Performance of the 8088 on PC, PCjr and Tandy 1000 - <AUTHOR> https://retro.moe/2018/03/04/performance-of-the-8088-on-pc-pcjr-and-tandy-1000/ <comment><USER2> For context, when these machines were being sold, nobody even thought about performance in these terms. It is only later that we are benchmarking old machines to understand the performance gaps, and if you weren't there, you might think this was relevant at the time.

Generally, in the mid 80s, you needed base performance (8088/8086) or "3 times as fast" performance (80286) when the AT came about. Compaq (now HP) became the real competitor to IBM PC/XT because the end user could understand that they ran at 8 MHz vs the PC 4.77 Mhz. This is as much performance issues that the users would want to know. Better performance without needing to buy an AT. Then the clones came about, and everybody started to put a "turbo" button on front of the clone PC.

My first degree was in finance and accounting, but I fell in love with technology, so I sold PCs out of the biggest gray marketer in Seattle when the PC AT (second real computer for business) was coming out. I have first hand knowledge of the buying behavior because I was on the front lines of computer sales, and made a ton of good money selling $2-5K computers to people walking in off the street.

The advent of the PC revolution was all about apps. I'm not saying that there weren't benchmarks, and maybe you'd find a savvy buyer that subscribed to Byte magazine, but these were far and few between. Tandy simply didn't have Lotus 1-2-3. The PC Junior wasn't a performance issue, but the term "Junior" just killed the thing out of the gate. The investment in a PC was a lot of money, and you weren't going to get a Junior, you were going to get a real PC. (For instance, the keyboard was much more impactful than any performance thoughts.)

Finally, for those not around, storage was an incredible change agent. A lot of people think an SSD in a client platform is pretty cool. However, you cannot image the step up that a hard drive provided versus a floppy drive. The PC Junior and Tandy had no real hard drive path. While IBM had hard drive specific model (XT), the effort to install a hard drive in a PC was pretty small because of the accessibility. An open architecture, which any home builder takes for granted today, was pretty revolutionary at the time, and IBM's willingness to allow plug-ins (where they followed Woz) caused it to cremate the competition with a peripheral market.

<comment><USER3> Where I worked (a digital electronics simulation company in the late 1980's), we said that PC's had "user interface MIPs" but not "CPU MIPs".

A VAX 11/780 (size of a refrigerator) had more CPU power, but access was via RS232 link to a VT100 terminal. These could be pretty slow: it wasn't unusual to type a command line and wait up to 10 seconds (or a minute, in really bad times) to get a response. And a graph could easily take a minute to fully display on a VT240 graphics terminal.

A PC on the other hand had "user interface MIPs" and could display a graph instantly. What the PC couldn't do is run our very large, 32-bit required simulation code.

(As far as how easy it was to add a hard drive: at the time, to add a new disk to a sun station, you had to recompile the kernel)

<comment><USER4> Sounds like you where using an overloaded VAX then the PR!ME 550 (similar tech and a competitor to VAX) we had at my fist job never had such sluggish performance.

And Vt240 was very much noddy graphics high end then was insanely expensive vector systems from HP os Tectronix

<comment><USER3> Twenty programmers on one vax and actually doing the simulations is CPU intensive. The VT240 is what our customers had (and they are expensive enough all by themselves; a single VT340 in 1991 was $3600.

<comment><USER4> 20 people all running intensive programs well I am not surprised sounds like you needed a bigger vax or more vixen.

<comment><USER3> Our vax cost $500,000. It's not something you just get more of :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find stuff like this fascinating; I'm old enough to remember computers from this era, and—at least for me—I have a certain nostalgia for them. The first computer I was exposed to was an IBM PCjr, so seeing stuff like this 35 years after-the-fact is pretty mind-blowing, that people still care.

I know that a lot of it is just my age, and I remember my father growing up used to work on/rebuild the engine on his '64 VW beetle. I think for very similar reasons: nostalgia, limited complexity, the tangibility of the "API". For me, POKEing a value in memory and seeing the screen change or a sound play is tangible. The opcodes of an 8088 are _just_ enough that I can feel like I understand it. Modern computers feel several orders of magnitude more complex and—admittedly—more powerful, but at a _cost_. I'm sure my dad thought the same about electric fuel-injected engines and the ever increasing complexity of "modern" cars.

Currently, on my work-bench in the garage is a half-completed [Micro8088]([https://github.com/skiselev/micro_8088](https://github.com/skiselev/micro_8088)) and 8-bit ISA back-plane; still waiting for a few parts to come in. Its been a lot of fun to work on, and the intent is to get back into doing some retro- programming. (Hopefully, I have a better understanding of the underlying architecture now than I did when I spent a summer when I was 14 trying to figure out the relationship between AH/AL and AX without a concrete understanding of binary/hexadecimal math)

</comment><comment><USER6> The lower 128k on the PCjr is shared with the video controller. Contention caused by this dual access is what slows it down.

<comment><USER7> I expected the Tandy 1000 to have similar performance - IIRC, their video modes are very similar.

<comment><USER6> Most of the Tandy 1000s included a DMA controller which the PCjr did not. This eliminated the shared memory issues the PCjr suffered from.

Although similar Tandy graphics could utilize different memory blocks for video. This means that the Tandy was compatible with software written for the PCjr graphics system but some software written for the Tandy graphics system is not compatible with the PCjr.

<comment><USER8> The DMA issue was only a factor for the disk drive. While the PCjr graphics memory was shared with the main CPU memory, the Tandy graphics memory was separate in the same way that the EGA graphics memory was separate---it was never used for program code.

In fact, the Tandy graphics was probably _more_ compatible with the normal PC graphics than with the PCjr graphics. Yes, you could still access CGA graphics on the PCjr via $B800:0000 but the graphics chip rerouted the accesses to low memory were it was actually stored.

But to use the 320x200x16 graphics mode (PCjr and Tandy supported this, CGA did not) on the PCjr, you needed to not only set the mode, but know the physical address (which could be anywhere in the lower 128K of RAM). When I wrote programs that used this mode, I had to use a custom MS-DOS configuration that set aside a block of low RAM for this mode. On this Tandy, you could avoid this and use the RAM set aside for graphics (starting at $A000:0000 if I recall correctly).

<comment><USER6> "the Tandy graphics memory was separate in the same way that the EGA graphics memory was separate---it was never used for program code."

This is incorrect. The Tandy graphics adapter did share ram with the cpu. The service manual for the Tandy 1000 can be found at [http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Wiki/images/7/7c/Tandy_1000_-...](http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Wiki/images/7/7c/Tandy_1000_-_Manual_- _Service.pdf). Starting on page 40 is a good description of how this worked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I know on our PCjr, the first 128k was built in, and above that only worked when we had the memory expander card attached, so there is a location difference. The cynic in me says it was an administrative decision to show the jr as a lower cost lower performance option.

<comment><USER10> I had a base PCjr with 128K of RAM, one 360K floppy disk drive, and no hard drive. Copying disks took FOREVER. I was so jealous of my friend who had two disk drives on his PC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I remember the PCjr felt considerably slower than the 5150 (PC) and also had a terrible keyboard, however it was innovative to use infrared to make it wireless. It also had cartridge slots and a small catalog of (mostly) games that came on them, but in practice there was no benefit to that.

The biggest problem I saw with Tandy was partial incompatibility with certain popular software.

<comment><USER12> "but in practice there was no benefit to that."

Apparently the cartridge ROMs weren't afflicted by the wait states that applied to the first 128k of RAM, so software on the cartridges could actually run faster than software on disk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> On these machines performance was very consistent. They has memory without any cache, with memory parts with standard timings connected to a memory bus with the same timing as the CPU clock. Differences were in additional wait states introduced by other parts (such as the video on the PCjr) of the machine- specific architecture.

It'd be nice to run a similar set of benchmarks on "almost compatible" machines such as the Sanyo MBC-555, the Zenith Z-100 or the Mindset.

</comment><comment><USER13> Having owned all three of these; I grew up in an IBM house hold but later on I had two different Tandy 1000 series PCs (EX and the bastardized TX which had an 80286 on a XT board). We had a PC from early days complete with the large hard bound manuals, single sided diskettes, and text only.

Now the regardless of processor the PCjr was seriously impacted in that that the keyboard interrupt was not there but actually had to be handled by the processor. See [https://www.brutman.com/PCjr/pcjr_keyboard_handling.html](https://www.brutman.com/PCjr/pcjr_keyboard_handling.html) for a good description of what this incurred.

(now for the rambling part) The Tandy was great for their 16 color hack and better sound which made games so much more enjoyable. (star flight being my favorite game ever and it used two 360k diskettes for a persistent environment)

fwiw, even before dedicated graphics we had cool games. Even Wizardry which I had on my Apple was available for the PC and I played it with the ASCII character set being used to create the halls in 3D (think plus sign, bars, and minus signs). All the text based games many reminisce about are from this era</comment>


What to look for when joining a start up? - <AUTHOR>

i am young, no wife and kids, and am not in SF, but moving to SF in a couple months to get into the game.  i have a technical degree, have worked for start ups before, but can not program.  i have the start up affliction.<p>what types of jobs are available for a non-coding, technical person in a start up? what do you look for when joining a start up? what can i expect as far as avg employee number? <comment><USER2> One of the best thing about coding positions is that they allow you to enter a new company and start contributing immediately in a very high value way. If you're good at this, companies will typically heap as much responsibility on you as you can take - largely because the only way the developer can be effective is to gain domain knowledge. I think that one of the best ways to get to other technical positions is to start as a developer and move into these other roles once you start to understand the business and product

(note: I definitely don't view moving out of development as necessarily "moving up", just "moving over" - in fact, I'd avoid companies that view the software development role as a "bottom rung" position. These companies will write unbelievably crappy software and almost certainly lose any meaningful technology race).

