Hearts on Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://blog.twitter.com/2015/hearts-on-twitter <comment><USER2> Twitter lost the plot. Oh look, riots in Istabul. Four people injured. I guess I'd better heart that one. Because I love violence... What is the storyline here? Many people use Twitter for live coverage of events, to organize protests, and to keep up with professional news. How does a heart fit into these use cases??

<comment><USER3> Cynically I'd say that Twitter doesn't care about that use case because it's not one of the ones that make them money. The use case they care about is Advertisers looking at their engagement graphs and seeing that people liked their new product release tweet.

<comment><USER4> You're being too cynical. What brand wouldn't love to be seen enabling the downfall of a nefarious authoritarian regime? It is an advertisement more powerful than anything drafted on Madison Avenue.

<comment><USER5> "Twitter doesn't care about protests because it won't make them any money" -> Too cynical

"Twitter DOES care about protests because it will actually make them lots of money" -> NOT CYNICAL AT ALL

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Twitter has some dual personality when it comes to UX.

Recently, Twitter quietly started relying on the HTTP Referrer field. That's OK, I guess, except they did nothing to inform their users about it, which is easy for them to check and report on specifically. Instead, they let their users get confused by generic messages when attempting to post, or change settings, trying all sorts of things. If you want to require HTTP referrer, you should know what that means, and why many may have it disabled.

It's also interesting to see the social media sites and the web converging on using the same types of icons. All because of the mobile platform and a certain apple OS, with the cog wheel and menu symbol.

Heart versus star: I think the heart miscommunicates the function. I can't identify with it anymore, as I don't tend to "heart things".

Also, they didn't just change the icon, they changed the color as well. The star was a weak yellow. The heart is a darker, burning red, and therefore sticks out more in contrast with the white.

<comment><USER7> > Recently, Twitter quietly started relying on the HTTP Referrer field.

Yes! It took me weeks to figure that one out. In three years without Referer that was only my second non-obvious error caused by that.

And then they started with the polls. You can create polls from twitter web, but you cannot answer one. You just see a tweet from somebody asking a question. Nothing else, no way to even see that it is a poll. Same in tweetdeck (which is also by twitter). Confusing strategy, at least for me.

<comment><USER8> > You can create polls from twitter web, but you cannot answer one.

AFAIK this is only a bug with FirefoxDev & IndexedDB. It should work in other browsers or in private mode, where IndexedDB is disabled.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Translation: Our users don't understand our service, and we don't either, so we'll just try and mimic a successful one.

<comment><USER10> That's one translation.

Another could be: _" Our users are being innovate and using our services in ways we didn't completely anticipate, therefore we are trying to let our products grow "organically" and will make changes that augment what our users appear to be doing."_

But this is kind of 2 sides of the same coin.

<comment><USER11> This seems more likely as hashtags and mentions both came from how users were using Twitter, they weren't originally in Twitter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think this is a rather significant change. Whereas before a favorite was the equivalent of a bookmark now it is more in line with the Facebook like or Instagram 'heart'. This is a clear push for more engagement. I personally like it. But I would still like to keep an option for bookmarking/read later (i.e. how I use the favorite button now).

<comment><USER12> Objectively, it is a little weird for Twitter to have its own bookmarking function, with a nice convenient list that you (or anyone) can refer to.

But that's exactly how I use "favorite". It's really useful, whether it's a cute picture I want to share with someone later or something more informative. "Like" does nothing for me; I don't always want to imply approval by clicking that button.

<comment><USER13> The English word "favorite" implies approval every bit as much as "like" does. Plenty of people use "like" the way you use "favorite", indicating attention, not that your friend's cat's death is your "favorite" news of the day or that you "like" the news.

<comment><USER14> Sure, when speaking about the formal English language. In terms of social platforms, however, favorite and like have very different connotations. Favorite implies something far less common than a like. Most people think of a favorite as something they'd like to come back to, while no one really pays attention to every thing they've liked on FB or Instagram

<comment><USER15> Yes! Favorite has meaning beyond the literal for anyone who has been online for a few days. I fav to bookmark or give a simple thumbs up. Hearts break that meaning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> From the post:

"The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people."

It's still just one bit, right? How does it enable conveying a _range_ of emotions?

<comment><USER17> context provides the other bits. 'hearting' a baby announcement is not the same as 'hearting' a funny meme.

<comment><USER18> Right, but since the context hasn't changed, they haven't increased the range of things you can convey in a given context, they've just changed what it conveys.

<comment><USER19> They have made claims about what it conveys. Bottom line is that it's just a button that notifies the other person that you pushed it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use, and we know that > at times _the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers_.

Wow. Really?

<comment><USER21> Honestly, it was for me when I started with twitter for real in 2010 (my account is from 2006, but I haven't really used it until 2010). It was unclear to me whether I should be using this as a kind of bookmark-feature as a help for me to remember tweets to get back to or whether this was a social signal I'd be sending to the author of the tweet.

The would make that much more clear to me, though of course, I have since learned how to use twitter properly (I hope).

<comment><USER22> I'm surprised people associate stars with bookmarks (people still bookmark websites?) rather than a seal of approval.

<comment><USER23> > people still bookmark websites?

What? Who _doesn't_ bookmark websites?

<comment><USER24> I used to, but the increasing amount of 404ing in my bookmark collection led me to stop trusting that I could get back to something with it. I think I'd prefer a "whole page snapshot" rather than a bookmark.

<comment><USER25> To prevent 404'ing an Archive service can be used. But I feel that is a little abusive to archive the page then bookmark the archive, so I take whole page screenshots. :)

In Firefox: Shift+F2 --> 'screenshot --fullpage'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> For people wanting to revert to the old favourites icon: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/twitter-old- favour...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/twitter-old- favourite/lkfbecccmniadcbdhkeepdkfekhloinc)

<comment><USER27> Well... that was fast!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I am sort of tired of the ole lets make it emotional to make it stick [1] tactic.

Of course this is just my opinion but I sort of liked how Twitter was more newsy and less friendsy. I would even prefer the star to be a bookmark but I suppose it doesn't scale down well (size wise).

[1]: [http://www.engineerguy.com/white-papers/made-to- stick.htm](http://www.engineerguy.com/white-papers/made-to-stick.htm) (see chapter 5)

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm glad they're focusing on fixing major problems such as newcomers finding the functionality of the favorite button confusing, instead of trying to find new ways to deal with abuse on Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER30> Companies like Twitter, Facebook have rolled out (Like/Hearts/emotions) button to posts. I think "heart" button is not appropriate categorization for real time contents. Sometimes we just want to express on things if they are relevant. The emotion part "Like, heart, dislike, chill, etc" is just an aftermath to the real intent.

Problem: "heart" can not express emotion that community wants to just share, it may not necessarily be likable. Example, Tweet about violence in Middle east. I want to just not give it a "heart" but some other emotion like "disgrace, shame" etc.

Idea: To solve this problem, I would say the real symbol should be "Star", instead of "heart, like" etc. "Star" means you want to buzz in with this article but not classify your emotion. What do you think?

<comment><USER31> > To solve this problem, I would say the real symbol should be "Star"

Are you ... what?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> A heart conveys much more emotion than "like" or "favorite" – it's just an emoji, but still, it seems significant enough to me that I'll do less liking on Twitter.

Like also carries a connotation over from Facebook – liking a page on Facebook attaches it to my profile, and potentially feeds me content based on that, will this happen on Twitter? I can't assume it won't.

