Publishers line up against Amazon's $9.99 e-books - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2010/02/05/hachette-amazon-harpercollins-macmillan-apple/ <comment><USER2> Awesome. Let the big publishers shoot themselves in the foot so that small publishers and independent authors can undercut them, yet still make more money per book.

With the end-to-end digital process, you'll see a lot of authors selling independently (as has already started on the Kindle) and publishers will be caught on the back foot. Readers will vote with their dollars and smart authors will skip the publishers and provide what readers want without them.

<comment><USER3> You're assuming that books by different authors are interchangeable goods. If had to choose between buying the latest book by my favourite author for $21 or three books by independent authors that I've never heard of for $7 each, I'll go with my favourite author. When it comes to books I buy what I like and price is pretty much irrelevant. So yes I do vote with my dollars, and I vote quality first.

<comment><USER4> Once e-books are widespread enough, your favorite author could go solo, sell for less, and still make more money. And you'd get the book you want.

<comment><USER2> Can you even imagine how much money J K Rowling could make if she hired a few people to run a self publishing outfit and then sold her latest scrawl on the App Store and iBookstore at $9.99 a pop?

Not that she needs any more money at this point, of course..

<comment><USER5> I love the idea of the little guy doing it without a big publisher. The problem with that idea is the same problem that any indie artist has had: exposure.

Publishers spend between 1 and 3 million dollars on a new book just for production (editors, graphic designers, typesetters, etc.) and marketing. JK Rowling very much benefited from those dollars. Editors helped her shape her work into books millions of people would love and marketers made sure that the world heard about it. She would not be the woman she is today (financially speaking) without those up-front costs.

At this point in her career, you're probably right, she could self publish and do pretty well. But if the later Harry Potter books (where she had more editorial control) are any indication, she's much better off under the guide of a strict editor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find it a little odd that Apple, which really seemed to drive adoption of digital music sales with 99 cent songs, seems to now have a hand in driving digital book sales, although by pushing the relative price upwards.

It will be interesting to see where the price point is that enough people are willing to buy a book rather than pirate it.

<comment><USER7> The music industry felt a little burned by the whole 99 cent experience, and I suspect the movie and book people learned from that. Also, Amazon already tried the "bully the publishers" play so Apple is doing something different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I hope it doesn't take a decade for the publishing industry to come to the same conclusion as the music business and ditch DRM. There's no way that I'm going to spend $15 on a book that can only be read using a specific device and depends on the manufacturer maintaining an authentication server in perpetuity.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think the more important part of the story is the % a publisher gets and the relationship between the publishers and Amazon / Apple. I would really like to see some analysis of how the different models worked and who got what.

I still think publishers are important for editorial. I wonder if a group of editors will create a company to do the "editing, ebook production, accounting" part of the chain and take like a 5 - 10% cut of the book.

<comment><USER10> It's probably not feasible for the editors and producers at five or ten percent; it might start to make sense at 20%.

<comment><USER9> so do you think: 30% eBook shop (e.g. Amazon, iTunes), 20% editors / producers, and 50% authors?

<comment><USER10> 30% for the distributor seems high, especially compared to the editors. I'd rather see 20% distributor, 30% editor / producer, 50% author.

For physical copies, the numbers are much different, especially because initial costs are higher.

<comment><USER9> I guess the 30% is generally there because of high credit card fees. I wonder if Amazon / Apple has a min price for ebooks?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wish amazon would bundle the ebook with the physical book for an extra dollar or something. I've often gone to buy a book, and thought maybe I'd buy the ebook so I could start reading it immediately on my iphone. But then it's not substantially cheaper than the physical book, and I decide I'd prefer the physical book.</comment>


Instantly predict indian railways pnr charting status - <AUTHOR> http://pnr.me/predictor

<comment><AUTHOR> pnr final charting status prediction has always been a problem. numerous sites have tried to solve this by making people vote on individual pnr blog posts. I have build this prediction by analyzing past data.

Technologies used - flask, mongo, zeromq, scipy Feedback is greatly appreciated</comment>


Comparing the new Redis6 multithreaded I/O to Elasticache and KeyDB - <AUTHOR> https://docs.keydb.dev/blog/2020/04/15/blog-post/ <comment><USER2> These benchmark posts are good but they are a bit unsatisfying, I wish they'd spend more time a laying out the fundamental differences of each technology and the trade offs that are the result of how the different systems are built.

At the end of the day an engineer shouldn't pick database because it's the fastest but because it fits their use case the best.

I get that reddis, memcached, and keydb are all roughly in memory hashmaps but beyond that knowing what makes them different, how hard are they to operate, what they are good at and bad at is going to be more helpful in selecting which technology to use than a simple throughout benchmark.

<comment><USER3> > At the end of the day an engineer shouldn't pick database because it's the > fastest but because it fits their use case the best.

Every comparison article doesn't need to (and shouldn't) include a comparison about every kind of detail about two technologies.

> I get that reddis, memcached, and keydb are all roughly in memory hashmaps > but beyond that knowing what makes them different, how hard are they to > operate, what they are good at and bad at is going to be more helpful in > selecting which technology to use than a simple throughout benchmark.

If a post is about speed/performance, and you want to know implementation details (or accessibility or how well it plays with your stack) then look for something else. A quick google search quickly gives me whatever details I want to know about whatever two widely used technologies:

For example redis vs memcached: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10558465/memcached-vs- re...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10558465/memcached-vs-redis)

But more importantly its okay for a post to be narrow in scope. The requirement should be that it is not misleading in whatever question it sets out to answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is interesting, but why not add in a benchmark for regular redis as a 'baseline'. Is it really worth upgrading to me?

<comment><USER5> It does use regular Redis, from the new 6.0 release. This post is comparing different products, not versions of Redis.

If you want to see how much Redis itself improved from 5.0 to 6.0 then you can look at Salvatore's updates: [https://twitter.com/antirez/status/1110973404226772995](https://twitter.com/antirez/status/1110973404226772995) and other benchmarks: [https://itnext.io/benchmarking-the-experimental-redis- multi-...](https://itnext.io/benchmarking-the-experimental-redis-multi- threaded-i-o-1bb28b69a314)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Excellent post! I wonder why, given the performance, KeyDB is not more popular? Is there lack of hosted services?

<comment><USER7> Redis (single-threaded) is just fine for all but the biggest scale, is well- tested, and because it's a simpler model less likely to have all the terribly complicated edge-case bugs the introduction of concurrency implies.

Also there's a matter of need. It does one no good if a KV store can churn through 200 kops/s if you can only deliver 100kops/s. If one or two redis instances (plus replicas, etc., or maybe a minimal three-master cluster) can serve the entire workload, saving two or three nodes by "upgrading" to the likes of KeyDB doesn't seem worth it. I mean, unless you're aiming to get to the melt-the-metal it's so "hot" all the time performance.

<comment><USER6> Interesting, yeah more bugs due to the complexity of multi threaded programming is the first thing that came to mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm not familiar with Memtier, but those YCSB numbers for, say, the read-only Workload C look surprisingly low for an in-memory store. 25k/second/thread? Is that just hitting the limits of how fast you can round-trip a request over the network?

</comment><comment><USER9> why a separate project for keydb? couldn't all this just be merged into the main project?

are there significant architectural changes/tradeoffs in keydb that made it not-ideal to merge into redis?

<comment><USER10> KeyDB has some hacker news posts in the past where it was shared but these modifications were not accepted into redis. At the time Redis was not considering multi-threading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> (Note to the KeyDB people who are probably reading this. On your front page, "Atlernative" is a typo.)</comment>


Predictive Learning [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxKBnD5y2M8NREZod0tVdW5FLTQ/view <comment><USER2> Lecun has identified a real problem for AI -- the need to understand the real world, the link between intelligence and prediction over time. But the tools he is using are not the right ones.

Deep conv nets were not designed with prediction over time in mind. Here's one reason: Deep convolutional nets do not handle dynamical information from their lowest layers. By design, conv layers and pooling layers immediately begin discarding spatial information that could be used for building up predictions.

In contrast it is possible to start with recurrent/feedback networks at the very first layers of the network. These initial layers can begin building up predictions at the pixel, color, and lighting level (example: our recent preprint[1]).

My colleague, who as some of you know enjoys blogging, wrote a more thorough post in response to LeCun's recent CMU lecture on the same topic as these slides[2].

[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.06854](https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.06854)

[2] Blog: "A few comments on the Yann LeCun lecture at CMU, 11.2016" [http://blog.piekniewski.info/2016/11/21/yann-lecun- cmu-11-20...](http://blog.piekniewski.info/2016/11/21/yann-lecun- cmu-11-2016-comments/)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, not to be too dismissive or cliched, but these slides come off as if LeCun just now got around to reading some Andy Clark or reading neurosci/cogsci papers by Tenenbaum or Friston. The idea that the human brain has to work via active prediction rather than passive signal processing has been well-established in cogsci and neurosci for a while now.