Any reason you don't want to start with the dev position? You have a technical degree - did you do any programming during it?

</comment><comment><USER3> My suggestion is that you go out and figure out for yourself what types of non-coding jobs are available, and then come back and ask for some tips/pointers about the specific position(s) that interest you.

If you're not even sure what the typical org chart looks like, you're not in a very strong position to convince many folks that you're a good fit for the team, and will lend value.

Sorry if my comment seems too harsh, your post just reads to me like you don't even have some of the basic covered yet.

</comment><comment><USER4> sales engineer, product management, program manager</comment>


What the Founder's Email Address Says About Your Startup - <AUTHOR> https://genuinevc.com/2012/03/20/what-the-founders-email-address-says-about-your-startup/ <comment><USER2> That's actually a recurring question I have, given that we have a fairly long (21 chars) domain name: should we stick to firstname.lastname@example.com (which is fine but long to type), move to first names only (with the obvious question of what to do once you have 2 employees with the same first name), or purchase a shorter domain name as an alias (which means a lot of changes)? Any thoughts?</comment>


A.D.H.D. Experts Re-evaluate Study's Zeal for Drugs - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/30/health/adhd-experts-re-evaluate-studys-zeal-for-drugs.html

<comment><USER2> as someone who is interested in this, any chance you could pastebin it or something for those of us that can't get past the paywall?

<comment><USER3> Open an 'incognito' tab to get around the paywall ..

<comment><USER2> themoreyouknow.jpg

thanks</comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: Spectrum NY is currently blocking incoming calls - <AUTHOR> https://www.spectrum.com/contact-us <comment><AUTHOR> The number listed on the support page (1-855-707-7328) currently auto-rejects incoming calls.

Work-around: Call Sales at 1-844-579-3743, then get transferred to customer service.</comment>


European Commission: have your say on geo-blocking and online platforms - open-source-ux http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-5704_en.htm <comment><AUTHOR> In a sentence ... price discrimination over the world wide web defeats the purpose of the world wide web ...</comment>


CloudCss - Combine and minify your css files on the fly. - <AUTHOR> http://cloud-css.appspot.com/ One of the most easy ways to speed up your website is to minize the number of http requests. This little tool helps you to do that by combining all of your css files into one big, minified css asset that you can integrate into your website. <comment><USER2> like it!

</comment><comment><USER3> nice!</comment>


Ask HN: How old is too old to pivot? - <AUTHOR>

I've always felt like a programmer trapped in a businessman's body. How old do you find/feel is too old to jump into coding (which I've dabbled in since roughly 2000), maybe take a code bootcamp (that particular Ask HN inspired this) and try to transition to full-on developer? <comment><USER2> There isn't a "too old". Having experience outside of the coding world provides value as you turn ideas into software. I do think ageism is real in the software world, but it is easily countered by building cool stuff. Open source and personal projects provide great resumes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Age shouldn't matter. Give it a try on the side to see if its something you care about.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Been doing a bit of that... just need to dedicate more time to it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Change averse vs. truly awful? - <AUTHOR> Is it me or is the new gmail look (forced on me today) awful?
They keep stretching the definition of "compact". There's new oceans (maybe it's climate change) of whitespace between various elements. There's less contrast (none, AFAICT) separating what are clearly different zones, eg the sidebar vs the email content. The default font is atrocious (for email).
There is a single good thing. They re-promoted a top level button from ages ago, mark unread. It's in a "section" with the new snooze button. Quoted because you almost cannot tell it's a section. Did you notice it's segregated from the sections to either side with tiny essentially invisible bars?
I could go on for pages, and oh how I would love to, but that isn't my main point.
I find I hate almost all UI changes of newly updated products. But surely, these are big companies and they absolutely must do A/B user testing, right? Who in their right mind likes these changes?!?!? Is it some kind of job security for UI/UX people? How do they get away with it? It just reeks incompetence to me, I don't get it. Just look at iTunes' evolution for another prime example.
Or, am I just change averse?
Let me also point you to literally my favorite website, https://grumpy.website/ <comment><USER2> That won't be of any comfort, but I'm exactly the same as you.

My Twitter history is just a long litany of complaints to companies that updated by their products by downgrading them, usually by:

\- breaking the product entirely (Apple Preview.app) \- removing useful keyboard shortcuts (Excel) \- changing the UI with no going back option (Gmail)

… and the UI changes usually boil down to: more whitespace, because those products are getting influenced by their mobile phone versions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Last time Google did a redesign of gmail, they tried it internally first.

Huge number of people complained. Personally it made my eyes "slide" out of the text I was reading, not sure what they did but it was awful.

They started off with "Change aversion!@@#@", then they had to roll it back due to enough complaints. Final version was better.

My theory is that Google designers each have three 32" monitors and never leave the office.

</comment><comment><USER4> I got used to it surprisingly quickly.</comment>


Lawsuit shows WB Westworld game stole Fallout Shelter code, even has same bugs - forgot-my-pw https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/06/22/bethesda-lawsuit-says-westworld-game-stole-fallout-shelter-code-even-bugs/ <comment> forgot-my-pw From a reddit comment:

Bethesda hired Behavior Interactive under a work-for-hire contract to create the Fallout Shelter game. The terms of the contract stated that all work done by Behavior for Fallout Shelter became property of Bethesda, which included code, designs, artwork, etc.

Warner Bros hired Behavior to create the Westworld game. Behavior then allegedly used the same code that was used for the Fallout Shelter game. While the code in both games was potentially the sole work of Behavor, legally, what was used for Fallout Shelter legally belongs to Bethesda.

<comment> andre-m Being that Behavior is a game development company, is it feasible that they used in-house libraries for developing common game functions, such as animation, that could explain some of the similarities?

And if that's the case, and Behavior had ownership of the libraries prior to their contract with Bethesda, does usage of these libraries in Fallout Shelter therefore transfer ownership to Bethesda?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a constant concern with developers in embedded space (microcontrollers), afaik current consensus is rewrite everything when you sign exclusive contract, unless you put library reuse explicitly in writing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Sigh. The lawsuit "shows" no such thing. It alleges it.</comment>


Fuchsia Programming Language Policy - <AUTHOR> https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/fuchsia/+/refs/heads/master/docs/contribute/governance/policy/programming_languages.md <comment><AUTHOR> Earlier discussion that now points to a broken link (the document was moved): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22409838](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22409838)</comment>


Advice for the Young - <AUTHOR> http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/philosophy/advice-for-the-young/

<comment><USER2> I stopped reading at the heading: "Windows will be dead; Microsoft may or may not Die with it."

Windows has been dead since before Windows existed. (All you fellow old farts: How many prove-able, truly, completely superior alternatives were there to DOS in the old days?). And hasn't Windows, since the 1.0 release, always been inferior to the Mac? Has it not always crashed more, required more re- installs, and basically been a technical let-down in one way or another? This guy acts like he just discovered that Windows is technically inferior to the alternatives. This guy's standing so close to the curve, he thinks it's a flat line.

I'm thinking, as comatose_kid states, maybe this guy's not old enough. He should be taking advice and reading history books, he has no place actually giving advice.

<comment><USER3> "I'm thinking, as comatose_kid states, maybe this guy's not old enough. He should be taking advice and reading history books, he has no place actually giving advice."

I think the text should be judged by the content, rather than the credibility of the author. Authorities can be mistaken, after all. Elaborating; if he were eighty years of age, I would still see it proper to judge his words as harshly as anyone else's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The guy is 31.

<comment><USER5> When hes 31, he knows what he missed or should have done when he was younger. An younger guy maynot realise that. We always realise mistakes or missed oppurtunities in hindsight.</comment></comment>


Frog and Toad are Cofounders - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/frog-and-toad-are-cofounders <comment><USER2> I like this.

"Then you get up from that nap pod and let me get into it," said Toad "because I have been crushing it for days and need to chill."</comment>


Elon Musk Demonstrates The Power Of Transparency With First Tesla Model S Recall - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/19/elon-musk-demonstrates-the-power-of-transparency-with-first-tesla-model-s-recall/

<comment><USER2> Could be this just a PR move ? Cost of few modele Recall is not even close to the quant of marketing budget.</comment>


Final Ruling Against Patreon Opens Legal Avenue to Defend Against Deplatforming - <AUTHOR> https://reclaimthenet.org/final-ruling-patreon-owen-benjamin-injunction-denied/ <comment><USER2> There seems to be a misunderstanding about this ruling.

It's just a ruling against an injunction that would have barred resolving the deplatforming dispute through arbitration.

It has no precendtial value. It has no probative value. It says nothing about how the underlying dispute will be resolved.

It should be seen as just one of many examples of the courts binding companies to the arbitration procedures companies included in their customer contracts in their attempts to avoid court.

<comment><USER2> Replying to myself because this comment is on a different topic: the arguments about deplatforming in the linked page are quite frankly ridiculous and are unlikely to succeed, whether made in court or in arbitration.

Patrons in patreon do not have a direct contractual relationship with the projects they sponsor, so there can be no tortious interference of contact.

The cases are simply a gambit that patreon will settle and let these racists back on the platform rather than pay the costs of arbitration.

<comment><USER3> There does not need to be a written contractual relationship to invoke tortious interference. The followers clearly intended to support Owen financially, not Patreon itself, so there is a financial relationship between them.

But given that Patreon was clearly and obviously a man-in-the-middle of the relationship and had policies which could be violated and which would terminate the relationship, and all parties knew this up front, then it is also clear to me that Patreon can freely choose to stop being a man-in-the- middle, and as such I don't think the tortious interference claim makes sense in this case.