<comment><USER33> > liking a page on Facebook attaches it to my profile, and potentially feeds > me content based on that, will this happen on Twitter? I can't assume it > won't.

Your favorites/likes have always been visible to other users. e.g. here are the likes of the Twitter account in your HN profile [https://twitter.com/radiofreejohn/favorites](https://twitter.com/radiofreejohn/favorites) (interesting they've changed the text in the profiles to _likes_ but the URL is still _favorites_ ).

[Perhaps I'm misunderstanding "will this happen on Twitter" and you're referring to someday filtering feeds...if that were to ever happen I imagine they would use this data _regardless_ of what they call it]

<comment><USER32> Being visible and being a persistent measure of preference is different. Twitter is very ephemeral and my worry is that this will imply less ephemerality. It's an irrational worry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Two stories about Twitter circulating today:

First, The only black manager in product or engineering left after encountering tone-deaf collaboration in measuring and increasing diversity.

Second, They changed the star to a heart.

</comment><comment><USER35> That's a heck of a lot of words for a tiny semantically void change. A more cynical me would assume a whole bunch of product people at twitter are well familiar with justifying their job in the face of obvious uselessness.

<comment><USER36> Seems like a "New Coke"-type publicity stunt, doesn't it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've always viewed and used hearts / stars / likes as a way of saying 'I have nothing else to add to this conversation.'

<comment><USER38> Indeed. One of my main uses for emoji is the thumbs-up/heart/etc., likewise signalling "Over-and-out."

And yes, I realize that, technically, "over-and-out" is incorrect, it should be just "out".

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> TLDR + Sarcasm: "Today we made twitter a little bit more like facebook, because lets face it, some people are confused by stars and the word favorite."

</comment><comment><USER40> Translation: Our business is failing and we're completely clueless about what to do but we want to look like we're trying so uh here's a new icon.

</comment><comment><USER41> I "love" this tweet about how 10 people died on an earthquake last week.

It has the same problem as "Like".

<comment><USER42> As opposed to marking 10 people dying as a favourite? They both imply positive feelings towards the tweet being tagged

As mentioned elsewhere if they were trying to get away from the positive connotations "Remember" would be a better name for it

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Another useless change. If you want to try out something that makes Twitter far more usable, try removing retweets.

1\. Install uBlock Origin.

2\. My Filters add: [http://twitter.com](http://twitter.com) ## .tweet[data- retweeter]

3\. Enjoy a Twitter without retweets.

<comment><USER44> Retweets are great.

If you think the people you follow retweet bad stuff, you need to follow better people.

edit: I think the converse might be more accurate - if the people you follow retweet bad stuff, then the regular tweets probably aren't good either.

<comment><USER43> Have you tried turning off retweets? It makes @pmarca's feed his actual thoughts instead of a mess of stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This doesn't really matter to me.

What I'm curious about, though, is a far more general question that this brings to mind. How do you build a social network that sustains itself through community rather than advertising dollars? Is that even possible?

<comment><USER46> Reddit gold is one way. The way linux distros mirrors work show that there are entities willing to provide bandwidth and servers for no return.

You could decentralize it and use end users bandwidth and storage to make it cheap to operate.

The crucial problem is the onboarding of users. Once you reach critical mass everything else is easy.

<comment><USER47> > Reddit gold is one way.

Reddit seems to spend more than it brings in in a year, if reports that it had $20 million in cash when Conde Nast spun them off and had $18 million in 2013 are true.(1) Reddit also has ads. It doesn't seem like Reddit gold is sufficient to keep a large site afloat.

(1) [http://allthingsd.com/20130109/reddits-funding-round-is- for-...](http://allthingsd.com/20130109/reddits-funding-round-is-for-real-and- its-only-for-angels/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Starring a tweet always seemed a bit odd to me, except when using it to bookmark something for later. Hearts imply likes, based on other social platforms, which will almost certainly lead to more use. I found myself rarely, if ever, starring tweets, which actually made the function more useful (looking at my favorites is a short list of tweets I wanted to remember).

</comment><comment><USER48> I don' believe that the wording could be more condescending if they tried to make it that way.

</comment><comment><USER49> While we're on the subject, can somebody explain the behavioral difference between a star (or heart, whatever) and a retweet? They seem to have nearly the exact same effect

<comment><USER50> A retweet means the tweet being retweeted will show up on the feed of people who are following you. Star/Favoriting is just like a personal bookmark. It won't automatically show up on followers feeds.

<comment><USER51> They do also show your favourites in your followers feeds at times. I see it quite frequently. Retweets always show up to your followers. Favourites sometimes do. I don't know how they decide to show them in the main feed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> 500px has favourites (heart) and like (thumbs up).

I believe they are one of the few who understands there's a difference; it's unfortunate that most of the social media doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER53> I think its a good idea, but the "like" to me feels too much like Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER54> I thought they had added hearts along with stars that would have made sense! Stars for bookmarking and hearts for liking/showing appreciation. Stars doesn't send a notification to the poster but a heart does.

</comment><comment><USER55> I don't want a heart or fav a tweet but there are times i do wanna Bookmark one to read a link later.

<comment><USER56> Same functionality.

<comment><USER55> no every time someone fav/hearts a tweet the creator of that tweet gets a message saying someone loves there tweet, if it was just a bookmark then they wouldn't get this

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I don't use Twitter, but this sounds more confusing now. Stars are used throughout other services or systems for favoriting something such as bookmarks and if I "star it", I can revisit it in the future. But that means only I can see it.

Hearts on Instagram are broadcasted to my followers, Facebook likes as well. Is this also the case on Twitter now?

There's a difference between saving something for personal recollection and also broadcasting it.

<comment><USER58> You could previously view people's favorites. Example:

[https://twitter.com/gruber/favorites](https://twitter.com/gruber/favorites)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> This is hilarious. I mean in the absence of actual substantive things to do they are just doing fluffy things. How does this make their developer relations better in any way? Wasn't that something that was supposed to be coming? In the meantime we get a heart instead of a star? I mean what the hell? Are they taking the playbook from yahoo? Maybe they should make their logo more "showy" while they're at it.

</comment><comment><USER60> In the past, I used stars as bookmarking. However, I noticed a shift towards more "like" behavior about 1-2 years ago amongst my twitter network.

<comment><USER61> More than a like, I understand it as a "I acknowledge your response, but I have nothing to add. Have a good day!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> So now it's like Tumblr. Now they only need to remove 140-character limit and there will be no differences at all.

"The heart, in contrast, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones."

I don't really buy it. Many countries have stars in their flags/coats of arms. There's no such unified symbolism for hearts. For example Chinese pictogram for heart is 心.

<comment><USER63> > Many countries have stars in their flags/coats of arms.

And the meaning of stars on flags is definitely not "this is something I really like." It's not a clear symbol of anything.

<comment><USER64> It'd be surreal if the stars on their flags were bookmarks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I'm bummed. I used stars as a "save-for-later" feature. I like the idea of having the option to explicitly endorse something you like, but I will miss the bookmark functionality. Even Facebook has a "save" feature (a little hidden in a menu, but that's ok for me) and they seem to use it effectively for engagement purposes.

I think Twitter is missing an opportunity here.

<comment><USER66> It's literally just a change of icon. You may continue to use it exactly as you were using it before.