The interesting question, then, is how we make machine-learning systems do prediction well. Probabilistic/generative models have been "wandering in the desert" for a while now because Monte Carlo methods are _just so slow_ , especially for high-dimensional, hierarchical prediction problems like we want to solve in machine learning. On the upside, STAN now has automatic variational inference for continuous probability models, and work on things like the "concrete distribution" ([https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.00712](https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.00712)) can help us continuously approximate discrete probabilistic reasoning. Maybe as these techniques move into the mainstream in systems like Venture or Picture we can start to scale up predictive/generative/probabilistic modelling to match optimization-based connectionist methods?

<comment><USER4> The idea is not new indeed, Andy Clarks's review paper was very inspiring to us. But it has not been detailed to a point of implementation/scaling. PVM is an attempt to implement it in a "connectionist" way, but frankly all I need are associative memories, and how they are implemented I don't care. So a "probabilistic PVM" is totally feasible. In fact we discuss in the paper various possibilities in which a PVM like meta-architecture can be implemented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> He also presented at CMU Robotics a few weeks ago (and used these slides). Video here: [https://youtu.be/IbjF5VjniVE](https://youtu.be/IbjF5VjniVE)

<comment><USER6> Another good one here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwad1cWMcC0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwad1cWMcC0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For anyone that doesn't know Yann LeCun, he's the head of AI over at Facebook, but surprisingly he's positively and consistently straightforward concerning the current hype driving AI and its technologies. He deserves respect because of this alone.

<comment><USER8> Not to mention the father of CNNs.

<comment><USER9> it's a bit more complicated: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convolutional_neural_network#H...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convolutional_neural_network#History)

[https://www.quora.com/Who-invented-convolution-neural- networ...](https://www.quora.com/Who-invented-convolution-neural-networks)

<comment><USER10> Who are you? Joergen Schmidthueber?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Memory Modules in vector space reminds me of some earlier work described as Associative Memory Modules (AMMs) [http://sumve.com/biomimetic- cognition/biomimetic-api.html](http://sumve.com/biomimetic- cognition/biomimetic-api.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> If page 33 depicts the working of the brain on a very high level, the world model (or simulator) residing inside the agent must contain a model/simulator of the agent itself.

Could this give rise to self perception or consiousness?

<comment><USER13> I happened to be reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins and Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter at the same time, and both of them point at exactly this being the reason for consciousness. I was stunning at how both reached the same conclusion, that consciousness arrises from recursion of self perception, from very different points.

Also, if anyone is watching Westworld ( __spoilers __), it seems to come to the same conclusion funnily enough. What finally gives the androids consciousness is some kind of recursive idea of listening to themselves.

<comment><USER14> Re Westworld: The theory of consciousness explored in the show is explored in more detail in Jaynes' _The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_ , as alluded to both in the show and in the title of the final episode. I've just picked it up, and it's a pretty interesting read so far. I've also noticed that a lot of little details from the book used in the show, such as referring to memories as "reveries" at points, and talking of minds as "hosts" of consciousness. I may need to re-watch the show after finishing the book!

I found a pdf version of the book here if you are interested. [http://selfdefinition.org/psychology/Julian-Jaynes-Origin- of...](http://selfdefinition.org/psychology/Julian-Jaynes-Origin-of- Consciousness-Breakdown-of-Bicameral-Mind.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Interesting how what "common sense" is evolved since the days of symbolic AI (cf. Cyc). The history presented begins rather late; show some love to the founders of the field...

<comment><USER15> For Cyc, see here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11300567](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11300567)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very interesting set of slides

It seems the current state of prediction is only slightly better than the state of image recognition pre multiple level NNs

There might be still a theoretical jump that's needed

<comment><USER4> Yes, the field has emerged out of MNIST/ImageNet and that is what those algorithms are optimised for. For modelling actual dynamics different design is necessary. It happens that the design that makes sense also seems to agree very well with the observed biology of the cortex. You can find links to our Predictive Vision Model in this thread as well as a few additional thoughts here: [http://blog.piekniewski.info/2016/11/30/learning-physics- is-...](http://blog.piekniewski.info/2016/11/30/learning-physics-is-the-way- to-go/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Will the other slides be posted? And how about videos?

</comment><comment><USER18> My summary of the slides: to achieve "common sense", Unsupervised Learning is the the next step. Use all information in the data for predicting everything you can including the past. Use adversarial networks to do that.

</comment><comment><USER19> These slides remind me of the worst PowerPoints ever.

<comment><USER20> Really? They have pictures and everything.

<comment><USER21> A _wonderful_ demonstration of copyright violation/enforcement.</comment></comment></comment>


Sadly, this is the current state of Dropbox support - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jmurzy/status/926543178387177472 <comment><USER2> Unable to see the details of the 'cannot delete empty folder' so this is hard to judge. If he can't find the button may be it is a UI issue and maximizing helps.

</comment><comment><USER3> Support is a tough job. There is often lack of training, scripts that must be followed and SLA's that discourage agents from spending too much time on an issue.</comment>


Kim Jong-Il Dies - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/world/asia/kim-jong-il-is-dead.html?_r=1&hp

<comment><USER2> Sadly I suspect that his son/successor may be even crazier than he was.</comment>


Show HN: Descr.be – Image Annotation Platform - <AUTHOR> https://www.descr.be/posts/2 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

I've noticed that often people sharing images with details in subject either:

— describe image (say in comments) shortly, because it's not convenient, or

— put description in comment with need to tell where to watch (e.g. top right corner), far from image, or

— use some tool (Photoshop?) to embed description into image.

So I develop and recently released platform where users can describe details of images and share link to it — DESCRiBE ([https://www.descr.be](https://www.descr.be))

I've added sample posts to explore possible use cases:

— Lunar features (craters and seas) — [https://www.descr.be/posts/2](https://www.descr.be/posts/2)

— Manhattan skyline — [https://www.descr.be/posts/3](https://www.descr.be/posts/3)

— University of Oxford aerial — [https://www.descr.be/posts/25](https://www.descr.be/posts/25)

— Few reef fishes — [https://www.descr.be/posts/4](https://www.descr.be/posts/4)

— Stuff for filmmaking — [https://www.descr.be/posts/6](https://www.descr.be/posts/6)

— Notebook stickers — [https://www.descr.be/posts/1](https://www.descr.be/posts/1)

I invite you to check it, tell what you think and remember to use, when you'll need to annotate something — describe it and share a link.

Hope it will be useful and make Internet a better place.

Near future plans:

\+ allow links,

– stick annotations while scrolling tall images,

– adopt for small screens,

– add categories.</comment>


Kola Superdeep Borehole - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole <comment><USER2> The borehole has now been welded shut and is surrounded by the ruins of the project. The actual borehole itself is pretty unassuming for something that goes twelve kilometers into the Earth's crust: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole#/media...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole#/media/File:Сама_скважина\(заварена\),_август_2012.JPG)

<comment><USER3> How stable are abandoned holes like that? I would imagine that at those temperatures and pressures, the rock would slowly flow and refill the hole after a while.

<comment><USER4> It got to 180C at the bottom. That's nowhere near hot enough to melt rock. Not sure about the pressure though. I get the feeling though that rock tends to either stay put or shift all at once (like an earthquake).

<comment><USER3> Not hot enough to melt, but heat definitely reduces structural integrity of materials. And pressures on the rock so deep are immense. This article linked from Wikipedia seems to confirm that the hole tended to close itself when they were drilling:

"At that level of heat and pressure, the rocks began to act more like a plastic than a solid, and the hole had a tendency to flow closed whenever the drill bit was pulled out for replacement."

[https://www.damninteresting.com/the-deepest- hole/](https://www.damninteresting.com/the-deepest-hole/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have re-created a CGI Script that we have programmed years ago, when some Russian geologists were visiting our institute.

This visualises a generalised lithological log: That means, some of the rocks recovered from the hole, and their thicknesses.

[https://data.icdp- online.org/sites/kola/tpl/litholog_sel.htm](https://data.icdp- online.org/sites/kola/tpl/litholog_sel.htm)

Let's seee if I manage to make the script more interactive.

</comment><comment><USER6> See also the image gallery: [http://rusue.com/abandoned-kola-superdeep- borehole/](http://rusue.com/abandoned-kola-superdeep-borehole/)

<comment><USER7> "It is rumored that at some point the drilling rig began to vibrate unnaturally as if someone were jerking for it from below."