<comment><USER2> There absolutely needs to be a contractual relationship between two parties in order for one of those parties to to make a _successful_ claim for tortious interference _of contract_ by another party. It's literally Torts 101.

If the followers wanted to have a contractual arrangement with Owen, they were free to do so outside of the bounds of Patreon (including, but not limited to direct donations, Paypal transactions, or Stipe payments), forgoing the controls and protections Patreon offers to patrons. The followers chose not to do so, ergo, it's clear that they _did not_ intend to contract with Owens directly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Uh, article lacking some background. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Benjamin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Benjamin)

<comment><USER5> Why? Owen Benjamin may be an antisemitic nutcase (the little I know of him makes me think he is), but that's irrelevant to the legal merits of the case. To go into his background would be a fairly ridiculous example of bothsidesism, especially for a group like "Reclaim the Net," which seems to have an axe to grind against cancel culture, censorship and deplatforming. No one expects BLM to e.g. publish the evidence debunking the "hands up don't shoot" narrative around the killing of Michael Brown, [1] so why should other activists groups be held up to a more stringent standard? If Owen Benjamin's legal rights were violated, he deserves to be made whole (though I admit I'd enjoy him having some egg on his face if one or more people instrumental in securing his legal rights happened to be Jewish).

[1] [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/michael-brown- shooting_n_6030...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/michael-brown- shooting_n_6030220)

<comment><USER6> IMO this is a fundamental problem with American ideals. Antisemitism is straight up illegal here, why should society permit assholes like this to run around and make money encouraging more people to be like them? I'd rather work with a platform that is willing to separate from toxicity.

<comment><USER7> The question in the case is not whether they are allowed to kick him off. The question is whether each of his Patreon subscribers can bring them to arbitration for interfering in their "business relationship". It's possible that every arbitration case could be found in Patreon's favor, but it will still cost them money.

Anyway I think the article is misleading. This only worked because Patreon's TOS used to allow it. They've since changed the TOS [https://nationalfile.com/patreon-loses-lawsuit-with-owen- ben...](https://nationalfile.com/patreon-loses-lawsuit-with-owen-benjamin- fans-likely-to-pay-millions-in-arbitration-and-legal-fees/) and this wouldn't apply to any other company unless they had a similar oversight.

<comment><USER5> > The question in the case is not whether they are allowed to kick him off. > The question is whether each of his Patreon subscribers can bring them to > arbitration for interfering in their "business relationship". It's possible > that every arbitration case could be found in Patreon's favor, but it will > still cost them money.

No, not quite. The question as adjudicated is whether a company that mandates a fairly specific arbitration process as a condition of using that company's services can unilaterally change the terms after becoming aware of imminent legal action being taken under those terms, whether significant fees that constitute a liability for the company are "irreparable harm" and then whether the courts or arbitrators are the ones who decide jurisdiction issues.

Anyone can take any legal action they like if they file the paperwork properly and pay the fees, but have no guarantees of success.

Also, I'm not sure Patreon's changes are actually enforceable (though I doubt any sane lawyer would want to test that before prevailing on a tortuous interference claim). Specifically, I doubt Patreon can require consumers to pay legal fees for arbitration beyond what CA law provides. I'm also not sure whether Patreon can carve out this exception to tortious interference actions this way, though a contract could in principle waive certain legal rights like the ability to sue over torts. Regardless, I think it's likely that anyone demanding individual arbitration's in CA could be liable whether or not they erred to the degree Patreon did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Legal issues aside as for all intents and purposes perhaps all legal aspects proceeded as intended -

Seeing as he also spreads misinformation on AIDS and Coronavirus not even being real, one can only hope he suferrs a horrifying fate of both at the same time.

<comment><USER9> "One can only hope.." You're using your hope in the wrong place my friend

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> They're not going to pay 10k per case. They're not going to have legal fees of $20 million. This is all hyperbole and conjecture from someone with a poor track record.

</comment><comment><USER11> Twitter is reportedly considering integrating a subscription service between members. Their lawyers must be reviewing this case very carefully. It may mean they'll have much less flexibility to restrict accounts with paid subscribers.

<comment><USER12> Frankly, this will kill the idea of paid subscribers between members. For Twitter to be legally safe, you would only be able to subscribe to Twitter itself, and I'm not sure why anyone would do that?

<comment><USER13> > For Twitter to be legally safe, you would only be able to subscribe to > Twitter itself, and I'm not sure why anyone would do that?

1\. The cases are still going to Arbitration. The only victory here, is that Patreon has to abide by its own TOS (at the time of the dispute).

2\. It's not clear to me to what extent arbitration creates precedents.

3\. In the very worst case, Twitter could just not remove people from its platform. There are all sorts of other things Twitter could do that would have nearly the same effect without the legal risk (e.g. shadowban someone from the rest of twitter except their current subscribers).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Discussion from earlier today:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24009301](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24009301) (33 comments)

</comment><comment><USER15> Does this imply that a company wanting to stick with an arbitration clause is better off relocating outside California?

<comment><USER2> No, the trend is toward courts forcing companies to pay for arbitration if they include arbitration clauses in their customer contacts or ToS. After all, the company was the entity that chose to require arbitration for resolving disputes, and can't later try to get out of it but citing the expense.</comment></comment>


Intel shows off 1 TFLOP/s computing power on a single chip (Knight's corner) - <AUTHOR> http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4230708/Exclusive-Video--Intel-s-Knight-s-Corner

<comment><USER2> Cool scoop for the EETimes team</comment>


Magic Printer Cartridge Paintbrush - <AUTHOR> http://spritesmods.com/?art=magicbrush <comment><USER2> _I have no idea why HP decided to use such a convoluted scheme to clock in the data to the nozzles. I 'd say something obvious like a shift register would also have worked fine here._

They _are_ shift registers, and the data fed to each nozzle is essentially a serial data stream, but multiple lanes are used to increase the bandwidth and allow higher printhead speeds.

The signals are not all that different from those used for driving LCDs and EPDs[1], if you step back to a higher level of abstraction and look at how they all "print" information --- there's clocks, serial data inputs, and latch signals.

This is a resistive heater "bubblejet" type printhead, the other major inkjet technology is piezoelectric which is widely encountered in Epson printers and also the majority of industrial ones due to their better robustness and ability to handle a wide range of inks. The piezoelectric heads use an even higher driving voltage (~40V) and are usually driven with a trapezoidal waveform, which can be timed with the firing pulse to obtain different drop sizes.

[1] Trademark "eInk", he also has another page on driving those: [http://spritesmods.com/?art=einkdisplay](http://spritesmods.com/?art=einkdisplay)

<comment><USER3> True, however, a 'normal' implementation would just the one clock signal to clock in the three data lines; to lower the clock frequency you could use the rising edges to clock in the even bits and falling edges to clock in the odd bits. That's not what they do here, though: they use the rising edge of the clock to clock in the even bits, as you'd expect, but the S1-S5 lines to clock in the odd bits. That is unexpected. Same with the existence of the S1-S5 lines all by itself: you could also have fixed that with a counter clocked by the existing clock line and a separate reset line; that'd simplify the connections between printer and cart. I'm still not sure why they didn't do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is serendipitous, I just saw a cartridge I had lying around and thought "I should look up how those work, they look interesting." Thanks for this!

</comment><comment><USER5> That's really clever. I wonder if you could rig something up that lets you draw patterns or rainbows etc.

<comment><USER6> Yep! I used InkShield, a project that was I think originally based on sprite_tm's cartridge reverse engineering to make arbitrary drawings:

[https://eclecti.cc/hardware/semi-automatic- paintbrush](https://eclecti.cc/hardware/semi-automatic-paintbrush)

<comment><USER5> Nice!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Enjoyed the presentation. Suspenseful, with a satisfying conclusion. Good Xmas/Festivus carb/tryptophan zone-out. Happy holidays, all.</comment>


Ask HN: Good books on computation - <AUTHOR> Hey HN,
I've been mulling the notion of computation. I'm familiar with the lambda calculus and Turing machines. For example I understand insofar that beta reduction is computation. Or the movement of tape is computation. Or the common analogy that information is steady state in the energy space and computation is the work done in changing these energy states.
However, the more I try to pin down an exact definition of a computation the more it slips away like star systems in Tarkin's grip. I seem to be missing some subtle understanding of computation.
I want recommendation on books that will help me understand computation in the way Jürgen Schmidhuber or Stephen Wolfram does. Some math is preferred, but without it being text-book dense would be nice.
I've thumbed through Sipser but it seems a bit obsessed over computational complexity. What I'm looking for is slightly more towards the pancompuationalist works.
Any recommendations is welcome <comment><USER2> Here's a short-list:

\- _Calculating space_ by Konrad Zuse (See: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18325689](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18325689))

\- _The Annotated Turing_ by Charles Petzlod

\- _Introduction to Lambda Calculus_ by H. Barendregt (do the exercises/proofs)

\- _Propositions as Types_ by Philip Wadler

\- Part III. of _Languages and Machines_ by Thomas Sudkamp

<comment><AUTHOR> My copy of Barendregt is well thumbed.

But that Zuse and Annotated Turing sounds interesting. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I suggest also

"What Can Be Computed? A Practical Guide to the Theory of Computation" by John MacCormick

here's my review

[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/book-review-piero- giacomelli/](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/book-review-piero-giacomelli/)</comment>


Ice Cream Sandwich May Come To Galaxy S - <AUTHOR> http://www.techieinsider.com/news/13906/cream-sandwich-galaxy/ <comment><USER2> "The avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote" <http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1362961>

Here's a link to ICS for my Galaxy S. I haven't tried it yet but I know it's in my future. Current users are finding the latest version practically bug free, not bad?

