I feel therefore I am - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/how-and-why-exactly-did-consciousness-become-a-problem <comment><USER2> _" A slew of books over the past two decades have proffered solutions to the 'problem' of consciousness. Among the best known are Christof Koch's The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach (2004); Giulio Tononi and Gerald Edelman's A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination (2000); Antonio Damasio's The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness (1999); and the philosopher Daniel Dennett's bluntly titled Consciousness Explained (1991)."_

Used it for the book list.

<comment><USER3> _The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_ by Julian Jaynes is an interesting take on consciousness that seems to come up often in these types of discussions.

<comment><USER4> ...bonus points if you mention "Society of Mind" or "The Emotion Machine" by Minsky.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _With the advent of quantum mechanics they found that, in order to make > sense of what their theories were saying about the subatomic world, they had > to posit that the scientist-observer was actively involved in constructing > reality._

Nope. This is not true. The word "observer" as used in quantum mechanics, is an unfortunate historical accident. The observer need not be human at all--- any measurement apparatus can act as observer, and no human beings need be present at all.

</comment><comment><USER6> >> "When modern science swept away this dualistic symbolic schema, Europeans came to see themselves as inhabitants of a Euclidean void: we lived on a planet that orbited an insignificant star in potentially infinite space."

Such a gross misunderstanding of late antiquity/medieval cosmology.

"As an admirer of co-ordinate geometry, I like Tononi's concept; at the same time, I don't accept information theory as a bridge to subjectivity."

In my master thesis on consciousness, I dealt with Tononi's thesis and, in spite of the publicity he gets, I too find his theory to be bogus. It's like saying Maxwell's equations are light. Or, put differently, it's like saying a computer is information because it processes/produces information.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it really a gross misunderstanding or just a simplification? Keep in mind that aeon.co cater to an intelligent and well read crowd but it's not a highbrow academic publication by any means.

<comment><USER6> Misunderstanding. I believe we have enough reasons to think that ancient/medieval folks were smart enough to NOT believe gods live on the Moon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am still looking for a new edition of "Mind's I": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind%27s_I](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind%27s_I)

It is a great book because of the wide range of authors (Borgess, Turing, Serle, Lem!, etc) giving a nice introduction to what was current up to 1981.

What I want is a similar book that covers new findings/speculations since 1981.

Ideally it would also be in a chapter format and a multitude of authors with varying ideas would be presented.

I've read Chalmers, Dennett, Hof, Serle, Jeff Hawkins etc in book format but it would be nice to see something more concise.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think Materialism is the Flat Earth model of our era. I think everyone intuitively knows that consciousness can't come from material things, but we convince ourselves otherwise. Even science (e.g. with the observer effects of quantum physics) demonstrates this, but we try to find other ways it can't be true.

An awesome book that does a great job logically explaining how consciousness may be fundamental is "Biocentrism" by Robert Lanza

<comment><USER9> Materialism explains the world however. Flat earth model clearly doesn't and was obviously false even in antiquity.

What model does dualism provide and how can I use it to make predictions about how consciousness is embodied in physical beings. Why is it useful to presuppose the existence of a complete separate substance to explain consciousness.

To be brief dualism is woo woo.

>I think everyone intuitively knows that consciousness can't come from material things, but we convince ourselves otherwise.

Ok, I'll make a sweeping unsupported statement too. Dualists have limited imagination and flawed understanding of the nature of information and computation as well as a penchant for magical thinking.

<comment><USER8> My comment wasn't about dualism, it was just about the idea that matter doesn't create consciousness. Consciousness can create matter, and that is not dualism.

And what is more magical thinking than the idea that consciousness can come from a ball of matter? To me, that is much more the crazier idea

<comment><USER10> Precedents for surprising meta-structures arising from the interaction of a huge number of smaller objects with complex interactions are playing an increasing role in science (think Wolfram's book, biology and the understanding of the genome, and material science for example).

Discoveries of completely unknown fundamental laws of physics that have a significant in-your-face and obvious impact on our everyday lives are playing a decreasing role in science (depending on where you draw the line, one might even argue that the last such discovery was made by Newton).

What you call crazy has become increasingly normal :)

<comment><USER8> Consciousness is not a "meta-structure" created from little pieces of things, and anyone who thinks so is fooling themselves. Just take a moment to be present and aware of your own consciousness to realize this. It IS crazy to think that something as profound as consciousness comes from lots of legos put together in just the right way. That sounds like magic to me. Everything makes a lot more sense if you look at it the other way around - that consciousness makes everything else. All the difficult problems become much easier. Here's a blog post I wrote about it a while ago that got on the front page on Hacker News: [http://hack.ly/articles/why-consciousness-may-not-come- from-...](http://hack.ly/articles/why-consciousness-may-not-come-from-the- brain/)

<comment><USER11> Science is the religion of the 21st century.

I think it's quite funny that the so-called hard problem of consciousness has been with us for millennia, yet so few of us tackle it in the right way, instead choosing to wait for others to give us all the answers or (at worst) endlessly chewing and regurgitating the same useless conjectures and pontifications.

Geeks and math nerds (and anyone who is seriously interested in tackling consciousness) need to be doing more psychedelic drugs, I feel, and looking _INWARDS_ , but how often does that happen?

Drugs are the _easy_ way there. There are other ways, but require _dedication_ and _commitment_ and possibly utter disregard for material concerns and "consensus reality". As the ancient wise ones said regarding mysticism (direct experiential knowledge), one needs to __know, will, dare and keep silent. __

The answers are here, the consciousness problem has been solved more than 2000 years ago, across cultures and civilizations. As Aleister Crowley once said, "By doing certain things certain results will follow."

Yet very few feel the need to do anything these days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A professor of philosophy and a student are talking.

Student: How do I know I exist?

Professor: Who's asking?

Student: I am

Sorry I couldn't resist. If you don't get it, search Cogito ergo sum.

<comment><USER13> Professor: What do you mean when you say "I"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> (Note: completely serious post) Interestingly, when you have diarrhea, the acidity makes your stool feel like it is hot instead of sour. So it seems there is an acidity-sensor there that is connected to the temperature-sensing part of the brain instead of the acidity-sensing part of the brain.

<comment><USER15> Wouldn't an acid on your skin feel like it's hot as well? (I never had such an experience, so I don't know). I recall reading that "temperature sensors" in the skin can be triggered by many things, not just temperature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's a decent (if roundabout) overview if you are interested in the subject but have managed to completely avoid learning or reading anything about consciousness thus far.

</comment><comment><USER17> There are plenty of entirely worthwhile and interesting areas of research in philosophy. This is not one of them.

It is entirely sufficient to understand that brains are composed of physical elements - neurons and the like, that communicate with each other with little electrical and chemical signals, and that this physical state evolves forwards with time according to physical laws. I repeat, this is all that is required to resolve _every single one_ of these supposed "problems" of consciousness.