<comment><USER32> If it were that simple, they wouldn't write a post about their justification for choosing a heart over a star, and changing it from favorite to like. They expect the underlying behavior/use to change, or they wouldn't have bothered making such a significant change to a core feature.

This would be like changing Retweet to Share.

<comment><USER66> That's literally what retweeting is.

<comment><USER32> Is it?

In most other social networks Sharing has the connotation that this will post the content to _another_ social network, not propagate it within it. Sharing on Facebook is self-contained, but not always.

But I know, my point is that this is not a functional change, but a change in name and iconography that will affect behavior.

They wouldn't have changed it, if they didn't think it would change the behavior to be what they desire (more new users using it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Not long before Twitter will blend in with Failbook and Instagram. A pity, but apparently neccessary as Twitter needs fresh cash.

The problem: the money is in the high-active users, not in the noobs using Twitter for an hour and then moving along. And a significant chunk of said high-active users will depart from Twitter because, like FB, the users haven't been consulted in any way...

edit: If Twitter REALLY wanted to improve its experience, it should...

1) fix tab-navigation to work like text->submitbutton, not text->media->navigation->poll->submitbutton

2) only auto-complete with tab when the current word begins with an @. No, if I just type "example"<tab> I DO NOT want a random user with "example" in the name expanded.

3) in the Android app, when I'm scrolling 2h behind and rt'ing a kitten image, I DO NOT want to jump right to the top and have to scroll aaaallll the way down again.

</comment><comment><USER68> Twitter should have been bold and merged retweet and favorite into heart. Instead it's now more confusing which you should do. On other social networks hearts are kind of the redispersal mechanism, whereas I think what Twitter wants is more retweets -- more people introducing more people to each other.

</comment><comment><USER69> The trend continues towards "everyone looks like Facebook:" [http://readwrite.com/2014/06/04/social-networks-all-look- ali...](http://readwrite.com/2014/06/04/social-networks-all-look-alike)

</comment><comment><USER70> Completely reminds me of [http://borislavkiprin.com/2014/01/27/meanings- favorite-retwe...](http://borislavkiprin.com/2014/01/27/meanings-favorite- retweet/)

</comment><comment><USER71> They might as well just announce in a PR that they have no idea what they're doing.

</comment><comment><USER72> My assumption on any changes Twitter makes is that it's powered by the hope of future ad revenue.

I see that potential for ads in Moments.

I would guess Hearts will get tweaked in the future to behave in a way that will make them something of value to brands (at least, Twitter hopes).

Similar to brands spending money for Facebook Likes (and thus getting their logos in people's feeds), I see Hearts as a first move towards a similar feature/concept.

Personally I like this change (as it is now) because I've only ever used stars as a "like" button, knowing people on the other end see that in their timeline. It's a very useful social tool for acknowledgement.

</comment><comment><USER73> Favourite was the generic thing for acknowledging a post whether you like it, relate to it, or whatever...so now if someone has bad news (eg. someone dies) what do you do? 'like it'?

<comment><USER66> So previously you were saying them dying was your favorite thing. I don't get how this is different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> If nobody had said anything, I would have never noticed the change.

People are complaining and/or celebrating this change over some notion that it changes what the action "says". For people who agree that it changes what you are saying, they seem to universally agree it's changing from "I bookmarked this" to "I endorse this".

Here's the thing: if they weren't meant as endorsements before, then why was the list of them public, and why were they called "favorites"? Since when does publicly marking something as a "favorite" translate to a neutral "I am expressing no opinion on this matter, merely marking it for later retrieval"?

Because I can guarantee you: whenever you star/favorite/like/whatever-the- hell-we're-calling-it-today a tweet/post/blog/picture/whatever-site-we're-on- today in a public way with notification back to the original poster, it always gets interpreted as interest/enjoyment/endorsement.

It's literally nothing more than changing the icon. Same button, different color. It does the same thing: make a public notice that you touched that button on that tweet. If you weren't using it for what it was meant for before, you can continue to use it against what it's meant for today.

You all are literally bike-shedding right now.

</comment><comment><USER74> There was nothing worse than allowing to make tweets viral by gaming people into voting: "retweet if you agree, star if you disagree." Retweeting a tweet makes it infinitely more popular than starring. It does look like twitter has started rolling out a proper polling feature.

</comment><comment><USER75> Hopefully I'm not the only person who spent a good 10 seconds staring at this heart/circle/play-icon hybrid thinking it was supposed to be the new icon being unveiled:

[http://i.imgur.com/pKCfDmj.png](http://i.imgur.com/pKCfDmj.png)

</comment><comment><USER76> So my 'like' show up under my 'favorites'

Clear as mud !

[https://twitter.com/favorites](https://twitter.com/favorites)

oh

[https://twitter.com/likes](https://twitter.com/likes)

</comment><comment><USER77> I assume that's in line with them adding the birthday field on user profiles. People used to Facebook will like more tweets than with the previous star/favorite system and thus provide more accurate data for ads.

</comment><comment><USER78> I've seen them testing this and the icon style changes for months now, having had three different test screens spread over three different accounts. On mobile.

</comment><comment><USER79> Honestly this addition was so seamless I thought it had always been that way. Definitely liked a few things on twitter before I realized what I was doing.

</comment><comment><USER80> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10507474](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10507474)

</comment><comment><USER81> If you click the link to the twitter username at the top of that article, you get to a page which still shows the favourites star rather than the full twitter feed with hearts

[https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=akik](https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=akik)

</comment><comment><USER82> Yeah that's great just as long as the API calls dont change.

<comment><USER83> no API changes: [https://blog.twitter.com/2015/hearts-for- developers](https://blog.twitter.com/2015/hearts-for-developers)

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> And to think I was going to buy a heap load of TWTR yesterday!

</comment><comment><USER85> dear twitter, bookmarks & likes are 2 separate things

</comment><comment><USER86> Wow, I am already sick of hearing about this. Star -> heart. Got it.</comment>


Norton Core - <AUTHOR> https://us.norton.com/core <comment><USER2> Hmm, I say maybe, now that Airport is discontinued...</comment>


Keeping computers from ending science's reproducibility - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/01/keeping-computers-from-ending-sciences-reproducibility.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss <comment><USER3> Here's a practical solution I have proposed in my community (autonomous robots):

1\. package code and data into tarball or VCS repo.; 2\. place package on long-lived website; 3\. compute SHA1 hash or similar from package (if git is used, this is the revision ID, conveniently); 4\. publish the URI and hash in any paper that makes claims based on that code or data;

5\. as a reviewer, prefer papers that follow this method, all else being equal; 6\. as an editor, suggest that submissions use this method.

(Edit 2: In case it's not obvious, the purpose of the hash is to allow users to be pretty confident that the code they downloaded is indeed exactly the code used in the paper. By putting the hash in the paper, I make this promise. If I want to make an improved version available, I just put it up at the same site, but I _must_ make the exact original available and identifiable as such. This simple method of ensuring identifiability is our contribution.)

My group does this with every paper. I have a paper describing this method coauthored with a student under review now at a good journal, and I'm looking forward to seeing the response. (Edit 1: see link in comment below)

I'd also appreciate feedback from HN.

<comment><USER4> "My group does this with every paper."

Any links?

<comment><USER3> Sure. We started doing this last summer, and this is the first paper accepted for publication that uses the method.

<http://autonomy.cs.sfu.ca/doc/wawerla_icra10.pdf>

and here's a draft of our paper on the methodology, with rationale.