Samsung may be the father/mother of my device, but it's left its home now.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder to what extent their hand was forced by functioning ICS ROMs for the Galaxy S "in the wild". I am running one now on mine, and while it's certainly not polished (I miss Cyanogen), it works.</comment>


The uncertain future of particle physics - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/opinion/particle-physics-large-hadron-collider.html <comment><USER2> A collection of responses can be found at [https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=10768](https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=10768)

I agree along the lines of Peter's comment: "These hard-won null results are not a failure of the experimental program, but a great success of it. The only failure here is that of the theorists who came up with bad theory and ran a hugely successful hype campaign for it. I don't see how the lesson from seeing an experimental program successfully shoot down bad theory is that we should stop funding further such experiments. I also don't see how finding out that theorists were wrong in their predictions of new phenomena at the few hundred GeV scale means that new predictions by (often the same) theorists of no new phenomena at the multiple TeV scale should be used as a reason not to fund experimentalists who want to see if this is true."

<comment> T-A Nobody sane is predicting "no new phenomena at the multiple TeV scale". The correct statement is "no credible predictions of new phenomena at the multiple TeV scale". Not so much because such predictions come from "(often the same) theorists", but because the available data really doesn't offer much of a clue as to what might lie beyond the LHC's reach.

There may be new phenomena at the multiple TeV scale, but it is also quite possible that there is nothing there, and nothing all the way up to the Planck scale. Without even naturalness to lean on, the only guiding principle left is "pay and pray".</comment></comment>


Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman - <AUTHOR> http://apprenticeship-patterns.labs.oreilly.com/

<comment><USER2> I skimmed a bunch of passages in this, but I honestly don't get the whole "software craftsmanship" movement. all I see is common sense ideas dressed up with vapid motivational speakerisms. what am I missing here? am I just lucky because I've never worked in a dysfunctional software sweatshop?

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, but it is still a comforting entrance sign for those who fear programming. It is common sense, yes, but the interest of it is to show that general principles also stand for software development.

<comment><USER2> I guess I can see some value to the complete beginner, but I don't see the point of conferences dedicated to the topic (aside from the usual networking, vendor schwag, and food and travel paid for by your employer, of course)</comment></comment></comment>


How Spherical Codes Work - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-spherical-codes-work-20170412/ <comment><USER2> This is not just cool with respect to communication and long-distance communication, but my intuitive mind tells me that there's something here with respect to quantum computing as well, that is, mapping data/information to very small, spherical(*) points in space... I footnoted spherical, because you can think of spherical as a 3 dimensional system, but the idea should extend to N dimensions as well... Anyway, fascinating! Great article!</comment>


Show HN: AI generated brand books - <AUTHOR> https://www.gosubb.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, my name is Nikolay.

As a branding and marketing consultant, I had clients (and friends) come to me and ask me the same questions regarding the first steps to starting a business. I would always start with the same discovery questions about who are you and what are you trying to create and communicate to the world.

This was the birth place of SUBB, an automated branding agency. Making it simple and easy to start your business by autogenerating a brand book. Agency quality branding but for 10% of the cost and time investment.

I am excited about disrupting the current industry and making brand books accessible and available for every entrepreneur and small business.

-NB</comment>


[time change] San Fran news.yc meetup - this eve 8.30pm onwards in North Beach - <AUTHOR>

Tonight 8.30pm onwards 2140 Taylor street. Bring drink & food. People will be most likely arriving around 8.30-8.45. <p>See you there.. <comment><USER2> So, how'd it go?

<comment><USER3> 'Alex' here, I had a good time and met some interesting people. Thanks again for putting it on guys.

(just need to figure out an easier way to park or bart up there)</comment></comment>


101 areas where startups can create value - <AUTHOR> http://www.iamworththewait.org/101.html <comment><AUTHOR> Kind of a goofy list, but occasionally when I'm bored I'll glance at a few and brainstorm ways of making each activity more efficient, easy, fun, etc. Good way to stimulate creativity.</comment>


Top Patreon creators launching an alternate crowdfunding platform - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/jordan-peterson-says-hell-launch-patreon-alternative-before-christmas-2018-12 <comment><USER3> This is pretty interesting. People like Peterson get massive amounts of money through their Patreon. I would find it very hard to give that up. On the other hand, it seems necessary to do so to stay consistent with his values.

<comment><USER4> He is a university professor with tenure, has sold how many millions of copies of 12 Rules for Life and has had the Patreon income for some time.

I think it's safe to say that he is financially independent, and he doesn't strike me as the "can't ever get enough" kind of greedy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why exactly won't the outcome of this be that their alternate platform is dominated by characters that ruin the brand and drive away normal customers? Thats's what happens every time this is tried elsewhere.

<comment><USER6> That's exactly what will happen. These people don't seem to realize that it's not some institutional conspiracy that keeps their ideas on the fringe: It's the fact that most people find them and their ideas toxic, dumb, boring, and/or repellent.

<comment><USER7> If that were the case, why would there be a need for such efforts to shut them down?

The antidote to bad speech is more speech. Instead of attacking people, attack their arguments.

<comment><USER6> We have limited time on this earth. Sometimes we just have to say "I'm done arguing this over and over" and just move on. (Especially when the person on the other side is arguing in bad faith.)

No one has been shut down from continuing the "conversation" on their own platforms. You're not allowed to wander into Wal-Mart and sell whatever you want. You're also not allowed to wander onto Patreon and sell whatever you want.

<comment><USER7> This is about more than just Patreon.

It took a couple of days for SubscribeStar to have their paypal access removed once the loonies began their next witch hunt.

How far do we take the witch hunts before we decide enough is enough?

If everyone in the world decided not to trade with people they didn't agree with on everything, there would exist no trade.

<comment><USER6> Actually, I think we should take into account who we're doing business with when we do business. Make the world a better place: Support good people doing good things.

<comment><USER7> That kind of thinking is why black people would be given seats at the back of the bus.

You really need to stop making judgements about people.

<comment><USER5> That is a fatuous argument. You could make precisely the same argument about people who shun child molesters. People who shun white supremacists are not the same as white supremacists.

<comment><USER7> It's a different argument, because child molestation is a heinous crime, but white supremacy is in itself, not a criminal offence. Certain behaviours which may manifest as a result of white supremacy may be criminal.

We have legal systems which can deal with accusation of crimes. If you suspect somebody to be a child molester, you can report them. The legal system makes the judgement. It also prevents you from falsely accusing somebody of molestation if you do so without evidence or reasonable motive.

The same legal system should apply to anyone being or claiming to be white supremacist. Their action is not a crime unless they are inciting crime (ie, calling for racial genocide). If the latter is the case, then they should be prosecuted following the due process. Witch hunting is not due process.

I also think the same legal process should be applied to the far-left, who are frequently falsely accusing people of something they are not. Unfortunately, most people do not have the resources to fight anonymous twitter trolls for libel.

This case with Sargon can be seen as a pretty good example of your argument falling apart. He is frequently labeled as some kind of alt-right white supremacist, when it is precisely this he denounces publicly. (Yes, his words were not the most appropriate, but words are meaningless without context. Patreon specifically ignored the context.)

What has become of the left, is not that they're shunning white supremacists, but they are shunning _anybody that they perceive_ to be a white supremacist. A whole different story. If you have loose definitions like "hate speech", then it is justified to take down anyone you perceive to be your political opponent according to your standards.

Another example case was the witch hunt against Kavanaugh. It seems the left are determined to dismantle the idea of due process and putting people before judge and jury for the sake of virtue signalling and social "justice" (an oxymoron).

<comment><USER5> I could not be less interested in any debate on an HN thread than I am in the one about whether injustices were done to "Sargon of Akkad" and Justice Kavanaugh.

People who shun white supremacists are not morally equivalent to white supremacists.

<comment><USER7> > People who shun white supremacists are not morally equivalent to white > supremacists.

I'm not suggesting anything of the like. In fact, I will join you in shunning white supremacists, as I would shun supremacists of any race.

When "shunning" becomes more than denunciation, but taking action to unperson people and have them fired, cut off their finance, and make false accusations about their peers, I draw the line.

If you want to keep believing in the _moral superiority_ of that kind of social justice, be my guest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There have been various "alt-right" versions of companies, like twitter, and they don't seem to take off. Patreon took a long time to grow before enough people heard of it, and understood what it was. Alt-right versions don't have the reach, since by definition, they're niche-focused.

They usually also run into problems with payment processors.

<comment><USER9> The term "alt-right" is used so frequently by the left that it has lost any meaning. But if it is meant to refer to far-right extremist movements, I don't think that should apply to either Peterson, Harris or Rubin.

<comment><USER10> I think the broader point is that the 'free speech' sites that these guys make end up being overrun by the alt-right and the out-and-out fash.

But, on the question of Peterson being alt-right, his arguments for a willful re-adoption of mythical 'archetypes' as a basis for modern society is... well, excatly what happens with all far right ideologies, where a conception of social order is influenced by lobsters. (Cherry-picking bits of animal behaviour to explain human society is a mug's game, but if we were going to go down this route, why not create some vision of frozen gay ice cream orgies and child rearing, based on penguins?)

But the real smelly herring in Peterson's schtick is his conflation of Marxism, post-moderism, and general identity politics. It's an invented bogeyman, detached from any real analysis of the cornerstones of modern poltiics. Again, it's absolutely a key strain of any rightish movement.

A lot of this could be explained as him being more of a grifter than anything, but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><AUTHOR> This makes me wonder. Would it be useful if HN added the age of an account which each comment?

<comment><USER11> HN differentiates new users from the rest by giving them a green username.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The root of the problem is centralized platforms. The future consists of platforms which are:

1) End to end encrypted, with clients sharing keys as needed

2) Distributed hash tables route every activity to a few servers (per activity) which run consensus

3) Automatic rebalancing when some server is taken out

Simple? Well, this is the future. Not blockchains, but this.