<comment><USER8> "When the well reached a mark of about 12,000 meters, scientific equipment recorded sounds resembling the cries and groans of thousands of martyrs emanating from the depths."

I think we've crossed the line from documentary to creepypasta.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Super interesting.

It's kind of hard to believe how our species has managed to explore furthest of planets, stars and galaxies while just drilling 7.62 miles through the crust of the very planet we exist on and "dominate" [0] -- a testament to how challenging crust drilling can be, right on par with exploring deepest parts of Earth's oceans.

[0] [https://www.fs.blog/2016/01/yuval-noah-hararri-on-why-we- dom...](https://www.fs.blog/2016/01/yuval-noah-hararri-on-why-we-dominate-the- earth-myth-making/)

<comment><USER3> I don't find it surprising at all that we found traveling through a vacuum easier than traveling through solid granite.

Imagine how much mass that drillbit had to go through and now translate that into the density of interstellar medium. You could probably travel half way across the galaxy before your space ship went through as much matter as that drill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm curious:

What did/does such a project cost?

Is there substantial scientific value to going further?

I can imagine some tech billionaire(s) funding a follow-on project, esp in a more hospitable location that could attract tourists, press, etc.

</comment><comment><USER11> Also, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_to_Hell_hoax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_to_Hell_hoax)

</comment><comment> brian-armstrong This article lead me down the rabbit hole to the page for Mud (drilling fluid) engineer, which might be one of the most vandalized articles I've ever seen (# vandalizing edits/total edits)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:History/Mud_engineer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:History/Mud_engineer)

<comment><USER12> glad I'm not the only one who went down that hole (pun very much intended) and started watching videos about the Reelwell Drilling Method and horizontal displacement techniques.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Really interesting experiment. Since the temperature was greater than expected would that have any bearing on being able to use bore holes for geothermal power?

I believe they are trialling this in a few places but I can't help but think that a hole that small (circumference wise!) could be easily implemented and potentially used as an energy source

<comment><USER14> I was curious about that too. It might just be too expensive to pump water down and back to extract power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Continental crust is between 20 miles deep and 50 miles deep, this borehole 'only' managed to get to 7.4 miles deep - we've still go a long way to go before we get to The Lost World of the Dinosaurs.

<comment><USER16> Must be a special kind of Dinosaurs, which could survive even on Venus.

<comment><USER17> I was thinking he's referencing Verne's "Voyage au centre de la Terre".

<comment><USER15> Bingo!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would like to understand why drilling stopped at the depth it did. Was it something to do with the material at that depth, something to do with the drill, some other factor?

<comment><USER9> >Because of higher-than-expected temperatures at this depth and location, 180 °C (356 °F) instead of the expected 100 °C (212 °F), drilling deeper was deemed unfeasible and the drilling was stopped in 1992. [0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole#Drilli...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole#Drilling)

<comment><USER19> 180C sounds like a rock that somehow got into the oven and can be easily removed with mitts on, not something like 1,000C lava.

In other words I'm confused by why 180C stopped the drilling process.

<comment><USER20> Someone attempted to explain that in this post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17337270](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17337270)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Did they make any special geological discoveries?

Did they find any precious metals, etc.?

Also, I'm wondering, is it possible to measure the depth of the hole using a laser?

<comment><USER22> > Did they make any special geological discoveries?

[From the Wikipedia article:] To scientists, one of the more fascinating findings to emerge from this well is that no transition from granite to basalt was found at the depth of about 7 km (4.3 mi), where the velocity of seismic waves has a discontinuity. Instead the change in the seismic wave velocity is caused by a metamorphic transition in the granite rock. In addition, the rock at that depth had been thoroughly fractured and was saturated with water, which was surprising. This water, unlike surface water, must have come from deep-crust minerals and had been unable to reach the surface because of a layer of impermeable rock.

Another unexpected discovery was a large quantity of hydrogen gas. The mud that flowed out of the hole was described as "boiling" with hydrogen.

> Did they find any precious metals, etc.?

These concentrate in veins, so the single borehole would not be the best way to find out. They were probably recorded in mud logs somewhere.

> is it possible to measure the depth of the hole using a laser

Holes like this are very rarely totally straight as the geology likes to manipulate the drill string as it descends. Whilst this won't be a true deviated well (due to the research goals) I'd be very surprised if there's a vertical hole.

<comment><USER23> > the rock at that depth had been thoroughly fractured and was saturated with > water

This is what makes me think that drilling to great depths and utilizing the energy there for sustainable power generation should be possible.

It's just a matter of developing the right drilling technology. How hard can it be?

<comment><USER24> Ah, indeed, the dreaded question "How hard can it be?" and its rarely-spoken assumption "that looks simple from my armchair". Well...most of the low- hanging fruit has already been picked, and things that _look_ simple are chock-full of those pesky details that are handwaved away in the birds-eye view. "Just use the right technology," and you have flying cars, strong AI, self-driving vehicles, space elevators and whatnot. How hard can it be?

<comment><USER23> Glad you caught the irony in that comment ;-)

<comment><USER24> Somebody should make a reliable sentiment analyser. How hard could that be? ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> A nice video explainer from scishow: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz6v6OfoQvs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz6v6OfoQvs)

<comment><USER26> Please don't link to scishow. They produce trash, and often don't do due diligence with their videos.

<comment><USER25> That's a shame, I like their presenters. Are there any interesting science- related YouTube channels that you can recommend?

<comment><USER26> I like a lot of PBS's content. Like physics girl, and what the physics. Engineer Guy also produces good content. MinutePhysics is also a good choice. As for math related topics, I love 3Blue1Brown.

In general I find science journalism lacking.

My biggest problem with SciShow is that it's a bunch of people who lack a true science background commenting on topics. I really don't think that they do their due diligence in reporting, there's been cases where they present incorrect findings, and hype up the physically impossible.

<comment><USER25> Cool, thanks for the recommendations. I gravitated to SciShow because was produced by Hank Green, who's other YouTube offerings I really enjoy. I guess it's a lesson to be more critical with my sources, regardless of the author's previous work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Was there some explosion in one of those buildings? Doesn't look like theft/vandalism to me...

<comment><USER28> Looks like the drill tower used to be there, maybe they just wholesale lifted the proprietary drilling rig out of there. I'm sure they had to invent a thing or two about drilling to do this research.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.".

</comment><comment><USER30> Back when Russia actually did science.

<comment><USER30> List of Science Nobel Prizes educated in the USSR:

\- Andre Geim, Physics, 2010

\- Konstantin Novoselov, Physics, 2010

\- Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov, Physics, 2003

\- Vitaly Ginzburg, Physics, 2003

\- Zhores Alferov, Physics, 2000

\- Pyotr Kapitsa, Physics, 1978

\- Ilya Prigogine, Chemistry, 1977

\- Leonid Kantorovich, Economics, 1975

\- Nikolay Basov, Physics, 1964

\- Alexander Prokhorov, Physics, 1964

\- Lev Landau, Physics, 1962

\- Pavel Cherenkov, Physics, 1958

\- Igor Tamm, Physics, 1958

\- Ilya Mikhailovich Frank, Physics, 1958

\- Nikolay Semyonov, Chemistry, 1956

List of Nobel Prizes educated in post-Soviet Russia:

<comment><USER31> Most of them either were educated in (old, pre-USSR) Russia, or by people who had Russian education. Once the generation changed, people educated in/by Soviet system achieved... well, you've listed it.

<comment><USER30> Your lack of arithmetic is disturbing.

<comment><USER31> Do you have something more substantial to offer?

Or will you suggest that a country where communism is "scientific" and whole areas of science can be banned is actually capable of developing homegrown science? This is laughable on its face.

<comment><USER30> You mean like Cuba? [https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/01/09/cuba- has...](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/01/09/cuba-has-lung- cancer-vaccine-many-u-s-patients-cant-get-without-breaking-law/1019093001/)

Your claim is that most of these Nobel prizes were educated in the Russian Empire is simply false based on their age.

Can you provide examples of these whole areas of science banned in the USSR/socialist states?

<comment><USER31> You could have read the entire sentence -- while there were some remnants of the pre-revolution education teaching in schools, there were Nobels. Once they had died out, and the new generation educated in Soviet schools by Soviet- educated teachers appeared, Nobels went away.

I guess you have never heard about genetics? It's generally considered to be a science. Except in USSR where for a long time it was officially termed a pseudo-science and a call-girl of imperialism.

<comment><USER30> Your point is that Soviet education was bad. By 1980 it was as good (if not better) than American education.