Long paper: <http://autonomy.cs.sfu.ca/doc/wawerla_submitted_2009.pdf>

Original short workshop paper:

<http://autonomy.cs.sfu.ca/doc/wawerla_rss09_workshop.pdf>

For context, here's the lab's publication list:

<http://autonomy.cs.sfu.ca/publications.html>

We plan to continue this, even if the idea doesn't catch on.

<comment><USER4> From your draft paper,

"A few months ago, a graduate student in another country called me (Vaughan) to ask for the source code of one of my multi-robot simulation experiments. The student had an idea for a modification that she thought would improve the system's performance ... we were able to offer the requesting student some code that may or may not be that used in the paper. This was better than nothing, but not good enough, and we suspect this is quite typical in our community."

Fwiw I've had a similair experience.

A few years ago I was reading Daphne Koller's "Using learning for approximation in stochastic processes" and it was a very elegant and powerful idea, but it didn't seem to me at the time that there was enough detail in the paper to implement the algorithm and I wrote to Dr Koller and asked if she had source code available. She replied that her student had departed a decade ago and the code was effectively lost.

Dr Koller was very helpful and clarified some doubts I had and in the end I managed to re implement the algorithm and so a happ ending after all but if code was archived and made public for every paper, it would have really helped.

Awesome that you guys are adopting this methodology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> i had this problem many years ago (15?). at the time i was working as a postdoc, calculating the evolution of the ionizing background with redhshift from the inverse effect (lyman alpha clouds near quasars get fried by the quasar; the extent of this gives an indirect way to measure the ionizing background at that redshift).

i had a bunch of perl scripts (ah, those were the days) that mangled various files before feeding them into fortran least-squares stats code that took a day or so to run.

by the end, it was pretty much chaos. i was a self-taught programmer, these were probably the second or third "significant" programs i had ever written. nothing was documented, everything took so long that i couldn't check much... i had bugs, of course.

in the end i published. maybe 6 months later i got an email from someone in the states. they were trying to reproduce my results. in the end, they did (as far as i know).

so the system worked.

incidentally (perhaps the only useful point here) they must have used different data. that's something worth explaining in more detail - "my" data came from years of painstaking work by a bunch of people working for my thesis supervisor. yet 6 months later the results could be duplicated from a week or so of data from a much more powerful telescope (the keck). so data in research often aren't as critical as you might think. things progress at such a rate that even if you don't share data, it's trivial to reproduce just a short time later... (and i am pretty sure that this is true in gene sequencing, for example)

<comment><USER6> But this is a problem that _can_ be tackled, and those who take it seriouslt already do so. For example, in our pipelines we use an infrastructure that always adds every command executed on the file, with every exact parameter, to the metadata of the file, starting from one canonical archived file - <USER2> hence, one can indeed reproduce manually the result of the pipeline given sufficient time and dedication. [Edit: we also write the git shar1]

The same way that say, biology labs have processes they engage in in order to convince us that their samples are not contaminated, we can have processes that lead to the reproducibility of data.

<comment><USER5> [is that frossie frossie? hi!]

i'm not sure what problem you're talking about - someone reproduced the results with separate code and data, so what's to worry about? (i don't mean that because it was confirmed it was ok, but rather that if it had been wrong, we would have known in the end... after all, people make mistakes all the time - science is a collective enterprise that relies on many overlapping, interlocking pieces)

<comment><USER6> [Yeah, didn't I share an office with you 15 years ago? :-) ]

But data can't always be reproduced - Shoemaker-Levy won't hit Jupiter again any time soon, and while big results will cause a rush for verification, the little steps are usually believed as is. Moreover astronomy is a special case where - let's face it - if we go down the wrong path for a decade or so, nobody's bleeding.

Take on the other hand the processing of climate data - if crap engineering (not malice) causes garbage to come out of the data, this is a problem for everybody. So I think the OP is right in that proper auditing of computer- processed science data should be possible, I was just pointing out that it's not as hard (technically) as people think to achieve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Speaking of reproducibility, my friend getting a PHD in finance told me he was writing a paper using the data from some brokerage. I asked if he would publish the data and he told me it's confidential.

I talked myself blue in the face trying to explain how science doesn't work if you don't give people enough information to reproduce your research! I couldn't get him to understand though. Arggh so frustrating.

<comment><USER8> It depends what type of science you're doing, and what stage the science is in. When we are at the gathering data hypothesis building stage observations, and case studies are important and are often based on confidential data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am often told that I should keep my nose out of other science domain's business because they know more than I do. However, I think when they start building their science on top of computers, I start getting a say again. Here's what concerns me about this increasing use of computers:

It seems like the vast bulk of these simulations are iterative, and therefore subject to mathematical chaos. How many of these researchers have any clue what door they are walking through? How many of them know what a strange attractor is? I'm sure the answer is non-zero; I'm equally sure the answer is nowhere near 100%.

Small errors cascade even if you consider a non-chaotic classical model. (That is, not that there is such a thing as an iterative model that is not potentially subject to chaos, but rather than even if you don't understand chaos you can see that small errors can cascade. Chaos just makes it worse, and weirder.) A simulation will have bugs like any other large problem. A non- programmer approaches bugs by banging on the program until it seems to generate expected results. (About 50-80% of programmers do that too.) Therefore, many of these simulations are simply reflections of the simulator's expected result, due to the effect of the researcher's selection mechanism running on the results of the simulations they run. How do we verify that this is not the primary factor in the result of the simulation? _This need not be conscious_. It need not be ideological, either; I can easily envision a simulation that "should" return a boring or trivial result being monkeyed with until it produces something "interesting", because the simulators think the boring result should not obtain.

A lot of algorithms you can use in these simulations are fundamentally unstable when used iteratively; some exacerbated by floating point errors, some mathematically unstable even with perfect real numbers. How many of these simulations use something unstable without even realizing it, given that it could take a professional mathematician to work out whether that's the case? Even algorithms thought to be stable and reliable can fall apart under pathological situations, and one of the odd things about mathematics is just how often you end up hitting those pathological situations when programming; far more often than it seems like should be the case.

In information theory terms, a simulation can not contain more information that the sum total of the input data and the content of the simulation algorithm. How many simulators understand the full implications of that statement? _I_ sure don't understand the _full_ implications of that, but what I do understand makes me pause a bit. Very simple simulations with rules that can be verified and initial data that is very solid I can deal with; for instance, I like the cell-automata based social theories that show the spread of information or political views or something, especially when it is clear the researchers understand that it's only an approximation. But as the initial data starts getting sketchy or the simulation grows enormous, I start getting nervous about the actual information content of the output. Just because the output _appears_ to be information doesn't prove that it is. It is vitally necessary to be able to check the simulation against _real data_. For instance, physical simulations of, say, cars crashing can be verified. How many simulations can actually be verified, though? Frequently the reason computers were reached for in the first place is the inability to do the real experiment. Any simulation that can't be verified should be _presumed_ worthless by default. How often does that happen? (It's 20-f'ing-10 and "the computer said it, it must be right" still runs rampant through our culture....)

And of course there's the whole reproducibility issue, where the _absolute bare minimum_ for science would be to publish the _full_ simulation program, _all_ data, the necessary invocation and compile instructions to bring the two together, and all necessary information to understand the input and the output. Clearly, this is not something that fits in a journal paper, but how often does this happen at all?