MaidSAFE, Holochain, Intercoin and others are building it.

You can even make realtime push via sockets in this model, though anything realtime compromises anonymity.

</comment><comment><USER13> Ignoring whatever views you may have about him and those he associates with, at the end of one of Carl Benjamin/Sargon of Akkad's recent videos on his Patreon removal [0] he starts talking about 'alt-tech' (Gab, Voat, whatever this alt-Patreon ends up being) and tells his viewers to join with him 'to essentially build a new Internet that _they_ can't attack'.

This has me wondering about the long-feared Balkanisation of the Internet. It's always been assumed that nation state conflicts would bring this about [1,2], but this incident has me wondering if we might not see it come about based on ideology instead.

With all the fuss made about how people on social platforms live in filter bubbles, at least those bubbles coexisted on the same platforms and there might be at least some chance of piercing them. What's going to happen if we create two (or more) entirely separate service ecosystems for people to sort themselves into on political bases?

On the flipside, maybe this is a _feature_ of the market rather than a bug and everything'll work out fine [3]? It might even lead to a drive to develop resilient, distributed services that don't run the risk of a single provider being strongarmed or being able to revoke service on ideological grounds that everyone can benefit from.

I'll be interested to see how this all develops.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXRx98gpuRY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXRx98gpuRY)

[1] [http://newdigitalage.com/](http://newdigitalage.com/)

[2] [https://www.rt.com/russia/446502-russia-legislators- internet...](https://www.rt.com/russia/446502-russia-legislators-internet- security/)

[3] [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and- atomic-...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic- communitarianism/)

<comment><USER14> Humans interpreted censorship as damage and routed around it long before they encoded that into the internet. Dissent seems like an inherent, impossible to isolate part of the human condition. They can create bubbles all they like, but some people will break out and keep the ladder down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> All crowd funding can be disintermediated by smart contacts. Imho, the writing is on the wall.

<comment><USER16> Until the FBI or whoever comes in to shut it down once it attracts enough illegal activity.

<comment><USER17> If it can be shut down, it was a fail from the start.

Edit: Just in case it's not obvious, I consider vulnerability to takedown as a backdoor.

<comment><USER18> If it can't be shut down it is doomed to fail.

<comment><USER7> What makes you so sure?

BitTorrent couldn't be shut down, and that certainly didn't fail. Various torrent websites have been shut down and the protocol sill runs as good as ever.

What is needed isn't just a company delivering a patreon alternative, but people to build a protocol for crowdfunding, much like Bittorrent. This can be done now thanks to Bitcoin. If exchanges and webhosters get shut down, it will cause a slight disturbance in the protocol, but it won't bring the protocol down.

These protocols can offer better privacy than their centralized counterparts, and censorship becomes a non-issue. Given the clear advantages, I suspect that it is the centralized, politically charged providers who are doomed to fail, eventually.

<comment><USER18> Who cares about the protocol? BitTorrent most certainly has taken a huge hit just by being associated with piracy, but regardless that's not very interesting. There are tons of ISPs etc. that filter BitTorrent, but that's mostly because it puts a strain on the network. Aside from that few has been attacking the protocol itself.

If emailing was considered illegal and google, microsoft et al would shut down their servers, you would still be able to email people.

Though far from anyone, and you might need to remember that odd IP because the DNS queries for popular people might be blocked depending on where you live.

If that was the case, would email be dead? Yes.

Would email as a protocol be dead? No. But it would be dead in the eyes of the public.

And that kind of defeats the "censorship becomes a non issue". By that logic censorship in china is also a non-issue. Because you can circumvent the great firewall with VPNs. Never mind that you have to be tech savvy and take personal risks, but despite that it isn't a non-issue to the public. And that's enough.

<comment><USER7> DNS is a problem for censorship resistance. The solution is not to identify people by their IP address, but to identify them by a unique token which cannot be forged by anyone else (a public key).

In place of DNS, you have distributed gossip protocols which map public keys to IP addresses, and where the messages in that protocol are digitally signed using the private keys for that public key, such that you couldn't have the equivalent of "DNS spoofing".

You can also use the same public keys to perform an authenticated DH key exchange and then have all of your communications encrypted and MITM resistant.

A public key would be like a phone number. You give it out to the people you want to have it directly.

We're effectively in an arms race right now where one side is determined to tightly control internet traffic like the Chinese firewalls, and the other side is developing distributed protocols which resist these censorship efforts. The latter has had a significant boost with the invention of Bitcoin, which can now be used without an internet connection, over SMS, satellite, radio and whatever else. This isn't going to be a trivial thing to shut down.

<comment><USER18> So, now those gossip protocols must now go through a central service, which has government oversight (I mean, think of the children!).

Any such traffic that are not destined for that central service is dropped at all ISP borders.

<comment><USER7> Gossip is P2P. The protocols can be hidden as if they were SSL or some other widely used protocols, but without the PKI and the centralization problems that has. Evading the censors will probably be a continuous effort. The great firewall has not succeeded in preventing the use of proxying services and VPNs, despite the efforts.

If internet censorship becomes too widespread, people will use other communication mechanism to conduct trade. As I mentioned, Bitcoin is broadcast over satellite and radio in some locations. You can send a transaction as an SMS message. A bitcoin transaction is ~250 bytes and can be encoded as a sequence of 16 emojis. I can print a bitcoin transaction on paper and the recipient can scan it.

<comment><USER18> Sure, but "evading the censors will probably be a continuous effort" and "censorship becomes a non-issue" are not compatible in the real world.

Even despite that the great firewall has not succeeded in preventing the use of proxying services it still is a massive success. And despite all the ways you can circumvent it censorship very much continues to be an issue, I'd argue more so for every day.

The instant such SMS message transactions become popular a quick filter will kill that if the need for it arises. And SMS is hardly the technique for privacy minded communication (neither is bitcoin).

What remains is perhaps ham radio. Still easy to triangulate, jam and is not accessible to anyone but the most extreme. Making triangulation even more desirable and paints an even greater target on your back.

Printed copies are hardly something to look forward too, it also excludes pretty much everyone. Cash would be quite superior unless you are transferring huge amounts (which most won't).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Peterson and Rubin are starting this because Patreon banned Yiannopoulos and Benjamin. Benjamin got banned for saying, among other things, "Maybe you're just acting like a n....r, mate? Have you considered that? Do you think white people act like this? White people are meant to be polite and respectful to one another, and you guys can't even act like white people, it's really amazing to me." Portraying Patreon's action as being anti-conservative is pretty disingenuous unless "conservative" was suddenly redefined to mean "racist."

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here. More information here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWz1RDVoqw4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWz1RDVoqw4)

</comment><comment><USER20> So what stops this new site from getting extremist?

Looking at a similar story of voat here, which quickly became very rightwing and unwelcome to tame ideologies

<comment><USER16> Who says this site intends to NOT get extremist? Providing a platform for freedom of speech as an ultimate goal will end up with extremism, which chases the less extremist people away - which is why e.g. Reddit started to crack down on the fringes a while ago, to increase their mass appeal and not piss off potential advertisers.

If you run a platform where your members pay you a percentage though, you're not beholden to advertisers. You'd be beholden to law enforcement though.

<comment><USER9> Well, they will likely run into problems with payment processors. My guess is that the only way they can achieve this is by still filtering for unwanted content (porn, extremists) but trying to not do what Patreon did, which is to call extremist people who really aren't just because they don't share their political opinion.

<comment><USER21> Looks like they need their own payment processing as well :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wonder how they will get Visa/Mastercard to support their new white supremacist crowd funding site.

<comment><AUTHOR> The people doing this are not white supremacists. Whoever claims this is either misinformed or slanderous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Finally, a reason to build something on a block chain.

</comment><comment><USER24> HN submission title is missing the "of the 'Intellectual Dark Web,'" bit.

<comment><USER25> So, I've have listened to quite a few of Jordan Peterson's talks to understand what was going on last time there was a controversy around him. I'm part of one of the demographics that was really angered about some of his conversations. After actually watching the content, I have seen nothing to worry or get mad about.

How could anyone think that "intellectual dark web" is any accurate to describe him?

There's nothing secret about what he does. He has podcasts, public talks and university classes that he uploads to his youtube channel.

It seems that the only way to create controversy around him is to clickbait stories and not actually listen to or describe his actual content.

Other than a profile / link aggregator called "intellectualdark.website" that hosts his profile, I don't see any relation at all.

Am I missing some details? Anyone has the full explanation?

\---

Edit:

This is about the article's full title: "Top Patreon creators, of the 'Intellectual Dark Web,' say they're launching an alternate crowdfunding platform not 'susceptible to arbitrary censorship'".

<comment><USER9> The "intellectual dark web" is a term that I believe Eric Weinstein coined to refer to themselves, so it is not meant to be critical or to refer to secrecy. Rather I understand it as a reference to a relatively diverse circle of intellectuals (Harris and Peterson for instance are on the opposite side of the political spectrum on many topics), that have a large direct audience (through youtube, conferences and podcasts), but that are persona non grata on mainstream medias (other than the occasional hit piece).

<comment><USER25> You seem to know a bit about the subject, I'll take the opportunity to ask a few questions if you don't mind (well, anyone else can answer too).

I am scouring the internet in the search of any snippets of information that actually links those youtubers / podcasters together.

Other than being at the center of controversies and having a lot of public notoriety, I'm not seeing anything. Even their ideologies and philosophies are not the same.

From my point of view, it almost seems like a huge misunderstanding... or perhaps a smearing campaign but I'm not one to cry wolf.

