Show HN: Our weekend project - Pinstagram.co - <AUTHOR> http://www.pinstagram.co <comment><AUTHOR> link: <http://www.pinstagram.co>

So what do you get when you combine a billion dollar company (Instagram) with a $500 million company (Pinterest)?

The background: My cofounder Brandon and I were having a discussion on startup pitches, especially the ones that go "we're an X for Y" and thought a hilarious VC pitch would be "we're a Pinterest for Instagram". The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. I liked Instagram, and this was a real need for me. There was nothing like it out there that I would use. So last weekend I decided I would make it a weekend project.

I spent a few hours putting something together using my design and front end skills. I was able to show the popular feed in a Pinterest-like UI. I showed this to Brandon which quickly convinced him this was a good idea and together we started clobbering together the project. By the end of the weekend we had something that basically worked. You could log in with your Instagram id and view your feeds, your photos, what's popular and search.

For those of you interested in how it was made. It's a very simple Ruby and Sinatra app. It doesn't even have a database. The front end was built on Twitter Bootstrap. Haters can hate me for not building the html from scratch but I prefer to build my house using off-the-shelf tools instead of having to go and chop wood in the forest. The Pinterest style layout was built using Masonry, a very useful jQuery plugin.

<comment><USER2> Looks really good! Nitpick: let's should be lets on the front page..

<comment><AUTHOR> fixed - good catch

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like this part: "Not featured on" grayed out with huge logos of recognizable blogs.

Smart move of a hackerish spirit :)

<comment><USER4> It's misleading. Too subtle for my taste.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I can appreciate the spirit of it, but I think the "not featured on" could be a little more prominent. Heck, I think it might even add to the joke a bit because some people would still end up just scanning and say "Oh wow, TechCrunch!"

<comment><USER3> ok, how about: "we would love to be featured..." with email link to contact@ on all the logos. just second thought.

<comment><USER6> well, now it's been featured.... :)

<comment><USER3> too bad I can't click on those now. now, they look fake to me. if you were "featured", I want to click on the logo and be redirected to the website. please fix those.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not featured on...

I chuckled out loud.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, just thought we'd have some fun and if someone wasn't really paying attention - they'd think it was social proof

</comment></comment><comment> philipp-spiess I like the "Not featured on Mashable". :D

<comment><USER8> Now that it's on HN frontpage, that'll probably need editing ;P

<comment><USER3> Why is that? They knew what they typing. I get the humor and the purpose behind it, and the outside box thinking. I should have thought about something like that myself.

<comment><USER9> I'm reasonably sure that the gp means that Mashable etc will cover it now, sooner or later.

<comment><USER3> I fail to understand what one has to do with another. They havent been covered, fact. Like any other startup I am sure they want to be covered. In the meanwhile they stepped outside of the box when asking "is there any other way we could use their logos without lying to people we've been covered". and viola!

<comment><USER9> This thread contains no criticism of that decision. Your defense is unnecessary. Relax, understand that text is a poor medium for emotions and notice that the comment that lead to your first reply could very well be interpreted as "Nice idea, but with the coverage on HN they might need to edit that soon, because they'll soon be covered _now_".

It was, for all I can tell, a friendly and humorous remark. I really think you just misunderstood the tone/intentions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I used to work and train (Wushu) with Pek back in the day (at POW Kung Fu in Chicago). It's great to see a genuinely nice guy doing something that could be very very big.

Good luck Pek!

<comment><AUTHOR> worlds collide. Didn't expect to see a wushu guy on HN - POW was like 10 years ago.

<comment><USER10> Yep. That seems like a lifetime ago. I'm glad to see you're keeping busy. I also blogged about Pinstagram's signup experience and UI just now. Hopefully that gives you guys an additional boost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I showed it to my female friends who use Instagram and Pinterest like it's nobodies business, and they absolutely love it. Only problem is logout is wonky.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the feedback! Glad to hear they like it!

Would like to know what problem you're having with Logout. @shiftb or email is on my profile.

<comment><USER6> Can't reply to you anymore. I'll check it out. Which browser/OS?

<comment><USER11> Tried on Chrome on both Windows 7 and OS X 10.7.3

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Congrats. Like the mashup.

What is the objective? Or simply a side project?

Do both parties allow this? There are a few game apps where playing via your PC is breaching terms of use.

</comment><comment><USER13> Wow! I really like the ui and its simplicity.

Missing permalinks tho. I'd like to be able to visit /#!/nickname and see a user profile directly, for example.

Anyway, loving it!

<comment><USER6> I agree, it does need that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can't wait to see how mashable will pick this up.

</comment><comment><USER15> Looks like ~ $750 million company to me..

</comment><comment><USER16> Nice work guys. Can't wait to see how people react to it.</comment>


Lunatic Python - two-way bridge between Python & Lua - <AUTHOR> http://labix.org/lunatic-python

<comment><USER2> FWIW, Perl has this:

[http://search.cpan.org/~vparseval/Inline- Lua-0.04/lib/Inline...](http://search.cpan.org/~vparseval/Inline- Lua-0.04/lib/Inline/Lua.pm)

And it has 500 other Inline:: modules, in case you like something other than Lua:

[http://search.cpan.org/search?m=all&q=Inline](http://search.cpan.org/search?m=all&q=Inline)

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice, now I can write lean lua programs and still occasionally access the good stuff in python's libraries when the need arises.</comment>


My book (about school, Harvard and Facebook) is now free to read on-line. - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinkpress.com/authoritas/index.html?page=5

<comment><USER2> Wow, I did not know anyone could make me have warm feelings towards Larry Summers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thoroughly enjoyed the print edition, great to see you offering it for free online.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm on page 73, and I don't think this guy has said one positive thing about a single person so far (except his parents, who always take his side). What an anger-filled rant.

<comment><AUTHOR> Malka Weil, Dianne Derrick, Joseph Kocian, Robert Morgan, Carl Sjogreen...positive things are said about all of them in that range of the book. (None are relatives.)

<comment><USER4> "Ms. Derrick" lied to the other teachers about asking him to install software on her computer. She apologized to him, but she's still portrayed in a bad light and used as an example throughout the book as the proof that "all adults lie." I don't remember the others except for Carl, but they certainly don't stand out.

<comment><AUTHOR> (I wrote the book.) I think you exaggerate my criticism in your comments.

I tried very hard to portray my teachers accurately. Many of them gave me what I believe to be legitimate reasons to be upset, and in some cases, angry.

In this case, on page 60 I wrote, "Mrs. Derrick had been no aberration. Teachers lied, even when they told students not to." I didn't say (as you state), "all adults lie." Her name actually doesn't come up again until page 334, which is "Acknowledgments," where I praise her and other teachers by stating, "May the world's teachers aspire to your example."

Perhaps I'm too critical, but on the other hand, none of these stories were embellished. I think a teacher lying in a disciplinary context is justifiable cause for a student to be at least temporarily unhappy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you call grainy JPGs reading.

<comment><USER6> They are actually GIF's. I agree they are kind of small, but this is a free online copy of a book, no?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The method of having the user prove they own the book makes me nostalgic for the Microprose games of the early 1990's. It's easily defeated, though, by going to the appropriate page in the e-book.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. :) I'll get rid of the authentication code eventually, but for now at least people can read it if they want to.

And yes, I may have had Spectrum Holobyte Tetris for the Apple IIGS on my mind when I was deciding how to enforce purchases before.

<comment><USER8> is there a pdf version to download and read? do you have plans to do this?

<comment><AUTHOR> I might put one up eventually, but I'll probably charge for it the way some other authors have. In the meantime there's a version on the Kindle (which apparently you'll be able to also read on the iPad as of tomorrow).

<comment><USER9> You could also do pick your price via Anjuno.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> PG-13 First those brothers start working on their Facebook in 2002, get nothing done for 2 years. Go up to Zuckerberg, and say, "hey, you wanna code this thing for us that's like a Myspace but for like colleges and stuff?" He agrees, but then is like "wait, why am I working for these clowns? I'm gonna make my own Facbeook". The brothers then claim the code was really meant for them and later win millions just for knowing Zuckerberg.

Now, you claim that because Mark talked about Facebook with you and (gasp) went to your website to look at it, that you somehow deserve credit for Facebook even though, as you admit, your own website didn't have any traction. So if you ever discuss ideas with someone, and they go on to turn that idea into a success, you will then claim credit for their execution.

<comment><USER10> The work is irrelevant it should just be the ideas that matter. The judge should have been asking himself two things 'did these two brothers come up with the majority of the ideas and designs that make facebook what it is?' and 'did Zuckerberg maliciously take these ideas?'

If I came up with the vehicle designs for a new low-mpg hatchback and show it to a few people at Ford and then magically Ford has a car being released that fits my designs to a T then yes I'm fully entitled to compensation for it regardless of my ability to implement it. Someone else is _always_ better posed to implement an idea, if we reinforced that attitude then we wouldn't have anti-monopoly laws and anti-trust cases going.

Copyright doesn't protect ideas, so obviously these two brothers had design documents and other corroborating evidence otherwise a judge would have never heard their case. Obviously the judge thought that beyond a doubt that Zuckerberg's relationship with these two brothers suggests beyond doubt that he took their ideas and plans for implementation to form his own website.