No, I am not referring to any specific discipline here and in particular I'm not actually referring to climate science. I'm nervous about the whole movement towards simulations in general.

Note that I'm not reflexively against the idea. Meet these bars and I'm happy; give me enough data for reproducibility and verify that your simulation is in fact simulating something real and corresponds to reality and I am happy. (Many physical simulations fit in here.) But as more disciplines jump in I am concerned that these bars are not well understood, and I'm seeing ever more press releases about simulations that can't possibly meet these bars.

<comment><AUTHOR> _I am often told that I should keep my nose out of other science domain's business because they know more than I do._

I've only heard such statements coming out of a few fields: math education, labor economics, climate science and psychometrics of race/gender. You should ignore such statements; they are nothing more than an attempt to bully you into accepting received wisdom from activists with a PhD.

As an actual scientist (rather than a political activist with a PhD), I strongly encourage you to stick your nose into any or all of my fields (quantum mechanics, PDEs, medical imaging, complex analysis, prediction markets). If you come up with dumb ideas, I'll even explain why they are dumb, rather than just demanding that you leave things to the experts.

<comment><USER10> Such statements also come out of biologists discussing evolution. This is not, however, evidence that they aren't really doing science. Instead it is evidence that they've been burned out explaining basics over and over again to Creationists and want to get on with their lives.

However some do take the energy out for those explanations. One of the results of their energy is <http://www.talkorigins.org/>.

Hopefully some day someone will take the energy to do the same with climate science. Because as much as there is a lot of politics there, there is some real science there as well.

<comment><USER11> > Such statements also come out of biologists discussing evolution.

A lot of my friends are scientists, including in a couple biochemists and some other people that do more or less serious research into topics like that. In my experience, you're off on how they deal with stupid people and stupid arguments - instead of "get out of biology" and moving on with their lives, they tend to address and correct errors, debate if necessary, or at least point the person towards a relevant piece that explains things and take new criticisms and arguments and address them if necessary.

The scientists I know always been open to me saying stupid things (and occasionally not stupid things) and correcting me if I'm wrong, or exploring together if I might not be wrong. Good biologists don't say, "Get out of biology".

> Hopefully some day someone will take the energy to do the same with climate > science.

Oh, hah, I honestly responded quickly and missed the climate science analogy originally. If you wanted to make an apologia for climate science, then I do understand why you'd want to draw a biology:evolution:creationism to climate science:global warming:deniers parallel.

I was responding to the "want to get on with their lives" part as being wrong based on my experience, as scientists are usually rather encouraging and tolerant of dissent. Climate science is not so much interested in people and data which disagree with them, which is a pretty big problem.

<comment><USER10> I'm married to a biology PhD, and at one point spent a couple of years watching people, including biologists, deal with a constant stream of Creationists in places like talk.origins.

My experience is that if you're a personal friend, you get more serious conversation. If you're someone they know but not so closely, they'll have the argument if pushed but don't feel the need to actively educate. And if you're a random person spouting on the Internet, it isn't worth their time to get involved. If pushed to be involved, they don't feel the need to be pleasant about it.

After spending time myself explaining the same thing over and over again, I've come to feel the same way. I've also come to realize that there are plenty of smart people who do not wish to be educated. Including in my direct personal experience, at least one PhD in mathematics and another in molecular biology.

Based on this experience I have some sympathy for the position of climate scientists. You spend your life climbing around glaciers in Greenland, and you don't really feel like spending the rest of it convincing people who don't want to bother learning the basics about climate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A similar argument actually goes for experiments that are somehow affected by computer networks.

If scientists use grid-computing, cloud-computing, or just the plain regular Internet, there is no way to accurately reproduce results for distributed applications. Luckily, some researchers are aware of this and there are now some projects starting to make testbeds and infrastructures to make environments where experiments can be reliably reproduced.

<comment><USER13> Links, for the curious:

<http://www.planet-lab.org>

[http://www.hpl.hp.com/open_innovation/cloud_collaboration/cl...](http://www.hpl.hp.com/open_innovation/cloud_collaboration/cloud_technical_overview.html)

<http://cloud.cs.illinois.edu/>

<http://www.cs.duke.edu/courses/spring08/cps214/project.html> (Testbeds and Emulation section)

<comment><USER14> PlanetLab and the clouds are great ways to do _non_ -reproducible research, because the other users in the system (where sometimes "the system" is the public Internet) create interference. Reproducible networking research either has to be simulated or has to be run on an isolated testbed such as Emulab.

<comment><USER13> The results from PlanetLab et al. may not be deterministic, but you should be able to reach the same conclusions based on repeated experiments. Otherwise, your results may be a little too fragile to form the basis of sweeping conclusions.

This may not be ideal, but it is no worse than any branch of science which is not purely digital.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My (biotech) employer largely solves this issue by keeping a copy of the formal research specs outside of software altogether. All validation documents and research data are kept in paper form (in addition to digital form) in such a way that future researchers or inspectors could take those documents and data and reconstruct the research.

It wasn't always this way, unfortunately. I've been involved with trying to glean some formulaic/methodological insights from spreadsheets and code and it's not always possible to reverse engineer the essential methodology or be sure that mistakes were avoided.

Proper scientific research practices are similar to proper data backup practices: the documentation (backup files) are important, but they don't matter if you can't have successful reproducibility (restoration).

<comment><USER16> In the life sciences provenance is as important as reproducibility, and you can use software systems to manage provenance. The paper requirement will go away over time. Even the FDA, which required paper in the past, is moving to an electronic model. But you do need to document methods somewhere and not just in code, a reference document which could be shared, even if the specific implementation is different

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have a strong (probably unusual) standard when it comes to computer modeled science: if explanation requires software or data that I don't have access to, I completely disregard it. That might sound kind of crazy given the state of science and my chosen profession, but (maybe because of my chosen profession) I know that a complex system can tell you whatever you want it to tell you. It won't be the truth, but it will be "convincing" to most people. If the research really mattered, someone would reproduce it with independent software and data anyway.

I think this is a good solution to the problem. If most people only believed in reproducible science, there would be pressure on authors to use software and data that can be shared, or no publisher would carry their article. Seems easy to me.

</comment><comment><USER18> As a working programmer in biological research science I would love to see a requirement that papers involving software be published in the "literate programming" paradigm. At the very least per reviewed publication must include all software be open source (a least in a loose sense). It is depressing how often a published result depends on custom closed source software.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hmm, from what I remember, Reproducibility became a big issue in SIGMOD. In 2008 they introduced some new requirements when submitting a paper.

[http://behind-the-enemy- lines.blogspot.com/2007/08/experimen...](http://behind-the-enemy- lines.blogspot.com/2007/08/experimental-repeatability-requirements.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> Reminds me of an interesting Wired article from 2008: "The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete" [http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_t...](http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory)

<comment><USER21> A fun article, but Peter Norvig of Google has said he feels like it severely misunderstands his work.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Quire – Tasks done right - <AUTHOR> https://quire.io/task-management

<comment><USER2> I don't like freemium models, they don't work in the majority of cases.

While I respect freemium can work for some, for the vast majority it is a completely overused model. You are not going to make money on freemium unless you have a large user base, period.

This _really_ makes me unlikely to take your product serious as I don't know whether or not you will be here tomorrow. I have been stung before by tools with freemium pricing that ceased operation. I would much rather you charged a fee that was sustainable in the long run.