The situation is somewhat similar to that time mainstream media was implying relationship between youtubers based on 3rd degrees connections that occurred after collaborations. "X worked with Y. Y also worked with Z who is evil. X must be evil".

<comment><USER26> If you were asking how Harris and Peterson can be linked, they've debated publicly and have hosted discussions with one another on their podcasts.

<comment><USER25> This is grasping at straws. I am no alt-right apologist and consider myself quite the democratic socialist. Even from my point of view, it seems like this is nothing more than a vilification of the social discourse.

Would Sir Roger Scruton, The Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism and the Ralston College be considered part of the "Intellectual Dark Web" for hosting Jordan Peterson? (I'm not well versed in Peterson's career, this is the latest video on his youtube channel).

Perhaps Channel 4 News is also part of the conspiracy for hosting him on TV. Channel 4 is operated by Channel Four Television Corporation which is a public corporation of UK's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Does that means that the UK is at the head of the "dark intellectual web"? ...

I'm obliviously kidding, but there's no limit on how far you can spin this situation.

Thanks for answering. I'm leaving it at that, now I know more but this is not a rabbit hole I want to dive in any further.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What the hell is with the editorializing in this submission headline? The original is "Top Patreon creators, of the 'Intellectual Dark Web,[...]'. The headline here creates the impression that Jordan Peterson et al are the most popular people on the platform. They're not[1].

1\. [https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators](https://graphtreon.com/top- patreon-creators)

<comment><USER28> Peterson is #20 and Harris is #15 — how is that not the top?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> One of my favorite Jordan Peterson quotes:

> Now, here's the issue. We know that things can go too far on the right, and > we know that things can go too far on the left. But we don't know what the > markers are for going too far on the left. I would say that it's ethically > incumbent on those who are liberal or left-leaning to identity the markers > of pathological extremism on the left and to distinguish themselves from the > people who hold those pathological viewpoints — and I don't see that that's > being done.

I think when sites like Patreon, Twitter, etc. start banning other view points in the name of "social justice" or "political correctness"... all the while being complete hypocrites to their own values... is when the left goes too far.

<comment><USER30> really? extreme leftism is pretty clear, it's communism. Saying that communism isn't recognized by most people on the left as "going too far" is pretty hard to believe.

<comment><USER7> The irony is that you see many people non-ironically touting a hammer and sickle on their profiles on these sites. To me that symbol is as dreadful as the swastika. Both communism and fascism are two sides to the same coin. Horseshoe theory is a real.

If the platforms were concerned about extremism, they would be clamping down on the communists too, who have a human rights record as bad, if not worse than the fascists.

<comment><USER31> It's extremely reductive to label the ideology of Marx and that of the Nazis as two sides of the same coin.

Yea, planned economies suck and systematic mismanagement can have devastating effects, but you think that is comparable to an ideology of racial cleansing?

You think that the idea of democratic workplaces is the same as the idea of creating a master race? Governments do a lot of awful things, but at their core can you really say the ideas and tenets of communism are the same as Nazism?

It's not ironic that the symbols of communism aren't abhorred the same way as those of fascism, it's just that there's a little more nuance than "anti- capitalism is evil".

<comment><USER7> To me it only seems that their is a lack of reflection among socialists to acknowledge the utter failures of communism everywhere and every time it has been preached. I believe most conservatives acknowledge the failures of facsism.

I'm not comparing the specific details which differentiate the two ideologies, I'm comparing the traits which make them strikingly similar - <USER2> authoritarianism. Whether a commie or a fascist, it is the support of the use of state force to compel others into ones ideology that is the awful trait shared between the two camps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Yesterday there was some discussion about how Robinhood's SIPC fiasco could have been a marketing push because all publicity is good publicity. I disagreed because Robinhood is trying to be a "serious" business, and stunts like that would hurt their credibility.

This on the other hand is exactly the kind of situation where bad publicity helps the characters in question. This Patreon competitor is pure vaporware; Peterson has zero interest in business and tech, and doesn't even try to describe the feature set. He knows that as far as his audience is concerned, he only has to make it look like he's playing the big man and going to battle against the "oppressive censorship of the far left" for the money to keep coming in, either via book sales or speaking engagements.</comment>


How I doubled the battery life on my Mac by closing one tab in Chrome - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@primozcigler/how-i-doubled-the-battery-life-on-my-mac-by-literally-closing-one-tab-in-a-browser-d96f2c5374db#.3fbamwstb <comment><USER2> I often do this with OS X Chrome:

      killall -9 -m "Chrome Helper"

It kills all Chrome tab renderers, but you can easily reload them where you left off. Ultimate battery saver.

Chrome seems to even remember textarea / input contents.

Edit: Not that I've ever had any issues with that simple killall, however the following might be safer, it tries to match the process path, name and "\--renderer" command line parameter:

      pkill -9 -f "Google Chrome\.app/.*/MacOS/Google Chrome Helper .*--type=renderer"

<comment><USER3> Is there a Windows equivalent process?

<comment><USER2> Well, this is a bit hackish, but I got this to work with a minute of effort:

wmic Path win32_process Where "CommandLine Like '%chrome.exe\" \--type=renderer%'" Call Terminate

Tried it on Windows 10, latest Chrome. Ctrl-r didn't work on those killed tabs, had to click reload button. But other than that, the effect seemed to be same than on OS X.

Use at your own risk.

You can't use taskkill, because on Windows, all Chrome processes have the same file name, chrome.exe.

Edit:

This one should be a bit more reliable and safer. Note that it is not completely visible because of HN CSS:

      wmic Path win32_process Where "CommandLine Like '%--type=renderer%' and Name='chrome.exe'" Call Terminate

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am quite happy with The Great Suspender for automatically suspending tabs - has a good range of options for tweaking.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great- suspende...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great- suspender/klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg?hl=en)

<comment><USER5> The OneTab extension can also be used to convert all your hoarded tabs into a list, saving you memory and CPU.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbo...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbolifaimnlloiipkdnihall)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maximum battery life depends on the CPU being idle most of the time. Running an app that constantly uses the CPU will greatly shorten battery life. A web page constantly running code will make the browser constantly use the CPU.

So... great? All true, but why is this on HN? This is the sort of tip which belongs in a "...For Dummies" book.

<comment><USER7> I think it is more that this particular tab was somehow responsible for eating half of his battery life. It's not particularly clear that that particular page would consume an an insane amount of CPU/Battery.

<comment><USER6> I'd hope it would be quite clear to this audience. Intensive tasks can eat far _more_ than half your battery life. My MacBook Pro goes from 8+ hours of battery life to less than 2 if I run certain (not particularly fancy-looking) games, for example. The difference between idle consumption and maximum consumption is gigantic, which in turn implies that your battery life can be massively impacted by consistently going beyond idle.

Again, all true, but I don't understand why it's here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. But sometimes you will open up a website in a new tab. It won't be happening nothing special there, as least not visually. So you will assume it doesn't hurt performance/battery of your laptop.

But if the developer of that site left somewhere in JS something like while(true) {...} that page will drain your battery, even if you're not looking at that specific tab. And even if you are in other app than Chrome.

<comment><USER6> Again, true. But why is that worth posting here? This is Computer Use 101 material. That doesn't mean it's not valuable to some people, but for this particular audience it's about as obvious as "water your plants if you want them to grow" would be on Farmer News.

<comment><USER8> I haven't connected battery life to opened tabs before. There, this link was worth something to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> To add to the TLDR, its not Chrome's fault, but rather, a badly coded page that is using too much CPU.

<comment><USER10> I would say it is somewhat Chrome's fault, since tabs in the background should use less CPU. They also don't give users any control over resource usage, or notify them which tabs are using resources (except in that task manager thing which is hidden away, and not very reliable in my experience.)

Actually Chrome does slow down tabs in the background. On my computer whenever I put a CPU heavy tab in the background, it crawls to a snail's pace. And if you don't touch it in a long time, it is suspended and saved to the hard drive.

Which is why this story is weird. This shouldn't even be an issue.

<comment><USER11> > tabs in the background should use less CPU

That is a naive view on it. Javascript can be doing a LOT of things. It could be rotating a product carousel; or it could be running a browser game. In both cases that's something that can use a LOT of CPU, but in the latter case the user might want it to continue processing in the background. How is the browser supposed to differentiate this on its own?

<comment><USER12> But why can you not choose to either keep tabs you are not currently in focus with (so you are looking at another tab than the 50 others you have open) fully running, running at some max % or freeze completely? The latter just freezing the process which will require unfreeze but as it is a user choice it depends on their browser behavior.

<comment><USER11> I was commenting on doing such automatically. (Hard to implement.)

Doing it manually would be great, but then you run into Chrome's obsession with remaining simple and "slim", regardless of whether this happens to the detriment of users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The article is pretty simple and not even really helpful for technical folks (since I'm sure most on HN are aware of the chrome task manager)

It does remind me of the serious issue with horrible Ad heavy sites and opens broader questions like are there other plugins/apps to ban cpu intensive sites? Even google getting involved with a ranking of how cpu intensive a site is might be interesting. In fact I was expecting the article to go down that path and was rather disappointed it was so simple.

I recently had to disable javascript on Wikia because the site had useful information but the Ad javascript code was horrific performance wise.

</comment><comment><USER14> TLDR - shutdown tabs in Chrome that are consuming CPU. Write-up explains how to use Activity Monitor to diagnose and identify tabs causing problem.

</comment><comment><USER15> On my dual GPU MBP the biggest thing I do to get battery is use gfxCardStatus to force the MBP to use the integrated GPU only. Of course I do graphics and game related stuff but for example having Unity3D open but idle will keep the MBP in discrete GPU mode using lots more energy. Similarly having a google maps tab open in Chrome will also put the GPU in discrete GPU mode. gfxCardStatus lets me force it to integrated only when I don't need the speed.