Essentially the judge looked at it like "If Zuckerberg hadn't defrauded these two gentlemen, they would have been the founders of Facebook." This is why they were awarded not only money but a minority stake in the company (I believe they have to go back to court to agree upon how much their stake is worth, which will be their ability to implement vs Zuckerberg's).

When you look at cases like this you have to realise that a million crackpots claim to have come up with the great idea before someone else did. These two brothers likely not only have documents proving it, but their relation to Zuckerberg and the fact they allegedly hired him eliminate the majority of the crackpot criteria. Judge's rarely waste their time on cases like this, so the brothers must have had a really good initial case to begin with to even get the Judge to look.</comment></comment>


What is a 5% non active equity stake? - <AUTHOR>

And what on earth does it mean to a code-monkey? <comment><USER2> I haven't heard that expression. I could guess, but you'd do best simply to ask whoever's offering it to you what they mean by it.

</comment><comment><USER3> It means you don't get a board seat, and you probably get common, non-voting stock.

Sadly, it probably comes WITHOUT an anti-dilution clause, meaning that any new stock allocated will dilute your 5%. As a company progresses through its capitalization phases, new stock is likely to be allocated, usually in new classes that offer more protection to the investors, and less protection to the "monkeys" like us.

Your "5%" will likely be converted to a number of shares at the time it is executed, and that number of shares will likely NOT be 5% of the total number of shares available when a liquidation event (IPO/Buyout) occurs.

<comment><USER4> "It means you don't get a board seat, and you probably get common, non-voting stock." Most likely this is what it meant.

Although it might not be as bad as it sounds like in your explanation. I dont think anti-dilution clause is common, but I may be wrong

<comment><USER4> and just to support my assumption here is thread on quora on anti-dilution [http://www.quora.com/How-common-are-anti-dilution-clauses- fo...](http://www.quora.com/How-common-are-anti-dilution-clauses-for-founders- and-key-executives)?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Doubts on NDA and side projects - <AUTHOR> Hi guys, I've found work like contractor in a startup incorporated in delaware, but with HQ in SF. I've a doubt about the NDA that they want me to sign.
Here there are the most important parts:
INVENTIONS
a. Inventions Defined. "Inventions" means inventions, original works of authorship, developments, concepts, improvements, designs, discoveries, ideas, know-how, trademarks, and trade secrets, whether or not patentable or registrable, under copyright or similar laws, that Consultant may solely or jointly conceive, develop, or reduce to practice while performing services for Acme Corp. during the engagement.
b. Assignment of all Rights in Inventions; Disclaimer of Rights in Copyrights . To the extent that Consultant, as a part of Consultant's services to Acme Corp., contributes to the development or creation of any new Materials on behalf of Acme Corp., Consultant hereby assigns all rights to such Materials, without any claims or demands for royalties or future payments whatsoever.
NON COMPETITION AND NON SOLICITATION a. Non-Competition. Consultant shall not during Consultant's engagement directly or indirectly render any services of a business, commercial or professional nature to any other person or organization, whether for compensation or otherwise, which would prevent Consultant from rendering the agreed services to Acme Corp. during Consultant's engagement.
(or github for better format: https://gist.github.com/inchr/13165c2a2f792b23417f )
I don't properly understand the part about the inventions...I must give them the IP of the work done for them, or I must give all the IP(also developed for my side projects, in my free time) ?
My question is: I'm allowed to work on my side projects in my free time ? <comment><USER2> IANAL, but my reading of that is that any work you do for them is their property. It has nothing to do with any work you do for other clients or on your free time. It's basically a protection for them that you won't come along later and say you own the piece of their product you developed.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought the same, but then the part of the non-compete is a bit weird. It's like if they say: hey, until you work with us, you can't do any extra job(free or paid).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "while performing services for Acme Corp. during the engagement" is the key phrase here. Stuff you do NOT on company time shouldn't be claimable by your employer.

However, if you ever work on it during your paid time, your employer might have a claim to it.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is that 99% of the work is done in remote...so I don't have 9-5 work hours...how can I prove that I don't have done my side project using the jobs hours ?

(I must work 20hours/week...but I can choice when work etc...it's flexible)

<comment><USER3> I don't your employer can characterize your entire life as 'work hours'. Do you log what time you work for them (you should)?

It also might be relevant to ask, if your side project has anything to do with your job or what you do for them. If it's completely unrelated, I think that would also think that would help.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are both 2 web apps, but in completely unrelated fields...

<comment><USER3> You may also want to check with your HR department to see how they interpret it. Your employer may even be willing to sign a statement clarifying they won't attempt to appropriate your other works. You could also consult a lawyer I suppose, though you've got to weigh the cost/benefit there.

I suppose the big question is how valuable you expect your side project to be. In most cases it probably isn't a big deal, though if you think it's gonna be the next Instagram or Uber, you might wanna make sure nobody comes after your money once you're popular.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ditch QWERTY – Your Hands Need Colemak - <AUTHOR> http://chetansurpur.com/blog/2012/11/colemak.html <comment><USER3> As someone who types 100+WPM on plain-old QWERTY, I don't see the point - <USER2> limiting factor is obviously not the distance between keys or switching between hands. In any case, it's been beaten to death that in real work, you're never going to be typing at a volume where WPM matters anyway.

As for the ergonomic argument, it doesn't seem like the claims made (assuming they're true) have a huge effect on your health (again, you're almost never typing for a continued period of time). You might achieve 50% more key-hand alternation (is that metric even useful?), but when you're typing twenty words at a time, that doesn't come out to very many.

And in the end you have to deal with QWERTY anyway, every time you use a foreign computer.

That said, there's no real reason why QWERTY is intrinsically _good_ either, other than that it's "good enough", and happens to be the standard.

<comment><USER4> You could also sit in a steel fold-up chair while you program and probably get about the same amount done over the course of a day. Dvorak layout is like the Herman Miller office chair of layouts. (or maybe colemak is, but its not qwerty)

As a Dvorak user, I came to this thread happy to discuss the pros and cons (I usually chime in on these threads). But it bothers me that the top the thread is someone who is so close-minded. Plus its obvious that _you have never learned dvorak_ , so it also bothers me that you got any upvotes at all.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. I also use Dvorak since a about five years and quite like it. I wanted to discuss interesting similarities to Dvorak, like the 'a' and 'm' keys are on the same place on all three layouts. (In an earlier assignment I created shell scripts with these names to switch the layouts). I think choice is great and I like mine, and it's not like anyone is forced to use an alternative layout. Op is just unnecessary negative without even knowing what he talks about. Way to go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A while ago I wrote a small program[0], that measures effort to type a passage with different keyboard layouts.

It accounts for reach and alternation. I just added Colemak in response to this discussion, and from the texts I include in the distribution (some public domain from archive.org), it looks like Colemak is better on reach, Dvorak is better on alternation, and they both spank QWERTY for substantive texts[1].

It's just a quick experiment, I'd love to hear input on methodology.

[0] <https://github.com/bak/keyboard_battle>

[1]

      texts/alice_underground.txt:
        colemak:
          alternation_effort: 29962
          reach_effort: 29403
          raw_score: 59365
        dvorak:
          alternation_effort: 24476
          reach_effort: 30312
          raw_score: 54788
        qwerty:
          alternation_effort: 32118
          reach_effort: 51842
          raw_score: 83960
      texts/declaration_of_independence.txt:
        colemak:
          alternation_effort: 2725
          reach_effort: 2469
          raw_score: 5194
        dvorak:
          alternation_effort: 2237
          reach_effort: 2693
          raw_score: 4930
        qwerty:
          alternation_effort: 3049
          reach_effort: 5129
          raw_score: 8178
      texts/gullivers.txt:
        colemak:
          alternation_effort: 100074
          reach_effort: 97327
          raw_score: 197401
        dvorak:
          alternation_effort: 81836
          reach_effort: 103371
          raw_score: 185207
        qwerty:
          alternation_effort: 110812
          reach_effort: 181778
          raw_score: 292590
      texts/qbf.txt ("the quick brown fox..."):
        colemak:
          alternation_effort: 9
          reach_effort: 22
          raw_score: 31
        dvorak:
          alternation_effort: 13
          reach_effort: 21
          raw_score: 34
        qwerty:
          alternation_effort: 11
          reach_effort: 30
          raw_score: 41

<comment><USER7> So is it "lower is better" for all scores? In the raw_score a combination of the two previous scores? By that measure, dvorak is better on all nontrivial texts (so excluding the quick brown fox).

<comment><USER6> The scores are a measure of effort. For reach, it accumulates the effort of reaching away from the home row. For alternation, it accumulates subsequent keystrokes with the same hand. Raw is the sum of both.

So yes, lower numbers are better, _however_ I do not have the research to be able to say that a lower _raw_ number is always better. It's entirely possible that alternation matters much, much more than reach---or vice versa---such that a truly meaningful "aggregate score" would involve a multiplier instead of just summing the two.