We may not understand how a brain works in its entirety, but knowing that its behaviour is entirely described by these physical pieces bounds our understanding of its behaviour as a whole sufficiently that these problems are trivially revealed to be specious nonsense.

As an analogy, I know that the microchip in my computer is built out of transistors etched onto a silicon die. I have some knowledge about microchip design, broadly speaking, and I know about things such as logic circuits, latches and clock signals, but I don't possess a complete understanding of how it functions. Still, knowing that it's just transistors bounds my understanding of its behaviour. I know, for instance, that there's no extra- physical magic pixie that makes it function. I don't wonder about the subjective experience of the floating point unit, or about whether the L1 cache is _feeling_ or just _registering_ the data it stores, or whether it would be _possible_ or just _concievable_ for a world to exist where an atom- for-atom identical processor didn't actually _compute_ but just went through the motions of moving about some little electrical impulses.

On a fundamental level, our brains are very much the same. The architecture is nothing at all alike, for example: the clock speeds and signal propagation rates are much lower, synaptic signals are at least partly analog, the brain doesn't have anything remotely close to a uniform memory space, and it continuously dynamically reconfigures itself through neuroplasticity. None of this is relevant. I did not conclude there is not a magic pixie making making my computer's CPU function because of my understanding of it's architecture and overall design, I concluded it because I know it's made up of transistors, and it's behaviour is entirely described by its transistors, and no matter how hard you try you can't make a magic pixie out of transistors.

We have established that brains are made up of little physical pieces and obey physical laws. It trivially follows that every piece of data that could possible be referred to as part of our consciousness, every "feeling" or "subjective experience" is just some pattern or another entirely described by the physical state of the brain.

If you see some sort of problem with this, if you see some sort of contradiction in the understanding that "you" are just a wetware-implemented algorithm that is the end result of a rather convoluted process of natural evolution and human development, that is a problem with your understanding not with reality. There is no space in this picture for looking at some pattern of neural impulses and asking whether it _feels_ ; you can answer that question however you like, but with respect to reality that question is not even wrong.

David Chalmers would call this "materialism" or perhaps "physicalism". Once you move past Solipsism and decide that reality actually exists, or that we don't know that reality actually exists but it seems to so we might as well assume it does for the sake of argument, then, though this is actually a tautology, every physical thing physically exists. The problem with words such as "materialism" and "physicalism" is that using the word implies things could be any other way. There are abstract ideas, and there is reality - "that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away". While I might respect a position such as solipsism as epistemologically valid, beyond that particular loophole I cannot understand why philosophers who do not agree with what is generally called "empirical materialism" are taken seriously.

<comment><USER7> What is "this" you speak of that is not worthy of research? Consciousness, feelings, qualia?

It sure does not feel like a solved problem.

You do not consider there is such a thing as "hard problem"?

Sure, one can subscribe to the view that qualia is just this accident of evolution in a purely physical world, an emergent behavior of a bunch of neurons firing in unison if you will.

Even then it seems there is a lot of room for debate.

I(ha!) thought(double ha!) the article was quite good at showing the various viewpoints and progress through time(triple ha!).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Philosophy is the criticism of categories for better or for worse.

</comment><comment><USER19> I stopped when I got to _" According to Maxwell's equations, blue is ripples of electromagnetism with a wavelength of between 450 and 495 nanometres."_

<comment><USER20> I have had people stop on some essay I wrote too, come here and say "i stopped reading after...".

But because they didn't read it through they didn't read the part were I was addressing what I wrote.

I find this tendency pretty counter-productive to learning anything at all. "Oh there was something that is wrong" then I don't want to finalize it. I wonder if it says something about our generation or whether this is something thats always been at play (like older people who wouldn't take a punker serious because of how they look)

I don't want to single you out but I just don't understand this approach to reading things. Care to comment?

<comment> shhhh- If you don't mind my interjecting..

Between link-sharing sites like this one, print and digital publications, and never ending ad campaigns masquerading as blogs and "relate-to-me!" emails, most of us are inundated with the specious ideas and arguments of people whose reliability can be difficult to assess. A simple heuristic is stop reading if the author appears to not be grounded in the empirical tradition. Which, unfortunately, most writers aren't.

<comment><USER20> So basically you mostly don't read anything since most writers aren't?

Not all valuable perspectives follows some strictly logical path to get to it's conclusions. And not all conclusions make high claims of validity. Some are just exploring potentials.

Newton was right about many things but wrong about others.

That doesn't mean his contributions aren't valuable. Imagine reading him today efter relativity and QM and then applying this approach.

<comment><USER15> It's not that. Personally, I usually like to give the author a chance so in such cases I just start skimming instead of stopping reading altogether. But this quoted part suggests that the author doesn't understand how categories and naming things work, which is very damning in an article about consciousness.

<comment><USER21> Whether that is what it suggests to you does not mean, necessarily, that it suggests that to anyone else. To me, it suggests that the author may have been a little hasty, but I would by no means take it to mean that the author doesn't understand categories... that seems like a leap to me. Of course, my presumption might also be seen as a leap.

Might be just me, but being that this article in total is _not_ about a scientific understanding of the color blue but rather about consciousness, it seems reasonable to me to read on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> shhhh- Don't bother. Folly.

<comment><USER21> I'll just take your word for it then.</comment></comment>


Top Reasons to Buy Office 365 - <AUTHOR> https://www.serverconsultancy.co.uk/top-reasons-to-buy-office-365/ <comment><AUTHOR> Microsoft office 365 is designed to meet the needs of organisations of all sizes with plans for everyone from independent professionals

</comment><comment><USER2> What a product-placement kind of post; this won't go down well. No harm meant to OP poster of course.</comment>


How to be a Roman emperor - <AUTHOR> https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/how-to-be-a-roman-emperor-essay-mary-beard/ <comment><USER2> Since this is HN I'd like to share something one of my friends just put together. He's used an ML module and research on the ethnic backgrounds and physical attributes of various Roman emperors as well as multiple photos of various statues to generate near-photorealistic renders of them.

[https://twitter.com/dvoshart/status/1286704635370143745](https://twitter.com/dvoshart/status/1286704635370143745)

It's super neat and he's releasing low res versions under Creative Commons, so I'm looking forward to seeing these in different textbooks and stuff like that in the coming years.

<comment><USER3> Statues of Augustus don't actually depict Augustus. Did this practice change for later emperors?

<comment><USER4> I've not heard that before, who did they depict?

<comment><USER3> No one we know. Quoting from _SPQR_ :

> One of his [Augustus'] most significant and lasting innovations was to flood > the Roman world with his portrait: heads stamped on the small change in > people's pockets, life-size or larger statues in marble and bronze standing > in public squares and temples, miniatures embossed or engraved on rings, > gems and dining room silverware. This was on a vastly bigger scale than > anything of the sort before.