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

[https://www.quora.com/Do-you-believe-Soviet-Union- education-...](https://www.quora.com/Do-you-believe-Soviet-Union-education- system-was-the-best-in-the-world-at-that-time-Why)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ycco6/how_d...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ycco6/how_did_the_quality_of_soviet_education_compare/)

What you're talking about is Lysenkoism and it was mostly during Stalin rule. Later Soviet biologists actually criticized Lysenko and the whole anti- genetics stance. Similar movements also happened in Western science, like Social Darwinism for example.

<comment><USER31> Social Darwinism or anything like that has never been appointed as the one and only TRUE THING with scientific opponents sent off to labor camps.

Also, soviet high elementary through high school education was... I'm not sure if "better" is the correct word, but it certainly taught more science than American schools do, if we compare average American school with a good school in Moscow, Leningrad, or similar large cities.

College level education in USSR was nowhere near as good as American -- you can't have good education if teaching people to think for themselves is physically dangerous.

[Source: I attended better than average schools and a decent college in Moscow]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> There's a well known urban legend about the borehole that they stopped drilling when a scientist lowered a microphone into the hole. When they played back the recording they heard terrible screams, supposedly from people trapped in hell. Nice campfire story!

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

<comment><USER33> Any mention of the Kola Borehole isn't complete without a mention to this story.</comment></comment>


St Louis Uber driver has been streaming his passengers online. Most have no idea - <AUTHOR> https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/st-louis-uber-driver-has-put-video-of-hundreds-of/article_9060fd2f-f683-5321-8c67-ebba5559c753.html <comment><USER2> _Gargac's videos fit into the newer "IRL," or "In Real Life," section that encourages users to stream their life outside of games.

Gargac says he's earned about $3,500 off Twitch users so far, including subscriptions, donations and tips called "bits." That's on top of about $150 to $300 he earns from fares on an average night. He typically drives on weekend nights because, he says, the bar crowd makes for the most entertaining rides._

So, the Gig Economy, where so many workers are underpaid and have no benefits, etc, mated with the Internet version of Reality TV and this is their bastard child.

I find it disturbing, but I think the conversation here should really be about "What can the average person realistically do who doesn't want to be a wage slave anymore?" I mean, if we want people to not whore out their passengers' lives in a grotesque modern version of _Candid Camera_ for cash, maybe we should, like, create jobs with adequate pay and benefits.

Bizarre concept, I know, that treating all your citizens like they deserve a living wage, medical care and basic, decent housing might promote ethical behavior. But I'm putting it out there anyway.

<comment><USER3> No. You cannot rationalize someone's malicious intent to exploit and profit off of trust people place in you by getting into your cab on the gig economy, or anything else. That's a slippery slope where bad actors place blame on non causal issues for their actions

<comment><USER2> I am neither rationalizing it, nor justifying it. However, having spent several years homeless and found that classism, sexism and other societal crap were huge barriers to me getting my life back, I think it is unrealistic and cruel to not criticize the sick system that helps foster such bad choices.

If you make it hard enough to make good choices that you approve of, don't be shocked when some people's moral fiber fails the test and they get on with meeting survival needs instead of ethically and high-mindedly starving.

<comment><USER4> I don't see how any of what you said applies to the current story. We don't know whether the driver has financial problems or not.

On the surface, it seems likely that the driver is simply an unethical person who is abusing his customers' trust for money and/or fame.

<comment><USER5> I feel some very valid assumptions about an uber driver were made in the initial comment, that might explain this behaviour. These comments were made with regards to his income situation.

I agree with you though that it might not be for making money, but just because the driver is a morally bad individual.

A much more likely scenario than him being a bad actor is that he might've thought he had found a hole in the market that would bring him 15 minutes of fame, and that's where his rational and moral thoughts went out the window.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I do not agree with streaming but there are a LOT of uber and lyft drivers that now use cameras which record the interior of the car. If you pick up a lot of drunk people inevitably a bunch of them are going to be assholes, pick fights, claim sexual harassment when there was none, vomit in the back of the car and then deny the cleaning charge, etc. I do not envy the "dealing with the random public" part that full time uber/lyft drivers have to handle.

<comment><USER7> If you warn them that they are recorded then it would be ok. But, as the article states, many people refuse to ride in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Some videos are still up: [https://www.twitch.tv/justsmurf/videos/all](https://www.twitch.tv/justsmurf/videos/all)

Creepy as fuck to be honest

<comment><USER9> I think "creepy" is one of the least interesting arguments someone can have. Plenty of things are creepy, and the word "creepy" itself falls into the same category as "offensive" or other very subjective accusations.

"Creepy" is not a good argument. What's offensive to you is normal to me, what's creepy to me is normal to you.

<comment><USER7> It is a violation of rights of people captured in the video. What is creepy for you is not very relevant here.

<comment><USER10> I want to understand why you think it's a violation of rights of people in the video. Because to me, it doesn't seem clear cut at all.

Is it a policy violation of Uber/Lyft? That doesn't seem like the case because there are other drivers that livestream uber rides.

Is it a violation of reasonable expectation to privacy when you're in someone else's vehicle? Because that's not necessarily a given, since you're in someone else's vehicle.

Is it because it's being live streamed and recorded on a site like twitch? Because it seems to me that if someone can legally record video, it's their copyright, and they can distribute it however they want to.

What am I missing?

<comment><USER7> Because I think that people have a right not to be secretly filmed let alone being published on the Internet. For me it seems a natural thing that doesn't need explanation.

> a violation of reasonable expectation to privacy

Probably. The customers expected that they just take a ride and are not being filmed. They don't expect that their face will be published on the Internet so that anyone can find their social network page and learn who they are.

> if someone can legally record video, it's their copyright, and they can > distribute it however they want to.

It should not be this way. Wikipedia says that in some countries there are laws against this [1]. Of course, some laws could be written before Internet become popular so they need adaptation.

This article [2] also mentions that surveillance can be regulated by laws.

Finally, there are personality rights [3] although they are related to commercial activity.

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

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

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

<comment><USER10> Thanks for replying.

I think there's a wide gulf between what people estimate their rights to be and their actual rights granted to them by law.

I understand your sentiment with not having your image spread throughout the internet without your permission, but asking for that right would break journalism.

I'd be up for a fix so long as it doesn't create criminals of both professional photographers and tourists livestreaming on times square, say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone have a feeling for what the GDPR fine would be, if this had taken place in Europe? The number of people affected is fairly small, but this isn't the usual negligence or incompetence.

(Ironically, the site is geoblocked for the EU.)

<comment><USER12> In England it'd be a letter ("Information notice") from the regulator explaining that this use needs to be registered.

After that it'd be fine of about a few thousand pounds. Here's the ICO page for enforcement action: [https://ico.org.uk/action-weve- taken/enforcement/](https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/)

Here's a CCTV case (without further publishing): [https://ico.org.uk/action- weve-taken/enforcement/noble-desig...](https://ico.org.uk/action-weve- taken/enforcement/noble-design-and-build-of-telford/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If a passenger who is a minor exposed themself to the camera, would the driver the liable for producing (and distributing) child pornography, if they somehow didn't notice and let it be posted?

<comment><USER14> Technically, it is against policy to transport minors under 18; that's up to the driver.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Cowardly behaviour to hide behind the "it's legal" line. If the majority of your passengers, who don't know they're on camera, think this is creepy then ethically you're in the wrong.

</comment><comment><USER16> This would never happen in Canada... our data rates are too outrageous to make this viable.

</comment><comment><USER14> I drive for Uber as a mental and emotional health break between contracts.

Uber partners do not have to accept every request. In fact, I don't accept any passenger with a low score. As it turns out, there's no shortage of passengers in San Francisco. Be nice to your driver!

Most passengers appear to be completely unaware that it is a "privilege" for a passenger to ride in my car, (not a "right")

Resultingly, a very small group of terrible passengers feel that their abusive behavior towards others or my property is justified.

With informed consent, I do indeed record all activity in and out of the car.

If it starts to get abusive I will simply end the ride when and where it is safe to do so.

When one enters my car, they're inside my privately owned vehicle. If they don't like being recorded - They can probably easily find a ride with a different driver.

Of course, everybody I drive seems to be OK with this arrangement, as my driver score is 4.99 stars.

This is what I have written / posted: ——————————

First, welcome to my car!

If you're reasonable, decent, empathetic human who understands how painful it is for me to have to write the following informed consent disclaimer, thanks.

You are appreciated, friend.

• This car is equipped with video capture and broadcast devices.

• This equipment protects you (the passenger), Joshua (the driver), and the vehicle from a "He Said - She Said" scenario in the event of accident or an incident.

• In California, video recording does not require two party consent; only "informed consent" I.e me informing you - which this just did.

• There is no audio recording - that would require your consent.

• In addition, an abbreviated notice of active filming has been posted on all exterior passenger windows.