<comment><USER3> I do tend to agree, unless you reach large numbers of users and get around a 2% - 5% conversion rate to paid subscriptions I don't think freemium is good.

However, with it being a task management app it isn't impossible that it will break this kind of number. Though with the competition it may be a bit of a long shot.

<comment><USER4> I think the key question is whether they will reach that level of users...I guess not. To reach 10 million + users which is the only way I see to make this worthwhile would take a massive amount of effort in a crowded marketplace like this, it isn't likely at all.

So with that being said, going freemium is probably the death-knell for the product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't like your homepage design or the comic font, it isn't a good image for business applications.

I think you should reconsider the images and the font as it doesn't make your application look professional whatsoever. It isn't advisable when you are trying to advertise that your task management application makes people's lives more organised...

<comment><USER5> I do agree that serious applications moving towards a more cartoonish feel is not a good design trend.

However, in this case I can't agree as I don't think anything you pointed out is over-done. The font comes close, but it isn't used for every single word, just for emphasis on certain words.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback both of you. Our design was intentionally kept a bit light-hearted while trying to maintain professionalism.

We do think this strikes a good balance.

<comment><USER6> I really hate anime and it seems to be coming more pervasive in the web design world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Where's your data hosted? I don't trust the US government so rather host my own solution.

This is becoming a big problem for me. A lot of my project information is extremely sensitive so I would prefer a service outside of the US possibly with an encrypted database and would be willing to pay for it. I haven't found one yet...</comment>


JooJoo will be manufactured by Malaysia's CSL Group - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2010/02/03/joojoo-will-be-manufactured-by-malaysias-csl-group/

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote about this before. I doubt the JooJoo, at least at its present price point, will disrupt any iPad success here in the United States. They're only 'killer' feature is that "we're like an inch or so bigger"

That being said, do you ever see the JooJoo picking up in other countries, namely in Asia? Lemme know.

<comment><USER2> ...and they have Flash. It is a bigger deal than most think. 85 of the top 100 sites use Flash to some extent.</comment></comment>


Confirm or Deny: Peter Thiel - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/fashion/peter-thiel-confirm-or-deny.html <comment><USER2> _" Maureen Dowd: California should secede.

Peter Thiel: Confirm. I'd be fine with that. I think it would be good for California, good for the rest of the country. It would help Mr. Trump's re- election campaign."_

I don't see how the world's ~sixth largest economy succeeding from the world's 1st/2nd largest is good for the latter.

 _" You like "Star Trek" more than "Star Wars."

Deny. I like "Star Wars" way better. I'm a capitalist. "Star Wars" is the capitalist show. "Star Trek" is the communist one. There is no money in "Star Trek" because you just have the transporter machine that can make anything you need. The whole plot of "Star Wars" starts with Han Solo having this debt that he owes and so the plot in "Star Wars" is driven by money._"

I hope he's just trolling here. Preferring a future of the same old debtors and creditors as today, to one where plentiful energy can be transformed into any kind of matter the human race needs, eliminating the need for money?

Edit: actually he didn't say anything preferring one future or the other, so maybe he just likes Star Wars b/c it's more relatable to present day.

<comment><USER3> >I don't see how the world's ~sixth largest economy succeeding from the world's 1st/2nd largest is good for the latter.

Seems clear to me. California, like Texas, has the largest concentration of Electoral College votes within a single state. While TX is reliably Republican, CA is reliably Democrat. Since Trump lost the popular vote by a large margin, a CA-exit would be highly beneficial to his re-election efforts.

CA is obviously an economically important state and a CA-exit would be enormously disruptive to the US economy. That said, the impacts might not be felt by the time the re-election campaign begins.

And even if they are felt by that time, the current state of American civic literacy, combined with the disproportionate size of older voter blocs is still enough to win elections by ignoring the reality of automation on jobs and blaming weak job markets on globalization, immigration and trade deals.

<comment><USER2> You only explained how CA's succession would benefit Trump, not America. Trump != America.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This kind of interview seems like a great idea. Information density is way higher than in a standard one.

<comment><USER5> Respectfully I disagree. Yes, there is higher information density, but it is about information which actually obscures and hides important knowledge (information with context) and discussions which people need to have.

I say this because the only reason this article exists is due to Thiel's support of the Trump administration, and thus his association with it's controversial (the wall, deporting muslims, etc) policies and Trump's controversial public statements and persona.

I would have preferred to see substantive questions addressing this stuff posed. Maureen Dowd was interviewing one of the most powerful people in the country.

Instead, we get information, but the value of that information is questionable.

I read the interview as "normalizing" Thiel - like, "Hey, this guy likes stuff to!"

Nothing inherently wrong with that but the Fourth Estate needs to do more.

<comment><USER3> This was in the Style section, so I suppose they have to humanize their subjects, even if the subject is a reclusive billionaire whose daily life does not even remotely resemble ours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > There is no money in "Star Trek" because you just have the transporter > machine that can make anything you need.

Gasp! They are replicators, no transporters. :-)

<comment><USER7> Also, while the Federation (at least canonically from some time in TNG on; there is conflicting evidence in TOS and maybe early TNG before Roddenberry laid down the law on the issue) doesn't use money internally in _Star Trek_ , there is money, financial transactions, and the aspiration to and acquisition of property in use and driving plots in _Trek_ , particularly DS9, including where main characters who are Federation citizens are involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Should I have respect for Peter Thiel in him trying to help Trump? It is odd, maybe he is playing Trump, maybe Elon is too?

I feel like even talking to Trump validates his lies and just disgusting moral integrity of what it means to be American.

<comment><USER9> If you already respect Thiel then I don't see him working with the president to steer things being a reason to stop.

<comment><USER10> I suppose if you already respect Thiel you have already given him a pass for his misogynistic and racist statements in the libertarian press. So yeah, less to forgive in his support of Trump.

But then again, you'd have to overlook his incorrect views on things like macroeconomics (Clarium was quite the hedge fund!).

I like the Bezos quote, frankly. I think it sums up Thiel well. As a startup investor, you only have to be right a few times, and being wrong doesn't hurt that much.

Sadly, governing -- and choosing our represented leaders -- comes with higher stakes and worse outcomes.

<comment><USER9> Can you link a few racist or misogynistic links? I generally like thiel. I'm open to not liking thiel but I suspect I might interpret him differently.

<comment><USER10> 'The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron.'

[1]: [https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter- thiel/educatio...](https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter- thiel/education-libertarian)

I suppose there are different ways to read that, but Thiel doesn't believe democracy with universal suffrage leads to the best outcomes. I disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is _Confirm or Deny_ a regular thing? This is an interesting format for print interviews.

<comment><USER12> Google tells me Dowd's done this at least once before, with André Leon Talley:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/fashion/confirm-or- deny-a...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/fashion/confirm-or-deny-andre- leon-talley.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> " There is no money in "Star Trek" "

Hi, my name is gold-pressed latinum.

<comment><USER7> Or, earlier, "Federation credits".

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Peter Thiel is a nobleman in my eyes. His type of Philanthropy, is the type of Philanthropy that doesn't leave the worlds innovators and statistical anomalies behind. I've encountered far more respect from Peters team and his network than I've encountered from any potential investors, anywhere. Within 10 minutes of contacting a Thiel-network firm, I had a meeting (next Monday). I'm also a guy who's lived 50-75% below the poverty line for _years_ to get my innovation to the point where it's a once-in-a-generation startup, and I certainly haven't been discriminated against. I see Peter as a person who either is successful at getting the best out of people (and hopefully have them come to him), or has no problem saying No to people that probably ought not to be invested in - unless the bet was to fill a certain niche/padding of the fund to show short-term returns in terms of increased Market Value to limited partners.