The best we can say is that, assuming less reach and more alternation are good, Colemak is better on reach, and Dvorak is better on alternation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Colemak is easier to learn, since it's designed to be as similar to QWERTY > as possible without compromising on efficiency.

I actually suspect that's a fallacy. When you learn & use something new, it's actually confusing when it's similar to something else. I have no issue with typing either Qwerty or Dvorak, but Azerty, where only a few keys are different from Qwerty, drives me nuts.

<comment><USER8> I haven't used colemak, but I suspect this isn't really a problem if you're going to do a full-transition and not use qwerty at all.

But if you have to switch between two layouts regularly then you definitely want something completely-distinct rather than something close-but-not-quite.

It seems like colemak is in the awkward position where you wouldn't even consider it unless you're already comfortable with qwerty, but you're also in a position to stop using qwerty entirely and switch all your keyboard layouts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What if I told you that you could get these same benefits with only a 10-20% drop in WPM? And that you could be faster on the newer layout in two weeks?

Believe it. Go to carpalx's key swaps page ( <http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?partial_optimization> ). Make the first change on their list - swap K and E - and use the new layout until your brain gets used to the swap. Once you're comfortable, make the next swap.

Once you've made about 7 swaps you're on a layout that's on par with both Dvorak and Colemak, and you never had to waste a single hour in typing trainers.

Each swap takes me about five hours of typing over about 3 days to get used to. I imagine if your job has you typing all the time, your day-count will be lower. I have currently swapped E/K and O/J, and this post has reminded me to swap F/T as well.

There are plenty of keyboard remappers available for windows and osx, and it's not difficult to do yourself in linux either.

</comment><comment><USER10> I switched to Dvorak back in the summer of 2005 and I've never looked back. Colemak may have been a better choice for certain metrics on certain keyboards, but one that cannot be stated enough for Dvorak is the way your hands alternate keys so much more than they do on QWERTY. I'm not sure if that has been studied for Colemak.

Thoughts on changing keyboard layouts:

1) If you're gonna do it, I agree with this article, touch typing = #1 priority. You're not going to see a colemak keyboard, most likely.

2) QWERTY actually seems to work pretty well for big thumbs on a small screen. I don't use tablets, so I don't know the state of affairs on Android or iOS keyboard layouts. This has notably not been a problem for me, even though I was initially concerned about using BlackBerrys (oh 2005 me..)

3) IRC/Instant Messaging are a massive way to learn how to type because you'll prioritize learning words that you type often, and natural patterns for you.

4) Buy a better keyboard if you're gonna go to this effort for your hands. I swear by my Kinesis Advantage Pro.

This process is frustratingly slow, but after ~3 weeks of going cold turkey, I have not once switched back. I was even a sysadmin for 1000's of desktops in labs, and it took 2 seconds to switch them to dvorak and back.

Finally, while we're at it, if your company offers ergonomic consulting, _DO IT_! You'll be amazed how much more comfortable your typing is when you've fixed how you sit, your monitor height, and your keyboard tray.

<comment><USER11> > and your keyboard tray

i have an kinesis advantage pro too, hence i am wondering why you are using a keyboard tray and which one?

maybe you could answer two problems i can see with dvorak: a) home row changes. isn't this a big problem in vim, as in, you have to re-map basically every shortcut (otherwise you are basically de-dvoraking) b) wouldn't you need different dvorak layouts for different tasks? ruby needs different keys on the homerow than java, which is different to plain english which is then different to plain german etc

thank you

<comment><USER10> > i have an kinesis advantage pro too, hence i am wondering why you are using > a keyboard tray and which one?

I don't remember which one, it's a huge flat thing that just looks like a big surfboard. I can try to find out later.

Why I use it is simple: when sitting with correct posture, the distance between my eyes and my resting hands is further than just using my desk allowed. The keyboard tray lowers the keyboard further without having to lower the entire desk and raising the monitor to a comical height.

> a) home row changes. isn't this a big problem in vim, as in, you have to re- > map basically every shortcut (otherwise you are basically de-dvoraking)

I found an easy solution for this, see the bottom of my vimrc: <https://github.com/codemac/config/blob/master/vimrc>

        noremap d h
        noremap h j
        noremap t k
        noremap n l
        noremap k d
        noremap l n
        noremap j t
        noremap ^Wd ^Wh
        noremap ^Wh ^Wj
        noremap ^Wt ^Wk
        noremap ^Wn ^Wl
        inoremap ^] ^[A
        inoremap ð ^N

Keep in mind I mostly use emacs these days, which is an entirely different set of ergonomic challenges :) However, those changes seemed to have worked well for me.

> b) wouldn't you need different dvorak layouts for different tasks? ruby > needs different keys on the homerow than java, which is different to plain > english which is then different to plain german etc

You must answer the question for yourself: How much english vs. ruby vs. java do I type?

For me? most of my variables are English based, and all my symbols ()[]@$& etc.. are all in different places on a Kinesis keyboard anyways.

There may be a case for specialized layouts, but I think the amount of English that is keyed far outweighs any specialization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I appreciate the fact that there may be technically _better_ layouts than QWERTY (Dvorak, Colemak, whatever), I'm still unable to understand how this is going to help me as someone who can has been able to touch-type in the 100-120wpm range since middle school (that was over 20 years ago). How much faster do I need to type? By all personal measures, QWERTY is _good enough_ and the fact that it is the _standard_ means that I can sit down at any English keyboard and be able to type at my peak efficiency without having to switch my brain back and forth between two layouts. My fingers can already keep up with my ability to form coherent sentences and in programming/sysadmin work, typing speed is not very important once you get past a certain point. I literally never had the thought, "If only I could type faster, I could get this done more quickly..."

On top of this, as a heavy vi user, the main navigation keys are no longer on the home row for either Colemak or Dvorak, which means I either need to make my editing far less efficient, or remap nearly every key.

I have had many very intelligent people attempt to explain the switch to Dvorak to me, and never heard a good reason to invest the time. I am curious if folks invested the same amount of concentrated time improving their QWERTY skills (relative to the amount of time folks spend learning a new layout) if there would be a similar speed improvement.

<comment><USER13> >I'm still unable to understand how this is going to help me

I sometimes consider changing layouts but it all comes back to that one simple statement. I don't touch type and I still hit the 120 WPM sweetspot on QWERTY - but I feel that any benefit of Dvorak/Colemak would be wasted if I didn't also learn to touch type.

I fear it would be a lot of work for no discernible benefit other than geek cred.

<comment><USER14> One side benefit is that no one can shoulder surf your password.

<comment><USER7> Security through obscurity is not the best of strategies. If someone notices your shoulder surfed password doesn't work with qwerty, it's a trivial step to try it on dvorak/colemak.

<comment><USER14> If they know to try that, they deserve access to my gmail account. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I just made the switch from QWERTY to Colemak this summer. Basically I started with only using it at home doing typing tutors and using it as my system default. Once I was up to ~30-40wpm after a week or two I switched my work computer's default over too. I'm now ~10wpm faster then I was on qwerty.

I mainly program and email at work, and Colemak was my recommended keyboard by the analyzer listed in here. Loving the layout, feels easier on the hands, and a big plus for me is my most used keyboard shortcuts remain the same seeing as the bottom row is almost identical.

Negatives is I find it hard to switch back to qwerty on demand on foreign computers where colemak isn't set. Have to resort to hunt/peck, but hey at least any keyboard you come across will be labeled correctly.

I'm planning on going back to qwerty for a week sometime and then keep using it occasionally to keep in fresh to try to get around the issue of using other computers.

My recommendation? Start with it at home with the basics where productivity won't matter much, once you have the basics down where you know where each key is you just are slow/inconsistent to it switch work over. I then saw a rapid increase by using it so much. The layout is great! :) And if you might run into other computers try to keep QWERTY up with using it occasionally.

Oh, and it will piss off others who use your computer, so make sure you have separate profiles set up at home so it's not a language bar war. Wife and I used to just both use the one account.

</comment><comment><USER16> I've used colemak for ~3 years and love it. I have it set on a programmable keyboard, with matrix layout, that I built myself. So I can take it with me if I have to switch computers. When I'm on a laptop, my body knows it's qwerty time, and I see no slow-down.

I had a burst of ergonomic problems that made me switch. I have had zero problems since, and I work just as many hours.

I can recommend colemak.

I learned it by typing a novel from an author I wanted to learn writing style from (Murakami, pinball 1973). Took me maybe a month.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've been cutting-and-pasting the type of code I write into the Keyboard Layout Analyzer <http://patorjk.com/keyboard-layout-analyzer/>

Now I want to switch to Colemak :/

<comment><AUTHOR> Do it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> To those of you trying to learn a new layout, I've found a good way to practice and increase speed is to compete with others online in a typing race game like:

<http://www.typeracer.com>

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm interested. But the article and the main site (colmak.com) fail to provide a full layout - or at least I gave up after being unable to check where my keys would go.

This is from a German that runs everything with a qwerty US english layout, because Germany uses a crappy qwertz layout where really every interesting character for programmers leads to pain and suffering to compose. What I get ~reasonably~ fine from US qwerty:

@{}[]~`/\|;':"

That's my measurement for any keyboard layout I'd be willing to try: If these letters are hard to type I cannot be bothered to switch, even if I certainly do type more prose than the chars above.