> about 250 statues, not to mention images on jewels and gems, found right > across Roman territories and beyond, from Spain to Turkey and Sudan, show > Augustus in many different guises, from heroic conqueror to pious priest.

> These all have such similar facial features that standard models must have > been sent out from Rome, in a coordinated attempt to spread the emperor's > image to his subjects. They all adopt an idealising, youthful style that > echoes the classical art of fifth-century BCE Athens and makes a glaring and > loaded contrast with the craggy, elderly, wrinkled, exaggerated 'realism' > that is characteristic of the portraits of the Roman elite in the earlier > part of the first century BCE. They were all intended to bring a far-flung > population, most of whom would never see the man himself, face to face with > their ruler. And yet they almost certainly look nothing like the real > Augustus at all. Not only do they fail to match up with the one surviving > written description of his features, which -- trustworthy or not -- prefers > to stress his unkempt hair, his bad teeth and the platform shoes which, like > many autocrats since, he used to disguise his short stature; they also look > almost exactly the same throughout his life, so that at the age of seventy- > plus he was still being portrayed as a perfect young man.

The point of the statue is to make the viewer feel respect and awe, not to accurately depict the man's appearance. Compare Oliver Cromwell's unusual official portrait showing him as he actually appeared, warts and all.

<comment><USER4> Interesting, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love Mary Beard and highly recommend her _SPQR_ , which is a Roman history more or less with the midpoint as the fall of the Republic and transition to Empire... a very apt piece of history in the current political climate.

I would be happy to hear suggestions of other historian writers to broaden my perspectives.

> it was the first time I realized that disagreement about historical method > might be important (rather than something you dutifully nodded to at the > beginning of an essay, before moving on regardless)

Now that is something that should be taken and applied everywhere. Realizing the value of disagreement respecting the differences of opinion, and taking action to not just have an obligatory sense of doing so but actually making the effort. These days it seems everybody is right and whoever disagrees is a fool or worse. (and everyone else is silent)

<comment><USER6> If you enjoy podcasts, then Mike Duncan's History of Rome is an excellent piece of work. Similarly, his book "Storm Before the Storm" is very good, focusing on the events that began the collapse of the Roman Republic: Sulla, and his civil wars. If you enjoy biographies then Adrian Goldsworthy's books "Caesar" and "Augustus" are very good as well.

<comment><USER7> I can't wait for Mike to come back and finish the revolutions podcast. He's been MIA since april. I know he's busy with his book, but common man, throw us a bone. I miss you mike.

<comment><USER8> I'm generally fine with the planned breaks, but every time I wonder when it's coming back this time I remember this is the last revolution he's covering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting perspective here.

For further reading, I highly recommend Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius. They show the thoughts and practical advice of someone who took very seriously the responsibility of being a Roman Emperor.

<comment><USER10> You can download a free high-quality epub at Standard Ebooks: [https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus- aurelius/meditation...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus- aurelius/meditations/george-long)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11>
      The Roman biographer Suetonius claims that Julius Caesar mastered the art of dictating letters from horseback, and used to deal with his paperwork while attending the circus games (thereby annoying the people at large, who saw this as snobbish disdain for popular entertainment).

Sounds like the ancient equivalent of texting while driving or using your phone at a movie theater :)

</comment><comment><USER12> I'd also recommend Anthony Everitt's biographies. He has books on Cicero, Augustus, Hadrian and an overall Roman history called, The Rise of Rome.

</comment><comment><USER13> There used to be a really good but infrequently produced podcast called "Ancient Rome Refactored" and I was going to link to it here but I suddenly can't find it.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't think I'd want to be a Roman emperor. Senator maybe, but that big a target on your back has to keep you up at night.

</comment><comment><USER15> Being an emperor sounds cool, but your life expectancy once you become emperor was not very high.</comment>


AdSense is completely broken - <AUTHOR> http://poincare101.blogspot.com/2012/04/adsense-is-broken.html

<comment><USER2> What you're seeing is called retargeting. When you visit a site, they can cookie you. Then Google lets your serve up ads to those people you've cookied in the past. Sometimes companies do seem to be stalking you. I see ads for Storm on Demand (a hosting company) way too much.

Companies do this because they think someone who has been to their site and looked around is more likely to convert. It makes sense for them to spend some money getting you to return, than to get entirely new people. (Of course, this may or may not be true, but that's the feeling.)

I suspect Google especially uses retargeted ads on pages where there isn't a good inventory of ads related to the page. That is, they can't sell a good ad based on the content, so they'll sell based on who _you_ are. I more often see retargeted ads (Hi Storm) on fairly lame pages.

Some companies seem to do this really well. Orvis will show you ads of specific things you were looking at in their catalog. It does tend to jog your memory, in a spooky sort of way.

It would be nice to have a "enough retargeting" button on the ad, so you could specify that you don't want to see more of these ads.

So their algorithm isn't broken, it is just annoying you in this case.

<comment><USER3> What you say is mostly correct but I want to fix a few of your statements and assumptions.

Regarding the skepticism on the end results of retargeting I can say that all the transparent retargeting companies offer you A/B testing of your retargeting campaigns. What we do is show PA ads to a control group and your retargeting ads to the experiment group. What we see is a lift of conversions between 40% and 200% and CTR doubles at worst compared to non retargeting display campaigns, these numbers vary by industry but are a good representation.

Google has moved its entire network inventory to the Google Ad Exchange. What this means is that for every impression there is an auction in real time where multiple buyers bid in real time for the right to show an impression to a specific user. While it's true that Google might filter out impressions that they deem particularly interesting for them it is not what we are seeing on the exchange.

AdRoll.com adheres to both Do Not Track and to the AdChoices initiative. Both of these allow the users to opt out of all retargeting campaigns either from their browsers or from the Ad itself (through the AdChoices icon). More information regarding this initiative is at <http://www.evidon.com>.

Disclaimer: I work for AdRoll.com and we are the biggest self-service retargeting platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "I had some poorly targeted ads, so a business that makes billions on actual CTR must be broken."

</comment><comment><USER5> Just to be clear, you're calling a multi-billion-dollar business completely broken because it showed you a few ads you didn't care about for a few hours?

</comment><comment><USER6> Here's a NYTimes article on retargeting: <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/technology/30adstalk.html>

Many people think this is creepy and privacy invasive. For example, in the past I've had a hard time explaining why an ad for silencers keeps following me around.

I do wonder at the tradeoff between retargeting people and getting that triple exposure for your product versus the creep factor that people have when they see you doing that.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've never understood how AdSense produces any revenue at all and I suspect it's some sort of ponzi scheme. When I look at a web page, the AdSense adds are invisible to me and I bet to a large portion of the internet population.</comment>


Show HN: Browse recently expired, pronounceable domain names - <AUTHOR> http://domaininferno.com/ <comment><USER3> Nice. I wonder what methods and tools did you use for defining pronouncability. Care to share some tips? Just curious about language-oriented programming.

