are changing. These people have been in the industry for decades. A new generation will need to take its place so they'll gradually move into coaching roles to pass on their knowledge and experiences.

Also, most games developed by large companies are hardly ever attributed to a single person. It's a lot more collaborative now as studios get bigger and more people are involved compared to back then (where most well-known designers got their popularity from) when it was couple of developers writing assembly.

<comment><USER2>
        Probably because it doesn't feed into the
        narrative he's trying to make.

Right, that's my point: Miyamoto undermines the thesis of the article.

<comment><USER4> I'm not knowledgeable enough on this topic: can you explain what you mean? I am interested.

<comment><USER5> Miyamoto's creations:

* Mario

* Luigi

* Peach

* Bowser

* Donkey Kong

* Link

* Ganondorf

* Zelda

* Fox McCloud

* Olimar (and Pikmin)

He's still around and is one of the major players of Nintendo. Another major figure is Masahiro Sakurai, who was the creator of Kirby and Super Smash Bros.

Unfortunately, Miyamoto is spinning down his work and involvement in Nintendo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Miyazaki is a rising star at From Software. Also Kojima isn't dead. I don't expect him to stop making games just because he broke up with Konami. I have no doubt he'll land on his feet.

<comment><USER7> Kojima isn't dead, and I'm sure we'll see another game from him eventually, but is he going to once again be in a position where he yields unquestioned authority over a top Japanese publisher? Not likely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe this is where crowd funding steps in. It's hit or miss because some times the demand really isn't there, but you can get AAA level bankrolling from crowd funding.

If you can't maybe it's time to learn to manage scope and deliver iteratively.

<comment><USER9> You can't even get close to AAA-levels of funding through crowdfunding. The only exception is Star Citizen which has raised $80 million by promising to be all things to anyone who wants to fly around space and do things.

The highest-funded video games on kickstarter barely crack $3-4 million, not even close to what you'd need to make a fully-fledged AAA game for current consoles.

<comment> a-saleh To be honest, I don't really care for the games made on AAA budget.

For past two years I have mostly played FTL, Shadowrun Returns, Transistor and Heartstone.

Two of those were made mostly on kick-starter money. Rest of them are far from AAA budgets :-)

When mr. Kojima leaves Konami and decides to create a small, tightly budgeted stealth game, I might give it a shot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great article. I remember going out and buying a PS2 the day FF 10 part 2 came out. (I had played all of them up to this point, just didn't have my own PS2)

That was the biggest piece of shit. They took some of the original places in 10, and added shitty boring minigames to do. That was the entire game. Oh, i guess the girls could all change into different swimsuits or something, but the plot was they were going to be rock star girls or something.

Final Fantasy took a nose dive right after 10 imo.

</comment><comment><USER11> I am not sure that I agree with the article that the age of the video game auteur is over. There are so many shifting elements in video gaming that it seems like it is hard to tell what will emerge. I imagine that, no matter what platforms exist, just like in the music and movie industries, a singular individual vision will always work its way to the top.</comment>


Show HN: Brevity – Learn great things in minutes - <AUTHOR> http://cm.pn/rq4

<comment><USER2> Is there going to be an app for this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes sure, we are working on it though right now we operate as an email newsletter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Isn't this similar to blinkist?

<comment><AUTHOR> Blinkist is a great tool for book summaries. We summarise lengthy articles, TED videos too. Plus are pro packages are going to be much much cheaper.</comment></comment>


Addresspush.com interview: "The vision: a dead simple contact information hub" - <AUTHOR> http://www.tractup.com/Interview.html?StartupUrl=http://addresspush.com

<comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing this. Although I was a bit surprised to find by accident ;)

</comment><comment><USER2> BTW: are you serious to use Flash for everything ? =)

<comment><AUTHOR> sure not but I've got the idea of tractup last thursday and wanted to make it as quickly as possible (basically before the end of the YC application submittion) and I'd just a ready flash framework, then...

<comment><USER2> Alright. Good luck !</comment></comment></comment>


The yeast that can be used to brew cannabis, not beer - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/feb/27/gm-yeast-brew-cannabis-beer-scientists-california <comment><USER2> Man when that leaks there will be no putting that genie back in the bottle (for countries that haven't already legalised it).

I don't care either way but it's going to be hard to stop your pot farm when the two hallmarks (massive power consumption and thermal output) go away and there is a huge overlap with the brewing industry in terms of equipment.