<comment><USER20> from the image at the bottom of <http://colemak.com/wiki/index.php?title=Images> it seems all those stay the same as us qwerty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I really want to move to a better typing style but I'm nervous that I'll end up losing my current ability to type very fast and spend months typing very slow for no real long term gain. Has anyone tried re-learning typing after they've been typing 16 hours a day for half a decade? I can type at 120 WPM with 2 fingers (QWERTY) and don't want to end up typing at 60 WPM for 6 months while I learn to type with all my fingers in COLEMAK (or DVORAK) to find that I'm back at 120 WPM... I have no pain from typing 16 hours consecutively at the moment, so the only advantage would be speed.

<comment><USER22> Regardless of what you use, touchtyping is better than hunt'n'peck because it allows you to multitask. You can write what you want while looking at other things and evaluating them - there's an increased continuity between what you're writing and what you're thinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I have hard time seeing how it may be worth my effort. Switching layouts will probably be very painful and result in productivity drop - and then if I do it, it would be only working on the computers I specifically configure for that purpose. I wouldn't be able to use it on anybody else's computer or on any mobile device. If I were professional typist, the speed increase might be worth it, but otherwise I'd stick with the devil I know and everybody else does too.

<comment><USER24> I switched to colemak years ago, and it's really not that bad. It's a little bit mind bending to learn a new layout, but after about a week or two of practice, your mind sort of "clicks" into it, and it's like you've been typing that way your whole life.

During that transition period you do not have to use Colemak exclusively. You're practicing a new motor skill, and the returns on such practice diminish rapidly after an hour or so per day.

Once you've learned Colemak, you will have to use QWERTY for just a short time each day to make sure you keep those neural pathways from decaying. I did not do this, and I regret it. I do alright on a QWERTY keyboard though; it just slows me down a bit. On a mobile device, it really doesn't make any difference, since the letters are in front of my eyes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> So, I've read in several places that QWERTY was designed to slow typists down. Therefore, there must have been an older layout that was actually faster. According to wikipedia this is not correct (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwerty>).

The first layout was a simple minded alphabetical layout which jammed, so QWERTY was designed to let typists go fast AND not have the mechanical stuff jam up.

<comment><USER14> It's designed to allow a person to type as fast as possible within a set of constraints that are no longer relevant to the vast majority of typists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I used dvorak but stopped because a) I developed wrist problems for a while (despite using dvorak) and reverted to hunt & peck to minimize finger movement and b) ctrl-c/ctrl-v were almost impossible to remap on windows (at the time).

This is promising, mostly because unchanged x, c, v keys.

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't think developers are often held back by typing speed. I certainly don't produce code at 75 WPM -- unless I am writing something trivial. Other times, I stop to think and consider what I am typing, so what is holding me back is my thought speed.

</comment><comment><USER28> I spent a month with Colemak and got to about 40 wpm. The transition to a new keyboard layout is HARD and takes a lot of determination. I know some people find it to be worth the learning curve, but I migrated back to qwerty.

</comment><comment><USER29> For people who are worried about being unable to use QWERTY after learning Colemak, have a look at the graph in this post: <http://www.ryanheise.com/colemak/>

</comment><comment><USER30> Is it common to type 110-130 WPM on Colemak, and is it optimized for English or design for global usage?

<comment><USER22> Every keyboard layout is going to be optimised for a particular language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I touch type at 125+ wpm using QWERTY. Don't see any reason to switch at this point.

</comment><comment><USER32> Someone knows about other languages? For instance, what about french?</comment>


Stop the inner struggle over whether your thoughts and feelings are "right" - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-psychologist-key-to-being-happier-2016-8 <comment><USER3> This reminds me of how forgetful we are as a species. The stuff in this article was figured out thousands of years ago and now is being presented almost as if it's something new. It also reminds me that for all of our technological prowess, we still haven't mastered the no-tech fundamentals of dealing with life as human beings.

<comment><USER4> Maybe someday our ML will be good enough (and alas, it is not currently) that a "fuzzy trope search engine" could be built. Enter a description of a situation, set of relationships, or condition, and up pops references to historical tropes that match and are related. Then I can short-circuit old ideas being pitched to me repackaged in new clothing passing off as genuinely new ideas, and send the pitcher the link.

The title of this post would perhaps pull up "Thoughtcrime" and other related tropes (religious heresy among them probably, wonder how far back this particular trope goes in recorded human history).

<comment><USER5> That would be an amazing service. You could even provide short advising narratives, similar situations from novels, films, etc. and their conclusions to help guide the user to act appropriately according to their goal. It would be like a friend relating a, "Yeah, that happened to me once, this is what I did," kind of story except the stories would be pulled from hundreds of sources.

<comment><USER6> This is actually very similar to what an I-Ching reading does :) Except of course, the ML part is replaced by a random number generator (coins or sticks).

Fortunately we have an _extremely_ powerful fuzzy narrative pattern matcher in our heads and with a bit of effort and interpretation people would still get useful advice from the method.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great, now when I question whether one of my thoughts or feelings is "right" I have to also question whether _that_ thought is "right".

<comment><USER8> It's self doubt all the way down.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think this goes along with the submission the other day about mediocrity: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12335367](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12335367)

</comment><comment><USER9> This title is exactly wrong, or at least misleading, according to CBT. The whole process of examining your feelings is to determine whether they have a sound basis. The basic loop is: identify feeling, then assumptions that led to that feeling, then try and replace those assumptions with better, more accurate ones. E.g. "I am sad." -> "everyone hates me" can be modified by realizing, no, my cat doesn't hate me, nor does my best friend Jen. Since I now know "everyone hates me" is not correct, the feelings that result from this thought can dissipate.

I.e., examine your feelings deeply and understand whether the thoughts behind them are right.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think the problem is that sometimes emotions can have nothing to do with reality. It's just a brain chemistry problem and only fixing the brain chemistry aspect will help. That can be done through exercise, meditation, supplements or drugs. In certain instances there's even a correctable problem, such as low grade heavy metal poisoning, that can be permanently fixed. When people beat themselves up over brain chemistry problems, it just makes it worse. It's like mentally beating yourself over not being able to walk with a broken leg.

</comment><comment><USER11> "Instead, the paradoxical key to true happiness seems to be accepting unhappiness - not forcing yourself to feel how you don't."

I don't know about that. The key to true happiness is accepting that happiness is the path not the destination. When you realize that life becomes a heck of a lot easier to live.

</comment><comment><USER12> > pay close attention to those negative emotions, because they're usually > trying to tell you something

No. They're _always_ trying to tell you something. That's all emotions are. And they've already spoken, so arguing with them is futile. They're telling your brain how you feel so you can act intelligently on them, not so you can turn around and argue with yourself in the mirror.

There are no negative emotions. They're dumb and honest. There is no "how you should feel". Your brain is the only organ smart enough to pretend. You feel a certain way because that's the way it is. We should always start there.

<comment><USER13> Our emotions don't tell us shit. They are straight-up wrong, half the time.

Our biological OS is not constructed for the current world. That is why, even when everything is going right, we have intermittent moments of anxiety and depression.

This is chronic. The moment you ignore our biases, you fall into some deep shit.

And you can never get out; you can't see your own biases.

<comment><USER14> No. The projection of an emotional object onto a logical construction has the capacity for being "wrong" or "right". Emotions are a different, more distributed form of logic and one should not construe homomorphisms across the two.

<comment><USER13> There are too many inference distances for me to explain in a comment (and frankly lazy).

Read the sequences on LessWrong! You might glean a thing or two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Emotions exist for a reason. Deny them at your own peril.

</comment><comment><USER16> Mathematically speaking, happiness is equal to reality expresssed as a number divided by expectations:

H = R/E

The higher the expectations, the lower the happiness. This also means that:

lim(E->inf) = inf

The conclusion is inescapable yet profound - expect nothing and you'll be blissfully happy.

<comment><USER17> Oh you read that article too? There are ways of thinking about happiness that still allow for striving. Also, unhappiness is not only caused by entitlement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is exactly what Jiddu Krishnamurti has said. If you "fight" the thoughts, it'll just create conflicts that results in anxiety.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is the first principle of consciousness.io, a new religion I made - <USER2> judgement

</comment><comment><USER20> Completely removing religion and pc correctness and cultural obligations from my life fairly early on resulted in a very light weight approach to life and the removal of inner chatter bullshit. Do what makes sense to you to get the best result in the purpose of life you have chosen. Basic morality has already been ingrained in us through evolution and is quite adequate by itself. Why we then we must slap words on it to allow it to be spread through the consciousness of people like a bad virus is beyond me. It just causes cognitive dissonance as everyone is not the same in their pursuit of happiness.

<comment><USER21> > Basic morality has already been ingrained in us through evolution and is > quite adequate by itself.

How exactly did you arrive at that conclusion?