When I read in the media that people call Peter a "Fascist", what I'm really reading is that these people saying horrible things about a perfectly good man is because they're intolerant of other peoples choices or views to the point of being Maoistic and Libelous. Even if Peter said No to me, by no means do I feel he would do me harm. He probably could because I don't exactly have patents issued, but I don't think he will because it's not why he got into business. Look at Thiel term sheets vs the competition. Night and day.

Also, think about it like this, Mr. Thiel is in a powerful position in politics, and could literally destroy me (and I know this), but his VC firm that it looks like he put all (or most) of the money into, felt it was important to meet with me as soon as possible and made me feel like a somebody, even though I felt like nobody for years. If they say Yes, that was the best way to start what could be a lifelong (forever?) relationship, and won my intense loyalty.

People should create the innovations, and come forth to Peter and his network. They really should.

</comment><comment><USER10> Since this space appears to be a referendum on Thiel's involvement with Trump (mostly), let me just offer this perspective: in Thiel's main business of being an investor in startups, this could backfire if enough founders find the association repugnant enough they'd refuse money from Thiel.

This isn't hypothetical; my cofounder and I agree that we won't take money from Thiel or any Thiel-affiliated fund.

Let the flaming commence, I guess.

<comment><USER15> How is it repugnant?

<comment><USER10> Because it's supporting an authoritarian liar, who denies the validity of established science, the rule of law, and the normal checks and balances of government.

He also has suggested he'll trample on civil rights, including the freedom of press, speech, and the civil liberties of many Americans.

Just out of curiosity, were you paying attention during the election, and if so, where did you get your information?

<comment><USER15> I was paying attention :) The left is anti-GMO, which is straight-up anti- science. (Which, I also need to add, is the kind of anti-science which will exacerbate food scarcity in Africa. Drought-resistance crops save lives.) They also tend to harbor anti-vaxxers, althought Trump is also an anti-vaxxer.

IDK! I'm just so tired of the emotional crybabying from the left. I agree (with Trump) that the media is extremely biased-- if you watched Trump's press conference today you'll see it. And the left tended to just piss on the way that Trump talked. They don't even see that he's a master of words in his own way. He looks like a fool, but he's _wailing_ on the left.

Here's how the next 4 years are going to go down. The left is going to continue crying wolf/fascist/racist/sexist/whatever. Moderates and independents are going to see a mediocre presidency, but _not_ the authoritarianism you think we're in for. And then he's going to get re- elected, because of the low expectations.

<comment><USER10> Again, where do you get your news?

I find anyone that most people who posit a monolithic "left" are typically consuming a strange brew. Anyone who cares about truth -- not just in science, but in economics, policy, etc, should be horrified by what Trump represents.

And I'd take even money against him being re-elected. There are betting sites that are offering even money that he won't even finish four years, and based on how he's handling the transition, that seems correct.

I think being president is harder than you think, by the way. And I'm extremely pessimistic that Trump's up for it. He certainly hasn't done anything to demonstrate that he's capable.

<comment><USER15> I read The Economist regularly, and I read miscellaneous articles from the NYTimes, HuffPo, WashingtonPost that comes up on HN/FB. I enjoy the Joe Rogan podcast but Rogan is wildly uninformed and likes to push conspiracy theories.

I think you're looking for a "badMedia -> uninformedCitizen" trend, but you're not going to find it. My values are just libertarian--- so I've been on the sidelines every presidential race ever. I wasn't excited about either candidate. I just want to hear some good honest arguments. But I see so much emotional manipulation from the left.

<comment><USER16> If you're only seeing emotional manipulation from the left, you're only seeing half the story.

<comment><USER15> So, I grew up in Portland, went to school in Massachusetts, and live in Seattle now. I totally agree that I'm probably not seeing a lot of the stupid shit that the Right is saying, just based off of who my friends and community are. I critique where I can. :]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> We should commend her for not taking herself too seriously. But even so, she gave him way too many softballs.

<comment><USER18> This context can get lost online easier than in print -- but this is in the "Style & Fashion" section of the paper.

It's not intended as hard-hitting journalism.

<comment><USER17> _It 's not intended as hard-hitting journalism._

Yeah, I get that part. But even considering that, she's letting him off way too easy.

She should have given him a few softballs to get his guard down... _then_ sunk her claws into him.

<comment><USER19> Yes, that would make perfect sense in the _Fashion & Style_ section.

Why don't you share with us some of the hardballs you would throw at Thiel, given the chance?

<comment><USER17> It wouldn't be the same. I could never match her savagery and gusto.

The more basic point is -- if I were running a major newspaper, I wouldn't invite fascist collaborators to do innocent puff pieces in the _Fashion & Style_ section, or any other section of my paper to begin with. Other than as a ruse to lure them into a well-deserved public grilling, that is.

<comment><USER19> Ah yes, "Peter Thiel - fascist collaborator". That would go great on a business card!

Feel free to post some good questions, even if they lack savagery and gusto. I'm curious what you think about Thiel.

<comment><USER17> He'd prefer that you think of him as "That Zany Libertarian Guy." That's how trojan horses and fellow travelers always roll (i.e. via misdirection).

I prefer not to think too much about Thiel, actually. But if you're terribly interested, the HN search engine will turn up various things I've posted about him, already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> duplicate of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13378029#13378276](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13378029#13378276)

<comment><USER21> Not a duplicate, they are different articles

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Such a waste of an opportunity!

"If the public fully understood your reasons for supporting Donald Trump, they would be shocked and despise you."

"Your successful persecution of Gawker provided meaningful catharsis related to personal traumas around your sexual orientation."

"Given the chance, you would trade the lives of one hundred thousand poor people for the ability to live indefinitely."

"Donald Trump has the upper hand in your relationship."

<comment><USER23> Here's the text of Peter's speech at the national press club, explaining his reasons for supporting Trump.

[http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/31/peter-thiel-on- trump-a...](http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/31/peter-thiel-on-trump-and- the-crazy-condition-of-our-country/)

(ps downvoted you for homophobic nonsense)

<comment><USER22> I am gay and the premise that criticizing Thiel for working out his issues by destroying a company is somehow homophobic is very problematic.

And anyway, I'm not confirming or denying. I want him to.

<comment><USER23> I apologize for misunderstanding you, but your words still look ugly to me.

If you really care so much about what Peter thinks, what exactly are you accusing him of with the first question? How are you so sure of his motivations? That seems offensive coming from anyone. Happy to discuss in email.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


An Open Letter to the Start-up CEO Who Believes He Owns a Business - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@laurajeanmoore/an-open-letter-to-the-start-up-ceo-who-believes-he-owns-a-business-37b30c329672

<comment><AUTHOR> A bit ranty but it makes a couple of decent points.

Excerpt:

 _But I bet you don't often think about yourself as a culture maker, which is a shame, because the decisions you make and the business models you endorse are building the world you will grow old in. And the one I'm trying to live in now._</comment>


A modest proposal for an interstellar communications network - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/18526871

<comment><USER2> > it is an idea that can easily be checked, for astronomers are already > sitting on the data that might contain these extraterrestrial messages.