<comment><USER4> I'm not entirely sure it is functioning correctly, I'm struggling to pronounce:

100% thlla.com 100% sohyw.com

etc. I like the idea though.

<comment><USER5> sohyw I would imagine would be pronounced "so hew" so according to the algorithm it's pronounceable

but really the domain name I want is one that is SPELLABLE, not pronounceable

<comment><USER6> Not just that, you need it to be unambiguous. So "gitmy" (one that's mentioned below) is pretty dodgy, because it might sound too much like "getmy".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Your daily usage limit has been reached. > Signup now to continue searching > - or try again tomorrow!

Wat. I just clicked the link from HN. You may want to take a look at this :)

<comment><USER8> \+ password can't be longer than 20 chars :\ Signing up gets you "limited access". Full access is $19/month.

<comment><USER9> Err... what's a plausible reason passwords would be restricted to 20 chars, other than being stored in plaintext in a char(20) field?

<comment><USER10> Making sure you can't DDoS by sending gigabyte passwords for the server to hash. Of course 20 is seriously … overprotective.

<comment><USER11> Pretty sure nothing's stopping me from sending a gig of data to their server anyway.

<comment><USER10> No, but hashing is much more intensive than just receiving it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've recently compromised and started using a hyphen in my domains. Any ideas on the potential downsides for this? It certainly helps with finding reasonable .coms without resorting to dropping vowels or weird spelling combinations.

<comment><USER13> I like the phone test. You should be able to tell someone your domain over the phone and they should understand what it is without any clarification. Hyphens and misspellings fail this test.

<comment><USER14> ex-ample.com

"eee ex hyphen ample.com"

Does this fail your test?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> if only the root cause of these issues could be solved. The domain squatting problem is a real one. My understanding is that 15 years ago when it became obvious to some that this internet thing might take off, many shady characters (oops i mean entrepreneurs!) set up shell companies as registrars for the sole purpose of bulk registering domains as quickly as possible.

I don't know what the solution could have been and the point is moot any way since we cant go back in time to fix things :(

</comment><comment><USER16> baxys.com - Premium hand made shoes for men

etagy.com - The latest tracking device for your pet / lost items. Fund us on Kickstarter!

duula.com - The greatest open source project management system ever!

paazu.com - Its like Duula for CRM!

ebawy.com - Totally not trying to rip of ebay

vivvy.com - The sassiest, hippest new startup on the block

gitmy.com - Something you absolutely need to get the most out of Github!

hohub.com - A hub for... wait hold on

Recently accepted into YC 2015:

gigiy.com

fidzy.com

piqqa.com

qappo.com

quexy.com

</comment><comment> bulte-rs Thanks. Was looking for a nice name. Got myself a nice 5 letter - <USER2> - .com.

</comment><comment><USER17> syrupysex.com... I wonder who registered that domain name...

<comment><USER18> [http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/2iyz0v/what_happened_t...](http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/2iyz0v/what_happened_to_wetriffscom/) WetRiffs actually was a thing for a bit.

Domain names are less important lately, I guess. I just want something short so it's easy to type on a soft keyboard and put in a QR code.

<comment><USER19> You may be interested in this one : [http://shortdomainsearch.com/](http://shortdomainsearch.com/)

(nothing to do with me, I've just found it useful in the past.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why does it only limit you to 500 results per search?

<comment><USER20> Ah, I see. There are usage limits on free/guest users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> gitmy.com is surprising. Easily pronounceable and contains a popular source control name... tempting...

</comment><comment><USER22> I have so many uses for this. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER23> pronouceable => wqyry.com ??</comment>


Get Your Pi On - <AUTHOR> http://www.ecalc.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Our little startup project is promoting the upcoming "Pi Day" and so we decided to promote the product by offering a super Pi sale. Nothing like a little geek marketing...</comment>


PSD is not my favourite file format. (line 108) - <AUTHOR> https://code.google.com/p/xee/source/browse/XeePhotoshopLoader.m?r=f16763d221dfca6253983824b470adf553a19e06#108

<comment><USER2> Some discussion from the last time this was posted, several years ago. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=575122> Still worth reading :)</comment>


'Solar storm' grounds Swedish air traffic - <AUTHOR> http://www.thelocal.se/20151104/solar-storm-grounds-swedish-air-traffic <comment><USER2> I'm guessing the military isn't affected because they shield their equipment properly? Seems odd that this wouldn't be a standard (even for commercial) in this day and age.</comment>


Larry Page is 'Speechless' now - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304441404577483051675022104.html

<comment><USER2> I've never seen an article this long contain so little information.

<comment><USER3> Oh, there's a fair bit of meta-information on the current state of Wall Street reporting and analysis. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can be speechless and still show up places, make an appearance...

So he lost his voice and you know for a fact he won't be able to speak for weeks? I wish journalism still involved actual curiosity , critical thinking, and a drive for the truth.

</comment><comment><USER5> I thought that would be about the new audio search by Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER6> In other news, Eric Schmidt purchased a voodoo doll.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm sorry why do we care? He just lost his voice. It happens.

<comment><USER8> One typically doesn't lose their voice for multiple weeks in a row, or know that it will take weeks to recover for that matter.

<comment><USER9> Scott Adams (author of Dilbert) suffered from this. There's a great article from Wired a few years back.

[http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/17-08/ff_adams?...](http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/17-08/ff_adams?currentPage=all)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for taking the time to look this up, this is immediately what I thought of as well.

Maybe it just speaks to my own ignorance, but I found his whole public discussion (he regularly blogged about it) of his language issue incredibly fascinating: he could speak at public events, but not one on one, he had some success with 'singing' words but he couldn't emit them if spoken, etc.

<comment><USER9> I don't think the underlying cause is the same, but I've developed the inability to write certain letters and numbers, or at least not without a lot of effort. Particularly M, N, S, W and 8. My brain knows how to form the letter, but my fingers won't make the motions. Usually I have to move the pencil back and forth in a line 6 or 7 times before the rest of the letter forms. It's kind of embarrassing when someone is watching my sign my name since it starts with an M. I have no idea where this came from, but it hasn't always been the case.

<comment><USER11> At that point, one generally consults a specialist. In this case: please go see a doctor!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple showing vulnerability year after Jobs's death - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/apple-showing-vulnerability-year-after-jobss-death-7000005289/ <comment><USER2> I think the now infamous Jim Cramer video, where he explains how to manipulate Apple's stock price over the short term, should be a pre-requisite before reading any piece on Apple by an "analyst": <http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b1b_1237128864>

</comment><comment><USER3> "Shalini Verma, principal analyst at Gartner, noted that Apple's sales have not been affected by Jobs' death."