• If at any time you feel uncomfortable with video being captured, please inform me as soon as possible. We will work together to find a agreeable safe place to promptly end this trip. You will only be charged for the partial trip. Note that video capture and recording will continue in the event of a rapid escalation of hostilities.

Thanks for understanding!

<comment><USER17> I doubt that will qualify as "informed consent" for those not literate in English or the vision-impaired.

<comment><USER14> True, but my legal obligation has been fulfilled.

CA Government doesn't require me to cover every use case for the recording law as it applies to every camera recording the public.

<comment><USER18> Just curious, so if a potential passenger were unhappy with the recording (I wouldn't care FWIW) do you just cancel the trip before they ride or mark them as a no show?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> He's been suspended from Twitch and Uber — [https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2018/07/21/creepy-s...](https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2018/07/21/creepy- st-louis-uber-driver-who-livestreams-his-passengers-suspended-on-twitch).

</comment><comment><USER20> This is seriously not OK. I guess I'm going to have to carry around a hat or something and keep my head down whenever I get into a Lyft. It might be legal, but it's truly not OK especially when people don't know they are being streamed live. I hope Uber wises up and does something about this guy.

</comment><comment><USER21> This guy is one indecent exposure instance away from potentially serious legal issues.

</comment><comment><USER22> Update - When first asked to comment on the story Uber said the following: "Recording passengers without their consent is illegal in some states, but not Missouri."

Then around 7 pm they suspended the drivers access to the app pending investigation. They just affirmed what he's doing is not illegal. So is the investigation time being used so their lawyers can find a valid excuse to terminate him?

</comment><comment><USER7> What surprised me most is not the poor culture of the driver or the viewers but rather poor legislation in USA. They have the right to bear arms, but have no sane protection for privacy.

For comparison. on Japanese TV when they take an interview in the street, they hide the faces of unrelated people passing by. That's the example of sane legislation.

<comment><USER23> The US Govt surprisingly has very lax laws towards privacy. I guess you can't build a govt for the people when corporate money runs the system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Reminds me of the Ryan Is Driving YouTube channel from Charleston: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKhK5Ysw9DpHNNEVSAu0yIA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKhK5Ysw9DpHNNEVSAu0yIA)

He tends to blur out faces, except for extraordinary circumstances.

</comment><comment><USER24> Ring doorbell cameras record without consent, and can be shared via their neighborhood feature. Uber vehicles, like homes with Ring cameras, are private property. Aside from Uber serving as a middleman between private citizens and private property, what's the difference?

<comment><USER25> For one thing, doorbell cameras aren't generally streamed to the entire world.

<comment><USER26> would it make a difference if they were?

<comment><USER27> Yeah I think so. Also if someone is clearly profiting from my privacy breach I'm going to be further upset.

Mind you I often, when going to people's houses ask them to turn off their Alexa or whatever and they're pretty happy to.

Hidden trigger phrases or targeted spying are a real hard to discover possibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> By the way an adequate response would be to publish driver's full name, photo and address and tell the story on the local news. So that everyone around knows who he is and he can better understand how victims felt.

</comment><comment><USER28> What is the expectation of privacy in a vehicle in a public place, according to the law?

I'm not weighing in on what it _should_ be - not being a lawyer I'm curious what the law or precedent dictates.

<comment><USER29> I think the fact that he is making money from the videos puts the situation into a different category, so that publicity rights come into play ...

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Insane! The driver wants his privacy respected by not having reporters include his full name in the stories...

</comment><comment><USER31> Of course this dude is trying to be a cop.

</comment><comment><USER32> Remind me, why do people favor Uber over a taxi?

<comment><USER33> In NYC, I'll take a cab. Just about everywhere else in America I get a Lyft. Why? Because taxi dispatch sucks. The cabs never come, or they come very late. The dispatch operators are rude if you ask where the cab you called is. In some places, like Albany, NY, the cabs will take detours to pick up other passengers without asking you or telling you that's what will happen. Etc.

If you live in most of America, and want to get somewhere, and the public transit sucks, Lyft gets you there. Taxis just don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> You know this episode of Black Mirror with Hamm...? Nevermind

</comment><comment><USER35> Am I the only one who has no problem with this? You're in someone else's car. Of course that person has a right to record you. And freedom of the press is a crucial cornerstone of a democratic state. Of course this person has a right to publish anything they please.

This is just journalism paired with a new and novel social and technological configuration. Nothing more.

Meanwhile, _actual_ eavesdropping-style surveillance is ongoing via state institutions. Are we perhaps bothered by our conscience a bit here?

<comment><USER25> > _Am I the only one who has no problem with this? You 're in someone else's > car. Of course that person has a right to record you. And freedom of the > press is a crucial cornerstone of a democratic state. Of course this person > has a right to publish anything they please._

Is there a name for the fallacy that says "anything not actually illegal must therefore be morally correct"?

<comment><USER35> I wasn't making the case that it's merely _legal_ and therefore OK - it's actually novel and interesting IMO. What's so wrong with it?

<comment><USER12> It's neither novel nor interesting, and other countries have already regulated this.

For example, in England you're allowed to use CCTV but you need to register with ICO and you can only use that video for law enforcement purposes - eg if someone vomits in your car you could use the video when you sue that person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This guy is a veteran?!! What a shame, that someone sworn to protect Americans now cowers behind semantics and loopholes to exploit their trust!! Clearly ridership dropped on notifying them of the streaming, no excuse can hide the truth here - he wants to exploit their trust!

For shame! And unlike the proud, honest veterans who actually care for Americans!

Edit: any lawyers here? Can this become a federal wiretapping case, as twitch streams across state lines? Like gambling online relies on meaningless semantics of being within a state that allows for such?

<comment><USER36> I'm not a veteran, but I did take the oath of office. To me, the oath that I swore to uphold is to defend American government institutions (and particularly the agency I worked for) against foreign and domestic enemies. My oath doesn't mean I have any special commitments to _individual_ American citizens acting in an individual capacity.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, semantics.

Wherever Americans specifically call out their gratitude for veteran's service, they're not thanking them for their allegiance to government institutions that may or may not be on their side. They specifically perceive veterans to be selflessly protecting 'the people'</comment></comment></comment>


How To: Raise Money in a Down Economy - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2009/01/02/how-to-raise-money/

<comment><USER2> Neat post!</comment>


Push programming language and genetic programming system implemented in Clojure - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lspector/Clojush <comment><USER2> Incidentally, I implemented PUSH in Clojure myself, several years ago. The language is well designed, it's a good match for genetic algorithms — you need something which is interpretable after mutations, and very few languages provide that.

I learned a lot about Clojure performance while doing that work. It's funny how most of that knowledge is now obsolete anyway (because both Clojure and the JVM evolved so much).

</comment><comment><USER3> I've always figured that GP ought to be able to solve any problem, given sufficient computing power. Yet it's never mentioned when people talk about machine learning. Why is that?

Also, I'd love to hear anyone's experience with GP to solve a practical problem - whatever language it was in.

<comment><USER4> Many of the "human-competitive" results that have received "Humies" awards ([http://www.genetic-programming.org/combined.php](http://www.genetic- programming.org/combined.php)) used GP. Some colleagues and I surveyed the first 10 years of Humies results in terms of techniques used and other factors; preprint here: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/tjpa6afxqibwnno/Anaylzing_the_HUMI...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/tjpa6afxqibwnno/Anaylzing_the_HUMIES.pdf).

In what I think is another exciting development (although I'm biased -- I was his advisor), Tom Helmuth just finished his PhD at UMass using GP (and Clojush) for automatic programming, automatically synthesizing programs for first-year computer science assignments (abstract: [https://www.cics.umass.edu/speakers/thomas- helmuth/2015/jul/...](https://www.cics.umass.edu/speakers/thomas- helmuth/2015/jul/27)). This is just the tip of an iceberg, but it's a big iceberg.

As for why GP is rarely mentioned when people talk about machine learning, I think there are a couple of reasons, but one important one is that GP usually shines the brightest on different kinds of problems than other ML techniques are applied to. If you put them head to head on a problem to which other ML techniques can be easily applied then GP will probably lose. But GP can succeed on problems for which it's not at all clear how one would even begin to apply most other ML techniques.

<comment><USER5> I agree with all of that, but it's also important to note that simulated annealing also fills in a lot of those voids, and when it fits, is typically far more efficient than GP.

So that narrows the application space further.

GP is fascinating on the right kind of problem.</comment></comment></comment>


First October snow since 1922 blankets London as global warming bill debated - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/29/commons_climate_change_bill/ <comment><USER2> Anectoda: yesterday it snowed in New York as well. Last year at this time it was rather warm, until winter cold came suddenly by early november.