I do not believe this. Whilst we may have vast amounts of data from the electromagnetic spectrum, there are only a handful of neutrino detectors on earth, and they have a very narrow research domain. Not to mention that as neutrinos are so unbelievably weakly interacting the quantity of neutrino interactions ever recorded is minuscule.

The viability of neutrino messaging seems... dubious. The fact that solid matter is almost perfectly transparent to neutrinos makes them a singularly bad candidate for information transmission. You'd need a pool of water the size of the solar system to detect enough of them capable of carrying a meaningful message.

On the other hand, there are large parts of the EM spectrum that are attenuated only marginally by inter-stellar gas and would be much more suitable.

<comment><USER3> That's why the proposal hinges on using neutrinos with particular energy (6.3PeV, 6.3 * 10^15eV). The article mentions those have two properties:

* quite likely to release a W- boson (itself easily detectable) when interacting with matter in detector, and

* not being emited in any sizeable numbers from natural sources -- thus implicating artificial source.

<comment><USER2> > Quite likely to release a W- boson.

Possibly, if it interacts at all. This is still a vanishingly small probability, even if high compared to other neutrino energies.

10^15eV is an astonishingly high energy. About 1,000 times as energetic as a proton in the LHC (which benefits from a gigantic rest-mass). To generate enough of them to be detected is seriously the realms of ultra-science fiction. Along the lines of turning Jupiter into a star or building a Dyson Sphere.

<comment><USER4> > Along the lines of turning Jupiter into a star or building a Dyson Sphere.

Neither of which is likely to be all that hard for a civilization a million years further in development than we are.

<comment><USER5> That's assuming ... quite a bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wish the phrase "A modest proposal" would be reserved for the satirical intent with which Swift first used it.

<comment><USER7> Well clearly this is all in the name of feeding aliens to the poor. Or just getting literature enthusiasts to read about neutrinos :]

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Over the course of my life, a little tidbit of wisdom I've learned, and not heeded enough - like right now - is the wisdom of shutting up.

As amazing as the prospect of communicating with and meeting a spacefaring race would be, I fear the consequences may lie somewhere between a repeat of the Louisiana Purchase and putting up a galactic 'Joe's Diner' sign.

Are we a babe screaming in the woods?

<comment><USER9> The book "Killing Star" comes to mind. The aliens did not burn up tons of anti-matter to come and steal our stuff -- the came (in the book) because they had the MicroSoft business plan: destroy any competition. (do unto others before they do unto you)

Yeah, that book starts with a neutrino detector. The guy monitoring it is not a happy camper :-)

<comment><USER10> > the came (in the book) because they had the MicroSoft business plan: destroy > any competition. (do unto others before they do unto you)

And why would anyone logically do unto anyone first? If you're not worried about people stealing your stuff (because it's so fantastically expensive to do that at interstellar distances), then there's really very little incentive to harm anyone.

The only thing I can think of is that you're worried another race might develop cheap enough FTL that they could then do an interstellar smash-and- grab, but compared to the time and expense of mounting your own campaign, it's probably faster and easier just to focus your resources on building your own FTL.

<comment><USER9> I'm not saying I agree with the philosophy, just that that's how the antagonists in the book thought: we're scared, we don't trust anyone, so snuff out any other possible competing space-faring species in the cradle.

Of course, it's entirely possible that it simply isn't practical to traverse interstellar distances at all, other than sending dormant robots on "the slow boat" to explore and "phone home" about what they found. More likely there are better ways to travel, but it might take more than 50 years on manned space travel to discover / devise them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How would this neutrino beam work, as there is no feasible material that can really focus these particles? Won't a neutrino emitter (the sort we can build) be essentially isotropic. Perhaps higher-energy neutrinos would have a higher interaction cross-section, making them somewhat more 'visible'.

Long wavelength radio (near 3-20Hz) may work just as well, with potentially a better data rate (still poor) than a neutrino-encoded emitter. A "neutrino emitter" would have no 'gain', while we may find ways to build really large and orientable radio antennas. You can build an antenna that can work on wavelengths larger than the earth with very long wires strewn out into outer space. Although below 3 or so Hz, space plasma becomes opaque and that would prevent transmissions.

</comment><comment><USER12> 'If an intergalactic version of "Yesterday in Parliament" showed up in such a trawl it might not demonstrate the existence of truly intelligent aliens. By contrast, coverage of the cricket on "Test Match Special" would surely be proof positive.'

I think they have this joke backwards.

</comment><comment><USER13> My mind is on the floor. Though seemingly ridiculous, it is incredibly imaginative.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is funny, but quite loony. And I'm wondering how it may matter to the Economist.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you find an *expert* in CS? - <AUTHOR> Say that you're trying to implement a complex new feature, or that you've found a critical bug in your system. The time arrives when you see yourself staring at the screen without answers. You've tried Stack Overflow, Google, Github, IRC, anything! What do you do? How do you find someone to help you work that thing out?<p>Disclaimer:
I'm asking this because I'm working on a project that aims to help people finding experts to unlock their critical issues. And I need to first understand if I'm the only one seeing this as an something that needs to be improved. <comment><USER2> Possibly useful advice at

[https://github.com/braydie/HowToBeAProgrammer](https://github.com/braydie/HowToBeAProgrammer)

especially the chapters "How to Find Out Information" and "How to Utilize People as Information Sources"

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been brought in as an expert before. The ways it has happened for me are through personal network / recommendation and via Toptal (high-end freelance / low end consulting)</comment>


The Tools We Use - <AUTHOR> https://storystudio.oculus.com/en-us/blog/the-tools-we-use-as-of-august-2015/

<comment><USER2> Not really a whole lot of interesting stuff there if you've already working in games pipelines, that's all pretty standard tech/workflow.

</comment><comment><USER3> Keep in mind this is just for StoryStudio, the content creation side of Oculus.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm surprised to see Perforce on there.

<comment><USER2> You shouldn't be, it's the de-facto source control for games and interactive content.

Git/Mercurial/etc don't provide the strong locking mechanisms needed to deal with binary files.

Combine that with the fact that Git falls over at ~5GB. When I was in games we'd regularly have repos > 30GB for a code sync or > 150GB for art sync.

Perforce would pull down that art sync in 10 minutes, good luck doing that with Git, not to mention that they support Proxies that handle caching of large changesets automatically for remote teams.

<comment><USER5> > Combine that with the fact that Git falls over at ~5GB.

I've never heard that (and certainly don't personally deal w/ git repos that large). I thought massive repository handling was supposed to be a strength of git. How does git (start) failing at that scale ?

<comment><USER6> If you commit a large binary file and iterate on it a bunch you'll notice that your repo size explodes. That's why there have been multiple efforts (e.g. git-annex, Git Large File Storage) to improve performance with large binary files (by essentially taking the files out of the repo).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kind of disappointed to hear that there isn't much custom stuff going, especially with iq as their VFX sup.

<comment><USER7> Uh, I feel completely the opposite in that regard. Commonly available, well- known tools should be the norm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like that line about how the Oculus' audio quality is on par with $250 headphones. What a deal!

</comment><comment><USER8> I've heard of Dropbox.</comment>


A.I. may replace jobs, but Sam Altman sees global GDP increasing - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/26/sam-altman-on-ai-jobs-may-go-away-but-massive-abundance-likely.html <comment><USER2> Apparently Sam is claiming:

> "We have to be ready for a world where global GDP goes up 50 percent a year > for a couple of decades,"

Interesting.</comment>