Where's the vulnerability? This article appears to be one person's opinion. Shalini Verma's name appears 7 times in this article, who is just another anonymous analyst.

</comment><comment><USER4> Total sales are up by 51%, stock price has risen by 70% (from article), yet the article goes on to say Apple is vulnerable and would have never released anything as incomplete as Maps under Jobs' leadership (Siri?).

Constant improvement of their successful products, and a new iPhone design might not excite everyone as much as the original iPod/iPad/iPhone but I don't think you can call Apple "vulnerable".

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't know if the products are "duller". My Macbook Pro Retina has excited me more than any product Apple has released in the last decade. I've had it for over 3 months and I still can't get over how much I enjoy the screen.

</comment><comment><USER6> "The late Jobs passed away on Oct. 5, 2012" Steve jobs died today?</comment>


Ask HN: Best Way to Reach Local Business Owners? - <AUTHOR> Good morning HN,
I am in the early stages of researching a potential start up concept for local restaurant owners. What do you think is the best / most efficient way of going about this? Ideally I would like to obtain email addresses and reach out so I can scale quicker than cold calling for example.
Any insight would be much appreciated! <comment><USER2> I am at the same stage at the same sector, though I am in Brazil. My startup is a loyalty program for bars and restaurantes based on Facebook's checkin.

What I am doing for the last month is a kind of "door-to-door sales". At least my product may benefit if my clients are geographically concentrated. So I selected two neighborhoods with a lot of restaurants, then went door to door asking for the owner just after lunch.

Local biz owners are usually at the business, so it is not hard to be introduced to them by whatever employee you aproach first.

This won't give you scale, but I would strongly recommend you to follow PG's advice: [http://paulgraham.com/ds.html](http://paulgraham.com/ds.html)

Doing this not scalable door-to-door aproach you will learn a lot (I did), it is a great form of customer discovery. And if you are able to acquire a few customers on the same neighborhood, quoting the same PG's essay:

 _" Sometimes the right unscalable trick is to focus on a deliberately narrow market. It's like keeping a fire contained at first to get it really hot before adding more logs."_

I actually could get in my hand a XLS with thousands of restaurant's emails, but decided not to use until I get closer to product/market fit through this door-to-door tactic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply and link soneca. I will check it out right now! Is there a rule of thumb regarding how many questions to stick to once you have the local business owners attention? Do they tend to get annoyed after asking so many questions?

<comment><USER2> I came to them after I have the idea of the product. They will only pay attention to you if you are offering something of value to them. Doesn't work here the aproach "let's take a coffee and chat about your problems".

You don't have to have anything built, but you will pitch as your product is functional and tested. So they will answer questions regarding your concrete product, not an abstract idea.

If someone decide to buy, then you build what you promised. If not, you try to learn why.

Do you mind if I asked what is your idea?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would start with Yelp and Open Table. There must be conferences that restauranteurs attend. People who either sell food (farmers markets, organic specialty sellers), restaurant supplies, or POS systems would probably appeal to restauranteurs as well so perhaps go talk to them.

You could probably start by just dropping by a number of them during the day when they're not as busy (i.e. after lunch). If they like what you're building I bet they could point you in the right direction towards other restauranteurs.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> Even the approach of sending cold emails may not be as effective, since plenty of restaurants still don't leverage basic tools available for communication and connection, including the internet.

As Yiggy said, try sourcing targets from Yelp and Open Table, then proceed to catch someone who is willing to talk during low traffic hours.

Not sure if this strategy is the best, but just something to think about when dealing with people in and around the service industry.

</comment><comment><USER5> Check out Radius.com

<comment><USER6> Radius.com seems to be all about lead generation?

Plus they're kind of interviewing potential customers - I was rejected to get access because I worked for not their target segment at a time.</comment></comment>


Study says 850,000 UK public sector jobs could be automated by 2030 - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/25/850000-public-sector-jobs-automated-2030-oxford-university-deloitte-study <comment><USER2> I wonder if they will decrease the budget by the resulting savings made available by this...</comment>


Online communities that are worth your time - <AUTHOR> https://www.agrigoryan.me/post/6-online-communities-for-your-startup <comment><AUTHOR> I love spending time on these platforms, what are your faves?</comment>


Zed's new Lamson licence: yank the rug at any time. - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/zedshaw/lamson/blob/master/LICENSE <comment><USER2> Original version of the license: "Lamson is licensed BSD or GPLv3, whichever you want. This basically means you shitheads who like using software without giving credit can go on being leeches on the world and tell everyone that you're fucking brilliant and invented all the gear running your shitty little company when really you just borrowed shit from real creators like me."

New version of the license: "Neither the name of Zed A. Shaw may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission."

We could very well call this whole incident "Learn You Have Borderline Personality Disorder The Hard Way, By Being Laughed Out Of Court." BSD, meet BPD.

</comment><comment><USER2> A software engineer drafting up his own crazy license is on as solid footing as a lawyer drafting up his own crazy email server software.

This is yet another example of engineers' disease. Having experience in a narrow technical domain does not confer you expertise in other domains. Being a mechanical engineer does not make you qualified as an expert on climate science. Being a software engineer does not make you qualified as an expert on contracts.

<comment><USER3> Don't the all-caps make it binding on a fundamental, quarks-and-protons level like the GPL and copyright?

<comment><USER2> Indeed, how do you say "cruise control for cool" in Latin?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The wording in question:

5\. The copyright holder reserves the right to revoke this license on anyone who uses this copyrighted work at any time for any reason.

And his explanation from the README:

Lamson is licensed under the license in the <https://github.com/zedshaw/lamson/blob/master/LICENSE> file. It's a variant of the BSD license that is revokeable and makes contributor's rights clear up front.

It's a phenomenal idea. I'm gonna start buying stuff in revokeable cash.

</comment><comment><USER5> _The copyright holder reserves the right to revoke this license on anyone who uses this copyrighted work at any time for any reason._

Legalese for "a non-open source project that no-one should put any trust in."

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> And now he's blocked me because he doesn't understand copyright law.

Is there a fan club? Do I get some sort of t-shirt?

<comment><USER6> I don't understand copyright law, either.

In your opinion, would it be legal for you to fork Lamson at a version before the revocation clause was put in the license, then distribute the source with that license?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, depending on what the license was previously. I'm pretty sure that's happened before (LibreOffice, maybe?).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> IANAL: My understanding is that even if he were to revoke the license, any copies you already made under it would remain your legal property, as they were made lawfully. It's the right to copy (naturally the author's exclusive right) the license is giving you. Revoking that right prevents you from making future copies, but would have no power to make you destroy the ones you already have.

Right?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope. If he revokes, you lose the licence, and can't use lamson any more. It's how the GPL works, too.

See this tweet: <http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/223966065091284992>

<comment><USER8> In the US, 17 USC 117 disagrees.