<comment><USER20> @bholzer put it nicely. Google "chimps and bonobos demonstrate morality". Cooperation increased survivability and that generally has affected our acceptance of what is intrinsic to what feels right. Later religion slapped on meaning to it via super natural explanation which was the best bullshit they could come up with at the time. I get up voted on PC answers by the way but I should have cited some examples.

<comment><USER21> Seeing a chimp and bonobo demonstrate morality doesn't exactly assure me that a born sense of morality is "adequate enough by itself".

Pretty sure there is a zoo in Cincinnati that agrees with me on that one.

<comment><USER20> Prison isn't known for bringing out the best in humans either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have met people who not only police everyone's behavior and speech for minor deviations from political correctness, but are constantly worried about how their thoughts are not meeting their own high standards. There is a difference between saying things in a public forum and thinking them when you see something crazy on the street. I just think living that way would be totally exhausting and remove a lot of fun from life. This is another reason why activists decry "old boys' clubs" or cliques that form at school and work. Some people just want to hang out with people where saying an off color joke doesn't ruin your fucking life.

<comment><USER23> Biases, prejudices and so on are subtle and take a while to unlearn. If you want to get rid of them, you essentially have to interrogate your own thoughts, for better or worse. If you're not conscious of a bias, you can't get rid of it.

It doesn't suck the fun out of life.

<comment><USER24> I'm not sure how your parent even jumped to talking about "political correctness" in the first place, since that's not at all what the article meant by "right" thoughts and feelings.

But you're spot on. It's difficult to unlearn something that you never knew you were learning in the first place, because you just take it as fact or how the world is.

Confronting your own biases is uncomfortable, but it's well worth it, for it makes you a better person and helps you interact with the world in a more positive way. Besides, having your worldview shaken up and challenged is good for you; that's the best way to learn.

<comment><USER23> > I'm not sure how your parent even jumped to talking about "political > correctness" in the first place, since that's not at all what the article > meant by "right" thoughts and feelings.

It's funny to me, since I do, to some extent, try to recognise my prejudices in my thoughts, but it's not been a problem for me. Whereas I actually _have_ had problems with worrying about whether my thoughts and feelings are "right" in the sense that the OP is talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> We replaced the title with a photo caption from the article that appears to summarize what the researcher means by "showing up". If anyone suggests a better (more accurate and neutral) title, we can change it again.

<comment><USER26> How about "Trying to replace other emotions with happiness often winds up decreasing it"?

<comment><USER25> That's good, but we prefer to use language from the article itself when possible.

<comment><USER27> "the paradoxical key to true happiness seems to be accepting unhappiness"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


AsmJit – Complete x86/X64 JIT and AOT Assembler for C++ - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/asmjit/asmjit <comment><USER2> Can someone explain the distribution method to use with this. For instance, with WASM:

1\. Compile source code to .wasm

2\. Distribute .wasm via website.

3\. User's browser downloads .wasm, compiles to machine code (for JIT path) and executes the result.

What are the steps with AsmJit, I hope actual source code needn't be distributed the client</comment>


Let's Run Lisp on a Microcontroller - <AUTHOR> http://dmitryfrank.com/articles/lisp_on_mcu <comment><USER2> I just read your interesting article. About thes Lisp/Scheme implementation I guess that you are aware of some JS implementations following Peter Norvig ([http://norvig.com/lispy.html](http://norvig.com/lispy.html)) and this is my own: [http://epsilonwiki.free.fr/lambdaway/index.php?view=lambdali...](http://epsilonwiki.free.fr/lambdaway/index.php?view=lambdalisp)

I wrote too an "iconoclastic" Lisp/Scheme dialect built exclusively on regexps which is extremely small and works fine in a wiki context: [http://epsilonwiki.free.fr/lambdaway/](http://epsilonwiki.free.fr/lambdaway/)

I wonder what you could think of such an approach and if regexps are efficiently implemented in a Microcontroller.

Best regards Alain Marty</comment>


One model to learn them all - <AUTHOR> https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/01/12/one-model-to-learn-them-all/ <comment><USER2> Wow. Can someone pull a Hacker News and explain to me why I'm allowed to be super pessimistic about this result? I want to believe.

<comment><USER3> No need to be super pessimistic, but there is reason to temper your excitement - this is quite preliminary research (little results to indicate much benefit to this - "But the results show that even on the ImageNet task, the presence of such blocks does not detract from performance, and may even slightly improve it."), and is still entirely supervised. Something like this able to learn in a semi-supervised fashion from images and text could really seem revolutionary.

<comment><USER4> There's a pretty strong literature around retraining just the top couple layers of a deep net to Target a slightly different objective.

The interesting possiblity opened here is training new feature processing frontends to work with an established 'conceptual' backend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this nips at the core. The reality we live in is an unlimited stream of inputs. Their notion of attention is important. Modeling weight of inputs seems to be an interactive componation of bidding the value of past and future across infinite dimensions. By encoding them as a single input stream they are nudging at what a brain does well when is works right: contextulization.

</comment><comment><USER6> I see a comparison with the sate-of-the-art on single problems (and it is far from state of the art). I don't see a comparison on the proposed multimodal dataset with a baseline, for example T2T or ByteNet?. Do I just have to believe that this is a good model?

Aside from that, nice to see that someone actually makes the effort and deals with the logistics of working with multimodal data. Usually researchers stop at maximum three datasets and call it multimodal, it is great to see eight!

</comment><comment><USER7> One model to overfit it all

<comment><USER8> And in the darkness bind them.

<comment><USER9> And in the variance bias them?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For me, as a non-practitioner (I'm happy with my GOFAI, thank you), the big problem with neural nets is that there are too many architectures, each tailored to a specific problem. On the one hand it's great that there's a broad toolset, on the other hand there are so many competing claims about best-of-class performance that it's hard to know what is even the state of the art. There is too much noise, you know?

So it'd be nice to see a result that reduced the noise a bit. I'm afraid this one doesn't fit the bill. It's not so much reducing architectural options, as piling even more architecture on top of the already sprawling mass of architecture. It's got architecture hanging from its architecture!

I mean, come on- one component is a gated-mixture-of-experts, which is to say, a collective of feed-forward nets. There are just so many _layers_ upon _layers_ of choices to make for each type of network to use for each component of the entire model. How do you make these choices?

Or, think about how long this specific architecture is going to give state-of- the art results (as claimed). It uses normalised ReLu convolution blocks- the height of fashion, at the moment, but what happens in four years from now, when nobody uses that anymore, because it's so 2010's?

ANN research frustrates me like this. It's describing an art form, but I'm not sure that's really the most useful thing to do.

<comment><USER10> I get your frustration with architecture of architecture. However this kind of AOA has been going on for a long time in a similar domain of control theory.

Model Predictive Control is a method of applying a model of a process to estimate it's state. Per Wikipedia, it's been used since the 80s. When you apply it to tracking something you aren't in control of, say an enemy plane, you need to use multiple models, and then pick the most probable solution.

It's not elegant, but it's not actually a bad way to get good results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> One model to rule them all, one model to find them, One model to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.

</comment><comment><USER12> Legit question: if human intelligence is fundamentally limited by scale, why aren't there some humans running around with heads twice as big and twice the neurons? If it's such an advantage why hasn't nature selected for it in at least one place on Earth?

(My answer: above the scale of the human brain there's diminishing returns on more neurons. Two individuals with their own volition are smarter than one individual with double the brain size. We'll do a lot of research in AI to find that there aren't any machine learning problems that can't be run on a computer about the size and speed of a brain, or distributed among some number of independently operating brain sized computers, and that the problem never was scale but just where to focus)

<comment><USER13> Here's my understanding/interpretation - if I get any details wrong, I hope someone will correct me!

Brains are very expensive and, for our body size, we have very large brains; evolution had to build a brain that could operate _within the calorie constraints imposed by our ecological niche_ \- presumably a hunter-gatherer niche.

If you graph adult body volume relative to gestation time across the placental mammals, there's a good correlation, but humans are an anomaly; for our body volume we should take more than 9 months. So we are kind of born prematurely - the reason? So our heads can fit through the birth-canal. Significantly bigger brains would have likely entailed altering our walking gate, thus potentially sacrificing our ecological niche (and guaranteed source of those much needed calories!). Most of this was taken from Pinker ([0]).

Bostrom ([1]) brings up another interesting point - anything smarter than us would have probably taken longer to evolve than us. So it might not be inaccurate to think of ourselves as the dumbest species that could build an interplanetary species.

My suspicion is that things much smarter than us are very possible; my reasoning is, it just seems so strange to me that the peak of feasible intelligence just so happens to correspond with what can be fed by a hunter- gatherer diet and fit through a birth-canal which fits into the constraints of an upright primate.

It seems more likely to me that we're a local optimum - we're probably close to the optimal design for something as smart as us, in our ecological niche.

[0] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Mind_Works](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Mind_Works) [1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintelligence:_Paths,_Dang...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintelligence:_Paths,_Dangers,_Strategies)

<comment><USER14> Very interesting! I happen to know of some other problems: Heat and cross- brain communication time.

Bird brains are much smarter than we are per weight and volume. Not a little bit, but a lot. I think part of the reason they can do that is that they have much better cooling because their heads are small. Having a bigger brain than we do means that it would need to have a lower activity level because of cooling constraints.