The article cites public polls as a source of information regarding global warming. Reminds me of the sequel of Dog Ville, where the time is decided by public voting, with terrible consequences.</comment>


32 bit version of KDB+ is now free for commercial use - <AUTHOR> http://kx.com/press-releases-140402.php <comment><USER2> Ck out Arthur Whitney's abridged manual for fun:

[http://kx.com/q/d/kdb+.htm](http://kx.com/q/d/kdb+.htm)

For using the 32-bit version (from Limits):

22 Limits

Each database runs in memory and/or disk map-on-demand -- possibly partitioned. There is no limit on the size of a partitioned database but on 32-bit systems the main memory OLTP portion of a database is limited to about 1GB of raw data, i.e. 1/4 of the address space. The raw data of a main memory 64bit process should be limited to about 1/2 of available RAM.

</comment><comment><USER3> This has come up before here, and the recent GNU APL stuff reminded me, but in summary, if you have ever been curious about APL or mildly suspicious of more conventional database approaches you owe it to yourself to take a look at the concepts at work here, especially primacy to columns instead of rows.

The & "where" operator in raw k has stayed with me over the years as a particularly inspired way to deal with column based data.

<comment><USER4> For those of you curious about array-based / columnar programming languages, there's an APL/J/K reddit: [http://www.reddit.com/r/apljk](http://www.reddit.com/r/apljk)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Careful with these guys. I once built an open source implementation of the q language, and these guys immediately threatened to sue me, my employer, and our clients. The language is not that interesting, it's easy to reproduce, and these guys will threaten you if you prove this.

<comment><USER6> > The language is not that interesting

I would say the language is very interesting. It is probably not interesting enough to get sued for, though ....

I suspect times have changed - there are implementations that have been out there for years ([https://github.com/kevinlawler/kona](https://github.com/kevinlawler/kona) implements k3 with sprinkles of k4, and [http://althenia.net/kuc](http://althenia.net/kuc) implements an almost-k4 with a JIT and writable closures).

IIRC, when you did your implementation it was when k4 was still a "technology preview" and not their main product (or was just released) - I remember understanding the panic in those action, even though I totally disagree with them. (I didn't know about the threats, but I do remember seeing it appear and disappear within a day, and assumed something was happening behind the scenes)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For the unindoctrinated, KDB+ is an extremely fast, column oriented, in-memory database. It's based on a language called Q and has been used at many banks to store exchange related data.

<comment><USER8> Syntax is hard to read and easy to make mistakes in considering how it overloads every letter of the alphabet as a command, but the extreme speed pays off I think.

<comment><USER9> K is only hard if you try to read it without first studying it. Looping is achieved through adverbs. The key to it is understanding what is a noun (data), verb (operator/function) and adverb (takes a verb, creates a new verb to be used infix). A verb with a noun to its right is a dyad if there is also a noun to its left, and is otherwise a monad. If it is needed, the monad can be specified by appending a colon to the right of the symbol. Fortunately, most kdb+ developers program in Q, which has a bunch of helper routines defined in k, and assigns monads to names such as neg x instead of -:x.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For anyone trying this out for the first time, Jeff Borror's q for mortals is the best guide out there [http://code.kx.com/wiki/JB:QforMortals2/contents](http://code.kx.com/wiki/JB:QforMortals2/contents)

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure about the Q language, but their C API reads like obfuscated C contest entry: [http://kx.com/q/c/c/k.h](http://kx.com/q/c/c/k.h)

<comment><USER9> If you look closely at it, there's not much there - it's actually easy to understand - defines a variant struct and an bunch of accessors to the different types within the embedded union. He prefers short names, and finally years later, java recommends short variable names for lambdas too!

<comment><USER12> So, I guess I need to look closer than the pixels then:

typedef struct k0{signed char m,a,t;C u;I r;union{G g;H h;I i;J j;E e;F f;S s;struct k0 _k;struct{J n;G G0[1];};};}_ K;

Sorry I guess I'm just not seeing the "not much there and actually easy to understand"

Whatever a 'H' is

<comment><USER6> Well, it is kind of pointless to look at the K<->C interface without knowing K. If you read the Python.h it would be about as understandable (assume you don't know what a "class" is when studying the Python.h file - because K does a lot of things in ways different enough from most languages).

To elaborate: K uses one letter mnemonic codes for all of it's basic storage types:

        G = General = 8-bit unsigned int
        H = sHort = 16-bit signed int
        I = Integer = 32-bit signed int
        J = bigger integer = 64-bit signed int

(Note how G,H,I,J follow each other?)

        E = 32-bit floating point "rEal"
        F = 64-bit Floating point

(Again, they are near each other)

        S = Symbol
        K = "general list type", the central K language type

And that's mostly it; the last unnamed union (with fields "n" and "G0") is for vectors, n being the length and G0 being the data.

The only other field you are ever going to need is "t" for type (saying whether which union member is actually in use). The rest are internal implementation details, but are also easy to remember: r=reference count; u=flags; m and a have something to do with memory mapping and allocation).

There are a few more basic types: b=boolean, t=time,d=date,p=datetime,u=month - but they are merely different interpretations of the EFGHIJSK members above; to access data from C, all you need is the list given above.

<comment><USER12> interesting.

My thoughts on this area have changed a bunch, I think when I was young I was a lot more about cleverness and conciseness.

Now that I'm older and I've worked on a large variety of software systems, I am starting to believe that readability of code is one of the most important values. After all, you read the code a lot more than you write it.

I can say definitively that: \- i have often regretted using single letter variables (outside of loop 'i') \- I have very regretted using non-descriptive names \- I have never regretted using longer variable/method names

Now a days in an IDE environment, longer names doesn't even convey a typing penalty. Yeah yeah I know Java, but it's a safe language, and in a world where I want to deliver working, correct, bug free code, safety is more important than single letter expressiveness.

After all, I don't think people hold up APL as good code.

<comment><USER6> > My thoughts on this area have changed a bunch, I think when I was young I > was a lot more about cleverness and conciseness.

I'm almost the other way around. I always valued elegance, which often manifests itself in conciseness (but most conciseness is NOT an example of elegance). Followed by readability, which usually manifests itself in verbosity (though most verbosity is NOT actually readable). And when decision time came, I'd prefer verbose inelegant code to non-verbose concise code.

But then, I spent some time using K. And I realized I need 100-1000 times less lines to achieve the same thing, AND it usually works about as fast (despite an interpreter), AND I have less bugs AND those bugs tend to be of one kind (off-by-one) and easy to find.

e.g., look at this example by Stevan Apter: [http://nsl.com/k/t.k](http://nsl.com/k/t.k) \- 14 short lines implement an efficient (fast and memory compact) memory database than includes joins, selects, inserts, deletes, aggregates, grouping and sorting.

To the uninitiated, it looks like code golf, but this is actually very readable K if you know K. The definition order:where:{[t;f;o]{x y z x}/[_n;o;t f]} gives two names ("order" and "where") to an idiomatic K expression that takes a table "t", and paired lists "f" (of field names) and "o" (of re-index functions that can be used to filter or sort), and returns the resulting table after reindexing, one by one, applying those functions to their relevant fields. A sorting function would be "desc:>:" (that is, ">:" hereforth also named "desc") which returns a sorting permutation for its argument. A filtering function would be "&3>" (prnounced "where 3 is larger than" and can be written "where 3>" in the Q dialect).

Now, this conciseness does NOT come from golfing. It comes from eschewing the now obligatory object oriented programming, sticking with "down to the metal" data types, and rather than trying to find the minimal base of operations and endless compositions (like most languages do), use a wide base of operations and a precisely chosen set of compositions.

It is true that reading/writing a K line takes 10-50 times as long as reading a C line. But I've been unable to consider modern software engineering anything but ludicrous when a different set of primitives (and experience) can get you the same results for 1/100 or 1/1000 of the size of the executable specification, and everyone puts a SEP field on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Currently using MongoDB for my historical quotes ticks database. Any peeps in trading use KDB+ in production or for fun think it's expressive enough to write queries directly to it for backtesting?

</comment><comment><USER14> Except financial applications what is it good for ?

<comment><AUTHOR> This would actually make a terrific replacement for something like redis when you need a more structured schema.

The q language is very powerful, and expressive - interesting mix of lisp and APL. You can do really powerful analytics without writing tons of code for it.

You really have to see how fast KDB is compared to most nosql products out there.

<comment><USER15> Are there any open source projects or blog posts with examples of this?

<comment><USER7> They have a reference wiki with some example programs. Have a look at this page: [http://code.kx.com/wiki/Cookbook/ProgrammingExamples](http://code.kx.com/wiki/Cookbook/ProgrammingExamples)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amateur Sleuths Aim to Identify Charlottesville Marchers, but Sometimes Misfire - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/us/charlottesville-doxxing.html <comment><USER2> In no uncertain terms this is libel when they misfire. This is not a crime but it is a tort. Those who have been libeled on twitter and other written mediums (or slandered on Youtube, for example) should take immediate and full action prosecuting those that offended. Fierce civil punishment should be put forth to discourage this type of discourse in a lawful society.