<comment><AUTHOR> No it doesn't. 17 USC 117 refers to software that you already have a licence for, and covers exemptions to copyright. ie. you're allowed to make a backup of software, you're allowed to transfer your licence to someone else and you're allowed to run it if you only use it to fix .

Note the phrasing (from <http://www.bitlaw.com/source/17usc/117.html>) of these bits:

 _...all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful._

 _...that lawfully contains an authorized copy of the computer program..._

<comment><USER8> > 17 USC 117 refers to software that you already have a licence for

No, it refers to software that you own a copy of. Termination of a copyright license does not terminate your ownership of copies that you already have, if they were made lawfully and distributed to you lawfully.

A good quick and dirty test to see if you need a copyright license in order to legally do something is to ask yourself what the copyright owner would allege in his pleadings if he were to sue you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, maybe you're right, but most software licences that I can lay hands on from a quick Google search (other than the GPL) explicitly mention 'use' and termination. For example, the BSD licence:

      Redistribution and use in source and binary forms,
      with or without modification, are permitted provided
      that the following conditions are met:

If what you were saying is true though, it would mean that the BSD licence is essentially unenforceable, since once I have a copy, it can't be taken away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Change the license to officially BSD. [https://github.com/medecau/lamson/commit/e78520b857384462b9e...](https://github.com/medecau/lamson/commit/e78520b857384462b9eecdedfc0f8c2e57cdd00a)

This is the last change before the introduction of the new clauses.

</comment><comment><USER10> So, does that mean anything up to commit e78520b857384462b9eecdedfc0f8c2e57cdd00a is under the standard BSD license then?

<comment><USER11> Whether or not it means anything depends upon which judge/jury might be deciding it, but if you forked at that commit and didn't use any of his code post that change you'd have a pretty good case that the modified terms don't apply to you since he publicly 'released' that version under the traditional BSD license (or optionally GPLv3).

<comment><USER8> Careful, though. If the original license is seen by the court as a bare copyright license, rather than as a contract, then the copyright holder may be able to revoke that license. If that were the case, people with copies distributed before the revocation would no longer be able to make and distribute copies or derivative works.

This is a thorny and confusing area, and we are not going to know for sure until we have a few actual cases litigated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Actually this "license" is completely nonsensical and in stark contradiction to the Github terms of service.

"Contributors agree that any contributions are owned by the copyright holder and that contributors have absolutely no rights to their contributions."

US Copyright law states that contributors ALWAYS have the copyright to their own work unless they explicitly transfer to another party.</comment>


Artificial Intuition - <AUTHOR> http://artificial-intuition.com/

<comment><USER2> AN is such an exciting insight; intuition can be broken down in to many accumulating algorithms whereas we attribute intelligence to distinctly experience-based interpretation.</comment>


China's Island Missiles Can Effectively Shut Out the U.S. Air Force - <AUTHOR> http://warisboring.com/articles/chinas-island-missiles-can-effectively-shut-out-the-u-s-air-force/ <comment><USER2> It's the same strategy the Japanese tried using in WWII to turn islands into stationary aircraft carriers. So long as you can keep them resupplied, it works to a certain degree. The moment the supply line gets into trouble, the island starts losing its ability to project power. Replacement parts, supplies for the ground crews, etc. all start disappearing. As a deterrent, they make a great show piece, as a practical matter, it's possible to either exhaust their supplies and bypass or take them out via other means.

Realistically, in the event of hostilities, we wouldn't send in the air force to take the islands out. We'd launch a bunch of sea skimming cruise missiles from a submarine or a special forces raid onto the island to punch a hole in the air defense grid then let the planes through. We did something similar in Gulf War I & Gulf War II. Planes only went in after other forces ensured the air defense grid wouldn't be defending much.

<comment><USER3> So, what's your opinion on Diego Garcia ([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia))? Waste of effort, too?

<comment><USER4> _Waste of effort, too?_

As an air defense base, yes. As a FOB for non-wartime activities, no. As a defensible base in an all out war, yes.

That said, I can't imagine Diego Garcia's primary role is to act as a buffer/barrier so the two aren't really comparable in that way. After all, it has:

"two parallel 12,000-foot-long (3,700 m) runways, expansive parking aprons for heavy bombers, 20 new anchorages in the lagoon, a deep-water pier, port facilities for the largest naval vessels in the American or British fleet, aircraft hangars, maintenance buildings and an air terminal, a 1,340,000 barrels (213,000 m3) fuel storage area, and billeting and messing facilities for thousands of sailors and support personnel."

Is this comparable to what the is being done by the Chinese?

<comment><USER3> The comment I reacted to mentioned the strategy of the Japanese in World War Two. They had islands with lots of infrastructure (for the time), too.

I think the problem for the Japanese was that they didn't have enough ships. Knowing that, they went for the island approach. Doing that, they gave up mobility in exchange for size and robustness. The mobility of the US navy allowed the US to concentrate firepower and take an island at a time. If distances between islands were smaller the Japanese might have been able to better defend against the US by rapidly moving planes and infantry between islands.

<comment><USER5> They also didn't have enough planes, the ability to make significantly better ones due to the engines, and not enough pilots (they didn't change to war tempo pilot instruction until way too late). They really had no business getting into a war with a mature and robust industrial power like us, their only hope was breaking our will and that, at best, would have only happened when we started invading the home islands.

The war was all but over after the South Pacific campaign which started with our landing in Guadalcanal. Neither of us did anything particularly clever there, besides our only neutralizing vs. taking Rabaul, it was just a brutal slugfest where, for example, in one night action we lost two rear admirals (2 stars). By the end of it, IJN airpower, land and carrier based, was broken, and most of that was done by US land based aviation. For a really in depth look this book is highly recommended: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813338697](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813338697)

You do have a point about our tactic of defeat in detail, when we were willing to expend enough lives and material we could and did take islands as we needed. I guess one of their big mistakes was thinking they could stop that for any particularly island with their air and naval forces in the region.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you're interested in this subject, here's a post I wrote two years ago about how bad the U.S.'s strategic position in the South China Sea vis-á-vis China was even before these new missiles were deployed: [http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/08/stovl-the-f-35-and-how- wer...](http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/08/stovl-the-f-35-and-how-were-even- more-fed-than-david-axe-suggests/)

<comment><USER6> Fair enough but one thing you are ignoring is:

> Technology failures. The American strategy for air superiority, not just > with the F-35 but also with the F-22 and other modern aircraft, is based on > two fundamental technologies. The first is "stealth": using technology to > help our planes to evade detection by radar. The second is "BVR": using > long-range missiles to shoot down enemy planes before the pilot can ever > even see them. (The acronym stands for "beyond visual range.") These > technologies are the key to the plan for how a smaller, more high-tech force > like ours can defeat a more numerous but lower-tech one like China's.

This also holds true for China and BVR strikes against US naval assets [particular Aircraft Carriers] are critical to China's ability to actually invade Taiwan.