There's also diminishing returns from size because the interconnects from one point in the brain to another have longer latency. One response to this is to fold the brain, as we do. Regardless, at some point adding more volume stops making sense.

<comment><USER13> I read once that bird brains (or some part of them) are more modular and consist of densely connected components - any idea/references about that?

Also, this blog-post (and associated links) may interest you - [http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=6116](http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=6116)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> That's encouraging in two directions. Not only are they encoding different subject matter areas in the same net, they're using the same net for different subject matter areas. Standardized net designs may work for a variety of tasks.

Progress marches on.

</comment><comment><USER16> Reminds me allot of DRAGNN: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.04474.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.04474.pdf)

Both are multi-task endeavors with novel encoding techniques.

</comment><comment><USER17> One model, such a great idea! We could introduce a revolutionary concept for that... like, an Object! Which can be converted to lots of different "formats"! Like an image, or text (e.g. JSON and XML, really a revolution)!!! Why no one has thought about that?! /s

</comment><comment> d--b Seriously 'one model to learn them all'? Isn't that a tiny bit overreaching?

The results are not very surprising after the Google translate post about multi language translation.

</comment><comment><USER18> Superintelligence is hyperintergration of the metasystem.</comment>


Ask HN: Know of a good tool that finds unused stylesheet selectors and rules? - <AUTHOR>

It seems to be a common problem that as stylesheets mature and the project grows that eventually you may end up in a situation where you are not sure if various styles are still being applied anywhere. Does anyone know of a good way to figure this out with some kind of software tool? <comment><USER2> You can't really be sure without running all of your javascript code and checking all of your pages, after all some hidden bit of javascript might change a style based on some event to match one in the css, it might even do it by combining various terms to form the selector, and it might manipulate the ids and classes of elements already on the page.

That's a tricky problem. I'm not aware of a tool, but if you find one I'll be happy to test it, I have a few of those questionable items in my style sheets that are still there 'just in case'.

<comment><USER3> So do I, and it's a pain. some of my CSS files feel bloated and unnecessarily big, but it's an even bigger pain to go through the whole codebase and check everything out by hand.

It's a problem and if there's a solution out there it would make me very happy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Google Chrome. Ctrl+Shift+J, Audits tab, Run...

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow! Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a firefox plugin. <https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/5392/> It has been a while since I last used it but it generally gave good indications.</comment>


A Cashless Society Is Nearly Here - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cashless-society-nearly-here-serge-didenko

<comment><USER2> Will be interesting to see how this plays out, people wont like not having no control over their cash!</comment>


Map of Undersea Internet Cables - <AUTHOR> http://www.submarinecablemap.com/

<comment><USER2> This is a dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9216894](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9216894).

Also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3643749](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3643749), a few years earlier.

</comment><comment><USER3> For people interested in this, I can recommend Neal Stephensons Wired feature from the 90's. As you'd expect from Stephenson, it's crazy long. It describes his travels documenting the laying of an early submarine Internet cable.

[http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html](http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Also, this is quite informative: [https://www.quora.com/How-are-major- undersea-cables-laid-in-...](https://www.quora.com/How-are-major-undersea- cables-laid-in-the-ocean)

</comment><comment><USER5> like that map.. it's been on hn a few times. have it bookmarked.

This article has a similar map (same data source) with a slider by year: [https://builtvisible.com/messages-in-the- deep/](https://builtvisible.com/messages-in-the-deep/) (The article is also interesting)

<comment><USER6> Similarly, here is a nice map with fiber trunk over land in some areas: [http://maps.level3.com/default/#.VefukZ1Viko](http://maps.level3.com/default/#.VefukZ1Viko)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The most connected spot in the world isn't New York or Hong Kong, but the unlikely city of Fortaleza, Brazil, with 17 cable landings.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's really weird thinking about, that every time I swipe around that map on my phone, what I see is sent over some of those exact cables from the other side of the world.

</comment><comment><USER9> When crossing the Atlantic and other big oceans, do the cables actually rest on the ocean floor or do they float?

<comment><USER10> They're laid at the bottom of the ocean.

<comment><USER11> Then how would sharks bite them?

<comment><USER5> _it has been speculated that sharks are attracted to the magnetic field created by the high voltage carried through the cables, which resembles those created by fish._

Article includes video of shark biting cable: [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/14/google- und...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/14/google-undersea- fibre-optic-cables-shark-attacks)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Would be neat to add know and suspected Five Eyes interception points.

<comment><USER13> They're the white dots ;)</comment></comment>


The Antisocial Network - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/opinion/krugman-the-antisocial-network.html?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto <comment><USER2> > When you transfer bitcoins to someone else, it's as if you handed over a > paper bag filled with $100 bills in a dark alley.

This analogy is so wildy off the mark. In fact, an opposite scenario is more apt; a transfer of bitcoins is like handing someone a bag filled with cash, and then announcing it to everyone else in the world so that we can all agree on who has possesion of what. Only now you have a robot or other faceless surrogate perform the transaction for you, and (ideally) nobody knows which surrogates, or addresses, map to which people. The fact that Krugman's analogy botches the primary mechanism that makes crypto-currency work is disappointing.

Edit: wording.

<comment><USER3> I really haven't had much time to learn on bitcoins, so sorry my dumb question.. but when people are buying illegal drugs by using bitcoins, are they really "Announcing it to everyone else?". I believe, maybe in theory, that there's a clear trace of the transactions, but it gets way more easier to hide both side, no? For instance, we know that XYZ shared 1k$ with ABC.. good luck finding to find out who's that XYZ.

<comment><USER2> Yes, that's exactly it. The shared, public, distributed block chain records every transaction that has ever taken place [1], so everyone knows and agrees on the amounts that are associated with each address. As long as nobody knows what addresses you use, it's anonymous with respect to a real-world identity.

[1] <https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_chain>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've always heard Krugman referred to in reverential terms, so this really leaves me scratching my head.

Setting aside the near ad-hom based on the fact that people use currency for drugs, he seems to take the idea that bitcoin is anonymous for granted. That means he doesn't understand what he's talking about, and there can't be two ways about it.

Bitcoin can be considered pseudonymous, and in a system where exchanges need to abide by money transmitter laws combined with the fact that every transaction is a matter of public record, the situation is murky at best. And when you actually think about it, if people must identify to exchange bitcoin for other currencies, that might mean a sea change in the transparency of financial transactions.

Krugman, if you read this, think of your goddamn reputation and do some research! There are about a million exciting inferences to be made based on the hard rules of the bitcoin protocol. Start here. <http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf>

<comment><USER5> I was listening to a talk show on public radio a few months ago. The man being interviewed said it would be a great idea to build a defense against alien attack as a way to stimulate the economy. I laughed aloud and wondered what sort of crackpot they'd invited onto the show. When they returned from commercial the host announced "we're back with Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman" ...

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/21/paul-krugman- alien-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/21/paul-krugman-alien- invasion_n_1612973.html)

<comment><USER6> It's probably a tongue-in-cheek statement, but the idea behind it is pretty sound. Besides, we are already doing that. For example, we have factories in middle America building airplanes the army does not want or need simply because the workers in those factories need the jobs.

<comment><USER5> Yes wasting resources is an incredibly sound idea. Lets just increase taxes to 95% and spend it all digging ditches!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> First, take a gander at M0, to get a sense of how much money has been printed:

<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE>

That shows you what _actually_ happened to the money supply. In other words, the central factual claim made by Krugman is false:

      The practical misconception here — and it's a big one — is
      the notion that we live in an era of wildly irresponsible
      money printing, with runaway inflation just around the
      corner. It's true that the Federal Reserve and other
      central banks have greatly expanded their balance sheets —
      but they've done that explicitly as a temporary measure in
      response to economic crisis. I know, government officials
      are not to be trusted and all that, but the truth is that
      Ben Bernanke's promises that his actions wouldn't be
      inflationary have been vindicated year after year, while
      goldbugs' dire warnings of inflation keep not coming true.

As that graph shows, we are indeed in an era of out of control money printing[0]. Moreover, food[1] and energy[2] prices are through the roof, and housing is being artificially propped up by QE4 -- in which dollar holders are diluted to the tune of $85B per month[3] so that the government can take mortgage-backed securities off the hands of their favorite banks. The CPI intentionally excludes[4] the consequent energy and food price increases (ostensibly due to their "volatility") thereby systematically understating the consequences of printing 85 billion dollars per month, every month, to infinity.

[0] <http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE>

[1] <http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=8l2>

[2] <http://goo.gl/R4r0f>

[3] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2012/12/12/qe4-is-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2012/12/12/qe4-is- here-bernanke-delivers-85b-a-month-until-unemployment-falls-below-6-5)

[4] <http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpifaq.htm#Question_13>

<comment><USER8> Um, your link to gas prices show them going down. I don't consider that as "energy prices going through the roof", quite the opposite actually. By the way, a barrel of oil right now is in the same exact price range it was 5 years ago (go to Marketwatch and click 5-year price).