Another minor thing I do is if I'm working on a game/visualization, at least in debug mode I make then pause if not the focus. Otherwise as I flip between my editor and my app/page the app/page is eating battery as it continously renders

</comment><comment><USER16> AKA, ".... with one simple trick!"

I wish Firefox had an ability to see which tab was hogging resources.

<comment><USER17> There's an experimental offshoot somewhere with per-tab processes or threads, does that one do that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interestingly enough - when I opened the Task Manager of Chrome, it was this article that was consuming the most memory / cpu of my open tabs.

</comment><comment><USER19> Maybe the linked page is not badly coded at all - maybe that is done on purpose. Has anyone debugged why the mentioned page [1] is consuming so much CPU time?

[1]

[http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=EUR&to=USD&view=1M](http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=EUR&to=USD&view=1M)

<comment><USER20> It wasn't for me. I've let it sit for a couple minutes too. I can get it up to about 20% if I'm sitting there mousing over the chart with 2 years of data but other wise it doesn't seem to do too much.

I've noticed some site's scripts really don't like coming back from a long sleep so maybe it was some edge case like that causing it to eat so much CPU.

<comment><USER21> When running Chrome, the CPU goes into the 15% to 20% range when running the mouse in circles over the chart on my Windows 7 box at work. When running Pale Moon, I get about 10% to 15%, even after allowing all javascript domains in NoScript. Of course, I'm still running an ad blocker and don't see the top and right-hand column ads which makes me wonder if the author happened to catch an ad that was coded badly.

<comment><USER20> That's pretty much my setup but with Windows 10 and uBlock and matches what I saw.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I also use Chrome's Task Manager a lot to figure out why my laptop's fan is suddenly trying to take off. Lately, though, the worst culprits seem to have been eliminated, and Chrome runs reasonably well even with the insane number of tabs I still have open.

Today it is Node that's draining my battery.

</comment><comment><USER23> I do spend too much of my day with Activity Monitor open (though I am a tabuser that is seemingly incapable of closing tabs). I hope we'll see smarter behavior from browsers with throttling or paging out of least-recently-used tabs; this isn't something people should have to do.

</comment><comment><USER24> Anyone had the same CPU usage on the currency page ? it stays at 9% on my old machine.

ps: also check extensions, a few can leak GB of memory.

</comment><comment><USER25> My CPU spins at 60% almost constantly due to type of work I do. I quadrupled my battery life by swapping batteries.

</comment><comment><USER26> Not really Mac specific since it's a feature of Chromium and by inheritance Chrome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. It will work in win/linux as well, as the Chrome Task manager is available everywhere you can install Chrome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Anybody know if powertop can give this data on Linux?

<comment><USER28> Yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> TIL if I close an app, my battery last longer.

Seriously, you should always close what you do not need. It is not only for energy efficiency, but for security as well.

<comment><USER30> TYMHLSIFARTA (Today you might have learned something if you actually read the article).

It's not a great write-up, but it isn't about closing an app.

It is about the potentially surprising impact of individual tabs that keep code running, and a way to identify them.</comment></comment>


It Was Bad UX, not a "Wrong Button" in Hawaii - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/01/16/that-was-no-wrong-button-in-hawaii-take-a-look/ <comment><USER3> I think this whole thing could be seen as a blessing in disguise, but I don't hear anyone talking about it. We seem totally unprepared for this kind of event. The message said take shelter, so why were people running around screaming and crying in the streets?

People were throwing their kids into storm drains. Clever, but what happens to them after that?

Where do we go? How long do we have to stay there? Who is going to pass out the iodine pills? Where's the clean water? What will we eat? Who will come get us when it's all over?

It seems like we gave a damn about this many years ago during the Cold War. There were drills in schools, public service messages, people bought bomb shelters, there was the Civil Defense. Once in awhile I see one of those public bomb shelter placards on a building and wonder if there really still is one or if it is just some old artifact someone forgot to take down.

We laugh at all this stuff like ironic hipsters and now we see the results.

<comment><USER4> No one stopped caring. What we stopped doing was pretending the civilian population could be protected against nuclear holocaust.

The bomb that obliterated Hiroshima was a toy next to a thermonuclear bomb, which is 1000 times as powerful. If one lands on Oahu, there won't be anyone to pass out iodine pills in Hawaii, or anyone to pass them out to.

Hawaii is just stupid to spend a nickel on an early warning system. The only reason it exists is that too many people don't understand what they're supposedly being warned, or that they are utterly defenseless.

Sometimes, the only protection is prevention. This is one.

<comment><USER3> Looking at NUKEMAP [1] and playing with Honolulu as a target using the various weapons that are common to nuclear arsenals your claims just sound totally false.

It seems like there would be a great chance of survivability in many areas if one were properly sheltered. This doesn't even take into account that Oahu is a mountain which would shield many inhabitants from the air blast.

I frankly am glad you are not in charge of the early warning system in Hawaii.

[1] [http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/](http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/)

<comment><USER5> And to extend this hypothetical a little: the nuclear arsenal of people attacking the US is not as good as the one _in_ the US.

Odds are anyone dumb enough to throw a nuke at the US is doing so with some really cunning plan in mind hoping for retaliation, and doing so with a nuke that's far from optimal. Russia and China are better served by eating up the US economy (and government!), than balls-to-the-wall war, so it's more likely an country that 'also has nukes' than the players with the real budgets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There was a _very_ similar incident in 1971 ("code word hatefulness"). Back then, three tapes were kept next to a EBS transmitter, two real alerts and one for testing. One day, an operator accidentally loaded the real alert rather than the correct test alert, and many stations prepared to tell the country the nuclear war was imminent.

The fix was to:

> …In the past three tapes, one for the test and two for actual emergencies, > were hanging on three labeled hooks above the transmitter… In the future > only the test tape will be left near the transmitter. The two emergency > tapes [will be] be sealed in clearly marked envelopes and placed inside a > nearby cabinet.

[http://conelrad.blogspot.com/2010/09/code-word- hatefulness-g...](http://conelrad.blogspot.com/2010/09/code-word-hatefulness- great-ebs-scare.html)

<comment><USER7> That's a good example. Shockingly poor foresight.

It's similar to the "A gun is always loaded" principle. Unless you can tell at a glance that a firearm is not in a ready-to-fire state, you treat it as if it is. People are clumsy and forgetful, and you only have to mess up once.

Leaving the live rounds right next to the blanks, in that way, is pretty indefensible. (Ignoring of course that blanks can still kill, for this analogy.)

<comment><USER8> >Unless you can tell at a glance that a firearm is not in a ready-to-fire state, you treat it as if it is

That's when you need to treat it like it is the most.

<comment><USER7> You'd really exercise more caution with a broken-open shotgun than a closed one?

<comment><USER8> Not more, but I wouldn't let my guard down just because it's playing dead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article is confusing. It states that the "errant employee actually was working with a drop-down menu on a computer program". But the photo is clearly of a list of normal "a href" elements.

I'm asking, because if it was truly a drop-down (select element) then the UX would be even worse. At least with a list of links, there is the odd chance that the person would spot the correct choice. Using drop-downs, once the incorrect choice was made, there is really very little chance of realising the error.

<comment><USER10> I saw (on Twitter) another image that was a dropdown with choices such as "Missile Alert" and "Test Missile Alert" right next to each other.

I don't know which image is real.

<comment><USER11> The one in the article is sourced as from HIEMA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For all developers asked to design something or not given a design - <USER2> padding is your friend.

Add spacing and then add more. It won't make it a masterpiece but it'll prevent misclicks and make the UI easier to read and understand.

Also, use headings like "Amber Alerts", "Weather" and "War".

And, use semantic titles like "[TEST] Tsunami" or "ALERT! - Tsunami"

<comment><USER13> If a developer were in a position to actually change this, the options should be in separate lists, or even separate pages. If only CSS and HTML is available, they should be in two columns.

The screenshots are so bad, not even the juniors I work with would consider deploying this. It's mind boggling.

<comment><USER14> >The screenshots are so bad, not even the juniors I work with would consider deploying this. It's mind boggling.

Not defending the UI too much but I'm imagining this is something built and deployed on government contract in the late 90s or early 2000s (when it was considered high technology that they could do this from a web page in the first place?), occasionally migrated to whatever marginally newer system is required by law while consuming the minimal amount of funding.

It's a damn shame but a lot of govt. stuff ends up in this exact boat because nobody wants to pay to improve something that "already works."

<comment><USER13> I think you're a bit off with the time frame. The system sends push notifications to citizens in a specific area, or am I mistaken? Are these texts?

<comment><USER15> The Wireless Emergency Alerts system ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Emergency_Alerts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Emergency_Alerts)) dates back to 2006, but it is quite plausible that the backend this interface controls predates that if it was originally a desktop interface for the Emergency Broadcast/Emergency Alert System.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A lot of conversations seem fixated on what's the worst that could happen if the wrong message was sent, but very few of these people are considering what's the worst that could happen if the right message wasn't sent. Also, it's very likely that the dropdown message text was not added by a developer, and this addition of the messages by non-technical users should also be part of that UX conversation.

<comment><USER17> Tsunami warning: Everyone seeks high ground.

Missile warning: Everyone flees to basements.

Right next to each other, no way that'll go wrong.

<comment><USER18> Apropos to nothing, the actual user experience between a Tsunami and a Nuke are quite different.

<comment><USER19> If the nuke is off target and lands in the water you could have both?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Ige, in his speech, deplored the fact that employees of the emergency > management agency were getting death threats since the events of Saturday.