The truth is we simply don't know what the real outcome of a battle/war would be but things like the OP are pretty much useless unless China can hit us BVR because they are slow enough BVR strikes against them would be viable.

US's BVR problem for is it is really limited to aircraft and they need to be able to stop China in the air/water because a protracted land war is untenable.

China's BVR problem is the fact they can't stop us throwing as many missiles as we can afford/manufacture at them while maintaining a supply line.

I know which problem I'd rather have and it sure as hell isn't supplying an invasion force while my opponent can throw effectively unlimited missiles from BVR at me. Sure, I might be able to stop 80% of them but the US can build basically unlimited quantities of them in a serious war.

<comment><AUTHOR> _> Sure, I might be able to stop 80% of them but the US can build basically unlimited quantities of them in a serious war._

I'm not sure a U.S./Chinese war that came down to raw industrial production capacity would be as favorable a scenario for the U.S. in (say) 2020 as it would have been in 1990...

<comment><USER6> Missiles are ~$1.5-2 million for the top end for this role.

They are substantially cheaper than even China can build amphibious transport ships for, let alone the munitions & troops they'd carry.

Even China's manufacturing capacity isn't enough to handle the massive cost difference of a transport vs. sinking it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a bit concerning, though the title of "Shut out the USAF" is kinda clickbait-y exaggeration. It's certainly an escalation in the little island "cold wars" of the pacific. Many countries have competing claims on the island and play a little military "chicken" every now and then, usually with minor ships or handfuls of troops. This is the first I've read of any country putting major semi-fixed military hardware on any of these contested islands, though.

Clearly missiles like this are a concern for the USAF, but the technology and tactics are in place to deal with them. They certainly do limit the kind of operations that any opposing AF would be willing to undertake without carrying out a strike against the missiles. Like sure, we could probably take them out with the latest fighters and missiles on a well-planned mission, but how willing would we be to send transport or recon aircraft or lone fighters wandering around where they might be in range of these things? What might we, or any other nation, be willing to do around them without attacking them and thus possibly triggering a much larger war? That's the level they're operating at here.

I wonder if any other nations will start basing their own high-end hardware on contested islands, or ask the US to do it?

</comment><comment><USER8> I should think the batteries would be themselves targeted by stand-off missiles as soon as any situation deteriorated to a shooting match.

> the very fact that the HQ-9 could compete for an international missile > tender against American, Russian and European systems — and win — is an > indication of just how capable the Chinese weapon is.

The odd-one-out in that list is Russia. Turkey might be very reluctant to deploy a Russian system, however cheap it might be up-front. Although relations were much warmer back in 2015, Turkey even then would not want to be dependent on Russia's good-will to keep a missile system running.

So shouldn't that quote read "cheap" rather than "capable"? Almost all defence acquisitions are really about backhanders and trade deals etc.

<comment><USER9> >I should think the batteries would be themselves targeted by stand-off missiles as soon as any situation deteriorated to a shooting match.

Yep. As usual, warisboring is wrong. These kinds of bases will be ignored in peacetime and quickly destroyed in wartime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The hard part about reading these kinds of things is that China is doing essentially what the United States has been doing since WWII. We put missiles everywhere... Right in China's doorstep even.

I just pray that as China grows in military strength they'll also grow in a desire for peace. Right now they are behaving like someone that has something to prove.

<comment><USER11> Right now China faces an interesting social problem -- their population includes millions of military-age men who are demographically doomed to remain single.

Unfortunately, from their leadership's perspective, that means that the lives of those young men are cheap disposable resources. If the Chinese want to become belligerent, expansionistic players on the world stage, right now's the best shot at it they'll ever have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The original article is here: [http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/look- out-america-c...](http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/look-out-america- chinas-missile-deployment-only-the-15236)

(great if an admin would like to update the url)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm wondering if it has been reported everytime the US has deployed some defensive missile batteries around the world... Pretty much US aircraft carriers have more fire power then these batteries. Do we report their movement as hard as this?

Like is this just agg-prop to some anti China sentiment?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's news because it changes the balance of power in the South China Sea, waters that China has been gradually asserting are its own territorial waters rather than international waters governed by the United Nations. This assertion has China and the U.S. inching towards military confrontation, because if China's assertions become _de facto_ reality Western sea and air access to important regional trade partners like Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam could be limited or cut off completely whenever Beijing feels like it.

There's a good timeline on how things have been playing out here: [http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-south-china-sea- time...](http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-south-china-sea- timeline-20160217-htmlstory.html)

<comment><USER13> The balance of power is unchanged. China can project their power around their borders much better than the US.

Right so the significant military assets the US have in Taiwan, Korea, and Japan go completely unreported.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I can't see how a Chinese vs US war is in either parties interest. Surely China knows they can never take the US mainland and the US can't take China proper, so even if they win they get, what exactly? Other than deep hatred for their biggest trading partner?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not unusual for rising powers to flex their new muscles by claiming new rights and privileges at sea; the U.S. did it in the 1890s and early 1900s, establishing its power in the eastern and central Pacific by overthrowing the government of Hawaii, driving the Spanish out of the Philippines, establishing bases on Midway Atoll and Wake Island, etc.

(Note that all of these locations would become key flashpoints in the war between the U.S. and the Japanese Empire a few decades later.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The addition of the HQ-9 — which was first reported by Fox News on Feb. 17 — > would greatly increase the People's Liberation Army's air defense > capabilities in the region. Like the Russian-made Almaz Antey S-300 air > defense system, the HQ-9 has the ability to render vast swaths of territory > into virtual no-fly zones. Only the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, F-35 Joint > Strike Fighter and Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber can safely > operate in the vicinity of an HQ-9 for any length of time.

The title is simply wrong.

1) B-2, F-22, and F-35 can all be used to throw missiles at these sorts of targets and then exit the area. The HQ-9 / Patriot can't track stealth aircraft at extreme range effectively. Or you throw sea skimming / low altitude cruise missiles with jamming to provide EW cover.

[http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the- buzz/american-f-22s-b-2...](http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the- buzz/american-f-22s-b-2-bombers-vs-russias-s-300-syria-who-wins-13905)

> The Raptors "kick down the door" using their unique combination of stealth, > high altitude and blistering speed to target the nodes of the integrated air > defense system so that the B-2s can proceed to their targets unmolested. > It's a mission the F-22s have only gotten better at with the Increment 3.1 > upgrade that allows the jet to geo-locate emitters much more precisely than > before. And that capability will continue to improve with the Raptor's > forthcoming Increment 3.2B upgrade.

> The other option to take down an integrated air defense system is to use a > combination of standoff weapons like the JASSM and JASSM-ER cruise missiles > together with electronic attacks from a platform like the EA-18G Growler. > The Growler can not only jam the enemy's radar, but can generate an ellipse > to target the missile site. The problem there is precisely updating the > cruise missile with current track data before the enemy moves during the > incoming weapons' time of flight.