We have laws for this kind of stuff.

Saying that, those that were properly identified should be willing to face the consequences of their repugnant actions. If that's not desirable then simply reject associating yourself with an uncivilized public mob of any sort.

<comment><USER3> It's a crime if the accusations are accompanied by any sort of call to violence against the accused.

<comment><USER4> Accusations of being a Nazi are inherently a call to violence. The amount of "bash the fash" and "it's O.K. to punch Nazis" means that people can reasonably expect violence to be inflicted on folks named-and-shamed as fascist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is no different than vigilante justice and could easily get innocent people in a lot more trouble than it would be worth for a guilty party to walk without being id'd. I sincerely hope the authorities will throw the book at those that go about this in a half assed way and cause actual damage.

<comment><USER6> It's coming.. I fear this is the end of this terrible moment in our history. Something will happen, and then the mob, be it the right, or the left, but possibly both, will mobilize and people will begin killing one another. A true riot like we've never seen. I am afraid, but resolved that it will likely take death and destruction before society gets a collective slap of sense.

<comment><USER5> I fear with you but hope that cooler heads will prevail before then. Way too much frustration has been building up it needs some kind of release but I'd rather not see war or civil war. Even a 'true riot' I'd rather avoid.

The problem is that a 'true riot' could easily be the spark that provides the activation energy for a 'true civil war'.

Most of these things are about activation levels being crossed and then there is really almost no way back.

<comment><USER7> I don't think a civil war is possible.

<comment><USER8> I think it would require the military to become divided.

This seems unlikely.

<comment><USER5> That depends on who heads up the military. And that could be a bit of a problem with the present day leader.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Most humans get enjoyment from hurting others at a base level, but decent people try not do it because of a higher level of functioning and because of cultural values.

Unfortunately many parts of society, accept/encourage this behavior in certain situations. (IE the way smokers are treated by many people, what a turn culture has had there)

Even if it was him, he should not have been doxxed. A decent human would try and help him if he was wrong and it also sets us up for a decent society.

This conversation really should not be around guilt or innocence, it should be around doxxing and attacking individuals.

Stick to zombie movies. That's what they are there for, we get to hurt 'people' but not 'real' people.

</comment><comment><USER10> Misfire is an under statement.

Ruining the lives of innocent people because of mob bloodlust is wrong.

Hopefully the doxxers get sued for defamation.

<comment><USER11> Twitter has shown that they can and do exert control over what's posted on their platform. No service provider immunity for them, they're aiding and abetting this. They need to get sued, too.

<comment><USER2> The law specifically says they are not liable. Either is someone who perpetuates the info by retweeting, for instance.

However if you modify the retweet at all then you too can be held liable.

<comment><USER11> The law states they are not liable as long as they do not demonstrate effective control on what happens with their service. They have demonstrated that they do indeed control what happens on their service, and what gets posted there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nothing was learned, apparently, from the massive misidentification lynch mob on Reddit in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing.

</comment><comment><USER6> There was an interesting book recently called "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" by Jon Ronson which explored what happened when the mob mentality doxxed someone, for better or for worse. I think this unfortunate situation is clear evidence that you should avoid publishing your photo, and personal details online, and do all that you can to build a firewall against the casual mob.

<comment><USER13> That sounds like cure worse than the disease. So I can't share my memories with friends, can't have normal public presentation for work, can't speak publicly and have public persona to communicate with others - out of fear that one day a mob of idiots could randomly target me for something I didn't do because some idiot published something on some idiotic forum? Is that really a way to live?

<comment><USER14> As someone who has been doxxed, ridiculed, harrassed, hacked etc

I can absolutely confirm that life is better now outside of the public eye and I am very glad that google searches of my name has dropped off over the years

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Dude himself has been doxxed by 4chan already, and confirmed his identity on TV. I figure that twitter account has at most couple of weeks of life left in it, until the wrongfully accused serve the guy with legal paperwork. Just to save you a search: [https://twitter.com/LoganJames](https://twitter.com/LoganJames)

<comment><USER16> Doxxing works both way. Without some brain gymnastics, it is hard to persuade oneself that some cases of doxxing are good, while others are bad.

<comment><USER17> Is it doxxing to provide a tip to law enforcement?

(An indictment would end up having the person publicly identified with the actions in the indictment)

<comment><USER18> No. Doxxing quite specifically is the PUBLIC disclosure of personal details.

<comment><USER17> Yes, note the parenthetical. Police generally publicly disclose the names of people that are charged with crimes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> But hey, remember kids, it's just a bit of unfortunate collateral damage, totally justified when you gotta punch a nazi. After all, punching nazis worked well in the 40s.

/s

</comment><comment><USER20> "The internet vigilantes claimed some successes over the weekend. One rally participant, Cole White, was fired from his job at a hot dog restaurant in Berkeley, Calif."

Hmm.. so is that actually a win?

What is wrong with people? I seriously want to know. Both sides. How dumb do you have to be to march around with torches across the country because they are going to take down a statue of a Confederate general. And how much dumber have you got that you to be to try to prevent people from expressing themselves. Let them have a ball, march around all night with torches if they so please. Then buy a plane ticket home after the statue gets taken down having accomplished nothing but being a laughable buffoon. Why does it have to degenerate to intolerance and shocking stupidity in all directions? Has humanity always been like this? Or is it just spoiled moderns who don't live in the real world and think little tiny stuff is worth getting in a huff about because the vacuum of modern life has removed real problems from their conception? Anyway, the whole thing is disturbing. And unbelievable in juvenile foolishness. Very hard time conceiving what either side hopes to get out of their behavior here. The solution to people acting silly isn't to act silly yourself. It's laughter.

<comment><USER21> I understand people wanting to keep what they consider part of their history.

If it was just for the pure symbolism or credentials of the person represented, shouldn't the Seattle Lenin statue be removed too?

<comment><USER22> Lenin wasn't the proximate cause of generational misery for an entire community of Americans (and yes, I realise there is also a sizeable group of escapees from Soviet communism here, but I hope that I don't have to point out the obvious differences in scale and effect).

<comment><USER23> As a Lithuanian-American, I'm appalled that you would shrug off the hate implicit in that statue.

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

"Deportations of the civilians served a double purpose: repressing resistance to Sovietization policies in Lithuania and providing free labor in sparsely inhabited areas of the Soviet Union."

<comment><USER22> While I certainly wouldn't 'shrug off' anything, there is a very material difference between a privately held statue to a foreign historical figure with a ruinous effect on a large segment of the world's populations and a public commemoration of an actual traitor to the nation, responsible for attempting to defend the actual enslavement of a large population of Americans. Especially when the main utility of the former in this context appears to be to distract from the latter.

<comment><USER23> If it is a distraction to the latter, then shouldn't it come down? Next, you're going to defend the Gandhi statue on the Embarcadero in San Francisco, I suppose!

[http://www.gandhism.org/san-francisco/](http://www.gandhism.org/san- francisco/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Boston Marathon all over again...

</comment><comment><USER24> These people have to stop. They are the first to complain about doxxing and the first to label others as violent. But they themselves turn around and are violent and actively pursue doxxing.

Can you imagine how outraged these same people would be if the right doxxed people who attended LGBT parade and got them fired?

Also, their behavior isn't helping. It's just giving the right more power, attention and sympathy.

Honestly, if it wasn't for the extreme left going crazy over these marches, nobody would have cared. Let them have their silly marches. But they can't because they want attention and notoriety just like these marchers.

<comment><USER25> Attending a LGBT parade and attending a white supremacy rally are not equivalent.

<comment><USER24> Depends on where you are in the world. In many places around the world, attending an LGBT parade will get you fired, arrested and even killed.

I'm not saying they are morally "equal". I'm just pointing out why we have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and rights.

Even in the US, 50 years ago, attending an LGBT parade would have been far more damaging than attending a white supremacy rally.

The point is that having rights and protecting everyone's rights is what is important. Even those of white supremacists.

Otherwise, rights are meaningless and we just have tyranny of the majority or public opinion.</comment></comment></comment>


Grand Central To (Finally) Launch As Google Voice. It's Very, Very Good. - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/11/grand-central-to-finally-launch-as-google-voice-its-very-very-good/ <comment><USER5> > _GrandCentral will also remain solely a U.S. service._

Alright, I am now adding Google Voice to my (Canadian) technology waiting list along with:

Amazon Kindle, Skype Inbound #, Mint.com and Braintree Gateway.