Furthermore, one would be hard pressed to claim a rise in food-prices resulted solely from inflation-- given the record droughts in America [1] and record fires in Russia [2] that devastated entire crops last year.

Please, for the sake of good argument, try to be factually correct when trying to claim others aren't.

[1] [http://theweek.com/article/index/230673/americas-worst- droug...](http://theweek.com/article/index/230673/americas-worst-drought-in- decades-by-the-numbers)

AND <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_drought>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires>

<comment><USER7> Sure, let's talk facts.

1) Fixed the link to include the four year gas chart. Up from $2.03 to $3.57 in four years. Doesn't bode well for your case. Short link due to ampersands:

<http://goo.gl/R4r0f>

2) You seem to grant that inflation contributed to the rise in food prices. A one off drought can't explain the persistence of the rise since 2008, or the fact that food inflation caused the riots which led to the Arab Spring in 2011.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8492078/How- the...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8492078/How-the-Fed- triggered-the-Arab-Spring-uprisings-in-two-easy-graphs.html)

      The first graph illustrates the correlation between the
      prices of food and the Fed's purchase of US Treasuries
      (i.e. its quantitative easing programmes). (A widely-
      discussed graph illustrating correlation between QE and
      broader commodities indices can be seen here.) We see how
      the food price index broadly stabilised through late 2009
      and early 2010, then rose again from mid-2010 as
      quantitative easing was re-started (QE2) following Ben
      Bernanke's Jackson Hole speech of August 27 – with prices
      rising of about 40% over an eight month period. Similar
      correlations can be observed between Fed purchases and
      wider commodities indices, but let's focus on food for now.

      ... But the reality is that a rise in commodity prices is
      precisely what theory predicts would be a consequence of
      QE2, and the data give the same picture – we aren't
      investigating a contentious mystery in the data; we are
      seeing precisely what we ought to have expected.

Indeed. The amazing thing is how vehemently people insist that tripling the monetary base in a few years won't cause inflation. This is a simple matter of ratios. Bernanke, Obama, Bush, Greenspan, and Krugman have pursued a policy that enriches banks and shields them from risk by diluting dollar holders. If you understand the concept of dilution in a cap table, you should understand this much: the printed dollars are deposited in the accounts of large banks, enriching the very richest and making everyone else worse off.

Krugman himself is a knowing accomplice, one who always pulls his punches with respect to the banks:

[http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/failure-is-a- fai...](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/failure-is-a-failed- strategy/)

      One thing that keeps coming up in comments, both here and
      on my column, is the widespread belief that all we need to
      do on the banking front is (a) break up the big banks, so
      that none of them are too big to fail (b) promise not to
      bail out any banks in the future. That way, the claim goes,
      bankers will know that they will face dire consequences if
      they misbehave, and market discipline will do the rest.

      Dream on.

      ...

      But just letting banks fail isn't going to happen — nor
      should it. In practice, talking about doing so is just an
      excuse to avoid real reform.

At the end of the day Krugman is for the bailouts, for the banks, and against bank bankruptcy. No wonder he's against Bitcoin.

<comment><USER8> I think with both the gas prices and food charts (thank @cdtwigg for pointing out longer-term historical food prices) I'm sorry to say but this is an extreme abuse of statistics. If you extend the chart you linked to by exactly one more year-"BOOM!" just as I said about a barrel of oil* being the same price is was exactly 5 years ago. The huge drop in price resulted from a full- blown recession that would have been worst if the Fed sat around and did nothing.

*Price of a barrel of oil is a much more reliable measure because extreme environmental laws really get in the way of building refineries, which are also prone to being shut down, thus consumer gas prices are much more volatile than the price of crude. This reminds me that the price of oil is very strongly influenced by OPEC, so that is actually something I'd avoid looking at when measuring energy prices. Besides, oil is just one component of energy (although, probably the most important and largest one I'll say). Coal is still cheap as ever (discounting environment regulations) and natural gas prices has bottomed out due to fracking.

PS: Link is a little off still (missing ampersand between USA/Average)

<comment><USER7> Replaced with a short link. Thanks.

Regarding gas prices, Bush's wars drove up the price of oil. And then just when our adventures in Iraq finally came to an end, the money printing began in earnest. Obama hasn't helped by keeping Keystone XL in political limbo, pushing offshore drilling outside the US, generally assaulting the energy sector with regulation, and setting fire to several more countries in the Middle East (Libya, Syria, Tunisia, Egypt, et alia).

If I interpret you correctly, you state that prices would have fallen if the Fed had sat around and done nothing. I believe we may simply disagree on the desirability of this: some may prize debtors, but I value savers. And I thus generally think of falling prices for household goods (the dreaded deflation!) as a good thing. However, the Fed looks at one of its primary duties as propping up the prices of mortgages. The ostensible purpose is to protect "underwater homeowners" who spent beyond their means. The actual purpose is to take toxic waste off the balance sheets of banks and to put this hot potato in the laps of dollar holders (not just taxpayers, but all dollar holders, including the Chinese).

Anyway, we can talk all we want about these macroscopic phenomena, but ultimately what it boils down to is that people want the Fed to "help the poor" and not simply stand there. And the optics look like they are helping the poor by diluting the dollar and thereby inflating away debts (i.e. the inflation which "doesn't exist" will soon be called a feature and indeed set as a goal by the likes of Krugman).

However, the Fed is also inflating away earning power, and the banks are the first recipients of these inflated dollars, thereby profiting the most from said inflation. The result is a policy that actually hurts the poor far more than simple inaction and rewards the very richest - not entrepreneurs or technologists but the banks that receive direct deposits from the Fed for its "purchases" of mortgage-backed securities (meaning $1 purchases of things worth $.01, or $0).

Bitcoin is a strike against the Fed and the banks by the Valley, perhaps a critical blow. It is very surprising to me that pg (or anyone) could think that USG could possibly have released something like Bitcoin, as it strikes at the very core of the US government's power: the ability to print money.

<comment><USER8> I agree with you in that I value savings more than debt (hate the current savings rates) and that the Fed does nothing to help the poor (but that's not their job or incentive to do so and I never thought of it that way ever). The Fed had to do what it did because the banks would have failed otherwise. And if the literally too big-to-fail (and prosecute and everything else) banks failed, then the recession would have been far worst than the Great Depression.

However, a lot of people who still held on to their mortgages do depend on the value of homeprices to stay up, (and the value of a college degree while we're at it since student loans recently overtook creditcard debt).

We're getting way off topic here though. I'll just close out with I think the best solutions are to: 1) Bring back the Glass-Steagall Act and don't allow Investment banks to gamble with consumer money 2) Once (1) is actually in place, then the next time a banking crisis comes around, let all the Investment banks fail and only prop up the ones that actually provide deposits, loans and savings. That will right a terrible wrong done 5 years ago. 3) I came up with this recently after reading Liar's Poker and a followup interview a few years ago of Micheal Lewis and John Merriwether: make all banks private (non-public) corporations again. The only bank that is not fully public is Goldman Sachs (yes, they went public in the 90s, but there are still partners who essentially control it) and is probably part of the reason they do better than everyone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think Krugman hit the nail on the head with some comparisons here, such as of being a bit-bug is no different than being a gold-bug and how money cannot stand outside the system. That's exactly what the value of money is-- it's other people's belief in whether other people believe in it, which actually is pretty much how social networks work.

The thing I never liked about bitcoin was the whole let's prevent inflation by not allowing the 'printing' of money bit that are baked into how the bitcoin supply expands. I don't see any reason to expound on that other than to make a political, rather strongly libertarian-leaning, statement.

</comment><comment><USER9> He totally skipped over the best argument for Bitcoin, the reliance on middle- men when exchanging money online. You either have Paypal or some other kind of credit card processor that takes %3 or more of every transaction.

If only the value of BTC would settle down a bit, it would make a great way to facilitate micro-transactions.

<comment><USER10> Why do you need an alternate currency to do that? Companies like Dwolla are hard at work trying to make credit card processing payment fees a thing of the past. Last time I checked, it cost only 25c to move money between bank accounts on Dwolla.

<comment><USER11> Are they international? If so you can bet someone (such as a bank) is taking a cut somewhere on the offered exchange rate.

EDIT: I just looked and Dwolla is US only.

<comment><USER12> I mean, there's a % taken from every bitcoin transaction as well, it's just a question of which fee is lower, BTC or dwolla.

<comment><USER11> I think the bitcoin fee is optional? or at least doesn't apply in many cases?

<comment><USER13> peers may offer to process bitcoin transactions for free, and the original paper posits there are always going to be participants who will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't know if I agree with everything Krugman says here but the more I think about bitcoins and real money the more I realize how much better life would be if the world of abundance would finally get here.

The idea of treating electricity and clean water (among a whole host of other resources) as abundant as the air we breathe is one worth pursuing.

<comment><USER15> Would finally get here? What gives you the confidence this will happen in a world of finite resources and where Physics & Chemistry contain rules that don't break (like the challenges of obtaining sufficient energy supplies at an sufficiently high Energy-Return-On-Energy-Invested basis), and where we have a huge population that's still growing, and an environment which appears to be straining under these pressures?