2) HQ-9 [if based on Patriot] is actually less effective than the modern Russian systems. Without the ability to move substantial distances, HQ-9 isn't a serious threat to the US. However, pretty much every US ally in the region isn't capable of standing up to that sort of thing. Given the region is largely divided into the US / Chinese spheres of influence at this point it doesn't really matter because there aren't neutral parties.

3) I'm honestly more concerned about China sparking a major war than I am about their ability to create no-fly zones.

\</comment><comment>

EDIT:

Since I'm rate limited:

Realistically, whether you realize or it, China is in that position and has been for 20 years.

A missile base in Hainan would have the range to hit anything transiting to Vietnam via the sea. Short of taking Hainan away from China, Vietnam can be closed to ships by China at any time.

China isn't interested in provoking a military conflict but rather guaranteeing its security and a world position equal to the US in all theaters.

Similarly, its why Hainan has a semi-covert submarine base:

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

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem isn't what happens after the shooting starts, it's how these developments make the starting of shooting more likely. Nobody in the West wants to get into a war with China, but by covering the region with sophisticated defenses the Chinese could conceivably put the West in a position where they either have to accept Chinese hegemony over the region, or launch the exact war they don't want to fight in order to restore the old status quo.

Like, say China keeps building up its defensive network in the region, and then one day they announce that henceforth no freight or passenger vessels will be allowed to pass into Vietnamese (or Philippine, or Taiwanese, or Japanese) airports or seaports without first getting Chinese approval. Vietnam would obviously oppose that, and so would the U.S., because they are important trade partners with each other. But the Chinese could just say "if you don't like it, come fight us over it." And then the only choices available to the U.S. are to accept the new status quo, effectively abandoning Vietnam to becoming a Chinese client state, or to launch World War III to keep the trade routes open. That's not a position anyone in Washington wants to be maneuvered into.

<comment><USER5> An economic threat backed by military power doesn't require a military response. We and the Vietnamese have all sorts of potential economic responses, although of course our's are much greater, including the "nice pile of US Treasury debt you have there, it would be a shame if we declared it worthless to anyone who might buy it".

And the PRC's actions are already getting its neighbors to band together, even with Japan (!).

Or there's the convoy approach, we task some ships and subs to escort convoys of merchant ships to and from Vietnam, following our long freedom of the seas policy. We're already sending the occasional _Arleigh Burke_ class destroyer into the new areas of the ocean that the PRC is claiming.

<comment><AUTHOR> _> the PRC's actions are already getting its neighbors to band together, even with Japan (!)._

Yes, this is probably the best argument that can be made that the PRC's strategy is failing -- the bluntness of it is definitely drawing the whole region into a new anti-Chinese bloc, which (combined with the U.S.) could present a formidable counter to Chinese regional power. A more subtle "divide and conquer" strategy might have let them take on potential opponents one by one, or even play them against each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Conveniently for defense contractors, only the F22, F35, and B2 are immune, according to a completely unsourced assertion!

<comment><USER16> If, as the article asserts, HQ-9 incorporates Patriot missile technology given to them by Israel, conventional aircraft would certainly not be safe.

<comment><USER17> Why would the Israelis do this?? Here's the line from the article:

"According to Missile Threat, the Chinese developed much of the HQ-9's technology from a Patriot battery Beijing acquired from Israel"

Is this true?

<comment><USER18> Yes the israelis sell lots of US tech directly to China and Russia in exchange for cash

Inb4 a bunch of downvotes

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Makes you wonder if China maybe has a 20 year plan towards something very bad out there.

I mean why do they even want that space?

<comment><USER20> It allows china to press economic claims in the surrounding waters. Such as exploitation of resources, and interfering in commercial shipping.

Overall it's a chess move. It allows China to exert pressure on the region. Similar to Iran and the strait of Hormuz.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's a matter of time until China has total dominance of the region. It's inevitable.

</comment><comment><USER22> How the fuck does this story have 28 points?

What is happening with Hacker News?

</comment><comment><USER23> No, it won't.

In all out conventional warfare you bring out the tactical nukes via various deployment mechanisms.

If the batteries form a big threat, they'll get wiped.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Chinese have nukes too. You bring out your nukes, they bring out THEIR nukes, and then you're on the slippery slope towards Armageddon.

<comment><USER24> In the case of tactical nuclear weapons, I don't see what gain there is versus traditional bunker busters using depleted uranium warheads.

<comment><USER25> DU is not a "nuke". It's kind of the opposite. It's the byproduct of the process of separating the more active isotopes from the almost non-radioactive one, U-238.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I doubt they'd shut out an A team of Navy Seals with C4 however. War is boring is one of the better military blogs out there, but this is a silly article. If the US really wanted the islands, a few anti-aircraft weapons will not stop them.

<comment><USER27> AA/AD isn't done by one thing. They need anti ship ballistic missiles and submarines to make sure no carrier group would ever go anywhere anywhere near (i.e. near enough for standoff weapons that would hurt the anti air weapons) and so on. You need all the different pieces of the puzzle to have effective area denial.</comment></comment>


Swimming Without a Suit - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/opinion/22friedman.html?_r=1 <comment><USER2> Come on, can we please stop using the high school test comparison or explain why there are such dramatic differences. The countries listed higher on there tend to have draconian centrally-run school systems which only allow certain portions of the population into public high schools, while the remainder of the population attends vocational schools. Thus, we're comparing the future college graduates of other countries against the entire population of the US.

And our system is quite to our benefit. Most all of the US hacker community, who slacked off in middle school and only really got interested in the tough math of high school and college, would never have been allowed to take those classes in most other countries. They'd have been marked as low-achievers early on.

<comment><USER3> I don't think the Canadian educational system is all that draconian. It is amongst the most competitive in the world, though.

Here are some other reasons the US is struggling despite spending more money per student than any other country:

1) Most of US public teachers come from the bottom third of college students 2) Teacher skill is far more important than small class sizes, but the US system values small classes more than good teachers 3) New teachers typically work alone after a very short amount of time 4) Teachers are paid poorly

[http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/socialsector/resources...](http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/socialsector/resources/pdf/Worlds_School_systems_final.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Not to mention the U.S. system is still fixated on what worked for the educational system when 95% of Americans worked on farms. Six hour days. Summers off.

Since the majority of the U.S. (51%) live in urban areas, the 21st century education system should make school similar to the workforce: school from 9-5. Or 8-4.

Grades need to be wiped out. Students need to be placed on levels. No a "slow math class" for 8th grade, but one that reflects his/her ability or inability.

And we need national standards on textbooks. No more bullying from large (red) states like Texas on what gets taught in science classes around America. Or what you can say about the south and their attempts to smother/suppress the civil rights movement / black vote.</comment></comment></comment>