<comment><USER6> and Hulu! and Google Checkout...

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure that Hulu's problem is the fraking CRTC's CanCon laws.

<comment><USER8> I don't understand how youtube would be allowed but Hulu wouldn't. The real problem is that all the content is licensed regionally; Hulu has the rights to content in the US but not Canada. And we're probably just not worth the hassle.

So much for the World Wide Web; I feel like it's getting more regional every day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been using Grancentral ever since it was aquired by google, and its been great.

The main use was so that I didn't have to give out my personal cell phone number for work, and so that I didn't have to carry a second phone.

Having a separate voicemail box just for work has been great, and I've even used the call recording feature when someone was giving me very important detailed instructions.

No concerns with spam, and I haven't noticed any downtime, so I'd recommend it.

Would love to see more integration so I don't have a whole separate address book in Grandcentral...

<comment><USER10> I've been using my GC# in a similar manner and its been a great experience. The call log and the ability to filter #'s is a good way to categorize and 'file' my phone calls - And I really like the new UI too!

I was skeptical at first when GC launched (mainly having to give out a new number), but once you properly configure your settings and start getting phone calls you start realizing the service's usefulness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how this will integrate with Android. I suspect soon they will have a feature to use grandcentral voice mail, then I will get the fancy visual voice mail but with the text underneath.

Awesome.

<comment><USER12> I've been using G1 Central on my phone for a couple weeks now to make free calls. It's pretty awesome. Visual voicemail works great (minus the app downloading the voicemails to your sd card) and being able to sort everything online is really nice too. I'm hoping we get an official Google voice app with the cupcake update thats coming in April.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> So i can't imagine why they made this a free service. I think that a lot of people would be willing to pay a reasonable price for this. I know i would(if i was in the US).

Missed opportunity? Or a lack of vision from my part?

<comment><USER14> A lot of the Google technology is based on statistical analysis, which only really works well for huge data sets. Accordingly, a lot of Google's services exist so that Google can build giant data sets based on your use. As far as I know, Google records (or can reconstruct) every single byte that you send/receive through its services except for a few of your IP address, in order to build these data sets. For example, Google Reader is free so that Google can collect attention data. Google Analytics is free for the same reason. Google's 411 service is designed to collect voice data to fine-tune its voice-to-text engine.

Some of those services also provide a platform for presenting the user with tiny classified ads, which is an additional revenue stream for them. Finally, some services are offered for free with no SLA and no customer support in order to stress-test the paid versions of those same products (Google Apps, Gmail).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "About damn time."

Gmail integration will be the killer feature here.

<comment><USER16> Has anyone checked out the TOS of this thing? I'm a pretty connected guy, and I don't mind technology infusing with my lifestyle, but where does the line get drawn?

With Google Voice, they now have access to every bit of your private life. Even if they are a "don't be evil" company, that doesn't exactly sit well. I'm surprised there hasn't been more _negative_ press about this addition. Those wire-tapping cases got massive amounts of attention in all the major media outlets.

I'm not a paranoid person, but wow. I'm definitely staying away regardless if it makes things more convenient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> <https://www.google.com/voice/about> has a bunch of videos showing off the new features.

I must say, the new interface looks like a nice improvement over GC - <USER2> I'd love to see integration with my Gmail Inbox (Gmail Labs, anyone?)

</comment><comment><USER18> _One phone number for all your phones, for life._

I already have that. It's called a cellphone.

<comment><USER19> I don't get it... I'd rather prefer unlimited phone numbers for some of my phones.

What if you give your phone number to the wrong people? They'll keep calling you. You might be able to filter out some, but they can always call from another number (think phone spam).

I'd rather have the option to generate new phone numbers and give one number to each person / 'community'. Then if I quit my job I can just filter away all people calling me on my job number.

That's also why people use multiple email addresses, or plus addressing.

<comment><USER20> Except your standard 10 digit phone number scheme only allows 10 billion numbers... which isn't exactly a big enough space to allow you to generate new phone numbers whenever you want.

The idea is kind of cool though... like generating one-time-use credit card numbers for dodgy e-commerce sites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> CNET News posted a more in-depth article <http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10194446-2.html> and gave an answer to a question i had: can i port a number to Google Voice? (No, not yet.)

<comment><USER22> Cell phone companies have to port numbers between carriers, I wonder why Google can't do it? I would be all over this if I could keep my cell phone number...

<comment><USER23> I suspect like Skype they are being careful not to claim they are a telco - <USER3> they don't get hit with all the regulation and requirements stuff that real phone companies have. At the moment they are treated like those companies that sell cheap international calling cards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Please tell me this will finally kill SMS, at least in that an incoming SMS can just be routed to my gmail and I can designate an outgoing email as an SMS...

Of course I'd rather have end to end mobile email with instant (configurable) notification.

<comment><USER25> I'm with you. The SMS feature would still be useful if your contacts still use it. Or if you are the one stuck with SMS, route that as an email (assuming the recipient does not use Google Voice).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> it doesn't sound like they've solved one of the bigger single phone number issues: people still have to know my mobile phone number because when I dial direct from my mobile phone, I cannot get my Grand Central number of come up as my caller ID number (the best I can tell anyway and for obvious reasons).

<comment><USER27> You can- 1) If you initiate a call via browser from GC's site, you have the option of making the number of your choice (your GC or cell/land #) or 2) if you use GrandDialler app on iPhone, it too can make the call with your GC # as the source

edit- forgot to add, there is vocito app (<http://code.google.com/p/vocito/>) for mac

<comment><USER17> In addition, there's now an option when you dial your Google Voice number to just dial directly - the "Place Calls" video at <https://www.google.com/voice/about> demos it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hi, this is Google Voice. It sounds like you and your friend are talking about Widgets. Here's a list of widget retailers you may be interested in. Press the 2 button to hear more about Acme Widget company. Press 3 to hear about Joe Widget and Sons...

Acme widgets are currently $2.99, press 4 to enter your credit card number and purchase widgets directly from Acme widget company. How many widgets would you like to order? Please enter the number of widgets followed by the pound sign...

</comment><comment><USER29> > _We have 100 Google Voice accounts to give out to readers, but you must have > a gmail account. If you'd like one, please send an email from your gmail > account to email@example.com (note that this isn't an account we check > regularly) with the exact subject "Google Voice Account" - the first 100 > will get an account invitation from Google._

</comment><comment><USER30> How annoying, I signed up with the beta link to be notified probably over a year ago, I am sure others have as well. But a bunch of random tech crunch people get invites instead of the people who signed up so long ago?

</comment><comment><USER31> Transcripted voice mail? I wonder how well that will work out (looks good in the screenshots on techchrunch but are those real). Next step would be to do to this for ordinary phone calls as well and integrate them with Gmail, so you'd have a "Phone Calls" link like you have "Chats", with gmail search being able to find those.

That might be awesome for a business though perhaps unfcomfortably transparent.

<comment><USER32> These people <http://www.spinvox.com/> do exactly that. The answer is that it works quite well, but maybe not well enough to rely upon. It struggles with people's names, jargon and noisy environments as you might imagine. Also there's been a few occasions where it missed a vital word and changed the whole sense of the message "Hi, I'm calling to let you know I'm going to be at the station tonight as planned" - missing a NOT. Ooops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Does anyone familiar with the service know how the Google Voice number you're assigned works with long distance providers? I've been using my cell phone as my primary phone for a long time now and get free (domestic) long distance but if someone who pays extra for long distance tries to call my Google Voice number would it be considered long distance even if they're local to me?

</comment><comment><USER34> Oh man, I have a GrandCentral account from right before the acquisition. My number gets a lot of voicemails from collections agencies. For a while I had it forwarded to my office number, and something in the process must have confused their autodialers, because I'd get at least one dead call a week.

I never thought to sell the account on eBay!

<comment><USER35> I'm wondering if it's worth trying, or if I'll get scammed... does anyone have experience with this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> My favorite feature of GrandCentral is that you listen in while the voicemail is being recorded and then jump in at any moment.

</comment><comment><USER37> any word on how to port existing grandcentral account to google voice ? - <USER4> wish i could delete this now.. but i see a big upgrade me link now.. last night was not there sorry

</comment><comment><USER26> anyone come across instructions for upgrading a grand central account to a google voice account yet?

</comment><comment><USER38> Really need a /ignore techcrunch.com article filter for HN.

Yeah, I know it displays here on the HTML page displayed in my browser, but it doesn't show in my RSS reader (Google Reader).

<comment><USER39> This was a useful, informative article. TechCrunch writes a lot of shitty things. This wasn't one of them.

I'm fine with TechCrunch rants, but unless you've got something interesting to say beyond "I dislike TechCrunch," save it, ignore the article, and move on.</comment></comment>