Sure, resources being as abundant as the air we breathe is an idea worth pursuing. Unfortunately it smacks into reality where resources are limited, are being converted into unusable forms at increasing rates and many if not most of the critical ones are peaking or have peaked in terms of production rates.

Still... I long for Iain M. Banks Culture too... sadly I just don't think it's going to happen.

<comment><USER14> Well somethings will always be scarce, like real estate. But other things can be made abundant.

The internet and sites like Khan Academy are the first great steps in making education abundant for instance.

Electricity is another resource that within the next decade anybody can have in abundance. Well, anybody with a roof onto which a solar panel can be placed that is.

Little by little it is happening.

<comment><USER15> So one of the problems that advocates for solar panel driven futures have is that they don't add in the significant cost in terms of energy and resources of producing them, nor the fact that a lot of solar solutions start with petrochemical inputs. Once we lose the 100:1 EROEI that we get from drilled oil a lot of other assumed energy solutions become very challenging. A lot of these things are energy intenstve to produce in the first place and have finite lifetimes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not sure I buy the most persuasive argument,

 _bitcoins are the ultimate fiat currency, with a value conjured out of thin air, paper currencies have value because they're backed by the power of the state_

Dollars and yuan are fiat currency. What difference does it make that bitcoin holders aren't back by a state? Is anything going to change if countries convert their reserves to bitcoin? How many bitcoins does the US own?

This seems like an argument that will evaporate given enough time.

<comment><USER17> I believe the thinking behind this is that if a nation state designates a currency as their official currency, that will guarantee a baseline demand for the currency: citizens will need to either hold or obtain the currency to pay their taxes. With Bitcoin, no such baseline demand is guaranteed: if the "faith" in Bitcoin drops in the network, and people stop accepting it as payment, there's no stopping the decline in value.

I'm still not sure whether to buy this argument, given that history has more than a few examples of state currencies crashing like there was no bottom, too.

<comment><USER18> > I'm still not sure whether to buy this argument, given that history has more > than a few examples of state currencies crashing like there was no bottom, > too.

State currencies usually crash when the State isn't doing to well, (not infrequently as a result of losing a major war.)

Which is actually consistent with Krugman's point.

Ultimately, value of any good used as currency (and, really, pretty much any good at all) comes from two sources: (1) what is it good for _without_ trading it (use-value), and (2) what do I expect I will be able to trade it to others for in the future (trade value). Pure currencies, like common fiat currencies and bitcoin, tend to have no (or virtually no) use value -- sure, you can use pennies to weight something down, or burn banknotes for heat, but that's most irrelevant. Their value is all trade value. Having a government that you expect to have to deal with that expects payment in dollars (or pounds, or what-have-you) for fines, fees, taxes, etc., and which denominates damage awards in civil cases in the same currency, and makes tendering that currency a legal attempt to pay a debt which is given weight in court (what "legal tender" means), provides a baseline demand. Of course, when that State becomes weaker, the support its backing gives currency becomes weaker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Krugman: "I guess you could make that case if the money we actually have were misbehaving. But it isn't."

Translation: "Our fiat currency hasn't failed this time... yet. Ipso facto, it will never fail. Anyway, it's not worthwhile to try to forsee future problems until they actually happen."

I'm not a fan of CNBC, but every once in a while they say something decent. <http://www.cnbc.com/id/48349503> "'Every single fiat currency in history has collapsed, this time will be no different.'"

I'm not predicting the demise of any major currency. However, I can't say I don't have my concerns about current practices, and history does not bode well.

</comment><comment><USER15> I see BitCoin as an opening gambit not an end position. It's likely that BitCoin will bubble, froth, and ultimately collapse, but that it will be replaced by something of similar form with certain structural improvements.

I read (wish I could link to give credit to the commenter) a nice analogy today - of BitCoin being the Napster of the space, innovator but not the ultimate winner.

Krugman's point as to its necessity is valid, however I still see it as likely that we'll end up with a currency of consensus, which has exchange value because a critical mass of people believe in its value and are prepared to act on that for a sustained period of time.

<comment><USER11> It could be that a large retailer with an existing user base could launch their own currency, much as Amazon has done in a limited fashion with Amazon Coins. [http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/02/...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/02/amazon_coins_jeff_bezos_brilliant_plan_to_give_free_money_to_kindle_fire.html)

<comment><USER20> This would just be funbucks though, no different to Disney. What it would not be would be a separate currency, since that's illegal and for good reason: it would be a return to the days of being paid in company scrip, which can only be spent at the company store.

EDIT: Not to mention that apparently we can't trust the government, but we can definitely trust a giant profit-motivated non-democratic entity to manage our currency?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I stopped reading after the "untraceable" claim and the "dark alley" simile. What a showstopper.

No wonder he doesn't get Bitcoin at all.

<comment><USER14> Type "Paul Krugman is" into Google and you'll see the how people feel about him.

<comment><USER2> For me, it autocompletes with "wrong", "right", "always right", and a bunch of ad hominems (not necessarily in that order), so I'm going to say... conflicted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Surely Bitcoin and its users _are_ social - as can be attested by its viral growth in the last couple of years.

</comment><comment><USER22> The first dot-com crash and the housing crash were both painfully obvious, but things went on swimmingly in spite of the obvious foolishness of it all long enough for people to forget their skepticism and buy in. Then, there weren't anymore people to buy in and both markets crashed.

It's going to happen with the dollar too. Everything is going to keep going fairly OK, even though we all know it shouldn't, until the day it doesn't.

Just because it hasn't crashed yet doesn't mean it isn't capable of or likely to do so.

</comment><comment><USER16> Am I the only one amused by the Winklevoss twins declaration of "faith in a mathematical framework that is free of politics and human error"?

1\. You don't need faith in math. That's the point.

2\. Just because it's based on math doesn't mean it can't all come crashing down.

3\. If you think you can invest money in math, please contact me privately about some exciting differential equations you may be interested in.

</comment><comment><USER23> I usually like Krugman, but this column is botched. Krugman does not get bitcoin protocol but is a bit better with Bitcoin.

Just reading about "complicated math problems" make my brain hurt. There is nothing complicating in a hash function except designing it properly.

While there are valid attacks on bitcoin he is not making them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, I think he fails to see past the idea that bitcoin has its own "gold standard" built in. The idea of a non-inflationary currency to PK is just silly. Perhaps he will change his mind once further adoption has taken place or when a new use surfaces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Krugman: "bitcoins are in a sense the ultimate fiat currency, with a value conjured out of thin air"

I recently did a little reading into the mechanisms behind bitcoin, and am intrigued. I was skeptical but certainly understand the merit now, though I don't understand enough details (especially the transaction-fee-only endgame) to rule out vulnerabilities. However, it does seem clear that the miners actually perform a valuable service of ensuring the integrity of the bitcoin system. So, for Krugman to say that the bitcoins are created out of thin air is disingenuous, if not surprising.

</comment><comment><USER6> Krugman really dropped the ball on this one. He really needs to sit down with a technologist and have them explain to him how bitcoin works before he writes anymore critiques of Bitcoin.

However, looking pass his technological misunderstanding, he does raise some good points about why bitcoin can not be the idealistic currency people want it to be.</comment>


Ask HN: Contributing to finding a vaccine for Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> Are there any solid references that explain in detail (for relative beginners) how technology and biology are merging to find vaccines for the COVID-19 virus?<p>Also wondering if any manhattan-project-scale (open) efforts are underway to attempt to discover a vaccine?  And if not why? <comment><USER2> You should search previous posts on this busy topic

[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Covid-19](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Covid-19)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the link. I will continue browsing through the results and other sources from around the web.

I definitely am aware that there are going to be many small projects, but haven't found any that I'd look at and say "this one is the one that is standing head and shoulders above the rest of the pack".

I know it probably sounds picky, but whatever group is leading said project should have impeccable credentials and have many peers joining their effort(s).

The other thing would be the "eli5" for those of us wondering if we really have the capacity to grok and contribute in a major way. So, for example, I'm trying to place myself and my skillset on the spectrum of skillsets to see how big of a role I can take. I'm extremely interested in helping but am trying to latch onto the project where I'm contributing in the most substantial way I know I can.</comment></comment>


Claude Shannon, the Las Vegas Shark (2017) - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us//issue/50/emergence/claude-shannon-the-las-vegas-cheat <comment><USER2> "Thorp had inadvertently set one of the century's great minds on yet another tangent."

The idea of this grave misdirection of talent somehow gave me an insuppressible giggle.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21058555](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21058555)

</comment><comment><USER4> I highly recommend "Fortune's Formula" which touches on this and the Kelly Criterion.</comment>


Skeptic Physicist finds he now agrees global warming is real - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/skeptic-finds-now-agrees-global-warming-real-142616605.html

<comment><USER2> I always heard the Earth was warming because we were still coming out of the ice age from 10,000 years ago.

Seems like the relevant questions to me are how accurately are we measuring it? What kinds of problems (or benefits) will this cause? How much of this warming is caused by humans and CO2? How good are our models at predicting, really? And most importantly, can we, and at what cost, should we actually attempt to change the way things are headed?</comment>