<comment><USER3> Scary to think how this might change the biosphere. What if this yeast ends up being toxic to something such as a fruit fly and we wipe out a large portion of the food chain?

So many possible outcomes from this.

<comment><USER4> This is not the first time we've been using yeast to do something like this. Are you concerned with this particular strain, or any other strains, too? Just curious, because if only this particular one, then what is the difference between this and the rest that makes you more concerned?

<comment><USER3> I'm concerned generally.

<comment><USER4> Ah, OK. Thought I missed something about this strain. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As an interesting aside hops and cannabis are related - they're both part of the Cannabaceae family.

As someone who enjoys craft IPAs/NEIPAs rich in hop oils, have hemp protein powder in my breakfast shakes with hemp milk and love the odd puff of the peace pipe, I've got to say it's a remarkable plant family.

You can eat it, drink it, wear it, use it as a medicine, get drunk (well, it's a flavouring and biocide - not the source of alcohol) and get high from it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow, this is AWESOME!

> The designer yeast also yielded novel cannabinoid compounds or chemicals > that exist only in tiny quantities in marijuana plants, raising the > possibility that brewing could revolutionise the production of these > substances and expand their potential medical applications.

Exciting!</comment>


The GoPro, the Polaroid Cube, and why there aren't more women in engineering - <AUTHOR> http://www.victoriakirst.com/?p=1852

<comment><USER2> The argument of "build dollhouses instead of rockets" more or less has the problem of rockets being rather impressive feats of engineering and somewhat easy to understand the basics of. A dollhouse is kind of uncomplicated in contrast, we have had houses and such for centuries. Also I don't feel like that hair is a feat of engineering, but that's in the eye of the engineer here.

Perhaps I missed the point. I also will note, I am kind of a girl (I was born a boy).</comment>


DC Attorney General sues DoorDash, claiming it pocketed workers' tips - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/19/dc-attorney-general-sues-doordash-claiming-it-pocketed-workers-tips.html <comment><USER2> Because it did - and then it tried to claim adjusting the amount that the deliverers were being paid by an amount that exactly matched the tip amount was not wage or tip theft.

<comment><USER3> I think doordash will win this one if they take it to court.

They were careful to word it as "take home pay guarantee". That guarantee looks at the actual payment per delivery, plus tips, and makes it up to a minimum.

It seems clear from all the marketing materials I've seen.

Doordash can simply argue this guarantee was _on top of_ the regular pay, and was totally optional, and every contractor only stands to gain from this guarantee.

I'm pretty sure the whole aim of this case is to crucify doordash in the court of public opinion, despite their case being strong in an actual court of law. My elected politicians shouldn't be allowing that - if there are gaps in the law, address them directly!

<comment><USER4> I don't like/didn't like this practice from DD (I think they're finally phasing it out after much criticism), but it worked exactly the same way tipping at restaurants works, so that is a precedent they can call upon as well.

<comment><USER2> uh, what? It has been very well established that managers at restaurants cannot offset your income or otherwise steal tips. It's possible your confusing tip sharing, which is legal, but, and this is important, does not allow the tips to be "shared" with the employer.

<comment><USER5> It's not "stealing tips" and it's literally written explicitly into the laws around minimum wage in federal law in the US.

The federal minimum wage is set to $7.25 per hour, with a very clear exemption for tipped workers, that the employer contribution only needs to be $2.13 per hour as long as the tips bring the total wage up over minimum on a weekly basis. If the employee gets lower tips, the employer is required to pay additional wages to bring their total wages up to the guaranteed minimum. See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage)

The problem isn't that DoorDash is doing some new, nefarious thing. They're doing exactly the same thing a restaurant does when they pay a server somewhere between $2.13 and $7.25 per hour depending on how customers tip. The problem is that apparently most people don't understand how tipping and wages for tipped employees have worked for traditional restaurants for decades.

<comment><USER2> But that isn't what the tipping industry does. You are paid a certain hourly wage, and if the tip income is below a certain amount the employer has to _increase_ the wage to compensate. They cannot however reduce your hourly pay rate _after_ you have done the work. Because that is tip theft, simply reclassifying your income after the fact doesn't magically make it not theft.

Because if that were allowed an employer could hire you at $20/hour (for example), and then decide at the end of your day to change your pay rate to $10/hour and that would be ok - because by your definition that isn't wage theft.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple: Lion Launches Wednesday July 20 - <AUTHOR> http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple_lion_launches_wednesday_july_20/ <comment><USER2> Hopefully there will some sort of method to allow for clean installs.</comment>