Sounds like they need to prosecute some people for terroristic threats to the fullest extent of the law.

I understand being pissed off about the false alarm, but sending death threats should be an automatic jail sentence at minimum.

<comment><USER21> The state sent out a death threat! People are just letting the government know how they feel.

The design of this system is grossly negligent, which IS a management problem. It does look like a web page. How is the page served? An internal secure setup on a private network? Is the browser ever updated? Is there javascript? The number of failure modes on this type of setup is unconstrained. How are updates tested? It appears to me that somebody just put something together without any design or validation process at all. This is fine in many settings, but not for critical public safety infrastructure.

<comment><USER22> A warning, whether mistaken or not, is not a death threat, and a death threat is not just a complaint.

<comment><USER23> >A warning, whether mistaken or not, is not a death threat, and a death threat is not just a complaint.

I don't think there is exactly the same crime in all the states of the US, but there is in some states (as well as in many other countries) the crime of "false public alarm".

Example, you start crying "Fire!" in a crowded cinema or public place:

[http://mollolawfirm.com/resources/criminal-law- resources/fal...](http://mollolawfirm.com/resources/criminal-law- resources/false-public-alarm/)

P.S.: Meantime in Japan:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/first- hawa...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/first-hawaii-now- japan-sends-a-false-alarm-about-incoming-north-korean- missile/2018/01/16/d8961ef4-fac1-11e7-b832-8c26844b74fb_story.html)

but this was not the governemnet, it was the NHK and they were very fast to send a correct message.

<comment><USER24> There's a difference between crying "Fire!" to willingly cause panic over nothing (ie: intent to cause harm), and a mistake...

Text from your first link even says that:

> A person is guilty of a crime of the third degree if he knowingly causes > such false alarm [...]

<comment><USER23> >There's a difference between crying "Fire!" to willingly cause panic over nothing (ie: intent to cause harm), and a mistake...

Sure there is a difference, but - again not all states/countries Laws are the same - it may depend on who has to prove that it was a mistake.

And of course it may be classified as an actual crime or as a minor civil infraction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The UX in most software made for the government is terrible. At the end of the day, I think anyone clicking any button in that list should have been well aware of what those buttons do especially since clicking that button was a routine part of the shift change process in that shop.

Bad UX, sure. But that person dun goofed.

<comment><USER26> Often times a web page will have buttons that dance around the screen, if the page is still loading elements. That can cause misclicks too.

<comment><USER10> I hates that so much, especially on mobile sites which load so slowly that a miss click takes ages to recover from.

<comment><USER27> I don't think this is at all accidental.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've been "arguing" with people here as to what a better interface would look like, and it's interesting at how much disagreement there is. A lot (like too many) seem to think adding a yes/no dialog box would make things better, but it's well known users don't read dialog boxes.

My preference would be a mcDonald's menu style UI, showing the text that will be sent in a 6x5 grid of buttons. Easy to press; easy to see what you're sending; no funky "are you sure" messages that'll be auto-clicked.

<comment><USER28> It doesn't even need that. It should start by grouping the options by severity - separate the real alerts from the test alerts via section headers and you solve 99% of the problem.

<comment><USER16> My concern with severity groups is you have users and managers deciding which messages go in which severity groups. That ignores the impact of politics and short termism on the decision making process. (e.g. How severe is a missing child?). Before you know it, everything will be in severe, and your users will be asking for a "really, really severe" category.

<comment> james-mcelwain Makes sense, but I would hope even the most inept manager could recognize that "AMBER Alert" and "Nuclear Annihilation Imminent" are different degrees of severity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This doesn't add up for me and doesn't pass the smell test. Looking at that dashboard and the way it's set up and knowing PACOM stands for Pacific Command, I'm not buying this story at all. Look at the way that screen is designed. You don't just click one of those and it sends the alert off. The link sets the type of alert (i.e. Amber) and the destination/recipients (i.e county, statewide, etc.). It doesn't set the content. Logically, this must be true. An amber alert needs specifics like, most commonly, the license plate of a vehicle. That means someone clicked that link and then manually filled out the text _" this is not a drill"_. That makes this peculiar sentence from the article make more sense - _" I wish I could say there was a simple reason for why it took so long to get the correction to the false alert out"_. That line from the article struck me as odd the first time around, especially since no explanation at all was offered from what I saw. I believe they really thought there were incoming missiles and that's why they didn't rescind the alert immediately. Let's also remember that when this alert went out the person who sent it as well as anyone else working with them would have received it on their own phones and someone surely would have said "holy shit you just sent out a real nuclear war alert!" And then they would have gone back and filled out different text/content for an updated alert. There is precisely zero chance it took 38 whole minutes for everyone in that place to realize it was a real alert and figure out how to send a follow up.

<comment><USER30> It's possible the test procedure does send an authentic-looking alert to the devices of staff at this facility? Even in that case I would think their phones would be ringing off the phone in seconds with incoming calls from loved ones wondering what the hell is going on...

<comment><USER29> Exactly. No matter what, they would have been contacted by the outside world, probably directly by Admiral Harris (the commander of the Pacific Fleet). 38 minutes makes no sense at all unless they were really trying to figure out if they were under attack or not.

They probably viewed this admission of error as being less embarrassing as not knowing that they weren't under attack when Japan released a statement within a few minutes saying it wasn't true. They look even more incompetent in that scenario.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Bad UX? There's no UX at all (and on that matter - please stop selling your UX position to companies).

<comment><USER32> Every software users interact with has a particular UX. It's in the words it stands for!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Did anybody read about or see the NBC segment where they were exploring the exact D.O.D. bunker in Hawaii where the emergency phone, and I assume alert system computer, were held. Did this actually happen? Was NBC actually in the same room as the computer where the alert originated before the alert actually was sent out?

Let me know if I'm being misinformed by low-life YouTube conspirators.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why are we talking about dropdown boxes and modal confirm messages? Shouldn't it be basically impossible for the same system that sends test messages to also send real messages?

If it takes two people turning two keys to launch a missile, shouldn't it take the same to send a missile warning?

<comment><USER34> > If it takes two people turning two keys to launch a missile, shouldn't it > take the same to send a missile warning?

Hell no. A missile launch involves a large expenditure of resources, and (sometimes) lots of destruction. A missile warning should not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> In some ways I think the poor design decisions start with making a system of this nature, with this purpose, digital in the first place. With the current state of weapons systems, multi-domain tactics, and the technical capabilities of near-peer rivals, or the types of state actors capable of launching a ballistic missile, a massive cyber/electronic attack will almost certainly precede the kinetic weapons wave. Really, I would want a ballistic missile warning system to be as simple, physical, and reliable as, literally, a big button that sets off the warning broadcast over loudspeakers. It is impossible to prepare for every contingency that may arise from an unexpected all-out attack, but the obvious ones with clear solutions should be mitigated.

</comment><comment><USER36> Their solution to the problem was to add an additional "BDM False Alarm" entry to the list of alerts which will send out the message that the previous alert was a false alarm and there is no threat.

Perhaps they should also add a "false alarm that this was a false alarm, there really is a threat after all" option in case the "false alarm" option is selected accidentally after warning about a real threat. /s

I don't know how anyone in Hawaii can be expected to trust or take these alerts seriously after this.

</comment><comment><USER37> Could be both. The UI looks like a home-built web 1.0 page from 2001.

<comment><USER38> No, it's mobile first... ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Adding some color and better labeling would be good. Also I would have a confirmation dialog box to confirm what will happen when the button is pressed.

</comment><comment><USER40> Taking the opposite side side of the argument, good UX only matters for inexperienced employees. People that mindlessly click are going to mindlessly click "yes" on the confirmation dialog

<comment> yoz-y Experienced employees will not mindlessly click on Yes, because they have experience with it going wrong.

Having yes/no labels on buttons, or this kind of random labeled links in haphazard order is always bad. Experienced users may not do errors, but their life would still be better if the UX was good. UX is the same as accessibility, if it is good it does not bother you but it can always help, even if you think you do not need it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> At _each_ level, people with grave responsibilities did not take their responsibility seriously enough. From the top to the bottom.

Button-pusher: obviously.

Interface designer: clearly.

Manager responsible for project: also

The manager's manager: yes

The whole department head: how is this person making decisions?

The people who set the budgets and procedures: How do they know that work is being done well enough?

Vern Miyagi: From decades in the army, your process designers should understand best practices in the design of emergency systems, and yet they clearly did not. Why?

Arthur "Joe" Logan: Same question.

Ironically [http://dod.hawaii.gov/hiema/hawaii-emergency-management- agen...](http://dod.hawaii.gov/hiema/hawaii-emergency-management-agency- statement-on-missile-launch-false-alarm-january-13-2018/) fails with a Javascript error about "superclick is not a function".

Anyway it goes all the way up, apparently through the military chain of command. So I say Thanks Obama.

<comment><USER42> What? I think you need to balance your list's narrative with the reality that delegation includes some abdication of understanding. It is necessarily an abstraction from the work itself. While responsibility may lie with a superior for the error itself and the process that gave rise to it, it is a responsibility of seniority - owning the outcomes of the organization you run - not responsibility for the act itself.

Moreover, there is another dimension in that inertia in the org structure itself can't be pinned on any one person. Organizations by their very nature are supposed to be tolerant of changes and gaps in the knowledge of their members. This tolerance leads to inertia. the Inertia of the military is extreme and difficult to change. The more abstraction between the leader and the actual work, the more difficult it is to evaluate and enact the right change in the right way in the right timeframe.

So, while your comment may in essence be right that there is a chain of command failure around this issue, it also strains credibility to claim that this failure belongs to Obama, one year into his successor's presidency, when the structure that this event took place in is much older than either of them.</comment></comment>